Southern Crossdressing

So, I'm a Kindle Slut, too

2012-01-27T19:39:00.000-08:00

So...like everyone else in the first world, I got a Kindle for Christmas.

Not the fancy Fire, but a stripped down model.

I love it. For those of you not in the know...I am in recovery and my body and throat are in shambles. Sitting around reading is what I do best.

And my wee Kindle is...well...kinda addictive. And again, I don't have the fancy Fire.

Cute, easy, long life, and lots of cheap transgendered erotica for purchase. Oh yes, great literature is to be had, for free! My favorite gothic novels, Whitman (his long lines are butchered by the Kindle formatting), a novel a friend from college wrote, and I picked up a great meditation book gathered from recovery centers across the globe.

I am a dictionary slut, so the easy to use dictionaries make me squirm, in a good way.

Frankly, I've been inspired to compile my own kindle novel-part poetry-part erotica-part identity search-part diary...

new gig NSFW link

2011-09-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

I've secured a gig writing porn for a phone sex mistress. No, I don't worship her...it's a gig. Not much, but it pays for cosmetics...I'm a compulsive writer...forgive me....but it is fun...

for those into domme/sissy/feminization porn

Woah, haven't blogged here in a while...a poem for you

2011-09-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

Been ages. Schools in session again and the world keeps on spinning...
I have missed you blogosphere
and blow kisses at my followers...

went to the gym today and again
fell in love with the woman who works the front desk.
You know ladies, the kind of woman who can make a t-shirt look glamorous. I wish I had a picture
so you could share my enthusiasm...alas, words will have to do...

to be her for an hour!

The crossdresser has a crush. For L who works at the gym.

45, 46, eyeliner crushed blue and ribbon silver
face cut by age, sharp as a A-line skirt
and as glowing as Venus' curves. She greets
and smiles
and knows not
of my trimmed legs
my lust to be in a body like hers:
tall, curvy, thick, hips that could crush mountains,
breasts to nurse the worst of us,
heart to love the best.

I work out,
and catch glances
of her, as if machines and cardio could imprint
her shape onto my lean coffin frame.

What she would think of me I dare not seek
for I know she is good and straight as she watches her desk,
manages accounts,
and would feel queer
and slighted
at my feminine wiles.

Wicked

2011-07-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

and the black smoke is a skirt around my waist
as i shake and smote and bang my crotch against the air...
there is no chorus
only a sharp retort and my skin overtakes your skin
and your mouth overtakes mine
the swallows of our chests and lips
consume us like two snakes
eating each other out of hate

red wig is fracking hot

2011-06-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

Howdy yall. It's 90 + and 100% humidity and I'm playing with wigs...wow.

Really, WTF? This is what school administrators do with their time.

2011-06-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, as mnay of you may have read, a high school freshman was suspended for wearing heels and a dress to school. Read about it here. and here.. As an educator these kind of admin decisions make me want to scream. How is this more distracting than drug deals, bored disruptive students who care not for learning, and a test-taking culture than has thrashed out creativity in the classroom? This was a learning experience for all, and it was handled poorly.

Instead of celebrating his challenge he was suspended. Instead of discussing gender representation he was suspended. His mother approved, heck she was the one who challenged him...and the school threw him out because he was...different.

Fucking ridiculous.

Love it, love them: Baby Storm. Keeping fingers crossed

2011-05-28T06:23:00.001-07:00

I don't care what the critics say, I say go for it. I think

Couple raises genderless baby.

However on the Huff Post there is a thoughtful and supportive and yes, critical look at the parent's choices.

I agree to not raise the kid in a "bubble." It will be interesting to see how the child sees itself...but are the parent's doing it with the child's best interest in mind? It's easy, in hindsight, for me, as a non cis-gendered individual to think pink hearts and yellow butterflies and wish this was me...but...

I do wonder about the experiment...is it really for the kids, or for the parents? I agree with Dr. Koplewicz that some gender traits are biological and not social, but I think the provocative experiment is good for us, society, maybe not Storm.

Here's to you, Storm, I hope you develop into a stable awesome person. I hope the media stays out of your life.

News From the Front

2011-05-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

My secret hands
and my secret desires
can fill a theater
and entertain all the young whores
dressed for a fuck.

My heels make a click,
click.

Oh, comely nights.
in my head
about how to walk,
talk
and I don't mean
there's many causalities

I mean there's no end to the causalities.

Like Batman and the Joker,
the tedious madness
of two minds
that inhabit the same body,

the city,

fat as my psychiatric file.

There is no winner, and no
bomb, nor
truce,
a countless counting
of coups,

a shredded nightgown,
a worn dress,
scrubbed skin
of those who hands mark secret work.

Let's be honest:
I'd love to burn down
like the skirt on the floosie
in the back of the club,

how it turns to ash as she dances
to the music.
By the end of her night

the whore
will wear nothing but a slur and a smile,
her high heels snapped
from all the broken hearts she's tramping.

Booty time

2011-05-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Allright sistas....this southern girl on the cheap found but panties at the local wal-mart for 11 bucks and change, and darn if they don't feel snug and they do add a hint of definition to my posterior, though I want big curves, baby. You know what I mean. I haven't worn other padded butt panties before, but for the price...worth it.

Come on up to the house

2011-05-15T02:37:00.000-07:00

Come on up to the house. The tea is brewing. And if you need something stronger there's beer in the ice box. Nothing fancy mind you, just honest American brew.

The Mississippi will crest in Southwestern Mississippi this week flooding famrland, churches, chicken houses, and juke joints. Sadly, the poor have no where to go.

My heart pours out to them, since many are so poor and cognitively deficient, this flood is literally Biblical to the masses who subsist on corncake and game for their meals (yes, world, the rural South is third world) and do not possess the means to leave town. There world will be under water. Wiped out. Our own tsunami-like disaster.

Mean while in the northern portions of the South, the Mid-Atlantic, gay marriage/civil unions are becoming mainstream political fodder, hopefully trans rights will follow.

And me on my little hill....feeling a well of creative forces move inside. This big ol gal will pick up her guitar and pen this week.

In my personal life...the marriage is going well. We have spent time together sharing, but the lack of interface re: crossdressing/trans feelings are nil, as is the sex. life. as in. nada. And what does one expect when your "straight" partner comes out as a tall awkward girl?

I keep waking up wondering where my hips disappeared to, and feel a nurturing pull towards earth.

Thanks to the wonderful ladies at My Naughty Secret Fantasies for the Crossdressing Poem

2011-04-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

A while back I found a phone sex site that sought to link blogs about crossdressing to their site. I applied and I was accepted (didn't think I was going to be...since this blog is less sex than others...though there's nothing wrong with sex. Mind you.)

And they wrote little ol me a poem (and you too) for National Poetry Month. And it's a delight.

What is it like to be a Woman

Maybe we should start from the top

Once we begin we may not stop

From the shine in our hair,

To what we really want to wear.

How we love to shine our lips,

The curves of our pretty hips,

We didn’t learn it from a book,

In the mirror, for hours we look.

So how to be a Lady fair?

It does not matter what you wear.

Way down deep inside your heart,

That is where you have to start.

The plumbing does not matter here,

If you are straight, or flaming Queer.

It is all about your state of mind

And leave all of those fears behind.

Let us start the celebration!

And go on with the Transformation!

Make yourself into a Hot Mess,

Go Ahead Girl and Crossdress!

The art of being a woman is not simply how you are built by nature it is in your attitude and you frame of mind. Please don't let anyone tell you that you are not acceptable because you are not who society can accept at the norm. Break out of those barriers and be yourself.

Thanks Again

Goddess Jessica

http://www.mynaughtysecretfantasy.com/

http://www.femdomstoriesphonesex.com/

Boy in high heels removed from class

2011-04-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Boy in high heels removed from class

Really? Aren't we trivial

Gender Dysphoria and Gender Bending in Infinite Jest

2011-04-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, or fragmented novel, or faux-memoir, is worth the read for the simple taut, beautiful writing, but on this Easter, this day of re-birth, I speak for us pagans, agnostics, non-Christian folks: that Easter is a symbol of re-birth, making new choices, etc, I choose to reflect on the ways the late DFW wrote about “gender dysphorics” (his term) in his masterpiece Infinite Jest.

IJ is not about trans folks, though many of the minor characters play with gender. The novel is really a a galaxy of subplots that criss cross each other, or nearly criss cross each other, and like Lost, or BSG, if the characters all sat down and a had a pow-wow, many questions would be answered, (as well as raised, of course, in a maddeningly Lost-like kind of way.). I have read the novel three times, the first time barely paying attention to the gender tropes, the second time noticing it more, and the third time, with me out of the proverbial closet, personally and maritally speaking (but not in the larger, hello world, I want a sex change kind of way...which by the way is where I lean and repress, etc.) the gender tropes were up front, and varied.

Poor Tony Krause—a Jewish junkie gender dysphoric. A true gender dysphoric, transvestite prostitute, however we mostly look at the word through Poor Tony's addiction issues. The novel spends a fair amount of time describing Poor Tony's addictions to contrast with the stories and POVs of the recovery drug addicts and alcoholics. Poor Tony is in no way a knock on Tony's gender issues. The poor referring to his addictions and hapless fuckery, rather than his gender identity.

Helen/Hugh Steeply—an agent from the Office of Unspecified Services who assumes the identity of a woman. Hugh is never depicted as Hugh, only as Helen, and the brother of the main character falls in love with Helen. Helen, for me, is more of the accidental crossdresser. A straight, less beatific contrast to Poor Tony Krause, who has seen prettier days.

USS Millicent Kent's father—unnamed, fascinated with ballet tutus. A creepier trans person, albeit we see her through his daughter's perspective, whose tutus he develops a fetish for.

Barry Loach's brother—trainer at ETA who moved away from a Catholic family and became a woman who held billboard's up at Atlantic City entertainments.

Unnamed transvestite thugs—when Don Gately remembers Fax's death, a trio of sirenish large women show up, and Don eventually recognizes them as “fags” (sic)...DG's term.

Though at first these short descriptions may not seem flattering, and DFW wasn't trying to push a TG agenda, but each character represents a large swath of the TG continuum. There are other trans references, and all in all positive, though some characters do not like/or see through/or ambivalent too the characters.

It's actually kind of nice to see a myriad of POVs. Helen gives us the idea of the hassles of really living like a woman. It's funny because he's straight, but a dedicated agent, and really tries (and somehow) miraculously passes. PTK is there for sheer depravity (not because of his gender) but because PTK has a gross and bottom of the well addiction problem. The other peripheral characters are more or less cardboard cut-outs, yet visible and not at all made fun of, but rather accepted with little to no judgement by characters who range from upper crust to junkies.

I'm shutting up. Go be fab. Be reborn. Happy Easter

To the Crossdresser at 20

2011-04-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

Thank god for Prozac. Went cold for the better part of two weeks and kinda had an anxiety, well...shit...I guess... a gigantic expunging of neurotransmitters that had been pent up for so long....whew...anyhoo...back to normal operating levels...Happy National Poetry Month...the woman at the party is me...or us...or the speaker's female self.

To the Crossdresser at Twenty

The sunlight on the left side of your face
makes you look so pretty,
your hair a golden aura,
your skinny legs in ragged jeans.

The guitar will come late
to the party,
as will children,
and the kind of sanity
one only thinks one has a handle on.

Relax,
you're prone to clenching
your muscles so tight
your teeth grind at night.
You have been given the gift to rebirth yourself.
I have minor regrets.
Make your parties wild,
and large, and include yourself
in your own plots
to help others.
A little self mending never hurts.

You will attend meetings.
You will keep scratching
to make more of a life
out of beer cans
and note pads
and the hidden cache of clothes
and so many stacks of books.

Don't neglect the girl
at the party,
she will carry you when you cannot carry anything
other than syllables and apologies,
they are like paper lanterns in your hands,
the light flickering through your fingers,
the shadows, like jailed men
lean and swing in the thick summer air.

April is National Poetry Month

2011-04-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the response on the last poem. This one is a little darker. I'm trying to quit drinking and live healthier and that includes being more emotionally honest with myself and my wife.

I am currently reflecting on my sexual history and dysfunction and trying to just figure out me. Sometimes I find it so awful that I can't choose. Isn't gender supposed to be natural? Isn't our sexuality?

I don't know anything...

NEWS FROM THE FRONT:
A Crossdresser Contemplates GID & Guilt

My secret hands and my secret desires can fill a theater
and entertain all the young whores
dressed for a fuck.

My heels make a click,
click.

Oh, comely nights.

There's a holy war in my head
about how to walk,
talk
and I don't mean
there's many causalities

I mean there's no end to the causalities.

Like Batman and the Joker,
the tedious madness
of two minds
that inhabit the same body,

the city,

fat as my psychiatric file.

There is no winner, and no
bomb, nor
truce,
a countless counting
of coups,

a shredded nightgown,
a worn dress,
scrubbed skin
of those who hands mark secret work.

Let's be honest:
I'd love to burn down
like the skirt on the floosie
in the back of the club,

how it turns to ash as she dances
to the music.
By the end of her night

the whore
will wear nothing but a slur and a smile,
her high heels snapped
from all the broken hearts she's tramping.

draft: working title "A Few Notes About CrossDressing"

2011-04-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

What binds me to the earth,
which is to say,
what binds me to my body,
are the tight straps
of the camisole and the bright flash of satin
against freshly shaved skin.

It feels not like a cheap thrill,
or the sexed up joy one affords the mad,
but rather
it is the feeling of newness,

like how a new car's steering wheel rides the palm
or how a new pair of shoes
and a crisp new haircut feel
in the rush of spring
and the bright A/C of summer.

This awareness
is the spirit enlarging and enlarging
and reaching beyond its airy walls,
a conjoining of elements.

I just found it pertinent you know,
just in case there were questions
if I am found in the rubble.

What I like:the spiritual imagery, though as a rule I avoid those tropes, very overused. I like some of the lazy meandering rhythm. Will get back to you on the ending

How's your April springin'

2011-04-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

Down South, the flowers are peeking, and the days are bright but raw and wet from the swales of cold Atlantic weather that are making the fields as green and slick as the shell of a grasshopper.
And Spring brings new clothes and new ideas and newness and newness.

Like a new haircut, or even a new pair of shoes.

Here's to you, and I'll be posting some verse for National Poetry Month, drafts, and perhaps mock up notes and sketches.

And speaking of the picture, can you guess which box would apply to me?

Gratitude and Attitude

2011-02-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

No thrift store finds today, alas.

A local funeral, which in these hinterlands causes small town traffic to snarl, gave me pause.

I have gratitude for what I have. I must change my attitude.

I must love myself.

My sinuses make my head feel like I'm shrinkwrapped in wet cotton.

I am as small as a bean.

Off to the thrift store to look for bargains

2011-02-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

it's tax season, which means in these hear parts, ladies, the upper class rids themselves of last year's fashions in order to get those blank donation slips one can file with the irs...

usually I find something cute, or at least cool.

Records, tables, a cute top, some basic belts, or something to pull an outfit together.

Will report.

NSFW post....yes, some lit porn for you

2011-02-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, ladies, I know. Porn? Really, Cass?

How trite.

Well because I'm slightly graphomanic I often rent my talents to a variety of adult enterprises, either for a small fee, or for credit with whatever service they provide (usually boring adult streaming video, free pics, the occasional credit with a phone sex provider. And this means that I don't cash in on what goes for pay in the adult entertainment world for freelance writers...).

And since I have vowed to update this blog more often... guess what ladies.... enjoy some hardcore sissy porn.

Don't judge, please. I am a classy lady, for the most part.

For this type of post I like to combine a raw rough element with a sensuous ear. Let me know if you like.

Written for Mistress Jade for her nite flirt journal and blog. She wanted something trashy and hardcore for forced fem callers and patrons

It is untitled:

My cock was a steel rod in my wife’s panties. The satin rubbed against my head and pre-cum spotted the front, but one could hardly see it because they were black and the light was low. My nipples were hard, the icy hot I had rubbed on them made them hurt, and as I slipped on the flimsy cotton top, a bright red, low cut tank.

The truckers like this top. This way I remind them more of the skanky sluts who roam the bars. Perfect for the truckers who will stare at my flat, smooth, chest, stare at my cock pressing up under the short denim skirt that slides up my long shaved legs.

Mistress Jade has commanded me to roam the truckstops and whore her slut’s mouth and ass out for money and pleasure.

I have given Mistress Jade my squirt log-in information. And now she controls where I will go, whom I will meet, and how many cocks will cum on my skin, on my hands, in the mouth, in my sissy cunt.

Tonight she has commanded me to the truck stop on 113. The men who travel through there have written of a glory hole in the back stall of the men’s room. And now I am driving there, my heart stammering in my chest, my head so filled with lust I can feel it lifting off my shoulders.

I pull into the truck stop, there are a half dozen men roaming around the rigs. I stop, apply a second round of bright red, cheap lipstick, adjust my long blonde wig and step outside.

It’s cold, and my nipples hardened under my top. The skin on my legs are alive with frosty air, and my sissy clit is throbbing. I need to get fucked….

I head to the bathroom, anyone looking my way can tell I’m a sissy fag dressed in his wife’s sluttiest clothes looking for cock. I fool no one.

The bathroom stinks of piss, otherwise it appears moderately clean. Little graffiti, lots of wear and tear. I go to the back stall and open the door. A rough glory hole has been cut in the wall. My mouth waters and I drop to my knees to try out positions.

The floor is cold and hard against my knees. I wish I had brought a towel. The smell of piss floats up to my nose. In the bowel floats a small dark turd.

I am on my knees less than ten seconds when the door opens and the sounds of men fill the room.

“Yeah, I thought so.” One of them says.

There are three of them I can tell by the way they move their boots.

The stall next to mine opens. A man steps in and unzips his zipper. I stare through. All I see at first is his jeans, but soon a long flaccid black cock is pushing through the hole. It’s long, six inches soft, and the head is enormous. I slide my tongue over the head. It’s silky, and salty and the man behind the stall moans. I start to suck the head, my tongue swirling around the head and down the shaft. I don’t use my hands yet, I just savor the taste of his skin, the heat, the smell of his sweat as it floats through the air.

He starts to push his hardening cock through the hole faster, I speed up my mouth to accommodate. He’s horny, and I can tell from his grunts and how he presses against the wall in front of me that he’s been on the road and is horny. He speeds his thrusts, and I back my mouth off his shaft and focus on the head, sliding my tongue over his piss slit. He moans and his cum shoots into my mouth, down my throat, and out the sides of my mouth. I continue to suck, sliding my tongue over his cock. He groans and I use my hands to milk him for what he is worth. He pulls out and the sweet salty taste of cum if on my tongue and lips.

He stumbles out the door and one of his buddies enter. He unzips, and thrusts his short fat cock through the hole.

Now I like big ones, especially in my cunt, but short fat cocks are fun because I can suck them down to the crotch hair and really inhale the scent of the man who’s topping me. And I do that, and slurp his meat down, my lips sliding down to the base of his shaft. He stinks of sweat and lust and he bucks at my motions, moaning hard. The third man opens the door to my stall.

I manage to look up at him briefly, but go back to sucking, concentrating on the fat head, sliding it in and out of my lips.

I know what the man behind me wants.

Every time I go out for Mistress Jade, I apply generous amounts of lube to my ass. No need to get ripped…what an unnecessary pain. Sometimes to get me horny, I take my wife’s dildo and slam it up there and walk around the house to get my ass warmed up for the main event.

He was big, beer bellied, and when he unzipped his pants he pulled out a long hard red cock that curled up like a horn. He pulled up my skirt as he moved behind me. He pulled aside my thong and in one long hard motion slammed his cock into my ass. I moaned and hummed on the cock in my mouth. The man behind slide his monster dick in and out of my hole. I felt my cunt open up wide for him. He had masterful control as he pumped it in and out of my cunt. He grunted as he fucked me, and the man on the other side of gloryhole moaned loudly.

My mouth filled with sperm, I gasped for air as the cum rolled out of my mouth and over my chin. The man behind me slammed me harder and harder, seeing my head was free. He pushed my body against the stall and came in my cunt. His hot seed spread deep into my gut.

I gasped for breath, licking the cum off my chin.

The man behind me spat on in my eye before walking out. The man with the short fat cock peeked in and smiled.

“Nice job bitch.” He opened his wallet and threw down a twenty.

I licked my chin and tilted my head back. Cum ran out of my cunt.

I waited till they left, and knowing the cops would be making a round soon, head to my car. My cock was so hard I rubbed it through my skirt as I walked. Anyone who would see would see I was jerking off.

I came loudly and longly before I opened my door. The cum stain spread wide over my skirt. It soaked my panties.

I jerked off twice more before I got home, swerving in the road as I came.

I wonder what my next assignment will bring.

transition: the mind

2011-02-21T06:03:00.000-08:00

Yours truly is currently on a spiritual path, or should I say back on the spiritual path. No fear, loves, I'm not packing the New Testament (cue: Seinfeld sound byte: not that there's anything wrong with that) I'm talking real transformation.

I acknowledge that I am powerless to my gender: which is female. It is how I express, love, live, and perceive the world.

I acknowledge that how I perceive myself is not at all how others perceive me, and that my sense of self is opposed, if you will, or polarized perhaps to how others sense me.

What is the same? The heart, the love, the mind and the action.

It dawned on me that I must bring the two halves of my life together, to be whole. How that will look, I do not know.

Regardless if I begin hormone therapy or if I continue to inhabit two worlds, what is clear to me is that mentally and emotionally I must be the one person.

A mental, or spiritual transition must occur for me to progress.

No more despair, or shame or paranoia about if I will piss off the wife and family.

I cannot control how they feel, I can only control how I feel, and to be honest about my feelings.

I acknowledge that I cannot go half cocked into my spiritual journey without care and caution.

Sorry, ladies, I've rambled on for far too long.

Ciao

Cass

Blog set to music

2011-02-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

My tumblr blog set to music.

how far?

2011-02-05T05:18:00.000-08:00

Once upon a year ago I took f hormones for a week till they messed with m BP...considering them again. Does anyone have any regrets?

K...i need to talk to an endocrinologist ANY ADVICE NEEDED

2011-01-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

omg...i need estrogen...i'm pretty sure....going crazy this weekend...any advice...i don't want to loose my penis function....maybe i do...but i think i need to curb my t levels...

For Cisgendered Spouses, Partners: sex with crossdressers

2011-01-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

This isn't an advice post, but it is. Inspired by my own marriage. We don't have sex. Very often at least, averaging less than once a month since I've been out as a crossdresser/tg person. Not that I blame her, her man doesn't want to be a man, most of the time...so how does this translate to the bedroom.

Truthfully, I don't know.

I think that if your partner is willing playing with clothes might be satisfactory for both parties.

I am not saying you should get girlie with your SO, that would be great, but let's hold the panties and nighties for another occasion.

Suggest, instead, at some point in the foreplay that she wear some sexy underwear for you to rub, kiss, massage....to moisten and excite her. Heck get her off and then have her masturbate you with the aforementioned undergarments, in that matter you achieve skin on clothing contact, part of which is part of the attraction of the role of a woman...all those sexy clothes.

i am i

2010-11-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

i am i
and the eye can see the broad span of the edge
as it comes up
to meet the party.
And who will clean up the dishes? The rags?
The sad clown make-up that lies in cluttered stacks
on the outside table.

And we pour our opposites out
and empty our vessels

what is left but a body, a body,
a bodice,
a cutting, a lace blouse, and bangles, bangles, bangles.

Sometimes being trans is dream-like

2010-11-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Once when caught up in the revelry of after midnight femme sessions, my skirt still flowing around my knees, my heels clicking on the hard wooden floors, and when my eyes passed the mirrors, briefly, so briefly, I was not myself in the mirror.

Once, during class, I glanced at my hands as they pulled up a powerpoint. But they weren't my hands, they were smaller, and my skin shined, and my nails appeared out of thin air.

I did like a million double takes, it felt, before they vanished and the din of the classroom echoed and echoed and echoes until I opened my mouth to speak.

In Latin my name is light and easy to carry.

I am a feminine foot

that extra syllable hanging like a she-male's cock at the end of line

Oh, did i go there

When it comes down to it, that's what I really am, not in some porn star beauty sexy impossible way, but in a working class, honest, earnest voice. A woman with a little extra baggage.

Field of Dreams, World Series and Crossdressing

2010-11-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

In 2004 I spent the entire post-season in a tense, drunken, stoned, and crossdressed frenzy, trying to spark some fan magic to will my beloved Red Sox to the World Series.

What's a Southerner, a Southern Woman, well trans-woman, doing liking a new England Team? Don't you folks like the Braves? Or the Rays?

Well I grew up loving baseball cards. I loved the information, the portraits, the action shots, how owning a baseball card made you notice people, races, beards, mustaches, hair cuts. If you owned the card that player was special. That's how I defined special, plus the media always provided heroes. Carlton Fisk, Eddie Murray, Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela, Jim Rice, and my favorite, George Brett. So by default the Royals were my favorite team, the Red Sox, because of Rice and Fisk, were my second favorite team, and I liked the Braves, the Cubs, and Orioles, just because we had a primitive cable TV plan and all three were regularly broadcast. The game was on in my father's office, his one vice, pipe smoking, making my head fuzzy and warm. He didn't like to be bothered, and we weren't allowed to listen or bother, and the game took on a magical quality. Something adult. Something in the air. And of course, there was the games on the weekends, or summer afternoons, and I'd half pay attention.

When we moved my father's office got more remote, and bigger, and so did my father, and so did sports.

There were brief intense affairs with baseball, the wild Boston Years where I palled around with madmen, drag queens, freaks and literary geeks. And those years saw, not only, media frenzy over the team, but many games in the stands via my wife's job in PR.

I followed, but from a distance.

My femme side exploded and receded in similar fashion. It's a phase, it's nothing, it's no big deal.

It's
a
big
deal.
Your self image.

For me the yearnings and intensity increase with age.

FF

Shortly after I found out I was going to be a father we went over to a friend's house and I played catch with my friend's son, because no one else wanted the chore, which n I would find out...that playing with any three year old child is, a chore. Because you have to run a lot to pick up the stray short armed balls that fly from the kid's arm. You have to do it for the kid. But that was okay. I was in high Daddy euphoria.

I even thought, I remember the thought, that I was finally normal, in other words...non-trans.

Playing catch was fun. My beautiful wife teared up at the sight of us....
And suddenly after that baseball came alive to me again.

Then I was deeply in the closet about my trans issues, so I stood, in 2004, in a comeback against the Yankees, in my wife's mules, in her hose, in her short skirt, and wearing gobs of her eye shadow, in secret, my post pregnant wife passed out upstairs, and I in shaky drag, listening to the radio, the Sox fighting back, absolutely sure my intense desire to dress as a woman, to wake up one day as a woman, were passing phases.

That it was a kind of magic.

And crossdressing is, if anything, a kind of magic.

And so is a good game. And as of this post my son is sleeping, and the Giants are on the verge of their 1st title, and my pearls are hanging from my ears, and I have my bracelets and rings, and right now everything, just about everything seems possible.

Gender bending in Inception....Like many, I saw Inception...

2010-07-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

and what I loved was that one of the cooler characters (the forger) transformed into a hot blonde to distract the mark. Later the character "hit on" another, humor ensued and the movie went on. Gender bending in dream-land, and subtly so. The actor made the choice (or the writer) to say "darling" to rile his rival, Joseph Gorden Levitt (the point man).

There was no political or gender pointed metaphor or meaning in the said narrative constructs, the character simply can exist in any form. It just is.

Imagine a world where one's public gender could shine?

Imagine we could switch our looks at any time and act out any identity we wish?

In a way, it's kind of scary.

Tumblr Addict, nutso in boy mode

2010-07-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've become a Tumblr addict. So easy, so fun, so simple. You think Facebook is addicting....Tumblr is pic oriented. Very Trans friendly, I've found, as well as GLBT friendly. Do try it for a diversion. I spend time reblogging pretty items. Think of it as a way to save pictures, links, etc that you gush over, without the hassle of other social networking sites.

Do you any of you other gurls out there find that your gender dysphoria vacillates between 0 and 100? I find I can go from 0 to 100 in seconds. Other days I hover at 70, sometimes at 55. Whew! Makes a girl's head spin.

Have I mentioned I haven't dressed in two weeks and that an adored family member is divorcing? Well...I have been cleaning house in Upstate New York for the last fifteen days with my spouse, who rocketh, and sat front seat for divorce drama craziness.

For a long time, I felt like I wasn't the craziest bitch in the house. Mind you, denied of any transgender expression for such a time...I began to impose my own non binary gender zest to life and cooked, cleaned, repaired the house, the car, helped with the laundry and encouraged the women of the family to live! Yes it was a fucking Lifetime movie...in my own mind...though I must say the women around me loved my help and support and my attention to their clothing, jewelry, interests....(geez sometimes I wonder is transgenderism is extreme heterosexuality on steroids....)only if I had been dressed as a housewife, or hippie girl, but alas, I wasn't. Otherwise it was an above average week with the fam....

My wife and I did go shopping at her fav place to shop and I came away with two dresses, three tops, two camisoles, one Victorian wanna be blouse, and accessories. Unlike past shopping experiences she showed distaste for my trans identity, though it wasn't discussed. I could tell by her eye rolls and smirks....like she was thinking "Won't this go away?"

Transgender Identity Pt 2

2010-06-11T18:29:00.000-07:00

Late, late, late. Sorry all, meant to report on this earlier. The second half of the TG ID program concerned a Eunuch detective in the mystery, The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin and a literary character named Mars, created by Kelley Eskridge, whose gender is purposefully concealed from the reader and appeals to all, depending on the situation Mars appears equally Femme and equally Masculine, or somewhere in-between. The stories, the excerpts lyrical and insightful, and dripping with sensuality. The Eunuch discussion was rather interesting and Goodwin explained that...paraphrased: human culture has been creating Eunuchs as long as there has been civilization. We seem to need the perspective, the mirror, of the third sex, or acknowledge it somehow. Unfortunately Eunuchs are outsiders, in the same regard as crossdressers and tg folk are in some cultures.

I agree, for there are many cultures who adopt and cherish tg folk, just as many as there are those who spit and hate.

To the Eunuchs!

To the best of our knowledge: Transgender identity

2010-06-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

While working out this afternoon, I listened to a new audiobook download, To the best of our knowledge: Transgendered Identity... more like a download of a radio show from Public Radio International. You can read about it here.

One of the featured interviews was with Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV front (wo)man and pangender artist Genesis P-Orridge who is basically turning his body into a rebellion against DNA. He prefers the pronoun (s)he, had his breasts implanted and modeled after his wife's breasts (they had breast augmentation surgery on the same day (sigh...how romantic) and each underwent cosmetic surgery to appear alike)and argues that our bodies are machines and should be fitted in any way shape or form we feel is appropriate.

How would scales and experiments in skin types be adaptable to space travel, living in harsh conditions, etc. Utterly fascinating.

So when I got home I looked Genesis up and found many images that chronicle her stages of androgyny/hermaphroditic transition, as you can see above. Absolutely inspired.

Segment one was excellent, as well, a ftm and his feminist critic/professor mother about his sex change. Wonderful to hear from a feminist perspective.

Will report on segment three tomorrow.

Tranny Madness

2010-06-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Tranny madness

I'm never sure how you other sisters process/exist in your trans consciousness. Sometimes I am all woman. Sometimes I am reaffirming myself as a girl, woman, transsexual. Rarely is it far from my mind.

This leads to lots of transflections, all of the many years and hours and days and hearts I have been entangled in a dual state.

Recently I discussed my issues with an old friend who covers the drag scene and is a GLBT activist.

Since I hadn't seen him since college, old memory lane became a happening and suddenly I was back in college hanging out at the gay bars and seedy streets where all the tg/ts hookers hung out. I used to pretend I was a reporter from the college covering sex changes and interviewed/flirted with etc. I was excited by them and excited by the idea of a sex change. I did this about four times. Perhaps five, some of the evenings blur together. I didn't hook up with these women, only hung out with them. Just trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. Am I gay? Am I a tranny chaser? Am I a transsexual?

I already crossdressed, but it was a shameful coal I kept burning. Sometimes I managed to pre-exist it, that is to live with a heart that has never tap danced with gender bending. With femininity, with my secret self.

My old friend had figured himself out early. I know because he was my first experience. Period. And for a while I wanted him to be my boyfriend, and then predictably denied it till the experience was someone else's life.

Crazy. But not so much. The memory when compartmentalized can be a powerful consciousness.

These things are true

2010-05-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

These things are true

there are aspects of femininity that stick to my guts.

I love purple glitter glam fluttery flirty clothing.

Most of my self loathing has been directed to my body image.

I buy cheap glam sham slam trinkets at Wal Mart and Thrift stores.

Love is something I believe in.

My lungs are weak.

At times I have looked at my hands and they have transformed into a woman's hand, the gauzy white light about the fingers, the nails dark red stain upon the glow.

In anger my wife told me I had “woman's hands”
When I was younger and dressing in my mother's clothes, her perfume trailing behind me as I posed in the window for the college boys who drove down my street.

At one time I wanted a boyfriend more than anything in the world.

At one time I detested my bisexual urges, so much I punished myself through starvation and denial.

Orange is my favorite color.

There are times when I want to peel the skin off my bones because it's so sensitive. Like cold teeth. Like a sprained back. That hot itching pain that pulses in yr bones, in yr sinuses, in yr heart.

I want to pass.

I feel like I was born too tall.

I hope I have the courage to change.
My heart rate increased and I warmed all over, but did not show my pleasure.

All I have ever wanted is to be a housewife, a hearth, the large pot of soup, the fresh laundry and homemade cheese. Dandelion wine. The walrus teeth bravery of wild onion soup.

For National Poetry Month

2010-04-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Last year I was such a yapper in April. This year I've been laying low. I wrote this one for those gals who don't get to dress as much as they want/should do. Also to those who delayed transition for whatever reason.

Ciao.

Days when I'm too Spent to Pretend

It's holding
yr breath
for
a week,

the restriction keeping your frame in line
with what frames should look like:
boxy, perfect, regulated, plumb.

It's what the bitch
in the carpool mutters,
what the teens say in the halls,
the sun discoballing off glittered flower pots.

Why can't people love?

It's holding yr breath

for a week
before you can relax
into yr skin,
before you can calibrate your voice,
adjust gears

that move yr winged feet
through the halls of town.
It's new skin,

itching and itching
under Thursday's blistering noon.

And the body rejects,
the body
rejects,
the body reacts.
So tired,

so long,
so far away.
It's a day
you can ride with the top down,
in the snow,
without jacket,
all that muscle holding tension so still you smoke
with heat, even in the cold,
even with the ice packing into yr sockets
like glitter lashes.

Tension of other shape,
new mind.

Sleep cures not,
stress is too much,
transition, transmission, transgriot,
transtouch.

Cigarettes, Diet Coke,
bubble pop magazines and crush.

These are spells against death,
are spells
against sleep,
are spells,
hell's bells.

It is like holding yr breath for six days
without so much of a squeak
of breath,

this boxed heart, this boxed life.

Saying hello

2010-04-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

Been slammed busy last few weeks. Kids, Lectures, visits to the pub. All is well in Tranny Married land. Though we are striking arguments about the length of my nails, my sometimes "feminine gestures" other than that life on the married TG plein is a-ok.

I'm lonely, though. No one to really let my hair down with, so to speak. It's odd, like my brain is a rubric cube

Transgender scholarship for TG students in Washington State

2010-03-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool. These scholarships are popping up all over the place. Will post more info as I stumble across them. I don't know any TG students in Washington, but maybe you do!

Have a fab day!

Class discussion: hats and gender

2010-03-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

In a discussion on gender today, one of my classes classified caps as masculine, hats as feminine. Interestingly enough they noted that visors were in the middle (TG) and fedoras and cowboy hats were masculine. Lady Gaga inventions were labelled "supernatural"

TRANSform Me was good, saw my first ep on Monday. I wanted more TRANS back stories and perspective (which was doled out in small manageable doses for the middle class). The Glambulance needs a make-over.

TRANSform Me

2010-03-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes, TG women of fashion and beauty take over VHI.

No, ladies, it's not RuPaul, but three smashing TG women who travel the US in the Glambulance to do make-overs on deserving women who have been wronged, abused, or just need a break.

Fun.

On tonight. At 10:30

Happy St. Paddy's ...shrink session was good today

2010-03-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

Or to steal from one of the great TG authors of her time "Erin go braless" (snare drum, high hat). Things are well in the gender blended south of my home. Well, except boring domestic stuff like touch up painting and the like that must be done soon.

Had an interesting session with the old shrink today. She seems to think my gender dysphoria is becoming more intense, and suggests that I spend a weekend in Provincetown or San Fran to explore how I would feel living as a woman, or rather a trans woman full time.

I tend to accommodate my partner so much I often neglect myself. She's all for me trying a low dose of hormones again, but I'm cautious now. Though my body would probably react better to a corrected dosage, I still pause. But why?

Afraid of secrets, I think, or afraid of my truth. My own naked self that is struggling to get out of my head and skin and into the world.

Anyways. Cheers. Have a beer, I'm having several. Erin go bragh

Notes to my body

2010-03-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

I am not my body
but an ideal beyond body
I am flesh and not flesh and clay to be molded
by chemicals beyond my reach.
I am I am I

100th post...news and notes

2010-02-26T19:28:00.000-08:00

The misses purchased a new spring Target (we say Tar-jay...as if it were French) dress. I'm a sucker for Target fashions, though my own personal voice is more of a hippie-girl mash-up with preppy Laura Ashleyesque Victorian girlyness. Go figure. I like the goth punk look too.

Also...to brag about her awesomeness...the kids have been sick-crazy-mad-genius-suckers-of-our-time this week, so she offered to give me more time to let the woman inside out!

Yes! Always fun. Tis true I want to let the woman out 24/7...(for you new followers...this is Basil Exposition... thank you, BTW...for following this humble Trans blog) but to maintain the fam I limit my time to weekly excursions into my real world.

Not sure how it will play out, but right now I am enjoying the split time. When the children get older, who knows how I will feel...

My male alter ego will be reading tomorrow at a poetry festival in my small town. Since I will be reading in drab, my trans poems will be metaphorical in nature, versus straight up. Since I live in the aforementioned small town....um...you got the idea.

Just to hammer home how small of a community this is...we are two hours away from a Wal-Mart.

Still the overall transformation message will be first and foremost in my selections. Have a great weekend all!

Valentine's Day extra note for married genderqueer couples

2010-02-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

the missus and I went shopping and she purchased a cute purple dress from Target. She picked the purple over the other colors, and I always defer to her taste when shopping, because to share one's clothes is as intimate as any other human expression. Also, we've devoted ourselves to having more sex.

Can anyone say: Best wife ever!

Asking for thoughts...for a dark question

2010-02-13T22:32:00.000-08:00

K...here's the deal.

Working on post-apocalyptic story where protagonist is a post-op MTF. Somehow this figures in her fate, being thrown out of a...for lack of a better word...village..because she is infertile.

This is the kicker...

part of the underlying violence must be the underlying prejudice mainstream america has against the glbT (the T is capitalized to emphasize the audience to which the fiction is written for...so don't take offense). So why do you think trans people are reviled? Any ideas?

You'd get a credit/shout-out in the Acknowledgments (assuming someone would publish it.

Winter fun

2010-02-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

My weekend conference was a tedious success (however, the my wife and I had a great, productive, fight in our hotel room) and now I'm in DC for less glamorous conference on composition in undergraduate studies. Yawn. However, I'm on the company dime and enjoying the snow. Alas, no gender bending fun save for my hotel room. And am bored without the missus. Currently on a Fringe season one marathon. Good show. BTW...I'm discussing writing about gender in Shakespeare's plays...(he's the original modern trans personality).

productive fight

2010-02-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

The missus and I had it out. Cabin Fever and all. Of course my gender identity was at the heart of it. But this fight felt different. We aired some frustrations and gre closer. Whew. Glad it's over.

She doesn't want me to live the lifestyle every day every night. I don't know if I want to either. We reached another compromise in a long chain of compromises. She's the best!

Breadcrumb and Scabs published this...in their fall 2009 issue

2010-02-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

SELF PORTRAIT, ELEVEN

Slipped between two genders
like a boy's slender foot
into his mother's shoe

those few shards of afternoons
skin blending
into the glassy light of a long mirror

was to bridge a divide
and guard against death
and offer a voice to both sides.

snow musings: Gender Conference at Murfeesburo Community College, sexual orientation questioning, and latex fetish wear, oh my!

2010-02-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sounds sexier than it is. The Murfeesburo Community College Conference on Gender is merely a weekend party of second tier professors expounding bullshit about gender, gender roles, and gender equality. Blah. As far as I know I'm the only crossdressing trans person in attendance. There's not even a gay club for me to go bar hopping en femme to.

What's a girl to do? Sorry I haven't been active lately, just too many strings pulling on this old guitar.

I'm a bit out of tune.

However, currently rocking fashion tights and Massimo wine sweater dress (perfect for the damp cold) and plenty of cute fashion accessories. Follow me on tumblr for fashion fun pics and trans talk, when it comes up for reblogging.

Tumblr if you don't know, is the easiest way to blog. For me it's more a repository for interesting images.

Personally, since I am off hormones (wasn't on them for long, dammit) I have been exploring a variety of feelings. I found myself quite close (as in spatially) to a close male friend, and I could not help but to fantasize about kissing him. It turned my heart on, no pun intended, rather than my loins. Quite strange, and since has spurred me to force myself to look at men. Just to see.

What harm could that do, right?

And so far I keep finding myself looking at the women. Still, a blip on the consciousness radar that one should pay attention to.

But the wife and are great. I'm not looking to hook up, just see how attracted I am to men...if truly at all.

Side note: anyone tried latex? On tumblr I follow a crossdresser who designs latex and I must admit it looks like a fun way to dress your smooth skin. Dish the details, ladies

mind is restless

2010-01-24T17:46:00.000-08:00

I'm still awakening my female voice. For what ever reason it is still repressed and I'm taking measures to break out of my shell so to speak.

In my creative life I'm writing almost exclusively about transgendered characters, although I maintain the stories are mostly about characters who happen to be transgendered, etc, et all

Currently sketching a novella/novel about a post apocalyptic world where one the survivors is post-op (perhaps I'll change it to pre-op) transsexual trying to survive in a The Road type/road warrior/zombie apocalypse etc. world.

One of the angles I'm taking is that the other survivors don't value the MTF's worth as a person because she is sterile. This makes her an outcast. Obviously she is awesome and overcomes this kind of prejudice, but I think it gets to the heart of transphobia....we are hated because we are not one but two, and if we follow the transition to its natural medical conclusion, we are sterile.

Anyhoo...what I'm up to.

I'm reading you all. even if I don't post.

Crossdressing resolutions for 2010

2010-01-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

Buy more clothes.

So simple an air-head like me can manage. Seriously, like I forgot about me wee blog for like ages...cue hippie music and sounds of sitars...and damn if it's been ages since I've like written anything, which is scary for a someone who has mild graphomania (must produce writing. now.) My wife and I have become comfortable with my girly self. She doesn't like seeing me in girl garb, but tolerates my interest in her fashion magazines, clothing sales, etc. For her sake I try not to be overly fab. My sweetie is slow to boil, so I know everything will be kosher the longer she is comfortable with me being...well...a woman.

One thing I've noticed is my language for describing how I view myself has evolved. Years ago I was just a crossdresser, a weekend drag queen. Now I'm trans, or even transsexual.

My shrink recommended I try low estrogen to see how I reacted to it. And as expected my family's history of hypertension limited the experiment. Now I have to decide do I transition?

My love does not wish for me to transition, btw. Which is a big bummer.

Other than this dilemma of luxury our family is healthy, happy, and had a wonderful holiday season. For the most part our gifts came from second hand stores and artisan tables. My love gave me a pair of sterling silver screwback clip ons. Airy and wonderful. I like sparkle.

So back to my resolutions:

Be happy with my bad self.
Continue to foster the hearth. The family.
Nurture my heart.
Read more.
Learn to channel my girly energy into boy mode.
Decide whether to transition or not

I need advice

2009-11-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-21T19:26:00.001-08:00

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

Trauma: Masquerade

2009-11-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-10-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-20T17:39:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-22T17:03:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-04-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Read about it here

A few lines about the mind transitioning

2009-04-08T19:02:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-02T18:44:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

--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

2009-03-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

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

Neat!

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