Boy Meets Girl Movie

As you may have concluded, certainly Cyrsti wasn't going to pass along just any old pull out the chocolate chip ice cream and a box of tissues chick flick on our Condo big screen. This movie is actually about a young transgender woman...played by a transgender actress! Such a radical idea!!!!

"Trans Victim" Revisit

I am fortunate to have received quite a bit of intelligent feedback on the "Victim" post here in Cyrsti's Condo and from outside friends. The post actually came from Helen Boyd's "En Gender" blog.

 The first comes from Paula Gee: " It's simply not fair, especially if we were misguided enough not to tell our wives about our selves before marriage. Yes any form a trans activity is selfish, and we have to understand that and deal with it."

The second from Reasonablynoble:

"As much as I've always included my spouse in my transition, it is an inherently narcissistic process. We spend so much time not focusing on ourselves that by the time we do this, we are wholly fascinated by our selves. It's hard to avoid navel gazing. At the same time, there are other people in my life and I have always been mindful about how my healing has both been a positive and negative for them. This is a healing process and it can, ultimately, make things better for everyone around us."

I'm agreeing with both and using my past and current relationships as a guideline. For whatever reason, misguided or not I told my second wife of 25 years I was a transvestite or cross dresser before we were married. So I didn't tell the truth.  As I think about it, if you put me under oath I would swear to the fact I knew there was probably something deeper going on with my gender identification but I was prepared to do my best to not follow it.

On the other hand, my current female lover is sure total love transcends gender and I'm fairly certain holds my deceased wife's views against her in someways. But it's not that easy and as wonderful as she is, I remind her she "caught up" with me after a ton of life experience and she is lucky. I knew who I was when we met.  Because as both of the ladies above mentioned, the cross dressing  through identifying as transgender or transsexual is, a hugely selfish process. Certainly,  for obvious reasons, we are fascinated by ourselves. I was no different.

The negative as Reasonably said "We spend so much time not focusing on ourselves that by the time we do this, we are wholly fascinated by our selves."  So,  if we can't or don't share ourselves with others- we are only a reflection in the mirror and doomed to a damned lonely existence. As you can see on Flickr or any number of other picture sites so many of us never get out of the mirror or the camera. Those who finally make it into the "real" world are naturally stunted. Not unlike the boy who was raised by wolves. My "anti mirror" friend examples are Drake and Stana who positively light up the room with their chance to live as their real gender.

In recent years as I jumped from my mirror into the world, I acquired a pedestal. You may have read me refer to it here. Sure, experiences such as developing a circle of friends, HRT  and the such are fantastic. BUT none of it makes me any better-or worse in the trans community.  I certainly have to constantly reevaluate where my life is, where I would love it to go and how precarious my "pedestal" really is. It's STILL  just as easy for me to be a victim as the frustrated cross dresser in the closet or the bitter transsexual who discovers SRS wasn't what she really wanted.

Of course I'm not smart enough to come up with an answer. I have been fortunate to have known all sort of peeps who revolve in and out of our culture from a long time friend who will go to any extent to rationalize purging his cross dressing "habit" 25 years ago because of wife and money to unhappy transsexuals to everyone in between.

Every once in a while though someone like Helen Boyd and Betty are able to put a little more perspective to the issue.

I am smart enough to know surgery is the end result to a successful gender transition not the beginning.

Well, this post has gone on so long I should be passing out cookies and milk to all of you here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Maybe I should consider a post called "The Transsexual as a Victim" when I really want to get ganged up on!!!!

Transgender Spouses in the Military

Seemingly, when it rains it pours with posts concerning transgender veterans and their interaction when serving on active duty and after they are discharged.

You regulars here in Cyrsti's Condo know I am a transgender Viet Nam era veteran of the U.S Army, so of course I have a very active interest in all the happenings.

Another very active source for news is Out Serve Magazine and in particular Brynn Tannehill who writes:

"In the past few months, same sex military partners have been part of the collective American conversation. When the Fort Bragg Spouse’s Club resorted to naked discrimination and active condescension to keep Ashley Broadway out, it was splashed all over the news. When Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta extended as many benefits as possible to married same sex partners under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the LGB community celebrated. When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Article III of DOMA, the plight of same sex military couples was front and center in the reasons for striking the law down. However, as all this was going on, I realized that another situation has gone unmentioned. What happens when the spouse of a military person is transgender? Some might argue that this is a very rare situation, and doesn’t need attention. However, my recent interactions with a number of transgender people associated with the military say that this situation is far more common than people realize.

A few weeks ago a trans woman in the Dayton area sent me a message asking me if I remembered a female colonel I worked for while I was still on active duty. I did, and replied that I liked her because she generally had a good read on who everyone in the command was and what they were doing. What she wrote next blew my mind. “She came out as a lesbian after she retired in 2008. We’re married now.” A little further digging revealed that they had met and gotten married after the trans woman had transitioned. However, because of military regulations and DOMA, the trans woman did not have base access, Tricare, or any of the other benefits the spouse of a retired colonel would normally have. In short, the military regards them as a same sex couple. But my marriage is regarded as a heterosexual one because I transitioned after we were married, even though in both cases we are trans women married to another woman.

At about the same time, I also spoke with a trans man in the military. He talked about the difficulties he and his boyfriend, a civilian trans man who lives in Washington DC, expect if they get married. Another situation that came up in discussion recently was a trans woman (MTF) I know who is closeted, but on active duty. She is married to a trans man (FTM) who is just starting transition. When the trans man civilian spouse went to medical to start hormone therapy, they refused to treat him unless his spouse came in and verified that she knew what was happening and approved.

Given all of these situations, figuring out which marriages the government will regard as gay or straight is a mind boggling exercise in one of the grayest areas of law. In the case of the retired colonel, the marriage is gay, but only because the trans woman transitioned before the marriage and wasn’t born in Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, or Texas (where birth certificate gender changes are not legally allowed). However, the two trans men may or may not be a gay marriage, depending if the one in DC changed his SSN gender marker before or after they got married. The trans woman in the military married to a trans man is a heterosexual couple, but the trans man can’t change his gender in DEERS because of DOMA."

In addition, I live close to the Dayton, Ohio area mentioned above.

At the least- as Brynn wrote- this whole situation deals in the deepest shade of gender gray there is and this just scratches the surface. To read more go here.