I need to document a couple of changes occurring simultaneously here. First, as mentioned, I’m full time now, and second, I’m suddenly poor. This is a result of court last week. Alex was one of the people I had told about my court date so he wanted to hear the outcome. “They ordered me to be female–poor, that is” I texted him. So I’m going to have to adjust to going out clubbing much less, drinking much less, going out for expensive dinners much less, and spending less on clothes and such. The drinking thing will be good. I haven’t had a drink in a week or so now, and I’m not missing it at all. Maybe I’m not an alcoholic after all? Really it’ll all be good for me. I’ll like cooking more rather than going out, and my roommate Al will like me better for living closer to his austere lifestyle.
Part of being full time is that in a sense, I’ve arrived. “Dressing” for me is now what it is for most of the population–getting up in the morning and putting on clothes for the day. Going out in public is being normal and boring. So one question is what am I writing about here? I heard one TS recently say that it would be absurd for her to journal everything she does every day because it’s all the boring stuff of life like going to the grocery store and stuff. I’m kind of there myself now. Do I keep documenting all this boring stuff? I think I will to some extent. I think much of what I’ve been documenting here has been boring all along, just mixed in with the far more interesting chronicles of my insane social life over the last few months. My purpose in writing wasn’t initially for the entertainment of URNA readers, it was for me, to document changes in my life. I think I’ll stick to that if nothing else.
I’ll write here from some notes I made on Monday. I was in the middle of an observing run then, sleeping during the day and being awake at the telescope at night. This the day that Tom from the boat house had said I should go watch rigging class, so I’d set my alarm for 4:30 pm. I woke up on my own an hour before that and made myself lie there and doze to try and be as rested as possible for the night. The alarm went off, I got up, dressed quickly, and got to the boat house on time for the class. Tom was right, the instructor was good. It was Keith, whom I remember sitting with at lunch on the work day just before opening day this year. (See? I should remember him from three years of sailing before, but I don’t. I was such a basket case as a guy.) After class, I decided to splurge on pizza at Uno. While waiting for the pizza, I went outside to return a phone call to Erica. She was calling to just catch up on stuff with me, give me her new phone number, and find out what I’d been up to. I’m afraid she’s still suffering some jealousy. She was dying to ask me who I’d been seeing and who I had plans with in the near future, but at the same time she was catching herself, repeating “you know, I don’t need to know.” Poor thing. It’ll take time. I think she’ll be at RCC this weekend. That should be a really fun night. I think lots of fun people will be there and that it’s going to be a great party. While I was on the phone with her, I was surprised to see Craig Mitchell walking toward me on the sidewalk! We recognized each other and I held out my arms to give him a big hug. I was on the phone, he was going somewhere, so we just said hi and that it was fun to run into each other like this and, that was all. He walked on, and I went back to talking to Erica. But really, just how cool is Harvard Square? That a tranny, hanging out on the sidewalk outside a pizza joint, talking on her cell phone, could see one of the area’s best house music DJs, exchange hugs, and just, go on with life. Pizza was good. Yes, I drank diet coke instead of alcohol, and walked through Cambridge Common on my way to work as the sun was setting. Just out of being in a great mood, I called Deedee. We talked for a few minutes before she told me that she was with a client. Oops! At the office, I emailed Wendy with some plans for Saturday. I told her that I had a bottle of champagne (the one mentioned in my last journal entry) to contribute to the hotel room party. Also, reading emails there was a post from someone leading to a fun toy on the web (http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php) that characterizes your writing as male-like or female-like. It’s fun, try it! I tried it on my URNA journal here, and, no surprise, it says I’m a girl. Later in the evening, Deedee called me back. Her client was gone, but I was busy with the telescope, so she had to put up with me setting the phone down every now and then to move the telescope. Mm, otherwise, I did post a reply to Kim. I’d met Kim at first event and just in the last day or two she had joined Sisters and made an introductory post. I don’t know, is this life boring? It’s still the life of a very new t-girl, all caught up in socializing with other t-girls.
A post I haven’t responded to yet is Sharon’s. Sharon asked on one of the mailing lists, “How come I don’t see more t-girls out in public?” She quickly got the obvious answers from others on the list. All the transitioned girls said “we’re there standing right next to you, but we pass and you don’t notice us.” All the closet dressers said “we choose not to go out in public and be ridiculed and humiliated” So that left me thinking about myself. I don’t pass completely, but I’m out there anyway. I guess that makes me pretty rare. I got me thinking that I am the public face of transgenders. What does the public see? Not the passable TSs, not the closet dressers. If they go to a drag show they see drag queens, if they’re on certain streets at night they’ll see prostitutes. But in the grocery store or in the office at work? It’s me. Coincident with Sharon’s post was an excellent thread debating the merits of gender therapy, the standards of care, and the real life test. Now, I have my therapist, but she’s not a gender therapist. I haven’t read the standards of care, I’m not doing any formal real life test in order to qualify for hormones or surgery, and yet, here I am going full time. How crazy is that? One of the arguments against the real life test is that it’s hazing. Forcing a person to go out in public in a non-passable state as a prerequisite for medical treatments to become passable is just wrong. But then my experience hasn’t been that bad. If fact, the reason I’m going full time is that I felt so well accepted while I was part time. This chain of thought led me to appreciate again the environment of Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston. Others have prepared the way for me and made these places accepting and welcoming. Cambridge and Boston have gender expression explicitly protected in their municipal codes. I heard recently that the reason Somerville doesn’t is that it was one of the pioneers in getting sexual orientation protected by municipal code, and that gender expression wasn’t even on the radar back then. Now we have new legislation introduced, 1722 at the state level and ENDA at federal level. The future is looking even brighter.
So I’m writing this up at work, and Gareth pokes his head in my office and says “I read your blog…” Oh-my-god. My face was beet red. I suppose I should get back to work…
I met Danny and kind of hung out with him much of the night. Daphne arrived and found me chatting with Danny. Also there were some guys wearing Rise t-shirts and I couldn’t resist going to talk with them for a bit about our common connection there. The last person I remember meeting there was Ariel. The show was fun, emceed by a hilarious commedian, there were raffle tickets and I won a gift certificate to Maine St., an Ogunquit bar where we ended up after the show.
