500 Channels

With all the things I’ve come to believe about my existence and life manifestation I’m always wondering about nurture, nature and channeling past experiences especially towards my feminine expression.

There have been several studies on the propensities of 1st or 3rd sons being gay or gender variant (I’m a 3rd). I do know that after 2 boys my mother was hoping like crazy for a daughter. I can only imagine what all that mental energy might do to a gestating child.

After I was born I remember her using a feminized version of my middle name as a “pet name” (Willamina). I think that further indicates her desire for a daughter at that time. She did get that daughter on the next and fourth try and I was expected to be the little “man” after that.

When I was about 3 I also remember announcing to the whole family that “I wanted to be a girl named “Mary”. I was soundly shamed by my two older brothers and never spoke of it again though I did get caught about the same age after I looted the neighborhood mother’s panties from their garage laundry piles in our cul-de-sac. Imagine my mother’s embarrassment after she found them and took them around to ask who’s was who’s … I still giggle thinking about it.

Dressing was my “dirty laundry” starting from there. I then went to raiding my sister’s laundry hamper in the “lockable” bathroom at age 9 or so. Later, any girlfriend or wife’s wardrobes were open game - at least until I discovered I had much better taste than them and purchased my own. I have never “purged” but have Goodwilled the older stuff and have quite the large closet now.

After my split with my wife and connection with the TG community AND time to think and experience all this unhindered, I’ve come to understand more of myself at least and how it relates to my gender variance.

I find happiness and drive in “being appreciated” and being recognized for my talents. After years of unbalance and neglect of needs imagine the rush of suddenly being wanted and admired and having non-judgmental friends from this “new internet”. Was it my innate being coming forth to blossom? Was it a compensation for neglect and my imbalances? Was it my failure to excel in normal society and here was a place no one would dare criticize me? Am I channeling past lives and past experiences of things that I am still open to? Today I think it is a synergistic melding of all these things and more. (Funny enough my ex-wife had a “reading” done and the woman focused on our lost relationship telling her that her husband wasn’t sure if he wanted to be man or woman in this life – she hadn’t mentioned a word, spooky).

Here in San Francisco I have settled down to a life with a rainbow of friends and gender expressions. I no longer feel I have to put on women’s clothes to feel myself. I have people who regard me as a woman while I am in drab and most just regard me as a amalgam of all I am. The drive that I have to “change” or “get somewhere else” to be happier has subsided and thankfully as I never did find the right type of ruby slippers that fit my big ass feet, lol. The days of too many identities to channel and fumbling with the remote seem to be over and instead of asking why …. I more just try and “be”.

-Miranda Skye

Is Gender Still Evolving?

After having been extremely active in the online transgender community for a couple of years as the hostess and facilitator of http://www.genderevolve.com/ and genderevolve.blogspot.com , I decided to go offline for awhile to pursue my career. Words cannot express how much I missed you during this time, yet I had to stay very focused to accomplish some of my life goals.

Now that I have achieved a new level of balance in my daily life, I have decided to venture back online and see how you beautiful transladies have been making out this past while. I sense there have been changes in the t-community, there are a lot of new faces, and some very cool new websites too. Yet it seems not everything has changed and there is stability in our online community, as most of my friends are still online and all our favorite sites are still online. It it a welcome relief to find that there is always a place to come home to, no matter how far on different paths our journies take us, we can always return to the source of our sisterhood.

One of the things that encouraged me to come back online was an email from my dear sister Jenna Elizabeth Taylor to the GenderEvolve contributors, entitled "Is Gender Still Evolving?". Her email sparked a flurry of activity and responses in our private Yahoo group forum, which made me delighted to realize there is still so much mutual interest and collaborative spirit among us. As such, I want to take this discussion public and pose the same question to all of our friends in the transgender community at large.

So I would like to ask all of you reading this post... Is Gender Still Evolving?

By this I mean, take your pick of any or all of the following questions:

1) In the past few years, have you personally changed or evolved in your own transgender journey?

2) Has there been any changes in people around you in your family or friends regarding your gender identity?

3) Have there been any events or news that show gender evolution is still happening in society?

4) Do you recommend any new websites, people or groups that have been influential to the trans community over the past few years?

5) Or simply, how the heck have you been Girlfriend?? What's new?

Anyone reading this post is encouraged to respond and share any thoughts, stories, perspectives on this topic. Please don't be shy, we would love to hear from you.

Love & Light

Michèle Angélique
http://www.genderevolve.com/

Pardon me, may I have the last 30 minutes of my life?

I would like to thank OpenLetterstoKRXQ.wordpress.com for posting the podcast of The Rob, Arnie and Dawn show on KRXQ in Sacramento. I was reading all sorts of complaints about one of their shows in which Rob and Arnie were suggesting violence to children who express gender identity disorder and had not hear it myself. Thank you. Now,

Who do I see to get back the last 30 minutes of my life?

I listened to the segment, all 36 minutes of it and first of all. I need to say this. Rob and Arnie's positions on GID, while inaccurate, should not be construed as hate speech, nor should their right to express it be hindered. Their advocation that violence, or physical discipline is the solution is borderline criminal. Their intolerance for fellow host Dawn was atrocious, vile, disrespectful and adolescent. The radio station, its advertisers, and audience possess all the power necessary to regulate their comments.

I agree with very little of what was stated during that 36 minute discourse on contempt prior to investigation, yet some of it had merit. I wouldn't let either of those two men coach my children in sports, lead them in a Scout trip nor take them to a ball game with their children. It is a fact that some children act out for attention. However, for those of us who hid our gender identity, buried that innate sense of self inside of us, dealt with the struggle daily for 20, 30 or 40 years, its not a matter of attention. In fact we want no attention. Just the right to quietly live our lives, to earn a living and to be.

Is GID a mental disorder? Is it a hormonal imbalance during gestation which creates the mind to be incongruent with the body? Is it a condition created through nurture and not nature? All of these can be debated because there is yet no definitive study on what creates an individual's sense of gender and thereby their expression of it.

Yet one thing is not debatable. It exists. It's real, its overwhelming to many of us and its persistent. It doesn't go away after years of "manning up" for boys or "knowing your place" for girls.

The First Amendment gives Rob and Arnie the right to prove their ignorance. All 10 give me the right to exist.