Home » Public » New Beginnings » Midway, post transition (postop)
| Midway, post transition [message #99898] |
Sun, 09 May 2010 06:02  |
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It is a time of reflection. Over half my life has been lived post-op. Considering cross-living, it's a bit more than half my life. It's also been ten years since FSRS (FFS is still a misnomer in my view) with Dr. Ousterhout. So much has changed within me and in the world ... a lifetime since Stonewall, which so many folks forget was a T-bar. My roomie at Biber's was underage and performing on stage when the cops made their move at Stonewall. She said she dived behind the bar and crouched down. Gosh, she was pretty. Now, it is almost impossible to conceive that someone would be arrested for wearing the wrong outfit.
On anniversaries, like FSRS on May 31, I tend to remember ... maybe a little like Jack Grimaldi, my namesake, at the end of "Romeo is Bleeding." Every May 31st, in my case.
It all has come at a price. I am older. So many of the young things, and weren't we all, have faded away ... and more power to them. Hopefully they have found their happiness ... like in Talos 4. Each one of us finds out what is right for her.
And yet, life is good and the agony has passed.
Best wishes to all who labor through the trackless land.
Yours,
Kate Grimaldi
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| The trackless land reference [message #99900 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Sun, 09 May 2010 06:15  |
| Anonymous |
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From the Kung Fu series, episode "This Valley of Terror."
Man: You think I do not know. I heard the scratching in the wall. You sealed a priest in the wall behind my room. Now they listen to me. They listen to me!! I, I, I can't sleep, thinking about it. I can't sleep.
Kahn: I will help you to sleep (Master Kahn produces a sealed jar of liquid).
Man: No, Poison!! (Master Kahn opens it and drinks. Satisfied, the man drinks).
Kahn: When you have rested, we can talk.
Young KCC: Master, what besets that man.
Kahn: He has been marked to wander inward. Through and beyond the dark and terrifying land. Where no road exists. And no sign post points the way.
Young KCC: But why?
Kahn: Who can say?
Young KCC: Should he not be locked in his room?
Kahn: And prevent him from his journey? If he can pass through the trackless land, he will find peace. His answer, his cure. As far as we are able, we must travel with him. Help him along the way.
Young KCC: But how? Where there are no roads or sign posts.
Kahn: There are steps. His and ours. We take them together. This is our duty, to all who are marked as he is.
Young KCC: I should hope then, never to meet another like him.
Kahn: Very often, a wanderer in the trackless land finds that which he sought, and more. Something of rare value, for the one who shared his journey. Could you risk the loss of such a benefit?
http://kungfu-guide.com/addendum/addendum.html
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| Repost [message #101239 is a reply to message #100798 ] |
Wed, 19 May 2010 20:06 |
| Anonymous |
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Hi Wendy C.,
I wrote a post, longish, but then held back. I am cautious. What ideas did I invoke. I will then speak to that.
Kate Grimaldi
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| Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #101261 is a reply to message #101242 ] |
Thu, 20 May 2010 05:41 |
| Anonymous |
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Hello to Wendy C., Karen, and Dharla,
I am sorry to hear about Wendy C.'s surgery and hope she recovers quickly.
I stumbled on Beginning Life, then a part of the Heart Corp effort, in 1999. I was 21 years post-op at the time, and was taking stock of many things, including what it all meant -- to transition.
In my own journey, I fund that it did not end, like in the the movies, where the person has SRS and walks into the sunset ... triumphal music ... end credits. Life goes on.
I asked myself some basic questions ... what did it mean? What is it to be female? What is it to be human? How do I integrate that chapter into my life? <em>Can</em> it be integrated, or is there always something that has to be "splained" (explained).
I often quote Edward R. Morrow, "a man lives a life, not an apology."
The politics of shame may hold sway and may speak to many travails in the early going, but at one point we have sailed too far from those shores for that way of thinking to be relevant to everyday life.
I was very moved by the HBO series, The Pacific, inasmuch as I knew a half dozen combat veterans of that campaign. They are very old now, or gone. They were all great guys.
The arch of the HBO mini-series takes the viewer from their heading off to war, and for the survivors, coming home. And no matter how heroic or horrifying the battles were, no one state-side could understand what they had gone through.
My journey, for whatever it was, was nothing compared to the journeys others have gone through, and in the end people rejoin their lives. "We now rejoin our regularly scheduled lives, in progress."
I remember our neighbor, Mr. Mulner, who seemed like anyone's dad, except every minute or so, he had a involuntary tick. Parents told their kids not to be harsh or mean. "He was a lieutenant at Iwo Jima. It happened after that."
The stories my friends shared were sanitized of any horror or killing. They saved the details for each other, or God. Who could ever understand, except someone who had been through it?
And so, to take a great leap, Grimaldi-style, there is a bit of that in the transition journey. I lived a rather normal life. I went through some vivid, life-altering events, and then went back to a normal life, though not in a 10-part mini-series.
At one, the "battles" fade and the casualties are mended, and sometimes a veteran encounters another. What did it mean? How did the "post-war" adjustment take place? Why don't we talked about PTSD? I guess it doesn't fit with the swelling of music, sunsets, and end-credits.
So, like "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," we hop the commuter train from Connecticut to New York every morning and back home at the end of the day and we seem to be no different from anyone else, and that is a good thing.
As good as it gets.
So, have my ideas changed? Have my ideals changed?
All I know is that I have changed since my early experimentation when I was just a kid. I never believed I would go through with it, but I did in order to live.
My question is: has anyone changed their views of what it means to transition?
Love to hear <em>your</em> thoughts.
Kate Grimaldi
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #101926 is a reply to message #101343 ] |
Thu, 27 May 2010 08:53 |
Wendy C
Messages: 4340
Registered: October 2007
Location: Gateway to the West |
Senior Member
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Kate, thank you for your well wishes, I am doing better now after an emergency laproscopic appendectomy.
To return to my question, and your response.
| Quote: | I wrote a post, longish, but then held back. I am cautious. What ideas did I invoke. I will then speak to that.
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A brief background. I am now 63, post op at 6 months. Had life worked differently, I would be post op about the same amount of time as you. It wasn't for lack of attempts that took me so long to finally make to the other side, more lack of competent Medical and Psychiatric advice and location than anything else but I digress.
First let me say that the thoughts and questions you invoked have always rang true with my transition and now my transsexing as you called it. I guess perhaps I was looking more for an update rather than anything specific.
For an example, even in the three plus years I have been on BL, the content, focus and of course people have changed which is to be expected as the elder TS's move on with their lives and the new ones grow into positions of leadership within the community. But I also see a trend within the larger community as times change also.
I was surprised at when I had my GRS with Dr Brassard that there were so many others there at the same time. Mostly Canadians as their Healthcare was paying for it. I also see the Healthcare in the US as getting closer to Trans folks being covered. While I cannot elaborate further, I do have knowledge that this is true. I see a trend where the stealth aspect and the assimilation into female world as a female is moving more towards a third sex so to speak. The older transitioners seem to no longer worry so much about being recognized as transsexuals. I have seen this in group meetings where voice is a non issue along with other concerns. It disturbs me. The younger ones will obviously fare better as the hormones will do their work.
Society is also learning as we become more exposed to the world, and Gender Incongruity I think will be more accepted. My own situation with work family and Medical information makes it difficult if not impossible to be stealth. I personally do try to blend in with other woman and do not want to be perceived as a man in a dress.
I know you will probably hit me with more questions  but if you want to respond, where do you see transitioning as compared to say five years ago with all the changes going on that I have touched on. I hope I haven't just rambled on and make some kind of sense to you. Thanks.
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| Lightning strikes once, maybe twice; and it all comes down to you [message #103988 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Thu, 10 June 2010 12:32 |
| Anonymous |
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In the 1981 film, Reds, one of the "witnesses," Roger Nash, observes: that Jack Reed's life, short as it was, happened at a time, and all of us after all are victims of our time and place, when he had the opportunity as a reporter to be in some very exciting and dramatic places
The camera moves to a scene that I assume is Mexico, Warren Beatty, playing Jack Reed, hops on a horse-drawn wagon to make a daring escape as artillery shells fall all around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk0Zo3fx4JM&feature=relat ed Approximately 4:55 in you can see and hear for yourself.
Much later, another witness from Reds, a woman says of her own era, now 90 years ago:
You didn't hear the word "sex". You didn't hear the word "lesbian." You didn't hear the word "homosexual." You didn't hear the word "abortion." You didn't hear those things. Men respected women. They helped them on with their coats, they opened the doors for them. And the man and woman who courted each other, they married each other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwusmMQWfpg&feature=relat ed Approximately 9:50 in you can see and hear for yourself.
I am not sure whether I liked the film, yet the words of the witness ring true.
" all of us after all are victims of our time and place"
Anyone in her sixties today, was born in the 1940s, a very different era.
True story: a friend was a guide at a city museum. She took a class of middle school students through an exhibit of highly enlarged photos of the local streets in the 1920. She suggested the students try and imagine how life would be if the only place they had to go on a Saturday afternoon was to the local soda fountain (pictured in one of the photos.) A student asked in deadly earnest, "why didn't they just go to the mall?"
No one who grew up after the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-War Movement, the Women's Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement can viscerally feel the weight of social forces that were brought to bear on individuals before these watersheds.
There were laws on the books that prevented whites from marrying blacks. Laws that prevented Asians from owning land. The suppression of women is legion. Stonewall ... well that's a whole other story.
It has taken a long for the nation to grow up ... at least superficially.
The intolerance of the 1950s in large part gave way to, if not the real thing, a under strong cultural pressure, a pretense of tolerance. The change is tangible -- we have a black President, women are gaining power, and a growing number of states, despite a lot of backlash, are rescinding anti-gay statues, including those against same-sex marriage. The nation has come a long way.
I am not saying that no one but a transitioner can understand the gravity of the difficulties they faced up until the 1980s, more specifically the late 1980s, but anyone who tries to find fault with a late transition is like that middle school student, "why didn't they just go to the mall?"
Dr. Emmett Brown says to Marty McFly in first "Back to the Future," "I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by."
Like plutonium, SRS in 1955 was a little hard to come by.
Inflating the number of people who have has SRS can backfire. It may helps some feel that they are not so alone, after all a "million" people have had the surgery, ten years ago someone wrote to each of the SRS doctors, a surprisingly long list of 33 surgeons, and asked how many SRS procedures each had done. The number was not very high. Maybe 16,000. But that was 1999.
I only bring this up to say that transitioners of a generation ago had few places to get medical help.
Therapy, counseling, and guidance was not to be had. In large part it was seen as a form of gay shame. While interviewing on alleged gender expert, his illuminating remark was, "you don't have to become a woman to have sex with men."
Wow, "thought that up all by yourself, Pilgrim."
A theme running through therapy in the early going was that the people with GID were gay and one of the best ways of dealing with the patient was to encourage "him" to have sex with a male ... a gay male at that. A good number of people, fearing loss of channels to therapy, hormones, and SRS, did as asked.
The patient was asked; well, how did it go. The no-win answer came in two forms. If you liked it, you were gay. Therapy over! If you hated it ... well, why be female if you hate it? Therapy over!
The narrow road was, 1) I have to be in love, 2) I might get a disease, 3) I don't think I am attracted to "gay men."
The 1970s and into the 1980s was a time meant to weed out everyone, and yet in the 1950s and 1960s it was so bad, there was no one to weed. With only slight exaggeration, the person had to be a raving psycho to be considered for SRS. In the late 1950s about 150 SRS surgeries, outside of Casablanca. Those were main performed in Sweden and Denmark.
The 1970s and 1980s brought with them a much more middle class group with their own veneer of dignity and respectability who rejected the notion that someone had to be a psycho to know who they were. Whereas even into the 1980s psychiatrists dismissed gender patients with, "well, if someone says he's Napoleon, you don't cure him by giving him a Napoleon suit." In short, a true psychotic.
Of course few claimed to be a historic figure (Josephine?). Most said they were themselves, not somebody else sound a bit like Peer Gynt? (Recall from the play when the therapists asks, "who are you?" And Peer says, "I am myself," the therapist declares Peer to be "insane.")
It was at the height of the women's movement and the heady days of gay liberation when one post-op said to me, "a lot of people are talking about sex and gender. We're <em>doing </em> something about it."
I lucked out and got a therapist for GID who had been associated with The Radical Therapy Collective, an organization which professed "therapy means change, not adjustment," and which published articles with provocative titles such as "Psycho The Rapist." Too many psycho-the-rapists stood in the way of change.
My therapist suggested I read books like "Knots," "They Shoot Horses Don't They," or "Miss Lonely Hearts." I withdrew from Medical School, in another state, so I could stay in city with the good gender program in therapy with this (young) Donald Sutherland look-alike, right out of M*A*S*H, the movie.
When the gender group therapists put two and two together and found out everyone was telling the same story to get SRS my daddy was away all the time and my mommy hugged my nude body every night and so the stories were made up to fill a mold, and the therapist were going to deny SRS to everyone in the program, it was my therapist who said, "wait ... stop ... these folks want this pretty bad to have gone to this extreme to memorize this story; if you punish them, you'll never find out what's behind their need." In other words, take away the need for the false story and you'll get the real story.
It was not just this therapists, but a great many other enlightened care givers who broke down the facades, which some call gates.
Yet, by and large, most people with GID did not get help in the 1970s, 1980s or even into the 1990s.
Mostly, though with notable exceptions, settled in ... reigned to be average people who had led average lives and to play the hand fate had dealt as Roger Nash said, "all of us after all are victims of our time and place."
They had hoped the manhood thrust upon them would rub off by getting jobs, settling into mate relationships with nice women, or even having children with those women. Some hoped that these things would "cure" them. Some drifted into substance and/or alcohol abuse to numb the pain.
But no matter what, it never went away, and as the world changed, the walking wounded came in from the cold.
Walking wounded was a World War One triage term ... hurt, not in need of immediate help ... or "stat," as they say. Fix the walking wounded later. They'll get by. And as the 1970s moved into the 1980s and 1990s, like ghostly figures coming out of the fog, the walking wounded emerged.
It was their time at last. Stat!
One of the most haunting of the monument is Washington DC is the Korean War monument, and I strong sense the isolation of those who took part.
http://antique-stamp-collection.com/img/2010/02/afa2d0851185 g_hr.jpg.jpg
The first wave had been a few dozen in the 1950s.
The second wave had been a few hundred in the 1960s
The third wave was a couple thousand in the 1970s.
And then the dam broke as the fourth wave came forth as tens of thousands found a more welcoming medical community and treatment centers.
More surgeons, more treatment centers, and above all else, more information.
Fears by surgeon and patient alike were largely addressed. No longer was it mandatory that a person having SRS present divorce papers so the surgeon wouldn't get sued by an angry spouse.
Why is it surprising that when the fourth wave finally got access, that they were old? They now had to the money. They were making their own decisions. They knew themselves it was not going away and the manly job and wife and children and whatever else was not going to "fix" it.
And America through that period ... the 1980 to 2000 ... no longer seemed to car what someone looked like. They might notice it, but it was no longer considered okay to get into the offenders face and to tell that person off. Be a heavily tattooed person, a furry, two men holding hands, or someone who was of large build with a bad wig, who cares? What's it to me? And by that, it was the collective response.
Tragically, there were all too many people who did not get the word that it was no longer open season and the gender variant, and yet the corner had been turned.
During the 1990s and into today, nearly everyone has some encounter with John becomes Joan, or Betty becomes Bob ... be it relative or someone in the building, at work.
And insofar as the transitioners, themselves? They have a lot invested in their old life. Some spouses end it because of how they feels about it, or bow to the pressure of family. Parents still revile their transitioning children, but when the parents are octogenarians, it's a bit of an empty cannon.
The transitioner who is past 40, or even young, faces the same issues as every older woman ... her prime dating years are fading. And in the case of the happily married person, is now the time to start over? And given the extend family, does the transitioner walk away from them?
Some have. Many have not.
They have found a place where they can be in relative peace, for indeed half a loaf is better than none.
So there are things such as voice.
******
I paused there -- a week and a half ago -- to ponder voice ... a most vexing thing. Melanie Anne's observations were not just the mechanics, but also something that happens in addition to the mechanics.
If someone has elected not to do voice, they have their reasons, even if we don't necessarily agree. In "Normal," the 2003 HBO film about a husband transitioning late in life, what are we to say that the married coupe hasn't worked out. If the voice must stay one way, for reasons of family, person comfort, fear ... whatever, then we have to abide by it.
A decade ago I offered a close friend advice on her voice. "It needs work." With fire in her eyes, her teeth clenched, she hissed, "you think I don't know?"
She cooled down and said that when she tried, she sounded "like an idiot."
But the main point was that she made it to the other side.
I leave you with a haunting music video by Fleetwood Mac, Gypsy.
http://www.wikio.co.uk/video/fleetwood-mac-gypsy-1598630
Perhaps you will see yourself in it, as I see myself.
Kate Grimaldi
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| Re: Lightning strikes once, maybe twice; and it all comes down to you [message #104049 is a reply to message #103988 ] |
Thu, 10 June 2010 23:51 |
 ZoeB 
Messages: 1921
Registered: September 2007
Location: Canberra, Australia |
Senior Member
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Hi Kate.
You get it.
I don't know, before my body staged a Palace Revolt, I didn't see my situation as needing a cure. Girl trapped in Boy (well.. mostly) body. It didn't seem like a big deal, not as big as being blind, or quadraplegic anyway. Something you lived with.
Of course I was bonkers - episodes of amnesia, repressed memories, once every few weeks I'd just curl up into a foetal position in a cupboard and cry... but I could live with it.
You know before 1996, here having been married was a dealbreaker, they wouldn't treat you? And you had to be gracile of course. Gabrielle Yes, Xena No. And No Lesbians Need Apply.
There's still no medications specified for treatment of Transsexuality here. The diagnosis in the ICD-10 may as well not exist. Yet we get by, being treated for "hormonal imbalance" etc. The situation's no worse than many places, better than most in practice.
Hugs from the Zoe of Oz
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #105448 is a reply to message #101261 ] |
Mon, 21 June 2010 06:12 |
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| Anonymous wrote on Thu, 20 May 2010 08:41 |
My question is: has anyone changed their views of what it means to transition?
Love to hear <em>your</em> thoughts.
Kate Grimaldi
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As you might remember, I was always a great fan of yours.
My views about transition really haven't changed from when I met you...I still very much believe in transsexing, by that I mean the emotional/social changes that happens after SRS. I had mine in 2003, and that plus my FFS the next year, really was the catalyst for my life to reach the contented place it is today.
I remember resisting the thought that most of my emotional/social change, (ie, the transsexing) would happen after my SRS ( I felt I had already travelled so far)...but I knew you were right, I even admitted it to you at the time!
Transsexing is real. Despite living a woman's life whilst pre, I wasn't really letting myself express my true personality. But afterwards, I was just able to start to live life. Not having the correct body is very dehabilitating, but once I was post, I was able to meet a great guy. Just being the woman in that relationship, learning all the dynamics of being a woman in a relationship...HUGE! I no longer feared someone knowing my body was wrong, I could just relax and be.
I've gone on to do lots of other things...I play a lot of sport. Being one of the girls in the changing room, without having to worry about anyone wondering about you, is so powerful. Just being accepted as one of the girls is amazingly healing.
Those are just a couple of examples of how I have blended into womenhood. Old fears have melted away....I'm just living the life. A sense of peace.
Where I work is the best. I have awesome friends who just know me as me...there is no wondering about my past, I'm just me. The kids in my class just love me for me.
I started my full-time transition 10 years ago, and I look at where I am now and the only thing that has changed is that what I believe was possible ( but worried wasn't even though I desperately wanted it) has been proved to be possible. So I guess the worry has gone.
D x
PS I miss you, but I understand why you had had enough and stopped posting. There were only a few people like me who listened. And learnt. But perhaps that was because I had always been someone who wanted with all her heart to have a proper woman's life ...and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to achieve it! I couldn't accept being in-between, just like you couldn't.
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #106948 is a reply to message #105448 ] |
Sat, 03 July 2010 10:05 |
| Anonymous |
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I, too, am a BL alum of sorts, as well as of its predecessors HeartCorps and AOL. And something of mine remains in the old archives, too, though only one post, if I recall. Odd that I should pop in within a couple months of Kate. I recall Kate from 1998, so surely she has her dates wrong, though perhaps nothing else.
My physical transition, too, is long over. The arc of my life reminds me of the opening scene of the movie, "Contact," which begins with the cacophony of modern life on this blue-green ball. But as the camera pulls farther back from Earth, the noises grow more calm, until there is but a single voice and then, ultimately, silence. I liken that progression to the arc of transition and beyond. I am now in a fairly calm and quiet place, looking back at the cacophony of modern day transitioners/earth with a sort of detachment.
From my ship so far from the noise of transition, it is an interesting view. Here is Karen A, exactly the same as a decade ago, her life in the same state it always was. Yet here is Kate, still thoughtful and reflective, but evolved, and with all the urgency removed. And here are new people come to fill the holes, and somewhat at odds with Kate's historical separations, for they come with the same fears, stories, hopes and needs that we have always come with no matter the decade or hurdles for jumping. And so from my view it looks, by and large, like it is as it always has been.
It is just that I have moved far away, to a quieter place. Not entirely silent, though. Not yet. Perhaps never. No matter how deep into space you travel, there is always the background radiation of the Big Bang. And so, perhaps, it is with us, as well. Transition is our Big Bang. And while our universe may expand, while new galaxies may form, while the events of our creation may be very distant, there is always an echo that we can hear when we stop to listen. Or, sometimes, we hear it while we are trying to listen to something else. But it is always there, and we can never make it go away entirely.
Still, it can seem relatively quiet. We need not listen to the noise all the time, though some seem to remain fixated on it when they could be very far away. Like the difference between the arcs of Kate's and Karen A's lives (if anyone else remembers them from Way Back), we may not escape our Big Bang entirely, but we can certainly choose where in the universe we want to live.
There is another scene from "Contact," in which Ellie is speaking with her nemesis, Dr. Drummond, which may describe our various paths:
David Drumlin: "I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world."
Ellie Arroway: "Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it."
And maybe that's what I have ended up taking most from transition: the world is pretty much what we make of it. And despite the persistent background radiation of our transition's Big Bang, we can make the world largely what we want it to be. But it is imperceptibly incremental. As Ellie Arroway's father guided his daughter...
"Small moves, Ellie. Small moves."
~Monique (in the old-old Heartcorps forum)
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #106965 is a reply to message #106948 ] |
Sat, 03 July 2010 13:59 |
| Anonymous |
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| Anonymous wrote on Sat, 03 July 2010 13:05 | Here is ..., exactly the same as a decade ago, her life in the same state it always was.
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It's depressing and sad to think that someone can still be in essentially the same place, despite having had pretty much every available surgical procedure and having jumped through the legal hoops only to remain effectively in limbo in so many ways. Although I can't really relate or fully understand, I do wish her and others in similar circumstances only the best.
A.
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #106978 is a reply to message #106966 ] |
Sat, 03 July 2010 17:17 |
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You could be right, Karen. In any case, it was a flippant comment based only on your response to Kate, which struck me as exactly the kind of thing you were writing a decade ago. I'm sorry if I got you wrong. It was wrong of me to write that.
~Monique
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #107005 is a reply to message #106948 ] |
Sat, 03 July 2010 20:24 |
ZoeB
Messages: 1921
Registered: September 2007
Location: Canberra, Australia |
Senior Member
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| Monique wrote on Sun, 04 July 2010 03:05 | I, too, am a BL alum of sorts, as well as of its predecessors HeartCorps and AOL.
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The arc of my life reminds me of the opening scene of the movie, "Contact," which begins with the cacophony of modern life on this blue-green ball.
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Funny you should say that... I'm in the same sort of situation Ellie was in in one scene. Nothing of any great worth and moment I'm afraid. The scene where a geek scientist asks another woman for advice on what to wear - as she's not had any experience with that kind of thing.
In just over 20 hours, I fly out on my way to Portland, Oregon, to give a short paper at an International conference on genetic algorithms and evolutionary computation. Although I've had a published paper before, my co-author gave the presentation then.
I have no idea what to wear. Not just because I look different now, though that's part of it. I'm still playing catch-up as regards wardrobe, even five years after transition. It's more that I'm irremediably, irretrievably Geeky. The very opposite of chic and stylish. Ellie's problem - except I don't have Jodie Foster's looks, darnit.
My life hasn't changed all that much. I'm just more me. Liberated. The other stuff was all an act, anyway, one I gave my all to, but was never very good at. It was a massive relief to drop it, even though I've had a steep learning curve as the result. I made relatively few compromises in order to perform that act, but there's still a lot I really should know that most girls pick up in their early teens, if not before. Enough to keep me off-balance at times, like now, an unwelcome reminder of my unusual past.
But then, how many women are survivors of rape, or refugees, or have survived an abusive relationship, the death of a child, or a life-threatening illness? Having been trans is just one of many unusual and unpleasant things any woman can have in her past. Not even the worst, I think. Though up there.
One more thing. This time something important, rather than trivial.
| Quote: | You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
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In places like this one. Welcome back - and thanks for your insights.
Hugs from the Zoe of Oz
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| Re: Midway, post transition [message #107286 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Tue, 06 July 2010 06:44 |
Katie
Messages: 14657
Registered: October 2007
Location: La La Land |
Senior Member
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Bitch Queen of Palolo
BL3D
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I have not read all the contributions to this thread. I, sadly, simply lack the time.
As a moderator, I'd like to remind everyone that we're all entitled to our opinions.
As an administrator, I'd like to remind certain persons that this is a privately funded forum -- and that while everyone is entitled to their opinions, we're not required to give them all air time.
And now, for my opinion -- as a woman, a transitioner, a trans-sexer -- and someone who's world is still expanding at a phenomenal rate after her own 'big bang'. (It sure as heck FELT like one at the time!  )
For the record, Miss Grimaldi, I am not a fan of your work. Everything of yours I have read has struck me as extreme and self-limiting in its scope and view. A rather extreme program that states that no one can finish this -- and do it right -- who doesn't jettison -- literally EVERYTHING -- from their former life.
And yet ...
In spite of all my fears, perceived limitations and cynicism, I have landed in a woman's life. I trans-sexed -- almost in spite of myself. My experience has mirrored your opinions and followed your 'program' in so many ways:
1. My real transition started after my SRS.
My life has become increasingly normal as I've found myself in situations where my physical 'deformity' no longer mitigates my contact with the world. Specifically, the world of my 'target gender' -- the woman's world.
2. My relationships flourish and blossom as more and more people in my life know nothing of my past.
Um ... perhaps a discussion with a close friend -- one that took place a year ago -- may illustrate:
"Judy, how long do you think I can live in your house before the kids start noticing something?"
"Notice something? Katie, you've swam naked in the ocean with my best girlfriends -- and THEY didn't 'notice' anything! Are you worried about passing in my home, living with my children? Please allow me to put that worry to rest: You don't pass. You integrate. And you do it spectacularly well. None of my friends have a clue about your past! My children certainly don't! And I see no reason why we shouldn't keep it that way."
Taking this a step further -- and illustrating again with a discussion with the aforementioned friend -- I recently found myself in a position where I had to move, unexpectedly, out of Judy's home. Circumstances had changed -- and our time living together was drawing to a close. I wasn't sure if I could actually pull off living in my new home -- Hawai'i -- independent of the friends who had brought me there in the first place -- transsexual friends -- and so I turned to these people for assistance with moving and / or possibly relocating back to California.
That fell flat. Like a rude noise in church. All of my trans friends fell through. Every last one of them.
Ah, but my regular friends? My new friends? All the people who know nothing of my past? They came through in stellar fashion. They were there to help me find a new place in Hawai'i and to help me move out when the time came. And Judy was there to point it out to me:
"Katie, did you notice that the support group that came through for you is the one that has nothing to do with your former life? I think that, somehow, this is healthier -- that this is how it's supposed to be!"
My woman's support group. The people from my current, 'normal' life.
Miss Grimaldi, my impression is that all of this follows your views on transsexing and the woman's life, rather predictably.
But there is a difference ...
Allow me to return to my former roommate, adopted 'cousin' -- hanai cousin in the Hawaiian fashion -- and good friend, Judy: She knows my background. She knows everything about my past. In fact, I met her through a trans friend who is Judy's mentor from college. Judy had already had to confront the reality of transsexualism in her friend and mentor. So when I came along, it was old news. And as a powerful relationship developed between myself and her son, she realized that I would need help understanding that what was happening was standard woman stuff for any Hawaiian Auntie. Because Judy knew my background, she was able to help bridge the gap between my former life and my new one.
And here is where my experience radically departs from the program: There are still key people in my life that know my background. Even my boyfriend knows. I told him on our second date, because I realized there was a good chance we were going to end up in bed together -- and I long ago made up my mind that my man wouldn't have to -- after sleeping with me. He'd know exactly what he was getting himself into, BEFORE he went there.
My past does not effect his experience of me as a woman. And it sure doesn't effect Judy's. And because these people know my past, they can offer a reality check when I need it.
"Katherine, this issue you're dealing with isn't a trans thing, it's a woman thing." If I had a dime for every time one of my girlfriends who knows my background said that to me ...
And that brings me to my final point: I have girlfriends from my former life who KNEW ME BEFORE -- and they still go with me into the lady's room and change clothes with me. (Heck, one even strips so I can try on her clothes!)
In my experience, my relationships aren't affected by the knowledge, or lack, of my background -- they're often strengthened by it.
And the people from my past who have a problem with me as a woman? They didn't hang around, anyway.
So there you have it. For what it's worth.
PS: My answer to the poster who wrote about 'not tolerating being different' is: Madam, we ARE different. But like anyone else who deals with a difference that came with their birth, it shouldn't affect our lives past our ability to handle that difference.
PPS: Kate, it's a pleasure to finally meet you.
[Updated on: Thu, 08 July 2010 15:49]
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| Re: Midway, post transition [message #107497 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Wed, 07 July 2010 18:15 |
| Anonymous |
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Hello Monique,
It is good to hear from you. I am pretty sure of when I found Heart Corp, a couple months after my mother's death, stopping to see a friend who had transitioned not longer before. She lived in the Bay Area and told me about "boards" where people discussed transition. She had given up on discussion boards. She would rather ride her motorcycle.
That would make it July 1999.
The boards evolved and I met a lot of people -- 3D and virtually.
I learned about Dr. Ousterhout.
I saw about 100 Ousterhout post-ops, 3D, if only for a few minutes. The benefits of FSRS were amazing in that they were subtle.
I am sad we did not connect up to have supper when we had the chance.
People come and people go ... a revolving door.
What happened to the two gorgeous 17-year old girls at group who were transitioning in 1976? They are in their 50s, now.
What of the girl from the Kentucky horse racing set who was raised from 13 as a girl by rich parents who did not stop their daughter from being who she was?
I met Teresa from these boards. Some years ago she reported she had FFS, She was always pretty. We shared the film "Brother Sun and Sister Moon." I think of her and hope all is well.
For several years I was in a straight relationship with a man who asked me to marry him. I said no.
I was in a relationship with a lesbian.
I had a brief encounter with another woman of transition, but we were in different places and years apart in age.
My life is very middle middle-class.
I lost a lot of earning power by transitioning.
I am getting older.
The horror of transition in the 1970s is a faint memory.
The friends I made on these boards, lasts.
How are you these days? Did we ever think we'd make it amid such odds.
Hallelujah to us all, each and every one!
Kate Grimaldi
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| Re: Lightning strikes once, maybe twice; and it all comes down to you [message #107532 is a reply to message #103988 ] |
Thu, 08 July 2010 00:10 |
| Anonymous |
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Hi Kate,
First... classical KG writing there. Wish I could put things together like you :)
[I think] I get what you write about dad's away and mommy hugging nude body.... that attention from your mom, that sexual attention, is believed to be a cause for GID later in life? I'm not supporting the nuture theory necessarily, just wanting to understand the prevailing consensus of the earlier days (1960s?). I would have been seen as your "average person". Until you factor in introvertness, lonerism, and closeted crossdressing. But I memorized the story to get my SRS like I presume alot of us do. How can we not when the threat of taking it away lumes in front of us? As you write, give us what we want and we'll start telling the truth. But it is still new to me, this enlightenment from you about stories memorized to get SRS. Is this from your own years of crossing paths with transgendered and hearing their stories? Where is Kate now? Ontario with Nash? (sorry)
As for myself, I continue to cope with a life after SRS, but not in the sense of "this is what I have accomplished" but rather in the sense of (and I'm intentionally misquoting you here) "play the hand fate had dealt as Roger", as it seems my hand is the hand Roger would have gotten had he made it to a certain Thai surgeon I won't name. I was not prepared for this type of "complication". And I did my research. I thought that 4 years of being fulltime - and successful at that with a six figure income - would override any of the other deficiencies like not having a letter. When I had read over and over that SRS was not the end all to transition, I took it - like everyone else - to mean not the end all to "a successful" transition. In other words, voice, mannerisms, et al. What it means to me now is, since your transition is failed - at least in terms of not experiencing sex as a normal woman (via pelvic exenteration, forgive me) - then SRS _is_ the end of your transition. Despite your female voice. You will pass, stealth level 1, but you will be unhappy inside from your new inadequacies. Hence SRS is the end of transition and the beginning of hell.
When a doctor puts a doppler ultrasound on your mons and tells you everything is good and quickly turns off the machine, you know something is up. Because you look at the screen and there's no reds or blues on/in your mons. But plenty that die off suddenly.
When Phyllis R. Frye won't even take your case you know something's up.
It's closing in on a year postop now. Someone once told me that Einstein's brain would be the same now as it is 35 yrs in a jar of formaldehyde. I hope it doesn't take me that long to find out.
Yours,
Anon
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| I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now .... [message #107585 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Thu, 08 July 2010 11:36 |
| Anonymous |
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Hello Anon,
One year post-op is not long. The first few years, for many, are tough. So much baggage to get rid of. So many new things to learn. "Girl interrupted" takes on a whole new meaning. We have struggled so much and gone through hell. Our lives are turned upside down, and people we counted on seems strangely vague.
In "Blade Runner," the cult sci-fi film, the Replicants of Nexus 6 variety have difficulty fitting in. Humiliating tests are applied to detect stealth ones by testing their emotional responses.
The scientist, Eldon Tyrell, realizes that the Replicants are born "adults" and so he conceives of implants of "memories," really Tyrell's niece, and "gifts" them to the love-interest, Rachael.
When the star, Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, makes love with the Rachael, her implanted memories are not enough. Like Tyrell's niece, "she chickened and ran."
We have a lot of learning ahead.
Don't be calling yourself a Roger without giving yourself time to heal and to find your way and learn all you were denied.
Kate Grimaldi.
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| Re: Midway, post transition [message #108862 is a reply to message #99898 ] |
Sun, 25 July 2010 09:08 |
| Anonymous |
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Hiya Kate!
A bored me (in between the intense chapters of life) has ambled by this place.
Maybe my mind has blocked out the unpleasant past or maybe the past is just too far in the past to be relevant. I don't have any serious memories of that which was. It's kind of interesting in a strange way. Once in a great while I try to think back about the entire process, and the entire thing just seems kind of weird to me. I smile to myself, give a little single twist of the head to the right and chuckle.
To those who are just starting out: You are taking a journey through a worm hole in time and space. That's what it seems like now. Sometimes it will feel like it's going to tear you apart. You will see the world that you knew take on all manner of distorted shapes. Friends and family will fly over the event horizon and the quantum foam of your universe will bubble at an alarming rate.
One day, after what seems like eons, you will arrive at your destination. The spinning and swirling and the feeling of everything tail spinning out of control will suddenly stop. BOOM!!! Just like that!
You will be in a new place, parsecs distant from where you began. It takes a bit of time to take it all in. You reflect. You feel the thin air of the peace and you drink deep of it until you are giddy. It's really a very kewl thing. Very profound.
You acclimate yourself to your new surroundings and start to explore them. You let go of the worm hole and all that it was. Never look back. Never regret.
There's a scene from a wonderful movie:
A. "Wuz you ever bit by a dead bee?"
B. "Were you?"
A. "You gotta be careful of dead bees if you're walking bare foot. If you step on them they can sting you just as bad as if they wuz alive, especially if they wuz kinda mad when they got killed. I'll bet I wuz bit a hundred times like that."
B. "Why didn't you bit them back?"
A. "Cause I ain't got no stinger!"
Be careful of dead bees and watch where you walk bare foot.
The universe spread before you is simply amazing. You can't afford to ignore it or waste time dwelling on what was or what might have been had you made certain decisions earlier in life.
The pain and the anguish that you might feel now can literally bring you to you knees. I'm here to tell you that the day will come when you will look back and say to yourself, "Yep. It was all worth it."
We so often read the words that "freedom isn't free". So true. There is a price to be paid for passage through the worm hole. You have to be strong. You have to be tenacious. You have to roll with the punches.
Sometimes the worm hole can lead you right back to the place that you started. But it will be years into the future. Everyone and everything that you knew will be gone. Do not dwell on those things, for if you do, the future will slip through your fingers like grain of fine sand.
Embrace with all your heart, your soul and your mind that which is before you. Passage through the worm hole is a right afforded to very few. Do not let that passage be the defining moment of your life. There is so, SO MUCH more than that.
So many years after the fact for myself, life is good, life is so very special. For a while, there is so much, that we and our situation seems like the center of the universe. In the end, we a simply just a molecule in the great void.
Me? I am one damned happy molecule! Life is simply AMAZING!!!!! And absolutely full of surprises!
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| Re: Midway, post transition [message #108975 is a reply to message #108862 ] |
Tue, 27 July 2010 04:47 |
Yulia
Messages: 569
Registered: April 2009 |
Senior Member |
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Mon, 11 October 2010 17:55]
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| Re: Just an Old Fashioned Love Song Playing on the Radio [message #109138 is a reply to message #101261 ] |
Wed, 28 July 2010 22:57 |
Yulia
Messages: 569
Registered: April 2009 |
Senior Member |
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Mon, 11 October 2010 17:55]
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