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Saturday, October 4, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Can You Ever Go Home?
I have a very old friend and dare I say a bit frustrated at times with his life in the closet as a cross dresser on occasion. Then it is time to "chat" with me and try to pick an argument.
I use the "frustrated" word with him because he seems to delight in passing along stories of so called transsexuals who "went the distance" and completed SRS-only wanting to return as close as possible to their birth gender.
By trade he is a retired engineer and is the stereotypical "connect the dots" style thinker. Although he won't come out and actually say it to me, he believes very few sex changes are needed and/or work.
It's an interesting concept and one neither of us or perhaps anyone has a true statistical answer which would satisfy him.
Personally, I think it is inevitable some gender dysphoric people maybe aren't that at all and really don't get a strong enough dose of living in the girls sandbox to see what it is about.
Plus then there is that pesky age thing which haunts the genetics as well as us too. Being that "young pretty thing" is out. So I tell him not to go making "hero's" out of these people who want to go back to their birth gender. They just made a mistake, certainly a big one but in his engineering world does he toss out a whole project if one out of a hundred parts comes back as defective?
At the least, it's an interesting discussion and being an extremely "gray thinker", I am constantly taking him places he doesn't want to go. For example HRT - another of his pet peeves. Paraphrasing: Why would anyone embark on such a potentially dangerous path with no concrete results. At that point I have to jump in for him and connect his dots. Potentially undergoing hormone replacement therapy does have concrete results and has a positive affect on the very high number of suicide attempts in the transgender community.
I can never get him to admit he is talking about me and my decision to go down the HRT pathway. Or, is he a little frustrated he purged himself into the closet in the 80's never to see the light of day again.
Probably I will never know. I just hope he can finally connect some of his own dots and quit counting how much money he has around.
Speaking for me, I never want to go home again. If my medically monitored hormones take some time off my life, so be it. The alternative was worse.
I use the "frustrated" word with him because he seems to delight in passing along stories of so called transsexuals who "went the distance" and completed SRS-only wanting to return as close as possible to their birth gender.
By trade he is a retired engineer and is the stereotypical "connect the dots" style thinker. Although he won't come out and actually say it to me, he believes very few sex changes are needed and/or work.
It's an interesting concept and one neither of us or perhaps anyone has a true statistical answer which would satisfy him.
Personally, I think it is inevitable some gender dysphoric people maybe aren't that at all and really don't get a strong enough dose of living in the girls sandbox to see what it is about.
Plus then there is that pesky age thing which haunts the genetics as well as us too. Being that "young pretty thing" is out. So I tell him not to go making "hero's" out of these people who want to go back to their birth gender. They just made a mistake, certainly a big one but in his engineering world does he toss out a whole project if one out of a hundred parts comes back as defective?
At the least, it's an interesting discussion and being an extremely "gray thinker", I am constantly taking him places he doesn't want to go. For example HRT - another of his pet peeves. Paraphrasing: Why would anyone embark on such a potentially dangerous path with no concrete results. At that point I have to jump in for him and connect his dots. Potentially undergoing hormone replacement therapy does have concrete results and has a positive affect on the very high number of suicide attempts in the transgender community.
I can never get him to admit he is talking about me and my decision to go down the HRT pathway. Or, is he a little frustrated he purged himself into the closet in the 80's never to see the light of day again.
Probably I will never know. I just hope he can finally connect some of his own dots and quit counting how much money he has around.
Speaking for me, I never want to go home again. If my medically monitored hormones take some time off my life, so be it. The alternative was worse.
Where Did You Get Your Wig?
In my continuing saga of answering Missy's questions about my MtF transition path, a few I get on a weekly basis, a couple, every other week and finally others which I get frustrated with because of their frequency.
It's OK though. One of her fondest repeats is when she sees the different sides of me, it is still me. I know it's tough to explain to someone who knew me for nearly 30 years in my guy life, that between my ears I was never him.
Yesterday, to try to clarify, I pulled out the "mirror theory". In other words, I know who I am now and to live it easier, a feminized version of my body makes the process easier. In other words, I'm reflecting woman back to the world. But, to confuse her even more, on occasion I'm more of a gender fluid person. Especially when I have to pull out my guy self from behind the curtain and insert him back into the game. Not unlike a puppet. I just know some of you are waiting to use the ventriloquist and dummy cheap shot!
At this point, I think I'm making a little headway with her (until she asks the same question next week.) Plus, while I am at this magical point, I try to go further in-depth and explain the impact of not having to not wear a wig. Probably the most the one biggest positive of my HRT.. Whichever hair "Goddess" gifted me with all of this wavy, to the middle of my back hair- I will thank forever.
During the last several years since I went "wig-less" only a couple women have asked where I got my wig and they knew me through my "wig" years. They commented how "real" it looked and of course I said it is!
The best wig story I have comes from when I was in a gay venue watching a drag show some time ago and one of the performing drag queens came up and said, "I love your wig, honey." In one of the rare moments I have ever seen a drag queen at a loss for words was when I said, "How do you know it is a wig, girlfriend!" To the left you will see a 2010 "wigged" me (wigged out!). I had two dark long wigs, the other was very straight. Both seemingly were an "all or nothing" proposition. Either I could get them on my noggin in a fairly decent matter - or I couldn't. More than once, I spent a night feeling totally uncomfortable because of my wig.
![](//1.bp.blogspot.com/-t4hJI2ZCY7Y/VC62s0QH-sI/AAAAAAAAKhI/rPyW341rbUY/s1600/cyrsaug12.jpg)
This whole subject is just another matter we share with the genetics. On Twitter I read recently a brief exchange asking where the editor of the xoJane site telling an inquiring reader-no, that is not a "Morticia Wig" she was wearing-it was her own hair. OOOPs! I wondered briefly if that was like asking a woman "when she is due" and she is not pregnant at all. Plus, lets not forget the upkeep required for your hair.
To the right is the last picture taken of me in a wig and coincidentally is the one I was wearing when the drag queen commented to me.
Look, I do know how fortunate I am to be able to have and wear the hair I do.
I also know great wig ideas for novice cross dressers and beyond are available on Femulate . Stana's style surely goes from head to toe!
.
It's OK though. One of her fondest repeats is when she sees the different sides of me, it is still me. I know it's tough to explain to someone who knew me for nearly 30 years in my guy life, that between my ears I was never him.
Yesterday, to try to clarify, I pulled out the "mirror theory". In other words, I know who I am now and to live it easier, a feminized version of my body makes the process easier. In other words, I'm reflecting woman back to the world. But, to confuse her even more, on occasion I'm more of a gender fluid person. Especially when I have to pull out my guy self from behind the curtain and insert him back into the game. Not unlike a puppet. I just know some of you are waiting to use the ventriloquist and dummy cheap shot!
2010 |
During the last several years since I went "wig-less" only a couple women have asked where I got my wig and they knew me through my "wig" years. They commented how "real" it looked and of course I said it is!
The best wig story I have comes from when I was in a gay venue watching a drag show some time ago and one of the performing drag queens came up and said, "I love your wig, honey." In one of the rare moments I have ever seen a drag queen at a loss for words was when I said, "How do you know it is a wig, girlfriend!" To the left you will see a 2010 "wigged" me (wigged out!). I had two dark long wigs, the other was very straight. Both seemingly were an "all or nothing" proposition. Either I could get them on my noggin in a fairly decent matter - or I couldn't. More than once, I spent a night feeling totally uncomfortable because of my wig.
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t4hJI2ZCY7Y/VC62s0QH-sI/AAAAAAAAKhI/rPyW341rbUY/s1600/cyrsaug12.jpg)
This whole subject is just another matter we share with the genetics. On Twitter I read recently a brief exchange asking where the editor of the xoJane site telling an inquiring reader-no, that is not a "Morticia Wig" she was wearing-it was her own hair. OOOPs! I wondered briefly if that was like asking a woman "when she is due" and she is not pregnant at all. Plus, lets not forget the upkeep required for your hair.
To the right is the last picture taken of me in a wig and coincidentally is the one I was wearing when the drag queen commented to me.
Look, I do know how fortunate I am to be able to have and wear the hair I do.
I also know great wig ideas for novice cross dressers and beyond are available on Femulate . Stana's style surely goes from head to toe!
.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Halloween Comes in Many Flavors!
Over the years, I have approached Halloween from many different angles, many depended on my goals for the evening, where I was in my transition and who I was with.
The very first Halloween I went all out cross dressed was the one I have written about extensively here in Cyrsti's Condo. It was 1974 in Germany, I was in the Army (of all places) and ended up with me coming up to several people as a transvestite not long after that.
Of course, wearing a short skirt in everyday Army life was not beneficial to earning a honorable discharge-so back I went into the closet.
During the next several years, I shied away from going to parties where I knew several people-opting for bigger venues. I agonized for literally months on a costume that in my mind was sexy, somewhat passable and creative. I was never as creative as Pat and her "Monica Lewinski" costume.
Looking back at the "impossible dream", I think I made it a couple of times-that's it. I'm not saying though I didn't have fun.
As I see it, here are a few of the Halloween party dividing points.
The very first Halloween I went all out cross dressed was the one I have written about extensively here in Cyrsti's Condo. It was 1974 in Germany, I was in the Army (of all places) and ended up with me coming up to several people as a transvestite not long after that.
Of course, wearing a short skirt in everyday Army life was not beneficial to earning a honorable discharge-so back I went into the closet.
During the next several years, I shied away from going to parties where I knew several people-opting for bigger venues. I agonized for literally months on a costume that in my mind was sexy, somewhat passable and creative. I was never as creative as Pat and her "Monica Lewinski" costume.
Looking back at the "impossible dream", I think I made it a couple of times-that's it. I'm not saying though I didn't have fun.
As I see it, here are a few of the Halloween party dividing points.
Will the cross dressed Sarah Palin please reveal himself? |
- Are you going to a party at a friends or with friends?
- Do you want to be passable, comical, trashy or creative?
- Is your costume based on a current well known woman? Example, Lewinski, Sarah Palin, Elvira in her prime, etc.
- How "detailed" do you plan to be? Shaved legs, nice wig, etc?
- Depending upon how "accomplished" you are-how will you handle comments? (Which will come.)
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Cyrsti's Condo "OOOOPS!"
"Tis" The Season-Almost
As I look out the front windows here in Cyrsti's Condo, I see the trees donning their yellows and reds for fall fashion and- of course my mind wanders past fashion to Halloween.
Rightly or wrongly, Halloween has left indelible marks in my noggin. When I was a kid and all the way through college to my Army days, I never dressed as a girl for parties. Not to say I didn't want to desperately, just didn't have the courage to do it (which turned out to be my problem for nearly five decades.)
Once I did begin to celebrate Halloween in all sorts of feminine costumes, quickly I learned two basics. The first was I didn't want to wait a whole year to cross dress again in public. The second was, beware of compliments. It took me years to figure out I wasn't some sort of deity who could "make" a good looking woman and if I was indeed attractive was it because I was a guy cross dressing as a woman?
Looking back, the problem was, these experiences just were opening a gender Pandora's Box. If you take one of the definitions literally, the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences. How true it was, those early Halloween adventures were detrimental to me because I spent years trying to learn and then conceal being transgender. "Far reaching" speaks for itself.
On the other hand, I was able to have several incredible Halloween experiences. Many of which we will write about in October! And! I would love to write about yours too!
Rightly or wrongly, Halloween has left indelible marks in my noggin. When I was a kid and all the way through college to my Army days, I never dressed as a girl for parties. Not to say I didn't want to desperately, just didn't have the courage to do it (which turned out to be my problem for nearly five decades.)
Unidentified Cross Dresser |
Looking back, the problem was, these experiences just were opening a gender Pandora's Box. If you take one of the definitions literally, the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences. How true it was, those early Halloween adventures were detrimental to me because I spent years trying to learn and then conceal being transgender. "Far reaching" speaks for itself.
On the other hand, I was able to have several incredible Halloween experiences. Many of which we will write about in October! And! I would love to write about yours too!
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