Aside from the two violent rapes in the Navy, the thing I hated most was something the men seemed to all know would get to me…When I simply tried to take up for myself, “Dayum! Don’t have a hissy-fit!”, (laughter…. delighted with themselves 🙄). And I was supposedly, apparently, a man!

Is it any wonder that I finally found the courage to transition?(at 35 years old, 1993).

I mean, if I was getting misogyny and rape-culture, full force, already….

I can’t diagnose or judge other transwomen, but it’s pretty obvious to me that I really was in the wrong body.

Upbringing?(single mother and three older sisters), genetics?(who knows?). Fact is that I had no choice…for some reason I just never got the male privilege that they seemed to have…

I really thought that I was doing a good job of “being a man”, but I kept getting misogyny…even rape!

I had to just give up on it.

Now days, my girlfriends,(cis), will occasionally say something like, “I absolutely can not imagine you as a man!”

But, of course, that means, for the last 25 years, I’ve born the full force of misogyny and rape-culture. Strangely enough, it didn’t change much for me.

I keep remembering the dentist, when I was about 12, saying, as he patted my upper thigh and left his hand there, “Now, let me see that pretty smile!”

At least now, finally, I’m comfortable just being the nice old lady at the AA meeting.

Peace Love Kindness Respect the more you give the more you get 😍 (w. boundaries 😇).