Tonight, I was cruising through a Face Book friend's photos when I ran into a couple of photos of this guy I am subscribed to on You Tube. It literally took my breath away to see him there looking so incredibly handsome. He apparently was in San Fransisco. Sweet, since I believe he lives in London. As you might be able to tell from this, I have a little crush on him. I could so get lost in those lush, big brown eyes. Not many people can do that to me, he can and does. I am sure though that he does that to a lot of people, he's that hot, either that or I believe that because he's so my type. Dark, handsome, fucking brilliant. Incredibly brilliant mind. Damn I love people with severely high IQs. If I had any hormones in my body right now I just might be drooling.
I actually saw a couple of guys I am subscribed to on You Tube in that photo album. That was really cool. I don't know why seeing guys I am subscribed to on You Tube in still photographs, just hanging with other people or whatever, so affirming. Maybe because on You Tube they are usually alone, just talking. Perhaps it is because in the stills they are captured for that moment, the essence of their beingness shinning through as you gaze into their eyes. Hard to do that in a video on You Tube.
I have been thinking about dragging out the webcam and starting a vlog on You Tube. There isn't a whole lot of representation out there for men in my age group that are just starting transition. I have thought often that if someone (I guess that would be me) in the 50 plus age group had an ongoing vlog, that it might help other trans men out there looking for answers or just another soul they could relate to going through the same thing they are going through. Hell, I cry watching these young guys transform. I feel their joy and pain. Imagine what it might do for someone like myself who feels so alone and without a peer in the world. Anyway, I don't know if that will happen any time soon. I have far too much else going on at the moment to start a real vlog of any substance. If I am going to head to DC to begin transitioning in a few months, I will have no real energy to put into vlogging for some time.
Oh yeah, DC, some of you don't know anything about DC yet. I haven't said much because it's not set in stone yet. I was invited to move to DC for 6 months to "whenever", to help me get my transition shit together. I am discovering that transitioning here in The Medical Hell of Northwest Arkansas is proving to be far more exasperating than I had imagined. Northwest Arkansas is about 10 to 20 years behind either coast medically. For trans gendered folk, they are living back during the Spanish Inquisition. Those of us who are trans gendered tend to have to travel great distances to get something as simple as hormone therapy. Yes, it sucks to be us here.
I don't really have anything pressing in my life to hold me here right now. I am selling my business and finding someone to house sit for the time period I am gone. That's a lot of what is taking up my time right now, getting my ducks in a row so that I can close up life here and leave. I will miss my daughter fiercely. But they invented this thing called the telephone and more recently email, Face Book, Skype and such. We will stay in close enough touch while I am gone. Perhaps I can even bring her out to see our nations capitol in summer. Who knows. Hell, I have never seen our nations capitol, so hey, it's all good and they have clinics there that are geared to care for the transitional therapy necessary for trans gendered people.
Yeah, so... really, I wrote this because, damn he's hot and those pictures of him, well, dayum. Got my little heart to racing a tad and I just had to write that down. See? I am human after all *grin*....
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
We the people...
I spend a tremendous amount of time searching the web. In the last 14 years or so I have bought at least 2 houses, partnered with someone I met in a chat room, lived with them for 13 years, had a child with them, and found the surgeon who will do my top surgery for me, all here on the Internet. I also found my newest car, and because I live out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, I do a lot of shopping online too.
So it should be of no shock that I spend hours on the Internet searching for other trans men such as myself, reading their blogs, watching and listening to their lives and experiences on YouTube, searching for the results of different surgical techniques, the effects of T on the body, shit like that. It's my personal research library at home. Back in the day (pre-internet) I used to go to the U of A research library when I needed information, in particular, doing demographic studies and such since I was a marketing professional back in the day. Even in the very beginning of the Internet explosion, I still had to go to the university to get data as it was not as yet available on the web. That was not always convenient since the U of A is 60 miles from my house.
Now, there is very little I can't get information or specific statistics on anymore. A few key words and I am lost for hours on end taking in information.
Like (left over colloquialism from living in the San Fernando Valley for 25 years), I have been perplexed about a particular terminology I have seen cropping up in nearly everything I search through related to transitioning. The term is cis. It's an adjective. It's used in reference to people who are born without gender dysphoria issues.
Here's where I found a description of it: this ain't livin'
For those of you too tired or bored to go to that page I will copy a short excerpt for you here:
"Readers may note that I use the term “cis” a fair amount in reference to gender. In a nutshell, “cis” is derived from a Latin word meaning “on the same side.” When used with reference to gender, it means that someone’s experience of gender matches one's gender assigned at birth; a person born with a penis and testicles who is assigned male and identifies as male is a cis man.
So it should be of no shock that I spend hours on the Internet searching for other trans men such as myself, reading their blogs, watching and listening to their lives and experiences on YouTube, searching for the results of different surgical techniques, the effects of T on the body, shit like that. It's my personal research library at home. Back in the day (pre-internet) I used to go to the U of A research library when I needed information, in particular, doing demographic studies and such since I was a marketing professional back in the day. Even in the very beginning of the Internet explosion, I still had to go to the university to get data as it was not as yet available on the web. That was not always convenient since the U of A is 60 miles from my house.
Now, there is very little I can't get information or specific statistics on anymore. A few key words and I am lost for hours on end taking in information.
Like (left over colloquialism from living in the San Fernando Valley for 25 years), I have been perplexed about a particular terminology I have seen cropping up in nearly everything I search through related to transitioning. The term is cis. It's an adjective. It's used in reference to people who are born without gender dysphoria issues.
Here's where I found a description of it: this ain't livin'
For those of you too tired or bored to go to that page I will copy a short excerpt for you here:
"Readers may note that I use the term “cis” a fair amount in reference to gender. In a nutshell, “cis” is derived from a Latin word meaning “on the same side.” When used with reference to gender, it means that someone’s experience of gender matches one's gender assigned at birth; a person born with a penis and testicles who is assigned male and identifies as male is a cis man.
“Cis” is a neologism which was coined in the ongoing struggle to define gender and talk about gender issues. It was specifically invented so that a word would be available to talk about people with gender identities which have always matched their sex. It’s not appropriate to refer to these people as “normal” or “regular” or “real” when contrasting them with people on the trans spectrum, and “not trans” is kind of a clumsy term to use. So, we use the word cis."
So basically what it comes down to is, "we" (the entire population of "other" gendered people within the English speaking world) have given you (non trans people) a name to reference to you when writing or speaking. Cool huh?
Ok, you know I am just joking around, but seriously, no one consulted me when coining this new adjective to describe non-trans folk. I also wanted to know who the "we" that he is referring to here are. We the people? We the Wordsmiths of the trans world? We who? Who makes up these words anyway? I am wondering if the originator can be found on Wikipedia, complete with credit for said creation of this new terminology. I may Google that later.
Anyway, so now I know. Now I do not feel so incredibly inept and such a politically incorrect Neanderthal still living in the 20th Century. Being out of the mainstream of cutting edge everything since I moved here from Los Angeles 20 years ago, has left me in the dust with the changing times. I, who used to be so politically correct on nearly every subject known to modern 20th Century Western culture (including *gasp* fashion and hair), am lost in the backwaters of rural Arkansas where we still say things like "I'm fixin to go to the Walmarts, wanna come with?", or my personal favorite "That needs fixed." (insert any verb such as ironed, washed, throwed out, fired up, shot, after needs and this phrase works). A good percentage of the population (both male and female, cis or not) wears overalls on a regular basis (you see this fashion statement in Walmart, a lot). We are not just living in the 20th Century still, in some cases, we are living in the 70's, or worse the 60's. We are so backwards here that they had to pry my old Razor phone out of my cold dead fingers a few weeks back and drag me forcibly into the year 2010 by shoving a LG SomethingorOther (who cares, it has a fucking keyboard I can text on) into my hand. Damn Commies. That's Un-American, is what it is.
But it's ok, cause now I can text the word cis with confidence on my new phone, living in the year 2010 with a new adjective that is politically correct.
See how wonderful the Internet is?
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Happiness is what?
I have been reading (rereading actually) Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now the last several nights before I go to sleep. Trying to find my center again, get out of my compulsive egoic thinking. I need to stop being so angry. That anger is born of living in the past in my head and obsessing on people and situations which have caused me harm (which of course bleeds into my now). It really does me no good to be so angry. Holding a grudge against someone (try several someones), is detrimental to me on several levels. Since there is nothing I can do to change the outcome of what others have dumped in my life, then it is fruitless to waste life on being angry. All I can do is use the only tool I have which is this moment now to figure out how to get myself out of the situation(s) other people so eagerly put me into. To do that I have to let that past go, take the lessons I learned from it and move forward staying centered in this only moment I really have which is right now.
Forgiveness is a big key here. I am hanging on to shit and don't know why I can't remember how to let go and surrender and just be. It is the anger and the inability to forgive that has brought me here to this moment right now where I feel miserable. It doesn't matter how I got here or who fucked me over really, yes, I got screwed (repeatedly), however, perseverating on what may or may not have happened or who did or did not do anything foul doesn't change the situation. It is what it is. All my anger and resentment does is keep me wallowing in the pain, it keeps me from healing and moving forward.
Here's the dysfunctional thought pattern that keeps me perseverating on the past, feeling miserable, and stuck in this past. I keep thinking that everything I did that got me fucked over I did to help others. People came in like vultures and sucked me as dry as they could. Once there was no more meat on my bones, they picked up and moved on, having left me feeling completely raped and depleted. Some of it was forced on me, just like being raped. Even when I had been pretty well picked dry of any meat on my bones, rapists came descending and sucked what was left of the marrow from those nearly dried bones. And then of course, as most rapists do, accused me of being the whore who's provocativeness forced them to take me (in my case they thought I had money they could rape me out of, unfortunately finding out when it was too late that there was no money for them to steal from me, someone else had gotten there before them to take what little there really was).
Parting of this "raping" was my inviting some of them in to work for me, thinking I was being a good person, giving them work in winter (which around here is a big thing since most of the income in this area dries up in winter). Of all those people, only one of them did exactly as we had agreed and was upfront and honest in his dealings with me. The rest of them and one of them in particular took serious advantage. It snow balled out of control and I was unable to reign in the situation. It became very apparent that as long as they thought I had money (or resources they could use), they were gonna suck as much of it out of me as possible. So my thinking went this way, I knew at that point that I was dealing with alcoholics (they were drinking on the job, a seriously good sign). These were people I knew, but obviously not well enough. So I vowed to myself not to ever deal with alcoholics ever again. Lesson learned right?
The real problem with that line of thinking was that every where I looked, everyone was an alcoholic or drug addict or both. If they weren't a drug addict or alcoholic, they were lost in such dysfunctional thinking that they might as well have been. It was virtually impossible to move through my daily life without having to deal with that kind of dysfunction in others. In the end, what it really boiled down to is that, there was no place to run or retreat to where I could insulate myself from such dysfunctional behavior. I had to find another way. My anger grew daily. Pretty much everyone I knew who wanted a piece of me had come and taken as much as they could come and get out of me. Like I said, once they had taken what they could, they evaporated and left me in an unfinished ruin. And of course, in their alcoholic dysfunctional thinking they justified their behavior (and still do).
My anger grew, seething inside me. When the last set of rapists finally left my life, I was left with so much anger and deep resentment that I became very ill physically. Yes, this is the end result of living in the past and not releasing the anger. It's the end result of not being able to forgive and surrender to what is. Now I don't have much of an immune system, so becoming ill can be life threatening for me. That only made me more angry.
The reason I explained (and not in detail) what happened to me was to make a point about how I got from being deeply at peace within my being to being so far off center that it has been extremely difficult to get back to where I once was. So this was not a "bitchfest" about how I got fucked over, but a story about how we all let our dysfunctional egoic thinking drag us back down into the pits of whatever we think despair is. Many of my friends like to believe that I got seriously "fucked over", and yes, on the surface I did get fucked over. But on a deeper level, very little of this would have happened or gone as far as it did had I been able to remain centered in the present moment. Had I been living in the present moment and not worrying about past or future events, the probability is it never would have snow balled so far out of control.
As soon as I was well enough to even think straight, I picked up The Power of Now and began rereading it. I thoroughly understand the power of the present moment on a deep level. But getting back into staying present in the moment has proven difficult for me at the moment. My dysfunctional egoic thinking has taken over again, and has been running my life once again. The reality is, 99.9% of humans alive today live in their egoicly dysfunctional minds and thinking, living in the past (a big contributor to substance abuse, alcohol and drugs being just one example of abusing substances to control emotional pain) and projecting their happiness onto some future date.
Here's the logic: the past was once the present moment, it's gone and you can do nothing to change whatever events occurred in that moment. You can learn from it, take those lessons and use them to function in the present moment, but you can do nothing to actually change what happened in that past moment. If you really did something super fucked up, you might be able to "fix" what you did to yourself and/or others in the present moment, but you can never change what happened in that past moment. Why? Because that past moment used to be a present moment, just like this very moment right now as you are reading this is the present moment. It truly is all you have. You cannot go back or forward even one second. So it is truly insanity to live in thinking about and dwelling on those past moments. Dwelling in that past is the root of resentments, anger and in my case, the rage I have been experiencing.
Conversely, thinking that some future date will "save" you, make you finally "happy" is also dysfunctional thinking. Why? Because the future is yet again, just another present moment that is not here in this present moment that is your real life right now. In this present moment, that is the only thing you really have, you can plan for things that may or may not occur at a future present moment, but waiting for happiness to "happen" at some future date is insanity. We will take me for an example. My happiness is not set on some future date when I "finally" achieve my planned for goal of transitioning. My happiness is right now. I will be more comfortable in my body once I transition, but my happiness is not derived from the belief that once I transition I will finally be happy. It would be insanity for me to believe that I will only find true happiness if I transition. Because the reverse thinking of that is that I will be miserable and unhappy for the rest of my physical life if I never transition. And that is not true, I will not be miserable and unhappy. I will just continue as I always have, with a brain that doesn't match the body. It would be no different than someone born with a clef palate and no money to surgically fix their issue deciding that they can never be happy if their face doesn't get "fix". You can be happy right now, in this present moment. Yes, you have to deal with dysfunctional people staring at you, and yes you can plan to "fix" your deformity, but that doesn't mean that once it's "fixed", that you are going to be happy. Happiness and joy is right now, in the only thing you really have, which is this moment right now.
Just so you understand this, like most of my writing, this is/was for me. I needed to hear what I already know again. I need to get out of my head and back into my being, my true and authentic self. My egoic thinking has caused me great harm, and now I have to "fix" that. If there is "evil" in this world, it is the human ego and the thinking created by that ego. It is the root cause of 99% of all human suffering. Dysfunctional egoic thinking controls you, owns you and will not release you as long as you dwell where it dwells, in the past and in the future.
And that is all I needed to say or hear right now.
Forgiveness is a big key here. I am hanging on to shit and don't know why I can't remember how to let go and surrender and just be. It is the anger and the inability to forgive that has brought me here to this moment right now where I feel miserable. It doesn't matter how I got here or who fucked me over really, yes, I got screwed (repeatedly), however, perseverating on what may or may not have happened or who did or did not do anything foul doesn't change the situation. It is what it is. All my anger and resentment does is keep me wallowing in the pain, it keeps me from healing and moving forward.
Here's the dysfunctional thought pattern that keeps me perseverating on the past, feeling miserable, and stuck in this past. I keep thinking that everything I did that got me fucked over I did to help others. People came in like vultures and sucked me as dry as they could. Once there was no more meat on my bones, they picked up and moved on, having left me feeling completely raped and depleted. Some of it was forced on me, just like being raped. Even when I had been pretty well picked dry of any meat on my bones, rapists came descending and sucked what was left of the marrow from those nearly dried bones. And then of course, as most rapists do, accused me of being the whore who's provocativeness forced them to take me (in my case they thought I had money they could rape me out of, unfortunately finding out when it was too late that there was no money for them to steal from me, someone else had gotten there before them to take what little there really was).
Parting of this "raping" was my inviting some of them in to work for me, thinking I was being a good person, giving them work in winter (which around here is a big thing since most of the income in this area dries up in winter). Of all those people, only one of them did exactly as we had agreed and was upfront and honest in his dealings with me. The rest of them and one of them in particular took serious advantage. It snow balled out of control and I was unable to reign in the situation. It became very apparent that as long as they thought I had money (or resources they could use), they were gonna suck as much of it out of me as possible. So my thinking went this way, I knew at that point that I was dealing with alcoholics (they were drinking on the job, a seriously good sign). These were people I knew, but obviously not well enough. So I vowed to myself not to ever deal with alcoholics ever again. Lesson learned right?
The real problem with that line of thinking was that every where I looked, everyone was an alcoholic or drug addict or both. If they weren't a drug addict or alcoholic, they were lost in such dysfunctional thinking that they might as well have been. It was virtually impossible to move through my daily life without having to deal with that kind of dysfunction in others. In the end, what it really boiled down to is that, there was no place to run or retreat to where I could insulate myself from such dysfunctional behavior. I had to find another way. My anger grew daily. Pretty much everyone I knew who wanted a piece of me had come and taken as much as they could come and get out of me. Like I said, once they had taken what they could, they evaporated and left me in an unfinished ruin. And of course, in their alcoholic dysfunctional thinking they justified their behavior (and still do).
My anger grew, seething inside me. When the last set of rapists finally left my life, I was left with so much anger and deep resentment that I became very ill physically. Yes, this is the end result of living in the past and not releasing the anger. It's the end result of not being able to forgive and surrender to what is. Now I don't have much of an immune system, so becoming ill can be life threatening for me. That only made me more angry.
The reason I explained (and not in detail) what happened to me was to make a point about how I got from being deeply at peace within my being to being so far off center that it has been extremely difficult to get back to where I once was. So this was not a "bitchfest" about how I got fucked over, but a story about how we all let our dysfunctional egoic thinking drag us back down into the pits of whatever we think despair is. Many of my friends like to believe that I got seriously "fucked over", and yes, on the surface I did get fucked over. But on a deeper level, very little of this would have happened or gone as far as it did had I been able to remain centered in the present moment. Had I been living in the present moment and not worrying about past or future events, the probability is it never would have snow balled so far out of control.
As soon as I was well enough to even think straight, I picked up The Power of Now and began rereading it. I thoroughly understand the power of the present moment on a deep level. But getting back into staying present in the moment has proven difficult for me at the moment. My dysfunctional egoic thinking has taken over again, and has been running my life once again. The reality is, 99.9% of humans alive today live in their egoicly dysfunctional minds and thinking, living in the past (a big contributor to substance abuse, alcohol and drugs being just one example of abusing substances to control emotional pain) and projecting their happiness onto some future date.
Here's the logic: the past was once the present moment, it's gone and you can do nothing to change whatever events occurred in that moment. You can learn from it, take those lessons and use them to function in the present moment, but you can do nothing to actually change what happened in that past moment. If you really did something super fucked up, you might be able to "fix" what you did to yourself and/or others in the present moment, but you can never change what happened in that past moment. Why? Because that past moment used to be a present moment, just like this very moment right now as you are reading this is the present moment. It truly is all you have. You cannot go back or forward even one second. So it is truly insanity to live in thinking about and dwelling on those past moments. Dwelling in that past is the root of resentments, anger and in my case, the rage I have been experiencing.
Conversely, thinking that some future date will "save" you, make you finally "happy" is also dysfunctional thinking. Why? Because the future is yet again, just another present moment that is not here in this present moment that is your real life right now. In this present moment, that is the only thing you really have, you can plan for things that may or may not occur at a future present moment, but waiting for happiness to "happen" at some future date is insanity. We will take me for an example. My happiness is not set on some future date when I "finally" achieve my planned for goal of transitioning. My happiness is right now. I will be more comfortable in my body once I transition, but my happiness is not derived from the belief that once I transition I will finally be happy. It would be insanity for me to believe that I will only find true happiness if I transition. Because the reverse thinking of that is that I will be miserable and unhappy for the rest of my physical life if I never transition. And that is not true, I will not be miserable and unhappy. I will just continue as I always have, with a brain that doesn't match the body. It would be no different than someone born with a clef palate and no money to surgically fix their issue deciding that they can never be happy if their face doesn't get "fix". You can be happy right now, in this present moment. Yes, you have to deal with dysfunctional people staring at you, and yes you can plan to "fix" your deformity, but that doesn't mean that once it's "fixed", that you are going to be happy. Happiness and joy is right now, in the only thing you really have, which is this moment right now.
Just so you understand this, like most of my writing, this is/was for me. I needed to hear what I already know again. I need to get out of my head and back into my being, my true and authentic self. My egoic thinking has caused me great harm, and now I have to "fix" that. If there is "evil" in this world, it is the human ego and the thinking created by that ego. It is the root cause of 99% of all human suffering. Dysfunctional egoic thinking controls you, owns you and will not release you as long as you dwell where it dwells, in the past and in the future.
And that is all I needed to say or hear right now.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
It's who I am....
I've been pretty sick these last few days. Actually, I have been sick for about 6 weeks. Every cold virus or flu bug that comes along has been attaching itself to me. For all I know it's the same damn bug and it is refusing to leave my body. All I know is that since Tuesday, I have felt like worse crap than I have in all the previous 6 weeks before this put together.
What that has done is keep me from writing. For me, writing is a process that takes a tremendous amount of time and energy. Time I have had, energy I have not had. I've had a lot of sleep though, and this is a good thing. I'd like to thank my good little buddies (Gilligan in particular) who have come over bearing gifts of chicken soup, medicine and most importantly, oatmeal cookies. They won't read this cause they never read my shit, but I want to thank them (well, really her) and acknowledge her for taking care of me nonetheless. Thank you LaDonna, that's what friends are for... don't ever forget that.
It's not that I am feeling any better right now than I have in the past three days, it's just that I literally have been on my back in bed for close to 36 hours and other than getting up to take the dog out, play a little Frontierville, Mafia Wars and shower, I have been in bed sleeping. At the moment, my body still hurts just as bad as it did 72 hours ago when this hit me hard, but I figure you can only lay there for just so long before your body is hurting from laying down for so long.
So I decided that since my angel of mercy (and chicken soup) has gone home for the night and left me here to die alone (just kidding, just in case she does read this), I might as well see how much energy I can muster up to write for a while. So here goes...
What I wanted to address was gender identity and affectional orientation from my perspective and experience. My first experience with knowing someone who was going through SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) was when I was 23 years old and working as a bartender in a lesbian bar in North Hollywood, CA. A very obviously male person dressed as a female (in a bad wig, falsies and all) walked into the bar one afternoon and asked for one of those silly sweet wine drinks we made there. We started talking. She introduced herself as Carolyn. Over the course of the next year or so, she and I got to be pretty good friends. Carolyn had a wife and children, was 43 years old, was a construction foreman, had been a drill sergeant in the Marines, and had lived just about as butch of a life as a man can live up until that point.
Carolyn finally had her surgery, became the woman she had always dreamed of becoming and came home from Colorado all aglow and happy with life. I of course think she is now a heterosexual woman. Much to my chagrin, she asked me out on a date (like a real date). I have to say that that really freaked me out big time. It turned out that Carolyn's affectional orientation pre-transition was that of a heterosexual man. Her affectional orientation did not change, just her gender. She remained attracted to women (and had a crush on my young 24 year old ass), just as she was before the transition. What she was now however was a lesbian. Thirty some odd years later, I am not sure what she is or if she is even still alive. I only know that that was a huge eye opener for me about gender identity and affectional orientation.
Since that time I have met a variety of people who are pre-and post transition, both male and female. I have discovered that people run the gamut of being heterosexual to homosexual to bisexual after SRS. What they were before SRS also ran the gamut. One particular person I knew still preferred gay men after her SRS. They weren't attracted to her anymore now that she was a female, but she still preferred gay men over straight men. For whatever reason, she was not drawn to heterosexual males emotionally.
In my case, my gender identity has always been that of male. What I can (and do) fall in love with (affectional orientation) however, has morphed over the years. Part of that is experience in life and part of it is being post menopausal. I have only met one FtM like myself who was past menopause when he began the transition. He, as far as I know, is a heterosexual man. So really, I have very few role models in life right now. What I end up (or don't end up) being when all is said and done remains to be seen.
My history however is that I have gone from being attracted to "high femmes" as a young teenager, to being almost exclusively attracted to other people like myself pre or post op. It's truly been many years since I found a feminine woman attractive (at least found myself attracted to her sexually or emotionally anyway). Probably over 30 years actually. If you had asked me 20 some odd years ago what I would identify as affectionally and sexually once I had transitioned from female to male, I would have told you I was a heterosexual male. Now, not so much.
What happened to change my perspective on my affectional orientation since I am not in the least bit attracted to men born male? What happened was, I fell in love with some one several years ago. "She" was the "great love" of my life. I have never loved anyone as utterly before or since. When that relationship ended, I was devastated. A few years after the break-up, "she" called me up and began an interrogation of me about my transgendered beingness. And at that point, came out to me as a transman who was in therapy to begin the transition process. He, has since transitioned and lives fully as male now. His physical appearance changed, he however, remained the same person I had been in love with.
Imagine me, after all these years, seeing myself as a heterosexual male, suddenly confronted with still being in love with someone who was now a male. I had to think long and hard on that one. I was and am, still deeply in love with him. And trust me, he's a guy, muscles, beard and all.
We are still friends all these years later. He treats me like another guy. He is after all in his mind, a heterosexual male. I am a good buddy, a pal. One he was once in love with. A man, who is now transitioning, someone he loved beyond words once upon a time. I will never ask him how this makes him feel. He's not much on sharing feelings anyway, never was either. He knew up front I was a transman. He loved me nonetheless. I loved him nonetheless, and still do. I don't ever want to be with him again, but that has nothing to do with his being a man. It has to do with waking up and realizing that that would have been a disastrous relationship of huge magnitude had it actually gone on for any real length of time. Trust me, we were a bad match for a relationship. Nevertheless, don't ever think I haven't wondered what it would be like to make love with him again, beard, muscles and all.
What it did do is wake me up permanently to the fact that what I love has nothing to do with what I think my gender identity or affectional preference/orientation is or isn't.
When I look back at what I have been affectionally and sexually attracted to in the last 30 years or so, it's been "boys" like me. Whether they were consciously aware of their "maleness" or not, what I have found most attractive are those "bois" who look and act like me. I am sure someone has come up with a label for people who's affectional orientation is like mine, I just haven't heard it yet. Maybe that is what "gender queer" is, I am not sure. I am pretty politically incorrect when it comes to the labels people have been coming up with in the last several years, so who knows.
If I were busy trying to label myself, I guess I would think I was a gay man. But that would be incorrect since I am still not attracted to men born male. I have a lot of gay male friends, I don't want to have sex with any of them. However, when the right "boi" comes along, I find myself actually looking. Sort of anyway, after all, I don't really have any hormones at all at the moment. Once hormone therapy begins however, I will have hormones again and in abundance. Only this time it will be testosterone. For those of you who have never experienced "T", let me just say this, there is a very valid biologically based reason men think about sex every few second. Well see what happens with me....
I am thinking my next post will be about the fun I have not been having just trying to start hormone therapy here in Bumfuck Arkansas, and having to deal with assholes parading around with MDs after their names who are complete idiots when it comes to the human gender identity spectrum. Just so you know, I hate doctors. A lot.
Anyway, until next time, have a great week, weekend, next week, Thanksgiving, life....
What that has done is keep me from writing. For me, writing is a process that takes a tremendous amount of time and energy. Time I have had, energy I have not had. I've had a lot of sleep though, and this is a good thing. I'd like to thank my good little buddies (Gilligan in particular) who have come over bearing gifts of chicken soup, medicine and most importantly, oatmeal cookies. They won't read this cause they never read my shit, but I want to thank them (well, really her) and acknowledge her for taking care of me nonetheless. Thank you LaDonna, that's what friends are for... don't ever forget that.
It's not that I am feeling any better right now than I have in the past three days, it's just that I literally have been on my back in bed for close to 36 hours and other than getting up to take the dog out, play a little Frontierville, Mafia Wars and shower, I have been in bed sleeping. At the moment, my body still hurts just as bad as it did 72 hours ago when this hit me hard, but I figure you can only lay there for just so long before your body is hurting from laying down for so long.
So I decided that since my angel of mercy (and chicken soup) has gone home for the night and left me here to die alone (just kidding, just in case she does read this), I might as well see how much energy I can muster up to write for a while. So here goes...
What I wanted to address was gender identity and affectional orientation from my perspective and experience. My first experience with knowing someone who was going through SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) was when I was 23 years old and working as a bartender in a lesbian bar in North Hollywood, CA. A very obviously male person dressed as a female (in a bad wig, falsies and all) walked into the bar one afternoon and asked for one of those silly sweet wine drinks we made there. We started talking. She introduced herself as Carolyn. Over the course of the next year or so, she and I got to be pretty good friends. Carolyn had a wife and children, was 43 years old, was a construction foreman, had been a drill sergeant in the Marines, and had lived just about as butch of a life as a man can live up until that point.
Carolyn finally had her surgery, became the woman she had always dreamed of becoming and came home from Colorado all aglow and happy with life. I of course think she is now a heterosexual woman. Much to my chagrin, she asked me out on a date (like a real date). I have to say that that really freaked me out big time. It turned out that Carolyn's affectional orientation pre-transition was that of a heterosexual man. Her affectional orientation did not change, just her gender. She remained attracted to women (and had a crush on my young 24 year old ass), just as she was before the transition. What she was now however was a lesbian. Thirty some odd years later, I am not sure what she is or if she is even still alive. I only know that that was a huge eye opener for me about gender identity and affectional orientation.
Since that time I have met a variety of people who are pre-and post transition, both male and female. I have discovered that people run the gamut of being heterosexual to homosexual to bisexual after SRS. What they were before SRS also ran the gamut. One particular person I knew still preferred gay men after her SRS. They weren't attracted to her anymore now that she was a female, but she still preferred gay men over straight men. For whatever reason, she was not drawn to heterosexual males emotionally.
In my case, my gender identity has always been that of male. What I can (and do) fall in love with (affectional orientation) however, has morphed over the years. Part of that is experience in life and part of it is being post menopausal. I have only met one FtM like myself who was past menopause when he began the transition. He, as far as I know, is a heterosexual man. So really, I have very few role models in life right now. What I end up (or don't end up) being when all is said and done remains to be seen.
My history however is that I have gone from being attracted to "high femmes" as a young teenager, to being almost exclusively attracted to other people like myself pre or post op. It's truly been many years since I found a feminine woman attractive (at least found myself attracted to her sexually or emotionally anyway). Probably over 30 years actually. If you had asked me 20 some odd years ago what I would identify as affectionally and sexually once I had transitioned from female to male, I would have told you I was a heterosexual male. Now, not so much.
What happened to change my perspective on my affectional orientation since I am not in the least bit attracted to men born male? What happened was, I fell in love with some one several years ago. "She" was the "great love" of my life. I have never loved anyone as utterly before or since. When that relationship ended, I was devastated. A few years after the break-up, "she" called me up and began an interrogation of me about my transgendered beingness. And at that point, came out to me as a transman who was in therapy to begin the transition process. He, has since transitioned and lives fully as male now. His physical appearance changed, he however, remained the same person I had been in love with.
Imagine me, after all these years, seeing myself as a heterosexual male, suddenly confronted with still being in love with someone who was now a male. I had to think long and hard on that one. I was and am, still deeply in love with him. And trust me, he's a guy, muscles, beard and all.
We are still friends all these years later. He treats me like another guy. He is after all in his mind, a heterosexual male. I am a good buddy, a pal. One he was once in love with. A man, who is now transitioning, someone he loved beyond words once upon a time. I will never ask him how this makes him feel. He's not much on sharing feelings anyway, never was either. He knew up front I was a transman. He loved me nonetheless. I loved him nonetheless, and still do. I don't ever want to be with him again, but that has nothing to do with his being a man. It has to do with waking up and realizing that that would have been a disastrous relationship of huge magnitude had it actually gone on for any real length of time. Trust me, we were a bad match for a relationship. Nevertheless, don't ever think I haven't wondered what it would be like to make love with him again, beard, muscles and all.
What it did do is wake me up permanently to the fact that what I love has nothing to do with what I think my gender identity or affectional preference/orientation is or isn't.
When I look back at what I have been affectionally and sexually attracted to in the last 30 years or so, it's been "boys" like me. Whether they were consciously aware of their "maleness" or not, what I have found most attractive are those "bois" who look and act like me. I am sure someone has come up with a label for people who's affectional orientation is like mine, I just haven't heard it yet. Maybe that is what "gender queer" is, I am not sure. I am pretty politically incorrect when it comes to the labels people have been coming up with in the last several years, so who knows.
If I were busy trying to label myself, I guess I would think I was a gay man. But that would be incorrect since I am still not attracted to men born male. I have a lot of gay male friends, I don't want to have sex with any of them. However, when the right "boi" comes along, I find myself actually looking. Sort of anyway, after all, I don't really have any hormones at all at the moment. Once hormone therapy begins however, I will have hormones again and in abundance. Only this time it will be testosterone. For those of you who have never experienced "T", let me just say this, there is a very valid biologically based reason men think about sex every few second. Well see what happens with me....
I am thinking my next post will be about the fun I have not been having just trying to start hormone therapy here in Bumfuck Arkansas, and having to deal with assholes parading around with MDs after their names who are complete idiots when it comes to the human gender identity spectrum. Just so you know, I hate doctors. A lot.
Anyway, until next time, have a great week, weekend, next week, Thanksgiving, life....
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The not quite ultimate coming out party...
As many of you know, I am in the middle of attempting to correct the really bad birth defect I was born with. I am "fixing" (surgically and hormonally) the way I look to the world, so that it fits my head and heart. For those of you who do not know, this error in my outward appearance is nothing new. I have lived with knowing there was this grievous error in my outward appearance for at least 52 years of my 56 years of life. There are some of you who know and understand completely, there are others of you who have known and accept me, you can't relate as you do not have this birth defect, but you love and accept me completely anyway. I love you all for that by the way.
I am me, I have always been me and I will always be me. Nothing inside will change, I will remain the same person I have always been. What will change almost completely is my outward appearance. I might lose some hair on my head (the probability is great), I will definitely lose this extra unwanted skin on my chest, and my already baritone voice will drop into the bass range (so much for singing tenor and contralto in choir). I will get a little extra muscle, maybe a bit more facial and body hair, my skull will change slightly, my feet will grow another size or so, and people in general will never be confused again as to what gender I actually am.
Making the decision to finally transition surgically and hormonally completely to male was not difficult this last year. My father passed away, and he was all that kept me from transitioning. Luckily for me, since I held off transitioning for over 20 years, things have changed dramatically in the surgical techniques available to Transmen such as myself. What that basically means is that I won't come out of surgery looking like a breast cancer survivor from the 60's. I will come out of it with a very male contoured chest.
The reason I am writing this today is because there are some of you out there who do not know I am a Transman. Now you do. So that you know that this is nothing new in my life, I will give you a short history of my living with this birth defect.
From the age of 2, I insisted to my parents (and anyone who would listen) that I was a boy. It took my parents at least 2 years to fully convince me I was not a boy physically. At the age of 4, I discovered that I was indeed missing my penis. That was intensely heart breaking. Childhood was extremely difficult. Of course, this was the 50's and the 60's, so I had no support from my parents, family or society. I was constantly referred to as a "tomboy", a name I hated as I knew I was not a "tomboy", I was a real boy with no way to "fix" what was wrong with me.
In the ensuing 40 to 50 years since that time, nothing about me has changed as far as my gender identity. I have remained the same, only growing in knowledge and wisdom about life as a person.
So for you who did not know about my gender identity issues, now you do. In my next post, I am going to go over my thoughts and feelings about gender identity. For now, see this as not necessarily my ultimate "coming out", but as my presenting my view of life through the eyes of having lived with this issue all of my life. For those of you who know me strictly through my writings, know that most of my thoughts and feelings that have been poured onto the written page has been seriously colored by my experiences as a Transman for the last 56 years. So what you know of me is not changing, I am and always will be me. My heart will never change. My writing will remain the same.
I am simply presenting this post so that in future posts, you will not be confused when I refer to the transition taking place in me physically. In the meantime, may great peace and blessings be yours...
Jay
I am me, I have always been me and I will always be me. Nothing inside will change, I will remain the same person I have always been. What will change almost completely is my outward appearance. I might lose some hair on my head (the probability is great), I will definitely lose this extra unwanted skin on my chest, and my already baritone voice will drop into the bass range (so much for singing tenor and contralto in choir). I will get a little extra muscle, maybe a bit more facial and body hair, my skull will change slightly, my feet will grow another size or so, and people in general will never be confused again as to what gender I actually am.
Making the decision to finally transition surgically and hormonally completely to male was not difficult this last year. My father passed away, and he was all that kept me from transitioning. Luckily for me, since I held off transitioning for over 20 years, things have changed dramatically in the surgical techniques available to Transmen such as myself. What that basically means is that I won't come out of surgery looking like a breast cancer survivor from the 60's. I will come out of it with a very male contoured chest.
The reason I am writing this today is because there are some of you out there who do not know I am a Transman. Now you do. So that you know that this is nothing new in my life, I will give you a short history of my living with this birth defect.
From the age of 2, I insisted to my parents (and anyone who would listen) that I was a boy. It took my parents at least 2 years to fully convince me I was not a boy physically. At the age of 4, I discovered that I was indeed missing my penis. That was intensely heart breaking. Childhood was extremely difficult. Of course, this was the 50's and the 60's, so I had no support from my parents, family or society. I was constantly referred to as a "tomboy", a name I hated as I knew I was not a "tomboy", I was a real boy with no way to "fix" what was wrong with me.
In the ensuing 40 to 50 years since that time, nothing about me has changed as far as my gender identity. I have remained the same, only growing in knowledge and wisdom about life as a person.
So for you who did not know about my gender identity issues, now you do. In my next post, I am going to go over my thoughts and feelings about gender identity. For now, see this as not necessarily my ultimate "coming out", but as my presenting my view of life through the eyes of having lived with this issue all of my life. For those of you who know me strictly through my writings, know that most of my thoughts and feelings that have been poured onto the written page has been seriously colored by my experiences as a Transman for the last 56 years. So what you know of me is not changing, I am and always will be me. My heart will never change. My writing will remain the same.
I am simply presenting this post so that in future posts, you will not be confused when I refer to the transition taking place in me physically. In the meantime, may great peace and blessings be yours...
Jay
Yes, I am at it again....
Hi guys.... been a while since I had a real blog I blogged in... but here I am blogging again.
Here's the deal, play nice if you come here and want to leave a comment. This isn't MySpace and we are not in junior high school, nor do I want to experience people playing junior high school games in here. In other words, no bashing other people's comments. That's easy enough, right? Right. If someone comes in here and says something rude to me or another commenter, I will just delete them. I promise I am a big boy and can take care of myself, and you too....
Anyway, we'll see how well I do at posting on a regular basis in the first place. Whether I do or I don't remains to be seen. Those of you who have enjoyed my ramblings in the past will be delighted that I have started blogging again. Those of you who haven't enjoyed my stuff will not be here anyway... ha ha ha... <~~~ lame attempt at bad humor...
So, this is it for today... play nice.. I miss you guys... hope to win most of you, my loyal following back again in time...
Here's the deal, play nice if you come here and want to leave a comment. This isn't MySpace and we are not in junior high school, nor do I want to experience people playing junior high school games in here. In other words, no bashing other people's comments. That's easy enough, right? Right. If someone comes in here and says something rude to me or another commenter, I will just delete them. I promise I am a big boy and can take care of myself, and you too....
Anyway, we'll see how well I do at posting on a regular basis in the first place. Whether I do or I don't remains to be seen. Those of you who have enjoyed my ramblings in the past will be delighted that I have started blogging again. Those of you who haven't enjoyed my stuff will not be here anyway... ha ha ha... <~~~ lame attempt at bad humor...
So, this is it for today... play nice.. I miss you guys... hope to win most of you, my loyal following back again in time...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)