True Friend

Last week, Leigh Anne published Was this such a good idea after all? on her blog still.. A piece of work

It is a fine piece and made me think a lot. It made me think about my own essentials at the moment, and my own relationship to people who I get to like a lot in my daily life. 

My "essentials" can take one or another path, depending upon how successful the less invasive path is shown to be. This is the path where the endocrinologist says, "yes, an orchiectomy followed by an appropriate hormone therapy will keep you healthy", and I find that my drive to fully abandon the male façade disappears as a result. I think of this as my "Lose the bits, then although I am not a man, to get along in the world I'll continue to cross-dress as one." option. 

The second path is the one more familiar to most of you that will bring me squarely up against all that Leigh Anne wrote about, after all the usual and necessary surgery and so forth. My internal map is so ready for life as a woman, and I am lucky to have a body that will not fight against physical transition too much, apart from a rather resonant baritone vocal range that will simply have to be made less resonant somehow. 

Leigh Anne writes about cutting off ties with those who knew her before. I cannot imagine doing that. I will accept that some of them might cut ties with me for various reasons. This is not the post where I imagine what might happen in the case. I hope that post never gets written. 

I am so lucky to have lots of intelligent and fun people in my daily life. All but one couple know nothing of Halle, and even they do not know that name. They do know that I am transsexual, and what that means. Both are so wonderfully supportive and caring for my sweetie and I, and that gives me hope that all these fears and the hiding are unnecessary. 

Is it possible that others who believe I am a good friend are aware that a wall is there that very few get to peek over? Do they feel it? If they don't, I assure you, I do.

There is a sort of dishonest feel to a relationship that excludes what is absolutely the most essential part of who I am. The real kicker comes though with my children and now grandchild. I am a very caring parent and always have been. They know I would walk through burning coal if necessary to help them. Yet, a part of me is hidden and how will they react if/when this is shared?? Will they understand? I can only hope so. 

The other part of this whole dilemma was laid out perfectly by Calie this week in her post She's Finally Happy. 

Could I live with myself if I learned that one of those friends or family was going through the torture of guilt and self-loathing that is the life of an isolated and unconnected transgender? What if they ended their life, not knowing there was someone so close by and so caring to talk to? 

Do all of these thoughts and feelings change the sort of parent or friend I must be?

Collateral Effects

Post 300 

In April this blog will be five years old. Five years ago I could never have imagined what would happen because in desperation, I reached out into the dark.

The person I was five years ago would ask this person I am now "Why are you still writing this blog?"

He would point out I came to the internet to find something else entirely and so I did. I found out who I am, and as an online friend said, "I think I have my issues figured out."

I would say, When you find out who you really are, there are other effects; things that matter even more than those issues we needed to sort out.

Friendship ~ knowing and caring for those who travel along side.

And if you are very lucky, friendship can become passionate love ~ a deep desire to be and experience more as the person in a skin I do not own... it is a feeling that won't go away. A sort of insanity and I cannot and will not lose it. It has given a perspective and acceptance of others I could never have found any other way. I am changed fundamentally and deeply. Thank you Dear C.

My experiences have brought emotional connections I could never have expected. Deep emotional connection is dangerous. Just ask any teen. 

With connection come feelings of hurt when one of those who you have felt a deep connection with leave or seem to be rejecting you. To anyone who has felt that way because of something I did, or didn't do, or wrote, I am so very sorry. 

Last and most, there is connection to spirit ~  all I had read and thought about for fifty years somehow came together through the special filter made from all those other connections and made sense. 

Awareness of that inner spirit brings a peace I have never known and don't feel I deserve.

Mother said "Be careful what you wish for". 

Nobody warned me of collateral effects that would change me forever. Nobody could have told me to run away (or don't you dare run away!) because those other effects would be so compelling.

Breaking Stereotype

In the United States, 66 percent of 4th grade girls say they like science and math, but only 18 percent of all college engineering majors are female. 
(National Science Foundation)

In middle school, 74% of girls express interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), but when choosing a college major, just 0.3% of high school girls select computer science.

I like to think that as the young lady in the video was walking away, she was making a plan to enter that science fair. 

After all, what part of looking pretty, caring about your appearance, in this case, putting on lip gloss prevents you from being a techie? 

I loved making computers do my bidding. If I'd been wearing a miniskirt, painting my nails and so forth, why would that have to have changed? It wouldn't!

What part of being a woman should prevent you from enjoying using your imagination to change the world? 

Why should looking pretty, dressing beautifully, in a feminine fashion be demeaning? 

Imagine

 A world where intelligence and sex and masculinity and femininity are all thought of as separate from one another. 

Totally separate 

One does not imply any other

 at 

all.