Quote of he Day

"You know it's going to be a good day when you drop your toast and it lands butter side up".
                                                                        Cyrsti Hart

A Long Way in a Short Time

Any card carrying American (draft card) back in the day, learned to dislike Cuba and Fidel Castro if for nothing else sending us to the brink of nuclear destruction or making it impossible to import a quality cigar.

Times have changed in Cuba. Read more from the NewYork Times:


 JOSÉ AGUSTÍN HERNÁNDEZ may not be precisely the kind of New Man whom Che Guevara pictured shaping Cuban socialism.
 Ms. Hernández, (above left)  48, who identifies as a woman and goes by Adela, would sooner cut a lazy bureaucrat to size with her sharp tongue than chop sugar cane with a machete. And you would more likely catch her hauling water to her house in platform heels than trudging the streets in fatigues and work boots. So Ms. Hernández was more than a little tickled when she became the first transgender person to be elected to public office in Cuba, a country whose government once viewed homosexuality as a dangerous aberration and, in the 1960s, packed gay men off to labor camps. “It’s a huge achievement,” said Ms. Hernández, referring to her election in November to the municipal council in this coastal town where she represents the 2,000 or so residents of her destitute neighborhood. She raised her painted eyebrows, saying, “For a country that has been so homophobic to change so dramatically — it’s unheard of.”

The Transgender Binary and the Titanic

Have you heard the "agender or neutrios" words?
As so many "terms" these days it comes from younger folks who live outside of the gender binary...which also trashes  the transgender binary too.
By now you may be wondering just what the heck do I mean "transgender binary"? Simple. There is a wide wonderful world between a cross dresser and a transsexual person.  DUH! Ideally this is yet another nail in the coffin of transsexual elitists and a dim patch of light in a cross dressers dark closet. Enough of my biased theory though lets take a look at how others look at it:

First from theFrisky  : "The term genderqueer speaks to a queerness in expression that isn’t immediately visible. For example, when I walk down the street with a shaved head, breasts, and a skirt it is not easy to guess my gender: my expression doesn’t match my identity as genderqueer in a way that most people can see. Some genderqueer people use fashion to exaggerate their androgyny, while others may not “look trans” at all, or may appear to be binary transgender people (as in, a “trans man” or a “trans woman”)."

Plus:
"In a piece on NYMag.com earlier this week, The Frisky contributor Rachel Rabbit White writes about people who identify as agender or neutrois, meaning a neutral gender."

As you read any or all of this, I'm sure you will realize quickly this is written mainly by biological women. Before you revert back to a typical male based response, consider theFrisky is a feminine site and if the women are doing this...the boys are too.

My point is if you are riding the outdated "transgender binary" cruise on the "Titanic" you may want to watch for ice bergs! You never know when you may want to get off.

Employment and the Trans Woman

A friend and I recently were discussing finding and retaining employment as a transgender woman or man. Which I know is extremely difficult. I saw a good educational video on You Tube on the subject to pass along on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Cyrsti's Condo Quote of the Day

"There is a fine line between being sarcastic and being a bitch." Let's see, where is that damn line?
                                                                                                    Cyrsti Hart

Transitioning with Strangers

It's hard for me to believe, but I have been going to three of the same places for over four years now. Yes they are straight venues and yes I am talking about going in there as me. At the risk of sounding like an alcoholic, all of these places are pubs or taverns of sorts.

All three are very civilized of course and I'm not talking about a bunch of redneck bars in Ohio. Along the way, I became a regular and began to know some of the other regulars.  I'm sure at the beginning most of them didn't really know much except that's a guy dressed as a girl but I was harmless.   On occasion I did run into a rest room problem and the typical snickers (and not the candy bar).  But life went on and actually all the employees have been exceptionally nice to me over the whole time.

Early in my experience though,  the most jaded of some of the male regulars were never really mean or negative but they always had to slide in the man word into our conversations.  A couple of them even went  out of their way to shorten my name to "Chris" (which isn't my male name anyway).

If nothing, I was persistent and ignored it all. Slowly but surely times started to change.  The effect of HRT and wearing my own hair was huge of course but perhaps the bigger change had to do with meeting my friends there..they validated me as a real person,. I wasn't just a guy dressed as a girl, I had a life. All of the sudden, I moved from "man or Chris" to a person.

For sure, I do get discouraged at the timing of all of this. I'm an impatient person and four years is an eternity! On the other hand, essentially I am transitioning in front of their eyes.

 Who knows, a few of them may even look up the transgender word. In the meantime,  I really enjoy the friendly acceptance I get. Even though I'm their token trans girl.

Have You Seen?

A letter written from a dad to his gay son Nate is going viral on the Internet because of its simple, hopeful message of love. “I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me,” it reads. “The only thing I need you to plan is to bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now. I’ve known you were gay since you were six, I’ve loved you since you were born.” He signs it “Dad” and finishes with a post script: “Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple.”


Aaawgh! Now I'm crying just a bit...damn hormones!!!

"Alternative Model"

From Sweden, Victoria Eriksson walks the gender line by using the "alternative" tag!
Here's a link to Victoria's Blog which presents an exiting gender line from androgyny to feminine.
Victoria was also on Sweden's Next Top Model, is also a make up artist and designer!

Transgender "Glee"

This is not a new story except for here in Cyrsti's Condo. Last season the hit television show "Glee" introduced a part time transgender character "Unique" :

"Wade Unique Adams"

"After dealing heavily with gay themes since its debut, ‘Glee‘ is finally taking on the issues that transgender teens face. In the episode, ‘Saturday Night Glee-ver,’ we were introduced to Unique: a transgender character who is coming to terms with her identity. Unique, part of the show choir Vocal Adrenaline, approaches Mercedes and Kurt as a young man named Wade (played by Alex from ‘The Glee Project‘) who wants to wear a dress on stage and unveil his flashy alter ego. It appears at first that he came to the right place, to take advice from two of the show’s bravest characters. But even Kurt, it seems, has a lot to learn. When Kurt advises Wade not to become Unique on stage, it is evident that he doesn’t understand what trans people go through. “You identify as a man,” Wade tells him, and when Unique takes the stage, it’s obvious that this is who Wade is. Unique is the true identity, and Wade is the fiction. Unique, of course, brings the house down with her moves. It’s about time ‘Glee’ tackled some of these issues!"

The reason I brought it up is I'm not a regular Glee viewer but I did see a brief part of the show recently which included a performance by Unique and and a discussion with a guy I assume was Kurt.  He was complaining about Unique being a boy one day and a girl the next and by the way which restroom would be used.
This story line is exactly what our transgender culture needs to educate the public about who we are.

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