Damn Lesbians!

Well, not exactly or at all but maybe the title got your attention.
What I was referring to was a recent interview with Jennifer Finney Boylan and Joy Behar. Of course one of the questions just had to include those pesky sexual preference labels for Jennifer and long term wife. Here it is on Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

It "Ain't Over till it's Over"

I found out today once again I have to jump through more VA hoops to get my HRT meds. Plus, my formerly rather limited interaction in my local clinic public isn't so limited any longer.

As I have written, due to staffing limitations at my VA hospital I have to go to an outside Doc to approve my meds then get them approved for filling in the system. The problem is now my VA primary physician was changed and now I have to go through all the chaos to be approved by another. Also, I'm treated at my local clinic not the nearby hospital.

First I had to schedule an appointment with my new Doc and told to come in and have blood labs this morning. Then by this afternoon I was told forget the appointment all I needed was a treatment form filled out by my endo doc and all would be cool. Well if you believe that, I will find some old bridge around here to sell you. Plus, I was the center of attention at the clinic while everyone decided what should be done.

By the end of the day, I'm sure the former invisible trans patient in the clinic was now very visible. The only positive is that I have names and faces of people on both ends of the docs I deal with and a small stash of meds to use until this plays out. Excuse me for not thinking this will be positive painless process.  But as sure as the wasted blood tests this morning  I will get it done. 

In the meantime, I didn't need that extra blood anyway.

Trans Word in the News

No secret if you want to make news be transgender and do anything!

First, this week there was the story of Jenna Talackova and her upcoming reality show in Canada.

Then we had the story from Columbia (below) about the crime person who went through several feminizing operations to hide from the authorities.

Surely now we will have a flood of criminals following his action?










Then tonight I ran across the story of Victoria Beltran a transsexual actress who starred in Sacha Baron Cohen’s film The Dictator.
The vindictive vixon Victoria Beltran (below) phoned her husband's colleague Katarzyna Sakowicz  making death threats after deciding the pair were having an affair. She allegedly threatened Ms Sakowicz saying 'I will kill you and get you fired,' according to court papers. So much for Victoria acquiring any of the "passive aggressive" feminine spirit.

                                                   

None of all this transgender news action is no real surprise of course. Even I in my own small way make news.
Today was a good example and I will pass it along in the next Cyrsti's Condo post.

Drive Safely While Passing

You all probably know I am one of a huge base of fans of the Femulate web site which has totaled some seven million hits to date.

This coming Thursday, I'm am thrilled I am going to meet Stana who founded and runs Femulate.  She is coming to my part of the world. Yes, I am a groupie!!!!

Recently she commented on a senseless cruel comment she received with as much sarcasm I have seen and I loved it. Here is the reply. To set it up "Hamvention" is held around here and that is why she is coming to the Dayton, Ohio area:

"Comments to Wednesday's post included one that suggested that I not go to Hamvention because "you really don't pass as well as you think you do." My retort is, "How do you know? Have you seen me drive?" To tell the truth, I seldom pass and prefer to stay in the right lane on the highway. I only pass when I absolutely have to. So even if the commenter did see me driving, chances are that he did not see me pass because I seldom do."

In addition to my obvious respect for this reply, it's extra sweet for those of us who deal with haters on the internet who slash others behind the safety of their computers. I wish I had this much reserve and creativity to respond as Stana did.

As far as Cyrsti's Condo goes, all comments pro or con are appreciated. Personal attacks aren't.

Michael Nowlan

Michael Nowlan androgynous male model from Canada. Follow the link for more.

Drugs to Drag?

A notorious gang member has been collared despite having a sex change to avoid cops. Colombian Giovanni Rebolledo faced 60 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and extortion. He became prostitute 'Rosalina' after spending £11,500 on breast implants, a bottom op and nose job in an emergency makeover.
 Read more here.

Should we not believe everything we read? Maybe!
I also wonder which jail "Giovanni" will be placed?

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!