Settling In

I'm as happy with my life as I can ever remember being.  Great for me, not so great for this blog :)

A few weeks ago, my job brought in an outside consultant to assist some of the people in my workplace who deal with other people (on the phones and such) with hiding their accents a bit.  I was called in to set up her laptop, and we got to talking.  Her company is called Speak Easy.  I told her that I am transgendered, was newly out, and have never really gotten any sort of professional help with my voice, and asked if she worked with trans- clients on that sort of thing?   She hasn't before, but feels she can help and is willing to help me out for free so as to expand her skills/client base.  Everyone wins!  My first appointment is tomorrow evening - she is based in Springfield so we will be working over the internet.  Vocal training, for free, without needing to travel?  I'll take it!

The election had its ups and downs.  Specifically, I'm quite happy that Obama was elected because I do legitimately have faith that he will improve the country.  I'm also quite happy that people in Massachusetts will not need to worry about being thrown in jail because they put fire to a plant and inhaled it.  The income tax question on the ballot was interesting - I was personally in favor of repealing the income tax and seeing where that takes us, but a lot of people whose opinions I respect were vehemently against it, so I don't really mind that that bill didn't pass.  However - I think that shutting down the dog racing tracks in Massachusetts is completely ridiculous, and I can't believe that the state voted to put that many people out of work without any evidence of mistreatment to the dogs.  Also - what the hell, California?  I might have expected that from Wisconsin or Idaho, but you guys should know better than that!  I am waiting for the country to wake up and realize that taking rights away from people is wrong, and all I can do is hope that the fact that we elected Obama is a good start on that frontier.

I went to a BATS (transgender support group at MIT) meeting for the first time after a four-month hiatus last week.  It really cool - I had sort of forgotten that I hadn't been there since going full-time, and while nothing really changed from their perspective, it was a lot different from mine.  There were times in the past where I would rush home from work, shower, change, and then sneak out of my apartment and pray that the neighbors didn't see me.  There were times in the past where I would sit through an entire meeting having to pee but not wanting to risk using a bathroom.  I started out the meetings really shy and barely talking; now I feel like I know a good majority of the people and have no fears of speaking about things.  Also, summarizing my life over the last four months (I came out to everyone I know, went full-time, changed my name, gave three presentations about transgender eduction at my job, came out at work, and have been taking hormones for 11 months now) was a good chance to stop and reflect on how far I've come.

One question that I was asked was "What do the people at work think is actually happening to you?".  This caught me off-guard for a second before I answered with "The truth.  I told them I hated living as male, felt that I should have been female, decided to transition, got oks from a therapist and and endocrinologist, and will be living as a woman".  One difference that I've come to realize exists between myself and a lot of other people is that I don't particularly feel the need for my own privacy, at least as far as my thoughts and feelings go.  I don't see the point of keeping information to myself - it just makes a lot more sense in my eyes to explain things to people and try and get them seeing my point of view (even if they don't agree with it).  Questions about sexual orientation or whether I've had surgery or whether I'm a hermaphrodite - go ahead and have at them, I don't mind!  I guess I've come to realize, perhaps as a result of waiting until I was 27 to do anything about my feelings, that keeping stuff secret from the world only serves to reinforce that my thoughts are something to be ashamed of, and I don't want to do that anymore.  If people don't like me because of who I am or what I think - it's really no worries, because (a) as long as I can justify what I think, there's a chance of getting them on my page.(b) there are plenty of people who like me just fine anyways.

One thing that has been sliiiightly bothering me is single life.  It's not that I don't like being single, because I do.  The problem is that, much like transitioning, I think that all external factors are set and it's now up to me to conquer the anxiety that's stopping me from progressing.  Truthfully, I'm scared shitless of dating - I'm way out of my depth experience-wise not only regarding dating, but regarding living as a woman.  The factor of "how and when to tell my partner that I was born male" also looms, because it's still a prime thing to visualize worst-case scenarios for.  On recommendations from friends, I have been looking at meetup.com (simply to meet some people that never knew me as male) and okcupid.com (to try and get the ball rolling on this dating thing).  The thing is that I only feel tempted to resort to the internet when I'm not happy with the way things are, and for the most part I'm happy with the way things are.  I'm sure this will all sort itself out.  (right?)

Well, it's 1:05 pm, there are a couple of errands I need to run today, and my laptop battery is starting to warn me that my time writing this post should come to an end.  I suppose I need to get out of bed at some point, so that is as good a reason as any!