Trans Design

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Project Runway Season 8 finalist, Andy South, sat down for an interview exclusively with NewNowNext to talk about the new flagship store he’s opening in Honolulu’s Chinatown and opened up about her gender transition. Andy on Project Runway // Photo Courtesy Lifetime Turns the uber talented designer and fan favorite from the season that featured the likes of Mondo Guerro, Michael Costello, and Gretchen Jones (the eventual winner) started her gender reassignment therapy before going on the Lifetime show. But when shooting started, she set the hormone pills aside. Now that she’s home in Honolulu, successful with her budding designer career (her label — Andy South — is carried by Nieman Marcus), the 25 year-old, beloved Hawaii native has started living her life as Nong Ariyaphon Southiphong.

VA Update!

Most of you who are regulars here in Cyrsti's Condo know by now I'm a transgender vet and I have been dealing with the Veteran's Administration with my hormone therapy (HRT) for a year now.
Basically I can describe the process as an obstacle course. There are very real barriers in the system which unfortunately are uncharted for the most part to the trans vet and the VA itself.
Briefly, here's how it worked for me.
1.- Went to therapist and was approved to start HRT.
2.- My VA center (all are different) would fill my scripts but not write them. That turned out to be the most expensive part. My meds are generic and almost as cheap at a local pharmacy.
3.- I was encouraged to go to an outside MD who would prescribe and the VA would pick up the tab. (They didn't- no one bothered to tell me you had to be preapproved)
4.- My private outside MD switched practice and tossed me back to point zero and facing another 500 dollar bill.
5.- Knocked on every VA door I knew to lobby for pre approval for another outside MD.
6.- Found a person known as a "Patient Advocate". She was very supportive and told me I would get approved. The VA transgender directive states the system must provide hormonal support and that comes through an 'endocrinologist''  . Of course there wasn't one at my center but one was supposedly coming. Two months later, one came (part-time) and decided he wanted no part of me. That meant I had to be cleared to go outside the system.
7.- Paper work approval sent through system-wrong and had to be resubmitted.
8.- A total of three months later...APPROVAL! Dancing in the street? Not quite...

Now? Waiting on new private Doc's appointment.  I guess if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth it?

A Trip Down Memory Lane

        Every once in a while, I run across a person who thinks somehow my path to this point in my life was easy. Somehow they think I mysteriously learned the basics of moving into the feminine gender effortlessly.   That idea is about as real as I had a choice to be transgender or not.
        Here is an example from "back in the day" which proves my point:
       
Approximately five years or so into my second marriage I decided that trips to crossdressing meetings out of town with my wife weren't enough so I decided to leave the house during the day for a little stroll around the neighborhood.
        For kicks and giggles, lets rack up the stupid points as we go along.
First of all, I lived on a busy street and I was a very public person. I served in several volunteer organizations and managed a big chain business in a town of around 100,000. So anyway you cut it, leaving the house dressed as a female was risky to my marriage and employment.
        Don't get carried away yet and start totalling points yet girl friends- there is more!
You more mature folks will remember the Urban Cowboy movie and the resultant cowgirl fashion craze of sorts. Short jean shorts, boots and blouses tied off at the waist was the basic look. So, who was I not to follow the current fashion craze?
Being the fashionista clothing designer I am, I took a pair of my womens jeans and cut off the legs-really short- butt cheek short. Hey, I was just following a not so smart but all so common crossdressing fashion disaster.
        Go ahead and award me a couple more dumb points!
Now, I know you are dying to know my can't miss guaranteed way to get busted as a man dressed as a woman fashion mistake!
Most men have a good looking pair of womens legs. Almost certainly, one of your first compliments dressed as a woman at that Halloween party was wow! you have great legs. The problem becomes two-fold. The first is those wonderful legs of your just happen to be attached to the rest of your body. The body with those big feet, no hips and big shoulders.  The other is your male ego which just went nuts with the praise. If showing a little leg is good showing a lot is heaven! Well, no and get that stupid stick ready.
I certainly possessed the legs but of course had no hips, the big shoulders and the fashion sense to screw it up further. I didn't have a pair of boots so I substituted with a pair of wedge style heels and made the biggest mistake of all by tying off my blouse at the waist. Visualize a triangle with the tip at the bottom and that is exactly the way I looked. I might as well put a sign around my shoulders saying "Hell yes, I'm a guy!"
      In all fairness, I was just trying to get out of the closet and into the real world- with very little information and help. My trip through the neighborhood in the short shorts was a wonderful example of doing everything wrong and I was lucky.
I'm a believer in any luck is good-  blind or not and most of the time you work to create your own luck. Bottom line was the trans goddess was watching over me (and laughing).  I wasn't  recognized coming out of the house and the neighborhood sidewalks were empty in the middle of day. Most people had jobs then.
By this time, I'm sure you are thinking - are there any smart points on the board?
Well, I was smart enough to begin a long  painful learning experience which helped me to become the transgender woman I am today.

Boys Will Be Girls

Just a couple high school boys being girls in high school:


I have always wondered if an event such as a womanless beauty contest was a continuation, a beginning or an end to the contestants cross dressing career.

Of course no one back in the day would have ever thought that years later their pictures would resurface so many places in the cyber world!

Quote of the Day

"If you are a smart ass- thank God at least one part of your body is picking up the slack!"
Me - of course!

We Got Mail!

"Hi Tech Condo In Box"

I decided to bunch together several excellent comments I recently received.

"Bearmountaineer" responded to the To be Or not to Be post on Stealth question in the transgender community:

"Maybe it makes sense NOT to be noticed when we don't want to be noticed, and TO BE noticed when we want to be noticed, as when we want to support others. But we might consider presenting a stealthy image, and breaking it on purpose to show people that we are "normal", but a small slice of the population...."

I can only say I wish I had thought of this answer myself! Thanks!!!!

Alice checked in a commented on the Atlanta Cotillion :  Cyrsti, as per my earlier comment, Atlanta will also welcome the Southern Comfort Conference this month. Both events can be viewed on Flickr as many of the men in attendance love to share their images when dressed so well to the nines.

Thanks Alice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A portion of my Stuff post concerned the uproar over Mandi's appearance on the Anderson Cooper Show. One of my most respected long term reader and contributor here in Cyrsti's Condo, Sherri Lynne commented:

" Hey GF, I'm curious too as to why the Anderson Cooper piece has sent heads spinning and all the knashing of teeth. What happened to the "We Are One" here? This poor woman appears to me to be suffering from some kind of serious mental illness from what I have read about the interview based on the statements the woman herself made. Some members of our community have serious mental illnesses. Should their voices be stifled? Are they not allowed to be visable, or are we only going to let our "poster girls" have a public forum? We have to face the fact that some of us are going to have serious mental health problems, no more or no less in proportion to the general population. If this piece is exploitive in any fashion, not saying it is or it isn't as I haven't afforded myself to see the interview, my opinion that it would be based on her mental illness, but on the other hand, why should seriously mentally ill peoplew not be allowed to tell their story? In the early 1970's the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill was ordered by federal mandate and the people deemed should be segregated and shut away from having a life of freedom were given more access to having as normal a life as their illness permits and living in the least restrictive manner possible. As with any poorly planned federal legistation, there were some very negative consequences for these individuals along with the very positive results of this court mandate. So, you make your choices and you pay your dues. This woman has not been deemed mentally incompetent, or she would be in the hospital. She has just as much right as anyone else to speak in a public forum whether we like it or not. That is the real issue at hand, not whether she makes the trans community look bad."

If you don't know, Sherri Lynne is a real live transgender therapist. Both trans woman and therapist!
I also received another comment from a person who has met Mandi several times and felt perhaps the platform she used did not work well for her. He thought that regardless of what anyone thinks of the validity of her claim, she has the right to comment on it.

In no order of importance I also received this comment from Brianna Austin concerning my video post The Best of Brini Maxwell :
" I met Brini at my first Night of a Thousand Gowns, in 2002 http://www.briannaaustin.com/index.php/gallery/events/thousand-gowns-2002/fab-formal-197"

Cool! I don't get out much (maybe quantity not quality?) and I am star struck when I get a comment from someone like Brianna who does!

Finally, Liz commented on my Transgender Dating post: "It was very moving and touched me!"
Thanks!

Thanks soooo much to all of you who cared enough to comment!

Horror Scope

I haven't mentioned for awhile how much I really don't believe much in astrology. Believe or not, my last several "Horror Scopes" here in Cyrsti's Condo have been flat out juicy!!!!
Including this one:

Libra (September 23- October 22) There isn’t be a lot you won’t feel you can’t do now, so don’t waste this time on hapless people and places. This will mean getting a bit sterner with your baby too, so when they go on with talking crap, you’ll have to know when to pull that shade down and close out the noise. This week, compassion is for the weak.

As always I make this disclaimer: Horror Scope is my title but it comes from theFrisky and the fabulous woman above is Venus Demars!

Transgender Girls in the Dating World

Recently I came across a post called "Would you be seen with me?"
The stark simplicity of the question is certainly a subject most transgender women and men have thought of.

If you are out and about and date-it's an all encompassing question. Especially if you do- or are considering dating men-it's a bigger question.
Before I comment, here is an excerpt from the post written by Racheal McGonigal (right)

"So who is up for a date? It is not really the right question to be asking. It should probably be, who is prepared to be seen out on a date with me? It takes a very special man to date a transsexual and that is a shame. Believe me, men love transsexuals but being seen with them is a different story."
t is some eight years since I have been in a relationship and I miss the closeness and cuddles. Recently, I meet a really nice guy. Average to good looking, fit, can communicate, we get on. First date went well, we meet in a bar and I admit I have never felt like this before. He told me he felt the same and so he stayed the night, both of us saying it was never our intention. Next day we walked hand-in-hand around the viaduct, ate in cafes and drunk in bars. We played pool and he never batted an eye lid. The romance continued. He has come to my place and stayed the night several times but now I see a problem: he is scared of what his 18-year-old son, middle-aged beer drinking flat mate, former partner and workmates will say. He says he doesn't care, that he wants us to be friends and has similar feelings for me, but he won't introduce me to his circle. Peer pressure. Time will tell what will happen between us but he is a special man. It is a hard choice when it's the bigotry of friends that put this pressure on him."

I'm far from being an expert at dating a man.
Here's my record over the past four years: One was a prince, one moved away, one so-so and four just out and out stood me up. I'm certain I would have been twenty times more popular if I would have accepted the ever so popular "which hotel do you want to meet at?"
Obviously, I didn't have to be told I was not the kind of woman a man would bring home to his family nor did I ask. But I was also not the sexually easy stereotype we trans girls fight through.
Look, I'm sure in many ways we transgender women are experiencing the same dating trials and tribulations as genetic women. Also, my older lesbian friends tell me their dating scene is nearly impossible to be a success in (at least around here).

I've written so many times how wonderful it is to have my little circle of friends...all of whom are genetic females...if that tells you anything!

Best of Brini!

Ever heard of Ben Sanders/Brini Maxwell? I had barely until a friend kept bugging me about her videos. Here's a Best of you may enjoy: