Laura Jane Grace

Legendary Floridian punk rock outfit Against Me! have finally set a release date for their long anticipated sixth full-length studio album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the follow-up to 2010′s White Crosses, as well as revealing the tracklisting and cover artwork.

 The 10-track record will be out next January and will offer a highly autobiographical insight into frontwoman Laura Jane Grace‘s journey through gender identity, self discovery and ultimately love and acceptance, as well as her trademark dominant vocals and no-holds-barred songwriting.

I'm adding a couple pictures showing the HRT progress in Laura's pictures, specifically with her hair (which I LOVE!) and the joy in her face!

For more go here.

 Check out the titles of four of the cuts:
 01. Transgender Dysphoria Blues
02. True Trans Soul Rebel
03. Unconditional Love
04. Drinking With The Jocks

Ari South

"Project Runway" Season 8 fan favorite Andy South is back — with a new name and a new look. Now known as Ari South, the Hawaii native is competing on "Project Runway: All Stars" as a woman after completing a gender transition. A lot has changed for South since finishing in third place on Season 8 of the reality series but one thing hasn't changed: Her skill and taste as a designer. She chatted with Yahoo TV about the very competitive season, the cast's reaction to her transformation, and the two celebrities she'd love to dress.

For more, go here.

Don't Hate me Because I'm....

You all have probably caught me up on my Cyrsti's Condo Soapbox whining and crying about pet peeves such as being roundly rejected by certain elements of the transgender society.  On one hand I'm too much girl for the cross dressers and on the other I'm not enough girl for the transsexuals. Blah, blah, blah...as Pat said in a comment here labels are just labels and how you interact with a person one on one is reality. As Vicki said if I was in the UK, I may have a whole different idea of being called a tranny and if I was black I may have a whole different reaction to being called "girl".

Today though, on another site I'm active on, I was told, "I should be happy I was able to transition at all." Well, DUH, I am of course.  I responded to the person, "I'm happy to be here at all", when you consider three years ago I was coming out of what I call the dark years of my life. Back then,  I didn't care if I lived or died and none of it had to do with gender. In the three years previous, I lost my wife of 25 years, three of the closet friends to death I had ever known and my business. Oh, and did I mention I'm also bi-polar?

What few people know is I was and am a very independent, guarded person. So picking up the pieces on my own was tough and I almost didn't make it.  Now I find the irony in those I meet who think the pleasure I find in life right now has always been a part of me. It took me years to quit being a "victim" and I happened upon an idea to pay forward and get out of the rut I was in. You are reading it.

When I started Cyrsti's Condo back in the day, I barely knew what a blog was. Connie in Seattle was reading my posts on another site and suggested I begin writing my experiences on my own blog and here we are.  My goals were and are as simple as I am...maybe I can help others with the crazy experiences I have managed to live through in 64 years.

As I said, hell yes I'm happy to be here and my heart literally sings when the world becomes mine for the taking as a woman but damn it was tough to get here. As unfair as it is to discriminate against me for not being a cross dresser or transsexual, it is as bad for resenting me for simply seizing an opportunity in my life and writing about it.

So don't hate me because I'm transitioning.  I know many of you just can't and I respect that but I'm fairly sure you don't want to take the route I did to get here.  If you do, I'm behind you all the way!

Carmen Moore

"Carmen Moore"

As we know, it’s still very rare for transsexual actors to be given transsexual roles, but a film company is setting out to change that trend. Drunktown is casting Navajo transsexual actress Carmen Moore in one of its lead roles. The movie has already been shot, but is now looking for completion funding on Kickstarter, in the hope it’ll be ready for the Sundance Film Festival in January. The movie follows ’3 Native Americans: a college-bound student, a father-to-be, and a promiscuous transsexual struggle to escape their Indian reservation.’  The name comes from  Writer/director Sydney Freeland's response to a news report she saw, which branded her community Drunktown USA.

The transsexual character, Felixia, faces the struggles of TGLB people in the modern world, including within the Navajo culture. Navajo's have always revered members of the ‘third gender’ but outside of that transgender women face similar pressures the rest of us face - men who think sleeping with her would make them gay, while many other people simply reject her.

Go here for more.

Raika Ferraz

From OnTop Magazine:

Twenty-one-year-old Raika Ferraz (shown on left) Monday won the title of “Miss T Brazil” in Rio. Twenty-eight contestants competed for the title during the country's second annual pageant. Ferraz won a sex change operation in Thailand but said she would not undergo full sex reassignment surgery. “I'll get my nose done and a bit of botox,” Ferraz told gay news site Neto Lucon. “I also think I'm a little bit fat.” “What matters is that you feel happy with who you are, you know,” Ferraz told the AFP. “If you're a transsexual who hasn't had surgery and you like yourself that way, well that's what matters. And what also matters is respecting individuals.”

Marjorie Marchi of the Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals of Rio told the news agency that the pageant also serves to increase awareness. “We use beauty as a political strategy, so that these people can benefit from policies that could change the sad and degrading context that transvestites and transsexuals still live in in most South American countries,” Marchi said. Ferraz will represent Brazil at next year's Miss International Queen 2014 in Thailand.

Attack of the "Moobs"

The fall season is here in my part of the world and before the cold weather really gets here, I had to get this post "off my chest."

Around here, we have quite a few of obese guys and thus "moobs" - man boobs.  Excuse my insensitivity here, but "white trash" individuals are alive and well where I live.  Not to be outdone by the white trash girls who put the "belly" in belly shirts men are now putting the "moobs" in t-shirts.

The proliferation of moobs around here led me to question my own girls.  Was HRT truly a better choice over bunches of fast food double bacon cheese burgers, if I wanted breast development? How fair is it for the guy in line ahead of me to have a bigger set of "girls"?

I'm kidding of course about all of this.  The more HRT works it wonders on me, the changes do keep occurring with the girls.  I can't tell you I will be crushing the "D" cup zone anytime soon, but what is happening now is a "filling in" process around the breast.  What I mean is the breast areas running up my chest and inward towards my armpits are really showing a noticeable change.  For a lack of a better term, the girls seem to be gaining weight and becoming more substantial too.

Ironically, even though the first question I get about being on HRT is normally about breast development, right now I'm more interested in how my hips are changing and what I am going to do with all this wild and wonderful hair.

The only time I totally feel the changes to my breasts is in the morning when I wake up.  The girls are an instant reminder of my HRT progress.  Immediately I think wow,  is that really me? How wonderful is it I finally made this seemingly impossible leap in my life.

My next thought is I better thank the powers to be for my chance to do all of this and I do.

Different Language?

On occasion I sit in my Midwestern American environment and forget Cyrsti's Condo is on Al Gore's world wide web and I get feed back from the world!  As Gomer Pyle used to say "Golleee"!!
Vicky Woods, another one of our UK girls who stops by the "Condo"  passed along this comment concerning the use of the "Tranny" word as a gender slur in the Davina Willis video:

"I enjoyed that Crysti. I think that it shows the slightly different way in which we in the UK treat the word TRANNY. Although as a mtf transsexual it is not my favorite word it does not instill in me the outrage that an American would feel. I think partly because over here in the UK it is often used without malice."

I did a little further research on Davina Willis/Davina Moore. She works as a customer services adviser in Romford, Essex in the UK. No one seemed to know which direction she took in her life with a gender selection.

Thanks Vicki!

Been There...Done It

One of the most frustrating, destructive and disappointing times of my life were what I called the "middle years".  If I was to put a date on them, I would say from the time I was 25 to approx 50.  I fought as hard as I could to do anything to stay firmly in the closet and not face the truth about how I identified. Was I a cross dresser, transgender person or transsexual? I would not wish the process on my worst enemy but looking back, I can simply tell you, I got through it- worse for wear.

Along the way, even back in the day I did find a beacon of hope called Tri Ess. The organization which was so instrumental in getting me out of the closet has faded away for me but every once in awhile, one of you passes along a comment about "Tri Ess".. Recently,  Pat brought them up with this comment on her name:

"I sort of backed into my name when I joined Tri-Ess some 20 years ago. When sending in my paperwork I was surely not going to disclose my real name. After all before even sending them a letter of inquiry I went an set up a post office box for my T mail. When they asked for my name I simply looked at my initials and went with that as a first name and the name of a co-worker as a last name. When I first became active on the internet I picked a name based on what I saw in front of me at the time"

And Dear Abby, referenced them in this answer to a transvestite getting busted by his neighbors:

"Dear Abby: I am a happily married, heterosexual cross-dressing male. My wife understands and is supportive, and we have a wonderful life together. During the past week I have been caught unexpectedly by three different neighbors, and we are now in a state of panic. We're not sure what to do. If you have any suggestions, we are all ears. — CAUGHT IN A PANIC

 Dear Caught: Because you would prefer to keep your cross-dressing private and this is October, you could tell your neighbors your female attire is what you'll be wearing to a costume party. It's plausible. However, when someone is "caught" engaging in a private activity once — that's an accident. When it happens three times in one week, I can't help but wonder whether on some level you would like to be more open about your lifestyle.

 If you're not aware, a resource, The Society for the Second Self (Tri-Ess International), offers support for heterosexual cross-dressers as well as their spouses, partners and families. It has been in my column before and is the oldest and largest support organization for cross-dressers and those who love them. It promotes cross-dressing with dignity and decency, and treats spouses on an equal basis with their cross-dressers. You can learn more about it at www.tri-ess.org."

The part of the answer which said,  "perhaps on some level you want to be more open about your lifestyle" definitely resonated with me.  I was crying out for help and no one was listening, not even me.

Transwoman Admirer out of the Closet

A very touchy (no pun intended) subject in the transgender community is how "male admirers" fit in, or don't.  It's a true, "damned if you do, damned if you don't subject."  If course a huge majority of trans women covet the attention from a man for any number of reasons. Some transgender women seek a male for companionship, or for validation or sexual needs.

Over the years though, the term "admirer" has been known in very negative terms. In my own life I can see why with my limited contacts with "admirers". Fair or not, the majority of my experiences were on line "back in the day" when I was seriously transitioning for the first time.  As I have written in Cyrsti's Condo, I tried to give each gender an equal look. Before I did anything in the process,  I had to get past the validation factor. Like any other cross dresser trying to "pass" over the years I fantasized about being on the arm of a man to further the process.  As I transitioned though, I wondered about a guy accepting me for what I am and vice versa.

Turned out, that was difficult. I went on a couple main line paid dating sites which were tough to navigate because of their lack of any transgender groups at all. In other words, their sites were set up in strict gender binaries only. Men wanting women, women wanting women, men wanting men etc. After a while I would change groups every week ago, because I could.  The results? Two one and done dates and numerous "no shows".  So you guess I can I'm reasonably biased against admirers and that is wrong. Why? Being trans I should be the last to  stereotype any other group, specifically admirers, as I read in this post from Salon called, "I'm attracted to Trans Women":

"The heteronormative world in which we live had successfully convinced me that being attracted to transgender women meant I had a fetish. I began questioning my sexuality and even my masculinity. I didn’t even know what to call my sexual orientation. Finally one day, after hours of searching, I came across two terms that described what I was feeling. Trans-attraction and trans-orientation.

Neither one is official or common, but their use is growing due to the increasing demand for a way to categorize people who are attracted to transgender people. When I saw these words, a feeling of relief washed over me: I was not alone. I don’t always describe myself as trans-attracted, but the label helped me feel like I had a place in the queer community and it helps others understand my sexuality."

The simple act of the matter is we probably are facing most of the same obstacles to relationships with men as genetic women.  The sexual tension is always there but how do you build a relationship around it? Talk to most any single  woman of any age at all and she will bemoan the lack of quality men in the dating pool.

The sad part about all of this admirer drama is we trans women do provide certain positives we can bring to a relationship. Which is another subject.

On the bright side Shelle, one of regular visitors here in Cyrsti's Condo, has a great success story I want to pass along.  She found a male type person in the most unlikely of places. Because she didn't quit. Follow the link above for the story. I totally respect Shelle, because I can't tell you how many other trans girls I have interacted with who told me they had tried all the sites I was on with no luck and they quit them.  Then they wondered why they were sitting at home by themselves - miserable.

One way or another, admirers represent a very unique dynamic in our community with their own set of gender/sexuality issues. Only they can decide if they want a transgender woman for more than a one night stand in a cheap motel. There I go with another stereotype, sorry!