Finally!

Old Picture with Fake Curves and Hair.

 As I rapidly approach my upcoming endocrinologist appointment early next week, I happened to  observe a real improvement in my bodies' feminine development.  My hormone replacement therapy path has been slower than most I feel because of an abundance of caution due to my age.

After starting HRT New Years Eve 2013, I was taken off hormones for six months shortly after and was allowed to resume my minimum dosage. Through it all, I still felt the changes were occurring. It wasn't until recently I began to feel somewhat impatient with my changes. My Doc responded with increasing my Estradiol patch dosage. All of a sudden, changes began again. 

Most noticeable to me was the pesky hair on my arms began to finally thin out. Before it did, routinely I had to shave my arms which I am aware can make the problem worse over time. 

Circling back to yesterday, the weather around here in Cincinnati turned warm again and I had a chance to dress appropriately. I found my patterned light weight leggings and paired them with a three quarter sleeve tunic top which falls softly over my hips. Yes, I said hips. Hiding from me the last several months was how developed my hips were becoming.

For once, my transgender gender dysphoria took a break as I checked out a glimpse of the femininized  person I was becoming. 

Even though I know my dysphoria is a powerful foe, I take any small victories I can get and cherish them.

At the least my relief will last a couple days, at least until my Doc visit and go from there.  As you Cyrsti's Condo regulars know, I was considering requesting injections to hopefully kickstart more progress but now I think I am content to continue the path I am on.   

Growing up Transgender

This post could easily stretch  out  into multi posts but I am going to try not to. For no specific reason. 

Similar to so many other transgender folk in my age bracket (70 ish), I grew up in a very isolated world where I felt my gender issues  were mine alone. In my patriarchal family it did not take me long to build a very dark closet. 

My closet had rooms though where I stashed my feminine articles which became so dear to me. I was able to purchase my own select feminization items through meager earnings from a paper route and allowance for completing household chores. Successfully,  I managed to summon my courage to find my way to a couple of the long gone "five and dime" stores. I bought my own makeup and even found a pair of shoes I found which fit. Plus I could buy my own hose and quit running my Mom's.

Once I managed to buy my items, I had to find a place to put them which no one else in the family would find. One of my places was in an old box above the cars in the garage. To my knowledge, my Dad never found my "treasures", or never mentioned it. 

My second space was way more inventive. We lived in a very rural area and the property next to our house was a fairly dense uninhabited woods which we explored all the time. One of my favorite things to do was to go down into the woods, uncover my stash hidden in protective plastic in an hollowed out tree, and get dressed up in a dress, hose and shoes I had purchased.  

Between the garage and the woods I was able to learn the basics of dressing like a girl and at least for a while, relieving my gender duress. It would take years for the term transgender to even be invented and for me to understand how well it fit me and my gender dysphoria. 

As I look back on my formative cross dressing days, I wonder how successful I was at hiding my behavior from my close knit family and friends. Outside of a couple times I tried to involve a neighbor guy friend in my cross dressing, my big experiments involved in taking the long walk to our mailbox while dressed in my not so fashionable mini skirt, hose, makeup and blouse. 

I suppose at the least, growing up transgender enabled me to become more creative and resilient.    

Say it "Ain't" So

 Recently I read the conservative case for one of my least favorite people, Caitlyn Jenner, (below) running for governor of California.

  Yes, the very person who at one time sold out the entire LGBTQ  community by supporting Don the Con Trumpt is supposedly thinking of considering running for public office.

Say it "ain't" so.

The Boss is Transgender

 

Wynne Nowland (left) said it best:

"Once you have come to the conclusion that this is who you are ... don’t delay.”

That’s the biggest lesson Wynne Nowland, CEO of insurance brokerage Bradley & Parker, learned going through her gender transition in mid-2017.

Nowland started working at the medium-sized firm in Melville, New York in 1986, and held several senior positions before becoming CEO and chair in January 2017, just a few months before her transition.

From Nowland’s earliest memory, she knew she was “different,” but it took her a long time to label it. It wasn’t until a few weeks after her 56th birthday in 2017 and four months after promotion to CEO that she had an “awakening” and decided she couldn’t hide her true self any longer.

Nowland sent an email to her 70-person staff telling them that she had made the decision to transition her gender.

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.