One might think that, with all that's happened in the last few days, I would have been more actively editing my diary, adding to it as things have happened. I'm not disillusioned with the project, but in a strange way, the things that have happened have somehow failed to feel genuinely significant.

I went Monday to have my name and gender legally changed. I arrived at the courthouse at 07h00, well before anything opened, and I had a lot of waiting around to do before I could start anything. I had a few pieces of my paperwork out of place, but I was all set to see the judge at 09h30 and have my new identity intact by 10h00.

It didn't work that way.

To give a brief sidebar to this discussion, let me point you to the Christie Lee Littleton Homepage. To summate, some time back in Houston, Christie Lee Littleton's husband died of medical malpractice, and Littleton sued her doctor for wrongful death. Their defense had nothing to do with the details of the case. They relied entirely on the fact that Christie Lee Littleton was a post-operative transsexual and that, because she was born male, her marriage to her husband was illegal and thus she had no right to sue.

The trial court sided with the defense, the appellate court agreed and the Texas Supreme Court refused to review the case.

In short, transsexuals in the state of Texas are now recognized only as being of their sex at birth. When I went before the judge, he very apologetically crossed out the line of the Order Granting Change of Name of Adult that said that I was female. I did show him my therapist's letter requesting the change, but he said his hands were tied by a higher court and a lack of any hard law to point to the contrary.

Four state workers said the same thing at the Department of Public Safety when I went to get my driver's license changed on Tuesday.

This puts me, and every other transsexual in the state, in an odd predicament. I now legally have a feminine name and am presenting full-time as a woman, but all of my documentation still has the old sex on it, which means that if
I do ever have to use it for anything, I open myself up for questions and the like. The questions don't bother me, but it makes "living full-time in the chosen gender," one of the requirements of the real-life test I've supposedly started, very difficult.

Come to think of it, I have started it, haven't I? Last Friday, my human resources department held a meeting with my coworkers and a counselor and explained my situation to them all. I've been dressing for work now for three days, and every comment I've gotten has been positive. I don't think there's anyone left in my life that doesn't know. A few people at work have had trouble adjusting to the new pronouns, but they've gotten my name right
at least. 

At any rate, the whole matter of the courts and my legal gender have escalated something that had been reviewed once before. Jess and I have often talked about moving out of Texas; the weather here is extremely inhospitable and the people in general only slightly less so. When two of my closest friends detached from me emotionally, we decided that it was time to start looking at moving. With this recent development in the legal system, it's almost
certainly time to move.

I've contacted the head of Human Resources for my company's New York office. They've got some positions open for which I almost certainly qualify, and I've given her my resume. She said she'd contact me later this week or early next to let me know how things look. My HR department here is talking with the insurance company to see if they'll cover my hormones and bloodwork and such for transition, but I won't know more about that for a few days. Right now, I'm just biding my time, waiting to hear back about all the questions I've asked.

I once described this sort of situation as "living in a holding pattern." I'm not losing any ground, but I'm not getting anywhere, either. I'm just... waiting, watching and learning. I did it once for six years, and I hated it. I hope I don't have to do it too long now. 

It's been almost a month since I've updated this, and while I can't say a lot has happened, enough has to warrant a rather large update. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this discussion, but I'll figure it out by the time I get there.

The situation at work is holding steady, I suppose. The person in HR with whom I've been working at furthering my transition there was out of the office through Thursday the day before I went on vacation last week, and so unless he scheduled and held a meeting with my higher-ups without me, nothing more has been done about that. If he did, that would be fine as well, but they'll probably have waited for me to return. The idea of going back to work, and not being myself there... I've honestly dreaded returning to work, especially after this last vacation.

That brings me to the major topic of this post: my vacation. On 5 July, Jess and I took off for Chicago to spend four days with a group of our friends from the Transformation Story Archive. We've both been connected to it now for at least three years, and that's actually where the two of us met, so we'd been waiting eagerly for this year's gathering. 

When I went to last year's Bash, it was in the guise of the person that, back then, I still thought I was. I actually served as the minister for two friends' wedding and spent three days in close proximity with several dozen people that all knew me under my old identity. Over the last year, I'd shed that skin and now had to face most of them again as myself. I was a bit nervous, but very quickly I learned I had no reason to worry.

The engine on one of the planes on the way to Chicago clunked disturbingly as we taxied for take-off, so we had to change planes and arrived at the hotel for the Bash two hours behind schedule. We looked around for everyone that was supposed to be there, but everyone was apparently out to dinner. About midnight, we decided to go to bed, and that was when everyone for whom we had been looking earlier decided to come by our room and see if we were there. It was almost Murphian in timing; I was very amused.

The next day was the opening ceremony, such as it was, and we gathered in the conference room. We did a round of introductions, and as everyone was rattling off names and reasons for coming, I wondered at first what I would say. In the end, there was only one thing to say: "My name is Kristina Davis, and I'm responsible for bringing Mao to the Bash." 

Here, I should digress a moment and talk about Mao. Mao is.. well, it's an evil game. I would explain the rules, but that's against the rules. I can say that much, at least. If you've never played, I highly recommend it. The only real way to learn is to play. If you do a websearch for it, you'll find several rulesets for Mao, which I consider a violation of the rules. At any rate, I brought two decks of cards to last year's Bash and approximately two
dozen people at various times spent some amount of time in the basement of Phil's apartment playing this game. We developed something of a reputation, as did the game, for being very very evil.

Needless to say, my introduction received a round of applause and catcalls from various audience members.

From there... I could go into detail but the truth is that what I remember most is not any given event but the general feeling of the Bash itself. I made a character for a Justifiers game but ended up not playing in the game
itself, going to dinner with my sister Joanne and her boyfriend Mike instead. I helped host a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and managed to get the police called on us, though we had finished and left by the time they arrived. I ate out far too much and had a wonderful time with all of my friends. I brought several games that never got played and kept talking about scheduling a time to play them that never happened. One of Jess's
friends came down from Michigan and the two of them got a chance to talk for a while.

Ultimately, I got exactly what I wanted. Shortly before I left, one of the girls in my therapy group asked, as a general question, what we would each consider "freedom" or "success". What was it that we wanted out of transition? I said, at the time, that what I wanted was for everyone around me to know the truth and treat me as I wanted to be treated anyway, as a woman.

This is precisely what I got at the Bash.

Several people apparently all told Jess how much more natural, how much happier I appeared than last year. Everyone called me Kris or Kristy. The one person who used my old online name apologized as soon as I asked him not to do so, and he had no problems adjusting. Everyone had their pronouns right. One person who had expressed concerns before about my ability to pass pulled me aside and told me how good I looked and that all of his fears were gone, having seen me in person. 

I don't think I could've asked for more.

Coming home was painful. I didn't want to leave. I have a few close friends in Dallas, but not nearly so many as I had there. I think we all wished we lived closer and that the Bash and other trips weren't our only means of seeing each other. It makes the get-togethers special, but in the end I think we'd all rather live closer to each other than we do. 

I can't wait to go back next year.

Today's update comes as a case of too busy living life to talk about it.

My sister Jennifer was here visiting for the last week, and it was wonderful. I don't really have many friends now in the area, and the chance to see another person who knows and totally accepts what's going on was great. She was only able to stay a week, but those seven days were a vacation for everyone, even if I did have to go to work the whole time.

The chance to go and visit friends is the sort of thing I really miss with all of this, really. One of my fondest memories of the time I spent in Perth is of going out to see other people. I have a lot of friends down there that I hardly ever see. I keep in touch with some of them online, but I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to meet them
face-to-face again. That I do miss, and Jason understands; he talks the same way about Ann Arbor.

I have too many friends scattered too far across too many continents, I'm afraid. I would love it if, one day, we could all find a way to gather in one place somewhere and make a little bubble away from the rest of the world. Even if we all had jobs and lives and requirements to leave it occasionally, we would all come home to the same place.

I realize it's a nice dream but unlikely to become real. That doesn't mean I'm not going to work towards it happening.

---

This section was going to be a rant against the general apathy and blindness of humanity and an ardent cry wishing that people would take the time to look at things for a moment. It's... turned into something else and I'm not sure what, yet.

I have gone places dressed in a nice blouse and skirt, freshly shaven in all the important places, wearing a bit of cosmetics, eyebrows plucked, voice carefully controlled, in short having handled every detail that I could think to handle, passed over a credit card with my new name on it and had a salesclerk say, "thank you, sir".

If it were malice, I could fight it, but it's not. It's apathy. They don't even look at the card, most of them. They just see the height and the flat chest and they try to ignore everything else, or else they just don't see it at all. However, when I try to correct them, I feel like it's not going to do any good.

I said when I started that I wasn't going to lie and claim that I was never male. Nobody would believe that. What bothers me is the number of people who can't be bothered to look beyond the fact that I'm flat-chested and unusually tall and assume that I'm male despite my presentation. 

I know some of the girls in my therapy group who have gotten breastforms. I always said before that I didn't want to do that, that it would feel like lying if I wore them, trying to actively sway people's perceptions of me. However, isn't that what I do when I wear certain outfits as opposed to others? Isn't that the main reason I wear foundation, to hide the telltale sign of shadow? I already take certain steps to push the needle off of androgyny and further towards the feminine end of the scale. Why have I resisted that step?

I think in part it's because I've felt that it would be money wasted. One day, I will have my own and I won't have to fake them. I know in part it's because I'm still having to shave my chest and that's disheartening. Also, there's the frustration factor of having to take that step. It isn't enough, most of the time, to wear a skirt or a dress or cosmetics to get recognized. At the point that I feel like I'm doing it not for myself but for others, then I'm doing it for the wrong reasons.

I would be doing it for myself, though. Right now, every time I go somewhere and someone calls me "sir", I flinch and get upset, even if just a little bit. If someone takes my credit card and doesn't even see that the name on it is clearly a female name, it bothers me. If breastforms will sway the common herd into treating me how I wish to be treated, maybe I should consider getting a pair.

I think what bothers me is the same thing that prompted me to start therapy in the first place. I'd know, under the clothing, that they're fake. It wouldn't be me, it'd be something put there to convince other people what's there. That's ultimately the determinant. They wouldn't be me. I can live with my body for now because I know I'm changing it. I can live with being flat-chested and mistaken for male because one day I won't be.

I just wish it wouldn't take so long.

Yesterday, I decided that I was going to fold my old homepage into this one. I've been trying to integrate my old identity into my new one, and that site is really one of the last artifacts up from my old name that remains online.

I started, as I thought was best, by going through and editing all of the HTML so the style of the pages would match the rest of my new site. I found that I wasn't such a good coder then, though, so I had a lot of code buried
in the pages themselves that I needed to change. Quite innocently, I started going through and fixing things.

Then I started reading what I had written.

This is where things got a bit strange. You see, on one of the writing forums of which I'm a member, there are a lot of shared settings in which many authors will all write stories, and it's very common in those settings to pattern many or all of the main characters on the authors themselves. Thus, a good number of the stories on my homepage all feature me.

The only catch is that they're not me. They're the person that I tried very hard to be, and for a while believed I could be for the rest of my life. I spent a lot of energy writing those stories almost as a subconscious reinforcement of the mask I wore. There I was, immortalized on paper, so to speak. I even wrote stories about my ex-boyfriend, before he asked me not to include him any more.

Reading back over what I had written, and who I had tried to be, I felt the distinct embarrassment that people get when their parents show off baby photos of them to others.

I couldn't very well say that the stories were never written. Too many people have seen them, and they would know even if I disavowed any memory of them. Yet, it didn't feel right to include them in my current homepage. They're a snapshot of the past, in the same way that my high school graduation photo and my driver's licence picture are. They were all things I believed were once true, and in that I stand by them, but they aren't true now. They aren't me now.

When I started this transition, I did so with the statement that I would never try to hide who I was, but that I wouldn't let that person dominate my life. I would learn from my past, but I wouldn't live there. As such, I'm not going to take down my old homepage, but I'm not going to update it any longer, and the stories that were there will remain there.

I am a work forever in progress, and those stories are, to a great extent, a snapshot of a history I outgrew.

Yikes. There's something to be said for being too busy living life to talk about it, but this is a bit excessive.

Over the weekend after losing my friend of six years, I decided that nothing was holding me back except my own concerns and I decided to proceed with hormones. After talking with a few friends, I decided that the way to go was through an endocrinologist that specialized in such things. It would seem to be the best choice, neh? Doing this required getting a referral from my primary-care physician, since I've got to deal with managed care.

Last Monday, I went and saw my new doctor about getting a referral to see an endocrinologist. She gave me the referral without any problems. Then I spent two days finding out that there are no endocrinologists around that will take my insurance who do hormone replacement therapy. In a fit of desparation, I called my doctor back and found out that she's had several other patients who have all done HRT through her directly, without an endocrinologist, one of whom who had even gone through the final surgery itself.

Now, the hitch is that she's tried to get insurance to cover her patients' lab work and such for this sort of treatment, and they just won't. I don't know why they won't; they claim it's unnecessary treatment. They obviously
don't have anyone who's been through the experience themselves. At any rate, she said that I'd have to pay for the expenses out of my own wallet. At that point, I asked her if this sort of thing would be covered if I'd been born a woman. She said it'd be considered a standard medical procedure so yes it would.

At that point, the plan crystalized. I'd been planning to move forward with hormones and then transition at work once I started to show. However, doing it that way would be several hundred dollars out of my pocket. Instead, I
planned to transition at work first, change my name legally and start my real-life test. After that, as a legal female, the insurance company would have to pay for my treatment. In theory.

I'd like to move to Theory; everything works there.

At any rate, my doctor put me on a "starter" prescription of estradiol 1mg once a day and spironolactone 50mg twice a day. She said in about three months or so, she'll do the baseline and prescribe something stronger.

It's a slow start, but it's a start, and it'll be much faster soon.

Today I think I had what has to have been the least painful separation in my life.

For some time now, two of my friends and I, along with a few others with whom I'm only mildly acquainted, had been meeting regularly for a regularly scheduled role-playing session. I've been role-playing, in various forms, most of my life. In fact, one of the first clues that something in my life needed addressing was the simple fact that my female characters outnumbered my male ones nine-to-one and always felt more comfortable. At any rate, though, tonight was supposed to be a game night, so I called to make sure that the game was still supposed to run tonight.

Now, I feel it only fair to mention first that, prior to a month ago, the two abovementioned friends were the only real ties to Texas I had. I didn't want to leave them behind. I knew I could find a job anywhere, and I knew that I could find professionals in the fields in which I needed them to help me through my transition, but I didn't want to lose these two friendships, both of which had lasted over six years, one of which had lasted sixteen.

The one that had lasted sixteen ended, more or less, two weeks ago.

Tonight, the other asked, in the tone of a concerned friend, "Look, could you please not wear a dress when you come over any more? I get very distracted, and honestly it's somewhat disturbing to me."

Now, I'm usually very easy-going, but I'm also trying to learn to live my life by my standards and my rules. I asked him if he would ask the same of the other woman in the group. He said he wouldn't have to do so. I asked
why it was an issue. He said it was just the way he was raised, and that the blouse-and-jeans were fine but that the dresses and skirts bothered him. We spent a few minutes beating around the verbal bush, and ultimately
he admitted that he just wasn't dealing with my transition well and that he had in his mind a set image of me as who I used to be and that he had no interest or, so he claimed, capacity to change it.

This is where we hit our impasse. If he had said, "I'm having trouble adjusting to your changes, please give me some time," I could've said no problem and been as accomodating as possible. What he said, though, was basically that he wasn't interested in trying and wanted me to change my behavior to accomodate him. I explained in careful, simple language why, if I had to put on a certain outfit, or even avoid putting on a certain
outfit, whenever I wanted to interact with him, then I was faking reality for someone else's benefit, and that I couldn't in good conscience do that.

He said in response that he understood my position but that he didn't feel it fair to claim that he could improve when he didn't think it possible and that he didn't think it fair that I force him to be uncomfortable. I agreed but said that the only means of guaranteeing that neither of us felt uncomfortable in each other's presence, if all these facts were immutably true, was to stop interacting with each other.

At that, he got very quiet and said he was only being honest. I said I knew that and that I respected him for it. I do, actually. I respect him greatly for refusing to lie to me and telling me a truth he didn't think I wanted to hear. I also respect him for standing by his beliefs. I don't agree with his beliefs, but they're not mind to make. The conversation ended quickly from there. He wished me luck in my future endeavors and I said that any
time he felt ready and willing to attempt to face his limitation, I would be available. I made sure he had my phone number and my e-mail address, and then we said our goodbyes and ended the call.

Only afterwards, sitting in an IHOP with Jason, did I realize that, now, I really have no ties left to Texas. My parents are here, but they'll be moving when my mother finishes her degree and won't even be here to hold me. I have a few other friends, but I see them so infrequently that they don't really count as a motivation. I have the job, but that's something I could get anywhere. I have the professional relationships, but I could rekindle them with others. In short, after my endocrinologist's appointment in July, I have no reason to stay in Texas, and many reasons to leave.

I think it's time I spoke with my therapist about getting my name-and-gender letter and starting my real-life test. I've got nothing holding me back now.

Today's entry promises to be a hodge-podge of thoughts. My mind's been all over the map today.

Last night, I officially acquired my hormone letter and found out that there's a third document in the path, a request for gender change. Apparently, this is the piece of paper to take to get my driver's licence to read "female". I didn't know about that one until recently; I had thought before that that couldn't be done until much later, or was just done on an ad hoc basis.

I may need that letter sooner than later, though. I had a job interview on Monday with another company at which I both requested a twenty percent raise over my current salary and told the interviewer that I would be coming to
work as myself. He didn't seem to bat an eyelash over either one. In fact, he seemed more bothered by the salary requirement than the dress code. I have a followup interview with them at the end of next week some time. I have no idea how that will go, but I plan to be myself for the interview and see what transpires from there.

I made my appointments both to get my referral and to see an endocrinologist today from work. If I had known that I could make the appointment without having the letter, I would've started a week ago trying to arrange it. As it is, I won't be able to go until July. This is mildly disappointing, because Jason and I are going to a get-together with some friends in Chicago around July 4, and I had hoped that I could have started hormones by the time of
the event, which will henceforth be called the Bash, as it's known to its participants. My appointment's on the twelfth. It's a bit disappointing, but not as much as frustrating that I have to wait so long.

Then, to wrap off today, on the way home from work, I heard a radio commercial for a news broatcast that set my mind in motion. The story itself didn't have anything to do with the subsequent memories, but the graphic imagery described provoked a bit of nausea and sympathy pains, and that's what brought back the past.

When I was young, very young, before I learned to present a different face to everyone and pretend to be people I wasn't to get along, I hated watching scary movies. I didn't enjoy them at all. I used to have nightmares if I tried to watch them. One of my friends, in fact the one who recently asked me to remove all references from my site, took it on as a task to "cure" me of this. In fact, this person took it on as a task to "cure" me of many things, the list of which would be longer than I care to remember.

Now, twenty years later, as I begin to unlearn all of the unnecessary add-ons to my life, I wonder how much of what I presented to the world is a result of that person's actions. At the time, I saw that person as a savior, a path
that wasn't my father's. On the other hand, I didn't have many friends as a child and this was well before I had learned to be my own person. I became very co-dependent on the few friends I had and was easily manipulated by them. The fear of losing them as friends and being alone let them talk me into doing a lot of things that I would never have done on my own. 

I wonder, honestly, how much of the false faces I tried to wear for so long are a result of that manipulation, not just by that one person but by the people I considered my friend who, for the most part, were really just interested in me because I let myself be manipulated by them. Was this person a friend? Yes. This does not change the fact that this person spent a lot of time bending me, ostensibly for my own good. Now, I can't look
back and say that it was. 

What matters now, though, is moving forward, not dwelling on the past. I enjoy reflecting on it, but I can't live there.

Today, I had what is likely to be the first of odd encounters until such time as I'm totally through the process. It shouldn't have been so totally unexpected, but it caught me thoroughly off-guard.

I ran into my cubemate from work today at the mall.

Now, this wouldn't normally be an issue. Running into someone from work while away from it is something that most people would probably consider a nifty coincidence. However, at the time, it was more like finding one's pastor at the corner pub and not being Irish Catholic. As I noted above, I should've expected that eventually it would happen, but for some reason I just sort of lived off in my own little bubble somewhere, that "work" was this isolated segment of my life into which I occasionally had to foray in order to keep making money so that I could pay for everything else.

The exchange itself was brief. He nodded and said, "Oh, hi," as I walked past; I nodded and said hello back. I suppose the blouse and jeans I had on could be mistaken for androgynous-enough clothing. Considering I still
get sirred on a regular basis, it's almost certain he didn't think anything of it, though I'll find on Monday.

The funny thing, now, is that about a minute after I walked past, the first thing I thought was, "At least I wasn't wearing a skirt!" Ten seconds after that, I realized how ludicrous that sounded. My letter of approval for hormones is written. I'm making the appointment on Monday to see my doctor and get a referral to an endrocrinologist. I'll be full-timing within a few months, and barring someone giving me double my current salaryto move I'll be dressing as myself at work soon enough. He's going to see me in skirts eventually, so would've been wrong with him seeing me in one today?

I think there, again, it was the shock value. I just wasn't mentally prepared to tell him. I got my new credit card, with my real name on it, and there've been a few places where I was hesitant to use it in case someone that's known me for a while asked questions while I wasn't ready to answer them. They're all people who'd eventually find out, but I haven't always been in a mood to answer questions. I'm not really trying to hide anything, but I'm also not going around and waving it under people's noses either. I'm just trying to be myself.

In hindsight, I almost wish that I had been wearing something more obviously feminine. I probably would've been in a bigger state of shock right now, but it would've been one less person to have to tell when the time comes to be myself at work. It would've made that hurdle one notch easier. I'll still jump it when the time comes, but it'd look less imposing.

As usual, I'm late in putting this on the page. The events detailed here happened two or three days ago, but I guess when I'm living my life, I have no time to talk about it. Now that I'm at a lax moment, I can spare a few
minutes to type this into the computer.

This one is actually two events combined, one of which is new, the other of which is just proof of an earlier concept. Both, however, are important, and I'm very glad they happened.

First, I got my new Visa today, one with my real name on it. Officially, the bank that gave it to me doesn't know it's "mine"; they just know that there're two cards attached to this account, and that someone named Kristina R. Davis is now authorized to use that number. I wouldn't think they'd care even if they did, though. I'm not using the card for fraudulent purposes; it's my name, so why would I want to start my new life with a bad credit rating? At any rate, I'd been waiting for this card for over a month, and so when it arrived I went on a bit of Retail Therapy,
which turned out to be a good thing for my spirits.

All of my friends have warned me of the evils of credit cards. I've seen the damage that they can do to people. I have a debit card, and it boggles a lot of my friends' minds that I could prefer spending money I don't have to money that I know is mine. To start, I get bonus points towards my preferred airline with my credit card; I don't get that with my debit card. Second, I don't let balances accumulate; I pay everything off every month and so there's never an interest fee. Third, I don't carry any cards with an annual fee, so I have all the benefits and none of the hassle. I do know that I have to budget myself, and I do, but that's not as much of a hassle as long as I keep current with my bills. The one thing my debit card does that my credit card won't is not charge me fees at ATMs and reimburse me third-party charges at them, so it does have its uses.

Second, related to the first, is an incident that happened Thursday night. I had picked Jason up from work, and we had decided to stop at Starbucks on the way home for coffee. Normally, I would prefer not to frequent such
places, but there are no independent coffeehouses within reasonable driving distance of our apartment, so for coffee it's Starbucks or do-it-yourself, which would mean buying equipment for which we don't have the room right now.

This particular Starbucks is one of those conglomerate stores that has a Barnes and Noble and a Software Etc. attached to it, or maybe it's attached to them, or perhaps they were all just squished together by Dobbs or
something. At any rate, before we got coffee, we decided to look in the software store, and of course being computer junkies that we both are, we found things that we wanted to get. So, without really thinking about it too
much, we picked up our purchases, we went to the counter, and I plopped my shiny new Visa soen on the counter.

The counterclerk diligently rang up the purchases, glanced at the card and looked up at me with placid, cow-in-front-of-steamroller eyes and said, "And could I see your driver's licence?"

Now, I am not an unsavvy shopper. I do know that a few places require a secondary form of identification to help guard against credit card fraud, and I applaud them this action. However, it never occured to me that I would be caught flatfooted like this. My new card is wonderful because I can sign my real name to things. However, I have nothing else that matches it, and so I literally didn't know what to do. I said something mumbled
about not having it handy, and the guy looked at me with that too-bad-not expression and said, "I'm sorry, but I have to see your licence; it's company policy."

At this point, Jason stepped up and, in a calm manner, said, "Let me set this straight. Her driver's licence doesn't match. The state won't recognize it yet, but that is her legal name."

At this, the counterdrone, his manager, and I were all sort of startled into silence for about two seconds, and then this incredible warmth ran through me as the salesclerk fumbled a bit and looked helplessly at his boss. The boss looked at me, then at the card, then at the total, and he shrugged and said, "Alright, just match the signature to the card's."

They matched, of course, though my hand was shaking a bit from excitement. 

Later, Jason said to me he was really excited to see me using my new card. He said it didn't and shouldn't matter how I was dressed or that I hadn't shaved since that morning, that the important thing was that that was the name I wanted to use and that was how I wanted to be addressed and that others should have the decency and courtesy to do so. I felt validated. I felt vindicated. He said to them what I lacked the courage to say at the
moment I needed to say it. 

I felt loved and protected. It's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Today, I made my first real work faux pas. This being Monday, I spent the last few days out enjoying myself, and last night I finally got around to repainting my nails; I hadn't in weeks and they were getting cracked and chipped. I found a lovely shade of purple, nice and reflective, and it matches one of my outfits perfectly.

I forgot to remove it before work.

Now, I've had my ears pierced. I carry a purse. I've styled my hair a bit differently. Nobody's commented on any of those. Someone, however, noticed the polish and asked me about it. I was caught totally flatfooted. I had honestly forgotten about it, until he called my attention to it with a stare and a comment on the order of, "Whoa, dude, what's with your nails?"

I just said I'd forgotten to remove the polish from them, which was true, and he didn't press things any further, but it was kind of a telling point for me. I had completely forgotten that I'd had it on. I don't even think about cosmetics or things as something I have to remove at the end of the weekend. The discord between who I am and who I have to try to be for work is getting harder to manage.

Thankfully, I don't really have an act through which I'm expected to perform, unless you count the bathroom situation and having my old name on the cubicle wall. The head of Human Resources knows, but I haven't done anything to further things beyond that yet. His response was positive, but I'm admittedly still nervous about it. I work for a military subcontractor, and as such I'm not sure how receptive the personnel will be. I'm not going to let them stop me from being myself, but I'd like to minimize the problems, both to myself and those around me.

---

Here, my mind slipped a gear.

Someone very close to me has started hormones, and I'm very happy for her and I wanted to take the time here to say how glad I was that she was finally officially on that road, and that I was a bit envious of her, even though I'll be starting myself soon. I wanted to gush about things for a bit and say how proud I was of her.

Only after I thought about it for a few moments did I realize she might not want her name here in that context.

It has nothing to do with not wanting to be mentioned here. Far from it; I know she wouldn't mind me talking about her. I know she reads these pages and I know she'll read this when she gets the chance. It's that I have no
right to say things like that. It simply isn't my story to tell.

When I start them, I'll babble incessantly about them, I'm sure. It's going to make work that much more interesting for a while until I get used to them. That's me, though. I almost talked about someone else, and that's kind of overstepping a line somewhere, I'm sure, especially without her prior consent.

I don't even really think she'd mind people knowing that she had, but it's an odd thing, really, for people in our situation. There's a constant war between wanting people to treat us as we wish to be treated, and admitting
that we weren't born that way. Society still very much sees sex as an either-or proposition, and any attempt to blur the distinctions or cross the line between them is met with hostility, antipathy and resistence. Some people are incredibly supportive, like my parents have been, but most just don't understand and aren't really capable of understanding.

The person about whom I've wanted to gush happily here stands a wonderful chance of never being questioned about her past. Saying here that she started hormones would be an indicator, to someone who knew how to read
what was written, that all was not as it seemed, and while I don't mind if people know about me, it isn't my right to put her in that position.

So, why then am I talking about myself in such detail? I've thought about it a lot, actually. It would seem that if the ultimate goal is to never raise questions, then talking about the very subject that people don't understand doesn't make much sense, does it? Or does it?

I make a very poor liar. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. Ideally, what I'd like is for people to know my past and treat me how I wish to be treated anyway. I want it to be a nonissue. I think it's a quixotic goal, but it's the only one I could try to achieve in good conscience. Time will tell if it's achievable. I hope it is.

So much has happened in the last week. I should post these as they happen, but life is what happens while one makes other plans. Today I decided to finally sit down and cover everything. My life feels like it's moving forward
again.

First, and foremost, Jason proposed to me.

I'm going to put that one in a paragraph by itself, because it deserves it. I was in an emotional slump, and he and I had been cuddling. I said I was upset about how long it would take for me to get where I'm going, and he said to me, out of the blue, "Kristy, I'll be here until you get rid of me, hon. I'll be here however long it takes, and beyond, because I want to be with you." He looked a bit sheepish then, and he smiled and added, "I can't give you a ring, love. Just a promise to stand by you as long as you want me here."

I started crying on his shoulder at that point. It just felt so incredibly good, hearing him say that and knowing how much I meant to him, for him to say that to me. The actual question itself, much more in his style, came almost as an afterthought to that, but those were the important words. 

I said yes.

Right now, we can't legally do anything. It'll be a few years before any ceremony we could perform would be recognized, but that's not important. What's important, to me, is that there is someone in my life that accepts me for who I am and understands who I wish I to be, and is willing to stay with me through all of the trials ahead and beyond.

Having a family is the most wonderful feeling. After my last boyfriend, I thought I would never really feel part of that. I thought I had it with him, but I didn't, I don't get close to people easily; I have a few people with whom I'm very close and then a wide group of acquaintences, but not many "casual friends". Now, though, I have it again, and this time I know it's for who I am and not just who I think he wants me to be.

My life just continues to get better, the more myself I become.

---

Most of the rest are best addressed as side notes to the above. My therapist cleared me for hormones last Saturday. Hopefully it won't take her as long to get my recommendation letter for that as long as it took for her to get my walking letter. If it does, however, it's not really too much of a big deal; I have to wait for my new healthcare card from my insurance provider to arrive before I could schedule an appointment with the doctor she
recommended.

Jason also met my therapist, finally, and they seemed to hit it off really well, which I think is a good thing. We went in to talk about sex, because that's been something of a delicate situation, as I'm sure you could guess. Right now, I fluctuate between wanting the contact and intimacy and frustration and unhappiness at the end results of same. I enjoy it right up until the moment I think about what I'm doing, or what I've just done, and then suddenly I just feel awkward and uncomfortable. My therapist made some suggestions, and they've helped though it'll be a long time before those feelings go away.

I went back for my next laser treatment on my face, and I did my neck at the same time. I feel like a lobster right now but I've got aloe vera gel to put on it and that takes a lot of the stinging out of it. Hopefully I should only need one more round on my face, maybe two on my neck, and then I won't have any more problems there. It's too early to tell but I have high hopes. I just wish it weren't so expensive, but it's worth every penny.

My life is proceeding apace, ever improving.

Yesterday was a roller coaster.

To start, I had my first group therapy session. At the moment, there are four of us, but that number will probably change over time. I'm actually the youngest, though I'm not the earliest in the process so far. I actually learned a lot, with one group member who's been on hormones for a while now telling us about what it's like. She didn't really say anything that I hadn't already known, but it was good to hear it confirmed from someone else.

At the end of the session, my therapist gave me my walking letter. As Jason described it, it's my doctor's note saying, "Please excuse Kristina from being male". I liked that description a lot and so I'm keeping it, even if it isn't totally accurate. Actually, it's a note explaining that I'm currently in therapy for gender dysphoria and should be given all the rights and priviledges accorded any other female. Basically, it's a safeguard against people getting frustrated about me being in the ladies' room.

I came home from that on an emotional cloud, feeling wonderful. Jason and I sat around the apartment for a while, then we decided to go out to Souper Salad for early dinner. Here, I have to pause and say how much I like this place. It's cheap, filling and I can have the all-you-can-eat without feeling like I've blown my diet. The waitstaff knows us there; we go in about once a week, maybe twice.

Last night was supposed to be a role-playing game session with some of our friends, but after we ate we had a few hours to kill and so Jason and I decided that we could go out to one of the malls in the area that he hadn't
really seen yet. It was kind of a drive but we'd have lots of time there. 

Now, here let me interject that I've been out dressed before. I'm more or less fulltiming on the weekends. I'd never been out as dressed as yesterday, but I've had on skirts, blouses, femme-cut jeans, heels, cosmetics, what have you. I've been to restaurants, clubs, coffeehouses, out with friends, other malls, out to the movies, generally wherever. Sure, I've had people turn and stare, I've had people comment behind my back, and I've had people act surprised. They've always been the exception, though, and not the rule.

Last night, I felt like I was on display. I think literally half the people in the mall stopped what they were doing as I walked past to look, and I heard a lot more behind my back than I normally do. I don't think I was doing anything different, really. I just chalked it up to the mall itself. Fortunately, there isn't much at that mall that would require me to go back to it.

As we were leaving, though, someone took it upon himself to shout something from the window of his truck as he was driving past. He was technically accurate but factually incomplete. However, it put me in a very strange mood. I wasn't upset. I was frustrated and disappointed. It was the sort of misconception that I would have loved to correct, only I know that the type of person who yelled such a thing wouldn't have listened to reason.

The whole experience, actually, was like that. Anyone there could have said something to me and I would have gladly explained, but nobody wanted to know. All they knew was that something outside their realm of experience had made itself known, and they saw fit to point and stare and laugh. It wasn't that they did it. Other people have done that. It was the sheer number of people doing it, this time.

Jason and I tried to go to the game last night, but that didn't go so well. I was in an off mood, Jason wasn't much better and Mitch wasn't being very helpful. Things went from strained to patently absurd in about an hour and
Jason and I bowed out of it after that. When we got home, we got a hot shower and I pored over the events of the day and ended up ranting at him in the shower about everything.

I do plan on going back to that mall, dressed, partially because I haven't picked the Lane Bryant there clean yet, but also admittedly because I want the peace of mind knowing that I didn't let the negative experience ruin my enjoyment of the mall. I'm not going to let other people control my life. If I choose not to go there because there's nothing there I need or want, that's one thing. I'm not going to let my decision be based on the reactions of others.

Today's a vacation day for me, and after the weekend it's a good thing. I'm going to need it. I won't forget what happened over the last two days any time soon, and I have some wonderful permanent reminders.

The trip up was unexciting by itself, but with the knowledge that I was going to see Reeny, I could hardly contain myself. I didn't even really mind getting up at four in the morning to be at the airport at five to be on a plane at six, or having to fly through Atlanta. Boston Logan airport is apparently permanently under construction, kind of like Dallas-Fort Worth is, but much much worse.

After five hours of flying, I landed in Boston and then had to make my way to the car-rental place. That was more expensive than I was expecting, but I always forget things like insurance and gas-replacment policies and such, but I was expecting it and it was still worth it. Then I had about ninety minutes of driving from the airport out to Lurene's parents' place.

When I first saw her, it was almost a pleasantly tangible shock. For over six years, we've been there for each other, through good times and bad, supporting and helping and holding and being with each other. I've basically stood in loco parentis for her for six years, and even before she and I had recognized that fact or spoken about it, we were calling each other sister. Until Saturday, though, it had always been online or over the phone. Now, finally, it was in person.

I felt like I'd come home.

She hopped into the SUV that I'd rented (I'd requested an economy car but they didn't have any and I got this one for the same cost) and we went right to the mall. She popped a Crosby, Stills and Nash tape in to the player and she showed me the scenic route to get there. All the way up, we talked about about how good it was to see each other, and...

This is kind of strange, really. I couldn't tell you exactly what we discussed, just that we talked the whole time. I guess that's one factor of being with someone so special. We could talk... or not talk... about anything and the details of the conversations themselves aren't the factor so much as the shared joy of interaction.

Anyway, we got to the mall, and Reeny showed me around. It's a worse den of rampant commercialism than even the biggest offender near my apartment. It has a Target and a Best Buy inside the mall! That kind of shocked me, though I had seen that before in a few malls down in Perth while I was there. After hitting the length and breadth of the stores, we found a place that offered free ear piercing with the purchase of a pair of studs, so we did it.

Piercing our ears together was something that had come up, back when the plan was for Jason and I to come up for her graduation, because at the time she was planning on moving out right after that, and so I said, "Hey, when we come up to visit, you and I can go get our ears pierced at the same time" and she thought that was a really nifty idea. I know it's something we've both wanted to do for a while now, but she could never get her parents to agree to it. She managed to get their permission, though, so we went to do it.

We found a style we both liked and sat down to do it. Reeny went first and the first stud went in fine, but they had to do the second twice which was really annoying. Then it was my turn and I sat down and the guy with the piercing gun cleaned my earlobes and dotted them, then lined up the gun and the next thing I knew I had studs! It hurt, but only for a few seconds and now they're a bit itchy at times but that's all.

After that, we went to get dinner, and we sat in the restaurant and talked for a while more. Then we wandered around the mall a bit more and headed out to find a motel. It turned out that the nicest one we could find was less than ten minutes from her house, after half an hour of wandering around trying to find the mall, but I enjoyed the scenic drive. So, we went up to the room and cuddled for a while, and then Reeny said she wanted to be over at her friend Erin's place to watch something at seven, but she couldn't remember the phone number so we had to stop by her parents so she could call. That wasn't a problem, but when she came out of there, she had a bit of a down expression on her face. I asked what was wrong and she said that her parents had announced they wanted her home at one in the morning, and that tomorrow afternoon she needed to be in at one as well so they could go out somewhere.

I wasn't happy with that, and at first I tried to see if she could talk them out of that, seeing as this was going to be my only real chance to see her and I wanted as much time with her as I could get, but I also didn't want to risk screwing up their relationship after things looked like they were going to get better, so after a brief protest I dropped it and said I'd have her back by about one.

On the way over to Erin's, though, I did ask her why she had chosen to stay behind. She got really quiet at first, and then she basically said she didn't have a "good" reason but that she wanted to believe that when they saw her packed up to move out and realized that she was serious and that someone was on the way up that weekend to get her and her stuff and take her away from them the first day it was legal, they got shocked into realizing that they couldn't keep doing what they were doing and had to either accept or lose her. I admitted I had trouble believing that that was the case, but I told her that I wanted her to know that I supported her decision and would back her one-hundred percent. I still do.

Erin turned out to be really nice and really cute, and she does look like a pagan high priestess, with long red hair down her back. We all curled up in her room at first to watch Reeny on a televised high school quiz show in which she did really good and the announcer screwed up so many times that I had to laugh at him, and then we went up to her brother's room to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Erin had, shockingly, never seen it so the whole time Lurene and I kept giggling and reminding each other not to recite the script along with the film, but we did sing along with the musical numbers. I think if we hadn't, Erin wouldn't have been able to understand. "Camelot" is hard to understand because of the accents and mispronounced words to make them fit the music. After it was over, Erin said it was probably the most surreal and bizarre movie she'd ever seen, so Reeny promised to subject her to the rest of her Python collection.

After that, Reeny and I went back up to my motel room and we cuddled for a while and I had my first crying fit. I'm still not entirely sure what brought it on but I started crying as I held her and she told me everything would be okay and I felt a bit better. There wasn't really anything that needed to be said, though. We just lay there together for a few hours, snuggled up against each other. All the words had already been said. It was such a wonderful feeling.

I took her home after that, and I went back and got a short nap. I actually did wake up around half past six, but I was too tired to be coherent still so I dozed and then got up at eight and called Reeny. She asked for half an hour, so I picked her up forty-five minutes later and we went to breakfast. After that we went back up to the hotel room so I could pack up and check out. We ended up lying down for a while because we were both still tired, and then we got up and, while I was in the bathroom, Lurene flipped on the television to see what was on and managed to find "An American Tail" on Cartoon Network, and it was right when Feivel and Sasha had started singing "Somewhere Out There". I had my second crying jag at that point. I've loved that song since I heard it the first time, and in this case it was very appropriate.

Check-out was quick enough, so we went up to Barnes and Noble after that and she found me a Robert Anton Wilson book, Ishtar Rising for the flight back, which I bought, and I picked her up a copy of Atlas Shrugged because she didn't have one yet. I asked her to read the first part of Part Three, where Dagny first crashes in Atlantis, up until she looks at Galt and says, "We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?" Reeny put down the book at that point and smiled and said she was going to have to get a copy, so I bought it for her as a birthday present above and beyond the trip itself. Then we hit CompUSA and geeked for a while, and then we went over to Circuit City and I found a bunch of CDs I'd been trying to find and bought them; they weren't really an impulse buy because i'd been looking for them for a while. I keep telling myself that.

By this point, it was one and time for me to take Lurene home. The drive to her house was painfully short. Crying jag number three hit then, and watching her get out of the car and walk back into her parents' house was one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. Then I started the drive back to the airport. I listened to the tape she gave me, the one she put in the player when she first got into the truck, once I got to the Mass Pike. Crying jag number four.

From there, there really isn't much to tell. I got to the airport three hours before my scheduled flight, but there was an earlier flight out of Boston to Atlanta that I could catch, so I did. I didn't know there weren't any earlier flights out of Atlanta to Dallas, so I just moved my three-hour wait from one airport to another, and ultimately I got home at around one in the morning today.

I had a wonderful time, but the trip was far too short. I know, though, that it won't be another six years before I see her again. She finishes high school in three months, and then it's summer and she's got trips to visit schools that have accepted her, and then after that she'll be in college and she'll have lots of chances to visit

I love you, Lurene. Thank you, for the last two days, for the last six years, for everything.

Well, another bout of "so much in so little time" has gone on, or so it feels. Really, not that much has happened, but it feels like a lot.

First, today marks the one-month anniversary of the diary, so I suppose I should congratulate myself. Normally I would've burned out on this sort of thing by now, so the fact that I'm still interested in posting them feels like a triumph worth nothing.

Now for the important part. I went through a lot over this, but I think I've finally resolved everything and I can talk about it with a clear head. Reeny isn't moving down. Monday, her mother came home early, found her packing her things to move out and, to make a long story short, her parents panicked and said that they'd pay for her college and get totally off her back about her life and her future if she would stay at home until she left for school.

When I found out, I was crushed at first. I mean, this is the sort of thing we'd been talking about doing for six years, and we were so close and then it got taken away from us. I know she was upset, and I was upset, but I didn't identify why I was so upset until last night, and I was kind of a bitch about the whole thing.

I've never had many friends, and the ones I do have, the real ones, are the sorts of people around whom I feel I could totally be myself without fear of rejection. In almost all of my casual friendships, I hit some point at which I feel like either I have to lie about myself or be honest and risk losing a friend. I have a select group of friends, of whom Lurene is one, with whom I don't feel that. I call them my second family.

When I was with my previous boyfriend, the first time he came up to Austin to visit, he stayed a month and then left. When he got on the plane to go home, I stood in the airport terminal for half an hour and sobbed, watching until I couldn't make out the lights of the airplane against the clouds. Last night, I had another crying jag thinking about leaving Boston on Sunday, and I realized it was the same feeling.

When I learned that Lurene wasn't moving down here, it felt like I had had one of my second family taken away from me, even though intellectually I know that isn't true. The internet is a poor substitute for in-person contact, but often that's all we get. When the chance came to physically be with someone about whom I cared so much, I became ecstatic. When it went from "moving down" to "visiting," not only did I have the depression of not having her around, but I also felt the pain of being around her for a short time and then trying to go back to interaction at a distance, just like when Rod would leave.

I woke up this morning, after having realized this last night, and I felt sane and stable for the first time since getting the bad news. I had tried to be nice and say I supported her, but the whole time I felt betrayed, though i didn't know by whom or for what. I think I frustrated Lurene's boyfriend to tears at a few points with my stubborn refusal to get over it, but that's pretty normal for me. Once I know why I'm upset, I stop being upset, but until I understand it it sits there and feeds itself, an emotional dynamo.

I can honestly say now I'm just looking forward to the trip. I won't say I won't cry when I leave, but I can say with a clear conscience that I'm happy for her, that I hope her parents really do understand like they sound, and that if anything happens the offer I made before is always open. I hope she doesn't need it, but it's there if she does.

So much has happened in nine days.

First, the important news: my sister is moving down. While this is an incredibly happy event, I wish the circumstances were better. Her father didn't outright say he was throwing her out, but the gist of his statement was that she would be out of the house if she kept going the way she was, so she's taking him up on it and moving down the day after her eighteenth birthday.

I've been looking forward to this sort of event for a long time. I've known her longer than almost anyone else in my life, and we've shared so much in that time that even if we aren't related by blood, we're still family. She means so much to me, and she's been there for me every time I've needed her, just as I've tried to be there for her. We could sit silently in the same room and know what each other were thinking, I bet. Musical tastes, books, dreams and fantasies... we share so much on so many levels. She really is my sister, in every way that matters.

Originally, Jason and I were going to go up to see her at her graduation in June, but now she's going to be coming down here and transferring to a local school for the last three months. I've already got my plane ticket to go up there and both coming back. I've reserved a hotel room, reserved a car and printed maps to get to her house. In eight days, at 6:20 in the morning, I'll be flying up there. I'm so excited.

---

I got recognized.

Two days ago, I went to Sam's Club, which is this big wholesale reseller where you have to pay for membership but can then get some things for incredibly good prices if you don't mind looking around and waiting for the good deals. I wasn't dressed; I just had on my work clothes, though I was carrying my purse, something I do all the time.

Sam's Club ID cards have photographs on them, as well as full names, so when I pulled mine out of my purse and passed it over, I must've grimaced. The lady checking IDs looked at the card, looked at me and handed it back. I started to walk past, catching a blur of her reaching behind her as I went. I'd gotten about two steps past her when she said behind me, "Excuse me, ma'am?"

I turned around, just as blithely, and saw she was holding out some pamphlet to me. As I reached out for it, she looked up at me and started stammering a quite-unnecessary apology. I told her it was quite alright, took the pamphlet and just drifted into the warehouse. I hadn't planned on spending much time or money there, but I dropped thirty dollars and bought Jason two cannisters of snacks and a bunch of other things I hadn't intended to buy.

I used to think, when people sirred me while I was dressed, that they were being rude or hateful or just ignorant. I used to fear that I would never make it. Now it's happened, and I wasn't even trying. I still think that at least some of them are saying it out of crudeness, but perhaps Jason and Lurene are right, and some of them are saying it to reassure themselves, and a few subtle cues will be all it takes toget them to call me ma'am, or at least have them ask.

---

I used the ladies' room for the first time the other night.

Jason and I were at the airport seeing off a friend that had flown through Dallas, and it was about ten o'clock at night. I'd gotten dressed casually and we'd gone to dinner. I knew better, after heavy dieting, to shock myself with a bacon cheeseburger, but it sounded so good that I just had to order one. Of course, twenty minutes later, I regretted it and we had to find a restroom.

A few weeks ago, we had gone somewhere and I had needed to use the ladies' room but waited until I got home because I was still very self-conscious. Tonight, I just went in and went about my business. Probably my lack of hesitation came from the fact that the airport was almost totally deserted. Perhaps I'm just getting used to being Kristina in public. Either way, I didn't really think about what I was doing until i was doing it, looked down and saw myself sitting there.

It sounds like such a little thing, using the ladies' room. I mean, in the scope of activities, using the bathroom is a negligible one. However, it's one of the few places where separate-but-equal is alive and well. Almost every public building on earth has both ladies' and mens', and never the two shall meet. I found one movie theater that has a unisex bathroom, marked "Unisex", and some percentage of places that simply don't make any distinction at all, but the norm seems to be one facility for one-half of the populace and a second for the other.

As I sat there, taking care of paperwork, I wondered briefly what would happen if someone were to try to make an issue of it. Realistically speaking, were there any laws that, prior to my surgery, I was violating by using the appropriate bathroom? My therapist at some point has said that she'll give me a letter of intent stating that I should be afforded all of the priviledges due a woman, but as of yet she hasn't and I'm not going to stop being myself because I'm not certified.

I'm putting these up faster now than I think I planned on doing when I first decided to start this project. I never intended these to be anything deep or profound or meaningful; I just wanted a record of my progress somewhere I could look at it. Knowing that anyone could read these is a good way of keeping myself honest. If I don't want people to see it, do I really want to say it, and if I don't want to say it, then should I really be thinking it?

I was driving home from work today, on my way to pick up Jason at work, and I've gotten into the habit of turning off the radio and practicing my voice in the car since there's no-one around to laugh at me when it breaks. My thoughts turned to the events of the previous few days, and then I started talking to myself about the diary and everything that's been going on, and something came to me that put the events of the weekend into a new perspective.

A while back, I had a conversation with someone online that only knew me as Kristina, and at one point the topic turned to history and where we had gone to school and so forth. At the time, I found myself wondering if what I said would give me away, and the whole sensation of fearing discovery came back to me, though from the opposite direction. I actually caught myself being vague about certain areas of my past, and then later found the whole incident rather enlightening.

Only today did I realize how like passing that is.

I want to be recognized as female and treated as such, but at the same time I don't want to give up who I was for who I am. I said on the front page to this site that I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not, no matter how much I may want it. Passing, to a large extent, is the art of bluffing people into thinking that you were born female, and I wasn't. So, while I want to be treated as female, I don't want it to be at the expense of who I am.

I don't want to call gender a trap, but it is, in a way. In order to pass, at some level I'll have to learn how to avoid bringing up who I used to be. How much I have to avoid is dependent on the setting, but the fact that I wasn't born female will eventually come out and the party will be over. I don't want to have to hide that part of my life and pretend that it didn't happen. I'm not going to make up a past I didn't live in order to keep people from knowing who I used to be.

I think part of my frustration right now comes from the fact that society as a whole still attempts to pigeonhole people into exclusive-or categories, and I don't quite fit into either one. More aggravating is the fact that most people, in their attempts to fit me into their world view, will probably put me into the wrong pile.

If someone sirs me and then fixes the mistake later when I offer a polite correction, I can accept that. I can forgive any amount of mistakes made in error, or at least I should be strong enough to do so, even if they do frustrate me. The ones that refuse to recognize me as female, they're the ones that I can live without. They're part of the great unwashed throng of humanity on which I know it's unproductive to waste my emotions.

Besides, as my boyfriend pointed out to me, I'm doing this for me, not for them. They're important, but only to the extent that I grant their importance. I knew this before, but I'm having to relearn it in a new light.

Well, life never ceases to throw me curveballs, and I keep trying to hit them. This morning when I got up, I had an email from my therapist. She apologized in advance but said that she thought she had been hasty in telling me that I didn't need any more individual sessions. She did say I'd made a lot of progress, but that there were more things she wanted to discuss with me.

At first, I admit I was a little upset with it. Here I thought I'd been making all these great strides, and she said as much, but to "go back" felt like a retreat. Then I thought about it some more and I realized she's right. I'm still very new at this, despite how comfortable I am with it, and there are still things that have been happening that I need to work through.

To illustrate, I had my first full-time weekend last Saturday and Sunday. I had geared up to go over to a friend's house dressed for a gaming session, and that didn't work out; the game got cancelled. Then everyone with whom Jason and I would have gotten together was alternately busy, but I'd taken all this time and effort to putting together a good outfit that I decided I wanted to go out and enjoy being out. I'd been out a few times at this point, nothing really new. I didn't plan on anything going wrong; who does?

I shaved my face again, arms, chest, everything I thought would show. I styled my hair, made sure my outfit was alright, put on my nice shoes, and in short I did everything I could to look good. Jason complimented me on how I looked, and I thought I'd done a good job.

The counterclerk at the coffeeshop took one look at Jason and I and said, "So, are you two brothers or something?"

At the time, I just got irritated by it. Here I was, putting out all this effort into looking nice, and that's what I got back. Now, earlier in the day I had spent all the energy telling Jason and Lurene and my older sister Jennifer to politely kick me in the rump if I started going off on how I didn't pass and all that, and now I was getting frustrated over it again, so I managed to talk myself down off of my irritation, but it still wasn't very good for my self-esteem.

Monday, I think I just walked around in a state of post-ecstasy depression. I had gone out, as myself, for two days without any real thought into it beyond what I wanted to wear and had I shaved adequately and in all the right places. Then, bright and early Monday morning, my carriage turned back into a pumpkin. There's an entire mindset change, really, that's more than just what outfit I have on. Over the weekend, I was myself, Kristina Davis. Then, when I went back to work, I entered an environment where I had to remember that, as much as I understood who I was, nobody else did yet. I felt like I was trying to project being someone I'm not, even though I don't really act any differently at work. I guess that's one more part of it all.

Then today hit. Between what happened on Saturday and the email I got this morning, suddenly it felt like all the progress I had made really didn't amount to much. By the time I'd gotten to work, I'd recognized that I did have a lot left to work through with Feleshia and I sent her back a note saying I didn't mind coming back in for more one-one one sessions, but I was still very down about it. I thought I'd been doing so well, and then suddenly I felt like I hadn't really done much of anything.

Fortunately, my fourteen-weeks-of-no-work-at-work winning streak hadn't broken yet, so I had no productivity to interrupt with my moodiness, but I still wish I'd had something during the day on which to focusto get my mind off of all of this. It didn't happen. I was supposed to attend a meeting at 4:30PM, but by the time it rolled around I was in a miserable mood so I showed up, heard about ten minutes' worth and then left. Jason had to work late, so I just went home and tried to make dinner, but I'd worked myself up into a good funk by then so I just hopped online.

Jennifer was on, thankfully, and I related the whole sordid situation to her. She was very supportive, as was Lurene when I talked to her later that night, but they both essentially the same thing: "Hon, you've been doing this for two months, tops. Don't get discouraged by what happened, and don't take it as a sign of things to come." They both said a lot more than that but that was the gist of it.

As usual, they're right, and I've been beating myself up over nothing. Well, not nothing. I've been getting angry and frustrated that all the things I think I ought to know I don't know, because I never learned them. Being a girl was simply not something taught to me. I'm having to unlearn twenty-five years of habit and adapt to my future, and there's a lot physically that still hasn't shaped up. Being depressed over my first day being a failure is silly, however understandable it may be.

Things felt for a while like they were going really quickly. Not unpleasantly so, but just fast enough that I wasn't really able to think about things as they happened. These are feelings that have been hidden inside for a long time, and they've only been near the surface for about eight months, two of which I've been in therapy, and suddenly I'm fulltiming on the weekends. I'm actually glad for what my therapist said. I have made progress, but I still have a long way to go.

---

Lurene did make one interesting point in our conversation tonight. She said, "Part of the secret to passing is to think of yourself as a girl. Not transsexual, not in transition, just female". Looking at it, it doesn't seem like much in the way of wisdom, but it makes a lot of sense. I have been thinking of myself as transsexual, because that's the best word that I had to describe what I was. One day, though, I won't be. Many years from now, after all is said and done, I'll be as female as the next woman. At that point, my transsexuality will be past-tense. I should start thinking in those terms now. It may make the illusion of who I have to be legally harder to maintain, but it will probably make the reality of who I am easier to be.

Wednesday night, I had what will be my last individual therapy session unless something happens that I need to process in another one-on-one. Feleshia said she felt as a therapist that there wouldn't be anything further to be gained from private sessions, and she had a duty as a professional not to keep me in something I didn't need.So, my next meeting with her is on the 25th, for my first group session.

I'm looking forward to group, really. The chance to meet others face to face and talk with them about what it's like will be good. What I find funny is that, of all my concerns, my biggest is how good a visual presentation I'll make. Will I pass in the eyes of those who have studied how to pass? After going out in public, being told repeatedly by my boyfriend that I look good dressed and even going shopping by myself at the mall, my concern is what?

How do I look?

Strange, isn't it? I can go to the mall without batting an eyelash, but when it comes to an environment where I know everyone will be supportive and helpful and no-one will be negative, only constructive, I worry that I'll feel like the outsider because everyone else is within the ideal of "normal."

I wonder if they're all sitting around feeling the same thing.

What I'd like, honestly, is one "ma'am" from someone who has no reason to say it. One "Miss" from someone who doesn't think about it. Right now, without hormones, it probably won't happen. It might never happen.

I'm willing to wait.

---

Last night started as one of those routine days that ended up becoming important not by virtue of any action of mine, but of just the events of the night. In Masks of the Illuminati, Robert Wilson has James Joyce utter words to the effect of, "Suppose this had been an ordinary night, four men sitting around drinking champagne and talking. None of us would have remembered it later. If one of us had died the next day, though, the survivors would have perfect recollection of totally ordinary day, not because of the evening itself, but because of its context."

Jason and I came home from work and grabbed a quick bite to eat, then I changed into something more casual and we went out to a mall over in Dallas to do some looking and windowshopping. I made the mistake of wearing new shoes to do this (I know better, I really do) and so I gave myself blisters on my toes as expected, and as we were leaving, I asked to sit down for a bit so I could rub my feet and look at my toes which were really starting to hurt.

When I looked over at Jason, he had that expression that said something was on his mind and it wasn't pleasant, so I asked him about it. After a bit of prodding, I found out that, in one of the stores we had visited, the salesclerks had been staring at me, exchanging knowing glances and laughing behind my back. Now, I had been totally unaware of this, and I suspect that if I had been in a position to see it, it wouldn't have happened. However, Jason did see it and he was upset by it. He'd wanted to say something but didn't think it would have helped, might've hurt and generally would've just wasted our time. He expressed disappointment at the status of things and said to me, "You don't deserve that kind of treatment".

Well, he's right, I don't, but I don't expect otherwise. As much as I'd like to be treated as a normal woman, I'm likely to forever be questioned, and I accept that. I was when I was overweight and trying hard to be male, only then I thought the problem was with me and not with everyone around me. Now I know the problem isn't mine, but I don't expect other people to change how they act. I'm being myself, and as long as they don't try to pigeonhole me I don't care how they act behind my back.

As we were getting ready to leave, though, someone did just that. A polite older gentleman walked up to us and held out little pamphlets to us, saying something like, "You two might need this". I took one, but Jason just stood there and silently stared at him until he started backing away.

I still have it. it's a little tacky two-color printed once-folded sheet with WHAT EVERY YOUNG MAN SHOULD KNOW! in bad lettering on the front, two checkboxes on the back for accepting or rejecting God, and some Bible verses in the middle. One of the cartoons shows a picture of some people standing around pointing and laughing at someone being bitten by snakes with the names of alleged sins on them, such as pornography, drugs, liquor and "queer 'civil' rights".

I'm not Christian. I've never professed to be Christian. If anything, I'm an agnostic with amerind, SubGenius and Discordian leanings. Nevertheless, I have several friends that are Christian, and on matters of faith we agree to disagree because we accept that there are many roads to enlightenment. This, however, was a blatant insult to me. Here was some person deciding, most likely on the basis of my clothing that I wasn't Christian, that I considered his advice important, and that I would think his attempts at intervention were praiseworthy.

In hindsight, the whole thing is funny, if a bit irritating. If I had made the same presumptions about him, he no doubt would have been highly offended and said as much, though perhaps not in front of the children he was trying to escort out of the mall. Maybe I should've made more of an issue of it, but what are the odds that I ever see him again? Negligible. It wasn't worth my time.

I checked the rejection box and mailed it to the address on the back of the pamphlet, though.