The Beauty of Different

I just received my amazon order yesterday and started to peruse my purchase, Karen Walrond's picture/essay book, The Beauty of Different.  It is a collection of photos - mostly close-in portraiture - and stories of people's lives, particularly with respect to how they felt "different" from their peers but eventually came to love their different-ness and see it as an asset.  It is really a wonderful and engrossing book.  I'd intended to just glance at it and get back to work, but then I looked up at the clock and an hour had passed... I guiltily looked back down to finish the page, and looked back up another half hour later!  There are so many cool and happy people out in the world, and it's just nice to connect (in a detached sort of way, if that isn't too paradoxical) to some of them and know that things aren't as bad as I sometimes think they are.

Anony-me

I'm not one of the cool kids on Google+ so far, so technically it doesn't affect me, but if Google were to extend their policy to all Google products, like Blogger, YouTube, Gmail, etc that I use all the time, then I would have to stop using them all.  Why?  I need to be anonymous.  Right now, I work with kids.  Now, I have never even had the remotest stray thought of doing anything inappropriate with a child, and I'm sure none of their parents have anything but the utmost respect for the job I do with their kids.  In fact, most are quite friendly with me.  And yet, because it is still a fairly conservative place, I'm 99% certain that if I were known to be transsexual, I would no longer be able to coach in youth sports, at least not in this town.  Even worse, and I've blogged this just recently, it would also have an impact of how my friends and family may be perceived and potentially their employment or social structures would also be affected.

On the other hand, my anonymous (or more specifically, pseudonymous) online existence can't just be obliterated, because it provides me with a much needed emotional outlet and social support system that keeps me from going completely whacko sometimes.  I can talk about my deepest needs in an environment that is mostly accepting or empathetic, something I cannot do in my "real" life.  Eventually, I hope to live as one single female identity both online and offline, and maybe the need to use a pseudonym won't be as great, but there are still plenty of other very strong reasons to allow their usage from industrial whistleblowers to plitical dissidents (here and abroad), and many others.

I hope Google takes all this into account and eventually reconsiders their decision to require real identities on Google+ and does not extend that to other products.  It is really a matter of life-altering consequence to many of us.

What's right for me.

... may not be right for anyone else.  I have to say that I am having some pretty major difficulties wondering if I want my condition (transsexualism) to be considered a psychopathological condition or not.  Yes, there is mind-body incogruence.  But other than that and a nagging shoulder issue, there isn't anything really wrong with me.  I'm relatively happy, having enough positive things happening in my life to balance the tendency toward depression directly related to a surgically treatable physical defect (having a male body).  Sociologically, I think labeling something as normal or abnormal is not just a scientific definition of norms and being outside of them, but society automatically assigns good (norm) and bad (not norm) values to things defined that way.

On the other hand, in this economic and societal climate, I cannot envision insurance companies (the few that currently do anyway) covering gender reassignment surgery if gender identity disorder was not classified as a psychiatric pathology.  So is having that covered for some people (not me, mostly folks working for a few open-minded large corporations) worth being labeled as a nutjob?  Actually, even beyond the economics of it, having an official medical diagnosis can be helpful when coming out as well.  "I have GID, look it up," is much easier and more convincing than "I believe I'm a girl, I want you to respect that and treat me as one from now on, ok?"

Of course, as others have already noted, categorizing transsexuality as a physical genetic defect - perhaps something like "X-Y chromosomal substitution" - might be the best solution.  It doesn't imply any impairment of my ability to think, but medically treatable and such treatment affords substantial improvement in quality of life.  Insurance companies regularly cover a variety of birth defects with that kind of description.

Innocent Bystanders

Without actual data to back up the assertion, I am still fairly confident in thinking that most trans folks, and even people close to us, understand the many many doubts and concerns we have about our selves, our ability to live normally, perhaps our ability to live period, how much we could lose, how much we might gain, and even how real is any of this?  I mean, I've considered myself a transsexual for several decades now, my erstwhile therapist (whom my current insurance no longer covers) agreed with me.  And yet, I have moments of doubt.  Am I fooling myself?  Have I held onto the idea that I'm trans for so long that I would believe it even if it's not true?  Why can't I bring myself to just go ahead and transition, consequences be damned, if my core being is at odds with my physical and social presentation?  Maybe I'm not really transsexual after all, and I'm just someone who wanted my younger sister's life way back when I first thought I was trans, wanted a life without the constant pressure of being an asian eldest son.  Oh, if I could convince myself of this, my life would be so much simpler.  Heck, if I could convince myself (and my wife) that I'm not transsexual, but a male who likes to crossdress on occasion, that would make my life easier too - I could be more easily satisfied and she could be free of the worry of losing her husband.  But that's not how it is.

No, when I dig through the morass of conflicting needs and desires, what comes out is both refreshingly and infuriatingly simple.  I'm a girl in my heart and head, even if my body and 99.9% of the world say otherwise. Unfortunately, equally simple and incontrovertible is that the relationships that truly define me in this world - as a spouse and as a parent - would be irreversibly changed by my transition.  Maybe not for the worse.  But I'm too invested and needful of the relationships as they are to risk them.  Or so I have been telling myself.  I wonder, though.

I was watching the trans documentary Red Without Blue yesterday.  The subjects came across as rather whiny and angsty, but that's probably how I would come across too if I was asked to talk about trans-ness.  It was kind of interesting to see the mother eventually come around, but hard to watch it take so long.  But what hit me, especially right now as I'm again in a period of seriously pondering a public transition sooner than later, was the transgirl's mother talking about how her old friends were shunning her, turning around in grocery store aisles, booting her out of her women's club, etc, not for being trans herself, but just for being related to such a "freak".  The idea that my transition would cause me to lose some friends and relationships is hard but not insurmountable - the most valuable ones should remain.  But the idea that it would cost my family some of their friends and relationships is much worse, almost irresponsible in my book.

Recluse

I am a recluse, a hermit, at heart.  I interact with other people mainly in just one way - I really love to teach young people, whether it is as a professor or as a coach.  While I'd definitely miss it if I were to have to stop coaching (something I'd anticipate if I transitioned here in KY), I think I would be reasonably content just working from home and pretty much staying at home other than to go out for necessities.  During the off-seasons I sometimes go for weeks without seeing anyone except my wife or the grocery store clerk.  No problem.

So why then, do I have this urge to be seen in public en femme?  Why should public validation of my true gender be so important to me?  I don't really understand this.  Maybe I am so unsure of whether I am feminine enough that I need unbiased or even potentially hostile opinions to validate my self-assessment?  I'm thinking about this now because my current project includes writing a little bit about self-esteem and having a confident and strong sense of self in adolescents.  Now, I'm more than a couple decades away from adolescence, but it struck me as somewhat hypocritical to tell adolescents to believe in themselves when I apparently still desire some external validation to my own sense of self.

I am woman, hear me mumble.   Grr, something I need to work on... among many such somethings.

Video Review: She's A Boy I Knew

This is a short (a little over an hour long) autobiographical documentary about a lesbian transwoman's experiences as she transitioned, told primarily through interviews with her parents, sisters, and friends, as well as her own voiceover.  Although these kinds of trans-folk documentaries seem to mostly be cut from the same basic mold, I like watching them more to see the differences in how people handle their transgenderness than in the now-familiar ways they are the same.  I sort wish I was able to get a better read on the older of the two sisters, but in general, the interviews gave a pretty clear picture of the various internal conflicts each person had with Gwen Haworth's coming out and transition, and how they dealt with it in their own ways.  Although it scares me a little, I love that they showed her ex-wife's desire to be really supportive and then how as the transition got going, she realized that despite the love they shared, she needed to find a man who could address both her emotional and physical/sexual needs in a way that Gwen could not.  I see this concern in my wife's eyes whenever we talk about my spending more time at home en femme, so it hit home.  Somewhat surprisingly, but refreshingly, Gwen was willing to show her full body nude post-top and bottom surgeries.

Not a brilliant film, but an honest and watchable one that I can certainly recommend to trans folk and trans allies.

Not sure where else it may be available, but I watched She's A Boy I Knew using amazon.com's video service, $4.95 to rent for 7 days, $12.99 to buy.

Male Daughters

Hey, check out this article on the gaming/pop culture site Kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/5804979/what-is-japans-fetish-this-week-male-daughters

Whoops, it's been a while!

So here's a weird thing.  I have always had fairly broad shoulders for my build, though I've been trying hard to keep them strong but small to help me pass better.  That said, I don't really expect to pass when I'm in male drab.  And so it was really surprising when I greeted my wife with a hug and kiss at the airport, and my wife told me after we both got back in the car that she was pretty sure the people in the car behind us must have thought we were lesbians because they were giving us the evil eye.  My back was to them, but I guess my wife caught sight of them as we were kissing.  In a way, I was sort of happy to be mistaken for a gal, but it also drove home how much my eventual transition is going to affect how people perceive my wife - even though she isn't really changing anything at all!  sigh.

Plague of penises

Very strange.  I had a dream (nightmare?) that I had "the" surgery, i.e. bottom surgery, SRS, GRS, whatever you want to call it.  But, my penis came back.  And I had to have it removed.  And it came back.

Think my subconscious is telling me something?  :-P

WEAR PINK !!!!

Kids go through phases when it comes to things they like or not. As they get older, some tastes change, others stay the same. As long as what they enjoy does not hurt or endanger anyone including themselves, then of course the best thing to do is to support them, even if it what they like is "weird". Don't force them to stop and then make excuses that you're protecting them from a society that wouldn't understand them. Don't make assumptions based on the boogeyman of the day - transgenders <spooky voice - oooooooooh>.

Copyright J. Crew 2011

That's exactly what a number of national news outlets and commentators have been doing after the release of an email ad campaign from J. Crew, which features CEO Jenna Lyons enjoying a weekend with her young son. Now, it just so happens that her son likes pink, and apparently finds it fun or funny to have his mom paint his toenails pink. Wow, big deal. He's goofing around with something he sees his parent do. He's a bit young to be worrying about what activities lie in the "male" domain or what activities should be prohibited because they are "feminine" (actually, The Daily Show did a great and funny report on this, ending with super-manly champion martial arts fighter Chuck Liddell... and his painted toenails). This, of course, does not stop the talking heads and other people who shoot their mouths off without actually thinking first.

Transgender people are the "big bad" of the moment. Having found that there are too many homosexual people who might rise up against them and voice their outrage, social conservatives have decided to attack transgenders as an affiliated group of people, hoping to color opinions about gays and lesbians by association. From exaggerated worries about vicious attacks on "real" women in the sanctity of the "ladies" bathrooms by transgender women who are apparently held at bay now only because they fear arrest for being in the wrong bathroom, to the commentaries of "Dr." Keith Ablow yesterday suggesting that the J. Crew ad was a piece of transgender-celebrating propaganda, it seems that a lot of people are getting awfully upset over very little. What is so important about maintaining a strongly distinct gender binary?

Let the kid be a kid. Maybe he is transgender - if so, support that, because study after study shows you can't change it. Maybe he is gay - support that, again, because you can't change it, and the statistics are very clear that the more support a GLBT child has, the lower his/her chances of suicide. But far more likely (considering the low probability of being either homosexual or transgender) he's just a straight kid playing around with bright colors, whether on his body (have you seen what 5 year olds will do with finger paints or bath paint/soaps!?) or his clothing, or maybe his artwork. He may always like pink, whether he grows up a "manly man" or not.

I know or have met so many good people in the GLBT community in almost every part of the country I've been to, and I'm very tired of ignorant people trying to chip away at their humanity. I say, whether you're gay, straight, trans, in the closet, or out of the closet, wear some pink on your nails and show some solidarity with a little kid enjoying himself, and against a bunch of small-minded loudmouths who apparently have nothing better to do than criticize a mom playing with her child.

PINK NAILS FTW!  (for the win, if you aren't into gamer-speak)

Gender-bending performance from Thailand's Got Talent

Toenails

pic from flickr user Teresia

For those of us still mostly "in the closet," painting our toenails is just one of those easy little body mods that can generate a warm little feeling of femininity as we drag through the day in male drab. My wife, who does not do her nails, whether toes (never) or fingers(seldom), laughs at me when she sees my pink/red/sparkly/etc toes, but in a nice way. On the other hand, some critics of transwomen see this as hyperfemininity, caricaturing "real" women, etc. This is a stupid criticism - just look at the millions of strong feminist women who happen to like many of the "trappings" of femininity. But also, the context for transwomen needs to be understood. We aren't trying to be hyper-anything, nor caricatures. We give ourselves these little secret cues of our true selves, our true genders, because unlike people who have been recognized as female all their lives, we don't get that identity reinforcement from anyone else. Is it silly to do the vacuuming in high heels? Sure, but it's fun, and unlike women (trans or otherwise) who are women in public, when else am I going to wear them?

nice interview from ITV

reblogged from helen boyd's en|gender

Breathing room

Ahh.  I'm back for a day or two.  That is, I'm free to be my femme self.  Various family visits, kids moving back in temporarily, and other miscellaneous bits of pieces of life have been conspiring to prevent my just being me.  But it is spring break, so both kids are out of town for the day, and my wife, who says the right things about my dressing in front of her, but visibly stiffens a bit and behaves a bit weirdly when I do so, is also out of town today for work.  So, here I am.  What am I wearing?  Well, to be honest, just jeans and a sweatshirt.  But, and here's the thing, I'm comfortably happy walking around barefoot, not having to worry that someone will drop by and I'll have to scramble to find socks to cover my pink toenails, or duck into the bathroom and pull of my bra.  Now, there's no question I'll get more prettily dressed up a little later (some cute recent purchases I haven't had a chance to really try out), but for now, I'm content just freely being me.

Unexpected smile

OK, so with all due respect to my elders, I really hate to go grocery shopping on "Senior Citizens Day", which here in my locale, is the first Wednesday of the month when the local supermarket chain gives seniors an extra discount on their purchases.  Unfortunately, I only remember this occasionally, which results in a day like today, when I show up to a store filled with little old ladies.  Ususally not a situation I am thrilled with, especially when I am not in there to browse, but just buying a few specific items for dinner tonight.

But, it turns out that of all things, a traffic jam in the pickles, olives, salad dressings aisle ended up giving me a big smile that will probably carry me through the day.  I am not officially public as a transwoman yet, so I was just out in a fleece jacket, T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, my hair in its normal braid down the back.  No makeup, no attempts to add a few hints of femininity.

As I politely waited with my shopping basket for several indecisive ladies to decide which way to move in order to clear space for me to pass, I heard one old lady tell another (less observant or less mobile) lady, "we need to move to let her pass," giving me a smile.  Yay!  Maybe once I do go public I won't stand out as much as I fear I will.  Who knows?  Now, it is quite possible her eyesight was failing her, but even so, I don't consider my general blurry shape to be very feminine at all.  I certainly have to hips, and even in a tight T-shirt I only barely have boobs, which this time were mostly covered by a shapeless oversized unisex fleece jacket anyway.  In other words, in a situation where I had no reason whatsoever to be recognized as a "her", I was.

I know, hardly worth blogging about, but hey, I take my itty bitty victories seriously, wherever and whenever I can get them.

Can we disconnect the penis?

OK, you caught me, this is not a post about the biotechnology needed to have detachable penises for those of us transwomen who have spouses who like our penises and don't want us to lose them.  That was really an awkward sentence with all the plural genitalia...  I thought it was more catchy that "Can we disconnect the penis from the man - musings of a lesbian transwoman."  Which is what this post really is.  I guess it started with watching "The Kids Are All Right," the Oscar-nominated film in which Julianne Moore, playing a lesbian in a stable family relationship, has an affair with a man.  Between that and a scene in which she and her partner watch gay male porn to get excited, I started to wonder.  First, I thought it was kind of misogynistic to suggest that even lesbians secretly want sex with a guy's penis.  But then I thought, well, that's just human physiology and what physically stimulates certain nerves, etc.  There's no reason it should be completely governed by one's sexuality.

I've come to the conclusion (through various experiments that will probably end up in a blog post sooner or later) that men's bodies (not just my own, btw!) are not attractive to me in the slightest.  In many shapes and sizes, clothed and un-clothed, I can't get myself into the mood by trying to picture myself playing with any non-penis part of a man.  I'm definitely a lesbian and not bisexual based on that criteria.  On the other hand, I happily use a penis-shaped dildo when playing with my wife or by myself.  I can definitely see myself being penetrated during sex by a woman with a strap-on dildo, even a very masculine woman.  Here's the rub - if you'll pardon the pun - I can get off imagining being f****d by a man treating me as a woman.

I am sexually attracted to female bodies, whether they be transwomen or born lucky :-).  But, as a transwoman, I have this weird subconscious desire to be penetrated by a penis.  Note that I do not yet have a vagina.  Sigh.  Anyway, I can sort of understand the desire for penetration in my anus/rectum because it just feels good, but I can't really understand the desire to give fellatio.  The physical act definitely doesn't give me any pleasure (based on the occasional sucking on a dildo in a fantasy-play scenario with a female partner).  I wonder if I read too many pornographic stories of transwomen giving men fellatio, and that just subconsciously stuck with me.  Or maybe it is that I think of being penetrated, whether orally or anally, as sort of a validation of my womanhood, since most other external indicators would point to me being recognized as male.

I'm not saying that this is or should be universal, and I certainly am not saying a woman - trans or otherwise -must be penetrated to really be a woman.  I'm just thinking through my personal feelings out loud, ok?  Sorry, I have no answers here.  At least not yet.

Designer fashions, not designer prices

Just an FYI: Target is re-issuing a bunch dresses from their GO International series of collaborations with famous designers like Thakoon, Proenza Schouler, and Luella Bartley, among many others.  You can find them online at Target.com or in stores from March 13 through April 10 or until they sell out.

The nice thing for transwomen like me who, while only about average sized for a guy, are on the large side for a gal, is that Target tends to realize that their customers are different from the ladies who might be the primary customers for these designers' main lines.  So, often they come in sizes that actually fit me!  So basically, I get to find some pretty dresses that may actually fit me, and fit my budget.

P.S. no, I don't work for any company or other entity remotely associated with Target or any of the designers.  in fact, I'm re-thinking publishing this post so they don't sell out of my size before I get a chance to buy!  :-P

Here's a cute little number from Luella Bartley / Target.

Hormonal

So I've been on hormones pretty regularly (except for times I forget to place a refill order and have to wait between shipments) for about 6 years now.  I have a prescription, but because I am self-insured and have to worry about potentially being dropped by my health insurance for any little thing, I order my hormones from overseas, and I adjust my dosage myself.  While I am somewhat buoyed every time I read that some more major companies now have health insurance policies that cover transsexual top and bottom surgeries, it pisses me off that this has no effect whatsoever on me, because as an individual, I have absolutely zero bargaining power and would have to pay astronomical premiums to have a policy that covers such procedures.

Anyway, based on research on normal hormone levels, and the way they change over the course of the day, I've pretty much settled on an alternating day schedule of taking 6 mg of beta-estradiol at night (at the upper limit of recommended dosage), and the next day, I take an anti-androgen (dutasteride seems to work best for me) in the morning and 4 mg of the estradiol at night.  One week each month I also take progesterone with the estradiol each evening.  This has worked pretty well for me - I think my genetics limit my breast growth to  what meager assets I have now (barely fill a 38A bra) - based on a hard-to-define feeling of "rightness" with my body.  I can definitely tell if I've skipped a couple days because I let my drugs run out and have to wait for the next shipment.

Having said all that, knowing in my head that I am very careful about knowing how my body usually feels, and keeping in good physical shape, every spring and fall when my seasonal allergies give me horrific sinus headaches, I occasionally am seized by somewhat irrational fears that the estrogen is going to give me a stroke, and I'll have to go off the E, and I'll be depressed and masculine again.  I flash back to an early episode of Chicago Hope (a medical drama that started on CBS about the same time as ER did on NBC, but didn't last very long).  Mia Sara (you probably know her as Sloane from Ferris Bueller's Day Off) played a transsexual whose hormone therapy was causing her medical problems, and the episode ends with her suicide or attempted suicide (I can't remember) because she didn't want to keep living while fighting her body's re-masculinization.  There were all kinds of medical inaccuracies in that show mostly due to the need for time compression in a show like that, but it definitely struck a chord with me.  I start thinking about losing some (though not all) of my breast growth, and to be honest, that's actually secondary to a change in my mindset when on hormones.  Going back to having a "purely" male body and hormones would be extremely depressing.  No, I'm not suicidal, but it is sort of funny that something as relatively minor as seasonal allergies can send my mind into such a crazy stream of fears.

Hey, y'all, guess what?

Are you ever tempted to just rip off that band-aid, figuratively speaking?  Just suddenly stand up as you're sitting at a crowded table of friends at your local hangout and blurt out, "Hey y'all.  Hey... HEY SHUT UP!  I have something to say.  Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm a transsexual, and I am going to start living openly as a woman soon."  I keep getting that feeling lately.

To plump or not to plump

Like many young girls... and yet not exactly like them... when I read Are You There God, It's Me Margaret back in grade school, I would sometimes chant "We must, we must, we must increase our bust" while doing what were ostensibly breast-enlarging exercises as prescribed in the book.  Of course I knew better, but just as I was willing to suspend my disbelief in order to wish the ancient Greek/Roman goddesses were real for a time, I was also willing to forget what I knew about the logic of a "mystical" chant helping to grow my chest.  I was thinking of this recently as I looked at myself in the mirror and both marveled that I actually have somewhat recognizable breasts at all, and despaired that they were too small and not nearly in proportion to my frame (even for a small-breasted woman). That usually leads to thinking about top surgery.

But that also leads me to wonder if I am putting too much emphasis on one part of the body.  So I ask myself, if I were actually born a woman, would I go for implants? To be honest, I have just barely enough to breast tissue so an A-cup bra doesn't look partially empty.  :-)  But that said, a slightly padded A gives me a feminine enough figure that in clothing with a fem cut or style, most people would probably assume me to be a girl.  What I really would like is to feel the breasts of a woman with implants, but since I don't actually know any, that seems like a bizarre request of a stranger!  :-P

Anyway, questions to ponder, and plenty of time for pondering as I continue to slowly slowly ramp up towards a transition of some sort.