The Power of Having an Ally

My Partner Liz (Right)

 I have written extensively here in Cyrsti's Condo on my relationship with my long time partner Liz. After all, she was instrumental in kicking me out of the closet and into a feminine world so many years ago. Even though she is a cis-female, she still maintains I am more of a girl than she is. 

So it is no surprise I am very much a supporter of transgender allies. The problem becomes when allies are discussed in many corners of the trans community, it gets bogged down in the minutia of the subject. An example would be a few people would describe a transgender ally as one who simply uses the right pro nouns. 

I believe an true ally supports the trans lifestyle all the way to not backing politicians who vote for anti LGBT legislation. 

I am fortunate in that I have met several other spouses of transgender women and men who completely support their spouses. In fact, I presented my idea to the "powers to be" at Trans-Ohio yesterday about putting together a video presentation on the powers of allies for this years' Pride month. 

The only opportunities I have to do it are simply getting the go ahead from the people I am thinking of asking. Then having the technological knowledge to make it happen. 

I have until the 18th of June to do it. 

And Now We Get Busy

 I have written briefly here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning how I seemingly have the tendency to "bundle" up my events together. When you are retired such as I am, almost anything can be called an "event."

Old Summer Photo

For example, this week,  on Tuesday I have the first of my two webinars on aging I have signed up for followed by another therapist's appointment on Wednesday. More than likely too, I have a meeting coming up with the Trans Ohio group on Thursday or Friday. It is about attempting to put together yet another on line event for Pride this year. Personally I think it's all a case of overkill because of the number of separate Pride events which are happening in  the  metro Cincinnati area but I was out voted. As it stands right now, I think I am going to try to involve a couple of the fabulous cis women transgender allies I know to speak on the subject. 

Then, this weekend is basically a chance to really celebrate being slightly free of the pandemic hold we have been under for well over a year. Of course, both Liz and I have been fully vaccinated. Saturday is a concert in a sculpture park we have been invited to by a musician we know who moved away not long ago to New Mexico. If we go, it could turn out into a dinner out afterwards.

Finally, Sunday is my oldest Grandson's high school graduation get together.  At the least I will get to see if anyone notices my new teeth. If they do, it will just reinforce in my mind, how far gone my old ones were. After all, I didn't want to be mistaken for some burn out old crack head.  I just had always figured my teeth would still outlast how long I would live. An idea reminiscent of the dark days of my life. FYI, the only drug abuse I was into was alcohol. 

All the activity will make the week go by in a hurry.

Security

 Over the years here in Cyrsti's Condo I have tried to make it a point to write about our security when we leave the comfort of male privilege and attempt the gender journey into the feminine world. I found out the hard way it is something to be taken very seriously. 

Older Red Haired Photo from Trans Ohio

As I have written before, my first real foray into possible feminine violence came at a party my deceased wife and I went to years ago in nearby Columbus, Ohio. For the evening, against my wife's wishes, I wore a very short mini dress to the party. As much as I hated to admit it later, she was right. It turns out I was cornered in a hallway by a much bigger crossdresser "admirer". It seemed to me before I knew it he had me stuck in a physical situation I couldn't extract myself from. About the time he was seemingly going in for the kill, my wife appeared and diffused the situation. That was the good news, the bad news was she wouldn't let me live it down my skirt was too short. This was many years ago. Way before the "me too" movement and other causes which focused on how women still shouldn't suffer sexual abuse no matter what we wear. 

The bottom line for me was the realization all of a sudden I could be overcome by a bigger person and forced into a compromising sexual situation.

The second lesson I learned  could have involved more physical violence.  It was late one night on a downtown urban street in Dayton, Ohio. I was by myself leaving a gay venue when I was approached by two men. To make another long story short, I ended up being cornered again and was able to defuse the situation by giving them my last five dollars. Lesson learned, the next time I was there, I asked for a trans guy I knew if he would walk me to my car. Which he did. 

I learned the hard way why cis women live their lives living with a totally different awareness than men. It goes way past walking past the leering stares of men in a construction project to the prospect of losing so much more of your personal security.

It's one of the most important aspects as you transition into a feminine world. 
     

My Fave Transition

 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. 

 

Learn the Hard Way

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. 

A Tangled Web of Deception

 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:

"Fake" Mirror Image 2010

"My hiding place for my "stash" was inside the box springs of my mother's bed. I had discovered a tear in the bottom cover, and thought it would be the safest place because she would never think to look there. One night, though, while she was watching TV in the family room, I had the urge to retrieve my feminine accouterments to play with later in the night. I was totally surprised when she came into her bedroom and onto her bed. It felt like hours to me, as I hid very quietly under her bed, waiting for a chance to make my escape. Finally, I heard her snore and snuck out of her room. I changed my hiding place right after that, behind a panel I made removable in a basement wall. She eventually discovered that place, though, and I've told you the nightmarish story of how she'd laid all my stuff on the kitchen table, for me to see when I came home from school - and then made me load it into the car to take directly to the county dump. :-("

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. 

In the Woods

 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: 

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."

The things we go through to find some relief and happiness sound utterly ridiculous, sometimes. In retrospect, I find some of my exploits to be humorous, even though I was very serious at the time I was carrying out my little deceptions. What I find so sad now, though, is that I had become as addicted and drawn to the deception as I was to the resulting euphoria I found in expressing my feminine-self. I'm not saying that "transgender" is an addiction, but I thought that of it that way for much of my life. After all, what I was "doing" exhibited most of the signs of an addiction:

*Spending the majority of your time engaging in the behavior, thinking
about or arranging to engage in the behavior, or recovering from the
effects.

*Becoming dependent on the behavior as a way to cope with emotions and
to “feel normal.”

*Continuing despite physical and/or mental harm.

*Having trouble cutting back despite wanting to stop.

*Neglecting work, school, or family to engage in the behavior more often.


*Experiencing symptoms of withdrawal (for example, depression or
irritability) when trying to stop.

*Minimizing or hiding the extent of the problem.

Of course, in my youth, I had no outside resource for learning what these symptoms were, let alone the yet-to-be-named "transgender." My own guilt and shame were my only references, which had the effect of a vicious circle of dysphoria and euphoria.

Now that I know better, and that my gender identity and expression go far beyond mere behavior, I live with the reality that it is who I am (and was, though unaware) far more than what I do (or did).

If you listen to the aforementioned song, and think of yourself as both the woman and the man, you might imagine why it rings for me. To have drunk muddy water and slept in a hollow log would have been easy, in comparison to what I actually did, in order to have kept that woman (me) from disappearing from my life.:

Along the way, I too considered my cross dressing to be more of an addiction more than anything else. Until I began to journey more and more out into a feminine world. The more natural I felt as an out transgender woman, the better I felt about making the full time gender transformation. 

Thanks for the comment!

How Much Visibility is Good?

 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. 

Toxicity

 Connie (below) responded to the Cyrsti's Condo recent post concerning me connecting with one of my previous employees, or more precisely...she contacted me. 

Here is the comment:

"Even in this very left-leaning city of Seattle, there are pockets of toxicity. One needs only to drive a few miles out of town to find it, as well. I've had my share of "Dude Looks Like a Lady" and "Lola" experiences, myself. Nobody needed to tell me that my business would have suffered, had I come out, as I depended on the patronage of building contractors (not always the most liberal-thinking people). My own dysphoria ended up sabotaging my business, so that (I thought) I could move forward with my transition. Ironically, this caused a great hindrance for me to have the finances with which to do so.

 Securing any kind of employment as a woman became more difficult, not only because I was trans, but I couldn't even provide references without outing myself to past, present and future business associates in the process. There exists a passive toxicity, in that most employers will consider the possibility of drama that could accompany the hiring of a trans woman - especially for a management position. Basically, I've only been able to find low-paying jobs with no opportunity for advancement. In fact, the only thing advanced about me is my age, and that just makes the whole thing worse.

 I changed my name and gender, legally, in 2015, when I was 63-years-old. I had thought about delaying the changes in order to secure employment, as my male self, with a company that I knew would have accommodated my transition later. I know people who have done this successfully, yet I just felt it to be wrong for me. It felt, to me, like going through the back door, rather than being the honest and straightforward person (woman) I wanted to be. After all, I had been living a lie for so many years, and I was just plain tired playing that game of deception. The game itself is toxic - and of my own creation. Just as transphobia can be internalized, so can the toxicity. Sometimes, I think, moving away from toxicity involves more than finding a new location. It can also mean that we have to let go of those internal demons that keep us from moving forward - not only with transitioning, but with life."

Thanks for the comment! To be sure, you are right, the transgender journey we have pursued is by nature full of toxicity. 

I was fortunate in that when I decided to do my MTF gender transition, I had the resources (barely) to just retire and go on to change my life. Then again, along the way, I considered the feasibility of joining a new company and then transitioning. But at that time the restaurant business I was part of was a very conservative patriarchal industry. So, starting over in a new profession as I transitioned was even more daunting. 

The toxicity levels I was about to face were tremendous. I took the easy way out and didn't face them at all.
 

 

Thanks Tonya

 Perhaps you recall the Cyrsti's Condo post I wrote not long ago about the former server/acquaintance I employed years ago before I transitioned.

When I responded to her Facebook friend request, I was almost certain from there she would try to get ahold of me. Early last night, she did. 

Very early in the Facebook Messenger conversation, she was very complimentary as far as my appearance is concerned.  For whatever reason of course, any compliment I receive does wonders for my gender dysphoria. 

Not long into the conversation I asked her if the tavern we used to go to in our hometown was still open. She said she was going to ask me the same question. It turns out she moved from our medium sized city at approximately the same time which was seven years for her and close to that for me. She said the town had become toxic to her.

Even though I had not thought about it, the amount of toxic feedback I received (real or imagined) made it easier for me to move too. Along the way, due to me finally giving up the ruse of leaving my house as my true self , the word finally escaped of my desire to transition to a woman. I faced passive and forced aggression from people I knew. An example was the 4th of July party I went to with my deceased wife when the DJ who used to work for me just "happened" to play "Dude looks Like a Lady" when we arrived. Worse yet was when a long time acquaintance told me my reputation would ruin my business. 

So, Tonya was right, the toxicity got to me too.

My partner Liz even noticed it from our earliest days together when she said I had "sad eyes".

Hell, my very own brother wouldn't even back me up. I was fortunate though when my daughter,  her in-laws, and of course Liz and her family accepted me as a transgender woman. 

In conclusion, here is a picture of me you probably have seen from the toxic days.  Circa 2014.

More "Blind Dates"

Recently I wrote a post here in Cyrsti's Condo which revolved around an idea I picked up from "Emma Holiday" about having a blind date with herself.  I added my own perspective to the post by writing on my early memories of secretly wanting to out my old male self to several of the cis women friends I had made. Fortunately, I was rebuffed in doing such a thing because the women couldn't/didn't want to see any male in me. After reading the post, Connie added her ideas:

" If I ever had a blind date with myself, it was because I was blind to the fact it might have been happening, at all. It had always been such a relief to me when I could express my femininity, which was natural to me, and to lose the masculine façade I spent so much of my time and energy to present. Not that my façade was anywhere near that of a macho man, in the first place, however.

I have always been athletic (slowing down in my old age, now), and I enjoyed being that way. That's not necessarily a masculine trait, but it helped in covering up my femininity. I hated all of the "dirty jobs" that I purposely took on to appear manly, and slithering around in crawl spaces is helpful in forgetting about one's gender (if only temporarily). On the other hand, I was the envy of many of the wives in our circle, as I did a lot of the cooking and cleaning around the house and have always treated my wife like the lady she is. I was the only one who knew that I did all of this because of my hidden feminine-self, and that I was, in a way, living vicariously through my wife.

I had a cross dresser friend who would manipulate encounters with women by showing herself or himself (depending on the current presentation), either by showing pictures or showing up again soon thereafter in the other mode. She/he would always take much delight in doing so, and I was often embarrassed by this when we were out together. I only showed a pic of my worst male-look, complete with scraggly beard, one time. It was to a woman who had only ever known me as the woman I am, and she reacted with horror - not necessarily because it was a most unflattering picture of me, but because, as she told me, she had never thought of me as being anything but a woman. It certainly caused her to gasp, anyway. It also taught me that I don't need to confirm my femininity by comparing myself to the dichotomous male façade that I once wore.

The only way I date myself is by making archaic references. Like, the Twist was a dance from the 60s, and not about my gender identity. :-)"

Thanks for the insight! In some ways I think wanting to show a picture of your male self is just a narcissist's way of fishing for a compliment. Similar to you look good as a woman...for a man.

One of these days I will have to write a post concerning how I felt about going out as a transgender woman to be by myself.

Wrestle Mania

 First of all, I need to send out an apology to all of you who have commented on previous posts here in Cyrsti's Condo. My excuse is, for once I have been busy in my everyday life with Doctor's appointments, completing taxes and other fun filled things to do. 

So, I am going to try to get to a few comments, including the one featuring WWE wrestler Tyler Reks  coming out as transgender. 

Gabbi Tuft Tyler Reks

The first comment comes from "Sara":

"Tyler Reks as I remember was not a big name wrestler and these guys have dreams of making it big, but all too soon fade away... So I was quite surprised to hear you mention this! I checked his bio and sure enough the 1st sentence mentions her female name and pronouns! unfortunately it also mentions her "dead name" because wrestling ring names are often an attention getting stage name, there are only a few that actually use their real name It's not that I doubted what you reported, but it just sounded too good to be true!"

Thanks for checking Sara. I do the best I can to check sources but most of the time it is very difficult.

The next comment from "Connie":

"How does one wrestle in a wig and wearing silicone breast forms? I have enough trouble just doing yard work; bending over, lifting, and perspiring. More than once, I've had to grab my wig as it's been snagged on a limb, not to mention a breast form that slipped out of my bra because it had gotten so slippery from sweat.

John Lithgow played the part of an ex-NFL tight end who was transitioning mtf in "The World According to Garp." His portrayal was, at that time, far from the weirdest thing in that movie. I would hope that it wouldn't seem to be weird, at all, these days.

Who knows, maybe Tom has a desire to be Marsha Brady. He's tried to deflate his balls, anyway. :-)"

For those of you who don't remember, NFL QB Tom Brady was once accused of using deflated footballs to get a better grip and cheated in the process.

As far as having my breasts slip out of their bra, I still have that sensation every now and then even though my breasts are now attached to my body through the miracle of hormone replacement therapy. Also, in the past when I wore wigs, I had the misfortune one night when I ran out of gas and was walking home to have a low hanging tree snag my wig. 

Finally, I am sure if Gabbi Tuft tries to continue to wrestle, she will soon learn how sensitive the breast area becomes and will have to perhaps learn from other women wrestlers how to protect herself.  Could be the least of her problems!

I really appreciate all of your comments!

Inspiration is Fleeting

Or is it? Every morning when I wake up, I do a quick self examination of my body to see what hurts the most, or at all. Very quickly I then move on to thinking about the blog and what I have written about in the past. Every now and then, I come up with a former experience from years ago in my past.

Plus every once in a while, I am able to find a picture to aid in the story. An example is this picture from a decade ago in 2010.  Somehow, I was able to come up with my own version of primitive photo shopping on my cell phone. I did it by taking my picture in a mirror so I could see myself as I did it. My goal was to take a picture to add to my profile on the multiple dating sites I was exploring. 

The hair in the photo was a wig of course. Ironically my hair currently is as long and nearly as wavy if I add a liberal amount of mousse after I wash it. 

It's also taken me nearly a decade to grow my own breasts which were comparable to the forms I wore back then. Of course I am fortunate to have been able to undergo hormone replacement therapy at my age.

So, inspiration for a blog post is fleeting when I am well over 6,000 posts written for Cyrsti's Condo.

One good thing about the picture is, it is the one my partner Liz saw and decided to respond to me because I had "sad eyes". At that point in time I did. 

It was taken before I found a circle of accepting friends who helped me transition and gain a whole new level of inspiration.
 

Is Passing Mainly Confidence?

 When I write many posts, I usually come up with ideas I could have added. Normally I didn't add them because the post was already written or would have made the post too long. The same thing happened to me yesterday when I wrote a post concerning passing privilege. 

Then I began to remember a few of my previous posts as well as various comments from Cyrsti's Condo readers such as Connie and Paula. One theme seemed to come through, having confidence in yourself was the main way to "pass" successfully. 

Speaking of "Paula" I enjoyed one of her comments referring to a few of her ill advised fashion choices in her early cross dressing days as being a "howler." I know I was too and no amount of confidence could help me. As a matter of fact, I was doing my best to destroy any confidence I was building by making poor choices. My main example was being way too fond of wigs which were better suited to drag queens. Unfortunately also, the drag queen wigs weren't my only "howler" mistakes. Mentioning them all would make this post way too long! It's easier to write, if there was a bad cross dressing mistake to make...I made it.

The good news is I survived and once I learned to blend in and to dress for other women, I developed confidence and you could say I gained "passing privilege". 

Ironically, nearly all of passing to me became a reality when I arrived at the point when I didn't care what the public thought of me. I just followed my basic rules of blending and confidence and/or passing followed.

I was able to live my life as a transgender woman and put my howler days behind me.

Inspiration

 

Paula's Place

 Recently here in Cyrsti's Condo, I shared a comment from Paula and her thoughts on being a transgender musician. After going back and checking the post I noticed the link she shared to her blog didn't work for me at least. Back in another Cyrsti's Condo platform I always had her blog in my "Wanna Hook Up" linking section. 

To straighten things up, I re-added her link for you all to find. Here is the link: https://paula-paulasplace.blogspot.com/ and she currently has a great post called "A Bad Year for Showoffs" you may want to check out.

In the meantime, here is a excellent picture of Paula.

Separation Anxiety

 It's never easy making the journey from one gender to another. I am biased but I think it is one of the most difficult things a human can do. 

Each of us has their own path they followed and fortunately I can share two ideas from Cyrsti's Condo readers who successfully Mtf gender transitioned.

The first comes from Paula: "I believe we go through a concentrated growing up process, those of us who transition later in life miss out on a female adolescence, we don't have benefit of either contemporaries or older women teaching us how to be women. we could observe from outside, we could watch but were never part of the sisterhood. In consequence we had a steep learning curve, I know I personally made many a teenage mistake, inappropriate hemlines, poor makeup, inappropriate personal interactions, all girls do the difference is I had to make these learning mistakes in my 50s! It can be a little embarrassing looking back on my early blog posts, the emphasis on clothes and makeup, all the photos but it is part of my process, part of my growing up, part of my history."

The second comes from Connie: "I've long held the theory that many trans women express their femininity, at least early on in their trans lives, based on what the male side of themselves find attractive. I'm not referring to autogynephilia, as this attraction is not necessarily sexual in nature. It may have something to do with separating one's female self from the male self, as well. That is, just as a trans woman may overcompensate to affect a more masculine facade while living in male-mode, she may overcompensate in her (idea of) femininity when in female-mode. That's may seem like bouncing from one caricature to the other, and, for me, was just not sustainable."

I too went through the separation phase of trying to please my former male self when it came to appearance. When I finally learned I should be dressing to blend and please other women, I finally was able to negotiate a feminine world much easier. 

Thanks to you both for your comments.

 

A Caricature?

 From disabled transgender poet Torrin A Greathouse:

"If we're not feminine enough, that is a failure. But if trans women are too feminine, that is also seen as a flaw. It is seen as a caricature of womanhood."

Where does that statement leave you? For me, it brings back memories of obsessing over every aspect of my feminine presentation. In fact, I have often written about the differences between my early posts here in Cyrsti's Condo as compared to my current offerings. Nearly all of the decade old posts have a definite  bias on every aspect of what I was wearing.  Perhaps I was presenting as too feminine and maybe I was a caricature myself. 

Of course time changes all of us and I was changed by the cis women I interacted with.  They brought a different feel to their femininity and one I happened to identify with.  All of a sudden finding exactly the correct accessory to wear when I met them wasn't the priority, communicating with them and the world became a real goal. I guess you could call it acceptance over accessories. Through it all, I was able to observe how they interacted with the world and my small tight-knit circle of friends ushered in my unique personal womanhood. 

In other words, I was able to escape the "caricature" mold Greathouse writes about by capturing what being a woman meant to me. Obviously there were surprises along the way. 

Overall though, I changed and was able to finally thrive. In no small deal thanks to all of them. 

They showed me the way out of the clothes into the real world and gave me confidence to live the life I had always dreamed of living. 

If you would want to read more of the "NPR" post with Torrin Greathouse, follow the link above. 

2020...It is What it Was

 As we conclude the year 2020, it's easy to remember all the negatives. Primarily all the lives which were affected by the virus. Either by death or lingering physical effects. 

Other negatives seemed to be extra tough on those of us who deal with gender dysphoria. All of a sudden we were forced back into our closets from a overabundance of fear. The only socially redeeming value was the mask we hid behind and the socially distanced space we were encouraged to keep helped us all to present more effectively to a questioning world. Even the most innocent dinners out I enjoyed so much turned into an increasingly scary experience. During the year, I learned the hard way how I relied on gender feedback from the public to justify my gender feelings.  

Through it all, there still were positives. One of which of course was Benedict Donald losing the election. Donnie it seemed was totally for taking all rights away from the transgender population, even to the point of erasing us. Hopefully we will see President Elect Biden reverse rumps terrible transgender military ban quickly. At the least, there is hope for the New Year. 

Then there is the vaccine. I know it is not an immediate cure all to the pandemic but again it is a positive place to start. 

Similar to so many others, I have put together a few New Years' resolutions for 2021. Among other things I plan on returning to my meditation, writing more and trying to schedule at least one time a month when Liz and I can safely venture out of the house. In fact, we have already reserved two spots for a socially distanced paranormal adventure at a haunted opera house in Kentucky in January. After all, we don't want to pass along the virus to the ghosts :).  

Most of all, I would like to say Thank You to all of you who stopped by Cyrsti's Condo in 2020. Your input and visits make it all worthwhile.

Have a happy and productive 2021! Cheers!!!

Merry Christmas!

 Of course, 2020 is throwing it's last best shot at us as we celebrate Christmas itself. 

Putting a big red bow on our Cyrsti's Condo Christmas past series, here is a look at a few of my past memories. 

Along the way, I was always the great procrastinator. I thrived on the pressure of finding a great gift at the last minute. So, all of the sudden, here I was out shopping in my fancy black pant's suit, blond wig and wool coat wondering just how much courage I could muster to pickup the perfect gift. 

As it turned out, the perfect gift that year turned out to be an oak book case which matched the oak roll top desk we had purchased for my wife earlier in the year. I ended up bravely going into an oak furniture store and finding what I was looking for. 

So far, I had done the easy part. Then I had to buy it and get it to the SUV and get it home. All before she returned home from work and I had to transition back to my guy self. 

Before all of that, I had to hitch up my big girl panties and approach a rather gruff guy to tell him what I wanted. Surprisingly enough, he smiled and offered to help me complete my purchase. Plus for the first time in my life, I didn't have to be the one who had to worry about carrying a heavy/bulky object to the SUV. My only task was opening the back of the vehicle. 

I made the fifty mile trip home in good shape, was able to find an ideal gift, and the saddest part of all, return to my boring male self before she returned home.

I hope this series of posts hasn't bored you too much. Plus I hope you have a festive and safe holiday season.