Janet Reno? A nice outfit, some pretty shoes, different glasses and somebody to teach her her how to put on ger makeup and she’d look nice. She actually has very nice cheekbones but has chosen to dress like a nun.
Many (most?) of the people in Wal*Mart, transvestite or otherwise, are candidates for serious make-overs.
I’m curious as to what this means.
The Ryan, PoorYorick works with a pre-op male-to-female transexual. “She” is the correct pronoun as she is a woman, despite having a penis. The final surgery she is saving for is the removal of the penis and the addition of a vagina. She has already undergone hormone treatments to make her more feminine, and had her adam’s apple shaved - cosmetic surgery also intended to make her appearance more feminine. I think the correct term for this process is “sexual reassignment”.
I have one question for everybody else. Isn’t the correct pronoun for a transvestite “he”? (with the polite exception of using “she” when they are wearing women’s clothes and addressing them directly - but that’s addressing the persona, not the person). Transvestites and transgenders are not the same thing. A transvestite is a man in women’s clothing - but he still identifies as a man. He’s just role playing. Hence, “man, that guy needs help with his makeup.”
Or perhaps they were frat boys doing it for a prank. Or the guys from the beer commercials trying to get free drinks on Ladies Night.
Or maybe the problem is they ARE straight guys. There are lot’s of straight transvesties. I know, I dated one.(and he did leave the house looking grotesque, but then that’s what he was going for, he was a punk rock drag queen).
Maybe the Fab Five should do a heterosexual transvestite next ? 
One point: I have seen many individuals that I have wanted to drag into a bathroom, scrub their face, and reapply their makeup for them. My sister has even had to hit me a few times when I gawk and turn to follow some particularly heinous individuals. This applies to women and girls of all ages, as well as others.
Another point: I do not live in a small city. It is not Toronto, but we’re pretty close. The local gay club has a decent queen/trans community, a few of whom I became good friends with. However, on Drag Nights we would get people from all over the Niagara Region coming to perform and/or hang out. This made me realize my true calling in life.
As a completely fabulous mostly-gay, somewhat-bi man trapped in a woman’s body (you don’t want me to get into the specifics), it is my calling in life to open up a School For Drag Queens.
Classes would include: Makeup Selection and Application; What Not To Wear; How to Walk, Talk, Move like a Woman; and So You Want to Perform.
Final point: No, I am not normal 
well thanks dropzone for putting the image of John Lithgow in “The world according to garp” into my head. And just before bedtime too.
I’ve not seen that but I shudder to imagine the sight.
Betenoir hit one point on the head. I do not know which gender pronoun to use because I do not know the motivation behind the person’s choice of outfit. Is she a transgender or is he just some guy, straight or gay, who likes to dress up a bit? Or did he lose a bet? And I’m not about to ask; that wouldn’t be polite.
Part of the problem is that women as well as men look silly as all hell decked out in some of the garments designated as appropriate female apparel, and likewise for affectations such as makeup and shaved extremities.
It would be fun to be female for a couple of years, like an exchange student program sort of thing. No question about it, I’ve always wondered what it would be like and I’d jump at the chance. But the female I’d be would be a wearer of blue jeans and plain t shirts and tennis shoes. She would not coat her face in cosmetics and she’d have hair on her arms and legs.
So the presenting problem is: how could you “be her” if you were male?
The females that transvestite males are/become are not creatures I’d have much interest in. (Unless they were good conversationalists. I’ll hang out with anyone who is a good conversationalist even if they have eleven eyes and 419 teeth dripping the blood of their latest prey)
Hey, when I first started out I really sucked at makeup.
Now I don’t wear it at all. Too much hassle. And I pass anyway.
I pass when I’m on the phone, does that count?
Oh, and AHunter3, you’ve pretty much described me, or at least how I would dress if it wasn’t for the dress code I have to comply with at work.
Seriously. Without making any effort, just being me, speaking on the phone, I am assumed by more than 9/10 of folks who don’t specifically know me (and a decent portion of those who DO, btw) to be a female person. I guess there are male ways and female ways of speaking on the phone and for some reason my phone mannerisms and intonation and so forth are “wrong for my gender”
Hi, KellyM 
The worst transvestite (I’m gonna go with that for now, since I don’t know if it was a man cross dressing or a m to f pre op) I ever saw was when I worked at Kmart, and this guy would come in. It was obvious it was a guy, I THINK because he had the fakest tits-I mean, he’d be wearing a heavy sweater and you could see obviously fake plastic nipples. And the heavy make up, the really nasty greasy looking wig. And his fashion choices-hello, shorts over PANTY HOSE??? Fringed lace blouses with glitter on your face and purple brown lipstick?
Trust me, he/she looked really, really bad. And if it was a woman who dressed like that, I’d say the same thing.
I remember seeing those fake boobs advertised! A hemisphere with perfectly centered nipple and a half-inch flange around the edge. A real Guy Design[sup]TM[/sup] triumph of efficiency over aesthetics that looked cheap as hell to make because the mold had probably been made for some industrial purpose.
Everybody is being so pleasant I should’ve opened this in MPSIMS. I was sure I’d get flamed for being judgemental of people’s appearances and feared that Eve and Kelly would think I was also talking about transgendered people. Nope, just the inexperienced and poorly trained denizens of discount department stores. As for the two of them, sorry, ladies, I’ve seen the photos and you could give pointers to most XX women.
Speaking of pointers, I’m still taken with the idea of Mary Kay or Avon or some other mail order makeup outfit sponsoring support groups. Yeah, I know their stuff isn’t the best, but it’s easy to get. Any ideas, yea or nay?
To be fair, some of my first public forays were into Wal-Marts and K-Marts and I probably looked just about as bad as the poor people dropzone talks about.
Makeover parties are not uncommon in support groups, or so I’ve heard (I have never been to a support group). Unfortunately, usually the makeovers are being done by the people who dress the way y’all are talking about, which just results in even more people being mistrained to look like weird guys in drag instead of women. TS support groups tend to be a bit strange, and mixed TV/TS groups even more so. If you really want to understand the true horror of the TV/TS support group, I suggest reading Venus Envy, starting at this strip and continuing through the end of that sequence.
I’ve seen her speak, and I don’t think she’d be able to apply her own makeup. Parkinson’s makes her hands shake too badly.
There you both go, playing the sympathy card because you know it always trumps whatever hand I’m holding and I’ll be forced by my inner Boy Scout to lighten up my attack. Fine; it’s always worked before and there’s no reason to expect it won’t work this time. And points for paying attention.
Kelly, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings as you recalled your first outings. We’ve all been embarassingly bad beginners at something.
pravnik, okay, Reno gets a pro to do her makeup or just gives up on it entirely. Makeup’s gross, anyway. A smile to pull up her jowls and maybe a better simple, low-maint haircut than the one she has and a trip to a clothing store besides Nuns ‘R’ Us. I know some Parkinsons patients have trouble with facial expressions (see: current Pope) but she never smiled before, either. Maybe okay for an Attorney General (we want them to be serious) but not so good if you want to be elected governor (we want them to be personable).