World's Most Amazing Friendships

I must take a moment to share with you all what a truly amazing group of friends my wife and I have.  We gather every Thursday night at our favorite club for "Family Night," and I am regularly left with a feeling of encouragement, love, and pride for this group of people.  It is a rag-tag bunch of lesbians, gays, straights, drag queens, and trans folks (well, I am still the only one of those, so I guess that makes me special - jk), but they are good and loving people, every one.

I have never before enjoyed such unbridled and limitless friendship and love from a group of people.  There is a reason it is called "Family Night," and I am proud to consider our friends my family.  It is better than any family I could ever hope for!  Whether it is open arms and hugs, or tough love; our friends always seem to be right there with just the words I need to hear in that moment.  We encourage each other, we support each other, and we educate each other.  I could not ask for more.

One of our closest friends in the group shared this little tidbit with me today, and I was so touched, I just had to share it with you.  I did not create it, and I do not know for sure who I did, or I would give proper credit.  Suffice to say that I whoever wrote these words was a very wise woman, and I am absolutely going to try to take her advice!

Love you all, and will write more soon.
Take care,
Kate

The Truth

I expressed recently my struggle with life by announcing the end, at least temporarily, of my writing efforts.  By way of explanation, I had begun to feel that the writing was not actually helping, but that I was just perpetuating more of my own bullshit.  I have struggled with anger and depression most of my life, and a lot of that anger and depression stems from elements of my life about which I have not been completely honest.  I was not being honest with myself; and in my writing, I was not being honest with my readers.  That is not to say that what I wrote was untrue – far from that.  But, in truth, what I wrote was generally an optimized version of my reality.

I pretended that I had it figured out; that despite the hardships I have endured, I was on a path to enlightenment.  The truth is that I was just hiding behind fancy words – sugarcoating depression with prose.  It is time that I deal with the stark reality of my mental state.  And so, I am going to share some uncomfortable truths with you, my friends.  You may want to avert your eyes (I would not blame you).  Understand I am not being sensationalistic; I am trying to clear the air, and I am trying to give myself a solid foundation from which to build a future.  I hope you will bear with me.

The Truth:

I am unhappy most of the time.  My outlook is bleak, and my attitude is burdened by the utter shame and disappointment I feel over the many failures in my life.  I am ashamed of my lack of conviction and my fear of confrontation.  I am embarrassed to admit that I am afraid to upset people, and that I feel an overwhelming need to be liked and appreciated.  I try over and over to break the chains and patterns into which my life falls, but I continue to repeat the behaviors that cause the problems in my life.  I am haunted by unvanquished demons from my past, and they invade even my happiest moments. 

I feel guilt and hurt and pain over things I should long ago have released.  I need to let go.  I need to get past all the barriers that keep me from finding my true happiness.  It is such a long list, but I must address it all and let it go:

• I have lived most of my life in the wrong body.  I am afraid (maybe irrationally so) I will never fully be able to resolve the problem.
• I feel the crushing weight of the hardships I have forced upon my children.  I robbed them of the things they held dear – an intact family, a loving father – and I cannot ever give those back.  Every time I see that their smiles do not quite reach their eyes, I die a little inside.  I have stolen my children’s happiness.
• I resent that I am now expected to provide the very things I failed to give my own daughters to another child.
• I feel guilty that I resent the expectations placed upon me, because I know they are reasonable.  At the same time, I am so afraid that giving over to those expectations will hurt or diminish my relationship with my daughters, I just cannot bring myself to embrace the situation.  That, too, makes me feel guilty.
• I continually feel like I am playing a part in someone else’s life story, and that mine will never stand on its own.
• I am afraid of personal confrontation and am embarrassed by that.  And despite the more and more extreme ways in which my inability to “disappoint” others’ expectations of me puts me in worse and worse situations; I cannot seem to stop myself from playing my part in their versions of my life.
• I know that I was and am a disappointment to my genetic family, despite a lifetime of trying to make them proud of me. And I feel like no matter what I do, that will never change.
• I never had an authentic conversation with my mother or father about anything.  They never cared to know me, and I never tried to know them.  My father is gone, and I miss him very much, even though he would probably disown me if he were still here to see what I am doing in my life.
• I regret that I cannot have the kind of relationship with my family that I have always dreamed of, but the fact that my dream includes my place in the family as daughter, sister, granddaughter, and niece seems to negate the possibility of ever having that relationship.  Still, I miss having a relationship with those parts of my past.
• I want people to like me.  Even when I do not like someone, I so want the person to like me that I am not true to my own feelings toward him or her.  On the very rare (practically nonexistent) occasions when I have been true to my feelings, I feel so terribly about it that I immediately reverse course.
•  I resent my genetic family’s intentional exclusion of me from family events and efforts.  This has always been a problem.  It has reached new levels; however, since my coming out.  What does it say, when someone would include you in a family email just to insure you knew that you were being excluded from the family?
• And most recently, I feel completely betrayed by the one person I should trust with every element of my life.  I know that she was trying to help me, but I was so emotionally devastated and embarrassed by the events that arose out of her help, that I am still struggling to get past those feelings of… well… hurt, I guess.

There are so many more little demons, but I think this captures the big ones.  You can see that there is a lot on my mind.  The rub is that I understand the irrationality of most of this.  I also know that much of it will resolve itself over time, and that I too have the power to resolve many of these on my own.  Some may never really get better (my family, for example), but I have to find a way to move beyond them in my own life.

That is my goal for the new year – my early 2012 resolution.  I must find ways to deal with and finally move past the demons from my past.  This is going to be hard, but I think what we can take away from all this is… that…

Katey is back!  Katey is back, and she is as healthy as ever (and she will get better).  

Thank you.

I Will Be Ba..

I have so much more to say.  There is so much more that needs to be said.  I will be back.

Please bear with me.  Please.  I will be back.

Saying Goodbye

It is with an empty heart that I type this final post.  I used to dream of being a writer.  I used to dream of a lot of things.  I think, though, I have reached a point in life when I must finally realize that those dreams will never be anything more.  I regret that I never made the effort, never took the risks.  I never lived.  I suppose it was fear that kept me from putting myself out there.  Whatever the case, my dreams have done nothing but create emptiness in my life, and pain in the lives of those around me.

So, yes, I am giving up.  I am putting away the "pen and paper," and I am giving up.  What I have written may have helped some people, and for that I am grateful; but the truth is I cannot continue to maintain this front.  I cannot continue to pretend that I am in a position to share wisdom, humor, insights, or anything else, when my life and my head/heart are such a complete and utter mess.  I do not have it together.  I am not okay.  Writing was supposed to help me work through that.  The truth is, I don't even know what I'm trying to work through.

I hope those of you who have followed me so faithfully can find your inspiration, wisdom, humor, data, or whatever it was you found here somewhere else.  I wish you all the best.  Ciao for now.

I am sorry.
Kate

Never Quite Good Enough

[Author’s note:  Sorry… it’s going up without revision, which means you get to read all the bile that came out on paper.  I did remove some names that I originally included, because I at first wanted those who hurt me to know that I remember them.  I later decided it would be better not to give them that satisfaction.  But I do remember every one of you who were involved in the incidents detailed below.  Be warned.]

I am so angry.  I have been angry for most of my life.  I have felt hurt, and rejection, and anger, and betrayal… betrayal by my family, by my friends, by my own body.  Think about it.  How would you feel if as a Kindergartner, you felt something that you instinctively knew would make people hate you?  What would it be like to know from your earliest memory that if you didn’t stifle the feelings that were inside you and instead color inside the lines that others defined for you, that you would never belong anywhere?  How would it feel to know that you had fiercely protected a secret, making yourself miserable and sick inside, only to be reviled, ridiculed, and hated anyway?  What would it be like to know that the lie you had to tell was just as much the reason you spent your childhood running, hiding, and being afraid, as was the truth that would have bred the same?

Imagine that life.  Imagine feeling so starved for that one sympathetic heart, that you would call your tormentors friends, that you would laugh with them as they mocked you, that you would walk the halls of a school feigning collusion with your classmates – the perpetrators of your misery – all the while dying inside; because the people who tormented you didn’t even have the right story.  But oh, they told stories.  They wrote them down.  They read them to me over the phone.  When that didn’t cause enough pain, they read them to whoever would answer the phone at my house.  They spread them.  They shared them in classes in front of everyone.  They laughed.  They writhed with pleasure in my pain.  I remember them.  I remember the worst of them… the stories about a girl named Tiffany.

I don’t know which was worse – that they wrote filthy rancid sexually charged stories about my fixation with a girl named Tiffany, or that they didn’t even write them about the correct girl named Tiffany.  But I remember the stories, and I remember the readings.  And I remember the revulsion on the face of the wrong Tiffany, the unfortunate pawn in a terrible game, and on the faces of her friends.  I remember the laughter as the football playing double bassist read the stories aloud for Tiffany and an entire room full of musicians – the one group of people among whom I thought I might be safe.  I remember the pain as if the quill still protruded from my back.

I hope it felt good.  I hope you all [names removed] enjoyed the laugh.  I hope the phone calls, and the locker inserts, and the handouts were all worth it.  You succeeded in making an already broken and miserable person hate her existence even more.  You made me want to die.  Oh, and my “loving” family… thank you for all the support.  Thank you for putting the blame for it all where it really belonged… on me.  After all, wasn’t it my idea to be born in the wrong damn body?  And wasn’t it my responsibility to keep such an embarrassing truth from being known?  And wasn’t it my idea to take all the cobbled and disjointed justifications for the lie I was living, and turn them into weapons for my own humiliation?

You know the worst part?  None of you even got the story right.  You took I lie I told to cover a lie (a lie that was supposed to protect me from the shame of being a freak), and turned it into a work of pornographic art.  Here’s the truth.  I was Tiffany.  The girl on whom I fixated was the person who was trapped inside me.  I called her Tiffany – I called myself Tiffany, because I remembered once being told that it was the name my dad wanted for me.  I guess I thought… I hoped that if I took the name my dad wanted for me, maybe he wouldn’t hate who I was quite so much.  I called myself Tiffany.  I wrote my name in my notebooks, so that I could see it, so that it would be more real.  I used the hope that seeing my name inspired to convince myself not to use the bullet that I carried with me.

You wonder why I am angry?  I hurt.  I was broken.  I needed help.  I needed someone to recognize me for who I really was (who I am) and love me for it.  Instead, you wrote stories about a perverted little violinist who loved a girl named Tiffany – a girl whose primary misfortune was sharing my first name.  That is, until you included the perversion of her in your twisted stories about me.

You know what though?  I survived.  Every day I live is a statement.  Every word I breathe is the product of all I had to overcome – all that you put upon me.  Your torture was the fertilizer in which I grew into a beautiful, strong, talented, and intelligent woman.  I am proud of who I am.  I am proud of the life I live.  No one else has to love me.  I love me.  And yes, I forgive the rest.  I forgive it, but I will NEVER forget it, and I hope that you won’t either.  I hope you remember whom you almost killed.  I hope you remember that the problem does not lie with those of us who fall outside the boundaries.  The problem lies with those of you who are building those boundaries in the first place.

I am a woman.  I am gay.  And I am proud of whom I am and of everyone else who finds the strength to stand up for who they are.

I love you all, and that doesn’t make me gay… just happy.

Peace,

Kate

Facing Unspoken Rejection

One of my big challenges in this transition so far has been weighing the very elusive balance between giving support to those who are working through this change with me, and fulfilling my own need for support.  It is a very complicated situation.  I know that my loved ones have struggles too.  I am not the only one changing, and I am not the only one for whom my changes carry hardships.  I recognize that, and I know that I need to allow space for those around me to adjust and figure things out.  It is a process, and it takes time.  But what do we do about those around us who seem not to be progressing?  What do we do when someone’s resistance to change begins to look more like rejection?

I know that different people will set a different pace in the course of processing new information and adjusting to change, but absolute lack of movement is not a pace, and it is not progress.  In fact, when that lack of movement happens amid waves of progress on the very same issue, that lack of movement begins to look very much like – and may truly be – opposition.  Okay, I know what you are thinking, “enough with this jibber jabber… what the hell is she talking about?”  So here is the situation.

I have two wonderful daughters.  They along with my partner’s other son converge on our home every other weekend.  Three of our four children have made great strides in embracing and accepting our evolving situation.  My daughters, in fact, are nearly pronoun perfect in their references to me… even when I am not around.  One of the four, however, has steadfastly clung to male pronouns and my old name.  This is most notable, because these references continue in an environment where everyone else is using correct language.  So the question then, is can I continue to buy the notion that this is just a part of his process, or is it, as I am coming to believe, really opposition to the change and/or to me?

I have faced a lot of rejection in the last few months.  It has come in many forms – professional, personal, societal, maternal.  Some has come kindly, some hatefully, and still more has come in some intermediate form – not quite hate, but not quite a quiet dismissal.  This is a type I have not encountered elsewhere (though I am sure there is more of it out there); this clinging to notions of the world that are no longer true does not make sense to me, especially in this situation.  One thing is for certain; I cannot continue to try to ignore the situation.

The fact is that I am on already fragile ground.  I struggle every day to keep my head above water - fighting to just keep fighting – walking a tightrope between tears and psychotic screams.  In this world, I have only one sanctuary – my home.  How do I keep it?  How do I maintain my one safe place, the one place where I do not have to be confronted with negative views of me... of reminders of my former self?  I would appreciate hearing how others of you have dealt with similar situations.

Thanks in advance, and peace!

Kate

No Comment

I have far too much, yet nothing to share.  Just wanted you all to know I am still out here.  I hope to get back on track someday soon.  Until then, please hold for the next available representative.

Thanks.

Never Forget

Today is the ninth anniversary of the brutal murder of Gwen Araujo, killed by a group of “normal teenage” boys merely because she was transgendered.  Much has changed in the nine years since.  With the changes in military standards that previously banned homosexuals from military service… 

I must digress.  No, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was NOT the ban on gays in the military.  That prohibition dates back to the Articles of War adopted by the military in 1916.  Look it up.  DADT was the rule change (albeit misguided) that made it possible for gays to qualify for military service by keeping their orientation private.  (They used to ask you if you were gay in the multi-million-question entrance interview, DADT removed that question.)  Technically, a simple repeal of DADT would have reinforced the original ban restricting gays from enlisting.  I really wish people would quit calling the rule change that allows gays to openly enlist in military service the “repeal of DADT.”  It drives me crazy, because it proves that we as a society can be fooled into anything.  Sorry, back to my point.

… Chaz Bono making headlines as the first trans person to compete on Dancing With the Stars, the “It Gets Better” campaign, and the increasing attention on marriage equality; LGBT issues are at center stage in the great social debate.  But with all this press, some things have not changed.

“According to the Transgender Day of Remembrance Web site, there have been 143 transgender homicides in 2009, and it is estimated that an anti-transgender murder occurs every three days.”  Statistics suggest that those crimes increased by 23% in 2010.  And in 2011, the same year we are watching Chaz on TV, a trans woman was brutally attacked in a Baltimore McDonald’s, because she needed to use the restroom.  An employee on duty, opted to record the attack rather than get help.  This does not even touch the continued high rate of suicides among trans youth, and the continued incidents of bullying directed toward the entire LGBT community.  Something is still very wrong.

Can we fix it?  I hope we can.  It starts with remembering our past.

Turning a Corner

It is interesting how polluted life can become by forces that do not align with our identities.  I have had an increasingly difficult time maintaining a positive state of mind in this limbo-esque environment currently consuming my daily life.  The struggle is most difficult on the weekends.  Those are days I know I should be enjoying, when I know that my life is good; and yet my mood is sullen.  The problem - yes, I know fully what is wrong - lies in the fact that I am progressing without progress - or without the perception of it.  I am changing – my life is evolving, and I am living portions of it very close to the vision I have for the future.  Yet, I continue to make the journey – a journey that is growing longer and more painful – back to maleness each week.

I still have moments of discomfort, and I still have barriers to transcend, but I feel more each day that I am mentally and emotionally ready to make the final break from the male aspects of my life.  Even my physical changes seem to be accelerating to that end.  I do not think I can adequately describe the tension I feel resulting from this discord.  I long for the moment when gender issues are no longer even a passing thought, when my morning contemplation of the contents of my closet has nothing to do with the need to mask who I am.  I think (and I hope) that day may not be too long in the future.

It seems the universe is beginning to align with my spirit, or vice versa, or perhaps we are meeting in the middle.  With the exception of a couple phone conversations, I do not recall being addressed as sir even once over the last week – outside of work, of course.  In fact, (and I was elated to say the least!) during one particular shopping trip last week, my wife and I were actually addressed as “ladies!”  I had done nothing to present myself differently than I have over the last several months.  My sunglasses held my hair, I wore jeans and a t-shirt, and I wore only the slightest eye makeup.  For the first time (under “normal” circumstances), I was perceived as female.  It was a massive dose of affirmation that I sorely needed.

I know that I am changing; there is no question.  Physical changes aside – and yes, those are many – I am changing.  My self-confidence is improving; I am growing more comfortable maneuvering through public places and integrating into daily life.  I am changing, and the results are unmistakable.  Just the other day, I drove into the queue at a tire and lube place to have my oil changed.  As the attendant approached my car, he began to greet me.  His arrival at “sir” coincided perfectly with my stepping out of my car, and he stopped himself mid-hiss!  “How are you today, ssss… How are you today?”  He started to say it, but stopped himself the moment he saw me.  I had come from work.  I was dressed like a boy.

THAT was a good day.

Those moments both affirm and confound me.  They deepen my resolve and make it that much harder to go back to drab.  They are good though.  They reinforce what I have always known, and they encourage me to keep going.  And I will.

Have a great week!
Kate

Just Don't Call Me Late for Dinner

There was very little positive about my childhood.  My parents raised me with the expectation that I would be stupid and worthless; they always believed me to be just that.  It was the only way I could grow up that would fit into their conspiracy-laden minds.  I do not deny that we grew up poor.  I do not deny that we lacked some of the perks that accompanied wealth – like social status, and respect.  What I could never make peace with (as my parents had) was the idea that I had no chance for success because of who I was; that I would never make it in any endeavor because I lived on “the wrong side of the tracks.”  I also refused to believe that I was stupid.  I suppose that is where my trouble respecting authority began – I refused to accept the conventional wisdom that I was an ignorant loser.

There was very little positive about my childhood.  But I know that I learned a lot from my upbringing – granted it was a laundry lost of “NOT to do’s,” but learning is learning.  One thing that actually did stick with me though was my gene donors’ stated abhorrence for labels.  Throughout elementary school and well into my middle-school years, I was regularly and consistently recommended by various teachers to be placed in the gifted program.  My parents steadfastly refused to allow this – didn’t want it messing up my street cred.  Their reason was always the same.  They would inform the school that they did not believe it was in any child’s best interests to “label” her.  They believed such labels were a hindrance to constructive development.

This was their stated objection.  In truth, they were convinced that the school was wrong – that I was in no way intelligent or creative enough to be considered even average, much less gifted.  Oh yes, while they would never have said it to the school, they were always certain to let me know why I didn’t belong in a gifted program.  Still their stated reasoning resonated with me (I guess knowing that they did not believe what they were saying made it automatically credible to me).

I attended a birthday party last night.  It was essentially an LGBT event – well LGB and one T (me) – there were even some straight people.  All in all it was a wonderful time, and I am ever thankful to our hosts for having us.  There was one rather unfortunate event late in the evening that left a bitter taste in my mouth (a mild one).  One of our fellow partiers felt the need to ascertain everyone’s “status,” which came off like a very bizarre version of Duck, Duck, Goose.  We were all sitting around a table, and he counted each of us off as he pointed around the table – “gay, gay, gay, gay, straight, straight, gay, gay, straight…” and so on.  When several at the table attempted to correct him (he had determined my wife and I to be straight), he at first didn’t understand.  But when one very clever young woman pointed out that we were gay, because I identified as female; it finally sunk in.  But then he felt the need to get more specific with his labels, so repeated the game – this time specifying lesbians, bi, etc.

This was all in good fun, and no one was passing judgment; but still isn’t it odd that in a party of society’s outcasts, we feel the need to further segregate ourselves?  There are so many people, and so many otherwise disparate groups in the world who are united in one passion – their hatred for and condemnation of the LGBT community – that it seems like we should be finding ways to break down walls, not put up sub-dividers.  I am even coming to question the “LGBT” label.  I am proud of all my sisters and brothers, regardless of which letter they comprise.

Rather than focus our energy on understanding our differences, I think we should be focused on taking over this joint.  Straight Christians have been running this country for far too long, and look where it’s gotten us.  I think it’s about time we start deciding who can and cannot marry, and who gets to have their head blown off for defending our right to borrow money from China.  Seriously, I get that we should be allowed in the military if we want to be… but think about it Mary!  Let the backwoods bully who takes pleasure in beating up fags go get his ass shot off.  I’ll stay here and make cookies.

In the interest of my lack of interest, I am posting this one without proofreading or editing.  I apologize for the choppiness and any misspellingz my Mac didn’t fix for me.

Peace girlfriends!

Kate

The River Takes Me

Transition is hard.  No one, especially those who swim this river, will argue that fact.  Making the journey requires a strength that could only come from the deepest of needs.  Along the way we face hardship, judgment, discrimination, violence; the challenges are many.  Sometimes I wonder if I am truly strong enough to make it.  And then there are days like some I have had this week… days when I realize that my strength is on the other side beckoning me forward.  My strength is not pushing me to move, but pulling me toward my eventual arrival.


I feel this most strongly during the painful journey back to the weekday.  I have a family – these days I think of them more as “the gene pool,” more on that another time – who does not acknowledge me for who I am (when they acknowledge me at all).  Work life has been difficult.  People who used to look up to me (to my face anyway) now ridicule me and try to marginalize me.  I get ugly stares from old women in bars and at the grocery store.  I get surreptitious glances from people who are slightly less rude than the typical old woman.  I face a lot through the course of a “normal” week, but I am okay with that.  I will not pretend that I like these parts of transition, but they are not my greatest hardship.


I should explain that, due to some "complexities" in my work life, I am still working as a male.  This means that there are long periods of my life when I cannot be myself.  The hardest part of my transition right now is making that change back.  Every time I have to do it – to go back to playing the male role – I become more aware of the reality that there is nothing for me in that world, and that I am, in fact, not even welcome there.  The tide has truly turned for me; the flow toward womanhood is a lazy float along a meandering stream.  My upstream swim is back to boy.  Transition is hard.  Pretending to be a boy is hell.


I have a family – a real one, other than the gene pool – who I love and adore, and who love and support me.  I have wonderful friends whose company my wife and I deeply enjoy and who care for us and think of us.  We had a wonderful evening with a large group of them last night, in fact.  I can love openly, I can cry… I can laugh.  Yes, there are times when people look at me funny, there are times when I feel the awkwardness that others try to thrust upon me; but despite the difficulties, I am in the world and living as my true self.  There is no greater sense of freedom than that.


When I have to step back into the male role, it is like pushing the pause button on all that is good in my life.  I will never turn back.  I know where my journey leads – I am going home.  So, play that funky music, home girl!

Let's Dance!

Hugs,

Kate

Oh, I just have to show you my new hairstyle.  Rockin' a new do!

My wife and I enjoying a night out with friends at a local restaurant

Catching Up While Lying Down

I threw my back out yesterday afternoon.  It hurts.  I can barely move.  Thank my lucky stars for laptops and wi-fi!  Being effectively out of commission today, I thought this would be a good time to try to catch up on my writing.  I am sorry... but I hope that you have missed me (smiles).  I have not been spending as much time on this blog for a number of reasons.  

Life has taken on a sense of everyday over the last couple months, generating little of significance to share with you all.  I have also been a little more absorbed in “family life” and my cooking/baking endeavors.  On a less positive note, I have long suspected and recently confirmed that I am still “being watched” by people who do not have my best interests at heart.  As I know they will read this as well, I will withhold any further comment on the matter other than to say to them - I know you are watching, and I hope you know how wrong it is that you are doing this to me.  Okay, sorry... I am back.  The sense of persecution, unfortunately, has had a negative impact on my creativity - constantly worrying about whether something is “safe” to share.  I will correct this problem soon, though, I promise!

On a more positive note, I have taken on a new project, which has diverted my attention away from this blog.  I hope the impact will not be great (my intention is to increase the amount of writing I do, not to just spread my writing out).  I have always dreamed of writing professionally, and it is my hope that this new endeavor will help me move closer to that goal.  I have just published my first article, so if you would like to check it out, I will include a link.  Fair warning, no trans-related issues are discussed (though I do have a little something to say about “real men” [shameless teaser, yes]).  Check it out, and let me know what you think.  I hope you enjoy.

Cucina di Kate

Best wishes and take care, my pretties.

Kate