Follow Up

Zagria was kind enough to send me a comment on my post concerning the former beauty contest winner of the Miss Tiffany Universe 2009 contest, Sorrawee "Jazz" Nattee who recently entered the monkhood on Sunday at a temple in the southern province of Songkhl.

Zagria said she had seen Buddhist Nuns when she went to Thailand.

Of course by then, I had to do a little research on the subject since it had occurred to me what would happen if "Jazz" surfaced in the future attempting to be a transgender Buddhist Monk.

Without spending hours searching for information, here is a quick look at what I found: (Highly Edited)

"Buddhist women, including nuns, have faced harsh discrimination by Buddhist institutions in Asia for centuries. at the beginning, with the historical Buddha. As told in "The First Buddhist Women," the Buddha originally refused to ordain women as nuns. He said that allowing women into the sangha would cause his teachings to survive only half as long –- 500 years instead of a 1,000. The Buddha's cousin Ananda asked if there was any reason women could not realize enlightenment and enter Nirvana as well as men. The Buddha admitted there was no reason a woman could not be enlightened.

 Women, Ananda, having gone forth are able to realize the fruit of stream-attainment or the fruit of once-returning or the fruit of non-returning or arahantship," he said" Some scholars point to discrepancies between the Pali Bhikkuni Vinaya (the section of the Pali Canon dealing with the rules for nuns) and other versions of the texts, and suggest the more odious rules were added after the Buddha's death. Wherever they came from, over the centuries the rules were used in many parts of Asia to discourage women from being ordained.

 When the orders of nuns died out in India and Sri Lanka centuries ago, conservatives used the rules that called for monks and nuns to be present at nuns’ ordination to prevent the institution of new orders. Only recently has the ordination problem been solved by allowing properly ordained nuns from other parts of Asia to travel to ordination ceremonies. However, the establishment of nuns' orders in Tibet, where there had been no nuns before, for some time met with resistance. Even today, in some parts of Asia nuns receive less education and financial support than monks."

As with any religion of course- "Buddhist doctrines on the enlightenment of women are contradictory. There is no one institutional authority that speaks for all Buddhism. The myriad schools and sects do not follow the same scriptures; texts that are central to some schools are not recognized as authentic by others. And the scriptures disagree." Sound familiar to all of us Christians?

Finally :"On the other hand, the Vimilakirti Sutra teaches that maleness and femaleness, like other phenomenal distinctions, are essentially unreal. "With this in mind, the Buddha said, ’In all things, there is neither male nor female.’" The Vimilakirti is an essential text in several Mahayana schools, including Tibetan and Zen Buddhism."

So there you go. If you would to follow the link I did go here and to jump over to Zagria's great blog go here.

Russell Saylor

Russell is a true "Lost Girl" as he does drag in the movie! Go here for more links.

"HorrorScope"

"Arr-right" kids, time to part the mist here in Cyrsti's Condo" and look at this week's "HorrorScope":

"Libra: (September 23- October 22) A little spontaneity never hurt, but that requires action. Be proactive with new ideas. Rather than trying to sort your goals out before you begin, give yourself over to the process and open one door to see where it leads. It will be a lot less scary than you think."

The only scary part of this scope is I have always been excused of being too spontaneous on occasion! Well, a girl has to do what a girl has to do! Look out world!

Of course I'm not selfish and go here for your very own "scope" from theFrisky.

From the Bangkok Post:


"The winner of the Miss Tiffany Universe 2009 contest, Sorrawee "Jazz" Nattee, entered the monkhood on Sunday at a temple in the southern province of Songkhla, it was reported on Monday. According to the family of the transsexual beauty pageant winner, Jazz, 24, had breast implants but never had transgender surgery. The silicon implants had since been removed. "I want to be a monk for the rest of my life and I'm ready to leave my worldly possessions behind," Jazz said after becoming a monk at Wat Liab in his home province. "It's not that I've become a monk to run away from problems, but I've studied dharma for two years and now know what it truly is." The monk, whose ordination name is Phra Maha Viriyo Bhikku, which means one who is diligent, said he took part in the transsexual beauty contest four years ago because his parents urged him to."

In case you didn't know, only males can become Buddhist monks in Thailand.

Home Sweet Home?

I'm from Ohio and I know it is not known as the most progressive state in the country but now we have a chance to join 21 other states and do the right thing.
From WSKU News:

Legislation introduced Friday in the Ohio Senate aims to expand Ohio’s workplace discrimination laws. The Equal Housing and Employment Act adds sexual orientation and gender identity to existing law, which prohibits discrimination based on age, race, religion and disability. The bill’s sponsors include State Sens. Frank LaRose of Akron, a Republican, and Democrat Michael Skindell of Lakewood. Republican Ross McGregor of Springfield and Democrat Nickie Antonio of Lakewood are sponsoring the companion bill in the Ohio House. To date, 21 states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar laws. The Ohio bill contains an exemption for religious organizations, and businesses with fewer than 15 employees. In a recent poll, 79 percent of Ohio voters supported equal rights regardless of sexual orientation.

You did notice the lack of "gender orientation" in that survey though!

Drag Queen Transformation

If you think you have seen one and you may have seen all the cross dressing male to female transformations on You Tube, here is another on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

"Dream Scene"

An excellent chance to get out of the cross dressing closet and let your girl flags fly:

Happy Mom's Day

From YouTube on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Mom's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you reading this!

Every year here in Cyrsti's Condo, the day gives me a chance to pause and collect my thoughts about the most important person in my life. She birthed and raised me of course but I was a "third" try following two still born's.

For right or wrong, she was who she was and genetically there is no doubt the apple didn't fall from the tree with me. in resemblance and personality I favored her and my brother my Dad. At the end of the day, she was a fighter more than a lover. In fact I can't remember her telling me she loved me...but I know in her own way she did.

It has taken me years to figure out her electro shock therapy offer to me.  After my stint in the Army I came home for a short while. One night when I came home from drinking with my friends she was waiting up for me. I don't know how the topic came up but quickly I admitted to her I was a transvestite.  She had to have had suspicions as I was growing up. I wasn't that good at hiding my "secret". So she asked point blank and I answered the same way.  Just as quickly point blank she offered electro shock therapy as a solution. I simply said "look, for the first time in my life I was able to tell a close group of friends and for once I'm not ashamed of who I am-I'm sure as hell not going back."

This was 1975 and she passed in the late 1980's at the age of 76 and the subject was never mentioned again. For years I used her words as motivation as how not to act.

I have to be careful because though we are so much alike. My sarcastic sense of everything and the ability to be dumb enough to express all those thoughts too quickly come to mind. As I have found out recently, my breast development under HRT will be attributed to her genetics and my wonderful head of hair I love comes from her genes too.

Here's the part I have taken so long to understand though. Her simple belief in radical therapy to "fix" me was just as simple as my belief there was nothing wrong. Both of us were as determined as the other. So Mom- thanks a lot!

As the years have gone by, her World War Two/Great Depression mentality shaped her personality. She was a no doubter and a educated high school teacher. If you didn't know where you stood, you weren't paying attention.

So Mom, on this Mother's Day let me put into words what you couldn't...I love you. Now I have to go wipe the tears out of my eyes...damn hormones!