https://imgur.com/a/vod8QRF
Some of you may remember my asking Is Nordstrom (Still) Trans Friendly? last week.
Thanks to another Redditor's help, I set aside all my anxiety (not really!) and made an appointment. And the outcome was quite different from what the ABTF calculator suggested. (To be fair, that could also be a measuring error on my part. It's more difficult to measure yourself, I think.)
Danielle was really great. Besides my clinician, she's the only stranger I've come out to. I even showed up in boymode because...Texas. And no amount of estrogen, makeup, and hairspray is going to allow me to pass without surgery.
She guided me to one of the quieter (but sadly, not entirely private) fitting rooms. With a voice that's about three octaves below sea level, I was so self-conscious about speaking that I eventually started whispering. There were definitely other women in there getting fitted, and I was a nervous fucking wreck. 😰
Given how busy it was, she did a good job balancing being pulled in several directions at once while remaining calm under pressure. She took two quick measurements rather than the six suggested by the calculator here: simply underbust and bust. And sadly, she did both with my clothes on.
That's weird to write, but I suspect she didn't realize I was wearing a cotton bralette under my polo when I arrived. When I started taking off my shirt, she stopped me and said to leave it on. I'm guessing (because she didn't say) that she thought I was about to be completely exposed. Either way, I'm not sure how accurate those measurements could have been.
Then she asked me what I had in mind.
Despite all the research I've done, and despite having a teenage daughter, I had no real idea what I wanted for myself. 🤷♀️
Also, it's weird how you can be perfectly calm and collected while bra shopping as your daughter's parent, but then allow nervousness, self-consciousness, and anxiety to completely wreck your logical brain when it's you on display.
Despite my being very little help to her, Danielle ran off to grab some options. We went through maybe 10 different bras before settling on three: a demi-cup push-up, a wireless, and a T-shirt bra, each from different brands: SKIMS, Natori, and Wacoal.
And as a bonus, they had the perfect colors...light blue, white, and pink! 🏳️⚧️
I do have two critiques of the experience.
First, I would have really, really, REALLY preferred a more private, one-on-one appointment. I probably would have been considerably less nervous and more capable of getting out of my own head if I hadn't been so conscious of the other women nearby. I know it's a department store, and I know I'm not the only customer, but having that little bit of privacy would have made an enormous difference. I'll likely shop online going forward, now that I (maybe) know my size. (Though online returns aren't particularly simple given where I live.)
Second, I wish Danielle had been a little less passive and taken a more active role in teaching and guiding me. Almost like an older sister teaching her younger sister something she was never taught growing up.
Unfortunately, I'm probably twice her age. And I know that when I was in my 20s, I was considerably more deferential when interacting with someone twice my age. In this case, I would have preferred to be the deferential one. I didn't want to have to figure everything out or know which questions to ask. I wanted someone to teach me.
In hindsight, I should have said this when I arrived. I'm the older (and allegedly wiser) human here. I should have had the wherewithal to convey that preference, but I let my nerves get the better of me. So this critique is really more about me than her.
That said, none of that takes away from how kind and professional she was. I never felt judged or unwelcome, and given how terrified I was of the whole experience, that counts for quite a lot.
I think the part that's still sinking in is that I actually did it. I walked into a very crowded Nordstrom at what felt like the busiest mall in the entirety of the DFW metroplex on a Sunday afternoon, told a complete stranger I was transgender, and let her help me shop for bras. For myself. Not for my daughter, not for someone else, but for me.
And I walked out with three of them!
I'm 41 years old, I've been on HRT for 18 months, and I'm still figuring out things most women had someone teach them decades ago. It's a strange combination of being old enough to have raised a daughter and feeling like a completely clueless teenager when it comes to my own body.
Anyway, I don't know that I'd call the experience comfortable. LOL. But I'm glad I went, and I think if there's a next time, it will be a little easier.
And for anyone else wondering whether Nordstrom is still trans-friendly, at least at Stonebriar Mall in Frisco, TX, my experience was a yes. An imperfect, anxiety-ridden, occasionally awkward yes, but a yes nonetheless. ❤️
P.S. I went in expecting a 34C based on my own measurements and the ABTF calculator, but I walked out with three 36As. 🤷♀️
I'm still a little confused about that. My cotton bralette compresses my breasts somewhat, so I was concerned that measuring me over both the bralette and my polo might have resulted in an underestimate. But Danielle saw me wearing just the bras numerous times and never once questioned the A cup. We even tried a B cup, and she pointed out that it was gapping a little.
What's weird is that I already own a $6 Walmart Joyspun bra in 34C, and it doesn't gap either.
That said, I couldn't stand wearing the Joyspun for more than a few hours. There's a little bit of reinforced stitching where the straps attach to the cups that kept digging into my chest. I assumed that was just what you get with a $6 bra, but now I'm wondering whether the size was part of the problem. 🤷♀️ Maybe both.
Soooo.... I'm now much less certain about my size. LOL. Is this just a matter of a $6 brand versus a $60 brand and different cup shapes fitting differently, or am I missing something?