Damn Girl!

2017

One evening, I needed to make a phone call. We got terrible cell phone reception at home sometimes, and frequently needed to go outside to communicate effectively. Anyway, I dressed and went out to the driveway. Honestly, I didn’t think much about how I dressed, but merely put on what I was comfortable in. That outfit was a moisture wicking t-shirt, a pair of flip-flops, and a denim knee length skirt.

So I was out on the driveway, on the phone. The sun had gone down, and I was standing in the driveway, in the dim light. The sidewalk wasn’t too far away, and as I was listening to the person I was talking with on the phone, a man walked past me on the sidewalk in the dim light as I stood there, the cell phone to my ear, with my hand partially blocking my face. He couldn’t possibly have seen my face clearly.

I saw him looking my way as he passed, and I heard him say to himself “Damn, girl!”. Suddenly, I realized I was smiling. He had liked what he saw in that dim light, and that was an amazing feeling!

Have you ever felt like that? Casual, unplanned moment of feeling good?

Is He?!?!?

2018

A few weeks ago, my wife and I visited the church we had recently left. We popped in in the middle of the day. The associate pastor was thrilled to see us, hugged me, etc. I was dressed in women's shorts, a woman's t-shirt, and women's canvas shoes. He doesn't know the truth about me.

The Senior Pastor, who now knows the truth about me, was more reserved than he had been in years past.

We did what we had stopped in for, and departed.

A few weeks later, my wife happened to be in the presence of this same minister, the Senior Pastor. He asked her if I was now wearing makeup and dresses because that'd be wrong. Seriously???

Several days later, he was in the hospital for a few days. Is it wrong of me that I wanted to go buy a dress, put on some makeup, and go visit him in the hospital? Captive audience, and all. I didn't do it, though.

How Do You Know?

How Do You Know You're Transgender???

Well, this is a fair question. It's both difficult to explain, and easy to explain at the same time.

Simply put, how do you know you're cis-gender? You're a woman and have always been a woman, or you're a man, and have always been a man, right? You didn't have to wonder. You just are.

Well, that's often how it is with trans people. We know from the very beginning, even if we don't admit it to ourselves, even if we push it away with all our might, Even if we don't understand fully, even if we try hard as we can to be the gender we were assigned.

Sure, many of us are gendered male at birth and are female, or we're gendered female at birth, but are male, or some of us are somewhere in the middle, such as agender, or genderfluid, or non-binary. Sometimes it takes years to figure it out, because the clamor of, well, wrongness, can be deafening, and it's hard to navigate through what's going on through the noise.

But eventually, it comes into focus. You just know. It's no stranger for trans people than it is for cis people. We just know. We just are.