Why Me?

During my walk this morning, I happened to encounter one of the neighbor's older daughters as she was leaving the house.

Per norm, she barely looks at me,which is fine too. She fits the norm child in the neighborhood. Blond, slim and pretty.

For a second I flashed back to my teen aged days (a large flash :) and wondered what my life would have been like if I had been able to live the way I wanted. I graduated high school in 1967, in the middle of the Vietnam War and I have written many times here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning the amount of angst I lived through about being drafted. I didn't have wealthy parents or bone spurs to keep me out of the draft but I did have the where with all to go to college and earn a four year deferment. None of which really helped me with my gender dysphoria.

Four years later, my deferment ended and I was drafted.  I figured my little stash of female clothes wouldn't be accepted during basic training at Ft. Knox, so I purged before I went. Again I was getting farther and farther removed from my dreams of ever living like a girl. I persisted though and the world began to slowly catch up to me.

I learned there were others who yearned to live like me and even stumbled upon a new term...transgender. Slowly and all too surely, I finally came to the conclusion I was indeed transgender.

Now at least, I could achieve my goal of living my life out as a woman. I learned the hard way again what it truly meant to cross the gender frontier.

It's still tough to do but when I see another woman, I can think I finally made it.

VA Pride Day

"LGBT Pride Day" at the Cincinnati Veteran's Administration hospital campus, turned out to be a well attended quality affair. I would estimate approximately two hundred peeps wondered through. Only a couple were remotely negative to the three of us who attended to our table. One fool was enjoying call us "you guys" a little too much. Some people shouldn't be allowed to get out much I guess.

On the positive side, we had one person who came up and said he was deeply closeted but was looking for alternatives to come out. He took a ton of the information we were offering. There were also several others who said they had transgender members in their family.

The part of the event which really stood out to me, was a brief performance of "Muse", a woman's a capella chorus. They were wonderful and truly represented the feminine spirit.

Finally, I believe nearly all LGBT Pride events paint a too rosy overall picture of the transgender lifestyle. While (even with the current presidential administration which is dedicated to taking all our gains away), things are getting better for our trans sisters and brothers. On the other hand, I think of the two (out of an approximate twenty) transgender women in one of my support groups who have been fired from their jobs recently.

All in all though, it was a nice event and I received another invitation to yet another monthly support group.

What Does it Mean to Me?

For some reason, in the waiting room I use when I visit my therapist at the Veteran's Administration always carries the latest issue of Glamour Magazine along with an incredible collection of boring male adventure issues.  It has occurred to me there must be several transgender women besides myself who use this waiting room.

Today, as I was looking through it , it occurred to me, what did it all really mean. After all, it seems to be focused on the millennial female market.

Slowly but surely though, my noggin began to realize in trans years, I am a millennial. Even though I still can't even come close to the makeup and clothing styles I see, all the other articles about the future of women in society and their overall attitude, mean everything. I began to notice the  extra amount of material which focused on feminine attitude and success.

It was worth the read.