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Karen's thoughts

A blog by KarenPayne in General

  • Entries

    261

  • Comments

    690

  • Views

    129,772

About this blog

This blog is dedicated to telling those who read the entries about my journey in hopes that something can be learned. 

Entries in this blog

Forewarned to fore-armed

I have been around a few people at various points in their journey and watched several specials on true stories of transitioning and come away with a not so surprising conclusion. In most cases when a cisgender male who is married to a cisgender female comes out to her where she is accepting until he sets an hard date for gender reassignment surgery 99 percent get the eye's wide open thing going on, "he is really going to do it", "No more cisgender sex", "Wait a minute, I did not sign on for thi

Having a fantastic week

The week started off with me finding a really cute (age appropriate) top that I love so I purchased two of them. I have a habit where if I like something be it clothing or not if it appeals to me two or three are in order. Then I received my results from my hormone test done last month. The results indicate that I am midways, smack in the center of the scale in three separate test. Early on in the week I became friends with a younger woman (43 years old) whom I fibbed about my age, said I was 50

US Trans Survey

Just took a survey at www.ustranssurvey.org which I think everyone here should consider. Many of the questions ask about bad things that have happened to you now and in the past. The survey takes about 15-20 minutes of your time and believe it's well worth the effort. I am sure this will help others.

Physically have it all?

So in under six months I have gone through both gender reassignment surgery, tracheal shave and breast augmentation where three years ago I thought this would be impossible and now very happy that I am finished with surgeries as there is in my mind not much more that can be done that would make me happier. I read about some who will get various parts of their face done to have the bone structure, hairline and eye's of a female and they might possibly benefit me to look more female but at what ex

Check out my new ride

For years I drove sensible cars for family at one point then later for travelling and teaching. Been thinking about getting a sports car and trading my Toyota 2005 Camry in for one but could never justify selling the Camry because it just runs and never breaks, only routine maintenance like oil change and tires for the most part. Been checking out the Mazda Miata for a while and was told by a co-worker that the 2016 models were worth waiting for. So last month I got on the list and last night wa

Can I help

Over the years I (and you most likely have too) have read countless stories of people transitioning with little or no support which is sad. With that said I would like to extend to those here if there is anything I can do shout out. If by chance you are having surgery with Marci Bowers in California with no support let me know, I will fly down for the day of surgery and the day after at the very least to provide support. I don’t want to see anyone take this path alone which is why I will do thi

Teeth removal

For about 12 months I've been dealing with a problem tooth where the dentist recommended a bridge at the cost of $4,000. I was able to deal with the pain for all this time and the motivation was using that money for all my surgeries. Last month my secondary dentist said that I would suggest just having it extracted and I ask if the one behind it could be removed, no issues but felt right. So yesterday I had them removed. They spent about one hour with all sorts of preparations and about ten minu

Unrecognized

Last week I came home, get out of my car and my neighbor is with her sister. The sister lived here about five years ago and lived right next door to me while i prior to my transformation.  So I chat with my neighbor and her sister doesn't say anything to me so I believe she does not approve of my transformation. Today my neighbor informs me that her sister had no clue who I was and had asked her "what happen to Kevin", she replied "Karen was Kevin", her jaw dropped and responded with "I would ha

Female talk

My mother called last night for chit-chat and to my surprise we got into a discussion about sex. Should I be surprised? Well before transitioning she would never talk about this subject but now its fair game. I have mentioned this before, before transitioning my mother and other females would never broach the subject about many female things and now it is the complete opposite. Speaking to cisgender females is an entirely new ballgame, especially with my mother and my best female friend. Men

Really???

Those who are cross-dressers that become transgender who are on a journey to gender reassignment surgery most likely have gone through the following. You felt compelled to dress in the opposite gender, may have been your mother's or sister's garments or you have been resourceful in some other way to obtain the opposite gender clothing. It begins early in life, many just over five years old and as age is accumulated going to stores and clothing outlets in secret (for most) is how clothing is obta

Afternoon photo session

Since my mother and brother who live 3,500 miles from me have not seen Karen I went and got some photos done. Before are a few of the photos. For my mother and brother (both live in the same house) I had three pictures framed together. I elected to have the pictures taken with zero makeup so any and all flaws do show up and that is how I like it, natural.

Teaching today

I was asked by a group of six to teach a empty hand defensive class today. My only limitation was to not go to the ground as I am still healing. Many of my techniques end up with me locking up an attacker in a manner that I can call the police and keep them at bay with just my legs and be on top of them. Generally speaking for these types of classes I have one concept to teach and also allow the students to agree say on one common attack and work that into the concepts I teach. Lastly, I demo

Dealing with the Red Cross

Everyday I have an hour lunch at work and usually take a 15 to 30 minute walk around the city. Today there was a sign up at the Red Cross asking for blood donations so I was inspired to drop in to see if I could give blood today.  I walk in, ask if they could get blood from my in 30 minutes? They said that is possible. So I say the last time I was in was as a male. Got the usually statement such as "no way" so I produced my former driver licence and she stares at both for about thirty seconds, l

First professional make over

When to my best friend's today, we went to the mall for coffee and shopping. Didn't get to far, we are walking thru Macy's and she says, I want to get my upper lip done. So while standing there are sale's person asked if I wanted to have her do a make-up session. I thought, what the heck so I said yes. I told her that I am not much for makeup but would consider her doing it but was very interested in my eye area. As she is going through each step I am being told what she is doing and after doing

I forgot

One of my Facebook friends is my daughter's best friend who posted that she closed the front door and the security latch got wedged into the door preventing it from opening and asked for help. Since I knew she lived closed by I replied with "I will help if you still need assistance". She gave me her address, five minutes from my home. Went over, I knocked on the front door and she came around from the back door. When she greeted me (she had not seen me in five years) no reactions or comments on

Awareness

Yesterday while standing outside on break at work I hear someone say “hey you”, turned, looked around and here is a trans person whom I’ve known but have not seen in ages standing there. I said hi, she comes over and we hug. She is around 30 years old and when she (from what I remember) doing well (on her meds) very passable other than her voice. Well I could tell she was not well shaven facial wise and was very loud when chatting with her. There was a couple about 50 feet away that could not t

Coming to an end

Well 2015 is coming to a close, have squeezed a lot into this year in regards to surgeries, lots of paperwork and a brand new car and very satisfied with the results. Four years ago this was entirely a dream, seemingly out of reach because I could not give up what I had in regards to teaching self-defense but then realized that I had crammed many years into teaching and as much as I enjoyed teaching I could finally kiss it goodbye to make myself happy overall. My guess is that many wrestle with

Good bye for a while

Over the past year I have been sharing my journey which hopefully was of some use but now I am need of concentrating on another aspect of my life with requires a good deal of attention so during the next few weeks will be limiting my time here and will stop visiting here shortly. Hopefully I can make it back here in the future. For those interested I will be keeping up from time to time on my WordPress blog. Lastly, it has been wonderful getting to know people here. Best wishes for those on t

There is hope (dilation)

So recently I moved from the smaller dilator to the medium dilator, first time was painful the whole time but got a little better each time yet was still painful. Tonight I just finished and very happy that there was almost no pain. If things progress as they have been I should be good by say Sunday. Any ways the purpose of this entry is too tell others who will go down this path is that in the beginning it is no picnic but does get better. eek not looking forward to the larger one :(

Mornings

For 99% of the days since surgery I have bad mornings. Most of them I wake up way too early. Many of them I feel nausea to some extent and just down right crappy. Usually take a two hour nap within two hours of waking up. I have noticed the past few days that I am starting to feel better. What really makes me feel normal is right after morning dilation and a nice hot shower. Anyways thought others going down this path might be alerted to you too may experience this too.

Road trip

My daugher is going to move from the Philadelphia Pennsylvania  to Portland Oregon (20 minutes from my place) this coming Spring. I told her it would not be cost efficient to have her car taken on a train and a bad idea to sell it as the car is fairly new. In my late thirties I made the trip in four days across country (three times in three years in my forties) but thirty years later will more likely than not need one or two more days. So in total I am going to take two weeks off from work for t

Haunting thoughts

This is going to sound strange and perhaps obscured too many yet I have to question the validity of the real world and what is beyond or parallel to the known world. Although I infrequently visited my sister while alive when we did there was this connection between us, same when we talked on the phone coast to coast. When I had not seen her because we lived on different coast I did not think about her but when I visited her and her husband in 2004 not seeing her for ten years it was fantastic

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