Tampons?

I've had this post in mind since before Christmas. I'd imagine I'm not the only one that gets caught in an ocean of nostalgia this time of year and reflecting on the last year I realized how different things have become.

It actually came to mind last night, how much my own feelings have changed. It's easy to see these changes when the feelings smack you in the face. The contentment of seeing my now quite feminine body looking back at me in the mirror, the turmoil and close to defeat that I feel when I register I still have a penis, the warm glow from being treated a certain way by men and women (mostly men) that obviously see "woman" when they see me, These are all those sort of feelings, the kind that you can't help but notice. It was last night though that I realized sometimes it's the total absence of a feeling that has the impact.

It hit me last night that I have only lived a few years of my life not feeling totally caged in by life. The absence of a struggle that seemed so eternal and intrinsic that it was part of my base understanding of humanity. I assumed everyone lived like that, and if you listen to most people I think it's difficult to not see it that way. My mistake back then was misunderstanding the degrees of struggle.

When you have only your mind to compare things to, you can make a lot of false assumptions, I'm starting to realize. I don't like to say these sort of things often, if at all, but it has been a part of my journey to recovery coming to terms with how much "worse" the war of being transgender is compared to the troubles the average person has. So lemmie quantify that a bit.

The reason it has been part of my recovery is because my mind worked like this: Friend or relative so-and-so figured out years ago what they wanted to do in life (career, family, etc) and here I am trying to figure out if I'm a boy or a girl? If I'm attracted to boys or girls? How fucking far behind am I? How stupid am I?

The fact that I had no workable answers to the most simplest of self questions made me feel less than everyone else who seemed to have those figured out and are moving on with their lives. The reality is that explains exactly how little footing a trans person has in which to start their life's journey. When you can't answer these basic questions, how can you be expected to answer anything else?

I think I'll leave getting deeper in to this for another post. What I wanted to talk about here is how I was unconsciously, by all parties involved, relieved of a feeling I couldn't identify until after it was gone.

As some of you may know, I've been working with, volunteering for and partaking in the services of the women's center in my little city. I can honestly say, I've never met such an amazing group of people. The sort of people that make a successful business person think "What the hell have I been doing with my life?". The amount of aid these women give is staggering, outweighed only by the demand and their desire to help.

I entered their little world kinda from the side door. A presentation I was giving to them ended up in an invitation to join them, basically. It didn't take too long before the center ended up being a reasonable chunk of my life. At first I had a lot of mixed feelings, the more pleasant of which being two things, I was helping people and I was doing something decidedly not "male" for lack of better terms. I had some worries and concerns too. Tokenism was one and a total sense of not belonging being the other. The tokenism is easy to explain, I was simply worried that I was being asked along mainly for them to ride the "transwave" that's currently happening in North America. Honestly I only bothered myself with that thought because I have learned it is something I sorta need to guard against.

The sense of not belonging was the meat of the problem though. I felt like I was given the key to a room that I was told all of my life that I don't belong in. The place is hyper feminine, I don't mean girly, I mean anything you can think of that a woman needs or does or puts up with in her day to day life, it's going on there. There is a massive, gargantuan, sun sized difference between being a man (a perceived man) in and amongst a woman's world and being a woman in that world. That difference is the epicenter of both my longing and my mundane needs and wants that were never recognized in my long past.

I said all parties involved we unconsciously participating but as I write I think it was mostly me being unaware of just how empathic and caring these ladies are. There was a time during the year that I was going through a hard time and I started to pull away from them, and well everyone. Not only was I given my space and respect and offered help, a few of them were honestly, sly enough, to keep me from severing all ties. I seen it for what it was, and couldn't help but cry a little, and then thank them a lot.

It was the comradery that women in these positions have. The sort that is built from seeing hundreds if not thousands of women come and go through most if not all of the horrors readily available for women to find themselves in. I think, in a sense, that's how they are seeing me, a woman with a serious issue that will take time to work through.

I'll end this with a little story that sums up brilliantly why I feel these women are so special. To me specifically, but undoubtedly to many people in their lives.

We had a little Christmas gathering for S.H.O.P., our/my little corner of the center at large. There was food and gifts, all of the trappings of a good Christmas party. One thing I didn't know beforehand was two of the girls, the two I deal with the most, had stockings for the women to randomly choose for themselves. I'm not big on getting gifts myself, just a quark of mine, so I let everyone go ahead and took the last one home with me. After I got home I took a look at what was in the stocking. There was shampoos, makeup, bath supplies and the last thing to register what they were, tampons.

I think I had maybe a solid 2 seconds of puzzlement. "Hey what are those? Oh....."

"....."

Followed by uncontrollable laughter.

It was an honest to goodness, laugh out loud, belly laugh. I honestly can't tack down all of the feelings and thoughts I had at the time because there was just too many, I can place two though. First off I thought, "oh my god, I love these women" and second was the sense of making it through some unspoken, unknown, rite of passage.

It's not like they didn't know I had no use for them. It's not like they didn't have any opportunity to go out of their way to make sure I didn't get tampons of all things for Christmas. The point is they either chose not to concern themselves, which is great, or it never occurred to them, which is even better. And I have reason to believe it was the latter, laziness playing not that small of a role, lol. (love you girls ;) )

But that's what I love about it. However you slice it, I was treated as "one of the girls" for the first conscious time in my life. I think the laughter was the only way I could have handled all of the emotions involved. It is one of those very rare occasions that I'm stuck with the total lack of English vocabulary to describe or explain in any meaningful way the intense feelings I was having. In fact it was more like the whole of the emotions I was having at the time was greater than the parts added together, equating to some kind of new feeling with no word for it yet.

Ultimately this little situation made me look back on a feeling I no longer have. Sorting that out is why it has taken me since Christmas to now to get this actually written. The sense of belonging that has been given to me by the women at the center had me suddenly reflecting on the lack of belonging I had always felt. Honestly, I don't feel like I "belong" in the women's center. As much as I enjoy the work I'm not as educationally qualified to be there as the majority of the women there are. I'm totally ok with that, I love the place, but the feeling I have isn't like the feeling of belonging to an organization or a club. The sense of belonging I was given from them has been one of belonging to a gender. I feel far more at ease, more welcome, more myself, and more among others like me when around women for the first time in my life and it is almost entirely because of my time, experience and friendship with the women of the center.

The feelings of bitter uniqueness, of forced mental solitary confinement are gone, fluttered away. Beaten off by a few feminine hygiene products.

Who? What?

The presentations and seminars I have done or been involved with have had the side effect of helping me learn more about myself and what it means to be trans. That's the great thing about working with many different people, you can't help but learn something new.

One thing I have learned has really resonated with me. The idea that many trans people have a difficulty developing a sense of self. When I first stumbled across that I raised an eyebrow and thought "oh yeah? Hmm, that makes sense" and carried on. Since then though it has filled in the gap for, what seems to be as of now, an endless stream of confused feelings. A hole in understanding that has become a part of me just as much as the feelings of confusion.

I first started wondering if that was anything to do with why people made so little sense to me. I would wonder why or how people could feel so attached to things, or so willing to put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. I don't mean that negatively, I mean how people decide, "yep, I'm a veterinarian" or "I'm a cat-lady" or whatever.

Then I realized, I think, that's not it at all. People don't "decide" these things, they just are. They just simply know who they are, what they like, what they want.... they know themselves. A feeling that is utterly foreign to me.

Living that way, not knowing who you are and not knowing that you don't know yourself or why you don't know yourself, is draining. People tend to get aggressively defensive when their lack of self awareness gets challenged, teenagers in particular and I imagine I was no different back then. What eventually happened to me though is I became a passive observer of my own life. Fighting only gets you so far when your opponent is a shadow in a lightless room, when the path out feels more like a bottomless pit down. I didn't know the person living the life I was fastened to any more than I know any of you.

But here's the thing, I didn't realize any of that until recently when I came across that tidbit of information. For the entire time I thought I did know myself, I hated myself but I knew who I was. I guess the truth is I knew who I wasn't, I wasn't someone I cared for much at all.

It has been difficult parsing this out from the other feelings that trans people have to deal with. Being a developing teen/person we are all searching for some sense of self, and it's a struggle, for everyone. It's a part of life that is unavoidable and can often turn ugly, for anyone. Take a moment to thing of the trans person though. When people are discovering things about themselves like, where they want to go in life, what drives their passions, progressive or conservative, and some deal with liking boys or girls, the trans person is starting at "Am *I* a boy or girl?". A six word question to yourself that shatters the world around you like few other questions will. For me, it led me down a path of questioning everything about life. How can people know what they are talking about when it seems none of them are capable of taking the most basic question one can ask oneself, seriously?  But I suppose that's another story.

So it seems what I am left with now is the task of making sense of my feelings compared to my fears. I guess as a way of keeping myself sane I passed off most of my unanswered questions as unanswerable questions or I went with the assumption that everyone has these questions and I'm simply the idiot who hasn't figured them out yet, like I was 10 years late hitting puberty. I also get a minor (an these days welcome) hit to my ego. Every now and then I'll pause and think "Wait, I actually don't know what I'm feeling here.". It makes me a little sad, sad that I've gone so long ignoring me, but then I pick my head up and remember this is part of the process.

I'm not quite sure what my point is to this post. I think I mainly want to say, to trans people, the fog of confusion is not your fault. When the rules everyone else seems to agree on just do not apply to you, there is little you can do to avoid having the world around you make little sense. To cis people, this is why trans health care and training is so important. When you give people the power of knowledge, it can be transformative.

Solidarity

Alright, one thing that has been keeping me from writing is I find myself wanting to talk off topic from what this blog has been about. That being said, many of the opinions or topics I want to write about come directly from being transgender in one way or another. I'm also not sure what my point is, I just wanna put this out there I guess.

As I just suggested, and have said before, being transgender has shaped much of who I am. I think it is impossible to imagine it otherwise. It has brought me a lot of depression, half of a life time of survival mentality, lost opportunities, friendships, etc. Most of which I have written about.

 I have mentioned some of the good things it has brought me, confidence and a better understanding of myself (or at least a heightened desire to understand myself).

Those things are more personal, more about me, and things that I can say with some certainty because I am the only master of that topic. There are things though that are not so personal. Being transgender has heavily influenced how I see the world, how could it not? The fact that I'm a hermit is pretty much entirely to do with being transgender.

It has brought me a point of view that I feel like is worth sharing, especially with the world being as crazy as it currently is. The one sentence description is; It has made me see how we are all the same.

Being transgender made me feel like I was outside of everyone else. The world was divided into two groups, everyone that wasn't me, and me. They all felt, thought, acted, believed, one way, and I did mine. At first, it made me arrogant, then it made me sad, and then it made me detach myself from the world and recoil into my mind. One thing it did along the way was let me start to observe people in a less critical way. Don't ask how my mind came up with these conclusions but let me try to explain the steps.

 After getting over my depression, and one of the ways how I did get over it, I started to see how I may feel very different from everyone else, but I'm still a good person. I had evidence of this, I may have had the desires and feelings I did but I also didn't want to hurt people. I didn't think people should hurt others, I was empathic and sympathetic, and the way I felt when I seen wrong happening seemed to resonate with how others around me felt about it. This is the part that I'm not sure how my brain went there, I flipped this around and started to assume others felt the same way. Everyone had their problems, worries, etc and that may make them seem one way but ultimately they are only doing the best they can as they know how.

Armed with that hypothesis, for lack of better terms, I started to watch people and get to know their true selves. It turned me into, what I think anyway, a great communicator, especially in person. I think the people that like me, actually like this part of me when you boil it down. I only have "real" conversations. When I get into your car you know I won't be talking to you about whatever is going on on "Jersey Shore" (that is a tv show right?). More importantly what people feel is a total lack of judgement. And if I express a judgement it almost always come with a litany of how I may be wrong.

Honestly I felt like someone stepping away from a particularly oppressive religion and into the real world. Sure you're amazed at all the new amazing things at first but eventually you look back, and you can't help but feel sorry about just how much everyone is missing. In much the same way I feel like I am seeing what everyone is missing. What that is, is we are all the same.

Let me tell you something about us, humans. Every one of us is scared, and so we should be. Everyone's life is a constant struggle, that is what life is. At any given moment, something could happen that either totally changes your life or at worst, ends it. It's a scary world out there, and it's not that forgiving. Everything from going to work to picking up groceries to politics is an attempt to lessen the harshness of that world.

People don't see it that way though, and it's sad. It is the thing they are missing, they see others attempts at getting through life as somehow an attempt at limiting theirs. It doesn't matter if it is a young woman doing porn for money or Isis fighting for what they believe in, we are all fundamentally doing the same thing. If people could only realize that everyone is in the same situation, and have some sympathy that no one has any answers, I think the world could possibly start to stop killing each other.

And not just killing each other, but what about the pointless bickering we all do? Or these stupid fights we have about if a certain group of people can do a certain thing be them legal fights, like gay marriage or social stigma like the bdsm community. The people against the things others do, in my experience, all believe that these people are causing great harm to some "fabric of humanity". What they don't realized is the fabric of humanity is woven with the threads from all walks of life. All experiences are equally valid.

We even bring this to our homes. I have heard from countless men and women who are in a relationship complaining about their partners. Why? They may never break up, or take way too long to do so but all the while they are judging their partner for what they do to get through their life. Which almost always leads to arguments. Co-workers, other drivers on the road, the stranger that uses drugs... you all know what I'm talking about.

Ultimately it comes to an understanding that we would be a better world if we could all either help others with their struggles, or at the very least not impose your idea of the world on those who don't feel the same way. No one has a magic key to life, and even if they did, no one knows where the keyhole is anyway and we'll never find it until we stop yelling and screaming at each other.

So maybe I'm not alone in feeling this way. I'm thinking maybe it's something forced upon all or most transgender people, if you can take the time to think about. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm right this is a part of life that the trans community has to offer the rest of the world. Coming from one of the most fringe and stigmatized parts of society it is a powerful thing to look at the world and say "I forgive you. I forgive you because I know you're struggling, so am I." and to teach them this understanding that ironically, society has it's fair share in creating.

Stretching

Things have really changed since I last wrote something. So much so that I don't know where to start, and has been one of the reasons I have been away. Let's start there then. What I have been doing lately is living life more, that's probably my biggest change. I still think all the time but I don't dwell like I used too. As a result, I feel grounded, I feel more like I know where I should be.

All of that together, feeling grounded and more calm while I experience life has.... humbled me, for a lack of a better phrase. I feel now like what I have to say should be left to myself, otherwise I ruffle feathers and I'm also not into that so much anymore either. I've stepped away from the soap-box it seems.

I have even stepped away from the activism. Not only did I stop for ultimately selfish reasons, I did it to be selfish. I'm not sure how I got there, perhaps after enough therapy, but one day it just hit me, I had to drop all of the activism and take care of me. I was in a bit of a hard spot, mostly financially but very much so emotionally. As I did my rounds I got the most unexpected response from each person I apologetically bowed out of mutual plans with. Each one said something of the sort of "Good, I'm glad you're taking care of yourself" calling me either strong or brave for doing as such.

It didn't feel like it then, but now it is on my top 10 list of best things I've done in my life. I have discovered where "base Rebecca" is. By that I mean, reasons aside, I have found what makes me comfortable, what makes me happy or depressed, what it is that makes me pleased with life in general. Also, I have come to terms with some of my limitations, or at least the ones I've noticed.

It is something I never thought I'd find. Peace of mind of who I am. It even feels strange typing that sentence. That is the way to describe it though. Far more often I find myself thinking of ways, or currently in the middle of, just plain ol' enjoying the fuck out of my newly acquainted femininity than I do wallowing in turmoil over who I am, or what I am. I feel like celebrating on a regular basis who I have become.

and I do often ;)

Now for a little humility, who I have become is roughly the equivalent of a well thought teenager. I still don't know shit about shit but at least I'm wise enough to pay attention to what's going on. That being said, that excites me. I have the chance to learn myself again, but this time I get to listen to the real me. It's the part of me that yearns for my teen years to actually be back, in order to live life as a young girl. This is not that, and it's not better than that, but after finding my peace of mind I'm now able to see just how much potential for joy and excitement there is in my time ahead.

I find myself oddly feeling like I have no business writing these posts now though. That is not to say I am finished. It is just that after finding out how little I really know about myself I don't feel like it's my place to throw my opinion at people. Which is why this is going to be so short. I will write more, it's an outlet that I enjoy, I guess I've been attacked by an ebola-like version of writers block.

What has prompted this post is an opportunity I was given. I've been asked to join 3 others in a presentation to what seems likely to be several members of my local government. It started me thinking about things I haven't thought about for quite some time now and that led me here. What I've been thinking about is what to say. If you were given some time to promote the acceptance and wellbeing of transgender people, what would you say? There seems too much that they should hear, but what is it that they got to hear that will finally make this all make sense to them? As of right now, I'm at a loss. I'm afraid our presentation will degenerate to a listing of things trans people legitimately need but will sound like nothing more than another group making demands.

If I figure anything out, I'll let you know.

Well, a short one, getting my typing fingers back.

School's in

So, over the last month I have been doing a lot of presentations with our local "Trans Needs Committee" of which I am a member. The odd thing about this month is that the majority of the presentations I have given were to students, ranging from high school students to first and second year medical students and soon-to-be doctors finishing up their last year. The opportunity given to us to talk to these three groups of people is amazing, imagine these things happening even just 5 years go? Well here anyway, all but impossible.

Two years ago, when I started my transition, the general consensus was that as a trans patient you had to go to your doctor with information about you and what it means to be transgender because your doctor, most likely, had no idea. It seems to me that the transgender "movement" has taken Newfoundland, particularly the medical field, by storm and surprise and frankly they were not prepared. It is an odd feeling to go to a doctor and see how completely lost they are on the topic and suddenly become their source of information. On a whole, trans patients were going to doctors for help and ended up being the one doing the helping.

It has changed a fair bit, though it is still somewhat like this. Doctors here now, many of the good ones anyway, have taken it upon themselves to learn more about trans patients. The committee I am on has managed to get several research/practicing doctors to travel here and give seminars, presentations, etc. And I am proud to say all of my personal health care professionals seem to be right on top of learning more and making it to these meetings. The presentations we do on the Trans Needs Committee are still necessary though, we bring the personal needs to the doctors, we are still the voice they come to for information or confirmation of information.

For example, one of the biggest parts of our presentation to any audience is terms, We have two slides that I love watching the reaction in the audience. The first is current conceptions about gender, it shows an umbrella with Male on one side of the handle, an Female on the other. Then, *click* we go to the next slide, the same umbrella and a screen full of terms and you can watch the reaction of the crowd ranging from "OMG!" to "How the hell will I remember all of this?" For perhaps the same effect, here they are:

Femme, Butch, Stud, Drag Queen, Drag King, Cross dresser, Trans, Transgender, Transsexual, Two-spirit, Gender Queer, Gender fluid, Androgynous, Trans woman (male to female), Trans Man (female to male), Intersex, (Kids) Gender Creative, (Kids) Gender Non-conforming, (Kids) Gender Variant.

Oh, and Male and Female.

I must admit, I take a little evil pleasure dumping all of this information with the statement of, "there's a lot more that we just couldn't fit into the time allotted" in the doctors lap and watching them flounder. It's the anti-authority part of me that gives a little squeal of glee.

However, it has a very different effect on younger people. Instead of being concerned they will mess up what they just learned, younger people tend to just absorb it. To them it's a stream of information that does little else then give them the language to have something to think about. That may not sound important but it seems to be a trick of the mind that you can't properly think of something until you have a word for that something. So simply giving them the language to use is actually a powerful step. Particularly to any young person that is also transgender. Take it from me, just having a word to make sense of your feelings is incredibly liberating.

To be honest though, these presentations have been just as enlightening to me as my audience. Some of these presentations I go to kinda as an "extra". The presentation was done by someone who has a little more experience in it and I am there for the "realness/lived experience" of it. For example, the last three I did was about trans kids, specifically. I, do not have a trans kid, but I was one.

So these presentations, the audience themselves and other trans people, have started to teach me more about me. I have come to realize I have a serious "black hole" in my memory about my gender experience as a child. Perhaps a black hole isn't the correct description because all of it lingers just under the surface and I can see shimmering visions of what they are but unable to grasp them. What happens is a story is told, or a question asked, or information given that makes me think "holy fuck, that was ME". Sometimes that gives me courage, affirmation, and new knowledge about myself. Other times is turns me into a heap of tears on the floor.

For example, I was talking to another trans person about their past, a trans-man. One of the things they said was that before they transitioned many people would, innocently, call him a man. (just so you aren't confused, at the time he would have been presenting female). He realized that this was people just picking up on the little things that make you think "man" or "woman" without really thinking about it, not them trying to be offensive. This blew my mind when I heard it. I have often spoken of how I used to have long hair, and that people used to call me a girl. I never once saw that as a "precursor" of who I was. At the time, I assumed it was for no other reason than my hair. But reflecting back on it, I can't even count the number of times I was "mistaken" as a girl to only be profusely apologized to by the other person, especially store clerks, waiters, service staff, etc. They were not being intentionally provocative or insulting, they made an honest mistake. They were seeing the many subtle things about me that gave off "girl" that even I had no idea about at the time or rather, that I was repressing. What makes this worse is why I assumed these strangers were intentionally insulting me. I assumed that because all of my friends and family insulted me in the same way. I just figured these strangers were getting in on the joke.

I have come face to face with the emotional and social pretzeling I have done to myself. The amount of mental energy I poured into making this all make comfortable sense to me is staggering. I have always remembered explaining away my desires by telling myself that gender is obviously a failed social construct and it was ok to be like I was even though I was a "boy". I remember doing that because I did it all my life, up until about 2.5 years ago. Again, I never once seen what I was doing for what it truly was. I was trying to make my painfully difficult "female side" some how fit with this pervasive idea that I was a boy. The truth being, I was transgender and didn't believe it, didn't accept it, and told myself all of my life that there is something wrong with me that I need to correct.

Can any of you imagine what it is like to police your own thoughts? It came to the point that nothing was more valuable to me then time to think. Friends, family, hobbies, work, money, life in general were all very distant seconds to thinking, trying to sort out my own thoughts. You can guess what problems that has caused, not the least of which is ruined relationships, be them romantic or platonic.

Of course, learning these things about me and my past has hit me in many ways, and I think it's clear to see it hasn't all been roses, but I do see the silver lining in this cloud. I'm trying let these things show me how strong I must have been while being so confused. How resilient I was while being a victim of stigma. And how I can look at myself now as rising from the ruins of the past war in my head. I look back on my past, emotionally and intellectually and that is what I see. I see the remnants of a war with all of the associated feelings that go with it. The obvious lack of understanding, the unnecessary use of force, and ultimately the utter destruction of most of what is good while what is evil seems to run rampant. I look back on it with a mix of feelings. Like any conflict I can't help but think of how senseless it really was. How if I had even an ounce of understanding that war could have been prevented. And how that being on the "beaten" side, I did everything I could to save myself, not all of it makes as much sense on reflection as it did at the time.

The other side to this that I am now grateful for is the tools and the drive it gives me to make sure this happens to as few trans kids/teen as possible, hopefully none. My first presentation to a high school made my mind explode with things I wanted to say, barely any of it to the audience, I wanted to pull the trans kids aside and tell them everything will be ok and just how far along they already are simply for living in this year rather than a year 20-30+ years ago.

So to any younger trans peeps out there that may read this: "You got this."

Invisibility

Yesterday was "International Transgender Day of Visibility". I attended a presentation/discussion at the university here, and it was nice to see the turn out for a part of it. However, it brought to light something the trans community, here at least, is lacking and it also brought to light an emotion I have had all of my life. One I knew was there but was too depressed to think about it reasonably because as is, it brings me down all on it's own. So, for a little warning, this won't be a happy post.

When I was a kid, when we all are kids, what is one of the main things we do socially? We look around for like minded people and we attach ourselves to them, or I guess you attach yourselves to each other. It's more or less the bases of friendship. We don't even realize what we are doing, we just gravitate toward each other. For me it was DnD, Dungeons and Dragons that brought myself and my friends together.

I vaguely remember how it happened. I was always into those sort of games, I would play rpg games on my computer or whatever console I had at the time, when I was even younger still I used to enjoy pretending I was a superhero or something with my friends who were also pretending to be superheroes and we'd beat of the invisible bad guys together.

I spent grade 8 being quite popular in school but when the summer came around and we weren't going to school all of my friends vanished, mainly because of geography, so no I'm not placing blame or accusations on them or me. But when I got to grade 9 my popularity of the previous year was gone, something I didn't really take conscious notice of. But for the most part, it was easy to tell from an outside observer that I had little to no friends. I spent my lunch times sitting in my classroom and looking outside at all the people doing whatever they do at lunch. I was always lost in my thoughts, even back then. In fact being lost in my thoughts back then was one of the main contributors of my depression that I was rapidly slipping into as grade 9 went on.

So one day two boys approached me, I have no idea what brought them over to me at all. Pity, interest, the logistical need for another player, I just don't know. But they asked me if I would like to play DnD with them and I quickly accepted. What that led to was a long relationship with the two of them and others that I still have today, as tenuous as they may be.

Not that I wanted to, but I was powerless to turn away their offer. I had just started to get a vague idea of how "messed up" I was, I had no friends and suddenly here were two people asking me to being their friend, more or less. How could I have said no? They made me feel like maybe I wasn't so messed up, of course until my depression completely took over. I lived two lives back then. The one that was a friend to these other kids, I laughed and joked with them, occasionally fought even but our friendships became so strong that even fights wouldn't ruin it. And the other life that had desires, feelings and emotions that conflicted directly with the person I presented to everyone else. That split is what ultimately led to my completely insane depression. I would come home from school, go straight to my room and cry until supper time and then I'd go back to my room and cry until bed time. I did this literally every day for 7 or 8 months. I unconsciously realized that being around my friends kept this level of depression more or less at bay. I put more mental energy into them than myself while they were around, so I spent as much time with them as I could.

Even with such good friends as these, ultimately I felt alone. My main "hate myself" thought was that I was messed up and no one liked me, the real me. The dance I did every moment of my life was exhausting, and dancing with yourself is as sad in reality as the imagery suggests. I had plenty of people to explain how I wanted to make my next DnD character to, but not a single person in my life that I could explain how I was feeling to. Someone else who also had my feelings seemed impossible. I was the only one who felt like me, I was the only one on the planet that wanted to do the things to my body that I did.

Fast forward to yesterday, it was during a talk among 16-20 people that I realized the same is true for me now, and I can't help but feel it is true for many older trans people. As I mentioned I was at the university here, and of course all of the people there were university students, of which I am not one and was the oldest person there by 10 years or more. I went there with the intentions of offering support to what I knew was going to be a young group. While sitting there though, I couldn't help but notice how there is plenty of support for young trans people. These peer support groups, a trans-friendly/lgbt oriented summer camp, housing and support for homeless trans under 25 etc. The two biggest hurdles a young trans person has now is themselves, and simply locating these services. It is fantastic for them, I can't imagine how my life would have changed were these things around when I was young and totally lost.

But...

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, for trans adults. If you are over 25, you're fucked, time to fend for yourself. I guess the mentality is after 25 you're a "real" adult and should be able to take care of yourself. Well, this may come as a shock, but being alone is no good at any age. I know exactly zero trans people my age, and not for lack of looking, trust me. everywhere I go, no matter how trans-friendly they are, I am the transgender flag bearer. I represent the transgender world to them because none of them are trans themselves and if I do end up in a situation like yesterday when I'm surrounded by transgender people, I am still a transgender flag bearer, I'm the future that these young men and women are looking at.

Just once I'd like to sit down with someone who is my age, roughly my intellect, conversation ability and just let go of everything to them. To someone that isn't going to be surprised or deflated with how hard my life still is. Someone who knows, because they have felt it, how being transgender paints and accentuates every decision you make and thought in your mind, or how inhibiting it can be, even on good days. How I feel years behind everyone else, years behind where I should be at my age.

Similar interests and values are great between friends. They can even make strong friendships. Having no one in your life you can truly connect to will always weigh in on the side of loneliness however. Imagine being the only women you've ever met. The only other females you've met are kids. Sure you have plenty of attention from all of the men around, and are probably looked up to by these kids, but there is no one you can turn too that doesn't make you feel like you're fencing with them. Everyone you speak to has no idea at all of where you are coming from, by design rather than fault, and their expressions of sympathy or encouragement are more or less useless to you because they cannot take into account you or your experiences/values/morals.

I can't really end off with a point because I don't have one. I just needed to get this out somehow.

Becoming

It has been a while now since I've posted any sort of developmental progress in my transition. There really hasn't been much of a reason other than not having a good way to get them down on paper or having something else to talk about. While the changes I'm going through now are, at base, the same as I have always been going through they feel different. I am still having physical changes from the hormone replacement and I'm still having emotional changes due to being myself and learning who I am.

Looking back over the last, almost, two years it feels like I had just gone through the entirety of puberty in a matter of a year and now I'm starting to flesh out, to define, the woman I will become. I feel like my developmental age has almost caught up with my actual age. I'm starting to feel more confident and comfortable in my body and I've fallen back in love with my hair which is now past my shoulders. Honestly, I have changed more physically than I thought possibly, especially for someone who had gone through puberty such a long time ago. Even since last writing about any changes what has happened now is on top of that. I've mentioned before how my skin has gotten so much softer, well recently it has gotten softer again, and smoother. I notice different areas around my body that just feel totally different when I touch them. The odd muscle memory that you don't think of, like reaching up to scratch my cheek, is how I notice many of these changes. I touch my face and my muscle memory says "No, this should be more solid and back a few millimeters.".

Speaking of my face, crying has taken on a new feeling. As a tear goes down my face it takes a completely different path than it used to and it feels different on my skin in general. Then when it falls it lands between my breasts and keeps going. That is a completely foreign feeling to me, normally the forest of chest hair would have sucked that up like a towel.

As I have mentioned I am back in love with my hair. Not only has it gotten longer but it is fuller, stronger, shinier, in general more healthy. I guess it could be, and probably partially is, because I am taking care of it better but it was a change that seemed to happen practically overnight. One day after getting a shower and drying my hair I couldn't help but think it felt totally different to me all of a sudden.

With all of these physical changes I think it would have been impossible for them to not affect me emotionally. I feel beautiful. I look at myself in the mirror, or I touch my hair or skin and it brings a smile on my face, a smile of contentment. It's a strangely familiar feeling to me, one I can't place a finger on but it seems to call from my much younger years. I'm not sure if I can sufficiently put into words the feeling that overwhelms you into wrapping your arms around yourself, tilting your head to your shoulder and feeling your own body just to enjoy it, just to bring to memory how wonderful you feel right now both physically and emotionally. It is powerful, and my solitary regret is not having someone around to appreciate it with me. A regret I feel because for whatever reason, the next feeling that comes up with how wonderful I feel now is how much I'd like to share it with someone. That in itself is a feeling I'm not used to having.

Feelings I'm not used to having is something that has become some of a theme for me now. For the majority of my transition so far I have been in situations I have been in many times before. It is good it went that way, and I'm not sure if it wasn't subconsciously on purpose. What it did was allow me to get used to feeling, for the most part, emotions I have had before in situations I have been in before but now through this new lens. As I have mentioned, dealing with the emotional changes is one of, if not the most, tumultuous parts of my, and I would hazard to guess any, transition. The sorting out of base emotions like anger, sadness, happiness, attraction, etc had to be done, no differently than a teen having to sort out there emotions through a tsunami of hormones. I am more comfortable with them now, I can identify which emotion I'm settling on and can deal with it as needs be. Now that I have done this, I'm more capable of taking on more complex emotions. I find myself now defining myself as a woman. I'm collecting emotions and feelings and deciding how I will let them shape me as the person I want to be.

And now it's story time, and I'll describe a host of emotions new to me.

Well, first of all I should say this. As usual, I am about to write about a few people I just gave this website address to. I'm not sure if they actually read this or not, but apparently this is a thing I do. So without further adieu, I'll introduce these people and in the meantime, hope I cause an emotional tear or two to be shed ;)

In a good way. :)

So recently I have been volunteering at our local women's center on a couple of projects. I've met some fantastic women through the center, strong women that anyone could look up to. I certainly do.

Two women in particular, the two I deal with the most, are women I have no other way to describe and have to others in the past, other than super heroes. The amount of work, time, effort and emotional investment these two women put into their day is just staggering. Dwarfed only by the number of people they help and the degree in which they help them.

One of the two is a little older than me. She seems very much like I could picture myself after a few years. Intelligent, thoughtful, wise, patient... and with a seething feistiness you can't help but feel you don't want to see unleashed.

The other is a few years younger than me. She seems very much like the woman I could have been had I only been a woman at her age. Also intelligent, patient, kind-hearted, getting wiser and while she doesn't have a feistiness that is almost palatable you can tell that being on her bad side is analogous to bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Both of these women seem to be doing exactly what they were built for. The amount of advancement and sheer work that needs to be done around women's rights, health and safety requires women just like these two. It was after sitting and talking with them for three hours about what needs to be done, their plans for the future and how I can help that I came across a new set of emotions I hadn't had before.

I was so struck my these two women that they were on my mind for the rest of that day and I thought about them often after that day. What I noticed was how much I admired them, and that made me realize two things. First, it was the first time I could recall truly admiring someone and not having it turn somehow sexual, and second, how I have never had a role model.

Having no role model was something I have had on my mind off and on after my therapist asked me one day if I had any female role models when I was young. My answer was no, not only did I not have a female one, I never once had any sort of role model. I think I could take up an entire post just on the causes of that, but mainly, I never let myself. Honestly, I had no idea what I was denying myself, but at the same time, what choice did I have? How could I have sculpted myself as a woman I admired when I wasn't allowing myself to feel that way, when I was running away from feeling that way?

It may not seem like much, but to me it was a powerful revelation when I realized both of these women could fill that role for me. It was powerful because for the first time I was seeing myself as a real developing woman, I felt like a young girl looking up to these two women in complete awe at who they are. It was a feeling I couldn't help but hold on to and cultivate. It was too new, and felt too natural to let it go. It felt like exactly what I should feel like at this point in my emotional development. It has brought to mind questions and answers (not necessarily linked to each other) about myself that I had never come up with before. To see two women that seem, to me anyway, to be so much like me, or like who I could be, made me feel like a woman, period. It validated my existence as the woman at heart I always thought I was, the same woman that I hid for so many years I forgot who she was.

It is also a powerful thing to see your path laid before you. What has come from knowing these women is seeing that I am on the right path, or at least a good one for me. I no longer feel like I'm screwing up my chance at being the woman I have always wanted to be, for two reasons. One is that my goal seems attainable now, it seems attainable now because I see how I am the emotional "child"  growing into the adult woman who seemed like an unreachable specter in the dark. The other reason is now I know I don't have as far to go as I thought and the road isn't as perilous and impossible as I was certain it was.

I think, if you were to go back to some of my older posts and compare it to this one you would see the difference in levels of emotions I'm talking about. It is strange going through teenage-like development at 36 years old. Strange, and it sucks too for the reason I would have preferred to go through it when I was a teen. With that impossible notion to square though, it is good to have the maturity of an adult to go through my younger years with. I find I have the ability to section out each new feeling and emotion and nurture it as I see fit. And while I don't have the unknown pleasure of having this happen naturally and mostly without my knowledge, like what happens to teens, I do get to watch it happen. Being able to watch it happen, for me as a trans woman, gives me the encouragement to go on. Self encouragement, the hardest but most useful kind to find. I see myself, wading through a new emotion, or new part of myself and I can see the progress. More importantly I can see myself becoming the woman I always wanted to be.