30 May 2010 by kathleen.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a survey of southern transgendered.

One of the questions concerned the three most pressing day-to-day issues a southern trans person might have.  I don’t know what I was supposed to say, but this was my list of issues:

1. Recognizing their nature — because failing to do so leads to erroneous conclusions about the causes of the problems they face day-to-day.
2. Accepting their nature — because fighting their nature, or living in denial of it, produces or heightens pain without leading to any beneficial change.
3. Loving themselves as they are — because tapping wellsprings of love within them guides them to solutions they cannot see while they are squandering their effort on hating themselves.  Furthermore, once they begin to love themselves, there will be a change in the things they believe other people are saying and thinking about them.

How can I explain how much the world changed when I changed my perception of myself? I wrote about this several times before. I changed how I saw myself — and the world changed!  Yes, people suddenly changed the opinions I was sure they held.

Hear me again: I was sure they held those opinions.  I didn’t think it, I didn’t believe it; I knew it as sure as I know black from white.  I knew I was describing the universe as it was.

The universe changed when my opinion of myself changed.  More accurately, the universe changed when I changed my beliefs about myself.

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

28 May 2010 by kathleen.

I saw a license plate today that had CHIK in it.  It doesn’t much matter which kind of chick this person might have been, HOT CHIK, or perhaps BIG CHIK or heaven forbid CUTECHIK — I just have trouble wrapping my brain around being a chick of any variety.

I suppose some would say I feel that way because I’m still attracted to women, and if only I liked men I would be happy to have someone think of me as a chick.

From my own days as a man, though, there is something belittling about the word chick, or babe.  I am trying to stretch my brain to  imagine feeling even the least bit excited that someone might reduce my value to being an object of desire for someone I don’t know.  I mean, I am pleased to have been (at one time anyway) of sexual interest to one specific person — but I don’t think I was ever a head-turner for a sizeable segment of (what was then) the opposite sex.

I suppose I might have been about as much of a hunk  as I am chick now.   In other words, I just don’t get off being the object of lust to people for whom I don’t lust myself.

Am I a prude? or just sexless?

Posted in Sex & Gender Roles, General MtF topics | No Comments »

26 May 2010 by kathleen.

I posted a few days ago a short piece on the year of real life experience (RLE), and why I thought it was important.

I was getting ready to write another smug and self-righteous post about RLE, but then I remembered: some of you in a hurry for The Surgery because it will be a huge advantage in bed with a man. It could even save your life.

When you’re 22 years old, I know, a year is a long time to wait.

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

23 May 2010 by kathleen.

I posted a comment a few of days ago on Sophie’s blog, in her article about the year of real life experience (RLE).

The idea of RLE has been on my mind since I read her post.  A lot of thoughts and emotions run through my consciousness.  The first is that it is not certain that everyone who starts a year of RLE finishes it in the chosen gender.  You don’t usually hear about those, though, do you.

Suppose you’re in a forum, and one particular person has been posting a couple times a week for several months — then stops.  Do you suppose she’s going to put in another post saying, “Sorry, girls, I don’t want to do this any more.  I’m going back to being male.”  Do you think any one would post a message like that?  If I were in that situation, I would just stop posting, out of embarrassment and disappointment.  No one in the forum would know.

I cannot believe that anyone would begin a year of RLE without a buoyant sense of confidence and an unfailing optimism.  Most likely she is sure that she will not only survive the year, but thrive and blossom during it.  The fact is, not all do.  The suicide of Mike Penner/Christine Daniels in December, 2009, poignantly demonstrates that fact.  I don’t personally know anything about the incident; I mention it because it is the only documented return-to-gender I know of.

We do not spend our lives exclusively in bars and bedrooms, nor in transgender support groups, nor exclusively in the company of transwomen.  Employed or not, there are many occasions and many contexts in which we must deal with our peer gender, which during your year of RLE will have just changed. Can you learn to make smalltalk among women for the rest of your life? You may talk with men in the future, but you are no longer one of them; your conversations with men will forever be different.

Are you agile enough to alter your conversational patterns to deal with the social role you will find yourself in? You will not have a choice about that role. You can refuse to respond as people expect you to, but you will likely pay a price for that refusal. Can you live with that price? If not, we’ll all be better off if you find out before a permanent change has been made.

So that’s why RLE — even if you’re really sure.

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

21 May 2010 by kathleen.

I wrote a few days ago that I was preparing some reference material on shape enhancement.  I finished it tonight, and pushed it up to GenderSong.  Look here for reference pages on shapes, bust padding, and hip padding.

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

20 May 2010 by kathleen.

Friday, 6pm, tired, hot, checkout lines backed up.  Cashier 6 has an item that doesn’t scan, needs a price check.  Customer on 3 wants a carton of cigarettes, but there are only 7 packs left of the brand he wants.  Customer on 4 has a credit card that’s being declined.

Your blood pressure could rise.  You could get really mad.  D**n it, you should have grabbed a cart — these two 12-packs of Miller Light are getting heavy.  Why do they call it “light beer” anyway…. doesn’t feel that way.

I pray.  I imagine a soft cloud of pale, golden light descending upon all of the customers, all of the clerks, all of the baggers; and a shining silver light descending on all the cash registers.  When I do, I immediately feel the tension drain from my shoulder blades, and the muscles in my neck begin to soften.

You could imagine blessings of God poured out upon every one of us in line, however that looks to you.  You could see a pale, blue aura around each of us.  You could wish for each one of us — especially the people behind you — that we breeze smoothly through the checkout lines.

Expect nothing in return for your good wishes.  Sometimes that’s all you’ll get.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

18 May 2010 by kathleen.

Genetic males and females have different shapes.  There may be a lot of overlap; the lines are not hard and fast.   Still, there are some common proportions.  If there weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to have pre-made, standard-sized clothing.

Go to any women’s clothing site (Woman Within, formerly Lane Bryant, Willow Ridge, or Sears for example). They all have clothing size charts. Look at the bust, waist, and hips in the charts.

Some of us are old enough to remember Marilyn Monroe in her prime in the early 1960’s. Her celebrated measurements were 36-24-36, I seem to remember (bust-waist-hips of course).  A Wikipedia article on the female body shape also refers to the waist-hip-ratio (WHR) as an indicator of feminine beauty.

To aid passing, you may want your own shape to more closely approach the ideal.  To do so, you could choose

• surgical modification
• mechanical redistribution of tissue (e.g. corsetting)
• padding

Of these, padding is the least expensive and the most adaptable.

I am preparing additional reference material on this topic, and hope to have it ready soon.

Posted in Passing | 1 Comment »

16 May 2010 by kathleen.

In a nutshell: LGBT people hide by acting like heterosexuals.

In order to protect themselves, they do their best to preserve the appearance they are straight.  When successful, this tactic keeps the parents of LGBT teens off their backs, and lessens the risk that will be harassed at school or assaulted afterwards.  For both teens and adults, hiding as a heterosexual generally adds credence to the belief that they are straight.

Often it is not just the LGBT people who pay the price for this deception: the very parents from whom they hide suffer indirectly, as does society at large.

The Windsor Star, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, reports on a study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. According to the newspaper, LGB teens have a higher risk of involvement with pregnancy than do their heterosexual peers.

The need to hide because you are L, or G, or B, or T — it isn’t right. It isn’t right in Canada, it isn’t right in the United States, it isn’t right anywhere on earth.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

14 May 2010 by kathleen.

I wanted to avoid the P-word, so this post isn’t misclassified by some automated system, but when I wrote it that way, avoiding the word “penis” took so much circumlocution that I got lost.  I wrote the bulk of this post on Easter Sunday, 2010; it’s been simmering since then.

The surgeon doesn’t cut off the penis during vaginoplasty.  The testicles are cut off and discarded, but part of the penis remains.  That’s what I tried to say in my poem Transformation of the Genitals.

That’s right: they turn the penis into a vagina, but they don’t cut it off.  So in fact you sort of have both: a penis (which no longer looks like one) and a very vagina-looking vagina made from it.  Sure, they throw away most of the stuffing from the penis before they push it inside you, but it’s still the same penile tissue you had last week. That tissue used to be a penis, and now it’s shaped like a vagina. That’s why I say you sort of have both.

This is an important distinction if, like me, you had some ambiguous feelings about your penis before the vaginoplasty. I mean: even though the tissue is no longer shaped like a penis, it still feels like a penis from the inside, at least in some ways. Some parts of the vagina of an XX female contain erectile tissue; after vaginoplasty, some small pieces of erectile tissue from the penis perform the similar functions for an XY female.

That’s what I prayed over a lot during Holy Week, 2010. Even though my surgery was 13 months earlier, the emotional healing isn’t finished yet. When I become aroused, some swelling occurs. The emotional discomfort I had with a swelling penis comes back to me, even though that penis is now shaped like a vagina.

So, I continue to grow and to heal.  If you, too, have ambiguous feelings about your male equipment, you are well-advised to resolve those feelings before vaginoplasty, because the feelings may still be there afterwards.

Posted in AutoBiog, M-to-F surgery | 1 Comment »

12 May 2010 by kathleen.

Back in January, I discussed the invitation to my 45th high school reunion, and pondered whether I should attend. A few weeks ago I was talking about this reunion with woman at work. She’s a few years younger than I but still of a certain age. She went to her 40th reunion — last year I think she said — for an all-girls Catholic high school.

She assured me there were a couple of male-appearing persons whose names she recognized but that she doesn’t remember taking classes with; and, she said, there were a few female couples. She encouraged me to attend my own upcoming reunion.

That discussion convinced me to email the contact person to sign me up.  Before I could actually set aside time to compose the message, however, I got another begging letter from my high school, sent to my home email.   When the last begging letter came, I followed the “unsubscribe” link to remove my name.  What a coincidence that another email should appear! This was not, like a week or two later; no, several months had passed, plenty of time for the unsubscribe to go through.

I conclude that someone affiliated with the high school either overrode my unsubscription, or resubscribed me without my knowledge.

I am choosing to interpret this event as an indication that this high school or someone affiliated with it does not respect the wishes of its own alumni. I further choose to believe this suggests that I in person would not be treated with respect were I to attend this reunion.

I no longer plan to attend.

Posted in AutoBiog | 1 Comment »