Betcha Didn't See This Coming

The Spirit of the Decleration

2011-07-06T02:57:00.002-05:00

[to all my non-trans friends, this is regarding a sort of in-house debate within the community and may be of little interest to you, though your comments are not unwelcome]

Three times now, among my friends, I've seen a link to a note posted by another friend which is styled a "deceleration of Independence" for transsexuals. I want to be clear that I share a great deal of the sentiment of this note, which you may read in its entirety here, I was troubled however by the length and complexity of the document, and the potential that it might fail to be as winsome as it might otherwise be because of that nature. Rather than complain without having exerted any effort myself, I took it upon myself to try to do better. Not to disrespect my friend's effort but just the opposite - to be willing to put in an equal amount of effort rather than just sit and be a critic in the peanut gallery. What I found, though, was that Teresa's document while through in detail, did not read like the original Deceleration of Independence for which I, naturally, have a predisposition to fondness.

So I decided that rather than try to squeeze her lengthy argument into that document, I would divide my exercise in two. What I submit for your consideration below is heavily dependent on the theme and structure of Jefferson's original document. I freely confess that large portions of it are borrowed or only slightly modified. This is specifically because i sought to emulate the appeal of his petition and, after all, there is arrogance indeed in trying to do it better than he, right?

What I had intended was to then try to construct a more accessible take on Teresa's actual message. However, I've decided that what she wrote is, less so than a deceleration, a description of an ideological viewpoint, one I agree with on most but not all points, and it is not my place to reword such a statement.

This then, is inspired by her work but seeks not to replace it but to take a different road to the same destination.

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A Deceleration of Transsexual Ideological Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political associations which have connected them with another, and to assume among the voices in the political sphere, the separate and equal station to which natural rights and logical consideration entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of those affected requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all persons are created equal, that they are endowed therefore with certain equal unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, our government recognizes the sovereign human right to petition for redress of grievances; and that to that end, citizens freely form political and ideological associations. Having the just intent to amplify their voices to call for equality before the law, these associations are, and of a right must be, freely chosen and not manipulated by any ulterior motive or purpose apart from those of the person so associated. Whenever ones voice is abused to support an action or idea unwillingly, both the cause and the citizen are wronged.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that such associations long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that persons are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute subjugation, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such association, and to provide new guards for their voice in the public arena and their equal rights.

Such has been the patient endurance of transsexuals in their relationship to the community of individuals referred to as transgender or, of late, “gender variant” and the larger human rights community which is active in behalf of those who's rights are infringed based upon their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former public associations.

The history of the present political and ideological movement with which transsexuals are commonly and often unwillingly associated is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the goal of usurping our voice for the political advantage of a cause to which we do not willingly subscribe. These are too numerous and complex to detail herein, but we assert that the specific nature of our lives demonstrates conclusively our right to our own independent voice.

To prove this, let these facts be considered by a candid audience.

The conditions, primarily medical and secondarily psychological, which is present in the transsexual person is demonstrably not the same as, or similar to, those who identify themselves as having a variant gender expression.

The course of treatment require to resolve this condition in the transsexual person according to accepted medical practices places burdens upon the lives of transsexuals which are not a necessary requirement of a variant gender expression. These burdens are essential to rectify our birth condition to a degree that they are part and parcel of the natural right to pursuit of happiness. This is manifestly not the case for the individual who freely chooses a variant gender expression to whatever degree.

As a result of the inborn nature of the transsexual condition, they have a natural right to pursue a course of treatment appropriate to alleviate the distress of said condition in exactly the same manner as persons afflicted with any other condition for which science has provided remedy. This is a specific right which has no application to variant gender expression or, for comparison, to sexual orientation.

While gender variant expressions seeks, perhaps with meritorious reason, to diminish or erase the societal standards which are common to the gender binary customs in the pursuit of freedom of expression, the transsexual seeks to conform to and assimilate into those very customs. Without casting negative aspersions upon the goals of the gender variant, those goals are not only not the goals of the transsexual, but can be counter-productive to the outcome we seek.

It is a self evident reality that the society at large is struggling to reach that place of enlightenment at which all people of all sexual orientations, gender expressions, or gender identities enjoy full and equal rights before the law. It is further self evident that progress in this evolution is often inconsistent and frankly irrational. In light of this reality, it is reasonable that those persons who believe their goals are not always the goals of their political and idealogical allies to seek a separate and independent voice in the arena of ideas.

Moreover, many in the transsexual community feel that our distinctive voices, identities, and concerns have been subjugated to a political agenda which they may or may not support but which does not reflect in a significant way the outcome they hope to achieve. It is right and proper that those who find this to be true would sue for separation from the collective movement under which they have been subsumed.

It is further self evident that in the face of a slowly evolving public opinion, the cause and concerns of transsexual persons may in fact receive less than fair consideration because of a reluctance to extend legal privilege to the extent that the gender variant community would petition. It is not a de-legitimizing of the standing that the gender variant community seeks, to recognize the incremental nature of civil rights progress. Nor is it incumbent upon the transsexual to give up progress which might be obtained in order to make common cause with those who have a further agenda.

The larger community generally referred to as “LGBT” has potentially and perhaps inadvertently hindered the progression of legal equality for transsexual persons by merging our legitimate concerns within a conglomeration of other rights for which they petition before governments at all levels It is right and proper that transsexuals then protest that their concerns have not been given consideration on their own merits.

While people of good will can and do disagree on the legitimacy of any specific petition for expansion of the recognition of rights, it is not a logical necessity that the transsexual community disavow the petitions of the gender variant persons. Some will find the petitions lacking, some will make common cause. But fair minded people should agree that this support, or lack thereof, must be granted voluntarily and volitionally and not assumed as a result of their status or condition.

Candid observation may readily determine that, beyond the problematic nature of merging the concerns of the transsexual and the gender variant, both have been ill-served by being the significantly lesser voice in the larger LGBT agenda. It bears repeating that one need not disrespect any other agenda to note that your own is being neglected, either willfully or inadvertently.

The right of the person who wishes to remedy their birth condition with the end result of merging into the gender customs of the general society ultimately must take precedent over any obligation assumed upon them by others to give up that goal for the pursuit of any political or ideological agenda, however worthy.

For some fair and reasonable length of time, the transsexual community has been slow to give voice to these concerns and then, when so voiced they have been characterized in unflattering terms, and subject to undeserved and oppressive pressure to co-operate to the detriment of our own self-identified interests. Whatever the previous dissatisfaction, the former offense has been far exceeded by the hostility and ill-will with which our petition has been received. We assert the right to self determination, and the choice to be a willingly ally in your struggle, or to resign from the arena as our own conscience dictates.

The application of harassment, emotional manipulation, and open hostility in pursuit of that which is falsely called unity, but is in fact nothing less than subjugation, is by itself and apart from all other concerns, a worthy cause for separation.

While it is indeed true that many transsexuals wish to engage in no political agenda at all, but only to assume their place in the gender identity in which they find peace and happiness - which is their natural right - the deceleration of separation between transsexuals and other gender variant peoples, commonly referred to as transgender, is not of necessity a forsaking of the claims either of transgender people or of homosexual people. Rather, it is a recognition of the clear reality that while allies may work together to great effect, it is not necessary to merge there various concerns into one homogeneous agenda in order to achieve that effect. We seek to reclaim a distinct identity, a distinct right to define our own agenda, and the respect that should be accorded one who is a political ally rather than a political pawn.

We do not believe that transsexuals can receive a fair hearing before the general public, and their elected representatives, so long as misconceptions and falsehoods about the nature of our condition and concerns is perpetuated by the unwise and unwilling association between our condition and the gender expression behaviors of the gender variant community. We demand our own identity in the public consciousness and conversation and it is only insomuch as we achieve that that our rights will be recognized. We call upon all organizations which work for human rights at any level to recognize that there are at least three distinct communities who stand in need: homosexual persons, as defined by their sexual orientation, transsexual persons, as defined by their gender identity, and transgender (or gender variant) persons who are defined by their gender expression. We insist that identity and expression are not synonymous and each has it's own concerns and agenda. These may and hopefully will bye willing allies, but none may fairly be subject to any other.

We, therefore, the representatives of the transsexual population of the United States of America, speaking independently, and collectively only where willing assent is voluntarily given, appealing to the natural rights of all humans of the world as recognized by all major faith systems and free governments, do, each individually and according to the dictates of their own conscience, publish and declare our separation from and independence of the designation “transgender” and free of any obligation to activism on behalf of an ideology which is not our own.

We offer the friendly hand of alliance in the cause of anyone who's natural rights are oppressed by force of law, but we reserve the right to self-determine where and whether such a violation has occurred, and further reserve the right to stand aside from conflict which we cannot in good conscience partake in. This is the essence of the freedom which we claim with this act. May fair minded people of good will recognize the rights that we herein assert.

MUST trans people be Democrats?

2011-06-19T16:05:00.002-05:00

A trans activist, Christian Williams, who’s been outspoken in regards to the Nikki Araguz case has, in the course of her following the intricacies of that case, occasionally made comments which spark intense reaction within the trans community, both in agreement and opposition. For the most part I’ve kept my head down on all that. It is, in a sense, a tangent from the larger ongoing rift in the trans community concerning the “TS not TG” position (which I’m largely sympathetic to - but that’s for another post) and the counter-argument to that position.

However, in a recent post she addressed herself to a somewhat broader conversation and I felt I had to reply. It occurred to me as I did that what I wanted to say was worthy of expanding on here, as a very worthy example of the sort of things I want to speak to here since it has become inconvenient for me to be very autobiographical here.

Ms Williams went to exhaustive length to, in her view, identify and refute any possible disagreement with her premise as illogical and even possibly irrational. I am willing to recognize the validity of her argument as far as it goes, but I think that it exists largely in a rhetorical vacuum and ignores important context which makes the choice she presents far from the slam-dunk that she argues for, in my opinion.

Without going to such lengths to review her position, which you may consider in full (if you have lots of time - I thought I was verbose!) I hope that I can fairly summarize it before offering my semi-rebuttal. In short, Williams argues that for a trans person (actually, any LGBT person) to EVER support a Republican is to make common cause with those who would deny rights to LGBT people and is thus never, ever the right choice. Any arguments offered to the contrary are, as she attempts to demonstrate, logical fallacies. Again I must be clear, in an absolute vacuum, I think she has a valid point. But we do not live and move in a vacuum and context matters. I offered in my comments there and wish to expand upon here, four areas which I believe are important context for the discussion that she does not address to my satisfaction in her post.

Before I begin, a couple of points of clarification:
1. My actual sympathies are only marginally more Republican than Democrat. I consider myself a “small l” libertarian. But I have voted with the GOP on several occasions and virtually never for a Democrat. In any case, I am not so much arguing “I’m a proud Republican!” as “It’s not entirely unsupportable to vote for A Republican.”
2. I will not attempt to argue the premise that Republicans do not actually DO what they say they believe in when they have power. In most cases, neither party does. But if my goal is, for instance, smaller government, voting for the party which professes that view, even if they don’t often act on it, is still defensible against the idea of supporting a party who has no interest at all in that position. Just as a left winger might well vote for a “tax the rich” party like the Democrats that often do not actually do that, as vote for the GOP who has expressed no sympathy at all to that objective.

Now, with that said, there are four points I think need to be made. Not direct refutation to the premise, so much as context worthy of consideration so that the deceleration can no longer be seen as such an absolute.

First, Us/Them politics is counter-productive. If one "writes off" the opposing group as unwindable and takes their stand firmly with their opposition, then you reinforce your opponents resolve to be unwinable. Whatever might be said for political activism on the left side of the spectrum, there is, in my view, a SERIOUS need to "put a face on" trans issues (and the larger LGBT community) among those on the right who have limited exposure. It's much more difficult for my right-of-center friends to know me and care for me and still say "no rights for you" and that applies in all cases. Isolation from us makes it much easier to oppose us. You might say, well sure, be friends with them but be active for Democrats and the left - but they can see that. If you go about with an Obama bumper sticker and a pro-choice button and the whole nine yards, your arguments for trans rights are automatically written off as "left wing nonsense." but if they know that you are otherwise "one of them" - small government, tax cuts, pro-life, whatever - then your counter-argument on trans rights is not so easily ignored. Especially when you appeal to small-government and pro-liberty instincts in order to make the case.
(And before you get self satisfied, my lefty friend, look in the mirror - reverse all the issues and most of you do the same thing)

By contrast, when I am well known among my acquaintances as a small-government conservative with little sympathy for all that class-warfare rhetoric, and then I argue this point I cannot be dismissed as “toeing the party line.” Furthermore, the act of “putting a face on” a concern, which is of incalculable value in my opinion, cannot be done from the other side of the political aisle. It is MUCH harder for a conservative to argue that the person they know, respect, and maybe love is unworthy of equality than it is for them to argue against the “freaks and pervs in San Francisco.” That’s not to say it can’t be done. No one is more familiar than me with the concept that loved ones sometimes reject you and your rights in your very face. But the percentages are assuredly in our favor. The people who are bold enough to reject me to my face would have done so to anyone in any context - those are not the one’s I’m trying to reach. It’s the ones who might well reject what Gavin Newsom or Nancy Pelosi says on the subject, but are more open when it’s someone they know. THEY can be won.

Secondly, Ms Williams paints a picture of what would seem to be, in essence, a direct choice between “good social policy + economics I don’t like” vs. “Economics I like + bad social policies” but this overlooks the context of HOW bad the economy is and how bad the potential social policies are. If my choice was between “less than the best” economics, which resulted in a slow-growth economy as a worst case, or solid economics which provoked a booming economy, I might well vote Democrat in order to move the ball on civil rights while the mood was favorable. But that’s not the choice. In my opinion we are teetering on the brink of abject economic disaster. The choices made over the next 4-8 years may very well set an irreversible course. Certainly it’s arguable that the GOP can’t or won’t fix this, but the Democrats are committed to a course which barely acknowledges the possibility of disaster, let alone makes good choices. (Please don’t take the time to try to change my mind on economics, if you disagree then take this as a “for the sake of discussion” theoretical point - economic debates are for another day)

I must therefore ask the question - who protects my rights if the economy completely collapses? There is such a thing as “recessive discrimination” - which is to say that the employee you tolerate in the good times is the first one out the door (and the last one hired) in the bad times. This will be true with or without ENDA, employers will always find another reason to get rid of you if they want you gone. To me, it’s about the priority of the moment, and the context of the present economy. Not the theoretical economy of her argument. In this present hour, I want an at least stable economy in which there IS a job for me to apply for before I worry about whether discrimination keeps me from it.

By contrast, do the Republicans have the political will or capital to actively roll back rights which have already been achieved? Almost never. Even when they occasionally try they tend to lose, as in Maine. The recent nonsense in Tennessee is the tiny exception, not the rule. The occasional “old school” politician trying to prove how “godly” he is notwithstanding, and the positions taken in ongoing battles such as California’s Prop 8 being a different subject, I can’t think of a GOP politician, no matter how conservative, who ever spends ANY political capital addressing the idea of turning back the clock. Some of the left’s most despised targets fail to reach for that goal. Take Sarah Palin. Feel free to cite me anything she’s ever said that hints that she would seek to reduce the rights of gay Americans. That’s not to say they won’t mouth the right words in a primary race, as several did the other night in offering token support to a “Marriage amendment” - but there is no practical chance at all of such an amendment even making it out of committee, let alone into the Constitution. Given these realities, prioritizing is, at a minimum, a defensible position.

Third, Ms Williams cites, in support of her case, poll results which indicate that Republicans lag in their support for gay rights. And it’s true that conservatives do lag behind the curve on this issue. However, it’s also very true that even among Republicans support is growing. The line is moving steadily and inexorably towards support for gay marriages or the legal equivalent (even in the poll she cites, more than half of polled Republicans - 59% - support legal recognition of either marriage or civil unions for homosexuals). This is not happening because LGBT people abandon conservatism, but because we engage it - because we remind conservatives how staying out of people’s private affairs is a small-government value. How refraining from dictating religious morality by the power of the law is a pro-liberty position. Again, this is almost impossible to do from across the political aisle - there is simply too much baggage attached to that.

Even though the Republican demographic still trails badly in opinion polls, the public sentiment for gay/trans rights is an unrelenting tide in our direction. They WILL come, as the recent article on HuffPost notes, the war is over - some just haven't realized they have lost yet. The key demographic is not the party split but the age split - younger voters are hugely in our favor, and those most opposed are passing from the political arena. Even the head of Focus on the Family is on record saying the gay marriage battle is lost - and make no mistake, when that is accomplished all the other things we are fighting for get WAY harder to logically (even with the most generous definition of logic) argue against. If they stop fighting your marriage, they will not go to the mat on housing or employment. So what she argues for here is not win v. lose, it's urgency - do it in the next five years instead of the next 10 or whatever.

Fourth, she notes, correctly, regional politics in admitting that some northeastern Republicans might support our rights, but you ignore the reverse of that. She lives in Texas, I live in Mississippi. I don't know that I can speak for their legislature, specifically, but in this state and many like it - the most Democrat of Democrat, the most left of the left person who can possibly get elected in any district in this state would not DARE sacrifice their re-election chances (as they perceive them) to support a gay/trans friendly bill. The most left wing districts are in the delta, which are heavily African American - but African American voters are also the most stridently anti-gay (even more so than evangelicals). In a state with big cities like Texas there will be some pro-gay enclaves. But in the VAST swath of non-urban America, voting for a Democrat is by NO means voting for a gay/trans friendly office holder. Quite the opposite. Even when gay/trans friendly is the party line. Put another way, if You don't live in a city that's at least the size of, say, Nashville the option to vote for a LGBT supportive politician, of either party, almost certainly doesn't exist. Which means when you vote Democrat is solidarity with your activist brothers and sisters, you get all of the bad aspects of left-wing economics and none of the good aspects of left wing social policy. In fact, you reinforce exactly the WRONG instincts on both sides of that ledger.

This point might seem to stand in contrast to the claim that the tide is moving in our direction. I rather suggest it is an acknowledgment that politicians are a superstitious and cowardly lot who, in the aggregate, are far more likely to follow than lead. This tends to put them behind the will of the people - particularly when the change is perceived as radical. Also, the opposition - particularly on the right - tends to be louder than the favorable. We are having legislative elections in Mississippi this year and I know before I speak that not one of the men who go to the stump to ask for your vote, in either party, will speak up and say “It’s time for equality.”. No matter what polls may say. That said, I acknowledge that Mississippi is near the bottom of the list in terms of public approval, I suffer no illusions on that score. Nevertheless, when the right wing activist mobilize to shout from the rooftops at any politician from the middle to the right about “Godly values” and the LGBT supporters shout at every politician from the middle left “Equality!” all you end up with is that “Us v. them” dichotomy which serves no one.

So in summation, while I do not disagree with her observation on a national, corporate level, I respectfully submit that she overlook a GREAT deal of needed context to basically take a sledgehammer to any LGBT person who gets off the Democrat reservation. I reserve my right to stay off that reservation until I can support them on more than one issue.

Current Events

2011-04-24T21:35:00.002-05:00

For first time readers, please excuse the introductory material containing navel-gazing about the nature of this blog. Trust me, there's meat to this entry beginning in the fifth paragraph)

I've mulled, for some time now, just what direction I need to take this blog in. It was originally intended as a "my journey" sort of journal (original, eh? what maybe 2 of every 3 transitioning people do this?) but I'm a bit cursed by my openness. My wife is fully aware of the blog and reads it, and my comments here have on more than one occasion led to drama which is unnecessary and hurtful all around. so as long as we are under the same roof it's probably best for me to drift away from that motif.

Also, due to considerable emotional distress over home-front tensions over the last month or so, I've had a sort of "writer's block" on all fronts. This hasn't exactly help encourage readership. Looking at the pageview history is depressing, but I've not really given anyone anything TO view. To make matters worse, virtually everyone who reads this regularly that I'm aware of is also a Facebook friend and a note there will be seen by those same people and potentially several others. It makes me question the efficiency of having this blog up and running at all.

Still, call it ego or whatever, but I'm reluctant to let it go, so it makes sense to try to find some useful purpose for it. it's not like the world is going to miss one more blog with breathless updates of how many weeks/days/hours I've been on HRT (I'm not, sadly, but if you read many trans blogs you know what I mean). What I can do, potentially, is try to bring another voice to the discussion of trans-related current events. To be sure, there is a massive raft of political/activist trans blogs too. but not that many have my particular political viewpoint.

As I've discussed previously, I'm a heavily libertarian, and that means mostly conservative (where they parallel) sort of person on most of the political issues of the day except the equality issues. The case I'd like to make is that belief in equality for all people is not antithetical to conservatism (I'd argue libertarians are not the ones who are on the wrong side of this issue). That's not to say that I want to pour every thing I discuss into that mold, but it's the worldview which moves me and it's not all that common in my opinion.

The current issue, of course, is the beating of Chrissy Lee Polis in Rosedale, Maryland on April 18. Over the last couple of days I've been to as many as a dozen different sites where people were discussing this case and I've come away with something of a sense of where my voice potentially is within the community. Before I get to saying anything about the Rosedale Incident, let me elaborate on that.

It seems to me that the activist community - at least those who's voice I'm exposed to - seem to fall into certain habits of thought, if not cliched behavior. It's not unusual that when one precedes from a long held worldview, one begins to frame every subject within the parameters laid out by your habits of thought. Obviously I'm not above this, but I do have the benefit of having made a major shift from one side to the other on one of the most controversial issues of our day. I do therefore have some experience with questioning my own suppositions.

So after I outline the Polis story, for any who might be unaware, I want to say something about that as it is illustrated by the reaction to this story. These are the details which have emerged.

Chrissy Lee Polis is a 22 year old white female in Rosedale, MD (a suburb of Baltimore). On April 18, she entered a McDonald's to, at least, use the restroom. As she made her way from the entrance to the restroom, she was addressed, according to her interview here, by a man whom she brushed off. Near the bathroom, either before entering, or upon exiting (or possible within the restroom itself) she was confronted by two black teenage females, 18 yo Teonna Monae Brown and an unidentified 14 yo. One of them asked Polis "You tryin' to talk to my man?" and apparently an argument ensued which escalated into the two teens attacking Polis.

A now widely circulated video was shot by a McDonald's employee, one Vernon Hackett, who's heard to repeatedly say of Polis "that's a man" and encourage bystanders to stay back at let the beating continue, apparently under the impression that she was being beaten for using the ladies room (Polis is a post-op transsexual woman). The store manager can be seen repeatedly trying to intervene (sometimes with the assistance of one other employee) but it's fair to observe he was less than skillful at this, though in fairness this is not an everyday occurrence.

At about 22 seconds in the attackers are moved away, and are all but out the door, then return and renew the attack. If there's criticism for the manager here it's in that one might argue he should have had them out the door rather than letting them return. But again, he's acting almost alone and one man can't lock two doors. Once the attack is renewed, it's really out of his hands at that point. The vicious beating can be seen here, but be advised many find it disturbing. One elderly lady attempts to intervene at one point and she too was struck for her trouble. At no time during the video do many of the "men" in the place make ANY effort to assist Polis, who's seen going into an apparent seizure at the end of the 3 minute video while Hackett warns the perpetrators to flee before the cops get there. Interestingly, the man who would later insist the victim was a man, or his co-worker, is heard repeatedly saying "She's having a seizure."

Hackett later posted the video to the web, and it now appears in several places. When the story was picked up by The Smoking Gun and other news sites including the Baltimore Sun, Hackett posted messages to his Facebook and Twitter accounts clearly indicating his contention that the victim was a male (even claiming "he still has his man parts") with the obvious underlying logic that the beating was deserved. later he backpedaled claiming he had nothing against anyone, yet the insistence that Polis was a man only makes sense if Hackett assumes that makes a difference in the justness of the attack. Outrage has of course erupted in various quarters. Some expressing outrage over two blacks attacking a white girl, others expressing disgust that the girl was beaten for being trans. No one was aware of the jealousy angle until Polis spoke up on Saturday, in an interview on the Baltimore Sun site, though Polis also voiced the view that her trans history played a big role in the initial attack and in the lack of aid.

McDonald's Corp. has strongly denounced the attack, as has the store owner, and both seem to be working with authorities and trans activists for the best possible resolution. Hackett has already been fired, so there is already a sign of progress. The story of course bears close monitoring. As noted, Hackett is out of work and both attackers have been arrested. In my estimation, calls for the manager's dismissal are unfair. He's doing as much as can reasonable be expected in the situation. Also, one other hourly employee seems to be trying to intervene. the rest stand accused, in my mind.

Another aspect worth noting is that the state of Maine is, even now, considering a bill which would reverse trans-access rights which were recognized in a 2005 action (see a related story here). The state of Maryland ended their legislative session without acting on a hotly contested bill which had been watered down to exclude restroom-access protections for trans people because even gay rights groups were connived the bill couldn't pass with that provision. As it turned out it didn't pass anyway. Texas is considering a bill which would seek to "clarify" legislative intent in a way unfriendly to trans people (which is a big enough story that I'll comment on it in a future column).

Clearly, there is much fodder for uproar and outrage in this story. All too often though, the outrage falls into particular patterns which seem almost a mental crutch. What I've seen, in particular, were example of this sort of thing manifested in three different ways.

First, the basic assumption that the attack on Polis MUST have been an anti-trans event. It was a reasonable assumption when he hadn't heard from Polis given Hackett's voice over encouragement. Surely it is reasonable to assume that the attack could have been made worse by the knowledge of her status. I do not wish to imply for a moment that the attack, the severity, the duration, or the lack of aid was not affected by her trans status. It would be difficult to believe that it was not.
However, by Polis' own testimony, the flash-point was something much more common. Jealousy. Also, while it's a sensitive subject, it's fairly well known that many black women highly resent even the implication that "their" black men have an interest in any white woman. It's reasonable to assume that transphobia is only one factor in the event. Time may reveal the extent to which it increased the severity of the beating, but it seems to not be the only factor in the fact that it occurred.

Secondly, the "let's get McDonald's" riff is in my estimation wildly misguided. All over the trans-blogosphere (and Facebook, Twitter, et al) the cries ring out "Hold McDonald's accountable!!!" This despite the fact that there's no logical sense in which McDonald's Corp. could have prevented this attack and only a limited sense in which the severity could have bee mitigated (and even to that extent, the responsibility is with the local location, not the national corporation). McDonald's as a whole has a solid and deserved reputation as a trans-accepting and supportive business. Antagonizim and confrontation is exactly the wrong approach to such an ally.
It IS true that there have been 3 or 4 previous incidents at McDonald's locations, but no one seems willing to acknowledge that there are other factors which correlate much more directly to anti-trans violence than incidents which occur at McDonald's. Specifically, attacks and oppression are reported much more frequently among lower socio-economic class people than elsewhere. McDonald's has locations in poor neighborhood and from time to time the negatives of the neighborhood (violence, robbery, drug use, etc) cause bad things to happen at McDonald's. And also, at other sorts of businesses in these neighborhoods.
The truth is, McDonald's has 12,804 locations in the U.S. If each one serves, say, 500 customers a day(on average), that's over 6 million served per day. if there is one trans person who's out of the closet in every 3,000 people ( a VERY conservative estimate since I know there's at least that high a rate in this rural MS county) that's 2,000 trans people served daily (assuming an equal distribution of course). 2,000 a day equals 728,000 a year, or over 2 million easy in the last three years. and in that period of time we are aware of something like four incidence of anti-trans events at McDonald's locations. That makes the odds one in a half million that it might happen to, for instance, me. That's an awfully high standard to hold McDonald's to, to significantly reduce that number. I suspect the odds of being a victim of random violence in such neighborhoods, for ANY person, is considerably higher.
That's not to say there were not things which could have been done better, that there are not directives and possibly training that needs to go out. But implying that bad policies allowed this to happen is just silly.

The third thing I've noticed is the knee-jerk effort to expand the targets for vented frustration. An example: I saw a Facebook post which ranted that Fox News was typically taking an opportunity to bash transgender people with their headline and story, and she provided a link. the problem with her complaint was that what she linked was "FoxNation" which is a discussion forum, and the headline and article that offended her was lifted whole and without alteration from TheSmokingGun.com as a thread starter. No Fox employee had anything to do with the content she was complaining about. Still, fox is right wing, thus by definition evil, thus a good target for anger.
Likewise many commenters in various places railed against the "Religious Right" as the spook behind this situation. To be clear, the Religious Right and it's influence on conservative politicians IS a HUGE obstacle to trans equality. BUT, anyone who thinks the ideas of a couple of black teenagers in a ghetto neighborhood is being informed by Focus on the Family is on some seriously crazy crack. The fact is that the single most anti-gay (and by extension anti-trans) demographic in this country by a WIDE margin is the black community - you know, the folks who vote Democrat 90% of the time? Those people share, of course, the views of the religious right but they are NOT to any significant extent being informed by them.

My point in all this is that while we are and should be outraged that this event occurred, we do nothing to advance our cause by being overly confrontational (unless the guilty party is stonewalling which isn't the case here), by mis-directing our ire, or by having unrealistic expectations. Rational, logical, and efficient action MUST trump emotionalistic irrationality. This even, grevious though it is, is also a golden opportunity to frame the "bathroom debate" in a new light. Heaven help us if we squander it.

Now for something completely different

2011-03-13T23:03:00.003-06:00

It's easy enough, in this world, for someone like me to feel completely different on a daily basis. Even when you are as thick skinned as I, in terms of not crumbling into tears at every perceived slight, you can't help but notice. You see someone pass in the aisle who's gaze lingers a bit too long and you wonder "Do they know?" and "what must they be thinking?"

You have to go to the ladies room and you wonder "Is this the day someone calls me out for being in here?"
You have people tell you they are not judging you and they believe in "live and let live" and you wonder how they explain you to their kids at home.

But even beyond all that, even when you are not wondering if others are taking you seriously, you tend to beat up on yourself. Women are given to self-criticism and negatively comparing themselves to other women in the best of times, but for us it can become a full time occupation. Everything from whether the beard shadow is showing yet, to whether or not your fake boobs are level, to whether your voice slipped after you coughed. You get jealous of others who are further along transition than you, and frustrated at the difference between you and "real" women. You get depressed when one of your friends describes "I'm doing so and so" (having surgery, reached a year on HRT, whatever) and you realize how very little you've accomplished in comparison. Being happy for her doesn't keep you from saying "When will I ever be there?"

But all that is part and parcel of being what I am. it might not be pleasant but we all have some unpleasant circumstances, such is life. It's part of what you sign on for.

The sort of "being different" on my mind tonight is something else completely. It's that freakishness that comes from not toeing the right wing or left wing party line on every last issue. For background I have to admit that for most of my life, I did just that. I've discussed here before how I accepted the teachings regarding gays and other associated "lifestyles" (lord I hate that word) without giving too much logical thought to them. Combine that with my right-of-center views on abortion and economic issues and I was a pretty stereotypical "right winger."

However, the same sort of reasoning which compelled me to re-examine the (almost entirely religion driven) "social conservatism" also forced me to re-think the rest of my ideology. Was I pro-life because it made sense, or because I'd been condition to think that? Did I believe in smaller government and tax cuts because it was what I was "supposed" to believe or did it have merit? The results of that re-thinking are, frankly, all over the map - and that reality has left me "different" everywhere I go.

I have found, since I've spent more time interacting with other trans people, that most (but not all) of the on-line trans community is vehemently leftist. And they don't have much stomach for exposure to anything they consider a "right wing" sympathy. For the great majority of them, the Democrat/Liberal/leftist position on any issue is the OBVIOUS position to support, apparently for no other reason than that those liberal have it right on matters of equality.

Just the other day, a (former) Facebook friend post an article cheerleading the Union protesters in Wisconsin. No big deal, of course, I had no objection to seeing that. But I offered a comment that was not wholly supportive of their actions, and my friend first de-friended me (lest I be able to publicly reply) then accused me of being "self loathing."

Excuse me? what does my gender issue, and my opinion of it, have at all to do with the events going on in Wisconsin? Nothing of course, but in her world, anyone who deviated from the script on ANY issue was clearly not "trans enough" or something. It's just silly. Over and over if I dare to voice a point of view that's off the liberal script, I catch a lot of grief as if I'm enabling those who would kill me (supposedly).

I've not yet been confronted by a Republican/Right-winger because I favor, for instance, marriage equality (not, by the way, "gay marriage" - more on that in a bit) but I'm sure I fail the purity test. All you have to do is watch the potential presidential contenders step and fetch rather than say anything unconventional. Mitch Daniels, for instance, wisely (in my view) suggested that the GOP pause a bit on the social conservatism to rescue the economy. A perfectly sensible view even if you disagree - and he's been catching grief ever since. What Daniels didn't say, and what no Republican who wants to contend dares to say, is even more unconventional than that.

The 2010 elections were the first elections in my adult memory in which neither war issues, or social conservative issues, played ANY role in the election. Overwhelmingly people were obsessed with the economy - and in THAT election the Republicans won bigger than they ever have before. Why? Because the social issue people didn't need to be told who was on their side, and the middle of the road folks didn't want to endorse the social conservative issues. So on the heels of that, what shall we do? Crucify people who don't toe the "gayz are teh EEvil" party line, of course.
Can we pay SOME attention guys?

The point is - the VAST majority of those who venture an opinion, on either side, are of the opinion that you must agree on ALL the issues to be sincere on any issue. Which is, frankly, intellectually lazy. One CAN, in fact, be pro-choice and for smaller government, one can be pro-life and for gay rights, one can be for tax cuts and against foreign wars, one can be an environmentalist and a hardliner on illegal immigration. but such people are not taken seriously because they can't be easily pigeon-holed.

Another manifestation of this I've seen lately is organizations which work for equal rights trying to mobilize their membership for some other cause, such as for the Unions in Wisconsin. I'm sorry folks, no sale. My opinion on that situation has no relation to my gender identity and I'm not obliged to take a left wing view on one because I do on the other. Or vice-versa.

To be quite honest with you, I've got views on every issue that will piss someone off, sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left and sometimes both. But they are reasoned and considered views - MY views and not those poured into my skull by Rush Limbaugh, or Bill Maher either. That makes me a "freak" ideologically, whether I'm interacting with my conservative and Christian peers, or whether I'm interacting with my trans peers.

I am, or at least am closest to being, a libertarian. Small "L." Though I have points of disagreement with them too. But what does that mean?

I believe in small government, which doesn't do anything that the free market can reasonably be expected to accomplish. The few things that remain they should do, and when there seems to be an obvious need not being met by the market, the government should do the minimum it has to do to provoke the market to act responsibly, or to do the think a free market is not equipped to do (such as make war, for instance).

I believe that our emotional desires often conflict with harsh economic reality. In other words, I very much agree with the idea that society should look after the less fortunate and that where private charity fails there might be a role for government as a last ditch safety net. But at the same time I understand that economics is no respecter of emotion. if we try to legislate what makes us feel better about ourselves, it won't work if the laws of economics don't work that way. That's why, as good as it might feel to tax the mega-wealthy down to a reasonable level of wealth, doing that has a real and quantifiable negative impact on us all which will happen no matter how we feel good about our choices. So economically, I'm conservative not because I like it, or because it makes me feel good - quite the opposite - but because I recognize that economics is not an emotionally driven process. This means that a rational government seeks to do that which will work, not that which makes us feel better about ourselves.

I believe that government should allow the maximum amount of freedom for you to do what you want so long as it cannot demonstrate a real, obvious, unmistakable threat to the whole community that cannot be solved any other way. That means that you can go without your seat belt or your helmet, you can grow and smoke your own pot, whatever - as long as you are not infringing on anyone else. One obvious example is prostitution.

Street prostitution should be illegal, it's a place where the government has a legitimate right to be concerned for the community at large, because of the potential for exploitation, the danger to public health and safety, and so forth. On the other hand, if a given individual man or woman chooses of their own free will to accept some form of payment for a sexual act, that harms no one else in a way that should concern the government. Whether or not one considers it moral is beside the point.

It has been argued, not without some merit, that the law is "the great teacher" which serves not only to preserve the public order, but to "train" people in the proper morals. However, the downside of that is that someone, somewhere, has to decide what morals are the proper ones. it's all well and good for us good Christian folks to be satisfied with our good Christian morals being taught - but what if you are a Christian in Iran - do you still want the government to be the arbiter of what people should think? If the principle is true that it's not right for an Islamic government to force Islamic morals, then the principle is true whatever morals are being enforced. And don't come back with "yes but our Christian morals are right!" because that is exactly what the Ayatollah thinks. The only logical principle is that it's the church's role (or the synagogue or the mosque or whatever) to instruct in morals, not the governments. the governments role is to preserve order. So in my view, a rational government is one that only with great hesitation says "thou shalt not" (or "thou shalt").

I believe that part of that order is equality before the law in all things wherein a person interacts with their government. If the government recognizes ANY social relationship, it cannot pick and chose. In point of fact, it ought not recognize a social relationship at all, for that means that the single individual is not equal before the law. People who wish to have legal entanglements with others, such as survivor-ship or visitation rights, or custody of children - things traditionally associated with marriage - can and should obtain legal contracts which specify the details. If you wish to be "married" - go to your house of worship and get married, that's none of the government's affair. This falls under the smallest government that's practical, as well as the maximum liberty that is practical.

If the government is going to act at all to insure fair employment or housing or whatever, then they should protect any group that might be discriminated against. Picking and choosing what the government protects (race, for instance) and what it doesn't is inequality before the law. I see an argument for the government saying "you can't fire someone because they are black" but in like manner, that should also include gay or trans or whatever. That's not to say that you cannot legitimately consider that which would potentially have a legitimate impact on your business, but you'd have to demonstrate one. If you'd rather the government not extend such protections at all, I could see an argument for that - but in for a penny, in for a pound.

I do, however, take the position that in our current society government SHOULD equalize the status of LGT people before the law. I do think that a given business ought to have a business related reason to not hire me, or to fire me, as a transwoman. I believe that, in fact, the more places which are accepting of gender transitions, the less they will be an issue with customers.

An example - I know that a lot of people around me silently disagree with my transition - fellow customers at Wal-Mart or the supermarket. But these people do not, in fact, refrain from shopping there lest I appear. I contrast to this, I was made aware last week of a business which did not consider my job application because they believed, or had been told, that they would lose business if people had to be checked out by "one of them." I would argue that those who would give up patronizing a business they enjoy shopping at over such a concern would be very very few, and there would be even fewer examples of it if it were not uncommon to find a transperson behind the register (and word to the intolerant, the odds are not zero that you HAVE been checked out by a transwoman and didn't realize it at some point in your life. If i were a checker at Wal-Mart, there's no doubt people might choose another line (and how many of you have chosen another line because a checker seemed unfriendly, or slow?) but not one in 1,000 will stop shopping there.

The point being, I can see a legitimate role for the government in forcing the issue that the market won't readily address, until society grows up enough it's no longer necessary. The tricky thing is, of course, people recognizing when in fact the necessity has passed. Governments pretty much never voluntarily surrender power once acquired.

You can see above that on the former principle, I'd usually align with conservatives, on the latter principle I would stand on the same side with, albeit for different reasons, the liberals, and in both I'm closer to the classic libertarian than either. The major point being, however, that the position is reasoned. that's not to say I can't be wrong. particularly on matters economic. I'm always learning something new. but only that the position I take is my own reasoning applied to the knowledge I have available, not a parroting of what some politician or preacher or speaker told me I should think. Which is why it galls me so when someone accuses me of that sort of thing.

One last example - an issue where I don't fit with either extreme. Well, actually there are two - one is foreign policy which is far too complex for me to use as an example in this space. The other is abortion. This subject is such an emotionally charged issue that even the use of the word "abortion" can almost never be discussed rationally. I recently had a long, frustrating, and ultimately pointless discussion about the reality that another name for "miscarriage" is "spontaneous abortion" - because I should never use that heinous word to refer to an event that cost a woman so much emotionally. Try as I might I couldn't put across that the word "abortion" has a real, specific, meaning that goes not only beyond the surgical procedure but indeed, beyond pregnancy (for instance, a pilot on a military mission might be told to "abort" the mission).

That highly charged emotionality makes it almost impossible for anyone on either side to be rational about the subject. so you end up with armed camps in a standoff in which neither side gives any ground, even though there's a rather obvious answer.

Consider this: The "right wing" (i.e. religious) position is that human life is present from conception. Thus, the only moral position on abortion is that one must never induce the end of a pregnancy or one has taken a human life (laying aside exceptions that are often discussed as not relevant right now). However, scientific studies indicate that as many as 62% of all conceptions end in a miscarriage before 12 weeks of pregnancy, and over 90% of those mothers never even realized they were pregnant.

Have you ever stopped to think about the religious implications of that reality? As Christians we believe that the innocent child who dies in an abortion (or miscarriage) goes to be with God. If the soul is present from conception, and if over 60% of all pregnancies in human history, and you can bet the figure was much higher up until the last couple hundred years, end before the mother even knows she's pregnant then inescapably heaven's population - billions and billions and billions of souls - would be 99.9% the souls of those who never lived to draw their first breath.

Does that make ANY sense to you? I think it's a reasonable conclusion that we're wrong about something. Either we're wrong that the soul of the unborn goes to be with God (and that opens a much bigger kettle of theological fish) or we're wrong about when the soul is present.

And that's before we get to the discussion of whether it's the governments business to answer a theological question. The government's business is to defend LIFE. so how do we define human life? Certainly there's one argument for defining it as beginning at conception - you've heard those arguments enough that I need not repeat them. But we never apply those same reasonings to the end of life. We are all aware that there are people who are beyond "life" but yet still meet all those stipulations.

I suggest that it's rational that we consider applying the same standards to mark the beginning of life as we do the end. In every jurisdiction the law stipulates when a person is no longer "alive" to the satisfaction of the law. Often it has to do with brain activity. Why not apply that same measure to the start of life? In doing so there is a reasonable window for a woman who does not want to be pregnant to see to that before the fetus is legally alive (i.e. has brain activity, which itself would be a very good indication to the religious that a human soul is now present). After that point, you missed your chance (save to protect the life of the mother). The line would probably fall in the 8-10 week neighborhood, and a woman who engaged in some activity (or was raped) who felt she was at risk could take measures to deal with the possibility - even without knowing for sure if she had conceived. This might not have been possible 50 years ago, but what's past is past. such methods are readily available now.

This will, of course, please neither side. Even now my pro-life friends reading this are no doubt convinced I contribute regularly to NARAL and my trans friends probably largely think I'm Bible thumping. But what this is, bluntly, is a rational synthesis of the information available to us. Separated from the emotionality of what we WANT to be true on either end of the spectrum.

But it's also an example of the sort of thinking that leaves me a poor fit for any group. what's the point in all this whining? Well, it forms the backdrop for a more specific personal concern, but this post is far too long already so I'll save that for another post.

Kobayashi Maru, Redux

2011-02-08T00:08:00.003-06:00

So, it's been almost six weeks since I posted, mostly because I find it pretty much unsafe to say anything personal at all of consequence. Oh, I could do the "educational" posts, and in truth I should have. But that sort of thing seems like filler when tensions are so high. I promise I'll try to be more diligent in posting something that's not just an exercise in wallowing in my own "misery" in the future.

I was thinking again lately about the metaphor that I can't avoid for this situation, and I was sure I'd used the title before - and I have. So I went back and reread what I wrote roughly a year ago under this title. Turns out I was wrong, at least in my conclusions. I won't rehash that post here, probably no more than 2 or 3 people ever read it anyway, but to say that in a years time no real progress on a long term solution was reached.

If you are not a Star Trek geek like I am, you might not know that the title refers to a test designed to place the officer candidate a StarFleet Academy in a "no-win" situation, to see how they respond to it. In the second Trek movie, we learn that Jim Kirk was the only one to ever beat the test - because he cheated. Sadly, in my no-win scenario, there doesn't seem to be an opportunity to "reprogram the simulation."

If you've been paying attention (I assume the theoretical possibility that SOME one might be) you've heard me say that I recognize that my need to transition is taking everything from my wife that she ever wanted (save her kids) and that I have to face the truth that for her to lose the "man" she married is a road to spiritual if not physical death. My heart longs for her to recover from her unhappiness and find a path to at least peace of mind, whether with me or with another - but she's given me no hint that this will ever happen.

On the other hand, for me to do the only thing that apparently can solve this difficulty - de-transition - is every bit as much spiritual (if not physical) death for me. I could no more return to pretending to be the man she remembers than I could be the next Dali Lama. I'm very convinced my sanity would not survive the attempt. I do not think, however, that she believes this is true, as I believe it is true for her. Part of what makes the discussions so difficult is that she refuses to believe that the stakes are that high for me.

We have periods of "case fire" but the subject is never more than one wrong word away. We have occasional "knock down drag out" fights, but they never settle anything. We have a general understanding that the time is fast approaching when we'll have to at least try a separation. Probably within less than a month unless something changes. I have told her, and anyone else who will listen, that it is not my desire to be apart from her. I respect and understand her position that she cannot just "live with it" - I do not blame her for that. But at the same time, she doesn't, apparently, have any willingness to understand how it could be important enough to me to actually move. I continue to maintain that if it were possible to "just stop" I have had more than enough motivation over the past 18 months to do just that. Why anyone would believe it still an "optional" path after all the pain that's gone into choosing it is beyond me.

The first and most serious piece of advice any trans person receives, when they consider transition, is "be prepared to lose everything, most of us do" - I counted the costs in the weeks before and after I told her about myself and yes, I am prepared (though not eager) to spend my life utterly alone if it's the cost of conquering these demons. Again, who concludes that if they have a choice?

I do not wish to go, but if it would lead to her ultimate recovery and happiness I would willingly go. As it is, if and when I go it's only because I've been told to. For reasons which go beyond the scope of this blog, it's a tremendously bad idea on her part to try to live without me around right now, the logistics of it are crazy-difficult. but if she insists upon it then I will go, at least for long enough to assess the downside. But my desire to stay is not for my own satisfaction, though I loved how she used to love me. It's in order to be as good FOR her as my pathetic existence is capable of.

I KNOW, as surely as I know how many fingers I have, how badly I have failed. As a husband, as a father, as a provider, as a lover - by whatever measure. I KNOW that I made promises I have not kept and now cannot keep. I KNOW that she deserved and deserves better than she got. I KNOW that if she had an ounce of reason she would hate me and move on to saner men. I KNOW that no woman deserves to go through what she's going through.

I also know I have no real control over the reality of the situation.

The frustrating thing to me, as much as anything else, is that while I bend over backwards to understand her position, her pain, the impossibility of her situation - while I fully agree she's been wronged and deserves much much more than I have ever given her or ever can - at the same time I don't feel like she even remotely, slightly, in the tiniest way, understands my situation. Her refrain is "if it wasn't important enough to do 20 years ago, then it's not important enough to do now." Logically, that position is wildly ridiculous, but emotionally that's where she's locked in.

So here is us, on the raggidy edge. She's convinced that all I have to do is "just quit" - and flows from that the obvious implication that if I don't it's because I don't love her and the kids enough to do what's in my power to do. So she has no motivation to bend. And I'm convinced that I cannot live, literally, being that person again. No way out, no wining solution, no happy ending. I know that the "strong" and "honorable" thing to do is to sacrifice myself for her. bt i am neither of those things and I know it. But I also know that there is no true honor in conceding your soul to hatred and bigotry, to re-confirming in the minds of those with prejudiced ideas that those ideas were correct. There's no strength in my teaching my kids to bow your head and cater to the pressure of society to conform, or to set the example that will be set by the train wreck my life will become if I try (and fail) to live behind the mask again. Had I rather them see me like this, or see me in a box?

So being "honorable" is a ship that's pretty much sailed. I've said that I stayed here through the wars to try to be as honorable as I could to my obligations, but even that is a band-aid on a gunshot wound. Am I rambling much?

In any case, from time to time I need to write, just to be "on the record" with my thoughts because I frankly have no idea what the future holds. It pains me to see her be a victim of her own feelings - if she didn't love so hard, she wouldn't cling so tightly. And I know, whether she does or not, how undeserving I am of that love. I was, truth be told, a cold, too often uncaring, fraud of a person. I love her as much as I know how to love another human being, although I often wonder if what I call "love" is anything like what she feels or that thing people write songs about. Maybe I don't even know how to love anyone else because I've always so thoroughly hated myself. I do know that in my own opinion, what passed for loving her was far too weak, too distant, too poorly shown. And yet for some crazy reason she clings to it when she has a right to so much better.

That does NOT mean I'm "trying to get away" or "just want to do my own thing" - again, why would I stay and fight to keep it together this long if that was my aim? But it does mean that no one will ever say with more conviction than I do: "She's better off without me." If I may borrow a sentiment, as long as she continues to cling to the idea that she can make me stop, make things go back to the way they used to be, then she will never be able to go forward. if I leave, or rather comply with her instruction to leave, it will not be because I do not love her but because I do - I love her enough to want her to have better than she has now. Even if the pain of getting from here to there is excruciating both for her and for me to know I caused.

An Attempt at Clarity

2010-12-29T00:47:00.002-06:00

I say "attempt" because sometimes I think often I belabor a point until that which was once made clear is muddied again, but I'm going to try to be direct and (for me) concise here. What follows is not precisely a post about me or my journey, but some clarity is needed regarding some of the things I have said and will no doubt say in the future. These clarifications do not fit easily as a parenthetical portion of a larger post, so I'm taking time out to dedicate a post to them in their own right.

One of the dangers is blogging about personal issues is becoming self-absorbed, that is, giving the impression that everything is - in your own mind - about you. One of the ways that tendency to self-absorption plays out is in being less than clear about the people you mention along the way who play a role in the events you write about.

It occurs to me, at times, that the impression I've left of my wife is overly negative in ways which are not entirely accurate. I hope here to clarify what I mean to be negative about, and what I feel like she's being unfairly painted in a negative light on.

First, there are at least two ways in which I will not shy from pointing the finger at her. Even in these, I do not think it's entirely her fault - for reasons which I will explain - but they are the sort of things that a person might be reasonably asked to rise above and overcome. The sort of things, if you will, that a professional therapist would ask a client to work towards correcting.

The first of these is that she is, bluntly, bigoted towards homosexuality (and she defines what's going on with me as a variant of homosexuality). I entirely recognize that this is a product of the indoctrination of the culture she was raised in - the culture that all of us in the rural South were raised in, frankly, and I suspect the rural parts of most of the country. I shared for much of my adult life many of those positions (though I never felt it as passionately as the true bigot - I simply thought it was an academic truth that homosexuality was "wrong" - I didn't "feel" it on an emotional level as many do).
Nevertheless, she is not just of the dispassionate opinion that being gay is wrong, she FEELS it on a visceral, emotional, passionate level. Try being in the same room when a couple of guys or a couple of girls kiss on TV and listen. Even though I recognize she's been indoctrinated to feel this way, I think it's reasonable to ask a person to be able to explain WHY what they believe to be true is true. And absent being able to logically defend the view, be willing to change it.

The second issue I have is what I'll call "fighting style" and the inability to handle any level of criticism. These, two, are a result of her own particular psychology combined, I believe, with the home she grew up in. They have always been present, but never having had a way to remedy them, I simply learned to work around them - but that's harder to do not that conflict is such a close companion. Taking the latter first - I find that any critical word I speak is magnified to maximum proportions, far beyond my intent. For instance, if I express a mild disagreement about some interaction with the kids on a specific point, her emotional reaction is "Oh, so basically I'm just a failure as a mother, right?" That puts me on the defensive as I try to explain "No, that's not what I meant" and it makes me much more likely to bite my tongue next time.

The other - and much more difficult - problem is a classic "bad fighting" style that marriage counselors earn their checks identifying and correcting: Fighting to hurt rather than fighting to make a point. I am quite convinced that this is all the fighting she ever saw growing up. It goes something like this:

Me: "What's wrong?"
Her: "I could use some help"
Me: "I told you just let me know what specifically I need to do"
Her: "I shouldn't have to ask"
Me: "I'm not saying you should ask, I'm saying tell me the specific chore, like 'take out the trash'"
Her: "Well, you're probably too busy trying to find a dick to suck on the internet to bother"

Now to be clear, that's a very broad example, that specific exchange has never happened to my memory, but the point is that you get to a place in an argument when you are so mad you no longer care about winning the point, you just want to cause emotional pain in your opponent - usually with a comment that has nothing whatever to do with what was the original disagreement. And as it applies to the current situation, how that plays out is that EVERYTHING that is wrong around here is somehow directly caused by my transition.

That kind of fighting is juvenile and blatantly unfair, but in the heat of the moment she will go to it every single time. I don't think she knows how to do it any other way. It's her family's tradition, I think. In any case, it's something that ought been overcome long long ago.

Having said that, those are things that are in isolation pretty random things. I'm sure everyone, including me, has a certain set of negative behaviors and thought patterns. Far be it for me of all people to expect perfection in my partner. But I cannot honestly write what comes next without having balanced it with a description of that which I do thing she bears responsibility for - otherwise the reader is left to assume I'm trying to explain away ALL her negativity and justify everything she's said and done - and as much as I'd like to say she has no flaws, I can't do that and be truthful.

All the foregoing, then, serves as a platform to say this: she's as much a victim of the demons in her head as I am.

I explain this at the risk of appearing indiscreet. But you cannot truly understand without this information. My wife has suffered from clinical depression since before I met her. There are, I believe, circumstances which contributed to this but it's also, apparently, a chemical imbalance issue. Her ability to put on a mask of happiness and keep any of her family or acquaintances from seeing this is astonishing to behold. So for the most part it's just been me and her dealing with it. for years she refused any suggestion of getting help because "if I go to a nut doctor that means I'm a nut" was the sum total of her view.

I spent literally years on the wrong side of completely irrational fights, went to work countless days not knowing if she'd be alive when I got home, and developed a VERY patient and deflective skill set in terms of dealing with it because the "events" when she was emotionally out of control were relatively brief and she was very very regretful once she "came to herself." And we might go several days, even a week or more, between "events" in which she was, though often not really "un-depressed," not at all an angry hurtful belligerent attacker. The rages were not typical behavior, but aberrations from the everyday norm.

Eventually we got medication which was just somewhat helpful and kept trying until we got to one that really balanced her emotions and made her "whole." When I came out it had literally been YEARS since we'd had anything that anyone could reasonably have called an argument. Some of that was my having been "trained" by the hard years to be a bit afraid of saying certain things, but a lot of it was that she'd gotten help.

I tel you all that to say that I had no doubt at all, in those early years, that she had absolutely no control over the negative emotions which caused the "events." The remarkable thing is that in the last year or two, as we've had ever increasing conflict over my transition, the pattern of events is EXACTLY like the pre-medication days. We go days at a time, occasionally weeks, in a relatively placid, though somewhat depressed state. Things are not "normal" due to tensions about many things related to the issue but things that sometimes "set her off" like how much makeup I have on or whatever will very often NOT provoke anything more than a sad or disappointed look on her face.

But every so often...on average once a week or so?... something DOES "set her off" and we're in for a Full On Attack of enraged irrationality, complete with every nasty remark in the book designed to cause maximum emotional pain. Now, I DO, on an emotional level, resent what goes on in those fights. Part of the reason we have difficulty rebuilding any bridges is that when she "comes down" I'm still processing a lot of pain from what has been said, even though on an intellectual level I know a lot of it wasn't an expression of how she really feels. It's difficult to be talked to and about like that and then come back later with a hug and a kiss, which is what she needs emotionally after she comes down.

Back n the old days, I knew that the hurtful things didn't matter because they were so wildly inapplicable to me. So it was easy for me to just let them slide off and be there to comfort her when she came down and rebuild the connections. Now, the hurtful things are much more personal and cut to the heart of the places where I've made myself vulnerable and they are not at all easy to "let slide" and so both of us are left with lingering pain - me from the remarks and her from the lack of reconciliation.

The point in all this, though, is that I DON'T think she's any more able to control the "events" or the rage she pours out in the midst of them now than she ever was. the patterns are far too similar. Whatever might be said (and will be below) about what would be happening if there were no rages, I simply cannot assume that the person I see when they are going on is the person she wants to be, or the way she wants to behave. Whatever is going on inside her brain that makes it possible for those events to happen, they hurt her just as much as they hurt me. And what's more, I can no more ask her to "just stop it" than she can rightfully ask me to stop being trans (even though she does ask) - it is a burden she has to bear.

This doesn't make up for her bigotry, or her generally negative manner in dealing with this issue at hand. I am convinced that even if she were unable to live with me as a woman and as a part of her life, there is a "part as friends" way to handle these situations in which one can mourn and be sad, but not feel as if your spouse is your enemy. If there were no rages, I'm not convinced that we would otherwise be taking that high road - but even admitting that, I cannot leave you with the impression that her most angry and hateful actions are those which she is fully in control of because I don't think they are.

But we cannot ever know - the rages build walls and set in motion feelings and actions and words that cannot easily be overcome. No one can say what might have been said or done in the absence of the events.

What is even more troubling is the reality that this cycle doesn't stop even if we part. I've said before in this space, and I believe this to be true, that this situation is literally going to kill one of us. If I attempt to go back to wearing the mask of the man I was pretending to be, it will take my life. At some point you will pick up the paper and read that I am dead, whether it be an obvious suicide or not. This is not intended as a threat, just a recognition of truth. On the other hand, if she forces me out and refuses to reconcile, I think there's a pretty high probability that she will commit suicide, or at least attempt it. and whatever logic might say, emotionally the guilt will be on my hands (both from myself, and from all those who love her).
I see no way out of this dilema, no happy ending. In the former case, losing me will still end up crushing her - so it's only a question of HOW she loses me. In the latter case, how do I embrace my future knowing how high the price was which I paid to obtain it?

I've been told that what I've just described to you is a classic case of emotional abuse. That claim is, in my opinion, true. With the caveat that most emotionally abusive people do not realize what they are doing. As such, my staying and trying to fight through it is a form of enabling - setting myself up for more abuse and legitimizing that which has come before. Again, I do not think it is INTENTIONAL - but it is what it is. The dispassionate academic answer to that situation is to get out. Walk away with your sanity somewhat intact and let the chips fall.

But my reply is that I feel obliged, even knowing what's going on, to go the extra mile anyway. I feel like, especially having gone through those early days when she desperately needed me to stay and see her through and NOT say "this is too hard for me" and bail out, that I should be MORE than just honorable. Part of that is for the kids - I want them to see that I made every last effort to do the right thing. Part of it, I'm sure, is for my own peace of mind if the worst happens, I want to be able to say that I did all I could to keep it together. If that means I take more abuse than I should have, I can live with that.

And of course, beyond all that - and here is where I'm probably being the most irrational of enablers like the woman who keeps going back to the drunken and violent boyfriend - a big part of it is that there's still the hope that somehow, someway, she'll wake up one day and realize that she will be far more miserable if she makes me leave than if she learns to adjust to the new reality. At one time I thought that was a pretty reasonable possibility. Now it seems like one in a hundred. But for the time being, I have to give that one chance a little more time.

Worst Christmas Ever?

2010-12-26T02:18:00.002-06:00

That's an ugly headline, and it can lead to untrue conclusions. I do not want to say it was a BAD Christmas, nor do I want people to jump to conclusions about what I found unsatisfying about it. But compared to others in my life, it's got to rank at the bottom.

There's a lot of factors that go into a conclusion like that. On the most basic level, I've had SO little money for SO long that every purchase, every choice, is a stressful issue. I'd hoped to have, and had reason to expect, somewhat more available cash this month then I ended up having, but that's not the heart of it. The way that things got complicated this year was my wife's almost obsessive desire to get the kids every last thing they wanted - even when the kids themselves said "if we can't afford this it's cool" - in some sort of misguided attempt to make this a special Christmas in the face of the drama that might be coming soon. How do you point out that one more video game in December isn't going to make things better in March without coming across as a cheap bastard who's looking to dodge a little spending?
Then, of course, I can't buy her as much as I'd like because we spent it all on the kids - and again I'm an unfeeling and uncaring SOB (not that she would say it and probably doesn't consciously think it but I pick up enough negative emotion to feel guilty about it). That's not to say that I think that happiness at Christmas is about gifts - it's not. BUT attempting to buy happiness with more gifts and measuring how much someone cares by what the think they can afford MAKES it about gifts. They become emotional proxies for feelings which are assumed to be absent.

On top of that, she's rightly down because her mother passed last month and because, on top of that, some members of her family are behaving less than lovingly in the wake of that event. It's been some six weeks and most of her kids still haven't had the chance to go through her meager belongings and find some keepsakes of her. My wife spent much of Friday in tears thinking of such things. She has a right to feel that way, but that's compounded by also feeling I am not interested in providing her emotional support - support which I can't give because of the distance she's put between us. It is a maddening paradox to be accused of being distant and unsupportive while so often running into a cold shoulder when you try. But even if all that is somehow my fault, it surely can't lead to much of a Christmas when you are mourning your mom.

Then on top of that, we confirm what I already knew - that I have no close family except my mom. You shouldn't read this as a complaint on my part. I had a pretty good idea that I was in for a life of rejection, and while I couldn't in most cases predict the sources, I am not surprised or dismayed about the price which is to be paid. I read so many of my sisters write in obvious pain around the holidays about how their parents or siblings or kids or whoever treat them so coldly and unlovingly at Christmas and my heart goes out to them but I don't share that depression. Maybe I am too callous and cynical after all. I often feel like I don't really know how to love anyone enough to feel that kind of pain. (Maybe that comes from too many years letting the false front be the vehicle for all emotions given or received?) But beyond that I also know that I can't build my life around whether or not my dad or my brother or whoever can stand to be in the same room with me. I refuse to grant anyone that power over me. I care enough about my wife and kids - more love there than I could muster for the whole rest of the world combined and doubled - to be making every effort to do the right thing by them (and even that has it's limits) but beyond those three? You don't have a prayer of thinking your disapproval is going to affect my peace of mind.
Besides, the honest truth is that since the grandparents passed, most family functions feel like people who don't especially care for each other going through the motions because that's what families are "supposed" to do. Frankly, I've rebuilt my life around taking off masks and that's one mask I certainly have no real interest in putting back on. I'd rather be alone as be with people who have to pretend to enjoy my company.

BUT I'm married to a woman for whom family is precious (even though many of her own family are almost abusive in how they treat each other) and somehow, someway, the pretense of caring is supposed to be important. My dad has neither appeared, nor called, nor written to make contact with my kids (the ones he's not laid his eyes on since LAST Christmas) this year and not only does it hurt her that he doesn't make a token appearance (I despite token affection myself, and I don't think either son is a great fan of their "grandpa" anyway) but it's yet another brick to throw at me (i.e. he's taking out his feelings about "this mess" on our kids). Never mind what it says about him that he can't be burdened with ignoring our differences long enough to visit, or bring a gift - it's MY fault.

Nor am I arguing that I was the perfect child when it came to maintaining relationships before I came out. But an unbiased mind could analyze the history of interpersonal relationships in our family (on my dad's side, my folks divorced when I was in my teens) and find a strong pattern of "fucked up" long before I went crazy. Still, he doesn't show? MY FAULT.

And for the icing on the cake, we got entirely too close to having yet ANOTHER discussion about how I need to make a choice and how I was obliged to "act right" to prove my feelings if I wanted to save the relationship. On Christmas f'n DAY!

I've spent the last several days reading the posts on Facebook and on a few message boards and on Twitter as people speak, apparently sincerely, about family get-togethers and how blessed they are and how happy they are. . . and it pains me I can't make that sort of happiness a reality for her. The kids are content, I'm content, and she's miserable. I can't control life and death, of course, but beyond that - just more guilt. Of all the emotions I was prepared to deal with during transition, I don't think I could have ever imagined the almost infinite number of ways I could be made to feel guilty.

So yeah, not the best Christmas.

(I should say here, that I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation about WHY things are as they are emotionally. Despite all I've said I don't really blame her for a lot of this - she's as much a victim of her own mental wiring as I am. I think I have a good handle on why things are going as the yare going, even though I'm utterly hopeless to change it. But until I review what I've said before, lest i repeat myself, I'll save that for next time. Besides, this post is long enough)

Antinomy

2010-12-12T00:31:00.004-06:00

I don't even know how to write this. I've started in twice now and twice I've cut the text and set it aside. it's too much, too big, too personal.

I cannot talk to you in this place without speaking of her, and when I speak of her it's all too easy to leave you with a wholly negative opinion of her. She reads this too and if I say the wrong thing, or even the right thing in an unclear enough way to be misunderstood, there will be another "event." Just telling you that might cause one. And yet I cannot speak with any insight into the situation, or even enjoy the therapeutic value of simply discussing it, without running that risk.

Moreover, some things which I wold like to say cannot be said in any way that really communicates the feelings behind them. for instance, I am happier than I have ever been in every way that matters save one - but in that one matter I am quite unhappy. There are no words I can use that do not seem self contradictory to express how that feels.

She ask me, some days ago, "do you not ever get lonely?" It's a fair question because I know that she does, and rightly so. what she longs for I cannot give her (she says "will not" but how can you convince one who's mind is made up that they don't understand?) but the answer is far from as simple as the question. I would love to be able to communicate to her, or to anyone, exactly how I feel about that subject, but I'm not sure it is possible to do. There are competing instincts, competing emotions, competing desires, competing obligations, all bound up in a massive tangled ball of contradiction. It is so very easy to leave someone - particularly one with a preconceived idea - with the wrong idea, simply because they will seize upon that which confirms their bias and ignore the rest.

I do NOT want to descend into a matter of competing blame - I am perfectly willing to accept the blame for everything. But if I begin to describe how I feel about things now, it is inevitable that some of it will come off as assigning blame. And no matter that I say "I'm not blaming you" the appearance will be there.

At it's most basic level, it's not possible to describe any of it. For instance: in one sense, I am the same person I ever was, only with the best qualities magnified, yet in another sense a great deal of what I was before was nothing more than a well rehearsed act, a mask that once taken off can never be convincingly worn again. Both these things are very true yet in many ways they would be seen as contradiction. This sort of thing applies to almost every level of my existence.

Take sexuality - several times I've been ask, both hostilely and genuinely, "so you like men now?" (although sometimes in more rude terms). You would think that's a simple answer but it's not. Far beyond the most basic level that too many people don't grasp that it's possible to answer "both" or "neither" to that question, the thing that confuses them most of all is "undecided." I don't understand it myself. I can tell you in deepest sincerity that I would be perfectly happy to remain in the current relationship, if it still had the sort of love trust and respect it had 3 years ago, for the rest of my life - including on a sexual level (full disclosure: she absolutely rejects the idea that there will ever be a female-on-female sexual relationship involving her).

On the other hand, at the tremendous risk of saying things which will be used against me, I am given to understand that sometimes one's orientation shifts (or resolves itself?) during transition and I can honestly say that I have a great deal of curiosity about the theoretical possibility that I might, should this relationship end, come to a place where nothing would sound better to me than having a boyfriend. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that deep down there's something intriguing about that thought.

But I can't honestly talk about such feelings because I'm either supposedly admitting I want out of this relationship, or that I'm gay, or both. No one seems to appreciate that both can be true. So, for the most part, I keep my mouth shut. And when I dare to speak honestly of any such thoughts, I do nothing but provide ammunition that will ultimately be used against me. I have no doubt that should the day ever come when we split, you will be told some of the most outrageous things, and some of them will be drawn from my being honest about that which I could just have easily kept to myself.

And there's another example - if I even acknowledge the possibility that we will split up, it's taken as if I'm counting the hours until I can get out, which is insane. EVERYthing about this transition would be easier if I had the love and support of the person who's been more important to me than all others combined for the last 20 years. It shouldn't be an indication that I am anxious to go simply because I recognize that she insists her position is non-negotiable. It is entirely possible - and is true - that I both very much would like to continue in some sort of respectful and loving relationship with her and, at the same time, recognize and prepare myself for the eventual implications of her stated position.

Do you see where I'm going with this? There is no outlet, no one who understands (don't say "therapist" unless you know how I'm gonna pay for it), no one who won't read their own assumptions into what I say and assume one part of the apparent contradiction is true and the other a lie.

In theology and philosophy, there's a concept called an "antinomy" - two truths which appear to contridict but are nevertheless both true. That's where I live right now. Every conversation is a minefield, every discourse potentialy dangeorus. It's why I've not posted in most of a month - there are plenty of things I'd like to speak of, few of them safe. I haven't said almost anything here that I set out to say. much of it was self-indulgent, much more woldn't have ended well.

Every subject which I mentioned in passing or illustration in this post, I would like to devote an entire entry to - every one of them I feel like I've said just enough to litter the screen with misconceptions and misunderstandings. Which, in itself, illustrates my point.

I hope?

Transgender Day of Rememberance

2010-11-18T19:52:00.002-06:00

So many other, higher profile, writers will address this topic today that I hesitate to even address it here. But I think there are at least a few of you out there who read this blog who have no other exposure to what's going on in the transgender community and are likely completely unaware of what occurs today. You need to know.

All over the world today, and in many locations in North America, transgender people and those who love them will gather in reverent ceremonies to remember our trans brothers and sisters who have lost their lives or their health to attacks and assaults because of their transgender status. Hundreds of human being who were on the receiving end of violence because they didn't fit into the "norms" that our culture has defined for us. Sadly, far too often these attackers justify their violence with the cover of a professed (but not lived) religious motivation.

It is regrettable that when secific examples are cited, too often it gives the impression that these are rare and isolated incidents which can be explained away by some other reasoning. Perhaps the victim was involved in prostitution and this justifies a "gay panic" defense, perhaps the attacker was mentally disturbed and thus not representative of anything - the person who wants to see an excuse can find one. So I will not list for you example of real people who are no longer among us because they died for being transgender. But the reality is that the ONE thing the victims have in common is that they were people that society defined as "abnormal." This, for some, makes them targets.

"What," you might ask, "does this have to do with me? I'm not violent, I don't attack people I disapprove of - why should I care?"

Because you, and I, and everyone around us contribute to that societal definition of "normal." Our culture, our society, is made up of the collective views and attitudes of every member of the whole. Why is it considered inappropriate to, for instance, go naked in public? Because all of us collectively have a consensus that it is so - even if the nudist disagrees. It is right and proper that this should happen because there are certainly some things that SHOULD be considered unacceptable, if not abhorrent (child molesting, for instance, or animal cruelty).

The problem arises when we ill-consider WHY we file a behavior as unacceptable. Too often we accept an "everybody knows" bit of circular reasoning to confirm our own bias. Too seldom we give rational thought to WHY we have that bias.

Even more disturbing is how often our biases are unthinkingly transferred to others - and that is for these reasons I write this tonight.

It is my prayer that every person of good will stop and really reason out why they feel as they do about transgender people. What do you actually know about the condition? Who told you? What source of information infomred your views or do you just "go along" with what "everybody knows"? No one can reach or speak to the hateful, and I have nothing to say to hateful people. But if your heart is in the right place, examine it - and seek out the knowledge you might lack, whether it's about the condition itself, or about the Scriptures of your religion (don't just assume what you've been taught is what it actually says).

Beyond that, and of greatest importance - watch your words. Whenever you see a transgender person, on the street or on television or wherever, how do you react? Do you recoil and say "that's sick!"? Do you laugh and mock? Do you condemn and judge? Most of all, do you pay attention to who might hear your words? Do you realize that your reaction helps form that cultural consensus that leads to either love or hatred? When you laugh, you make it just a little easier for others to scorn; when you scorn, you make it just a little easier for others to be angered; when you are angry, you make it just a little easier for others to feel justified in their violence.

And when you love, and show kindness - you make it just a little easier for the intolerant to reconsider their bias, just a little easier for the anger and judgment to cool.

If you are one of those who hears that a trans person has been mocked and scorned and thinks "Good enough for them" then I'm not speaking to you - may God forgive you for your lack of love for your fellow human soul. But for the rest of you, know that your reaction - for good or ill - helps create the world in which people like me have to live. Or die. Of far more importance than the candles being lit tonight in various places around the world, is the light of understanding and love that can, if you will let it, shine in your own life.

Because, though it is cliched it is nonetheless true, the next transgender person you meet might be your own child, or sibling, or spouse, or parent. What sort of world do you want them to live in? What will your loved one think of themselves if they know, from your previous words, that those people who profess to love them would reject them if they knew?

The Bible says that your words speak from the abundance of your heart. Whether you are a Christian or not, that much is surely something we'd all agree on. Your words can, in an accumulation of many small contributions, help save lives - or help take them.

Your choice.

Transgender 101

2010-11-01T00:04:00.001-06:00

Long Time No Blog. Not on this one anyway.

I'd been mulling for a couple of weeks now on what the next entry ought to be about. For the last several days I'd been holding out to say something about the new job I was hoping to get but ultimately, if I do get it, it's best to reflect on that after I've been working a week or so.

I'd also given some thought to doing a bit of a primer on transgenderism for those of you who might find yourself reading this from my Facebook contacts who through no fault of your own really don't know much about the subject, but I confess that it intimidates me to try to do justice to the subject. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to at least cover some broad foundational information here, in the hopes that open-minded people of good will can be better informed both for their own peace of mind (as many of my friends are Christians and quite naturally have a hard time reconciling that which they have always been taught to be sinful with the friend they think well of) and so that they might perhaps inform others they come in contact with.

Perhaps the first thing that the uninitiated come into confusion about is the wide variety of terms that are used by various people within the gender-divergent community. This is partly because there are different things going on, but also partly because even we can't come to a consensus on the language and so end up creating unnecessary confusion. My position is that simplicity is better. I'm going to give you the most prevalent terms and discuss them but in my opinion, there's more confusion here than there needs to be.

Transgender is usually considered the broad umbrella term that is inclusive of all the subdivisions. That is, itself, not altogether an accurate usage in my opinion but that's the situation. In broad terms, it covers anything that is either cross-gender in nature, or crossing outside the usual binary gender roles.

Transsexual is the major subgroup of transgender (and is thus often used interchangeably with that word) but is more specific in focus. A transsexual is one who feels that there is a disconnect between their mental, some might say spiritual, gender and their physical bodies. For someone who has no experience with this, it might be assumed this is simply a "mental condition" like the fellow who thinks he is Napoleon or something, but it's much more complex and yet more simple than that. I'll go into the rational behind that claim later.

A male-to-female transsexual (sometimes called a transwoman) should be interacted with, treated as, and regarded as a woman if they are in or post-transition. You should use female pronouns and their chosen name if you wish to be respectful of that persons feelings (I know of course that not everyone so wishes). Likewise, a female-to-male (transman) should be considered, dealt with, and refereed to as "he" unless he tells you differently. It's simply the same sort of civility you show when you use "Mister" or "sir" or "ma'am." Speaking for myself, you can ruin my day if you call me "Mr" or "sir" (except on the phone or in some other situation where you cannot see me and haven't seen me).

Transvestite, or "cross dresser," is the term most people are more familiar with and the common stereotype of the uninformed. A Transvestite is one who gets a thrill, usually sexual gratification, from dressing as the opposite gender. It is much more akin to a person who, for instance, like to skydive for the adrenaline rush, or like bondage during sex, than it is to transsexualism. It is not, in my humble opinion, properly part of the transgender community at all - though it is there and my protestations won't change that. I do not say that to demean or disrespect the transvestite - they have as much right to live their life in peace as anyone else.
A cross dresser has no desire to change their physical gender and they are perfectly comfortable resuming their "usual" gender role as necessary to go about their daily life. A cross dresser does not need to find an employer that will let them cross dress - though some may indulge themselves to the extent that they would like it if they could. It is not a matter of "rights" that a cross dresser not be able to dress for work any more than it's a matter of rights that your lawyer can't appear in court in cut off denim shorts.
The biggest fallacy people make is confusing a transsexual and a transvestite. I do not change my appearance because I get a sexual rush or a thrill from it, and I do not feel at all comfortable when circumstances require a less than fully female presentation.

Let me give you an example - I write a baseball blog, and because it started before I came out in real life, it carried, and still does, a male "persona." This blog is read by and replied to by people who have never seen my real face, either before or after transition. They likely never would. By all reasonable logic, I need not ever go through the hassle of "outing myself" to the guys I interact with there. But I strongly desire to do so. This is an illustration of the difference in transsexual and cross-dresser. No clothing is involved, no appearance is involved, al that is involved is that these people know me for who I am. By contrast, for a cross-dresser, appearance is all.

There is also the category of androgyny. An Androgyne is a person who feels they do not fit into either gender role well. These people usually do not desire any specific physical alterations (save perhaps hair removal) but simply do not wish to be defined as either male or female. I confess, I don't understand this feeling - even as my friends cannot understand mine. But I respect their right to self-determination.

Finally, there is that which is being refereed to as "genderqueer." I'll be perfectly frank with you - this is, in my opinion, an unnecessary component of the transgender demographic. That about it which is real - the feeling of being at odds with the standard binary gender roles - is already covered by more specific terms. That which doesn't fit any of the above listed terms seems to me to be more social protest that condition of being. It seems to me to be more akin to other forms of "deviant" (in the statistical sense) forms of social behavior. To me being "genderqueer" is little different than being "goth" and so I don't tend to recognize that claim as part of the transgender discussion. I know some of my brothers and sisters would be unhappy with me for that description but still, it over-complicates an already complex situation.

One other word you need to know - "cisgender." This is a word coined to describe the non-transsexual population in an easy manner. "cis-" is the Latin prefix which is opposite to "trans-". It simply means those who are comfortable in the gender their bodies were born with.

Once thought of as highly rare - a flawed study in 1968 put the incidence at 1:30,000 for male-to-female (M2F) transsexuals and three time than for female-to-males (F2M) - the actual incidence of transsexualism is much more common than that. Credible estimates (which are obviously very difficult when so many repress their feelings) range from 1:500 to 1:2,500 for M2F transsexuals. For an anecdotal sample, there are not quite 6,000 males in my zip code, according to the Census Bureau. One might expect that there would then be 2-12 M2F transsexuals in that population (laying aside the local culture and migration patterns and so forth). I am aware of, besides myself, at least 4 others in this zip code. In conversations with others I think that the estimates here are credible. That is roughly the same incidence in the population as cerebral palsy. there is some disagreement over whether F2M is in fact more rare, or simply a function of fewer fully identifying themselves as transsexual because it is easier for a woman to be "manish" in our culture than the reverse.

Let me return to the discussion of how transsexuality is not a "mental condition" in the sense of a person who thinks they are Napoleon or some other delusion. First, there's the surface evidence: the vast majority of transsexuals realize their gender incongruity before puberty. Often in preschool. It is almost impossible to imagine the other sorts of delusions one might compare us to tracing back to early childhood. Further, it is difficult to dismiss this condition as a result of environmental factors such as abuse, or porn, or other such factors when there has been no common pattern discovered which is significantly more prominent in transgender people than in cisgendered people.

So if it's not a mental delusion or a product of environmental factors, where does it come from? Obviously science is never conclusive on any subject, but there is a very solid and logical working hypothesis that has held up well to examination, both experimental and logical.

We know that there are a number of "intersex" conditions (that which was once called hermaphrodite among them) in which the body is at odds with itself physically in terms of gender - that quite apart from the mental gender. At the end of this blog I'll give you a link where you can read more about these conditions if you like, and of course, Google is your friend. These various conditions are caused, we think, by the interplay of hormones in the mother's womb during pregnancy. there is a "normal" schedule of hormone interplay which if happens as it should produces a "normal" male or female. and just as many factors can go awry which produce many different sorts of birth defects, so things can and do go awry which produce intersex conditions where the child is divergent from the "normal" gender binary.

This is not theoretical - these children ARE born - physical living proof that not everyone is born a complete physical male or a complete physical female. if you've ever heard, or made, the argument "God doesn't make mistakes" then you need to reconcile that belief with the fact that children ARE born with birth defects and sometimes those defects relate to their gender.

Now, given that this is undeniable FACT, the obvious question is this - if in fact children can be born with physical inconsistencies in their gender, and if in fact the human brain is a physical organ, and if in fact we know that children can be born with mental "issues" in their brain just as they can be born with physical "defects" (autism, for instance) then by what rational can we NOT arrive at the obvious conclusion that a person can be born with a physical incongruity between their "brain gender" and their "body gender"?

That is not to say that transsexualism is not, in some sense, a mental condition - but it is a mental condition just as autism is, or any other condition of the brain present from birth.

That being the case, it is as irrational to judge, scorn, or hate a transsexual as it is to judge a child with a cleft palate or spina bifida. I just erased several more paragraphs I'd written on that thought (concerning judging) because it was overkill. Those of you with the ability to think rationally already see that it is love, and not judgment, that is called for here. Those who do not already see this will not be convinced by more words from me here tonight.

If you wish to read more about these things - and there is a GREAT deal more than what I could practically include here, follow the following link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/29/895824/-Who-We-Are-And-Why:-Transgender-Science

That article in turn links to other resources and if anyone has any questions or curiosities they still haven't found an answer to let me know and I'll get you some more resources. In fact, one day in the future I think I'll just do a link list of recommended reading.

Thoughtful Discussion

2010-10-03T21:54:00.000-05:00

Some of you know that in the warmer months, I like to walk kin the late evenings in a (futile) effort to budge the scales. There's a lot of time for peaceful reflection on the quiet streets in the night air. As the evenings get cooler, the walks have to get earlier and the walks are not always moments of solitude.

One day last week I was walking at the track here in town when a minister acquaintance of mine (I'll decline to give any more personal details than possible because I don't want to be careless about revealing the identity of those who speak with me on such a post without their knowledge) was there watching the kids play ball. As the game was wrapping up, he caught up with me and asked nicely if I had a few minutes to talk, and I was happy to oblige as well as curious to see how he would approach the subject I knew was coming. As a matter of personal ethic, I'll have a respectful conversation on this subject with anyone, even if I know they strongly disapprove. For the sake of this post, I'll use the name "John" with the full understanding on your part that this is NOT his actual name.

Bro. John was, of course, wondering how it is that a formerly upstanding Baptist Minister and BMC alum could have descended to such a wretched depth of depravity, though he is far too civil to have even thought of the situation in those terms, let alone speak the words. The main reason I want to share some high points of the conversation with you is because the one thing I didn't see coming (and should have) is just how little this otherwise well informed man knew of the world people like me live in, let alone understand. I'm certain he's better informed tonight than he was a week ago, but in some sense so am I.

I don't think I can do justice to a blow-by-blow account of the conversation from memory, so PLEASE do not take this as directly quoting the man's words. Also, he was pressed for time so the exchange was somewhat disjointed and rushed and even though we were there for an hour, we were both struggling to pour as much real content into our remarks as possible so often thoughts were left unfinished (which is another motivation for finishing them here).

Rather than disturb the narrative, let me say up front that over the course of the conversation he would at times ask things just to clarify background: Are you still married? what does your wife think? kids? how old? what do they think? What happened to you to make you do this? Are you still a believer? and many others. Anything I told him that I've already told you I'll leave out of this discussion.

To me, the key parts of the conversation were three in number, and I'll take them separately here.

First, the matter of whether or not what I'm doing is sin or not, am I in or out of the will of God for my life, and how does one with my background arrive at the conclusion that this is permissible. I'll admit the obvious up front, this is not the sort of thing that you are often going to convince a conservative Christian that they are wrong about. We talked about the whole business of "God made you this way" and he was open enough to agree (in fact, he used the phrase before I did) that we "live in a fallen world" so right away we open up, for later, the discussion of what it means if this is a birth defect. We talked about, and agreed, that we are a New Covenant people and not bound by the Levitical law.

For those of you who are a step behind on this one, Deuteronomy 22:5 says "A woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, nor a man wear that which pertains to a woman. it is an abomination before God." The thing is, though, that those who pull this out and throw it at transsexuals as a weapon don't read the whole book. There are a great many things in Deuteronomy that they do not do (I'll wager none of them have tassels on their cloak per v. 12 of the same chapter, and more to the point - if their wife throws on one of his sweatshirts to work in the garden, he doesn't make her take it off lest she be an abomination.

Or, more frankly, I assume none of them have stoned any women for not being virgins when they got married as is explicitly instructed, also in Chapter 22.

But, back on subject, Bro. John and I were in agreement there, but he felt that I was still willfully sinning based on New Testament passages. Now, this post is going to be long enough without me detailing each of those potential passages in dispute (for another day, perhaps?) and we didn't have the time to go into that level of detail the other night. But the point that I tried to make with him is that, given that both of us were educated by the same man, I knew that he was a student of exegesis and was fully aware of the need to read a passage in the context of the author and audience he was addressing. I ask him respectfully if he, or any evangelical minister he knew, counseled his wife and the other women of his congregation to "keep silent in the church" and ask their husband at home if they had a question.

We both knew that they do not (and for good reason!). The reason for asking that is that it is a classic illustration of how Paul's teachings were often specific to the cultural audience which was his primary audience. He countered by pointing out that Paul made several lists of offenses which would keep a person out of heaven (including adultery, drunkenness, and lying along with "the effeminate") and my reply here was two-fold. First, one still has to understand the context in which those items which many believe to refer to homosexuality (and by extension, in their mind, transsexuals) were intended, both in the sense that these were VERY often (quite possibly always) acts which were associated with pagan worship, and in the sense that this was a culture in which women were second class citizens.

In the exact same way that Paul instructed those people to be sensitive to the culture in that they, in essence, kept their women under control so he would instruct them to avoid the appearance of homosexuality. Not because women were in fact not equal but because of the culture they lived in was steeped in that worldview - in the same way that a Christian woman in Afghanistan would still be wise to wear a Burkha if she didn't want to be stoned. And in the same way that culture specific instructions concerning women are understood to not be binding in the 21st century, so ought we to read the whole New Testament. Just because the first century culture was no more open to homosexuality outside the context of temple worship than they were to equal rights for women does not mean that the 21st century should cling to either blind spot.

Secondarily to that, I pointed out to him that Christians do not go out of their way to condemn a lot of other things that the NT is much more clear on. I've told you before how I asked one judgmental Christian woman who pronounced me fit for hell how many times she'd called up any of her divorced friends in the church and delivered a similar condemnation of them. I contend that it does not honor God for vocal Christians to pick and chose which sins are bad enough to warrant their active judgment on folks. It smacks of the conclusion that many modern Christians have acclimated themselves to the "sin" of divorce and take only a passing interest in condemning it (the half who have not themselves participated in one) while people like me are still "freakish" enough to be an easy target.

Here, Bro. John conceded me the latter point but seemed unconvinced on the former. Hopefully he'll look at those passages with a fresh eye at some point in the future. also, on this point, I argued that how we understand such instructions have to be seen in the context of God's overall clear message of grace. if there is any rational possibility that this thing is a birth defect (and I challenge anyone to find any other causational factor in my life that accounts for my condition) then to suggest that God judges one a sinner for this is akin to saying he would judge someone for being fat because they have a natural predilection to gain weight (the sin of gluttony aside). More on this in a bit.

The second major area of discussion was the place where I'm forced to admit he made his best point. John pointed out to me that Paul said "if my eating meat causes my brother to stumble, I'll eat no meat forever." In essence, Paul taught denial of the self in the interest of the spiritual health of another. Now, the easy counter argument to that is that Christ himself said he came to set us free, and free indeed. but that's not the only place that Paul cautioned that, while we are indeed at liberty, we ought not let our liberty lead us into error.

I confess that for a couple of seconds, I thought he had me. But then it occurred to me that very few Christians actually practice this. If any. Let me illustrate.

Consider, let us assume that you have a young girl who was raised in a strict Holiness Pentecostal tradition and was led to believe that wearing pants was flat-out sin for a female. Let us further note that this girl goes out into the world and sees hundreds of women every day practicing the thing she has been taught is sinful. Does this make those women guilty of creating a stumbling block for our young holiness girl? If she falls into sin because of their actions do they bear guilt before God for it? Should all yall Baptist and Methodist (and so forth) women rush out and burn your pants so as to protect the tender sensibilities of those who believe a different doctrine than you do?

Of course not. to all questions. The simple reality here is that our young lady is not a victim of the women who wear pants, she's a victim of the false teaching (at least, insofar as most Christians see it) that she shouldn't be wearing pants. Now, I ask you, if Bro. John's wife and daughter and mother are not obliged to get their skirts on in order to respect a teaching they believe to be false, lest someone who does believe that teaching is offended or stumbles - then how am I bound to put my skirt away on that logic? I don't think I convinced him (because, of course, he's convinced that that which he believes is not a false teaching, as do we all, but that misses the point) but I'm pretty sure I made a point that was hard to answer.

The third major area of discussion is what fascinates me the most. I redirected the conversation back to the "fallen world" concept and my opinion that transsexualism (and likely homosexuality) is a form of birth defect (for those of you who object to the word "defect" you may think of it as having a harmless birthmark or any other inborn trait that is not necessarily a flaw).

In order to lay a foundation for my reasoning, I brought up the reality of intersex conditions. To my considerable shock, he'd never heard of such a thing. I described the condition of having both sorts of genitals (what was once called "hermaphrodite"), of having a disparity between the primary and secondary sexual characteristics, of having XYY chromosomes or other aberrational genetic configurations, of testosterone resistance (wherein a genetic male develops along female lines) - all of it was completely foreign to him.

It made me wonder how many other sincere Christians are just as under-informed.

As the case may be, I had to ask him to take for the sake of argument that these things are real (with advice to go home and look up the term "intersex") then I posed this question:

If it is possible for abnormalities in the womb - likely hormonal issues but for this point WHAT sort of abnormalities isn't important - can produce an infant with physical sexual/gender traits which do not fit into the presumptive gender binary, how is it then impossible that one's brain - which is also a physical organ just as much as one's genitals are - cannot also be likewise affected?

To his credit, he didn't weasel on that point. A lesser man would have ignored his lack of information and pressed on.

But the point is one that needs an answer. For all the efforts made by Social Conservative researchers to identify one or more common characteristics of the experience of LGBT people which might account for their "behavior", they've repeatedly failed to do so. There is no common factor that appears across the spectrum, and very often (as with me) none of the postulated precursors occur.

That brings us back to the question - if it is possible for every other organ of the body to be disordered from birth, why is it not possible for the brain? Heck, we already know that that is possible because there exist conditions like Autism. so more specifically, if it is possible for every other gender-related characteristic and function of the body to be disordered - specifically disordered towards the opposite of the presumed gender - then why not the brain?

And if there is no good scientific answer to that, then the question becomes - if it is POSSIBLE that transsexualism results from a disorder of the brain present at birth, then by what logic can we say that God condemns that condition or the treatment of it? By what logic do we argue that one who suffers tremendous mental anguish, leading very very often to depression and not uncommonly to suicide, should be "lived with" when there is a medical solution to the suffering? What other medical condition with a treatment do we counsel people to "put up with" rather than avail themselves of a cure because to do so is "sin"?

If it is even POSSIBLE that this is a "birth defect" do we honor God by flatly refusing to consider that possibility and pointing the gnarly finger of judgment at the afflicted?

The problem here is that the well-meaning believer is reasoning backwards. They have been told, and they believe - because (a) they are conditioned to believe what their pastor and teacher tells them; and (b) because it's comfortably consistent with their cultural worldview - that transsexualism (and homosexuality) is a sin, therefore they HAVE to look at the conditions around them and somehow justify what they have already chosen to believe.

(I speak from experience because this is EXACTLY what I did myself for 20 years)

If the predetermined worldview is true, then these things CAN'T be a birth defect because they know that the god they believe in would never condemn one for a condition they were born with. so they close their mind to that possibility without ever considering it. I understand that temptation, it's a very easy trap to fall into.

However, it still leads to error. I submit to you that if you turn the question on it's head and look at the facts first, without pouring them through a moral filter, then you can see how the world IS and then go back and look and see how your faith tells you to deal with what IS rather than what you WANT it to be. IF these things are inborn (and they are) and IF God is a God of love and grace and mercy (and he is) then the obvious conclusion is that what you have been taught about these conditions does not, in fact, reflect God's opinion on the subject.

Think for yourselves, people! Even my friend the minister agreed with me that far too often a Christian's answer, when ask a hard question, is "let me ask my pastor." Folks your pastor is not your brain, nor is he your intermediary to the mind of God.

If it is POSSIBLE, let alone factual (and it is) that this is an inborn condition, then when you rail against it you condemn people God has not condemned. Is this not as potentially grave a sin as how and when and with whom you have sex? Is that a chance you are so willing to cavalierly take?

Doesn't that make YOU the stumbling block instead of the "freak" you wish to condemn?

Am I Not Being Clear?

2010-09-25T01:25:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a good month. I suppose the tension needs a release ever so often no matter what. I won't go into the details, it was Standard Issue Argument. No new points made, except perhaps it's worth noting that I have less and less patience with the repetition. I only mourn the fact that so often THIS argument is provoked by other, unrelated, and perhaps more understandable frustrations.

(one of my biggest complaints over the years was the way in which a justified and specific complaint always seemed to easily morph into a wide ranging discussion of the several dozen ways I'd gone wrong - probably the sort of argumentation she was trained in as a child, given what I've seen of the in-laws)

ANYWAY, I don't really want to rehash all those points again here. but there is one thing that keeps knocking around in my head. And this is not just a manifestation of the argument, but an observation on the whole journey. Mainly here at home but even, occasionally, in the comments made to me by others (and not maliciously made comments, just comments made out of understandable ignorance). But my concern here naturally is the way that this issue plays out in the continuing drama at home, more than it is in the casual misunderstanding of well-meaning but ill-informed acquaintances.

I think I've expressed this pretty clearly, over the months. I don't mean to phrase it harshly or seem aggrieved that I'm being misunderstood. Rather, I worry a great deal that until this point is accepted and processed, nothing can be settled about what comes next. but I'm going to say it here, in writing, as I've said it face to face:

This is NOT going to stop. I am NOT going to change my mind. I will NEVER live my life as a man again. If I have no other choice, I'll die first.

No, that's not a suicide threat, any pain I might cause by transitioning would only hurt the same people worse if I ended my life, BUT if some unforeseeable circumstance - say a medical condition - prevented me from transitioning, I'd have no desire to continue to live. People have been known to just "give up" and die from that and that would be me.

Again, for the sake of crystal clarity - whatever might happen as a result of my transitioning is a price I will just have to pay because I will NEVER GO BACK. If you, any of you, are predicating your thoughts, words, reactions, or behaviors, on the idea that your anger, love, kindness, rudeness, compassion, callousness, or any other reaction will in some way advance the possibility that I will go back - STOP IT. You are wasting your efforts.

I cannot be bribed, bought, blackmailed, or bullied into changing that If you cannot be my friend, acquaintance, or associate under these circumstances, then I accept your resignation - move on. If you wish to remain, you MUST accept that what I have just said is iron clad and then decide for yourself how you are going to deal with that. I will not try to shame you or pressure you or convince you that you should support and accept me, that is not my place. I acknowledge your right to your view, no matter how strongly I might disagree. But your view is not binding upon me and will never change what is happening.

What many of you will never understand is that now, even now before the first hormone or any other modification, now when I look in the mirror I see ME. It's not just that I like what I see, like any other woman I see the things I wish were different. It's deeper and more personal than LIKE, it's CONNECTION. To destroy the woman I see is, in every way that matters to me, the exact same thing as suicide and I WILL NOT DO IT.

I hope that, whatever comes next, we can at least move past the illusion that I have something left to decide. Whatever might be done to slightly modify timing and pace, the journey will go forward. (And don't think for a minute there is anything easy about slowing the pace, either, but that's for another day)

Before I end, let me add an unrelated but, IMO, upbeat note. It has been implied (by more than one, but not many) that there is something wrong with my attempt to look "sexy" in my recent photos. If this proceeds from the assumption that all women everywhere should not be photographed in such a way as to play up their sex appeal, then I respect that. Certainly some aspects of some religion place a high value on modesty and such. But if this complaint arises from the idea that I am somehow not entitled to the privilege afforded "real" women to create that image, then I respectfully but adamantly disagree and reject your complaint.

YOU may see me as not a real woman and not entitled to the privileges thereof, but if so, then the picture is not for you. First and foremost, it's for me. Those might be the first pics I've ever taken in my life that I was proud of. Secondly, they are for anyone who can appreciate them. if that's my good friends who are proud to see me look so happy, great. If that's so a guy who doesn't know me and thinks I'm "hot" (which strikes me as unlikely) then THAT is fine too. if you are out there as you read this feeling deep remorse and concern about my sexuality, you're never going to get any of this or approve anything I do anyway, just write me off and quit stressing so much.
Am I trying to say I'm looking for a man? No. First of all, as long as I live in this house my first responsibility is to the existing relationship. Nothing recreational trumps that. But even beyond that, I simply don't know what the final outcome will be - right now beyond the emotions of the marriage, I don't feel a strong impulse to climb into bed or backseat with ANYone. But that doesn't mean I can't be flattered if a man or a woman either finds that photo attractive in "that" way. given how much of my life I've felt like I was the ugliest thing imaginable, it's a pretty good feeling to think that is even possible.

But just so we are clear, IF the time comes when I find myself single and alone, I reserve the right to make either choice without shame and you will find none. I've saw through the lie that there's anything wrong or sinful about it and I'm not going back there either.

(Besides, if I ever completed the physical transition, you critics would fry your brain circuits trying to figure out whether being with guys or being with girls makes me gay)

All for now!

~Tammy

Girlfriends

2010-09-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

One thing I remember as vividly as anything about the days of my youth was the experience of being a girlfriend. To girls, I mean. Now I only had a vague conception of what was really going on at the time, I mean I knew I was a girl inside but I only somewhat grasped that what made it so easy for girls I knew to befriend me and talk to me was the "girlness" about the way I thought and communicated.

In the days before I was so obsessed with beating this thing and being rid of it, I was, looking back, much less skilled at faking "being a guy" on that level. I just assumed that "I thought the way I thought" more so than recognizing a gendercentric "flavoring" to it.

Oh there were guys I was close to, of course. It would have been pretty unthinkable to avoid all male interaction, even for a girl. But they were, as guys tend to be, all very surface and superficial in content. Guys never talk about how they FEEL except under duress. But with my girlfriends it was different, there was a connection. From high school all through my young adult years, there was always at least one girl and often several that - had my plumbing been right - I'd have been doing sleepovers with and painting each others nails.

I've missed that over the time since, though on occasion there revives a taste of it. It's one of the more pleasant aspects of transition - getting back in touch with that part of womanhood. One of the most precious parts of the last year is the several girlfriends I've discovered since I came out. some very old friends from high school, some I only casually knew before and some I only just met in the last year.

If there was anything in life I was ever good at it was being the listening ear, the sympathetic voice, the crying shoulder if need be to girls who were my close friends and now, while sometimes it's me doing the crying, it's wonderful to have those conversations again.

Those of you I count as my girlfriends, please know that you have done more than you can know to help me down this road, just by being that alone - every girl needs her best girlfriends and I'm glad to know I have some.

Where to Go

2010-08-31T20:40:00.000-05:00

No, not what you're thinking. This isn't more of me whining, it relates to me but in a more general way that it relates to all my brothers and sisters on this road.

On Facebook there's an application called "Honesty Box." I'm usually not impressed with all the crap that wants to bait you on Facebook but I was intrigued by the concept of giving people an chance to anonymously comment and it was an easy choice to ask "What do you really think of me?" in a setting where the reply was totally honest because the speaker had no fear of being identified. As you might expect, people can be a bit more nasty when they are in that setting.

I only got two responses, but, ditzy me, I never paid any attention to them until just a couple of days ago (they were posted in March). One of them touched on a subject that is probably one of the biggest worries a trans person, particularly a M2F, worries about - the dreaded bathroom question.

Then, yesterday I read an ongoing discussion in one of my Yahoo groups on the same subject and there were some compelling points raised. So the combination of all this mixing around in my brain had to go somewhere so, well, that's what this place is for.

My anonymous "friend"(whom I suspect was one of the few people who lectured me on how I was going to hell back in the early part of the year) remarked that she'd heard about my "stunt" of going in the ladies room and if she ever saw me do that she'd call the cops on me. That of course, is the thing that all of us are most afraid will happen. I've had one incident where the owner of a business confronted me and ask me if I was a woman and I didn't have the courage to dare her to prove me wrong. Pretty much specifically because I figured her next move would be to call the cops. Turns out I'd been clocked by a kid (so this lady said) on a previous visit.

Many, many, many other times I've visited the ladies room without incident, at least half those times passing by other women in there without any controversy at all. This is the #1 best indicator that you are passing because if you are going to be challenged anywhere, it's there - but it's also the place where the confidence that is so vital to passing is most likely to slip because of the sheer panic going on inside your head when you enter and find the room occupied. I do make a point of using the ones less likely to be occupied, I make note of any place where there's a one-seater which gives you leave to lock the door, I make a point of waiting if I've seen a child go in. but sometimes you are already committed (maybe you enter when it's empty and then mom brings her little girl in as you are leaving (which is how the kid I mentioned above happened to cross paths with me). And obviously, on those occasions when I'm "dressed down" while with my wife, I grit my teeth and use the men's if I just HAVE to go because in this town enough people know me that the odds are just to high against me.

I don't do these things because I think I don't belong there, I do it to minimize the chance of an ugly confrontation. Because there's a pretty big gap between what's logical on this subject and people's emotional reactions. But the truth is, the sensitivity on the subject (which, by the way, is the single biggest weapon used against trans people when laws are proposed to protect us from discrimination) is not at all rational.

The first way to really stop and analyze the subject is to focus on what the panic is about. Let's state the obvious:

1. NO ONE is worried about F2M transgenders in the men's room. the cis-gendered (i.e. born male and still male, for those who don't know what the "cis-" prefix means) man is not concerned if the person in the next stall doesn't actually have a penis.

2. No sensible person can be worried about the post-op transsexual (either F2M or M2F) in the room appropriate for their post-operative plumbing. You really can't because there's no practical way to prove on the spot whether this woman before you was born female or not. She has all the right parts, if you dare to challenge her you look like a fool. Perhaps the most bitchy among us might know for a fact who this woman was before her transition and complain, but such a complaint wouldn't stand because you can't reasonably expect the post-op woman to go to the men's room.

So what we are really speaking of her is pre-operative M2F transsexuals. The dreaded "penis in the powder room."

There are several false assumptions behind this worry. All of them obviously play to the worry either of sexual assault, or of "peeping." But to be worried about these things involves some assumptions for which there is no evidence. Some of them insulting even.

First, it assumes that transgenders have any more risk of being sexually abusive than the general population - the usual knee-jerk "all pervs are just alike" thinking. This despite the fact that there is no publicized case on record of a transgender person committing any sort of sexual assault (either physical or verbal or visual) in a restroom. In fact, where there has been assault, it has been when a M2F was forced to use a mens room and was assaulted. there are thousands and thousands of us across the country and the charge has never been brought.

Second, it assumes that there is in fact a sexual interest. Many M2F are not oriented towards females (estimates suggest at least 30-40% of those who have transitioned are not), beyond that, the VAST majority of in-transition M2F are on HRT which means that there sex drive is almost nil and after several months the ability to achieve an erection, unless regularly exercised, is no longer present. So the reality is that almost none of these women could even theoretically have any sexual interest in the person in the next stall.

If that's not enough, having a sexual interest doesn't imply a willingness to be abusive or insensitive with that interest. Tell the truth - how many of you women out there ever wonder if that other woman in your restroom is a lesbian? how many of you wonder if some aggressive lesbian will assault you while you are trying to pee? How many men are uncomfortable with a gay male in the same restroom with them? And if you are that paranoid, what do you suggest? Gay men use the ladies and lesbians use the mens? No. Even if they do make you uncomfortable you MUST simply deal with the fact that the technical possibility exist that you might share a restroom with a person who is sexually oriented towards your gender.

So what?

Of course one can't discuss this without mentioning the scare-tactic that if it were allowed, some perverted non-trans guy would put on women's clothes just to get the chance to get into the ladies room. Except of course that this never happens or, if it does, no one has ever committed an assault or been otherwise detained by law enforcement for obviously being a "peeping tom" under such a pretense. No one can, of course, be certain no one has ever tried it and managed to see...uh...well...what? How many of you ladies disrobe in the "public" spaces in the ladies room? If a "man in a dress" came blundering in for a peep show, what would he see? This isn't your home bathroom where you might be in any sort of state of undress.

Still, do we make all our laws based on the technical possibility of some radically unusual event taking place? do we require that everyone keep their kids on a leash because once in a while some perv snatches a kid? One of the requirements of public policy is reasonableness. There's no reasonable likelihood that a M2F being in the ladies room for any other reason than to use the commode. On the other hand, there's a pretty strong likelihood that if the same person went into the men's room there would be a risk of confrontation and possibly assault.

Another aspect of this which must be remarked on is the whole business of "protecting the children" - whatever else people might tolerate they get even less rational when you bring a kid into it (my other anonymous commenter even said she "tried to keep her child from seeing me") but this, again, goes back to the assumption that to be trans is to be, by definition, a pervert who can't be trusted to not molest a child. Besides being heinously hateful to imply, one has to ask - are convicted sex offenders barred by law from using public restrooms? Those are people we KNOW have an issue with that offense and they are not, yet we - without any evidence - are PRESUMED to be dangerous to your children?

The bottom line is that there is not one shred of proof of any sort that a M2F transsexual in a ladies restroom or locker room is ANY sort of threat to anyone's safety. it's nothing but a base emotional reaction based on irrational false assumptions. That's not to say I don't understand the emotions behind it, I do. I get the instinctive urge to worry, but you can't base the law on what worries people. And you can be asked to base your worries on something a bit more rational. Worrying about the potential that you'd be assaulted by someone like me in the restroom is about as rational as worrying about a hurricane destroying your home in Chicago.

Just for reference, here are the two comments that sparked some part of this train of though - just so you can see how some good christian folks talk when they can't be identified:

"I think you are a very sick person. And i heard about your little stunt of going into the women's bathroom...if I ever see you in there...prepare to get the cops called on you. NASTY!"

She's a real sweetheart, eh?

"I think you are a freak. My stomach turns every time I see you, and I try to shield my child from you. God does NOT like what you are doing/living, and you need to get on your knees and beg Him to forgive you and make in you a clean and new heart and go back to being a MAN, a HUSBAND to your wife, and a FATHER to your sons."

One wonders why anyone would think it's a good idea for anyone who's a "freak" to be anyone's husband and father, eh? Things would be a lot easier if you could discuss these things with rational people.

Life and Love and Death

2010-08-27T02:58:00.000-05:00

No long bloviating post tonight, but I just wanted to do my small part to put this out there.

If you are not involved in some way with the transgender community, you probably don't know who Christine Daniels is. She was once Mike Penner, a longtime sportswriter for the LA Times. In 2007 she came out to her bosses and the world as transsexual (her wife, who also worked for the Times, had apparently had some idea for some time before).

Christine enjoyed widespread support at the Times and across the industry and became a mild celebrity in the trans community which was and is always looking for positive high-profile examples to counter the "drag queen" stigmas. Everywhere, that is, but at home. Her wife flatly rejected her transition and soon filed for divorce, which, after the initial rush of support susided, left Christine increasingly depressed and lonely. In late November 2009, 19 months after her first column in her new identity - and one year to the day after her wife divorced her (and several months after de-transitioning back to "Mike" in an effort to reconcile the marriage), Christine Daniels sat in her car and breathed exhaust until she was dead.

Last week the LA Weekly ran a lengthy story about the rise and fall of Christine Daniels. obviously her story has more complexity than the average persons. Few of us transition in a fishbowl as she did, not all of us face rejection by our soul-mate for who we are (though most do), many of us do not get the support of our employers.

But the take-away in that story for me, no matter the circumstances, is how those who profess to love us seem to not realize the depth of damage that can be caused by flat out rejecting and withdrawing from their transitioning loved ones. I've heard it said (actually read a transcript of one e-mail that said this) that some have actually said "it would be better that you had died than done this" but I have to assume that's the tiny minority. How many parents who disown their trans kid REALLY consider the possibility their beloved child will eat a bullet within a year because of that rejection? How many brothers, sisters, spouse, children, best friends....how may of them are really aware that it might be THEY who drive their loved one to the place Christine ended up?

Is it REALLY worth it to take your moral stand if that is the result?

Please understand, I'm not suggesting one compromises what they believe, I'm talking about the WAY you interact with your transgender loved one. You don't HAVE to build a wall and be hateful and cruel (even while claiming you do what you do out of love). You can be gentle in spirit while still saying "I don't agree."

But the reality is, a higher percentage of trans people kill themselves than any other demographic group. This happens for a wide variety of reasons (though too be clear, it's practically non-existent, statistically, that a post-transition person is depressed because they fell they got the gender identity wrong - where there is depression it's because of other circumstances which are "collateral damage" to the transition) but very very often it's because a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend chose to show contempt instead of love. It may be harsh to say, and surely she didn't know at the time, but Christine is dead today SPECIFICALLY because of how her then-wife chose to react to her transition. I wonder, sometimes, does she realize that?

Do you? or will you simply comfort yourself by rationalizing that "he was obviously nuts anyway" and pretend she didn't die of a broken heart.

(to be clear, YES Lisa (her wife) was surely heartbroken too - but she's alive, isn't she? If you read the article, the cruelty is not in divorcing Mike/Christine - the cruelty is in the WAY she avoided her, shut her out, disrespected what she was going through. there is a good way and a bad way to part, a good way and a bad way to treat your ex. whether it be a spouse or a parent or a sibling or a child - This is not an appeal to you to just "roll over" and accept them - though that would be the ACTUAL loving thing to do - it's just an appeal for gentlness and compassion and understanding, even crazy people deserve that, right?)

Working on it

2010-08-25T02:25:00.006-05:00

I know that perhaps some of you are concerned about the state of the recent and ongoing crisis. I really don't have any specific report except to say that if everything spoken this evening was sincere, and my use of "if" should not be construed as an accusation that it was not, then we have something of an understanding about what we're willing to do in order to at least see this through until the kids are older. I'm defining "older" in my mind as when you younger son gets to 17 which is a bit over 3 years away.

I cannot, of course, be certain that what has been said will be done - it's well documented here that I'm five months into the last compromise and feel like it was on balance a colossal failure, except that it bought five more months (which is not inconsiderable but not what I had hoped for). Perhaps I am being gullible in taking the current agreement on good faith, but my kids deserve our last best effort and I cannot lightly turn away from a proposal which will be for their good. Within a few months, at the most, I'll have a reasonable idea whether we can find a livable situation, at least, if not some rekindled affection.

But that's not what this post is about.

I filled out an application for Toyota today, the latest in a long line of applications for employment Ive done in the last six weeks or so. Well, not the latest - there was another tonight. But I have to note in passing that some of the places I've applied to, including Toyota, have explicit language in their employment policies which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity along with the other so-called "protected classes." so do Lowe's and Wal-mart (at least) among other places I've applied.

This is good because I have resolved that when (IF!) I am hired, I shall be clear up front that my employer is hiring a woman, despite what the legal name says. If I cannot be employed under that circumstance, then I cannot be employed. The truth is that my appearance and in some cases my situation precede me. There's every possibility that my appearance would be unacceptable in many jobs if I presented myself as a male. But beyond that, it is dishonest and unfair to "man-up" for an employer only to come around at some point and say "next week I'll be a woman." It's an excellent way to get yourself fired, even if the official reason is not on account of the change in your presentation.

And the alternative - to be trapped in a half-way existence because you are in a job you can't afford to lose and can't transition in, is too daunting to even consider. There HAS to be some place out there where the hiring is done by a compassionate and accepting person who will not bar the door to me because of my status, If not, then I'm doomed. Some will argue that I should make any sacrifice, including de-transitioning, in order to support my family. But the harsh reality is that I was having huge problems finding a job before I began this journey and there is no guarantee that wearing that mask gets me any job anyway, especially given the rather high profile of my transition thus far.

Ultimately I have to be true to myself - if she needs to find a better provider she has my endorsement on that, I've been a poor provider for a lot longer than I've been out of the closet. If I end up living on the street rather than compromise my soul, so be it.

I said there was another application tonight. it was an ad for a part-time position and it asked I submit a resume by e-mail. which I did, with a full explanation of who Tammy was in relation to the male name on the resume. They will hire, or not hire, Tammy. But I am not ashamed of who I am, and will not hide it from anyone. let the chips fall.

Weakness

2010-08-13T13:36:00.001-05:00

So I'm weak. In every way. so shoot me and put me out of my misery then.

I said I wasn't going to do this but I'm weak.

I'm told I should stop trying to have it both ways and move on, but if not doing so makes me weak, then I'm weak.

I'm told by others that I should sacrifice my own happiness and even sanity for the good of others - and because I cannot apparently I'm weak.

I have moments when I'd very much like to erase myself from this world and somewhere some fool would say that holding back shows I'm weak.

So yeah, call me weak - surely there are reasons which suit your point of view.

I'm told that if I go forward, that there will be a terrible, violent, frankly insane price to pay. Even if that turns out to not happen, the price which seems almost certain to be paid is one that paralyzes me with fear.

I'm told that I can make everything right if I just put my soul back in the closet and wear the mask of a man again. And yet even the simplest steps in that direction tear me heart out.

And every time that..."discussion"...is held, my love for anything - ANYTHING - in this life dies a little more.

I don't see a future worth living anymore - if I go, the crushing guilt will rob me of any joy, if i stay, the blackness of my heart will make everyone around me miserable.

There's no place for me in this world. The very most i can do is be an empty figurehead to my kids until they are grown, just long enough that they don't have to suffer from my pathetic weakness any more than possible.

Then fade away. I always knew there was no place for me in this life, I don't know why I lied to myself this long. Everyone who ever got closed to me is cursed by my existence. The sooner all of you forget you ever knew me the better off you'll be.

No Safe Place

2010-08-12T01:34:00.003-05:00

Sometimes my better instincts undermine me. One of the things I have tried hard to do, in this journey, is NOT be deceptive, sneaky, or evasive. More than once I've walked into an argument by simply deciding to tell the truth, or not "cover my tracks" even when I knew what price would be paid.

More than once, I've been convinced that the desperation to change my mind, or at least undermine me, by any means necessary, might have provoked less . . . honorable choices on the other side of this debate, but again, I have made some effort to NOT point the finger of accusation because ultimately, the points made are small and the feeling hurt are much more valuable.

I must confess, however, that as the "cold war" (for lack of a better term) lingers on now into its sixth month, it does become more and more difficult to be open knowing that my openness will just get me an ass chewing (or someone else one). One of the things I had valued about some of my favorite places on-line is that they have served, many times, as a "safety valve" - a safe harbor place where I could speak freely without condemnation, even when someone disagreed. On the rare occasion when someone "took me on" to try and change my mind, it was still the sort of forum where views could be frankly and fully exchanged. I don't think I've made any converts and I can state with confidence that no one who's tried to "straighten me out" has made even a tiny dent (that's because all their clever arguments are things I've already thought of and cried over - perhaps I'll tell you about the latest attack someday). But truthfully, I sometimes enjoy even the attacks because it gives me a chance to lay out all the counter-arguments that are so difficult to get in edge-wise in the real world (and never do any good).

It's a myth strongly believed around these parts, that people on the internet have "got in my head" and filled me up with bad ideas that I'd never have had without their help. Does that mean every man sitting at a computer is in danger of turning into a chick someday? Jokes aside, I don't have to tell you again what I've said before about the history of this matter. Before I'd ever logged onto the internet the first time, I remember taking walks at night, down a deserted road and sitting on a wall or a stump and looking up at God and crying bitter tears and asking him why he wouldn't take this curse from me. I try very hard to be understanding but those who say such things ("people online are filling your head with shit") don't realize what a profound insult it is to be told all those previous feelings about yourself don't count.

Even if it were true - and it's not - that I only found the courage to do something about my condition because I became aware of others who had (I've been knowing about successful transitions for a longtime before that) - what is the argument? That I would have been just fine to have never had that courage, and to STAY miserable and self-hating? What kind of love demands that the one loved suffer on your behalf?

But I digress. The point is, that everyone needs some emotional release, and yes, even a sympathetic ear. And I am thankful for those i have found over the years. I'm even thankful for the hours I can waste arguing about baseball and, for a time, distracting myself from the soap-opera drama of my life. but my openness and transparency has, apparently, painted me into a corner.

I make it possible for her to access pretty much everything I do and say on-line. I don't point it all out to her but it's all easy enough to find if one wants to look. But the down-side of that is that I ask for trouble if I'm as honest as I tend to be. there's no point in writing a blog about this sort of thing and wasting a post talking about the new kitten or whatever, as if there's nothing important to say. But when you say the important stuff, there will be a backlash from those who disagree with your point of view.

So you get to the point where you say "Should I be more sneaky? should I slip around and hide what I have to say? Or, should I simply keep my mouth shut and not ask for trouble?"

If you read some of the recent comment threads, you'll see where I'm coming from. I can't, in good conscious, keep providing what amounts to fodder for arguments, both at home and on-line. I don't need any more reasons to fight here, and I don't see any upside in the sort of exchange that happen in the last thread.

So, for now, don't be surprised if you see a lot more posts here - when I post at all - about vanilla, ultimately meaningless, stuff. Oh hopefully it will still be interesting - I'd like to think at some point I could tell you I had a job and how that was going. But there's always going to be the self censor, until things are settled at home for better or worse. Until I let you know different, this is one fewer "safe place" for me.

The Fuzz at the End of the Rope

2010-07-26T02:43:00.001-05:00

I've been asked to not "air the dirty laundry" here so much (and even telling you i was ask is an act of doing so) and I've tried to be sensitive to that request but I am pretty sure I'm about to defy it. I know as I write each word I'll likely catch hell for them but I honestly don't know how to keep this bottled up anymore and repeating the same circular argument at home never gets anywhere (not that I expect this to get anywhere but at least it's some place besides around in a circle).

The short version (as if I ever write the short version of anything) is that the light at the end of the tunnel is now very clearly an oncoming train.

Before I go further, let me just say that on this one post - don't reply with advice. I think it will become clear that I'm not unaware of the situation, the possible choices, and the potential consiquences. I don't think anyone is going to tell me something I haven't thought of to this point. Further to that, this isn't about heroes and villains, there's no upside in laying blame or calling names or otherwise trying to pick a winner here.

The final analysis here is that as I look to my future, I have essentially three choices, and all of them are wrong to a greater or lesser degree. All of them stand to cause immense pain and suffering, all of them are in some way a failure. this is the corner circumstances have painted me into, and I frankly see no way out.

(and yes, if you are thinking some of this you've read before, probably so. forgive me for that)

Let me take a moment up front to be very clear about my view of my own role in this - even though I have no choice about my condition, the situation is ultimately a result of poor choices on my behalf. I chose (those clearly it would have been very unusual to have chosen otherwise) when I was a very young person to hide my condition and not come out and deal with it. I think it is defensable to not admit you are trans in North Mississippi in the late 70's and early 80's - especially for one who was just coming into adulthood. nevertheless, it was my choice.

It was my choice to accept as true the teaching that God didn't want me to be "perverted" and would heal me of my "besetting sin." Again, I think any rational person would agree that that was not a malicious choice or one taken in order to deceive or cause pain - it was a sincere desire to be "normal" which I like to think I can't be faulted for but, again, it was a choice I made.

It was my choice, a little over three years later, to take a wife in the sincere faith and intention that God would deliver me from my affliction and I would rise to the occasion to be the husband she deserved. It was my decision to not tell her about this issue in the expectation she'd never have any reason to know, and the firm conviction that she wouldn't have been able to deal with it any more then than she has now (less even!). This one I don't even try to excuse. It's inarguable that it was fair for her to know, and fair for her to have had the chance to reject me then when there was less at stake. My only plea here is to ask which of you, had you been in that position, would have had the courage to tell the person you love something that you were convinced would cause her to utterly reject you? My crime hear is ultimately simply fear. But I plead guilty.

It was my choice, ultimately, to - after having been convinced by 20 years of waiting and trying that God was not, in fact, worried about my condition and that it would never change - take the massive risk that she would love me enough to love me even in this condition. I could have continued to repress, and never revealed my dark secret, until the day my soul rotted away to the point where I ended my life without her ever even knowing why. Which would of course have left her devestated thinking that somehow she caused me to do so. But still, it's a choice - and I made it.

In all this I do not lay blame upon God, or upon man, or upon my wife. We all come to the crossroadsand we pick a direction to travel. where you end up depends on the roads you choose. Blame isn't really helpful. No one owes me anything. Very little would be lost in this world had I never drawn the first breath, I know my place in the world. So don't read any of this as pointing fingers and don't point your own.

But the fact remains that the crossroads I have arrived at all seem to be trails which disappear into the dark woods.

If I take all the well-intentioned advice (which I believe, by the way) - the platitudes that people quote in their sig lines and their status updates - about never submitting yourseldf to the approval of others, about being true to yourself, about not living with regret, and all the rest --- If I do what I believe, then I MUST follow through on my transition. On a much more tangible note, I CAN'T let it go. Every time I leave the house without makeup and all the rest, it depresses my soul unto death. Every time I consider even superficial things like cutting my nails, or running an errand without a clean shave - I. Just. Can't. Do. It.

I've looked into the mirror and, finally after all these decades, I've seen ME. I KNOW who I am now in the most clear, stark, undeniable terms. that which has been seen cannot be unseen! It's not just about what I look like now but it is represented in my mind and spirit by that image. Being Tammy is no longer just some pipe-dream more unlikely than winning the lottery without a ticket - it's a reality, it's my heart and soul and I can't imagine even the most superficial acts to compromise that lasting for any length of time. Right now, living under the compromise agreement, every day is a struggle to not toss that aside and go back to full on presentation.

If I'm going to be whole in spirit and sane in my mind, I MUST go forward. But the darkness attached to this option is that it will destroy her life and by extension, do great harm to the lives of my children. She's made it abundantly clear, in every possible way, that ultimately the only way we stay together is if I "quit this shit." While obviously it would be ideal if she would accept me, short of that I'd like nothing better than for her to find a real man who could be what she deserved - even if that meant she had to hate me to move on to that. However, it appears this isn't the likely outcome.

Rather, the apparent likely outcome is something akin to what they used to call a "nervous breakdown" - negatively impacting her own life and her ability to function as a caregiver to the kids (and possibly impacting their relationship with her). Admittedly such breakdowns are usually temporary but the effects are not necessarily thus. This is compounded by an emotional deceleration that if I leave that she wants nothing from me in terms of assistance or support. This has the potential for grave consequences that are not easily dismissed. I could of course wash my hands and move on and leave her to her fate but I find myself entirely unwilling to be that cold. On the other hand, she cannot know from experience that there is life after me unless she is forced to confront it, and so there's a sound argument that my compassion in hesitating is actually doing her a disservice in the long run. It could also be argued that subconsciously there's an effort to make the potential consequences SEEM so VERY bad that I won't be able to make this choice - even if, should I follow through, they wouldn't in fact turn out that way.

The second option is to surrender. give her the illusion she wants (and which she insists is no illusion but the reality) that I am "the man she married" and all is well again. There are a few problems with this. First, the memory of this episode doesn't just go away. The doubts she has now she will always have because she knows about Tammy, even if Tammy is hiding in the closet. She will never again be able to be confident her relationship will last forever.
Second, if it is, after all, possible for me to simply repress these desires and be a "normal" man - then all this pain and drama was ultimately caused for no good reason and that, in itself, is reason to be forever displeased with me. Logically, if I did all this for any other reason than because I HAD to, no sane woman should want to preserve a relationship with such a man.

Third, and most importantly, I would not and could not ever be the man she remembers. As I said above, now that I have clearly seen and felt and experienced what it is to be myself, EVERY day that I don't live that life will be torture to me. Even now, every time some well meaning lose-lipped clerk calls me "sir" it's enough to make me want to cry. The idea that I could feel that way every time I get dressed, every time I wash my face, every time I brush my hair, every time I sign my name, for the rest of my life? There's no way that person is anyone that any sane person would want to share a life and a home with. Even if I LOOK like her husband, there will be nothing there fit to love. Nor anyone fit to be a father. Ultimately, there can be no joy for anyone in this scenario. Least of all for me.

She ask me, by the way, to "just try" to do this - so that in theory she can see that what I'm telling you (and her) is true. and deep down I wish more than anything that it were possible to pack it all away and go back to looking like the man she wants to see - if I thought there was any way to force myself to do that even if we set a firm date when I could stop that torture - just so she would know in her heart that I really did try because I love her that much. When I look at the situation through her eyes it makes perfect sense. but I JUST CAN'T make myself do it. My harshest critics can't wrap their mind around that, hell I can't understand it myself. By all that's holy I WISH I could stop. Permanently even but at least long enough for her to know that I'd do that for her. But the idea of going out the door tomorrow, or the next day - let alone for months or years - in a completely male identity right down to my underwear terrifies me to the bone. This isn't the choice I don't want to make - it's the choice I am compelled by forces beyond my control to reject.

The third option, listed mainly for completeness but which I cannot deny creeps into my mind more often lately, is to choose not to choose. A handful of pills or a plugged exhaust, you get the idea. I tell you very frankly that as of now, this still seems the most unlikely of choices because it has the same negative impact as Choice #1 with no personal upside. it exists on the list, really, as nothing more than the outlet for insufferable frustration at not being able to finally choose either 1 or 2. it would be insanity, to be sure, but I feel like I'm losing my sanity having to make a choice which has no rational right answer. I'll say nothing else about this one except to say that if I choose #2, ultimately I'm choosing #3, only on a time delay. that's where that road ends eventually.

Why then, did I write all this? Mostly, just as stress release. I have to say it somewhere, even in this dark corner of the net where almost no one ever goes (the most hits I've ever had in one day was 12 and almost certainly one or two of those was me). Also, because whatever happens to me, in terms of going forward or backing up or dropping off the figurative face of the earth, I want it said somewhere that my intentions were not exclusively self-serving. That whatever I did, I did NOT take the easy way out and wash my hands of the mess that my life created. I want to say to those who have ears and open minds to listen, I DO love her enough to not consider her my enemy or someone to be escaped from. I love her enough to drag my feet about finishing a journey which has done my soul more good than I ever thought possible - to at least pause and consider spiritual bondage and suicide to keep from causing her more pain.

I could have, perhaps, said this behind closed doors, if it would have been believed - but then no one who had any willingness to believe it would have heard it said at all. So I broke the rule. I "aired the dirty laundry" once again. Add that to the long long list of all the other ways I screwed up in life. On the whole balance sheet, it's really probably a pretty tiny entry.

What's in a name?

2010-07-19T10:37:00.000-05:00

I have hesitated to open up about this because one one hand it seems to be a somewhat superfluous layer of complication to add to what is an already over-dramatic process (transition). It seems to me there's a limit to how much even your supporters will put up with.

On the other hand, even though most people never change their given name, if you do, it behooves you to be absolutely comfortable with the one you choose. More and more lately, iI'm mourning not going with my first choice and reconsidering whether or not to rectify that before the day comes - down the road a ways but still - when I try to change it legally.

Before I go on, let me give you a bit of background on how I got to the one I chose and some general thoughts on name selection for people in my position.

To me, one of the chief things to avoid in picking a name is anachronisms. So the first thing I did was look at baby-name lists from the early 60's to see what the common names were in those days. to me, one thing that invites skepticism is if NO ONE your age is named "Tiffany" except you. Also, you want to avoid "stripper names" or drag queen names or anything that has an unintended reading (Richard Cox, for instance, if you get what I mean). also, personally, I've never been a fan of alliteration in names (i.e. Lois Lane).

So with all that in mind, I made a list of names I liked, and removed all the names that were associated with people close to me, just to avoid the awkwardness of sharing a name with a friend who might be uncomfortable with that, and then picked from what was left.

What I came up with was Laura Elizabeth. that middle name is non-negotible, I love everything about it and it has like 4 or 5 short forms I love too (I actually strongly considered using "Beth" as my "everyday name"). But one of the names I eliminated is actually perhaps my all time favorite girl name. It is a name that a first cousin of mine had not as a given name but as a nickname - it's also the name of the first girl I had a crush on in elementary school but that's not relevant. I removed it because of my cousin but honestly, we are so distant geographically now that it's not really going to matter except maybe at the occasional funeral.

Then there's this - one thing I didn't consider at all when choosing Laura is that I never write in cursive AT ALL anymore except to sign something. it turns out to be a lot harder to learn, at my age, to properly sign a name you are unfamiliar with than I would have ever guessed. The other name I have in mind is not so difficult. There's also the matter of the voice. It seems in retrospect that picking a name that doesn't invite the lower-sounds into your voice when you speak it is helpful and that "ur" sequence does that.

So, here I am, along with all my other drama I'm debating myself furiously whether it's better to resign myself to my original choice or go ahead and try to get it right before I lock it in. Since the opinion at home is that I should naver change it, or anything else, there's not really any outlet to discuss it so I turn to the few folks who pay attention to my online rambling.

What do you think? Oh, and the name in question is Tammy, by the way, if you have an opinion on that.

Whatchagonnado, Part 2

2010-07-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

Just a coincidence, I'm sure, but there were enough similarities in this event and the one which precipitated my last post that I figured connecting them was reasonable.

I was again in Wal Mart, though this one here in the hometown and not aways off. This time I was not dressed fully female but in this ambiguous not-fully-either compromise presentation that I do for the sake of the compromise I've described in this space before. As an aside, I will admit to you that I really HATE the mixed-signal mess that arises from this situation but I can't bring myself to be any more male than I HAVE to be and there's a limit to how female I can be and honor the terms of the agreement so I'm stuck with this. For now. I'll be so glad when this parenthesis is over because I feel like I'm losing a ton of credibility at a time when I need it most. But I digress.

Anyway, so there I am, in all my ambiguous glory when I see a friend of mine coming towards me. We were classmates in high school and she was always one of my favorite people from my class because she always treated me nicely . . . even when, as adults, she found her way into the "pillars of the community" while I drifted towards the last few rungs above "white trash." I don't mean a condescending sort of kindness either, but apparently genuine warmth.

I'd tried to add her on Facebook a time or two without success but I'd tried to overlook that. so anyway, she is close enough to absolutely see me and instead of her usual warm greeting, she simply doesn't acknowledge me. Well, ok, distracted maybe or something . . . oh well. Several minutes later I happen to cross paths again, close enough I could have picked something out of her buggy, and no one else around to draw her attention. I start to say "Hi" but cut it off as she blows right past me without a word, or a smile, or even eye contact.

It's always unpleasant when you find out someone you had thought highly of now considers you unacceptable, but I have to confess that having it right in your face like that is a whole 'nother level. don't misunderstand, I'm not offended necessarily - I still maintain that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm really not that bothered to find out she disapproves (though mildly surprised) but I was stunned that her disapproval was delivered in such an obviously rude fashion. the one thing I've never known this woman to be was openly rude (although to be fair, we have had only casual contact as adults) - she's always seemed very poised and ready for anything. that her feelings towards me are so negative that it provoked this reaction was something for which I wasn't prepared.

That said, it did give me something to think about. Part of learning to navigate the world as Laura is finding the path between those who are accepting and supportive and those who are hostile. In that sense, all feedback is good. Even if it can sometimes be bitter medicine. Still, one of the things I've really looked forward to is the next reunion (since I've missed most of the previous ones) - I have sort of a perverse urge to let those who knew the old me spend some time with the real me. This feeling, if indeed I'm reading the situation right, lends another level of complexity to that.

One paragraph on a totally unrelated thought:

A couple of people have said to me, or about me, something to the effect of "what are you going to do when someone stomps the s*** out of you for going around like that?" - with the unstated implication that I'd deserve it and they wouldn't feel sorry for me. My only answer for that is, basically, "oh, well." you either live in fear or you don't. right now I do live in fear, on one subject, but that not for myself or my own pain. I live in fear of unnecessarily hurting my wife - that is of acting to swiftly or too slowly or in whatever way doing this thing in such a wrong way that it cause her to hurt even more or even longer than she has to by the nature of the situation. It's the only thing that leads me to moderate my transition even to the point I have. but fear for myself or what might happen to me or what might be thought or said of me? No. I'm done with that. Mock me? Laugh at me? Attack me? Hurt me? Kill me? Bring it on. To live in fear is to not live at all.

Whatchagonnado?

2010-07-05T19:16:00.001-05:00

So, I was shopping in a Wal-Mart in a nearby town today and I ran into a friend - some might argue that a real friend wouldn't have had this conversation but by his lights he was being a friend and I won't disrespect that - who was apparently pretty stunned by my appearance (though this was not his first awareness of my transition) and took it upon himself to submit a plea to me to "snap out of it."

I tried to handle this with grace, deferential replies and trying to keep the conversation low-key given the potential audience. I try to keep in mind that while I want to make a rational impressions, it's not my goal or my job to change THEIR minds. They often seem frustrated they can't change MINE. what does a person really expect? That I'm going to create all this emotional anguish for myself and my family and I'm suddenly just going to go "you know what, you're right - what was I thinking?" and drop it just like that - all because someone tells me to "snap out of it"?

But honestly, I don't blame him for trying. Like I said, by his lights he was being concerned enough to intervene, just as one would with a drunk or a drug addict. It saddens me that so many people would agree readily with that analogy and see me as just as much in need of intervention, I wish it were not the case, but I might as well acknowledge that this is exactly what a lot of people think. Denial gets one nowhere.

This man was a person I'd spent several years going to church with - he makes the 4th person from that congregation to have, in one form or another, tried to "straighten me out." What I came away from that conversation with is a feeling not unlike what we all feel after a disagreement, albeit writ a bit larger - "here's what I should have said." Still, most of the things I would have like to have said are things that really don't fit into a discussion held just inside the door of the Wal-Mart.

Still, one of the cool things about having a blog is that you don't have to leave any thought unexpressed. so here they are. some of these you've read in this space before, perhaps some you haven't.

You, sir, are divorced - we're both aware of what that Book you are metaphorically waving at me says on that subject; furthermore, you are remarried and it's even MORE blunt on that point. How do you account for your "sinfulness"? How will you fix this conundrum? And let's not bring up the tales that get told after a divorce - since I can't prove that which was said (is ever said in any divorce) is true. But still, there's potentially more on this point if I wanted to be that way.
It's true that I preached in "your church" and I'll admit I might well be faulted for preaching as a form of desperation to be "good enough" to be "healed" - It is a sort of insincerity, although i will argue that I was sincerely seeking to serve Him and serve in that role, and for that I need not apologize. But in those messages on more than one occasion I mentioned the reality that Christians have to wear masks lest they be judged when their flaws are revealed to their "brethren." Seems to me that that's what is happening here.
What do you judge me to be? A pervert? then I was perverted as a small child which I doubt you believe; A mental case? do you judge those with other mental conditions so sternly and tell them to "snap out of it"? A "defect" (similar to my own view), do you judge others born defective so sternly?
How do you explain a god, if your view of him is right, who condemns that which his child repents of with tears for decades and yet does nothing at all to heal or restrain the condition? How does that match up with all the Scripture that says if you cast your burdens on him he will not forsake you? is there any other explanation but that this is not, in fact, a sin?
You asked "So you like men now?" - is it really so difficult for you (and others who share your misconception) to think of gender as something other than "who I want to have sex with"? Is your manhood nothing more than being attracted to women?
Going back to the first point - you mentioned the fact that I have kids and implied something about my having taught kids at church . . . I must ask, have you repented and remedied the poor example your divorce sets for the kids who look up to you (taking the strict understanding of scripture here that is generally used against folks like me)? Or is there a secret lists of the sins which "aren't really all that bad" as distinguished from notorious sins like mine?

I could go on - likely by the time this is posted an hour I'll think of five more points. But you get the idea. I confess that it can be challenging, sometimes, to not simply blurt out "Who the hell are you to judge me?" but ultimately, I cling to the hope that one of these days one of those folks will say "ya know, I never thought of it like that" and it will have been worth it. Surely we are, as believers, called to not return evil for evil (not that he meant to do evil but you get what I mean) but to return good instead. And I'm aware that being a visible representation of thousands of my siblings in this journey, I have a responsibility that goes beyond my own pride.

But nevertheless, it does wear on one's soul when those who profess to care about you find it so easy to assume the worst and so hard to give the benefit of the doubt. For years I've had unbelievers point to exactly that sort of behavior as a reason why the wouldn't hear the arguments put forth by believers and for the most part I defended my fellow believers. I argued against the stereotypes which are as unfair to Christians as gay stereotypes are unfair to the typical homosexual. But the sad truth is, while many of my fellow believers have treated me with love and compassion and refrain from judgment (at least to my face) there are enough like my friend today who behave exactly like the worst cliches and make it harder for many to come to faith.

Again, I can't say this enough, I do not write this to bash my friend - he really was, in my opinion, intervening out of love as he understood it. I'm just pleading for some of my fellow believers to really think through what they believe about this. God himself said "let us reason together"so, for GOD'S sake - REASON. Don't just take what "everybody knows" without thinking it through. there was a time when "everyone knew" that blacks and whites should not marry...there was a time when "everyone knew" it was Biblical to own another human being, there was a time when "everyone knew" that a woman was basically her husband's property.

I'm not saying that because those things were wrong, that it proves that what "everyone knows" about people like me is wrong now - but I am saying that the only way that those wrongs were corrected was when a few folks were bold enough to give some reasoning to the bit of noise that "everyone knows" and see that just because the majority thought so didn't make it true.

Connections and Reconnections

2010-06-18T23:56:00.000-05:00

Rather than lament the state of affairs at home, as I'm wont to do on far too many occasions, I want to rather toss off a shorter and lighter post tonight. I'm musing tonight after I had a chance, this afternoon, to chat for a bit with an acquaintance who's maybe needing to be moved into the "friend" column. but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

One of the things I had mistakenly thought, when I started this journey, was that I wouldn't meet another like me this side of Memphis at least. but that's turning out not to be the case. I've found enough brothers and sisters to begin to understand that there are more of us about than I was aware, albeit most keeping a lot lower profile. Without even going into speculation on places like Corinth or Tupelo or Oxford (I know of a few, I'm sure there are several others I don't) I've become aware that even in this little town, there are at least 3 others and possibly more. and that's not counting the woman I mentioned last time.

My conversation this afternoon was with another person that I'd thought perhaps was trans based on "her" appearance when I'd seen her in passing at town. (I'm using the female pronoun because I'm not sure as yet which she prefers) but there had never been an occasion when it seemed appropriate to try to connect on our common ground. I very much enjoyed the chance to make that connection or at least begin it this afternoon. I hope that it's the start of a lasting friendship.

After all, us deviants have to support each other, right?

Every so often

2010-06-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

I think I should be posting here more often, but as in all aspects of my journey, I'm trying to balance my own needs with those of others. And one of the needs which has been expressed, as you know, is that I not be so quick to broadcast my thoughts about relationship issues here. To refrain kind of undermines the purpose of this blog, but when a reasonable request is on the table, compromise must be made. It's certainly true that bigger compromises have been made or at least considered.

Another aspect of that is that since what I write here is read by some of the parties involved (or close to those who are involved) I find it's very easy to be misunderstood in the intentions behind my words when it's seen through the lens of the raw emotions in play, so occasionally I'll end up having to explain (not apologize for) something I said here.

Nevertheless, this IS about the journey and there are aspects of this journey which, while widely divergent in detail, are very similar in the broad themes across many of my sisters on this road (and presumably brothers as well). I find myself, more than once every day, considering not just my own rather twisted up circumstances but the whole context of being trans in this world and how it affects rather ordinary things, and most especially when you are mid-transition and, in the eyes of many, "neither here nor there."

The application of that which I'm most aware of in my own day-to-day experience is when being gender-specific is required. See, the thing is, although I am presenting something less than a fully female image (in an effort to compromise temporarily) I still think of myself and wish to be reacted to as female. And yet I can't begrudge anyone, when I'm doing this in a "half-assed" fashion, for not reading me that way. So I find it's especially pleasing when someone (such as my wonderful co-workers) is/are considerate enough to get names and pronouns right, to interact with me as "one of the girls, " and to generally pretend not to notice my unfortunate situation. On the other hand, it's most distressing when I find myself too afraid to use the ladies room, and too uncomfortable to use the men's. This limbo I'm currently in can be a tricky place to navigate.

Yet, for all of that, I find myself filled with dread at the idea that I might have to revert almost entirely to a male presentation, no matter how temporary I may intend it to be. There is so very much riding on that choice and so much pain in either road, I find myself just wanting to resign from the human race rather than make the decision that is before me.

But hey, I've said far too much about that before and there's no point in getting lost in those weeds again tonight.

Let me divert, a minute, into a somewhat more "general interest" topic. On the TG board where I post, from time to time we get into a bit of self-examination, about who we are and how we go about doing the transition thing. There's hardly a rule book or a "right way" to go through this because all of us find ourselves in different circumstances family wise and financially and so forth. All of it has a certain aspect of "making it up as you go" and so it's only natural we "compare notes" and try to learn from each other's mistakes and successes.

One of the things that comes up there occasionally is how integral certain body parts are to feeling right about how we look. For a F2M transsexual, breasts are often a very distressing thing and often leads to much emotional pain - obviously something that's hard for a woman in our society to understand given the emphasis our culture directs towards a woman's curves.

Likewise, for a M2F, you can get everything else right but if you can't at least simulate those curves, no one will take you seriously as presenting a feminine identity. Whether or not there are flat-chested natal women around you isn't relevant - if you want people to see you as female you FEEL that there has to be at least the illusion of breasts. For those who can afford it (sometimes a few hundred dollars) you can buy nice breast forms of the sort used by women who've had a mastectomy and present a very passable silhouette. For others, such as myself, you have to improvise a more rudimentary substitute.

I've heard it said that wearing a bra and fake breasts is one of the harder things for the average person to wrap their minds around in this process. But one need only consider how the woman who's had a breast removes usually feels about her womanhood thereafter. Usually such women find it very distressing and go to some lengths to at least create the image of "wholeness," if not getting an implant. Clearly even for a natal woman it's psychologically important how the world sees you. So it is for me. It might seem a trivial or even silly thing to you that someone who doesn't HAVE to wear a bra feels a deep emotional need to do so, but that again arises from starting with the base misconception that you are asking this about a man, rather than a woman. Until you grasp that - whatever my physical plumbing - my MIND thinks and reacts and feels just as any other woman's does, and feels the same needs and desires, you will never take even the first step in understanding why I do some of the things I do. Perhaps one day I can speak freely about all the different ways that manifests itself.

One other aside, before I go. And given that so few local people read this (that I know if) perhaps these words will go to waste but I have to say them somewhere. One day this week i was in Wal Mart and I saw a mother and child looking at swimsuits for the girl. the mother had a very short male-style haircut, a "trucker's hat," a very oversized drab gray t-shirt, lose jeans and work boots. I saw no purse. Now, in my position it's obviously easy to "see what you want to see" in this situation. this woman might have just come from tending the horses or some such in which she was dressed down just for that reason. BUT on the off chance that I have a comrade in this business in this little town, as long as the odds against that might be, I wanted to say that I almost spoke to you, and shared a knowing smile about how tough it is to pull this off, but I didn't want to embarrass myself if I was wrong. But do know that you have my thoughts and prayers if we have this in common and if you ever have the opportunity to speak to me iI hope you are braver than I was.

Biting my tongue

2010-05-30T00:25:00.000-05:00

...can be very hard to do!

(warning - random disorganized and only vaguely related thoughts ahead)

Given the fact that the last post is a couple of weeks old now, the few of you who care are probably wondering what happened regarding the aforementioned drama. Well, I've been strongly "asked" to stop airing so much dirty laundry (which, to be fair, is a reasonable request) but I need to at least somewhat resolve the cliffhanger. iI had thought, over the past week, that we were perhaps drawing back from the edge of the cliff a bit - I was actually thinking of writing a post expressing some relief on that point just this morning but . . . let's just say it's been a bad day.

You know, it's often said that true love is most expressed by being willing to lay down one's life for the one you love. All of us would like to think we'd do so without hesitation. But that's what I feel like I'm faced with - pull out the "man clothes" and humiliate myself by submitting to give up myself for the sake of the one I love, or see her hurt because I refuse. To be clear, if it were any other, I wouldn't even hesitate to walk away . . . but this choice I find to be almost life and death. if you see me in the man costume, you are basically looking at a "dead man walking" because I don't think I can call that living.

That last paragraph will probably get me in trouble too. I'm going to have to learn to hold my tongue I suppose.

So, let me bitch about someone else instead!

It has come to my attention that some (all?) of the neighbors have concluded I'm gay. Now, let me be perfectly clear - this doesn't offend me. In my personal opinion if you still think it's an insult to be called gay, or to call someone gay, you need to grow the fuck up because that's a middle school mentality. But I'm assuming here that it's not meant as an insult so much as a judgment (more on that in a sec) but since it's probably a not uncommon conclusion, let me speak to it a bit:

Frankly, I have a hard time imagining anyone going through the personal journey of understanding one's self to be trans without giving quite a bit of thought to the question "Am I gay?" I don't mind telling you that on a few different occasions over my lifespan, I've given a lot of thought and mediation to that question. The process was more complex for me because I have a bit of a "vision"in my mind of the sort of woman I'd like to be, an idealized woman so to speak. And my "ideal" woman is, in fact, attracted to men (there are deeper layers to THAT story as well but I'll save that tangent for another day).

So I spent more than what I figure is the average amount of time being curious about being with guys (as a female, NOT as a male!) and searching my feelings for any positive response. I've spent some time looking at guys in films and on TV and trying to imagine myself being attracted to them sexually. I am not afraid to find those feelings nor am I ashamed to claim them if they are there. To date, I've found none. I don't find any particular distaste for the idea, as any "normal" man would, but just in terms of pure old lust, I still feel that for females, and not at all for males.

Now, I don't know whether that will ever shift, via hormones or experiences or whatever. If it does it does and, other than not wanting such a shift to interfere with the current relationship, I'd be fine with that. but right now, it's not there. Not even a little. So all you ill-informed judgemental types, feel free to educate yourself a little bit. I'll make it simple for you (again) -

Being trans is NOT about who you have sex with, it's about who you ARE. I said, I think, in my first column her and I shall repeat it again: I'd rather spend the next 30 years as a celibate woman than as the most sexually desirable man on the face of the planet. If you are so simple minded you think this is about sex, then it's your mind in the gutter, not mine.

To be sure, I'll freely admit that when one is trying to figure out what to do with one's self (as you emerge from repression and consider transition) there is a bit of a mental "puberty" (as opposed to the one which is provoked by HRT) in which you consider all sort of sexual implications of your gender identity, but that's a phase. You can chase that rabbit, or "grow up" - a choice all of us make as teenagers and young adults. We just have to rethink all that a second time. So if you are going to judge me on sexual inclinations, for now you'll have to be content with judging me for being a lesbian - but then you can't do that unless you admit I'm female which you judgmental types aren't about to do so I guess I'm off that hook too.

Now, about the whole "bad judgment" thing - there IS something new in play here beyond the classic blunder of thinking trans and gay are the same thing: some of these people are apparently under the impression that I'm not only gay but dangerous. It's reported that at least one of them doesn't want me to be alone with either of her kids (not that anyone is ever alone in this house). So, she's moved beyond the confusion of trans and gay and she's thrown pedophile into the hopper as well.

NOW I'm offended.

First of all, I'll just lay aside and quit repeating what a boneheaded idea it is to mistake trans for gay, and move right to the pathetic ignorance of assuming that every gay person is a pedo. Are there some pedo gays? Oh absolutely - I'd go so far as to say there might even be a higher percentage than in the general population. But given that gays are only about 3% of the population, you are FAR more likely to find the person who molested your child is hetro than gay. In fact, statistically most sexually abused children are molested by a family member or close family friend.

In any case, I now find myself with a troubling thought that any number of people in this neighborhood might do something wrong with one of those kids - and there are candidates - and when the SHTF, the finger will be pointed at the local "pervert" regardless. Bet your ass I'm not going to be alone with any of them!

Just another chapter in the saga of "there's no place in this world for a freak like me."

And of course, it's all that much more ammunition for those who argue I should "give it up" - as if anyone is going to just forget who the perv is because I change me clothes.

Can you tell this stuff is getting to me?

And it's not just the drama on the home front, it's not just the ill-informed neighbors (who, to be fair, do let the kids come around and have been nice in face-to-face encounters) but it's the whole attitude of people who see fit to even have an opinion about what other people do that brings no harm to their own lives.

You see, it frustrates me that there are so many in the world who wrap themselves in the smug satisfaction of cataloging the people whom they are better than. This one is a drunk, that one is an adulterer, the other one is a perv. Those people smoke dope and the ones across the street are swingers and the one's next to them? Why they've been known to DANCE!! The only one who is, apparently, NOT sinning is the person who's sitting by the telephone collecting every bit of gossip and dirt they can so they have a complete list of who IS sinning.

Pardon me for having the temerity to ask, but what the hell business is it of yours anyway? When your coworker or you neighbor or your kin say "did you hear...?" what give them the right to tell it or you the right to hear it and pass it on? Is the behavior in question actually wrong? Maybe, maybe not, but if it is, so what? Is it hurting someone? if so then I understand your reasoning. If you hear Mr. X has a meth lab in his house and you know kids live there, well then by all means speak up. But if you hear that Mr. X was at the gay bar last weekend, or that Mrs. X works at the strip club, that's not hurting anyone but (at worst) themselves and it's none of your damned business, either to act on or to gossip about. To say nothing of wondering just exactly how anyone knew what Mr. or Mrs. X were doing anyway.

Here's an original thought - why not talk to God about it, instead of to other people? Let him sort it out.

Yes, my apologies but I've descended to well and truly venting tonight. It's what lets me bite my tongue in polite conversation instead of telling some folks where to get off. I've reached the conclusion that when I die, I don't even want a funeral or a burial. If I still have a family maybe there will be a little reception where you can express your sympathies to those misfortunate enough to have been associated with me, but I'd just as soon donate the body to science - or throw it in a ditch - and wash my hands of the lot of those who'd pretend sympathies they didn't feel. If I've gained nothing else from this last year, I've gained a lot of insight into a lot of the people around me, for good and for bad.

On that note, let me quote for emphasis what I wrote in this space seven weeks ago:

Oh, and by the way, those of you who couldn't have anything to do with me when I had a bra or makeup on? Don't come around trying to "reward me for good behavior" now. I have an obligation to bend, for now, in order to try to create a happy outcome for the woman I love (whether that's with me or without) but I have no such obligation to anyone else. If you don't like, approve of, or feel comfortable with Laura, then you don't feel comfortable with ME, there is no one else here.

Can't be said often enough.

Futility

2010-05-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

So, I'm over a month into the this period of sacrifice I described in previous posts. I must say, I'm less than impressed with the results.

While it is well observed that I have not given up all of the feminine aspects of my appearance, I have done all that I agreed months ago to do - all that was said then to have been an acceptable compromise. but it turns out not to be. Hardly a day has gone by in the last month that we've not discussed how offensive my appearance and conduct remains. It feels to me like I didn't get what i bargained for, which is a cease fire and a suspension of hostilities. I didn't agree to "dial back" just to gain the privilege of defending myself at least once a day in yet more arguments. if we were going to fight all the time anyway, what did i gain by compromising?

It now is becoming apparent that the only choices remaining are two people who are perpetually hostile to each other sharing a home (and that hostility will exist either way, for if I surrender I'll be miserable and hostile, and if I do not she will be) or separation.

I'll admit (and since she often reads this probably sabotage it by saying so publicly but what the hell) that I cling to a sliver of hope that if/when we do live apart for a while she will come to realize the value in what we can still be to each other, even if I cannot be what she wants most. But I really can't tell whether or not I'm just fooling myself there.

What I do know, and keep saying (to no effect) is that even if I surrender and revert to my former apperance, spiritually I cannot BE that man anymore. I know now what I didn't know then - I know I'm not a pervert or a sinner (well, I am a sinner, as are we all, but not on this point) and I know that I'm never going to be "cured" of that which ails me. That knowledge alone makes me something and someone different than what I was when i believed that lie. i cannot go back to being the person who was trying with all "his" might to "be a man" and overcome my condition.

What I would be is simply a walking, talking lie. A hollow shell that looked like the man she loved but had none of the emotional or spiritual content. As much as she wants back the person she loved, that person, in the most important sense, no longer exists (to the extent he ever did). But she's clinging to that one-in-a-million chance that I will surrender and fake it so she doesn't have to deal with reality. I'm not sure I could survive long even making that attempt. Even if I tried.

If I'm selfish, then she deserves better than that. If I'm crazy or disturbed, then she (and the boys) deserve better than that. If I'm perverted, then they deserve better. But if I'm right, then I deserve better than to live a lie in order to save her from facing reality. Either way, where's the future?

Likewise, if she simply can't bring herself to be friends even (to not even discuss the issue of lovers) with me in this form and having made this transition, then I have no more right to ask her to fake it than she has to ask me the same.

Impasse.

So, long story short - if I have to move, temporarily or permanently, my internet access may well be limited to public computers for a while. If I drop off the radar for a while, you can probably speculate as to why.

Choice and non-choice

2010-05-09T01:27:00.000-05:00

It's difficult sometimes to discuss the idea of what is a choice, because people tend to disagree on the actual place where you draw the line between what is a choice and what is something you HAVE to do.

In the most literal sense, EVERY thing is a choice. I'm sure all of you would say of something in your life that you have no choice, but really, every action is a choice. For instance, you might say "I have no choice but to go to work" but that's not true. You can choose not to go. sure you will likely get fired but all this really means is, you choose being employed over being unemployed and do what is necessary to get that which you have chosen.

So, since that definition covers everything we do, it's too broad to be of any real use to a discussion of choices. Let's rule that out and agree that when we speak of what is a choice, it's not THAT definition that we mean.

So short of that, what then do we literally mean when we say that a think is a choice? There has to be some common frame of reference. Here's one possible illustration: Some schools of Christianity believe that the Bible prophesies a time when true believers will be subject to torture or death if they reveal that they are in fact Christians, and that the test of true faith is that the believer not deny that he believes. Does that person have a choice? Should they hide their true nature lest those around them have a very negative reaction, or should they be true to themselves and to their God no matter the cost?

But even that is a side-track because the choice to be a Christian or not is free-will. It's difficult for me to present a really effective analogy for the situation of which I speak. How do you explain to someone that the thing you do is that which you MUST do?

What about the patriotic young man who reacted to 9/11 by joining the Army and going off to fight in Afghanistan. To his young bride, or his worried mom, perhaps it seemed that this man made a rash CHOICE to do a thing he didn't HAVE to do, but to him it might have been very clear that he could not have been true to himself and done anything else.

Not having been cut from that particular cloth, I don't think it's for me to say but I can see some parallels.

The point I'm making here is that for those who accuse me of making a choice to live my life as a woman, the claim that I am engaging in a purely optional activity is set up as a no-win scenario for me before I ever discuss it because there's no way to "prove" the statement wrong without a common definition of the words being used. The very claim that someone else chose to say or think or act in the manner they did becomes a self-supporting rhetorical loop. A circular argument.

But consider, before you accuse me of "choosing" this path, what the choice involves, both now and in it's potential ultimate outcome:

Who would chose -
To painfully pluck out tens of thousands of hairs every week?
To become a laughing stock to many who know them and an outcast to many others?
To know they would become a pariah in the only field of employment they are fit to be hired in (after investing years and thousands of dollars to become so qualified)?
To have even family members that mock you and others who won't even consent to give you contact info?
To risk the loss of a very very happy 20 year marriage?
To have their kids deal with strife and conflict in the home?
To give skeptics reason to doubt the truth of the faith you profess because your "lifestyle" is at odds with the traditions of that faith?
To set one's self up for years of fear and worry that you will be attacked or killed as so many others like you have been before (blessed in this regard so far but the danger is real)?
To be in a position that you know not even law enforcement can be trusted to treat you humanely (there's a story going about now of a post-op transwoman in Washington DC who was nonetheless knowingly housed with male prisoners and purposely put in harms way bt DC policemen)?
To set one's self up for who knows how many months or years of always wondering how many of the people around you have figured out your secret and are at best mocking you and possibly hostile?
To put yourself on the road to expensive and painful procedures which will be necessary to even remotely approximate the outcome you want to achieve (start with laser or electrolysis for hair removal - even the beard alone is a massive undertaking - and then consider various surgeries)?
To become a person who very likely will never be taken seriously by the great majority of people again?

I ask you, gentle reader, what possible train of thought would lead a person with any passing acquaintance with sanity to make a free-will choice to step into that life?

Even if you argue that I could have chosen to suffer in silence and not act upon this, you come back to the same place - if it were really possible to suppress this and live an at least marginally contented life without acting on it, then no sane person would ever chose to act on it.

Is it REALLY credible for anyone to think that someone does this on a whim, or a kink, or a "mid-life crisis" or any other casual reason? Call me crazy, if you wish. Call me mentally ill if you want to be kinder. Say I have a birth defect (hell that's MY point of view) - by all means no one is asking you to call me NORMAL because I make no claim to be. But please, don't be shallow enough to suggest I CHOSE to be this way.

Now, why is this on my mind tonight? Well, it was just one of those depressing days when I was keenly aware that my decision to "butch it up" in order to maintain at least a temporary peace at home has the huge potential to communicate to everyone who knows about me that it is a free and easy choice to just "knock it off" whenever i want to. Every time I go out the door in a more-or-less male presentation, I reconfirm in many minds the exact WRONG thing about the nature of my original "choice" to come out full time as a female.

That pisses me off. I completely understand the value in why I'm doing what I'm doing. I accept that circumstances make it necessary, even though I sincerly which the circumstances were different. But it still grids my gears to give anyone any grounds to say "if you can control it now, why couldn't you just have controled it in the first place?"

The answer to that, in case you are wondering, is this: I have declared myself now, I'm not repressing, hiding, faking, or lying anymore. Before, I tried to make you believe I was a "normal" man because I was afraid to let you know who I really was. Now, i have said and will continue to say - I am LAURA, and I am not ashamed. If I chose to wear less feminine clothing or makeup than I would prefer, it's for a reason - just as any other woman doesn't go out to feed the horses or work in the factory in her best heels. But it's not a compromise of who I AM - even if it confuses some folk. for now I have to remind myself of that and endure until things get better.

Petting the Peeve

2010-05-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to spend a lot of paragraphs saying, in essence, "nothing much has changed" this time, but I also notice it's been a couple of weeks so I need to contribute something to keep this thing alive.

So I think I'll pet one of my peeves. I do this, I think, at considerable risk of being misunderstood, or being accused of being insensitive, but I don't mean it to be. On the contrary, I'd like to think that this would serve in some tiny way to refine the thinking on the subject at hand.

Let me first just describe in plain terms what it is that's bothering me. Rather than refer to the reaction to the recent bad weather, I'll pick a more neutral example. Let's say that some local factory is cutting it's workforce in half, and Mr. Smith gets laid off and Mr. Jones is kept on.

In a lot of cases Mr. Jones will tell everyone "God was looking out for me! I sure was blessed that God had his hand on me and didn't let me lose my job! God sure is good!"

Now, to be clear, I agree very much that God is good - but God is good to Mr. Smith too! Do we not realize that when we offer evidence that God is good to us by citing some random bad thing that he "didn't let happen" to us we are logically implying God is NOT good to those who suffered the fate? We are - if we think about it - implying that God chose not to protect the person who suffered.

None of us would actually state it that way, of course. A storm comes through and our neighbor down the road loses their home and we don't we don't say "Too bad God wasn't good to them" because it's not what we mean.

But it is, essentially, what we are saying.

I see such comments online, and hear them on the street, all the time. "Bob's tooth hurt for 48 straight hours but it quit this morning! It was such a blessing praise God!" Well, frankly, if God acted to stop the toothache, why did he wait 48 hours? Heck why did he let it start to begin with? it's just silly.

YES God is good, and YES he sometimes intervenes miraculously in the events of our lives - but he does it for HIS purposes and there's no pattern that mere humans can recognize. I don't think for a minute, by the way, that the God of the universe intervenes in our live to stop a headache or whatever, either. When he acts it's for some greater purpose. Something that goes beyond the circumstance of the moment that we can comprehend. Think about it - if God stops headaches, then how do you explain the dear Christian lady at church who has week-long migraines?

The truth is, we live in a fallen world and bad things happen. Whether it's as minor as a toothache or as major as a tornado, they happen and within the laws of nature, they happen pretty randomly. As much as I'm glad no one I loved was hurt this weekend, I'm not about to suggest that God selected and preferred my loved ones over those who did get hurt or killed. Be mad or offended if you want, but that's not how he operates. Those who suffered loss did so by random chance, they essentially won a reverse lottery. They were not those who failed to enjoy God's favoritism (of which he has none).

So, there, that should alienate a bunch of folks but I don't care. I'd rather seem him praised for what he DOES rather than hear people attribute to him actions and motives which, if they were actually believed, would make him something much less than what he really is.

Sloppy Reasoning

2010-04-18T00:25:00.000-05:00

I've long been of the opinion, and have said so in many different contexts, that if you don't know WHY you believe what you believe, then you don't have much credibility to claim that belief. You are just parroting what someone else told you. An unexamined position isn't worth holding.

Sometimes, that will even lead you to a position that's not in your own selfish interests.

Certainly, there are limits. If you tell me you believe, or disbelieve, in evolution, you don't have to hold a doctorate in Biology AND theology to have an informed and credible opinion. but you DO need to have reasoned it out within the knowledge base you do have, and not just say "a scientist (or a preacher) told me so it must be so."

In fact, that's actually a pretty good example. Have you ever thought about how many people would say "I don't believe in evolution" while breeding, or being in the market for, a specific breed of dog or horse or rose or whatever? the REASON there are Beagles and Spaniels and Dalmatians or whatever, is BECAUSE of the forces of evolution - albeit most of those breed differences generated by the direction of human breeders.

What you really mean to say is, "I don't believe evolution explains everything that is attributed to it by many" or some such. Saying "I don't believe in evolution" is just lazy or ignorant. And no, for the record, I myself don't believe that evolution as currently understood can possibly account for the diversity of life we have now but I won't ever get into such a deep discussion on this blog, it was just an example. But do I "believe in evolution"? Oh yeah. Just not in the caricature of evolution most people talk about because they never gave much THOUGHT to what they were saying.

So why am I bringing this train of thought up tonight? Because most people who speak out with an opinion on transsexualism (and homosexuality too, for that matter, but that's not my pony to ride, I already have my hands full) have never given 10 consecutive minutes thought to the subject - what it is or why it occurs or how to deal with it. And far less than that to the implications of the uninformed opinions to which they are so married.

Take for example this article on CBS News on the reaction of one religious lobbying group to the potential vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Let me be clear, I have no problem with one objecting, on the basis of personal freedom, to ENDA. I'm sympathetic to the idea that "It's my business and I'll hire any darn person I want to - or not." BUT, that particular freedom was gone long ago when you lost the right to not hire a black or a Jew or whatever. so if you want to oppose the bill from that angle, THINK about the implications of your position and be intellectually honest enough to tell me you think being forced to give equal consideration to black applicants is also an imposition on your freedom. If you can't or won't make that claim, then you undermine your own position.

Let me go even further here and say that I am not unsympathetic to the idea that we should consider the impact of anything we do as a society on our children. I think it's a mistake to be cavalier about that. So I do not mean, here, to attack the position the group takes out of hand. But that said . . .

The statement released by the Traditional Values Coalition demonstrates exactly the sort of lack of thought about the implications of your stated beliefs that I'm talking about. Even if they happened to hold the right position, they don't have a lot of credibility because their own statements indicate they haven't given much thought to their position. rather, they are mouthing the knee-jerk "traditional" opinion and then flailing for an argument that supports it.

Witness this quote from Executive Director Andrea Lafferty (discussing the group's concern about schools being forced to hire and retain transgender persons as teachers):

"Every state will be forced to recognize transgendered and transsexual individuals as part of a protected class," it said in a statement. "Schools will then be forbidden to reassign any teacher undergoing a so-called sex change because this would be considered 'discrimination.' Thus, children will be trapped in classes taught by men undergoing a so-called sex change to become women and will be taught that it's normal behavior." (Emphasis theirs.)

The bill "protects what is listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a mental illness, Gender Identity Disorder (GID)"

Tell me, dear reader, can you spot the flaw in her logic? No, I'm not talking about the derisive "so called" dig (hardly becoming of a religious group, but not what I'm speaking of), nor am I speaking of the use of "trapped with" as if we are dangerous perverts (though I know there are probably readers of this blog who think just that).

No, that to which I refer is this:

The bill "protects what is listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a mental illness,

One wonder if Ms Lafferty would wish to see those who have clinical depression, for instance, fired from their jobs as teachers, or anything else, because of their mental illness. Is it the position of the TVC that ALL mental illness is a disqualifying factor for employment protection?

Mind you, I'm not speaking here of a person who cannot preform the duties of their job, or engages in misconduct because of their illness such that the employee has to let them go, I mean simply the existence of and treatment for the condition.

You see, Ms Lafferty has painted herself into a rhetorical corner. In the first place, she defines her opposition to the employment of transsexuals as teachers a being rooted in our "mental illness." Okay, fine, let's say she's right and we are required by the DSM to discuss this as a mental illness.

What that means then, by direct logical implication, is that what we have is a CONDITION that is not of our making or in our control. there goes all your knee-jerk remarks about perversion, or "lifestyle choices." Once you concede that you are dealing with a non-elective condition, rather than a choice, then you MUST, if you are intellectually honest, consider our situation in the same manner as you would any other mental illness. you are therefore required to argue that ALL mental illness disqualifies one from employment protection, or you must admit that, like all other mental illnesses, the transgendered can only be terminated for cause (i.e the condition causes conduct which is inconsistant with the goals of the employer such as a kleptomaniac stealing from the company).

Now, one can argue that transitioning in front of a school full of other people's kids IS a just cause. I disagree as I will explain below, but that's not the point. the point is if you want to argue that they should be fired for cause, that is NOT the same as arguing they should not enjoy protection simply because they are mentally ill.

Now, while its not the point of this column (really, the article cited was just a nice illustration of the point I wanted to make) since I am transsexual and since I do hold (for a few more months) a Mississippi Teacher's License, I can't resist weighing in on the point at hand.

Let me lift another quote from Ms Lafferty:

Thus, children will be trapped in classes taught by men undergoing a so-called sex change to become women and will be taught that it's normal behavior."

There are two things wrong with this statement, one self evidently sloppy, and the other a matter of differing opinion.

On the former: in this same statement Lafferty points out that this is, in her position, a mental illness. Nothing about requiring employers to not terminate a person simply on the basis that they have and are being treated for a mental illness involves implying that this is "normal." It is not "normal" to be bi-polar, or have clinical depression, or anything else that is in the DSM (else it wouldn't be there) nor is it "normal" to be treated for it. It's not "normal" by the way to have cancer or be a paraplegic. "Normal" is an irrelevant word here.

Of course, Ms Laffery doesn't really mean "normal" what she means is "right." But since she resorted to pointing out it is a mental illness, her rhetoric prevents her from then citing morality (since it can hardly be immoral to have a non-elective and diagnosable condition any more than it could be said to be immoral to be bipolar or have heart disease).

But the words she chose to use are there, and being "normal" is not a qualification for getting or retaining employment anywhere in this country. The question is, does your abnormality interfere with your ability to do the job. If the law passes and the prediction that transsexual teachers remain in the classroom comes to pass - and I agree it will, I have some online friends who are teachers and HAVE transitioned on the job (in states where we are already protected by law) and, by all accounts, have not irreparably traumatized any children- the fact that this happens will say nothing to the children about the "normalacy" of being transsexual.

It will, however, say something about showing human decency and respect to people who are not like yourself, even those which make you uncomfortable, so long as their actions do you no harm. I should think that's a lesson worthy of teaching anyone's child.

And that is why, in the end, there's more to be gained from the passage of this law as it applies to teachers than possibly anywhere else. You see, your children and grandchildren don't live in a convent, they live in a messed up world with messed up people. If you lived in this town, or most any other of any size, your 9 year old son or 7 year old daughter has a considerable likelyhood of running across someone like me in your local Wal-Mart. They very possibly have a lesbian aunt or a gay cousin. Do you really think your child can go through life without knowing about people like me?

If not, don't they need to know at some point what to think about us? Tell the truth, if you are one of those who believes I'm mentally ill, or a pervert, are YOU going to sit your child down one day and introduce the subject to them on your own initiative and explain to them that there are crazy men in the world who think they are women? if you said yes, chances are you will lie about other things too. The only way your kid gets to know what you think about all this is if your pastor happens to make a passing reference from the pulpit some Sunday (which many are loath to do) or if they actually have occasion in their life to have to encounter one of us.

The fact is, if your child is sitting in my history class one August and they find out that female teacher was "once a man" then that gives you, if you are an active and involved parent, a golden opportunity to share your values with your child. You can explain whatever you view of how I got this way is, and you can discuss the reality that the child lives in a world where God's rules (as you see them) are not always followed and what the Christian reaction to such people should be (love them, pray for them, that IS what you were thinking, right?).

For those of you who are not so judgmental, it's still a good thing for your kids to learn WHY people like me are the way they are, rather than just listening to some ill-informed idiot telling them we are just perverts. The appearance of a transsexual teacher in your child's classroom provides a wonderful teaching moment where everyone can learn more about the subject itself (because who knows, it might be their own brother or sister who's the next TS they meet) but more importantly, about displaying respect and human decency to all people while we have to share this world with each other.

In my not so humble opinion, if you don't want your kids to learn about being decent to other people, even when you disagree with them, you have a lot bigger problem than them being exposed to some icky transgender person.

Lastly, before you start telling me about the dangers to your children represented by a transsexual teacher, I invite you to cite me a case of such students being materially harmed emotionally or otherwise by having such a teacher. Since such teachers DO exist, surely there's an example of some kid turning gay, or setting a cat on fire, or something because of their confusion about their teacher, right? Let's see the evidence. And be sure, by the way, to demonstrate no other kids ever turned gay or burned a cat too, just so we know you have a valid case.

My contention is, that just like Ms Lafferty engaged in sloppy logic and inconsistent reasoning in constructing her statement, even so the entire assumption that a transsexual teacher somehow harms her students is nothing more than an emotional knee-jerk claim, rather than the product of reasoning and sound logic.

Do you, gentle reader, know WHY you believe what you believe? About ANYTHING? Or do you wait for sloppy minds like Ms Lafferty's to tell you how to think?

Sacrafice

2010-04-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Well. Here we are.

If you are local and see me out from time to time, you will probably be (more) confused by what you see in the coming weeks. For almost six months now I have, as much as it's within the limits of my physical form, been presenting myself to the world as a female full time. I consider myself to be a woman and ask those who deal with me to accept me on that basis. I understand this can sometimes be awkward but that comes with the territory.
I took it as an obligation, for the sake of consistency and credibility, that I had my hair and makeup done well, my outfit was coordinated, I had a bra properly padded, and so forth. Not that there are not a great many genetic girls who think little or nothing of going to town without makeup or whatever, some of them without a bra I guess. But they don't have years of testosterone to compensate for and I do.

It seemed to me that if I was going to ask the world to take "Laura" seriously, it was my obligation to be serious and consistant about the presentation. It was and is a source of some frustration at home that I would not willingly "run to the store" without making sure my presentation was consistent, but I think a lot of my credibility depends on that.

Sadly, now, I'm in a situation where I probably will be giving back whatever credibility I may have gained, but it can't be helped. Beginning today, and continuing for potentially as many as three years, you won't see most of that stuff. There will possibly be the occasional exception, and certainly what you see won't be very masculine (if I can help it!) but it won't be fully female either, unless circumstances at home permit.

But if this must be done, it will not be done without my explaining what has led to this unfortunate (in my opinion) circumstance. I have little regard for what people think of me, but I do have considerable concern for the message I send about my brothers and sisters who are struggling as I am with this condition. That being the case, I want to be crystal clear about why I do what I do and if that requires me to "talk out of school" a bit you'll have to forgive me. I don't see a way around it and if I have to do this I'm determined to speak my peace.

First - background and reasoning:

It is a fact that in terms of my own personal inner feelings, the last six months has been a string of absolutely unbroken joy, save for one major factor. Oh sure, there are a couple of things I'd like to have had happen differently - I'd like to have heard fewer (or no) "sirs", I'd like to have not gotten the bum's rush out of that one ladies room, I'd like it if my dad had a different attitude but none of these were unexpected and none of them really disturbed my joy much at all. On the other hand, I've had so much happen that thrilled my soul that words fail to express it.

But that one thing, happens to be a very important thing. The simple fact of the matter is this - my wife cannot and will not accept me as a woman. In all this time there's been no sign of progress or growth, or a willingness to grow, towards some sort of tolerance. the knee-jerk solution is to just split up, but as much as some people would like to see her put my crazy ass out, the reality is that she's not ready, practically or emotionally, to be without me. As much as I'd love to preserve the relationship, I have to honestly say that if she's not going to love me (not necessarily sexually or romantically, but more than "friendship" too) as a woman, than I really wish she was. She's an amazing woman and she deserves a man to be a man to her and treat her right.

But she insists she doesn't want that and it's apparent to anyone who looks she's not ready to be a single parent either. In fact, the emotional blow might be so severe that it goes beyond not "making the trains run on time." And as if that wasn't enough, such a breakdown would obviously have a drastic impact on our kids.

Now, do I THINK this would happen? No. My opinion is that if she threw me out or I left it would be very hard for a short while, as any divorce is for the injured party, and she would recover, find a (hopefully) good man and have a much better life. But I don't KNOW that it would work out that way and the cost of being wrong is far too high for me to be comfortable with.

So here I am - I can't in good conscious just leave, and I can't make the kids live with the conflict that arises from trying to force her to accept me as a woman.

So beginning today, I'm packing away the dangly earrings and the skirts and the bras - for now. I won't lie, it feels like cutting off a leg. I will have to go out and ask for a job as "him" and the thought of that kills me. I'll have to see the same people who've seen me try to transition every day for six months and they will naturally think "what the hell is up with this guy?" (and I can't stop and explain my very practical reasons to each of them). But it's the price that must be paid.

One can argue, I assume, that I should have simply waited until the kids were grown in the first place, that I went too fast or shouldn't have done it in my hometown or whatever. Okay, fine, argue whatever you want on those points. It's not like there's a rule book for this sort of thing. If I'm guilty of anything, it's that I assumed that all the pablum about "love conquers all" was true. Well excuse me for busting up your fairy tales but it doesn't. There are, in my experience (and a lot of other people's too, if we are honest) situations in which it simply doesn't. I believed that, as hard as it would be, in the end she would love me enough that we'd get through it. Maybe I assumed too much.

But then, to be clear, we still might. As I write this she offers that it may well be that if I go back and take the transition more slowly, perhaps we can find our way through this. It would certainly be the best outcome as far as I'm concerned. But even should that happy outcome ensue, I still believe that for all the pain and anguish, I did it right to this point, and I'll tell you why.

There are two reasons - first, one of the things she said about this is that before I went full time, she "didn't take it seriously" that I ever would. whatever drama has resulted, this much we everyone now knows - I am serious. If I had continued to "take it slow" there would never have been the occasion to "move the question" so that she and I could see where she would come down on the point.
Secondly, a slow gradual transition that takes years to accomplish (I did in fact move gradually to prepare for going full time and took 14 months to get to that point) provokes much confusion, speculation, and gossip among the public. As I said before, I care little for what people think of me but in this community, I'm the most visible (but not the only, chew on that) representative of the phenomena of trannsexualism. It IS important to me be try to present as "clean" an understanding of what is involved as possible. It is in fact the driving motivation behind the existence of this blog.
Whatever might be lost because I "dial back," at least in the coming days if I'm wearing women's jeans or whatever, there won't be any confusion about why. I know for a fact that during the year before I went full time, there were those who passed their time speculating what it meant that, for instance, I was shaving my legs. That sort of speculation would have only increased if there hadn't been a "coming out" effected by going full time.

So even though it might not have gone smoothly at home, I don't think I need to apologize for the fact that I went full time when I did, it was a necessary obstacle to overcome.

Second - clearing up confusion:

As much as some folks out there would love to gloat and claim victory, as much as some people would like to say I'm simply crazy as hell and don't know what I want, as much as some people would love to say that this just proves that all people who claim to be trans are simply mentally unstable people who go around making a spectacle of themselves for no good reason - I reject all that nonsense.

What I do here I do specifically for the purpose of protecting the welfare of three people I love more than anyone else. I do it temporarily (it can't be short enough to make me happy but it will under no circumstance be longer than three years since that is when my youngest son is on his way to being 17). I specifically declare and insist that this says NOTHING about how I identify myself, or what I believe myself to be, or what my future is. This is, at worst, the price which must be paid for taking 25 years to accept myself.

But be very clear, whether you like it or not or approve or not, I am LAURA, I am NOT Gerry in my heart and soul. Don't make the mistake of assuming I suffer any confusion on that point. What I do to spare the feelings of those I love doesn't constitute an admission on that point that I was wrong or unclear.

Oh, and by the way, those of you who couldn't have anything to do with me when I had a bra or makeup on? Don't come around trying to "reward me for good behavior" now. I have an obligation to bend, for now, in order to try to create a happy outcome for the woman I love (whether that's with me or without) but I have no such obligation to anyone else. If you don't like, approve of, or feel comfortable with Laura, then you don't feel comfortable with ME, there is no one else here.

Hopefully, this too shall pass, and pass quickly) and I can go back to making progress, for there are many many miles left on this road. In the mean time, I'm sorry for the appearance of confusion and I'm very grateful for the support of those who've shown there love to me in the past few months.

I will continue to write about my journey here, for this too is a part of it, and hopefully I'll say something that matters.

The Sound of Change

2010-03-27T22:54:00.000-06:00

You know, in all this discussion of interactions with people and events, I hardly ever seem to have touched on the actual practical realities of this transition. The things about yourself that you want to change, or the things which need to change in order to feel comfortable feminine, or even the things which change without you actively even trying to change them just as a function of "taking off the mask."

One thing I have discovered about myself was I had clung to the mask so very tightly for so long that there are a lot of behaviors and patterns of thoughts and speech and such that become so ingrained that you find them jarring when you realize what you are doing. Often things that people don't even notice as they go through life. For example, I've discovered that a woman, when referring to a generic unknown person usually says "she" and a man says "he." When I was training my census people I noticed this. If I refereed back to something the production person who came before us (we were QC) did, I'd catch myself saying "he probably did..." and I noticed that the women inevitably said "she probably..."

Another example is the tendency to have difficulty accepting compliments. As much as I LOVE it when another girl brags on my nails or earrings, I never know how to respond. I'm not used to having the door held, or having a man offering to carry something for me. Most of all, I'm learning to control my urge to be right all the time. But all these are things that can pretty easily be adjusted to and in time you get used to it. I am certain of this much: I covet that role. I've heard other transwomen speak of "losing the male privilege" or being condescended to because they are now women, and I don't want to offend any of them, or any of my GG friends, but that sort of thing is big time affirmation to me. I long to be treated as a woman both in the ways that are positive and in that which is generally seen as negative. Probably if I'd spent 40 years living with that I'd feel differently.

Of course, there's also the very practical stuff. When I go through the world presenting a female identity (and when I don't speak, as much as it might shock some of you, I get away with that almost all the time - outside of my home area- as far as I can tell) there are certain things which become an issue. For instance, I can hardly use the men's room (nor would I want to) and yet if I am clocked in the ladies room, there's the potential for serious drama. I have no wish to be the source of drama or discomfort and go out of my way to be subtle but if it happens, it's humiliating (so far only once).

Another big beef I have is with the person in a service industry job who clocks you and can't get their honorifics right. Understand, if I disgust you and you can't be moved to use "ma'am" I can certainly respect that (to be sure, it makes my day when it does happen). But if I'm standing there in full makeup and a skirt and holding my purse, it's safe for you to assume it's bad form to call me "sir." I find that when this happens, it's almost always here in town here people know me or at least know about me. Still, after all this time I think people have had time to get up to speed. At this point I'm thinking that person is trying to make a point, which is not what they are getting paid to do.

But the changes obviously go beyond such social interactions. There is of course a huge slug of physical changes which need making, most of which are prohibitively expensive and all the more so when you have my income history. If I may go off on what is pretty much an unrelated tangent for a bit here, I'll give you a brief overview of what is involved in the physical transition-

I'm too fat, obviously - and I'm working on that one. Laying aside the ridiculous cost of diet friendly groceries, that one isn't cost-impossible. The next biggest thing is the beard. Of a truth I'll tell you that I can't wait to get rid of the facial hair, but that's gonna cost probably a thousand dollars or more. But it's so crucial to passing because the amount of makeup necessary to cover both the shadow and the chronic razor burn on my next is just stupid.

And that's not the end of the hair story. I'm half Wookie I think, and were I blessed with the funds, the laser would visit my back and front as well. I've had great success with the epilator in terms of controling hair growth elsewhere, but there's that big stretch of back I can't reach and if I ever take HRT (more n that later) I'm gonna guess that plucking hair from growing breasts is gonna be . . . a bad idea.

Probably the biggest factor is hormones. I'm not taking them now - pretty much entierly out of respect to my wife's opinion (not to imply that I'd lightly regard the loss of certain functions as long as I'm in a relationship but one must accept that this comes with the territory). but they are the pivotal players in transition. Most everyone knows that taking hormones and anti-androgens have the potential to produce breast growth (if one is lucky/blessed) and potentially change the fat distribution pattern, as well as causing the decline in size and functionality of . . . other things.

But it does some other things as well. It shifts the fat deposits on the face, feminizing the facial appearance some, it can decrease the amount and distribution of body hair (sadly, no effect on the beard) and it apparently has considerable influence on one's emotional connection to the world around them. A friend of mine said she was stunned at how much more of a "feeler" she became, fawning over babies and puppies and crying over love stories. As a person who's usually been a pretty stoic type, emotionally, I find that fascinating. It will get me in trouble for saying so I suppose, but I seriously covet that sort of transformation. I really don't enjoy being so "cold" emotionally.

Eventually, depending on what the overall plan for physical transition is, a M2F transsexual can have an orchidectomy (removal of the testicles) which allows them to stop the AAs and lower the dose of E both of which are considerably kinder to the liver (assuming you were taking those meds orally - there are injectables and patches but they are notably more expensive). The cost of this procedure isn't so much (compared to other sorts of surgery transsexuals undergo) and isn't unrealistic to look forward to.

Beyond that of course there's many other things. Breast augmentation for those who don't develop properly (mostly a function of genetics and age) isn't cheap, but isn't insane. Facial feminization surgery is growing in popularity and seems to work wonders, but is more costly. Obviously, the actual SRS would be the ultimate goal - a procedure which averages in the range of $20K not counting the lost income while recuperating and the cost of travel and lodging and so forth. I despair of ever having that kind of money to spare.

But there's something else - something which hormones have no effect on and surgery is not reliably effective and is somewhat dangerous.

The Voice.

It's the voice which ties the physical transition back into the original subject of how one interacts with the world around her.

I've made considerable effort to soften my voice and speak in a "gentler" pitch and cadence but, damnit, I still have an unmistakeably male voice. There's nothing else a transwoman has to put more effort into (in general terms - there are always exceptions) than their voice. I got a rude awakening on that point when I found out I had to call the members of my crew before training started and confirm the date. invariably they found themselves saying "yes sir" even after I'd identified myself as Laura. To their great credit, they were almost flawless in treating me as female while we worked together but I can't forget how impossible I found it to sound female on the phone. I record myself practicing and I can tell a dramatic difference from my "old" voice to what I use most of the time now but it's like having covered the first five miles of a walk from here to Dallas.

This presents an interesting dilemma. There's a very real possibility that during the next census operation I'll be a part of, I'll have to call people on the phone first to try to connect with them for a follow up interview. There is no way I can do that job credibly as Laura, with my voice. Yet I cannot in good conscience be so stubborn as to decline the job and lose all source of income. This situation, along with some discussions on the home front, forces me to consider the possibility I'll have to revert to a presentation that is not fully female in order to do that job. A thought which I find repugnant, but seems unavoidable.

But I'll put a pin in that thought for now, it's too big a subject to get into in an already long post.

To get back to the opening point, every interaction goes under the microscope when you are transitioning. So often something will happen or be said which, if you were known to all around you as a "real" female would be a matter of the utmost routine, but when you are like me - there's a bit of an awkwardness to it. Not that I find myself uncomfortable in the feminine role, quite the contrary. The awkward feeling arises from my inability to be certain those around me are likewise comfortable with me as "one of the girls." Probably the thing I thank God for most in this experience is the wonderful women I have become friends with who HAVE boldly accepted me as "one of them" and never fail to make me feel accepted and loved in that role. Words can't express how much that means to me.

Some of these friends have advised me - correctly of course - to "relax and be myself" and to be confidently female, and while I know intellectually that this is true, I still find myself afraid to fully step out on that limb. Perhaps I am being overly sensitive to the impressions and reactions of others, which would be ironic given that I came out with considerable boldness for such a small town. But there seems to be a disconnect which I think goes back to my disinclination to be a source of drama. I have a lot of work to do in accepting the possibility that the people around me really do accept me as a woman rather than just hiding their discomfort behind a mask of civility and politeness.

I long for the day when I can have the peace of mind that comes from not even doubting that those around me have no doubt that I am a female. I think that might be the actual capstone of transition - the first day you go about your business with neither you nor anyone else finding it remarkable that you are a woman.

To get there, though, I have to conquer the Voice.

Shaking off this mortal coil

2010-03-20T22:59:00.000-06:00

My nephew's death has got me thinking, not for the first time, about how someone in my position should, could, or will be "laid to rest." Not that I am making any such plans. The days in which I would have taken my own life are long in the past and if they come again, none of you will have seen me in a long time or will have any idea where I went and what became of me. I have no active intent in this regard.

But I definitely have a situation which is just as much a "no win situation" in the event of my death as in life.

You see, if I were directing the events which followed my death, they would be 180 degrees opposite how I am certain it would play out if my loved ones had to bury me tomorrow.

So I'm going to take an opportunity here to describe just how I'd do it, so that it cannot be said I never told anyone. You are surely asking whether or not I've told my wife these things. I've mentioned a few of them in passing but there's little point in giving instructions I know full well she couldn't bring herself to follow, and would upset her to hear me request. That's not to say she won't read this - I assume she will. But there's a difference in having an open discussion of my thoughts and imposing upon her the burden of me specifically asking for these things to be done. I see no point in adding to the burden she already carries because of me. So this is not a round about way of creating that pressure - I acknowledge that it is a given that if she is the one who sees to my final arrangements, pretty much none of this will happen.

Since I'm not going to be there, who am I to protest?

So, here it is. It's actually pretty simple. I would wish to be memorialized (if I am at all) as Laura, rather than as my former male identity. This wish would be the more stronger the longer I have lived my life in this role. not so strong now, but very intensely if I have been transitioned many years or even decades.

I would ask that if anyone has occasion to speak, that the acknowledge freely that I have traveled this road and that not everyone agrees or approves but that I did so with a sincere desire to understand and accept my place in this world and with a humble understanding that I screwed up more than I got right - and that not just a matter of gender.

Further, though, I would hope that such a eulogy NOT take place at a traditional funeral. It would be my will that my body be donated to science - ideally to research concerning the brain science of gender issues first and the rest as practical. I would prefer not to have a"funeral" at all (or a casket, a plot, a stone, etc). Rather, I would hold a wake or some other such informal event in which those who love my wife and kids and the few others who would grieve my passing could express that love for them. It's my opinion that such an event might set a record for low attendance, but I would definitely hope there was an opportunity for those handful of folks to support each other.

I'd hope for a few songs - which I won't bother to list here - which would speak from my heart be played, and that only those who could sincerely say they loved me without judgment (despite my flaws) raise their voice to speak. I'd also hope that those who let their bigotry stand in the way of loving my family, whatever they thought of me, kindly consider this their invitation to fuck off. If I had my way, they would not pollute the day with any falsely professed sentiments.

Mind you, in none of this am I setting out expectations that those who sincerely feel I am in the wrong should change that view just because I died - merely that they put things in perspective, just as if they believed divorce was wrong but would still love their divorce friend or brother just as sincerely in spite of that view. I'm aware of a lot of my acquaintances professing that this is their position - but I'm also aware that in many cases their words and actions belie the claim.

Above all else, whether in my life or my death, I ask only sincerity and kindness. Do not fake a concern you do not feel, and be kind regardless of your judgments. Especially when it comes to those in my household who have no fault and no control over this situation. When the day comes that I move on to find out once and for all what God thinks of me, I hope a few folks will be mature enough not to act out their feelings of superiority in the sight of those few who do mourn me.

Now, over against that, what do I think WILL happen - or would if I were to pass in the near future?

My hair would be cut and died, I'd be dressed in a suit and buried (and by this incur debt on my survivors) in the traditional manner, with the traditional song & dance pretense of sadness by a lot of people who really don't care (and thus mock the pain of the few who really do) and everyone would studiously pretend I'd never shamed myself with any nonsense about being a woman.

They would remember me as they wished I had been, rather than as I was. Or, more charitably, as I had pretended to be. which, I suppose, there's no great harm in. After all, funerals are really for those left alive more than they are for those who have passed. if it makes those who matter feel better to cling to the illusion, I suppose I shouldn't worry about it.

Complexities

2010-03-18T22:34:00.000-06:00

On a message board I visit regularly, a thread was posted discussing the "things you didn't think about before you transitioned." There were a lot of good replies, about things big and small. One thing that occurred to me lately is not answering the phone in the ladies room, because if you hear my voice without seeing me I'm "outed" and that's not where that needs to happen. There are probably a thousand of those little considerations that you just can't see coming until you get in the middle of the situation.

But the reason that question is on my mind right now is something a bit bigger and more complex. Those of you who know me in real life know that we had a death in the family this week. My brother-in-law's son shot and killed himself Tuesday night. For someone in what is still, in many ways, in the early days of transition, that presents a complex situation.

Let me be clear up front, I do not consider my situation to be the center of the universe and thus everyone else has to put up with whatever results from it. I do think I'm within my rights to expect to be taken seriously and to not have it dismissed as trivial, but I do not mean my observations here to come off as complaints.

That said, the occasion for this train of thought is how to reconcile my right to be myself and express my identity with the fact that a funeral is the most delicate and emotionally raw of all situations. I have chosen to give up some aspects of my presentation in order to respect the sensitivities of the family (and, to their great credit, there's been no backstream messages telling me I needed to do so) and I can live with that. But it does make me wonder, what happens when I'm well into transitions and no longer even own any male clothing? When I'm physically past the point of a male presentation? where is that line in which I have "crossed over" so that those around me, regardless of their level of approval, take it as a given I'll show up in a skirt and heels instead of a jacket and tie? And when that day comes will I be "disinvited" rather than sully the event?

As an aside, I suppose I should be offended if that were to happen but I don't think I would be. I really am not interested in forcing you to accommodate me in your personal space if it can be avoided.

Thankfully, this one is made more easy by the fact that the family insisted everyone wear jeans - but it's not really this one I'm thinking of, so much as the future.

Not, of course, that I have a firm grip on the future anyway. I know that ultimately this transition will be completed (insofar as money allows) or I'll die before I get the chance (which, by the way, I could write a whole other post - and probably will - about what happens to this shell when I do pass on) - but what sort of reversals, delays, and consequences appear along that road I cannot now predict. Certainly it might never happen to occur that some loved one passes and I'm in a position of not being able to present a credibly male image. But it might.

This world turns out to be a damned messy place. And if it's anything we've learned in my household in the last year, it's that many situations don't have a "good answer" - only a less bad one.

Getting It Right

2010-03-07T22:23:00.001-06:00

A lot of times, I think, some people wonder just what it is people like me want. What do we expect will happen? How are they supposed to act? I don't just mean here those who disapprove, it's just as true of those who WANT to be good to you or even supportive but just simply have no experience with what is obviously a potentially awkward situation.

Well, let me take a moment here this evening to sing the praises of a group of folks who, with very few exceptions, have gotten it exactly right.

As some of you may know, I am again this year in the employ (temporarily) of the U.S. Census Bureau. When the clerk called to confirm my interest and extend an invention to work this year I informed her of my status and she assured me that it wouldn't be an issue. Several days later my future boss called and he I again put my cards on the table and his reply was "if anyone has a problem with you, they have a problem with me" and his boss confirmed that position.

Still, I was a bit nervous. After all, I was potentially going to be a crew leader and the effectiveness of up to a dozen people was going to depend not only on my ability to do my job but on the comfort level we would share. During the CL training it was a relatively small group and most of them people I wouldn't be directly working with after the training, but gradually as I began to have interactions with the office staff I found more and better than I expected.

Look, I understand that the law requires a government agency to extend equal rights to me. I understand there are very specific policies which would apply if anyone overtly harassed me or whatever but - that's not what was happening here. I also can discern the difference between thinly veiled contempt lurking behind a facade of plastic politeness (by "plastic politeness" I mean, for instance, when a store requires a checker to say "how are you?" when everyone knows she isn't interested in how you are) and genuine warmth and acceptance.

The latter is what I experienced among the office staff and it's what I have experienced with my crew. It may seem odd to some of you that I would use this expression and find it remarkable but, in short, they treat me like a lady. They speak of me and react to me and respond to me pretty much EXACTLY like they speak of, react to, and respond to any other female in the room.

Which is a dream come true for me. I don't want to "stand out" - I want to be "one of the girls." when you encounter a person - someone who handles the payroll so you KNOW she knows your secret (even if you tell yourself some folks don't) - in the ladies room and she chats you up about the weather or compliments your earrings or whatever without a bit of apparent discomfort that you are there - that is PRICELESS.

When you are in a car with two other women and a man and someone mentions the possibility of running out of gas - and the man (who is no fool) says "I hope not because I'm the only man in this car and I know who'll be pushing" that's a "make my day" moment.

Yes, there have been a FEW times when I got a "Yes Sir" - 99% of which can be attributed to my HORRID voice (Yes, I know there are women with deep voices but not like THIS) - and one instance when I was calling my crew before I met them (the voice is at it's worst on the phone) in which I was asked flat out if I was a guy. But even that person treats me well, and everyone else - and I am assuming here I don't pass well enough that they are all in the dark - has shown no sign at all that they have noticed anything other than a normal woman just doing her job.

Frankly, it is HEAVEN!

I could say, in passing, that it is a bit bittersweet that complete strangers can deal with this so well while those who love me most struggle, but it is also not anything that should surprise - the strangers never met "him."

But I won't dwell on that tonight. Rather, I want to just rejoice that even in Mississippi, we've come far enough that the things I have described can be true. As much as I know how many out there prattle my name in every other conversation and judge me as anything from a perve to a bad husband to a blackhearted sinner - more and more I realize that maybe there are not so many as I have thought - and when they do gossip and judge, they are not giving me any worse treatment than all sorts of other people with less shocking behavior that they consider themselves better than.

It's a far better situation than it would have been had I accepted myself and transitioned 25 years ago.

Ah, but I digress again. the point of this post is to say, even though none of them may ever read it, that I thank God for the people I work with and the acceptance I have received. It's too bad this is a temporary job.

Lose end

2010-03-03T18:35:00.000-06:00

A tiny follow-up here to the last entry, based on some feedback I've gotten.

Let me be CRYSTAL clear - I said this in the previous post but perhaps not loudly enough - I do NOT intend to imply that she is acting vindictively, or deceitfully, or with any other malicious intent. My comments refereed to the sort of actions that arise from subconscious desires of the sort most of us are generally unaware.

Anyone who read that post as me "airing dirty laundry" and bitching about her on here doesn't understand my intent. I'll admit here, for the record, that if she were making the choice, I'd never say anything at all about her here - so I try to be very aware of the distinction between chronicling my journey and "talking out of school." I don't believe I can tell the whole story without making SOME reference to the people closest to me, but it is my intention to never try to cast those people as villains in this story.

I would not be completely honest if I didn't admit that I am hurt and disappointed when someone who's been important in my life refuses to compromise their prejudices to accept me inspite of my flaws, however large. I would not be telling the whole story if I didn't say that there's a significant gap between how I had hoped she would react and how she actually did react. But that doesn't make her the bad guy and it doesn't mean i am here to tell you how she has failed me or let me down.

Let me be blunt - I KNOW who has failed who here, I KNOW who has come up short of reasonable legitimate expectations. If you ever desire to comment on one of these posts to tell me how sorry i am, save your breath - I get that. All I ever asked is that people understand the true nature of my flaws instead of imposing their preconceived ideas upon my life. I tell you again as I have before - the odds are you haven't spent 10 consecutive minutes in your whole life thinking about the nature of transsexualism, and the implications thereof (like how it fits in with being a Christian) - meanwhile I've spent almost my whole life processing the subject from every possible angle and - far from trying to justify it - spent the great majority of that time clinging desperately to the idea that it was and is nothing but sin that I could be delivered from.

With all due respect, it is astoundingly arrogant for one who has given no significant thought to a subject to presume to lecture someone who has made it their life's work. You might just as well be a ditch digger and presume to lecture Stephen Hawking on Quantum Physics.

In any case, I digress. the point of this post is to re-emphasize that you won't see me write in this space to give you the blow by blow of how hatefully my wife has treated me. Even should I ever come to conclude that she has I will not dishonor her by advertising it. I can't say that of anyone who lives outside my household however, anyone else is fair game. But not her. If you ever think you see that in my writings, you have misunderstood.

Emotional Blackmail

2010-03-01T23:00:00.000-06:00

No long rants this time. In fact, due to my new (temporary) job, I really should be heading for bed right now but I wanted to throw out a rhetorical question. not rhetorical because I wouldn't like an answer, but only because there are only a couple of people who comment on this blog at all. But anyone who reads it is welcome to send me your thoughts on the subject by whatever venue.

The basic idea is this - If I continue forward living "full time" in this identity, I risk the literal mental stability of my spouse and thereby create real issues in terms of my children.

Or at least, that's what I'm supposed to believe.

You see, I'm stuck in this conundrum in which I have suspicions I am uncomfortable with. Not that I am attributing deceptive motives - not at all. But the basic problem is that she so desperately wants "the man back" that I fear she will say or do anything in order to leverage that decision. If I get the impression she might kill herself, or run away, or have a total breakdown - well, if that makes it more likely I will "straighten up" then that's not a bad thing, from her point of view, right? I'm not saying she is aware of this, but rather that on an instinctive level subconsciously, there's blackmail going on which boils down to "if you don't do what I want, I'll make the price you pay more than you can bear.

After all, consider - if she did kill herself or try to because of my actions, there would be not one ounce of sympathy to be found for me on the whole earth. I would be the most hated person any of my acquaintances could imagine. what better retribution could one exact from the person who tore your world apart?

So I'm stuck in a place where I must offer unconditional surrender of all that I believe about myself, live a lie and wear a mask that everyone knows is a mask, in order to avoid emotional devastation to her . . . or I choose to be truly alive and fulfilled in a way I never have before now, and know that by doing so I wreck another person's very existence - and that a person I love beyond words.

I confess that I can see no good outcome here. I do know that if I were to revert to something less than female in my appearance and behavior it would be for a temporary and relatively short period - I will NOT grow old as a man, whatever it takes to keep that from happening. But would I suspend that transition for three years or so while the boys grow up? I just might. But that would come with a loud and defiant statement that I AM Laura and she will NOT be put back in the closet. But I honestly don't know for sure that I can, especially if I see no effort on her part to grow in her tolerance for people like me.

So, the question is this - is it the right thing to do to succumb to such tactics, or to not dignify them by submitting? Honestly I see a good case for both choices. I'm sure that those who think I am wrong would be only too happy to see me surrender, and only too joyful to dance on "her" grave as if they had won the point - that galls me. But at the end of the day I will not decide one way or the other how to deal with this based on the opinions of the judgmental. Laying aside those for whom it is an easy call to tell me to "knock it off" - I find that I'm very convinced of the legitimacy of both competing arguments here. I know of no easy solution to the contradiction.

Folk do love to talk

2010-02-18T22:33:00.000-06:00

Really don't have time to do one of my long winded dissertations this time. I'm back working for the Census and that takes up a lot of my formerly unoccupied time. But for those of you who hang on my every word, I have to throw out a little red meat once in a while, right?

I've gotten a chance to talk to some friends lately that I don't get to see as much as I'd like (although at least I know they are still my friends now but I digress) and we talked, as friends are wont to do, about various and sundry things. The interesting thing is just how interesting I've apparently become. Over time I eventually become aware of things that I might not have known about from my own observations (like the folks who have a big laugh about me after I leave their store) and for the most part, I shrug it off. As I've said before, I had no illusions about what my social status would be once I came out, and I'm always more surprised when someone is kind to me than I am when someone is hateful. Still, there's a certain ironic pleasure in knowing about the hypocrisy of those who feign kindness to your face and mock you behind your back.

But more amusing than that is the simple fact that some folks apparently can't get enough of me, or at least of talking about me. If I'm to believe what I hear, there's apparently little else to talk about in this town but the Tranny in our midst. Either that, or there are some folks with such empty lives that they have to cling to the occupation of dwelling on the lives of others like some pathetic hanger-on wondering where Paris Hilton is getting her hair done these days.

I mean seriously, I've been doing this out loud for almost four months now, does it really take four months to express how much you disapprove? Or do you simply have nothing else in your life as interesting as me? Here's a thought for you - MAYBE the person you are rattling on about my makeup and skirt to is as sick of hearing you go on about it as they are of me. Just maybe.

The wonderful arrogance of some folks is that they are so sure they are right it never occurs to them anyone else would disagree. Or at least, if they have any sense they won't.

What's worse than that is the breathtaking conceit it takes to address a subject you've never spent five consecutive minutes in your life seriously pondering and appoint yourself an expert on the subject, and the final word of authority on a subject in regards to people who have spent there whole life thinking and pondering and praying and studying about it. How does that add up to anything but naked arrogance?

I don't have to remind you again - but I will because none of you has the guts or the intellectual fortitude to answer the question - how weak it is to proclaim you know God's mind on this subject when you do two things which totally undermine that claim:

First, you cannot all agree on even the core truths of the faith. when all Christian denominations know the mind of God on the particulars of salvation, or baptism, or which Bible you are supposed to be reading, then one of you can step up and give us God's mind on transsexuals;

Second, you happily lay aside other "sins" in order to judge this sin - or don't you think I know how readily you forget how much "God hates divorce" when the alternative is being married to a freak? So much for the old canard about all sins being equal, eh? Or is there some verse that i missed which says "It's ok to divorce your husband if he ever puts on a bra." But then, there would have to been such-a-damn-thing as a bra 2,000 years ago for that to have been there huh?

How is it you appoint yourself my judge when your own house is in such disarray? What you are too blind to see is that you are judging me not because I violate God's word, but because I violate your cultural sensibilities.

Finally, on a slightly different variation of the same subject - the more you folks run your mouth, the more I know who you are. which is GOOD. Don't flatter yourself into believing my feelings are hurt, or that I'm holding a grudge or that I'm mad. I'm not mad - I'm relieved. I'm relieved to have the truth of things out in the open and out from behind the mask of civility. The great thing about coming out is that you come out too - dealing with people like me not only reveals what I am but it reveals - for better or worse - what you are. I've learned that some people (including those who DON'T agree with my position) are very good people at heart. And I've learned . . . well . . . let's just say I've learned some other things, too. That kind of information is valuable. After 40 years of hiding from the world, I've learned to hate masks in all forms. It's every bit as refreshing to see yours come off as it is to take mine off, no matter what's behind it.

One of these days I'll do something with this page besides vent, hopefully. It really does kind of piss me off that udring a period of time when I'm more joyful in my very soul than I ever believed was possible, that I can't just bask in that without having to deal with all the BS. Just because I knew it was coming doesn't mean it's not a pain in the butt.

Shunning

2010-02-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

I assume most of you are familiar with the term, but for those who are not - shunning is the practice, usually by a religious sect, of deliberately avoiding interaction with a deviant member of the community. Ostensibly it is to coerce the person into acceptable behavior, but often in practice it amounts to a form of punishment upon that which the community has judged unacceptable.

Now, to be clear, I can't say that shunning doesn't have a purpose. If you had a repeated child molester in your midst you wouldn't socialize with that person, for just one example. But as with many things of this sort, a grain of logic is often extrapolated to ridiculous lengths.

I'm not bringing this up because I'm worried for my own sake. I expected a measure of it when I came out. The range of reactions I have received has been fascinating to observe, from those who (actually or virtually) hugged my neck and accepted me without reservation, to those who "love me anyway" even though I know they wish I hadn't, to those who tell me to my face they don't judge me but behind my back it's a different story, to those who snicker and smirk when they see me pass by (as if they are superior to the poor freak in their midsts) to those who tell me flat out "you are wrong," they come in all shapes and sizes, including those who can't dirty the soles of their feet to go near me now.

That's ok, all of it. True, I have and will again take issue with the lack of logic or compassion the more negative reactions arise from (trivia time! did you know that the same chapter of the New Testament most often quoted against "sexual sinners", of which I am apparently one in many people's view, ALSO says that on the list of folks God isn't happy with are the "unforgiving" and "unmerciful"? True story!!) I certainly understand the thinking behind it and am prepared to accept the reality that such will come my way. I'm no more qualified to judge you on that score than you are to judge my failings.

But what really pisses me off is those among you who see fit to make my wife pay for my alleged sins.

In case some of you bozos didn't know it - she does NOT approve, endorse, or accept my situation. I hate that this is the case, her love for me is so great that the conflict between her views on this subject and her feelings for me are extremely painful to her and I would love to be able to help her see my point of view. Still, as things stand I sometimes think I'm a threat to her sanity. I believe that her views arise from the same sort of lies we've all been taught on this subject - it's the culture that's all around us and none of us are immune from its influence - but that's neither here nor there.
We are trying desperately to find a way to work through this and preserve the love we have for each other. (And as an aside, you might see some adjustments to my behavior in an effort to make it easier for her - don't think that means I am uncertain or confused, I do anything of that sort I do for her) and I am staggered by how hard it is for both of us.

BUT

You people, and you know who you are, who are punishing her for my screw ups - kindly get the hell over yourself! What kind of person are you to shun an innocent party (a victim, if you think I am wrong) because of the "sins" of another? those of you who called her friend (and would still claim to be) or even kin but can't be kind enough to even speak to her in a public place for fear of somehow being in the presence of the freak...or maybe out of fear your kindness will be seen as approval - are you REALLY that hard hearted? If she ever needed friends and family, she needs you now and where are you? it doesn't take much. No one is asking you to go out of your way, just a smile and a greeting go a long way. Don't worry, I won't mistake your kindness for support. If you wanted to support me you would take the time to say so and if you don't, more power to you - I don't sit home at night wondering why you don't. But she has done nothing to anyone, and yet you shun her. Shame on you.

I thank God for those among her friends who do still interact with her and treat her with kindness, you are a blessing to her - but you are a far too small percentage of the whole, in my opinion.

Another crowd I want to rant at - that lot of you who think you are clever to giggle and smirk and mock the freak in your midst. Don't think I'm missing that or unaware, I know about it. I just chose to not acknowledge it because I don't need your approval. It's human nature that most people instinctively are looking around to see who they are "better than" so they can elevate their own opinion of themselves and if your little ego needs the boost you get from looking down on me, then knock yourselves out.

BUT

Would it trouble you too much to reserve that for when I'm alone? She sees it and it hurts her. As much as you can't comprehend it, as much as you think she should have kicked my ass out (and I don't necessarily disagree) she DOES, somehow, still love me and it pains her to see me/us laughed at openly. If you MUST get your jollies by mocking me (and again, I personally don't care if you do) then do HER, not me, the slight favor of making sure you are well out of view and hearing before you do. After all, if you really are so much better than me, then surely a little human kindness is within your sterling character, right?

Otherwise, I'd be forced to conclude you are just as screwed up as I am - just in a less obvious way.

Still Here

2010-02-06T02:34:00.000-06:00

Just a short note - assuming it's within my abilities to write anything in a short form - to say I haven't forgotten this blog or abandoned it. It's just been one of those weeks in which anything I would write would be heavy and emotional and too much of what I have posted here has been in that vein. I fear I would only be repeating myself (not that I haven't before).

My spouse and I have a huge job in front of us working out where we go from here. The basics being that I'm not sure I can live as the man she fell in love with, and she's certain she can't live with the woman I am now - and yet neither of us has any desire to be apart.

The reality is though, that one of these things must happen. Right now, I can't begin to predict which.

All I'll say on it for now is that any changes you might see in the near future are on a trial basis. If you know her and you wonder how it is she is "putting up with this" - then be advised she doesn't approve, doesn't support, and wants no part of Laura. It's only her deep love that has allowed her to endure this far, but it's fairly described as a trial period. If we separate for a while, that too, will be a trial. I'm of the opinion that to do anything more dramatic would be a rash move. If (as hard as it is for me to even admit this as a possibility) you see me out and about without the usual female adornments - that too would be a trial.

It would be a grievous mistake for you to assume I was in any doubt about who and what I am and the path I have chosen. If I were to submit myself to such a trial it would ONLY be an outgrowth of being unable to cause her the pain I am causing anymore. but it would most defiantly be abject surrender, not changing my mind. Not sure what it would do to my sanity though (assuming you think I have any left).

Anyway, the upshot is that if I were to say too much here, I'd go into a dark miserable whine which would not be productive. No one said this would be easy.

Find Out Who Your Friends Are

2010-01-23T23:56:00.000-06:00

Everybody wants to slap your back
wants to shake your hand
when you're up on top of that mountain
But let one of those rocks give way then you slide back down look up
and see who's around then

This ain't where the road comes to an end
This ain't where the bandwagon stops
This is just one of those times when
A lot of folks jump off

When the water's high
When the weather's not so fair
When the well runs dry
Who's gonna be there?

You find out who your friends are

Going through something like this naturally brings one into a lot of unusual situations, but what's not unusual about it is that it can let you see a side of a lot of folks you might never have otherwise seen. Including yourself.

Looking inward, I find that the possibility of a future alone is very painful to contemplate and something which is, so I am told, very easy to avoid. All I have to do is deny myself and behave as others expect me to - which certainly applies an appropriate amount of gravity to the decision. You really learn what you are made of when you are given the choice to submit or suffer for your integrity. Most of us wonder at some point in time "what would I do if I had to make such a choice?" I fear that soon I'll find out.

But that's not what this one is about - this is about looking outward.

One of the joys of this difficult journey has been a few new friends I have acquired, and some old friends I have re-connected with in a much deeper way. There are about ten people out there who have gone beyond being accepting (which is all I ask of anyone) to being actively affirming and supportive. That's not to say that they are taking some stand on the "rightness" of transsexualism, I'll leave that for them to speak for themselves. It's just that they understand that "love thy neighbor" actually means something. They are people who understand that such things are not done on a whim and that people don't chose to be what I am. I won't repeat here any of the kind things they have said as that would seem self serving, but I treasure their kindness.

Many others have of course been very kind and gracious, whatever their private thoughts and opinions might or might not have been. I definitely do not want to seem to be overlooking them. This situation would have been much harder without you people.

But I really really want to say that wherever the road takes me, I'll have infinitely more strength for the journey because of those - the cream of the crop - who encouraged me to stay strong.

Of course, while I really don't want to go negative on this post, I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't acknowledge that there are those out there who once called me friend who consider it bad news that anyone would encourage me in my "perversion."

It's just as much a bracing and ultimately strengthening revelation to find out who your friends AREN'T. People who can't bring themselves to consider the possibility that their cultural prejudices (usually disguised in the robes of religion) could possibly be in error even when faced with a messy fallen world that doesn't fall into their neat categories.

Consider this - every one of you, of whatever denomination, know that there is something in your belief system that those in another denomination believe differently about. If you are a Baptist, for instance, you are firmly convinced that salvation once gained cannot be lost - but others sincerely and just as fervently disagree. But here's the thing about that - ONE OF YOU MUST BE WRONG. And yet both of you believe they are right in all sincerity and good faith.

What's the point? The point is a sincerely and fervently held point of view, taught by a serious and credible religious organization as a true understanding of God's word for hundreds of years CAN BE WRONG.

It's not for me to say who's right and wrong on that point of disagreement, or any other. But what I AM trying to say is that while you sit there reading this and grumbling to yourself about my perversion, are you willing to even consider for the briefest second that what you have always believed is wrong? Honestly, for most of you I sincerely doubt it.

What's funny (not funny ha-ha, funny strange) is what happens when two of these absolutes come into conflict. I'll wager that a lot of you folks who think I'm just making some selfish sick choice here for the fun of it (and could I ever write again at length on how insane it is to think anyone would go through 1/10th of this mess for fun but another time for that) and that I am "bound in sin" are also of the opinion that my wife should divorce me post haste.

One wonders what your opinion of divorce normally is. The Bible, after all, is very specific about the grounds for divorce (if you read it in the most rigorous interpretation as you have to in order to judge me) and I nave neither abandoned or committed adultery on my wife. But of course, those who are very strict about divorce will have no trouble contorting what they believe about THAT in order to give her leave, nay encouragement, to seek divorce - yet there will be no contouring to show compassion to a person who doesn't fit into the approved mold.

One wonders if they would be encouraging her to divorce me if I was schizophrenic or bi-polar or depressed? Can these people be certain that, even if I am doing something "wrong" that it is not a mental illness? does it matter? I don't meet their standards, thus the rules will just have to be fudged a bit in my case.

Now, let me be clear -I absolutely DO think she has the right to divorce me. It would pain me beyond words for her to do so, but I would never suggest she has no right to. She might yet. Hell, I might yet assume the illusion of the man she married because I can't bear to see her in such pain (though she and I and all of you would know it was a hollow man unworthy of respect who shared her home).

So I'm not suggesting these people are wrong who might think she should or advise her to (albeit I'll bet none of them have given a moments thought to the logistics of it) rather, I'm pointing out how very sad it is that the rules about divorce can be compassionately bent in a hard case - but that other, less well laid out and more questionable rules must be held firm even if it means they become a weapon against a person you once professed to call a friend.

As for me, I find it almost invigorating to know where people stand. Rest assured, if you called me friend before and have no compassion for me now, I'm forced to assume you were no more than an acquaintance (at best) and I'm VERY glad to find out where you are when "the well runs dry."

It might be petty of me, but I'll certainly keep that in mind in the future.

Boy, so much for not going negative, eh? Oh well, at least there is this - how amazing is it that the 10 or 12 folks who have REALLY shown God's love and compassion towards me (Yes indeed, each and every one of them is a serious and committed Christian) are almost all people who were casual acquaintances at best until the last couple of months, while some of those who have been quite the opposite are those who've been important in my life for many many years.

It is all the more remarkable, and praiseworthy, that these people - mostly women by the way - stepped up and showed compassion in a situation where it would have been VERY easy to point and laugh and judge and shame. And the fact that there doing so casts an unflattering light on those of you who wish they hadn't is all the more pleasing to me. Maybe the light will illuminate some things that need examination.

Like I said, call me petty. I've been called worse lately I'm sure.

I'm willing to wager that in time I'll have more compassion for those who judge me than they will have for me in return. Eventually. Maybe not quite yet though.

Bring Your "A" Game

2010-01-17T19:02:00.000-06:00

I may put up two posts tonight or I might hold the second one for a few days since I'm always paranoid the casual reader won't scroll down to see if they missed one. I really really wanted to do the other one tonight, because too often what I have to say here is not as upbeat and positive as it might be. It was to be - and will be - a shout out to a handful of women who have made me there "sister" and voiced strong support for me in this journey.

I certainly appreciate all those who have been nice enough to take an "it's not my place to judge" position and been nice to me, but these special ladies have gone above and beyond that, either in directly expressed opinions or in their behavior and I wanted to just take a few paragraphs to brag on them.

But this other thing that's been on my mind this afternoon is a bit less chipper and it seems to me that I'd rather follow with the upbeat than to give the impression that I had a good mood that was spoiled. That said, before I dig in rest assured I'm NOT in a bad mood or depressed or any such thing about this. I understand it's out there and a fact of life and I'm not going to let the negative things rob me of the joy my sisters are giving me but I'm also not going to just let slide an opportunity to address the idea.

What's on my mind is a conversation I had recently with a Christian friend of my acquaintance. To be clear, I am not hurt, resentful, or begrudging towards the views expressed. This person is perfectly entitled to hold those views and to respectfully share them and I don't feel oppressed that they did so. but the conversation does give me a bit of a platform to say something that needs to be said before I move this blog away from so much of this sort of subject matter.

The issue at hand is briefly summarized as this: If you are going to challenge me, attack me, scold me, or "discuss with" me on this subject using the Bible, then my advice to you is to bring your "A" Game.

(Let me acknowledge, as an aside, on the front end that no one ever "wins" an argument when no one changes there mind, and that's even more true of religious debates. So while I'll use terms like winning and losing as I elaborate, do know that I realize that's a pretty empty claim)

Back on the subject - So far my experience in these conversations has gone something like this:

Them: You know the Bible says people like you are going to hell, right?"

Me: "The Bible says all sorts of sins will send you to hell. Is mine the unforgivable sin?"

Them: (ignoring the question) "I just believe (that phrase appears a lot) that it says that people who do what you do can't enter heaven"

Me: "It says the same thing about adulterers, and it says that with certain narrow exceptions those who divorce and remarry commit adultery - how many of your divorced friends have you declared unfit for heaven?"

Them: (ignoring the question) "Well, I just believe..."

etc, etc, etc.

Now, I don't say this to criticize anyone's specific statement but to illustrate a point which is this - I've yet to have a religiously based conversation with a person who thinks this is "wrong" in which logical questions were given reasonable consideration and answered with logical answers.

So far my experience is that people ignore logical questions and say "I believe..." or "The Bible says..." (and the latter almost always what they were told by someone else the Bible said on the subject, not what they themselves gave study to) and the impression that is unmistakable to me is that the speaker hasn't given ANY thoughtful considerations to the implications of the cliches they are parroting. When I have a discussion like that and my good points get no thoughtful answers, I call that a win - even if no one changed there mind.

For instance, one of the things that came up today and in other similar conversations is an exchange that goes like this:

Them: "God made you a man and God doesn't make mistakes."

Me: "do we say, when a child is born with a birth defect, that 'God doesn't make mistakes' and when it is possible to medically treat a defect do we decline that treatment because 'God made them that way and God doesn't make mistakes' or do we do all we can for that child?"

I have never once asked this question of a critic and gotten ANY answer - they just ignore it and press ahead with their beliefs. But it's a question that deserves consideration. IF it is true that how we are born is how God intends us to be, then it is true of EVERY person born. So if little baby is born with a big lump in the middle of it's face and a surgeon can remove it, you should decline - God doesn't make mistakes and that lump is there for his reasons.

Can we not all agree that this is an incredibly stupid point of view?

If it is, then we cannot resort to "God doesn't make mistakes" to argue against this thing.

Furthermore, all Christians would agree that God has the power to stop ANY bad thing from happening, so why doesn't he? He can stop an earthquake like we saw in Hati - shall we say all those people who are injured are hurt because God wanted them that way and we shouldn't treat them? They are going to starve because God doesn't make mistakes and we shouldn't feed them?

Nonsense, of course. We all know that we live in a fallen world and God PERMITS bad things to happen because it's in the bad things that he shows us himself and teaches us how to love each other. So it's not any problem for us to agree that earthquakes and tornadoes and whatever occur because God chooses not to intervene, and if we think just a TINY bit we know that the same applies to cancer or juvenile diabetes or yes, even a birth defect.

So, if God permits a bad thing to happen it is NOT a logical truth that he therefore WANTED the bad thing to happen and since he doesn't make mistakes we must stand aside and do nothing about the results of that bad thing.

To summarize this train of thought - the fact that God doesn't make mistakes (which is true) tells us NOTHING about how he wants us to react to any less-than-perfect event or situation in our lives. that's what free will is all about.

There is a long list of similar cliches that people assume they are basing on the Bible but are, in fact, basing on Christian tradition. Far too few give any serious in-depth thought to the logical implications of those cliches. What I'm saying to you in this post is, if you intend to come after me with the Bible (or so you think) wielding these cliches, then you had best be sure you know WHY you believe them to be true and have reasoned out what it means in your life and everyone else's if those things are true - not just how it proves being a tranny is sinful.

For instance (I do love me some illustrations, don't I?), if you come at me with anything in the Levitical law ("a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman...it is an abomination") then I expect you to assure me you keep a kosher diet and you don't wear garments of mixed fabric. If you are going to tell me that Paul said the "effeminate" are not going to heaven, then I certainly hope that you can assure me that your wife (or you if you are the wife) "keeps silent in the church" and doesn't go with her head uncovered.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

And that's before I get into the whole notion of most of the people who are most hostile to people like me somehow having convinced themselves that god suddenly stopped superintending his word 400 years ago for some unknown reason. I've never heard a REMOTELY logical explanation for why that should be so. That's a whole other kettle of fish but it similarly illustrates the point that people say "I believe" about a whole truckload of things that they never really applied any logical reasoning to - usually as a result of believing what someone else told them.

I won't take time here to rattle on for 10,000 words listing all those various weak arguments - what has gone before serves only to illustrate the point.

The thing I'm trying to say here, on my own behalf, is this - today I asked probably six or eight different questions - logical question which concerned the specific implications of what this person was saying to me - each and every one of those questions was ignored. the next time I have one of those conversations, and every time I do, I will expect answers. If you cannot logically defend what you believe, then what you believe isn't worth my time to listen to.

You want to talk me out of my sin and perversion (falsely so called)? Bring your A Game or don't waste our time. I have EVERY respect for your right to think I'm wrong and for your willingness to tell me so (respectfully) - but I have NO respect for weak argumentation.

Understanding, and the Lack Thereof

2010-01-07T23:49:00.000-06:00

I'll warn you ahead of time, this might be a bit of a rambling and unfocused post. I know what I'm trying to say but I've not taken the time to distill it into a sharply defined thesis.

I've said before in this place that those who have given me, shall we say, negative feedback - have done so almost entirely from the "God would not approve" worldview. Both among a few who have spoken up, and among several more who's opinion I am aware of but with whom I've not spoken directly, the mindset that this is somehow a great sin that I have chosen to do and can chose not to do - or even want to do - prevails.

I often wonder, if that is true, just how they think people get this way. I am not going to deny that I have done some thing that are hard to defend in my life (though I see no need to defend myself on those things) but none of them "infect" a person with being trans. For instance, back in the day I was known to visit a strip joint or two. But since not every man (hardly any in fact) who goes to such places ends up like me, that would be a poor argument. And such would be the failing of any other sin you might lay at my feet and say "because of THIS you are a pervert."

And that doesn't even address the reality that I was sneaking chances to dress up all through my childhood from even before puberty. does the sin you think so harshly of in my 20's or 40's somehow explain that?

But heck, let's lay aside myself and look around. sure you can point to the drag queen or the person of confused sexuality and make your judgments (not that I think those people deserve your judgment either) but what of the others?

The thing that provokes me to post these thoughts is the comments of a friend of mine on a message board I frequent. Whenever someone brings up God or Jesus or Christianity you pain in her posts leaps off the page. She was - in her former life - a hyper-committed Christian who lived and breathed the faith 24/7. She taught, she sang, she witnessed, she studied, she prayed - just as much if not more than you do.

Now? Now she is alienated from God and from those who follow Christ. Why? Because the church has insisted that God hates her. That's she's a freak and a monster. Worse than that, her spouse is so bound up in that point of view that whatever feelings they formerly had are dead. The wife was not free to make her own choices about how she felt about this person she had been married to - she had been trained from childhood to consider such people freaks, even if the freak was a person she once loved.

Tell me, oh ye who would judge: how is it that such a person is transsexual? Where's the red flags in her past that portend a falling away? If this is just some "kink" that we have chosen to indulge ourselves in, whence cometh this woman's fate? She did everything right as far as being a "good Christian man, husband, and father" yet there she is, giving up all that you consider valuable in order to be the butt of jokes, the villian in her loved one's pain, and the outcast among her former "friends." THIS is something a person does by CHOICE?

Another variation of the "sinner" charge has to do with the marriage. Sure, they chose not to argue with you about how you got this way (whatever opinions they might hold) but they are on much firmer ground when it comes to the responsibilities that come with marriage. I'll even admit to some conflicted feelings on that point myself because you'd have been hard pressed to find a person more convinced of the "wrongness" of divorce just a few years ago.

However, shall we not consider what's being asked here? The common requirement is basically "knock it off!" - again, as if this is something you DO and not something you ARE. In fact, without going into indiscreet details, this is pretty much the heart of the issue at home - thanks to her training, my wife simply can't bring herself to accept that this isn't something you DO (and thus something you can STOP). and if her worldview were correct, then she would have every right to require me to not do it.

But it's not something you Do. It's something you are. I tell you three times gentle reader, if you don't get THAT concept right, you can't possibly understand anything else about this subject.

But so many, particularly among my brothers and sisters in Christ, struggle with that. Why? How many documented cases of pre-school children having gender identity issues must we see before we can drop the "sexual perversion" cliche? How many young people raised in "good Christian homes" with well balanced influences on every side must step forward with this condition before we stop insisting that they were molested or abused or whatever.

And please, how many times does it have to be pointed out to you, when you say "God made you a man," that babies are born with mental and physical defects every minute of every hour of every day and when the surgeon says "we can correct this" NO ONE says "no, leave him crippled - it's how God made him." You know, if you have one eye and half sense, that we do not assume that of every defect, every disease, every mental condition - that which we CAN treat medically we DO. We don't say "well, it was God's will he has a cleft palette or "God just wanted me to die of cancer."

Despite the often inaccurate cliches we toss about, most of us understand that it is in our defects and our flaws and our weaknesses that God shows himself to us. When you deny that I or anyone like me was born with this defect, you assume that this defect is unlike all the other defects God doesn't preemptively cure. Why? On what grounds? Because there's a rule in Leviticus about clothing? Are you wearing mixed fabrics right now? Did you have bacon for breakfast? Why does some of Leviticus apply and not all of it?

Sorry. that's starting to turn into a rant.

Back to the marriage issue. IF in fact this is who I am, and not some perversion or kink, then what is it that you ask the trans person to do for the sake of their marriage? Deny themselves? surely. but there's nothing wrong with that - many people chose to deny themselves something they want for the sake of their family (many don't, too, by the way). But it's more than that. Does the woman who gives up a promotion which means time away from her family suffer mental anguish to do so? Does the man who gives up the sports car to pay for his kids college consider suicide?

There's a spectrum of sacrifices and every one isn't identical or comparable. but even beyond that, you are asking that person to live a lie. Every minute of every day. Every hand you shake, every room you enter, every job you apply for, every friendship you make, every church you attend - all predicated on a lie. (Consider what it must be like to be trans, and be forced to repress it, and sit in church and listen to the pastor or teacher tell you how "freaks" like you are what's wrong with this country) Would you really be comfortable knowing your spouse was presenting a false image to you and to the world all the time? how could you trust him? How could you know anything he told you was real?

And in my situation, that's magnified by the fact that I am out. If I took all the well intentioned advice and reverted back to the former facade I once presented, do you really think my wife and kids would see me as a "real man" worthy of respect? Can I go back to the same store which has served Laura and ask them to hire the the man? Oh, I'm sure there are those who would understand the situation and love me anyway - but those are not the same folks who now think I should repress my true nature for the sake of others.

I know some of you are reading this now who would make that argument but look into your own heart - would you REALLY feel the same about me if I went back as you did a couple of years ago? Really? Don't lie to yourself. it is impossible. But even if it were, that's not even the bottom line. Do you think SHE could?

The actual bottom line is not what you think about me but where the marriage, or the relationship if it makes you less queasy, goes from here. I will state for the record that I have no desire or purpose to be apart from her for it's own sake. I would very much like, selfishly speaking, for her to make peace with this and prefer to be with me over being apart. But much more than that, I have a tremendous desire for her to be as happy as she can be (in time) given the circumstances we both are faced with. If that happiness is found in friendship and some sort of companionship with me, tremendous. if it is found by kicking me to the curb and finding a real man, then such is the price I must pay because none of this was her fault.

Some have said I should remember my vows but the vows don't exactly cover this do they? There is no vow to remain a man. I have not been unfaithful nor have I forsaken her for another person. I might argue - but I won't - that my condition falls under "for better or worse, in sickness and in health." But I wouldn't see her suffer in bondage to vows made to a person she's lost her love for (if the day comes when she loses it). If there's anything my situation illustrates, it's that simplistic thinking and cliched platitudes are not strong enough medicine for what ails us.

We live in a fallen world folks. Bad things happen. Storms and diseases and broken relationships are the rule, not the exceptions. Why should it be true that people can have a million sorts of physical and mental defects and we show compassion for those who suffer and for the loved-ones who's lives are made more difficult but THIS - this ONE mental defect, because it is (falsely assumed to be) about sex - THIS thing is not a defect or a condition or a mental flaw - it's just something some one can turn on and off like a tap and if they don't turn it off then clearly they are to be judged a pervert and a freak.

If you can be depressed, suicidal, bi-polar, schizophrenic - whatever - and recognize it is not something you CHOOSE to be then where do you get off thinking I choose this? If your spouse or your friend or your pastor says to you in the midst of your depression "just cheer up" can you? Have you ever just arbitrarily decided to "be happy"? I trust I don't need to offer a similar illustration about physical faults.

But here's the thing - if you are bi-polar (or whatever), I don't understand what that is like and I CAN'T understand it if I haven't lived it. What I can do is not presume to tell you to "get over it" or "suck it up." What I can do is show you love and compassion in the midst of your very difficult circumstances. What I can do is continue to call you friend, continue to think well of you, and continue to show you my support, while also showing support to those around you who might suffer because of your condition. Instead of making you out to be the villain because you don't "get over it."

endnote:
1. The inspiration for this post comes from things I've experienced myself, along with things which have been described to me by my fellow travelers on this road. It refers both to directly stated comments and second and third hand awareness of people's opinions, as well as things said by on-line acquaintances. If you think you see your own views in these remarks, or those of someone you know, it would be a mistake for you to assume that the comment is a personal shot at you. there's nothing here that I haven't heard (or my friends haven't heard) from multiple sources.

2. As always, i must remark that MOST of the feedback I have received has been either politely neutral or vigorously supportive. I do not mean these remarks to imply I face adversity on every hand. Much the opposite is actually true.

3. for those of you who pray, pray for my wife and my family. Pray for me too if you want. But don't waste your time with God asking him to "Straighten me out" - you can't possibly devote as much prayer to that request as I did over the foregoing 20+ years. Just pray that he gives us the wisdom to deal with these things in the manner which will produce the most peace for all concerned.

Kobayashi Maru

2010-01-06T13:18:00.000-06:00

How many of you are Star Trek fans?

If so you'll know what that reference means, but for those who don't: the Kobayashi Maru was the name of a disabled spaceship in a computer simulated test for Starfleet Academy students. It is designed to be unwinnable.

An illustration of the no-win scenario, and the name Kobayashi Maru has become a synonym among geeks for that situation. For another geek reference, you might remember the movie "War Games" in which the intelligent computer decides at the end that in some games, "the only winning move is not to play."

Many times I feel like I'm in the middle of a kobayashi maru situation. As I write this I am on the verge of quitting this quest - at least for a few years. but to do so will be spiritual death for me. The thing is, if I don't, it will be a similar fate for my wife.

I told her the last time (previous to this morning) that we "discussed" the situation that I had to face the fact that for me to live, she must die, and for her to live, I must die - emotionally and spiritually speaking. As long as I presist she is in pain - ev en if we split she will continue to suffer because I have "killed" the man she loved. On the other hand, if I revert and repress, things still can't be the same as they were before for either of us, but especially for me.

So what is to be done?

By all the rules of honor and ethics, I should be willing to lay down my life for my beloved - and physically I am. If repression means my spiritual death (when I use the word spiritual I do not use it in the religious sense) and transition means hers, am I any less oblidged to give myself up for her? I do love her that much, as much as it would be agonzing to do.

But the problem is that it just reverses the problem. She loves me "that much" too. And whenever she sees the pain it causes me to consider giving it up, she insists that I must press on if it's what I must do. You can't say that to me and me not take advantage of it, I'm too weak to resist. So back and forth we go, each offering to fall on their sowrd for the other, and each tortured by the pain the other one is caused because we can't give them what they want.

Both of us understanding that seperation would lessen the pain but neither of us wanting to be apart.

I don't begrudge her her feelings. she's entitled to hate me and she doesn't (yet). I do take exception to the fact that she cannot surrender her assumption that feeling this way is a choice and not an inborn condition. She's been SO conditioned for SO long to see people like me as people who have chosen to do something she thinks is wrong, that she can't see past it. the problem is that logically, if that is true, then the only reasonable conclusion is that I willfully decieved her when we married, that I was using her as "cover", that I am now chosing to induldge something I don't have to do in spite of the pain and loss it might cause.

How could you NOT hate a person who would do such things?

So you see what I mean about the no-win scenario. I can (emotionally and spiritually) kill myself and give her at least some shadow of the man she wants back - even though everyone would know it was a blatant lie (I suppose those of you who really think I'm just choosing to indulge a fetish would think something had been accomplished). Or I can press forward and try to live an authentic life and steal from her everything (except her kids) that she ever wanted in life (and compound that by asking her to somehow tolerate the person who hurt her so deply still being involved in her life at least where it comes to the kids).

I have no solution. It feels like making up you mind to jump off the bridge except that you don't even get the satisfaction of bringing the matter to an end.

So why am I spilling my guts here? Well, if you see me out town bare faced and "male" - please know I'm not undecided about my identity. If that happens you are simply looking at someone who laid down their life for the one they love.

Encounters

2010-01-04T02:21:00.000-06:00

Since it's been a couple of weeks, I really should post something new. The one real struggle I have with this thing is that blogs have a way of lulling you into speaking publicly of that which really ought be kept private - especially when it is in reference to the actions or words of other people. It's a delicate balance, when you set out to give the world a "behind the scenes" look at what your situation is like, to accomplish that purpose without violating the trust or privacy of others.

Anywho, the thought which has been rattling around in my addled brain this weekend has to do with the sometimes surprising contrasts to be made among the various reactions you get. I had a couple - no three - in the last week or so that seem worth remarking upon.

I should explain before I begin that I have chosen to keep a respectful distance from churches and church folk in general in order to not force people into uncomfortable situations. If I were to show up at, well, any church in this county there would be those in the congregation that would "love me anyway" and there would be those who would want to run me out along with anyone fool enough to tolerate my nonsense. So while I don't go for a variety of reasons, paramount among them is that I don't go because I don't have the right to do that to a congregation.

Likewise, I have no way to gauge how well my believing brothers and sisters can accept and be comfortable around me now, so I refrain for the most part from initiating situations where the person is obliged to deal with that situation. If they approach me, wonderful! If we crose pass inadvertently, so be it. But I do not wish to impose.

It's too big a point to say much about here, lest this post go on for 10,000 words, but I stand in a bit of a "no man's land" between a Christian community that as a whole has demonstrated quite a bit of judgment and condemnation at transgenderism, and a trans community that has developed a healthy resentment towards Christianity because of it. I hesitate greatly to join in that resentment but I've heard so many horror stories of Christians mistreating and, frankly, abusing (emotionally and spiritually) trans people that I understand it.

All that said, I am capable of recognizing how the opinion of the Christian Culture regarding transgenderism produces some unfortunate results. for one very obvious example, I've come to understand that the fulcrum upon which my marriage turns has come down to a battle between the love my wife feels for me and the belief system she is welded too which insists that things like this are "wrong" (transgender is wrong, two women in a couple is wrong, so forth and so on).

I do find my myself more and more mourning that "the system" has so often trained people "into a corner" as it were so that their pain is increased when the real world doesn't match up with their belief system. And it doesn't even take transgenderism to make that point. Consider the wife who's being emotionally abused by her husband but also has been thoroughly conditioned to avoid divorce at all cost. (some might say I'm speaking of MY wife here but it's not my intent)

So I hope you will understand the mixed feelings I have when the course of life brings my path to cross that of one of my old acquaintances who is a strong Christian.

***

The first two anecdotes I wish to share were very pleasant and heartening experiences. There's a minister I know who's a person that I tend to think of as my "pastor for life." No matter where I've been a church member, this man always seemed to be "comfortable" to me in a way that isn't always true of the man who happens to be your "official" pastor at any given moment. Not to sound as if I mean to slight any of those men, I have no ill-will to them and consider them friends (to the extent they would still wish to be my friend). but there has always been something different about this one guy.

This pastor came into a business where I was shopping and I recognized his voice as he spoke with the manager. I debated whether to "hide in the corner" and go unnoticed but when he spoke to my wife that didn't seem to be something I could do without giving the impression I actively wanted to avoid the encounter (I didn't!). So I remained where I was and the man greeted me and we spoke, as I had hoped, as old friends. He reassured me I would never be "disowned" on account of my situation and I assured him that I had hoped there was at least one minister I could count on to be there should the hour of need arise.

Again, I don't mean to disrespect any other preachers I know - but if I or my family need one I'd prefer it not be a man who's having to metaphorically "hold his nose" in order to be there. I'd prefer the love be unreserved and not conditional. I believe in this case I can be confident of that.

The second encounter actually occurred on a different day but in the same place. I saw a friend of mine whom I used to go to church with and over the course of a warm conversation she asked if we were going to church anywhere, and I replied "I can't go to church now." (there was no need to get into a deep theological discussion of my other reservations about organized religion at that time, it wasn't that deep a conversation)

She said "Why?"

And I said "Seriously? Look at me - where am I going to church like this? If I stroll up into any church around here in a skirt and heels (for instance) it would split wide open."

She said "I don't see anything wrong with you." (I could have kissed her for that! and I kick myself for not being more obvious in showing her how much that meant to me)

I thanked her for that but I had to reply "You have the right attitude, but I have to think that in any congregation those who didn't want me there would be pitted against those who were nice to me." and she nodded understanding. Still, it so made my day that she was so outspoken in saying that I should be accepted. People like her and my pastor friend reaffirm my faith that transgendered people need not assume that to be Christian is to be hostile to us.

***

The third encounter however, serves as a counterpoint. Without going into the sort of detail that would be indiscreet, I will simply say that this was a professional person who had reason to know better (but who is also a life-long Christian) and this person offered the view that by transitioning now I would "warp" my children. At the time I passed it off as the opinion one was entitled to but looking back and reliving the conversation in memory, I'm feeling more and more insulted.

"Warped" how, exactly?

Might they somehow be influenced to become something like me? Then I must be "warped" too, eh? Further, I'm sure my folks would appreciate some insight into how my "man's man" father managed to "warp" me into wanting to be a girl.

I'm sure maybe there's some other "warping" that might happen. Could it be the potential effects of a divorce, should one ever happen, would warp them? I suppose that some would argue that my kids would see me having chose my transition as more important to me than my wife and family. That's not an invalid point on the surface, but let's test that out.

A very great many of the people in my age group that I have known over the years are now divorced (good Christian folks most of them) and most of those had children in the home, so if one applies the same logic, would one not have to say that in each of those couples, at least one and possibly both adults chose some other interest over their spouse and children, right?

Whether there was a "cheating" situation or whether they simply didn't get along and thought they'd be happier apart or whatever, the simple truth is that EVERY divorce is a result of at least one party to that marriage placing a higher priority on their happiness (or what they perceived to be their happiness) than on preserving the marriage. Frankly, pretty much the only divorce that isn't a result of both parties prioritizing their own happiness is the case of abandonment.

So, shall we conclude that all those multitude of couples are "warping" their kids by choosing divorce? No? Then let's rule out that option for me as well. So how will they be "warped"?
The only conclusion I can come to is that they might be influenced to - horror of horrors! - be more likely to accept that people like me were not freaks and perverts after all.

My bet is that if you are reading this right now and you agree that they will be warped, it is because you think that to learn to accept and even care for people like me then is to be "warped." A great many prominent Christian thought leaders that I otherwise respect all too often put forth teaching that can only lead to that conclusion.

But I don't think that people who so casually hold and promote that view have ever given serious thought to what happens when a faithful believer is faced with a no-win scenario where the things they have been conditioned to believe require them to betray their hearts when it concerns someone they care about. Thankfully, more and more believers are wise enough to see past that sort of illogic.

But, alas, I digress onto a topic which could lead to those 10,00 words so I will get back on track. I will close by saying here what I didn't say to the lady I spoke with or my pastor friend to their face (much to my shame) - such people are a credit to the Lord, and are far more a tool in his hand for good than those who seek only to judge and condemn. Your graciousness meant more to me than any words, there or here, could convey. As for the third person, well, I can hardly be upset with people when the behave as they've been conditioned to. Others my chose anger or resentment, but I can't take time for that - at least not right now.

The Divinding Line

2009-12-21T01:50:00.000-06:00

Without "talking out of school" I want to say a bit about a recent conversation I had because it seems to me that the thoughts expressed there represent a deeper reality that applies to everyone's attitudes.

The basic structure is as follows.
When you consider a transgender person, you believe - if you have an opinion at all - that one of these two things is true: Either (a) this is a person with a condition, something they were probably born with and over which they have no control other than how they choose to "treat" the condition; or (b) this is a person indulging in a lifestyle choice which they could easily, if they so desired, "turn off" and put aside.

The person I was talking with was firmly in the latter camp. In his opinion then, quite logically and obviously, I was selfishly placing my desire to behave this way ahead of the concerns of those who might be hurt by my choices. Other people I have spoken with seem to grasp the reality of the former point of view (one very sweet lady I am acquainted with seem surprised when I said "no church around here is going to have me." she said "Why not? I don't see anything wrong with you." It made my day).

It seems to me that that difference of opinion is the fundamental dividing line in terms of how people like me are received. Oh that's not to say that a person who thinks this is a choice will be rude or unkind, they may well feel obliged to exercise good manners and be polite. but when it comes to how a person fundamentally feels about you - whether they are happy that you are happy or uncomfortable in your presence or whatever - it goes back to the basic question of WHY you are what you are.

After all, for a person like me who's in a long term marriage, if this is a condition then it falls under "in sickness and in health, for better or worse" but if it's a choice then it is, in many ways, abandonment. That's a huge distinction when a spouse is trying to process what comes next.

What makes it more complex and difficult is that in most cases, a person who believes it is a choice does so because of their moral world view. Such a person is usually not at all receptive to evidence to the contrary. I can point you to any number of solid scientific finding which indicate this is inborn. Both behavioral studies which I grok and technical biological studies which I confess to being out of my depth in trying to understand. but if you BELIEVE this is a choice, then you are often pre-disposed to dismiss any so-called evidence which might muddy those particular waters. I don't say this with any sort of hostility, just as an observation of reality.

Still, if there's a lesson in this for those of us living out this process, it's that maybe there's a real obligation on us to be as open about our condition as possible. While some of those we love most will be the ones who hurt us most by there rejection, it's also apparently true that for a great many well intentioned people, having someone "put a face on" this thing provokes them to reconsider their worldview. And if there's ever going to be a place in the world for people like us, it's going to come not through political pressure but through changing people's hearts one at a time.

Paranoia

2009-12-10T22:19:00.000-06:00

But is it really paranoia if the thing you are paranoid about ends up being true?

I've always felt, and perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the image I presented to the world was a false front, that feeling that there was something going on behind my back that I wasn't privy to. You know what I mean. Like when there are two people at the other end of the hall whispering and you are SURE they are talking about you?

I never really put too much stock in that feeling - one could go crazy wondering if they indulged that. But this experience has added a couple of new layers or facets to that feeling.

For one thing, I take it as a given now that if two or more people near me are laughing together, they are probably laughing at me. That's not so much paranoia, because I resolved when I started down this road not to be discouraged by the ridicule I might get from others, but more a mechanism for dealing with the reality that at least some of them surely are. If I take it for granted that it's about me and then am able to shrug it off and not be hurt or offended, then it makes me stronger for the hard parts of the road ahead.

I saw that coming and was ready for it.

But the other thing is something I didn't see coming at all - the paranoia about what a Facebook friendship really means.

This actually works out in a couple of different ways. first, what do you make of a Facebook friend who "defriends" you? Did they somehow decide you were ok at first but then reverse course and decide to wash there hands of you? I mean, that's anyone's right to be sure - but it leaves a lot of room for speculation as to motives when it happens with no explanation.

The other side of it is, of course, wondering why someone you have little or no real-world interaction with wants to be your friend. I mean, for a "normal" person maybe it's not that big a deal. Probably they just need one more person to invite to Farmville or some such. Maybe they just want the biggest friend list ever.
But with me, there's always the possibility that there's something more.

Is this person my friend because they really want to be nice? Are they just innocently curious? Do they wish to be supportive?

Or....

Are they slowing down to gawk at the train wreck?

Are they here for the same reason people pay to see the Dog-Faced Boy at the Freak Show? are they looking for something to gossip about?

You see, I hate to even think these thoughts. I would much prefer to think the very best of everyone absent some real reason for doing otherwise. But I can't help but wonder if people REALLY are supportive of (or at least cool with) me?...do they really remember me fondly from some previous interaction or some such?...or am I providing them free ammunition?

I really don't know. In most respects it doesn't matter I suppose. If you are laughing at me when I'm not around there's nothing I can do about it and it really does me no harm. But there is one thing about this that does matter a very great deal to me, and that's how you treat the people I love and the people whom circumstances have connected to me.

No one else but me had anything to do with causing this or any ability to stop it. it is my own private curse or condition or whatever the hell you call it. I would really hate to think that my mom or my wife or my kids or my brother or my in-laws or anyone else connected to me was having to suffer the abuse of small-minded and petty people because I've chosen to be so open about my situation on-line and in the real-world. I realize there are such childish and mean-spirited people out there, and it's not like I'm not an easy target, both for what I am and because of anyone's judgment about how I chose to deal with it.

But honestly, if you feel you MUST act a fool, at least have the sense to direct your derision at the ACTUAL freak and not the person who through no fault of there own has some connection to the freak, ok? It might not occur to you but chances are the person you are troubling isn't any more happy about this than you are.

I don't say all this in reference to any particular person of whom I'm aware - as far as I know, every friend on my list (and everyone I've spoken to about this IRL) is completely compassionate and kind towards me and everyone around me. So maybe I'm just paranoid.

Maybe there isn't anything at all to worry about in this regard. but, if I were a gambler . . . I'd have to place my bets that if it hasn't happened, it will.

So all I ask for is sincerity. If I'm doing anything here, it's being totally frank and open with people about my issues. so be open in return. there is nothing so valuable as a sincere relationship, and nothing so empty as a false one. I can take any heat you can throw at me and maybe even answer with some of my own...but let your words to me be the same as your words that I don't hear. and save your judgment for me alone if judgment you have.

/rant.

What makes a difference?

2009-12-05T18:31:00.000-06:00

So maybe this week I don't have a long drawn out dissertation on life, the universe, and everything. I've been thinking that not everyone who reads this thing is local and yet my previous posts have been sort of coming from a place where you almost have to be local to know what I'm talking about, so let me try to do some posts, perhaps shorter, on some more general thoughts.

A friend of mine has ask me a few questions about where this sort of thing comes from and why a person with GID makes the choices they do and I want to address those here at some point but I'm still kind of gathering my thoughts on that in a way that I can be clear and not give in to my usual tendency to wander off on tangents.

In the mean time, another thought is on my mind this evening, which is this - does real world contact do more to build tolerance than political activism?

One of the things I've gone back and forth on in terms of where I go from here is the extent to which I "keep my head down" and live my own life, as opposed to the possibility of - for example - trying to start a support group for folks like me in North Mississippi (believe me, there are NO resources for gender issues this side of Memphis that are easily found) or some other effort to "be active" beyond getting through my own life unmolested. But what I don't have an interest in is being a "professional victim." It seems to me that those who very loudly and publicly proclaim how they and those like them are being abused often alienate the hearts and minds they are trying to win. I don't want to be that sort of person.

First of all, there is the problem of mistaken perceptions. I personally think it is most unfortunate that gay/lesbian issues are joined at the hip with transsexualism in the minds of most people (practically all people who are not themselves trans). Both in the LGB community, and in the "Christian Conservative" movement, they are thought to be all the same set of problems. In my humble opinion, they are not. Meaning no disrespect to gays and lesbians when I say this, there is a fundamental difference in their orientation situation and our identity situation. At it's most basic level, being transsexual is not a SEXUAL issue at all, it's a gender issue. Which is to say that it's not at all about who you have sex with or, indeed, if you have sex at all.
A great many transsexuals, whether pre- or post-operative, are essentially celibate the rest of their lives (and quite happy to make the bargain if that's the price that must be paid). Many others remain oriented towards the gender that they were always oriented towards (i.e. a transwoman who is still romantically interested in women - which puts the lie to the myth that transsexuals are just homosexuals in denial) as well. Our issues with our identity are not predicated on or even directly related to our sexual behavior.

Whatever might be said for or against the rights of homosexuals to practice their lifestyle unmolested, there issues are not the same as ours. Take one obvious example. A gay man can and does commonly use a men's restroom without an eyebrow being raised. Why? Because his bedroom habits are not at issue when he is using the restroom, it's as irrelevant as what he had for dinner last night. By contrast, every time a pre-operative transwoman sets foot in a ladies room (at least one which is designed for more than one occupant at a time) she is risking the wrath of some offended person taking exception. Now, whatever your opinion of the bathroom issue (perhaps I'll devote a column to that issue sometime in the future) the point remains - for us the issue is the restroom itself, not what we do elsewhere as it is for the homosexual.

That's just one illustration - but the point I'm making here is that despite that reality, in the common perception of opinion and politics, trans issues are intertwined with homosexual issues. Another case in which, politically speaking, perception becomes reality. So I'm pretty much stuck with knowing that as you read, you'll be thinking "gay rights" no matter how I preface it.

Now, in saying I don't want to be a political crusader, that's not to say that there are not legitimate issues that need to be worked out in this ever-more-complex society. It's not to say that I might not at some point find myself treated unfairly (in fact, I'd be stunned if it didn't happen) and that such unfairness wouldn't possibly put me in a position of protesting I'd rather not be in. But nonetheless, having been on both sides of the issue, so to speak, I have maybe a bit of insight not everyone "in the trenches" on these battles has. I've seen both sides demonize the other and I've noticed, I think, that it is the most political of activists that seems to most provoke suspicion on the other side.

So. what really works? If I, or anyone else in my position, wants to see a world that's more accepting of our condition, do we really need to march with placards and be "in the face" of those with differing opinions? do we really need to (as the gay press does with great reliability) accuse those who have a differing view of being "haters"? I can testify that during all the time I spent reading and listening and talking to people who had views which gay rights activists would label as intolerant, I never saw even one example of open hatred among the people I interacted with. I mean sure there are people like Fred Phelps and Steve Anderson but the vast majority are not remotely like that. It seems to me that nothing is to be gained by an "us vs. them" mentality in which you assume the worst about the "opponent."

Likewise, it does the conservative side no good, in the long run, to constantly try to make the worst possible connections in expressing their disagreement. Constantly comparing gays to child molesters for instance, trying to build up the mental image that the leather clad parader in San Francisco represents your typical gay or that the over-the-top drag queen represents your typical transsexual (with all due respect to leather-clad drag queens). In fact, all that really says to a lot of the people who's mind you are trying to change is that you are out of touch with reality. Heck, most drag queens aren't even transsexuals in the first place.

In my observation, both in my VERY limited time living it but also in the testimony of many others who have traveled a similar road, what really works is recognizing and honoring the humanity of the person in question. When the person with the "abnormal" lifestyle is loved and cared for by a real flesh and blood Christian they get the chance to find out that not all (hardly any in fact but you get the point) Christians are motivated by "hate."

Likewise, hopefully at least, when people who've never had any experience with a person with these issues in their life has a chance to know a real person that they have known for years and have some respect for happens to be one of "those people"- when you find out your nephew is gay or your sister is a lesbian or your uncle is trans or ...whatever else you don't personally agree with - hopefully then it gives you the chance to see the people on the other side of public opinion as something more worthy of respect than they were when they were "those people."

Does that mean you have to change your opinion, either way? of course not. You can love a person with whom you agree on absolutely nothing politically or otherwise. It doesn't take approving of someone's issues, decisions, choices, whatever you want to think of them as - in order to have some kindness and compassion for them. That's a matter of simple human decency isn't it? What do we gain by calling each other "hateful" or "sick" except more distance between us?
Differences of opinion are to be expected. But villainizing those who disagree is beneath all of us. I have no idea to what extent I'll try to do in the future (I suspect very very little) but I do hope that at least every once in a while, someone who's known me for years can now take a second look at transsexualism based on what they see in me. Maybe I can "put a face on" the issue in a way that will help someone be more open minded.

Or - Maybe not.

Three Weeks On

2009-11-28T01:21:00.000-06:00

Seems like maybe this blog needs two things - (a) someone reading it; and (b) a more cheerful post.

There's no way for me to know how much traffic I'm getting (I've been told at least one couple I know is reading and I presume a few others) but I have found that the relatively simple task of adding a counter here is apparently beyond my tech skills (which I find maddening). I do note that I have no followers and no comments. so I want to invite anyone who's reading this to comment in reply to this post, even if you wish to remain anonymous and just say "+1" or something - I really would like to know I'm not talking to myself here. especially if you come here specifically to read it and didn't just trip over it.

On the second point - it occurs to me that when I spend my time whining I give the FALSE impression that this isn't going well for me. On the contrary, with the sole exception of the previously mentioned issues (which are very much of the "to be expected" variety) I am ecstatic over the last three weeks. Going into full-time mode has been the most wonderful experience of my life. Not to minimize other VERY meaningful milestones like wedding days and childbirth, but this is the first time in my life where what happened to me actually happened to ME and not to that character I was trying to be.

Nothing particularly special has happened, and yet everything is special. I've noted before that I have to acknowledge the technical possibility that everyone is laughing at me when I'm not around. What can I say about that? I'm certainly not naive enough to think that people are not always talking about SOME one - why should I be an exception?

What I do know though, is that my experiences have been almost uniformly positive. Sure, there are sometimes awkward moments - most often when I speak "on the fly" and forget to manage my normally very deep voice (which by the way my "girl voice" isn't remotely convincing in my opinion but then it's very early) . But there are other occasions. To cite an obvious example, I crossed paths yesterday with my best friend from high school and his customary greeting to me since those teenage years is "hey boy." Reflexively he threw that out then tried to catch it and figure out how to correct it.

I felt bad for him (it certainly wasn't his fault) - we don't see each other often enough for him to have ANY chance to mentally adapt to the new paradigm, and I certainly don't want to presume to invade his comfort zone to give him more opportunities (I need to say clearly that I'm not so insensitive as to not realize that speaking kindly to me about my issues is not necessarily a sign the person wants to spend quality time with you). There was no "unawkward" way to make a moment like that work.

Same when you see someone who's only ever known you by your male name and they toss off a "Hi G___!" perhaps without even realizing that in doing so that's a potential red-flag to those around me that I was passing with until that greeting. (I suppose there's potential there for the disapproving to purposely do just that but I've not run across anyone yet that I would remotely assume was trying to do that). Another example of this is when my kids are with me.

I'm not unhappy with them in any way about this, let me be clear. But I have picked up on something that is a bit clumsy. When we go to New Albany or Corinth I am surrounded by people, 90% or more of whom take it as a given that I'm female (most people just don't look that close) - so when I'm approached by a child who says "Hey, Daddy..." I have just been "outed" to the person who overhears. My wife doesn't want me to ask them to refrain from the use of the word "Daddy" in public places but it is an uneasy feeling to have the red flag thrown up like that.

So yeah, there are tricky spots but on the whole, I'm pretty much walking on air every time I leave the house now. Before I came out, I tended to be fairly lazy about going out. How could I combine several stops in one trip today so I didn't have to tomorrow? Now, I'm almost to the point of making up reasons. I sometimes find myself tempted to stop and get a bag of chips or something we don't even technically need just to be doing those mundane daily chores as ME.

Can you even comprehend the concept of getting a rush out of a stop to pay a bill or buy some gas? Of feeling tremendously blessed when someone addresses you with the word "ma'am"?

I doubt any of you who are not affected with this condition can even take that claim seriously, let alone grasp how it feels. I have a long long way to go, and there are destinations on this road I may never reach and certainly plenty of hazards in my path but right this minute, with NONE of the physical alterations I need having been done, I feel more alive, more free and fulfilled, then at any point in the first 45 years of my life.

Perhaps you are reading this and laughing. Perhaps you are reading it and feeling a bit of (or a lot of) anger. Perhaps you are smugly thinking how big a fool I am. None of that reduces my joy one bit. It would be nice, in a perfect world, if everyone could just be happy that anyone could find a place of such contentment and happiness in their life - but we don't live in a perfect world. And I've left behind that state of mind that ties my happiness to the approval of others. Life is too short, and too far gone, for me to do that anymore. What I've learned the last three weeks, if there was ever any doubt, is that (as far as I'm speaking of myself only) - I'd rather spend my life as a bag lady if it comes to that athan spend it as the richest man in town.

Don't forget - if you read this blog, especially if you are a repeat reader, please post SOME kind of comment on this one just to let me know you are there.

PLEASE!!?!?!!??

Highs and Lows

2009-11-25T23:01:00.000-06:00

It's almost like what being bipolar must be like.

In the last few weeks I have experienced some of the happiest moments I can remember (and none of them arising from "special occasions") and also some of the deepest pain. It's interesting to ponder the meaning of not only the emotions but the circumstances surrounding them.

Let me offer one example of the "high points," without giving you identifying information that might cause the person I'm going to mention any undue harassment (and I have no doubt it's possible some misguided person would advise her to stop encouraging me). I was in a place of business the other day and one of the employees there, who's known me long enough to watch the transition, was asking me about my experiences and how I was enjoying it and in time we shifted into plain ol' fashioned "girl talk" about things like makeup and such. Now I know that to those of you who are screaming at your screen right now "But you are a man you moron!!!" that idea is at once both incomprehensible and nauseating - but to me it was pure bliss.

The most uplifting thing that can possibly happen to one such as I is to be interacted with entirely as we would be if we had been born physically female. Even obvious sexism, in a twistedsort of way, is validating.

But the experience I had --- all the experiences I've had in this vein so far --- have not been negative in any sense. now I'll readily concede that perhaps the girl who's so nice to me behind the register is laughing hysterically at how ridiculous I look after I leave. There's nothing I can do about that even if I discover it to be true. But as long as I don't know that, I can enjoy the moment when she looks at my nails and says "I love that color!" or compliments my earrings or says anything else she would have said to a genetic girl.

(now watch, people will start "helping" me by telling me that all those nice girls are secretly laughing at me just to steal my joy)

In any case, I have found that the less previous emotional connection I have to people - the more that they are basically "acquaintances" rather than "friends" - the better they treat me. They obviously have less emotional stake in what becomes of me, but I don't think that entirely explains it. Especially in contrast to actual "friends." these acquaintances seem to, in most cases, either assume an "it's none of my business" position, or else they take a bit more proactive "you have to do what makes you happy" position. A few of them have even complimented me on the courage (foolhardiness?) that it took/takes to come out in a small town.

In contrast to that, the "lows" always come from someone close to me. let me be clear and say that while the deepest pain has come from trying to process this in relationship to my wife, I do not begrudge her anything. She above all others is entitled to not go through this willingly or easily. Yes, it is true that I am causing her incredible pain, just as it is true that if I were to be forced to give this up (assuming that's even still possible) that it would cause me incredible pain. We both know there's no "win" here no matter what happens.

As much as those who disapprove of my actions would advise me to just "get right" and everything will be fine, the simple truth is that no one, least of all my spouse and kids, will be able to forget that I am simply wearing a mask in order to patch together the illusion of normalcy. no one who knows of this will be under any illusion about what lies beneath the mask. Like a shattered pane of glass, what has been broken cannot be restored to it's previous condition. If you think that after all these years of imploring God to heal me that I'm going to suddenly be able to say a prayer of repentance and suddenly NOT be a transsexual anymore then you are simply deluding yourself.

Been there, tried that (and all the variations thereof).

The truth is that if I were to give this up and put the man-mask back on (and like an escaped prisoner who can hear the bloodhounds in the distance, I sometimes sense that I will be defeated and chained back behind that mask) I would be the most miserable example of a man you would ever have the grave misfortune to meet. Think of the guy you know in your circle of acquaintances who's the most useless and unlovable bum you know: I'd be him - squared. THAT would be a worse fate for my family than even suicide, in my opinion. Let alone the shame of knowing that "daddy turned into a woman."

But to say it again - even though it grieves me more than I can say to see how I'm hurting her, I lay NO blame on her for how she feels or what she decides to do about it, now or in the future.

Other folks though --- that's more complex. Why is it that we presume so easily to have the answers to things we've never faced? why is it the person with a happy marriage presumes to sit in judgment over the couple who divorces? Why is it the person who's child is a little angel presumes that the parent who's child is a hell raiser must have raised him wrong? Why is it that we so readily tell the person who's depressed to "just cheer up" when we've never been clinically depressed ourselves? Why is it the person who has a rabbit's metabolism assumes everyone with 10 extra pounds is a "lazy ass"?

That's not to say that those judgment's are not sometimes correct - but on what basis do we assume we know so much?

Digression alert!

the knee-jerk answer is often "the Bible says so!" - which is a very fine thing until you realize that our landscape is littered with respectable churches filled with spirit-filled and well-meaning Christians who hold to scholarly-supported and time-tested doctrines about the bible which contradict each other!

Tell me, with all due respect, if Christians of good will can't agree on the specifics of such an important, prominent and central doctrine as who should be baptized and under what circumstances, then how could it POSSIBLY be true that we can say with no shadow of a doubt that transsexualism is a sin which God hates?

Does that sound like self-justification and rationalization. Yes. but it is no less logically true. it is no less rationalization for me to believe (for instance) that "a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman" is not binding upon me any more than the prohibition against eating shellfish or pork applies to you, than it is for a Baptist and a Pentecostal to argue about "once saved always saved." if you hadn't noticed, one of you two is WRONG (barring an antinomy).

Nevertheless, people will happily meddle in someone else's life and happiness based on their willingness to claim they know the mind of God. Does that mean that you can't call ANYTHING sin? Of course not. What it does mean is that a little humility goes a long way.

For the matter of that, on a related note: why are we so very obsessed with other people's sin anyway? Should it REALLY matter to me if you, for instance, smoke a joint in the privacy of your own home? Other than to pray for you I mean? Have I really helped you if I go to your brother or your mother and say "did you know your child/sibling is a pothead?" How many of us, do you suppose, behind closed doors are looking for and cataloging the offenses of others? Is it any less wrong to seek out such information and gossip or gloat about it than it is to do the dirty deeds being gossiped about? I'm not talking here about the stuff that affects your own life, or the things that you have an obligation to try to take care of (as in, for instance, one of your own children or parents) - I'm talking about things that are basically not your business. Even if you find out about it, as anyone who sees me around town becomes aware of my (supposed) sin, how is it your business?

Or was it just that you somehow felt that it made you a bit more righteous to make note of how much all the other folks were sinning? I recall visiting a church, years ago before my marriage, in which the pastor spent the entire sermon saying, in essence, "I thank God all us folks is righteous because them folks outside the doors is doing all manner of sinning." the net effect being, "ain't it good we're so much better than they are?" There's a lot of love in that attitude, donchathink?

/end digression

The point I was originally trying to make is, it ought to surprise me (but doesn't really) how often it turns out that the people who you would think are the ones who care about you and would like to see you happy are the ones who have the least patience for your failing to measure up to their standards. All of a sudden, you are either persona non grata (or so it seems) to some, and grudgingly tolerated to some others.

(let me just note here that there are obvious exceptions for whom I am most grateful)

Why should it be true that the person who sees me two or three times a year in a place of business can be happy for me and the person I've been related to or presumably friends with for 5 or 20 or 35 years suddenly doesn't know I exist? Perhaps the rational is "we don't like what you are doing to your family" - well, the person who's kind to me doesn't like that either, you think they have no sympathy on that point?

Still and all, I really shouldn't compare those relatively minor heartaches to those which come from knowing I'm hurting the one person who loves me most. They are not worthy to be compared. If you are one who has known me for years and now you think I'm a sick pervert who needs his ass whipped and want nothing else to do with me - honestly, I wish it were different but if that's your position I can live with that. The truth is, I would sooner be so regarded by every person I ever met before this year as to give my wife the pain I've given her in the last year - and then some.

But it still appealed to me to point out the seeming contradiction. It would be nice if more folks would make at least some effort to sympathize with a condition that would lead someone to make the heart wrenching decision which would lead to that kind of pain rather than just cavalierly dismiss it as perversion. I REALLY don't mind much that you disagree with me about this or that you disapprove of it. The reason that I count it among the hurts is that most (all?) of the people who make their disagreement most obvious make no effort at all to say something like "I can't condone what you are doing but I have to admit that I have no idea what you must be going through and have gone through - I wish there was something I could do and please know that I love you anyway and if I can help . . ."

A lot of people have offered my wife the opportunity to call on them if she needed to talk and I'm grateful for every one of them - but it's worth noting that not ONE person who professed to care about me has written or called me to say "just because I don't approve doesn't mean I'm not hear for you if you need me." (and by the way, not to "fix" me but just to listen)

So it ends up being that I get all my emotional support from people who have no reason to give it and none from. . . well, you get the picture.

I guess this sounded like a lot more whining than I meant it to be --- but hey, what's a blog for if not to vent, eh?

Photograph

2009-11-18T01:12:00.000-06:00

I took advantage of the warm weekend that might be our last to persuade my reluctant spouse to take a few fresh outdoor photos of me - I seem to take marginally better pics outside. Looking them over made me think about a larger point which seems worth writing about.

Most of my sisters, it seems, LOVE the camera. Or maybe it's not most of us, maybe it's the illusion created by the fact that those who do love the camera leave evidence and those who don't . . . can't leave evidence that they don't all over the internet. In any case, the perception at least is that there's nothing that a TG girl likes better than glamming up and taking a photo or forty.

But I don't. I mean, I can see where I would if I was genetically gifted with the ability to look really soft and pretty but clearly I'm not. Looking at my pics, for me, is an exercise in critical self-analysis to try to see myself through the eyes of others - looking to see in what ways I "pass" and in what ways I need work, comparing what I see in the photos to what I see among the natural born women around me. So taking photos, and examining them and eventually choosing which ones I'll even let others see is an exercise in physical self-examination.

I should divert just a moment here to say that in the last couple of weeks I've found that I actually do "pull it off" among those who don't know the old me a lot more often than i would have expected. usually when I'm "clocked" as they say, it's my voice that gives me away. That's not to say I would stand up to a really close inspection but the average person doesn't think THAT much about how the person they meet in the aisle at WalMart actually looks like. Just tonight, I met someone who knows me in another town - someone who knows about my transition - and she (who has a habit of not BS'ing me on these things) said she thought I passed well.

But this post isn't really about how the physical presentation is coming along - that part won't really be where I want it until a good 80-100 pounds have gone away. It's about the subject of self-examination and calculating what others see when they look at you, not just physically but internally as well.

Perhaps the most common reactions that non-trans people have when a person they like or love transitions is "Are you sure?" or some variation thereof. If there is any one thing I would love to communicate convincingly to those who know me, it's that this is not only not a casual or unconsidered choice (anyone who thinks I do this lightly should spend five minutes with my epilator!). when a person transitions, it's the product of a lifetime of internal agonizing over the subject. Now, I suppose one could, if they really wanted to, ask the 20 year old transsexual if they've given enough thought to it (although even then most have a decade or more invested in just that). Nor am I going to deny that some people just "discover" they are (or rather think they are) transgender some or many years into adulthood --- but such cases are very very very rare. Odds are you'll never meet such a person.

Most are like me. I've spent over 30 years considering every conceivable angle, every "cure," every downside, every consequence, every argument against, every doctrine or teaching on the subject. Occasionally I'll come across someone who wants to "change my mind" somehow, to "talk sense into me" or counsel me to "get right with God" --- apparently assuming I never gave any thought to all the religious, spiritual, and scientific arguments on the subject. Trust me friends, if you haven't lived this, you haven't give one/ten thousandths the thought I have to this subject including every conceivable argument against it. Please don't think you are going to bring something to the discussion to which I haven't already given many long hours of consideration.

Which is what I'm driving at --- the nature of self examination. It is my life's work. Examining my physical presentation (not only looks but mannerisms, tone of voice and etc) is the most obvious but in some ways the least difficult part of this journey. I first had to spend these decades figuring out who I am and what God really intended for me in this life. I had to filter through and reconcile what His Word says to me, and my own heart and life, and what the wise and respected people around me thought, and what science and culture say and out of all that distill what the implications were for me, and the people around me.

It is no mean feat.

But that's not the end of it. Then you have to apply the conclusion you reach. Even one who concludes that they have no choice but to stay in the closet and stay miserable, they still have to process how to stay sane in that closet. If you chose to accept your nature as I have at long last decided, then your self-examination has to expand to take in what others think of you, how they will deal with you, how relationships change, evolve, or even end.

i have to process what happens in my marriage to a woman who didn't deserve to have this happen to her; how my relationship to my kids changes; how I persuade someone to hire me and so much more. I have to wonder every time I see someone on the street that I know "what is this person thinking concerning me?"

Not because I choose to subject myself to the storms of public opinion --- quite the reverse. I am prepared, if necessary, to be rejected by them all, though thankfully this doesn't seem to be happening. But it's when they DON'T openly reject you that you have to examine the relationship. In some ways, open rejection is easier to process. Cut the cord, it's done, move on. But when you - for instance - see a long time acquaintance at his job in the supermarket you frequent several times a week - and that man sees you going about in makeup and a bra and sometimes a skirt as if you'd been doing so all your life, how does that change how you interact? does he just pretend not to notice and you pretend there's nothing TO notice? That's how it's gone so far, which I'm cool with. But I think about it, I'm always thiking.

More importantly, what happens when it goes beyond a casual friend to people you have to interact with, to family. Everything takes on a new drama. What happens when someone's in the hospital? Do you pay a visit when you're unsure what drama will ensue if even one family member chooses to take a stand against you? What about holiday dinners? I dare not submit to "manning up" and give the illusion I'm ashamed of what I am, yet what will happen if I present 100% Laura?
Every interaction, no matter how seemingly innocent, takes on that sharp edge of uncertainty. This goes not only for myself but for my wife and by extension the kids. Maybe more so. will her family try to "rescue" her from the freak living in her house? Do they have a legitimate point? Will they make things worse for us --- or for her relationship with them --- if they try? Or will they even try, or will they simply accept it? To be clear, I don't fault anyone else for this, it comes with the territory. But the point is that self-examination is, HAS to be, a way of life.

I have to think about these things every waking hour. Even if I don't submit myself to be approved by others, there is still a set of implications that arise from whatever reaction occurs and it pays me to have considered the potential implications.

Another example: I graduated from a conservative Southern Baptist college that I was admitted to based on the professed (and it was no lie, I firmly believed it at the time) understanding that I was called to the ministry. I see many of those people on Facebook now, but for the most part I dare not approach them. Even a couple that I think might support me have to interact with many who potentially would not. Who am I to inject such unwanted and unnecessary drama into their lives? So I willingly cut myself off from those people, and from high school classmates and former fellow church members and a host of other former acquaintances. If I run across them in my walk of life, then obviously Laura becomes a part of their world, but I do not press for contact with very many.

Because I'm thinking. Self-examination at every turn.

So please, call me insane, call me a pervert or a sinner, whatever gets you through the night. But DON'T insult me by presuming this is a casually arrived at decision. don't presume I'm going through the world blithely unaware what most people think about people like me. or that I don't care. Just because I have made the decision to not be controlled by the judgments of others doesn't mean I have no heart, or that I can't be gladdened or saddened by the reactions of others.

Those of you who've been good to me, if you read this, know you've been a blessing to me. Very small kindnesses mean a very great deal.

The Better Half

2009-11-11T17:41:00.000-06:00

I need to express again that I'm aware that some of you will come to this page via Susan's or some other forum and that sometimes I will write as if I'm speaking to long-time real-life friends in such a way as it seems to exclude my online acquaintances. I want you to know I'm aware of the larger audience and welcome it but I've not yet found the terminology to speak of the personal things in such a way as to directly acknowledge that not everyone is coming here from the same place.

Forgive me that weakness, and hopefully the thoughts are of interest despite it. and yes, I'll quit starting with an apology after this one and just assume you, the reader, understand.

Pretty much everyone who knows me "in real life" knows my wonderful wife. I'm aware how trite a cliche it is to say I have the best one in the world but I often think I do. I'm well aware of my faults and failings - and I don't just mean the current bit of insanity but the things she's been living with for 20 years. Dedication, self-sacrifice, pure unadulterated love - all are synonymous in my mind with her. Sometimes even when the application of those qualities isn't the best idea (as in being too soft on the kids) she can't help it, and it's beyond my abilities to express how much I love and appreciate her.

That's not to say there have never been any rough patches before. I won't tell tales out of school but it's not a little amazing that we made it through some of the difficulties she had in the first decade of our relationship.

The reason I lay all this out as a foundation of this post is because I'm aware that for most (all?) of the people who know me, the first reaction is, instinctively, "What about your family?" and all the more so when you love her the way so many of you do.

(I'll leave aside the implied "What about the kids?" comment for another time)

The truth is, it's indescribably rough on her. Some have said that she's going through a process of both mourning the man she married while at the same time having to live with a reminder of that loss, which is a valid description. Another way to say it is that I'm putting her in direct conflict with her usual instincts to put others before herself. One thing is definitely true, in her idea of how the world is supposed to work, things like this are not supposed to happen in families like ours.

She simply has no context for how to adjust to this or deal with it. Ideally, she needs a friend or a counselor or a therapist but I've not been able to get her to open up to anyone else. I'm aware that for many people, the answer is simple - put my twisted butt out on the street. I can't say that I would blame her at all. But the thing is, in all our tearful discussions on what to do next, she remains - so far - steadfast in asserting that being together, no matter how disturbing to her, is still better than being apart. I asked her just tonight this question "If, instead of coming out to you and telling you the truth about me, I had simply left and disappeared from your life that day, would you be better or happier alone than you are now?" and she replied, as she always does, that she loves me just as much as ever and has no desire to part.

For which I am unspeakably grateful.

How I wish I could make her understand that all the qualities she is in love with, that she fell in love with 20 years ago, are still here in full force. I perfectly understand how much the change in appearance is troubling her, I'm not saying she is wrong --- I just wish I could find the words to help her realize how much of the person she loves is still here and how little that is important to us has passed away.

Those of you who know her or feel for her or sympathize with her situation, if you are a praying person please pray for her. Even if you think she is crazy to put up with me, she still needs that spiritual support.

I'd be obtuse if I didn't admit here that most of you are now thinking "If she's so great and deserves so much, why are you doing this to her?" which arises from the most common misconception that people have about transsexuals - that we have a choice.

Oh, yes, to be sure, I could have continued to wear the mask and put up a front that all of you would have accepted as "normal" - while my soul died inside me because I would know that the person everyone respected and liked and approved of - did not in fact exist at all, but was nothing more than a role being played out on a stage. I would never know whether or not anyone could respect or like ME because none of you would never really have known ME - not even my wife and kids. That eats at you. It destroys you from the inside out. Sooner or later it takes your life or makes the life you have not worth keeping. Someone wise has said "better that you hate me for who I am, than love me for who I am not."

So yeah, I could have not told her, let her believe I was "normal" - and leave her to wonder why I was ever more morose and unlovable.

But beyond that, beyond the question of whether it is more noble to be miserable so that others not be unhappy - consider what you are asking. You're asking a person who's spent over 35 years never putting their needs first, always living not just in respect for what others want and think but in abject FEAR of being themselves, even for an instant, lest you be found unworthy - you are asking that person to assume that this walk of life can NEVER change. Because there will always be a spouse, or a child, or a grandchild whom you "must not hurt with your selfish choices."

I ask you, is it more honorable to selfishly ask someone else to be unselfish? By what measure do we decide? I don't know. I'm certainly not arguing that the answers are easy, quite the reverse. I simply mean to say that one shouldn't assume that it is any easier for the transsexual to deny themselves than it is for the loved one to adjust. It is a choice between two equally bad options.

The distinction in my mind between the two comes from how I define this condition. Those who have not been through it define it as a "lifestyle choice." Let me just clear that up - anyone who would go through the astounding amount of difficulties involved in changing genders didn't make that choice on a whim, or because they really could have went either way.

There are those in the trans community which resist any discussion which defines this as a "condition" or a "defect" - I reject that just as quickly. This defect is, as far as I'm concerned, an affliction - a mental disease, a defect.

And if that is true than it presents this question: if you are married to a spouse which is afflicted with cancer, do you wash your hands of them because that's not the relationship you thought you were getting into? if they become a paraplegic and you have to become their caregiver, do you bail? if they are manic depressive, or an alcoholic does that give you an "I don't love them anymore" card? If your partner's appearance radically changes because of some disease or accident, what do you do - walk away?

I realize that it does happen that way sometimes - but I don't think most people would say that it was an ignoble choice to stay in the relationship. Even though the relationship was now something radically different than what you "signed on for."

That is the case I make for my relationship: I did not WANT to be this way, I spent decades trying NOT to be this way, I do not argue that it is fair to her that I in fact DO have this "cancer" which she doesn't deserve to have to put up with - but I do have it, and even if I put away all my clothes and cut my hair and put the "man mask" back on, it's still there - and she and I and everyone else KNOWS it's there. so the question is, just because you can't have your "first choice" ideal fairy tale happy ending, does it mean that you can't find ANY way to reconcile yourself to what you do have before you?

Again, I have no idea. It's certainly not for me to decide. If she told me tonight to pack my stuff and get out she'd be entirely within her rights. but I surely hope that order never comes. The only dark place in my life right now is knowing how much this hurts her, and that I cannot really take that pain away even if I put the mask back on. But I wanted you to know that she is, in fact, struggling with "what's next" and whether she would admit it to you or let you know it or not, she needs your support.

Who am I? Why am I here?

2009-11-09T17:34:00.000-06:00

I'm sure no one has ever been clever enough to quote Admiral Stockdale for an introductory post either but hopefully I'll say something vaguely original at some point!

The first cause for this blog - since right now pretty much no one knows it exists - is to give me an outlet to "explain myself" to people who know me in my area who might come here via Facebook (since there's not really a "blog" feature there or I didn't find one anyway).

This will be a "stream of consciousness" sort of post so forgive me if I lurch about from point to point. Hopefully I'll make SOME sense.

It's a pretty tricky thing to totally throw out all of your acquaintances' previous conceptions of who you are and not be able to elaborate on "what happened." So this first post will at least touch a bit on that context as well as serve as something of an introduction to those who come across this page by other means.

I am a native of North Mississippi, raised in this very traditional, conservative, religious environment all my life. And as strange as it might seem to those of you who are now asking "What the (censored) happened to HIM?" I still am, largely, a product of that culture. I have been a Christian since childhood and I still am (albeit with a somewhat divergent view on the issue of transsexualism than my friends in the church have). I have been very conservative politically all my life, and while I probably have become more libertarian over the last decade, I find I'm as much a stranger among the trans community as a right-of-center person, as I am a stranger on the right because I'm trans. But the point is, I didn't suddenly become a flaming liberal because I acknowledged my condition - no offense to my friends who are flaming liberals! ;)

I am, in every way that's important, still the person I was 5, 10, 20 years ago (with an admission that I hid a lot of my true self from all of you back then) - I was simply wrapped in a different wrapper. The challenge I faced, when I decided that I had to deal with this part of myself, is that I recognize that there is a small but very important group of friends who have been very good to me over the years, and shown a lot of faith in me. I'm not sure whether those people will feel betrayed by this revelation. My wife does, of course, and that's an issue unto itself.

So it's with those people in mind - should they ever have occasion to read this - as my first audience that I write. Hopefully I'll be clever enough to also lay out a basic idea of what I'm about to those who don't know me as well.

So, without detailing my life story - a VERY brief background:

This is NOT new. Only my decision to acknowledge and accept it is (relatively) new. I have know "something was wrong with me" since at least five or six and knew what it was since at least 10. If you grew up with me, went to school with me, whatever, you knew me but you didn't know all of me - even then I wore the mask. After all, what can come from a kid announcing to his peers in 1975 (in Mississippi!) that he should have been born a girl? Nothing good. In early adulthood, I was torn between accepting myself and moving somewhere that I could deal with it, and suicide. For reasons that it is unnecessary to elaborate, I did neither and in time, I came to accept the church's opinion that I was "in sin" or "perverted" or whatever.

Do not misunderstand what I am about to say. I had sincere faith then, I have sincere faith now. But on top of that, in those days I rededicated myself to being a "hyper-christian" in the hopes that if I was good enough, dedicated enough, devoted enough, that God would "heal" me of my affliction.

For 20 years I gave my whole heart to that and cried out to God to be rid of this birth defect. Eventually, the fact that nothing changed about my mental makeup led me to question whether or not the church's view of transsexualism was biblical doctrine, or cultural tradition. I am very certain that some of you, my fellow believers, will argue strongly that I have reached the wrong conclusion. I sincerely respect your right to that opinion, and acknowledge that I might be wrong. But by the lights I have, I'm comfortable with my conclusion.

I believe this IS a birth defect and I do not believe the God I believe in is the sort of being who will condemn a person for a condition they were born with. Nor do I believe that it pleases him for that person to make themselves miserable in order to offer a false front of "normalcy" to the world. Finally, if I am wrong, I also and most of all believe that his grace is big enough to cover me being too unlearned or too self-interested to do the "right" thing.

So, to those of you who say "How does a good church going man we all believed in turn out like this?" - I can only say that it is hell to pretend to be something you are not in order to be "approved of" by those around you. As much as I value the friendship and approval of some of you (and I hope most of you know who you are) I simply cannot - CANNOT - fake it anymore.

Some of you, most of you to be sure, also greatly care about my wife and kids and I'm sure you are saying to yourself right now "What about your family?"

There is no easy answer to that. My kids have actually rolled with it pretty well. I don't think you have anything to worry about on that score. My wife . . . struggles. I have put us in a no win situation. There's a direct conflict between her having the husband she wants and deserves - the person she chose to marry - and making me miserable in the process, or, on the other hand, me being freed from the bondage of the mask and making her miserable in the process.

There's a direct conflict between her right to wash her hands of the person who, in a real sense, betrayed her (albeit unintentionally - I would never have believed when we married that God wasn't going to heal me so she would never know) and her strong desire to spend the rest of her life with the human being she fell in love with. The reality is that all the qualities about me that made her love me in the first place are STILL HERE. it wasn't my looks or my money or my "manliness" that attracted her - it was a set of personality traits and behaviors which were, in point of fact, my feminine qualities, that made me different from the other guys she might have chosen. And those haven't changed.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have a HUGE problem adjusting to the packaging.

If you are a believer, by all means pray for her.

All that said, there is at present no discussion of or consideration of splitting up. in the near term, we are just as committed as ever. Only time will tell if the day will come when her ability to tolerate me will be exhausted. I want to be very clear that I have no desire to be parted from her.

The simple reality though, is that the person you thought you knew was a real person to be sure, but one hiding behind a false front - hiding in fear. All my life I've been petrified that you, and you and you and you, would disown me and hate me and call me a pervert if you knew my dark secret. Maybe those fears were justified, but whether they were or not, I can no longer be controlled by them. I have for the last year been slowly moving towards this new life (I told my wife September 7, 2008) and now it has arrived. As of last Saturday, the "man" you knew is no more. You may see me at town in a skirt, or with my nails polished or whatever - but you will see "Laura" because that is who I am.

Whatever you think of me, know that - as hard as it might be for you to understand - the simple joy of going about the chores of the day as ME instead of as the "man" I used to pretend to me is beyond description. As much as I truly love my wife and kids, there's a real sense in which I've never been as deeply and authentically HAPPY in my life as I've been just being completely myself these last few days. I can only imagine what it will be like if I ever have the money to pursue hormone therapy and surgery and such.

I hope that if you ever called me friend you still will, but I completely respect your right to not do so. All I ask of any of you is three things:

1. Treat me decently, do not be hateful even if you disagree;
2. Don't try to "fix" me. Pray for me if you want but don't meddle in my marriage or try to convince me what a dirty rotten sinner I am. The days of self-loathing are behind me and I don't intend to be drug back to that place;
3. IF you do still care for me and if you are willing to support and affirm me and associate with me, PLEASE speak up and let me know. You can't know how alone it feels to wonder if the whole world thinks you a fool and a clown. Heck, it doesn't even matter if we were friends before. if you are a checker at the supermarket or Wal Mart or in any other way interact with me, knowing you are "cool with me" is of unspeakable value.

Also, you can add me on Facebook if you want - I only have one "friend" :(

Anyway, I'm sure there is much I should say that I have not, but I'm sure there will be many more posts here. Hopefully eventually someone will actually read them.

All for now,
~Laura Beth

How Original, eh?

2009-11-08T03:16:00.000-06:00

A transwoman with a blog, what an innovative concept, don't ya think?

Well, as it turns out i have the unusual and shocking trait of having a lot to say about....me.

Heh.

But not tonight. it's late. So this particular post isn't even an introduction, just a small placeholder while I get the thing customized like I want it. In the next day or two I'll add something that has some possible chance of being worth reading, if you are interested in that sort of thing.