Today Is My 20 Year Transition Anniversary!

Today is the day 20 years ago I walked into Houston Intercontinental Airport's Terminal C to clock in at my then seven year old airline job to begin my first nerve wracking work week evolving into the Phenomenal Transwoman you see today.

It had been a long road to get to that April 4, 1994 day.  I'd had my first appointment with my gender therapist Dr. Cole just two months earlier.  

That first work week was filled with me having one on one emotional conversations with my airline co-workers spelling out why I was handling my transition business.   Some of them led to tell it like it T-I-S is revelations and epiphanies.   Others were simply people wanting to know what the process was like as I would evolve in front of their very eyes.

The now 16 years and counting of activism around trans human rights issues started four years later, but from 1994-1998 my thirtysomething self was more focused on becoming the best woman I could be.  

I felt at the time I was going from zero to femininity and needing to play catch up with the other cis sisters in my peer group, my workplace and elsewhere around H-town. 

On that April 4, 1994 day I was facing the task of needing to have the acquired knowledge of a thirtysomething Black woman and not having three decades to learn and make mistakes while doing so.   I also accepted the mission of going through a body morphing second puberty with a wide variety range of reactions from friends, family and society ranging from unconditional acceptance to virulent hostility.  Add to the body morphing and other changes bumrushing me at that moment at a dizzying pace the frustrating at times documentation and paperwork changes combined with rolling down I-45 south to Galveston every few months for check ups and chats at the gender clinic with Dr Emery and Dr. Cole.

Some of those challenges I encountered were quickly learning that sexism, misogyny, and the straight up hatred aimed at Black women is no joke. 

I also received an early reminder of the transmisogynistic hatred trans women face inside and outside our community when Tyra Hunter died at the hands of a transphobic Washington DC EMT a mere 15 months into my transition.  

I had a scary 1996 incident that taught me paying attention to my personal safety was a must and that any lapse in attention could result in severe injury, sexual assault or my untimely death 

I discovered the wallet in my purse was going to take a bigger hit now that I was on the femme gender side because of the added expenses and the new wardrobe I was having to build from scratch. 

I also discovered that the weight gain you pick up after starting HRT is no joke either.  

I already knew this from sitting in locker rooms during my teen years, but it got it reinforced as an estrogen based lifeform just how much men can be pigs at times.

There were humorous and sometimes touching moments along the way as I adjusted to my happier life as Monica. 

I built my network of cis and trans sistafriends who broke down the evolving feminine journey I was on.  They praised me when I was handling my business and put their foot up my ass when necessary to give me that needed motivational kick.  

My sistagirls (and they know who they are) stayed on my behind to make sure that I not only continued to evolve to be a better person, I kept my promise to evolve to be a complement to Black womanhood and not be seen as a detriment.to it.  

And yes, my transbrothers have played their parts in helping me become the person I needed to be. 

Because I stepped out on faith and did so, I have been afforded some amazing opportunities.   I get to travel and participate in discussions about trans and other issues at various conferences and college campuses in Houston and around the country.

I have a blog that has been visited by 5.5 million people around the world since I started it in January 2006.  It has led to a new column at Black Girl Dangerous and being published at EBONY.com, Loop 21, the Huffington Post and a long list of other blogs

I have gotten to meet wonderful people inside and outside the trans community I probably wouldn't have come in contact with otherwise had I continued to unhappily muddle through my pre-transition life.  My network of friends and chosen family encompasses the United States and the world.  

And the question I asked at the beginning of my transition has been emphatically answered in 2014.   The girls like us who share my ethnic background are all across the African Diaspora.   I have also gotten the opportunity to meet and befriend beautiful, smart and talented transwomen of all ethnic backgrounds and ages.

I have had the opportunity to be a witness to the last 20 years of trans history, helped shape some of it, and meet some of the people who made that history before I transitioned like Phyllis Frye, the late Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major.   I get to unearth chapters of our Black trans history as one of the missions of this blog.   

I would be remiss if on this day I didn't mention all the transwomen who started that journey around the same 1994 time with me that for various reasons fell by the wayside and didn't continue their evolution, passed on far too soon, or lived their lives well and are now watching over me with the ancestors like Dana Turner and Roberta Angela Dee.

I also need to acknowledge the people cis and trans who popped in on this journey with me for a short time who had lessons good and bad to teach me but who are now out of my life for various reasons.   

There are some things that have happened in that 20 years I didn't foresee.  Becoming an activist wasn't in the original 1994 plan, that just happened because of my strong social justice leanings that were there long before I swallowed my first Premarin tablet and a jacked up IFGE Tapestry article   The nearly nine years in Louisville was something else I didn't see coming, but overall was important to my growth and development as moi.  

I also didn't foresee at the time having a generation of young trans people who see me as a iconic leader and role model, a fact I got reminded of during Creating Change 14.  That amuses and humbles me at times.   I'm honored that people think highly enough me to not only nominate me for and sometimes give me awards, but actually name them after me as BTAC did.

I  keep that iconic status in mind when I have the conversations with them about the history I've made and seen (and I'm still making) as I encourage them to fearlessly be the best girls and boys like us they can be.

I've seen some amazing progress for the trans community here in the States and internationally over the last twenty years, but we are not done yet.  There is still a long way to go before transpeople have full societal equality in my nation and around the world.  

My transition started 20 years ago today, but it is still an ongoing evolutionary journey that won't end until I'm meeting the ancestors. 

And you better believe I'm deliriously happy I took that first small, nerve wracking step in 1994 that has resulted in a giant leap in the quality of my life.  

La Feria ISD Trans Student Will Have Pic In Yearbook

"But based on what happened in 2013 and previous school years over the life of this blog, I'm betting I'll be writing a few posts during the 2013-14 school year chronicling your attempts to fight the power, express your trans selves and live your lives."
  
--TransGriot  Trans Class of 2014, Start Planning Now To Beat Your Trans Oppressors  June 8, 2013

It's not even Thanksgiving Day yet and I've already been busy writing up on this blog drama already happening across the country with trans students fighting against their trans oppressors to be themselves as they navigate this school year. 

And you can bet that prom season and graduation days will bring even more resistance, transphobic ignorance and anti-trans bigotry from school administrators. 

Have been keeping my eye on along with other trans Texans the unnecessary drama going on in the Rio Grande Valley with La Feria High School trans teen Jeydon Loredo.

The La Feria High senior received some transphobic resistance from newly installed La Feria ISD superintendent Rey Villarreal concerning his picture that is slated to appear in the school yearbook.  

Villarreal has only been in the LFISD supenintendent's chair for four months andl stated that due to nebulous 'community standards'  Jeydon's yearbook picture of him in a tuxedo would not be allowed to be placed in the yearbook unless he wore traditional feminine attire.





That got the Southern Poverty Law Center involved.   They threatened to file a federal lawsuit on Jeydon's behalf if the anti-trans bigotry didn't cease and desist.  It set the stage for a November 11 LaFeria ISD board meeting in which Jeydon addressed the board along with his SPLC attorney Alesdair Ittelson.

“As school board members, you don’t get to decide whether transgender students receive the same rights as students who are not transgender, ” Ittelson told the LFISD board. “You must treat Jeydon equally and with the respect he deserves. The fact is, you must allow the tuxedo photo in the yearbook in order to remain in compliance with the law.” 

“Please allow my community to remember me, and to remember me the way I truly am, in the clothes that reflect me: Jeydon Loredo,” he asked the board.

The La Feria ISD school board subsequently went into closed session but made no decision on the photo.  They also closed ranks, refusing to comment on the issue or make a final decision probably in a vain attempt to stonewall and hope the story and the negative attention it was focusing on the town and school district near the Mexican border would fade away.

The SPLC wasn't amused.  They threatened to file the promised legal action if the LFISD didn't make a decision in Jeydon's case by November 21.  After a November 15 meeting between the interested parties, the La Feria ISD reversed itself. 

Jeydon's photo will now be included in the yearbook (as it should have been in the first place).  The La Feria ISD agreed to follow its own policies for cases of gender discrimination and provide training for the persons involved.

They also agreed to do a comprehensive education program for the La Feria school community in addition to adding gender identity and expression language in its district anti-discrimination policies.  

“We are very pleased that the school district has recognized Jeydon for who he is and will allow his photo in the yearbook along with all his classmates,” said Ittelson.

"This is a signal to other school districts that transgender students should be recognized as important members of their communities rather than ostracized and subjected to discrimination. We applaud Jeydon’s courage in standing up for his rights.” he continued.

And Jeydon's Lone Star State trans brothers and trans sisters second that sentiment.  

National Coming Out Day 2013-It's STILL Different For A Trans Person

'I don't want to underestimate how liberating it is for a trans person to come out to family, friends and allies.  It does wonders to lift the burden of carrying that tremendous secret off our psyches so we can begin to openly and honestly live our lives.' --TransGriot October 11, 2012 

Today is National Coming Out Day.  Congratulations if you did so on taking that first giant and scary step towards evolving to become the person you needed to be.  

And yes, if you don't feel strong enough today to do so, don't worry about it.   You don't have to do it amidst all the hoopla of this week and this day.  Only you know when you are ready and emotionally strong enough to handle it and the challenges that will come your way after you come out.
 
If you're trans*, it's even scarier and a much different dynamic from our LGB brothers and sisters because a gender transition is not easy.  After the initial coming out date, unlike our cis LGB brothers and sisters, we have to pay cash out of pocket, get trans specific medical care and counseling, and morph our bodies to be our kind of person we wish to project to the world.  

We get to be hated on and resisted by a depressingly long list of societal haters.   

And what I said about coming out as trans last year still applies.

That's your mission once you realize you are trans and decide to accept the fundamental truth that it's absolutely essential for your quality of life, health, sanity and future happiness to transition. 

For the vast majority of us it's a decision that once made and executed, we wonder why we didn't do so sooner as our bodies and minds align and everything else falls into place once we get the gender issue resolved. 

You become part of a brotherhood and sisterhood that expands across the globe.   You begin to realize that we transfolks are part of the diverse mosaic of human life.  You discover that we have a proud history.  We have had and do have some amazing leaders at the local, state, national and international levels.   We are accomplishing some groundbreaking things and doing our part to uplift the communities we interact and intersect with including our own.

We trans people can do and accomplish anything we wish to do if we're just given the opportunity to do so.


With trans kids coming out as early as five and six, trans teens breaking new ground every day, and in many cases being agents of their own trans liberation, we trans elders are motivated to keep busting our behinds to create a world in which your human rights are respected and protected.  

The world we want for you is one in which all you'll have to do in addition to ensuring those rights stay in place for the generation of trans kids behind you is to dream your big dreams and make them happen.

But it all starts with that first scary and exhilarating step out of the closet after you come to the epiphany that you are trans*.
  
Everything else we can handle together one day at a time.


TransGriot Note: photos are of Dr Kortney Ryan Ziegler accepting the inaugural Authentic Life award from the Transgender Law Center and Cheryl Courtney-Evans in front of the Stonewall Inn where the TBLG movement began in 1969.

Transition Is An Ongoing Journey

There is a mistaken belief in the trans community that transition is a finite journey with a fixed beginning, middle and endpoint.  

Some people think it begins when you swallow your first estrogen tablets or take your first testosterone shot and ends when you have some kind of surgical intervention or the morphing into the body that matches your brain gender map is complete. 

But I submit that's not the case.  Transition may start when you take that first estrogen or testosterone shot, but the endpoint is when they close the coffin lid on you.

The middle between those two points is the life you live and how you define it.

Like life itself, transition is a constantly evolving series of events that are part of the totality of your life until it's done.  It is a just battle for the self determination of your own identity to paraphrase what my little sis Jordana has eloquently said about it.  It is a long journey of self discovery that at times can be a pain in the ass.   There are periods of introspection and analysis you'll have to go through in terms of whether you're living up to the goals you set for yourself when you began your transition.   Sometime you do that hard solid thinking that comes with that honest assessment of where you are in terms of your transition goals on your own, sometimes it's a group exercise in concert with others. 

My personal guiding transition principle and has been since 1994 was wanting to be a compliment to Black womanhood, not a detriment to it.  

When I sit down and do hard solid thinking on where I am in terms of reaching this goal, it is with this guiding principle in mind among many others. 

But as you're on this journey, you want to strive to live a quality life an which you are happy in your own skin.  How you define that happiness and what a quality life means is up to you.

Thanks Again To All My Sistah Girls

When I first began my transition back in 1994 I was concerned whether I'd be able to be the type of girlfriend I wanted to be and needed to be to the women cis and trans who eventually became part of my sistah circle.

Don't know why I was concerned about that at the time, but after almost twenty years on this side of the gender fence, as many of you have told me during our conversations I shouldn't have been. 

You've all let me know at one time or another during the conversations I've had with you on one level or another that in your eyes I'm part of the team and one of the girls, and that means a lot to me.

Enough that I feel moved to write this post saying thank you.  .We all know that transwomen have cis women who hate them for whatever irrational reason, so when we do find cis women who wrap their arms in love, friendship and sisterhood around us, it's greatly appreciated because there are times those cis women take a lot of crap from other cis women for standing up for us.

It's also appreciated when you have transwomen who do the same for other transwomen and lift each other up in sisterhood instead of gleefully tearing each other down.   The world does enough of that for us, we don't need to be exacerbating it or replicating that nekulturny behavior in the trans community ranks.

Thanks for the advice, the honest conversations, sharing your make up tips, your joys and concerns with me, teaching me a few things about femininity along the way>

And yes, giving me a swift motivational kick in the butt when I needed it or telling me to chill when I started questioning whether I as a Black transwoman was living up to the legacy that Black women have set for all of us.  

Thank you for the timely help you have given me at various points during my transition that helped me (and is still helping me) become the quality Black woman I set out to be when I started and I'm still evolving toward being.

Whether you've been in my life forever, post my 1994 transition or just at certain points in my transition journey, know you're loved and deeply appreciated by me.

Italian Actor To Become An Actress

I keep making the point that not only are we ethnically diverse transpeople everywhere on the planet and in every profession, we are part of the diverse mosaic of human life. 

The latest example of this is coming from Italy in the person of 30 year old actor Guiseppe Schisano.

Schisano announced in a recent press conference that he is about to undergo a gender transition and when she comes out on the other side of it will take the feminine name Vittoria.

Schiasano noted during the press conference feeling "a strong feminine side that was hidden for years".  When he went to the doctor to do his initial baseline blood work to assess hormone levels, there was an interesting surprise. 

"When I went to the doctor to start the hormone therapy that precedes the operation, the doctor was surprised that I wasn't already taking the hormones. My levels showed that my female hormones were higher than my male ones," Schisano said.

Not surprising to me.  Had the same issue going on when I did my initial blood work in preparation to begin HRT.

It will be interesting to watch Vittoria's evolution into her outside body as currently configured matching the person on the inside and wish her the best of luck in her feminine journey..

.

How Hard Is It To Transition In Your Hometown?

Back in the day when transpeople were advised to keep their transitions secret and never let anyone know their status, one strategy for doing so was relocating to another city or state far from your birthplace.

Today, many transpeople reject that and are opting to stay right in their hometowns and transition.

What drove me to write this post was an e-mail I received from a young person who is starting the transition journey. In that e-mail she asked me the question that is the title of this post.

Well, it varies depending on where you live.

If you're born and raised in a small, conservative rural community, you may have to move to a larger, more accepting city for your own safety and peace of mind. You also have to bear in mind you may even have to relocate to another state or even emigrate to another country because some cities aren't as tolerant or welcoming as others.

As someone who transitioned in her hometown, it's an interesting and challenging experience at times. For the most part you're going to be around the people and family members that knew the old person. Sometimes it's harder for them to make the mental shift and see you as the person you've evolved to rather than the person they remember.

It leads to the maddening at times tendency to use incorrect pronouns or the old name in your presence. Sometimes when they slip up, they inadvertently out you by doing so in front of people who didn't know your trans business.

Sometimes you'll have your old and new lives clash at inopportune times. You may run into an old coworker or classmate who hasn't seen you in years at a local event or a store.

You'll have the awkward moments of running into an old lover. You'll pass by places and locations that trigger good and bad memories for you. You'll have those moments when you run into somebody from your past, but are unsure whether to reveal how you know them, how much you've changed since your last meeting, and how they'll react to the news.

And you won't have the excuse of distance or finances to prevent you from attending your high school reunion. (Go JJ Falcons!)

But those stress inducing dramas are mitigated by the fact that you are transitioning in familiar and comfortable surroundings. You already know the politics at the local, county and state levels. You are cognizant of the level of organization, support and activism in your local trans community. You're aware of who and where the trans friendly medical/legal/pharmaceutical professionals are and what the local GLB community support level for trans issues is.

Best of all, you don't have any moving expenses unless you're bouncing to another apartment.

So how hard is it to transition in your hometown? Depends on the intestinal fortitude of the person involved. I did so while working for an airline in an international hub airport. But I also realized because I did so back home, I acquired a mental toughness I probably wouldn't have if I'd simply moved and started over.

To transition in your hometown or not is just another thing that you have to factor into your transition related decisions.

But despite the headaches, it has its rewards as well.

Gia Darling's MTV 'I Want A Famous Face' Video

Gia Darling was on MTV's I Want A Famous Face' as well. Found the video for her appearance on the show. It also gives you an idea of just how much can be accomplished body work wise if you have the cash to do so.



It also gives you an idea of some of the pain you'll have to endure as well if you go under the knife to get that type of body.

A Transsistah's Secret- Shoe Sizes

Being the shoe fanatic I am, one of the first things I wanted know was what was my feminine shoe size. The basic rule of thumb in the US and Canadian markets is that you add two to your old male shoe size to get the equivalent femme shoe size.

Therefore, if you wore a size 8 in a men's shoe, your equivalent women's shoe size is a 10.

However, while most people have consistent sizes across types of shoes, sometimes depending on the style of shoe and where it's manufactured, you may have to get one that's larger. I noted that I had to go a size larger for shoes made in Brazil, for example, while others were fairly true to my actual shoe size.

So word to the wise is try them on first before you buy them to make sure they're comfortable and they fit.

Zero To Femininty In One Year

There's one issue we transwomen must come to grips with just before we begin our transitions.

We have to realize that we must go from whatever rudimentary knowledge of femininity we still have that wasn't suppressed out of us by our attempted masculine upbringings to an almost encyclopedic age appropriate knowledge of everything we should know as women.

Oh yeah, unlike our biosisters, we don't have the luxury of time to get to learn it, we have to do it in a year. While we're doing that, we're being reviled by almost everyone around us in society from disapproving family members to fundamentalist religion adherents and people who hate us enough to violently erase us from this plane of existence.

Being transgender is serious business and even if I'd had the opportunity to look into my future and see how my life was going to turn out, the only regret I have about it is that I didn't do it sooner.

Yeah, sometimes it's aggravating as hell. I get my feelings hurt from time to time. Every time I run into a narrow minded jerk or a person wallowing in unenlightened ignorance, I have to remind myself of the blessings that I have of having family and friends who love me and value the fact I'm in their lives.

So how do you go from zero to femininity? Practice, practice, practice and lots of learning and observation. Getting in touch with your spiritual and emotional side. Having biowomen school you on some of the points and lessons they learned growing up. Figuring out what type of woman you want to project to the world and working endlessly to become that finer specimen of womanhood.

And also realizing that society sees you differently. You are considered a target if you are attractive. If you're African American, even if you are beautiful, you're considered 'ugly' and 'unpretty'. You are considered less intelligent.

You also have a heightened risk not only to have potentially fatal physical violence and sexual assault visited upon you, you also have a heightened risk for breast cancer thrown into the mix as well.

But despite all that, the feeling of peace that I have every day I wake up because I did transition is one money can't buy. I know that despite the title of this post, femininity is a lifelong learning process that I enjoy learning something new about every day.

I absolutely revel in being me and living on this side of the gender fence, even if the first year of it can be chaotic.

Thanks For Being A Friend And Standing With Us

One of the things that my transsisters and transbrothers around the world are cognizant of is that we are involved in a worldwide struggle for respect and recognition of our human rights. It has been great getting to know some of my overseas transfamily and I'm looking forward to the day when we finally meet face to face.

One important facet of this human rights struggle is having biosisters in our corner. Some of my biosisters have taken it a step further and made it their mission in life to embrace what we're fighting for as well. Sometimes they speak just as loudly and eloquently about our issues than some of my own transsisters who accept the indignities and cower in their closets.

Some have taken it a step further, surround us with love and extend the hands of friendship as well.

I have been blessed throughout my transition to have biowomen at various stages of it who have and still are unflinchingly proud to call me their friend.

I have been taught at those various stages of my transition important life lessons by the various biowomen in my life in those periods. I continue to learn, grow and benefit from those friendships even as I worry that my biosisters who do that will catch flack or be stigmatized as 'weird' by their fellow biosisters or whatever other epithet is thrown at them just for daring to include me in their circle of sistahfriends.

At the same time, I hope that I've been able to show them and help them understand what I and other transwomen go through just to live our lives.

I also consider it an honor that they have made me part of their lives as well, knowing some of the bullshit sometimes that they go though just to do that.

Ladies, if you haven't heard this from your transsisters, I'm gonna say it now and keep repeating it as frequently as I can. Thank you for being a friend, standing with us and sharing with us the things we need to know in order to live quality lives as the women we were born to be in spirit but not quite body.

Know that you are loved and deeply appreciated by me and my transsisters as well for making us a part of your lives.

What's Facial Feminization Surgery?

I mentioned in a post last month that one of the pioneers of facial feminization surgery, Dr. Douglas Ousterhout is planning to retire in 2011. But what I didn't do was explain what facial feminization surgery is.

There are some of my sisters who were fortunate enough to get the genetic luck of the draw and all we needed was hormones and attitude to pass successfully. Others of us started early enough in our lives to avoid the ravages of demon testosterone on our bodies.

But for those peeps who either transition late in life or need help to feminize their appearance from the neck up, they resort to facial feminization surgery to do so.

Basically, facial feminization surgery (or FFS for short) is a wide array of surgical techniques employed to make a masculine face resemble a more feminine one.

If you watched the MTV show 'I Want A Famous Face' and remember Jessica, that's basically what she was doing.

Facial feminization surgery involves facial plastic surgery, maxillofacial surgery and reconstructive surgery. While those surgery skills and disciplines are well known, there are not many surgeons that specialize in FFS techniques worldwide. Those that are skilled at it are highly sought after.

While transwomen are major customers of the surgeons who specialize in this area, there are biowomen who do avail themselves of their services as well because of dissatisfaction with what they may consider masculine facial features.

Some of the techniques are forehead contouring, in which the bony ridge just above the eyes is removed and shaped to create a more feminine appearance. Scalp advancements, brow lifts are also done to enhance the new smooth forehead.

Sometimes, chin and cheek implants may be necessary or chin reshaping, in which the old squared male chin is given a more rounded feminine appearance.

There's also the tracheal shave, in which the cartilage bulge on the neck is shaved down as much as possible without touching the vocal cords.

Some people undergo rhinoplasty to get more feminine appearing noses, face lifts and lip augmentations as well.

The procedures, when completed and the post-surgical pain and swelling subsides, result in remarkable results, but it ain't cheap. FFS can cost anywhere from $10-40K depending on what procedures you get, which surgeon is doing them and where you get it done.

Bu for some transwomen, the positive effects on their self esteem and peace of mind because they blend in better with society are worth every penny they spent on it.

Laughing At Ourselves

We transwomen on a daily basis face so many serious issues and threats to our simple right to exist. We have people that fear us, that refuse to understand what we deal with in our lives, hate us to the point that they want to kill us, keep us unemployed, or even deny us the opportunity to go to the gender appropriate bathroom.

But just as my peeps have learned over the centuries to take dire situations and turn them into humor, transwomen for the sake of our own sanity either have or will need to learn how to do the same thing.

Like the Playboy transgender themed cartoons that are part of this post, while they are examples of some serious moments in transgender people's lives, I look at them and take a moment to chuckle. It helps remind me to stand down just for a few moments from the Defcon 1 life-or-death game face I have to put on sometimes just to live my life in a world that can be hostile to transgender people.

At times I think back to some of the more embarrassing moments I went through early in my transition that make me laugh now, but were mortifying events at the time they happened. I forgot to lock the bathroom door while non revving home during a 1999 San Francisco-Houston flight and fortunately I was in a sitting position when the door popped open. I got teased about it at work for a month and Lisa Bronte, the first class flight attendant who witnessed it, needled me about it for a year.

I take time to find humor in my situation and allow it into my life because even though I'm committed to seeing transgender rights laws become a reality and do my small part to make it happen, it can be depression inducing and frustrating work. But even out of some of those journeys to lobby have come humorous moments that I treasure to this day.

There have been times when I've gone to conventions and been one of the few African-Americans in the room, but have observed or experienced things that made me double over in laughter.

I still have fond memories of the first time I showed up at a planning meeting for my 20th high school reunion. While some of my high school classmates had heard I'd transitioned, others hadn't. The joke I cracked for the next year and a half leading up to that October 2000 reunion weekend was, "Well, we know who has a lock on the 'Most Changed Award' for this reunion."

I know we are tackling some serious and seemingly intractable problems, especially as transpeople of color. But just as we need to stop, take a look around and thank God for the blessings that we have in our lives such as good friends, good health and allies who get it, we should at the same time try to find ways to inject more humor in our lives as well.


TransGriot Note: cartoons were transgender themed recaptions by Lorna Samuels

A Transsistah's Secret-Legs

She's got legs, she knows how to use them.
She never begs, she knows how to choose them.
She's holdin' legs wonderin' how to feel them.
Would you get behind them if you could only find them?
She's my baby, she's my baby,
yeah, it's alright.

ZZ Top Legs

My fellow Texans and legions of singers and writers have waxed poetically about the mystery and beauty of women's legs.

Short of our faces, breasts and our bodies, the next thing a transsistah obsesses about (because she knows that guys and sometimes other women do) are her legs. The last thing she wants is to have NFL linebacker legs or anything that has a mere hint of masculinity.

Fortunately the shape of our legs is something that we have a little control over in terms of exercise to tone and shape them. In addition we get the same benefits from estrogen when it comes to our bodies that biowomen get in creating feminine curves.

After we start taking them, over time hormones do shift fat around and elongate the leg muscles to create a more feminine look to them.

And if you've grown up in the African-American community, you are well aware of the fact that many of our legendary beauties from Lena to Dorothy to Tina to Rihanna have been admired and desired not only for their looks, curvy brown frames, talent and intelligence, but their killer legs as well.

Rihanna not only won Venus Breeze's 2007’s Celebrity Legs of a Goddess, but they also insured her legs with Lloyd's of London for $1 million.

I've observed that guys go especially gaga over those legs if they're wearing hose with them.

Hey ladies, just kicking knowledge to y'all from my time on the other side of the gender fence. If you prefer male companionship, break out the hose. Your love life and the hosiery makers of the planet will thank you for it later.

But back to the original post.

So is it any wonder that after observing the cultural cues and taking all that in, why transwomen, and especially African-American ones would be anxious about how their legs look?

It's also a concern if you're involved in the pageant or ballroom communities in which the closest you come to looking as feminine as possible enhances your chances of winning.

I got the genetic luck of the draw with my legs as well. I can't tell y'all how many hours of teasing I endured in my junior high gym classes about my 'girl's legs' or after we started doing coed gym in tenth grade how many comments I got from my female classmates stating that I needed to trade my legs for theirs.

So I was comforted in the knowledge that HRT would already enhance what I had. Being 6'2" and mostly legs at that, it takes me hours just to shave them. It's an exercise testing my Taurean patience just to get it done, and I do it deliberately and carefully in order to avoid the tendency of rushing it and nicking myself in the process.

Personally I'd like to zap them with the laser and be done with it, but since I'm not rolling in that kind of dough yet, it's the razor, Nair, waxing, depilatories or whatever new product becomes available to get them looking their best.

Oh,You One Of Them Smart B*****s

Over the years I've gotten to know some wonderful people who are part of the female illusionist and pageant sectors of our community. Many who live full time have turned out to be not only beautiful human beings inside and out, but I've had some fascinating conversations with them.

Unfortunately, that's not always true with 'errbody' in that world. I'm turned off by the anti-intellectual strain exhibited by a minority of peeps in that world, and the horror is that some are proud of it.

What brought on this post was seeing the photo of Chevelle Brooks I posted and remembering a benefit show I attended for her at Incognito, a Black GLBT club back home a few years ago. I was invited by Chevelle's mom to attend, and it was to help her raise funds to compete in a looming Miss Gay US0fA pageant.

That particular night I wasn't feeling well and had a slight temp, but I felt like I had to be there to support Chevelle and her mom, so I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and made the beeline to the edge of downtown where the club was located.

Sophia McIntosh was the MC of the show and living in Dallas at the time. It was being held during the time (1996) the Oilers were fighting the city and then Mayor Bob Lanier to be let out of their Dome lease so they could move to Nashville.



Sophia cracked a joke about losing the team, which didn't sit well with me and a few others in the crowd because it was a sensitive, emotional subject at the time for us. The Dallas-Houston rivalry being what it was, the fact that someone living in Dallas brought it up only added to the pissivity. Being the militant 'I hate the Irving Cowchips' Oilers fan I was, I spoke up and pointed out that the Oilers were still bound by that lease to play in H-town until 1998.

You know how illusionists don't like to be upstaged, so she retorted, "oh, you one of them smart b*****s. Okay, if you're so smart, who was the president of the United States in 1964?"

"Lyndon Baines Johnson," I quickly replied. "Took over after Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in your city and won election in a landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964."

The crowd whooped it up and hollered, and after she made a lame joke about my hair and was satisfied with the laugh she got out of it, on the show went.

We actually had a nice wide ranging conversation backstage after that, and she confided that most people in that room sadly didn't know half of what I articulated in my response to her.

Anti-intellectualism is not just a GLBT problem, it's a societal one as well. As I've said repeatedly and should be evidenced by the posts here, I was blessed with God-given intelligence and have no problems flexing my intellectual muscles when necessary. And yeah, I'm proud of it.

One of the things I was adamant about before I transitioned was that I wasn't 'dumbing down' for anyone. Love me or hate me, one thing peeps can consistently say about me is 'that girl's smart.'

I'll take that any day over someone whispering behind my back 'that girl's stupid'.