Cyrsti's Condo - "The Sunday Edition"

Good morning kids, ker plunk! another "fabtabulous" Sunday Edition is hitting your front porch.  I like to refer to this type of Sunday morning here in Ohio, USA as a soft Sunday.  It's mild, slightly overcast and quiet, except for the hot pot "o joe" brewing away in the coffee maker.

Page1.- The week that was-or wasn't.  For no particular reason (like so many other things in my noggin), last week we discussed interactions between transgender women and transgender men and even journeyed into the lesbian culture too.  I went into my theories on a very complex subject and received several thoughtful replies from your end.  Including this one from Diane Michelle Ryan:

Susan Herr

Hi Cyrsti
Love your Blog. I have never had an problem with older lesbians but younger ones can look at us with tuff looks. I live in the Bay Area & see a lot of FTM's out here.

hugs 
Diane

Thanks Diane!!!!  You are right and I think the younger butch's or "soft studs" are in a situation where they "out" and "feeling their oats" so to speak.  Perhaps the "tuff looks" we see are a reflection of that and the older lesbians have mellowed.  Several I know have worked through the "how you identify" stage into the "person you are" stage.

In no order of importance, came this comment which spoke to the possibility of trans guys and trans women interacting and growing with each other.  From Shelli Anne Mulka:

I'm a transwoman myself and know three transmen fairly well. One of them and I go out for a dinner and a movie every month or so and really enjoy being a "couple'. It gives us each a chance to "fine-tune" our image to the real world, and we often end up laughing about each of us "running in opposite directions and side-swiping each other". It gives us a feeling of mutuality which might even lead to romance some day, a concept that really doesn't bother me all that much ! We just may have as much in common as most couples, who can say? Peace & Love, Shelli Anne

Peace and love to you Shelli Anne!  I find it very interesting when you look into the dynamics of a trans woman/man relationship.  I have two friends who went on a very bumpy ride.  I think through no fault of their own, both were experiencing natural changes during their transition and will come out of the process as difference people than at the beginning.  Difficult to negotiate at the best!

Page 2.- Trans dar!  "Oh no she dident"- Go there again!  We indeed did go there again here in the Condo.  I asked the question, what would you do if you had the chance to speak to another cross dresser or transgender woman you had never met before:

Again, we received several quality responses including Jen Smith:   If my trans-dar goes off I do often glance casually her/his way, and if we make eye contact I just give a slight friendly smile as I would to anyone. 
I really just make the glance to see what I can learn (good or bad) from how she is presenting.

And Pat:

My T-dar is almost always on and I think that the same is true for my wife but I sense her acute sensitivity towards potential T-folk may be due in part to her over all sensitivity to everything in her environment as well as having lived with me for all these years. I tend to think that most people tend to be oblivious to the fact that we live among them.

Of course Pat, my warped sense of humor loved the "we live among them" comment as a Halloween reference to Vampires - where she was going anyhow:

Alexander Bekker

Last year we were simple spectators at the Asbury Park Zombie walk. While there I gave a pint of blood at the bloodmobile outside the legendary Stone Pony. I just got a mailer from the blood bank about this year's Zombie walk. I think that perhaps my wife and I may do the dual ghoul walk and perhaps she would consent to me doing it in fem. I will be planning to give another pint of blood so it would be interesting to be a guy dressed as a dead woman getting my blood drained in broad daylight.

Thanks Pat!

The Back Page.-  As they say in the "old country" (where I live) we are out of space, time and maybe luck! Thanks for stopping by the Condo and especially participating!  I get sooo tired of asking my dog!

Transgender Onions

Identifying as a transgender woman these days continues to be a fascinating experience. Seemingly, once a week, I am genuinely surprised by something I read, see or personally experience. Lately, I have been fascinated by the number of truly beautiful androgynous pictures of people I see on line.  I have begun to refer to them as "too much beauty for one gender."   The example on the right is Alexander Bekker from Russia looking for all the world like the sexiest sultry "vampiress" of Count Dracula's dreams, but stops short with a bare male chest.  Sure I know this example is "photo shopped" to hell and back but many others just aren't.    

Then there are the "new" generation of transgender thinkers such as Parker Malloy,  who are challenging the very basics of what we are about. Primarily the notion held by most of my generation that one should transition, find a man and disappear into society. For any number of reasons, I didn't fit that mold but took another path and began a serious transition on HRT from cross dresser to transgender. Now it seems I'm peeling back another layer of the onion and transitioning again to a place I thought was impossible to access.  

Do you remember the 1989 movie called Altered States ? The plot centered around actor William Hurt who played a Harvard scientist.  He conducted experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and isolation chamber. In the movie he ends up regressing genetically (as you will too if you watch the movie "under the influence" too many times)!  My point is now I'm seemingly beginning to be able access a female persona in myself- "female" not "woman". The problem is I thought it was impossible.  I felt no matter how many operations you had and meds you ingested, you are a woman-not female.  Now , I'm not so sure.  Much of my "altered" belief comes from the different way I perceive the world these days and a portion of it seems to not be a "learned" response but a brain driven one.  I've even taken my thought pattern to the point of SRS, which is pretty much out of the question for me due to financial and even age considerations.  But, what if it wasn't, would I?

There is obviously so much more to this story that has not been written and even if I did go for SRS, a whole new transition would take place to write about. Also, like it or not, the Grim Reaper holds the rights to the final chapter. So, in the meantime,I hope he stays away and I will get back with you when I peel another layer of our onion. Hope it doesn't make us cry!

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Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl of the Day"

A few humans naturally grow into genuine androgynous gender chameleons. Seemingly with with a minimum of help. A great example is male model Alexander Bekker.

Alexander Bekker

Androgynous male model Alexander Bekker as a girl:
 And as a boy: