An update on me...

[jentay1367]

All things being equal and then remembering the old adage that there are three stories, his, hers and the truth...or in this instance, hers, hers and the truth. Based on previous posts by you, I tend to side with your perspective since in previous posts, you're always so sentient, honest and sane. So I'll say to you, this too, shall pass. In  the not to distant future, only she (Michelle) will confront you in the mirror. All the walls will have tumbled and your adversaries will recognize your resolve and will become your allies, friends or in some instance....distant memories.
     Your character is quite commendable....your resolve formidable and your intelligence, well, undeniable. A born leader, to be sure.
      Our community needs all of you we can garner. So thanks for sharing your journey and being here to shepherd those that find themselves lost in the wilderness. Our lives are all enriched by your presence. That's a simple fact. Keep...going....till...you....reach....your...goal. In relative terms, it appears to be very close, and of course, we're all fans of the indomitable Michelle .  All my very best as always....Lisa

[Raell]

@Dena

LOL! Good one.

[Michelle_P]

Wow!  This week flew by.   More electrolysis, group therapy in the worst storm of the season, my movie date, and presentation are all behind me.

Next up, Saturday's double march, in Walnut Creek, then over to San Francisco, and Sunday, I'm the cleanup person at the post-service coffee klatch, and then the semiannual congregational meeting.

Electrolysis:  Somethings changing... I am now growing out the upper lip stuff for 5 days so Jodie will have enough length to work with!  Is the growth slowing, or have we just used up all the fast growing follicles and are down to the slowpokes.  Either was it is progress!

The therapy session was 60 miles away, in the worst storm of the season.  Yuck.  Not fun.  And only two of us showed up, with the other gal living in that town.  Oy.  Darn close to a private session, that was.  Still, as always it helps.

I met up with four women from the UU church for lunch and a movie.  We went to a chain place, Corner Bakery, which was interesting.  They had a sort of triple combination salad thing, which is nice when I couldn't decide what I wanted.   We spent a good hour and a half 'eating lunch', mostly conversation about where we lived, who we divorced, favorite things.  At one point the conversation drifted into my trans nature, which made me a little uncomfortable.  I tried to answer a couple questions as best I could and get the discussion off that topic.  (I really don't want to make any conversation 'all about me'.  Sort of offputting to some other folks.)

The movie was "Hidden Figures", which was just amazing.  I couldn't help but think of my sisters situations around the country when they showed that poor gal running a half mile to get to the nearest bathroom she was allowed to use.  May those days never return for any of us.

My tech presentation went really well.  I was using a new version of my slides in Keynote (like PowerPoint...), and a new set of props, which always carries a risk of glitches, but there were none.  There were lots of good questions, and nobody fell asleep.

I tried something new to help with my voice, a personal amplifier I found on Amazon.  It has a little boom mike on a headset frame, wired to a speaker/amplifier that clips onto a pant pocket or waistband.  Rechargeable, small, light, and fairly loud.  It made it easier to get through an hour presentation without my voice falling to pieces.  Oh, I'm certain I didn't hold A3, but I didn't collapse out of alto or a mess of vocal fry.  I think I was clocked by one person, a younger woman who was looking at me pretty intensely, but the bulk of the audience, older men, were behaving like I was a typical female. [emoji23]

I came up with a neat way to cut foamboard sheets into hinged quarters that fold into a small package.  I used that to build some signs for Saturday's Women's March 2017 event.  I'll be marching here in Walnut Creek with some of the UUC folks, and then head over to San Francisco for the big evening march, hopefully with some friends.  New administration, so we need to remind them of life outside the Beltway again.

Real life is an experience!



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[Rachel]

You really had an eventful week. It sounds like you are making a lot of new friends

[Anne Blake]

Michelle, I can relate to the slower hair growth. When I began electrolysis about a year ago, I would only need two to three days growth for my technician to work with. Last week I gave it a full five days and they are asking that I do six days next time. This is probably a result of seven months of hrt. I have found that all of my hair is slowing down; leg shaving is now every two to three days rather than the daily routine it had been. - Anne

[lc100]

Sounds like a very busy and interesting week! I hope the Women's March went well for you, as well as the upcoming week.

[Michelle_P]

The marches went very well.  We had some good presentations by local speakers at the kickoff rally.  In San Francisco, we had speeches by a lot of folks, including Ruth McFarlane, and Julia Serrano ("Whipping Girl"), who gave an excellent speech.  It was a cold, rainy, windy day, and I'm still damp and cold hours after getting home, but I am definitely glad I did it.

I'm going up to four hours weekly on electrolysis starting Monday.  I'm doing a biggie of a push to get as much zapped as possible before it all goes slo-mo on me and I wind up with lots of hair and a once-a-week shave.  Oh, by the way, my beard is a bit of a dysphoria trigger, if you hadn't noticed...




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[Michelle_P]

A friend of mine took some photos at my Friday evening presentation on "Physics and Antennas". This is one of a series of tech talks I do.  This one lightly touches on everything from Maxwell's Equations, to Hertz Dipoles and the popular Yagi-Uda directional antenna.

Yeah, maximum physics nerd...



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[lc100]

Aw, you look gorgeous! I love your hair. Glad to hear the marches went great for you.

[Michelle_P]

Aw, thanks!

So, I had my four hours of electrolysis today, with a lunch break halfway through.  My upper lip is clear except for some tiny little bits that were too small for the probe.  There was a few minutes of cleanup on the lower lip to chin, which has been free of hair for a while, and another inch or so was cleared back away from the mouth and above the jawline. 

With all of that, I could just barely grow a pair of straight sideburns and a scrawny neckbeard now.  That's 59 hours in The Chair so far.  It's progress.

For lunch I decided to treat myself a bit.  The diner has something they call a Cheeseburger Salad, an entree sized salad topped with everything from a cheeseburger [emoji488] except the bun.  It's served with about a half cup of Thousand Island dressing on the side, which I barely touched.  Overkill, that was. 

While at lunch I got a message from the Kaiser Permanente facility in town that my medical letter was ready.  After the afternoon electrolysis session I zipped over to Kaiser to get the letter.  Yes, the endocrinologist had followed the form of the State Department sample letter!  I have a letter that the Passport Specialist will accept.

That's the good news.  The bad news is that the old school endocrinologist decided to select the phrases for the letter that will get me a passport good for two whole years. F&^%&%*^$%*^ gatekeepers.  Goddess, I hate dealing with Kaiser and their pathetic excuses for transgender care.  I wish they'd put the effort into actual care that they put into their PR puff pieces.


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[Asche]

So, I had my four hours of electrolysis today, with a lunch break halfway through.  My upper lip is clear except for some tiny little bits that were too small for the probe.  There was a few minutes of cleanup on the lower lip to chin, which has been free of hair for a while, and another inch or so was cleared back away from the mouth and above the jawline. 

With all of that, I could just barely grow a pair of straight sideburns and a scrawny neckbeard now.  That's 59 hours in The Chair so far.  It's progress.

Four hours?  I can barely stand it for one hour, even with lots of anbesol creme, and it takes several days for the red spots to go away.  You must have a much higher tolerance for pain than me.

I envy you if 59 hours is enough to make a noticeable difference.  I've been going 1 hr/week for a year and a half and I still can't see much difference.  My WAG is that it will take 5 years (250 hours.)  My electrologist won't even hazard a guess.

[Michelle_P]

The thing about doing "just" an hour or even 30 minutes a week is that new hair follicles are waking up, going into their active growth phase, almost as fast as hairs are being removed.  We won't see progress until we almost exhaust all of the follicles in a region.  That can be frustrating.

My electrolyst does something interesting.  When I started with one hour, then moved to two, she concentrated on a small area below the lip, and cleared it in a couple sessions.  Just a little clear patch.  Then, in each succeeding session, she would re-clear the patch and expand the edges slightly.  At around 25 hours in, the area from the lower lip to just above the chin was cleared, AND was staying cleared between sessions, needing just a quick cleanup every few weeks.  Having that little cleared area to touch, to wake up to every morning was a touchstone, a marker of things to come to remind me that, yes, I am improving here.

At four hours a week I hope to have much of my face cleared soon, although I will have hours of weekly 'touchup' to remove newly awakened follicles for a while.

It sure as heck isn't comfortable, but neither is the severe dysphoria I have around my facial hair. (Hardly the only thing, but bad enough I can't stand to see my face in the mirror without my makeup and wig in place.)


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[Michelle_P]

I got the new drivers license last night, and promptly scanned it in. 

Then, I started changing credit card names. They want to see the scanned license, of course. Ah, then there's the COSTCO/Citi card.  I send Citi the info and request a name change, but I need to make sure the COSTCO side matches.  Thus, a little COSTCO run this morning.

I went to the Member Services desk with my COSTCO/Citi card and new driver's license, and said that I needed to correct my name and get a more current picture, passing over the license and card.  The poor clerk enters the card number, looks at "Michael J" on the screen and "Michelle Jean" on the license, and says, "Wow, How could they have messed this up so badly?"

"Oh, I changed the name."

She looks back at the card and license. "Oh."

"And a few other things, too."

"Uh.  Right.   Just a sec...", followed by furious typing.

I got the new picture taken for the COSTCO card and the back of the Citi card, and the clerk fired a request to update the name off to Citi.  Done.

With the card changes, the credit reporting agencies will very shortly have my new name, and my current credit status will be attached to the name, less a temporary ding for name changing. Name verifications that use the credit agencies (banks and the ACA insurance exchanges do this) will then work.

Fun times.

I've got a meeting with some folks about activist things coming up, and then the ham radio classes (teaching, already have my Amateur Extra license) are running tonight.  I probably won't get to dinner until 10 tonight.  Before I started RLE my therapist had wanted me to get a part time job, as she was worried I'd be just hiding in the apartment all day and would have no social contacts.  Um, not so much...

[jentay1367]

Kickin' butt and takin' names. I wouldn't want to get in your way, Michelle. Get steamrolled and wouldn't know what hit me....l.o.l.  Congrat's!!

[Sophia Sage]

I went to the Member Services desk with my COSTCO/Citi card and new driver's license, and said that I needed to correct my name and get a more current picture, passing over the license and card.  The poor clerk enters the card number, looks at "Michael J" on the screen and "Michelle Jean" on the license, and says, "Wow, How could they have messed this up so badly?"

"Oh, I changed the name."

She looks back at the card and license. "Oh."

"And a few other things, too."

You know, Michelle, you can totally just let the reality that's presented to you stand as is when you've been gendered correctly.  Take it when you can get it, I say. 

"How could they have messed this up so badly?"

"Nobody's perfect," *shrug*. 

[Michelle_P]

Um.  The person with the keys to my credit card account is holding my new drivers license and my old card, trying to reconcile the differences and figure out if I am scamming or making a valid request.  That is not a great situation to play it coy in.

I'll also note that I am an obnoxious activist.   Not stealth, not planning on going stealth.  Also not willing to put up with people "Sir"ing me as a stupid "You don't fool me" passive-aggressive schtick, so I think I've got all the bases covered.


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[Sophia Sage]

Um.  The person with the keys to my credit card account is holding my new drivers license and my old card, trying to reconcile the differences and figure out if I am scamming or making a valid request.  That is not a great situation to play it coy in.

Oops, I missed the "Citi" part of that Costco card -- I was thinking it was just a membership card at Costco. 

*facepalm*

[Michelle_P]

Ah, now that, a simple membership card, would be a situation I could have some fun with. I'd try ever so hard to do my best breathy Marlyn Monroe imitation and play dumb [emoji2].

Goddess, I need speech therapy work, though. I have the pitch but none of the vocalisms. That's a big tell, unfortunately.


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[Sophia Sage]

It's not a matter of playing it dumb, though.  If anything, it's a matter of playing it wise.

"How could they have messed this up so badly?"

"Everyone makes mistakes."

Which is absolutely the truth.  Our parents made mistakes, society made mistakes, hell we ourselves made mistakes -- except for the lucky few with the presence and perseverance and luck to transition at the age of 6 -- and the Universe sure screwed up along the way, too.  (I have a theory about this which I'll get to, though I'm probably mistaken.) 

So, in general, when the Universe starts to seemingly course-correct, go with the flow.  Mistakes were made.  In that moment, what is the truth?  You are female, and this new reality is the one that prevails -- if someone messed up that badly, it means that what's on the driver's license is true. And what's in that clerk's head is true. The vast majority of people people that the essence that makes someone what they are is unchanging -- so if you're female now, you've always been female, and the mistake that was made was simply a clerical error.

I'm saying maybe they're right. 

Let this new reality wash over you. 

And drown in it. 

[islandgirl]

I know that speech is a problem for me at times. I have adopted the speech patterns of a friend from Georgia and that helps keep me on track. It sure softened some of my 'Canadianisms'!