Author Archives: tiphane

pronouns: they/them/their

On Getting in Touch with Feelings

I’ve been a few months “nesting” in the way perhaps others have experienced post-pandemic. I used to fly away as an escape, but now it feels like I don’t need to escape, and I can claim I’m saving the planet by flying less, but rather it is because I’m finding happiness in my daily life.

I’m attributing this change in great part to attending a Modern Dance class, specifically for Older and Returning Dancers. I prudently signed up for this class, because my past is loaded with issues: first finding happiness in attending a friend’s class, but then having to go locally to a class in which the teacher and some “friends” enjoyed criticizing me. Follow that with decades away from the dance floor. The occasional party in which the music and the social scene were right would allow me to find pleasure again in the movement. And then finally, at the beginning of this year, part of my decision to nest, I found this class. The first time I went, I kept repeating to myself “this is not an audition” to calm my fears I would be singled out and shown as the person with an inflexible body (and the wrong gender). The teacher, Robin Nasatir, turned out to be the best for people like me. At every class since then, she’ll joke that everyone gets an A, and if you find yourself forgetting or going in the wrong direction, just improvise (I find that I just catch up by checking others). It totally works. I found that every class raised my happiness level. I would sometimes show up with the weight of the world on my shoulders, and leave the class lighter.

Which is what happened at the last class in October, when most of us have worked the choreography of the month often enough to be in some kind of automatic mode. It was our last opportunity to do it, when Robin put a different music and said to improvise the tempo by letting the music guide us through. Little did I know, the music came like a gentle wave at the beginning, which carried my limbs through the moves, but crescendoed with a heavy bass coinciding with a moment in which we dropped our bodies and raised them up before stepping into a rond de jambe… Anyway, I had seen our teacher do that move and wondered how could she drop so well in so short a time, but now I had the luxury of time. Little did I know I started crying… The music felt like the weight of the world, my body did drop, and then I had to rise against it, still crying, my hand finally opening up to the ceiling, and my mind only questioning in the background if I should just stop there because, you know, you’re crying?

Usually I find joy in dancing on a happy kind of music (I’m finding Dancing Queen old now that my repertoire has widened). Some people go on roller coasters, I’d rather be on the dance floor. But that day felt like many clouds in my mind parted to let the sunshine in. A new month with a new choreography has just started, a little more learning and attention are needed, but it’s fun too and I feel lighter (I am trying to maintain weight, believe it or not, seemingly because older people lose muscle mass?), because the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders…

And so, yeah, I’m not going on random travels. I also try to shield myself from news of the anti-trans movement, because I feel so fragile returning to the times of my childhood with all the eyes looking down on me to make sure I repressed all feelings. I also find that’s part of nesting, making sure my environment doesn’t question myself (and I know where the pitfalls are).

San Francisco Pride 2023

I often get depressed on Pride week-end, when it would seem it’s a big party out there… Which is probably just confirming that I’m an introvert! But this year I had a full week-end:

On Friday I was attending TransMarch, which to me is meaningful and non-commercial. I was late to it but just in time for the march itself, and ended up in front of it where… they used to have the elders in and around the trolley. Except that I realized I’m an elder now, and one of the few still around. Anyway, we were delayed at the start by a group staging a street die-out, and then on Market street waiting for the traffic people to let the cross-streets flow, and I needed to go eat and sleep… A photo of us appeared on sfgate with me very visible in the center of it:

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-trans-march-2023-18169122.php

So that was fun… Also to see the youth in all stages of gender fluidity, I remember my own youth spent mostly disconnected yet having a tiny desire to be like them, except they weren’t born yet to show me the way!

Then on Saturday morning I ran the SF Pride Run in Golden Gate Park. I had signed up as non-binary, abandoning the competitiveness of my age category, and yet noticing that the F side of the binary had very fast runners in the 60-69 age group, while I might have been leading the M 60-69 age group! I used to place maybe third, or sometimes fourth or fifth, and this was again confirming that many of us may have left during or after the pandemic. I also feel the fragility of this age, that the time will come when I’ll slow down and maybe walk part of the way.

On the way back from the run, riding the N-Judah, I had the unfortunate chance of sitting across a person who, after seeing my Pride Run t-shirt and number, started blabbering their view of what the letters LGBT (notice the old four-letter acronym) meant, and how this was contrary to their christian beliefs. I ignored it, letting myself cry inside and looking away. There was repetition in the recitation, which I have heard before as signs of mental illness (the person recites news bytes from TV, etc.), and I certainly didn’t want to engage and try to educate them! A couple of young women who had also come back from the run whispered words of support as they exited, which helped me smile back at them…

I was thinking about religion… How they condition their followers with their beliefs about other people, and those beliefs never get realigned with reality…

Anyway, on Sunday I volunteered to be a “monitor” on the Pride Parade course on Market street! I felt like doing that, almost like a “bucket list” type of thing. Some years ago I had marched with the ACLU contingent, but this year no such opportunity had made itself available. The task was supposed to be showing contingents a sign to speed up or slow down, but it became clear right away that we had no control over it. But it was great fun to help people avoid tripping on the curb of the bus shelter, and to pass the occasional gifts to the kids on the other side of the shelter! I made my own personal awards as follows: most self-centered contingent, Apple; saddest contingent, Macy’s (a few people holding a banner, a sign of the times); perplexing but courageous contingent, Target (because of how they reacted to right-wing threats); largest gap made, DHL; greatest adversary, the wind blowing against their banner.

And unlike my imagined fears, no right-wing terrorist. Hopefully they are busy harassing people on the internet and shooting cans in their backyard…

Finally on Sunday night I went back to see the closing night of ACT’s Wizard of Oz, which was so great because they had mostly local actors I knew already performing so well together in a very creative staging. I never saw the movie, and I think it would lack all the qualities I fund in this production. I was so happy to be in San Francisco…

Buying a Swimsuit as a Political Act!

This turned out to be too funny, and sad at the same time. The threats by the Republican Bigots on Target for featuring Pride-themed items, as they have done for many years without so much attention, made me curious to see what they had come up with… And I ended up buying that controversial swimsuit, along with a very comfortable gaff. Now as I went back to Target’s web site, it seems they have withdrawn it…

Which is too bad… Receiving it and trying it on gave me a moment of Trans Joy! For the first time in my long life I was comfortable in a swimsuit!!! Highly recommended now, I wonder if they’ll reappear wherever they can send them without getting the bigots’ attention (let me guess it won’t be a church-affiliated thrift shop)!

Seriously, however, the current assault by the Republican Party on trans and LGBTQ+ people is so despicable and indeed we have reached the point in which they have motivated wannabee terrorists to threaten the people at Target. They have already motivated shooters, and they act as if nothing happened. I don’t see how anyone could be a member of that party, as they have gone well beyond civil political tactics.

Making Bags for Donations

During the pandemic, I have made several tote bags following a pattern by noodlehead with variations… I’m also offering to make a grocery size bag on demand using fabrics that I have or that the buyer supplies.

Here are the current bags I offer (usually in a fundraiser, that I list in this page)… Contact me for questions!

Rainbow Unicorns Sold!

The unicorn bag differs from others in that there is no outside pocket, and the inside pocket is divided. The sides and the bottom have a canvas interior, and the handles are made with the same dark blue twill as the bottom.

Horses

This bag has two outside pockets and one inside, the bottom is made with a thick denim fabric, the inside lining is black twill.

Orange in Red

This bag has two outside pockets, both inside and outside bottom sections are made with a sturdy fabric. The lining and handles are a bright orange twill that complements the ensemble.

Pink in Blue Diamonds

I worked at a studio alongside quilters and was inspired to build these panels and combine these fabrics with the pink twill used for the lining. Two outside pockets, and one inside. The bottom has a foam layer inside.

Flower Squares

Two outside pockets, and one inside with a snap button. The lining, handles, and the bottom are black twill.

Shopping Bag

This is the bag I use every day and is the model for a custom-made bag if you request it! The lining is a natural color fabric (the vendor says it’s waterproof), the handles are a 1″ webbing. Ask for what other fabrics I have, or supply your own (I find many at Discount Fabrics in Berkeley), preferably cotton. I have been using this bag every day, it’s even been a favorite at the check-out counter!

Reentry and the INFP that I Am

An hour from now, I am going to a social event, my first one in about a year and a half of the pandemic isolation. There will be people with whom I cut ties at our last zoom meeting, when I had a meltdown of sorts (in what I recognize now as a typical INFP incident), people I like to see from a respectable distance, and people who have not seen me as a trans woman before. Also, I no longer drink, and I will opt for the sparkling water instead of a glass of wine. I will most likely escape after an hour, which will be easier because this is not at someone’s house where I would feel pressured to be polite and graceful in making an excuse for leaving.

I’ve been told many people have issues similar to that with “reentry,” resuming a daily life of being exposed to interactions with people. It’s not that I’m afraid to catch one of the COVID variants that could come back with some of those who already fly around and stir the big virus pool. It’s really that I’m back in a world that needs to be managed.

Recently, after having a few interactions that were disturbing, I returned to reading passages in the book, Please Understand Me II. In it is a guiding questionnaire to figure where you may fit in the four-axis personality and character scale known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The first time I took the Myers-Briggs, administered by a therapist, I was definitely IN, but as the therapist pointed out, I was only hinting at TJ. INTJ would be your typical Computer Science major, like I was. I figured out lots of things with this therapist, but not everything (it’s taking me decades), and I didn’t have a chance to revisit the questionnaire (especially because I was ESL in the language of feelings and emotions at the time), until about 15 years later, when I still remained 100% Introvert, but the last two letters had shifted to NP. Reading the description of Plato’s Idealist and other subclassifications in the book somehow didn’t satisfy me, because that was challenging my career choices and also the marriage that was coming into a big crash ending. Decades later, now, after discovering so many things about myself, reading about it is making a lot of sense.

Last night, I went back to another very useful book, The Introvert Advantage, which I had found so useful that I had made a presentation about it to a group at a retreat. In it was not only information about who are introverts, but also strategies on how to live better lives without feeling bad about not being the life of the party. Last night I saw that they had made studies on how we (introverts) think and interact, how the pathway in the brain is different, which I had sort of skimmed through before. But I just had had the experience of a couple of meetings with a person who was “making my head spin” and I needed to figure out how that was happening.

I have always been easy prey for con people, salespeople, and Catholics (because I was raised in a very Catholic environment, and there were fanatic Catholics who took me as their project when things were falling apart – I have recovered from that). The thing I figured out last night was that I respond emotionally to certain words and situations, and I don’t have time to process, so my response is usually to end the interaction with buying whatever it is they’re trying to sell me. In the past, I have had to cancel memberships and payments pledged the day before. When there’s a more personal involvement, it provokes a storm in me, I become obsessed with how to reconcile the need to break the relationship and that of creating harmony around me. It takes a lot of time, and the anxiety can be very high (I start fearing that the person will find ways to be back). I’m not surprised that some of us can develop mental illness from being exposed too much. In my case, I think I figured it’s better to hide, yes, but to tell the intruder that I’m stressed out at the moment.

So… I continue writing this 24 hours later. I went to the event and I was happy at the end. I wore a dress I made, no leggings because of the warm weather (I made sure there were no apparent hairs!), a pair of sandals I rarely wear, a hat (that I made as well) I always wear because I have a seriously bald spot. Most of the people I talked to had fared well in the sheltering-at-home, as I had. Most of the people had not seen me in a dress before (I used to wear mostly sweaters and tight pants), and many expressed being happy to see me be out. Only one person acted like I didn’t exist, but then I realized that this had been our situation ever since we had met. I resisted dwelling on that person as it would break my happiness with the event. That is an INFP characteristic to want harmony around us, but relearning about that allowed me to ignore the thought that there remained at least one person who was not happy with me. I turned the feeling around: they have never connected with me. In fact, there was a time when they should have, as the leader of the group, checked on my well-being, and they never did. I left the group without explanation and they never asked why.

So it’s all good. The key was to stop thinking about how I could have made this relationship better, when it is in fact meaningless. There is no purpose in trying to be a nice person to everyone, and constantly wondering if I disappoint them. That just makes me vulnerable to salespeople and con men!

And most importantly, I came out as transgender to so many people by just being there, that I have gained self-esteem overnight. That was a major event!

p.s. I just found out that the book Please Understand Me II by Kersey is an improvement of the Myers-Briggs test, which has been criticized for leading to inaccurate assessment of people in work environments. So go to https://keirsey.com/ to find out!

Exercise, exercise…

Getting More Exercise

It started as many Saturdays, when I feel that others are out there seeking fun, while I seem to have lost any taste for doing things. Breakfast then coffee then maybe lunch, wondering why I don’t really want to go down to the sewing studio (my current project isn’t too exciting, a bit challenging as it’s an improvised modification of a pattern). But also, it’s the feeling after talking to people, trying to express vague emotional ideas and listening to how the real world might structure them into its structure. It’s as if you told me, well do you want to give up the security of a structured society, or try your fancy ideas to soon realize that they will encounter the chaos of unstructured people? This will be an endless discussion (in my head too), but as a matter of fact it is a bit of the source of this feeling that the day isn’t worth facing.

After walking to the bookstore and not finding anything exciting (after two reads that were: Detransition Baby, and Victories Greater than Death), I proceeded to look for DVDs at the library. On my way back, I determined to go for a hike, knowing that in my experience, exercise is my best anti-depressant.

To make things better, I put on my running clothes, which give me better self-esteem in my feminine looks! As I walked outside in my colorful tank top over a sports bra, I congratulated myself because I was feeling I was a woman. In a sense I had already raised my self-esteem for the day.

My itinerary was to reach Tilden Park, about 3 miles each way, and uphill. I would have caught the bus in order to exclusively walk on trails, but there was no bus (I think because we’re still on COVID bus schedules). It was good, the streets in the Berkeley hills are great. Google Maps even sent me on stairs I didn’t know existed. It was hard, actually, but at my level of running, doing hills makes me stronger (I don’t work out on machines, so I have to find alternatives like running hills!). There were steep parts that can be hard on the knees, but I have learned to manage my descent in a way that may feel counterintuitive: find ways to flex at the hip, extend the gait, not putting the brakes on the knee muscles.

I encountered so many mosquitoes on that trail that I had to do a windshield wiper motion with both arms for quite a while! They must have been flies, because I don’t seem to have been bitten…

On the way back I seriously did the speed walker moves with hips and arms, which seem to have saved my knees. I want to pay a lot more attention to potential obstacles on the pavement and sidewalks, because I find it’s very easy to trip, and I really hate that (it hurts!). It’s too bad as the views of San Francisco Bay are so beautiful.

As it happens so often, people leave things on the sidewalk for others to take, and I check them out for potential treasures. Nothing struck my fancy until I found a pair of pink 2lbs weights… I had just thought, on my way up, how my runner’s anatomy book suggested some weight lifting for the upper body, and how I neglected that. So I took the weights and finished the last mile or so with them. The hot pink color matched the pink-and-blue of my tank top, it felt great!

I don’t know how I could still climb the stairs (double step stride) to my fourth floor apartment, but it was obvious that I should stretch and massage my legs (I use a foam roller) to prevent cramping later in the evening. While washing the (now new-looking) pink weights in the bathroom sink, I was startled by my woman self in the mirror. That was a new feeling I want to keep.

I write this on Sunday morning, after going for my usual run… Almost unbelievable to me, but I used the excuse that I run back via the grocery store to buy the paper Sunday paper, and a croissant that will accompany my coffee after breakfast. Now I can proceed with the day, go to the sewing studio and finish that project.

I imagined I would write this blog entry as a coaching advice (e.g. start easy, make it a habit, manage your knees, make it a challenge, a meditation), but I really don’t think I want to tell people what to do. Motivation has to come from you, and my best advice is to learn to listen to your body and seek an understanding of how it works (look at runner’s anatomy books, but also learn about trigger points and massage, and stretch). Exercise and diet and cut the alcohol… It seems obvious now, but there’s nothing in my mind that will have a greater effect on body and mind…

On Transitioning Too Fast

It has been a while since the last time I wrote.  Life has been good in the pandemic, because I stayed with good friends who embraced my transness (is there such a word?), and could avoid most social issues that tended to invalidate my feelings (impostor syndrome).

In this post-Trump year, it also feels better overall.  We can breathe.  But his troops are agitating in some states by passing anti-transgender laws (and anti-abortion laws), and it feels like we will always be under attack.  It feels like most of the time we are used, our bodies are used, as a threat to male dominance.  And it’s no surprise that the same people seem to be anti-abortion, which is also the expression of male dominance over women’s bodies.

I’m from a family of 7 children, the middle child who seemed to be the pivot on many issues.  I seem to be the pivot in Catholic belief, for example.  My younger siblings were indoctrinated by a new parish priest who led them into a youth group.  One became a priest.  I never found much interest in the church, and couldn’t really pretend there was a god listening to my thoughts, because nothing ever seemed to come out of repeating rites and prayers.  At the same time, Quebec society in the 1960’s started leaving the church and move on to the question of Quebec identity.  To me, it was like moving from one religion to another, and I have always felt excluded from the mainstream.

But I should fast forward to today…  Just by chance Dr. Erica showed up on my linkedin (I have abandoned all social media, but I tried linkedin to find someone I wanted to contact) and informed me that she was interviewed on “60 Minutes.”  So I watched, and it brought up this issue of some youth who had transitioned too quickly and then de-transitioned.  This is often used to invalidate us, but the problem seems to come from overly enthusiastic health care providers.  It seems to me like the rush to prescribe pain killers and anti-depressants when presented with symptoms in need of a quick solution.

It’s a bit funny, in fact, that more people can be questioning the COVID vaccine than, say, the need to do surgery to fix knee or back problems which could be relieved by focused exercise and physical therapy.  I had a neighbor who died after knee surgery.  I once damaged a ligament in my wrist and the first orthopedic surgeon I saw was quick to offer surgery, while the second opinion from an older doctor with a strong reputation with hand problems, which involved more of my participation, led me to conclude I could live with it.  It’s been fine.  I’m a runner, and I understood how to solve knee problems without medical intervention (it’s a matter of changing how you run, massaging trigger points, strengthening key muscles).

All that leads me to today, when I could certainly get HRT, but also cosmetic surgery, and ultimately gender-reassignment surgery.  Gender dysphoria is a strange thing, and for me it remained unidentified because it got mixed up with childhood trauma that I somehow solved by shutting myself down and making sure I got good grades in school.  There were a few traumatic episodes in the decades that followed, and I’m not sure, given the understanding we have now of gender dysphoria, that it could have been uncovered under the several layers of protection my mind and body had developed.  But today, now that I got rid of a lot of noise in my mind, I would love to have a magic wand because I’m still resisting medical intervention.

So what’s my recipe?  I don’t have one to give you, but it certainly involves self-introspection instead of imitation of others.  I have been dealing with this for many years, and I guess being older I tend to be less radical (I’ve never been).  I would suggest, however, to stop looking for “influencers” on the internet.  I remember being excited seeing vlog of young people going through transition, I so wanted to be like them.  But I was looking at success stories and ignoring the greater number of people who may or may not have a good time with it.  Judging from the experience of watching my nieces grow up into adulthood, I saw that they were trying at all costs to conform to the expectations put on them that I wouldn’t be surprised if a great number look for a way out of their assigned gender.  I heard cisgendered women talk about how they were like trans people because they went to the hardware store and talked man-to-man there (hint: that is just pointing out the absurdity of gender norms).

So yes, I’m suggesting to look at it in the long term.  Go to a support group at your local LGBTQ center, it gives you a reality check and the people are great.  Grow your hair long (it feels more female) or short (it feels more male).  Wear make up, but not too much.  Spend less time in front of the mirror.  Nail polish is so great (but I recently had significant nail damage, so I paused).  Ignore small misgendering (they called you Sir?  Ignore it, they don’t know anything).  Make friends who recognize and celebrate your gender.  See less people who don’t.  And exercise!  I run, and I stretch, and I hula-hoop!

Enjoy life!

Pride Month/Week/Day/Hour

This week-end in San Francisco was going to be one of the biggest annual events, but due to the pandemic, everything is virtual. But in a conversation with my sheltered friends (they’re cisgendered) about how I could express pride, I was having trouble figuring out how I could make the jump from a life of low self-esteem made medium esteem to actually feeling pride about who I am. But I took up a bag I just sewed together undefined and said I was actually proud of this bag that I figured out how to make, sometimes out of fabric remnants. I was also in the process of making my own Trans Pride Flagundefined from what turned out to be difficult to find pieces of fabric because the fabric store is closed and I couldn’t get similar fabric types in all colors. Anyway, I ended up recycling a shirt for the white band… Here it is, hanging in front of the house, where people hang flags, most often patriotic ones, which raises a point of thinking about what is pride for those people? Is it belonging to a group you identify with? Being part of a country that has serious issues of bullying and has a bully as its president? That they accepted for 4 years now? I wonder.

Putting aside the memories of crushing any self expression when I was a child, today I am proud of who I am, and I want others to recognize that I exist. I also want others to recognize that their patriotic or religious pride has been hiding racism and transphobia, not to add misogyny and homophobia. By existing, by walking around and letting them figure out whether I should fit in their narrow view of the binary, or just let go, I am expressing pride in who I am.

But it’s a lifelong battle. I learned that in these months of sheltering, people no longer care about personal appearance, which was great news to me. There’s less pressure to conform to expectations. Although I should add that zoom meetings have been difficult because I constantly have a mirror in front of me, and I hear my voice as not the voice of the person I want to be. Yet, it was great to care less about the image in the bathroom, and it was great to use a mask or scarf to cover the lower part of my face, so there’s less scrutiny at the store.

I am happy that this year marks a kind of point of no return for abolishing systemic racism, not only in this country, but in others where people keep denying its existence. I guess it was obvious to me when I feared the scrutiny of others about my gender, that people of color have experienced much worse on a daily basis. So I’m proud of who I am, but I’m not proud of being part of a larger group that discriminates. That has always been an issue for me, that big movements were led by people who laughed at me, so why should I join them? Now I think a greater number of people have said enough of that, let’s examine what we’ve been complicit with, and change.

my sewed-together trans pride flag!
two of my recently completed bags, moments of pride…

p.s. I am confused by the new WordPress editor… I inserted images both inline and as individual blocks for now. Hopefully this looks ok.