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What a weekend!

Nov3

I went to our local Renaissance Festival this weekend with a bunch of friends to whom I am already “out”. Getting there, one of my spiritual sisters, one of three women who have been there for me throughout, immediately started by disagreeing with me at dinner. What was she disagreeing about? In my own assessment (we’re our own worst critics, aren’t we?) I told her that while I was in in the gender “twilight zone” that I thought I was still more male than female. “Wrong,” she said, and insisted so. So she made a contest out of proving me wrong too.

I had already told her I had planned on “just being me” for the duration of the fest, whatever that meant. I was going to use my voice with male resonance suppressed, but I can’t raise pitch much because of that paralyzed vocal cord. I wasn’t going to overdress female, or focus on makeup, or anything else. I was going to let me hair hang out (it’s long except for the male pattern baldness areas on top), wear my silver stud earrings, wear a feminine hat, wear feminine jeans and either feminine or gender neutral tops. I also ended up wearing a white woman’s sweater both days as it was cool but not cold out.

Net result? Saturday I was not once gendered male and I was gendered female 5 times. Now this was with no facial makeup whatever to cover beard shadow. But I have to admit that the longer I am on HRT, the lighter the facial hairs are becoming. They’re not gone, just lighter in color. Anyway, in a crowd of 10 people, I was gendered female multiple times.

Then came Sunday. Sunday morning I decided to swap to my silver hoop earrings and wear a neutral lipstick but still no other makeup. Saturday I’d gone au naturelle under a gender neutral t-shirt but Sunday I wore my bra as Saturday turned out to be more abrasive that I’d expected! (Lesson learned!)

So what happened Sunday? On Sunday, she and I went shopping, just the two of us, and I was gendered female 12 times by 2pm, at which point we rejoined the larger group. And I used the women’s restroom for the first time. My friend was right about that too – no one noticed and no one cared.

Suddenly I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about being able to target full time in the July-September 2014 time frame as I’ve been planning. Oh, and when I relay this story to my therapist, she is just going to laugh and laugh at me. 🙂

Some small progress in Texas

Sep19

Yesterday, Nikki Araguz had her appeal heard by a 3 judge panel in the 13th District Court of Appeals in Texas. Now you have to remember that the person who started all this legalistic crap was Thomas Araguz’s former wife. You need to remember that the lawyer she hired was so slimy that he’s been barred from further law practice in Texas. You have to remember that Judge Randy Clapp accepted a bad photocopy of Nikki’s voided California birth certificate from said lawyer, which the state of California has publicly stated is not valid and then used that as his basis for declaring that Nikki is not female. You have to remember that when presented with further evidence he denied a rehearing saying any evidence wasn’t going to change his bigoted mind. And then you have to remember that is how he made his ruling.

The hearing yesterday is very likely to rule in Nikki’s favor as is the full appeals court when the ex-wife appeals the panel’s decision. You also have to remember that the Texas Supreme Court is packed with anti-gay activist judges who are likely to rule against Nikki on completely unconstitutional, religious, and spurious grounds.

At that point, all this will end up headed for the Supreme Court and I can’t see the Supreme Court not taking this because we have two states disagreeing about identifying documentation which Texas is required, under the 14th amendment, to accept. No, the 14th amendment doesn’t say that explicitly but case law has established that fact. And I cannot see Texas winning this purely on those grounds alone. Texas will be forced to accept that birth certificate, and having done so, will be forced to recognize Nikki (and every other transgender person in Texas) as legally of the gender which they claim. So why all this hoopla? It’s standard for radical right wing extremists and will then further give Greg Abbott more ammunition to talk about Texas seceding from the US because the rest of the country is beginning to recognize the basic civil rights of transgender persons. This is all political theater and also because evil men like Greg Abbott appear to actually enjoy hurting other human beings in order to shove their religious beliefs down your throat.

Here’s a good summary of the current situation from Cristan Williams who has been writing about this case for a few years now.

Radical Right Wing Crazies

Sep16

Texas attorney general Greg Abbott (who is now running for governor since Rick Perry announced he will not seek another term) is planning to sue the entire state of Texas to impose his religious views on everyone.

Now note that this line of argument was already tried in the 1950s and 1960s as the basis for continuing to discriminate against blacks and to ban interracial marriage and we know how that turned out in the end. But here in Texas he might win, which will mean Texas will have to be spanked, publicly yet again, by the federal court system for violating basic civil rights. (Texas has this ugly history in that regard, unfortunately.)

What really gets Abbott’s cockles all bunched up in a frenzy is that every major city in Texas, from Dallas to Austin to Houston and most recently San Antonio have all approved GLBT protection laws within the city limits. Further, the vast majority of major corporations operating in Texas have strong pro-GLBT rights corporate policies.

So what is driving this? Abbott’s classic appeal, using the standard GOP “Southern Strategy“, to try to reach bigoted white voters. It’s that simple.

Now Abbott just had his head handed to him by the federal court system in a lawsuit initiated by Wendy Davis, the progressive woman who famously filibustered that heinous anti-abortion travesty for nearly 12 hours. As retribution, the GOP controlled state senate tried to draw her district out of existence. And they lost, not just for her district but the entire redrawn state map was tossed out as blatantly biased.

So that’s the framework under which Abbott is proceeding. And before you think this might not touch you as a trans person, Abbott is of the opinion that gender can never be changed, meaning he is seeking to legally de-transition every single transitioned transsexual in the state of Texas.

This is what transphobia looks like, people. It wears a business suit and claims to be “mainstream Republican”. If you are trans and you vote Republican, you are supporting John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and that entire crew who have openly declared war on you and your right to live.

What boggles my mind is that there are trans people who actually think that this is acceptable. I can tell you that if the radical right wing extremists win and you lose all your rights as a trans person, I won’t be shedding any tears for you if you helped make it happen.

Into the Literal “No Man’s Land”

Sep15

As my transition proceeds, my body continues to slowly, slowly adapt to HRT and the presence of estrogen instead of testosterone. I’m definitely much happier and calmer but the physical effects are slowly coming to light as well.

Case in point – I went to Dairy Queen with my spouse. We did this on a spur of the moment so I exited the house in very typical androgynous mode, with two exceptions – no compression shirt under my t-shirt and I didn’t tie my hair back into a pony tail. So my budding breasts would be visible at certain angles depending how the t-shirt fell against my chest and my hair from the rear had a definite feminine take on it. As usual I wore a cap because the hair loss on top annoys me to no end when out in public.

We arrived at Dairy Queen and there was a family of four inside. The two kids, both teens, didn’t bat an eye at me but the mother looked at me sort of oddly once that I noticed. Then I caught the father glancing at me repeatedly as if trying to figure out exactly what he was looking at.

Then another man and his son entered. Again the teen boy glanced at me and didn’t appear to take further notice but the man stood there repeatedly looking at me and not just at my face. When I noticed this, I turned and smiled nicely at him and he looked away. I then wandered over to the frozen treats display and looked into the glass to see him watching me yet again. I turned then, looked at my spouse, accepted my treat from the guy behind the counter as he finished making it, and then smiled at the guy one more time. He scowled at me, apparently unsure and threatened by my clearly ambiguous sexuality.

At that point my spouse and I both laughed and proceeded to leave. She had seen what had happened and was halfway amused.

Note to those wondering – yes we are still going to divorce. We remain friends. She’s just a heterosexual woman and doesn’t want to be married to another woman. That’s her choice, after all and I respect that. But we still do things together while she’s going back to school to refresh her skills before re-entering the workplace.

So much done, so much to do

Jul28

I look back over the last 15 months and realize how much I’ve accomplished internally, as myself in coming to grips with myself. The externals haven’t changed as quickly as I’d like but I’m coming more and more to grips with who I am and where this road is leading. And I’m happy despite being shunned by some of the people I loved most in this life. I’m sad at the same time but I know that I have to be true to myself, that I can no longer go on living the lie they expected me to live, solely for their sakes. And that if me being honest and authentic drives them away, I will mourn that loss but not let it deter me from finding myself.

There are days I look in the mirror and smile at what I am beginning to see. There are days I look in the mirror and despair. The thing that gets me most often still is the facial hair. I can’t do much about the male pattern baldness other than see how much grows back under HRT but the facial hair I can address and now it’s a waiting game. I want to have the funds for two consecutive trips to E3000 in Dallas saved before I start with them because then I can save at a rate that will keep that process moving forward regardless of other events. And I’m almost there. I need to start thinking about scheduling a first visit with them.

I also keep delaying doing my eyebrows or getting my ears pierced. I’m not exactly sure why. I know I am procrastinating on those things. It’s probably fear or public rejection and I need to work through that.

I can pull on a wig and I like everything I see, except those eyebrows and the facial beard shadow. I really think that addressing those will make me feel a lot better about myself pretty quickly so from here it’s a matter of resolving to do what I need to do.

And as an addendum to my prior post, about how we as a community can’t “go back”, I would add the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

I aim to treat everyone around me as kindly as I can. But I will not stand idly by while someone tries to suppress me or those like me. When I see trans youth thrown onto the streets by their parents and hear their stories of being unable to find housing or work and being forced to choose the world of drugs and the sex trade, my heart breaks for them. And anyone who says they deserve that fate is someone I’d rather not know anyway.