Cyrsti's Condo "Beauty Break"

Every once in a while, I love to pass along what experts think of our passions such as make up.  From day one as cross dressers or transgender women, we foraged through Mom's or sister's make up - fascinated and confused.

This week I found a look at mascara - a very important part of my eye makeup routine.  As my skin is finally beginning to recover from the beating winter gave it and my old gray beard requires a lighter shave to cover, my eyes and lips take on an extra importance.


This comes from Yahoo: If there's one beauty product we can't live without, it's mascara. It brightens, opens up the eye and, frankly, makes us all look way more pulled together. But with 192 million types of mascaras at stores, picking one is like a massive game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Wand size, shape, texture - the choices are endless. To help keep your eyes on the prize and your lashes reaping the benefits, pay most attention to the type of wand.

For more follow the link above!

The Devil is Hiding in the Details

"Back in the day" as I was exploring the feminine side of my life as a cross dresser, one of my bigger frustrations quickly became making some sort of "big mistake."  All sorts of things could happen internally or externally. My panty hose could start creeping down my thighs, I could get a heel stuck in a crack in the concrete and yes, when I used water balloons for boobs-one broke. It seemed the more I learned, the more I had to learn. I was doing my best not to be a clown in the mall and an unpaid one at that!

Of course genetic women face the same problems as part of the "high maintenance" gender, they are just more experienced and yes they have faced the same problems as we transgender girls- except maybe the water balloons. They were using tissue. Last night, I saw the process first hand.

A friend and I (genetic) were out watching the basketball tournament in a big sports bar which features five huge television screens in a row, facing the bar.  The place is huge with two large rooms on either side of the main room and last light, one of them had some sort of formal party.  Could have been some sort of an after wedding party, just knew the 20 something women were dressed in formal gowns. I didn't give them much thought until my first visit to the potty.  Just as I closed my stall door, another woman took one of the others close by.  I took care of my business quickly and was washing up to leave when she came out of the stall.  Literally, she was tall tanned and beautiful in a breathtaking blue gown which was low cut and fell off her shoulders.  The dress was also three quarters length and there in lied the problem.  She was really struggling with the dress. Was it covering enough of the girls, did she pee on it when she was using the bathroom and of course she was checking out how it looked from the back.  I dried my hands and went back to join my friend but I'm sure I missed her checking out her makeup and hair.

Once again I knew appearance is no accident and even a casual look takes a certain amount of planning and work. Even for such a young attractive woman who was working so hard to make her natural beauty look effortless.

The "Enigma" Gender

One definition for enigma is: a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand.

It's no secret the binary male and female genders don't understand much about each other, so it's no wonder neither know much about we "invisible T's".  Here in Cyrsti's Condo in the past, I have taken the title from the classic guide Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex and added transgender people must be from Earth, right between the other two. If we liked it or not, we spent some time on both planets and many of us still commute back and forth.

We are enigma's with all the stigma which can be attached-good or bad.  This week for example, I ran into many new people.  Not just walking by them on the street, but interacting with them too in meetings and social events. Truthfully, I was willingly knocked out of my comfort zone all week long. I know what you are thinking "Whoa Cyrsti, thought you were living all this time as a girl.  I can explain it this way: Every so often someone will ask me if I'm living "full time" or "24/7" as a woman.  The question is always difficult for me to answer because I can only vouch for living 24/7 between my ears.  The remainder of the time I'm awake, my gender is how the world perceives it-not how I do. I already know. For all I know, on my androgynous days some may think I'm from the moon!

So, at this point I am an enigma to the folks from Venus and Mars.  For the most part, I can guarantee you most don't understand me but as long as they don't willfully hurt me, that's fine.  I can't understand ever perceiving myself as my birth gender completely so I don't understand them.

As I transition, I am learning the fun part is to stay an enigma to the other planets.  For the most part the Martians keep me at arms length and the Venusian's are as curious as cats. My latest responses (truthfully a very small minority of the world who has much more to worry about than me) are centered in the eyes.  I had two or three women this week who seemingly couldn't get out of mine. If you are a believer in the eyes are the windows to the soul, they were trying to look at mine!

If I was a better writer and more disciplined a "Classic Guide to Understanding Earthlings" would be a fabulous follow up to understanding both other planets-or-we could do the "Why's and How's of Being a Gender Enigma" too. In the meantime, it's interesting to step back and look at the wonder of it all. 

Porno and the Genetic Woman

Quite the title, right?  The reason for it is last night, by sheer osmosis, I found myself in the middle of a porno discussion between my partner and three other of her genetic women acquaintances.

Here lately, I'm becoming better at shutting up and have the conversation come to me.  It's very effective in that most people from without the TGLBQ community don't really know what to think of me and a little mystery doesn't hurt.

After the get together last night we were all sitting around chatting and I was surprised when one of the women mentioned her ex husband and her resultant introduction to porno.  The conversation went to sex acts and then moved on rather quickly.  I am the first to admit, my experience with women has shown me, they are less than the prudes they portray around men. But,  this topic with this group of seemingly middle aged conservative women really got my attention!

I found myself stuck in sort of a time warp in the conversation too. Here I was as a transgender woman still not talking about porno. The same as when I was a guy because mainly,  I never felt the charge my guy friends supposedly got from porno and/or strip clubs. Through work though , I ended up at quite a few clubs and of course I played the game when I was bored to death. I oohed and ahhed at the right time. I thought it best though not to bring any of that up!   So, I just shut up and once again-played the game knowing full well that sooner more than later a woman will ask me about my thoughts.

On this side of the gender fence though, saying less, indeed means more and I do so enjoy the mystery!

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Our feature cover today is Stella Bueno 

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Woman" of the Day

Our feature cover today is Geena Rocero,  model, activist, and transgender woman.

Cyrsti's Condo "Oldies but Goodies"

Back in the day" when I was 15, I used to be able to go with an older friend who already had his drivers license.  He had an aunt who had a neighborhood variety store which sold magazines and paperbacks among other things like chips, pop and beer.  Her store was in a less than affluent part of town and on very rare occasions I would find paperbacks such as these.  The problem was having enough courage to buy them-which I didn't and at the same time act like I didn't care!

Having Coffee with the Peeps

If you recall, my sit down with the Dayton/Cincinnati Trans Ohio community meeting was this last Tuesday and I wrote a brief post about it here in Cyrsti's Condo.

Since that time of course, I have come up with a few more observations.  First, I was disappointed in the transgender turn out.  In an organization called Trans, in a group of 14-16 peeps, there were only three in the room who identified as trans. From that point on, the meeting became one of educating everyone else about us and our concerns. Absolutely no problem.

The tough part was explaining why we transgender women belonged there anyhow. Trans Ohio is largely a trans male based organization but I have no problem with that either.  The third trans person in the room was a trans guy and the host.  Bottom line was, once again, I found myself  aligning with the other trans women and speaking for a silent group.  Fortunately, neither of us was shy.

As I said before, we introduced transgender employment, health care and over all visibility into the conversation. The first two, are such huge issues, I can't come even close to solving them -except to talk.  As far as visibility went, the turn out proved we are still an invisible "T".  A gay guy in the room went out of his way to explain why using the Tranny word was as OK.  He had it all worked out.  Since gay guys can call themselves fags then they can call themselves trannies as well as black's can use the "N" word with each other.  What he still didn't understand was as long as Tranny can be mistaken for an abbreviation for transgender or transsexual, it's not right  and is a slur.

I was satisfied though, by the end of the meeting, I walked out with the feeling I had helped to educate the gays and lesbians in the room who we really were.  An example was the young lesbian representative from a prominent GL organization in Cincinnati  who had no idea of HRT was or the succession of transition. I make the mistake of assuming they know as much about us, as we know about them.

The best I could do from there- at the end of the meeting I passed out my business cards and volunteered to attend their meetings too.  Every educated person helps!

Finally, the building the meeting was held in a GBLT Center and the sign on the restroom door was "Anyone"!

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Our feature cover of the day today is a very "80's" looking Grae Phillips.  If you don't recall Grae's story, he was billed as the "original Tootsie." I still remember clearly when he made his first appearance on the Phil Donahue Show.  He couldn't land a job as a guy singer in NYC and just " happened" to throw on a dress and makeup with the help of a girlfriend and was much more successful performing as a woman.
There are tons of Grae's videos on YouTube plus you can follow the link above for a website.