A Trans Girl's Guide to Eating Out

My qualifications to write this post go back many years to a 30+ year career in the commercial restaurant business. I have seen trans women in my venues as well (of course) dining in others.

Here you go:

1.- Be nice and talkl.  I'm sure many of you think, Cyrsti, this is common sense.  It is, until I expand on it.  Before I even began to journey out into the world as a woman frequently, the cross dressers/transgender girls who my staff's waited on, drew extra attention to themselves by being too quiet.  I was guilty of it too, during my early ventures.  What happens is, you may be quiet, scared to death and shy-which comes off to the world as you maybe doing something wrong.

2.- Tip well.- Especially, in the current ultra competitive climate, food employees would serve Martians if they minded their own business, were pleasant and tipped well.  As transgender women, we are in an ideal spot to make a great impression because so many people don't make them. An example was,  in the restaurants I ran, the "after church" crowd on Sunday was notoriously difficult to deal with.  Look at it this way, unless you are an extremely passable trans woman, you will be remembered.  Make your impressions good ones and you will be welcome.

3.- Trouble in Paradise.- Just when you are thinking all is well when you are heading out for a nice meal, beware of the predatory 50+ something genetic female.  It used to be we thought teen aged girls were the worst group of humans we could face.  This is the same group all grown up They are still in the same blissful state of transgender ignorance suffered from in their teens and are still our biggest problem. Young girls today either know "one of us", are informed about us, or just don't care.  My latest example of 50 something genetic bigotry was just last Friday night.  As Liz and I were blissfully enjoying our food and company, two women just had to S&S- Stare and Smirk.  Outside of aggravating me, I don't let ignorance ruin my evenings anymore but  women like this can throw more than stupidity at you. Such as:

4.-Rest Room Pass.- It is human nature.  When you eat and drink, you may have to potty and are easy prey for an S&S er out to save the world for morality.  Of course you have a couple alternatives.  Hold it and don't go, just throw your shoulders back and the girls out and head confidently to the restroom or watch where the bigots are heading.

5.- Go Back.- As I said, if you like a place, return and begin to establish yourself as a regular.  As you do, all kinds of good things can happen.  These days, a progressive business embraces diversity which includes the TGLBQ community.  I have never minded being the token transgender person.  If possible, find another person to go with you.  Nothing gives you more credibility.  An example is when Liz and I go out, she is totally oblivious to the possibility I may be facing negative feedback.  Which is fine, I fight my own battles.  Finally, especially with my restaurant background, at all costs I try to respect the owners or management of the venue and be welcomed back.

So there you go kids, I'm sure many of you have welcome hints of your own!  Be sure to pass them along.  Bon Appetite! 

Just Playing Around

I have a tendency to get all "snarky" when things don't work around Cyrsti's Condo like my Wi-Fi, or when I read about genetic females who think that being a woman was a birth right and dislike me. So....it's play time!!!

Picture #1.-  
The girl to the left is thinking WOW we really set him up for success in the womanless pageant - He's thinking Prom!

Picture #2.- I am too genetic!!!!!!!!!!! Dammit!

The Moving Parts of a Woman

Disclaimer! I shop for two things I use to ship my Etsy and Ebay items from a certain leading big box store which I feel has done more to destroy the inner fabric of America than any other.  I refer to them as the "Nazi's" and I buy regionally produced cardboard boxes at literally pennies on the dollar and Scotch Tape.

This morning as I went to the shipping section at the Nazi's, I had a rare chance to see two women in my town at the same time who made the almost "beautiful" category.  First of all, I am and have been a "student" of women. I have said and written many times on how long it took me to figure out why I didn't have a sexual attraction to genetic females per se' but wanted so badly to be one. To have the hair flowing in the breeze, to be able to fill out a tight pair of jeans or shirt without padding.

This morning I mentally stopped to consider the many moving parts a woman has to contend with and how I was checking them down in my mind- and finally how did all of this relate to me a transgender woman on HRT.

Obviously, I don't live in Hollywood or down in Miami where all the very beautiful people are. Actually, I don't fare too badly with the lot of genetic women around here who do nothing for themselves physically. So I don't know if that is good or bad.

Plus a woman's look is like a poker hand. You hold some good cards like breasts, hair or legs but lose the hand in other areas like face or proportion.  If you care, naturally you try to build up the positives and bluff the opponent into thinking you have the winning hand.

You know I have heard seemingly 16 zillion times from my genetic women friends "welcome to our world".  I know it's all in good fun but sometimes I don't think they realize I'm a "A"  student of their world and loving to finally get some on the job training.

A big part of the training is knowing "parts is not parts" when you are talking about a woman.  Any sort of skill I can acquire in the big picture furthers the success of my "moving parts".

Welcome to my World!

Back in my "princess" days , expressing my gender "separation" was simply how good I was looking in the mirror. My cross dressing was new exciting and extremely frustrating.

As I gender evolved and I began to truly understand who I was,  the path I needed to take became clearer. Looking back over the lessons learned and not learned, I sometimes feel I only have enough knowledge to make myself dangerous. For that reason, I'm always on the outlook for more. An example would have been the small all female friend birthday party I was invited to. Why do women do this so much different than men?

One of the biggest problems I have is knowing which of my feminine gender expectations are real or misconceptions. When one of my genetic female friends says "Welcome to my world",  I take for granted the lesson is real. Then I make it my passion to have a better understanding of what "their" world is. Normally the "obvious" isn't the true picture. I know I'm not covering earth shattering ground here. Any of you trans guys reading this are thinking DUH Cyrsti what is ever obvious about a woman? From both sides of the gender fence guys, I can tell you there are reasons all of us feel that way...all three genders.

Here's where I am going with this.  I'm fond of reading and passing along snippets of information from Ginger's Total Image Consultants site. I found the "Lose Your Self-Consciousness" post to be especially relevant. As transgender women or trans men we certainly have every reason in the world to be extra self conscious about our selves.  If women as a gender are more likely to be self conscious, aren't we more likely to be less obvious? As trans women this is a double edged sword because our self image is so important to how we present to the world.

To help, here's a bit of advice from Ginger's blog which is linked above:

"The funny thing about being yourself is that you have to lose your self-consciousness — the habit of judging yourself — in order to do it. You need to become so immersed in the moment and within yourself, that you begin to channel your pure creative spirit. It’s in this empowered state that we’re able to not only do our best work, but also experience the blissful joy of creative expression. As we link up with the Divinity in the present moment, we naturally connect with each other — the greater Oneness of all. That’s when the fun begins. Learning to be fully ourselves without concern for the reactions, judgments, or expectations of others is a life-long journey. Regardless of how confident and self-possessed you are there will always be times in life when you feel vulnerable and afraid to be yourself. That’s called living as a human being on planet earth. The important thing to remember is that self-consciousness is about you – not other people."

At some point of time, I can't wait to say "No! Welcome to my world"!

"Dorkism" Part Two

My friend Shelle  lle" was kind enough to comment on my "Dork" post here in Cysti's Condo and to compliment me. So nice!
As always my overactive noggin began to think about the socialization of our inner selves...in our cases mostly girl selves.

To the uninitiated,  females are the warm and fuzzy side of humans.  In reality, their interactions with each other are much more complex than males and often as a group women do have a stronger internal toughness. I found out early on to always be on guard for a negative transphobic public interactions from  women.

What really surprised me though were the negative reactions on line from transsexual women who had gone through SRS.

I try so hard to use these negatives to socialize my inner dork. They are wonderful role models of who not to be.  One problem I do have is a genetic switch of sorts from my Mom to overcome.  Of course I love and respect her for what she was but "warm and fuzzy" does not come to mind. She was a great role model on how not to understand others.

As I throw all these life experiences in a blender (including male ones) hopefully the result will be healthy.
I am a believer in reincarnation and hopefully heading to a higher level after this life.  Hopefully, all this craziness will get me there!

I Married a Cross Dresser!

No! Not me!!! What would possess a person do do something like that!! Just kidding.

One of the genetic female sites (I think) is called xoJane and their recent "It Happened to Me" topic was I married a Cross Dresser. Truly the post didn't end like I thought it would.
I won't ruin it for you. Go here to find out.

As I continued to look at the site I found an even more interesting contest entry which will be in my next post!

Sports and the Trans Girl

Last night was sports night with two of my **girlfriends.
Unbelievably the NFL season is winding down and the much maligned Thursday night games are over. Just so happened the final involved a team two of us follow closely and the rival of our other friend. So the scene was set for her to root against us.
The fun part about this is both of them is  neither are quiet people and they know their sports. Plus the rebellious inner me says "Ha! It is possible to express my feminine side in jeans with other friends."  290 years ago the "sisters of the cloth" who turned their cross dressing noses up at me were wrong. But hey, I don't hold a grudge much past 250 years!
Truly, I didn't sit down to say who was right or wrong. After all it's an individual's choice. One girl's coffee and chat (transgender or not) is another girl's big draft beer and wings. Isn't that the fun part of being humans?
Back to the game. We won!  What happened next though was what struck me as the feminine spin on the whole night. Both of them wanted to know what would happen to our night of course sports was just an excuse to get together for some fun. Not to add too much drama to all of this but maybe we were no different than the cave women from different caves watching the men bringing home the "beast" of the day for dinner. After dinner and the huge bones were tossed to the dogs maybe the women made plans to socialize again. ( No I am not that old!)
Only the technology has changed.

**All my posts in Cyrsti's Condo will tell you when I'm dealing with a transgender woman. If I say "woman" I am referring to a genetic female.

Outing your Stealth

This post is more un-original content but is as complex as the stealth question seems to be.
From the University of Montana comes the story of a transgender coed who ending up dancing with a male student who reportedly didn't know of her gender identification.
In a classic case of he said-she said the incident ended up in a beating for the coed and a restraining order against the male student. You can read an account of it here from The Missoulian.
My point is how responsible we are as trans women or men to out ourselves? Who knows?
I'm far from attractive enough and far from young enough to say attend a dance by myself or meet a man in a public situation where he doesn't know I'm trans.
If I was, I'm afraid I would attempt it even though I know it's wrong and extremely dangerous. I'm a firm believer in many violence cases against trans humans happen when we surprise the opposite gender (men).
So obviously I don't have the answer except I know my genetic female friends would point out very few of them would put themselves in the situation of the Montana coed to start with. They would want proof of how she was dressed and was she attending the dance by herself?
Then again I know some reasons she would.
What complex lives we live!

Trans Surfing

Over the course of Cyrsti's Condo's I have tried to pass along milestones which have shaped my transgender world.
From our dusty archives I pulled this post from a couple years ago:


"I had a great time last night with two women (genetic).  I was invited to a "girl's night out" for lite dinner and drink. Both of them are in their mid 20's and quite attractive. My best case was to be mistaken for a mom or older sister. I didn't know the worst case was to become invisible!
 We had unknowingly made plans at an upscale pub/eatery at an outdoor mall in the area. The only problem was the mall was staging a free "Gin Blossom" concert at the same time and the place was PACKED. I know I don't present as female to all the folks all the time so I judge my success or failure on percentages. My unofficial tally was that I got busted by about 5 people out of 100. I'll take that!
 As soon as we left the bar and went to our table, I stopped worrying because I became invisible! My mother in law years ago had told me about something like this.
 My sister in law used to be really attractive and Mom said she rarely even got a glance when she was with her. I had never experienced such a thing. After all, last night was my first time out with two young attractive women. They had several guys stop by the table to chat and they never even looked my direction! In fact one guy never looked at either one of us. He only talked to the one friend at the table. Hell it didn't matter if I was transgender, pink or green! Actually, I'm not upset and the evening was a great success. I was fortunate to learn another little lesson on how the "other half" lives."

I wonder if either of them ever knew how much the evening meant to me!

I Ruined my Thermostat!

I was warned by my genetic female friends.
However, I did not see any warning on my Spiro and Estrogen bottles fine print: "Warning! These meds can ruin your thermostat!
You could argue that all of my sarcastic years of making fun of women being too cold on a warm summer day or too warm in the middle of winter were just a giant Karma mistake. Unfortunately I have been known to toss a rock or two in a glass house. It's just a defective gene I have among several.
My internal thermostat now is on the outs. A ten degree temperature swing can now take me from being in a furnace to jumping into an ice bath.
Now I wonder about my cherished idea of moving north for the winter into the balmy Lake Superior region. Not too long ago I told an acquaintance about the idea (another transgender girl on HRT). She said I may want to wait as she has become far less tolerant to the winter chill of the Chicago area.
Maybe she's right and I'm looking for the fine print again on those pill bottles.
Perhaps my thermostat is under warranty?

Female Bonding

Every now and then I will run into a genetic female who wants to chat about my transgender status.
At some point in the conversation, she will want to know what I think are the biggest changes I have been through and what I have felt about them. Know she will. It's all good. Just bonding with the girls.
The answers are easy.  We go down the feminine checklists of skin, breasts, moods etc.
Then the fun starts. The next round of questions involves periods, bloating, and hot flashes. AND
it's all well and good to feminize your body BUT what about not experiencing monthly periods, bloating, PMS etc.
What can I say?
My simple answer is "only females bleed".
Never have had a menstrual period...never will. It is a deal breaker with them? Not usually if they are grounded human beings. This point is always a great spot to toss in-  gender is between the ears and sex is between the legs factoid and a female is not necessarily a woman.
Bottom line: Has it made my life easier or harder than theirs since I didn't bleed? Can't tell you.

Thunder Thighs?

Perhaps you have heard a genetic female friend of yours use this highly derogatory term to describe their thighs.
It was my understanding the HRT would begin to effect my thigh and rear areas  approximately 12 months into the process.
The good news is that I'm starting to see the weight shift beginning to show now.
I knew my women's jeans were starting to fit much better and I'm making a shrine of sorts to the foam pads I used to wear.
So "thunder thighs"? No.
Filling out the right pair of jeans? Yes!