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Hi Just a quick update sadly yesterday one of the press I emailed about transgender and bullying rejected my story. But I will keep going. The other thing I have noticed is that the few people who I have spoken too about coming out as transgender have said how brave and heroic it is that I have been open about it. I do not if I am brave or heroic but it is wonderful to have people who say such nice things. I know that I am truly blessed to have such kind people to support me and I know not everyone is so lucky. Also all these people who have said such nice things have also asked me "why is it such a problem if you are transgender if you are happy and it does not hurt anybody then you should be who you are and not have to hide it" I wish I had an answer

Hi everyone, I took a somewhat unexpected next step on Friday - and it came with a pretty big bit of self-realization. Since I started wearing a wig regularly (going on 2 years now) I've been rather relaxed about haircuts. The last couple of haircuts were self-inflicted - I mean "self-done" - and so my natural hair has, I'm sure, not looked so great. But it didn't matter, nobody was seeing it - even if I just went downstairs for laundry, etc., I'd at least wear a baseball cap. It occurred to me that if I actually met someone and started dating, they would eventually need to see it. So I've known for a little while that I at least needed to get a real haircut and not keep doing it myself. At a practical level I wasn't sure how that would work - would I go someplace without a wig on to get it done? Unlikely. Would I wear it and take it off when I got there? That seemed likely, but possibly awkward. I had lunch with a friend on Friday (Bastille Day!!!) and mentioned all of this, and showed her a picture I had found on-line of a hair style that I thought might work for me (BTW, my hair is quite thin, and there is some male-pattern baldness, that's what's made going natural so difficult for me). She agreed with the style, and with my "plan" to go to Supercuts after our lunch. To help me along she insisted that I send her a selfie when I was done :-) I like that kind of thing, being "backed into a corner" helps overcome any last-minute jitters. So I went to Supercuts. There was one guy and two women doing hair - I was hoping not to get the guy - I didn't. I explained to the person who did my hair that the last cuts had been my own before I took the wig off, and I showed her the picture I found. I knew she couldn't do exactly what was in the picture, I don't have enough hair :-( But she got the idea, she knew what I was going for, and she did a great job!!! I had fully anticipated that I would put the wig back on when we were done, but then I didn't, I went home "natural" (and mind you this was in the city, so "going home" involved a 10 minute walk in Manhattan to the PATH train, a 20 minute train ride, then a 10 minute walk home). It's not my "fantasy" hair style, but I'm not likely to ever have that (see above re "not enough hair", plus I don't think the Farrah hairstyle is so popular these days). Below is a picture I took after I got home (so my hair was dry). A "pixie cut" as I came to learn is what it's called :-) Pardon the exposed bra strap and lack of any make-up! The self-realization happened because as I was walking home I felt a sense of liberation from not wearing a wig. I realized that I had let my wig(s) represent my gender - subconsciously I only felt like a woman with a wig on. Not that I won't ever wear them again, but I need to work through this (especially now that I'm on summer break, so I have some freedom to ease in). Friday night I had to make a trip to Rite Aid, so I decided to do it without a wig. Then yesterday when I went to play tennis I didn't wear it, and again today I went to the gym and the supermarket without it. It really does feel good, it feels like another step towards authenticity :-) ***Please know that I'm not criticizing wearing wigs!!! I know a lot of trans people do, and obviously I was for 2 years and probably will continue to do so. I just personally need to know that I'm fully me with or without it*** Here's a pic - And unrelated to this post - here is a picture of Cinammon. I got her a few days before my GRS (at Duane Reade when I was getting my surgery-related prescriptions), she went with me to Philadelphia for the surgery, was with me through the entire recovery and ever since :-) Particularly in the few weeks right after surgery, when I couldn't really write in a journal, I often talked with her about things that I was feeling...she's a great listener, she doesn't judge, she just smiles :-) xoxo Chrissy

This past weekend I spent with a group like minded people who love driving Mazda Miata's. Friday we drove what the average person would consider a dangerous drive where in 19 miles there are 170 turns where the majority are marked at 20 MPH and we took them a good deal faster (the fastest was 70 MPH and the average was 45 MPH). Friday evening we have a group dinner with about 120 people. Saturday we drove two drives, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (Friday's drive was an all day event). When we returned on Saturday to the hotel I wore for the first time a bikini and was hit on by three men, that was a good feeling and was fun flirting. Saturday night was another dinner and I decided to wear a nice evening gown with heels (I seldom wear this attire) and had two of the men from the afternoon hit on me again. It's nice being at this stage of my life not needing to worry about anyone even considering my former life and truly didn't think about it till now and decided to write this entry (as usual, as the thoughts enter my brain writing them down).

Hi Everybody I hope you all have a great weekend. It has not been a good start for me, sadly somebody (I don't know who) has told lots of people in my area that I am transgender and I have received a letter this morning that has asked me not to attend a local event tomorrow as being transgender might upset and offend others at the event. I was not even planning to attend Just wondered if anybody has ever had a letter like this asking them not to attend an event due to being transgender.

My background includes certifications in what I call common defense that does not require years of training but does requires that my everyday students (I have professionals in military and police students). Two years ago I went under the knife to transition and after 12 plus years of teaching I put a pause on teaching. Over the past decade or so I've read about people in the LGBT community murders, bullied and so on. This gave rise to me seeking out in the past few months a place to teach that would be okay with the establishment allowing me to teach. Friday night I was given permission by the most popular LGBT club (I know some here are from Salem so it's South Side Speakeasy( to use their large back room normally for a card club (poker I believe is the popular choice). I provided my bio to the owner, told him what I would be teaching and the cost. He was very happy with me putting on this class and said it's been a long time coming. Note that the cost is nominal, more to get the interested to come as I've done free classes before where my assistants and myself noticed differences in commitment between those who paid and those who did not. If anyone here is within the Portland/Salem Oregon area feel free to respond to when the dates will be. My first idea is to wait until after most people have finished their vacations and have the class on a Sunday mid-day into the early evening. Lastly, hopefully others here that are capable of teaching such a class are doing so in their area.

As a couple: We're good. Our marriage is strong, and we've been doing a lot of study on interpersonal skills as well as how brains, both the male and female, work in social relationships. Some of our issues and misunderstandings cleared up from a really good Ted Talk about the role of hormones and physiological gender differences in the brain. We're learning to communicate better than ever, and when and how to have deeper talks. I'm super excited that Nikki landed a really good job the day after a different company made a really insulting payscale offer(literally a little less than standard entry pay for his field, but they wanted all his skills and experience to even apply, and wouldn't disclose pay til way late, they knew it was bad). That was messy. Current corporation Nikki works at for six more days is launching a massive reorganization of his department in a few weeks and STILL have not told anyone if they have jobs, where they have jobs, and what changes they can expect in their pay scales (if they get shunted to other departments, there can be significant reduction in pay). It's stupid and just another reminder that corporations really don't care about their employees in any meaningful way. And they're all surprised that Nikki is jumping ship. But this has led to us finally choosing where we're going to live once this place goes, and we have been spending freetime jaunting around chosen town getting to know it (well, he is getting to know the layout, my internal navigation is confused but I'm getting to know my choices even if my phone will have to tell me how to get to them). The town pool has two amazing looking waterslides that I plan to hit up next summer (hopefully my house won't sit on the market for years, crosses fingers) from time to time in addition to time in my own pool. The park is huge, got horribly lost in it. There is a house I'm eying, good price nice big house. Here's hoping, but I'm not getting attached, it's just one option. We culled my zillow list hard due to unsuitable backyards. The stairs I've whinged about came out amazingly. Epic pinterest success instead of a fail! Now we're working on painting things. Oh, the smell of paint. *gags* But having a direction and choices has been great for us both. This summer is not really cooperating with my pool, it's either really cool, or really astounding hot and storming like mad, and neither of us are into death in pool by electrocution as a great way to spend an evening. The storms are also making the yard crazy hard to maintain, so Nikki's been busy in our backyard jungle. We're struggling with mad mosquito craziness after several years of very little, vampire bugs are eating us. Nikki: Nikki has found confidence and comfort in himself despite continuing attacks on his state of being on the internet (the there is only binary male/female and if you move back and forth you're a liar sort) so Nikki's backed away from most things like that online. He's focusing on his art, new job, life changes, love of movies, and doing whatever he wants while working with his therapist to continue to control the depression and has found a lot of peace with everything. Some days it's full boy, some days full girl, most days a mix, but very very rarely is it a bad depression day if at all in the last several months. So he's healthy again, and that is what matters most. He's super proud to have gotten new job, which is both a promotion in duty and pay, and has been doing amazing work in the house. At this point his depression is well controlled and Nikki's been pretty happy. Me: Still fighting losing internal battle with the dismorphia and my family issues getting poked on a regular basis, but have regained my footing in my day to day life and my marriage. People sometimes seem to think of marriage as disposable in a very real way, and even if I don't go into full disclosure and just gloss it over with 'there were secrets and we're rebuilding' and let them think he cheated on me or whatever they read into that, they're all astounded that I want to fix things instead of bailing. And I think that is a partial factor of our societal marriage rates, but I like that we worked it out and all the secrets have been aired out and worked through. I did have a stupid where I agreed to too much change for my personality in too short a time frame ,but I am surviving this and the more direction there is to work towards the better I feel inside. My asthma has improved dramatically, so we are more and more active, and I expect it will further improve in new town, since it's about 90 miles south of here and well outta swampland. I'm super excited to go to a new place and just do new things with new people. My internal life in my house is wonderful, so next step is obviously to make the life outta the house match. : ) Edited to add: I'm really looking forward to getting away from Christmas decoration, lawnmower, and grill stealing neighbors and their creepy behavior> WOOHOO! That's where a lotta stress, communication, therapy, education, new friends, old friends, and sorting out the important from the fluff and fixing health issues has taken us. It's been a ride, and I'm happy so many people here shared in it and helped make it a bit softer on those bumpy tracks. *hugs to all*

Hi First of all Happy Independence Day to all Transgender people in the USA. Have a great day all of you. Last Friday went to get my hair styled more feminine. Sadly my hairdressers said my hair needs a little more time to grow out before we can do it but we will get there. Also one of my Gymnastics students brought me a wonderful Jo Jo Bow to put in my hair once it looks more female. I have sent some emails to the UK press as I am hoping to help raise more awareness in the UK about Transgender issues for both Children and Adults and the two year wait to receive treatment. I will keep you all updated with how I get on.