Fashion, Style and the Trans Girl

Transgender, cross dresser and genetic women alike all are effected by fashion and style.  For the sake of simplicity, let's define fashion as the "concrete" basics of clothing, shoes, accessories etc.  Style is the innate ability to put fashion together.

To be sure, this whole process at once can be the most challenging and fun part of being a girl, or a way ticket to frustration. For better -or worse- fashion/style is dropped into our laps as we enter the world of the high maintenance gender and one of the initial reasons we came snooping.

Most of us can remember a certain girl or woman in our past we wanted to emulate.  We yearned to be the girl next door in a frilly Easter dress or a sleek Prom gown. It just couldn't be that difficult to put those feminine images together, right?  Wrong!

Sooner more than later we learned the "angst" of trying to not do an effective Bozo the clown impression in a dress.  Of course a huge problem was not having Mom or girlfriends contributing to a positive outcome. Self taught fashion/style takes a lot of work and finances. It is not easy maintaining dual gender wardrobes, most of the time under lock and key.

Luckily today our options have exploded.  Plus size clothing has grown ever so stylish over the years, discount purchase options have exploded and self help guides are everywhere on line and on television. Along the way cross dressers and transgender women have even become a desired potential market for cash hungry retailers.

No matter what anyone may think, nothing has really changed though for me in the challenge of making myself as fashion/style successful as possible. Plus it excites me the process will always be a fluid one which changes with the seasons and age.

Interestingly, I can't even figure out the right colors to paint my house trim but I can color coordinate from my fingernails to my clothes, jewelry and shoes. If you ask me why, the only answer I can come up with is how closely I watched and watch the rest of the feminine population for most of my life. Once I figured I wasn't dressing for men but instead women, I was on a better path to success. Why?

My best example is my own days of squeezing into too tight or too short clothes and blissfully attacking the world. My problem was I was trying to duplicate what I often admired as a guy looking at women.  None of it worked because of course I didn't have the body for what I was trying to do.  Finally, even I recognized women do dress for each other and if I was to be included I would have to also.

Safe to say I (along with the vast majority of the female population) will never be an Andrej Pejic. (right) But on the other hand, I love the lure of the hunt for fashion pieces which fit my style on a budget I can afford.

It's also safe to say this entire process has been and will be an incredible amount of fun and lends all the "pizzazz" I thought it would to my life as a transgender woman!

Halloween Countdown

Today is Friday the 13th and my lazy non mouse catching black kitty is staring at me, so it must be time here in Cyrsti's Condo to pass along a Halloween video. What the hell, the big box stores around here are already pushing Christmas lay away so why not? After watching this video, I'm guessing David has since spent more time "transitioning"!

 

Cyrsti's Condo "Quote of the Day"

"Plan B... when the end result is not the end result."

cyrsti hart

OMG! Low "E" in Men?

I believe one of the fasted growing "feel good" medical fields is the treatment of low "T" (testosterone) in men. Everyday on any given number of radio stations I listen to, I hear the plea to "get your number checked" - your "T" number.  Similar to genetic women in the menopause years it seems men lose their "T" along with their virility.

I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo about secretly desiring to have my "T" checked and when the number comes back as very low, start celebrating and run out of the office.

It turns out now, the same insecurities men carry about being effeminate may come back to haunt them again. Read this from the Associated Press:

"TV ads tout testosterone treatments for "low T," but surprising new research shows a different hormone may play a role in less sex drive and more fat as men age. Estrogen — the female hormone — is needed by men, too, and the study gives the first clear evidence that too little of it can cause certain "male menopause" symptoms."

Can you imagine sitting in the "T" clinic and getting your scripts to be all manly and virile again and as you are leaving someone calmly also gives you a script for estrogen?

Is there a conflict of interest there?  Me thinks the idea will not be discussed with the boys over beer and wings. Yep, the same ones who are afraid of the "side effects" of developing breasts when their wife offers them a Midol for pain.

Just a thought!

Not a Sprint - a Marathon

All too often we read the sad story of a person in our community who thought running off to Thailand for SRS would represent an end to their the MtF transitioning process. In fact, as they later discover,  their transition may have only been the beginning and they are miserable.

The process truly is a marathon, not a sprint. Take a quick look at this video example of an eight year transition on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas?

To be sure the phrase wasn't true for "Transtasia"! On the Cyrsti's Condo big screen, a look back at a classic video featuring the late Jahna Steele:

It's Three AM

Through the magic of "Blogger" land, I finally learned long ago I can "store" up posts and publish them here in Cyrsti's Condo at my leisure.

This post is actually being written at 3 in the morning.  About an hour ago my dog figured she heard something out of place and rose to the occasion with a couple of "woofs". Since she is very old (14) and barking is an effort for her, I pay attention.

These days, the possibility of a threat (real or imagined) is different for me.  I'm not the fairly sizable macho person anymore. I never really was you understand but felt it was one of those so called "male privilege" gifts which come with the gender.  With a loud dog or so at my side and a big stick I could bluff my way through.

Three in the morning comes one of two ways.  The first is what the hell am I doing up.  The second is why do I have so much clarity now?.Of course it helps that I'm semi retired and don't feel the old pressure to go back to sleep now and face the reality of twenty cups of coffee later.  All semi retirement really means  I still work more than I did but on my own schedule. Unlike the rest of the world an afternoon "kitty nap" can be a reality.

My clarity this morning quickly moved past the realization that I was not the man I used to be (Duh!). I took a moment to reflect what exactly I had become. Was I still me? Not so long ago I was ashamed to be me and felt feeling at all comfortable with my male past made me an impostor somehow in the transition process. As I'm finding now though, taking the pressure off of who I wasn't, is making life so much easier today. Me is still me without the gender pressure and now there is the physical process adding to a vastly different external me..

Early in the HRT process it seemed the minimal amount of hormonal dosage caused a real noticeable effect. Within months, I noticed changes in my skin texture, breast tenderness and growth and the beginnings of a really full head of hair. Along the way, emotional changes as well as a broken body thermostat became as evident as my first large hot flash. I was too cold when I was cold and too hot when I was hot.

The most frustrating part of the past year and a half though, was stabilizing my dosages and making steady progress. Now that I have been there for the past three months or so, I have made the transition into androgyny. I garner attention now if I'm dressed as a guy or a girl.  Going braless has taken up a whole different meaning for me now.

Changes are becoming less dramatic and smoother and I have been very surprised with the amount of mental changes still taking place versus the physical ones.  An example I wrote about recently was football day at my girlfriends neighborhood tavern.  To the seeming surprise of no one else, I made sure our game was on the big screen, helped order and used the rest room...as a girl. As I have thought for awhile, gee, this is how life is supposed to be but a half century of conditioning to the contrary still makes a process a wondrous experience.

I have always been a pusher my whole life. Once I reached a certain plateau, what's next ? The clarity of 3 AM tells me I need to relax and enjoy what I have now. Believe me I have been as obsessed as most of us ( from cross dressers to SRS transsexuals).  As a cross dresser I always thought if I just had that special dress or wig or whatever I would be in feminine nirvana. Now it's easy to think the lure of hair removal, facial feminization or breast augmentation will take me to the next level. Nirvana it turns out was close all the time and residing in my noggin. Can't say any of the procedures wouldn't be a worthwhile deal but I won't live or die without them.

When we are born we start the trip towards death and at my age I'm fortunate to have been able to live the "impossible" transgender dream before it was too late for me. I don't believe in luck but I do believe in doing your best to put yourself in a situation where luck can find you..."Hey Lady Luck! I'm your BFF Cyrsti, Yoo Hoo!.

As you can tell, my brief shot at clarity is coming to an end and the reality of the early morning is telling me to not question - just enjoy and go back to bed.

Or it could be I'm  getting chilled after a 90+ degree day. The early  breezes should feel good on me! Damn hormones!

Cross Dressing in Venice

A romantic respite with a beautiful girl in Venice on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

He Likes Them Trans and Beautiful

From the "Daily News" in NYC:

" Taylor Murphy (left), eyeing
return to FDNY, loses retrial bid after assault conviction involving transgender model The former firefighter, convicted of assaulting one-time ‘America’s Next Top Model’ hopeful Claudia Charriez (below), showed up at court with two-time contestant Isis King, the first transgender competitor to appear on the show. Read more here.