Trans Ohio Symposium

In the recent months here in Cyrsti's Condo, I have mentioned I am going to be a presenter at this year's Trans Ohio Symposium.
The conference is scheduled for April the 26th through the 28th in Columbus, Ohio. My workshop will be based on transitioning later in life but much, much more will be happening!

If you live close and are interested,   the keynote speaker this year is writer and poet Andrea Jenkins . In addition to Andrea's keynote, she'll be presenting two workshops: Issues for Transpeople of Color and The Role of Art in Transgender Movement, so plan to attend! Andrea is the author of two chapbooks, “tributaries: poems celebrating black history and “Pieces of Scream”. Recently elected to chair the newly established GLBT Caucus of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Andrea is lives in Minneapolis and works as a Senior Policy Aide for the 8th Ward City Councilmember, Elizabeth Glidden.

For more information on the weekend, go here.

Emma

On the Cyrsti's Condo big screen is transvestite Emma who I have also followed on YouTube for awhile:

Heidi

I have followed this girl for awhile and the least I can say is she is gorgeous!
Of interest to me is how she has changed her stated identity fairly recently from cross dresser to MtF. Here she is on the Cyrstt's Condo big screen:

Owning It

Here it is again. It's 3 o clock in the morning in Cyrsti's Condo.  I'm curled up watching "The Graduate". from 1967 (the year I graduated from high school). Naturally, it's one of the "movin' picture shows" my generation owns.

As I watched it again though, I found I didn't own any of it. Of course the non-war (Viet Nam) was going on in all it's tortured glory and taking us with it. We were stuck between our parents from the WWII era who had no understanding of why we would fight so hard against serving our country-when in fact we weren't. I never saw the Viet Cong attacking my town...but this is not a late night political rant.

What I really didn't own was my transgender identity.
The soft clear angst of a few of the Simon and Garfunkle  songs from the movie took me back to the  normal uncertainties of my age compounded by this pesky idea that I wanted to be a girl sometimes. Hind sight is always 20-20 but I do wonder (outside of the obvious) how my life would have changed had I faced myself so long ago. As my late wife once told me "be man enough to be a woman".

Who knows? Of course I have all the excuses in the world of how I went on to lead a fairly successful male life and all the while constructing a huge patch to run it all.

I want to think if I had faced it all then, I would I saved myself a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. Then again running away led me to some of the very special people and experiences of my life. As I sit here writing this, all the angst of my graduation years has faded and reality is setting back in. Life has a way of doing that I suppose.

Someone once told me if you are lucky enough to live long enough you can divide your life into 30 year cycles. Many times my path to the final 30 and out cycle was very tenuous. The reassuring fact is now I'm at last at peace with my entire self. If the force above took me away today, I'd have to say "thanks for the trip".

In the meantime Dustin Hoffman married Katherine Ross in the Graduate and all is right with the world and I own it.

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