Cyrsti" Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Our feature cover today is yet another beautiful androgynous model David Ferran.  At what point in time do the genetic female models feel threatened?

Cyrsti's Condo "Gender Blender"

Androgynous male and female models together:  Kirill Sadovy (left) Alexandrina Til (female-right)

Androgyny Scores a Win in the UK.

On the British version of the Voice, Singer songwriter James Byron emerged triumphant in the latest round. The androgynous 24-year-old, from Illston-on-the-Hill, near Market Harborough, stole the show from the more experienced singer Kiki de Ville.
For more details, go here.

Androgyny Is the Future?

Yet another of my pet theories is the human genders are merging faster than anyone thinks or wants to admit in many circles.

I believe the amount of chemicals we ingest along with the hormonal levels in engineered foods change our bodies.  But, a scientist I'm not.  Just a very interested observer.

Here in Cyrsti's Condo, I have also presented many features on androgynous MtF models.  Recently, I happened on a site you may be interested in called Androgyn Beauty. Here are a set of pix from the blog and you can find the link here.

Cyrsti's Condo...Rocking Androgyny

From the Ukraine, Androgynous singer Boris April. Before and after!

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.

Androgyny in the Middle East

Interesting video from YouTube on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen which covers a lot of ground, androgyny, drag and Islam:

Just Your Basic Androgynous Discussion?

This young transsexual woman covers a lot of ground in the Crysti's Condo big screen video. She talks fast as she goes into gender identities, sexual identities and how the world views her...or how she wants the world to view her.  Listen for the part where she want's the body of a woman and the logic of a man!:

More "A" Word

Angel sent a great comment to our fancy mailbox here at Cyrsti's Condo about my  androgyny post:

"Believe it or not, you aren't the only trans person I've heard of this happening to. Androgyny seems to make people uneasy... not sure why, but it seems to be true."

Being the armchair social observer that I am Angel, could it be an androgynous person stirs up more feelings of insecurity in many people than trans people do?

If you hang your bra on the idea the gender binary is a major part of the very basis of human socialization - you really mess with their minds. If they can read you as a transgender woman or man at least they can find something to understand. In that case, positive or negative, the noggin is churning out some sort of reaction.

No matter how the Saturday Night Live "Pat" skits may have been politically incorrect, they pretty much hit the nail on the head of how unnerving an adrogynous person can be to the general public.

Thanks Angel!!!!

For you "youngsters" I'm passing along a SNL clip on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

The Big "A"?

Do you remember Julia Sweeney's character Pat - the highly androgynous character on Saturday night live?

Well I don't know if I'm putting too much into just being called Pat at the grocery store or getting more looks than if I was dressed totally feminine? When I wasn't.

I have written a number of times here of how sometimes my androgyny catches me off guard as it did today. Of course I am sure it had nothing to do with my 6 inch highlighted pony tail flowing out of the back of my hat?

But "Pat"? Really?

"Alternative Model"

From Sweden, Victoria Eriksson walks the gender line by using the "alternative" tag!
Here's a link to Victoria's Blog which presents an exiting gender line from androgyny to feminine.
Victoria was also on Sweden's Next Top Model, is also a make up artist and designer!

Loving my Inner Dork

I probably am not going out on a huge limb and say many of ourselves grew up not loving our inner transgender selves.

In addition for many more of us, just finding out for sure who our inner "dork" was a huge task. In my own case I find it completely fascinating I know my dork is female orientated but takes my life as a guy and uses him to build from. Along the way she has looked at him and said "really? that was such a stupid guy thing to try".

Along the way though,  writing about my  girl dork has gotten me slammed as "yet another old guy on hormones" to "just an upscale cross dresser". For the record: nothing wrong with either. So get over it and get a life of your own.

Dressing the dork to society's standards is the difficult part. I have mentioned the hormones and my hair length have led me down an increasingly androgynous path but I still live in an area where people have known me for years. I do take the easy way out and let androgyny take it's course rather than put up with the hassle of seeing these people with eyeliner and lip gloss. It just makes me feel a little better knowing I still have enough other problems to worry about and you know? My dork doesn't care. After all she has biding her time for a half century and she can feel the bodily changes going on under my loose clothes.

The bottom line is I'm coming to love my inner dork. So much so I have given her a new label.  Now I call her a feminine "essence" or spirit.   

Certainly her life is getting better as society is picking up a whole new set of clues. We are all just mirrors anyway and society just picks up it's clues from the mirror.  Having softer smoother skin , longer hair and real boobies to work with obviously just makes the process easier.. Plus, it's evident that slowly but surely I'm taking the male props out of the costume for good. Finally,  I'm secure in the fact my female essence will have her day in the sun or mirror...full time.

Perhaps calling her an "essence" rather than a "dork" will make her feel better too?

Uniquely German Gender

In 1972 Liza Minnelli headlined Caberet, a Bob Fosse directed movie about a female girlie club entertainer in Weimar Republic era Berlin who romanced two men while the Nazi Party rose to power around them. One of the other main characters was actor Joel Gray who entertained in partial or total drag.  Not drag as we know it in America but a German form of the era.

Recently, Bettina Rheims "Gender Studies" which essentially again presented a German look at androgyny and gender..not drag this time but still unique. Compare the pictures.

Take a look at one of the examples to your left.

For more go here.

I am Her, She is Me

Several times recently I have seen a person at a grocery store I go to all the time who I can not read the gender. As true of an androgynous person as I have seen for awhile.
No big deal of course but of course I started to think about how I view the public.
I used to constantly be on the outlook for another cross dresser. Have to tell you, without a lot of luck. Either the girls were very good in public, there weren't very many of them or I wasn't so good. Trans-dar?
How have things changed?
Well, really I don't care as much.
Let me see if I can explain it.
I have an old friend who I have mentioned a couple times who was one of the initial cross dressers I met back in the day when I was opening the closet door. He stayed in the cross dressing closet and of course I didn't.
We were discussing the "validation" part of presenting female. Then as now, having a guy on your arm as a "prop" is a very desirable goal. That's the easy part-in principle.
The "what ifs" come quickly.
What if you present as a reasonably desirable female and the man you are out with turns out to be just a little more than just a prop?  That little good night kiss becomes more than just validation.
At this point, my friend really had no idea of what that would be like and that's fine. He called the experience a morph of sorts and attempted to attach more of a sexual importance to it.
I compared the experience of morphing from a cross dresser to a transgender person with him to falling in love. If it happens-you know it.
I can almost tell you exactly where it happened and I can't remember what happened yesterday.
Finally, let me take it a step farther.
Using this process, I can work through the transsexual morph in my mind.  At whatever point in their life a true transsexual comes to a true realization of who they really are sexually. The transsexual's life becomes so much more complex than mine. TS's need to match the sexual and the mental  in their bodies- the ultimate morph.
By this time you are thinking "Cyrsti" this is all well and good but just where the hell are you going with this?
My point is of course I would notice an occasional cross dresser as would most folks.
It's just now, I feel so at home in the world...maybe I wouldn't?

"A" is for?

Androgyny is the "A" word for this post. Lets toss out all the buzz words: transgender, transsexual and cross dresser.
I wasn't ever sure if I would ever get to-or past this part of the alphabet.
Depending on how you view it, I was never blessed or cursed with being androgynous.
These days I'm staring the first letter square in the face.
You all know how much I have been whining about this hot & humid summer in my part of the world. I guess I could call it "Hormones meet Heat"!
On the positive side is the feminine skin upgrade I'm experiencing. I have never been particuarly angular so the skin changes are an even bigger appearance positive.
On the negative side is wearing a wig in this weather just torches me.
Today was cookout day with a friend who has seen me both ways but embraces my feminine side. So hormones+heat+wig=melt and extreme discomfort. The high temp was 97 and I don't even want to know what the heat index was. I had two choices be a guy and more comfortable or do my total normal makeover and be miserable under the wig and makeup. What was I to do? What choice did I have?
Well, one thing is certain with me. When and if I get banged around enough, sooner or later I do wake up.
My solution was the simple one I had been running from as fast as my slow self could: Androgyny.
I set all my crutches aside and went for it.
I shaved, tied my hair back into a pony tail and stuck it through the hole in the back of my ball hat. I threw on a pair of female jeans a sleeveless top and flats. Makeup? Just some eyeshadow and lip liner.
I was ready to to check the almighty mirror goddess.
Actually (if the truth be known) the person looking back at me answered a huge question. This was the new me in the not so distant future. Like any woman of course I would have a chance to dress up but this was me dressed down and it worked.
The bottom line is the experience fueled my enthusiasm even more for the future!

Justin Vivian Bond

Justin Vivian Bond, in a Maria Cornejo dress and Lanvin shoes and accessories, in Le Petit Versailles Garden in Manhattan.

Utopia?

I read posts here and there on the idea of a genderless society. A place where a person is totally free to express their mental gender at will.

In fact Michellelianna recently did her own take on the subject  and you can read it here.
The easy answer of course is clothes don't make the transgender or transsexual woman or man. We all know it's much deeper than that. 
Indirectly my "BFF" took the subject another step when I confided in her my dissatisfaction with my recent male exploits. Basically she asked when was I going to start dressing more completely female as I approach 6 months into HRT.
Good question.  In my current lifestyle, I'm just me without the pronouns. Very little body hair, painted nails and all. I basically run errands in a few of the same places all the time. Since going into semi retirement, I created my own little gender cocoon rather than an utopia. With my thin shaped brows, pony tail and clear nail polish I'm far from being androgynous- yet. Just being me is great for me but the world awaits. You know how the real world wrecks utopia! Dammit!
However I still have a utopian plan for the near future. I call it "hormones phase II".
As I have written a number of times, coming up soon is the big next visit to my "prescribing" doc.  I started on a minimum dose of a form of estrogen and had it doubled a couple months later.  Now I want it doubled again.
So by this fall, I can see me developing a nice little makeup routine in the morning of eye makeup and lip gloss-everyday. Then we will see how my utopia is working for the general public.
Quite truthfully, I don't see how an androgyny phase will work in at all with my utopia if I have a choice. Obviously, I would prefer to be seen as feminine as possible. Some would say I have done some of this a little backward with the amount of time I've spent in a feminine lifestyle without hormones and such. The transformation as you know isn't always the easiest and I will gladly accept any help I can get!
We will see. As with any utopian idea, problems will exist. Those of you who have gone through this process know the ups and downs unique to each one of us.
I can only say I'm surely not expecting any Shangri-la but a plan is very reassuring even if it's not utopian.