Do I "Pass?"

 You have all seen my pictures and I am sure more than a couple of you have thought Cyrsti has a lot of courage to go out and live a feminine life looking like that. In fact, years ago, a transgender girlfriend of mine told me I passed out of sheer force. 

Along the way though I think I have taken most of the negatives and turned them into positives when it came to living the life I wanted to. In other words, a life as a woman of transgender experience. 

To accomplish my goal. I had to heavily rely on hormone replacement therapy. Relatively quickly my skin softened, I sprouted breasts and my emotions changed for the better. The world softened as my hair grew out faster than my hips and breasts. It all worked together to help my inner feminine self to sync with my outer appearance.

Plus, I can't forget the powerful influences my partner Liz and daughter Andrea had on me. My daughter gave me a gift certificate to her hair salon/spa for my first hair styling which was terrifying yet exciting while Liz completely backed my Mtf transition saying she had never seen any male in me. 

Approximately the same time I was fortunate to find several cis women who happened to accept the authentic me. It all worked together to give me confidence to "pass" as me. All of a sudden, I didn't care what others thought. I embraced my life and began to enjoy it. After all there weren't that many "out" transgender women. 

As always, I have found another thought on the whole "passing process." It comes from Rachell Brindell  and the "Empowered Trans Woman" site:

"By being visibly transgender and not hiding behind the ridiculous gender norms that have been pushed on us for decades I feel I can contribute more to both the LGBTQ community and the cis-normative community as well. After all, if we all passed, who would see us?"

For more follow the link above.