: A New York pace :

It was a pretty grueling trip to New York, much more so than I'd originally planned. Tuesday morning I got up and worked emails, scheduling three interviews mere hours before leaving for the airport. Altogether, I planned to have five meetings on Wednesday and five more on Thursday. My last trip in January, I had three on the first day and two on the second.

I also had numerous problems with my problematic "dual identity," starting at the Houston airport security check. The woman looked at my driver's license and refused to believe it was my picture (that picture is about four or five years old - I took a new one recently, but it hasn't been mailed to me). We had to go to a supervisor, who asked to see other forms of ID and a credit card, which I produced. She was satisfied, wished me a nice trip, and that was the end of it. However, I ran into similar problems at several buildings in New York, which have tightened security after 9/11.

Altogether, I had 14 meetings with 10 companies, seven PR firms, a law firm, a non-profit organization and a recruiter. On Wednesday, I had five interviews - one of them wanted me to come back to take a writing test, and I wound up missing another interview and having to reschedule it for Friday. On Thursday, I met with four PR agencies and a recruiter, and two of the agencies wanted to do follow-up interviews with senior executives on Friday. It's a good thing that I left Friday completely open, intending to enjoy some down time, but duty called.

One of the interviews was a second-round meeting with a firm that I'd met back in January, and I think this is probably my best shot to get an offer quickly, since I've talked to four of the key decision-makers now. As I was leaving, the lady said I would be hearing from them very soon. I also made such a good impression on one of my interviewers that he walked my resume over to a colleague who owns a small firm that specializes in wine and spirits, luxury liqueur brands and such, and I was able to squeeze her in on Friday as well.

So that's it - 14 meetings in three days, and I was wiped after each day. It was also an incredibly bumpy plane ride back to Houston today, so I think I'm going to bed soon and leave the unpacking for tomorrow. Hopefully, something good will come of all this effort, because I don't know how many scouting trips like this I can possibly take. At least I'm finally starting to appreciate the benefit of being unemployed - staying up late, getting up late, and a lot less running around.

: Name changes :

Names can be very permanent things, second only to gender in our society. When someone goes through a gender transition, you encounter so many obstacles in changing genders that sometimes you don't realize how difficult it is just to change your name.

Try this experiment. Open up one of your regular emails you might receive from a store or an e-newsletter you've subscribed to. Use the links to go to manage your account, and try to get to a screen that allows you to change your name and gender. I would wager that a large majority of the time, you will not be able to do it. You can change your email, phone, address or preferences easily, but your name and gender are often immutable. You'd have to unsubscribe and start fresh with a new account in order to do it. Now take the hassle factor you just experienced and multiply that by a factor of 1,000 - that's the kind of obstacle that a transitioning adult faces.

Some people don't realize that you need a court order signed by a judge in order to legally change your name. They do this so that people can't keep changing their name to avoid paying bills or other devious reasons. But once you get the court order, then the real fun begins - changing all your legal documentation, such as your social security card, passport, driver's license, IRAs, bank accounts, insurance documentation... the list is endless. I literally expect to be dealing with changing things I've forgotten about for years after I finally get my court order.

Women who change their names when they get married have some idea what this is like. I was in line at the Department of Public Safety office getting a new driver's license the other day and I stood next to a young lady with a marriage certificate peeking out of a stack of papers in her arms. There are two differences in what she had to do versus what I'm going to have to do. First, although we both have the same legal standing in terms of having a court ordered name change, hers raises a lot fewer eyebrows than mine will. Second is that if she misses some opportunities to correct records, she's not likely to lose much sleep about it. But for me, to be referred to by my old name could "out" me to someone who might object to my existence. So I will need to be extra-diligent to make sure that I've covered as much of my legal "footprint" as I can.

Someone who has been alive more than 30 years as I have has built up a massive amount of information about themselves in the hands of various individuals and organizations. In this age of privacy concerns, I have a unique opportunity to create this new identity, a fully formed person who has never existed before. It's a pretty neat concept if you stop to think about it. Hasn't everyone wished at one time or another that we could make a fresh start? For me, this is a tremendous opportunity to begin my life anew, in the body and social role that I feel I should have been in all my life. I can't wait to get started.

: Spicy breakfast :

As some of you who know me in real life know, I am something of a chile head, an aficianado of hot and spicy food. This morning I made my first dish ever with nature's hottest chile pepper, habanero.

The dish was a mushroom omlette with an habanero-lime guacamole on the side. The omlette is cooked in the usual way: chop up one mushroom, saute in canola oil until tender, then add four beaten eggs and a handful of chopped green onion. Make a flippable pancake, then add shredded sharp cheddar cheese and fold the pancake in half so the cheese melts inside.

The guacamole recipie is as follows:

1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice
2 medium avacadoes, diced
2 habanero peppers, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup of cilantro
1/4 cup of diced white onions
1 roma tomato, diced
1/4 cup of Pace chunky medium hot salsa

I always like to put the lime juice in the bowl first, then add the peppers, onions and cilantro, so that the acidity of the lime brings out the flavors of the aromatics. Habanero has a distinct earthy flavor aside from the heat that I'm just getting used to. The heat from two peppers was no problem for me, so maybe tomorrow I'll use four.

: Coming out :

I met a new person at my weekly TG group meeting, a pre-transition MTF who has written me a couple emails in the past. I'll call him "Bill" since he's not out yet. The parallels between his life and mine are eerily similar - he's a few years younger than me, married, and has a child. He's been struggling with GID for all his life, and now feels like it's becoming overwhelming and threatening to destroy the comfortable, secure life he's managed to build.

Basically, Bill is in the same position and facing the same choices that I did back in 2002. That choice is to continue living as a man, in a conventional role, or take steps to allow his inner feminine self to break free of the male persona he's built as a way to conform to society's expectations. This has to be one of the hardest decisions anyone has to face, mainly because unlike many decisions we make in life, the consequences of this decision touch every aspect of your life, and past a certain point, are mostly irreversible.

When I think back on that period of time when I had to make this decision for myself, I feel like it was a rather easy decision for me. I had been living in my female persona online for several months and I felt a sense of rightness and freedom of expression that I never felt in real life. I didn't consult with anyone besides my therapist and I wasn't going to support group meetings in boy mode like Bill did. The first person I confided in was my spouse, and by then, I'd already made up my mind about making changes, although I didn't know how far I would go. In the end, this is a path you have to be prepared to walk alone, and while people close to you are affected, I believe ultimately that we are each responsible for our own lives and our own happiness. No one should have a vote in something this personal, and everyone has their own choices to make, whether to stay with you or leave. Everyone is free to decide what is best for themselves.

Sometimes people throw up the word "obligation" as a reason not to transition. To me, no one has the right to enforce an obligation that means you have to live out your days trapped in a life you don't feel is your own. If you feel obliged to do something, it has to be something that comes from you, not from someone else. Doing something that preserves your own personal sense of honor and justice - that I can respect. No one has the right to tell someone how to live their own life, and at the same time, we can only hold ourselves responsible for the choices we make. If you let someone else tell you how to live, ask yourself if they will take responsibility later down the line if things turn out badly. Chances are, they won't - life just doesn't work that way.

: The end of puberty :

I woke up today and looked at myself in the mirror, and I realized that my physical transformation is coming to an end. Simply put, the changes in my physical appearance that have occurred so rapidly in the past two years - culminating with my cosmetic surgery - are pretty much over. As hormones and aging continue their dual effect on my body, I'll see changes much more gradually over time.

What TG people who transition go through is often described as a second puberty, assuming they went through the first one as their birth sex (i.e. they did not transition before natural puberty). I remember when I was going through puberty as a young male, I was convinced that my body was going to develop as a female. I thought that sooner or later, my penis would fall off or go away and I would blossom into a young woman. As the years passed and it didn't happen, I learned to accept being in a male body and made the most of it. It was many years later before I learned that there was a way to make that childhood dream come true, but had I known then what I know now, perhaps my life would have turned out much differently.

Perhaps that is why we are seeing TG people in this country transition younger and younger, because of the availability of information on the Internet and the gradual understanding fostered by movies such as Transamerica, Soldier's Girl and Boys Don't Cry. I remember seeing a documentary on transsexuals getting SRS in Thailand, and a Thai surgeon said that the average age of his patients who come from the U.S. is 50, but the average age of his Thai patients is only 26. There are a number of reasons for this, but probably the most pervasive is the difference in our cultures. Transgendered people are much more visible and accepted in southeast Asia than they are here. If a child who grows up in Thailand has TG thoughts, he or she is much more likely to explore it and get the necessary information to make a decision at an earlier age.

Maybe in a borderline case that might not be a good thing. Making such a life-altering decision requires the clarity and stability that some people only find in maturity. But that is what psychologists and therapists are for - to help those who may be confused to understand themselves more fully. But in this country, it is so much harder to be informed, and once diagnosed with GID, to undertake the journey. There is a lack of understanding about the TG condition in this country that we are slowly starting to address. And that is why I'm trying to do my small part in this blog, and by participating in a TG panel at Rice University next week for psychology students as part of their Human Sexuality elective. I will post that experience here in a few days. Check back soon!

: Panel discussion :

Yesterday I was a guest speaker for a class on human sexuality at the Baylor College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center. The hour-long class focused on understanding the transgender experience, similar to the reason I started this blog.

I was one of three pre-op transwomen on the panel, which spoke in front of about 50 first-year medical students. I was the youngest, and most recent transitioner on the panel - the other two ladies were 47 and 57 years old, as I recall. They have both been full-time for many years, while I've only been full-time for less than six months. There was supposed to be a trans-guy coming, but he couldn't make it.

After we each took about two minutes to introduce ourselves, we spent the rest of the hour answering questions. We talked about the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association and standards of care, how our transitions affected our family relationships, surgery, and medical care received by TG patients. I'm glad that everyone was very polite, respectful and asked intelligent questions. I seemed to get more questions directed at me than the other two panelists, perhaps because I'm still in transition and I'm dealing with things that they have since left behind. I expect that once I've been full-time and living as a woman for a number of years, little things like passing on the phone or having my ear piercings heal will become unremarkable for me.

Anyway, it was actually a pretty fun time for me. I enjoy helping to educate people about the transgender condition, and I try to do what I can. One of my fellow panelists actually hosts a GLBT-themed radio show on Monday nights, which I'd never heard of. I don't think I'll ever get quite that into it, but I certainly admire her commitment to putting a human face on the TG community.

One thing I did not get to share yesterday was my dream that we will someday live in a world where people do not have to shoehorn themselves into a binary gender society, where gender is not black and white, and where everyone feels free to express their identity without regard to prescribed gender roles. For every one of us who has actually transitioned successfully, there are hundreds who are either trapped in mid-transition or pre-transition, suffering their way through life because of fear, outright discrimination or lack of resources. But even though I can be cynical at times, I actually have faith that this state of affairs will improve, for the betterment of our society as a whole.

: Finally legal :

My divorce hearing went smoothly this morning, and I am now legally Michelle (finally!). Now I have less than two hours to catch a plane to New York for interviews this week. I will post more details at a later date.

: My day in court :

I wanted to recap Monday's events in more detail, since it was such a turning point in my life and does illustrate some aspects of the TG condition that I want to highlight - namely, unfair treatment in the justice system.

Monday I arrived at the courthouse at 8:30 a.m. Parking was horrendous, probably from the fact that it was Monday morning and the Enron trial is going on, which brings a lot of extra bodies to the courthouse area. I managed to find a bail bonds company that let me park in their extra parking spot for $12. I went in and found my ex-partner already there, looking over the final draft. We said a few words to each other, asking what's going on, and then I went around the corner to find an unoccupied bench to wait for my attorney.

One thing that struck me about her was how awful she looked. She had gained weight, she was wearing no makeup, her skin was all blotchy, and despite $7,000 worth of cosmetic surgery on her eyes, they still had bags under them. I couldn't help but wonder what she's been going through. I know she's now working in California and being a single mom to a special needs child isn't easy. Or perhaps it was from having to catch a super-early flight to Houston that morning - another reason I filed for divorce in Houston, so that she could not file in California and make me do all the traveling. Regardless, I'll admit to a twinge of satisfaction after it was all over and my attorney said, "you're a much better looking woman than she is."

After my attorney arrived, they met in chambers to discuss the case, and my attorney came out to tell me what happened. I had two decrees ready for the judge, one with a gender change and one without, but both with a name change. My attorney told me that the judge flatly refused to hear anything about a gender change, citing a previous case involving someone named "Clark" as the reason. She went on to say that the judge didn't even want to consider my name change even, which would have sent everything back to square one and we'd have had to cancel our hearing and reset for another day. But my attorney argued that since the family code allowed women to change their names as part of a divorce, forbidding a "man" to do it would likely be viewed as unconstitutional, and the judge relented. On the gender question, my attorney insisted that we be allowed to argue the petition in open court to get it on the record, and that request was granted.

So we got up in open court, for all the world appearing to be two women standing in front of a judge asking for a divorce for a legal marriage between a man and a woman. I'm sure to an observer, it must have seemed a touch surreal. But we got through it, with my legal male name repeated over and over, and finally the judge granted the divorce, including my name change. At that point, my ex-partner and her attorney left without a word.

Then it came time to argue my separate petition for a name and gender change. This was my original petition I had filed way back in October in Fort Bend County court that was transferred to Harris County and finally being heard. The first thing my attorney asked me was for my name, and I reflexively gave my old name. She looked at me funny and prompted me by saying, "your name as a result of the previous court order..." and I sheepishly gave my new, female name. That was a small triumph for me, to be able to give my legal name as Michelle in front of a judge. Then she asked me several questions about why I needed my gender marker changed, and what might happen to me if I was required to be publicly transsexual. I also explained why being correctly identified on my documentation was in the public's interest. After we finished, the judge immediately said, "relief on the change of name granted, all other request for relief denied. Good luck." Then she smiled and me, and I respectfully thanked her. And with that, one chapter of my life was closed, and another begins.

: La Vie Boheme :

I recently saw the movie Rent and today I bought the soundtrack and I just finished listening to it. Seeing the movie really affected me deeply on many different levels. What I found interesting is that about five years ago, I saw Rent on Broadway when I was in New York for a PR conference with some co-workers. I distinctly remember my impression of the play even now - the first song, "Seasons of Love" stuck in my mind as a great pop song but the rest of the play didn't move me at all. It wasn't that the songs weren't good or the story didn't make sense. I simply couldn't connect or identify with the characters.

Five years ago I was a typical upper-middle class male - stable, predictable and respected by many. I didn't know a single person who was HIV-positive. The only gay person I had any regular contact with was my boss. I didn't know anyone who was homeless, or who didn't own a car or a cell phone. I didn't know anyone who couldn't afford to live without a roommate if they chose to. I didn't know any adults who didn't have a career in some field or another. Today, all of these things are untrue.

Another thing that has changed, besides the obvious, is that I'm much more open with expressing my emotions now than I was before. Prior to transition, I very rarely cried - like maybe once or twice in two decades since I was teenager. I was also rarely angry enough to raise my voice, or aroused enough to flirt with someone. All of this is in the process of changing as I continue to dismantle the male construct I've built around myself since birth.

Needless to say, my reaction to seeing the movie was 180 degrees from my reaction five years ago to the Broadway play. I enjoyed every frame immensely, and broke down into tears at the end. Finally, I understand what all the fuss was about when the show was the hottest thing on Broadway. Of all the musical theater shows I've seen in my life (Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Crazy for You, Jekyll & Hyde and My Fair Lady) Rent is now probably my favorite or tied with Les Miz.

One thing I thought about after watching Rent was how I perceived the character Angel, who is a drag queen. I expect that if I were to have my parents watch the movie, they would think that I'm exactly the same as Angel, a genetic male "pretending" to be a woman. Of course this is entirely untrue. The difference is that I'm not pretending - I am a woman mentally and someday I will be physically and legally one as well.

Quite frankly, as someone who has the brain sex of a woman, it's rather difficult for me to entirely understand a drag queen's persona. Being transsexual, I'm trying my best to be unequivocably female. Sometimes this desire to project a public image that matches my internal identity makes me behave differently than if I were simply being myself without regard to gender-based behavior. I try to reduce ambiguity in my gender presentation, while drag queens revel in such ambiguity, which makes some people uncomfortable. But just as I'm not trying to be clearly female in order to make people comfortable, I don't think drag queens are doing the opposite in order to make people uncomfortable. We are all simply trying to express the identity that we feel we are inside with honesty and then trying to find acceptance in the world.