She Will Say It All!

I've followed this young transgender woman on YouTube for awhile and have been entertained with many of her videos which are a bit "out there" but all in all very entertaining.
The one I'm passing along on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen is when she slows down a bit and explains who she is.  I find soooo many YouTube peeps who have no idea of how they identify or want to hide it it.
Enjoy one who doesn't:

A look at my Other Half

I live in Ohio. Middle America USA. Sure it has it's drawbacks and it's strengths.  I'm over 60 and causcasian and transgender.  Many love to hate on me because I supposedly lived male privilege to the max and now I'm trying to change.

Regardless of all of that I do not know how young transgender women of color live. The women whose names all too often show up in the news as the victims of extreme violence. The closest I have come in person was a young trans girl I met in person who was originally from Detroit, migrated to the west coast and in her own words spent some "fun" nights in Los Angeles's "tranny jail". Toss a heroin addiction on top of all of that and here she was standing in front of me...proud as hell. Wow! I was impressed and told her so but then again words are cheap.

Recently Out News & Opinion presented a fantastic look at how my other half lives in an area I know A little about since I lived in the NYC area several years ago:

"Transgender immigrants flock to Jackson Heights in pursuit of a dream. Prostitution, drugs, and violence trap the unwary. Chadwick Moore spent three months with the girls to find out why they still come. Photography by Kevin Amato Arena’s been at it for three years. It’s nearly midnight on a frigid Thursday in January. She looks like someone’s daughter awaiting a ride to the mall, sitting perpendicularly on her twin-size bed with her back against the wall and her size 11 feet dangling over the edge. Her pink sheets are patterned with Betty Boop lip prints. In about four hours Arena will hit the streets, which she hates doing. It’s dangerous and lowly, but no clients have called today. Arena is Spanish for “sand.” Tonight she’s nostalgic. “I was in Indiana when I began the transition with hormones,” she says. The change occurred quickly and caught her off-guard. One afternoon she passed a mirror and became tearful. “I thought, Oh my god, I look just like my mother.” It was the happiest moment of her life. Arena’s V-neck shirt betrays a rash spreading over her torso -- large, red abscesses that look concerning -- but she likes this shirt because it buoys her modest cleavage. And this cleavage is what brought Arena to Queens and funneled her into the sex trade. Once she makes enough money for breast implants, she’s out of here. She’s not built for city life -- she downright hates it. It’s apparent in her hypnotic gentleness. She moves like a shy teenage girl adjusting to a sudden growth spurt. Her face is soft and round, her gaze thoughtful and submissive, and small patches of acne kiss each cheek. Her eyes periodically meet mine, and I wonder how much of her coquettish innocence is calculated."

This is a long post with many pictures and you can visit it here.

Million Dollar Candis Cayne

"Bravo" Television has a show called Million Dollar Listing".
I'm always interested in the show because the basis is a group of very high end real estate sales brokers selling property in New York and Los Angeles I could only dream of ever buying.

Today's show got my attention though when one of the prospective buyers was none other than the beautiful transgender actress Candis Cayne".

Candis if possible is even more beautiful in this show.
Go here for more pix! Many of the shows are rebroadcast on satellite television so you may be able to see her episode relatively easily.

Follow the Bouncing Hormones

I hate being in the "I think" mode as far as my HRT meds go.
As I passed along to you recently, I was making my medication transition again between my endocrinologist and the Veteran's Administration.
As far as I can tell by talking to my VA nurse is the new prescriptions have been filled and are in the system.

That should be all good....but....in the system means another possible ten days before the new estrogen and spiro can get to me. Plus I will have to wait until the meds get here until I can tell for sure if the new dosages are correct.

I'm having a problem with the old prescriptions cancelling out until the new ones will start.
While this process sorts itself out, I'm carefully monitoring my dwindling supplies of both meds. On the good side,  I seem to have a couple nurses in both offices on my side I can communicate with. So "I think" all is okay.

In the meantime the spiking up or down of my hormones has not made me a happy camper the last couple of days. I even had a fairly decent hot flash yesterday which is tied into hormonal imbalance.

Am I sending myself through a HRT menopause?

Just For Fun!

Plastic Surgery and Gender Reassignment and Beyond

This is the second time recently Behold-The Photo Blog has featured several transgender or cross dresser photos.  Here is the latest:

"Michelle Sank is interested in young people and the issues they face. One of her early projects, called "Bye Bye-Baby," explores the way boys and girls interpret their understanding of masculinity and femininity. Following suit, her more recent series, “In My Skin,” deals with the pressure young people feel from media and pop culture to achieve a specific physical standard."

And of course a couple of the featured photos. The first on the right is MtF transgender Cambell.

The second is John  transgender FtM (below) and now identifies gender neutral.

Here are a couple links for more. The first is Michelle Sank's and the second is The Photo Blog.

Quote of the Day

‘You can’t live a lie and spend your life feeling sad’ – Pammy Rose.

Who is Pammy Rose? She is a transgender finalist in the Sunderland Echo "Face of 2013" competition.

" Now Pammy Rose wants to tell her story of transformation, courage and determination in a bid to inspire other young people to just be themselves. Cara Houchen reports. TRANNY, puff, sick, freak – I’ve had every vile insult you can think of shouted at me over the years,” explained Pammy Rose.  Born Paul Witten, the 20-year-old from Seaham always knew she was different and when I went to meet her and her mum Julie Olds, she explained why she now feels ready to tell her story.  “I want to stand up and speak out so hopefully people like me can stop hiding who they are, stop being afraid and just be happy and feel accepted,” she said.  “I’m in a good place at the minute, but it hasn’t always been like that.”

Go here for more.

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.