Lost Balance, visit to VA ER, surgery and much more

On Sunday I lost my balance and fell backwards. the truth is that I think I lost my balance to ? muscle mass loss? I don't know but i know i struggled to prevent the fall. I hit the wall hard enough that i dislodged my standing mirror from the casing and my back and perhaps my head hit the wall. thus given that i am on estrogen and I had a bruise combined with the light headedness I was very scared a stroke might be in the making. so i headed to the VA ER on monday night.

I had a fantastic visit .  even the window staff looked up the trimet schedule because the bus and train stop around the time I was discharged. the window staff looked up the info so I was able to get the last bus home around midnight. 

my best guess of what happened yesterday based on the fact that my Ct scan and Xray and all my blood work was normal is that it was a combination of my hormones raging more, my allergies combined with the heat. the heat apparently really is a challenge due to my changing body and my accumulation of portland. a few yrs ago the heat was so mild compared to back east but now the heat is a more than i can handle combined with my allergies and hormones.

i also learned last night on the bus home that i had the same fear i had in the marines late at night. but on hormones i realize how dangerous it can be for a woman and it is not safe at night whereas in the past i was emotionally shut down.  last night i did not realize it until the moment happened that even at bus stops late at night i would strike up a conversation with a woman or she would start one with me. last night the only woman at the bus stop start a conversation with me.

the whole thing is the memories and hormones never shut off, never. then after i arrived home my nerves were so bad that i skipped my estrogen because i could not handle the lack of sleep and the extremely long day. i thought in the moment i cannot work a stressful environment. i am a different person and what i could tolerate yr one of hormones is not me now.  i have moved from a  fight or flight environment to a more functional one and i have a hard time wrapping my head around how fast i have changed.

i was so distraught last night in my apt i had a maladaptive dream of a gf/ wife and all of you asking me if I wanted to stop hormones and forgo surgery. in the moment i said i rather as i cry have a relationship with a woman than surgery. my journey is not about a vagina and i am so damn scared of surgery. if a woman ask me not to have surgery because she was scared i would die. i am think i wold forgo surgery because there is no data to support that it will help me . there is nothing. my maladaptive dreams helped me through stress and help me work through problems.

then this morning I awoke to my hormones raging at a new level despite not taking one estrogen pill the night before. i cannot stop what i started and the hormones never give me a rest. this is s a fact. they are raging nearly every minute of every day now. it is like i am on a mission for surgery and i am trying to overt a disaster after surgery. i know i need a big goal that will allow me to move past surgery. today i was back to my normal self struggling with memories and the hormones raging.

i had a flashback as i drank my water this morning of how my parents abused me and i apparently had a panic attack and i was forced to drink water to calm me down. i used this opportunity to create a new feeling in the moment for today. this is the real challenge on hormones and my ability to think a crisis is so so important but i do struggle a lot but i never have quite.

the flashback are good too. when i cooked my carrot cake the right amount of time had past for the cake to be done. but i had a memory of my mom saying," donnie the cake will be done when it is done."  so i left the cake in for another 5 minutes and boom the perfect carrot cake with icing was complete after a night in the frig. but when i iced the cake i had a flashback of what my mom said about icing cakes.

i had changed who I am as human being and my true values come forth in my process.  i now see if a woman stares at me as offensive because my prospective, as of today, is you see me in a sexual way but not as human being? why now say hi to me rather than as a sex object and yes this has happen many times in portland. i was flattered in the past but i thought about this over and over and i realized today it is not different an a man starring at me sexually. this is a profound shift in my values that hid in me for decades. i have changed as human being who happens to be a woman.

this shift happened because i was attracted to my  therapist but i realized that i wanted to dress like her  and her and look like her. then last week  i saw a woman in public that had a short dress then a woman that was muscular and athletic. my thought process was i want to look like the girl in the short dress and i am attracted to the athletic woman. but in the moment in therapy i told my therapist  I don't know you but as my therapist. i went on to tell her  that i do not know you as a person and then i figured out so much and I learned that it takes time to know if you like someone and they are compatible with you.  furthermore i realized that i cannot judge people on a single look or action but this is something my mother taught me that i have to unlearn and i have started to make progress of this in so many ways. basically i am in therapy 24/7 and i need to learn to do what i did the other day and that is relax and think of nothing. 

i have decided to wait for the right job despite my talent to work in a call center and raise the monies for surgery in the next six months. i want to arrive alive but in thailand and i have no idea of the dangers i will face and last night opened my eyes that i have to find someone to go with me. i  barely made it though last night. i slipped back into my maladaptive dreams and for surgery i need to live in the moment to come through it a healed woman and human being.

thank you to both of you for opening your heart to help me in my journey. the never ending emails  is and was a gateway for me to take on the challenges of xerox, therapist  with no secrets, the blog. the biggest reason i have healed so fast is the love of god and your love and caring .

thank you and god bless,

rachel

ps i think i need to move from Facebook before surgery or sooner because that is my to direct my very sexual self up front and personal. i seek to find a woman of god to live the rest of my life with and not ... thinking in the moment ..... one prospective woman...... maybe she is on facebook because i see so many other lesbians that are dying just to cuddle with another woman. we are so lonely and all over the country. 

......  all we have in common is we supposedly belong to the GLBT community and this means what?i  my mother would say "' donald you come on too strong." i am just me and i have very strong views of morality and life. i state what i have experienced in life and it ruffles people in the gay community but I have never any problem with a  woman. i think the conversation with the men and women are so different.  i especially get a laugh from a woman when i talk about my experience on hormones. a few women have said,," welcome to the club."  i think one is ..... i did not like it when ..... said that women have weaker upper body strength then men lol. it is true but i cannot wrap my head around how i cannot lift and do what i had done for decades due to my environment. 

i am glad i am surrounded by women that care about me and this complicates my decision concerning surgery because people now care about me whereas this was not true before.  now if i end up dead after surgery or i have massive complications my emotions and others are affected now. so the decision of surgery of when and where is complicated because of the love of so many. i think of the office manager and the hours in his office when he gave the most important thing to me and that is his time. so many have given so much to me in the last few yrs i need to do surgery right so i can move past it and heal myself and others.

i think i am done lol
 

the depth of my pain that seems to never end

this is an email to a friend:

hi

i am crying because to be direct i have not been intimate with a woman in over 3 yrs. i my hormones are raging higher than when i was a teen.  i am about to mentally crack if I can not find a woman to be intimate with really soon. i have been holding the line for a long time. I just do not know how much longer i can go with out and intimacy of a woman. I know jenna said the right " girlfriend." at this point i settle for a one night stand. ( so many others experience this high sex drive; the documentation of it can lower you sex drive is pure bs.)  the question a doctor should ask the patient, as I told my therapist last week, should be how is your sex drive and do you have the desire to have sex with someone if your surgery was completed? i think you would be surprised at the number of women like me that would admit to a high sex drive and wanting to wait for surgery. this is tearing me in pieces and it has for a long time.

i went onto craigslist and posted an ad then removed it 5 minutes later. I also was in my cyber world but I cannot cross the line anymore with men just for sex. the fact is i cannot be around men at all most of the time. the very thought of what i have done with men in the past haunts me in my memories brought back by the estrogen.  the memories make me sick to my stomach of what i did in the past. this is my dirty secret and i cannot unto all i did in the past as i cry and cry. i did all of these things to get the attention as a woman. i am tired of the pain please god come get me . the pain is too much for me to endure.

if i cannot find gf by my birthday i am sure i will pay a woman to be with me. i cannot take it much longer. i know if i do this i cannot undo it and i may pay a price that i cannot even imagine. the price will be to tell my girlfriend i was with a prostitute because i wanted to be with a woman.

my hormones have raged like this for about one yr but they are growing in strength as i bring my anxiety under control. i am holding on by a thread in the area of sex.  i am not sure i can wait until surgery for sex but i really don't want sex. i want intimacy that has eluded me for decades. for a woman to tell me she loves me as rachel has been a dream all of my life. i am tired of waiting please god sent me a good woman to help me with the cross i am carrying.

i am crying because i know what the consequences of a prostitute are with a woman but i am not sure i can stop it.

thank you

rachel sexuality and being a lesbian

Hi

This is a very new blog for me because I will explore my sexuality in a very intimate way for others to see into my world. The total numbers of Lesbians in the trans community is unknown but a interesting subset of trans lesbians also exist within the community. I am sexually attracted to genetic women but some trans women are attracted to other trans women. I just wanted to mention that in this article.  back to me and my sexuality now.

I was a taken a bit back the other day when a woman I was talking to a the VA, not a VA employee, asked me when did I know? I thought and I had judged she was going to ask when I felt like a woman but she asked “ when did you know you were a lesbian?” I told her when I was this big so otherwise around 10-12 yrs old? I never have been attracted to men. I did spend time with men sexually but I never allowed anal penetration. So to be direct I performed oral on men and plenty of times to get the attention as a woman.  But that only worked for a while and I felt dirty afterwards however dressed very feminine in adult venues when I met the occasional woman I felt no shame lol.

Once I met a girl in a adult venue in  PA and we decided to go to the park where the men did their thing and we decided to stay in the car and do our thing. ( note: suddenly while we were just playing the car nearly every man headed our way and I said to the girl this is not good. We went back to the adult store to finished playing. Once I was called a fish at an adult store and I did not know what that meant. The guy says you know women? I said no. he said you know women smell. I said omfg.

 There is apparently hatred of women in parts of the  gay community and I think it probably goes the other way with Lesbian distaste for men.) while in the car with the  woman it was very apparent from the very beginning she knew how to touch and exactly what to do and I was boiling hot in 2.5 seconds. On the other hand men I tried and tried to teach what I liked and it was like, excuse me , getting a dog to walk backwards.  But the woman had me so hot I had no choice but to go down on her and I loved it when a woman moans and more she moans the hotter I get. This is me.

So fast forward to the age of hormones and about 6-8 mos ago I was half awake and half a sleep when I realized I had my index and middle finger heading towards my crotch. Mentally in a semi sleep state I thought I was going to rub my vagina I don’t have yet. Wow that was a shock to my mind and that was the only time it happened but it was so real I started to cry knowing that my brain thinks I have a vagina. The hiding ended for me when I started hormones.

As the last few months went forward my fantasies about women and the sexual acts intensified to a state that makes me cry sometimes and yet others I mediate with food but that is not good either. The craving to be with a woman as a woman is increasing by the day as my brain realizes there is such a mismatch with this birth defect between my legs.  Sometimes all I think is about sex and that always means my hormones are raging. ( at month 30 the anxiety during the day went to zero but at night it has been a nightmare where I have near panic attacks due to anxiety. Is this because I have no vagina?  ) 

Also one day about 3-4 months ago I envisioned how I would pleasure a woman orally and I thought to myself every experience is so different on hormones. I am not the person that existed yrs or anything like I envisioned before hormones.  so about 3 months ago I envisioned knowing what a woman likes by how I might like a woman to give me oral while I had a visional picture of a vagina in my head. It was so odd and strange. I think I am trying to understand how my brain has changed and please do not believe the hype that your sex drive goes down on hormones. so many others speak of high sex drive that it sounds like most of us have increased sex drive on hormones. 

So when I envisioned giving a woman oral I remembered how I learned so much from an ex girlfriend and I enjoyed pleasuring her orally and with my fingers. I even had her help me and teach me exactly how she liked it to the point I her guide my fingers in her vagina so I knew exactly what excited her. Rachel was doing so serious research long before hormones. there was a specific reason I wanted to know how to pleasure her and wow that was a revelation to say the least.

With the same girlfriend I started to experiment with my feminine sexuality.  I did not know it in the moment yrs ago but I was trying to turn her into my lesbian lover.  We even tried the scissor position with a toy like so many lesbian do and I nearly had an organism. ( the position for non lesbian … please google it damn)   I knew who I was back years ago and if I could have found a woman to love me as a woman I would have be me yrs ago.  That experience was not too far in my memory and one I look forward to doing with a woman once my surgery is complete.

The fact is I want a woman to please but then I think I want her to pleasure me and then this makes me cry because she cannot give me oral since I do not have a vagina. This is making me cry now just thinking of why I really do not pursue a relationship with a woman now. I so want to be with a woman sexually but I am not sure I can handle not being able to have her pleasure me. I think I might break down emotionally after I gave her oral pleasure. This is an not a nice place over here now.

Enough of the political correctness I want to eat a fucken pussy so bad all I think of is … ok a shaved or trimmed pussy to eat. But then I think I want the right woman but my sex drive says any woman. It is like a serious damn problem. My sex drive is the range of a 20’s yr old woman and I do not have a vagina. 

I am the professional woman in public but not a nice girl in private. I have a video on utube of a girl kissing a girl and suddenly she pulls on the girls hair to let her know who is in charge. Damn that makes me wet just thinking about it.  Put bluntly “ I don’t do girls ; girls do me.”  it is not my strong preference but who I am and I will settle for anything less.

Then about one yr ago I was at the local target store when I thought I had the type of woman I want etched in my head; wrong again. This woman I saw was very muscular with tight pants and suddenly at the pizza hut outlet she looked me up and down three times so I returned the gesture lol. Then she said how are you?  I said I am good and you. She said as she walked away, “ you have a nice day.” We kept eyes on each other then she turned away. Wow I thought she was hot.

Just maybe I am looking for a dyke girl like her or fem or I have not idea. I know I love a girl to throw me up against the wall and make love to me. but the minute I think of that I realize that I have no vagina but god that makes me so wet. I need to find a girlfriend before surgery because I need sex. But how to control this sex drive while waiting for surgery is almost mission impossible. This is because I think of sex all the time unless I am in a bad mental state. Once the bad mental state passes it is back to sex, sex, sex. But in all honesty I want a woman to make love to me not fuck me. I want her to make me so wet I beg for to eat her. oh did I really say that lol.

I might look like the girl next door but I am a hot bitch most of the time and aching to try out my new breast but I lack the vagina which challenges me to decide what to do. Now back to aching for a woman to go down on me. how bad is it? I went so far as to have a fantasy where I just finished surgery and my girlfriend would lick my new pussy.  But then I thought omg that might give me an infection or her one too. 

There is no way in hell I can wait the 6-8 weeks after surgery to pleasure myself or have a woman go down on me. I have asked the doctor repeatedly about this but I am sure he is thinking of a penis penetrating my new vagina. As I told my primary care doctor, “ no penis will ever go into this vagina.” Yes I really did say that. So I am think what will be the harm at 4 weeks if a woman licked my new vagina? The only concern I have is possible infection. I will ask the doctor when I get to Thailand. I can only imagine his face when I ask this question. I am very direct but talking about sexuality is kinda new to me. I have been trying to write this blog for about one yr.

I even have fantasies with two women but immediately I think that would not last because only one person can give another 100 percent.  I am looking for a loving woman that loves me as a me and loves to receive oral. I absolutely love to give oral to a woman but only my girlfriend. 

That being said I love hot wet kisses and even in Australia I and another girl kissed for 4 days almost non stop. She did not believe she was cheating on her boyfriend if we only kissed. I was 20 yrs old and I said I can live with that opps. That was cheating but omg Helen could kiss and kiss and I loved it. I cannot imagine I did not ask her to give her oral but the kissing was gold to me.

But most of all I want to cuddle with a woman and hug her and wake up in my lovers arms night after night. I want a wife who is very loving and just a down to earth real woman that where we enjoy each other’s company. 

That is a bit more than I probably should speak about on line but oh well it is the real me.  now I need some more red wine and then I will go to bed and cry because I so want to be with a woman as a woman.  There is no way to shut off the sex drive and exercising seems to increase the sex drive too.  I am in a no win situation except to go for broke and get this surgery done soon. 

Thank you

Rachel

Ps interested women please contact me lol    

the blue bike, walmart, and the montreal canadiens of 1993

Hi

I was in walmart today and wow I went into shock and barely could stop the tears from flowing down my face when I was a young girl with a very pretty blue bike. The incident gave me an immediate flashback of when I asked my mom for a girls bike that was baby blue just like the one I saw the girl pushing at walmart today. 

What did I think? That will never be me but it could have been me. but in my family if they really knew who I was and I had told them I would have been punished via corporal punishment more than I was already receiving at home. I am unsure of how my friends would have responded in the 1970’s since there were no known lesbian or gay children at the high school.

The only time I had ever seen girls like me was on the television where a tennis player Renee Richard came out to tell her story. I was quickly corrected by my mother that she was a he. So I know how my family would respond to such a “freak” in their family.  My brother asked me I was listening to that queer on the radio? I was listen to Elton John and when my brother made the comment my father laughed.  I said I just like his music. So it was not hard to conclude what others in my community and family would think or do to me. 

Then immediately after I walked passed the girl I headed to the sports section of walmart because I was looking for a foam football to use to stimulate my brain and use my left hand.  I know what I am trying to do but at 55 yrs old I am running into a time issue that no one can beat. I am trying to recreate my childhood so I can move forward and experience what I should have been encouraged to do as a child and this would include using my light hand to play baseball.  I even remembered today that I use to try to use my left hand to throw the baseball.  Every experience opens up doors to the past and that is hard to deal with in the real world while simply completing such task as shopping. 

I and others will never know my true potential because I was denied a childhood of growing up a girl because I am different.  So the way I talk, walk, think, act was directed by my family and society to the point I did not care what you did to me which left me clinically depressed to the point I ran away to the marines. That is not the action of a sane person but one that isolated and moved out of their parent’s home because they were not wanted nor respected.  This is why respect to this day is so important to me.

So I know now that I talk much softer, walked more feminine and my  mother and father actually not only told me but coached me and made me change the behavior to a more acceptable male type. I threw the baseball like a girl my father would say and he would taunt me so finally I got so pissed off I threw it as hard as I could and he would say there you go.  So I did boy things with so much anger behind and the anger and hatred was motivated by my father and mother who demanded  male characteristics.  Basically this is where I began to love to play football, baseball and basketball just to beat the men and that was the real goal.  None of this was necessary and the older I got the more I isolated because the more I understood who I was even in my mid teens.  Once I was able to buy my own stereo because of working I lived most of my time at home in my bedroom listening to music.

The key to what I was thinking was in the songs I listened to for example Helen Reddy’s “ I am woman,” Olivia Newton John “ Mellow,”  Kiss “ flaming youth” and most of all the Runaways with joan jett “ cherry bomb.”  I was in my own world most of the time and wore women’s thongs. I would hide the thongs and put the thongs on in the school band room restroom.  The only time I did not wear my thongs at school was when I had gym that day and I changed into no underwear to made the trip home so I was not caught with women’s thongs on at home.  I knew who I was as early as 13 yrs old and before that I knew I was different but I could not put my finger on it.  Then at 14 yrs old in 10^th grade biology we studied about transgenderism and then I knew I was not alone. the puzzle of who I am was solved but what to do was another issue about it. 

I think over and over how much more effective I would have been if people would have accepted me?  we will never know because the time is lost forever.  People say to me you have today but if I had been born with a vagina or in my teens to have surgery I could have felt between my legs long ago.

I know why I masturbated so much over the yrs before hormones and the answer is very simply it numbed the pain. I would go into my fantasy world and I dreamed of being with a woman but oddly enough not as a man. I thought for yrs that I thought of myself in my fantasies as a man but I did not.  So today I have no masturbated for nearly one yr at this point and why? I know what is between my legs is not a vagina and I don’t care if I ever have sex again until I have surgery. the only possible scenario I can conceive is pleasuring a woman but then how could she please me as I cry and cry?  This is a fucken nightmare and people wanna think that hormones make it all better. Hormones make it worse because you now know that your body and brain do not match. So you want surgery and will do what you need to do to get it and that means you will consider prostitution and that is where I am today.

Everyone says no no Rachel on prostitution. Have you any idea as I cry how bad each day is and the pain is worsening by the day exponentially.  How and what do I use to cope with this enormous pain? One word food and I have gained 80 lbs after losing over 100 lbs in my initial stages of hormones. now I need to lose most of the 80lbs to have surgery to be on the safe side to ensure the best possible outcome of surgery.

But now my face does not match a feminine imagine etched in my brain so I plan to have srs, facial etc so I can at least look somewhat feminine.  This is a nightmare unlike any I have even read about.  The lies and down playing what hormones does to the body by the trans and medical community is insane.  It is a fact you are in the fight of you life where others have failed, attempted suicide, committed suicide but above all never talk to anyone publicly after any surgery.  what is sane about any of this?

I am going on and on and I need to somehow focus and move forward while the hormones increase by the day or second while funding surgery and planning  a life after surgery.  this is why others have failed or they have decided to not talk. I can understand that the whole process takes so much emotional energy out of you that you simply have nothing left. So when the next girl starts her journey she is starting from scratch just like you. That is the sad part about the trans community and to that I have had responses it is the best we can do. I say we can do better.  The problem is I am carrying a cross that is so heavy that one day it may crush me and I could mental break or attempt suicide. anyone that thinks this is not possible is not looking at hormones from a realistic prospective.

I am looking for things to motivate me but the depth of this challenge is unlike anything in sports or sales etc.  It does remind me of the montreal canadiens hockey team in the 1993 stanley cup playoffs. In the playoffs the canadiens won 20 games and 10 of them were in overtime and what is so special is the team won all of this overtime games which is a record number in the playoffs. But in the final series with the Kings (los Angeles)  in the second game we were losing and the coach for the canadiens asked for a call on the kings player’s stick that was too curved. If he was right it was a man advantage for montreal if he was wrong it was a one man advantage for the kings. He was right and montreal had a one man advantage but the coach went for broke and pulled the goalie to give the canadiens a two man advantage. The canadiens tied the score up with seconds left and won the game in overtime. this is how my life is now where I am going for broke every day and when I go for surgery I am pulling out all the stops ( my goalie) and praying the surgeon in Thailand can stop the emotional pain and win this battle in the last period of the game of my life. I have no other option at 55 yrs old but to go for broke.

Thank you

rachel

more on political view and how i differ from other in the community

Hi

Wow things have come down to were I had hope they would not but I was painfully aware that others lack the character to stand with me against the true oppression created by the GLBT political action groups.  Whereas I have little to lose since I am not working at this time  and  I  live a funded apartment provided by the state of Oregon right now. I refuse to toe the party line that if we only had hormones and surgery we all would be happy. This is not the case and could not be further from the truth.  The depth of my pain which is paralleled to  many I talk to who go on Hormone replace therapy radically changes the brain and how you see the world to the point many stop hormone therapy.

This is also true of genetic women who start hormone replacement therapy and from a blog it is apparent that the age range of genetic women on hormones ranges from someone on their teens to the senior years.  So what I am trying to convey is gender does not matter when it comes to estrogen being used as a supplement to the human body.  The experiences are nearly identical and this probably is because that estradiol is an exact match for female estrogen molecule by molecule.  So that would explain in part why my experiences are so representative of genetic women but genetic women talk about hormones whereas the trans community does not even talk amongst themselves on the depth of their pain women do.  This is why couple along with the fact I have had more female relationships as friends then trans friends.  The open conversations I have had with women has help heal me.

But the point of this conversation is not about the hormone experience but how politics of the trans  community is effectively silencing the truth of the community.  The activist from Australia to Washington believe we all should walk and talk the same and promote that all will be ok if only surgery and hormones were approved more easily or at all.  The fact is when others start hormones they have no idea what they are getting themselves into as my mother would say.  Then we have the political activist in the proverbial bed with politicians who then change policy based on the activist whims which does little to help others. but it does help make it easier for the activist groups to raise monies for their specific organization all in the name of their special interest group. I am not a woman that will ever toe the party line and I take issue with the activist that continue to do what they need to ensure they raise more monies while making themselves look good in the public eye.

But then we have businesses and government leadership toeing the same line as the politicians so it look like to everyone on the outside that so much is getting done.  However it would be political suicide to say the trans activist do and behave in the manner I have described but someone in their ranks like me speaking out is unconscionable to the activist.  I have been belittled in public and one line because I believe that we need to look at each other as human beings. I have had such responses as “ are you suggesting we sit down with the cysgenders?” ( cysgender is the label some use to identify a genetic man or woman that lives as their birth gender) I personally detest the label and my response to this comment was , “ yes.” I was thrown out of a facebook group because the discussion was so heated and the next day the individual trans woman stated, “ there we always be someone to fight.” These are the types of people that are in bed with various political leaders, companies, and government agencies.

The time for me staying quiet has come to an end. I have talked to some in the trans community and on line and when I speak they all say, “ Rachel you need to talk.” I say, “ why not you?” sadly they say nothing or walk away from the conversation.  I think I represent the silent majority that have little say in what the public thinks who and what we are as a subculture. trust me what you hear activist say in the media is not me.

My political leanings are in the middle and to the right. Otherwise I am a fiscal conservative, social liberal who believes in a strong military and increased spending for our veterans who have served in wars where many of our brother and sisters paid the ultimate price of their life. A bleeding heart liberal I am not and in fact I despise the bleeding heart liberal that says poor me and we need more policies to protect our right by passing more laws to protect us. the fact is we have had laws on the books to protect African Americans and other minorities including women and the discrimination still is prevalent but it is more subtle now since the laws were past.

I have heard too many time behind enemy lines what some white males think of women and African Americans and it is not good. For instance I was working for a door to door book company and I was working my way into management when I was asked who do I think was a good candidate for the job of all the people we interviewed. I said the black guy was dressed the sharpest and I really like him as a candidate for the job. Without any hesitation the manager said, “ Don we don’t hire Niggers.” I shook my head in disbelief and this was 1988 in Altoona, PA.

I have also heard white collar men talk of what they think of working for a female manager. Some things I have heard is “ I will not work for a dyke bitch, give me five minutes to show her who is in charge, etc.”  this was the attitude of men in the marines and in the sales field where I worked most of my life.  I detested the comments and when I attempted to defend others I was label “ Nigger lover” or when I back the females men would say, “ what are you a bitch?”  I detest discrimination but equally directed at me or anyone else because it is wrong. You are basing your entire opinion of someone based only on their race, gender etc.

But equally important to me is the reverse discrimination I hear in the trans community directed at cysgender people and especially women.  This is my pet peeve of all pet peeves with the community. I have actually heard on many accounts “ I hate women.” Here is a personal example where I hear someone that identified as a trans woman say” I hate women.” 

I had just walked outside my work and a coworker pulled up her car and asked if I could talk to her because, the trans woman, was having thoughts of suicide. I said sure. So I got into the car and I said I will help you the best I can because I have gone through this too. then she said, “ I hate women.” I said why? At this point I did not know why but then she said, “ I hate women because they have a vagina and I don’t.” I immediately shut my emotions off because I was so upset that anyone would make such a statement. From this point on I tried to act as a therapist and go my way.  I told her I am sorry but all I could think of is all my friends are genetic women and so is my daughter and so you hate my friends because they have a vagina. This is not logical and I get it is ok to discriminate against others just as along it is not one of us. excuse while the marine steps in since I am so pissed off to say, “ fuck that.” Are you kidding me and sadly this is how some think the trans community. How many or what the percentage is I do not know.

So to recap it is ok to discriminate against other just as long as it is not you and above all we are not to talk to any outsiders of what the experience is like on hormones and surgery included.  Also the most striking theme is that even in the trans community who speaks of their nightmares and the challenges of hormones. so not a soul is speaking and lastly many activist refuse to be an education tool for the general population. To all of them I ask you a question if you want the general population to understand you how do you expect anyone to understand unless you talk. But more importantly if no one is talking about what it is really like and why surgery is necessary then how will the general public support as a whole surgery paid for by the government.

I do not perceive myself as a radical but simply a voice of reason where in the subculture lacks leadership, vision and the ability to trust others is lacking. This is my strength because of the marines but probably more importantly  I was trained by some of the best sales people in multiple product lines.  This sales training has help me effective communicate with people from different background from the people that happen to be homeless to executive directors. Also my deep belief in the zig ziglar sales system that each no is a step closer to a yes and his teachings that “ the goal is not as important as the person you become by reaching the goals.”  Ziglar has had more impact on me than anyone I never met and his methods work despite your product. I have sold aluminum siding, Kirby vacuums, cars and insurance and now I am selling me and my story and why it is important to others.

My prospective is different than others because of my ability to talk to people and by the time I was 20 yrs old I had traveled to 8 countries courtesy of the marines. After the marines I was educated at Penn State University where I met some people that were really school smart and others were business smart. For instance I had one professor in an international business class who had retired from Eastman Kodak after 31 yrs. Dr. Seyna had his 3 rules of think, plan and do. He talked about his experiences in the middle east and the customs of people in the middle east from real life interactions not a book.  Another professor that I was drawn to was my psychology professor who was a bit off to many but I spend many hours in his office just asking him questions. I also spend time talking to my French teachers who were from France in their office for hours. Diversity? One of my roommates was from Sweden and I became a honorary member of the Swedish club where I attempted to ski. My roommate thought it was easy but it was use to skiing in the French alps. I am simply drawn to people that are moving forward in their lives and in so many ways I have lived a blessed life.

If I had discriminated against people the experience of my life would limited prospective. Because I reached out to others outside my subculture in school, the marines, raising my daughter and beyond I have developed into a human being that see others as part of the human race. This prospective has given me the best chance to do something that others have never done before and that is share3 my experience on hormones. Then next year I will, in a worse case scenario, set up a skpe link for others to watch me before, during and after surgery.

 this is unheard of in the subculture and if I can point to why I am different it has to be the many perspective’s I have developed because of the diversity of the people around me all of my life. I am determined to open a door into a world that is so secret in some parts even I cannot get an invite. ( the doctor’s in Thailand have facebook groups and to join the group you have to have surgery schedule with that specific doctor, made a down payment on surgery, or have had surgery completed. Then you are assigned a identification number.) I am speechless on how secretive I have found this subculture to be and for me not to be able to access it info is wow.

By some I am sure I am viewed as a traitor giving up the secrets but if we are to ask people to understand us we need to share. That is a pragmatic difference between me and the other activist. Many , if not all, activist and groups want to educate the public but not me. I believe if I share my story I am helped many times over then the amount of info I share.

The illusion that the trans woman is the expert on her experience is luscious. How can I be a expert on my experience when I am in the middle of my living floor crying and thinking of taking a knife to cut off my penis. I cannot even think logically so how can I be an expert of that experience.  I can only tell others, to the best of my ability, what I thought in the moment when I was having an emotional melt down. How I was able to pull myself off the floor is a mystery. I think the drive to be me and my open story is what enables me to go forward with my life while viewing all of this as a group project. Where everyone has a voice and any prospective will help me learn about myself and become a more functional human being. this is my prospective on my experiences on hormones but surgery is a total mystery because no one and I mean no one talks about the emotional trauma of surgery. above all no one speaks even in quiet corners of how they were able to overcome the depression.  Why? I have not idea from my prospective .

     

my mentor my grandmother, my political ideas and more

 hi 

.........

I know because of all of this that my grandmother was my tutor and mentor on saying nothing and just listening like one does not know what is really going on in any given situation.  The fact is my grandmother was very smart and on more than one occasion I would tell my grandmother your children do not think you are that sharp anymore. To the that she would say I know but watch and let them do xyz.  One time my mother and her sister tried to pull one over on my grandmother and me but it was not to be lol. Then I told my mother grandma and I knew what you and your sister were doing and then we did abc. My mother looked at me in awe and my grandmother told me please don’t tell them again how we did it. I told my grandmother I just don’t like the idea they think you are not so smart now. That really bothered me because my grandmother was a sharp cookie in her 60’s, 70’s and almost until the age of 90 or so. She lived until she was 95 yrs old and only passed after her youngest son passed away. That is what finally did my grandmother in was the death of her son where this broke her heart sadly.

So as my mentor taught me over near 40 plus yrs of tutoring me on life and achieving ones goals to just shake your head ok just like a sales person and when the time is right you resolve a situation. This method served me well in the marines. It is not particularly good for a functional relationship but sadly great in today society where so much passive aggressive tactics are used to mislead and abuse others.  So when you think you are fooling me ask yourself one question do you think a student of a woman from 1909 who raised 5 children during the great depression from one of the poorest families in the area, who later owned a grocery store, would be mislead? My grandmother was a survivor like her grandchild because it is demanded in a society where being honest, leadership and character are trumped by politics. 

I have made mistakes but I have the values of a woman born in 1909 who is willing to be thrown on the street and take on all that would challenge her ethics.  I tell the truth and it gets me into big trouble. People including my mother would say, “ Donald your big mouth get you into trouble” and I would say you wanted to know what I think so I told you mother. 

I would also tell my mother why are you treating me like I am stupid. She would say I am not treating you like you are stupid. Yes you are because I know what you are doing and here is what happened and what was said.  Sometimes, like my grandmother, I say nothing and people assume that you can just use and abuse me but in all honesty I am probably the last person in the room you want to fuck with.  I let you do what you want and like my grandmother I will put you in your place.  I don’t like these kind of relationships but surviving in my grandmother’s world and in my world in a quest just to be me it has and will serve me well.

I truly just want to bake peanut butter cookies and be a wife to a wife. this is not something my grandmother would want but the baking cookies and a sense of family is everything my grandmother taught me that are what is important in life.

She encouraged me to go to college when my mother urged me to go to work in the railroad shops. I told her I do not want to work in a railroad shop and she said, “ Donnie go into the marines then go to college and leave this area because there are no real jobs here.” I said , “ I know grandma.” 3 yrs after leaving for the marines the railroad shops started to slowly close down because the US steel industry did not reinvest in their technology. It was replaced by japanese steel because of the more efficient Japanese steel plants. 

Despite any feminine characteristics  my grandmother would say I love you and all she would say when my mother would say Donnie likes the color pink,  Donnie.  I would say I really like pink grandma and the most important thing was she gave me the space to speak my mind and empowered me in a man’s world from the prospective of a strong woman.  This relationship was tested over time in my family but never once did my grandmother abandon me due to anything. She stood by me even when some members of my family want to out me and she never waived in her faith in me. I frustrated her and we challenged each other’s prospective but above all we respected each other. This respect was picked up by a senior manager at Xerox and this sadly is not an important to some people that are in my inner circle of friends and family.

Most recently my daughter and a friend from college have categorically put my gender issue under the column of mental illness.  That is easy to do if you want to distance yourself from dealing with a challenging situation. I mean my daughter and friend from college would have to accept and admit that I am not a woman but a man that is mentally ill.  But if you label me mentally ill now you do not have to understand anything and all the blame is on me and  how sad too.

It is true the people closest to you can hurt you the most.  My mother would say to me that “Donnie you want people to change and they are not going to change.” I really do think people are basically good but what I have come to find out is people are not willing to do the right thing unless there is something in it for them.  so much materialism in this world in my opinion give people a warped sense of reality. If you walked in my shoes for one week you would be very aware of how harder life is if you are born like me. the response once I am identified as a gender other than genetic woman ranges from putting your nose up to me, to aggression or even sexual aggression or more likely open conversation. But so many from the subculture say nothing to a stranger because I think they believe if you do not hear my voice you may not know I am a bit different but an opportunity to learn on both sides is missed in my opinion. I know it is so hard to take a pounding from an aggressive experience then bounce back to talking for pleasure.  It is mentally wearing to get beat up mentally over and over again. I get that.

I thought in 2011 and into 2012 I could make a difference in this world but I refuse to get involved in GLBT politics and toe the party line. There are many of us that just want to live our lives and it is my experience that politics to the left or right is simply politics and as my grandfather would say, “ politicians are a bunch of crooks.”    One of the leading politicians for the trans community states in interview, “ my life is fantastic, my family is fantastic and I am fantastic.” Really let me ask you something if everything is so fantastic why aren’t your children, family and friends on camera with you? The fact is hormones and the life I did not chose but it chose me is not fantastic. It is a nightmare beyond hell.

Many of us, including me, lose our entire family and friends to being in the gay, lesbian or a woman like me.  then there is a dynamic I never realized before starting hormones and that is so many lesbians’ families are not supportive or one family is and the other is not.  Plus just because you will talk to me in public does not mean you want to hang out with me or introduce me to your friends and family.  The continued secrecy and the lies of the trans community is what is killing so many of us and those who are supposedly leaders have no idea how to lead but they know how to be a politician with precise precision.  Like many businesses the community lacks leadership and the marines and my grandmother taught me very well how to lead and this it is important but not until I was me would that leadership ever come to light. I am the most reluctant leader you can imagine and I only step forward when a voice of reason is needed in aspects of my life. Ok I will say what needs to be said is where I am coming from.

Now in my mind I speak for the silent majority that are quiet because we do not support the politicians but many people in the general population think they speak for so many of us. the fact is that is the reason when I am talking to so many in private I hear over and over again, “ Rachel we have never met anyone like you.”
 I will never toe the party line such as we are one united front on all issues. If you are right about a topic I will support you but if I think you are wrong and I am passionate about the topic I will, like my grandmother, set the record straight on why in my opinion you are wrong.  I tend to align myself with women and not trans women but the trans women I have met in my personal life seem to toe the party line and/or  they are the drama queens. Rachel is only a member of the silent majority that has laid quiet for long enough.

I really have a goal of opening up the wall of secrecy of the trans community layer by layer.  The hiding behind our newly transformed body and surgery will not hide the pain for decades of being denied our true identity but blaming society and people that had nothing to do with it will never be my way either. This means many in the trans community and I are in direct conflict because I believe you must treat all equally as a human being.

The hatred of some in the community is really the nemesis of some of our sisters and brothers. The hatred drives them to activism so hard that there is no time for self inspection of our own personal issues. No matter how hard and how much you hate it will not ease your pain one bit but I can tell you one thing it does from my prospective create more issues. The hatred will turn off your hormones and put you in fight or flight mode.

I have  known of this issue for the last two yrs that anytime I am in fight or flight or misplacing my anger my hormones are so diminished that I cannot even feel the effect of the hormones. but when I am in a functional state of mind I feel so feminine and alive and my breast hurt so bad while I am light headed. This sounds so bad but this is when I heal mentally and, the more functional people that are around me, the more I grow as a human being. it is proven fact that we are a product of our environment. As ziglar would say if you wanna go forward surround yourself with positive people who are moving forward and positive thinking will get you so much further than negative thinking.

Recent research has shown that the larger your social network the larger your amydala will become which is the emotional control center of your brain. So thinking outside the box if you have a diverse network of friends from many backgrounds and experiences you will become more functional? Is that possible? I think this is why diversity is so important to our relationships and businesses but diversity does not have to mean GLBT.  If you strictly, as I make more enemies, have only friends in the GLBT community you will have a limited prospective however if you have friends who happen to be GLBT and ok it does not matter to me. I have friends or talk to people who happen to be gay, straight, bi, etc or black, white etc. I see people as a human being not a label.  This enables me to be drawn to many types of people and gives me multiple prospective’s. the diversity in my life compelled me to grow and think outside the box and resolve many of my own personal issues as I talk and talk each day.

I have this gift from god that I can talk to a woman at 181^st/ burnside ave in Portland that is homeless to an executive director and I treat each equally where I can learn something from each of you.  I have been avoided by people in homeless soap kitchen to directors and yet if I can get someone to talk I usually stand a good chance of finding something in common with almost anyone that is rational. If you are aggressive person and an ass I will avoid you like the plague and move on.  This is true diversity where you are draw upon your coworkers, managers, executive directors, homeless in the community and I will believe to the day I die I learn more from talking to people then I share.  This is something I learned while on hormones.

Well I have typed enough for tonight. I hope I have stirred some conversations at the dinner table and if so I have achieved my goal tonight.

Thank you

rachel  

rachel's fund raising site set up and contact number

hi

i am not sure how to post a link to my fund raising site but if you visit my facebook page you can access the link. my facebook id is rachel.candie.reid and it is one of my newest posting.  i will try to find out how to attach a link to my blog asap. i appreciate any help or assistance anyone can give me. i am in the process of searching for 1-2 women to accompany to thailand for my sexual reassignment. 

thank you

rachel

the funding source is www.gofundme.com
my phone number is , dear god i hope is not a mistake, 01-503-319-6038