Fantasia Fair Day 5

At eleven I headed out for lunch at Tin Pan Alley again and ate with a couple, when I was finishing Tony came in for lunch and I sat with him for a while talking about his new book  and checking up on the news on some friends we have in common.

After lunch I went to the keynote address by Gerri Cannon she is running for state representative in New Hampshire. She talked her transition, getting fired, becoming a truck driver, and then a carpenter. Then running for the school board and winning in 2016.

For supper I joined another couple and their friends, one was a friend from Facebook, Bernice and we met for the first time; we ate at Mac’s Seafood Restaurant.

Afterward we went to a poetry slam where Bernice read a poem by her partner and Dainna a longtime Fair goer and volunteer who passed away last winter.

I also read some of my poems.

When I was transitioning I was going through a lot of emotions and through those emotions I wrote poems, the first poem that I read was the first poem that I wrote…

Lady in the Mirror

Heart skips a beat.
    Stomach flutters.
         Breath is lost.
I see me.
    I am whole.
          I am one.

The next two that I read were about my parents passing.

I used to have a stash of clothes that I hid and every once in awhile they would vanish, my mother found them but she never said anything, it was the elephant in the room.

The Question

You never asked.
I always wondered.
But, I never asked.
It was our little secret.
The question unasked.
Little things that let me know that you knew.
But never asked.
The little hints here and there.
But the question remained unasked.
Hints just loud enough for my ears.
Oh, I always wondered about the question unasked.
Would our love survived.
If asked.
What would it have been like with the question asked?
What might have been if you asked?
What might have been if I asked?
But now is too late for you or me to ask.

And the last poem was about my father’s passing,

A Passing

There comes a time to past
Time to shed a tear
Time for the last
Time for the words we don't want to hear.

What we all must face
Time for what we all fear

Time not to waste
Time for the words we don't want to hear.

Our time will also come
Time for what we can not seer
Time to go home
Time for the words we don't want to hear.

Time to say one last good-bye.

After the spoken word was an open mic.

One of the songs that was sung was Don McLean’s “American Pie”

The song brought me back to my college days, my roommate used to play my record of the song over, and over, and over. He used to leave the arm on my turntable up so it would continuously as he passed out from booze.

The last song played was Carol King’s “You Got a Friend” and that song brought me back a couple of years ago when I went to see “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” on Broadway with my cousins.

Music is like that it can transport you to another time and place.

My friends left to go to Roomers and I went back to my cottage.

My Poems

From time to time (translated - when I don't have time to research and write a column) I post one of my poems...

Climbing the Mountain

I walk across the plateau to the face of the cliff,

Looking up I think that I’ll never make it.

It looks insurmountable, a formable wall in my journey.

I see others look up at the wall, shake their heads and walk away.

Deep inside me that inner voices calls.

I know that I have climbed others and have always made it,

But this looks different,

I know that I will have to summon my courage.

The plateau is comfortable, but my inner voice calls me.

I reach out and find a handhold, then another.

Slowly I pull myself up.

One handhold and one toehold after another.

Looking back from where I came, I can see the hills and valleys.

They all seemed like they were mountains and canyons then.

Now from this vantage point, I laugh at them.

Up I climb, always knowing that I may fall before I reach the top.

There will be no sage or wise man at the top,

Only the wisdom gained along the way.

I realize I have come a long ways but I still have far to go.

That inner voice calls me.

One handhold and one toehold after another I climb.

I know that at the top I will find another cliff,

And another mountain to climb after that.

April Is Poetry Month

And this is a poem that I just wrote…

Oh where, oh where have my friends gone

The world did not end with a bang, but a whimper
The world slowly faded to black
With promises
And pledges

They were by my side during my life
When I needed them
I was alone

They would not follow where I lead
In the shadows
They are found

My Story Part 10 – Self-awareness

My earliest memories are crying myself to sleep at night praying that I would wake up as a girl. I had always known that somehow that I was different, I cannot put it into words, it was just a feeling. Then one day when I was in seventh grade for some reason I dressed up in my mother’s clothes and when I looked in the mirror I felt complete, whole.

Many years later, I wrote this poem about what I felt…

Lady in the Mirror

Heart skips a beat.
   Stomach flutters.
      Breath is lost.
I see me.
   I am whole.
      I am one.

I had always said that all it would take for me to stop crossdressing was to find the right girl. I know now that even then I would not have stop, I know many trans-people thought the same thing. They married and had children, only to find out that being trans was part of their soul, part of their very being. They ended up divorced, some messy others cordial and some stayed together. (Its trans-community little secret, there are many same-sex marriages out there that consists of a trans-woman and a woman.) So in a way, I was lucky that I never married.

I was the only person in the whole world that crossdressed or so I thought. I heard of Christine Jorgenson, Rene Richards and others, but I never made a connection between them and myself. The media always portrayed them in a negative way. So I never had any role models and I thought very negatively about myself, that somehow what I was doing was wrong. (There are still people out there that think that transgender people and homosexuals are evil, which results in feeling of guilt and that leads to a very high suicide rates for LGBT people. Some studies have found for trans-people a 35% suicidal ideation rate with 16% actually attempting suicide.) It wasn’t until one summer day that I was washing the car when I heard on the radio, “girls will be boys and boys will be girls, it’s a mixed-up, muddle-up, shook-up world, except for Lola”. When I heard the song “Lola” by the Kinks, I dropped the sponge and sat down on the lawn, and for the first time in my life... I realized that I was not alone.

Making A Man Of Me

I have tried to make a man out of myself all through out my lifetime, but in 1999, I gave up. In high school, I use to hang out with the gear heads and that didn’t work. In college, I took up skeet shooting, fishing and backpacking (Left - Hiking up Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks State Park, New York. Thanksgiving weekend, 1974). I grew a beard and became a hippie. After college, I took up hang gliding (Right - a friend showing me how to use my hang glider, 1978). I dated girls, thinking having a girlfriend would make me a man. However, nothing worked, there was always that nagging feeling that I just didn’t fit in. That I was a square peg in a round hole.

My father was a masculine figure in my life and he loved working with his hands, and he was a positive roll model. My brother played little league baseball and high school football, I on the other hand did not like team sports and I was a member of the science club in high school. In other words, we were a typical middleclass suburban family.

There are a number of doctors who believe that Gender Identity Disorder can be cured, such as Dr Zucker, however, they are in the minority. The majority of researchers believe that GID is caused by something pre-natal. There have been many articles about the difference in brain structure between normal brains and brains from transsexuals. In an article in Neuro-Science entitled “Central Nervous System Dimorphisms Related to Reproductive Behaviors” they say that…

“This same group has also reported a dimorphism that may be related to gender identity. In comparing male-to-female transgendered individuals to heterosexual males, they found that another hypothalamic structure, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, is smaller in transgendered males, being closer in size to that of females.”

While the actual cause of this difference is not known, researchers are looking into several possible causes. In a blog by A. E. Brain entitled “Brain Gender Identity - a presentation by Dr Sidney Ecker, MD FACS” Zoe reports on a paper that was presented by Dr. Ecker and in that report the Abstract states in part…

“Transgenders are atypical and “think” as the opposite gender. Certain areas of the brain have been shown to be sexually dimorphic. They are different in structure and numbers of neurons in males versus females. Protein Receptors for the sex hormones in different areas of the brain (limbic and anterior hypothalamic) must be present in sufficient numbers to receive those powerful hormones. There are androgen receptors (AR), Estrogen Receptors (ER), and Progesterone receptors (PRs). ARs or ERs are predominant at different times in different parts of the human brain. Hormone receptor genes have been identified in humans, which are responsible for sexually dimorphic brain differentiation in the hypothalamus. The groundwork in brain gender identity is gene-directed and takes place by forming male and female hormone receptors in the brain before the gonads and hormones can influence them. Multiple genes acting in concert determine our sexual identity.”

Dr. Zucker believes that you can cured GID in the case of a male to female transsexual child by butching up a child, by taking away all things feminine and forcing the child to do masculine thing only. Conservative columnist Leo Shishmanian writes in a column called “Life, the 60's, transgender tots, and parental abdication” that…

“Dr. Money “pioneered” new definitions of “gender roles” based on his belief that gender was not innate but could be assigned to a child before age 3. In other words, your DNA, [SRS - I deleted the original graphic description and substituted SRS] and hormones (to name a few things) don’t have to determine your sex. If Dr. Money got to you early enough in your childhood, he could help you choose your sex. Not surprisingly, Dr. Money also was a strong advocate of sex change operations while working at Johns Hopkins University.

To prove his theory, Dr. Money experimented in 1967 on a set of young twin boys, one of whom had had a botched circumcision... With the parents’ consent, Dr. Money removed the boy’s [genital - I deleted the original graphic description and substituted genital] and put him on an aggressive hormone regimen so he could be raised as a girl. The result? An epic tragedy that ultimately led to the boy unsuccessfully reversing Dr. Mengele—sorry—Dr. Money’s plans several years later, the boy’s suicide in 2004, and his twin brother’s drug overdose in 2003. Ruined lives, broken relationships, a devastated family and generational lines lost.”

I say the exact opposite, that this does prove that gender is inborn. Dr. Money tried to force a gender on the boy and he knew that something was wrong, that resulted in life long incongruity that ended in his suicide. Dr. William G. Reiner, a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma and Johns Hopkins and a leading specialist in the treatment of children with the intersexual condition said in the New York Times article “Declaring With Clarity, When Gender Is Ambiguous” by Claudia Dreifus that…

Q. How do you know what constitutes gender identity?
A. As part of a research study, I've personally seen and assessed 400 children with major anomalies of the genitals. Of those, approximately 100 might be called "intersex." Our findings have been many and complex. The most important is that about 60 percent of the genetic male children raised as female have retransitioned into males.

We also found that of this group there were some genetically male children, who despite genital anomalies were raised as males, and they continued to declare themselves as male.

Q. What conclusions can you draw about the eventual sexual identity of an intersex child?
A. That you can castrate a male at birth, create a female genital structure, raise the child as a girl, and in a majority of the cases, they'll still recognize themselves as male. Now many of the children I've seen are still young. I don't know what will happen as they get older.

Nature is not in black or white, male or female, but every color in between. I wrote this poem when I was considering transitioning,

Colors

It is neither black nor white, but it all the shades of gray.
It is neither day nor night, but it is twilight.
It is neither hot nor cold, but a pleasant warmth.
It is neither truth nor a lie, but half- truths and white lies.

We are neither male nor female, but all that lies in between.
We are neither red nor blue, but like the colors of a rainbow.
We are like a bridge that spans male and female.
We are like the spices added to a meal that gives it variety and flavor.

An Interesting Email

The other day I got an email from a student in a class called Visual Statements - The Art of Social Commentary and she asked if she could use one of my poems for her class project. I was both honored and intrigued about the project and I gave her permission to use the poem “The Box” which was a poem that I wrote when I was struggling to cope with my gender identity. In the poem I switched the image of a closet with that of a box, instead of fighting to get out of the closet; I fought to get out of the box which I felt made a much more powerful image than a closet.
Here is the poem…

The Box

It would plea and beg to be let out of the box.
Other times it would bang its fist and try to claw out of the box.
I would take it out and let it play when nobody was around, but I would always put it back in the box.
I would be able to go to work or play because I had it in the box.
At night I would open the box, but by morning it would be back in the box.
I could hear it praying to be let out of the box but I always ignored it and only when I wanted to I’ll let it out of the box.
As I went about I could hear it make comments “Oh, that’s a pretty
dress.” or “I wish I could look that pretty.” but, I always forced it back in the box.
But, once in awhile a painted nail or a hairless arm would be seen out of the box.
It’s walking around in public and eating in restaurant and it is now getting harder to put it back in the box.
When it’s out of the box it knows freedom and when I try to put it back in the box, it turns and smiles and says, “I have the key and when ever I want, I can get out of box.”

As an aside, last year when some friends were playing their guitars, I was looking over the lyrics to the Eagle’s “Already Gone” when I read the lyrics "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains. And we never even know we have the key" that is kind of the same thing I was saying about the key in my poem; that we control our own destiny.

Create a Connection

Faith & Hopes...Getting to know you day


1) Tell me about Faith, your different kind of faith? What it means to you?
I was born and raised as a Catholic and that gave me my sense of faith. But as I grew older I came to not believe in organized religion, each church professed to be the “True” religion. Over time I came to believe it is not where you worship but how you act to one another that was the essences of all the religions in the world.

2) Are you rather religious or mystic/spiritual? What does it bring to your life?
I consider myself religious and it bring character to me. as they say on Star Trek; it is my “Prime Directive” to treat everyone equally and fairly.

3) Do you trust and have faith in your self or do you have this tendency to abandon your self, to procrastinate and give up because of this lack of faith maybe?
Yes, I have faith in myself. However, I do not believe that procrastination is a symptom of lack of faith but rather it is avoidance to do something that you do not like.

4) Do you believe in parallell realities? How would you see them? How do they show for you?
Nope.

5) Do you believe in Past, do you sometimes feel echoes of these life?
Nope.

6) Do you believe in things that can not be proved?
Yes. Since we are talking about faith I do not believe about say, gravity. I believe in God and the reason I believe in Him is just by asking yourself the question where did all this come from? I climb a mountain and look out over the valleys or look up into the stars at night and I ask myself hw did this beauty come about.
Oh, I know about the Big Bang Theory and I believe in it, but what came before the Big Bang? No one has answer for that.

7) Love is about Faith and Hopes, tell us why you are with the person you are at the moment, what are your hopes with them for tomorrow, projects etc and how do you express and show your faith in them?
I have Hope that some day I will find someone who can look beyond that I am a transsexual and see the person inside.

8) Tell me about a time you have lost hopes? How did you react?
I haven’t, there is always hope.

9) What do you do when you see another one losing hopes and faith in them in life and everything, friends or complete stranger? How do you deal with that?
I am there for them, to listen, to help them in anyway I can.

10) If Hopes was a metaphor or poem what would it be according to you?
Here is a poem that I wrote...

* * * * *
Climbing the Mountain

I walk across the plateau to the face of the cliff,
Looking up I think that I’ll never make it.
It looks insurmountable, a formable wall in my journey.
I see others look up at the wall, shake their heads and walk away.
Deep inside me that inner voices calls.
I know that I have climbed others and have always made it,
But this looks different,
I know that I will have to summon my courage.
The plateau is comfortable, but my inner voice calls me.
I reach out and find a handhold, then another.
Slowly I pull myself up.
One handhold and one toehold after another.
Looking back from where I came, I can see the hills and valleys.
They all seemed like they were mountains and canyons then.
Now from this vantage point, I laugh at them.
Up I climb, always knowing that I may fall before I reach the top.
There will be no sage or wise man at the top,
Only the wisdom gained along the way.
I realize I have come a long ways but I still have far to go.
That inner voice calls me.
One handhold and one toehold after another I climb.
I know that at the top I will find another cliff,
And another mountain to climb after that.

A New Poem

All types of emotion and memories are running through me as I get ready to change my name and go full time or what is called ‘transitioning”. I am both scared and hopeful, so many thoughts are in my head that this poem coalesced and formed.

A Christening

Birth.
Death.
Rebirth.
Phoenix rising.
No! Not from ashes.
On a foundation
On a pedestal
Of stone.
A new chapter
But not
A new name
A new life
But still the same
But a new page
Memories
Still the same
Still me.
But reborn
A crystalis

Thursday Poem

Trans-

I look in the mirror and I see a man.
I blink, and I see a woman.
But, I am I.
I don’t feel any different.
How can I be both?
Can both survive?
Will one have to be destroyed, in order for the other to live?
Will I still be me?

Thursday's Poem

I was busy yesterday (See below) and didn’t get a chance to post my Thursday Poem, so here it is a day late.
Teach Your Child

I read Ann Landers the other day.
It was about transsexuals and bathrooms.
The mother saw hate.
The child saw innocence.
The mother was a good Christian woman.
The child preached love.
The old sage preached understanding.
Why do we teach our children to hate?
Why don’t we teach them to love?

Thursday Poem

Since Tuesday was Halloween I thought a kind of spooky poem was in order....

* * * * *
The Haunted Forest
Running, running.
Aimlessly through the dark.
With shafts of light piercing the dark here and there.
Goblins and bogeymen reaching out grabbing at you.
You stop and listen to noises in the dark.
Running, running.
Bumping into objects in the dark.
A woman puts out a hand and says, “I can help follow me.”
You fearfully follow her towards the light.
She leads you to an open meadow, filled with flowers, butterflies and birds singing.

Walking through the woods sunlight shine through the leaves.
Walking through the woods branches grabbing at my jacket.
Walking through the woods squirrels scamper in the leaves on the ground.
Walking through the woods, you see a person running wildly.
You stop and say, “I can help, I know the way, follow me to the light.”

Thursday's Poem

Climbing the Mountain

I walk across the plateau to the face of the cliff,
Looking up I think that I’ll never make it.
It looks insurmountable, a formable wall in my journey.
I see others look up at the wall, shake their heads and walk away.
Deep inside me that inner voices calls.
I know that I have climbed others and have always made it,
But this looks different,
I know that I will have to summon my courage.
The plateau is comfortable, but my inner voice calls me.
I reach out and find a handhold, then another.
Slowly I pull myself up.
One handhold and one toehold after another.
Looking back from where I came, I can see the hills and valleys.
They all seemed like they were mountains and canyons then.
Now from this vantage point, I laugh at them.
Up I climb, always knowing that I may fall before I reach the top.
There will be no sage or wise man at the top,
Only the wisdom gained along the way.
I realize I have come a long ways but I still have far to go.
That inner voice calls me.
One handhold and one toehold after another I climb.
I know that at the top I will find another cliff,
And another mountain to climb after that.

Thursday Poem

The Word Spoken

The word has been spoken.
The bridges burned.
I can only go forward.
To the beat of a different drummer.
The regrets put behind.
What lies before me, I cannot say.
Hope is eternal.
To the light of a new day.
I cast my lot.
I pray to see the way.
I will not perish.
Come what may.
I will survive.


I think that this poem fits in well with yesterday being “National Coming Out Day” and also because I came out to my cousins this past weekend.

Thursday’s Poem

To Be Counted
There is a right of passage.
That we all share in common.
Whether or not you are gay,
Or lesbian,
Or bisexual,
Or transgendered.
When at one time or other,
You must step forward,
And declare,
What your inner voice tells you.
To step over the line,
To be counted.
To stand tall.

Thursday's Poem

The Word Not Spoken

The word said,
means commitment.

The word said,
means obligations.

The word said,
means duty.

The word said,
is a milestone

The word said,
is another stone in the foundation.

The word said,
is a fork in the road taken.

The word said,
closes the door behind and opens the door in front.

The word said,
burns the bridges.

The word said,
can never be unsaid.

I am a ...

This poem comes to mind because in a little over a week I have to speak the words again. This time to my cousin and once you say the words you can’t say “I was only joking!” Once you say the words your life is forever changed and you must deal with whatever the consequences are.
And it’s the waiting that kills you, the anticipation. You can only hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Thursday's Poem

I wrote this poem in one of my lighter moments, it’s sort of whimsical.

The Abyss
By Diana

You don’t even notice it at first.
But, it’s always pulling, pulling.

You think, I can always turn back.
It’s always pulling.

The ground slopes down, down towards the abyss.
It’s always pulling.

You see it, you try to fight it.
But, it’s always pulling

Pulling you down towards it, you fight it, grabbing at anything.
It’s always pulling, pulling.

You slide towards it, faster and faster.
Pulling.

Just one more time. I know I can stop.
But, it’s pulling.

You reach out.
And pick up the dress.

Thursday's Poem

Why
Can you tell me why?
Why do I like the color green instead of blue?
Why do I use my left hand instead of my right hand?
Why do I like the Red Sox instead of the Yankees?
Why do I like a dress instead of a suit and tie?
Why do I like pumps instead of wing tips?
Why do I like nylon instead of cotton?
Can you tell me why?

Thursday's Poem

Colors

It is neither black nor white, but it all the shades of gray.
It is neither day nor night, but it is twilight.
It is neither hot nor cold, but a pleasant warmth.
It is neither truth nor a lie, but white lies.

We are like the colors of a rainbow.
We are like spices to a chef.
We are like the colors on an artist palette.
We are like a bridge that spans male and female.

Thursday's Poem

Teach Your Child

I read Ann Landers the other day.
It was about transsexuals and bathrooms.
The mother saw hate.
The child saw innocence.
The mother was a good Christian woman.
The child preached love.
The old sage preached understanding.
Why do we teach our children to hate?
Why don’t we teach them to love?

Thursday's Poem

The Question
You never asked.
I always wondered.
But, I never asked.
It was our little secret.
The question unasked.
Little things that let me know that you knew.
But never asked.
The little hints here and there.
But the question remained unasked.
Hints just loud enough for my ears.
Oh, I always wondered about the question unasked.
Would our love survived.
If asked.
What would it have been like with the question asked?
What might have been if you asked?
What might have been if I asked?
But now is too late for you or me to ask.

* * * * *

I wrote this just after my mother passed away. I had always wondered what it would have been like if we talked about me being Trans. Would she had hated me, would she understand, oh I always wondered what would have been. I know that she knew because she found my stash of clothes a couple of times, it vanished and then I had to go out and get more clothes.