Around the World We Go!

Transgender, transsexual news and more from Cyrsti's Condo:

Vietnam:


Quynh Tram is one of few people who have ID cards re-granted after sex reassignment surgery.
This is actually a series of posts from trans news in Vietnam. Go here for more.








From Italy: "Paola Conte (shown at right) is a married transsexual and is a foster mother to a young daughter. She also has a distinguished career. She is speaking up against the stereotypes of transsexual women only as prostitutes and more here.

From the UK (of course!)
"A transgender woman has been expelled from her social club after an incident in the ladies loo. Hinoi Tonkin, who used to be 21-stone Keith but has slimmed down to nine stone, was already under suspension at the club. But she was formally thrown out after a meeting of the committee last week at Beechwood, Easterside and District Social Club in Middlesbrough." Go here for more.

I'm tired of all the traveling! Plus I'm sure there will be more to pass along soon.

This Blond is Having Too Much Fun!

This blond is having too much fun and looking real good doing it!  Check her out on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen!

Cyrsti's Condo Mystery Time

A couple months ago, I saw a person out of the corner of my eye who caught my attention. For some reason the gender picture didn't quite fit together. She was a medium sized woman with very stylish highlighted blond hair and from what I could see a fair amount of makeup but nothing overdone. The problem was she had a facial silhouette like mine, too much chin and nose. (I would love to be able to afford FFS.) But what I really noticed was quite possibly she was one of the worst dressed women I had ever seen. I'm fairly sure she was wearing a pair of old striped slacks my Dad threw out in 1971 and an old pair of tennis shoes I threw out five years ago.

I was in shock. I can count on one hand the number of transgender girls or cross dressers I have seen for sure in public. My first thought was, "I couldn't be seeing this person right" and as quickly as I saw her, she was gone.  We were in a huge box store and she seemed to be carrying one of those inventory checkers on her belt so I assumed she may be working there. Maybe she just started and was waiting for a paycheck to add a few clothes (which I understand.) Her Dad would have never missed those pants!

I really didn't give the moment much other thought except I was fairly sure she may be transgender and moved on...  Until a couple days ago when I saw her again. This time I was in a better position to take a better look. She was just ahead of me with a cart and being the "nifty" person I am, I was able to be in position to go by her as she turned into another aisle. She just smiled and said "excuse me" in a voice which could have been shared by half the other hard drinking/hard smoking 40 + women in this town. In other words very low and gravely.  This time she was dressed in a very loose fitting dark blue coverall type jumpsuit which many of the manufacturing people wear around here. Her whole image was very unisexish except the same hair and makeup.

By this time I was sure she was a transgender woman and set out to think why I didn't know her.  Finally my age abused mind came up where I did know her from and it was literally from the 1980's. I live in a town of about 80,000 and it's relatively hard to hide if you are trans and not super presentable. I remembered there was a person I met once who actually worked for the city here in town on trucks doing street work and I used to see working in her coveralls and makeup. That night I remembered her to be in a very tight dress and she was approximately the size of the woman I was seeing now.

At that point in time I was in my bomb shelter type closet and wondered from afar what her story was. The only info I remembered she said she was going to go through SRS at some point.

So now the whole deal  is my own little mystery. Does she still work for the city and that is why she dresses that way? Did she ever go through SRS?  Why does she dress like a guy from the shoulders down in very loose clothes and full makeup and styled hair which I think is hers? Is she wearing a Wonder Woman costume under those clothes and is actually a super hero?

I still don't know and my girlfriend essentially said if I was that nosy then why didn't I speak to her? Truth of the matter is I have always been petrified to talk to a stranger on the street I perceive to be trans. I mean, what if she isn't?

Who knows, the next time I see her I might hitch up my big girl panties and ask! But then again, what would I have to obsess about?

"Outta" Sync?

"Outta sync"

Over the years I have read theories on human sexuality which basically places all of us on a scale. As an example, one would be a 100% hetero person and 10 would be a 100% gay person.  The fun bunch exists somewhere between two and eight.

Less prevalent are the theories on human gender scales. Again, lets say a one would be a person who knows he or she is a he or she and 10 is the opposite. I would suggest the middle ground in this group is just being researched and living in the gender middle ground is no picnic in the park.

In my life, I'm finally beginning to understand what happens to me when I move about in the gender middle ground.  I call it "syncing up" and right now I'm just a little out of sync.  The worst part of being out of sync is I can't tell you exactly what threw off my equilibrium so to speak.  It's sort of like viewing the world without my glasses, everything is just a little out of focus.

Times such as this in my life, I think gender fluid fits me as well as transgender if you want to slap a label on all of this. Then again aren't they really the same term? Or better yet, who cares? Transgender, transsexual, gender fluid, cross dresser? Blah blah blah.

The only reason I do, is the sync makes me grumpy.  At times I think the spot I'm in right now is close to nirvana and at other times I get real impatient of whats going on and what should be next. Certainly HRT will continue to reshape and feminize my body but the bigger changes have slowed.

Could be the time of year tossing me out of sync too.  The fall season is a time of change and I used to feel deeper about the process because of the deep desire I had to for changing myself. Now I'm chasing shadows because I am changing.

The good part of sync is it normally doesn't take me a long time to refocus. I know for certain I don't fit in with the gender "ones or tens".  Every once in a while the middle ground gets a little foggy and it takes me a little longer to get my bearings and sync up.

Davina Willis

Excuse the gender slur but this video goes back to the year 2000 when Davina Willis won Miss Gay UK and "Tranny of the Year."

A Windy Blond

Amanda is getting her money's worth from her blond hair in this Cyrsti's Condo big screen video:

On the Job Training?

You regular visitors here in Cyrsti's Condo may have the idea I may be just a bit cynical.  Years ago at one of my jobs we referred to a "cynic" as a person with a PHD in sarcasm, so this story from Canada caught my attention from Montreal's CTV News.


"In the Plateau-Mont Royal De Lorimier riding, Coderre's team is running a lawyer, Bergeron’s team is running a school commissioner, Marcel Cote is running a real estate agent and Melanie Joly is running a transgender individual, who worked as an escort until last year.

Bibiane Bovet’s (shown above) avowed past as a worker in the sex trade created a stir Friday, as a scrum of reporters queried mayoral candidate Joly about her unconventional candidate. Joly said that she has known of Bovet’s background since they met earlier this year. She said that Bovet has no criminal record and that her profession is not illegal in any criminal sense."

Obviously, I have no horse in this race but the first thing I thought was - Why not? There are a ton of politicians in this country who have made a living off of screwing people?

The "Non Elite" Hate (oh) Eight

I already posted here in Cyrsti's Condo about  Barilla Pasta's recent homophobic stance and I assume transphobic stance too.


In the wake of Barilla's head honcho, Guido Barilla's homophobic and sexist remarks, a boycott followed, and we were once again forced to realize that some people just refuse to see everyone as equal. "I would never do [a commercial] with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect, but because we don't agree with them," the company chairman told Italian radio Wednesday evening. "Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role.

 However, Barilla isn't the first company to express homophobic sentiments, and sadly, they probably won't be the last either. The United States Department of Labor may have ruled that all businesses in every state must provide benefit coverage for same-sex marriages, but that doesn't mean it's going to put an end to homophobia."

Of course their are many more companies which fall into the same category and you can go here to see them.   Some would be a surprise, some not.

By the way, here was my comment:

"Since transgender women and men were not mentioned here, should we assume these companies are transphobic too or are we just as invisible to them as we are to the gay and lesbian community?"

Hint**Even if you are in the closet, nothing is stopping you from steering any of your company catering away from  Chick-fil-A.

Top Womanless Beauty Pageant Scheduled in Thailand

Once again, Pattaya in Thailand will be getting its third transvestite beauty pageant. It's called the "Mimosa" and is scheduled for  Nov. 14-17.

This pageant is certainly no secret to most of us and features a wide range of cross dressing to transsexual women competing for the title. Often the beauty is breathtaking.

I'm partial to the event because of it's location too. I like to joke I'm one of the few transgender people I know who spent a year in Thailand and didn't go through SRS.  Then as in now, the Army sort of frowned on the activity. Plus, Pattaya was very close to a small Army base in Thailand which processed me in and out of the country in 1973 ish.  The word was then, as soon as the Vietnam War that never happened was over, the whole area would boom into an international resort. How right they were!