The "T" Party.

Siren of Triton

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I was really angry at my college graduation the other day because one of the Masters degree recipients was a transgender man - and it's well known throughout our small music school - and when he was walking up to get his diploma some jerks shouted, "Are you a boy or are you a girl?" I just can't understand how people could say that ever, but especially on a day like that, when it's supposed to be his special moment to shine. I was just fuming with rage and it almost colored the whole night for me.

I've always tried to be an ally on transgender issues, but these have become much more personal for me recently as one of my closest and oldest friends came out to me as a trans man who is attracted to women; I didn't know either until a few months ago. He's out to his dad but not his mom (his parents are divorced); while his dad took it very well and will continue to support him, he's pretty sure his mom and his stepdad are going to disown him. My parents have already offered to let him come to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it's frustrating that they even have to offer that, that he's risking losing his family over this (if you're wondering why not just go with his dad, he lives on the opposite end of the world so it's too expensive of an option to visit him every holiday). And my friend has apparently known since before I even met him - in our first year of high school - but couldn't come out until now, after college graduation, because he couldn't risk his parents pulling financial support while he was still dependent upon them.

Also, while I've mostly adjusted to using male pronouns for him, it's weird having to switch back to female pronouns when dealing with people we both know to whom he's not out yet (since he's still presenting as female for the time being, but plans to transition after he's out to more people).
 

robertsloan2

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That poor man. Gods. That sort of thing breaks minds. I look back and all those normal life passages, proms and graduation and college and so on, first job, everything was twisted and distorted. Nothing, no part of my life as I look back on it wasn't in some way burned by it.

I went through way too many years and heartbreaks before I understood that if I had to lie to someone for them to love me, they didn't love me. It got better after transition. After transition, my friends were my friends as long as I didn't tell them anything about my past. At least then if they were with me they were with me, not making up some sort of weird fantasy in their heads that had nothing to do with who I am or what I do or what I want in life.

Good luck to him. A lot of people take their time on transition and what he's doing may mean some of his loved ones can get over it and still love him. I hope they do. I hope they can handle it. If they can't, at least he's got the education and they can't repo his brain for it or something.

I remember when I first moved to New Orleans and got a job there, was taking a bus to work and walking from the bus stop to the building. These rednecks drove past in a pickup truck and yelled "Hey bitch, where's your titties?" They laughed at me and drove away slowly with a lot of hoots and cat calls.

I didn't answer them. I was in stark terror. I knew they'd get away with it if they stopped and beat me up or tried to kill me. I knew once the cops found out what I was they'd just get a slap on the wrist if that. Back in Chicago, some guys liike that had picked out a gay man and thrown him into the Chicago River while he screamed that he couldn't swim and they got off. Ted White got off with the Twinkie Defense after shooting the Mayor of San Francisco because he also shot Harvey Milk, the gay Supervisor.

I kept my mouth shut and plodded along, humiliated, aching, and I don't think it's something that I'll ever forget. It's a good thing I didn't own a gun. If I'd had one, I'd have wound up murdering them and getting the death penalty, because if it goes the other way it's the Unspeakable shooting a Nice Bunch of Kids who were Just Having Fun, Boys Will Be Boys.

They used to say that to hippies when I was a teen. You can't tell if it's a boy or a girl, boys with long hair.

I wish him luck. Transition is hard and finding out who loves you and who never knew you and doesn't want to, that's going to hurt no matter who falls on which side of the line.

More good news, the block busted and I spent 9 1/2 hours last night editing "The Sword of Arkatyr," which is the one I'm putting into print first. Huge personal victory. I live here now. It doesn't matter what the themes are or what anyone I live with thinks about it or about my being a writer at all because right now the only person I live with is my cat.

He approves. He likes my being a writer because my work time is good solid lap time for him. He can see right where I am and he can settle in my lap for a good long snooze whenever he wants, since I have no problem typing over his back. He has no problem sleeping through my typing over his back as long as I don't jiggle the chair or move around too much.

He is now officially an Emotional Support Cat! I signed the service animal paperwork and got my therapist's signature on a letter explaining that he's a service animal. Very specifically NOT giving the name of a service animal so that when he dies of old age there's no problem with my getting another cat. Ari isn't the first cat I've loved, but he is 12 years old and we've been together since he was six weeks old. We are close, me and my Prescription Strength Cat.

He's glad I'm home. He always gets a little miffed when I go out for appointments, he worries. He'd probably like it if I got out the cat bag and brought him with, something a lot easier now that I've got the letter. They'll send me a tag to go on his harness too once they get the paperwork my therapist filed.
 

Caitlin Black

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Okay, so I have a probably unanswerable T question for myself.

...

Is it right to date someone if I know it won't last once I've transitioned? As in, a straight girl.

It may not even be relevant right now, but I have made a connection with a girl I'm pretty sure is straight. I think she likes me that way, though I can't be sure.

But I'm just worrying myself. Like, if she asks me out (against all odds maybe) can I really bring myself to date someone who isn't attracted to women?

This is a matter of "right now" vs. "long term".

So as you can see, it's probably unanswerable by you all. This is something I have to decide for myself.

But maybe you can say what you would do in this sort of situation, and give reasons. It might help.

Thanks in advance. :)
 

Xelebes

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Love can be fleeting. But if you can get it, it's worth it.

As the saying goes, it's better to have been loved than to have never been loved.
 

Shadow Dragon

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If you're planning out anything long term with your life (like say transition) you should probably tell your partner. Go ahead and go on a date or two to see if you two work well and then tell her the truth. If she wants to stay, she will. If she doesn't, it was going to end badly.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is potential that a partner who's generally straight will stick with you after transistion, however that's a lot less likely if they feel lied to and betrayed by you keeping it secret.
 

Caitlin Black

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That's pretty much what I figured. At least, that's what rational me was saying - emotional me was saying "Just have fun for a while."

Of course, it's a non-issue so far. We haven't been on any dates, just hanging out in-between classes at Uni. Neither of us have expressed interest. It just seems like we get along really well...
 

robertsloan2

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Good luck, Cliff. I hope for your sake that it works out well, one way or the other - pleasant but fizzles out rather than turning bitter, or lasts because she's more bi than she realizes.

I've fallen into weeks of steady computer gaming with Diablo III. Yesterday was the first day that I didn't even open the game - I got seriously tired and was having nap attacks all day except for the hours I was awake in chat playing a role playing game with my daughter. We've got this supers game going now two nights a week when my son in law works nights and she's got time.

That's been something we've done for years and years whenever she had a night or two in her schedule free for it. We both like freeform RPGs in person or by text. That's not the immersive gaming problem - Diablo is almost turning into one.

It takes three weeks to form a habit. I've gotten into the habit of just gaming first thing in the morning, all day till I get to sleep until I got intense about it. I wanted enough game cash for something in the game - extra stash space - so stayed awake and pulled an all nighter playing till I had enough gold to get that.

Now I'm looking to get back to writing and art in that order. So I've decided to start weaning myself off "game all day every day" by starting the day with my email and posting on forums first. Hanging out here should get me focused on my writing. Hanging out at WetCanvas will get me putting most of my energy into art as it has for the past several years.

I have an art assignment coming up though, need to create a header illustration for my author website. Right now it just has an ugly Wordpress logo header image, something generic and unrelated to anything in the content. I'm tempted to do something like the transitional images in Diablo III - line sketches in monochrome rather than trying for realism, to keep more of a storybook look to the blog.

Nonny and Storme set it up for me and I haven't done much with it yet, but I do need to read through Arkatyr one more time for a last proofing before emailing it to Nonny.

Playing a game like that has also got me isolating myself rather than socializing much, so I came back here to start a new set of habits. More writing oriented. If I start building up to this gradually I'll wean myself off the "Gaming all day" thing and back into "getting real accomplishments done."
 

robertsloan2

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I've been on a Diablo III binge for the past three weeks. Somewhere around June 6th, I immersed in the new game. I bought it on the 1st and had to wait for it to arrive. I found out I had ten character slots on BattleNet and so I filled all ten with example characters of five character classes in both genders. So I'm now seeing exactly what all the character type abilities are and the images and dialogue for both genders.

The game is great. I'm enjoying it a lot even though I'm stuck on one of the bosses in Act II right now. Unfortunately after three weeks of solid vacation in which I didn't even bother checking email daily, I realized I wasn't doing ANYTHING creative. Not art, not writing, not anything at all.

Games are calculated to make you feel like you accomplished something. They're more fun than real life because the balance between effort and reward is precisely geared to human instinct. The odds of winning classic card games fall in this range too. Then you come out into life where projects sometimes get interfered with by health concerns, other people's schedules don't fit yours, various conflicts come up and wham, the game seems so much more satisfying than real accomplishments.

This leads to game addiction in a lot of people.

It's part of why I'm not putting the time in learning how to play 3D shooters that well, because if I started getting good at them I might spend the rest of my life banging away at computer games instead of doing anything at all. There are too many good ones out there, even after filtering for my personal tastes in gaming. It's got to have adult looking characters, decent art that leans toward illustration rather than cute cartoon styles, good story and a setting that I enjoy.

Diablo 3 has all of those and is completely mouse driven. It's enough like Diablo 2 that I didn't have much learning curve except of course how to handle character types that I don't play as often like the wizards, demon hunters and witch doctors. The ones with ranged attacks demand that I back up and stay out of the critters' reach, while my usual playing style is to charge in with a "tank" character and bash till they're gone even if they surround me.

I should try to get through the problem boss with a "Tank" character, before trying to get the wizard past him. That might be the answer to the conundrum that's helped me slow down on the game. All the characters are getting close to that point.

Today though, I did something real toward my writing career. I went in and worked on my author site. Did a header using the image of my book in print, Raven Dance, then wrote up a home page for it and actually uploaded said header. It looks decent. I put it up on my signature here.

Next thing to do - I need to put the buy link for the book into that copy and then actually open the book for that final proofread before I send it off to Nonny for editing. I think I will do that before I get the game open again today.

Right now to break the game habit I'm starting the day doing something else first, that's this month's resolution. Just start the day with something other than Diablo. It's okay to finish the day by gaming, and I do have a chat RPG going with Kitten two or three days a week now.

Those stay in perspective. Both of us do get out and have a life around game nights. It's just that Diablo can easily expand to all the time available and if I spend this whole month doing nothing but playing, I may not have a fall release on Sword of Arkatyr.
 

Caitlin Black

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Had a nice surprise this morning.

Got out of the shower, sent my still-growing hair out of my eyes, looked in the mirror and...

I believe my exact words were, "That's HOT!" Said like a valley girl, of course. :tongue

So yay - my hair's starting to get to a decent length that makes me think it looks good. Hooray!

Of course, now comes the paranoia... Like, "If I think it looks femininely attractive, how many people are going to look at me funny for being obviously-male-bodied but with chick hair?"

*sigh*

But still, it was a very pleasant surprise. My hair's started getting little bits of curl in it. (Ringlets I think they're called? I don't know...) And when it's wet... Damn, I like it.

Unfortunately, I have to comb it back, because if it dries without being combed it looks like an unkempt mop.

/ramble
 

Anna L.

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Unfortunately, I have to comb it back, because if it dries without being combed it looks like an unkempt mop.

You have a mop; I have a sheep. Nobody ever says 'Wow, look at that girl's hair; it makes her look like a sheep. That's so hot.' :p

Have you tried a straightening iron? It helps me control my sheep hair.
 

Caitlin Black

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Nah, haven't tried a straightener yet... I figure I will one day, but for now, it's an expense that I don't really need.

My hair curls a bit, but not extremely. And when it's been combed, it's manageable (unless there's a strong wind outside...).

I have been considering hair clips or whatnot, to keep the front/side parts in place... I'm forever brushing hair out of my face.
 

Caitlin Black

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What Mac said. :)

I was actually expecting you in here at some point, strategic. I read your post in Conquering Challenges, and gave what advice I could.

I would've pointed to this thread, but I'm still kind of stealth on most of AW.

Anyway - Welcome!
 

Shadow Dragon

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So, I'm thinking about coming out to my parents soon about being trans. I've been delaying my transition for way to long, in large part thanks to having all the self discipline of a five year old with ADD. Maybe coming out will finally give me a kick in the ass to go forward. I'm like seventy percent sure they'll be accepting but it's still scary as hell. I plan on writing a note and laying it on my mom's computer desk, where I know she'll see it. There's just no way I can say it out loud to them.
 

sadbeautifultragic

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Good luck! I hope you're right and they're accepting and supportive.

I haven't told anyone in my family yet, but I plan to really soon, because my therapist has already written me my "yep this person can go on t!" note, and my doctor and I are talking about a rough date for my first shot. So yeah, since I see most of my family on a weekly if not daily basis, I need to get on coming out. :p

I'm sorry for all the misery, Cliff Face. I hope you can find it in you to come out someday, may it be months or years or whenever. :)
 

Caitlin Black

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Thanks. :)

All in all, my life is getting better as time goes on... There's just that one bit of background noise that's disturbing still. "Trans, trans, trans..."

But the way I see it, if I can get my shit together while bothered by something that huge, I can do anything.

Mostly I'm waiting on money before I can feel safe in coming out. To that end, I've been researching publishers, and if none of this lot want my first story, I'll self-e-pub it, and then get the rest of the series out there quick smart.

I was in the Self-Publishing forum a week or two ago, and the mid-list self-pubbers were making the sort of money that would really make a difference in my life. Before then, I hadn't realised that the mid-list was viable.

So yeah, that's what I'm turning over in my mind right now. Going to submit to trade publishers first, but I have a feeling this book will be self-e-pubbed in the end.
 

sadbeautifultragic

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Good luck with whatever happens with it. I know so many non-writers who underrate self-publishing, but if you're smart about it it can actually work out really well.

Oh yeah, I forgot to share my happiness! (in the hopes that maybe it makes other people happy? maybe?)

So, I'm really happy. Today I was at one of those just-for-kicks grammar lectures (yep, I'm lame) and I raised my hand, and when the instructor called on me, he referred to me as "that gentleman in the back." Of course I was so ecstatic I replied "thanks, sir!" like a whimpy little girl, and he was embarrassed, but still! He thought I was a dude! Whooooooop!