Do you know "Art"

The "Art" I'm talking about is the "Art of Purging".
As I write on my book projects (I'm a hoarder of words), I discover aspects of my past that I have totally forgotten. What's that saying "I have forgotten more than most people know?"  In my case I'm pretty sure I've forgotten more because of my age!
For whatever reason all of the sudden I began to think about "purging". If you don't know, the term refers to the disposal of your feminine articles.

Looking back on the process, I came up with about three possibilities of how purging worked:
1.- Private. You took it upon yourself to throw your stuff away.
2.- Semi Private. You tossed a portion of your things out for someone else to see and kept the good.
3.-Total Dispersal. You took all of your feminine belongings and heaved them out of your world for someone else to see.

Regardless of the method one overriding memory came through to me-euphoria! I truthfully never purged much and never totally but the mere act of stuffing some of my girl stuff into trash bags and sending them to the trash was symbolically wonderful. I had finally faced the monster, beat her like a drum and was ready to resume a total masculine existence...Yeah right!

My fondest memory of a purge was when a friend of mine cleared out his storage unit of feminine contraband and gave me the pick of what I wanted which included my first real set of breast forms.

Of course the "tragedy" of purging is it doesn't work in the vast majority of cases. The euphoria and the great resolve to to separate one's self from the gender confusion departs quickly.

Estrogen Intensive Therapy

Today was visit number two to the hair salon to get my hair color "freshened".
A nice way to say-out with the gray roots.
This visit was yet another "first" in that I was totally feminine when I went today.
When I made the appointment last week, the receptionist changed my name from the male version my daughter originally gave them.  As you might remember I was told to come with about three days worth of beard growth to be evaluated for hair removal for my first visit.

This morning I had a relatively early appointment and really didn't know or care how many others I would encounter in what serves as a lobby in this salon. As it turned out, when I opened the door and walked in there were about five or six young women around the front desk.
Now it's been awhile since time has stopped in front of me.  What I mean is during various points in my transition, certain situations seemed to stop all of the life around me. I was moving in slow motion and the world was stopped or looking at me. This morning though,  I again added a couple extra seconds to the day as all the women just stopped at stared at me. I almost said "I come in peace earthling women. May I come in?"

In reality I just smiled and said "Good Morning" and all was fine. For many of them I may have been the only transgender person they ever knew for sure they encountered. They indeed let me in and even got me a cup of coffee.

As I sat and waited for the stylist, I felt I shouldn't have taken my estrogen today. I could have overdosed with all of it in the air in the salon and I loved it.
Overall,  the pampering and the overall effects today were about the same as visit number one. The big exception was I noticed the three or four other women also getting their hair done were more or less resigned to the process. I wondered how many visits will it take before I join that club too?

Finally I wonder how long it will take for the novelty of having a transgender customer to wear off?  Especially one who is like a kid in a candy store?

Just Couldn't Resist It!

Normally I try to pass along new pictures and new people here in Cyrsti's Condo. 
However I had to break that rule this time!

Smell and the Trans Girl

Recently, I seemed to have rediscovered a long lost sense of smell. "Back in the day" before the EPA started to regulate certain industries, I worked a summer job in a plating plant.
Very simply, I cadium and chrome plated electric fan parts in various open hot acid baths.  No masks...just there doing it. For years I believed the whole process hurt my sense of smell, until now.
Quite possibly you have heard of the sense of smell as part of human sexual attraction - specifically the female.
Now I'm not saying I have any heightened sexual attraction when I'm close to certain men but I can say I have been noticing odors such as tobacco and other smells as they walk by. For example I can smell a guy who works as a car mechanic.
The only way I can explain this new set of senses I have are the hormones I'm taking and the transgender transition process.
I actually have been quite socially dense most of my life so all of this has been quite the surprise.
It's no wonder I've seen women recoil and run when a guy walks by who just took a bath in aftershave lotion.

Cross Dressing in the Old West

Being the "historical" not "hysterical" (most of the time) I am, I've heard of this book but never really read a review.
It's called Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past by Peter Boag.
Here's a bit of the review from Terri Schlichenmeyer:

 "For women, the frontier was a man's world. There was adventure and prosperity there, and becoming a man as much as possible was a way to seize opportunity. Safety was another reason for appearing masculine, cross-dressing could be scandalous fun, and it could help escape punishment for criminal behavior. There were also women who believed themselves to be boys from birth. For smooth-faced men, it was common to dress as women for dances and parties because biological women were scarce. Men impersonated women to entertain others. In some Native American communities, "berdaches" were encouraged to embrace femininity. Like some women, males took on girlish appearances to escape crime, and then there were the men who simply wanted to "be" women. But for those men, and their female counterparts, life wasn't easy. Being arrested for the "crime" of wearing clothes for the opposite sex was common and cross-dressers were often shunned. Interestingly, however, their partners (usually same-sex) were generally socially accepted. Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past is good, but long. Boag offers lots of excellent examples to back up his reasoning behind why these stories are largely hidden from history, and what he found will set western fans (not to mention screenwriters) on their ears. This is fascinating stuff, on many levels. And yet, the book has its distractions. It's very scholarly and often reads like a dissertation, which occasionally makes it hard to read if you're just looking for a peek at hidden history and not a lecture. That aside, because it uncovers a wealth of stories that are overdue for telling, I liked "Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past" and I think you will, too. If you're a Western History buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon."

It's a little pricey in today's world of E-books. Read more of the review here.

Transgender Brides

Very few trans women or men actually make it to the alter...publicly at least for the world to see and even fewer can afford a dress such as this!

Shinata Sangha

Transgender Beauty Queens...Only the Gateway?

We all know beauty is more than skin deep. A zest for life transcends looks for all the people who truly matter in our world.

The Philippines recently landed square in the world transgender spotlight with pageant winner Kevin Balot but Filipina trans rights activist Naomi Fontanos recently told the Gay Star News  there is more to the transgender life than looking beautiful:


"Transgender women are nearly as visible in the Philippines as they are in Thailand, but does that mean the have a full bill of rights? Far from it, says Naomi Fontanos, founder of transgender rights group GANDA (Gender and Development Advocates) Filipinas. She talks to Gay Star News about health and legal advocacy, using contraceptives as hormones, the Catholic church and beauty pageants."

Read the rest of the interview here.

YOHIO is South of Cleveland?

This is very much an old story but then again, so am I.

His name is YOHIO, a 16-year-old boy from Sweden who is now the lead guitarist and songwriter of the visual kei band Seremedy. For those unfamiliar with the Japanese subculture, visual kei refers to a type of heavy metal-esque rock music marked by the musician’s flamboyant and often androgynous use of make-up, hairstyles and costumes while on stage.

I'm fairly sure "Yo-HIO" is what you hear when Ohio State or Ohio U. wins.