Hanging In, Hanging Out, Hanging On

As to the subject of being open at work, I guess you could say in some circles here, it's an open secret. Considering that we are in the Bible belt, this is a concern for me. As I have experienced though, one doesn't have to be particularly religious to be a transphobe. In the shop I worked at when I started transitioning, one of the owners whom I would describe as agnostic was openly hostile toward my transition. And both owners were absolutely adamant that I would not be transitioning as an employee of theirs. So I didn't. Because of the experiences I have had with people in general, since I cannot guarantee the unconditional acceptance of my co workers, being out in a circumstance where I don't have to out myself, I consider to be a door that I dare not open.

This is a paragraph from Sarah's most recent post, from her blog, Coming Home to Sarah.  Sarah hasn't published a post in quite some time, so I thought it was time to remind everything that she does, indeed, still exist!

In this post, Sarah sums up both the good and bad points of her journey.  Her comments about the attitudes of her employers certainly remind us that we have a long way to go before, in some parts of the USA and other countries, a transition in the work place is accepted by the employer.

If you haven't checked up on Sarah, please do and then let her know you did.

The Heroines of My Life

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Monika's new page, which features over 60 interviews with prominent transgender ladies from different countries.   

It's immediately obvious that Monika has put a lot of time and effort into this.  Truly, a labor of love.  We all of us can benefit from her efforts.

Go HERE for the interviews index and plan to spend a lot of time browsing.  Then, go explore her other pages.

Oh, and don't forget to show your appreciation of Monika's efforts by joining her site as a Follower.

Robyn's Update, and it's a Good One!

It's a chilly evening in Washington.  At about 10pm you would have seen me walking past the White House as I made my way to work on the 11pm to 7am shift at the State Department.  I had just come from an event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).  For the previous three hours I had sipped red wine and listened and watched as Mara Keisling, Chloe Schwenke, and a number of my other idols in the transgender equality movement spoke and were honored.  As I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue under a bright autumn moon, I had to pause in front of the White House and feel that chill that came not from the cold but from sheer exhilaration.  I'm really here!  I'm really me!  How wondrous to have lived to see this day, this time of acceptance that I thought I would never see in my lifetime!

I love feel-good posts, and this one sure falls in that category.

Robyn is feeling pretty good about herself and wants to share it with all of you.  In this post, she highlights some of the major issues faced by just about any MtF in a transition:

Confidence

Mirrors

Voice

Friends

Think about it.  For someone in transition, or even for a crossdresser, don't these four categories sum up many of the problems one has when transitioning from male to female?

Robyn has has worked out these issues to the point where she's feeling pretty good about herself.  I especially love her comments regarding her new voice.

If you need a feel-good moment, take a peek at Robyn's post, November: What I've Gained, from her blog, Transgender in State.

 

Research on Transsexual Brain Signature Simplified

A month ago, Caroline posted a link to an important article. You can go there to find the original, but even better, Caroline has been persuaded to simplify the language for us. 

So you have spent a lifetime thinking that your body is wrong for what your brain tells you who and what you should be.

Are you crazy? If like me you knew that you were not crazy, clinical help which involved psychiatric tests always seemed like a stupid idea! 

It has been known for a long time that there are measurable differences between a transsexual’s brain and that of someone born with a similar body. The only problem is that to do the test you have to be dead and the deepest parts of your brain have to be cut into very thin slices and viewed under a microscope. 

Read on... 

The Importance of Love

The desire to build and maintain true and lasting relationships is a lifelong human drive.

In the drive to become whole, the transsexual too often sacrifices relationships with family and those who they thought were friends. 

Calie explores this sensitive topic within the context of the MTF post-op experience in Transsexual Sexuality and Finding a Soul Mate . 

Images of the Possible

Lucy Melford's blog is as straightforward as it's name ~ Lucy Melford

In five years of "clean and wholesome" blogging about being herself, at a rate of over 200 posts per year, she has chronicled daily life, travel and thoughts. Most have been thoroughly and delightfully illustrated with magazine quality photography. Her Flickr site is well worth a visit on its own.  

In her 999th post, titled "The girls that made my old world wobble", she takes us back before her eureka moment.

In photos from that time, she imagined the Impossible. Of course, that impossible world is now hers.

Our Different Journey

I wanted to alert everyone to another wonderful site.

Our Different Journey is a collection of posts written by Bloggers, and others, about their own personal journey in life.  These are life stories from those in our community just sharing their thoughts on being transgender.

Thanks to Lynn Jones and Caroline for bringing this site to our attention.


http://ourdifferentjourney.wordpress.com/

Where Have All the Butches Gone?

When lesbians ask where the butches have gone, what we’re saying is that we don’t understand trans men.

The sentence, above, is from an excellent piece written by Roey Thorpe, as an op-ed article for She-Wired.   Roey points out what many of us have suspected for years: Some of the butch women we have known for years are, in reality, transsexual but have lived and worked in a society where women dressing and acting more stereotypically male than female has become accepted. Although Roey doesn't use the term, crossdress, it makes sense, doesn't it?  There are transmen out there who are able to cope without transitioning because women wearing men's clothing is really not questioned in our society as it is when men wear women's clothing.

Although the article appeared in a web publication that brands itself as, "The leading virtual community and editorial website for women, girls, lesbians and all women attracted to women", it should be of great interest to those who follow the blogs on T-Central, whether crossdressers, transsexuals, or whatever.

And, I loved this paragraph:

Transgender people are figuring out how to change what is arguably a person’s deepest identity, the one we are most identified with from birth. The challenges, both in terms of navigating one’s own changing body and the outside world, are staggering, even in the most supportive communities. To make such a decision is like jumping off a cliff with little idea what lies below, but knowing that not to make the leap is another type of agony. This courage deserves our respect and our support.

A rather profound statement that applies to both MtF's and FtM's, isn't it?  Especially when appearing in a publication which is not focused on the trans community.

Go here to read Roey's artcle.

Oh and who is Roey?  From the Huffington Post:

Roey Thorpe lives in Portland, Oregon and is the Director of Strategic Projects for the Equality Federation. An activist for social justice for 30 years, she has been executive director of Basic Rights Oregon and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. She served as a city councilwoman and acting mayor of Ithaca, New York.

Transgender Kid's Camp

You haven't seen many posts from me on T-Central since the demise of Google Reader.  I have depended highly on Google Reader to keep track of the several hundred blogs that I have followed over the years.  I've tried various readers and, for now, have settled on InoReader.  I'm also trying out readers for the iPhone.  Hopefully, InoReader will do the job and I can get back to featuring blogs on T-Central.

Today, I'd like to feature a post that Kelli did about a month ago (just recently found it, sorry Kelli).  It's still her most recent post, and it is about her work with transgender kids.  Many of my trans friends know that I have a soft spot in my heart for transsexual kids.  I remember what I went through in my teens and pre-teens, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.  

Kelli traveled out to California to work in a camp for transgender children.  She was carefully screened and subsequently accepted as a camp counselor.  How great is that?  And, this girl had never been to an overnight camp in her life!  It's well worth your time to read about Kelli, the kids, their parents, and, oh yes, the red ant invasion. 

It's a wonderful post, so do take a peek.  This One Time At Camp.

A Trans-Woman Who Lives As A Woman

    Self-identity is a contentious issue for trans people post-transition. At times it seems as though you'll have as many identities in a given place as people, each of which is jealously defended by its holder as the only correct one.
    From her little corner of the Nutmeg State, Diana offers us her take on self-identity based on her own observation. Have a read: A Trans-Woman Who Lives As A Woman.

Secure in Her Femininity

Nadine continues to show what an authentic, confident person she is. Her blog Unordinary Style is mostly a showcase for her marvelous fashion sense (and you could be excused for thinking she is a GG by the way) but yesterdays' post Making Purchases is a bit different. 

In it, she takes us along on her journey from her past, avoiding making purchases when out as Nadine, with a stopover at a time when she would only go shopping with cash, to the present, where she just finished a five day trip as Nadine and shopped exclusively using her credit card, with her male persona's name on it.

If you are visiting Nadine's Unordinary Style for the first time, take time to look around and join those of us who are regulars.  

Alice's Generation

I am a Lucy Melford fan. She writes from the heart, and besides, we are of the same generation.
This weekend, Lucy wrote a wonderful post about her friend Alice who surprised her by coming out in a big way with a film.

After you read Lucy's story about Alice, here is Alice's short but very moving and informative movie.

Helena Stone and Frick and Frack

In a small but significant victory for transgender rights, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced Monday that it has reached an agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City that allows people to use MTA public restrooms in accordance with their gender expression.

The agreement arose from a complaint filed by the TLDEF and the New York City Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Helena Stone, 70, a transgender woman who had been arrested and continually harassed by MTA police officers due to her gender identity. 


This is an excerpt from the blog, Transdada, posted on October 25, 2006.

Helena Stone passed away earlier this past winter.  

May she rest in peace.

Helena left a legacy: her victory for transsexual and transgender rights, and for that, she will be remembered.

She also left Frick and Frack.

Our good friend and blogger, Cass, alerted me to the current plight of Helena's two cats, Frick and Frack.  Her friend, Colleen, belongs to a group that works with feral cats, in Union City, New Jersey, Helena's home town.  Per Coleen:

Helena's two loving, big, orange cats, Frick and Frack, are now in need of a new permanent home. A couple from the neighborhood has been fostering these kitties for several months.

I'm a hopeless cat lover, as Cass knows, and I'm breaking format at T-Central, to a certain extent, to help Frick and Frack find a good home.  If you live in the area, please contact Merecedes Garcia or Miguel Fernandez at Hudson County Friends of Ferals, if you can help.  I'm sure Helena's two felines have many years of love left to give.

Miss Canada on Canada Day

This post was almost titled April in July. 

Canada Day, my country's "independence" day is July 1st every year. As it turns out, this year on that day, I will not be thinking about my country, but about one compatriot in particular. 

Instead of spoiling the news any further, I am going to let you check out April's site if you haven't already and there you can congratulate her yourself. 

I am so very happy for you April.

What do you do when your blogging service fails you?

    It's something of a mantra in the web industry: "You can't compete with free". If your product is a paid offering and your competitor's very similar product is offered at no cost, you're going find it very difficult to succeed. It's a story that has been played out in the arenas of multiple online services.
    Thus as consumers, we've become used to the web as somewhere we get stuff for nothing. It's worked very well for us too, if I were to take a look at the online services I use and count how much they would cost me to replicate for myself on a server of my own, for example, I would be significantly out of pocket.
    Of course, nothing is truly free. The trade-off for the free services we use is that our  data is sold on, we are shown adverts, or we are encouraged to trade up to a paid offering. Some providers make this work very well for themselves, others struggle and their products fall by the wayside
    Google recently announced the impending closure of their Reader product, a move widely seen as an attempt to drive users to their Google+ social network instead. Never a web superstar, Reader nevertheless gained a dedicated following who have been vociferous in their dismay. Attention has now turned to Google's other products, with speculation rife that Blogger might be next for the axe. It's not an unreasonable worry, as users of Yahoo! 360 and Posterous would be happy to tell you it wouldn't be the first time a free blogging service with a large user base has been closed.
    The evidence however does not entirely support an impending Blogger closure. Reader saw a slow decline in Google support in its final years, with features disappearing and no new development. By contrast Blogger has benefited from continuous development, most recently it has received a new template editor for example. It's never possible to entirely second-guess the moves of a company like Google, but Blogger seems better supported than one would expect for a doomed product.
    So for myself I won't be moving from Blogger merely because of a rumour. As any blog owner should I keep a fresh export of my blogs on my backup drive so if I had to I could do it, but why jump because of something that hasn't happened?
    But what if it did happen? If Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress or any other free blogging platform closed its doors for good? It's easy enough to move to any of a host of competitors of course, but given the risk inherent to the free business model described above is that not just a move towards yet another inevitable closure?
    Perhaps it's time to recognise that free rides do sometimes come to an end, and either accept services with a visible revenue model such as advertising, or simply move to a paid service with your own domain name for portability in the event it closes.

Looking Over My Shoulder

It's been a while since we featured Cyrsti on T-Central.  Cyrsti is a prolific blogger, who has been at it since 2010.  Her blog and her writing are well thought out and well worth your time.

In her latest post, Looking Over My Shoulder, Cyrsti discusses that issue which is so familiar to genetic women and should be given attention by those who are transitioning or just crossdressing out in public.  You're not percieved as a male out there and you no longer have that "male security".  Cyrsti relates an incident that she experienced several years ago.  It taught her a lesson, and perhaps one of you may benefit from her experience.

I Don't Know Why I Did That

Aw...such good advice from Faline:

If you're someone who someday wishes for a normal life, and if this advice applies to you, you'll know what I mean by "normal," don't out yourself unnecessarily.

Go here for a good read.

The Voice - Your Input Needed

For a male, transitioning to female after male puberty, finding that feminine voice is, arguably, one of the most important components of a successful transition and one of the most difficult to achieve.

Stefanie is a graduate student in the speech pathology program at Louisiana State University.  She's doing a research project about attitudes and perceptions about voice among people who identify as trans. In her words, "The speech/voice field has done some previous research about trans voice, but hasn’t traditionally had a lot of input from the trans community itself. I’m hoping to start addressing that problem through a research project, using an online survey. This survey was designed to collect information about personal satisfaction with voice, how voice impacts the participant’s life, what (if anything) the participant has done to change their presentation of gender vocally, and overall satisfaction with those procedures or behaviors. The results will be published in my master’s thesis."

Please go to the link, below, if you are interested in completing the survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/transvoice

Ten Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started My Transition

Ten Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started My Transition.

A great post from the Autostraddle site.  Well worth the read.

Thanks to a very close friend for recommending that we feature this post on T-Central.

Telling Your Wife

Kathleen is the author of Genderblog - Thoughts About Gender and Transgender.

I like this blog.  Besides being a well-written blog, I like it because Kathleen does not judge others.  While being very open about her Christian religious beliefs, she doesn't care what persuasion you are.  That goes for both your religious beliefs and for what flavor of "transgender" you consider yourself to be.  I like those who have strong beliefs and commitments yet also respect those with differing beliefs.

Kathleen recently did a five-part series of posts on the subject of explaining your transgender side to your wife.  I might have titled this series of posts, "Telling Your Spouse", rather than "Telling Your Wife" because everything she writes could apply to the spouse of a FtM as well as to the spouse of a MtF.  Regardless of the title, Kathleen raises some very good points for those who have yet to "tell".

If, like myself, you have already told your spouse, you may not be interested in this recent series of posts.  I still encourage you to take a look at Kathleen's blog, however, for there is just a wealth of well written personal thoughts of which many of you, I'm sure, will relate to.  In addition, Kathleen has much to say about Prostate Cancer and it's affects on gender reassignment surgery.

Start out with taking a look at Telling Your Wife - Part 1, and then take some time to browse around a very interesting blog.....GenderBlog.

Cheated

I was about to feature another blog today, but the blog I am featuring moved me so much that I'll postpone the other feature until later in the week.   

Today's featured blog post is what T-Central is all about.  

Life experiences....

It was just a couple of weeks ago that we featured Cassidy's Quest on T-Central.  It's quite unusual that we would feature the same blog, again, within two weeks.  On Friday, however, she posted a story of hate followed by love....a near life threatening experience that all should read, and perhaps learn from.  The post is titled, Cheated, and indeed she was.

The ending is bitter sweet.

If you have the time, please wish Cass well and a quick recovery. 

I want to thank Halle for quickly alerting me to Cass's post.  And, for Cass, I want to thank April, for being such a good friend and supporter.  We're all in this together.  It's what the T-Blogging world is all about.

Transgender in State

Robyn is an American Foreign Service Officer, currently assigned to duty in Bucharest, Romania.

While reading Robyn's latest post, today, it occurred to me that I don't think we've featured her blog on T-Central.  What a shame, because there is a wealth of personal stories shared by Robyn in her blog.

The current post links back to a post Robyn did in April, 2012, titled Voice: The Acid Test.  Those transitioning from male to female certainly know that "the voice" is one of the most frustrating aspects of a transition.  I'd recommend you take a look at this post, if you're dealing with "the voice" issue.

The heart of Robyn's blog is a page titled A Reader's Guide to Transgender in State.  On this page, Robyn has nicely indexed "the chronology of my story as I relate it in this web journal".  It's a terrific idea that I wish more bloggers, including myself, would do.  It's the place to start, when visiting a new blog.

If you have a few moments, take some time to check Robyn's nicely done blog, Transgender in State.

The Chronicles of Cass

Happy New Year from T-Central!!


To ring in the new year, we added a blog to our list yesterday.  It's called Cassidy's Quest.

Casssidy's blog has been around for a while now, but for some reason I never discovered it.  Shame on me, because she is a delightful writer.

Recognizing that she now has some new readers, Cass' current post, The Chronicles of Cass, has listed links to some of her posts which tell her story, dating back to her very early years. 

For now, however, I'd like to feature a post Cass did in June, 2011, titled The Awakening #1.  It's a good example of her writing and it will get you hooked on her blog.