TDoR and Personal Security

On occasion other issues in the news take away from the transgender community's greatest problem- death by our own hands and by others. Let's take a moment and remember this week commemorated The Transgender Day of Remembrance.

(TDOR) has become a global event held around this week each November to memorialize those who have been killed through anti-transgender violence. Since its emotional inception by Gwendolyn Ann Smith following the still unsolved murder of Rita Hester in November 1998, communities, allies and people of faith gather, often by candlelight, in solemn remembrance to read the names of those lost over the past twelve months.

What saddens and even terrifies me are the number of people in the world who think somehow transgender women and men are subhuman and disposable.

Every so often, I write a Cyrsti's Condo post containing personal security warnings for all of us.

As we transition from MtF, we do lose male privilege especially in the areas of personal security.  I have heard from a couple of Condo readers they never had male privilege to start with.  For as long as they can remember they have been bullied and abused as a man. For many more of us though, that is simply not true. I know in my case, I feel much more comfortable alone in most all public situations as a man than as a woman. More specifically, going to my car alone in a dark parking lot. In fact I don't even consider it as a woman.

Early in my transition, I held the view that somehow victims of violence or rape (Transgender or Genetic) were just in the wrong place at the wrong time-until I found myself in similar situations before I learned how dangerous this game could be.

I was lucky and removed myself from the problems before anything happened.  What I did learn was how quickly dangerous situations can threaten you as a woman.  I quickly became proactive and became extra careful where I parked and suddenly I began to notice single guys around me. Slowly and surely I developed an extra sense of where I was in relation to the world.

I know many trans women who aren't shy about taking security to a higher level by going through concealed carry weapons courses and the like. In my case I would be afraid I would shoot myself first but I understand why others would carry a weapon.

For all of us though,  TDoR needs to be a time of remembrance and a time to band together as a group for our own protection.

Finally, all you new transtioners please never take your security as a women for granted.  Chances are there could be someone watching you who isn't taking it for granted either.

Cross Dressing French Style

French women's style is legendary, even when it is a cross dresser doing it.  Check Jonathan Lambert on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen.  Passed along to me from Lynne! I have fun watching the other women watch Jonathan.  Some are amused, some like the red headed woman on the panel spent a lot of time looking at her like "you bitch" at the beginning of the video before her attention changed to watching something on the ceiling.

Cyrsti's Condo Cover Girl of the Day

The gorgeous transgender woman Isabella Santiago,

Miss Gay Venezuela 2010 stops by the Condo!

Donahue and I

"Lots O Comments" concerning the Phil Donahue/Tri Ess?/JoAnn Roberts post.

Francine's allows me to answer a good question:

"Thanks for posting this. I remember those days and later when the internet helped us all realize we were not alone. We were not crazy. By the way, How do you pronounce your first name? the spelling is different, so I have trouble."

Francine, my name is pronounced the same as "Kristi", or Christy. I just wanted to add a little "pizzazz" to it!

Paula's commented: "Yes in some ways we have come a long way, in others nothing has changed at all" Unfortunately, Paula, that is true but that show to me was a great example of the attitudes towards us "back in the day" where I lived.  Speaking only from my perspective.  I don't see that kind of ignorance and dislike anymore, thank goodness!

Finally, Mandy commented "Interestingly, I remember seeing that Donahue show when it was aired "back in the day." And, the "girl inside" has been peeking out of the closet ever since..." Mandy, I believe you speak for many here in Cyrsti's Condo and thanks for commenting!

I have commented before I'm partial to Donahue because he got his talk show start on a local TV station close to where I live (Dayton, Ohio).  I actually went to one of his shows in Dayton concerning the Vietnam War back in the late 1960's before he went national in Chicago.

Later on, one of Phil's shows focused on a former "biker" from Middletown, Ohio who basically came home, told his wife he wanted to be a woman so he cut his beard and off they went to K-Mart for makeup. She was one of the first transsexual guests I remember him having and of course she was much different than the Tri-Ess cross dressers.

I'm trying to find the video clip of her but basically she transitioned into a relatively shy long blond haired "good ol girl" which are so prevalent in my part of the world. The word was, she used to frequent a gay bar in Monroe, Ohio which I had been to a couple of times but I never saw her.

Another episode which stands out in my mind is this interview with an 18 year old Angie Roberts who now claims to go by  Angelina Roberts:

The Day the Music Died

For the majority of you Cyrsti's Condo readers who live in the United States, you would have to be living in a cave to not know this week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

I was a newly minted 14 year old wandering the halls of the school I attended when the news came across the public address system. The day turned out to the first of two (so far) in my life, when time stood still. The other of course was the 9/11 attack.

My first thought was assassination?   What the hell happened and wasn't that just something you read about in history books and not a modern reality?

Well, as the coming years were to prove, the term was going to become all to common. It's not up to me to dwell on the charisma and leadership Kennedy brought to our country or the idea Kennedy was perhaps the last President to be totally claimed by two completely diverse generations.  My parents, because he was a hero in their war (WWII) and a hero to mine because he inspired us to be proud of who we were as a country.  We backed down the Russians, were going to the moon and established a radical idea like the Peace Corps to help other less fortunate countries. Plus lets not forget his wife Jackie whose style and grace seemed to elevate his charisma to another level or the sexy, mesmerizing Marilyn Monroe "Mr President"  birthday song which quickly erased all thoughts of Jackie's style.

So quickly, the era was over and with all due respects to Don McLean and his "American Pie" classic song, JFK's death was the day the music died. Vice President Lyndon Johnson took over and with him any hopes of me not visiting Southeast Asia with him.  All of the sudden our government was not inspiring anyone except with handouts and a totally ridiculous war.  The pressure got to be so much LBJ bailed and "Tricky Dick Nixon" stepped in.  The antithesis of JFK in many ways Nixon stepped into the presidency in 1968, the same year as the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Finally let's not forget the fall of 1970 when the music really did begin to die along with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Certainly, John F. Kennedy benefits from being frozen in time. We will never know what directions our country would have taken and I'm certainly not smart enough to speculate.  In my life though, November 22, 1963 was the day the music died. Somewhere deep down inside, I knew it.


 

What Came First?

Or maybe I should say, what should come first, FFS or SRS assuming you are like many and can't afford to drain your 401K and savings and head to Thailand?

In a couple of many chance encounters I have had recently on this enormous thing called the internet,  peeps have bemoaned the fact they went through SRS but then in the next sentence said they were booking FFS as soon as they could.

I guess it's just me, but I think I would reverse the process and do he FFS first and do a bit of living as a woman and then consider gender reassignment surgery.  Then again I think too many transgender women consider SRS the end of the gender journey when indeed it's just the beginning.

I have no idea if the transgender woman featured on this Cyrsti's Condo big screen video has gone through the change but she definitely did go through the facial surgery.  One way or another, she does have the benefit of a body which lends itself to the gender change.

I'm no Angel

Look I'm old and human.  Recently it occurred to me I have been guilty of passing along most all of the good times of my transition years and none of the bad ones. I have decided for a moment to change all that. It is time to look back at a few of the times I flat out lied or operated on the "down low" to get out the door as a cross dresser and into the world. Well, actually more than a "few" times, I did it for years and I'm not proud of how I did it.

As cross dressers go back then or now I had it good. My wife was super agreeable to me living one day a week as a woman and it was fine with her for me to get a hotel room and cross dress then hit the world as a woman. Every couple of months or so we would even go out as two women. Well of course I felt if one day was good, wouldn't three be better? The more I tasted of life as a woman, the more I wanted and just didn't have the courage to do the right thing and tell her. I wanted her badly as my wife but not bad enough not to cheat on her with myself. The lines were drawn in the sand. She would accept me as a cross dresser but we would part as friends if I wanted to go farther.

Cheating was tough but far from impossible I found. For many years before her death, my wife worked as a retail store manager. A couple nights a week she closed the store, which meant she wouldn't be home until around midnight.  If by chance I wasn't working a night on the same day, I was planning immediately how I was going to get out of the house, past the neighbors and spend the evening as a woman.  In order to do it I had to make up a story about where I was, what I was doing and have all traces of makeup off my face by the time she got home. All of the sudden, my one day a week out as a woman became three.  I was quickly learning the ropes but paying a very high internal price.

It was excruciatingly tough.  I hate people who I can't trust for whatever reason and here I was at the top of my own list.

I can go on and on about the less than stellar "adventures" I had but this one is as good a place as any to start with.  In the mid 1980's I was opening a chain of restaurants along the Ohio River and ended up living in the Marietta/Parkersburg West Virginia area for awhile.  On my days off when she was working I began to get dressed up and doing the grocery shopping etc. My wife would see the groceries but had no idea of how I was dressed when I bought them.

This was working well and I was even doing a fair job of negotiating society as a woman until, by pure accident one day I ended up walking right by her boss in a parking lot. The problem was he was very familiar with me as a guy.  He didn't flinch a bit and showed no recognition so I thought I dodged a bullet. All was good until about a week later my wife mentioned him talking about this "big redhead" he saw recently in a parking lot.  She knew of course I had a red wig and there was some sort of possibility if he said "a big red headed cross dresser",  the dots would be easy to connect. On that occasion, I was able to talk my way out of it until about a month later.  She got off early one day and we passed each other on the highway heading to our house.

From that point on, she had no problem knowing who the "big redhead" was driving that day and I was in for a week of deserved hell. Yet again I had to decide between a relationship I cherished and my woman within. The proverbial "rock and the hard place." The decision this time involved an agreement to go to counseling. The therapist did a good job.  Bottom line was my "girl" wasn't going away but unless I could control her effect on the marriage, my wife would. I didn't have to hide her away in a closet but then again I couldn't let her have her own way.

I can make excuses and say I wasn't totally sure of what I thought my gender solution should be but I had a pretty good idea and was afraid to face it. I didn't have the courage to follow what I knew was true all the time. I was more female than I dared admit to myself.

This was one of the times of my life when my persistence overcame any common sense I was rumored to have.  I pushed on and achieved success in my work and for the most part concealed who I really was. Calling it torture would be a bit much but severe internal turmoil and tearing would be very accurate. Looking back, I'm sure all the self destructive actions I took were just a way to sink myself and end the madness.

Of course I know I can't go back and reverse any of my lies and sneaking. The only thing I can do is write about them. One of the reasons I am is I'm fairly sure some people think I have led this "charmed" life as a pre transgender cross dresser. Or, for some reason I don't understand those of you who are stuck in the closet.

Obviously, I have been there and did the closet thing.  It's true, once I started to open the door,  the good did out do the bad. To not mention the bad all though would be as wrong as doing it in the first place.

Replacing a lie with silence doesn't make it right.

Cyrsti's Condo Featured Trans Woman of the Day

There is no way I could simply call Veronique Renard our Cyrsti's Condo Cover Girl of the day.  She is so much more!

Read on! (From Wikipedia)

"Véronique Françoise Caroline Renard (born 26 May 1965 in Jutphaas, the Netherlands) is a Dutch author and visual artist. She is also known as Pantau, a name that was adopted after meeting the Dalai Lama at an audience at his home in McLeodganj, Dharamsala, India in 2000.


In 1982, at the age of 17, Renard transitioned to being a trans woman with the support of her family, friends and people in her hometown. Renard's mother renamed her Véronique. In 1983, Renard was granted permission by a court in Utrecht to change her legal name, she added her second name Françoise (after her best friend), and third name Caroline (after Caroline Cossey, a British model who appeared in the 1981 James Bond-film For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore).

Initially unaware of the phenomenon of transsexualism and gender reassignment surgery (GRS), Renard conveyed in her 2007 memoir that the international media attention around Cossey in 1982 regarding her transition helped Renard to self-diagnose her own gender dysphoria. The day after reading about Cossey in a Dutch tabloid, Renard consulted her doctor and shortly after, the Amsterdam Gender Team. Renard was diagnosed with Klinefelter's syndrome, having 47 chromosones (XXY). Females have an XX chromosomal makeup, and males an XY. Renard started hormone replacement therapy soon after. She completed her physical transition 18 months later in 1984."

As a side note, for some reason the picture of Veronique in the bikini took me back to yet another Cleveland, Ohio Tri-Ess meeting I attended so many years ago.  One of the main "gossips" of the evening centered around a member who wasn't there who was reported to be so accomplished that she could wear a bikini to the beach with no problems. She was also "rumored" to have been on the verge of "going all the way" and transitioning into a full time woman. But the story went on she had found the love of her life, an understanding genetic woman and now she had put her decision on hold. Plus there was another very accomplished and attractive "participant" at the meetings who for all intents and purposes put the rest of us to shame in the looks department. The last time I saw her at a meeting, she too was telling everyone she had met a genetic woman and was "hanging up the dresses."

I have always wondered what happened to the two of them. Were they actually able to "pull back" from the transition brink and lead lives as guys?  More than likely I will never know but I have theories.  I believe whatever gender switch is thrown in our noggins can never be turned completely off.  Of course how far the switch is thrown, say from cross dresser to transsexual sex change does vary. But in one way or another the "urge" is always there.

Speaking Of "Tri-Ess"

If you are a bit younger, check this vintage (circa 1989) Phil Donahue video with Tri Ess cross dressers on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen, JoAnn went on to be an influential member of the transgender community and was a founding partner of the Transgender Forum.  She passed away in June of 2013 but "TG Forum" is still going strong.

This video does give an idea of how far we have come thanks to people like these who were brave enough to step out of their closets and educate the world.