How we effect others.

Izza (my sidekick) and I went to dinner last Saturday night. As usual we spent a lot of time in conversation, this time we discussed why so many people are so bothered by us.

She believes that men are upset because we threaten their perception of manhood. Men, she says, are brought up to believe that any thoughts of attraction to another man is gay. When they look at us, it sets up a conflict within. Their eye see something attractive, but knowing that we are plumbed just like them is deeply disturbing.

 I had a conversation with my wife about the problems with competition over looks. She has a friend who dated a transgender. Their relationship ended because of competition over who was going to look better. She was OK with her boyfriend dressing as a woman, just not when he competed with her on who was going to look best in her skirt, etc.

When I think about it, usually the first places any transgender feels comfortable going out in public are the gay, lesbian and bisexual areas. Here a gay guy never feels threatened, he's just not interested (in Trans-women). The Lesbians are not feeling competition, they seek out attractive females. And the Bi's, ... well they just love everybody.

When I'm with my non-trans friends, I feel the need to repeatedly reassure the male ones that I am not attracted to men. All of my friends have been very open and supportive, but I can tell that there is still internal discomfort for a few.

Are these the reasons? Or are they just trying to get over learned behavior? Am I missing something Is there something?

I usually leave these posts with my final thought, but for this one I invite you to leave me your thoughts.

Please leave me your comments

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What's that in the bathroom?

Media exposure is always a mixed bag, with both good and bad reactions.

Many lawmakers have taken up the battlecry of 'Save our Bathrooms'. State legislators across the nation are pushing for laws that make it a crime for transgenders to enter bathrooms not matching their physical gender at birth. 

No consideration is given to their gender identity now or at birth, or in most cases, not even the current state of their physical gender.

What is the logical reasoning behind this? To keep 'real' women and children safe from attacks. 

Let's take a closer look. Legislators state that if we allow anyone into the women's bathroom just because they say they 'feel' like a woman, it puts the CIS women in danger. The implication here is that a predator could gain entry into the women's bathroom by being or just pretending to be transgender. Once inside they would have free reign to attack at will. So a law is needed to make entering the bathroom illegal.

It's already illegal to attack someone. In the scenario these lawmakers describe, the predator would be discouraged from the attack because...it's a crime to enter the bathroom?

Let's get into the head of the perp in this situation. Perp - 'OK, I'll just say I'm transgender and then I can get into a bathroom and rape a woman. But it's illegal to enter the bathroom because I was born with a penis. I was willing to risk breaking one law by raping her, but I draw the line at breaking two!'

Legislators rarely mention other aspects of what these laws would do. A transgender woman in the men's room is far more likely to be attacked. Have lawmakers never heard of bullies? In their eye, there is no such thing as transgender men, who would be regulated to using the women's bathroom. How are CIS women going to react to the guy with muscles and a full beard in the bathroom, will she just think 'I guess that man was born with a vagina' ?

What is the biggest problem facing our country and the whole world? Is it the breakdown of family/religion/culture? No, it's fear plain and simple. People who don't understand things fear them. And people do stupid things when they are afraid.

Note: As of the day I posted this both Florida and Minnesota have defeated their bathroom bills, lets hope the others come to their senses.

Note2: I use the term CIS, rather than 'Real' woman or 'Natural' woman. It's a term that has gotten me some flack, but it is intended only to simplify my writing, it's not meant as a label. 

Never felt so nice to be ignored

When I first gave in to my urge to express my feminine side, like most transgender women, I wanted to be a really beautiful woman. But I knew that this was unrealistic, so I started with the small goal of not looking like Milton Berle in Drag. My standards were set low with little expectation of being seen as anything but a guy in a dress. I went to dark clubs inhabited by other transgender people. 

If I had occasion to be seen in the light of day, it would always cause a bit of a ripple in the social order. No one tried to stone or torch me, but I always got quite a few disapproving looks.

A great deal of my problem was just poor choices in my apparel and heavy handed makeup. My wife has, from the start, suggested I rethink these choices and I finally started to listen to her. This along with some months of HRT have made some improvements in my appearance.

When I look at myself, I see few differences, and my guy mode garners no discernible changes. But with my hair fixed, a light touch of makeup and simple everyday casual feminine clothes, I have become un-recognizable from how I used to look.

I had a followup visit to my GP after my last physical. Only the Doctor knew I was transgender, and I had always gone to appointments in guy mode. The followup was done as Jess, and the receptionist, who has known me for years, did not recognize me until she noticed my daughter who was accompanying me. 

Today shopping for critical cat food and wine, I went as Jess. I shopped PetSmart, Trader Joes and finally Starbucks without a single glance. The checkout clerks looked me in the eye without a hint of knowing that I was trans.

I've arrived at the enviable position of that woman you don't notice. Go me!

Leather skirt or leggings?

Lots on my mind today, so I'm breaking it into several posts, I know we all hate to read long blogs.

Last week I posted about going out with my sidekick and how good it felt to be in the real world. I posted as much on my Facebook page and got some critical comments. One took issue with my suggestion of how to dress in public.

I do understand that how you dress is a matter of personal choice, and that it is not my place to tell anyone how to dress. I'm responsible for me and no one else.

My point was meant less to be a statement of what we should do, and more of an observation of how the general public responds. This applies to everyone, trans or not, in all aspects of life. I think everyone understands that it is inappropriate to attend church in only socks and underwear, that many businesses refuse service unless you have on shoes. There is a time and place for a leather skirt, corset and 6" heels, it's just probably not Thursday afternoon at the local Starbucks.

I make this observation now because of the media attention we are currently getting . Transgender media coverage is at an all time high and public awareness is strong.

Bruce Jenner has put us in a very good light and we owe it to each other to make the best of it. We can do that by letting the public see us as non-threatening, as people they can relate to. They don't want to see fetish-wear unless they go looking for it.

The woman at target in leggings, flats and an oversized top, could easily be the one at the club Saturday night in the micro mini sporting a very low cut blouse, knee boots and a whip. But she knows she is at Target, not the club.

Many of us have felt suppressed for so long that we want to just say 'to hell with it, I want to wear leather every day until I die!', and I understand your frustration. When someone tells you how to dress as a transgender, it's insulting. 

But just because we are transgender does not give us a pass on social graces, and the more we ignore them, the more misunderstood we will be.

Let's use this opportunity to show the world that we are not a mental disorder, that we are normal, just a different normal than them. Treat the world like a strange dog, move slow and let them smell you before making any big moves!

The World shifted this week, just a little..

The big news from last Friday, in case you have been living under a rock, was the Bruce Jenner interview on ABC. I'm sure everyone that reads this blog is already up to speed on it's content, so I won't delve into it.

For months the internet and tabloids have been speculating and producing articles about Bruce Jenner. I had a nice conversation yesterday with my sidekick during our weekly coffee. She thought it could be a bad thing, that there were so many negative opinions being written about in magazines, tweets, blogs etc. that it would set us back. She said this was not necessarily what would happen, just that it was one possibility.

I think that a point here is being missed by most. There has been plenty of transgender exposure lately, and it's certainly the media darling of the moment. The difference is that this was on broadcast, over-the-air television. It was on ABC, not lifetime, AMC, FX or some obscure channel. This was a major network, on Friday night prime time. 

This is where heartland America lives, this is what and when, the majority of the US watches TV. Millions of people just got exposure for the first time in their lives to the reality of transgenderism. From a knowledgable source, not from the uninformed.

 Bruce gave an excellent, calm and concise explanation of the subject. He stayed consistant with multiple attempts to relate gender orientation with sexual orientation. And he did so in a professional manor, in good spirits and portrayed a position of authority. This is exactly the representation that we needed and have been lacking.

I have a friend, a non-trans woman my age, who has known and experienced my feminine persona several times. While she has always been pleasant and accommodating, she has never understood my motivation. After watching the interview, she 'gets it', and is excited about it. Prior to this, I was just a strange exception to the reality of gender in her perspective, I was an Island. She knew that there were other islands, but counted us as an anomaly. Now it's been on ABC, Diane Sawyer talked about it to an Olympic Gold medalist and there is a Kardashian connection. Now it's real. Suddenly we are part of society proper and this opinion is being reflected across the United States.

So the world shifted it's perspective this week.....a little, but it's the biggest shift we have ever seen. Let's try to make the best of it.

Pavlov's dog

Going out in public is one of the hardest obstacles for transgenders to overcome. Many will find a local group and attend events en mass. These events are usually in LGBT friendly areas, and provide a sense of security and of being out in the real world.

But when you get down to it, it's really not, the general public rarely inhabit these areas. At some point you will either resolve yourself to this life in the security blanket, or make the plunge into the real, everyday mundane world of the general public. 

From time to time, I have large amounts of outside work to do that involves a truck, some tractors etc. I always wear overalls for this, I like to match apparel to the task. My dog loves to be involved with this outside work, loves riding in the truck etc. So for several years now, whenever I put on my overalls, she becomes very excited. She has associated the overalls with a fun day.

There is a restaurant in my local town where we like to dine. I decided that it was time to be myself and went as Jess. The first time they seated us with curtesy, but I did get some looks of uncertainty from our waitress. She was pleasant, and polite, and somewhere during the meal I made a small joke that she found funny. The uncertainty seemed to disappear. We tipped well and that was that. A week later I returned, this time I was greeted with a smile and seated. The third time, I brought my sidekick along, and was greeted with a 'you look very pretty tonight', and we were all treated like gold. 

My point here is that humans can sometimes be trained just like my dog. She(my dog) came to associate my overalls with fun. The restaurant staff came to associate my attire with pleasantries and nice tips.

If you ease into life, and show everyone that you are not something strange and unpleasant, they will become acclimated to you. And by way of association, all of us.   

Who's story is it anyway?

 I started watching the Discovery Life series ‘New girls on the block’, an unscripted show about the lives of 6 transgender women. I’ve seen shows like this before, AOL had ‘True Trans’ last fall, about Laura Jane Grace, formally Tom Gabel, lead singer of the band ‘Against Me!’ BBC had a series titled ‘My transexual Summer’, where they brought 7 transgenders to a resort each weekend for  3 months.
This Friday Bruce Jenner is expected to revel the long speculated news that he is transgender.

All this press should be viewed as good for the cause of enlightening the general public about transgender people. But I’m dubious about the results and here is why.

The producers seem to focus only on the pain, anxiety, and depression of growing up trans. There are endless discussions of how terrible it is to be trans, talks always run to suicide. Close ups of teary eyed individuals are common. And the implication that once transitioned, sexual orientation must follow. Shots of trans girls ogling guys at bars, deep discussions of their new boyfriend are also a staple of most of these shows. There are trans women, but rarely is a trans man anywhere in the picture. And the trans women can and will be happy only after SRS (sexual reassignment surgery).

This is the product of the producers preconceived ideas about what trans is. They come to the table with an idea of how things need to go, then find the subjects to fit their story. These are not the stories being told by the subjects, rather the subjects are there just to support the producers idea.

One Big exception is the BBC show ‘My transexual summer’ which featured 4 trans women and 3 trans men. Donna, one of the featured trans women, was very proud of the fact that she was still into women, and happy to keep her original plumbing. She was upbeat and positive, a departure from what we normally see. This show was also the only one I have seen that included trans men, all the others would lead you to believe that it was a strictly Male to Female issue.  

 Will Friday's Bruce Jenner interview repair the damage from all the media speculation? He has been the subject of so much media attention. As of today (4/20/2015), he has not made any statement, transgender or not, but there have been dozens of 'Bruce Jenner transgender' headlines, leading us to believe it's a confirmed fact. He may very well make that statement this Friday, but until he does, it's his right alone to say. I know he is a public figure in the headlights of the media, more because of his connection to the Kardashians than his Olympic achievements, but really media, poorly pasting his head on a womans body and photoshopping on makeup? You should be ashamed.

My big problem with these shows is that they appear to confirm the stereotype of transgender as fact, and they are doing it on national television. The general public reacts poorly to us mainly because they know nothing about us, and nothing breeds fear like the unknown. 
What will the public think after watching all this narrow focused coverage? 
That all trans have led a miserable life?
That all trans are men desperate to become women so they can have sex with men?
That people born female are immune to this problem?

This is not the only version of who or what we are. I am not alone in having a happy life, all my life, trans or not. I view it as  gift, not a curse. I have no attraction to men, never hated my naughty bits and would never change them. We are of many diverse variations and no one version is the 'right' one.

The media is having a field day with transgender awareness, but I don't fit their definition, and I know that many of you don't either. 

We're going to make it after all..

My recent dive into media coverage for the last blog brought to my attention an interesting phenomena. Stories about younger people and their acceptance of transgender are not just on the rise, but are rising at a rapid pace.

When I was young, decades ago, even the slightest hint of femininity in a boy caused massive schoolyard teasing, bullying and often ostracization. It was not quite so bad for girls, who could play the ’Tomboy’ card, but by middle school (then called ‘Jr. High’), that card would not fly and the insults flew.

Kids were cruel, and unforgiving of anything that did not match their predefined classifications of the world around them. Maybe this was because we were all just coming out of the horrible racism of the decades before. My first grade class was the first desegregated class in the history of my town. Or maybe it was just because our parents saw the world, specifically gender, as completely black & white. We were taught you were a boy or a girl, there were no words for anything else.

 But things have changed, radically, in the 21st century. A few examples:

The Kids Are All Right With Transgender Rights

Number of under 10s referred to the NHS for help with transgender feelings has more than quadrupled – with kids as young as 3 receiving treatment.

I have kids, in their 20’s now, and they were immediately OK when I came out to them, actually more enthusiastic than just OK. Their friends are right there with them, most are openly supportive.

One daughter makes it a regular habit of telling her friends and co-workers that her dad is trans. She loves to drop in the fact with an impish smile, just waiting to see their reaction. The older co-workers are astonished, some speculating that parents must surely be divorced, to which she replies ’No, they have been married for 35 years.’

The other daughter has made transgender the subject of college projects to great success, earning her a scholarship.

Youtube is full of videos by teenagers documenting their journey, and a Florida girl, Jazz Jenkins, has become a media star in her own right. I mentioned that she will be the subject of an upcoming TV show and has written a children’s book. She was offered and accepted an endorsement deal with a skin care company.

There are of course some stories without a happy ending, two recent suicides were tragic and heart breaking. 

The point of this rambling is that overall we have a bright future as the generations that are coming up have shed most of their prejudices. As we move forward, our place in society will become more commonplace, and that is a good thing.