Thanks to All Vets!

Active or retired, alive or passed on - it's Veteran's Day and a chance to honor all Vets. This year here in Cyrsti's Condo, I am taking a slightly different approach.  This year there will be no talk of hypocrisy, sweeping equal freedoms or stonewalling. No "I fought for your freedom to deny me mine."

Very simply, thanks to all vets. For the rest of you, install a green porch light and take a second to remember all vets around the world!

Thank God it's Wednesday?

Well, it's not Wednesday around here-it just feels like it because of the Veteran's Day holiday-which moved my regular Tuesday appointments at the VA (Veterans Administration) back to Monday.

Recently I have been writing here in Cyrsti's Condo about my on going health situation, my gender marker advances and coming out experiences within my family.

Yesterday was day number one (of two) this week at the VA. The news was exceptionally good. I have no cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. And all my liver functions were only slightly elevated-which may be brought into line with all the other treatments I'm going through-which happen to be Thursday. My appointment was especially nice as I got the chance to admire my Doctor's ear-rings. And, for all you smart - arsses out there she is a cis-woman! (I think.)

Also yesterday,I had coffee with my brother. He is a couple years younger than I and we are the only two siblings. What I wanted to do was clear the air with him about being transgender and what that would mean for the holiday family get togethers.

He just smirked at me about the trans word and said he and his two sons have known that (or assumed) for awhile. Plus, (the best part) it's my life was my life-so who cares? 

So, the only remaining discussion point from me was, before my brother and I parted ways was: was there a certain point on the androgynous scale (for me) my Sister in Law and him would find appropriate? The answer was it was up to me. 

Cool. So all of that tension in my mind was imagined. Now I can get on  with life. Which means another visit to the VA Thursday and get my legal name change paperwork filed at the courthouse. 

Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

Kerplunk! Another Sunday Edition is hitting your virtual front porch. It's a sunny slightly chilly fall morning here in Ohio and a non football one. The Cincinnati Bengals stayed undefeated by beating the Cleveland "Brownies" on Thursday. (And THE Ohio State Buckeyes did the same last night.)Let's get a hot "cup-o-joe" and get started!

Page One-The Week that Was-or Wasn't: The "stunner" last week was the defeat of the LGBT non discrimination bill in Houston. What was especially disturbing to me was the fact that transgender restroom usage was used as one of the main reasons NOT to vote for the measure-purely from incorrect ignorance. When in doubt, use a trans person to trash an issue????? Not a good precedent.

Page Two-The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? I know that many agree with this phrase from a very popular Christmas song, but I don't-somewhat. Fall has always been the best season for me. Temperatures are warm enough around here for me to wonder what it would have been like to really have all the curves of a cis-woman. Then to really enjoy showing them off in leggings, sweaters, scarves and boots. Without having to wear heavy winter coats.

The fall is the time for more woman to shine without having to worry about all the diet and skin restrictions of spring/summer. And then they do. Fall fashions can cover many problems!

Page Three-The Back Page-It doesn't seem possible but we are rushing head long at another Veteran's Day and then the Holidays. Plus this week, I plan to file for my legal name change and have two big Doc's appointments.  On the bright side, I am meeting my brother for coffee on Monday and my daughter/grandkids on Thursday.  

You all have a great week and thanks as always for stopping by Cyrsti's Condo!

 Luv ya all!

Cyrsti's Condo "From the Hart"

"Too Much Imagination Ruins the Future-Too Little Impedes It."

Cyrsti Hart

Big News From the VA

Hopefully, this will be the first of these stories to come out of Veteran Administration Clinics around the country. And yes, it comes from the much maligned city of Cleveland!

Starting in November, the Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC will be the first VA to have a Transgender clinic for transgender veterans.

"We are excited to announce the opening of the G.I.V.E (Gender Identity Veteran Experience) Clinic in November. This will be the newest addition to our Medical Center and will be headed by our very own Dr. Megan McNamara M.D and her team: Jen Healy RN, Kami Bizub LPN, and Tike'ta Brock AMSA. This clinic will make a difference by offering a comfortable and safe atmosphere where Transgender care is #1 priority. More information coming soon regarding opening day.

Actually my therapist in Dayton, Ohio asked me if I had heard of such an effort in Cincinnati and I said no. I am fairly sure she is working on one!

Think Before You Answer

I read a story not long ago about a working friend (male)/boss who had an employee in a professional situation who came she came out to him as a transgender woman. 

It turned out, the boss accompanied her to a dinner or and saw up close and personal how difficult a journey his friend/coworker had undertaken. Seemingly, she couldn't shake the ravages of being mis-pronouned as well as other gender problems the boss could only imagine.

It's not a new story and you can read it here, but the trans woman attempted to return to her old life-which ended in a suicide. Sadly, perhaps as relevant today as when the story was written.

My question to you is: would you take a "Get Out of Jail Free" card and jump back into being a guy. But, before you answer-a guy with no transgender or crossdresser wiring AT ALL?

I know I would (no matter how I know it can/will never happen.) To this day I can look at a group of guys with pitchers of beer and plates of wings and wonder how it would be to in that group again.

My problem is though I was never really a part.  But I have always thought, doing what is right for me (the girl thing) felt as right as the sun coming up in the morning. Even though I know I will never escape the ravages of a life of testosterone on my body.

I just thought it was a good question to ponder!!!!

Houston Women-Is It YOU That Has The Problem???

Thanks Jennifer Cross for sending this in from the Huffington Post:

One trans woman in Chicago, Illinois, is making a bold, tongue-in-cheek statement in response to Houston, Texas, voters striking down proposed legislation this week that would extend nondiscrimination protections to the LGBT community, including enabling trans people to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Kelly Lauren, a transgender woman who has performed as a drag entertainer for 37 years, shared the following photo on her Facebook account Wednesday with the caption "Houston, do you REALLY want me in the same restroom as your husband or boyfriend?"

Is the World Really Flat?

One of the suppositions in the "What the Bleep" Quantum Physics group I'm in is when Columbus's first ships arrived on the Caribbean horizons, the "average" man or woman on the beach couldn't see them. Because they had never been there before. It took one of the native "Shaman's" to notice something/somehow was different.

I was fascinated by the idea but still didn't attach much more importance to it-in my noggin. Until after I read these stats: (Please note I am paraphrasing much of this.) Only 24% of the population is believed to be what are called "cultural creatives" - or for ecological sustainability and advocates for change.  Another 47% are called Modernists who aren't paranoid of a reshaping globe. (You can buy the movie on Amazon.)

That leaves us with the guy above- a traditionalist. Or in this case "good old American ways."

If you break it down that way, the guy above would have never noticed Columbus on the horizon.

The moral to the story is good old "Tricky Dick Nixon" is looking around the corner at us smirking. He worked his so called "Silent Majority" for years.

Dick (and a lot of religions have proved over the years) misinformed ignorance can win handsomely with a traditionalist and hidden agenda - especially one which starts on the altar.

If you watched the numbers here though, the Modernist percentage is the most positive. 

Now, I know it has to  be scary for a lot of traditionalists when they are seeing an increasing percentage of ethnics in every sector of our society. Especially when you can't afford to live in a fancy white suburb, with social media and/or their new Black or Hispanic neighbors down the street. They just can't move away from them like my parents did- Or when your Sunday fanatic is babbling endlessly about transgender sexual predators-when many more quite likely came from the Catholic Church.

But----We transgender women just could be their last frontier before admitting they do see the ships on the horizon. 

Could Have Knocked Me Over with a Vampire?

I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo previously about my love/lust for the latest "FX Network's" series "American Horror Story-Hotel" Not to be a spoiler here, but maybe you can imagine just a bit of the blood, guts and glamour assembled under "Lady Gaga"  at the very lush "Art Deco" Cortez Hotel.


One of the characters (of course?) is a cross dressing person called "Liz Taylor" who wears beaded gowns, dangling earrings and heavy makeup-all with a bald head. "Liz" preforms many jobs in the hotel including bartender.

A curious but not an unusual character to say the least. Liz took me back to a very unpleasant time in transvestite - cross dressing history when we all were evil and nefarious in some way on television - last night this scene came along and I was floored as: The chilling character (Lady Gaga) on Wednesday's episode showed her incredibly tender side as she helped turn an unhappy married man into the hotel's most loyal and flamboyant staffer, Liz Taylor.

In the episode titled Room Service, Liz told desk clerk Iris, played by Kathey Bates, how 'a married man from Topeka could wind up as Liz Taylor in the Hotel Cortez'. AND-how Liz was neither evil or nefarious (one of the few.)

Having written all of that of course, I am sure that three fourths of the transgender world will go berserk over this as completely as they did the "Laverne Cox" Rocky Horror Show" remake. But there is more to my point: 

The only other portion of the episode I am going to pass along is when "Liz" described the experience of "just" leaving her room at the hotel to get ice. I remembered so vividly having the same feelings so long ago. You will have to find the show for the rest.

I did wonder though, which one of the writers had experienced that very personal experience-or knew someone who had. 

Plus, let's not forget how supportive Lady Gaga is of the LGBT community!