Friday, November 20, 2009
Remember
The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.
The Destruction of Melanie Anne
Preparation for Feminizing Facial Surgery
Ninety Nine Days
In can’t believe I’m going to do this. After having seen Teresa go through it with all her pain, discomfort, and the full year it took to completely recover – after having gotten by for so many years in my youth without doing it, and even after wholly recognizing the cost, the risk, and the magnitude of the endeavor, I have become resolved to follow this course through to its conclusion, be it bitter or sweet.
In ninety-nine days, I will have my face changed to that of a stranger. I will become that stranger, and have to live with her in my mirror for the rest of my days.
You may know my story from my earlier diary, more of a journal really, which covered sixteen years of my journey that began with my commitment to surgically change my apparent sex from male to female, and ended with my final upheaval through all my rationalizations, justifications, and blind spots to fully embrace the true nature of my soul.
And yet, though the state of my gender was physically altered to be fully female in look and function, and even in the context of the knowledge I discovered along the way that illuminated to me the intersexed nature of my corporeal self (which I had not know until most recently), and even in the afterglow of complete internal peace, self acceptance and contentment of spirit, there remains one final endeavor that stands between me and a final resolution of completeness.
I must change my face.
As a result of being interesexed, my body and face were androgynous. And thus, in my earlier life I cannot recall a time at which I did not feel inadequate as a male.
I wore clothes of a certain nature to hide my thin wrists and my wider than male pelvis, and my arms which turned outward like a girl’s when held to my sides. My face was pretty for a boy, and far too soft for a man. I tried sporting a beard on a couple of occasions, but I just couldn’t stand how it made me feel – not physically, but emotionally, almost as if I was being suffocated by my own facial hair.
In those days, I did not know I would pursue my erotic fantasy (as I thought it was) of becoming female. I did not know that I had been born female of brain, mind, and much of my body, for I had the one prerequisite between my legs for joining, or rather being assigned to, the male clan.
But the beard made me so emotionally distraught, it was almost claustrophobic. And in the end, I compromised by wearing a mustache for many years.
Eventually, I came to understand why I could never relate to male peers, even in my pre-school years, and why I never came to grasp how they thought or why they acted as they did.
And I cam to understand why I never came to the conclusion I was actually female of mind, since I rejected by girls whenever I would approach them in a friendly manner beginning in kindergarten. The simple truth was, I couldn’t relate to boys because I thought like a girl, and girls rejected me because I looked like a boy. Both genders found me uncomfortable to be around because I acted like one gender and looked (or at least was pawned off to be) the other.
Ninety Nine Days
In can’t believe I’m going to do this. After having seen Teresa go through it with all her pain, discomfort, and the full year it took to completely recover – after having gotten by for so many years in my youth without doing it, and even after wholly recognizing the cost, the risk, and the magnitude of the endeavor, I have become resolved to follow this course through to its conclusion, be it bitter or sweet.
In ninety-nine days, I will have my face changed to that of a stranger. I will become that stranger, and have to live with her in my mirror for the rest of my days.
You may know my story from my earlier diary, more of a journal really, which covered sixteen years of my journey that began with my commitment to surgically change my apparent sex from male to female, and ended with my final upheaval through all my rationalizations, justifications, and blind spots to fully embrace the true nature of my soul.
And yet, though the state of my gender was physically altered to be fully female in look and function, and even in the context of the knowledge I discovered along the way that illuminated to me the intersexed nature of my corporeal self (which I had not know until most recently), and even in the afterglow of complete internal peace, self acceptance and contentment of spirit, there remains one final endeavor that stands between me and a final resolution of completeness.
I must change my face.
As a result of being interesexed, my body and face were androgynous. And thus, in my earlier life I cannot recall a time at which I did not feel inadequate as a male.
I wore clothes of a certain nature to hide my thin wrists and my wider than male pelvis, and my arms which turned outward like a girl’s when held to my sides. My face was pretty for a boy, and far too soft for a man. I tried sporting a beard on a couple of occasions, but I just couldn’t stand how it made me feel – not physically, but emotionally, almost as if I was being suffocated by my own facial hair.
In those days, I did not know I would pursue my erotic fantasy (as I thought it was) of becoming female. I did not know that I had been born female of brain, mind, and much of my body, for I had the one prerequisite between my legs for joining, or rather being assigned to, the male clan.
But the beard made me so emotionally distraught, it was almost claustrophobic. And in the end, I compromised by wearing a mustache for many years.
Eventually, I came to understand why I could never relate to male peers, even in my pre-school years, and why I never came to grasp how they thought or why they acted as they did.
And I cam to understand why I never came to the conclusion I was actually female of mind, since I rejected by girls whenever I would approach them in a friendly manner beginning in kindergarten. The simple truth was, I couldn’t relate to boys because I thought like a girl, and girls rejected me because I looked like a boy. Both genders found me uncomfortable to be around because I acted like one gender and looked (or at least was pawned off to be) the other.
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