A Transgendered "Forward Pass".

I've talked and written often here in the Condo of the benefits of "paying forward" experiences to others in the transgendered culture.
A trans woman who has taken it to a whole different level is Chicago's "Gloria Allen". The Chicago Tribune  has the story of 66 year old Gloria:

"About a year ago, a retired Gloria Allen thought having lunch at the Center on Halsted with other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender senior citizens was simply one of the highlights of her week.
But while at the center, which offers an array of youth services for the LGBT community, Allen, 66, noticed that some of the young people arrived dressed inappropriately. Young men wore scandalously short shorts; young women sported baggy pants that sagged way below their waists.

"Mama Gloria"

So Allen, a transgender woman, got permission from the center to start a charm school. Allen, who's called "Mama Gloria," teaches youth etiquette along with how to dress and carry themselves — things they might have ordinarily learned at home if their parents understood how to guide their LGBT teens and were supportive enough to do so.
"I may be sounding old-fashioned, but I would see these young people wearing negligee-type clothes on the street and I would say, 'How could they leave the house looking like that?'" Allen said.
She said she felt strongly about helping because she understands how difficult it can be when a person has been socialized to be one gender but feels as though he or she is another. Also, she said she believes they have to set a good example.
"When you're a part of a minority community, what you do reflects the whole," she said. "It may not be fair, but that's reality. There are children out on the street. I don't want kids to say, 'Look Mom, look at that.' I don't want people to look at us like that."

Take a look at the rest of this wonderful look at a woman trying to pay forward in our community. In addition, her "words of wisdom" ring true for all of us!

Shades of Pink

One of my more subtle shifts in thinking suddenly became more apparent to me recently.
Slowly but surely many of my more aggressive thoughts are becoming more mellow.
It's not as if I suddenly became an angel but suddenly I have a tendency to see the other side a little more.  There is not a finality to my angry reactions I used to experience. Let me try to explain it:  Now someone doesn't have to be an idiot-they might be one! Also, of course any confrontation ideas are becoming a thing of the past.
Now, I'm not suggesting genetic women don't have any of the feelings I described. Aggression is just different. In addition, I'm not ignoring the feminine "passive-aggressive" nature which in time I would guess will be a natural progression for me too.

Other changes I'm experiencing  are curious changes in my skin which is definitely softening on my body and drying up on my face. Never in my life has my facial skin been so dry.  It feels as if I just spent a couple unprotected hours in a sub zero wind.
Finally, I think I starting to feel a little extra "padding" in my rear.
So, as impatient as I am. Change seems inevitable as I'm getting closer to four full months on hormones.

How Far We Have Come!

 I have mentioned before some of the amazing research and work "Zagria" does on her blog "A Gender Variance Who's Who".
Here's more of her work which illustrates how far we have come as a transgendered culture.

In most trans histories Virginia Prince and such people tend to be shunted into a separate section.  The gay transvestites, with the notable exception of Stonewall seem to disappear altogether.  As we saw with Susanna Valenti, the reality was that some of the same individuals who attend FPE meetings, would also go to gay bars and the drag balls.  This article is a summary of the various activities in New York City in the 1960s.

Unlike in California and elsewhere in the US, neither cross-dressing nor being homosexual (as opposed to homosexual acts) as such were criminal in New York.  However the New York police regarded homosexuals as morally depraved and arrested persons assumed to be such on whatever grounds that they could.  In particular they used entrapment, and raided clubs and bars and arrested those found within.  By 1966 the NYPD was arresting over 100 men every week on charges of 'homosexual solicitation' -- mainly resulting from entrapment.  The wave of decriminalization of homosexuality that spread across Europe, East and West, and to Canada never reached the US.  In 1953 then President Eisenhower signed a government order adding 'sexual perversion' as a reason for investigation and dismissal.  Police and military records were shared with private employers.  Thousands were dismissed from their jobs with no recourse.  No known 'sexual pervert' could gain or retain a professional license.  Cross-dressing was taken as evidence of homosexuality even when the person was married. The police had an informal rule that you should be wearing at least three items 'appropriate to your sex'.  The New York State Liquor Authority had its own laws: homosexuals and transvestites were decreed to be 'lewd and dissolute' and their presence in a bar made it disorderly and subject to closure.  Because no gay bar could be legal, the mafia ran most of them, not caring about licenses, bribing the police and blackmailing the customers.  The very harshness of the penalties led to many judges being unwilling to sentence gays, lesbians and transsexuals, and giving a fine or probation instead.  However the possibility of getting the wrong judge stifled expression and inhibited lives.

Read more: http://zagria.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-york-city-in-1960s.html#ixzz1s44Q2DiM
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