Talking to Myself

Do you talk to yourself?  I know you do because you want someone who is intelligent and understanding to talk to, right?

I have been known to have more a few down to earth "chats" with me and yes, I used to think I was crazy for doing it.  Then again, I used to think I was crazy for not accepting my birth gender either. Fortunately , over the years, I began to separate the "crazy" idea from the transgender idea.  One had absolutely nothing to do with the other except I was going crazy trying to figure out my transgender roots.

Crazy is a wonderful crutch though.  I can't tell you how many Halloween's I conjured up the "C" word to explain my costume or how I thought if I acted somewhat off the norm, people wouldn't be surprised to learn my "deep, dark secret". Don't you see? I want to be a girl and isn't that crazy? What a crock!  As years turned into decades and I was beginning to finally understand all the facets of my life, I discovered, yes I was a little crazy and it had nothing to do with being a transgender woman.  I learned to embrace yet another little "spicy ingredient" to who I am.

Surprisingly though, I get many mixed reactions from many in the transgender world who seem to want justify their "transness" with being crazy.  These days, mixing crazy and trans is exactly what we don't need.  How fair is it anyhow we are required to spend the money on a therapist to even prove we are mentally sound enough to start HRT?  Really?

So all you peeps who are a little off center like I am, stand up proudly and shout- all you boring peeps stay in the shadows where you belong.  Just never say crazy equals trans to me.  If you think I write a lot, don't get me talking.  I can stick my foot in my mouth with the written or spoken word!

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Leah True and wife.  They look like sisters!

Oh-Oh! Now What?

Perhaps you have read this story which I am passing along from the Huffington Post and Stephanie Mott:

The recent CBS story regarding nine Swedish women who received uterus transplants undoubtedly caught the attention of transgender women throughout the world. Anyone, with even the slightest awareness of the advancement of medical science, understands that eventually there will be few things left in the realm of impossible. 

The idea that a transgender woman will one day be able to carry a child in her womb is no longer just an idea. It is a reality of the future. Another story in the Dallas Voice is evidence to this fact as Sarah Luiz has positioned herself as a candidate to become the first transgender woman to potentially give birth. Anyone, with even the slightest awareness of society's obsession with sex and gender, understands that the word controversy applies to this situation in the same way the word skirmish applies to World War II.

Of course this story will shake up many of the radical feminists and other hate groups who attack the transgender community.  Then again, the RadFemmes are probably figuring how this is yet another example of the "male privilege" crowd discriminating against genetic women. Just don't bring up the fact these uterine transplants were for genetic women born without a uterus. There has to be a conspiracy "gender invasion" theory somewhere!

Finally, I'm passing along this quality paragraph from Stephanie which ties the whole subject together:


Any controversy that comes from transgender women seeking to experience pregnancy and give birth to children is based on the same ignorant myth that creates controversy about bathrooms and locker rooms - the myth that transgender women are not really women. How absurd is the idea that someone other than me could possibly know who I am? If it were possible for me to be a man, I would have done that long ago. God knows, I tried. As a woman, it is quite expected that I might have the same desires that many other women have. Among those desires is the desire to be a mom; the desire to carry a child. If medical advances offer that possibility to transgender women, it is no different than offering that possibility to cisgender women. 

Follow the link above for more.

Cyrsti's Condo "Transgender Woman of the Day"

Our featured transsexual woman today is the beautiful entertainer from Israel, Dana International.  She's been in the spotlight ever since winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998:

Mandolin Wind

Here we go again with another visit from our new "bestest" friend, the Polar Vortex.  It should be a balmy -20 around Cyrsti's Condo tonight.  To put the temp in perspective, our normal temp would be somewhere around 20 above.   This whole winter has reminded of one of the Rod Stewart songs I liked "back in the day."

Can't say I was a big fan of Rods but I was a free form "progressive rock" DJ in a college town so I had the rare opportunity to be creative with my music and his Mandolin Wind tune always fit in my sets when I wasn't destroying my hearing blasting what was to become heavy metal rock.

I was in a very dark time.  My finance had dumped me when I graduated college, I was 1-A in the Vietnam draft and scheduled for a winter time vacation at the Ft. Knox resort in the middle of January.  As you Kentucky readers can attest to, the hills around Louisville are nice in winter. So, here is why parts of the song stuck with me:


Through the darkest nights Ive ever known, If the mandolin wind couldnt change a thing,

Then I know I love ya Oh the snow fell without a break Buffalo died in the frozen fields you know

Through the coldest winter in almost fourteen years.

Actually, in Mandolin Wind, Stewart's woman decided to stay with him, unlike mine.  She knew of my cross dressing and knew of my forthcoming military absence and out she went.  Hurt like hell then but looking back, she was right!

At the time, I was working at a radio station in Bowling Green, Ohio. If you have ever been to the Bowling Green area, south of Toledo, you know the only hills are the ones manufactured by men and the winter winds did chill you to the bone.  So Rod was right. It was my coldest winter in 14 years, for several reasons.

This winter officially is much colder but even with the effects of HRT, it has been so much warmer because of all my cherished friends and family.

Cyrsti's Condo "Horror Scope"

After several rather bleak "scopes" I'm finally beginning to turn the corner and bringing all you Libra's with me! Isn't that nice and rather egotistical of me?

(September 23-October 22): It’ll be a sweet week for special dates. Even if you’ve been with your boo forever, you can make running errands together matter. For the next few weeks, your life will be peppered with precious moments that can define your relationship or set a strong start to a new one. Yes, it’ll be in the banal that beauty will come, as gratitude will be everything,

See, I told you! Now run and go get your "scope" here from theFrisky!

Better Than Chocolate?

Have you seen the Better Than Chocolate movie?

I really never had, until last night, since it was billed as a lesbian love affair film. But, early in the movie I spotted a character with my "trans dar" and decided to follow along for a few minutes.  "A few minutes" turned into a half hour and I heard a song which really caught my attention, which is featured on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen. (Cover the kids ears! The lyrics contain the "F" bomb.)

This 1999 Canadian movie covers a lot of ground with it's main lesbian love plot but also includes a superb transgender sub plot. Amazingly, way back then the transgender character was a very positive one and not played by a cis woman   In fact, Peter Outerbridge's performance as transgender character Judy Squires was incredible.

As the film rolled on, I could see even more and more of Judy's everyday life scenes reflected in my life...good and bad. The worst was a very negative scene in a woman's restroom rest room and was similar to one that happened to me.  Very simply, a lesbian from the club refused to acknowledge "Judy's" right to use the room as a woman and started to physically abuse her.  In my case, I didn't have to go through the physical abuse but took intense verbal abuse and I wasn't in a lesbian bar. But "back in the day" when I did frequent lesbian venues, I did think they had the lowest "tolerance" of any venue for allowing trans women access to the women's rest room.

If you have a chance, this is a film worth watching! In the meantime, on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen, Judy Squires:

Pandora's Box

 I have wondered forever,  what role does an attractive cross dresser's feminine presentation play in possibly later moving her into a transgender existence? Is it similar to the worn out idea that a majority of heroin users got hooked because of marijuana? Did my first experiments with Mom's hose and underwear get me hooked, or was I just predestined to be who I am today? I believe the answer was a little of both. What caused me to open that Pandora's Box of goodies? By the way, this definition of "the box" comes from Wikipedia:  

The phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severe and far-reaching consequences. Certainly, the definition is correct. Little did I know how severe the gender torment I would feel during my lifetime and it's far reaching consequences. But what made me open the box?  My brother didn't and for all I know the greatest majority of male type kids in my school and town didn't. The simple answer is some sort of switch already existed in my noggin and I flipped it to "on".

Even more interesting is the number of "switches" we have ready to be turned on or off.  Why was it for me, the occasions I was told I made a better looking girl, was mistaken for one, or was made over to look like one, I felt worse about being a cross dresser a few days later. I believe now,  cross dressing never seemed to come close to explaining my first gender switch. . Hell, I didn't have a  "switch", I had a 50 amp circuit breaker!

I flipped the breaker and got a better look into Pandora's Box. I saw all the glittering bling of new wigs, dresses and heels. They were sooooo inviting but sooooo non fulfilling.  Finally, after years of torment, I ignored the bling and went for substance and found a book called the My Little Book of Trans.  I grabbed it and found there was even an instruction guide, which of course I didn't read first. Who needs "no stinkin instructions?"

As I blissfully thumbed through the book's  pages from back to front (I'm dyslexic) I learned my obvious gender disconnect wasn't so obvious to me. I had to read backward to  Chapter One in the "Book of Trans", to make some sense of my life as a trans woman.  A cross dresser looks like a woman, a transgender woman socializes herself as a woman and a transsexual acquires the sexual genetalia of a woman.  In addition, none of them ever become females and being a genetic female does not guarantee you're a woman.

Of course I spent 50 years fighting the crossdressing in me, five accepting the transgender spirit of my soul and no years obsessing on purchasing a store bought vagina. 

At this point in my life, I have to blame my slow learning on someone, so  I'm blaming it on Pandora!  I've been known to be nothing if not persistent.  Seems as if I kept bugging our girl with the box just long enough, she got up off the "good stuff" and threw the book at me!

By the way, "My Little Book of Trans" exists only in my fertile "itty bitty" mind.

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Jen Merrill is certainly not a new face around the internet but definitely a refreshing one.  Here is her own "bio":

I'm an artist who enjoys exploring the great gender divide and meeting fellow travelers and fans... While I have been diagnosed as transsexual, I live mostly as a male, venturing out regularly into the world as a woman whenever I'm in the mood. I really don't worry about labels... male, female, impersonator, transgendered, transvestite, crossdresser, androgyne... I'm just me, and my girlfriends all tell me I have a great sense of style and eye for fashion.

You can check her out on Pinterest or on her other sites.  She looks good in black and Googles easily!