Lori - Fresh Out of Umbrellas

Lori is back (old news) but why has she returned to the world of blogging?

In her own words, "one of the driving forces for my returning to write about the things on my heart is the importance of appreciating each other today....here...and now."

Sadly, when we are in the middle of an intense process we sometimes ignore many of the most important and simplest things in life.

Lifting off from planet trans and gaining altitude, it is possible to appreciate the wider picture again.

Lori reminds us to pay attention to what is really valuable in life in her post Umbrellas? The Things You Won't Find Here...

The Pearl of Great Price

Ariel titled her post, The Pearl of Great Price, with the biblical connotation in mind.  It is wonderfully written by someone who has been there, done that, and paid the price, as she explains so well in this paragraph:

Everyone who makes a major change in their lives pays a price. That includes those who change everything up to but not including genital correction. It can be a very high price. But those who undergo full surgical correction pay a price in blood, toil, tears, and sweat (not to mention money in many cases) that those who do not undergo correction do not pay. That is also different. And that price earns the post-corrected person something important—to be significantly closer to having been born the right way. To have what it takes to live life fully and interact with others, including lovers, as if they had been born the right way.

For Ariel, this was the Pearl.

Go here to read her post.

I want to note that Ariel recently left T-Central, simply because it was time to move on.  We miss her already!
  
We've had an unwritten policy not to feature each others blogs on T-Central, but since Ariel has left us, well.....it gives me a chance to show off just how well this girl can express her thoughts to others in her blog, A Naturalized Citizen.

Do Our Brains Ever Lie To Us?

Robyn, a crossdresser, ponders...

But all I see in the photo is a beautiful woman.  Shouldn't I see a man in a dress?  Why don't I see a man in a dress? 

Go to, Do our brains ever lie to us?, to explore the subject with Robyn.

Note that Robyn's blog has a content warning come up when you enter the site, advising that the site "may contain content only suitable for adults".  This post, however, contains nothing that I would consider objectionable.

Do you have adequate suspension?

    Labels, labels, labels. It seems at times we just can't avoid them, much less get them right. Still, there's one label that a lot of those of us who are MtF get wrong needlessly, something we share with a majority of natal women.
    I'm speaking of course about the label to be found on our bras. There is no need for a label debate about that one, it's an issue that can be solved with five minutes use of a tape measure, yet so many people get it wrong and wear the wrong size.
    As MtF crossdressers or transsexuals we have an extra disadvantage over natal women, we're not taught about these things as teenagers and those who are in the closet may find it difficult to walk into a lingerie store and ask for a fitting without embarrassment. In addition there are still too many suppliers selling breastforms without adequate sizing information, so those of us who need a little artificial enhancement may find ourselves not even knowing what cup size we've bought.
    So here follows a quick guide to measuring yourself and selecting the right bra size. It won't guarantee an eye-catching result, but it should at least lead you to a more comfortable fit and help you avoid the escaping boob look, or worse still, the escaping breastform look.
    Take two measurements in inches, one round your chest just under the bust and one round your chest over the bust itself, or over your breastforms if you wear them. Round the under-bust measurement up to the nearest even inch and that will be your band size. Take the difference between the two measurements in inches, if it is below one inch you are an A cup, if an inch you are a B cup, if two inches a C and so on. The table below gives a full cross-reference of this measurement versus cup size differences for UK and US sizing.

Over the bust/chest measurement difference and cup size

Band

inch

0

<1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Cupsize

U.S.

A

AA

B

C

D

DD

DDD/E/F

DDDD/F/G

G/H/J

I/J/K

J

K

L

M

N

-

-

-

Cupsize

UK/Austr.

A

AA

B

C

D

DD

E

F

FF

G

GG

H

HH

J

JJ

K

KK

L

(table courtesy of Wikipedia)

    So for example if your under-bust measurement is 39.5 inches and your over-bust measurement is 44 inches then the difference is about 4 inches and you need a 40DD bra.
    Which means you should be all set to go and order the perfect undergarment. Assuming of course that you remembered to use a fabric tape rather than a steel one, you would not believe how cold a steel tape can be!

References:
BBC H2G2 entry
Wikipedia entry

The Disorder Nobody Wants to Talk About

We received an email from Doctor Avery Jenkins, a chiropractic physician specializing in the treatment of people with chronic disorders.  Dr. Jenkins wanted to alert us to his blog, DocAltMed, and a post he did recently titled, The Disorder Nobody Wants To Talk About.

Dr. Avery's intentions are good and, while not "of the Community" as he puts it, he is an ally and has made it a point to make his practice transgender-affirming.

This particular post brings to front and center the Jim Collins Foundation's first grant in its mission to "provide financial assistance to transgender people for gender-confirming surgeries".  The grant, by the way, was awarded to Drew Lodi.

Dr. Avery notes that there are other TG related posts of interest on his blog.

Same but Opposite?

It seems there is an ongoing debate, if that's not too mild a word, in the US at least about the differences between transsexual and transgender, with all sorts of passionately articulated arguments about the inclusivity or exclusivity of whatever term they are talking about. From this side of the pond (UK) it seems a odd argument as the words here have marginally different meanings in the colloquial usage. Think of the word 'pants' for instance. In the US it means trousers, here in the UK it means underwear, and is also used as a derogatory remark - as in that show was pants, meaning the show was rubbish. In the same vein, the Scottish Government has announced a doubling of funding for the Scottish Transgender Alliance. The word transgender here covers a subtly different meaning than the one argued about so passionately in the US which is why some parts of the debate seem lost on me.

But this article its not about that debate. (thankfully for me) It's about those parts of trans(whatever) world that are often forgotten about and not really part of that debate. The first is FtMs and hopefully we will cover spouses and families soon on T-Central too. I would reckon that 99% of blogs listed here are MtF but of all the ones I read, the postings that find most resonance with me at the moment are the FtM blogs. Funnily enough they are closer in so many ways to my own experience even though we are mirror images of each other.

As a rule there is less generally in there about adventures out, about shopping trips and things than in the MtF blogs (I stand guilty too there m'lord). But there is so much personal reflection and regard for others I find them compelling. Very very compelling. They also tend, to a man, to be more set on the road to transition, but that's maybe just because the female crossdresser is a rarer phenomenon in Blogsbourgh.

It would seem like both groups of MtF and FtM transitioners are writing converging blogs. The MtFs start with adventures and objects and as their psyche changes they speak more of feelings and relationships. The FtMs seem opposite, starting with feelings and relationships and (probably) ending with cars and beer. At some point they will no doubt pass each other going the opposite way. And it is that writing from a personal position, considering of others that I find so compelling, as where they are coming (or came) from is where I need to end up.

Here are a couple of favorites to get going with.

Paper Wilderness
FTM doctor

And if you know any more FtM blogs out there please encourage them to get their blog listed here. We need more FtMs blogs on T-Central (and spouses and families as well - but that is for another day perhaps)

The Days of Our (Trans) Lives

It reads like a script from a soap opera or, better yet, an old American television show called Three's Company (John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, Suzanne Summers) or the old British series, Man of the House.

Rebecca lives with two roommates, one guy and one girl.  It's been rather warm in the Second City and, although our three roommates have air conditioning in their apartment, they're good citizens and try to conserve energy.  Rebecca wants to compensate by walking around the apartment with her top off.  Her female roommate is fine with it.  The guy, however, has a big problem with bare breasts bouncing around in the apartment.

In her blog post, So You Can Be Topless and I Can't?, Rebecca asks us what we think about all of this and there are a multitude of reply comments.

Miz-Know-It-All replied and certainly was not shy in her opinion as to "whether or not a proper young women should wander round the apartment with her breasts uncovered".  She filed "spirited" comments and then followed up on her own blog in her Show us your, ahem, "Charms" post. In short, our girl, Miz, feels "that this is just not acceptable behavior and reminds us "that in fact women do have to follow a different standard than men".

So, we have a wide range of opinions among our TC readers.  What do you think?