Sunday!

Again! Another week has flown by. Very much a typical one on the home front.

No trips to the doctors or therapists this week, except for my recent hearing test, it looks like I will be around for awhile at the least. I hope so, I still have quite a bit to do!

I did read a couple interesting links from Bob and did send a message to a nearby LGBT organizer in Dayton, Ohio, so I can pass along his ideas. Recently, his posts have been very pro - transgender in the LGB spectrum, so we will see what will happen.

The link from Bob was called "What Do We Do About Women With a Penis?" by Cassie Brighter. It leads off with: "The Penis in Women's Spaces, the Cotton Ceiling and the Definition of Womanhood. It's a very long and well written post with several intriguing ideas from which I am going to try to pass along. Or, you can follow the link above to read it yourself.

One paragraph starts with a circle of women all cis except one transgender who become nude in a circle:

"Nineteen of these women are vulva-clad, vagina-equipped natal, cisgender women. One of these women is trans. While she might not refer to her genitals by the words 'penis' or 'testicles,' that’s what they are anatomically. And, though transformed by several years of female hormones, her genitals are likely to be understood as "male genitals" by most women present.

This is the challenge we face: Do we allow the trans gal to participate in the exercise (which includes shedding all clothes and touching one’s genitals), or do we specifically exclude her, for fear of triggering one or more of the other women?" 

The post goes on to explain an answer, or answers to this complicated idea. Also, if you are wondering what the term "Cotton Ceiling" means, here is your answer:

"The term "cotton ceiling" was coined by porn actress and trans activist Drew DeVaux in 2015. It’s been used to refer to the tendency by cisgender lesbians to outwardly include and support trans women, but draw the line at considering ever having sex with them."

Finally, as I try to break this down for you, the post goes into the trans woman in "women's spaces." She (Cassie) writes:

"I beseech you, please show up with humility and patience. If a cisgender woman talks to you from privilege, acting entitled and expecting you to "mind your place," resist the urge to get mad. It might not be malice, it might just be ignorance. Be gentle in correcting pronouns, explaining trans basics, correcting misperceptions."

Later on in the post, we transgender women are referred to as "refugee's" in women's spaces.

As you can tell, there is a lot of ground covered here. Thanks Bob for sharing!

Hope the rest of you had a great week!

Transgender Day of Visibility

This year I am determined to not miss the Trans Day of Visibility. I can't remember why I missed it last year but I did.

The day is held on March 31st and this year, it will be held in the Cincinnati Zoo campus auditorium.

As part of my new desire to volunteer more within my larger (non VA) cross dresser, transgender support group, I volunteered to help with an information table.

It's interesting to note also, this years event is being hosted by "Living with Change." It has been set up thanks to the generous donation from the CEO of the Pure Romance Company.. "Generous" to the tune of two million dollars. The CEO just happens to have a transgender daughter and it's worthwhile reading the story by following the first link above.

Of course I asked my partner Liz to go and help too, so we are planning to have a great time!

More Walls

As we get ever closer to my workshop at the Trans Ohio Symposium, the impetus to "fill in" my topics gets stronger.

Thanks to you Cyrsti's Condo readers, I am settling in on the walls we have to climb over to successfully negotiate a Mtf gender transition (and trans guys too). The first wall I described was cross dressing. As soon as we feel secure enough in the mirror, many times, our thoughts turn to going out in the public's eye.

The second wall we face, is what happens to us when we do it. Much of the excitement we felt looking into the mirror and seeing a girl look back, has a tendency to turn into utter fear as we go out. I know when I first started to live a feminine life, I would look for any semblance of a mirror to reassure myself. Slowly but surely, I became relatively comfortable walking around as a feminine cross dresser.

Then, a little at a time, a voice was telling me, something was still wrong. I was tired of just feeling like I was a guy walking around cross dressed as a woman, I wanted to live more like a woman. At that point, the  real fear of loosing what was left of my masculinity set in. Did I really want to keep going down the road I was on. All of a sudden, labeling myself as a transgender woman was very scary.

As we have discussed though, fear is a powerful motivator and I sat out to do the best I could to co-mingle with cis women and see if I was accepted. This wall was as tough to climb as any previous walls because I had to communicate with the public and often the same ones. It was during this time period I settled on yet a new name and one wig, so I could look the same.

As I made it to the top of this wall, I could look around and see the world as a more feminine person. Most importantly, after the fear subsided, I found I felt really natural. Plus the more natural I felt, the more people around me were beginning to feel it too.

It was about this time, tragedy struck my life and ironically opened the doors wide to consider the next wall. Living my life full time as a trans woman and sacrificing all of my male privilege.