What is Love?

Today has started out very rough. I was texting this morning with my best friend and I commented that I never tell people that I love them. (She likes to tell me that a lot, I never respond.) This led me down this path of why I feel the way I do.

About the only person I tell I love them is my Mom, and I have to force myself to do it. It’s not something I want to tell her… I just feel like I have to.

What follows is the chain of emotions that erupted from that text. This is all stuff that started to connect in my head this morning. Christians, you don’t want to read this. Just stop here.

In church, the word “love” is jammed down your throat from the moment you walk in the door. “God loves you,” “Jesus loves the little children,” “God is love,” and many, many others are a constant theme anywhere you look.

I know I’ve said this before, but I’m gonna say it again… the Christian version of “love” seems to mean “do exactly what we say, or else God is going to punish you so strongly not even death will save you.” That fear is what kept me in the closet for so long, putting my life on hold and having to live in the shadows.

The notation that “love” means … well, whatever that means… sigh. I guess the word has lost all meaning to me. It’s not a good word to me. There’s just so much baggage there.

So I started thinking about this. God “loves” me, yet he made me feel like my life was completely worthless. My life did not start to get better until I told God he wasn’t welcome in my life anymore. (And in fact, he doesn’t exist, so what am I worried about?)

In the name of “love” I’ve missed out on a lot of things in life. I’ve never really experienced romance. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I didn’t care enough about my body that I let myself balloon up to over 450lbs, something I feel the effects of today. I’ve gotten lectures from bosses about how I dress because I just didn’t care. I spent a lot of my life ashamed of myself in the name of “love”.

“Love” has pretty much robbed me of my extended family, and I feel like I’m not really welcome in my home state of Texas anymore.

The word “like” has a lot more meaning to me than “love.” I get to pick who I like.

There are folks that I’m pretty much “required” (in the Christian sense, I suppose, and maybe I should revisit this) to love by default, even if I don’t want to. All family members, for example.

But I don’t have to like them. “Love but not like” is a concept I picked up in church, and it just shows how twisted that word has become, but I still like the concept. I alone get to decide who I like. There’s no social requirements on it. Like is mine.

When I tell someone that I like them, to me, it carries meaning, because I means I chose them, and I’m not just acting out of a sense of duty.

Siiiiigh. This stuff is hard. I’m not really sure what to say. It’s the idea that God made me feel like my life was worthless, but yet I was still suppose to “love” him that made me get the most upset. I had good moments before I started living my life for me, but they were rare. Guilt and shame were the elements my life that guided everything I did.

Once I started living a little – like attending furry conventions and such – I had to lie about it to everyone. I wouldn’t tell anyone what I was doing, because I was scared of how they’d react. It was very rough… all in the name of “we love you, and we don’t want you to go to hell.”

I couldn’t even think about coming out of the closet until after I had left the church completely. It just wasn’t going to work any other way. I needed to get away from people that “love” me in order to feel like my life had meaning and value.

So if I don’t tell you that I love you, please don’t be upset. I like you too much to love you.

Scared-y Bun

Last night did not go according to plan.

Because the Golden Gate Bridge is closed, the Bay Bridge is the only way into San Francisco from both the North and East Bays. I knew this and left myself lots and lots of time to get there, but it still took over two hours to get there. It took over an hour to go less than a mile getting to the tollbooths. My right heel was _really_ hurting by the time I got there.

The place where I was suppose to go was in the Mission. I’d never been there before. I had no clue where I was, really, I was just doing what Waze to me to do.

I got there and the nice brightly-lit parking garage where we were suppose to park was full. Disaster.

I went looking for a place to park for 20 minutes or so, and found nothing. I got really frazzled because people were zooming around me as I was driving kinda slow trying to make out the lines on the street that show where the parking spots are.

I got really scared. I had no idea where I was. I didn’t know if it was safe. When I finally did find a parking spot, it was dark, and the path I’d have to go to get to the party was very dark as well. I had no clue if it was safe to do that… I’d never been there during the daylight.

I just kept going. I didn’t want to risk being unsafe. Finally I found a sign pointing me to 101, and I hopped on the freeway and headed home.

When I pulled into the parking garage at my apartment I was shaking I was so scared. I parked, went up to my apartment and asked a friend to call me.

She quickly did. Once I had the stress of “I need to get home safely” off my shoulders, I broke down with my friend on the phone. I cried a bunch.

I ended up going to bed really early and slept like 10 hours. I feel better today, but last night was about the most terrified I’d ever been in my life. I know I did the right thing — if I’m not sure if it’s safe, don’t stop, ever — but I’m really bummed I didn’t get to go to the Holiday party.

I think it’s time I stopped trying to do things like this alone.

At least I have a cute outfit all picked out for the next time, I suppose.

Tunnelvision?

So I’ve been thinking about my family members.

I live in a world where LGBT issues and gender fluidity is just a given. It’s not a big deal. I have a lot of trans friends, and I’m just surrounded by it every single day. It’s totally normal to me… there’s even several of us at work.

But for my ultra-conservative family that lives in Texas? I might have been the first transsexual they’ve ever met. Maybe they *DID* notice, but I’m so far out of their experiences, that simply have no idea how to react, other than pretending nothing changed?

Something I’ve been thinking about.

Christmas 2014

So Christmas was pretty awful. My expectations were way too high going in.

When I came out of the closet 18 months ago to my folks, they said they wanted to handle letting my extended family know. I said fine… and then promptly forgot about it. Turns out they never did. 😦

There’s a lot of things going on right now with my Dad (brain cancer, etc), so I can’t get too upset, but I didn’t find out about this until 48 hours before I was suppose to take off to go there.

My folks feel a need to “protect” me from the more right-wing parts of my extended family. These are the people that openly called my sister a devil worshiper when she got her tongue pierced years ago.

As such, when there was a chance I’d be near anyone, I was more-or-less told I needed to wear a “costume,” which was basically a men’s shirt, no jewelry, no bra, no purse, etc. :\ That wasn’t the worse part of it… the worst part was constantly getting called a name I have been trying very hard for the last year to bury, and being mis-gendered for hours, while being powerless to stop it. It was very, very hard. It was all I could do to not break down in front of them.

I did break down in front of my Mom later once we got to her house. I cried so much I got her to cry, too. 😦

I need to keep this from happening again. I don’t want to be protected against those people. Let them write me off – I don’t care. They haven’t been a part of my life in 20 years, why should I care about them now? Being written off is WAY better than not being genuine, you know? I can’t pretend like nothing changed.

I am very proud of the person I’ve become. I’m a bounce-y and happy person almost all the time, and I like that! I have zero reason to hide and be ashamed of who I am. I have done nothing wrong, in the least. If they can’t accept that… it’s their loss, not mine.

I’ve taken steps to fix this. I saw how much my Mom and Sister use Facebook while I was down there, so when I got home I made a Facebook account under my legal name, and friended my Mom and Sister. I’m just gonna … be me on it. My goal is to let that evil friends-of-friends thing do its job and let the “Who’s Bunny??” rumors leak out.

I did have one nice win! On Christmas Eve my Mom and I went out for dinner while I was still in disguise. The waitress took one look at us and said “is there anything I can get you ladies?” without any hesitation. That made me feel good.

The trip was not all bad. My flight home was just amazing. I had something magical happen that totally made my trip worthwhile. 🙂

Bathrooms and Tiki Rooms

disneyland-tiki-room-bathroom-1

I spent part of this week at Disneyland! It was great. I love that place. 🙂

The trip was very special to me for a couple of reasons. One, it was great to spend time with a friend I don’t get to spend time with much because we live on opposite coasts. The second is a bit more personal.

The last time I was at Disneyland, in Feb of 2013, I was still presenting male, and hadn’t started toying with the idea that, to be happy, I needed to transition fully. At this point I had already come out as trans to my friends, and they were all very respectful and were doing their best to make me “just one of the girls,” but I hadn’t decided to transition all the way yet.

As most people know, I’m a kidfur. My character is a seven year old bunny rabbit. (I’m not a babyfur. I can use the potty all by myself, thanks!) Part of this is having a family that I’m connected to, including a Mom. I was out in LA to visit with them, but especially my furry Mom. While I was out in LA, they did their very best to let me be one of the girls, even if at that point I didn’t really look the part, and I love them for that. ❤

My furry Mom and I went to Disney together. We spent time in both parks over the course of two days, and I remember it very fondly.

It was my first time in LA, and I didn’t know that once the sun goes down, it gets cold. It gets cold fast. Because of this I wasn’t prepared for sundown at all… once the sun went down I started shivering because I was cold. (It’s Southern California, for sure, but it was also February!)

Well, my furry Mom did her best to be all Mom-like and tried to give me her coat. I wouldn’t take it at first (chivalry is a hard thing to unlearn!), but eventually she got all Mom-like and was like “Bunny, take my coat. Now,” and then more-or-less made me take it. I begrudgingly took it.

Here’s the thing… it was a lady’s coat. I didn’t think much of it, other than it was a purple hoodie and it was warm and I was cold.

Not long afterwards, we stopped at the restrooms inside the Enchanted Tiki Room area. (Right by the entrance door. Most people don’t know they’re there, so they’re very private.) When I was in the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

I was kinda shocked at what I saw. I looked… female! The coat did a good job of making me look kinda curvy. I was also holding a white light-up rose, too, so that helped as well. It was just sorta magical to me because I’d never really seen myself that way. I was all like “Wow, I don’t look all that bad!!”

That moment in the Men’s room there at Disneyland was the first time I’d ever even _thought_ “wow, I look okay!” in my life. It was… amazing. I felt so awesome that night. It was the first time I’d ever “cross dressed” in public, and I was doing just fine. 🙂 (I’m careful to use the term “cross dresser,” because I’m not one. I’m a lady and I dress correctly as one.)

This trip, I presented female. I had zero issues passing. I used the lady’s restrooms without so much anyone even looking up, I got gendered correctly the whole time, etc. Kinda awesome to me.

But… I made my friend that I was at Disney with go use those hidden bathrooms at the Enchanted Tiki Room. Not because I had to go, really, but I just wanted to go back to the place that really “started it all” for me.

I got all teary-eyed as I walked up the steps towards the bathroom, only this time, instead of going into the Men’s room, I went into the Women’s room. (And yes, I was wearing that same purple hoodie as before!)

I’m all teary-eyed as I write this. I cried a bit leaving the restrooms that night. It was just so emotional… I… don’t really know what else to say.

The magic that happens in the Enchanted Tiki room is amazing, but the real magic that happened that night in the restroom next to it… that will live with me for forever. ❤

Amazon’s Transparent and Fear

I’ve been trying to watch Amazon’s Transparent. I was a little nervous at first, as shows on transexual issues are usually pretty bad, but they’ve done a really good job with it. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go look at the Wikipedia article on it… it describes it well.

The way they’ve done the show is really gut-wrenching if you’re trans. They’ve got a running story line, but along the way they have flashbacks to various times in the lead character’s life, and it’s so easy to see myself. Some of those flashbacks are things that actually happened to me before coming out.

Last night I attempted to watch the fourth episode. There’s a little bit of a spoiler here, so if you care, you might wanna stop reading now.

In this part of the story, Mora (the father) is out in public for the first time with her two daughters. She’s 70 and her daughters appear to be about my age. (Late 30s.) The kids are struggling with how to address their father, but that’s all understandable.

While out at a mall-like place, Mora needs to use the restroom, so her kids lead her to the the Women’s restroom. When they get inside they flub a bit and keep saying “Dad,” and it draws the attention of a transphobic loudmouth.

The transphobic loudmouth goes off on her, and threatens to call the cops. (I started freaking out here.) When I turned it off, they had left and had found a porta-potty at a construction site for their Dad to use. I don’t know what happened next, I couldn’t go on.

This impacted me very deeply. I constantly live in fear of getting chased out of a restroom. There are times when I just hold it for way longer than I should out of fear of using the restroom in public. (I survive by having found a few places I know are safe – my apartment, the restroom at work, and the private bathrooms on the ferry.)

What I was seeing played out on the screen is my worse fear. It was being acted out very well, in vivd detail, and it just scared me badly.

I’ve been thinking about why this impacted me so much. I mean, I sometimes watch scary movies, or things like The Walking Dead, and it’s not that big of a deal, really. What I think it comes down to is that I know the odds of the zombie apocalypse happening are pretty small. The odds of me getting trapped in some unknown house, late at night, with a stranger that’s out to kill me is very small.

But the threat of getting yelled at because I have to pee? That’s real life. That’s something I deal with every single day, whether I want to or not. It’s not fiction to me, it’s my every day real life.

I’m really happy Amazon made Transparent. I hope it’s eye opening to people that have never had a transsexual loved one, or are trans themselves. But for me, it’s just too much like real life to enjoy it. Maybe in a few years when I’m on the other side of transition, but not today.

Six Months on HRT!

Six months! Wow, how time files!

This month brought a really harsh reality check. Last week I was in Boston, MA on business. I was there from Monday until Friday. I don’t think I passed once while I was there… this is a very sharp contrast from in California.

I am sure that part of the problem was the weather. It was so humid (85-90% humidity), that I had to put my hair up in order to be comfortable. When I do this, I don’t pass very well. I have great hair, but when it’s up, it does me no good… and you can see some of the male-pattern hair recession I have.

By Wednesday I had just given up. It was so hot and humid that I just left my hair up the rest of the trip and quit messing with it. Just stepping outside was so humid it felt like I was in the shower. I was miserable. I was sir’ed the rest of the time. :\

The worst was at the TSA gate. The dude was holding my ID, which clearly says “F” on it, and was circling my name on the boarding pass (which is a very feminine name!) and said “You’re all set, Mr. $LastName.” I wanted to cry.

When I was on the plane on the way home I let my hair down and brushed it out really well. Upon landing back in San Francisco my magical powers of passing had returned! Instantly I was “Thanks Mam” and “welcome home, Miss” the rest of the trip, as I’m used to.

So, for better or for worse, I learned a lot last week. I have a long way to go. It made me appreciate how lucky I am to get to transition in such a friendly environment here in San Francisco.

Reflection: Leaving the Church

[I’ve had something on my mind a lot, so I’m gonna write it down in hopes of flushing that buffer to disk, as it were.]

Leaving the church was a hard experience. The Baptist church was the only world I’d ever known my entire life, and when it was gone, it created a giant hole.

When I was in my dark days, dealing with coming to terms with being transsexual, I was seeing a very good therapist (as I encourage everyone to do). To start I was seeing him three times a week, then twice, then once a week, and finally we got down to once every two weeks. A good therapist never tells you what to believe, they simply encourage you to think about things in a different way and let you discover for yourself what you actually do believe. This was very valuable to me.

I had been dealing with a lot of guilt and shame over feeling the way I did. (That is, that I was born in the wrong body.) My therapist helped me to dig into this and I discovered what the root cause of it was – I had let the church define my inner core foundation, and I was at conflict with what I had been taught.

It seems obvious now, but what I learned about myself was telling. I let the bible be the foundation for all of my worldview. I still think about how I view things as something like the OSI model (sorry for the tech reference), where everything is built on everything else. I had let the church be my layer one – the facts on which I had based everything else. Why did I feel guilty about being transsexual? Because it conflicts with the foundation of my core – that is, that God doesn’t make mistakes.

I remember very clearly when this worldview shattered. I had just finished up a very rough therapy session and was sitting in the parking lot in my car trying to regain my composure. I started driving off, and a light went off in my head that said “the bible is just a book.”

That was earth shattering to me. The book that I had based all of my beliefs on at my core, was just a book. It had no power over me. It only had power because I let it.

Miss BunnyI got super emotional on the drive back to the office… so much so, that I stopped at a small store, got a Coke Zero, and texted my manager and told him I was going to be late getting back to the office. Instead of going to the office I went home, grabbed Miss Bunny, and laid in the bed and cried for a while.

I started reeling for a while as I tried to put the pieces back together again of what was my life. I started questioning everything. It was a rough few weeks. I was very thankful to have a good therapist helping me with this dark time.

I was left with a giant hole. I’d just proven to myself that the thing I left be my core, I shouldn’t have.

Instead, I’ve replaced that core with what I should have been believing in the entire time anyhow, science and technology.

With science at my core, being transsexual is just fine. It’s “just a weird birth defect” as I like to say. I have a female brain, but (had) a male body. It’s a birth defect with horrible social and physical implications, but one that medical science is getting better at fixing every day. The deep inner conflict is now gone.

Once I started realizing that I’m not going to hell for being transsexual (because hell isn’t even a thing), things started making a lot more sense. I’m a lot happier now, for sure.

The months following this epiphany were kinda rough. It happened late in the fall. On Christmas Eve that year I drove by a large Baptist church in Texas and saw that it was overflowing with people, and it made me quite angry. I’m not sure why I got so upset, but it did.

I’m still struggling. It’s hard to overcome so many years of programming.

For example, the church tried really hard to instill homophobia in me. It never really took (thankfully), but there are still times when a little bit of it reaches the surface. Luckily I’ve gotten very good at catching it and I quickly remind myself “that’s what you were taught, but it’s not what you actually believe,” and stamp it out, but fighting against that is hard. Very hard. 😦

Things are, of course, getting better. It takes a long time to overcome having your core foundation shaken up, but I’m recovering. I’m a heck of a lot happier now. Things make a lot more sense because I base it on science, not just blind faith in something that never really clicked anyhow.

Thanks for listening! I feel better after writing all of this down. 🙂

MFM 2014

Mephit Fur Meet 2014 has come and gone! All in all, it was a good con.

For those that don’t know, I’m one of the co-directors there. MFM uses a little bit of a different configuration than most cons – we don’t have a Board of Directors, we have five directors, each with equal power. We each have an area to watch over, but we all have the full authority of Mephit Fur Meet when we act. With the right group (like we have right now), it’s a good system. One bad apple could quickly spoil the bunch, however. In a more traditional structure, it’s like we have five co-chairs and I’m one of them? I think. 🙂

I’m not going to write about the con itself. There will be plenty of that later. This is MY LiveJournal, not the convention’s, so I’ll write about things from my world view. 🙂

I passed with darn near 100% accuracy. I think everyone that came into the reg line greeted me as a lady. If anyone didn’t, I certainly didn’t pick up on. The only people that slipped up are people that knew me before, but I don’t interact with constantly. (ie, other staff members) The other directors were perfect all weekend and I love them dearly for that.

I did my part and tried hard to look feminine all weekend. I wore skirts, pretty colors, dangling earrings, etc. I even left my hair down as much as I could because I pass better with it down. (I have some male hairline recession that I need to address one of these days.) I tend to put my hair up when it’s hot, but it was important to me to pass, so I did. 🙂

The days when I had on a skirt I made sure I did not leave the convention grounds alone. I’d drag someone else with me, and that worked. Here in San Francisco it’s a non-issue (I wear skirts to work on a very regular basis), but I just didn’t feel completely safe there.

I had one bad incident at a McDonalds after hours where a mother told her child I was “a boy that takes girl drugs and dresses like a girl,” which was kinda upsetting, but I just let it go. It wasn’t my fault, and at least she was able to tell I’m trans, which is good! (If you’re ever in this situation, the correct response is “She’s just here to get dinner like we are. Leave her alone.”)

On the drive to and from the con I put my safety ahead of my pride and used the men’s restrooms. I didn’t like doing that one bit, but I just wanted to get to and from the con safely. I think I made the right call here. I didn’t change how I present, however.

I had a funny moment on Friday. Alexander Katz, a friend whom I’ve had many years, said “I’ve been trying to figure out who that chick was on the radio. Finally it occurred to me that ‘Oh, it’s Bunny!'” That really made me smile since I’ve been working on that very hard.

All in all, a great con. I can’t wait for next year. Even if it is a whole lotta work. 🙂

First Earthquake

So I’ve felt my first earthquake!

I’m fine. I’m on Alameda Island, which is in the East Bay. As far as I know there’s no reports of damage in the East Bay. (Or San Francisco, eithers.)

It woke me up! Never felt anything like that before. At first I was like “I have a vibrating bed??” and then I realized it was the whole building instead. It was a rolling motion by the time it got to my house. I could hear a rumbling sound outside unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.

Nothing of mine is damaged. I heard some plates rattling in the cabinet, but nothing fell. I got on Twitter, we had a furry slumber party talking about it, and then I went back to bed. It took me a while to get back to sleep, but I did.

Napa looks like it got his pretty hard. They have a lot of old brick buildings that haven’t been retrofitted for earthquakes… the things I can see on TV and Twitter look pretty bad.

But I’m fine. I appreciated that a had a bunch of people checking in on me!