What's Good 4 Da Goose

This is America?

2005-01-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

An Odyssey to Asylum
Argentinean trans woman gains U.S. refuge after years of activism at home
By MELISSA CASTILLO-GARSOW

Argentinean María Belén Correa, a transgendered woman, did not originally intend to make her home in the United States. Nevertheless, in a groundbreaking decision that transgendered people hail as an important precedent, the U.S. has granted Correa, 31, a Queens resident, political asylum, based on the grounds that, because of her gender change, she faces life-threatening oppression in her native country.

Correa’s path to a life in America was marked by tragedy around her and threats against her own life.

In February 2000, Correa’s friend and fellow transgender rights activist Vanessa Lorena Ledesma died at the hands of the Buenos Aires police five days after she was arrested. In the wake of that loss, Correa, a co-founder of the Association of Transvestite, Transsexual and Transgender Argentineans (ATTTA), the first organization of its type in that nation, decided to stay and continue fighting for legal rights for transgendered people.

“The first day goes by, the second, the third day. Friends and family start to look for her in hospitals until we arrive at the morgue—and in the morgue we found her, but they didn’t let us see the body,” recalled Correa, in a recent interview, about Ledesma’s death. Finally, officials authorized one friend to enter and identify the body, before handing over a sealed coffin.According to Correa, the friend managed to take pictures of Ledesma’s body—images that clearly indicated torture and led the victim’s family to open the coffin and demand an autopsy.

“They opened the coffin and she was all tortured,” Correa said. “She had cigarette burns. They had pulled out her nails. She had been terribly tortured.

“She was an activist too,” Correa, added. “She did exactly the same work I did.”

Ledesma’s brutal fate led Amnesty International to choose her story as one of six symbolic cases to mark the 40th anniversary of its founding. But the murder did not lead Correa to consider exile. Only when her family began receiving written death threats the following year did she decide to leave Argentina.

“I still thought I could change things,” Correa said. “And I didn’t want to leave my family.”

This December 8, Correa became one of only a handful of transgendered people who have been granted political asylum in the U.S. She is the first transgendered woman from Argentina. While the United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS)—formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service—does not keep such statistics, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) estimates that in the past 10 years, 250 transgendered people, most of them from Latin America, have sought asylum, with 45 winning refuge in the U.S.

“In the time that I have been working with the program, I would estimate that each month we receive an average of 40 information requests and five of those are from transgendered people,” said Mariela Mariano, an assistant at IGLHRC’s asylum program, herself a transgendered Peruvian woman granted asylum earlier this year.

Asylum is granted or denied following an interview with an asylum officer or in a hearing before an immigration judge. If denied, a person can appeal first to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) then to a federal court of appeals. If a person proves that they face persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, such as being gay or transgender, it bolsters their petition for asylum.

Persecution based on transgender status, however, is perhaps the hardest claim to prove.

“It’s kind of the catch-all category for applicants who don’t fit into other categories,” said Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality, formerly known as the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force. Neilson said that within the same category, women fearing genital mutilation or domestic violence in countries where laws do not provide protections have also been granted asylum.

“There’s no precedential case which says that transgendered individuals must be considered a particular social group,” she explained. “But they fit well within established broad definitions of a particular social group.”

Precedents exist, however, for gay and lesbians persecuted because of their sexual orientation. In a 1990 case, in which evidence of persecution of homosexuals by the Cuban government was presented, the Board of Immigration Appeals established sexual orientation as a “particular social group.” Four years later, Janet Reno, who was then the attorney general, ruled that other gays and lesbians seeking asylum could rely on the case as a precedent.

When Geovonni Hernandez-Montiel, a gay Mexican who was born biologically male, but says he began to dress and behave as a female at age 12, applied for asylum, he was denied because the immigration judge did not find that his female self-identification was fundamental to his identity. Hernadez-Montiel appealed, and eventually won a landmark decision made by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August of 2000 establishing that, “as a matter of law that gay men with female sexual identities in Mexico constituted a ‘particular social group’ and that Geovanni is a member of that group. His female sexual identity is immutable because it is inherent in his identity; in any event he should not be required to change it.”

The Ninth Circuit made the same decision again this year, in the case of Luis Reyes-Reyes, a gay man from El Salvador who identifies as a female.

More importantly, the court redefined this catch-all category to “one united by a voluntary association, including a former association, or by an innate characteristic that is so fundamental to the identities or consciences of its members that members either cannot or should not be required to change it,” a finding that clearly included transgender identities like those of Hernandez-Montiel and Reyes-Reyes.

“Sexual orientation and sexual identity are immutable; they are so fundamental to one’s identity that a person should not be required to abandon them,” the Hernandez-Montiel ruling stated.

Despite these rulings, according to experts, confusion abounds in asylum cases based on sexual orientation and gender identity. According to Neilson, most asylum decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

“Thus, one judge might just accept at face value that ‘transgender individuals’ constitute a ‘particular social group’ for purposes of asylum while another judge may disagree and come up with [a] strained ‘particular social group’ definition like ‘homosexual men with female sexual identities,’” she explained.

“It’s a very sensitive issue,” said Flavio Alves, who until this month has been the director of Asylum Research, a national group that monitors the status of gay refugees in the U.S. “There is very little information for an immigration judge to rely on and there is still confusion between sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Besides being the first transgendered woman from Argentina granted asylum, Correa, who said that for “economic reasons” she has undergone gender reassignment surgery, made sure to argue her case not as a gay man with a female identity, but as a heterosexual transgendered woman.

That self-assurance with her identity did not come easily for Correa. In 1967, her parents moved to the small town of Olivera, population 2,000, outside Buenos Aires, so her father could run the local train station. Maria was born six years later and it was another six years before the next of her three siblings was born. Correa attended the neighboring town’s school because it was bigger. It was there, she explained, that she became known as a “geek.”
But for Correa, even “geek” was better than the notion she already felt inside herself but couldn’t yet identify.

“I preferred that they thought of me as a geek than in a different way. So I kept that disguise,” she said.

Correa’s father was diagnosed with cancer when she was six and for the next nine years, the family struggled with economic hardship as medical bills mounted. Eventually they sold a small general store they maintained in the front of their house to pay for his medical treatments.

By age 10, Correa was helping to raise her younger siblings and run the family’s store.

“In that situation, I never had any problems with my transexuality when I was young, because we had other problems,” Correa remarked.

Still, a certain realization always lingered.

“I knew internally,” said Correa, recalling a childhood habit of wearing fingernail polish. “Today I know that ever since I reached the age of reason—four or five—I was always this way.”

In order to find work after her father died, the 15-year-old Correa went to live with her grandparents in Buenos Aires, where a nagging realization became a full cry of awareness. Walking down the street one day, she met a transsexual who invited her to a birthday party. There, Correa removed her male clothing and identified herself as María Belén.
“I liked dressing as a woman, I liked that I felt free, that I had my name—the name I liked—that I wasn’t the only one,” she recalled.

Still, at first, Correa resisted the female identity her new peers pressured her to accept.
“One of my friends told me when you became a transsexual you’re going to have to leave your family because you can’t go and see them like you are now,” she recounted.
Correa was horrified at the way some of her peers lived, fears that fanned doubts: “Not wanting to be a transsexual was what I saw in other transsexuals and I didn’t want to be that way,” she said.

Transgendered people in Argentina, not unlike those in many countries, face daunting obstacles that prevent them from receiving equal legal treatment. Like most of Latin America, neither society nor government officials legitimizes the needs of certain individuals who claim they need to change their gender. According to Alejandra Sardá, IGLHRC’s Buenos Aires-based Latin America program coordinator, transgendered people face all types of persecution, including police round-ups and the abuse, including rape, that often follows.

“It’s like what it was like in the U.S. 50 years ago—a time where a person was repressed for any sort of outward sign of homosexuality,” said Andrew Reding, a human rights project director and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. “But in Latin America there is a much more hostile culture.”

Reding also mentioned what is perhaps the greatest cultural taboo faced by Latin Americans born biologically male who choose to become women: “There’s nothing more negative you can do as a man than turn yourself into a woman,” he said.

In Argentina, law enforcement officials crack down on transgendered people using arcane regulations, such as prohibitions against “creating scandals in public,” disturbing the public peace or crimes that can be defined as a “moral offense.”

“They won’t tell you what moral offense stands for or how you can offend this—it’s completely arbitrary,” Sardá said.

Periodically, up to100 transgendered women a day in Buenos Aires, according to IGLHRC, face detention under such statutes. Until 1997, special laws called the “Police Edicts,” remnants of the military dictatorship of the 1970s and ‘80s, allowed police to detain anyone for up to 30 days without issuing an indictment, or granting habeas corpus. These edicts, partly due to the work of activists like Correa, have been abolished in the capital, but are in effect in the rest of the country.

In Buenos Aires, a more lenient law, known as el codigo de convivencia, or gathering law, has been amended to provide stiffer penalties for public sex workers.

Ironically, prostitution is legal when performed in private. Sardá says the code is arbitrarily, often illegally, enforced against transgendered people whether or not they are actually involved in prostitution.

“Not all trans people are sex workers,” she emphasized. “And even those who are, are often falsely accused or arrested without evidence.”
Sardá said that often the police arrest transgendered people who refuse to pay bribes in exchange for safe passage on the streets.

Argentina also prohibits sex change operations; procedures classified as genital mutilation that can lead to prison time for doctors who perform them as well as their patients.

Sardá noted that beyond legal hurdles, perhaps the most insidious oppression is the social ostracism transgendered people suffer.

“It is very difficult if you are trans to find a regular job—it is almost impossible,” she said. “It is also very difficult for trans people to remain in school for enough years to get an education.”
Name change requests are rarely granted, leading to a myriad of everyday problems, from renting an apartment to getting a passport.

“They are like illegal citizens in their own country,” Sardá said. “It is a situation not just of violence, but of terrible social exclusion.”

As a result, most transsexuals live in rundown hotels that charge exorbitant rents. Most seriously, employment opportunities are limited to hairdressing, sewing clothes or prostitution.
“The usual story is that at 12 or 13 they start to realize that they are trans and want to live in that gender,” explained Sardá. “Usually they are expelled from school and kicked out by their families and forced to live on the streets. Many end up in sex work or drug trafficking as a way to survive.”

Correa’s first arrest happened when she was 17 and was walking to the store to shop for her grandparents. By that time she was taking hormones and had long hair that gave what she described as an androgynous appearance. Police approached her and asked her for her identification. Despite explaining that she was just going to the nearby store for her grandparents, she was arrested and taken to jail.

“I was 14 hours in jail. I couldn’t even make a call so that my grandparents could come to get me and bring my papers,” Correa said. “That was my first experience with the police. My grandmother cried because of all the insults they called me.”

Years later, as she became more involved with the transgender community, it wasn’t uncommon for her to spend three days a week in jail. And Correa says she spent less time in jail than others because of her visibility as a leading activist.

The police housed the transgendered detainees in cells constructed during the dictatorship to imprison political dissidents, hidden in the basement of prisons. When supporters would come looking for Correa, the police showed them empty prison cells while she and her counterparts remained locked up in the basement.

“The cells were like a shoe box. You couldn’t lie down. You always had to be curled up,” Correa recalled. “They had a big hole, like a drain, for when they got you wet or when they killed you so blood could go down.”

One result of the work that Correa and others did to denounce and document these prison conditions—in part, by sneaking in hidden cam
eras—is that the cells once used to detain them have since been reconstructed into offices.

By 1993, Correa had turned the apartment her mother rented for her into a gathering place for a growing number of transgendered people—up to 60 on one Saturday—who crammed themselves in to sit and plan an organized response to the discrimination they faced. The group began to document their persecution—making note of specific police stations and officers—and filed complaints with federal authorities. Eventually, Correa’s neighbors complained and the police raided the apartment, taking all the group’s files.

Strategizing more closely against their opposition, the activists found an attorney to advise them of their rights.

“After the raid, the meetings were even bigger,” Correa explained. “The lawyer came to them and instructed us. With the lawyer, we began to present complaints to courts.”

The group became well known in the courts.

“At a certain point, after about two years, we had presented so many complaints that we were all well known to the police,” said Correa of the landmark founding in June of 1993 of ATTA. From 1995 until 2001, when she left Argentina, Correa led the group as general coordinator.

Under Correa’s leadership, the group held demonstrations in front of police stations.

“At that point the press wasn’t interested because the press wasn’t interested if they killed you or didn’t kill you,” Correa said. “Nowadays there has been so much commotion around being a transsexual, from me asking for asylum.”

By 1997, the group branched into three separate movements for transgender rights.

“Before we were focused more on lesbian and gay issues and not really aware of the situation that transgendered people suffered under us,” said IGLHRC’s Sardá of the years when ATTA was first active. “They educated us and they changed the lesbian-gay movement here in Argentina.”

In 2001, Correa, along with other transgendered leaders and IGLHRC representatives met with Dr. Abid Hussain, a United Nations official who investigates violations against freedom of expression, a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After hearing their stories of persecution, Hussain offered the transgendered activists desperately needed moral support.

“I have listened to many painful stories during my visit [to Argentina], but your situation is the hardest,” he said. “You all have my sympathy and also my admiration because you are courageous, you are strong, you are united among yourselves and you are fighting back.”
Despite increased harassment by the police, Correa continued to reject any thought of leaving Argentina. On one occasion, as she was leaving her house, an unmarked car picked her up and took her to the parking lot of the local precinct.

“They dragged me in through the back,” Correa recounted. “Since they were all armed, they formed a circle there in the parking lot and the commissioner said, ‘Every time you see this person, this is what you have to do’ and grabbed a stick and began to hit me. And then they took turns and hit me.”

Her response to the abuse was simply to move from her apartment to one in a different police precinct.

Yet, once her family began to receive threats, following the publication of a profile on her in a popular women’s magazine, Correa reconsidered exile. One of her younger sisters got a threatening letter placed inside one of her school folders.

“That was when I decided I had to leave,” Correa said.

Quietly, she sold all her belongings, said goodbye to her friends without disclosing her plans and in April of 2001 went to the airport. Although she had hoped to go to Paris, where a friend lived, when a plane headed for Ecuador was due to leave in an hour and a half, she bought a ticket.

Correa soon learned that conditions in Ecuador were worse than in Argentina, as they proved to be in Chile as well. Eventually, she wound up in Miami where she met New Yorkers who invited her to come live with them. However, on a train heading north, they tried to rob her.

When Correa arrived in New York in November of 2001, she decided to give the city three days. By December, she had a boyfriend. One day, she had her picture taken with a New York police officer, an experience that helped her get over her instinctive fear of cops. Soon after, she started her asylum application proceedings.

In Queens, Correa volunteers with the Hispanic AIDS Forum and is active in the transgender community.

“Here, the majority of transsexual groups speak English—there aren’t groups just for Latinos,” she said. “This is a point that I can help with here. We all have a destiny, and maybe that’s mine. Maybe that’s why I’m here in this place that wasn’t even in my plans. For some reason, I’m here.”

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_353/anodysseytoasylum.html

this is "Christian?"

2005-01-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

IFI Condemns Passage of SB 3186, "Gay/Transgender" Bill That Tramples Freedoms of Conscience, Religion and Association
To: National Desk
Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-546-4439, 630-790-8370; David Smith, 773-858-6602 both of the Illinois Family Institute

GLEN ELLYN, Il. Jan. 12 /Christian Wire Service/ --

Peter LaBarbera, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, condemned the passage of SB 3186 by the House and Senate, saying legislators have passed a bill that will trample on the freedoms of others, especially people of faith opposed to homosexuality and gender confusion.

IFI is urging concerned citizens to ask Governor Rod Blagojevich to veto the bill, which passed 30-27-1 in the Senate and 65-51 in the House."

SB 3186 opens a Pandora's Box for the homosexual, bisexual and transsexual agendas in Illinois," LaBarbera said. "Under the guise of 'equality,' legislators have passed a bill that undermines the rights of anyone opposed to homosexual behavior to live out their beliefs.LaBarbera said SB 3186's "religious exemption" is "so big you could drive a semi through it" and said the bill "sets a dangerous precedent by creating civil rights based on homosexual and transgender behavior." He predicted it would lead to legal challenges to churches and groups like the Boy Scouts that oppose homosexuality.

LaBarbera said SB 3186 would:-- create special legal protections for cross-dressers and transsexuals, because its definition of "sexual orientation" includes "gender-related identity." ("Transgenders" identify as members of the opposite sex.);-- be used later by pro-homosexual lawyers and liberal judges to argue for the legalization of homosexual "marriage" or "civil unions" in Illinois (as occurred in Massachusetts);-- make it easier for "GLBT" (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans) teachers to promote the acceptance of their lifestyles in schools, by appealing to the bill's "nondiscrimination" provisions. -- invite lawsuits against private businesses and even churches and religious institutions by "gay" or "trans" activists who could claim they are victims of "discrimination."

LaBarbera said Illinois GOP conservatives are furious at the Republican Party leadership's weak resistance to the homosexual bill (with notable exceptions like Sens. Roskam and Lauzen). He said Democrats in the Chicagoland area are the polar opposites of southern Illinois Democrats "who still recognize that homosexuality is not a civil right.""The Chicagoland Democrats' pro-gay and pro-abortion agendas will continue to push southern Democrats out of the party," he said. "Ultimately, this trend threatens the Democrats’ control over the General Assembly."IFI is a non-profit group that defends marriage, family and the sanctity of life in Illinois.

Issuers of news releases and not the Christian Communication Network are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content. Terms and conditions, including restrictions on redistribution, apply.

Copyright © 1998-2004 Christian Communication Network. All Rights Reserved

Carrie Davis

2005-01-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

Trans Leader Sees Progress
Carrie Davis, of Center’s Gender Identity Project, weighs gains, obstacles
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
COURTESY OF LGBT Community Center

Carrie Davis has overseen the increasing professionalization of services at the 15-year-old Gender Identity Project, a program of the LGBT Community Center
Sitting in her small office at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, Carrie Davis remarked on the progress that transgendered people have made.

“It’s been a big shift,” said Davis, coordinator of the center’s Gender Identity Project (GIP). “It has been a shift from seeing transgender as a pathology to seeing transgender as an identity.”
The most recent evidence of that shift came when the city’s Commission on Human Rights released guidelines that are meant to aid employers and businesses in implementing the 2002 city law that bans discrimination based on gender identity or expression.

“I think they are a first step, a huge first step,” said Davis who was part of a group of gay and transgendered activists who helped write the guidelines. “I think we did a good job of getting people covered and protected.”

The law, which bans discrimination in employment, public accommodations and housing, is generally perceived as protecting transgendered people, but it could also be used, for instance, by butch women or nelly men.

The city law is part of a broader effort to eventually get New York State to enact similar protections. Davis said that strategy was conceived in 1998 at the first meeting of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy.

“Our goal in getting state protections was to get local protections first,” she said.
Davis has worked at GIP since 1998, which is long enough for her to have witnessed her employer change its name to include “Bisexual and Transgender.” She praised gay community groups for their efforts at including the transgender community.

“I see a very strong movement to integrate,” she said. “I think these organizations work their asses off to make these connections.”

Davis also observed the exclusion of transgender protections from the 2002 state law that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. That exclusion came when the bill was conceived, more than 30 years before it was enacted, Davis said.

“The essential mistake occurred in the inception, not in the implementation,” she said. “It’s regrettable and yet, at the same time, it’s a very powerful thing having it passed.”
Her work at the Center has changed as well. GIP started 15 years ago as a program to help trans men and women with drug and alcohol problems.

“Trans women were being told that they weren’t woman enough to obtain recovery services,” Davis said. “There was a corollary with trans men.”

GIP still offers drug and alcohol counseling. It has added HIV prevention programs and groups for men and women who are weighing sex reassignment surgery and for those who may be exploring an identity that rejects the binary of male or female. There are also groups for the partners of transgendered people and for trans folks who are parents.

Then there are the social events that draw anywhere from 60 to 160 people every month.
“To have that many people show up, we must be doing something right,” Davis said.

GIP was originally run by peer counselors. Beginning in 1998, the staff increasingly has held advanced degrees.

“That’s when this organization moved away from being a paraprofessional organization to a professional one,” said Davis who earned her master’s in social work in 2003. “We no longer had people operating groups who did not have a professional degree.”

Davis has considered pursuing a Ph.D., which would enable her to do more research, but the time and the expense would be too great.

“In this setting, it gets you the ability to be the primary investigator for research,” she said. “I know that it’s an exhausting process and I can’t afford to stop working.”

While Davis reluctantly discussed her life outside of work, parts of it were in evidence in her office. A women’s basketball team she plays on won trophies in 2002 and 2003.
“I was our center until we got someone taller,” she said.

There are some skilled players in her Brooklyn basketball league.

“The people that play are college-level and they make me look really bad,” she said.
Davis also plays on a softball team that won an award in 2002.

“I’ve played on the Titans since I began playing sports at age 42,” said the 45-year-old Davis. “Sports are a huge part of my personal and social life.”

There are also bouquets of roses displayed in her office that she must have received some time ago. They have all dried out.

“I have a romantic life,” she said, without elaborating.

Before joining the Center, Davis was a successful architect. She proudly shows some of the homes she designed though she insisted that the name of the firm she once worked for not be mentioned. She left that industry, in part, out of disillusionment, but also because it no longer welcomed her after she transitioned.

“Initially, it was the result of transitioning,” she said “Since then, I have had many offers to return and I have declined... I was becoming a designer of rich people’s houses. I was trained to see architecture as a form of social change.”

Now, with some six years of experience at GIP, Davis is increasingly called on to teach others what she has learned.

“One of our current goals is to export the experience we have developed over the past 15 years,” Davis said.

That is happening in several ways.

Davis regularly trains service providers on how best to serve transgendered clients or how to comply with the city law that bans discrimination based on gender.

Typically, the requests for training come when an agency has encountered a problem or when its sees an increase in transgendered clients.

“They have a client who wasn’t served properly or they see a trend,” Davis said.

She estimated that she delivers one of these trainings every two or three weeks.

“If I just answered the phone and dealt with that, it would be half my job,” she said.

The trainings can range from a basic transgender 101 to a more advanced “how to interview, how to offer services,” according to Davis.

“My goal is to always connect it to whatever it is they do,” she said.

Eight to ten social work interns who work at the Center each year see how that institution has responded to its transgendered clients and employees. The interns “spread the gospel” when they move on to other employers, Davis said.

Still, when considering the advances for transgendered people, Davis noted that not all of them have shared equally in the benefits of those advances. For the poorest, for those who may be struggling to find employment or with drug or alcohol problems, the changes may not have happened yet.

“I think that for some people it has happened quickly,” she said. “For others, those with the least resources, it has moved more slowly.”

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_353/transleadersees.html

Trans Riot

2005-01-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

TransGender Michigan declares Transgender Awareness Day

In August 1966, a group of transgender women fought back against a police raid at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco. The riot that ensued marks what many believe was the beginning of the transgender equality movement.

Although the specific date and many of the details surrounding the riot at Compton's Cafeteria have been essentially erased from history, TransGender Michigan is seeking to let the bravery of these transwomen live on by educating others about this momentous event and about transgender identity through the creation of Transgender Awareness Day, a day devoted to increasing understanding about transgender identity and issues.

Transgender Awareness Day will be held annually on Aug. 15 in honor of the riot at Compton's Cafeteria. "Unfortunately, many say that the transgender equality movement is a relatively new one; however, our movement pre-dates Stonewall, the date most consider the beginning of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement," says Rachel Crandall, executive director of TransGender Michigan. "While Transgender Awareness Day may be a new event, it is definitely not a new way of thinking."

http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=10667&section=news

Visibility Day goes Trans

2005-01-11T10:11:00.001-08:00

Visibility Day Goes Trans
by Christopher Kaufman

Two national leaders working for transgender civil rights will be traveling to Vermont at the end of January to advise local organizers working to promote a transgender non-discrimination act during this year's legislative session. R.U.1.2? Queer Community Center, Equality Vermont and the University of Vermont have invited Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Lisa Mottet, legislative lawyer for the Transgender Civil Rights Project of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to attend this year's Queer Visibility Day at the State House on January 28. Keisling and Mottet will also spend time meeting with students, faculty and administrators at UVM and a full day working with grassroots organizers at the ninth Queer Summit, scheduled at the State House on January 29.

Queer Visibility Day organizers have chosen to focus the annual event on transgender rights this year. The last legislative biennium saw a transgender rights bill, introduced by openly gay Representative Bill Lippert, languish in committee. Organizers hope the political make-up of the new House, with a likely robust majority of GLBT-friendly members, represents a strong opportunity for the bill to be passed into law this session. The legislation would explicitly protect transgender people from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, credit, employment and other areas.

Local organizers invited Keisling and Mottet to Vermont in order to share their experiences working with other states and municipalities that have passed similar legislation. Minnesota, Rhode Island, California and New Mexico currently protect transgender people from discrimination under state law. Many municipalities also include gender identity or expression in their non-discrimination codes. "We're excited about sharing what we've learned in other parts of the country with Vermonters," Mottet said. "We want to be as helpful as we can so that Vermont can continue to lead the way on transgender and other queer issues."

Visibility Day typically offers grassroots LGBTQ organizers the opportunity to set up information tables at the State House and meet with legislators to explain the important issues facing our community. This year, organizers hope to set up a "shadowing" program where local activists will be able to spend a significant part of the day with their legislator, eating a meal together, watching committee work in action and touring the State House. Organizers will also be able to join in an educational workshop about the Legislative Process jointly hosted by R.U.1.2?, Equality Vermont and the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. The Network is also welcoming their members to the State House that day.

Queer Visibility Day will begin at 8:00am on Friday, January 28, at the State House. To register in advance for the shadowing program, call Equality Vermont at 802-310-6296. The Queer Summit is the following day and will be an organizing strategy session for the transgender non-discrimination act. Transgender people are especially encouraged to attend. Christopher Kaufman is the executive director of the R.U.1.2? Queer Community Center.

http://www.mountainpridemedia.org/oitm/issues/2005/01jan2005/news05_visibility.htm

2005-01-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

Visibility Day Goes Trans
by Christopher Kaufman

Two national leaders working for transgender civil rights will be traveling to Vermont at the end of January to advise local organizers working to promote a transgender non-discrimination act during this year's legislative session. R.U.1.2? Queer Community Center, Equality Vermont and the University of Vermont have invited Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Lisa Mottet, legislative lawyer for the Transgender Civil Rights Project of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to attend this year's Queer Visibility Day at the State House on January 28. Keisling and Mottet will also spend time meeting with students, faculty and administrators at UVM and a full day working with grassroots organizers at the ninth Queer Summit, scheduled at the State House on January 29.

Queer Visibility Day organizers have chosen to focus the annual event on transgender rights this year. The last legislative biennium saw a transgender rights bill, introduced by openly gay Representative Bill Lippert, languish in committee. Organizers hope the political make-up of the new House, with a likely robust majority of GLBT-friendly members, represents a strong opportunity for the bill to be passed into law this session. The legislation would explicitly protect transgender people from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, credit, employment and other areas.

Local organizers invited Keisling and Mottet to Vermont in order to share their experiences working with other states and municipalities that have passed similar legislation. Minnesota, Rhode Island, California and New Mexico currently protect transgender people from discrimination under state law. Many municipalities also include gender identity or expression in their non-discrimination codes. "We're excited about sharing what we've learned in other parts of the country with Vermonters," Mottet said. "We want to be as helpful as we can so that Vermont can continue to lead the way on transgender and other queer issues."

Visibility Day typically offers grassroots LGBTQ organizers the opportunity to set up information tables at the State House and meet with legislators to explain the important issues facing our community. This year, organizers hope to set up a "shadowing" program where local activists will be able to spend a significant part of the day with their legislator, eating a meal together, watching committee work in action and touring the State House. Organizers will also be able to join in an educational workshop about the Legislative Process jointly hosted by R.U.1.2?, Equality Vermont and the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. The Network is also welcoming their members to the State House that day.

Queer Visibility Day will begin at 8:00am on Friday, January 28, at the State House. To register in advance for the shadowing program, call Equality Vermont at 802-310-6296. The Queer Summit is the following day and will be an organizing strategy session for the transgender non-discrimination act. Transgender people are especially encouraged to attend. Christopher Kaufman is the executive director of the R.U.1.2? Queer Community Center. For more information on the Summit, contact him at R.U.1.2?, 802-860-7812.

chest pains

2004-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

email:

I've spoken with a number of people whom I trust and respect. ALL of them have pointed out, before I ever came to the conclusion, that it is significant that I've been left out of this whole surgical process you've gone through.

All of them agree with each other that your sister's behavior toward me was unacceptable.

All of them agree that I have good reason to be concerned about your health and safety.

None of them thinks my anxiety is crazy.

But your sister thinks it is.

And, apparantly, so do you.

We've gone from WE should see a therapist to I should see a therapist.

We've gone from lovers to "affectionate roommates."

And tonight, you said I'm "obsessing."

Maybe, in your cold-hearted, disfunctional, rigid family, showing normal, healthy concern for the safety and well being of one's loved ones is considered"obsessive" and "crazy."Out here, in the real world, it's not.

In fact, the total disregard for the impact on my feelings, my stability and my peace of mind is considered, by ALL of the people to whom I've spoken, as inappropriate, at least. One person said it was"crazy."Not me: the way I've been treated, throughout this entire nightmare, is crazy.

Now, I watched that HORRIBLE "Extreme Makeover" show tonight...which is probably why you'd been awake for an hour when I called.

I could have "made over" BOTH those people without radical surgery!

Everybody on that show, as near as I can tell, is completely co-opted by Madison Avenue images of what is acceptable. Good god, the woman's SON believes that, only now, since she had major surgery, is that woman capable of dating!

All she needed was: mole removal, diet, exercise, clean skin and a hair cut! Same with her brother, plus an eyebrow trim and a shave!

I sat here and watched myself being left in the dirt. MONEY is sexy--period! Dump MONEY into your appearance, and you're instantly fuckable!

Have you noticed how Oprah never talks about her trainer or her chef anymore?? Cosmetic surgery: who needs personal integrity or discipline!

Did you really look at the Gay lover's eyes, when the brother came out? Did you really listen to what he said?

He was traumatized. He was shocked. He was frightened. I recognized that, immediately! Of course, they didn't show THAT on the show!

Your impatience with me for calling is abusive.

Telling me I had no impact on your decision to return early was hurtful. It wasn't clumsy. It was intentional.

YOU have damaged this relationship.

I'm not crazy. I'm not obsessed.

I'm a normal human being, concerned about my lover's--oh, excuse me, affectionate roomie's -- pain and recovery.

Maybe I called you tonight because there was something I needed to talk about. You don't know, because it's not important to ask how I am. It's all about how you are, and you're fine, so everything's ok, and I'm crazy.

I'm having chest pains. I'm scheduled to go into the clinic in a week for a full cardio work up. I refused to follow the triage nurse's advice and go to emergency tonight.

I was waiting to hear from you, for one thing.

For another thing, an ambulance costs four hundred dollars.THAT is why I called tonight.

I wanted to know your plans, in case I'm hospitalized.

oh: and, if you'll remember, I told you I was having chest pains, the week of your surgery. The anxiety of not knowing if you were ok didn't help. I'm not CRAZY!

2004-12-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

NBC 4
Government Won't Recognize Marriage After Sex Change
Javellana Now Required To Leave Country

POSTED: 8:36 am PST December 6, 2004
UPDATED: 8:49 am PST December 6, 2004

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles couple is suing the federal government for refusing to recognize their marriage and denying the husband permanent residency because the wife was born a male, it was reported Monday.

Donita Secusana Ganzon, 58, had her sex change surgery almost 24 years ago and married Philippine native Jiffy Hojilla Javellana, 27, three years ago after he entered the country that year on a fiance's visa, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In July, immigration authorities denied Javellana's application for permanent U.S. residency as the husband of a U.S. citizen, saying the federal government does not recognize the marriage of two people born of the same sex, according to The Times. Javellana is now required to leave the country.

The government has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 29, Philip Abramowitz, the couple's lawyer, told The Times.

Officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would not comment on the case, but they noted that federal regulations ban recognition of same-sex marriages for immigration purposes, according to The Times.

A specialist in transgender issues said the government was exceeding its authority.

"The federal government is trying to assert some kind of federal definition of gender for purposes of marriage, which is far beyond the traditional powers of the federal government," Chris Daley, director of the Transgender Law Center, a San Francisco-based civil rights advocacy group, told The Times.

Javellana lost his job as a kitchen worker for a local medical institution in October after his work permit expired, The Times reported. His current immigration status prevents it from being renewed.

Copyright 2004 by NBC4.tv.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3974100/detail.html

Former IRS agent still on the hook

2004-12-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

12/04/2004
Former IRS agent still on the hook
BY JAMES HAGGERTY / STAFF WRITER

A cross-dressing former Internal Revenue Service special agent who faces multiple fraud counts attempted Friday to have federal charges dismissed for wrongful prosecution.
Edward F. Snarski II, 52, whose last known address was Wilkes-Barre, faces charges of mail, bank, identification and bankruptcy fraud, unlawful use of a Social Security number and lying to a grand jury.

Mr. Snarski, identified in court papers as a "cross-dressing preoperative transsexual" and now identifies himself as Erica Edwards, was employed by the IRS for 28 years. He was indicted two years ago for using a fictitious name.

Federal authorities allege he used his daughter's Social Security number to obtain credit over a five-year period ending in February 2002. All the account balances were paid in full.

Mr. Snarski allegedly opened most of the accounts after filing for bankruptcy in December 1998. His bankruptcy petition listed $97,000 in unsecured debt.

During a hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo, Mr. Snarski cited 12 instances he was aware of from his IRS service when the government did not prosecute individuals for mail, wire and bank fraud and identity theft. His attorney, federal public defender Melinda C. Ghilardi, argued that he is being prosecuted because his transgender activities prompted federal authorities to target him for removal from the IRS.

Mr. Snarski, who wore a grape-colored woman's suit, shoulder-length auburn hair with blonde highlights, black hose and high heels to his hearing Friday, worked for the IRS from 1975 to 2003. After he notified his IRS co-workers in 1999 of his transsexual plans, he testified Friday, "Basically I was ostracized to a large degree."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa said Mr. Snarski was investigated by the Inspector General's Office of the Treasury Department, not the IRS.

Christian Fisanick, chief of the criminal division for the regional U.S. attorney's office, testified that Mr. Snarski's transgender activities "played no part in my decision making" to pursue criminal charges.

Barry Bittenbender, criminal investigations supervisor in the IRS Scranton office, testified that the office's former supervisor told the staff "any hostile work environment toward Ed (Snarski) would not be tolerated" after Mr. Snarski revealed his desire to change sexes.

A ruling on the dismissal motion is expected next week.

http://www.zwire.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2185&dept_id=416046&newsid=13490747

©Scranton Times Tribune 2004

why people don't ask for assistance

2004-12-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Gianna,

My lover is a mtf transexual.

She castrated herself at the age of fourteen years.

She never experienced orgasm, either before, or after, her SRS. And her SRS was done back in the "dark" ages; there is some damage.

She was born with a large clitoris/small penis and normal testicles.The "penis" wasn't large enough to use in creation of the neovagina.

She is interested, as am I, in exploring her sexuality. To this end, I have already purchased a so-called"strap on," to better penetrate her and stimulate her prostate. But we're also interested in other options, which might increase her sexual sensitivity and capacity to feel.

For one thing, while she's on HRT, we're wondering: does she produce any testosterone, and isn't that necessary to sexual "assertiveness," for lack of a better word? If not, how might this be supplimented,without causing serious changes to her physiology?

In addition, I, personally, would like any RELIABLE advice/direction on how to assist my lover in having a more satisfying and pleasurable sexual relationship with me.

I'm very resourceful, and very committed. Nothing scares me in this regard.

Any information, URLs, literature, etc. you might have for me would be gratefully appreciated.

This is NOT a "crank" email; it's real

That's kind of rude, ask a proffesional consult question... and not even say omg 'thank you' in advance or signing your name. Just another person that wants my time, but can't even be polite. Damn!

I would recommend to your doctor, that he consider raising the testosterone in gradual increments, and noting in blood laboratory testing what the most effective amount is. Perhaps, the high female testosterone range.

Also, testosterone is not like viagra, where a male pops a pill and then pops up. There needs to be the right amount maintained in the bloodstream constantly, also there is the mental attitude element. It may take some exploration on her part, in order to wake those impulses up, if that is possible.

If your doctor needs a consult, feel free to have him contact me. Also, feel free to print out this e-mail if you feel it will add credency to your request to him.

Sincerely,

Gianna

What part of "gratefully appreciated" did you not understand?And I used my real name, writing to you -- which, under the circumstances, wasn't very wise, considering the intimacy of my questions and the abusiveness of your reply.

I did not ask for a "proffessional" (sic) consult; I asked for URLs and other info which you might have had to share.

You were the ONLY person I found, in hours of searching Google, to whom I could address my question.

Astonishing coarseness!

BELIEVE me, I won't trouble you again!

[and why does she assume doctors are men? sounds more like a drag queen than a PhD, to me...]

email to the doctor

2004-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

Doctor,

[Ma] asked that you not make any changes to her lower lip.While sedated, during surgery, she was so determined that you not modify it, that she struggled back to consciousness, to tell you not to change it. She didn't protest the cutting, the stapling, the suturing or anything else she remembers about the procedure--only that.

You told her you were evening it out.

She had a reason for asking you not to modify her lip. That reason was me.

[Ma] scheduled her procedures before she and I became intimately involved.

I asked her to ask you not to change it.

[Ma] told me you think symmetry is important to beauty. I disagreed. I said symmetry isn't real, isn't natural, and isn't idiosyncratic.

Doctor, even your own website shows the Mona Lisa: crooked smile, prominent brow, wide jaw, thin and low top lip. Some suggest the Mona Lisa is actually DaVinci's self portrait as a woman.

I loved that lower lip. I loved the crookedness of her grin. I loved it that only the right side of her face pouted.

[Ma] just sent me some jpegs of her recovery. That's not [Ma]'s lower lip, the lip I love to tug and flip with my finger. I know it's swollen, but it's also symmetrical.

[Ma] doesn't know I've written to you, but I'll tell her.

She says you told her most of the fat you've added would be reabsorbed eventually.

But I don't know if you did something to "balance" it out, and destroy its crookedness.

[Ma] made her plans with you before we were together.

I'm alone, waiting for her to recover at her sister's house enough to come home to me. I may have to spend the holidays alone, waiting for a different face to walk in the door.

That's going to be an adjustment.

I comforted myself with the thought that at least that silly, pouty lip would come back. Now, I know it won't.

I know you're an expert on facial reconstruction, and I respect and appreciate that. But, when a client expresses a desire to maintain a particular feature --even if, to you, it seems "flawed," -- perhaps it would be good to honor that, even if the client can't articulate why.

I'm hurt, and somewhat shocked, to know this irrevocable change has been made to my love.

Hair

2004-12-02T05:54:00.000-08:00

Hey, Ma,

I have a couple of seemingly-radical ideas, re: your hair. Now, before
you freak out, just listen. Both ideas actually make good, logical
sense.

DYE

First, I'd suggest we dye it. I don't suggest permanent dye; I suggest
the kind that fades/washes out after about a week. It can be reapplied,
or not, as you choose.

I am suggesting this as a distraction. It will draw coworkers'
attention
away from your facial changes. They'll be so busy, looking at your
hair,
they probably won't notice that your face has changed.

For this reason, and for another reason, too, I also suggest:

HAIR CUT

FIrst, it makes sense to shorten your hair, for several reasons.

The radical change in length will, again, serve to distract the eyes of
those who haven't seen you in 6 weeks. They might ascribe to your hair
changes any "difference" they perceive in how you look.

But there are other reasons, too.

Shortening your hair takes weight off the follicles, reducing the risk
of hair falling out from the surgery.

It also allows the scalp more "breathing room," as the hair will stand
up more, off the scalp, and allow more air to circulate. Long hair
weighs more, and lays closer to the scalp.

Third, I could create under layers, which would give your hair more
body, and make it appear fuller.

Imagine a fur pelt, with guard hairs. There's an undercoat of shorter
hair, and an overcoat of longer hairs. This is a natural evolution. The
longer hair allows dirt, water, ice, etc. to roll right off the fur and
not become matted in the underhairs. The underhairs provide insulation
and protection.

I can achieve this effect easily. Imagine yourself, in profile. The
hair
would be cut:

iiiiiiii

Forgive the dots on the "i." I can't avoid that.

I can retain a good deal of your hair length, employing this method,
while still giving your hair more body and shape.

I would suggest that the "undecoat" be about four inches long in the
front and on the sides, and about six inches long down the back.

I'll trim ALL your hair, first, to get shape and to remove split ends
and other damage.
I would like to shape
your hair better, too. Shortening the length in
the back, around the shoulders, will give your "bangs" and "ear flaps"
a
chance to grow out, even out, to match the rest of your hair.

You won't need camouflage, once your surgery heals. You probably won't
want those awkward lengths for coverage any more.

Shorter hair won't tangle as much. It'll be easier to maintain, with
your bicycle helmet, etc.

Now, by the way: you were talking about detangling your hair,
presently?

Take advantage of that VASOLINE!!

Before you wash your hair, gently apply some of that residual vasoline
to the ends of your hair, massage it in gently, and comb it through.
Detangle BEFORE you wash the hair!

Vasoline will help keep the hair flexible under all those bandages, so
it doesn't turn brittle an break off.

I don't mean that you should vasoline your hair and leave it in under
the bandages. Just apply a little to the ends and comb it through to
detangle before shampooing.

I hope all is well.

Much love,

Ma

Trans. study, NYC

2004-12-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

The Transgender Project Male to Female Transgender Persons in the NYC Metro Area
Your Participation is Needed What is The Transgender Project

The National Development and Research Institutes has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to begin an EXTENSIVE and IN DEPTH, 5 year study of the TRANSGENDER community in the greater NYC metro area. We believe this is the most thorough study of our community to date. Qualified participants will be asked numerous questions about their past lives-- childhood, early and late teen years, and present day lives.

Questions about your family, school, friends, co-workers, and social situations will be asked of each participant. How we perceive ourselves, how we think others see us; acceptance and support-or the lack of; sexual relationships and activities-- these issues will all be addressed.

In a very real sense, you'll be telling your life story.

Who Qualifies as a Participant? ï‚· Male to Female Transgendered Persons-- TVs, CDs, (24/7 or Part Time) Pre or Post Op TS. ï‚·

You must reside in the greater NYC Metro area. ï‚·

You must be 19 years of age or older. ï‚·

Hetro, Bi, Gay, or however you may classify yourself. ï‚·

Qualified participants must be willing to make a 3 year commitment to the project. ï‚·

You must be willing to be screened for STDs-HIV.

What's in it for me? ï‚· Qualified participants are eligible for modest financial remuneration. ï‚·

As a participant, you will receive free blood and urine analysis for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. ï‚·

Should you need it, NDRI/The Transgender Project will arrange medical treatment for youâ€"in almost all cases, FREE OF CHARGE. ï‚·

You will become a very important part of the MOST COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF OUR COMMUNITY TO DATE. ï‚·

YOU CAN EXPECT AND WILL RECEIVE ONLY THE MOST CONFIDENTIAL TREATMENT OF YOUR INFORMATION THE MORE WE LEARN ABOUT OURSELVES, THE MORE WE CAN TEACH OTHERS

NDRI - THE TRANSGENDER PROJECT

216 Ave. A(btw. 13th / 14th)New York, NY 10009
TOLL FREE 866.232.6389 Local212.845.4617
E-Mail Inquiries:Mason@NDRI.org

Founded in 1967, NDRI is a non-profit research and educational organization dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge in the areas of drug and alcohol abuse, treatment and recovery; HIV, AIDS and HCV; therapeutic communities; youth at risk; and related areas of public health, mental health, criminal justice, urban problems, prevention and epidemiology. NDRI Mission Statement National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI) established in 1967 is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt non-governmental agency. It includes social science researchers, outreach community workers, and trainers. NDRI is governed by a Board of Directors who come from diverse backgrounds including health care providers, community leaders, criminal justice professionals, financial experts, and social science researchers.The primary mission of NDRI is to advance scientific knowledge in the areas of substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS, and other related social and health concerns in order to contribute to the prevention and solution of these social problems.NDRI is organized into specialized Institutes, each under the direction of a senior scientist, the principal investigator. Each Institute focuses on a particular issue and has its own staff of researchers. NDRI with its large number of grants and contracts, its collaboration with a wide array of hospitals, treatment and prevention programs, its publications in world renown journals and scientific books, and its acceptance into communities with diverse ethnic populations, reflects its well established reputation as a unique, highly responsible and productive research organization.

* Larry Nuttbrock Phd - Project Director

Mona Rae Mason - Field Coordinator

Monica Macri - Research Associate

Herminio Martinez - Research Associate

She wants to come HOME!

2004-12-01T14:01:00.000-08:00

Oh, my heart!

We talked for two hours by telephone yesterday, and an hour today. She emailed some jpegs of her face, too, so I can see. Ouchies!

Well, she wants to come home early. She's going to check with the airline about coming back, possibly Christmas week! I told her I can pick her up at the airport by taxi.

I asked her to ask her niece to possibly drive her to the airport where she is, and possibly help her mail some of her stuff from the post office.

She does want some time with me, before she goes back to work.

And she has had enough of the sister.

AND...and this is the BIG "and," she DOES want to discuss the potential for a full partnership with me. She does feel we have potential.

I'm so relieved!

I told her my experience yesterday. She finally heard it.

Her gifts come, every day. A satin dress from China, pink, embroidered with cherry blossoms. A blue African dashiki, embroidered in pink and gold swirls. Beautiful blouses, trousers and dresses. Jewelry. Books. Movies. I even got her some toys.

Socks are coming. I even bought her new underpants!

I still haven't hung her bedroom door. I will paint it tomorrow. It's been too cold here to work outside.

We ARE going to make it through this.

I told her yesterday to NEVER put me through anything else like this, again. She understood and promised she wouldn't.

Man, this has been VERY hard on me!

My Princess is coming home soon!

That's ALL I want for Christmas!

my holiday present's coming!

2004-11-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

Whew! I was afraid she cashed my money order and ran! I ordered a new flute on EBay, and it's been weeks since I heard from the seller!

Yippee! I was just about to call Western Union and try to figure out what had happened!

My spouse went in for surgery the weekend before Thanksgiving, way out in The Big City & won't be back from recovering at family's house until the new year.

So, I'm here, all alone, for the holidays, worried and sad.

I'd like to have the new flute--my old one's just worn out--so I can play along with the holiday musical specials. It really cheers me up. But my old flute is too leaky and squeeky to be pretty any more.

So, THIS is my SPECIAL present to myself for the holidays!

It'll REALLY help me make it through without being so scared, lonely and worried!

THANK YOU!

partnership

2004-11-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

I'm writing Ma some draft emails, as the mood strikes, which I'll save until she's more stable and able to hear them. Here's the first:

Dear Ma,

This experience of your surgery has taught me some serious lessons about what I need with you.

I'm saving this, and other, emails I may write until you're healthy enough to read them, but I need to articulate some things, before I might forget them.

I've had some serious heart ache about having been left out of these major decisions in your life.
I know, to you, this is a very intimate relationship.

But, to me, there is a distance between us which hurts me profoundly.

I'm not angry. You're doing what you need to do. This is a new relationship. You've been very guarded about protecting your privacy. It has become habitual.

If you choose to actually partner with me, it will take you some serious effort to learn to share things with me.

I'm not saying you must choose yet.

I was remembering today we'd agreed on July 3rd, to see where we'll go next.

So, I'm reminding myself not to panic, not to feel hurt or betrayed or abandoned.

But I need for you to consider this as a proposal.

I am committed to finding out what it would mean to partner with you.

I'm not saying we'll eventually BE partners; I'm saying I want to try learning how to make that happen.

If you're not ready for that yet, I'll need to know, so I won't have expectations and assumptions about trust which won't be true for you.
I feel I could commit to you for a life time partnership. I feel I'm ready for that, and all the work, effort and confusion that might take.

But I suggest a trial period, in which we can learn what each other's limits, needs and expectations might be, so we can decide if it's realistic.

Emotionally, I feel ready.

Part of my panic since this surgery situation has been that I assumed some things about our relationship which, it turns out, aren't true for you.

I thought we WERE partners. Partners share life-changing and life-threatening situations with each other, in my experience.

This did not happen with the current situation.

I felt abandoned because there was much I didn't know about your plans that turned out to directly affect me.

I don't particularly want to have to experience that again with you.

So, I need to choose: do I form a partnership with this woman, or do I try to detach into some less intimate friendship?

I'll need clear information from you before I can make an informed decision.

You're not, currently, in a position to make any promises or plans regarding me. I understand that.

So, I'll wait 'til your return, see how you're doing, and send this to you then.

I imagine I'll be sending more emails than just this one, before I'm done discussing this issue to my satisfaction.

If you're content with the way things are between us, and I am not, I'll have to choose what to do about that.

I love you. But I need to take care of myself. Trust isn't easy for me. I couldn't possibly go along with business-as-usual and pretend it doesn't hurt me to be left out of significant portions of your life.

I'm not an accessory, like a bicycle or a computer, that can just adapt to whatever life changes you make for yourself and just come along for the ride.

I have priorities, too. I must not let your needs cloud my judgment and throw me off track of my own goals.

So, I want you to start thinking seriously about the potential of partnering with me, what that might look like, how it might operate in a way that's useful and productive for you.

If we can find some sort of common ground in defining our relationship, and find ways to compromise when necessary without either of us feeling used or ripped off, then we can begin discussing how to build on what we've already established.

Frankly, I don't see how I could maintain something more casual than full partnership with you. But I'm coming from a recently-wounded and recently-frightened place right now, so I can't know for sure what I might be capable of in the future.

It's been very hard, darling. It's been very painful, not knowing what's up.

You could have died.

I was thinking today: how hideous it would be to have your sister, who despises me, march in here and haul away your personal possessions after your death! It would have devistated me.
I need to take care of myself. I need to plan.

I need to know.

Love,

Ma

I'm going to have to decide what I want

2004-11-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

It's true, you know. Ma has kept me out of this. She's kept me out of other stuff, too.

It's also true that she took care of a boatload of details that would affect me during her absence.

She tells me she needs to sleep, that she needs seclusion, like a wounded animal. She told me she was asleep all that first day at her sister's.

Then, yesterday, she emailed, telling me she'd actually been running errands and visiting relatives.

When I asked why she hadn't shared the info on FFS with me, she claimed she'd been too busy, attending details.

But then, in an email she sent recently, she suggested something else was going on. We recently moved into this house; it's only been about four months. It was hard to move, without a truck. And she suffered a back injury during that time. AND, her job has been exceptionally demanding during that time.

She said something about, given the crises we'd been through every month, she hadn't been willing to share with me the details of surgical procedures.

I don't know, because I can't ask until she has recuperated more, but I think she isn't willing to deal with my emotional needs.

She feels my reading the URLs in her Favorites files that pertain to FFS is an "infraction." She says she understands why I needed the info, having been left "out of the loop."

Infraction?

She gave me full access to her computer.

She said she wasn't comfortable that I was accessing info from before she knew me.

But doesn't it affect our relationship? Shouldn't I be informed?

So, I need to make some decisions.

Ma has serious issues. She's been hiding her transexual status for nearly three decades. She has no close friends. She doesn't confide in people. Most of her mental landscape involves secrets and misdirection.

Now, she does think of me as a very close friend. She tells me things, she says, that she's never told anybody...not even her sister.

She says she can talk to me about anything.

And I believe she believes that.

But it's not true.

She pulled some sort of stunt like this before. I don't remember the exact details. But, I remember asking, "what else are you hiding from me, that's going to scare me to death?" I remember her answering that there was nothing.

Then, this shut out, re: her surgery.

She's telling me, very clearly, that she doesn't have time for me under certain circumstances. Unfortunately, these are circumstances of critical importance. They affect me directly and substantially.

For instance: she's telling me she decided on FFS because she wants to make career changes. She's afraid people, on job interviews, will see her as tired. She's concerned about being photogenic, which she thinks she never was in the past. She's fifty years old; changing careers in this day and age is hard when one is older. I rather understand that she doesn't want "to look tired and old" while job hunting.

Well, she has made some brief, passing comments about possibly seeking a new place of employment. That's all.

I didn't know this was a high priority. It's apparantly important enough to sink eighteen thousand dollars into facial reconstruction.

I should have known; we should have been discussing it.

I need to decide what to do about this. I don't want to live with this half-assed, at her convenience stuff. Either I'm a partner, or I'm a roommate, or I'm a friend.

I need to hear from her which it is.

And then, I'll need to make some decisions about what I need to do.

I'm sure she thinks of this as the most intimate relationship she's ever had.

But, from my perspective, it's very distant.

And, under present circumstances, it's not adequate.

I can't pretend to be intimate with someone who is guarding and protecting herself from me.

And I won't bust my ass, trying to coax her into trusting me. That's crazy.

She'll need to choose whether I'm worth the effort.

And I need to choose whether she is, too.

I love her. Gawd knows, I do.

But I will not make myself sick at her expense.

I'll have to let her go.

The spouse of a mtf trans told me I might want to consider getting out, before I've invested too much time. She's been with her spouse for eleven years, and is really struggling.

A mtf trans. therapist said she'd never date a trans woman; "they're all CRAZY!" She included herself, too. She was very kind and talked with me for a very long time, the day I couldn't reach Ma by phone and her sister kept hanging up on me.

I love ma.

But I can't make myself sick.

on phones and sisters

2004-11-30T05:28:00.000-08:00

S,

I paniced. I just didn't have enough info about what was going on, and nobody would tell me anything.

+++inclines you to envision the worst. Like Ma, now resembling Farrah Fawcett, lounging on the beach at WiKiKi with the 73 year-old married-with-three-kids CEO of AT&T? Shit that is scary!+++

She's in a lot of pain and not as functional as she'd pretended to be last week.

+++probably on large doses of morphine or whatever they give nowadays. She might be trying to tell you she is more OK than she is which then drives you nutz which then has her withdraw cause she is dealing with enuf already without your overheated imaginings...off into dimensions of hyper-spatial worry-mode.+++

And that FUCKING SISTER of hers is SO abusive to me! Called me crazy, said I haven't been supportive, etc...hung up on me; wouldn't let me talk to Ma!!!!

+++she is her self-appointed gatekeeper, has been in her life a lot longer than you have, much history there. who the fuk noze. If i wuz you i would play it cool till Ma gets back some strength at which point she will reach out to you and it will be a 50-50 thing more or less again. Dig? Otherwise you have her pulling back, incur wrath of wicked sister gatekeeptress, much hissing gnashing of teeth and shroud of secrecy descends upon the proceedings.+++

Ma's phone is out of minutes; she can't use it again til december. And the sister won't let me call HER phone. Ma and I are back in touch by email now. I'm feeling much, less crazy.

+++if she can stay on computer for some time, you could install a chat client on both ends (use Ma's PC) and communicate that way for hours on end.+++

But I'd kill the sister with my bare hands, if I had the chance... grr

+++sounds like you might get the chance since somewhere you mentioned she is coming back here with Ma to stay for a while. Holy shit, maybe someone can talk her out of that, since you are, as far as i can see, the ideal nurse anyway. Chicken soup and fish stix. However, if she does come back with her installation of a level3 forcefield within a 1/4 mile radius of that neighborhood might be indicated.+++

Truth is: I'm worried sick, and can't do a damn thing.

++++sounds like she is recovering so just play it cool for a bit longer. Stay away from sister.

--S++++

"Some give thanks by seeing films about Indians, transgender people"

2004-11-30T05:16:00.000-08:00

Some give thanks by seeing films about Indians, transgender people
By Caroline Lynchclynch@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal

Movies are a Thanksgiving tradition for Beth Harrison Prado. But instead of seeing a Hollywood blockbuster last night, she watched independent films honoring American Indians and transgender people.

The films, "Lakota Woman" and "By Hook or By Crook," were screened at the Kentucky Theater last night along with three other short films as part of the Reel Revolution Film Series, presented by the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
Prado, who said she is transgendered, wanted to see a film that represented her life and community — because most films don't.

And Thanksgiving felt like the right day to do it.

"The thing I'm personally grateful for is being able to live openly and honestly as a transgender person," said Prado, of Louisville.

Film series organizer Sonja DeVries said the movies, which were picked to honor Native American Heritage Month and Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, celebrate the resistance of both groups and acknowledge their struggle.

In "Lakota Woman," an American Indian gets involved in fighting injustices against her people. "By Hook or By Crook" is a comedy-drama about two women who fall in love while traveling cross-country and learning to rob banks.

The film showings landed on Thanksgiving because the series presents a film on the last Thursday of each month.

DeVries said the alliance considered canceling the show but decided against it, in part because some of the people the film could draw, including transgender people, might be shunned by their families and need community support on the holiday.

Also, "celebrating seemed important in the aftermath of the election," she said. "No matter who's in office, what's important is what we do in our daily lives as far as fighting social and political injustice."

About 20 people milled about in the lobby before curtain call, eating popcorn and organic pumpkin pie.

Among them was 30-year-old Sheila Sutton of Louisville, who said Thanksgiving is a difficult holiday for her because it's a reminder of the hardships the Indians faced.
Sutton wanted to see the films as a reminder of those hardships, which she thinks aren't properly taught in school.

"We don't talk about the atrocities that were committed when people came to this land," she said.

Shelbyville resident Mary Dan Easley, 42, said she came because she has transgender friends and she wanted to be supportive. Easley said it's the first time she has spent Thanksgiving away from her birth family, opting instead for her "chosen family."

She also wanted the learning experience.

"I'm trying not to be ignorant," Easley said.

The Reel Revolution Film Series will have its next showing in January.

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/11/26ky/B5-film1126-4121.html

no reply

2004-11-29T19:23:00.000-08:00

Guess I'll sign off on that support group. I received no replies to this. Guess they're uncomfortable, speaking openly about how painful FFS is. Maybe they just think I'm nuts or unworthy, since Ma's sister says so... Doesn't matter; I'll learn it on my own, the slow way.

Since I've been left out-of-the-loop re: my lover's FFS, I had NO IDEA how painful and stressful the healing process is!
She's recovering, still thousands of miles away, but now at her sister's house. She says the living room, where she replies to my emails, is only forty degrees farenheit (That's just a bit above freezing, for nonUSA people).

Her throat & neck are so tight, she has trouble swallowing. I imagine it's swollen.She's massaging the incisions, as per instructions, both by hand and with electric massager, throughout the day.

Her caretaker is her sister. But the sister works full time. So, Ma's going to be there, alone, a lot.

The sister appears very emotionally unstable. She has been verbally abusive to me since they brought Ma back after the surgery. I'm worried, frankly, for Ma's safety and health. It's too "What ever happened to Baby Jane?" for my tastes. I'm just doing my best to avoid contact with the sister, so as not to inflame her into something rash. But she's untrustworth, IMO, and has been NO help to me in getting me accurate info.

For instance: Ma didn't get to bed, the night they flew back from the big city, until three am! Apparantly, the sister's house is several hours' drive from the air port! WHY didn't they spend the night in a hotel? Ma says she was incoherent, by the time they got in!

If I'd been permitted to be part of planning all this, THAT would never have happened!

It's only a four hour or so flight, so, except for possible lay overs, I can think of no reason why Ma was forced to stay awake, sitting in a wheelchair, plane seat or vehicle seat, for so long!

It's all quite disturbing to me.

At any rate, since I've been left out of all this planning, and since I don't know where to get information, I must ask this group. What tips do you have for Ma's recovery, which I could pass on to her. I'll be emailing regularly, sending snail mail, and phoning. I'd like to be her long distance coach, keep her focused on healing and keep her actively participating in her own recovery.

Ma had bone burring of the brow, eyes, jaw. She had fat removed from the cheeks. She had her upper lip shortened and filled. They clipped her ears. They lowered her hair line and lifted her brow. I seem to remember something about clipping muscles in her cheeks; I hope I'm wrong!

Some stitches came out at the Dr's office, just before Ma flew out of the Dr's town. In a week or so, Ma's sister is to remove some staples.I'm just miserable. I can't help much from way, out here. But, if there's anything I CAN do, pass on to Ma, etc., PLEASE tell me!

TIA

Goodies Are Coming!

2004-11-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

Date:
Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:40:05 -0700
Subject:
goodies are coming!

Hey, Ma,

After I read your email last night, I was thinking, "what can I do to
help Ma heal?"

Well, it turns out, I already HAD done something, and didn't even KNOW
it! I'd ordered you some goodies on EBay, which I'd planned as
surprises
for when you returned!

Turns out, some of them are said to have healing properties! Whoda
thot?

Now, I can't vouch for any of this; I have no scientific evidence of
the
claims I've read.

But it couldn't hurt, huh? Besides, they're fun things (which is
actually why I got them, in the first place!).

Now, it's only 5:30am here, so I've got some waiting to do, 'til I can
walk with the dog to that cute, little post office we went to that time
and mail these out to you.

But I'm all excited about it. You know how I get when I have a treat
for
you. I've been bouncing around the kitchen, doing the Thalidamide Baby
dance, and singing to the cats. Porky thinks I'm nuts, and got on my
bed
to get out of the way.

I do think it's awesome I accidentally got stuff that's supposed to
help
with healing, though.

I've been wrapping and packing everything, which is fun.

I'm sending along info. re: each item sent and also some stuff I found
on the 'net about the supposed healing properties of each.

It's all cold and shit here. Isn't supposed to warm up 'til tomorrow.

But, I walked to Lowe's for water with Porky last night, when it was
below freezing, and didn't suffer for it.

My heel's still "iffy," and I couldn't walk...for some reason...earlier
today. But, by about 8pm, I was good to go.

The dental clinic is at right up the street!~ Can you believe that? So,
as soon as I put my scooter tire on tomorrow, I'll be heading up there
to fill out the miles of paper work they require before I can get an
appointment.

It's one of those "factory" type joints: I don't expect to be treated
with any respect there.

But I've started the process.

You see, if I can't really kiss you pretty soon, my head's going to
explode.

I'm not promising I'll be able to kiss you as soon as you get back, but
I may be ready to go by Feb. or March, maybe.

I'm finishing the recording studio today. Then, I'll call NNN and email
FSRN and Frieda, to ask for assignments and/or pitch stories.

I want to buy a new vehicle, by myself.

Keep rubbin' your boo boos. Don't forget to eat healthy. Scrunch up
your
hair. Do isometric excercises to tone your tummy, thighs and arms. You
could lift 20 oz. soda bottles of water, too; that wouldn't be too much
weight lifting during recovery. Just don't strain. And BREATHE!
BREATHE!

Oh! Could you possibly wait to cut your bangs until you return? I would
like to do it, and shape your hair to match the bangs.

I can at LEAST contribute THAT much

The cats are all playing and acting silly as hell, cuz I'm up so early
and fussing with paper and styrofoam peanuts. They're all helping me!
LOL

I love you, Ma

Ma

email to Ma re: my anger

2004-11-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

Dear Ma,

I only found the FFS stuff by accident. I have my bank login in your "favorites," under the"finance" folder there. I wasn't looking at the screen when I clicked. The mouse had moved to "health." THAT's how I learned the expression, "FFS." I looked at a few things, but not in great detail.

I'd been googling "facial surgery, reconstructive, cosmetic..etc" but hadn't really found much that was useful about the bone grinding, etc.

With the term, "FFS," I was able to access info that I could actually use. And, yes, I played with that virtual makeover thingy. I thot it was awesome. But they don't have good hairdos.

I talked with P tonight. He explained that you're not up to par. He said I should wait 'til you're feeling better to tell you the stuff about my feelings.

But, you see, hunny: I DIDN'T KNOW! I really didn't! You made it sound like it was no big deal. I'd thought that, once you were lucid, you were pretty OK. I HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING!! NOBODY PREPARED ME!

Now, your sister's calling me crazy and saying I'm not supportive. Ma, if I'm in the dark, ignorant, and uneducated, HOW could I be supportive??

When I found all those URLs of yours re: FFS, I just couldn't understand why you hadn't shown me this stuff. I still don't. YOU didn't have to tell me; I WANT TO EDUCATE MYSELF! But if I don't know the jargon, like "FFS," how the hell can I find info. on such obscure stuff? YOU know what the net is like: type in "transexual..." anything, and you get THOUSANDS of shitty "shemale" crap! ICK!

Ma, I didn't even know what hotel you were staying in.

Now, look, I know I shouldn't have expressed so much anger so soon. If I'd known what you are going through I NEVER would have sent those emails so soon. You MUST know me well enough to believe THAT?I didn't know about the temp. where you're emailing, either.

Your sister's always mad at me for not being PSYCHIC! Every TIME I tell her I need information, she gets MAD at me! She WON'T LISTEN! And she has been the gatekeeper to my ONLY source of info about YOU! Whenever I ask for info, she gets mad. Then, I say I need some respect, and she threatens me or hangs up on me!

Ma, I love you so deeply. I've been terrified for your health and safety, and powerless to do anything about it.

REMEMBER: I watched that GRUESOME CSI, the NIGHT BEFORE your surgery!

Since my baby died, I have a terrible talent for vividly imagining the possible pains and sufferings of loved ones. I did it when M was dying; I'd be sick and sleepless for days, waking with the most AWFUL images in my head! I tried to explain that to your sister, and she got furious!

I haven't been available by phone these last, few days because I sincerely believed you don't want me involved in any of this. I mean, not even the HOTEL??

I've talked to a trans. therapist today. I've also talked to the spouse of a mtf trans.

I'm feeling much, more sane. I'm not crazy to be so scared.

I guess you just didn't think of the effect your major surgery would have on me. I didn't think of it, because I really didn't understand, at first, that it WAS MAJOR surgery! By the time I'd figured that out, I was FRANTIC! And nobody would tell me anything. Not really.

I've tried to be strong, honest. And I'm sorry you're in so much pain and discomfort. Look: you went OUT Friday night, to a performance! HOW could I KNOW what was going ON with you???????

I didn't want YOU to describe the procedures; I wanted to know how to learn about it.

Listen, I want to apologize for panicing and for dumping this all on you too soon. I didn't KNOW it was too soon! If you don't understand that I'd do ANYTHING to protect and nurture you, then I just don't know what to do. I DIDN'T KNOW!

I have been working on a project while you've been gone. I've gotten a LOT done, already, and it's shaping up to be a helluva wingding. NO, it's not a party or any of that crap. But I'll bet you a hundred bucks you're gonna really dig it. I'm STILL not going to tell you what it is. You've got to get totally well, sassy and silly and come HOME to me before you can see what it is.

And, no, you don't have to come home early. You have to come home HEALTHY!!!

I don't pray. I'm an agnostic. But I do talk to the world, as I go about my day. Who knows, it might help. Can't hurt. I want you to know I've been talking about you to the world almost constantly since you hugged me goodbye at the air port. I wake up in the middle of the night, talking about you.

I'll stay out of the way, if that's what you want.

I'll be up your ass, if THAT's what you want!

Just let me know.

I'm a mother of a dead child. I tend to get pretty fierce and desperate when One Of My Own is in distress. You are my family, Ma--more than you could probably imagine. I got vicious, trying to get you to let me in. I'm sorry.

Know this: your property, your dignity, your stuff...it's all safe with me.

I'm not crazy, like your sister said. People in pain sometimes make sounds they wouldn't make, otherwise. She's a nurse; she ought to know that.I've been in the WORST pain, except for M's death, since my baby died over your surgery. Real terror, Ma: the REAL thing!

This last email of yours has helped me tremendously.

I'm so sorry I was hurtful, especially since you're in a weakened condition.

As for "mannish," please forgive me. I very seldom go below the belt. It was uncalled for.

Scary stuff has appeared before me since you've been gone. It clouded my judgment, if you can understand that. The trans. therapist tonight heard it; I told her about it. She said, when people are desperate, they sometimes act out. So, all I can do is apologize. You do have your distant moments; I thought this was one of them. I thought I was being dismissed as a silly, natal girl who'd never get you. I was furious.

Anyway, the house is filling up with something fanfuckintastic, waiting for my girl to get back. And it's almost CLEAN, too! Plus, the recording studio will be up and running tomorrow! Gotta earn some jack,y'know.

P sends his greetings; so do the ladies next door. R says hi and so does J. MY friends are all rootin' for you. They want you to be well and happy.

Believe it or not, as scared as I am, I really AM looking forward to seeing that grade A face of yours, especially over an air-squeezin' bear hug.

I truly love you. I hope you can believe that.

I'll lay off now. You write when you can and so willI. I won't ask any big questions or make demands on you anymore while you recover. I had no idea what this would be like! Even people who've gone through it make light of the recovery period, and don't explain it accurately. I want you whole, Ma. I want you healthy and happy. If that means leaving you alone, that's what I'll do.

I paniced. I'm sorry. It's been harder than you could know.

It will NEVER happen again.

I promise.

Love,

Ma

Billy Joel to the rescue

2004-11-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

Ma and I had a conversation once about Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are." I'd forgotten the conversation, but I remembered I haven't heard my Billy Joel's "Greatest Hits" album in a very long time, and wanted to hear it again.

I was organizing my vinyl collection today, repairing my stereo, and sorting through my cassette tapes.

I found the album. It's on, right now.

Yes, "Just The Way You Are" is poignant, and tugs mercilessly at my poor heart right now.

But here's one I hadn't really listened to before:

"The Stranger"

Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves
When everyone has gone

Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on

Well we all fall in love
But we disregard the danger
Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell

Why were you so surprised
That you never saw the stranger
Did you ever let your lover see
The stranger in yourself?

Don't be afraid to try again
Everyone goes south
Every now and then

You've done it, why can't
Someone else?
You should know by now
You've been there yourself

Once I used to believe
I was such a great romancer
Then I came home to a woman
That I could not recognize

When I pressed her for a reason
She refused to even answer
It was then I felt the stranger
Kick me right between the eyes

Well we all fall in love
But we disregard the danger
Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell

Why were you so surprised
That you never saw the stranger
Did you ever let your lover see
The stranger in yourself?

Don't be afraid to try again
Everyone goes south
Every now and then

You've done it why can't
Someone else?
You should know by now
You've been there yourself

You may never understand
How the stranger is inspired
But he isn't always evil
And he is not always wrong

Though you drown in good intentions
You will never quench the fire
You'll give in to your desire
When the stranger comes along

"Just The Way You Are"

Don't go changing to try and please me,
You never let me down before.
And don't imagine you're too familiar,
And I don't see you anymore.

I would not leave you in times of trouble,
We never could have come this far.
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times,
I take you just the way you are.

Don't go tryin', some new fashion,
Don't change the color of your hair,
mmmmm
You always have my unspoken passion,
Although I might not seem to care,

I don't want clever conversation,
Never want to work that hard,
I just want someone that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be,
The same old someone that I knew.
Ah, what will it take till you believe in me,
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you and that's forever,
And this I promise from the heart.
I could not love you any better,
I love you just the way you are.

I don't want clever conversation,
I never want to work that hard.
I just want someone that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are.

"She's Always A Woman To Me"

She can kill with a smile,
She can wound with her eyes
And she can ruin your faith
with her causual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child,
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth,
But she'll never believe you
And she'll take what you give her, as long as it's free
Yeah, she steals like a theif,
But she's always a woman to me

Oh, She takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, And she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more
than the Garden of Eden
And she'll carelessly cut you,
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best in the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself,
'Cause She's always a woman to me

Mmmmmm
Oh, She takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time

Oh, And she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She is frequently kind,
And she's suddenly cool
She can do as she pleases, She's nobody's fool
And she can't be convicted,
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me
Mmmmmm

what's real?

2004-11-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

You have told me, on several occasions, that I'm your best friend. You said you can talk to me about anything, even more so than with your sister or anybody else.

I seldom commit to someone to the point where I feel I could share my life with that person. You were one of those people, for me.

Let me remind you about the others.

Teramota got real secretive and started shutting me out of her life just before her plan to make love to Elizabeth on a Christmas Eve. That was to be my first Christmas Eve, living in the same town as she. I'd moved almost five hundred miles, to live near her. I didn't care about Elizabeth; I cared about the fact that Teramota basically lied to me about something major in her life, by not sharing it with me.

Then, there's the Christmas Theresa decided it was more important to reacquaint herself with her three-hundred-dollar-a-day cocaine habit, so went to her home town. I told her, if she's that interested in resuming her addiction, she was to have no further contact with me. She chose cocaine. She hadn't even let me know the addiction was causing cravings, so I could have helped and supported her. She lied to me about something major in her life, by not sharing it with me.

And now, here you are, flying to your sister's, to recover from FFS. You didn't give me all the facts. You kept me out. You lied to me about something major in your life, by not sharing it with me.

Then, I find this "favorite quote" of yours: "A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you. -Francois Sagan "

Jesus. So, what? You're just doing time with me, until the surgery's all healed up and you can snag another distant, abusive selfish bastard to stick it in you?

You once told me I'm the best lover you ever had.

It's because I give myself to you completely, without reservation. I care about your pleasure and it thrills me to see you pleased.

But, I don't have a penis. And that's the bottom line. So, I don't count.

I saw a photo of your plastic surgeon today: fat, ugly, hairy and balding.

And he knows more about your beauty than I do?

I have constantly told you how pretty, how beautiful, you are.

But a MAN had to approve of you!

It's all about getting Daddy's approval for being a good, little girl, isn't it?

Even your "new" name was something you chose because you thought it would be easier for your father to say, because it's similar to your "boy" name.

Well, I'm not your daddy.

I can never measure up.

I refuse to compete with the bastard.

I loved you as completely as I could.

I thought it was the painkillers, that night. I asked, I guess I shouldn't bother to call any more, huh? and you replied, "no."

I asked, there's nothing I can do to help, is there? and you said, "no."

Many a true thing was said under the influence of narcotics.

You betrayed me. You took my trust for granted. You shut me out.

You're dead to me now.

I've had enough

2004-11-27T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe I SHOULD be in communication, but, obviously, she thinks that isn't necessary. Yeah, it would have been nice to know the details of the procedures. I'd have liked to know what to expect, what the risks were, what recovery is like, etc. It would have reassured me.

Both she and her sister have consistantly sounded impatient with me when I've called. They don't like it that I ask questions.

So, yes, I'm in the dark.

And a face I won't recognize will show up in four weeks, expecting me to accept everything as normal.

Well, nothing is normal.

The new wardrobe, jewelry, books, toys and other gifts I ordered on EBay arrive now every day. I'll wait 'til everything's here to wash things again. I wish people wouldn't pack clothing in scented drier sheets and stuff. I have an aversion to artificial scents. Some items have made me physically ill. I've had to hang things outside in the wind for days, to air them out, so the rest of the laundry won't stink, too.

I'm still hanging her bedroom door. I'll finish painting it today. I want her shut away from me as much as possible when she gets back. And I don't want to have to walk through her bedroom in the mornings to check my email, so I'm finishing the doorway to my recording studio (which forms another hallway I can pass through).

I'm waiting to see whether I feel like wrapping these some fifty presents. Right now, I don't give a fig. The paper and decorations are here, but I've lost my will.

I so wanted her to come home to beautiful things to wear! She's been dressing in old, frayed, bleached-out, stained junk for a very long time. She needed pretty but practical clothing, to go with her new face.

My income's only about six hundred dollars per month. It's a disability pension. I've been secretly saving money for months now, so I could buy her some clothes for her return from FFS.

For international readers, that's about enough money to pay rent on a small apartment, buy about five bags of groceries, and buy a carton of cigarettes per month. Cigarettes are cheap where we live.

I managed to save about three hundred dollars: half a month's income. I spent it all on her, except for one scarf and one dress I ordered for myself. Then, I took out a bank loan on next month's check to buy myself a real, Gemeinhart concert flute. I'd checked the prices of "tune up" kits for flutes; they run about seventy dollars. Getting my flute tuned by a professional would cost about two, though they'd polish it and get the big dent out of the mouthpiece, too. I can't get the dent out; I've tried.

So, for eighty dollars, I'm getting this new flute. I'll keep the old one. It has many memories of good times. I got it when I was about eight years old; it was a Christmas present from my parents. It's thirty-one years old.

So, I broke down and bought me a flute. If I have to spend Christmas alone, I may as well have a way to play along with the holiday music specials on public television. I like to sound good and my old flute is leaky, squeeky and off key.

I unplugged the phone this morning. I stayed online late into the night last night. I know she tried to call; I got knocked off line several times.

But I don't want to hear how everything's so fine and I shouldn't worry. I just don't want to hear it anymore.

Everything's NOT fine.

She flies out of The Big City today for her sister's house, with her sister, to finish recovering for four, more weeks.

She'll have access to email there. She'll see several of the posts in this blog.

She'll also see one of the virtual FFS "after" photos of herself that I copied and edited in photoshop. It now says, "Hi, I'm _______! I'm a self-obsessed, cold-hearted bitch! Aren't I beautiful?"

And, on Monday (because the post office is closed over the weekend), she'll get the pink, Cashmere shawl/scarf I hand-embroidered in purple silk with fresh water pearl accents. It's large enough to cover her whole head and shoulders, so she can go walking without scaring people 'til her face heals. It's from Pakistan, is a garment worn by Muslim women to cover their heads.

So, either late tonight, when they get in, or sometime tomorrow, she'll know my position on being left out of this.

Hell, she didn't even tell me what hotel she stayed in at The Big City, for her post op recovery! I found the damned URL in her Favorites a week later!

People tell me she's lucky to have my support, understanding and love. They tell me many transsexuals lose family, friends, jobs, freedom, etc. when they transition. They tell me my support is very important to Ma.

Well, maybe my support of her is important to THEM, and to ME, but Ma's in a universe of her own, where it's all about her, and where my needs, questions, concerns and fears are inconveniences, silly and inconsequential.

So, the phone's unplugged. I won't reply to email, either. I won't read any letters. I've had it.

When she comes back at the end of this year, she's on her own. She can go on with her life as though I never got in the way.

Tell you one thing, though: it'll save me about three hundred more dollars; I WAS planning to buy a larger mattress for my bed, so we could sleep together more comfortably. She can sleep in her room from now on.

I'll just sleep with the dog.

"we didn't have time"

2004-11-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

Something you said last night over the phone has been bothering me all day. I'd asked you why you hadn't shared the research material on FFS with me.

First, you said, "you never asked."

EXCUSE ME? I've been trying, this whole time, to understand what the procedures, risks and results are! I've commented on it and speculated about it, almost every day. You'd brush it off. So, I guessed you either didn't want to discuss it, so you wouldn't gross yourself out, or you really didn't know WHAT would really happen in surgery!

I answered, "I'm kind of Japanese, when it comes to personal information: I don't ask questions; I don't invade privacy. I figured, if you wanted to talk to me about it, you would. I couldn't know you had all that information you weren't sharing with me. I wish you would have..."

And then, you said the fatal sentence: "We didn't have time for heavy, philosophical discussions..."

I didn't want philosophy; I wanted FACTS!

And what the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? What a MANNISH thing to say!

I'm not talking about new age belly button contemplation here. I just wished you'd have turned me on to the URLs you had, stashed in your Favorites folders!

I needed information!

How dismissive! Heavy philosophy, indeed! What a condescending, PATRONizing thing to say to me!

Yet, we seemed to "have time" to go to "Spiderman2," "Alien vs. Predator," and "Catwoman!" We had time for Marie Calendar's cream pies and nature walks. We had time for Chinese dinners and shopping.

But we "didn't have time" for you to help me educate myself on FFS! Hell, I didn't even know what "FFS" MEANT, until FIVE DAYS after you'd had the surgery, thousands of miles away!

I don't know why you wouldn't discuss this with me. Did you think I'd try to talk you out of it? Yes, I think you look like a natal woman. No, I don't think it's necessary in order to "pass." Yes, it's dangerous, expensive and risky.

But, it's your life, your body and your experience. I was supportive, if you'll remember.

What? I'm just a silly, natal woman, who can't understand you negative self image?

Do you think natal women don't wish we could be accepted for what we look like? Do you not remember me telling you about getting BEATEN UP on a public bus, just becaus some teen thugs didn't like the way I was DRESSED?

Do you know how HARD it is for me to keep my chin up and walk with dignity in a world where my size, stature, age and everything else about my physical configuration is considered a JOKE for late-night comedians?

Do you not know I've compromised, even, so people won't know I'm a queer? You don't know this, but, when I was a young woman, people often called me, "sir!"

Nope. There's no excuse for the way you've shut me out of this.

I really hope you're happy with your pretty, eighteen-thousand-dollar face. I hope she keeps you warm at night.

I trusted you, Ma. I let you in to a heart that's been neglected, abused, betrayed, tortured and abandoned since I was born! I TRUSTED YOU!

It won't happen again.

You didn't give me enough

2004-11-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

You've been planning this surgery for years. You knew what to expect. You even saw photos of people right after surgery. You have all this research info that you familiarized yourself with, well before anything happened.

I had NOTHING! I had only what you told me about why you were doing it, what would be done. Vague, general information that really only caused me to have more questions than it answered.

I tell you, in our phone calls while you're in The BIg City, "I love you." And you say, "me, too." Yes, I KNOW you love YOU. I need to hear that you love ME!

You WON'T hear how traumatized I've been by all this. You just keep telling me not to worry. How could I NOT worry? I didn't know what the hell was going on!

Now, here it is a whole WEEK after the surgery, and I just now start finding URLs on your computer that explain things to me! You NEVER showed me ANY of this!

I was just supposed to take a back seat until you came back, as though none of this was important to me.

THEY TORE YOUR DAMN FACE OFF!!

You planned to finish recovering at your sister's house, after you left The Big City, for four weeks.

You planned that before we got together.

You haven't changed those plans, taking me into consideration.

You could come back early. You don't need to depend on your sister so much, for so long. I could care for you for a week or so, before you go back to work more-than-full-time.

I was never a nurse, true. But I was a nurses' aid for five years.

As it is, I'll have only two, maybe three, days with you before you go back to work.

And your SISTER will be here! The woman who threatened not to pass on information about your condition to me, because she didn't like it that I asserted my needs! The woman who wouldn't acknowledge the death of my daughter.

I'll be expected to entertain her, cook for her....

I won't have any time with you when you get back.

Not really.

Well, this has torn me up. I was SO scared, and NOBODY, including you, takes that seriously, respects that, or offers me any comfort or consolation!

I even told you tonight I haven't felt this horrible, this scared, since my daughter died. Went right past your ears.

I NEED TIME with you. I need to talk this out, work this through.

I'm afraid of your return!

I'm so angry with you for acting like I'm too irresponsible, untrustworthy for you to recover in my presence.

You know what? I NEED TO RECOVER FROM THIS, TOO!!!

Who the hell's helping ME through all this?

NOBODY!

Because I have to keep your Big Secret, at my expense.

And you WON'T HEAR that I need time with you, that I need to heal from this with you.

So, you've made your plans. And they don't include me, at all.

What kind of shape do you think I'll be in, by the time you get back, four weeks from now?

You can't trust me?

Well, I can't trust you!

Marci Bowers

2004-11-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

yick. Didn't know Dr. Bowers was consultant for that CSI episode. Explains why it seemed more real with details than most.

But it's still like Stephen Spielberg's treatment of "The Color Purple;" I never forgave Alice Walker for the sellout rewrite!

ANYWAY, here's a video interview with Dr. Bowers from Entertainment Tonight, if you're interested: http://et.tv.yahoo.com/tv/2004/11/18/csi_transgender/

I'm very conflicted about this.

it happened to me, too

2004-11-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

to a support group I just found:

I got left here, all alone, while she flew off for FFS.

Now, I realize: we've only been together less than half a year. She'd already made her plans. She's been working toward this for years.

And I'm supportive.

But, it didn't just happen to her, you know. It happened to me, too.

All I could do was stay here and worry about blood clots, infections, mutilations, anesthesia reactions...

She asked me to tape CSI, the night before her surgery. I, of course, couldn't help but watch. Gruesome and grizly titilation and exploitation.

I sat here and bawled my eyes out.

I'm really scared.

What if she decides she's attractive enough, she can "do better" than me?

What if I can't look her in the eyes?

She has digitized, virtual pictures of herself "after" FFS. I HATE them! That Stepford Wife, Barbie bimbo image took my girlfriend away from me and HURT her!

I don't handle change very well; who does?

I don't want to be identified only as the [in]significant other of a mtf transgender: an appendage, an accessory to a transcentric identification.

I love this woman so much. I'd do anything for her, honest, as long as it was healthy and constructive.

She's the BEST thing to come along in my life since...well, it's been awhile.

I've white knuckled through the not knowing with as much grace and dignity as I can muster.

I get to spend the "holidays" alone, waiting and worrying if I'll be able to relate to a New Face when she gets back.

And she goes back to her more-than-full-time job within a few days of her return.

I know: this isn't about me; it's about her.

But when do I get some comfort, some hugs, some soothing and comforting?

I've been a good, little soldier. I sucked it up.

Well, the pressure's been a bit hard on me. I've unraveled a bit now.

Maybe I'm not supposed to say such things in here. Maybe this group wants to keep things informational.

But I swear, emotional health IS physical health. And I need to stay healthy for both of us.

Happy Thanksgiving.

inSignificant other?

2004-11-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

Y'know, it's hard, not to be jealous. It seems the trans get all the attention. I don't particularly want to be identified as the lover of a trans. That's like I'm an appendage, an accessory. I resent the transcentric definition.

And most SOs of trans people seem to be wives of mtf trans, who married before the transition. How can I relate to that?

Ma's been a woman since we met. Hell, she's been a woman since almost a decade before her SRS. She was a girl since she was a kid, mostly.

I found this article. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3109454,00.html about a mtf trans and wife. It follows them through the SRS procedure and afterward.

I am NOT Ma's sister. Oh, we're sisterly, sure. Ma has 4 sisters; she's used to living intimately with women. I'm an only child, but did the collective thing in the 70's: all women are sisters.

I'm her girlfriend, her lover, whatever. I'm not her wife.

Yet, I could relate to Dana's struggle with Lynne's transition. All I'm going through is the FFS, right now. But I feel hatred for this Stepford Wife image on Ma's computer. I feel I'm not woman enough to get Ma to see she's beautiful without surgery.

Bottom line is: we're all scared of change. And gender change is pretty profound, fundamental and intimate change.

I can relate to Dana, whether I want to or not.

Yesterday, I was thinking how lucky I am: the love of my life is merely far away for cosmetic reconstructive surgery. While I worried about blood clots, infections, mutilations, allergic reactions, anafalactic (sp?) shock, etc, I knew the risks were not huge. I was thinking: at least, I don't have a family member, stationed in Iraq or Afganistan over the holidays. Gawd!

Now, I'm thinking I'm lucky I didn't fall in love with Ma before her transition. I don't know if I'm brave enough, strong enough, to deal.

Anyway, I wish Lynne and Dana well.

I'd like to plead temporary insanity, your Honor.

2004-11-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, I got that out of my system.

I have been feeling guilty, for having such thoughts, and have pushed them down in my mind.

I barely discussed them with Ma when she was still here. I know SHE felt some guilt, spending all that money on her face.

I was supportive; I said misery isn't transformative. I said I wanted to live in a liberated world, where people got to be happy, at peace with themselves. I don't want to live in a Marxist, industrialist, utilitarian, proletarian world of greys.

I like color, texture, music, sweet smells and good flavors.

She looked enough like a Maoist, anyway, with her six shirts and four pairs of pants that look exactly alike.

I mean, even before she LEFT for her surgery, I began ordering a new wardrobe for her on EBay, to celebrate her return.

Well, last night was absolutely miserable. I looked at that "after" digitized image of her on her computer monitor and growled, "I HATE you!"

I didn't get to sleep until very late.

I woke thinking, "what do I have to get up for?" It's grey, cold and raining. I'm alone and scared. The "holidays" are coming and I'll be alone with artificial mirth blasting in from every mass medium that invades my space. Hell, even Google puts cutsie graphics on their home page.

Another day of confusion, grief, anxiety, anger, abandonment....

...why get up?

But I've learned, over the years, that depression escalates when indulged. I've also learned that depression is temporary, when NOT indulged.

So, even though I had no rational reason NOT to lay around and feel sorry for myself, I got up.

I turned on lights. I raised blinds. I turned up heat. I even turned on the radio, even IF I'd have to listen to her voice, prerecorded, announcing something.

I even made a normal breakfast: the kind we usually eat together. It was a bit too rich: too much fat and salt from the sausage. I fed the rest to the cats.

I haven't been eating; I've eaten only enough to stave off hunger pangs.

I put on my glasses to read something. And it hit me.

Ma paid for those glasses. She paid for 2 pair, actually: both bifocal, one sun tinted. They came with cases and a free eye exam, buy one, get one free. But that was three hundred dollars' worth of glasses.

That's how I could manage to embroider that scarf I just sent to her. I haven't embroidered ANYTHING in ten years! I couldn't SEE well enough!

And the vitamins I've been forgetting to take: Ma paid for those, too. I was malnourished when she first met me.

And the freezer from which I pulled a pack of cigarettes this morning: Ma paid for that. The food in it came from both our budgets. I eat better now than I have in fifteen years. It's wholesome food, good varieties. It isn't just cheap fat, carbs, sugar, to fill me up.

I've been remembering all the stuff she fussed over, before she left. Do I have enough money? Should she help me cut a doggy door? How will I get around, without a car? Can I record phone calls on a computer, so I can sell radio stories? Do the cats have enough dry food? Do I need a new coat?

Hell, she moved into this house with me to provide me a safer living space. She could have kept living in her cheap, rented room. She's been saving most of her salary, for years, for this surgery.

Even though this is a new relationship, she moved us in here.

And I was wondering if she loved me?

AM I CRAZY?

So, I've been working all day at stuff I've needed to do, but put off 'til she was gone, so she wouldn't have to come home from work tired, to a mess.

When she comes back, I'd like to be healthier, with my work going on. If it's at ALL possible, I'd like to be nonsmoking, too.

I had to get that out of my system last night. I had to put it out where I could look at it, really see it. I didn't need it peeking over my shoulder, whispering in my ear. It would have made me sick. I lanced the infection.

Today, I walked past the computer monitor. There was the digitized Ma, looking at me. I looked back. I asked, "Ma, are you in there?"

It didn't answer, of course; it couldn't. It's not real. It's not Ma. It's an artist's rendering. The artist is a man.

The surgeon, too, is a man. I've been thinking about that. Now, I know he made some suggestions; that's his job.

But Ma isn't a passive person. When she wants to do something, she investigates it thoroughly. She learns the subject; she askes assertive questions. She doesn't just passively whimper, "ok, Doctor. Whatever you think is best."

She traveled all over the country, looking for the best surgeon, the most practical procedure. She's been planning this, what she calls her, "Evil Plan," for YEARS!

This is HER decision, her choice.

No man ever told Ma what to do--not for long, anyway.

I'll tell you about her mastectomy some time. Damn, that woman's strong.

So, I'm pleading temporary insanity. I had to get the toxins out of me.

I'm better now.

you can't hear me

2004-11-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I called. I plugged in the phone, right before 10pm, as we'd agreed.

You didn't call me, so I called.

I was prepared. If your sister answered, I'd ask to speak with you. If you were still not capable of speaking, I'd say I'd call again, tomorrow night.
You asked if I were OK.

I said, "would I tell you, if I weren't?"

You didn't hear what I was saying. I was saying, "you're recovering from surgery. You've had as serious a trauma to your face as if you'd run your head through a windshield, but more controlled. It's not good for you to be under any stress right now. So, I'm not going to tell you how miserable I am."

You asked if I'd unplugged the phone.

I said I hadn't wanted to deal with your sister.

You didn't get that, either.

Then, like a fool, I said, "it's probably too early for me to mention this, but, would you consider returning earlier than you'd planned, since the Dr. says you're going to be fine in a couple of weeks?"

You won't come back, you said, until the end of December.

You said you're drowsy. You said you have no more discomfort than if you had a bad head cold.

It's the pain meds.

I'm having flashbacks of M, when she died, that last phone call, when she was so out of it.

Cold terror runs through me like ice daggers.

I'm vomiting frequently. I have chest pains.

I'm all alone and terrified.

You don't know how badly this is affecting me.

I said, there's probably not much point in me calling you any more, is there?

You agreed there wasn't.

I asked if you needed anything from me.
You said you didn't.

My heart is not breaking; it's corroding, as though sprayed with acid. It's vaporizing and melting, with a terrible stench.

And you're too far gone to care.

I'm, of course, wondering if you ever did care.

I even said it, and you didn't pick up on that, either.

I said, "Well, I guess you're all that's really important." I said it softly, gently. But I felt bitter anger.

I put the "after" picture of you on your computer desk top, so I have to look her dead in the eyes, any time I use your computer.

I found a nice "before" picture of you, then scrolled back to the "after." I literally screamed, it frightened me so badly.

I figure I should look at that picture, every day, until you get back. Maybe the hate I feel at that image will subside. Maybe the fear it evokes in me will deaden. Maybe I'll get used to seeing it.

I hate her. She has taken you away from me. She has mutilated you. She has told you you weren't good enough, as you were. She tells you I'm a fool for thinking you were beautiful. She tells you you're only filling time with me, until you can attract someone better.

I watched "The Swan" on FOX tonight. I wanted to see what they'd look like in their bandages, right after surgery.

I watched good looking, normal women get transformed into Barbie dolls. And they thought it was wonderful. Hell, the butch cop even SQUEALED!

So, you've joined the enemy camp: the camp that says we women aren't adequate as we are, that we should hate our bodies and faces, that we should spend small fortunes to accommodate the insane, deranged, patriarchal image of the Ideal Woman.

How do I reconcile all this, all alone?
How do I deal with feeling fundamentally abandoned by what you've done to yourself?

I was SO SCARED! They peeled your FACE off your skull!

Now, when you come back, you'll be working and going to school, full time.
I'll watch you drift farther and farther away from me.

I'll still be the fat, ugly, impoverished loser.

You'll get perks and benefits for your appearance.

You'll leave me farther and farther behind.

No, this isn't jealousy.

It's the worst form of grief.

I feel I've lost the last, sane friend I'll ever have.

Like you've gone over to the dark side.
I wish you could come home earlier. I wish you could spend some time with me.
I need some reassurance that you're still with me, still real, still my girl. Before you go right back to more-than-full-time work and school.

I need you.

But, maybe it's true: maybe you're all that really matters. Maybe you just keep me around for a warm body and girl lessons.

I need you to come home. I don't like how I'm thinking. Six weeks of this will drive me over the brink, where I won't be able to get back.

I can feel my barriers coming WAY back up, to protect me from you.

I'm cold, rigid, bitter.

I can't even remember you now.

bereft

2004-11-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

I think people who say, "I'm lost without you" are pathetic, neurotic losers, incapable of true love.

I think love empowers, strengthens and nourishes.

Those I've loved whom I've lost are still sources of strength for me. I'm better for having loved them.

I'm not lost without her.

But I'm sad. It's not loneliness. I've been alone for most of my life; I'm accustomed to that.

This feeling is one of missing opportunities to twine our lives. The little stories and events we share all the time: they're missing.

It's a feeling of waiting. It stretches time into agonizingly long periods.

It's a familiar feeling.

I've been waiting for her my whole life.

I've been waiting for someone who'd understand: genital mutilation, being too smart for the group, blatant creativity and resourcefulness, wicked humor, living as first a runaway and then an outcast.

We have SO MUCH in our seperate lives that is like the other's experience. They're odd, peculiar things: I remodeled a Winnebego to live in; she remodeled a horse trailer. There are many other examples.

You think I don't want to pick up the phone and call? You think I don't want to hear how her day went, to tell her about mine?

We've never spent a night apart since we began this dance.

You think I'm not worried about post surgical depression?

You think I don't realize, every time an incoming phone call knocks me off line, that it MIGHT be a medical emergency?

But what could I do, if it were, anyway?

You think I don't wonder, "what if it's her? What if she's well enough to talk on the phone?"

...and then, as I start to run for the phone to plug it in, I think... maybe that sister hasn't had enough of you yet. Maybe she wants to hear you bleed some more.

I hope she's smart enough to figure out I'm ok. Surely, if she as been calling, she's heard the busy signal when I'm online. So, she must know I'm here, safe.

I hope she can figure out that something bad happened between her sister and me, and that I'll be in contact once they've left The Big City for her sister's farm.

I hope she can understand this isn't easy for me. I hope she can understand that it isn't about bruised ego, but about deep wounds that I need to protect from abuse.

She knows her sister is bossy, angry, domineering and irrational.

Like me.

I wasn't rude. I was very polite. I simply asserted my own needs, clearly.

...and was threatened. Her sister actually said she'd no longer talk to me, if I kept that up.

Well, I'll keep that up, dear. So, you won't be talking to me.

I'm responsible for my own health and well being. You want to try to screw with that? I'm outta there!

THENNN, I cussed her out and hung up.

I hope Ma can figure this out, so she won't feel abandoned.

I hope she knows I must have very good reason not to call, not to answer the phone.

This isn't petty; it's a matter of principle.

And we've all been compromising our principles far too much lately.

Can you say, "John Kerry?"

More presents arrived today: beautiful things. Her bedroom's starting to fill up like an Arab wedding feast.

And only about half of it's here so far.

As the postal carrier arrived today, I was waiting. I said, "it's like Christmas, every day!"

He said, "you're starting to make me mad!" He was just kidding, of course.

But, they'll all be here, well before people start sending holiday packages. So, I've avoided the rush.

I want her home. When I go to bed, I try to imagine that arm, snaking around my ribs; those plush breasts, nuzzling into my shoulders; that baby-fine hair, tickling my neck; that whisper breath in my ear; that feminine purr as she sidles closer.

I looked at her "before" and "after" pictures again last night. There's one, looking straight into the camera: the cocky grin, the pretty/handsome eyes. My girl.

I just bawled my eyes out: I'll never see that face again.

I looked at the "after" simulations and found myself resenting, even hating, that digitized stranger.

I'm afraid of her, that dream of an "improved" image.

How will I look Ma in the eyes, when she comes home?

It will still be Ma, won't it?

Because that image is a bit too bimbofied, for my taste. She's a little too sleek, a little too perky.

I tried to remind myself, as I looked at this virtual enemy of mine, that the doctor isn't touching her nose, so the digitized photos aren't really very accurate. The artist shows an upturned nose: almost like mine, but longer. I inhale rain, so I don't count.

So, I've been looking at this Stepford Wife, video game reconstruction of the love of my life and I've started to really hate her.

I have no idea why. I guess I'm afraid she's trying to replace the real Ma.

Ma keeps saying, "I'll still be me!"

And now, this damage, because I won't plug in the phone.

WILL she still be her???

Will this seperation be the first tear in what will rip us apart?

Will she feel forced to choose "sides?"

Look, sister: I'm grateful to you: You kept her alive and loved. You were the only one who fully supported her transition to another gender. You even recommmended sex reassignment surgery: "none of this half-assed crap," as she tells it. YOU refer to it as "genital reconstruction," rather than "reassignment." You understand your sister was ALWAYS female. And you know the SRS just corrected a flaw.

So, I'm grateful to you. And, as Ma's sister, you're welcomed in our home. But don't expect me ever to trust you again. I won't make nice with you. In fact, if you drive back with Ma, I'd like to know when you're expected to arrive, so I won't have to BE here!

I'd rather not burden Ma with this. And I'm so gawdam mad at you, I'd like to pop you in the nose.

So, you see, this cosmetic surgery is a very big deal for me.

I don't know who's coming back in January.

I don't know what's going to happen next.

I just know I miss her something awful, deep in my chest. I'm literally having chest pains.

It hasn't even been a week yet; will be, tomorrow.

I've got FIVE MORE WEEKS to wait. And those weeks will include: thanksgiving, christmas, solstice, new year.

And I'll be all alone here, looking at her photos on her computer, crying.

I want my girl back! NOW!!!

email to friend

2004-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving the phone unplugged. I won't give Ma's sister the opportunity to hold her medical info. hostage in exchange for butt kissing.

It's very obvious my emotional health is of little interest to Ma's sister, except that she can use it to inflict more pain on me, and to feel superior to me.

The less power I give her, the better off I'll be.

I just hope Ma isn't angry or depressed because she hasn't heard from me.

For the past, 3 days, I don't think Ma could have spoken on the phone, anyway: her mouth and ears are freshly cut. So's her jaw. Besides, she's on serious pain meds., and probably half gone on that.

Rather than stir things up worse with that sister, I'm just staying out of it. I'm not "allowed" to ask for what I need, apparently. I will NOT argue with the woman.

It's not healthy for Ma to have any more stress than necessary; her sister's attitude could deteriorate until it impacts on Ma.

I believe her sister considers me a threat to her position as caretaker to Ma. She's been the surrogate mom since their own mother died, back when Ma was only twelve.

I figure, in the old days before cell phones, etc., I wouldn't have known what was up, anyway, until over a week after the surgery.

Ma will have access to her email account through her sister's computer, once they get there. She can email me and schedule times to call then.

I just came from the Post Office. A Cashmere scarf I ordered from Pakistan arrived last week. I just finished embroidering Ma's name on it, with some fresh water pearls.

I'd have preferred to send it to the hotel in The Big City. Ma is supposed to walk, to keep her circulation good. She wants to cover her head and face, so she won't scare people so bad.

But I don't know where she's staying. So, I mailed it to her sister's house. She'll get there next Saturday, if all goes well, and it will be waiting, along with a note.

She can use it there.

I'm pretty tired from my walk. I just want to eat and wait for packages to arrive in the mail.

So, I won't go back to the store today for a long distance phone card, so I can call you. And I WON'T leave the phone plugged in. If you find your phone card, shoot me an email and let me know when you can call, ok?

I've been secretly saving up money to buy Ma a new wardrobe, to go with her new face. I've ordered almost FIFTY things from EBay, from all over the world.

It's like my Birthday, every day, as new packages arrive. I'm going to wrap everything in shocking pink tissue paper, with lavender rose ribbons, and stash things in her room, where they'll belong.

She'll come back and just start finding stuff, everywhere.

She's been wearing tattered shirts and bleached-out pants, waiting to drop weight to match her face.

Well, I figure: with an eighteen-thousand-dollar face, the girl needs a few, three-dollar blouses, you know?

So, that's keeping me occupied: looking for the postal carrier, unpacking treasures, washing things up, cleaning her closet and drawers to make room for stuff, sending out money orders, embroidering....

I love her more than air. I can't take care of her in person, so I'm taking care of her this way, instead.

When she gets back, her room will be organized, full of brightly-colored packages. I'm even hanging the folding door we bought for her doorway.

Keeps me off the streets.

Thank you,
Da Goose

I have no rights

2004-11-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

You'd think the sister of a transexual might understand how vulnerable is my position, how disrespected I am, how powerless.

The sister called. She was condescending, telling me to "just relax and don't worry."

Um, ok.

I told her I've been in here, all day, with the phone line free, waiting for some word on Ma's condition.

When she called this afternoon, she wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to explain how hard this is on me: not knowing.

I explained I need solid information. Since the death of my daughter, my imagination tends to get very vivid and horrifying in regards to traumas associated with those I love.

She was impatient and cut me off.

So, when she started this tonight, I tried to patiently explain, again, that I need information to ease my mind. I explained that I've done all I can to educate myself on the procedures. I said I need to know a prognosis for Ma's progress, so I can invision healing, rather than be tormented by images of her suffering.

The sister said she didn't like the way I was talking to her.

!?

In fact, she said, if I continued to talk to her like that, she wouldn't talk to me any more, at all.

!!!!!

I said, are you threatening me?

She said no. But I knew as much as she did.

I said, I thought the Dr. was coming by tonight, since her last call, and would have some information.

She said, impatiently, that, yes, he'd been by, but hadn't really said anything.

And I guess I'm just supposed to have KNOWN THAT?

And why was she released to a hotel, rather than spending the night in a hospital?

More condescending.

Well, I lost it.

I said, oh, I get it: I'm just the Lesbian lover. My feelings don't count, because I don't really matter. Well, fuck you, bitch!

I hung up.

I've unplugged the phone.

It's just as I told Ma, a few days ago: I'm completely left out of this entire situation. My concerns, my worries, my emotions don't matter.

So, here I am: completely alone. There's nothing I can do but worry.

Ma needs a large scarf, to cover her head and face, out in public.

It just so happens I ordered a large, pink, Cashmere scarf from EBay this week.

I just finished embroidering Ma's name, with fresh water pearl accents, on the scarf.

I'd have liked to have mailed it to the hotel, so she can walk in public, without scaring kids.

But I don't know the hotel address.

I also don't know the room's phone number. Ma's cell phone is running out of minutes. She asked me to buy a phone card, to call the motel.

See, this is the crap that goes on with biological family members and gay/lesbian lovers. The family takes over in a medical emergency.

Doesn't matter how long the lovers have been together. During medical crises, the lovers are elbowed aside.

You'd think the sister of a transgender would understand something about that. You'd think a nurse would understand the anxiety of family members and might show some patience and compassion.

You'd think.

So, I guess I'll hear from Ma by email, in two weeks, when they fly to her sister's house for Ma to continue to recover.

Because she can't call me any more this month. And I'm CERTAINLY not calling there!

Evil has many forms.

Kicking people when they're scared: that takes real class.

it's done

2004-11-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

I guess I can take a shower now. I didn't want not to hear the phone.

Her sister just called. The doctor's office had just called her; they're bringing Ma back to the hotel now.

Her sister, a nurse, will be very busy for awhile, getting her settled.

I asked her sister to call me before she goes to sleep, just to let me know how Ma's doing. I also told her to tell Ma I love her.

It was grisly. They shortened her earlobes. They shortened the space between her nose and upper lip. They fattened the lip.

They ground the skull, at the squared jaw and the prominent brow.

I remember something about cheek muscles.

He was talking about grinding down the chin. I campaigned furiously against that; the chin pushes her lower lip out, so it pouts. I don't know if he did it or not.

They pulled her hairline down and rounded it.

They pulled her brows and upper eyelids up so her eyes will be wider.

Basically, every facial feature, except her nose and lower lip, was modified.

And they did something to her jowls. Not that they were that prominent, in the first place.

But he's trying for a more feminine, rounded look, while firming the sagging that aging brings.

She didn't look old, anyway. She's a year older than me and looks much younger, really.

She won't let her skin get exposed to sun. She wears long sleeves, collars, gloves, hats and sunscreen always.

Her skin is creamy, soft and velvet.

Because she stopped the puberty herself, her facial hair is finer than mine.

She's a beautiful woman.

Now, she'll be even more beautiful, I keep telling myself. Not because she altered her appearance; she'll be more beautiful because she has done everything she can to be the woman she wants to be.

She'll be in so much pain. Oh, she'll be medicated, but....

She's had enough pain in her life.

It's a testimony to how determined she is that she will submit to this.

I'm often amazed at how much transgendered people will endure.

I watched 20/20 last night. Identical twin girls, one of whom became a man.

At exactly the age Ma was when she castrated herself, this young person began slashing at the female breasts he was growing.

He knew, since he was three, that he was male.

Ma has known for at least that long.

There's some imperative to be one's gender that transcends the fear associated with the risks of getting there.

Ma asked me to tape CSI Las Vegas, too, this week. The story was about transgendered women.

I hate CSI. But I liked what they said at the end.

When children ask a transexual woman why she's no longer a man, tell them this:

Think of the oyster. It has two types of males. One stays male its entire life. The other changes gender at will.

Now, we've evolved quite a bit, since our ancestors first crawled out of the ocean.

But what if the concept of two sexes is a mutation? What if we have to work harder to maintain the illusion of two sexes? What if our natural state is beyond polarized gender?

What if it's more natural to be like the oyster?

I've always wondered about that.

So, she should be back at the hotel by now, stupid on anesthesia and pain.

I wish I could be there. I wish I could rest my head on her chest and listen to her heart.

I wish I could tell her silly stories and fuss over her.

I wish I could smell her hair and play with her fingers.

Five, more weeks until she returns.

I've just begun this waiting. I'm not good at it. It feels like she's been gone forever. It feels like I just imagined she was ever here.

My best girl is sore. She's hurt. She's weak and helpless. And I can't help.

she's going in

2004-11-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

This is an email I just sent out to friends:

Well, it's almost 5am, their time. I called at 4:15 this morning. Seems I woke up, without alarm, almost before Ma did. She was still lounging in bed, trying to get conscious.

Her doctor is picking her up at 6am, their time, to go to the hospital: right about now.

She'll be in surgery until apx. 3pm, if all goes well.

Her sister's waiting at the hotel.

The doctor will bring Ma back there, after she's been observed for a few hours.

I have to stay off line today, in case her sister calls. I want to know immediately if anything unexpected happens.

I should, if all goes well, be free after about 5pm, my time.

So, I'm alone and scared and helpless to do anything.

I don't want Ma to be in any pain. I know this facial reconstruction is something she's wanted and worked hard for, for a very, long time. I support her decision.

It wouldn't have been my choice, but I don't have to live inside Ma's skin, so what do I know?

My blog about her is at http://good4dagoose.blogspot.com

I've been too occupied in getting her ready to fly to The Big City to post very much, so far.

I feel a little sick.

Wish us luck.

and she's outta here

2004-11-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

The last, few days have been hectic. I've been helping her pack, organize, clean up loose ends, repack, remember what to pack, rewrite her packing list, unpacking and repacking....

She's a very detail oriented person.

She left for The Big City for her facial reconstructive surgery today. She'll stop over, coincidentally, in a city she moved to, after escaping the family farm, to live as a woman for the first time. She's meeting up with her sister, a nurse, who will fly to their destination with her.

Her cell phone's off, or something, and I can't reach her. It's supposed to ring half way across country, somehow, but I don't understand these things.

So, I'll wait 'til ten tonight for her to call me from there.

I've been crying some. They'll be grinding bones, snipping muscles, cropping her EARS (for cryin' out loud!)... it's just a grisly, intricate and expensive hubub and it's making me very nervous.

All I can do is wait here, alone, through the holidays, for her to recover at her sister's and come home to me.

And worry. I can certainly worry. I started that way before the plane took off. I saw her plane, by the way, as I walked home from the grocery.

I went on the city bus with her to the airport. We had lunch. The city bus was just about to pull away as we walked back to the stop. She hugged me and kissed my cheek.

I'm not big on public displays of affection: old traumas of fear of beatings or arrest. But I let her. I hugged back.

I hope she really understands how much I love her, how grateful I am to have her to love.

In the bus, on the way back, I suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed: a very familiar feeling from many years of financial iffiness. I recognized my uncertainty and suspicion immediately. I used to feel that way most of the time.

But, since she and I began this demented sitcom of a love affair, that fear and vigilance has started to fade. I feel safe in her love.

I sighed, knowing I'll just have to suck it up and be strong and brave 'til she gets back.

She should be there by now; it's been about five hours since her flight was scheduled to depart.

Six weeks without the most amazing love of my life. She told a couple of silly jokes at the bus stop today. I looked up at that crooked grin and felt a tug in my chest.

"You won't look the same, next time I see you..."

She swears it's not much of a change. She just wants to look a little prettier, softer. And she's turning 50 this weekend, the day of her surgery. So, a little younger wouldn't hurt.

I'm not judging her. She does, but I don't. She has worked so hard, so long, to be her gender. Most of us will never know anything like what she's gone through to be a woman.

I snuck into the photos on her computer one night. I saw the digitized samples of what the difference might look like. She doesn't know I looked. But I needed to know.

Her hairline will be rounder, softer. Her eyes will be wider, more open. Her jaw will be rounder. Her top lip will be more full. Her earlobes will be smaller. Her brow won't protrude so much.

I saw side-by-side, before and "after" simulations. The "after" looked like a slightly more feminine, smoother, less angular version. She won't look radically different.

But I'll never see the face I fell in love with again.

So, I'm crying now.

She looked so handsome at that bus stop today, grinning crookedly, looking at me with such open glee.

I like her androgyny: her slightly masculine features, her height, her power--combined with the silkiest skin, the softest hair, the most graceful hands and the richest voice.

She castrated herself during her adolescence. Her voice matured, but never dropped. It's beautiful. I'll tell that story another time.

So, she's in the Big City, I hope. Maybe I'll just finish this post and try to call one, more time.

I miss her already.

loyalty

2004-10-24T04:59:00.000-07:00

There you sleep, in my bed. I have too many pillows and blankets. The featherbed, over the flimsy mattress, is too soft.

You'd rather sleep on your Judo mat, which lies over the twin-size cabinet bed I refurbished for you.

But you're in there, eeking out space with the cats and the dog, because you want to touch me at night.

I sleep better with you there, you know. When your feminine, flutey voice sighs in the night, it comforts me. Your breath on my shoulder. Your arm, snaking through covers to wrap around my ribs. Your cold toes and nose, pressing against me.

I never slept so comfortably with another person touching me. Usually, it wakes me. Usually, I'm afraid to move and disturb the other person.

You feel completely natural and comfortable to me.

I watched your face yesterday, as you trained me to work the equipment, to broadcast live. Even though this equipment is new to the station, you puttered and poked like you'd done it your whole life.

I thought of all the people you've patiently trained to do what you're preparing me to do. You treated me no differently than you'd have treated them.

Shapeshifter. You glide between roles, postures, presentations effortlessly.

My feminine, fluffy, giggly, purring girl. You can change, in an instant, to an assertive, handsome, competent problem solver.

I watch the masculine and feminine cross your face in fractions of seconds and I just wonder at you.

You delight me every day.

Rhinestoned bobby pins in your curly hair, you swing around a circular saw, flinging sawdust over your head.

You don't believe you're beautiful. You don't believe you're pretty.

I tell you all the time. You're beginning to believe that I really believe it. You're starting to see what I see. Slowly.

For seven weeks, you'll be in The Big City for facial reconstruction surgery.

I, of course, think it's physically unnecessary for you to spend the time and money and endure the pain of such a procedure.

But I know your psychological landscape. I know what you've gone through, from early childhood to present, to be a woman. I know how much it means to you to have softer features.

So, I say little, except that I worry about bruising, nerve damage, etc. I tell you I'll miss you for the two months you're gone, recovering at your sister's house. I ask you to take photos, but not send them to me until you get back, because it would worry me to death to see you swollen and bruised. Just send me one photo, right before you get on the plane for home, so I'll know what to expect at the airport when I pick you up.

I wish your sisters had taught you more about grooming, makeup, fashion, etc. I'm teaching you as much as I can now. I think, if you'd been more comfortable with your appearance these three decades, you might not have resorted to such extremes.

That's just my opinion.

But the point of this post is to tell you I see how loyal you are to me. I know this business of loving a woman is new to you, and a bit intimidating. I know the demands of your job have left you tired and grouchy.

And I know I'm an exceptionally problematic person to love, anyway.

But you're my girl. Hard and scary as it is, you've stuck your neck out and committed to figuring this thing out with me.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, how grateful I am.

So, here's the deal: while you're gone, I'll be working my tail off. I want you to return to a settled, new home and a partner who's working on her career and financial independence.

I want you to come home to peace and comfort.

I want you to come home to love.

I'm going to miss you like crazy, you know.

The dog's breath on my shoulder just isn't the same thing, baby.

I love you, Ma.

Ah, love!

2004-10-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

I still have some changes to make to this blog. I want to add a picture and I want the template rose colored. Pink is Rose's favorite color, after all.

But it occurred to me that people might be curious about this blog, might be clicking on it, and haven't seen any posts yet as I've been rummaging through my Blogger "Dashboard," fiddling with settings.

I'm using a fake name to write this. I'm also using a nonfunctioning email address, so I won't get hate mail.

I'm not telling you my city, our jobs, or much else which can identify us.

She's not out. I mean, if the subject were to come up, she wouldn't lie. But she looks like an average, natal female. She certainly sounds like one. So, nobody asks. Nobody thinks to ask.

I, of course, was in agony, immediately after our first personal conversation. She dropped hints all over the place. I was pretty sure, although very surprised to consider it, that she is transgendered.

Adding to this discomfort was the fact that I was more sure I wanted to be in love with her than I've ever been sure of a relationship in my life before.

I wasn't uncomfortable for myself, mind you. I've known, most of my life, that the concept of only 2 genders was silly and inadequate to human experience. I may not have had language for it, of course. But I have intuited that human sexuality and gender exist on a continuum, and that nothing is fixed. And, as a feminist, the idea of set gender roles made me bristle.

I was worried she'd be scared of me. She might think I was a pervert or a ghoul or a stalker or something.

She'd never dated a woman before, although she speaks of herself as bisexual. I've never dated a transgendered person before, although I speak of myself as pansexual.

It's a pretty amazing story, actually. She and I are both pretty blown away by what we've accomplished, in a very short period of time.

I told her recently: I'm missing the opportunity of a lifetime, not recording this publicly. She agreed.

So, here I am, creating a blog, to record our experience.

Welcome. Thank you for stopping by. This is only the beginning.