Travelling abroad in femme mode?

I have just spent three days in France, my first trip abroad for a year. Travelling from Britain to the continent has been so much easier ever since the rail tunnel under the English Channel was opened and I have taken the train to Paris, Brussels and Lille many times now, for work and leisure.

This time I was in Lille again, a pleasant city, all walkable but with good transport, too, which does a good line in beer and where my favourite restaurant in the whole world is located (Le Compostelle - always perfect but at such a reasonable price http://lecompostelle.fr/restaurant-uk.html)


I went on my own this time, rather than with friends, and although I know that there are now fewer problems with passport control, etc., when travelling en femme than there used to be, I have never been brave enough yet to travel abroad in female mode, especially to France, where you can get a lot of verbal abuse if you stand out a bit.

Next month I am going to Berlin to stay with two gay friends. That is a very trans-friendly city, full of TGirls just going about their business and I am wondering if a day out as Sue would be a good plan then. To be honest, though, I am considering one of my gay hosts who really feels a bit icky about women! "I don't understand why anyone would want to be a woman," he commented when I came out to him about being trans. (To be fair, it's a question I have often asked myself!) We have come a long way as a community, but there is still a long way to go.

Sue x