Happy Pride

Happy Pride, I guess. I'm getting more involved this year. I've entered my books in two giveaways and a book bundle. I attended a Pride festival last weekend, and will be going to another one this weekend. The local libraries are hosting LGBT movie nights, and I plan to attend as many of them as possible.

But the world is really depressing right now. I've been tuning out the news, since I'm already in mourning, but some stories are too big to ignore.

Jonathan Joss, the actor who voiced John Redcorn on King of the Hill, was killed in a hate crime. According to his husband, he was shot by a neighbor who had been shouting homophobic slurs.

Meanwhile, the government is trying to make porn illegal, while simultaneously trying to reclassify anything pro-transgender as porn. Which means all my books could conceivably be declared illegal. Will this pass? Who knows. I'd like to think Amazon, being a huge powerful company, would fight back. After all, they'd lose revenue too if that many books had to be delisted at once.

So when I keep saying, "get them while they're still legal," this is what I mean. If you want to support my work, links to my books are here:

https://books2read.com/ap/8N19Lr/Xine-Fury

The above links will take you to the Kindle store, as well as Smashwords, Nook, and several other e-book retailers. If you prefer a physical copy, you can order them from IngramSpark using these links:

https://xinefury-bloodhunters.blogspot.com/2025/05/paperbacks-by-xine-fury.html

Note, even though the paperbacks are more expensive, I don't personally get more more money from them, so don't let that be a factor in which books you buy, if any.

Nomads of Zyden

I've just published my eight novel, a swords-and-sorcery fantasy called "Nomads of Zyden." I'm particularly proud of this one, as it feels more like a mainstream novel, as opposed to the politics-heavy niche stories I usually write. I'm not even sure what I mean by that, I think I'm just trying to say that my leftist views come across really heavily in most of my work.

This one is more politically neutral, though it does feature multiple LGBT characters. I personally don't consider that political, but some people do. They can bite me. My gender identity and sexual orientation aren't political statements, they just are.

But I've gone off subject. Another difference is that most of my books are short story collections. Even the Bloodhunters series, which are presented as novels, are composed of serialized stories, many of which could be read in any order. Admittedly, this one still feels a bit like three novellas tied together (and I almost released it that way), but I think it's way more cohesive than the books I usually write.

A synopsis:

When a tribe of ghoulish monsters wipes out her mountain clan, a fierce warrior named Marta sets out on a mission of revenge. But while she grew up fighting giant beasts in the frigid wastelands, she isn’t prepared for the culture shock of meeting people from the lowlands.

During her epic journey she befriends a jester, a fairy, and a woman with whom she shares a magical bond. Together they take on a much larger quest in which they must explore ancient temples and fight ruthless monsters, all to retrieve a set of artifacts that will help them defeat an all-powerful evil. Their time is short and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

 You can find it, and all my other books, here:

Books by Xine Fury

 

Republican Boogeymen

Have politics always been this dumb?

When Obama was elected, I thought the nation had come really far, and we were headed into a new era of enlightenment and acceptance. And then Trump came along, and undid four years of progress within his first couple of months. And I’m not even talking about specific policies he put into place (though I could), but rather the “If I don’t want to believe it, it’s fake news” mindset he put out into the universe.

We have one side that believes in science, and research, and observable facts and data. Then we have another side who just says, “They’re the enemy, so whatever they say, do the opposite.” It is amazing how predictable they are. Just this morning, a notable Republican spoke out against NYC citizens wearing masks as protection from wildfire smoke, simply because the Democrats suggested it.

And I have to wonder, has it always been this bad, or do I just pay more attention to politics than I used to? To put it bluntly, it’s hard for me to believe that Republicans were this stupid my entire life. I just don’t believe the party would have survived if, say, Ronald Reagan had told people not to wear condoms during the AIDS pandemic. Or if Bush (either one) had told schools, “Stop teaching about World War II, it makes Nazis feel bad.”

There’s always been boogeymen, I know that much. Mountains are made out of molehills, to distract voters from the actual, important issues. Right now, Republicans would have you believe that all of the world’s ills stem from drag queens and trans children. They’ve blown the issues extremely out of proportion, because with all the bad press the party has received lately, it’s one of the few issues they can count on to get votes. The bigot demographic is very important to the Republican party.

If you’re a Republican and you’ve read this far, let me clear a few things up for you. You’re not going to believe me, and you’re going to claim I’m “brainwashed by the Liberal media” or whatever, but I’m going to say it anyway. I have a close relationship with the groups in question, so my first-hand knowledge isn’t filtered through the bias of the news programs.

1. Drag is an umbrella term. Saying, “all drag shows are adult” is like saying “all video games are about Mario.” Stop accusing events like “Drag Story Time Hour” of being adult content.

2. Unless, of course, you think “man in woman’s clothing” automatically makes something adult, in which case, you’re a fucking idiot. Do you honestly think Mrs. Doubtfire should have an X rating? Or MASH? Some Like It Hot? Bosom Buddies? Bugs frikken' Bunny? If you can’t see a man in a dress without thinking impure thoughts, that’s your fetish, but don't assume everyone else shares your kink.

3. There is no sudden surge of trans kids. There was a time when kids weren’t allowed to be left handed. Parents and teachers taught all kids to use their right hands, because they didn’t know better. Once they realized that it was healthier for kids to write with their dominant hand, left-handedness went on the rise. If you look at the graph, it looks like people just suddenly started being left-handed starting at a certain year. But, obviously, left-handedness didn’t start then, that’s just when it started being accepted. Same with trans kids. They’ve always been here, but now we’re better at identifying it and understanding it. Well, some of us, anyway.

4. No one is “transing” their kids. I can’t believe that I even have to say that, but apparently you really are that stupid. No one wants their kids to be trans. Nobody is saying, “I wanted a girl instead of a boy. That’s okay, I’ll make my boy a girl.” This is real life, not Sleepaway Camp. These kids were already trans, whether you want to believe it or not. We don’t want to make kids trans, we just want the kids who are trans to live safe, happy lives.

5. Yes, kids know they’re trans from a pretty early age. Stop acting like you suddenly gained all the knowledge of the universe the day you turned eighteen. Admit it, you knew early on that you liked your gender. When I was in third grade, every boy I knew bragged about how boys were better than girls. I knew guys who were against the existence of female GI Joe characters. One guy refused to play as Lizzie in the video game “Rampage,” because the monster was really a woman. Another friend told me he’d kill himself if his penis ever got cut ever off. But what if you’d had all those same feelings, but for the opposite sex? Because some kids do.

6. No one is rushing their little boy to the gender therapist just because he tried on mommy’s bra that one time. I see this so often from transphobes. “So what if he wants to be a girl? When I was his age, I wanted to be a fire engine.” I’m sure you did. For like, a day. But your child’s passion for painting sure lasted a long time, didn’t it? So much so that they grew up to be a professional artist. Attentive parents will recognize the difference between passing whims and core aspects of their child’s personality.

7. No one is performing genital surgery on kids. If you watch Fox News (and shame on you), they’d have you believe it’s being done on a daily basis, but even adults have to jump through 1,000 hoops to get gender affirmation surgery. The only thing they’re doing to trans kids is putting them on puberty blockers, which postpone puberty until the child is old enough to make an adult decision. Puberty blockers have been in use for decades (and not just for trans issues), and they’ve been proven to be safe.

Okay, a quick side note – when I say “no one” is doing something, I’m not saying it’s never happened in the history of the planet. There’s 8 billion people in the world. If something is possible, it’s probably happened at some point or another. But none of this is happening on a regular basis in America. Don’t dig up an article about some nutjob who performed amateur surgery on their kid, and present it like it’s proof of a widespread epidemic. The only genital mutilation that regularly happens to kids in America is circumcision.

And yes, I know, there were a couple of cases in the news where 16-year-old trans boys had mastectomies. But those were rare events, there’s more to those stories than the headlines, and you’re moving the goalposts. A handful of teenagers getting breast surgery isn’t proof of “widespread underage genital mutilation.” You do know the difference between breasts and genitals, right? And I’d be hesitant to call 16-year-olds “children” in this case. I’m not saying 16 is old enough to transition, but it’s disingenuous to lump them in with eight year olds when making your case.

8. We Liberals actually do agree with you. We don’t want people performing genital surgery on children either. We don’t want parents brainwashing cis children into thinking they’re trans. We don’t want kids attending shows with explicit content. But none of that is actually happening. Your crusade against “the enemy” keeps you from acknowledging the world that’s right in front of you.

Please, please, please start showing a bit of critical thinking skills. Your beliefs aren’t just harmful, they’re illogical. And you know it. Some part of you has to see that A+B isn’t adding up to C. If those “drag queen story time” events involved nudity, you’d have actually heard of a specific instance by now. If boys were fully transitiong into girls, you’d be able to name at least one by name. It would be such a scandal, it would be on every news program. You’ve known who Christine Jorgenson was since you were a kid, but can you name one trans child? Your “news” programs make nebulous claims, telling you these things happen all the time without ever revealing specific cases.

Because they’re lying.

Do better.

This Increasingly Fascist Country

 I opened reddit this morning and saw someone had asked this question:

Background: I’m a stealth, fully passing transgender woman (40) whose documents are completely updated for a few years now. I have two sons who really want to go to Disney World and this year I promised them we’d go together. But with all that is happening in FL, I am terrified.

If someone found out that I’m trans could Florida take my kids away even if I am a resident of Washington State?

Can I use the women’s bathroom if I am post-op and all my documents say female?

I’m very worried that something really awful could happen, but I also don’t want to break my kid’s heart about the trip. What should I do?

Now, to be fair, she probably doesn't have much to worry about. This is the totally normal paranoia all mothers have for their children. Nobody is doing genital checks at the door, and if she's fully passing as she says, nobody is going to look twice at her.

But the part that totally pisses me off is that, thanks to the rise of Conservative fascism, someone feels the need to ask the question at all. We're giving up more and more freedoms every day, and many of us feel unsafe in our own country.

And why? Conservatives constantly tout how America is the best country in the world, and how we're the "Land of the Free" and so on. They look down on every other country, especially the ones with totalitarian governments. So why do they keep looking to those countries as guide for how to rule America?

If you think I'm being melodramatic, you're probably a straight cis white male. You're probably thinking, "Well, I haven't noticed any restricted freedoms." To which I have to ask, are you just totally incapable of stepping into someone else's shoes, even for a second?

As I write this, there are 471 anti-LGBTQ bills currently under consideration in the US. And let's not forget all the abortion restrictions going on. Americans look down on countries that allow religion to control their laws... "unless it's our religion." You might feel safe, because you're on "the winning team." But that attitude will backfire. If you keep letting religion to get its hooks into our laws that way, it's going to be impossible to get it back out. And sooner or later, you'll be a target too.

Do you drink? Some Christians are against it. Got a girlfriend? Some Christians look down on premarital sex. Do you look at porn? Don't get used to it. These are Christian values, folks. And if the right set of justices get on the Supreme Court, they'll look into outlawing all of it. And you won't be able to blame anyone but yourself, since you'll be the sap who voted them in.

That's why you should make the clean break now. Support the separation of church and state. Abolish laws based on religion. Just because you disagree with something, doesn't mean it should be outlawed. If something you hate is outlawed for religious reasons, don't consider that a win. At best, consider it a close call. It could have been one of your rights they axed.

Seriously?

Let's see what's going on in the world today...

Tennessee is trying to ban books that even mention LGBT people from public schools.

The Catholic church opposed a suicide hotline because some of the people it helped were LGBT.

North Carolina bill encourages state workers to report children who act outside gender norms.

The world is more unhinged than ever.  I'm going back to bed.

Gender Check-In

Just an observation.  

When I make a lot of transgender-related posts in a row, I hear rumblings of, "That's all he ever talks about!  He just keeps saying the same thing over and over!"  Some of that might be my own inner voice, but other people have commented on now and then.

But when I go a long time without mentioning gender at all, I hear rumors about myself from the grapevine.  Musings along the lines of, "Well, it looks like he's given up on his dream of wanting to change his sex... I guess it was just a phase after all...  He finally came to his senses..."  This gossip mostly comes from family.

Trust me, gender is still the one thing I think about more than anything else.  I make daily visits to transgender message boards.  I fall asleep at night imagining life as a woman.  I play The Sims and D&D just to live vicariously through female characters.  

No matter how bad things get in my life, if you were to ask me to list all my problems in order, gender dysphoria would always be at the top of the list.  If I were in a plummeting 747, mere minutes from crashing, and suddenly a genie's lamp bounced into my hands from an overhead compartment, I'd still use my first wish to change my sex.

But just as you're probably tired of seeing similar posts over and over, I get tired of writing about the same subjects.  If I don't post about my gender issues for a while, it's usually because I don't have anything new to say about it.  I mean, if I wanted to post the same blog over and over, I'd just copy and paste it.

Heck, I'm pretty sure even this blog is something of a repost, so I'll stop right here.  If you're just stumbling across this blog for the first time, here's some of my more relevant entries on my relationship with gender:

What Cis People Need To Understand

I Know.  Still.

Doing The Math

...But The Math Is Irrelevant

You Can't Make An Omelette...

Table Trek III: The Search for Shlock

So I’ve been looking for a new D&D group for over a year now.  I love my previous DM, he’s a good friend and an excellent DM.  But we just want different things.  He doesn’t like D&D Fifth Edition, but that’s all I’m interested in playing right now.  I’ve given his favorite games a fair shot, but they just don’t do it for me.  So I’m on a real life quest to find a decent group.  But there’s no time limit here, especially with the current quarantine, so I have the luxury of looking for a perfect group.  Okay, fine, perfect groups don’t exist.  But I’d really like to play with people I could consider friends while away from the table as well. 

For one thing, I’m tired of playing with Trump supporters.  Usually I don’t care about politics, and I try to avoid the subject at the table.  I truly don’t care if my friends are Democrats or Republicans.  But there’s a difference between a normal Republican and a Trump supporter.  A Republican believes that corporations should have more political power than citizens.  They’re wrong, but it’s the kind of wrong where we can agree to disagree on what’s best for the economy.  A Trump supporter believes that people of color are lesser creatures and don’t deserve the same rights as Caucasians.  This is not an opinion worthy of consideration or tolerance, and I do not wish to sit at a table with these people.

Yeah, yeah, "I thought Democrats were the party of tolerance," you say.  Look, better people than me have explained why tolerating intolerance is a danger to tolerance.  But the bottom line is, I don't feel safe sitting at the same table as someone capable of voting for that monster.  To vote for Trump is to say, "I don't care about the economy.  I don't care about the poor.  I don't care about foreigners, or non-whites, or GLBT people, or women.  The only people that truly matter are rich, straight, white men."  And being a Liberal SJW trans person, I doubt they'd want to be my friend either.

Given how many people additional people are dying based on Trump's mishandling of the current crisis, I'm amazed that anybody still supports him.  But based on my Facebook feed, his followers seem to be doubling down on the stupidity, and looking for any excuse to blame the current situation on Democrats.  Just a couple of days ago a former high school classmate posted a meme that said "Wash like you just shook hands with a Democrat."  But I digress, I came here to talk about D&D.

D&D has had a surge of popularity for the past few years, ever since Stranger Things made it mainstream again.  My social media feeds are full of people wanting to try it, but who can’t find a group.  Unfortunately none of them live in my area.  My ace in the hole is that I’m willing to DM.  According to reputable sources – that is, internet memes – DMs are highly sought after and have no trouble finding games.

So my thought was, try and find a group of GLBT players.  I know they exist, they’re all over my Twitter feed.  Very few of them are Trump supporters.  They wouldn’t even care if I showed up to a game wearing a dress.  So where do I find GLBT D&D players in my area?  A Google search didn’t find much.  I did join a Facebook group, but my posts there didn’t get much attention. 

So last July I had an idea.  The Nashville Pride Festival was coming up.  I would wear a Rainbow d20 shirt, and anybody who commented on it, I’d give them my contact info.  I even had some free business cards printed up.  I kept the cards in my pocket, and prepared to give out dozens.

Well, the first part of my plan worked – I got a lot of compliments on my shirt.  At least twenty people stopped me and told me how much they loved the it.  But social anxiety strikes again, and I didn’t hand out a single card.  With each compliment I just said “Thanks!” and kept walking.  If I can’t be comfortable there of all places, how am I ever going to meet enough strangers to start a group?  I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in myself, and for the next couple of weeks I was deeply depressed.

A couple of months later, I got to play in a one-shot.  Someone in one of my Facebook groups was setting up a practice session in preparation for running a game at a con.  I could tell from the post that he was looking for a GLBT-friendly group.  Once again, social anxiety got the better of me, and I waited a couple of hours before hitting the “interested” button.  By then the table was full, but he allowed me to join the event as sort of a spectator/backup player.

I had a great time.  It was exactly the kind of diverse group I’d been looking for.  Several were newcomers to the game, which is great because I like helping people learn the game.  Most of them had just as much social anxiety as I do, which made me a lot less nervous.   Somebody mentioned Trump’s latest crimes, and everyone sighed and rolled their eyes in solidarity.  My kind of people.

Only… they weren’t interested in me.  I had to leave early (my wife had made us plans with friends on the same day), and when I tried to say my goodbyes, I couldn’t get anyone’s attention.  I had hoped to pass out a couple of my business cards in case any of them were looking for a regular group, but all of them just kept their noses in the game.  I’d spent so much time looking for a bunch of people who met my qualifications, that I never considered the possibility that I wouldn’t meet theirs. 

Yes, I’m taking it too personally.  In reality, they wouldn’t look up because they didn’t hear me, and were too focused on the game.  But it still hit me hard, and I was in deep despair for a few more weeks.  Okay, months.

I’ve just recently started looking for a group in earnest again.  I’ve got feelers out on several social media platforms.  I was hoping to try handing out cards again at this year's Pride, but then COVID-19 happened.  

So now I'm looking into online gaming solutions like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.  This might be a better solution anyway, because I can meet more diverse people online than in person.  But I still have to fight my own stupid fear of people, even online.  I will talk myself into it this time, I swear.

Zelda and Trans Children

Back in the 80s, I was a big fan of the original “Legend of Zelda” for the NES.  It was a confusing game at the time.  If you’ve only played the modern LoZ entries, you’re used to the games having some sort of narrative, and getting clues about where to go next.  But the original was more about trial and error.  The little dialogue it had was either badly translated or intentionally misleading.  It wasn’t uncommon to discover dungeons in the wrong order.  I spent many an hour collecting bombs so that I could blast each and every tile on every screen, looking for secret caves. 

I did beat the game (many times, in fact), but I probably wouldn’t have found everything if it weren’t for friends, magazines, and strategy guides.  But we all had that one friend who claimed to have found everything with no help.  My friend received his copy of LoZ without a box or instruction book.  He started it not knowing the controls, or even who this so-called “Zelda” was.  He went in blind, but found every secret, every heart container, every item.  He beat the game without even knowing what the quest was.  …Or so he claimed.  He was also a pathological liar, so I’ll never know for sure. 

Now I’m going to clumsily attempt to relate this to trans issues.  When my egg cracked in 2005, most people didn't even know the word "transgender".  If trans people were mentioned on TV, they were usually called transexuals, assuming the show was even being kind.  I never connected with "those people" when I was younger, because TV constantly portrayed them as perverts.  

When I had dysphoric thoughts as a child, I never thought to connect them to the "sickos" I saw on talk shows and sitcoms.  Those people were just mentally ill, or so I thought.  So in 2005, when the culmination of all my experiences suddenly coalesced into a crystal clear epiphany, I found myself stumbling in the dark.  Like my friend playing Legend of Zelda, I was had no idea where I was going or what I was looking for.

Today people accuse trans children of being brainwashed by liberal society (which is a really ignorant thing to say), but fifteen years ago trans people weren't all over the news like they are now.  I had to actively seek out information on what was wrong with me.  

In some ways I'm jealous of trans kids today, because they have access to a lot of information that I didn't.  I have no doubt that if I'd had access to the internet when I was a child, I would have known I was trans well before puberty.  But at the same time, I'm almost glad I didn't know.  I know my parents - they wouldn't have even considered letting me take steps in that direction.  

A lot of people wish they could go back to being a kid with the knowledge the have now, but have you ever considered how much of a prison that would be?  Sure, you might get rich from buying stocks or placing sports bets or whatever, but having to relive those years with an adult brain would be a nightmare.  You couldn't tell anyone the truth, because they'd think you were crazy.  You couldn't relate as well to your teenage friends, and you'd basically have to play a role 24/7 while you wait for your friends to mature.  Maybe it's a small price to pay to pave your way to riches, but for me high school was a living Hell and I wouldn't want to relive it.

It would be even worse knowing I was transgender as a child, and knowing I'd still have to go through puberty.  Puberty is a destructive force for trans children.  It changes the body in irreversible ways, and makes later transitioning that much more difficult.  I know, you're reading this and thinking, "Kids are too young to decide they're transgender," and maybe to some extent you're right.  But that's the whole reason for puberty blockers.  All they do is delay puberty until the child is old enough to decide for themselves.

Look, scoff all you want.  But this treatment saves lives.  I was suicidal myself as a teen, and while I obviously never went through with it, I spent a lot of time on that edge.  If I'd known I was trans at the time, and puberty blockers had been a thing, I might have had higher hopes for the future.

A couple of months ago a transgender child made headlines.  Her mother is on her side, but her father doesn't believe it.  The father has been lying to the media at every opportunity, like referring to her puberty blockers as "chemical castration" to make it sound more shocking.  This is not surprising.  In my experience, bigots don't care about facts.  Or at least, they don't like having their beliefs challenged.

But seriously, try to think critically for a moment.  It is hard as Hell for a full grown adult to qualify for transition surgeries.  It requires a years in therapy, then a certain number of years living full-time as the new gender, and all kinds of authorizations.  (Not to mention it's insanely expensive, and rarely covered by insurance.)  And this is for a grown adult, who ought to be allowed to have a say in what happens to their own body.  Do you really think they're frequently allowing gender surgery on kids?

I'm getting sick of seeing the same uninformed arguments over and over.  I'm sick of seeing the same tired "attack helicopter" jokes.  I'm sick of a certain BBC writer gaining fans as he attacks trans people with his bigoted opinions.  I'm sick of people saying things like, "I'm not a bigot, I just believe in science."  ...especially since the actual science supports trans people.

I'm sick of people saying "Yeah, well when I was a child, I wanted to be a fire engine."  Sure, you saw a fire engine go by, and then you pretended to be a fire engine for the next hour.  But the next day you pretended to be a ninja, and the following week you were Optimus Prime.  When I saw the movie Condorman, I pretended I was Condorman for the rest of the day.  And then I never thought of him again.

Nobody is suggesting putting a girl on testosterone because she's a tomboy.  Nobody is suggesting giving a little boy surgery because he wanted to be Rey instead of Luke for Halloween one year.  Attentive parents can tell the difference between a short term desire and a true aspect of the child's personality.

My brother wanted to be an artist as a child.  He had other passing interests - I remember BB guns, weight lifting, and motorcycles - but these lasted a few weeks and were never seen again.  He always went back to art.  It was obvious from a very young age that he was an artist.  And guess what?  He grew up to be an artist.  What. A. Shock.

I won't say I obviously wanted to be a girl, at least not in the same way my brother was obviously an artist.  I will say that I pretended to be female characters as often as I could get away with it.  But I learned early on that I was setting myself up for scorn, so I only picked female characters when playing with certain friends.  Choosing my character was a pretty stressful experience if I didn't know my friend well.

I can also tell you I gave my mother enough clues that she could have added it together if she wasn't in denial.  I remember many, many times when she berated me for wanting a girl toy, or for the feminine way I touched my face when I spoke, and so on.  I won't say she was sexist.  She was mainly worried that I would be bullied if I acted too feminine.  But there were probably way more instances than even I remember, and I did learn to hide certain inclinations to avoid her complaints.

Once again, I know that wanting to play with Barbies and touching your face doesn't make you a girl.  But that's just on top of everything else.  If my mom had been more liberal, and trans information had been as prevalent as it is today, she might have put two and two together.

I've said dumb things in the past.  Looking at some of my early trans blogs makes me cringe, but I'm keeping them up on the internet because learning is a journey.  But I am sick of trans people having to be perfect in order to be accepted.

If a trans person says something untrue - whether on purpose or because they were uninformed - suddenly it's ammo against the trans community.  There are bad people of every type - Black, white, male, female, old, young, cis, trans.  Sometimes trans people do bad things (the Matrix sequels, for example).  The president of this country can mock the disabled and brag about molesting women, but if a cis man pretends to be trans to commit a crime, suddenly all trans people are faking it.

I can promise you one thing - I am not perfect.  But my flaws don't make me wrong about this.  Protect your trans children.  Listen to them.  Don't let your idealized image of your child interfere with seeing who your child really is.

Nobody is trying to make your child trans.  Believe me, the last thing any of us want is for someone who isn't trans to mistakenly transition.  But if someone truly is trans, the earlier they find out, the better.  Nobody is suggesting that underage people get genital surgery.  But puberty blockers save lives.  Period.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

One of my online friends, who I will refer to as “KC” here, recently came out as non-binary.  They have changed their first name, and have requested they be referred to by the pronouns they/them.  While I fully support their identity, I have to admit that in practice, I find it a little difficult.  In my head I have to stop myself from using their old name and pronouns.  Whenever I send them a message, I make sure to proofread it several times in case I missed something somewhere.  Even while writing this blog I initially typed “her” instead of “their” a couple of times.

So for those of you who think it’s too much trouble respecting people’s pronouns, I just want you to know that I recognize your discomfort.  It's difficult for me too, and I’m a transgender liberal SJW.  But difficulty is no excuse.  If you’re a good person, you will do it anyway.

What it comes down to is this:

I might have trouble remembering pronouns, but it really is just a minor inconvenience to me.  To KC, it’s everything.  This is not a whim, this is their identity.  You can never fully understand how important this is to them.  Their need for this recognition greatly outweighs the tiny nuisance of having to learn new pronouns.  You don’t have to understand it, but you do need to respect it.  Part of being an adult is respecting things you don’t understand. 

When I was growing up, I was the only kid I knew who didn’t call their father “Sir”.  I still don’t get why some men want to be called that.  As a medieval fantasy enthusiast, “Sir” makes me think of knights in shining armor.  It’s the kind of title one should earn.  Calling an average Joe Blow “Sir” is a bit like calling me “General”.  And looking at my friends’ dads, the ones who demanded to be called “Sir” most were the ones who deserved it least.  Seriously, by today’s standards, most of them were child abusers.  You can tell a lot about people by how much unearned respect they demand. 

And maybe that’s why, to me, “Sir” has always seemed a little disrespectful.  Because all the good people in the world were “Tom” and “Steve” and “Mr. Johnson”, while all the strict, child-beating monsters demanded to be called “Sir”.  To me, it’s a distancing word, one that keeps people at arm’s length.  It’s a cold, dispassionate title, the verbal equivalent of “To Whom It May Concern”.  Calling someone “Sir” is like saying, “I don’t like you enough to ever see you as a friend, or I would just use your real name.”  Or to put it in military terms, “I recognize you as a superior officer, and I will respect the chain of command, but I can never be at ease around you.”  It’s hard for me to truly respect anyone that I couldn’t call a friend.  But that’s just me.

Despite my misgivings, I still call people “Sir”, especially if I don’t know them.  I might be egotistical, but not so much that I expect the world to cater to my opinions.  Society thinks “Sir” is a respectful term, and the proper social convention is to call people what they want to be called.  I might feel like I’m insulting someone by calling them “Sir”, but they perceive it as a compliment, and that’s what matters.  Regardless of my feelings on the word, in the long run, calling them “Sir” is respectful.

Just like it’s respectful to call someone by their new name and their preferred pronouns, regardless of your beliefs on non-traditional genders.  This world changes fast, and it can be hard to keep up.  But that’s no reason to be a wimp about it.  You can do this.  Listen.  Respect.  Learn.  I think you’ll find that it’s really not that difficult.

Social Anxiety Ups and Downs

I’m so disappointed in myself. 

Over the weekend I went to Pride.  I got to march in the parade, which was cool, definitely a first for me.  It was euphoric.  I cannot begin to describe the feeling of walking through the streets while people cheer you on.  For a few minutes I actually didn’t hate myself. 

Before the parade, they had to evacuate the area for impending bad weather.  I had to hide in a post office until the weather was nice enough to continue.  It only delayed the parade by about 45 minutes, so that was a nice bit of excitement.

I’ve been wanting to put together a new D&D group.  Specifically, I’ve been trying to connect with other LGBT gamers.  I want a group where we all have similar interests, where I if I wanted I could show up in a dress without ridicule.  I probably wouldn't, but I'd like the option to be there.

I’m also only free on Saturdays, and only interested in D&D 5th Edition.  Yes, I know, it’s a lot to ask.  It’s hard enough to get a regular group together, much less one so specific.  But D&D is getting a huge influx of new players right now, mostly because of Stranger Things, so it’s the perfect time to meet more gaymers.

A few weeks before the event, I used a free business card service to print up a bunch of “Looking for a group” cards.  My plan was to pass them out at the event.  My rainbow d20 shirt (and matching necklace) was to be the conversation starter.  People would see it and think, “Cool, another D&D player, I wonder if they have a group I could join.”  They’d say hi, we’d talk a bit, and I’d give them the card with my e-mail address on it. 

Well, the shirt was a hit.  At least twenty people complimented my shirt at the event.  I told every one of them “Thank you,” but that was the most my social anxiety could handle.  I did not give out a single card. 

Now, to be fair, sometimes it would have been awkward to do so.  Sometimes the person giving me a compliment was going in the opposite direction, and to stop and talk would have held up foot traffic in both directions.  And sometimes the other person was just so much younger than me, it would have felt icky.  “Would your parents be okay if I came over and played dice games with you in your basement?”

But those are just excuses.  I still had plenty of encounters where I could have drawn out the conversation, but I dropped the ball.  I just did my usual at the festival – walked around the entire event several times, took a handful of pictures, sat down a lot and watched people.  I didn’t even go around collecting buttons and free samples like I usually do, because I didn’t feel like standing in lines.  It was too hot to stay the whole time, and while I did stay longer than usual, I still left earlier than I originally intended to.

So now I’m depressed.  All that euphoria I got from being in the parade?  It’s gone now.  I keep kicking myself for wasting my money on two Lyft rides when I didn’t stay very long or pass out any cards.  I won’t get another chance to be around so many LGBT people until next year, and who knows if people will still be interested in D&D by then.  Plus, next year’s festival probably won’t be as big, since this year was the 50^th anniversary of Stonewall.

I want to be proud of myself for marching.  It was something that scared me, and I did it anyway.  Heck, even using Lyft for the first time scared me.  Getting in a car alone with a stranger?  In the South, while wearing a rainbow shirt, headed for a Pride festival?  But it was important to me, so I overcame my fear long enough to do it.  Now I just wish I could enjoy the memory.  At this point I barely remember the festival, I mostly just remember the sunburn.

Maybe someday I’ll learn how to be happy.

Lifeway

I hadn’t thought of this in a while, but with the recent news that Lifeway Christian Resources is closing its physical stores, I had a memory I wanted to share.  In 1999, I had just moved back to Nashville after spending a few years in Kentucky, and I was looking for a decent job.  A family member worked for LCR, and she forwarded me one of their applications.  I never finished filling it out.  After reading their policies, it just felt creepy.  I still considered myself Christian at the time, and hadn’t yet realized I was trans, but their policies still felt discriminatory and only borderline legal.

I had to go through some old CDs to find this, but I'd saved this bit of text from the application.  Note that the very top of the application claimed "We are an equal employment opportunity employer."  The definition of "equal opportunity employer" (according to Merriam Webster) is "an employer who agrees not to discriminate against any employee or job applicant because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, physical or mental disability, or age."

The first few pages of the application asked the normal questions you would expect to see on an application.  Then there was a section titled "Personal Information", which asked your religious denomination, and where you attend church.  Finally, there was a section titled "Lifestyle Considerations" that had the following paragraphs:

Because of the unique and special nature of LifeWay Christian Resources, employees are expected to manifest conduct and actions which project an image consistent with the expressed purpose and mission of Lifeway. Southern Baptist churches have voluntarily given LifeWay a place of influence based upon the values of trust and respect.  It is, therefore; imperative employees favorably represent LifeWay.

Conduct which brings embarrassment to LifeWay or impedes its credibility with constituents is unacceptable.  Conduct or other actions inconsistent with that normally expected of Southern Baptist denominational employees is unacceptable.  Similarly, conduct or other actions perceived as inconsistent are unacceptable.  Examples of such conduct are involvement with alcohol, illegal drugs, pre-marital or extra-marital sex, cohabitation apart from the marriage relationship, homosexuality, and outside interests and pursuits which would normally be considered incompatible with LifeWay's mission.

LifeWay Christian Resources has not only the right, but also the responsibility to do everything possible to ensure the stated purpose and mission of LifeWay continues in its highest tradition and is not harmed or impeded by unacceptable behavior on the part of its employees.

Consistent with this purpose, LifeWay's policy is to ensure all applicant and employee behavior meets LifeWay's standards of acceptable conduct.  As a part of this policy, and individual's current and past conduct is reviewed.  Therefore, please respond accordingly to the inquiry below.  A yes answer does not automatically disqualify you from further consideration for employment, as each individual's circumstances are reviewed.

Do you have, or have you had, any lifestyle, conduct, or activity which would project an image which could embarrass LifeWay or impede its credibility with its constituents as referred to above?  (yes) (no) If yes,please explain:

I don’t know if these are still their policies today.  If they are, I wonder if they’re still so open about it.

Migraines, Gym Class, and the Butterfly Effect

When I was a child, I suffered from migraine headaches.  Here's the story, as far as anyone else knows:

When I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, I started getting migraine headaches all the time.  I'd had them on and off for years, but this time they just wouldn't go away.  I missed a lot of school because of it.  My parents took me to all kinds of doctors and did all sorts of tests.  For the latter half of seventh grade I was given permission to take a study hall instead of PE class.  My headaches got a bit better over summer vacation.

In eighth grade, I changed schools.  This was a much more academically-focused school, and my migraines gradually returned.  After a few months, I had to transfer schools again.  Once at this third school, my chronic migraines faded away for good.  I still get them occasionally, but months apart and only for a few hours at a time.

We always concluded that the chronic migraines were brought on by stress.  A lot was going on around that time.  My grandmother died.  PE class was brutal that year.  My dad got in a car wreck.  My parents started arguing a lot, and eventually divorced.  That second school had a big workload.  When I finally found the school that was right for me, life was less stressful, and some of the other problems were gone by then as well.

But the truth is, I faked it.

Not intentionally, and not in a nefarious way.  I really did get a lot of headaches, but in retrospect I believe the real culprit was clinical depression.  It wasn't a term I'd ever heard at the time, but migraines were something I understood, something I could latch on to.

Every time I used migraines as an excuse to avoid something, I really, seriously could not have brought myself to do that something.  It would have been physically impossible to do what needed to be done - and I did try - so I would tell them it was migraines to get them off my back.  If I stayed home from school, I didn't sit there playing Nintendo all day.  I was fully committed to the excuse.  I stayed in bed, even if nobody else was home to check up on me.

It all started with gym class.

I’ve always hated phys ed.  I do see the benefit of having P.E. in schools – it helps you develop healthy exercise habits, you learn teamwork and communication skills,  and so on.  But I’ve rarely seen a gym class that was done right.  For starters, they always assume that everyone knows how to play every sport.  Those teamwork skills I mentioned?  Nah, most games ended up with the nerds being assigned positions where they could stay out of the way and do the least damage, while the jocks carried the team.  Healthy exercise habits?  Nope, they never taught us calisthenics or yoga or other exercise techniques I might use later in life.  They usually just had us play various sports.   

Most of my worst memories in high school involved gym class.  Several times I let the team down because I didn’t understand the rules, or I simply couldn’t throw the ball far enough to complete a play.  I was bullied a little, though not physically, thank goodness.  Still, every bully-related memory I have happened in gym.  To me, gym class is nothing but a big pile of psychological scars.  

 

Most gym classes were also sexist.  The girls got to sit in the bleachers and treat it as study hall, while the boys played basketball.  God, I envied them.  Occasionally I was in a gym class where the girls did exercises like jumping jacks, but I don’t think I ever saw girls required play an actual sport in high school gym class.  My high school did have cheerleaders and a girls’ basketball team, but that was done separately from the standard gym class I’m talking about. 

 

Honestly, if schools can’t do gym class correctly, I wish they would do away with them.  In my experience, the entire class is set up just to torture non-athletic students.  I suppose the actual athletes might see it as their only respite in the day, and for some students it’s the only class they don’t dread.  But for me, gym class has always reminded me of prison somehow.  I think gym class could be fixed with a little effort.  But gym class as I experienced it should be banned.  At best it’s a waste of time, at worst it scars you for life.

 

Anyway, seventh grade gym was particularly bad.  The coach was like a drill instructor.  Every day, he would have us line up, and walk down the line punching each of us in the stomach.  Not hard enough to hurt – I’m not saying this guy belongs in prison or anything – but just hard enough to see if we’d been toughening up our muscles.  If your stomach gave way or it knocked the wind out of you, he had you do some push-ups.  Even though it wasn’t painful, it was still humiliating, and I’m amazed that it was legal.  (I’m pretty sure the girls were spared this treatment as well.)  It made me afraid of going to gym class every day.  I seriously DREADED it. 

 

The incident that tipped off my migraines was pretty innocuous.  Had it not come after months and months of embarrassing gym incidents, this one would hardly have registered.  I had missed a couple of days because of a cold, during which time they had started on volleyball.  I like volleyball, and I was actually kind of looking forward to it.  After all my disastrous attempts at basketball, I was hoping volleyball would be more my speed.  Unfortunately, the rest of the class got to spend a few days learning the basics while I was out sick, so I was just thrown right in with no instruction. 

 

It didn’t turn out to be much better than basketball.  Volleyball mostly involved standing in place and hoping the ball was never hit in my direction.  My depth perception has never been great, but pre-LASIK it was horrendous.  I would swing my arms too early, or too late, or swing at balls that were nowhere near my zone.  But serving was the worst.  I tried to get the gist of it by watching other people, but when it was my turn, I hit it too hard and sent it across the gym.  I couldn’t take it.  I could feel my face getting hot, and tears wouldn’t be far behind.  My sinuses were still stuffy from being sick, and the result was that I started to choke on my own phlegm.  The other students saw my face turning purple, and in the end I got sent to the school nurse.

 

They gave me a note letting me out of gym class for a few days.  But I was so stressed out by then, I started getting migraines.  These headaches were so bad I could barely see.  With a little finagling, my parents managed to arrange it so I didn’t have to go back to gym for the rest of the year, and I went to a study hall instead.  I was a little less stressed out after that. 

After my grandmother died, my Mom came to me and said, “I spoke with the rest of the family.  We’ve decided that the reason you’ve been having headaches is because all this time when she was sick, she wasn’t in much pain.  We think that you were bearing all the pain for her.  And we thank you.  But now that she’s gone, you don’t have to have these headaches any longer.”  It was a beautiful sentiment, and I wish it had been true.

I changed schools.  My brother graduated that year, so we weren’t as tied to that school, and I was happy never to have to see that PE teacher again.  The new school was more academically-focused.  It was okay at first, but I very quickly got bogged down.  It was a bit like skipping three grades, and I wasn’t up to the challenge.  Now, understand that the previous school was not a bad school, academically speaking.  But with all the other stresses going on in my life, it was not the best time to challenge myself. 

It's a pity.  I really liked some of the classes.  They had a PE class I actually looked forward to, one that actually taught us rules and techniques for the sports we were playing.  It also had a wonderful art class.  I didn’t make a lot of friends there, though.  I was too busy trying to keep up with the classes.  I felt like Bart Simpson in that one early episode where he fakes being gifted.  I started dreading several of the normal classes the same way I’d dreaded PE at the previous school.

Soon I found myself with headaches again.  I saw the school nurse more than some of the teachers.  They called my parents a lot.  Apparently I was spending a lot of the classes with my head down on my desk.  My parents tried everything.  We went to all sorts of doctors, had all kinds of tests done.  I remember having a CT scan, wearing a rubber guard to keep me from grinding my teeth at night, going to a chiropractor, seeing a psychiatrist, and so on.  I missed a lot of school.

I also felt guilty about all the money they were spending on tests.  I remember when we got the results back from the CT scan, telling Dad, “I’m sorry it cost so much and didn’t show anything.”  But he’d been afraid I might have a brain tumor or something, and he replied, “Best money I ever spent.”  Still, I felt like their lives might be better if I wasn't around to be such a burden.

One night I tried to kill myself.  It wasn't a method that would have actually worked, but give me a break, I was a kid.  Basically I tried taking lots of pills.  I went into every medicine cabinet in the house, opened every bottle, and took about half the pills from each.  I didn't want to actually empty any bottles, because if I wasn't successful I didn't want anyone noticing I'd taken them.  But all in all, I probably took about 40 random pills.

My first thought the next morning was, "Damn.  I'm alive."  But I didn't have to go to school.   My parents told me I'd been sleepwalking all night, and they were taking me to the doctor.  The doctor gave me a drug test, which came back negative, so my half-assed suicide attempt stayed a secret.  I never told them.  

One later morning I had a really hard time getting moving.  I really couldn’t miss any more days.  My parents were like, “If you’re going to be sick anyway, be sick there.”  But I couldn’t make myself go.  I just couldn’t.  The school was like this giant block of black dread and I couldn’t in my wildest dreams envision myself willingly walking into it that morning.

In the back of the car, I was like a caged animal looking for ways to escape.  At every red light I considered hopping out of the car and just running.  I was already thinking about just hiding in the bushes instead of going inside once they dropped me off.  But I realized that wasn’t a long term plan, and missing one more day wasn’t going to make me survive the school year.  This had gone far enough.  I told my Dad, “Okay, I hate this school.”

He was immediately understanding.  We talked about it a lot about the pressure while he drove me home.  He considered taking me straight to the local public school, but then he remembered that an old friend of mine went to a different private school.  At this third and final school, things were a lot better all around.  The first school had been sports focused, so of course I didn’t fit in.  The second school was college focused, and I might have made it there if I’d started earlier.  The third school put more emphasis on religion.  It was a good fit for me, at least at the time.  In retrospect, the school had some deep flaws, and if I had kids today, I definitely wouldn’t send them there.  It’s the same school that was in the news a couple of years ago for rejecting a potential student for having gay parents.

But that was the end of the headaches.  My Dad asked me a few years later, “Did we ever figure out what was causing those headaches you used to have?”  I said it was probably just stress, and that was that.

I still feel very guilty about all the money they spent on various doctors, when it was really "just depression".  It probably caused some of the debt they had to dig out of later, and the stress I caused them may have even been a factor in their eventual divorce.

It's one of the most defining events of my childhood, and it's yet one more thing I think would have turned out differently if I'd been born female.  Yeah, I know, "I make everything about gender dysphoria.  Of course I'm going to retcon my headaches to be about it."  But a lot of trans people report similar periods of depression in their teens.

In my case, everything started with gym class, at a school that was overly focused on sports.  Without all that initial pressure to be better at masculine things, I think I would have ended up graduating at that school.

I often think about what my life would be like in that alternate timeline.  If I'd graduated that first school, I would have had an entirely different circle of friends.  I never would have met the guy who introduced me to my wife, so I wouldn't even be friends with her now.  I can almost guarantee I would have gone to a different college, which would have changed a lot of things.  As a girl, I would have had a different set of peer pressures I haven't even considered.  I might still have had migraines and/or depression because of stresses I will never know. 

There's so many possibilities there.  Would I still be a geek?  Would I still be attracted to women?  Would I still have eventually become an atheist?  My mother was so into keeping us up with fashion, I really think she would have loved to have a girl.  It would have changed a lot about my family dynamic, so I might have a completely different personality. 

One question that really haunts me is, "Would I still be transgender?"  What if "female" isn't actually a core aspect of my personality, but "non gender conforming" is?  What if "girl me" was just as stubborn about fitting in with others of my sex?  What if she gradually came to the realization that her birth sex just wasn't for her?  Is there an alternate universe where I'm an FTM?

Believe it or not, these are the things that keep me up at night.

You Can't Make An Omelette...

In the trans community - well, at least in some subsets of the trans community - they compare potentially trans people to eggs.  If you're still in denial, you're an egg.  Whenever you start to have epiphanies about your gender, your egg starts to crack.  The moment you really realize you're transgender, your egg cracks open.  Actually transitioning is compared to a chick hatching from the egg.

So I'm working on my own personal timeline.  When did my egg first start to crack?  When was I in denial?   Just for my own edification, I'm trying to come up with as specific dates as possible.  I'm going to go over a lot of ground that I've already talked about in earlier blogs, but this time I'm going to go into mind-numbingly specific detail.  Also, a lot of it is just going to be listing fictional characters I liked to pretend to be when I was a kid.  I'll probably come back and update this a few times as I think of new things.

Anyway, this blog entry is mostly for me, so feel free to skip it.

Barbie Dolls
1978?
Totally guessing at the date, but I remember playing with Barbies with my cousins.  I was a bit jealous because their dolls had a lot more outfits than my Six Million Dollar Man dolls.  There is an old picture of me holding up some Barbie dolls, smiling.

Lunch at School
1983
For a while in the third grade, I would sit with the girls at lunch time.  I remember one of the boys taunting me with "If you keep hanging around girls you're going to turn into one."  I replied, "That's okay, I don't mind.  Girls mature faster than boys."  I'd read that piece of trivia somewhere, and I always liked spouting trivia.  But the real takeaway here is that I didn't get the boy's insult.  It didn't occur to me why someone would be afraid to turn into a girl. I knew he was trying to insult me, but I was just like, "So?"

Ghost Manor
1983
There was a company called XONOX who made games for the Atari 2600.  They were unique for selling these odd double-ended game cartridges, so you got two games for the price of one.  We had one called "Ghost Manor/Spike's Peak".  The ghost manor game had you entering a haunted mansion to rescue your partner from a vampire.  The cool part was that you could choose your sex.  If you picked the male, you were were rescuing his girlfriend, and vice versa.  You used the console's Color/B&W switch to set the sex of your avatar.

I always picked the girl.  This was before "Super Mario Bros" or "The Legend of Zelda", but even at the time I knew that most stories had men rescuing women.  I thought it was really fresh and unique to control a girl rescuing a guy.  It was also fun to keep flicking the switch and watch your character go back and forth between male and female.  If only it was that easy in real life.

The Cat Club
1982-1992
When I was a kid, I started a cat club.  It was basically GI Joe except it was cats vs dogs.  Of course we stopped playing Cat Club sometime in elementary school, but we drew comic books about it well into high school.  My first Cat Club character was male, a black cat named Midnight.  But a few years later, I introduced Midnight's sister Twilight, and I sometimes played as her.

Lizard Woman
1983-ish?
With so many action figures being the same size, we used to combine them all in our scenarios. There was a 1979 Flash Gordon cartoon series that had a character called Lizard Woman.  I had her action figure.  For some reason, a friend and I used to play a scenario where Lizard Woman owned a space gas station.  We used the Dagobah playset from Empire Strikes Back as the gas station, and people from all over the galaxy would stop to fill up or get repairs, bringing their problems and prompting adventures.  Since the Lizard Woman figure looked naked, I used to make outfits for it using balloons.
 

G.I.Joe
October 1983.
I would have been in the fourth grade when GI Joe issue #16 ("Night Attack") came out.  Weird, I had been thinking third grade, but that's exactly why I'm making this list.  My friends and I were on the playground, reenacting scenes from GI Joe comics.  They wanted to do the scene where the Baroness gets blown up in a HISS tank (don't worry, she lives).  They pretended a certain piece of playground equipment was the tank, and they elected me to stand in for the Baroness.  Even though it only lasted a few minutes, and I don't think I even spoke, it stuck with me.  Something about pretending to be a woman - that it as okay to do so, and I was even being encouraged to do so - opened a door for me.

In later years, when I started buying GI Joe toys of my on, my favorites (other than Snake-Eyes of course) were mostly women.  Baroness, Scarlett, Jinx, and Zarana being my absolute faves.  For some reason I never cared for Lady J, though.

I had one friend who gave me a hard time for even buying female figures.  He thought they were a waste of plastic, and since "girls don't play GI Joe", he didn't understand why they even made them.

The Sea Prince and the Fire Child
1983?
This was an animated movie I saw as a child.  It was a retelling of Romeo & Juliet, but in a more fantastic setting.  Once or twice I played as a variation of Malta the Fire Child, when playing with my next door neighbor.  She was a fairy-like creature.

Darth Leia
1983
Shortly after Return of the Jedi, I remember playing with Star Wars figures by myself.  I played a scenario where Darth Vader decided to try to lure Leia to the dark side, kidnapping her and teaching her the Force. I put Vader's cape on my Leia figure, making a cool black/white contrast.  The idea of an evil Lea was really appealing, and I went back to this scenario several times.

Bounty Hunters
I'm guessing 1984-1985. 
Well after Return of the Jedi left the theaters, my friends and I still played with Star Wars figures. One friend and I loved playing with the bounty hunters.  He would play as Boba Fett, and I would play Boushh.  Technically it was a Princess Leia figure in Boushh disguise, but our personal canon as that in RotJ Leia had stolen the outfit from the real Boushh, and that's who I was playing.

We had a running theme, often telling the same story over and over.  Boba Fett and Boushh met and decided to team up and become bounty hunters together.  Also joining them were G.I.Joe's Snake-Eyes, and a Cobra Lamprey (hydrofoil pilot) for some reason. In a lot of versions of the story, Boushh would pretend to be male, and eventually Boba Fett would discover she was female.  We replayed that scenario dozens of ways.

Later in high school I drew a comic book about these characters, along with comics about the video game Metroid.  This eventually morphed into "Space Stories" which had characters from all kinds of places.  I generally preferred adding female characters to the stories, and I had to force myself to make some of them male because I wanted my friends to read them.

Voltron
1984-ish? 
This is where it gets murky, because I remember watching Voltron and He-Man with my next door neighbor, but I could also swear he moved away before 1984.  Anyway, we played Voltron a lot, and I liked to play as Princess Allura.  I had friends who hated her character, mostly because she replaced fan favorite Sven as the Blue Lion pilot.  I would pretend to hate her right along with them, but secretly I loved her.

I specifically remember one time we were going to play Voltron, and I really wanted to play Allura but didn't want to seem weird.  So I pretended to use "Eeny meeny miny moe" to pick my character, but intentionally fixing it so the result was Allura.  So I must have known by then that playing female characters wasn't considered normal, but it was still important to me.

GoBots
1984
The GoBots were never as cool as the Transformers.  I avoided the toys for a while, because they just weren't as interesting.  But then the cartoon came out, and we discovered the GoBots had one thing Transformers didn't (yet): female robots.  For this reason alone I bought GoBots to supplement my Transformers collection.  Pathfinder the UFO is still one of my favorite toys.  We pretended the Transformer "Cosmos" was her little brother.

Gauntlet
1985
One of the first cooperative multiplayer arcade games, Gauntlet was just awesome.  My friends and I put hundreds of quarters into that machine.  I always picked Valkyrie, telling the others it was because I liked her durability or whatever, when it was really because she was the only female.  The following year saw the release of two more multiplayer arcade games: Rampage and Quartet.  Again, I always picked the female character, even though one of them was a giant lizard.
  
Golden Dragon
1986?
My parents and I were eating at a Chinese restaurant.  I don't remember the context, but my dad said, "I believe that above all else, homosexuality is a sin.  If you can't accept what you are..." and that's all I can remember.

He wasn't referring to me, but I still felt called out.  I didn't say anything, but inside I wondered if I was gay.  I didn't really understand what gay meant at the time, but I knew I was feminine.

Metroid
1986
Literally the first thing I ever heard about Metroid was that when you beat the game, it turns out (spoiler alert, I guess) that you're a woman.  I bought it as soon as I could, and it quickly became my favorite game.  It still remains my all-time favorite game series.

Some time around 1988, I actually played outside as Samus Aran.  This memory sticks out because I would have been around 15, which is well after I had outgrown that sort of play.

Aliens
1987
My maternal Grandmother died in 1987, and at one point I was given a box of her old books to see if I wanted to read any of them.  I picked out Alien, the novelization of the 1979 movie.  Of course I liked it so much that I had to see the movie, and the sequel Aliens, and now they're two of my favorite movies.

What makes them so much better than your standard horror/sci-fi movies?  Well the creature design is part of it, but Ripley is another big factor.  In the second movie she was such a badass, even today she's the go-to character when people are trying to think of good female action heroes.

Maniac Mansion
1987
I loved this game for the Commodore 64, along with its spiritual sequel, Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders.  Maniac Mansion had you pick a team of three characters right from the beginning, and I almost always picked the female characters. 

Migraine Headaches

1986-1988

For about a year and a half, I suffered daily migraine headaches.  At the time I attributed it to stress – a lot of difficult things were happening at once.  But looking back, I think it was clinical depression.  Basically I gave myself headaches because I needed a real symptom so I’d have an excuse not to get out of bed.  I can't prove it, but I believe at least part of my depression was gender related.  I will blog more thoroughly about this later.

Newsweek - Is This Child Gay?
1992
The February 24, 1992 issue of Newsweek had an article about whether homosexuality was nature or nurture.  I never read the article, but the idea stuck with me.  I still didn't know I was trans, but I knew I was feminine, and I came up with my own theory:  Maybe scientists think there's a gene that's only present in gay people, but actually it's just found in people who act like the opposite sex.  I had the idea that maybe I had that gene, even though I was straight.

JediMUD
1992-1993
In college I was addicted to an online game called JediMUD.  But was I addicted to the game itself, or to the fact that I could walk around and be seen as the opposite sex?  Even when people spoke to me out of character, I still pretended to be a woman in real life.  I didn't know why I did that, but I couldn't stop.  I just needed to be seen as female, both in and out of character.

Because of this, one could argue that my trans issues were responsible for my poor academic performance, leading to my leaving college, and never finding a high paying job.

Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger
1994-1995
Two of my favorite RPGs.  Both allow you to build your own active party from a larger pool of characters, and I almost always used the female characters more than the males.  Even if they weren't always the most powerful characters.

Mulan
1998
This is one of my favorite Disney movies, even though, objectively, it's not that great.  I identify with Mulan more than any other Disney character.  The scenes where she's trying to fit in with the men remind me so much of myself trying to act male.  Also the way she's terrified of being discovered and outed, especially in the bathing scene.  The whole story reminded me of the Bounty Hunter stories I would play with my friend as a child.

NeverWinter Nights
2003-2006
This was the game I was playing when my egg cracked.  I bought NeverWinter Nights about a year after it came out.  I never really got into the main quest, but the online mode was fantastic.  I played on a server called "The Silver Marches", which required players stayed in character.  I enjoyed creating characters with full backstories, with well-defined (if shallow) personalities that made it easier to roleplay.

The characters I played most often:
Brynwyn Elswyth, an elf archer with a bubbly personality.
Dervish, a human fighter who was constantly trying to prove herself.
Madeline Starkraven, a former pirate with mental issues.

During this time I made an online friend.  He lived in Mexico, but in my time zone, so we were often online at the same time.  He taught me a lot about D&D and its lore.  I didn't specifically tell him I was female IRL, but he assumed it early on and I never corrected him.  After a while, we started talking outside the game as well.  We sent a lot of e-mails back and forth, and we kept corresponding even after we quit the Silver Marches.

Again, I just couldn't help myself.  It wasn't enough to be female in game, I had to let people think I was female in real life as well.  I don't know how else to say it - I simply couldn't tell people I was male.  It was a complete mental block. 

Realizing I had a problem, I explored this feeling, trying to sort out exactly why it was so important to me.  I started doing some googling, and for the first time I came across the terms "transgender" and "gender dysphoria".  This was my epiphany, the moment my egg really cracked open.  The more I read, the more I realized I wasn't learning new information - I was just learning the proper words for feelings I had felt all my life.

I did reveal I was male to my online friend, and he was very accepting.  We're still friends today.

Snopes Message Board
10/5/2005
My first "coming out" post was on the snopes message board, in the "Letters You Wish You Could Send" topic.  It was a bit longer before I worked up the courage to actually start coming out to people I knew.

This Blog
1/26/2006
This is when I posted my first blog on the subject. Around the same time I came out to a lot of friends and family.

Therapy
2006-2008-ish
To sort out my issues, I went to both a psychiatrist and a psychologist.  The first psychiatrist I went to couldn't really help me.  He was great at his job, but he didn't have much experience with gender issues, and after a few sessions he admitted I should find someone else.  So I asked someone at the support group who they use, and they gave me a name.  I saw that psychologist for about two years.  Then my insurance changed and I could no longer afford it.

Makeup
7/8/2006
This isn't the first time I left the house en femme, but the first time it was really successful.  A friend of mine did the makeup job, and she did fantastic work.  Unfortunately, I think I look like one of my aunts, who is bigoted.

I went out to a meeting of my transgender support group, and several of them complimented my makeup.  It made me happy, but I didn't go to many more meetings of that group.  It just felt depressing.   When you put that many depressed people in a room together, the depression takes on an air of its own, and it hangs like a cloud.

Nashville Pride
6/2/2007
I dressed as a woman and went to Nashville Pride, which was held in Centennial Park that year.  I had a great time, but there was also an element that was emotionally scarring.  While I was walking from my car to the event, I overheard a child ask their parent, "Why is that man dressed that way?"  The parent answered, "Don't look at him, honey."  I haven't dressed out since.

Atlanta Pride
6/24/2007
We made a special trip to Atlanta to go to their pride festival.  My intention was to dress out again.  My cousin offered to let us sleep at her house so we didn't have to pay for a hotel.  When I warned her I planned to dress as a woman before leaving her house the morning of Pride, suddenly they were busy that weekend and we couldn't stay.  Imagine that.

So we did stay at a hotel, but on the morning of the festival I decided not to dress out anyway.  It was too hot, and I didn't want to take the extra time to get ready.  

Dungeons & Dragons
11/22/2008
This is the first time I played in D&D 4th edition.  I was no longer going to go support group meetings, or seeing a therapist, and I hadn't put on women's clothing in a year.  I was very close to suicide at the time, but instinctively I knew what I needed to do to save my life.  I looked for a D&D group.

I've been playing D&D semi-regularly for 10 years now.  By living vicariously through my female D&D characters, I scratch that itch that dressing up used to fix.  It's not perfect, and I'll probably pay for it later, but for now it keeps me going.  I still have my ups and downs, and sometimes I seek additional support.  Blogging helps me purge my inner demons, and I've had a lot of help from people on websites like reddit and Tumblr.

Today I've given up on ever transitioning.  Maybe if I wind the lottery or something, but right now I have to focus on other issues, like money and my spouse's health.