A Natural Woman?

Anita Noelle Green is the current title holder of Miss Earth Elite Oregon and a 2018 Miss Montana contestant. She’s also transgender, being the third openly transgender woman ever to compete in a Miss Universe pageant program, the first in the Montana edition’s history.

When Green prepared to compete in the Miss Oregon contest, a United States of America Pageants event, she learned that her application was being rescinded and her entry fee was being returned, with their director, Tanice Smith, telling Green that ‘this is a natural pageant.’

It's not surprising ridiculous statements such as "natural" still apply to transgender women or trans men. 

Without being very in depth, there is no such thing as a "natural woman" all women are born female.  Transgender women are no different than cis women.  We were just born a different way. 

Green has filed a federal lawsuit in Portland, Oregon.

Don't Try This at Home

This comes to us via Connie and the New York Post:

"He’s a real momma’s boy.

A man was arrested in Brazil for dressing up as his 60-year-old mother in order to take her driving test for her, reports said.

The driving instructor realized the person in front of her was Heitor Schiave, 43, in a floral blouse, painted nails, make-up and a wig — and not his mom, Maria.

“He tried to be as natural as possible. He wore lots of make-up with his nails nicely done and wore women’s jewelry,” instructor Aline Mendonca told Brazilian outlet G1, according to the BBC.

Schiave apparently decided to step into his mom’s shoes after she repeatedly failed the driving exam."

Already?

I  spent a sleepless night recently thinking about many topics. After a while, my mind came to thinking about this upcoming years' Trans Ohio Symposium. After making the initial determination I was going to apply again to be a presenter, I began to think about the all important topic.

The title of the topic is so important because it draws people into your workshop. You normally compete with four others for people. If the topic sounds boring you can expect quite a few less visitors. An example was two years ago when the organizers put me in a huge round room and only five people showed up. Last year though, my workshop was in one of the smaller rooms and it was nearly full.

Very early in the process, I am thinking of doing something like this, "A transition within a transition. The cross dresser to transgender experience." I am going to the trouble of writing it down now so I won't forget it.

By the way, the Trans Ohio Symposium doesn't happen until May but the committee in charge asks for submissions early in the year.

It's probably time to get started.

Alexandra Grey

Yet another transgender woman making a difference!

From Wikipedia:

Alexandra Elisha Grey (born January 4, 1991) is an American actress and musician, best known for her role as Melody Barnes in the Fox television series Empire (2015–present). She also had recurring roles on Amazon's Transparent and currently plays Denise Lockwood on the NBC TV medical drama Chicago Med.

A Wealth of Riches

It seems recently I have been overwhelmed by the possible amount of material I have received for my Cyrsti's Condo blog. Believe me though, I am not complaining. Often I go weeks on end trying to come up with something to write about. Over the years I have somehow come up with over six thousand posts. Thanks to all of you such as Connie, Paula and Mandy who help out with content too. Then there is everyday life.

For example, Thursday night Liz and I went to the Christmas party for transgender-cross dressers and their families. I had a very good time as most of the people around our table I had known for quite a while, Several were cross dressers from small towns in Indiana who were complaining how hard it was to remain in the closet where they live. On the other hand, we were able to sit close to the very accomplished 80 year old role model I have mentioned in the blog before. She has done an amazing job of being accepted in society as her true self.

Liz did manage to take one selfie to share. I know it's not the best quality but it is all I have.

Also on the plus side, Liz managed to win the "split the pot" lottery which everyone could pay to take a chance at. So we were able to recoup the forty dollar per ticket amount.

This is just a small amount of items I want to share with you all and we will get to a couple new transgender women who are making a difference.

Plus, we have another couple of events coming up this weekend, one never knows what will happen to write about!

Alexandra Billings

From Wikipedia:

Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, teacher, singer, and activist. Billings is among the first openly transgender women to have played a transgender character on television, which she did in the 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In The Beginning.

The Past

As impossible as it is to dwell on any changes one could have made to change a life, we transgender folk seem to always do it.

Take away the fact we are trying to do one of the most impossible things to do in a life (changing a gender) and it turns out we trans people are always trying to figure out a way to have done it better.

One example is timing. Those who transitioned later in life, like me, always have the nagging ideas such as what would have happened if we would have attempted the big move earlier in life.

The easy answer for me is I probably could have accomplished so much more. I spent so much energy and torment trying to live with my gender dysphoria.

When you factor in all the outside factors such as family, society, etc, it just hurts my noggin to even think about it.

My example is if I would have followed my first finance's lead and told the Army I was gay when they came a knocking during the Vietnam War draft. She gave me the option of serving or her. As painful as it was at the time, if I had chosen her, I would have missed out on such tremendous life experiences as having my daughter and traveling over three continents in three years on Uncle Sam's dime. Now I'm happy I didn't choose her!

Still it wasn't good enough. At times I resent the years I spent just trying to live up to the macho code. I can rationalize it all now though by thinking I was just ahead of my time. I was just waiting for the world to catch up. As far as transgender community goes, the good "ol" days weren't so good. After all, I remember men being arrested for just dressing like women.

I could go on and on about the torment of growing up as a boy wanting to be a girl but none of that does any good anyhow.

Maybe I should just keep thinking about how things are, not how they should have been. I am happy where I am now. If you ever would have asked me how it all would end up to this point, I would have not believed you anyway.

Dwelling on the past is useless anyway.

Just Smile...Dammit

Do women smile more than men? And if they do, what does it mean to you?

Obviously, if you are trying to insert yourself into a feminine world, you should learn to smile more. Think about it, once you have perfectly thought of every feminine detail concerning your outfit, makeup and hair...don't forget to smile. It's the perfect accessory.

However, as with anything else which has to do with the human gender, this idea gets very complex too. I initially thought of the idea for this post after seeing a handwritten sign in my local coffee shop which said something like women smile eight times more than men. I researched and couldn't find that number but I did find an interesting article to share with all of you. It's from Slate and here is an excerpt:

"Women have to be nice. “Show me a smile” is a staple of street harassment (the ur-creep of the genre being Heath Ledger’s Joker, a lank-haired greaseball leering, “Why so serious?”) And when they are not, when they are merely impassive or thoughtful, they can be held up for mockery and branded as rude.

To ask why is to step into the laser grid of unspoken rules governing the arrangement of male and female faces—the gendered ways we police social performance. (If you’re a woman who thinks this sort of policing doesn’t happen in real life, consider whether a friend has ever yanked you from an introspective haze by asking “Are you mad at me?” She probably meant: Why aren’t you smiling?) We’ve tangled up so many notions of gender in our smiles that the presence or absence of a grin has come to imply a distinction between male and female. In one study, babies dressed in green and yellow were paraded before a group of onlookers. When the infants cooed, gurgled and smiled, the observers tagged them as girls; fretters and criers were assumed to be boys. The effect persisted when a different group of participants was presented with images of cheerful or angry adult faces. People readily identified smiling women as female and wrathful men as male, but they took longer and stumbled more often when confronted with furious female countenances or beaming male ones."

For more, follow the link above to Slate and remember, the next time a woman smiles at you when you are out and about in your cross dressed best, perhaps she is doing what comes naturally. 

You should too.

Russian Bride

From the Moscow Times:

"Authorities in Russia have registered one of the first transgender marriages in a country that positions itself as a bastion of traditional family values.

Erika Askarova and Viktor Manuilin’s otherwise ordinary wedding made national headlines after the

two posted photographs from the registry office in the city of Kazan on Dec. 12. Askarova, 30, and Manuilin, 20, told news outlets that they decided to make their relationship official months after they both changed their gender."

Reportively, Russia still classifies transgender people as mentally ill.