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The Dream
by Brenda L.
Donna (Don), a crossdresser, had spent
the weekend in Provincetown as his femme self at a gathering of
about 100 other transgendered people. She had made many friends
with similar interests and always enjoyed these weekends. It was
a time to be free to dress as pretty as she wanted and to live,
if only for a few days, the way a real women does. The routines
of putting on makeup, changing outfits several times a day, applying
polish to her nails (and toe nails), and shopping in heels all
day were all a joy to her. This weekend was especially a happy
one for Donna because she had won second place for best gown at
the banquet on Saturday night. She felt so good about it she was
walking on air.
On Sunday when most of the other participants
in the weekend festivities left early Donna lingered in Provincetown.
She just did not want to change back into Don's clothes. She dreamed
she could stay this way forever. She stayed until the last of
her friends went home and then had dinner by herself at a restaurant
downtown. On the way home she stopped at a mall and bought a skirt
and some nylons for the next time. Next time, she thought, wouldn't
it be nice to stay this way all the time.
It was late by the time Donna arrived
at her home north of Boston. It was dark so she carried all her
luggage into the house, not worrying about what the neighbors
might see. She was exhausted. She changed quickly into her favorite
nighty and fell asleep wishing she could stay like this forever.
Don woke up the next morning with
little time to spare in getting ready for work. When he got to
the mirror he saw that he had not even removed his wig when he
went to bed. He grabbed the hair but it would not move. "Ouch,"
she said. Then she looked at her face and there was no need to
shave this day. Her skin was so smooth and soft. She looked further
down and thought she must have left her bra on overnight. But
that was not the case at all. "What has happened to me?"
she kept saying to herself. She stood in front of the mirror examining
every part of her body. She looked further down........
Wait! Stop! This is not that kind
of an article! I told you about Donna so that I could ask you
a question.
If you woke up one day as a women
would you like to stay that way? Think about it.
This question was originally put to
me by a TS friend several years ago.
Most of us as crossdressers are in
a euphoric state when we are in our femme mode. Would that feeling
last if we had to stay this way. It's true that we wouldn't have
to shave our beards any more each morning. But what about all
the things ladies have to do each day such as applying makeup,
washing and setting hair, doing nails and shaving those legs to
name just a few. Would those things become routine and disliked?
Are you afraid that if you are leaning
toward a yes then that makes you an automatic transsexual? Would
that be so bad? But it doesn't have to be one way or the other!
I have been meeting more friends that are enjoying life living
somewhere in the middle of the transgender road. They spend as
much time as they want in the gender of their choice and then
return. The androgynous mode, where one can be perceived by the
public as either male or female, is becoming more common. Maybe
you would like to spend one day as a women and the next day as
a man. Or maybe you could choose to live as a women but never
get "the" operation. For many the idea of a permanent
operation is very frightening. It should be! There is nothing
bad about delaying or avoiding that altogether. Each of us must
make up our own minds and find the path that leads to the greatest
happiness.
I think the real answer to my question
can best be measured on a scale of 1 to 10 rather than a definitive
yes or no. A 1 would mean you have little or no interest in changing
gender and a 10 would mean you want it very badly. Now where do
you think you would rate yourself? There is no wrong answer to
this question. Personally I think I am somewhere around a 6.5.
Think about it. Brenda
The following are the unofficial results of our survey.
Rating Votes
to Date
ELEVEN..............................2
TEN.....................................1
NINE...................................1
EIGHT.................................1
SEVEN................................3
SIX......................................1
FIVE...................................1
TWO....................................1
I was sent the following article over the Internet
from a group called One list/Passing. I hope others will enjoy
it as much as I did. Brenda
THE MAGIC OF TRANSSEXUALISM
Because being transsexual is often so hurtful, so filled
with
sadness and longing, with shame and loss and difficulty, it is
easy to come to the conclusion that the whole thing is utterly
a curse, perhaps inflicted by arcane and evil ancient gods.
Oh, probably.
But there is an upside too.
Most human lives are utterly mundane, devoid of any
real
uniqueness, the average person somnambulates through an
existence devoted to filling the roles expected of them.
But to be a transsexual is a magical, wondrous thing.
Consider. We are given many gifts in compensation for
the
terrible loss of our childhood as ourselves, and for the
pain we endure. We are by some as yet unknown mechanism
statistically far more intelligent, as a class, than
perhaps any other kind of people. We are almost universally
more creative, and we often possess incredible levels of
courage and self determination, demonstrated by our very
survival, and ultimate attainment of our goal.
We are rare as miracles, and in our own way, as magical,
or
so has been the belief of all ancient cultures on the earth.
We are given awareness that others would never experience,
understanding of gender, of the human condition, of society
and the roles and hidden rules unquestioned within it. We are
given a window into the lives of both sexes, and cannot help
but be, to some degree, beyond either. From this we have a
rare opportunity: to choose our own life, outside predetermined
and unquestioned definition or role. We can do new things,
original things, only because our experience is so unique.
We get to be true shape shifters, and experience the
sheer
wonder of melty-wax flesh and a real rebirth into the world.
Our brains and bodies gain benefit from having been bathed
in and altered by the hormones of both sexes.
We appear to retain our visible youthfulness where
others
wrinkle, and for years longer. We possess neural advantages
from both sexes, such as the language advantages of the
feminized brain, and the spatial abilities of the masculinized
brain both. We are shocked into waking up, if we allow it,
to a life we create for ourselves...we are not automatically
doomed to sleepwalk through life.
After our transformations, after the full-moon lycanthropic
miracle that the modern age affords us, we can live lives
of success and love, and genuine specialness, if we choose.
If we can get past our upbringing, past the programming, the
bigotry, the messages of disgust from the culture around us,
if we can stand as ourselves in freedom, then our special
gifts grant us a heritage of wondrous power.
We have a proud and marvelous history. In ancient days
we
were magic incarnate. We were Nadle, Winkte, Two-Souls,
Shamans and healers and magical beings to our communities.
We possessed the ability to give the blessings of the gods
and spirits, and were prized as companions, lovers, and
teachers.
We were the prize gift of ancient tribes, entertainers,
designers and dreamers. Sometimes we were the -somewhat
reluctant- rulers of empires, and the consorts of emperors.
We were champions and warriors too, who were feared for
our unique gifts turned to inevitable victory.
Know that it is only in recent centuries, with the
rise of
the single minded, monolithic and monotheistic desert
religions, filled with harsh single gods and twisted, narrow
morals, that our kind have become reviled, the objects of
scorn. Once, we were the kin of the gods.
To be transsexual is not easy, and it is not a birth
that
could be envied, but neither is it a damnation. It was once
considered a rare wonder, if a mixed one; a fairy gift that
cuts as it blesses.
And in the modern age, of hormones and surgery, we
are the
first generations of our kind to finally know the joy of
complete transformation, of truly gaining our rightful
bodies. No other transsexuals in history have been so
fortunate.
I say that we are unicorns, rare and wondrous, with
still
a touch of ancient magic and the kinship of the gods. Though
it is agony, beyond the fire we have the opportunity to become
alchemic gold.
We have much to add to the world, and to give to ourselves
and those who love us.
We have always been, we are still the prize of the
tribe,
for only the world around us has changed, the desert harshness
branding us vile. We are still the same.
Our compensations are real, and our lives are special;
we
have but to grasp the gifts born of our sufferings.
When I look around me at the mundane lives, there are
times
I think that maybe I am glad I was born transsexual, for I
would never have been what I have become without that curse.
I cannot help but be grateful for my uniqueness, so I am
brought to a strange revelation:
Deep down, I cherish having been born a transsexual.
Be a unicorn with me, and cherish it too.
Sex-change Nickname Makes Colorado
Town Cringe: 'Nobody Cares'
Transformation via surgery has become common in community
By Pauline Arrillaga, The Associated Press
(Submitted by Catherine F.)
TRINIDAD, Colo. -- The young waitress examined her customers as
she refilled their coffee and haltingly asked whether anyone wanted
more tea. There was Elise, a buxom brunette in a crop top and
hip-huggers. Kate, a Harvard graduate writer in khakis, a hand-knit
sweater and pearl earrings. Thea, a graphics designer sporting
chic suede boots. And Jackie, a towering figure in trousers and
blazer. In the lunch time crowd of merchants, housewives and farmers
at the Main Street Bakery and Cafe, the four stuck out like fashion
models on a pig farm.
Retreating to the kitchen, the waitress pulled her boss aside
and stammered, "Those women I'm waiting on? They're men!"
Hardly anyone else gave the foursome a second glance. Not in the
so-called "Sex-Change Capital of the World." Repeat
that phrase to almost any of the town's 9,500 people and one would
likely get a lecture on what the southern Colorado hamlet should
be known for -- its idyllic scenery, comfortable climate and friendly
people. Most don't mind that more sex- change operations have
been done in their town than anywhere else (about 4,500 to date);
they just hate that nickname.
Town in Transition
Although no formal statistics are kept on the number of sex reassignment
surgeries, experts in the field agree that Trinidad's Stanley
Biber -- because of the year he began and his age -- has performed
more than anyone. The International Foundation for Gender Education
lists 14 surgeons in the USA and Canada that do the procedure,
and, as spokeswoman Sara Herwig points out, "Biber's been
doing it longer than most."
What makes Trinidad unique is not that it's the sex-change capital
of the world, but the fact that this former mining town has come
to accept its destiny, depend on it and even embrace it. In 1969,
Trinidad was a town in transition. Coal had been king in these
parts since the turn of the century, but after World War II, the
mines began closing. By the late '60s, only a few remained. Families
left, and Main Street, once a bustling collection of department
stores, car dealerships and restaurants, became a lifeless collection
of shuttered storefronts. Yet Biber was thriving from his fourth-floor
office inside the First National Bank building. As Trinidad's
only general surgeon, Biber did it all -- from delivering babies
and removing appendixes to reconstructing the cleft palates of
poor children.
Biber moved here in 1954 after serving as a MASH surgeon in Korea
and finishing a stint at Camp Carson in Colorado Springs. In those
first 15 years, Biber built a comfortable life around a practice
he loved and a town he adored. In 1969, he encountered the patient
who would forever change both. A social worker Biber had met asked
him to perform her surgery. "Well, of course," he told
her. "What do you want done?" "I'm a transsexual,"
she replied. And Biber asked, "What is that?" After
consulting a New York physician who had done sex reassignment
operations and obtaining hand-drawn sketches from Johns Hopkins
University, Biber agreed to do the surgery. "She was very
happy," he recalls. "And then it started spreading all
over." With less than a handful of doctors performing the
procedure, Trinidad became THE place to come for a sex-change
operation, and Biber was THE man to do it.
The town's sole hospital, Mt. San Rafael, was run by Catholic
nuns, and Biber hid the charts of his first transsexual patients.
But he knew he'd eventually need the approval of the hospital
board and his neighbors. Biber explained his work to the sister
and local ministers. "I went through the psychology of it
all. They decided as long as we were doing a service and it was
a good service, that there was no reason we couldn't continue
doing them," he says. Soon Biber was lecturing to the hospital
staff and the public. "We figured that's his way of making
a living; more power to him," says Linda Martinez, 54, a
lifelong patient of Biber's.
Lucrative Operations
Not all agree. The Rev. Verlyn Hanson, pastor of the First Baptist
Church for the past three years, says the town turned a blind
eye to Biber's work because of the economic boost it provided.
"The love of money is the root of all evil, and people will
overlook a lot of evil to have a stronger economy," he says.
At one point, Biber's operations brought about $1 million a year
to the hospital, according to his estimates. The basic procedure
costs about $11,000, with the hospital taking in a little more
than half. At the height of his practice, Biber performed about
150 transsexual operations a year. His patients brought families
and friends who remained in town during their loved ones' eight-
day hospital stay. Whether or not people liked what Biber did,
they liked the squat, balding doctor who wore jeans and a flannel
shirt to work and always said hello. At 77, Biber has scaled back
his transsexual business to about 100 surgeries a year. The majority
of his practice remains tending to the ills of Trinidad's citizens.
He knows retirement may not be far off, and he's in search of
a surgeon who will continue his work. "It started here, and
I want the hospital to continue with it," he says. (from
USA TODAY, Wed., May 24, 2000)
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