The Woman Within

I haven't really blogged much lately and what I have written about, I've tried to keep topical and with an air of positivity. The reality is that there is so much more going on and it is hitting me from so many different angles and so many different areas in life that it is beginning to become too much for me to handle. This is isn't anything anyone else can resolve and it's not anything that therapy is going to help. This isn't anything that is going to be easier in making a choice and no easier if I do not. I don't even know where to start with any of this. So much of this started long before and so much has just been added to the pile of minutia which in totality has become a burden left for me alone and for some and other aspects for both of us to bear. The other day, I was out to do some Christmas shopping. Driving through the mountains along the nearly empty interstate highway that evening, some thoughts came to mind. I felt very comfortable and

It truly is an amazing thing when life’s experiences take us on a journey which starts out as tempestuous and turbulent but which ends up in an amazing place.   Even more amazing is that in the travels of our journey, we come to learn something of ourselves, and of others, and they of us.   In the end, it leaves both others and myself touched in some magical way.   This is a short tale of coming through that journey and realizing, in looking back, just how far it has come. It was a very surprising and unexpected twist to our evening recently as Joanne and I enjoyed our night out for dinner.   We learned as we were about to settle up our bill for the evening, that one of the guys at the bar had picked up our tab. This is the second time and the second guy who has done this. Understand that they know that my spouse and I are in a very committed relationship with each other and understand that the word has pretty much spread that I am not a natal woman... so they all do know about

My spouse and I recently returned from a vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. For those not familiar with this region of our country, it is a unique place within the United States for it is the confluence and meeting points of two very distinct ecosystems. It is the place where the warmer waters of the gulf stream traveling north meet the colder waters of the Labrador Current flowing south and it is the mixing of these two waters that brings both northern and southern animal, bird and plant life all together in one place. Extending more than 75 miles out over a chain of barrier islands, driving south towards Cape Hatteras requires the crossing of a multitude of bridges, some many miles in length and ferry crossings with one’s vehicle. The mainland drops away as one drives farther south and out into the warmer waters of the Atlantic and, as well, the area becomes laid back Our base during the week we were there was in the quaint town of Duck, along the northern reac

A recent article from the Washington Metroweekly (link below) outlines some of the uphill battles still to be wagered to allow for Transgender individuals to be able to serve our country.  Of course it's not what you can do for your country, but what your country will ask you to hide to do it.  Sure, the naysayers would suggest a whole series of problems and issues associated with accommodating the few who do truly identify as transgender and pass them over for other candidates..... but where is the respect deserved by each of us as human beings and citizens of this country who wish to serve? In reality, the fears many hold of transgender individuals serving in the military are founded on unseen and unproven grounds.  The perceived issues just have not happened .  How do I know this to be true?  To start with, I've personally known several individuals who have transitioned while still in the armed forces and have found that their superiors as well as their fellow soldiers and

What is your identity? What does it mean when someone asks who or what you are? How do you answer them in a single word, a single phrase, a single sentence? Perhaps how you answer is dependent upon who asks you and what context or situation you are in at the time. If you are being asked this question while attending a Church, you might say you are Greek Orthodox or Catholic, or Protestant or Baptist, let's say. If you are asked who or what you are outside of a voting booth, you might say you are a Democrat or a Republican, or an Independent. If you are, let us say, attending an ethnic festival, you might say that you are Greek, or Lebanese or wherever mother country your descendants harken from. And if you are a newborn baby, your mother or father will speak for you and say that you are a boy or a girl....and that is who you are. But who one is, is so much more than just being a label or a conglomeration of labels  One is so much more than simply a concatenation of

Saturday, August 11th was to be a day of unity for all as we were to attend, participate, educate and celebrate the diversity of being transgender as part of the LGBT population in New Hampshire. The first organized Pride Event in the city of Manchester was occurring on that day and our leadership team at TransGender New Hampshire (TG-NH) had been busy working steadily toward creating a space for ourselves at this event and in securing attendees to assist with our campaign.  Our theme was to be one of information and education and to dispel the myths and perceptions which many still hold in their mind's eye of the transgender population at large and to bring about awareness of what protections were lacking for the population in regards to lack of civil and human equality and fairness rights such as employment and housing discrimination. As the event drew nearer and the time to the event itself closer, we began to realize that there were too many unresolved concerns that were no

It is with a weighted heart that I write this entry in my blog. It is not one I wished to write, nor one that I would have ever preconceived from the deepest recesses from my mind. Nevertheless, the gnawing which I have felt for sometime through endless innuendos and disparate pieces have become too numerous to ignore any longer. Although I have felt these feelings, and dismissed them, for some time, it was my spouse who manifested the reality of what I felt was happening and which I tried to brush under the table... to ignore.... for some time now. It is something that, like a cancer, has grown in time to a point that it could no longer be ignored. It had grown to a point where it began to tear at the very fabric and intimacy of our own relationship, threatening, in the process, to tear it apart. Let me be perfectly clear what this is