Referring back to the Cyrsti's Condo post "Is It Time", Connie brought up a good point about how people listen with their eyes. I would only add women are more apt to listen with their eyes than men.
Connie's idea started me thinking about how often I mention women deal in more non verbal communication skills than men. Eye to eye communication is a big part of it. If not all of it on occasion.
I remember quite clearly (for once), the times when I was going out cross dressed by myself and a man approached me, for whatever reason. Many times, I was "warned" by one of my cis women friends to steer clear of a potentially bad situation.
As I have often written about too, I learned often a cis woman's verbal comments don't always match what she is thinking and to be careful of where the knife is going to hit your back. Until I began to develop my own sense of confidence and being as a transgender woman, the "phantom" attacks used to bother me more. Until I became accustomed to the more complex sense of community women have.
For more of Connie's comment, follow the link above, then down the post to "comments".
The farther along a person travels down their transgender road, the more they learn about the devil (or angel) being in the details. Forget just how you look, every step or mis-spoken communication carries the possibility of an unpleasant experience. An example would be the times I have written long and often about here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning my major learning experiences in woman to woman communication as I Mtf gender transitioned. Briefly, I found myself in a (sometimes) brave new world. On occasion, the whole experience was just brutal as I was more stubborn than good.
As often happens around here, Connie has a current different perspective to pass along:
"Coming home from downtown, today, I couldn't help but stare at a teenage boy as he stepped off the bus. It wasn't so much that I was staring in judgment, but I was just in amazement that he could move at all with his jeans belted around his thighs. I'll admit that I don't understand why he'd want to dress that way, but I suppose there are plenty of people who can't understand why I dress the way I do. In a way, I think he and I are helping each other, in that the more of us who are deemed "non-understandable" and are visibly just going about our lives, the more we are apt to be tolerated - or, better yet, acceptable.
My bus ride on the way downtown this morning was also interesting. There were few seats available where I could sit alone when I boarded, and, while I'm always hesitant to sit down next to someone in order to avoid a possible negative confrontation, I'm always happy to make room for someone to sit next to me.
As the seats filled up with each stop, a young woman, who had been sitting on one of the side-facing seats at the front of the bus, got up and came back to sit next to me. I had actually been trying not to stare at her earlier; she was a beautiful young black woman with magnificent dreadlocks of black and pink. Unbeknownst to her, though, she had saved me from a potentially awkward situation. An old "friend" of mine boarded the bus, and he took the seat she had left. I avoided eye contact with him the whole trip to downtown, hiding partially behind the woman's voluminous dreads.
Why was I hiding from this guy? Well, since coming out to him years ago, he has almost always misgendered and dead-named me. It was always hard enough to put up with when we were alone, but I'm not about to give him the opportunity to embarrass me in front of a whole busload of people!
There's the one you don't know and the one you know, but one needs to be aware that the devil can be found anywhere. Every once in a while, though, you can also find an angel."
I was recently reading a Femulate post in which Stana relayed several of her most asked questions along. One of the questions revolved around establishing a female voice...not just a feminine one.
It is true, no matter how feminine you look, your voice can give you away instantly.
To begin with, I have constant problems with my voice to start with. It is very raspy. Coming from many years working as a disc jockey "back in the day." If I had my choice, I would/could develop a voice which sounds like Jacqueline Bisset. ( Right)
My problem is I am voice lazy too. Being full time, it is easy to relapse into old voice habits and then try to bring out a more feminine tone when I am out in public. Sometimes I think I am more successful than others but it doesn't really matter if I am just guessing...does it?
At any rate, I have a couple options. One would be to have Liz help me, or it's possible to schedule an appointment with a VA voice therapist, or finally take a course such as the one Stana recommends called "How to Develop a a Female Voice" by Melanie Anne Phillips.
The only benefit of the first two options are they are free. But then again, you get what you pay for.
My next step is to ask Liz about her opinion and ask my VA therapist if she has heard anything about the in house therapist there. I know she has outside recommendations, but as always, there are financial considerations to look at. Plus, Melanie's course is not that expensive.
I know one thing for sure, the voice status quo is getting old and it's time to do something about it. Instead of my voice being a liability to my transgender presentation, it's time to work on making it a positive.
One of our old cars seemingly knows when we have some extra money, so it can break down. So today I had to cancel going to one of my transgender support groups. It wasn't such a difficult decision since the weather forecast is calling for a possible mix of rain and snow all day today. Plus a chance of the dreaded freezing rain.
We still managed to go out to dinner last night after dropping the car off at the mechanic's place. Nothing spectacular happened out of place as the place was nearly empty and we have been there many times before. I was wearing one of my sweaters and jeans and light makeup since I wasn't planning on going there anyhow. Close to what I was wearing a couple nights ago when we went into pick up Liz's son at the drugstore where he was getting off from work. Where something did happen.
At the front counter, was a guy and his teen aged son checking out and he nearly broke his neck turning around to look at me. He felt the need to turn completely around to stare at me. I looked, and per norm, his much younger son was paying me no attention at all. I thought the old man was going to say something but he didn't.
On the positive side, I finally had the chance to meet the transgender guy who works there and that was fun. He is the one who has the "he and his" pronouns written on his name tag.
Well, March is up to her old tricks. A couple days of positively beautiful Spring weather, followed by a couple of days of rain and/or snow. What it does do though, is get me moving in checking out my seasonal wardrobe. I do have some serviceable pieces left over from last year and they provide a great starting point for this year.
I have also saved back my birthday gift certificate to use. I plan on abusing it for a couple items to wear to my workshop at the Trans Ohio Symposium and at the Transgender Day of Visibility event Liz and I are helping at. It's coming up in a couple of weeks, so I can't keep putting off doing my shopping.
Getting my nails done is also a priority for me this year and I have to S&S for them. Save and Schedule.
Tomorrow I have another support group meeting at the Dayton, Ohio Veterans Administrationwhich I might have to miss due to a forecast of everything from rain, to ice, to snow.
Such is life around here (Ohio) in the Spring!
We have been writing about climbing transgender walls here in Cyrsti's Condo recently. Of course when and if you climb walls, you can expect set backs and even falling on occasion. Falling though, often is how you learn and discover how badly you want to transition. After all, it's quite OK to enjoy being a cross dresser and not transition any farther.
Long ago, a close friend said I "passed" out of sheer determination. While I never figured out if it was a compliment, I felt it did describe me to a "T." No pun intended.
Two of our regulars were kind enough to send in more comments on their personal "walls."
Climbing a wall is one thing; repelling the other side, another. That point where your little voice was telling you something was wrong probably first started as you had reached close enough to the top of the wall to peep over to the other side. Eventually, it spurred you on to reach the top, and spoke to you as you sat, straddling the wall. Dare I say that this is the place that separates the cross dresser from the transitioning transgender woman (or man)?
For me, balancing my life atop that wall was terrifying and exhausting. I know, and know of, many trans women who find it to be terrific and exhilarating there, though. To them, acquiring a lifestyle of playing both sides, the masculine and the feminine, is part of the game they desire. I had grown so weary of playing the game, because my desire was to have a life - not a lifestyle. Rather than living out my femininity by individual experiences and events, I had to commit myself to taking the ultimate leap to the feminine side, and experiencing fully the good and the bad of it.
Life on this side of the big wall does require facing even more of them, but I've found many of these walls to be lower and easier to climb. In fact, some of my walls, now, can be merely stepped over. "
I think that stage of trying to work out whether you are a cross dresser or need to go "full time" is often a question not so much of do I need to change, as can I bear not to. Certainly for me there can a stage when the wall was behind me and it was going back to trying to be "Him" that felt like climbing the wall. Eventually it just became easier to stay on the female side of that particular wall, of course that then meant another wall was in front of me."
Again! Another week has flown by. Very much a typical one on the home front.
No trips to the doctors or therapists this week, except for my recent hearing test, it looks like I will be around for awhile at the least. I hope so, I still have quite a bit to do!
I did read a couple interesting links from Bob and did send a message to a nearby LGBT organizer in Dayton, Ohio, so I can pass along his ideas. Recently, his posts have been very pro - transgender in the LGB spectrum, so we will see what will happen.
The link from Bob was called "What Do We Do About Women With a Penis?" by Cassie Brighter. It leads off with: "The Penis in Women's Spaces, the Cotton Ceiling and the Definition of Womanhood. It's a very long and well written post with several intriguing ideas from which I am going to try to pass along. Or, you can follow the link above to read it yourself.
One paragraph starts with a circle of women all cis except one transgender who become nude in a circle:
"Nineteen of these women are vulva-clad, vagina-equipped natal, cisgender women. One of these women is trans. While she might not refer to her genitals by the words 'penis' or 'testicles,' that’s what they are anatomically. And, though transformed by several years of female hormones, her genitals are likely to be understood as "male genitals" by most women present.
This is the challenge we face: Do we allow the trans gal to participate in the exercise (which includes shedding all clothes and touching one’s genitals), or do we specifically exclude her, for fear of triggering one or more of the other women?"
The post goes on to explain an answer, or answers to this complicated idea. Also, if you are wondering what the term "Cotton Ceiling" means, here is your answer:
"The term "cotton ceiling" was coined by porn actress and trans activist Drew DeVaux in 2015. It’s been used to refer to the tendency by cisgender lesbians to outwardly include and support trans women, but draw the line at considering ever having sex with them."
Finally, as I try to break this down for you, the post goes into the trans woman in "women's spaces." She (Cassie) writes:
"I beseech you, please show up with humility and patience. If a cisgender woman talks to you from privilege, acting entitled and expecting you to "mind your place," resist the urge to get mad. It might not be malice, it might just be ignorance. Be gentle in correcting pronouns, explaining trans basics, correcting misperceptions."
Later on in the post, we transgender women are referred to as "refugee's" in women's spaces.
As you can tell, there is a lot of ground covered here. Thanks Bob for sharing!
This year I am determined to not miss the Trans Day of Visibility. I can't remember why I missed it last year but I did.
The day is held on March 31st and this year, it will be held in the Cincinnati Zoo campus auditorium.
As part of my new desire to volunteer more within my larger (non VA) cross dresser, transgender support group, I volunteered to help with an information table.
It's interesting to note also, this years event is being hosted by "Living with Change." It has been set up thanks to the generous donation from the CEO of the Pure Romance Company.. "Generous" to the tune of two million dollars. The CEO just happens to have a transgender daughter and it's worthwhile reading the story by following the first link above.
Of course I asked my partner Liz to go and help too, so we are planning to have a great time!
