Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

"Just another gnat swimming in the great beer foam of life!"

Cyrsti Hart

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

I couldn't resist passing along this soft and seductive shot of androgynous Alicia Pieta here in the Condo:

A Cup Half Empty or Half Full?

Referring back to the previous post here in Cyrsti's Condo about Pat's Trans Dar sighting, most have commented how incredibly great it was she was working there at all.  Hopefully (if she was transgender), we are at the least beginning to be employed in various different jobs in the economy.  All too often I think I'm guilty of thinking the majority of transgender women who can find work at all, find it with larger more diverse corporations.  Simply landing a job and living as we want is more like a "cup completely full."

As far as hers, chipped fingernail polish, pink tennis shoes etc, the cup is half empty. Then again,  Joni made the comment "maybe she will learn."

It has been my experience a great majority learn the basics of presenting as a woman from our own mothers. Others are "coached" from the girls sandbox.  The managers I respected the most in the restaurant business were the women.  They of course had to play both sides of the gender power struggle.  The simple answer for chipped finger nail polish was you can remove it as fast as it went on.  In all fairness to Lowes, I have seen few cashiers with long beautiful manicured nails but even fewer with ugly chipped polish. As thin as my nails have become (because of HRT), I normally have to work on them every night, just to look natural, clean and presentable. Polish is saved for special occasions.

As far as the shoes go and the 1960's men's pants on my "trans dar" woman, it's simply sad they had no one to say, hey, here is a better way.

Which leads me to "My cup is half empty" thought.  I have seen and known several transgender women in my past who after the "gender transition" buzz was over, they simply got tired of the work it takes for any female to present as a woman. No I'm not talking about magazine fashion models, I'm talking about women like my daughter with three kids.  It's no accident a recent study approximated a woman puts three times more into grooming than a man and a transgender woman has to put even more effort into appearance just to navigate the world.

But hopefully the Lowes employee is like the trans woman Liz and I see working at a convenience store close to her (and the one who openly worked where I live)-good for them! If they know it or not they are a beacon of hope to many of us!  Now, go fix that polish woman! You don't want to draw extra attention to thick hands!!!

Make it difficult on Pat's wife!!!!

Real World "Trans Dar"

On a recent comment, Pat relates a Trans Dar spotting I would like to comment on:

Yesterday we stopped at Lowe's for some hardware and paint items and there was a Lowes' clerk that I first encountered and who checked us out at the register. She had long very straight light blond hair that did not match her complexion. Her makeup was a bit loud, her teal nail polish was chipped, and her sneakers were festooned with hot pink details and laces. Otherwise she was wearing the Lowes uniform bib and the name plate "Jennifer".

While in the store my wife and I behaved like she was any other sales associate. The first thing my wife said upon leaving was, "That was a man". I fully agreed although I accept the 5% chance that we were both wrong. It was interesting in that my wife would use the male pronouns in our discussion but the overall vibe that this person presented was masculine. Her poorly manicured hands were large. Her walk was manly, as was her voice. She had several rather poor tattoos. On both forearms were tattoos that made her forearms look like Popeye's with his anchor tattoos. 

Even though I am about 5" taller than this person my wife did concede that even at my height and weight that I make a better looking and more presentable woman than our Lowes clerk...even if she fell in that 5% male/female margin of error.

What was so nice was the total normalcy of this person working as a sales associate at Lowe's. Other than giving my wife and I about 3 minutes of something to talk about on the ride home this person's working at Lowe's was neither odd nor unusual. I commented that if it were me presenting as a woman I would have rather worked at the Dress Barn a few doors down from the Lowe's. My wife matter of factly simply commented that the sales associate may have had more interest in the wares sold at Lowe's than the fashions at Dress Barn.

If you allow my cynical nature to cut in for a second, a constant fight I had with all my female servers at restaurants I managed was to not allow chipped nail polish.  My women servers never had the problem.  As far as your Lowe's person's overall look, she reminds me off an employee I used to see every now and then (not Lowe's, not a cashier) who had wonderfully highlighted hair, but then wore clothes which looked like she picked up in the reject pile at one of the Goodwill's here in town.  (Before you want to claw me, let me point out, I am a regular at Goodwill's and I too live on a very fixed income.) But! At the least, this person with the great hair, too much makeup and baggy man's pants from the 1960's had a job.  It was winter and I never got a real good look at the hands and I didn't see an Adam's Apple (which doesn't matter you can't see mine either.)

Of course you all know I just may have a few other ideas about the persons we observed (and maybe you too). I will get to them in a future post!

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl" of the Day

Our cover feature today is Brook Ferreros who is described as an androgynous male to female model. Very androgynous!

Cyrsti's Condo "Star Gazing!"

The Goddess of Astrology has been kind to me for the last month or so! Check out the latest SMOOTCH!

Libra-(September 23-October 22): There will be a simple energy in the air, making it your best time to kick back with friends, family, lovers, pets, etc. For anyone you love who loves you back, this week is yours. Romance will be everywhere, as simple coincidences will feel fated. Appreciate this magic by doing more handholding and feeling the butterflies in your stomach.

If I could only tell you all how much I need the handholding in my life right now! Plus, as an extra bonus this week- Normally, I don't delve into other's "scope's" much, but Scorpio was just too good to pass up!

Scorpio (October 23-November 21): Sex and power is your cure all — duh. However, things are especially XXX hot and eye-opening now, if you make yourself the only one that matters. Yes, this is the week to get it. Go harder! Be ravenous! Treating another person like a piece of meat is something Scorpio can’t help, but this week, it’ll work to push your power through, and get you out of all your ruts.

Don't forget, you can get your "stars read" at theFrisky !

"Back in the Day"

Perhaps you have heard of or read some of Jennifer Finney Boylan 's work. (Shown below left.)  She writes for the New York Times and her recent article caught my eye because of how I identified with it.  Both of us grew up in rural settings and as she points out, yes we had "boyhoods".  Here's an excerpt from hers: 

(About her summers growing up in the 1960s)  "Although I became a woman in adulthood and struggled with the gender business until then, it’s nevertheless true that I had a boyhood, and that many moments in it were pretty blissful. I passed my days in the farmland and forests of rural Pennsylvania. I went fishing for brown trout, dived into creeks from covered bridges and shot off model rockets with my father. I climbed onto the top of the backstop at the elementary school playground — abandoned in summer — and learned swear words from a boy named Kevin Walsh."

She goes on to write:

"I’m not sure I would have traded my boyhood for a girlhood, if given the chance. I know I would have been grateful to have been spared the misery of adolescence, of course, and the wearisome transition that came after, but on the whole I give thanks for those July days I spent staring up at the blue sky. That boy lives inside me, even now. His dreams are still mine."

Finally, 
"As for me (Jennifer Boylan) , I have shed a few tears over the course of my life, searching for the boy I was. There aren’t that many people alive now who remember him, besides me, and that makes me a little sad. Like a lot of people, I sometimes ask myself the question posed by David Byrne: “Well? How did I get here?” Finding the answer, a sense of peace between past and future, is one measure of wholeness and well-being."

There is much more to this article in the Times and I hope by giving you excerpts, I have been able to give you the essence of her thoughts.  Plus, not that she cares, I wonder if there are those who have taken her to task for not being a true "transgender" woman because she knowingly took so long to transition? "Me thinks-yes!"

Go here for the entire post!

The "Meek" Shall Inherit What?

As we gender transition up and down this path we have taken, sometimes it is just too easy to jump back into the closet and hide. Done it myself, can't tell you how many times I went home and cried after a night out and that was before the days of emotions and HRT began to affect me the way they have.

I found this to pass along to you in Cyrsti's Condo which explains why the "Bitch" word can be a compliment and fits in very well with transgender women everywhere.

Androgyny

Androgyny or "too much beauty for one gender" compliments of Dima Sotnikov in Cyrsti's Condo.