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.

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:

(Break)

State Senator Vince Fort:

Atlanta Mayoral Candidate Kasim Reed:

Allyson Robinson from DC, Pastor Elliot Summerville at 5:00 minutes:

Jamie Roberts:

Dr. Gwynedd Thomas and Cheryl Courtney-Evans at 3:00 minutes:

Anneliese Singh and Maru Gonzalez together and Juliana Illari at 5:30 minutes:

Monica Helms:

Sir Jesse McNulty and Amir Farokhi at 3:00 minutes:

Betty Couvertier:

Alicia Newson:

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.)

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.

(Break)

I may have come a long way in understanding diversity, but because of a recent event in the White House, it has been shown that maybe the rest of our community still has a lot to learn. I’m not going to get too much into the event, since it happened on June 29. In a nutshell, President Obama held a gathering of about 200 TBLG people to commemorate the 40^th Anniversary of Stonewall, of which only about eight trans people received invitations. Out of that eight, two were of Latino decent. However, they didn’t have any trans veterans of Stonewall, or any African American trans people. I don’t see that as embracing diversity in the trans community.

Several questions about the event in DC have not been answered to my satisfaction. 1.) Why wasn’t Miss Majors invited to this? 2.) Who provided the list of trans people that suggested who should go? 3.) Who picked the attendees from that list? 4.) Who didn’t make the cut and why did they not make it? 5.) Had there been extensive background checks made on these people? 6.) And, why were there not any crossdressers, intersex people and gender queer people invited?

The lack of African American people at this event speaks to a larger problem facing the transgender community in general. The most vocal and most well-known African American trans person I know, Monica Roberts, wrote about this event and the lack of African American trans people in her article on TransGriot, dated July 1, 2009. It was posted in other places.

She also posted it on The Bilerico Project, where she got over 60 comments, some of them from gay white men who attacked her. She provided a list of several people who should have been there, but the most glaring omission to the guest list had been Miss Majors. She has the distinction of being the last known African American trans person who helped to start the riots at Stonewall 40 years ago.

In the comment section of the Bilerico article, she and others pointed out that several trans African Americans could not only pass the Secret Service background check, but would have represented all trans people proudly. Yet, none of them received invitations.

Why does the transgender community find it so hard to accept diversity and admit we have a problem in race relationships? As a white trans women, I get angry and disappointed in how some of my white brothers and sister treat race issues with such a low priority. In the comment section of Monica’s article on Bilerico, only one person who attended the event at the White House cared enough to answer some of the questions by others. All of the other people who attended didn’t even make an attempt to contact Monica privately on this issue. Is it that they have too many other fancy events to attend to bother addressing one of the core issues dividing our frail community?

Yes, I’m being factitious, but since they don’t want to listen to one Monica about this problem, then maybe two Monicas in stereo might get their attention. Maybe, but I’m not holding my breath on it.

The trans community has too many things that divide us to go out of our way to make some of them worse. Indeed, some make it a point to create ways to divide us, while others divide us without realize they had done it. Too many times I have seen a newbie trans woman on a diverse discussion list start off with, “Hey, girls.” If none of the trans men say anything, I try to point it out right away. Some particular life experiences tend to give people a narrow view of our community. People need to constantly be aware of the diversity of the trans community, as they transverse through it.

When it comes to race relations, the lessons become harder to learn, but not impossible. What I saw taking place from the discussion of the DC event were people who have been made aware of a problem in race relations, but choose to ignore it. The problem will not go away. The prominent white “leaders” in the trans community need to put as much effort in healing the rift between the Black leaders in our community as they do in lobbying Congress for our rights. A summit is in order. But, I don’t see any of the white leaders making an effort.

Since the beginning of the century, we have seen massive improvements on the state and local levels protecting the rights of transgender people. However, the number of People of Color ending up on the Remembering Our Dead list has grown to over 70%. We have an African American President who has shown great pride in his heritage, but hosts an event that shuns trans people of that same heritage.

We have trans organizations (TAVA included) where the top leaders are white. We have young African American trans people living in a world with few or no known heroes to emulate. We have several African American trans people who can make ALL of the trans community proud, but they get little press or exposure from the white trans leaders. We have a major problem that many white trans people seem to ignore.

Well, I refuse to ignore this any longer and I am standing up to be counted as a white person who will fight racial indifference in the white trans community. I know many of my white brothers and sisters will be counted as well. Some people say I’m a “leader” in this community. If so, I’ll stick my neck out here, as I have done so many times in the past.

“As the President of the Transgender American Veterans Association, I call for a Race Relations Summit.”

It’s not like TAVA is doing a damn thing anyway, right? I’m sure no one will respond to this. Why should they? They’re too busy with their own issues to care and TAVA wasn’t one of the national groups invited to the White House, along with our African American brothers and sisters. We will be ignored, but not forever.

As veterans, we fought along side our Brothers and Sister of Color, counting on them to watch our backs as we watched theirs. Veterans understand the need to work together, because our lives depended on it in the trenches, the fox holes and on board ships. Well friends, our lives as trans people depend on it just as much today. It would be advisable to work toward that goal. After all, embracing diversity is not a luxury, but a necessity.

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 loseWeight Exercise 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.

(Break)

While writing my autobiography in 2005, I had a chance to scrutinize the experiences I had with women while living as a man. I didn’t have many encounters with women, so the ones I did have stood out rather vividly. A connecting thread between all of those loves began to emerge, surprising the hell out of me when it became obvious. This thread occurred because Mother Nature had endowed me with such a miniscule “tool” that it forced me to find more creative ways to satisfy women. Not surprising, many of those ways have been used by lesbians since the dawn of time. It appears that Mother Nature actually gave me a gift, preparing me for my future life as a lesbian.

As a man, I truly enjoyed making love with women and I enjoyed the pleasure they gave me. But, as I approached the time to start hormones, I became more and more worried that I wouldn’t even feel like making love to anyone because of losing my libido. To not find intimacy exciting any longer sent a chill through the Italian blood coursing through my veins. My brain couldn’t conceive of the idea of being asexual, so I decided to do something to ensure I would still desire lovemaking with another person. At that time, it could have been with either a man or a woman.

According to the dictionary, the word “libido” means: 1.) The psychic and emotional energy associated with the instinctual biological drives. 2a.) Manifestation of sexual drive. 2b.) Sexual desire. If there is a psychological component to a person’s libido, then couldn’t the brain be trained to maintain the same level of libido after a male-to-female transsexual begins hormone treatment? I felt truly motivated to find out the answer to that question.

The physical affects of taking female hormones were not only well documented on the Internet and in books, but my friends provided me with their first-hand experience on this matter. The penis would shrink and no longer feel the same sensations it felt before hormones. That idea didn’t bother me, because I would eventually have it inverted for my new vagina. Of course at that time, I didn’t think I would live a full decade without getting sex reassignment surgery. If the penis couldn’t feel pleasure and I didn’t want it to, then where on my body would that pleasure come from?

The first place I concentrated on was my nipples. They had proven to feel sensitivity in the past, so I focused on finding the right way to make them feel it again. In a very short time, I discovered that if I wet the tips of my fingers and very lightly rub them over the tips of my nipples, I would feel some tingling sensation. It took me awhile to actually magnify that sensation and “train” my brain to understand that this was a new erogenous zone. It worked.

As satisfying as my nipples felt during that “training period,” I knew that there had to be more. This time, I turned my attention a bit further south, a place where my future vagina would reside. I knew that the nerve bundle in the area between the testicles felt some form of sensation, but nothing prepared me for what I would discover when I started concentrating on that area. To say I found my ultimate G-spot would be a gross understatement. Nothing in my life has ever felt that amazing and it didn’t take any time for my brain to register this new erogenous zone. I created these new pleasure points BEFORE I began taking hormones and my penis had shrunk. Feeling a female-like orgasm without getting an erection made me ecstatic. And, having multiple orgasms opened a whole new world for me. My journey as a female had begun.

In later years, I had a conversation with a therapist who not only worked with transgender people, but with paraplegics and quadriplegics. She would help them find sexual pleasure in the areas where they still had feelings, training the pleasure center of the brain to accept these locations as their new erogenous zones. It appears I had followed her methods before I knew that sort of brain-training existed.

Knowing that I had the ability to enjoy a full and wonderful sex life as a woman – whether I had surgery or not – strengthened my libido rather than diminished it. I looked forward to finding the love of my life rather than shrinking away and avoiding love altogether. It made me less afraid to wear my heart on my sleeve, less afraid to open up to someone and less afraid to have my heart broken.

Just before and after I began living as a woman, I felt a need to experience love with men. I had fantasies of actually living with a man and having a happy home as a married woman later in my life. I quickly discovered that the men who found pre-operative, male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals exciting looked for just one thing. They want a “chick with a dick” . . . the mystical “Best-of-Both-Worlds” creature. They do indeed exist in the form of she-males, but an MtF transsexual has a different motive for living as a women. Since taking hormones causes a pre-op, MtF transsexual’s penis to shrink and not get erect, then this may turn off many men who want to date a pre-op.

Sex with men felt exciting, but as time went on, I needed more than a quick roll in the sack. My attraction to masculinity faded, replaced completely by the need for the softness and emotional gratification I had always received from women. It meant I really didn’t change whom I found attractive, so by definition, I went from being a heterosexual man to being a gay woman. Only the labels changed. I now tell people I’m “historically bisexual,” since I did have sex with men at one time in my life.

Now that I finally discovered my true sexual orientation, what would I do next? Only Fate would place me where I needed to be. In early 2000, I met an attractive, post-operative, MtF transsexual who seemed to find me attractive as well. We met in Phoenix while she attended a political activism meeting I had put on. We hit it off rather quickly and later in the evening, she and I went dancing at the local lesbian club. While on the dance floor, she pulled me close to her and kissed me. My first kiss from a post-op woman and it felt so good that it made me weak at the knees.

Sadly, the evening didn’t find us sharing a bed together. She made an odd blanket statement stating that post-op transsexual women do not want to make love to pre-op transsexual women, because it reminds them of their past. To her, it felt like “going back in time.” She also said that it makes the pre-op jealous. At that time, I believed her statement was widely-accepted by post-op women, but later I found out that her attitude only reflected her own personal feelings and nothing more. Over the last seven years, I’ve had the pleasure of making love to several post-op women, so I’m now positive not everyone accepted her viewpoint.

My first true love as Monica came only five months after kissing that woman on the dance floor. She, too, was a post-op MtF transsexual, having had her surgery eight years earlier. I met her on a list for trans people, but it didn’t have many members from Arizona. The two of us talked on the phone for a while then decided to get together one Saturday to go to a movie. For this story, I will call her “Brenda.”

Brenda and I hit it off rather well and found out we had at least a few things in common. She told me that for the last twelve years she had been living with a man, but it just didn’t feel right to her. Since she begun her transition during the days when the doctors insisted a person follow very strict rules, she had to convince them of being straight or they wouldn’t let her continue. The doctors wouldn’t allow any transsexual to identify as being gay. Many lied to the doctors, some so convincing that they believed it themselves. Thus was the case with Brenda.

I found Brenda attractive, but the words of the other woman five months earlier still rang in my ears. “Post-ops don’t want to make love to pre-ops.” This meant Brenda and I would be nothing more than friends, which I could easily settle for. However, Fate stepped in once again and threw me a most interesting curve ball.

After going to the movies and having lunch together, we came back to my place and began talking about all sorts of things, including our past and how our families treated us. I cannot remember who broached the subject first, but the topic of sex and love came up. Sometime during that subject, she asked me, “Have you ever made love to post-op?”

I said, “I got the impression that post-ops didn’t want to have anything to do with pre-ops.”

Brenda found that statement to be completely ridiculous. To prove it, she leaned in close and gave me a long and sensual kiss. Wow. What made me so lucky to get a kiss from such gorgeous women? They say that what comes around goes around. Whatever I did to deserve such good karma, I needed to keep doing it.

After some extensive foreplay, Brenda and I ended up in bed together. I’ve had memorable times making love to another person, but that first night with Brenda topped anything I had ever experienced up until then. (But, my future had better things in store for me in later years.) She solidified my sexual orientation. From that evening on, I would never consider making love to a man . . . except a trans man. Why, you may ask? Or not. Trans men have a quality about them that non-trans men don’t. Some will admit it, while others won’t. Their past gives them a much deeper appreciation for women, so they know how to treat a woman right . . . at least most of them do.

Over the next few weeks, Brenda and I had fantastic nights together; nights that burn deep into my memory with the passion we felt for each other. However, life would not allow us to continue our relationship. Just before I met Brenda, I had applied for another job in Atlanta, staying within the company I worked for. They accepted me and asked me to arrive in Atlanta by June 12, 2000. I had to leave just as our relationship began to heat up. She and I remained friends for a few years after I left, but as of today, she won’t take any of my calls. I would like to find out if she has a happy life.

My life in Georgia would be totally different than what I experienced in Arizona. The people at my new job accepted me completely and I had more challenges on the job than I did in Phoenix. Other opportunities opened up to me as a political activist, putting me in a position to meet many people in the area and nationwide. My experience with women didn’t take off until I had been there for about five months. “Five months?” Again? Is this a reoccurring pattern? I wonder . . .?

Transgender people are great with trigonometry, because they love to go off on tangents.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Five months after I arrived in Georgia, I met another post-op transsexual at Atlanta’s first Transgender Day of Remembrance. I will call her “Olivia.” Something about her caught my eye. I felt drawn to her looks and intelligence. What can I say? I find highly intelligent women very sexy and Olivia fit the bill on that, as Brenda had earlier. For the next two months, we had a torrid relationship. The fact that she lived in Athens, about 90 miles away from where I lived at the time, caused a bit of a problem for me. Getting there took up a lot of my time and gas.

Even though everything seemed to be going smoothly between the two of us, Olivia had something boiling deep in the bowels of her psyche. She had a dark past of disturbing incidents that had left her emotionally and psychologically scarred. Many transsexuals experience horrible things in their life and none of them make it through unscathed. Some are harmed far more than others. Olivia carried the wounds of a family rejection, physical and mental abuse that stayed hidden just below the surface like an emotional Mt. St. Helen, waiting for the right – or wrong – moment to erupt. That eruption took place about two months into our relationship.

On the day it happened, I stayed over night at Olivia’s apartment. The next day she seemed all lovey-dovey when we got up and we planned on seeing a movie that afternoon. Before the movie, I stopped at an eyeglass store to get new glasses and she wandered through the mall. After I finished getting everything ordered, I waited and waited for her to come back. When she did, she seemed distant and didn’t want to talk. We went to the movie and during the entire time, she leaned away from me, not making any physical contact.

On the drive home, she remained silent. I knew then that she wanted to break up with me. I asked, “Is it over?”

“Wait until we get back to my place.”

I started crying. She showed no emotion. The pain cut through my heart.

When we arrived at her place, she turned to me and in the coldest tone of voice, she said, “I want you to leave.”

“Why? What happened? We were okay just this morning.”

She said nothing and still showed no emotions. It appeared to me that this post-op transsexual shifted into a mode that I hadn’t ever seen in woman, breaking up with me like any man would break up with a woman. I felt like an emotional basket case on that long drive home.

In later years, Olivia told she shouldn’t have let me go. My friends and I later found out that Olivia lead a transient life, not wanting to get a job and had tried to con others into giving her money. I also found out just recently that she now lives in San Francisco and has been stalking a prominent facial surgeon, trying to get him to do surgery on her for free. Olivia has even tried to commit suicide several times. She really needs help.

Losing Olivia when I did couldn’t have happened at a better time. Not only did I dodge the bullet with her early on in the relationship, but it freed me to begin looking elsewhere. A couple weeks later, I attended a Georgia Stonewall Democrats meeting and I told a female friend of mine, Susan, on how Olivia had treated me.

Susan asked, “Does this mean I can now ask you out on a date?”

“Ah . . . ah, yes. It does.”

I found Susan to not only be highly intelligent, but she and I had several things in common. We both love science fiction and we both love to write, though her writing focuses on non-fiction, whereas I have a love for fiction. In school, Susan considered herself a computer geek and looking back at myself in school, I was a nerd. At the time I met her, she worked as an editor for a trade magazine, but had also written for the local LGBT newspaper and wrote for CNN.

On our first date, I took her to an Italian restaurant and we talked about several things. I found her attractive and felt comfortable being with her. That evening, we went back to my place and made love on the couch in the living room.

Wrong move.

My roommate, another transsexual and owner of the townhouse I lived in, confronted me the next day and ordered me to move out in six months. She never said why she gave me so much time, but I figured she needed extra money to help pay for her up-coming labiaplasty. I discovered later that the whole reason she needed me to move in was to help her get the final amount of money she needed for her sex reassignment surgery. Once my usefulness had ended, I would be kicked out anyway. My evening with Susan accelerated that. The next day, I began looking for a place and found one much closer to work and to Susan. My former roommate would have to find her money somewhere else.

Susan and I had an interesting relationship. For four years, we called each other “girlfriends,” using the lesbian definition and not the one used by straight women when referring to their female friends. We expressed our love for each other in many ways, but we never had a sex life after that first date. I found out she had a bi-polar condition and because of the medicines she had to take, she completely lost her libido. Of course, my libido remained as strong as ever during the entire relationship.

I once asked Susan, “Do you find any woman on Earth sexually attractive?” She responded by saying “No.”

If Susan felt that way about every woman, then I didn’t have much of a problem with our lack of sex life, at least at first. It became clear to me as time went on that it had become a growing problem. She encouraged me to seek out others for sex, which I only found someone twice in the entire four years. Later, her doctor gave her a new drug that helped to restore her libido, but it became quickly apparent that she still didn’t want to make love with me, even when her libido returned. It became the start of our downhill slide.

As time went on, other things contributed to our eventual breakup. We kept growing apart until my lack of enthusiasm forced her to call it quits. The moment of our breakup felt sad, but necessary to give me a chance to grow and expand. My relationship with Susan did me a lot of good and helped me to further understand myself in many ways I couldn’t have had if her and I had never dated. We remain friends to this day.

In April of 2005, I met a woman, Cindy, at a local lesbian nightclub called My Sister’s Room (MSR.) Since this nightclub sat across the tracks from the all-woman’s college Agnes Scott, it drew in a lot of women in their early-twenties. I could easily tell that Cindy didn’t fit that age bracket because of her gray hair.

Cindy and I stayed together for a few months, even though she never felt comfortable seeing me completely nude. I had to hide my penis by wearing panties, yet she didn’t mind eventually being totally nude with me. She wouldn’t allow me to give her oral sex, so we had to use other ways to take care of her needs. However, she spent very little time taking care of my needs.

Because Cindy lived forty miles away and didn’t have transportation, it became hard on me. Also, she shared her house with a much older woman whose attitude forced Cindy to not invite friends over without causing a big fuss. I had to drive to Cindy’s place, bringing her back to my apartment so we can go out or have dinner together, then drive her home the next day. This became too much after awhile, so I broke it off with her.

The week after I broke it off with Cindy, I met another woman at MSR. This time I went there to just enjoy myself and not try to hook up with someone. But, hook up I did and in a huge way.

The woman I met that night, Glenda, had something about her that I found intriguing. Normally, I’m attracted to fem women, but Cindy and Glenda didn’t fit that category one bit. However, I found Glenda very attractive and interesting to talk to. She works as a lawyer for a firm that helps to patent biotech creations for companies. This job was tailor-made for her, since she has a degree in both biology and law.

After we left MSR, we grabbed a bite to eat at an all-night diner, then she took me to her place. The fact that she didn’t care about my “plumbing irregularities” surprised and thrilled me, since I told her well in advance about me, back at MSR. Her lack of shyness felt refreshing after my experiences with Susan and Cindy.

That evening began a five-month relationship that rivaled anything else in my entire life. (Again, with the “five-months?”) Our lovemaking took me to a new level of ecstasy that I never believed existed and I had only heard rumors of over the years. I place the stories of that kind of intense lovemaking in the same category as ghosts, angels and UFOs. I’ve heard of them, but I never personally encountered them. We did things together that I would have never expected from any woman. I fell in love once again, only this time in a hard way.

Glenda had separated from a woman whom she had a committed relationship with just six months earlier. She was the biological mother of a five-year-old girl and shared joint custody with her ex. One weekend Glenda would have the girl and the next weekend her ex would, so we “hooked up” on those weekends when she didn’t have her daughter. However, we would go to dinner and do things together on the weekends she had her daughter.

During the course of our relationship, Glenda told me that she had a repressed sex life since her early years and after separating from her ex, she had finally liberated herself to explore the hidden desires within. Since we went on that exploration together, uncovering the various facets of her sexual desires, I told her that we were like Lewis and Clark heading up the Missouri River into the mountains, finding new wonders around every bend. I couldn’t believe the beauties of what we found along the way. Thinking of those nights still makes me smile.

One of the most touching moments of our relationship took place on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, 2005. Glenda’s daughter asked if I could “sleep over” that night so I could spend Christmas morning with them. Glenda agreed. I fully expected to sleep in a spare bedroom, but I ended up in Glenda’s bed. I made sure I had a complete pair of pajamas on, because I felt a bit apprehensive about her daughter being there and possibly wandering into the room. It all turned out fine.

The next morning, I once again experienced the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of a small child, something I hadn’t felt since the early 1990s. No other Christmas during the entire time living as Monica felt as wonderful. I would have pledged my commitment to Glenda that very morning if she had asked me.

One funny thing happened on Christmas that still makes me laugh when I think about it. Glenda’s daughter received a little girl’s makeup kit as one of her gifts. After opening it, she turned to Glenda and asked if she could help in putting on the makeup. Glenda laughed and said she was the last person to ask on how to properly apply makeup.

Monica to the rescue! I piped up and said, “Well, it looks like this is an area I’m familiar with. Let me help you.” Glenda’s daughter was excited.

While Glenda made breakfast in the kitchen, I showed her daughter the proper way to put on makeup. Since I had two sons, I never felt the joy of helping a young girl apply makeup properly.

What factored heavily into why Glenda and I had a short relationship had to be the “rebound syndrome.” Even though we had a short-lived and intense romance, we ended it as very close friends. She has become one of the few people I know who I can confide in with the most intimate details of my life. We stay in touch and have breakfast or dinner together occasionally, along with her daughter. When my Mother came to visit me for a week in April, the four of us went to the new Georgia Aquarium together. My mother had nothing but high praise for Glenda.

I haven’t had a steady girlfriend since Glenda and I broke up, but I’ve had some rather interesting romantic moments during that time. In late September 2006, when the Southern Comfort Conference took place in Atlanta, many of my friends from across the country attended. I had the chance to make love to two trans women at the same time, one post-op and one pre-op. It may sound exciting, but part of the evening, the other two spent a very long time concentrating on each other. I even got up and got dressed before they noticed I was in the room. And yet, I suggested having the threesome in the first place. I thought that if I would ever have the fortune of being with two women at the same time, each of us would be treated with equality. I may not suggest that in the future.

I did learn one thing during that threesome. I quickly found out that the pre-op had the same erogenous zones as I have. Very interesting. Once I discovered this, I wouldn’t stop until she begged me to. I can easily say she enjoyed herself, as did I.

During that Southern Comfort Conference, I did something else exciting and new. I asked a good friend of mine, a professional photographer, to take nude photos of me, in black and white. She took nearly two rolls of pictures that day and in some of the photos, someone else was there with me. As I write this piece, I haven’t seen the pictures, but the other person in them with me has. She said they turned out great.

After reading this, one might think that I’ve had a rather exciting sex life with all the women I’ve met. Yet, I finish this piece up with nothing more than a sigh to comfort me. Like I said, I don’t have that one special person to share my life with at this time. No one is near me, reading over my shoulder, begging me to save what I have typed and come to bed. Do I want someone? Yes. Will I stop after getting my heart broken again and again? Never! If I did, the next person I would have met could have been “THE ONE,” so I continue to move forward.

My life has had many moments of shear pleasure and beauty, surrounded with mundane days, weeks and even months. But, I’m encouraged that Fate has more interesting moments ahead. And who knows, maybe the next time transgender people are asked to submit a story about how love works with them, I will be able to write an extensive piece about my life-long love. Until then, I will have to be satisfied with the cards Life has dealt me.

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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What are some of the fears the trans community has? Some fear starting transition, or even finishing it. Fear can make them stuck in transition. Others fear love, falling in love or even socializing with those they find attractive in search of love. Fear makes them become stuck in loneliness. Some fear intimacy. Others fear being read, or “clocked.” Many fear being seen with other trans people because they think that once one in the crowd has been read, they all have. It has its basis in truth, but we should not let this fear keep us away from friends.

Our community has transsexuals who actually fear being around crossdressers and because of that, the transsexuals do nothing but bad-mouth and say hateful things about the crossdressers. Virginia Prince, who just passed away, became a prime target for some of these transsexuals. They fear the words that came from Virginia in 1959 as if they pertain to the world in 2009. I say this is fear, because there has never been a good explanation why her fifty-year-old words remain relevant in the 21^st Century.

The wives of some crossdressers fear having their husbands hanging around transsexuals because “it” just might “rub off.” Other crossdressers fear that transsexual activists will leave them behind in legislation and say hateful things about the transsexuals. These fears fill blogs and discussion groups like the faithful fill the mega churches. When a person sits in the middle of this “hierarchy war,” they tend to fear that these opposing camps may just screw it up for all of us.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance will be ten years old this year. (Yes, it’s the “Eleventh Annual” TDOR, but I’m sure you can figure this math problem out.) It vividly reminds us what we fear. When a city has a series of murders, like Memphis did recently and Atlanta did in the middle 1990s, fear grips our community. However, because of TDOR, it has become a fear that we work through together, with our prayers and our tears. We fight this fear daily.

The fear of discovery has become a big discussion in our community. Living a fully stealth life, or even a partially stealth one can cause a person to be stuck in fear. No good way to get around this issue can be found without a lot of anxiety and stressful moments. Others have been taken advantage of, or made fun of at work, church and social events, yet fear keeps them from speaking up or standing up for their rights. I hear, “It’s okay. It’ll work out.” Let me tell you from experience, it never does. It gets worse.

The fear of discovery also comes into play when a trans person starts dating, or even flirting. When do you tell? If post-op, should you tell? If a trans women dates men, do you let him kiss you first, or do you wait? There are two women on the Remembering Our Dead list who decided to tell their new husbands on their honeymoon, so this fear can be real. Seeing the worst things that can happen to any of us has made me afraid, and I only date women.

It would be unfair of me to talk about the fears we have as a community without talking about mine. I do not fear death, because of my strong religious beliefs. However, I fear dying without someone special in my life by my side when I pass on. Yes, I’m stuck in loneliness. I have a fear of dying without finishing my work, or not seeing our community gain most of its rights. I fear losing my job, and losing everything I have worked so hard for. I fear letting people down, or doing something that lets the community down.

Through all of this, I cannot understand why some trans people fear me, the things I do, or how I live my life. They try to come across one way, but it boils down to nothing more than fear. Trapped animals growl, show their teeth and scream when faced with a supposed threat, all to cover up their fear. Humans are no different. I try to extend the olive branch to those who fear me because I have made many friends from those who may not have liked me in the past. I am never afraid to make a new friend, yet it is another fear that many in the trans community have.

Any fear can be conquered. Keep this in mind. If we had the will power and the strength to overcome all of the fears we knew would follow us when we started living our true lives, then we have the will power and strength to overcome other fears that we face in life. Society has made us afraid. We have the power to succeed and to squash the fears they put upon us. The answer to defeating fear lies in your heart. All you need to do is to let it out.

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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Specifically, this report says that their research showed a group of transsexual volunteers were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene. This genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals and therefore have other implications regarding the development of gender identity.

It should come as no surprise that, like many other topics dealing with transgender issues, this discussion often inflames passions. I’ll admit that I gave up looking for the causes of my own dissonance several years ago recognizing that the causes were less important than the actions to address it. However, there is a large segment of the community for whom finding causes is very important. There are any number of legal, medical, insurance implications that may be justified if and when a biological “cause” is found.

One article reporting this research is titled “Transgender People Validated By Aussie Research.”

Hopefully these findings will not only help better educate society, but also those in the medical profession who treat those born with gender dysphoria.

Many transgender people have believed for the longest time that biology had been the cause. I myself believe this as my earliest memories were that of wanting to be a girl even before I learnt to spell. Hopefully further studies like this will prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the phenomenon is a natural occurrence, leading to social acceptance of transgender people.

Although I applaud this research and hope the it leads to the kind of broader acceptance that the article describes, I can’t help but chafe at the notion that any of us need to be validated by medical research. Our validation comes in many ways, and certainly identifying some sort of concrete biological link would help in that regard, but that’s not our only hope. In this day and age of 21st century marvels, simple concepts like “I think, therefore I am” still apply.

The title of this article is an example of the dangerous notion that somehow science or medicine needs to be involved in order to make something “real.” Whether we find definitive proof or not doesn’t negate, lessen, or invalidate things that we know to be true about ourselves. There’s no test for “Love,” yet nobody questions as to whether it’s real or not. And to question the existence of God because there is arguably no scientific proof of some supreme being is to invite attack from all directions. The point is that, although there may well be some biological connection for many of us, that’s not all there is.

One of the challenges is that there is no one “cause” for being transgender. Although it’s a self-diagnosed condition it’s far more complicated than having a single universal cause. In fact, if they somehow developed some kind of a litmus test where you could pee in a cup and determine whether or not you had this transgender “gene” I’d urge that people be very wary of taking it. What would you do if you knew yourself to be transgender but the test indicated otherwise?

The underlying concept here is one of validation. Many of us want to be validated in a way that provides physical proof for our situation. Without it we find ourselves constantly on the defensive about whether or not this is a “choice,” or a “lifestyle,” or some sort of mental illness. Without hard undeniable evidence many feel unable to effectively blunt attacks that continue to stigmatize and undermine efforts to integrate into broader society. However, none of us can be so naive as to believe that acceptance is going to magically happen once definitive proof is found. Proof is in the eye of the beholder, and there will always be those who choose to doubt.

Still, this kind of thing is another step in the movement towards broader acceptance. One thing I do find interesting, however, is that all of the internet news reporting on this is out of India, Australia and the UK so far. There has been very sparse US-based reporting of it yet. Coincidence? I think not.

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.