We Got Mail!

In response to a recent Cyrsti's Condo blog post "What's in a Name Change?" 

CarolineFebruary 3, 2015 at 12:31 PM

Hard to decide which is the toughest part of transition, hair removal or the paperwork... It is my third post op birthday and it is still not all fixed...

Thanks Caroline! I love it when any of you take your time to share experiences and knowledge! Not to be depressing, but I believe a gender transition ends when you do.  And hopefully (Connie) before your name on the death certificate!

Not a Sprint - a Marathon

All too often we read the sad story of a person in our community who thought running off to Thailand for SRS would represent an end to their the MtF transitioning process. In fact, as they later discover,  their transition may have only been the beginning and they are miserable.

The process truly is a marathon, not a sprint. Take a quick look at this video example of an eight year transition on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Dedicated to the ones I Love

I have two very close friends embarking on a similar journey:

Jumping Closets Part 200

You all know how my stealth soapboxes here in Cyrsti's Condo are some of my favorites to pull out and preach from.
I finally came to my own little neat and tidy stereotype that stealth is simply jumping from one closet to another. You were in hiding before, and still are.  I say stereotype because of course there are all sorts of shades of gray with this issue.

The Transadvocate site is running a very good in depth series of discussions on the subject called "You're Only as Transitioned and Stealth as the Next Person says your Aren't.

Here's the Editors Note to give you a quick look:

"Editor’s Note: This is part of a series on “stealth.” The goal of this series to examine the nuanced ways trans opinion leaders conceptualize stealth and how they feel about it. Suzan Cooke kicked off the series with her article, The Many Shades of Stealth. It should be noted that TA is not endorsing any one view, definition or conceptualization. As with the elephant parable, each perception presented in this series represents one representation of the truth; taken together, it’s hoped that this series will provide a more comprehensive conceptualization of stealth and what it means to an oppressed community. Articles in this series: The Many Shades of Stealth | A Rant About MTF “Stealth” | Passing and Stealth: Two Words We Should Lose? | Stealth Doesn’t Help The Trans Community | You’re Only as Transitioned and Stealth as the Next Person Says You Aren’t. "

Follow the link above for the article.

And...A New Era Begins

This post is the continuation of the family Thanksgiving story I recently passed along.

As you may know or remember, my daughter has been a huge proponent of my transgender transition and my son in law has followed.

Before she and the grand kids took off last night my daughter took me off guard by insisting I join her and her girlfriends at a special show they attend every year by the "Ruby Girls" drag act where we live. Let me point out while I'm out to her and she has seen pictures of me we have never been together one on one.

After my brief panic attack subsided, I decided it was time again to "hitch up my big girl panties" and do it. Hell yes my daughter and I at a drag show and her friends? Scratch the panic and get on with the fun.

Let the new Era begin with a flourish!

Smell and the Trans Girl

Recently, I seemed to have rediscovered a long lost sense of smell. "Back in the day" before the EPA started to regulate certain industries, I worked a summer job in a plating plant.
Very simply, I cadium and chrome plated electric fan parts in various open hot acid baths.  No masks...just there doing it. For years I believed the whole process hurt my sense of smell, until now.
Quite possibly you have heard of the sense of smell as part of human sexual attraction - specifically the female.
Now I'm not saying I have any heightened sexual attraction when I'm close to certain men but I can say I have been noticing odors such as tobacco and other smells as they walk by. For example I can smell a guy who works as a car mechanic.
The only way I can explain this new set of senses I have are the hormones I'm taking and the transgender transition process.
I actually have been quite socially dense most of my life so all of this has been quite the surprise.
It's no wonder I've seen women recoil and run when a guy walks by who just took a bath in aftershave lotion.

Your Transition Tube

As you all know, every now and then I like to pass along a YouTube Video which seems to stand out from the rest of the huge number of transgender transition vids. I so wish the medium would have been around in the "dark information" ages when I grew up!