Transgender Day of Remembrance – Accuracy for the Cause

Transgender Day of Remembrance

First, I am appalled with Hate Crimes of any kind. In 2005, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites. The homeless population is one of the most victimized target populations for hate crimes in America; with 75% of all perpetrators are under the age of 25!

This post is from Allyson Robinson, HRC’s associate director of diversity. “Today marks the 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.  What started in 1999 as a vigil held by friends for one woman – Rita Hester, a transgender woman whose murder remains unsolved to this day – has become an international observance with events taking place in over a dozen countries.  The Transgender Day of Remembrance has helped make visible the thousands of transgender people and their loved ones that hate has tried so violently to erase.  In the last 12 months alone, over 90 transgender people have lost their lives to prejudice and hate.” – NOTE – This was the text pulled directly from the HRC site on November 20, 2009…

Todays text on the HRC page - November 21, 2009

“Personal message from Allyson Robinson, HRC’s Associate Director of Diversity

We in the transgender community hold Day of Remembrance events each November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 remains unsolved, and the hundreds who have lost their lives since then. According to the Day of Remembrance’s organizers, this year 13 Americans lost their lives because of someone’s hatred for their gender identity.”

Thank you HRC for the change to more creditable text today.

A 2009 visible list of those murdered in the world for transgender reasons.

The following was based on the previous number that I had with HRC’s estimate of 90 people. The estimate of 90 people coupled with the 1 in 12 are murdered is what caused me to write this article.

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There is just cause to mourn our losses and draw attention to our cause. We do not want more, we just want fairness and what everyone else gains simply by being their birth gender.

So what does it really mean? What does 90 people in 1 year mean to us as a population in comparison to the entire population. Well, I am a technical writer and I like accurate information, so I will offer as many real statics as possible, and label the suspect numbers.

To the transgender community – and my friends, it is still significant to note that we are twice as likely to get murdered as the general population.

The Current Numbers:

The number of Transsexual individuals in our population varies by who generates the numbers - but it is estimated to be some 0.25% - 1% of the population. I tend to go with the former, .25%. I have not seem any personal indicators that the numbers are any higher than 1 in 400, even in a ‘hotspot’ area like Seattle (where I am). A ratio of 1 in 100 (1%) would make transsexual individuals twice as common the entire Native American population OR about 1/4 as many people of Asian decent in the United States – I will stand by the comment that 1% seems very optimistic. The current US population is 307,973,000 as of 2009.

Of those 308 million people, at .25%, some three-quarters of a million would be transsexual across the United States.

The 2007 U.S. homicide rate was 5.9 per 100,000 people, up only .4 (8%) in 7 years. The total U.S. population in 2007 was 302.2 million. That calculates out to about 17,830 homicides for the year, or 49 per day.

Predictions for 2009 are about the same ratio, making it about 50/51 people per day who will be murdered.

About 1 in every 200 murders are transsexual individuals. Making transsexual individuals about twice as likely to get murdered over the general population with a population ratio of 1 in 400.

The HRC and others following them have tried to sku the statistics – but the writer of the article skued things in a way that explains few elements of their research and how they mixed them although their notation shows the source. If this all seems confusing, read on…

HRC Published Statistics:

Still maintained by HRC - HRC’s article on Transgender and Hate Crimes

“Hate violence.  Transgender people are often targeted for hate violence based on their non-conformity with gender norms and/or their perceived sexual orientation. Hate crimes against transgender people tend to be particularly violent. For example, one expert estimates that transgender individuals living in America today have a one in 12 chance of being murdered. [1] In contrast, the average person has about a one in 18,000 chance of being murdered. [2]

In 2002, community activists commemorated the lives of 27 murdered transgender people in that year. [3]“

1. Kay Brown, instructor for “20th Century Transgender History and Experience” at the Harvey Milk Institute in San Francisco, Washington Blade, Dec. 10, 1999.

Kay Brown’s statistic was referring to 1 in 12 transsexuals were likely to be murdered in their life – and that stat was pulled from a mistaken belief in what the population was of the transgender community. 1 in 12 compared as though it were a 1 year number would mean that the entire population of TG’s would be 144 persons. There is question about lifespan and the years as transgendered. Honestly, there is just not enough real data to back this up.

2. Based on the FBI’s “Uniform Crimes Reports, Crime in the United States 2000,” showing the murder rate of 5.5 people per 100,000.

Likely Accurate – and that also includes the transgender population as well as those murdered who were transgender – you must pull the numbers out to see them. This again appears to be over a lifetime – without an explanation of what figures were used to calculate that number of 1 in 18,000. The 5.5 per 100,000 is accurate. Which should mean that 5.5 per 100,000 Transfolks are also murdered – with my conservative estimate of 3/4 million, that should indicate only 41.25 would be killed in a year.

3. Daily Lobo, University of New Mexico, Nov. 21, 2002.

Likely Accurate – Though taking the 27 murdered in 2002 and comparing them to those murdered in 2008/09 (90) is the most alarming statistic, almost triple the national average of transgender murders.

TWICE AS LIKELY – Three times as many:

What we need is accurate, honest, trusted information to forward our cause. The real numbers are still scary.

HRC, please stop publishing information that can be used against the Transgender community. The reality of the statistics is bad enough. A transgendered individual is twice as likely – that’s 100% more likely – to be murdered than their non-transgender counterpart in the same population.

And there has been a triple increase in the number of transgender people murdered in just 6 years.

And what happens if we just change the one, really unknown variable? What happens if we say that .5% of the population is transgender instead of the conservative .25%? Then we are murdered at the same rate as the body of the population.

One of the best collections of honest transgender information is here

POST NOTE: The correction to 13 people murdered this year from 90 would indicate that if the murder rate remained the same for the transsexual population as it is for the entire population – then there are some .25 million transsexuals in the US. The stunning truth is that those 13 were killed because of HATE CRIME.

Sarah

Losses – Coming Out as TransGender

Kind of an odd day… and I have been reflecting on this for some time now, here it is coming all together. I have avoided personal writing, for my own reasons – I have also satisfied my urges for personal writing by keeping them as drafts, here. This is article is a bit more personal.

Today is Remembrance Day. Have you forgotten what that is – or are you reflecting on it as an American, wondering what it really means?

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Armistice Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice). The day was specifically dedicated by King George V, on 7 November 1919, to the observance of members of the armed forces who were killed during war.

Oddly enough, I found myself playing Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2, today. I reflected on what it means for people to lose others. We have losses nearly every day, a Policeman was killed in Seattle, some die in a plane crash, another with swine flu – many in vehicle accidents; the highest killer of all people under 25.

I had buried all my grandparents by 18 (carried the caskets of 3 of them). My father and biological mother (I cast her ashes in the Cromarty Firth in Scotland on a sunny November day) are both dead. All that is left for me of immediate older family is my mother who no longer remembers who I am or anything of my childhood – she was the last to know the child who was David (I think that is the first time I have ever mentioned that name!). I left my country, left behind friends and family more than 20 years ago now. Ad to that the experience I have had as a Wilderness E.M.T. and I think I know something about loss.

I lived with my father for nearly a year, back in Canada, as he wound down and died of cancer. I held his hand, with me crying when he died – and took out my stethoscope to hear his last rasping breaths and weak heartbeat cease.

Losses. “Becoming” (if that is what this is – but it is how others see it) transgender, incurs losses.

I came out first, publically, in March of 2007. I thought that I would start to come out publically after I had resumed the hormone treatments in Feb 2007 and had started body hair removal in Dec 2006. Physical changes and personal encouragement brought me ‘out’.

Before I tell you any stories – here is the data I offer… Of all the people (family, friends, coworkers), who knew / know you, that you tell when ‘coming out’, here are the results I observed:

50% will disappear, fading over a little time (or not) and they will drop right off the radar

Of the remaining 50%:

75% will react based on beliefs, judgment and experiences that you never knew they had, and the relationship will be changed significantly from what it was. Sometimes this is for the better.

25% will remain and they will accept you pretty much as you are.

What that means is that about 1 in 8 will still see you as they nearly always saw you. Then 3 in 8 will treat you differently and may hold some concept of who you are – they may also hold judgment and bias that will manifest itself in weird ways. Those other remaining 4 in 8 – they will drop you right away, or disappear quickly, being unable to come to terms with their loss of you as a person in their life.

Now the stories – first the positive, then some losses.

G: He was – and still is – my best friend. He knew that I had been on hormones back in my late 20’s. We had traveled together, camped, skinny dipped together. I told him about the hormones and breasts 6 years ago – and he had seen them when swimming with me. When he was first told about me transitioning, he reacted like I was kidding – like I was trying to say I was going to start cross dressing. It has taken over 2 years for him to refer to me as Sarah to others, he still calls me David to my face (and that is ok). He still struggles a bit with me as female – mostly because he thought that I would become another person. I think he thought that I would become a woman who knew nothing of what I had in my head and who never saw what my eyes have seen. He now seems to understand that we can still talk and play with Land Rovers. He is in the 1 in 8.

C: Thank God, I am working with / for and incredible women who is my direct supervisor with the company I work for and a person I am glad to call friend. She never batted an eye (although she does stare at my chest sometimes). She is the only person I interact on a daily basis with that I can make gender comments to. Like when we were in Safeway and I said “If I give to breast cancer I also have to give to prostate cancer – I can get both!”. She is always about the performance of the individual, not the gender – and she is quick to point out that the ‘innies’ get a harder shake of it. I remember when I told her (I then sent her this blog)… she said, so are you like a cross dresser on the weekend? Standing there, wearing a womans jacket, I took it off and said “I am wearing all women’s clothing, and have been – have you not noticed the make-up and everything else”? I have 7 ear piercings, long hair and breasts… yet, she met me as David and still sees me as ‘him’. C has never ‘betrayed’ me, never slighted me with a careless comment. The relationship is what I wanted – unchanged. I do not want to be Sarah to her.

N: He is in the 3 of 8 category. N is a great friend, who became a better friend after I told him. It did change one thing – he still, no matter how much I explain it to him, wants to see me “in drag”. What that means, is that he wants me to look like some kind of performance drag queen! Sorry N. He is nice though (and he is gay) and has treated me great as a woman when we go out – he is the one guy I like going out to dinner with. His Thanksgiving dinners are as the family that I do not have.

The other 50% – who dropped off

J: G told J before I could talk to him. Now he has been a great friend, what else can you call a person who will help you drywall and insulate in your garage, live on your boat (and help pay for it), help you through a divorce?… the list goes on. I never got another email from him. I have seen him on three occasions in the past 2+ years at social Land Rover events and he treats me like I have an infection, that is contagious, in a cloud 20′ around me. WTF? 

J is the most glaring example of the 50% that fall off, but he is joined by

L: Who I at one time considered a soul mate and more, was the daughter of lesbians and feigned understanding and support until the truth caught her up – the lie that she held. L suffered from the Peter Syndrome – in private, she was all about support, but in public and with people she knew (in any way), I found that she did not even mention our relationship, living with me or who I was. In the end, even with her here, I found that she would introduce me as a friend, David, while loving Sarah. L denied knowing me publically.

A: She is really in the 25%, but there was a wake of losses that my closest confidant, friend, lover and so much more affected because she was more than willing to share ‘who I was’. She told old coworkers and other acquaintances. She also told her conservative family before she had even worked out what was really happening – let alone how to talk about it. Not once was I there to share my truth. The mother of A was also able to fake support and understanding, for a short time, until I found out that she had portrayed me as a freak to all she knew (and she is the matriarch of the extended family) and her daughter as someone trying to ‘rescue me’. This is where I really learned the term “frienemy”. Honestly, those that have gone – the losses – the real loss is theirs. I gained knowing who are true friends to my being.

The relationships with women in intimacy have been most challenging. Beyond being TG, there has been other complications (like other relationships), but the “TG thing” always has a large bearing. I no longer know what is truth – honesty. There always seemed to be some kind of deception when all that I offered was the bearing of an innermost past that I buried for 30 years behind facial hair and outdoor leadership skills teaching. Being TG and transitioning is hard in intimacy, few relationships of this kind survive the transition phase.

Honestly, the most damage to relationships has been caused by others telling my “TG story” to friends that we both know together. Once you share “the secret” (because that is what it is to everyone you talk to), they will want to tell others; I promise you that.

So, the best way to share your coming out is organize yourself, figure out who, when, where and what you want to say – and in what order. After that, it will change your life, just like your transition will.

I have no regrets after more than 3 years of coming out. I look forward to the continuing journey.

YouTube. WordPress does for writing what YouTube does for video

I work as a writer and SEO, so my medium is understandably, writing.

Having said that, there is the medium of video and YouTube. YouTube has done for video what WordPress does for my writing. In the position I work in, for the company I work for (and I dare not put in a link to them because we monitor all links) I am the Communications Manager and Technical Writer; a nice title given to me without increasing my royalties! I also post instructional YouTube’s for work, but have yet to do any for myself.

If you are not used to YouTube, go there and type up a subject – from changing your oil to tuning your guitar (a friend found the subject of canning well covered!) to transgender and most anything you can think of. I found video instructions to reset the maintenance required light for my 2006 Scion Xb.

Here are a couple of my favorite people in the YouTube Transgender Community. Their videos are honest, educational, opinionated (sometimes), funny and often just plain entertaining.

Charlotte has a lot of videos – hours of amusement. I really liked her most recent one about detransitioning, so here is her link…

http://www.youtube.com/user/karmatic1110

This is honest and very nearly word for word my own experience; except for the fishy’s part! I knew I had ‘crossed the line’ when I was not trying to present and was being viewed as a woman. I go to work, with french braided hair (more days than not) and am still always seen and refered to as my male self – even though I am clearly over the line. And before you ask – I have no problem with people who used to know me as a male refering to me by my male name. I respond to either and my old name is like a ‘nick-name’ reminding me of who my long term friends have been.

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CandiFLA offers some very educational comments to help the beginner. Most impressive is her control of voice – although she is gorgous as well!

http://www.youtube.com/user/candiFLA

the video explains itself…

Astronaut Training

I know, it is an odd title… read to the end of the article and it will make more sense.

Nasa

You can ‘test’ a person for almost anything, right? You can run a psychological profile on a person and still never really understand them. You can prepare humans for nearly any situation – yet 1/3 of all people who attend a first aid course are unable to use the skills taught to them at the time they need those skills. All those people passed the first aid class; they passed the tests and were observed by trained individuals.

There is no real testing that can prepare a transitioning person. I know, there is a protocol for testing that will free most Doctors of ‘liability’. There is also the element of the ‘year long test’ as well as counseling.

Here is some reality:

I know a friend, M2F, who started living full time as a women in July. By August, a doctor had already agreed to sign the papers needed to put the “F” on the drivers license. She then attended some monthly therapy. By the next spring, a mere 6 months later, she had made arrangements for a vaginoplasty. After 60 years of life and thirty seven years of marriage and less than one year of living publicly as a women, she received her operation. With less than 50 hours of therapy and support, she was now in her life. Her wife of 30+ years went through all the transition (and also met with counsellors – and ‘passed’). They separated.

I met another person, F2M, who was in a group. He was good looking and full on passable, with obvious hormone treatments that allowed a nice mustache and male body. The most interesting thing was where he had learned to “be a male”. He had followed in the path of another supportive friend. He had learned best (and acknowledged this) to mimic male behavior from a Dyke. Although the dyke was transitioning, they were clearly in all mannerism, still a dyke. This was made most obvious in the aggressive (self proclaimed “dickish” behavior) and the walk with full shoulderswing. The result was a short fellow who walks like a body builder and has the mannerisms and talk of an angry Lesbian.

The transgender suicide rate is one of the highest incidents of any social group in America.

So what about Astronaut Training then?

To prepare a person to go into space takes thousands of hours of training. Most career astronauts have spent time with the air force before NASA. The level of training and testing is second to none. Astronauts are subjected to the highest mental and physical stresses a person can take.

So, no transgendered person is really as ready as they should be. You can never really know if, during all their training and testing, will they be able to survive in what is an irreversible situation by most measures.

Trained Astronaut and Naval Officer drives 900 miles in a diaper to kidnap and assault a women dating a man that she had wanted. The headlines are impossible to believe at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Nowak

Met Lisa Nowak. A beautiful women who could have nearly any man she desired. Nowak was a respected Naval Officer. She was selected by NASA in 1996 and qualified as a mission specialist in robotics.Nowak flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-121 in July 2006. Nowak gained international attention on February 5, 2007, when she was arrested in Orlando, Florida, and subsequently charged with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, the girlfriend of astronaut William Oefelein.

on February 4–5, 2007. She had packed latex gloves, a black wig, a BB pistol and ammunition, pepper spray, a hooded tan trench coat, a 2-pound hammer drill, black gloves, rubber tubing, plastic garbage bags, about US$585 in cash, her computer, an eight-inch (203 mm) Gerber folding knife and several other items before driving the 900 miles (1,450 km) to Florida. 

Lisa Nowak was tested for character behavior, mental stability, standards, morals – tested and challenged both physically and mentally in ways few people are subjected to. She was trained to survive a crash landing, survive being in a hostile enviorment, survive in space. And still, she did the unthinkable – and – unpredictable. What really went through her mind is known only to her. Lisa started a journey of nearly 1000 miles, had plenty of time to reconsider, gather her wits – yet, she carried out what she had planned until it went wrong (what was she going to do with the hammer drill?) - and without a doubt, she knew it was wrong, crazy and emotionally disturbed all the time she planned it and them drove towards that terminal destination.

So in the transgender person, you receive less training and practice than a welder, EMT, peace corp, missionaries, fireman, social worker, daycare worker… the list goes on. I hope that my point is made. When crossing the gender barrier, a person needs to be trained and tested as they would to live in a foreign country will all new customs.

The real point is this:

• There is not enough cross testing and training – it needs to be done with more than a single couple of doctors doing 1 hour of observation a week / month (You could ‘fake’ anything to get what you thought you wanted for an hour – right?).
• Preparation needs to be in socially varied groups, not socially isolated groups. To find sole security in approving groups is not a real world test.
• There needs to be followup.

Honestly, what is needed by everybody making a transition is a few mentors who have made the journey successfully and quite a few people who can offer supportive, yet accurate direction for the person. This journey is often done with too few people and too much emphasis on the “end goal” – which is not a final goal, but the landing on an alien planet without the support you were used to here on earth. Ultimately, many TG’s make the transition, but they are never really prepared to land on that foreign soil.

Transgender – Positive News

I have written much about Gender; about society, the community and the person transitioning. Additionally, with the some 20,000 words here on this blog, I have increased the number of videos. If a picture is worth a 1000 words….

Here is some positive, social information. There are a number of agencies, companies and service agencies that are making some efforts to inform ‘norms’ to understand and even welcome transgender people.

From the Chicago Police Department, an informational video for the staff and the public.

 

20/20 – Gender, a 5 part episode. This series by Barbara Walters is societies attempt (with some success) at understanding Gender, what it means to families, their children and the media. This series concentrates on transgendered children.

 

From the moment we’re born, our gender identity is no secret. We’re either a boy or a girl. Gender organizes our world into pink or blue. As we grow up, most of us naturally fit into our gender roles. Girls wear dresses and play with dolls. For boys, it’s pants and trucks.

But for some children, what’s between their legs doesn’t match what’s between their ears — they insist they were born into the wrong body. They are transgender children, diagnosed with gender identity disorder, and their parents insist this is not a phase.
“A phase is called a phase because it is just that. It ends. And this is not ending. This is just getting stronger,” Renee Jennings told ABC News’ Barbara Walters. The Jennings asked that “20/20″ not disclose their real name in order to protect the identity of their 6-year old transgender daughter, Jazz.

 

Most transgender children still live in the shadows, hiding from a world that sees them as freaks of nature. Rejected by their families, many grow up hating their bodies, and fall victim to high rates of depression, drug abuse, violence and suicide.
Today, hundreds of families with transgender children — who have found each other over the Internet — are taking a dramatically different course. They’re allowing their children to live in the gender they identify with in order to save them from a future of heartache and pain.
“I think we’re a very normal family,” said Renee’s husband, Scott. “I think we have a very healthy marriage. We love to watch our children in all of their activities, whether it’s at school, or on the field playing sports.”

 

On the surface, the Jennings and their four children are a typical American family. But their youngest child, Jazz, is only in kindergarten, and already she is one of the youngest known cases of an early transition from male to female.
“We’ll say things like, ‘You’re special. God made you special.’ Because there aren’t very many little girls out there that have a penis,” said Renee. “Renee and I are in 100 percent agreement as to how we should raise Jazz,” said Scott. “We don’t encourage, we support. And we just keep listening to what she tells us.”
From the moment he could speak, Jazz made it clear he wanted to wear a dress. At only 15 months, he would unsnap his onesies to make it look like a dress. When his parents praised Jazz as a “good boy,” he would correct them, saying he was a good girl.
The Jennings wanted to believe it would pass. Scott said he “was in a bit of denial” about what Jazz was trying to tell them. After all, even their rowdy twin boys, who are two years older than Jazz, had painted their nails growing up. But Jazz kept gravitating to girl things, insisting that his penis was a mistake.

There is a ground swell, a change from the 80’s ’sex image’ of a TG Girl presenting her penis in a porn video. There is movement to “allow” transgender people to keep their jobs and to transition. Almost 125+ Fortune 500 companies have nondiscrimination policies in place that accommodate transgender peoples through their transition – while maintaining their jobs.

Transgender Bashing

I think I need to mention something about bashing.

I have been asked a number of times if I had experienced any form of ‘bashing’ or threats. I never really had much ‘bashing’, even when young. I considered this question of bashing seriously – and do not think that my friends asking me “so are you really keep it?” – for now (wink) – is bashing. Well, up until this month, not once did I ever really feel that (and this is my view) “someone was threatened enough to communicate that feeling to me by ‘bashing’ me”.

The first article I wrote about and posted to this weblog after an initial self introduction was an article about Lawrence King been killed (for reputably being either gay, or transgendered).

If you have been bashed and post your story to my comments, I will take a look at it and add it to this new posting called “Transgender Bashing“.

 

Here is my story.

I came into the breakfast cafe in Sultan, ready for a day of winter offroading. Walking in, I spotted my best friend (a mechanic and former club president); who greeted me warmly with a hug.. Although not ‘dressed up’, there has been enough changes in the past couple of years that my best friends mother and x-wife failed to recognize me! I wore just enough eye makeup that it was to run later in the 6 inches of snow that fell that day. I was then greeted warmly by the ‘old guard’ of the club while all the rest continued on with breakfast. Shortly before I was to head outside to the parked Land Rovers, I was ‘banged’ rather hard on the leg (similar to how you give someone a Charley Horse with your knee) by a fellow ‘walking by’. There was no words, just a hard look. That was it – the extent of my bashing.

A fellow member, who is gay, spoke to me later about a trip they had been on and this very same fellow (we will call; “wanker”) was extremely vocal about his negative opinions about gays and ‘that type of people. My gay friend told me he chose to remain closeted to avoid this fellows harshness.

Now keep in mind, since you don’t really know me, I have a reputation for toughness in the out-of-doors. I am not huge – unless you think 6′0 and 220 is huge. I used to be able to lift and install a 2.0l Volkswagen engine (complete and without help) and one time body built. No one ever hit me again after grade 9 – ever.

So later that day, we are standing around a campfire and this Wanker speaks up about his bit of outdoor experience. My best friend and my other friends listen to Wanker talk - and he looks on disparagingly towards me. I listened then one of my friends spoke – I offered my .02 as an outdoor professional, with a degree and 25 years + experience. Apparently Wanker’s ‘bash’ did not go unmissed by the X (and I would say her name, but to protect her, lets call her “Determined”) of my best friend; when she heard Wanker tell how ‘tough’ he was (at perhaps 165, 5′6″ and small man’s syndrome). The Determined then offered Wanker this story; some 5 years ago, while on a camping trip, 5 grown men were not enough to make me succumb.

Summary… Wanker was an overzealous search and rescue fellow with aspirations of sheriff hood. He later came around and talked to me while around the fire. He never could quite figure it out, even when talking to me (if you know what I mean) – the old friends all called me David and he kept seeing a girl with her lesbian partner. I never did really clear up my position with Wanker – nor did he seem open to any such clearing. I guess I will write an article later about

So what do I have to offer? Well, I have lost some muscle and stamina as well as I look like a tall girl. But to would be bashers out there, you never can tell if someone has Judo, fencing, karate, sword fighting, firearm and military combat training experience; was the sparing partner to my friend who attended the Western Canada Games, heavyweight wrestling… and I never assault anyone, ever – but I can defend myself.

I am not sure if I like what I wrote here – it opens me up for some negative opinions… we will see. I don’t hurt anyone, I never get angry, but I never allow myself to be really hurt. I guess that it was better than grabbing the Wanker by the throat and throwing him to the ground – which would have been decidedly unlady like.

Gender colours – sorry, colors (it’s mostly an American thing)

Blue is for Boys

The Blue Boy

Pink is for Girls

Pinkie

That seems simple, right? All things are linked to history – nothing is (or was) forever although it does seem cyclic. I am a writer – well, technically, a professional technical writer and a communications manager. Titles given to me by people who pay me. I do enjoy research and writing though.

Most everyone; who has; had a baby, thought of having a baby, seen a baby or gone to get presents for an expectant mother knows – blue is for boys and pink is for girls. I had 1 pink and 3 blue babies in my own life.

A bit of colourful history then…

Timeline:

16th Century – “Blue Coat Schools” for poor boys, they were all dressed in the same blue coats (girls did not go to school) in England. Blue dye is the cheapest clothing dye. 

1770’s – Thomas Gainsborough paints The Blue Boy. The companion piece, was – The Pink Boy. Boys in England were not yet “assigned a color”. Both romantic period paintings were seen as appropriately coloured.

1800’s – Babies are considered – well, just babies. The notice of Boy vs Girl came when the child was truly mobile, capable of some understanding and, they had grown enough to have missed that high infant mortality rate of the time. Early infant graves often had no name other than “Baby“.

Victorian and Edwardian portraits of baby boys often depict pink clothing as the colour of choice.

Prior to 1900 – The choice color for babies clothes in America is – the color white

The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914 advises mothers “”If you like the color note on the little ones garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.” Colored ribbons used on clothes often followed these conventions. Brought to the USA from the UK.

1920’s – two famous paintings from the UK are purchased by a Californian; Pinkie and The Blue Boy. They are forever displayed; and thus bound together. People all through the 40’s and 50’s buy copies of the two paintings and display them together (I have one from my grandmother in a 50’s print). The paintings were by different artists, painted some 25 years apart with clothing styles 150 years apart.

1930’s – Germany adopts pink as the popular color for girls. During WW2, Germany uses the yellow Star of David to identify Jews and pink triangles to ’mark’ homosexuals.

1950’s – The distinction of “blue is for boys, pink is for girls” becomes widely accepted in the US. Some say that Pinkie and The Blue Boy are responsible for this. Pink also gets associated at this time with gays and lesbians; perhaps a carry-over from Germany?

It has really been just a few years – some 60 years since the blue and pink were used to identify the newborns in the United States.

The relevance is this: Gender is also a function of society, the choices the social group makes to identify a gender and the definition that forms the children into adults displaying the current acceptable gender roles. In Asia, babies are often dressed in red (the color of celebration), while white is used for mourning.

In my ‘boy’ mode, I always wore greens, browns and earth tones. In my ‘girl’ mode, I wear purple, rust and burgandy tones.  Not quite Blue and Pink – but close enough.

Hormones, Part Duex

Well, I told you about the cocktail of hormones that I take in the first article on Hormones.

Ready to read about the side effects (or are those ‘desired effects’)? I did what few M2F TS’s do, I have been on the hormones and off a number of times. The last time I was off was during the past summer, for two months. I go off of them to remind myself what I was, where I am and to let my brain ‘balance out’. I also like the learning experience of the changes in the brain.

Yes, I am a Scot

 I have now been on hormones long enough (2 years in Feb 2009) this time that how my brain feels normal; seems natural, with the hormones – but here are my views and observations.

Mental:

When on the hormones, the world and my responses to the world and all the situations seem more colourful and wide ranging – when off of the hormones, it is much more black and white, with some variations of gray.

When on the hormones, I feel I have more creativity and am relaxed – when off of them; I feel driven (although often less focused) and at times, agitated.

When on the hormones, I can relax all Sunday, play some video games, watch a movie, go for a drive and just lay around; guiltless! – when off of them, I wake up with an agenda, head down the stairs or go out to the garage and immediately start working; until I am done the chore list in my head!

Physical:

When on the hormones, I have increased skin sensitivity (intolerance?) - when off, my nipples can be sucked really hard!

When on the hormones, I have some reduced libido (no surprise) but a increased duration for orgasm – when off, well, I have 4 children with 3 women and would have had lots more; my sex drive was a bit high…

On the hormones there has been body changes; Breast fat / developement (C cups), fat redistribution on hips and thighs where I had none, rounder buttocks (although mine were always shapely), muscle loss (with what I estimate to be a 25% loss in strength and 40% loss in stamina), softer smoother skin, softening of facial features – no real surprises, just what you would expect as secondary characteristics caused by hormones, whether in a GG (genuine girl) during puberty or a TG on hormones.

What hormones do NOT do:

The do not give you a higher voice… sorry – and that is the tip of the iceberg of denied life skills offered to women that need to be learned by an M2F.

Most importantly, they do not ‘rewire’ you to act like a women – that takes all the rest of your brain. Depending on your age, you have spent a long time learning all the things that society can offer to help you behave correctly in your infant assigned blue or pink box.

Everything is learned – how you walk, talk, hold your hands, look at people, smile, frown, laugh, cry. The level of things that define gender goes so far beyond the flesh bag of the human body. Breasts say you are a women, your hands accepting returned change in a store can say all male. The scale of the body – being a large M2F or a small F2M says less about your gender than how you walk and stand when trying to ‘pass’.

Beyond getting the hormones, the approval of a shrink to be on this path, the understanding of family and friends – you will need to be a skilled social observer and mimicker.

Coming soon – an article or two about social mimicry.

I will write more about these ’socially’ taught aspects of being ‘passible’. I would also suggest that you read as much as you can from socialigists and gender observers, such as Desmond Morris, one of my favorites (The Naked Ape, Manwatching, Bodywatching and Peoplewatching), Tracie O’Keefe w/ Katrina Fox (Finding the Real Me) as well as many other. The key will lie in your ability to take in social observations and relearn it in your own life.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Gender

Truth of Hormones…

Well, if you are looking for the Holy Grail, you are likely as to be as successful here as King Arthur was in Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail “.

I am a TG – or Gender Transformer. I also go by Intersexed. I am also Gynophilic (if you don’t know what it is, look it up!).

I have been interested in hormones for a long time. My first ’bout with them was almost 20 years ago {shimmering waves, fade to sepia tone} when I was under 30 and married to a clinical pharmacist who agreed to mess around with me – well the messing was that she supplied the hormones and I took them.

The end result after 1.5 years of experimental mixing a cocktail of estrogen and progesterone was that I had little booblets and some reshaping of body fat. Otherwise, I was a normal looking male (I was told recently that, and I looked, quote ‘as looking “GQ”‘ back then’). I had a handsome beard, full head of hair and the suntanned look of a sailor – which I was while off cruising! Oh, and I always had short hair because my wife kept it cut that way.

Watching the sunset

This time ’round was different. I was serious and I took a serious approach to the hormones and the rest of the body mods. I also grew my hair, two years when this picture was taken.

So, here is my serious recipe for hormones. Oh, and you need a doctor to check you out so that you do not blow up your liver…. or cause other damage.

First, before the hormones;

Do not smoke – it ages the skin and makes you look like shit. It also slows cellular repair.

Do not drink – Common sense here. Now, you can drink on rare occasion BUT, your liver is processing enough hormones to turn your testosterone off and fire up your body for being a girl.

Eat well – Simple, just eat good foods. You know which ones I am talking about. You can add vitamins, but eat well FIRST then take vitamins. A tomatoe a day keeps cancer away.

Drink lots of water and milk – Yes, you need lots of fluids moving through the liver and kidneys. Milk - is just common sense, calcium and vitamin D and the only single source of a complete set of amino acids for your body.

 

OK, so I sound like I am nagging. Here are the real goals – you want to change your body, you want your body to respond and you do not want to harm your body – right? Simple. It will do you no good to get to the place of being a girl AND needing a liver transplant.

I was married to a clinical pharmacist and I am a Wilderness EMT. I am not a health wacko, but I heal quickly and do not scar. I have never had any surgery, stitches or broken long bones. I have summited mountains, sailed oceans, trekked canyons and travelled foreign lands. I lived for over a decade and a half with no health care.

Ok, you have been patient – so here is my formula for hormones. This works well enough for me that I have pleasant C cup breasts, some nice hips, soft features and (regrettably) some loss in muscle tone… all after a 1.5 year course. Not bad for someone who used to body-build. I do have plans for an Inguinal Orchiectomy – at some time. I will outline my course of body action in a later posting.

 I take two different meds:

Spirotone 100; Spironolactone 100mg – 3x daily in AM

Estrofem 2mg; Oestradiol 2mg – 3x daily in AM

I get them from here

They have a specific TG site catering to both M2F and F2M. Their prices seem reasonable.

Here are their recommendations in M2F

Spironolactone acts as an antiandrogen of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. Spironolactone in doses of 200–400 mg per day allows the practitioner to decrease exogenous estrogen doses tophysiologic or “hormone replacement” levels while still obtaining desired effects of breast development, feminization of skin, and female fat distribution.

Conjugated estrogens such as Premarin 5 mg daily.
Estradiol such as Progynova (Oestradiol Valerate) or Estrofem 4 mg daily.

So, you can see, I am a little heavy on the Estrofem. My calves can’t take any higher dose of the Spirotone! I dissolve the Estrofem under my tongue (purportedly easier on the liver). Patience will be your watchword here. There is much written about the ‘phases’ of hormones and their effect. I have kept my own rational observations – as well as those of my partner (so you can get an inside and outside view). More to come soon! The fat movement will start about a year into the hormones.

Oh – if you have read this far – bonus!

2 things.

Yes, I will be showing some frontal and full body pictures; not naked     I think I am decent looking and passable (like that were the real measure of a ‘good TG’ – whatever).

Yes, I still get great erections, orgasms and some ejaculation (although there have been some dry ones). It takes a bit more time, but not much more! Use it or lose it was what I was told…

 

For the continuing chapter, see Hormones, Part Duex

The Little t in GLBT or LGBT

That T at the end of GLBT (or LGBT) is for transgender. The other three letters stand for sexual orientation, but the last letter – the letter T is little or silent in most groups.

The goal for many M2F as well as F2M transgenders; transexuals is to become passable – then invisible. Ultimately, they disappear after their two to five year journey of transformation. Even if they have not taken the final step of SRS (Sex Reassessment Surgery), they can have their sex on identification papers changed to match with how they are presenting and living.

A well written article from another writer covers it here – By John Avarosis in:

Transgender News – How Did the T Get in LGBT

{In simpler times we were all gay. But then the word “gay” started to mean “gay men” more than women, so we switched to the more inclusive “gay and lesbian.” Bisexuals, who were only part-time gays, insisted that we add them too, so we did (not without some protest), and by the early 1990s we were the lesbian, gay and bisexual, or LGB community. Sometime in the late ’90s, a few gay rights groups and activists started using a new acronym, LGBT — adding T for transgender/transsexual. And that’s when today’s trouble started.}

Depending on the history told, the term GLBT came about; as each sub group was added, another letter was added after the general catch-all term- ”Gay”. The current LGBT is a ranking of a dangerous internal group sexism – The gay community begrudges the lesbian community for muscling their way over the ‘boys’; bisexuals are treated as wanna-be, part time, half hearted gays (and lesbians) and the transgender community is welcomed as neither gay nor lesbian by either of those two groups, misunderstood by the sexual bisexual explorers and generally segregated at any and all at LGBT group activities.

The confusion continues when an M2F is with a women Or an F2M is with a man) - they are not ‘normal’ according to society and they are not accepted as lesbians (or gay) in those communities. I do not want to beat this horse into the ground – and the ultimate responsibility for information lies in the hands of the transgendered within the GLBT groups. Like the ‘issues’ the gays and lesbians have to over come, information needs to be offered and then, understanding comes from the majority – the experiences of the gay community with the body of society are paralleled with the transgender community and the GLBT community.

What makes the T portion unique is both for what it is and what it is not. It is a subject that has varying degrees of meaning, from cross dressing to gender bending to post-op transexual. It is also a unique departure from the other three (GLB) because it is not about sexual orientation.

The T portion of the LGBT community has two duties:

One, to continue, in a public sense, to be vocal and united. That means, not dissappearing after your own personal journey is over.

Two, to bring awareness that the assessment of gender is broad reaching, universal and effects everyone else.