Why so late?!

I'm sitting outside a café in Stockholm and feeling frustrated. All those lovely young girls walking by, and me an old cougar of 60. And I have to wait untill next spring before I can make love to a woman the way I want to - as woman to woman.

The main thing that I'm thankful for after all those years as a man is my daughters. So why the hell did I wait so long? I'm very good at repressing things that might be difficult and when the idea of a sex change surfaced I pictured grotesque trannys with beard stubble and knobby knees. My way of dealing with it was mainly to questioning the traditional gender roles. Something that came easy for someone of my generation and on the far left. Mind you, it wasn't always that easy. I remember an occasion in the fall of 67, when I got laughed at because I suggested that we should form groups to tackle the role of males and how we should attack and change them. Not even the proto feminists took me seriously.

I was, to put it mildly, a problem child from my teens and way up in adulthood. I realize now that much of it was my repressed need to change sex. I used to run away, to Stockholm, Copenhagen and the Netherlands among others. I wasn't running away from anything, no abuse or bullying or anything like that. I was running towards something. Some change. Unfortunately I had no clear picture of what that something was. It's a miracle that I didn't get hooked on drugs or booze.

I've had more, much more, than my allotted share of sex partners through the years. And I like to think that most of them were very satisfied. In a big part due to the fact that I wasn't that interested in just penetration, the old in and out. Without realizing it what I wanted was sex woman with woman. Hence my concentration on her lust with tongue, finger and hands. I'm proud to say that I discovered the G-spot before I've ever heard of it. ;-)

As usual I'm rambling. I've already forgotten what I intended with this blog instalment. So let me tell you of some observations regarding my hormone regime. I'm on an oestrogen gel, Divigel, which I take 2 mg in the morning and 1 mg in the evening. At the start of the therapy i also took an anti androgen, Cyproteron, 50 mg morning and evening. After the bloodwork showed very high liver values I quit them. But recently I've started Cyproteron again as I thougt I detected a decrease in my feminization, no more growth of breasts and a corsening of body hair. I'm pleased that my tits have started to feel painfull again and also a slight growth. But I'm going to have the blood work done again soon. I don't want to end up in hospital before the big operation, probably sometimes next spring.

But what I hadn't really expected was some mental changes. OK, that my tear ducts sometimes open for the slightest, and sometimes silly, reason I sort of expected. But not to that extent. When I watched the end scenes in Tipping the Velvet I sobbed loudly and could hardly see the screen. On a more serious note, when I watched the video of Neda being murdered and dying in front of the camera I cried for almost an hour, and then on and off during several days.

My taste in food have altered drastically. Before the hormones I was like the Cockie Monster, I could eat a package of cockies in no time. A Schwartswald cake went down in 20 minutes. Now I hardly miss them at all, I prefer more "healthy" food (thanks Öyvind and Mojj for the wild boar wok Saturday evening).

I also get more of an emotional reaction to babies, cats and cute dogs. Probably something to do with oxytocsins.

My Birkenstock sandals have given up on me, can't walk in them without my feet hurting. Can I be a lesbian without Birkenstocks? :-) Is it OK with Ecco?

Well enough ramblings from me for now. But Godess how I long for a woman/woman relationship.

Pics from Stockholm Pride 09

Stockholm Pride 2009, the ramblings of a cougar

Me tired after the parade

So now the fun is over. For over a week Stockholm have been taken over by us fags, lezzies and asorted queers. And I'm proud to be a part of the latter two - a transsexual woman, lesbian, queer and gender outlaw.

I've been working as a volunteer at Pride House so haven't had much time to participate in other events. This will as a consequence be a rapshodic and personal account.

Stockholm Pride is made up of three main parts: Pride Garden, Pride Park and Pride House as well as lots of events associated with Pride, like museums theaters, resturants, clubs ..... Pride Park was in Kungsträdgården - a park in central Stockholm - all events there were free and there was some great stalls such as the publishers Normal .

Pride Park, situated in Tantolunden is the main area for entertainment and stalls for shops, bars, political parties and a lot of LGBT related organisations.

Pride House, in Kulturhuset in central Stockholm, Is where most discussions, talks and lectures were held as well as plays and music.

During the week all buses have been carying the rainbow flag. And all official flagpoles all over town have had the flag flying.

To begin at the end: Saturday we, about 35 000 people, took a leasurley stroll through our beautifull city. Watching us fags, dykes, queers, trannies and assorted outlaws were about 350 000 citizens. For various reasons this was my first parade but absolutely not the last! It was a marvelous feeling, especially towards the end of the route. Thousands of people on a knoll in front of a church and on a hill opposite were cheering and waving. Loved it! I was walking under the banner of KIM, an organisation mainly for all variants of trans people.

But then I started to wonder. About a third of the population was out to cheer us but what about the rest of the year? Where does the discrimination come from? The hate, the snide remarks, the snicker behind the back and the violence? Are they just out to watch the freaks? Do they really love us? Well, never mind, I took it as a well earned tribute to our trails and tribulations.

Back to the beginning: I was working at Pride House as a roadie in a large but a bit out of the way premise. I was in charge of arranging the stage, see to it that the tech was as requested, water for the lecturers, counting the audience, keeping the very tight schedules and generally make sure that everythin ran smothly. As it was not more than 15 minutes between events it was sometimes a bit hectic. And because the doors had to be closed most of the time I unfortunately didn't hear much of what was going on.

The rest of the volunteers were a lovely bunch of coconuts.. ehh people. As behoves Pride there was all sorts of preferences, genders and ages. I look forward to seeing them all again next year.

There is not much i can tell you of the events. The chief of police in Stockholm, Karin Götblad, have very nice legs, and she have done much to fight hate crimes and to change the attitudes among the police in Stockholm.

An old friend that I haven't seen since the seventies, Pia Laskar, talked about what's been defined as normal throgh history. Did you know that the term heterosexual is as new as the mid 1800s?

Pia was also one of the guides on a boat sight seeing with the theme of lesbians and queers in Stockholm from King Kristina to the present.

Another friend I listened to was Nina Ramsby, she's one of the best artists I know of. Her participation in Pride Park wasn't announced untill the same morning but the out of the way venue was packed with audience, mostly girls an women. And as usual Nina was great, she have a fantastic stage presence and report with the audience.

One thing I did through out the festival was lobbying for Kate Bornstein to be invited as a guest at next years Pride. I'm also trying to get Normal Förlag to publish a Swedish translation of Kate's book "Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws". Anyhow I'm going to start translate it tomorrow. Lazy and easily distracted as I am I have made a schedule for myself. Now the problem is how to make myself stick to the schedule.

Stockholm protests the murders in Tel Aviv

Last night a message went out on Facebook and twitter to assemble at Sergels Torg in central Stockholm in two hours to protests the murders in Tel Aviv. Despite the short notice over a hundred people turned out to protest and to show our support for our friends in Israel.

Every time I hear about a hate killing it makes me sad but also angry. I can somehow understand someone who kills out of jealousy or greed even if I abhor any taking of a human life. But to kill someone you don't even know because who they are, what they look like, their politics or religion, that is something I can never understand. How can we stop all this hate killings? I know it's almost like wishing for world peace. But nevertheless it's something we must stive to do.

Regardless of what we do we must keep in mind not to start any kind of vendetta. That just fuels the hatred. I'm not a religious person and leas of all a christian but there is a saying that is very true and on topic here: Hate the sin, not the sinner.

The reason that the murders in Tel Aviv moves us is that the victims were so young and that Tel Avivi supposedly is a very gay friendly city. But let's not forget the hatefull violence that ocurs every day all over the world. As an example: I read a report last week that a trans person is killed every third day.

So back to the question - what can we do to stop the hate?

You Scored as The Hipster Dyke You are the definition of Urban chic, with your torn jeans and rock star wannabe attitude. Women either love you or hate you. The Student Dyke 80% The Femme Fatale 70% The Stud 65% The Vaginal-Reference-Making Dyke 65% The Quasi-Gothic Femme 60% The Sprightly Elfin Femme 35% The Magic Earring Ken Dyke 30% The Little-Boy Dyke 25% The Bohemian Dyke 20% The Pretty-Boi Dyke 20% The Granola Dyke 15% The Surprise! Dyke 15% The Hipster Dyke 10%

Transsexual kids

There have been a lot on the net lately about the 8 y o boy who insists that he is a girl. Her mother is now letting her go to school dressed as the girl she is. I think that's GREAT! Unfortunately her school seems to be of a different opinion.

This reminds me of an incident about two years ago. I was working in a café in Stockholm. Even if I'm fairly passable my voice makes it obvious that I was born male. This particular day a father and his two children, a boy and a girl, sat at a table. After a while he came up to me and said. "I'm sorry but I have ask this. My daughter wonders if you are a boy or a girl." I answered, turning to the children "I'm a boy who is changing into a girl." The girl smiled and started in on her ice cream. "She have insisted since she was about three that she is a boy." the father said. "And we don't really know what to do. We just want her to be happy." I told him that he should talk to the clinic for sex change at Karolinska. As they were leaving the girl turned in the door and waved goodbye to me, a happy smile on her face.

I have no idea what happened after that but I hope she still is happy and allowed to be her/himself.

Female voice, smoking and Champix

I've been seeing a speach therapist for a while. She told me that I've more or less mastered the technique to get a more feminine voice, the big obstacle for furher progress is the fact that I'm a heavy smoker. So we agreed to take a break in our sessions untill I've quit smoking. Meanwhile I'm doing the exercises she gave me. I sound pretty silly, but I can ajways pretend that I'm getting ready to go on stage singing. :-)

My earlier atempts at quitting haven't been very sucsessfull. So I decided to take help from farmaceuticals, and the most promising seems to be Champix. In Sweden we have system that gives us free medication after we have paid a certain amount for prescribed medicines. And with hormones and miraine medicine I've passed that level, so the Champix didn't cost me anything.

I started taking them on May 11. And the following day I Googled Champix - it almost made me give up on Chamix. There were reports of serious side effects the worst of it suicdes. So for a while I was determined to stop taking them. But during tha day I didn't notice any depression or dark thoughts. On the contrary I've felt quite good and am now on day four.

Apart for the obvious health and financial reasons to stop smoking my dermatologist tells me I'll get smother more feminine skin once she is finished burning the beard away. And my plastic surgeon tells me that it's more or less required that I stop smoking before the big change.

So on May 23 I'll smoke my last cig.

Hugs
Caisa