Related Blogs

• By Rachael Louise Blanche

  I am Rachael

  Some things should never been done, either when drunk or sleep deprived, declarations of love, harsh cutting words, driving any sort of vehicle or jumping off high buildings, even posting polls about name changes. So why did I do it? Blame on the boggie or sleep deprivation. Well seems I'd just finished a 12hour night shift plus a hour late and having just 3hours sleep, maybe it wasn't the boggie. Yer, yer, I hear you say but WHY! Some call it the Black Dog, the Black Mood, Dark Shadow, myself it my old friend the Blues. Depression. When you suffering from lack of sleep, my friend Blue does have a why of screwing with my head. For a while now, I have been down to say the least. Lack of sleep, lack of energy, hopelessness. I sure there a few who know this creeping fiend, hiding in the shadows and corners of our mind, feeding on our self confidence. So after six years free, I'm back on the happy pills, not a defeat, but a helping hand. Why? Well just over 20years ago I have a break down, I crashed and burned, walking along the edge of suicide, I was in a bad place. 20years ago I would of seen any seen taking anti-depressants as a defeat but not now. That was a long and hard road. I've also took some time off work, had few days away, a week in Corfu. Spent time with freinds and family. As for my name well there was a long time I had no female name, just a male name, tried to be Susan, then Stephanie, the female form of my male name for while. However, since my divorce, I've been Rachael almost 12years now. So I had some sleep got my head space back, I'm on the up-ish, called myself a numpty. Therefore, I am Rachael.      

  Oct 27, 2016 1
• By Cristine Jennifer Shye. BL. B/acc

  How does the two-gender system impact you?

  For most of the six-billion people who occupy this planet few things in our ever evolving lives are completely static, completely unchanging and rigid. Hardly ever do we give second thought to the things we believe are static and cannot change, but are we correct in assuming that anything in our life is permanent? The relation of gender (our mental constructions of being male or female [or perhaps even neither[or both bi-gender]) to sex (the anatomy of our bodies) can be such a thing. Although throughout our life the world around us, that which is immediate and that which is distant, ebbs like tides, ever-changing, we know so well that some things – such as our bodies – will always remain familiar. We may move between jobs, between cities or nations, even friends come and go, but we do not fear ever waking to find ourselves in a new body, with a new sex, or even with a new sense of gender. This though is only what we think is true. There are some people though, unmentioned, often unseen or forgotten, perceived as alien: like strangers in a strange world 'normal' people who  feel incapable of relating to the intersex, the transsexual, drag queens and drag kings, even cross dressers deconstruct that which we may feel can never be questioned: how our perception of sex and gender seem to be linked; if I feel male then I am male and if I am male then I must feel male. Yet the truth is that our physical sex, and the more personal gender, are capable of becoming disjointed with one another. It is through the individuals previously mentioned though where we may find that which we felt so sure of before, our bodies, may in fact be no more immalleable than our dress styles. For it is from these people and out of their stories that we should recognize the often unseen truth behind sex and gender: that both are neither static, but are rather dynamic identities that are not only capable of change but capable of remodeling over-and-over throughout all of our lives.   You get home at the end of a long day at work. You come inside, scoff down some food, and decide its time to hit the hay. You head to the bathroom and as you brush those pearly whites, you stare into the mirror and see somebody staring right back at you., sometimes that person is an exact replica of you; a backwards version of that good lookin’ self you remember. Other times though, you see some stranger staring right back. This person doesn’t look like you at all. This person looks too thick, too thin, you see a pudgy stomach where you once imagined washboard abs, you see blemishes, the wrong hair color, the wrong eye color, the wrong image, the wrong person. Now imagine that every single time you looked into that mirror the wrong person was staring back. You just could not find a way to relate to that reflection. For individuals who were born with an intersexed condition, this is exactly how we as transsexuals can feel every single day. Our Society is based on two binaries. First is the sex binary that inevitably leads to a gender binary. It leads us to believe that there are two sexes, male and female which relate to the body and these sexes must adhere to their assumed genders, man or woman. Men act masculine and women act feminine. Almost every aspect of our culture has been separated to fit into either category. Things are either masculine or feminine and the system usually discourages people from mixing gender roles. For the majority of the population, we except this system and believe that bodies can only come in two forms and these forms follow their norms. What that majority doesn’t realize is that there is the possibility to be neither male nor female or both male and female or somewhere in between. One of these categories of people that do not fall into the categories of the sex binary those who are born intersexed. Immediately after birth, we are categorized as either male or female. But there is a large percentage (1 in 2000) whose biological sex cannot be classified. These individuals are known as intersexed (Wilchins, 72). Chromosomal and hormonal irregularities can cause a new born to have atypical, and usually ambiguous, genitalia and gonads. For many years, surgical procedures have been performed soon after birth in order to build a less ambiguous looking genitalia allowing for easier classification. The doctors would usually assign a sex as quickly as possible. More often than not, the child was assigned to be a female because it is an easier procedure (Beck). Once the aesthetics of the genitalia have been normalized, the parents would then raise their child as a female. The problem with this is that often the child will have a hormonal imbalance and genitalia that does not function fully causing for much confusion as the child reaches puberty and onward. Intersexed individuals are one of the many groups that suffer through our social construct of a sex and gender binary because they are forced into living a life as a sex and gender other than their own. They are forced to live a life identifying as either male or female because a third or forth or even fifth option is not available.

  Dec 04, 2017 3
• By Pauline Smith

  Changes to Transtastic

  All of you members know that Katie Glover took over Transtastic earlier this year. You will also know that she and her techie elves have worked very hard to resolve and solve many of the technical issues here. Lots of those were inherited and the site is still a patchwork of add ons and patches on top of the underlying software. A bit like a quilt made with love.   Now at last Katie and her techies have solved the issue of albums and uploading new photos. There are still other technical challenges ahead for this site, which will be fixed as there is a coherent plan as to which direction the site should take to make it the premier transgender contact website. One where ordinary trans people can use this site safely together with those who prefer to look at adult pix and content. That dilemma is being resolved.   I have had long discussions with Katie and have agreed to stay on as chief moderator for the long term. When I make commitments I stick to them. I have recruited a new team of moderators - Christine Taylor, Julie Dream, Lesley Carrington and Rachel Maxwell - who will start their activities in the next few days.   In the short term we may still have the problem of adult photos appearing on the main safe feed, but this should become less frequent, and we are hopeful that software fixes will resolve this permamently.   As more changes take place I will inform all of you; please be patient and believe in the work that Katie and her techies have done and will continue to do. She has done this in spite of having a heavy workload and a very busy family life. Full marks to her for her commitment to this site, which has been financial - she has invested her money to make this site work.   The new moderating team is part of this overall new approach that has been led by Katie. We will continue these type of improvements over the next weeks and months.     hugs     Pauline xxx  

  Nov 19, 2016 2
• By Pauline Smith

  Membership Numbers

  To All You Wonderful Transtastic Members   Some of you may have noticed that the Transtastic membership numbers appear to be dropping, rather than increasing.    Why?   Is this yet another way of testing your patience?   We now have a new Transtastic moderating team and Lesley suggested that we cull all members who have not been active for the last 6 months. They can come back and re-activate their profile if they want to, but if they are not active then they do NOT appear as a valid member any more.    When this process is complete we will end up with an up to date list of current members, who are actually active. So for anyone wanting to make new friends or extend their network the members list will only be those memebers who are active. We will continue to delete members on an ongoing basis so that Transtastic remains up to date.   Future changes will include   1. Moderator approval and rating of all photos, which also means zero tolerance of cock pix as profile photos. At the moment this is policed retroactively but that will change.   2. A firewall between the safe and adult parts of the site...so that those members who don't want to look at genitals dont have to, and those who do can. Just no profile photos of cocks or panty bulge.   3. Making the chat room workable   4. Energising the forums and blogs and other add ons here   Our goal is to make this a site where it's actually fun to be a member, and that you can feel safe to be here. It will take more time and patience from all of you. But we are working on making Trasntastic better and it will happen. Anyone who thinks they can help us in any way then please contact any one of us.   hugs   Your Transtastic Moderating Team xxx   (Christine Taylor, Julia Dream, Katie Glover, Lesley Carrington, Pauline Smith, Rachel Maxwell.)    PS Much as we would love to have the figures of those ladies in the pic ....we don't, but we all try to look our best    

  Dec 04, 2016 4