It's Not A Choice

One of the constant wrong impressions of transgender women and men is we had any choice when we chose to live a trans life.. It is one of the points I tried to get across along with my transgender sisters and brothers during the Trans Ohio Symposium. And, as a matter of fact, to a couple of my health care providers too.

My easiest explanation it seems is, cross dressing just never "got it done." My life just didn't feel right. Let me rephrase it, my life didn't feel seriously right.

Key note speakers this year at the Symposium were a serious blend of trans youth. Four, to be exact. All completely unique in their own way. One, was getting reading to head this fall to the University of Cincinnati and identified as more of an androgynous "agender" person. She spoke of waking in the morning and knowing she wasn't necessarily a girl, but definitely not a boy. Looking back into the dark ages of gender information when I grew up, I think I would have identified the closest with "Em's" story.

Perhaps the most serious impact was made by a 13 year old transgender boy who attended with his Mother and Aunt. His story was simply one of knowing his gender path and getting Mom on board after a very rough start.

If I could go back in time, maybe I could replace many of the trial and error cross dressing public trips I made with one or more symposium visits.

After all, I never had a choice and never knew it.

Nationwide!!!!!

http://socialwork.simmons.edu/socialworksimmons-celebrates-pride/

***Follow the link above for more!

It's Pride Season!

Around here at least, starting last weekend, you could/can attend a LGBTQ Pride Celebration every weekend through July. "Pride" of course can mean so many different things to so many different people. Simply put, the Pride days are to show the world who we are and we aren't going away. (No matter what the bigots hope for.-Alex.)

Trans Pride Flag

Personally, Pride has represented a deeper transition for me. Over the past five years, I was able to distance myself from the Queens on the floats (and some of the more flamboyant cross dressers I saw)-until last year I was able to completely let my "Trans Flag Fly." No I wasn't a gay man or a lesbian woman, I was me dammit. Quite liberating to say the least - but still easier said than done.

This year, I think the Pride I will be attending is Cincinnati's. Last year I went to Columbus and Yellow Springs, Ohio. I will be very interested in seeing any new/out transgender participation. Plus on the selfish side, I feel as if the less I am noticed the better(stealth?)

Finally, in my next post I am going to be sending along a graphic from the SocialWork@Simmons blog

I will point out ahead of time, it is a partial list!!!

Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

Kerplunk! Another edition of our Sunday edition is hitting your virtual front porch. Here in Ohio we are going through another couple rather chilly days. Yesterday was only 69 (Fahrenheit) here where I am. During my pre HRT days I would relished this kind of weather but not so much now as I reach for my nearest long sleeve shirt. So, the "Joe" (coffee) is of the hot style this morning-let's get started.

Page 1.- The Week that Was -or Wasn't: On the heels of the Trans Ohio Symposium and the Caitlin Jenner reveal we basically had a week to step back and reflect on what had happened. In a sense, Jenner to me was a "be careful of what you hope for moment." For years I have struggled to educate any and all of the public I encountered. Then BOOM - they got educated all right or in some senses all wrong. But you know, I am not complaining. I just think it is diligent to remind "civilians" Caitlin Jenner has been blessed with transgender privilege most of us could ever dream of. Bottom line is though-no sour grapes here. I will take Caitlin's splash of  public relations and run with it. Not far though. I am not a jogger/runner and I am sure it won't take long for her epic publicity machine to crank out more publicity. Rumor has it, if you want to book Caitlin in for a speaking engagement, you can for a "mere" 100 grand. (100,000 dollars)

Page 2.- Transgender Ally's Are Alive and Well. At least they were-in force-at the Trans Ohio Symposium this year. It was cool, they wanted to know what made us tick in some ways and wanted to reach out to us in others. After all, we were their closeted next door neighbors for years and sadly often the ones who tried and succeeded at suicide. Just as sad to me were the nearly total lack of trans women who were willing to give back. Then again, our trans hope lies in our future and there were several very visible examples of the different types of our youth. If you remember the overall surprise when Facebook came out with their new gender choices, at Trans Ohio you saw why. They use them. Binary's were out for the weekend.

Page 3.- Trans*forming the Dialogue: Recently Simmons College announced an initiative to open yet another line of communication for the transgender world: (In their own words)

 "Trans*forming the Dialogue is a blog carnival and social campaign aimed at raising the voices of those within the transgender community. We are asking bloggers and social advocates alike to offer their perspective on how we can foster a more progressive and productive dialogue about trans*lives."

I encourage all of you to check it out and participate! To take a look, go here.

Page 4.- The Back Page: Thanks so much for taking your precious time to stop by Cyrsti's Condo. It has always meant the world to me. Have a great week and if the Goddess is willing, we will do it again next week!!!

I'm Hurt

Last week, I wrote a post here in Cyrsti's Condo about a "day trip" vacation Liz and I took to Ripley, Ohio and Augusta. Kentucky. Augusta is just a short small ferry boat ride across the river. I wrote at the time (I paraphrase) "Augusta was/is a charming sleepy little Ohio River town. As it turned out I was wrong. Augusta was just sleeping that afternoon after the CSX coal train rolled through and we ate lunch. My apologies to Augusta. Turns out I missed all the action.

Now, fast forward to this week and I saw a story on a Cincinnati television station about movie star George Clooney and new wife Amal visiting George's childhood home in Augusta. Now, I knew George grew up in Northern Kentucky, but never knew exactly where and he still has immediate family there.

According to TMZ, George put out the big money and treated new wife Amal to "Poor Man's Pie."

I'm hurt because no one mistook me for Amal when I was there. Must have been the accent?

Advanced Training?

I picked this up through Stana's Femulate blog and similar to so many other excellent posts I see from her, this one really resonated with me. It was actually posted by Monica:

"I recently went to SF and then on to Denver to go to Art of Feminine Presence (AFP) Training.

This was my fourth time going to AFP. I am still amazed that our community has not taken to this; it really is the best way I have found for getting in touch with my feminine essence.

My companion for the training was my friend and well known voice coach Kathe Perez

I was surrounded for six days by loving caring and sympathetic cisgender woman who treated me as one of their own.

I have a theory, if you want to learn Japanese, you do not go to Japan and hang around with Americans. Similarly, if you want to get in touch with you feminine essence, hanging around with cisgender women is likely to be more productive than hanging around with transwomen. I am just saying! Get outside your comfort zone and you will be amazed at what you can achieve and learn!"

This post resonated with me for several reasons. First, I went through similar trials and tribulations as I was coming out of the closet. Unlike Monica, I couldn't find any trans women to hang out with if I wanted to. There were plenty of what I call "predators in dresses" but no true trans women.  Similar to Monica, I began to hang out with nothing but cis women who consistently accepted me and pushed me out of my comfort zone. In fact they flat out tossed me off a gender cliff.  I too was amazed on what I did (and have) achieved and what the future holds.

I love the line "I have a theory, if you want to learn Japanese, you do not go to Japan and hang around with Americans." I do think if you are going though, I think it is impossible not to bring some of your male past with you to spice your feminine essence!

Trans*forming The Dialogue Goes Live!

if your memory is even slightly better than mine, you may remember before the Caitlin Jenner binge-Cyrsti's Condo was chosen as one of the "gateway" blogs (by Simmons College) . Here you go:


SocialWork@Simmons is proud to announce the launch of: Trans*forming the Dialogue! In honor of LGBT Pride Month  and in an effort to continue to celebrate Simmons’ College commitment to fostering inclusivity and social advocacy, we are excited to promote this powerful message. We invite you to participate in our campaign and ensure that your voice is heard!

Follow the link above for more right now and most certainly we will have more to come from our end! 

This evening I did leave a comment praising the timing of Simmons' blog because I believe the Jenner "outing" is giving too much "warm and fuzzies" and not enough "reality" of the trans experience.

Transgender Troops-More than Fighting the Enemy

In a "thank-goodness" moment, more transgender news has surfaced other than Caitlin Jenner.

It's estimated over 15,000 transgender troops serve in the U.S. Military.  But even though transgender people are twice as likely to serve in the military as their fellow citizens, current policy prohibits them from serving as openly transgender.
Today I picked up this story from Yahoo Health:

"Transgender Troops: At War, in Love, and Fighting to Serve Openly- by Molly Shea. "

Above you can see a transgender couple currently serving in the military. ( Logan and Laila) For more of the story and a video go here.

Potty "Jabber"

Last night I was out with a friend I hadn't seen for quite a while. As we watched the Cleveland/Warrior NBA game and enjoyed a couple adult beverages-I overheard this example of why the genders may not be that far apart when it comes to restroom usage.

From my stall, I heard two women I presume to be 20 somethings having a very animated conversation concerning the need to wash their hands-only when and if they peed on them.

So much for yet another "pristine" women's restroom stereotype.