While My Blog Gently Weeps

 As I was opening my email and Facebook accounts this morning I was shocked to see one of my favorite

Condo cover girls, Melonee Malone had passed away recently from a massive stroke in her sleep. 

Her wife Lisa wanted us all to remember Melonee by the words she repeated every morning. "I will be a better woman than I was the day before." Both her and Lisa helped to do just that by aiding novice transgender women in their native Wisconsin. 

Even though I never had a chance to meet Melonee or Lisa in person, they are the kind of good people I would have wanted to,

Rest in Woman Power! My best hopes for rapid healing powers go out to Lisa.

Pride Beckons

 LGBTQ Pride Month is June. Which according to my precise calculations is coming up in a couple of weeks. Yesterday, the transgender - cross dresser local support group I am part of has started to search for help with "manning" tables at several different local Prides. Even I am amazed at the number of Prides which have established themselves in recent years. In the Cincinnati metro area alone there are four separate events. It will be interesting to me to see how well (hopefully) trans persons or cross dressers turn out to help. Hopefully it will be better than the Transgender Day of Visibility event earlier this year. The group struggled to locate volunteers for their table.

The difference being, was the "TDOV" was during the week and the Prides are during the weekend. Potentially freeing up more people to help. By now you are probably thinking what does all this have to do with me. Actually nothing unless you choose it to. 

Pre Covid Pride 
Jessie Hart Collection

I know  this whole idea of Pride is under review. More than a few view Pride as a chance for big corporations to buy their way into the LGBTQ community for a couple days a year only to disappear when their help is really needed on key issues. While I recognize the truth in all of that, my concerns around Pride is the influence of drag queens. I can't begin to tell you the number of Prides I see around here publicizing the drag show they will have. Even though as a transgender woman I prefer to blend in with the crowd, even seeing a cross dresser in a ultra tight dress trying to make her way through with ultra high heels makes me cringe. Then I have to pull back and understand the cross dresser is using Pride to release her fantasies and may never again try to punish her feet and body like that again. If she is having a good time, who cares!

Cincinnati Pride, as has been the case as long as I can remember has a liberal sprinkling of the drag queen culture all the way to a baseball Reds Pride night plus their stage presentations this year will begin with an exotic women's burlesque' troop  

At this point I am undecided on what Liz and I are going to try to do this year as Pride returns to an in person event. Volunteering to work at the group table may be difficult because of the walk involved to get there. Plus, we would also love to attempt the Pride Pub Crawl that night. My problem again is avoiding excess walking which is very hard on me while at the same time be able to do as much people watching as possible.  Affording the whole deal will be an issue also because we live a distance from downtown where Pride is happening. At this point since we won't drink and drive we are looking into taking a bus going and returning via Uber. 

Whatever happens with us, I hope the group is able to staff it's table well with volunteers. It is so important to be able to tell and/or show our side of the Pride LGBTQ experience. 

Quiet Time

 This Monday morning Liz is off and since I am retired we took advantage of the cooler morning temperatures to take our walk. It was non eventful as always as we normally have to clean up after our dog who somehow needs to complete his morning "constitutional" in the neighbor's yard. The same neighbor who we saw this morning as she was leaving for work.

Photo by Hello Revival on Unsplash

We have lived beside her, her husband and daughter for years now and have never received a negative comment about a transgender neighbor. Whatever the occasion it is nice to be accepted. Following the walk, I returned to my morning coffee and to ponder what I could write about on such a quiet day.

Finally I decided to write about the rare pleasure (on my part) of having a quiet day. Given my mental makeup, I don't have many moments when I am able to set all my demons aside and just relax. I was fortunate when I found I was able to discuss my Bi-Polar anxieties with my therapist and not have them complicate further my life on the transgender interstate highway. I learned long ago my gender journey was far more than a path...it was more like an interstate. Always busy and rarely quiet. Much like I am. If I am relaxed I am sleeping. 

Throughout my life it has been difficult to separate my anxieties from my gender dysphoria. In fact for years I thought they were intertwined. I have read and/or heard from others when they completed their gender transition, they were able to discontinue using their anti depressant medications all together. No such luck with me. Even though I was able to begin a full time transgender experience in a feminine world, my depressions and anxiety stuck around with me.  Again I am fortunate in that I have been able tolerate my medications for years. Giving me a chance to appreciate the rare quiet morning.

It does give me the chance to thank all of you readers on my long time Google blog and my relatively much newer Medium writers format which is growing dramatically. I completely appreciate all of you who read all my experiences and especially those who take the time to comment. Your input makes my whole effort so worthwhile. 

Thanks to all of you again and I hope you can have your own "quiet" time away from all the pressures the world tries to burden us with. Adding gender to those pressures is similar to adding cruel and unusual punishment to your world.