Life in Transistion

Life is transitional. I am in transition as a transgendered person living life as the woman I always have been but for the wrong equipment at birth. Even our new government is in transition with the inauguration of Barak Obama as our 44th President of the United States. Finally, my face is in transition following the assault on my face in Boston (see previous blog) as part of my FFS procedures performed about two weeks ago and its slow recovery. I read the other day where a poll taken after Barak’s first week in office revealed a 92% approval rating. Of course, I am wondering why a poll need to be taken on the approval rating of a President who has been barely able to have his furniture put in his new home or a cabinet meeting where all the cabinet members are actually present as some have not even been confirmed. As I viewed the poll, I often wonder why 8% of the population already has a negative rating of a man who has barely gotten use to his new digs or his role in office. Are these the same 8% of the people that actually believed George Bush was doing a great job despite the disaster in our economy, the 7 years of war in Iraq, and his insistence on violating or denying rights of people like me or others in the LGBT community. Maybe so- but maybe these same people are the same ones who want instant gratification on everything and expected these massive issues to be resolved within 24 hours of Mr. Obama taking occupancy in the White House. They believe in instant gratification or satisfaction of the first sip of beer or wine or when they play a game or do an activity for the first time. If does not arrive in minutes, the gratification can never occur for them despite how much they paid for the food, drink, activity, appliance or game. These people want it yesterday and patience is not one of their virtues for sure.

When one is in transition as a transgendered person, the same principles apply. Transition involves so many different aspects. Counseling, hormones, laser or electrolysis, hormone therapy as well as surgeries, name changes and simply learning to live in a manner completely contrary to the indoctrination given to the transgendered person because the anatomy we were born with although as we find out- unwontedly! I truly learn new things everyday and I doubt that is going to stop at all after I finish my surgeries and my anatomy finally comes in sync with my soul and spirit. One must welcome the new concepts and give them time to sink in and become functional for themselves just as this country needs to give its new leader a time to learn and work up solutions with a new direction for this country. A transgendered person cannot ever think that he or she has arrived merely because they undergo treatment and surgeries and hormones. A MtoF TS does not wake up the day after GRS and become a woman…..they- like me have been one all their life but faced it with the wrong upbringing and anatomy and it takes time to adapt to new parts and new ideas that will follow them for many, many years. Being in transition is a life-long process and requires one to keep an open mind and adapt and learn …it is growth…it requires patience….it is a never-ending process for a transgendered person and even all people in general.

Having recently undergone my facial feminization surgery I have found my face and head in great transition. Many times when someone undergoes this process they expect to wakeup or over the week post –op to see radical changes to their face and the perfect feminine face smiling back at them when they look in the mirror. I will admit that a few hours last week I expected the same and when I did not see it, I began to get down on myself and my partner Paula. In reality, the changes that take place in one’s face after this radical and complicated procedure occur over a long, slow process requiring one to be patient and adapt as things physically move forward in transition of one’s face. Experts will tell you that it is almost a year before the changes come pretty close to complete and even then there are still minute ones that occur. I radically altered six parts of my face and head to appear more feminine and the parts need to settle and adapt and transition. There will be further changes everyday and each week of the next year or so as things shape into form and place. In a sense, my face is in transition very much like my body, my mind, my attitude and even like our new President.
I could take a poll on my new face and I think it would most likely receive a negative rating –probably with me even voting that way as well. However, I have not given it a fair chance…there will many settlements and changes and nuances to come as my face lives in transition just like me and just like my life and my government and society in general. Life is transition and transition is life and in order to adapt to the changes, one must have patience, persistence, adaptability, perseverance, courage and a willingness to adapt, grow and think outside pre-established boxes.


Now for an update ………….first Paula kicked my bottom from one end of the hotel room to the other in our marathon game of gin rummy during my recovery winning by over five hundred points. She is a card shark for sure. I am sending her to Vegas to win the money for our remaining surgeries.

I finally got to take a complete hot shower for the first time since January 22nd on Sunday February 1st. I had been doing some baths and partial showers but because of the head wrap and stitches real, full showers with shampoo and conditioner had to wait till then and my ole my did it ever feel so very good! Sometime simple pleasures can be a true joy when you have not been able to enjoy them for a while that is for sure!

The last couple days in Boston we went out site seeing and taking in sites such as Faneuil Hall, the old North Church, USS Constitution, Bunker Hill, Boston Commons, Lexington and Concord and Salem. I ate my first real substantial meal out on Saturday January 31st at the Union Oyster House- the oldest restaurant in America. The sites are great but I also had forgotten about the attitude of Northeasterners since I had not been here in so long. The people are generally rude and pushy and very impatient. They cannot wait for anything and cut you off driving in heartbeat or even if you are standing in line. They lack many common courtesies. It’s a definite rudeness that purveys their nature that is not found in Midwest, the South or the West coast for sure. I am not sure why this is to be honest but Paula picked up on it right away too and it was her first time in the NE.

The picture taken above is NOT one of me taken after the surgery…that will come in a week or so and maybe by next blog……remember it’s a work in transition as I am still swollen and bruised in places. The picture above is one of Paula and I taken at my last decent meal the night before my surgery at a restaurant entitled Houston’s in Boston. Food after that point until we went out the last couple nights consisted mainly of chopped meat, applesauce, pudding, broths and soups and soft noodles.

Politics is the Master Science (NEW)

Well over the past several months I have commented on topics in my blog such as my transition, religion or better yet religious intolerance and even sex or the lack thereof. This week I would love to talk about politics! I want to do so primarily because of the uniqueness of the political scene in 2008 with a Democratic Party caught up in a battle for its standard bearer it has not seen in decades and the Republicans soon to nominate someone no one thought it would nominate when all this process began last year and one who does not fit the mold of the party’s standard cookie cutter mold of the past twenty years. This is the most interesting election I can remember since the one I cannot remember between Kennedy and Nixon but studied in school many times. See- first of all I was a political science major in college and studied government, politics, political systems and law because of its fascination to me. Secondly, I remember even as a child in 1968 sitting in front of TV with my map coloring in who won what state between Nixon and Humphrey and watching the disgust on my father’s face as he saw that old Tricky Dick was going to win the Presidency.

I remember back in college watching some of my friends and even my wife studying these gigantic texts filled with all the science any biology or chemistry major could handle including such fun courses as PE Chem, microbiology and organic Chemistry while I whizzed through my courses filling my blue books with all sort of rhetoric and just to get more of I even took up a minor in Philosophy. They would always talk about how much prestige and work was involved in their scientific majors but I always responded with a quote from one of my favorite political philosophers- Aristotle who said “Politics is the Master Science” And by God, he was right. For politics, government and law controls so much of our lives and in reality determines what we can study at all if you think about it. Hell sometimes they even decide what can be taught in a science course or what must be taught in a science course.

This election in 2008 is stunning. Hilary Clinton and Barak Oboma are battling to the floors of the convention back room. Truly this may be the first Convention in many decades where the nominee will not be know until all the back door, smoke- filled room politics and schemes go on at the Convention and whoever wins this costly and bloody battle will have some cleaning up to do before the General Election comes around. I like Obama in that I think he is a very intelligent man who speaks well and is trying to bring about change to a system he sees as needing desperately to be fixed. He reminds me in some ways of a young Jack Kennedy who spoke with passion and youthfulness and who by doing so, and by having his Daddy buy off the Chicago political machine won an election over our boy Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon. I think it is clear from my posts to other’s blogs on the subject I despise Hilary Clinton and I think she would make a horrible President and it’s a shame because I think highly of woman and feel I am one myself but she is the wrong person to break the gender barrier for the U.S. Presidency. Unfortunately, I think she has enough political connections from days past to make sure she squeezes the nomination from Obama.

Assuming she does, it will make my choice very easy and the old party of the elephant will garner my vote once again. Why? Because here’s a little know secret about me. I am a registered Republican. Now before you go and tar and feather me for such disclosure hear me out. I joined the Grand Old Party at a time when I had seen the Democrats lead us through a decade of an ugly war not unlike the one we have now in Iraq thanks to a President who should be thrown out of the GOP for reasons of utter stupidity. I saw the Republicans come in and get us out of Vietnam and then open relations with China, started the peace process in the Middle East and Détente with the Russians. In the 40’s and 50’s and 60 and even the early 70’s the party of the GOP was not the ideologues they became since 1980. It was the party of Eisenhower, Ford, Rockefeller, John Anderson and Howard Baker. I am more of a libertarian in that I am more conservative on government spending and taxes and the development of economic growth and business while being what most would call a liberal on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and of course without saying, the rights of transgendered people. I watched my party turn into an ugly monster since 1980 of hate filled extremists who are nothing more than cowardly obeying the demands of the religious right. I screamed for years for these idiots to get the hell out before they ruined the GOP. Now for the first time in 40 years the GOP is going to nominate someone the right wing does not like and those extreme right wing fanatics are upset and threatening to bolt the Party and take their votes elsewhere. See it was OK when they came to moderates in the party like me for years and told me to hold my breath and vote for the Party’s candidate despite the fact he would cast me into hell if he actually knew who I really was. I did so several times but there were times I voted Democratic or Independent as well. Now when the party finally nominates a maverick free thinking moderate and the moderates come to the Conservatives for the first time since 1980 and ask that they support the Party’s candidate despite their objections they go scurrying off like a bunch of pouting children! I hope McCain not ignores them but adds to insult to injury and nominates someone like Giuliani as his running mate just to piss off the right wing extremists even more. There are some, including me who actually suspect he is transgendered. How cool would that be if we can get him to come out!

I only can hope that Barak can pull it off and win the Democratic nomination so that I am faced with a very tough and difficult choice in the fall and one in which I am truly not sure how I will vote at all. However, at least it would be one election in which, for the first time, I will not feel so bad either way as I have done so in these so many past elections. To be honest, after I have voted these many long years, I always felt I needed to go home and bathe to wash off the ugliness and stench of many of the choices I was given. Obama and McCain would avoid that stench removing bath for me for sure. I hope 2008 is vastly different for me but either way this has been a fascinating election year for me and one I am grateful for as well. For politics is the master science my good friends!