At one point in the movie "To Wong Foo...," the drag queen Noxeema Jackson, played by Wesley Snipes, explains to her Latina companion Chi Chi what a drag queen is. After defining transvestites and transsexuals, Noxeema explains that a drag queen is a gay man "with way too much style for just one sex."

That remark brought up an issue I have been struggling with as Carolyn - how to develop a sense of style.

I grew up in a rural area of the Midwest. My family favored a utilitarian style of dressing: plain, unchanging, durable and inexpensive. In the view I grew up with, only bored, rich women with not enough to do paid any attention to fashion.

Later, as I started crossdressing, my objective was to look as female as I could. If I could buy something that made me look female at Target or Penney's or the second-hand store, I never needed to set foot in a more fashionable outlet. But now, as I work on improving on Carolyn's appearance and presentation, I have come much more to wish I had some of Noxeema's excess of style.

I have accomplished the basics of crossdressing. When I go out, I have a hair style that is appropriate, and my makeup, jewelry, and clothes are similar to what other women are wearing. I have had the experience of being crossdressed among crowds of people without attracting any attention to myself. I know I can blend in as a woman in many situations.

However, I am aware of missing something quintessential female. One thing I have noticed while watching women is that most females use each day to make an aesthetic statement, seeking the right proportion of line, texture, and color in their clothes, makeup, hair, and accessories. This is true not just for the young legal assistants who spend their lunch hours cruising Nordstrom or the female executives leaving Saks. Everyday, you can see ordinary women of all ages doing things that strike the eye and promote an attractive appearance: earrings that complement buttons on a coat, a colorful scarf over a plain top with jeans, or a jacket that perfectly brings out the color in a woman's complexion. While fewer women are assembling what Patti Johnson calls a "costume," where all elements are put together to form a perfect whole, most women do something to make themselves an aesthetic picture. Clothes to them are not just things to cover up their naked bodies and to protect them from the elements. They are decorations like pictures on a wall or flowers in a vase.

As a male, I have learned a few lessons about men's fashion like not wearing stripes with plaids, not wearing brown shoes with blues and grays, and avoiding "loud colors," but that is about it. I am a decent dresser as a male. I have taste, but I do not have much style, and neither do most other businessmen with whom I associate.

For dressing as a woman, the standards are higher. Nearly all women I encounter at least have a sense of color in their clothes that men do not have.

I feel lost even trying to measure up to the women I know who claim not to care at all about shopping or fashion. I am not the only cross dresser with this problem. I have noticed that a genetic woman often stands out in a group of crossdressers, because she is the only one whose appearance has a certain flair.

Are women born with this sense of aesthetics, or do they acquire it in the endless hours they spend as teenagers talking about clothes and reading fashion magazines? Almost all the women I know carry around with them a knowledge of the workings of aesthetics that few men comprehend. They lament how difficult it is to bring it all together to look good. It is a world almost no men understand except crossdressers.

I can do my makeup as well as most women. I can make my wig look neat and realistic. My clothes are of high quality. But I am still working to acquire that little sense of style that can make a woman not just blend in but display a pleasing and attractive appearance. It sure is easier as a man.