The Woman Within

My wife, Joanne, and I Arrived in Newburyport, MA early enough in the afternoon Saturday to be able to check in to our hotel and to get changed and ready for the evening. We had signed on to attend an "All Women's T-Dinner. comedy show and dance" for that evening and were anticipating quiet an interesting evening. Joanne and I both had some reservations as to how we would be accepted in what most likely would be a women's venue but this unknowing aspect was just part of the attraction and anticipation to attend. What I didn't realize at the time we signed on for this was that the letter "T" in T-dance had nothing to do with transgendered! By 6:00pm, I was fully dressed and just finishing up on a second coat of nail polish when Lida arrived at our hotel. We had offered for her to meet us here so that she could get ready and so that we would be able to all go together. Lida changed, worked on her makeup and chatted with us just as Sheila arrived in the par

To a friend who has found the world a cold and unaccepting place to anyone who is perceived to be different... Dear J, Being Transgendered - This is such a difficult realm to exist within I know. I hope that you are seeing your therapist who may be able to shed some light. You truly have all the pieces in place which would constitute the aspects of life which many would envy... wonderful wife, security of job and income, challenging work which allows for some freedom of artistic creation and expression, living in a wonderful part of the country the list goes on..... It is ironically interesting that I often feel much the same. I have the things which others would envy and feel so blessed to have a fantastic wife and wonderful place I call home, no overhead of financial burden and a seemingly ideal job working from home. With all of these things, I still feel empty at time as if I walk in a scripted daze, feeling detached. I become upset for myself for not feeling this should be

I’m a computer engineer so by nature I construct and fabricate ideas into material things. Pulling information together to create a cohesive solution is what I do best. For years, however, I never put together some of the seemingly disparate components of my own life in relation to understanding who I was really was and am. As a child growing up, I was constantly reminded by my parents that I was a boy and not a girl. Toys which I played with of my sister’s were taken away. Doll houses I played with mysteriously disappeared, stuffed animals were thrown away and the pages from the girl’s section of the Sears Christmas Wishbook with the items I had circled and longed for were ripped out. I never voiced that I was a girl but I felt I was somehow not like the other boys. I didn't have a word for who I felt I was back at that age. When I was given a train set, I became immersed in the possibilities of creating my own world through a model railroad empire. It was a fantasy world of my