This Word You Keep Using...

A post in which I complain about would be allies, and abuse italics and bold type.

So the other day, while buying supplies for a dress I was making I ran into someone I know.
This person isn't a close friend, but certainly consider them a friendly acquaintance and someone who I know well enough to be surprised when they attempted to compliment me by saying how much better I look than the other trans person they know.
They then went on to gender police further by basically saying that people like me (i.e, people lucky enough to pass as cis gendered) she can understand but that basically, she couldn't see why someone who didn't pass would want to transition.
When she started talking about another friend, who is a trans man,  she misgendered him and when I corrected her she went on to justify her position by saying that HE was a sweet guy, but that SHE made a poor man.
Because clearly, a trans individual's success or failure at being the person they are totally hinges on the aesthetic concerns of cis gendered people.

This whole interaction was so soaked in cis privilege that it made my head spin.  I did my best to be polite and gently correct her assumptions, but in the end I just wanted to buy the things I needed, and not get into a lengthy educational debate while both of us were at work.
I made nice and left.

And then, a couple of hours later, because it was still eating at me and because it had made me dysphoric to the point that I kept seeing a guy in the mirror, I tweeted and posted on facebook about it.
Or at least about the "you look so good! way better than that other tranny..." part of it.

Most responses I got were unconditionally supportive and of the "I can't believe that happened" or "I'm so sorry you had to deal with that" variety, but a few were of the "well at least she was trying" and "you just need to educate her" kind.

And you know what, I agree, the whole time I spoke to her I kept calm and cheerful because I didn't for a second think she was trying to be hurtful, but it's NOT. THAT. SIMPLE.

The thing is, what she was doing was attempting to be nice to me [a trans person] without giving up any of her [a cis person] privilege.
By telling me I'm "one of the good ones" as it were, she was tacitly admitting that trans people make her uncomfortable.  That's fine, she's allowed to feel the way she feels and I appreciate someone who's brave enough to say "hey, I'm kind of weirded out by trans people" because even if they aren't trying to do anything about it, at least their self aware on the matter.
Where this becomes a problem is that she's not just telling me, "some trans people make me uncomfortable because of how I'm used to thinking about gender" she's then adding "you understand don't you?  I mean, the ugly ones make you uncomfortable too right?"
She's asking me to be complicit in her transphobia, and even more unpleasant is that it isn't just a request, because it's couched in the terms of a compliment about my appearance, it's a bribe.
It's saying "if you agree with me that those other trans people are awkward/ugly/a bit strange, I'll extend to you my cis privilege."

So really, no, she's not trying to be nice.  Whether she knows it or not she's being divisive.
She isn't supporting me as a trans person, she's supporting me IN SPITE of my being trans.

Now, to any of you who ever find yourself saying, "well at least they were trying" or "you just need to educate them" here's the thing.

You're doing exactly the same thing, you're asking for permission to keep your privilege.
You're telling me "I don't want to have to police cis people, can't you do it for me?"
No, I can't.

I spend a lot of time in respectful conversation on this topic.
I'm a huge advocate of education and of cooler heads prevailing, but I have neither the time nor the energy to make every instance of transphobia I encounter a "teachable moment".
Thats WHY I'm complaining to you about this, I do it in the hope that you'll learn something, and that maybe the next time you see someone you know saying something dumb, you'll take the time to set them right for me, because there are an awful lot more of you than there are of me.
When you dismiss the harm caused by other cis people with "well, at least they were trying", you're not giving them the benefit of the doubt, you're absolving yourself from responsibility because just like me, you don't want to have to deal with it.
Except  unlike me, when you walk away from those situations, you have the luxury of forgetting them because they don't remind you that you're different, they remind you that you're "normal".
I don't need to give cis people the benefit of the doubt, that's what privilege IS, it's the fact that in that sphere, you automatically have the benefit of the doubt.
The day when you no longer have it, I'll be more than happy to extend it, and we'll all be a lot closer to equality.

Witnessing Anger

I tend to think of myself as being pretty privileged.
I'm white, educated, and for someone in their thirties, my transition has gone remarkably well.
But..
I also grew up really poor.
My parents were hippies and had moved to southwest Wales to be artists and keep animals.  Part of the whole back to the land movement and all that.
When I was born they were in the midst of remodeling an old welsh mill house  which had no indoor plumbing and was heated by two coal fires.
There were Goats and chickens and a lot of mud.
They were doing ok at it though and between two active capable adults progress was slow but steady.
Then when I was five my mum got cancer.
The details of that aren't terribly important but the end result was that my dad became her full time care giver and the family income was reduced to the UK's disabled living allowance.
My mother never recovered enough for my father to work more than part time and that meant it was impossible for him to get work that paid well enough to improve our financial situation.
Earn more money?
They cut your benefits.
It's a catch 22.

So we were poor.
I remember being furious at a friend on time because he spread "too much"jam on his toast.  His utterly bewildered look said it all, and hot embarrassment took over as I tried to explain my outburst.
Didn't he know you were supposed to ration Jam?

I've been thinking a lot about opportunities I've missed in my life and I'm pretty angry about it.

I grew up poor, I was depressed and withdrawn as a child.
As a teenager I developed substance abuse problems.
I was diagnosed bi-polar and have spent my entire adult life dealing with the effects of that.
I was lucky enough to have well educated parents and lots of books, but the strains that poverty and cancer placed on my family meant that my parents simply didn't have the resources to help me in the ways I needed.
Constant periods of mania and depression have meant that I lack the sort of self discipline and ability to organize my life that mentally healthy adults typically develop. I have 32 years of bad habits that I need to unlearn.

These are real problems which have had real consequences for me, but people don't want to see anger.
I didn't want to see anger in myself and I believe that was a major component of my repressing my being trans for so long, and my depressive episodes.
The thing is, anger needs to be witnessed.
Anger is a restorative act of the self, we need our anger to help us re-establish our boundaries after our selves have been hurt, but anger is not a weapon, and should never be used as one.

One of the biggest problems I'm struggling with is the amount of anger I feel.
When I've tried to express it to people, to state how furious I am about what I've missed though misfortune, people always want to silver line it.

"Be proud of what u have done, don't concern yourself with what might have been"

"Everyone plays the coulda-shoulda-woulda game. The truth is, you have no idea what that other path would have brought."

While these sort of statements may be true, they're also totally dismissive of my emotions.  
I'm not asking to change the past, I just want to have it acknowledged that these things were not benefits.

Not having access to adequate mental health care is not a character building experience, it's a shitty thing that no one should have to deal with.
Self rationing your intake or preserves at age 11 is not a life lesson in making do, it's a poverty that severely limits your potential.
Living 32 years in the wrong body wasn't a convoluted set of preconditions perfectly timed to allow me to blossom in some optimal way, it was crappy twist of genetic fate that lead to over 20 years of severe depressive episodes.

We cling so strongly to our sense of self that we use our attachment to it to casually dismiss our own suffering and the suffering of others.
When I started transitioning I was still deeply attached to the sense of self that I had lived with to that point, but I have changed. I've changed so much in how I think, how I feel and how I relate to the world around me that I can't consider myself the same person anymore. That person is gone and they will never exist again and I'm GLAD!
The idea that I should be "happy" about the bad stuff because I'd be someone else without it is crap. I've already made that change once and let me state categorically, what was lost was not worth saving.
Better starts produce better outcomes.
I can't change the past, but I have every right to feel angry about it because if I don't, if I silver line it, I'm going to let it happen again.

We need to learn to witness and honor anger in ourselves and in others, recognizing it for what it is and not seeking to douse the flames too quickly simply because we fear getting burned.  
Other peoples anger is about them, not about us. In making it about us we poison it's restorative properties, just as we do to ourselves when we allow our own anger to become fixated on things outside of ourselves and we lash out.

Emotions are powerful things and they can be extremely dangerous. It's easy to understand why all societies have sought to suppress them. They are not the part of us we think of as I, they precede I and cannot be brought to account through dominance of the mind, rather they are messengers which call us to action and we dismiss them at our own risk.
The message will only keep getting louder the longer we ignore it.

Transition Video

Here it is, My 1st year of transition.


Making this video has been both exciting and scary. IT's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but the scary part is that I now have every reason to expect that I'll be receiving a whole lot more hate mail. I think I'm mentally prepared for that, but honestly, who knows? Up until now I've received nothing but love and support, my tiny readership here is comprised mostly of friends and family and until this morning I had yet to receive a single personal attack. But here goes, time to finally venture out of the shadows I guess. Wish me luck!

Catch Up Part II

Last nights post was written while I was angry, hurt and feeling very alone.
This is the less angry more sober follow up.

[please note, I am speaking specifically to my personal experience as a binary identified trans woman.  i am writing this piece in the their person as a tool for distancing myself slightly from the emotional content of this topic.  I'm not trying to speak to all trans, or even all trans feminine experience, but I rust that my feelings on this topic will be at least somewhat familiar t many trans people]

Being trans means feeling out of place a lot of the time.
The absence of shared formative years with the genders we identify with often leaves us feeling like perpetual outsiders and makes it hard to feel authentic in our interactions with cis gendered people.
The thing is though, it's often far less true that we fear.
The myth of a shared girlhood of, is just that.
Every time i get the courage to talk to cis women regarding their experiences as girls and young women, I'm constantly surprised (I don't know why at this point) to learn that they too have often felt like fakes and frauds in the presence of peers who seemed to have the whole girl thing down pat.
We've all sat awkwardly to the side at one point or another while  the more confidant amongst us stole center stage and then used that platform to make the geeks, nerds and the congenitally shy feel even more awkward.
The only real difference is that for cis women, feeling of inadequacy when it come to "being a girl" aren't routinely used to deny them their identity and sense of self.

I've written before about feeling like a failure as a parent, and especially as a mother. I was genuinely surprised to discover, in conversations I had with other women that this was an incredibly common feeling, especially in the poly community where being a mom, yet not being the birth mother is a more common situation.  Even those mothers who did have their own pregnancies reported feeling like a sham and a faker in the face of all the things society tells us a mother should do, feel and be.

I can't help wondering if those people who would deny trans women their identities on the premise of "lacking a shared experience of girl hood" are not, in fact, the same women who felt most ostracized during their own formative years.
If gender is nothing more than socialization, then all those girls who were so "good at it" can have their femininity dismissed as a by product of patriarchy.  In the denial of an internal sense of gender identity, womanhood then becomes biological essentialism and their own insecurities over feelings of failure to live up to societies gender roles can be wiped away with righteous anger.
We weren't ostracized, we were fighting fighting gender constructs the whole time.
Ironically, when it comes to shared experience they probably have more in common, in many cases, with those trans women who's identities they would deny.

In the end I do believe (obviously) in an internal sense of gender.  I also believe that most of the experiences that we deem masculine or feminine are no more than socialization, and if we could all get over our fear that we're not doing t right, if we started to talk more and share our experiences more, we'd find that man, woman, non-binary, cis or trans.  We have far more in common with one another than we have holding us forever apart.

Playing Catch Up

A retreat is being organized for the girls.
It's a spa trip.
Hot tubs, sauna, old pool etc.
I love these things, or at least I'm pretty sure I would if I ever got to go.
With out fail, every time I see a girls only spa day being organized it is actually a cis girls only event.
This is generally not something the organizer is specifically intending, it's just that women's only spas that allow trans women to use their facilities are virtually non existent.  If they do there are often weird policies that make us wear swimsuits top and bottom because apparently unless we're post-op, our breasts are offensive to "real" women.
I've spent my whole life being kinda bummed out about being excluded from a whole range of bonding experiences between women.
It's hard to write about this without sounding bitter.
It's hard to write about this because honestly there's a lot of normative experiences I can never make up for and that fact makes me feel permanently othered.
I don't know if sitting around talking with a group of cis women will ever be without the feeling of being a fraud, listening to shared experiences I missed, feeling embarrassed to offer my opinion in case someone should point out that my experience is less valid for coming from a trans woman.
Having my identity's legitimacy be permanently in other peoples hands sucks.
The thing is, I really did miss out on all this stuff and I find that embarrassing.
I feel ashamed for having not been there through my childhood, teens and twenties.  I feel that I have no right to offer my opinion on matters of womanhood.

"What if I get it wrong!?" I think, "I mean, it so kind of them to let me join in at all, I'd hate to have my female credentials revoked".

Sitting on the porch chatting with two ladies, one of whom is a friend. The other lady, who I've just met is a doula and the conversation turns to all the thing one can do with a placenta. She stops to inquire whether I'm comfortable with the topic.
I'm not, but it's for a very different reason than she might think.
The thing is, she has no idea I'm trans.
She's inquiring to make sure that a conversation about simmering, dehydrating and encapsulating placentas isn't going to gross me out.
I'm thinking "I have no right to be here, being a part of this conversation, pretending like I could ever really share in this."

My friend comments later on it.  She's sympathetic, saying that it hadn't occurred to her how hard that sort of thing must be, to have to second guess the meaning behind so many things.
She's right.
It is hard.

Maybe a decade from now this will be easier and I'l feel less of an outsider, less of a fraud.

Meanwhile the post has gone up.

Spa night.  Sorry, no boys allowed.

"What about trans girls?" I ask
"well, it's a cool place, pretty much anything goes.  Just no peen" I'm told.

Wow, great.  So I'm cool, I just have to leave my genitals at home.  Thanks, there's another shared experience I don't get to have.

N.B.
It is of course a proven fact that the penis is dangerous.  Unlike firearms, which need a human to use them in a harmful way, the penis itself is fundamentally a threat to all women.  Living with one is just a nightmare.  The constant fear that at any moment it might sexually assault someone is a constant concern for me and the single most pressing reason why I must have my vaginoplasty done as soon as possible.  It's only been by the grace of god that the damn thing hasn't hurt anyone yet...
/snark.

The Cure And The Cause

I snap awake at 4:55 am.
I'm lying on the fold away bed at a friends house because last night I had a few to many and decided it would be better if I didn't drive home.
I do a quick body check to determine if I'm still drunk and a sense of shame and failure washes over me. The sense of post inebriation dread that I'm all too familiar with.
I lie here thinking about how when I woke up yesterday I felt so good.
I could feel the possibility stretching out in front of me.
Yesterday I got up when I woke up, made myself breakfast, wrote and exercised and, for the first time in a couple of months, I had direction and the energy to do something with it.
And now I feel like I've thrown it away.
I could have not had anything to drink last night, could have gone home after the movie and unloaded all the sewing equipment from my car.
I wonder if I'm an alcoholic.
I know I drink too much.
My family has a history of alcoholism and I'm asking the question so that probably means I am right?
I have a couple of friends and family members who have been worried about my drinking for a long time and I resent it.
I resent the fact that they're so sure I am an alcoholic and I'm afraid they might be right.
I also resent them for being the type of people who just don't like drinking much.
I'm sick of hearing the condescension in their voices as they express their concern.
"You shouldn't drink" as if it's just that easy.

 I think it would be a much easier conversation with someone who likes a drink as much as I do.
Not being drunk, but the taste, the smell, the complex social history, the joy of combining flavors into something mysterious and wonderful, the whirling romantic hedonism of it all!
I'm in love with the Moulin Rouge inside myself and I don't want to give it up.
Alcohol isn't about getting drunk for me, it's about everything else.
Getting drunk is an unfortunate side effect.

I used to enjoy it, being drunk, but after a while I started to regret the lost days.
Now I'd like to be able to stop at tipsy.
But that's my problem, I'm not very good at stopping.
I've used it as a crutch for such a long time, it's hard to break the habit of just having another drink.
I was incredibly shy as a child.
My discomfort with my self, something I was sure others could see, made it hard to interact socially with other kids.  Once I reached puberty that was compounded by having to come to terms with the idea that I would always be a boy.
Fortunately by then I'd already found alcohol.
I think I was ten the first time I got intentionally drunk.
Our neighbors who lived in the old woolen mill down the drive from my house were having a curry night, a big pot luck feast of indian food.  There were two families who lived in the mill, and they had friends and their kids staying plus my parents so there was a mess of kids and adults and dogs and music and Wales has a fairly permissive attitude towards giving children alcohol.
In a situation like that it's pretty easy for a kid to ask for a small glass of wine, and then perhaps a bit of cider from another adult and pretty soon all the parents are a bit drunk themselves and stopped paying attention to how many drinks you've had and boom!

I'm lying on the sofa in our living room explaining to my sister, who is seven, that the room is spinning and I can't stand up properly.
She thinks it sounds awful, I think it's amazing.
From that night on I get drunk at every opportunity that presents itself.
I start smoking weed just before my thirteenth birthday, try mushrooms at fourteen (they grow everywhere in wales), I've taken Acid, speed and E by the time I'm fifteen and it's all just so easy.
When I'm high strange new worlds are opened up, and the prospect of being cool becomes a reality.
Drugs are cool.
So I get good at drugs.
I become an expert at rolling joints, and that one skill (and a few pints) allows me to fit in anywhere.
Well, at least amongst those of my peers who are into the drugs scene.
In Southwest Wales in the early '90s, that's pretty much everyone and everywhere.
As good as I got at rolling joints, alcohol is always the premier.  In terms of being able to forget just how anxious I felt it has always worked better than anything else and has been the one intoxicant I've never really left behind.

After I started transitioning I found that the fog, the physical pain, the fear and anxiety all started to lift.
I'm more social and less intoxicated.
Well most of the time.

My stomach churns and I don't know if it's the gnawing fear of failure or simply the hangover.  I know I can be better than this, do more, accomplish more.

Drugs and alcohol have taken me to some amazing places, moments so magical so full of wonder that I fell in love with them, but none of those places last and the drugs stop taking you there.
I'm still in love with those places, with the ritual, with the glorious hedonism.  I don't want to give up being a romantic, in fact I want more of that in my life, but the thing that used to take me there is holding me back.

Am i an alcoholic?

I just want to be able to have one or two drinks a couple of times a week and leave it at that but that is so very hard to do.
If I'm an alcoholic at least half of my friends are too.
Those of us who like drinking don't want to admit we might have a problem because it alienates us from each other to do so.  The friends I have who, like my sister, just don't feel the inclination to drink don't appreciate all the things aside from getting drunk that I'll miss if I'm have to go T-total.  There may be sympathy there but there's no empathy and the feeling of being judged means that I lie to them and to myself to avoid that judgement.
I don't know if seeking some real help or intervention would work because I'm not convinced I'm an alcoholic.
I don't want to quit drinking, there are too many aspects that I enjoy about it.
I just want to drink less but no one seems to find that idea acceptable because apparently if I can't do that on my own, then I have a problem the only solution to which is that I quit altogether.
Is it impossible to believe that my drinking problem is not built upon a chemical addiction, but rather a habitual pattern founded on years of self medicating for anxiety?
Speaking of which, my hormone levels are low.  I know this, and I know that when my estrogen level is back where it should be I'll have more energy, feel less depressed and have better impulse control.
I can moderate my drinking perfectly well when I'm in a good place mentally, I know this because I've done it before, but when I'm feeling depressed I find it all to difficult to stop with just the one.
I can't honestly say whether it's the drinking that holds me back from achieving my goals or whether it's depression and anxiety that hold me back and also make me inclined to drink too much.
How do you ask for help to overcome a drinking too much problem?
Can I just get some help learning to moderate?



If reading that left you feeling thirsty, here's a cocktail recipe I created.

The Tyler Durden

2oz Gin (Tanqueray, Hendrick's or New Amsterdam)  

1/3oz Dry Vermouth

1/3oz Monin Rose Syrup

Habanero pepper ganish

Shake the gin and vermouth as for a dry martini and pour into a martini glass

Sink the rose syrup into the glass

Garnish with three paper thin slices of habanero

Afterward

I got up, grabbed my things, drove home, unpacked the sewing stuff from the car, sat down and wrote this.  I'm about to exercise and eat breakfast and dammit if I'm not going to achieve the things I had planned today because it's only a few more weeks until I can get my hormone levels re-tested and increase my dosage and I know I'll feel a whole hell of a lot better once that happens.  I'm not going to waste the time in between now and then.  

Oh, and if you see me out, maybe remind me to drink a glass of water and wait a while before I have another Manhattan?

Body Shopping

I thought, just for shits and giggles, I'd total up my costs of my transition.
It turns out that being handed the wrong body is pretty expensive to correct,especially if you wait till your thirties to start correcting things. If I'd had access to puberty blockers then Voice feminization, tracheal shave, laser hair removal and Breast Augmentation would all be unnecessary.
Oh well, on the plus side I've been incredibly fortunate in how well my body has responded to hormones and the lasers have worked really well so I'm very well aware of just how lucky I have been.
Especially given that I was almost 33 when I started HRT.

So in no particular order, here's the whole shopping list.

Gender Confirmation Surgery - $28,000
This is the big one.  GCS is a major invasive surgical procedure with many months of healing required.  I'm hoping I'll be able to get this done in the next two years as I'm not getting any younger and my healing time and recovery will only become more grueling as time goes on.
I'll be going to Dr. Suporn in Conburi Thailand for this procedure.  The actual cast is around $22K but I'm adding the costs of flights and a two month stay in Thailand for recovery.
Fr the curious, Dr. Suporn uses a different technique from most surgeons in that scrotal tissue is used to form the vaginal canal instead of penile tissue. In my opinion he is the best surgeon performing this operation in the world today.
For those of you interested in further reading, here is a description of his methodology.

Yesson's Voice feminization surgery - $10,000
Yeson Voice Center in Seoul, South Korea have pioneered a method of raising vocal pitch via a safe, reversible and minimally invasive surgical procedure that you can learn about HERE.
The basic idea is that a small incision is made at the top of each vocal fold and then both vocal folds are sewn together at the point of incision with a permanent suture.  The tissues then grow together at the site of incision and effectively shorten the vocal chords.
This is the only voice procedure I would ever consider having as all other procedures are very invasive and carry serious risk of permanently losing ones voice.
For those of you who know me and have heard me speaking you may be wondering why I'd bother with this and it's true, my speaking voice is passably female.
The thing is though, I can't sing anymore.  I really, REALLY miss singing and I consider it the single biggest sacrifice that I've had to make.  The other aspect, and this is equally important, is that n a day to day basis, my voice is the one thing that drags me back into a sort of met awareness of my being trans.
Every time I speak I have to think about how I'm modulating my voices pitch.  I want to be able to forget about it.  I want to be able to never have to think about how my voice sounds again.  Well, unless I'm singing or acting or doing something like that.
I honestly care more about this surgery than any other and if I could only get one more procedure done this would be it.  It killed me to make the decision to spend my savings on getting an apartment and covering my living expenses because I wanted to get this surgery done so bad.
Time to get rich and famous because this one HAS to happen ASAP.
The $10K is the cost of surgery and a week in Seoul plus the plane ticket.
Serious bummer? I'll have ZERO ability to speak for two weeks and very limited use for two months.  It will be totally worth it though as I've heard the results from a very dear friend of mine who underwent the procedure and it is frankly amazing.

Breast Augmentation - $10,000
Not much to say here.  This is one I can live without but dammit, if I'm doing everything else, I want bigger boobs too!

Tracheal Shave - $3000
I got this done at the end of the summer.  The doctor mad a small incision under my chin and then proceeded to shave away the cartilage of my adams apple until it was no longer prominent.  It has worked very well an the scar is healing up nicely.

Laser Hair removal - $2400
I've been getting regular hair removal on my face and neck since last october and it has worked amazingly well.  I've had pretty much perfect results.  I'll probably go for a couple more rounds because I'm fussy but I now have less facial hair than many natal girls I know.
Oh, and it fucking hurts!  Don't let anyone tell you different.

Rhinoplasty - $5000
Like the BA, this one is me wanting to make everything exactly how I want it.  It's unnecessary but if I can I will.

All of that for a grand total  of $58,400!  Yipes!!! that is spendy.  Makes your gym membership look like a bargain don't it!

Oh I almost forgot.  Because healthcare won't cover any of this, I also get to pay out of pocket for my hormones and testosterone blockers

Estrogen - $35/Mo
Spironolactone - $25/Mo

It's not a huge amount, but it adds up.

Internalization

I don't think being trans is something to be ashamed of, but I feel ashamed.
I had though, until just this last week that I did pretty well in terms of self acceptance, but I'm coming to realize I still have quite a way to go.
I started seeing a guy recently and things are going very well between us. 
I like him rather a lot, probably more than I should given how short a time it's been, and he's never done anything to make me feel even slightly self conscious about who I am.
But I am feeling self conscious.
It came as something of a surprise to find that while I'd like to think I'm very comfortable with who I am around friends, when it comes to someone I'm having sex with, I catch myself quite deliberately avoiding conversations that address my biological past.
There's no good reason for this, after all I'm 99 percent sure he's noticed that fact that I have a penis, but I still find it hard to talk about. 

I'm afraid that if I draw attention to my being trans, he'll suddenly stop seeing me as a woman and I'll no longer be desirable.
This is a real problem.
Not only does it make me feel very vulnerable, but it means I loose one of the most valuable things in a relationship, having someone to comfort you when you're feeling scared and alone.
I'm realizing that until I can find some way past my own sense that being transgendered is something shameful, something that's wrong with me and makes me undesirable, it's going to be really hard for me to accept that another person genuinely want's to be romantically involved with me. 

I guess it's the same for anyone who's considered undesirable by the narrow minded norms of beauty, whether due to disability, body shape or any other reason.

That German Look

I just got home from a week spent in Frankfurt and Leipzig and it was amazing.
There was also a bit of culture shock.
It turns out that people stare at you a little differently over there, a stare that in the US I would have read as hostile and disapproving.
People don't look away when you catch them staring either.
It was something that I didn't realize had worn on me as much as it did until I got back home and felt the weight of second guessing my appearance start to lift.
While I knew, from an intellectual perspective, that I was getting looks because I'm a 6 foot tall blond who wears very unusual clothing much of the time, it is never the less impossible to suppress the emotional response that feels "they know, they know I'm trans and that's why they're staring like that".
I'm pretty sure this is a familiar feeling to anyone who has gone from being unhappy with their appearance to suddenly being deemed attractive by the world at large.  The persistence of memory is strong and it takes a lot to deprogram one's self image.
I want to go back there already.
In every other respect I had an amazing time, the food, the language, the architecture, I loved every bit of it.
I got to see many family members who I haven't spent time with in years and was thrilled to have them get my name and gender right each and every time.  In fact, not a thing was said by anyone regarding my transition and not in an uncomfortable "we're avoiding the subject" sort of way either.  It simply wasn't important.
It's easy to get too wound up in transition, to start seeing everything through the lens of being trans.  So much so in fact, that a person could easily find themselves with a whole blog to write about the experience!
I'm the first to admit that I'm a pretty narcissistic person and that I have an ego that doesn't feel out of place alongside royalty and the gliterati.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm better than all of them.
There is, however a sort of turning inward towards my own experience that I'm starting to realize is detrimental to myself and my relationships with others.

It was a couple of weeks ago when I found myself dismayed at how many of my cis friends were unaware that the term Tranny is considered a pejorative.
That this surprised was fair enough, however, upon reflection, the fact that I felt offended and angry about it was not the natural and just response I felt it was at the time.
Because honestly, within the context of my friends, I could find no real reason to take offense.
In fact, I've come to believe that I was reacting solely out of received opinion.
I was performing, by rote, the reaction that I'd learned that I, as a trans person, was meant to have.
As much as we may want to believe that intent does not matter, if we wish to deal with people fairly we do need to take it into account.
Not intending to offend does not absolve someone of responsibility for their actions, but we should equally examine out own intent in whether we take offense.
We do bear a burden to educate when we have the opportunity to do so.  Especially when the other choice is to drive someone away with our anger.
The idea that they who wish to be informed do us harm by asking us to educate them is simply a selfish misapprehension of the original complaint, i.e. That it's unreasonable for privileged people to impose their needs over the needs of marginalized groups who they claim to support.
There is a big difference between being asking to have something explained, and derailing the work of others with your misinformed opinion, and then demanding time be taken to educate you at the expense of all else.
It saddens me to see that in the memeification of social justice issues has created a veritable menu of ways to take offense, feel righteously oppressed, and shut down dialogue.  We have enough actual enemies as trans people without our needing to alienate those who may be well intentioned and just ignorant.
Overcoming our own fears is hard, sometimes impossible, but it's not an excuse to be mean.
Sometimes people are just looking at you funny because they're German.

Her Real Mother

My daughter will be two this month.
Being a parent is hard.

I started transition before my daughters first birthday, and for all practical purposes she's only ever known me as one of her mums.
I think when you become a parent. you're generally aware that at some point you'll o something to mess your kid up.  No matter what, circumstance will conspire against you to ensure that your child has just as many problems as everyone else.  The best you can hope for is that the things you do right will be enough.
When I finally realized that living my old life was no longer a tenable option, only for the briefest of moments was I worried that this was the moment when I learned how I was about to screw up my child.
Aside from the fact that she was going to be too young to remember me any other way than I am, other people's bigotry, should she have to encounter it, is their problem, not hers or mine.
I expect my daughter to be vocal in her opposition of hatred and ignorance in the world, even if she'd have to learn to do so very young.
By contrast, when I realized that my marriage was failing, that was when the bottom fell out.
Even though it was obvious in hindsight, the abrupt end of what had been an almost ten year relationship caught both my ex and I by surprise.
That was the first time I knew what one of the ways I would mess up my kids life would be.
I had simply no idea what my future life was going to look like, and while I'm fine with that for myself, I still don't really have a replacement for the vision of what my daughter's life with her two mums was going to look like.
Part of that is because I feel like a fake.
If the role of fathers is undervalued the role of "not the birth mother" isn't even listed.
I can't even imagine being my daughters father.  Maybe if I was a butch cis lesbian, my gender identity inviable, I could embrace that title with an ironic FU to society, but that isn't me.
After I came out to my ex wife, there was some discussion of what our daughter would call me.
It went like this.

"You can't be called mother"
"That's fine (it wasn't) she can just call me Rowan"

Over the months that followed, my ex unpacked her feelings on how the idea of me being our daughters mother too made her feel unnecessary and disposable.  Being our daughters mother was central to her sense of identity self worth and if it wasn't unique, then what meaning did it have?
I understood where she was coming from and how awful those insecurities are because I understood, that even with that title, I would always be secondary and disposable in that role.
Eventually, after we began settling into our new rhythm she came to me and said, that yes, I could be mother too.
For me though, I'm not sure that insecurity will ever go away.
Perhaps it's just self indulgent fantasy to assume that had I been the one who was pregnant I wouldn't feel like my role as mother could be taken away from me by anyone who is privy to my past life (after all, it wasn't enough for my ex) but being as I wasn't pregnant and didn't give birth it hardly matters.
I am inherently suspect in my role as parent, if not to others, then too myself - it's impossible not to internalize that shit.
After the separation I think things got easy for my ex and harder for me.
I only have my daughter for one or two days a week.
I'm a part time parent, the one who has it "easy".
By contrast she's the real single mum.

Last night my daughter was throwing food in the laundry, running around drunk from exhaustion, fussing and making the sort of mess that toddlers excel at.  I got to eat less than half my dinner (already cold) before I just gave up.
I spent the next three hours trying to get her to settle for bed and I have never felt quite so alone.
When she finally did pass out it was that full body collapse that brings a two year old's cranium into sudden contact with some part of your face and all I could do was lie there with a bloody lip and cry.
For me, being my daughters mother is something conditional, not something intrinsic to me, and it feels as if it can be taken away.
Society takes a pretty dim view of my "choice" and my value as a parent and a woman will always be contingent upon my successes at both.
Failures count double.
I had to wait patiently to be given the title of "honorary other mother" and it feels so fragile.
Asking for help is hard enough.  When I only spend a couple of days a week with my daughter, how can I ask for support or sympathy?
No one cares that the baby sitter had a hard time.

Now I know that the way I feel isn't a reflection of reality, it's my internal state of mind not how others see and judge me, but honestly, in many ways that's worse.
Self affirmation is a very hard thing to do, in fact, I'm not even sure it's possible.
I think that's what being a social animal is.
We cannot truly self validate, we can make do with more or less external validation depending on our temperament, but I don't know that anyone is entirely self sufficient in that regard.
Some experiences though are so universal that clear and specific external confirmation is not needed. Society as a whole has woven these experiences into it's fabric.
One of the hardest things about being trans is that we do not have any broad social acceptance of our experiences so we have no cultural well to draw our own affirmation from.
I know a lot of amazing women who are just incredible parents and there is little enough validation for them as it is.  No one however, would deny that they are indeed mothers.

Depression - Too low for Title

I'm depressed.

I haven't been depressed for over a year so the fact that I am now is really worrying me.

Depression was a pretty regular part of my life pre-transition.

Two or three times a year I'd watch as my mood dropped away beneath me and I found myself numb, emotionless and exhausted. 

It usually lasted a few couple of months before lifting.

I'd like to think that it was something that I decided to do each time that finally got me out of it but, in hindsight, I'm not so sure.

Since I started transitioning I'd had some emotional ups and downs but i had not been depressed.

Until now.

This last month I moved into a new appartment and, at around the same time, my hormone levels dropped.  For the first two weeks, while I was moving my stuff and working like crazy to get the place clean, I was also going trough all the symptoms of menopause, I think I also had a viral infection too.

As exhausting as it all was I was still upbeat, still feeling positive

These last two weeks though have been just like the old days.

After almost a whole year without being depressed (the longest period of my adult life) I find myself back in this all too familiar pit and I am scared.

I'm scared because I thought I'd found the answer to my emotional problems, and now?

Of course, I just switched to injectable estrogen and there will be a period of adjustment and fine tuning to get the dosage right, and maybe it's just that.

Or maybe it's that my house is still such a mess that I feel trapped in my bedroom and unable to face it.

Or maybe, depressed is just who I am as a person, maybe this is just me returning to baseline after one good year.

It can't be that last option, I simply can't let it be.

Not after having felt truly like myself for the first time ever. 

Going back to that place is worse than death and I can't let it happen.

I just don't know what I can do to stop it.

Fuck me! A how-to Guide

WARNING:

This post is all about my sex life.  It's probably graphic.

If your a personal friend of mine, or family member, this post is quite possibly TMI.  Feel free to read it, but don't blame me if you learn more than you wanted to.

For those of you currently having sex with me or hoping to in the future, i totally encourage you to read this.

With that out of the way, I shall crack on.

Firstly, why am I writing this?

Well for a number of reasons, but chiefly because trans women's sex lives seem to be tremendously misunderstood.  For most people, the only concept of what sex with a trans woman is like, probably comes from porn.  This is probably the worst possible sample of trans women from which to build ones assumptions.

Here's why.

Not only is porn nothing like reality in oh so many ways that I pray you are already aware of, but trans women in porn represent the very tiny number of us who are capable of and comfortable using our penises (if we still have them) in a male typical way.

You see, for most trans women, the testosterone blockers we take make it very difficult, if not impossible, to get and maintain an erection.  Performing penetrative sex is simply not a possibility for many of us.  

Secondly, I've had more than one person be utterly confused as to how they should approach me in bed.  It's very interesting to see just how gendered many peoples sex lives really are, and just how much atypical anatomy throws them off

So how do we have sex?

Well I have no idea how "we" have sex, but I can tell you how I like to have sex.

Many trans women report a loss of libido after beginning hormone treatment.

This has not been the case for me I'm happy to say.  I'm enjoying sex more than I ever did "as a man", but the character of my libido has certainly changed.  

Basically, I get to be horny on my terms.

When i had a lot more testosterone in my system, arousal was something that happened to me, often against my will.  Now, for the most part, getting aroused is something I chose to do.  

It's kind of lovely actually!

Sex itself has changed so much that I'm still only just beginning to figure things out after 9 months.

These days when I'm turned on I tend to get half erections.  If I really want to i can get and maintain a full erection long enough to do the old fashioned PIV intercourse or jerk off, but it doesn't get me off the way it used to.  Lacking testosterone, simply stimulating my penis is almost never enough for me to reach orgasm.  In fact, the sort of orgasms I can achieve that way are becoming generally weaker and less interesting.

So, if you're familiar with having sex with men, and were to attempt to have sex with me in that way, it would be deeply disappointing for both/all of us.

These days my erogenous zones seem to have been ever expanding to the point that now, depending on how aroused I am, they pretty much encompass my entire body.

Breasts, nipples, buttocks, nape of neck, ears, inner thighs, all of these areas feel amazing.  Not just at the point of contact either, but increasingly as a powerfully warm surge that radiates from my core, right behind my belly button, all the way up to the top of my head and down to my perineum.

Sounds fabulous I hear you say, what a lucky bitch you are.

Well yes, but...

There's always a but.

As awesome as my body can feel these days, it's also very elusive.

It's as if the wiring of my pleasure centers is a faulty and prone to power surges.  

While my body has become much more sensitive to touch, it almost over sensitive.  If any given area gets too much stimulation it seems to flip the breaker and instantly the good feels are gone from that area.  Like spinning plates, maintaining arousal for me has become about constantly tending to and switching between different areas, never allowing them to cool down completely and never causing them to overheat and turn off.

The best analogy I can make is one of an orchestra, all the different sections must be playing together in harmony.  Yes, there are solos and the focus shifts from one area of the orchestra to another but everything must still work together as a composition.

When it's working though, oh my gawd does it ever feel good.  

It's frustrating that I can't do this for myself.

Even knowing exactly what I want internally I can't seem to bring everything together to reach orgasm yet, although it does seem to be getting closer and feels like something far more profound than merely ejaculating.

Speaking of which,

My Penis!

I almost forgot, I still have that thing!

It still feels good to be touched, but I find I have this mental image of my future vagina and focusing on my penis distracts from. To much time spent there is confusing and brings me out of the moment.

These days i mostly treat it like a vagina sans convenient hole for putting fingers/other penises in.

Fortunately there's an asshole for that.  Well, for other peoples penises anyway.  

I've never been a fan of having peoples fingers in my ass, and dildos/strap-ons are generally so poorly wielded as to be painful, so unless you're some sort of strap-on wizard I am probably not going to enjoy that.

Emotionally I'm pretty submissive by nature although sometimes I do like to "fight and lose" so to speak.

I have learned that I can have sex with someone I'm not terribly attracted to and that it leads to pretty unsatisfying sex.

I've learned that what I am attracted to extends far beyond physical appearance.

Confidence and the ability to talk openly during sex is a huge turn on.

Being wanted is a huge turn on.

Someone who's good at having sex with their whole body, who knows how to fuck me as a whole person, not a sequence of anatomical buttons, someone with rhythm can bring me close to coming as as I ever get and often in totally unexpected ways which has made sex one of the most delightful things in my life.

So I guess, you should have sex with trans women like I hope you would with anyone else.

By treating us as individuals.

Finding Home Again

Last night I cooked a meal at my new apartment for the first time.

It was a small but important act.

I had realized over the previous week just how adrift I have been feeling of late.

I've been working furiously to get things done, to make this space for myself happen, but I hadn't realized just how much the lack of a Home was wearing on me.

After my wife and I decided we were separating, after I moved onto the couch. It felt like I was a guest in what had, for the last five years, been my home.  

Then, after a fight that made me pack my bags and run, I found myself staying at my boyfriends house, without a plan and a little lost.

He'd only just moved in himself.  

Nothing was there yet, still on it's way from back east.  

For two weeks it was nothing but potential.  

I loved being in that big empty space, all of my possessions comfortably inside one tiny room and feeling free of stuff.  

I had left with my clothes and my essential cooking equipment.

Almost all I did for those two weeks was enjoy the emptiness of that space and cook.

I got back in touch with the sense of joy I find in preparing food, making something as beautiful as it is delicious and as nourishing as it is transitory.

A meal is so self contained, and yet reflects everything we are.  

We must eat to live, and because of this I think we can see ourselves in how we choose to go about food.

It is an obligation we must fulfill to our material being. 

It runs all the way from sacrament to chore,  from comfort to abuse, and from love to hate.

As we start to understand the incredible complexity of our digestive system, it becomes more and more clear that many of the feelings and emotions we experience originate in the bacteria who live along with us.  

No wonder we're so emotional about food, food IS emotion.

After my boyfriend's wife arrived with all their possessions, and their house went from empty possibility to being the physical expression of their lives, I knew I couldn't continue living there.  Although I did anyway, because in spite of everything I've learned about listening to my intuition in this past year, it was easy to stay there and feel taken care of.  

At least for a while.  

Until it wasn't.

And then, just as I had arrived there, all of a sudden because it was the only place I knew how to run to at the time, I was leaving.

Grabbing my stuff and getting the hell out, because apparently when I decide to do something, I have to do it immediately.

It was impossible to maintain the  illusion of that place being home.

I found a new place in a week, a place of my own (even though I have a roommate and I swore I was going to live o my own).

There's a lot of decorating to do and it's a ton of work, and three weeks into it I'm still not moved in yet, but last night I cooked a meal there,  and slept in the bed that is next to my bed because my bed isn't ready yet, and it felt, for the first time like I might be home.

The last few days have been hard.  

Really hard.

I have been exhausted for quite a while and I hadn't realized just how much I need my own space to go to recharge.

But last night was better.

Last night I went to the grocery store (Lam's Seafood Market, it's my favorite one in all of seattle and I'm so glad I live near it again) and bought groceries for the first time in three weeks.  

Then I went home.  

Something about walking in with groceries and all of a sudden I felt like I actually lived there.

I had a friend coming over, and I had groceries, and I had a kitchen and I had a home again.

Apparently that's what home means to me.

Home is the place where I can walk in and cook without having to ask permission.

I'll be fine in a minute

Before I started transitioning I thought of myself as being weak.  

As a child I felt overwhelmed by things and would retreat into shyness and solitude.  I'd exclude myself from activities in the hope that others would see that I was alone and come to save me from that loneliness.  

I'm pretty sure this began as a behavior when my mother got cancer.

I was five at the time, and my sister was two, we were on vacation in Virginia.

I vaguely recall my mother looking ill one day, something about food poisoning, then she was being taking to the hospital.  I have clear imaged of the garden at my grandparents house, of the white, pierced metal table and chairs on a red brick patio.  Memories of how green and humid it is around DC in the summer.

I don't remember actually seeing my other in the hospital, but I remember the hospital itself.

I'm told I refused to go near my mother.   

That I thought she'd die if I touched her?  Or maybe I was afraid that I'd die too?

That must have been very hard for her.  

It was never talked about.

Eventually my sister and my Visas ran out.

My father told me that my sister and I would be flying back to the England and living with our grandmother, that he would stay in America with our mother until she was well again and then they'd come home.

I don't know if I believed that my mother was going to get better or not.

I'm told, although I have no memory of this, that after my father had informed me of what would be happening, he then went to talk to my sister, or would have if I hadn't jumped up and taken the task upon myself.

Apparently I decided to take charge of things at that point.

I told my sister what would be happening and that she needn't worry because I would be with her to look after her.

Shortly thereafter we flew back to England, my sister and I, a two year old and a five year old  in the care of a British Airways flight attendant.  Things were different in the 80's, people expected children to be competent in ways I don't see today.  In truth, a five year old child can take care of a two year old on a transatlantic flight with minimal supervision. 

I know because I did.

But it leaves scars.

I became very withdrawn after that.  

It was longer than we expected before my parents were able to return to the the UK.  

I would start the school year late and in a new school. I remember loosing a tooth in the class of a teacher who was very strict, and sitting there with my mouth filling with blood because I didn't want to raise my hand to ask to go to the bathroom to spit it out.  Another child in that class once wet themselves for the same reason.

I don't recall learning anything in that class other than it being ok to swallow a mouthful of blood .

After the flight back I didn't relate well to other kids. 

 My life had taken a turn towards adulthood too soon, and so I held myself apart form the other children.  I'd also become painfully shy and found it difficult to make friends.  It didn't help that this was the age when boys are starting to play with boys and girls with girls.  Gender lines were being drawn that made being friends with girls difficult.

After we moved back to Wales I was very shy for a long time, although for some reason I was never bullied.  Honestly the kids I grew up with were incredibly kind hearted and drew me out of myself.  Other boys let me be my own weird self without passing too much judgement if I was a bit girly at times, and things got better.  As a kid I enjoyed things right across the gender line.  Sword and dolls, Action man and makeup.

But as a boy, I always felt weak compared to other boys.

This feeling has stayed with me right up until a couple of months ago.  

Transition has given me a sense of agency and personal strength I never felt before.

That tendency I've had my whole life, to let things fall apart when I feel overwhelmed, to be weak until someone notices and comes to help, to be that child who took on adulthood at the age of five and forever after was unable to admit that it had been too much, I'm moving past that.

Not trying to be someone else frees up a lot of emotional energy.

It's because of that that I've been able to handle things this past year that would have sunk me into a major depression before.  If you know me, you will mostly see someone who's very direct, someone who takes action as soon as she sees it's needed.  Someone who, and I hope this isn't vanity speaking, has her shit together.

What people perhaps don't see is that I'm no less scared than I was before.  

While I'm stronger now and more confident in myself, while I'm proud that I don't let my fear overwhelm me and paralyze me into inaction, I'm still scared.  It still hurts.

Transition is hard.

I am getting a divorce.

I miss my daughter every day I don't get to see her.

My mother did pass away this year, and I miss her too.

I have been through two surgeries this year.

I have spent the last three months without a permanent address and I still have no idea where my life is going.

I am still scared.

Tomorrow I'll be back on top of things and feeling fucking great that I'm still alive.

But just right now I cant see through the tears to type properly, because right now the Atlantic Ocean is just too big and I am too small.

But don't worry.

I'll be fine in a minute.

Misandry

Ok, this is basically a small linguistic rant.

There is this thing I see happening a lot these days where people are saying that Misandry isn't a thing.

I know where this is coming from, it's the same reason we say that "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism" are not real things.

Now in the case of racism and sexism, both of these words have specific meanings that preclude to possibility of a reverse form. 

Both these isms, by their very definition, refer to an institutionalized marginalization and oppression of one group by another socially privileged group.  Racism and sexism can only go one direction.

But Misandry, like it's counterpart Misogyny does not infer any power structure dynamic.

Certainly, a sexist patriarchal society is a breading ground for misogyny and examples of it are far more pervasive than it's male focused counterpart, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for women (of men too) to hate men!

Misandry is a useful word that is being stripped of meaning by some vocal groups within feminism who really do appear to believe that men are fundamentally the enemy.  Their views are absolutely misandrous and damaging to productive conversation about the problems both men and women face as a result of living in a patriarchal society.

It troubles me when I see people who I respect starting to use the language of people who I frankly consider to be hate groups in this unthinking way.

So please people.

Misogyny - A hatred of women and things feminine (no implied power dynamic)

Misandry - A hatred of Men and things masculine (no implied power dynamic)

Misanthropy - A hatred of humans and human culture (no implied power dynamic)

Sexism - Oppression of one gender group by another more privileged gender group (power dynamic is implicit, and essential to the words meaning).

And yes I'm aware that some MRAs are using Misandry to mean "reverse sexism", and shame on them too, but that doesn't need to linguistically handicap ourselves for the benefit of idiots.

/rant.

A little bird told me.

I follow a number of people on twitter who's streams have a strong social justice angle to them.  One of them is @BrothaJamesWolf who tweets mostly about issues of racism in America today.  Following him has been an eye opening experience...  Upon occasion we have talked back and forth a little, one such exchange, in which he admitted to a certain amount of transphobia, led to him writing this post on his blog:

BROTHA WOLF 

~ Howling For Change

Interestingly, the person who he mentions as having been part of the impetus for the post is referred to as "he".  I was surprised by this, but didn't take offense.

In fact, and this may seem odd, my first reaction was that he had done this to protect my identity in some way.  Here's the excerpt.

"Now, I know you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this. Well, there are two reasons: One, goes back to a quick convo I had with a Twitter follower. The other is an important lesson that even I have to learn.

I told him about my online encounter with a transsexual that ended in me leaving in a huff. He wanted to know why I was pissed. For a while, I looked back and thought long and hard wondering what caused me to be cross with her."

Part of the reason I assumed that he wasn't misgendering me, but rather obscuring my identity, was that he refers to the trans girl he reacted badly to as Her and She.  
The other part of my reason for not taking it personally was that my conversations with @BrothaJamesWolf have always been very civil, even friendly.  

It wasn't until I reached this sentence that I concluded that his understanding and experience of trans people and of our lives was perhaps, somewhat limited.
Here he is talking about an experience where he reacted badly to learning that the girl he had been flirting with online was trans:

"This young woman most likely didn’t know I was heterosexual just like I didn’t know she was really a man."

Again, I'm not entirely sure why, but my response to this was mostly to be perplexed.
I know a number of other trans people who I suspect would have felt pretty angry about this, for my part I consider myself fortunate to not take this sort of thing personally, so I wrote the following reply to the post.

Please do read all of the original post by the way, it's honest and intelligent and written with humility, even if it's author makes what I consider to be factual errors.

My Reply:

 As I read this I was struck by two things. One, it’s a powerfully written piece, the message of which is one we all need to learn again and again throughout our lives. The other of which is that while I trust your intent, I have to assume your understanding of trans identities and trans people’s lives has, up until now been fairly minimal. Most of us don’t take the time to look beyond our own lives unless forced to do so, I have a great deal of respect for the fact that you do make that effort. I also appreciate that fact that you’ve always shown me respect when we’ve chatted on twitter and that our conversation contributed to you taking the time to look a little deeper into lives outside of your experience.

I know I follow you because I value your candor and perspective on life. As a member of a minority group I’m well aware that some lived experiences can only be sympathized with, some things are too far from our own life to truly empathize, and given that I will never get to walk a mile in your shoes, I feel it’s my responsibility to at least listen to what you have to say about the world as you experience it, and if possible to learn something from you.

So on trans identity.

This sentence that you wrote seems like a good place to start unpacking things:

“This young woman most likely didn’t know I was heterosexual just like I didn’t know she was really a man”

When you say she likely didn’t know you were heterosexual I get the impression that your understanding of trans women is that we are a subset of gay men. That, had she of known you weren’t gay, she wouldn’t have made the mistake of flirting with you.
If you start from the position that trans women are in fact men, then that idea seems perfectly rational. It is, however, wrong for a number of reasons.

Firstly Sexual orientation and gender identity have nothing to do with each other. Trans women can be gay, straight or bi just like anyone else.

Secondly, biological sex and gender identity are independent.
As you state, you are a heterosexual male, you are also cisgendered.
Cisgender is that opposite of transgender, and just means that your internal sense of self matches up with the way the rest of the world sees you and the opinion of the doctor present at your birth in terms of what gender you understand yourself to be.
Now some people will make the claim that your external genitalia and your chromosomes dictate whether you are male or female but in the real world it’s not actually that simple.
Some people are born intersexed, that is, their external genitals are indeterminate at birth and that can happen for a number of reasons. They might have XXY, XYY, XXX or a whole range of other chromosomal variations that mean they can not be assigned to either the male or the female category with any certainty.
Stranger still, depending on how genes are expressed during fetal development, it is perfectly possible for a child born with XY chromosomes to never develop ANY male physical characteristics. There has even been one recorded instance of an XY female carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a healthy child.
In short, biology is simply more complicated than most people realize and there is no meaningful or clear boundary between the sexes at the level of the individual.
As to gender, another non-scientific word, we have to understand that we are talking about two different things here as well.
Gender as a social construct reflects the way in which a given culture expects men and women to behave, and how that culture enforces those behavioral norms. It’s also something that changes over time as a cultures values change. I.e. Women can wear trousers today and no one thinks it’s strange, but 60 years ago it would have seemed very odd to most people.
By contrast, Gender Identity refers to one’s internal sense of whether you are male or female.
As a cisgendered male, your experience of gender identity is basically zero, in the same way that if you have perfect eyesight you experience of being colorblind is zero. Gender identity is simply not something you have the capacity to be aware of unless, for some reason it doesn’t match up to your physical body. By contrast, those of us who are transgendered experience the very disconcerting sensation that we do not have the correct body.
For many of us, this sensation is so string, so overwhelming that the only way we can make our lives livable is to do everything possible to change our bodies to reflect who we know we are inside. That is why, as I’m typing this, I am in quite a lot of pain because yesterday i paid a doctor $3000 to make an incision in my throat, and carefully cut away as much cartilage as possible from my adams apple to remove the bump there.
Please take a second to feel you throat, put your fingers on that bump of cartilage and actually think about that. What would drive someone to do that if it was medically unnecessary? When, for them, $3000 is a small fortune?

Which gets me back to the most important point here, that girl who flirted with you wasn’t “really a man” she IS really a woman. To say that she’s a man because a doctor made that decision at birth doesn’t actually stand up to intellectual rigor. Common wisdom is often anything but wise, and just because most of the time you can look between a baby’s legs and get it right, doesn’t automatically make it right every time.

Now, where does that put you and your heterosexuality?
Sadly the answer is “at risk”
That is, in a society where being gay or lesbian or especially being trans are considered to be sick, wrong, morally abhorrent behaviors, clearly associating with such people creates an avenue for others to question your hetero status.
I don’t need to go further into that because after all, that was the point of the post to which I am responding. You obviously understand that.
But you do still seem to think that trans women are men, and that is a problem.

I am not a man, I am a woman. I also happen to be transgendered. In another $40,000 or so, not even a doctor will be able to tell you I was born male.
I’m also pretty attractive. If a hetero guy is attracted to me, that doesn’t make him gay. If I wanted to have sex with gay guys, trust me, I could have stayed male bodied and had plenty of it. As it is now, gay guys are far less likely to be attracted to me than the straight ones are.
Which is good. Because I’m not a gay man and I gave no interest in having a relationship with a gay man.
Personally, I’m attracted to people who see me as I see myself, that is a bisexual transgender woman.
Of course, there are a lot of people who simply can’t or won’t believe that I’m a woman and honestly I don’t care to much so long as they keep that opinion to themselves and don’t try to murder me, assault me of lobby to have my human rights taken away.
I get that for some people, my medical history makes the idea of dating me a no go. That makes me sad, but I’m not going to tell them they should feel other than the way they do because, frankly, they can’t.
We don’t have control over our emotions in that way, and to expect you or anyone else to read this, and suddenly have some moment of epiphany is unrealistic, but the pervasive notion that I am really a man is a big problem because it creates the story that I’m out to trick people and that simply isn’t true.
I’m out to live my life, like everyone else I hope to meet nice people whom I can have meaningful relationships with.
Generally I disclose my trans status pretty quickly and openly because to not do so puts my life at risk, but just like any other girl I like to go out to the club , have a few drinks and dance with friends. If some guy decides he want’s to hit on me I’m not about to tell him right there and then that I’m trans because to do so puts me at risk. At the very least it can lead to a confrontation where my night is ruined, at worst it can result in physical violence.
As a trans person, if I choose not to disclose that fact, it isn’t because I’m trying to sneak into some guys pants.
I personally don’t like playing Russian roulette, and the idea of having sex with someone who might literally decide to murder me if they learn that I’m trans is terrifying.
Honestly it would be a whole lot better if those people who, for whatever reasons (I won’t judge, really), prefer not to date trans people would go around wearing a “no trans please” T-shirt or something. That would take a lot of stress out of my life.

So to recap.
Trans women are women. They are not “really men”
Same goes for trans men but in reverse.
My pronouns are “She” and “Her” on account of how I’m a woman, not a man.

“Transgender” is never a noun – I am a transgender woman, or trans woman, I am not “a transgender”. I wouldn’t refer to you as “a black” and I appreciate the same in return.

Also, please note that I wrote this response while recovering from surgery and a little dopey from the painkillers. I’m happy to clarify further if anything i wrote is unclear.

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It's a bit of a rambling explanation because I honestly didn't know where to start.  
How do you begin to explain a concept like what it means to be transgender to someone who thinks of you as a man?
I touched on a few different points but in the end left feeling my response was fragmented and inadequate.  
I'd wanted to say more, but what was most pertinent?  Where would I stop?

Having re-read my response however, I've realized that the focus of this conversation, and more broadly on the problems of patriarchy as a whole, needs to be on male sexuality.
It seems strange to me, that while much of the feminist debate I follow addresses issues of human rights and how living n a patriarchal society negatively impacts various groups of people, there is little conversation concerning how or why it is that almost all human societies came to be patriarchal in the first place*.

Which is what I'll get into in some depth in my next post.

*I'm not implying that nothing has been written on this topic, only that in all the blogs and conversations I have read, I have not encountered it.