From the Bar

This picture was taken Saturday night by Liz after several "cocktails":

In fact, this was taken following a shot of Jager :)

As written before, we were at Club Diversity in Columbus, Ohio. One of the most inclusive venues around.

Plenty of transgender women, even more cross dressers and gay men.

Are You at Risk?

These days, the very definition of what being a woman is all about is in serious flux.

Of course, there are the issues of equality in the workplace, the #MeToo movement as as well as the issue of continuing violence against women.

In the midst of all of it, where does a transgender woman struggling to find her feminine identity fit in? It's a difficult question and different for each one of us. But, is it really? Even after all the years I have been full time living as a trans woman, I still find myself falling back into a default male spot when a man is accused of doing something to a woman. What I mean is, what happened to the woman could never happen to me anyhow. Then I begin to think, yes it could.

Plus, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the current person "in charge" of our country who can't seem to deal with women on an equal level at all.

Recently even, here in Ohio, we were all mesmerized in a negative way when The Ohio State University's very successful and very popular football coach came out looking very sleazy in a recent scandal over an assistant wife beating accusations. To make a very long complicated story short, the accused coach was a grandson of another OSU head coach and a mentor of the current head coach.

By now, you may be thinking, what does this have to do with me? Well, everything. As you transition you will be losing your male privilege and will need stricter protections someday to survive.

Let's take another look at the whole affair from Connie:

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEAugust 23, 2018 at 12:08 PM

"Well, since you brought it up.......Urban Meyer (The Ohio State Coach) has shown himself to be somewhat of a slimeball, I think. He obviously lied, and then, when asked a direct question about the victim, deflected with a non-answer without anything close to a sincere apology. I think he's behaved in a much more egregious way then, say, Pete Carroll ever did. These coaches are put on impossibly-high pedestals and are paid obscene amounts of money. That doesn't mean they're absolved for their indiscretions, however. The "Good 'Ol Boys" clubs in sports, business, religion, and politics need to be taken down.

I would argue that this is really important to write about, even if it has nothing to do, directly, with transgender issues. Oh, wait! As transgender women, we should realize that it has everything to do with the way men treat and value women."

I love the last paragraph!

Confidence

One of most recurring themes here in Cyrsti's Condo over the years, has been the fact "confidence" is your number one accessory to any outfit. Not your dress, not your purse or your makeup. If you carry yourself as if nothing is wrong, most people will think that too. Essentially you will have perfected your own feminine mystique.

Of course, if you go overboard and wear a micro mini spandex skirt to the grocery next time, you will be certain to get your fair (and unfair) share of stares. Seemingly, something all of us novice cross dressers or transgender women have to go through on our paths to wherever we want to get to.

Personally, one thing that drives me crazy is when I see the mini skirt I mentioned above over ill disguised foam padding. The mirror must have been really lying to the cross dresser that day. I know, because I have done it myself. Over the years though, I learned from my mistakes, the stares and snickers (or Milky Way's) lessened and my confidence increased.

One of the hardest things for me to do was believe in myself that I could do this woman thing. As time went by, I hid my small feminine presentation mistakes with having the confidence to be who I was.

As you develop your transgender confidence, you will find slowly but surely you will have more bright days than dull ones!