Urologist Update

Well, I had the talk with my urologist yesterday and he seemed quite knowledgeable regarding transgender.  Makes me wonder if he has trans patients.  He asked some pertinent questions, who was my endo, had I thought about any surgeons yet, etc.  I told him who my endo is and told him I was thinking about McGinn in Pennsylvania or Marci Bowers in California.  So the final result of the appointment is, with a letter from my therapist, he will do the orchiectomy.  Plus since he's treating me for orchalgia (pain) on the left side and because of the 10X greater risk for cancer right side due to undescended testicle that has reascended, he will use these as the diagnosis for removal so Medicare and my insurance will pay for it.

When he was asking me the questions he was sitting sort of behind me at the computer.  My wife said as we were driving home he seemed impressed that I was answering the questions quickly and knew what I was talking about.  I kind of laughed and asked her how many friends we've had that transitioned.  I said she could have answered his questions instead of me.

Urologist Appointment Monday - Orchiectomy?

I see my urologist on Monday for the first time since my therapist recommended HRT.  One thing she also recommended was an orchiectomy (castration) so that, due to my age, I don't have to take anti-androgens like spirolactone or finasteride along with estrogen and, maybe, progesterone.  She said she could refer me, with a letter, to a surgeon here in town who does orchis for trans people.  I told her what I would do first is talk to my urologist, since he has been treating me for orchalgia (testicular pain) and my insurance should cover it as an ongoing problem.  Plus I have a 10X risk of testicular cancer on one side and medical protocol calls for it to be removed.  If he's reluctant, then my therapist can refer me to the other surgeon.

My main thought is how to open the conversation with him.  When he did the nerve block back in December he mentioned removal if it didn't work.  I said something then about me not not being bothered removal and he said, "Yes, but your wife still wants a husband, not a sister."  Of course both of us burst into laughter and he was looking at my wife and I like we were crazy.  So I may start out with mentioning his joke, then moving into talking about seeing a gender therapist and go from there about HRT.  Wish me luck.

An Interesting Day

I attended a panel discussion called Striking A Balance - A conversation on balancing civil rights and religious freedom.  It was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights sponsored by their LGBT Institute.  A couple of the speakers were Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with Richard Cohen CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  There was a discussion on the fact that many of the bills in the Georgia Legislature are supposedly about religious rights and the fact that some of these bills if they became law would protect the KKK because it claims it's a Christian organization.  Mr. Cohen pointed out that the most danger though was not from hate groups like the KKK, it was from the haters in business suits in the legislature.  The second panel consisted of state leaders including Jerry Gonzalez of Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, Monica Simpson of Sister Song, Stephanie Cho of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Francys Johnson, the state president of the GA chapter of the NAACP.  Probably the most significant remarks came from Mr. Johnson that combining interests of many groups helps fight bigotry more than opposing as individual groups.  As he said, "We were never interested in saving just one room in the house.  We are interested in saving the whole house."

I was privileged to meet three local transwomen, a local transman with HRC and of course my friend Rev. Dr. Erin was there.  It was a great day.

Taking Down the Laundry

My wife and I were just downstairs in the laundry room getting the hang dry items to bring upstairs and putting the sheets in the wash.  As my wife is taking down the panties from the hangers where we put them to dry, she cast kind of a baleful eye at me and said, "You know it's a shame when you have more panties than I do...and prettier!"

Reconnecting With the Transgender Community

Several years ago, I was pretty well known nationwide and in a few instances, worldwide in the transgender community.  Oh not because I was an activist or anything.  I was a staff member of one of the largest transgender conferences in the world and I dealt with newcomers to the conference.  It was my job to help make sure they had a good time and if they needed assistance, they had a Big Brother or Sister to guide them.  Then my mother started developing dementia and I put everything on hold to become her caregiver.  For over eight years, I did nothing but care for her and my disabled brother.  In eight years, I had basically about two or maybe as much as three weeks of time off.  Total!  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining because I feel good that I kept her out off a nursing home for that time.  After my brother and my mom passed away, I just more or less decompressed for a couple of years.  However during all those years, I pretty much lost contact with everyone I had known in the community except for a couple of people. 

Several years ago I established a Facebook account but I did very little with it up until November when I started posting on it regularly.  One thing it has helped me do is establish contact with a lot of the people I knew back then.  People who were really close friends until I more or less disappeared on them.  And that's allowed me to find some e-mail addresses of other people who aren't on FB. I was wondering if any of them would even remember me and I've been surprised.  So many of them have expressed happiness at reconnecting with me.  I also reconnected with someone who was one of my newcomers quite a few years ago and is now one of the best known transgender advocates in the country.  I'm very proud of her and I guess I kind of know how a proud mom feels when one of her kids becomes someone famous.

Thoughts on The Danish Girl (Warning - Spoilers)

Seldom is someone able to actually picture themselves in a movie.  Unless you're one of the rare individuals who has been a fighter pilot, you can't really know what it's like to fly a Tomcat in Top Gun.  And no matter how great your imagination, that's all it will ever be, imagining, when you watch the Star Wars movies.  But for many of us, The Danish Girl is different. This is a movie a lot of us have lived or are currently living.

I admit I kind of laughed when Einar was walking through the theater and feeling the material of the costumes.  I thought how many times have I followed my wife through the ladies clothing in Sears, Macy's or another department store with my hand down to my side feeling the soft materials.  As Einar became Lili more and more, I cried because I saw so much of me in Lili.  When Gerda is crying and telling Lili she needs to speak to her husband, I cried for my wife who over the next few months will be watching her husband fade slowly away and her new wife take his place.   I cried for the love Gerda and Lili shared just like the love my wife and I share.  The love of my wife to stay with me through transition from male to female, the transition from married heterosexual couple to married lesbian couple.  Gerda and Lili were not allowed to stay married at that time but thankfully my wife and I are.  That's what is so great about this movie for many of us who are transgender.  We don't have to imagine what it's like to be the protagonist, we either are or have been Lili.  Just as Gerda and Lili were forced to have their marriage annulled, many of us have lost loved ones due to transition.  Just as Gerda's love for Lili lasted past their annulment, some of our relationships have lasted as we transition.

So as I said, we don't have to use our imaginations with The Danish Girl, we understand Lili's feelings.  We are Lili and it's not a movie to us.  It is our real life.

Sometimes Emotions Just Have To Come Out

Five days before my first therapy appointment was a really bad day.  First I read a post on Facebook where a trans woman was talking about a man she had known and the things he had done.  At first it sounded like it might be memories of her father or something similar.  But then she talked about how he had loved her enough to let her be herself and that was when you started realizing she was writing about her previous male life.  It was so beautifully written it brought me to tears.  Then later that evening for no reason at all, I was in tears again.  Two or three times that evening my wife kept asking me what was wrong and I just kept saying it's a bad night, it's a bad night.  Around 11PM I was laying on the bed and my wife sat down on the edge of the bed.  "Tell me what's wrong."  Suddenly before I knew it I was rolled up in a ball on the bed, pillow over my head sobbing and screaming, "I'm sorry," over and over.  My therapist asked me the next week what I was sorry for and I told her I didn't know unless I was just saying I was sorry for me being me.  Anyway, when I calmed down that night, my wife confessed that she was feeling guilty because I was so unhappy.  She felt it was her fault thinking she was responsible for me not transitioning at an earlier time.  At least if nothing else happened that evening, I got rid of some emotion and I was able to convince her it was not her fault.