Musings from my everyday life...

You can't be partnered to a fraud and that's basically what I've been for most of my life. Being truly myself is something I am still working on today and deconstructing the false reality you have fabricated requires time and effort.

Yesterday I got together for a drink with my closest friend of almost 30 years. He now knows about joanna but has never seen her. God bless him in that he told me he would not have any trouble seeing me in that mode. We are both divorced and he is testing the waters with the online dating scene. We shared our ideas on this topic and I expressed my opinion in that I am forgoing this process altogether. I really made him more aware of what a dilemna I am up against. I don't think he fully understood it before.

Last night at home I thought about it some more. I realized that although I will have my lonely days and get down sometimes, I really must stick to my game plan of just living and being me. I am still not certain who that person is yet…

Yesterday was Good Friday and I was weighing going to the mass. It's traditionally a long and solemn service. I am not a lapsed catholic but I don't follow church doctrine to the letter either. The message I ingested over my lifetime was that I needed to fix myself and God could never accept me as I was.

That was what I ingested, but I no longer think that way. Man interprets God and messes it up everytime. If you're gay, lesbian or transgender you are by your very nature a sinner and must recant and repent. But if God made me this way why he not find me lovable. Of course this is precisely the point and why I no longer let misguided religious fanatics get in the way of a relationship with God.

It took me years to forgive myself for being the way I am and the whole time God loved me just as I am. Man, woman, both who cares; we are all children of the same creator and we are equally loved. This simple message brings great healing and internal peace. Why didn't I realize…

I am fascinated with my ever increasing comfort presenting as Joanna.

This Friday I will be meeting Sabrina for coffee. She is a young lady I befriended at a Starbucks some months ago. We would engage in banter as she prepared my coffee and I shared some of my feelings about my son’s then impending anxiety problems. She was also an anxiety sufferer, so as it turned out, we had even more to talk about.

Last time I was there she told me it was her last day and we ended up exchanging cell numbers.

At times it feels like my life is slowly but surely building towards full time living and, although it may not become a reality, I am prepared that it could go that route. My children would be older and almost on their own and I could still play the male role in their presence; especially if I have neither hormone therapy nor surgery. So this leaves me a lot of elbow room when it comes to life options.

So I have definitely crossed a divide where I now have not the least bit of hesitation pres…

My son’s battle with anxiety is very frustrating. He is being put on Celexa in order to bring his anxiety down to a manageable level. After that the cognitive behavioural therapy will be the long term solution; essentially teaching him to manage his own mental process.

The human brain is such a delicate and mysterious organ. We can talk ourselves in and out of things so easily and the fledgling confidence level of a young adolescent is tenuous at best.

I am trying to stay positive and bolster his confidence as much as I can. This is the only tool I have in my arsenal at the moment. If this were a physical injury it would be easier to handle and I would gladly take his struggle upon my own shoulders but I cannot. All I can do is be supportive and try and see him through this. I expect it may also be a long battle, although I am praying it’s not.

I draw a bit of a parallel to my life long struggle with gender issues. I am glad he does not have what I have and would have wanted to spare…

I think that in the end all I am looking for is for congruency between my mind and my body. This need not lead to surgical intervention or hormones but I am hopeful that it can be achieved through an adjustment of lifestyle.

I believe that I am currently on the right track towards achieving my appropriate level of congruency.

None of us is truly one gender but instead a combination of both. The caveat with the transgender is that there is a sharp contrast between our perceived gender and our biological reality. For many this necessitates GRS in order to correct this perceived error of nature.

But what about the rest of us who are not entirely comfortable with the idea of surgery or hormones and are not certain that such a drastic change is the way to fulfillment or happiness?

I think the answer lies partly in our willingness to buck the trend and live in between genders. This is no easy task in a world that demands that we conform to the standards of one or the other. That expectation…

It's amazing how my personality has blossomed once I started to relax and be myself. Don't get me wrong - I know that maturity has a hand to play in this. However, when you are carrying a weight on your shoulders all of your life, putting it down feels really good. I did not know better before because that load was something I carried as part of my everyday existence.

Now in retrospect I see it all.

At least I'm not so old that there can't be some quality living left in me. Even if my main focus is the welfare of my children, I can't provide for them properly if I myself am not balanced and happy.

My mother (God bless her) told me the other day that if I were young and did not have children, she would do everything in her power to assist me to transition. Not bad for an enlightened 76 year old. She really gets it now and sympathizes with my life long battle with disphoria.

So now I just continue status quo until something else needs to happen. If nothing needs to…

I have been harsh with Anne Lawrence for sticking to Blanchard’s theories on autogynephilia but it must be said that in reading her essay entitled “Men trapped in Men’s Bodies” I have come to a better understanding of her own translation of the theory. Here is an excerpt;

“It would be a mistake to conclude that if autogynephilic transsexuality is in large part about sexual desire, then it is somehow suspect, or is less legitimate than homosexual transsexuality. Although the focus of this essay is not on homosexual transsexuality per se, I do want to say enough about it to dispel any mistaken notions that homosexual transsexuals are the "real" transsexuals, or that their motivations are exclusively non-sexual. Neither is true. By definition, transsexuals are those who undergo sex reassignment as a treatment for gender dysphoria. The gender dysphoria of autogynephilic transsexuals is every bit as real as that of their homosexual counterparts. And it matters not a whit if that d…