How was your Pride Month? Good? Bad? Ignored? What did you do, if anything, to celebrate?

Found ally in very unusual place.

Love is an emotion that can be characterized by a range of feelings, including affection, tenderness, and devotion. It can also involve behaviors such as intimacy, passion, and commitment. Love can be directed at people, animals, or even objects, and can arise from a variety of sources, such as kinship, companionship, admiration, or benevolence.     

Oooops missed Monday. Today I want to talk about a man you've probably heard in many combinations and didn't realize was the same man.      PAUL CARRACK - you might of first heard him in ACE with How Long - he wrote and sang. Then - Mike + The Mechanics - The Living Years, then Squeeze - Tempted, with Roxy Music = wprte Love is a Drug, More Than This,, Madness wropte Our House, Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band, Warm Dust, The Bleeding Heart Band and let's not forget he has written songs for The Eagles and has a successful solo career - Don't Shed a Tear.    What a voice, what a keyboard player, what a song writer.

https://www.advocate.com/crime/liara-tsai-transgender-woman-killed   May Liana rest in peace.   Carolyn Marie

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/transgender-runner-nikki-hiltz-headed-paris-olympics-rcna159741     Great news!  Congrats, Nikki!

Good evening   i was up most of last night for two reasons  I was watching live a session that I was supposed to be at in person in Salt Lake City.  It started at 11 my time and was over about 1”30 am.  But then my back wouldn’t allow me to lay down in bed.  I wound up sitting in a chair all night dozing and waking.  More waking.  Not as bad so far tonight.     @KymmieL I am looking forward to my daughter coming tomorrow for the week.  She and our future SIL to help us out.  Like you she is our oldest and will not allow us to come visit her, kind of reversed I suppose.   Our minister was elected with his co moderator to be the next team to lead the Presbyterian Church.  I am very disappointed that I fell breaking my ribs and couldn’t be there.  Oh well when life gives you lemons you have to look for the sweetener right?   So if this had not happened, I wouldn’t have had a whole bunch of CT scans.  And if I hadn’t had those scans, I wouldn’t know that I have a potential heart problem brewing.  And if that hadn’t been found, I may be heading for an aneurism.  Now I can get some solid advice and treatment before anything happens to me.   See how that worked.  God knew I needed to know I had a problem and he showed me.  Kind of a painful way to find out but better than not knowing until it ruptured.     I guess I will have to talk to my daughter about this as she started her carrier as a cardiac ICU nurse (RN). Then got her BSRN and now is an MSRN.  I may ask her to accompany me to my doctor visit Wednesday if she’s up.  I’m not sure if she is arriving tonight after midnight or tomorrow night.   ill keep you all posted

Get your winter stuff out, He!! just froze over. My wife just got a call from our oldest son, being that Sheridan, WY. where they live doesn't have a fireworks show on the 4th. He and his family are actually coming here, to visit us. This is the first time our son and family have even seen our house. It will be the first time my granddaughter has even visited our city. I think the last time they have been here is 2016.   That has been a shock to us all. With even our oldest asking if he and his family can come visit.   I am still in shock. I just hope my wife doesn't go to crazy making everything perfect for their visit.   Hugs, Kymmie

Your avatar has come to life Mae.  Sounds like a great story line for a novel.

You know, I never gave this much thought previously, but thinking about it now, it's something I have always done, even when I was presenting in my male persona.  These days I certainly have the confidence to go through the middle of a space, I just don't feel the need to. 

cute..just yoga pants n a aqua tshirt..I work tomorrow so I'll wear something cuter to the shop hugs

Justine, confidence is pretty amazing as I think many other's here would agree.  Keep at it and soon you'll have the confidence you need to be comfortable in any setting. 

Thank you @Ivy, @Mirrabooka, and @Ashley0616!!

It's really comforting for me to hear I'm not alone in being gripped with fear making some of my first outings. And I know from reading your other posts that it eventually became much easier for you as your confidence grew, which is also comforting.  

Yeah, that makes sense in hindsight. Going to a trans specific event made it 'easier' and ostensibly safer but as you say, it can also paint a target unfortunately. Thanks for the ideas everyone! I'm aware of a local community center so I'll likely start there.

Post 18 Society for the Second Self; A layover During My Journey – Part 1   The Society for the Second Self, referred to as Tri-Ess for short, was formed in 1976 as a collaboration of two existing crossdressing support groups.  Mamselle was one of the groups originally formed by Carol Beecroft, and other was Full Personality Expressions (FPE) formed by Virginia Prince.  Tri-Ess was touted as a support group for heterosexual crossdressers and their spouses.  Tri-Ess excluded drag performers and anyone else who may have identified as gay, bisexual, or transsexual.  The argument at the time, was those groups had their own support organizations, and Tri-Ess focused solely on crossdressing and crossdressing issues.    I first became aware of Tri-Ess in the early 1990’s, and because I identified as a crossdresser at the time, I thought I might benefit from membership.  However, because I was still in the military and quite closeted, I didn’t seek membership right away.  That changed a few years later.  The family and I had just returned from a four-year tour in Europe.  It was 1995, and I was stationed in Orlando, Florida flying reconnaissance aircraft.  The overseas tour combined with two very young boys in the house had conspired to severely limit my crossdressing activities, and I thought joining Tri-Ess would give me a much-needed outlet for self-expression.    Turned out, there was a local Orlando chapter, and after discussing it with my wife, we decided I should join.  So, I reached out via telephone to the local chapter membership chairperson.  The internet was still just a novelty.  After an extensive phone interview, I was given the location and the date of the next meeting.  Tri-Ess was very cautious about vetting new members to be sure someone wasn’t seeking membership under false pretenses.   The monthly meetings in Orlando were held on Saturday evenings at a local motel that utilized external doors to ensure girls like me didn’t have to transit a public space.  At the time, it seemed the perfect setup for me.  The first meeting I attended, my wife drove me to the motel, because heaven forbid, I should drive myself dressed as a girl.  She stopped the minivan in front of the motel room and said she’d be back in 30-minutes in case things didn’t go well.  Like the internet, cell phones were also a novelty, so I couldn’t just call her.  If I panicked, I’d be stuck until she returned to get me.  If after checking in with her, I was okay, she would return when the meeting ended.            When the time came to get out of the van, I was frozen with terror.  It was only a distance of twenty-feet to the motel room door, but I still couldn’t muster up the courage to give up the safety of our minivan.  And even if I was able to walk twenty-feet and knock on the door, someone I didn’t know was going to open it.  Maybe my feminization wouldn't be up to standard, so the person opening the door might laugh.  I honestly didn’t think I could do it.  But as soon as my wife detected my apprehension, she told me to get out.  It was tough love, no other way to describe it, and she was kicking my fledging butt out of the nest.    “You wanted to do this, and I supported it,” she said to me, “now you need to see this through.  So, get out and go knock on that door.”   Have I mentioned in previous posts how much I love my wife?    Still absolutely terrified I got out of the minivan.  I just knew the entire world was watching me, so I ran as quickly as I could to the motel door.  I looked over my shoulder to see my wife miming a door knock.  After a huge calming breath, which didn’t help much, I knocked on the door.  It was a long anxious moment before my knock was answered.  And when the door opened, there stood another crossdresser.  It was so obvious to me she was born a man, but it didn’t matter.  She was dressed like a woman and my first thought, probably an awful judgmental one, was wow, I think I look better.  But my second thought was wow, there are really others like me.  I suddenly realized I was going to be among like-minded people.    When I went back outside for the 30-minute check with my wife, I told her to come back at 10pm, when the meeting ended.  She told me later that the look on my face during that preliminary check in was a look of pure joy, so obviously a support group was a good thing for me. I found some solace in these meetings and attended several of them, but it didn’t last.   As therapeutic as it was to be with others like me, I didn’t like the meeting setup very much.  The motel room was never cool enough, it was too crowded, and there was something about the overall vibe that didn’t sit right.  I realized later my issue was that I had simply traded one closet for another.  It seemed the new closet still wasn’t satisfying my need, despite not knowing at the time, what that need really was.  It wouldn’t be until much later, after I began to recognize that I was more than just a crossdresser, when I came to understand what my “need” really was.  Simply stated, the female half of my personality needed to self-express out in the real world, and a closet wasn’t going to do the trick.   So, I quickly drifted away from the Orlando chapter meetings.  However, two-years later, after another move, this time to Georgia, I became reacquainted with Tri-Ess.  This time, the local Atlanta chapter, provided a unique meeting format, one that differed completely from the standard Tri-Ess arrangement.  This new arrangement spoke directly to my “need,” but I’ll save that for Part 2.