Taking a Look Back at Transvestite Newsletters

"Back in the day" as the internet was just coming into our lives there were "transvestite" newsletters which were the beginnings of the huge amount of information we see today.
Amazingly, the entire genre' is available to interested viewers. One was called "Life's a Dragg" which you can link to here
I picked up the link from the "TG Forum" which in itself has been established quite a while!.

Are Transgender Times Better?

I heard a line "That depends on where you sit and what cards you hold".
Over the past week or so we have witnessed several positive influences on the transgender community.
Three I can think of are the Ontario Canadian ruling, the Melissa Harris- interview and the Glee program.
I am going to refer to "Janie's Blog" a Canadian herself about the decision to allowing a gender change on documentation with out SRS.
She recently wrote: "
A court decision in Canada has struck down a law requiring SRS as a precondition to having one’s gender changed on their documentation.
There are undoubtedly people on both sides of this issue who will be unhappy about it – post-op transsexuals who may feel that anyone who can tolerate the “bits” of the opposite gender is not truly transsexual, and others who may feel that this just makes it too easy to play games with one’s gender and official documentation.
But, remember that most people who eventually undergo gender reassignment surgery spend years living as the gender opposite to what their identification indicates. They do this for financial reasons, or even for reasons of uncertainty and fear of going through with the surgery. They are not fooling around; this is serious business in their lives, and having a passport or ID that matches the gender they are living is important.
(Read the whole post here.)
A show two Sunday's ago saw MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry featuring being Transgendered in America.
(It's  posted  here in the condo in our "Home Entertainment Center" .)
Guest "Mara Keisling" pointed out
"For one of the first times that I can remember, trans people got to outline to the public at least part of the trans political agenda for ourselves. From health care access, to barriers to updating identity documents, to talking about jail and detention reform and raising awareness of CeCe McDonald's story, we finally had a chance to bring trans issues to a national audience as trans people."
Then, lets not forget the "Glee" episode which featured a real live transgendered character in a very mainstream television program.
So, where I sit, have sat and looking at the cards I hold, my hand definitely is improving as a transgender person in this country.
I'm going to quote an old song "You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to run".
Well, I'm not going to run (tried that), not going to fold them (**purged a couple times like the rest of you) and I certainly will want to hold them.
As with any good player, I know the game is far from over but I like the progress so far!

**Purged is totally throwing away all your items you were using to present as your chosen gender.

Womanless Beauty Pageants

I would like to thank Alice for passing this along to me!
Over the years, "Womanless Beauty Pageants" have been the source of entertainment and fund raising efforts around the country.  Seemingly a boy or man in a dress has provided innocent fun provided of course it wasn't a serious or full time gig for the male involved.
I for one have always thought that some of the participants have taken the effort way to seriously. In addition, some of the participants look way to good and seem to be having way to much fun! (Who wouldn't?)
As I have mentioned a couple of times here Stana at "Femulate" really covers the Womanless Beauty scene wonderfully. Alice in turn passed along a Femulate reader's "Flickr" womanless pageant picture compilations.
Thank you Alice and I would like to direct all of you to another of Stana's posts on womanless yearbook pictures here.
After viewing all of these pictures, I sometimes wonder if I was one of the only guys around who never had the opportunity to compete in a womanless pageant.
Truthfully, there weren't any in my part of the country until very recently with the "Relay for Life" cancer fundraisers.
I do think I would have been too scared to take part in fear the whole thing would blow my cover. It's obviously too late now to do anything about it now, so I will just have to be a very interested observer!
Thanks again Alice, Stana and all you "civilians" who look so good in your first and only time in a prom dress!