"Back in the Day"

At last night's transgender - cross dresser support group meeting (as predicted), I had to go "back in the day" to remind the predominately younger group of how difficult it was to even be a transvestite. As you may or may not remember, back in the fifties and into the early sixties in some places, it was a crime to even be caught dressing as a woman (if you were a man) in public. I also brought up the days before Al Gore invented the internet and how in the dark our closets became. In fact, another of one of the older attendee's mentioned the days of combing through the local library only to find a book on cross dressing, then be afraid to be seen reading it.

Indeed things are better for the average trans or cross dressing person in today's society. Even the moderator commented after her glowing remarks about going to the Pennsylvania "Keystone Conference" last week that her ugly encounter with the gender bigot actually finished with a positive experience. It seems, even the band stopped to make sure everything was fine with her.

Being the bitch that I am sometimes, I added an experience shared with me by my hairdresser with the transgender son. He is fourteen and was in the middle of his first serious relationship with a cis-girl. Everything was fine until her Mother got involved and broke them up by using the religion card. I can think of nothing worse since where they live is also where the "Leelah Alcorn" tragedy

Leelah Alcorn

happened. Leelah was the teenage transgender girl who committed suicide several years ago by stepping out in front of a semi truck on a local interstate. All because her parents wouldn't accept her...mainly for strict religious reasons.

A tragic end to such a young life.

Other than all of that, the meeting moved along well and Jennifer from Oregon was actually back for a second meeting.

It all ended on a humorous note when several of the group volunteered to take her out for a "Cincinnati Three Way." If you didn't know, Cincy is known for it's highly unique Greek/Armenian
chili. A "Three Way" is chili with spaghetti and onions. I hope she enjoyed it!

Finally, leave it to Connie to come up with this:"So, are you the Obi-Wanda-Kenobi of the support group? "

I guess so!

Support?

Tonight is the transgender - cross dresser support group meeting I go to on a regular basis. Usually when I go, I wonder what imaginable support I could give anybody. Then I started to realize I can lend a helping hand with the occasional comment and by just being there. Normally, I am considered the "elder" in the group and can add insight into how life was for trans people even before there was such a term.

I hope too, some of my insights may mean something but who knows. Perhaps I am doing it as much for me as I am for others. After all, one of my reasons for starting Cyrsti's Condo at all, was to pay forward any of my experiences which could be beneficial to anyone else.

Changing the subject, yesterday turned out to be an interesting day too. The day itself could only be described as a "raw" day. Chilly, windy and gray with very light misty rain. In the middle of it all, here our little group was huddled in a local park picnic shelter discussing the Cincinnati Witches Ball Halloween party.

At the last meeting, I asked if the leader of the group needed help setting up our usual table at Pride this June. My answer came yesterday when she slammed a couple pieces of paper down in front of me and said since I wanted to do Pride, here it was. She was so angry and stressed, she ended up quitting the group a short time later. So now, since I opened my mouth before, I am in charge of our Pride booth. It's not that big of a deal if I can get the paper work and/or promotional materials we always use.

I should have learned along time ago, don't open your mouth and volunteer, unless you want to be accepted. Besides, I always have such a great time at Pride!

"Mom" Returns

Not my Mom, if she returned from the great beyond, it would be bigger news. This post is about meeting up with the woman who you might recall, harassed me a couple times about my hair. I made the comment at the time, she reminded me of how my Mom would have approached me.

Fortunately this time, I just had my trip to my hair dresser Friday, so visually I was ready for her.

When Liz and I arrived at the outside shelter house near a nearby lake, it didn't take her long to approach me. To her credit, she was very positive about my hair which indeed made me feel better about our relationship.

Then, she asked could she tell me something and I thought now what?  She paused and said how proud she was of me for living the life I wanted to. I was taken totally off guard. Finally I managed to blurt out the truth...I appreciated her acceptance but my choice didn't come out of bravery or anything like it. I literally didn't have the chance to be brave, it was either change my life or lose it.

A day later as I look back on her comment though, I feel now as if I finally found a sense of peace with my long deceased Mom. Whose approval is what I really wanted.

Thanks to my new Mom, Monika.

The End to a Gender Transition?

At my hairdresser yesterday, she asked me a question her transgender son brought up...does a transgender transition ever end. Her son felt as if it would never stop primarily because he would have to take hormones for the rest of his life. I agreed with that plus added in for me I wondered if my Trans-PTSD would ever go away.

An example happened today. Being Saturday, I went with Liz to two of her martial arts classes and went to the grocery store. Going into today and still loving my latest hair do, I thought I was doing my best to look good.

It must have worked, because everywhere I went, I didn't have any problems. Well, actually, I did have a problem, myself. No matter how hard I tried, once again I couldn't relax and live in the moment. All of a sudden, I was no better off than when I was a beginning cross dresser so many years ago.

I still don't know how long it will take for it to ever go away. Perhaps it never will. Maybe living all those years as a guy will always imprint me.

A Quiet Week Turns Busy!

It turns out when I was laying out my week's worth of activities, I left out two important ones.

Thursday night was Liz and I's monthly visit to one of the cross dresser-transgender social club's dinner meetings. It's held in a pleasant little restaurant across the river in Newport, Kentucky which features (among other items) a very good bison burger. What I like about it too is the noise level is low enough you can have conversations with more than one person.

A smaller than average group showed up, normally, it is well over twenty. Last night it down to around twelve. Not much out of the ordinary happened except one cross dresser bragging about a licensed concealed weapon she was carrying. The same cross dresser who managed to mis gender another cross dresser at the end of the table twice.

Mention was made concerning the Cincinnati Transgender Day of Visibility. Which will be here before we know it on March 31st.

This morning was one of my favorite appointments, my hair dresser. As you may or may not remember, she is the one with the teenage transgender son. As always, the time went all too quickly and she made my hair look great.

Necklace by "Liz T Designs"

This is an older picture which closely approximates the way it looks.

Along the way, we chatted about how HRT was effecting me and why I looked better since the last time she saw me. I explained part of it was because I was wearing form fitting leggings and a light weight pastel blue sweater. Both of which are capable of showing off more of a feminine figure without any kind of padding. For whatever reason, I have always preferred a more natural feel and wearing the minimum of under garments. Finally, my hormones are beginning to shape me into having hips of my own.

Unfortunately, she told me the story of how her son (a 14 year old) had his heart broken when he lost his girl friend. Because he was trans and because of her Mother of course. So sad.

The topic led us right into politics and all too soon, the end of a wonderful hour of my life.

The Moderator

As you regulars may have noticed, I spend a lot of time here in Cyrsti's Condo posting feelings concerning what the "moderator" is up to. I suppose much of it is because I don't fully understand her feelings or I just need something to write about. In the past several months, she has dazzled me with her comments on diverse subjects as gender dysphoria, single handily trying to break the anti LGBTQ sentiment at Chick-Fil-A ...all the way to believing the whole world is a rosy place for transgender women and men to live. Even though, I don't understand or agree with her on occasion, at least she doesn't lack for opinions.

And, speaking of opinions, here is Connie:

"I find it very hard to believe that a trans woman could avoid gender dysphoria and public scrutiny, especially if she's gone so far as to take on the responsibility of being a moderator for a trans support group. She should, at least, know that the vast majority of us have suffered these things. How lucky she had been to never have had any negative experiences until just recently. 

Very few of us have complete passing privilege. I've often thought that those who do pass as a woman, without scrutiny, must have had a tough time presenting as a man. I would think that they probably got picked on and bullied for being perceived as a wimp or gay. 

I remember the ads in the back of comic books, portraying the 96 pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face at the beach. If you bought their product, you'd be all muscles by the end of the summer, and you could get your revenge. At age 11, I was about 96 pounds, but not necessarily a weakling for my age. I was, however, quite adept at transforming myself, with the help of my mother's clothes, wig, and makeup, into a fairly passable young woman (even if not a passable eleven-year-old girl). By the time I was thirteen, though, testosterone had started its evil, and my frame, hands, and musculature began making me less passable as a woman. There was no option available for me in 1962 to suppress the testosterone, let alone access to HRT. I know now that I would have done whatever I had to in order to avail myself of such. Instead, my puberty brought on a giant dose of dysphoria, as I publicly (and "publicly") worked to show myself as the "after photo" in the comic book ad, while still engineering opportunities for allowing my femininity to shine. I recall envying not only the girls, but also the boys who

apparently hadn't yet started puberty. A small number of those boys never really developed a "manly" body, but it's probably about the same chance of one out of 450 that any of them would have been trans. I would estimate, then, that the chance of a trans woman completely passing (naturally) would be no better than one in 50,000. Even though these very few could easily pass as a woman, living as the 96 pound weakling man could be awfully rough.

Being a transgender woman is a no-win proposition. No matter how well you pass as a woman, there's no escaping the fact that you were born biologically male. Even if you manage to avoid "detection" most (or even all) of the time, you will not be able to erase it from your own mind. I have always been my own worst critic, so there's not much anyone else could say to me that I hadn't already considered of myself. With it being such a rarity that a trans woman could have no dysphoria and also avoid even a disparaging word from a transphobic ass in a bar, I would say that the moderator's luck apparently had a much longer run than most of us have had. Rather than adding to the escalation, though, I would suggest only responding by telling the offender that their opinion of me is none of my business, so would they please keep it to themselves"

In all fairness to the "moderator", she took the job when the group was on the verge of collapse. .She also is an upgrade from a couple highly poiitical (amd slightly bigoted) transgender women who ran it in the past. 

Karma?

I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning the moderator of one of my cross dresser - transgender support groups. Primarily, she has a relatively cavalier attitude of how trans people in general aren't having any problems with the public. Her views went against a couple transgender women in the group who specifically were fired from their jobs for being trans.

Several times, I felt she was just looking for compliments on how well she presented. Plus, she was bragging how she could go anywhere except perhaps a biker bar without consequences.

Life changed for her Sunday night when reality set in. She was meeting a couple other trans/ cross dressing friends at a bar when they encountered a transphobic group sitting next to them at the bar. Words were exchanged including "freaks" and "it." The jerk even tried to take a picture.

The good news was she held her ground and called the guy an "ass" to his face and ultimately even got him kicked out of the venue. Fortunately, she had been going there for literally years and had built up a great amount of good will. On the other hand, the "ass" ended up getting arrested.

The moral to the story, I guess, is we never know when the ugly head of trans-phobia will raise up and temporarily ruin our life.

On the other hand we can win the battle when we are able to stand up for ourselves but all too often, bodily harm is a real threat.

Plus, I am sure the moderator has changed her idea of "universal" transgender acceptance. The challenge continues. Of course much is effected by the amount of "passing privilege" one has. An example is the moderator has quite a bit of privilege but her friends, not so much. None of that should matter but it still does. Saturday night, essentially the same group was the recipient of two bottles of wine from a neighboring table while Sunday the dreaded "freak and it" words were used.

I have my own cases of transgender "PTSD", maybe the moderator is building hers now too. Unfortunately karma still exists in our world.

Transphobia and the Social Media

Here recently, I read about a local landscape company which rejected a transgender woman at their store.

Fortunately, the incident was reported by another on a social media platform so all could be aware. I was surprised the whole incident was written about by the son (not trans) of our cross dresser - transgender support group moderator. The same one who still eats at Chick-Fil-A. I wonder now, or ever, if she will see the hypocrisy of still supporting them.

On the other hand, she will probably mention the case of the local bar owner who experienced problems from other patrons when a trans woman used the restroom. After being mentioned as being a transphobic venue on a social media post, the owner apologized and ended potential problems with a simple fix...installing a lock.

Like it or nor, it all shows the power these days of a social media post.

A Quiet Week

Not much happening this week. I have chosen not to make the one hundred plus mile journey in mostly rush hour traffic to my Veteran's Administration LGBT support group meeting. They are just going to have to make it without me.

Sometime this week I am going to have to reserve our hotel room for the Trans Ohio Symposium. I still haven't heard back yet on my workshop proposal on Mtf  gender dysphoria.  A friend of mine is making her second trip to the "Keystone Conference", A Celebration of Gender Diversity, next week in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  As a sidelight, the LGBT group I am part of here in Cincinnati is thinking of starting it's own regional conference. Which is quite a bit of work! In a previous life, I was a big part of bringing a state service club convention to my old hometown.

Also this week, I am going to have to quit procrastinating and schedule my mammogram which my Doctor's have wanted me to get done since January. I better schedule it before my Endocrinologist appointment in early April, so I won't catch any extra trouble.

Finally, we supposedly have another Cincinnati Witches Ball meeting coming up. The last one was so rough with in fighting, I just wonder if the whole thing will collapse. We will see.

I hope you all have a good week!