When More is More

I you have probably noticed, I have sort of been on this fashion and style binge lately. Most of it is because spring weather has finally sprung in my part of the world and it's time for me to look ahead to my second summer of serious transgender transition. This I know for sure. I went from a summer furnace to a winter freezer and I have no reason to believe I won't be in the furnace again this summer. It is time to prepare for "air cooled" fashion.

I've been going through my closet looking for sleeveless and tank tops which I think are still good fashion staples for my summer wardrobe. Long flowing light skirts are good and fun too. All of that is good but then I remembered an old advertising slogan which went something like this:  "Your biggest fashion accessory this summer will be your skin".  How true, more is more when it comes to my skin- legs, arms and all.

I am fortunate my HRT has lessened my body hair tremendously except my beard..  On the negative side, last summer taught me to stock up on the body lotions to help the overall feel and look of my skin. I also am not a fan of panty hose, so I need to provide some color to my snow white legs.

Finally it's also time to get to work on feet and get them ready for summer shoe fashion if I want to go the sandal or the flip flop route.

More is always more for me when I procrastinate and wait for spring to magically appear.  Well. it's here and I have more to do!

Guess Whose Coming to Dinner

I can't believe it has been almost a week now since I (yes I) went to Sunday dinner with my gf's father, brother and son.

She has been pushing me to do it for quite sometime now and I finally figured why not? Actually her 15 year old son has known me for awhile and he is quite accepting and brother is a successful professional so I figured two out of three were in the bag. The wild card was Dad.  He is a card carrying NRA conservative 87 year old and carries that go to hell if you don't like me attitude of most guys of that age. Also like most men of that age he can't hear or see too well which helped me out!

He got the ball rolling quickly when we arrived at his apartment and the first thing he said about me was "bring her over here so I can take a better look".  I was a little nervous and wanted to ask if I could take a hit off of his oxygen tank but actually I didn't have to. He did his best to include me in the family conversations.

We soon took off and went to a nearby steak house for dinner and before I knew it the day was over.  Ironically, every time I think my transition process is reaching some sort of plateau something comes along to prove I'm still just getting started.

In some ways, I hope my life always stays this way.  As the old paranoia's of the past encounters with the public begin to fade, I can finally experience the true essence of  the gender I should have always been.

You "Make" a Good Looking Woman

As I look back at my transition process in the early stages, one of the most difficult ideas to overcome was the idea that I made a good looking woman. All semantics aside, I don't think I ever had the power to make a woman.

My problem was of course I was being compared to the man I was. Now before you may be thinking I'm being a total brat-hear me out.

First of all, I was truly lost.  Sure the compliments would send me into vanity heaven for weeks but in truth the "buzz" was similar to what I experience when I eat a couple of my favorite cookies.  The sugar high just turns into empty calories and is gone all too soon. Looking back of course I was searching for my true transgender feelings,. Deep down I knew my cross dressing was just a quick fix and refused to face it.

Following up on my last post, I slowly but surely began to open my closet door. On occasion I did it the right way but other times I was terrible. I pulled some stunts on my wife I will always regret. On the positive side though I went out into the world as a woman by mutual agreement. We enjoyed enough of an income that I could take my clothes and makeup with me, get a motel room change and spend the day out and about.

The absolute most stunning realization was I just couldn't do this as just a another faceless person in public.  Quickly I learned I had to interact with the public. Going back to the last post, these weren't the people at the cross dressing meetings I went to or the people at gay venues-these were strangers who expected some sort of response from me as a perceived woman or even trans woman. To make matters more complicated, these encounters were normally always different.  An example would a stranger asking me for directions followed my a clerk asking me for my size.

No matter how good or bad, big or small these public interactions were, I would take them home with me and build off of them. Also, before I forget to tell you all this was occurring over years. Slowly but surely though my whole thought pattern was beginning to take on a different idea of who I was. I was fitting more and more into that newer transgender niche. During this time of discovery, I was starting to really stretch the boundaries of being a woman in the world. Shopping turned into lunch, lunch turned into going places I had never been before and finally to my first visit at night to a busy casual dining restaurant.

Was this process tough? Of course it was. No matter how the early compliments of being an attractive woman echoed in my head. There were (and are) people who took great delight in letting me know I wasn't. On the other hand, I found the power of feminine socialization overcame the narrow minded idiots.

Again and again my message to any of you who may be in the same spot I was in years ago is somehow, someway you have to find a way to try to live it. Who knows, if you do you may find you are content to be a cross dresser. As I continually stress there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and you may be able to hold your life together and have fun with it. The true tragedy comes when a person tries to take their gender identity too far. I know a person who went through SRS to simply become the best looking woman in the room but never grasped the "woman" part.

I can only say no matter how tough this journey has been-it was the right one for me.  It just feels right. When you begin to get there-you will know or won't. That's OK too. You just could me that man who "makes a good looking woman!"

Three Year HRT Story

From YouTube (of course)comes a transgender transition video on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

 

January Benefit

I love this story!

" Usually when a brand launches a new product, it's pretty easy to guess its motive: profits. But cruelty-free beauty line Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics has never been one to play by the rules, which is why this amazing, heartwarming endeavor makes such perfect sense. The brand has released a limited-edition Lip Tar with the sole purpose to raise funds to help one of its own complete her gender transition surgery. January Hunt, a long-time employee with OCC, was assigned male at birth, but identifies female. In 2010, she decided to begin her transition. "Without the language or the backbone of a community to support me," she says, "it was easy to be led astray by the narrow two-gender system presented by society. I decided the only way to move forward with my life was to stop ignoring the elephant in every space I set foot in, and begin my transition rites." Unfortunately, three years after she started hormone replacement therapy, Hunt has encountered a huge roadblock in the form of health insurance. "The medical industry insists on labelling gender confirming/affirming surgeries as cosmetic rather than medically necessary," she explains. "The ripple effect is that most private and public health insurance organizations do not cover surgeries for transgender people, even if deemed medically necessary by a physician or therapist." Left with few other options to help her complete her journey, Hunt started a fundraising campaign to help her raise the needed $30,000 for sex reassignment surgery and gender-affirming breast augmentation. Fortunately for her, she works with one of the most compassionate employers we've ever seen, who went above and beyond to not only support Hunt through her transition, but also to actively help her get there."

Go to January29 for more.

Boring?

I was going through my transgender relevant emails and came across a surprising and confusing story about the clothing chain New Look:
Recently,  A young trans woman was left upset and puzzled after being told she couldn't use the changing rooms at international fashion chain store, New Look. According to Gay Star News.
A confusing story because at least in my section of the world most women's clothing stores welcome cross dressers or transgender shoppers with welcome arms. My theory is in retail business today we all are green under the sun...as in money.

But, seemingly not so much with "New Look":

"M (whose name has been withheld at her request) was visiting the chain’s branch in Brixton, south London, England where she spent half an hour browsing, picking up clothes before heading to the changing room. There, she says, her way was barred by a staff member who challenged her explicitly, stating: ‘Oh, you are a man.’ M attempted to explain she was transgender and just wanted to try on clothes like anyone else. However, the response was the same: ‘This is a women’s changing room, we don’t have any changing rooms for men."

I am not here to slam the "New Look" chain. The company tried to "spin" the story by calling the incident a mistake caused by poorly written memo. More than likely a better written memo has already been issued. If not shame on them. If they carried clothes in my size, I can certainly take my business to their competitors. The same as I do with a certain well known chicken food chain.

More interesting to me was "M"s boring comment:

‘All trans people want to be is boring. ‘All I have ever wanted was to wake up one day and be a cis gendered girl. And I guess the reason I was so taken aback by the incident was because in my head, at that point, I was the girl. Not 100%, but I was pretty damned close. ‘But [New Look’s] official policy is that I am someone who their store managers have to make special arrangements for because, in their eyes, I am not a woman and will never, ever be a woman. And I will never be boring. I will always stand out. And I will always make other customers feel uncomfortable in using a closed changing room whilst I use a separate closed changing room several feet away. ‘Still, I cannot get over the thought of, what if this happened to someone who was very early in their transition? Who has only just got out of the closet hell? This sort of thing could set someone back months in their transition.’

So true! I'm fairly certain boring does not describe me as a person at all. Even if you leave the transgender part of my personality out.
Plus when you do venture out of the closet the last thing you need is some narrow minded bigoted clerk setting you back with a dressing room ban.
Everytime a "M" steps up, it helps us all!

Musically Yours

On the Cyrsti's Condo big screen, here is another transgender transition video from YouTube:

The Power of Truth

I believe the true worth of many transgender transition videos on YouTube is the sheer inspiration they pass along to others in the trans community. Check this one!

A Story of Hope

Transgender transition story from YouTube:

Mid Life Gender Crisis

Transitioning later in life is certainly a bigger deal than just going out and buying a new sports car.
Next to transgender vet ideas and information here in Cyrsti's Condo, going through a mid to late life gender change is a huge topic here too.
Many times it's not the most popular place to be in the trans community as a whole, let alone with long established family and friends.
We are called "pretenders" because we didn't transition earlier in lives or worse.
Of all places, The New York Times looked at the topic recently: "THE ETHICIST" Should I Become a Woman and Risk Causing Pain to My Wife and Children? Here's a portion of the question and answer:

"I’ve been living the life of a married man for 20 years. I have a successful career and three children. All this time, however, I have battled gender dysphoria and the deep sadness that comes from living a lie. From the earliest age, I’ve been unhappy being male. I believed I would find happiness only once I was true to myself. I recently had my self-diagnosis confirmed, and I’m initiating a transition to living as the real me. There is a cost involved: pain to my family and stress on my career. Ethically, is it right to be “true to myself” even if that authenticity ends my otherwise happy marriage and damages the emotional stability of my three children?"

And part of the answer:


" The conclusion is not as simple as the question suggests: it’s impossible to know how much damage this would actually do. Your family may already sense that something is wrong. I could argue that an honest, difficult relationship is still better than a comfortable marriage based on the unreal; it’s also possible that your children (as they mature) will understand your desires completely. It’s entirely possible that this evolution could be positive for everyone involved. This, however, is all speculation. I don’t know you or anyone in your family, and it would be idiotic of me to pretend as if there were one irrefutable response to this situation. The person you need to talk to is your wife. You need to consider what this action will do to your three children, in both the short term and the long term. When you made the decision to have children, you committed yourself to the sacrifice of significant personal freedoms for the betterment of their lives; this is a profound extension of that reality, but that’s your ethical responsibility as a parent. So the question you really need to ask yourself is this: Is your psychological damage from gender dysphoria greater than the psychological damage that its restoration will inflict upon the lives of any (or all) of your children? If the answer is yes, proceed. If the answer is no, don’t do it. Your sadness is tragic, but at least it’s confined to yourself. This advice might seem reactionary, but it’s not a position on whether transitioning is ethical in and of itself. There’s no inherent ethical problem with that decision. It’s about the possibility of improving one life at a greater cost to three others who might lack the intellectual and emotional maturity to comprehend what’s really happening.

Certainly, the person answering the question doesn't have the understanding of the depth of the problem. No where in the answer was the fact that so many transgender people consider the ultimate solution as suicide?
The final point was no better:


"It’s about the possibility of improving one life at a greater cost to three others who might lack the intellectual and emotional maturity to comprehend what’s really happening."

Oh, by the way the advice was written by a man...go figure.

Muscle Memory

Have you heard the term? I've used it here in Cyrsti's Condo a couple times. Very simply it means what it says: "training your muscles to do a certain task."
As males attempting to jump into a feminine role obviously there is quite a bit of learning and relearning to do physically.

Some of us have farther to go than others. Several readers have asked for a before and after picture of me for a point of reference or even a positive example of how you may express your femininity. There is a certain picture of an bearded overweight me that I don't recognize that I'm trying to find, scan and post but have not yet located it.

Back to "muscle memory":  The more I began to consider a serious transgender transition, here's what I tried  to do. Anytime I was out dressed as a guy, I tried to think of my posture, the length of my steps and walking up on the balls of my feet. An easy rule of thumb is women glide and for most their center of gravity of course is around the hips. For most of us, all of this is a difficult process because we have spent so many years developing our male muscle memory. If you can do it observe how a woman moves not how she looks. As we all know, a successful feminine presentation does not have to be a thing of beauty. It needs to be a thing of confidence and reality.

Since I do almost everything backwards, I have always felt you should learn the feminine basics in flats. You can concentrate on your posture, hip and arm movements and then add the heels as you become more comfortable. But that's just me. I know heels are so beneficial to my overall look but they also take me above the 6 foot height limit I have set for myself. There is a big trade out!

The trick to all of this of course is how to flip a switch on your muscle memory.  To this day, I have to not get too comfortable and slip back into my male ways. Back in the day I often had to think about which situation I was in and was I flipping the female switch without thinking when I was working as a guy. This became more of a problem when I began to really try to incorporate more feminine voice patterns into to "the switch".

I am not going to sit here and tell you I'm even close to where I want to be in this process. On the other hand if I don't have a plan I will certainly never get to where I want to go.

In the meantime girls "shoulders back, chest out and glide!"

The Words We All Want to Hear!

This post is from the Baltimore OUTloud site:


"I volunteer with a number of organizations that interact with youth, mostly high-school age. I did this before transition and continued to do so during and after. One of these groups is focused on science, technology, and math. I’ve been an adult mentor with my son’s robotics team for five years. I love and enjoy helping develop young minds to solve problems. I’m happy to report that despite what the media might tell you the future is in great hands and these brilliant kids will solve many problems that vex us presently. When I transitioned I had concerns that this group might not embrace the change.
I didn’t know what to expect from a program of about 40 kids and their parents. It could have been a big deal. It turns out it wasn’t. Among all of the people and groups in my life, this robotics club turned out to be the one that seemed to care the least about me becoming “me.” My “rollout” was done via a parent- and then student meeting, and then, of course, my debut. Shortly after the first meeting I received an email from a concerned parent. It went more or less like this: “When I heard that our meeting was concerning you I was worried that you might be leaving our program. Thank goodness you are only changing your gender!” I was astonished to say the least."

Wow, won't it be great when the world gets to the point of "you are only changing your gender?"

This post has many other wonderful points such as when the author protests the catering by a "certain chicken chain" go here for more.

Young and Blond and on YouTube

Just another tremendous transgender transition from YouTube:

A Case for Transitioning Young

I have subscribed recently to a blog called en gender written by Helen Boyd of My Husband Betty fame. As with most of her posts, this one is compelling:

" The other day I published a brief interview with Christine Benvenuto, who wrote a book about her marriage to and divorce from a trans woman. I blurbed her book, let me admit up front. I blurbed it because despite some transphobic tendencies (not respecting her ex’s change to feminine pronouns, most notably), I think it’s important that partners get their stories out there – as important as it is for trans people to do so. I’ve been enabling the latter for a long time, and I’m proud to have done so. But I see so often that partners who are having a hard time or who are bitter about a divorce or angry about transition are told – in trans community spaces – to STFU, pretty much. And that really sucks, a lot. The thing is, nothing about her memoir struck me as patently false. I’ve known a lot of trans women and a lot of wives of trans women over the past 13 years. A LOT. And Benvenuto’s story, just as she told it, is pretty goddamned typical. I have seen behavior by trans women that is sexist, misogynist bullshit. I have seen trans women spend their kids’ college money on transition. I have seen 401Ks emptied. I have seen all of that, and more. I have also seen the wives of transitioning women take out all their rage on their trans spouse – financially, emotionally, even physically. I have seen rage that I didn’t even know was possible in the wives of trans women. And I have seen them be unwilling to let it go. That is, I have seen a lot of awful behavior on both sides of this coin. Trans people are not excused because they’re trans just as women are not excused because they’re women. We are all faced with loss and betrayal and heartbreak and all of the emotions that accompany those things. How you choose to express them is entirely up to you."

Of course there is much more to her post which you can read here. But it finishes partly like this:

"So if we as a community want trans people to be happy, people need to know what kind of devastation a late transition can cause on families and wives and communities and of course on the trans people themselves. There is so, so much pain, on everyone’s part. People need to know it. People need to transition younger so that some of this can be prevented."

I'm sure you all know I'm a late transitioner and have even be called "yet another old guy on hormones". We all have compelling reasons or even excuses why we didn't transition earlier in life. Certainly none of us can go back in time so making the best of this situation is now all we have. Helen Boyd's ideas make sense.
I have added an en gender link here in Cyrsti's Condo plus another look "at the other side":  The Cross Dresser Wives" Monthly Newsletter. Don't expect warm and fuzzies there but worth a look!

Dating Yourself Part 2

I started thinking more and more about my last post about dating myself as a guy and as it turned out others were too.
The first thing I thought was "hell yes I would date a stud like myself!" Just kidding!!!!!!!!
I've had a couple comments from transgender women who don't date men at all. That describes me but to each their own of course.
As I started the serious task of transitioning I did date a few guys but just kept migrating back to the company of women. Then when I started to think about it perhaps I was just seeking the validation of having a man with me in public. What better way would there be to be accepted as a woman? But the buzz just didn't last.
At that point I began to think about the very few male friends I had in my past. I had zillions of acquaintances of course but friends? I could count them on one hand over a 40 year adult life and all had moved away or had passed on.
From then on this process became more natural, even when I separated out sex and gender. I have remained adamant about keeping my sexual preferences out of this blog.  Who cares? It's not why we are here. Let's just say the only true transition I'm going through is external. Of course how the world views me is different but to me all the colors of the rainbow have not changed.
What an interesting process it has been!

It Sure Looks Good on YOU!

One of my favorite YouTube transsexual transitions.

Mark Your Calendars

All of you who are kind enough to read my babble here in Cyrsti's Condo and are in the Ohio area will have a chance to hear my babble at this year's TransOhio Trans and Ally Symposium. I have been accepted to provide a workshop called "Better late than never, Transitioning late in life."

The event is April 26-28th in Columbus.

Seriously, I'm honored to be accepted and hope I can provide a little guidance to others. Meeting any of you there would be extra fun! I will have more info for you later!

Transition

I love to pass along transgender transition videos from YouTube which show the positives of a journey!

 

Quote of the Day

"Are you too old to start transgender transition at the age of 60? You are too old not too!"
Cyrsti

"Insta" SRS

Yes sometimes I'm an opinionated bitch I know and one of my favorite subjects is the availablity of non researched sex changes in places such as Thailand. It makes no difference if you have lived a week a month or a year as your chosen gender- just have the money.
My belief what this leads to is transgender individuals  (who may not be) may be led down a path of no return without proper socialization. I believe some feel that with enough cash, anything is possible and after a trip overseas and a couple months of healing- POOF - all life's ills will be solved. I knew a person like this. She merely became the best looking cross dresser in the room-even with her store bought equipment.
I'm not good enough to write about this as well as this post I read. It's written by Jillian at the Montreal Gazette:

"For those of you who are planning to physically transition, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the real-life experience period. I know about the desire to get on HRT as quickly as possible, and to circumvent the accepted standards of care by getting hormones through online pharmacies and/or the black market and/or less-than-qualified medical personnel. Don’t do it. If you are going to make such great changes in your life, it is worth doing it properly, with the help of competent, objective therapists and endocrinologists. As for SRS, living 24/7 for a year or two as a woman (or man, if you are a FtM person) before having surgery is extremely important, for obvious reasons. Among them, you will see how the world accepts or rejects you, and you will have plenty of opportunity to change your mind, with no long-term consequences. I don’t often hear about people who regret transitioning, because most people who transition follow the traditional standards of care. But there are cases of people who have regretted transitioning — after going on HRT and/or having surgery. In some of those cases, the people circumvented the system and rushed into it. I’ve heard of cases in which people got the papers needed through less-than-ideal ways and faxed them to Thailand and, presto, they were on the surgeon’s table in no time at all. The trans community has pleaded with the gatekeepers to make it easier to transition. And it is easier now than it ever has been before. As a result, it puts more onus on you to really be sure about what you are doing. And the best way to be sure is to go through a prolonged real-life experience period. If you can’t do it, or are afraid to do it, then you probably should not be transitioning at all."

As my wife once told me years ago "you make a terrible woman". It's not what is on the outside. It's the inside that counts.