A Taste of Ivory

Ivory Aquino never thought there would be roles for a transgender girl from the Philippines, so she was prepared to give up on her childhood dream of being an actor.

“I didn’t feel at that time that there were any roles I could do,” Aquino tells PEOPLE exclusively about her despair.

So, with acting seemingly out of the question, Aquino decided to try her hand at becoming a singer.

“With androgynous figures like David Bowie, I thought I could do music without thinking about gender,” she says in the upcoming issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

But after moving to the U.S. in her teens, and undergoing her gender confirmation surgery out of the country at age 26, Aquino had a revelation.

“My outsides finally felt like my insides,” she says. “The first thought that came to mind was, ‘I can act again!’ ”

Aquino, who stars as the trans activist Cecilia Chung in the ABC mini series, is still in the beginning of her acting career.

For more, go here.

Life Turns on a Dime, Part Four

I call this time in the mid 1980's my validation time.

I was still struggling with the fact that dressing trashy versus classy was not the way to  go and teasing truckers on the interstate with a hiked up skirt was not going to work.  Plus I still couldn't get it through my thick noggin why it wouldn't.

Very basically a cross dresser dresses for what a man wants to see and a transgender woman (in order to survive in the world) must take into consideration what women want to see too.

After yet another viscous fight between my wife and I, she said "You make a terrible woman." Of course I was devastated!  All  the work shaving my legs and mirror worship just couldn't be wrong. Then she said, "I'm not referring to the way you look. I am referring to the way you act and think."

You would have thought even I would begin to get through my thick noggin what she was talking about and for once I was getting a glimmer of hope. On my trips out cross dressed, I was beginning to notice more of the world around me. About this time too, my wife would even go out with me to dinner in Columbus. So if I didn't "dress like a slut" (as she put it) I would have even more chances to live as a woman. The more I lived it-the more I loved it.

About this time was when transgender began to creep into the public's vocabulary replacing the all encompassing transvestites or transsexuals on either end of the spectrum. I began to think-could transgender be me?

Shortly we moved back up towards Columbus, Ohio and I became involved with one of the most diverse groups within a group I had ever seen or been involved with.

I was about to find another dime and have a real idea what validation really meant.

Don't Blame me Dammit!!

Who had the brilliant idea for me to write a blog approximately five years ago????

CONNIE that's who. As Stana or Paula or Shelle or Mandy can tell you, keeping up on a blog takes a tremendous amount of time for almost no monetary return.

Ironically, even though we may live oceans apart (Paula) or shared a different transgender veteran  (Shelle) experience, threads run thru each blog which ultimately make us trans sisters. Keep up the good work ladies!

FYI, Connie and I met on another LGBT message board type format when she was bashing a group of "trans-nazi's" My lesson learned was a pretty trans picture for the most part did not equate out to a pretty/warm interior. Somehow, many of them neglected to finish that part of their MtF gender transition.

Imagine that.