Susan's Place Transgender Resources

  So yesterday was the LGBT Pride parade and festival in my town.  I wore rainbows, a shirt with the pansexual flag, a 'trans* ally' button, lots of glitter &  later went to the grocery store.  An employee stopped me to say he likes my shirt.  He remained in the aisle we were in & when he saw the back of my shirt ("I am pan.  Pan I am"), he said again, "I REALLLLY love your shirt,"  and went on to explain that he & his girlfriend are both pansexual, and his girlfriend is a MTF transsexual but he doesn't have a lot of people he can safely share that with.  He's new to the area & not well connected.  So I was able to hook him up with the local trans* awareness group, tell him about the monthly trans* movie night at the Pride center, and share Susan's Place with him.  :D  He makes me want to wear that shirt more than just on Pride days.

*Squee~~!* Oh, that's fantastic~! I'm going to have to find if there's a Pride parade in my town anytime soon.
And, find one of those pan pride T-shirts.  ;)

:)   


I ended up making mine--most places online carry smaller-than-me sizes.  You can get a T-shirt & fabric paint, iron-ons, etc, from Michael's.   Today I saw a shirt on Etsy that's just a pink-yellow-blue shirt....but alas, none in my size.  They have other pansexual stuff, too.  I only saw one other person at Pride wearing pan gear.

Well to make things even more interesting, I met my friend's sister's new beau.  A manly-man, as far as appearance goes.  I was keeping my opinion reserved until I actually met him.  A few weeks ago I noticed my friend's sister post a photo of her boyfriend letting her pain his toenails pink.  I was intrigued.  The other commenters were lovingly teasing him, and I didn't want to do that, not having met him; instead I wrote, "How cool is that that he's not afraid to challenge gender norms?" 

So last Sunday I met him in person & even though I felt a bit skeptical before hand, I instead found that I liked him before we even said a word to each other.  So I felt at ease, and as an icebreaker I asked how long the pink nail polish managed to stay on--he said it came off the same night after he noticed people staring at his feet at Wal*Mart.  Which I thought was funny, 'cause, you know, it's WAL*MART.  He said something about "the things we do for women." 

Somehow that turned into a discussion between him & his girlfriend, that may not have been intended for my ears.  But I was right there in the room, ya' know?  He told her that he used to dress up as a woman for Halloween (and that he was damn good at it, too, lol). I was intrigued both by his saying so & his girlfriend's accepting curiosity about it.  When he & I were alone in the kitchen I asked him casually but quietly, "Would you ever do that again? Dress as a woman for Halloween?" He unhesitatingly said, "Sure; I got no problem with that", then said it'd be harder because he's bulked up since he last did so. 

I left feeling good about him, and better about the human race in general.  I know lotsa' cruel & nasty stuff is yet to be eradicated, but his comfort with himself in pushing the gender boundary leads me to think he's at the very LEAST trans* friendly.  How refreshing.....another win.   :)   ~v.