Blondes Do Have More Fun!

I have a friend you sends me YouTube videos which we have a fun time critiqing and everyone in a while I find one out of the transgender transition type and find a drag one like this blond bombshell drag queen:

Male Privilege

Relax, I'm not going into a contrived emotional post concerning "male priviledge".
Talk about a horse that has been beaten into the ground!
Recently I read a article called "Sex change patients are getting younger and are more likely to be women".

That's right. "Transsexuals in Hong Kong are now seeking gender-changing surgery at a much earlier age than two decades ago, and those coming forward are more likely to be women seeking to become men. "It seems that more and more patients are in their 20s," said Dr Albert Yuen Wai-cheung, chief of service at Ruttonjee Hospital's department of surgery and the only specialist performing sex reassignment surgery at the city's public hospitals. "In the past, they were in their 30s. Now they are quite young, still studying," Yuen said. "With more information available, more are willing to see doctors." Also, women undergoing sex change operations to become men now outnumber men wanting to become women."

Granted this is a very small sampling but interesting none the less. I'm fortunate to know two trans men. One is exploring how he can finance his change and the other is in a very exciting exploration phase. Both could speak to this issue much better than I know but it seems to me I see more women where I live who are really masculine in appearance.  I'm not talking about the much maligned idea that women are allowed to wear men's clothes and not vice versa. I'm talking about women who would have given me a run at my masculinity in my macho acting days. Now,  I also know that having a male ready body does not make a person a transgender candidate. Most of you also know I'm a proponent of the increasing blurring of the genders. (Jamie) Is my small local sample an example? The last thing I claim to be is a statistician, so let's just call it an observation and move on.

Regardless of all of this, the true male or female privilege is the ability to change your body to the extent you need to feel comfortable.  If nothing else, new medical advances have the potential to completely blur the genders- if one has the resources to do it.

For more on the article above, go here.

Blond Drag Fun

I have seen a couple of this person's transformation videos and think his friend is just incredible!

Tran "S" Gender Voices

Most of us struggle with feminine vocalization in our transgender journeys.
We learn early on the process involves much more than just pitch.  Many genetic women have sexy lower pitched voices. Famous examples are actresses Lauren Bacall  or Jacqueline Bisset.
I recently came across this study:

"How can you tell if a person is male or female just by their voice? In general, men have deeper voices than women. However, according to a study conducted by Lal Zimman, a doctoral student at The University of Colorado - Boulder at the time of his research, the style of speech can impact perceptions of a person's gender as well, not simply the pitch of his or her voice. In fact, the letter "S" can, on its own, impact people's perception of the speaker's gender."

Read more here. If you are like me you need all the vocal help you can get!

Guide to Becoming More Manly!

Yes girls! A friend sent this to me (not seriously) so I will pass it along in Cyrsti's Condo to you.
Put down that mascara wand and pick up that tire jack! :

Transgender Mirrors

Janie Black recently wrote a post which jogged my sleepy mind called Gender and the Wrong Body.
She wrote a very thought provoking post (here) which basically goes into the much debated ideas of why we transgender or transsexual people feel this way.

I'm going to greatly over simplify this topic by using the "born in the wrong body" argument.  Personally I can't use that as any rationalization for my status as a transgender woman. It could be argued I was born into the wrong body to hit the baseball the way I wanted or to play football the way I thought I should. OK, I can agree with those of you that are thinking "pretty shallow" Cyrsti.  You are right and wrong. Wrong in that those were important to me at the time.  Right, in that I learned to live with reality and they went away.

What never went away was the idea I was somehow living life from the wrong gender perspective. You could argue I was born into the wrong body but you know you have to go with what brought you here. I'm lucky the physical aspect of my body has allowed me to be healthy into my 60's and along the way has been pliable enough to explore the female gender.

Sure, like many of you I have thought of SRS very seriously and of course you know I started HRT sometime ago. So far I'm quite happy where I am although if my finances allow I would certainly be open to some sort of facial hair removal and even facial feminization surgery.  In my own way though, I see those as primarily vanity moves. No different than any other genetic woman. Would either help me to be more stealth than I am now? Possibly but neither would help me feel anymore feminine than I do now. Then, there is that word feminine. It's a stereotype. Right? Who knows if I feel feminine. I'm just being me, reflecting to the world. Which brings me to the word mirror. 

As I progressed down this transgender road, I found how I reflected my inner mirror to the world was much more important than my external mirror. I was lucky enough to cover the basics in public as a woman but just walking through a mall "undetected" just wasn't enough. Which brings me to the point.

No I wasn't born in the wrong body. Sure my mental processes don't match my physical gender but through my feminine socialization process I have been able to bypass the limitations of my physical self. I have been able to redirect a series of inner mirrors to give the public an accurate perception of my inner self.

All of this is a never ending discussion. No easy answer. It's as different and personal to us as life itself. Some of us have to go out and buy a vagina to feel whole. Some don't. Bottom line is though all that really matters is the inside and how you reflect it to the world. It took me years to figure it out. Now it's up to the world to accept it.

Patience as a Transgender Virtue

Autumn Sandeen

Here in Cyrsti's Condo we have discussed on occasion the power of patience. I don't have much of that specific power so I respect those who do.

SO! I really respected this post I just read from Autumn Sandeen.  She is a transgender vet I've referenced before.

Her article is called My Year of Bureaucratic Changes in Gender, but in reality covers the ten years since she began living as Autumn. 
Here's the link to read more but in the meantime I would specifically recommend all of you who are considering a transgender transition journey to check it out.
Indeed, patience is a virtue!  Another virtue is Autumn writing about her experiences!

Pejic Meets Warhol

"Edie"

As with many others, it seems we can't get enough of super model Andrej Pejic here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Recently we posted his new cover of the Serbian Elle and even briefly discussed him in a comment response from Gina.
Now he has surfaced in a fashion feature for the luxury magazine DuJour.  Not that Pejic doesn't look stunning in everything he does, but this feature channels Andrej recreating the looks of several Andy Warhol icons. Of course one can only speculate how intrigued Warhol would be with Pejic if he was alive today. 

"Candy Darling"

Here's an excerpt from DuJour from Glenn O'Brien (who actually knew Warhol): "Andrej is as pretty as Candy, although I’m not sure who is the more feminine character. Being feminine was definitely harder for a boy in the old days." He also goes on to state: "Andy would have been fascinated by Andrej. He liked pretty boys, and he liked boys who could impersonate girls. Andy thought boys made the best actresses because they could be more objective about femininity, and they didn’t have to worry so much about being politically correct in one’s femininity."

There are a couple more pictures and more for you by following the DuJour link above.

Princeton Beauty

Princeton's Triangle Club in 1916 produced this picture of a feminine lead to promote The Evil Eye production. The "woman" is actually F.Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was in his third year at Princeton when the musical-comedy troupe performed the bawdy lyrics penned by the future Great Gatsby writer. In a review of his performance, the Times referred to Fitzgerald as "the most beautiful" girl in the whole production.
Maybe he was writing the lead for himself? For more go here.