Nothing Happens in a Vacuum

2017 marked a huge year for transgender candidate's nationwide. Most of those victories just didn't happen in a vacuum.

Here is more from The Advocate:

"In the wake of the 2016 elections — and subsequent attacks on transgender rights — a group of pioneering trans activists decided that getting more trans candidates on the ballot would be more impactful than checking one off. Together they formed the Trans United Fund, the first and only national political advocacy group focused on empowering trans and gender expansive people. Its Breakthrough Fund is the first bipartisan transgender political action committee (PAC) and was designed to help a handful of key political candidates by providing funding or other resources — sometimes both.

In the 2017 elections, TUF won big: Virginia’s Danica Roem became the first transgender woman in the United States to win a seat in a state legislature, and two trans candidates were elected to the Minneapolis City Council. Andrea Jenkins became the first out trans black woman, and Phillipe Cunningham became the first out trans black man elected to public office.

If it weren’t for the money TUF raised, the connections and resources it provided, or the voter mobilization it spearheaded, it’s quite likely these trans candidates would not have won"

For more, go here.

And So We Meet Again

For some reason, my schizophrenic cat wants to help me write this post. After biting me last night she can't seem to get enough of me. Not unlike a few of the friends I have had in my life. Not the ones I am referring to in this post.

I didn't have much choice in coming out to my close friends. I never had many, what I considered close friends but what I did have up and died on me in a two year span. It took that aspect out of my Mtf transgender transition reality.

To this day, I only have one friend who knows of my trans life and supports me. She just happens to live some distance away and we don't see each other much. The last time I met her and a couple of her grand-kids, they were all really nice. I could have been meeting them as my old male self other than the person I am today.

Plus, with kids, they always seem to be more accepting.

So, as 2018 begins I count my long time friend as one of my transgender blessings.

I have always wondered how it would have been to have been able to come out to my deceased male friends. Of course, it's nice to think they would have accepted me, but then again, I will never know. I do think the process would have been way more uncomfortable for me, than them. Maybe then though, they would have understood why I "disappeared" on occasion as I secretly was learning to live life as a transgender woman.

I am sure too, as I started HRT, there would have been very little chance they wouldn't have noticed the obvious and subtle changes going on with me.

Like so many things in my lives, I will never really know the answer.

New Years' "Stuff"

It should be fairly quiet in the LGBT-transgender world early in the year, unless the Cheeto (IQ-45) decides to try to single the trans community out for no specific reason except to cover his own problems.

After all, his ban on transgender troops in the military was summarily dismissed in the courts. What a great way to end the year!

Other than that, Caitlyn Jenner is heard/read, released her book. As you Cyrsti's Condo regulars know, I'm not one of her fans and even after reading reviews of her book, I don't plan on jumping on the Jenner bandwagon anytime soon. Plus, not all have resolved Jenner from her alleged continue support of tRump, like:

Ashlee Marie Preston, who became the first trans magazine editor-in-chief earlier this year, ripped into Jenner for her allegedly ongoing backing of Trump despite his decision to ban trans people from the military.  Now  following the sudden resignation of California assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, Preston has said she will run for the District 54 seat.

Preston (left) and Jenner

I'm sure my views won't hurt her (Jenner's) feelings one way or another but I am not so sure how easy it is for a tiger to change her Republican stripes.






Personally, my goals for 2018 mainly revolve around exercise and eating healthier. Some of us aren't getting any younger :).