URNotAlone

Out of the closet and into direct sunlight...

March 21st, 2007 1:50 pm MST

There have been a few changes in my life recently and I thought that it would be good for me to write them down someplace. Since I have made so many wonderful friends on URNA, I couldn’t think of a better place to write them than on URNA.

First of all, I want to thank the many people that I have met on URNA and thank all of you who have given me so many wonderful comments and encouragement. It has been because of your strength that I have been able to be strong and do some serious soul-searching. I was so flattered to be ranked second in Februray's MOTM contest!

One thing that came from this soul-searching was that I had to finally admit that my slow blending of genders over the past years has made it pretty obvious that I am not the man that I used to be: I have had a ridiculous amount of electrolysis so I don’t have a beard any more… My hair is below shoulder-length and streaked with highlights… My eyebrows, which were once thick caterpillars, are now thin and gently arched… I recently had 1984 hair grafts to give my face a more feminine hairline… I recognize the fact that I can’t really hide my being transgendered without insulting the intelligence of the people around me.

Embracing my fears, I decided to step into the light of day, so to speak, and make my presence known. It’s not that I am telling everyone I know that I am trans, but I am not hiding it either. But I did tell me mom!! After forty-some years, I thought that my mom would have had her suspicions. I guess it was like hiding in plain site – she never had any idea. She took the news well. She was visiting a couple of months ago, just after I had my hair transplants. She asked me why I got the hair grafts and I said “Partially for vanity, but mostly because I am transgendered.” At first she thought that I was joking. Late on that day, a delivery truck arrived asking for “Jamie Dailey.” She asked who “Jamie Dailey” is and I told her that was my femme name. At that point, she realized that I wasn’t joking… Over the next few days, we talked about what being transgendered was all about. She asked me if I could recommend any good books for her to read so that she could learn more. I told her that I would have to get back to her on that…

That is when it dawned on me. Although there are a great many books on the transgendered, most were about transsexuals. Since I don’t know if I consider myself TS, I didn’t think that books on transsexuals would be the best thing for my mom to read. Sure, there are some books that deal with crossdressing, but many of them focus on the fetishistic – and that is not what I wanted my mom to read either. Similarly, I don't believe that I "suffer" from any mental disorder, so texts on gender dysphoria seemed equally misplaced. I found a small number of books that did a reasonable good job at describing the "happy cross dresser," but none of them felt like the best way to describe my situation to my mom. Eventually, I did decide on “Dress Code” by Noelle Howey. Still, the lack of books that dealt with being “the happy crossdresser” made it clear to me that there was a need. So, I made another decision – I will create a website that tells my mom what I think that she should know. Since I have been fairly involved with the gender-community, especially Fantasia Fair (www.fantasiafair.org), and Connecticut Outreach Society (www.ctoutreach.org), I would make the website a resource that the community could use.

So I started www.IAmTransgendered.com. That name pretty much takes me out of the closet and into direct sunlight. I will use this website to tell my mom – and anyone else’s mom - that my gender "issues" are better described as "enhancements." She’ll read that there are a great many of us who identify as transgender and are happy, productive, and respectable members of the community. Hopefully, she will come to understand the basics of gender theory, such as the difference between sex, gender, and sexual preference. It is my hope that she will understand that, regardless of why I am transgendered, I am transgendered and no one should feel bad about that - not her, not me, and not you. One of the goals of this website is to provide advice and resources to those individuals who are serious about their "gender journey" but are not necessarily planning on transitioning to living fulltime as a woman. To do this, I want to provide simple, easy-to-understand explanations of various gender issues as well as point to other useful resources - online or real life. Of course, my thoughts and experiences, as well as those from others in our community, will be presented to provide a personal perspective. If you have any thoughts or would like to share your experiences, I would be honored to include them. I have only a handful of pages up so far with a number of topics that still need pages. If you can offer suggestions for topics, I would love to hear them.

Hugs,

Jamie