Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Nightmares from the Past

I am a voracious reader and since I finally bought myself a Kindle I rarely watch television.  I just finished reading what I consider one of the best trilogy of mysteries I have certainly ever read. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl That Played With Fire, and The Girl That Kicked The Hornet's Nest which were so engrossing I bought and finished all three novels in a period of 5 days. The author Stieg Larsson died shortly after he delivered the manuscripts to the publisher which is almost criminal because he was such a brilliant author. The trilogy is a massive international best seller and tens of millions of copies have been sold.

The two main characters are Mikael Blomkvist a journalist and Lizbeth Salander a rather standoffish waif of a girl who had had to fend for herself since she was 10-12. She is without question the single most unusual victim and heroine in modern literature. The reason I bring this up is simple.  In the novel you learn Lizbeth was mistreated in a Psychiatric Ward where they essentially used aversion therapy on her because as she said, "nobody would listen to me so why should I talk to them". She refused to talk to the authorities and in particular one Psychiatrist because he was basically a sadist.


Stieg Larsson mixes a lot of truth in with the fiction which is what intrigued me. Sweden is a screwed up country, with a screwed up legal system, a severely screwed up concept of personal competence, a screwed justice system, and far more violence than they would ever want the actual real world to know about. Sweden has one of the highest reports of rape of women in Europe. For a country with under 10 million people and spread out over a large area they have 168 sex crimes per 100,000 inhabitants.


One of the techniques used with patients in Psychiatric Hospitals was sensory deprivation. It was a favorite trick in the State Mental health Facilities of Sweden as late as the early 1990s and was certainly a favorite of the sadists that tried to "convert me" when I was 17 in Massachusetts. I was once told by a very noted person that, "Sweetie if you think Physicians have a god complex you have obviously not met a Psychiatrist". Truer words have never been spoken.

In my time the favorite sensory deprivation techniques were lack of sleep and the horror of absolute silence. In the hospital I was in they would look me in a room with no windows and padded walls and use temperature and noise so you could not possibly sleep for any length of time. The German asshole I mentioned in my earlier post on Aversion Therapy was fond of this but it was not his favorite. I do not sleep well as it is so I did not sleep period during those times. The absolute irony of the entire scene with him was he was confused about me himself. His assistant would constantly remind him that "she is a he" because he constantly used female pronouns when he tried to "cajole" me into telling him I was either not a girl or not gay which i found amusing actually.

I can be exceedingly stubborn, Welsh heritage is the root cause, and just decided fuck you I am just not going to talk to this asshole and I did not. Just for the record screaming dose not count because a lot of what was done hurts quite a bit. My German "Psychiatrist" was only at my facility one or two days a week but I got the impression he took special interest in me. I wonder why?

After a while they isolated me so they could force the psychotropic drugs of the day into me either with the food or simply by force. I lost a lot of weight and dropped from around 120-125 into the 110 range which was shocking to my brother Ray when he finally was allowed to see me.

The not talking didn't last as long as the heroine of the books. They had what they called the "White Room" in my facility. It was a padded cell like room which, in my case, initially had nothing in it but the stains on the padded floor and walls.  There were no windows and when the door was closed it was a soundproofed room and when the lights were turned off it was so dark there was no vision. Without gravity up or down and left and right had no meaning even though I could move around.

I was 17 and I had no clue how terrifying absolute darkness and silence could be. The darkness was bad enough but it was the silence that was the worst.  There were no bathroom facilities and no way to communicate that I knew of with the outside world. It became obvious after what felt like years in their, actually 30 hours the first time, what the stains on the floor were.  The stains on the wall are not something I want to think about.  I went in at 8 AM on a Tuesday and was released at 2 Pm on a Wednesday to "discuss" my situation with my German Psychiatrist who, if I spoke, I called simply "Nazi Bastard".


They altered treatment when they took me into another White Room where they had a bed in one corner, only it was not padded but just painted white. They would strap you to the bed which was something I was accustomed to from several electric-shock treatments or attempts at it. I resisted violently. The first time they did this the lasting memory was the orderly who helped to strap me down mouthing the words, "I am so sorry", as he was finishing up. Several times they had done something similar and then set up an IV with some drugs to force you into this drug induced haze where some wacko would tell me I did not want to be a girl.  Like he had a clue.

My Nazi Bastard came in and tested the straps and approved. He left and they turned the lights out and closed the door and you could not move.  I could move my head side to side and that was it. Essentially they tortured me to stop me from telling them I was a girl. I was not the only one they did this too. It was a sadistic game of humiliation played out over 24 hours followed by a "cleansing" with a cold water hose since everyone soiled themselves and this of course gave them a chance to "see the freak".

After a while it is hard not to hallucinate. They never did anything to scar you physically but they tried emotionally.  I survived it because I made a choice to close my eyes and just think about the boy whose death in Southeast Asia had resulted in me ending up here. I would relive every moment of the 4 year relationship we had.  From the first kiss in June of 1959 to the goodbye in the parking lot of the dorm in Columbus Ohio in February, 1963 which be our last kiss before his death. I replayed everything in my mind over and over. The skiing lessons in Quebec when I fell down on purpose so he would rush to my side as I feigned injury. How he always treated me as his girlfriend and the abuse he took back home when it became a realization that we had a relationship. He never wavered in his support. I relived every minute I could remember.  It made me realize again how kind and gentle he had been with me those four years, also how incredibly fortunate even those four short years were. I learned love was possible even for a "freak" like me.

I was the one that would have pushed things but he insisted we wait until surgery on my 18th birthday. I wanted him so badly and I knew he wanted me.  I lost him in May of 1963 but he saved me again in the summer of 1963. They stuck me in both those rooms a combined 8-10 times in the middle of my nightmare 8 weeks and the "Nazi Bastard" was really upset it had absolutely zero effect on me.

After I started reading the books I had a nightmare about the "White Room" which was weird because I cannot remember the last nightmare I had. I woke up and scared my cats off the bed I moved so fast. Most of this crap is in the "Way Back When Vault" because that is where it belongs. I do not like to remember it or talk about a lot.  Writing that post on Aversion Therapy took me a week.

This was easy to write. After waking up I walked into my home office quite shook up. One of the pictures on the wall in my office was given to me by Kevin's mother Mary several months ago and it hangs above the Acer Portable I use for the Internet. It is a picture of Kevin with his Green Beret team taken in Southeast Asia.  It is the last known picture of him and the team. They all died less than a month later. I knew his two close friends that stood to his immediate left and right.  He brought them to Quebec the last time we met there in the summer. They became friends and I was just Kevin's girlfriend.

I went back to bed and beat the nightmare goblins by thinking of Kevin from that first kiss to our last meeting but mostly about that wonderful summer I spent with a boyfriend and his two best friends. Some memories should not be kept in the "Way Back When Vault" and others should. I really and truly do owe my life and my sanity to a young man buried 48 years ago.

There are just some debts you can never repay.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Reconnecting with a brother

If you have read my blog at all you know I have an older brother and a younger brother. My older brother and I have been close forever but my younger brother and I have had occasional difficulties and had not spoken since 2005. I have mentioned that my mother was kind of a sports fanatic which is not unusual if you grow up in the area of Boston, Massachusetts. Even if I was not much of a boy I did grow-up a sports fan. It rubbed off from my mother, brothers, and parents.

The circumstances around my younger brother and I not speaking are complicated. Some of it is residual from our mutual childhoods. To be quite honest it was not a cup of tea being my brother. When a brother younger than you by 2 years has to protect you from bullies and protect you from yourself when the suicide attempts were thwarted it can result in resentment or even hurt them psychologically and if there is one quality that young transsexuals have it is single mindedness. We are selfish because our need to be the girl we should be makes us selfish. We are often oblivious to the pain we cause those we are closest to in our family and that includes those that truly support and help us.

Having moved away from New England and the sports fervor that resonates throughout the area when a professional team is fighting for a championship I rarely watch the teams. In New England it is the Boston Red Sox, The New England Patriots, The Boston Celtics, and last and certainly least the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League. My brothers both played hockey and have always been huge fans. Even though I grew up in Boston I was a Montreal Canadian fan because the uniforms were pretty and Rocket Richard, the flying Frenchman, was just so handsome.

On Wednesday evening my older brother Ray decided to play mediator when the Boston Bruins played the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup and the defacto team hockey championship of the world. The National Hockey League is truly an International League with both teams made of players from Sweden, Canada, Slovakia, The Czech Republic, the United States, Germany, Norway, and Finland.

When the Bruins took a 2-0 game lead I received a call from my older brother in Montana and he convinced me to watch the game and before I knew what was going on my younger brother was conferenced in and I managed to watch the hockey game and reconnect with my younger brother and it suddenly dawned on me how much I truly missed him. I learned early on in life to just not think about people that hurt you or seem to dislike you. It is much easier to ignore them than try and deal with them. Those of us born Transsexual learn this safety mechanism early on or we would go nuts because hate is often all too obvious. It really hurts when it happens later in life and I did what I usually did which was withdraw from him.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like growing up with me as your sibling. I pushed back a lot and as my older brother once said "sometimes it is not easy having you as a sister" and this was long before my completion of my journey. A six year old brother should not be the one to find his older sibling in a drug induced stupor as I tried my first attempt at suicide. How horrible that must have been.

What do two young boys tell their friends about a sibling like me?

Wednesday started about as cool as the ice surface in Canada but we started talking as the Bruins were winning the Stanley Cup but eventually well before the game was over and the hardware was presented to the Bruins we were thawing the ice that existed between my younger brother and me. I missed him a lot. When I moved back from California in the 80's we played a lot of golf and we of course had our mother who in retrospect realized there were issues but kept us together or at least talking.

He was the one that controlled my mother's estate after her death and had shipped me the boxes containing the letters between my mom and Dr. Benjamin, letters between Harry and me, letters to my mom, and all my medical records which were and are important to me. It was rough when our mother died but the day after her funeral I was shunned by that side of the family. I admit it hurt because his kids and I were close and it all changed. They knew nothing of my past but they both know everything now. All I know is I was not invited to my nephew's wedding and that hurt. I have talked only with my brother.

I felt I owed him an apology and when we talked for two hours this morning on the phone I did tell him I was sorry for what I put him through and I was kind of shocked when he said he should be the one apologizing. It suddenly hit me about 30 minutes into our conversation that he had read all those letters I had received and my first thought was how since he had zero foreign language skills?



The rest of this reconnection process will be up to me and I am not really very good at what I have to do. I always feel weird when I know people know and I know they know and they know I know they know. I was always close to my niece and we are going to talk this evening. My nephew will be more difficult because he is über conservative and the Aunt that took him to Metallica, Aerosmith, and other concerts may be a freak.  We will see.

I did learn from my younger brother how embarrassing it was for them to have me as their sibling and brother and he said something quite ironic but funny.

"Why couldn't you just have been born a girl?"

Well yeah!!! My thoughts exactly but unfortunately that was not how it was. I tried to explain, quite poorly I admit, that that single fact was what I struggled with every day of my childhood and if I want to be honest I still struggle with at times. Why is a horrible word in certain circumstances and this is a big one. I felt cheated as a child and I have felt cheated my entire life. I have always felt I was denied the life I should have had had by some unforgiving freak of nature event or worse yet by some omnipotent being that could not freaking get my birth sex correct.  How hard can boy-girl be for someone that is supposedly omnipotent?

Of course most of us realize now this was some weird hormonal wash that somehow failed to connect with our physical sex correctly and thus we were born transsexual. If there is an omnipotent being I would like some answers but then being born transsexual pales in comparison to many other birth defects so if there is an omnipotent being they may be just as clueless as most of us are. I still feel cheated though.

At some point in the near future I will venture north to Massachusetts and deal with this part of my family because I love my younger brother and I never realized how much I missed him. I have always been good at moving bad stuff to that "Way Back When Vault" or the other as important one called the  "I Refuse to Deal with it Vault" which I am an expert at manipulating or at least I thought I was.

I know it was not easy for anyone in my family and maybe this is a little kick in the shin to remind me.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Perception is your Truth

Gustave Flaubert regarded as the prime mover of the realist school of French literature and best known for his masterpiece, Madame Bovary has a lot of famous quotes which can be found at Gustave Flaubert quotes.


"There is no truth. There is only perception."
 “You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.”
 “Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless”
“Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art”
“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.”
“Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.”

In an article by Chris Maser that can be found here under Perception is Truth one can find some interesting quotes which I also find quite relative.

The Indian spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, said that, "A votary of truth [a person fervently devoted to truth] is often obliged to grope in the dark."
"Truth is absolute. Perceptions of truth are relative. Therefore, facts, which are perceptions of truth, are relative. That is why truth is singular and perceptions plural. "
"Trying to understand the Universal Laws is the essence of science. Yet even having worked as a scientist for 40 years or more, I would not know a "scientific truth" if I stepped on one, because my perception of how Universal Laws work is constantly changing. A "scientific fact" is therefore a fact only by consensus of the scientists, which means that a scientific fact or "truth" is only an approximation of what is. It represents our best understanding of reality at this moment and is constantly subject to change as we learn."
"My dream told me that Truth is both impartial and perfect, while our perception of truth is both partial and imperfect. In addition, Truth can exist only where The Eternal Mystery is, only in the present, in this instant, in the here and now. The past and the future are both illusions, and like all illusions, they are devoid of Truth."

It is why I always try and mention that what I write about is my opinion. I often fail unfortunately because I am human and passionate about some subjects. My truth is my perception of "what is" and may or may not be true in the truest sense of true or even perceived as true by those with a different perception of reality. Any of us that claim the righteous "truth" are in fact lying to ourselves because perception makes it our truth.

When I write about myself it is from my memories and they may or may not be flawed but it is what I remember and luckily I have someone around that remembers and was involved with my life until I was 17 but even her version of the "truth" is how she perceives it although she did write a journal about all of it as it was happening, which is also her perception of what happened which quite often contradicts how I actually thought it happened. Her perception is different than mine because she witnessed it and lived it from a different perception.

I write for myself and my opinions are my opinions. I really do not care who reads this blog.  If your perception is different and I upset you then go read a blog you agree with. The first 25 years of my life were lived in turbulent times when there was hardly even a perception of the truth about what I was. Even after I learned I was "transsexual" I really had little information about what that truly meant other than the occasional meeting or phone call with Dr. Benjamin. It got better as the years passed but it was never easy.

I have often said it was just so confusing. I thought I was a girl and could not understand why they could not just "let me be" a girl.  The naivete of a child whose perception was that she was really a girl despite the obvious physical difference in her genitals. My perception of the truth was mine and mine alone but it was my truth and there are many children today whose perception is similar.

This perception of our truth does not make us better than any other Transsexual but it does make us different than most Transsexuals because we are the ones that usually resist and fight back against being what others perceive we should be. If we are lucky we have parents who recognize what is wrong.  If we are not lucky it can get very ugly for the child. When your sex identity is at odds with your body life is not a lot of fun. Few of us make it past 30 although I have several friends who did but "living hell" seems more appropriate than "life" considering what they lived through.

It is my perception of the truth that makes it difficult for me to understand others because my perceptions cloud my view of them based on what I understand.  It is the same for them when they look a me and others like me. They often believe they would like to be like me and then alter their perception of themselves to fit a paradigm that in my perception can not possibly fit them. They do not realize that 2 + 2 does not = "22" but they think I should alter my perception of the truth to fit their perception of their truth.




Wednesday, June 8, 2011

John Money

I am wondering how many people hanging around the transsexual/transgender blog world actually understand who John Money really was and how much he is to blame for transsexualism being under the DSM umbrella or declared a mental disease. Money was a psychologist, a sexologist, and an author and the biggest proponent of nurture over nature or gender identity not sex identity. He believed being transsexual was acquired like learning to fish and not innate such as inborn.

John Money coined the terms gender role and Money is the man responsible for broadening the definition of gender that allowed its usage to blur the simple fact that sex and gender are not the same. John Money was a Professor at John Hopkins from 1951 until his death in 2006 and was indirectly responsible for John Hopkins dropping their early SRS program in the late 70's because he refused to stand up to the Psychiatry Chair McHugh. John Money was also a liar, a fraudulent researcher, and destroyed the lives of many transsexuals over the years. John Money was at least a supporter of the man-boy love groups and was in my opinion a pedophile and maintained a large collection of pornography that ranged from incest to necrophilia and included pedophilia. He often showed the collection to his students.


His frauds included the lies he told concerning the famous David Reimer case where Reimer's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision and Money supervised his rearing as a girl which was a total failure. He lied about the research results and was accused of molesting both David and his brother by the Reimer children. Money was an evil and nasty man and I know this from personal experiences since I met him twice. Once in a medical environment set up by Harry Benjamin and the second time on Television in Philadelphia after my surgery in the early 70's.

The first time I met Money I was not quite 14 and the second time I was in my mid twenties. Neither experience was very pleasant. In the first meeting I was certainly not psychologically or emotionally ready to face his onslaught and was certainly not prepared for what he tried to do to me in a private meeting. The second meeting I was ready for him and a much more confidant young woman but he was both very mean but very convincing in the lies he told almost exclusively based on the David Reimer case fictitious results.

I speak from personal experience when I tell you John Money was an evil and deceitful man. Money's belief that gender and not sex identity defined transsexuals was at odds with Benjamin and others but his writings are the reason Bailey, Blanchard and their ilk are not considered charlatans which they really are.

An article on CNN-US about therapy to change a feminine or sissy boy is classic Money. 

Whether the child was gay or possibly transsexual we will never know.  All we know is he is dead at 38 by his own hands and in a sad way what they did to that child was aversion therapy on a 5 year old.

It will never end until transsexualism is removed from the DSM and made medical.




Sunday, June 5, 2011

It does get better for Transsexual kids

My mom's beloved Boston Red Sox are doing an anti-bullying video for the It Gets Better campaign which is really aimed at kids. I will admit I follow the team but I am in no way shape or manner as obsessed with the Sox as my mom and brothers are. Maybe it comes from literally being forced to play Little League Baseball when I was 12.  My brothers wanted to be Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio and I wanted to be Monroe as in Marilyn. Both of my brothers were quite impressed a baseball player was dating her and even if he was a hated Yankee his girl was cool.


I think the video Janet Mock did for Transsexual kids is very important.  Kids need to know it is ok to be different and more importantly Transsexual teenagers truly need to know life does get a heck of a lot better and why it can and does may surprise a lot of you.


Like many of my sisters I was bullied very severely as a child. It got ugly as I reached 10 primarily because I just did not fit boy really well.  It was not because I was a flamboyant queen but physically, psychologically, and ironically gender wise I was such a horrible fit for a boy. Yes I did said gender. Let me explain.


Gender defines how society expects boys and girls to present.  It is more complicated than that but kids are not that complicated. Boys look at other boys and they see either boy or different and then they decide if the different is palatable. I started school young and skipped grades early so at ten I was in what we call Junior High School in the United States or grades 7-9 and actually started 7th grade at 9. I was much younger than the other kids but physically I was tall for my age so they perceived me as an equal age wise. The problem with Type VI Transsexual kids is most have a really difficult time being boy enough to be palatable to other boys. In all honesty I have never met a Type VI that did not have this problem regardless of what they looked like.


This may be why Type V Transsexuals manage to get through their teenage years and into adulthood and can actually fool or delude themselves into trying to be man enough or male enough for society.  I will leave that to them to discuss. The irony is one does not have to be overtly feminine. Plenty of boys are very pretty in a feminine sense as kids but somehow boys recognize them as boys and they are palatable as boys and face no bullying.  Maybe it is their physical prowess or masculinity that other boys recognize but other boys seem to know.


The boy that became my boyfriend in High School was a beautiful boy but he was never bullied and grew into this uber Alpha Male athlete and was still gorgeous as a young man but in a masculine way. The primary problem Transsexual kids have, at least Type VI do, is we somehow just do not project as masculine or male. Even before I got mad and pushed gender boundaries, that word again, boys seemed to know I was not one of them and girls were quite honestly puzzled by me and not sure what to make of me.


I carried my books in front of me against my chest like all girls do. Boys carry books at their side because they have more arm strength or more likely it is a boy thing. I had a Ten Pin Bowling Instructor once tell me girls arms are different than boys and it was why he was having a hard time teaching me to hook the ball instead of throwing a backup ball. It was true but it was College and he was cute and the harder I made it for him to teach me to ball "like a boy" the longer I got to be around him and he did perceive me as a girl. Other gender markers just somehow screamed different or NOT BOY to other boys. We just did not fit into boy or girl and that is a problem for kids.


It is almost impossible for Transsexual kids to hide what they are if Type VI which all young Transsexuals are that transition early. Most just look at themselves as heterosexual girls, at least initially, because it is that girl awareness that boys are cute that starts the big issues. Most of the bullying occurs out of fear. Even the girls that bully Transsexual kids do it because of fear. Whether it is fear of the unknown or more likely fear that they are not hetero-normal it is actually based around perception of gender.  Most of us young Transsexuals are obsessed with changing our sex once we realize we can do it but in many cases, even today, kids just do not know it is possible.


I guess most that read this blog know it was kind of ugly for me when I was a child.  There was both physical abuse from boys and a lot of verbal abuse from adults. Information was sketchy in the 50's and even though my parents in their own way were supportive, they did not pound me with androgen as suggested, I was confused, hurting, and most of all angry that I was not a girl. The safest thing any Transsexual child can do is quite simply "come out".  Tell people you are Transsexual.  Tell your parents how you feel. It does not mean you have to live the rest of your life "out" but it will be a whole lot safer for you in the short term.


How can you say that is probably on the tip of more than a few tongues out there. Actually, it just very simple. I was 13 1/2 when I told a boy I was really a girl and just wanted to be a girl.  It managed to go through my High School in about 20 minutes once another friend of his let it out but in all honesty it was the best thing that happened after the initial weirdness of how it came about passed. I can still remember the "he wants to be a girl" or "he thinks he is a she" comments.  This happened at the end of my Sophomore year in High School and things change rapidly in my life. Even then I had no idea I was Transsexual but kids and particularly boys seemed to understand the issues which I found weird when it happened. 


I remember telling my mom that boys didn't hurt "real" girls like they hurt me shortly after that part of my being was exposed. Kevin, my boyfriend at time, told me it was simply because the other boys now realized I was sort of a girl and the vast majority of boys would never hurt a girl.  It didn't hurt having the QB of the football team as a "friend". 


When I met Harry in late 1959 just before my 14th birthday I learned I was Transsexual. It was the day I learned I had a chance at my "real" life. Before then I thought I was doomed. My High School might have been the most enlightened High School in that era in the US because when it came out I was transsexual I absolutely never had an issue of violence again perpetrated on me by a teenager and I felt free to be me. One could not transition in the 50's but unless you knew I was a girl it became kind of a silly joke not to tell knew male students I was not a girl and then when they learned I was not a "complete" girl they were told, "She is okay.  She just wants to be a girl." This was the 1950s in conservative America but it was okay to be me.


Except for my adult neighbor, he raped me in February 1960, I was never physically assaulted again. It is why every child we have helped over the years gets the recommendation to openly tell others they are Transsexual because the simple concept of "outing" yourself lets boys in particular understand their feelings or subliminal attraction to you is basically pretty normal because you should have been a girl. I know it sounds stupid but in many ways it is actually that simple. 

The obvious question is how would I know this? The answer is simple.  I was told this.


When I told Kevin I was a girl we had a rather heated exchange about why other boys hurt me, many his friends by the way,  because I was terrified I was about to be hurt because of the event that was in progress. I have never forgotten what he said.


My friends thought you were queer but I just didn't get that feeling. I like girls and have never had any thoughts of boys. Everything about you screams girl. That is why all the guys are so uptight about you. Guys don't like to think they are attracted to another guy. It scares them to death. You scare them to death because if you were a girl they would be chasing you around this school but then you should be a girl, right?


I think I screamed at him boys hurt me because I confused them?





You were never a boy so you don't have a clue what it is like.  All we think about is sports and girls.  Believe me when I say girls come first.  We are confused enough by girls and then you come waltzing into school. No makeup, you walk like a girl, talk like a girl, act like a girl, smell like a girl and you are as cute as any girl in this school. It is natural for boys to be immediately attracted to you at first. All our senses say you are a girl and even the shy boys’ dream of dating a girl like you.  Then everyone realizes you are not a girl. I'll bet you don't even realize you were the single point of conversation the first weeks of school.  I'll bet if you ask your homeroom teacher she will tell you at least 50 boys asked what your name was. That is how we found out.  I asked her myself because I didn't believe the other guys.

Part of the problem is exactly what Kevin said. We Transsexual kids really have no idea what it means to be a boy. 

I cannot speak for gay or lesbian kids but this is what the Transsexual kids face and the bullying will never totally end, there are always assholes, but the physical assaults at High School will stop and in most cases the verbal assaults will end. The minute boys realize you perceive yourself as a "girl" it begins to make sense to them why they think of you as a "problem".  It will not resolve all the problems such as realizing a boy is cute and wishing he was your boyfriend but it does open up possibilities and acceptance can lead to caring.

Boys in America have a tendency to react violently to confusion over who is boy and girl.  It is bred into our culture that boys are macho and not being macho is not normal. I was too afraid to let anyone inside my life except for Kevin so I never understood what I missed my last two years in High School. I did attend my 10th High School reunion because everyone thought it would bring closure, a weird concept actually, and it actually did and the thing I learned was I missed out on having girlfriends in High School as in real girls that accepted me as a girl. That reunion was at once the scariest day of my life and one of the nicest in many ways.

It is why I wholeheartedly recommend Transsexual kids "out" themselves as girls if MTF. It is not only incredibly freeing for the child it also enlightens others and almost everyone accepts kids like me and them because it just seems to make "sense". I went to my reunion with "revenge" on my mind and I learned something about other kids. One boy who had hurt me badly had tears streaming down his face when he told me in front of a lot of late 20 something friends how sorry he was and how he wished he had known earlier. 

In my era knowing was the issue but today it is weirdly the fear of acceptance and I cannot speak about the issue of fully transitioning in High School other than telling kids we have never had an issue with a kid we have helped that transitioned in High School or earlier. Kids are actually pretty good with other kids that have issues.  It is adults that teach children to hate. It is often religion that can teach people to hate. Hate is learned and not natural for humans. 

Fear is natural and it is fear of the unknown that more often than not causes the issues Transsexual kids have. Once the unknown is removed kids are actually weirdly cool with kids like me today. Getting out and getting help are paramount.  Getting on hormones as early as possible are even more important. I know how important it is and there are Physicians today that will not only help kids get blockers bu estrogen in their early teens and they exist within the United States.

Every Transsexual child that comes forward helps themselves immeasurably but just as important they help other kids like themselves. It really does get better and it starts the earlier a child starts being honest with themselves and their family. People actually understand and accept Transsexual children almost universally. From the late 50's through until late 1969 I doubt there was anyone more "out" than me and I have led a full and productive life as a young girl who grew into a young woman. My life has in many ways been quite normal, several friends might disagree, but it really has.

It does get better for Transsexual kids because once the Transsexual part is over life is really a lot of fun.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Life is just the odds of certain events happening

Life is a series of events that define our very existence and these events start in the womb of our mother. Medically all of these events occurring in the womb are separate and not related to each other. They are all independent of each other and not mutually exclusive as stated before.

The odds of being born straight are approximately 9 in 10 or 90% thus the odds of being born homosexual in some form including bisexual is 1 in 10 or 10%. People will try and skew these percentage but these are the approximate odds based on basically every known study. A few points here and there are relatively insignificant statistically. I really do believe we are born straight or gay and it is why homosexual is not part of the DSM and rightfully so. Any wingnut that believes otherwise is well a wingnut.

Thus being homosexual is 1/10 or 1 chance in 10 and is equally distributed between male and female based on most studies.  We are not considering experimentation here but those that identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual which is around 10% of the US population and a generally accepted percentage worldwide although some want us to believe it is higher.  It is not. Certain traditional values people will claim otherwise with non scientific polls but for my purposes I am choosing 10% because it is easier to use so forget about it.

Based on current statistics the odds of being born intersex is 1.7  in 100 which is the highest number I could locate.  This includes all forms of intersex condition from hermaphrodite to mosaic or 47 XXY (Klinefelter) which is a favorite of certain pseudo transsexuals because they can use it to fool the wife. The XXY syndrome occurs in 1 in 500 males and is actually quite rare and 99% of all XXY births are sterile.  Being born XXY is an independent event and has no relationship to being born transsexual. When a child born intersex has their genitals altered at birth the issues they have later in life is NOT Transsexual. It is a horrible case of mutilation done before the child realizes their true sex and is not in any way related to gender or transsexualism although the symptoms may appear similar.  There sex was altered at birth by some quack which is not the same as being born transsexual.

The odds in being born transsexual are approx 1 in 30,000.  I think this is incorrect but for this post I will accept it as valid when including all transsexuals. Harry thought it was closer to 1 in 100,000 were born Type V and 1 in 300,000 were born type VI which means being born transsexual is 1 in 75,000 births based on combinatorial odds.  Using 300 million as US population there are 3000 Type V and 1000 Type VI or 4000 total in the US which means 4000 in 300 million or 1 in 75,000 Americans are transsexual.  The 1 in 30,000 estimate in my opinion includes a lot of others that may be marginally transsexual as in Type IV but I will let those percentages stand.

Just as a personal disclaimer I was tested at 12 in Boston at Children's Hospital and I was NOT XXY although I had low testosterone and slightly elevated estrogen levels which a doctor noted on the test results was abnormal but had been seen before and recommended androgen which my mom thankfully decided not to do.  She wrote to Benjamin and I was saved that insult. I was not androgen insensitive and androgen would have helped me be physically male but would more than likely have killed me or more accurately I would have killed me rather than face that. The doctors did know I wanted to be a girl even in late summer of 1958 because I was there when mom told them that was what I wanted.

The irony of my condition is I know more diagnosed Type VI transsexuals  than most anyone I know and around 50% were in some way like me but an equal number were not. I know only a few that were not like me that survived.  Unless one has lived what we lived it is honestly impossible to understand and I am also beginning to believe that unless one has lived what the older transitioners have lived then I can truly never understand and I will try and refrain from further comments because I never lived it.

Using probability the odds of events similar to the above happening to the same person are the product of the odds of each event.  in other words you multiple the odds.

Thus the odds of being born transsexual and XXY is 1/30000 times 1/500 or one in 15 million. Slightly better than winning the lotto but kind of more like the double whammy. The odds of this individual male born transsexual and XXY fathering children is 1/15,000,000 times 1/100 or one in 1.5 billion which means given the current world population of approx 7 billion that there are only 4.6 people in existence on the planet earth that could be born transsexual, XXY, and father children without medical fertility intervention.

Add to this the claims of certain individuals that they spontaneously feminized, not a condition of Klinefelter by the way, and the odds of a single human being born like this is statistically impossible but giving mother nature a break i will give in to one currently alive. I can post the names of two who post on T-Central and know of several others. It is statistically possible but even mother nature would be stretching herself.

It is similar to intersex.  The odds of being born intersex and transsexual is 1.7/100 times 1/30000 or 1.7 in 3 million so lets give the intersex the common decency and avoid calling ourselves intersex until we are classified as such.  We are born this way but it does not necessarily mean we are intersex. Eventually we might be but we will statistically not significantly alter the percentage of people truly born intersex.

The really interesting combination is sexual orientation and transsexualism.  Under normal circumstances one would expect only 1/10 times 1/30000 or 1 in 300K being born transsexual and homosexual at the same time but I think there are other factors at work here. I have begun to believe that conditioning has a lot to do with the higher percentage of lesbian transsexuals along with the fact there are more than a few heterosexual transvestites slipping through the transsexual cracks.

Essentially the older transsexuals condition or train themselves to be heterosexual men and it is a hard condition to break even after a sex change. I wish there was an honest study that checked with the mid-life to older transsexuals and studied how many see there sexual preference change. I am not sure how high it is but it is significant. I do know that statistically Type VI transsexuals follow the normal percentages for genetic women when it comes to percent that are lesbian. It happens and Benjamin knew this by the way.

After all of the events that define us a male or female are finalized it is really up to each one of us to lead our lives as best we can and to deal with the cards we were dealt. Some of us deal with them head on and others deal with them when they can no longer handle the conflict within.  None of us are better than the other we are just different.

Mathematics does not lie. Numbers do not lie unless the input is incorrect but then the result is only as good as the input. In the case of certain people that claim XXY as a transsexual condition it is at least assuring on my side that the possibility does exist that one such person might exist and hopefully we all get to watch them fight it out publicly as they try and prove I am the only possible XXY transsexual that could father children in the current world. Since the two I can think of quickly also claim spontaneous feminization I think we can exclude them and simply categorize them for what they are.  Frauds!!!

There has to be a god. D'orsay has seen the light.

"There has to be a god." Just to be upfront I do believe in a higher power but just not in the loons that pretend to represent this higher power. It is just my faith and it has as much validity as those that do not believe although i am sure I will hear otherwise.

Now why would I say "There has to be a god", on my blog? It is simple. Toni D'orsay has seen the light. Toni D'orsay has come over from the dark side and now says she is transsexual and does not want to be considered transgender. Just to be upfront I have never had a single cross word with this individual and thus base my opinions on her previous blog.

It seems Toni is running for the 2012 US Congress and in a shock presents a platform that is both rational and enlightened.  It is actually a platform I could support in most ways since I am more Libertarian than either party. I am actually willing to support her under several conditions.

  1. She wants her sex change surgery as soon as she can afford it or has a medical condition that precludes surgery.
  2. She will promise to never support a bill in Congress that attempts to use the term Transgender as its key component.
  3. Whenever a bill is put forth with transgender terminology she makes sure EVERYONE knows what the term transgender includes and truthfully means.

I believe in redemption and forgiveness. So, when one of the biggest transgender supporters on the internet blogosphere  jumps ship to come to the right side I think we need to sit up and take notice. Now this could just be a political ploy but, a really big but here, she is to my knowledge the first person I know running as a transsexual and openly saying that means she is not transgender. Sandeen probably just had an aneurism and should shortly have a column claiming she has been betrayed and then of course make the column about Sandeen.

Why is this important? It is important because it will gain the spotlight, even if only in Arizona, and let John Q. Public know that transsexuals are NOT transgender and will openly expose the TRANSGENDER LIE to the world. The TRANSGENDER LIE is of course that transgender and transsexual are the same.

This is another kick in the collective balls of the transgender crowd that wants to ride the coattails of transsexuals to legitimacy. Obfuscate, confuse or hide actually, the truth and they will never know what hit them is the basis of the TRANSGENDER LIE.

Now the question becomes is this reality. Her actions will speak quickly and if I think she is being honest I might even support her financially from here in North Carolina.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The big Transgender LIE

What is the big transgender lie?  It is simple actually. One will never read or listen to a speech by a transgender activist dealing with public opinion where they tell the truth about what being transgender means in total. The implications are ignored and a classic case of obfuscation is presented. If there is one thing I am impressed with when finding TG activists is they are really good at lying.  You change transgender to what it really means, transsexual, transvestite, cross-dresser, gender variant, and wonder how much support they would get? Not a lot actually based on personal experience in my world which is basically hetero-normal.

Most people believe transsexuals deserve protection from discrimination and even in Texas support the right of a Transsexual to marry based on a Houston paper informal poll. The big lie is the transgender crowd implicitly implies that transgender means transsexual and skip the fact that 90+ percent of the transgender crowd is fetishistic transvestites, cross-dressers, cross-dreamers, and gender variant people with only the remaining 10% being just you plain old garden variety transsexual ranging in age from kids to older adults.

Corporate America is under assault by the TG crowd pushing for all kinds of laws supporting the prevention of discrimination against transgender people. How much support do you really believe they would have if people knew the majority of the transgender crowd were not transsexual but something else? I would wager any amount of money the public would be appalled if they thought people could cross-dress at work which if the laws are passed would allow teachers and engineers and anyone that wanted to to get their jollies by dressing in public which has now become the big thing with cross-dressers.

Now I do not think anyone should be oppressed because of whatever fetish they have as long as it is not illegal and does not hurt others but the workplace is not one of those places.  If you are not transsexual and surgery bound, with medical exceptions, then you should not be cross-dressing at work because your fetish enjoys it more but it will happen. It will literally mean men in dresses is actually going to happen.

It is a matter of life or death for most transsexuals while it is a matter of sexual arousal for many of the others but not all of them but it is not a life altering decision for anyone but transsexuals. The activist go to Corporate America acting as consultants and tell companies that "transsexual" is an out of date term and transgender is now the correct term but of course quite conveniently omit the fact transgender is really not transsexual.


In essence the transgender rights they talk about are transsexual rights but the conspiracy is to cover everyone under the umbrella. I had a phone conversation with a friend last week where he was proud his Company, he is BOD Chairman and the former CEO, was implementing a comprehensive transgender discrimination policy ,  He has known about me for 45 years and we worked together.  He was kind and decent to me and I owe him a lot because he was instrumental in my happiness later in life.  He is a good and decent man.

They had brought a consultant in whose name I was not privy to because of confidentiality and the BOD and HR were handed the TG lie and they bought it hook line and sinker. I asked if he knew how to use Google and had him Google transgender and to say he was shocked is kind. He had no idea transgender also included transvestites and the other various groups.  He thought it meant transsexual. Needless to say they did not realize what could have happened to their Corporate Culture.

John Q Public does not understand that transgender does not mean transsexual exclusively and it is deliberate. You can see it on many of the bloggers on T-Central. Some are honest enough to admit they are cross-dressers or even transvestite but many hide behind the transgender banner and ironically they are correct but many obfuscate their true intentions and many make comments like, "I think I might turn transsexual", or "I learned I was transsexual or might be transsexual" and so forth. Now they all want to keep their male sausage but transsexual is a more acceptable term than transvestite/cross-dresser with the wife.

The liberal progressive site Center for American Progress had an interesting poll where significant numbers of Americans were in favor of gay and transgender rights.  I wonder how much that poll would skew the other way if they simply added a definition of transgender that said TS/TV/CD/GQ and explained what each meant. I wonder how the poll would skew if transgender just said transsexual?  I bet it would bump up slightly but not a lot. I wonder if the term transvestite replaced transgender what would happen? Without separation it would tank. Few Americans support public female impersonation or emulation but most are afraid to say much for fear of discrimination legal action.

I actually have nothing against the transgender crowd except their lies. Why not tell the truth when pushing for a bathroom bill.  Admit you want transvestites and others to have bathroom rights along with pre-operative transsexuals. Why not tell the truth when pushing a transgender rights bill with a city, state or even the federal government? It is easy to answer.  If they admit the truth they are dead in the water before they even start.

Crossing gender boundaries is easy.  A little makeup, a dress, some heels, a pair of falsies, and a stupid wife that lets them get away with it. Crossing the boundaries of sex is a difficult and painful process and is not a game. Gender boundaries are a game the transgender play at. The sex boundary is a life decision that is no game to anyone born transsexual. It is a decision that is not refundable like the panty girdle some man bought for his en femme time.

I must sadly admit I will not be surprised if transsexual becomes a pejorative.