Tuesday, November 8, 2011

I am now within the definition of GLBT.

With my acceptance of myself as a transgender female I find myself within the definition of GLBT, or gay lesbian bisexual trnansgender. This is a fact. The common use of the term GLBT makes this fact politically active and merges my case with those of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, in ways that may or not be to my liking but nevertheless represent a certain reality that I have to deal with. Each of the four types has its own distinctive social milieu, but these are sufficiently related to one another that the GLBT term serves a definite social and political purpose and is not to be ignored. I don't get so much value out of categorizing myself as a transvestic fetishist, which I am. It links me to transvestites in general and does not have much political power behind it, or at least so far as I can tell from having to keep my condition a secret for so long. It also, the transvestic fetishism, is not commonly known as a subgroup within transvestites, and what is believed is that it isn't a type of gender identity disorder, usually. This makes it more trouble as a category for me than it's worth.

To wear or not wear false breasts.

I have a certain reticence about wearing false breasts. On the pro side, it feels good. On the con side, it strikes me as pushing the envelope in terms of cosmetic effects. In addition to these thoughts there is the matter of just how to falsify breasts. On a slim budget my only real option is water balloons in a large cup bra. What if they should rupture? Well, I got really large balloons, so for any given inflation there is more structural strength. Also, for a really large inflation I decided to double them up, one balloon inside another. Even so, there is a risk, and an accurate estimate of the risk is not easy. But even if they did rupture, it's only water and no physical damage would be done. It would just be terribly embarrassing. I don't know what other options there are, and how much they would cost.

There is something to be said for being patient for hormones to give me large breasts. But hormones may not happen if they find my liver won't take it. Then the balloons will seem my only option.

The effects of having lived as a male for sixty years.

Probably the most difficult problem I have now is that I look like a male in my face and have developed a vast set of reinforcements for expressing the male gender. I have seen that these lead nowhere, so it doesn't basically influence my decision making, but nevertheless it makes for a hard transition.

I didn't grow up with a constant desire to be a woman. My desire was for having sexual arousal and orgasms while crossdressing and the rest of the time I just went along for the ride, doing what was expected of me. But this produced a dysfunctional man, unable to realize his most profound desires. The key ingredient, of living as a woman and having female orgasms, was absent from the world that was given to me, and consequently I didn't have before me a set of choices from which i could assemble a wholesome career and family life. So what then happened? What the hell was I to make of all this? Part of what was given to me was that I was being loved and nurtured by my family, and being educated for a useful life by the educational establishment. My duty was to believe in this, and my psyche was considered by my parents to be less important, or they wouldn't have considered my unusual gender identity an obedience problem.

The educational establishment had one chance to rectify all this. As a freshman at Yale I recognized that A) I needed a good outside opinion, and B) I was in a place where I could get one. I went to the University Health service, got an appointment with a conselor without stating what it was about, and showed up not really knowing what I needed to say or ask for except to just state I had a history of crossdressing. The counselor, after I made this statement, said something that seemed compassionate but she didn't have any questions for me. I said I understood that she was telling me that crossdressing was not a problem. I was centered on that issue rather than the larger and more urgent questions of just what I needed to do at this point. My parents had instilled the idea that I was an obedience problem in this matter and if I could get the counselor to commit to a judgment that it was not a problem then it was not an obedience problem and I would be relieved of the need for self-chastisement. The counselor answered my statement by rushing in to say she didn't mean that crossdressing wasn't a problem. It was at that point that my memory of the session ends. I left completely unsatisfied with the outcome and without any idea where to turn next. So I turned nowhere and five years later was in a mental hospital after sufferring an acute psychotic break.

For this reason I consider that Yale did me a disservice by the remarks of the counselor I saw. My openness to counseling was quashed and I never attempted to get more help. Well, perhaps negligence is hard to prove here, I don't know. I'm just not happy about Yale and what it has done for me in life. But that said, what can I expect from them now? These days, not much. It's not a happy story. Maybe I'll come to better terms with it with time. I am able to see, though, that my displeasure with Yale is based in my male complications and my female identity is basically patient about his.

Considerable rethinking awaits me, that's for sure, if I don't instead just throw out the whole male bag and accept truth as a female.

A look from a great man.

As I was exiting the men's dressing room at Filene's Basement a couple days ago, having just tried on a skirt, a tall, handsome executive type guy was standing right outside the door looking at some men's clothes and he looked up right as I walked out and saw me and looked at me carefully and gave me a smile that filled me with confidence. I immediately wondered if he wasn't there as a store detective checking out whether I was trying on a skirt with good or bad intent, however, his smile certainly was approving in any case and I smiled back and took in the moment with great thankfulness for his gesture, coming as it was from a very attractive man.