Living the Dream

One of my two thousand eighty eight pet peeves is when I ask someone "how you doing" and they say "I'm here".  Not good karma! I'm finally to the point of saying you may want to see if there are any openings in the cemetery down the street. Now the newest come back is "I'm living the dream" which is much better to me. In many ways I am living the dream right now.

If you would have asked me ten years ago if I would have the life I have today, I would have never thought it possible for good and bad reasons. Then again, dreams do get mixed in with nightmares.

The bottom line is I don't believe in luck but I do believe in opportunities and everyone has a "glass ceiling" of sorts.  Somehow you are given the cards to get to a certain point in your life. How you play those cards decides your life. Very simply, transgender cards were dealt to me early in my life and I had to opportunity to play them later on.

Playing my cards now is simply a way to break my gender glass ceiling and live a dream. The only problem is at 63 (almost) I don't feel even close to getting up from the table.  Has to be another dream I can buy with my cards, right?

I have picked a video to play on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen of another transgender person who is playing her cards. Enjoy!

Trans Leak

A photograph of Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning wearing makeup and a blonde wig was released yesterday by the army as part of documentation related to Manning's trial.

It's the first such photo of Manning, who is transgender. The photograph was attached to emails Manning had sent to a therapist, Capt. Michael Worsley, and an NCOIC, Sgt. Paul Adkins, about gender identity, in which the army private expressed a belief that a career in the military might "get rid of it."

Manning's lawyers introduced the email to Adkins and accompanying photograph as part of the trial.

Not the best of a public relations coup for the transgender nation.

I guess you have to be careful what you "leak" because old pictures may come back to haunt you!

It Does Get Better

You probably have heard of the It Does Get Better public relations effort which began some time ago to reach out to TGLB youth. Nothing is more tragic to me than the stories of trans kids who are subjected to extreme bullies and ignorant families. Ultimately suicide is the only answer for some.  So sad! Despite the age difference, most of their problems are similar to ours.

The fact remains though, what does and doesn't the campaign mean to the "more mature" transgender age groups? Actually everything and then again not so much. Bottom line in any self help campaign is : "what does it do for me?"

In essence we are still our parents trans kid peeking out from the closet to see what's going on. The problem is, the closet over the years has become very full of the baggage we have accumulated. We have painted our self into a corner of the closet with few alternatives. Such as these simplified examples:

Number One is going down with the ship. You have hidden your gender issues for so long, what's the problem with a few more?

Number Two are the final solutions. You can't stand the pressure anymore and you check out with suicide or you go ahead come out before you harm yourself.

Number Three is cautiously checking the waters. and slowly come out into the world.

No matter of age, the only way anything gets better is effort. Check the link above for effort on the highest level!