Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Great Review and The Gender Certification Letter

I got a great review today by my supervisor, the highest rating he's given anyone. It will impact my bonus and a shot at team lead. The chief architect cornered me for a while to ask how things are going.

And belly dancing class was so hard last night. It's good. I like a challenge, and I love how sensuous my rocking hips look when I get it right.

I got my second attempt from my endocrinologist in the mail today, and, even though she misspelled foregoing, this one is exactly the template the state department is looking for. It's good enough for a 10 year passport, and the letter is in the mailbox, waiting to be picked up tomorrow to be sent to the Department of State. I should have my passport in hand hopefully around the 26th. Then I can see about continuing my electrolysis. I know someone who knows someone.


A friend commented on my letter:


I am a bit confused by the doc letter. It states that you are now female.
Welllll, technically you aren’t until post GRS, no?

I have transitioned from male to female. Clinical transition means having established both a stable, in this case female, identity and having irreversibly, short of surgery, altered the body in accordance with the sexual gender expectations. The vast majority of transsexual men and women don't have the final surgery for various individual reasons. Yet, they are in all other ways, emotionally and physically in alignment with their gender. Many are able to halt the transition there because they are content enough with who they've become, especially since others have no right to be in their pants.


April 22, 2008 was the day I started hormones. Because it had such an effect on my sense of joi de vivre,  I mark it as a rebirth day, hence, my rebirthday.

My name change came February 24, 2010. It has been almost one year already. My how time has flown and it seems almost impossible that I ever lived as male. That is my comfort level. A settling in.

Depending on your counselors, your RLE can be marked at different moments, but it usually is best marked by being active with a consistent identity of your target gender. That said, when I first started attending and being active in my Unitarian Church as Sophie in December 2008 marked my emergence into real time. Then October 25 of 2009,  marked another level when I went full time outside of work, February 24 of 2010 when my name was legally changed and April 30, when I changed out of my male clothes for the last time.

I, myself, thought that would be where I wound up, and I am very content. It is only the sex and emotional intimacy thing that is driving me the last distance--that and the very painful testicle I'd rather be rid of anyway. Whether I am with a man, woman or somewhere in between, I don't feel I can be fully with them emotionally unless my genitals reflect what I feel, what my mind tells me is there. It's funny, but I can't love as fully with a penis as I can with a vagina. Heck, I had a lot of difficulty even ejaculating when I superimposed the penis image in my head over that of, well, the moist, soft skin folds leading into a warm embracing tunnel.

So, as far as anyone who is not going to be my lover is concerned, I have completed transition. For the others, well, I have just a little way to go.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie

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