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[Upfront] The Month
[First Person] A Simple Phrase
[Bits & Pieces] Decisions
[the Arts] Doing Gender
[In the News] Articulating Androgyny
[Memoir] Sandy Had to Know
[Last Laugh] The Weekend

[Upfront]
THE MONTH

Alpha Omega's Chair, Gloria Fenton, ponders the state of our community.

Diane Frank, just back from vacation, attends the national convention of People of All Colors Together (PACT) held right here in Cleveland.

Art: Martina Minette Dreiers on painting between the gender binary.

In the News: Changing perspectives as one gets older.

Gloria Fenton returns with thoughts of a first love and sharing.

Humor and more!

Elaine

[First Person]
A SIMPLE PHRASE

By Gloria Sue Fenton

A while back I heard the phrase “eating baked beans in the basement” as a remark about the Alpha Omega Society and as I understand it, it was not meant in a kindly way.

Alpha Omega has been around for almost twenty-five years, helping people whose lives are affected by crossdressing. But, I learned a long time ago that a group like AO wasn’t for everybody. Our community needs are far to varied for that.

Looking back, as AO members have grown they often joined and/or created other groups. Glass City Sisters and Erie Sisters were started by AO members. Several members of AO were members of the Paradise Club. CLE was started by people who had been part of AO. That’s natural. But that never meant that AO wasn’t still a vital part of the community, for those who do need us to discover themselves as human beings in a safe and secure environment before they take on the world.

AO served its purpose for me many years ago, but somebody has to be there to help others. That is why I’m still with AO, and proud to be. The letter from a wife that just recently went to some of the events AO sponsored for Helen Boyd is proof that our vision and mission is still needed and vital.

AO may be small by some standards, but I learned a long time ago that it isn’t easy to keep people with a group like ours when you ask them to take on responsibilities and work for the group. I understand about being busy and having other responsibilities. But you know what? If somebody hadn’t made time to help me almost nineteen years ago, I don’t know what would have happened.

Many times I have heard that other groups like ours died because nobody wanted to hold an office or do the work. Kathy and I have been setting up for meetings for eighteen years now, not because we love doing it, but because it has to be done or, no meeting. I’ve written over 400 newsletter articles and they don’t write themselves. Other members put in many hours each month to do our newsletter, keep up our website, attend seminars, speak for our group, or just do the duties of their office. They do the best they can, and I am very proud of them.

It’s easy to say that something should be better than it is or that we should do more about something. But it still takes somebody willing to make the time and give the effort to make it happen. Lots of people have ideas, and talk the talk. But too many people walk, when it comes to doing the work.

That's a fact of life in groups like ours. I do know that Alpha Omega, in our own way does what we can to help others who need us, and does so in a spirit of caring and family.

I don’t know who came up with the phrase in question, but I do wonder about something. Where is the caring and nurturing that we should show each other? Speaking as the leader of AO, we will do the best we can to help others, in the way we do, as long as we can.

So, please pass me the baked beans, we have a lot of work to do.

Femme



Andro



Male

Male



Femme

LO PARD



KRISKO

[In the News]
ARTICULATING ANDROGYNY

From the Times of India - 28 Jul 2007


Too feminine for the male species, but masculine enough for the female. Do androgynous men baffle you?


I am a woman trapped in a man's body. Is that so complicated? Perhaps not, if you ponder on it.

When you think of traditional stereotypes of masculine and feminine traits, and try to slot people you know, how many fit the mold? There is always a no-man’s and no-woman’s land where the masculine and the feminine overlap in nebulous androgyny.

But don’t we just hate it when we can’t relegate people into convenient straitjackets? We never fail to act surprised when grown men cry.

We live our daily lives in a series of vignettes where we feel insiders in one setting, and outsiders in the next.

This happens at various levels, ranging from class and language to sexual orientation. As an androgynous young man, I found myself confused, insecure and a misunderstood outsider, both with the boys and with the girls. Men made a virtue out of being shallow and callous. This is exactly what makes women mad at them.

As an adolescent seeking acceptance, I was on the periphery of both groups, excluded from the inner circle of each. The boys wouldn’t want me because I was “pansy.”

As for the girls, all possible strands of conversation eventually threaded their way to “all men are such asses.”

As the torrid angst-ridden years rode off, I became more comfortable in my own skin.

I realized that while it is convenient to look for signs of “typicality” in people and then slot them into categories, it is infinitely more exciting and rewarding to approach them with a blank slate.

The sharp divide between the masculine and feminine aspects of my own personality slowly blurred and dwindled. In college, I met people from all parts of the country.

These complex young minds became my friends who I was comfortable with because they were never judgmental.

Today, I laugh at the irony of it all: I hated myself for my androgynous personality when I was a child; today it’s one of my biggest strengths.

Seriously, women don’t come into this world with a lipstick in hand and men might have stopped to ask for directions on the way! I do not believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

Neither of them are the incredibly baffling unintelligible alien creatures you might think they are. The problem that arises when they “meet on Earth” is merely that all earthlings attempt in vain to simplify people. And when that fails, they write books on it!

Copyright © 2007

[Memoir]
SANDY HAD TO KNOW

By Gloria Fenton

As Sandy sat in her school classes that Wednesday morning, she had to be thinking about me alone at her parent’s home. And, she had to be thinking about what I was doing, with her permission, in her bedroom. There is just no way that Sandy wasn’t thinking about me being in her bedroom, taking off my clothes and shoes, and then putting on her clothes and shoes. Sandy knew exactly why I was at her parent’s home that morning, and she made it happen.

Though I had worn the intimate things of other girls and women, I had never felt a sense of intimacy with them. I wore them as a means to an end.

With Sandy that was totally different. I felt an intimacy with Sandy’s things that I had not experienced before, and sensing that intimacy, I wanted to be as close and intimate with Sandy as I possibly could.

And, I had told her that I liked to dress like a woman. I had never told anyone that secret before. Sandy, loving me, and knowing that I liked to dress like a woman, was letting me do it with everything she had.

We had not talked about what I would wear that morning, but I had no doubt that Sandy knew that her panties would be something I would wear. All of Sandy’s panties were the same - white, nylon and bikini styled. So even as I took a pair from Sandy’s dresser, I knew that the panties she had on were the same as the ones I held. I liked knowing that, and liked knowing that Sandy had worn what I was about to wear.

It was amazing to me that Sandy was letting me share these sensations that only she knew. That added even more to the intimacy of wearing her things.

Needless to say, wearing nylon bikini panties was quite a change from jockey shorts or boxer shorts. But then, I didn’t have them on in order to look or feel like a boy. The panties fit nicely. And though not quite the same, I had a very good idea of just how Sandy felt wearing them. It was a very good feeling.

So began my learning experience of dressing like a woman in Sandy’s things and sharing physical, mental, and emotional sensations that only Sandy had known before. I felt so close to Sandy in ways far beyond just loving her as her boyfriend.

Sandy had to know.

Group Information
The Alpha Omega Society is a non-profit social support group for heterosexual crossdressers and their wives or partners. We primarily serve Cleveland and nearby Northeast Ohio communities.

Publication Information
This newsletter is copyright 2007 by The Alpha Omega Society. All rights reserved. Articles and information contained in this newsletter may be reprinted by other non-profit crossdresser organizations with advance permission of the author and provided that proper credit is given to author and source. The opinions or statements contained in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Alpha Omega.

Contributions of articles are welcomed, but may be altered in the editing process, with the author’s intent retained, or may be rejected, whether solicited or not. We will exchange newsletters with any other similar group.

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