Month: March 2021

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

This is a, well, I don’t want to say complicated day for those who are bi-gender and who identify as crossdressers, but it’s a reminder of how inclusive the term ‘transgender’ is.  I think when most cis people think of the term they think of people like Elliot Page and Laverne Cox, two outstanding advocates of our community.  They are as visible as it gets.  Thank god for them.

Being as visible as they are can lead people to thinking that transgender means hormones, estrogen, legal name changes, surgery, and transitioning.  And there’s nothing wrong with those things.  God knows if I had the money I would have laser hair removal EVERYWHERE.  But being trans doesn’t mean taking those steps.    

This is my definition of the term, but being trans is any sort of behavior, thinking, and, uh, wardrobe that contrasts with what “society” associates with the gender you were assigned at birth.  Also!  Anything outside the gender binary.

Visibility of the transcommunity is important.  Visibility of ALL the transcommunity is important.  When I am en femme and at the mall, I am VISIBLE as a member of the transcommunity.  When I am in boy mode at work I am still a member of the transcommunity, just not visible.  But that’s the bi-gender life, isn’t it?  Some know, some see, others don’t have a clue.

This is a day that reminds us that representation is so important.  The world may not know there are those who happily bounce back and forth between gender identity and gender presentation, but I exist.  You exist.  

This is a day for all who live, even if only for a little bit, outside the expectations of what a boy “should” wear, do, feel, think.  

Love, Hannah

I am getting my second COVID vaccination shot this week.

And my God, I can’t wait.

It feels like the end of a very traumatic moment.  A very long moment.  And I know that me getting the vaccine doesn’t really change the world.  There are still countless people that are still waiting their turn.  I also hesitate to use the word ‘traumatic’.  Considering that there have over two and a half million COVID related deaths in the United States alone, and people have lost loved ones, their jobs, their savings, or their businesses, I have been very, very fortunate compared to others.

As we as a world start to turn the page on the last year or so, it’s not unusual to assess our lives and look back, and look forward.  I know I have changed because of the last twelve months.  I know I will not live forever and I know that life can change in an instant but if learned anything recently is that something from out of nowhere can impact our lives and our worlds in ways we can’t really fathom.  When I first heard of COVID, before there were cases reported outside of Asia, I assumed someone in the United Stares would likely contract it but I never imagined that impact it would have on schools, restaurants, shopping it would have.  

Not only I couldn’t predict how leaving the house would be affected, I also couldn’t predict how my outlook on my life would change.  

And I KNOW I am fortunate, I know it sounds dramatic (and potentially inappropriate) to think of my experience with COVID in this sense, but I imagine this is what one might feel when they have a second chance at life or recovering from what is a near-fatal disease.

  
We die a thousand deaths in our lives.  We go through a thousand moments where we feel life is going to change… but it doesn’t.  There have been times where I made a mistake at work and I thought for certain I was going to be fired and I lived in fear and died a thousand times before my boss let me off the hook and I kept my job with little or no consequences.  My “deaths” were fortunately for naught.

Over the past year I have had about a dozen COVID tests and I thanked God for every negative test.  I had myself tested out of precaution but also because I was afraid of a lingering cough or having a symptom.  While I waited for the test results I died a thousand deaths.  What if I did have COVID?  I started to think and plan for my real death, to be honest.  Conversations I would need to have with my wife, my friends, my family.  Conversations about money, legal issues, and other sensitive and difficult subjects.  I thought about what I would do if the test was positive, but I also thought about what I would do if the test was negative.  I believe this is the ‘bargaining’ part of grief.

When the tests came back as negative I always breathed a sigh of relief, and was thankful that my, ah, contingency plans would not have to be implemented.  As things with COVID continue to trend in the right direction (although it’s still rocky) I am starting to feel a mix of excitement that the end is in sight, but I am also introspective.  As in, what next?  

Between the negative tests and getting vaccinated, I truly feel I have dodged a bullet.  Multiple bullets.  Cannonballs.  In an overly dramatic way, I have been given a second chance, so to speak.  So, what do I do with my life now?  

About a year ago I started to think about what I would do “all we have is who we are”  , what I would wear when this was all over.  A year ago anything close to an end seemed impossible and so far away, yet here we (almost) are.  I decided that I wasn’t going to let the hang ups about my body stop me from wearing a dress if I wanted to.  And I did!  And then I wondered if I should do a lingerie shoot.  And I did!

But all shallowness aside, I made a promise to myself (there’s the bargaining part again) that I would do… MORE when this was over.  But what does MORE mean?  

I would love to know what the last twelve (or so) months have taught you.  What are you going to do?

Love, Hannah

Related reading

Speechless

All We Have is Who We Are

Impossible Things

I’ve a friend who really likes cars.  Like, a LOT.  You can ask him anything about cars and he can recall parts, makes, models, uh, the shape of the tires, of any vehicle.  It’s impressive.  When I ask him why my car is making X noise, he asks me a few questions and he’s been right almost 100% of the time. 

As someone who doesn’t really know anything about cars, I find this fascinating.  He talks about what’s probably wrong, and why it is happening.  He explains that with a million teeny, tiny parts it’s inevitable something will not work as expected.  Some cars run flawlessly for a decade, some fall apart when it rains.  With so many variables it’s not surprising every car is different.

What on earth does this have to do with this website?  I’m getting there.

Someone sent me an email the other day and mentioned how we all start our lives as women.

And it’s true!  I remember reading this when I was very young and my mind was just blown.  

There’s REALLY not as much of a difference between a clitoris and a penis as most men (yes, I know, NOT ALL MEN) would like to believe.  Why does everyone have nipples?  I mean, mine aren’t practical or functional.  Or cute.

Instead of blindly stumbling around trying to explain this, I have some help from the textbook ‘Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter?’.

All human individuals—whether they have an XX, an XY, or an atypical sex chromosome combination—begin development from the same starting point. During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes. Thus, this gene is singularly important in inducing testis development. The production of testosterone at about 9 weeks of gestation results in the development of the reproductive tract and the masculinization (the normal development of male sex characteristics) of the brain and genitalia. In contrast to the role of the fetal testis in differentiation of a male genital tract and external genitalia in utero, fetal ovarian secretions are not required for female sex differentiation. As these details point out, the basic differences between the sexes begin in the womb, and this chapter examines how sex differences develop and change across the lifetime. The committee examined both normal and abnormal routes of development that lead individuals to become males and females and the changes during childhood, reproductive adulthood, and the later stages of life.

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding the Biology of Sex and Gender Differences; Wizemann TM, Pardue ML, editors. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter? Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001. 3, Sex Begins in the Womb. 

Isn’t that neat?  I think it’s neat.  

I also think creation stories are fascinating, especially how different they can be from religion to religion, or from culture to culture.  I went to Catholic school for my entire life and we were always taught that God created Adam, and Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs.  I never took it for fact, I knew the tradition of storytelling and I knew that thunder was, well, thunder and not angels bowling.

Anyway, this little biology lesson is a reminder of how small the difference is between men and women biologically.  Is it any wonder that transgender people exist?  Or that people identify as bi-gender?  Or that some think that gender roles and gender societal norms are completely ridiculous?
It all starts with a teeny, tiny gene on a chromosome.  That gene influences what our bodies look like.  What our bodies look like determines what we are “allowed” to wear, think, feel. 

Understanding science, chemistry, and biology can help others understand how teeny, tiny the differences are between boys and girls.  It’s a nice thought to think that if people are educated, life might be easier for those who live outside of the gender binary.  But since we live on a planet with people who honestly think the earth is flat, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Love, Hannah

Hi!

I THINK I had an epiphany the other day.

I write A LOT about terminology, coming out to others, attempting to understand ourselves, and how to potentially help someone else understand who we are and why we are.

But… why?

I KNOW I overthink EVERYTHING, especially all of THIS.  And it’s rather silly as this side of us can’t really be explained, it can’t be understood.  There’s no WHY.  And there doesn’t need to be.  Which is good because it’s like searching for a piece of a puzzle that doesn’t exist.  

And I KNOW this.  I do!  I promise.  Whenever I start wandering down the speculating paths of understanding or explaining this side of ourselves I tell myself it is a pointless journey, like looking to see if Target will start stocking heels beyond size 11.  Come on Target, just a half size more, please.  

On one hand I would love to find or create a nice, simple message to explain to others why I am bi-gender, why I like to wear what I wear.  I would love to find this even though I know it comes down to being born this way, being wired this way.  Why am I right-handed?  Why am I transgender?  Why do I prefer Mexican cuisine compared to Thai cuisine?  I don’t know.  

But it occurred to me that I want to find a nice, concise way to explain who I am to my friends, my families, the entire world because I am tired of being terrified of being caught.  Of needing to keep this a secret.  Of thinking twice (or a hundred times) when I consider coming out to someone.

I hate living a life in fear.  

I hate going out en femme and worrying if certain family members will see me.  I am tired of worrying of my bra strap being visible when I am in boy mode  I am tired or worrying if the lace edging of my panties showing.  I am simply exhausted from keeping this side of myself a secret because I know this revelation can cause anything from people I love never speaking to me again, to being ridiculed, to some jerk harassing Hannah as she goes about her day.  I mean, my god, transwomen are killed every single day because they are trans.  

I am tired of my gender identities and wardrobe being a deciding factor as to how someone will treat me.  I would prefer not to be friends with someone if I knew that my gender identity was a problem for them.  When it comes to my friends I am out to VERY few of them and the ones I am not out to, well, I don’t think they would end our friendship if they knew, but that’s my point.  I don’t know for sure.  I could never be friends with someone who is racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic and I hope I never learn that someone I love is any of those things.

No one beats someone up or disowns them because they like, oh, I don’t know, jazz music or sushi, and although gender identity is different than food and music, I am tired of living in a world where my underwear is a BIG DEAL.

Perhaps this is why I write so much about these topics.  I am searching for a way to understand myself, to understand other t-girls, other crossdressers, others like me.  I am searching for a way to talk about, to write about why and who we are.  Girls like us know we don’t have a reason why we are who we are.  But the rest of the world sure as hell is looking for a reason so I want to find one.  

And YES! I know that we don’t need to explain a damn thing to anyone.  There’s no reason to spend even a second trying to help some transphobic jerk understand who we are.  But let’s face it, so much of the world actively hates us.  There are so many laws being debated right now to hurt our community.  It could be laws banning trans youth from playing high school sports to making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe hormones.  It could be libraries being pressured to end drag queen story time.  It’s heartbreaking to see so much time and energy and effort to strip away our rights for no reason other than people wanting to punish those like us.  They want to erase us.

BuT HanNAh, I aM a CRossdreSSER, I am NoT tRANSgendeR you may be saying.  For the most part, it doesn’t matter if you simply only wear panties or if you do drag or are like me.  The point is that too much of the world is trying to force the non-cisgender community from existing.  “The world” doesn’t see the difference, or care about the difference, between someone who wears lingerie under their boy clothes and someone who is taking estrogen and changing the gender on their birth certificate.  We’re all in the same boat.
It would be easier if the world simply stopped caring about what others wore or the pronouns someone has. 

And yes, for some people they don’t care and are even supportive of the transcommunity.  And yes! I shouldn’t bother worrying about those that hate us.  But here’s the thing.  The people who hate us are the ones that push for laws against us.  The people who hate us could be the ones who write those laws.  The people who hate us are the ones that want to beat us up.  Those that hate us, that go out of their way to punish us, to suppress us, to take away our rights… yes, they may not be a majority but they could have the power to make our lives miserable.

We will never make hate go away.  At my most pessimistic I don’t think we will EVER see the end of sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia.  But I want to try.  I want to make a difference.  I know it’s naïve and hopeless (like looking to see if Target is finally carrying high heels beyond size 11)  but pessimism doesn’t change minds, and it doesn’t change worlds.

Is this the hill I am going to die on?  The crusade (if you will) to get word to the world about who and why we are?  To find a nice, simple, easy to understand message that those like us are not confused or perverts or only needing attention?  This is how some of the world sees us.  We are not these things.  If anything we KNOW who we are better than anyone else.  We think (and overthink) about our identity more than anyone else I know.  I mean, I doubt jazz enthusiasts spend a lot of time wondering WHY they like Miles Davis but maybe they do?  

If we want, if we need to get a message out to the world, we need to first have a message that is easy and simple and relatable to the world.  And I know this is looking for a puzzle piece that PROBABLY doesn’t exist but goodness I want to try.  

I already DO try.  

Love, Hannah