The Slippery Slope

Over the past several months or more here in Cyrsti's Condo, I have mentioned a friend I knew from my earliest days as a cross dresser. In fact I was the benefactor from his final purge way "back in the day". He walked away 30 plus years ago and in many ways has never looked back. We are quite fond in talking about the diverse individuals we knew in our little group. As it turned out we were quite diverse compared to our very small numbers. I know for sure three out of ten went on to SRS, one (me) now identifies as transgender, at least one has passed away and the rest I just lost track of.. Oh yes, there was one who ended up marrying a trans woman. 

You have perhaps noticed me use one of the women who went through the surgery - as one who probably shouldn't have.  I'm going to call her "A". "B" was her friend and incredibly at home after the surgery and has led a happy and successful life. The third transsexual had already gone through SRS when I met her and was doing well in life then too. She was pretty much stealth except to us. 

He talked about why he didn't go any farther then and referred to the cross dressing process as a "slippery slope". Here is my response:

"The slippery slope is indeed a complex concept. Here's how I think it worked with me. I spent my life looking up the slope wondering if I could climb to a feminine existence and how it would feel...or would I turn back. I certainly didn't look at the slope as a problem if I fell!"
He did and used "A" as an example. She was the person who started down the slope and couldn't get back to her male self. I said:
" Of course there is the need to look better and better and in that case you can slide down the hill as a man if you fall in love with yourself and your public perception. What's more fun, being an average looking guy or an attractive woman? ...(Cue the A tape)
Then there are the "naturals" who essentially start at the peak, look around and think "this is me" (Cue B tape)"
The conversation then went into what if we dated A or B as a man? The answer was dating "A" would be going out with a CD while dating "B" would be very much a challenge to interact with an intellectual, worldly, attractive woman.

"Then there are the seekers. Those who spend years wondering exactly why they feel the way they do. Could they be more comfortable as a girl. You can compare it to a slow mountain climb where you stop, explore and take refuge during storms in caves along the way (Cue the Cyrsti tape) Several years ago, I stopped in a cave and experienced a profound feeling of warmth and well being as a woman. I decided I would never want to go back down the mountain to who I used to be."

Maybe the "Slippery Slope" could be a topic in my Trans Ohio transgender workshop I'm presenting in April?

Young and Blond and on YouTube

Just another tremendous transgender transition from YouTube:

My Partner Came Out Trans

Part two of the xoJanes'  "It Happened to Me" contest entry which caught my eye.

Not only did her partner come out as transgender, the process happened while she was pregnant. It's quite the entry! :

"In one year, I got pregnant with my boyfriend and I gave birth with my girlfriend. 

For me, supporting my partner was a lot trickier than those famous people interviews let on. First, as my partner was sliding on down the spectrum of socially constructed gender, I was a becoming a full on female mammal. Not all women experience pregnancy that way, but I reveled in being a baby-making, milk-producing, female warrior. I got into making my nest, quite literally when it was time for our home birth. I let those new hormones flood my mind and make all my decisions for me, even if it meant my beloved bike riding was suddenly The World's Most Dangerous Activity and required a family-wide ban. I resisted verbalizing all the essentialist "My fertile uterus connects me to ALL THE WOMEN" feelings that I was feeling, but I still loved those feelings. Hell, I felt a connection with the mama squirrels in the park. It was quite a contradiction to how my partner was experiencing what it means to be a woman. This made for some strained conversations about our quickly changing lives, each of us not wanting to seem unsupportive of the other, but neither of us being able to fully understand where the other was coming from.

"

I'm sure you will want to read more here!

I Married a Cross Dresser!

No! Not me!!! What would possess a person do do something like that!! Just kidding.

One of the genetic female sites (I think) is called xoJane and their recent "It Happened to Me" topic was I married a Cross Dresser. Truly the post didn't end like I thought it would.
I won't ruin it for you. Go here to find out.

As I continued to look at the site I found an even more interesting contest entry which will be in my next post!

Mardi Gras Countdown

Well, I'm down to approximately a week before my trip to New Orleans and Mardi Gras.
I believe I can post to Cyrsti's Condo  from my girl friend's lap top so perhaps I can document this "epic" journey.
Typically, people who haven't seen me for awhile or check in with an email ask me if I am going on the whole trip as a woman. Yes I am!
While questions such as that from people( I think a couple should know better) sometimes aggravate me but overall I know I'm still an educational process for myself and those around me. Plus they remember my "in between days". Trying to explain I don't wear wigs anymore is often the hardest part. Perhaps some people didn't know I ever did? Not many I'm sure!
My fashion plans are simple: concentrating on being as attractive and comfortable as I can be.
I'm sooo looking forward this trip and it is occasions such as this which make all the struggles I've gone through worth the trouble.
In fact the whole idea seems surreal at times and I sometimes wonder why I didn't start the transition process earlier. A couple days ago on another site, another "person of age" reminded me of the days of our youth when it was possible to be arrested for "dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex". So I guess that could have been a deterrent. Too late to cry over spilled foundation now!
I'm just happy to have lasted this long on this world and am fortunate to take off on yet another part of my transgender journey- which just happens to pass through New Orleans!

The Beneficial Effects of Gay Bigots

Whats good about a bigot? They have the ability to make you step back, take a look at the situation and make your move.

Of course gay bigots are no different than any others. The gays have their own little club in many ways which can be as exclusive and bitter as the Ku Klux Klan. What leads me down this path is an email I received from a reader who came under a transphobic verbal attack from a gay man. I'm paraphrasing here but the message was "I'm gay but not that gay"! DUH! Neither are we you idiot!

I spent a brief amount of time wondering just how the hell we got lumped together with them to begin with but moved on quickly. Now I want to thank the gay male venue who blatantly discriminated against me one night. I took my money and headed to straight venues where I did not get discriminated against. They didn't understand where I was coming from (like the gays) but came to accept me quicker and the huge transphobic kick in the pants turned out to be a life changing experience for me.

Before I let my rant get out of control and end up sounding like them, I do think the gay world is slowly starting to realize who the transgender community is. I'm going to go out on a limb and say in my neck of the woods trans men could be having a huge impact. They don't have the "drag queen" stereotype to fight through to start with to effect change in thinking. "Out and Proud" seems to be more of a theme more than the "Stealth and Gone" policy of transsexual women. (Just my hunch.)

Finally, like it or not we are the "T" in their club. Surely I have seen cross dressers pull off some pretty dumb things in gay venues but then again no more than than gay guys.
Certainly,  there are always going to be bigots to be faced from all facets of society but if we all hold our ground they will fade as surely as the klan has.

Putting a Voice to the Face

Transsexual model Lea T:
From YouTube of course:

Pageant Photo

One of the contestants from last November's Miss International Queen womanless beauty pageant in Thailand.

Transgender Self Help

On too many occasions, I hear from transgender women who are painfully stuck in the closet.
There are ways out of your dark room and every once in a while someone steps forward with a great idea.
This one comes from Toni D'Orsay and her Dyssonance blog.
(Disclaimer. Sometimes Toni gets a little "wordy" for my tastes but she does incredible with this!)


"Idea: for the month of March, volunteer for 20 hours with an organization or project that specifically deals with trans folk, or solve a local problem. Without getting involved in politics. When I say without getting involved in politics, I mean without becoming embroiled in the online arguments we see, without lobbying for a law to change, without going to see a politician and getting them to vote for something. Kinda different for a request, isn't it? It is a suggestion to you in order to get you to help yourself. The difficulty is that the way that it helps you is indirect -- far more so than working on some change in law. It is going to affect other trans people, and that, in turn, is going to affect your life and make it richer, make it better. You might wonder why I am doing this now, as February comes calling, but the reason is that I want you to take a month a research the organizations in your area that do things for Trans people other than the political. You will have to research them. You will have to hunt for them. Well, that is unless you live in New York or Boston or San Francisco or Los Angeles. Some of the organizations will be doing political work as well, and that's ok. Just say you want to spend 20 hours in an entire month doing whatever it is that they need done. I haven't talked about this idea with any other organization. This isn't part of some secret trans activist effort carefully coordinated behind the scenes. Yes, those things happen. They have to if we are going to get some things to change. No, this is just me, by myself, asking you, personally, to stop for 20 hours in March and volunteer your time to help trans people. And I am asking you to start looking for that trans organization now."

For more on the post and Dyssonance go here: