California Dreamin

The Bay Area's only transgender conference (that I know of) is coming up later this month. California Dreamin' basically kicks off on Friday, April 21st and runs thru Sunday, April 23rd. A few of the big names like Dr. O, Dr. Meltzer, Denaë Doyle, Carla Blair, and Christopher Daley will be there.

I've participated the past two years. I watched Dr. Meltzer's and Dr. O's presentations in 2004 (mainly for Dr. Meltzer since I hadn't had SRS as of then). I was only two months post-FFS at that point, and attended Dr. O's seminar since I'd paid for the afternoon. Having their sessions back to back enabled me to take a picture with the two main people who helped me be me...although I'm still not sure what Dr. O is looking at. I spoke last year about 'transitioning in the workplace' since I'd just transitioned on-the-job the year prior. They have two new people on the panel this year, so I wasn't invited back. Fresh faces are always good, though.

I also went to last year's conference to see Dr. Meltzer for a check-up since I was only two months post-op and because he was in the area. I figured I might as well get in to see him since he was the expert on what he had 'carved'.

Surprisingly, I never attended a conference before starting transition or my RLT. California Dreamin' disappeared for a few years, and I never ventured to any of the others around the country. Since I was the Education Co-Chair with TGSF for a few years, though, I put on my own sort of drawn out conference by having a number of speakers over the years. I had Dr. O talk about FFS, Dr. Eugene Kaplan discuss SRS, a self defense session, a session on picking out the right outfit and the places to shop around San Francisco, and a few makeup sessions. I guess you could say I had the sessions more for myself than anyone else.

I kinda wish I had attended one just to meet more people early on...although I definitely met my share of people at a variety of events before going fulltime. I've thought about attending one of the other events around the country like Denver's Goldrush, Boston's First Event, or the largest one...Atlanta's Southern Comfort. The forum participants at GenderPeace held a few informal conferences...one in Chicago that I attended about two years ago, and one in Boston about a year and a half ago. The one in Chicago was fun since most of the people were around my age, and we all pretty much had transitioned or were looking to transition in the future. Perhaps we'll do another one in the future.