Blanca Alfani

Today I’m pleased to share a second post from my  wife. I’m so excited she’s taking part of this project with me. I’ll leave you now with her: After that terrifying night my husband came out to me, things didn't become clearer. I hadn't been really able to fully wrap my head around what my husband had confessed, and waking up the next morning didn't make the reality any easier to process. What followed were long, late night conversations filled with more and more information, but less and less understanding. Doubts and uncertainty began to creep into my mind, and with each passing day, I felt more confused and lost. Looking back now, I don't think my husband was entirely clear on what she was experiencing either. I feel we were both lost, but in different ways. As I tried to process this new reality, my mind was constantly bombarded by a barrage of questions: Would my husband become a woman?  Does this mean I would stop being married to my husband? Not that we were goin...

When I first started searching the web for information about people like myself, there wasn’t a whole lot to look at, especially when it came to photos or videos. I think I already mentioned in a previous post that crossdressing stories back then were almost entirely plain text.  Eventually, the world progressed to personal webpages, Yahoo Groups, and early blogs. Suddenly, it became “easier” to find actual pictures and videos documenting people’s journeys in the trans world.  Then YouTube came in, and many text based blogs migrated to video. Even though LGBTQ content wasn’t as widely available as it is today, it was absolutely wonderful to find those stories, whether they were real or fictional.  Personally, I loved watching transition timelapses, or videos showcasing the jaw dropping transformations people could achieve using nothing but makeup, shapewear, and sheer creativity. Those were real people sharing real skills and talent.  Even when it came to fiction and...

In a previous post, I wrote about expectations. Specifically, the kind we have about how our partners are going to react after we come out to them, how we are going to navigate the aftermath, or how our day to day lives will change. This time, though, I want to talk about a different set of expectations, the ones we hold for ourselves. Or, at least, the highly unrealistic ones I had about how my own femininity was going to effortlessly unfold, and the immediate, crushing letdowns I suffered along the way. Hence the title of this post (couldn’t repeat expectations ;) My entire life, I daydreamed about being able to live as my true self. In my mind, I pictured myself looking like the beautiful cis women I saw on the street, or as stunning as the gorgeous trans women I eventually found on the internet. You know the ones where you have to take a second look and think, Wow, was she really assigned male at birth? I spent years wishing I could dress up, put on makeup, throw on a pair of high ...

When I came out to my wife, a lot of long, intense conversations inevitably followed. One of the hardest things to explain, and to make sense of for her. was how it was possible for me to identify as a woman while still being exclusively attracted to her. As with most of the conversations that spark from my gender identity, I tried my best to explain these concepts, even though often times I can’t fully explain them to myself. During one of our talks, I mentioned offhand that my entire life, I had felt a parallel mix of attraction toward women and envy of them. I didn’t analyze carefully how those words would land. What was originally meant to bring her peace of mind instead caused her to ask a question that completely stopped me in my tracks. She looked at me with a vulnerability that broke my heart and asked, "Through all our years together... did you really love me, or did you just envy me because you wanted to be a woman like me? I immediately assured her that I have loved her...

So today I’m gonna write about, you guessed it, PEANUTS! Okay, okay, no. Skincare, of course. Am I a professional esthetician or a dermatologist? Well, no. Have I taken specialized courses? Also no. Am I qualified in any way, shape, or form to give advice on this subject? Well, again, no. Wow, that’s three negatives right out of the gate. But writing about skincare is exactly what I’m going to do anyway. Why? Well, why not? Skincare was something I grew up watching every single girl do. It had this undeniable charm, something about all those different serums and lotions for a million different things that I didn't understand, but I was definitely drawn to. Unfortunately, for most of my life, it was completely out of reach. Men didn’t do skincare decades ago, at least not as far as I knew. And if you did, well, we all know the kind of social consequences you'd face. Fortunately, times have changed, and it’s becoming way more common now, especially among the younger generations. ...