KarenPayne

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.

I never had any issues with anesthesia. Was under for about 5 to 6 hours. I've had major surgery before and did take naps on that one too several years ago now that I think about it. Everyday is better than the day before so I am thinking all should be well soon. The important thing here is they say six weeks for a full recovery.

You are most welcome, the main reason for me blogging is to alert others what to expect as before these blogs I never blogged before.

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.

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 :(

Don't know what got me started (Kevin Gallagher account) but I went into my albums and decimated most of my photos of my former self but could not bring myself to remove them all which where the one's I was teaching self-defense with. Think I will wait on those until I have pictures for my other (Karen Payne account) FB account. I did first save the photos off to my backup drive, you never know if for some strange reason I might want them but by all intense and purpose they are now buried in the past. I think what got me on this path was updating my work ID today.

Monica, I actually never thought about that, being seen in public together with them and they made me feel no different than before surgery.

If so desire, check out my entry at http://www.karenpayneblog.com where the first part is at work (which is duplicated from my prior blog here) and then about current dilation. I truly despise dilation but will never give up :)

I emailed a co-worker whom I told he could use my parking spot at work that I would be in for HR work. He said let's all go out for coffee, which I said sure thing. When I got to work about 10 or so co-workers came over to see how I was doing. I gave them a brief on how things were going and that I will be out for several more weeks (Robin at Marci's office emailed me today and said I can go back to work around March 2nd). So six of us took a walk over to the nearby Starbucks, got coffee, came back and chatted for a while followed by me visiting HR to get my name change going there. I was very happy that everyone came over to see me and had smiles on their faces which meant a great deal to me. There was way too much paper work to complete today so I will head back tomorrow and give them the filled out forms.