29 March 2010 by kathleen.

My freshman year at college was stressful.  When I came home for the summer, I came home depressed.

I sulked; I moped; for hours, I sat motionless at the back of the garage.  Someone I met at college, an upper classman who had volunteered to help orient freshmen, got me to tell him my story: transvestism.  As we talked over many weeks, he suggested that letting a problem out and talking about it was better than stifling and holding it in.

I came home at the end of the semester, and for half the summer I fought with myself: how can I get this problem out to talk about it?

I finally told mom.  She told dad, and his reaction was to get help for me.  A “navy buddy” from World War II was a doctor; dad asked his advice.  The shrink I began seeing was a story in himself, though I think I’ll leave him for another post.

I don’t know if dad felt hurt or insulted by my crossdressing; we never talked about it.  Based on some things he said to me a few years later, I think he initially felt some guilt.  He had a coworker whose son was also crossdressing, so at least dad knew he wasn’t alone.  I, however, did not yet know I wasn’t alone.

I know I was rejecting him, and rejecting maleness.  At the time I was 18-19 years old, and I was hurting.  I couldn’t say exactly what I thought dad had done, but somehow I thought he’d done wrong.

Fundamentally, though, I know dad loved me and I know he tried to do the best he could once he heard my cries for help.  I have long since let go of feelings of anger and resentment toward him.  As so often happens, though, he died before I could let go of that anger.  I’m sorry for that, dad, that I could not reconcile with you before you passed on.

Posted in AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

28 March 2010 by kathleen.

You’ve been sorting out your transgendered life for how long?  5 years? 15 years? 40 years?

And you expect your family to adjust to you being transgendered, how quickly?  a couple of days?  3 weeks? 6 months?

An MtF friend told about going back to see her family, 6 years after she came out to them.  Six years ago, she didn’t receive a warm welcome; cold shoulder was a better description.  Now, years later, she went back to see them.  She was surprised that they no longer had any trouble remembering the preferred pronouns.  Everyone, she said, was friendly and OK with her.

Another friend, FtM, came out to his mother.  His mother did not instantly accept her new son.  She struggled with the concept for months, could not wrap her tongue around the preferred masculine pronouns for this brand new son, whom she’d known as a daughter for 40-some years.  It’s now about 2-1/2 years after he first came out to her.  She loves her son, always has, and has finally accustomed herself to his new life; she no longer uses the wrong pronouns.

In a sense, I was a coward: I did not come out in an identifying way to my parents while either of them was alive.  I told them one day when I was 19 that I wanted to wear womens’ clothes (the subject of a post I’m still writing), but I told them this fact as if I were mentally ill.  Both of them were long dead before I realized that I am transgendered, and before I embraced my transgendered nature.  I told my brother in the early 1970’s, but he’s never met his sister in all that time.

However long ago you came out to your family — or if you’re getting ready to come out to them — just remember that you’ve been wrestling with this issue way longer than they have.  Even if they suspected something about you, it isn’t until you come out and assert, “This is what I am,” that they actually have to deal with a new picture of you.

Be patient, be kind; you may be right that they will never, ever accept you.  You may also be surprised that in six months, or a year, or three years, you can be yourself with your family.

Posted in General FtM topics, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

25 March 2010 by kathleen.

My cousin today sent me a copy of a cartoon on The Doghouse Diaries web site. The cartoon shows a list of 29 colored rectangles. On one side of the list are 29 names girls would use for the 29 colors shown. On the other side are the 7 names guys would use.  I’d put the illustration in, but it won’t fit in the column width I get with this Wordpress setup.  You can click this link yourself and see what I mean.

It’s kind of funny — but also sad, for the guys.

I put this entry in the category Sex & Gender Roles because that’s what the difference is: men don’t have permission to distinguish, to sense, to feel.  Women have permission to feel emotions,  and to be sensitive to color and to texture.

I said permission, not ability or capacity.  Each of us can give ourselves the permission we need, to do anything we decide to do.  You can give yourself permission to feel emotions, whether SRS is the right thing for you or not.  Feeling and expressing, though, are two different things.  You may or may not choose to also give yourself permission to express what you feel.

If you do decide to give yourself permission, please don’t forget to accept that permission, too!

Posted in Sex & Gender Roles | 1 Comment »

24 March 2010 by kathleen.

I’ve written before about God and my transition. I want to testify to the power of God in my path from John to Kathleen.

You may not be able to tell from the picture of me on the GenderSong About Us page, but I am mostly bald. I told my gender therapist early on that I could never live full time because I would have to wear a wig, and in southern Virginia it just too darned hot to wear a wig in the summer. “No way,” I said. “I could never live as a woman.”

Someone heard my protest; I choose to believe God heard it. A year or two after this assertion to my therapist, my hairdresser told me about a partial hairpiece — not a full wig, but enough to cover my bald spot. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say. “A hairpiece is not a sign from God.”  Well, not only did the the piece cover my baldness, but the incredible part is that the color of the hairpiece is indistinguishable from my own hair.

But the hairpiece was only frosting on the cake, as it were.  Because I was sure I couldn’t ever live as a woman, all I wanted was for my male part to stop bothering me by getting erect.  To that end, I sought enough estrogen to override the testosterone my testicles produced.

Here’s what I think: if you want something, and what you want is in line with what God has planned for you, then what shows up may far exceed what you ever imagined.   All I wanted was a little estrogen; I got a sex change!   That’s why I sincerely believe that I am a God-created transsexual, and that having SRS was congruent to God’s plan for my life.

Or look at my life in the negative: I fought being a transsexual from ages 18 to 58; I would not give in to any more than weekend crossdressing.  The result was chronic depression — depression enough to hospitalize me for 6 months my senior year in college — and persistent unhappiness.

When I accepted my transsexuality and began to love myself for the perfect being God created, then all the obstacles along my journey from John to Kathleen were smoothed, somehow, without strain or effort on my part.   I figuratively put one foot in front of the other, and one by one the rocks and boulders in my path were swept away.   I opened my heart — softened my heart — and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.  Then God filled my heart with love, and filled my life with what I needed to praise and glorify my God, as a woman.

Posted in AutoBiog, God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »

23 March 2010 by kathleen.

Yes, as transgendered people, we’re special — but many of the characteristics of our lives are not unique to transgendered people.

I’ve added to the GenderSong reference section a (short) list of movies.  These are not transgender movies, like Boys Don’t Cry or Transamerica. They are movies about totally unrelated topics, but they contain a theme or incident that has something in common with the transgendered experience.  I created the list to say, “We are not alone.”

By that I mean that other groups of people, minorities you might say, have had to adjust their living in order to protect their lives or preserve their integrity.  Consider, for instance, Jews and homosexuals in Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1940’s.  They had serious challenges hiding their natures — on pain of death.  (No, I didn’t put World War II movies in the list — but I could have.)

I know that so often as transgendered people we feel alone, isolated, even persecuted.   Although those feelings are valid, they are also part of being human, and part of living among other imperfect, fearful, affection-starved people.

You can nominate other movies either by leaving a comment to this post, or by emailing kathleen@gendersong.com

Posted in Media and Arts | 1 Comment »

20 March 2010 by kathleen.

I came across an article about an Australian person who wants to be legally neither male nor female. Note that this person is not asserting membership in a third gender, or any variations (fourth, fifth, etc., genders) beyond. No, this person wants no gender; this person want to be an it.

I can understand this desire to a large extent.  Before I started to love myself, all I wanted was to be not-male.   I didn’t care what I might end up as a result, as long as the result was not-male.

I refer in the title of this post to a thought experiment in quantum theory.  I understand the experiment this way: that a characteristic of the probabilistic nature of quantum particles leads to uncertainty about some characteristics, specifically, the decay of a particle.  In the experiment, the state — living or dead — of a cat is tied to the decay of a subatomic particle.  Performing a measurement to determine the state of the cat eliminates the uncertainty about the particle.  Until the measurement occurs, the cat is simultaneously in both possible states: living and dead.

And so, I could — I do — understand the possibility that this Australian person might be both male and female.   Let us not inspect this person; until we do, this person could be simultaneously both male and female.

Probabilistically, however, while this person can be simultaneously alive and dead, can be simultaneously both male and female, etc., this person cannot be simultaneously both not-male and not-female — that is, not-any-gender (if there are only two).

Ah, wait! There is another way besides third, fourth, etc., genders: if this person does not exist, then the words male and female do not apply; there is no one to whom to apply the characteristics.   Likewise, the celebrated cat of the thought experiment cannot be both not-alive and not-dead; for if it were, it would not exist, but the experiment has already presumed that it does.

Is this person is calling for help? Is this person’s assertion a veiled death wish, saying, I want to not-exist, or I want to be a non-person. Can someone get some help for this ungendered person who wants to deny its own existence?

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

19 March 2010 by kathleen.

We had a “chocolate madness” at work today — a distraction for those of us who find basketball’s March Madness less than exciting.

I love to bake!  And to cook, and to make salads.  It is a bore to work among techies to whom homemade baked goods are just more fuel.  How delightful it was today to be among people — mostly but not all women — who take pride and pleasure in baking.

I am so glad I’m Kathleen!  If I were still John, I likely would have baked a cake anyway, but I would have missed the feeling of comraderie that I experienced today.

Posted in AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

18 March 2010 by kathleen.

Going to a civic league meeting is not like shopping at the mall, or going to the grocery store.  Oh, no.  At the civic league, the first piece of information everyone wants from you is your street and address.  You are not anonymous at a civic league meeting.

They had a speaker tonight, someone addressing a topic of considerable interest; if it hadn’t been for the speaker, I wouldn’t have gone.  In fact, my partner and I have lived in this house for nearly 25 years, and this is only the second meeting I’ve been to.

Er, except, of course, that the last time I went, I was John.

I really didn’t know what kind of reception I would get.  Would anyone connect my street address to the bald old guy that used to live there?  No, actually, no one did — but someone came close, and got an answer she didn’t expect.

They asked newcomers, which sort of included me, to stand up and introduce ourselves.  When I did so, a woman at the next table asked if I was related to “the librarian”?  Well, my wife is the supervising librarian at the city library a few blocks away, and, yes, I said I was related.

“Are you her daughter?”

“No.  I’m her partner.”

“Her what?”

“Her partner.”

I considered mentioning that we’d actually been married in 1976, but thought better of it and stopped.  My neighbor turned away with a quizzical look, but said no more to me.

I was very conscious tonight of not being exactly what I appeared to be, but I was darned close.  I’m glad I went tonight.

Posted in Being/staying married, AutoBiog | 3 Comments »

16 March 2010 by kathleen.

I had my second routine mammogram a few weeks ago.  Two days later, I got a call: “Come back in right away for another mammogram.  Your appointment is Tuesday at 9:30am.”

Whoa!

I couldn’t come in Tuesday, I told the nurse, because I was scheduled for surgery the day before, and I would still be in the hospital.

So we rescheduled it for this morning.  I had a diagnostic mammogram this morning; a routine check is called a screening mammogram.  Several women told me that a recheck like this is “no biggie” and happens frequently.  I was not to worry, they told me.

The technician took 3 views of one breast, but the radiologist who examined the output decided it was still not clear enough: they needed ultrasound as well.  My friends didn’t tell me about the ultrasound, so I started thinking all kinds of things while I waited for the radiologist to evaluate the ultrasound readings.

I wrote a while ago that I think God is just, but not necessarily fair.  Fairness was on my mind this morning.  I’ve only been on estrogen (estradiol patch, actually) for three years!  My breasts aren’t even out of warranty yet!  I couldn’t possibly be developing breast cancer — could I?

I thank You, God, no I am not (yet?) developing breast cancer.  My recheck showed an area of denser tissue, but at this time it is not a problem.  This incident brought home to me that breast cancer is a reality — even though I don’t have it at the moment.

When it becomes time for your mammogram, please don’t put it off.

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

14 March 2010 by kathleen.

I watched Susan Stanton’s story tonight on CNN.  Wow!  I am ever so glad I’ve not been involved in politics and the media!  My transition and surgery were exciting enough without being swamped with reporters and cameras in my face.

Whatever you think of Susan Stanton personally — and the documentary showed that there has been some controversy about her — I think CNN did a fair and thorough job of documenting Susan’s transition.  I am glad to have had a chance to learn more about her and what she went through.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »