Scapegoats

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Would you ever want to be a scapegoat?  I would.  At least I would want to be if I am dealing with God.  With God, the scapegoats were allowed to live.  The “scape” part of the word “scapegoat” is an archaic verb that means to depart or escape.  In other words, the scapegoat is the goat that escapes.

If you have guessed that at least one other goat is implied by the concept of a scapegoat you are correct.  In fact, it is only one other goat.  What happens to the scapegoat and the other goat?  We find out from the portion of Leviticus where God instructs the children of Israel about the rituals to be carried out on The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).

And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.  And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.  And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.  And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD’S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. – Leviticus 16:6-10

Just to make it perfectly clear to those who might not be familiar with the terminology, when the goat and the bullock are offered for a sin offering, those animals were killed.  This is made quite clear in Leviticus 4:4 (for the bullock) and Leviticus 4:24 (for the goat).  The offering was not merely symbolic.

With the Biblical scapegoat and sin offering process, we see the Lord’s mercy.  All the people are guilty of sin.  No one is perfect and sinless.  But first the Lord substitutes the shed blood of animals for the sins of people.  Then he spares some animals, even though the blood of animals could never totally make atonement for the sins of the human race.

And certainly, I would want the lot to fall upon me to be spared, not slaughtered.  When the Lord casts a lot, He casts a perfect lot.

But people, as they sometimes do, have twisted the meaning of scapegoat into the ones who take upon themselves all the blame for a certain situation, even if they happen to be innocent.  No wonder King David, when he had committed a grievous sin against the Lord and was offered a choice among three punishments, he replied to the prophet who was God’s messenger bringing the choices to David: I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man. – 1^st Chronicles 21:13 (portion)

Trans woman victim of violence

In the past few years, transgender people have found ourselves to be scapegoats more and more.  A tiny minority (estimated at 0.6% of the population), we are being blamed for the ills of society, charged with imposing ourselves and our agenda on the rest of the country, and impugned as being a group that uses our alleged gender identity as an excuse to violate girls and women, either by voyeurism or outright physical attack.  The latter charges fly in the face of the facts, as brought up by police chiefs and statistics around the country, that transgender people are not committing these crimes, even when access to bathrooms and other women-only spaces have been opened up to trans women.

Over a random period of a few months a while back when I was developing this post, I began to record mentions of sex crimes against women and children that were picked up in the news feeds that I receive.  I decided on at least a dozen examples (I ended up collecting a few more).  When I decided to start collecting this information, I had no idea what relevant news stories would be forthcoming and had no control over them.  These were the stories I collected.

• 40 year old white male middle school principal in upstate NY accused of having sex with a minor under the age of 17.
• 32 year old black male Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn who had been given the task of prosecuting sex crimes accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her car.
• 49 year old white male Village Trustee, venture capitalist and professor accused of possessing and promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child (uploading a child porn video to a website).
• 48 year old white male former major league baseball player, serving a 7-15 year prison sentence for six counts of criminal sexual conduct, is negotiating a settlement with four women who had been students at the high school where he worked related to him inappropriately touching them while they were working out in the weight room of the school.
• 76 year old white male rabbi and yeshiva principal in Connecticut accused by an alleged victim of repeated rape, molestation and sexual assault while the victim was a student and a minor.
• 28 year old black male who previously served seven years for a combination robbery, physical assault and sexual assault and then violated his parole two years after release was caught on camera and arrested for a similar combination of crimes against an adult woman in connection with a string of robberies in New York City.
• 52 year old white male music teacher and founder of a music school in New York City was arrested for allegedly trying to have sex with girls as young as 8 years old and actually having sex with 15 year old girls on multiple occasions.
• 30 year old white male coach of a high school girls’ sports team in Michigan was convicted and sentenced after confessing to filming underage girl team members undressing, and also possessing child pornography.
• 73 year old white male coach in upstate New York was arrested for sexually abusing one of his athletes, a female under the age of 15.
• 29 year old white male computer programmer and member of the mayoral staff of a major U.S. city arrested for promoting a sexual performance by a child under age 16 and for possession of child pornography on his laptop: about 3,000 images and 89 videos of nude girls between the approximate ages of 6 months to 16 years old having sexual conduct with adult males.
• 29 year old black male masseuse at a legitimate massage parlor located within a major U.S. airport accused of raping a 25 year old female receiving a massage during a flight layover.
• 50 year old black male counselor at an upstate New York medical facility was sentenced to a long prison term for sexually abusing patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries.
• 43 year old white male in Northern New Jersey sentenced to 33 years in prison for sexually assaulting three girls, ages 12, 14 and 15 years old who were daughters of his close family friends.
• 28 year old white male practicing attorney in the NYC Metropolitan Area arrested for taking upskirt photos of two 19 year old females at a sporting event.
• A white female (in her late 30’s at the time) elementary school teacher in upstate New York was accused by her alleged victim (now an adult; gender not specified) of rape when the accuser was under the age of 13.
• 25 year old white male police officer in upstate New York was charged with raping a minor under the age of 17.

There were no transgender perpetrators.  All but one was a cisgender male.  None of them disguised themselves as women to carry out their attacks.  Many were involved with schools or worked for the government in some other capacity.  Are there calls for banning people in these categories from public restrooms on the grounds of prevention?  Of course not.  More to the point, the loudest voices crying out in support of so-called transgender bathroom bills say nothing about preventative measures against the most likely group to commit sex crimes: those convicted in the past of multiple sex crimes.

Another argument used against transgender people is the suicide argument.  Because of high suicide rates, the argument is made that transgender people must be mentally ill.  But is transgender the cause or is it the stress of the negative reaction of family, friends and institutions?  For comparison, let’s look at another group that suffers from high suicide rates.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2014, an average of 20 veterans committed suicide each day, shining a light on only the most visible group of vets suffering from mental illness. Of those 20, only six were users of VA services. Veterans who are dishonorably discharged or who make too much money wouldn’t be eligible for counseling.  The graphic included in this post shows that the frequency of suicides has increased since 2014.

A Government Accountability Office study published recently showed that 60 percent of troops who have been discharged for misconduct in recent years suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other type of brain injury.

Has the anti-transgender crowd called for a disbanding of the U.S. military because of the negative effect military service has on young men and women who serve?  No.  Have they called upon the military to change its recruiting methods to filter out those who are prone to suicide?  No.  Have they charged that those who volunteer for military service are prima facie suffering from mental illness because of the high suicide rate?  Once again the answer is no.

In these examples, we see the nature of scapegoating.  One group is picked upon to receive a disproportionate share of blame or negativity.

To be fair, while there is a significant amount of both scapegoating and violence against transgender people in the United States, the evidence we see every November when we observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance is that it is much worse in many other countries.  Brazil, a country divided on the issue similar to the U.S., nonetheless sees in the neighborhood of five times as many murders of transgender people.  In many countries, Muslim ones in particular, it is against the law to be transgender.

Exactly how many countries have laws making it illegal to be transgender?  We don’t know for certain.  Or at least there is no definitive list online.  There are many lists of the countries where it is illegal to engage in homosexual activity or distribute homosexual “propaganda”.  The people who maintain these lists assume that it would be against the law to be transgender in these same countries.  But there is no specific documentation of that, nor is there any acknowledgement that a country that does not prohibit same sex activities might still have laws making transgender identity or expression illegal.  It’s a bit ironic that human rights organizations don’t bother to give special recognition to the status of transgender individuals around the world, no?

Bathroom bills would require him and all trans men to use the woman’s restroom in a public place

Many times I have been in a group discussion where it is stated that people fear those who are different than them.  Certainly transgender people compared to the vast cisgender majority are different than most people.  And yet not all differences are feared.  Redheads comprise between 1-2% of the population, yet they don’t seem to be feared.  About 8% of the population has blue eyes, but they aren’t feared, either.  Skin color seems to be more fear provoking than hair color or eye color.  One might opine that we fear the dark, but do people with the darkest hair shades face more discrimination than people with lighter shades?  Why the preoccupation with skin color is a question for which I do not have an answer.

When it comes to anything related to sexuality that departs from the norm, the reason is more obvious: the fear is that something deviant and therefore perverse will be done.  But obvious reasons do not automatically mean justified reasons.  It has already been pointed out that the evidence doesn’t back the fear when it comes to transgender people in public bathrooms.  And of course those who support bathroom bills to keep trans women out of women’s public bathrooms forget that those same bills would require trans men to use the women’s public bathroom.

Asexual Panromantic flag

So if prejudice is based on what people will or even might do, then shouldn’t we expect that there would not be prejudice against people who are asexual?  Certainly if there is any group who identifies with a minimum of sexual motivation, it is this group.  And yet studies find that there is a high degree of prejudice against the asexual community, as this Psychology Today article discusses.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/without-prejudice/201209/prejudice-against-group-x-asexuals

Discrimination may or may not be rational.  A person with a discriminating palate is justified in choosing a five star restaurant over a fast food restaurant and a $100 bottle of wine over a bottle of wine with a twist-off cap.

Discrimination based on prejudice is never rational.  Yet prejudicial people have to find reasons to rationalize and justify their prejudices.  People generally don’t want to appear to be bigoted.  People generally don’t want to appear to be irrational.

Statistics are often the bedfellow of prejudice.  And any time a person cites 79% or 63% or 51% (and sometimes even 10% or less) as a reason to discriminate against an individual, it is prejudice.  Until one gets to know that individual, it is unknown which side of the issue or which type of behavior that individual will represent.

And when the percentage approaches zero, as it does with transgender people and violence by us, and yet there is still prejudice against us, how much clearer can it be that we are being scapegoated?

Although this post is being published on Memorial Day weekend, there is an Easter message in this.  But it is fitting for Memorial Day as well.  The act of communion commemorates the broken body and shed blood of Jesus as He bore our sins as part of the Easter story.  We celebrate … yes celebrate such violence against Him … in remembrance of Him and what He did for us.  And as only someone who is 100% God and 100% human could do, in one process He bore our sins on the cross as the scapegoat, was the Passover sacrificial lamb offering who shed His blood and gave His life for us, and He forever became the Good Shepherd leading His flock.

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. – 1^st Peter 2:21-25

God bless,

Lois

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LGBT Community – a misnomer?

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accuracy, agender, Bamby Salcedo, Bisexual, cisgender, Coalition, communication, Community, Gay, Gay Voices, gender confirming surgery, gender creative, gender fluid, Gender Identity, gender non-binary, gender non-conforming, gender queer, Gender Reassignment Surgery, Huffington Post, language, Lesbian, LGBT, marginalized, marginalized group, minoritized, MSM, nomenclature, oppressed, PGP's, Rockland County Pride, Sex reassignment surgery, sexual orientation, Social Justice, Transgender, TransLivesMatter, Transsexual, U.S. Conference on AIDS, VCS

What’s going on here?  Recently, a group of transwomen temporarily took over the U.S. Conference on AIDS to shout “We are not gay men!”  As a transwoman who admittedly did not attend that event, here is my explanation.

In my county, we have a monthly meeting known as the Transgender Roundtable, sponsored by an organization known as VCS.  It has been discussed at these meetings in recent months that in a number of ways, the “T” is being viewed and treated separately from the “LGB”.  The interest level is much higher when articles on transgender are posted on VCS’s Facebook page.  Trainings advertised as being for LGBT issues are tending to become mostly focused on the T issues.  Indeed, the training for transgender issues needs to be different because transgender identity is different from LGB orientations.

We are regularly telling the cisgender world that transgender is gender identity and it is not sexual preference or orientation.  Lesbian, gay and bisexual on the other hand all describe sexual preference or orientation.  And yet we wonder why so many in the straight, cisgender world do not seem to catch on.  Does regular exposure to the phrase “LGBT community” contribute to the lack of understanding?

I certainly do not want to make a mountain out of a molehill.  But within the transgender community (which does fit the definition of community), we are always talking about language and nomenclature.  We stress the importance of PGP’s and discuss whether it should stand for “personal gender pronouns” or “preferred gender pronouns”.  We discuss the use of transsexual versus transgender, the shades of meaning between gender fluid, gender non-binary, gender non-conforming, gender creative, gender queer and agender.  Someone is no longer said to be “passing”; the preferred term now is “blending”.  The term “sex reassignment surgery” is passé in favor of terms such as “gender reassignment surgery”, or “gender confirming surgery”.  I have been part of discussions about the usage of “marginalized” versus “minoritized” and still others prefer to use “oppressed”.  And these are just some of the examples as we endeavor to develop accurate terminology, whether for use by the general public or for personal communications with members of the transgender community.

The general purpose of language is to communicate.  The more accurate the word usage, the better the communication.  People in marginalized, minoritized or oppressed groups are particularly sensitive to misuse of words to describe their group or members of their group.  And so we should be here.

I am going to provide the primary definition of “community” and two words that I have considered as possible more accurate alternatives.  Definitions have been taken from an online dictionary.

Community:

1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Alliance:

1. a union or association formed for mutual benefit, especially between countries or organizations.
2. a relationship based on an affinity in interests, nature, or qualities.
3. a state of being joined or associated.

Coalition:

an alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states.

We can see that alliance and coalition are similar.  But a coalition is a particular kind of alliance, one designed for combined action.  It also is more likely to be temporary.  “Coalition” pinpoints the nature of the LGBT relationship better than the more general “alliance”.

Furthermore, when we look at “community”, definition 1 doesn’t apply.  There is neither a common location nor sharing of a particular characteristic.  What about definition 2?  A feeling of fellowship?  Not necessarily.  Common attitudes and interests don’t apply, either.  The only thing that applies is common goals: in general, civil rights and social justice of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals.  But even here, the particulars aren’t always the same.  Bathroom bills don’t apply to cisgender people, even if they are L, G or B.  And the concept of same sex marriage becomes much more complicated in transgender lives.  Besides, difficult marriage issues faced by the transgender population are almost always with cisgenders, not other people of transgender identity.

I haven’t forgotten about the takeover of the U.S. Conference on AIDS.  The transwomen who demonstrated were a group of #TransLivesMatter activists.  Bamby Salcedo, the group leader and spokesperson explained that for at least ten years, the transgender community has been recommending that HIV positive data be collected specific to the transgender community.  But after initial indications that the transgender community would be given consideration, the Federal Government’s ambitious new plans to combat the HIV epidemic lumps transgender women in with men who have sex with men (MSM).

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/17/3701612/transgender-aids-protest/?ref=yfp

Thus the protest and the chant: “We are not gay men.”  And we aren’t.  It is bad enough to be marginalized in society.  But we are also still marginalized within a marginalized group.

It is similar to how I feel when I click on the link to a transgender article in Huffington Post and end up in the Gay Voices section.  From what I have seen, cisgender gay men generally do not want to be called transgender; cisgender lesbian women generally do not want to be called transgender.  I take no offense at that.  And I do not want to be considered a gay male.  If I was a gay male, I would have come out as gay and not gone through all the time and expense of counseling, hormones, name and gender marker change, hair removal, new wardrobe and so on.

So at this point, I will start referring to the LGBT Coalition.  LGBT Community is dropped from my vocabulary.

Any comments?  Any who will do the same?  What else can we do so the general public understands how T is different from the LGB without losing the political coalition’s efforts on behalf of mutual social justice needs?

And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. – Matthew 9:20-22
God bless,

Lois

The Haney Place? Using a ramshackle farmhouse to explain blending in public

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Adam's apple, behavior, blending, breast enhancement, CBS, cisgender, comportment, Eddie Albert, estrogen, Eva Gabor, facial and body hair, facial feminization surgery, farm, fashion sense, feminine, Green Acres, hormones, Lisa Douglas, masculine stature, Mr. Haney, MTF, Oliver Wendell Douglas, overload, passing, Pat Buttram, posture, television, Transgender, voice, walking gait, wattage

As I feared, the Dodgers had an early exit from this year’s playoffs.  So no more sports posts are expected for a while.  And now on to the latest post.

Green Acres lasted for six seasons on television and introduced the characters of Oliver Wendell Douglas (played by Eddie Albert) and Lisa Douglas (played by Eva Gabor).  At the beginning of the show, the couple live in New York City.  He is a high-powered lawyer who dreams of a more idyllic life as a farmer.  His socialite wife reluctantly goes with him when he buys a farm.

Oliver buys a farm sight unseen.  Unfortunately for the Douglases, he had fallen into the clutches of Mr. Haney (played by Pat Buttram), a con man’s con man.  The rundown farmhouse, nutrient-depleted soil and a host of other decrepit gadgets and swindle attempts, collectively serve as part of the running gags the propelled this show into a surrealistic realm of satire not seen on other rural-oriented CBS fare.

So far, nothing in my description sounds remotely related to a transgender theme.  While Lisa always appears very glamourous (except for one scene during the opening), her wardrobe and unassuming comedic activities are not of a type normally copied by drag performers.  So where am I going with this?

Approaching my two year anniversary of living full-time as a woman, I have made a number of observations on how cisgender people react to the sight of me, as well as their reactions to other transwomen (both observed and reported).  At one point along the way, it occurred to me that there is an analogy between some of those reactions and a recurring element of the show.

First, a discussion of the reactions and what they are based upon.  Another transwoman recently remarked to me that no one is 100% female, including cisgender women.  And that is absolutely correct.  Look at just about any woman and somewhere there is a trait or mannerism that is more on the masculine side than the feminine side.

Consider some examples of famous women: Diane Keaton readily acknowledges her very masculine gait.  Marlo Thomas possesses a deep voice and Cher’s vocal range was deeper than Sonny’s.  Some women, like tennis star Martina Navratilova are on the more muscular side.  Basketball star and model, Lisa Leslie stands 6’5” and was able to dunk a basketball by the time she was a sophomore in high school.

Even if we rule out those women (bodybuilders and athletes who rely on strength for superior performance) who masculinize themselves though steroids, HGH and so on, we can think of women who have more masculine facial features, some facial hair, a bit of an Adam’s apple, broader shoulders, flatter chests and so on.

So why is it that almost all women with these masculine attributes are not mistaken for men (despite some insensitive name calling from cruder individuals in a few cases)?  Why is it that I and some other transwomen I know or have seen pictures of are very successful in blending in with the general female population while others struggle to be recognized as female and face periodic harassment as a result?

And I came up with the Green Acres analogy as an explanation.  One of the features of the ramshackle farm house was that the electricity for the kitchen was supplied by a generator that was inadequate for the needs of a household with a combination of modern appliances such as television, refrigerator, washing machine, toaster, and so on.  If too many were running at the same time, the generator would overload and stop running.  So Oliver figured out a simple system based on the wattage of each item in the home that ran on electricity.  He assigned them numbers from one to six.  If appliances that totaled more than seven were plugged in, the generator would blow.

Here is the link to watching the episode that introduces the subject (Season 1, Episode 9).  The link will take you to the free side of Hulu.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/140846#i0,p8,d0

So what’s the analogy?  Let’s take a scenario that transwomen face from time to time if they are out and about in the world: going into a women’s bathroom at the mall.  And let’s say this mall is fairly busy, so there will be a number of other women coming and going during our visit there.

To various degrees each woman will be subtly engaged in what is routine for them: observing the other women who are passing through.  It is not an exercise in voyeurism.  The observation will be discreet, not intruding on the privacy or space of the other women.  But most of the women will observe nonetheless.  There are a number of reasons.  One never knows when they might see someone they know, or see another woman wearing an article of clothing or hairstyle to be admired (whether the admiration is shared or not), or will smile at the timeless event of a mother coming in with a young daughter (or if young enough, her son).  The latter reminds us of a second reason: women are trained to be mindful of their surroundings and have heard the stories of what happens at times if a woman becomes careless.  The vulnerability of us women is heightened in a restroom, especially if suddenly it is no longer busy.  A mother bringing in her three-year old son who needs help with his toilet is not a concern.  As that boy starts approaching manhood, the concern level goes from zero to sixty in a hurry.

If a casual glance reveals that there are only women present, the observation remains discreet.  But if the particular appearance of another person starts to raise the “wattage” readings on a subconscious meter, the level of scrutiny will increase.

The only difference is that it is impossible to set hard and fast numbers the way that Oliver was able to calculate for the kitchen appliances.  First of all, each woman has her own meter calibration.  Furthermore, any suspicious feature could range from borderline to extremely obvious.  Therefore, any feature could be given a value anywhere from one to eight.

The following chart is a somewhat light-hearted guide to the range of comportment within the MTF transgender community.  I gave much consideration to find terms that would not be offensive.  Hopefully I attained that objective.

 

Now if you are an MTF transgender and one or more of your attributes threaten to blow the whistle on you, all hope is not lost.  In most of the areas of concern, things can be done to correct, camouflage or compensate for the problem areas.  Remember that cisgender women are beautiful, but most enhance their beauty by using techniques to deal with their problem areas.  One of the reasons for makeup and fashion is to help a woman look even better.  We can learn these techniques, too.  Some of us learn them so well and even improve on them, to such an extent that sometimes cisgender women get tips from what we do to look great.

If there is one area that is recognized as the biggest giveaway of a male past, it is voice.  Adjusting the pitch of the human voice is not all that difficult, and there are many good tutorials out there.  The average male voice is only one octave lower than the average female voice.  Speaking and singing ranges for men and women overlap.  And yet, so many of us MTF’s either don’t care, are afraid to try or gave up too soon.

While it is true that estrogen will not raise the voice, practice will.  Voice control is muscle control.  Like any other muscles, as throat muscles are used, they respond.  Learn which muscles will raise your voice, and then practice what you learned.  The more you speak in the higher range, the more those muscles will develop with a corresponding weakening of the muscles used in the lower range.  I am starting to lose my ability to hit lower notes that I could have reached easily a couple of years ago.  I have conversations with a trans sister who has been full-time a few years longer than me.  For some time now, she is no longer able to sound male.

Here is a video that demonstrates the importance of voice (by the person my friend used to train hers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRhit3CGMeA&list=PLF4765311BB40432F

But there is also more to voice than pitch.  Cher had a deeper voice than Sonny, yet they used speech patterns that left no doubt that Cher was the woman and Sonny the man.  Women have far more modulation with their voices and often end their sentences on an up note, while men tend to speak more monotone and end their sentences on a down note.

Makeup and hairstyle can help with your facial features.  There are many methods of removing facial and body hair.  The best one depends upon both your particular hair situation and how long the hair needs to be removed (i.e. are you full-time or part-time?).  Whatever your physique problem area may be, there are cisgender women with the same issue.  The Internet has expanded our information in this area, as we can search for “best styles if you have large ________.”  In general, remember that darker colors decrease size and lighter colors increase size, and that we want to draw attention away from problem areas, not toward them.

What will also help is developing an eye for what cisgender women look like as far as balance between various parts of the body (e.g. shoulders to breasts to hips).  Part of the challenge is overcoming the fact that the typical male torso can be approximated by a triangle with the base along the top (the shoulders), while the typical female body can be approximated by a triangle with the base along the bottom (the hips).  But you won’t be the first woman who needs to do so.

Like voice, fashion sense, posture and walking gait can be learned and improved by observation and practice.  Clothing and makeup go hand in hand to some extent, and are somewhat dependent on time of day and event.  There are differences between the office and the beach; between a day trip to a grocery store and a night on the town or fancy dress party.  To some extent, walk and posture is dependent on both age and footwear.  Women walk differently in heels than they do in sneakers.  And at least where I live, younger women tend to walk with a more masculine gait than middle aged women.

Since gloves have been out of fashion for ages, there is not much you can do about the hands.  Longer, pointed nails will elongate the fingers better than a short French cut and will give a little positive enhancement.  Darker and/or brighter nail polish will attract more attention to the fingertips.  And if your hands are rough, moisturize as often as you can and wear gloves for manual labor.

High necklines and chokers can help disguise smaller protrusions of the Adam’s apple, but with larger bumps, they will only focus more attention on them and will be counter-productive unless very loose.  For some, surgery will be the most viable option.  A plastic surgeon is also an option for those who want to feminize their face and/or increase their bustline to balance larger shoulders and torso.  For those who will be taking estrogen, some improvement can be expected in these two areas, with individual results varying.

As far as that bulge in a more sensitive spot for those of us who are part-time, non-op or pre-op, there are very many ways to camouflage or smooth that area.  It will be the subject of a future article.

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? – 1^st Kings 3:9

God bless,

Lois