It Takes Time

I went to a very sparsely attended cross dresser - transgender support group meeting recently. Due to the holidays, only eight attended. Out of the eight though, I was amazed at the diversity represented under the trans umbrella.

We had one person who attended who is is only three weeks away from going under the knife for genital realignment surgery on one end of the spectrum, all the way to a gender fluid person who still is exploring which way she wants to lead her life. I used the feminine pronouns because she did when I saw her.

Then there was one of the board members who is slowly coming out to her family accompanied by another who described herself as a stay at home house wife, who brought Christmas cookies. Of course there was me. I live full time as a woman but have no desire to have any surgery done in my future.

Finally, there were two first time attendees. One of which is moving to Cincinnati from the Phoenix area and the other who I can only describe as a grumpy old man. Along the way he tried to pull the age card which didn't work with me. It turns out we were the same age and he was another Viet Nam war era vet. I wondered just why the hell he was there until he said he was looking for a surgeon to do GRS on him. Chances might be dim though since he just went through open heart surgery.

I wondered how much time he has spent living in the feminine world. You may remember you used to have to prove you had lived as a woman for two years before surgery would be considered. I don't see the need for that but then again I would think a person would want to try a gender "test drive" before going to the extreme of changing the equipment.

Not long ago I wrote a post discussing my own progression from cross dresser to transgender woman and Paula commented:

"There is so much difference between dressing up glam to go out and have fun and living a regular every day life. I will admit to missing some of the thrill of going out cross dressed. Sure there was an element of fear in that excitement, but was so much fun.

I thought I would never be free of the compulsion that drove me to cross dress, but it is nearly six years since I last cross dressed, I can in all honesty say that since I first "went full time" I have felt no inclination to furtively buy a pair of brogues dress up in masculine clothes and sneak out hoping the neighbors won't see me." 

I agree with you Paula. I believe when you go "full time" you really join the cis women of the world. An example would be my partner Liz, who is a cis woman. She works at home and spends most of her time in jeans and sweaters as I do. On the other hand it is great fun to get dressed up for a holiday party. The party was a reminder too of my long ago cross dressing days when get dressed up was mandatory.

Learning life as a trans woman just takes time!

Love!

Spreading a bit of love here in Cyrsti's Condo as we approach 2020:

Is Cross Dressing an Addiction?

Back in the day, I did consider the allure of cross dressing to be an addiction. Seemingly, the more I admired myself in the mirror, the more I wanted to do it. If it was only an addiction though, why did it lead to leading a full time life as a transgender woman?

As with anything else which happens when you tinker with human gender, all of this gets very complex. In my case I think gender dysphoria played a major role. When I cross dressed for a brief amount of time, I was able to relieve the gender pressures I was experiencing but only for awhile. When I "rebounded" back to my day to day male existence I was usually depressed and often mean.

It literally took me years to understand what was really going on in my life. Slowly but surely as I continued to become a more accomplished cross dresser and explore a feminine public existence, I began to feel more natural as a woman. Ironically, at the same time, more and more information on being transgender was becoming more accessible. It seemed, gender doors were being magically being opened for me when I was ready for them.

All of this became even more intense the closer I came to coming out full time. Factors such as the extremely tragic passing of my wife coupled with the Veterans Administration suddenly deciding to accept and treat transgender veterans allowed me more opportunity than ever before to attempt a Mtf gender transition.

As they say, the rest turned out to be history. I succeeded far better than I ever could have imagined.

Now, as I like to do, is present another viewpoint on cross dressing addiction from Connie:

"Remember that old cigarette commercial, with the slogan: Are you smoking more, and enjoying it less? Well, for many - including myself, at one time, the question might be: Are you cross dressing more, and enjoying it less? Not that cross dressing is an addiction, but it can certainly be intoxicating. For myself, it was not the act of cross dressing that seemed an addiction, even if I did spend a lot of time considering the possibility that it was. My addiction, though, was actually all of the conniving I did in order to cross dress. I was only fooling myself into believing that I had everything under control, when, in doing so, I was destroying everything and everybody important to me. That's probably the top indicator of any kind of addiction, and my transition really began when I finally realized what I was doing; I'd reached my "rock bottom." I dislike labeling and defining stereotypes, but I never was a cross dresser. I cross dressed to survive, and then I transitioned to thrive. While I may still hold some admiration for cross dressers who can easily compartmentalize their male and female lives, it just is not who I am. I also admire those who realized early-on that transitioning was what they needed to do. I don't recommend doing it the way I did, as my "transition within a transition" truly came down to "cross dressing more and enjoying it less."

As always thanks to all of you for taking the time to visit Cyrsti's Condo and to Connie for the comment!

Merry Christmas!

I hope this holiday season finds you with your blood family or chosen family and you are not alone.

If you are be sure you can change your life for the better. Reach out to the nearest LGBTQ center and see if they can help!

Thanks for stopping by the blog and I wish you the best of the season!

Cyrsti

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!