My fall has
been so busy I didn’t have energy to write blog earlier than now.
In
September I did a lot of on line lecturing so I also had an opportunity to do
it at home. There were definite advantages in doing so: I could skip 1,5 hours
trip to work and back and I could be really the person I am.
In the
beginning of October we had our traditional Hauho weekend. That was the last
one I organized and I’m happy to give the task to the other people. Our
organization DreamWearClub also changed its president, Kristiina Piippola
became the successor of Minna-Maaria Lax. I had drafted the opinion survey of
the DWC to the members and also to non-members. I presented the conclusions of
the survey to the audience. The main message was the members were mostly
satisfied with our activities except the web pages which really are in the need
of total reconstruction.
Kristiina and Minnna-Maaria
Two weeks after that I visited two places in
Helsinki with my good friend Hanna-Maria. The first were bauty, health and
fashion expo “I love me” in Pasila expo center. The economical depression
didn’t show in any way, the place was crowded with ladies. There were so huge
amounts of products and brands so we should have been much better prepared to
get the useful information effectively.
There were
also department of all kind of mystical life style, (so called…) therapy and
healing brands which we passed quickly although they however seemed to pay a
lot of attention from the other women.
For us the fashion department was the
easiest one so we did some shopping there, including my brownish home dress.
The fitting room facilities were rather rough and ready, we just had to go
behind the exhibition screen. But what would we have had to hide from other
ladies who tried their findings with us…?
Trying on and purchasing the dress
Our next main target was the new gay bar
called GLounge Sky Bar. It is in the very center of Helsinki and it used to be
a private club, partly owned by Jenni Dahlman, the former wife of Kimi
Räikkönen. The entrance of the place is very discreet, just a staircase with a
tiny sign behind the two lifts. The bar is in the eighth and ninth floor and
the ninth floor is behind almost the all roofs of Helsinki. Also the eighth
floor gives the wonderful view to the downhill direction.
It was about
2 p.m. on Saturday when we entered the bar. We were instantly warmly welcomed
by the other customers, mostly young and middle aged gay men. I spite of the
invitations we chose the silent corner and yet we had a constant flow of men
wanting to chat with us. We also asked them to take pictures of us (we were
doing a reportage to our magazine). One of men insisted to take pics from the
angle of view where our legs would show best.
After
taking the first sip of the atmosphere of Sky Bar went for a snack to the other
gay bar called Cavalier. Even there we were in the middle of the attention, one
gentleman praising Hanna-Maria more beautiful than Gloria Swanson.
We had a
plan to see how the atmosphere at Sky Bar changed in the evening so we returned
the place at 9 p.m. It seemed to be quite empty, the hilarious gentlemen had
gone somewhere else. But in less than hour the situation changed: The elevator doors opened and closed and the
crowds of people, mostly hetero men and women entered the bar. Maybe they have
caught the message of the slogan of the Sky Bar as a hetero friendly gay
bar…
In Finland
we have quite old fashioned legislation concerning the transgender rights. For
example to change ones official gender you must be castrated, a married trans person
must divorce and hormone therapy is not allowed to trans persons under the age
of 18. About a year ago the ministry of social and health services made a plan
paper to change the legislation to this millennium. It wasn’t particularly
radical, for example it didn’t contain the idea of self determination like it
does in Maltese and Danish legislation. However, when our government changed
and we got the ultra conservative and populist True Finns party in it the
progress of legislation stopped. We still will have the law about the equal
marriage and because of that also the trans law has to be altered, because
there is no reason to force people divorce because of the gender change. But
the True Finns refused to do any other changes to the bill.
That’s why
Finnish human rights organizations decided to organize a demonstration for the
better trans law. I was one of the organizers as a member of DWC and Seta
(Finnish national LBGTI-organization) trans team. The main organizer was the
Finnish office of Amnesty International.
The primus motor of the demonstration, Pia Puu Oksanen
After the
demonstration we went to the Ministry of the social and health services where
we had arranged an appointment to minister Rehula. We had a 15 minutes meeting
with him and we handed a petition for a better trans law. He replied he
understand the sometimes almost unbearable situation of trans people but
indicated he had very limited changes to do anything in this government with
True Finns.
When we
were at I love me –exhibition we got the invitation to beauty clinic called DeSheli.
I had my appointment there the same day as the demonstration. I knew there would
be about one and half hour session containing various treatments. DeSheli turned
out to be a French Israeli brand, consisting mostly Israeli originated
products. As a beauty clinic it was quite big, there were about twenty
beautician rooms. Actually it was a part of global and rather aggressive
selling campaign. First the beautician asked me if I had any allergies. To test
it, she put a tiny drop of each stuff she would use to my arm while she had her
introduction speech. The offer was a Aluminum suitcase containing 18 different
care products for the whole year. The price was “only” 1800 euro “just today”…
I gasped for breath a little but let her continue. First she made the different
care procedures to the right side of my face. As she promised, the skin felt
much smoother and even the wrinkles seemed to have got smaller. I asked if it
was the “Cinderella effect” because of swelling of the tissue which she firmly
refused. Before the left side the sales lady came in and introducing the “last
offer” 1640 euro, containing some extra cares at the clinic. I said firmly no
thanks and let the beautician finalize my face cares. When I went out, I met a
lady who happened to go in the same elevator up and down. We both agreed the
selling tactics was too aggressive for us Finns – and of course the price was
too high. Also the fact that the products were not altered according to the
skin type and that the beautician talked about the collagen going through the
skin, were not very convincing. But anyway I had some ideas to care my face
skin more intensively than I have used to do.
The last
week of October we had a wig evening at the DWC club evening. The boys from
Suomikallio wig store had a huge selection of wigs to show. Many of the
visitors bought some. I had visited at their shop a while and chosen a little
longer wig with curls. That one I intend to wear in special occasions.
Hanna from behind
I had an
idea to go to Halloween ball for the first time in my life. I knew my friend
Tiga would be there. I told my idea at the wig club evening and invited to
younger and maybe more shy girls to go there with me. One of them called Hanna
took the challenge and said she might come… And after some persuasion she
really did it – it was her first night out. We met at Seta office where we have
our dressing room. After some preparation she was ready to meet the world. I
had my car so we could drive near our destination, Don’t Tell Mama –night club.
The theme was “Bloody drag” which was somewhat ambivalent thing to the
transvestite who tries to live a normal life without any extra labels. But
anyway, I dressed in red and tried to look a bit wilder than I do in normal
cases. We met Tiga and many other old and new friends and had a lot of fun. And
of course it was a huge experience especially for Hanna.
Ready for the Halloween
My regular belly
dance teacher Marinka is pregnant and she stopped to have lessons in November.
The substitute leader Ulla has a different style: She is sportier and the tempo during the lessons is much harder. It is a good thing, especially for my physical condition. Marinka had introduced us a choreography for the Christmas show and we practice it also with Ulla. I have to practice it at home too, I’m a slow learner.
Doing homework in my new wig
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