Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

Good morning all and welcome to another Sunday edition here here Cyrsti's Condo. Right off the bat, we will pay homage to Paula's Place and all you other ladies from the UK who used to have paper rounds.  (What we call paper routes here.) Paula mentioned she used to deliver her papers with a pair of panty hose on under her pants! It's a good thing we don't have a paper route or round this morning Paula, we are stuck yet again in another winter storm!

Page One.- Opinion.  It's not as if I don't always have tons of opinions but this week seemed to bring out the worst of mine this week. One of which actually involves a post on labels in Paula's Blog (which you can find above).  I have no problem and even concur with Paula's ideas but an off the wall comment about being called a "lady" in public by a person I have seen writing in many places sent me into orbit- or more precisely almost into on line stealth.  Simply, with all the problems we transgender women and men have in society, all she can bitch about is being called a lady and her botched SRS.  To be sure, I don't think there could be a worse feeling than believing you made the wrong decision to go "under the knife" and change your genitalia and I have had my share of genetic women friends who laughingly recoiled at the "lady" word.  For me though, I still get a case of the "warm and fuzzies" when a stranger in the world calls my partner and I Ladies. Finally, the person who believes she had a botched SRS, she doesn't necessarily mean the surgical work as much as the psychological process.  I just have never perceived her comments as constructive. The whole process reminded me of when a stealth trans woman years ago told me she went underground because she couldn't take all the insanity in our community.  I did get out of the Google Plus group she was in and I wish her well.

Page Two.- Victory!  Same sex marriage took another step towards legality in Texas this week and in Arizona, the governor vetoed a blatant attempt to pass a discrimination law against TGLB individuals.  However, in Mississippi, a similar law is making it's way through the state's legislature.  I did hear though, the one here in Ohio has been pretty much buried. Ironically, a couple very strange bedfellows came together to help squash the bigotry, and timing was everything.  Without expressly saying it, the word was the NFL and the NBA were against the law in Arizona.  Of course very recently, both are dealing with opening gay athletes, with surely more to come.  Unless you are just dense, TGLB business is good business.  We do have two NFL teams in Ohio (although we aren't sure about Cleveland) and Columbus is on some sort of a long list for an NBA team.  Discrimination and hate is simply not a good way to build commerce in your state. The largest exception of course is Fox News and Clear Channel Radio who make a good living with hate mongers.

Page Three.- We Got Mail!  I can normally count on Pat for a comment or two which give me a pause for thought or even a giggle.  This week I wrote a post about what was in the bottom of a purse I was cleaning out - a Tampon. Why? In the past, I have had less than accepting genetic women approach me in not a gentle manner asking if I had a feminine product they could use. I got the distinct idea they didn't really need one but really did need to question me.  At any rate, Pat's comment was "Why would a woman my age carry one anyhow?"  Ha-ha!  I loved the comment and said so, which led to this response:
I know that you present well less than your stated age. I think that one of the lures for my dressing is that instead of presenting as a tired old gray haired guy with the right clothes, shoes, makeup and wig I can present at least 10-15 years younger than what is shown on my license.
What she didn't mention was what she carried in her purse but did write her wife still retained her women's restroom pass, without a hygiene product in her purse. Those pesky genetic women do have a sense of who belongs and who doesn't in their tribe and my guess is the final determination does not lie with what is the bottom of your purse...right Pat?

Finally, Audrey, thanks for your kind comments!

The Back Page.- It's time to attempt to get my old dog in gear to go out in the snow and potty which she has an aversion to.  As always, thanks to all of you for spending another week with me here "the Condo"!

Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

"Once Upon a Day"

"Honey, I have heels higher than your standards!" I think it comes from Glamour Magazine. Thanks Liz!

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl of the Day"

Our feature "cover" today is transgender woman Paris Brooke Duvall.

Behind Every Womanless Pageant...There is a Cross Dresser

Back in the day when Halloween was my only real time I could get out in the world and "strut my feminine stuff", the challenge was to come up with other "excuses" to have a costume party.  Of course Mardi Gras comes to mind as well as a few manufactured others which were less than successful.

In school and later in life, I remember exactly no womanless beauty pageant contests where I lived until they became popular with cancer fund raising events.  By then, I was exploring the world as a woman anyhow.  Every so often here in Cyrsti's Condo, we discuss the true dynamics of how some men simply shine in womanless pageants and would those of us who were hidden away in our closets cross dressing been too paranoid to compete?

I know for sure I would have in high school.

Just for kicks and giggles, I'm going to post this picture from a womanless pageant in Dover, Tennessee and ask you to pick the cross dresser out of the crowd. I think he did a pretty good job of not looking too obvious!  Or did he?

It's a Small World After All!

I was over at my ex wife's house (no misprint) with my daughter to lend what ever expertise I have to a couple of small house renovation projects.  To be clear, we all get along well and with or without my gender issues I was easier to live without.

I have mentioned here in Cyrsti's Condo that I am totally out to my daughter and amazingly enough, my ex wife never told our daughter about me and my gender struggles. Now my question is, has my daughter updated her Mom?  Truthfully, I really haven't given it much thought. If I'm not directly affected, I don't bother with it.

What led me to believe my ex and her husband do know is the conversation which magically appeared over a cup of coffee.  It turns out her husband has a nephew who is a trans man and I was told, was going "all the way."  They went on to say how supportive his parents were of the process. (His Dad has since passed.)

Rarely, am I at a loss for words but I was then. I finally blurted out how special it was and is for parents to support totally a transgender child. As it is and the conversation moved back into other mundane areas. Obviously it would have been the ideal time to not so casually mention the obvious-I too am going through the gender transition process. After all these years, I find it frustrating as of yet, I have yet to come to terms with telling the truth about myself. But I didn't.

I'm also fascinated by the numbers of trans individuals who turned up in a very small sampling of people I knew "back in the day".  Way back before I went into the Army in 1972, a woman I was engaged to's sister was very butch. I remember once they managed to dress her up as a girl and I thought even I would have looked better in that dress. Years later, she was living her life as a man, but I never knew if she identified as a transgender man.  Now it turns up there was another trans person in the works.

Before I sound like Jerry Springer, no, these two families are not related and never interacted at all. They are only tied together with me because I knew both of them.  I only found it interesting there were so many of us "bunched" together in such a small sampling of people I know. Maybe there are many more transgender women and men in the world than anyone knows about?  That idea, led me  to be a believer in the latest Facebook attempt to open themselves to different gender options.  I (for one) was sick of the simple outmoded male and female binaries and hoped the Facebook move would be more of a "census."

Regardless of all of that, I think I'm moving into yet another level of coming out to others.  They knew but were waiting for me to tell them.

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Today we feature female illusionist Allison St. John from the UK:

Behind Every Actor Playing a Trans Role...

Is an even better transgender woman training him. Or at least with Jared Leto, in the Dallas Buyer's Club.
From Fusion:


Oscars season is coming up, which means we’re about to shower actors with awards and praise for their work. But the people who help them portray such stirring roles are rarely recognized. Calpernia Addams (left) is one of those people. “I recorded all of his lines from the script and he listened to that audio for months during his preparation,” explained Addams. 

Actor Jared Leto used her audio to prepare for the role of Rayon, a transgender woman living with HIV in the 1980s in the film “Dallas Buyers Club.” Leto’s performance helped he and the film earn six Oscar nods. This isn’t the first time Addams has helped A-list actors portray transgender characters. After 4 years as a field medic in the Navy, Addams came out as a transgender woman. Since then, she’s been an activist for transgender rights and was even portrayed in the movie “Soldier’s Girl,” a film about her relationship with Navy Private First Class Barry Winchell and his brutal murder. 

Addams’ first Hollywood experience was training actor Lee Pace to play her in the film. She’s since consulted for Felicity Huffman and, most recently, Leto. Addams draws from her own experience as a transgender woman. Her coaching goes beyond portrayal: Addams wants her clients to have a deep emotional and psychological understanding of what it’s like to be a trans person in the U.S.

Read more here.

Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

First Arizona-Now Mississippi

We ran a post in Cyrsti's Condo yesterday about the Governor of Arizona vetoing a blatantly TGLB discrimination bill. Beware of one coming to your state too, as I of heard rumblings of here in Ohio.

This time though, it's the state of Mississippi attempting to take a giant step backwards and adopt a similar bill which was shot down in Arizona.

For more info, go here where you can go and add your two cents.