Long Cool Organic Woman

The other day here in Cyrsti's Condo, I mentioned my fascination with style and the genetic woman and how it carries over into my transgender world.

I see style (no pun intended) as bits and pieces of reality- clothes, shoes etc assembled in a process dominated by the senses.

A couple recent examples I can think of were my meeting with Stana of Femulate and a woman I saw on my book store trip the other day.  Stana is what I refer to as a "niner". She dresses to the nines. From head to toe she has in her mind what she wants to look like, acquires the items to do and does it well!  The other example was a woman going through a parking lot headed for a small group of three or four stores. I will call her the ultimate "organic woman". Tall and slim, she was wearing what appeared to be a long cotton skirt, short sleeved top and a woven sash around her waste with sandals-of course. Just for kicks and giggles, I waited a second to see if she was going into one of the stores which happened to be an organic food store. Of course she was!

From the closeted cross dresser to SRS transsexual, we certainly have done battles with the style "demons". I could start another blog with mine and in fact recently did battle with my makeup demons. As you remember.

It is easy to say we didn't have the benefit of moms, sisters or girlfriends to play with our style during our lives and it used to be you couldn't even begin to purchase any stylish clothes in larger feminine sizes. Today we have the benefit of so many on line style sites which can help us to close the style gap and needless to say there are many clothing store options in all price ranges to do it.

You must be patient though.  One word of advice is to observe women in your age bracket. Remember the "over done" and the "under done" and put yourself in the middle. BUT specifically remember the the pleasant ones who are put together just right. Dressing to the nines can indeed be a jeans inspired outfit.

More than likely if you don't become the ugly cross dresser at the mall stereo type (big blond wig and tiny mini with 4 inch heels), you will be fine.  In my case it seems the whole world notices I'm trans someday's and other times no one.

Here's the fun part:  Being a girl allows you to experiment and change your look with the seasons. Who knows? Maybe the next time I see "organic woman" she will be tripping the light fantastic in her four inch heels?

Finally, a few basics.  Sit down and listen to your inner feminine soul and visualize how she wants to be presented. Remember, there will be tons of trial and error along the way. Don't get discouraged. As a genetic woman would tell you "welcome to our world". And the biggest one of all: own who you are and how you look-the world will notice.

"Trans Victim" Revisit

I am fortunate to have received quite a bit of intelligent feedback on the "Victim" post here in Cyrsti's Condo and from outside friends. The post actually came from Helen Boyd's "En Gender" blog.

 The first comes from Paula Gee: " It's simply not fair, especially if we were misguided enough not to tell our wives about our selves before marriage. Yes any form a trans activity is selfish, and we have to understand that and deal with it."

The second from Reasonablynoble:

"As much as I've always included my spouse in my transition, it is an inherently narcissistic process. We spend so much time not focusing on ourselves that by the time we do this, we are wholly fascinated by our selves. It's hard to avoid navel gazing. At the same time, there are other people in my life and I have always been mindful about how my healing has both been a positive and negative for them. This is a healing process and it can, ultimately, make things better for everyone around us."

I'm agreeing with both and using my past and current relationships as a guideline. For whatever reason, misguided or not I told my second wife of 25 years I was a transvestite or cross dresser before we were married. So I didn't tell the truth.  As I think about it, if you put me under oath I would swear to the fact I knew there was probably something deeper going on with my gender identification but I was prepared to do my best to not follow it.

On the other hand, my current female lover is sure total love transcends gender and I'm fairly certain holds my deceased wife's views against her in someways. But it's not that easy and as wonderful as she is, I remind her she "caught up" with me after a ton of life experience and she is lucky. I knew who I was when we met.  Because as both of the ladies above mentioned, the cross dressing  through identifying as transgender or transsexual is, a hugely selfish process. Certainly,  for obvious reasons, we are fascinated by ourselves. I was no different.

The negative as Reasonably said "We spend so much time not focusing on ourselves that by the time we do this, we are wholly fascinated by our selves."  So,  if we can't or don't share ourselves with others- we are only a reflection in the mirror and doomed to a damned lonely existence. As you can see on Flickr or any number of other picture sites so many of us never get out of the mirror or the camera. Those who finally make it into the "real" world are naturally stunted. Not unlike the boy who was raised by wolves. My "anti mirror" friend examples are Drake and Stana who positively light up the room with their chance to live as their real gender.

In recent years as I jumped from my mirror into the world, I acquired a pedestal. You may have read me refer to it here. Sure, experiences such as developing a circle of friends, HRT  and the such are fantastic. BUT none of it makes me any better-or worse in the trans community.  I certainly have to constantly reevaluate where my life is, where I would love it to go and how precarious my "pedestal" really is. It's STILL  just as easy for me to be a victim as the frustrated cross dresser in the closet or the bitter transsexual who discovers SRS wasn't what she really wanted.

Of course I'm not smart enough to come up with an answer. I have been fortunate to have known all sort of peeps who revolve in and out of our culture from a long time friend who will go to any extent to rationalize purging his cross dressing "habit" 25 years ago because of wife and money to unhappy transsexuals to everyone in between.

Every once in a while though someone like Helen Boyd and Betty are able to put a little more perspective to the issue.

I am smart enough to know surgery is the end result to a successful gender transition not the beginning.

Well, this post has gone on so long I should be passing out cookies and milk to all of you here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Maybe I should consider a post called "The Transsexual as a Victim" when I really want to get ganged up on!!!!

Coffee with Stana

Thursday afternoon I did get to meet with Stana who writes the Femulate blog for a cup of coffee!
This was remarkable for several different reasons.

The first of course was geography. She lives nearly twelve hours away by car and airline connections are so loose between our two cities, it's quicker for her to drive than fly.
The second of which is the extreme rarity of meeting another transgender women who actually shares a number of life experiences with me.
The third is she is a blogging superstar. Her "Femulate" just went over some seven and a half million hits...Okay, I told you I was a 'groupie"!

Impressions? She is gorgeous! But more importantly though she seemed to be a genuinely nice person who radiates woman. You can jump over to her blog here to check out what she was wearing when we had coffee. With all those legs of hers, there was a poor guy trying to check in who couldn't seem to concentrate on staying in line.

But enough of all of that. Sharing a "cup o joe" with her was a true pleasure!

Drive Safely While Passing

You all probably know I am one of a huge base of fans of the Femulate web site which has totaled some seven million hits to date.

This coming Thursday, I'm am thrilled I am going to meet Stana who founded and runs Femulate.  She is coming to my part of the world. Yes, I am a groupie!!!!

Recently she commented on a senseless cruel comment she received with as much sarcasm I have seen and I loved it. Here is the reply. To set it up "Hamvention" is held around here and that is why she is coming to the Dayton, Ohio area:

"Comments to Wednesday's post included one that suggested that I not go to Hamvention because "you really don't pass as well as you think you do." My retort is, "How do you know? Have you seen me drive?" To tell the truth, I seldom pass and prefer to stay in the right lane on the highway. I only pass when I absolutely have to. So even if the commenter did see me driving, chances are that he did not see me pass because I seldom do."

In addition to my obvious respect for this reply, it's extra sweet for those of us who deal with haters on the internet who slash others behind the safety of their computers. I wish I had this much reserve and creativity to respond as Stana did.

As far as Cyrsti's Condo goes, all comments pro or con are appreciated. Personal attacks aren't.

Hot Lanta!

For those of you who have expressed interest, Stana over at Femulate recently posted a look at the Atlanta Womanless Cotillion go here to check it out!

Atlanta Cotillion Saturday

Hundreds of men in dresses and their tuxedoed dates hit the Atlanta Cotillion XI Ball on Saturday, Sept. 15 at the Foundry at Puritan Mill. After a full season of fundraising parties, they’ll be there to see this year’s class of “debutantes” and find out who’ll be crowned queen with the most money for AID Atlanta. Last year, Cotillion raised a record $171,026 for the HIV/AIDS agency.

We have discussed in depth how wonderful this event is!!!!
Stana over at Femulate usually has an unbeatable collection of pictures from the event!

A Fantastic Collection

Stana of Femulate fame has done it again.
Check this fantastic collection on men cross dressing as women on the small and big screen by going here.