Category: Uncategorized

On blogging

I’ve been at this for a few months now and I wanted to talk about one of the more interesting facets of this.

I’ve never been one to write in a journal or writing in a diary, I have a pretty good memory. I don’t even usually bother taking pictures when I’m on vacation. I can remember well enough the experience.

So this whole blogging thing, and I mean honest to goodness blogging (I used to have a tumblr I pretentiously posted on) is kind of new.

I have a hard time expressing myself at times, I tend to hold things in a keep them tight to the chest. This has been refreshing in that I just throw things out into the air and if people can identify or find use with it then that’s great, if not that’s also great.

Which makes it all the more interesting to go back and read what I’ve already written. It’s interesting to see the framing of each post. Sometimes they’re angrier then I feel at the time and seem overwhelming. Down the road I’m sure this post will seem like pretentious drivel.

I guess what matters is that sometimes the hardest person to communicate with is the person looking back at you in the mirror and blogging has helped me start that conversation.

Voice matters

I’ve been doing a lot of work for my wife lately, she’s in the process of starting her own business. As I’m a business person I’ve been helping her a lot on the back end, writing, planning, designing etc.

One of the most satisfying things, has been the writing. I am an investment professional mostly, I work in finance. Finance is meant to be boring… it isn’t and that’s what I like, but especially when writing there’s a tendency to present it as dull because it can be very mathematical and technical, again it doesn’t have to be, but unfortunately a lot of boring people tend to unsurprisingly write in a very boring way.

Writing for my wife’s business has been one of the most pleasant experiences with writing I’ve ever had, it’s still professional, it’s still business. Yet the levity and the excitement pour out of me while writing things even as simple as job ads.

Getting to experience writing in this way has quickly changed my opinion on writing and given me a whole new avenue to express myself, professionally and if the quality of this blog improves, then personally too.

Often business can be stodgy, a lot of people can feel suffocated by an office. hierarchy and tradition can be a huge weight on your soul. Getting to experience the whole start-up/different industry/actually fun thing is something I recommend to any professional. Even if you’re not trans, yeah you heard me, even the cis folks should get outside of their comfort zone and spend some time finding their voice, nay I insist cis folk do it. In talking to a lot of cisgender people I often hear that they don’t understand being trans, well, for me at least a huge part of that is self discovery, discomfort, and yet ultimately joy and reward at the end. So Cis folk, take a chance and write with a different voice, do something outside of your comfort zone, experience life in a different way.

If I can get excited over writing memos you can at the very least live your life a little differently today!

The only people without

The only people who fell never near

The only people without fear

Living softly, hollow, shell cracking

The only people lacking

Turned and twisted, reduced with mud

Souls heavy steps, shallow thud.

Sun has broken, clouds subdue

In heart of hearts, hope does renew

The only people without fear

Sing silently their story’s near.

Finding Strength

I’ve been pretty damn negative lately, so nows about the time I talk about something positive. Finding inner strength is hard. Whether its passion or conviction or stubbornness or something else, everyone everyday needs a reason to be awesome. Because frankly, not every day is awesome.

I’ve tried hard to find a reason to be awesome over the years, The honest truth for me for a long time was that I didn’t think that I was worth experiencing that. IF you don’t have any self value then being awesome for the sake of being you is pretty difficult. Yet I had to continue on, and did so.

For a long time I don’t think I really had a vision or idea of what I wanted, All I could hold on to was that at some future time i wanted to be happy. I didn’t know what that meant, but that didn’t matter. It was about becoming happy, because I didn’t know how to be happy as things were. There was no settling for me.

Eventually I became a flurry of activity, some people would say I still am. I’m a busy person because I crave stress because then I know I’m working towards something. When my wife and I have too little to do we usually make decisions that will add stress, sometimes permanently to our lives.

So where does inner strength come from? It’s about going back to the original premise of, what makes me happy? If I can answer that question then I can move towards it. Well I never found an answer but I did find some philosophy. I started reading into stoicism. The idea of working towards virtue and accepting what you can’t control and changing what you can. Knowing the very limits of your mind and harnessing it to your will. This was a great source of strength. I’ll start talking about this in other posts. There’s a few tenants and ideals that I rely on when life gets me down.

I haven’t figured out how to be happy yet, but I have found a way to be content with who I am. More then hormones or authenticity, strength of character and conviction give me the motivation I need to push towards that most elusive goal.

Being Happy.

 

 

Coming out to your boss

I’ve talked a bit about my more recent experiences coming out to my boss. I wanted to share a couple stories about a previous time it didn’t go so well.

The first time I came out to my manager, I was working at a huge national financial institution, the type that wins awards for diversity inclusion and has ‘support’ for people. At the time I was getting frustrated, I needed time to go to a nearby city for appointments to get things rolling. I couldn’t get a lot of appointments with specialists at six in the evening. So I rather naively believed that all the talk meant something. It didn’t, all I did was ostracize myself from my manager and mark myself as a problem.

It wasn’t any particular thing that changed, just all of a sudden I wasn’t worth putting effort into. Who’s ever heard of a Trans banker anyways? Especially in a small town.

In an unrelated manner that manager was laid off. So I thought, lets try this again, I waited a few months. I listened for anything overtly hateful, nothing was forthcoming.

Told this manager, was given verbal support (as in I’m not going to say anything to your face at least) Things were again awkward for a bit until I think my manager forgot. Again no real support was forthcoming.

Now if you’re someone who is in the position of having a Trans employee and they ask for some time to figure things out, they’re not trying to get out of work, treatment, though I dislike that term, is not a quick process to come by. I’ve talked before about some of the hurdles and how long it took to get over them. If you have the ability to be flexible you’d be doing right by the employee by allowing it.

Too many Trans folk are stuck in temporary, low paying, shift work because they have to choose between their identity and their career/livelihood. A choice that often ends in death.

One of the more melancholy aspects of being Transgender is that I managed to ruin my career in banking in record time, most people need to get a job to ruin their careers. I was just born.