Behind Every Actor Playing a Trans Role...

Is an even better transgender woman training him. Or at least with Jared Leto, in the Dallas Buyer's Club.
From Fusion:


Oscars season is coming up, which means we’re about to shower actors with awards and praise for their work. But the people who help them portray such stirring roles are rarely recognized. Calpernia Addams (left) is one of those people. “I recorded all of his lines from the script and he listened to that audio for months during his preparation,” explained Addams. 

Actor Jared Leto used her audio to prepare for the role of Rayon, a transgender woman living with HIV in the 1980s in the film “Dallas Buyers Club.” Leto’s performance helped he and the film earn six Oscar nods. This isn’t the first time Addams has helped A-list actors portray transgender characters. After 4 years as a field medic in the Navy, Addams came out as a transgender woman. Since then, she’s been an activist for transgender rights and was even portrayed in the movie “Soldier’s Girl,” a film about her relationship with Navy Private First Class Barry Winchell and his brutal murder. 

Addams’ first Hollywood experience was training actor Lee Pace to play her in the film. She’s since consulted for Felicity Huffman and, most recently, Leto. Addams draws from her own experience as a transgender woman. Her coaching goes beyond portrayal: Addams wants her clients to have a deep emotional and psychological understanding of what it’s like to be a trans person in the U.S.

Read more here.

My Husbands Looks Better in Lingerie?

Here's the full title: “My HUSBAND Looks Better in Lingerie Than I Do . . . DAMN IT”. It is a new book which actually has a target release date of Spring 2014, and is a companion memoir to “Hung in the Middle: A Journey of Gender Discovery” written Alana Nicole Sholar.

Here's more from Alana's spouse:


I had been friends with Alan for nearly 30 years and our past included a three-year intimate relationship. However, when I saw ‘Alana’ for the first time in December 2006, I told ‘her’ I thought she was a freak and I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Two years later, December 31, 2008, we were married. (Alana tells her side of our story in her memoir and you can read Chapter 1 at her book’s website). Of course, my response to Alana came from MY ignorance and lack of experience with the trans-community. 

We live in a small town in Kentucky, so there is much ignorance and lack of experience with the trans-community in this area. It is our hope that sharing our journey together can help eliminate the ignorance and foster acceptance of trans-persons, not only in our small town, but all over the world. However, acceptance is not instantaneous – it comes through a process – at least it did for me. My process began at intolerance, advanced to tolerance, eventually became acceptance and grew into love. I’m a Kentucky girl raised in the Baptist faith and would have never dreamed I’d be such a staunch advocate for the trans-community, BUT, here I am – and mine is a ‘wonderful world.’

I am especially impressed and interested in this wonderful couple's story because of their proximity geographically to where I live.  So, I know quite a bit about the populace around them. I'm not going out on too much of a limb by saying, gaining transgender acceptance by anyone is not an easy path.

If you, like me, want to read more , follow the link above!

Bond...Justin Vivian

I love!!! this site title:  Paper  "On the front lines of cultural chaos since 1984" Wow! That says it all!

Just as fun was Paper's recent interview with Justin Vivian Bond (left)on being an arrogant feminist and the problem with NYC Pride here are a couple of my favorites and of course you can read the entire interview here.

Night of a Thousand Judys (of course they are)-- the charity variety show which celebrates all things Judy Garland -- is happening tonight (with tickets still available here) and they've got quite the line-up. Of the many performers who will grace the stage and give their best Judy, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond may just be having the biggest moment. And:

"Mx America is my show that came about from this quote, which is by my friend's father: "You can tell the depth of a person's tragedy by the amount of space between how they see themselves and how they're seen by others." I thought that as a trans person and as an American, that was an interesting notion. So I decided to address that in a cabaret form. It's just me. And the good thing about this Mx America is that there's no competition -- I'm already the winner! You
can enter with real confidence knowing you're going to win."

Nice!!!

Trans Troops

As a transgender vet, one of my priorities here in Cyrsti's Condo is passing along any transgender related service news I can find.
Much of it comes from OutServe Magazine.

This story from OutServe certainly has a "been there-done it" ring to it.  But in this one Evan Young comes from the different side of the gender fence for most of us trans girls here. You see, Evan is a transgender man in the military:

"Underneath my cover, I walk a straight line, returning salutes as I pass. A sergeant salutes and says, “Good morning, Sir.” A warm glow flushes my cheeks, and I reply, “Good morning!” Closer to work a familiar face draws near and salutes; “Good morning, Ma’am.” A heavy feeling of discontent weighs on me, and I return the salute with the grudging reply, “Good morning.” I am a transgender military officer.

Outside of work, I live my life as a man. Once on post, I am female. My short hair and manly features present an androgynous and confusing appearance. I grew up in Arkansas, and knew that many outsiders perceived women there as “barefoot and pregnant” rednecks. That stereotype drove me to move out of the state and join the Army. I wanted to be on an equal footing with men. I found new confidence along the way as my drive to exceed expectations helped me rise through the ranks. Yet, I always had the feeling of being a second class soldier because of my gender. Males have confidence ingrained in them at an early age. Men are encouraged to stand up for themselves and speak their mind. When they don’t, they are often labeled effeminate or called derogatory terms such as faggot or princess. The “stereotypical male” role is enforced by men as well as women. A woman speaking to a man that seems effeminate will treat him differently."

I have several transgender veteran friends who have wondered with me what life would be like in today's military as a trans person-walking a precarious gender line.

To read more of Evan's insight,  look here.

Horror Scope!

ALREADY kids it's time for another "Horror Scope" here in Cyrsti's Condo. Here we go!

Libra (September 23 - October 22)
" You’re going to have to get creative to save face, as showmanship is going to matter and dealing sternly with a certain someone needs to happen. After all, your fate is now dangling from a string and you know you can’t take these thrills any longer. Not to say you want your life to end in a stalemate, but just being able to stay still isn’t a luxury right now."

Way too many "action words" in this one! I'm lost in the scope but you don't have be lost in yours. To get it from theFrisky go here. While you are there take a look at the article "Why a straight guy cares about transgender rights."
Here's one excerpt:

Here’s why I take transgender issues personally… Because I or someone I love might get cancer at some point, and a trans person who is capable of discovering the cure is otherwise occupied defending their right to exist. I live in a world that needs leadership, and a smart, tireless trans person who should maybe be President is busy arguing that they deserve basic human respect. I want to drive a fucking flying car someday, and the trans person who might invent it is stuck responding to Guardian editorials that treat them like they’re subhuman."

 And this:   " But these fights aren’t anyone else’s struggle. They’re mine, too. They belong to all of us because the only way the world ever gets better is when people are able to use their talents to make better things for the rest of us to enjoy. And that doesn’t happen much when those talented people are busy fighting for their own survival."

It's encouraging of course to read this and more encouraging to see a site such as theFrisky to use it!

Transgender Activist

Carla Delgado Gómez was born July 12, 1959 in Güímar, Tenerife, Canary Islands. She is a Canarian-Spanish actress who uses the stage name Carla Antonelli. She is also a noted LGBT rights activist who maintains a large support website for transgender and transsexual people, and on May 22, 2011, Antonelli was elected on the list of the Spanish Socialist Party to the Assembly of the Community of Madrid, becoming the first trans person elected to a legislature in Spain.