35 years of Cross Dressing Photos

From Behold the Photo Blog comes this very good article about a photographer you may have already heard about or have seen her work:

Kay, ex–Green Beret by Mariette Pathy Allen 

" Mariette Pathy Allen’s 35-year journey documenting the transgender community had a serendipitous beginning. In 1978, Allen and her husband went on a trip to New Orleans and happened to stay in the same inn as a group of cross-dressers. One morning after breakfast, the group began taking pictures by the swimming pool, and Allen, already with her camera equipment, gently asked if she could take a few shots as well. “I lifted the camera to my eye looking at these people and one person standing opposite me looked back at me and I felt I was looking into a soul, not a man, not a woman, but the essence of a human being, and I thought, I have to have this person in my life,” Allen recalled. That person, Vicki West, ended up living about 20 blocks from Allen in Manhattan and started introducing Allen to parties, friends, and conferences of people involved in the cross-dressing community. “I found it beyond fascinating,” Allen said. “I discovered I had something I could contribute. When I started doing portraits of transgender people, no one was doing it and I had to figure out what would be the most helpful way of doing it, what would be the meaning of it?”

To the right is another of Allen's photo's featured in the article which you can see by following the link above.

An interesting sidelight I'm noticing when I feature excerpts from other blogs is I have noticed my Google spell check is now highlighting "transgendered" as a miss spelling.  I took the liberty of correcting it twice in this excerpt.

Drag Out the Tupperware!

Turns out the leading Tupperware salesperson in North America is Aunt Barbra. Plus Barb is a guy.  So when Aunt Barbra is dragging out the plastic at her next party- she isn't kidding.  Yes a drag queen selling Tupperware and it turns out women are turning out in droves with their plastic credit cards to buy Barb's.
I'm fairly certain Aunt Barb isn't the only queen peddling their plastic wares but she was one of the features tonight on Entertainment Tonight who said "Babs" was making in excess of six figures a year in income!
I couldn't find that yet so I'm passing along an older video of Aunt Barb on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Big Day on the "Tube"

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a short interview with Jennifer Finney Boylan.  Jennifer is an   author and professor plus one of the best known transgender people in America. She appeared on the NBC Today show with wife Deedie and son Zach and talked about her new book Stuck in The Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders.

According to TV.Broadwayworld.com  later Friday night, 10p/9c on "Rock Center with Brian Williams," viewers will hear more from Jennifer and her family, including her wife Deedie who opens up about her reaction to the news, how she handled the transition and her fears about how it would affect their sons. A must see!