Showing posts with label transitioning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transitioning. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Live Your Dream!

I think we all start off hoping to start changing into that mythical supermodel with the long thin legs, that impossible Barbie waistline and cleavage we always wanted as soon as we embark on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)... Meanwhile, it doesn't happen for everyone quite the way we hope it will, and certainly not overnight, if at all. I think it's an unrealistic expectation we all have.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

My Brief Delusional Time As A Lesbian


This morning I was lying in bed considering what to wear. I sleep naked these days, because I've enjoyed the new found freedom that being physically female brings. 

What I was wondering was, what to clothe my body with once I got out of bed, and despite the personal style I've developed over the past few years, I'm now totally at a loss for what to pick in my closet.

Being female, albeit a transgender female now 6 years post-op, the choice should have been clear to me. The reason for this dilemma is that I was told last night by a person of some prominence in the local lesbian community, that I "dress like a drag queen".

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Challenges of Life


I believe where it is SAFE to do so, transgender people should be out and proud. And where it isn't safe, they should be proud if not out - and they should still work for equality, dignity and human rights so that they - and the generations that are to come - one day can be out. Nobody cares about people they don't know about, folks. 

When people don't remind folks that they really do exist, the haters, purists and bigots like to believe and pretend that they don't.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Dismantling Fear


Many transsexual people I have encountered over time have chosen to introduce themselves to friends or acquaintances as being more than "just" transsexuals. 

Instead of just being honest about having been biologically male or female, and having changed that, they invent stories about having been born intersex - presumably because in their minds, the audience will somehow view them more sympathetically that way than if they were just honest to begin with.
 
Why can't they just be honest?
 
Well, as it turns out, there may be some very good reasons why they do this.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

I Woke Up This Morning


I woke up this morning, alone. 

The space beside me, cold and empty. You should have been there, but you weren't. Your pride was too strong and you were too good for me, remember? 

Well, I do. 

How could I ever forget?

You said you could handle my past, you said you could face the future by my side. But somehow both issues became just too steep for you to climb over. What I am and what I was before was just too much for you to accept or deal with, your misplaced faith that I could be anything else just too much for me to give in to, or capitulate.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Founder's Day


On Friday I attended a Founder's Day ceremony at my old high school. It was quite something to be there again. The school was celebrating its 85th year in existence, and I will be attending my 20 years reunion in May.

I'm a bit of a sentimental fool sometimes, and even though I was not very happy during high school, I still have fond memories of my time there. Many of my old friends of those days vowed never to return, and as far as I know, have kept to it. I was so looking forward to my 10 year reunion back in 2001, but it never happened. This year it will be different.

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Little Joys Of Being Trans In SA




I went to renew my driver's license today. Oh, you have no idea. It was an adventure. 
 
Funny, you would think that once you were found competent enough to drive a car, or own a gun, and not having any serious misdemeanors logged against your name - that you wouldn't need to keep reapplying for various permits? It is an interesting innovation in South Africa, figuring a way to make people pay for the same damn thing over and over again - and paying more each time. What fun.

So off to the merry traffic department I went.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Grow A Pair


Sadly most trans people like being in the closet too much to get involved in educating the public on trans issues. I know of some others here in my city, and every one of them is flatly uninterested in exposing themselves to public view - leaving trans-activism to non trans people - and broadly speaking, giving them the opportunity to blame a lack of progress on others.

Yes of course, it's not easy exposing yourself to the world as a trans person - it's hard enough trying to convince ignorant family members that you don't get a thrill out of wearing women's underwear, or like playing with little boys like some of those pedophile Catholic priests do - and as usual, we are SO ashamed to be trans we could never accept the idea of actually being PROUD of who we are or for our achievements as trans people. In fact, we set out to spend the rest of our lives denying that we ever left the factory with slightly different equipment before having an "upgrade" - or even that any such "upgrade" ever took place.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Growing Pains



Over the past few months a war of words has been raging over the activities of "ex-gay" groups in the USA and around the world wherever they have set up affiliates or branches of their own - including in my own country, South Africa. The "ex-gay" movement operates on a purely religious basis and claims solely out of a misinterpretation of religious dogma, that gay (or trans) people can and should either deny their nature - or "change". They claim all sorts of "studies" and "proof" exist to support their theories, but the truth is that no such evidence exists - and that every reputable medical, scientific and psychological institute, authority or body asserts that "conversion therapy" - IE attempts to change sexual orientation by "ex-gay" industry, is dangerous, risky and harmful to those it affects.

All this has prompted me to look back - and inwards, to a time when I was struggling for self-acceptance, and to find my own identity.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

As Time Goes By

I had a friend who waited until her wife died before transitioning. Her name was Stephanie Bishop - and when she began transitioning, she was 79 years old.

She lost her friends and family on coming out, even her children and grand children were too conservative and short sighted to accept this - I know she cried many bitter tears over how nasty they were to her. But she was financially independent, moved to another city (where I met her) and got on with her life. 
 
She was delighted by the tendency people had of underestimating her age by 20 years or more and endured many jibes about her "toy-boy" suitors who in many cases were twenty years younger than her. I doubt she was ever lonely again, as most people her age often are.