Let's do the time warp again...

My wife and I were watching 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' together. Kim Kardashian was talking about Bruce(Jenner) to her friend Jonathan. She told him that the family thought his transition was going really fast, but Bruce felt it was moving very slow. Sixty-five years slow. 

 This spawned a glance between my wife and I as it's something we are very familiar with. She relates to the Kardashian family view, I relate to Bruce. We have experienced these same feelings. 

I spend every waking minute thinking about my gender issues, and I'm sure that most of you (trans people) do as well. Our loved ones think about it some times but certainly not constantly. Where I feel like this has been 50-someodd years coming, it's flying at my wife with breakneck speed.

 I think about it while working, cleaning, watching TV, sometimes even while sleeping. Add up the time I've spent on the subject during my life and it's a very large amount of time. Probably a thousand times more than she thinks about it. So when I suggest some new course of action, I've been thinking about it for years, but it is relatively unknown to her. She needs to consider it, I feel like it's been considered from every possible angle.

She wants to 'slow down' a bit so she can catch her thoughts. To her every day seems to bring new challenges, and she has not yet digested the day before. I think that it is taking forever, any slower and it seems to be going backwards.

If's this were a Sci-Fi flick, I would be in a time warp, watching the world around me move in slow motion, while she see me as a barely recognizable blur.

These are not insurmountable problems. We pause, try to see things from each others view, then decide how to proceed. She and I understand why this is, but it took some time to realize what was happening. Love and understanding can cure even Sci-Fi problems.

I hope that the Kardashians can keep up with Bruce!

When is transgender not transgender?

Old news by now, I have always felt different, me and (at latest estimate) 1.35 million others in the United States alone.  knowing why I felt different was scary, but not life shattering. What bothered me the most was not my wanting to be female. It was not wanting to only be female.

Everything I read kept telling me that people like me were 'women trapped in a mans body' or the reverse if born with female genitals. The stories told of others, dying to become the opposite gender. They could barley stand to remain in the gender they were in. 

This actually made me feel more inadequate than feeling transgender. I could not even get a mental disorder right. I wanted the female gender, but I could not convince myself that I wanted to give up the male. I felt isolated, not really living in the non-trans world, not not really good enough for the trans world.

Now that transgender has sprung into the limelight, there are a few new voices in the noise. Voices that I recconigse, voices that sound like mine. Trans people, not happy with the binary definitions of the majority (the trans majority,the majority of a minority!)

We may be few, or many, but we are starting to be heard. We were never upset that we were not the opposite gender, we were upset because we had to be any single gender all the time. 

There is a time to wear fishing waders and a time for dress shoes, for me there is a time to be male and a time to be female. And I'm so glad to know that I'm not alone. 

15 minutes of fame

Yesterday was spent with my wonderful daughters, shopping and getting our nails done. The sales person at the jewelry store was pleasant and helpful. A team of smiling attendants cared for us at the spa. It was a wonderful experience and my toes have never looked better. We were joined by a friend for dinner and drinks and went to a restaurant where we are well known and always treated like royalty.

 I have come to expect excellent treatment when shopping or dining and  have yet to be disappointed. These are businesses, they are there to sell, and being nice to the customer is good for sales. 

After dinner one daughter and the friend decided to hit some night spots, they invited me to join. A fifty-something trans and two beautiful girls in their twenties out on the town. Quite a juxtaposition from my perspective.

We went to a couple of their favorite bars, which were not in an LGBT friendly neighborhood. The patrons of these bars were not used to seeing someone like me.

The mood of the crowd was positive, and I assumed the attention was due to the very pretty girls accompanying me. But people were taking an interest in me, directly, and in a good way.

These were not people wanting to sell us anything, nor was it the LGBT crowd. They were the average general public, and I had caught their eye.

Current media attention is focusing on the transgendered, stimulated by Bruce Jenner's very public announcement. I keep seeing the word 'trendy' appear when describing transgenders.

That was the difference last night, I was trendy. People have been reading about transgender and here was one in person. Like a designer purse, or expensive shoes, I was the trendy accessory of these two lovely young women. It was quite nice.

These things never last long, the public has a short attention span, so go out and enjoy your fame while it lasts.

Don't forget to turn off the cat

There is a fundamental change happening in how we interact with the manmade objects in our lives.

In the past, all things electric had On/Off switches. We knew that in order to use a thing, you first turned it on, when you were finished, you turned it off. Life was simple.

Look around you, do you turn off your cell phone? How about your Laptop?  Do you have a DVR or cable box? How about a video game console? Do you know where the power button is on any of these?  If you have Wi-Fi at home it's never off. I have a Roomba that really can't be turned off short of removing the battery or letting it run down. Many new devices can only be turned off by removing it's power source.

 Your pets don't turn off, you can call your dog anytime, why not Siri, or Google? The cat goes into sleep mode, but is never completely off. Millennials just expect everything to be available anytime, the concept of things being off is a foreign thing to them.

There was a time when you would watch a TV show or movie where some invention would go wrong. The characters would run around shouting 'Turn it off! Turn it OFF!'.  I am sure that many millennials do not have a clue what this means, much less how to do it.

Why has this happened? Convenience of course. We are an impatient society, we can not be bothered to wait a few seconds for a device to turn on. 

Convenience costs money, in the form of power. We use many devices for an hour or two a day, yet they stay on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long. That power costs natural resources.

Society favors environmental responsibility and we like to think we are responsible citizens. But we never give a thought to all the little convenient things around us, using power all the time.

So do yourself, and the planet a favor, turn off the cat when you are done.

How to treat a Lady

I heard from a friend about a campaign in her company to promote the treatment of their female employees. It's called 'He for She'. The company is looking to increase the ratio of female to male workers in managerial roles. 

Apparently it's based on HeforShe.org, self titled 'A Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality'. The company thinks it's stimulating their male managers to think of women as management material.

They have failed before they begin. 'He for She' is insulting, sending the message that men have to go out of their way to be accommodating to females. The implication is that the women need to be given a helping hand. What they need is simply not to be suppressed. They need to be treated as equals, not someone in need of a handout.

Men in general, and there are exceptions, tend to think of themselves as the top of the food chain. They are certain that without them, the world would stop turning. Giving them catch phrases like 'He for She' just reinforces their feelings of superiority. Since there is no need for a 'She for He' movement, men must be superior already.

When you treat anyone differently than you would treat yourself, you have failed. There should be no difference in how you speak to or about, a natural male, natural female, a transgender, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual... the list goes on. We as humans should consider only one thing in determining how to respect someone else: Are they human? Nothing else maters

What about trans people? We want to be treated as equals. When people label us, make special rules for us, create special bathrooms for us, etc.,  we are second-class citizens, or worse!

Not alone

Alone: First I was alone

When I was young I felt completely alone with my transgender feelings. No one I knew seemed to even consider that anyone could be that way. I think this issue is true for most, if not all transgender people.

Two: Then we were two

I'm unusually lucky that in college I met a woman who acknowledged that people did feel this way, and was perfectly OK with it. I married her.

She gave me two daughters, and gave them her genes. My contribution to their gene pool did not result in any transgenderism being passed along, but her acceptance and kindness did.

Four: Now we're four

I sheltered them from the T word until they were in college themselves. Their reaction has been remarkable. Most of my transgender friends would kill for the support I get from my family.  

Five: one more

Eventually every dad, transgender or not, has to see their daughters move on. My oldest married a wonderful man. She choose well and Jess gained not only a son-in-law but a new supporter.

Details:

The early days saw little time as Jess, but my wife would encourage it whenever I expressed a need. She never conveyed any distain or reluctance, it was always just a normal thing with her. 'It's who you are' she would tell me.

When the girls came into the loop, they jumped in quickly. Imparting on me all the knowledge they obtained growing up as girls. Helpful things I would have learned if I had not spent my youth as only a boy.

More important than the lessons and encouragement has been the fact that they treat Jess as a normal part of life. They attend social gatherings with my transgender friends, we dine in normal restaurants, go shopping in regular stores. This includes my son-in-law, who can compliment my outfit and then switch to tech talk with me, without missing a beat. They make me feel 'normal'.

When I blog, I blog from my soapbox, taking the role to a political level sometimes. This requires a level of confidence that is often missing from the trans world. A confidence that comes from the support, nourishment and encouragement I get every day from my family. 

So when you read my words, remember that it took a team to get them on your screen, the best damn team anyone could ask for.

There is no 'I' in weekend

My wife and I went to the movies Saturday afternoon. Weekends are usually Jess time, so we were a pair of ladies.

In public I'm conscious of people’s reactions and saw no one paying particular attention to me. 

After the movie I noticed my wife was uncomfortable. She said she was apprehensive of the public's perception of us. She felt that many eyes were on her.

Experience has taught me that the general public is concerned mostly with themselves. There always will be a few that do notice, and I have learned how to deal with it.

I have only been concerned with reactions to me, but my wife is also breaking the normal gender rules. Being out with me, she appears lesbian, as we are obviously a couple. I never thought to ask if she was comfortable with this perception.

I have a long time friend who is hesitant to do anything in public with Jess, but at his home it’s just fine. I should have realized that he is worried about peoples perception of him.  I have just assumed that all attention, good or bad, would be on me. 

As transgenders, we think of ourselves and how we can get along in the world. When it comes to our family and friends, we seek their approval, but do we ever consider the position it places them?  By being who we are, we add our issues to their lives. 

We don’t travel in a bubble, our presence has an effect on everyone around us, Let’s try and be conscious of that fact.

Rehash...

Earlier I wrote a piece called ' Who's story is it anyway?'

I was upset by the portrayal of transgenders in the media. I was apprehensive of the (at the time) upcoming Bruce Jenner interview.

Fast forward to now and things are a bit better. ABC treated Bruce fairly, so you would think we were off to a good start. But media coverage, while increasing, has not changed it's stereotypical coverage. Today I read an op-ed in 'The Advocate.com' by Brynn Tannehill covering the same issues. His piece is well written and to the point.  

Here is a clip from it that really gets to the problem:

" In short, people want what they expect, including transgender stereotypes. They want the clichés and the tearful stories. They want transgender people to expose the most intimate details of their lives for the supposed "education" of others. They want all the stuff that trans folks are so familiar with talking about in media that we've created a "transgender documentary drinking game," where you take a shot every time an interview features footage of a trans woman poignantly painting her face with makeup, pulling stockings up her legs, trying on high heels, or uncomfortably reflecting on the infamous "before" and "after" diptych. 

'The media is a business, and just like any other business it is about making money," Allyson Robinson rightly explained in a recent op-ed explaining why networks give cisgender [nontrans] audiences what they want in trans stories. "It has to show pictures of a trans woman putting on mascara or doing the laundry in a skirt and heels or dramatic 'before and after' shots, because society's desire to leer at those things is what gets eyeballs on the screen.' "

It's really the same old story of humanity. People want what they want, and there is always someone to give it to them, especially if a profit is to be made.

What can we do about this? Resist, of course, don't give them what they want. Present a strong, self-confident and non-threatening image. It's going to take a while to sink in, but eventually it will.

I read that the women's rights movement has been ongoing for over 150 years, lets hope we don't have to wait that long.