Is the Gender Grass Always Greener Elsewhere?

Along the my way down the transgender path, I’ve been fortunate enough to run into several strangers who seemingly just “popped” into my world-made an impression and left.  So many think the average trans woman or trans man encounters an inordinate number of negative people. I certainly haven't kept a scorecard but I would guess the opposite has been true for me.

Years ago a tall , strikingly attractive confident woman in her mid 40′s made it a point to strike up a conversation with me.  She knew I was trans and garnered bunches of attention.. Basically she just wanted to tell me to hold my head up and it probably wouldn't get appreciably better for people like us. No, she wasn't transgender or transsexual but she felt the burden of her height and looks as just a hassle at this point in her life. By "us" she was meaning women who cause attention in a room-believe me for completely different reasons in our sense. How nice!

She confided years ago she worked at one of the clubs operated by one of the biggest men's magazines. Not the one with a rabbit involved-but the other. She went into a  15 minute tirade on the idiots in the world who couldn’t see past her reflection.

I was stunned.  So many people in our culture (me included) would have believed her situation was close to heaven.

I guess the other grass isn't greener. Everyone has their cross to bear. Even if it's a cross dresser cross.

Plus, I knew the greatest majority of genetic women didn’t have her “looks” either but certainly found ways to live highly successful lives. You know the women I'm talking about,who just exude femininity and a zest for life.

I started to consider not being required to bring a lawn mower with me with my makeup. Maybe the grass wasn't greener on the other gender side. I have found though it is certainly as soft and inviting as I thought it would be. That's OK, I never did enjoying mowing grass!

Age and the Trans Girl

One of the huge drawbacks of age is the tendency to repeat yourself. Peeps are fond of telling me I don't look that old (not a day over 60) or act that old. Which is all good until I haven't seen them in a week or so. Then I start  repeating everything I said the last time we met. Everyone is nice and says they are doing the same thing at half my age. Yeah right-if you are you may want to start check into the problem!

Being me of course, I'm doing essentially the same thing with words. At the risk of not being Dr. Phil  (plugging his book every 2 minutes)- I finally have my literary masterpiece molded into a form which I think is workable. The problem?

I'm to the point of moving posts from Cyrsti's Condo over to the book and then I'm seeing a paragraph or two in Halfback to Hormones which should come back this direction. All good until I wonder in the vast amount of 2,000 posts, have I already mentioned it?

Well, if I am- it's not nice to make fun of old peeps. Then if you do (get in line)  it won't bother me much anyway. My sarcasm can be compared to a person you are admiring across the room. The closer you get, it can easily lose it's charm! I'm used to it!

On a side note, my humor was one of the earliest issues I had to deal with in my transition. Bottom line, it was such a huge part of my male self-I brought it along.

Coming up in the next post a possible "repeat" performance. If I can remember which one it was!

It's the Time of the Season

In my part of the world prom and graduation season has almost come and gone. But has it really? With increased frequency we are seeing more and more transgender youth challenging the system. Standing up for the right to enjoy activities such as prom or graduation as the trans women and men they really are. The effect of each and every one of these youth will certainly be felt for years-until all the gender walls come down.

In the meantime though, there is much to be done encouraging youth in the closet to enter the world- on their own terms. How much of course depends upon where you are. Here's an example from the television show , What Would You Do?, who decided to find out what people would do if they witnessed a boy undergoing gender transition trying on a prom dress: