Pauline Estelle writes about her Christmas holiday, Boxing Day bargains, the merits on online shopping, and more. She then looks forward to the new year and what it may bring in fashion trends to add to the wardrobes of mature ladies. And she poses a question. If you know the answer use the comment area to let her know.
Dina Amberle has cooked up a delicious stew for this wintery day. (If you’re in North America.) First she adds in a young boy who wanted to wear a dress for his school’s picture day to the stewpot. Then she sifts in some youthful drag queens, adds a touch of Christmas crossdressing (heavy on the color red) and brings out the full flavor of the stew with some drag bingo with Linda Simpson before sprinkling a dash of rock and roll stars in makeup and glitter. The stew has been simmering away in the Diner kitchen and is ready right now for consumption. Bon Appétit!
One of Claire Hall’s friends said “Performing our identities can be tiring.” That made Claire start to think. Wasn’t all of life filled with performance? Weren’t we one thing to some people and a different variation of ourselves to other people? We may all be wearing masks but in Claire’s case she has found that since she came out as her true self the mask fits.
These kids today. Why don’t they pick a gender and start playing? In today’s edition of Dina’s Diner Dina Amberle puts a cup of coffee and a slice of pie on the counter and asks that question. Non-Binary? Androgynous? What’s all that about? She then stirs in memories from a costume ball, adds some Nigerian wedding ensembles, Japanese “mundane” costumes, and finishes the dish off with an appreciation of young women in classical music who don’t dress prudishly while performing. Come on down to Dina’s Diner and get your fill!
We all, or most of us, look forward to going to some event at which we can really, as they used to say in the good old days, “put on the dog.” Why they said that we’ll never know but they said it and it meant to get glammed up and dress in high fashion for a formal occasion. Today The Occasional Woman discusses the things you shouldn’t wear to such an event. Lorraine Anderson may have strong opinions about what is attractive but she’s right about the tackiness of VPL and dresses that look like sausage skins. Read on for her critique of other attendees at a recent formal affair.
Order up a slice of pie, a cup of joe and the latest musings of the woman in charge down at Dina’s Diner, Ms. Dina Amberle. Today she whips up some frothy confections and delicious desserts with nothing more than a few news items and her particular brand of spice. She takes a Muslim trans/drag performer, an attorney who represents female victims of sexual assault while wearing six inch spike heels, adds in Japanese women who marry themselves, sprinkles it all with an appreciation of gingers, then serves it with a light blend of impressions from a corsetry convention. Prepare to be entertained and satisfied with the fare at Dina’s Diner.
Dina Amberle was in the kitchen early in the morning baking up some treats for her patrons at Dina’s Diner. Among the treats she offers today are such delectables as the gay Mexican luchador, an in-depth look at opera singers who have risked losing their voices in order to transition, the attraction of soccer socks, and how to get thigh high stockings the are a perfect fit. No matter what size you are. There are all of those delicacies and more waiting for you at Dina’s Diner. Bon appétit!
Welcome to our gender support group meeting. Please say your name and pronoun preference as we go around the circle. Sabrina Symington has drawn a cartoon that tells us all why we’re here.
Would a rose smell as sweet if it was called a transvestite, a crossdresser, or a transgender person? That’s silly of course but despite the many labels we’ve had for the transgender community all of us knew, some very early and some much later, that we needed something more than living every day in the gender assigned by our birth genitals. Pauline Estelle looks at the many labels from a crossdresser perspective and has an anser to the question, What’s in a Name?
Welcome to Dina’s Diner! Take a seat anywhere you like and we’ll get you a cup of java. Dina Amberle has cooked up another selection of delicious entrees that are sure to please any palette. First she whips up some frothy news about trans actress and model Hunter Shafer. She spices it lightly with a little touch of Nicole Maines and… heavenly. Then she stirs up some coverage of the trans scene in Puerto Rico. Muy caliente! Dina adds in a pinch of a doctor from Myanmar who decides to become a sexy model, shakes – not stirs – two ladies from the late ’60s who give her inspiration, and finishes the repast with a light desert outlining how a Brazilian gang leader tried to escape from prison disguised as his 19-year-old daughter. Don’t miss every morsel of Dina’s Diner!
Last week the ABC show What Would You Do? featured a segment with a transgender woman being harassed by another patron of a restaurant after the trans woman asked where the ladies’ room was located. The female patron doing the harassment had a young girl with her and used all the tired arguments about safety […]
Claire Hall writes about what it was like when she came out. Social media wasn’t that much of a factor for her at first. The web helped her find a support group that wasn’t too far from her home and after attending some meetings she got a few Facebook friends in the trans community. Then the government signaled that things were going to get tougher for transgender people in the USA and Claire’s friend requests jumped. And the people who have connected with her all have stories to tell. Some heartbreaking and some inspiring. So has social media been a help on her journey? Read on.
Why can’t people understand that LGBTQ people aren’t a threat? They’re people just like everyone else and they have many of the same needs that aren’t blotted out by the one thing that makes them different that the majority of humans. Today Sabrina Symington has penned another cartoon that offers commentary on the real agenda of the LGBT movement.
Are transgender people the spandrels of humanity? A spandrel is a space created in architecture by the active elements of a structure that have on purpose on their own. Spandrels occur in the space between the upper corner of a rectangular arch and its oblique brace. Dr. Dana Bevan takes the spandrel concept and applies it to transgender people. Her blog today is speculation on this subject. Read her thoughts and see if you agree that transgender people may have no purpose in the evolution of our species. Or, they might.
Dina’s Diner offer monthly specials of the latest dishes to catch Dina Amberle’s attention. She quickly checks out the recipe then tosses together a delightful repast that is sure to satisfy. Among the all natural organic ingredients she uses for today’s special we find Mr. Dan’s drag shows in Silver Lake, California, the feminized music idols who have the Communist Party in China upset, a portion of the original “tease but don’t please” girl Doris Day, a dollop of a Broadway performer hanging up her fishnets, and some spices including Melania Trump, and Damien Hurley. Get down to Dina’s Diner and take your seat in a spacious booth or sit at the counter. You’ll be glad you did.
Way back in 1998 TGForum contributor Hebe Dotson wrote an article that imagined what someone in 1899 would prognosticate about the nature of things in the coming 20th century. We pulled it out of the Archives, dusted it off to be our Retro Rerun. Today we present part two of A Tale of Two Centuries in which Hebe attempts to gaze into the 21st century from 1998. Now that we have a few years of this century under our belts lets see how she did with her predictions.
Last month Pauline Estelle wrote about an important room in her life. The bathroom in her home where she does her transformations. This month she writes about another room that’s important to all trans ladies — a public restroom. It seems very logical that using a lady’s room shouldn’t be a problem for anyone involved. Unlike the men’s facility there are no urinals where you stand uncomfortably surrounded by other men with their zippers down. You have a discreet stall, with walls down to the floor in some upscale establishments. Why should there be any problem? Pauline takes a look at that and does a small experiment that shows how unenforceable the various restroom laws are.
Amanda may have found her mellow spot. After coming pretty close to rock bottom she has been lifted up again by Lyft. The ride sharing app has allowed her to make money doing something she loves, driving. She is all over the Baltimore area and even down in Virginia and Washington D. C. And she has a new therapist, is getting caught up on her bills and she tells you all about things today. And, she has a small slideshow of the amazing photos she takes while she drives around.
The only constant in life is constant change. Our Sophie Lynne had one idea for this blog and then in a moment that idea got pared down to only one part of her blog. Another section was necessary due to news she got about the passing of a friend in the community. Then she ends her blog today with some good news. You may want to read it all the way to the end and use the comment area to congratulate her.
Bone up on your math skills. Get your calculator and slide rule. Christine Burr has come out — as a math teacher. This week after class she had some free time before going home to get ready for a night out with the girls so she decided to apply her math skills to crossdressing. If charts and graphs are your thing prepare for an, admittedly tongue in cheek, look at the the lives of crossdressers through bar charts.
Transgender people have existed throughout history and are best helped with love and encouragement, not through oppression. Dana Bevan writes an open letter to the Catholic Church advising it to stop treating transgender people as if they were part of some fashion trend and to accept that they exist and they are not sinners. She calls for evidence based policies about transgender issues, not the adoption of the hardline rule that men are men and women are women, as is taught in Abrahamic religious doctrine.
There is one very important room in Pauline’s house. It the guest room bathroom. That’s where the important process of transforming into Pauline takes place. In this post Pauline writes about all the steps she goes through in her transformation bathroom. From shaving all body hair to her technique for shaving her face and the steps she takes in makeup application, it’s all here in today’s post.
Last year Jan Brown attended the 31st Annual Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival and wrote a report for TGForum. Last week she attended the 32nd annual event and today she shares the experience with you along with her impression of the 9 films that had transgender themes. Several of the films were premiering at the festival. The nine films range from three minutes to eighteen minutes in length. Jan and her companion were both touched by the content of all of the productions.
Our Retro Rerun today is from 1996. It is apropos since June is the “wedding month.” TGF contributor Coreen Clark wrote about the urge many crossdressers have to wear a wedding gown, or in some cases have the whole bridal experience. She admits to having tried on her wife’s wedding gown at least once or twice but she wonders what the real fascination is for some people. To investigate she conducted some research with cisgender women and asked several of her crossdresser friends why they were attracted to the idea. It led to this essay on TGF about The Bridal Mystique.
While he was running for president Donald J. Trump said he would be the best president ever for LGBT people. He must have a different definition of the word “best” than we do. Because of his positive statements about the LGBT community many people in that community supported him with their vote. Surprisingly there are still some who support him. Sabrina Symington makes an editorial comment on that in today’s cartoon.
Dana Bevan feels that the words we use to describe members of the transgender community are no longer adequate or proper. Many of the words, like transvestite, transsexual, and others, were coined by psychiatrists or academics and over the years have picked up bad connotations or been applied in error to people who were not in that category. Why should we let the psychiatric profession label us and dominate the words used to describe our behavior, and our demographic and social groups? Dana thinks it’s time we got some new words and she would like your help in coming up with some.
