Susan's Place Logo

News:

Visit our Discord server  and Wiki

Main Menu

Living

Started by Valkyrie_2, November 13, 2016, 01:25:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Valkyrie_2

Like most of us, I have to keep my real gender hidden. Thus I end up with low paying menial jobs despite having a degree etc.

At the moment I'm a school bus driver. $12k a year does not pay for much!

Thus, I live in an old bus parked (it drives) on somebody else's land.

How is your living situation?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Tasha_

I work in construction, none of my clients and hardly anybody in my company or small town know.... I drive 45 minutes to be able to do anything as myself.
  •  

Michelle_P

I recently had to downsize from a big house and yard to a little apartment.  My income is not really affected, as I haven't lost a job or anything like that.  I just got tired of hiding, and as a result got kicked out.  So it goes...

The apartment is in a really nice location, a place where I can live very comfortably.  The change did impact one thing, though.  I enjoy tinkering, building, and repairing electronics.  I'm an amateur radio operator, a 'ham', and at the house I had a room with my office, radios, and a small engineering lab (workbench, antistatic gear, test instruments, power supplies, etc).  I had a couple antenna masts in the back yard with cables into the office.  It was nice. 

Now I have to make do. I regularly check into our club's radio 'net', a weekly on the air event that serves to make sure we can get on the air in an emergency.  We normally use UHF radio frequencies for our net that are largely line of sight sorts of stuff.  I just moved about 20 miles away, and there are two ranges of hills between me and everyone else.

I rigged up a fairly powerful directional antenna on a portable stand, and hooked that to the 4 watts my little handheld radio could generate.  This lets me throw a readable signal over the ranges of hills, and participate in the weekly net.

I still need to find a way to get shortwave transmissions working from here.


Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit.

My personal transition path included medical changes.  The path others take may require no medical intervention, or different care.  We each find our own path. I provide these dates for the curious.
Electrolysis - Hours in The Chair: 238 (8.5 were preparing for GCS, five clearings); On estradiol patch June 2016; Full-time Oct 22, 2016; GCS Oct 20, 2017; FFS Aug 28, 2018; Stage 2 labiaplasty revision and BA Feb 26, 2019
Michelle's personal blog and biography
  •  

Valkyrie_2

Quote from: Michelle_P on November 14, 2016, 11:21:46 PM
I enjoy tinkering, building, and repairing electronics. 

Where were you, six months ago, when I was fixing up various electrical/electronic gizmos fir my bus?

[quite]
I still need to find a way to get shortwave transmissions working from here.


[/quote]

Won't cloudy weather help with that, with the transmissions bouncing off the clouds?

One of the reasons I live in a bus is so that after I finish fixing it, I can drive somewhere better than redneck South Carolina.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Michelle_P

Six months ago I think i was still trying to fix myself. I was pretty busy with denial back then. [emoji853]

Yes, weather definitely affects UHF transmissions. Clouds and even clear air turbulence over those hills will bounce the signal along.

I'm giving a talk on the subject in January!  [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit.

My personal transition path included medical changes.  The path others take may require no medical intervention, or different care.  We each find our own path. I provide these dates for the curious.
Electrolysis - Hours in The Chair: 238 (8.5 were preparing for GCS, five clearings); On estradiol patch June 2016; Full-time Oct 22, 2016; GCS Oct 20, 2017; FFS Aug 28, 2018; Stage 2 labiaplasty revision and BA Feb 26, 2019
Michelle's personal blog and biography
  •  

karenpayneoregon

Hi,

I'm post-op but before that I kept being transgender a secret knowing full well that disclosure might make it difficult to find employment. I did research and learned that Oregon was better with acceptance for transgenders. Things went sideways and for 17 years stayed hidden until I could not then knowing that my agency was very accepting came out and had zero issues. I started out at 30,000 17 years ago and now at 100,000 working as a female. I don't say this to impress but instead mention this to inspire. Planning is very important, have a plan and that plan needs to consider how the climate is for coming out. If one has employment where the climate is not good for coming out one must consider obtaining another job and even relocation as I did. Relocation for me began and nothing panned out for 12 months but persisted and finally found a position which I've been at for 22 years now.

I do understand that not everyone will have this success but I've met many how simply don't try or are in a position that they can't go this route for one reason or another.

Bottom line is it's sad that people in the transgender community are suppressed in gainful employment and must accept low paying positions were many would be the better candidate then the cisgender counter-part.
When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be."
-Julia Glass, Three Junes

GCS 2015, age 58
  •  

Raell

Michelle, if you don't have one already, have you tried using a small cubical quad antenna?
You can make them yourself, with online instructions for any kind and size you wish, if needed.

As for having to work lesser jobs, I'm a partial transmale, and highly claustrophobic, so limit my work to things I can do at least partially outdoors, with plenty of free movement and clothing requirement flexibility.

Right now, that has me teaching ESL in southern Thailand, although I was teaching at a university in the US.

The pay here is low-about $1K a month, but the cost of living is FAR lower; my 5th floor apartment with balcony, elevator, laundry, under-building parking for my motorbike, 24-hr watchman, all utilities, wi-fi, cable TV, and key card entry is $150 a month, and it costs $1.33 to fill up my motorbike gas tank.

Plus there is plenty of public transportation of all kinds that's even cheaper to use than the motorbike! The beach is six minutes away and I buy very inexpensive fresh food every few days at the open markets since I don't have a fridge (by request) in my apartment.

I end-run around gender dysphoria by designing/sewing barely feminine custom clothes and working at remote, beach side schools.
  •  

Megan.

Raell, that sound's like some really cheap living!
For myself, several decades of denial and distraction lead to a well paid IT career. I have enough to support my Ex and live in a small but clean and pleasant home. I don't have the funds to not be beholden to the NHS however 😞
  •  

clarissa jade

I have a nice house with 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms.I make good money with 3 jobs.I am a lingerie model which I do get transformed into female,a process server which I am licenced for and a property manager.It helps pays the bills.The modeling I have been doing since I was 19 years old.Started with a dare from a couple friends of mine and I was amazed how I looked after the transformation.
  •  

Valkyrie_2

Quote from: clarissa jade on November 15, 2016, 01:05:18 PM
I have a nice house with 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms.I make good money with 3 jobs.I am a lingerie model which I do get transformed into female,a process server which I am licenced for and a property manager.It helps pays the bills.The modeling I have been doing since I was 19 years old.Started with a dare from a couple friends of mine and I was amazed how I looked after the transformation.
Process serving is an unpleasant job.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Tasha_

What kind of options are there for 50k per yet to start.... that's minimum what I'm making now, and I would love to change careers and relocate. It would make it safe for me to fully come out..... any ideas ladies?
  •  

Valkyrie_2

Quote from: Tasha_ on November 15, 2016, 05:40:33 PM
What kind of options are there for 50k per yet to start.... that's minimum what I'm making now, and I would love to change careers and relocate. It would make it safe for me to fully come out..... any ideas ladies?

Well, there's truck driving. They always need truck drivers and you're on your own in the cab and on the road.

As for 50K, other than truck driving I don't know of anything easy to get into that pays more than minimum wage.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Tasha_

Ya, no license cause I am still making up for being a crazy kid.... thank you though!!!
  •  

Valkyrie_2

Quote from: Tasha_ on November 15, 2016, 05:49:34 PM
Ya, no license cause I am still making up for being a crazy kid.... thank you though!!!
Banned?

I'm a school bus driver so I can drive some trucks but not the big articulated trucks.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Tasha_

Lol... got my license taken a few months after I got it. Bad girl..... lol
  •  

clarissa jade

Quote from: Valkyrie_2 on November 15, 2016, 04:51:11 PM
Process serving is an unpleasant job.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Some do cooperate with me and some get mad at me
  •  

Valkyrie_2

A former partner sent a process server at me who made what would have been his last mistake by trying to scare me by waving a little .22 at me. I was laughing so hard when he started running after I whipped out my .357 that I let him get away.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  •  

Tasha_

LMAO Valkyrie!!!! Too funny!!!
  •  

Lily Rose

tasha,
  wow you are to pretty to be in construction c(=. like you i would not know what to do if not construction, and driving trucks would seem a good fit but that is out the question for me too. i would really like to know as well something other than construction. i think seattle would be a nice place but have no idea what i could do to make a living.
"I love you!"
– Lily Anne

"You must unlearn what you have learned."
– Yoda

"The road to success is always under construction."
– Lily Tomlin

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent."
– Victor Hugo :icon_headfones:
  •  

Saira128

Hello.. Valkyrie_2 ! I am a new addition to your lovely group. I love it that you are working and you have self- actualized. I on the other hand have not come out to my family. They say that the first step in coming out is coming out to yourself. Well guess what, I just did that today. Cheers

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Love ,
          Saira :-*
  •