Dear Social Security,

Why are you so interested in the state of my genitals? You won't ever see them or interact with them. They are called private parts for a reason. If it's THAT important to you, YOU pay for the damned surgery.

The other agencies (the California court, the DMV, the passport agency), don't seem to care. They just want to know that I've had proper clinical treatment for transition. That seems a reasonable request.

Why is this important to you? The gender marker doesn't even appear on the card you issue. I don't even know why the marker is in your database. The lady at the counter looked at my court order and scoffed at the part where it says that the court orders my gender be changed. Apparently some SS offices are fine with just a court order, and that's enough. But not this one. So it is sort of a crapshoot.

So this office (or maybe it was just the lady) wants proof that I did the surgery. How is that even her business?

Luckily, I can still get my new driver's license with my new gender on it without dealing with the SS (I only really need the SS office to change my name), the DMV doesn't care about that crap. But I'm going to have this odd mismatch with the SS marker until I can convince them to fix it. Annoying!

A note about transgender surgery: This is not a one-size-fits all solution. Not all bits start out the same, not everyone can afford 20 to 80 grand, not everyone is healthy enough that the surgery is safe for them, and not everyone even WANTS to do it for various personal reasons.

Conference: New and Improved

In the LDS church, they have this thing called General Conference. Every 6 months, there are these broadcasts of talks given by the highest authorities for the church.  As a kid, these conferences kind of were great nap opportunities, though some of the talks were humorous or interesting enough to keep us awake. As I got older, I was able to absorb and understand them better.

Mostly those talks made me feel like I was doing things wrong. That I wasn't good enough in various ways (Which is really what the LDS church is all about, but that's a subject for a different post). Of course around 2006, they started directly attacking "gender confusion" as "wicked". (I think that was the first time I noticed a direct reference to transgender issues in the church. The reference only helped me realize I was not alone, though.)

But there was really something comforting about the format, being taught via these seemingly wise folks.

Well... I found a replacement. And best of all, it makes me feel great about myself, is way more fun, and doesn't retread the same tired material over and over again. I'm learning something real. Something that I can actually use in my every day life to improve myself and my world around me.

TED Talks.

Here are a few really awesome talks I've watched recently:

http://youtu.be/yqc9zX04DXs

http://youtu.be/PktUzdnBqWI

Religious Molds

I know a lot of my Facebook posts may have come off anti-religion lately. To be honest, that's not too far from the truth.

You see, religion works for a lot of people. But it also seems to let people like me fall by the wayside, and can incur a lot of damage on those people in the process. I don't fit into the mold. I don't think anyone really fits into the mold, forcing a lot of sacrifices and trimming in order to match.

I think that there are certain things that religion teaches fairly well. The golden rule seems to be present in nearly every religion. Religions can sometimes encourage healthier living, such as the LDS Word of Wisdom, which prohibits tobacco and alcohol use.

But I worry. I worry that like me, many who were raised religious find themselves silenced. Trying to fix something with religion that needs to be addressed with reality. For example, the big family rally held by the Osmonds in Utah recently... done with good intentions, I'm sure. But what of all the LGBT youth who were present that are just beginning to learn who they are? They were bombarded with this sentiment: opposite-sex marriage is the only way to happiness. They were told that they are broken, and the only way to be whole is for them to deny themselves their whole lives.

I was told I had to be a boy, I had to serve a mission, I had to get married in the temple and have a family. That was the way to happiness. The first one never sat well with me, a subject for another discussion. But the mission was even worse. How could I teach this religion to others when I knew how much it had hurt me? I couldn't reconcile it. When, years later, I was in love with a wonderful woman who I wanted to spend my life with, I only had the go-to answer which had been hammered into my head: I'm going to have to marry her in the temple. That was the only route to long term happiness I had been taught. But I found myself being pounded into this mold that fit me worse and worse as time went on. The mold seemed to change over time, becoming tighter.

When the LDS church came out in support of Prop 8 and told the members that their salvation depended on their support of the measure, I felt those weapons of war aimed right at me. I Was In A Same-Sex Marriage. Perhaps my wife didn't realize it, and certainly I had done a good job of trying to forget it as much as possible, but the knowledge that I was a woman was always there under the surface. This sudden attack against LGBT people was intensely personal. I could no longer support the church in any way, it was waging war on my lifestyle.

Now that my wife and I are no longer together, she takes our two boys to church most Sundays, and I support her in this only because I somehow managed to survive it and ended up a pretty good person. But I wonder. What if one of my boys doesn't fit the mold well enough. Even if they do fit, will anything be trimmed or sacrificed that was good or wonderful? I don't have a solution yet. =(