Michelle’s blog

Assessment

2009-10-30T13:56:45Z

I'm writing this post from a friend's apartment in Long Beach, California. Unfortunately, my internal clock hasn't quite matched up with the actual time here, which made me decide that it might be a good time to get some thoughts down on (virtual) paper. What's in Long Beach? Festival 8 - Phish's eighth music festival, and the first one they've held since reuniting this year. More on this:

That summer, they mounted their first two-day festival — The Clifford Ball — at a decommissioned Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people were in attendance; MTV was on-hand to document the experience. In Phish's own makeshift city, Great Northeast Productions created an amusement park, restaurants, a post office, playgrounds, arcades, and movie theaters. Aside from six "traditional" sets, the band rode a flatbed truck through the campground, serenading the audience at 3 a.m.^[25] The concert's production company went on to host six more Phish festivals.

The Great Went, Phish's second large-scale festival, was held that summer at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, just miles from the Canadian border. The official count for the show was an impressive 65,000 people, qualifying the festival to be the largest city in Maine.^[27] For many fans however, the crowd felt larger. Band and audience collaborated yet again in a colossal work of art: individual pieces of art by fans were connected to a large piece of art by the band. A giant matchstick was lit, burning the resultant tower to the ground.^[28]

For the Millennium Celebration, Phish traveled to the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades. Of the major New Year's Eve concerts around the globe — Sting, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel — at 85,000, Phish had the largest attendance of any paid concert event that night.^[31] During ABC's millennium coverage, Peter Jennings and World News Tonight reported on the massive audience and featured the band's performance of "Heavy Things". Called "Big Cypress", the enormous festival culminated with an extended seven-and-a-half hour set that began at midnight and ended at sunrise.

This is going to be my first Phish festival, and I can't wait. I love the music, I love the vibe around these sort of events, I love the fact that this will be on Halloween, and I love the fact that I'm in sunny California instead of freezing New England. More than anything else, this is the first time that I can remember that I really feel like I'm going on an adventure.

I don't have a clue what this weekend will bring. I do know that I'm more excited for this than for anything I've done in recent memory. I think my brain has always been wired to want to take in as many new experiences as possible, but self-doubt and a lack of confidence has always held me back. When I reread this blog to see what I was like in 2007 (or even worse, reread old emails to see what I was like in 2003), it dawns on me that I was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of meeting new people, and not really self-aware enough to realize this.

Before transition, the problem was mostly apathy. I didn't particularly have any interest in doing typical guy stuff, and I didn't have any interest in dating or relationships, and I didn't really care about what type of guy I would grow up to be. It was a lot easier to lose myself in gaming, and to convince myself that if I became really good at winning, my self-esteem would increase. This never really happened, but it made a great distraction.

During transition, the problem was mostly fear. I couldn't get over the stigma of being transgendered, and spent any time out in public being afraid that people were snickering at me behind my back. I'd be shopping at the mall, realize I had to use the restroom, and actually drive home to use it because I was afraid that someone would call me out if they saw me in a womens' room. I was well aware of the fact that I had no idea how do basic things that most women know, like using makeup or wearing clothes that matched or talking to guys, and convinced myself that other people were as aware of these flaws as I was.

The only cure for fear was facing it, which I did. People talking behind my back? Yup, they probably are. I can't stop it, all I can do is decide how it's going to affect me. Don't know how to talk to guys? Well, hell, the only way I'm going to learn is to try. Feeling like a hot mess whenever I go out? Solicit feedback from others, even if it means my feelings might get hurt every once in awhile. Afraid that a guy will find out I'm transgendered and run away screaming/beat the tar out of me in a transphobic rage? Well hell, the only thing one can reliably do in this situation if they want to move forward is to learn how to read people and to figure out if it's worth bringing up at all, and to hone and trust my instincts so that the worst never happens (and so that I can handle it if it does).

In fact, these days people seem to think I'm going in the opposite direction - because facing my fears has resulted in a more confident me, I find myself wanting to push the boundaries even more, sometimes to the chagrin of those around me who don't think I worry enough about anything. Worrying got me nothing but wasted years, and I'm done with that. One of the last things my father said to me was that he wished I had come out sooner, because he felt like he had lost a lot of time being able to see me truly flourishing - I think about that almost every time I'm feeling sad or scared or overwhelmed, and it helps me see the bigger picture. I'm upset with myself that I let this irrational "my family is religious, what if they don't accept me?" crap take over my brain, because I think the reward was well worth the risk. I wish it didn't take me years to realize this.

So here I am in California, with a very small amount of people that I actually know. There's the friend I'm staying with tonight (who sadly can't attend the festival), a girl I've been talking to online for a few months (who found this blog and was really supportive), and a guy from Boston who I've talked to a few brief times. There are some people from online forums who I sorta-kinda know and will likely meet up with - if we click, great, and if not, no worries. But this is going to be a 3-day Halloween party with ~40,000 people in it; the whole idea is to socialize on the basis that we're all experiencing this amazing thing together. Unlike with gaming, there is no competitive aspect to bring out the worst in people; unlike with transitioning, I don't feel like I'm completely out of my comfort zone.

In two hours, I'm taking a cab to the airport and then a shuttle towards the site. And from there on, what happens this weekend is completely up to me. That feeling - the sort of freedom of being in control of my life - is what I think I've been chasing all these years, and it's time to start cashing in on it.

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(Going/Called) Out on a Friday Night

2009-10-05T05:33:40Z

Last week, in an effort to be more social, I decided to meet up with some people from an online forum (the one referenced in this post) that were having a small meet-up. The plan was to meet at one of their houses in the Davis Square area, and then to head down to see a Grateful Dead tribute band. I had my reservations, mostly out of worry about how people would react if they knew I was transgendered, but figured it would make a good chance to meet some new people and do new things.

I'm glad I went. I didn't really feel like I had any problem talking to people, and I met a few people who seemed really cool. I split off from the group for awhile (between the party and concert) and eventually met up with them at the show. All in all, it was a pretty good time.

There was one awkward moment, though. By the end of the night, it was obvious that a number of the people I had come with (and at the show in general) were rather drunk. I was gathering up some people to whom I had offered a ride and saying goodbyes to people, when one of the people from the party came up to me. He had actually been the first person that I had met on the night and seemed like a nice enough fellow, but was pretty clearly out of it at that point.

me: "Goodnight! Nice meeting you!"

him: "Are you a pre-op or post-op?"

...awkward! I didn't see any point in hiding it, so..

me: "....pre-op. How'd you know?"

him: "Someone from the party recognized your username from your post back in March."

me: "Oh. That's not a problem, is it?"

him: "Nah, nah. So does that mean you're a man or a woman?"

me: "Woman."

him: "Oh, oh. Man, that's cool. If people have a problem with that, screw them."

(remember, he was black-out drunk at this point)

me: "Do people have a problem with that?"

him: "Who cares, I think it's awesome that you came out, life's too short to worry"

me: "Totally!"

him: "So are you pre-op or post-op?"

me: "Pre-op"

him: "So does that mean you're a man or a woman?"

me: "....I think I'm going to have to go soon. Later!"

There was certainly other drunk ramblings mixed in there somewhere, but that was the general gist of it. It was awkward, because he was asking questions that are kind of personal kind of loudly, but it's nothing I can't deal with.

It's not that I had a problem with people knowing that I'm transgendered, but there was certainly frustration at having thought I was "getting away with it" only to find out that, in all likelihood, my past was likely discussed around the group before the concert.

After the show, I left with two people who I had met that night (the two that I had talked to the most) that lived near me and needed a ride. They were also new to that group of people, so they actually didn't know that I am transgendered, but I decided to tell them after the aforementioned guy above started talking about "chicks with dicks" as we were trying to leave the room. They were cool - like most people, they were more curious about it than repulsed by it, and mostly just seemed to understand that it wasn't an easy decision to transition and that I've become a much better person for it.

I'm not really upset about this - like I've said in the past, I understand that reactions to transgendered people are mostly based on lack of information. Nobody actually treated me any differently that I could tell, so I plan to just move forward as if I don't know they know I was born as a male. In other words, I'll talk about it if it actually comes up in conversation, but not volunteer anything unless I feel like there is a reason to do so. I'm actually curious if there is anyone that reads this journal as a result of that forum, but don't really know how to find out other than to invite people to email me if they see this post.

This story was longer than I thought. There are definitely more topics that I will be writing about in the near future, including a friendship that started really great and ended in a really strange way, as well as a friendship that started kind of strangely that has ended up becoming something pretty great. Suffice to say, as much as I want to say that being transgendered doesn't affect my life, I think I'm slowly realizing that that isn't the case.

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Technical details of permanent failure:

2009-09-25T05:40:31Z

Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 554 554 delivery error: dd Sorry your message to (email address) cannot be delivered. This account has been disabled or discontinued [#102]. -

---

To a specific friend that I can't reach right now - please don't end things like this.

~m.td

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The Stuff That Makes Me Tick

2009-09-12T14:09:16Z

So it's been a little bit more than one year now since I went full-time living as Michelle. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that it's only been a year. I have gone back and read some of my posts from the beginning of this blog and it almost seems tough to remember who that person was that used to write in here.

When I was transitioning, my biggest fear was that I wasn't passing. It used to absolutely kill me to go out and wonder if people were talking behind my back, joking about "what the hell gender is that person?". Or to wonder every time I told someone what I was going to be doing if I would never see that person again. Basically, a lot of my fears existed because I put too much power to make me happy in the hands of other people.

Eventually, time passed, confidence grew, and I stopped doing this. As I've said in the past, the only way to get past a fear is to charge forward into it head on, and that's what I did. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being a big deal for people to find out, and I became a much happier person for it. Over the winter, I started discovering the power of live music and in that found a really viable way to meet new people with whom I could start fresh, introducing myself as a woman and not looking back.

These days, things are going pretty great. I have a job that I think is a pretty good fit for me, even if it occasionally drives me crazy. I have gone from being totally afraid to approach new people to actually looking forward to it. I am happier with my appearance than I have ever been. I have always tried to live life by the principle that I should always be enjoying myself, and although that goal is impossible, I think I've been doing the best that I can.

The problem with living life as a woman is that the bar for my happiness now feels like it has been set really high. When I was living as a male, nobody really questioned my gender or behaviors (even though, by most standards, I was a pretty weird kid). When I was in transition, I would be genuinely ecstatic every time I got "ma'am"ed or received some confirmation that I was passing. Yeah, it would suck when people slipped on my name/pronoun or otherwise treated me like a guy, but I had accepted those mistakes from others as things that would happen and eventually figured out how not to let it bother me. These days, it's actually pretty rare that people slip up and use my male name, and that's something I'm really thankful for.

Unfortunately, as a woman, the bar has been set a lot higher. I have two sets of issues that cause me stress these days - problems related to being transgender, and problems related to being a woman. I think I optimistically assumed that the second group of stresses would replace the first, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The first group of issues is characterized by questions like "how am I going to find a guy who is comfortable with my past?", "how am I going to arrange everything I need to do for surgery?", "does this person who I just met suspect that I'm transgendered and is there any perceived awkwardness?", "at what point, if at all, do I bring up my past?", "are my mannerisms and dialogue too 'male'?", "how do I talk about my past?", and "how do I deal with having body dimensions that just aren't the same as a biological woman's?". These are always going to be there, and I pretty much knew when I transitioned that these would be things that I'd have to deal with for the rest of my life.

The second group of issues is interesting, though, because I don't think I ever would have realized this stuff if I had not transitioned. The second group has questions like, "are people judging me on my looks first and my personality second?", "are people listening to/respecting my opinions in the same way that they did when I was perceived to be male?", "are people more inclined to take advantage of my trusting nature now that I am perceived as female?", "since I'm not a 'stunner', how do I attract the interest of guys?", "how the hell do I interact with guys that are actually showing an interest in me?", and "am I being careful enough when putting myself in situations that could potentially end badly?". Two things that I can say with absolute certainty: more people have called me "naive" in the last year of my life than they have the first 28, and I have noticed a tendency for people who used to listen to me to now talk over me or dismiss my ideas as they come up. I suppose that these are the things that most women face, and while they are very real issues in my life, there is a part of me that feels 'right' that I get to experience these sorts of trials and tribulations.

Oh well! I suppose it's time to move on with life - the one thing that hasn't changed is that I recognize that the way to solve these problems is to go out and live a bit, so that's what I'm going to do. On that note, I'm going to end this post.

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Sit Up And Take Notice; Tell It Like It Is

2009-08-17T06:27:31Z

On Friday night, I went to my fourth Phish show in Hartford. What a night!

The day before the show, I went onto a forum for concert-goers and found a guy who was asking for a ride from Boston to Hartford for the show. A ride with company is certainly better than a ride alone, and I had good luck the last time I offered someone a ride, and so I sent him a message offering to help him out. I left work early on Friday so that we could get there in time, and he met me at 3:30 and we hit the road.

One thing about the Phish/concert scene that has been so appealing to me is that it is a chance to start over in an environment where no one knows that I'm transgendered. For that reason, I didn't feel the need to tell my passenger about my past, and the conversation on the car ride down was mostly smalltalk and discussion about the music. I certainly had a good impression of him - like most other Phish fans I've met, he seemed very laid back and friendly, two traits that I hold in high esteem. We split up once we got to the show to meet our respective crews, and he told me that he wasn't sure if he would need a ride back. I told him to send me a text after the show and we could figure stuff out from there.

I met up with my friends by their car partied a bit in the lot, getting ready for the show. I knew that two of them had never seen Phish before and were in for a treat, but little did I know just how good it was going to be. People who had seen 100+ shows across two decades of concerts were calling it "one of the best Phish shows they had ever seen". I was happy to see that everyone in my group was having a great time. The only hitch that came up was that we got separated from one of our friends, the one in the group who happened to not have a cellphone - we spent a good twenty minutes looking for him before we decided that he must have gone back to the car. Fortunately, this was the case, and so that crisis was averted.

After the show, the guy I gave a ride to messaged me back, saying that he would, in fact, like a ride back. I met up with him in the lot, at a spot where someone was playing the drums. We chilled out for a bit and talked about what we had just witnessed - I could easily say it was the best show I had been to, and when he (someone who had been seeing Phish since 1997) agreed with me, I was pleasantly surprised.

On the way back, we started talking about our lives a bit more. He told me about his past, which was both interesting to hear and flattering to be entrusted with. Based on that, I opened up a bit more about myself and told him that I was transgendered. I wasn't surprised that he didn't have an issue with it, but I was a bit surprised to learn that he had read me pretty much right upon meeting me. It's so rare that people actually indicate that they know or suspect that I'm transgendered that I think I had tricked myself into thinking it doesn't happen. Unforuntately, he noticed my Adam's Apple, and until surgeries happen there really isn't much that I can do about that.

It was all good, though. A year or so ago, my biggest fear was being read by others after being full-time. Right there, I finally got confirmation that it does in fact happen - as it turned out, there was nothing to be afraid of at all. It didn't matter that he knew I was transgendered, because he was still completely nice/respectful to me and we ended up getting along just fine. He had some questions - I'm sure I was the first transwoman he's ever met, and so I was more than happy to answer them. If anything, him knowing that I'm transgendered just meant that I no longer felt like there was a big chunk of my life I couldn't talk about. It actually alleviated more pressure than it caused.

I have been thinking lately about how I have historically approached the question of what to do about people finding out my history. Before/early on in transition, I was petrified of anyone knowing I was transgendered and kept it secret, mostly because I was embarrassed about it. When I went full-time, I 180'ed, deciding that I wasn't embarrassed about being transgendered and didn't want to keep secrets anymore. When I started expanding my social circle and realized that people treated me differently when they didn't know my past, I stopped telling people again. After Friday night, I'm modifying it again - I'm going to keep my trans- status under wraps until I feel like I know the other person better, and then will judge the situation from there. What I've realized is that as long as people develop a first impression of me before they know, it's not really damaging for people to find out.

Every time I think I'm in the tail end of this transition thing, I learn something new!

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A Long Month

2009-07-15T11:58:43Z

The last month has been stressful to the point where I haven't even felt like writing about it. For the most part, none of this stress has anything to do with me being transgendered, so I wasn't sure how much of it necessarily belongs here. That said, things are starting to look up, and so I thought I would take a moment or two to reflect on things.

On Father's Day last month, I got into a pretty large argument with a family member. I'm not going to write too much here about that, except that some pretty hurtful things were said on both sides and that I hope it can be resolved at some point.

My job has been getting steadily tougher. We're trying to do a lot of different things at the same time, and that means there has been a steady increase in my workload. I can take solace in the fact that I'm certainly learning new things and developing job skills; however, none of this really seems to matter when the rate at which work is being assigned work exceeds the rate at which it can be completed. I have good days and bad days - sometimes, I am completely on fire and even I can't believe how many different tasks I can do at once; sometimes, I feel so overwhelmed that I'm about to panic. I'm not alone, either - with record-breakingly-bad weather through this summer, I've noticed a general sort of funk that it just seems that people can't escape as of late. Really, the main way that I've been able to get through it is to see it all as an opportunity for growth, from both a personal and a career angle, and to think about that whenever the stress starts to take over.

After years of not using AIM, I've started talking to people online again. Specifically, through the Something Awful forums I have been a number of transgendered people who I have found to be incredibly nice and interesting. There are a few transpeople who are young in transition (or still pre-everything) who I feel I can help; there are a few transpeople who are roughly where I am in transition with whom it's fun to goof around with and compare notes; there are a few straight people who are curious about being transgendered and want to ask me questions. I have always been really open about anything I'm thinking or feeling, and there's something that feels really good to me when other people reciprocate that. More and more, I'm finding that I enjoy helping people - I have been trying to find ways to take this and channel it into something that can make a difference for as many people as possible.

Today is my last day of work before I head up to a music festival in New York state for the weekend. This will be my first real vacation since...shoot, I don't remember when my last vacation was. The theme of 2009 thus far has been "Michelle is stressed out", and three days in a new environment filled with music and friendly people will hopefully provide some sort of time out that will allow me to recharge my proverbial batteries. Also, I'm still flying out to Denver in two weeks - it will be the first time I've been on an airplane in 5 years.

I got my ears pierced! They look awesome! I also got my hair restyled - I'm now straightening it instead of curling it, and I like the way it looks so far. Fortunately, I haven't really had to spend much on summer clothes since it's been so dreary out. :)

Well, my half-hour of writing time is up. Time to get ready for what will likely be a long day!

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Happy Happy Oh My Friend

2009-06-17T06:30:50Z

I've been turning this over in my head for the last three weeks.

I've never really gone into too much detail about this, but throughout my life I've had an overactive imagination. I love creating hypothetical scenarios and then running them through in my head. This has always been my defense mechanism to combat boredom - if the real world isn't grabbing my attention (classrooms or meetings or churches or car rides, for example), I'm both capable and likely to be constructing some daydream in my head that I will be completely lost in. These days, I like to dream about what my future might bring, because I still haven't quite gotten over the fact that I pass as a woman now.

That said, there was a time where the future was off-limits. That's what a majority of this post is going to be about.

I'm talking specifically about 2003-2007, the period of my life in which I had decided that I was going to drop all notion of transitioning whatsoever. At that point, I had told some of my close friends that I was transgendered and had lived my life wanting to be female. When I look back at it now, I wish I had used the momentum I had gained from telling people and being accepted to seek out therapy and come out to my family. What I did then, instead of seek help, was to decide that I was crazy. Surely I was just a confused cross-dresser! My fear was that I was self-diagnosing myself as a transgendered woman as a way to rationalize my discomfort doing typically male things (approaching women, playing sports, seeking cheap thrills), and the only solution to that was to try harder to fit in as male.

I got a job that I held down for two years without telling anyone. I started dating and had two short-lived relationships. I started to give sports a try and found, to my surprise, that I liked them. What I found was that I was perfectly capable of living life as a male, although it meant having to accept that transitioning and living as a woman would never happen. While I wouldn't say this thought depressed me, it made me feel truly apathetic about what the future would bring. Interestingly enough, I don't think I was really fooling anyone - my bedroom looked like that of a high school girl (anime posters covering every inch of the wall, a loft bed with pink satin sheets, a computer desk with cute toys all over the place) and I wore clothes that no man in his right mind would ever normally wear.

During this time, I daydreamed a lot. The number one thing that I would think about is how much better my life would have been if I were born female. Or, at the very least, if I had transitioned younger. I would come up with scenarios in my head of how things would be different if I were female. How would people treat me if I were a woman? What type of fashion sense would I have? What kind of guys would I attract/look for? What would my interests be? What would high school have been like? I let myself retreat into these thoughts all the time - if I couldn't get the life I wanted in the real world, my imagination was going to have to suffice.

One daydream that I repeated a lot came when I rediscovered Phish back in 2004. I had all of their studio albums when I was a freshman in high school, and had even seen them live back in 1995 when I was a junior. The good news was that I had discovered that pretty much all of the live shows they had played over the last 15 years were now available on the internet, and the stuff I heard I had really liked. The bad news was that they had literally broken up perhaps one month before I found this out. Phish is a band whose entire premise rests on each concert they play being worth going to, which resulted in a Grateful-Dead-esque following of fans who would follow the band on tour. For the years that followed, I regretted that I had never really gotten a chance to do that. There was something about the idea of travelling around the country with people like me and music I loved that absolutely appealed to me. I loved both the aesthetics and the philosophies of the Phish 'scene' and it just seemed like a perfect fit. I would oftentimes imagine that, if I were a biological female when I was in high school, I probably would have had more confidence to seek out my own personality instead of falling in with a crowd. I'd picture, in detail, talking music with guys at shows and feeling completely comfortable flirting with them. The imaginary tour basically became my 'happy place' in my head when I would start to feel down about my utter lack of a future.

Of course, this was all in my imagination. In the real world, Phish had broken up and I was still living life as an unhappy guy. Recordings of shows because 90% of the music that I listened to, and that would pretty much have to do. That pretty much covers 2004-2007. Thankfully, I woke up and realized that I owed it to myself to seek happiness in my life, and eventually got things underway with transitioning. Somewhere during transition, I found other bands that I really liked that still toured, and discovered a love for live music all over again. I've written about more than a few of these in this blog - I've certainly had my fair share of relevant moments at some of these concerts.

A few months after I went full-time, I saw an announcement that Phish was playing a reunion show in March. Soon after, a summer tour with a stop in MA (at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, known as Great Woods) was announced. After I got tickets to that, a tour opener at Fenway Park was announced the week before the show I had tickets for. To be honest, at that point I was feeling lukewarm with Phish - after listening to them for years, and having found more music that I liked, I figured that I would have an OK time and at least get to see what I had been missing out on. If anything, the two shows would be a fun chance to meet new people.

I mentioned in the last post what a good time Fenway was. Great Woods was even better. I had offered a ride to someone from an online forum so that I would at least have company for the trip, and he made for good company. We walked around the parking lot for three hours - because of the large amount of people that will follow Phish around on tour, the parking lots become a large combination flea market/cookout/party/meetup for fans for hours before the show begins. It was really cool - the day was beautiful, and the vibe around the lot was "we don't necessarily care about rules or norms, but we're a big parking lot of friendly people so come say hi!". Perfect.

I had more crazy adventures. I helped a girl sneak into the seating area from the lawn, and she repaid me by teaching me the tricks to sneak to the front row. I bounced around a couple of different spots, and had no problem getting to meet any of the people that I found myself next to. There were definitely some characters around that made people-watching rewarding. And the music seemed way better than it did at Fenway - I think it was aided by both better sound and a better setlist. Much like with the Fenway show one week before, I didn't think once about being transgendered and I had an absolute blast.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized I was literally living out a dream of mine. People sometimes tell me that I am one of the more positive people they've ever met - well, why shouldn't I be? How many people come up with a situation that seems impossible for so many reasons, only to one day realize that it's happening? I'm going to a music festival in the middle of July, and I'm going to travel out to Denver in late July/early August to try and catch four nights of Phish at Red Rocks. I'm totally ecstatic - for the first time, I'm looking forward to going out, and this is largely because I finally feel comfortable with the idea of socializing with new people. I'm no longer worried about being seen as a "guy in a dress" and rather look forward to being seen as "that cool chick at the show". Also, between brokeness, apathy, and lack of confidence, I haven't traveled out of the northeast in 5 years, which makes the prospect of flying out west even better.

So, suffice to say, all is well. It's not just "passing as female and going to shows", I have really felt on top of things in most facets of my life. Work is tough but I'm able to handle it, stay sane, and have fun at the same time. I still have plenty of friends who I adore to death. There is still a bit of sadness associated with the passing of my father, but I feel like I'm handling it as good as anyone could in that type of situation. I have been talking to more people online - between that and concerts, the network of people who only know me as Michelle is increasing, and that's a good feeling. The Sox are in first place, the band is back together, and all in all I'm really pleased with the way things are going.

I'm going to end this post before I jinx myself any further. Good night!

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Epiph-fenway

2009-06-03T04:02:14Z

On Sunday night, Phish (my favorite band and one of the best live acts around) played at Fenway Park (my favorite stadium, located two miles from my house). Although I had waffled at first trying to figure out whether or not it would be worth it to buy tickets, I eventually decided that I would regret it far too much in the future if I didn't go. This turned out to be the correct decision, because I absolutely had the time of my life.

For the longest time, I had been battling with shyness caused as a result of my gender. Part of it was knowing that I didn't have much experience living as a woman, and was still feeling my way through some social situations (especially around other guys). Part of it was being transsexual, a label which unfortunately has a lot of stigma attached to it. Part of it was in having all-too-good of an idea what guys are like, which is both intriguing and scary at the same time. At any rate, I had resigned myself to the fact that I should be straight up with new acquaintances. I would let them know right up front that I'm transgendered and don't have a problem with it, because it would reinforce that there's nothing worth being ashamed of and allow them to get to know me for who I am.

At least, that's how it worked in my head. And in theory, it is correct, because I still maintain that there's nothing to be ashamed. I'm not 'broken' or 'crazy' or 'perverted' or whatever else people think of when they find out, and I'm wasn't going to be afraid to let people know that the stereotypes are false.

I had an epiphany at that show on Sunday night. From leaving the house on Sunday until getting back home way later that night, I tried not to think at all of the fact that I'm transgendered. I went out and just acted like a biological female would. Starting right on the train, I met an engaged couple who I was able to immediately get along with. We proceeded to have all sorts of adventures throughout the night, including going into the kitchens on the 5th floor because one the guy had worked at Fenway Park the year before. I joined them for the second set (after wandering around all parts of Fenway sneaking into better and better seats for the first set) near the third base line and just had a blast. Great music, great lights, and everyone around me was really sociable and friendly so I got the fun of meeting a whole bunch of new people. My confidence was at an all-time high - and still is - all because I realized that I need to stop thinking of myself as "different" so much.

It's a tough thing to realize how much 'needing to be out' was holding me back. It doesn't really matter that there's nothing to be ashamed of - it still shouldn't be what people base their first impression of me on. If the whole point that I'm going on is that 'who I am' is more important than 'what I am', why do I feel the need to bring up 'what I am' as soon as possible? It's not really necessary, since my biological gender isn't going to be relevant to 99% of the people I meet anyways.

It's gotten me thinking about starting over and going stealth. I have maintained that I don't feel the need to do that just yet, because I like my job and have lots of friends and generally have a good thing going. Sunday night was the first time I realized just how much I like people not knowing that I'm anything but a 'normal' woman. It was the most freeing thing ever! There is now an allure to starting over that I had previously not really considered.

Tomorrow and Saturday night are two more concerts, and in both cases I'm not planning on mentioning my gender issues at all unless there is some worthwhile reason to. No more of this "what if they find out I'm trans- and go crazy?" stuff psyching me out - I'm just going to be myself and assume that things will work out. If things go well - great. If they don't - well, I'll likely come out a stronger person for it. I usually give this advice - to just eschew fear and take risks - to friends that ask me for advice, and yet hadn't really challenged myself until Sunday. Already, I'm looking forward to meeting new people in a way that I never had before. It's pretty great.

In general, life is looking up. There are certainly things (first and foremost: money) that are stressing me out, but I'll deal with them in due course. Right now, the positives are outweighing the negatives, and that's all I can ask for.

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Something I'm Really Happy With

2009-05-26T12:39:50Z

Picture 1

This is me, back in 2005. I think the black and white adds a nice nostalgic touch to the picture.

Picture 2

The last 100% male picture of me I could find.

Picture 3

Last Friday after work. Notice the clever pairing of the shoes and the dress.

Picture 4

I can't help but notice I smile more now that I transitioned.

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Strange Things

2009-05-20T15:17:17Z

There are two quick stories about things that have happened since my father passed that I wanted to share in this blog. These are things that I would normally write off as coincidence, but would like to believe have more depth than that. Frankly, I don't think it matters why these things happened so much as what they mean to me.

The first thing happened on my drive home from the funeral. Like I said in the last post, I was feeling really bad at that point, both physically (I had a huge headache) and emotionally (I just wanted to be alone for a little while). Before getting in my car and driving out of Connecticut, I decided to download the newest episode of This American Life to give me something to lose myself in. The only things I knew about the episode before I left were the theme, "Return to the Scene of the Crime", and that it was a live episode that was filmed at a theater in Chicago (and thus was likely to be a good show). I got into my car and immediately started the show.

I try not to push my interests onto other people (or to do so very minimally), but I do ask that anyone reading this post click on the following link and give this episode a listen:

http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/CPRadio_player.php?podcast=http://www.thisamericanlife.org/xmlfeeds/379.xml&proxyloc=http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/customproxy.php

If you don't want to listen to the whole episode (and shame on you if that's the case!), please jump to the last story which is 37:46 and check it out. Pretty please. I have been a huge TAL fan for the better part of a year now, and Dan Savage's "Our Man of Perpetual Sorrow" is one of the most heartfelt things I've ever heard. The author, a gay man, writes about his mother's death, and how he wants to believe that she is in heaven despite not being able to truly get behind the actions and messages of the Catholic church.

This was the exact stuff that I had been thinking about six hours before at the funeral.

It's really hard to explain what was going through my head, listening to something so well-told that seemed so incredibly personally related to my own situation. I can say that it was almost cathartic to listen to. I suppose it's a normal feeling that one goes through when losing a loved one, the feeling that no one really understands what it is I'm going through - and that one essay (written by a sex advice columnist, no less) honestly made me feel like my father was saying "Hey, I know what you're going through, and it's all right to feel the way you do".

In that story, Dan talks about how he goes to the church a few days a week - not so much to pray as to think about his mother. What I've found is that I relisten to his essay in much the same way that he goes to church. It's the best way that I've found to truly take 15 minutes out of my day and just think about my father. I have yet to get through the story without crying, and I take solace in that. I really miss my father, and in the absence of prayer, the best thing that I can do is to keep him in my thoughts.

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Before my father's condition got to the point where drugs had rendered him incoherent, there was a point where he was going to undergo surgery to have his cancerous kidney removed. I knew that this was a risky operation, and that there was a very good chance that I would lose him that day. It wasn't an easy thing to accept, and so I dealt with the stress of the situation the same way that I deal with other stress: writing. I wrote my father a note that basically had everything in it that I could think of to write down - as I'm sure people can imagine, it wasn't an easy thing to come up with. Also, before I wrote that letter, I had asked my father if there was anything that he would want me to take care of should the worst end up happening. He told me this:

"If Manny Ramirez ever plays in Fenway Park again, I want you to organize a massive shunning of him. I don't want people to cheer him or to boo him. I want everyone to stand up, turn their back on him, and not make any noise at all".

If I haven't mentioned it before, my dad really loved baseball and the Boston Red Sox. And as such, he felt that Manny Ramirez - a talented player known for not particularly caring about the two things my father loved so much who eventually left Boston in an unpleasant manner - was one of the worst people in the world.

So, back to the letter: here is the last paragraph that I wrote to my father:

And so now the time comes to end this letter. It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever written, filled with things that I’ve never been able to really properly say. I really want the best for you and I know that it’s out of our hands at this point. I love you more than any words or any letter can properly express, and I know that you love me just as much.

Thank you for being there and loving me with everything you’ve had. You’ll always be in my heart and thoughts.

Love, Michelle

PS – I’ll see to it that Manny gets the shunning he deserves.

Did you see that last part? Because to the people not from Boston/who don't follow baseball - Manny was suspended from baseball for 50 days after being found using illegal substances. Looking at the opinions of sports newscasters, of fans around the internet, and of people living in Boston - it would appear that I won't have to do anything to facilitate a shunning of Manny Ramirez. The weird thing is that the story broke the day after my father's funeral. It's not that I think my father had any pull in this - that would be crazy - but IF my father had a chance to influence something like that happening from beyond the grave, that is certainly something he'd consider.

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It's these weird sort of coincidences that will help me keep the memory of my father at the forefront of my brain. I'm happy about this. I will always have memories, and old photos, and keepsakes from the first 29 years of my life, but it's nice to see these strange things occur because they make me wonder about the finality of death. I'm still not sure I believe in heaven, but I can say now that I'm also wavering on my former opinion that once we died, "that's it". I don't want to believe that, and it's nice to think that my father probably doesn't want me to believe that either.

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