It's been not-so-widely reported that the DHS took heroic action at US borders recently, in the fight to stop the greatest menace facing the well-established healthcare racket today: low-cost prescription drugs. That this comes right on the heels of the government's new prescription drug program is, of course, a complete coincidence.
According to one source, seizures have been stepped up by a factor of 10, and as many as 13,000 packages have been stopped since the start of the campaign.
''There's absolutely no connection with this enforcement of federal law with Medicare Part D at all," said Hollinger. ''That's just some kind of misunderstanding."
This reporter is somewhat ashamed to admit that, unless she defects, further misunderstandings like this will only increase her future job security as a pharmacist.
I love my girlfriend (C), more than anyone I've ever dated. We were even scheming to get a marriage license at one point, which could easily have been done before I became legally female.
But we had a few things to discuss, so we were, well, discussing them last night on our nightly walk. Something that had been more evident to her than me came up, and (sorry to about 2% of you) yes, I have yet another Important Announcement to make.
It's high time I came out of the closet for the third time. Folks, I'm straight. Yes, the rumors are true. We had a good cry or three, and it turns out it's okay I'm not gay.
But wait, what do "straight" and "gay" mean in terms of transgendered folks? I'm glad I asked!
It's commonly argued that trannies defy these terms. Well, sure, we screw up a lot of otherwise neat labels. We're complex numbers on some kind of weird Kinsey plane:
a) I prefer other girls (trans or not) on the relationship side, but men (trans or not) are where my hormones lie. I identified as bisexual before transitioning, to varying degrees of openness (not to mention varying Kinsey scores).
b) I've dated women and men about equally (that is, not much) both before and after transitioning.
c) I don't plan on dating other girls anymore.
Hmm.
Does "straight" really describe me now? No, not really, especially with us pesky transsexuals in the picture again. If I had to pick a sexual preference label, that would be the one. When it gets down to it, I'm a woman who prefers men.
Transpeople also throw a wrench in the works when you look at it the other way around. Is a man who exclusively dates post-operative transgurls straight? What if they're pre-op? (Assume he's not a tranny chaser.) To be politically correct, he should be referred to as straight in both cases. In reality, it's more like Richard Pryor's catchphrase in that awful 80s movie: "None of the Above."
(Incidentally, C and I are still together, but now calling it officially okay if either of us finds someone else. And we plan on remaining lifelong friends regardless.)
It's been fun, but the overall return on my investment isn't exactly what I'd hoped.
Any future posting (or account renewal, for that matter) looks pretty doubtful right now, unless my AdSense account suddenly swells by a factor of five or more. They'll probably cancel me soon for saying that anyway. Oh well.
I appreciate the return I did get, though. Thank you!
Edit 5/21/06: Decided I enjoy doing the site enough that I'll just remove the ads and continue until/while hosting costs shut me down.
It was a week or two to Christmas 2004. It was evening.
I stood in the kitchen in my mom's house, nervously sipping at a coffee mug full of hot tea with milk and sugar. My mouth and throat had gotten dry from the anxiety and heated air, and I was going to need my voice. Well, a voice. It never was my voice.
I was trying to work up enough courage to sit down with her and casually explain something I had been hiding to the death from even myself for quite some time. I was trying to tell her I was a girl.
This poor woman was about to find out that her firstborn "son" of four children, whom she'd given birth to 29 years ago, was seeing a gender therapist 150 miles away. "He" was going to start taking hormones in a few months, and eventually wear girly clothes in public, for the rest of her life. Her life.
Mom, I'm a girl. There's been a huge mistake, and that needs dealt with if I want to be happy. I've always felt this way. I'm changing roles. I start hormones in February.
But not in so many words. Finally, I choked down the lump in my throat and approached her, and carefully explained what was going on. I had (tearfully) practiced coming out to her sister a few evenings or so beforehand, because she tended to be a lot more levelheaded than Mom. I was the one who got upset then. On the other hand, Mom was already dealing with a lot, and she had always tended to react strongly to change and news like this.
Before I sat down, I braced for fireworks. This was a huge moment, and I was prepared for the worst: "Get out of my house and never come back." I didn't expect that from her, but it does happen, even unexpectedly.
Mom didn't react much at all, except to explain that she was going to need time, like always. (Choke.) I was, all things considered, pretty collected myself.
Coming out to family and friends is most often the toughest part of a transition for everyone involved, and possibly also the most important: If you fuck it up (or not), you might lose the person (or people) you're coming out to. Also you'll want to be pretty damned sure you're sticking with your transition before doing this, obviously. The cat does not go back in the bag.
Happily, coming out to everyone became much easier. It had even become sort of a rush after a while. I continued telling everyone I dealt with regularly until I'd even told everyone at work. I told them all, one by one.
While a few people at my musicians' store counter job tended to ignore me a bit more, the Baptist keyboard salesman actively avoided me when he could, despite how swimmingly well we'd gotten along previously. Ultimately, I lost no one except the first person I told. He had (as far as I knew) been one of my best friends. He started getting passive-aggressive with me the following August, after I'd moved away and gone full-time.
I'm really glad I came out so completely, so early. It was a tremendous relief that I didn't have to hide these things anymore, especially considering everything else going on at the time.
People often say growing up transsexual sounds difficult. And it probably was; it's just hard to compare without some sort of common vantage point with non-trans people.
I was a happy enough kid, provided I had some sort of distraction.
Distractions let me forget I was really a girl for a while. Toys, video games, arcade games, computers (wayyy back to the early 80's TV ones), books, cartoons, even psychedelics a couple years ago. Actually, I kinda buried my head in the sands of Distraction Desert, and that continued until they just ceased to work. That wasn't very long ago.
A somewhat more effective method of coping was release. Release was more problematic (and scary for me), and not always even intentional.
Until the age of 6 or 7, I wasn't afraid. My earliest memory of trans-evident behavior was when I was about 4. At the YWCA daycare I was in, there were gendered bathrooms for us kids. I insisted for a short while on going with the other girls to the girls' room but was made to go to the other one. Not long after, I knew it was something to hide dearly.
Besides wanting to be the mommy when playing house, I also have memories of having red toenails in sandals (my aunt painted them for me at my request) at that center later on. ("That's for girls!" "No it's not!" Yesss.) And still later, my father and others telling me "Don't walk on your toes!" "Don't talk through your nose!" "Don't hold that hammer like that!"
For the longest time, I borrowed mom's bras and stuffed them with water balloons or folded up socks in private. My dad would find them just under my bed skirt and take them. On separate occasions, I accidentally left out a slip and a dress in my early teens. Oops.
In my late teens, I tried to grow my hair out several times. It's very, very thick and wavy. I dressed as androgynously as I could "get away with." I shaved my arms once with the excuse of running out of spots to put a nicotine patch. I often shaved my legs completely in winter and down to shorts level in summer. I got into the whole "goth" thing partly as an alibi to wear skirts, makeup, and nail polish. I shaped my eyebrows with a safety razor once. I "neglected" to trim my fingernails until Mom complained. Then I'd trim them and let them grow again.
The ballsiest thing I did was buying a nice pair of black leather high heels at a retail store as a "Christmas present for my girlfriend." Yes, I could bring them back after Christmas if they didn't fit her. Luckily, they fit just fine. The sales lady saw straight through me I'm sure, as I was shaky and stammering, but it was totally worth it.
My brother M, then about 18, found my shoes, worn, in a shoebox in my closet with hose and a slip (both worn). He asked me about it. Horrified and angry, I lied gruffly, "It's a present for my girlfriend," shooting a look that added, "and don't bring that box up again if you want to live to 20, motherfucker." I "purged" my shoebox and makeup months later, and hid from myself.
So, hmm, yeah. Growing up trans probably was a little bit rough. How it compares to being non-trans, I really can't say, but I imagine it's even less fun.
It's been not-so-widely reported that the DHS took heroic action at US borders recently, in the fight to stop the greatest menace facing the well-established healthcare racket today: low-cost prescription drugs. That this comes right on the heels of the government's new prescription drug program is, of course, a complete coincidence.
According to one source, seizures have been stepped up by a factor of 10, and as many as 13,000 packages have been stopped since the start of the campaign.
''There's absolutely no connection with this enforcement of federal law with Medicare Part D at all," said Hollinger. ''That's just some kind of misunderstanding."
This reporter is somewhat ashamed to admit that, unless she defects, further misunderstandings like this will only increase her future job security as a pharmacist.
Sources:
Boston Globe
CBC News
Posted in news by Milla
But we had a few things to discuss, so we were, well, discussing them last night on our nightly walk. Something that had been more evident to her than me came up, and (sorry to about 2% of you) yes, I have yet another Important Announcement to make.
It's high time I came out of the closet for the third time. Folks, I'm straight. Yes, the rumors are true. We had a good cry or three, and it turns out it's okay I'm not gay.
But wait, what do "straight" and "gay" mean in terms of transgendered folks? I'm glad I asked!
It's commonly argued that trannies defy these terms. Well, sure, we screw up a lot of otherwise neat labels. We're complex numbers on some kind of weird Kinsey plane:
a) I prefer other girls (trans or not) on the relationship side, but men (trans or not) are where my hormones lie. I identified as bisexual before transitioning, to varying degrees of openness (not to mention varying Kinsey scores).
b) I've dated women and men about equally (that is, not much) both before and after transitioning.
c) I don't plan on dating other girls anymore.
Hmm.
Does "straight" really describe me now? No, not really, especially with us pesky transsexuals in the picture again. If I had to pick a sexual preference label, that would be the one. When it gets down to it, I'm a woman who prefers men.
Transpeople also throw a wrench in the works when you look at it the other way around. Is a man who exclusively dates post-operative transgurls straight? What if they're pre-op? (Assume he's not a tranny chaser.) To be politically correct, he should be referred to as straight in both cases. In reality, it's more like Richard Pryor's catchphrase in that awful 80s movie: "None of the Above."
(Incidentally, C and I are still together, but now calling it officially okay if either of us finds someone else. And we plan on remaining lifelong friends regardless.)
Related entry
Posted in sexuality by Milla | Comments (2)
It's been fun, but the overall return on my investment isn't exactly what I'd hoped.Any future posting (or account renewal, for that matter) looks pretty doubtful right now, unless my AdSense account suddenly swells by a factor of five or more. They'll probably cancel me soon for saying that anyway. Oh well.
I appreciate the return I did get, though. Thank you!
Edit 5/21/06: Decided I enjoy doing the site enough that I'll just remove the ads and continue until/while hosting costs shut me down.
Posted in weblog by Milla | Comments (2)
It was a week or two to Christmas 2004. It was evening.
I stood in the kitchen in my mom's house, nervously sipping at a coffee mug full of hot tea with milk and sugar. My mouth and throat had gotten dry from the anxiety and heated air, and I was going to need my voice. Well, a voice. It never was my voice.
I was trying to work up enough courage to sit down with her and casually explain something I had been hiding to the death from even myself for quite some time. I was trying to tell her I was a girl.
This poor woman was about to find out that her firstborn "son" of four children, whom she'd given birth to 29 years ago, was seeing a gender therapist 150 miles away. "He" was going to start taking hormones in a few months, and eventually wear girly clothes in public, for the rest of her life. Her life.
Mom, I'm a girl. There's been a huge mistake, and that needs dealt with if I want to be happy. I've always felt this way. I'm changing roles. I start hormones in February.
But not in so many words. Finally, I choked down the lump in my throat and approached her, and carefully explained what was going on. I had (tearfully) practiced coming out to her sister a few evenings or so beforehand, because she tended to be a lot more levelheaded than Mom. I was the one who got upset then. On the other hand, Mom was already dealing with a lot, and she had always tended to react strongly to change and news like this.
Before I sat down, I braced for fireworks. This was a huge moment, and I was prepared for the worst: "Get out of my house and never come back." I didn't expect that from her, but it does happen, even unexpectedly.
Mom didn't react much at all, except to explain that she was going to need time, like always. (Choke.) I was, all things considered, pretty collected myself.
Coming out to family and friends is most often the toughest part of a transition for everyone involved, and possibly also the most important: If you fuck it up (or not), you might lose the person (or people) you're coming out to. Also you'll want to be pretty damned sure you're sticking with your transition before doing this, obviously. The cat does not go back in the bag.
Happily, coming out to everyone became much easier. It had even become sort of a rush after a while. I continued telling everyone I dealt with regularly until I'd even told everyone at work. I told them all, one by one.
While a few people at my musicians' store counter job tended to ignore me a bit more, the Baptist keyboard salesman actively avoided me when he could, despite how swimmingly well we'd gotten along previously. Ultimately, I lost no one except the first person I told. He had (as far as I knew) been one of my best friends. He started getting passive-aggressive with me the following August, after I'd moved away and gone full-time.
I'm really glad I came out so completely, so early. It was a tremendous relief that I didn't have to hide these things anymore, especially considering everything else going on at the time.
Openness and honesty really are freedom.
Posted in coming_out by Milla | Comments (3)
People often say growing up transsexual sounds difficult. And it probably was; it's just hard to compare without some sort of common vantage point with non-trans people.
I was a happy enough kid, provided I had some sort of distraction.
Distractions let me forget I was really a girl for a while. Toys, video games, arcade games, computers (wayyy back to the early 80's TV ones), books, cartoons, even psychedelics a couple years ago. Actually, I kinda buried my head in the sands of Distraction Desert, and that continued until they just ceased to work. That wasn't very long ago.
A somewhat more effective method of coping was release. Release was more problematic (and scary for me), and not always even intentional.
Until the age of 6 or 7, I wasn't afraid. My earliest memory of trans-evident behavior was when I was about 4. At the YWCA daycare I was in, there were gendered bathrooms for us kids. I insisted for a short while on going with the other girls to the girls' room but was made to go to the other one. Not long after, I knew it was something to hide dearly.
Besides wanting to be the mommy when playing house, I also have memories of having red toenails in sandals (my aunt painted them for me at my request) at that center later on. ("That's for girls!" "No it's not!" Yesss.) And still later, my father and others telling me "Don't walk on your toes!" "Don't talk through your nose!" "Don't hold that hammer like that!"
For the longest time, I borrowed mom's bras and stuffed them with water balloons or folded up socks in private. My dad would find them just under my bed skirt and take them. On separate occasions, I accidentally left out a slip and a dress in my early teens. Oops.
In my late teens, I tried to grow my hair out several times. It's very, very thick and wavy. I dressed as androgynously as I could "get away with." I shaved my arms once with the excuse of running out of spots to put a nicotine patch. I often shaved my legs completely in winter and down to shorts level in summer. I got into the whole "goth" thing partly as an alibi to wear skirts, makeup, and nail polish. I shaped my eyebrows with a safety razor once. I "neglected" to trim my fingernails until Mom complained. Then I'd trim them and let them grow again.
The ballsiest thing I did was buying a nice pair of black leather high heels at a retail store as a "Christmas present for my girlfriend." Yes, I could bring them back after Christmas if they didn't fit her. Luckily, they fit just fine. The sales lady saw straight through me I'm sure, as I was shaky and stammering, but it was totally worth it.
My brother M, then about 18, found my shoes, worn, in a shoebox in my closet with hose and a slip (both worn). He asked me about it. Horrified and angry, I lied gruffly, "It's a present for my girlfriend," shooting a look that added, "and don't bring that box up again if you want to live to 20, motherfucker." I "purged" my shoebox and makeup months later, and hid from myself.
So, hmm, yeah. Growing up trans probably was a little bit rough. How it compares to being non-trans, I really can't say, but I imagine it's even less fun.
Posted in hindsight by Milla | Post a Comment?