22 January 2012 by kathleen.

Last night I attended my first contra dance. My fiddle teacher suggested I might want to attend. This is the kind of music I have been studying, and her band was playing. Since my partner was out of town and I had nothing else going on, I decided to go.

In a contra dance, unlike a square dance, groups of four continually form and reform through the dance, so that by the end of the night it is almost certain that you will dance with everyone in the room at least once. And unlike contemporary club dancing with thumping music, dim lighting, and people dancing individually next to each other, in contra dancing you actually touch other people (what a concept!).

I began to get nervous yesterday afternoon. Throughout my life I have found that if ahead of time I think of some bad thing happening it never does. This history prompts me to imagine as many bad incidents as I can, in order to prevent them from happening. The two awful things I could imagine happening were my hairpiece falling off, and my butt (a Classic Curves Veronica 2) sliding down my legs as I danced.

Neither of those things happened, of course. My imagination failed me; unimagined things happened instead. First, during the teaching hour set aside for newbies, I was partnered with someone I worked with 15 or so years ago; he was there with his wife. I was pretty sure he didn’t recognize me since we never worked closely together, but throughout the night I was afraid he’d recognize my voice or some other quirk of my personality and become surly.

This was the first time I ever danced with a man; many men, actually, as the night wore on. I had never danced much as a man, but I had taken some dance lessons 30 years ago. I was hoping I had forgotten all traces of dancing as a man. All night I was tense, clumsy, and slow, partly in fear of giving myself away as a former male, partly because I am on the chubby side, and partly because this was so new to me.

I had also forgotten about testosterone — not mine but that of the men dancing. A few of the men danced like maniacs. I don’t know if they were high on testosterone, or if they thought the faster they swung their partner the better dancer they were. Good Lord! If you’ve never danced with men you have no idea what women go through. I still don’t know if their dancing was extreme, or if my clumsiness was the problem.

The fourth issue was my voice.  It’s usually pretty believably female if you’re looking at me, but as the night wore on, I was getting fatigued and my voice started giving out unladylike grunts.

Overall, I’m glad I had the experience, but at the moment I don’t feel an inclination to repeat it. That inclination could change over the next weeks, because between the scary parts it felt good to move my body and to touch other bodies.

Posted in Passing, AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

18 January 2012 by kathleen.

Some years before I started sequence of tasks leading up to transition, I considered the options I had in dealing with my transgender.  The primary goal was to be rid of maleness, and for me that put the testicles at the top of the disposal list.

As a male-bodied person without male reproductive organs, how could I continue to live my life?  I wasn’t adequately aggressive for a man even with the testosterone I had; removing the source of testosterone might relieve pressure in some ways, but would probably make my life harder in others.

I concluded that — for me — the right thing to do was to live as a woman.

You don’t have to agree with me.  That conclusion was, and is, right for me.  Something else might be right for you.  I ponder important decisions for a long time, but once I decide, I pull out all the stops.  I decided to become a woman as completely and as thoroughly as I could be.

Back in the mists of time, I had a manager whose key word was discipline, by which he meant, “Do it my way.”  I developed my own definition: discipline is doing the right thing, whether you feel like doing it or not.

Some of the things I’ve written about passing in recent weeks remind me of things I chose to do because I decided they were the right thing for me to do as the woman I was becoming. They would not have been the right thing if I’d decided to remain male, but having chosen to become female, it “fit” to do them. I wrote once before about doing what is expected, which is to say, doing whatever it is that fits the situation you’re in.

It is not my place to say what you should be, how you should live your life, or how you should express your transgender. You need to identify what is right for you, then live that rightness, all day every day, whether you feel like it or not.

Posted in Passing, AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

12 January 2012 by kathleen.

Suppose you are 100 feet away from a person.  What gender clues do you see?  You may see a skirt on a woman, but an awful lot of women wear pants these days.  Three-inch heels would probably be recognizable winter or summer.  What else?  Hair — you might be able to guess gender from the shape of the hair, because even when the hair is long, men don’t wear it “up”, or flipped at the ends.  You may or may not be able to distinguish a purse at this distance.  You could probably identify a lumbering, swaying male gait at 100 feet.

What can you see at 50 feet?  I would say it is very likely you would recognize a purse on the person, if she were carrying one.  You could probably distinguish shoes with one- or two-inch heels at this distance.

As you get closer, smaller details can resolve uncertainty, though at 25 feet it could be difficult to distinguish a short-haired woman wearing low-heeled shoes from a man.  At this distance, though, details of the person’s shape can help.  If the shoulders are wider than the hips, or the belly hangs over the belt, it’s almost certainly a man you’re looking at.  A broad behind and a busty top almost certainly indicate a woman.  In the winter, or at a greater distance, a coat might hide those details of shape.

As you approach a person, the gender is likely to be apparent within 20 feet almost all the time.  Some angles of viewing, and some bodies, could deceive you, though, and take you by surprise.  The person’s voice as a gender indicator becomes useful within 20 feet.

I suggest that you look at people over the next few weeks, to help you decide which details of appearance would an asset in helping you pass.  I think that carrying a purse and wearing shoes with distinct heels are the two easiest clues to add to your appearance.  Smoothing your gait takes more work, but it, too, is relatively easy — no surgery is required.

If you are concerned with passing, there are some quick and easy clues to provide to the world around you.

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3 January 2012 by kathleen.

There is another chapter to my last post explaining why I want to pass.

I worked at passing as a man for the first 60 years of my life. Yes, I was born male, but it didn’t come naturally to me. It was a constant process of reflecting on events in my life, and of deciding to correct my behaviors (or not, as the case may be). Learning to live as a man was a constant process.

Learning how to live as a woman doesn’t stop when you have surgery, just as learning to be a man didn’t stop when, as a boy, you started to shave your beard. The constant change in womens’ clothing and makeup continues to generate revenue year after year because women, more so than men in my opinion, continually seek to improve their appearance. Men give up; men will wear the same shirt and pants day after day even when they can afford a closet full of clothes. Perhaps you know someone like that.

As a woman, you can express a huge range of behaviors and of dress. For me the excitement of transitioning arose in part from the freedom to explore those ranges. If you’ve transitioned recently, or plan to soon, that freedom awaits you.

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30 December 2011 by kathleen.

I want to have relationships with women.  Woman-to-woman talk isn’t the same as woman-to-man talk.  Some topics are off limits in mixed company.  If you appear to be not-a-woman, women will clam up about those topics when you are around.

Furthermore, there are different rules for social engagement in mixed company.  The traditional role is for women to be silent when men are speaking. Yes, yes, of course there are a lot of strong women who won’t defer to a man just because of what’s between his legs.  I know that.  And it’s especially important in work settings that women learn to speak up and to assert themselves regardless of the mix of genders in the conversation.

In a general social setting, however, the situation is different.  I’m talking about casual gatherings at a party, a restaurant, or after church — something with no financial motivation one way or the other.  When there is nothing to gain and nothing to assert, women will usually defer.  The tone of the conversation will change if a man joins a circle of women, and it will change again when all the men have left.

That’s why I want to pass.  I am not hunting for a man.  I am not seeking approval.  I am not a better person — or a better transperson — because I pass well.  Passing is something I choose to do, and something I choose to work at daily.

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

20 December 2011 by kathleen.

I mentioned my Mexican vacation last time.  On our fourth day of our stay, we took a snorkeling excursion.  My partner likes to snorkel, and we bought a swim mask with underwater camera attached.

As I noted in an earlier post, I am quite bald.  I didn’t feel the turban mentioned in that post was very appropriate to an all-day sailing trip, but I needed something to keep my hairpiece on.  In case you’ve never been on a 30- or 40-foot sailing vessel, let me tell you it gets pretty windy.

I searched some of the shops in Cancun for some sort of head scarf.  I found a shaped scarf in a hideous shade of pink — a shade I believed was not one that any male would allow himself to be seen in.

What do you think? Did I pass? I think I did, because I didn’t hear any unpleasant remarks. There was no way I could snorkel — or even swim. I own a couple of rubber bathing caps, but even if I could wear them over my hairpiece (which I cannot), the piece would come off if I removed the cap. I would have had to wear the bathing cap all day.

I’ve tried this at home, you see. I take off my hairpiece, pull my own hair back with a small scrunchee, and put on the bathing cap. The cap does not seal perfectly, so my own hair gets soaked under the cap. When I take off the rubber cap, I have to blow dry my hair to get it ready to blend with the hair piece. There was no way I could do that on a boat.

I took a big risk of embarrassment. I trusted that the scarf, ugly as it was, would keep my hairpiece from blowing off, and would still look feminine enough to preserve my image. It would have been humiliating if I’d bumped my head and knocked the hairpiece off, or worse yet if I’d fallen off the boat. Taking risks is part of living; nothing provides certainty this side of the grave.

If you’re still believing that SRS will take care of all your problems, please get a grip and come back to reality.  Living life as a woman is satisfying, but it is rarely without risk.

Posted in Passing, AutoBiog | 1 Comment »

7 December 2011 by kathleen.

Suppose you were in a vegetative state: you would have no communication at all.  You would survive in your world, closed as it is; no one would know if you were aware or not.  There’s not much chance to develop a personality in that situation.

I was not quite vegetative as Kathleen for most of my life, but pretty close.  I got made-up and dressed on Saturday night, turned on a movie (it was VHS or Beta back then, not DVD), chain-smoked cigarettes, and drank; when the movie was over, I clean up and went to bed.  There wasn’t much opportunity to develop a personality that way, either.

I did a little better when, for a year or so, I dressed and went to some bars in downtown Cleveland on Saturday night, but that didn’t work on a long-term basis.

It wasn’t until December, 2005, when I started going to church regularly that I began to develop a personality as Kathleen.  I started with Sunday services, then I added to bible study during the week, then church social events on the weekend — all as Kathleen.  The magic here wasn’t the church as house of God, but church as opportunity to exist and to interact with people as Kathleen.  Once I developed my Kathleen personality and identity, the next steps flowed naturally: to transition, then to have surgery.

If you are sitting home alone, dressed and maybe drinking, how can you begin to develop your personality?  You need a protective and supportive environment, because the expression of your new self will at first be clumsy and shallow.  Like fine wine, it takes time and the right environment for the depths of your capacities to mature; for the shining light of your nature to incandesce.

It could happen if you had a supportive family, I suppose, but it would be difficult because of the history of your birth gender within that family.  As you attempt to explore and express your chosen gender, your parents and siblings will unintentionally entice you to behave as you did in your birth gender.  If they do, it is not because they want to obstruct your transition, but because they simply don’t yet know who you will become; you can’t explain your new self to them, because your haven’t yet become that person.

A community of transgender peers is better than your family for exploring your personality, but the homogeneity of that community, too, may limit your growth.

You need a (probably small) group of unrelated, tolerant, good-hearted and non-judgmental people to provide a community in which you can learn to interact in your chosen gender.  You need to interact in many different ways, over a period of time.  You need to learn in a safe environment how you can change the ways you express yourself, and how you can apply yourself.

A church is a good place to look.  For me it was Metropolitan Community Church. For you it might be United Church of Christ, an Episcopal church, or a Unitarian Universalist congregation. If there were something better than a church, it would be a job with protective, non-judgmental people.

Where ever it is, the community must demand that you do something, contribute somehow, and not just sit in a corner. You must rub your personality against other personalities to polish it, the way the waves breaking on a beach round and polish small stones and pieces of glass.

You cannot wait until you get a new personality before you express yourself, for it is only in the expression of your essence that you discover what you have to give.

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28 November 2011 by kathleen.

One method by which women bond is sharing personal details.  You say something about how you feel, or talk about some incident that made you feel good, or bad, or ugly, or whatever.  When another woman wants to bond, she will respond with an equivalent detail or story about herself.  Tomorrow, or next week, you and she may again share details from your histories.

That isn’t how men bond, is it.  Men strive for dominance, and the striving often results in bonding.  Fighting, getting drunk together to see who can drink the most, climbing higher, running faster.  It’s about testing my strength, agility, or power against yours.

One method of sharing isn’t better than another — but one or the other is more appropriate to the gender you are expressing.  If you try to bond with a man by sharing intimate details, you are not likely to be successful.  An FtM wanting to bond with a born-male will have to use a competitive tactic; an MtF will have to learn to share not facts, but feelings with a born-woman, and do so without trying to one-up or compete with another woman.

Whichever way you are moving your gender, you need to establish relationships with your new peer gender.  If you want to be one of the girls, you need to bond the way the girls do.  If you want to be one of the boys, you need to bond the way boys do.  Bonding appropriately is one more dimension of passing.

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

16 May 2011 by kathleen.

I am retired; I am not working any more.  That doesn’t mean I do nothing all day, but the rhythm of retired life is different.  I imagine it’s different, too, if you are out of work because of a layoff, but you are not yet old enough to retire.  Or perhaps you’re a student: your dress requirements are probably pretty loose.

When I was working, five days a week I had to be presentable as a woman before I left the house at 7:30am.  Being a transwoman is more demanding when you have to pass to keep your job.

For forty-five years I had to pass as a man.  Did you ever think about that: you’re passing as a man now, but you’re really a woman.  Yeah, I hated it, and partly I hated it because I had to do something that wasn’t “natural” to me (whatever that means!).  But I had to do it to keep the job.

When I was a government contractor, “it” was wearing a coat and tie winter and summer.  When I was a welder, “it” was clothing myself neck to toes in garments heavy enough to block the burning ultraviolet rays from arc or TIG welding winter and summer.  If you are a transwoman employed in a secretarial or retail position, for you “it” probably means a skirt or dress and panyhose every day.

Thank the Lord I was spared that trial!  While I was working, I had a technical position, and slacks with kneehighs was just fine most days.  But now that I’m retired, I only wear nice slacks, a blouse, and heels when I go to church; otherwise it’s jeans or capris and sandals or flats.

When you are reading this and other trans-oriented blogs, try to keep in mind the context from which the blogger is writing.  Not all of what you read may apply to you — that goes for this blog as well!

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

29 November 2010 by kathleen.

I know it seems impossible to you that you could pass as a woman: you’re too big; you’re losing your hair; you need to loose weight; your feet are too big; blah…. blah…. blah.

Society doesn’t want you to know how easy it is to pass as a woman.  It takes attention for a while, but you can learn what is expected of women in our society.  When you do what is expected, you can pass, regardless of your height or size.

Instead, we make it hard.  Without full awareness, we clutch at the life we have lived from birth, even as we assert our desire to grasp another life instead.  It is hard to let go of being male.  I know it’s hard, and I see transwomen living with male behaviors as they stumblingly act out some vision of femininity: they do what they themselves expect instead of what others expect.

The biggest giveaway is for a transwoman to insist that she must be a woman on her terms — everyone else has to change and to stop laughing at how she acts out her fantasy of womanhood.  I am thinking of

•  The transwoman who refuses to wear a wig even though she has a huge bald spot
• The transwoman whose belly hangs over her belt and doesn’t understand that womens’ bodies don’t look like that
• The transwoman who can’t understand what’s wrong with slim hips and won’t do a thing to pad her own

We invite others to notice us when we present visual elements and behaviors that are not congruent to other women around us: we don’t fit others’ expectations.  If you choose to thumb your nose at others’ expectations, and they see you as a threat — they will act appropriately.

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