The Present – Robyn

Fathering

Since I transitioned I’ve been afraid of the word father. Afraid of being seen as a father, being gendered by my fatherhood. Afraid of being my father. Afraid of how I hear his voice when I get angry. Afraid of how his mannerisms creep into my behavior.

I used to mimic my dad. He was my male role model. I mimicked the good and I mimicked the bad. I’d spend two weeks with him and I’d come home walking and talking like him. My mother hated it.

When I’d argue with my wife I’d see my dad come out in me. He’s where I learned to argue with women.

So naturally that’s all behavior and mannerisms I do my best to avoid in my current gender presentation.

But in doing so I’ve handicapped myself as a parent. I’ve cut myself off from the tools a father uses to communicate with a son.

Because as scary as my dad was when I was little, he also went on to become a better man and better father when he moved away to Alaska when I was six. Something up there changed him and he was generally a benevolent if neglectful presence in my life.

At any rate. I have my father’s voice in my body and I realize now that it doesn’t threaten my gender if I use that voice.

I had a conversation with my son yesterday that he needed to hear. He’s a young man who is growing up and he needs his father to guide him. It’s not about the word itself, I’m always going to be Robyn to him, and it’s not the sound of my voice, it’s the tone and intention. I’ve never had a conversation like that with my son and I think we’ll both remember it forever. I hope so.
It’s an attitude adjustment that I can make because I realize now it doesn’t really matter if I‘m perceived as masculine. I’m trans.

I possess my father’s voice and I’m not afraid to use it.

Seven Years

My birthday marked the 7th anniversary of the start of my transition.

All in all it’s been remarkably successful. It’s a journey you start with no idea how it will turn out, you just know with incredible certainty it’s a trip you have to make. Despite numerous blessings in my life there was a sadness at my core that wouldn’t go away, a lot of people saw it. Once I named it-I am transgender-this light went on that never burned away. Once I let Robyn speak she wouldn’t shut up until she was free to walk the earth.

They call us delusional to think we are truly of the other gender, and in a way, there is a kind of madness that takes hold that carries you through the rough times, blinds you to the stares, helps you march inexorably through the awkward stages and to the other side.

I’m so grateful I listened to that voice, and I’m so appreciative of the warm welcome I received.

Song of Myself

A friend of mine said, with love and humor, “Robyn is the most self-satisfied, self-celebrating transwoman I know. She’s always so frikking delighted with her transition….it’s inspiring.” Hell yes! Today with fresh new amazing red hair color that makes jade green pop and sing I’m definitely in a place of gratitude and delight. We all have so many diverse tools of self-expression, it’s just wonderful when they resonate for us. Everyone should have fun being themselves and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to reach. I feel like it’s my life’s work, making friends with myself, being good to myself, celebrating who I am.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

—Walt Whitman

We Are Inter Dimensional Travellers

I have not just changed my clothes and hair and voice and name. I have not simply changed my face and chest and genitals. I have crossed from one dimension to another and have been reborn into a new being.

magick — Marvel’s Magick from the X-Men as drawn by my hero, Bill Sienkiewicz.

We try to strip the magic away from being transgender. We insist we are perfectly normal variations in the human experience with deep historical and cultural histories, observable scientific phenomena, prescribed medical interventions. We are quite mundane. All we want is to live our authentic lives, be accepted by our community and society, go to the grocery store and use the restroom in peace. We are not mentally ill, we are not confused about who we are, this is not some split personality disorder. All very true.

And where’s the fun in that? Continue reading “We Are Inter Dimensional Travellers”

Sexuality In A Nutshell

Social media can be useful sometimes for boiling down complicated thoughts like this one on the question of how my gender and sexuality work together. A recent comment I shared in a discussion:

This has been the great struggle of my life, sorting this confusion out. Functionally, I am very bisexual, but I had a very hard time connecting romantically with men as a young gay man. I concluded I was mostly straight because I easily ended up in long, complicated, emotional relationships with women including a recent 12 year marriage.

I NOW understand my overall attraction to women has more to do with wanting to be like them. Since transition I have chosen to date only men as I feel that is where my truth lies. I certainly prefer them sexually, especially now that my body makes sense to me. I am learning the puzzle of being emotionally connected to them, which is still not so easy but I am open to it now in a way I was not before.

I prefer being a woman who loves men, however difficult that may be.

Two Year Tranniversary

TBT, Tranniversary* post.

Two years ago this week I first used the word trans to seriously describe myself. It’s breathtaking how much changed from that day forward, but it doesn’t feel at all to me like things moved that fast.

I had been circling around it for awhile. Mainly I was bothered by my sexual orientation, but the more open I became the more was revealed. It was like unpacking a very large trunk and discovering buried underneath the denial and regret and rationalization there was this whole other person waiting to be reborn.

I thought “Well, maybe I’ll do some cross dressing, have some fun, play with that again”. I chose a cross dressing event to go to in the city, Halloween themed, I did modified Red Riding Hood. My wife helped me find an amazing red sparkly dress on Haight street, and I had picked up a decent wig at a local shop. I got ready at my friend Amy’s salon in the city. It was the first time in 25 years that I’d put myself together en femme.

The event itself was kind of unremarkable. A few nice people in various states of feminized disrepair. A tall trombone playing cross dresser, a short fireplug-shaped truck driver in an overly lacey babydoll nightie, and a married guy I had corresponded with online with who maintained a stunningly complicated life as a closeted cross dresser.

It certainly WAS NOT the kind of event that leads one to completely upend their life and declare themselves to be transgender.

But there was a moment. A very sweet transgender woman noticed me looking at myself in the mirror and she said “You are just the cutest thing”.

And just I said, “Yeah. I know…”

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I thought Robyn was DEAD. I had killed her. Suffocated her under 200 pounds of weight gain and an ocean of alcohol. And then miraculously I had become someone’s husband and father and that was amazing and all was forgotten.

And now here she was looking back at me in the mirror. And it wasn’t “Oh, this fun. Oh, this is sexy. Oh, this brings back memories.”

It was like finding out your lost love or your best friend or your twin sister had come back to LIFE. I can’t overstate how happy I was to see her and how heartbreaking it was to remember losing her to begin with.

The next day I began to seriously question whether the answer to years of discomfort and unhappiness were due to being transgender. Each day after that the answer was yes and yes and yes even as it set my life on fire and burned everything to the ground.

It’s awesome, and it’s terrible and it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth. Once you finally know the truth what else can you do but try to live it as best you can?

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*I got some blowback about the term Tranniversary. I think it’s a witty and apt description of the event. I also believe Tranny is our term, not “theirs”.

Ladies Attend Bridal Showers

I had such an amazing weekend visit to Los Angeles. Another step on this journey I’m on, filled with simple kindnesses and connections that feel wholly new. Grateful for a ride from the airport, a place to crash, and at one point a shoulder to cry on from a guy friend. A fun and inspiring reunion with newly transplanted Angelina trans-girlfriend and a lovely brunch with my mother-in-law. Feeling very lucky and full.

The trip was to attend the bridal shower for the incomparable Mela Lee, and to be included on her guest list of 20 beautiful and talented women was SUCH an honor and a gift. After losing touch for 25 years Mela has been one of my sisters and mentors in this last period in my life, providing me a warm welcome to the feminine, spiritually and materially as she simply UNLOADS her closet on me while dispensing advice and girlfriend philosophy.

Certainly this was my first bridal shower, and for a relative newcomer to the circle of women it was an opportunity to experience many feelings of inadequacy and being an outsider. I am grateful that I mostly declined that opportunity and simply showed up as myself and lived in the moment and enjoyed every single connection fully. Finding ways to be useful always helps, so I dived into helping decorate the space.

I went a long time without mentioning to anyone that I’m trans, which feels increasingly important to me. The further away I get from who I used to be the less comfortable I feel about disclosing it. Not because I fear rejection but I just want to be in the now as I am and not be reminded who I was and how I got here. But oh my goodness, I am still astonished at how far I’ve come in such a short time and how completely HERE I am.

Telling stories about my life is complicated. I come off as a straight woman and that’s mostly how I feel now. I have been intentionally using gender neutral terms to refer to spouses and past loves, because speaking about my ex-wife implies I’ve been in a lesbian marriage for 12 years, which is not quite what that was. But then I get thrown off when they ask about my husband and old boyfriends. Just talking about growing up is tricky. I can’t invent a girlhood I never had.

A conversation about how I met Mela and what that relationship was like just lacked the proper context before I explained that I had been a boy, so I disclosed, which led to a wonderful and extensive conversation about my life and experience. I sometimes fear that this will always be the most interesting thing about me. What else is there to talk about? I talk about my kid and they ask about his father and I just have to laugh.

So I’m still working that out. What are my stories. It’s nothing to worry about, and I’m now creating new stories.

This was a good one.

On National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day still feels weird to me. Globally I think it’s great. If it’s safe to come out and it’s your time to do it, fantastic. I got your back.

Personally, it’s hard because for me finally coming out was the end of a long string of lies, deliberate and unintentional, that I told to myself and to people I cared about. That’s no way to live a sane happy life, but telling the truth comes with consequences, especially this case if you have been a man in a heterosexual marriage as far as everyone knew. Nobody wants to be THAT person, but it’s a fairly common story, hopefully one that will become less common if antiquated ideas about sexuality and gender recede.

It took me a LONG time to figure out and accept who I am, and I’m sorry for all the people who I hurt along the way in all the pain and confusion. Sorting out my various attractions and gender identities and how they work together seemed hopeless. I attempted being a gay guy, a bisexual cross dresser, an obese closet-case, and eventually went with being a straight cis man because that’s what I thought I was at the time.

Now here I am two years after coming out as trans. Effectively disowned by my parents. My 12 year marriage is over by mutual agreement and our house has been sold. I am living alone and co-parenting my son.

I’m in a rapidly changing body with a new face.

And I’m learning to date men as a transwoman, which is challenging on fourteen different levels.

After all is said and done it seems I’m destined to be a straight woman, more or less. That’s a very difficult answer to get to. It’s one of those “after you’ve eliminated the obvious possibilities the most preposterous remains as the final answer” kind of deals.

At least I think that’s the final answer.

If not I guess I’ll get back to you on some other Coming Out Day.

Sheesh.

“Did you feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body?”

Photos by Bob Fischer, Oakland, CA January 2015/June 2017•Scott/Robyn•Demon/Angel

I hate that question, because to me it feels preposterous to say “Yes”, but if I say “No” it feels like it invalidates what I’m doing. So I say, “….Sort of…?”.

I didn’t spend 30 years wishing I could change genders. If so I’d have eventually given in. I had my moments when I was younger, I have the stories I can tell, but for the most part I refused to entertain the possibility and I made myself forget about it.

But I WAS really, really uncomfortable in my own skin, and I really disliked who I saw in the mirror. I just dismissed it as low self esteem.

Finally, when all possible explanations were eliminated I was left with the most preposterous one. So I stepped back into it and I immediately felt better, and every day since then I’ve felt better and stronger and happier. Even when it feels like my life is on fire I love who I am.

I didn’t know this was the answer until I let myself ask the question.

There’s been a lot of talk this past week around the “transwomen are women/no they are different” thing. I don’t have the words to have it all make sense to everyone’s satisfaction. It’s feels like a lot of pressure, having to prove your womanhood, especially when it’s barely a year old.

I shouldn’t have to.

I don’t have to.

It just is.

I know this much: If you took it away from me now, I would die. Does that help?

Being seen and heard on Trans Day of Visibility 2017

I have been wanting to start doing more video and this was my first on Facebook to promote the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive. I was ready to let more people see how I look and sound in the world beyond what they see in my well-crafted selfies. I loved it. My voice is one of my best assets and I love how I sound and act here. I love being me and it shows. People really get a lot out of it when we shine.