Transgender Veteran!

Avalisa Gallo served four years in the Air Force before leaving the military to complete her MtF gender transition.

Now, she is the first transgender Nebraskan to compete for a national pageant crown. The pageant she is competing in is called the  All-American Goddess. It's the  first pageant system to allow all types of transgender men and women to compete nationally. 

"People don't see me as a woman, that's the issue," said Gallo. "In Omaha, there's not a lot of trans women of color that are out and being visible and that's because its not safe."

She's since been advocating for transgender rights. She reads to children in the community focusing on the book, 'I am Jazz,' a story about a transgender girl. She also has a video blog where she opens up about her journey.

Good luck Avalisa!

In Between Post

As I wrote about previously here in Cyrsti's Condo, I am right in the middle of a very busy week. Yesterday, I had a therapist appointment, one Doctor's appointment and a support group meeting.

All went well and I even was able to negotiate the eighty mile return rush hour trip through two cities which included being stopped for at least ten miles in more stop than go traffic.

Other than that, the only perceived problem I had was my hair. I washed it the day before and didn't bother to brush it out enough before I left. Then, I forgot my brush and had no way to get my waves back under control. Needless to say, I survived.

My therapist appointment went as predicted. We always end up talking more about other things than about me. Which, I guess is a good thing. Fortunately, right now, my demons aren't chasing me as much as they did in the past. The Doctor's appointment had as much to do with it as anything. She prescribes the meds I take to control my bi-polar disorder.

The LGBT support group meeting was interesting as always. A very unique small group of people attended. Including a transgender woman formerly from Alabama who served on a submarine. One trans person of color, a retired ally cis man and a couple gender fluid folks. Really different than the cross dresser - transgender support group meetings I attend here in Cincinnati.

The in between part of this post comes with the fact I am attending my Grand-daughters graduation tonight again up in the Dayton, Ohio area. In order to pull this off with only one car, we had to rent one (car) for the trip.

I think I have a pretty nice outfit picked out with my long black embroidered skirt paired with an embroidered boho style sleeveless top and my fancy black flats. Due to a total lack of decision making with the family groups involved, we are all supposed to meet a couple hours early for tailgate eats before the actual graduation.

Due to my excessive HRT hormones, I probably will do my share of crying :).

A Busy Week

This week is turning out to be a busy one.

Today (Monday) has turned out to be a rush day in order for Liz to get into one of her Doctor's early this afternoon. We will no more than turn around from her trip this morning into her office for her evaluation, then we will have to go back in the same area for her appointment. It was a rush job because she has been trying to get into her Doc for two weeks now. They just happened to have an opening this afternoon.

Tuesday is going to be very busy, I have three appointments at the Dayton, Ohio VA Medical Center. Which includes a support group meeting. I haven't been to this group for awhile due to having to drive back in extreme rush hour traffic. At least this time, I have been able to schedule all the appointments the same day. The other two appointments are with my therapist and the Doctor who prescribes my Bi-Polar meds.

While we are on the subject of meds, I finally did get a call from my endocrinologist nurse saying my Potassium level was back tn normal and she asked the strength of estradiol patches I was on. So maybe I am still in the running to have my dosage increased slightly.

Moving on to Wednesday, I have figured out what I am going to wear to my Grand-daughter's high school graduation. Because we still haven't purchased another car yet, I am going to rent on for the eighty mile trip (one way) to meet the rest of my daughter's family. Being the efficient person I am not, I still have to pick up a graduation card and a gift.

Once I get past the graduation, the rest of the week seems to be very mellow. Although, what we are doing Saturday is still undetermined.

My Transgender Reality

First of all, I would like to thank Charlotte for her comment to a Cyrsti's Condo post from last May. The comment was why don't I just kill myself. The quick answer is I tried that once and happily I failed.

My reality these days revolves basically around my family. And, to a lesser extent the public's perception of me  Examples include a forthcoming trip Wednesday to my grand-daughter's graduation.  Then yesterday we went to a new deli we haven't been to before. Not much happened except one of the younger guys couldn't quite seemed to keep his eyes off of me. I can never tell if he was fascinated by me, or managed to figure out I was transgender.

As I have been told a couple times in my life, it isn't all about me. So, I try to keep that in mind too.

It's interesting too, since Liz has lost nearly 120 pounds, her reality has changed also. She has explained to me she still is a heavy over weight person in her mind and it is hard to shake.  I am sure in the dark recesses of my mind, I will always be fearful of presenting as a guy in a dress.

Digging deeper, my latest paranoia revolves around an unanswered phone call I received from my endocrinologist. Now I am worried she is going to want to play around with my estradiol (estrogen)dosage.  My reality is I have grown so used to the changes in my body, I don't want to go back. She, My Doc, has already decreased my "Spriro"  which was prescribed to decrease my testosterone. She cut my dosage due to my potassium being too high.

One way or another, I will follow her advice.

Regardless of Charlotte's advice, I don't want to kill myself.

It's my reality!

New?

As you have all probably noticed, I am trying out new Blogger platforms for the Cyrsti's Condo blog.

As with anything new, it is a learning experience, so even I don't know what to expect. Also, I have been sharing some of my posts to a Word Press format too.

I just felt everything was getting a little stale on the blogging front.

Vampires

I guess I didn't go into the specifics enough when I wrote a couple days ago here in Cyrsti's Condo about my latest trip to the Dayton, Ohio Veteran's Administration Medical Center. Callie wrote in and commented:

"I'm glad all is well Cyrsti. I'm in Dayton as I write this and it appears to be a pretty conservative community. It sounds like you were treated well however. Sorry you had to go for a second pint. I suppose you just can't go to the local pub to get it replaced :)"

I was lucky Callie and only had three vials of blood drawn for my laboratory  tests.  Had I had two pints taken, I may have had to find the nearest pub! :)

As far as Dayton being conservative, the town has come a long way in it's acceptance of the LGBTQ community.  In fact, both Dayton and Toledo, Ohio were recently named as LGBTQ friendly medium sized citiies in the country. 

I hope you were treated well too in Dayton!

Transgender School

On the Road Again

Yesterday was what I call "Blood Day" at the Dayton, Ohio Veterans Administration Medical Center. It was my three month visit to hematology to check the iron levels in my blood. If the iron goes too high, they have to take a pint out. Which is not my favorite time.

Normally, I am mostly upbeat about my treatment from the VA. Yesterday turned out to be the exception though. Of course, most of you know, or have guessed by now I am a transgender veteran.

Before I go to hematology, I have to have blood labs taken, so without fail I did that and stopped at the cafeteria afterwards to eat. I was starving since I had to fast before the labs and I had no breakfast. Plus I had to wait an hour for the results of the blood work to come back. By this time, I was feeling good about myself. I was dressed nice in my red sweater, red patterned paisley leggings and black flats. Even my back felt fairly good after all the walking.

Surprisingly, breakfast was good (or I was just that hungry) and I headed up to hematology. Little did I know, I would soon be reliving a part of my Army days. Hematology told me the lab vampires had taken the wrong samples and I would have to go back and do the whole process again. Fortunately, the line to get my labs taken again was not very long. I repeated the process and headed back to hematology to wait, and wait and wait.

At least the two hours came out with a good ending. My iron was at an acceptable level again. Plus after a little research, we found I have not had to have any blood taken since last November. So, after my next appointment in three months with the Doc, hopefully I will be able to do away with the three month scheduling all together and just come every six months.

So maybe the old Army "hurry up and wait" theory was worth it after all. It's just another two hours of my life I will never get back.

Victory!

Hard fought victories are so hard to come by these days but yet, they keep on coming.

First, a little background on our featured transgender actress Nicole Maines from Cyrsti's Condo reader Leann:

Nicole Maines

"IF one does not know her story, it is an interesting one. She and her twin brother lived in Maine when her school refused to let her use the ladies room. She (her parents) sued and eventually won the right to do so. Her family had to move during the litigation due to harassment. Her case was the first successful case of its type in the USA. One interesting story I heard her father tell was that one night he was having dinner with a group of Generals and Admirals. They started asking about families and Wayne said: "I have a set of IDENTICAL twins, one boy and one girl." Apparently, the big wigs took a moment to think about that one. Rumor has it that there may have been smoke coming off of their heads :).

Please...see:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Mainesor https://bangordailynews.com/2014/12/01/news/bangor/nicole-maines-transgender-student-maine-lawsuit-ends-with-order-telling-school-to-allow-bathroom-access-based-on-gender-identification/"

And , from Indiana: A Dad's campaign forces school to drop policy humiliating transgender son. "Brian Thomas" launched a petition on May 7th when his son's school in Ft. Wayne was refusing to use his new name at graduation.  The petition tallied more than 14,000 signatures and forced the school administration to reverse it policy and not "dead name" Wyatt at graduation. Great!

Wyatt

When I see successes of young transgender women and men such as these, the future becomes brighter!