Annual Membership Sale - Half Price!!!

In case you missed last year's half price sale, we're doing it again, by popular demand. Here is your chance to become part of our family with Trannyweb Full Annual Membership and enjoy a much enhanced Trannyweb experience at half the normal price!

You'll have access to our huge photo galleries, enhanced user profiles with contact info, our enormous membership database containing (PLUGIN:MEMBERCOUNT) members, you'll have your own tranny email account and you can build your own tranny web site at no extra cost.

Trannyweb Full Members also have access to loads of other member-only areas like our games room, Trannycards and the Full Members forums and they have full access to our personal ad pages.

And as if that's not enough, we also offer a SIX-MONTH, no quibble guarantee so there is no risk whatsoever on your part.

Please click here to become a Full Member now at half the normal price!
(the page may take a few moments to load while you are automatically logged in so please be patient)

Don't delay though because this half-price offer will only be available for a very short period and we have no plans to have another membership sale until some time next year.

Welcome to the Trib

Welcome to the June 2007 issue of our little newsletter, The Tranny Tribune.

Our big news this month is that due to popular demand, we have brought back our Half-Price Annual Membership Sale. That's annual in that it only applies to the price of Annual Memberships and it only happens once a year!

Last year's sale was very popular and since it ended we have had numerous requests to do it again, so here it is. Don't think about it for too long though, because it will only be available for a short time.

As an extra incentive, we have also decided to extend our existing 30 day, no quibble guarantee, to Six Months!!!

And speaking of half price stuff, last month we tried to virtually give away the last few Trannyweb Silver Pendants and almost did it. There are still about four left so if you'd like one, please go straight to the shop by clicking here. when they're gone they are gone and there will be no more.

Sarah Connor started up The Great Tranny Challenge over a year back and it has proved popular for a small number of regulars. However, Sarah would now like to throw it open to all and sundry so we have more info on how you can take part below.

Although we have the date and time of our next Cheese & Wine Party for you, there will be no organised Girly Shopping Trip this month because everyone will be Sparkling at Sparkle. However, we are having three Trannyweb Girly Days and Nights out in a row! More info below right.

If you are going along to Sparkle, please do come and visit the Trannyweb Girls on our Trannyweb stand in the AXM Bar on Canal Street on Friday.

In the last couple of weeks the stark contrast between two interesting tranny stories caught my eye. Firstly, in the UK the first Transgender Mayor has started her term in office. I wrote to congratulate her on behalf of our members and she wrote me a nice reply. We agreed that maybe one day we'll see a TG person in Number 10... well one day perhaps but for now, baby steps.

By contrast in the US, the City Manager of Largo in Florida, Steve Stanton, is on the brink of losing his job having been very successful in his position for more than 14 years. What has he done wrong? Well, he's changed his name to Susan and announced that he is transgendered.

It's such a missed opportunity because the commissioners who made the decision to suspend Susan Stanton had a great chance to demonstrate to the world what a forward thinking place Largo is. Well maybe there's a clue in the town's name.

So while Cambridge, England is basking in glory for having the guts to appoint a Transsexual Mayor, Largo is fighting off the media and the American public's accusations of bigotry and hatred.

Oooh look, that was me being a bit political. Sorry, I won't let it happen again.

Finally, we have some vacancies this month, for anyone who is interested in volunteering to run a forum, help run Trannyweb USA or join our band. You'll find the details below.

Fabby hugs, Katie xxxx

"Beyond the Weekend" - An essential guide to becoming a woman.
Available now for instant download.
Just click here for your copy

Wanna be in my band?

Can you sing or play an instrument? Do you have any recording software on your computer? Do you have a video camera?

If the answers to those questions is "yes" we would like to hear from you. Trannyweb is currently evolving an idea for a virtual tranny band and we'd like to hear from you if you are interested in taking part.

Please click here to drop a line to Katie, telling her what you play and how well, what software you use, whether you can sing and how well, ands whether you have a video camera and she'll send you back more details.

"The Evolution of Lisa" - a new novel by Tina B.
Available now for instant download.
Just click here for your copy

The Great Tranny Challenge

The Great Tranny Challenge has been going for over a year now. Sarah Connor started it all off back in May 2006 with a thread in the Trannyweb forums.

Now, more than a year on, the challenge continues. It's a daily set of 10 trivia questions. When you take part you are not just being scored on the number of correct answers you give but also on the time it takes you to submit them.

This interesting diversion is not run by Trannyweb though and it has nothing to do with us other than the fact that some of our member's find it fun and would like to extend an invitation to you to join them.

If you've got a couple of minutes free and you'd like to have a go, please go to this page to get going:

http://my.funtrivia.com/private/main.cfm?tid=53146

Trannyweb Video - Lee Middlehurst talks about her TW Surveys

As you may know, Trannyweb's Lee Middlehurst has been collecting data from her Tranny Surveys for a study into transgender lifestyles that's being carried out by Leeds University in partnership with Trannyweb.

If you've ever wondered just who Lee Middlehurst actually is, well now you can see her in all her glory in a new interview. It's only about six minutes long and asking the questions is John Kelly. Just click the image above to see it now.

Dr Sakura's Tranny Book Bundle

All four of Dr Mina Sakura's Downloadable Tranny Books are now available for one very heavily discounted price if you buy them together.

Buy "The Weekend Woman" and "Beyond the Weekend" and get "Steppin' Out at the Weekend" and "Day to Day Women" FREE!

Just click here to download them now

New look for TrannyBlogs

In the last week or so, we've been busy trying to create a new look for our TrannyBlogs.

Now, you can see thumbnail shots of our featured blogs and also profile pictures of the bloggers, making the directory page much less wordy and more visually appealing.

If you'd like to take a peak at the new look pages just click this link or alternatively click here to write your own blog.

For all your printing needs...

Owned and operated by Trannyweb's Maryanne Talmadge
Please support transgendered business owners

Wine, Cheese, Chat & Sparkle...

The Trannyweb Celebrity Interview...

This month, Trannyweb's Katie Glover talks to the lady behind the TransHouston web community, Cristan Williams...

Cristan Williams

Katie: When did you first realize you were different?

Cristan: My mother said that I was 3 when I first began to cross dress on a regular basis. I remember feeling that I should have been born a girl prior to my brother being born. Since my brother was born when I was 5, I suppose I began to show signs of anxiety and depression about my gender at around the age of 4.

Katie: How has being TG affected your life?

Cristan: Being TG has not affected my life in the least. I am a transgender woman - this is just the truth of the way things are. The inability of the people around me to work with this reality certainly inspired a great deal of pain in my life. 

Many believe that we are gender dysphoric. My experience has been that I have always known who I was and what my gender is - I was VERY clear about that. It was everyone else who had difficulty dealing with it and who attempted to force me to sacrifice my own personhood in favor of propping up their comfort zone. From a very early age, everyone from the media to my parents encouraged me to take on their own shame about my gender. I found that doing so only lead to fear, shame and resentment.

I often say that the system is not set up to produce transgenders who are healthy, productive members of society. The system is set up to kill transgenders. If we aren't killed outright or don't die at our own hands, we become drug addicted or acquire diseases such as HIV or Hepatitis C.

I've been drug addiction. I've been homelessness. My father disowned me. I've been physically and verbally abused. I've had medical and social services withheld because I was transgendered. I was thrown out of High School for being transgender. I have been fired from jobs and blackballed because I was transgendered. I've tried to take my own life and it is remarkable that I did not become infected with HIV or Hep C.

Learning to skillfully work with the unskillful responses of other people to the reality of my of my gender has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. For me, transitioning was about the process of giving myself the opportunity to closely examine everything about my life and then let go of what didn't belong.

The goal of my transition was not about hormones or SRS - it was to live authentically. Transition taught me how to see things with a discerning eye. Transitioning was about learning to see what is so, and what is not. While I know that there are many who are very attached to the idea that transgenders are a group of mentally ill or delusional individuals, I have to say that my experience has been that it was my transition that gave me the eyes to see things clearly. 

Katie: How easy or difficult is it now, being a TS Woman living in Texas? Are TG people accepted where you live?

Cristan: Interestingly, I find that there are tons of trans-folk in the Houston area. Houston, LA and New York seem to be the holy trinity of the transgender experience. I think that the reason things are good here today (relative to some of the more backwards states) is because the past oppression was so tangible. Houston is where the case originated that overturned anti-crossdressing ordinances throughout the USA.

Houston is also where the case originated that overturned anti-gay sex laws throughout the USA. TG activists were trying to gain GLBT marriage equality as far back as 1972, when an openly non-operative trans-woman named Billie Ert legally married her boyfriend Antonio Molina. Houston had the first real transgender homeless shelter and at one point in the 1990's, Houston seemed to be the home of much of the political push for trans rights. 

Currently, Houston Area Community Services runs an entire comprehensive social service program for transgenders. It is likely that the next Mayor of Houston will be someone who received her first campaign contribution from a transgender and who won her old City Counsel seat in part due to the huge support the transgender community brought to the table. The City of  Houston has a transgender non-discrimination policy in it's hiring policy and one of the Houston Police Dept. Sergeants is also transgender. Additionally, the President of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus is a trans-woman. 

All-in-all, I have to say that Houston is a fairly good place to be if you are transgender. While certainly there is a lot of room for improvement, I oftentimes find myself feeling grateful to be living here.

Katie: Tell us about TransHouston - what's that all about?

Cristan: Transhouston is my experiment in community empowerment. 

Back in the 1990's, I but together a social service agency called Community Awareness for Transgender Support. It's main focus was running a transgender homeless shelter and working to cultivate resources within the community. Part of the problem that I saw afflicting my community was that we were divided.

The crossdressers didn't like the transsexuals and the transsexuals didn't like the transgenderists and the FTM community was nowhere to be found. It was back then that I began to think that the community needed a cyber home to access all the resource information they needed in a way that would also fulfill our need to meet other trans-people.

It took me about a decade of learning web design to create transhouston.com. 

I designed and manage the transgender program at Houston Area Community Services and transhouston.com is the unofficial conduit that many transgenders use to access everything from medical care to crisis intervention.  

TransHouston is everything I ever wanted in a transgender site. In addition to all the myspace-like features, we have a great online TG video library, a community edited resource database, lots of transgender history, employment resources, NPR-Like "radio" interviews and "radio" theater, tg dating ... and a lot more. 

The goodwill generated online seems to translate into the real world: The trans groups have tripled their memberships; my TG social service program has expanded about 200% over the last year alone; and, the FTM trans community has exploded onto the scene. 

Katie: You were recently featured as a "hero" in a magazine. Tell us about that.

Cristan: Yah, that was in OutSmart Magazine. This was in reference to the work some of the activists in the Houston area have accomplished for the HIV+ community. My partners in crime, Carolyn Bosma and Dr. Hunter Hammill, and I were featured as being "Heroes" for being the only folks focusing in on the HIV epidemic in the trans community.

Cristan with Buddhist monks at the University of Houston, waiting to speak about how women's issues relate to Buddhism

Katie: You are a vegetarian and a Theravada Buddhist. Have either of those helped you along the difficult TS avenue?

Cristan: I'm not sure that I can say that being a vegetarian has helped me cope with difficulties. I simply noticed that feeling fear and wanting to not endure pain is something that all thinking creatures seem to have in common.

Choosing to refrain from unnecessarily taking the life of a creature that, like me, feels fear and pain, is simply part of how I tend to try to engage life. I am a Theravada Buddhist. This simply means that I try to live with my eyes open to reality and then respond in a way that is both skillful and beneficial to me as well as others. 

Katie: What does the future hold? What plans to you have now that you are living as the gender you want to be?

Cristan: I don't know what the future will hold. I think that it is probable that I will continue trying to live in a beneficial way: being of service to others and being true to myself. I hope to be able to return to Thailand for an extended visit. I hope to continue to develop my skill as a website designer. I hope that the transgender social service program will continue to grow - but most of all, I hope that I love well and that when the time comes that my life is coming to an end, I am able to look back and honestly say that I walked a path with heart.