KarenPayne

I get half way to the grocery store and realized nothing is needed but ended up going anyways to pickup vegetables for dinner tomorrow night. On the ways there is an adult book store which has many toys and decided what the heck and went in. So I make a bee-line for the female toys, and there are of course more for females then there are for males and took my time gazing. The salesman came over a few times, first time he said if you want me to open any package let me know and thanked him while the second time was to show me discounted toys. I truly had no plans to purchase anything but something got into me even though I like females, not males purchased a life like (even has veins) toy but first had the salesman open it should I could put my hand around it for seeing if it was not too wide. Up to the counter and he said "I want to check the batteries", I asked what type of batteries does it take? He said AAA and not to expect them to last long as they are only there to test the toy out. Then he said, I will give you new batteries at no charge, thanked him again. Came home and for lack of better words examined my newly purchased toy and think I will try it out after my last dilation session tonight. It should be interesting as the dilators lack any real characteristics of the real thing while the toy by all means does. Update: I did try the toy out and it's safe to say I like it.

I had one friend on Myspace whom inspired me in how she lived her life on her terms, other than that I never really followed any of the known people who are trans. I do applaud those out there publicly that are trans.

Smiling and laughing can but not always brighten attitudes and well being. I was one for ignoring this for many years but have in the past few years learned to be a happier person both before and after GRS (Gender Reassignment Surgery) which I think can lead one away from being sad or depressed. I could not believe how much "The Other Woman" movie could make me cheerful and smile. Perhaps that is not your cup of tea, may be instead it's treating yourself to a lovely dinner with cheerful friends/family. One of the worst things we can do is sit around doing nothing, getting into a depressive state so find something to do that will make you happy. Me, I am heading out with several friends to hike for several hours :-) Take care of yourself~~~

Congratulations Eve!!! Sadly, the police will never be there in the majority of cases to interdict in such crimes, they are there in the aftermath to take the report to what happened. It is not just the United States but all of the world. Usually those who act out our in fear of the unknown, it may hit home from how they were brought up to something simple as they admired someone then found out that person was not who they appeared to be gender wise. Every time I hear such tragedies it deeply saddens me and at the same time strengthens my resolve to train people. Yes, this is kind of a point of no return but there truly is a returning point, that is if you have not gone through gender reassignment surgery or have been on hormones for an extended period of time that causes issues down below. For me I had years to prepare with zero regrets and you need to be the same way if planning GRS.

I have been waiting to see if any of my friends would un-friend me after announcing my gender change, instead I actually gained two friends, lost zero. One I understand as we are both heavily into martial arts and have many common friends in martial arts while the other one not sure about but she is a mutual friend from a person I attended high school with on the East Coast. So to date all is well.

My guess is this is a gauge for professionals to start with and there is variation to all cells in the chart. Before surgery I classified myself as group 3 but was caught within a hybrid of type 5 and 6, kind of a meld with slight differences. So I would think it is safe to say many will have the same feelings as me, not quite fit one or another but indeed there.

See my blog entry Sex Orientation Scale at http://karenpayneblog.com/ and for some this will be new while others it will be somewhat new.

I think it was two weeks from first to middle then the first few days with the middle one was painful but got better after a few days. The larger one was large enough that I failed to get the depth of the first two by a half-inch. The middle one did not have lingering pain afterwards while the larger one did and took three 200mg ibuprofen which helped some. I am guessing three more days (3 x times per day) till it fits w/o pain. Yes I am indeed staying strong but at the same time got one more dilation to do tonight eek.

No surprise it was very painful at the back of my vagina and let me say, time pasted very slowly and did controlled breathing the entire time. I am no wimp when it comes to pain and would say I can not wait till this size dilator is fitting without any pain. Edit: Second time was less painful.

Lori, when you have time it would be a good idea to discuss a self-defense training CD as I don't have any of the equipment to do this. By no means am I camera shy and would love to get this information out to our community.

What you are going through is commonplace for someone who is unsure of their gender identity and are not alone by any means. The first step to validate or invalidate your gender is to seek out professional assistance as option one while support groups are great they are in my opinion option two as it’s a roll of the dice to whom provides information which may or may not be a professional. Our first instinct is to bury thoughts of being in the wrong body for what are brains perceive as the opposite to what we are physically. This may or may not help but in only for a moment in time and as we age the urges become stronger if there is that chemical imbalance that is the root of the feelings. There are five levels of transgender which starts off with sexual fantasy on one end of the spectrum while on the other end, the undeniable drive to transition physically. Between these two are varying levels of the two ends. A professional can guide you to the most appropriate level and possible remedies to satisfy those feelings swirling through your brain. To bury and ignore these feelings in my opinion can lead to an unhealthy and painful existence in most cases while validation is the first step to freedom Any ways writing out your thoughts is a great step forward.

My first thought was, let's give this a week or two and see who drops off my friend list or don't hear from again.

I was just reading Emmasweet’s latest blog post and realized how fortunate I am to have found this safe haven unlike no other on the web. Not to leave anyone out but Monica, Emma, UsernameOptional and Lori are wonderful people and if you have not looked at other sites this one is the best. Way too many focus on one or two high level topics of interest unlike this one. Well this entry was not meant to win any awards, just wanted to put this out there

Thanks for sharing Emma, lots of wisdom here.

I was contemplating on what I should do for Facebook, create a new account or change the current male one so I created a new one but then thought that this is going to be tough getting friends over to the new account and stopped after creating the new female account last week. While surfing through my male account yesterday I decided to delete the new female account and change the male account to female via gender option then changed from my male name to my female name. Walked away and upon coming back a while later had several people had messaged me, some saw it coming while others did not but so far all are supportive of the change which includes former girlfriends. One thing I have been monitoring is friend count, see if any unfriend me but so far none have which I am thankful for. If any do unfriend me that is their choice which I respect but also realize they were never my friend in the first place. Anyways one of my things is not to simply accept people as friends for the heck of it like some do, instead I only allow those whom I think will be friends, are fellow instructors and/or have common interest. There is one woman I met on My Space, always wanted to date her, in my eyes she is simply hot which does not mean the best looking woman out there, instead I am simply attracted to her and let her know that. We never met but over time became friends in a different way and then when moving to Facebook she friended me. I was pleasantly surprised to find her as one of the first friends to like my note that I was now female, gave me a warm feeling. Another woman whom I feel that we have met in other lives (and she actually was the one who brought this up) and dated also made it known we will always be friends. Funny thing about her while in bed together after making love she says (don't remember the exact words as this was back in 2006) "In a former existence I was the male and you were the female, married and very happy" and thought that was interesting that she firmly believed I was female before. About six months ago I told her I wanted to chat with her over the phone. She gave me her phone number (saying in case you don't have it anymore, which I did) and said give me a call tomorrow. I called her, we chatted for awhile then told her what was going on. There was a slight pause then she came back and said, I will kill you if you look better than me and then said, well we should go out shopping sometime. Talked for about an hour and felt really good that we could do this. I did get a few messages from various friends that had many questions which I am still need to reply too as there were many but all positive. Two of the people who congratulated me are national figures in the world of teaching self-defense and actually was surprised that one did message me while the other one I had no doubt. Looking back several months I would had never guessed this announcement would had been so positive and happy it has gone well.

Class went extremely well and have been invited back to teach again next month. Several of the students indicated they were sure there would be bruising tomorrow on their arms. I mention this because it happens in every class, hit your partner time and time again over four hours and it is bound to happen. I was mindful of my condition so only did a few techniques that took someone down to the ground and said I would show that in the next class when I have recovered fully.

Good to hear your views on firearms, especially with firearm safety and that the firearm is not the first thing you go to for defense. I have been teaching "Use of Force", firearm safety and all disciplines of firearms from handguns to shotguns to tactical rifle to civilians, police and military for the past 15 years. One constant is that the average civilian does not fully embrace is the finality of what happens when using a firearm in a situation while the majority of professionals absolutely understand this. The following page is something I put together to assist in teaching other instructors to lecture on firearm safety. http://kevininstructor.home.comcast.net/~kevininstructor/FirearmSafety/FiveHabits.html I have a short statement that embodies when you can use deadly force for civilians. In order for deadly force to be justified there must be an immediate, otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to yourself or other innocents. Deadly force is that force which could reasonably be expected to cause death or grave bodily harm. Of course police use necessary force while civilians it's equal force. My perspective in female and males in the realm of working in LE (Law Enforcement) is many times portrayed incorrectly to the general public in television shows and movies in that they are not capable of standing their ground but it the completely opposite with firearms when the are dedicated to being a true professional. I have yet to be on the shooting line with police officers as a female but can say that it could go one of two ways and that all depends on knowing the attitude and mindsets of the officers' but can calculate it would not be an issue for me as I am well versed with firearms and have the experience to stand up, show techniques with a full size 1911, Glock 19 or revolvers. The only thing males have over females is the average male build, nothing else.

I am into females but last week decided to see what interest there was for a post-op on Match dating service. Thought that there would be zero hits especially when the first line in my introduction said "To start off, I was born a male and just made the transition to female through surgery". Did not check for hit until three days later and had about 20 'likes', 'winks' and email messages. I could not reply as I am a free member thinking way pay 14.99 per month when there would be no hits. Well I'd say about three quarters appeared (but sure) to be after the fetish thing. Guess I will never know because I am not really into men. So my feeling is many are into it for the fetish. Think I will stick with females and have no doubt that I will find someone as there are already females who have expressed interest in me.

I understand and respect people who don't believe in carrying a weapon but I like to be able to up the anty with a impact tool such as a specially made pen or flashlight. I would say a well trained person without tools/weapons and good de-escalation skills will be fine in most cases but there are times when that is not enough. If an average built man clobbers an average built female "game over" in most cases. And the nice thing here is we can (if you are in the right) use disparity of force in these situations. What I DO NOT believe is something to count on is OC or pepper-spray as this can go against you in many ways and many push OC and pepper-spray and don't get me started on tasers.

I actually can see myself as a nurse/coach per-say. Even if I could get hired my guess it would take way too long to get to the salary I am at currently which afforded my things like surgery and a comfortable life. Thank for the thought :-)

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 demonstrate what I call "Counter-for-counter" which in short means if they did "this" I do "that" and if they then do "something else" I counter and we can keep going as long as it takes but keeping in mind this is under 10-15 seconds which many think is cool but is not easy to learn which is why I push practice and repeating my class. Oh, can't forget to show how to get out of being tied up with duct tape. One of the students today is a repeat, a black belt and is always trying to counter my counters which is cool but so far have failed to come out on top. I really like this type of student because they challenge me to be better and every class I learn something new "Always a student, sometimes a teacher" is something I fully grasp and embrace. Now what should I wear :rolleyes:

Don't let them scare you too much but look at things I wrote about and understand they do happen so knowing so ahead of time should make it easier.

Yes I am dealing with a lot. Today I solved the problem by shopping at Macy's and Victoria's Secrets :-)

When of the things I learned early on when in sales about Bloomingdales was too always present angry/frustrated customers with a smile, sympathize with them. Currently as a moderator for one of the largest programmer forums at Microsoft for a language known as C# I deal with similar things and do the same in posting back to them. It is always better to not fight them but instead see their point and educate them. There will always be a small amount that never will see eye to eye but I think you and your mother have the right attitude and will be just fine. The sad thing is when a trans* person must contend with people in public, seldom we have the time to educate and must resort to different methods to walk away safely. I teach various forms of self-defense and always tell my students that the first thing is to ask yourself "Can I walk away from this" and combine this with "Should I had been there is the first place". I am the same way with were I elect to write about trans issues and if a site has bashers I think "should I really be here knowing full well there are those haters here?" So instead find places such as this site and similar sites to post information as I truly have better things to do then educate haters which may not sound like a good thing but life is too short for this. Any ways thanks for sharing your thoughts and wish you all the best in your life ahead.

There are four that can be used but Marci skips the first one which is from my understanding very narrow in diameter and would guess it is only for those who have a small vagina. During my after surgery visit they showed me how to use the dilators and started with the middle one which went in 6.5 inches and was a tad sore. I then used the first one for a week then transitioned to the middle one which was painful so next time I used the small one for five minutes, not as bad but still hurt. Then after two days I was perfectly fine with the middle one. I am going to start the largest one sometime next week, it is very large in diameter and not looking forward to it but must be done if I ever want to be penetrated which I do want to experience but I am more into women so I am not so concerned. Bottom line is you must dilate three times a day for three months then two times a day till 12 months then thereafter once a day for the rest of my life.