Blogs are suppose to be a glimpse into your life for all to see. I usually try to capture a thought or emotion and articulate it as best as I can.
Here is a real, simple glimpse into my daily life:
My insurance provides prescriptions by U.S. Mail on a three month basis.
Today my second 3 month supply of estrogen patches arrived.
Extreme happy face!
My youngest daughter has started sending me links to stories she finds of people expressing simular feelings to mind. Mostly gender fuid. But there are some truly heart warming stories of children expressing their transgender feelings and how their parents deal with it.
i commented to my wife that this was just the same as it was when I was young.....
They beat their kids, then took them to dumb-ass psychiatrists who told them to straighten out and be 'normal' ! ( note: chances of heavy sarcasium 100%)
How happy I am for the youth of today. Let's how no one tries to reverse this progress in the name of god, or any other fear.
Life came be full of mixed emotions.
At my point in life, it should be good, great really, and for me it is. Finance is secure, kids on track for good lives. I can finally be who and what I have always felt I was. I love, and am loved by my partner of 35 years. It could not be better.
I have incredibly friends, Trans and not. My pet perversion is now at the top of the national news. This is my fairy tale ending of mythical porpotions. (Sweet)
Sweet, indeed it is. But my mind, like most of ours, will work against me from time to time.
I went to Lowes today for some construction materials. Ahead of me in the checkout was a 30-something woman buying lumber. She had one of the most incredible bodies I have seen. Her hair was to die for, sun-streaked blonde just below the shoulder blades. As always, I desired not her, but to be her. But I knew, I know, that I will never look like that. I won't. Not without a lot of really serious surgery. She was way out of my league. (Sour)
If I was prone to despression, this would have set me in to a funk. Luckily I'm not. I thought of how tomorrow, I had a GNO with several of my very best friends. Of how much I would enjoy the night. How I knew I would be swept away in joy at being me amongst others who shared my feelings. How I would get ready for the evening, and how pleased I would be with how I looked, of who I was. I would be so happy just to be who I was and anything more would be just excessive.
Will I be that perfect body of the woman at Lowes? No.
Does that really matter? Hell no!
My life could not be more perfect, so why would I even consider comparing oranges to apples by judging myself against this woman ?
I did, but just for a moment. Then I can to my senses.
" I am different " Seems like like a perfectly reasonable statement. Caitlyn Jenner said as much last night accepting an award for courage. We all are different and you don't need a PHD to justify that.
But his sticks me as one of those little lies we tell ourselves. I watched a Frontline show on PBS last week called ' growing up Trans'. It featured several teen and preteen transgender kids and their parents. The focus was how society's attitude toward transgender children had changed.
The focus of this documenary was how these children expressed that they were not the gender they felt, and how they were on the path to correct that issue. But overwelling they expressed how much they just wanted to fit in, to be 'normal'. Even after transitioning. One 13 year old Trans girl with a group of new friends, expressed discomfort when her friends, all early teen CIS girls, spoke of having children. This made her uncomfortable because she knew she would never give birth.
Later, a transitioned man of college age opines that 'How could I feel like a man at 10, when I just now know how a man feels?'
All the Trans people spotlighted expressed, at some point how they wanted to just fit in, to feel 'normal' like everyone else.
What we really want is not to be different. We want to be just like everyone else, everyone we relate to.
T he subject of this documentary, and it's producers need to understand that trying to feel 'normal' is never going to work.
I am different
We are different
These words mean way more than we think.
i am not a CIS man, nor am I a CIS woman. I am Trans, and that is different.
I will never be a CIS woman, and can only pretend to be a CIS man.
So I have to embrace who, and what I am,..
and I do.
I am different.
Life moves so fast sometimes. I have several posts stacked up, waiting for me to finish my thoughts and submit them to my editor, who just happens to be my mate of 35 years this month.
The world is such an amazing place right now, for the LGBT community at least. There are so many blogs, news stories, TV Shows and movies it's become hard to follow them all.
But the media is not all good, it seems the transphobic are coming out of the woodwork. Any comparison to cockroaches is strictly intentional. Their comments revel a lack of education and level of fear that makes me truly sad for them and their family. It's hard, but I resist the strong urge to leave a comment, hoping to explain that they just don't understand.
The truly sad thing is that there still are sectors of people who value red neck ignorance. An article in the 'National Review' bashed Jazz Jenningd, the adorable teenager from Florida, author of a popular children's book and soon to be TV star. The comments were worse than the article itself, most expressing fear that it's all a big plot to force them to transition against their will.
This seems to be the heart of the real problem. The bashers have their beliefs, but feel that it is their right and duty to force everyone else to believe the same. Educated people understand that everyone has the right to be who they are and only want to be treated with respect. It would never occur to me to try and change someone else in that manner. They practice this kind of behavior and can not fathom that everyone else would not do the same.
its not just the trans community that's taking heat, several state leaders and county officials have openly defied the supreme courts same sex marriage ruling. Yesterday the governor of Oklahoma stated he would not remove a monument to christian religion from the state capital grounds after his state Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstutional.
These acts embody their flawed logic. They cry religious freedom without understanding that theirs is not the only religion. Their freedom is someone else's oppression. No one is trying to make them change their beliefs, but they refuse to allow anyone else their own.
We have made great strides, but hold on its not over yet, and I fear it's going to get ugly.
Have you watched Sense8 on Netflix? It's new original series Netfilx produced that has been recently been released. Wow, it's really amazing. The Sci-Fi story is very compelling, but I'm amazed at the gender attitude portrayed.
This is from Andy & Lana Wachowski who previously brought us The Matrix. Lana is trans and her influence can definitely be felt. The story revolves around 8 people from around the world. One, from San Francisco of course, is a trans woman. Played by Jamie Claytom, a trans woman herself.
The value of a trans story line, acted and directed by trans people can not be emphasized enough. These are people who truely know the subject matter.
In one scene, the girlfriend of the trans woman, gives a speech about how wonderful it was the she lives in a world where she is free to fall in love with anyone she wanted. To see a trans woman and a non-trans woman as lovers is something I think has never before graced the cinema.
Ridgid gender identities are nowhere to be seen, in this story gender fluidity is the norm. Their awareness and sense of self Identity pop in and out of each other's minds. It's like putting your gender identity on shuffle,
If this show proves as popular as 'Orange is the new Black' , I think you will see these attitudes appear in more and more shows.
Go to Netflix and search on 'Sense8' , watch a few episodes, I think you will be hooked.
Nomi (right) - played by Jamie Clayton. Dr Who fans will recconize her girlfriend Amanita, played by Freema Agyeman.
Catilyn Jenner reveled her new name and body in Vanity Fair this month. It is a unveiling worthy of an Apple event, simple, elegant and extremely polished. Bravo Catilyn, bravo Vanity Fair.
The world seems a bit taken aback by just how different, and beautiful she looks. I think this is just great and am amused to think of all the unaccepting people and what is going in their mind! Here is a beautiful woman, born a man. A man that is very hard to put down, having taken the gold in the olympics. This has to be causing a sever meltdown of their prejudice assumptions. He was never weak, never shy, certainly never a 'loser'. He was a 'Man's man', one of the boys. He played sports!
When a person of this statue comes out as transgender it is a big deal. This shows the world that being transgender is more like being left handed than a disease. It's a coincidence of fate, not a curse, not a choice.
Slowly, carefully, Catilyn is educating the general public on the reality of being transgender. She started with the Diane Sawyer interview laying the groundwork. Next up is her show on E!. She confesses not to be any kind of official spokesperson for the Transgender community, but she has a better platform than anyone since Laverne Cox. I think Catilyn's position is even better than Laverne's, we knew Catilyn before the transition. Laverne has told us about her past, but most of us grew up knowing Catilyn (Bruce at the time).
All this leads me again to my position that this is our time. The public ,finally has a reason to accept us. Because of Catilyn, Laverne, Jazz, Alexis Arquette and dozens of others. Each of them coming out very publicly, slowly changing the public attitude.
Right now we are en vogue, and that is leading us to being normal in the public eye, and It's truly a New Normal.
" I was always worried—you never wanted to look like a guy in drag, you never wanted to look like a guy in a dress, O.K. If you’re going to do that, come out, you really have to look the part. You have to look very feminine, you have to be able to, what I call my presentation is extremely important because it puts people at ease. And if you can do that, O.K., people are at ease, they’re just comfortable being around you."
-Caitlyn Jenner 2015
