We've Been Around

I happened across this set of five short transgender videos you may want to check out called "We've Been Around" 

Which leads me back to a point I have been wanting to make for awhile. At our last Trans Day of Remembrance planning meeting, the subject came up about how many more transgender people were there. Maybe not organized - but there.

If you watch any of these video's it turns out we have always been somewhere in the shadows waiting for our turn.

I have also began to follow another very wordy blog whom I think was trying to explain away any transgender movement.

I would argue she doesn't read much other than her own blog or doesn't get out much.

As I have always said, it matters not how beautiful you are or aren't, or how rarely you do get out of the closet, unless you are a complete ass, you are part of a larger transgender movement.

Candis Cayne

There is much more to this link including Jen Richards, co-writer, star, and producer of "Her Story," who then used the example of transgender actress Candis Cayne who 
became a positive role model. Cayne, when she came to national attention in 2007 starring in the ABC drama, Dirty Sexy Money. She was the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime, said Richards.

Growing up, Richards said she didn't see people like her on television. They were usually "the dead prostitute or the punch line," she said.

The next generation of trans people will have the advantage of seeing "trans people speaking in their own voices" onscreen in programs like "Her Story," said Richards."

Maybe it's just me, but this just might be a transgender movement?

Andreja Pejic

As "Andreja Pejic" rose through the modeling ranks to stardom a couple years ago, she was a blogger's dream. Beautiful, successful, blond and a trans supermodel-who could ask for more as a blogger?

She made history in 2015 as the first transgender model to grace the pages of American Vogue. Pejic, who was born in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, was discovered in 2007 while working at a McDonald’s in Melbourne, Australia. The scout didn’t know if she was a boy or a girl, just that she looked like a model.

Three years later and she was walking in both the men’s and women’s shows for Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris, and she isn't done.

This year, she will appear as a face of Make Up For Ever, making her one of the first transgender models to score a significant beauty campaign .

For more go here.

Back in the Day

Recently we encountered a cis-female acquaintance whose spouse was scared to death to come out of the closet and also the mother of a trans daughter.

Immediately my heart went out to both, knowing fair well what the feelings are like. In fact, I was pretty sure the first night I came out my best accessory was an oxygen tank.

I had cross dressed off and on sure, but on this special night, I was going to go into a place I had scouted out several times as a guy-and go in as a woman. Order a drink, appetizer, the whole deal by myself.

The evening imprinted me so much that I can still feel the smooth sliding of hose inside my black flats as if it was yesterday. Not 20 years ago. The funny thing that happened was I managed to blend, breathe and not get laughed out of the place.

I am sure the bar tenders knew because soon I became a regular.

These days, I consider it my biggest pleasure to help anyone out of the closet-anyway I can. At the least it's good karma and most certainly I have enough smart and stupid stories to fill part of the evening.

The nice thing is around here at least (Southwestern Ohio) there are several "layers" of groups from cross dressers to transgender women.

Hopefully some night we can meet for coffee!  Of course there are always intangibles but if your spouse or parent supports you, the big ones are out of the way!