Man Up

I am fortunate to call a couple trans men my friends and one of them has started performing as a "Drag King".

Recently it seems the Drag King culture is gaining publicity and I can see why after a few performances I have seen. As with drag queens I just don't believe a great majority of drag kings are trans.  So with all due respects to transgender men,  I'm  going to pass along an article from The Independent called "Man Up". Here's an excerpt written about Holly Williams Drag King adventure:


"The doorbell rings. I hesitate, then head down the stairs to answer it, taking them at a wide-legged stomp, a goatee sprouting a shade too darkly from my chin, a bulge between my legs. It's not the only thing bulging – when I answer the door to the unwitting postman, his eyes fairly stand out on stalks. "Er, flat two?" "Yep," I growl. "Mrs Holly Williams?" he asks, flustered. Confirming my identity with the barest grunt (it's 'Ms' actually, but I think he's got enough gender confusion to contend with without a lesson in semantics), I grapple the large package – quiet in the back! – with manful ease. Back in my flat, I fall about laughing, but I may have just made Lenna Cumberbatch a little bit proud. She's a drag king – a woman who performs masculinity – and she's been helping me find my alternative male persona, donning men's clothing, sticking hair on my face and socks down my pants, as well as teaching me how to walk, stand and speak. I don't think I convinced the postie, but by the end of an hour playing around, Cumberbatch does say, "I think you could pass".

I'm am just fascinated about why any woman would want to present male as I am sure genetic women are about us!

Read more here.

Carmen Carrera

Carmen is a fairly well known name in the transsexual community and even was featured on a "What Would you Do" show where she was abused as a transgender server to see how the public would react. Here's a 2013 YouTube video on the Cyrsti'sCondo vid viewer:

Sunday Morning Reset

Nearly all of my working life I have worked Sundays so now having a Sunday morning with essentially nothing to do is still special and I assume it always will be.  From my paper route to a radio DJ gig to many years in the restaurant business working Sunday was never an option.

These days, since I'm semi retired people think I'm kicking back and doing my nails. Ironically, I have had to set a day off up from posting vintage items I sell to my three shops, organizing my book and contributing to Cyrsti's Condo. 

What that means is I get a chance to reset on Sunday morning and step back and look at my life, my gender transition and plan into the future.

This morning in my part of the world, March ( per norm) is refusing to give any ground to Spring and the snow is flying. Plus I live in one of the old Midwest Ohio "rust belt" towns which is finally making a transition of it's own. I'm always interested in driving around and seeing the non preservable old and ugly giving way to inner urban land to be developed. I'm a history freak and I am not always sure new is good. In this sense it is.

If you are considering the transgender path, the same could be good for you.  I'm often asked about an inner transition from cross dresser to transgender or even transsexual. Of course there are the "easy out" crowd who think you are placed in the trans trilogy at birth and any deviation from CD to TG to TS is blasphemy. In my mind those individuals are as narrow minded and stuck in the past as the traditional gender binary  male and female believers are.  If you are similar to me, you have spent years trying to figure out just what you are. Moving dirt and building new ideas in your noggin.

So this Sunday reset for me is time to look at my gender reconstruction so far and glancing at the blue prints of the future. My problem is I have never been good at reading blueprints. I have been good at charging ahead to test the waters. Another test is coming towards the end of April when I do a workshop on "Transitioning Later in Life" at Trans Ohio in Columbus. I'm honored and humbled to have been chosen and the last thing I want to do is mess it up and I won't. As we all know though, there is a huge difference in the written and spoken word. So I'm a "jabberer" and have to be careful I'm making sense.  Plus, the last thing I want to do is be a role model instead of an example. I am an example of my personal transgender history and as you know I am not shy about communicating it. Learning anything from my experience is a huge positive. Following the same path to get there may not be.

In the meantime,I will have to rely on my "resets". I know my heavy moving is over and perhaps the reconstruction will go as long as I'm allowed to be on this Earth. I just hope I can chose the right paint colors.

From Russia with Love

View the remarkable man to woman transformation of Russian entertainer Timur Rodrigez on YouTube on the Cyrsti's condo video screen:





Quality not so good but the cross dressing presentation is stunning! Check the reaction of the judges!

University of the Phillipines Beauty

An older look (2011) at a couple of the University of the Philippines Diliman male beauty contestants.  The annual Miss Engineering pageant could be compared as a womanless beauty pageant on steroids...or is that hormones? If you are not familiar follow the Femulate link  here in Cyrsti's Condo for more or go here.

The Trans and the Hair

With all due respect to the old nursery rhyme and Aesop, hair is a basic focus to all transgender or cross dressing critters such as us.
I think back to the ancient days of anguish over my dictated crew cut hair cut. Like many I tried scarves and even horded my paper route money to buy a cherished cheap Halloween costume wig. I dreamed of the day I could own my own luxurious hair.

Time went by and eventually I was able to purchase my own cross dressers dream- a beautiful long blond wig when I was in college.
Then the draft and Army took over and back I went in time to my crew cut days or worse. Somehow, long flowing locks were looked down on in Uncle Sam's service.

As a philosopher once said (or I read it on a wall) "eventually this too must pass" I finished my military service and set out to prove that perhaps I did indeed have a chance to cross dress and pass as a woman.
Once again I hoarded and hid money to buy wigs. Surely I was like a kid in a candy store. The varied styles, colors and textures of hair pieces just blew me away. In response I tried as many as I could. Unfortunately the greatest majority of my purchases were disasters.  I found wigs were similar to clothes in that hair doesn't make the woman, it just adds to the process.

Finally, here I am today. I have gone full circle thanks to good hair genetics I'm able to have my own hair (now down well onto my shoulders) styled and colored.
My final experience with hair is rather indepth-if I do it right.  Ironically, I'm still hoarding money to visit my stylist from my retirement budget- plus attempting to figure out which hair care products do the best job. The old days of a dollar bottle of shampoo are long gone. I'm now shopping for conditioners, color safe and other miracle hair products. In addition, I have upgraded my hair dryer, flat iron and brushes to enhance my locks (I hope).

Perhaps another one of the old "sayings" is right. Good things come to those who wait. Genetic women close to me compliment me on the thickness of my hair. I speculate much of the positives come from the fact my hair was not subjected to the heat, conditioners and styling a woman's does long term.
Would I love to have been that hippie girl with the beautiful hair streaming over her shoulders and back? You bet I would!
As reality would have it though, hair beggars can't be choosers  I'm just lucky to be where I'm at today.
In my case the "hair" beat the turtoise in the old fable.

Asian Top Ten Transgender

Not a lot of new ground from this YouTube video called the "Top Ten Transsexual Entertainers of Asia" but always worth another look here in Cyrsti's Condo:


 

Blast From the Past

Every once in awhile it's fun to go back in the old dusty archives here in Cyrsti's Condo and pull out an old post. This one is from the summer of 2011:

" I really get tired sometimes of all the "heavy" ideas and happenings of living a transgender life. Here's a funny little story. A week or so ago I was out making my rounds. Blond and beautiful (in my dreams) in my short black skirt and flip flops I slid out of my vehicle and started to walk towards a store. Without really looking around, I noticed a darned quarter on the ground by the car. Being the thrifty person I am I dove for it. On my way down I quickly remembered what I was wearing and maybe picking up the quarter wasn't such a good idea. No problem, no one around anyway. WRONG! I picked up the coin and looked straight into the eyes of a man who happened upon the scene. (of course) From the bemused look on his face, I had no idea of what he thought, I only know I quickly recovered my dignity and made my way to the store. My only redeeming value came from the fact I was wearing sunglasses. He couldn't see the shock in my eyes! Lesson learned...wear the skirt and leave the change alone!"

Domaine Struggles

Perhaps you remember Domaine Javier, 25, who was expelled from the private Christian school California Baptist University in August 2011 after she appeared on an episode of an MTV show called "True Life". She discussed the stigma experienced by transgender people and revealed that she was biologically male. She has now filed a lawsuit alleging that her civil rights were violated because she was expelled on account of her gender identity. She was informed that she violated the university's policy against "committing or attempting to engage in fraud or concealing identity" because she stated on her admissions application that she was female.

The basics once again go back to gender versus sexuality. Domaine of course had been living full time female for years and obviously identified as one no matter what her sexual organs were. So she was honest on the application.

For more on the story, go here.