Category Archives: Life

I notice it but not the why

23 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in inclusion, Life, My journey, Thoughts

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Before transitioning through surgery I had tendencies towards dressing in sexy clothing but after surgery those tendencies went away. Coupled with that the majority of the time was in my house as I knew I could draw attention from those who would do harm to me for being different.

Now I know that it’s not only myself but just about every cross dresser or transgender I have come in contact with are the same way, they present themselves in sexy clothes, no matter the age be it 16 or 70 years old although I think many over 65 do realize unless they are in a LGBT setting they stand out like a sore thumb. I never feel compelled to warn them of the dangers because most of them only go out to LGBT clubs. The few that do go out to other places tend not to dress sexy but age appropriate.

All I can say is if you are one who dreams about leaving the house in sexy clothing be sure that the clothing is age appropriate and that cisgender females in the area would wear this or similar clothing so not to stick out like a splattered bug on your windshield.

What prompted me to write this entry was after shopping today, saw a dress and my first thought was “would other woman my age wear this?” and I knew they would. I even added a cardigan to compliment the dress. And I don’t wear dresses or skirts very often outside of work and that is the trend in my area.

Thoughts on passing

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Acceptance, Life, Thoughts, voice

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I’ve recently joined a closed group on Facebook where the majority of male to female members will post pictures of themselves and ask if they pass physically. Just about every since member who post and ask if they are passable indeed passable.  Having been on this journey would like to offer a small piece of advice which is forget about passing physically and focus on your female voice.

When I or any heterosexual male or female encounters a female without thinking “are they really female” expect a softer voice then a male voice. When the female speaks in the same tone as a male that will make the heterosexual male or female wonder or think “is this really a female”.

My guess is many male to female transgender or cross dressers realize this already but want to stress that this can not only lead to people wonder about you but also may very well cause them to be embarrass and infuriate them to incite a mindset to cause you physical harm.

There is only one method to circumvent this when out in public which is to practice speaking as a cisgender female does. For many it’s not easy, like myself I had to practice, practice, practice. The most difficult part as one gets older is to not only train your voice but also to retrain your brain.

Example, as you close to finish speaking your brain says “now I can relax” and attempts to to back to the male voice if for no other reason that it’s easy while speaking in a female tone is hard work especially keeping a conversation going.

If you can afford to take voice lessons even for a few sessions this will assist in building a proper foundation for what you need to do later to keep up appearances both with your physical looks and sounds that come out of your mouth.

Several times a month I go out with several cross-dressers and transgender groups in my area and I’m the only one, say out of twenty that use a female voice. All of them speak like men and if they didn’t speak the majority would pass one hundred percent as cisgender females. Do they go out in public? Several do yet are known to locals as cross-dressers and never will pass.

For the next part a little history.

I joined a cross-dresser group who are located 40 miles from me back in 2000. At that time I was not even trying to transition in the public and never made it to any of their events which are several times a week. Another group opened in my immediate area and they have one member who belongs to the other group (40 miles away). The decide to meet here in my town in a gay bar, I thought, great, finally get to meet them.

Went to the bar, walk in and there is this thirty something cisgender female with a guy sitting at the bar, she looks at me and says, hi gorgeous, you smell sexy. I said thanks, got my drink and sat down. Five minutes later she come over to my table, sits down next to me and we start chatting. Shortly there after the one cross dresser group walks in, they are all wearing prom dresses (the theme of the evening, not be thou). I wave at them, remember they don’t know me and they stare until I wave them over. I introduced myself and the night was fantastic. Later on the leader said that when I waved and she looked over she thought we were two cisgender females and was dumb founded that I was post-op as my voice passed with no hints of male.

Fast forward to last weekend, the leader of that group was suppose to be down by 8:30 but arrived at 7:30 (I’ve been there since 7). I greeted her and said, thought you would not be here until 8:30? She said, I know you don’t stay late and wanted to talk to you which I thought was cool. Had a great conversation to say the lest. Another member who didn’t know I was trans or post-op was told by another member and was shocked at how well I controlled my voice.

Pause: Although my voice is not a 100 percent it’s fully passable. Even to this say I do warm-up exercises because my brain will still fall back into old habits.

With that I want those who have decided to read this far to know that it’s not easy (some may disagree but they are the minority), one must be committed to not only appearing as a female but make efforts to speak the part too.

Have you heard Autumn? https://autumnasphodel.com/222/transgender-female-voice I feel the same as her in regards to mindset. There are plenty of resources on the web so thre is no excuse not to try.

The power of the mind is incredible

Loaned out

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in Life, Persistence, Post surgery, Thoughts

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I work for a state agency for the past twenty years and recently another agency close by asked my manager if they could borrow me for a week. The request was urgent so after my manager received I was on my way to the other agency. When I arrived the CEO, a former employee of my agency greeted me, thanked me for coming right over. Within an hour I was assisting them with the problem that brought me in for and finished the day out.

Day two, in the afternoon the woman who greeted me the first day brought a manager over to meet me. This other manager had also worked at my agency and unlike the CEO who knew me in my male identity did not know of my transition. So in the introduction the manager asked how long I had been working at my agency. In return I said twenty years, mostly in one division. The manager in turn said she had worked in this division at the same time and does not remember me.

So she ask me question after question trying to remember me but can’t. The entire time I am waiting for her to say something like “Hey you were a male before” or something like that. I could see she is not going to give up and now know she is not going to put two and two together.  The image below is before (me on the left teaching) and after.

Both

So I finally said “wait a minute”, grab some paper, write my former name down and hand it to her. She looks at the name, looks up, looks down and then finally looks up and says WOW I would not had guessed. She puts the paper down and hugs me. We chat for a few minutes and then she was off to a meeting.

Two days later and several days after that we talk more but never once bring up my past again and treated me like a friend/co-worker.

So with that there is something to be said about those either starting in some place into a journey of transitioning that it gets better as time goes by. What I mean by it gets better is (for those who are cisgender) when a person either male or female begins thinking of transitioning are usually very fearful of a) being discovered b) thinking they will never be accepted by friends, family and co-workers. Sure the ugly truth is there are backwards thinking people who will never accept a transgender person but the majority will. More times than not the rejection comes from the person transitioning by words, actions and attire which causes cisgender people to feel uncomfortable with them.

It’s easy for me to say “I have been there done that” and say nothing else but the truth is, I was frighten to step out my front door in fear of being made but learned from others before me that it does not have to be that way. Also, when I told my neighbors about transitioning two of them said, “what took you so long?” I responded with “What do you mean”, they said yeah we have seen you sneaking out dressed and thought that I should had just came out then.

I said I was fearful of doing this especially before obtaining a letter to allow me to have surgery. Wish I knew that then but I am now telling other transgender people the truth, you may believe you are sneaking out but there are always eyes watching.

Take it from someone who has been there, like with the manager I mentioned above and she was not the first this happened with me, at least 10 people in my past could not recognize me. Hormones and confidence in oneself goes a long way to blending in as the gender you were suppose to be.

Swinger’s club II

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Fun, Life, My journey, Sex, Socializing

≈ 3 Comments

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The club I went to last night does tours between 6 and 8 then it’s members only and that most members show up starting around 8:30. So to my surprise when arriving at just before eight the parking lot is almost full. Then I remembered, last week Adam and Eve cancelled a rope demonstration which was rescheduled for last night.

Upon walking in the president gives me a hug, he is that type of person and I said, the demonstration just started so you didn’t miss anything. There are some seats up front if you like.

From Adam and Eve’s, a woman dressed in  dominatrix attire was presenting the demonstration with a male representative and a male model. She goes there a discussion about types of ropes followed by showing two basic knots. Next she tells she will tie up the model and expects it to take thirty minutes to one hour.

Both her and the model were fun to watch while the representative had a table setup with literature on this topic.

For the first half of the demonstration was done in the dance room then moved to one of the playrooms were there happened to be a couple getting it one so there were two shows going on at once.

So, at the end the woman started off with one hundred and thirty feet of room when done had roughly six inches left and as I saw it knew exactly what she needed. Now that was fun to watch.

During the demonstration I had a couple sit next to me where the husband had eye’s for me and at one point said I was gorgeous (which I still have troubles accepting myself this way) and was interested in playing. I thanked him for the compliment and told him early on that I had a long day driving in a car club and that I was not up to playing and he was accepting of this.

Next week is the monthly gang-bang which is the first weekend of each month. I signed up to watch, not participate. In this event females are given wrist bands to hand out to men they want to play with which as gang-bangs go will be many men to a woman and the female has all the power in these events. So this is not your typical gang-bang where the men have the power. Will be fun to see this next weekend.

Since there are no cameras or cell phones allowed this is a picture of half the dance floor and in the background a room that runs continuous porn which members have full control over what to play/watch.

DanceFloor

Swingers club

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Fun, Life, My journey, Sex

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Several weeks ago I decided after seeing a site on the web about a swingers club I contacted them about details and was offered a tour of the club. So that weekend I did the tour and spent about an hour chit-chatting with the president and his wife and thought that this would be a great place to spend a night on the weekend.

Some specifics, it’s not all about sex, instead after going there the past few weekends learned (and this was told to me at the tour) there is a great deal of socializing from sitting down at a table and talk to playing pool. What I thought was really great was that females have the power rather than the men and there are very strict rules with things like no means no, ask before touching etc. The rules are in plain sight too.

The first weekend my plan was to simply mingle and not participate. After about thirty minutes after arriving I was being checked out, three men sat down with me and talked for just over an hour, or maybe more, hard to tell as I did not look at the clock until I got tired and decided to leave. During this time the president’s wife said there was one man whom she thought we get along but not soon after we started chatting a female came in, grabbed him and of they went. I was told don’t expect them to come out for several hours.

Mid way through the week he emailed me, we chatted which went well. So that Saturday we met and talked at the bar and then he said, let’s hit the bed room. So off we went and he confided to me that he has a wife and is okay with this along with being bi. Also he was shy in a crowd but the complete opposite in the bedroom (I was told this beforehand). Safe to say without going into details other than he was well endowed we had a great time in the sack.

One of the things we talked about was me bringing my strap-on to play, oh my, I purchased one but have not used it yet, maybe tonight but unsure as I was up on their chat area on their web site and was getting signals from a couple (man and woman) in their early forties.

Oh, I really like the casual style for how some dress, there are a handful of females (with a date assuming boy friend or husband) that dress like in the old salon’s in Western movies. So far I have kept to a slinky black dress the first time and last week a black top and red skirt. No I didn’t forget bra and undies as I did not wear them. Shoes for the first two nights where two different pairs of medium high heels while tonight in over the thigh boots.

You can really prepared for this

14 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in GRS, Life, My journey, Post surgery, Sex

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So it has been 14 months since my gender reassignment surgery were over the past month or so something has been happening that my surgeon Marci Bowers warned me about which is as follows.

You may have times when the simple action of rubbing your private parts against clothing may cause arousal. Well when it first started in the past month it was not that bad and kind of nice, just walking along and things began to get aroused to a point but then got to the point I would have to stop walking else possibly cause a scene for having a full blown orgasm.

Now it’s been crazy over the past two weeks where I will be sitting at work and get to the point I can’t function as I once did because I am dealing with O’s and thinking of what I am doing which really both of these things conflict with each other.

Last Saturday night I attended an event at a Swinger’s club were the club is about both socializing and sex and got asked by several men about my O’s and said in some many words what I liked. I was asked if I was interested in having sex that night and said no, I am simply getting to know the place and people. And oh, by the way I have been experiencing orgasms sitting here talking to you. Two of the men at my table said, well that’s impressive as most woman your age have difficulties in bed having orgasms let alone having when while sitting down and moving their hips.

With that said, while writing the above I had to get up and re-position myself because of the sensations going on down there.

For anyone reading this who is going down the road of having genital reassignment surgery be aware this may very well happen to you too. Best to be forewarned then having this happen to you without prior notice it can happen.

For now I have to deal with this but sure hope things will settle down over time.

The Danish Girl

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Life, Thoughts, Transsexualism

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I had many struggles throughout my life living in a male body with a female living within and somehow managed to never get suicidal or deeply depressed as something inside of me knew that I could breakout of the my male shell. Many who are or will travel down the same path will not be so fortunate in this regard. They will be  suicidal, depressed and ostracized by both family, friends and co-workers. They may meet an untimely death at the hands of others or themselves. There are others like me who no doubt share a similar story and for them and myself we are semi-fortunate.

If the above was not enough some will find it impossible to afford surgery out of pocket (which I did) while others will be denied the cost of surgery from insurance companies although in recent times a handful of insurance companies are flipping the majority of the cost.

The next hurdle is coupled with cost. One should expect to pay when all is said and done roughly 40,000 to $50,000 dollars for therapist, doctors, plastic surgeons and other cost. Some will take the affordable route which is overseas surgery where a 10,000 dollar procedure. If this is the road taken you may be putting your life in the hands of those medical personal that more likely than not don’t speak English nor do those where you are staying.

To the point, I just watched at the movie theater “The Danish Girl” where a female is inside a physical male body in 1926. She learns of gender reassignment surgery which has not be tried out and volunteers to be the first. The movie overall was about getting to surgery which was not known.

The surgeon indicated two surgeries were needed, first remove the penis then after weeks of recovery create a vagina.

Directly after the first surgery she was in so much pain they had to physically restrain her and sedate her. She is in a hurry for the second surgery where her wife says to wait but she can’t.

Sadly she did not last long after the second surgery before passing.

I left the theater in what seemed like myself but on the drive home I nearly burst into tears feeling sorry for her (not the actor) and could not shake the emotions running though me all the time wishing I could had leaned on someone for comfort.

Two years ago this would never had phased me but now the hormones are in full bloom and with that comes varying degrees of emotional responses.

Any ways, Lilly passed and was a pioneer in many ways. So much pain and she was never fully female in the physical. When I had gender reassignment surgery it was seven hours, stayed under for three hours more. When I woke there was zero pain and no need for a second surgery. Let’s call it one hundred years between her and my surgery and one might say it’s expected that progress was made yet I hear of some people having the same surgery even twenty years ago with immense pain after surgery.

One final thing to say is people like me (and I have said this before) have no choice in the need to physically correct the physical body and Lilly saw several doctors were some did radiation treatments, wanted to drill holes in her head and/or place her into a mental hospital. I bet there are still people in society that believe modern medicine can cure transgender people, if someone is truly transgender that will not happen.

Thanks for reading.    

Wind in my hair

18 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Life

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In my early twenties I dated a wild soul girl who had a car to match her personality, a Triumph Spitfire and I had a van which suited me in many ways from carrying tools to work, fornicating, yes it had a bed in the back as shown below. The last thing it was used for was my gender dystopia when it hit I had storage for female clothes, drew the curtain and I could transform into Karen.

VanInterior 

JoanI looked around but found no picture of her sports car but here she is in my van. Why did the craziest things were many times we would be running from the local police in her sports car and never got caught. Once we went to New York city to get something in one of the worst parts of the city, I mean people enter and are never seen again, we made it out but was not easy.

Any ways we started sharing vehicles and from that I grow fond of sports cars but never actually purchased one mainly because of her car being available and a friend who let me drive some exotic sports cars so my thirst was quenched until I got married, had children which dampened the ability to purchase a sports car of my very own.

Fast forward twenty some years later were my boss purchased a Mazda Miata. He took me out in it a few times on business and then one day got to drive it and was oh so hooked.

For whatever reason I did nothing, guess I was simply too busy but from time to time thought about getting one. Then about four months before coming out as transgender asked a co-worker what he thought of the Miata. He’s been driving sports cars all his life and is an expert. Well he said “It’s a chick’s car”, why not get something that a man drives?

Another co-worker over heard us and pretty much said the same thing. Me, thinking, if they only knew.

A couple of months passed and I informed my workplace that I was transitioning. Guess what those two co-workers said. You need a Miata!!! Then he says you need to wait until the 2016 Miata come out.

We pulled up pictures of the 2016, yes I am in love with this car. Several months pass and I contact the local Mazda dealer, nope, not in yet. Several weeks pass and I get an email, we have one, want to test drive it?

Next day I took it out for a test drive and roughly two hours later I was the proud owner of this car, not cheap mind you, $30,000. The price tag included everything from turning headlights, auto-wipers, Bluetooth for controlling everything which is activated by voice, touch or joy stick.

The first week I was devious in that I dreamed up reasons to drive the car and always with the top down, wind in my hair never felt so good.

Last week I hooked up with the local Miata club and ended up being the center of attention as I had the only 2016 Miata not only in the club but in town.

We went for a ride in the country for about an hour or so with very challenging curves. Afterwards I was complimented several times on how well I handled the curves. The man who complimented me was the leader and has been racing cars for over twenty years so I knew what he was talking about. For the entire drive he only hit his breaks for stop signs which was amazing if one would had seen the curves.

It’s turning to the rainy season here in Oregon so take every chance I get to drive with the top down and love it.

I still have my old car a Toyota Camry XLE 2014 and not sure about selling it or not. At this point since purchasing the Miata I might have clocked three hours in the Camry tops.

It was been a spectacular year so far, gender reassignment surgery, breast augmentation and now my very own sports car.

I motto now when driving is “It’s all about the curves”

My Miata

Miata2016SideView

InsideViewMiata

Approval for GRS, why???

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by in Life, preparation, Thoughts

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I wrote the following for a blog post on another site and thought it would be worth sharing. Many argue the point if a real life test is needed and there are good points on both sides of the discussion. Some will say, suppose the person decides not too transition during the one year real life test? I respond by saying that you need to be 99.99 percent sure this is for you. There are some who could go without this test as many live the life already and in this case should be given a pass.

For years I wondered why do I need approval from two therapist for gender reassignment surgery and at times really aggravated me to no end but once I started it all became clear. You see, feeling trapped in the wrong physical body can taunt and consume a person to various states of mind that can lead to a dark place thus never seeing the reasoning behind the “why” behind the requirement for therapy coupled with living in the opposite gender for at least one year.

Here is the deal, feeling trapped in the wrong physical body there can be relief by wearing clothing of the opposite gender but that is usually hindered as many don’t have a safe haven to wear clothing for an extended period of time and eventually as one grows older the feelings of being in the wrong physical body become more intense and can destroy marriages and cause one to become secluded to the point they are alone and now in their free time can become the female they should be to a limited degree by dressing in the role of a female for longer periods.

The danger here is we think that by setting an appointment for reassignment surgery with an informed consent is all one should need. There lays the problem, it’s a completely different world living as a female 24/7 in each and every aspect of your life. It quickly becomes real when you are paying for something in a store and need to use your credit card that says John Smith when you are dressed female. You might get lucky as I did, sales lady looks at the name on my credit card and says, John Smith is your husband? I will need to see your identification. Me, no that is my name, sales lady, your parents have a strange way of naming their daughter. But not everyone will be fortunate for this to happen. Next up (which should had been firsts).

The female voice, a dead give away if not practiced. You are paying for groceries at the store, cashier engages you in conversation and although nobody would every guess that you were not female because you have taken the time to dress properly, age appropriate clothing and not to much makeup you say something and out slips the male voice, oooops, you get the idea.

In the real live experience you are under pressure either all the time or some of the time and for many will truly challenge their original thoughts of transitioning. Geez, can I really pull this off? What I mean is, once you have a vagina and breast it’s a completely new world and you have no choice but to either blend in as part of the scenery, become part of the scenery or become ostracized for being a freak and with that comes depression, self-doubt or more leading to dark places OR you rise to the task of merging your inner female self with a new physical self from the affects of hormones.

Trust me when I say, you have no idea, no clue what one year of living in the opposite gender is like until you have been doing it for say three months and then look back 12 months later and can’t hardly remember what it was like as a male and if you can more likely than not remember it differently how the full time female experience would be.

I challenge those taking this journey to write down their thoughts before starting HRT and therapy then say 10 months down the road read what you wrote and see how you think about the journey now. If comfortable, keep a daily journal of your ups and downs, like anybody living we have ups and downs and in the 12 month role they are magnified. When seeing a therapist there are gaps of time between visits and having these notes can help you engage with the therapist.

BOTTOM LINE: The real life experience as I see it now is that it’s good for you while looking back I thought “what the heck”.

Hopefully those traveling down the road for gender reassignment surgery will be fortunate to have a good support system in place to assist them with the 12 month real life test and it will go better this way. Personally I had (and still have) a wonderful female friend who not only supported me but traveled to California to be with me for GRS and then with breast augmentation was there for me too in my home taking care of me. You can not do this on your own, I repeat, you can not do this on your own so get use to the fact you will need a good support system which should be done before starting your journey, find out who are really friends and who are not and don’t be surprised that many may be repulsed at the thought of you wanting to be female.

Life is good

07 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Life, My journey

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It has been four months now since my transition and two weeks since breast surgery and feeling comfortable in my current skin.

I am keeping appointments with my therapist who had approved me for surgery. This is being done because one never knows when life may take a down turn for the worst and leave one in a dark place. With that said I am not one to fall into depression because life tossed me a bad curve ball and can’t recover from this which some have issues with after surgery. The key is to be prepared both physically and mentally, have zero reservations to what will follow after surgery. A good therapist can spot issues that we can’t so I urge anyone on the same or similar path as me to make a commitment to have appointments to your therapist post surgery.

Socially speaking I am fitting in like a perfectly fitted bra done by a professional bra fitter. I am using tVictoriaSecretsShoppinghat analogy because yesterday my best female friend lead me to Nordstrom’s for a bra fitting where I not only received expedite service but also learned that how I was putting on a bra was the correct method. Then we headed off for a wonderful lunch in their restaurant. Of course we visited my favorite store, Victoria’s Secrets where I almost never come out empty handed as shown in the picture.

Thinking of pictures, I have not seen my mother since 2003 and she reminded me of this so I went to a professional photographer last weekend to have them take a picture of me and frame it for my mother. I ended up having about twenty photos taken, here are a few of them.

 

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