As promised, here are pictures of me actually out around town with Bob.
Me and Bob at BUMP in Philadelphia on my birthday.
Me at the Shofuso Japanese House in Philadelphia
I have been wanting to get to re-writing my Introduction Page to this site for over a year. I’ve always shied away from paying too much attention to my website, as those of you who know me have already discovered. Any mention of any pictures will bring me here to look up, since I don’t remember which is being referred to.
While attending to my Introduction Page, I noticed many hyperlinks that go in all direction. That’s because this website is 11 years old this August. It has gone through a multitude of changes.
One of the things I promise myself to do more is to bring a camera with me when I do go out with friends. I hate for anyone to think that this girl sits at home and snaps pictures all day. I do go out often, but I never tote a camera along. I also promise to smile in more of my pictures.
Here is the new Introduction to this website (which can also be found on the upper corner side bar of every page entitled Introduction)
Eleven years after the debut of my first website at Yahoo Geocities in 1997, the mere six page Transvestite Freedom Fighter has morphed into a veritable beast in a labyrinthine maze of links. Although all the original pages can be found archived here, the original concept of the website rests on one fundamental idea: “Never apologize for who you are, or what your website is about.” I never understood why transgendered people continually prefaced their webpages with an adult warning content. Transvestite Freedom Fighter was a call to stop associating one’s identity in the same category as explicit adult content.
Eventually, the page changed into The Art of Not Passing. This theme inspected the whole importance many transgendered people put on passing. As a person who is on the fringe even within the transgender community, I saw passing as a curious metaphor for conforming. It wasn’t that I had any problems with the notion of passing. After all, one must pass to experience as little friction in our non-accepting culture, seeing that transgender people are the final frontier for prejudiced treatment in modern day. I simply chose to inspect the idea of passing as a way to illustrate how everyone needs to “pass” according to their environment, in order to survive and function.
I believe the day everyone passes will be the day the label “transgender” gets retired. Much like a global economy and a global culture, indigenous societies and unique voices are quickly being swallowed up, losing their identities.
The Art of Not Passing then became The Solitary Arc, which was just a collection of my writings and pictures. In a way,The Solitary Arc paved the way for the self-identifying d332.com. I’ve always felt that with all the transgender websites detailing every aspect of SRS and transitioning, the collective perception of trans* people is that SRS and transitioning is all we talk about. So I thought I’d reveal instead, the other things that occupy this transgender person’s mind.
I am driven by a sense of happiness that I derive from speaking to the people within the culture. I wanted to provide a modest but positive free website on the internet regarding the community, because we haven’t really been given a fair chance in the public’s eye. Most of what people get from search engine returns either adult sites or argumentative in-fighting within the t* discussion groups (and there’s a lot of that).
Certainly, the group that is closest to my heart, the brash, self-descriptive gay transvestites, have been disappointingly under-represented.
So here I am.
I have been transgender for over thirty years. I don’t plan to transition fully, but I’m going to get a few bumps put on here and a few bumps taken off from there. Anyway you cut it, both the male and female anatomy are gorgeously remarkable works of art. I am struck by wonder when I think about the beauty of the human body. I am not a hormone-taker, as I feel that sex drive is one of the critical lifeforce in sustaining the great human imagination.
My increasing preoccupation with the home-making Stepford Wife has made this website arrive at the point it is at today. Although I am a staunch advocate for women’s rights, equality, and feminism, I also believe that everyone should be able to live free and chose the life they want to lead. Stepford Wives, and more importantly for me, the docile Asian “Lotus Flower” are social constructs. The difference between the two is that one lives in comfort and modest luxury, while the other has to make do with bargain-hunting white males. For my personality type, the choice is clear.
Human beings are constantly in danger in their coexistence with viruses. But we shouldn’t flatter ourselves as superior beings. Instead, we should take the path of virus mutation as an ideal, and develop accordingly. I want to continuously, energetically, and joyfully change, morph, improve, learn, and absorb knowledge, wisdom, and humane lessons with each passing day.
This, for me, is the most important transition: to be a human being first, and a transgendered person second.
So relax, make yourself at home, and enjoy!
How apt it is to renew my webhost service and domain on the fourth of July? Be free and be who you want to be! love your wonderful life! and enjoy this small moment we each got on our short stay here.
Kisses!
Pristine.
Hello,
I have had to take on jobs and assignments to help keep this website alive. The annual fee is approaching, and I just realized I haven’t kept my donation page actively linked. I have noticed that it takes even more effort to keep d332.com running into it’s 8th year, now that I’m busy working.
If you have benefitted from any information or thoughts on this page; If something I have posted, said, remarked, or written about has changed the way you saw something in your life, please do consider making a donation to keep this site up and running. I would rather take it down than resort my space to adult sites throwing their junk all over my altruistic goals.
I have always told the story of an overheard conversation by a donation box at a small art gallery. The man says to his girl, “This place doesn’t need my donation, other people are donating, why should I?”
A year later, a Starbucks Coffee shop opened in the gallery’s place.
After a certain time on the weekends, the T4 bus turns off its meter but continues to shuttle people back and forth between the Sultanahmet (the old city) and Taksim Square the beginning of Istiklal Cadessi, the main pedestrian thoroughfare in the European section of Istanbul. On our first Saturday night, we hopped on one and found ourselves next to a quartet of young Turkish boys who were probably no older than twelve or thirteen. They were bursting with laughter and excitement. All the darling buds of youth.
Well, if you didn’t count the .45 automatic handguns they were pointing out the bus window and shooting at people on the sidewalk.
Sure, they were toys. If you can call full-sized, non-neon barrel-tipped, metal colored guns with operational safety levers, functioning hammers, retractable slides, and detachable clips toys. The plastic ammo even pops up out of the top loading clips. Here is a subway (crossing beneath busy streets) kiosk store carrying these full-sized toy guns.
The Sahaflar Book Bazaar is right at the southwestern tip of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. It is practically attached to Istanbul University and accessible through Beyazit Square. While Constantinople was able to boast its very own university as early as the 5th century, I found that many of the present day college students were wholly clueless when attempting to help me find their Museum of Calligraphy (60 feet away from where they were standing). Instead, heady Socratic debates centered around Christina Aguilera’s decision to marry a music magnate- and whether this could be construed as following in the venerated footsteps of Mariah Carey- seemed to be the order of the day.
Unlike the Grand Bazaar, there is no haggling at the Book Bazaar. So when I asked a dusty old man stationed outside his shanty kiosk for any books on the Haghia Sofia, he produced a slim paperback volume found in tourist stands. I remembered seeing an etching of this magnificent church in my youth: Since then, it was a place I’ve wanted to visit all through my early adult years. When I was finally standing inside the structure which Mehmet the Conqueror wasted no time in converting into a mosque upon entering Constantinople, the gargantuan space that Mimar Sinan tried to outdo with the Blue Mosque (but failed), I could safely say this: It’s going to take an unusually large book format to capture the dazzling proportion of this colossus.
Some of the most memorable Hamams (Turkish baths) at the old city of Sultanahmet in Istanbul were designed and built by the city’s greatest Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan. In fact, the Lady Hürem Baths, opposite the Hagia Sophia was the steamy spot where Roxelana, (Lady Hürrem, the first kadin of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent), did her evil plotting and planning to oust the other lesser wives.
As luck would have it, I was still able to duck into one of the functioning Hamams built by Sinan. At Cemberlitas, they gave me a plaid red-white cloth to wrap my disturbingly hairless body, which must have given the Arabic masseurs a start, especially when combined with my lengthy mane. I was surprised I didn’t send whole stampedes of Muslim men* tearing out of the locker rooms screaming in confusion.
When it came time to prep myself to be manhandled on the raised marble plinth, I folded the plaid towel halfway up my thighs and sashayed out onto the hararet, causing more scandal than the Eunuch who once proclaimed to the harem girls that he was, indeed, “all that.” What could I do? I felt homesick!
While all the men pretended to be horrified - in that sheep’s glance way, you know: the disgusted-but-can’t-quite-look-away way - I announced that I have most certainly detected a very large pole in evidence.
I was referring to the Cemberlitas Column, just outside our Hamam, of course.
Next, a stocky Arabic man in his forties came over and ordered me on the marble platform. He took a handful of my towel, and snapped it back down over my thighs. Then the beatings began. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always found pleasure in half-naked older men barking instructions and ordering me around in a foreign tongue. This one he kneaded my bony elongated smooth limbs into tizzy to boot. Some of his drills included: “Go here!” (scrubs soapy mitt all over my body) “Sit down there!” (pours hot spa water over my head) “Back here on your stomach” (massages dangerously up one leg and then up the other) “Now turn around on your back, face up!”
Btw, does anyone know how to say in Turkish: “Umm, I don’t think that’s a good idea right about now” ?
All in all, I felt like a little kid being bathed by my daddy. It was lots of fun. I just wished my attendant had followed me back home so he could hand me my stuff animal, tuck me into bed and give me a goodnight kiss.
Upon entering the harem at Topkapi Sereyi (Topkapi Palace) on Seraglio Point in Istanbul, one should remember that the term Seraglio itself means the sequestered living spaces for the wives of the Sultan. Inside, the first thing that is visible are the rows of square windows with iron gratings over each. If one were to look inside, squat, unadorned prison-like cubicles would become visible. These are the spaces where the Black Eunuchs in training lived.
The entrance to the courtyard where Black Eunuchs were trained.
In Ottoman times, Black Eunuchs were often enslaved men who were brought over from Africa, castrated, and trained to become the extended ear of the sultan, the Sultan Valide (the sultan’s mother, who runs the harem), and the hundreds of wives who competed for the sultan’s favor, rising from the ranks of weekday booty-call to the grand post of the succeeding Sultan Valide, if they succeed and their child became the next ruler in power. These women were also kidnapped from various countries such as Russia, Armenia, and any corner of the earth that happens to offer individuals with fair skin.
Long before Hollywood perpetuated that myth.
Keeping in mind that Istanbul is home to the transgender classical singer Bulent Ersoy, you can either shrug off suggestions from travel guides about how Istanbullus are permissive of their own trans culture but smirk at outsiders who decide to cross sartorial lines while in their town, or grow a long doormat on your face with the words “Welcome” buzzed in. While this city remains a secular state (thanks to Mustafa Kemal or Ataturk), the growing Muslim population might make one reconsider.
Even though most guides and websites recommend the club Hengame, I can safely say that Sahra was hopping and much livelier than the former. From Istiklal Caddesi- Istanbul’s main pedestrian thoroughfare - there are many side streets that look like unpaved Eastern European sidestreets: Boys and girls trudge in mud to get from the main street to their beloved bars. If you can’t find Sadri Alisik Sokak (where Sahra resides), all you have to do is ask one of the many members of the polis standing on each corner. Some have machine guns while others have semi-automatic pistols. Don’t sweat it, because Istanbul kiosks along subways (walkways that cross under busy streets) sell fake full-sized pistols without neon barrel tips. “Neredeh Sadri Alisik Sokak Lutfen?” (where is Sadri Alisik Sokak please?) and they will gladly point you in the right direction.
Our destination sidestreet happens to be paved. Maybe the girls in spike heels complained, since it rises uphill from Istiklal Caddesi. At the crest, it suddenly plunges downwards into dark alley, but don’t worry, Sahra is right there on your right. Entrance fee is 10,000,000 lira ($7.40 USD) and includes coat check and a free beer. There are three floors of action where pounding euro dance music alternates withe Turkish favorites. I report that transgirls behave the same way as they do all around the wide world: They either stick with their own or wait like wallflowers on one side of the dance floor for men to make the first move. Traditionalists.
There is one difference though. The men are young, handsome, and hot, as opposed to married, can-do looks, and cheap. There. I said it.
Hengame is on a more touristy and brighter lit street further west of Sahra, further downhill off of Istiklal Caddesi. Don’t ask any of the guys standing outside of the other clubs, as most are undercover criers working to mislead you into their clubs. But Hengame is fairly visible once you move two storefronts into Sahne Sokak. Just know that going towards the Tunel/Golden Horn, once you reach the HamalBarsi Caddesi-Yeni Carsi Caddesi elbow of Istiklal, you have gone too far: Sahne is one street before it. I talked to the bartender and he said that the crowd doesn’t begin until around 2am.
To read an article about Istanbul transgender and gay culture, click here:
Here is a list of other Istanbul trans/trans-friendly clubs bars.
SAHRA BAR: Sadri Alisik sk.
HENGAME: No: 6 Sahne Sokak
CABARE 33 : Istiklal Caddesi, Imam Adnan Sokak,
1001 PUB MARILYN (or 1001, ‘bin-bir’): Siraselviler Caddesi
VAT 69 : Tarlabasi Bulvari
VAT 69 ll : Istiklal Caddesi, Imam Adnan Sokak
KOSK: Istiklal Caddesi, Mis Sokak,
PINK BAR: Istiklal Caddesi, first left from Imam Adnan Sokak
Looking at the hand-painted Iznik-inspired dishes at the Istabul archeological museum’s Cinili Pavillion, I marveled at the shadings of blue around the interweaving tendrils, a pattern that is often repeated in Islamic calligraphy. But it was not until I saw Vasif Effendi’s mother of pearl inlays for Islamic calligraphy and the various paly of light and shade along the edges of the strokes, that I began to understand the possibility of multiple interpretations that were used in the nascent days of encryption within the decorative patterns of Turkish carpets. It reminded me of the multiple meanings of Aramaic as well as the Mandelbrot set in fractals. You see, I think the modern machine-generated beauty has a flawless mathematical perfection. What makes handicraft of the bygone days a thing of value? I think it’s that imperfection, that lack of redundancy, and the sense that every moment of the painter’s life changes with each stroke.
It is then no surprise when the artists and calligraphers of the Timurid period escaped to China in the 16th century and subsequentlyincorporated Mongol influences into their work. By the time the Sifavids returned, there was even Shamanistic references within their Tendrils.
It makes me think that imperfect repetition, is the path to enlightenment.
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Oct 5, 2008
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