What's In Your Handbag?
Transgender ResourcesA Survival Kit for a Night on the Town, By Annie Peters
Lipstick is not the only thing that can wear off during the evening, and I also carry a small perfume spray. I think it's important to smell nice as well as look good. Spraying it on is, of course, another action in the deliciously feminine category, but don't overdo it - your fragrance should not precede you by too much!
Less feminine is a handkerchief - and not a delicate lacy one, at that. I have already mentioned 'glowing like a pig'. When the glow stings the eyes something substantial is needed to blot it. Used with reasonable delicacy, the hankie can be better than a tissue for mopping up the glow without wrecking the eye make-up.
Carrying tissues as well could be a good idea - but I tend to use a bit of paper from the toilet. It does well enough, and avoids the accumulation of a layer of disintegrated tissue at the bottom of my bag. In some places the toilets run out of paper - but more can sometimes be had if one has the gumption to ask at the bar.
Much more ladylike than a hankie is a nail file in a little plastic case. Rough nails not only look less than perfectly femme, but wreck stockings. It also has a little hook at the end for removing dirt. Dirty nails - varnished or otherwise - are a real no-no.
Also metal are four small safety pins. I keep them pinned together for convenience - a solitary safety pin at the bottom of the bag is very hard to find, and when a safety pin is needed it's usually needed in a hurry. A cluster of four pins is much easier to locate. Their purpose (need I tell you girls) is emergency repair to clothes.
At the bottom of the bag, with the pins, is a small card with a dozen or more kirby-grips. The grips can be useful for keeping a wig fixed to one's real hair - especially if the wig's webbing is past its first flush of youth. Another use for a hair grip is to pin back one's real hair if it seems determined to escape from the confines of the wig. That's especially important if wig and real hair are different colours.
And that leaves only... the four inch nail. It's for the toilet. As a trannie out on the town, one has to be careful about using toilets at all. There are places - mostly gay - where there isn't any great problem about using the ladies, but it shouldn't be taken for granted. Be careful, and check it out first - but it is sometimes possible.
In several ladies toilets I've used, the sliding part of the bolt has been missing from the cubicle doors. A nightmare scenario is to be sat there with my knickers down, only to have a woman with more sensibility than sense burst in on me. At best, a trannie is only allowed in the ladies under sufferance - and there are limits one must not cross.
So... slide the four inch nail into the bolt fixings and it's securely held. A handy tip, perhaps. Remember, you read it here first!
Copyright © Transformation 2006
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