Being the somewhat paranoiac person I am, often I wonder if I was in the acting business, would I be forever wondering where my next job would be coming from. I wonder also if transgender actress Nicole Maines can land another starring role after her current gig as "Supergirl" comes to a close.
Seemingly, like a bunch of screaming spoiled children, the state of Ohio has given up and will not fight the court case which allows transgender women and men to change their birth certificates.
This comes from Cincinnati.Com :
"The Ohio Department of Health will not appeal a December court decision requiring the agency to accept requests from transgender people to reflect a gender different from the one assigned at birth, according to a Thursday court filing. The department is working on a process for people to request the change and expects to have it in place by June 1."
Not surprisingly plaintiffs in the case said they ran into legal and professional problems because the gender on their birth certificate didn’t match their driver's license and other government documents. One was physically threatened after her mismatched birth certificate outed her as transgender at work.
Ohio and Tennessee were the last two states to deny transgender citizens the right to change their birth certificates to reflect their authentic gender.
Also, since Ohio uses the gender on your birth certificate to determine the gender on your death certificate, this is a big deal.
Out of all the Mtf gender transitions I have encountered over the years, one of the nicest and most successful transgender women I have known (through Facebook) has to be Wisconsin's Melonee Malone. I have featured her before here in Cyrsti's Condo and after her most recent picture, I thought I would do it again.
After my shower yesterday, I wiped the fog off the mirror and had the courage to look at myself. In the past even looking at myself has set off waves of worsening gender dysphoria which I will explain later.
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| Pre Covid Summer Picture |
As always, my mass of hair was it's ultra wavy, curly post washed self. No surprise, I have never had a problem looking at my hair. Along the way too, I glanced at my face. I saw a curiously androgynous face staring back at me. No real surprise there either. I have decided it is mine for better or for worse to live with for the remainder of my life.
For the first time yesterday, I was brave enough to look down from my face to my breasts. Since my maternal grandmother passed away from breast cancer years ago, I am considered to be at risk for the disease and have been told to self examine for any strange soreness or lumps. Which I have done.
As I had the courage to do a chest scan of my own, it occurred to me how rare it has been for me to do one. In the past, the process has caused my gender dysphoria to flare up when I focused on a relatively small set of breasts overcome by a large set of shoulders. Finally yesterday, my slightly expansive breasts were able to hold their own with my undeveloped old male shoulders and torso. I even discovered one of my breasts was larger than the other which is common in many cis women.
To make a long story short, my recent discovery process has led me to look ahead even more to when the weather warms up (and stays) and I can wear my summer fashions.
Unfortunately, too many transgender women are very lonely and can't find any stable social contacts. Either with women or men. Back in the day, I went through the same dilemma. At the same time I was going out to venues to seemingly entertain myself, I searched many on line dating sites at the same time. Needless to say, I sifted through a lot of trash until my partner Liz found me. What I mean is, she answered my ad on the Zoosk dating site. That was nearly nine years ago and we have been together ever since. Perhaps I was fortunate in that I was fairly unsure about where my sexuality would take me, so I could double my search to both men and women.
Back then, there weren't any real dating sites which dealt with transgender women and men. Most all were fetish sites mostly populated by male admirers of trans women. I had the misfortune in my dealings with admirers. One corned me in a hallway once during a party and one wanted to just wear my panties. I won't even mention the number of times I was stood up or "ghosted" by men.
Today though, a new transgender dating site has been announced which promises to be different. I don't like the name but here is the info:
TransFable, a brand-new dating app for men and transgender women, is set to take over the digital world of transgender dating this year. The first transgender dating app of its kind, TransFable offers users a safe and secure platform to meet their match, where transgender women can connect with genuine men for free.
TransFable stands apart from its competitors as a transgender dating app specifically designed for those seeking serious and genuine relationships. It can be a challenge for both men and transgender women to meaningfully connect with one another and TransFable offers the perfect place to do so. Indeed, if you are looking for a hook-up, this is probably not the transgender dating app for you. However, if you are serious about finding a genuine match, then TransFable is the transgender dating app to be on in 2021.
All users on TransFable are manually verified by a human so you can be rest assured that you will not match with any bots or fake profiles.
Perhaps you have heard (no pun intended) musician Ezra Furman has announced she is a transgender woman and Mom.
More from "Page Six":
“I wanted to share with everyone that I am a trans woman, and also that I am a mom and have been for a while now (like 2+ years),” she wrote. “About being a trans woman: for my own reasons I have been hesitant to use these words, especially the ‘woman’ word. I have often described myself as non-binary, which maybe is still true (I’m just gonna sit with that question for the moment).”
Furman, 34, explained that coming to terms with her identity was “complex” but added it’s “complex to be any sort of woman.”
Being Bi-Polar myself, I have become used to the ups and downs of my mood reactions to life. Quite possibly, before I was diagnosed with my own version of being "Bi" I did my share of hiding behind a dress to take my mind off the daily stresses of life.
Of course, I could argue the simplest stresses came from trying my best to live up to male standards as I lived my life.
The older I got and after I was honorably discharged from the Army, the worse my mental issues became. On occasion it was a struggle to just to get out of bed on certain days. Along the way, I finally resorted to therapy. The first guy I went to was a total waste of time as he didn't seem to want to discuss my fondness for cross dressing at all. I solved the problem by going to one of the very few therapists in Ohio at the time who had any knowledge at all of cross dressers as this was way before the transgender idea was even discussed.
Ironically, it was her who diagnosed me being bi-polar and was able to separate it from my gender dysphoria. She was blunt (and truthful) when she said my desire to be a girl would never go away. For the first time in my life I felt a glimmer of hope.
Even still, it was difficult for me to separate my two main issues and continue to live a reasonably successful life as a cross dresser. Meaning I was a woman cross dressing as a man. Years later when I needed to take advantage of the Veterans Administration health care, I was paranoid if I would find a therapist who would understand my complex problem. Fortunately I did and amazingly nearly ten years later she still is my VA therapist.
She was the "gold standard" for me as she signed off on helping me begin my hormone replacement therapy all the way to providing me documentation to facilitate changing my legal gender markers in the civilian world plus within the VA itself. I consider her as one of my top three people who assisted in my early Mtf gender transition.
These days, while I still have the occasional valleys in my life to climb out of, my medications keep my moods relatively stable and I am able to understand when gender dysphoria enters my life. More so than my Bi-Polar condition.
Most importantly, I have done away with my self harm issues. It took a while to separate all of this out but thanks to a ton of help I have learned to live the peaks and valleys.
This quote from an unknown person definitely could have come from a transgender person:
"Your perception of me, is a reflection of you. My reaction to you is an awareness of me.”
I found it on a blog called "Pointless Overthinking"
It occurred to me recently, after my posts on going to the dentist, just what did all of that really have to do with a blog supposedly dedicated to a transgender lifestyle.
Then I thought perhaps I was approaching it all wrong. Here is one example. As bad as the anticipated discomfort and suffering associated with a long put off dental appointment was, the bigger fear came when I thought of the amount of gender confusion I had absorbed in the past. Would I have have to put up with being mis-gendered?
Because, as many transgender women and men know, a visit to a medical facility can bring on embarrassing mis-gendering situations. Even to the point of your "dead name" being screamed out in a crowded waiting room.
Many times too, transgender people are forced to educate their medical care givers who have never encountered another trans person. All the way to being refused treatment altogether.
Depending upon where you live, the situation is getting somewhat better, even in Ohio a few major hospitals and other organizations are stepping up their game as they offer and interact with transgender individuals.
Plus, even webinars are popping up here and there focusing on LGBT elderly adults. In fact, I am attending one in May.
Now if I could go back and erase all my unpleasant medical experiences from my past, I would experience less anticipatory problems.
Well, yesterday turned out to be quite the day. My first trip to the dentist came and went, along with a trip to the phone store to replace my cell phone which did not survive a toilet swim. Outside of the obvious necessities, the day seemed like a "re-coming " out day for my fulltime transgender feminine self.
The dentist was first. As I mentioned before, the information form I filled out only had room for three genders...male, female and "unspecified." I chose the unspecified box and prepared myself for an appointment full of gender confusion. After all, this was one of a very few times in the past year I had spent any significant time without a mask. As bad as my teeth were, I didn't want to show them off which was impossible in a dentist's office.
It turned out I didn't have to worry when I heard the woman who checked me in respond to the hygienist who was working on me as "she." My heart soared as my mouth hurt.
To make a long story short, as I suspected, my top teeth (or what was left of them) were shot and my bottom teeth were in good shape. So, I was a candidate for top dentures. Subtitled, goodbye stimulus checks. Finally, I will have my smile back.
After heading back home to pick Liz up, we went to the phone store. The young clerk who waited on us had no problem with calling me she and her. After another hit to my bank account, I walked out with a new phone.
The whole day was wonderful in that it recharged my gender batteries. For once I didn't feel any inner imposter guilt when I was called "she" or "her." I felt it was my retribution for all the years of transgender struggle and gender dysphoria I went through to arrive where I am.
One thing the pandemic taught me was how much I needed the public gender feedback I received to survive. I know who I am every morning when I wake up but sometimes it takes a little reinforcement from the public to let me know the real me.
This is probably the strangest blog post I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning what I feel is primarily a feminine experience.
There is probably no delicately way to put this but this morning as I was sitting down on the toilet for my morning "constitutional" my phone slipped out of my back leggings pocket and into the toilet. Fortunately it was a clean bowl.
Over the years, I have felt sending a phone for a dip was distinctly a feminine thing to do. Plus I have tried to be extra careful with my phone. Always trying to take it out of my pocket all together before even going into the bathroom. When I am out in public, I always carry my phone in my purse anyhow.
Lesson learned.
I can just imagine how much fun Connie will have with this post.
I love my "Endo" Doc. She is so nice and because of her I have been able to experience all the feminine changes I have been able to go through over the years.
Of course it didn't hurt that before my visit (actually the night before) I washed my hair again and just let it go into it's natural wonderful waviness. You can see a bit of it in one of my profile pictures.
This picture was taken at only one of three times Liz and I have been out in the last year. As you can see in the picture, it was last summer.
It doesn't hurt either I give my Endo the credit for my transgender transformations such as even less body hair (excluding my face of course) and increasing distribution of body fat to my hip areas.
Now I wish my upcoming dental appointment could be as painless. Ha!!!
It took me a lifetime of living to partially understand what we all should know. Life is but a series of changes. Once we quit changing we die.
Years ago, due to financial considerations and other excuses, I put off needed dental work. My excuse was I didn't think I would outlive my teeth since everyone around me was passing away. Well, I proved myself wrong and now this week, I need to pay my dues and go to the dentist. I can't even speculate what will happen.
Interestingly, I am filling out the information forms ahead of time on line and quickly I came to the gender portion. I was given the usual binary choices of male and female and a third choice of "unspecified". I chuckled to myself thinking now I was unspecified?
It's a big week for changes. Today I have a virtual appointment with my endocrinologist which is all about changes to my body. Hopefully, the visit will be all positive because I am pleased with all the feminine changes going on in my body. Even my breasts seem to be fuller these days. As mentioned, my dental appointment for dentures is tomorrow and my therapist virtual visit is Wednesday.
I haven't figured out yet if being older brings on a resentment towards change. Perhaps it's the idea I have already been through that before, why should I have to do it again?
When you consider the pain, suffering and fear which comes with gender dysphoria and being transgender, how can anything in life compare.
Changing your gender has to be the most difficult process a human can attempt besides being born and passing away.
Recently I have mentioned here in Cyrsti's Condo several times about how most of us were forced into extreme measures to protect and hide our gender dysphoria, way before we had any idea what the term even meant. Along the way I mentioned to all of you the lengths I went to hide my feminine cross dressing "stash". I wasn't blessed to have supportive parents, so I had to become very creative.
Speaking of non supporting parents, read on and learn of Connie's problems:
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| "Fake" Mirror Image 2010 |
Wow! Connie's experience makes me happy my "stash" was never really discovered, to my knowledge. My Dad was very shy in discussing anything which became even remotely sexual in nature, so I often wondered if he discovered my "collection" of hose, women's undies and makeup in the garage. He may have thought it was a phase.
Over the years though, like so many of us, I went through destructive purges when I decided to rid myself of all of my feminine items and thus live my life in the lie I desperately was trying to live. The process always seemed to work for a day or two before I was thinking about going back to my cross dressing ways.
I wish I could reclaim a portion of the money I wasted on my purging efforts over the years and more importantly, the wasted time and energy I spent on the deception I tried to use to lead my life.
On Saturday Night Live last week, as I was nearly dozing off during the latter parts of the show, I was surprised to see a figure obviously in a full dress on stage before the show cut away to a commercial break.
I was surprised to see the show's musical guest "Kid Cudi" in the dress and ready to perform as the break was over. Reaction was swift, This is from the "Guardian" :
"The dress marked the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, with Cudi saying that it was a tribute to the Nirvana frontman who had worn a similar dress on the cover of the Face magazine in 1993. While social media users praised the way Kid Cudi channeled Cobain’s gender non-conforming approach to fashion, they also pointed out a double standard.
On Instagram, model and activist Munroe Bergdorf wrote: “as fab as it is to see cis gender straight men embracing femininity through fashion … let’s remember that they also won’t face nearly as much hatred or the physical danger that visibly queer folk will when they do the exact same thing.”
In the comments, one user wrote "it feels insulting that cis hetro men get praised for what trans people get bullied and killed for. For them it’s a trend, a costume … for trans people it’s life and death.” Some 13 transgender people have been murdered in 2021 so far according to the Human Rights Campaign, which is a 333% increase from 2020 when three transgender people were killed."
Indeed the double standard runs deep.
Recently I visited regional universities twice (virtually) to take part in LGBTQ discussions. The most recent was as a guest of a sociology professor at her masters degree class at Miami University of Ohio. There were four of us there including another transgender elderly woman veteran and two cis gay men.
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| Miami of Ohio |
Along the way, the class provided us with a lively discussion. I had two questions directed specifically at me. The first of which asked what was "Crossport" which is the transgender - cross dresser support group I am involved with here in Cincinnati, Ohio. The only problem was, with a slip of the tongue, I undirectedly talked down to the cross dressing portion of our membership. With me, I have many "slips" so they are relatively common. Yesterday, I simply said the group dealt with transgender women and men all the way down to cross dressers. In no way shape or form did I mean it negatively but I am afraid it did. After all, I considered myself a cross dresser for over fifty years.
At any rate, I apologized and went on to my second question from a student asking what to do if they encounter a negative situation from a negative person in an assisted living situation. I of course replied it is one of my biggest paranoia's concerning my future. My only answer was just to be the best ally you can be and provide as much support as possible,
Finally, I learned another fact I didn't know from the other trans woman who was in our group. As one of the students who had worked in a hospice last summer told her experience of a transgender woman losing her fight to have her authentic gender on her Ohio death certificate. It seems, here in the backwards Repuglican stranglehold of Ohio, whatever gender is on your birth certificate automatically is placed on your death certificate. Even though the courts have declared Ohio's refusal to change gender birth certificates to be illegal. Ohio so far has refused to abide by the ruling. Leading to yet another court case.
So, as you can see, I was part of an interesting, fast paced class and the hour went quickly.
Since my Mom was a Miami graduate there was more than a little gender poetic justice!
Recently here in Cyrsti's Condo, I posted about "Growing Up Trans" and received a couple comments about my habit of hiding a feminine stash in an old hollowed out tree I knew of in the woods next to our house.
One comment came from Jenny on WordPress and the other here from Connie:
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| Connie |
" Your hiding place in the woods made me think of a line from the old blues song: "I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep out in a hollow log."
Perhaps you have read about the demise of the lesbian bars around the country. This morning I read a place in Columbus, Ohio where I used to frequent a bit is now the last remaining lesbian bar in the entire state of Ohio. According to the "Columbus Dispatch" article I read, Slammers is one of only fifteen lesbian bars left in the nation.
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| Slammers/Columbus |
I liked Slammers for any number of reasons including it was a "safe" place for me to go. Unlike the male gay bars I tried to go to. in lesbian bars I enjoyed the music and the fact I wasn't treated as if I was a drag queen.
Then again too, as I have written about before, lesbian bars played a strong role as I sought to develop myself as a transgender woman. Along the way, I was asked to sing karaoke (or told) by a super butch woman in a cowboy hat who I was never sure if she knew I was trans all the way to being asked to be a "wing person" for a lesbian friend of mine trying to pick up a date.
It all was a simple choice for me. I felt natural and at home in the bars I went too, except for one lesbian biker bar I went to where they hated me. Plus "Wall Street" in Columbus was my first foray into leaving the friendly confines of the cross dresser mixer I went to. I joined the more ambitious "A" listers for trips to the lesbian orientated dance club.
Unfortunately, even then I could feel the demise of the women's bar spaces as the two I went to in Dayton, Ohio closed. Competition proved to be too great from other venues who began to accept a more diverse clientele.
Covid complications of course have played a role in many closings around the country. But there is also a venue in Northern Kentucky across the Ohio River from Cincinnati which partially bills itself as a lesbian which is still open.
Still, a part of my transgender youth is missing and I am sad.
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| Old Picture with Fake Curves and Hair. |
After starting HRT New Years Eve 2013, I was taken off hormones for six months shortly after and was allowed to resume my minimum dosage. Through it all, I still felt the changes were occurring. It wasn't until recently I began to feel somewhat impatient with my changes. My Doc responded with increasing my Estradiol patch dosage. All of a sudden, changes began again.
Most noticeable to me was the pesky hair on my arms began to finally thin out. Before it did, routinely I had to shave my arms which I am aware can make the problem worse over time.
Circling back to yesterday, the weather around here in Cincinnati turned warm again and I had a chance to dress appropriately. I found my patterned light weight leggings and paired them with a three quarter sleeve tunic top which falls softly over my hips. Yes, I said hips. Hiding from me the last several months was how developed my hips were becoming.
For once, my transgender gender dysphoria took a break as I checked out a glimpse of the femininized person I was becoming.
Even though I know my dysphoria is a powerful foe, I take any small victories I can get and cherish them.
At the least my relief will last a couple days, at least until my Doc visit and go from there. As you Cyrsti's Condo regulars know, I was considering requesting injections to hopefully kickstart more progress but now I think I am content to continue the path I am on.
This post could easily stretch out into multi posts but I am going to try not to. For no specific reason.
Similar to so many other transgender folk in my age bracket (70 ish), I grew up in a very isolated world where I felt my gender issues were mine alone. In my patriarchal family it did not take me long to build a very dark closet.
My closet had rooms though where I stashed my feminine articles which became so dear to me. I was able to purchase my own select feminization items through meager earnings from a paper route and allowance for completing household chores. Successfully, I managed to summon my courage to find my way to a couple of the long gone "five and dime" stores. I bought my own makeup and even found a pair of shoes I found which fit. Plus I could buy my own hose and quit running my Mom's.
Once I managed to buy my items, I had to find a place to put them which no one else in the family would find. One of my places was in an old box above the cars in the garage. To my knowledge, my Dad never found my "treasures", or never mentioned it.
My second space was way more inventive. We lived in a very rural area and the property next to our house was a fairly dense uninhabited woods which we explored all the time. One of my favorite things to do was to go down into the woods, uncover my stash hidden in protective plastic in an hollowed out tree, and get dressed up in a dress, hose and shoes I had purchased.
Between the garage and the woods I was able to learn the basics of dressing like a girl and at least for a while, relieving my gender duress. It would take years for the term transgender to even be invented and for me to understand how well it fit me and my gender dysphoria.
As I look back on my formative cross dressing days, I wonder how successful I was at hiding my behavior from my close knit family and friends. Outside of a couple times I tried to involve a neighbor guy friend in my cross dressing, my big experiments involved in taking the long walk to our mailbox while dressed in my not so fashionable mini skirt, hose, makeup and blouse.
I suppose at the least, growing up transgender enabled me to become more creative and resilient.
Recently I read the conservative case for one of my least favorite people, Caitlyn Jenner, (below) running for governor of California.
Say it "ain't" so.
"Once you have come to the conclusion that this is who you are ... don’t delay.”
That’s the biggest lesson Wynne Nowland, CEO of insurance brokerage Bradley & Parker, learned going through her gender transition in mid-2017.
Nowland started working at the medium-sized firm in Melville, New York in 1986, and held several senior positions before becoming CEO and chair in January 2017, just a few months before her transition.
From Nowland’s earliest memory, she knew she was “different,” but it took her a long time to label it. It wasn’t until a few weeks after her 56th birthday in 2017 and four months after promotion to CEO that she had an “awakening” and decided she couldn’t hide her true self any longer.
Nowland sent an email to her 70-person staff telling them that she had made the decision to transition her gender.
Ironically, yesterday turned out to be a quiet day when it should not have been.
Between the meetings at the least I could watch the Cincinnati Reds baseball team who were playing a day game. Which they won.
You Cyrsti's Condo regulars may know I am bi-polar and for some reason yesterday was one of those days I couldn't summon much energy at all. By the time my Rainbow Alliance Board meeting came along at 6 PM, I felt as if I had no ambition for the meeting at all. Normally, it wouldn't have been such a big deal but his time there were a couple of workshops coming up I wanted to volunteer to assist with.. One of which is in June and the other is in September, so I still have plenty of time to volunteer for one date or the other.
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| Pre Covid Summer Picture. |
On the bright side, I received a very positive return comment from "Jenny" whose blog I just featured. Plus I am very fortunate to have a strong support system around me to help me when I am down. Including my meds from the VA.
I am feeling better today.
Coming up on the nineteenth, I have my appointment with my endocrinologist. As I have written before, I am considering asking her about the possibility of changing my Estradiol delivery method from patches to injections. As with any other change, injections bring with them a whole other possibility of side effects. As a matter of fact, Michelle sent in this comment on the subject:
" You may want to check out this article:
https://transcare.ucsf.edu/article/information-estrogen-hormone-therapyMany trans women are interested in estrogen through injection. Estrogen injections tend to cause very high and fluctuating estrogen levels which can cause mood swings, weight gain, hot flashes, anxiety or migraines. Additionally, little is known about the effects of these high levels over the long term. If injections are used, it should be at a low dose and with an understanding that there may be uncomfortable side effects, and that switching off of injections to other forms may cause mood swings or hot flashes. Some trans women have encountered difficulties obtaining a consistent supply of injected estrogen due to ongoing problems with the supplier. Realistically, there is no evidence that injections lead to more rapid or a greater degree of feminization. In my practice, I generally avoid prescribing injections unless under very specific circumstances."
Thanks for the insight. Plus, as a matter of fact I did check out the article. So far, I have been lucky in being able to have a stable supply of patches through the VA and I have never had the problem of the patches not sticking.
After talking the whole process over with my therapist this morning, the only benefit would be the possibility of quicker feminine development. So as it stands, I will probably just stay with the program I am on.
As soon as my partner Liz and I become fully vaccinated, I will be able to benefit from public feedback again. Which means so much.
I follow a blog called "Jenny's Journey" from down under in Australia. Her most recent post concerning her gender dysphoria brought back a distant unpleasant memory with me.
In the post, Jenny (left) described how her gender dysphoria was bothering her and her wife noticed. From what I can figure out, the wife does not support Jenny's gender issue totally but will let her pursue it behind closed doors. To make a long story short, her wife told her to go into the bedroom and take care of the "problem".
My deceased wife was similar to Jenny's in that she accepted me cross dressing but never the idea I was transgender. Over the years it was impossible for me to convince my spouse my gender dysphoria went deeper than just looking like a woman. Much of that was my fault because I was still learning what a transgender life would look like. In other words, so much more than just putting on a dress for an afternoon. I was trying to patch a huge problem with just a series of band aids.
Going back to Jenny's post, she was able to overcome her dark moods due to gender dysphoria and assume her "duties" as the Easter patriarch in the family. For a while Jenny was able to restore the gender balance in her life.
Again, I went through many of the same feelings as I mentally purged my feminine thoughts. But all too often the old feelings would sneak back in and I wondered again and again what my life would be like on the feminine side.
I fought it to the point of suicide before I finally gave in to what my soul was trying to tell me all along and I started to live full time as a transgender woman. However, I still remember the heartache and duress which went into my transition.
I wish Jenny and all of you who might be involved in the same gender dysphoric bind, best wishes on your journey.
"Rain Valdez just received her first Primetime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series” for her lead role in RAZOR TONGUE, which she created, crowdfunded and produced. Rain is the second transgender actress to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category and the first Filipina American transgender actress to be nominated. Rain is also the founder of ActNOW, the first and only acting class in Los Angeles prioritizing a safe space for LGBTQIA actors and teaches beyond the binary. Rain got her start playing ‘Coco’ in season 2 of TV Land’s LOPEZ and doubling in Amazon's TRANSPARENT as Miss Van Nuys on screen and a producer behind the scenes."
Is it really April already? On occasion I feel as if time does fly when you are doing very little.
Easter, which we don't really celebrate has come and gone. As it was never a major emphasis when I was was young, even I didn't spend much time or effort thinking about what my girl cousins were wearing because I never saw them. Plus there was only one girl in our neighborhood. For once there there were fewer feminine distractions to fuel my gender dysphoria.
So now as I try not to revert into another mundane post concerning the shape of my thighs, at the least I have a chance to look ahead to a few events on the horizon. The first one is my twice a month visit with my VA therapist on Tuesday. Normally we converse nearly 45 minutes to make sure I am not thinking of hurting myself or someone else.
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| Picture from a Martial Arts Banquet Liz and I went to years ago. I felt extremely out of place. |
On occasion I am incredibly surprised about how much more vane I am as my transgender woman self than I ever was as a guy. Of course it is easy to point out all the gender differences there are in fashion possibilities, even though even that seems to be in flux these days.
With me, from the earliest days of viewing my cross dressed self in the mirror, I dedicated myself to improving my "look" as much as possible. In fact, anytime I had the chance, I was practicing. It sure beat the time I had to spend in my boring boy clothes and crew cut haircuts. I couldn't wait for the day I could purchase my own wig and better yet, grow my own hair out.
Of course, as the years advanced I grew "into" my feminine vanity and it became part of my existence. I guess more than a few feminists could say the whole process is part of societies' method of subjugating women as a whole to unfair standards of beauty.
Since to a large part, I got such a late start to living a full time existence as a trans woman, I still feel the newness of the whole process.
In many ways, my bodily changes due to hormone replacement therapy have helped increase my vanity to new heights. For example, after I pulled my leggings on this morning, I noticed my thighs were increasing in size due to the redistribution of fat in my body. By now, I know you are thinking wow how mundane is that but it gets worse. With all the problems in the world, I notices one of my thighs seems to be bigger than the other. Of course I have heard of the relatively common occurrence of women's breasts being different sizes, which is a problem I don't have.
I wonder now, as I approach another appointment with my endo doc in the middle of this month, I am going to discuss with her the possibility of me moving my Estradiol transmission method from patches to injections. The injections I have heard are the most effective way of achieving the best femininizing results. Realistically, I am not expecting much more in my breast development but would like to see more in my hips.
Even though I have not decided which direction I will take (depending on what she says) I am leaning towards the injections.
I guess vanity will probably get the best of me again.
On the CW television network, the "Charmed" show has added another transgender character.
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"Actress Mareya Salazar is about to bring some of her magic to Charmed. The trans actress is set to join The CW series in a recurring role for the reboot of the spellbinding series. The timing of the news couldn’t be any more perfect considering its Transgender Day of Visibility — and we love to see Salazar join the cast.
The casting marks the second transgender actor to join this season. In November, Deadline exclusively broke the news that JJ Hawkins joined the cast in the recurring role of Kevin, a transgender male college student who inspires one of the Charmed Ones to take on a very formidable opponent. With Salazar and Hawkins, Charmed continues to move the needle when it comes to bolstering authentic representation of the trans community."
Perhaps the day is coming we won't have to mention an actress is transgender at all. They will just become actors or actresses.
A reminder for a former president outside his Mar--a-Lago home:
And, on the bright side, reversing Trump, the Pentagon has issued new policies for transgender troops. Policies which largely banned transgender people from serving in the military were reversed and new rules were given which will broaden trans troops access to medical care and gender transition.
I will be interested to see what if any actions the Veteran's Administration will take now. Currently, the VA mostly covers only hormone replacement therapy and some essentials such as wigs and prosthetic breasts. To my knowledge, still no serious surgery.
Another "Transgender Day of Visibility" has come and gone. In fact, a few organizations such as Trans Ohio made it a month long look into various aspects of transgender life.
With all the positive push to let the public know we are here and really aren't all that different from everyone else comes many other issues.
Of course the main one is how hard we work to assimilate ourselves into the world of cis women as a whole. Once we have accomplished moving around in the feminine world, do we want to give it all up? I imagine most of us dread the Hey! that is a man in a dress syndrome.
Then there is the security problem we face as trans women. It remains a tragic statistic how many transgender women are attacked and even killed in the world today. If we are not a part of the fortunate few who have natural passing privilege, are we subjecting ourselves to violence? Conversely, if you are a young and pretty trans girl and don't let your potential boyfriends know of your gender past, again do you open yourself open to violence.
All questions which are not easily answered every year when we come to the Transgender Day of Visibility.
On the other hand, being visible can be as simple as going out in public as your authentic self. Of course, even that has been curtailed due to the effects of the pandemic. Everything helps! I remember receiving a comment here in Cyrsti's Condo from a reader who occasionally journeyed out to a venue as a woman and was accepted as such. As I said, pre pandemic of course.
Recently though, I have been impressed with the young transgender and/or gender fluid folk I have been able to interact with. During the recent visit with the university class and recent transgender - crossdresser meetings I have attended, easily three fourths of the participants have been in their 20's or 30's. To a person, they have been wonderful ambassadors for our culture.
The future lies with our youth of course and the Transgender Day of Visibility should be dedicated to all of them. In many ways, a few of us opened a few doors for them and now are along for the ride.
It's an exciting one.
Archive Image from Witches Ball Tom on Left. Ditching good with better has always been a difficult obstacle in my life. I always blame my...
