Sound Bite Society

We have become a sound bite society. We like the events of our days to be boiled down to such simple factoids that we can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is spin. Sometimes I think that we as a society have allowed ourselves to accept the daily challenges of our society to blend into the background noise of tweets, texts and Facebook status'. Have we become so reliant on technology that we just take everything that we see online or on TV gospel? I started to think about this a lot more than usual after the tragic events of Friday in Connecticut. I have no words to express my feelings about what happened there, my heart goes out to the families involved. Almost immediately after the event the spin started, the pro and con gun control people cranked up their organs. Special interest groups began floating their arguments. While it is true that a gun was the weapon used to take all of those innocent lives. A gun is just a gun, it doesn't think and it doesn't act on its own. What we are failing to question is why this kid was in a state to perpetrate this act. What went wrong? How did he fall through the cracks? Lives were lost here, we need answers, real answers not spin. Have we become so hard hearted and thick as a society that we just prefer to look away when we see someone who is challenged? That is what society did here, the society that surrounded that kid has had a hand in all of that carnage. Do we need to question gun laws? Absolutely we do. I think that we need to fix a lot more than gun laws. Each incident that comes and goes in our lives is a chance for us to reflect and grow. Will we do just that? Or is this just going to be another of the tragedies of the year. There have been over 60 mass shootings in the US since Columbine, it is time to face up to things.

I have returned

It has been my intention to do a lot of work on this blog. However being a writer writing my novels has taken a higher priority. I feel guilty because this blog can be a huge service to my brothers and sisters in the trans community. In general I am a very confident woman, but today I broke new ground for myself without even thinking. I applied for a job, I am super qualified for the job and I am probably one of their most qualified applicants. The challenge comes from the fact that I have never had a job interview in 12 years. Most of the jobs that I have had have come to me. Now here I am a potential candidate for a great job and I will face the dreaded interview. I have never been to an interview since I transitioned. Once again I am in a spot that that I never planned for. How is this going to be different? What the heck do I wear. I try to never go over the top. My worst fear is to go to something like this and coming across like a side show. I know about that it is an irrational but for the first time in my transition I have real anxiety. As emotional as this is I know that I will come out stronger.....but argh the nervousness. This job would be a huge leap forward and I want it. So I have to suck it up.

DSM 5

Right now the APA is deciding on the contents of the next DSM. The DSM for those of you who don't know, the DSM is the guide that Doctors use to diagnose mental illnesses. This document is used to patholigize conditions and determine treatment.
As you can tell by its title, the DSM 5 is the 5th version of this document. The DSM is updated from time to time as research requires that it be updated. The DSM needs to be updated as not only science catches up with new ideas, but also as old biases are discarded because they make no sense.
Infact the DSM 3 categorized homosexuality as a mental illness.
Current research is beginning to conclusively point to homosexuality and transexuality as having triggers in genetics.
There are alot of things that don't make sense with the DSM. For instance, did you know that although transexuals have their own category, the non transexual segment of the transgender spectrum are grouped in the same category as paedophiles, oh ya as are most members of the kink community.
This documents has quite a few holes. There are quite a few conditions that should be on there, but jesus, it's more a document to keep the til ringing. The DSM should be made relevant or simply done away with, because currently it has as much scientific background as the salem witch trials.

The Wall

My cousin put up a facebook update yesterday and she hit a relevant point, not only for herself , but for me and pretty much everybody out there.
We all put walls up that impeed our path in life. Some of us have small walls, others have huge ones. Some of our walls are far away down the road for us to run into later, and some of us are up against their own wall right now.
My theory of this is, that we each build those walls, alot of times with help from others. It's how you deal with the challenges in your life that determine if a brick gets added or not. But the bottom line of this is that it is up to each and every one of us to tear down our own wall.
So how can you do it?
I really don't believe that problems can be ignored or steered around, the can only be solved.
Throughout our lives we all experience fears, hurts, betrayals, setbacks and in some cases abuses by people that we trust. Each of those events will help to assemble your wall.
I'm up against my own wall now. I know exactly where I want to go, I just don't seem to be getting there as fast as I would like. I know that I am up against my own wall.
Having something to hide for most of my life has ended up making my wall fairly big, alot bigger than I have previously noticed, but for the last 2 years I have been up against it in a big way.
The first positive thing that I have done is that I have come out of the shadows and into the light, everybody knows that I am transgendered and I am going through a gender change. If they don't know yet they will know as soon as I find them. This action has been tremendously freeing. There is a couple of bricks gone.
The next thing for me is that I have been married before, twice. I have got to put both of those relationships into their proper place. They are relationships that I really shouldn't have been in had I been honest with myself and them. I don't like to go around hurting people this has put alot of bricks on my wall.
I still talk to my first x, funny enough we are still friends, I still consider her family. It wasn't always that way, it took alot for us to get this far, but we got there through alot of healing and forgiving of each other.
The second X I haven't done so well with. I could see our break up coming for a while, but when it happended it really threw me for a far greater tailspin than I had noticed at the time. Things still need to be sorted through there as well, some of those bricks may be there for a bit longer than I would like, but I have been able to assign a better perspective to that whole situation, that helps alot.
When I started my life here on the island, I really started from scratch, none of my old friends are here. I'm not doing much of anything that I had done before, I miss alot of that. I miss ballet most of all. When I left my life in Canada I gutted everything that I had worked so hard for in the last 18 years. I was left to start a new life, having nothing but the contents of two suitcases.
Without acknowledging where I am standing in my life there is no way to move forward, I have been figuring this out over the last couple of weeks. I have been able to take those bricks off my wall, it's been very powerful for me.
After going through a long depression, there is something that isn't really talked about. For me anyway the bad habits that you pick up are amazing. Thankfully I never descended into drugs and drinking, it's just not me, ever. What did happen was I let a serious decline in my person drive and work ethic happen. Normally I have alot of get up and go, I can get amazing amounts of stuff done.
Realizing that this has occured has been the biggest revelation to me out of everything.
Depression can never be and should never be described in light terms, it's devastating to anyone effected and to those around that person. Outwardly it just looks like they have become unrealiable and not good for much, always involved in a pity party, but inwardly it's a million times worse. These have been the majority of the bricks in my wall and they are coming down.
I'd like to think that I can just flip a switch and everything will be better and back to the way that it was, but it just doesn't work that way. Bad habits must be broken and new ones brought in and improved apon. Each bad habit mastered will be another brick out of my wall.
In my old life, because I was not able to be honest with myself and anybody around me, I always felt like everything that I built or had in my life has been built like a house of cards, ready to fall at the slightest breeze. I can remember constantly getting sick to my stomach with the anxiety of it all.
I've changed all that now. Although I am still pouring the foundation of my life, I am grateful for a second chance to get to do just that. I am going to make this foundation strong.
Brick by brick I am tearing down my wall, I can see my path clearly now. I can see who will be with me and who won't, it is how it is.
I have been lucky to find a partner like I have in Corrina. Together we will build a great life together. I can see exactly what I need to do to get my surgeries completed and get on with my life.
My wall is almost gone, there are still things that I would like to repair and improve on to get more bricks out of my wall.
The encouragement of friends and family has been another huge boost for me. For most of my life I was expecting that when everybody figured out that I was transgendered that they'd all just blow me off and leave. I'd be alone. It never happend. The support that I have recieved has been absolutely amazing, more bricks gone.
To the very few people who have been a negative with this whole thing, I am beginning to think that you may have been bricks too.
Why am I doing this? Why am I splaying my life open for all to see?
I am doing it because if I can reach one person, just one person on the planet then everything will have been worth it, my life will have stood for something more than just a mass of collected things that are just going to be divided up and sold off like a giant garage sale.
I plan on living for a very long time, I'd like my lifeswork to be able to lift up as many people as I can.

Face off

I'm home sick today, I've been sick all week with a cold. I'm getting better, but I have a ways to go. The cold has migrated to my sinus's , that today's development anyway. My voice is also still shot, but it is getting better, I still sound like Marlon Brando, Hardly feminine.
On the brighter side , today I booked into to have a consult with a facial surgeon. My appointment is for late January in Vancouver. I have quite a few things that I would like to have done, so I am going to break it down into three surgical sessions, This will also allow me to pay for it a bit easier.
The doctor that I am going to see is Dr Bowman. He is apparently from Switzerland, and he trained in Belgium. I spoke to his staff at length, they seem quite nice and they have a good idea of what I need.
So for now I have to concentrate on getting well and getting back to my training. I want to be rid of this muffin top of mine.
I just put a new mirror on the dresser beside my bed, I was getting ready for bed and realized why I hate mirrors, they are way too honest. Anyway I am using that as postive motivation to get back to my morning runs.

lending voice

I'm at the stage now, where I get to change my voice. I never realized just how much the various aspects of speech contribute to how the world views who you are.
From Pitch and tone to the what that things are said, there is soo much to learn.
So if your around me, bear with with my as I sort this out. I was considering a surgically implanted clip on my vocal chords, kind of a lazy persons approach. However I have to think about upcoming surgeries, and other medical emergencies down the road. The clip actually can make to process of intubation difficult. I'd rather not be in need of dire help and have some doctor having a hard time intubating me and not knowing why he can't.
So voice coaching it is. I've though about it alot, and traditional voice coaching seems to be the most effective and the safest way to go. So no it's not your ears playing tricks on you, it's actually me learning something new

Kicking down self imposed barriers

For most of my life, since I was 8 years old, I have had a secret, that I am transgendered. I guarded my secret for a long time.
Now I am very open about who I am. I'll tell anybody who'll listen.
Even though I feel comfortable talking to anybody about it I was hearing back that people were supportive, but weren't feeling it. I battled with this for most of the summer. Why couldn't people fully "get it" with me. Then it occured to me.
Even though I knew who I was, even though I knew where I was heading with this, my presentation didn't match up to my being. This is where I realized that I was the cause of people not "feeling it".
Looking in the mirror one day, I could see that I wasn't presenting myself as I should. What was I expecting. To be honest I spent most of the summer dancing around this all summer.
This leads me to the second half of the problem, I know very little about female presentation.

For most of my life this had all been a strongly guarded secret, so it was strange for me to think of asking anybody for input, let alone help.
Thankfully I have really cool friends. This week alone I have been given so much help with appearence and other matters that it's filled me with a new confidence.
Alot of people, although they are supportive, never really have to think about just how much goes into a transition like this. I guess they didn't or don't feel like they should be offering guidence. Let me just state that it's needed.
My friend Rika helped me alot last night, going through my wardrobe and helping me to put together some different clothes for work.
My problem isn't that I don't have clothes so much as a complete lack of knowledge in how to put them together.
I was talking to my friend and Editor Bonnie about this today as well. Bonnie is my Sage, always full of good advice. I explained the conclusions that I have reached and she gave me more great perspective.
Now I fully understand why people weren't feeling it. Carol at the Stitcher's Muse in Nanaimo was the person that really switched the light on for me. I always had my hair in a ponytail. A few days ago I came in with my hair down. Her comment was that my hair looks more like where I'm going rather than where I have been. Lots of guys with long hair put their hair in a ponytail, leaving my hair down looked far more feminine.
It's these little signals that I send out that really help people to " feel it".
Thanks for your help everybody, and especially to Corrina who puts up with me sorting all of this out.