Monday, December 23, 2019

Time to Upgrade


November 5th, 2010 - I began this blog.  When I started out, I did what many bloggers do, I headed to Blogger.com.  It is a nice friendly platform "back end" for blogging.  I never really saw much of a need to change things up.  It worked and that is all that mattered.

As well, my life was very different back then.  I was a closeted transvestite, gawd it makes me shudder and squirm to describe myself with that trans word!  Which describes how different my world is now, and how different my acknowledgement of who I am is.

Okay, well, whatevs!  I didn't want this post to be some melodramatic waxing of the past!  Nope!  This post is just a short note to say that within the next bit, I will be officially migrating my blog to a self-hosted Wordpress site.

Being as I am now me, everywhere, I am consolidating my web presence under one house - denithorne.com

I have no idea how long this migration will take and what ramifications it will have.  I will retain my unordinarystyle.com address, so it really shouldn't present many problems.  Things will change for sure, but hey, it's about damn time for an update and upgrade this this old house!

Love you constant reader!  I still can't believe that you spend your time here with little ol me.  I truly do appreciate you for in your own way you have been instrumental in helping me to find myself.  Thank you!

Oh - here is a new temporary address:  https://denithorne.com/unordinarystyle.com/

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Really, do many of us actually know what this means?

Friday, December 20, 2019

A Small Change


May 2016 to November 2019

This past Tuesday I was at The Source in Visalia.  We were having our transgender group night.  On that evening we had an informal meeting, a potluck, and generally just socialized.  It was fun as it was something we have never done before.  We normally go around in a circle and discuss anything we want to have.  Sort of like a rotating speakers platform. 

Anywho.... on this night, we were just standing around, eating, and socializing.  At some point in the evening some of us began showing some "before" photos.  I did not have the one I really wanted to show, which is the one pictured above. 

I like that before photo as it shows how I truly presented on most days.  Sure I could clean up and look far better, but most of the times I chose not to.  It was almost as if I didn't care about my appearance in the least.  Hmmm...... funny that I transitioned huh?  Yeah, no. 

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Love change!

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Seriously? Male Privilege

I literally raised my hand and put my palm out towards his face and said "I seriously cannot do this," and I walked away while asking my wife to take over.  She kindly went and found the repairman while I went and had a cigarette.  I thought I was pretty clear on the whole male privilege thing.  I mean I have been dressing as me for about the last fifteen to twenty years.  I have experienced people.  I have experienced males behaving as males may tend to do.  I thought I knew what it felt like for someone to exert their privilege.  I was wrong.

As you may know, I am a teacher.  Currently I am on winter break.  That does not mean tons of fun filled exciting vacay days!  Nope.  It is filled with trying to get everything done that I have been avoiding for the past 5 months.  Yesterday we had two different home repair guys come and do some work for us around here.

The first was a Culligan water guy.  We have super bad well water pumped into our houses around where I live.  The result has been that our water company wants Culligan to install in home water filtration systems.  Sounds great, except for that we get to pay extra for that.  And most of us don't want it.  Heck, I already get Culligan delivered.  Anywho, I had to have it done.

What I didn't need to have is the Culligan dude explain to me that he was going to drill a new hole in my sink because that is the way he has done it for twenty years.  When I asked why he couldn't just use one of the four holes already in the sink. it was explained to me that it would be harder, and he may damage our faucet and he didn't want to accept that responsibility.  However, it seriously took me about four or five times of asking him repeatedly about it before he said that stuff.  Prior to that, it was, this is the way he was going to it, because he said so.  Wow, seriously?

That project got finished up and in the afternoon the heater repair guy arrived.  I explained our problem.  The heater kicks on in the middle of the night, the fan starts blowing, but the burner never lights and thus all we get is frozen in the middle of the night.  I explained how we can turn it off, then on again, and it works for a little bit until it fails again.  The dude was going to go look at the heating unit but then asked to see my thermostat.  Upon viewing my thermostat, he explained to me that the temperature was set too low for the unit to come on and that my solution was that I simply needed to adjust my thermostat.

I'll admit I began my eye-rolling around this time.  I explained that was the case because it was the middle of the day, and not freezing cold as it is at night.  That my thermostat was set properly, but the heating unit was not functioning properly, for a reason other than the setting on the thermostat.  The guy futzed with the thermostat some more, and then called me over to him.  He then began very slowly explaining to me how a thermostat works.

Which is exactly when I shoved my palm out towards his face, told him I seriously could not do this, and walked away.  Fortunately my wife took over.  She soothed his fragile male ego, and listened to him patiently explain how to set the thermostat.  He then reprogrammed my thermostat, that I installed, and that I programmed to turn on with my preferred settings.  Eventually my wife got him to go on the roof and at least look at the unit.

I thanked my wife up and down and asked "how in the hell have you dealt with this bullshit your entire fucking life?"  To which she laughed.  We then had a good conversation about the realities of trying to live while being female.

Meanwhile the repair guy went on the roof, looked at the unit, did nothing, came down, and told us it was fixed and it would be $65.  It was really a good thing my wife handled it, because I don't think I could have handled paying him anything.  I was certainty not interested in paying him for treating us like we were stupid.  The guy seriously did nothing except for basically tell my wife and I that we are too stupid to know how the thermostat in our house works.

This is a weird occurrence for me.  On the one hand it is terribly insulting.  On the other hand it is flattering.  Why the positive?  Well it is a reality of my life, I want people to gender me properly, as a woman.  If I am being discriminated against because they perceive me as female, well that is at least a win for being properly gendered!  Yay!  But, really, no, not yay, actually boo!  Boo?  Well not for the gendering part, but for the realities faced by millions of women, ever fucking day!

Can I tell you a story?  Why yes, I can!  I was visiting my hormone providing doctor.  She told of a story of a transwoman at a party.  A guy came up to her from behind while she was bending over.  The guy swiped his hand down between her legs and up between her butt.  The transwoman was shocked, but that was not the point of the story, my doctors point was how unfazed she was at hearing the story.  Her response was one of "yup, that's life as a woman."  Wow! Seriously?

I mentioned to my therapist how pissed this all makes me, especially when I hear some cisgender people talk about how transitioning is such a choice.  Yeah, well I'm curious, why would anyone think that someone would be interested in choosing this.

I thought I knew about privilege.  I thought that when I was presenting male that I did not take advantage of that privilege.  However, I now realize how foolish that was of me to think.  Privilege is generally not something that someone takes, it is something that someone gives.  As in, there was nothing I could say to get that heater repair guy to listen to me and take me seriously, he had to want to do that.  And what he saw was a dumb blond girl who couldn't possibly know anything about how a complex thing such as a thermostat worked, and thus he had no interest in what I was saying.  That's privilege there pal.

So yeah.  I've got lots left to learn.  And as a society we have a lot of growth to do still.

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Love and respect life, for it is precious.


Saturday, November 30, 2019

Ally?


I am going to try this post and see how it goes.  My mission is to try and retell the events, without making too much of a judgement.  That is going to be hard, as I am clearly judging this person, and what happened, however I'd really prefer for it to be a learning experience instead of a ripping experience.  I honestly don't know if that is going to be possible.  So then why try?  Well, I am an educator and this is an opportunity to try and educate.  I am wishing myself luck. 

Recently I have connected with someone on Facebook that lived in the same town I grew up in, and he went to my wife's high school, and happened to be in her same graduating class.  So, if you, that person, happen to ever actually read my blog posts, then you are now probably aware that this post is going to be about you.  Yup, this is happening. 

I was happy enough to send out a friend request to this person, even though I had never met them.  Which is something I generally rarely if ever do.  I tend to be very picky about who I am FB friends with.  Sorry if you have sent me a request and I have deleted it.  I don't accept all requests and frequently find myself un-friending people often.  As I said, I'm picky about FB.  However, I am not picky about you choosing to follow my on Instagram.  That feed is fully public and anyone can follow me if they chose. 

Okay, so I sent a friend request, they accepted, and we exchanged a few DMs.  We discovered how we had the collection of mutual friends that we had.  It was actually very unexciting truth be told.  Super boring, and I didn't think much of it.  I did see them in person actually a little bit after that.  One of those times is what prompted this post. 

We had an event for our local LGBT+ center.  Both this guy and I happened to go.  It was a fairly small event.  An activity was occurring and there were some vendor booths around.  I began to peruse the booths when this gentleman approached me and started up a conversation.  I found the conversation interesting for a bit.  We chatted about our lives growing up in Danville.  We chatted about a bit of bullshit as well and things turned boring for me. 

This is around the time that this guy turned to me and said something along these lines:

"I finally realized who you were while growing up, before your transition, and I must say that truly, I am shocked and amazed, at how absolutely wonderful your wife is." 

How does that sound to you?  Innocuous?  Maybe.  Maybe.  Maybe. 

And that is what I have been debating ever since.  I totally understand where he was coming from.  I think I understand the intent, however, it is a nagging feeling and one that I am not clear about in the least.  As well..... how often, as a trans person, do I make people aware of how they have made me feel when they have hurt me?  Generally never.  Wanna know why?  The few times I have told people how their statements have made me feel, caused those people to respond by showing me that I am too much trouble for them to figure out.  They have stopped talking to me.  I basically lost friends by telling them how they have made me feel.  Which has been bothersome, but also, not.  If it is too troublesome for some to care about how I feel, how much of a friend were they to begin with?  Not much of one actually. 

So..... how did that statement make me feel in that moment?  As though I was a super freak. 

First off, who I was before my transition is irrelevant to who I am now.  To think that somehow who I was pretending to be in the past could somehow help one to understand who I am now is absurd.  It is called a dead name for a reason, that person is irrelevant and I am not interested in the least about being connected with them. 

Secondly, and more importantly, I do indeed understand just how wonderful my wife is.  However, when you are expressing that to me, you need to be aware of the corollary statement you are making.  When you tell me just how wonderful you think my wife is, you are also saying how freakish you think I am.  Why?  Because often in expressing how great my wife is, your example is that she has stayed with me.  Not because she is a fabulous teacher who can interest any human in her subject matter.  Not because she is a talented artist who paints from her heart.  Not because she is an amazing animal lover who rescues animals all of the time.  Nope, none of those things are why you are saying that my wife is amazing.  You are saying she is amazing in relation to staying with me.

My friend talks often about normalizing the trans experience.  Hearing people go on and on about how amazing my wife is for staying with me through my transition certainly does not make me feel normal.  In fact it makes me think that you feel I am totally abnormal. 

Trust me, I get it, my wife is great.  She is a super amazing person.  She impresses me every single day.  But she is a great person all on her own, not because she has chosen to stay with me.  Imagine going up to any married couple you know and saying to one of them how amazing you think they are for staying with the other one.  That is pretty darn clear how you view the situation.  So..... please be careful when you express just how amazing you think it is for someone to stay married to a trans person.  On occasion we trans people also actually offer up some things to our relationships.  We are not just massive burdens and drains upon our partners. 

Really what most are missing is how amazing my wife is for staying with me prior to my transition.  That was truly the crazy part of my life.  Now it's actually fun and enjoyable. 

 I know the person who said that statement had no ill intent.  And I know they are an ally to the community.  I do appreciate the support this guy gives to our local LGBT+ community, even though they are a cis-het human.  We within the community would not have anything if it was not for straight ally support.  So, I do appreciate the support.  I hope that you can appreciate a trans perspective and I truly hope that I have been able to be educational and not confrontational. 

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Appreciate what you have!










Sunday, November 10, 2019

Supporting Local LGBT+ Youth


Sweater - Michael Kors - Similar @Amazon
Tank - Mossimo - Similar @Amazon
Pants - Liverpool Kaylee Skinny Jean - Similar @Amazon, @Liverpool
Shoes - Asics - Similar @Amazon

Goodness, not the best expression,
or look for my eyes, but my outfit is cute!
This is what I wore to a local LGBT+ event.  I live near Visalia, Ca and our main resource center is The Source.  For the past few years they have been doing a fundraising event called Over the Edge.  People pledge to make so much money in donations and if they meet their goal, then they repel off the highest structure in the city.  I personally do not want to repel off the building, no matter what, so I just go to cheer on my friends.

On this particular day a young trans male from our transgender group meetings was going over the edge.  He and his mom are spectacular.  He is 12 years old, in middle school, and living and his true self, with the love, help, and support from his mother!  Wow, right?  It is a fabulous thing to be able to see and gives me tremendous hope for what the future of being transgender means.

So cool.

After seeing this young man accomplish his goal, I was off to complete my daily goals.  First was Lowes, then CostCo, Target, and finally Save Mart, our local grocery store.  I arrived home, unloaded all of my purchases, and grabbed the camera. 

I know, I know, I am very remiss in my blogging duties!  Alas, such is life, and if you may recall, long, long, long ago, in a land far, far, far away, I did mention that I make no promises as to the frequency of this blog.  In fact, I think I went so far as to say, don't ever expect any sort of regularity from me here at this site.  Hmmm...... I think I doth protest too much!!!  Hahahaha!

Seriously, life is good, but busy.  I've added things to my already overloaded system.  They are fun, but filling! 

Love you!

Love yourselves!

Love supporting each other!

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Electrolysis Reality Check


June of 2018 I went to my first electro appointment. They started on my face. It took over 20 hours to fully clear my entire face 1 time. Yesterday they cleared my face in 2 hours. It will probably take an additional 6 months of full clearings and then it will be gone for the entire rest of my life!

Now we are slowly working our way down my body. 6 hours was spent on my upper bikini line. I hate the process, it is shear torture. The cost is outrageous, $125 an hour per electrologist, plus $50 an hour for the nurse to do lidocaine injections. So yesterday it was 4 hours, 2 techs, 1 nurse, $1200!!

The results are truly priceless though. Well, my belly doesn't look like it right now, but I just need to hold steady, be patient, and maintain this heading.

Love you!

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Advocating


Okay so the photos are horrible. Apparently my wife and I specialize in blurry photos! Ha!
However, the day was not horrible. I spent the morning teaching my middle schoolers and then we jetted up to UC Merced. I gave my TG presentation detailing my decision to transition and afterwards we both fielded questions from the students.
The professor there is amazing and he sent me a link to his student responses to our discussion. Here are a few of their responses (there are 7 pages of them!) :

"I found it very surprising that it wasn't more of a sudden realization. The decision to decide that kelly was trans was a culmination of most of her life. It was very surprising to imagine not feeling yourself most of your life."

"I believe what I found most memorable about Kelly's story that she was able to make it out of the hardest parts of her life, and is still smiling. She went through so much and faced so many difficult obstacles but she did it all and I find her really admirable for that."

"I found most memorable how supportive her wife was throughout the years. That must of been a great thing to have a great social support. I was surprised that it took her years to finally know how to identify herself after years of dressing like a woman."

"I just think its so amazing how loving they are... just like any "regular" couple. ( heart emoji)"

"The fact that it took Kelly years to not be afraid with who she truly was was the most surprising to me. It has made me realize how hard it must be for every transgender person to be out & happy with themselves. I think she's an amazing & inspiring person. The world definitely needs more people like her & Jodie."

"It was surprising it was more beneficial to hear her story. In the past I had an ex girlfriend who transition into a man and at the time it was difficult for me to understand what it was like for her and the emotions that came with it."

"I enjoyed the realistic lecture that she gave. Having her being open and unapologetic with how she felt made it easier to understand how different everyone's journey can be."

"i was suprised that so many people face this issue and feel like they're going through it alone. Transgender issues can be really complicating but i hope people can learn to accept them for who they are instead of what they look like."

"I think what was most surprising is Kelly not changing anything other than her hormones. I have personally never met a transgender person or know their stories so I always assumed that they needed many surgeries and pills and all. However, it's amazing realising how she was simply being herself."

"Her partner has known her since she was 8. It's so cute how she stayed beside her transition ! :,)"

"The most surprising to me was the fact that she felt obligated to deny that she wanted to be a woman. It was really heartbreaking that she had to make herself feel horrible in order to please society. What I found really powerful was when she mentioned you can easily change your body but not the gender in your mind."

"The fact that she knew who she was at such a young age. I was surprised kids at that age are even thinking about themselves"

Okay, I gotta stop....... there are so many comments that mean so much! There are about 64 student responses. All of them positive, loving, and supportive!
Um..... am I glowing much this morning? Yes, yes I am!
I think I'm doing this advocating thing pretty darn well!
Thank you for the help and gentle pushing Jessica LynnCarol Montgomery Brosnac, Dr Julie Nicole. Thank you for seeing something I struggle to see.
Love you!
Love yourselves!
Love telling your own story!