Watching When We Rise on ABC

I've been watching When We Rise, the four part miniseries on ABC about the birth and development of the LGBT movement in America and the parts played in the movement by Cleve Jones, Roma Guy and Ken Jones in San Francisco over the years.  I'm sure there is some criticism of it from various places but it's been entertaining and educational.  Last night was poignant and heartbreaking in it's portrayal of the AIDS epidemic and how much it was ignored by the government at first simply because it was considered a gay disease. 

Last night, they showed the AIDS quilt spread out on the Mall in Washington and it made me remember something.  The first year I attended Southern Comfort Conference, a large transgender conference held then in Atlanta, the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus entertained at dinner on Saturday night.  One of the songs they did, and I don’t remember the name of it, was about two boys who grew up together and were best friends.  As adults, they lost touch with each other and one day one of them receives a letter from the other’s father.  The letter tells him if he would like to see his friend again to be at a certain spot on the Mall on a certain day.  Then as the song is ending, you realize that his friend is not really there, that his name is on a panel of the AIDS Quilt.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house then and, even now almost 20 years later having lost friends to AIDS, I still tear up thinking about it.

If you've missed part of this, I'm sure ABC has some online areas where you can watch it.  It is well worth the time.

Not a good week

I've been angry, depressed and on the verge of tears most of the week.  As an older trans person, life can throw you some crap, especially these days with all the hate the right wing-nuts and false Christians are spewing.  But, I'm an adult and, for the most part, I can handle it.  While I worry about all trans people, who I cry for are trans kids.  We all know being even slightly different as kids makes us a target of bullies and being transgender just amplifies the bullying.  Last week, removing protections for trans kids by a misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic attorney general and an incompetent fool of a Secretary of Education put trans kids in even more danger.  Thankfully my trans great-nephew lives in a state which, by law, lets trans kids use the bathroom of their gender but other kids aren't so lucky.  Let's just hope the SCOTUS will support Gavin Grimm and rule, once and for all, Title IX does apply to transgender people.

Edit:  A Federal Court has issued a temporary injunction in favor of three transgender students and against their school district which had said they had to use either a single person restroom or the restrooms of their birth gender.  What is most interesting is the court ruled based, rather than on Title IX, on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment stating the students would most likely win on constitutional grounds.  This is a VERY significant ruling.

Latest Endo Update

I had my latest checkup with my endocrinologist a week ago today.  Of course they took blood and did other checks.  My blood pressure was 116/76 which is not bad for an older, overweight person.  LOL  According to the message my endo sent me, my testosterone was almost zero at < 20 ng/ml and my estrogen level is 141.0 pg/dl.  I would rather my estrogen levels were up around 200 but my doctor thinks that my levels and all my liver bloodwork are great so he doesn't want to change anything.