Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

"Ker Plunk!"  Welcome to the "Dad's Day" Edition here in the Condo.

Page 1.-Father's Day.  If you reside in the United States, you know of the Sunday we set aside for the Dad's in our lives- Father's Day.  Anyway you cut it, for many of us, the day has the tendency to become a bit awkward.

Yesterday I was flattered to be asked to join in when my partner Liz, her 16 year old son and her brother took their very frail 88 year old Dad out for a Father's Day lunch- a day early to avoid the rush.  The server handled it correctly when he simply said "Happy Father's Day" to all who happened to be fathers at the table.

Personally, I don't know what else I could ever be to my daughter than her father. But, still the situation could get award I suppose if my friends said "did you have a good Father's Day Cyrsti?"  I certainly didn't give birth to my kid, really don't identify with "father" anymore and love her too much to say "sperm donor" - so identifying with the "parent" word is just fine.

All you "Pops" who read the Condo though- I hope your family's still accept you and however you identify-you have a good Father's Day.

Lee Pace as Calpernia Addams

Page 2.- Movie Review.  I am almost ashamed to say this, but I saw the Showtime movie "Soldier's Girl" in it's entirety last night It's the 2003 Canadian-American drama film produced by Showtime and based on a true story - the relationship between Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams and the events that led up to Barry's murder by fellow soldiers  In a move that would be roundly disliked today, male actor Lee Pace starred as Calpernia Addams instead of Calpernia herself or an actual transgender woman actress.
                                                


Calpernia- shown to the right.

If you haven't seen it...it's like watching the "Titanic"-you know what is going to happen and it was not going to be pretty. But Pace, on the other hand did a terrific job as well as several others of the actors involved.

I suppose to me, much of the movie was like "well, you would have had to have been there" I was- kind of. Mainly,  Addams and Winchell met up at Ft. Campbell in Kentucky and years earlier I went through basic at Ft. Knox, also in Kentucky...so as a transgender vet I certainly knew of the mind set they faced.

Two other spots in the movie tore me up (other than the obvious one when her lover was killed.) One was the first time Winchell kissed Calpernia and almost got physically sick when he found out she was a pre opt transgender woman.  In the past I did have a guy who spit on the floor when he kissed me....and...the scene at the very end when Pace/Calpernia was interviewed by the news media and introduced as "Private Winchell's cross dressing friend."  Pace played it well with a pause and a glare and finally said - yes I am his cross dressing friend.

If you haven't seen it, grab some extra popcorn and/or a friend and sit down and watch it! Plus if you haven't seen, there are some incredible transformation video's on YouTube

The Back Page...This week's "back page" will also be a front page first look at next week's Cyrsti's Condo focuses. 
Among other issues, we will talk about TGLBQ Pride month and what it means to us, the Le Dame Footwear special and why I am being called back in after my mammogram on Friday.
In the meantime, all of you have a great week and thanks for making the Condo a place you visit!

If it Walks Like a Duck, Looks Like a Duck, is it a Duck?

I started to write this Cyrsti's Condo post after I read someone's comment (I paraphrase), if she was able to interact with women - as a woman- does that make her a woman?  Good question and way too complex to discuss in one post-or ten.

Since the venerable "sex is between the legs" and "gender is between the ears" quote is beginning to go the route of most other "discussions" in the transgender community - into bickering hell, I had to try to come up with something different to toss into the mix.  Eventually I went from hell no that's too easy, to why not? She just could be on to something. If gender is a perception held mainly from others, then she is a woman because she is perceived as one plus she perceives herself as one. Finally, I came away with one certainty,  all the thinking made my head hurt!  Remember the old cheap shot, "look at the head on that?" What would have Einstein thought? Is that what happened to his hair?

As I said though, I didn't plan on continuing to write on the vague concepts above.  (Aren't you lucky?) Instead, a mere three word question got my attention, "are you (me) a pre opt transsexual?"  Well, in the strictest of terms yes and no.  Yes, because of totality of my lifestyle and No, because I don't feel the need for surgery (SRS).

That's as simplistic as my backward noggin can make it.  Without another headache of course!

Roberta Close

Roberta Close was born in Rio de Janeiro on 7 December 1964 and is a Brazilian model.  she was the first pre-operative transsexual model to have posed for the Brazilian edition of Playboy and  is probably Brazil's most famous transsexual woman. From Wickipedia:

"Roberta Close was born under the name of Luiz Roberto Gambine Moreira, and as an adolescent, began to adopt feminine attire and secretly began taking female hormone injections. By the age of seventeen, Close's career as a model and actress was beginning to take off. Close won the "Miss Gay Brazil" beauty pageant at the age of twenty. That same year, she made headlines and was dubbed "The world's most beautiful model". She has played a cabaret singer on a popular soap opera, starred in the 1986 movie Si tu vas a Rio... tu meurs, hosted a late night talk show, and was the inspiration for a hit song by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos.

In 1989, Close underwent sex reassignment surgery at Charing Cross Clinic in London, England. Afterwards, she appeared in an extensive photo spread in the Brazilian men's magazine Sexy, and was subsequently voted the "Most Beautiful Woman in Brazil."

This Cyrsti's Condo big screen video will give you an idea why!   ** Warning parts of this video have a dose of Brazilian "spice" and get the kids out of the room!