29 June 2011 by kathleen.

We can get caught up in complex, sophisticated situations which we can label pleasure or satisfaction or fulfillment.  We transgendered, however, can appreciate simpler pleasures.  For instance, do you remember the first time someone referred to you as a transwoman ma’am?  Or as a transman, sir?  Such pleasure we can get from such simple words!

What brings this to mind is another walking story.  One of my “regular” walking buddies brought her daughter with her today, and introduced me.  That’s it; end of story.  I was one more woman in a group of women walking around the mall.

It doesn’t matter whether I am LGBT, or Muslim, black, or Mexican, or disabled.  Whatever identifiable minority you can imagine, if I am in that minority I will appreciate being accepted as whatever I am, and not as a freak. We are both as good as each other.

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

27 June 2011 by kathleen.

I know a lot of us like to discuss what it really means to be transgender.  So let this book ask you: if a mother raises her son as a girl, is that son transgendered?

Daniel Black discusses that issue in Perfect Peace — though without using the word transgender at all.  The action takes place in the 1940’s and ’50’s, long before we had the term transgender.  You might be queer or punk, and probably sissy, too, but not transgendered.

This is not a story with titillating details of a boy transformed into a girl; no, there’s no forced feminization here.  It is not sexually exciting for an infant if that infant is raised as a girl from the instant of its birth.  This is not petticoat punishment; the child was raised as if it were really a girl.  Because the action takes place in the repressed and fearful culture of poor black people in rural Arkansas in the ’40’s, it is reasonable that our heroine wouldn’t see other children to be able to compare.  They were poorer than I could ever imagine; of seven children, the family could only afford one child to be in school, and “daycare” meant amusing yourself on the front porch.

Let me not mislead you: this is the chronicle of the lives of a family and their neighbors in a time and place long past us.  Racism takes it toll, and so do poverty, ignorance, and violence.  It is not a book about transgender or homosexuality or morality.  The book paints portraits of the feelings and motivations of people who lack the vocabulary to articulate their fears, by an author with superb articulation.

If you are sure you know the transgendered experience then you, like me, experienced parental pressure to live to my birth gender.  I invite you to read this book and consider what emotional violence can be done by parental pressure into a different gender.  And while you read, I invite you to appreciate the author’s compassion for a whole town full of people.

Posted in Media and Arts | 1 Comment »

25 June 2011 by kathleen.

My name is Kathleen.  I don’t think the name Kathy is a bad or ugly name, but it’s not my name.  Today I was put in my place.

I went to a jam today — mostly country, some Beatles, some bluegrass.  It was held at a local music store, and because it was a hot summer day, there were only 4 of us.  I played.  Maybe I should have just listened, but I didn’t.  I wasn’t very good.  That’s OK, but my stature within the group was very clear: bottom.

When I introduced myself to the senior male, I said, “My name is Kathleen.”  “Oh, Kathy,” he said.

“I prefer Kathleen.”  “Kathy,” he said again, looking me right in the eyes.  Perhaps I was imagining things, but it seemed pretty clear to me: he was senior, and he was telling me my place.

I hadn’t hit this male dominance thing on my job.  My employer was very clear that mutual respect was the only relationship that would be tolerated.  So this was a new experience for me.  It is probably not a new experience for many of you, my readers, and not a new experience for most women.

I have a lot of music to learn from these people, and I have no intention of sabotaging my education by getting into a dominance dispute with an old man.  Still, it stung just a bit.

Posted in AutoBiog, Sex & Gender Roles | 1 Comment »

23 June 2011 by kathleen.

According to this story at Reuters, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) advises women who get breast implants that they are likely to need additional surgery within 10 years.  The implants are not lifetime items.

According to the story, that caution applies to both saline and silicone implants.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have breast augmentation; there isn’t really a guarantee on anything in life.  It is only important that you know enough to make an informed decision.

Posted in General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

21 June 2011 by kathleen.

Living my life is exciting.  That said, I can also say that living life as trans is less important than it was a few years ago.

After my transition life was all about living as a transwoman: seeing both sides of every gender-influenced situation or innuendo, and being a woman with a male history.  As a transwoman, heading for SRS was the focus and purpose of my life.  That part has now passed; I’m over it.  I pretty much live as if I have always been a woman.  Well, OK, there are still some remnants of the male conditioning and upbringing of my earlier years, and my voice can get way too deep on occasions.  But I go around shopping, chatting with the neighbors, attending church, and taking music lessons: it just doesn’t matter.

What matters is that I go on living, paying the bills, taking out the trash, cooking dinner, and all the rest.  It’s cool: I don’t have to have transgender as the center of my life.  I never imagined life without it, but now I am sort of without it.  I’m living my life, and in that life I am a 60-something woman.

Now there’s something!  For at least 50 of my 60-some years I’ve affirmed: I don’t want to be an old man.  Now I’m not.  I’m an old woman and that suits me fine.

Posted in AutoBiog, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »

19 June 2011 by kathleen.

My father died in 1978.  He did a lot of good in my life, but when I reviewed Sweet In-Between a couple of days ago, some unpleasant memories surfaced.  Somehow he was connected to my dislike of being male, and my disgust with men.  If I ever figure it out, I’ll try to post about it.

I think I’ll just end this post now instead of venting some negative things.

Posted in AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

17 June 2011 by kathleen.

The Sweet In-Between is the story of a FtM growing up scared, insecure, and lonely on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  The story seems credible, and Sheri Reynolds has done a superb job describing the life of a family rich in just one thing: drama.

Kendra (who prefers the name Kenny) is our hero/heroine.  To forestall further rapes by her half-brother, she binds her breasts and wears three layers of clothes.  Her mother died of breast cancer when she was little, and we meet her in her junior year in high school.  Her father is in prison on drug charges, and she lives with her father’s girlfriend; not quite a stepmother, but close enough.  That is not the end of the emotional entanglements driving this story, but I’ll leave the rest to your own experience of the book.

The portrait of a young woman who hates her body because of repeated violations of it by her male relatives is convincing.  Is that what it takes to become a FtM?  More precisely, is sexual violence either necessary or sufficient to explain why a woman would hate her body so fiercely?

Whether you are FtM or MtF, did the violation of your body cause your transgender?  Did it even contribute?

I hated my male sexuality, and I believe I experienced some emotional trauma when I was very young — probably younger than three years old.  Do I remember that?  Do I wish it had been?  Or is any near-memory that old only a fantasy?  Trying to recall the details of an incident that may or may not have happened over 60 years ago is fruitless, much less attempt to verify them.

I don’t know if Ms Reynolds intended to shed light on the politics of transgender, or if she was simply telling a fascinating story.  And let me be clear: I found the story fascinating.  The descriptions of the emotional violence the family members wreak on each other remind me of those in George Meredith’s Egoist, but Reynold’s story is engaging and in tune with today’s culture.  I think it also poses a plausible genesis for female-to-male transgender, a genesis worth pondering.

Posted in Media and Arts, General FtM topics | 1 Comment »

15 June 2011 by kathleen.

I came across this interactive map at the website for the PBS series Independent Lens. It is not a series available on my local PBS station, so I haven’t see the show.

I call your attention to the map, though, because you don’t need to watch public broadcasting to learn from the map. I had no idea the concept of a two-spirited, two-gendered, or third-gendered existence was so widespread in human culture. My own background in transgender is so limited that I thought we — that is, U.S. society in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries — was breaking new ground.

Not at all!  We’re way behind many cultures in the history of human existence.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

13 June 2011 by kathleen.

Back eight or nine years ago, I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma just above my right breast. Well, actually at that time it wasn’t really a breast, because I hadn’t yet started estrogen.

A small lesion, less than one quarter inch in diameter, required a one-inch incision and left a distinct scar. Most of my bathing suits cover it, but the scar still looks unsightly. I would be devastated now to develop a carcinoma on my face, or worse yet a melanoma.

As a daily moisturizer I use a fragrance-free sunblock with an SPF of 50. That’s every day, winter and summer, before I leave the house. The brand I use is Healthy Defense by Neutrogena. There is also a sensitive-skin version. I am sure there are others you can use.

My genetic heritage is northern European, so by the time spring rolls around, my skin is pale white — you could even say fishbelly white. Yes, I do seek the sun to add color to my skin. However, I am very cautious, and patient. I take four or five weeks to do what could be done in two or three days of serious tanning.

For your own sake, please take care of your skin.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

11 June 2011 by kathleen.

Cut Away is not about transgender; I blog about it because a transwoman figures heavily in the story.  The story doesn’t involve her transgender directly, except that the transgender reflects upon identity and appearance.  If the book is about anything, it is about identity and appearance.  That said, it should be no surprise that the book is heavy on introspection and character, and light on action.  There are no shoot-em-ups, no grisly murders — no steamy sex scenes either.

Plastic surgeons cut away skin and bone, and in doing so may reshape their patients’ psyches as well as their faces.  The central character, Eleanor, is a plastic surgeon.  She has a relationship with our transgendered heroine and she operates on a female patient who has a heavy load of guilt.  That patient also encounters our transgendered heroine and interacts with her in a different way.

I am not patient with fiction that bogs down and has much to say about very little; I will put down a book after just 10 pages, or after 50, if it doesn’t hold my interest.  I had no trouble reading this one to the end.  I won’t call it gripping, but I cared about the characters, and wanted to see how their personalities manifested in their lives.  The story is told from multiple points of view, first one character for a chapter, then another character in the next chapter. It’s a short book, but the shifting viewpoints demand a bit more concentration than a thriller demands.

Still, it’s a good read for the summer heat, and you may get another perspective on transgender.

Posted in Media and Arts | 1 Comment »