Moments of Doubt

None of us are perfect. We all put on a face to the world that say's that everything is alright, and  most of the time that is exactly the case; everything is alright. But every once in a while, it isn't. There are times when all we can think about is crawling into a dark room, locking ourselves away from the world, curl up in a fetal position and rock back and forth until the internal darkness goes away. Instead, we put on that face that we wear every day and when someone say's, "How's it going?" we smile at them and say, "It's going great, how about you?"

There are times when we know exactly why we are feeling the way we do. It could be financial issues lurking in the near future, maybe we have had a fight with the love of our lives or maybe someone that we love with all of our hearts and souls has suddenly lost a long suffering battle with life and has passed away. These times are so difficult that all we can do is lock ourselves away until either the issue has passed or the pain loosens its grip long enough for us to recover. But there are other times; times when we have no clue why we are feeling the way we do. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it. All we know is that we hurt, we are scared and we are confused. When this happens we start searching desperately for something we can point to and say, "There! That's the reason. That is what is causing me all this emotional pain." And we always find something. It doesn't seem to matter if is actually the cause or not. We are so desperate that we put the blame on the first thing we come to.

It is human nature to try and make connections. We search for something that has recently changed and we put blame on that thing. There are still places in the world where people are killed for witchcraft because they are seen doing something that someone thinks is odd around the same time that an epidemic breaks out. It doesn't seem to matter that correlation is not indicative of causation. We jump at a correlation and use it to place all blame for our sorrows.

So, if the recent change in our lives happens to have been gender transition, we agonize over our decision. We can't help but wonder if that change is what is causing all of our stress. We wonder if we made the wrong decision. Maybe we should have just continued pretending and being what the world thinks we should be instead of what we truly are, and when someone we love is going through the same sort of emotional turmoil, we begin to blame ourselves for their pain. We even consider going back to the way things were in the hopes that everything will be OK again. We have those moments of doubt.

But if we really think about it we will remember other times in our lives when, for seemingly no reason at all, we went through periods of depression or anxiety. Times before transition. In fact, we have had times like this since childhood. And each time we blamed it on the most recent thing in our lives that had changed.

What if recent changes have nothing to do with it? What if, just maybe, it's something physical? It could be as simple as a hormonal imbalance and if we hang in long enough and make sure our diet is healthy, things will be back to normal soon. There are countless possibilities that we simply don't know about because we can't see them. It could be anything from atmospheric conditions to subsonic frequencies messing with our internal systems. If so, then jumping to conclusions and making drastic decisions could be the worst mistake of our lives. We have to take time, breathe, and instead of finding something to blame our suffering on we have to find something positive to do.

Does this post have a purpose? Have I come to any conclusions? Have I fixed things? Not really. I'm sure I will continue to have moments of doubt for the rest of my life. Basically, this has been a long-winded way of saying, "Hang in there, it gets better."

Gender Variations: Social Interactions

I have now experienced life from three variations of gender. Presenting as pure male, presenting as femme male and presenting as all female. It is absolutely amazing the difference in interactions with the public with each variation. I am fascinated with how people treat each other based on their gender. Let me start with male first.

Being Male: Social Interactions

I spent the vast majority of my life trying to be as male as possible. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is out of a history of survival. As a child I had to pretend to be a boy, just to keep from being beat up. As I became an adult I was pretty much stuck in that male rut and continued it for most of my life. Mostly because I had pushed the male so hard that I had all but eliminated the female I was.

A lot of my jaded attitude regarding human nature seems to have come from my experiences being male. You see, men tend to be aggressive. They are constantly in competition with each other, whether they realize it or not. When you are a man, every other man is a potential opponent. The first competition that might come to mind is sex. And it is true. We are sexual beings by nature, so we tend to find ourselves in competition with others for love interests. But it doesn't end with sex. That competition creeps in to every aspect of our lives from our jobs to how our houses look from the street. It is a constant fight and struggle.

I'm not a fighter. I never have been. So, I never fit in to any male social groups. In most situations (close friends being the exception) interactions with other men felt like I was constantly on my guard. The first thing that most men do when they meet other men (even in very subtle ways) is try to exert some form of dominance. Body language, eye contact and speech patterns instantly go into intimidation mode. If you don't 'fight' back then you 'lose' and they 'win.' Like I said, I'm not a fighter so I rarely even tried. The result being that men basically looked at me as a loser that wasn't worth their time. Which was fine with me because I really didn't want to be part of that kind of social dynamic anyway.

Interactions with women weren't any better. Because of the aforementioned male issues with dominance, most women instantly become defensive when meeting a man. They assume that the man, at best is going to try to seduce them and at worst forcibly take sexual advantage of them. I don't blame women for this. Male privileged is alive and well in our society and the struggle to change that has, historically, been a slow one. But the result for people in my situation is that it somewhat difficult to develop a true close friendship with a women. As a man, I could never fit into the female social structure. I would constantly be an outsider.

This manifested on a daily basis in interactions with the general public: while working, shopping, eating out, taking walks in the park. The general attitude among the people I ran into on a daily basis was representative of issues I have been discussing. Body language, tone of voice, eye contact and other subtle nuances constantly kept me at an emotional 'arm's length' from everyone I came into contact with. What was the result of this? I was lonely.

Don't get me wrong. I have been married for over twenty years to a wonderful woman and I have an incredible group of friends. But in regards to the world in general, I was an outcast. I didn't fit in to the social construct that is the gender binary in our society. Since I didn't fit into the male social dynamic, I was never invited on any outings with guys (wouldn't have liked it anyway) and girls nights out were off limits because, well, I wasn't a girl. I was pushed away at every turn, even if that turn was as simple as ordering food at Denny's. The smiles were always there. The pleasantries were always there. But they were forced. They weren't genuine. For my entire life I thought it was either because of me or it was just that humans were anti-social, self-centered and just plain mean. But now I don't think so.

Being Femme Male: Social Interactions

I started painting my fingernails a while back and carrying a purse. I also got my eyebrows threaded so that when I presented as a women, I would have nice arched brows instead of the giant fuzzy caterpillars I was born with. Bye-bye to pretending to be a man. I started embracing a bi-gender identity, meaning I could choose from day to day what gender I wanted to present based on what I was doing and who I was with that day. But, in all honesty, the male portion of that gender was still pretty femme.

I got looks. Oh boy howdie did I get looks. You know those forced pleasantries I talked about before? They were still there, but now they often hid animosity behind them. I guess a man with a purse and painted fingernails is considered a pervert or something because people were always giving me evil looks and when they were forced to interact with me they tried to get away as quickly as possible. Oh, and the venomous looks I got while shopping in the intimates section were almost physically painful. But the interesting thing is that not all people were like that. As you can expect, the reactions from men were far worse than before, but the reactions from some women changed for the positive. Servers in restaurants began to actually smile at me and engage in conversation that was more than, "How would you like your eggs cooked?" A lot of women were suddenly genuinely nice to me. This was a very foreign concept to me and confused me a lot at first. But that's OK. It was nice to actually be treated as a living breathing human being by perfect strangers. It made up for the evil hateful looks and avoidance I was getting from everyone else.

What was the reason for this? I can't really say for sure, but I suspect that the more feminine I appeared, the less of a threat I seemed to be. But the bottom line is that these positive interactions encouraged me to become far more open about my gender presentation. I started presenting as a woman more and more.

Being Female: Social Interactions

Being a woman has been a real eye-opener for me. Let me start with guys. My guy friends are my guy friends no matter what. They are all amazing and have always treated me with love and respect. But as a woman, guys no longer look at me with competition or suspicion. Some older men look at me with confusion, but that's to be expected. I think that most guys simply don't notice me. The younger and more attractive a woman is the more likely it is that a man is going to look at them. I am neither young or attractive, so I don't catch their eye long enough for them to wonder if I am a 'real' woman or not. I am perfectly fine with this. The less attention I get from men I don't know the happier I am.

The huge difference is with women. Everywhere I go now I am treated with respect. Smiles are genuine. Pleasantries are real. Conversations are started almost everywhere I go and I hear about their kids, and husbands. I am no longer hurried along or pushed through. When I go shopping, sales crew seem like they honestly want to help me instead of it being their job to do so. People call me ma'am. I feel welcomed and embraced. My female friends are inviting me to girls nights out and bachelorette parties. For the first time in my life I feel welcome. For the first time in my life I'm not lonely, and that makes me a very happy women.

Celebrity Focus: Kim Petras

In 1992 a little girl was born in Cologne, Germany, but no one knew it. Not even her parents. They thought they had a little boy, so they named her Tim. By the age of two this little girl started insisting that she wasn't a boy and her parents tried to be supportive. But they decided that she should wear gender neutral clothing in public. It didn't take long for then to realize that being a girl wasn't just a phase that their son was going through, so they sought professional help for their child. Happily, the help they sought was not to cure their son, but to help their daughter. With the help of Dr. Bernd Meyenburg, they completely embraced their child as their daughter, Kim, and started her on a puberty suppression treatment that would keep testosterone from taking over. At the age of 16, she became the youngest person in history to legally undergo sexual reassignment surgery. I commend her parents for recognizing what their child needed instead of forcing a societal standard on her.

Kim, if you happen to read this, I gathered my information  from various internet sources including Wikipedea. If I have gotten anything wrong, please let me know and I will correct this page. 

Today, Kim Petras is a pop sensation and it is easy to see why. She is both beautiful and talented. I have become completely infatuated with her song and video, One Piece Of Tape.

"If one piece of tape could change the world
Then the world would be OK
It's one step closer to the start
Of a brand new day"

Acceptance: Actually Living It

Over the years of witnessing friends transition between gender and going through a very gradual transition myself, I have come to realize that there is a difference between acceptance and truly accepting. I am writing this from the perspective of male to female transition simply because that is my personal experience. But this is an issue no matter what gender identification is involved.

I am directing this, primarily, at friends and loved ones of people in transition. I am going out on a limb here and stating that I believe what most of us want more than anything is to be truly accepted as the gender we identify with. For me, that is a woman. I need to be fully accepted as a woman. I don't identify as a trans woman, I identify as a woman. When I first started coming out to friends and family I told them that I hoped they would accept me as a woman and they assured me that they would. I take them at their word. I love them all dearly and I believe that they will do exactly what they say.

But I often wonder how many people truly understand what that acceptance means. It is one thing to love and accept your friends for exactly who they are, it is another thing to live that acceptance. Let's say that you are a woman and your best guy friend for twenty years comes to you and says he is becoming a woman. You are happy for him/her and you swear that you will support her completely. You will help her with makeup, hair, shopping and everything that she needs. You are actually kind of excited about it. Then you go to the mall with her. You spend a couple of hours shopping and having a great time. But all of that coffee the two of you drank at Starbucks is really starting to take it's toll, so you head to the bathroom. Being a woman, your best friend walks beside you into the women's room. If there was even a fraction of a second where your mind questioned whether or not she should be in there, then you are not living the acceptance. You have assured her that you completely accept her as a woman, but in reality, you haven't. You still consider her either a man wearing women's clothing or a transsexual woman. You have not truly embraced her existence as a woman.

You finish the day shopping, you go home with tons of new clothes including new intimates. You are both excited to try all of the different combinations of tops and bottoms to see how many cute outfits you can put together. You have done this with your girlfriends lots of times and never had a problem with it at all, but this time you suddenly hesitate. Maybe only for a moment, but that hesitation is because you are not completely comfortable undressing in front of her, even though you have no problem with your other girlfriends. That moment of hesitation shows that as much as you want to believe you have, you have not completely accepted her as a woman.

Your friend needs that true acceptance. She needs to be invited to girls nights out, she needs to be invited to bachelorette parties other social gatherings. She needs to be completely accepted. If she isn't, then she exists in a limbo. She would never be accepted as a man, even if she wanted to, and if she isn't accepted as a woman, then where is she? She is lonely.

We toss the words acceptance and tolerance around like yesterdays torn clothes. They have become buzz words that have lost their true meanings. As a society we have stopped living what those words truly represent. And members of the LGBT community suffer for it on a daily basis. So, please, if someone you love asks you to accept them, do it with all of your heart. Truly embrace that friend, love them and give them what they truly need. Live that acceptance that they have asked for.

Fingernail Polish Tutorial: Black Lace

One of the things I have been doing lately is creating video tutorials on fingernail polish techniques. This is one of my favorites were you actually attach pieces of lace to the fingernail and then cover with a clear top coat. I am considering creating a separate page to this site where I will feature all of my films and tutorials.

That Was Me

That was me
Pretending I was sick so I wouldn't have to dress out for Phys Ed
That was me
Playing with my sisters toys when no one was looking
That was me
Trying on my mother's high heel shoes
That was me
Crying when I realized I would never grow breasts
That was me
Growing facial hair as a teenager because people teased me about being a sissy
That was me
Hunting with my father because he was trying to make a man out of me
That was me
Terrified that I would see a deer, rabbit or turkey and be forced to kill it
That was me
Living a lie for so many years
That was me
Starting to grow old without ever allowing myself to be
That was me

This is me
Lamenting the past that could have been
This is me
An amazing person with self confindence and pride
This is me
Looking to the future with joy and wonder
This is me
A woman