Cyrsti's Condo "Drag Star?"

Jared Leto in drag. (Love the belt!)

Good Questions

One of the few Image/Beauty sites I subscribe to is Ginger Burr's Total Image Consultants.  I have always enjoyed her site because it speaks to me in so many ways.

Example? How about these:

1. What would you say to your 20 year old self?
2. The key's to feeling "Authentically Beautiful"
3. And- Who taught you how to dress?

Of course Ginger Burr most likely will never know how close this information comes to the hearts of me and transgender women and cross dressers everywhere. Even, maybe more so than the average "generic woman." Here is why.

Number one.-I would say to me to "get it over with" jump off the gender cliff and transition. Build my life and never look back. 

Number two is HUGE if any of us are going to obtain the most "passing privilege" we can find. After all, we have to work so much harder to earn our place in the feminine world. Primarily by looking like we aren't trying. I have always said in my case, when my hair grew long enough I could shed my wigs, my authenticity went up too.

Number three ties in nicely with two. Our problem is WE taught ourselves how to dress. We didn't have the benefit of having a gaggle of girlfriends to talk clothes with or a Mom to critique us. Plus, in many cases, we have to "jump" age brackets. Meaning, not dressing like a teen girl when we are in our 40's or not blending into society by wearing 4" heels to shop in the produce section at my supermarket. Finally, years ago, the problem I had with women in my life was they wanted to "create me in their image." Sure I made mistakes but finally ended up with my own personal style.

Ginger Burr's site is but one of many many places available on line now where we can all go for ideas on working with our best features. Most certainly trans women and cross dressers occupy a unique spot between the binary genders. You know though, if we pay attention and don't get discouraged, the "hot" seat becomes much "cooler."

Cyrsti's Condo - Date Night????

Unidentified cross dresser Pinterest

Jim!!! If you really want to be a girl, come on, you are going out to the clubs with my girlfriends tonight!!!! You may want to smile, your blind date is coming too!

I am Just a Blank Page

Several times here in Cyrsti's Condo recently I have mentioned my upcoming workshop at this years Trans Ohio Symposium. Surprising, I remember my pledge to myself and Liz last year to be less of a "talking transgender head" jabbering away in front of a group of mixed people. By mixed I mean a predominance of "more mature" questioning transgender or "exploring" cross dressers mixed with spouses searching for a little look at what could be one of the biggest decisions of their lives. Changing gender.

The process is especially difficult as we know for many of us seniors who have spent a life with (what I just heard it called) testosterone poisoning. Precious passing privilege is tough to come by. All of those factors combine to make me an unlikely or maybe highly likely trans woman to talk about all of this.

First of all, the Trans Ohio Symposium percentage wise has fewer "older" attendee's and even fewer of those who identify as a woman. The weekend conference is heavily balanced towards a younger group and many of them transgender men. But that's all good. I don't need an auditorium full of people to fulfill some sort of an ego trip. Just a few connections would be fulfilling. Realistically I know we senior transgender women could be the largest segment of the entire trans spectrum still heavily closeted.

So, this year, instead of the convoluted agenda I submitted for approval; I am going to pass out a blank piece of paper and pencil to everyone. On the paper of course they need to write down what they want to learn from the hour.  (My last two workshops have been the quickest hours of my life.)  Plus, I am going the extra distance to offer my partner Liz as an extra contact to spouses and significant other generics. What else is she going to do? (Kidding) Also, I am going to print a "before" picture of me from the blog-so attendee's can see how far (or not) I have come.

I look at it this way. I have no problem of jabbering for an hour on the whys and hows of my Mtf transition and still miss someone's most important question. HRT alone can fill an hour!

At the least-we will see how many of the attendees ask for my crayons!

Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Edition"

Ker Plunk! The Mother's Day edition has hit your virtual front porch! It's a beautiful warm Sunday here in Southwestern Ohio but I know approximate 50 tornadoes hit the center of the country yesterday-so I pass along good vibes and safety to all of you! Let's get started!

Phote:Jay Dunn

Page One: The Week that Was-or Wasn't: Once again we went on the transgender roller coaster ride with trans youth. Tragically, yet another transgender young woman was bullied into committing suicide while Angie Esteban became Salinas High's (California) first transgender student to be crowned prom queen.

Even though we keep taking the step forward and then a step backwards- the one constant is, we are not going away.


Page Two: Mama's Day.- Here we are again, it's Mother's Day and as my Mom always said "Life is like a roll of toilet paper-the closer you come to the end-the faster it goes." 

Very simply, we all have a very special link to our Mothers' some good-some not so much. I have also told you all the story of when I came out to my Mom as a transvestite and she recommended electro shock therapy. It took me years (she has been gone for 20 years) to come to my own peace with her. In fact, I am going to use her name as my middle name when I change my gender markers. Why? Let's use Leelah Alcorns Mom as an example. 

When you compare the times we came out, the information base was so different. At the least my Mom would never had access to the info Leelah's Mom had. Of course, there will be no way to ever tell. So Mom-thanks for fighting through all the birthing problems you had before me. (And trying again!)  Thanks Mom, for instilling into me the basic moral compass I have and the will power to finally be who I am. You probably won't agree with the paths I took but I think you would have agreed with your final result! 

Page Three: The Back Page.-  Again I hope where ever you may be, I hope you are safe and sound! This week, again I'm hoping to play with some minor layout changes here in Cyrsti's Condo! Thanks for stopping by to take a look!

No One Does it Better?

On Friday night the annual Miss Tiffany Universe competition took place, an event which was also shown on Thai National TV Channel 7.

The Beauty pageant, which features only transsexuals, featured 30 contestants from around Thailand who battled to become the 2015 winner.

After 3 hours of competition, the winner was announced and won 120,000 Baht in cash, a new car and other prizes, totaling over 1 Million Baht. The lucky winner was Khun Sopidar aged 22, a student at the Rachapat University in Ayutthaya Province.

PBS  I was fortunate enough to be able to catch Kumu Hina.  

It tells the story of Hina Wong-Kalu, a transgender hula teacher. She brings to life Hawaii's traditional embrace of of manu - or those who embody both male and female spirit. 

It is yet another tie in with many ancient/tribal twin spirit traditions which have been so tragically forgotten. Often to the point of religious motivated violence. Also, to those of you who think too many transgender documentaries are tied to those with tons of passing privilege-this is not it. 

Follow the link above for more! 

Cyrsti's Condo "Cover Girl of the Day"

Yasmine Petty is an American trans woman model of Moroccan and Italian descent.  She (Petty) mostly works as a runway and editorial fashion model.

Can't I Be the Butch?

With all due apologies to the multi layered lesbian community, yesterday, I wanted to and got to be the "butch" in Liz and I's relationship. (She is generic and identifies lesbian.)

She was off from her job yesterday and after we finished a few chores she asked if I wanted to take the dogs for a walk.

I said sure, just give me a second to put earrings on plus a tiny bit of makeup and off we went.

Life is good.