All About Christine

A little over a year ago, Christine started a meetup group.  It was called the DC TransLadies Soiree. 

The first Soiree was last February and Christine's description was This event is limited to Male to Female cross dressers - transgendered ladies and their spouse or significant other.  It is also open to those who have a personal interest in exploring their feminine life.

I was told about the group by one of the charter members.  I joined a few weeks after the first Soiree.
Throughout the spring, Christine and Pamela (her OH) opened their home to anywhere from a dozen to two dozen girls.  She organised a couple of get-togethers outside of her home which weren't well attended and she focussed on the Soirees instead.  Caveat: even though it would be incredibly easy for me to sit down with Christine and learn what I don't know, much of this is conjecture on my part.

I wasn't one of them.  As you know, I needed that "perfect storm" to get out.  It didn't happen.

Christine took a break over the summer, and hosted Soirees every couple of months throughout the fall and into the winter.

Charity and I made it to her seventh Soiree.  It was wonderful.  I wrote about it back in January.

It was pretty much everything I avoid in male mode: meeting a group of people I didn't know, dressing up, noshing....  It's not what I like to do.

When I left, I felt like I had just eaten something wonderful I had never had before ~ I knew I'd have it going forward, but lamented all of those years I never enjoyed it.

Shortly before Soiree 8, Christine announced that the Soiree group was going away.  There are a few trans groups in the Washington area, with varying focus but members in common.  They also had varying success, as far as membership and activities and participation.

Christine decided that perhaps the best way forward would be to be a central point for the local groups.  She noted that that's the way it was done in other cities and it seemed to work well.

The group is now called the DC TransLadies Community.

This is new, but so far she arranged an outing to Freddie's Beach Bar, a local gay/trans friendly club, to hear one of the group members sing (I couldn't attend) and to a local church where there was an "understanding transgender" presentation (I could attend ~ report coming up).

Going forward, instead of a Soiree a few weeks in the future, she has seven meetups scheduled or publicised through her group: a dinner with another group, meeting at Keystone, a TransLAW event, and more.

She set up and populated a discussion board.  She also has almost 200 followers ~ almost 50 joined just this year.  At my request, she added a new forum which I hope will be used to brainstorm how to get trans people accepted by civilians.  My personal goal is to get rid of the need to separate trans and civilians ~ pretty much the same goal as any human rights group.

Christine has a lot of energy and is very dedicated to the community. I'm pretty excited about the future of this group and I'm proud to be a part of it.

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