Eye of the Tiger

Just when you thought girls it was safe to come out of your closet- maybe you should be checking the dark recesses of yours for a pair of pants like these!

These are selling for 55 dollars in a shop on Etsy

As we all know, the cross dressing national holiday is approaching quickly. Halloween of course.
I'm passing along one of many corsets from Etsy and some even come in sizes girls up to 2x.
They are pricey but if you can afford it...you only live once!!!

Drag Queen Barbie

No this time it is not you or another transgender kid putting a dress on a Ken Doll.
This is a new Barbie which is just happening to be compared to model/designer Phillipe Blond. (shown above)

While it's uplifting and fun to think this represents a real change in the basic idea of gender specific toys for kids- remember Mattel is not (of course marketing the doll as Drag Queen Barbie) and this is a collectors doll and retails for 125.00 dollars.

Female Bonding

Every now and then I will run into a genetic female who wants to chat about my transgender status.
At some point in the conversation, she will want to know what I think are the biggest changes I have been through and what I have felt about them. Know she will. It's all good. Just bonding with the girls.
The answers are easy.  We go down the feminine checklists of skin, breasts, moods etc.
Then the fun starts. The next round of questions involves periods, bloating, and hot flashes. AND
it's all well and good to feminize your body BUT what about not experiencing monthly periods, bloating, PMS etc.
What can I say?
My simple answer is "only females bleed".
Never have had a menstrual period...never will. It is a deal breaker with them? Not usually if they are grounded human beings. This point is always a great spot to toss in-  gender is between the ears and sex is between the legs factoid and a female is not necessarily a woman.
Bottom line: Has it made my life easier or harder than theirs since I didn't bleed? Can't tell you.

Commercial Gender Quiz

Two friends asked me last night which of the two big home improvement stores- Lowes or Home Depot I liked best.
I said "Why? Is this a trick question?".
They said no...which did I prefer? I said Lowes- Why?
Both of them laughed and said it was a gender question.
Lowes is set up to appeal more to women with the store's emphasis on lighting, appliances etc. Home Depot is a more direct material buying center which appeals more to men.
I guess I passed?

Just a Chance to Feel the Joy!

Everyonce in a while I find a before and after transgender transsexual video on You Tube which really speaks to the joy of the person who went through it. This is one:

Defining Drag

From the Advocate.Com comes an unlikely story from San Francisco. "The new pastor of a church in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood is enforcing a policy barring drag queens from performing in the church. The Castro Country Club, a local gay recovery organization, has held two of its previous annual fundraising events at the Most Holy Redeemer Church, according to the Bay Area Reporter. However, when coordinating this year's Harvest Feast, Rev. Brian Costello said that he was following directives from the local Catholic diocese, which has a strict "no drag queen" rule." In San Francisco? Who would have "thunk" it? This next quote says it all though: "

Zachary Davenport, who performs as Laybelline, has done several performances to benefit sobriety-related events, many of which have been held at the church. "What constitutes drag?" he said. "If we want to get funny, let's talk about the priests. Hello." Another performer Heklina is pictured on the left.

For the Non Humorist Peeps

From theFrisky: Wear Your Annoying Feminism Around Your Neck -- Sick of having the same-old-same-old convo with your misogynist friends and neighbors? Tired of always having to explain to your nearest and dearest how your annoying feminism is an inflexible, static part of your political worldview? Then maybe you need to cut to the chase and get one of these “Feminist Killjoy” necklaces. [$32, Etsy]

One is Company-Two is a Crowd

Probably by now you have heard the story about the transgender group who was asked not to come back to a bar they had been frequenting for years.
Ouch!
Of course I'm biased for the trans girls but I'm going to pass along some reservations and some paranoia's I have.
The reservations come from my past and stories which have been passed along by some friends.
When one goes out with a group of mixed trans girls, you could be grouped with anyone from cross dressers, transgender and the occasional transsexual. The problem? Occasionally you will have a joiner who doesn't chose to conform to a feminine lifestyle. Meaning he's the one who has the dress on and is still smoking a Cuban cigar in the corner. A bit of an exaggeration I know- but you get the point. If this begins to happen, then the group becomes more of a problem for the owner.
The reason I bring it up is that I saw it in my past and have a close friend who posted a similar story to me a year or so ago. She was reluctant to join a group in her town who met every Friday night.  Not only did some of the participants chose not to act feminine, they seemed to go out of their way not too.
Another huge problem I see could be the rest room.  Unless the establishment is one of the rare ones which has gender neutral rooms- it's a lose lose situation. Hetero-normal folks don't match well some of the time with trans folks in the rest room. Yes I have seen the occasional cross dresser at the urinal or standing up to pee in the woman's room.
These reservations lead me to my paranoia over the years of sharing my cherished non gay venues with other trans women.  Truthfully, I rarely encounter anyone who does but there is certainly a fear factor built in.
As we all know, looks are one thing but actions and the accountability for them are another.
I wonder if that is what happened to the trans women who were asked not to return?
If it wasn't, and someone who visits Cyrsti's Condo knows the indepth story-I will find out ( I'm sure!)  and comment from there!

Trans Politics

For all Americans, once again it's time for a presidential election.
Along the way, I have decided to stay sort of non political here in Cyrsti's Condo which is tough since I am a very political person.
With great interest, I have watched how this election is laying out.
I'm pretty jaded and don't think either political party is really interested in helping the average citizen much. If government just stayed out of the way, we would be a stronger country.

BUT
I can't help but think this year's Republican ticket has the real potential to set back our transgender rights for years. Specifically I just know (that somewhere down the line) a huge check was written in Chick Fil-A's name when the Republican VP candidate was announced.
So I know my vote isn't going to the chicken chain and their party.

Typically, there are many sub plots involved with any election. Here is an important one from a transgender vet publication Outserve.


The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that 25,000 transgender people could lose the right to vote due to voter ID laws. Many conservative states make obtaining a driver’s license with a trans person’s correct gender nearly impossible, or prohibitively expensive. As a result, up to 41 percent of trans people lack a correct driver’s license. While the map in the link above shows that this disenfranchisement is unlikely to affect the general election, or even statewide elections, it denies people the democratic voice we have fought for over the course of 226 years. Republicans don’t seem interested in trans people voting. When margins in elections get too narrow, though, democrats seem to prefer for military absentee ballots not be counted either. In closely contested Presidential races, the pattern has been for the democratic candidate to contest military absentee ballots (Bush v Gore), and for the republican to contest provisional ballots (Bush v Kerry). Voters with name discrepancies, like the transgender community, are typically forced to use provisional ballots. The math on why these two patterns happen is pretty simple; military people generally vote conservatively, and LGBT typically people vote for the more liberal candidate. There is an upside, I suppose. If the ban on trans people in the military ever ends, at least it will finally give both parties something they can agree on. They will finally have a demographic neither group wants voting.

In my case Brynn Tannehill who writes for Outserve and I both live in Ohio and she also goes into what she is facing voting on a local level.
Very soon I will be going down that same path!