Trans Universe

This is my most ambitious video project yet. It’s called: “Transgender and Transgender-Like Veterans – Part 1.” Besides doing it in widescreen, I used several techniques I have only experimented with in the past.

This is a documentary of those individuals who crossed gender lines to serve their country, from the Revolutionary War to the Spanish American War. The video has stories of interesting people, like Deborah Sampson, Albert Cashier and Cathy Williams. It didn’t turn out too bad for what I had to work with.

I wanted to do a tribute to all of those transgender and transgender -like people who served this country proudly. It was amazing what I found when researching the information for this video. I hope you like it.

by Monica F. Helms

The eleven videos are of the 16 speakers who spoke at the Atlanta 2009 Transgender Day of Remembrance.  We had State Senator Vincent Fort as the Keynote speaker.  Atlanta Mayoral Candidate Kasim Reed spoke, as did Atlanta City Council Candidate Amir Farokhi.  There were some beautiful words spoken and some angry words spoken, but it was a beautiful event.
The videos are not in any particular order.  Please do not try to comment here on the blog because I am preventing the heavy amount of spam that I get.  Please either send me a comment on my E-mail address at: monicahelms@earthlink.net, or on the specific video on YouTube.

Pastor Paul Turner:

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by Monica F.  Helms

This is a short video put to music of photos takes at the Atlanta TDOR event, November 20, 2009. Also included are photos of those we lost, at least the ones we had photos of.

Kevin MacLeod’s “With the Sea” provided the perfect background music to this video.

(In order to prevent the constant spam that happens on my blog, please place your comments in the YouTube site.)

By Monica F. Helms

Over the 12 years of living my life as Monica, I have been privileged to learn many things about the TBLG community, but mostly about the trans community. The biggest lesson in my short life as a woman has been the diversity of our people. Trans individuals have covered every segment of human experience since the dawn of time. We span all races, all sexual orientations, all gender identities, all gender expressions, all social and economic levels, all job experiences, all education levels, all ages and all health issues. If every American trans person populated just one city in America, it would be the third largest city in the country and every job in the city would be covered.

When I moved to Atlanta in 2000, I received the most important part of my education on diversity, that of the African American community. Living in Phoenix most of my life, I received a big education on the Latino and Native cultures of our population, but not much on the African American culture. But, coming to Atlanta had been the biggest eye-opener for me in finding out about the rich history – and sometimes tragic history – of my African American brothers and sisters. Moving here has proven to be one of the best decisions in my life.

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By Monica F. Helms

It took my awhile, but I finally edited the video of the March for Transgender Rights.

This is the video of the March that took place through Little Five Points to the First Existential Church. Before the march started we see speeches from Dee Dee Chamblee, Cheryl Courtney Evans and Sir Jesse McNulty.

(This piece is what I submitted for the book called “Trans People in Love,” published by Routledge, June 6, 2008.  The editors are Tracie O’Keefe and Katrina Fox.  “Sex and the Single Trannie” is Chapter 12, on page 111.)

By Monica F. Helms

“NO! I refuse to believe you!”

“Sorry, Monica. Once you start hormones, you’ll lose your libido.”

“I will NOT let that happen.”

“You’ll have no choice.”

“We’ll see about that.”

One may ask, “What does libido have to do with love?” This is, after all, an anthology of transsexuals and love and very little about sexual desires. That maybe so, but I cannot separate the strong connections between all of those parts of my personality.

Most people understand that humans are extremely complex biological organisms that have the capacity to experience a large range of emotions, including the elusive one known as “love.” They also can feel a multitude of physical sensation and understand what they all mean, especially sexual pleasures. Over the course of the last decade, I’ve experienced love and sexual pleasures on so many levels that it would be hard to isolate one special moment or one special person. Others in this book may have a partner or someone special, but I don’t. Yet, I have loved and lost enough times to know what the experience feels like.

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By Monica F. Helms

The music changes to deep bass tones and the woman on the screen backs up slowly into the dark living room of her dark house. The kitchen door window shatters and the door slowly swings open. In the opening stands a silhouette of a figure, outlined by the lighting strikes behind it. Something ominous can be seen in the hands of this figure. The scene cuts quickly to a close up and when the next lighting strikes, we see an ax with fresh blood on its blade. The woman has plenty to fear.

One of the most debilitating emotions that can grip a person’s heart and freeze a body in an instant is fear. Everyone of us fears something, be it spiders, rats, crowds, small spaces and even death. These fears don’t last long, and we can easily get past them, with the exception of death. We’ll all go there, eventually.

Yes, we all experience fear, but for many in the transgender community, fear becomes their constant companion. Society gave us a lot to fear and because of that, some trans people have raised fear to an art form. For many, fear has kept them from realizing their potential in life. It serves as their crutch, their excuse, their way to avoid growing as a person. “No. I can’t do that. It scares me.”

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By Donna Rose

Donna has been a long-time friend of mine since the early days of our transition in Arizona. We may not always see eye-to-eye, but we have remained friends through some tough times.

It seems that every year or two there is an article somewhere that some scientist or doctor has identified a biological “cause” for being gay or transgender. These kinds of things seem to get a significant amount of attention and then fade into obscurity until the next bombshell discovery is made. In 1993 there was much fanfare over an article published in Science magazine about the discovery of a “gay gene.” Did that settle the question of whether or not sexuality is biological or learned? Of course not. That investigation continues today.

The most recent revelation in this regard is a report out of Australia that scientists there have found a genetic link for transsexualism. This kind of research is looking to provide conclusive proof about something that many of us already know – that there is a biological connection to development of gender identity. Although many of us get excited and get our hopes up when we see this kind of news, I doubt any of us are naive enough to believe that this will be the be-all, end-all of research in that regard.

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I have been keeping track of where people are logging in from and I am very pleasantly surprised to see that I have been getting hits from over 40 different countries, from all over the world and on every continent. I just want to take this time to welcome my international readers. It is so wonderful that the world can stay in communication with each other at an instant. The internet has shrunk the world to a true global village.

I love all of you, not because you are reading my blog, but because you have a desire to stay informed on any issue that interests you. I hope that I can spread out my message to include the needs of my new international friends. If you have any interest that I might be able to fulfill, don’t ever hesitate to ask. If I don’t have the answer, I’ll find someone who does. I really hope that even without any questions, you will find the time to post a comment here just to say “hello.”

Also, I am taking this chance to put out a special request to my international friends. If any of you are transgender military veterans in your country, or know of transgender military veterans in your country, please have them contact me at president@tavausa.org. As the President of the Transgender American Veterans Association, we want to reach out to our fellow brothers and sisters who served in the military in their countries and form a coalition of transgender veterans throughout the world.

Again, thank you all for logging in. Have a great day.

In about a week, we will once again celebrate one of our country’s patriotic holidays, Independence Day, also known as the 4^th of July.  The other two major patriotic holidays are Memorial Day and Veterans Day, whereas Flag Day is a minor one that people seem to miss.  Inevitably, on the three major patriotic holidays, LGB people have a desire to write articles about the need to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  I am fully supportive of the need to repeal this stupid law.  What I’m not happy about is that in these discussions and articles, transgender veterans are always left out.

I’m writing this article a week before the 4^th of July to point out why it is time that transgender people should be included in the DADT discussion and included in the upcoming articles written about it.  Transgender people are at just as much risk of being kicked out under DADT as LGB people are and we now have proof of that.  There should be no excuse for any upcoming articles to leave us on the cutting room floor.

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