Coming Up

 As we are firmly into the holiday season now for many of us, once again it is time to reflect back on the affects of the season on our gender preferences. 

For the longest time, I considered Halloween to be the major holiday of choice for cross dressers and novice transgender women. To be certain, it still is as far as coming out of the closet around select family and friends. 

Now though, I have been using the holidays to remember back over my past and the effects it had on my life. 

To make a couple long stories much shorter, coming up between now and Christmas, I plan on passing along several experiences I had along the way when I actually did pass as a feminine person and did my shopping. Also, how I now view the holidays as a bigger time for me than Halloween. Halloween provided me the spring board to thinking I "probably" could make it in public as a woman appearance wise. On the other hand, my holiday shopping adventures proved to me I could live life as a woman.

In essence both holidays provided an important process towards my development as a transgender woman. 

More will be coming later.

Carla Antonelli

" Carla Delgado Gómez is a Canarian-Spanish actress who uses the stage name Carla Antonelli. She is also a noted LGBT rights activist who maintains a large support website for transgender people, and a politician serving in the Madrid Assembly, the first trans person to serve in a legislature in Spain. Wikipedia "

No Running No Hiding

 Gender dysphoria always has been my most serious competitor.

It seems my entire life, I have tried to outrun it, just pausing for the brief periods when I was able to cross dress and/or pursue my feminine self constructively in public. 

Along the way, I frenetically changed jobs and even places I lived trying to outrun myself. On the positive side, I was able to experience many different cultures (in the Army) as well as several diverse locations in the continental United States such as the metro New York City area all the way to the Appalachian areas along the Ohio River in Southern Ohio. 

Fortunately, most of my job changes led to upward momentum in my career field I made very few lateral moves. Ironically, at the same time, I was refining my cross dressing to the point where I could almost present comfortably as a feminine person in public.

All of success of course did nothing to sooth my gender dysphoria. In fact, it made it worse. The more I succeeded, the more I wanted to. Increasingly, dysphoria was making my life more and more miserable as I struggled to keep my genders separate. I found myself consciously trying to walk like a woman when I was working as a macho man. Not a good idea.

Instead of giving in to the "dark side" and accepting my strong feminine side, I persisted which led me down the ugliest part of my life which should have been one of my happiest. My wife at the time knew I was cross dressing but never ever accepted me taking the next step and beginning hormone replacement therapy. Instead of doing the courageous thing and gracefully ending the relationship, I began to sneak out as a woman and try to lie about it. Through it all, I was and am a terrible liar and was in constant trouble. As I have written here before, my gender dysphoria ultimately led me to a very serious suicide attempt. 

From there I decided to retreat back to my male self and save the relationship. It worked, even though I was miserable. Tragically, I didn't have to wait long for my life to change. My wife suddenly passed away a year later. It was an extremely dark period in my life when I lost several other close friends also. 

Finally, I gave in to my feminine side and went back to cross dressing as much as I could. As I "gave in" to my natural self, I didn't have to run and hide anymore. What a relief. The more I learned about transgender humans, I knew I found what I had been looking for. I was tired of running.

Manuela Trasobares

 As a politician and trans woman, Manuela Trasobares  is the first Spanish transsexual town councilor in Geldo with the political party Acción Republicana Democrática Española (Spanish Democratic Republican Action).

Say What?

 Somewhere in the past I remember hearing that any publicity is good publicity. Most certainly the idea is not true when it comes to the transgender community. I was going to add the entire LGBT community into the idea but decided not to. After all most of them decide to ignore the trans part of the gay, lesbian and bisexual communities until they suddenly need us for something. In fact, I don't know how we began to be included in the first place. It probably came from the days when cross dressers and transgender women went to gay bars for "safety."

Then again, there are the lingering affects of the Jerry Springer type shows which did damage to an already fragile transgender image.

This quote which comes from "The Age" in Australia sums up to a differing degree what trans folks are facing now with the seemingly flood of new transgender stories:

"  We trans people are endlessly spoken about, as though we were children or animals rather than fully-fledged humans expert on our own lives. The ‘trans issue’ is reduced to what cisgender people feel about transness, leaving little room for trans knowledge and experience. This is similar to the centering of white people – at the expense of Indigenous and Black voices – that too often characterizes conversations about race. Again and again, discourse about marginalized communities remains dominated by the instigators of that marginality.

It’s not that cis people can’t be useful trans allies; cis folks can and do use their platforms to advocate for trans rights. This is valuable work. The problem comes when cis voices become a deafening chorus that drown out trans perspectives."

Ironically, other problems can occur when a transgender person becomes too comfortable and decides to for all intents and purposes goes stealth. Every voice in the chorus is needed to present the trans perspective.

After all, we worked so very hard to arrive at the place we are. 

Cyrsti's Condo Quote of the Day

 

Her Story

 Richards not only starred in Her Story, she also co-produced it. The show went on to receive an Emmy nomination back in 2016. But more importantly, Richards, who has since appeared on TV series like Nashville, Better Things, and Tales of the City, has been working hard to promote trans visibility.

She founded an organization called Trans 100, which works to honor and recognize trans people and businesses that are doing positive things for the community. She has also been an advocate for pushing producers to cast actual trans people in trans roles. Her picture is below.

Another Supreme Court Win

 From "CNN":

"The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a case from parents in Oregon who challenged a public school's policy allowing a transgender student to use the bathroom that corresponded with his gender identity.

The petition was considered a long shot because of several complicated threshold issues, including the fact that the policy had been put in place five years ago for one student -- referred to as "student A" -- who has since graduated from the high school located in Dallas, Oregon. At issue was an individualized plan drawn up specifically for "student A."

In declining to take up the petition, the justices left in place an appeals court decision earlier this year that held that the school's policy intended to "avoid discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of transgender students."

Good news indeed!

Jamie Clayton

 Honored by Out magazine back in 2011 for being one of the top transgender personalities, Jamie Clayton (below)has been portraying transgender characters for the last decade, starting off with HBO series Hung in 2011.

She has also done work to help young kids going through the confusing stages of their lives and gender identities by narrating the young adult novel George about a transgender girl. Sense8, the Netflix series that garnered Clayton an even bigger following than she already had is one of many that fans believe was cancelled far too soon. It has since developed a cult following.