Hello, everyone, from Yvanektara:
A few may know me but not from this site. I had never been here previously. I'm M2F, post-op for many years and have been visible in the trans community for a quarter century; even longer in writing communities as one focusing upon spiritualities, religions, and philosophies while working for civil rights causes. Right now, I'm using a different handle because the struggle for our right to exist now primarily goes to the next generation and it's for me not to tell a lengthy story, but to support their voices as much as possible. Some amazing people are rising up now and I admire them no less than I admired those of my own generation decades ago. It's their time, not mine. I'm okay with that.
These days I work for a radio station in the Pacific Northwest as an office manager, supporting our local programmers where I can. I've been a husband and I've been a wife. I've tasted various facets of love and dreamed dreams beyond the comprehension of most. Now I'm an old widow, turning my attention to my community ready to hand while I still have life just because I can; and in this I have found great fulfilment. If life be a lottery, then I've won a great fortune that I had not been able to foresee in my youth.
You see, there was a time I had thought I was the only one like me, with the word "transgender" nowhere in the vernacular. I had thought myself cursed, even failing at trying to end my own life. It's well to have been that kind of failure because of the things I had witnessed and learned over the decades since. Now I look back and can say that it was worth living after all... the struggle, the pain, the family rejection, the discrimination. For it all I owe great thanks to the right people I had found along the way. Now it's for me to be that right person when mentoring people who have sought my help; and for those who also struggle, I have reason to believe that they can find a future even more epic than what I had realized for myself.
