I was born into a male body in Dayton, Ohio in 1951 to seemingly normal parents whose main claim to fame was an astounding propensity to ignore the blatantly obvious for a combined total of seventy years [thirty five years per parent]. On my first day in hospital nursery, lying under my blue little boy blanket amidst the bright lights and caterwauling of the other less evolved babies, I discovered to my great embarrassment that a gross injustice had been perpetrated upon my person. Dismissed by medical professionals as just another noisy, needy life unit, I was thus condemned to continue my transgendered vigorous ranting and raving for the next forty-five years. Yes, it’s true….
I was born the world’s youngest humanist.
For the first fifteen years, I spent much time alone in the passionate pursuit of cross-dressing, including wearing my mother’s frosted orange lipstick–definitely not my color and dangerously difficult to remove. Toothpaste barely touched it. My mom still claims that she never noticed anything amiss. Ever her of that river in Egypt, Mom?
In 1965, as I entered high school, Genderless Hades as I fondly thought of it, my consciousness was pummeled into chaos by a tidal wave of the dreaded testosterone. and I went quietly insane
Nineteen sixty-nine was momentous for two reasons. I graduated from high school and I discovered that alcohol and barbiturates, at least in the short term, erased thoughts of suicide. Having discovered this apparent panacea, I continued to use and abuse them in combination with anything else that numbed my brain for many years. Looking back, it was high school society, despite it’s stultifying cultural imperatives, that provided the only source of cohesion in my otherwise tenuous grasp on reality. Consequently, throughout the following year, I languished in a vacuum where my only goal was to remain numb.
Then in 1970, I made the singular BIGGEST MISTAKE of my life. I married the wrong person for the wrong reasons. This debacle lasted six years and produced more bad energy than I thought existed in the on the entire planet. It also produced two lovely, brainwashed children who, despite my best efforts at reconciliation, refuse to have anything to do with me. By the time I extricated myself from the relationship, whatever self esteem I may have possessed had been obliterated. Stomped into dust by forces of abuse and ignorance, I was a mere shell of a human whose only goal was the annihilation of this unbearable pain through the ingestion of various random combinations of all manner of licit and illicit drugs.
In 1977, I stuck out my thumb and hit the open road in a futile effort to distance myself from my pain. Eventually I hit the 10,000-mile mark for the decade but to my dismay, pain had run a tight race and was waiting for me as I crossed the finish line. By 1980 I had run out of the few options available to me and was resigned to spending my last few coins drinking in pool hall…waiting for the cruel hand of fate to bring the curtain down.
Then on a night in the bar that seemed like any other biker bar/pool hall, as I sat nursing a draft beer, my future soul mate and love of my life walked into my life. We talked a little and I asked her for a ride to my apartment. She fell asleep at the wheel and I drove us the rest of the way from the passenger seat. This fortuitous meeting occurred in April of 1980. And I’m very happy to say that we have been together as soulmates since that night.
The poor girl thought she was getting a man and it took me twenty some years to gently explains the realities of transsexualism to her. When she finally understood, we cried together and she said she would remain at my side. An angel of compassion and support, she is full of transcendent love for me and has been my best friend, lover and confidant through more highs and lows than I thought possible for two human beings. Without the uplifting, rehumanizing, spiritual quality of the love she’s given me, I would not be here on this earthly plane.
Since our fateful meeting that night we have resided in Florida, Tennessee, California and finally my spiritual home of New Mexico where I now operate my own housekeeping service.
In 2001, with my soul mate’s understanding and compassion, I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand where I received my re-formation from an outie to an innee–the surgery was performed by the inimitable artist and Doctor, Preecha Tiewtranon in a flawless, rebirthing process known to most people as Sexual Reassignment Surgery, or SRS.
As a post-op, 21rst century Two-Spirits medicine woman, writer, agitator, revolutionary, progressive, Agent Provocateur, I dedicate myself, through the process of writing and speaking my transcendent, humanist vision, to be a voice for those who still suffer and languish their ‘closet of dreams’.
