What Is Transgender - Guest Post

From Connie:

"I think we can all call ourselves whatever we want. The term "transgender" is what others will still use for us, however. I like the shortening of the word to "trans", only because, for me, it is actually short for "transcended". My current state-of-being is not the result of a "crossing over" of gender, rather it has come from an awareness that defies any explanation. Learning to accept that awareness has been the most difficult part, but once I began accepting myself as the person I really always was, other people began to see me the same way. 

A few years ago I landed a role in a community musical production, in which I played a female. I asked the director why I had been chosen over other cis females, and she told me, simply, "I only see you as Connie; there is no reason to think anything more about it." She didn't want me for the part because I could act like a woman, but because a could act AS a woman. The fact that my character was a sort of "washed-up lounge singer" who was running from her past may have been type casting, however. :-) 

My big number, which closed the first act, was entitled, "The Girl I Am", wherein my character revealed her true identity without reservation. This is all coincidence, mind you, as the part and the song had been written long before I had been considered for the part. The director had not even given thought to what was an obvious parallel to me. So, I transcended through that experience from the realization that I am seen to be who I am by, at least, some other people, and that the more I forget the "transgender" nonsense, the more I am accepted (by others and myself)."

Bravo!!!