Interaction, the Sequel

As I headed back last month to Somewhere in West Alabama, down through Atlanta and Oxford and Talledega, I wanted more . . . I'd begun to scurry to those way-points along my journey and gobble them up.  Out in broad daylight:  check.  Interaction with another human being: check.  It had been a great couple of days but I, typically, wanted more.

So I get out my little camera, and my mini-tripod, and stop at the Welcome Center on I-20, just  inside the border of Alabama (motto: what we don't understand we beat the crap out of), and snap a couple of pics.  Well, more than a couple, actually ... but I don't go into the women's room, and I have to go, you understand, but see the motto above.

But I want more, more you understand, so -- and this is going to sound really silly for those of you for whom it's old hat -- I decide another drive-by interaction is in order, this time (gasp!) in broad daylight.  So I pull into a Burger King parking lot.  And dither.  And slather on a more makeup, trying in vain to hide the pores on my chin.  And then I dither some more.

Way-points

On a compass route, a "way-point" is an intermediate stop along the journey.  They're important because they prevent one from having to do the entire route in one compass reading.  It's next to impossible to walk a route precisely, and errors accumulate over distance.  Way-points allow you to navigate a short distance, perhaps to a distinctive rock or other prominent landmark, one that is visible even if you're a ways off.  In this way, you can re-orient yourself, erasing any error, and literally "toe the line" once again.

The transgendered life can be like that, sometimes.  We have way-points, intermediate achievements along the path.  Buying our first wig.  Taking a makeup lesson.  Sneaking out of a motel room in the dead of the night.  Just kidding.  But even that one, as furtive and unfulfilling as it may be, can also empower us to move along, and like a way-point, re-orient us on the path.

Thank Goddess for Target

At least the one I've taken to shopping at outside of Birmingham.  They not only have a family rest room, but family fitting rooms, which means that in a state notoriously fussy about mixing genders, I don't have to try on clothes in a single-gendered women's fitting room.  I say this because although it is not illegal to crossdress in Alabama, I'm not so sure about using restrooms of the opposite biological sex.  And finding out whether or not it is against the law is not as easy as it sounds: the statutes in every state vary from city to city, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and county to county.

Shoving Myself Out the Door: The Evil Beard

We all take them, don't we?  We all inch toward being "out" -- whatever that means to us -- step by step, a little at a time.  For me, it was my beard ... it used to be dark and intractable.  As I talked about here, over the years I tried most of the tricks ... Dermablend, the red-lipstick trick, to no avail.  The shadow still showed through.

Not my beard

So, at last, as I became determined to finally express who I am -- whatever that is -- for good, and to be who I am -- whoever that is -- out and about in the world, I naturally started there.  (Ok, ok ... I'll stop with the whatevers, already.) Besides gradually, painfully acquiring a wardrobe, I began with the foundation, attacking that shadow.  The thing is, it's mostly not there anymore:  it's almost all on my upper lip, and a little on my chin.

Still, I worried at the problem, attacking it and fulminating about it with all the analytical glee that this (former) research scientist could muster, but the problem hadn't gotten any easier. I tried the red lipstick thing.  Again.  I tried a thick, creamy foundation.  Again.  Still, no joy.  The rest of my beard may be white, with a few dark hairs scattered around for measure, but that upper lip still gave me away.  The blue-black shadow ruled, at least in the area above my lips.

I've Been ...

For anyone who has begun to read this blog -- and there may actually be one or two of you -- I apologize:  I have been sick and out of town, and it's been hard to get time for a post.

But to paraphrase Stan Laurel, I am better now, and back, and so more is forthcoming.  Like, tomorrow.  Thanks!

Liz

P.S. It would be nice if Blogger actually let you resize your pics continuously, wouldn't it?

Interaction

Creature of the night?

One of the things I've never done a lot of -- make that any of, really -- is interact with folks as Lizzy. And that is what I crave: to be able to go out casually, in broad daylight and be ... me.  But as we all know, that is easier said than done.  When I get near others, my heart freezes and I fight a (usually losing) battle to (a) turn my head (b) turn around or (c) all of the above.   So, on my recent cross country trip from Somewhere In Western Alabama to Somewhere in Northern Georgia and back (detailed beginning here) I was determined to interact while I looked like how I feel inside.

It began, as do so many of our adventures, in the dark ... after indulging in the t-girl ritual of Photos at the Hotel (see some of them here), I got in the car to fill up its tank.  Of course, this was in Somewhere in Northern Georgia, in the roots of the Southern Appalachians, so it was cold, and I didn't have sweater one, so I stood shivering in my capris and tee, filling the gas tank, hoping that some roving gang of teen-aged hoodlums didn't read and/or harass me.

Gender Testing for Fun and Profit

I don't remember much about my childhood, a fact that has kept my therapists rapt with interest over the years.  What I do remember are individual incidences of dressing as a girl, from the proverbial trying on of Mama's slips and pantyhose to full-on dressing up, like the time I went trick-or-treating dressed as a little girl for Halloween.  That episode is the earliest I recall -- it had to have been before I was eight, and it may have been as early as four or five.  Questions of nature versus nurture aside, I was exploring my feminine side long before I those annoying black hairs started to grow on my, ah ... legs.

Increasingly over the past few years, I've wondered just where I am on the transgendered spectrum.  I'm not  a "classic," early-onset transsexual: I have not felt from my earliest days as if I were a female trapped in a male's body, I have not hated my penis and longed for a vagina, nor have I experienced a significant amount of discomfort due to my male body. (Other than wishing my very masculine body proportions were just a bit  more a feminine ... oh well, that's what padding is for.)

Scenes From a Movie: Gun Hill Road (2011)