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Blogs

Featured Entries

Lori's Blog

Transgender Bloggers Wanted: Share Your Journey

Create your own blog at TGGuide.com. It's FREE and you can start right now. Some people blog as a sort of journal to share our thoughts, feelings, experiences and insights. Others blog to express opinions on social and political issues. Others blog to share their knowledge and experience with others. Go ahead. Express yourself! Others may be grappling with issues you blog about and your words could provide useful insight or answers. Here are some blog topic ideas to get your creative juices f
  • Lori
Finding Myself

Seven Words can break a Heart

Work today started off as usual. I got there, I got rid of my backpack and such, got changed into my chef's gear, and got to work. Everything was normal. Well, as normal as it could be, anyway. That is...until after lunch. I headed to my locker to get my headphones for my ipod, but something fell out of my locker. A little piece of paper, folded up, crinkled, and written on. "Gender Queers Dont belong here, f*** off" It took me a good five minutes to read this fully, and for it to punch me
Finding Myself

The borders of Sisterhood into Brotherly love

As some of you might know, I had my sixteen year old sister down at my place for about a week. The reason I did this was simple. She needed out. I look at my little sister and see a perfect replica of me at her age. Shy, outcasted, punk, stylish, misunderstood, and above all...depressed. She'd decided that eating is not something she HAS to do, and has resorted to eating about once a day, or even less on occasion. She hides in her room, away from the world. Not that I can blame her....my mother
Emma Sweet's Blog

Pushing Past the Terrifying Dip in Motivation

I've been feeling a little blue today. Like yesterday I'm questioning myself and have a lot of fearful thoughts in my head that are hard to fight. I subscribe to emails from Leo Babauta, who writes on his site Zen Habits. He's a neat guy, with a lot of good suggestions. Just now I saw this email from him, which I copied directly below. I hope/assume he'd be okay with my doing this since I'm attributing it all to him. He didn't write this with people dealing with TG issues like me in mi
  • Emma
Emma Sweet's Blog

What is Ambivalence Telling Me?

When I wrote my blog post about the "breaking of my fever" I asked myself if I was only experiencing the rush of gender euphoria. You know, that feeling of infatuation for a new love where you're so enthralled with finding the perfect soul mate... and you've only known them for a week or two. So, if my enthusiasm has waned even a bit, does this mean my journey is starting in the wrong direction? There are plenty of times when I reflect: Am I merely finding joy in exploring a childhood fantas
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Just when it goes up, it comes back down

So, I went north (3 hr drive) and got my little sister for a week with me. So far it had been great! I finally got her to eat (shed been basically starving herself) and she's been eating randomly the whole time, which is awesome. (She's 16). She's kept up her end of the deal and hasnt done any self harm, and neither have I. We've both behaved. I've been spoiling her rotten, and I love it Bought her a new necklace which she hasnt taken off since we bought it, new earrings since none of her oth
Emma Sweet's Blog

Transgender Before Puberty

The documentary Just Gender has a short clip from a Barbara Walters 20/20 episode titled "My Secret Self: A Story of Transgender Children." You can (and I believe should) watch it here: One scene shows an 11-year old transgirl, Riley, with Barbara Walters. Riley is fully a girl on the outside and attends school as a girl although she must use the nurse's restroom. The school and students know she is biologically male and she is the brunt of childish teasing. When Barbara asks her how she
  • Emma
Emma Sweet's Blog

Living the Dash

I found this poem in my father's papers a few years ago after he passed away. And I found it again yesterday as I was (finally!) going through everything, trying to tidy things up. The poem really touches my heart and I think it's perfect for us here. Living the Dash I read of a man who stood to speak At the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on her tombstone From the beginning... to the end. He noted that first came her date of birth
  • Emma
Emma Sweet's Blog

An Important Documentary: "Just Gender"

"JUST GENDER tackles the all too often misunderstood world of transgender. The film explores the common myths and misunderstandings about transgendered people, as well as the confusion between sexual orientation and gender identity as reflected in the rigid binary view of the world generally held by society. JUST GENDER also touches on the discrimination, hardships and brutality resulting from those misconceptions and prejudices, including the numerous deaths caused by hate each year. Through th
  • Emma
Emma Sweet's Blog

My Fever's Broken

It may be too soon to be sure but at least it feels that way. For the last 50 years I feel like I’ve had a fever that ranged from slightly above normal to scarlet, along with raging shame, depression, and self-loathing. I can’t fully express how weird it is to be writing this now with my head clear. I’m transgender, I know it, I love it, and I’m happy. (Postscript edit: I heard from Monica that she thought I was actually recovering from a fever. No, I thought it was a handy metaphor for th
  • Emma
Dexxy's Blog

A womans best friend is her handbag, her own worst enemy is its importance.

When an adventure requires its central character to play the role of hero and damsel the plot becomes very confusing and at odds with itself very quickly, this was an experience to be savoured and suffered. I finally took the final step on escaping the cross-dresser skin that had wrapped me up so tight. I stepped out of this all-encompassing cocoon and tip-toed delicately and naked in the free air as woman for the first time. Gone was the awkward, exaggerated mannerisms and grace and beauty was
  • Dexxy
Emma Sweet's Blog

Dressing in Layers

My wife’s been out house-sitting for a couple of weeks, and will do so for another two weeks, so that’s provided me some space to explore myself. Most mornings I walk a couple of blocks to our local coffee shop before breakfast, buy a large cup, and return home to catch up on emails while enjoying the coffee. Now, though, I can add something feminine to my clothing which I like to do. But I must not present anything girly on the outside. I know many of the people I run into and as we know, m
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Dressing the Part

When it comes to being transgendered, it's not just an inside confession or a validation of yourself in your own mind, but it's an outward expression. It's a chance to take your gender that you were born with on the outside, and throw it in your trashcan, light that ***** on fire and say "Good Riddance" But sometimes it's not as easy to figure out how to do that when it comes to clothes. If you spent your life like me, wandering the Girls section at walmart and curling your nose at all the pin
Emma Sweet's Blog

Pablo Neruda

I receive a weekly email from Brain Pickings on Sunday mornings that often has inspirational vignettes. Today, they wrote, "Neruda relays an anecdote from his childhood that profoundly influenced not only his poetry but also his understanding of art and of life itself:" One time, investigating in the backyard of our house in Temuco the tiny objects and minuscule beings of my world, I came upon a hole in one of the boards of the fence. I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that b
  • Emma
Karen's thoughts

Confidence

Prior to perusing my current path to transition I did many things correct except one thing which was to try and fit in better. The main reason was, I was sure surgery would not be an opinion as it seems the Benjamin standards were to strict for me in that I wanted to not fully come out yet still have surgery and then come out in the future. I was sure this would work for me but several therapists did not see it that way. With that, I decided surgery would not happen and did not worry about manne
Emma Sweet's Blog

Suggested Reading

One the high school classes I remember most fondly was entirely focused on reading. I took it as a senior because to get an A all one had to do was read at least 3,500 pages during the semester. I chose a book, the instructor okay'd it, I read it, reviewed it with her for about fifteen minutes, and voila! More pages added. No midterm, no final. Too cool for school. The class really changed my life as I learned how enjoyable it can be to read 500 to 1,000 page books. If you've been follo
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Halloween!

So halloween went epic as ever One of the challenges I faced as a (attempting) FTM is costumes...Sadly many costumes are gender based or seperated. Originally I were trying to go for the werewolf look, but it turned out to be a zombie from The Walking Dead. Either one was fine with me I was one of the only ones who dressed up at work, and must say that I put the most work into mine. One person was a Professor from Hogwarts and she looked really cool, another was a nurse, and the head manag
Emma Sweet's Blog

Going Public

Yesterday morning when I first saw mention of Businessweek's publication "Tim Cook Speaks Up," I thought it was a bit anticlimactic. Most knew that he is gay. After all, he'd led Apple's contingent at the LGBTQ Pride Parade this year and even before that the word was pretty much out. But I was deeply moved by his words and the article. Not only was he stepping out as the CEO of the Fortune 1 company (as one writer described it today in the NYT). He was inclusive of all LGBTQ people. It's n
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Third Day of Horrors

I thought it were over. I thought the drama were done. But it hadnt even started yet. The morning started off with the worse headache I've ever had. Pushing that aside, I headed to work. For the past week, the radio that I use in my area has been taken by an older and somewhat aggrivating co-worker. Me being kind, I let it go. True, music helps my anxiety stay back. But I couldnt just take it away from the brute. But today, I had forgotten my dosage of medications, and I were on edge plus ag
Emma Sweet's Blog

What's My Label?

I want to know what my label is which I suppose can be interpreted to knowing my own identity. Perhaps that sounds strange to some. After all, I don't think anyone wants to be labeled by others. We (or at least, me) want to know what we are ourselves. What does it matter? I think it's so that as we progress through the day, interact with others, we know who we are in the world. And yes, I'm talking here about gender. For many, it's binary: male or female. We've all heard it before so why wr
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Paperwork can be Triggers

I never thought of paperwork as a trigger. For anything really. Depression, anxiety, etc. But I came to realize it today. I woke up extra early and left to run some errands, knowing I had to build up some courage. I paid my bill (some of it at least) to the hospital, and stopped by the local pharmacy for a few things for my costume on friday, then I made one more stop. The councilling building, where I'll be going. After pulling into the driveway that I nearly passed by because I were nervou
Emma Sweet's Blog

Depression and Suicide

Two months after I graduated from college my mother committed suicide. In the middle of the night she'd driven off of a cliff south of Santa Cruz into the rocks and surf below. In many ways I was relieved but felt guilty for that. I felt I was supposed to cry and look bereaved so I did my best at her funeral and it seemed that everyone accepted my act. As I was growing up she was often depressed, sometimes unable to get out of bed. She was hospitalized several times, took antidepressants
  • Emma
Finding Myself

Two blogs in one day? WHAT!?

Yup. That's right ladies and gents and dogs and cats, its a second post in one day. The reasons: Because I can. Well, that and the post I did previously was actually for yesterday that I was too tired and lazy to do last night. THIS ONE is for TODAY. Now, as some of you might or might not know, Halloween is coming. Like...in two days. And if anyone knows me personally, they know that Halloween is practically my birthday. Not really, I was born in May. But it's THAT important to me I LOVE
Finding Myself

Attitude Strikes Again

After my last post/blog, I figured it would be a good idea to give an update. No, I were not fired. But I almost was. I went in and talked to my boss about it, and explained that I'd had an anxiety attack, which I'm prone to have. We talked it through and I assured him it wouldnt happen again unless nessesary, and I would tell them next time if I needed to leave. He accepted, and I was allowed to work. I were on my best behaviour all day, or as best as I could. Sometimes theres days when thi

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