Self-confidence

Do trans women have male privilege?







Clare ponders on the question in her post, Self-confidence.

The Feminine Differential - Wearing Pants

Are skirts and dressing becoming a novelty, just special occasion option?   

I tried to find a reasonable survey taken among women. What I did find was a small sample, limited female survey:



And the results of the survey are.....  You'll just have to go to, The Feminine Differential - Wearing Pants, to find out.

Meeting people and volunteering

I’m learning to love who I am, though I do experience setbacks. I suppose that’s just a part of life.




Stefani updates us on her life as of late.  She tells us how she's had issues with being trans and how that relates to her faith.  She's joined a trans support group.  And, she is volunteering for an organization that helps the homeless.  Read more about Stefani's Meeting people and volunteering.

Three years ago…

Three years ago, I had just gotten my second shot of testosterone and was already feeling the benefits of those hormones coursing through my veins. 



How are things three years later?  The answer is short, but sweet, from a Canadian trans guy.

Interview with Naomi from “Naomi’s Truth”

Q: Is shopping for lingerie easier or harder since coming out? 

A: Short Answer: Harder. After my gynecomastia stabilized, and I learned what worked. It was easy shopping for Bra’s because my size and shape never changed. However, since I started HRT, it’s rediscovering process all over again. My breast size/shape keeps fluctuating from month to month and they developing further (YAY!). Plus I have open myself up to a whole other world of lingerie that I was afraid to explore or even consider before. Now I have to consider, and discover what works for me and what doesn’t in those other categories. I never knew Women had so many choices in terms of Underwear.

Danielle is a lingerie and fashion blogger, the author of Rolls and Curves.  In her, "About Me" page she says:

This blog is to be a safe space for anyone of any gender identity, weight, body type, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other factor. There will be no name calling, body shaming, or other general rude behavior (this includes slut shaming). When I say “women”, I include all people who identify as a female. To make other women feel more secure reading this blog and offering their input, I would prefer there to be no perverted comments made. This is a blog predominately focused on lingerie. There will be boobs.  I will delete any lewd comments.
 
Love it, Danielle!

Danielle has featured a Q&A featuring her friend, Naomi, a trans-woman who has a blog titled Naomi's Truth, which is now listed on T-Central. To read the interview, go to Danielle's post,  Interview with Naomi from “Naomi’s Truth”

GCS? Y-E-S! :-p

No burying the lead here: your humble blogstress Cassidy is in Montreal, and had my GCS on Monday with Dr. Brassard! Woo hoo!!!






This one is a very emotional post for me.  I met Cass, for lunch in a New England diner, when she was first beginning her transition.  I am just so happy for her!  Now, with her gender confirming surgery this past Monday, her journey is nearly over and she's set to truly begin the life as the woman she was born to be.

If you get a chance, please drop her a comment and express your joy for her.

The effect of HRT on crosssdressing

I now enjoy presenting as a male, for the first time. I wish my Dad was alive to see his wish that his oldest son now enjoys buying male clothes and looking good in a suit jacket with matching shirt and tie. I now own 5 pair on men's shoes. I NEVER owned more that 2 pair at once.









Has hormone therapy stopped Susan's desire to crossdress?  Read more on, The effect of HRT on crosssdressing, from Susan King.

Being different

One is to let myself be part of the mainstream of life, taking my place as an accepted member of several interlinking circles of people, mostly local, and very definitely real-life. It's a world of older women in the main, of course - mostly women in their fifties or older, but with a sprinkling of younger women too.



The lovely Lucy has one of the longest running blogs listed on T-Central.  She transitioned years ago, yet still updates her blog frequently.  Being different is really not a TG post but, as is the case with all of Lucy's posts, it's well written and, in many ways, relevant to us.

Why Being Stylish Matters

What is fabulous is that you have the power to change people’s perception of you.  The clothes you choose to wear, the way you groom and whether or not you choose to smile are all within your control.





Here's a post, with good advice, from Tasi, a member of my local TG group, the River City Gems.

Meditations on belonging

Guys, I’ve observed, generally do one of two things when around strippers. Either their higher brain functions are short-circuited and they think only with their dicks and they think they’re about to get off and it seems they’re on the edge of going berserk, or they mentally step back to an objectification remove like predators looking at prey.

That moment was terrifying and beyond uncomfortable for me.


Heather takes you through a life of not belonging. I relate and I'm sure many of you do too.

Kids’ books celebrating gender expression are for adults, too.

Here’s what I know: Fear is learned.

Hatred is learned. Intolerance of differences is learned. Transphobia and homophobia are learned. And none are learned from children’s picture books at the public library.


Julie Tarney is a speaker and advocate for LGBTQIA youth.  In this post, she reviews two books, recommended for both the kids and their parents.  Let's hope they end up in libraries.

Capturing Confidence

Confidence is everything.  Whether you are a t-girl or not, it’s confidence that gets us through the day, helps keeps our head held high as we strut through the mall or make eye contact with those who stare at us.








Excellent advice on Capturing Confidence, from Hannah.  Hannah is a married crossdresser and prefers the term, T-Girl, as it applies to her.

Closet: Perspective of a Nonbinary Youth

The closet is the box boxing us into the social norm. But here’s something that makes it more complicated. The closet has locks on the doors. These locks are the people you are unsure as to how they will react to being outside the closet. Who knows—they may not talk to you, they may lecture you about how it’s “wrong”, they may even kick you out. They keep you “locked” inside the closet.


This is an interesting guest post on Dara's blog.  The author, a male, draws a line between the non-binary community and the trans community.  As he puts it, ".....there are days when I feel like a boy and or I feel like a girl and it flips randomly".  Closet: Perspective of a Nonbinary Youth, is a  good post and well worth the time to read.

Rebirth

On Tuesday, the good doctor and his surgical team did what they could to create a physical world for me that genetics could not. Using the material at hand and their extensive understanding of how the body works, they set me on a path. That is all they could do. 






Rebirth is a wonderful post, from Halle.  She's nearing the end of her journey. 

clothes shopping

Going into a woman’s clothing store and feeling comfortable doing it would have been a daunting and virtually unthinkable thing 10 years ago. However, today it is something I don’t give a second thought to. 



I love how Joanna, someone who truly should have been born female, is so comfortable in her world, presenting as female. She is at peace with herself and the body she was born with.  She's a model and example for many of us.  Clothes shopping is really not about clothes shopping at all, but about Joanna's confidence in herself and acceptance by others.

I Know We Are All Different

“The guy called me miss as I walked up to the counter,” Gorelick says. “But when he was making my sandwich and I had to tell him what I wanted, he started calling me sir.”

 

A short post on vocal therapy, from Diana.  The post includes a link to speech therapy at the University of Connecticut.

Let this one go, Mom. What will be will be. (And it’ll be OK.)

A worried mother of a three-year-old sent me an email recently, asking for my advice.  She was trying to answer the very same question that plagued me when my child was the same age and saying the same things:  Is it OK to let such a young child transition to another gender?  Or to even let them know that it might be a possibility for them to do so at some point?  


Marlo answers the question in Let this one go, Mom. What will be will be. (And it’ll be OK.)

This is the first time Gendermom has been featured on T-Central.  Marlo (pseudonym) has a six year old daughter.  You can read the basics of her story in, My Penis Girl.

Clothes Make the Lady

Probably one of the hardest things is wearing a bra. Unfortunately, just because you start taking hormones doesn’t mean that you wake up the next morning with fully formed breasts. Just like any teen girl, it takes time, years for most. Investing in a great fitting bra doesn’t work that well if you are still developing.



Emma chats a bit about buying clothes for what was once a male frame.  She shares her experiences on sizing, and places to shop in Clothes Make the Lady.

the sisterhood

My young waitress couldn’t have been much older than 20 and she kept calling me love during breakfast which is something I have noticed some women do here.



Joanna points out how women address each other in this particular region she is visiting.  More musings from Joanna's every day life.

A manicure and finally just a little Susan time.

It was a wonderful day. I sat here at Starbucks for a couple hours catching up on e-mails and of course my blog. I really appreciate my time out as I am limited now.



It was a good day!  Susan got her nails done and also got a new pair of sandals.  She tells you all about her nail treatment in great detail, but also mentions a cruise to Mexico that her local TG group (Rose City TGirls) has organized.  They're inviting everyone so, if you're interested, read A manicure and finally just a little Susan time.

Interview with Fran Fried

Fran: Well, I’m a writer, an editor, a DJ, a daughter, a sister, a good friend – and, oh, yeah, by the way, I’m trans. I’m out and about in the everyday world, and if you don’t know me, chances are you won’t read me. As far as I can tell, with my friends, being trans is just incidental; first and foremost, to them, as well as myself, I’m Fran. The gender dysphoria is just one facet of an interesting life – a big, honking facet, but still, just one nonetheless.


 Another good one, from Monika...an Interview with Fran Fried.

The Penultimate Post

I call this the penultimate post because it is the next to the last post I will write for this blog.  This blog is not going away, nor am I.  My transition is not ending, just as each and every one of us never end our own life's transitions, whether you be transgender or not.  What is going away is the need for me to chronicle my gender transition.


It's always sad to see a blogger go away.  In the case of our bloggers who have completed their transitions, it makes sense however.  They're done with acting, followed by a period of transition.  Now, they simply want to put everything behind them and get on with life in the gender they should have been born in.  

Such is the case with Christen and her Penultimate Post.  In this one, she fills in the blanks.  You're going to want to read it!

Guest Post - It's Not a Lifestyle Choice!

Laura-Ann, is a friend I met via our very large TG group in Northern California (River City Gems).  She has offered up another guest post for T-Central.  This girl really need to start up her own blog.  She writes so well!

It's Not a Lifestyle Choice!

For a while now, I have occasionally come across posts on social media referring to people in the LGBTQ community as having made a "lifestyle choice". Please don't refer to my gender transition as a "lifestyle choice". For many transwomen and transmen, it was a "life or death" choice. A lifestyle choice is like, "do I want to buy a sedan, an SUV, or a minivan for my next car?". A gender transition, and the dysphoria that precedes it, is a little more serious than deciding what kind of car you want to drive, or whether to redo the flooring in your house with carpet or hardwood. I can't speak for any other transgender person, but I will tell you what it was like for me. For 2 years, following the death of my wife of 29 years, I struggled with my gender dysphoria, becoming ever more disoriented, and almost losing sight of who I was. On June 4th, 2016, I was dressing in a man's suit - I had only just purchased it - to go to a formal dinner, and it just felt so horrible, so flat-out wrong, that I wanted to tear that suit off, burn it, crawl under the bed, and die. I had been presenting as a woman 80% of the time for five months at that point, but I had not yet come to a clear understanding of what was happening to me, and I had not yet realized that I was in fact a transgender woman.
At the moment of my most extreme gender dysphoria and distress that night, while I was trying to knot my tie, the thought passed through my mind that I didn't have to do this any more. That I could, and should, accept myself as being transgender. That I could ask my therapist for permission to transition, quit fighting it, and move forward. What that train of thought felt like, was that some huge weight that had been crushing me had been lifted off, and I was free. Gender dysphoria is an emotional disconnect that can manifest itself in depression so severe that the victim may eventually attempt suicide if the issue is not addressed and resolved. I made it through my own penultimate gender identity crisis, and thanks to the support I have received from family and friends, I am in transition myself, and much, much happier than I had been at any time in the last 4 years.

I know that I am a transwoman, and that I have always been so. It just took 58 years for the walls that society forced me to build around my female gender identity to finally crumble under the pressure. I am not transitioning because it's fun, or because I'm bored and wanted to try a new lifestyle, or because I was dissatisfied with being a guy. I did it because the pain of continuing to pretend to be a man in my own mind was beyond my limit of toleration; it was transition or die. I do not expect any cisgender person, whether religious or not, to understand gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria on an emotional level. You can no more understand what people like me feel, in terms of our gender identity, than you would understand what a beautiful sunset would "look like", if you were blind from birth. But that's okay, as long as you can understand that, in every other way except for our gender issues, we are just people, like everyone else. We are doctors, lawyers, teachers, chefs, artists, musicians, scientists, engineers, cops, soldiers and sailors, and accountants...every job or profession that exists probably has trans people working in it somewhere, and doing just as well at it as their cisgender co-workers. We're just people, who love our kids and our spouses, same as cisgender people do, and all we ask from life is to be valued by our fellow citizens the same as everyone else. And to not have to live in fear of being fired from our jobs, or murdered by people being consumed by hatred, just because we are not now living in our assigned-at-birth gender.


Laura-Ann