Tucson on My Mind

Tucson Sunset 2-11-09

Skyhigh Saguaro

Created by Disney?

Unique Saguaro

On May 9, 2008, a reader of this blog introduced herself.  I began to read her blog and she remained a consistent reader of mine.  We became friends since miles do not matter when one is using the internet to communicate.  She asked if I’d want to consider getting away from a cold, Minnesota winter and come to visit her in Tucson sometime.  Well, I decided that sooner was better than later and took her up on her offer this winter.  I flew out to Tucson on the morning of February 11 and returned on Monday of this week.  (A day later… but that’s another story!)

The Tucson Symphony Friday evening was delightful.  Watching the sunset from “A Mountain” overlooking Tucson was inspiring.  Magpie’s Gourmet Pizza was just about the best pizza I’ve ever had and deserves “The Best Pizza in Tucson” award it has gotten for 19 years in a row.  I enjoyed authentic Mexican food, my friend’s cats, and eating chocolate cake while watching riftgirl videos on YouTube.    I met new friends, gazed at a starlit Sonoran sky, and received a personal guided tour of both the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Amity Circle Tree Ranch by friends employed by each of these organizations.

But what I enjoyed most was the uninhibited joy of being accepted and loved for the unconventional, liberal woman I am.  Those four days were the boost my soul needed. 

In my day to day life here in the BiCities, I’m… well, my real name isn’t Kinsey.  I’m in my early 50s, married for 35 years and happily so, and am professionally employed in a scientific, intellectually challenging field.  I work with a bunch of other married ladies in a field comprised of at least 75% women, and they all know me as that coworker who has been married since forever, and they don’t know anything else about my personal life.

I leave it at that because bisexuality and polyfidelity are too complicated for most people to understand.  In day to day interaction with people I work with, I don’t say, “Yes, I’m married, but I’ve also had female lovers throughout the years of my marriage, and I’d really, really like to have a long-term, intimate relationship with a woman.”   No, no, I don’t go there, understandably!  I’m out to two gay coworkers who know I’m far from straight and narrow, and that’s as far as that sharing of my personal life goes.

Other than those two gay coworkers, though, I’m just a conventional married woman to everyone else.

That IS part of me.   The married part, the part that finds men attractive (well, okay, an occasional one now and then!),  the part of me who has been in a long-term heterosexual relationship for most of my life now is a valid and recognized component of who I am.  I’m not playing a role.  I’m not cleverly disguised as someone I’m not.   I’ve found fulfillment and pleasure in my marriage and I will continue to do so.

However, I am so very attracted to women as well.  I love my friendships with them.  I derive energy and emotional fulfillment from their laughter, their beauty, their gentleness and wise insights into the world, their valuing of relationships.  I take strength from their resiliency.    Physical intimacy with a woman takes me to places of exquisite joy.  All of this is an important and vital part of me, intricately linked within the tapestry of who I am.

Can I bring this out for the world to see in the course of my daily life?  Not too often!  Perhaps if I’m out for an evening on the town with a LGBT friend.  Then, certainly.  If I’m at a meeting or a conference pertaining to a GLBT topic, then of course.  If I’m at our Pride event in June, I’m OUT.    Day to day, though, with people I work with, with straight friends who know only what I’ve told them, with family… no, not OUT so much.    I’m that married woman, presumably straight.

But then there are these interludes: Pride, the BECAUSE Conference, a vacation away with GLBT friends and their allies; hell, a trip away to stay  with my lesbian cousin in Pennsylvania!  All these things bring out a sense of well-being, if not downright euphoria, because it’s acknowledging and embracing the part of me that doesn’t get much recognition and acceptance.  It’s a bringing together of the pieces, a unifying of the whole.  Exilarating?

Ya, you betcha.

Much love to my Tucson friends.  Don’t forget about me now, you hear?

The Next Backdrop

In my post last month, Queer Friendly Spaces, I mentioned that our favorite queer-women’s bar, Pi, was in danger of closing its doors due to financial problems.  I donated $100 towards the fundraising effort to try to keep the establishment open.  Alas, this week I had my check returned from Pi’s owner, Tara Yule.  She said in the enclosed letter:

It has been several weeks since the doors were closed for the last time at Pi. Though I have had long days remembering inspired moments and missing friends, I have been comforted by the collection of many touching stories and cards. I have received and been truly awed by the generosity that manifested itself in Pi’s final weeks. As can safely be assumed by now, Pi will not be rising from the ashes, at not those left in its former location. I can only hope that the spirit of kinship that was exposed in the last days of Pi can be maintained long enough to find its next backdrop. Not many people can say that their dreams have come true. I feel truly privileged to have seen it.

This is letter is to thank you for your individual contributions to Pi’s dream and to inform you that the fundraising has been officially cancelled.

Thank you for being a part of what happened.

Sincerely and gratefully yours,

Tara K. Yule

The queer women’s community here in the BiCities sorely misses Pi. There seems to be no place to go that has the same comfort and essence that Pi had. I hope that there will soon be a next “backdrop” for the LBT women’s community where they can feel at ease, have fun, share a spirit of comraderie in a way that only women know how to do. I’ll be on board with whatever efforts arise towards this goal.

Flavorful Rainbow

Just because it makes me smile….

more animals

Top Ten Reasons

These are the top ten reasons why gay marriage is a bad idea, snagged from the site AfterEllen.

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans

Queer Friendly Spaces

In May, I wrote the post Dildo Bingo following my very positive experience with this event at the Twin Cities’ most popular lesbian bar, Pi.   The truth is that Pi is much more than a “lesbian bar.”  I’d like to quote Joni Thome, a good friend of Pi Bar’s owner and definitely Pi family. She’s a mom, a lawyer, and a long time activist. This letter was recently published online in the Yahoo Group “Bisexual Organizing Project,” the Twin Cities most prominent social and support network for bisexual folks:

This is the only place I have ever been where the sign “everyone welcome” speaks the truth about the establishment. Many in our communities have worked long and hard to bring different communities of color, culture, age, class, sexual orientation and gender identity together in one place.  In 30 years in this community I have only witnessed two venues achieve that goal, Twin Cities Pride and Pi. And, Pi has done it in under two years!

 This is more than a bar, it’s a place that is rich in potential and one that is destined to become a community landmark. Last night I watched and celebrated the election results with my Seward and Longfellow neighbors, several punks, a group of children, postal workers, teachers, stay at home parents, students, lawyers, bankers, city and county workers, people who just lost their jobs and houses and so on.  I was at Pi and the true community spirit could not have been more intense. Then again, this night was not all that different from other evenings at Pi – whether for Dildo Dingo, a Kid Dance Party, a neighborhood wine tasting or for a fundraiser, the community spirit is present at this place. We cannot let this unique and necessary space get away.

You see, Pi may close its doors this weekend after less than two years in business.  Tara Yule, the owner of Pi, took some chances with “creative financing” when she negotiated to buy the concrete, single story building that Pi is in (a former VFW post in an inner city industrial area of South Minneapolis.)  The balloon payment has come due, and she can’t afford to meet the terms of what she now owes to fulfill the contract for deed.   She gambled that she would come up with enough money after over a year-and-a-half in business, but as we all know, the economy has been bad.

Dildo Bingo this past Thursday evening was a special event, the proceeds going towards Pi instead of to GLBT charities as usual.  The funds were to help Tara pay her staff before Pi closed its doors on Sunday.  However, the energy in Pi Thursday night was high, the joint was packed, and people are guardedly optimistic that Pi may just pull out of this financial plight.  Since it was announced during the last week in October that Pi was going to have to close, the community has come together with donations both large and small.  The last I figure I heard for sure was that $150,000 has been raised.  I know it is more now.  Dildo Bingo raised approximately $3500 Thursday night — a new record for the Dildo Bingo monthly event — and private donations are continuing to come in.  I myself wrote out a check for $100 Thursday evening and gave it to Tara, in addition to staying for all ten rounds of bingo.  (That’s why I planned in advance to take Friday as a vacation day.  I knew I wouldn’t be home before midnight, and I was right!)  It’s not much in the scheme of things, but every little bit helps.

I care about this space remaining available to the LGBT community and their friends and families, too.  This past Thursday evening was only my second time being in Pi, but I’ve enjoyed it very much both times.  I, too, have been around for awhile, my coming out occurring here in the Twin Cities in 1976 at a weekly social event called “A Woman’s Coffeehouse.”  I had gotten information about this gathering from the Lesbian Resource Center, a group I contacted within weeks after moving here.  It was held every Friday and Saturday evenings in the basement of a Minneapolis church not far from downtown.  These were quiet gatherings consisting of tea and cookies and Rice Krispie bars.  Entertainment was a musician or singer from the community.  There may have been some dancing later in the evening to recorded music.  Women would sit around and talk, eye each other up.  It was all very low-key, but this was about all there was for lesbian-oriented social activities.

I’ve seen a number of lesbian bars come and go during my time here, although I never enjoyed the bar atmosphere back when smoking was permitted indoors.  The bar crowd also seemed quite clique-ish, catering to the stereotypical dyke segment of the population.  As a bisexual woman, I didn’t fit in there.

But Pi has been different.  Or maybe the times are different and Pi has captured that.  I have felt very comfortable at Pi with its range of patrons.  I sat at a table with my trans friend, Randi Sue, Thursday evening and two trans men.  The trans community is at Pi in significant numbers.  There are young women there and middle-aged women there.  There are hippies from the 70s and Goth chicks at Pi.  There are college students, college professors, mechanics, artists, sales clerks, and actors at Pi at any given event.  I’m sure that orientation and gender run the spectrum of possibilities, and it’s all okay.  Everyone is having a good time.

Having come out during an era where a queer-friendly place like Pi was not in existence, I understand how important this establishment is.  I understand what it stands for and the values it embraces.  I know how good it feels to be there! 

I want it to stay as part of our community for all those (including myself) who need a comfortable, fun queer-friendly place to be, where everyone is accepted for who they are (valid ID required, of course!) when they walk through the door.

I’m waiting with bated breath to see what comes of the fund-raising efforts.  I hope it’s enough to keep Pi alive.

Outing Myself

I had some guests in my home for several days last week.  The two nieces that were here are young adults, one just out of high school and the other in her mid-20s.  We got to talking about Facebook.  The younger niece is one of my “friends” on that site.  Her older sister hasn’t been on Facebook and said that her younger sister might need to show her around the site and set her up with an account.  I suspect that this is what they were doing today now that they’re back home 2000 miles away.

I have posted the link to my public blog there on my Facebook profile.  Mostly, that blog is a lot of day to day blathering about this and that.  In other words, nothing terribly personal for the most part.  However, in the days predating this anonymous blog where I use no real names, I posted a couple of entries that would probably be better off here in this blog.  In at least two older posts in that other blog, I mention very frankly that I’m bisexual.  I was never very concerned about those posts being there because they’re followed by 125 or more posts since then, and no one has ever cared to dig that far back in my blog.  No one is that interested in it except my husband! 

This afternoon, I noticed on my Dashboard for that other blog that I had an incoming link from Facebook.  I also had a personal email from my 25-year-old niece about one of my recent blog entries.  My “hit” number suddenly soared to an all-time daily record, and I was able to see what posts were getting a lot of current “action.”  Of course, they were the ones that mentioned sex or sexuality as the category or tag.  I have no doubt that these nieces I haven’t seen for ten years now know far more about their aunt than they ever have before!

I have mixed emotions about this.  There is a significant part of me that is exclaiming, “Oh shit!”  But there is also that part of me that is saying, “Hey, you’ve conducted your life and your marriage with honesty, integrity, open communication, flexibility, and acceptance.  That’s a whole lot to be proud of. ”

Those posts that they most likely read demonstrate those qualities.  If they know I’m bisexual….well, then they know I’m bisexual.  I don’t mean to flaunt it and make people uncomfortable, but I am who I am, and 18 and 25 years old are grown up enough ages to come to grips with the realities of the world.

(I secretly hope that I don’t incur any major fall-out from anyone over this….)

Twin Cities Pride

Just a sampling of some activities that are going on in the Twin Cities during Pride weekend:

• Blue-eyed soul/rocker Tina Schieske headlines tonight’s Bryant-Lake Bowl Pride Block Party.  Other acts include Venus DeMars & All The Pretty Horses, Black Blondie, Dykes Do Drag, and Foxy Tann.  Expect beer, locally produced food and a flea market.  Part of the proceeds go to OutFront Minnesota.
• Queertopia, now in its third year, is a caberet night by Outward Spiral Theatre featuring nine acts from multiple disciplines at Intermedia Arts.  Expect a little bit of everything including break dancing, spoken word, ballet, a drag king, a youth theatre group and even a hula troupe.
• Miss City of the Lakes drag pageant will be held tonight at the Gay 90’s in the La Femme room.
• The Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus has two concerts, today and Saturday, called, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”
• The Minnesota GLBTA Campus Alliance (the A stands for Allies) presents its first Pride Revue at the Whitney Fine Arts Center.
• An alcohol-free party, The Fruit Bowl, is being held at Elsie’s in Northeast Minneapolis.  The Rainbow Health Initiative and Tobacco-free Lavender Communities of Minnesota are behind the party.
• On Saturday, the headliner for this year’s official Pride Festival in Loring Park is En Vogue, the female quartet that dominated R&B in the early 1990s.  One of its signature songs, “Free Your Mind,” is this year’s Pride slogan.
• The Village People will play at the second annual Splash Bash at Trocaderos.
• A Leather Pride event will be held at Innuendo in St. Paul on Saturday.
• The mammoth Pride Parade will be held on Sunday.  Last year, it attracted 125,000 spectators.

I wish I could attend this year’s Pride events in the Twin Cities.  However, my spouse and I are going to his home town, a three-hour drive away, to attend his 40th high school class reunion.  My workplace is hosting its first booth at the Pride Festival this year, and I would have volunteered for a shift had I been here this weekend.  Next year for sure! 

Dildo Bingo

I have no one to blame but myself for how I feel this morning!  Repeat as needed….

I went to my very first EVAR evening of “Dildo Bingo” at our most popular lesbian-friendly bar here the Twin Cities, Pi.  It was my first visit to Pi as well, a newer establishment here in the Cities that is located not terribly far from where I used to live in south Minneapolis.  I wish it had been there THEN, but times have changed since then, too, and maybe the world is now ready for a place like Pi and the women (and a few guys) who go to Pi.

A friend from some posts back suggested that we do this.  I said that I’d meet her there so that I could leave when I wanted to.  I was fairly ambivalent about going last night with it being a work night, with it being a rainy work night, and with it being a rainy work night following a night that hadn’t been all that restful.  But I went, with the thought that I’d stay for a couple of hours max and then get home at a decent time to get to bed.

Dildo Bingo was a damn blast, though!  To watch and listen to the people running it up on stage was just outrageous!  They were so funny and so over-the-top with their raunchy humor, so completely uninhibited about the subject of sex, alternative sex, safe sex, and sex toys.  That’s what the prizes for each round (10 in all) were: sex toys donated by our local sex toy boutique, Smitten Kitten.  And all the proceeds from Dildo Bingo go to GLBT charities.  Dildo Bingo has raised $25,000 in charitable contributions during the past year.  Awesome!

I won, I won, I won!!   When I won, I had to yell out, “Dildo!” instead of ”Bingo,” and I did, loud and clear!   I won in Round 4 or something like that.  It must have been the “Trans” round because I won a prosthetic penis and balls to pack my pants with and a porn flick featuring FTM tranny men.  I will never pack my pants with a fake cock and ball set to impress the women (or maybe the men!), but I’ll take a look at that movie during this two-week home-alone time without my husband. 

Anyway, I had so much fun that I stay for nine of the ten rounds of Dildo Bingo.  (I was disappointed that I didn’t win in the Butt Plug round and get that new, rather nifty-looking toy to add to my collection!) It was going on 11:00 when I left Pi to head for home on the east side of St. Paul.  It was 12:30 last night by the time I got to sleep.

Well, I’ve got both eyes reasonably open and it’s time to head off to work.   

Beware!

Watch out or you’ll end up in my novel!!

An excerpt from the 90-page manuscript from Behind Door #3, written when I was in my early 20s as a means of working through and gaining insight about my sexual orientation:

Wednesday, August 14, 1974     Evening

Dear Mom and Dad,

  The time has come for me to write this difficult letter.  I’ve put it off for much too long already, and there really isn’t much sense in waiting any longer.  I will say right off that the reason for writing you a letter about it instead of just talking with you is not to impersonalize it but simply to make sure that certain things get said.  Talking about it has given me more than its share of difficulty, so rather than face the prospect of mumbling through a few incoherent phrases in a panic, I decided that I would sit down in private and organize my thoughts.  It seems to be the best way to get this job done.

  To state a lengthy and complicated situation in its simplest terms, I’m gay.  I’ve had myself in one hell of a mess this past year, trying to come to grips with that.  I was in so much of a mess for most of that time that I couldn’t even admit to myself what I’ve been struggling with.  In fact, the admission has really only come about within the last six weeks or so.

    Not the struggle came on suddenly this past year.  No, the feelings have been there for years now, going way back into childhood, but  they were usually weak and undefined when they would occasionally surface, and in my panic that they may just mean something some day, I always managed to beat them back into the darkness.  I never let that 3:00 A.M. feeling in the pit of my stomach get the better of me!

   During this past year, however, those feelings abandoned the timidity of their youth and took on a startling new force.  Repressing them was no longer accomplished with a few Hail Marys!  They were demanding to be recognized, and I just wasn’t ready to do it!

   Suddenly I found myself in the predicament of devoting an enormous amount of energy into running from these feelings.  As you pointed out to me, Dad, in the middle of the night following one of my recent nightmares, this energy was coming from the energy I had available to do useful, productive things. The resulting drain quickly began to take its toll on my physical and emotional health, as we all witnessed.

   All of a sudden, I realized that I couldn’t go on like that anymore.  A new approach was very obviously in order!  I knew that the energy required to deal with this issue was going to be tremendous, but it could in no way compare to the longterm drain of running from it.  It was a slow, painful struggle, but I was finally able to admit my situation and take some steps to deal with it.

  With this new approach, I realized that I had some choices in front of me.  From my perspective, they are:

  (1) I could continue to be “nonpracticing.”  Call it celibacy or the priesthood or whatever you want.  It still boils down to a running game. The method of dealing with it is still a form of denial and self-rejection.  Its sole redeeming quality is that at least no one suspects what you’re not dealing with!  However, I need a special closeness in life with someone, and if I forbid myself to have a gay relationship, I am left with no other fulfilling option.  I decided that it was a quick way of finishing the job of driving myself crazy.

  (2) I could practice my sexuality in secret and therefore “protect” my loved ones from this aspect of my life.  At first glance, that option held a definite appeal by minimizing the risk of rejection and other conflicts.  However, I felt a vague, nagging uneasiness about this choice, and after thinking about it for awhile (and talking it over with a dear and trusted friend who has been there), I realized why.  The furtiveness and necessary deceptions, the inevitable guilt because of the deceptions, the fragmentation involved in maintaining such a complicated juggling act would produce a great deal of stress.  The prospect of developing a well-balanced life and a happy, satisfying relationship seems doomed from the start under such conditions.  I don’t care to set myself up for that failure.

  My third option is laying aside celibacy and secrets and being openly what I am: a man who finds deep joy and pleasure in loving another man.  In spite of the problems this choice is sure to bring, it’s the only option in this list that will truly allow me to get my act together and give a relationship a chance at success.

  That success is very important to me because “a relationship” is not merely a dream of mine anymore.  It’s very real and very alive right now, and  I have no intention of letting it die while still in the pangs of its birth.  I’m not going to stand by and watch while it disintegrates in front of my eyes because I was too scared to do anything else. It’s taken me a year-and-a-half of miserable indecision before deciding to give it this chance, but I’m firmly convinced that it deserves this chance, and it’s going to have it.  I’ve given my vote for what’s behind Door #3.

 Which is, of course, why I had to write this letter.  You’ve got to know the truth of my situation so that I can get on with the business of dealing with it in the way that I think is best for me.  If there were another way of accomplishing that without hurting you with this, I’d gladly take that route, but I frankly don’t see a good alternative.  For my own selfish reasons, you have to know the truth, in spite of the pain this truth may bring.

  As I write this, I feel horribly panic-stricken inside, fearing that I’m risking what is most important and treasured to me — my parents’ love — for……what?  I’m not even sure yet!  I hope and pray that I still have your love, for I desperately need it and would consider it my most valuable asset right now.  But I also realize that there are some things that some people just can’t understand or accept.  I will­ understand if you can’t.

 I love you both very much. You’ve been the most important people to ever become a part of my life.  When I called out for you in that Emergency Room five years ago, Dad, you dropped what you were doing and came to my rescue.  It changed my life, bringing me into the circle of a loving family and filling my heart with a hope that I never before knew.            

 Believe me, not a single day goes by that I don’t give thanks for that! 

                          Randy 

                             

 

Acceptance

My husband and I have had quite a few open discussions about transgenderism (is that a word?) lately due to my recent relationships with two more trans individuals.  I’ve been thinking about why I have such a laid-back whatever attitude towards it when others struggle with this situation.

My first experience with a trans individual was with a woman who was in her late 30s at the time I met her, and I must have been about 22.  I didn’t know that she was a trans individual at the time I met her.  Perhaps she didn’t, either.  It wasn’t discussed.  I just knew that she was a “dyke,” a very nonfeminine lesbian, and she was very interested in having me as her lover.  I succumbed to her pursuits and had sex with her a couple of times.  On the second occasion, I actually got some of her clothes off and discovered that she was wearing men’s briefs underneath her jeans.  I didn’t comment on it.  In an intuitive way, I sort of understood what it was about and didn’t feel the need to mention it.

I drifted away from the church congregation that we were both members of, and I went for maybe a year without seeing her.  I coincidentally showed up at church again after a long absence on the day of her commitment ceremony to Kate which followed the regular service.  I knew nothing about this, nor did I realize all the changes that had taken place during that time I had been gone.  During the commitment ceremony, Tara was called “David.”  (No, I don’t use people’s real names in these posts.)  At the reception in the church basement, I offered my congratulations to the couple, and Tara told me that her name was now legally “David.”  S/he was on testosterone therapy and making the transition to living as a man.  I was glad for her/him (okay, the pronouns are hard when you’ve known a person as one sex and then he/she switches it on you at some point!) and said so.  It seemed like the way that “David” would be happiest, and I knew that.

It was during my relationship with Tara that I met Max.  I was sitting next to Tara during a church service and the minister asked for prayers for Max who was in the hospital.  I leaned over and asked Tara what Max was in the hospital for.  “A hysterectomy,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.  And nothing more needed to be said.  That one surprised me because I had only known Max as Max and never even had an inkling that Max had female sex organs.  He had already had his mastectomy before I met him.  I became good friends with Max and visited him in the hospital when he underwent his first surgical procedure to construct a semblance of a penis and saw firsthand what cosmetic procedures were being attempted.  I was a friend, and I was interested, and I accepted it for what it was.

There was a man named Kenny in our church congregation at this time as well.  On the first Sunday after New Year’s, Kenny showed up to direct the choir as Victoria.  He/she had made the public transition to start the new year.  Again, I took this all in and quietly acknowledged the situation, having to say that Victoria looked a hell of a lot more attractive as Victoria than she did as Kenny!

A lot of years went by — 17 to be exact — while I was abstinent from sexual relationships with women and absent from publically hanging out with the GLBT community in any organized way.  Then I started dating again.  I had a three-year relationship with Maura.  After we stopped seeing each other, the next person I dated was a MTF trans woman.  She said she felt very comfortable with me.  I learned a lot about “transition” from her: emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

I’ve known several other MTF trans women since then.  They said as well that they felt comfortable with me.  I was easy to talk to, easy to be with.

It’s just me being me.  I have had a natural, easygoing attitude about sex since I started to learn about it as a pubescent child.  I had a keen interest in sexual matters, not just from the usual childhood curiosity standpoint but from the medical and scientific standpoint as well.  I was born too late to be one of Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s associates, but I well could have been if I had been a peer in his era!  From finding the library copy of Dr. Kinsey’s Sexual Response in the Human Female in my room as a high school freshman to Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) on my nightstand as a sophomore and The Sensuous Man in my collection as a junior, I drove my parents nuts with my unabashed interest in human sexuality.  My somewhat explicit journaling while still in high school turned my mother completely gray-haired and ashen-faced!

Nothing much shocks me.  Nothing much surprises me in the realm of human sexuality.  I’ve always believed that we in Western society have done ourselves more harm than good by the puritanical attitudes we’ve maintained over the centuries about our own sexuality.  Yes, I believe in sexual ethics.  I believe that sexual behavior should be shared in a loving manner,  mindful of and responsible for the potential consequences of that behavior.  However, those ethics don’t develop in a healthy way in the midst of inhibited attitudes and shame.

As a teenager, I became acquainted with and embraced my bisexuality, learning early in my life that there are more shades of gray in our sexuality than clear lines of demarcation.  I know that I have many fluid, androgynous qualities.  I move comfortably between my male traits and my female traits, embracing them all as a part of me.  I don’t feel any discomfort about loving men and loving women.  Even my male alter ego can love a man as well as a woman!  It’s all just part of me and the full spectrum of feelings and desires that I’m able to experience.

Do I understand gender dysphoria, the feeling of being the other gender while carrying the chromosomes and primary sexual characteristics of the genetic sex?  No, I don’t.  I’ve never stood in those shoes.  I’ve got XX chromosomes and sex organs and have always felt comfortable with my identity as a woman.  I don’t know what causes gender dysphoria in some individuals.  I’d like to know more about it, but I’m not sure that science has the answer to that situation so I haven’t done any review of the literature on it.  I may at some point just to see what I can glean from it, but I’m anticipating that it’ll be a hodge-podge and mishmash of stuff, perhaps much of it contradictory and all of it inconclusive.

What I’ve done is accept.   I don’t understand and comprehend gender dysphoria in a personal sense.  I don’t think I really can from my perspective.  I accept that it exists.  I accept that gender reassignment is the solution for some people in this situation.  I accept that their basic needs are the same as everyone else’s. 

That’s what I understand.