Our Video Fashion Tip blogger Victoria Williams had camera trouble this week and instead of a video fashion tip she has filed a piece on how she became the woman she is today. Her story takes us from the days when she dressed up alone at home to meeting people on the Internet, taking those late night trips outside, contacting a support group and then setting goals and working on all the things she needed to become herself.
“Dream a little dream with me.” That’s the thrust of Sophie Lynne’s post today. Whether the dream is one you have at night while you’re tucked into your bed or if it’s one that you think about throughout your day, a longing for something more in your life, all your dreams are important. The one’s you have when you sleep are out of your conscious control but Sophie thinks the waking ones you hold dear and strive to achieve are more than dreams. They’re goals that you can work toward and someday achieve.
Christine-Jane has been commenting on the crossdressing lifestyle for years. First appearing in trans-magazines and newsletters before there was an Internet, she now comes to TGForum to skewer corssdresser foibles with her pen. If the ladies in her cartoons seem familiar it’s because they are. We’ve all either met them or been them. Pause for either a chuckle or a “LOL” and take a look at this Christine-Jane cartoon.
Now that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has opened the military to openly gay service members where does that leave TGs who want to serve their country? Babs Casbar-Siperstein runs down the advances transgendered people have made in regard to military service and speculates on what will happen next. Citing the results of surveys and personal experience with trans soldiers Babs postulates that it won’t be long before TGs can proudly, openly server their country.
There are some areas of life on this world that really need a handbook or “field guide” to help people maneuver through rocky and confusing terrain. One of those areas is how to deal with a transgendered, or gender variant child. Raising a child is hard enough but what do you do when you little boy insists he’s a girl or your little girl says she wants to be called Jack and won’t wear a dress or skirt? Fortunately for the parents of transgendered children Dr. Michele Angello has distilled the essence of 15 years doing therapy with transgendered adults and children into a book. It’s called On The Couch With Dr. Angello and we review it for you today.
Tasi Zuriack is all about feminine fashion. She’s so into fashion and women’s clothing that she has spent the past ten years working on a website that is completely dedicated to how to dress properly to transmit the message you want people to get. Today she discusses that website along with the trends to androgyny in men’s fashion and offers everyone a free book about the top ten fashion mistakes crossdressers, and women, make when dolling up.
One of the first dilemmas faced by the novice crossdresser is how do you make your male shaped body look like a female body? There are a variety of hidden garment and prosthetics that will do the job but what sort of female body do you want to project and which of the many shapers, corsets, Spanx®, tape, pads and prosthetics will work best for you? Today’s Video Fashion Tip from Victoria Williams addresses these questions and may be the first step toward helping you solve your dilemma.
This month our correspondent in Thailand has left the country for a trip to Hong Kong. Christine has highlighted the lot of transgendered people in Thailand but what has she found in Hong Kong? Fortunately it seems that progress is being made on transgendered rights and recognition. When Christine lived in Hong Kong, just a few years ago, the trans community was completely underground. Now thanks to the efforts of local TGs things are beginning to change. But is it enough progress?
Willow Arune is a collector of books. Not just any books but signed first editions. She hunts up the author and has them sign her copy of their work, or a bookplate which she affixes to her first edition making it a signed first edition. One of the authors she decided to track down was Geoff Brown who wrote a novel in the early ‘60s called “I Want What I Want.” The main character is a male to female transsexual. Join Ms. Arune as she takes you on a tour of TS themed books on her Hunt for Geoff Brown.
Age is all about numbers. Pick a number you like and stick with it is the philosophy espoused by The Artist D. When she was 21 she decided to tell everyone she was 23. But this month The Artist D turns 30. And she has a quandary — she’s spent several years being ages other than her actual age. How long should she stay 30? With Mick Jagger turning 70 and 70 becoming the new 50 how is a girl supposed to decide what age she should claim? Get all of The Artist D’s perspective on the numbers game in Dirty Thirty.
Our TG music columnist Pamela DeGroff has a review of a CD by Michelle “Rocking Horse” Garcia titled Laughin’ in the Kitchen. Originally released in 2008 Garcia has started doing a television cooking show and each show features, in addition to creating a delicious dish, a performance of one of the songs from the CD. It’s culinary rock at it’s finest. Read Pamela’s review and listen to some clips. Also in today’s column Pamela has music news about Rev. Yolanda’s birthday, Jennifer Leitham’s birthday and performance schedule, a benefit album for the singer from All The Pretty Horses and new music from Ciara.
A place for everything and everything in it’s place is a good way to run your life. Online groups for TGs however tend to try to do that but no matter how noble the groups purpose people join who have only one thing on their minds. A recent situation in an online group that was established to provide “role models” for TGs caused RachelX to write her take on the proper place for horn dogs who are only online so they can be hitting on people and about the meaning of “role model.”
A news report about a FtM transgendered teen — or perhaps just a a teen with gender confusion — has prompted Dee Levy to write her contribution to TGF. The teen, born female, established and online male identity and courted a young girl. The teen went to visit the girl and they engaged in sexual activity without the girl knowing her boyfriend was not born with male parts. The boyfriend was arrested and is now a sex offender in the eyes of the law. And the “boyfriend” now identifies as female. See what Dee thinks of this complex affair.
Stealth is useful when you don’t want your spy planes to be noticed by the people you are spying on. It’s not as useful and may be actually harmful when you’re transgendered. The burden of having to pass all the time, having to watch yourself constantly to make sure you don’t betray your gender status and then the damage to your personal relationships and career from being outed make it an unhealthy way to live. Dallas Denny read an essay by another TG writer on the dangers of stealth and has been inspired to expand on the subject.
Today’s Video Fashion Tip is all about lips! Victoria details how she went about finding the perfect lipstick shades to enhance her beauty without being garish or over the top. She admits to early lipstick faux pas and she wants to save you from making the same mistakes. Get ready to take notes and then go ahead an hit Play for today’s Video Fashion Tip from Victoria Williams.
Looking for examples of transgenderism from around the world to include in her next book Dr. Dana Bevan found herself on a virtual tour of the planet, and she found transgendered people in many places. From North American Native tribes to such far flung areas as Indonesia, Siberia, Iran and Mexico Dr. Bevan was able to find not just a third gender but in some cases five genders. And she learned that transgendered people exist in cultures that have religious restrictions against dressing as the opposite sex. Take the tour today with Dr. Bavan and learn about TGs around the world.
Camille Brandon made a rare daytime appearance at the Flamingo Resort in St. Petersburg, Florida Sunday a week ago. What lured our Florida Out & About reporter into the bright sunshine? A book signing with author and former Navy SEAL Kristin Beck. Beck is promoting her book Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL’s Journey to Coming Out Transgender. Camille hung out by the pool all day and has sent us a report on the event.
In 2011 a British television program called My Transsexual Summer followed seven transgendered individuals around documenting what, for them, it is like to be transgendered. Now the program is available on YouTube and recently our columnist Linda Jensen got an email from her friend Janne Carbonneau about the program. Ms. Chabonneau wanted to let everyone know that the program did a good job of introducing TGs to the world in a non-exploitative way. Linda thought she should share Ms. Charbonneau’s review with the TGForum readers.
Hello to all my TGForum family. Hope everyone is enjoying the great summer weather. Here in North Carolina it has been great. Here is an update on Southern Comfort 2013 Blazing New Trails. September 4-8, 2013 Crowne Plaza @ Ravinia, Atlanta Georgia This year’s conference looks to be one of the best ever! Many of the best […]
Christine-Jane has been commenting on the crossdressing lifestyle for years. First appearing in trans-magazines and newsletters before there was an Internet, she now comes to TGForum to skewer corssdresser foibles with her pen. If the ladies in her cartoons seem familiar it’s because they are. We’ve all either met them or been them. Pause for either a chuckle or a “LOL” and take a look at this vintage Christine-Jane cartoon.
Sophie Lynne was at one time, back in the ’80s, an avid gamer on Playstation and her favorite was Twisted Metal 2. The thing that appealed to her about video gaming was the levels of play. You could start out at Easy, then move on to Medium and after you mastered that change the setting to Hard and really test your skills. Today Sophie finds a parallel to the levels of gaming in the transgender world. Find out what Sophie feels defines each “level” in the Transgender Game and see if you agree.
For all of our gains in recognition and rights there we still often face transphobia. As Babs points out in this post some of the transphobia isn’t coming from the straight world. It’s coming from the gay, lesbian and bisexual parts of the community. Is there a resurgence of gay and lesbian transphobia menacing the T in GLBT? Babs looks a a few examples, like the firing of Allyson Robinson, after only 9 months on the job at Outserve-SLDN. And what about Janice Covington being told it would be better for her to join her state’s Democratic men’s auxiliary rather than the women’s. It’s enough to make you wonder. See what else Babs has to say about G&L transphobia.
Every now and then during my involvement with the transgender community I have run into people who want to stop crossdressing — or even thinking about crossdressing. It’s not unreasonable to want to give up a behavior that most of the world thinks is at best odd and at worst immoral and perverted. One of the first people I met who wanted to rid themselves of their desire to crossdress called while I was staffing the Renaissance peer support phone line. This guy was adamant that he needed to purge his crossdressing impulses and just be straight. I had to tell him it was highly unlikely that he could do that. He might be able to stop the practice of dressing up but he would always be a crossdresser. The desire doesn’t seem to just go away.
Recently an interview Dustin Hoffman did with the American Film Institute in 1998 surfaced on YouTube and went viral with the TG community. Hoffman talks about what the motivation for doing the film “Tootsie” was and how it affected his understanding of the relationship between the sexes. Much has been made of the fact that he broke down and wept when he realized that he had been judging women not by their character but by their looks. He reveals that he felt “brainwashed.” The AFI interview inspired our contributor Geogria TG to some commentary on the film and Hoffman’s epiphany. She thinks that Hoffman’s male character in the film would not have killed off Dorothy Michaels.
