tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81584937531763210932024-03-13T13:20:16.053-07:00Right Brain Wrong BodyA blog about a transgender woman and her messy, busy life.Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-12677159799690295122017-09-06T07:29:00.001-07:002017-09-06T12:34:31.919-07:00Apples & Apples<div class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It was my second year at the Hendersonville Apple Festival in NC. The previous year I went with my wife, we had a great time and enjoyed the day, despite the heat. I went as my mask because my wife was still coming to terms with, well, me. This year I wanted it to be different, I wanted to go as me, to wear a nice sun dress and just enjoy the day. It didn’t happen. Our daughter wanted to go with us this year, which we were happy with, but she wanted to bring a friend from school. Even that may not have determined my wearing the mask, but her parents and sister decided they wanted to meet us at the festival. Her parents and sisters don’t know about me, I’m fine with them knowing, but my wife isn’t ready just yet. So, rather than forcing it, making them see me for me, I chose to go in my mask. I blame myself for trying to accommodate every one’s needs and comfort. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The festival is made up of a lot of vendor stalls along each side of the street. At one of those vendor stalls, a woman was giving samples of exfoliating scrubs of varying scents. As we walked up, she asked if I wanted to try it. My first response was my masks practiced reply of “No, don’t think so”. Then I asked my daughter if she wanted to try i</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t. She did and really liked the scrub. I stood at another stall, galled by the fact that I was limited by my masks responses. I thought, “screw it”, and walked over to the woman and said “You know what? I would like to try the scrub.” She made the comment that she has a manly scent. I showed her my long-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ish</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> nails and clear polish and said, “I don’t think that is an issue, give me something that smells pretty.” She was taken aback for only a fraction of a second and then let me sample a scrub. It worked </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">really well</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, by the way, and it did smell pretty (mango). </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I still had a gr</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">eat time at the festival, but with a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">sadness that yet another festival went by and I am still wearing the mask for other people. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I met a trans-sister on twitter, Allison. She is an extrovert and active in the community, with family and friends. She started her blog</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><a href="https://allison-grace.com/"><span class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Allison-Grace.com</span></a><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and is on a transitioning track that I am completely jealous of. I don’t begrudge her a single thing, she is just going for it and I am jealous of that attitude and focus.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> It’s also a common theme for me, I see others moving despite the money or issues with family and I wonder why I can’t manage it. I know that I want things, I don’t know how to get the things I want without causing inconvenience to my wife, who shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden I have caused.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I am determined that the next apple festival will be attended by the real me and not my mask.</span></div>
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Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-77717672100150184862017-09-01T06:14:00.001-07:002017-09-01T06:14:13.699-07:00The Revelation Permeation<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’m still contemplating the move of my blog to a site that is more updated and a little easier to post using a mobile app. I use my phone to post because I spend most of my time at work and I don’t want an electronic trail leading directly to my blog from my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">work </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">laptop. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The move is imminent, I just need to find the time and host. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This is a long weekend…</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have been adding people to my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">facebook</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> account, people that were originally on my masks </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">FB</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> pag</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e. Eventually there will be no FB</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> page for my mask, there will be no mask, he will be unmade. A bit like leaving behind your imaginary friend from childhood. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’m </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">still </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">firmly behind my mask at work, well not firmly, wearing all women’s clothes except the button-down shirt </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as well as</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> my medium length, manicured nails have a clear coat on them. No one has commented, but most people are </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">not </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">observant. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There is a line</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of inobservance(?)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> you can get to before suddenly someone says, “Are you</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">…</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> wearing nail polish?” I haven’t hit that line yet, but I am steadily pushing to that line every day. I have been feeling like I just don’t care enough to keep hiding behind my mask. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Part of inviting people onto my FB from the masks, is to broaden the chances of me being “found out”. There are times where I don’t care if I get fired</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or at least I’m willing to test the possibility.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I am tired of crying in the morning because I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">must</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> wear </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">this</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> mask. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just fed up. I keep pushing and it will all come tumbling down, and I will laugh as it does. Sure, I’ll be unemployed, but at least I’ll be me full time.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Another part of the FB transition is that a bit more distant friends and some family will notice that my mask is indeed a mask. Apparently, people are so respectful of my privacy that they aren’t even gossiping and spreading the word. How dare they be wonderfully respectful of my life? Seriously, I have no idea what I have done to deserve such loyalty. I honestly don’t deserve it, not being humble, I am at the best of times cranky and at the worst of times angry and annoying (well masked me is). I attribute it more to the wonderful nature of my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">friends and family, than anything I have done. Regardless, I was kind of hopeful that word would spread (it hasn’t). So now I am forcing it a bit. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This is the hardest, emotionally, part of it all. Then I have some expensive parts, like hair removal, which is the laser removal for my face… $7000 isn’t cheap. Then I have the surgeries, but weight must be lost, those will be MUCH </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">more costly</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Facial feminization, orchiectomy, are the two I really want now. GRS will be the holy grail of cost and emotional closure. It seems like so much, like I will never get there, so there are times where I am despondent. I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">have to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> somehow justify the cost and not put myself before my family. I have a kid in school, and two kids being young adults. I have a wife and pets. These are responsibilities I am glad to have, but I don’t know at what point I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">am allowed to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">be a bit selfish. I feel so horrible doing anything for myself, because if I do something for me, then someone </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">else in the family does without.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-45929269903896294482017-08-16T07:24:00.001-07:002017-08-16T07:26:33.872-07:00The Familial Revelation<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When it comes to family, I think we can all agree that it is never easy an</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">d in a word, complicated. I have spent the last few months letting family know about me. Almost all of those I have told have reacted positively, no one has disowned me or anything. The closest I have come to a negative reaction is my youngest brother, who wasn’</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t negative at all, he was just the closest</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I have a few others to tell, cousins who are a bit distant, but whom I still feel deserve to hear it from me, and our middle brother. I have been waiting to tell </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my middle brother, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">S, I’m afraid. He has always been the distant brother, one who I can never seem to make happy or get close to. I am probab</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ly doing him a great disservice, but I know the type of guys he is friends with so I am hesitant. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I did tell another cousin, Kim. She and I were inseparable when we were younger. We spent the weekend at our grandmothers almost every weekend. We were extremely close, we both wanted to be songwriters and playwrights.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I would look for ways to get to spend the weekend at the same time Kim did. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We would write plays and musicals to put on during cookouts or when we could round up an audience. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">She was</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> who I wanted to be, pretty, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">sweet and a girl. I was also in love with her, that kind of children’s love that doesn’t understand cousins can’t be married.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I had sent a FB message to her and hadn’t heard anything back for almost a month. I thought that perhaps she either didn’t have FB messenger or that she wasn’t happy with the information. It made me more than a little anxious as she was such a huge part of my life as a child. I wanted her, I don’t know, approval? Acceptance.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Well, yesterday, she sent me a FB message… </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">“Love U </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">Cuz</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">!! Call me sometime. You’d be surprised at what we have in common. (her number) Beautiful pic!! (I had sent a selfie of me, it helps when they have a visual to get to grips with things) You are gorgeous!!”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, needless to say</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> was ecstatic! I was so happy that she was happy for me! I was also intrigued by her message. What did she mean by “what we have in common”? </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I called Kim almost immediately</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, this is not something I would let my mind mull over</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. And it turns out that she, despite being straight and never questioning that, she is in a deep relationship with a trans woman! I was stunned, happily stunned! That she has this mirror image relationship that I have with my wife, it was like the universe saying we haven’t stopped being close! So now we are making plans to meet up in Memphis, to eat and visit!</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I still have one other cousin, 2</span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 8.399999618530273px; vertical-align: super;">nd</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> cousin I believe, I should have kept up with mom’s family tree efforts. Terry was always kind of a distant cousin, but I always thought he was cool. He was the only member of our family, when I was a child, that was gay. He didn’t hide it, just didn’t discuss it, at least around </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">me. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">He worked in Hollywood as a set designer and then a florist. My grandparents who were very conservative never gave him grief that I know of, he always managed to visit, even got my grandparents to Ted Turner and Jane Fonda’s home to spend Christmas. It was never discussed, his being gay</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, everyone knew but it wasn’t discussed. We haven’t talked in a while, but he helped me when I moved to LA at a young foolish age. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So, I will send him a FB message as well, see how that turns out.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I know it seems like I am searching for acceptance, but </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">really,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I think I am </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">probably</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> supplementing my NOT coming out at work with coming out to everyone else. There is a point where I will need to just stop this, to confront my employers and then look for another job. It’s not going to work out here, where I work now. They will never accept anyone different from th</span><a name="_GoBack"></a><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">em, which is sad.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-16098012874660306712017-08-11T04:13:00.001-07:002017-08-11T04:13:28.857-07:00The Wardrobe Assimilation<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When we bought our house, it was after many searches and with a very frazzled realtor who almost wept</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> when we finally closed</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. One of the features that spoke to my wife was a closet in the hallway that was very big and lined and shelved in cedar. I was less pleased with the small closet that I knew would end up being mine. It has no shelves, just a rack that is about three feet long.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> This closet would have been great for a man who lived a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">spartan</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> life.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I knew that this closet would not be great for me, a woman who likes clothes. So, yes, I have closet envy.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My wife has filled her large closet with clothes and shoes and I have over-filled my little closet completely. I have pruned down my masks male clothing to just the five shirts I wear 5 days a week to work, the rest, pants, shirts, dresses, etc. are all mine.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I have shoes piled upon each other on the floor of the closet with a small plastic drawer set for sundries. I could change some things, such as add</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing a shelf above the clothes rod, so t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hat I have a place to put my wigs.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> But overall, the size of the closet is the size it must be, there is a window in the only area in which it can be expanded.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Aside from the closet, we have a nine-drawer dresser in which I have one single drawer. I know this sounds like I am complaining about my wife, that isn’t my intent. When we started living together, she didn’t know about my being a woman. So, when we moved into an apartment together, I was in full mask mode. And when we were figuring out our living situation, I responded in “</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">spartan</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> male” and told her I just need a drawer and a small part of the one huge closet. Things have obviously changed, but we are creatures of habit and I don’t want to seem like I am taking space from her. This weekend I am going to do that however, get a couple more drawers and see about cleaning out a few junk drawers in our smaller dresser.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Next to the closet is a large wicker chest under the window. It is filled with comforters, hand-made quilts my grandmother and great-grandmother had made. I use the top of the chest to put a box of breast forms, my current week’s pair of pants, my sleepshirt and my two wigs. However, it is also the place I pile clean dresses and shirts and capris, etc. that I don’t have the space for in my closet or drawer. It becomes impossible to find anything without digging through the entire pile and having to reassemble the pile. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">All of this came about because I decided to do something about the clothes pile. I decided to wash the entire pile even though they are clean, our dog was shedding for a couple of months very badly so hair everywhere. After they dried, I hung everything that could be hung in the closet. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I was left with a considerable pile of clothes that still didn’t have a home, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my one drawer being completely full. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they are back on the wicker chest until I can get more space.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I intend to create space this weekend, hopefully without my wife feeling resentful that I am taking space from her.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-82483208207870899812017-08-03T04:09:00.001-07:002017-08-03T04:09:05.173-07:00The Weight of Things<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When I was a child, from 6 to 12 years old, I was fat. I had to wear “husky” boy’s j</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">eans, that was the name of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">size “husky”!</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> So on top of having to wear something that was for boys, it had to be named something like “husky”.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Who does that to a child? Why not just say we ran out of numbers for your size so now we are going descriptive, something like “Chubby” or no, wait how about “Husky”?!</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was picked on at school for being </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fat;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I got into fights a lot. So, I worked out all the time with my mother; I was determined to knock my weight down. I was active and played sports, I was particularly happy to play baseball. I know it seems like a manly sport, but it’s non-contact and I got to wear a uniform that had albeit manly </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">stirrup pants</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, but they were still </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">stirrup pants.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I started leaning out in my early teens, and once I was in high school and running in track,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> at 16 </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">yrs</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> old, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I was very lean. During this time I could </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">wear almost anything my stepsister (who was 13 at the time) had in her closet that wasn’t constrained by height or my shoulders which were too broad for some </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">clothes.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> My stepmother’s clothes were almost perfect, so I wore a lot of Cato’s </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">dresses during that time.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was weighing in at 120 </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lbs</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> at the time.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Being that lean meant no boobs at all, but at least I could stuff my stepmom’s bras with the contents of my sock drawer.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">After joining the military, I stayed lean, maintaining 165 </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lbs</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">; muscle put on by running track and from military training had made me heavier but not much bulkier. I could wear anything my girlfriends wore for the most part. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Even after I left the military, I managed to keep to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my weight down</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for years. I started gaining weight during my first marriage, a combination of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">being married to a person who made me miserable, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">depression and quitting smoking </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">did its work. Since I didn’t keep to a workout regime or running, I slowly and imperceptibly started gaining weight. I didn’t realize it at first, I had to get new jeans every once in a while, that was all. I really started noticing when I couldn’t wear a lot of the</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> clothes my (now) ex-wife wore. I started going to a gym, but I found I had a lot of issues with sticking to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a routine</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. There were many times in which I had just given up because I was stressed and anxious and depressed, and working out didn’t seem to relieve any of that. I am also lazy! Laziness can’t be understated here, I like to watch television and play video games. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">All of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">these</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">things combined into a pretty potent</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> recipe for being </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">overweight.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I had let being thin during my prime fool me into thinking my weight would never change, the foolishness of youth.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">After my divorce, I was still hiding who I was. We have a son and we were then fighting for custody. Thankfully, I had never told her about my being trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or bisexual</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, she had no idea.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> She is conservative in the extreme, probably my trying to push who I was way down into a dark pit.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">If she had known,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> it would have been used against me during the divorce and the custody battle. I viewed the divorce and legal proceedings as my fault, because I wasn’t </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in actuality, my</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> mask, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it had to be my fault. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Lying in your marriage, especially about who you are, can’t be a good marriage. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Depression was my only friend at that time. Then I lost custody of my son, I sank into the darkest recesses of depression, even contemplated the worst thoughts of self-harm. I was lost of darkness for several years, just barely keeping it together to keep my job, but I had let myself completely go. I’m tall, so it doesn’t look it, but </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">was carrying around two of me. </span><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When Michelle and I finally got together, then married after 25 years of friendship, weight became a thing for both of us. We are older now and it’s harder to lose and harder to workout. We don’t spring back into shape, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we had to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> really work at a change of any kind. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It can be disheartening to put forth all this effort for little to no change, weight-wise. We tried juicing, which is when you don’t eat anything but the juice of vegetables & fruit. It’s not a fun cleansing, we did it for 30 days. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">At first, y</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ou </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">miss</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> chew</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing food, you are always hungry and you get agitated. About two weeks in, you hit the plateau where hunger dies down, the chewing is just forgotten, and you start feeling great. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I lost 75 </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lbs</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in the month we did that. Of course, when you start eating again, if you maintain your workouts and eat reasonably, then you will stay on point with the weight loss. We didn’t do this, we had started shopping for houses and with the stress of getting a VA loan and finding a house within our price range and the packing of our apartment and moving, for three months we basically ate junk food and stopped working out. (Lazy remember?)</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">After buying our home, I purchased a treadmill and managed to get the great hulk of a thing put together in our home office. I have used it ten times. I don’t know why I have trouble making myself use it, I usually like treadmills in gyms or in the apartment gym, but at home I just find excuses not to use it. I have some pain in my ankle, caused by being overweight and I use that as an excuse. It’s also boring, I get bored on the treadmill, even if I use my phone to play </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">tv</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> shows or movies on Netflix. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I keep rededicating myself to working out and using the treadmill to only use it a day or two at a time. Then I find an excuse, any will do, to not touch it again for weeks.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the end, I am my own worst enemy for being healthy. I tend towards fatty foods and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">leading a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> sedentary </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lifestyle </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">which is just not good. I want to be thin(</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ner</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">) </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">because I want to look as good as I can and fit into the</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> clothes I like</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, but I also just want to be healthy and vibr</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ant again, a bit of youth reclaimed</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. For those of us already fighting the ravages of testosterone and a biologically male body, weight becomes a big issue.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I don’t have any answers for getting the weight down or keeping it off for lazy transgender people who have a genetic disposition to be large in the first place. I am guessing eat right, workout and don’t try to cheat the system because I am pretty sure that never works out well in the end.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-82171492981312124372017-07-26T13:00:00.001-07:002017-07-26T13:00:06.687-07:00My Post Interrupted…<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The problem with being m</span><a name="_GoBack"></a><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e (sans mask) at home is that it consists of mostly weekends and a few week nights. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The weekdays belong to my mask, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> works and gets paid to keep our family fed, housed and all the things that come with it. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Of those weekends and week nights, I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">don’t really go </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">out,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I like to be at our home and work in the yard or spend family time</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. The mask I have grown up wearing is an introvert. I have no way of knowing what *I* am, who I am. I like to think that I am nice and a bit of an extrovert, but since I spend no real time with friends or outside </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my property, it’s hard to see if I am growing into anything. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It’s not that I don’t want to go out, but </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I am hampered by my own issues, those of my voic</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e (first and foremost) which is very male and makes me horribly self-conscious. Then there is my weight, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">about </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">which I have done very little lately, my work out routine is mainly thinking of an excuse in order to not work out. There will always be issues; body image is a huge one since it comes in two forms, the obvious gender dysphoria and being too heavy. I’m my own worst enemy. Who doesn’t want to be pretty?</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">More than this, I’m trying to shed my masks mannerisms</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, these were used to distract from who I actually am, movements honed into a masculine</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ideal</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> so that I could not be detected.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Of course I am doing the same as all transwomen do in the beginning; I am over-feminizing my movements to where they are more a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">caricature</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> than reality. I am working on this, everything takes time which is at a premium to those starting late in life.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Sorry – I was writing this and I got a twitter alert. Trump has just </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">tweeted</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;"> this statement</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow..........Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming.........victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you,”</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Alright, most of you know I am a veteran of Desert Storm/Shield. So it should be pretty easy to know how I feel about Trumps statement. We are already serving, we have always served. This is just like the bathroom laws against us. Do you really think we haven’t been around since the start of humanity? That we haven’t used the bathroom? Fought in wars, served with honor, gotten medals and saved lives? Trump, who has never served in the military, gotten deferrments from service, is trying to stop those who are tra</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">nsgender from serving. Yet another thing, one at a time until we are put back into the closet where white cis men in power don’t have to see us. This is the start of the take down of the LGBT community, first the T, then the rest will go down one at a time under this administration.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I know one thing about me, one thing that doesn’t change wether I am wearing my mask or not. I shall not go quietly.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-36651109671546686542017-07-19T10:11:00.001-07:002017-07-19T10:11:28.773-07:00The Transgender Dominion<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I don’t travel in the circles of other transgender. My son is the only other transgender person I have ever met face to face, that I know of. I would love to make friends and hang out if they were good people, I am an introvert and it takes a lot for me to overcome that. I have heard that in a lot of cases, when groups of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> get together that it can get </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">clique-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ish</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. That these cliques can become very judgmental of others for not being transitioned, or transitioned enough, or even passing etc. I admit this causes me some concern, I never feel transitioned enough for myself, no idea what trans-snobs would think of me.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I think it is easy to forget how it felt being the newly out person, or to be jaded because they spent so much money transitioning and this new person hasn’t done that yet or doesn’t need to spend that money. It becomes a kind of badge that they probably feel must be earned. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Of course, that isn’t how it is in reality. In reality, we all walk our own path, transitioned or not, if you are transgender you just are, regardless of a judgement rendered by your peers.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> was recently on Facebook and noticed that someone was in a tirade over a British comedian, Eddie Izzard’s, claim that he is transgender. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">[Note: I will be using masculine pronouns </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">in reference to Eddie Izzard, because that is how he </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">continues to refer to himself.] </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The person who ranted didn’t like that Eddie was “pretending” or using </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a transgender claim </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as a way to boost his presence.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Now, I had known from his comedy specials (Dressed t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">o Kill, Circle, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">etc</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">) that he identified himself as a transvestite, or an executive transvestite. How much of that was his comedy, or how he actually identified I have no idea, and frankly I didn’t care. I don’t need to know a person’s gender or even sexual orientation for me to enjoy them as an actor or comedian or a dog walker or person sitting on a bench, anything really. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the Facebook post the person who was ranting had referenced the article</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (which I of course cannot find the actual post now to give the URL for the article)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> instead here is a similar article. </span><a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/culture/eddie-izzard-people-still-shout-abuse-streets/"><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">https://inews.co.uk/essentials/culture/eddie-izzard-people-still-shout-abuse-streets/</span></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">both articles</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> he says he came out 32 years ago as transgender. I read the article I cannot find now, and this article and I still cannot actually understand if he came out, then how does he refer to himself as “he” and why still use a male name. But here is the thing I don’t have to understand a thing about him for his being transgender to be real and true. I don’t have to do a thing, don’t have to care, don’t have to shout or shrug. Why other transgender people have this feeling that they alone can judge who is also sufficiently </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> has always been a mystery to me. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I don’t have to conform to anyone’s idea of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for me to be a woman. I don’t even like being transgender at all, I mean I support the cause; I want everyone to be treated like a person and not like outcasts or beaten and killed. But the truth of it is, if I could, all transgender would magically be transformed into the gender they are supposed to be, leaving no one to be transgender, just people. Labels are used to control </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">people;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> labels don’t work in the interests of the minority. So, I don’t care how Eddie Izzard identifies. I don’t care that people see a bloke in a dress because he still uses masculine pronouns and his male name, they were going to do that anyway and it is his life. His being transgender doesn’t detract from me any more than two gay people being married detract from my marriag</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e, which is also a gay marriage. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Do two bisexual people being married constitute gay marriage?</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> No idea. </span><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-6876478919346544222017-07-18T11:47:00.001-07:002017-07-18T11:47:34.039-07:00All the things<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After telling my brother that I was a woman, I waited to see if someone in the family would contact me or make mention of it. However, I suppose he is being tight-lipped about it. I have a suspicion that he is keeping this secret because he thinks I don’t want it out. He probably doesn’t realize that I have come out to both sets of cousins, I am pretty sure that the wheels of gossip are spinning now. One of my cousins was just wonderful about my confession to her. The others have yet to respond, but I’m ok with that. When I sent them the letter through FB messenger, I told them that I don’t expect a response, that I just wanted them to know. I’m perfectly ok with this arrangement. I can’t and won’t please everyone and this has nothing whatever to do with pleasing anyone.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Aside from the general tell-everyone thing, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have been feeling lackluster and a bit despondent. The constant intrusion of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">manly hair</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> dealings, the lack of time to be Beth rather than my mask has allowed darkness into my thoughts. I don’t care for it, but shaking it off isn’t always an option, sometimes you have to ride the darkness until you find the light. My light is often my wife, who will surprisingly include me in “girly” things. Yesterday, she had talked about waxing and how she wanted to try the wax beans and wanted to know if I would be interested in trying it too. It was nice to be included, to know that she is thinking of me.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> It has helped too that my best friend, Joe, showers me with compliments about how pretty I am. Between the two, it is easy to forget the genetic misfire of this body.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Onto other things</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">..</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Twitter. I have an account, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">@bethlocke45 </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">which I use to shout my thoughts at people. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have avoided twitter for years, yes I love tech and I am an IT person, but I just don’t like being limited to 140 characters. Twitter always felt trite. I can’t say my views have really changed, but I have embraced twitter without my mask, and that is freeing no matter what venue. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I don’t have much of a following, but I like to think I have quality over quantity. At first I had put I was a “</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">transblogger</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">” on my profile, which I had seen on others and thought it was a cute way to put it. But then every post, no matter the subject was ignored and instead became an attack on my being a “man pretending to be a woman”. So, I tried taking off the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">transblogger</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, but I left my blog address on the profile. Miraculously, I was cured! I was no longer a man, but a woman with whom they could disagree. Sure, I still deal with the mansplaining and the assumption that I don’t know what I am talking about, but it doesn’t take over the entire discussion. It’s amazing the change in tone and how less aggressive </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">people are. I don’t like leaving this part of me off, only because I had a few really good conversations about what being transgender means. In fact, one conversation actually brought about the best talk with the best results. Another </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">MtF</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">transgender person and I were able to have a conversation with a cis woman and explain what transgender meant after she had asked on a political post. She is now an ally and we follow each other on twitter! So I feel like I am losing that part, but I would have to keep arguing the other 99.9% of the time about my not being a man at all. So for now, I have left t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">transblogger</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> off my profile. I would rather argue about things that we have choices on, lik</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e politics, sarcastic poetry and cat gifs. I told you, trite, right?</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-51962679377421147842017-07-10T10:45:00.001-07:002017-07-10T10:45:55.717-07:00Birthday<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Another year is down. I typically don’t subscribe to the linear timeline or</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> various anniversaries</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> established within it</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Celebrating my birthday was always something I did with great reluctance</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and only</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> if approached by others to do so. Otherwise, my birthday didn’t exist. It isn’t that I care about my age or time that has passed. I just didn’t want to celebrate the error of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">birth as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a biologically male child. C</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">elebrating that anniversary was never something I wanted to do. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I was a somber child; you wouldn’t know it because I hid behind jokes or I was just silent and kept to myself. I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">felt</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that if </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I couldn’t distract them with</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> laugh</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ter</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they may </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">look too closely, they may see something wrong with me</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. I felt wrong, broken. I couldn’t define it, couldn’t express it. I grew into a mostly silent adult, rarely going out of my way to meet people or engage. If they somehow guessed about me, or just rejected me out of hand, it was better to just be hidden.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I avoided photos of myself. I look through photos of my life and with exception of a very early age; I can count the number of photos of my mask on one hand. I never ever contemplated a “selfie”, it would</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> just</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> never happen. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the last couple of years,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> when I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">am able to be me, I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">take the occasional selfie and even look myself in the mirror without disgust. So things are improving slowly but surely.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As with most transgender, I go through periods of time where I am depressed and experience an increase in my dysphoria. I also feel like I am stuck and not moving forward.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> In those moments,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I want to just stop, go back to pretending to be my mask, grow the stupid hair on my face and be miserable. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">These</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> feelings</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> happen and I get through them, I rarely mention them because I don’t </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">want these momentary issues to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">define me, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">they are not</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> my story. I’m human, so I am far from perfection; I experience doubt and loneliness, fear and jealousy. I live with mostly women, my wife and my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">daughter;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">they are both beautiful in their own ways. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have female friends who are beautiful and wonderful. I experience jealousy that they are able to concentrate on being treated equally, to be taken seriously as people. When I come out</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> fully</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, I will have to contend with not only equality and being taken seriously, but I will have to fight to just be treated as a woman. I won’t ever be able to wake up in the morning and be pretty and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">with false modesty</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> exclaim how I look terrible. I will forever be fighting this body because I lacked brave</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ry/information at a young age. Testosterone has done so much damage, hardened my mask into the very likeness of a prison</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So, yeah, not all roses here, I have the issues. Not as bad as some, bad enough to be scarred by it. There is nothing to be done but continue the fight, to try to make my life as good as I can. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Since I have come out to the majority of the people in my life, I find that the anniversaries mean more, that many things mean more to me. My birthday, while it is still a contentious subject, I find that I can enjoy it for others. I celebrated this year as me, as Beth. That makes this a pretty good birthday.</span><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-51437772070365310042017-06-30T11:18:00.001-07:002017-06-30T13:08:07.140-07:00My Best Friend & Ally<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I received a call yesterday afternoon from my best friend, Joe. He is a stay at home Dad for two </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">rugrats</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and two older daughters, living far too far away in Memphis, TN. I know, I know, I am starting to give specifics. Coming out is often not a surge, but a slow reveal. Frankly, I have started caring less and less about anyone finding out what my masks identity is. It’s just a mask, inanimate and discard able. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Anyway, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Joe called and wanted to talk. He had some cool things to share about the world of geek that we live in (custom gaming tables for role-players, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">etc</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">) and to ask some questions he had about me, about Beth.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">A lot of the questions he asked were about things I have al</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ready posted on my blog, but I was happy to answer anything he was not sure about. Things like sexual preferences and surgeries; they are the typical kind of questions I expect. I want him to understand me, the real me, that the person he knew is still there, loves him, is still his friend. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> mask was there to distort </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">others perceptions of me</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, distorted my gender, my sexual preference (I presented as male & heterosexual)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, not completely obliterate</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my identity. So there are naturally questions about the parts of me that had until now remained hidden. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It’s not easy for me anymore than it is for the people I tell. They endure the shock, but I have to deal with the mask that lingers. It’s not easy to cast away something that has kept you hidden and safe, and yes given you a privilege that otherwise I would not have enjoyed. The moment I step out from behind the mask, it calls back to me like when you yell at a movie screen when the murderer is in the room. “Run! Hide! What are you doing?! </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So Stupid!”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My insecurities brought about from being in a body that isn’t the right gender, or from those around me while I was in my mask, how they acted toward transgender. It’s not easy, but with Joe, he made it seem like the most natural thing in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the world. That was the gift he gave to me, it was an accolade, a prize gained. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">He builds me up when I feel down, tells me I’m pretty and makes me feel so feminine when I start to feel all man-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ish</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> He has a photo of me (a selfie of when I did a particularly good job with makeup) on his phone. He says his children see this and ask him who the pretty lady is. It makes me feel so great that all is not lost</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">being in this T ravaged, hairy, penis-y body.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I had a few dreams about Joe when we roomed together. They were </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I think </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">based on a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> desire to be seen as the woman I was on the inside</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. I was a girl in these dreams, full on biologically complete. One of my favorites was me standing in the kitchen of our apartment with only an oversized button-down dress </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">shirt </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and panties. I was cooking breakfast when he comes in. He comes up behind me and puts his arms around me and nuzzles my ear, his beard</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> tickling my neck. That was as far as the dream went, but it was nice, being loved, held as a woman. Don’t get me wrong he is an attractive man, but I don’t believe it was about wanting, specifically Joe to do this, but he was in my life a lot and I think he held that place in the dream for that reason. Not sure I am saying this right, dreams are fickle things.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> My point was that because of these dreams, when he says I am pretty, it makes an impact with me. That was the point I was trying to get to.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">All my friends are supportive and great. They didn’t flinch, just accepted. I’m never going to not acknowledge that single great thing that they did for me. [Geek Warning] It was like when Buffy received her tiny umbrella, as the Class Protector. It was a magnanimous moment and it touched her to tears. That is how my friends made me feel, make me feel still. Without Joe, I would not have had the nerve to tell the rest of my friends. Yes, I know how lucky I am. No, I don’t take it for granted, not one little bit.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-51604336744728481332017-06-27T11:00:00.001-07:002017-06-27T11:25:17.611-07:00The Belated Honeymoon<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My wife and I decided to Universal Studios in Orlando for our honeymoon which was two years overdue. Specifically, we went for </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">both Harry</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Potter Parks, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Hogsmeade</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Diagon</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Alley. Both of us are geeks about different things, but Harry Potter is something we both love. We live in the mountains of North Carolina outside of Asheville, so we decided to rent a car and drive there, which is about 9 hours. She is nervous about flying and a 9 hour drive is nothing to us, since we have driven pretty much all of the USA.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The night before we left I packed my bags two or three times. I waffled on what to bring, a pair of jeans or a skirt, my wig or to leave it, my makeup or just leave it behind. I packed and then re-packed. I didn’t want to presume that my wife would be alright with me just being me during our </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">honeymoon,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> also I was worried about the security check and the extreme heat and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">humidity</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of Florida</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> during the summer. I ended up just packing my cotton nightgown she had bought me and a sexier nightgown for sexier times. I packed my breasts and a bra, though it was more an oversight as it was in my secondary bag and I had forgotten to take them out.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I made the decision that this time, my first time in this resort & theme park, I would go as my mask. Travel is always problematic, rests stops aren’t so bad, but if we stopped at a gas station or truck stop then my going to the bathroom would be problematic. Thanks to the interest in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> bathroom usage, now the public is looking closely at us and therefore me. Also I had no idea what to expect with the Cabana Bay resort or the Universal Theme Park itself. I hate that I have to still be behind my mask, but I am easily clocked especially if I talk, this damnable voice. So, this was for me, a scouting mission. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We spent a lot of money on merchandise, or for us, collectibles.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> It was</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> H</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">arry Potter everything it seemed and we are still going through everything</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">[TIP: If your rooms are with the Cabana Bay Resort, and you aren’t checking out the next day, you can have everything you buy from shops sent to the Cabana Bay Concierge, s</span><a name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-style: italic;">o you don’t have to walk around with your hands full.]</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The two best things I brought back were vastly different, my interactive wand which was Luna Lovegoods (2nd) wand, the handle looks like a closed flower. I'm Ravenclaw and feminine so it was fitting. The second best thing was a small necklace in the Jurassic park area that my wife</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> had</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> bought </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">for </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">me, the central bead had "Beth" printed on it. I almost cried.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There are things I observed behind my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mask, which</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> will allow me and hopefully others who go to Universal Studios </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as themselves </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">relatively hassle-free.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Cabana Bay check-in:</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> This was e</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">asily done and my wife ran in while I stayed with the car anyway. But the people were nice and I don’t think they would balk at a transgender person checking in.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Cabana Bay Environment: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">During the summer there </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">are</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> a LOT of families there and the place is chaotic. The bathrooms are men & women, but there are family restrooms. I found that no one watched the men or women’s bathrooms; I would have felt safe using the women’s. Also, I get the feeling that the people who work there have seen it all and won’t be thrown by a transgender person.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Cabana Bay </span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Shuttle: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The shuttle runs every ten minutes; rarely did we wait for more than two minutes. No need to speak, just walk in and sit down or stand and hold the braces. It can get crowded so if you find yourself across from someone or tightly packed against them, they may clock you. Overall though, I found that they were either too excited about getting to the park, dealing with their children, or too tired after the park to care about the person next to them. Still, very close space and made me uncomfortable despite being behind my mask.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Cabana Bay check-out:</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> You can check out using the automated process via the television, so you never have to talk to anyone.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Universal Parks</span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;"> Security</span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For whatever reason, it had no occurred to me that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we would go through security. Everyone hits a semi-circle of security terminals before you get to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">CityWalk</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (the free area that leads to all the different parks). They put out a plastic bin into which you and anyone with </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">you </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">places</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> everything you have on you. This includes purses, wallets, keys, etc. which then goes through a scanner. You will go through a metal detector as well. Though most times I had no issues, a few times my belt caused me to be briefly scanned with a wand (muggle metal detector). They are efficient and quick, they don’t touch you and they don’t care who you are, just trying to get the next person through the line. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Universal Parks Bathrooms: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Men and Women’s bathrooms, they are large and built into the backgrounds so they are not obtrusive. I also saw no reason why any transgender person would have an issue.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px;"></span><span class="s3" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold;">Florida Environment: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The real villain here is the heat/humidity. During the summer it easily hits 90 – 100 degrees Fahrenheit with the humidity approaching 100%. For those of us who use heavier foundations, this is a recipe for disaster. There were several cis women that had problems, their makeup flowing down their face in a parody of melting wax. It’s just brutal weather, so if you go I suggest that you go during the end of the year, from Sept into Feb. The weather is cooler even if the humidity doesn’t get better. If you have to go during the summer, then I suggest you do as we did, I call it shop-hopping. Most of the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">thousands of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">shops in universal sell the same things with small changes. The best part </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is that every shop is air conditioned and so very cooling. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy really. So just hop from shop to shop, keeping relatively cool until you hit those rare stretches of areas without shops.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Alright, so we had a great time, despite my being behind my mask. It would have been better had I been able to be me, but that will happen next year when we come back. Though next year we bring our daughter and just enjoy the Cabana Bay resort (and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it’s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> many swimming pools) & </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">CityWalk</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, which has plenty of fun without buying the park tickets. I suppose I have to start working now towards a swimsuit body.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 35px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-85413281288812398262017-06-04T16:36:00.001-07:002017-06-05T01:42:31.047-07:00Life, Love & Happiness<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was talking with my wife last night, we were discussing sexual attraction. My wife and I are bisexual so for us it’s a pretty open conversation. It started with us talking about the adult cartoon “Archer”, and Burt Reynolds who voiced himself on the show. I told my wife that Burt was the first adult male I had seen naked, in his Cosmo centerfold. My Mom had the magazine hidden away (which being a curious child, I had found immediately). My father had a playboy collection which was extensive and not so hidden away, just a closet full of them. I told her I remembered thinking, I am attracted to both magazines contents. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When we watched the Great British Baking Show, something we loved very much, we had a joke that Paul Hollywood was picking the prettiest ones for his sex dungeon. We would choose those that we found </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">prettiest, male or female, and those would be in the Hollywood sex dungeon after the season ended. Paul made out pretty well by season 7</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, his sex dungeon was quite full</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My wife and I found also that we have very similar tastes in men and women, not that difficult I guess, but still interesting. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My sexual orientation </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">made things awkward during boot camp, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">you shower with everyone else in an open shower area. I had to mentally focus on other things, to not be attracted to anyone, because male anatomy gives a pretty clear indication of arousal</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Luckily boot camp wasn’t that long and I had my own room most of the time I was in the military. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’ve said before that I had an opportunity to have sex with a man when I was in the military</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (he was a civilian friend)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. The problem was that he was gay, and he wanted to have sex with me as another man. I know it may seem like semantics, but I didn’t want it to happen that way. I wanted to be treated like a woman, loved as a woman.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> So for me, he didn’t want to have sex with me for the right reasons. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">With most women I have been with, I can go into my head, feel their softness and be soft myself. In the moment, most women forget who they are with; I think that makes it easier for me. There are times I long for a man’s touch, for a man to be inside me, to kiss me and touch me. It’s a longing, not a compulsion. I’m monogamous and not looking for sex outside my marriage, as I love my wife</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. The longing is still there</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> acknowledge it with toys and a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> good imagination.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Growing up, I had my issues with sex. Not knowing where to aim my attraction, as I was brought up that men loved women and women loved men. Every romantic comedy told me this, and I was brought up by romantic comedies. I honestly thought that it was the way it was supposed to be, which made my attraction to both boys and girls very upsetting. I was angry with myself for not just being normal, why must I complicate everything for myself. I fell in love with, at the time, my very straight best friend. I was in love with girls and guys at different times and sometimes at the same time. Confusion abounded as to what I was supposed to be, I had never heard of bisexual only the gay/straight dynamic. Being transgender on top of all this didn’t help.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was c</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">onfused about </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my dual attraction </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and who I was</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as a person all at the same time. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Now that I am acknowledging who I am, as well as my sexual attractions, I find that I am able to talk about it without feeling ashamed or judged. Having a good partner and good friends allows me a lot of freedom to explore these feelings</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Now I look at romantic comedies like I should, as movies and not as a tutorial.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-27264222323560811902017-06-01T10:14:00.001-07:002017-06-01T10:14:44.730-07:00What Comes Around and Other Thoughts<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My wife and I are going on a trip to Universal Studios in Florida. We are both geeks and we both love Harry Potter, so I’ve booked us for next month (belated Honeymoon/early Anniversary). We are extremely excited and looking forward to it. I will be going as my mask as I don’t want to put my wife through any issues and frankly I am not up for a long car ride and having to worry over which bathroom I can use without being called out in a truck stop. I look forward to the day I don’t have to do this, but I’m still taking my makeup kit and some clothes for when we are there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are planning on picking up my wife’s niece on the way back as her sister lives in Florida, so that she can spend time with our daughter and enjoy the summer with us. I told my wife that if this happens, which I am perfectly fine with, then it is entirely possible that her niece will find out about me. Our daughter might tell her, or she may find artifacts of my presentation, etc. I’m not going to hide who I am, so I told her that this may be an issue with her parents and sister if they find out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She said she is fine with them knowing, she just didn’t want our son blabbing about me because outing someone is not right. (in a previous post I explained that my son had gotten drunk and outed me to his aunt, who then told my wife’s parents) I am pretty happy with the fact that my wife is ok with her family knowing, as I have told almost everyone that is close to me but them. This is a big step and I am glad this is coming around. I am so tired of hiding this, so tired of being made to feel like I should be ashamed. I’m not happy with my body, I can’t help what it is, but I’m not going to be ashamed or hide that I am a woman from my family. So this works out very well for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Meanwhile… At work, I often go to one of the two bathrooms that are marked as unisex. There is only one person at a time in these and I am more comfortable. However, there are those times when either both of those bathrooms are occupied or some disgusting piece of filth has managed to pee on the seats or other fully worse things. In these cases I go to the mens room. Inevitably, when this happens I go to a stall and do what I need to do, but then three or four men come in just behind me. (bathroom has two stalls and one urinal) I am surrounded by belching, farting, groaning (pain) pissing men and I find it very hard to use the bathroom myself and not be sick. I don’t believe that I am overreacting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When I was in the military, I was deep in my mask, but even then I had to mentally prepare myself to use the bathroom with men around me. I am not deeply hidden behind my mask anymore, I can’t just act like it doesn’t bother me when men are disgusting. I’m still looking for employment somewhere else more.. accepting for at least equal pay. This is just not going to happen I fear, so I have to see what I can do with less money but in a place that may be more for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-31861048348956098262017-05-16T08:00:00.001-07:002017-05-16T08:00:29.769-07:00Brothers and Sisters<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I came out to my youngest brother </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">last week</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. P was the youngest of three; we are each 3 years apart, with me being oldest. We were always very close, figuratively as well as literally. Brought up in a hostile household, with our father who worked nights and had an extremely short fuse, we stuck up for each other, even as we fought like cats and dogs. P was </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">my tag-along</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he looks a bit like me and he followed me around like I was </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">cool</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or something. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Over time we grew very close and then very distant. Today we aren’t close, but we don’t avoid each other’s phone calls. So I think it was a shock for him</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> when I told him that I was a woman. He did remember</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that I used to wear our stepmom’s clothes when I could get away with it. In my defense, they were Cato’s and pretty.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">He took things pretty well, though I don’t think he knew enough about transgender to understand the full ramifications of my confession. I believe he might be inclined to include it as a level of transvestite. I didn’t want to go into the full meaning and what it means for me in the phone call. He asked if I were getting surgery, and I said I was unsure at the moment. That is expensive and there are more factors than my happiness since I am a parent. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">He mentioned that he is the most open minded person in our family, which is probably right. It makes me apprehensive about telling my other brother, S, who is the middle child. He is much like our Dad </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">was,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">this kind of “practical” attitude people adopt when they don’t know something but think it’s ridiculous. Like there being more than two genders and not knowing the differences between sex and gender. That will be the attitude I will have to deal with, I think. Who knows, perhaps I am not giving him a fair chance. I’ve always had this thing about not wanting to appear foolish, it stems from having to live in a male body and not coping well with it. I always felt foolish, until I had the house alone and could be me, those few times I didn’t feel foolish.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have to tell S, then I can move on to my cousins. I’m not really sure at what point my responsibility to tell people who I am ends. I mean, do I really need to tell family I will likely never see? I have cousins I haven’t seen since I was a teenager, what is the likelihood</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I would need to tell them</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">?</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have to say, when I told my friends, I was elated, happy that I was able to tell them. I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, and I was grateful that they accepted me with not one single hesitation. I didn’t feel that way telling my brother, I don’t know it was different, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">like I should be ashamed. He didn’t say anything to make me feel that way I don’t think. I wasn’t ashamed, I just felt like I should feel that way.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Afterwards, I was just kind of left with this anti-climactic end of the conversation. I’m not telling people to make myself feel good, it’s a result of getting a secret out, of being able to be myself around those people. So, I’m not sure what this feeling I was left with means.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-25722577536536688582017-05-05T11:07:00.001-07:002017-05-05T11:07:47.767-07:00Story Time<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have been sick since the weekend. Had an upper respiratory infection which is never fun and tends to linger. Of course I only got one day off for this, so I had to work during the worst of it. The fun of being the only IT person in the branch cannot be overstated. Since I am here at work and miserable, coughing and wanting to sleep, I am going tell you a story. This is </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">about knowing who you are, but not what you are.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I moved from California to Memphis, TN about a year after I had left the military. I was still kind of trying to reconcile my civilian life and the different freedoms and constraints it afforded. My family lived in and around the Memphis area so it seemed like a good idea. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I found a job or </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">two;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was young and not looking for careers just paychecks. I made a few friends in the area and one of them</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, Don,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> was looking for a place and I needed a place. We got a pretty decent but cheap 2br townhouse in the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">R</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">aleigh area</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, which at that time was a pretty nice area</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The mall was very close and at the time was still thriving; you could walk at night and not be afraid. We both worked as cooks in a local restaurant, so our hours were the same, no issues with sleeping and loud roommates. It was a pretty good arrangement, despite my secret.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">About two months into living there, I got a call from an old military buddy</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, Tom</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. We worked in the same unit for a couple of years and I knew him pretty well, I thought. He was roaming and wanted to know if he could live with us to get his crap together. I was all for it and my roommate had no problems with it, he could get a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">job,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> chip in a bit of rent/food money and then when he got ready move into his own place. Of course it never works that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">way;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> he was there for months and never got a job more than a few days. During that time</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was hiding my female-oriented clothing in the back of my closet and my panties weren’t hidden at all, just in a drawer of my dresser in my bedroom. I started noticing that my panty drawer was messy, I don’t fold them or anything, but like every woman I have ones I wear through the week and I have those for special nights and then I have those that are when it’s been a long time before I did laundry, granny panties. So, when I started seeing these mixed in the drawer I knew someone had been in there.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I knew Don hadn’t because he wasn’t curious and it had never happened before. So, I knew it was Tom who was going through my things. It took me a bit to realize that he was only really going through my panties. At first I didn’t say anything because nothing was missing and I didn’t want to actually come out to anyone, as I was still trying to figure out what I was coming out as, transgender? (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">didn’t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> really know about that), transvestite? (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> seemed like the best definition at the time, but I had it wrong). A few days later, I started missing panties. That pissed me off! It took me long hours of courage to buy them in the store, claiming they were for my non-existent wife or gf. Or I had to order them and worry over how they would come in the mail and if Don would get to the mail before me. Every article of clothing was an endeavor, a chore and a worry. I couldn’t let this thievery stand, but I still didn’t want to come out. So, I did what every fraidy-cat does, I wrote a note and placed it atop my panties inside the drawer. It said simply, “please stop stealing my panties. If you need clothing, let me know and I can help you get them.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">” A day later, the note was gone, and my panties were back, cleanly laundered in a stack, but I put them in a bag and brought them downstairs.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Tom was sitting on the couch, and since Don wasn’t there at the time, I decided to acknowledge what was going on. I tossed him the bag and said something like, “keep them”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> well that was probably exactly what I said. Then I sat down and he told me he was a transvestite. I told him I think I am too, but I didn’t know much about what that meant. He told me and I tried to explain to him why it was different for me. For him it was about feeling sexy, about experiencing sexual feelings while dressed in lingerie or woman’s clothing, but he was still “him” he didn’t use a different name and didn’t even want to use makeup. I told him that while I do feel sexy sometimes when I wear certain clothing, I always felt female. But we decided that “transvestite” was probably close for both of us, regardless of the differences, it was all we knew. That was my first coming out, fraught with mistakes and errors.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Tom didn’t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> stay much longer after that. He ended up stealing actual things, cameras, money, etc. So we couldn’t let him continue staying with us. I was also probably a lot uncomfortable with his sexuality aimed at my panty drawer.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There you go, short story done and I think I can leave work now and be sick in the comfort of home.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-32297969321392778792017-04-20T04:36:00.001-07:002017-04-20T08:26:22.301-07:00Gamer Girl<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I am a gamer, video and tabletop, you name it I have probably played it. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’ve played every platform and every game </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">genre</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, even </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">cooking games</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Mostly, I have always been a D&D player, in all its incarnations, starting with its direct ancestor , “Chainmail”. Being a girl, hidden behind the mask of a boy, I found the idea of role-playing an excellent way to be me without being judged. I didn’t always play females, which would have invited too much attention. But I was able to play them often enough to where it was my emotional outlet. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Conversely, I found that my practice at role-playing helped me develop my mask, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the “guy”. I wish I had never perfected that aspect.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I was introduced to role-playing, specifically Chainmail by a friend. I had never heard of role-play and it captured my imagination. I had read fantasy books, I had been reading since I was 2 years old. It hadn’t taken me long to read all the books which held my interest in our little town library. Fantasy books were my favorite, and I was always begging my Mom to take me to the closest mall, which was over an hour away so we could go to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">WaldenBooks</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. There I would beg for books piled upon books. I didn’t just grab anything, I studied the forewords and the jackets, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> knew how to pick a good book. My poor Mother and later my poor wallet always suffered from these trips. But role-playing was like being inside the book, like writing my own story. My friend asked me if I would like to join a campaign he was starting, based on the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Dragonlance</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> books.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> A few days later on the weekend, I played my first game and met a group of his friends who also had just started.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My first character was Tanis Half-Elven, I was not happy about having a male character, but since we had a couple of girls </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in the group</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I couldn’t find a way to play the very few player characters </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> were female. We played every weekend without fail, rotating where we played each time, until we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">happened upon</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> a house that had been for sale for a very long time</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. We basically squatted </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in that house </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to game, where others probably used it for drugs or to get laid, we used it as our place to game without being told to hold the noise level down. I know, we were weird, th</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> isn’t lost on me.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">My first female character was also my first player-made character, which is to say I rolled up the stats and came up with her background instead of a pre-generated character being supplied to me. Her name was </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Lisbetha</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Veretas</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, a play on my favorite name (Elizabeth), a human mage. I was never really interested in playing different races, though I did on occasion. I was more interested in playing a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">human </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">female and a mage, my two </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">recurrent themes</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Female, for obvious reasons, I got to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">take the mask off</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for a few hours</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> well </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">at least let the mask slip a bit</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Mage</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> because I like the idea of magic, I like the thought that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">though there is a price, you can do almost anything with enough will and study. I played her for almost a year and I loved it. I even had a romance in the game with an NPC, who happened to be male. A few </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">friends made fun of me for this</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> until I explained that I take my “role-playing” very seriously.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I was having a rough time in school, dealing with my sexuality as well as my gender issues. I was getting into fights trying to maintain my manly persona, and I didn’t fight well, mostly bluster hoping they would back out of the fight. Sometimes it was fighting a guy that I kept thinking if I were a normal girl he would be trying to have sex with me, not punch me in the face. This makes for a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">very </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">confusing </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fight</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Gaming made my life a little easier, gave me an outlet. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Over the years, there would be dry periods where I could find no one who wanted to role-play. But those times didn’t last too long and suddenly I would be in a very tight group of people dedicated to playing every weekend. They are the best memories I have of my life, friends sitting around a table or on the floor in a living room, playing D&D or DC Heroes or Cyberpunk, etc. Some groups were better than others, and though eventually they all would fade over time I look upon them all </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fondly. Of the groups, my last group, was the absolute best, they </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">became my best friends</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, so much so that I consider them family. They are such good friends that I felt I could tell them the deepest secret I possess. I told my brothers (they all happened to be male) that I was their sister. We are all separated by distance and life now, but I love these men dearly and miss gaming and just hanging </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">out with</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> them so very much.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">prefer role-playing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and I prefer it with a group of friends sitting around a table. But times change and having the ability to sit around a table</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> became </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">limited to non-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">existent</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. So, I moved towards MMORPGs</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing G</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ame</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, like Dark</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Age of Camelot, WOW, and many, many others. For a while we had a group of people from work who all played. I mostly played female characters then as well. When asked why, I would say something male-driven like, “If I am going to look at this characters backside for hours, I want it to be a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">girl’s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> backside”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. That would quash most questions. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Even those male characters I started with, so as not to throw suspicion on myself, I had those changed to female if possible.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I still play MMO’</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s and stand-alone series</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> like </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Fallout, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Dragon Age or Mass Effect with female characters, I feel more comfortable and I am able to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">immerse myself in the storylines. I get to be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">bad-ass </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">version of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">me in these games, like reading a book of a female protagonist that I identify with.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> In WOW, which I had gone back to, for lack of better MMO’s that actually RP (role-play). I have found that actual RP doesn’t </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">really </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">happen anymore. No one makes a character with a background </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">or develops a persona</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. They just kill things and level, no more do they sit in a tavern or talk in the square about things going on in the game. They chat in trade chat about RL (real life) politics or religion, trolling each other. I tried to find a transgender guild but was unable to find anyone who could point me to one; rather I got a lot of messages about being a guy. So, the appeal of MMO’s faded and though I still play, I </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">do it</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> solo and don’t join guilds.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gaming didn’t make me who I am; it helped me survive who I pretended to be until I could stop pretending. It helped me by always having a few friends to lean on, it helped me by bringing a group of the greatest friends a girl could ever have, together. I love my friends and miss them dearly. This is what gaming is really about.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-39127689139911715042017-04-12T11:52:00.000-07:002017-04-12T11:52:51.088-07:00Of Friends and Family<span id="docs-internal-guid-2c039b94-6381-f2a2-28c1-51ce209eac8f"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have spoken of my friends, those that know about me are accepting and really didn’t display any surprise at all. I don’t know if there were any issues after the initial shock, but they haven’t spoken to me about it. I think that it probably helps that most of them are out of state, so they don’t see me dressed how I usually dress at home. I think that my presenting as female, might cause them some issues, perhaps not, no idea. I am horrible at reading people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My usual mode at home is t-shirt and jeans, which my friends have seen many times. Of course now I am able to wear the t-shirts and jeans I prefer, which is a mix. T-shirts are to me just t-shirts, some men’s and some women’s are more comfortable so I wear what I like, I prefer women’s jeans so I wear them. The clothes don’t change who I am, they can only make me feel more or less comfortable. I will always be a woman no matter what I am wearing. The funny thing is, it’s more problematic now that they know I’m transgender, as they perhaps expect me to be dressed in, well skirts and heels, both of which I like, but that is not my normal clothing. Normally at home I don’t put on a wig or breast prosthetics; those are to make others feel more comfortable. I don’t mow the yard wearing a hot wing and C cup false breasts that shift and get in the way. I would prefer my own hair if I could grow it out and have it look nice, I would prefer my own breasts but I’m not on HRT until I lose some weight. Like most women, both of those things make me feel more feminine and more acceptable among others, but not more personally comfortable. In the presence of my friends, I’m not sure how comfortable they would be. I do have a couple of friends who live in the area, but I don’t see them often. They have not seen me in my “girl mode” with wig, breasts and obviously female clothing. As I continue to transition, these things will be more obvious and I want my friends to remain my friends. I would prefer to not lose the very few and close friends I have. I don’t make friends easily and I invest a lot of my heart in these people. They are for all intents and purposes, my family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of family, I have two brothers and my stepfather. They will be told last, mostly because I don’t want to burden them so close to our mother’s death, and because I think they will have the hardest time with it. Though, for my brothers, they could look back and see that the game of “truth or dare” was kind of a setup for me to wear our stepmother’s clothes as a “dare”. What can I say, she wore Cato’s and I actually liked some of the Cato’s clothing. Then there is my wife’s family, her mother and stepfather and two sisters. Her mother and father, they were told by her youngest sister who was told by our son when they were hanging out with mutual friends, alcohol was involved. So, my wife went on damage control, telling them that our son was just drunk, but I am pretty sure they didn’t buy that at all. So my first inclination is to tell them, despite the fact that they are conservative, Trump supporters. I think they will be ok, I hope they will. I believe that my wife has issues with them knowing only because her and the middle sister don’t get along and somehow this would be something that her sister could use against her. I think it’s still embarrassing for Michelle, on some level she deals with it, but not in a public way. I plan on telling everyone that is family and friends. My plans were thrown off because of my Mothers cancer and then death, not because of her but because of me. I already deal with depression linked to just being who I am, then dealing with my mom being gone. It hasn’t been easy; it’s been hard. But I am trying to get out of this hole that seems to be surrounding me. My mom would want me to be happy, she would want me to go forward and not dwell. In the end, whether they are able to handle the information I give them or not, this is happening. </span></div>
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</span>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-13900410917333274382017-04-05T07:43:00.001-07:002017-04-05T07:43:08.490-07:00Once Upon a Monday<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was out sick on Monday. I had gotten a cold and needed some time to get over it, but I had to come in to work Tuesday because I had contractors coming in to do some work that I needed to oversee and to help set up the services on our server. While I am the IT manager, I also oversee the Logistics side of the operations, really just keeping up with the personnel hours and making upper level decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I tell you this so that you will understand that I am pretty crucial to the company. And I need you to understand that once I come out, once they know who I am, it won’t matter one single bit and I will be fired or they will find grounds to fire me or they will make me quit by making it unbearable to be here. I was reminded of this fact by one of the logistics crew who told me a story on Tuesday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s not a long story, but it is one of those times I wish I had been at work, sick or not. This person who works for me, I will call him Albert, was excited to see me and to relate what had happened on Monday. Apparently, as he puts it, one of the truck drivers was a lady/man. It was a guy dressed as a woman, as he continued to explain. The story wasn’t about how he had to reload the truck because the driver knew exactly how it should be arranged and Albert had done it wrong. It wasn’t about how this driver was really good at her job and that she was doing it in a male-dominated industry.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The fact that the truck driver was transgender was the story. He told me how he told others in the office so they could come into the warehouse and see the “guy dressed like a lady”. I was mad as hell. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. However, I let him know that I support transgender, that I have family members who are transgender. I let him know that “SHE” is the correct pronoun. I let him know that if I had witnessed this, he would have been written up. I let him know that if he ever sees a transgender person he better treat them with respect. That they (we) are people just like anyone else, deserving of the same respect you give to a fellow human being. He quickly saw that his exciting story wasn’t going the way he had planned. I found out that he never said a cross word to her, that he did what she asked and only was rude behind her back. I wanted him to understand that I don’t want him being rude or tell the office people or anything else behind her or anyone else’s backs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I had to play ally, instead of what I wanted to be right then. I wanted to tell him that I was also transgender and if you disrespect her, I can expect you will disrespect me as well. I know what I face in my company; I know that currently in NC I can expect to not be treated equally in public. I know we all face uphill battles. I wish I had been there so I could have stood beside her at the very least as an ally.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The fact that she was transgender overshadowed everything else. This keeps running through my mind.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-33360555717128412482017-03-28T12:32:00.001-07:002017-03-28T16:00:12.243-07:00The Cost of Being You – Hair Removal<div style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Permanent h</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">air removal is typically the first of your serious expenses when transitioning. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Most of us want the face and neck first, we don’t have to shave daily or at all, and less concealer and foundation when we use cosmetics. Though you certainly don’t have to stop there, just make sure the type of removal you use is rated for the area you want to use it on. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There is also a sort of unspoken taboo for publishing pricings on the business websites and personal blogs. I’m not sure why this is, but I also find myself not wanting to say what the cost is on Facebook in public forum. I am going to give you the pricing here, for the one version of hair removal that I have </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">gotten, though I will not name the company.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There are several types of</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> permanent</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> hair removal; they range from the dubious to the trustworthy, with the costs of these ranging upward as you progress to the more reliable. It’s important to note that you don’t really choose the type</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of hair removal, your hair choo</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ses. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">H</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">air color, hair thickness, and skin type can all </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">factors when determining the best type of hair removal. Also, the permanency of the hair removal is questionable. I have found that while almost all claim permanence, most mean it doesn’t grow back immediately or that if it does it comes back finer and easier to care for.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">H</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">air removal of any kind can cause physical </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">issues</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> from blemishes to serious burns</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">;</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I suggest </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">using professionals </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">if you can afford it. If you try home remedies, please use caution and follow the instructions for the device.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s2" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">[</span><span class="s3" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Note:</span><span class="s2" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I will be using the IPL device in the example below, rated for female faces and will give a review once enough time has passed in order to give it a fair review.]</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: magenta;"><span class="s4" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I</span><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">PL (Intense Pulsed Light)</span></span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> – Can </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">permanently reduce hair growth, most effectively in darker, coarser hair. There are a lot of different names for this type of device such as E-Light, ELOS, and M-Light. These devices can be initially expensive, with $300-500 being the average. Pain is often </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">described</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> as </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">h</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">ot grease splatter</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> or a rubber band snaping.</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> I had a hard time finding any products that could be used for “male“</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">faces. In point of fact, I didn’t find any at all rated for the male face, though I found several accounts of successful use of the IPL which went against the device warnings. Transgender are not the target market for these devices so I don’t think much thought of any was put into research on removing MtF facial hair. </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Something to keep in mind when cost is an issue,</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"></span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">IPLs use cartridges</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">, be it quartz or other material has a finite life and must be replaced, which can cost anywhere from $70 - $</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">100</span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Example: Amazon.com </span></span><a href="http://a.co/e073aiK"><span class="s7" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">http://a.co/e073aiK</span></a><span class="s8" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span class="s9" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Remington iLIGHT Ultra Hair Removal System</span><span class="s10" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="color: #e69138; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">$449.00</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: magenta;"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Home Laser Removal </span></span><span class="s6" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">–</span></span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Laser removal is generally recommended </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">for people </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">with light to medium skin tones, as </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">dark skin can absorb more light which may lead to injuries to the skin.</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> Again, the darker the hair, the more effective. </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Laser removal can generally deliver</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> 70% hair reduction within a 3 months period</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">. </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Although it is expensive compared to other permanent hair removal products, it is still a lot cheaper than in-office treatment options.</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> L</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">aser </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">treatment </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">works by targeting the pigment in your hair and restricts the hair </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">follicle ability to grow again. Also, while most are rated for facial hair, some say that they are not rated for </span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">mens</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> face</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">s</span></span><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">. I am suspecting this is because of the thicker, denser hair in biological male faces, which would generate a lot more heat in the skin tissue. Please use caution.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s11" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Example: Amazon.com </span></span><a href="http://a.co/hNUZEPY"><span class="s7" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">http://a.co/hNUZEPY</span></a><span class="s8" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Tria Beauty Hair Removal Laser 4X</span><span class="s8" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="color: #e69138; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">$449.00</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s12" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="color: magenta; line-height: 24px;">Professional Hair Removal </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="color: magenta;">–</span> </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">By far the safest and most effective process for</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> permanent</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> hair removal, having it done by a professional is the best way to go. A professional should bring you in for a consultation, they have to see your skin and hair to suggest the best way to go, wether through </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">electrolysis</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> or with laser removal. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Electrolysis </span></span><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">–</span></span></span><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">At this time</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">,</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s15" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">the </span></span><span class="s15" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">FDA</span></span><span class="s15" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> and the American Medical Association recognize only electrolysis as a permanent method of removing hair</span></span><span class="s15" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">. It was described to me as this, an electrode (needle) is put into each individual hair root and then an electrical charge is </span></span><span class="s15" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">applied. People have said that the feeling is anywhere from a rubber band snapping to only a mild tingle. They can apply a topical solution to make it less painful. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="color: lime; line-height: 24px;">The Good </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="color: lime;">-</span> </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"></span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">It has the best track record. Electrolysis has the best overall results, versus any other method, in ridding hair for long periods of time- or even permanently.</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> Also, m</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">any different hair and skin types can benefit. Because it doesn't target hair pigment (color) like laser, but attacks the follicle itself. People that aren't good candidates for laser can still get electrolysis.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="color: red; line-height: 24px;">The Bad </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="color: red;">-</span> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Bent follicles can make electrolysis hair removal harder. Previous waxing or tweezing can make hair follicles bent or misshapen, and getting the needle to the root more difficult to destroy the follicle. </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">It can take a lot of time. </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">You have to truly be committed to electrolysis because you </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">could</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">anywhere from 15 - 30 sessions. There is also the possibility of skin discoloration from the process if done improperly.</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> I don’t know actual cost, but the concensus is that $45 per session is not out of bounds. So, it can be costly depending on the areas covered.</span></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8e7cc3;">Laser –</span></i></b><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: lime;"><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">The Good </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">–</span></span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">One of the biggest advantages of laser hair removal is the speed of the treatment in comparison electrolysis, which is much more time consuming.The technique is considered to be safe if performed properly.</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">It is considered to be less painful than other methods (particularly electrolysis).</span></span><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">The method is effective for removing hair from large areas such as backs or legs.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: red;"><span class="s14" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">The Bad </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">–</span></span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Laser treatments are only approved by the FDA for "permanent hair reduction" </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">not hair removal</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">. This means that some regrowth is to be expected, this is not a permanent hair-removal solution for most </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">people. </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">There can be side effects that can range from itching or swelling (which will disappear after a few days) to more serious (but rare) side effects like burning, skin discoloration, blistering and infection. </span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Also, s</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">ince the laser targets melanin (pigment that gives skin and hair color), people with dark hair (more melanin) have more success with this treatment than people with light hair.</span></span><span class="s17" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> Mostly, the treatment can be expensive. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">The hair removal professional </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">should ask you questions, and instruct you on what to expect. The place I went into did a fine job of that, they did not bat an eye that I was transgender and in my mask (I had a lunch appointment with them during work hours). They w</span></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">ere kind and caring and very attentive. Here is the rub</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">:</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> Cost. You are going to pay for this service and you are going to pay dearly. For most of us with families and mortgages, the cost is a deal breaker.</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> But if you can manage the cost, they will typically set you up with a schedule that will encompass your treatments at the different phases of hair growth. Once this is done, most will give you financing options. This can be done by treatment, but this can be more expensive in the long run. Most offer a block payment, which is cheaper over all than single treatment payments. This is usually done by a credit system, so you can make payments.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">My example is the place in which I had my consultation, face (chin and upper lip) & neck in multiple sessions. Pricing is for Laser treatment (which best fit my skin tone and hair color) with discount and a special they were running that gave 50% off. </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Total One-Time Payment</span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">: </span></span><span class="s12" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="color: #e69138; line-height: 24px;">$5,400.00</span></span><span class="s12" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">Payments using Financing: </span></span><span class="s12" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="color: #e69138;">$242.00</span> </span></span><span class="s13" style="line-height: 12px;"><span class="bumpedFont20" style="line-height: 24px;">for 24 months.</span></span></span></div>
Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-67358494933309453332017-03-09T05:06:00.001-08:002017-03-09T05:06:09.913-08:00Being Real<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I am the first to admit, I still hide within my mask. I am not proud of it; I am properly ashamed that I still retreat into it because it is familiar, though despised. If I have to run to the store and I haven’t time to don my wig and put on makeup, I take the time to remove my nail polish and put on a cap and go to the store.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> If I know I will have to speak to someone, I remove everything and become my mask. I hate my voice, I am working on it, but it marks me very readily. I’m not proud of these moments; those that make me feel like I am hiding behind the façade of male privilege.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">That said</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I am indeed a real woman. This isn’t decided by my experiences or by a BBC host who thinks that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> women aren’t sufficiently treated as inferior. My gender is locked into the brain, floating around in my skull. Dame Murray believes that we don’t know feminism because we have known male privilege or that because a couple of newly out </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> women are worried about the clothes and cosmetics they will wear. It’s a flawed reasoning, one made out of fear. She is transphobic, she has a fear that we (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">) are somehow going to damage feminism</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or dilute what it means to be female</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. She is of course missing a few crucial facts. Feminism is about wanting the sexes to be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">equal, which</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> is exactly what we want. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> women worry over clothes and cosmetics because we didn’t grow up into a closet of clothes or into the slow training of putting on cosmetics. Most of us have </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">tried to pass as male the majority of our lives, so there are a lot of areas we have to learn very quickly. These are real worries for real women.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Male privilege is not something we asked for, it is a legacy of being trapped inside a body we must endure or change. Those that wield male privilege like a weapon are the reasons why we hide at all, why we don’t come out much earlier in life. We are expected by our fathers (most) to grow up to be men, so we try to fit the idea, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">tried</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to make them happy. Did Dame Murray have to endure this; did she have to fight past the misogyny and the confusion to be who she is? No, and she shouldn’t have to in order to be thought of as real. </span><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Dame Murray and other media personalities are entitled to their opinions, but they are also bound by those opinions to the people they entertain. I think that she is misguided and that she can change her mind. I don’t want to give up on her or the others who have voices, they need to understand.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I believe that once she understands what transgender is, that we are real and not men (or women) playing at a different gender, I think she can be an important ally. Until then, she is fostering dangerous misconceptions that can get </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trans</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> women or men killed or assaulted.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are real.</span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-49024984687176110772017-02-23T08:35:00.001-08:002017-02-23T08:35:03.813-08:00No Gnews Is Good Gnews<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I never liked reading comments on news website posts. Even if the news post had nothing to do with my situation or anyone I knew. However, in the last several years the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">media</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> has made transgender issues a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> normal</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> part of the news cycle. This is good, and this is bad. It’s great that real information, about us and who we are and what we are not, gets o</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ut there. That they are able to help explain one simple concept,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “Treat us like people, because we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">are indeed</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> people“. But I don’t like reading the comments that inevitably happen. I am always expecting the positive comments, because why would I expect someone would have trouble with another person wanting to be treated like everyone else? Of course, the comments are instead full of completely unwarranted hate and ignorance. I see “Christians“ who claim that their lord and savior hates homosexuals (they seem to think that Transgender are automatically gay), when in fact Jesus never ever, not once said anything about being gay or transgender. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all Christians believe this, I don’t think they all live in hate. Christians can be kind and loving like any person can. These are people </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">wearing </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Christianity like </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a cloak, as if </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it is a right to condem others, to burn them at the stake.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It’s not just Christians, they are not alone in fostering hate and intolerance. Alt-right, rabid </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">consrevatives or newly-minted Trump R</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">epublicans or just hate-filled people focus on us because we are largely easy targets for thier hate.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">These </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">people</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, slander and malign us, they call us names and expound such seething hatred in thier speech I am often taken aback. No, no that isn’t strong enough, I am legitimately frightened. I am frightened more because these are everyday people. I and others must walk among these people to go about our everyday lives. We must work beside these people, pray next to them, eat and go to the movies around these people. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It’s a mine field, invisible until it’s too late, constant and unforgiving once they embrace what they are going to do in the emotion of hate. They don’t care about our words or if we are nice or giving or loved by others. </span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I did several tours in the middle east and I felt the same way there in actual combat. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Those tours</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> had a start and stop time, there was a time when it was at least over for me, I went home. But now, I live with a real fear all the time, that someone will just decide to act on the hate they have been holding. I don’t pass, I don’t think at least.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> But being in stealth doesn’t mean you aren’t known about. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I shouldn’t have to pass, I should just be able to be me with no one caring since I don’t harm them in any fashion. But the world we live in, the political climate in the US, it’s a free-for-all in which any bigot feels they can ignore the laws that cover everyone but since it didn’t specifically state “Transgender“ then they are justified. Of course they count on bullying, on intimidation and our own fear to keep us quiet, to keep us the silent minority. What they don’t seem to underst</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and is that fear is a motivator to make change happen.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Commentary on news sites is mostly anonymous or at least so easy to circumvent that identity doesn’t mean much. This is good since most of us have secret or alternate social network accounts, but it allows for the bad as well, cowards who spout nonesense about the LGBT agenda like it is a conspiracy on the level of the Illuminati. Wanting to be treated like a human being is not an agenda, it’s a basic human right. The only agenda, is to work towards being treated correctly, instead of treated like we need to be fixed, corrected, or made s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ocially invisible again.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It is easy to say that we can ignore the commentary, that we don’t have to read it. But the articles are about our situation or who we are, so very hard to ignore what is written directly below the article, and really we want to know that we are supported. Those types of comments, the supportive ones,</span><a name="_GoBack"></a><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> are few and far between.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-82158766299711811302017-02-15T06:38:00.001-08:002017-02-17T10:24:21.209-08:00Opening the Door<div style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have spent the week, coming out to my close friends. I have to be careful, because a lot of my friends are also ex-coworkers. They know the same people</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (my work)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I am trying to keep this secret from, for now. So it’s complicated and depends upon trust. I am trying to be brave. It’s a funny thing, I was less nervous being shot at, having IED’s to look out for, being at war, than I am telling my closest friends who I really am.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I have told two of them, my best friend, who is in all ways my brother. And a friend of mine that I worked with, who is the best role model for being a strong woman and still being feminine. I tell a third today, and I am nervous, but all indications say that it’s nothing to be nervous about.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">J – My friend/brother, he was so great. I told him and he was not only excited for me but told me how I inspire him and make him proud. I cried that night, I cried because I was so lucky to have a brother like him and because I didn’t tell him earlier and because I felt really happy which isn’t my default setting. He has medical problems and I worry about him, so I was worried that I might cause an issue by telling him. (</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">medical issue can be exacerbated by stress). But he was so great and I miss him so much, he is in another state about 9 hours from me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">A – My strong sister. She didn’t blink, didn’t hesitate either. She fully supported me and when I sent her a pic of me (Beth) she told me I was beautiful and really encouraged me. I don’t really believe the beautiful part, but it was really nice to hear. She is so wonderful and I love her in this deep sisterly way that I can’t really define, since I met her really. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">She is younger, but she is wise and strong and I look to her as a role model, which I know is odd, but you don’t know A. She is a force like my Mom was. She is a force of nature that you can’t help but be in awe of. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">D – I will be telling him today. He is a great man, very easy going and easy to love. I hope that things go well. My fears manifest whether they are based in reality or not. He has a lot of things going on today, so I may have to wait until tomorrow, but I will try for today. [Edit: I did talk to D that day, he was very sweet and reassuring. I asked him to please act a bit surprised and outraged, he did so in a playful way. It was very cool the way we transitioned from my transitioning to politics. We were just talking like friends do and that did more to make me miss him than anything else.]</span></div><div style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br></span></div><div style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">J&L – Not all of my friends live in other states or cities. J&L are friends who live in the local area, I am telling them today. I’m nervous as usual, but they are really good people so I think it will be ok. I hope it will. J is someone I worked with recently, so I am taking a very big chance, though he has always been discrete about information before. J&L are a couple of those rare people who despite having a rugged kind of lifestyle with old fashioned tastes like old cars and retro designs is also pretty damn progressive and liberal. [Update: Spoke to J and he was very supportive! I again, can’t stress how lucky I feel to have friends to understand and support who I am. J also got that I am introverted mostly because of my situation, of who I am. He understands also my issues with coming out in my company, as he knows the people I will have to deal with firsthand. ]</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">B&Am</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> – I have to tell them. They are dear friends, but we have kind of lost touch in the last couple of years. They are, I am assuming, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">still </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fairly conservative and I know that Am, B’s wife, is very religious. It doesn’t mean they won’t be happy for me, it actually means very little in the way of tolerance and being friends. I just have a bit more worry because of those factors. I love them both, so I hope that they will be accepting and happy for me. I think they will.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So far, I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have gotten very lucky in my confession of who I am to my family and friends. I won’t stop if the shoe does drop, I will have to live with the loss and move on. I cannot keep wearing the mask. I still have to tell my wife’s parents and siblings. I think that my wife is opposed to this because of how she believes it will reflect on her. She has a sister that she disagrees with and I think that she believes that this would somehow validate her sister’s attitude. I don’t judge my wife on this, I don’t like it, but I have asked a lot of her and she still wants to be with me and I know it’s not easy on her. But they need to know eventually, so I am kind of leaving this as her decision when I tell them. There will be a point where it will be impossible to hide it. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Boobs and hair, makeup and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">womens</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> clothes, dead giveaway for a woman being there.</span></span></div>
Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-17679440717207827412017-02-06T08:16:00.001-08:002017-02-06T08:18:07.571-08:00The True Cost of Being Me<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am planning on continuing my “The Cost of Being” posts that go over the costs, small and large, that we incur as Transgender people. However, I wanted to express a few things, those feelings and thoughts that I have encountered when my mother passed away.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Don’t wait to be person that you are. I look back and cringe, thinking of the time I wasted wearing the mask. The longer you wear it, the more it becomes you and the harder to remove. Work, love, friends and family all become more and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">more</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> less inclined to forgive</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> this</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. To them, you are messing with their memories of you. Those moments when you did that great thing together, or laughed until you cried. Who </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">was </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">there, you or the mask? They have to live with those thoughts. It is easy to say that they aren’t accepting or that they won’t get over it. I get that way as well, but that is because I am standing there in my ballet flats and not in their shoes. You owe it to yourself and to those you love and work with to be the person you are as</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> soon as possible. The memories of you should be you and not the mask. I waited so long, now I will be remembered as the boy/man who did this thing or that thing, they have to find some way to reconcile that it was instead the girl/woman who pretended to be a boy/man. See how complicated that makes life?</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying that by doing this anyone but you will understand. I’m just saying you will be wasting precious time first wearing the mask and then trying to get your loved ones to come around to recognizing who is under it. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Work is complicated for anyone. Being the mask in a career makes it very hard to become yourself.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I’m still not sure how to do it; this is my actual sticking point. I don’t have all the answers, just a blog, and that makes me as unqualified as anyone to talk about the correct way to do things. I can tell you what I am doing now. I am scouting things out. I am asking our HR department (did this several weeks ago), if we have any policies on transgender and what would happen if someone were transgender. I already know that we have two bathrooms that are non-gender specific and those are not anywhere near the gender specific bathrooms. I know that our HR manager has no problem with transgender and doesn’t even think it should be a focus unless someone makes an issue of it. (Her exact words were, “I don’t think it’s anyone’s business in the first place.”) Though this scenario is of someone coming into the company, while I am a 15 year employee. I think they will notice if I come in with boobs and long hair and in a dress. And the upper management will immediately begin their either conscious or subconscious desire to remove me from my position. So, I have to be ready for that eventuality. It’s going to happen, but it’s going to be a process.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I don’t have to tell my Mother or my Father. I wish I had, back then, as a child. I had murmured it to my mother, but she took it as a young child’s wistful thinking. Like wishing your father had been Elvis Presley or that Brussel sprouts tasted like cotton candy. I was afraid of my father, but I think he would have eventually come around, later in life. I could have told my mother, I don’t think she would have fully understood. And she would probably keep using my </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">deadname</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (I just learned that is what it is called btw) for a long time. But I would have had no problem with that, to have her here today. Eventually she would have been fully supportive, I know she would have. Damn you hindsight. My brothers, well they should know, but have buried it in the mess of memories of a childhood. If they had grown up with me, the real me, then they would have been fine. But now, I will probably lose them both, I know I will lose at least one of them forever. I hope I am wrong, but it won’t stop me from coming out to them this year.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This blog isn’t an instructional. You need to take this</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, at least in part,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as a cautionary tale. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">While I am aware that my life is pretty easy considering what others have gone through, are going through. I have not done things the right way; I have been cowardly and afraid. The comforts of a fairly good life don’t alleviate the suffocation of the mask I must wear to keep it. I implore you to waste as little time as you can, because there just isn’t much time for any of us. Don’t spend it being a lie to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">yourself</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></p>Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-21201676967202577502017-01-18T14:41:00.000-08:002017-01-18T14:41:05.624-08:00The Cost of Being You – Cosmetics<div class="Normal tm9">
<span class="apple_converted_space">In the second of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="aGoBack"></a>my ongoing series about the cost of being who we are, it’s purely cosmetics. Out of the gate, we are years behind. Most of
us have never had the option of working with cosmetics. Even when I was single and had the time, I was always too afraid of being caught with makeup on. I did dabble with lipstick and powder foundation. I didn’t do either
correctly, like a child getting into her mother’s cosmetics, I had it everywhere and badly. These were again pilfered items; I didn’t buy them so they were the wrong type for me as well. Times have changed and
you don’t have to worry about entering the pharmacy to purchase cosmetics from an old guy who gives you the frowny face. You can buy cosmetics pretty much anywhere, even the grocery store and online. With the advent
of self-checkout even public stores become less judgy and more anonymous. I am not an expert, I am a novice. In girl years of doing makeup, I am 10 years old. My 14 year old daughter is expert level, even better than my wife!
You will learn with practice and application. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and if possible get someone who will give you an honest opinion on your work.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: magenta;">The Basics</span> – </strong>There are so many brands and types of cosmetics, it can leave you dizzy. But there are some basics
from which you can then build. Of course, having a friend or family member to help you is ideal, but it’s not always possible. Also, I have found that, like my wife, they have dealt with cosmetics so long they don’t
even think about it, or they can be annoyed by the simplistic questions we may ask. It takes time and dedication, but you will get there. YouTube is a font of information for cosmetics applications and reviews.</div>
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<ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: yellow;">The Tools</span></span></strong></li>
<ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Cosmetic Brushes</span> – </span></strong>You will need a good set of cosmetic brushes. I don’t have
them all, but I have a decent set. You will need these for application of the different cosmetics. They all have a use, and the more I get into cosmetics the more brushes I tend to use. Here is a link to essential brushes
and how to use them. <u><a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/how-to/a40310/makeup-brushes-how-to/"><span class="Hyperlink">http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/how-to/a40310/makeup-brushes-how-to/</span></a></u> Also, if you order my example below, the bag is bright orange and smells bad, after a while the smell
will go away, but the bag will always be tragic. Get a new bag when you can.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/iHMLENj"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/iHMLENj</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">EmaxDesign 12 Pieces Makeup Brush Set </span><strong>$12.99</strong><br />
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<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Blender Sponge</span> – </span></strong>I didn’t think this was necessary, until I got one and started
using it. Now I can’t even imagine not using it. I use it for applying my foundation and it is fantastic. You can use it wet or dry, I prefer wet (damp). Application is done by “stippling” which is bouncing
it along the skin, dabbing if you will. If you rub on foundation with a sponge you are going to get streaks and it will be a wreck.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="tm13"></span></strong>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/80PjUOS"><span class="tm23">http://a.co/80PjUOS</span></a></u><span class="tm24"> </span>AmoVee Pro Makeup Sponge <strong>$5.99</strong></div>
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<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Eyelash Curler</span> – </strong>This is a pretty self-explanatory tool, you use it to curl your eyelashes. [Taken from popsuger.com:
<em>Start when your lashes are clean, dry, and mascara-free. Open the eyelash curler and, keeping your eyes open; place your upper lashes between the two sides. Starting at the inner corner of your eye,
position the curler as close as possible to your eyelid without pinching your skin. When your lashes are tucked inside, gently clamp the curler together. Hold for ten seconds, then repeat as necessary, moving outward to curl
the entire lash line.</em>] It is important that you don’t use the curler with mascara on; I don’t even use it if I have eyeliner on. It gets the tool sticky with residue, which will
build up and transfer to your lashes or your eyelid. Keep your tools clean and they will work properly.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 553103036] COVERGIRL Makeup Masters Eyelash Curler </span><strong>$3.94</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Small Mirror Compact</span> – </span></strong>A small mirror, to keep in your purse or vehicle, is a must.
I can’t count the number of times I have had to resort to using my phones selfie camera and that is just awkward. The mirror compact I have has a normal mirror on one side and a magnifying mirror on the other, which
can be helpful.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Amazon.com </span><u><a href="http://a.co/8gR2UPp"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/8gR2UPp</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">BEST COMPACT MIRROR - MAGNIFYING MakeUp Mirror - Perfect for Purses </span><strong>$10.35</strong></div>
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<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Makeup Remover Wipes</span> –</strong> After washing my face, I use these wipes to help completely remove any residual makeup
or those, like mascara, that may be waterproof. Most remover wipes say there is no need to wash your face after using these, but I still do. I haven’t actually bought any of these, as my wife has always kept an ample
supply for us both, so I went online to get a pricing.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Amazon.com </span><u><a href="http://a.co/0gObQLE"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/0gObQLE</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="tm21">Neutrogena Makeup Remover Cleansing Towelettes </span><strong>$6.45</strong></div>
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<ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: yellow;">The Cosmetics</span></span></strong></li>
<ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Primer</span> –</strong> Much like in painting, cosmetics primer smooths the canvas (your skin) and helps keep your makeup looking
fresh. They suggest applying a moisturizer beforehand, however I always shave just before the primer and the hair “slow grow” lotion I always use after a shave works fine for me. As I have found with most cosmetics,
a little goes a long way. I use my fingers; some use a blender sponge, and start from the center of my face and move out. I know some avoid the eyes, but I use it on my lids as I think it holds the eyeshadow better. On the
Slow Grow, it kind of works. I notice that over time it slows down the growing process, but it doesn’t stop it. You have to use it consistently.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 553404853] Hard Candy 12 Hour Power Long Wear Face Primer, 1.3 oz </span><strong>$8.00</strong></div>
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<span class="apple_converted_space">(Slow Grow): Amazon.com </span><u><a href="http://a.co/gkg5mna"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/gkg5mna</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="tm21">Slow Grow Lotion- Reduces Hair Regrowth 8oz</span><strong> $8.40</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Foundation</span> – </span></strong>If you are still shaving your face a great foundation is vital. This
will hide the hair shadow, and give you a smooth look. Even if you aren’t shaving, a good foundation will give you a more uniform look, hiding blemishes and discoloration. I suggest getting your foundation color matched
to your skin tone in a department store or cosmetics store. However, you can try to match it as closely as possible in the aisle of Walmart. Lighting will change everything from the bathroom lighting when you apply it to the
natural light of the sun. This is the one place you don’t want to try to save a dollar/pound/euro, spend the money and get a good one. I have yet to heed my own advice on this because I have liquid foundation that is
adequate, not superior for my face. On top of the foundation I also apply hard candy corrector, which is more to match the slightly darker tint of my skin than anything else. A common mistake is to only cover the chin area;
you have to remember to also go up the cheeks a bit and down the neck as well, blending it to your skin tone. The foundation is where I use the blender sponge and it is not only great it is fast as well.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 551704834] COVERGIRL truBLEND Liquid Makeup Foundation </span><strong>$7.60</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Corrector/Concealer Palette</span> – </strong>Used to fine-tune color and blend, corrector palettes can help conceal reddened
areas, dark circles under the eyes and correct for color differences of skin and foundation. I find it useful especially for shading my foundation, and darkness under my eyes. I was using this initially as a foundation/concealer
and it did work fairly well. I use the blender sponge with this over the foundation, after using my fingertips to apply it (dab).</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 553404128] Hard Candy Sheer Envy Conceal & Corrector Palette </span><strong>$6.00</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Setting Powder</span> –</span></strong> This is used to set your foundation, keeping it from cracking or
rippling. Be careful, depending on the type and the brand this can be easily the most expensive item in your cosmetics tray. I use a mineral translucent powder, which is actually used as a medium-coverage foundation but also
doesn’t alter the color of the foundation. Since I am still shaving, I need the extra coverage, plus it sets my liquid foundation. I am careful to use this lightly as there is a greater chance of caking. If you don’t
shave or don’t need the extra coverage, I suggest using a translucent pressed powder. A pressed powder has binders so there is more sheer coverage. I use my daughters technique, using my small flat-face brush I put a
light amount on the brush, and tap the brush while rotating it, against the lip of the container, depositing the powder right back into the container. This leaves a very light coating of powder, and very little is wasted.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 005930257] Covergirl TRUblend Minerals Loose Powder, TRANSLUCENT </span><strong>$16.53</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Eye Shadow</span> –</span></strong> While I do have favorites, I find this is the most changeable of my cosmetics.
I don’t know what most people do, but I like to match my eye shadows overall effect to my clothes. Not a direct match, I want them to be in the same tones or shades. For instance, if I have a purple cardigan, then I
like to have subtle lavender shading to my eye shadow. That may make me crazy I don’t know all the rules, I just know that I like the look. I don’t have any hard fast rules either. I have been known to wear a cream
cardigan and eye shadow that is tinted with peach or light pink. I still have trouble with eye shadow, I never know if I have put enough on to show, or if I am putting on too much, so I always err on the side of too light.
One rule my wife attests to, if you are older (have wrinkles) stick to a matte palette, avoiding shimmery palettes. This is because shimmery colors will tend to crease, accenting the lines you are trying to avoid. For the
most part I have followed that rule, but I do like to add a shimmery color under the eyebrow where I don’t have wrinkles. Do what you like and don’t be afraid to experiment. Also, I would like to add, that I use
my darker eyeshadow to fill in my brows. There is makeup for brows specifically, but when on a budget, a dollar/pound/euro saved and all.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="tm28"></span></strong>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/gkiVDnG"><span class="tm23">http://a.co/gkiVDnG</span></a></u><span class="tm24"> </span><span class="tm21">W7 Natural Nudes Naked Eye Colour Palette New </span><strong>$4.54</strong><span class="tm21"> /</span><strong><span class="Strong"> </span></strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm31"><span style="color: orange;">Eye Liner</span> –</span></strong><span class="tm24"> I thought this would be the easiest section to write, as it’s just outlining your eye. It’s not and it isn’t. While currently I am only using an eyeliner stick (e.l.f.), I have several other
types I just haven’t gotten profient enough to pull off with full makeup yet. I also have two liquid types, which I am really wishing I was good at putting on. For now, I use the stick, which is like an eyeliner pencil,
but you don’t have to sharpen it, just rotating the tip out as you need it. I did find out with my first stick, don’t forget to retract it. Much like lipstick, it is not a solid and if you forget to retract it
and put the top back on, you have just squished it into the top and ruined your eyeliner stick. So, I bought another one and I am wiser for the mistake. There are a lot of tutorials for eyeliner application on youtube, and
they all mostly fall along the same basics. The type of eyelids can determine how you apply it. Heavy lidded, smaller eyes, to make them seem bigger, you will apply to the outside and against the lashes, upper and lower. If
you have big, bright, beautiful eyes like my wife, you will apply the eyeliner on the insides of the lashes, that small narrow edge closest to the eye. My suggestion, regardless of which way you do this, is to take your time
and use small strokes to make the line. Again, youtube is your friend for most things cosmetic. Find your style/comfort level and go with it. Practice with just the eyeliner, so if you make mistakes you can clean it off and
try again.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="tm32">Example: </span><span class="apple_converted_space">Walmart [Walmart #: 550117605] e.l.f. Cosmetics Eyeliner & Shadow Stick </span><strong>$2.99 </strong><span class="apple_converted_space">/ Amazon.com </span><u><a href="http://a.co/60RY40H"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/60RY40H</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">Maybelline EyeStudio Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner Ink Pen </span><strong>$5.69</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Mascara</span> –</strong> For most of us, thick full lashes are not naturally present. So, we use mascara to thicken and lengthen the lashes. There are many different kinds and brands. I go with waterproof and volume adding, and I went through a
couple of brands before I found the one I like. Do your research and see what you need for your daily use and you may want a different brand for use at night.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Walmart [Walmart #: 551086761] L'Oreal Paris Voluminous False Fiber Lashes Waterproof Mascara </span><strong>$7.15</strong></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Lipstick/Tinted Balm</span> –</strong> Used to color your lips, making them appear fuller and distinct, lipstick is the very
first cosmetic I purchased and I have several colors. I use tinted lip balm on days where I am not going out or not dressing up; there is just enough tint to bring out my lips. On days where I am putting an outfit together
or I just want more distinct color, I wear lipstick. There are of course other types of cosmetics to color your lips, lip makeup, lip balm, lip color, lip gloss, lip lacquer, lip liner.
I am only covering the basics as it is what I have and what I know. There are rumors that the average woman ingests 4 pounds (or 7 depending on the magazine) of lipstick in their lifetime. I have yet to find actual facts on
this, no study is cited and it smacks of guesswork and wishy thinking. However, we must ingest some, so I choose to go with those lipsticks/tinted balms that are as natural as possible. I am not pushing any brand, use what
you like, but I enjoy Burt’s Bee’s brand lipstick and tinted lip balm. I love the colors and that the ingredients they use are as neutral as possible. I don’t know of any lipstick that is completely safe,
being 100% natural doesn’t guarantee anything. A lot of poisons are 100% natural, but you don’t want to ingest them. Go with what you like, the colors you like and avoid too many chemicals if you can. Using lipstick
can seem a bit daunting, but once you get some practice it will go on quickly. I suggest having a small mirror in your purse so that you can apply lipstick when needed, as they rarely last through the day with one application.
There is a Burt’s Bees area in my grocery store, which is where I usually get them. But I looked online to get the pricing and to give you links.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<strong><span class="Strong"></span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Example: Amazon.com </span><u><a href="http://a.co/dCKVmbX"><span class="tm20">http://a.co/dCKVmbX</span></a></u><span class="tm21"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm Rose </span><strong>$5.87 </strong><span class="apple_converted_space"> /</span><strong><span class="Strong"> </span></strong><span class="apple_converted_space">Walmart [Walmart #: 555393244] Burt's Bees 100% Natural Moisturizing Lipstick, Juniper Water </span><strong>$7.62</strong></div>
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Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158493753176321093.post-75615452904363225742017-01-12T15:01:00.001-08:002017-01-12T15:13:52.938-08:00The Cost of Being You – Clothes<div class="Normal tm9">
<span class="apple_converted_space">I want to inform you, kind readers, of the undeniable factor in a transgender person’s life, cost/expense/toll/levy. <b>Money</b> will be your foe and friend in transition.
So, I am going to try to document a series of honest reviews of the fees incurred so that you aren’t stunned but prepared. I will give you honest, unabashed costs as I encounter them myself. This will be upon my firsthand experience,
so it will apply mostly to MtF transition. Though, I have a son who is FtM, so perhaps I can get his take on the costs associated as well. But I also want to vent my frustrations. So, I will do both and hopefully give useful
information along the way.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: magenta;">Clothes</span></b><div class="Normal tm9">
<span class="apple_converted_space">The first costs I have encountered in my slow, winding transition are for things to wear. I spent most of my life stealing clothes or wearing the clothes of my girlfriends,
sisters and finally my wife. I know it was wrong, I was in survival mode and not thinking about how seriously intrusive and wrong it is. So, when I finally stopped denying who I was and honestly told myself it’s time
to stop being the mask, I started buying my own clothes.</span></div>
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<ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: yellow;">Online Purchases</span> – </strong>Amazon and Walmart were great places to start, they offer a lot of clothes and you get the
benefit of reviews to see if fit is accurate to size, etc. The clothes can be inexpensive and easy to return if you have issues. Now that I know what brands I like, that look better on me, I know I can go to them directly,
or at least have an avenue of search on other sites. I tend to go towards styles that fit my age and aren’t clingy as I am overweight (I am working on that).</li>
<ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Panties</span> – </strong>While my instinct was to go sexy, I found that it is better to buy practical at first. It is cheaper
and you can often get them in packs of 2 or more. Also, if you make a mistake on size or style it won’t affect your pocketbook as much. I have not found a reliable size conversion for men’s underwear to panties.
I was able to guess by comparing my wife’s size. Once you have the basics you can experiment with different styles and brands.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Walmart.<span class="apple_converted_space">com [Walmart #: <a dir="ltr" href="tel:553629108" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors-result="1">553629108</a>] Best Fitting Panty Cotton Stretch Bikini, 2 Pack comes in several color
choices </span><strong>$4.96</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<li><strong><span style="color: orange;">Bras</span> – </strong>This could be an entire column on its own. Bras are notoriously easy to get wrong. Honestly, the best
way is to go to a place that does fittings. If you aren’t ready for that, it becomes a bit hit or miss, even if you follow the instructions. I am providing the instructions I followed. Still, it will be sheer guess work,
I changed cup size and band size a couple of times before I got it right. Go with inexpensive bras at first (they can get outrageously expensive quickly), and keep in mind what type of dress or top you wear as it will matter
what type of bra you purchase so that you aren’t showing a lot of bra over your top. Also, if you are wearing falsies, it is best to keep away from underwire as it does contort the shape and not in a pleasing way.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/66MRwrf"><span class="tm19">http://a.co/66MRwrf</span></a></u><span class="tm20"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">Avenue Women's Back Smoother Underwire Bra comes in three colors </span><strong>$24.40</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">* Taken from http://www.barenecessities.com/feature.aspx?pagename=fit_sizing</span></em></div>
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<em>Measuring band size</em></div>
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<span class="tm22">There are two ways to measure your band size. The best bet is to do it both ways to see if you get a consistent measurement. </span></div>
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<ol>
<li><span class="tm22">Bring the measuring tape around your back to the front, keeping it under the arms and bringing it up across to the middle of your chest (see image). If you get an odd number,
round up to the next even number to get your band size.</span></li>
<li>Measure across the bottom of your band, directly under the bust and across your ribcage.
Make sure to keep your measuring tape straight around the back to front. Again, if you get an odd number, round up to the next even number to get your band size. </li>
</ol>
<em>Measuring cup size</em><br>
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<span class="tm22">This is where it gets tricky- if you already have a bra and can talk us through how it's fitting, we might be better off stopping here- we can help you troubleshoot your fit. You
can also Check Your Fit and see our Bra Fit Q&A for help assessing your fit. The first step (above) will tell us if you might be in the wrong band size. This one becomes much more subjective. Here's how to do it: </span></div>
<ol>
<li>Measure loosely around the fullest part of your bust, with the tape straight across and around your back, bringing it to the front.</li>
<li>Subtract your band measurement (from step 1) from this bust measurement. The difference calculates your bra size- each inch represents a cup size. For example, if you measure
a 34 inch band size, and a 36 inch cup size, the difference is 2: which would indicate a B cup. </li>
</ol>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Tops</span> – </span></strong>Whether it is a batwing blouse or a simple t-shirt, you should dress for comfort
and with the entire outfit in mind. Style is more in how you wear something more than what you wear. Make good choices for your body and your age. This doesn’t mean you have to wear clothes that look like your grandmothers
sofa. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find your own style. Again, start with inexpensive tops, they will allow you to find the style, material and size you enjoy. For colors I try to envision what my entire ensemble
will consist of. Since I have so few shoes (the sadness of having man-sized feet) I build from the bottom, up. Starting with my shoes or boots, I build my pants/skirt/leggings then belt(no belt), then the top and any overshirt
or jacket. Like most items, you will find the brands you like and stick with them. I have found (being plus size) that the sizes are pretty close between men and women. However, for the slighter of you, you will probably need
to step a size up on women’s tops.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/cy4p64Q"><span class="tm26">http://a.co/cy4p64Q</span></a></u><span class="tm27"> </span><span class="Strong">Women's Plus Size Perfect Long Sleeve Tee Shirt, comes in several colors </span><strong>$17.58</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Jeans</span> – </span></strong>Jeans come in many varied designs and fits, as well as materials. I find that
I like the softer, stretchier jeans, which is obtained by varying the material makeup. The jeans I wear now have a 99% cotton 1% spandex blend. I recommend buying jeans in a department store, as you get a better fit this way
and you can tell if you like the feel. Once you have this, you can order online. However, if you are not ready for that, I understand. Just go into the women’s jeans area and feel them. That will let you know the materials
you like, the rest will be a bit of experimentation unfortunately. Cuts of jeans tend to be along the line of men’s jeans too, boot cuts flair at the bottom, straight legs are straight. Skinny jean cuts are very obvious,
so if you aren’t out, then try to keep those for when you are being you and not going to work as your mask. I find that jeans not only vary by brand (size and feel and cut) but also the same brand of jeans will vary
on size and they tend to discontinue lines of jeans. So, if you find something you love, I suggest buying several of them.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Walmart.com [<span class="apple_converted_space">Walmart #: <a dir="ltr" href="tel:552824037" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors-result="8">552824037</a>] The Riders By Lee Women's Slender Stretch Straight Leg, comes in two colors </span><strong>$18.94</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Leggings</span> – </span></strong>Leggings vary in how they fit the entire leg/waist. I have had those that
fit horribly, with looseness at the crotch or buttocks, or they don’t hug the calves. Then you have the ones that feel like they will strangle you in the dark spooky area of the park, leaving you as the really pale actress
with no lines on Law & Order. I am providing a sizing chart so you can get an idea of what size you might need. I have found that the most crucial areas to worry about are the waist, hips and stomach, as leggings are typically
stretchy enough to fit the legs themselves.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/0eN1x5z"><span class="tm19">http://a.co/0eN1x5z</span></a></u><span class="tm20"> </span><span class="apple_converted_space">Women's Plus Size Basic Leggings 1X/2X and 3X/4X, available in many different colors/patterns </span><strong>$12.97</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_6zqbT4r5fo/WHgHjFn4pnI/AAAAAAAAAOM/E6F4sGB_pvkqmZdFbbZfL9dxGzcocL3AwCEw/s1600/chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_6zqbT4r5fo/WHgHjFn4pnI/AAAAAAAAAOM/E6F4sGB_pvkqmZdFbbZfL9dxGzcocL3AwCEw/s640/chart.jpg" width="640"></a></div>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Dresses</span> – </span></strong>I love a nice dress, in fact I started with dresses before anything else.
I made three mistakes when buying my first dresses, the hemline was too short, dress was too tight and neckline too plunging. I went with what I thought would be sexy again. I still like short dresses, but I like them just
above the knee. It will depend on what you like but also what you can get away with. If you have falsies, avoid plunging necklines, if you have implants then go wild. If you have really good falsies that match your skin tone
and meld seamlessly to your skin, then go for it as well. Most of us will want to avoid plunging necklines, opting instead for less revealing cuts. You can still accent the breasts by looking for dresses that push up the breasts
or outline them from just under the breasts. The tightness of the dress will also depend upon what you like. Bodycon (figure hugging) is not good for us big girls, dresses can cover all manner of sins, but not when it’s
so tight it’s competing with your immune system. Whether to go sleeveless or sleeved, long or short will be up to how you feel about your arms and the weather. Beware the models photos; use them as an idea of the style,
not how they will fit you. <strong>They never fit you how they fit the models, mostly because they don’t fit the models either <em>(behind them are clamps and pins holding the dress tight and loose
in all the right places).</em></strong> I go inexpensive here as well, find what you like then you can find better versions of those styles. Also, be thinking of what shoes/boots you have to fit the dress.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/5MVVsFK"><span class="tm26">http://a.co/5MVVsFK</span></a></u><span class="tm27"> </span><span class="tm27">NINEXIS Women's Wrap Surplice Short Sleeve Dress</span><span class="tm20">, available in several colors depending on size </span><strong>$22.99</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<ul><ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: orange;">Shoes/Boots</span> – </span></strong>Ok this is going to hurt and I am sorry. The one thing a transgender
woman can’t change is foot size. The general wisdom is whatever you are in men’s size; add 2 sizes and you have your women’s shoe size; however width will remain the same. <em>(I.E. Men’s size 11 = Women’s size 13)</em> Sizing doesn’t really change between brands and types (boots, shoes, heels, etc). As the sizes go up in women’s shoes, the more they
tend to become fetish-wear with heels absurdly high and thin. I have spent months trying to find a boot or shoe that will fit me (size 11½ men’s). Don’t give up! Every few weeks new shoes appear and old
ones disappear. If you see your size and style don’t tarry, get it as soon as you can. Of course the smaller your shoe size the easier it is to find footwear in more styles and colors. I scour Amazon (multiple suppliers),
Walmart, Long Tall Sally US, Pretty Tall Style, Belk, etc. When you do find your size, be conscious of the pricing. I have had them in the cart, ready to go when I noticed the boots cost over $200. You can find inexpensive
shoes/boots but it is going to take a lot of searching and some time. Don’t get too frustrated, keep at it.</li>
<ul>
<li>Example: Amazon.com <u><a href="http://a.co/9vmmbga"><span class="tm19">http://a.co/9vmmbga</span></a></u><span class="tm20"> </span><span class="tm20">ROF Petty-02 Women's Fashion Western Inspired Almond Pointy Toe Vegan Stacked Heel Ankle Booties,
available in several colors and materials </span><strong>$29.99</strong></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li><strong><span class="tm13"><span style="color: yellow;">In-Store Purchases</span> – </span></strong>I have focused on online purchases, mostly because it is far easier
to shop this way, barring the issue of fitting. If you want things to fit, you must try them on. In order to do that, you must be comfortable walking up to an attendant and asking for a fitting room. These things are hard
initially, especially if you aren’t out yet. You have to start somewhere. I started at Walmart, oddly the least judgmental place in the world, look at the people who shop there. It took me some time to work up the nerve to approach the fitting room attend<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="aGoBack"></a>ant. My voice is distinctly male; I really have to work on that, so asking for a key is the
hardest part. Once you are past that hurdle, there is the other thing. There is the chance they are going to clock you; they are going to talk about you when you are gone, or as you are walking away. I hate that, but it is
going to happen sometimes. I don’t want to you to not take the chance, to be a normal person shopping. I just want you to be prepared if it does happen. I have been clocked, I didn’t enjoy it but they didn’t
cause a scene, I went red in the face and fumbled a lot trying to get my purchases. It was embarrassing, but I lived through it, and I have been back to that store. Being clocked is going to happen, be safe but don’t
be afraid. You are worth living your life as a person.</li>
</ul>
Beth Lockehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413523125628243429noreply@blogger.com2