You will find a new addition to this site. 'Alexandria Speaks'.
Alexandria Hull is the older of my two daughters. She recently took on the job of my personal assistant , so she attends events and travel with me. and she has decided to write some of her observations and experiences.
Not just about me, but about her two dogs, husband, political advocacy the LGBTQIA community.
I think you will find her voice quite different than mine and I think you will like it.
Reality and ideal are almost never coordinated. I grew up wanting to be something that I could not be, so I became something else. "My brain went one way and my body went another..."
These days I tell people, causal acquaintances, sales people, etc. that I suffer from ‘testosterone poisoning’. I say this not only to subtly explain that I am trans, but to acknowledge that I know that my ribcage and shoulders are large, that my hands and feet are more suited to someone who lives at the top of a beanstalk than that of a delicate flower of a girl.
I was never really a big man, at 5’8” 195 lbs, I was pretty much in the middle range. But I was strong, more so than I appeared. Big feet, size 10.5 mens, and years of bicycle riding gave me formidable legs & balance. I never shied away from physical labor and had decent arm muscles.
Fast-forward to 2½ years into HRT and those muscles are still there, but not their former self. I can rock a off the shoulder dress, but my shoulders and arms still look like something fitting of a Dwarf warrior from Lord of the Rings.
I find that I get tired much easier than I’m used to. And that 12ft 6x6 post is a much bigger task to move than before.
I’m in that awkward stage. The hormones have robbed me of a lot of strength, and delivered only on the rudimental essence of womanhood. I’m not where I was, nor where I want to be. I knew this was coming, so shed no tears for my situation. Its part of the journey.
The thing is that transitioning is very much tied to the whole binary gender attitude of society. You can not yet, in this society, gradually transition from male to female. Society demands that you present as Male or female if you wish to be accepted. So you have to pick a day and declared “I’m trans, and will from now on be Female (in my case or Male in others). But your body does not understand this social construct. It changes naturally, gradually, on a spectrum. It does not recognize any particular day as the transition point.
"My brain went one way and my body went another, and there is no instant way to make then in sync."
I know this, and I will be patient, which is probably the best advice I could give to any transgender individual. Be patient, it takes time. You will have to travel in between before you can finally truly be yourself.
Forgive me father for I haven’t blogged. It has been 92 days since my last post. (That is your cue, internet audience, to suggest my penance.)
I am suppose to be logging my experiences as a transitioning trans woman here for the world to see. You would be well within reason to think that nothing has been going on, based on my latest reports. Fortunately that is not the case.
My last blog dealt with my official name change and I am happy to report It went very smoothly. Say hello to the official ‘Jess Helene Herbst’. The judge did not bat an eye when he granted my request and I got a couple of ‘Congratulations’ from people in the court.
So now I have a new Social Security card, Drivers license and Passport. I’ve updated my bank, medical and insurance records. There are a few more records to update, but for all practical purposes, Jeff is history.
It’s been 8 months since I came out to my town, and inadvertently the world. I am called ma’am when I'm out and when I’m with my wife, they say ‘ladies’. It feels weird to have wait staff always ask if we want the dinner bill on separate checks or one. I was used to the assumption that we would always be paying together.
We struggled for a while on how to identity each other. My Wife did not like ‘Spouse’ or ‘Partner’, she found them a little too impersonal, having been together 37 years. She surprised me one day by casually introducing me as her ‘wife’. I really like it and I think it shows how far she has come with her acceptance, not of me, but of how our relationship appears to others and her role in it.
I have gotten used to most of this, but sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not just dreaming. 50+ years of keeping my identity a secret make it hard to get used to letting it all out there for the world to see.
I joined with hundreds of other LGBTQIA in Texas and took up the battle against the states attempt to create discriminatory bathroom laws. It was a struggle that involved many trips to the state capital in Austin. Testifying three times before state senate & house committee hearings, protests marches and rallies. I was privileged to be included in one of the most amazing alliance of rights organizations ever - One Texas Resists. 36+ major diverse groups along with dozens of grassroots organizations. We won, for now.
It’s time to plan strategies to replace the legislators in Texas that believe discrimination is acceptable with those who know it is not.
And finally it is time to look at my own political future. I have a Mayoral election in the spring if I wish to keep my seat, and I do. Beyond that, the 2020 elections are coming and I think it’s time for new blood in US congress. Maybe someone with local governmental experience…
I have been traveling a lot lately. That means staying in hotels, a task I am well acquainted with. These days it has been a source of anguish. Why?
When I check into a hotel I am met with the standard ‘Credit card and ID’ request. I slip these two from my purse and present them. The clerk looks them over and then it happens. My smiling face is right there on my TDL along with the name ‘Jeffery Paul Herbst’. This usually causes a slight double take. Look at picture, look at me. Long blond hair, check. Blue eyes, check. Same smile, check. But of course the name and the person standing there simply don’t check. I don’t look like a ‘Jeffrey Paul’.
This has led me to pursue a legal name change, something simple in concept, but with a tedious list of steps to complete.
The obvious first, and often underestimated step is what do you change it to? When I first decided to explore my feminine side, I thought long and hard about what I was to be called. The name Jess was chosen for its simplicity and the similarity to the name everyone already knew me by. I had been called Jeff for as long as I can remember, but my name was Jeffrey.
I believed that I would need a longer more formal form of Jess for my official name. I knew too many Jessica’s so it was out. A google search led me to Jesilyn and its various spellings. OK, I could live with that. But it was not popular with my wife or kids.
Back to the search and I found Jessa and liked it, my kids liked it and even my wife signed off on it. So now what to do with the middle name ‘Paul’? This has been the least used name I have had the pleasure of owning. Over the years I’ve often been called ‘Jeff’ or by my last name, or nicknames bestowed on me by my friends - Herby, Doctor and Mr. Wizard are a few that come to mind. No one has ever called me Paul.
I went to my family history for this task and after a few stumbles settled on Helene, my fathers sister who died in childhood. I remember him speaking of her fondly and just liked the name.
Next step was filling out the paperwork and filing it at the courthouse. This is when my wife stepped back in to the debate asking if it made any sense to have a name that would rarely be used, and only had a single letter difference from the nickname. I had to overcome the notion that my first name must to be a longer formal version of my everyday name. I was reminded that my own daughter’s name is Lauren, no long version, no nickname version, just Lauren. A little thought brings dozens of examples to mind. She was right and Jessa became just Jess.
The form is filed, and fingerprints have been sent to Austin for a background check, a requirement in Texas. So now I just wait for clearance from the DPS and get an appointment before a judge.
When they asks the reason for a name change, I think they will do the same double take and have their answer!
I have mentioned many times how lucky I am to have the love and support of my wife and kids. This has been a subject of fascination with many of the journalists I have worked with.
In the transgender community it is something of the exception to the rule. It’s not completely unheard of, but is certainly not what many consider the ‘norm’.
All too often the decision to transition must include consideration of losing ones spouse, children and family. Friends and employment are party to these concerns as well.
The frequency I read of other transgender people agonizing the loss of their whole world is disturbing. The decisions of who leaves, who will the kids stay with? Will the kids even want to see with the transgender parent? It is little wonder that the vast majority of trans identifying people never transition.
I am aquatinted with a reasonably large number of trans people. I attend dinners, concerts, Christmas parties and many other social events. The topic of spouses and kids comes up inevitably. Many are out to their spouse but not to their kids. Many are out to no one in their personal life and maintain a completely separate existence to fulfill their transgender inner workings.
I have met trans women that rent storage facilities just to keep their feminine stash secret from their family. Many make up elaborate stories to explain where they will be when they allow themselves to express themselves. They are terrified of the consequences of being discovered.
This behavior, while seeming a necessity leads to an ever increasing problem. It is deceit, a lie, and as time goes on, it gets bigger and bigger.
I was very fortunate to find an understanding spouse from the very beginning. We discussed my feelings before we decided to marry. This was before I knew the word transgender, or understood that I was not alone in feeling this way.
I read a post from a friend recently saying that when she interviewed for a job, she talked about her activity in LGBT advocacy. This eventually paved the way for her acceptance at work. My own experience was that being honest with the people I work with has been met with acceptance and appreciation.
This is the biggest factor in my success. When I decided to transition, there was no big secret to reveal to my family. And more importantly, no big lie to justify.
Imagine the trans woman, I'm her 50’s, as I was, broaching this subject with their spouse of 30+ years. The fact that she is trans is going to be hard enough for the spouse to get over, but she also has to own up to the fact that she has been lying all these years. The lying becomes the bigger factor. No matter how many assurances she gives that she has come clean, the knowledge of years of deceit has poisoned the well.
Of course it is not as simple as I make it sound, but nothing in life worth having is ever simple.
If you are trans, and you have a spouse, you owe it to them to tell the truth. It won’t get better if you don’t, but it may if you do.
I began this journey, not with a big sendoff, but a minor shift in direction. When I decided to start HRT, I was still not sure that I would completely transition. I definitely wanted the feminization that it would bring, but I had not convinced my mind that I could truly be accepted in society as a female. So I had no real timetable, no schedule, no end plan. Just take the HRT and see what happened. There was still this thing inside me that said: ‘You really can’t do this, you will be stuck in a male role the rest of your life’.
That voice, the voice of doubt, I think lives inside many transgender people. It drives the fear, the self doubt, the depression. When that voice is accompanied by voices from the outside as well, it cements its legitimacy.
When society expresses disapproval of anyone outside of their understanding, by misgendering a transgender person, staring incredulously, or openly expressing disapproval, it amplifies that voice. It is nourishment to our internal voice of doubt. You feel like that voice is backed up by the world, and the part of you that feels trans is a lie, a mistake.
These are things I knew, I understood. So I was expecting a big fight, not just with society, but with my mind, just to progress toward being me. No one is harder to argue with than yourself!
If you have read my blog, you know that I rarely encountered these outside voices. Society has treated me with the kind of respect and equality that few transgender people experience. My wife and daughters have been on my side 110%. My work colleagues have been exceptional.
For quite a while now, I hear only She, Her, Ma’am, no matter where I am. That voice of doubt in my head has died from lack of nourishment. I finally believe that I can be accepted. In reality I have been accepted in society.
I realized that I have transitioned, sometime back while I was still trying to convince myself that I could, I just went ahead and did.
This was my speech before the House Committee on State Affairs. My time ran out, so I skipped last few paragraphs, but I got in the last 3 sentences.
" I was born in 1958, a very different time for our society. As a child I remember my parents taking me downtown, and passing under the sign that hung over Lee Street. “Welcome to Greenville, the blackest land, the whitest people” it read.
The Hunt county court house had public water fountains that read ‘Whites only’ as did their bathrooms.
I would listen to my grandfather talk to other old men at the barber shop. “Ruining the country” they would say. “The women and children just aren’t safe”. They were talking about African Americas wanting equal access to bathrooms.
My Father was a dentist and had to have two patent waiting rooms, one for whites and one for coloreds.
I found out later that there were no African American dentists in town and my fa- ther was the only dentist who would treat people of color. This made him unpopu- lar with many in our town.
As time went by I began to notice things on the news. Protest marches on Washing- ton. Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were regular stories. One day my dad’s office suddenly had only one waiting room. The ‘Whites only’ signs around town, and the sign over Lee street had disappeared.
Then the news was about radical feminists and how they were destroying the val- ues of the country. More protests. Bra burnings. My mother talking about Gloria Steinem constantly. Women marched on Washington demanding to be treated with respect and equality.
Next the talk was all about how gay teachers would corrupt our children. Televan- gelists damned them to eternal torment from their commercial pulpits.
But laws criminalizing gay relationships were challenged. Challenges popped up all across the country. Gay pride became a thing. Washington was once again the recipient of mass marches.
Humans form who they are by their experiences. We learn by absorbing everything around us. We learn to predict what will happen based on what we have observed.
My entire life seems to have been spent watching one group after another stand up and demand the rights that all humans deserves.
I have also watched the battle to prevent these rights by those who assume to be superior. I have seen how they fight and the tactics they use over and over again.
The transgender right movement has been criticized for making comparisons to the struggles that African American have long suffered. What the critics don’t under- stand is that we are not comparing our struggle to theirs, we are comparing the tac- tics of our oppressors to the tactics of theirs.
Labeling the oppressed as a danger to the public to stoking the flames of hatred have been applied to People of color, Feminists ,homosexuals, and now they are applied to me.
The oppressors use misdirection and Fear mongering to drive the public into a frenzy.
But when they lost ground to African Americans and Feminists they turned their ire on Gay and Lesbian Americans. When they lost the supreme court fight against equal marriage they turned to transgender people.
Now they are ringing the bells far and wide about the eminent threat from the ‘Transgender agenda’ or as we were called last month before the Senate committee on state affairs, the 'Trans Mafia’.
They bring this battle to us, as if we suddenly appeared on earth like an alien in- vader. They believe the transgender community to be an easy target, We are not.
We are your neighbors, your friends, your relatives. We are the parents of precious transgender children.
We are up to this challenge because this is not just about our rights. This is about all humans rights.
One day everyone will treated with respect and equality, and history will tell the story.
Ladies and gentleman of the committee, what side of history do you want to be on?"
What Happened last Wednesday April, 19 2017 at the Texas State capital?
After we lost the first round in the battle over Transgender discrimination to the Texas Senate, the fight moved on to the Texas house of representatives on it's way to becoming a law
First, I want to express my gratitude to the many skilled and persistent warriors that came together to fight for human rights. Its an honor to be associated with the Parents, Allies, gender-non conforming and trans people who put in an extremely long day to speak against discrimination and pushed to kill Texas HB2899.
The senate passed SB6 and now the House had to take up the bill. Facing a much more hostile environment, proponents came to the conclusion that it would not pass as written. So they wrote a new bill modeled on the 'compromise' bill recently adopted by the State of North Carolina. This removed specific bathroom language from their HB2 but was still heavily anti LGBTQ+
Although we had to wait until the wee hours of the next am to speak, we were a constant stream of activity. We took he opportunity to visit with many rep's staff. We stopped by and thanked Representative Turners office for his letter urging the NFL leaders not to be fooled by HB2899.
A request for our opinion on the bill prior to the committee hearing was received by Stephanie Martinez and a group was sent to answer questions in their office.
After an amendment to the so called 'Uber' bill came to light we sent advocates to the house chamber, making our presence, and displeasure known. The bill contained language to prevent discrimination and stipulated that Uber type services would not discriminate on the basis of sex. The amendment added further language to define 'sex' as "The physical state of being male or female". This would eliminate any interpretation to include sexual orientation or gender identity in that clause. Effectively making discrimination against LGBTQ+ legal.
Volunteers sort through letters for the legislature
We applied the strength of our numbers to a large stack of documents the HRC needed sorting through. They (the HRC) had collected opinion cards from hundreds of people opposed to LGBTQ+ discrimination and they needed to be sent to the correct Representative. Everyone took a stack, looked up by address the correct rep, marked and sorted them.
Finally the hearing began around 8:30 Wednesday night. There were many bills to get through and the chair said up front HB2899 would be taken last and that all signed up to speak would be heard. Voting on all bills would be postponed to a later meeting.
When HB2899 was finally up, they began with a reading by it's author. It immediately turned into CAHB2899 (committee substitute House Bill) and we learned that it had been narrowed down considerably. The author further stated that they would be presenting a newer version the next day with even narrower language. We feel that this was an attempt to remove the many objections raised by our supporting organizations and the media. The chair informed the bill author that they could only consider the version as presented here and not some future version.
There were many major cities testifying against, Austin, Dallas, El Paso and San Antonio to name a few. The Texas Business Association spoke as well with new data and a representative from the data company to explain their methods. At the senate hearing they were completely disrespected and their data was called flawed, not this time.
The ACLU, HRC, EQTX , Trans United Fund and the NAACP were among those that spoke against.
There were many, many wonderful testimonies, many powerful, some brought tears to the eyes of the committee and well as the audience.
They were schooled in the poor state of the proponents data sources, informed that Non-Discrimination ordinances were major draws to people moving to Texas cities and that there would be mass flight if the bill were enacted. There were way too many to list here, but I want to point out a few.
Rachel Gonzales twirls Lilly as Frank and Monica Roberts watches
Monica Roberts delivered a powerful lesson on the transgender experience. Monica is has been an advocate for Transgender, and Transgender POC rights for many years and is no stranger to political battles.
Claire Bow
Claire Bow, former Texas assistant attorney general and transgender woman, took a legal approach and shredded the validity of the bill.
Claire is a leading advocate famous for her work helping the transgender community through the legal nightmare that Texas requires for gender marker change,
Anna Nguyen attacked the absurdity of the ‘Uniform law’ argument that had been used in defense of the bill.
Nicole Lynn Perry took Anna's argument further and called for a statewide anti-discrimination law to protect all LGBTQ+ people.
Ash Hall eloquently pointed out the hypocrisy in calling this protection for women, and called on the legislature to concentrate their protection efforts to the college campuses sexual assault crisis.
Rachel & Frank Gonzales, with sleeping children in hand, delivered a powerful message about protecting the children truly in need, the transgender children who would be targets of mental anguish and subjected to increased bullying under this bill.
And I left them with a question: “What side of history will you be on?”
In the end there were 389 registered testimonies. 2 neutral, 18 for and 369 against (95% against). There were 72 who actually spoke to the committee last night, 6 for, 66 against.
The House committee on State affairs was a far more fair and unbiased panel that the senate version. The chair was extremely diligent in handling everyone by the rules, and applied them evenly. While some of his comments could be seen as helping one side or the other, and both were seen, careful examination shows that he was just applying the rules of the committee. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I applaud your fairness.
In that light many of the ‘Alternate facts’ presented by the proponents were called into question for their validity, something the senate committee was incapable of.
It was a long day and a half with some putting in a 20+ hour day, with many of us finally getting to bed at or after the time we got up the day before.
Did we ‘Win’? We don’t know yet and won’t until the committee gets some well deserved rest and convinces to take a vote. But the mood of the advocates was good and we felt we truly had a chance to make our case in a fair and unbiased forum.
