Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

"Kerplunk!" another Sunday Edition from the Condo has hit your virtual front porch! Well, kids, another week has flown by and swept up October with it and brought in some chilly weather in Southwestern Ohio! My hot cup of "Joe" tastes good this morning!

Page 1.- The week that was - or wasn't.  Of course the week that was, included Halloween-otherwise known as "All Halla's Eve" (Holla back) for cross dressers everywhere.  Three of the blogs I follow on a regular basis; Femulate, From "me" to Mandy, and Janie Black all featured some sort of Halloween experiences. I enjoyed the differing perspectives!

We also had a wide range of other "happenings" to reflect upon, such as the first Condo complete guest post ever from Pat, Helen Boyd's post on Trans Partners and our look at "Bob Seger" .

All in all, a busy week!

Page 2.- The Battle goes on.  The tragic discrimination faced by active duty transgender U.S. military members goes on and was brought to the public's eye this week yet again by Army Captain Sage Fox  shown left. Captain Fox essentially was told to go away after she was told she could transition and come back.

This continues to happen to trans military members and I think will, until these very key and vicious mid term elections are out of the way in our country.  Obama could do away with the injustice with a stroke of his pen, but continues not too and the Pentagon says it would be up for a study which is a fate worse than death for any issue.  What a "study" means is: We will sweep it under the rug and spend unneeded money until it goes away and we are working in some sort of other fat cat bureaucratic job.

Let's remember though, Veterans Day is coming up November 11th and it will; be a time to revisit the sacrifices of all veterans -transgender or not!

Page Three.-Positive success stories. 

Lynn Conway

MichellewhoisNovember 2, 2014 at 8:36 AM

There used to be a site that showed so many others that came out a while back. It listed the doctors, scientists, teachers and business leaders that had successfully transitioned. Many on that site were originally in stealth but came out to show the world who they were. I remember Gwen Smith and Melanie Phillips sites that showed us so much information and helped us weed through all the BS sites. Lynn Conway's site Allowed us to see others that were successful. It was these women that helped pave the way for so many to follow.

Absolutely Michelle and thanks!!!  I remember quite early in the game, I too found Lynn's extensive site and was positively dazzled and depressed at the same time.  Dazzled at the amount of transgender women who were so successful and living what I perceived to be the impossible dream. Which led to my depression. At the least though, she showed me what could be possible! 

Page Four.- The back page.  Well kids it's time to get to the store before the Sunday football games start.  I'm sending good vibes out to all of you along with continued thanks for stopping by Cyrsti's Condo!

Chasing my Tail!

First off, we had a  major (no pun intended) moment in Cyrsti's Condo yesterday when Pat actually agreed with my comments on a post called The Toughest Trans Battle of Them All! The post centered on MtF transgender Army Captain Sage Fox in particular and spoke to the continuing tragedy of ruining trans lives one at a time in the United States military.  Which (as Pat wrote) Prez Obama  could fix with a stroke of his pen-but hasn't. I'm going to leave it at that, at the risk of getting too bitter and political. Plus, since Pat lives around the New York, East Coast area, she provided a little more insight into our Totally Transgender post and trans firefighter Brooke Guinan.  Please follow the links for her complete comments.

On a couple of lighter notes:  jen smithOctober 28, 2014 at 3:02 PM  commented:

Ooooh Cyrsti! You were quite the rebel-rousing, button pushing, devil may care one weren't you! Sounds like you had a heck of a good time!!!

Indeed I did Jen! Every morning, I take a moment and thank "Momma Karma" for enabling me to do all this living after so many years of darkness!

Finally, perhaps you have heard classic rocker Bob Seger is touring again at the age of 69.  I'm sure all of you have special groups and songs which have defined parts of  your life and Seger is one of mine.  I knew of him way back before he became "uber" popular because is is from the Lincoln Park, Michigan area and was rockin his arse off when I worked at one of the first "progressive rock" FM radio stations in Bowling Green, Ohio. (Not far from Toledo,  Michigan and Detroit.)  Our listeners also were fans of Iggy Pop and the Stooges from Ann Arbor, Michigan and any other Detroit "head bangin" rockers.  I credit those days to losing a good part of my hearing.  Another chunk went to watching the original Ozzy and Black Sabbath in Germany when I was in the Army.

At any rate, Segar seemed to stick with me through the years.  His "Hollywood Nights" song about a Midwestern boy being too far from home in L.A. became my "anthem" for a Midwestern boy in New York slipping too far away from his birth gender and of course "Running Against the Wind" which describes any transgender person searching for their true gender identity.

One of Segar's stops is going to be in nearby Columbus, Ohio in January.  Haven't given up on getting tickets!

The Toughest Trans Battle of Them All?

I hope just because I am a US army transgender veteran, I should feel any more strongly than any other transgender American that the continuing discrimination against transgender military members isn't one of the most basic problems we have?

Shouldn't the people who fight for our freedoms, be allowed to enjoy them? Especially when other countries around the world allow trans people to serve? Even I though, get the argument from people around me women in the military are a bad idea all together. It seems they feel we genetic or transgender women are too emotional, or devoid of strength and may not possess the will to fight to the bitter end for our other troops. Really? I tell them to just did a little deeper into the history of our area in Ohio when the Shawnee's and whites used to clash over land which belonged to the Shawnee.  Sure some of the heavily Scotch Irish women were captured and abused but many were some of the most feared fighters the Shawnee faced when cornered.

Still, today, stories such as this keep happening-because they can: From the Washington Post:  Capt. Sage Fox had come to terms with the end of her military career when she said she got a stunning phone call. It was her commanding officer, telling her that despite the military’s ban on transgender service members, she would be welcome to return— as a female, her preferred gender.

So Fox, 41, (left) a U.S. Army Reserve officer who had served in the military for 14 years, returned to post in Sacramento as a new person. Her voice was higher with the help of vocal training and her features softer as a result of hormone therapy. She had grown out her hair. She got permission to use the female latrine and be addressed as “ma’am.”

But a short time later, her orders were reversed without explanation, and she was told not to come back, she said. Thousands of men and women serving in the U.S. military are in such caught in the gap between shifting cultural mores and military regulations that still require the immediate dismissal of any service member found to be transgender.

Actually, yet again transgender service members such as Captain Fox are just caught up in a government full of politicians and bureaucrats just interested in a short term status quo arrangement.  I might make a move, but not in an election year!

The "shell game" goes something like this: Defense Secretary Hagel said he would be open to a study.  (How many years? How much money?) At the same time (of course) The Pentagon has said nothing is going on with them. And in the meantime, a dozen or so transgender service members have been discharged over the past two years (according to various advocates).

For of this more story go here. My blood pressure is too high to keep writing!!!!!