Bruce Jenner

There is so much about this interview that I want to write, I have so many opinions on what i've watched so far.

But!

All that I can't think right now is:

Oh fuck!

That's a BIG name.

That's a LOT of publicity.

That is NOT good for women like me who want a normal life and to be left alone and understood as just another normal female.

Maybe I'll write more when I'm able to bring myself to watch the rest and can compose my thoughts.

Learning to NOT be enough.

The truth is that I’m not enough.

I’m not enough to be fully loved for the daughter I am  by OR too my mother.

And someday I won’t be enough to be fully loved by my (adopted children) as their mother.

I’ll never live up to my younger sister in my mothers eyes, she’s a fully functional female, she’s younger and more beautiful, she can give my mother biological grandchildren, she’s the real deal.

I’m not.

If I ever am lucky enough to have the privilege of raising some children (they’ll have to be adopted) I’ll never be their “birth” mother and so they’ll never ache for my approval in the same way a child instinctively seeks and looks for it’s (biological/birth/real) mothers approval.

There’s a million ways in my life (and the life of any transsexual girl) in which I’ll never be Enough.

So if if you’re never going to be enough what’s the point in even trying?

You aren’t here on earth, in and living life, for you.

You’re here because wether you or they understand it or not, these people whom you aren’t enough for, they need you.

They need a positive influence in their life, they need someone who loves them without want of something in return.

Someone strong.

So who do you get to be that person for you?

Who do you get to be your “strength”?

No-one.

I’m sorry, but you are the bottom of the food-chain.

The bottom of the totem pole.

The bottom rung of the ladder.

Maybe one day (when it no longer makes any difference) they’ll understand what you and your love meant to them and their life.

Maybe they never will.

Maybe you’ll fade away and be forgotten.

Welcome to womanhood.

It’s not great.

It’s not “fair”.

No-one ever promised you it would be.

So what are you going to do about that? 

Are you going to change womanhood to make it fit what you THINK it should be?

I’m sure no natal born female has ever thought of or wanted to do that, I’m certain YOU are the first girl EVER to think that life is not “fair” for women. (the whole concept of feminism let alone the feminist movement never existed right?!)

Here’s the difference though, you had a “choice” you were given the opportunity to be a man, they never were.

And further, they have to deal with more than you do. most of them have a period every month from about ten years old ’til maybe 60 years old.

How many of those periods will actually turn into a baby?

1-2-3 maybe? maybe 5? in the extreme maybe 10.

Out of every month for potentially 50 years.

12x50= 600.

600 lots of bleeding, cramps period pain and discomfort, hormonal and emotional instability.

(I’d give up anything for that, even if I never did get to be pregnant or have a child)

And all of that is STILL no guarantee you’ll ever be enough for anyone.

That’s just life for women.

Yes, your life sucks! yes, you have things hard, but you don’t have it harder than most or even ANY other woman.

Congratulations! you made it.

So remind us all, why aren’t you “happy”?

What I see, feel and read from most "Trans" folks is that they over "glamourise" in their own mind what life is or should be like for the sex they want or think they "should" be. 

Just take a quick glimpse around the internet trans blogs and you'll notice undertones of envy and an air of victimhood directed at what they dub "cis" folks.

The truth is that we're all just people and we all face our own situational difficulties, none (necessarily) better nor worse, more or less noble or valid.

The truth (when it comes to NOT being "enough") is that for the most part it is actually more often "trans" folks who are arrogant and "entitled".

So! It's time to get over yourself.

Understand that life and the world is NOT solely about you and YOU are the only one who cares wether or not you are "enough". (or else you wouldn't be or need to be, telling everyone you're "trans" and hoping they "accept" you, would you?)

And if no-one else cares wether you're "enough" or not, why exactly should you?

choices

Something that not many people know or understand about transsexuals is that we actually don't like the idea of being transsexual.

WHAT?!!!

I know crazy right!...

I mean why would we choose to be transsexual if we really didn't want to?

Alright! herein lies the "rub"

You see, for a transsexual (IE, a girl like me, who happened to have been born with male "bits") we just want and need to be normal females. 

"Normal" is a dangerous word to use these days, to attach it to any particular category of people almost always means your mother's cousin's aunt get's excluded from being what most (sane) people consider to be "normal" and just wait until you hear what she thinks of that! 

SO! I'd best add a disclaimer and some context here. 

Firstly, when I (note the large "I", this is the integral part of the disclaimer) say "normal" females, in this instance I mean: what most of society (including the medical and scientific communities) believes to be female (IE in the physical reproductive and biological senses).

Part of being a normal female, is NOT actually being "trans" (in any sense of the word).

So there you have it! we don't want to be "trans(anything)" we aren't "proud" of it, of ourselves, of our bodies.

Maybe (MAYBE!!!) we don't hate our bodies or ourselves, but if we were given the choice then this (transsexualism) is something we would NOT choose, and it's certainly NOT something we want to flaunt or celebrate.

It just IS! and so we deal with it because we have too.

Right! so now that we've cleared that up, there are certain people who claim they ARE us or at the very least, are the same as us.

These people ARE proud of themselves, they DO want to flaunt who they are and because of that, they are what most of society learn to (incorrectly) believe WE are.

So when I see things like the story in the above clip I can't help but shudder and want to run away, crawl under a rock and hide and NEVER EVER come out.

If you search Jordana Brewster or any of the other women who also shot for Allure magazine, I guarantee you that their name will come up AFTER Lavern Cox's when you FINALLY get a search result referring to this article.

Allure has used her as a draw card (because the other beautiful, naked, natal born females apparently weren't enough for some reason) and WHY would naked pictures of lavern cox be a draw care to most of average-joe public?

One reason!..... Do I need to spell it out for you?

Maybe people will get to find out if "she" has a penis still! (IE, is a MAN!!!)

Still no clarification on that by the way!! (Not that I need it, I'm certain if she was post-op the world would know by now for sure)

Yes Lavern! how brave and "inspirational" of you. 

She's simply re-inforcing (in the eyes of the public) everything a transsexual fights and struggles to NOT be. (a man)

If I was one of the other women in the issue, I'd have asked that they NOT run my pictures in the same book.

This is supposed to be a "role model" for Transsexual kids, and I was taking a look on twitter earlier, and found that even Jazz Jennings, is inspired by her.

SO! to the point of this post.

Choices!

The choices we make in life are VERY important.

I personally think VERY hard on the decisions I make when it comes to how I live my life, and that's not just the decisions I make that effect me in the here and now, I try to think my life through from start to finish and make the decisions that are most likely to result in a life I can sustain (or endure)  long term in every way. 

So far, most of those choices have been hard, painful, and often costly, but I made them anyway, even though easier and more enticing options may have been available.

As for Lavern; A couple of decades ago, there was another well known and well publicised "trans" person named Sarah Luiz.

She was (like lavern) considered rather beautiful and she made quite a few impressive magazine covers as well (again, like Lavern).

I'm not sure if I personally believe Sarah and her life choices made a good "role model" just as I'm certain I DON'T believe Lavern does, but! here she is in her glory days, and then later, where she is in life more recently, for you to decide for yourself.

Happy Easter!

holiday seasons typically see mixed emotions from me.

I live about four hours drive from my family these days and I don’t see very much of them except for times like easter and christmas etc.

I love my family, but in truth I’m ok with that.

I’ve tried very hard not to love them over the last few years and goodness knows they’ve given me reason not  to, but still I can’t do it.

It’s one of the things that frustrates me about myself, I believe I’m a reasonably strong person but the fact that I just can’t move on from them shows me I’m not as strong as I believe and that in truth, I’m weak.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie “Million dollar baby” with Clint Eastwood and Hillary Swank, (if you haven’t I recommend it) the relationship Maggie Fitzgerald has with her family in the movie is very much the same as my relationship with mine.

A big part of me wishes my heart weren’t as soft as it is, I feel my life might be (and have been) much easier.

So BF and I have made the trip up to spend easter with them. We haven’t seen them since Christmas, because we’ve been busy with our business, and although they’re always saying they’ll come to visit, (interestingly) they never do.

My mother is not a well woman, her health has been failing her for the past few years and has started to decline even more rapidly.

She was always a pretty strong woman when I was growing up, a proud person when it came to what she believed was important of herself (motherhood mainly) although she would likely deny it if you’d asked her.

In my own way I sought her help VERY early in life, but she either did not realise what I was asking for or she chose to ignore it.

I can make justifications (more than one) for either scenario (some selfish, some not), but continually she swears I was not there, denies any knowledge of me or my situation.

She reeks of guilt to me, but this is a long winded story and perhaps one for another post at another time.

SO! she was (or appeared to be) always a strong and capable woman when I was growing up, but now days her health is failing, she’s pretty much wheelchair bound, and relies upon others for nearly everything.

Yet when I’m here, she still tries with all her emotional energy to be and believe she is that strong and capable woman.

The truth is what it is though, and the truth is she is not that person any more (if she ever even was to begin with)

I worked that out some time ago personally, but I think she’s in denial of that and believes she can still “game” me, that she can “get away” with it and that by doing so she won’t have to admit to me, but more importantly herself, that she isn’t/wasn’t as strong and perfect as she thought herself to be.

She’s getting to be an old woman, she has little to show for herself and her life and the health she has given up (the price she has paid) aside from her family and children.

as much as she hurts me by her denial of me and my life and my existence how am I to take the same (her life) away from her? I don’t want to kill her or for her to die with a broken heart feeling her life was pointless or worth nothing (I won’t have too, she feels that way on her own anyway).

My brother and sister resent me, for anything that they find convenient at any particular moment of the day, but I think the truth is that they see the toll that me and my condition has taken on my mother and her health and blame me.

What I don’t think they consider for even a single moment is that her guilt is due to the fact that she chose to ignore me for what she believed to be the good of all three of us, especially my (younger) sister who had a chronic lung condition as a baby and child and who was not expected to live past 15 (none of which ended up being for my best interests in the end).

SO! we could all play the “blame game” really but the difference between me and them is that I chose not too. It wouldn’t do any good any way, life is what it is now, and it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.

That leaves my Dad.

My Dad told me once (after starting transition, to my face) that I “used to be his favourite child”.

I can only guess that my sister is his favourite now, in truth I always thought she was to begin with, but I guess that’s because I was overlooking the fact that in his eyes, I was a boy. (whoopsy!) 

And so as sad and lonely as it makes me, it’s just easier if I don’t visit much.

Life is not easy for a girl, especially if she was born transsexual.

Happy easter!