There are many things people expect in life. Often times not getting what they expect causes problems. Their expectations don’t become reality. A son can grow up to become a daughter. A father can stop being a man and become a woman. Adjusting to the fact that accepting people in your life for who they are and not who you expect them to be can be hard. Cate O’Malley has some thoughts on the subject. Along with her impressions of Kinky Boots.
Chanelle Nirok is a young crossdresser who is always looking for a lady to call her own. It’s hard enough finding someone special no matter who you are. Adding crossdressing into the picture makes it even harder. But Chanelle has dated many women and has some advice on what you should keep an eye open for in any relationship. Find out what she feels are Dating Red Flags.
Today we return to 1998 and reproduce a column by Stephanie K. In this column she talked about how she was affected by the experience of being en femme with some of her colleagues at an art show who had not met Stephanie before. She felt that it changed her and her friends for the better. She found that presenting herself en femme as a happy, healthy person was good for her as well as the public who admired her artistic attire. Could crossdressing be a public service?
Amanda has been laboring in the fields of Big Box Land for too long. The demands of the job are becoming greater and the pay is not going up. Today was one of those days when she almost told some entitled, over paid, “guest” to do something that it would be best not to tell someone to do. If you want to keep your crappy job, that is. Will she ever make it to the Continent of Careers? Or will she stay stuck in the low paid Land of Jobs?
It’s a big, wonderful world and it’s full of possibilities. Why should we be limited to expressing only two gender identities? That’s the question The Artist D poses today. Why not be able to be femme one day, masculine the next and a mixture of both, or none, on another day? The Artist D wants to shake the gender identity tree and see what falls out. See if you agree.
They are called “chasers” or “admirers.” They are men who are attracted to trans women. While they may get married to cis women and have families they are always looking for love on the down low with a trans woman. But when they’re not discreet about it their secret can get out. An e-mail to a friend of Linda’s gets her friend into a prolonged conversation with the wife of one of her ‘admirer’ friends. Does the phrase ‘eternal triangle’ come to mind?
Children With Ambiguous Genitalia Should be Given Time to Decide Which Gender They Identify With (Philadelphia, PA) – Children with intersex conditions — those born with genital ambiguity – should be allowed time for their brains and gender identity to develop naturally before their gender is decided, says Dr. Sherman Leis, renowned transgender surgeon and the founder of The Philadelphia Center […]
The U.S. military is currently examining the ban on transgender people serving openly. But directives issued last year by the Department of Defense make it clear that the military is aware of its trans soldiers and is going to let them serve openly. Dana Bevan believes that while the road to trans acceptance in the U.S. military is going to be short one the various branches of the service are not at all prepared to deliver medical care to trans soldiers, sailors and airmen/women. Does she think they can get their act together? Read on and see.
If blending in and passing is what you strive for when you’re out and about in public then this column is not aimed at you. Cate O’Malley has made a decision to not adhere to the dictates of fashion or to just blend in. She has firm likes and dislikes and when she dresses to go out for the day she dresses the way she likes. She also urges others to do fashion their way. Will that approach work for you?
Sophie Lynne has been wondering whether people who tell her they know how it feels to be treated differently because she is transgender means can really have an understanding of what it’s like. As a trans person she admits that she doesn’t know what it’s like to have been born with a female body. How can cisgender people have a clue about what it’s like to be trans? Sophie has one idea.
Amanda is full of questions. Since November she has been dealing with excessive anxiety. She wonders if there is something missing in her life, and she asks if she’s in the right place, and whether or not she is doing the right thing pursuing gender reassignment. Making her anxiety worse is the grey gloom of San Francisco in the winter, a winter that has El Nino bringing rain many times a week. Amanda longs for spring sunshine and wonders when it will come.
Mandi Camille Hauwert has been a correctional officer since 2007 at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California. In 2012 she came out at work, identifying as transgender. Thanks to our friends at Your True Gender Radio we present a conversation with Mandi in which she discusses being a transgender guard in a maximum security prison, as well […]
Decisions, decisions, decisions. For trans people there are decisions to be made at every step of their life journey. Should they start to experiment with crossdressing? Should they tell people close to them that they have these feelings? Would it be a good idea to go to a trans support group? Should transition be a goal? In order to make any of these weighty decisions Dr. Dana Bevan urges you to get information from different sources and make the best decision from an informed position.
This is an opinion piece from the TGF Archives. It was published in April of 1999 by Roberta Angela Dee, a writer and activist in the trans community who published several books and wrote for TGForum and other publications. Ms. Dee passed away in 2003. In this piece she discusses whether gender reassignment surgery is […]
The Artist D is stricken with “year end wrap up fever.” If afflicts many at the end of an old year and the start of a new one. For The Artist D wrapping up means looking back at the columns she contributed to TGForum over the past year and identifying the ones that expressed her hopes for a better year in 2016.
Our co-ed crossdresser, Chanelle Nirok, has some ideas on dating. In her opinion the important thing is how you get along with a person. Some, like the old Paula Abdul song, thing that opposites attract. Others feel that you need to find a partner who is just like you. Chanelle feels that it’s important to find someone who is your equal.
Here it is, the beginning of 2016 and I, like so many of us, make resolutions and polish up my crystal ball to try to determine what awaits us in the New Year. My resolutions usually contain lose weight and exercise. This year, however, instead of setting hopeless goals, I’m throwing out the resolutions, setting […]
Life is complex and life can be hard. Sometimes people meet and it seems like they are fated to be together. But sometimes their fate is something else entirely. Dawn and Hannah met when Dawn was hospitalized. Hannah was living as a man and keeping her femme side hidden. Together they unlocked Hannah’s femme side but in the process, over the past year, they have moved apart. Was it Hannah dealing with her new gender expression? Was Dawn to confident that they would stay together?
Dickens Christmas tale has Sophie musing about the ghosts that all of us are haunted by. Some of those ghosts are good and some are bad but they all affected us as we traveled though our lives. Sophie points out that while these ghosts of people in our past, and in our present, can influence us and push us one way or another, in the end we make our decisions and are responsible for them.
Amanda has been dealing with intense anxiety. For some reason she can’t shake it and it is worse at some times of the day. Is it the thought of gender reassignment surgery getting near? Is it being away from her family in a far off land? Could it be her discomfort with her retail job, or her economic insecurity? One thing has helped her through the holiday season. Read on. . . .
The new year is a time most people make resolutions. They plan on eating better, taking care of things that they’ve let slide for too long, and all in all becoming a better person. As we reach the end of 2015 our correspondent in Thailand doesn’t have resolutions. Instead she has five wishes for the trans community around the globe in 2016.
From time to time we dip back into the secret archives of TGForum and pull out an interesting post from the 1990s. Some of the content from back then is interesting for how dated it is, while other posts are still relevant in the 21st century. Today we bring you Jessica Brandon’s shopping column from Dec. 1997. Her advice on shopping for femme attire while dressed in male clothing is still useful information.
Is it possible that in the 21st century with our high tech communications systems that let us correspond with people all around the world, even translating communications sent in other languages that the actual communication of real thoughts and meaning has degenerated into a limited number of characters on Twitter? Is the Internet driving us further apart?
Dr. Sherman Leis, founder of The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, one of the leading resources for transgender surgery and medical support in the United States, has identified 10 important trends that will affect America and its transgender community in 2016.
It’s hard to get people to accept the whole idea of transgenderism when they believe that genitals fully define what a person’s gender role will be. Many people feel that “men are men and women are women” and what men and women do in their lives is determined strictly by their physical sex. To them that’s the “natural state of affairs.” Today Dana Bevan asks, “What if that’s not the natural state of affairs?”
The road that Dawn and Hannah were traveling had begun to get a little rocky as the first blush of excitement started to wear off. Dawn loved helping Hannah become Hannah and at first it was wonderful being there to bring her feminine spirit to the fore. But then insecurities, bad communication, and old issues in both of them makes Dawn ask When is it Too Late?
