Transgender Teen Fiction Themes

From USA Today:

In May, Meredith Russo’s literary debut arrived in the world, one of countless first novels published every year in search of readers. But Russo’s If I Was Your Girl  — the story of a transgender teenage girl named Amanda who is in love with a boy named Grant — had deep personal resonance.

“I wanted to write the story I needed myself” as a teenager, says Russo, 29, a trans woman inChattanooga, Tenn., who remembers growing up with only negative cultural messages about trans people. “I wanted to create a power fantasy for trans kids.”


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If You Are Going to Stare

In a follow up post to my last one...let's move forward to Saturday morning when we were grocery shopping. Normally anymore I don't get much push back from the public from whatever I do. Except Saturday when some pregnant "arse hat" of a women kept doing the side stare at me.

You know, the one who won't look you directly in the eye but can't keep her eyes off you otherwise. I was in a good mood Saturday so I didn't do my usual spin move and catch her at mid glance. Maybe she will teach her kid to not be rude when he or she is born. Oh wait, what if she has a transgender child , will she stare sideways at her/he?

Finally this weekend I saw a couple totally unrelated (to me) posts on FB from so called trans peeps who "couldn't take it any longer" and were contemplating "de-transitioning."

To each their own of course and I know as well as anyone how difficult a Mtf gender transition is but I would be damned if I would anyone take a slice of my life and send me back to where I was.

It's My Life and YOU Can't Have It!

I have a real busy weekend to go over with you kids which is one of the reasons I missed a couple days blogging.

Friday evening Liz and I rushed to our Tarot card reading class for the second time. I have little to no knowledge of the cards and am always petrified about getting embarrassed in a class...specifically when the instructor keeps screwing up my pronouns, which I hate.

Of course I told her I did (hate the he word) and she turned the tables back on me not in an unpleasant way during a trial reading I was doing. The person I was reading for was anticipating a relationship problem and the cards (not me) said use caution. If you believe in Tarot or not is not the basis of this post...the instructor came around and said what would I say if she (instructor) was my sister and I said be very careful. What went unsaid between the three of us was our perception of the high percentage of men who can't be trusted.

At that point she said my dual gendered past was exactly what would make me such an intuitive reader and that is why sometimes she can't get up off the  "he" word with me.



In a quiet moment with her, I will have to explain my thoughts on gender fluidity and aura and maybe we can start all over. Because I don't think necessarily tossing out 50 plus years in the male world is a bad thing. Plus she is a lesbian and I am transgender which often (I have found) is the hardest bridge to cross.

So she can have a sliver of my life to knaw on but in the next post I have a couple others that won't.

Manchester's Transgender Beauty School

Based on Sackville Street in the city's Gay Village, Born UK is an all-encompassing service – from voice training to relationship advice - designed to better the lives of the city’s transgender people. Eyebrow reshaping also plays its part in the process and that’s where wax-specialist Sam Marshall comes in: “I remember seeing Jaimie for the first time and thinking 'Wow she's pretty, who is she?' 

Sam says she’s been enamoured by trans women ever since a part-time trans woman volunteered for a live male waxing tutorial. "Michelle would turn up to the male waxing tutorials as Steve, go in the toilets get changed and come out as Michelle.

For more, go here.

The "Born" Team Trans Women Grace and Kate

Don't Jump into the Deep End Until You Can Swim

Most likely one of the top questions I get is-when/why did I decide to go full time.

At once it is the simplest and most complex answer I give.

First of all, I had to feel comfortable. For me that alone took years. Then that answer leads to another-how did I begin the process of feeling comfortable?

I was in the position to take the process rather slow once I got out of the heels and hose in the mall mode I was in. I give my deceased wife credit for that after she began to call me "pretty,pretty mirror princess."

I began to eat/drink at restaurants and go to safe rather civilized places like book stores etc. What I realized I was slowly building confidence to see if I wanted to live a feminine existence at all and was I indeed transgender and not a cross dresser.

To me the so called "deep end" came when I started HRT. I began the estrogen therapy and almost immediately began to feel the changes, mostly emotional. Plus I gained a group of friends who went a long way in bringing out the woman I am today.

Two in particular pushed me off the gender cliff I was on and into the deep end.

Now, I am so fortunate to call a whole group friends and they were the ones who taught me how to swim more than I can say. I guess in my case it took a village to build a transgender woman.

Back to the advice? I really don't have any (sigh) except to try the world out and be ready for a few bumps and bruises on the way. There isn't a right or wrong way to be transgender.

Ella Grant

From Canada's Edmonton Journal:

"The first time a teacher unintentionally outed then-13 year-old Ella Grant as transgender, it was her second day at Victoria school.

Grade 8 students looking for their desk in French class picked up Popsicle sticks with their names on them. Ella’s stick said “Eliot.”

Despite her family asking Victoria school administrators to keep the new student’s birth name and gender private, the school district’s computer system was unrelenting. Flummoxed teachers kept having mishaps, displaying Ella’s “dead” name on class seating charts, and calling it out during attendance."

For more, go here.

Do You Dream in Gender?

I know when I was growing up I had at least one dream a week in which I was a girl and I didn't want to wake up to the real world of being a boy.

As time went on though, I began to dream as me-most of the time with no respect to either gender.

I know people who say they can dream in color, so I began to wonder about gender and why my gender dreams seemed to fade away the more I MtF transitioned into a 24/7 life as a transgender woman.

I also know there is no real answer to why someone dreams the way they do. Although some peeps make a living out of telling people why. I am learning to read Tarot cards now, maybe I will have to ask the cards!

It's my theory the less stress I put on myself to live the life I have always wanted...maybe I didn't have to dream about it!

Big Sweaty Guys

I don't know where you live, but here every summer we are dominated by the orange barrels, big machinery and men in yellow vests tearing up and replacing roads/highways everywhere.

Yesterday, as I was setting in yet another traffic jam I began thinking of the amount of  reconstruction on my body already without surgery!

Today for example I have to change my estrogen HRT patches out and continue to take my "Spiro" which holds my testosterone to a lower level and yesterday was one of my shampoo days as I come ever closer to another hair coloring.

Sunday, Liz and I were able to do a little shopping and I was able to pick up a couple items for this fall.

So, as any cis woman will tell you just scratches the surface of what it takes to be an attractive woman of any sort.

It's tough, but I don't understand the occasional person I run across on FB who is constantly whining about being a "short fat ugly" guy and a short fat ugly woman. I for one would love to be shorter than my 5'10" and I guess I was fortunate enough (according to him) to have been able to take off nearly 45 pounds.

I look at myself as constantly being in "construction" and will be until my ashes are spread in front of some unknowing plus size clothing store.

One thing is for sure, if you base your life on looks anyhow, you are looking in the wrong mirror.

Her Story

From the "Advocate."

Arguably one of the most important pieces of media created by transgender women, the web series Her Story has been making headlines and garnering praise since its release in 2015.

Earlier this month, the groundbreaking show earned yet another honor: an Emmy nominationin the newly-created category of Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama. The award nomination is not only a win for the Her Story's incredible cast and crew. It should also serve as confirmation to the greater creative media community of the importance of transgender voices and faces in the portrayal of trans narratives.

With the commercial and critical success of TV series like Amazon's Transparent and films likeThe Danish Girl, the lives of transgender people have entered mainstream media consciousness. However, the bulk of these trans stories so far are written by and are portrayed by cisgender people. When Her Story premiered in January, it smashed through those paradigms. It stars two talented trans actresses, Jen Richards and Angelica Ross, and was co-written and co-produced by Richards.

The series focuses on the dating lives of two trans women, Violet (Richards) and Paige (Ross).

For more, go here: