More Alphabet Soup for Dinner

Certainly I'm not one to go overboard on a topic (yeah right!) But my excuse on this one is I got involved in a discussion on another site and figured I would bring it back to Cyrsti's Condo for all of you. Nothing earth shattering and very much my "norm" on the subject:

"I would like to "jump" back in here and throw out my ideas of why the "T" is silent in the gay community.

 First and foremost we have allowed it to be and I don't believe the reasons why are all negative. For so many years we so polarized in our community we were frozen in time. We did not benefit from visible celebrity people coming out trans. We didn't and really still don't have all the "Ellen's" and "Anderson's" etc. It's barely a surprise when a celeb comes out these days. On the other hand, an overwhelming number of people in our culture went from one closet before they transitioned to another when they went stealth. We had no role models until trans leaders began to appear through the magic of the internet and social media. 

 Nearly as important is we don't have near the financial impact the gay and lesbian culture has. In fact it's the opposite. We are truly the poor brothers and sisters under the so called rainbow. In fact, I can see why some of the G's and L's probably think we are riding their coattails because normally all we could bring to the table were very vague silent numbers...so they tossed us in to their group only when it was convenient for them. Recently though I am encouraged. We are seeing more and more of our folks demanding a seat at the table. The more of us who do so in any small way will certainly open those doors we have been knocking on. Let me reinforce again how impressed I am with the young trans women and men today. Sooner more than later their efforts will enable the T to be an equal and functioning full partner in the LGBT movement.

  I'm also impressed with the cooperative feel I've gotten from my visits across the web and other places. The trans "sisters of the cloth" are to a person a HUGE improvement over the old hierarchy of transsexual  girls looking down on the transgender girls who look down on the cross dressers. Doesn't take a genius to figure out we are stronger as a group. Certainly the G's and L's aren't totally all the same but they seem to make it work. I really think our trans future is as bright as any of us have ever seen it."

They are Everywhere!

Well at least bunches of guys shaving their beards, using all sort of tags such as cross dresser and transgender in the same sentence (like I just did) and coming up with quite a few dramatic male to female transitions like this one are.  Check it out!

Horror Scope

The clouds have parted kids and it's time for star gazing in Cyrsti's Condo. Yes it's time for another "Horrorscope":

Libra (September 23-October 22): You will need to make a choice between two people you love, as one will need priority over the other. Sacrifice sucks, but it is do or die time and where you place your energy now will matter. However, that doesn’t mean you have to give up anyone; just think of it as prioritizing. But don’t be shortsighted, as fate will pay out accordingly from here.

WELL!  Let me see if I can sort through this and if I do, I will get back with you!!!  OK I'm back.

First of all, love is a word I don't toss around easily. Basically there are only three people I love and one is me! Just kidding but you do have to like yourself to like others. The other two are personal non competing personages in my life. So I'm just going to abstain on this "scope" and wait till next week! Yes procrastination is fun!

Please remember "Horrorscope" is my term and you can go to theFrisky for yours!

While you are there, I'm going to give you another link you may want to take a quick look at.
I read so many notes here and there from transgender women who are waiting for that wonderful guy to show up and sweep them away  You probably know a big portion of the female population is in the same boat as you and they think it is the Titantic! This however is a fun look at the dating dance  and is written in a delicious cynical prose!
from a young genetic woman's viewpoint  Believe me,  it's not boring
It's called The Slut Shamer

Carlotta

From the Star Observer:

"Australian transgender pioneer and Sydney nightlife royalty, Carlotta, (above) will have her groundbreaking story told in an upcoming ABC1 telemovie. The first transgender surgery patient to come to public attention – and notoriety – in the 1970s, Carlotta was the headline act of the iconic Kings Cross cabaret show Les Girls in 1960s and ’70s. The performer collaborated with writer David Hannam to tell her inspiring story. Carlotta will be a “universal story about identity, family, tolerance and acceptance”, the ABC said today. “Carlotta lays bare the life of a confused teenager named Richard, his flight into the hedonistic Kings Cross of the ’60s and ’70s, and his transformation into Carol.”


Here's your link!  Unfortunately it looks as if a genetic actress will play the part of Carlotta.

Jessica YES!

As the sun rises over the snow capped mountains and the clear blue beaches, I'm enjoying a morning "cup o joe" on my rear deck here in Cyrsti's Condo...Huh? Just kidding kids, none of that stuff here where I live in Ohio! But, life (along with the traffic) continues to move by at "warped" speed**...a take off from the "Star Trek" movin picture shows of which there is a new one coming out soon.

 Speaking of coming out, I can't think of a more effective way to do it than Jessica last night on the television network VH 1.   The Jessica I'm speaking of also hosts the very entertaining and accomplished Jessica Who web site which is linked here in our blog. Last night as I was finishing my normal day of moving from one unmovable object to another I happened upon a show called "I married a...Cross Dresser". I quickly turned it on and saw a very familiar face Jessica/Louis and thought wow I have chatted with her and her she is!!! Then I began to wonder how in the world had I almost missed this?  DUH! That's must have been what that link to her blog was all about...duh! Like I said I'm used to spending periods of time in other dimensions or being referred to as a "ditz"

Bottom line is I cannot say how wonderful the interaction between Jessica,  wife PG and Mom was portrayed. The raw emotions we encounter as transgender, cross dresser or transsexual persons were all on display. I can't speak for Jessica but I really don't believe in using the "brave" term with me so I won't with her and PG. I will say her coming out was courageous and complete. If you are an acquaintance of Louis today, you met Jessica last night!

Obviously the more Jessica's of the world who are able to gain access to such a major public platform and use it in such a positive way will go light years (Star Trek again) in helping others out of very dark closets!

I'm adding one of the video's from the show for you plus a couple links to follow for more!

Thanks Jess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm Married To A...

**I use two twisted terms from the Star Trek movin' picture shows of which there is a new one coming out soon. The other favorite term is "Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here".

So Wrong but So Right

This person did his best to slam every search term into this Crysti's Condo big screen video He slaughtered "transgendered" and then threw it in with drag queen and even some sort of a male to female wording. One thing is sure though, he sure knows his way around drag makeup!


 

Make Up Bargains

As we all know, cost does not always equal quality. It's also true in makeup according to Amanda Storey on the Yahoo Fashionate Beauty Blog who writes:


"I am a drugstore beauty product addict. It all started when I began hoarding my lunch money and spending it on fashion magazines instead of pizza slices. I would flip through in amazement at all of the beautiful women and mentally take note of all of their makeup looks. One particular ad featuring, then model-of-the-moment Milla Jovovich, prompted my first makeup purchase ever. L'Oreal Drumbeat Red lipstick. I saved up $7, a lot for a fifteen year old with zero income, and headed to my local drugstore. I had to keep it a secret because my Mom wouldn't approve of me wearing lipstick, especially red. I wore that lipstick to my first school dance and wearing red ever since! Fast forward to my early years of working as a Makeup Artist in a department store. I worked with my best friend and we were surrounded by luxury makeup all day. We would constantly play, tempt each other with new product discoveries and encourage one another to buy things because "you have to have it!" Following a long hard day of prettifying people, we would hop in my car and set out for our secret hideaway, the drugstore beauty department. In a department store $30 might get you a great lipstick, but in a drugstore you'd walk out with a haul of eyeshadows, brushes, lipsticks and foundation. There is something so satisfying about spending a little and getting a lot. It was during this time, the fever-pitch of my bargain makeup addiction, that I discovered some of my "I can't live without" drugstore makeup products."

Read on here for more of her ideas!

Transgender Mothers?

I picked up this interesting story from Monica Roberts TransGriot site:

"Doctors successfully transplanted a donor uterus from a deceased woman into now 22 year old Derya Cert, a Turkish woman born without one but who had functioning ovaries. Being born without a uterus affects one in every 5000 women and until this procedure came along meant that the woman in question would be childless. A uterus transplant has been attempted once before by a medical team in Saudi Arabia back in 2000. The womb came from a live donor but failed after 99 days due to heavy blood clotting and was removed from the patient receiving it. Medical centers in Sweden and the United States are also working on perfecting uterine transplant medical technology and the medical procedures and drugs necessary to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted organ. Cert became the first woman in the world to have a successful transplant from a deceased woman, which raises the hopes of women that are in a similar situation to hers that they could one day undergo the procedure once the techniques are refined and give birth to their own biological children."


"We've long wistfully expressed the sentiment in transworld if only trans men and trans women could swap body parts. It's becoming increasingly possible that a trans man when having the hysterectomy could designate it be donated to a trans woman for implantation. But if they did so, this is a situation in which cis privilege would aggressively assert itself. If that trans man donated their uterus, it would probably get prioritized toward being given to a cis woman without one. Trans women would be extremely far down the transplant list despite the desires of some of us to be fruitful and multiply. That research is also geared at this time toward helping infertile couples, not giving trans women the ability to give birth to biological children of their own But that shouldn't stop us from doing hard solid thinking about reproductive rights issues, procreation and the potentially game altering way that uterine transplant medical technology that hones its procedures and becomes as common as heart and other organ transplants could one day be applied to trans women. . The trans community definitely needs to be having these conversations about where we fit in this equation and think about what happens if they perfect uterine transplants. Could testicular ones be on the horizon next?"

Opens a lot of potential doors doesn't it?  Go here for more of the story.

Outing Myself

I believe I have mentioned that I finally stepped up and out by joining my local equality LGBT group.  This is huge in the sense those who talked behind my back will have to find someway else to entertain themselves.

Regardless of the outcome for all of them, I had to do what I had to do. Ironically I became involved in an in depth discussion with one of my long time friends who has stayed in the closet. (I do not begrudge him any of that.) All too quickly we jumped into one of my favorite soapbox topics: Stealth in the transgender culture. Here's how it started. I said I was completely surprised this group had no out transgender person, knowledge of our culture and almost no reference to it.


He said: "Okay, here ya go: (1) I believe that transition is about M to F or F to M paths, and if you chose to take that step you should know a little about the difficulty in getting to the end point. (2) I can see that some percentage of newly arrived F's and M's want to do something aligned with their attained gender and not risk that position by entering politics. That's their choice. On the other hand I don't have an issue with providing a little friendly support to someone on the journey, but I also disdain noisy in-your-face political activity completely."

The last reference was in response to my statement I was going to go to meetings and saying something about the lack of representation. Here is an abbreviated version of my response as I ignored the in-your-face comment:

"As far as the "going stealth" deal goes, I can see both sides of the story. Certainly we all know how incredibly difficult it is to switch genders and each is entitled to take their marbles and go home.  I do believe however that stealth is inherently wrong and will become unique to our generation. (Strictly speaking)  I attribute stealth to not risking yourself at all and it's the same as failing to cover another troop on the live BCT (basic training) range in the Army...but I know that is a bit dramatic. (We were both in the Army and I used it as a point of reference.)

You ask why I think the kids are doing it right? My latest big example was "Devon" on the Katie Couric Show.  I think in a couple of years she too will fade into the fiber of society to live as happily ever after as any of us can but she was totally stealth and still took a moment to come out and pay forward. I think the number of YouTube videos and the number of blogs are a sign of how these kids are building a better future for transgender people of the future. Their generation will change stealth to life on their terms and it just will fade away as a outmoded term. If you deal in semantics they will be going stealth and just living life on the same playing field as anyone else which is all we can ask for.

Now, let me point out of why getting surgery and going stealth didn't work for our generation. Did we indeed just jump from one closet to another? Yes! We did as all of the sudden we are waking up and realizing the transgender populace is the most legally discriminated minority in the country."

As the conversation moved on I used an example of an old mutual acquaintance from the mid 80's.  She went through SRS moved out West, married a man and became a very successful business person. Absolutely one of the most exuberant natural women I have ever met. Back to the chat:

"Susan" of course is the classic good transition example of a transsexual person we both know.  But now if she lived in Arizona and not in another state, all of the sudden she may have to produce a female birth certificate to even pee in a women's room.  If she was born here in Ohio she still can't get her birth cert changed by SRS. Was she mandated to make a statement? No. Should have she? Her call. I'm only using her as an example of my perceived epidemic generational transgender stealth problem.

The kids on the other hand, are realizing they better start screaming to get laws changed because no matter how good they look (Devon) a company can just up and fire them for being trans or can't even find a place to pee.

Before you accuse me of throwing huge rocks in glass houses,  I can rationalize my lack of action by saying I started late and didn't know how far I was going with this and then I get really torn by nights like last night. You know I have never felt I could go stealth no matter how hard I tried-but I could have been there last night. So now what do I do?

You are completely right to ask me why would I jeopardize all of that work over the years? The honest answer is at my age I'm in the home stretch of my life and I know due to very unpleasant circumstances in my life, I'm left with less to lose than others.

So bottom line, I should do some public work before I fade into whatever the next reality happens to be.  If I don't and there is another stopping point in eternity I would have to put transgender inaction in the loss column. My blog, Trans Ohio workshop and the Equality group are efforts to soften the defeat.  I will get back to you on the results!"

As you can tell, I flat out wore the "soap box" out!