I need advice

I have ordered my first batch of hormones, low dosage, for experimental reasons. Shrink approved.

Want to see how it affects my emotional center.

For all you transitioning peeps:

I think I have to do it...it's like a crawling vine over my brain. All I can think about. Not always positive. I feel like it will consume me.

Why is self acceptance so hard? I feel like my Neurotransmitters are fucking with my heads

Relate?

Just need some feedback

China Beach

What happened Netflix? ABC? Re-release this great show on DVD!

Trauma: Masquerade

My therapist told me to check this episode of Trauma out, as it was GLBT themed. Lots of drag queens and trans folk, as well as a powerful message of acceptance. It was well done, and I enjoyed it, despite the fact I don't like the show or the genre much.

A fabulous Crossdressing read

The Late Mr. Shakespeare is all about Shakespeare.

It also happens to be about crossdressing and a major theme is gender blurring.

The narrator, Pickleherring, once played all the female roles in Shakespeare's plays, and in his late years is writing a biography of his former master. In it is a lot of interesting stuff about Shakespeare, real or imagined, and a great deal about sexuality, wearing stockings, pretending to be a woman, and men and women pretending to be the opposite sex during sex, etc.

Now it isn't pornography, by the writer has a pornographer's heart. He suggests that Mr. Shakespeare's powers originated in the heart of a gender bending relationship he had with his dark mistress.

If you don't like Shakespeare, skim around. The major crossdressing chapters are easy to pick out, but there is plenty scattered throughout.

For internet geeks and time wasters

Tumblr is a cool blog site that took me a while to learn to maneuver. Like FB or other social networks, or Blogger, even, you follow others. Their posts show up in your dashboard. However Tumblr is very visual, unlike text heavy blog.

The more people you follow, the more cool stuff you re-blog...

Amazing photographs...

You can follow me here


Mostly fashion, shoes, pretty pictures, etc.

Dear me, in the closet again?

For me crossdressing has always been a dark pull, like a gravity, or wet jeans that suck and tease me down, down, down. I don't mean to paint it darkly, but darkly it often feels, for because I am a secondary, or latent transperson, it is cognitively difficult at times to strip away hiding and lying patterns of defenses that I have employed over the years.

When I came out to my spouse, it was one of the most awful psychic rippings I've taken in my 35+ years on the planet. And for the better part of a year I have not had those darkly thoughts, those defensive maneuverings.

It's like I'm out of the closet, but I'm in a bigger closet.

Me spouse is right to hold me fast to being secret in the big woody south. Still, sometimes I feel like she doesn't want me to express my true self at all, unless we're shopping.

It's bizarre. I'm getting mixed signals.

I feel like a child whose mother is disapproving of the friends I have chosen.

Only my friends live in my heart and head and want to come over more often.

Sigh.

What's a gal to do?

The above pic is Candy Darling, pure genius.

long time gone

Hey all, I've been following you and remaining silent for these last few weeks. Things have been great and things have been...well drab. Wifie and I have shopped, and bonded over girlie things and she has been encouraging me to develop a female personae, however as a private venture only.

Believe me, as a 6'4 200 lb t-girl I get that without radical, possibly unhealthy dieting and hormone regiments I'm not very passable. It does get me down, but I get back up...

At the small community college where I work a student of mine is getting breast reduction surgery to become more androgynous. We have the same trans issues, and chat about them freely. Each is privately freaked out about transitioning but yet cannot let the idea go...

anyway... if you haven't seen Wonder Boys, check it out. There is a gorgeous tall brunette cd/tg transwoman in the first half...the rest of the movie is brilliant.

I wish you all well

Cass

The bearded lady

Wow, if you ask me Hayek still looks hot, and feminine. Bearded ladies are supossed to be horny, lusty. passionate women. Or at least according to freak folklore. Hayek will play the bearded lady in a upcoming vampire film...you can read about it here.

During the winter I often sport a beard and for many weeks on hand I too am the bearded lady, a look that isn't as bad as it could be. Still it's jarring. I prefer shaved and powdered to rough and painted.

Random ramblings

I'm wearing the top and wanting the brush...grr..ahh


So I'm with the misses on a school supply hunt and, amid the crass masses, a knotted family is scolding a small boy for choosing a pink football over a regular pig skin. This is Wal Mart, mind you, and here I am with some purple nail polish for myself amid the pencils and glue. I meant to pick up that new Maybelline vibrating mascara brush, my new crush, but plumb forgot. Incidentally the boy got his pink football, sorta, thanks to his sister who insisted on one of her own. They were in front of me in the checkout line. Little kid still stared at it, as my boys did too, for I was cheap mom-dad and did not allow the kids a toy purchase (they got candy instead).

Pink can change your sexuality. Mahawwah. It's a conspiracy.

Really.

Anyhoo. The misses and me exchange more meaningful dialogue about my crossdressing and my trans-ness. She doesn't call it anything, but alludes to it, at least until today when she recommended a Shakespeare book. "It's all about crossdressing," she whispered....I was shocked she said it aloud. And thrilled. Will keep you updated on the book and other...

Since we've shared a bit of the experience it has become less scary for her. I think for couples for which the gender card is played late, it is important for both parties to be at ease with it. When I came out I suspected she thought I was suddenly going to go to work in make-up with a scarf around my neck and platform shoes (not that I haven't thought about it mind you). Life is great.

Boxers no more!

Recently MSN "broke" this story of a boxer, Rob Newbiggin," or "Mercedes," who wants a sex change, among other things, to fight women...

As usual the tone is trans people are novelties...and I'm afraid to report...we are. Most of the world is made up of stones and we are the...well...flowers. Anyway worth checking out...

Going to and fro and walking up and down

Holy shite muslims, ladies.

Summer is running away from me. I haven't posted in some time and Let. Me. Tell. You.

What an awesome time I am having...

recap: cassidy is: straight married crossdresser/trans woman writer arty hippie freak living in the middle of nowheresville and married to a hot mamma who tolerates my tg lifestyle.

newsflash: recently hot momma and I had a girl frienascance. We went shopping. Now my hot momma is a bargain shopper and chic, and we went on a whirlwind tour of one kick-ass mall (the nearest mall is 1.5 hrs away...

Mostly we shopped here.

And loved it...

Now this experience just made me fall in love all over again because I was accepted. Hands down. Be who you are. By the one person I have been terrified of losing. It was like being married all over again, but this time I was the one proposed to...only my proposal was like (wink) let's go look at some hip clothes...

A dream come true for a married t-girl. Most of us live lives of secrecy or desperate shared whispers...

Damn, I know those tones and feel unfettered for the first time in like, ever...

I feel like a whole new life is waiting for the two of us...for me. I mean, I always had permission to explore my feminine side, but I feel like I have been accepted as being in-between. Being trans. Which is true. And it is great to feel like I'm welcome under the umbrella.

We spent the rest of the week chatting about material, maxi-dresses, cute tops, and trying on gothic jewelry. She still doesn't want to see me dressed...she models clothes we both are interested in (a bonus for me!) and window shop and talk fashion. And eat, and laugh, and hold hands.

Yay, me!

Bonus: we shopped clearance racks and saved bucks.

Creatively: working on a manuscript

I have two poems appearing in a t-friendly lit journal

Dear Abby! Jacking a fellow TGirl's link

I'm jacking this post by fellow T-girl Jessica Who? mostly because I want to share it with a friend who follows my blog (but not Jessica's) and whose email keeps bouncing my link. After six hours of casual trying...I'm giving up. Sorry Jessica Who? Where ever you are... Enjoy FL...I'm off to LA in about three days. Oh the heat...perfect for a summer dress.

Anyhow...Dear Abby deals with a woman who wants to xd her hubby. Lucky guy! Enjoy!

Somebody owes me a phone call.

http://www.jaxobserver.com/2009/06/22/wife-dreams-of-dressing-husband-in-lingerie/

or here

Catholic Priest is Drag Queen by Night

Photo: Father Anthony is "Big Mama Capretta" (Video)

Shared via AddThis


This will make you smile...wonderful to have a priest as a member of the trans community...

Summer projects

Ladies…it is summer and I trust all are having a great and safe and hilarious start to the season all about skin.

Ladies, this summer I’m gonna to master heavy, heavy, heavy hooker glam eye shadow.

Normally I play it safe, light and flirty, no heavier than a professional GG would wear to work. But I want to throw caution to the wind and take my eyes to the club, girl.

I’m not going to the club. No. My eyes are, and my brain, but ol’ Cass will have her narrow butt on the porch.

The other project I have in mind is a more of a record of TG history in terms of names. Most of us feminize or masculinize our given name, but many do not. The trend is not restricted to gay or straight culture. It seems to be a matter of choice. Where did your name come from? Might be interesting, might be as boring as a bus, but who knows?

You can direct your browser here

Combined Gender Identity and Transsexuality Inventory

Take the COAGTI test here.

See how transgendered you are...well at least almost. Keep in mind girls that these tests aren't 100% accurate and you'd be better off seeing a therapist and taking it under supervision.

I score 190...probable transsexual.

Sounds about right

Home Project

From the You Tube subscriber information:THE HOME PROJECT is a performance piece developed from the true-stories of Chicago-area youth who have been disowned because of their gender or sexual identities. In this clip, a young trans woman experiences life on the streets after being kicked out of home by her mother.


The mother is played by an African American male while the trans woman is played by a white female, further skewering the schemas of gender/gender roles and sexual identity. Worth the time to check out.

Socio-Politico-Personal Ramble On

So a few things over the last year or so that clarified for me as a crossdresser and a transgendered person: accessories make/break a casual outfit (I prefer femme, professional girly), Great shoes elevate any outfit, even sweats. And I’m much more comfortable in traditional female roles than I am in traditional male roles.

Like many of you I began to dress young and as I grew older (and after many purges) the urge and need to dress grew, to the point you have to own up to being what you are, which is gender variant. And even though I have been doing this for so long, the field is always turning over and over, and sometimes the old roots peek out.

I can’t help but think the trans-political movement the zeitgeist, or at least one that is occurring on a less mainstream culture. A mini-zeitgeist. Cute. In the last hundred years our masculine America has seen great social progress: women, African-Americans, Homosexuals, and now Transgenders have fought and are fighting for basic rights. The male America is shrinking, as is its white population. A social revolution is quietly occurring and we bear witness. The world gene pool is trending to a more mixed population, which is essential for long-term survival. Think: mutts are less prone to debilitating genetics than pure-bred dogs. Gender and other social constructions will also trend towards an androgynous style. And along with it sexuality and attitudes about sexuality and race.


Nuff said. Time to dance.

radio hate jocks KRXQ

Rob and Arnie's anti-trans rants and defamatory comments have raised all sorts of hairs.If you need a refresher, or missed it entirely check it out here. This comes as a flurry of GLBT news and landmarks pop up in time for summer. Obama's declaration that June is GLBT month, NH passing gay marriage, and countless other smaller, personal milestones.

The trans movement, if you can call it that, is building steam in terms of mainstream acceptance. This larger political moves do not even begin to show the depth of this experience. Yet, thanks in large part to the internet, a global story emerges.

The anti trans child rant on KRXQ sullies all this progress. But it is to be expected. Most of the world are stones. We are the flowers. And what do you expect from a stone? Rough practical earthy response. Sure, the comments were meant to be a joke. The world is full of stones. They all laughed, no doubt. Sadly, there will be more.

A sign of things to come

Yes, there's much ado about gay marriage in NH, but the quieter, bigger news is Harvard added a GLBT endowment. Why is this bigger? Because it is proof of mainstream acceptance. Once Harvard adds GLBT endowments all of the other schools will follow.

Check out T rock group Blind Dog Wanders and a smart diva dance pop Lady Gaga

For those interested in new summer music to rock out to check out Blind Dog Wanders on myspace music.

An eclectic sound, based on guitarist Laura Gonzales' songwriting, BDW channel the driving rhytyhms of prog rock, and on "the Light" middle eastern/Indian grooviness. The vocals are lovely. It will be very satisfying to watch this group mature.

Too bad I don't live in LA to see them live. Oh yeah, they look great, too.

For those who are seeking new tunes to dance away to summer nights...check out Lady Gaga...whose working class roots and hard-nose business sense + high glam= the new Madonna...(Brittany Spears was supposed to be the new Madge...but Gaga has the creative vision in spades, plus the working class/cut your teeth in the clubs history Brit lacks).

She also likes boys who look like girls. Read about it here.

Oh, alpha male, stop being so uptight!

Was out in drab mode this week, and happened upon a shoe store. Discount. Extra cash in my pocket.

So of course I wasted a half hour...boys and girls shoes.

That is beside the point.

A father was shopping with his son and his son wanted Dora sneakers, which of course were purple and pink. Cute. Ol' Dad didn't handle it too well. He wasn't angry, just uptight. You know, so much you could tell that it really, really bothered him.

He reinforced several male gender rules:

Boys don't wear girl's shoes
Boys don't wear articles of clothing with girls on them
Girls are inferior
Girls opinions do not matter

The latter he did as he dismissed his wife's suggestion to allow the child to hold the shoes to at least calm the child down.

It made my stomach ache.

Believe me it was only horrible for me and the child. Everyone else in the store were oblivious to the rigid social structuring occuring in the back aisle. Possibly the roots of prejudice?

Anyhoo. No new shoes, only a brush with the blues.

Spring blues

Spring is the time of rebirth and renewel and fucking, and lots of late nights and warm sweaters, and not to mention a blanket, stars, a new pair of sandals, and a pretty sundress.

So far my spring has been anything but.

Oh dear, where to begin.

First I've been doing more reading than writing lately, and nothing supple on the T-fiction count, at least this month.

Maritally my T-ness has become quite the distraction. Sometimes I think I misjudged how she'd react when I came out. Part of me was like ..."well, duh." Of course she'd be freaked.

And the other part of me, the wistful romantic, really hoped her firery, artistic spirit would accept me. She hung out with people like me (read: gender variant, or open to gender variancy) all through college and grad- school. We hung out with people like me when we first dated Turned out she's become much more conservative.

Shit, not that I blame her.

(pause to sip my very cold, very white wine)

She has every right to be, but boy was I too optimistic.

Anyhoo, enough of me...I'm bored, you must be.

Anybody hitting the spring yard sales. Picked up a cute, light (read: super cool for hot summer porch nights) brown and gold spag-strap dress, similar style to one pictured here.

Been laying low

Work has been a beast, end of term which leaves little time for myself, especially after the demands of spring family activities have been met. The recession has hit this area hard, as most places, and I've noticed an up-trend with women taking charge of the household finances, as well as leadership roles in the community.

A colleague who teaches economics told me that if this recession continues to slug along, that we will see a reversal in many major corporations and wake up to a world where women are holding the reigns of capitalist power.

So where does that leave TG folk, and trans women? Hopefully not out in the cold. In my little corner of the world I've noticed transmen and women are getting more of their lion's share of water-cooler conversation, for better or worse. Regardless of whether people are praising, questioning, or trashing us, we're getting noticed.

And of course so much of what people are saying have to do with the trolley accident in Beantown, which is total BS. Just because he was she doesn't mean a damn thing. Yes, it is damaging to t-folk, because in this media frenzy world any spotlight can hurt or help....still one must look at the situation not the person. Damn, the boy was in love, he was doing what we'd all do.... leave the gender variance out of it.

Girls being Boys

The Changeling
Judith Ortiz Cofer

As a young girl
vying for my father's attention,
I invented a game that made him look up
from his reading and shake his head
as if both baffled and amused.

In my brother's closet, I'd change
into his dungarees -- the rough material
molding me into boy shape; hide
my long hair under an army helmet
he'd been given by Father, and emerge
transformed into the legendary Ché
of grown-up talk.

Strutting around the room,
I'd tell of life in the mountains,
of carnage and rivers of blood,
and of manly feasts with rum and music
to celebrate victories para la libertad.
He would listen with a smile
to my tales of battles and brotherhood
until Mother called us to dinner.

She was not amused
by my transformations, sternly forbidding me
from sitting down with them as a man.
She'd order me back to the dark cubicle
that smelled of adventure, to shed
my costume, to braid my hair furiously
with blind hands, and to return invisible,
as myself,
to the real world of her kitchen.

I am sick of being sick

Pneumonia is so sucky...


My feeble attempt at NPM...sorry to you bibliophiles...currently tracking down a Judith Ortiz poem about crossdressing, as well as a super trashy, drag camp epic Disneyland on Acid...yum




Untitled

Before I awoke
Work was simply work
And stress was simply
Stress, and now that I
Am awake, a bright
Penny in a chipped dish,
The work is settling into
My new skin
My mind a fresh red button.

fun quizzes....why do we like them so much?

Your inner sex gender: Female

For you, sex is the best possible emotional connection. It's all about making your head spin. You think twice about having sex with a stranger, unless you think romance is in the air. And you choose comfort over novelty. You rather have sex you know you enjoy. This doesn't mean you aren't kinky... just that you choose your kinks rather carefully.

'What is your Inner Sex Gender?' at QuizUniverse.com

National Poetry Month: Father's Old Blue Cardigan

Sorry for the lag...been stressed out as of late: busy on campus, youngest has pneumonia...it's enough to make a girl tear her hair. And since most of the household management stuff falls into my lap, my nerves have been fricasee as of late...

Anyway off to beautiful words...Trying to celebrate this April Poetry Month Thang by scouring the world for GLBT (mostly T) poems about gender fuckery. This poem encapsulates some of the feelings I had when I began dressing as a young lad...wondering what feelings would arise when I played my mother in her long mirror. Though the author's experience is a sad one, it is another example of the power of empathy that crossdressing can offer.


Father’s Old Blue Cardigan

By Anne Carson


Now it hangs on the back of the kitchen chair
where I always sit, as it did
on the back of the kitchen chair where he always sat.


I put it on whenever I come in,
as he did, stamping
the snow from his boots.


I put it on and sit in the dark.
He would not have done this.
Coldness comes paring down from the moonbone in the sky.


His laws were a secret.
But I remember the moment at which I knew
he was going mad inside his laws.


He was standing at the turn of the driveway when I arrived.
He had on the blue cardigan with the buttons done up all the way to the top.
Not only because it was a hot July afternoon


but the look on his face—
as a small child who has been dressed by some aunt early in the morning
for a long trip


on cold trains and windy platforms
will sit very straight at the edge of his seat
while the shadows like long fingers


over the haystacks that sweep past
keep shocking him
because he is riding backwards.

A sigh

Personally ladies, this spring has been good, but psychically rough. Like it or not I am/was a latent trans woman, like many of my generation, mostly because of socio-political-technological reasons. Transwomen/men today benefit so much from the internet. Not that it is an excuse, but growing up in such a kudzu culture... it took me a while.

Geez, if I were a teenager now, dealing with these same issues, my life would have a different arc.

That's not to say my life to date isn't valid...it is. But everyone else views your lifestyle as a choice, not necessity. You know that ennui, trans people, how there's that fuzzy, gauzy past, our past sexuality, our past identity, past whatever, that exists, that acts as a standard to the growth of the trans personae, the true personae.

Regardless...a friend asked me today "What do you want from this self?" It was an old friend, a straight friend. "What does this voice sound like?" He meant the tone...and all I could say was aggressive, confident, proud.


And I thought about that. And what that meant.

And I hadn't thought about what I wanted, I was just too busy being me for the first time.

I came up with an answer, that may change...




My hobby is mirror.

Lipstick, rouge and heel
peel back my skin and skull cap
and like a goddess spring forth
into my bathroom,
my smoke ring
like a laurel
upon my gigantic pretty head.
From lips smack truth,
pink, or brown, or fuck hot red,

and black, deep pitch, and yes, I suppose

I am a freak
and showed up at the wrong address, the wrong party,
my real body somewhere else
doing whatever manila chore it does when it isn’t with me.
‘cause I mean who wouldn’t
want to be with me?

I be illusion, drum, and wail
give me a scarf I can make seas sick
with my pitch and bob.

And so what? The stork is not a smart bird,
after all, I am not weak, and though my smile
makes you sick, some clown
in a dress, some perv with the nerve,
you say, I am iron, to reforge myself,

to be iron is to destroy stone.







Note: Manila is meant to recall vanilla. Lately my girlie self has been more...aggressive...thus the diva turn in tone towards the end. In my small town I am very aware of how most stones (trans-phobics) react to difference. Down here, from my porch, I better be ready to back it up.

Ciao!

Chloe Prince's new social networking site

Chloe Prince's new social networking site can be accessed here.


Chloe's a doll...been following her transition for a while now and she has a lovely new site. Plus many wonderful pics...

National Poetry Month: Dystopic on 616

Trish Salah is a professor in Toronto, professor/author of gender/trans culture, politics, and literature. She is the author of Wanting in Arabic




dystopic on 616

i need to take a shower. i’m troubled by
increasingly distorted fanfictions, psychotic or melancholy,
with the loss of canon. i keep thinking there is a cure
for being awake that doesn’t involve fairies, pot or poutine.
i need to go to school. i am involved in
a memory relapse; i am particular about insults
i am aware of the i and troubled by it, possible worlds’
inflection, inflecting an i that leans towards
smothering, then purges. to generalize then, gross
conformity haunts narrower days in an inconveniently belated
montreal.

National Poetry Month: Cinderella

For all of you who love shoes:



Cinderella


You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would dropp it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the ball, as you all know.
It was a marriage market.
The prince was looking for a wife.
All but Cinderella were preparing
and gussying up for the event.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
into the cinders and said: Pick them
up in an hour and you shall go.
The white dove brought all his friends;
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
That's the way with stepmothers.

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
send me to the prince's ball!
The bird dropped down a golden dress
and delicate little slippers.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
recognize her without her cinder face
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and danced with no other the whole day.

As nightfall came she thought she'd better
get home. The prince walked her home
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
and although the prince took an axe and broke
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
These events repeated themselves for three days.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
He went to their house and the two sisters
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
The prince rode away with her until the white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
That is the way with amputations.
They just don't heal up like a wish.
The other sister cut off her heel
but the blood told as blood will.
The prince was getting tired.
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
But he gave it one last try.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
like a love letter into its envelope.

At the wedding ceremony
the two sisters came to curry favor
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
Two hollow spots were left
like soup spoons.

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

Anne Sexton

National Poetry Month: The Distant Moon

The Distant Moon
by Rafael Campo


I

Admitted to the hospital again.
The second bout of pneumocystis back
In January almost killed him; then,
He'd sworn to us he'd die at home. He baked
Us cookies, which the student wouldn't eat,
Before he left--the kitchen on 5A
Is small, but serviceable and neat.
He told me stories: Richard Gere was gay
And sleeping with a friend if his, and AIDS
Was an elaborate conspiracy
Effected by the government. He stayed
Four months. He lost his sight to CMV.

II

One day, I drew his blood, and while I did
He laughed, and said I was his girlfriend now,
His blood-brother. "Vampire-slut," he cried,
"You'll make me live forever!" Wrinkled brows
Were all I managed in reply. I know
I'm drowning in his blood, his purple blood.
I filled my seven tubes; the warmth was slow
To leave them, pressed inside my palm. I'm sad
Because he doesn't see my face. Because
I can't identify with him. I hate
The fact that he's my age, and that across
My skin he's there, my blood-brother, my mate.

III

He said I was too nice, and after all
If Jodie Foster was a lesbian,
Then doctors could be queer. Residual
Guilts tingled down my spine. "OK, I'm done,"
I said as I withdrew the needle from
His back, and pressed. The CSF was clear;
I never answered him. That spot was framed
In sterile, paper drapes. He was so near
Death, telling him seemed pointless. Then, he died.
Unrecognizable to anyone
But me, he left my needles deep inside
His joking heart. An autopsy was done.

IV

I'd read to him at night. His horoscope,
The New York Times, The Advocate;
Some lines by Richard Howard gave us hope.
A quiet hospital is infinite,
The polished, ice-white floors, the darkened halls
That lead to almost anywhere, to death
Or ghostly, lighted Coke machines. I call
To him one night, at home, asleep. His breath,
I dreamed, had filled my lungs--his lips, my lips
Had touched. I felt as though I'd touched a shrine.
Not disrespectfully, but in some lapse
Of concentration. In a mirror shines

The distant moon.

National Poetry Month: Maxine who was once Max

This poem was written by an aquaintance of mine, a fellow writer and psychology teacher, Scott Whitaker. I saw him read in December and he read this as well as few other gender related poems.

As usual trying to find GLBT realted writers or poems to celebrate National Poetry Month.


MAXINE WHO WAS ONCE MAX

What she has become is a bridge between.
O hormone, O facial cream, dream after dream after dream.
For her it is fingernail, warm belly, shaping with corset
What nature has given her into beauty, rather than the casket
Form she was born into; for the whalebone ship
Sets her bones true. Her heart speeds across
The figure in the mirror, returns and admires
The reflection that has come far from its pallor,
From brickyard and from country songs and docks,
Where she once held herself up to be no more than a fish
Swimming tight circles in a pool beyond touch.
She has given up her name for this. It has taken much.
There is no better feeling than this
Leaving one world and stepping into the next.



You can look at the T-shirt here.

National Poetry Month: The Toss

Cyrus is a nice man. Twice I met him and he was a courteous fellow. A fine poet. An openly gay poet, his poems appeal to a broad audience, and the poem below is a fine example of his work.


The Toss

Cyrus Cassells


I see a knife-grinder
On his dusty, stationary bicycle,
A black Star of David
Sprayed over a door,
As you urge me
Into the rationed light,
The crumbling pearl-grey
Of the ghetto.
All at once, the Roman spring,
With its galaxy of columns
And daisies,
Becomes the autumn of families
Plummeting from windows,
The desecrated autumn
Your mother tossed you,
Small bundle,
To a passerby.
Like this, you demonstrate
With a parcel.

But what can't be mimed
Is the look they shared,
The look that let you live;
Her toss that had to be
Quick, quick,
Before the cat-pounce Nazis came—
Out the shutters
Into the samaritan's intrepid arms:
Something unerring
Passing through the air
Of an iron universe—

As the knife-grinder pedals and pedals,
You whisper: I know nothing
Of what became of her.

Perhaps she soothed a boy
Born in the Lager,
Listless, mute, whose Lilliputian arm
Bore the tattoo of Auschwitz.
She would have coaxed him
To lift his intransigent eyes,
Knowing you might also be
Somewhere among the living.

And against the jackboot, the demolition,
For as long as she was able, she

Transgendered Mayor "Stu" to get own reality TV show

Read about it here

A few lines about the mind transitioning

I hope you ladies are bored by my promotion of National Poetry Month. I do feel as a member of a marginalized community that we uphold those who advocate and express the feelings of our united experience. I've hit an energy level wall in terms of finding more TG themed poems. A break is coming up and I'll catch up...

As a semi professional writer I enjoy flexing my mental/imaginative muscles. These few lines are about my mental transitioning in a completely metaphorical/imagistic mode.

BTW Thanks for the comments and email...I appreciate it


Untitled: or a few lines about the mind's gender transition

A song drifts through a far away window.
The washline snaps in the breeze.

How dresses whip and curl like sharp Ps and Bs

and my mother is in the kitchen
and when I’m sure no one is looking
my hips and arms cock
and bend and arc
as if my body were

her hip and curve and hair

or
refracted light
a broken sunbeam shattered by a tall oak
at the edge of field
near a wood where only the birds know
the language.

I didn’t want to play house
but did anyway, and found I loved it as I loved baseball,
and playing family, too
with the dozy girl down the street.


And now I’m the dozy girl down the street
the song blaring now, as if from the next room
and I can see the ladies listening,
and smell the perfume,
the powder and cigarette smoke swirling in galaxies before me
and I swim in the them,
and the dresses
and hose
whip and curl,
whip and curl over my skin

and I am undone, and put back together
and I am both, and all, and nothing.

My body is enlarged by fresh clothes,
my mind as curvy as any soft body

as any soft touch.

Personal notes

For the last twelve days, I have felt an enormous feminine pull, however the feelings were internal, and not focused/worried about on my exterior feminine wiles. Example: it's as if my brain is playing some video game where you get to play the true you, and you get to watch yourself on screen. My poor male image of myself has been supplanted by a feminine one.

Any thoughts?

National Poetry Month: from the Book of Awakenings

Whew! Getting challenging to find good GLBT themed poems for Poem a Day Nat. Poetry Month celebration.

Today's slice of verse should come with a lemon wedge and tea, or a dizzy glass of red wine.

An excerpt from The Book of Awakenings by Michael Mayo

Myself of long ago -
How does he get along
these days, I wonder?


I like it because it's so true for so many trans women.

Ciao! Kisses

National Poetry Month: Howl

Today to celebrate National Poetry Month is a link to Ginsberg's Howl. Which was the cool rant rave gay sexual political revolution poem of the 1950s, despite the fact the Ginsberg wrote it for a private audience. It's too long to post here. Read it elsewhere.

Ginsberg was interviewed by the Kinsey Foundation, and ushered in a new generation of homosexual artists in the New York, San Francisco, and Colorado scene.

National Poetry Month: The Factory

Because Sunday has forced me to be proto homme, I'm giving my head and heart a girly artsy party.

And because I'm too beat to hunt for TG themed poems...so I'm posting one of my own..written today for Nat Poet Mo...the girls mentioned, if you don't know, are TG

The Factory

How the films unspool and unspool
and fall like wet spaghetti at his feet,
his dainty feet…like they crawled off some Christmas elf
and got stranded on his stumps.

And Candy’s eats the air like a heavy hail coming ‘cross a field
and Joe and Holly and Jackie
crunch pills and silver pies
and everyone waits for a fat silence to spread,

but there is only gossip and pick-up lines
and endless soapy singing,
and thick branches of smoke,
and so many promises

and too many people loving all alone.
Soon the sun will swallow everyone up.
Where did the girls go? Where is the phone?
And who will clean all of this up?

And the parties end like they begin:
phone in the hand of a mirror man,
hot cigarettes on the lips of beautiful,
like wicks on rail yard dynamite sticks.

National Poetry Month: Exchanging Hats

Exchanging Hats


Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
--oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
--the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,
--perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what might a miter matter?

Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can't you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?

Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

Elizabeth Bishop

Yes, not too exciting. Note to interested readers: I will be posting face pics soon! Late June, mid-summer...I say this because my spouse is slowing coming around to giving me consent to express all my girlie self on this here porch...

Until then...


National Poetry Month--I'm going to try to write a poem a day this month. Alas I am already behind. To celebrate words, of course, and to transform, be beautiful, and be free!

Today:
IDK what this says about me, but since I learned of transsexuality when I was a young teen, and having experienced its many waves and purges and denials over the years, I have admired those who undergo a transition. What courage, what heart. O me, oh my, what lonely bones are placed under the moon…


Oh grant me the power to shed all maleness from my skin

--For those who have transitioned


Oh to shed my man
like cocoon shreds
my only wings smoke,
as it curls, curls, curls
towards nowhere,

only the ceiling keeps score.
My notebooks lie before me
and my new dress
like a pair of lips
cups to skin

and flesh’s biggest weakness
is the hole in the center of it’s face
that turns on itself
like the mad,
like the dead

and I want to eat the man
I have shed
and feel his hair
between my teeth
as I gnash, consume, and transform.



Note: takes a dark turn or two, but the TG experience is fraught with darkness, no matter how good you've got it. And I like the power the female has at the end to eat the evidence, to burn up all that was before and rise, rise, rise

National Poetry Month: Wedding Dress

A wonderful lyric--not exactly TG either, but a gender bender...
if only more people were open to playing with gender, and words...this world would be a happier place...

Wedding Dress by Michael Waters

That Halloween I wore your wedding dress,
our children spooked & wouldn’t speak for days.
I’d razored taut calves smooth, teased each blown tress,
then—lipsticked, mascaraed, & self-amazed—
shimmied like a starlet on the dance floor.
I’d never felt so sensual before—
Catholic schoolgirl & neighborhood whore.
In bed, dolled up, undone, we fantasized:
we clutched & fused, torn twins who’d been denied.
You were my shy groom. Love, I was your bride.

Buy the book here.

National Poetry Month: Homosexuality

According to his lovers, Frank loved to talk on the phone. Always chattering away about beauty, art, love, and gossip. Lots of it.


Homosexuality by Frank O'Hara (gay poet) is fab on many levels. Yes it is about gay cruising, but the line "it is the law of my own voice I shall investigate" is true for any trans person as it is for any gay person as it is for any straight person. And the end is true for anyone...to be wanted



Frank O'Hara "Homosexuality"


So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping
our mouths shut? as if we'd been pierced by a glance!

The song of an old cow is not more full of judgment
than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick;

so I pull the shadows around me like a puff
and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment

of a very long opera, and then we are off!
without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet

will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon."
It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate.

I start like ice, my finger to my ear, my ear
to my heart, that proud cur at the garbage can

in the rain. It's wonderful to admire oneself
with complete candor, tallying up the merits of each

of the latrines. 14th Street is drunken and credulous,
53 rd tries to tremble but is too at rest. The good

love a park and the inept a railway station,
and there are the divine ones who drag themselves up

and down the lengthening shadow of an Abyssinian head
in the dust, trailing their long elegant heels of hot air

crying to confuse the brave "It's a summer day,
and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world."

New clothes

Clearance...love it, live it, learn it.

One of my goals in starting this blog was to discuss cheap, cheap, cheap clothes for us trans folk. I mean damn, ain't fashion a bitch on your pocketbook? Especially when a dollar isn't worth a nickel.

Some of you who have been out for longer have this down pat. I, being an emotionally clumsy gender obsessed wrecking ball, have only begun to blossom as a shopper.

And I love it!

With the economy tangled up in its own bra, I vowed to not buy fashionable clothes, bags, and accessories--though I want to...I pine, I perish.

I'm a Target gal, and Wal-mart too, for some things...not for all, dear readers, I have some dignity.

I also started this blog, because I dither on too much. Put me in front of a word processor and I go, go, go. Over the month I'll post cool poems, which may or may not be trans themed.

It is National Poetry Month

and I am a transgendered poet...so I figure I have to punish you with one of my other obsessions...

Oh, clothes. Scheduled for delivery, tomorrow....target close out clothes...two dresses for 25.00 and change (shipping)

Also I snagged a pair of fashion tights (black with grey and silver criss crosses) for a dollar at Dollar Tree...sweet

Issac Mizarhi Allspice Merino Dress

Mossimo Black print v neck smock waist dress

Lipstick personality chart

My lovely one had this years ago on a bad xerox copy...this is an electronic update, but the same inventory.

You probably have seen it before...

http://www.martinarmand.com/Lipstick_Shapes.html

I'm a sharp angled tip btw

Poor Southern Trans Boy

In The Sweet In-Between, Oprah Book Club author, Sheri Reynolds, offers us Kenny Lugo, a person who is Kendra to her father, Ken to his schoolmates, and Kenny, at home. The tri-spirited hero is struggling to maintain identity, after many years of exploitative experiences with the whisky faced men of Lugo’s life, Kenny is trying to figure out if she is a boy or a girl.

“I hate my body, I hate.” Kenny says, taking great measure to control her water consumption so he won’t be forced to use the girl’s room at school, where Ken is a freak, a lesbian, a T-country boy who only wants to please.

Oh, and Kenny is haunted.

Not in the literal sense, but metaphorically, for Kenny’s drunken neighbor, Jarvis Stanley, shoots a college girl dead when she and her friend accidently break into the house, mistaking it for the rental across the street. The dead girl’s life haunts Kenny. She can’t help but identify with the dead girl. For her life is slowing dying, and like the dead girl, Kenny will soon belong to no one, for when she turns 18, her father’s girlfriend, Glo, won’t have to be responsible for her anymore. Kenny will be alone.

Everyday Kenny goes to school he pines for the dead girl’s car. Imagines crawling around in her blood, wonders, wonders, wonders. What if?

Kenny must survive because the dead girl didn’t, because Aunt Glo’s oldest is a drug addled walking poster for death, and because who will take care of Daphne, the half retarded sister of the aforementioned drug addled walking poster for death? Kenny exists for Daphne who gives Kenny dimension, and balance. Daphne loves Kenny for who she is, for who he is, for everyone.

Add to the fact Kenny lives in a restrictive, run down rural town in Virginia, and her chances for acceptance are slim. Everyone is trying to define Kenny for her, for him. I'm not a lesbian, I'm not, Kenny thinks as her young adopted brother points out. Others are quick to say she has a lifestyle, which befuddles Ken further.

I don’t know any fiction books about trans men, and the Sweet In-Between sidesteps the issue if Kenny is trans, or just a lesbian cross dresser, not that it matters anyway. Kenny’s self hatred is identifiable for all T-persons regardless of spectrum and depth of gender dysphoria. Ken, and Kenny may be freaks, but when Kenny is forced to play Kendra we become flies on the wall for ego crushing humiliation when Kendra must visit her father up state in prison. Just who really are the freaks? Those who have courage to be who they really are, or the ones who judge and punish anyone who steps out of the gender box?

Kenny’s just finding herself, which is part of the appeal, like a hero on a quest, he must deal with his “titties” and how to bind them, “blood” and how to conceal it in case Ken bleeds through his jeans; rituals created to save the self, to bolster the defenses against a world that isn’t very tolerant of variant behavior. Too bad, too, because Kenny has a lot to offer, as well as Reynolds’ whose luminous prose burns through the paper. A nice companion piece to Luna.

Fireflies. Moon. Darkness.

--note this book is a quick read--unfortunately it was one book I kept putting down and then getting distracted from finishing--thus the delay in the review.



Liam waxes and Luna wanes and poor old Regan must witness, like a far away star that the moon has enticed to supper

Chemistry? Why did it have to be about chemistry? Regan cries in Julie Ann Peters’ young adult drama Luna, Regan whose heart is burdened by her brother, Liam’s, secrets, as Liam transitions into Luna, which threatens to pull the entire family’s life ordinary blah blah suburbia into chaos.

Peters adopts the last tenants of macho suburbia as the blueprint for Liam’s home life: go talk to the coach, son, let’s re-build a Volkswagen, son, date pretty girl, son etc., a blueprint I recognize from the 80s and 90s, and which no doubt persists today, hopefully a little less macho than it once was, I think, for much of that macho-ness is a hand-me down from be-a-man-disease from the 1950s, which slowly erodes away as younger men become fathers. Younger men who hold on to macho-ness a little less tightly, I think. Not Liam’s Dad, though, unfortunately for Liam’s Dad, Liam has discovered the internet, and that he’s transgendered.

Oh, Liam’s known since he pined for a bra when he was twelve. During one of Regan’s slumber party Liam edged his way to the slumber party floor, where his toenails were painted by Regan’s friends and Luna slipped out, just so much. All he wanted was to just do his toes and talk, you know, be a girl. All he has ever wanted. And now older, he has vocabulary, now, he has trans friends, albeit virtual, and they, be their existence, give Luna permission to grow.

First there was Liam, then Lia Marie, the slow moth cocoon of Luna, only a silky nub. As Liam ages the truth of his nature grows, and Liam becomes only a shell as Luna struggles with going out in public, wigs, and coming out to Dad (Mom’s an after thought in this—a shadow of a pill user), and avoiding a black hole of depression.

Peters nails the issue from all sides, the pain, the burden of the secret-keeper, the parent’s self-serving fog, the consciousness enlarging experience of cross dressing—the high of stepping into a new identity. Peters even nails the revulsion stones feel when they encounter a trans person. Trans people are freaks to everyone else, the stones; the clerks quiver, jocks hate, an older man stalks them at Taco Bell. Regan is witness and protector. Secret keeper and soul guardian.

The book is really about Regan and the hazards Luna’s secret wreck upon her life. She’s a loving sister that deserves her own life, only Luna’s life is too big for one person, and Regan is almost swallowed up.

Which is why the novel is so haunting, because you want all this little family to just tune into each other and open up. Dad is too gender blind to see that his son is anything but a regular boy, Mom too career blind to notice. And Liam (and I mean Luna in boy mode) is so freaking eager to be the dutiful daughter it made my stomach ache. Of course no one allows him to partake in these roles, only Regan, who allows Luna into her bedroom at night to do her make-up and play with wigs and pose in the mirror. It’s a beautiful mess, beautiful in the way dying stars are beautiful, because Luna’s emotional scars are palpable.

For trans teens there is no easy solution to the pain. If everyone were more tolerant then Luna would have found herself earlier, perhaps, but this is not the case. The paperback version includes a discussion group for teens and adults, which was a happy find. The very fact this book was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction is happy news indeed.

Whew...domestic bliss

Thank god.

This week has been like a whip snap mop attack, my nerves stretched thin, my exhaustion complete. Thanks work. Thanks job, I couldn't have done it without you...

Plus, I haven't femulated in sooo long.

(in my mind I'm tapping my fingernails, red, long, self-manicured, along the kitchen counter)

Until tonight.

Interesting behavorial observation:

During the last twelve days (I get to go all out one night a week, and my general, subtle feminine ways are allowable during the rest of the week. Putting it that way sounds bad, but what it really amounts to is baby steps. My wife is allowing this to grow, but prefers an organic, slower process--I'm down. I prefer it quick and fast) perhaps out of conditioning, perhaps from my heart, I have found myself mentally skipping from male dominated energies to female dominated energies at an hourly pace. Most of my life the female urges have been dominated by waves, to borrow the metaphor from Petra but now I find my energies switching more frequently.

It's nice. I will monitor. I will report, report, report.

But I digress...so finding myself alone for an extra two hours this afternoon and gasp...went outside to take the trash to the bin, in 5 inch heels, boi jeans and a gyrl tee, allowing my feminine steps to enlarge at the hips and shorten at the knee. It feels natural that way, and cautious too, for I am not gliding in 5 inch heels, 3 yes, in 5 I'm more than competent, but my grace fades at times from lack of experience.

And I have begun the evening with casual attire. Sandals, jeans, cheap Big Lots blouse (bland but serviceable in a variety of outfits), and a 70s orange headband

And after a break a black pencil skirt, pink blouse, hose.

And after and after and after....

Apartment Therapy New York | Shadow of Freud: The Offices of Psychoanalysts

Apartment Therapy New York | Shadow of Freud: The Offices of Psychoanalysts


Neat!

I bet there's several books on those shelves about gender fun!

Whew...domestic dervish

A week of stressful work--long hours and tedious meetings--followed by a long week of in-laws has left this sister drained.

Ka-put.

When the in-laws are in town...my domestic duties triple. Around here I take care of the kids, the housecleaning and my share of meals, as well as the day to day chores--garbage, litter box, etc.

I don't mind it, I love waiting on my wife. She deserves it. But the in-laws not only increase our number, but the traffic in house as well.

Me wee shoulders are aching...

And on top of that I have not been able to femulate at all--in eleven days, but I'm not counting.

The other day at the store and this cute middle-aged woman was wearing 2 inch sandals and her toes shimmered a deep red...for an hour I couldn't stop thinking about being that shimmery red toenail. If only for a second.

My head was like a balloon--floating above my body which continued to shop for diapers.

I did finish Luna, review forthcoming, and The Sweet In-Between, which is about a female crossdresser, a teen, trying to pass as a boy... Good stuff...review also forthcoming...


Hope this finds you well...

Cass

Come As You Are

Nirvana broke when little ole me was a freshman in college. I remember wearing hose under my jeans to a party the week Nevermind exploded. If memory serves I humiliated myself by telling my secret to two hot girls who got kicks out of my drunken twin gender ramblings.

Everytime Kurt appeared in a dress it felt right. Nevermind him passing, the fact he allowed his energies and essences to mix was what was important.

Guilty as charged: sexual arousal while dressing

To say that I get aroused while dressed is an understatement.

However 9 times out of 10 my arousal is less sexual and more personality-centered.

Last night, after several glasses of champagne and much senseless Facebooking with old friends, I tottered around in my 3 inch sexy sandals and found myself eager for some sexual action.

My orientation is straight-bisexual. Let me explain. I am attracted to women. I am not attracted to men, however I fantasize about being the love interest of men. Yeah, figure that out.

Oh. I've experimented before, and always it was enjoyable, but I've never been in love with a man. Never. The few flings I've had never lasted longer than the event...no crush, no strings, no attachment. When I'm out and about it's the ladies I'm looking at, for fashion, for sexual pleasure.

When my wife was pregnant with our children she told me to get porn, the playboy channel, read erotica, call a phone sex operator, just don't fuck around. And she closed up shop for 12 months (w/r/t the second child she closed up for 18 months...yes 18 months w/out sex will make anybody whacky). Perhaps it was the booze, but last night I found myself calling a phone sex service, not for fantasy, but just to talk about crossdressing, submission, and the various sexual fantasies I've had over the years. It was fun, but frivolous and stupid. Like I could use that cash back, but it didn't break the bank, and it was as expensive as a shrink session. So be it.

I bring this up not for kinky confession, but to address the issue that crossdessing and transgenderism is sexual. It is erotic and arousing. Sometimes we deny that when we try to intellectualize our experience.

Transgenderism is a wide and wonderful ride.

President O includes transwoman on White House Council: What it means to you

Like the warm hum of a kitten’s purr, Obama’s invitation of Mara Keisling, a transgendered woman, to the White House Council on Women and Girls tickles the brain, and, like a candle, warms the gloaming.

What does it mean to you, ladies, gents-- those who are deeper than skin, than sex, than gender?

Well it means a step.

Literally it means political inclusion, for O’s gestures give states precedence to make violence and discrimination against trans people illegal. In all states. All communities. For all of us.

Because we are women too.

O is humanizing, moralizing, and exercising our hair, bones, and muscle.

Not that America’s arms open wide and suddenly the wife tells her husband to grow nails and sway like he’s always wanted. Nor does the entrenched family on the porch lean over the railing with a helping hand to their newly discovered “daughter” or “son,” their snarky, straight attitude wavering in the air as if someone had slammed a Bible upon the floor. Not even the sexual fetishists, with their frilly skirts and leather straps, are allowed any more respect from the stones who live among us: the gifted, the wise, the blessed.

But among those whom for capital power is occupation, lifestyle and passion, the transgendered person has arrived.

What does it represent but another minority to champion? A cultural nod to a class of persons who have long lingered in corner shadows?

It is proof of the transgendered head that rises from the freakish Atlantic that asks, that declares, that offers the third choice, the third gender, the third eye, the truth.

We are we are we are

And always will be the mirror by which both sexes see their nature.

So what does it mean, this gesture?

It is one of many to come. On November 10th 2007, O banned LGBT discrimination for his transition team; a term loaded for the trans community, in process or not. True, his invitation of Rev Rick Warren to preach at the inauguration lay like a thorn in the grass for all us dancing about in the clover, but such action reads more like a gesture of compromise to the Republicans than an insult to the LGBT community. I mean please, for those whom the Bible is key and lock I say enjoy your preacher, for only the most liberal of you would have me over for tea and poetry and mean it. Most of you would see me dance upon hot coals.

It’s sadly the truth, and like a bean it can sprout up among the churchyards and brick alters, this fear of the trans community, of us folk, as if we were somehow more freakish that the whole history of their religion.

The gesture is important.

The gesture.

As if O is reaching out a touching us on the shoulder to say: you’re real, you’re the truth, you’re alive.

See these links for more.

Pam's Diary

365gay.com

Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man

In the African American culture crossdressing (not drag) is mainstream comedy. Ask Medea, whose foul mouth character is really Tyler Perry, who has turned DIY theatre into a multi-million dollar business (300+ to date...and to think his plays began in high school auditoriums and small theatres...he wrote, directed and starred as the main character, a foul mouthed large black woman), ask Eddie Murphy, ask Big Momma, ask the Waynan Brothers...

Though Steve Harvey's new book is written for women it asks women to break traditional gender roles and think like men.

Which as every crossdresser and gender variant knows is what occurs on a daily basis inside our rattled little skulls.

One can almost here the high heels kicking down my ears at times...

Though Harvey's book isn't about gender variant behavior, it does push forward a out of the box cognitive approach to solving relationship problems, something rather progressive in a culture dominated by masculine roles.

Note: I have only skimmed the book...I'm not looking to land a man

Virtual Va-jay-jay

Editorial note: Trying out an edgier tone with this one...

IMAGINING MY VAGINA

Like a tongue over a seam

my skin folds and pussy opens

in the ache between

cock and hole

how skin hurts because skin

isn’t doing what it’s told

how brain and mind illuminate,

like a paper lantern,

the curvy form and mold


that is passed by

like a firefly

like a sailor drunk at port;




how like a novel trick

completion is forgotten



like barroom pack of matches

fighting for oxygen

at the bottom of the junk drawer.

Pleases Me Much

Sculpt. Shape. Carve. Dress. Paint.

Pleases me, it does, to mold into an image
That defies slump and wrinkle,
As if an old man who after 65 years didn’t have the courage
Or confidence to speak his mind
Finally got up from the kitchen table and told his wife
He wanted to quit his job and be a sculptor.

Pleases me it does to sober the frame into something challenging,
The curve of the back sure,
Legs attached to feet
Which balance and flirt in high heels.

This invention pleases me much,
As any whimsical touch
Be it a brush,
Or the feel of a woman’s suck,
Or a delicate wine and steak high
Or echoing starry trumpet notes of children running round.