Party Down!

This weekend is turning out to be one of the busiest of the year. My partner Liz and I are going to two parties. Then again, who does't need a transgender woman or two to lighten up the atmosphere! Although, I don't know of any other trans peeps coming. So...

Saturday night, we are heading North to attend an annual Fourth of July party, cookout and firework show at the house of one of my oldest friends who was instrumental in helping me come out so many years ago. I was actually introduced by her daughter, who was a bartender at a venue I visited frequently.

We are staying over at a motel in Xenia, Ohio and doing a bit of shopping in Yellow Springs, a very liberal and inclusive village in the area.

Sunday night, we are going to another party up near Dayton, Ohio, hosted by another really old friend who has known me since my earliest days of my Mtf transition. This party maybe will be more interesting in that I know most of her friends are very conservative. I will steer clear of any politics, but I wonder if I will get any "cold shoulders."

The host though has always been very supportive, so I doubt if there will be any problems. Plus, I will be wearing my "Stars and Stripes" top. Which happens to fit just fine!

Wish us luck!

Our Crowning Glory

It doesn't matter, if we are transgender, cross dresser or cis woman, hair means quite a bit to us. I still feel as if I caved into pressure a bit to get my hair cut much shorter than it was. It definitely is more age appropriate and more feminine. And yes Shelle, it is so much cooler!

Here were a couple more questions I received: Plus I added another picture with a bit more contrast.

1. FABULOUSCONNIEDEEJune 27, 2018 at 5:29 PM

   "Very nice! This is after the hair coloring, though? Maybe it's the red brick wall behind you that makes it hard for me to see."
2. 
   Paula GoodwinJune 28, 2018 at 7:34 AM

   "I think that style suits you, and is actually a little more feminine than the flowing locks! I have been nervous of reverting to my natural colour because of the interim stages ~ For the next few weeks I will be sporting pink white and blue wash out stripes"
3. Thanks to both of you! Actually this cut is without coloring. My stylist has suggested I go back to my original color because it brings my eyes out so well. We are going to be able to see more when I go back in August for my next appointment. Fortunately, my hair grows really fast and if the experiment does't go well, we can go back to coloring again. 
4. Also, deep down inside, I have been wanting to lighten up my color anyhow!  As my stylist said, it may be a little less severe. 

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We Got Mail!

Thanks to three of you girls who responded to my post on the Uni-Sex bathroom at the Cincinnati Pride:

1. Mandy ShermanJune 25, 2018 at 1:08 PM

   "Sounds like a good time was had despite the issue! And that everyone was tolerant... "
   
   Mandy

   They had no choice :) but I don't think some were happy about it! All in all, it was the great equalizer.
2. 
   Michelle HartJune 25, 2018 at 3:33 PM

   "I have to agree about "T" being very evident at both the Polk Pride event and at the St Pete Pride. There were still a smathering of Queens in their getups but I saw an almost 50-50 mix of MtF as well as FtM."
3.             Great!
4. 
   
5. 
   FABULOUSCONNIEDEEJune 25, 2018 at 3:33 PM

   "It took a lot of pressure off..." So to speak. huh? :-)
   
   Here in Seattle, the big parade was yesterday. I chose, instead, to attend a "Celebration of Life" for an old friend of mine who passed away a couple of weeks ago. It seems that I could document my own transition along with the critical illnesses and deaths of family and friends over the last ten years. Each one has its own significance, and each one has led to my introduction to others who had never met me as I am (though, many of them had heard about my transition through the grapevine). Yesterday was no exception, and I guess I kind of had my own pride parade as I walked around the room with the purpose of introducing myself. Ya know, you have to have some pride in order to be able to do that!
   
   Getting the "You're so brave" comment from others seems to always come up. I try to explain that it's not so much bravery as it is the confidence I have in who I am, and, with thought of pride, I am also proud to be who I am. Some of the people I talked with would never even have considered attending a pride event, but they got a dose of it from me yesterday, anyway!
   
   The results of my efforts were mixed, but the worst I received was indifference. There was one man, a "born-again Christian," who was quite pleasant, albeit not totally accepting (I don't believe) of what I am "doing." That's fine with me, and I did receive a few hugs from others to make up for it.
   
   The last time I saw my departed friend was just a few days before he died of the terrible cancer that had ravaged his body. He was so frail, yet he made the effort to stand up and give me a big hug as I was leaving his house. This surprised me, as we had only seen each other once before since I began transitioning. Prior to that, he had had no desire to even see me. We were friends for forty years, but when he heard that I was transitioning, he apparently envisioned something disgusting and repulsive. When we did finally meet a couple years ago (at another funeral, by the way), I heard later that he'd told his wife, "Well, that was sure anticlimactic." Very shortly after that, he was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually took his life, but we still didn't meet again until just before his death. That hug we shared, though, made up for all the lost time.
   
   If there's a moral to this recounting, I think it's that we need to remember that pride is so much more than a yearly event. Being proud oneself shows through to others every day of the year, and the icing on that cake is when you learn that someone else is also proud to know you....just the way you are. "
6.             Sorry for the loss of your friends!
   

New Hair

As almost promised, a slightly wind blown look at my new hair.

Light Headed

Not "dizzy" like I am accused of quite a bit...but light headed after my visit with the hair dresser.

My new "do" is quite the change from the old one and I am minus quite a bit of hair. Of interest was a mutual decision to go back to my original hair color which by now contains a lot of silver gray. The hair dresser thought it would help to bring out my eyes more and if we didn't like it, it could always be colored again.

All in all, she said my hair was very healthy, wavy and even finer than I thought.

With a little luck, I will have a picture for you tomorrow!

Uni Sex Bathroom

Liz and I at Cinci Pride

Thanks to an unnoticed hornets nest, one of the sets of free standing bathrooms suddenly became unisex at Pride Saturday when the women's room had to be shut down. The sudden debacle was taken in stride by the line of mixed genders waiting to use the only bathroom available. Unless you wanted to walk the whole length of Pride to get to the other one. Humorously, a big roll of toilet paper was passed up and down the line for those in need.

The bathroom itself, had two stalls and three urinals. After much consideration, I decided to "take one (or give one) for the team and use an urinal for the first time in years. That way a cis woman would have a slightly quicker chance at a stall. As it turned out, no one would or could say anything anyhow.

It took a lot of pressure off and made me feel a little privileged that I still had two choices in an emergency.

As I said in an earlier Cyrsti's Condo post, the transgender "T" in LGBTQ was very evident and present at this Pride event. Paula Goodwin checked in with her perspective from "across the pond" in Britain:

 

Paula GoodwinJune 25, 2018 at 5:47 AM

So glad you had a good Pride and so happy to hear that Cincinnati manages to put the T in LGBT+. London is trying but Brighton definitely doesn't; I hope that Croydon where I chair the trustees really does include the T!

Thanks Paula!

Pride 2018

All too quickly, the Cincinnati Pride Week has come and gone.

Yesterday, my day at Pride started around 6 AM and ended well after midnight. Of all that time, approximately 11 to 9 PM was centered around our Witches Ball Booth at Pride itself.

This picture was taken just behind our tent along the Ohio River.

The main thing I noted at this years event was the sheer numbers of transgender women. Seemingly just the opposite of years ago, when all you saw were garish drag queens and the occasional cross dresser teetering around uncomfortably on impossibly high heels. At this pride the "T" in LGBTQ was very visible.

Also a big surprise happened to me when a fairly new acquaintance of mine had an extremely long chat with me about her new experience with her transgender daughter. In fact, her daughter wore a dress for the first time ever in public. She was very accepting!

Weather wise, we lucked into a very nice day. It did rain early during the parade but cleared off with highs near 80. Unfortunately, I did get a little too much sun, which my doctors tell me not to do.

So, Pride again was an all inclusive very positive experience which provided me with a very positive view of the transgender future.

Pride is Here!

At least in Cincinnati, Ohio that is. Over the years I understand, it has grown into the major event I know and this year they are expecting another record turnout. Like so many cities, LGBT Pride has turned into a week long event. Even the Cincinnati Reds (sometimes accused of being a major league baseball team) got involved.

The weather even is cooperating fairly well. High's will be in the low 80's, with the typical chance of thunderstorms. Due to my inability to stand for long wait times and then walking for over a mile, I get a privileged seat in our Official Cincinnati Witches Ball booth. Last year, I experienced tons of fun and positive interactions with the public...except the guy who thought I was Ozzy Osbourne. Over the duration of the party, we pass out information about the "Ball" which is actually a big Halloween Party and our organization as a whole.

Attire for me will be comfortable and cool, to match the weather. I plan on wearing an embroidered black tank top I have along with a pair of my distressed jeans or maybe even "Jeggings". (Legging's which look like jeans.)

Ironically, the only part of the event I dread is using the rest room. The restrooms are in a free standing building with stainless steel prison style toilets. As the day goes on, the women's room gets really gross. I keep thinking "Suck it up, Buttercup!"

All in all, if you have never been to a Pride, be sure to get to one if one is near enough to you. Times are a changing and they are as inclusive to transgender women and trans men as they once were to only garish drag queens. What I don't understand are those who complain about police being present at the Pride events. I will never forget hearing the Cincinnati Police Officer explain how last year, with the help of the Ohio Highway Patrol, they headed off a possible conflict with a man with stated goals of possible harm. It turns out he was carrying an automatic rifle.

The way I look at it though, these days, there is always a chance for some crazy to try to ruin an event and it isn't going to destroy my life!

Either way, enjoy your chance to be in an inclusive environment and enjoy yourself.

The Name Game.

Lately it seems, every time we turn around, someone is adding another letter to the LGBT moniker.

LGBT has become LGBTQ and beyond even, which I am not going to mention in this post. Oh well, why not. There is also LGBTQIA. If you wonder what all that means, "Q" is for questioning "I" is for intersex and "A" is for ally or asexual.

I still wonder though, what happened to the "C" for cross dressers?

Maybe you have to complete some sort of reality school to "graduate" up into the main lineup of letters? Also what happened to transsexuals? Remember when the all powerful Transsexuals "ruled" the roost after they climbed the gender dysphoria ladder to surgery and then disappeared? Maybe some still do, but almost all of the trans women who have gone through surgery I know these days are nice and mellow women.

Then there are the poor transvestites. Remember them? I remember explaining to a few key people in my world what the term meant. It seems pretty harmless these days. All I wanted to do was to dress like a woman. Of course, all of that started to change when the transgender term came along.

Every once in a while, I take a look at the other letters to see what they still mean to me. Although I know it drives many lesbians crazy, I consider myself a lesbian because I am a woman and live with a cis woman. I was gay "questioning" but never saw the need or desire and "Bi" is pretty self explanatory.

Finally, I am not intersex and I live with an ally.

Hopefully, I covered all the bases...I think I feel better!