A Touch of Paris in the UK!

Paris Lees (left) has topped the list of the UK's most powerful LGBT people. The transgender journalist and broadcaster beat the likes of Clare Balding, Peter Tatchell and Jessie J to be voted number one on the Independent on Sunday's Pink List 2013. By doing so, Lees has become the first trans person to top the list. Go here for more.

Watching

Over the years it's a good thing I wasn't profiled as some sort of a perve or stalker. I spent countless hours noticing the small things women do to be... well...women. As with anything else, I gave the process a grading system which I called pass/fail (no pun intended) and many females I knew never passed as women. In fact, one of my favorite sayings here in Cyrsti's Condo is males and females are born, men and women are socialized. A very close friend said it best years ago to me when she lamented she just couldn't understand why many mothers weren't teaching their daughters to be women anymore.

Of course, like the rest of you, my Mom didn't teach me and the greatest majority of my feminine lessons were self taught.  Many of the lessons weren't so pretty but I learned and moved on. Sometimes these days,  I'm surprised how much I still observe genetic women. Sure I wonder how some got out of the house looking like that,  but now I try to understand why the genders are different- other than the obvious.

Barney and Fred in Drag

Here's an example.  Yesterday I watched a women deftly switch hands with her purse as she checked out at an convenience store. She was good and made it look easy but then again she wasn't holding a small child in one of her arms. Didn't matter,  I'm sure she still would have made it happen.

Somehow I wondered if she was working with some sort of genetic switch going back to the prehistoric human days. I imagined a group of cave women gathering a fresh harvest of berries while they held and took care of the kids. (Yes! I thought of all this and still didn't hold up the line!)

As I took my hot Mocha and headed for the door, I just couldn't put the thought into my purse and I started to wonder about gender multi tasking skills too.

I concluded, Way back in the day,  for the most part the prehistoric men had a single task:  form a team,   hunt a Mastodon and bring home a whole bunch of bacon. So, today's  women are better at multi tasking and men at team building. Why? Because we had to as humans. How easy was that? Well we both know these are sweeping generalizations.

But as I do think about them though from this transgender outpost I occupy and  I can see why over the centuries,  many cultures revered us for our knowledge while in so many others, we were hated and killed. (Today)

The sad truth is all too often ignorance is power and the transgender tribe has so much to offer if we are given a chance.

Transgender Vets Wanted

"Calling all transgender veterans! The Office of Patient Care Services from veteran’s Health Administration is looking for 3-4 transgender veterans to appear in an educational program for VA clinical staff on providing excellent, culturally appropriate health care to transgender veterans. According to The Office of Patient Care Services from Veteran’s Health Administration, “We are looking for a diverse group of Veterans of different ages, ethnicities, gender, and branch of military service. Participation will involve providing first-person accounts of lived experience and perhaps role-playing a VA patient with an actor-clinician on video.”
Auditions and recordings will be held at the St. Louis Employee Education Resource Center VA Medical Center, Bldg. # 48 in St. Louis. Auditions and casting are scheduled for Monday, December 2nd beginning 8:00-11:00 am and 12:00-2:00 pm. Video recording is planned for Monday, December 2nd 2:00-4:30 pm with additional video recordings scheduled for Tuesday, December 3rd from 9:00 am-4:30 pm. Participation in the project is purely voluntary and those who are interested in auditioning can contact Elizabeth Bowling at (314) 894-6540 with questions or concerns."

 Unfortunately, I live a long way from St. Louis!