Kalina Isato’s Stochastic Musings

This month Miss Kalina Isato talks about why we should all strive to be a ma’am and not a man; she gives us her restroom and dressing room views; tells what it’s like being someone’s muse; expounds on why youth is but a ruse, beauty studies in the news, and much, much more. Speaking of which, click “more” to catch the very latest of Kalina’s Stochastic Musings.

I get “miss’ed” and “ma’am’ed” quite a lot even without any makeup on, but once I speak, I see some people doing a double-take and correcting their pronoun with a bit of embarrassment on their part. If I tell them, “No, you got it right the first time, then I’m basically telling people I’m a transsexual and, unfortunately to some people, I will still be seen as a man rather than a woman even if I’m legally a woman.

How important is being legally a woman? Well, it means that if I’m ever in a women’s dressing room and some woman screams out, “Eeek! There’s a man in here!” and the police show up, I have a handy-dandy get-out-of-jail-free card in my pocket in the form of my driver’s license or birth certificate.

Let’s examine that scenario for a moment: you, woman, dressing room, screams filled with fear and surprise. You should never have experienced that situation in the first place. If you’re on hormones and have had any kind of facial or body modification surgery and you’re still called “sir,” you have to think about what you’re doing wrong. Is it your voice? Your mannerisms? Is it your look and you just won’t own up to the fact that you’re not quite ready for  prime time yet?

Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I’ve been in women’s restrooms hundreds of times and nobody has ever screamed “Eeek! There’s a man in here!” on me. In the beginning, I used to be paranoid because I’ve read many stories of tgirls getting chastised for being in the wrong restroom or dressing room. I remember a time eight years ago when a fitting room guard did not permit me to use the women’s dressing room in a major department store because she read me as male. There was good reason. Back then, I dressed and looked more like a man. Times have changed now and transgendered women now have the right to use the appropriate restroom so long as they can come up with the proper documentation to avoid an embarrassing situation, but I’d rather avoid any embarrassment altogether by ensuring that I pass.

One of my goals this year is to develop my female voice. It’ll be difficult for me because I’ve had this male voice for over 25 years. When I speak I sound like a very famous “wascally wabbit.” Even so, my voice has suited me fine over the years and if it doesn’t change, I won’t lose sleep over it. You can hear me blab in my videos on YouTube.

There’s an old saying that states that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. My friend Kathy is growing her hair out after some encouragement from me. She is looking fab. Another girl I gave props to in recent months is my friend Lauren for growing out her hair. She had long hair to begin with and I never understood why she wore wigs if she already had a plentiful mane of hair. She also grew her hair out after some encouragement from me. One more girl deserves special kudos for growing out her hair and she actually did so on her own. That girl is my friend Peter’s friend Nikky. Her hair is looking fab, too. All of these girls are learning how to style their hair on their own, just like a real girl. They are doing their jobs every day with this same hair that’s a natural part of them. It’s pretty cool if you think about it and a large part of being a full-time 24/7 girl. A lot of transsexuals don’t seem to understand that makeup application, hair styling, and fashion sense are fundamental skills that every woman develops in her formative years. Not mastering these basic skills means you’re not a woman in society. How many times do we look at frumpy, unattractive women in public and think, “Oh, my God, she looks like a train wreck! Maybe she’s a bag lady!” This is how you will be perceived if you don’t master makeup application, hair styling, and fashion sense.

What would you do if someone, out of the blue, sent you a hateful email blasting your appearance? I think some people just have a need to hate on other people maybe out of jealousy, insecurity, etc. It makes them feel better about themselves and I guess that could be a form of therapy for some people. I remember a tranny named Jamie who blasted my appearance many years ago. I somehow got on friendly terms with Jamie after a bit of sweet talking on my part, since you can always kill people with kindness, and then she sent me a picture of herself. What I received opened my eyes — wide open — and my jaw dropped as well. Jamie was supposed to be full-time, but she looked like a closeted crossdresser wearing a ratty old curly blonde wig, mismatched clothes that didn’t fit her overweight body, and fetish heels. This further convinced me that some trannies on the Internet live a weird fantasy life where they honestly believe they are passable, but are only passable on SecondLife.com. I wanted to laugh out loud at the picture, but I found myself starting to cry because I genuinely felt sorry for her.

It’s all a part of handling the spotlight. For every naysayer, there are thousands of guys and girls who like me. There are guys who are so enamored with me that they created oil paintings, drawings, and even video game characters of me. I’m their frickin’ muse! I guess love and infatuation makes guys do crazy things.

Someone from a trans youth forum pointed out that trans youth women don’t nearly have the passing issues that older transsexuals do. This means less discrimination and a better chance of integrating into society as women because many of them started their transition at a younger age and potentially nixed any chance of masculine development in their bodies. I agree that many of them are going to find it easier to live as women for the rest of their lives. For those of us who started late, society was a little less aware and accepting of transsexuals and was certainly much more LGBT-phobic during a time when I was fighting the same stupid feelings all of my middle-aged transsexual peers wrestled with. Some of us joined the military to prove how macho we were. Others drove fast cars, played sports, and did silly things to hurt ourselves. I, myself, took up bodybuilding and popped so many pills that I’m surprised I didn’t overdose on something. Because I never felt normal, that played a large part in my self-esteem, confidence, and self-identity. We all knew that a macho image just wasn’t us. For some, it’s too late to reverse the masculinity. For others, we stopped trying to be masculine earlier than later, so we were fortunate. I admire trans youth for their courage and mental outlook to proceed with their transition. I don’t agree that it’ll be easy for all of them. Some will feel the same levels of prejudice and discrimination that the middle-aged transsexuals feel because of passability issues. Not everyone will have feminine facial features without surgery. I also have questions about financial security because not everyone can afford to undergo a complete transition, so if you live modestly on a modest income, how are you going to afford your body modification surgeries and hormones? Had I known years ago what I know now, I’d probably go down a different path, but I wanted a family with children, something that many transsexuals may never see, so I transitioned my own way. Even if I transitioned completely, I’d still be the narcissist I am today, so I’d still have way too many pictures of myself published for all to see. That’s the artist and exhibitionist in me.

As a diplomat to all people transgendered, I extended my hand to three trans youth assholes who sent me hatemail earlier this month. I discovered that their ages were 30, 42, and 46 respectively. I always thought trans youth were transsexuals under 21. Perhaps these people are trans youth in the virtual worlds of SecondLife.com! I asked these people if they could help me make TransVamp.com a better resource for not just middle-aged crossdressers and transsexuals, but for all ages. They said, “Why would a trans youth person come to your web site for help?” Funny, why did these three losers come to my web site in the first place and make it a point to criticize various points in my advice pages on a trans youth forum? Obviously, they were looking for help and read something that did not agree with their fantasy ideals.

To all the teens and twenty-something transsexuals who pass now and think they know it all, your passability will not last forever. Let me repeat that: Your passability will not last forever. Go scan the transsexual forums and you will see that once you get older, you are plagued with the very same passability problems and social integration issues that your part-time crossdressing sisters and full-time transsexual sisters who transitioned late are plagued with. This is proof that nobody is better than anyone else. The young need the old for their experience. The old need the young for their energy. Successful relationships can exist between the two groups and to shut any group out would segment an already small, niche group even further.

Occasionally I hear someone blasting my Monday Night Tgirls parties as crossdressing parties when, in fact, they are attended by more full-time people than part-time people and everyone, no matter what their choice in life, participates in the themes as much as they can, not because they are crossdressers, but because they are fun people. It’s a really cool party if you think about it. We’re all out having fun rather than sitting around in a forum or a Secondlife.com virtual chat room trying to concoct ways to rag on a real-life party.

An interesting article was brought to my attention, which states that beauty is all about symmetry and the law of averages. Beautiful people rarely display the phenotypic qualities commonly associated with their ethnic origin. In the Miss World pageants, women from Asian territories who’ve won the pageant were noted to be distinctively less Asian in appearance than their kin. The same can be said of women from other ethnic groups.

So, yeah, I’m wearing a bra these days. The main reason is to keep my headlights down. I used to get criticized for not wearing bras and I always had a snappy comeback, such as “I’m a feminist,” but here are the real reasons why. My skin is very sensitive to some fabrics and many bras just make me itch. I can deal with cotton, silk, and a little polyester, but if there’s too much polyester in the blend, I itch. I also don’t like certain types of bras, such as enhancer bras, because I don’t believe in artificial breast enhancement unless it’s for a specific style of clothing or a look I wish to achieve. Enhancement just seems fake to me. If I wanted to wear an enhancer bra, I might as well wear breast forms. I like my little boobies, so why should I make them look like something they’re not? I prefer wearing cute little bralettes or t-shirt bras that don’t enhance, but keep my boobs naturally shaped and in place. One of the great things about wearing a bra is it subconsciously reminds you to stand or sit up straight, so bras are actually useful for improving your posture. However, I don’t feel the need to wear as many “feminine” things as possible to validate my gender identity. I think it should be pretty obvious to someone that you’re a girl even if you wear boy clothes.

If you own a Nintendo Wii, you’ve probably tried to create a likeness of yourself called a Mii, which can look close, but never exactly like you. Well, here is my rendering of me as a Mii, complete with a tortoise headband.

The wind blows comments and confessions in my direction. How many of you are truly happy with your decision to become a woman? After all of the hormone therapy and body modification procedures, experiencing discrimination, and losing some close friends and family along the way, how many of you are truly happy with your life? It seems as if very few of you are. I don’t want to see or hear about meltdowns among the people I know, so please get some help and don’t pull anyone down with you at my parties. There are support groups to help you cope with your gender identity issues, such as Renaissance Transgender Association. If you don’t have gender identity issues and you think your life still sucks, then you might have other issues that won’t be solved by Renaissance or anyone else.

At a fine arts guest lecture this week, I met two of my classmates, one from a previous class and one from my two current classes. It’s cool that most everyone in the fine arts school knows me as Clare and it’s cool that I get to go to work looking androgynous. My involvement with my art gallery shows last semester and my exhibition award this semester pretty much cemented in everyone’s minds who I am. I didn’t just tell a hundred people about my transsexuality. I let over 20,000 people know in my school newspaper. You win people’s hearts by showing them that you’re talented and more than just a big gender identity issue. The sandwich guy at Cosi addressed me properly, too: “Miss, would you like chips or carrots with your sandwich?” My hair, headband, and lip gloss are nice little cues, but previous sandwich people have called me “miss” and I wasn’t even wearing a headband or lip gloss! That’s the power of having your own hair and being relatively small. I rushed home so I could see my family. At the end of the day, I closed my eyes and thanked God for all that He has given me.

If you’re on the University of Pennsylvania campus from January 14 to February 12, 2010, be sure to check out the group exhibition I’m a part of. The show is the annual Undergraduate Juried Exhibition held at Addams Gallery from January 14 to February 12, 2010. Like previous years, the competition was fierce and the number of entries that were rejected filled one of our classrooms. My triptypch called “Spiders”  won a Juror’s Choice Award. The award includes a letter of recognition and a cash prize.

All of my books make great holiday gifts for yourself or others. Learn everything from makeup techniques to deportment to passability. These are the same classic books that thousands of crossdressers and transsexuals have learned from and now you can learn from them, too. Each one contains information available nowhere else because, hey, nobody else is Kalina Isato!

Are you ready to learn the secrets to becoming super glamorous and super passable? Just order copies of my videos, Secrets to an Awesome Makeover, Natural Makeup Techniques, and Totally Natural available here.

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment, Transgender Opinion