A Quiet Day?

 Ironically, yesterday turned out to be a quiet day when it should not have been.

It all started out with my therapist's appointment. Instead of  a video visit, the link wasn't working so we just did it over the phone. So all my work with hair and makeup to get ready went nowhere. Fortunately, later on in the day I had another Zoom meeting to attend which I didn't have to get ready for. 

Between the meetings at the least I could watch the Cincinnati Reds baseball team who were playing a day game. Which they won. 

You Cyrsti's Condo regulars may know I am bi-polar and for some reason yesterday was one of those days I couldn't summon much energy at all. By the time my Rainbow Alliance Board meeting came along at 6 PM, I felt as if I had no ambition for the meeting at all. Normally, it wouldn't have been such a big deal but his time there were a couple of workshops coming up I wanted to volunteer to assist with.. One of which is in June and the other is in September, so I still have plenty of time to volunteer for one date or the other.

Pre Covid Summer Picture.

On the bright side, I received a very positive return comment from "Jenny" whose blog I just featured. Plus I am very fortunate to have a strong support system around me to help me when I am down. Including my meds from the VA. 

I am feeling better today.   

The Needle or the Patch

 Coming up on the nineteenth, I have my appointment with my endocrinologist. As I have written before, I am considering asking her about the possibility of changing my Estradiol delivery method from patches to injections. As with any other change, injections bring with them a whole other possibility of side effects. As a matter of fact, Michelle sent in this comment on the subject:

" You may want to check out this article:

https://transcare.ucsf.edu/article/information-estrogen-hormone-therapy
The highlight paragraph is one that you mentioned:

Many trans women are interested in estrogen through injection. Estrogen injections tend to cause very high and fluctuating estrogen levels which can cause mood swings, weight gain, hot flashes, anxiety or migraines. Additionally, little is known about the effects of these high levels over the long term. If injections are used, it should be at a low dose and with an understanding that there may be uncomfortable side effects, and that switching off of injections to other forms may cause mood swings or hot flashes. Some trans women have encountered difficulties obtaining a consistent supply of injected estrogen due to ongoing problems with the supplier. Realistically, there is no evidence that injections lead to more rapid or a greater degree of feminization. In my practice, I generally avoid prescribing injections unless under very specific circumstances."   

Thanks for the insight. Plus, as a matter of fact I did check out the article. So far, I have been lucky in being able to have a stable supply of patches through the VA and I have never had the problem of the patches not sticking. 

After talking the whole process over with my therapist this morning, the only benefit would be the possibility of quicker feminine development. So as it stands, I will probably just stay with the program I am on.

As soon as my partner Liz and I become fully vaccinated, I will be able to benefit from public feedback again. Which means so much. 

A Band Aid for a Dress

 I follow a blog called "Jenny's Journey" from down under in Australia. Her most recent post concerning her gender dysphoria brought back a distant unpleasant memory with me. 

In the post, Jenny (left) described how her gender dysphoria was bothering her and her wife noticed. From what I can figure out, the wife does not support Jenny's gender issue totally but will let her pursue it behind closed doors.  To make a long story short, her wife told her to go into the bedroom and take care of the "problem". 

My deceased wife was similar to Jenny's in that she accepted me cross dressing but never the idea I was transgender. Over the years it was impossible for me to convince my spouse my gender dysphoria went deeper than just looking like a woman. Much of that was my fault because I was still learning what a transgender life would look like. In other words, so much more than just putting on a dress for an afternoon. I was trying to patch a huge problem with just a series of band aids.

Going back to Jenny's post, she was able to overcome her dark moods due to gender dysphoria and assume her "duties" as the Easter patriarch in the family. For a while Jenny was able to restore the gender balance in her life.

Again, I went through many of the same feelings as I mentally purged my feminine thoughts.  But all too often the old feelings would sneak back in and I wondered again and again what my life would be like on the feminine side. 

I fought it to the point of suicide before I finally gave in to what my soul was trying to tell me all along and I started to live full time as a transgender woman. However, I still remember the heartache and duress which went into my transition. 

I wish Jenny and all  of you who might be involved in the same gender dysphoric bind, best wishes on your journey.  

Let it Rain

 

"Rain Valdez just received her first Primetime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series” for her lead role in RAZOR TONGUE, which she created, crowdfunded and produced. Rain is the second transgender actress to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy in an acting category and the first Filipina American transgender actress to be nominated. Rain is also the founder of ActNOW, the first and only acting class in Los Angeles prioritizing a safe space for LGBTQIA actors and teaches beyond the binary. Rain got her start playing ‘Coco’ in season 2 of TV Land’s LOPEZ and doubling in Amazon's TRANSPARENT as Miss Van Nuys on screen and a producer behind the scenes." 

Really?

 Is it really April already?  On occasion I feel as if time does fly when you are doing very little. 

Easter, which we don't really celebrate has come and gone. As it was never a major emphasis when I was was young, even I didn't spend much time or effort thinking about what my girl cousins were wearing because I never saw them. Plus there was only one girl in our neighborhood. For once there  there were fewer feminine distractions to fuel my gender dysphoria. 

So now as I try not to revert into another mundane post concerning  the shape of my thighs, at the least I have a chance to look ahead to a few events on the horizon.  The first one is my twice a month visit with my VA therapist on Tuesday. Normally we converse nearly 45 minutes to make sure I am not thinking of hurting myself or someone else. 

Picture from a Martial Arts Banquet Liz
and I went to years ago. I felt extremely
out of place.

Wednesday though, things start to pick up as I have another Rainbow Alliance Board Meeting. It seems there will be a couple of good opportunities to visit with other enquiring minds via Zoom. 

Included is the meeting will be the discussion around a Zoom meeting I am included in that includes a group of Miami University (Ohio) Sociology  master degree students on LGBTQ issues. Plus a call for another senior LGBT group in the area which I plan on volunteering for.  

The most important subject will be a fall seminar the deceased leader of the group signed us up for. I view it as another possibility for me to build on my transgender aging presentation. If I have enough courage to pursue it. At this point in time, at the least I will look into it.

Finally, on Friday I read I am supposed to receive my Covid relief check. 

All in all, April is off to a rousing start, even if most all of it is done virtually. I am hoping that may change soon in the future since I have completed my vaccines.

Vanity?

 On occasion I am incredibly surprised about how much more vane I am as my transgender woman self than I ever was as a guy. Of course it is easy to point out all the gender differences there are in fashion possibilities, even though even that seems to be in flux these days. 

With me, from the earliest days of viewing my cross dressed self in the mirror, I dedicated myself to improving my "look" as much as possible. In fact, anytime I had the chance, I was practicing. It sure beat the time I had to spend in my boring boy clothes and crew cut haircuts. I couldn't wait for the day I could purchase my own wig and better yet, grow my own hair out.

Of course, as the years advanced I grew "into" my feminine vanity and it became part of my existence. I guess more than a few feminists could say the whole process is part of societies' method of subjugating women as a whole to unfair standards of beauty.

Since to a large part, I got such a late start to living a full time existence as a trans woman, I still feel the newness of the whole process.

In many ways, my bodily changes due to hormone replacement therapy have helped increase my vanity to new heights. For example, after I pulled my leggings on this morning, I noticed my thighs were increasing in size due to the redistribution of fat in my body. By now, I know you are thinking wow how mundane is that but it gets worse. With all the problems in the world, I notices one of my thighs seems to be bigger than the other. Of course I have heard of the relatively common occurrence of women's breasts being different sizes, which is a problem I don't have. 

I wonder now, as I approach another appointment with my endo doc in the middle of this month, I am going to discuss with her the possibility of me moving my Estradiol transmission method from patches to injections. The injections I have heard are the most effective way of achieving the best femininizing results. Realistically, I am not expecting much more in my breast development but would like to see more in my hips.

Even though I have not decided which direction I will take (depending on what she says) I am leaning towards the injections.  

I guess vanity will probably get the best of me again.   

Charmed is Trans

 On the CW television network, the "Charmed" show has added another transgender character.

From the "Deadline" site:

"Actress Mareya Salazar is about to bring some of her magic to Charmed. The trans actress is set to join The CW series in a recurring role for the reboot of the spellbinding series. The timing of the news couldn’t be any more perfect considering its Transgender Day of Visibility — and we love to see Salazar join the cast.

The casting marks the second transgender actor to join this season. In November, Deadline exclusively broke the news that JJ Hawkins joined the cast in the recurring role of Kevin, a transgender male college student who inspires one of the Charmed Ones to take on a very formidable opponent. With Salazar and Hawkins, Charmed continues to move the needle when it comes to bolstering authentic representation of the trans community."

Perhaps the day is coming we won't  have to mention an actress is transgender at all. They will  just become actors or actresses.

The Battle Continues

 A reminder for a former president outside his Mar--a-Lago  home:

And, on the bright side, reversing Trump, the Pentagon has issued new policies for transgender troops. Policies which largely banned transgender people from serving in the military were reversed and new rules were given which will broaden trans troops access to medical care and gender transition. 

I will be interested to see what if any actions the Veteran's Administration will take now. Currently, the VA mostly covers only hormone replacement therapy and some essentials such as wigs and prosthetic breasts. To my knowledge, still no serious surgery. 

How Much Visibility is Good?

 Another "Transgender Day of Visibility" has come and gone. In fact, a few organizations such as Trans Ohio made it a month long look into various aspects of transgender life.  

With all the positive push to let the public know we are here and really aren't all that different from everyone else comes many other issues. 

Of course the main one is how hard we work to assimilate ourselves into the world of cis women as a whole. Once we have accomplished moving around in the feminine world, do we want to give it all up? I imagine most of us dread the Hey! that is a man in a dress syndrome. 

Then there is the security problem we face as trans women. It remains a tragic statistic how many transgender women are attacked and even killed in the world today. If we are not a part of the fortunate few who have natural passing privilege, are we subjecting ourselves to violence?  Conversely, if you are a young and pretty trans girl and don't let your potential boyfriends know of your gender past, again do you open yourself open to violence.

All questions which are not easily answered every year when we come to the Transgender Day of Visibility. 

On the other hand, being visible can be as simple as going out in public as your authentic self. Of course, even that has been curtailed due to the effects of the pandemic. Everything helps! I remember receiving a comment here in Cyrsti's Condo from a reader who occasionally journeyed out to a venue as a woman and was accepted as such.  As I said, pre pandemic of course. 

Recently though, I have been impressed with the young transgender and/or gender fluid folk I have been able to interact with. During the recent visit with the university class and recent transgender - crossdresser meetings I have attended, easily  three fourths of the participants have been in their 20's or 30's. To a person, they have been wonderful ambassadors for our culture. 

The future lies with our youth of course and the Transgender Day of Visibility should be dedicated to all of them. In many ways, a few of us opened a few doors for them and now are along for the ride. 

It's an exciting one.