A better world for transgender children

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5279337

2 years ago/ Time flies

3 years ago this month I made my first steps in this journey by walking into a gender specialists office to see what I could do to get out of the depression I had been in. Through encouragement from Annah Moore I made that appointment and I still remember not even being able to look at the therapist in the eye. It seems like ages ago and it's so nice to have that shame extinguished.

2 years ago in the first week of Sept I made my first baby steps out of my shell and revealing publicly of my GID struggle. I've decided to share and reprint that post from my original blog...

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Skeletons in the closet keep me awake at night.

I'm approaching this blog with some trepidation as I am about to broach a very touchy subject with a lot of people. For the last few weeks I've sat back and watched as some friends have posted blogs that were very thought provoking and inspirational. It always amazes me these people walk the earth because those types of people are rare and by far better than the avg close minded individual.

Every so often out of the hundreds or thousands we encounter in our lives or on the internet there are always a handful of people who are diamonds and it is those jewels I am proud to consider friends. It's those people who I care enough about to be concerned of their feelings because before I've ever gotten the chance to consider theirs, they showed compassion for mine without hesitation. It is those people I look forward to saying hello too everyday and appreciating the fact that they take the time to do the same.

As I've stated 2 blogs this past week have had a profound affect on my thoughts and it is these I would like to address as they are the inspiration for this blog and for my thoughts.

Emthrax~ The Em Camp!

Specifically the posts Spaztic Sense and Close-mindedness I can't link to specific posts within Ems blog and I hope that she doesn't mind that I've linked to her and pointed these out.

Spaztic Sense~ "People are afraid, afraid to be themselves. Afraid to calm down, afraid to smile, afraid to work, afraid to relax, afraid to just play. Some people think too much, some people don't think enough.
Sure, you get wrapped up in things and your legs get tangled around the trivial things in life. Quit walking like that, you look like a goof. Oh wait, I'm the one walking like a goof! Go figure. Hahahaha!"

Close-mindedness~ This blog is a bit long to copy so I'll simply ask that if you are interested where this is going then please read it as she hits the nail on the head repeatedly ..

Next up is Annah Moore Rightsideout who has come to be a great friend of mine and I look up too immensely. Her blog specifically regarding fear and guilt is great

Fear

After reading these writings I walked away from my computer thinking pretty deeply of not only where I've been in life but where I am right now and how those things affect my thoughts and interactions throughout my days.

If you were to have a child that had a flaw in their genes would you want it corrected? If you had a child that had a birth defect would you want to have it corrected? I find it funny in life that in order to find innocence we easily find it in our children but not the people we interact with everyday of our lives. If our children are flawed we can easily look past the flaws out of love, so why can't we do this with each other.

There is no such thing as a black and white world as some would have us believe. To be different is not something to be ridiculed or frowned upon, but it is something makes the human experience rich and interesting. If we were to break what is different down into basics then why is it so tough to not be able to understand things as such as human sexuality, gender issues, race etc etc etc. It is much more simple to grasp diseases and biological disorders that we do not perceive to be a threat to our own well being. Yet everyday people become ostracized over simply being biologically different out of fear and control.

So here I sit ready to bare my soul and hope that I land on my feet and not my ass. I have a lot to lose in this but I also have a lot to gain in freeing myself the the guilt and fear that Annah's blog spoke of. It is in this freedom that tales will be told true .. Who are true friends and who aren't.

Those who care may not understand but will not ridicule me or judge me. These people can make a world of difference by educating themselves and understanding that it is ok to simply be different.

Those who decide that this subject is wrong, I am a freak for stating this or even that this subject has no place in our world, These are the close minded people that Em speaks of. It is these people that cause people like me to live in fear, shame and guilt inevitably living our lives hating ourselves for things we cannot control. These people were never my friends to begin with because it was obvious they simply didn't care enough about me to take the time to understand people that deal with things such as these. I have no place in my life for people like this ..

So here we go .. The ball is in the readers court now ..

I've spent my life living in fear, guilt and most of all self hatred over a condition known as G.I.D "Gender Identity Disorder" If you have no understanding of the disorder please click the wikipedia link I've provided and read with an open mind. Please go to Annah's site and read again with an open mind and understand that as much as some people hate it, without self acceptance first we spend a lifetime of hating ourselves over that which we cannot control.

A little over a year ago after dealing with suppressing GID over a lifetime I came face to face with my self for the first time and either had to face it or kill myself in the process. I spent a lifetime of filling my life with family, work and music (bands) It was in this I found that keeping myself busy prevented me from thinking and dealing with what I'd felt and known from my earliest childhood memories. I'd often told my wife the 2 things that do not mix well with me in my life is downtime and time to think. These downtimes caused depression for weeks on end and out of fear of dealing I had done my best to keep my life full.

In my past writings here I've mentioned having a child very young and doing everything in my power to raise her to the best of my ability. Shortly before her 19th birthday she moved from my home leaving life to be just my wife and I. This for any couple leads to a time of re-evaluation IE" What now"

For me that loss of family life meant time to think, time to loathe and time to hate myself again. Not that I ever stopped those behaviors they were there daily but purposely suppressed to whatever degree I could. Dealing with these feelings have always led me through depression and bouts of anger and rage emotions that were always very hard for me to control.. In essence going through a period of life of simply hating people and society for my condition..

When given the time to think this time my life spiraled into what could be construed as the worst depression I've ever had because of .. "What now" By July of 2005 I had gotten low enough to admit I don't believe I would have been around this life too much longer and then something happened. Annah Moore's story came to the forefront and made me realize that not only was I not the only person feeling this way, but there were people who have dealt with it in a positive manner. moved on and lived their lives in peace.

After contacting Annah it was in her words that I finally got the courage to seek help and by August I had finally gotten the first help of my life regarding this issue. I owe a lot to
Annah in her compassion and most of all her desire to help others afflicted with this because she at a minimum helped me get my life back to some degree.

If you do not understand how deeply the self hatred can go and write this off as a choice then understand this. In contacting someone who had not only been through this disorder but turned her life around one would assume that you should be able to discuss this openly without judgment. Society teaches us in a manner of self preservation how to be fearful and guilty and even talking to someone with the disorder these emotions were present.. I could not even reveal to Annah who I was and I used a fake email address.

Today I am moving on and most of all happy to be still here to write this blog. I am well aware plenty of people will judge me and probably either hate me or not bother with me anymore but at the end of the day I am tired of ceding control of my life for that of close minded people.

In closing I will state that several people close to me are aware of what I've dealt with/am dealing with and those people have still been true friends to me, it is in those people I am forever grateful. If you know me please understand nothing changes I am still the same person I am just becoming more aware of life ..Please don't treat me any differently, I value my friends.

I'm sure rumors will fly now and negative things will be said, so be it. It is better to not lie about it and be alive then to take my life and have people wonder why.

As Annah's website states

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Shakespeare: Hamlet I, 3

I'm about to find out who my true friends are ..

Latah people

~K~

It's just another Manic Monday

Well here we are, off vacation and back to work. Slightly depressing to be getting up at 5am again but I'm happy to say that my week off was a restful one. We didn't do much in the way of vacation stuff, the weather wasn't great so between bursts of rain we would get out on the bikes. When we do stay at home vacations we tend to eat out almost every night and this one was no exception, in fact I'm looking forward to getting back to a more normal eating habit.

Last Wednesday was really cool. We have a local restaurant that opened late last year, it has a really wide variety on the menu but Dee and I tend to go for the bar specials. Specifically we go in for the Wed night pizza special which is a 2 topping pizza for $5.99, how do you beat that? Dee had the great idea to invite our friend Dina along. Dina her husband and I went to high school together and she is the godmother to my daughter. Since learning about my transition plans both her and her hubby have been uber supportive of me.

Wed was nice for me on several fronts, one of which was simply a girls night out. In fact there was some mention of going out once a month like that. I have to admit when dealing with friends who were couples, I get to feeling guilty for leaving the husbands behind. I have to come to the realization that we will now have differing interests or as my friend Cynthia recently put it "You're not part of the boys club anymore Karyn" If anything it was just nice to be out with the girls and feel able to talk freely.

The 2nd part that was really nice was that the people closest to me tend to not notice the changes as easily in me. They still see the features of the old me and when they here stories of me getting addressed in female pronouns they can't seem to wrap their heads around it. While Dina was with us she got to see our waitress address me as she, her and ladies, it certainly made my night to have someone else see that.

Friday Dee and I decided to take advantage of the rainy day so we went to see a movie together. (Like we're ever apart) We decided on seeing the new "Mummy" movie as we both enjoyed the first few. It wasn't a bad movie but it was no where near as good as the first couple. I think it feels to rehashed and stale at times. The action is good and some of the effects are cool.

Saturday morning I was looking at the website for Nashua Harley Davidson and noted something interesting. If you bring in your old dealer's shirts you can trade them in for 25% off a new dealers shirt. A dealer's shirt is simply a Harley shirt and on the back it usually has a dealers name incorporated into the design. This could work out awesome for me as I have an over abundance of of men's Harley dealers shirts that I thought I'd have to either donate or throw away. Now at least I'm able to replace them and get a decent discount! We stopped a the dealer to verify that this was the case and sure enough not only was it the case, the girl behind the counter did't know and she said it was time to clean her closet out!

Saturday night Dee and I took the bikes up to Manchester (Manchvegas) to have dinner with a new friend. Not long ago there was a series of articles in our local paper and Cynthia was one of the people spotlighted. Cyn and I are of similar ages, sense of humor and both dealing with the same thing although her being ahead of me in the process.

When I first read the article I thought it was cool because it showcased local people as well as the Dr's I use. I had no intention of contacting her, I don't like invading other peoples privacy but when I mistakenly came across her My space page and saw she had my Sister Annah on it as her friend so I just had to add her as a friend to my, My space page.

Cynthia and I have been emailing for several months and tried to get together in the past. We were finally able to make this happen on Sat night and we settled on meeting at a BBQ place. I'm so sorry I did't have the chance to get to know Cyn sooner, she is such a bright, charming and witty woman. She playfully refers to herself as mom and with the love and compassion you see that she has for others there is no doubt that she has totally earned that respect. She is definitely a woman I hope to spend a lot more time getting to know and sharing some laughs with.

Cynthia reads my blog faithfully to see how I am doing, offer words of encouragement or anything else that I may need. She made it a point to tell me that when she looks at me all she sees is female and that I have nothing to worry about. It was most certainly something nice to hear and I'm hoping I can take some inspiration from her now to finish my journey.

Speaking of My space and my personal page I really need to get off my butt and start changing it over to more Karyn and less Kevin. This is the last "Webpage" I have that doesn't totally reflect what has been going on with me and was designed primarily around my love of guitar.

Sunday was a down day for Dee and I. We finally got the chance to visit with my friend Bob and spend time with his new son. Like Gianna, it is amazing to me how big he has gotten already and how he's at that stage of smiling at you which is so cute. Bob and his wife look incredibly happy and they are falling into their new family role well.

Last night was the first time I've cooked in over a week so we decided to have some homemade soup in bread bowls. Cooking has always been and seems to have gotten even more of a love of mine. We decided for miss fussy pants (Dee) that I would make her a cheese and broccoli soup and for myself I did spicy chicken fiesta soup. They came out pretty awesome if I do say so myself (and I did!)

Yesterday a friend of mine was interviewed by 20/20 for a future episode. I'm not going to discuss who or why yet but I am totally proud of her for stepping forward and telling her story. If she helps just one person it will be worth it. When I am finally able I will release the info here. Until that point I spoke to her after it was done last night and she seemed to be incredibly at ease with the interview.

Lastly and probably not the best part, I could't get to sleep last night and I did't fall asleep until 1:AM or so. Add in the fact that I get up at 5 am and today is my first day back you can well imagine how I am feeling right about now. Tonight will certainly be a rest night.

Karyn

Bikes,Trucks and Bread

I'd like to thank Lori, Sam, Veronique, Kathy and whomever else took the time to write and comment about the last blog. While I have a hard time believing that I look ok, it is always nice to hear from others that they feel I do. I'm not totally sold on spending the money on the vest yet but I am seriously considering it!! Who knows maybe that will be the next posted picture.

While emailing with my friend Cynthia today I mentioned one of the things that happened over the weekend shortly after we left the Harley Dealer. She has encouraged me to blog it and share it so here we go.

After leaving Harley on Sat, Dee and I wanted to go to get some bread and english muffins at our local outlet. We both hopped on our bikes and started heading out towards the store. At one point we were on a divided highway 3 lanes wide, in the left lane. We needed to take a left onto a through way that goes over the river into our town.

As we pulled up to the light to wait for our turn as I said we were in the left lane and I was on the left of Dee. As we sat at the light a big pickup truck pulled up next to Dee and apparently he was feeling a bit flirtatious as I heard him talk to Dee. "Nice day for a ride, You look mighty fine on those machines" he told Dee. She looked over, smiled and said thank you. She's used to this happening for obvious reasons, cute little blond on a bike.

As I sat at the light listening to this I thought to myself how I'll never get used to guys flirting with my wife, right in front of me. This was never a problem when I was "Visually male" and usually looking like what we refer to as a dirt bag when I'm on my bike. :o)

Then a funny thing happened that tore me from my thought. He chimed up a little louder for me to hear. I was talking about BOTH of you, you BOTH look fine on those machines!!

Well I must have turned the same shade of red that the stop light was because Dee looked at me and just launched herself into a fit of laughter and continued that ALL THE WAY TO THE BREAD STORE!

I guess I don't have to worry about guys flirting with my beautiful Dee as much as worrying about them flirting with me. Truth be told, I had a smile on my face for the rest of the morning!

Karyn

Big Sister's acceptance

Apparently my sister has decided that I need a new hairstyle. She's very into photography and playing with graphics so she decided to see what I looked like in a new hairstyle. You will all have to let me know what you think

Awesome huh? I never pictured myself as a glittery girl .. I almost pee'd my pants when I saw it and I think I'm still laughing!

My sister had been wonderful to me since she found out. When I first told her she didn't understand it but wanted to be able to and she wanted to show me that no matter what that she still loved me. Shortly after she found out, I received a message from her asking to get to know her new sister. I think when I got that; I almost cried with not only relief, but the fact that she just opened her heart so easily. I'm totally hoping as time evolves that we can share a lot of moments that we have missed out on over the years.

I've added a new link under my blog roll. TransCanada is a blog from a t-sister who like me, remains committed, married and in love with her wife. Veronique is an awesome chick and I hope you'll find her blog interesting.

Tonight Dee and I are supposed to be getting our granddaughter over night. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and spending time with her. 2 days ago I got a picture by cellphone and she was standing!! It's amazing how big she has gotten and how much in love with her both Dee and I are. It's almost like watching our own daughter grow all over again ...

Yesterday Dee and I went to panera for bagels in the am and then over to our local Harley dealer to look at clothes. I used to have a leather riding vest that I had to give away because I dropped 50 pounds. I've never replaced it because of the impending transition. Yesterday I saw an awesome women's leather vest with Harley Davidson scroll on the back. I cringed when I saw the price! $130! Dee wants me to get it but honestly I have such a hard time spending that kind of money on myself. I think the only time I've ever spent big money easily was way back as a teenager when it didn't matter!

Well enough for now I guess, time to resume my "staycation". Time for a shower, off to the farm for fresh veggies and hopefully get some housework done. We are having salads tonight for dinner so maybe we'll grab some steak tips for them as well. At any rate I hope all of you are having a kick ass Sunday!

Karyn

Learning new things

Well it's been a bit of a long week, not bad; just long! After posting the last blog about being stared at I got some really cool emails and thoughts on the subject. Funny enough when I went to my monthly counseling session Wed night the counselor came up with the same conclusion without knowing what others had stated to me. It was actually a bit eerie. What I'm about to talk about I've debated all week as to whether or not I wanted to share it. I felt it was better to share and be honest than not and not have it as part of the story.

After it was pointed out to me in email I decided to research and read a bit, low and behold I fit the description perfectly and it made so much sense. One of my dear sisters pointed out that I might be an "empath" Sure enough this was exactly what my counselor pointed out as well. The only difference was that my counselor felt that it became for a part of my life because of my upbringing. I'll explain more later.

For those who are unaware of what an empath is, he is the wiki link on it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empath

Now I'd be the first to admit that paranormal stuff never played much of a role in my thoughts, I've never really formed an opinion. After talking to my friends and counselor I was able to relate it to a book that I'd read called "the gift of fear"

The premise of fear is that it is designed to keep us safe. In the animal world it is used everyday as a tool for survival. Just pay attention to how any animal reacts to changes in its environment. Every small vibration and sound is analyzed for potential threats and the animal reacts to protect itself. Sometimes it makes mistakes and pays the hefty price for it.

The idea that this exists in humans isn't so far fetched, we are just evolved animals. The idea in the book was that at any given time we have the ability to sense danger in our environment or space. All too often we hear a victim of violent crime say that something just didn't feel right but I went in anyway or I ignored it. This is the same reflex that animals have with the exception that animals haven't acclimated themselves to ignoring their senses, humans have. All to often we get that feeling in our gut and we suppress it and ignore it only to realize that it was a bad decision. It's simply an intuition that we have but we do not nurture.

Having empathy and being able to easily sense emotion in other people isn't much different. A change of voice, body posture, facial expression or any other change forces us to evaluate the emotion of the other person. For an empath" this ability is amplified and they sense it much easier than most. Like the "gift of fear" it is nature's gift of emotional intuition.

I've always from a very young age been a very sensitive person. Sensitive to changes in other people and my own. I can easily sense changes in an instance and at times that sense can be very emotionally exhausting for me. But it was something I'd never fully paid attention too, it was just the way I was, until someone pointed out why.

After sitting with my therapist she explained that the reason I had probably learned to tune into this sense is out of survival. As a child my mom was a very bitter emotional woman that at the drop of a hat could go from being happy to being explosively angered. A lot of times this anger would end in emotional or physical abuse of yours truly. In this negative issue I learned to pay close attention to the changes within my environment. When I was a child we would liken the change in my mom to "walking on eggshells". All to often I would try to get a vibe of what she was like before I would ever approach her to talk to her. Out of this need for self-protection I learned how to read people.

As a teenager I learned to shutdown and not deal with things when it came to my mom. She never understood quite why I'd done that and to this day it's always been on my shoulders and not of her issues.

When I met my wife I would often tell her that the gateway to the soul was through the eyes. That is to say that you could tell a lot about a persons character simply by their eyes and I was quite good at this. Over the years I've had very few true friends but a lot of acquaintances from this very issue. I just didn't trust easily and used my intuition to guide me.

As a child my mom would often tell others that she felt I was a very good judge of character but didn't understand how or why I was. I would easily make up my mind in an instant as to whether I liked or disliked a person or even trusted them. In the cases where I would tell her I didn't like someone I usually ended up being correct.

As people have read here that I have had some troubles getting out full time this was finally related as to why this is happening to me. Anne felt that being so sensitive to others feelings and the environment around me that it was emotionally stalling me. It wasn't because of how I would see or fear people reacting but because I could feel the changes around me and it scared me.

While I don't know if I can use this info to go full time it explains a lot about why I feel the way I do in a lot of situations throughout my life. If anything it is really cool to be able to put a piece of the puzzle together and just understand what makes me who I am.

Last up, it's Friday and I'm off next week. I'm looking forward to the time off to regenerate, as I've been not feeling like myself lately. I've found myself to be very irritable over the last week or so, hopefully the time off will do me good. If anything I tend to think this is coming from this last path I need to walk towards full time and letting go of the old. I've noticed that over time I've felt like I am stalled or stagnant then I see a huge emotional change in myself. Generally this change is preceded by a sudden "I've had enough time to move to the next level". I guess you could say this has been the only down side to the baby steps approach. If anything hopefully this is the start of the end …

Karyn

Feeling aware ...

I don't know if it is just in my head or I'm now living in a state of heightened awareness. I'd known since I start hormones that my sense of personal space had changed. I became much more aware of my personal space and the people who invade it. At times without hearing anyone come in the room and noticing they were there I could feel their presence behind me, I could literally feel their being. I swear sometimes it is like something out of a star wars novel.

Sunday morning as usual we got up and had a nice breakfast. Generally we end up going out on Sunday morning but this weekend we had decided to stay in and have a nice breakfast at home. Honestly I could have used a Bloody Mary or a Mimosa! After breakfast we decided what to do for the day and headed off to grab our groceries. Dee also wanted to go shopping for some new sneakers.

We decided to hit our local Hannaford and get what we needed for the week. When we arrived there it was amazing to see so many people doing their shopping. We had gotten a later start Sunday, usually we are shopping by 9am; this time it was more like 11

I don't know who he was, nor do I care to know. I could feel his presence, I could feel his stare and I could feel anger and hatred. Sure enough when I turned around I was being started at in a very intense manner. I couldn't figure out which spooked me more, the fact that he had that intense stare or that I could feel his anger.

Every turn I would go back to my own business and without seeing him I could feel his presence whenever I would come into his view. It had to be one of the most unnerving feelings that I have ever experienced.

When I pointed this out to Dee she looked at him for a few minutes and simply said "He's mad at the world for some reason" Somehow I think she was right. My instinct for a brief moment slipped back into the old me and I wanted to confront him, but I know that now that would be the foolish thing to do as I am no where near the strength I used to have and even then I wasn't terribly strong.

I don't profess to have any weird gift and quite honestly I've never gotten into the whole psychic ability thing. There's no denying what I felt though, it was too real and too charged to not be.

~K~