More than Meets the Eye

Certainly most of us are enamored with the glamour and glitz of the ladyboy culture in Thailand. Very seldom though do we get a glance of the day to day transgender culture there.

I have mentioned here in Cyrsti's Condo the year I spent in northern Thailand close to the Laotian border -back in the Vietnam non war days. I do get a chuckle when I tell someone I lived in Thailand for a year and they start asking SRS questions. If you weren't careful you could be a candidate for SRS and much more!

I was lucky. My occasional brush with danger during my AFTN days was when I had to drive the unit truck on Thai roads.  Forgetting I was navigating on the opposite side of the highway where the only rule was survival of the biggest could be dangerous.

So during my stay in Thailand, I was able to learn first hand the mix of Thai and Laotion culture. I found the people to be accepting and friendly of us and I loved the culture and religion. (For you trans vets, I had separate rations and lived off base.)

So when I'm able to find a bit of a different look at the transgender culture in Thailand, I can't wait to pass it along to you.

This YouTube international trailer is from a film called "It Gets Better":

 While I am on the subject of countries half way around the world from me, I received an email from a follower in Sri Lanka who wrote a piece about the blog. As soon as one of us can get it translated from Sinhalese I will pass it along. In the meantime, take a quick peak here to see a beautiful example of how the word Sinhala looks.

This brings me to another point. What is scary to me is my grand kids have not been taught any cursive writing since the second grade. The two oldest academic over achievers show it. My daughter is very diligent in insisting they write hand written thank you notes for gifts. Bless their hearts but I guess their schools figure they "don't need no stinkin hand writing!"

Divine Drag

From Straight.com 

 "She was overweight, outrageous, shocking, ferocious, brash, crass, and in-your-face. And she was beautiful.The iconic Divine, branded the drag queen of the century by People magazine, ripped pop culture a new one by challenging—no, assaulting—constipated standards of beauty, sexuality, and basically everything sacred and boring about mainstream American life."

In some ways I consider Divine's memory a simpler time in drag. What you saw was what you got-and more some. I like so many fans found Divine's defiance to be much more compelling than the drag mask he wore. I enjoyed watching a social revolutionary- straight or gay in drag or not.

Time has moved on.  All facets of the transgender and the LGB community are so much more complex now.

People magazine got it right about "Divine" who in all senses is the "Anti Rude Paul".

For more on the Divine life go here.

Fun and Games at the Docs!

If you have been following along with my HRT saga, I'm going to sneak one in here.

I still weave a path between the Veterans Administration and the private medical world to obtain quality hormonal care. My endo doc's bill is paid by the VA and he prescribes my meds and the VA fills them with my co-pay.

I didn't really expect to go to see him today and was making an appointment for later this month when the receptionist said they had an opening for today. I took it.

After the usual questions concerning my thoughts, the Doc surprised me by saying we need to double the dose of the "Spiro" I'm taking.  Spiro is used to decrease testosterone levels in men and a couple of my transgender friends "in the know" said my dosage seemed to be low. I was elated and said sure! Then he asked how I felt about my breast development. I probably screwed up and told the truth. I am sort of satisfied with my progress so far and we agreed to keep the estrogen dosage I'm taking the same.

So, the good news was he wrote me prescriptions for another six months worth of HRT meds. The not so good news is now I have to get the meds and process re approved with my recently named new VA primary physician. Yes, nothing is easy with this process-I know this.

Best case scenario will be if new VA Doc just signs off on the scripts like my old one did. Worst case is of course he wants to see me and decides to pass me off to someone else. My guess is I will end up somewhere in between the two.

At this point I really want to find the person who thinks this transgender process is a choice and all I'm trying to do is play dress up. Then I could use what is left of my declining "T" and go verbally postal on them!

"Borrowing my Face"

Sunday a friend of mine contacted me and asked if I would be interested in lending my face to a friend of his who recently became a Mary Kay Cosmetic person.

At first I thought "is he trying to tell me something?"  (just kidding) the first thing I thought was "sure why not?" If I ever reach a point with my makeup that I can't improve or look for advice, then I'm doomed to mediocrity...or worse.

When the consultant and I touched base the first phrase she texted was "can I borrow your face?" I said sure for what it's worth and if I can have it back to keep using. It's all I have!

Seriously, I feel I feel as if I'm in a makeup "rut" of sorts and any input is good input.

I'm going tomorrow (Thursday)  so I will let you know how the process goes and if I got my face back!

My "Boy Friend" Jeans

For the first time this morning I actually felt a pair of my old guy jeans navigating over my hips when I put them on!

Nearly  16 months ago, my first prescribing doctor told me with the HRT dosages I was on it would take at least year to see weight distribution in my hip area. I have indeed thought the process was happening but had never felt it until today.
Of course my cynical mind went to work and I thought "well here I am in my own boyfriend jeans and he was me."

On a deeper level of course I'm finally to a point as a transgender woman when my new feminine curves are starting to fill out all of my clothes- male or female the right way.

Of course I still have a long way to go but I decided to step back and look a little closer at my progress.

Here's an example:  I have always told you all I'm not a frilly girl and I sleep in some of my favorite ex large long t shirts.  For once I paused to take a look at the progress I have made- in just the T-shirt and I was scared. The shirt came down to a couple inches on my thighs and of course about three quarters of the way down my arms...A good test.

First of all, I am my own worst critic and nothing is good enough.  I have to say as I tried to be unbiased, the person looking back at me in the mirror looked fairly feminine. I thought Wow,  this HRT project is coming along how the "experts" told me it would.

My hair on my head grew and got fuller as predicted. My breasts have developed close to a small "B" and the hair on my body has nearly disappeared (except my beard of course -dammit). Finally,  my skin grew rapidly smoother from head to toe. Now the weight distribution has been just some more icing on the cake. All I could think was "Wow! this is very cool!". But I better not eat any of the icing!

The "I told you so expert" I referred to was my endocrinologist. On my last visit after my blood tests he said "Well your estrogen is up nicely and your "t" is very low. We should stay the course on the HRT we are doing now and let the estrogen win the battle for your body." None of us should ever forget messing with your body's hormones on HRT is not without risks. So I am happy to have an "expert" in my corner- even though I'm impatient for more changes.

In the meantime my estrogen is winning battles when I wasn't looking and now I'm waiting for her to win the war!

"HorrorScope"!

Just because it's a cloudy rainy morning here in Cyrsti's Condo land. That does not mean the good old "star gazing" isn't still happening!
Here the latest "HorrorScope" for all of us Libran's:

(September 23-October 22): Playing the victim isn’t cute. Too bad, the only one that sees it as an act is the one that you want to be the most honest with. So, make this week the one in which to reveal your vices and your vulnerabilities. You’ll find that once you let go, the heaviness of it all will fade fast and courage will come on strong. Of course, how your audience will react remains to be seen.

Well, even though the "victim" card is one I have played over the years-I totally don't want to relate to the term now! I believe the one I want to be the most honest with knows that also. As far as the vices and vulnerabilities goes, I'm working on peeling back the layers and showing her glimpses of the real me. So all in all I'm giving this scope a positive grade.

AND for the rest of you non-Librites, go here to theFrisky for your scope! It's a neat girly site so go for the scope and stay for the fun!

**HorrorScope is my own term!

Now What?

Certainly I have been addicted to the adrenalin rush of stress most of my life during work and play. Last week in Columbus I found again I still love the rush!  From the hair styling and ear piercing to the Symposium and night life with Liz...  I was exhausted but damn I loved it!

My problem is slowing down and enjoying the moment.  Wasting the "in between" days bothers me but these days  my body just puts the brakes on naturally.  I have to say curling up with the most boring book in the world has been a welcome change. If you must know the book centered on the European Romanov and Hapsburg dynasties before their fall in the early 1900's.  I told you...BORING!  All right! I have a history degree and always loved studying all the drama the Europeans brought on themselves! (I have always felt Europe's drama was more interesting that our own!)

Well maybe the whole time wasn't reading, yard work and moving stuff from point A to B in my house and the nice part was I was able to add a little girl time. I painted my toe nails plus poured gallons of lotion on my skin in preparation for summer fashion.

Even the web seemed to be in slow motion. Usually I can depend on an influx of the transgender stories to pass along here in Cyrsti's Condo but even they sort of went on hiatus.

The fun part is though is anticipating what is around the next corner.
"What goes around, comes around" is one of my favorite slogans and this is one of the times I can't wait for what comes around.  I'm sure it will though...soon enough!

My Monday "peek" tells me this weekend just could be a blast!

Trans Girl Collection

Just in case you haven't seen enough cross dresser pictures-here you go... on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Rude Paul Goes to the Fish

Oh NO She Diddnt she take any of those pesky female hormones Rude and destroy your idea of a "pure" gay male drag queen!
Check this video on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen: