Only Two Things are Certain

In life there are only two certainties, you are born and you die.
A couple weeks ago, just after Thanksgiving I silently and inwardly noted the date of my wife's passing.
A week ago was her birthday.
I write this not out of sorrow or self pity but in the spirit of who she was and what she would want me to do. I have always felt she would have backed my transition completely but we couldn't have stayed married. She knew I was miserable. More importantly, I know somewhere she is behind my effort to help anyone with my story. Up front I'm going to tell you this will be a two part post.

For those of you who have stopped by Cyrsti's Condo for sometime,  perhaps you remember any number of posts I have written about my wife's influence on me-including "You make a Terrible Woman". or "Be a Man enough to Be a Woman". Essentially the first was beating me up for only thinking appearance was important to being the girl I wanted to be. The second was from a rough period we were going through due to my transgender confusion. She made me a better woman from the inside out.

Five years later my grieving is done and of course 25 years of memories will always remain.

The main reason for me bringing all of this up however is some of you will- or already are becoming depressed about the upcoming holiday season. Loneliness certainly does not look good in a red suit and beard or butching it up for your family Christmas parties makes you feel like a liar.
Just remember that life just evolves and what the heck- the Mayans could be right and we all get wiped out on December 21st.  I know it's bleak. Been there friends and have done it.

About now bunches of you are thinking blah, blah blah! Sure you are born and you die and I'm miserable! Got any ideas genius girl?
Well, I do and none of them are miracles and most are achievable.
But not until my next post-you know how I so hate 2 million word epics. Hell, I know I get lost in them, I can only imagine how you feel.

Before we move on, I just want to say please toss out the bravery word with me. I'm just living the life I had to live. Don't need no stinkin awards. Don't deserve them, but:
In order to arrive where I am now,  certain circumstances had to happen in my life. Looking back,  I have been dazzled by destiny and how the most important facets of my life have been set in motion by decisions I made years ago.
However I really don't believe so much in luck and I will tell you why in the next post and why I feel so fortunate going into this holiday season.

The Common Trans Folk

I'm as guilty as the next person of getting caught up in the glamour and glitz of all the knock down gorgeous transgender and transsexual women.

"Picture from a meeting in East Aurora, Ill concerning establishing new  gender standards"

On occasion I do look past all the bright lights and beauty to the trans folks in the trenches-women and men. The ones that say "hey! to hell with it I'm going to live life as I see fit." I lump myself largely into that category because most of the time I marginally present totally as a woman.  On the other hand, I present totally well as a person...
As do just two of the many trans women I have chosen pictures of to emphasize my point. To the left is "Dessert Storm Vet" Gabrielle Ludwig who is now playing college basketball at the age of 50. Certainly their stories are viewed with some sensationalism by some of the public but more importantly all of those we encounter as transgender humans make the effort worth while!

What is a Drag Queen?

Ironically, the more I'm able to make my way in the world as a transgender woman the more I become re interested in how closely related drag queens are to us.
Of course they aren't and drag peeps such as Rude Paul make me sick but every once in a while I run into an interesting video which gives extra insight into the world of drag queens.
Be patient with this one. The first part of it provides an interesting look at a few classic female impersonators and then settles into the present:

A Night in the "Nati"

Saturday night a wonderful friend of mine and I had a night out in the "Nati". The "Nati" is a slang term for Cincinnati.

Like so many evenings, this one started out innocently enough, we were simply going to downtown Cinci to enjoy the Christmas lights and sounds.  Oh, by the way my friend is a "GG" which shouldn't figure into this post but in spirit of understanding and disclosure-there you are.

Little did I know the real meaning of the evening would begin when I washed and dried my hair earlier in the afternoon.  The hair experience is still a mystery to me. Today however, I decided to step outside the box and let my "freak flags fly"...so to speak. I always admired the girls with the wild hair so I spritzed my hair with some sort of curling conditioner recommended by my friend. I let it dry, teased my hair a little and off I went.

Cincinnati is actually and hour and half or so from where I live but for any number of reasons I have always been drawn to it. Seemingly the place has been the spot where many fun and special things have happened to me.

I made the trip, picked her up at her house and we headed downtown- parked and headed to all the Christmas activities. Fairly shortly we got our fill of the festive spirit and went in search of other spirits.
We didn't have to go far as  Cincy has finally started to develop the area between the two pro stadiums into an entertainment district of bars and restaurants. One of which in particular I have wanted to visit since it opened earlier this year. Among other things it brews and serves a few beers I call my "ancestral beers" or the beers I drank when I first "popped the top" on a cold brew.  This was back in the day before all the now foreign giant brewers started to brain wash the beer drinking public with essentially tasteless "near beer"-but I digress. Fortunately "the Nati" is starting to return to some of it's brewing roots. (It's was a hugely German influenced city) So the night became mystical when I actually ordered a beer I hadn't seen since the early 70's and was sitting there enjoying it with my friend with all my potentially wild hair as a woman in this huge place.

Truthfully, I know my hair is far from being the "wild thing" I imagined it to be tonight-but you know it didn't matter. I finally had connected the dots to a time when I couldn't even imagine doing what I did tonight. Plus just for a second I was the girl with just a touch of bad I always admired. I'm selfish though, and I'll take that second I never really had.

Yes, it was an amazing "night in the Nati" and I give my friend and my ancestral beer all the credit.

Classic Female Impersonation

Remember the term female impersonator ? I think in my youth female impersonator was perhaps a more politically term for drag queen. Perhaps Great Britain had some of the most famous ones for a time such as Danny LaRue. If you have not heard of - or seen him, check this video:


 

Carry on Trans Baggage

We are now officially in the holiday travel times from Thanksgiving to Christmas. In whatever mode you are traveling this season, normally baggage is involved.
All of the commotion started me thinking of the amount of baggage we carry between genders as transgender women and men.
Some have suggested we shouldn't carry any of it. But is that possible? I suppose your amount of baggage is somewhat dictated by the amount of life you have lived.  I'm not suggesting the transgender experience is easier at any age but it's true at a later age families, jobs and a myriad of other responsibilities do add a ton more baggage to the process.
But go ahead and say it-I'm biased because I represent the older edge of all of this.
Bottom line is however I do believe at what ever age you decide to transition as a man or woman, your baggage is coming along. As time goes by you have a choice to sort through your past belongings to see what you want to keep or throw away.  Less and less of it remains.
On a positive side, your experience as your birth gender has the potential to make you a better human being. What could be better if those pieces of baggage you are combining as both genders do provide a unique view of what life could be.
If you are the "glass is half empty" type of person, you could say the negative baggage you brought with you will always affect your life.
During this holiday season, I hope you have a chance to reflect on the baggage you may be traveling with.

Aussie Transgender Story

This is far from a new story. In fact it is from 2010 but it bears revisiting.

It actually came from "AsiaOne's" Diva site for women and features Ms Chelsey Mikimoto who was born in Singapore to a Malay-Dutch mother and a Chinese- Japanese father. She migrated with her family to Australia in the mid-90s at age 10.

Much of her story sounds familiar: "Although born biologically male, Ms Mikimoto said that she never identified with being one. Growing up, she liked girlie things. She dreamed of parading in beautiful gowns and experimented with her mother's make-up and clothes. One Christmas, she placed her name on the Barbie doll meant for a female cousin.
 She had visited a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with gender identity dysphoria - a condition in which individuals identify emotionally and psychologically with the other gender. For five years before the surgery, she lived as a woman. During that time, she underwent hormone replacement therapy to feminise her facial and bodily features. Other than physical changes, she also took the time to "greatly reflect" on what it meant to have the gender change."

I haven't been able to find much recent information on her, so I hope all is well!

Cross Dressing Rocket Man

Over the past several months I have featured pictures and more here in Cyrsti's Condo from a Japanese site called Rocket News24. 

Recently they ran a long and detailed post called "16 Things I Learned from Dressing in Drag". Confessions of a one night crossdresser.

The post in itself just tells most of us transgender or even genetic women what we already know such as lesson #10:

 It’s more than just the clothes You might think that getting feminine airs is as easy as putting on a dress and a wig, but it turns out there’s a lot more to it. Even something as simple as the word “I” is different from males to females in Japanese, so I had to constantly think about how to refer to myself. Or sometimes, I would sit down in what I thought was a ladylike way, only to find my knees popping open. Or my walk would get very bowlegged if I wasn’t paying attention. There’s just so much to think about! Femininity is hard.

Or the final lesson #16:

Dressing as a woman was unexpectedly intoxicating, but I couldn’t stay like that forever. Going back to my usual self was kind of sad, though. I took off the makeup, removed the wig, traded my dress for my usual men’s clothes, and thought, “Well, that’s that.” It was rather dreary to look in the mirror and find the usual boring face reflected back at me. I almost wanted to cry. So if on the street one night you should happen to meet a man in drag, so long as he isn’t doing anything bad, please just let him be.

If you haven't been to the Rocket News 24 site it's worth the time to check it out!

Brazilian Transgender Model

The six foot tall Felipa Tavares has emerged as another of  Brazil’s small but growing ranks of transgender models . The leggy, high-cheekboned sirens who were born men but are causing a splash in Brazil and other international fashion capitals around the world.

One of the positives of models such as Felipa's emergence is the sense of softening of homo and transphobic attitudes in countries such as Brazil!

She recently made the Celebrity section of the Washington Post and of course you can read it here.