Resolve This!

Normally I would have posted this one last week but was so moved by the impact and significance of MILK and activism in our transgendered community, I delayed this one a week to post my thoughts and feelings on the film MILK. However, the turning of the New Year brings me to a point where I should evaluate my life and make some adjustments for the upcoming year. So here it goes …….my New Year’s resolutions for 2009 and they are not in any particular order but more just as they come to my mind.

1. I resolve to be more active in my community and supporting the movement of greater rights and dignity for those in the LGBT communities. I have been involved in the past but not to the extent I could be by any stretch. I want to be more supportive of the NCTE who works so diligently to promote the rights of transgendered community. I want to get involved with Trans Ohio beyond attending some events and writing an article or two. I would like to help in planning of the Trans Ohio Symposium this August, assist in lobbying legislators in Ohio to change the archaic laws regarding changing the birth certificates and gender marker on them even though I thankfully escaped this mess by being born one mile below the Ohio Rover in Kentucky. I also plan to attend with Paula in April the Transgendered Right Lobby Day sponsored by NCTE in Washington where I will work to lobby US Congressman and Senators to support the Hate Crimes bill, ENDA and other legislation to benefit the LGBT community. I am already in progress of setting up a meeting with my US Congressman (a conservative Republican from rural central Ohio) to try and sell him on this legislation I am sure his narrow mind and religious right wing upbringing will lead him to oppose with vigor. That shall not deter me one bit! I also plan to attend rallies where I can and stand with my sisters and brothers in the struggle for rights and dignity of the LGBT community.

2. I resolve to find a career that I love and that makes me want to spring out of bed each day and head off to work and one that provides some benefits and is more full time than I can do now in my piece meal contract work. I know the next six months will be a time of strive and trials for me as I push through two major operations that will radically alter my body to finally conform to my inner soul as a woman. The surgeries and recoveries will put a test on me as well helping Paula get through hers, but when all is done, I will no longer be trying to find work while needing all this time off for surgeries and recoveries. I can emerge as a stronger woman now focused on finding the position that brings joy as well as challenges for me and a steadier stream of income for sure. I have some talents and education as well as passion and with it will be a renewed vigor for new challenges in a career. Hopefully this year will see a recovery from some of the economic mess the current government regime has led our country into these past eight years. The man will go down as one of the worst Presidents to ever hold the office for sure.

3. I resolve to try to repair my relationships with my family who has tossed me into the wind for sure. Often those of us in the transgendered community are made to feel that we “abandoned our families” when in fact it is them who abandoned us. I can understand some anger and confusion and some time to search things out but being ostracized by our families simply because we came out after years of conflict and raging internal battles and told them who we really are as people is not right at all. I use to some conversation with my ex-wife although it was mostly bitter tirades by her but since the day of our divorce my e-mails have gone without response. I have never been told my children’s e-mail addresses and my written cards and letters go to them without any response. Gifts I send are never acknowledged. I am sometimes at a loss over what to do. I feel as if pieces of my heart have been torn out ….in a span of few short years I lost my father, mother and brother to deaths and my children and ex-wife to being cast aside like the past never happened. I must find a way to let time heal some things but I must find a way to reconnect with them for sure. They will find a different person both physically as well as emotionally and spiritually when they do in Melissa. However, the pieces belong back in my heart without question and we belong in each other’s lives.

4. I resolve to continue my spiritual journey. I have struggled for some time on this issue and now that I am out as transgendered it has become even more complex. I am a very open minded liberal thinking humanist/ Christian blend that seeks a place where friendship and love abounds and no one preaches at you but only makes you think out spirituality and the concepts of the Creator and Creation. I seek a place where all are welcomed even those with grave doubts. I seek a church that actively, openly and lovingly welcomes those of us from the LGBT communities and accepts us for who we are as people without condemning us for being such. Paula and I have begun the search and we have found some success. We were particularly impressed by the those at North Congregational UCC in Columbus which opens its doors freely to us and even has a special large exhibit in their hallway to the transgendered community featuring local and national people in the community and a tribute to those who have been victims of death and violence. I was very touched by this indeed.

5. I resolve to strengthen my love and relationship with Paula. I love waking up to her each day and the time we share together. We support each other and accept each other openly. Sometime this year we plan to celebrate our love in a commitment ceremony we hope to share with our friends. By the middle of the year both of us will have some new body parts that will clearly impact our intimacy and will take great patience and love to explore. She is my life and my love and we grow closer together each day. However, I believe we can never stop growing in our relationship for it to continue and I resolve to become more open to exploring and new ideas and to continue to share our thoughts and feelings and we move forward in our lives together.
Well there it is ….a big chunk of resolutions if I must say but all good ones in my quest to live my life to the fullest and with dignity, love, passion and a commitment to my community I am very much a part of in this life. I hope each of you find some things to strive for in this year and beyond and I wish all the peace and happiness to each of you in 2009 and for the many years to come afterward!

Growth

There are clearly many forms of growth in one’s life and in the journey of a transgendered person such as myself and I had some time this week to reflect on the different patterns of growth that has occurred in my life and in my journey. The first type of growth to be measured is physical growth. Now normally when we think of physical growth, we are talking about the changes that occur to teenagers such as hair, height, weight, and the other nuances of growth and change that is expected for such a time period in one’s life at that age. As we grow older, those changes are measured by hair loss, sagging breasts, wrinkles and weight gain over the years. However, for a transgendered person such as me, growth in the physical sense is measured by how much your body is growing or developing to more readily represent the true essence of who you are as a person. In my case, the erosion of the physical shell and the reshaping of my body to more readily reflect the presentation of Melissa. In that regard, I am experiencing much growth as my breasts are beginning to take form and shape even on my early stages of hormones. My skin is growing smoother and the hair less prevalent. My face is clearly showing its reshaping brought on by my extensive electrolysis over the last few months which has removed the shadow and made my face smoother and softer and more feminine. Additionally, the hormones have leveled me out more on an emotional level as they were designed to do.

The second type of growth one can experience is spiritual growth. This can be growth in one’s spirituality as well as one’s inner spirit. In my assessment these can overlap. I have always sought a greater understanding of God, our existence and the flow of inner and outer peace. I have tried a couple organized religions but in recent years I sought one that would be accepting of the LGBT communities as I believe one properly should but I yet to find that group yet. The one I currently belong to but now rarely attend pretends to be but in reality is a close minded as the Bible thumpers they try to distinguish themselves from in their arrangement. I think I was closer to figuring out God and the universe when I was in college and researched and wrote and extensive paper on the subject for an upper level philosophy class than I am today and I blame the organized religions for that occurrence. The other type of spiritual growth occurs from finding one’s own inner spirit and I think I am doing a much better job in experiencing that growth. Melissa has been so long repressed in that shell which has hid her from much of the world but in recent years that has substantially changed and so has my inner spirit soared as I face experiences as Melissa while emerges from the tired old shell. The freeing of my soul has made me exceedingly happy and joyful. How can this not be good? It is growth at its finest and sweetest for sure.

Growth can also occur emotionally and as I mentioned I have been aided by the fact the hormones have leveled me off more emotionally as I drive down the testosterone and increase the influx of estrogen into my body. It effects far more than the body. You began to feel more emotionally and it alters your thinking process to what seems to me to be a more feminine perspective. Men and women are wired differently and transgendered people are wired even differently. We have some emotions more commonly associated with both men and women but the hormones changes that again and we begin to think more as a woman than a man although there are no absolutes in this process. I have read several books now from transgendered people as well as having talked to many of my friends and everyone agrees that there is less anger and frustration, a calmer thinking and the deeper feelings of emotions which envelopes us as we journey along and experience HRT. I have always been one to cry but it seems I am touched even more deeply sometimes. I use to be filled with much more anger. I blame this on my heritage of a deadly combination of Scotch and German combined with the frustration of having my true essence crammed deep in a shell. As the shell erodes and the testosterone production is curtailed I am calmer and more at peace and much less likely to rise to anger. This calming effect makes it possible for more growth emotionally and spiritually and that again is a very wonderful thing.

I truly believe we must continually grow as human beings, and in my case as a transgendered woman, or we will die. Our bodies, our minds, our souls seek growth and while this true for all human beings it is exceedingly true for transgendered people whether one is on HRT or not. I know I have a great deal more growth to go and some of it will be quite painful physically but mostly emotionally. Sometime we fear emotional pain and I am know exception to this principle but it is necessary to grow and growth is what it is all about and growth is to be embraced and nurtured. I have much to go on my journey and much growth to experience but I will face it joyfully…… ….…the alternative to me is not even remotely acceptable!

“It takes great courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” (Anonymous) (Quoted from Donna Rose’s book “Wrapped in Blue”