This ain't puppy love.

I am not sure how to deal with someone who seems to be smitten with me. I have a friend whom we have started taking her to church. She lives alone in a building separated into 4 apartments and she lives in one upstairs. The two downstairs apartments have 1 male tenant each and both appear to be about the same age as Kay and I. Our friend knows about our history, that we are married and is ok with it, one of the men who lives down stairs has lived a hard life and was homeless for a while but is now in a government program which help people with on disability and social security. It seems that this man has developed a crush on me and will talk freely with our friend. I believe he thinks we (Kay and I) are just friends and unattached because we come and go with our friend. She told us about the third week we picked her up for church that he likes the way I dress and look, I guess.

It has been quite hot down our ways and these two had made plans to walk to the grocery store to do their grocery shopping, our friends tells us their plans and Kay offers to take them to do their shopping. We pick them us late Saturday morning and drop them off of Walmart so they can get more for their money, we try to stay out of that store, but they are on a limited budget and this man gets in the car behind Kay and I am driving. We drop them off and tell them we have other errands to run and for them to give us a call when they are done. After we do 2 errands we get a call for them to be picked up and we go back to Walmart and load up their purchases. Well this man runs and practically jumps into the seat behind me, telling our friend to change places; she thinks it funny the way he is acting, but now I have him behind me watching me by the rearview mirror.

I know he is hoping but he really needs to be told that I am married to Kay and am a lesbian, I think its going to break his heart but I shouldn't keep this from him any longer.

Then yesterday I get a friend request thru facebook because he likes the way I look and wants to text back and forth. Not a chance so I declined his request and deleted him.

This is all new for me.

Life goes on, where we are.

Sarah

Melissa has been talking and post song by this artist, Diana Krall, very wonderful blues/jazz artist.

New Week Unknown quantity

There is a kind of joke between Kay and I, in that we have learned never to make too many plans for the upcoming week, cause som'en gonna happen and ya gotta change stuff at the last minute. Like last week we watched some of our regular church children for a while. Well as of today, we have just agreed to watch someone's 1 year old on Thursday for a few hours and someone else's 2 children on Friday. The day we go to the church for some women chit-chat and some work on our next quilt project for Fall Festival. At least there will be the two regular children to help entertain them and hopefully keep each other out of trouble. These new children we haven't met or know really, so it should be interesting.

And the first thing people threw up in our faces when I told my fellow church members that I was transitioning was; "What will this do to the Children." What do grownups know anyway.

Will Keep ya posted!

Old Friends Renewed

Are there days when all seems good in your world?

Yesterday was one of those day for me. All of you know that I transition in the same town where I had lived for 9 years and before the divorce. I was exploring my options and limits as Sarah, shopping at the smaller dress and shoe stores in the area, thinking I blended into the population of women pretty well. As I shopped I talked with whomever would listen to my story and tale of woe, trying to live in two differently and opposite worlds of man and women. As I shopped I have discovered that I made a lot of friends who supported me and became my friends. As I and they moved on with their lives, I have encountered several old friends in new places and will speak and ask how things are doing. That kind of thing happened yesterday while we were shopping for some children we know and watch sometimes. The salesperson at this children's clothing shop recognized me and took a few minutes to check how I was doing. Now we calculated that it has been 7 or 8 years that she had gotten to know me at a womens clothing store. So we chatted and I filled her in on all that has happened in my life and introduced her to Kay.

Because it's a great shop for children's clothing at good prices and good quality, we will be back. I am so glad that she re-introducted herself and was able to catch up on lives. Next time I will ask how she is doing.

Chillin' and watching kids

Well it's Friday night and supper has been eaten, great roast by the dear wife. The house is in shambles as we are having some remodeling and repairs done on the house, new roof, paint job and having the floor made one level in our bedroom. We did have part of the room drop down one step and it was risky walking back and forth during the night, cause I couldn't turn on the light is I am afraid of tripping when we got older. So now the floor is one level. With the bedroom torn up and the furniture piled in the dining room area, the house is not a great place for children. None the less, we were asked to watch some good friends children 8, 5, and almost 4 year old child for two days. Not the best time to watch children with all the rotten boards with nails stack in the back year meant that the children could not go outside, too dangerous.

The first day we had the 3 children another friend asked to watch their children while she took her husband to a doctors appointment since he broke his toe, that was wednesday which meant that we had church that evening and with 5 children until 5:30 or so; it's OK we do not mind really, they are good children, but very inquisitive and persistent with the questions. Our only option was to let them watch public television as that is what their parents will only allow them to watch; have to be careful. We took some time and went to the park later in the day. And with two dogs and people coming and going in and out the back yard we would have to take them for walks for exercise and other. Should I say we are pooped! It takes a lot of energy to watch children when one is older.

So tonight we are just chillin' and I have painted the windows before they put the new flooring down; so that I wouldn't spill any paint on the new floor. We have just finished a game of bananagrams and Kay beat the pants off me tonight, maybe it's the homemade blackberry wine that I am drinking, but I have to say I drew some s**ty tiles and she won fair and square.

Hopefully they will be able to finish the new flooring in the bedroom and all the trim and then we can move all the stuff back.

That blackberry wine is good, sorry that I can't share it with you!!

Peace,
Sarah

Follow-up to Obligations

I have found it to be quite impossible to live in stealth mode these days.

Take today's doctor's appointment for blood work which had to be completed before my next appointment. The form that the office was using to annotate my blood tests had both my female and male name still on the form. I was devastated to see my old name still being used in the computer; it read Sarah Jane/John Riggle, WTF is wrong with these people. I notice that there seems to be quite a number of new employees floating around, even the tech who was to draw my blood was someone I have never seen before. So again I asked her to change the way my name reads on the next form and in their computer by dropping the male name. I can see the questions forming in her face, but she doesn't ask, so I tell her that I am trans and she says it's really none of her business. Well no it's not, but she should at least know the truth. After all, there was my male name as plain as day.

And I know for a fact that I am not the only trans patient that is seen in this doctor's office, just don't know if anyone else's patient records has both name. I just feel that any time I have an opportunity to educate someone about gender issues, then I should use them to my advantage in making someone feel comfortable if they have questions they want to ask; to ask them and get it out in the open.

Having a history with several doctors, that I have been seeing and have a large medical file containing both names is nothing one can erase, except to change doctors. But my doctors have great established practices, it just that people will find out; talk outside the office or elsewhere. I believe that would constitute a breach of the HEPA ethics, but how can you say if that happens.

There's work history, credit history, military records, any number of established records that can't be changed that defines my male history; not to say anything about transition in a small South Georgia town where your 3 children grew up and work and have lived.

Going under the radar and being stealth at least for me is making a life that is visible yet so convincingly female that the people who do not know about my other life, just sees me as the rather tall gray haired woman who hangs around with another women and they are who they are, no secrets, but we don't tell our stories to everyone. If people suggest that 'we are sisters', we agree and let it go.

What are our rights and obligations after we Transition?

This was my answer to a question posed by Laura on her blogg,

Two Auntees said...
"I Love the look of your blog, beautiful. The question, 'Where do we go once we transitioned?" is very hard to answer because there are so many different answers.The idea of just how much we involve ourselves with the gay and transgendered community depends on several factors, our age when we transitioned, our need to be employable, the number of other trans people who we associate with on various levels, or the number of straight neighbor and friends who do or do not know about us. I believe all these factors, or reasons why we are so willing or so reluctant to attach our star to the movement promoting the lgbt issues.

But for me, as someone who transitioned late in life, is retired from several positions where I controlled some of the management responsibility; I am out and involved because it can't hurt me, I don't need to get a job in today's society. At the age of 58 I when I was beginning to transition, the company I worked for closed our store and repair shop where I was working. On the same day I lost my job, I had just made an appointment for my mastectomy; as I had developed breast cancer after taking hormones for 15 months. So I felt that I couldn't start job hunting until I was medically cleared, and because I couldn't actively search for a job with the unemployment office, I couldn't draw unemployment until I was medically cleared to job search.

So I am involved with the lgbt community to advocate and educate and support anyway that I can, because I have nothing to lose as the younger people have. I am married to a wonderful woman and when people look at us they assume we are sisters, as we have the same last name, others think of as the two older, gray hair lesbian who lives on their street. It's just who we are when we talk with college classed on gender issues, telling our lives (that) we are living as a trans woman who is a lesbian and married to a straight woman. Life is fun, so have a ball when you can, and enjoy each other all the time."

In what context are we obligated to speak up for the rights of individuals within the community, I most certainly can't speak for my trans community and I would never presume to know all the answers, but I can speak for myself. I will fight for equality and fairness for all those who are pushed and bullied where ever I see it happening. But my life, is my life of the hows and why, and what happened as I stayed within the community of my transition. I am most certainly not in the larger "public eye", so to speak, but my transition life was not as secret as I thought.

I do not criticize anyone who is younger and must make a career and life for themselves to want to go stealth, to leave their "transness" behind them and move forward as the person they are. It is a lot easier if they have not established a strong work history in their other name, as that might be a red flag for employers to practice "stealth discrimination". We must make our own choices as it relates to our lives. Some people have a lot to lose, I don't really, except for my physical live and heaven forbid we ever become targets of the "haters", but for the 6 years we have lived together we have lived our lives in 'stealth', because see what they want to see, and they see us as the two gray-hair ladies who live together.