Dec 2 97

This morning I went to the courthouse and put in the paperwork for them to change my name. I thought it would be this tremendously huge and tedious project, but all I had to do was some photocopying, typing, and pay the court $98... is that all?

I had some trouble during Thanksgiving. I was at home with my mom, helping her out on the computer. We went to talk with my grandparents, and I looked over at my pants and just got angry. It was me living a lie... covering up my legs so that they would not see me. I hate that. What followed was a large internal battle where I tried to figure out everything at once. I was watching a match between a very emotional person, and a very logical person. The emotional person did not want to wait 5 or 10 years to go full time. The logical person did not want to loose everything it held dear (education, paying off debt). So, the emotional person wanted death. Emotions defeated Logic in six months. I still feel that way at times, but I know this is something I will never do. However, it must be said that there is something attractive to avoiding the long struggle ahead to bring the internal to the external. I welcome the challenge, and hope not to make it more than it is. I mean hey... I paid my $98... at least somewhere I am known as Karen... heh.

Transitioning. What a word. I used to think as 'transitioning' as being a short period of time where by a person goes from being your average joe into full-time. That's a crock of shit. Labels are for soup cans. For me, transitioning is anything I do from now until I go full-time. Transitioning can be one day, one year, seven years, or a lifetime.

It is my dream that one day my career and gender future intercept. I am told that there are a few TS teachers up in Canada. With the current swing of accepting homosexuals in the schools in the states, I hope to merge my TS feelings with reality at some point. While I am not adverse to flipping burgers provided I can be a woman to society doing so (next ask me what defines being a woman when flipping burgers!), my sense of obligation for the perpetuation and development of science is equally as strong... I hope they can fight on the same side.

Dec 4 97

I am sitting in my dark living room. I'm very relaxed. I spent the first few days of this week zapping the heck out of my facial hairs, so I am laying off the machine. It is a weird feeling to pull the hairs out of one's face with the hope they never come back. Then you must deal with the 40% that do grow back... they return weaker... sometimes ingrown, and usually with discomfort. But, my point of view is that if one day they will never return, that's just fine with me.

I changed my name this week. I have to wait 2 weeks for a reply. So, before I return to my Mom for Christmas I may have a new name. It has not quite hit me yet... all the things I will have to do to get things strait about my name. People whom I don't even know will start to call me Robin.... wow. Mixed feelings there. I don't know what sort of change that will have on me... I don't think too much. My family, my workplace, my friends.... the other Grad Students....

Well... I am getting too tired to type, so I guess I better go. My fingernails have gotten really long. I am looking forward to painting them this weekend. It makes it challenging to type.... no one has noticed them yet. I am concerned that I look strange... a patchy beard, long fingernails, and bushy hair.... but I know I can't live for everyone all the time. I gotta be me. Oh well.

Dec 5 97

It is an odd predicament, being a transsexual. I have spent the last two days in male mode, walking around... sitting, talking. I try to imagine if there is a Karen mode. I don't think so. This afternoon two of my grad school friends told me I was an excellent teacher, and that I would go far. I hope so.

It is a cold, but positive position to have the ability to pursue and achieve SRS. While I am just about broke, and will be broke until I get a job, I have all the tools to get me to SRS. I don't want you to think that SRS is my only goal... nor do I want you to think that I believe SRS to be something to achieve and never see again. I know that I am on a road that leads forever along the horizon. It is comforting to know that I have all of the tools to build a future that will get me to SRS... but for the time being not doing it just sucks.

How so? Well, I am put into a situation where I can live in secret, and where I have to make certain adjustments in my life to appear male... and to a certain extent female. I got some email from a TS here in town named Robin. She said that she went to a club with another pre-everything TS, and the woman 'looked good for her first time out'... what the hell does that mean?

To be a part of the TS community must I look and act to someone else's idea of being female? Geeze... I want to change my sex... not loose my identity here. I expect Karen to belch and fart just as much as the male me does... maybe not in the company of strangers... but I don't expect to alter myself to fit a mold.... I've known too many women who act the way they want too. I will admit there are some social norms for women which I will adhere too, but I don't want to loose myself just so I can meet someone else's expectations.

I have just spent the last four hours zapping my mustache hairs... I have no mustache!!! Last time I zapped them was back in 1993... even with the 40% grow back rate... that means that I have about 20% of the original hairs on my upper lip. I know that the hairs will return, even if only a few... but the idea that the majority of them are gone is nice. As I pulled the hairs out, there were times when I started to cry... it hurt, and I was mad that I had to go through this all... I guess that is par for the course right now. Oh well....

Dec 6th, 1997

You know... as I was sitting here crying in "post-Igia" pain, I came to the conclusion that there really isn't a rush to get this stuff done. It seems like I am constantly pulling hairs. I am not saying that there is a legion of men knocking down my door, but what's the rush?

When/If my name change comes, I am going to make it a main priority to get on the job hunt trail. I want a job! I want to pay back my loans! I want to become a productive consumer in our society! And I want to have a pussy! I know it can't all be now... and I am happy to see the possibilities.... but the wait is hard at times. Things can always be worse... but... enough of the self-pity...

Dec 7, 97

I'm wearing a very soft and comfortable purple jacket-shirt, soft 'around the house' stretch pants (black with gingerbread men on them), my green booties, and a black mini-jumper. My hair is a mess, and to keep my lips from getting chapped, I'm wearing a deep neutral purple lipstick. Heh. Oh well, at least you have an image to go along with the text here.

If I did not know better, I would think that I am on Estrogen here... my face is changing, and I feel some inward changes as well. It reminds me so much of being on the Premarin back in '93. Perhaps so much of that is mental changes... I know that as I remove the 'shave grey' from my face, and as my hair gets longer, my face, at least on a 'quick glance' changes.

It was funny yesterday. While we were gaming, I was wearing what I am wearing right now, just minus the mini-jumper. Oh, and minus the lipstick. Well, later that same night, I took off the pants and wore my favorite knee-length black skirt, and was cooking. A friend called and wanted to come over and play Magic (card game). I said okay, and decided to keep the skirt on. When he arrived, he said "Hello err... Robin"... he was confused about me.... and I don't think I acted any different, but something was going on.

I took care of him... greeted him, gave him a beer, and conversed with him from the kitchen. It was kinda cute in a way... I offered him some food... heh. Try to picture this here for a moment... here I am, the 'woman', in the kitchen cooking for a man, he's leaning on the counter drinking a beer and telling me about his day... heh... I guess all the props were there... long skirt... kitchen... cooking for a man.... oh well. What was funny is that all the elements were there for a man/woman... and he treated me differently. Or did he? I don't know.

I've been trying to think about what it was like to be a child. One of the things that my therapist, Dr. W, asked was what was it like to be raised. Before I begin, let me say what it is like to live now. It is nice to be free of feeling that your dreams can never come to pass. As I awoke this morning, I had a vision of being in a garden with a man... and being close and intimate with him. It is nice, when all is said and done, to be able to get out of bed and say 'well, maybe one day'.... prior to 'accepting' myself, I would have dreams of bike-riding or cooking with/for a man as 'a woman'... and then I would leave them and say... well... I would accept that they could never be.

This is hard for me to accept... why? why can't these things be? There is tremendous freedom and personal acceptance of oneself when you can channel society's perceptions (and your own based on the programming that society has given you) through yourself and accept that as not only something that you want, but something that you will pursue. You can take that energy and use it... rather than repress or abandon it.

I can remember always being squeamish using any bathroom inhabited by a woman's presence. Entering a bathroom and seeing a make-up bag on top of the toilet, or a box of tampons sticking out of a cabinet. Even worse... looking for said items in a perfectly bare bathroom. Feeling guilty for searching for these artifacts of womanhood in American society... and wanting to embrace them. Go to your bathroom and pick up that tube of mascara, or that bottle of foundation if you use it.... take that case that contains your blush or your eyeshadow... grasp it for a moment and what do your feel? Close your eyes and smell the powder (blush, eye shadow, foundation)... what do you smell?

In my past, and in my present, I pick up the bottle and it is cold to the touch. My hands warm it, and I can see the 'gunk' inside it that makes a woman more pronounced in our society... be it 'pancake', 'light wear' or anywhere in between.... that bottle/case contains something our society expects of women. I open the container and smell it... there is a gentle scent that is what I have been conditioned (thank you Pavlov) to expect of women.... for better or worse... but, in the past, I would put that bottle/container back... and feel sad that it is something I could never use.... rather it was something I was denied.

And, I would walk away feeling down and depressed. I would join my friends, and look at them. They would be so happy... and I wasn't. Me... that is to say whatever configuration of emotions and soul... was back in that bottle with the Revlon label... and what my friends saw was a zombie... a life-less facsimile of who I really was. Today, I grasp that bottle/container and enjoy the smell.... I look at myself and see if I really need it... I look at the clock and estimate how much time I have to scrub the make-up away before work... and decide if it is something I really need to do right now. I walk away from the bathroom and feel content that the stuff in the bathroom belongs to me, and that it is always there if I want to wear it... and, perhaps the most important... is that the woman who inhabits that bathroom is me.

So...what was it like as a child? For the most part... feeling out of place. I don't know how it is today for children, but in my time, boys were treated different from girls. I had many happy memories of doing 'boy' things... and these are all stereotypical... I loved playing with GI Joe toys... I enjoyed working with computers. But, I also hated several boy activities... not to say girls could not, but there were certain things pushed on me that I hated. One of them was sports. I don't like to watch sports, and enjoy playing them only slightly. Playing baseball with your friends is one thing, but being forced to learn the rigors of football is another. I don't like to play football. I can only tolerate watching it for the same reason that every blue moon I might watch a World Wrestling Federation match.... all the propaganda and media surrounding the game. My favorite football team was/is the 1984-87 Chicago Bears. My parents, thankful that I was being a boy, splurged and got me clothes and all the crap that fans buy. I loved the media personality of Coach Dicka, and of 'the Fridge'... the Bears even put out a song, the 'Super Bowl Shuffle"... they made it all the way, and it was hard not to get caught up in the emotion... join the bandwagon.

But, there was a persistent theme that there were things denied me. I love skirts. I like folk dancing, and dancing in a skirt is just awesome... there are dances where you spin and the skirt flares up....round and round. Once I got to walk around in the rain... walking barefoot, wearing a skirt... geeze... if that's not a call for Gaia then what is? It will be interesting if I continue to like them as I wear them more and more. I was denied cooking, sewing, gardening. I tried these, and loved them. I was rigorously told these were girl things. Now, I know that men can and do these things. But, it is hard to think about doing these things as a man.... it's all in my head, I know. When a person gardens, they wear tough clothes and sweat. But when the day is done, when I take off my jeans and shirt to shower off the dirt and grime, I want breasts.... but let's get back to childhood.

I was very happy at times, but for the most part there is a consistent gloom over my experiences in the Lauderdale house. I was young, but was not happy there.

Dec 12 97

I am tired, but I wanted to log some stuff before bed time. I told my work and some of my grad school friends (including my directing teacher) about my name change. I got a call yesterday about the judge wanting to meet with me. From what I was told, I can expect a 10-minute session with him. I scheduled the hearing for January 5th, 1997. I look forward to that date... so much of my life seems to depend on my name.... job and such.

Dec 12 97

I awoke to the sounds of a new voice... I must of been practicing in my sleep. Not perfect yet, but that will come in time. Melanie Anne's tape is a good one, but let's not be too optimistic right now... I've not yet had sufficient coffee.

I like being comfortable with myself. Even in the turbulent world of the transsexual, there is solitude in knowing oneself. A current thread on the TRANSGEN listserv has been how the real big transition day is when you go full time, not when you start HRT or even SRS. I can see some truth in that... but not too much emphasis. Like the Ancient Mariner, I'll take my crossbow and watch that idea.... it is important not to get so caught up in that final moment that you loose sight of all the progress you have made along the way.

I'd like to develop that idea more. I gain tremendous strength knowing that the woman inside of me is slowly coming out, and, that I am aware of several pitfalls which would, had I not been so honest, kept me from allowing Karen to take over. I know that I should not date a woman with the expectations that I will be a man and father to her and her children. Quite the opposite... I want to be a housewife and have children. As a slight jest, I say that I know right now I cannot give birth to a child, but I am working on that. Some humor and some truth. Should some opportunity arise, I'd like to give it a try.

I have been fantasizing this week about having sex with a man. Well... specifically I'd like to give oral stimulation to a penis. Personally, I don't want a man to give me oral stimulation on my penis... if I had a pussy... well, that's another matter. I'm trying to live in the real world here.

Heh. The real world. On January 5th I have a hearing with a judge to change my name. So much of my life is on hold until then. I don't want to seem like an ass.... I don't want to tell someone my name is one thing, and then it turns out to be another. I don't expect a problem with the name change, but all the same... oh well. Day by day.

I am moving into another phase right now... sort of a maintainence phase. I need to take care of myself and my future. Unless I hook me a rich husband, or win the lottery, I need to think of my 'full-time' future as being within three years. So... I need to prioritize things. There are some career type stuff that hinge upon the name change. But, I can get ready. As for feminization, there are things I can do a well. I find that I need to set limits. There have been a few times where I have juggled my responsibilities or desires so I can zap my hairs.... for hours at a time. This is not a good thing. There are other aspects of my life that need to be expressed. I cannot sit around all the time 'in the closet' zapping hairs.

Back to Main Page