Quote of the Day

"The biggest boundary you have- is your past and your future" paraphrased from the movie "Breakfast on Pluto" Very important for any transgender or transsexual person to remember!

Trans Down Under

All right, get your minds out of the gutter! I'm referring to Estelle Asmodelle from Bowral, New South Wales, Australia. She was formerly known as Estelle Maria Croot, an Australian model, belly dancer, writer, musician and actress. She is known as Australia's first legal transsexual with the Births, Deaths and Marriages Department of New South Wales. Asmodelle was also instrumental in gaining recognition for transsexual and transgender people.

Early Transgender Encounter of the Third Kind?

One of the other sites I subscribe to recently asked the question "What is your earliest human experience"?
I sort of changed it a bit to "What is your earliest transgender experience"?
I can't be sure of this but I'm fairly certain mine had to be under the age of five.
I really don't even remember exactly where we were but it seemed to be quite a piece away and I hadn't been there before or since. Of course at that age everything seems far away!
At any rate, I remember clearly exchanging glances with a very big woman. I know you are thinking it wouldn't be tough for anyone to look very big to a child that small. So true but I know now how smaller kids look at me. It's just possible she was watching me for a adverse reaction which we know happens all too often from kids.
My most vivid memory I have of a younger child was one day I was out blissfully shopping. The day was feeling great. Found a few bargains and navigated the public with ease until I ran into a Mom and her very inquisitive young daughter. Before I could move around a rack of clothes away from her, the daughter had an opportunity to check me out. The bad news was she screamed "Momma, look at the big mean woman!" the good news is she called me a woman.
Of course my lesson was to soften up my facial features.  Certainly,  if you really want to test how well you present as a transgender woman or man-just test yourself on a young kid.
Could have been I was tested years ago?

Cross Dressing Spanish Sitcom Part Two

Recently I passed along a couple pix here in Cyrsti's Condo from a Spanish Television sitcom named Aida.

Here are a couple more. We all should be able to benefit from professional make up artists and photographers! Not to mention the very expensive breast forms he is wearing. I know they look really good on camera but I wonder how they stand up to the real world? (no pun intended)

Helen Wong

Transgender woman Helen Wong is better known by her stage name Allenin. She is a Los Angeles-based, model, actress, dancer and emerging film director. Allenina grew up in Hong Kong and emigrated to the United States at age 17. She now resides in Los Angeles.
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California.

The Future of Gender

I have my own opinions (of course) on the future of the human binary gender system as we struggle to evolve. I believe it is collapsing now.

I have tossed out my thoughts in several circles in the past for no specific reason except I can't keep my mouth shut or my words quiet. I'm  far from an expert but I just believe there are very visible signs in the younger generation that the genders are blending. I also think much of the terrible violence we see against the transgender community is a last gasp Ku Klux Klan masculine desperation move against us. Here's another opinion:

"For there is in mankind a deep and desperate necessity to feel superior. In any group there are some who genuinely are superior … but it is easy to see that within the parameters of any group, be it culture, club, nation, profession, only a few are really superior; the mass, clearly, are not. But it is the will of the mass that dictates the mores, initiated though changes may be by individuals or minorities; the individuals or minorities, more often than not, are cut down for their trouble. And if a unit of the mass wants to feel superior, it will find a way. This terrible drive has found expression in many ways, through history—in slavery and genocide, xenophobia and snobbery, race prejudice and sex differentiation. Given a man who, among his fellows, has no real superiority, you are faced with a bedevilled madman who, if superiority is denied him, and he cannot learn one or earn one, will turn on something weaker than himself and make it inferior. The obvious, logical, handiest subject for this inexcusable indignity is his woman."

Certainly you can tell I didn't write it and it's a quote from a book Venus plus X which is actually copyrighted back in 1960. Here's the link to look at it on Amazon. Plus a more in depth overview here and another excerpt:

"…You cannot be objective about this discussion. But try. Please try You cannot be objective about it because you have been indoctrinated, sermonized, drenched, imbued. inculcated and policed on the matter since first you wore blue booties. You come from a time and place in which the maleness of the male, and the femaleness of the female, and the importance of their difference, were matters of almost total preoccupation. Begin, then, with this—and if you like, regard it as mainly a working hypothesis. Actually it is a truth, and if at the end it passes the tests of your own understanding, you will see that it is a truth. If you do not, the fault is not with you, but with your orientation: There are more basic similarities than differences between men and women. Read through an anatomy manual. A lung is a lung, a kidney a kidney in man or in woman. It may be that statistically, women’s bone-structure is lighter, the head smaller, and so on and on; yet it is not impossible that mankind had. for many thousands of years, bred for that. But aside from such conjectures, the variations permissible to what is called “normal” structure provide many examples of women who were taller, stronger, heavier-boned than most men, and men who were smaller, slighter, lighter than most women. Many men had larger pelvic openings than many women."

So there you go, you know I don't like to get too technical here in Cyrsti's Condo. Head to the above links for more.

Transgender Style-from Punk Guy to Music Girl

An episode from MTV House of Style in Cyrsti's Condo:

Get More: MTV House Of Style

Transgender Activist

Carla Delgado Gómez was born July 12, 1959 in Güímar, Tenerife, Canary Islands. She is a Canarian-Spanish actress who uses the stage name Carla Antonelli. She is also a noted LGBT rights activist who maintains a large support website for transgender and transsexual people, and on May 22, 2011, Antonelli was elected on the list of the Spanish Socialist Party to the Assembly of the Community of Madrid, becoming the first trans person elected to a legislature in Spain.

A Trans Girl and her Dog

I recently read a post on Jessica Who?'s blog about a crossdresser who was basically attacked by his dog after a transformation session. Obviously his dog was totally fooled by the transition and not in a pleasant way.
Of course I started to think about my loyal furry companion for the last decade and her reaction to my transitions over the years. She has never gone on the attack mode and probably if she could talk, she would say "really-are you going to wear that tonight?"
Just recently I have let her come with me more and more. For the longest time, she went every possible place with me as a guy but almost never with Cyrsti. So she got to the point where she would go into an extreme pout as I was getting ready to go out.
As my transition moves forward now I do take her with me.
I did have another furry friend for several years up until he passed on to doggie heaven about a year ago and he would look at me quizzically.
But that's about it with my dog stories. If you are a dog person, I'm sure you have a story or two of your own. Normally, our pooches take unconditional love to a higher level and really don't care how we are dressed. Be sure to check out the story in the Jessica's Blog link above for one who didn't!