November

I found out that Erin will preach at Sixth Presbyterian on Sunday, November 6. This is very exciting news. I told one of the made trans leaders in Pittsburgh, and she was very excited about it. After this happens, and after her activities at the Nov. 11-13 More Light Presbyterians regional conference, I would think this would qualify as making Sixth Presbyterian a trans-friendly church. This will definitely make my life easier, because I am always unsure about what to tell transgender people who consider going there. Now, at least, I can say, Erin's preaching there November 6, and after the fact, I'll be able to see, well, the transgender minister preached there. I'm supposed to keep the trans community as up-to-date as possible. I should be able to do that to some extent, both the Pittsburgh and Cleveland people. So, this is all exciting and a big relief to me!

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - The End

I had more to say in this series, but I think I will end it today. What I did is an old familiar thing. I’ve done it before, like when I started going to Noe Valley Presbyterian Church in San Francisco and tried to befriend my cousin Richard Sharpnack, who was in the organization which is now called More Light Presbyterians. When I got blown away because Rev. Janie Spahr showed up and preached there and we followed her down to the gay pride parade. I am a Presbyterian because two people who had a baby chose that for me. My great grandparents, grandfather, and father went to the First Presbyterian Church of Clairton. I was baptized in that church on June 21, 1953. Then my parents moved to the country and joined Round Hill Presbyterian Church. I grew up in that church because someone else decided that. When I left for Boston University on September 6, 1970 at the age of 17 ½, I was deciding for myself who to be. It was not a Presbyterian, it was a feminist, and it didn’t take me long to get involved in the women’s movement in Boston.

When I went back to Round Hill in January for the rock and roll service, I was doing the old familiar thing, going back to the Presbyterian Church because someone decided when I was a little baby that I was a Presbyterian. Instead of questioning that, I got on the internet and talked about my plight and I just got my little self blown away when someone as cool and important as Rev. Erin Swenson decided to rescue me. So I just went from one Presbyterian church to another, Sixth Presbyterian, which may be across the spectrum politically from Round Hill, but I was still just running back to some church my parents decided I should be part of when I was too little to decide for myself.

Well, because of who rescued me, a transgender Presbyterian minister, when I started going to the More Light church, I decided, not only did I want to meet cool, liberal straight people, lesbians, and gay men, I was going to go out and meet transgender people. So I did it. And I’m glad I did. I have had a ball and I have learned a lot. I do think Erin is a neat person. I think it is wonderful that she stood up for who she was, that she had the guts to transition publicly, that she had the guts to stand up to the Presbyterian Church and fight for her right to be a minister, and that she is doing so much politically. However, she is still a minister, and so she is much more religious than I am. I can admire her and learn from her, but I don’t think she is really quite a role model for me, because I think she is just a lot more religious in a traditional way than I am.

Well, I have met many transgender people and their family members now. I don’t regret a minute of it. It has really enriched my life. I have learned a lot. And it’s made me think a lot about gender to see people play with it, to see so many shades of it, to see a rainbow, as Ms. Connie Lynne of TransFamily puts it. There has to be a lesson in there, that it is used to keep us down. That if we are free to be whatever element of the two genders we choose, that we are free to mix and match them and be ourselves instead of being a male or female, we are fighting the oppression designed to keep us in our place.

I’ve met someone like Donna, who is just so outrageous with it, so creative, who likes being different and sticking it to society. The transgender person I’ve become closest too, however, is JimmieLee Smith, the transgender firefighter who won the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Civil Rights Act applies to transgender people. She is the person who hung in there and would not let them chase her out of her job, and she ended up being promoted to Captain. Her struggle is not over, because now they have voted to close the Salem, Ohio fire department, merge with Perry Township, and have a new fire district where they could take the firefighters’ benefits away and pay them a lot less money. JimmieLee has become my closest friend, and I am very lucky to be friends with such a brave transgender woman. Definitely, she has been a true feminist throughout her struggle. She has become a person who is capable of doing all the things a traditional male and traditional female in our society can do. Isn’t that the point? The point is for us to be able to be human beings who can do our best in many things whether they are traditional male or female things, and that’s what she has succeeded in doing. Not many of us can say that. I certainly can’t make that claim. So I admire her, and I am very lucky she wants to be my best friend.

I think I can stay in the Presbyterian Church without it being harmful to my health. For now, I can continue to go to Round Hill’s rock and roll service. I think Sixth Presbyterian is a church I can live with and still be the feminist I am. I just have to realize who I am. I’m not a More Light Presbyterian. I’m not really like Erin and the gay men and lesbians at church. They are much more religious than I am. Church is a lot more on the fringes for me than it is for them. It is much more integral to their lives than it is to mine. I have to admire Rev. Erin Swenson, Rev. Janie Spahr, Rev. Janet Edwards, Rev. Jim Rigby, etc. for who they are. I have to admire the lesbians and gay men in MLP and church. I have to admire the straight people at church. But I have to realize that I am not them. I have to realize who I am. I just am more of a feminist than I am a Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian Church is always going to be just one little corner of my life and not the big central thing it is to these other wonderful and admirable Presbyterians I have met in such a short and exciting period of my life.

Wait Till You Hear This One!!!!!!!!!!

Well, today I received an e-mail from a big honcho in the transgender community in Pittsburgh. They are trying to get this transgender minister, Rev. Erin Swenson, to come to their conference. Could I help them find a church who would let her preach, pay for half of her trip, and then she could speak at their conference that evening? Well, HELLO, there is no one in Pittsburgh who wants her to preach here more than me! And I'm not even transgender! I'll bet there is not one person in the Pittsburgh area who wants to see her preach more than me. I know of a female-to-male transsexual in Cleveland who might want to see her as much as me. But in this area, I'm sure no one wants her here more than I do.

But what's a girl to do? I am not a honcho, a leader in More Light Presbyterians, a minister, etc. I am nothing but a private citizen. I am just one individual person who wants her to be here and wants to see her preach. She told me there are people here she completely trusts, and I know who they are, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. As JimmieLee tells me, I feel a lot for her, but my feelings are not reciprocated.

Well, I hope they find a church. I'd love it if Sixth Presbyterian would let her preach and pay for her trip. I hope she comes and I get to see her, but, let's face it, she's not particularly anxious to see me!

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 12

Things began to unravel the next week at Sixth Presbyterian. It was announced during the service that the More Light Committee would meet after church. After the service, I tried to befriend a new woman at church and introduce her. I was introducing her to the lesbian couple who was supposed to originally help me fit into the church. They were not particularly friendly and said, we have to go to the More Light Committee meeting. They didn’t even suggest or ask if I might be interested. There was also a gay man I had come to really like at the church, but I saw him rarely. I was happy he had showed up that day and wanted to chat with him. Apparently, he was a honcho in MLP. Every gay man and lesbian in the church but me disappeared into the parlor and closed the door. No one made any effort to include me in the meeting.

I went home hurt and depressed. I think this was the beginning of me starting to really feel bad and even a bit sick about MLP, Sixth Presbyterian, and just my future in general with the Presbyterian Church. I couldn’t understand how they could include me in More Light Sunday and the booth at the parade and then not even invite me to the committee meeting.

I got to reviewing everything that had happened since I’d joined MLP. When I went to Sixth, no one was available from that organization. The lesbian couple had gone off on vacation. The gay man in charge of it was ill. No one else had been designated to introduce him or herself to me. I never did find out for sure who was the contact in the Pittsburgh area. I was never told where local meetings were held. I was only invited to More Light Sunday because I made the move and contacted someone. I also had to make the move to get involved in the parade. No one ever told me about or invited me to the More Light Committee.

Anyway, a regional conference would be taking place in November. Erin had said I should help with it, but I had no idea who to go to about this, and no one seemed interested in having my help. By now, I was also beginning to feel abandoned by Erin, because she no longer answered my e-mails or letters. I started to feel very depressed about this. I envisioned going to the conference and being totally ignored by Erin. I could see her surrounded by activists in the organization who wouldn’t let me near her. I felt that I could not survive this emotionally. I think the thoughts of this started to get to me. I never really know what triggers a bout of anorexia or why, for sure. Usually, it’s too late when I start to have food issues again. I think the seeds for my food issues were being planted. I didn’t know about it, and I was helpless to do anything about it.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 11

Apparently, Donna had not e-mailed Erin the truth about me or any offensive pictures, since the next morning I showed up at Sixth Presbyterian, and I had not been kicked out of the Presbyterian Church yet! I’m glad I was still welcome because that day a lesbian minister preached. I’d like to say a bit here about what it is like for me to go to a More Light church. Years ago, at Noe Valley Presbyterian, I had been able to see Rev. Janie Spahr preach. After that, the whole congregation followed her down to the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, and we marched with her. My cousin Richard Sharpnack also marched with us. It had been an incredible experience for me.

It was a very moving experience for me to be able to have a lesbian minister at a Presbyterian church. It had been very moving the time I’d been given my first communion by a lesbian minister at this church. It was great to see all the lesbians show up to support this minister, and it was great to have her preaching. I get upset with MLP, but this shows the great work they’ve done, that this type of thing can happen, so that everyone has a chance to serve and be represented.

After the service was a fun time because they were putting more pressure on to go to the ball game. A lesbian in the church had made it her mission to see that a lot of people signed up. She had purchased two baseballs to be signed by the congregation and given to John Matta. This got the older men excited. They were lurking around the table with the baseballs, joking that they should sign "Babe Ruth." It got many of them to sign up. One of the lesbians took the balls around and made sure everyone signed, and this got others interested in attending. Bobbie was there, and our friendship deepened. Bobbie agreed to go to the game and continued to tease me about Pedro Martinez. Then I went and got the car and gave Bobbie a ride home. Our friendship got closer as we chatted on the way to her apartment building.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 10

The next morning, I drove back to the motel. We had an hour before Donna had to check out, but it was an interesting hour. Donna had the laptop recharged. Well, I was absolutely amazed to learn how talented she was. She had developed some of our pictures and showed them to me on the computer. It was fun to see them so soon. Then she showed me two web sites she had constructed on Yahoo. Over 300 people had asked to join one of them, and over 60 people had asked to join another. She was extremely organized and had hundreds of pictures arranged carefully into online photo albums which she named. She also had other pictures organized on CDs. She showed me some of the pictures on CDs also. Some of them were pretty outrageous and I just laughed till I cried.

Right before I left, I showed Donna Erin’s website. We looked up Erin’s schedule and found out she was going to be in Pittsburgh much of November. We also looked at her Yahoo profile. She was online at the time, and Donna threatened to message her. I would have DIED of embarrassment! Anyway, then Donna teased me that she was going to e-mail Erin and tell her the truth about me and send her pictures of me in nightgowns.

After that, we went to Perkins and had brunch. Then we went back to the motel, and it was good-by time. I was sad to see her go, and we had had such a wonderful time. It was time to come home, take a nap, and get ready for church at Round Hill. I only hoped Rev. Meek had not witnessed my behavior in Round Hill cemetery the evening before. Donna and I had joked about running into him and me saying, "Hi, Rev. Meek, this is my transgender friend Donna. We’re here at Theodosia’s grave in the cemetery after dusk taking pictures of ghosts."

No one said anything weird to me at Round Hill, so I assumed they didn’t know about my bizarre behavior. Jan asked if my friend had come to visit, and I was trying to remember if I had called my friend "he" or "she" to Jan!

That evening, I got online with Donna and she started sending me pictures. It was fascinating, because once she played around with the lighting on the cemetery shots, lots of ghost animals showed up. The 1797 tombstone at Round Hill had an image of a ghost cat on it. Several other shots revealed images of ghost cats and dogs in the cemeteries. Donna concluded that since we both love animals, we attracted animal ghosts around us.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 9

The first thing Donna did when we got back to the motel room was to hook up a laptop computer she had rented. I e-mailed my sister and told her about the ghost cat. Then I e-mailed JimmieLee and told her we were in the motel room. Donna disappeared into the bathroom. While she was in the bathroom, I logged onto the AOL TransLand chat room. Donna then emerged dressed as a female ready for the trans-friendly club! She had on a black mini dress, black fishnet stockings, and black six-inch platform shoes. She wore a black choker and other jewelry. Her face was made up with eye makeup and lipstick. Her fingernails and toenails were polished. After the TransFamily meeting, this did not seem too weird to me, although the ladies at TransFamily had not been dressed up for the club.

Donna and I sat for awhile and chatted in the TransLand chat. I’m sure they thought we were completely crazy. Then JimmieLee messaged us. I loved JimmieLee so much by now and was so happy to hear from her. We chatted with JimmieLee until the laptop’s battery ran down. Donna then began to show me what she’d brought in the boxes. It seemed like enough stuff to rent a U-Haul and move with, but it was probably only one percent of her wardrobe.

First of all, Donna had a big box full of makeup. It looked like she had a business as an Avon lady! She had a whole large plastic tub of dresses. She pulled them out and showed them to me one by one. She also had a large plastic tub of mini-skirts and tops. She particularly liked ruffle skirts. I’d seen a lot of these outfits in pictures she’d e-mailed me. She showed me all these outfits. Then she had a box of shoes. She purchased high platform shoes from a women’s site on the web, but the owners of the business obviously knew they had lots of trans customers. Donna wore size 13 in women’s shoes, but she said you could buy up to size 18 from this site. After that, Donna showed me several nightgowns she had brought and several baby doll nighties. She showed me her box of lingerie, a number of slips, panties, thongs, bras, stockings, etc. She also had some jewelry with her. I just thought it was hilarious she’d brought all these items to show me over a one-night stay, especially since I was only supposed to hang out with her in Breezewood for several hours!

Donna and I then had a blast modeling the things she’d brought. I put on one of her club dresses. It would have been a mini-dress on her, but it came to the middle of my leg. We started to take pictures. We tried on several dresses and took pictures of ourselves. Then we modeled nightgowns for awhile, and after that baby dolls. We took pictures of ourselves in these various getups and laughed ourselves silly. By then, I was so tired and had to go home.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 8

The next thing to happen was that Donna came to visit. By now, I was very close to both Donna and JimmieLee. JimmieLee was certain Donna would chicken out on me. JimmieLee said trans people have lots of fantasies, and when it comes to finally meeting someone from the computer, they don’t have the nerve to do it. By now, Donna and I were chatting on the phone also. She had a male voice, however, and I was supposed to call her by her male name on the phone, in case her kids were around. JimmieLee and I had a very long online conversation the night before I met Donna, and I started to feel extremely close to her. The next morning, however, Donna was still willing to meet. I think she was nervous about driving clear to western Pennsylvania, so we agreed to meet in Breezewood.

We went out to have something to eat in Breezewood. She was dressed male, however. Finally, we decided she’d follow me back to Somerset, since I knew remote places in the mountains near there. We could hike to some remote spot where she could dress female. But when we got to Somerset, Donna had decided she felt comfortable enough with me to come to western Pennsylvania. I couldn’t have her over to the house with so many cats. Donna also felt it would be wrong for her to ask to stay at my house on her first visit, since we’d met online.

We got off the turnpike at New Stanton, and she decided to stay at a motel there. She was only going to stay for one evening, but she had boxes and boxes of stuff! We carted them all up to the motel room. By then, we were ready to leave. We went to Cedar Creek Park along the Youghiogheny River and took some pictures, walked around, and talked awhile. Then I took her on a tour of my jogging routes. She couldn’t believe the steep hills I jogged up. After that, we went to Eat’n Park in Monongahela for dinner. During dinner, she mentioned that ghosts tend to come out at dusk. She is an experienced ghost photographer with a good digital camera, so off we went to Round Hill Cemetery. I showed her Theodosia’s grave, and she took some other random shots.

Then we went to Fells Church Cemetery, where my great great great great grandfather, Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Thomas, is buried. Well, this is where I saw my first live ghost ever! Donna took a picture of his grave, and when the digital camera processed it, there was a ghost cat sitting right next to his grave! You’d look in the same spot, and no cat. We took the picture over and over, and each time, there sat the cat. Finally, the camera went haywire, and we had to move away from that spot. Donna took some more random shots, and we left.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 7

In Part 6, I was discussing my first Pride Parade with Sixth Presbyterian Church. I got back to Heinz Field’s parking lot and felt that I had thoroughly enjoyed giving Bobbie a ride. She’s my favorite person at Sixth Presbyterian, I got to thinking. I then went over and started my shift. The lesbians at the booth were very impressed with how I did. I stopped everyone who came by. I invited drag queens, pagans, and even people’s dogs to church. I had a long talk with a transgender woman from the booth next door and really tried to talk her into coming to church. I really liked her and was hoping I’d get to see her again and make friends with her, but no such luck so far. I stayed till the end when only a lesbian minister and her partner were left. The trans woman I had met and another trans woman helped us disassemble the booth, and I helped the two lesbians load up their car.

The next day in church, the lesbians at Sixth Presbyterian had bragged about my performance. I often sit with one of the Presbyterian Women honchos and her husband, and she complimented me. This was someone who even knows women from Round Hill. She said she had heard how well I had done at the booth and thought that was terrific. Later, the lesbian minister told people I was a gift to the church. Bobbie was there and our friendship deepened. She teased me even more about Pedro Martinez. I was really starting to feel great about going to this church. I also felt I had been accepted in spite of all my trans friends.

At this time, the church was organizing their participation in Pittsburgh Presbytery Night at PNC Park. This was a lot of fun. One of the lesbians twisted my arm into saying I would go. Then I started to feel excited about it. A man by the name of John Matta was retiring from the Presbytery. He was a member of Sixth, although he was too busy traveling to a variety of Presbyterian churches to come to Sixth very often. He would throw out the first pitch. We were supposed to be there in force to support him. They even were working on Bobbie to go to her first game at PNC Park.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 6

I finally did have a bit of a run-in with the TransFamily board. I had met a very religious transgender person on the board, and we’d become friends immediately. This person was stalled in the middle of transition and felt she had to keep it this way in order to keep her job and not hurt her family. She was, however, farther along physically than Donna. For one thing, this person had been a Mormon and really did not want to be completely thrown out of the Mormon Church. This person also had another entire secret life as a well-known Hare Krishna! She was older and very open-minded and interested in a variety of religions. Anyway, people on the board began to object to all our religious talk. My friend finally left the board over it, but we’ve continued our friendship through e-mails. One mother of a young female-to-male trans daughter objected to the religious talk too and made a dig, so I posted a message that I was going to give the board a rest for awhile.

Two people expressed interest in staying friends with me through e-mails. One was the mother of a male-to-female postop trans daughter. The other person was someone who had never posted on the board while I was a member, but she had been reading my posts. She sent me an e-mail saying she would like to be friends with me. Her name was JimmieLee Smith. I can say that because she is very public. She is the firefighter who won the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Civil Rights Act applied to transgender people. She is one brave person who has fought to the end, and I’ve posted things about her before on my blog. She and Donna are now probably my two closest friends.

Not long after all this transpired, the Pride Parade was upon me. Sixth Presbyterian Church would be marching in the parade. The week before the parade was the church picnic. I told one of the lesbians in charge of the parade that I would be willing to staff the booth for awhile after the parade. I felt a bit sad and left out and ignored at the picnic. I was also starting to feel badly about the fact that I didn’t think I’d ever hear from Erin again. So I didn’t hang around long, and I think my problems with whether the Presbyterian Church is a healthy place for me to be had begun, because I came home quite depressed.

However, the parade seemed to wash all that away temporarily. The lesbians from church all showed up, some with their children. Straight families and their children showed up to march. Some of the elderly members showed up. Marching through Pittsburgh was a ball! My shift was not till three o’clock. We got to the booths. It was a beautiful day. We were right on the river between PNC Park and Heinz Field. You could see the bridges, all three rivers, downtown, the Point, the fountain, and Mt. Washington. Handicapped members of the church showed up to hang out at the booth. The new minister showed up, and we had a great talk about being Presbyterians in San Francisco. I began to feel totally comfortable about her as our new minister. We were right next to the transgender booth, and I was very anxious to meet members of the Pittsburgh community, since I only knew people in Ohio and other parts of Pennsylvania.

While waiting for my shift on the booth, I felt compassion for Bobbie, an older, handicapped, African-American woman who had to walk back across the bridge to her apartment. I offered to give her a ride home, since I could do it and still make it back for my shift. She took me up on it. As we were driving by PNC Park, she told me she had never been there, even though she lived close by. I remarked that I would come to a game if Pedro Martinez were pitching against the Pirates. That’s how our friendship began. She started teasing me about Pedro. By the time I pulled up in front of her building, we were already great friends.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 5

Well, I immediately met a ton of wonderful people on the Transfamily message board. And it didn’t turn out to be a one-time shot like the MLP message board. It was for real. Before long, I was driving up the turnpike to TransFamily’s monthly meeting. The first time I went, I admit to being a bit frightened. I walked in and just didn’t have the courage to walk out among the couple dozen transgender people floating around and introduce myself. First I petted the cats and talked to the teenagers who had come with trans parents. Then I talked to Karen Gross, the founder of the group, whose daughter transitioned into her son. Then I talked to a genetic male Catholic who had come to support trans people in his neighborhood. I met a man and woman who were there for the first time. The woman was a genetic female, and I was unsure of her friend, who was dressed as a male. I later found out he was trans when he showed up as a female online and at the next meeting. He was drawn to me because it was his first time too, and he was shy. Karen then wanted to introduce me to a man who was a Presbyterian. I later found out this person was a female-to-male transsexual. Anyway, I didn’t know at the time if he was trans or genetic. I only got to talk to him briefly, but he knew Erin and thought very highly of her. He told me to e-mail her and tell her hello because he was not much into computers.

Later, a trans airline pilot gave a very interesting talk. I was sitting by a trans woman during the talk, and she started to socialize with me. I was wearing a Pirate t-shirt, and she teased me about the Steelers. I liked her very much. After the talk, a few people were more friendly to me, and one trans woman gave me a hug before I left. I left feeling extremely positive about the group.

By now, the lesbian couple was back at church. Because they had been gone and I’d met other people, they had seemed to decide they were no longer needed to integrate me. This was probably not the best situation. In addition, I had met so many transgender people by now. I think that made them start to wonder if that wasn’t the direction I was taking, to just hang exclusively with trans people, and given who had sent me to the church, and all, they were probably wondering if they were going to fit in with me that much. I did e-mail one of them about More Light Sunday. I received an e-mail in return stating that they would be attending the big five-church More Light Sunday celebration on the North Side.

Well, More Light Sunday was very nice at Sixth Church. Then I showed up later at Community House Presbyterian Church on the North Side. Five lesbians from my church were there, but I had the feeling they did not feel completely comfortable with me. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed myself anyway. A woman minister from another congregation was in fact very friendly to me. I liked the whole program and all the ministers.
After this, I wrote Erin a couple of e-mails and letters. I tried to talk about my trans friends, but I also tried to talk about the Presbyterians and More Light people I was meeting. I tried to sound as positive as possible. But Erin never wrote back to me again, and this has NOT been good for me.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 4

As I have been explaining, God had a surprise plan for me to go to Sixth Presbyterian Church. He went through a transgender Presbyterian minister named Rev. Erin Swenson to make this happen. I realized when I e-mailed Erin about having gone to the church that she was happy about it and that this had been her plan for solving my problems with the Presbyterian Church all along, which, of course, means that it was God’s plan for me. But this, of course, hit me out of left field. I hadn’t prepared for a new church to become part of the plan for my life. I didn’t realize how complicated it would be to adjust to a new More Light church. So I stayed a bit too focused on Erin when other people really weren’t there to make my adjustment smoother. This caused me to think about my past with transgender people and to want to meet more of them.

Well, I just didn’t know where to begin to meet transgender people. So the first thing I did was pull up all the profiles on AOL with the word "transgender" in them. I went through them and found one person not that far away. I was also very interested and impressed with what this person had to say. I saw "her" picture on her homepage. She looked like a man dressed up as a woman. She did not pass as well as my friend in San Francisco, because, as I later learned, she had not yet taken extensive steps to transition physically from male to female. I decided to be very open-minded about who I met, and I decided I knew very little about transgender people. So I decided to not make any assumptions. I also decided that, as a Christian, I wanted to be unconditionally loving and non-judgmental. So I wrote Donna an e-mail and received a very nice reply. We soon became very good friends, even though she was nowhere near as far along in the process of transition as my friend in San Francisco.

Well, at one point, I had decided to write to Erin about my experience with my first friend in San Francisco. I decided that if Erin did not write back to me, I probably couldn’t face it emotionally. But luckily, Erin wrote back with a very nice reply, even though it was not a long one. After some time being friends with Donna, I decided to write Erin about Donna. That’s when I was convinced Erin would decide I was crazy and never write to me again. I thought, "When I tell this minister that I went through the profiles on AOL and picked out a transgender person because I want to meet one, she’ll just be thoroughly shocked, and that will be the end for me with this woman!" However, a week later, I received a wonderful, long e-mail reply from Erin.

Well, at this point, I realized that Donna’s case seemed so much more complex and confusing than my friend in San Francisco. I got to thinking that I need a support group. I suppose I should have looked for a support group in San Francisco when I was going through a transition with that friend. But I was young and had my own problems back then. Now, I really began to feel the need for a support group to help me understand Donna and my need for relationships with transgender people.

I wasn’t sure at all where to turn. I had been invited to join this message board for psychiatrists. Apparently, they thought I sounded like an interesting case and wanted to study me. So I decided to post a message on that board. I explained that I seemed to have this need to meet transgender people, that I had met a couple of them recently, and that I needed some support in order to understand them and interact with them in a sensitive manner. One dear person responded, and after thoroughly psychoanalyzing me, gave me a page of resources. I decided to go through PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), since I had always had a good experience with that group. They were affiliated with TransFamily of Cleveland. I found out I could join a support message board through that group. I also realized Cleveland was not that far from Pittsburgh. So I logged onto www.transfamily.org and joined the support message board available to transgender people, family, friends, and supporters.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 3

As I explained in Part 2, a lesbian couple had been assigned the task of helping me fit in at Sixth Presbyterian Church. However, they were going away on vacation for a month. It turned out that I did not see them again for five weeks, and this caused all kinds of interesting things to happen in my saga of returning to the Presbyterian Church.

First of all, I could not attend Sixth Presbyterian on Easter. I had four other services to go to from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday. I resumed Sixth Presbyterian the next week, but the couple had left on vacation. I knew this, so I had to approach fitting into Sixth Presbyterian in a much different manner. I decided I liked and trusted the church, so I’d just try to meet as many people as I could. Most of the people I met were non-LGBT. I just tried to get as much as I could out of the services and meet people during the social hour. I went from a rather anti-social person to becoming a complete extrovert. I didn’t even think whether someone I was approaching was straight or gay. I just tried to be friendly and loving to all. This worked out pretty well and I think had a lasting effect.

However, something much more profound happened to me as a result of the absence of the lesbian couple who was supposed to take me under their wings. What happened was that I depended instead upon Erin, the woman who had originally rescued me off the internet and arranged for me to go to the church, and that turned into a big emotional situation. Anyway, I was so impressed with this Erin and how she’d helped me, that I wanted to find out who she was. It turned out, she had a website, so I logged onto it and was quite shocked when it came up and said, "Erin K. Swenson, Transgender Presbyterian Minister." Well, then I read an article about her on the MLP web site. I got very emotional about her story. I sent her an e-mail thanking her for sending me to Sixth Presbyterian, and I told her I had read her story and how moved I had been by it, and I told her I had gone through a gender transition with a close friend. I got a very nice e-mail back from her.

However, then it started. This brought back the time I had spent in San Francisco with my friend. I had put it into the back of my mind, and I think I thought it was kind of a San Francisco thing. Well, I realized I had never really dealt with it and worked through it. It had been a very intense time for me. It was a very rewarding friendship for me, and it was an experience like no other to go through a gender transition from male to female with a friend. I started to realize that I could never be the same person again after having gone through it. I also started to think, having met my first friend and now having met Erin, that I really like transgender people.

This is where things took quite a strange direction in my life. If the lesbian couple had been at church every Sunday and had looked out for me and gone out to lunch with me, I’m not sure any of this would have happened. But since I was in kind of a holding pattern waiting for them to come back and integrate me into the new church, I had more time to think and get into "trouble." Well, I was very realistic about the fact that Erin was a well-known and very busy person, she was one of the top leaders of the organization, and she didn’t have time to be my best friend. So I decided I would have to meet other transgender people.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 2

As I said yesterday, I am having food issues again over all the pressure with trying to fit into the Presbyterian Church and More Light Presbyterians. I am particularly nervous about an MLP regional conference in November. I want to go so that I can see Rev. Erin Swenson, but I don’t feel comfortable with the rest of the organization, and this is not helping the food situation. I did attend a party with our new minister last night. My friend Bobbie was there. The rest of the participants were liberal, heterosexual older ladies and they were very nice. I felt better after attending that event. Also, I just heard from Ray, of MLP, and he may be able to help me with some of my problems. So I'm hopeful.

I start Part 2 with my talks on the internet about my problems with Round Hill Presbyterian Church. I started to post on liberal boards on the internet, and I received a lot of compassion and support. Eventually, I found out about More Light Presbyterians. My cousin Richard Sharpnack had been involved with them when I lived in San Francisco. I found out they had a message board on Yahoo, so I joined it, and I was allowed to post my story of what was going on at Round Hill. Immediately, dozens of sympathetic gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight Presbyterians wrote to me with wonderful advice, expressing compassion, and giving me lists of churches which were LGBT-friendly. This is terrific, I thought. I’ll be able to post things on this board and meet Presbyterian friends from all over the country. I was thrilled! One person contacted me who seemed to have a more well-developed plan to do something concrete about my situation. It was some woman named Erin. I had no idea who she was, and I figured she was some lesbian in MLP. Anyway, she wrote to several people, one of them wrote back and invited me to Sixth Presbyterian Church, and I went for the first time on Palm Sunday. Anyway, I will have more to say about Erin later.

Well, at some point, which is unclear in my mind, I realized that I would never again be allowed to post anything personal on the MLP board. I was allowed to do that one time. Unless I dug out all those e-mail addresses of people who had contacted me and made a Herculean effort to stay in touch, I’d probably never hear from them again. When I look back on it now, this was very bad for me psychologically to find out that the MLP board did not allow for friendships, personal support, and fellowship. At the time, I tried to take this in stride, but I realize now it was a warning signal that my personality type and More Light Presbyterians were on a collision course.
Meanwhile, I was attending Round Hill, and nothing further offensive occurred, so things seemed to be fine with that church service. I first went to Sixth Presbyterian Palm Sunday. I immediately liked it. It was pretty, the greeters were friendly, the organ was nice, the choir was good, I liked the interim minister, and the service seemed fine to me. The bulletin talked about it being a More Light church. I was pretty sure I wanted to go to church there regularly. I was about to walk out when several people confronted me and would not let me leave without getting my phone number and e-mail address. They also insisted on introducing me to people. I was very impressed by this.

Nora took me inside to the social hour and introduced me to the woman who had contacted me. She was very nice and friendly. She was a lesbian, and she and her partner had sort of been designated as the people to take me out to lunch and then see that I assimilated into the church. However, they were going away on an extended vacation. They knew Erin (who it turned out is a transgender Presbyterian minister) and I think seemed a little shocked that I would meet someone like this on the internet, being that I am a very feminine-appearing genetic female. They announced it all around that Erin had sent me. I was unable to go to lunch with them that day. The fact that this couple was going away for a month turned out to cause all kinds of things to happen in my church life.

To be continued…

Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - Part 1

I am putting my blog on my transgender friends on hold for awhile, since I have a pressing issue that will have to be resolved soon. On Sunday, I took my first steps to join Sixth Presbyterian Church. Several days later now, I am wondering if I am even going to stay in the Presbyterian Church. Chances are, I will. But it has to be resolved soon, so I might as well blog about it.

Everything was going pretty well until very recently. There were problems, but I was handling them. Recently, however, I have found that I’m having trouble getting things done and I am feeling depressed over my church situation. It is suddenly affecting my life, my ability to look for a job, my ability to visit my mother in the nursing home. So it has to be addressed. I’ve noticed changes which could be nothing but which make me think. For example, I’ve lost any interest in watching soap operas! I remember that every time my mother went into a serious depression, she would lose interest in her soap operas. Maybe I just have so many other interests now that I’ve lost interest in them for good reason. But you notice little changes like that as warning signals. Worst of all, the last couple days, I have had trouble eating. It starts to turn into a very serious, dangerous situation when this happens, because I am a recovered anorexic.

Something happened this morning which was a bit like a light bulb going off in my head. I received a message in my in box from Pittsburgh Transgendered which claimed that most of the transgender people in Pittsburgh go to the United Church of Christ because they are accepted there. I haven’t noticed any transgender people at Sixth Presbyterian, even though it has been a More Light church for a long period of time. It makes me wonder if the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is ready for transgender people at all. How does this affect me? I’m not transgender, but I hang out with transgender people. My two closest friends are male-to-female transgender persons. If the Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh is not attracting transgender people even when they have More Light churches, are they really ready for someone like me who is very close to transgender persons and is even part of a support group called TransFamily? Obviously, More Light Presbyterians as an organization may not be ready for me, as I’ve been finding out.

Sixth Presbyterian is a very nice church. I can’t think of anything negative to say about it. I’m even become close to a lesbian who attends the church. So why does the Presbyterian Church seem to be becoming harmful to my health? Maybe if I keep blogging about it, I’ll figure out why.

I thought I would start from the beginning. I grew up attending Round Hill Presbyterian Church. For a brief period of time, I attended a very liberal Presbyterian church called Noe Valley Presbyterian in San Francisco. In January, Round Hill started a rock and roll church service on Saturday night. It was supposed to appeal to people who had stopped coming to church, and that was certainly me. It was ten minutes away, I like to sing, and it was tempting to have something inspiring to do Saturday night, so I went. I loved the service immediately. However, the second week, a passage appeared in the bulletin stating that the homosexual lobby, Democrats, liberals, and Ted Kennedy were trying to ban the Bible. This was apparently because they felt these groups of people supported hate crimes legislation to protect gay people. Anyway, I was angry, and I was feeling that I was probably no longer welcome at the church where I’d grown up. The anger eventually evened out into hurt. I also felt it was totally stupid for them to put something like this in their bulletin so early in the life of the new service, when they were trying to appeal to a group of people in the community which is hard to assimilate into church. This is not a majority Republican area of the country either. John Kerry won here 60-40 percent.

I decided not to stomp out of Round Hill or react with anger. Rev. Meek had preached at my father’s funeral. He still visited my mother in the nursing home. I didn’t want to drop my childhood church so easily. I also felt I’d been at that church longer than Rev. Meek! Also, when I did decide to go back to church, I had decided I did not want to be an angry person. I wanted to be a loving person who reacted with patience and understanding. I did not go to church the next week, and I started to spend the next few weeks talking about what had happened on the internet.

To be continued…

Emotional Blow Up With MLP Message Board

It has been an emotional weekend. I finally had the inevitable blow up over the More Light Presbyterian message board. I ended up with very mixed feelings about it, because it was thanks to that board that I was rescued out of cyberspace by Rev. Erin Swenson, which was one of the best things that ever happened to me. They did let me put one message on the board about my problems with the Presbyterian Church, and Erin was the person who really made it happen for me to go to Sixth Presbyterian. As a result of meeting her, I also realized I could never get over the fact that I had gone through a gender transition with one of my best friends. Therefore, I realized I still needed to have a lot of transgender friends in my life, and I also realized I needed a support group like TransFamily. I loved Sixth Presbyterian, and I was able to work things out with Round Hill Presbyterian. I have met so many wonderful people at Sixth, and now I have a close friend there by the name of Bobbie. I met two of my closest friends in the world in the transgender community, Donna and JimmieLee. I met many other people through TransFamily, and I love that group so much. I feel so welcomed, accepted, loved, appreciated, valued, wanted in that group. I really owe almost all of this to meeting Erin.

However, after I met Erin and a couple other nice people from that board, it all went downhill. I was rarely ever allowed to post anything. I resented the fact that only a few cliquey honchos were allowed to post. I was very bored by most of the posts. I felt the board was very patriarchal. I also resented the fact that people were not allowed to post personal messages and fellowship with other LGBT and supportive Presbyterians around the country. When I tried to e-mail people on the board, I was usually ignored or met with hostility. It all came to a head and I had a meltdown over the weekend. They had just refused to post something I had written, when someone else posted that Billy Graham’s daughter had been arrested for domestic violence. The responses to this post increasingly deteriorated, and they finally allowed someone to post a message calling Billy Graham’s daughter "white trash." I felt that it was very unfair that the in group is allowed to post something calling anyone white trash, when I have never tried to post anything nearly that offensive. Anyway, a fellow named Ray did post something condemning this behavior, so poor Ray ended up being the recipient of my meltdown. I sent him several emotional e-mails, to the point where he was going to call me long distance to talk it over. I finally sent him an e-mail telling him that I just needed to distance myself permanently from the message board, and that it had given me a very negative impression of MLP. I realize MLP probably isn’t as bad as my impression of it is thanks to the board. Naturally, I didn’t hear from one person who was concerned about my feelings. I’m sure their attitude is, good riddance. In contrast, when I was offended on the TransFamily board, many people came to my defense.

After going to Round Hill on Saturday night, going to Sixth Presbyterian on Sunday, going to the meeting to join Sixth, going to see Pedro Martinez at PNC Park, spending some time at Bobbie’s apartment, then chatting on the computer with Donna and JimmieLee, I felt somewhat better. I was treated very nicely and they really made an effort to make me feel welcome and part of Round Hill on Saturday evening. On Sunday, Myra gave me a big hug at Sixth Presbyterian, and that helped. During the class, Mary Louise, the new minister, and I discussed how Erin had brought me to Sixth Presbyterian. Mary Louise knows who Erin is now and says Erin will come to Sixth Presbyterian in November. Bobbie was in the class with me, and that helped. I spent time with Bobbie after the ball game, and she and I are going to attend a dessert with the pastor on Tuesday evening.

I still feel very reluctant to attend the regional MLP conference in November, if they even let me in after this. I do want to see Erin, however. I try to realize that this organization isn’t as bad as the impression I have received from the message board. Millie spoke during the class I attended about how much the More Light movement had reinvigorated Sixth Presbyterian. I loved More Light Sunday. I like a lot of the members of MLP at Sixth Presbyterian. I’ll just have to hope time and distance from the message board allow me to have a better impression of MLP.

July TransFamily Meeting

I drove up to Cleveland for the TransFamily meeting last night. The most wonderful people were there. I feel so welcomed into that organization. I don’t know where I would be now without it. I owe some dear soul on a psychiatric board I posted on for helping me find that organization, and of course, as always, I owe Erin for waking me up to the fact that I needed this kind of support. I guess when I was friends with Robin, I thought it was just a San Francisco thing. But now I realize that I can never be the same person after having gone through a gender transition with a dear friend. I’m in the same boat with the parents, spouses, children, other family members, and the trans people themselves, and I need TransFamily.

Last night was a very special meeting, because the female-to-male transsexuals were in charge of the meeting. I was always wondering if I’d feel close to them. Well, I do. They are very sweet. Because they were in charge of the meeting, their parents, significant others, and friends attended as well. One female-to-male transsexual is legally married in Ohio to a male-to-female transsexual. Both of them attended. Ohio is one of the states whose voters passed a law that marriage consists of one man and one woman. This has been used to harass trans people as well as gay men and lesbians. A member of TransFamily who legally changed his name and gender to male after a transition was not permitted by the State of Ohio to marry his wife. Everyone is proud that this one couple outsmarted Ohio. The State of Ohio had to allow them to marry, because the man’s birth certificate stated he was female, and the woman’s birth certificate stated she was male!

The female-to-male transsexuals did a fantastic job. We broke into two groups. We sat in a circle and did an exercise where you toss a ball of yarn to someone else in the circle and say something nice about them. You hold onto a piece of the yarn each time. Then that person tosses it to someone else and says something nice. In the end, you have a beautiful web of yarn. We had a mixed group of female-to-male TGs, male-to-female TGs, parents, significant others, and another friend (along with me). The wife of a very elderly man who has decided he is transgender was in my group. He came to the meeting also, and he is very sweet. We are very proud of his wife for accepting him and trying to understand him so late in their lives. We are so proud of the parents who attended. The one right-wing Republican born-again Christian male-to-female transsexual was also in my group. She is really a doll, however, even though we don’t agree on much politically. We really like each other. People said very nice things about me when they threw me the yarn, and it definitely lifted my spirits.

One of my friends who came dressed male last time had the courage to dress in female clothing this time. She really looked nice. I met some new people, and I met one person I had made friends with on the message board. I was very impressed with her.

I really found out this time that I can feel very close to female-to-male transsexuals. There are two of them there I feel particularly close to, because they are both involved in LGBT religious organizations. One is involved in the Lutheran organization. I feel very close to the other one, who is also in More Light Presbyterians and attends a More Light church. He knows Erin personally, so we have a lot to talk about. I think he is going to come to the regional conference in November. This would be a huge relief to me. I feel very nervous about this conference. I don’t feel as accepted in MLP as I do in TransFamily. If someone from TransFamily came to the conference, hung out with me a bit, and attended one of Erin’s events with me, it would be such a relief and would provide me so much support.

After the meeting, I drove over to JimmieLee’s. This was the first time I had met her and Ellie, and their cats, personally. JimmieLee was just adorable, and Ellie was terrific. JimmieLee just got promoted to Captain. Everyone at the TransFamily meeting was delighted to hear that. Things hadn’t looked good for her recently when the city council voted to disband the fire department in order to get rid of her "legally." Cooler heads prevailed, and some more enlightened people have decided it is time for Salem, Ohio to join the 21st century, face up to it that people do have gender changes, and that some times the best person for the job happens to be transgender.

Thoughts on Childhood in the Church

I am going to put my Transgender Friends series on hold for a few days. My friend Valerie wants to come out. Her real name is Donna Marie. So the person I’ve been referring to as "Valerie" from now on will be referred to as "Donna." Anyway, Donna started a spirituality page to add to her homepage and profile. Reading this page, and talking to Donna about growing up transgender in the church, has been another one of those emotional experiences.

I don’t know why I get so emotional about this subject. For some reason, I get extremely emotional about men who want to be women or feel they are women trapped in the wrong body. I got so emotional over Rev. Erin Swenson’s story that I’m absolutely useless as far as being able to be involved in More Light Presbyterians. When I read her story, I realized how intense my friendship with Robin had been. Robin is a transgender friend from the past with whom I’d gone through the whole transition, including surgery. Now that Donna is opening up, I’m getting very emotional about her story. I’m also finding myself looking at my own past in a new way.

As a feminist, I tend to look at experiences such as growing up in the church as a burden. I think back to how I was supposed to dress at Easter or Christmas or for a wedding, and I think, "What a drag that girls had to go through all that!" I’m so glad I’m a liberated woman now. I’m glad I didn’t have to marry some man. I’m glad I go to Round Hill on Saturday night where the dress is casual. I’m glad I go to Sixth Presbyterian on Sunday where I can dress any way I want. I’m so glad to look around and see a half-dozen or so lesbians in the congregation who don’t have to worry about wearing a dress.

Until I started meeting male-to-female transgender friends again, I used to get very anxious when I’d get invited to a wedding or baby shower. I wrote a paper for my English class on what a burden it is to be a female with all these social obligations. It hasn’t been that long since I told my cousin Jane, "I was born the wrong sex." Thanks to my TG friends, I just went to a baby shower and had a wonderful time and fit right in. They have really helped me to appreciate the right to be female. However, I did say another strange thing at the shower to my cousin Jane and to my cousin-in-law Nancy. Nancy is married to my cousin Ross who is as male as they get. He is such a man’s man that I never thought he’d get married. All of us were surprised when he met a girl and got married. Ross and I get along well because we both jog. All I ever talk about with him is jogging.

Anyway, Nancy and Jane were in a discussion about the fact that Amber already knows her baby is a girl. Nancy said she was so glad that when she had her son and daughter, she did not know ahead of time what gender the child would be. I rendered Jane and Nancy speechless when I commented, "So that’s what’s wrong with me. My mother spent her whole pregnancy thinking I was a boy." They chuckled knowingly, so they know something’s different about me. I’d love to know what they all think it is! I know Rev. Meek knows something is different about me, because he’s being very careful at church not to criticize homosexuals or Democrats.

Anyway, my mother had a name picked out for me. It was David Eugene. They had also considered Diane, Laurel, and Laurie in case I was a girl. But the whole time my mother was pregnant, she thought David Eugene was in there kicking. So when I was born, my mother said I screamed. Then, I said a swear word as a very young child at Round Hill. So maybe that was David Eugene who was responsible for all that mischief. It doesn’t fully explain things, because they thought my sister was surely a boy. They had some name like Gregory Edward picked out for her. But she turned out totally feminine, heterosexual, Republican, and a born-again Christian, and she produced three lovely children.

Anyway, reading Donna’s story growing up in the church, and talking to her about it, as I did last night online, makes me appreciate the fact that I had the right to be a girl as a child. Donna never had that right. Church was a very big part of my childhood. I had the right to all those pretty dresses, hats, shoes, purses. I had the right to have my hair done. I had the right to wear a bra when I developed breasts. I had the right to wear makeup when I was a teenager. I had the right to spray on some perfume. I had the right to wear fresh flowers. I had the right to be pretty. And I have to admit, if I’m honest, that I sometimes enjoyed having these rights. Donna never had the right to be pretty. She had to be a little boy, watching girls having the right to do all the things she truly wanted to do. And she had to feel guilty and sinful about her true feelings. She had to fear that she was going to Hell for eternity for feeling this way.

Until I started to hear stories like this from people who are men or were men, I never looked at it in this way. The more I hear, the more I look back at my own childhood and see it in a totally different light.

To be continued…

Transgender Friends - Part 9

One thing I soon learned in seeking friendships with transgender people is that many of them like to take photos dressed up in the clothing of the gender they feel they truly are. I have not gotten close to any female-to-male TGs, so I’ve had lots of photos e-mailed to me of genetic males dressed up as females. When this begins to happen, you are going to see things that may shock you or at least things that would shock society.

It takes getting used to to see a very masculine male dressed up as female. So I had to do some thinking about my philosophy on this. First of all, who made the rules that men were not allow to wear any of this clothing? Whoever made those rules, why should anyone accept them? Secondly, if these genetic males look bad in this clothing or wearing makeup, why is it? It’s because society has conditioned us that men look bad in this clothing and makeup, it’s for women, not men. What right does society have to say that men don’t look good like this? Still, it is not easy to get used to, and you have to realize that society has conditioned you in a wrong way, but it’s still going to take time to get over it, and you may never get over it.

Still, I don’t like to lie to people. So I always comment on the pictures, but I don’t lie. I’ve never told some very masculine man that "he" looks so feminine and pretty, if "he" doesn’t look that way to me. I also don’t e-mail the person and tell them they look like hell, because they don’t. They only look a bit unusual by society’s standards sometimes. What I try to do, if someone has sent me more than one picture, is to focus on the ones I like the most. I try to focus on clothing that looks best on them. I try to comment on styles that I also like. I comment on the colors I feel the person likes the best. For example, one friend seems to really like pink. Or I say something about the surroundings in the picture. I say something about the hairstyle. I also remember that I love this person, this is my friend, this person is precious to me, and I’m glad to just have a picture of them. I remember that I often receive pictures of people in the gender they were born which don’t look that great.

I also had to deal with other pictures that might be considered very weird by society’s standards. One friend sent me a picture of his breasts after taking hormones. This was not intended to be pornographic. He wanted me to see how his breasts had changed after the hormones. He was proud of them. It’s important to be ready for something like this and to be willing to be accepting about this instead of thinking, well this is just too weird for me.

Another thing to remember is that if a transgender person likes to send pictures of herself dressed up in female clothing, she’s also going to send you pictures of her children, her cats, her spouse, her car, just as someone who is not transgender would do. If you reject the person over the cross-dressing pictures, you won’t get to see their pets, family members, or other things about their lives. The same person who has sent me pictures of something that would be considered weird by society sent me a picture of his daughter’s wedding. Another friend is well-known as a photographer who is able to capture pictures of ghosts. I got to see pictures of ghosts in cemeteries and in Gettysburg.

To be continued..

Transgender Friends - Part 8

When I decided that I was going to make an effort to go out and meet transgender people, I had to be ready to hear very unusual things that would seem crazy to society. I had to decide what attitude I would have toward these things. If I were going to immediately decide, this is too weird for me, then I was going to have to give up this pursuit. One friend I met, for example, was still male physically and was a rather tall and muscular male to boot. She felt female mentally most of the time and had taken a few steps to change her body. But this was largely a handsome and muscular hunky man to society. About the first thing this person told me when we began our friendship was that she owned 60 nightgowns! Just think about this from society’s point of view. A tall, good-looking masculine guy owns 60 nightgowns. From society’s view, this sounds completely weird. The fact that someone would tell you this right off, the average person would be terrified and think the "guy" should be committed. Well, I’m sorry, but life is short, and I thought it was hilarious. I thought it made my friend much more interesting that this would be the first thing she’d tell me.

I found you have to be ready to hear very strange things about bodies in transition and bodies that may stay stuck at a certain point. You’re going to hear things that society would tell you are extremely bizarre. One friend, who looks like a pillar of the community when you see him in a suit and tie, has taken hormones and has large breasts. He is perfectly comfortable with having male genitals, female breasts, and a beard. He feels the gods in some religions even support this view that this type of body is normal. He feels he cannot go any further in his transition without losing his career and hurting his family.

I had to make a decision that it was not up to me to judge whether someone stayed in the closet or came out as the other gender. I’m not transgender, and I’m not a spouse or family member who has had the situation unwillingly forced on me. I’ve chosen to befriend transgender people. Maybe a family member or another transgender person has some right to accept or reject a transgender person on their willingness to come out or their desire to stay hidden. I decided I do not have a right to take a position or judge any transgender person on this issue. Therefore, I decided I would not use it as a factor in whom I became friends with. I would become friends with people I liked, and I would not advise or judge them regarding coming out or staying in the closet.

To be continued…

Transgender Friends - Part 7

I left off last time with the beginning of my journey toward reaching out to many transgender people. A variety of issues came up and continue to come up. It’s never boring.

One of the first issues I encountered was dealing with someone who has not completely transitioned to the opposite gender. With the professional woman and the minister I had met, both had decided on a transition from male to female. I now had a friend who was female sometimes and male sometimes. I had to get used to seeing a picture of someone dressed as a female with a female name, then a couple minutes later, the same person called me up, had a very male voice, not even a gay sounding voice, and acted very male. One minute we were talking about nail polish, nightgowns, slips, shoes. The next minute we were talking about fixing the brakes on her car. I’ll never forget one day. A friend had been talking to me online as a female, talking about female things. A few minutes later, a man called me from the auto parts store, and I had to call him by his male name since his children were with him.

I’d get confused with a friend’s male and female modes. I’d expect a female that day on the computer. Instead, my friend would be in a heterosexual male mode and would be flirting with me. I’d get off the computer at night with some heterosexual male who’d been coming onto me, then get an extremely feminine e-mail the next morning, talking about the nightgown she’d slept in, with pink lettering and flowers included, and signed with a female name.

Another thing, however, when you meet someone like this, and why it makes sense to hang in there with them, is that you have to remember that this person is not just transgender. This person is a human being. I’ve gotten into long conversations with my transgender friends about things that have nothing to do with being transgender. This happened with my friend 20 years ago and happens now. I’ve had long talks about ghosts, pets, children, spirituality, cars, and nothing was different about this friendship because my friend was transgender. It was just like a friendship with a non-TG person.

To be continued…