We Got Mail!

High Dollar/High Tech!

Our Cyrsti's Condo high tech mail box received a couple of well thought out and presented replies recently from Alexis Michelle. The first is a comment concerning the personal and financial cost of a transgender existence:

"Expensive is so true. My whole journey has cost me a great deal of time, torment and troubles, not to mention the financial aspects. And I totally feel that the non-calculable mental costs far outweigh any financial burdens associated with my life of transition. I went through my own personal 'hell' for many, many years as I tried to keep my thoughts and feeling buried within and still project the image of a "normal" person.

What I went through I would not wish on my worst enemy. Finally I came to a point where I felt I had two choices--first of all, start opening up to others about my turmoil. Secondly, I was so close to just ending it all more than once. Luckily I began to open up and found out those I entrusted with who I really was didn't hate me for it. And with the help of those friends, and a few other, I crossed over to the other side of the street. The monetary costs took all of my savings and the obvious and hidden costs do go on forever. Yet I don't regret my own Ownership at what Cost?"

Alexis makes a couple of very key and relevant points. Either you open up to others or risk the chance of losing your most valuable resource- yourself. In my own case when I began to come out to the friends I had left, two of them did hit the door. That was fine. I did not feel for a second they were obligated to accept me but I certainly needed to accept me!  Similar to Alexis, my new transgender reality  opened up a whole new world of friends.
Her second comment was on my Presently Unavailable post:

" Like you, my mind has always flipped from place to place, time to time and subject to subject. I think many people, whatever their orientations have a tendency to do this. Is it escapism? Perhaps. But I have survived because of my ability to get away from true reality at times. Those like you, who struggle with something so major in life as "who and what am I" are entitled to do this. Imagination and fantasy can be a marvelous thing....as long as yo can come back to the necessary task at hand when the need arises. Keep moving forward, lady!!! on Presently Unavailable."

Indeed! From the days of day dreaming of being a cheerleader when I was on the football team to the countless times I just wondered what life would be like to live for five minutes in the shoes of a woman I was watching, I was in that marvelous place until reality came back with a thud!

Thanks and please remember I'm always humbled and flattered that you all care enough to comment such as Aleis Michelle and Pat and so many others! Don't forget you can email too! Follow the links here in the blog.

The Scenic View

The "before's,  after's and in between of the video we just watched here in Cyrsti's Condo:

Victoria's Asian Secret

Delightful advertising video on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Heels n Hose n You

When I saw this picture, I thought it was-me about 20 years ago in the mall!

Not to say this untitled person wasn't me or isn't a genetic woman but it is  the picture used in a Fabulous after 40 post called : "Dressing Tips To Slim Heavy Calves and Ankles". Check the opening paragraph and you will know why you should visit here for more.

"Can you barely fit into a pair of boots because your calves are so wide? Have you given up wearing dresses because you don’t want anyone to see your huge ankles? You may not be able to change the muscular legs mother nature gave you, but you can make them a lot less noticeable."

Relax girls, this article will give you six tips to wear your beloved heels, hose, skirts and boots to the mall...the right way!

New Construction in an Existing House

If you have ever embarked on any restorations in a house or car or whatever, you know you always discover more to do the deeper you go.

Certainly you can compare a gender transition project as a similar situation. The deeper you go, the more there is to do.

Shelle, who I share links with here in Cyrsti's Condo as well as many similar life experiences just wrote an excellent blog post detailing the road map she is following.

Those of you who are farther along in your transgender journey will certainly see the similarities. Those of you who are considering making the jump will find this read to be very informative!

Check it out here.

NOT Your Father's Camp

More than likely not your camp either. This story I am about to present evokes so many "what if" thoughts in my life, I can't begin to document them all. I'm sure most of you will feel the same after this post from theFrisky:


"For the past three years, photographer Lindsay Morris has been following a group of special kids who attend an annual four-day camp for “gender-nonconforming boys and their parents.” In order to protect the boys and their families, Morris simply refers to the camp as Camp You Are You, and explains it as a place where these boys “don’t have to look over their shoulders, and they can let down their guard. Those are four days when none of that matters, and they are surrounded by family members who support them.”


At camp, boys dress up, play, perform and interact in whatever stage of gender identity they most feel comfortable in. For some, that means wearing wigs and dresses. For others, it includes putting on makeup or heels. Whatever it is, says Morris, it’s a positive step for these kids. “They get enough questioning in their daily lives, so it’s a great place for them to express themselves as they feel. … I feel we hear so many of the sad stories and how LGBT kids are disproportionately affected by bullying, depression, and suicide, and it hangs a heavy cloud over them and kind of dooms them from the beginning. I’m saying this is a new story. This is not a tragedy.”

Author Julie Gerstein said it up best when she wrote" Excuse me, I have a case of the happy cries" I have the deafening echos of "what if".

Getting Frisky!

One of the so called "civilian sites" I visit on a regular basis is theFrisky.  As you may recall, I pull the Cyrsti's Condo  "Horror Scope" from them as well as occasional fashion and other "girl stuffs". theFrisky also is not shy in running transgender and transsexual related material also.
Their latest post that caught my attention was called :
"Mommie Dearest: Let’s Talk About The Difference Between ‘Sex’ & ‘Gender’"

Check out this radical thinking:


"Someone’s sex doesn’t necessarily dictate their gender. A person can be assigned the female gender at birth based on their sexual organs, but be of the male gender. That’s why when somebody gleefully posts their baby-to-be’s “gender,” I bristle a little at the assumption. Now, I’m certainly not advocating for raising up our babies as gender-less, but I don’t see what’s wrong about thinking a bit more critically about all of this. It’s worth thinking about deeply: why are we so obsessed as a culture when it comes to the sex of our babies? Will we treat them any differently based on what’s between their legs?

Unfortunately, various studies have shown that we actually do. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to know a baby’s sex. I get it. We’re a society that feels comfortable and safe when things are easily defined and labeled. However, when this need to know starts the basis of a lifetime’s worth of gender indoctrination, then we have a problem. If you think strict gender codification with babies isn’t a real thing, think again. I have no issue with allowing little girls to be girls or little boys to be boys, but when we put so much pressure on defining them based on their sex right from the start, we make it that much harder for those who stray outside those narrow boxes. Let’s give our kids the space to figure out for themselves what they want to be and love them unconditionally no matter what."

Of course I jest, those of us who do our best to live as a transgender person in a binary gender world just love her thinking. Better yet though, you have civilians such as theFrisky preaching our gospel!  Good for them! We need all the positive preaching we can get!

Follow the link above and you too can "get Frisky"!

Presently Unavailable

For as long as I can remember, I have had a very difficult time living in the present.My mind is always jumping around to other times, places and scenerios. I always was under the impression I simply marched to some distant drummer and that was it.

Now as I think about my life more, I wonder if my mental "escapism" was due in part to my transgenderism. Part of my noggin was available to navigate the present while part of it wasn't.  I'm not saying the other dimensional "half" was operating 100% of the time in a female world but yes it was there a lot.

Perhaps, I just slowly but surely trained myself in a coping mechanism which included my thoughts wondering elsewhere?

Interesting to me as well is the fact I'm into all of this "introspection" at this point in my life.  As I continue to connect my gender dots and merge my gender experiences, perhaps I'm experiencing the opportunity to live more entirely in the moment. Plus (while we are on the subject) , I consider the use of the word merge an incorrect one. I consider I have flipped my dominant gender to the one which was always destined to be me. As my male gender fades more and more into the background of my existence- he is still back there when I need his years of knowledge or expertise in certain situations.  When he dominated though, I could never reach deep inside to my girl soul but somehow I always knew she was there. The world was always just a tad to completely out of focus.

Of course this is all a theory and I will have to leave it to the ones closest to me to determine if focus becomes one of my new traits.

In the meantime I have tired of all this transgender introspection. Lets see, there has to be something else here in Cyrsti's Condo to get my attention!

Ownership at what Cost?

Doesn't matter if you identify as a cross dresser, transgender or transsexual woman or man, owning who we are is expensive.  From the youngest transsexual child who can afford the therapy and medical help,  to the person who comes out trans later in life the physical costs can even outweigh the mental costs- on paper.

Examples? What's a sexual realignment surgery costing these days with or without facial feminization costs? Plus the lifetime worth of drugs you need to begin/continue the process of syncing up your inner and exterior genders. If you are fortunate enough for the process to work at all.

The number of options in our trans culture are countless yet so unreachable for so many of us.  I have said it before of my respect for those of you who stay deep in the closet for the benefit of family or work or both.  I'm the first to admit I was there and tried to it and in the end just couldn't.

So are the non calculable mental costs potentially greater that the psychical ones? Who knows. Personally, yes-there is no way to put a cost on the days of my lack of productivity as I fought my inner gender battles. I know I'm speaking to the choir here, the process is similar to living two lives in two dimensions simultaneously.

Out of necessity and/or choice my investments have been mainly internal. I have purchased ownership of all of me and my closest friends have told me they can see it. Forget the cost of HRT. At the end of the day, my biggest costs have been the mental ones.  It turns out, they were wise investments. Now, before you are diving into your purses for a calculator, consider this:

If  you are putting a dollar amount on your transition and expect your money to buy gender happiness-I'm thinking "it ain't happenin' babes". Then again it's only money right?