I am Back

 

What greeted me this morning on "Femulate:

After much thought, I have decided to return today with another post. If you are not aware, the gold standard of transgender blogs "Femulate" has decided to go "dark" after yesterdays' devastating election results. 

One of the main reasons I have decided to go on is a message I received from my transgender grand-child yesterday when they said thanks for supporting them and thanks for being me. When I received the note, I knew there was no way I was going back. 

Essentially, Stana at Femulate said she did not want to encourage anyone to enter a dangerous world and get injured. That has been one of my thought patterns also and need to repeat my usual warning: Just because I took certain risks when I was learning to be my authentic feminine self, does not necessarily you should too. Everyone of us faces different paths to transgender womanhood. So be careful.

Plus I can not say it enough, I have been so fortunate to have met and married a very supportive ally in  my wife Liz. Ironically too, I still have the outreach interview scheduled with a television reporter tomorrow on the topic of Alzheimer's care for elderly LGBTQ adults which is my passion. It will be interesting to see how it goes.   

One thing is for sure, transgender women and trans men are NOT going away, we have been part of society forever. In my life, I have just laid out one path of many to achieve a very certain dream or goal and I  have always written to my truth.

Following a lot of thought, I will continue attempting to build around a theme that takes us to a point our gender transitions involve so much more than clothes and fashion. Our unique paths to trans womanhood run deep and can not be taken away.

Uncomfortably Numb

Image from M on UnSplash

Following yesterday's ill-fated election, I wasn't going to write anything at all but decided not to be a coward. 

Needless to say, I did not think the election would be as bad and disappointing as it was. It was a generational defeat for transgender women and men everywhere. 

Essentially, I will take the day off to mourn and try to figure out what it all means to me. One second I am scared and the second I am defiant. Plus I have my own health to think of, since I have a hematology appointment coming up next week. 

In the meantime, I will stay uncomfortably numb to twist an old Pink Floyd tune and be back tomorrow. 

Cutting Through the Noise

 

The further I went along my transgender path, the more noise I encountered. 

When it was just me and my mirror, the noise was often very restricted and low. Even still, the message was creeping in , I  was dealing with  more than met the eye in the mirror when it came to me looking like a girl. However, what I was hearing stayed close to the same until I began to go out in public. When I did, the noise began to increase dramatically. Often, not in a good way. 

The reason was, during the times when I was failing at presenting any semblance  of a feminine person, the noise was deafening. It was telling me to stop my impossible dream of transgender womanhood and take the easy retreat back to an old male life I never really wanted but had succeeded in anyhow. I was used to all the male privileges I had gained. Long term, fortunately for me, I cut through the negative noise and continued along my gender path. To do so I needed to be patient and learn all the feminine lessons when they were presented to me.

The longer I tried to experience the world as a transgender woman, the more I wanted to do more. Which meant more noise I needed to cut through. Such as the guy who tried to attack me sexually at a mixer I went to one night in Columbus, Ohio. I was saved from a very bad experience by my second wife. She made me pay by mentioning how I was dressed invited the interaction I had. Mega noise in the house began after the incident.

There were other examples I have written about and some I haven't as I traversed the path to my dreams. Too many nights going out just to be alone when I was already too lonely to start with. On those nights I muted the noise mainly with extra alcohol which proved to be a temporary fix to my problems. Little did I know, the worst of the noise was yet to come. When I actually had to communicate in the world with other women I needed to be part of my noise solution and not be part of the problem. In other words, I was becoming a skilled listener so I could cut the noise of the world back and enter women only spaces. It was never easy but I earned the right to be there.

Often today with all the vile and harmful politics which have been laid upon the transgender women and trans men of the world, the noise has become more unbearable than ever before. It takes a better person than me to ignore all of it. Especially when I have the future of a transgender grandchild to worry about. All I can do is continue my written outreach as I attempt to prove to the world transgender women and trans men are just the same as the rest of the world trying to get by. We are not the monsters the politicians make us out to be. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for me and my outreach issues. Yesterday I was contacted by a reporter from one of the Cincinnati televisions concerning the possibility of doing an interview. So we will see what happens. 

Whatever happens, I will write about later and hopefully todays election will be a positive force for the future and not a step backwards.