Cyrsti's Condo Archive Post: It's Never Too Late

(Warning, these links may not still be current.)

Friday, January 3, 2014

It's Never Too Late

I happened upon a post by another transgender woman who is transitioning later in life and living to write about it! (Just kidding!)
It's called "When to say Yes to the Dress" by Courtney Bedell on the Baltimore Gay Life site.

Courtney's story is similar to many of us.  She met the same resistance, harbored the same inner turmoil and ultimately reached the points we are now in life. Not so surprisingly in the transgender culture, we are called "pretenders" because we waited so long to transition.

Six year old Coy Mathis was used by Courtney as an example of a "no doubter" transgender child who just knew she wasn't a boy.  Coy of course also benefited immensely from a family who has battled for their daughter's right to be herself.  I'm guessing, immensely rare for anyone of my age.

Here's an excerpt from more of the post:

By 12 I felt strongly that I was a girl but unlike Coy, I couldn’t talk about it to my parents, or anyone else. I did what most TGs did 20 or 30 years ago: deny, deny, deny! At 12 I was wearing my older sister’s dresses and using her make-up, but not in public. Despite my having plenty of friends adolescence was a lonely and devastating time for me. I could only be myself when I was alone so I often hooked school to spend the day in a dress curling my hair and putting on make-up. 

 Nobody ever saw me looking pretty—ask any teenage girl if that isn’t a version of hell! I wanted to tell my mom but I just couldn’t find the words. Even when she might have picked up on the clues she didn’t open the subject. When I saw a psychiatrist at my parent’s behest it took me two years to tell him I was convinced that I was a girl and had XX female chromosomes. Naturally, he thought I was simply gay or a cross-dresser. I continued to live two separate lives for another 20 unhappy years.

Sounds familiar, right? Here's more:

 So, the answer to “when do you say yes to the dress?” is simply, as soon as possible! From my own experience, I say do yourself a huge favor and don’t waste half your life denying your true essence! Don’t endure decades of pain and loneliness waiting for the ideal time to change. We often wait until the situation becomes severe enough to outweigh our fear of the potential upheaval our transition will cause. It doesn’t have to be that way if we approach it preemptively before our lives become unbearable or unmanageable.

 See a gender therapist, go to a support group (Tranquility at GLCCB), search your feelings, explore your options, sort it all out and learn what action is best for you. You may decide it is time to transition or you may discover transition is not right for you­—the key word here is “discovery.”

Follow the link above for more!

Missing in Action

Once again it seems, my good old not so trusty lap top needs to be sent away for some warranty work, so my brilliant (LOL) new posts are going to have to wait.

I love all you regulars and your comments and will possibly be able to still do a few a post here and there. Especially archived ones.

Sorry for all the inconvenience.

Another Week in the Monsoons.

While we haven't received the huge amount of rain other areas of the country have received, we have been getting our unfair share too.

Of course, this is one of the weeks I have to make my trips all over to Dayton (twice) for my VA doctors and Cincinnati once for the bi monthly CrossPort meeting with mainly other transgender women sprinkled in with a few cross dressers.

Plus is the weather happens to cooperate, we have a full moon get together tonight.

Through it all, I have had a chance to get my "wifely" chores done and get a load of wash finished plus cooked dinner. It's OK since Liz is working so hard at her job, it's the least I could do and I always jested I would make someone a good wife some day.

Interestingly, once again it is a week like this week that causes me to plan ahead on my outfits several days in advance and truly feel like a woman. On the down side though, I have managed to chip my nails and need to repair them in my spare time.

Looking back, I can only think, be careful what you wish for, because it may come true.

Into the Lioness' Den?

Yesterday was one of those days which pre Mtf transition, I would have dreaded. In fact, I still dreaded it yesterday. Why?

Our Wiccan group who is putting on it's second annual Witches Ball this Halloween and Sunday we met at a semi rural WalMart to set up to sell things for a fundraiser to benefit a homeless shelter.

I will admit it. I felt like one of the main characters in Deliverance. Especially if I had to use the rest room. (I did.)

Going in, I figured to make myself as inconspicuous as possible and let the others do most all of the interaction. But, as luck would have it, that didn't work either, as one by one, most of the other participants found an excuse to leave or find something else to do. For a short while, I was even tasked with passing out brochures in front of one of the entrances. Eccch!

Through it all, I kept telling myself this was one of situations I never wanted to go through when I thought about going 24/7. As a matter of fact, I tell anyone considering a transgender transition, to go ahead and try the toughest situation they can think of and do it.  

As always I lived and wasn't whisked away by some redneck with a Confederate flag and I think I was only followed into the restroom by one employee to make sure I wasn't doing dastardly deeds. So, I suppose the day was some sort of a success.

The whole day though brought about thoughts of going "full time" as a trans woman and how some seem to think it may be all sweetness and light.

I am going to save my thoughts for another blog post!

Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

"Creativity is in the mind of the beholder and at times, mine is running on empty."

Jessie Hart

No Creativity

When I started Cyrsti's Condo under a different name some six years ago, I had a simple idea to pass along what I had learned from my sometimes crazy transgender life to others. Often I hoped it worked, other times I am not so sure.

The blog slowly but surely wove it's way out of my adventures in different cross dressing situations with a variety of wigs and clothes into leading a 24/7 life as a trans woman on HRT. I even changed my legal name and gender markers on on the available identification forms available to me. Exciting times indeed.

Now though, as life has slowed down, I am searching for different ways to express myself and write about them on the blog. Slowly but surely, I am searching for other ways to be an activist and volunteer more in causes I see a desperate need for.

Take Trans Ohio for example. They operate a very active educational and year around legislative push here in the Buckeye State for changes such as the antiquated birth certificate gender laws. Perhaps they could use some help.

The only thing I do know is, with the way our society is today, any voices out of the wilderness will help.

Perhaps it is my turn to write blog posts so boring as to make paint dry. Because the only paint I can write about is the nail polish I managed to scrape up already.

I have written here about the "anti stealth" . A stage in your life when you are living exactly how you want, regardless of how it plays out in the public's eye.

Perhaps doing a little more work on the activist side will combat that!

Ba Ba Boom!

I think the best way to really study how cis women move is to study/take belly dancing classes or better yet sensory burlesque.

Taking either type of classes is on my bucket list, but truthfully I'm not sure I have enough courage.

The next best thing though is watching a group of women dance or maybe sensually grind? I have been fortunate enough to do both and was totally mesmerized. And this comes from a person who has specialized in watching cis women for most of my adult life as a trans woman and before.

"Cinnamon" from Cin City

As it turns out, Cincinnati has it's own group of burlesque artists called the "Cin City Burlesque" and they are having a show on the 20th and Liz and I are going!

I am old enough to remember the very end of the classic old style burlesque acts we used to go "slumming" in college and see in places like Dayton and Toledo, Ohio. These shows came complete with a vaudeville style comedian.

The show I missed which was somewhat similar was in a lesbian bar years later in which I was cross dressed. Two strippers were eagerly awaited by the crowd. Unfortunately, I had to leave before they showed up, as I am sure it would have been entertaining!

For this show as a transgender woman, I think I am going to get a little dressed up and weather permitting, wear my long black skirt with the deep slit up the side with a black tank top.

Should be a great time!!!!

Spring - Un Sprung?

Typically, this time of year is when Momma Nature teases us around here with spring time weather one week with tender new flower blooms and just as suddenly tosses in a few cold rainy days reminiscent of fall weather. Both of which put strains on which wardrobe to wear. Of course, I had put most of my fall and winter wear away after the summer like weather last week.

At any rate, my fave grocery store shopping is to shop the butcher/seafood shops for fresh specials. Cincinnati does have a long running permanent farmers market but it is too far to be practical for me to get to. So, today I threw on a soft form fitting long sleeve top I have with a pair of boyfriend jeans and headed to the store.

Of course, I had to treat myself to a coffee from the store's coffee shop before I started to shop! And, I was treated back with "Thank you Mam'" in return which made the frappacino taste so much better! Then I decided to see if I could find some fresh wild caught seafood on sale and did. (No, not from the Ohio River :)

Again the clerk was pleasant and thanked me nicely.

I often wonder what life would have been like if I could have enjoyed an existence such as this earlier. Better late than never I guess!

Being a transgender woman in the world never felt so good and so completely natural. Whe would have ever "thunk" it?

Not me.

Trans Ohio Part III

First of all I understood the demographics this year were a little different. The 9th Trans Ohio Symposium drew over 250 plus attendees this year which was a record and could create the need for more space in the already huge The Ohio State University student union.

The attendee's seemed to be a bit more diverse this year. Not too young, not too old (like me) and quite a few middle age folks and couples. But a nice contingent of youthful attendees enjoying the safe space I assume.

Clothing wise, most dressed in comfortable attire (jeans or slacks) with the occasional dress mixed in. I must point out though, the weather was terrible with tons of rain and a huge marathon which basically ran past the front of the campus main drag (no pun intended.)  So, heels and hose would have been tough to pull off.

Racially, per norm, the audience was overwhelmingly white.

Sure, there were some fashion mistakes, but I thought from my basically conservative perspective that this was the best year yet. I enjoyed the fact there were a number of quests that I couldn't tell were transgender or ally's.

In fact, I thought this whole year was the best I have attended out of four and I know from my back ground how much work it took to put it on.

All I can say is Wow! and thanks to the organizers!