I thought this video was worth posting here, it really speaks to the subject of being authentic. Well worth watching!
Filed under: Video | Tagged: authenticity, Transgender | Comments Off on A great video from Youtube on being authentic
A great video from Youtube on being authentic
Posted on February 18, 2009 by Amber Darlene
Sex drive and transition
Posted on October 26, 2008 by Amber Darlene
Hello to all the fine readers out there!
My question today is about sex drive and transition. For those of you taking HRT, how does transition affect your sex drive? I have to wonder if your existing sex drive before transition has very much to do with how it reacts to the change in hormone balance, from testosterone to estrogen for the MTFs, or from estrogen to testosterone for the FTMs .
My personal story starts with a fairly low sex drive from before I started HRT. I wasn’t really too much into sex, although I did have my urges, just not nearly enough for my ex! 🙂 I don’t know, maybe my age and the depression were contributing factors to the lack of sex drive. Anyway, after about 3 months or so on spiro, I really had a serious loss of sex drive, coupled with a lack of erectile function. At this point, a year and three quarters into HRT, I have zero sex drive. About 6-7 months ago, I noticed an increase in my sex drive and guessed that my T level was increasing. A blood test showed that I was right, my level had gone back up to about 550 at that point and I had to change my dosage levels to bring it back down. I’m guessing that the T level is back down because, as I said, I have zero sex drive at this point. To be honest, I don’t miss it. For me, it was distracting and uncontrollable. I’m much more comfortable with myself now, although, if I was ever able to get GRS, I’d want to know what sex would feel like from the other perspective.
So, if you care to discuss it, what is your perspective on the subject of sex drive and transition?
Filed under: Blogging | 6 Comments »
Happy posts?
Posted on September 12, 2008 by Amber Darlene
So…does anyone like to read happy posts? Sometimes I wonder if posts about things going well and the adventures that go with it are not as interesting or read as much as the posts about the struggles of transition. In my case, transition has been pretty straight forward so far, almost like a non-event. That makes me wonder if I have much to offer the trans community in my posts. I’d actually rather talk about the fun we have with our hobbies than to talk about going to the bank as Amber and being treated like any other customer, what’s so interesting about that? Nobody ever shows up with torches and pitchforks, it’s a non event, even going to Home Depot as Amber and dealing with a cashier that has known the old guy for 15 years was a non-event, no reaction at all, just normal customer service. Nothing to see here folks, just life happening. Does anybody really want to hear about stuff like that?
Filed under: Life Experiences, Transgender | Tagged: community, happiness, optimism, transition, transitioning | 7 Comments »
Transition at work, the dilemma
Posted on September 4, 2008 by Amber Darlene
I know that most of the readers here have their own issues with transition at work, one of the more tricky parts of transition. My particular situation is a bit complicated. As most of you know, I came out to my boss around the middle of June, and he was supportive of my issues. I told him at that time that I would eventually tell everyone else that works there, the other 5 employees. And, as you know, I did tell them toward the end of July. Now, everyone at work knows about me and I’ve been relaxing a lot more and not trying to hide the transition developments at work, they all seem to be OK with it so far, but they haven’t actually seen Amber fully yet. After my appearance at the theater and the resulting fallout, I’ve been a bit more cautious about pushing my transition at work. The problem is that our customers don’t know about me, and if the reaction from one of the workers at the theater is any indication, some of them would not want me to come to their place of business as Amber. The other problem is that our business depends on the relationship with our accounts, they can go to another company like ours any time the want to, there’s plenty of competition for the business. So, if I cost us an account because of my transition freaking out the owner of the business, the company I work for loses money. Not good for my job. The boss says that he’s supportive of me and my transition, but if it affects his business, the bottom line becomes more important than my transition, or my job, probably. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
If I transition at a natural pace, as my body changes, people see it and deal with it. Of course, that takes just short of forever. If I just start showing up at the accounts presenting as I would choose to do, I risk damaging the company’s income, and thus, my job. I think about this a lot when I’m working at a place that I go to enough that they recognize me, how am I going to deal with things like going to the ladies room at the place, when they knew me from before the change? That may be the biggest issue, even if my new appearance doesn’t freak them out. I haven’t come up with a workable solution to all this yet, short of getting a different job where I can start as Amber, and that’s really impractical and unlikely at this point in time! What’s a middle aged girl to do?
Filed under: Life Experiences, Transgender | Tagged: coming out, Education, job, transexual, Transgender, transition, transitioning, transsexual, workplace | 9 Comments »
Ma’am or sir?
Posted on August 30, 2008 by Amber Darlene
Getting “ma’am”ed or “sir”ed can really make a difference in the mood of a day of a trans person! Yesterday, I went to a service call to replace light bulbs on a juke box and as I was opening my tool box to get my work keys, the cute young (female) bartender came around the bar and said to me, “hey juke box guy,….” Ouch! I wasn’t presenting as female at the time (still working on that issue, I present as close to it as I can without augmentation or makeup) but it still bugged the crap out of me! What an ego killer!
Now today, I went to a campground that we provide games to, to work on the plush animal crane. There was a group of girls there, and a boy, all about 8-13 years old, that age group. Anyway, as I was working on the crane, the kids were watching me, and I kept hearing “she” in relation to what I was doing. Now, that was really weird! Again, I wasn’t presenting as female in particular, but I wear a ball cap to cover my receding hairline, I have no visible beard shadow, and I have dark red hair now, to match my wig. Also, I try to practice my voice in public to get used to the sound of it in my own ears. My mini-boobs may have been showing a bit also. I guess, for them, it added up to female. I was interacting with them, I even traded them a couple animals that they had won for other animals that they wanted from inside the crane. All the while, when the kids talked to each other, it was always “she” this or “she” that. I left there feeling kinda weird, it’s the first time that’s happened to me. It was nice, but really weird! And, of course, it really pushed up my desire to properly look the part! I think it’s going to be harder to be patient as I work my way toward full time at work.
Has anyone else run into these kinds of situations in public?
Filed under: Life Experiences, Transgender | Tagged: GID, Life Experiences, transexual, transsexual, workplace | 2 Comments »
The power of friendship
Posted on August 14, 2008 by Amber Darlene
I’ve been thinking about the subject of friendship and transition for a while now, but recent events and a few other blogs on the subject of friends that I’ve read in the last couple of weeks prompted me to write my own blog about it.
Early on in my therapy sessions, probably a year and a half ago, my therapist suggested that I should look for an on-line support group of some kind for people with trans issues, as there’s nothing anywhere near my area. I ended up on CD.com, which was cool for quite a while, meeting on-line with many other people like me. I connected with several other trans-girls there and eventually met with Teresa last year. It turned out that we had a lot of interests in common besides the trans issues and we went to a couple of big events together, a civil war reenactment, and the big yearly airshow in Oshkosh, WI. She went “Teresa-fied” as she called it, and I went in “dis-guy-ze”. I learned a lot about confidence from watching her just be herself, and the best part was that no-one that we walked past or dealt with got weirded out about either of us. No confrontations! It got me to thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could do that also, and maybe it would even work out ok. Fear has a way of slowing down the whole process of transition, so I wasn’t in any hurry to confront my own fears, but I now knew that it was possible.
Teresa was already in the process of attempting to sell her house in Traverse City, MI (an entire story by itself) and was looking into other places to move to, and my house was empty 4-5 days a week with me living at work so I figured “what the heck, she wants to get out of Traverse City, I have an empty house with 2 bedrooms, maybe she’d be interested in living there for a while until she figures out where she wants to go.” So I asked, she thought it was a good idea and, in November of 07, we moved her stuff with a really big U-haul truck to my house, about 300 miles away.
It’s interesting how a person can slowly build up their courage when they have an example to follow. For me, that’s Teresa. She’s out there every day, just being herself, not having any problems with other people, just doing the stuff that people do, except she’s Teresa about 95 % of the time.
For those of you who’ve been following my 360 blog or hers, you’ve read about our various exploits together, with me pushing the gender envelope further and further until I could finally go out and be Amber in public. At this point, I’m almost full time when I’m home (work is a different issue, LOL) and I intend to be full time, no exceptions, at home within the next couple weeks. I’m waiting for my background check to come back to the courthouse so I can get my court date set for my legal name change, hopefully soon. I’ve faced most of my transition fears, such as going to the bank, and the biggie, the bathroom, last weekend. That’ll be part of my next blog, “the chronicles of Amber”. The McDonalds bathroom full of women was a particular highlight of the weekend, talk about anus clenching adventures! LOL
Anyway, back to the subject, friendship. Never underestimate the value and power of friendship! Come out of your shell and connect to some other people if you haven’t yet. Find someone that you can talk to about your shared trans-issues, but also, shared non trans interests. Hang out together, go share some anus clenching adventures of your own! Start living again! (and, no, I’m not talking about anything sexual, mine doesn’t work anyway.)
I can tell you that I know that I would not be where I am now in my transition if it were not for friendship! Of that, I have no doubt!
Filed under: Life Experiences | Tagged: courage, friendship, guy mode, mtf, Transgender, transition | Comments Off on The power of friendship
A strange little piece from an old attempt at song writing
Posted on August 7, 2008 by Amber Darlene
I look through the door to the inner space,
where things are not always what they seem
I see dark deeds and cool spring water
ideas fly with raven wings
the grass breeds tiny green monsters
that sing with whispering sighs
trees bear fruit of vision
seen only with burned out eyes
The vision seems much more likely
with reason left behind
Release of true emotion
Salvation of the mind
Filed under: Poetry & Creative Writing | Tagged: emotions, poetry, song | Comments Off on A strange little piece from an old attempt at song writing
My new blog on wordpress
Posted on July 27, 2008 by Amber Darlene
Just a quick note to let you know that I now have a blog on WordPress. It’s Amber’s ramblings under amberdarlene. Rather than posting my various adventures here, I thought I’d post them there.
Amber
Filed under: Blogging | Tagged: blog, blogs, wordpress | 5 Comments »
I must be crazy!
Posted on July 19, 2008 by Amber Darlene
That’s what keeps cycling through my thoughts as I get deeper into the “trans land of no return”. In the last few weeks there’s been a series of small but significant things that I’ve done for, or with, my transition progress that I can’t “take back”. Things like telling my boss about my GID and that I’m taking certain drugs to deal with it, or showing Amber to my daughter (finally), or this morning, telling my boss that I’m going to have to tell my co-workers about me pretty soon because my changes are starting to get more noticable.
Scandalizing the neighbors with my “dual appearance” out in the yard seems to be a non-issue for me now. The first couple times I went outside as Amber had me thinking I was nuts, but, “I got better”
I had some serious “I must be completely crazy!” thoughts after my last laser treatment, it was really painful!
Sometimes, when I look in the mirror at my changing body and face, I can’t help thinking “what the hell am I doing ?” Last weekend, I was looking at Amber in the mirror and I had that ” Oh my God, I’m actually doing this, I gotta be crazy!” moment.
Last Tuesday, I filed the paperwork at the county court house for my official, legal change of name and all the way through the process I just kept thinking “I must be crazy!”
I really knew that I’m crazy when I went to get fingerprinted at the State Police post for the necessary background check required by the state of Michigan for a legal change of name. The officer was built like a linebacker and had an attitude, especially after looking at the copy of the the paperwork and reading where you have to list your reason for wanting to change your name. He was professional about it though, I’ll give him that much. This guy probably has twice as much mass as I have, and none of it was fat, from what I could see. Can you say “intimidating”? Yes, to put myself through that, I must be nuts!
Fear has a strange effect on the mind, especially fear of the unknown mixed with fear of the bad things that you do know about. It tends to make me think I’m completely crazy for starting, and more importantly, continuing transition. And yet, through all this, I keep going down the path of transition. When I get really freaked out by it, I pull myself back to reality (is this really reality?) by reminding myself that I’ve been wanting this for 30 years! Doing it IS different from wanting to do it, much more intense!
To be honest, up to this point, I really haven’t had many of those bad experiences that other people have with their family, friends, and work. My divorce was tied to this, but she had been cheating on me for 4 years. Yes, I must be crazy for putting up with that for so long. I was dumb, I kept hoping things would change. Anyway, up to this point, that’s the worst thing that’s happened because of my transition. I’m sure there’s more to come, I’m not full time yet, and going full time tends to change things, when it becomes real to everyone around you.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I’m completely crazy!
Oh ya, almost forgot, I just HAD to shave my legs this evening before I could go to the grocery store wearing shorts. How crazy is that?
Filed under: Blogging, Transgender | Tagged: Confusion, crazy, divorce, family, fear, laser, legal, name change, shaving, transition, transitioning, workplace | 1 Comment »
TRANScend GENDER 
The Most Important Transition Question
I haven’t posted anything here in a while, normally I just use my own blog for stuff. I thought this video was worth posting here because it concerns the entire trans community. I’ve been wanting to make this video for a while and I finally got around to doing it, so here it is.
Filed under: Commentary, Transgender, Video | Tagged: costs, transition, Video, vlog | Comments Off on The Most Important Transition Question