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About this blog

Exploration and growing into my transgender self

Entries in this blog

Sometimes the Most Loving Thing To Say is "No"

This post has nothing to do with transgender so you can tune out if you wish; It's about my almost-27 year old son. Since he was five or six he's been very independent, stubborn, and willful, making lots of challenges for me and his mother (we're divorced). He's also bright, attractive, and has a wonderful personality... when he's not depressed and sour. A couple of days ago he told me that his mother is going to stop paying the rent on his cheap apartment. He wasn't asking me to pick it up
Emma

Emma

4

Struggling with Labels

This morning I came across this wonderful post on Joanna Santos' blog: https://joannabefree.blogspot.com/2016/10/my-own-coming-out.html I know we don't typically reference sites off of TGG but I feel this is important. There, she posts a video that really resonated with me, that labels such as gay, male, white, transgender, etc., may set us up for "us vs. them" feelings, thus leading to isolation and our considering ourselves only within that label, which is only a part of our overall self. I've
Emma

Emma

4

"Serenity Now!"

Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry's father kept yelling "Serenity now!" when he was upset and about to lose it? Very funny show. I'm not very religious and don't attend church.. I was raised Episcopalian, attended a church school for 6th and 7th grades, and my parents often had us recite the Serenity Prayer or the Lords Prayer before dinner. I think the prayer was for my benefit... I remember how earnestly I repeated the words in the Serenity Prayer, hoping that my emphasis would ga
Emma

Emma

4

Onward!

It's a wonderful day, today. My wife is away this morning on business and while I miss her I have the opportunity to be myself for a couple of hours. After my shower I dressed with some feminine underthings (well concealed by layers of more masculine apparel) and headed out to our regular Sunday haunts, the coffee shop in Palo Alto, Trader Joe's, and the farmer's market, where I picked up long-stemmed tulips, a couple of heads of lettuce, some fresh asparagus, and cauliflower. Now, I'm at m
Emma

Emma

6

My First Bra Fitting

I remember hearing that Nordstrom is trans-friendly and offered free bra fittings. But also, back then, I was terrified at the thought. I knew it might happen some day but when that day came I'd know that I'd have to have really come into my own in a much more secure way.  I've only purchased my bras on Amazon. They fit okay, and weren't that expensive. I measured myself with a band size of 38 and as my mother's was 34 I thought I was in the right ballpark. The first cup size was C because that'
Emma

Emma

4

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

Emma

6

It's a Steep and Exciting Learning Curve

Learning curve... what? Now, almost six years after I started contemplating whether I am trans, I am a woman in most ways except, perhaps, to myself. I have several very good cis women friends whom I love and love me. When we talk about my struggles they reassure me that I am clearly a woman to them. My speech, my mannerisms, certainly my clothing, all speak to the truth of me authentic gender.  So what's the struggle? Why am I writing? When I get dressed to go out I always con
Emma

Emma

6

Busted?

As usual, this morning I was reading the New York Times online edition on the computer in my home office – a very interesting article titled “The Ride of Their Lives” with the following opening paragraph: “NO FAMILY DOMINATES a rodeo event the way the Wrights do saddle bronc. But rodeo is a young man's game, which is why the family patriarch works to grow his cattle herd. Rodeo and ranching may be vestiges of the Old West, yet the combination is one family's hope for future generations.” S
Emma

Emma

5

Minutes of Meeting with Gender Therapist: Wow

I met privately for an hour yesterday with a therapist who has forty years experience working with gender dysphoric clients; she runs the monthly TG Support group I've been attending. She was wonderful, knowledgeable, and so resourceful. I feel very fortunate for being able to meet with her and felt others here might appreciate my sharing some of the details (that I can recall!) of our meeting. I broke up the points into three sections to make it a little more readable. There is no particular
Emma

Emma

6

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

Emma

6

R. A. I. N.

For Christmas my son gave me a copy of the book "Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfullness." I had mixed emotions about it. On the one hand I've heard about the benefits of mindfullness meditation for several years and thought this might finally give me what I need to actually learn and add it to my life. On the other hand I've had so much trouble accepting mindfullness. (Isn't meditation a bunch of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo?) I worried that once again I'd fail to follow throu
Emma

Emma

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Emma

Girlfriend

Almost two months ago I received a message on a dating app: "You have a warm smile." I checked out her profile and we started messaging back and forth. In and of itself this was so amazing for me. I was on a half-dozen dating apps (the usual suspects) and mostly received messages that someone had looked at my profile. So what? They didn't hang out, follow up with me, did they?  Also, of late, I've felt more satisfied with being single. Not resigned to it. Actually, pretty happy. But has so
Emma

Emma in Emma

5

EMAGINE

A couple of months ago while driving north in Oregon I thought of a custom license plate for me: "EMMAGINE." Unfortunately the DMV only accepts 7 characters or fewer so I dropped an M. I love it!
Emma

Emma

4

Falling On My Sword

In my past career when we said that we were “falling on my sword” we meant that – typically in front of a customer – we were admitting that our company or product was at fault. We were being transparent, vulnerable, admitting we were in the wrong and hopefully the customer would thus react with less drama and instead collaborate on working around or developing a solution to the problem. This blog post feels like that to me, thus its title. Of late I’ve been reading “Crossdressing With Dignit
Emma

Emma

5

Happy Birthday Monica!!!

I learned just a few minutes ago that Monica's birthday was last Friday, 1/19. Birthdays are a big deal, especially for those of us who're contending with being trans, lesbian, disabled, ... And heck, we keep getting OLDER. I'll not advertise Monica's age, will leave that up to her to divulge. That said this year is a milestone for her. Monica was the first to great me, with warmth and sincerity, when I joined TGG about 3 1/2 years ago. That was such a difficult time for me. It seemed clear that
Emma

Emma

3

Nature vs. Nurture: Nature Scores!

As some here will recognize this "nature vs. nurture" thing has bothered me at times. At my age it hardly matters. It's not as if knowing that is going to change anything for me.  But I've always felt it would help me to know that I was born this way.  Last week I wrote about it a bit in this post: Chicken or the Egg: Nature vs. Nurture As I often do I shared my post with my therapist; we talked about it last Thursday evening.  I love the way that I'm able to share my posts with him, and to rece
Emma

Emma

3

Behind Blue Eyes

Behind Blue Eyes Pete Townshend, The Who, 1971, from the album “Who’s Next”   No one knows what it's like To be the bad man To be the sad man Behind blue eyes   No one knows what it's like To be hated To be fated To telling only lies   But my dreams They aren't as empty As my conscience seems to be   I have hours, only lonely My love is vengeance That's never free   No one knows what it's like To feel these feelings Like I do And I blame you   No one bites back as hard
Emma

Emma

3

On Trust

I'm not sure if this is a good idea to post. I don't like writing this because it's such a problem for me, it's a downer. But hey, maybe that's why they call it a "blog" so here goes. My wife was very upset at our last couples' therapy meeting, where I spelled out more details of my being transgender and asked for her support and offered some safe (to my mind) ways for us to explore and learn together. My hope was that she'd follow her heart and maybe through this exploration she'd gain knowl
Emma

Emma

3

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

3

No Big Deal - Mea Culpa

When I first wrote about No Big Deal I thought I could make a point that would be helpful. In the second post I felt that the Bigness of the Big Deal should be measured by comparison of "intrinsic" vs. "sociological" needs. Now, though, I'm embarrassed to have written any of this. Behind the scenes a friend pointed out that for her (a cisgender woman SO) it's all about her preference, comfort, and desires. And when I read that I realized how meaningless my previous posts were. I'd like to
Emma

Emma

4

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

3

Practicing Inner Kindness

I'm very drawn toward resources and ideas that I hope will help me practice and make automatic inner kindness. I need this as I have such a litany of self-directed put downs and labels that seem to come so automatically before I have a chance to prevent their affects. I've recently come across several that I hope I will find helpful and maybe you will too. I think of them like tools in my toolbox. But like any tools we need to use them enough so that they become familiar and automatic: In
Emma

Emma

1

Good Enough Isn't Enough

I started reading "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle a couple of days ago. She's putting into words so much of what I know in my deepest recesses to be true for me but have been unable to vocalize. She's not trans, she's a "late in life lesbian, about 45. She writes about how women—especially—are trained from a young age to fit into society's expectations and largely, to passively accept the limitation of their true selves to fit those molds. As trans people we all share this, don't we? Since 4 or
Emma

Emma

4

Mixed Emotions

As I often do on Sunday mornings over coffee I read The New York Times and this morning was no different. I ran out of things that interested me so did a search on "transgender" and found the following article about Barry Winchell's murder while in the US Army, who was in a serious relationship with Calpernia Addams, a transexual woman. I came close to crying in the neighborhood coffee shop as I was so taken by the depth of feelings that came up:  An Inconvenient Woman I then checked Huffington
Emma

Emma

2

Horns of a Dilemma

Yesterday afternoon a rental RV pulled in to the campground space adjacent to mine. I didn't take much notice of it. I glanced there occasionally and was surprised to find that the couple were sitting in the cab of the truck. Kind of odd since the first thing one does is connect up the water, electricity, and waste disposal. I made my dinner and while cooking my pork chop decided to ask them if all was alright. Maybe they were unfamiliar with what to do and embarrassed to ask?  After eating my c
Emma

Emma

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