The Woman Within

It is week two of having my spouse's nephew up staying with us during his summer vacation.  He is having the time of his life as we do all the things with him that his parents never extend the effort to do.  We've taken him on ever more challenging bikerides of 20+ miles and hikes up and into the alpine tundra zones of the high peaks in the Presidential Range in New Hampshire.  He's shared time and an ability to speak and communicate with us as his peer and as his mentor when need and opportunity present.  He's enjoyed us as friends and as family.  He's enjoyed spending time with me as his uncle and... his aunt. It speaks volumes when he is able to clearly evoke in his own words that it doesn't matter if I am presenting as a male, wearing hiking pants and covered in mud on a trail in the forest or donning a pretty blouse, skirt and heels and made up to the nines.  To him, I am the same person and the same persona.  He has told us countless times how...

Interesting how doing the same thing one would do when perceived as a guy is suddenly inappropriate for a woman.... So yesterday we stopped at BJ's on our way back north with my spouse's nephew in tow.  I was in guy mode, albeit with my freshly pierced ears bearing diamond studs.  As usual, I was relating with my nephew on common terms and enjoying the day.  On the way out of the store, with our carriage laden with a plenitude of perishables, I jumped on the carriage to ride the downgrade to our car at the end of the parking lot.  With my 15 year old nephew riding shotgun on the front of the carriage, we quickly accelerated to 15 mph on the downgrade while Joanne walked behind, pretending not to know us as we barreled downhill.  Picking up speed, we passed a middle-age husband and wife walking toward the store.  As Joanne approached the couple in passing, she notice the wife staring intently at me and remarked to her husband, "Did you see that...

I seem to have entered what I term as the "Androgynous Zone".  I am not sure how I arrived here, but here I stand.  I am perched on a precipice that allows me to look down either side of the chasm into the male or female worlds.  I am balanced at this point or am I?  My perceptions of this realm I believe I am in are challenged by the world around me. I recently showed my picture on my license to someone who remarked, "How do you get away with using that picture of you?  It looks nothing like you" A friend I had not seen in a year remarked how soft my skin has become and how translucent it now seems to be. I look in the mirror and I see the same person I have always seen.  Someone takes a picture of me in my guy mode and I freak out with what stares back to me in photos.  I race to look at my old pictures and they are not the same person. A walk on the street yields many numbers of low breathy remarks wondering what box I exist in. ...

Remembering our friend Stephanie Forbes, whose life was cut short all too short in an instant.  Her stress from being outed by everyone and estranged by all in her family left her feeling as if those who loved her only did so conditionally.  It left her without a job and a family and it left her very, very alone.  I miss her very much but take heart that she had made some wonderful friends in the transgender community.  She especially said that she looked towards my spouse and to me with great respect, admiration and love for the hope that we brought to her.  Her life will live on through our wonderful memories of times shared together both virtually and when we met.  Her profile and pictures live on and it feels like only yesterday that we said our last goodbyes. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000422449048

Having just turned 46 years old, one would think that one would have, by this point, a clear understanding of who their identity is as a person.  One would think.... When one has lived a lifetime subjugated under a tyrannical familial rule, one can suppress and nearly lose one's own sense of self identity, substituting it instead for one which is accepted, expected and for which others praise.  But... this comes at a cost.  The price is one's own soul and their very sense of being.   Living a life to others expectations brings hidden costs of anxieties and self worthlessness.  We exist to live our lives but fail to live truly.  One walks through life in the motions but feels as if they are a ghost... separated inside and with an ache that only they can see.  The facade of the person they create pleases everyone else and so no-one suspects the hurt they bear deep within their own soul.  The longer they continue to live the facade, the more i...

Joanne and I just returned back fro Be-All in Chicago. It was our second year at this event and, as such, provided us with a perspective that was not apparent from our first time there. If one has not been to the Be-All conference, it is an opportunity to meet and relate to other transgender gifted people and to do so in a safe and friendly environment. 85 percent of the seven floors in this large hotel were occupied by attendees and the many seminars, activities and meals were all provided on site or were off site and catered by the conference staff. Rather than describing what we did at the conference, which could be summarized succinctly in any event, I would prefer to relate what I learned in relation to the community and to my own personal self. Having been able to experience the world as a transgender woman for another year, I had a new found perspective and level of maturity which I had not had prior. I had the ability to relate what I had learned of myself and witnessed ...

A good friend posted today, a link to a blog of a man dieing of colorectal cancer.  He was an entrepeneur, a father, husband, musician and many more things.  He was 41 when he died.  He died on May 4, 2011 and he wrote his own epitaph in his blog on that day.  He gave thanks to his ability to be able to share his world with others and to be graced by a loving family.  He gave thanks for being able to be a meaningful part of this world to which he contributed much.  I was so impressed and humbled to read it and it gave me pause for reflection.  Here is the link... https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.penmachine.com%2F2011%2F05%2Fthe-last-post&h=95366 I see so many who complain and whine over the trivialities in life.  Trivial in comparison to the great equalizer which awaits us all… death.  Trivialities which consume so many and yield only negative energies and wasted time.  In the transgender world, I see s...