hi sandy, <still praying with hope>. i think you're right about being willing to sacrifice everything. i think we really do have to be prepared for that. fortunately, and more and more so, it usually doesn't cost it all.
i wonder sometimes where i would have been if my annie hadn't been so supportive and understanding. would it have ever come to the point where i'd be willing to sacrifice her? i'd like to think "no", but in all honesty i was getting to a place where sanity, and even life itself, was coming into jeopardy. i praise my God everyday that i never had to face that dilemna in reality.
i think one of the fundamental reasons we come to that place in our lives so often, transsexuals that is, is that our perspective, knowledge and information about transition is so weak. the very fact that we know we might lose it all, that we might horribly harm people we love by transitioning, is enough to drive a lot of people crazy in itself.
i believe in service. service to our fellow human beings is really about all life is worth to me. it is my life's goal anymore to just do what i can to personally be a part of altering that dynamic in a positive way. to be a part of bringing our society along to a point where we <transsexuals> don't have to make such choices...<transition or die> <transition and lose everything and everyone>. my life is about making transition for my transexual successors only about medical stuff. where the biggest problems are health and physical status. seeing a world where transition is accpeted as a medical need like so many others. i have a small gift for sharing one on one with some girls and sometimes even do some good with that, but my big gift is demonstating a positive model of transsexualism to the greater society.
it's not a great thing, i haven't the skills and abilities to affect the world outside of my life here in this small town. so it's here...it's my everyday life that i share with people here that i do the most good. sure, it's not much in the greater scheme of things...but just a few years ago the idea that i could affect any positive change in any way was not even a possiblity in my mind. it's folks who hold only the narrow stereotype of us that i can affect. not those with blistering hate, those with well constructed bigoty...i can't do any more with them then the next girl...but where i think i contribute is among those who...well...hold a negative opinion, but not with much depth.
my transition has not cost me everything. it has been nowhere near the painful experience i imagined in my ignorance. i did lose things, important things at the time, but what i have lost is but a tiny speck compared to what i have gained. every aspect of my life is better. it's all been affected in a positive way. that is what i want to share with those of us in the ts sorority. it's not like it used to be, there are more and more people out there who are willing to give you an honest shot if you're willing to take it.
not to long ago our church offered a six week seminar aimed at identifying what our spiritual goals were so we might make some consicious efforts to attain some of them. i could think of no greater goal then just this: since i have transitioned, and everyone knows of my past and my gender status i want to live long enough and remain firm enough in myself so that when the children of our chruch leave home to pursue their own lives...they will never remember a time when there wasn't a transwoman sitting there in the pews with everyone else every sunday moring. worshiping just like all the rest. singing the hymns, reciting the lithurgy, getting involved in chruch affairs and loving them, nurturing them in just the same way as all the rest. so to these people having transsexuals, and others who have significant differences from the norm, in their midst won't be a source of discomfort for them, just a matter of indifference...as in, "yes...and...?"
and to accomplish this what do i have to do? nothing special, just live and be me, out in the light.
