Jazz Jennings

I picked this up from my Yahoo News Feed this morning:

Nearly a year after reality TV and YouTube star Jazz Jennings revealed that she plans to undergo “bottom surgery,” the transgender activist has a big announcement to share with fans: She’s going to have the surgery later this month.

Jennings, 17, shared the news on her YouTube vlog on Monday. “I’m so looking forward to it. I’ve been looking forward to this my entire life,” she said. Jennings said that it’s important for her to share her journey with the public to help educate others about the process. “If I put out this information for people to see, they won’t need to ask any more questions.” She continued, “And also, it’s educational within the community as well. A lot of parents who have transgender kids are like, ‘What do I do? I don’t know much about this process.’ And seeing our show kind of helps them figure out what steps they could take to help their kids and what the journey might look like in the future.”

While it's great Jazz is getting to achieve her goal of going through the surgery, it is also worth noting most transgender youth don't enjoy the amount of parental, financial and passing privilege Jazz has.

It's Back to School Time Around Here

As the kids go back to school in various waves around here, I have been sadly reminded of how life has NOT changed for so many of our LGBTQ youthful sisters and brothers.

I know a 15 year old trans kid who is positively dreading going back to school because of senseless bullying at the hands of class mates. I mean where are the teachers in some of these schools and are the inmates running the asylum?

I know there are bright and shining examples of acceptance here and there, but I know it's tough for parents to get many of their kids into those schools who live in rural Ohio areas. And, even though the parents care deeply for their children it's not possible to find the best alternative to sinking or swimming.

My heart goes to the families.

Kids who are bullies have parents who are bullies and everyone else suffers.

Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

KerPlunk! Another Sunday edition is hitting your virtual front porch! We are experiencing another very "normal" summer Sunday here in Southwestern Ohio-complete with loud "thunder-boomers" in the middle of the night. For no particular reason, we are drinking our "Joe" hot (coffee) this morning. Grab a cup and let's get started.

Page One.-The Week that Was or Wasn't.- Transgender kids came front and center again-a good thing!  The TLC network (for once) featured a show which didn't feature a child molester family such as the Duggars and/or Honey Boo's Mom and promoted their upcoming trans superstar teen "Jazz Jennings"  

Page Two.- Party Girl.- This weekend was my youngest grandson's birthday. The party proved a very uneventful coming out affair for me and a very fun time for the eight year old party boy. To put it easily, I was only mispronounced once and didn't feel much different one way or another around all of them. One thing that did help though was Liz calling me Cyrsti at every turn and both using the "she" pronoun with me. Plus, in what I call the transgender coming out "ripple effect", my daughter's Sister in Law is from Cincinnati and is ready willing and able to go out with Liz and I to eat and enjoy an adult beverage. Each person who knows and embraces a trans person is where real change beings.

Page Three.- Health is everything! The best news this week for me personally was being pretty much given a clean bill of health on some of my "innards" the docs were looking at. Now, I know at 66, anything can happen but I will take any good news I can get! (Yay!)

Page Four.- The Back Page.- It's been fun kids, but today after we get moving, excitement will include, buying some more very addictive chocolate covered coffee beans, maybe try some salt and vinegar dried crickets and finally color my hair (again). As always, thanks for being my guest here in the Condo!!!! You all are the best!!! 

Portraits of Transgender Kids

In 2003, Susan Wong began documenting children in her native Netherlands> Her work led to “Inside Out: Portraits of Cross-Gender Children,” with text by the Dutch medical journalist Ellen de Visser. The book, which came out in the Netherlands in 2010, follows children who have changed or are in the process of changing their gender and includes multiple portraits of them over the course of seven years.

For the complete article -go here.



 Shown to the right, Jasmin at age 9 and 17.

Drag Queen Barbie

No this time it is not you or another transgender kid putting a dress on a Ken Doll.
This is a new Barbie which is just happening to be compared to model/designer Phillipe Blond. (shown above)

While it's uplifting and fun to think this represents a real change in the basic idea of gender specific toys for kids- remember Mattel is not (of course marketing the doll as Drag Queen Barbie) and this is a collectors doll and retails for 125.00 dollars.

Back to School

It's tough enough to send your child off to the first day of school.
Can you imagine the emotions you would feel if your child was transgender?
What a statement the parents and the transgender kids make when they do it.
I don't understand though how anyone could doubt how deep gender dysphoria (or what ever you want to label it) runs inside us.
Taking the courage a step further, when these parents and trans kids make such a courageous statement- it's such a tremendous move for all of us.
To compare it to the gay or lesbian community, you have people such as Anderson Cooper or the female Olympic athletes who are getting married...publically.
The most common move in the transgender or transsexual community is switching closets and going stealth.