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How big is your "bag". As a male I use a small grip bag but have found a navy blue messenger bag I can use unisex anywhere

They vary in size, depending on why I need one, The largest is about the size of a loaf of bread.

The minimum size for my purses is that they have to hold my hair brush. The largest they are tend to be just a bit bigger than my head. I don't care that women are carrying suitcase and beach totes and calling them purses; I'm not going to carry one. If I can put everything into my purse and I can't find it because it's so lost in the vastness, that's just silly. If my purse holds my brush, then it tends to be big enough to hold everything I carry and still be able to rifle through it to find what I need. As I said in another thread, I carry organizers. They tend to have lots of partitions and that too helps finding things in a packed purse so small-ish is fine.

I know what you mean, Davita. There Are days when I just want to put a bag over my head!

A couple of times at check-outs I've made as if I'm going to do that and got a giggle out of the check-out girl. One time I did actually put the bag over my head was when I was at a self-service checkout and there was this guy doing this whole sneering/contempt number at me. He didn't half look embarassed when I took it off.

To take this back in the CDing direction, the all-body covering garment that really religious (of a sort) Muslim women wear always strikes me as a kind of extension of putting a bag over your head - only, in this case, it's a bag over the whole body.

Over here (the UK), we had the 7/7 suicide bombers. But a couple of weeks later there was a second lot of (attempted) bombers. Luckily none of them succeeded and they had to go on the run. One disguised himself as a woman, wearing the full all-body covering garment. Of course, ordinary women who wear these stand out. As the guy was (?) over 6ft he stood out even more.

Anthony that actually brings up a more serious point,vis a vis handbags and rolls. I have a woman's coach leather bag I got as a hand me down from my wife. I started using it to carry supplies to an art class, but meet ing no resistance have been carrying it sometimes in male mode ever since. but I am limited in the amount I carry it, because I have this paranoid feeling that a male carrying a large bag into a store is going to be suspected of ulterior motives, like shoplifting or something.

Yet I see women carrying the same size bags, or larger,in stored all the time.

I suppose I am just being timid.

Hi April R...I'm hardly one to talk about being paranoid or timid, seeing as how I have quite a large chunk of both...Never having been out dressed up for fear of...

I remember having this conversation with a policeman (who was quite a nice guy). He said that something I'd done looked "suspicious". I said it looked "odd". He said "suspicious". So I think that's the mindset of policemen and securities guards and the like. They're always on the look-out for something out of the ordinary, which they immediately type as "suspicious".

A guy carrying a large woman's bag would probably strike average people as odd. But most of the time they have better things to think about (if they thought about it at all). Guys in security are paid to think about things like that....

There's actually a guy who I know quite well who works as a security guard in one of my local super-markets. He seems to go by the personality of the customer rather than anything else (like how shifty they are). But then he's basically a writer...

Because I'm a cyclist I'm always carring quite large bags (panniers off my bike) into stores. Once in a while I've had security guards (or other people who work in shops) decide I was "suspicious", but it hasn't happened too much. You also get guys carring sports bags around. But, in both these cases the bag fits the gender of the individual.

I'm not sure if this is really a serious response (nor am I sure if it's really workable. Take it as more of a thought-exercise), but... It occurs to me, you might be better off wearing a necklace or something to go with the bag. I mean, then you'd be drawing attention to yourself in a kind of blatant way as a gender-shifter and the bag would fit in with that.

And finally....My wallet wore out a while ago and I bought a new one. This turned out to be a woman's wallet - it came with a zip pocket for loose change (but then my previous wallet, a man's one, did too). I've used without any comment, except on one occasion over Christmas. I went into Boots (a chemists) for something for a split in my lip. The guy convinced me to buy a different (cheaper!) product (which worked). When I had paid he said something about my "purse". I felt strangely touched and validated.

DIfferent bag for the outing... Shopping, site seeing, etc. The mode of dress sets the style of bag.

I have about seven bags but the one I currently use is ideal, it seems to me, for a GM whether going out as M or F.

It's natural leather with a hide finish, in woodsy brown. Just blends in so nice! Ideal for getting my neighborhood used to a guy who carries a bag. I take it most everywhere whether in a blouse and slacks or more covert.

(I wear all women's clothes all the time, sometimes more unisex in style for safety's sake. I do virtually always wear a bra with forms, earrings, discreet makeup sometimes. As for skirts, I wear them at home all the time—and sometimes forget and wear them out in the yard and street. I have unintentionally been seen in them once or twice by my neighbors—who've never said a word—but haven't dared risk a skirt when in a more public setting.)

I love my other bags, like my deep dark red shiny leather one, but that's definitely more obvious. Ditto for my blue leather one, etc. Much more femme.

Contents include wallet, pen, pencil, compact, makeup case, sunglasses in a case, and heaven knows what else at any given time. I used to kid my wife about her pocketbook being a "black hole." Fatal words! Now mine is the same. Funny how a wallet can totally disappear in a little bag that's no more than about 12" long and 10" high with a nice long hide shoulder strap!

My bag and I are getting more inseparable all the time. When I first started wearing it, not being accustomed to carrying one, I was scared to take it places for fear I'd lose it. Now I have it with me almost all the time. It looks really nice and I love it!

Love, Robyn Katie