Musings from my everyday life...

Although Davina didn't know it at the time, she is the first of my readers that I have ever met in person. She had contacted me quite some time ago signalling her intent to be in Montreal at the end of October and asked if I would like to meet. I wholeheartedly agreed to do so. For the record she lives in south America and travels quite extensively for work. I suggested a resto in the downtown core for brunch at 10 30 am. By then I had already attended my church service and was primed to meet Davina and have a bite to eat. The conversation flowed well and like other trans people I have met there were similarities but also divergences confirming all the more that we are indeed a mosaic. We spent a nice couple of hours discussing our histories and the time just flew by. Needless to say it will be my distinct pleasure to overlap again. As a side note she has met Stana in person before and confirmed she is just as nice as she presents herself in her blog. Turns out that Davin

At what point did crossdressing just become dressing for you? And what items of clothing constitute that dividing line? Clothing styles are after all to a great extent based on social constructs and each era has included elements that have been acceptable or frowned upon for each gender. Hence do we wear clothing of the opposite sex specifically because it is considered taboo, because it is more comfortable or perhaps because it best reflects our gender identity? It is difficult to know since these rules were engrained in us from earliest memory. What we learnt is that to express masculinity or femininity a particular set of clothing was one of the pre-requisites. Over time, women’s clothing has become for me more comfortable and pragmatic as I have spent more extended periods in it. When I first entered my mother's closet in the early prepubescent years it was to copy what I saw and it morphed into periods of experimentation (amongst the many self enforced dry spells) to for

People who are frustrated by their own life and situations will lash out at others. This is something that I have observed repeatedly over my lifetime. When you are happy in your skin you are less likely to find objection with other people and more inclined to live and let live. Many people have been raised in ways that have encouraged prejudices which they then proliferate in their adulthood until they come to a realization that they might have been wrong to hold them. In some cases that never happens. The world needs more understanding of diversity than ever because we are living in an era where nothing is hidden any longer. We have discovered every type of behavioral and identity difference that exists which is challenging preconceived ideas of what we thought was reality. This is most starkly being felt by older people who grew up before we opened the windows and let more light shine onto people’s lives. The truth is that for millennia, societies have operated using oppressio

Jimmy Dore, whose show I sometimes watch, is just as concerned as I am about the increasing income gap between rich and poor. Here he makes some very interesting points and calls the problem perfectly. The dissatisfaction with the political elite has helped create Donald Trump and Jimmy thinks that the next version will be improved, easier to elect and might not be such a buffoon. People wondered how in spite of making mistake after mistake Trump still managed to maintain the attention of the working poor. Yes the disenfranchised who don't see Hillary Clinton as an answer to their problems because she represents more of the same. Note how I am not saying that Trump is the answer but that clearly the electorate is unhappy with the status quo and perhaps for good reason. America has the largest income gap between rich and poor among the world's top 20 industrialised nations and eventually its going to bite them in the rear. Please watch...

The existence of transgender people should be predictable with 100% certainty even if one had never met such an individual. This assertion is based entirely on a logical extension of seeing the way nature operates as there is no living thing on this planet that is left untouched by anomalies, permutations and variations. Yet oddly gender identity is expected to be unflinching and rigid because those whose sex and gender identity align say it should be so. This denial of reality is beginning to change but only by the sheer force of needing to minister to people who are despondent and in many cases suicidal. The true numbers are beginning to be felt and this disclosure is being described by the skeptical as the “transgender agenda”. Transgender people are tired of suppressing and living life according to someone else’s rules. Humanity is full of wonderful, caring and understanding individuals but is also replete with agenda-driven half-wits who don’t have two brain cells to rub tog

Antonia Michelle’s post on hormones (which Calie featured on T-central) really got me thinking. Do ingesting hormones change your internal gender identity? I think the obvious answer would be no. Your intrinsic identity will not be changed although maybe some aspects related to brain chemistry which the hormones impact likely will. At least this is what I have read and been told when I was in gender therapy. The vast majority of people have an identity that aligns reasonably with what is expected but for the 0.6% who don’t it can be a daunting exercise in suppressing and hiding the true self. That true self was there before and after the hormones were ingested. The question then becomes why should I take hormones? That is a highly personal question that each transgender person needs to weigh. For some it forms an essential part of a full and necessary transition process while for others it’s an aid in "passing" in the eyes of society or perhaps as a way to help curb

First this story from the Hull Daily Mail: "Melissa Ede, a taxi driver, was raised in the post-war Hull of the 1960s. Born male, Ede grew up identifying as a girl. Aged three, she told her parents she is a girl, to which they told her it was a phase she would grow out of. The 56-year-old said: "You do not grow out of it. In the end, you're made to conform to what everybody else wants to see." For the next four decades Ede purposefully had her transgender identity airbrushed out. As Leslie, she married and had three children in an effort to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity. She described how her childhood realization turned into a firm resolve that led to a clinic in Leeds. Ede said: "The kids, my children, I love to pieces. I wouldn't change anything now, but if I could go back and start again and not know about my children I would do it completely different and I would not do the marriage and the rest of it because all I've done,

This blog is now 4 years and 1000 posts old. I never originally planned to go this long and beginning it in 2012 was part plea for help and part exploration into a complex subject I didn't really understand and still fully don't. I was depressed and frustrated and it showed as this first entry excerpt will attest to: “Life will get better again. I know that from experience but I hate feel stuck in the middle like this. I am a man but I am not normal. I am a man who dresses up as a woman and I feel its advancing. Some days I wish it would just go away and let me be. But I know it won't” I don’t go back to my old entries, but I know there is a huge difference between the person that wrote that post and the one writing this one. The exploration into my psyche as well as into the published research did the trick for me and I hope to be able to help others in any way I can. I am not so arrogant to think that this blog is in any way a substitute for your own heavy lifting

A transition is not about throwing out the old person you were but instead about repatriating the part that got suppressed for fear of discovery. How many of you know stereotypically feminine women? I actually know very few and that is because they also have a masculine side; no matter how large or small. Some transgender people make the mistake initially of trying to drown their masculine traits in the bathtub when what is required is a fusion. Your genuine self resides somewhere between the masculine and the feminine. Therefore we experiment over the years and at first become facsimiles of extreme feminine stereotypes. I suspect this is a kind of over compensation for all those years of suppression and react like a uncoiled spring that overshoots. Then over time we learn to fuse the two solitudes which includes toning down the exaggerated clothing and mannerisms. We learn to dress appropriately for the occasion and the setting. As I have aged this has happened to me and Jo

There have been darker times when I wanted my gender issues gone because it has not made my life easier. “Just give me cancer and let me go” I would ask God before I drifted off to sleep. There is no question that living with dysphoria is no picnic and yet I always found a way to find light again. Most of my distress has come from buying into a narrative for so long and now having to write a new one for myself. This is much harder to do when you are in your fifties than in your twenties. I mentioned this to my mother the other day and she told me it would have been easier if I had transitioned young and to do so now would be too difficult. I agree with that assessment but not because I am afraid but because I am still unconvinced my life would be so much better. If that opinion ever changes then I would consider it. Life is never perfect for anyone and challenges exist irrespective of what you do. What often happens is that you trade one set of challenges for some new ones. This

It's funny isn’t it? Here are some genetic women detesting the sartorial requirements of their job where some of us transgender people would love to exercise that option. Many women in the corporate world wear tailored skirt suits and heels and then long to ditch them once at home in favour of a T-shirt and shorts. Men are much the same in abandoning the tie and stiff white shirt which for some is a type of prison. Of course not all of us are the same but my point is that we all to some degree bow to societal and corporate pressure and comply. The expectations relative to our particular gender role have always been rigid and hence you will see only a tiny fragment of society rebel; such is the pressure of conformance where failure to comply invariably invites ridicule. Beyond clothing are also the behavioral cues which signal that this is a man or this is a woman. Here ambiguity also invites scorn and derision although that is slowly beginning to change. If today you are a

Perhaps I have never mentioned it here before but I dearly love Bill Maher. He makes me laugh at as he points out the absurdities of American politics most especially during this insane presidential campaign. I may not agree 100% with everything he says, but his panache and no holds barred approach is fair game considering the hardening of today's political fault lines. Bill is a controversial figure. Unabashedly liberal and atheist plus an unapologetic drug user (presumably pot), he doesn't hold back his tongue in addressing Trump loyalists as "knuckle-draggers" or as "deplorables" and in all fairness there is a significant portion that do fit the moniker. During this interview he points very astutely at the internet echo chamber that has helped create Trump. Instead of cyberspace becoming a resource for truth it has become a place where the like-minded congregate to feed off each other's common hatred of the enemy. In a setting such as this, obje

So here is Professor Jordan Peterson perhaps justly calling out the excesses of political correctness gone mad. But then he extends it to not indulging transgender people the basic dignity of being addressed in their preferred pronoun. To do so for him would cost nothing and to stand on literal principle seems to serve little use other than to send a message of disdain. If you have transitioned or even live as the opposite gender is costs me nothing to address you in your preferred pronouns. What difference does it make to me and what am I trying to tell you when I don't? Peterson wants to stand on his rights to call reality what it is except that in this case the exact objective escapes me. But of course the right wing Federalist is in love with him because he calls a spade a spade. If I see a rock I can call it that but then the rock doesn’t have any feelings. To address a transgender woman "her" and "she" is not undermining my rights as a person in any

Most trans people (especially those from the pre-internet era) rarely get their needs met within the context of a relationship. The answer is simple: we started off as our own worst enemies and often thought ourselves lucky just to have someone who tolerated the way we were. Others hid and hoped it would all go away. I am saying this because I have read so many blogs of people who have experienced the same thing and because it was that same way in my own marriage. As a result many of us settle for that one outing a month to a support meeting and spend the rest of the time thinking about the next one. This is not much of a life in my opinion. I don’t blame the partners as many didn’t sign up for this from the outset. Even those that knew may have seen things escalate to a point beyond what they expected. The fact is that we tend to discover ourselves so slowly and then can’t roll things back once at a new plateau. I would never put Joanna back in the box but not only because I don’t

What has helped me far more than anything else is to feel comfortable with my current situation exactly as it is now. I don't feel any self consciousness when out and about and that has cleared my mind to reflect on what I really want and need. The lack of desperation facilitates the thought process like nothing else. My transition is in a sense already underway and perhaps even complete because my journey was all about self acceptance and nothing else. How I refine that identity going forward is up to me. Might that include a full-time social transition in the future? I have not closed the door to the idea. The next few years will help me eliminate any vestiges of doubt I might have about what to do next. But truth be told, even if things remained exactly as they are I would not be unhappy. Those of you currently in difficult familial situations might want to wait before trying to take concrete steps until other distractions are dealt with. Because that stress does not he

Sophie is in the process of transitioning and is bright and perceptive. For many years she identified as a crossdresser and it was (at least in part) a sexually charged activity. Now with the administering of female hormones she is noticing that the sexual energy is dissipating. This is not at all surprising. What happens to most of us is that the activity becomes taboo early on and takes on an erratic nature which includes periods of purging. This adds to the expectation of getting your next "fix" which only even more builds anticipation and sexual energy. As Sophie has gone on to a new norm she is noticing that women's clothing has taken on a more pragmatic function and just "feels right" rather than being a turn on. What this suggests, as I have said here many times, is that treating the dysphoria through cross gender expression and or transition gets you off that roller coaster pattern and mormalizes things. You will also note that even if the HR

Am I trans enough? Am I a woman? These are questions you often see in blogs as transgender people second guess themselves and determine their path forward. The standard narrative of woman trapped in a man’s body is no longer used by most of us because it doesn’t sound or feel authentic. Instead you now read things like ‘something wasn’t quite right growing up’ and this is definitely true - something wasn't. We couldn’t put our finger on it and didn’t understand why we needed to raid our mother’s closet at such an early age. Some of us like me got derailed by the sexual feelings. For years I couldn’t understand how my pull towards expressing a female identity had been charged with erotic overtones which, in my view, disqualified their authenticity. I have since come to realize that this is not true at all. What happens is that our psychosexual identity is formed during a period when we are still grappling with this desire to be female while wanting to attract one. That fusion

I have come out to everyone who matters in my life. I have even come out to my neighbors because of necessity. There are other people who I see sporadically that I am not out to yet but that's because they only know Joanna. They will eventually know as well as soon as I muster up the courage and explain the circumstances as to why I never told them. My friend Lyne and I had a coffee this past weekend. She does know my story and she works at the sexual identity clinic at a French hospital here in Montreal. Her boss, who works extensively with transgender people, told her that she would like to see the day when we don’t feel obliged to transition in order to be accepted by society. Those who read my blog know I hold that very same opinion. There are those who, due to the strength of their dysphoria, will opt for a necessary transition but many others can benefit substantially by simply being themselves and not needing to hide. I told Lyne to tell her boss that I couldn’t agre

Kate O'Donnell has some interesting things to say here...

American mainstream politics has a problem. Even as Trump's poll numbers sank further after a dismal debate performance, being abandoned by his own party (Rice, McCain, Ryan and company) and being caught on tape with trash talk worthy of a juvenile, the loyal supporters at his rallies would not be deterred. But then these are the climate change-denying knuckle draggers who hate blacks, jews and Hispanics and read Breibart News. In other words, truth doesn’t matter to them. To be honest Hillary Clinton is shrill and annoying and has a spotty track record. She is not likeable and yet is head and shoulders the better candidate but you wouldn’t know it by the poll numbers up until now. Trump may just help her by self-imploding after having yet another "man-child" type tantrum on Twitter. No matter who wins, the Republican party was allowed to be hijacked by a mean-spirited idiot while the Democrats derailed the campaign of a man who would likely have made a good Presi

Transgender people are everywhere now and India Willoughby is the latest public face to come out. For many years she worked as Jonathan Willoughby as an ITV news reporter but gender dysphoria finally took its toll and she felt she had no choice but to transition. This normalization is going to breed acceptance and eventually everyone will have had some exposure to a transgender person. When they do they will realize that in many respects we are just like everyone else. It is always preferable when that person is dignified and a sense of normalcy and balance shines through because not all of us are that way. But then there many non-transgender people who aren’t great role models and that is the point: we are just like everyone else. Public acceptance comes one tiny morsel at a time but it does come. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/617585/Reporter-Jonathan-Willoughby-returns-woman-India-five-years

Recently I was reading a page from Vernon Coleman’s website. For those who don’t know Mr. Coleman he considers himself a transvestite and is a member of the Beaumont Society. He is the only member to have joined using his male name. Vernon Coleman does not aim to pass and he just simply enjoys wearing women’s clothing which is of course absolutely fine. He also wants to make very clear the distinction between himself and someone who might want to have a sex change: “At the moment the media is definitely not on our side. Much of the media coverage transvestites get is bad. Many journalists (wrongly) regard crossdressers as transsexuals who haven't got the courage to have the operation” While he is not wrong necessarily in saying this, the content on his site does not recognize that gender identity is a spectrum and that there are people on that scale who reside on a different rung. But like some transitioned people on the other end of the scale, he prefers to view this issue a

It took me the longest time to realize that I was free to define myself. Society wants a label. They want something like deviant, transsexual, transvestite, gender queer, androgyne, gender non-conforming, gender-bender or perhaps crossdresser. But the more comfortable and happy I have become, the less label conscious that I am. People like boxes because they fear what they can't define or relate to. Because we are intrinsically limited as human beings they buy into fixed narratives but I decided to get off that merry-go-round a while back. Spend some time reflecting on all of this and then proceed to begin to define yourself. Don't do it on their terms because that's what they want and expect but instead use your own frame of reference. Think of it this way: reality isn't what mankind has created but is instead beyond the limitations of human frailty. Once you realize that you can truly move forward to fashion your own narrative and define what it means to be yo

I tend to frequent the Starbucks chain (among others) and I am fascinated by the democratization of coffee. Young adults half my age will order things like “macchiato double caramel pumpkin twist with chocolate sprinkles (I am somewhat ad-libbing here but I’m not far off) and get something resembling what I used to see at the ice cream shop when I was a kid. Coffee is big business but in order to expand they needed to reach a wider audience and sell more expensive products as they don’t make as much profit on my habitual single long espresso. Instead of forcing young people to adapt to new things we are infantilizing products (don't forget the sprinkles please). No I am not deliberately trying to be a curmudgeon here but just making an observation. When I was their age coffee houses served what my parents drank. This phenomenon has extended to alcoholic beverages with hard lemonades and coolers that appeal more to a palette raised on juices and other sweet drinks. My son

For those of you who have not yet read Julia Serano's brilliant 2010 article "The Case Against Autogynephilia" as a retort to Ray Blanchard's pseudoscience here is the link to the Pdf file. In my opinion, it is required reading and it pokes all kinds of holes in Blanchard's very feeble attempt at postulating a scientific argument. She reaches all the same conclusions that I did after having done my homework on this subject and I was very happy, upon first reading it, to have found someone who used the same reasoning to dissect it all.... http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-CaseAgainstAutogynephilia.pdf

I can tolerate a very high level of pressure. I've had to all my life and as a result I am not able to recognize what's good for me. Instead I make things work because that's what I learned to do. The other day one of my sisters thought it might be nice to introduce me to one of her friends. I weighed the idea but then was completely repulsed by it. I feel weary and battle fatigued and increasingly the idea of remaining alone appeals to me. I don't have to start over explaining how gender dysphoria reacts on my psyche or negotiating for time out while juggling other priorities. I think it's the best option and if I were younger I might be more despondent but I am not. In fact there is some felt liberation present. Being transgender implies negotiation because it is in some ways a type of prison sentence with no perfect solutions. But at least this way I am in full control.

I don’t envy Pope Francis. He is walking a fine line in trying to say that the church needs to minister to all people while at the same time trying to discourage the “colonization” of transgender teaching in schools. He is apparently trying to admonish the normalizing of the idea that one can "choose" a gender identity that runs counter to their birth sex. Where the Pope gets it wrong of course is that people don’t choose their gender identity. It is chosen for them. We transgender people have fought hard to stay within the confines of what was expected of us and made every effort to conform. The watershed moments came at differing stages of our lives depending on each set of circumstances where we could no longer continue living a lie. Therefore just like gay and lesbians who may have married to try and be “normal”, we did our best to fit in. The church policy is “hate the sin but love the sinner” but there isn’t enough knowledge or intelligence on this issue within

Rikki Arundel gives one of the best TED talks on sex and gender I have ever seen. Absolutely spot on and required viewing. If, as a transgender person, this doesn't make you want to thumb your nose at the artificial rules then I don't know what will...

When I first went to get treatment for my dysphoria I thought I was going for conversion therapy. I honestly wanted them to cure me; what they promised to help me with instead was self-acceptance which I earnestly didn't want. Or more appropriately I thought I didn’t want. They knew something that I didn't: that my gender dysphoria wasn't my fault and I needed to examine it up close. It took several more years to get to a place where I could feel comfortable with who I was. I used to be in a marriage that I thought would only work if I “fixed” myself. In the process I learnt that there were bigger issues present and my being trans was a ruse. No one deserves to be blind sided with news that wasn't disclosed from the outset but if you are upfront from the start the partner cannot plead ignorance. There is a plethora of information available to them online about what being transgender means. If that person sees it as perversion or mental illness then you are at an i

Most of this look is thrift store and the whole thing (minus the shoes) was under $40.

Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster of a person. Pompous, arrogant and mean spirited he represents the opposite of the type of statesmanship and class that a head of state is supposed to possess. Yet half of voting Americans are apparently ready to have this man as President. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston has been following Trump’s career for decades and what he finds is even more unappealing than I first imagined. Not surprisingly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and Trump’s father and grandfather had dubious business practices that included ties to organized crime as well as running whore houses. When the eldest of the Trump sons declined to go into the family business it was the "The Donald" who offered to learn the trade. What he ended up becoming is not a pretty site and he has left a trail of deceit, lawsuits, vindictiveness and revenge behind him. But if Americans want this man for a President then who am I to argue. All I can