Ghost No More

Geez Louise, it's been almost two years since the last post to this blog. During that time, I've moved (twice!) and changed jobs (only once). I've started to get out as Liz a lot more, and my skills at what Stana would call femulation have matured. I rarely get read any more, and when I do, it's more an uncertainty, like "there's something different about her, I wonder ..."

The thing is, it doesn't feel like emulation to me, whether with an 'f' or not. When I'm Liz, I feel like me, and when I'm my male self, I feel like me, too. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like a born woman when I'm Liz, I have to be a bit careful in public, mindful of my "t's and q's." I guess what I do feel like is a trans woman. If I were to put a label on what I am, it would be dual-gendered, perhaps two-spirited, I don't know, but mainly just me.

Well. Reintroductions aside, I will be posting here again, general t-stuff, and over at my new blog, TransSpiration.org, where I'll write things of a more serious, spiritual nature. I hope you'll check it out!

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Ghosts in the Machine

So.  I've been out and about, as countless trans-picture albums put it, for a number of months, since mid-September, really.  And I have precious little to show for it, at least in terms of that tgirl currency supreme, the photograph.  That's because I'm always by myself, there is never anybody out there with me.  I visit coffee shops, malls, thrift shops, malls (and, uh, malls) all without noticeable incident -- one or two odd looks, maybe, but nothing ugly.  But setting up a tripod or asking a stranger to take a picture are not exactly ways to blend in, so I never do.

Once in awhile, I see other ghosts in the machine, other lost t-folk flitting amongst the civilians, and I wonder if they're as lonely as me?  I remember one poor woman, in the Salvation Army store, who kept her eyes straight ahead, never looking at anyone, never drawing attention to herself, and I wanted to say "I've been where you are, my friend, I understand."  But I didn't . . . I was in drab, and being approached by a strange middle aged man with a knowing look isn't conducive to ones equilibrium.  Although perhaps she guessed, as I was perusing the women's shoe section at the time.

Why do we do these things to ourselves?  Why do we isolate ourselves from the only ones who understand?  Fear is the key . . . fear of rejection, of exposure, of ridicule.  Fear that if we are exposed, we will lose everything, all we think we love and cherish, gone in one frightening second of recognition.  As Frank Herbert wrote, "fear is the mind-killer."  It's also the soul-crusher and the spirit slayer.  I salute those who have overcome it, who have come out in the face of terrible condemnation and been their true selves, and hope someday to join them.

A Place to Feel Safe

At Forest Perk

I returned to Forest Perk Coffee a couple of days before Thanksgiving, two weeks after my near disaster with the keys.  As as I ordered my coffee and scone, the barista grinned at me and said "Don't lose your keys this time," and I got a warm and fuzzy feeling, thinking "he remembered me!"  Then I thought, well wouldn't anybody remember an largish t-girl who'd had him on the floor moving furniture last time she was in?  We are, if nothing else, memorable.

I smiled back and accepted my change, and I was totally disarmed, totally relaxed.  He'd made me feel at ease, but more than that: I was beginning to make acquaintances as Liz.  He did not know me as my other half.  As I noted before, he surely knew I was trans, my voice was all over the place (how much harder it is to control in random conversation!) and it didn't matter.

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.

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.)

Travels With Lizzy: The Road Home I

The things we do to express who we really are.  On my recent cross-country trip -- well, my recent cross-two-state trip -- I was determined to return to Somewhere In Western Alabama the way I had come: expressing my better side.  Problem was, the check-out time at the motel was 11:00, but I had interviews until 12:30 or so.  Where was I going to change?

The Perils of Presenting -- Greasy Face 101

Beard cover.  In the past, I've put way too much thought into it.  And for good reason: I had a pretty heavy black beard.  So fifteen years or so ago, in the early 90s, I worked up enough courage to go into a J.C. Penneys in the middle of the Colorado prairie.  Well, it was in a town, and it was on the prairie, but close to the edge, not the middle ... ok, it was in  Greeley.

Anyway, I entered the J.C. Penney and did the usual dry-run passes by the makeup counter.  I had concocted a fool-proof alibi that would spare me any embarrassment and leave the clerk totally clueless about the true nature of my mission.  The following is a recreation of that fateful day:

Motel Dreams

One thing we TG types do is decorate motels.  I mean, it's sad when we can't openly express our other side on a daily basis.  So a staple of many a transwoman's photo collection are pictures taken in various motel rooms, snapped on lonely trips away from her loved ones, standing in front of the door, or window, sitting on blandly-upholstered couches or posing provocatively on the bed.

For many, especially those toward the heterosexual crossdresser end of things, these are the only times they get to express their inner girl.  The resulting pics often have an undefinable desperation to them, as if this is it, as if they can see their entire career as a TG playing out in these rooms.

t-Spotlight -- The Lazy Crossdresser

I live Somewhere in the Bible Belt, and at the moment, anyway, I am not near a big market, where there are makeover places, trans-friendly bars, etc., etc.  So in my recent renaissance, I have had to find help online and via the mail.  There are many helps out there in the form of books, web-sites and specialty companies, and in this occasional feature, spotlight a resource that has been of particular help to me.

First up is The Lazy Crossdresser,  by Charlie Anders, the single most positive book on getting dressed and getting out that I've ever read.  Sure, it's got the word "crossdresser" in the title, but it applies to all trangendered who experience the paralyzing fear many of us feel at the thought of getting out and about as who we are.  Plus, he doesn't write crappy sentences like I do.

News You (might be able to) Use (9/14/2011)

Is it just me, or is the rate of violence against trans-people on the rise?   I sincerely hope not, but it sure looks like it.  Diana, over at her little Corner of the Nutmeg State, reports that "Washington DC is becoming a place of death for us," and tells us about the third group of assaults on transwomen this summer in that city.

Meanwhile, the most high-profile case has been resolved.  Sort of:  the teen who pleased guilty to beating a transwoman in a Rosedale, MD McDonalds was sentenced to five years in prison, plus three of supervised probation.  The maximum sentence for such a crime is 35 years, but the 19-year-old woman had no previous record, and tearfully apologized in court.

Hi, There

Me.   But I'm working on it ...

So, here I am, writing another in a long line of introductory posts.  So be it ... folks need to know who you are, right?  I mean, there is a whole lot of blogging going on, and it behooves the smart blogger to state up front what it's all about.  Alfie.

With that in mind, let me say the "t" in "t-Spot" is for transgender, not tea ... although aren't I clever, calling it t-Spot?  I'm a little t-Spot, short and stout ... here is the handle, here is the spout.

Ok, so I'm no comedian ... but I am a transgendered woman, unspecified as to category, and I prefer to keep it that way, thank you very much.  There is far too much reductionism in our "community" for my taste.  Although categories are how we learn, they are also how we exclude and label.

After being away from it the "community" for a couple of decades, I am saddened to find the same old arguments  being . . . argued.  Just how transgendered are you, anyway?  Are you a transsexual, heading toward the promised land, or are you "only" a crossdresser?  Are you pre or post or non?  Are you truly a woman at heart or just a perverted little fetishistic panty wearer?

Ok, so I have issues.  Come explore them with me as I go on this journey from whatever I was before to whatever I am becoming.