An Egyptian Transgender Journey

You may be interested in checking out this moving transgender story from the Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt. Here is an excerpt:

"Malak el-Kashif left home on her birthday seven years ago. Walking into an uncertain future, she was underdressed for the weather and armed with little— except for some makeup, a few women’s accessories and 50 Egyptian pounds (at the time about six American dollars).

“I was afraid but I didn’t hesitate,” she said. “There weren’t any other solutions.”

That night, el-Kashif identified as a 13-year-old boy. She has since emerged as perhaps Egypt’s most outspoken transgender woman activist.

It’s a label that in a largely conservative and patriarchal society has meant battling a war on multiple fronts.

“When you declare you are different, you should get ready for war. A big war,” she said. “The society will stomp on you and treat you like you are the enemy.”

She has been ostracized by her family and scorned by some who accuse her of tampering with God’s creation. She has been attacked by others scandalized by her activism for LGBTQ rights. Legally, she still holds a male’s identity card."

There is much more to her transgender struggle and you can read about it here.

Planning Ahead

In these times of staying home and staying safe, I have found planning ahead is the best way for me to overcome the extreme boredom.

I am fortunate in a couple ways, to be able to do it. First of all, Liz has worked from home for quite a while now and we have learned to coexist quite well without killing each other. Secondly, I have been living full time as a transgender woman for so long with an accepting partner. So I don't need the reinforcement of being validated in public as a feminine person. I have long since made the gender jump back to the person I always should have been.

I am also using the extra time I have staying in to write on my second book again. Looking back on my life and how I transitioned back to my true self has helped me to better understand how far I have come and be better prepared to hopefully ride out the current corona virus outbreak which the experts now say may not peak here in Ohio for another month. Of course too, as all of this health drama is unfolding, spring has established a firm hold finally here too. Which means it is time to update my wardrobe.

Luckily, now more than ever before, it is easier to update your wardrobe from home. In fact, if you do have a few more dollars to spend, you can enroll in a paid course through Total Image Consultants. If you are like me and don't, most on line clothing sites now have a liberal return policy until you learn what fits you well and flatters you. Along the way you have to learn how to dress as your ideal woman and get the most out of your assets. It's a difficult path with many more errors than trials but one which is worth it in the end.

Ideally, as you wait for society to return to it's new normal, you can take the time to improve yourself.

It's been tough for me as I am more of a reactive rather than a proactive person. In the mean time, I am doing my best to plan ahead.

The New Reality?

Recently, I wrote a post entitled "Selfish" here in Cyrsti's Condo. Under the new shelter in place rules here in Ohio, I have been stuck at home seemingly forever. In fact, the only big exciting trip out I have recently is a trip last night to the grocery store. Fortunately, most all of the had stock on them (except for the toilet paper)  So we couldn't be selfish and buy our two package minimum.

As you may or may not remember, the "Selfish" post wasn't about toilet paper and hopefully wasn't that bad of a post :).  Selfish was a post concerning gender transitioning and it's effects on those around you. In a short amount of words, is it a selfish pursuit to change your gender back to it's true self. Regardless of what many people think, we transgender women and men aren't really "changing" anything. We are simply beginning to live our reality.

Connie had this look at the post:

"It was more selfish of me when I was trying to compartmentalize my life - living a double life, really. Because I could not be "myself" with family and friends, I had gotten to the point where I was just carving out some time for them, rather than being there for them always. A therapist that my wife and I were seeing together made the suggestion that I ramp up the compartmentalization by scheduling my feminine-self. He used the analogy of an avid golfer, who compromises by agreeing to only play on Sundays, so that everyone agrees that nothing else should be expected on one day of the week. The trouble, though, was that I awoke every morning feeling every bit the woman I am, and, while golf is an activity, this was the very essence of who I was - every day. The suggestion was made from the therapist's ignorance of gender identity and dysphoria, and it would never have worked. However, it did provide the opportunity for me to explain why it would never work, and that's really when my transition began.

As I've often said, a gender transition starts with one being honest with self. As hard as that may be to do, the follow-up is to then to be honest with everyone else. In my case, my wife did not accept my cross dressing, but she has been so wonderful in how she has transitioned along with me. It's a different relationship, of course, but it is completely open and honest. Even if she had not wanted to deal with all of the drama of it, I know she would have still supported me. I postponed HRT for her sake, as she wasn't ready to accept breasts on me, but, when she had transitioned to the point of acceptance a couple of years later, I was hit with my first blood clot. After the second clot, I had to resign myself to the fact that HRT would never be part of my transition.

With the recent passing of Kenny Rogers, I can't help but to hear "The Gambler" in my head. Ha! "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." It's interesting to think of that song from a trans view; transitioning is somewhat of a gamble, really. Fortunately, there is "time enough for countin' when the dealing's done."

Thanks for the comment!

Sister Power

From Remezcla .com:

"Marizol and Selenis Leyva’s inspiring memoir My Sister is the moving story of two Latinas who grew up in the Bronx in the nineties. Marizol’s perspective and coming out story as a trans woman is at the center of the narrative. Through their alternating chapters, Marizol and Selenis manage to create an expansive portrait of girlhood that includes and celebrates trans women of color.

Left to right: Selenis and Marysol Leyva

In the book, Orange Is the New Black star Selenis also explores the challenges she faced as a teen, being one of the few Latinas at LaGuardia high school in the nineties. Meanwhile activist and model Marizol shares some of her painful experiences as a trans Afro-Latina with little to no role models who looked like her.

“I had no trans mother figure,” she tells Remezcla. “I was often silent and living in pain.”

My Sister is an important and unique memoir that feels as though it should be required reading in Latinx literature classes. We spoke with both sisters about the challenges of reconstructing memory, co-authoring a book and the importance of increasing the representation of trans women of color in literature."

For more of the interview, follow the link above in the first sentence.

New Trans Kid Show

From the "Star Observer":

"Premiering March 30 on ABC Me, First Day, is a new children’s drama series about a transgender girl navigating her first year of high school.

Starring transgender activist and actor, Evie McDonald as Hannah Bradford, First Day will air as a four part, half hour episode series and will explore some of the difficulties transgender kids face at school.

First Day is McDonald’s first acting role, however, she has been involved in a number of transgender awareness projects including the 2017 campaign to remove the family court from the gender affirmation process for transgender children.

In an interview with Star Observer, McDonald discussed just how important visibility projects such as First Day are in changing social perceptions about what it’s like to be transgender.

“I want to help make it easier for other people to come out as trans in the future. Being transgender is not a choice – and we’ve been around forever,” McDonald told Star Observer."

For more, go here.

Inspiration

I thought you all may find this quote inspirational and achievable

It is especially relevant to older transgender women and men who wished they had transitioned earlier in life.

:

Home Alone

This is quite the comment from Connie. It has to do with my comment concerning paranoia spending any real time alone due to the effects of the Corona 19 virus:

"I have a difficult time falling asleep without the TV on, myself. In fact, I have a difficult time staying awake while watching TV any time after 9:00 PM. Many times I've awoken to some infomercial being shown at 3:00 AM while I'm still laid back in the recliner. At that point, there is no sense going to bed, if it's a work day, since my normal wake-up time is 4:00 AM. If I were to retire to the bedroom to go back to sleep, though, I'd have to turn on the TV there in order to do it. Without the TV on, I can't turn my brain off. The trouble is that, when I should be sleeping, my brain will turn all-OC on me - rehashing everything that really only required a passing thought. The TV is just enough of a distraction to keep this from happening.

There are very few TV shows that are so good that I really regret missing the second half of them. I've often wondered if I might be finishing the plot lines in my own dreams, but I don't remember many of my dreams, anyway. Most of them are probably no more interesting than the show that had put me to sleep in the first place!

I'm trying very hard to resist the temptation of reflection these days. I have so many things that need my attention in the here-and-now, and the uncertainty of the world around me is out of my control. I've lost some work, my wife has been asked to stay at home without pay indefinitely, and our governor has announced that he is seriously considering mandating that anyone over the age of 65 not to work at all. I don't know how they would police that, and I already joked to my boss that I might have to start a half-hour later to give me more time on my makeup in the morning - I only need to look 64. :-) Geesh, I've been a trans woman so long that there was time I could have been arrested for presenting as a woman on the street. Now, that's OK, but I could still be arrested for being an old woman on the street. Without enough income, though, I may have to resort to living on the street (in which case, the police wouldn't even give me a second look in this city).

I am trying to live as close to what was familiar to me before this Covid-19 thing started. There's no way to keep up with the changes coming, sometimes by the hour. Having a job to get up for every morning helps, but I still will get up and ready for the day if the work goes away - maybe at 6:00 AM instead of 4:00, though. And I'll end the day falling asleep to the TV, too!"

 Indeed we have entered scary times. Our three income family just lost one income and our main source of money (Liz) maybe forced into part-time hours...or worse. My income comes from Social Security which these days has been under attack from the current administration. Fortunately I have not let it bother me to the point of being up all night watching the television.

Selfish?

As I touched on in the last Cyrsti's Condo post, the more I wrote, the more I thought about my ideas... the more I had. Of course it doesn't hurt with all of the virus's impact, I have had quite a bit of more time to look back at my life and re-discover the factors which have so impacted my life.

One idea I had came after I unexpectedly reached across my body to pet a very needy cat and ended up with a very uncomfortable twinge coming from my left breast. It turns out I had mildly pinched the newer breast mass I have been developing again recently. Then, along the way I began to think how selfish I was feeling.

It could be argued though the whole transgender experience is a selfish one. Especially when one embarks on a hormone replacement therapy routine.

In many ways, HRT is a no return situation unless you just hate the changes or the Goddess forbid, you run into health issues. Take sex for example. Unless you are one of the very few, under the influence of HRT, you are chemically castrating yourself. Even though the process may not bother you, it is a definite impact on a spouse who has been by your side for years.

As I have written about many times, I faced the process with my deceased wife who accepted me as a cross dresser but never as a transgender woman. Even back in those days it was a terrifically tough internal struggle for me. After all, how selfish was I being to only look after my needs.

Finally after a failed suicide event, I had to decide to take the path for me...self survival.

So, ideally, you can say HRT was the ultimate in selfishness for me and had she lived I am sure it would have ultimately led to our breakup as a couple. As she so concisely put it...she didn't set out to be with a woman. Little did she ever know, the person she spent twenty five years with was a woman internally all the time.

I cherish all that I have become and I paid heavy dues to get here.Every morning when I get up, I thank my Goddess for the chance to experience softer skin and my own breasts.  Sadly, if I had the information and courage to have gender transitioned decades ago most certainly, I wouldn't perceive this portion of my life as being selfish.

Maybe it was though. I deprived the people closest to me of my real self. It would have been up to them to accept me or not. 

I'm Such a Boob

One topic I don't write about much is hormone replacement therapy (HRT.)  I don't cover it much because of a couple reasons.

First and foremost, I know for medical reasons many transgender women can't take on HRT. Secondly,I also know , many trans folk attempt the dangerous route of attempting to do the whole process without securing medical professional help. Doing that just opens yourself up to many very terrible health issues. Finally, I am always paranoid about giving any indication of me putting myself up on a "transer than thou" pedestal.

Now my warnings are behind us and we can get to the real reason for this post.

You may recall, approximately three months ago, I was able to increase my dosage of estrodial by half after many medical tests. Now I am beginning to feel changes again in my body. Of course what most want to know, does that mean bigger breasts. In my case yes it did, plus I was able to add more volume to my thighs too.

Now, keep in mind, I have been on HRT for over six years, with time off for medical reasons. Plus I spent at least the first six months on a very minimum dosage. I started that way to see how my body reacted to the hormonal changes.

I know too, quite a few individuals who have just started (or are considering starting) HRT for the first time want to know what to expect. Again, I don't write about it much because the results vary so much depending on the age and dosage of the recipient.

In my case, it wasn't very long before I began to feel sensations in my breasts, hot flashes and emotional changes. Then I went years before I went through any other definite changes until I was allowed to increase my dosage. To put it into perspective, my breasts became easily noticeable but not really large enough in my mind to wear a restrictive bra. Now, as summer approaches and hopefully restrictions from the virus lift, if I wear any sort of tight tank top I will need to wear a bra.

Plus, I have a series of appointments coming up early in April which will hopefully confirm I can stay on my current hormonal course. Most importantly to me is the emotional well being I have achieved on my current HRT dosage.

I just hope I am allowed to maintain it. 

As I wrote this, I thought about other like minded ideas to write about and will continue this post tomorrow.