For the Non Humorist Peeps

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One is Company-Two is a Crowd

Probably by now you have heard the story about the transgender group who was asked not to come back to a bar they had been frequenting for years.
Ouch!
Of course I'm biased for the trans girls but I'm going to pass along some reservations and some paranoia's I have.
The reservations come from my past and stories which have been passed along by some friends.
When one goes out with a group of mixed trans girls, you could be grouped with anyone from cross dressers, transgender and the occasional transsexual. The problem? Occasionally you will have a joiner who doesn't chose to conform to a feminine lifestyle. Meaning he's the one who has the dress on and is still smoking a Cuban cigar in the corner. A bit of an exaggeration I know- but you get the point. If this begins to happen, then the group becomes more of a problem for the owner.
The reason I bring it up is that I saw it in my past and have a close friend who posted a similar story to me a year or so ago. She was reluctant to join a group in her town who met every Friday night.  Not only did some of the participants chose not to act feminine, they seemed to go out of their way not too.
Another huge problem I see could be the rest room.  Unless the establishment is one of the rare ones which has gender neutral rooms- it's a lose lose situation. Hetero-normal folks don't match well some of the time with trans folks in the rest room. Yes I have seen the occasional cross dresser at the urinal or standing up to pee in the woman's room.
These reservations lead me to my paranoia over the years of sharing my cherished non gay venues with other trans women.  Truthfully, I rarely encounter anyone who does but there is certainly a fear factor built in.
As we all know, looks are one thing but actions and the accountability for them are another.
I wonder if that is what happened to the trans women who were asked not to return?
If it wasn't, and someone who visits Cyrsti's Condo knows the indepth story-I will find out ( I'm sure!)  and comment from there!

Trans Politics

For all Americans, once again it's time for a presidential election.
Along the way, I have decided to stay sort of non political here in Cyrsti's Condo which is tough since I am a very political person.
With great interest, I have watched how this election is laying out.
I'm pretty jaded and don't think either political party is really interested in helping the average citizen much. If government just stayed out of the way, we would be a stronger country.

BUT
I can't help but think this year's Republican ticket has the real potential to set back our transgender rights for years. Specifically I just know (that somewhere down the line) a huge check was written in Chick Fil-A's name when the Republican VP candidate was announced.
So I know my vote isn't going to the chicken chain and their party.

Typically, there are many sub plots involved with any election. Here is an important one from a transgender vet publication Outserve.


The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that 25,000 transgender people could lose the right to vote due to voter ID laws. Many conservative states make obtaining a driver’s license with a trans person’s correct gender nearly impossible, or prohibitively expensive. As a result, up to 41 percent of trans people lack a correct driver’s license. While the map in the link above shows that this disenfranchisement is unlikely to affect the general election, or even statewide elections, it denies people the democratic voice we have fought for over the course of 226 years. Republicans don’t seem interested in trans people voting. When margins in elections get too narrow, though, democrats seem to prefer for military absentee ballots not be counted either. In closely contested Presidential races, the pattern has been for the democratic candidate to contest military absentee ballots (Bush v Gore), and for the republican to contest provisional ballots (Bush v Kerry). Voters with name discrepancies, like the transgender community, are typically forced to use provisional ballots. The math on why these two patterns happen is pretty simple; military people generally vote conservatively, and LGBT typically people vote for the more liberal candidate. There is an upside, I suppose. If the ban on trans people in the military ever ends, at least it will finally give both parties something they can agree on. They will finally have a demographic neither group wants voting.

In my case Brynn Tannehill who writes for Outserve and I both live in Ohio and she also goes into what she is facing voting on a local level.
Very soon I will be going down that same path!