Archives

It’s March and Everything is Coming Together

Mar26

My FFS is now set for April 22nd, in Guadalajara, Mexico, with Dr. Lazaro Cardenas at TransOp. The bill is paid in full and includes ten days at the recovery residences with all meals included. I’ve gotten some helpful tips from other women who’ve gone to TransOp as well. I’m excited.

The last facial hair clearing session took me over a threshold. There’s clearly a lot less facial hair now and it’s a lot patchier than before. The right side of the face is far more clear than the left side. The left side under the lip, the bottom of the chin, and the left jawline are still exhibiting noticeable hair growth. In comparison the right side is far far spottier at this point.

I’m guessing that I’ve got 3-5 more sessions to go now, but that’s just a guess. I also can’t do another session til early July because I have to allow the face to begin healing from FFS before resuming facial hair removal, so that process may extend beyond the end of this year. We’ll see but clearing my complexion coupled with FFS is going to give me a whole new appreciation of myself each morning in the mirror.

And my GCS date is set for July 22nd at the Chettawut Plastic Surgery Center in Bangkok, Thailand. I’ve made that payment (in full) and airline reservations for both surgeries are complete. My passport is in hand. A dear friend and I will be traveling to Bangkok together on July 17th, arriving later in the evening on July 18th, total flight time about 22 hours with a 2 hour layover in Seoul, South Korea. We return on Sunday, August 16th, leaving just after midnight (really late Saturday evening) and arriving in Houston at 8:50am (the joys of the international date line) after a flight of about 24 hours with another 2 hour layover in Seoul, South Korea.

I’m excited. My closest friends are excited and we’ve discussed this. There’s a little trepidation too, about both surgeries. Can anything go wrong? Will it turn out the way I hope? But there’s a lot of excitement and I know I’ve chosen two of the best surgeons in the world for their respective specialties.

And as for appreciations in the mirror, after July, getting out of the shower in the morning, I expect to feel a lot more at peace with what I see than I do currently.

There’s also the matter of some hair restoration work to schedule in there at some point after FFS. Once that is done, I can look into these bonded, integrated hair systems that I can wear for weeks at a time. I’m looking forward to that too.

By the time my close friends see me at the next Ren Fest, I think they’re going to be surprised.

And to Elizabeth, remember what you said you’d do if I did for Ren Fest? It may be time to start planning your “princess warrior” costume!!

The Bathroom Myth – Again!

Feb8

It seems no matter how often this myth is debunked, no matter how often the statistical facts disprove the bigoted presumptions of radical right wing religious zealots, they still try to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt about transgender people (especially transgender women) by raising the threat of assault in bathrooms.

But what is the reality? This is the reality – 15 experts, including multiple state law enforcement heads, confirm that there is no problem from transgender women using the women’s restrooms. None. Nada. Zip. It doesn’t exist.

The statement from Massachusetts is particularly strongly worded:

The argument that providing transgender rights will result in an increase of sexual violence against women or men in public bathrooms is beyond specious.  The only people at risk are the transgender men and women whose rights to self-determination, dignity and freedom of violence are too often denied.  We have not heard of any problems since the passage of the law in Massachusetts in 2011, nor do we expect this to be a problem.  While cases of stranger rape and sexual violence occur, sexual violence is most often perpetrated by someone known to the victim and not a stranger in the bush or the bathroom. [Email exchange, 3/7/14, emphasis added]

Other states also note no known cases of assault in that state. Three cities chime in with similar comments. Even the single incident that the antis love to trot out, about Colleen Francis, was never about sexual assault. It was about two thirteen year old girls entering an area clearly marked “adult only”!!

So how would people feel about two boys complaining about naked women when they snuck into a strip club? How would they have felt if two boys had snuck into that adult-only sauna? And note, Colleen Francis assaulted no one. She is simply non-op transgender and was in the sauna.

It’s time to bury the trope about sexual assault in bathrooms. In Colorado that trope was used to try to roll back transgender protections in locker rooms. One Democrat who voted against that bill (which was successfully defeated) was Representative Joe Salazar, who said, “I don’t mean any disrespect towards you, but I’m offended by this bill because this is rinse-and-repeat prejudice.” Further, he said, “The reasons for non-desegregating in the 1950s and ’60s was because Mexicans and blacks somehow were sexual perverts.”

See? Same old religious arguments about a problem that does not exist being used to support hate, discrimination, bigotry, and superstitious nonsense. It’s time to end this. And we should remind these bigots that we’ve seen all these same arguments before, against blacks, against hispanics, against interracial marriage.

Adjust Your Attitude

Feb5

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” ― Winston Churchill

The above is blatantly and starkly true. For years, I let the pessimist in me hold me back. Finally, reaching rock bottom, I reached out for help and found a therapist who helped me find the “glass half full” perspective on things. I’ve taken that initial learning and begun to apply that to more and more parts of my life. And I also learned to admit that I can’t do things alone, reaching out for help, and finding it. And finally, I learned to let go of those who didn’t want to support me instead of obsessing over losing them. I realized they had walked away from me, not the other way around, so I let them go. Yes, it hurt but once I made that admission, that they no longer wanted me in their lives, I was able to heal from that hurt.

This all comes down to “adjust your attitude”.

I see many trans folk each day saying “I can’t” or “Soandso won’t let me” and the only ones who, in my opinion, can legitimately say that are our trans youth. They are stuck with their parents and whether or not their parents accept them. But if you are an adult, you get to choose. And sometimes we have to accept that we cannot have our cake and eat it too.

When it became apparent that further fighting my inner self was going to kill me, I finally relented. I have people to whom I gave decades of my life, and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars from my total earnings who now openly despise me. But I knew that I had to be me and if they could not accept me, that was their loss.

By adjusting my attitude, by seeing the “glass half full” as often as I can, I’ve managed to move steadily forward. I’m accepted as myself anywhere in public (except occasionally around a few people I knew from before). I am full time. My legal name is now Cara, not David. I am still professionally valued and supported at work.

By realizing that nothing comes easily, by focusing on “baby steps” (thank you Paula Ult, Mia, Carolyn, and so many more for that advice!!), I have accomplished far more than I ever expected and now am on the verge of getting even more done.

All of this stems from a change in attitude. I stopped arguing with myself. I stopped accepting society’s definitions for many things and as I did so, I learned that science had already walked away from those cultural falsehoods as well. I stopped letting my rational mind limit me. I stopped letting other people define me and chose to define myself, listening to my heart, my intuition, my inner sense of self. And in doing these things, I have found personal peace.

So if there is one piece of advice I would give to each person who is unsure of themselves, it is this – adjust your attitude! I know this is not easy, but until you do, you will be just like I was – foundering in your own self-doubts and fears.

P.S. Enjoy the journey!! “Don’t be concerned about reaching your destination. Enjoy the journey and the destination will take care of itself.” Jenny Marie

Trans Kids Know Who They Are

Feb4

Transgender children know who they are, and they know this at a deep and fundamental level, just like cisgender kids do too. This is further proof that our sense of gender identity is very deep and below the rational thought level within the human brain. It also raises serious questions about how detrimental parents trying to “condition” their child to accept their desired gender for the child can be versus allowing the child to express their natural gender identity.

Transgender kids show consistent gender identity across measures

“A study with 32 transgender children, ages 5 to 12, indicates that the gender identity of these children is deeply held and is not the result of confusion about gender identity or pretense. The study is one of the first to explore gender identity in transgender children using implicit measures that operate outside conscious awareness and are, therefore, less susceptible to modification than self-report measures.”

That’s significant. It’s important too because it further removes the wind from the radical right wing religious extremists who insist that “God doesn’t make mistakes” in trying to argue that male is male and female is female. Well guess what? God doesn’t make mistakes and God made those kids trans! So deal with it, religious zealots!

This further indicts the horrible sexual fixation of modern western Judeo-Christian culture and the detrimental mental health impacts that distorted view of reality has caused to so many people, not just trans people, but many, many more. Our ingrained cultural notions of gender, sexuality, and how these things intertwine are fundamentally broken and not aligned with reality at all. It’s time we cast superstitious nonsense aside and embrace reality as it is, not as some radical extremist preacher wishes it were.

An Unexpected But Perfect Gift

Jan6

Two years ago in December, my mother passed away unexpectedly. She was in her late 70s but had COPD issues due to a lifetime of heavy smoking but otherwise members of our family tend to live well into our 80s and 90s. So mom’s passing was unexpected and I can honestly say that even at my age, I miss her greatly every single day.

Mom never had much. Abandoned by my father when we were still small children, plus health issues she had mid-life made life tough on our family but Mom kept us together. She raised us, loved us, and was thrilled as each of us grew to adulthood. But for herself she never had a lot. One thing she did have was free and clear ownership of her home from her early 50s onward.

It was a small home in a small town in eastern Ohio. It wasn’t worth a lot. She had little savings. Plus it took us two years to sell that house. Because of her financial situation, my guess at the value of the house, legal fees, funeral expenses, house maintenance while we waited for it to sell, etc., I didn’t expect to get much from my mother’s estate.

Anything would have helped, of course, but I expected a few thousand dollars total.

Before I go further, I’ve budgeted out about $15,000 for my trip to Thailand for my gender confirmation surgery. I’ve waited a lifetime for this and could wait a few more years as I saved the money.

So imagine my surprise when I was informed that I and my siblings would each be receiving approximately $16000 as our last gift from mom.

I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes today, looking heavenward, and repeating “Thank you, mom”. For even in death, her last gift to me turned out to be perfect.