You've Come a Long Way Baby!

Some of you "more mature" visitors to Cyrsti's Condo may remember the old Virginia Slims women's cigarette commercials. The brand was introduced in 1968 and marketed to young professional women using the slogan "You've come a long way, baby." Some media watch groups considered this campaign to be responsible for a rapid increase in smoking among teenage girls. Later campaigns have used the slogans, "It's a woman thing," in the 1990s, and "Find your voice."

I only bring it up for the reason the only time I really tried smoking cigarettes in my life was in my early cross dresser years.

Later of course you may remember it was somewhat fashionable for a woman to lite up a cigar. That I never did do. Locked in my memory is a very ugly image of a room full of men in make up and dresses doing their best to still be masculine by smoking cigars. Why?

Well, one way or another I guess I have come a long way baby. As a matter of fact when I noticed the top of the ad above- I tried the housewife gig for awhile too.  Surely if I did all the household chores I would validate myself as a woman? Right? Wrong because all I really validated how much I hated doing housework. It took me years to learn true validation came from inside.

More than a little of my thought pattern began with the trans brides post and feedback. I don't mean actual trans brides but fantasy cross dresser brides (and I am not being negative). My point is at times I'm fascinated by all the feminine fixations we develop as trans persons in our lives. Another example of those in the community who just love to be pregnant.

Maybe all of us have the chance to come a long way baby!

Transgender Bridal Shower

I've really never liked the comment set up in this particular blog platform. I never know if your comments receive the proper coverage they deserve such as this one on Transgender Brides from Eric:

Cyrsti's High Tech Mail Box

"As far as getting married is concerned, there are so few men who have made an honest effort to become educated on transsexuals and transsexualism in order to prepare themselves for the possibility that the woman of his dreams was born a boy. I have read everything I can get my hands on to prepare myself for the possibility that my dream girl would tell me she had been through transition and surgery to become the woman she is now. As a result of my efforts, I've been able to gain some dating experience with mainly pre-op male-to-female transsexuals, but I've also dated a post-op TS. New wedding gowns can start at under U$200, but some of the most elaborate ones can run into thousands of dollars. Many transgender women have made use of the Web, thrift stores and even large bridal chains (such as David's Bridal) to find a low price on a bridal gown. Bridal photo shoots for T-Girls also requires some travel; some of the places that offer such shoots include Fairplay Imaging in New York on Transgender Brides"

4 Trans Brides

Thanks Eric, always nice to hear from any man who has an "educated" idea of trans women!

Also, there is more from Jamiegottagun who always "spices" things up:

"Wedding dresses can actually be found quite inexpensively - Goodwill or the like. There's usually several there, for less than 100 bucks, especially older, out of fashion ones like the one in the video, which with the Sweetheart neckline and puffy sleeves is obviously from the late 1980's or early 90's. Women tend to only keep them for a few years, especially if they get too fat to fit into them anymore, and almost always get rid of them when they get divorced."

Just think Jamie, if the women were larger before they got rid of their wedding dresses, bigger sizes would be easier to find at thrift and consignment shops.

As always, thanks for commenting and reading! Just make sure we all don't forget the "bridesmaids" in the crowd!

I picked up this story and movie trailer from the Advocate.com: The film is called Turning with Antony and the Johnsons and centers around Antony Hegarty and other transgender and androgynous artists:
" It started as part of the 2004 Whitney biennial, when Hegarty joined forces with Charles Atlas, the filmmaker behind The Legend of Leigh Bowery, to make Turning, a stage show that featured Hegarty singing, while various women, many androgynous and transgender, like Hegarty himself, climbed on stage. The women stood on moving platforms as video cameras, guided by Atlas, captured close-ups of their faces and projected them on giant screens. Hegarty describes it as a “hypnotic journey through this panorama of different meditations on feminine presence.” After bringing Turning around Europe and Hegarty’s homebase of New York in 2004 and 2006, a film version debuts Friday night at Manhattan’s IFC Center for a week long run."




 

"In the film, many of the women describe feeling connected through their associations with the nightclub world or other facets of city life that introduced them to like-minded people who allow them to be the women they’ve always desired to be. One transgender woman speaks eloquently of shedding her skin and bravely entering into a new identity. “It’s being asked of us as a species to undergo a radical transformation in the way we see ourselves and our relationship to the world,” Hegarty says. “The stakes have never been higher, we’ve never been more alienated in terms of having a sense of our impact on the natural world.” Both Turning’s director and star believe now couldn’t be a better time to bring Turning to a larger audience. “Charlie was reminding me that Turning was done in 2004 and 2006 which was in the depth of the Bush years. There was a strong sense we were swimming against the tide at the time and there didn’t seem an end in sight,” Hegarty says, pointing out that the stage show opens with a booming speech from Martin Luther King, Jr. Says Atlas,“I’m thrilled we’re releasing it when there’s a glimmer of hope coming back to our society." For more information on Turning, click here.