Putting a Roof on Your House

Since we have been spending all this time in Cyrsti's Condo discussing the walls we have to climb as we attempt one of the most difficult transitions a human can make...changing genders. It's time to move on.

Let's assume now, we have built and climbed our four walls, and now it's time to build a roof to keep the rain (or tears) off our bodies.

Hopefully all your doors and windows work well and the light is finally illuminating the dark closet you have been living in.

One thing about our transgender transition is, it never seems to be over. As we build our roof, it's time to decide to change our gender markers. Changing your gender markers varies deeply from state to state and country to country (for you international readers.)

Old Halloween picture ...super red drag wig and dear friend!

For example, here in my native Ohio, most gender marker changes were relatively painless and simple...until you get to Ohio's ridiculous rules on birth certificates. Here, we are not able to change our birth gender at all. I do know one person who is threatening to take the system to court because she was declared pregnant by the Veteran's Administration following her blood tests. I will let you know how it goes.

Speaking of the "VA", even the system there wasn't too hard to work in my advantage and now I'm listed as "female" in the system.

So, if you consider gender markers being my transgender roof, I have gone as far as I can in getting things done and secure. Every once in a while, my dead name will show up on something, but not often.

As with any structure though, your work and upkeep seems to be never ending. I'm sure we will have more to come!

Spring on the Mind

Even with a winter weather advisory for our area here in Ohio for tomorrow, today's bright sunshine and mild temperatures have me thinking ahead towards Spring.

Now I have the "Transgender Day of Visibility" and "Trans Ohio Symposium" to plan ahead for. Even though "TDoV" is only a week away, I am still planning on attempting to put together new outfits for both.

This morning, as I sometimes do, I received another spring fashion update from one of my fave sites, "Fabulous After 40'"

I loved this ensemble and thought I would pass it along:

Here is your link for more!

Listening With Your Eyes?

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 Devil Made me Do It!

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:

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEMarch 20, 2018 at 5:23 PM

"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."

Thanks!

Is It Time?

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.

Spooky

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.

Such is life!

Spring?

Old picture with short hair.

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 Administration  which 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! 

Cyrsti's Condo Quote of the Day

"To become the woman I am,

I had to murder the men in me."

Jessica Semaan 

When You Fall Off the Wall

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."

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEMarch 16, 2018 at 1:59 PM

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. "

Paula GoodwinMarch 17, 2018 at 4:54 PM

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."

Thanks! All you fellow climbers.