Sealing the Truth

Well my post earlier today was true according to ABC News:


"A former member of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs has come out to say she's now a woman. Kristin Beck, formerly Chris, served 20 years as a SEAL and fought on some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world, but after she left the service she realized she wasn't living the life she wanted. "Chris really wanted to be a girl and felt that she was a girl and consolidated that identity very early on in childhood," said Anne Speckhard, co-author of Beck's biography "Warrior Princess," which was published over the weekend.

Speckhard told ABC News Beck suppressed that secret for decades, however, through the trials of SEAL training and the harrowing missions that followed, growing a burly beard as she fought on the front lines of American special operations. Brandon Webb, a former SEAL who served on a different SEAL team than Beck, said that Beck's reputation in the SEALs was a good one and said she was, by all appearances, the "consummate guy's guy." But the book says that Chris "had considered living as the woman he felt himself to be for a very long time, but while he was serving as a SEAL he couldn't do it.

" "For years Chris had turned off his sexuality like a light switch and lived as a warrior, consumed with the battle -- living basically asexual. For Chris the other SEALs were brothers and in the man's man warrior lifestyle, even if he had wanted to entertain sexual thoughts, there really was never any time to be thinking too much about sexuality," the book says."

Of course none of Kristin's story is entirely alien to most of us who tried the macho lifestyle.  Go here for more and expect this story  to be huge!

I just wonder how I saw this first in the middle of the night coming from an Australian News Source...although Amazon.com was credited too...time change?

Look Fast! We Are Invisible

I was going to title this post "Bastards" but decided to mellow myself out.

This story comes from BuzzFeed, and takes into consideration the Pentagon (due largely to the efforts of Autumn Sandeen) now does recognize the fact that transgender women and men have served- DUH!  The move is huge. Now veteran transgender retiree's can change their gender marker in the Defense Eligibility Reporting System.

In the meantime though, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” ended the ban on out gay, lesbian or bisexual service members, the military continues to consider a service member being transgender grounds for a discharge from the military.

This year the Pentagon stepped up to the plate with a totally hypocritical statement:

"The Pentagon will be celebrating LGBT Pride Month again this year, but the memorandum announcing the designation has caused a stir with an organization that supports LGBT service members and veterans and their families. “We recognize gay, lesbian and bisexual service members and LGBT civilians for their dedicated service to our country,” Clarence Johnson, the director of the Pentagon’s Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity, wrote in a memorandum announce the designation of June as LGBT Pride Month."

Very simply, don't insult transgender military service members past and present by adding the "T" in LGBT.

Bastards.

Less of a Soldier?

I just caught up with this breaking story about Kristen Beck which is supposedly about to blow the doors off the military's policy towards transgender veterans.
This comes from a fairly different source- but here it is from the Business Insider Australia:

"A retired Navy SEAL is poised to blow the doors off of the military’s policy toward the transgender.  Kristen Beck was a member of the most elite special operations unit in the world — SEAL Team 6. She deployed 13 times. She earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. She served in the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. Shortly before the bin Laden raid, in early 2011, she retired as a senior chief petty officer after serving 20 years. Her name was Chris Beck back then. In a memoir that promises to change the way we think about transgender women and men,  and their service in the military, Beck writes about how she came to the realization that she was meant to live life as a woman."

This may be too good to be true...but I'm passing it along anyway. After all this is Cyrsti's Condo not the New York Times.

For more, go here.here

HorrorScope "Smootches"!

In the history of out "Horrorscopes" here in Cyrsti's Condo over the last one hundred years- this maybe one of the better "scopes"


"Libra (September 23-October 22): There are a lot of sloppy kissers around you now, so beware. Some prospects do need time before you can cozy up to them, so hold back the horniness now. Build the anticipation instead, as it will do wonders for a hookup that should be rad, but right now would only be bad. Although sunrise screwing may sound passionate, in this case, meeting for breakfast is sexier."

I'm very sure this is one of those "no comment" scopes- only to be upstaged in theFrisky by Michael Douglas's speculation on the cause of his throat cancer. I'm thinking not approved by the medical community.

Perhaps your scope will be as interesting! Go to theFrisky to learn!

**The Horrorscope" term is my own!

Too Much Fun?

As I watched this video, I noticed the marginal quality and makeup job. I didn't miss how much fun this kid was having cross dressing in 2011. "Me thinks" he has tried it again! Check it out on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Asian Montage

On the Cyrsti's Condo big screen a montage of Asian transgender and cross dressing women:

Keeping Abreast of the Situation

To have or not to have - is a huge question in the transgender as well as the mainstream cultures. Specifically, trans women can't wait to experience the thrill of developing their own breasts trans men the exact opposite. None of this is a big secret.

The Times of India though recently ran an article called "The Booby Trap". Interestingly "The Booby Trap" starts with the recent news of Angelina Jolie's New York Times piece on how she underwent a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer and then begins to look at the process from a transgender man's point of view. Here's an excerpt:

"Selvam, a 27-year-old transgender male from Tamil Nadu, lists the usual ruses preoperative men like him have to resort to conceal their breasts so they can pass off as men. "I started binding my breasts with bandage from the age of 18, but it restricted blood circulation and bruised my skin," he says. "I've now started wearing tight vests and multiple layers of clothing." He has also fashioned a prosthetic penis of cloth to make the semblance more credible. "There are some transmen I know who drink a lot of beer to develop a beer belly that will make the breasts less prominent."

This is just a short look into how "the other trans half" is subjected to the physical pain of transition. I can only say- with my very brief knowledge of having my own developing breasts, binding them would be no walk in the park. All of this proves once again trans men or trans women are so different but so similar in our paths we are taking.

To take a look at the rest of the article, go here. In the meantime, lets talk about that "beer belly"!

Military Support

Well not so much in this country.

Maybe a little more so in the UK? I'm sure my friend Paula from "across the pond" can shed quite a more light on the subject. I suspect as in this country, acceptance is mixed...not specifically in the military.

 In the meantime The Guardian recently ran this piece from Ayla Holdom. (right)  Ayla is a transsexual  search and rescue pilot in the Royal Air Force.  But when she began her gender transition, she was supported by friends and family and by her employer. Yet again she, like teacher Lucy Meadows, who killed herself in March, has had to endure articles full of hurt and spite. She argues for all transgender people to be treated with the dignity they deserve

 There is quite a bit of depth to this article which you can read here.

By the way, you may remember Ayla when she flew with Prince William's Crew in the RAF and made news when she was invited to the royal wedding! On the left, I'm sure you will agree is a very dramatic "before and after"!

Coming Soon to a Cyrst's Condo near You!

It seems my transgender journey these days is similar to some sort of an off the wall reality show called Planning the NEVER Dull Moment.

On the next episode this week we will watch Cyrsti as she takes another huge step out of her closet in her home town by going to an Equality meeting.  This is significant how?  My old self used to be a very active person in certain social groups who gave back plenty to the 70,000 peep old rust belt town in Ohio. If it helps you, I live in Springfield. One of a zillions Springfield's the country and not the home of Homer Simpson.

Several famous people though are from here such as the late Jonathan Winters and Lillian Gish who never claimed the place.  I was determined my female self was never going to claim it either but I have mellowed. First of all, I'm working on moving which really has nothing to do about this place as much as it does being with a person I love in a city I've always loved- Cincinnati.  Before I go though, I feel I owe my home one final shot at giving back to it.

In many ways, Springfield is no more than a snapshot of similar towns it's size in the Midwest.  We took the recent depression as hard as anyone in the country and have retained that good old "it's a great place to raise a family mentality".  Well, we are finding again maybe that's not so true for the LGBT community.  Especially for the silent transgender segment of the "T" which is bigger than Dick Nixon's maligned Silent Majority.

I've had enough and I wrote here how I was astounded at how invisible my transgender woman friend and I were at a public Equality Springfield meeting a couple months ago. So I joined. Put my money down and I am headed to one of their monthly meetings this Thursday. Regular membership meetings for those of you who don't know are a quality way to make yourself known to a group.  If you sacrifice your time to show up at a boring damn meeting to bitch about no recognition of the transgender community around here- you must mean it.

Plus, in an astounding move for a short term thinker like me, I plan on seeking out a representative from the church I was supposed to have grown up in. I mean, we went as a family but Dad's snoring took away a bit of the spirituality! Ironically, the church now (Methodist) is one of very few with courage enough to come out in support of the LGBT community here in town. I'm actually thinking of going there for a service in the future.

So boys and girls, that's our look at the Cyrsti's Condo programming guide.  Who would ever thought I would write a post referencing both Richard Nixon and Homer Simpson? No comment!