Closed doors

Last week my company issued a statement saying the doors would be closed the week after Christmas. I was hoping to have a face-to-face with HR on January 2nd, but it looked like I was going to have to wait until the following week. So, I sent an email to my HR contact asking to meet the following Monday. She emails back that she’s off to another site that week and could meet the following week. Doh! OK, I guess I have waited this long, what’s another week and a half, huh?


Fishing for comments

I was having lunch with some coworkers and vendors last Friday when the subject suddenly became interesting. One of the vendors mentions that his son likes fishing and his daughter doesn’t. Robi mentions the gender stereotyping of that situation. Of course, as I become a bit more daring realizing that no one even suspects my situation, I state, “I didn’t like fishing as a kid, and my sister did.” It was a friendly little conversation about gender stereotyping that continued with Pete saying how he saw his son playing with trucks while all the girls were at the table just drawing. Pete then mentioned something really interesting....that female's brains develop across hemispheres and had different skills such as communication. I have no idea if his statement is valid, but I found it interesting that he said it. I know many T’s who are very smart, and also very articulate. They can be engineers and programmers, yet also artists and musicians on the side. The conversation kinda drifted off after the brain development as our food arrived.

After electrolysis this past Saturday, I picked up my parents at the airport. Yep, the parents. They’ve done pretty good considering the situation, but they are still working through some issues. Based on the advice of their own therapist, they decided to go with me to my therapist....and also visit me for a little while.

We just chilled on Saturday, then went to a fund raiser for the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday for brunch. It was the first time my Dad saw me as Kara. I could tell he felt a bit nervous. Anyway, we drove up into the city for the event and finally found a place to park. Once inside, I introduced them to a few of my friends, then introduced myself to some people I’d never met before. A guy named Travis was very friendly as he introduced himself to my parents and made them feel right at home. After my parents made their way to the food, I asked Travis what his relationship was to the fundraiser. He said he was trans. My eyes opened pretty wide. Sure, he was short, about my height, but he had a ton of facial hair, had some severe hair line recession, and his voice was quite deep. Testosterone does some pretty drastic stuff. He said he was ok with telling my parents, but I told him I’d wait until later.

We ate a nice little brunch, then watched Dion’s short film on last year’s Day of Remembrance. Gayle, who was the organizer of the event, then asked for contributions to the event. I threw in a little money, as did my parents, then we headed out for the art museum. On our way, I asked them about some of my friends, and the new people they’d met. My mom has already been exposed to some of my TS friends, but this was my Dad’s first time. I asked what they thought of Travis, and my dad said he enjoyed talking with him since they were both military men. I told them that Travis was born a woman. My dad about shit his pants there. He said he really bonded with Travis. I had to laugh. My dad...bonding with an FTM. How cute. Seriously, though, it was nice to see that my dad was able to admit that he had bonded with a guy who just happened to start out a little different than most guys. My dad has trouble getting past the stereotype of people being different, but once he meets them and talks with them, he sees that they are normal people.

All of the people there were very nice and polite to my parents, and they told me I was brave for bringing them along. I figured it would be a good opportunity for my parents to meet other transgender people to see that we’re just like the rest of society......we just happened to have been born in the wrong body.

We toured the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art after running into an artist friend of mine in the parking lot...what a small world. I will have to admit, though, that I’m just not a big fan of modern art, but some of it is ok. To me, much of it just is not that impressive. Anyway, there were a few photographic exhibits. Some even included old photos of female impersonators, transvestites, and what were probably transsexuals, but due to the time period, weren’t able to transition compared to current standards.

On Monday, I went to work for the first half, then came home and changed. We left a little early so I could stop by the courthouse on the way to therapy. Yep, the name change. I had to fill out the Civil Case Cover Sheet and the Petition for Change of Name, as well as the Order to Show Case and Decree Changing Name. They are not the easiest forms to fill out since part of them has to be filled out by me and part by the court/judge...and they don’t exactly tell you which part to be filled out by whom. Anyway, after being shown where to fill out a few more items, she also mentioned that I should call some of the newspapers to see how much they charge for the name change, since some of them can differ by hundreds of dollars. OMG...did she just say hundreds of dollars???? That’s insane. I called up a few, and of the ones I could find, it ended up being just shy of $200. That’s still insane. One little blurb in the back of some newspaper once a week for 4 weeks. It’s all a gyp. OK, so I jumped back in line and finally got my paperwork in, and paid my nearly $300 fee. I’m lucky I did this myself, otherwise the whole thing would have probably cost me over $800. Insane.

After that, we attended therapy with my therapist. My dad jumped in pretty fast with some of his concerns. My therapist explained a little about the whole transsexual situation, how it can possibly come about, the usual ways a child hides those feelings, and some of the treatments. She also went over some of my dad’s concerns. I know my dad still has a lot of concerns about all of it, and I know he feels let down. He’s just having a hard time with his son becoming a woman. He’s trying to work through it, but it’s just going to take time. Hopefully one day he’ll be proud to call me his daughter, although even I will have to get used to that.

We did go over my blood test results before we jumped into the meat of things. My ALT was 20 which is great compared to what it has been. Unfortunately, my testosterone has shot up to 87 from under 20 a few months ago, and my cholesterol is up to 171 when it’s usually around 130. Perhaps Courtney’s little visit, and subsequent inflicted diet, brought it up a few points. Anyway, she liked the cholestesterol number even though it seemed high to what I’m usually accustomed to, and she raised my spironolactone up to 150mg a day from 100mg in order to hopefully tackle the jump in T. She’d mentioned it before that there is usually a secondary jump in T after being on spiro for a while.

We then went to dinner, and then attended a PFLAG meeting that I have frequented before. The people at PFLAG are great, especially since they have all gone through it before, although most have dealt with their child being gay or lesbian, and not transgender. I hope my parents will decide to attend some of the local PFLAG meetings near them, as the people in the group can really help. And knowing my parents, they’ll really be able to help those parents of transgender children who come along later.

After the meeting and back at my apartment, my parents and I also discussed my sister. My sister basically won’t talk to me. We had an incident pop up last Christmas, and she did not like one of the sites that I had linked to on my previous website. Somehow, through all of that, she does not feel comfortable around me at all. Hopefully she’ll come around one day, and I’ll be there for her when she does.

Last night, I went out on a date...sorta. I took the usual precautions of picking the place beforehand, telling someone where I was going, then having that person call during the meeting to make sure I was ok. Hey, I gotta be safe out there since there are too many people that just don’t like transsexuals. The guy is married, and visiting the area on business, but I told him before having dinner that all he could plan on was conversation. I don’t know why I meet a few people here and there....I guess to get a little practice sitting on the other side of the table. He was a nice guy, but he was hoping to develop some sort of friendship with me....something I am not going to do with a man at this time, especially one that is married and is looking to have more than a friendship at some point.


A quick laugh.

Coworker Mark stopped by my desk earlier this week and proclaimed himself a connoisseur of reality TV. Duh!


Ooops, I did it again.

In a meeting yesterday, Robi, Pete, and I somehow got on the subject of plastic surgery. It all manifested from a conversation in which I am trying to get a headset for my phone so I don’t have to crink my neck to the side to hold it there while talking. Pete made a funny comment about me wearing tube tops if I start wearing a headset like Britney Spears....and that’s when it took off toward the plastic surgery topic. Robi says she’s going to grow old gracefully while Pete mentioned something about his face profile and how his nose sticks out quite a bit. To be truthful, I’d never really noticed. My Facial Feminization Surgery is scheduled for the end of January, but they’ll only find out about it about 2 weeks before I have it. I hope they are able to get over it in that amount of time.