Sunday I wrote a post about my journey up to Dayton's (Ohio) VA Hospital for laboratory tests to check all my blood.
All I got out of it was a sore arm and nothing out of the ordinary happened except the air conditioning in the car was working so well, my temperature overall was a couple degrees below the norm. I told the technician I must be half dead. She laughed n on we went.
Lets see if this post works!
Tommy Dorfman is reintroducing herself.
"Today is about clarity: I am a trans woman. My pronouns are she/her. My name is Tommy," Dorfman said, adding that she has officially undergone a medical transition as well.
Congratulations
"G" sent in a follow up comment to the Changing Gender Gears post:
"There's nothing better than acceptance by cis women. I used to visit a shop in England run by two women who knew my story and were fine with it. They treated me as a woman from the get-go.. and passing through the glass wall that separates the sexes opened up the conversation to things that would never be discussed if I was a male. It was the best experience of my life. G"
Thanks for the comment!
Definitely being accepted into the girl's sandbox can provide a wonderful education. Good and bad. I have written many times how my acceptance by several cis women helped me over the rough spots as a novice transgender woman.
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| Pre Covid Picture Taken at an Historical Reenactment |
Most importantly, I learned to communicate with other women on their level, which was a giant gender step. I can't tell you how many times I heard the infamous "welcome to our world." I never was able to explain I was always in their world but had no way to show it.
Sure there were set backs along the way. Being stared at and ignored by some (men) and even being yelled at for using the restroom (women) nearly broke my heart on occasion. It never though, broke my will. I knew I had chosen the right path and had to stay on it.
Finally, acceptance came my my. Some grudgingly, some not. It was so worth it when it did.
Of course I am biased but I have always thought a human changing gender was one of the most difficult things to attempt.
As far as I am concerned, as I began to become more serious about making the jump to a transgender feminine life, I began to practice feminine mannerisms when I thought others weren't watching. I would go to big box stores during their down times just to practice my walk.
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| Earliest known Picture Circa 2012 |
Of course, all bets were off when I started hormone replacement therapy. Even though I started on a bare minimum dose, the changes began to be very unmistakable. The obvious happened, I grew breasts and let my hair grow out. The surprise came when my skin softened and my face began subtle changes. All in all, I had planned a year before I had to put my male self in the closet. I ended up revising it to six months.
As I look back to the whole experience, I was fortunate in that I found a small group of cis women to socialize with. I always say they taught me more about the feminine lifestyle than I could have ever learned on my own. But learn I did.
Putting my old guy self in the closet was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done. Overall though, changing gender gears was as terrifying as it was exciting. It was an experience I was born to do.
When I first heard the news, I think it took awhile for the enormity of the cover to set in.
Obviously, it is one thing to make it into the issue as a transgender woman at all but to make it on to the cover is wonderful.
All of my thoughts turned to "back in the day" when I worked as a restaurant manager and had a "Sports Illustrated" subscription. all my cooks knew I was going to be receiving the swimsuit issue and were clamoring to see it ASAP.
I can only imagine their reaction when they found out the cover model was transgender.
Perhaps times have changed enough that it's time for a Leyna Bloom to be accepted.
Connie commented on my diet post yesterday which joked about having to run around in the shower just to get wet:
" Maybe you should run yourself a bath, instead? :-) Keep it up, girl! I've gotten down to just 5 pounds over my high school football weight of 167 (I drank so many milk shakes with raw eggs just to maintain that back then). I weigh myself once a week, mostly out of curiosity, but I've learned, as have you, that the scale is not the best way to keep track. I'm hoping to drop that 5 pounds in the next two weeks, as I am living the bachelorette life until my wife returns from her Mexican vacation (I like Mexico, but I'm not sure it would like me anymore)."
I agree about taking a Mexican vacation! My goal is to get down to my Basic Training (Army) weight of 180. But overall, I just want to try to have more energy and feel better.
Speaking or writing of a vacation, Facebook did me a favor (?) and sent me a photo of our summer trip out west to Colorado a couple years ago. On the way we stopped at an ancient train depot in Abilene, Kansas. It was 99 degrees that day. FYI, I am a huge rail buff.
I used this pun on my therapist last week and I don't think she ever realized what I was trying to say.
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| Old Pride Pub Crawl picture from when I could drink. |
Actually the diet is getting off to a rousing start. Or not. It's a no sugar or flour diet with tons of fruit and vegetables. Even though most of the food becomes rather boring early, I have lost some obvious weight already. One of the focuses is to not obsess on what the scale says so I have not weighed myself at all.
Overall, writing about a diet is one of least likely topics I thought I would aver be writing about . During my life I have been relatively fortunate to be able to control my own weight. In fact, I lost nearly 40 pounds when I transitioned into a transgender world.
This time it's different. I am doing the diet to support Liz. Her health and goals are so important to me.
Then again, what is more feminine than obsessing over a diet?
I could use the kinder and gentler "envious" word but I can't. Yesterday I was just jealous.
It was grocery shopping day and Liz and I went out to battle the heat and stock up on all the fruits and vegetables we needed for our new diet.
As we started our journey down the produce isle, I couldn't help but notice a woman in a short romper style print dress. I was entranced. The whole process took me back to all the old days of desiring so many cis women. Not sexually. I wanted to be them. To feel what they felt.
As all the old feelings came flooding back to me, I told myself the usual. Even though I have achieved more than I ever thought I could in a transgender world, I will never in this lifetime achieve the body and look of the woman I was admiring.
All too soon she went her separate way in the store, my dreams faded and the reality of the day set back in.
However, the trans entertainment news is not all good.
This is from EW.com:
"The LGBTQ media organization acknowledges the past year resulted in a unique situation for theatrical movies, but it still went ahead with its 2020 Studio Responsibility Index, their report card for sorts on how well Hollywood's major studios brought LGBTQ representation to the screen. GLAAD found that, out of the 44 films released by those entities, none of them included trans or non-binary characters.
In fact, this is the fourth year in a row where this has happened. By GLAAD's own estimates, that's zero trans characters out of almost 400 films since January 2017. The last time a transgender character was included in a major studio film — Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, etc. — it was an "offensive caricature," as GLAAD dubbed it: Benedict Cumberbatch's All in 2016's Zoolander 2."
Thanks Bobbie for sending this along!
Image from Jenna Norman on UnSplash This week my question to answer on the year long bio I am writing for my daughter and family as well as ...
