Is the Gender Grass Always Greener Elsewhere?

Along the my way down the transgender path, I’ve been fortunate enough to run into several strangers who seemingly just “popped” into my world-made an impression and left.  So many think the average trans woman or trans man encounters an inordinate number of negative people. I certainly haven't kept a scorecard but I would guess the opposite has been true for me.

Years ago a tall , strikingly attractive confident woman in her mid 40′s made it a point to strike up a conversation with me.  She knew I was trans and garnered bunches of attention.. Basically she just wanted to tell me to hold my head up and it probably wouldn't get appreciably better for people like us. No, she wasn't transgender or transsexual but she felt the burden of her height and looks as just a hassle at this point in her life. By "us" she was meaning women who cause attention in a room-believe me for completely different reasons in our sense. How nice!

She confided years ago she worked at one of the clubs operated by one of the biggest men's magazines. Not the one with a rabbit involved-but the other. She went into a  15 minute tirade on the idiots in the world who couldn’t see past her reflection.

I was stunned.  So many people in our culture (me included) would have believed her situation was close to heaven.

I guess the other grass isn't greener. Everyone has their cross to bear. Even if it's a cross dresser cross.

Plus, I knew the greatest majority of genetic women didn’t have her “looks” either but certainly found ways to live highly successful lives. You know the women I'm talking about,who just exude femininity and a zest for life.

I started to consider not being required to bring a lawn mower with me with my makeup. Maybe the grass wasn't greener on the other gender side. I have found though it is certainly as soft and inviting as I thought it would be. That's OK, I never did enjoying mowing grass!

Age and the Trans Girl

One of the huge drawbacks of age is the tendency to repeat yourself. Peeps are fond of telling me I don't look that old (not a day over 60) or act that old. Which is all good until I haven't seen them in a week or so. Then I start  repeating everything I said the last time we met. Everyone is nice and says they are doing the same thing at half my age. Yeah right-if you are you may want to start check into the problem!

Being me of course, I'm doing essentially the same thing with words. At the risk of not being Dr. Phil  (plugging his book every 2 minutes)- I finally have my literary masterpiece molded into a form which I think is workable. The problem?

I'm to the point of moving posts from Cyrsti's Condo over to the book and then I'm seeing a paragraph or two in Halfback to Hormones which should come back this direction. All good until I wonder in the vast amount of 2,000 posts, have I already mentioned it?

Well, if I am- it's not nice to make fun of old peeps. Then if you do (get in line)  it won't bother me much anyway. My sarcasm can be compared to a person you are admiring across the room. The closer you get, it can easily lose it's charm! I'm used to it!

On a side note, my humor was one of the earliest issues I had to deal with in my transition. Bottom line, it was such a huge part of my male self-I brought it along.

Coming up in the next post a possible "repeat" performance. If I can remember which one it was!

It's the Time of the Season

In my part of the world prom and graduation season has almost come and gone. But has it really? With increased frequency we are seeing more and more transgender youth challenging the system. Standing up for the right to enjoy activities such as prom or graduation as the trans women and men they really are. The effect of each and every one of these youth will certainly be felt for years-until all the gender walls come down.

In the meantime though, there is much to be done encouraging youth in the closet to enter the world- on their own terms. How much of course depends upon where you are. Here's an example from the television show , What Would You Do?, who decided to find out what people would do if they witnessed a boy undergoing gender transition trying on a prom dress:



 

The Women of "Hot-Lanta"

Perhaps the premier event in the country showcasing the most beautiful cross dressed men is the Atlanta Cotillion . This year's event was this past weekend but  here's look at the 2011 womanless beauty pageant  on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Adolescent Rodeo Clown

Last night I was slaving away over my book and I thought  this experience was good enough to pass along here in Cyrsti's Condo. In fact the whole experience was a great lesson of not passing. Simply put, I was barely out of the closet in my early 30's and going through my cross dressing "adolescence" with a passion:

"Unless you happen to be a young cross dresser going through the pains of puberty, my best advice is don’t act like you are. Time and time again I will tell you not to be the big guy in the mall squeezed into a tiny mini, tall heels and big hair. Sure I tried it too and yes it was totally ill advised. Wait, no one did advise me. I screwed this up all by myself. To add insult to just being dumb, I didn't need no "stinkin mall" and just took off out of my house- on a busy street flaunting my latest attempt to be sexy.

If you are “mature” enough, you will remember the “Urban Cowboy” movie and the resultant cowgirl fashion craze Short jean shorts, boots and blouses tied off at the waist was the basic look. So, who was I not to follow the current fashion craze?

Being the fashionista clothing designer I am, I took a pair of my women’s jeans and cut off the legs-really short- butt cheek short. Hey, I was just following a not so smart but all so common cross dressing fashion disaster. Sexy for many women, stupid for me.

I was certainly working on another “can’t miss, guaranteed way to get busted as a man dressed as a woman” fashion mistake! There was a reason for the madness. Not a good one. But a reason.

Most men have a good looking pair of women’s legs. I was no different. Many of my first compliments dressed as a woman at Halloween parties was wow! you have great legs. But when you put the comment into the context it was intended, it comes off something like this: “You do have great legs for a guy dressing as a woman” and oh gee those wonderful legs of your happen to be attached to those big feet, no hips and big shoulders. All we know is our male egos are just going nuts with the praise and if a little leg is good- certainly more leg is better!

If I knew then what I know now, I may have had a chance of not being a rodeo clown in drag by following a few relatively simple steps. A pair of reasonable length boots and a tad longer pair of cut off shorts would have broken the sight pattern from my hips to my feet. A longer short would have also given me a chance to work in the illusion of hips with a couple pieces of foam rubber padding. If I was skillful enough to do all of that, then maybe I could have loosely tied off a shirt at my waist.

Here is the mistake I made with the shirt tail idea. To be semi convincing your hips should roughly equal the span of your shoulders. I thought I was emphasizing a narrower waist when in reality I was not hiding the considerable size of my upper torso. Bottom line was I just didn't have the body to even give the illusion of being able to wear that sort of outfit. There were plenty of genetic women who didn't either and they were smart enough to not try.

The moral to the story is all of us go through this to some extent-even genetic women.  I hear from so many cross dressers or transgender women who bemoan their looks and say I can't get any better. Just remember, can't is a powerful word. Use it and you will be right- it can't happen.

HorrorScope!

Well kids, another week has flown by here in Cyrsti's Condo and it's time for another "Horrorscope"

First of all, I am swearing all of you to secrecy!  Do Not tell my "Boo" or my old dog about this week's "scope"!

Libra (September 23-October 22): There is a reason why you don’t want to teach an old dog new tricks — because they’ll do it wrong. If you are after something fresh, it’ll mean moving your rodeo to a new boo that will be receptive to seeing what you’ve got. After all, you can continue to beat your head against the wall, but why subject yourself to pain without any pleasure?

See, I told you! "Mum's the word!"

For your scope...go here to theFrisky and always remember "HorrorScope" is my own warm and fuzzy term!

A Loss in our Community

I read this morning JoAnn Roberts passed away.

Briefly JoAnn and her TG Forum site was one of the first informational places I discovered when I got hooked up to the internet.  She identified as a cross dresser and provided a path for closeted CD's like me to see and understand I should not be ashamed for who I was.

To this day her Forum has been one of the very few cross dresser sites to withstand the advance of time.

She will be missed!

Cross Dressing "Goals"

As you have probably figured out, I follow many different sources making an attempt  at bringing an interesting Cyrsti's Condo blog to you.

One person in particular I have followed off and on for years has been posting videos recently of her "out and about" public adventures.  She is a very attractive girl and caught my curiosity when she started to change her identification markers from simply "MtF" to cross dresser to a mixture of both.

After her latest video,  a "viewer"  asked a question I see frequently aimed at attractive cross dressers.  How she can appear so "accomplished" and then go back to "his" regular life.

Good question and a good answer too!

One theory at why a cross dresser may have an easier time adjusting back to his everyday male life is his "hobby" is just that. He just happens to be very good at it. The process is similar to a drag queen's transformation into incredible looking women.  Most do not want to be female at all.

Another theory comes from an engineering friend who believes an attractive cross dresser is the ultimate male ego trip. Working on, designing and assembling your own female doll- who happens to be you. He thinks an inordinate amount of CD's are engineers.

Enough of all of that,  here was her answer:

(Paraphrasing) , she said "I accomplished the goal of spending the weekend presenting as a woman- Shopping, entertainment and all. I don't know what I will do next."

I understand  and  could have written that very phrase about  my life as a cross dresser. As I went to this mall, or store or restaurant with success of sorts- I would literally drive around looking for new places to try out as a girl. I had my goals.

The difference was for me, slowly but surely it dawned on me what I would do next. I wanted to live a feminine existence.  It all felt so totally right. It was so clear even I could figure it out. Looks though had very little to do with my decision. A feminine appearance just was one tool of getting to where I wanted to be.

The central point many miss in our culture is giving too much credence to looks. Let's assume the person who asked the question looked wonderful in drag and decided to do it day after day. Rest assured the "novelty" of appearing as an attractive woman would wear off quickly. Any sort of looks (one way or another) fade quickly when you attempt to truly jump the gender fence. Yet another of my Socialization over Visualization lectures.

ZZZZZ.

Lost in the Ozone

Recently I tried to post an Asian cross dressing video to the Crysti's Condo big screen.  Due to some sort of techno ineptitude on my part, the video just disappeared - Poof! I could find no record of it ever existing.

One of my faithful readers,  Alice actually saw the intro  I wrote but no video.I was relieved and figured at least I wasn't making the whole thing up in the deep dark recesses of my noggin.

At that point, I sat out to locate the video on YouTube.  Easier said than done.  I think there are more videos dealing with Asian cross dressing and transgender subjects on YouTube than China has people!

If nothing else Alice, I am persistent. Let's try it again!