Transgender Pageant Aussie Style

Miss Gay & Miss Transsexual Australia 2013, an alternative beauty pageant, is being held on 2 February 2013 at Yarraville, Victoria. The organisers of the pageant, The Victorian Secrets Promotions, has already successfully organised the pageant three times, starting in 2009. According to its website, the interstate beauty pageant "embraces diversity in the LGBTI community and provides a safe space for people-like-us to share their beauty and showcase their talents to the general audience."

"Chained Melody"

Author Debbie Martin recently sent me an email asking me to review her recently published love story which crosses the frontiers of transsexualism. For what ever reason I was not able to open the file on my computer.
Since she went to the trouble of finding me on the world wide web, the least I could do was pass along the info to all of you from Goodreads.com. 

Here's an intro of sorts:
" Even with the sexual revolution of the permissive seventies and eighties, men remained men. But as childhood friends Tom and Will enter adulthood, for one of them maturity isn’t just growing from boy to man. He develops into someone completely new as surely as the butterfly emerges transformed from its chrysalis, irrevocably and chaotically also transforming both their worlds in the process. Through battle ground bravado in Northern Ireland, drugs, sexual betrayal, IVF, transsexualism, and ‘forbidden’ love, they each search for courage to live life their way. Can love be strong enough to fly in the face of the chains of convention? The answer only becomes clear after events transpire to ultimately create a simple choice for them both; life or death, and they have to face the consequence of their choices.'

There are a couple of great reviews on the link above. Perhaps in the future I can pass along more!

Ville Ruuska

From Finland's yleuutiset Ruuska ,  Finland’s first male-female model.

" Signed by modelling agency Paparazzi, he is set to grace international runways in the near future. Fashion agencies are increasingly hiring male models to model women’s clothing, Ruuska says, going on to explain on Yle's morning show Aamu-tv on Monday what it means to be a man in a woman's world. "The fashion world has always been interested in special cases. It’s nice that it’s breaking down gender barriers. It adds some spice to fashion when there’s some question over whether the model is a man or a woman," he says."

Before the femme nazi's go off again on the unrealistic idea of a super model's ultra thin figures. (Duh!) Ruuska explained:

 "That androgynous modelling is not about being thin. He compares the male-female form to that of child models aged around 14, before feminine curves have blossomed and a boyish figure is still natural. Yet he maintains that fashion should not be taken too seriously. "I don’t want to encourage women to try to lose weight to be super skinny. Fashion is conceptual, it’s fantasy," he says."