Professional "Women's Night Out"

Last night, my partner Liz and I went to a small Professional Woman's  Dinner "Meetup".  I have not been excluded from this one like the lesbians have from the "Loki" group here in Cincinnati.  It's an incredible time hearing how these other women approach their professional lives.  Of course each get together such as these have the initial "introductions."  As quickly as my old noggin could think, I thought I am not going to introduce myself as transgender with all the carnival barkers jumping on the trans band wagon.  So, I went with the "Two Spirit" name. 

Of course, my introduction confuses many "civilians" more, but it's simpler for me to say very little more and chat later-if anyone cares.

I have found many trans people don't know of, or don't embrace the Two or Dual Spirit ideas at all.
From the U.S version of the Guardian comes a look: This week's guest editor, Antony Hegarty, is a fan of the book The Spirit and the Flesh. He asked its author, Walter L Williams, to write a feature for guardian.co.uk/music on the 'two-spirit' tradition in Native American culture:
Native Americans have often held intersex, androgynous people, feminine males and masculine females in high respect. The most common term to define such persons today is to refer to them as "two-spirit" people, but in the past feminine males were sometimes referred to as "berdache" by early French explorers in North America, who adapted a Persian word "bardaj", meaning an intimate male friend. Because these androgynous males were commonly married to a masculine man, or had sex with men, and the masculine females had feminine women as wives, the term berdache had a clear homosexual connotation. Both the Spanish settlers in Latin America and the English colonists in North America condemned them as "sodomites.



Above, We-Wa, a Zuni two-spirit, weaving US national archives


Rather than emphasising the homosexuality of these persons, however, many Native Americans focused on their spiritual gifts. American Indian traditionalists, even today, tend to see a person's basic character as a reflection of their spirit. Since everything that exists is thought to come from the spirit world, androgynous or transgender persons are seen as doubly blessed, having both the spirit of a man and the spirit of a woman. Thus, they are honoured for having two spirits, and are seen as more spiritually gifted than the typical masculine male or feminine female.

Therefore, many Native American religions, rather than stigmatising such persons, often looked to them as religious leaders and teachers.

In my next post, I will tell you why many transgender elitists won't accept the idea at all.

Trangender In the Heartland?

Yes, we who happen not to live on the right or left coast of the United States, do know there is secretly a rich tapestry of life which happens. Now,  ironically, the flood of reality shows are beginning to shed a bit more light on arguably one of the more bland places in the country-the Midwest. It's our secret and we are sticking to it, except now Kansas City is coming out of the transgender closet: From Discovery:

Kansas City is about to be the setting for a new reality TV show – but it’s not about barbecue, fountains or jazz. The show, called New Girls On the Block, follows a group of transgender women. Shot in 50 locations around town at the end of last year, it debuts on the new Discovery Life Channel on April 2.

Robyn and her boyfriend, Andrew, shared a laugh as they prepared dinner Tuesday evening at their home in the Waldo area. Robyn is a transgender cast member on a new five-part Discovery Life Channel series set to air in April. Keith Myers The Kansas City Star

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/article9729632.html#storylink=cpy

Another experience line from the show from Discovery Life said New Girls on the Block will be the first reality TV series about a group of friends in the transgender community. It focuses on four couples, all of them from Kansas City. (Including the couple above.)
And, there’s Macy and Sharon, a middle-aged, married couple – Macy used to be a strapping, motorcycle-riding man.
"He was the man all my friends were like, 'Girl don’t you mess this up,'" says Sharon.
Now that Macy has transitioned, viewers will get a glimpse of how her marriage to Sharon is evolving.

Now the question is, will "reality" be more "real" since it is coming from the "Heartland?"

The Trans Beat Grows Louder

As I wrote here in Cyrtsi's Condo recently, every morning it's difficult not to hear a story or someone's interpretation of the recent flood of transgender news. Plus more and more trans peeps are coming out of the woodwork to comment.  Thanks Bobbie for sending along this story:


"According to the Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning will soon be writing an opinion column for the British daily neMwspaper’s U.S. website.
Readers will likely, of course, remember Chelsea Manning formerly as Bradley Manning – responsible for the largest leak in U.S. history of classified information. The people’s patriot and whistleblower declared publicly his desire to transition to a woman in August of 2013 and began the transition from male to female last year.
Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for her role in the historical information leak."

Also, on the Meredith  Viera Show,  Patricia Arquette was one of the guests. She talked about her current projects, then of course the topic turned to her transgender sister Alexis. (left)  Patricia did a wonderful job of describing how brutal our lives can be and said, I paraphrase "it's not the package -it's the person which matters."

Unlike the stupid misdirected comments from a very ignorant Sharon Osborne about Bruce Jenner's sexuality on the Talk