MY POSTS FROM FACEBOOK FOR THE LAST THIRTY DAYS!!!

I hear all the time from people telling me I post to much on Facebook and that I should put it in my blog instead.  Many times I use Facebook simply because I feel more people will have the chance to read whatever it is I am thinking at the time.

I will continue to post on Facebook and people can either read and hopefully share, or they can choose not to.  I admit that I don't always understand how social media works, but pretty much anytime I can get something out of my head and onto a keyboard or paper, it always makes me feel better.

I tend to have too much rattling around inside my head and whatever I can do something else with, is always a good thing for me and hopefully something informative or entertaining or both for anyone who reads my Facebook posts or my blog.

What follows, is what I have copied from Facebook and pasted here.  It encompasses pretty much the last thirty days of my life.  I purposely did not put the dates of the posts.  I thought it might be more entertaining that way!!!

Anytime Huffington Post prints something I write, it tells me maybe I am helping people and making a difference. I think anybody who has to stop being productive and doing something they love, it can be hard and frustrating to figure out who you are and what your purpose is and for most of us, we eventually face this.

Retirement is a double edged sword. Some people tell me I come off too needy when I ask for "likes" and more importantly, "shares." I honestly don't care. I do my very best to be a good person and I really do want people to like me. I admit I am insecure and validation feels good. Doing whatever I can to support people I care about makes me feel just as good because it is the one way to show my integrity proving I really mean what I say when I tell someone I care. I write and post because I honestly care. I share my story for one reason only. I don't want anyone to have to go through what I did. It's hard to relive it. It's embarrassing.

When I ask people to please share what I write, in large part I am ignored. Maybe I am too old or out of touch with how social media works. I get very confused when others who ask people to support what they are passionate about and I always do what I am able, even if it is just passing it along by sharing and when they don't support me because they just don't share, I get confused and hurt.

But, I have decided it's all right. People do things for a reason that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me. I'm not going to stop sharing and support because I need for that to be a big part of who I am. It is the one thing about myself that I am proud of and am secure about.

So, those of you who don't want to share what I write, don't. You won't be hurting me anymore, just those that I advocate for. Whether or not you like no longer matters. I know who I am as a person and I don't need anyone's validation.

This has all been a learning process for me. What mistakes I have made are honest ones. My intent now, from the beginning and into the future has always been to advance intersex and transgender awareness and understanding. By sharing what I write and post, you can make a difference. Simple as that. But just be clear. This is, has been and will be about people who are struggling, hurting and the least understood, not me personally.

I made a huge mistake by taking nonsupport of what I am passionate about personally. I forget sometimes that the only thing I truly have control over is how I react to what life presents me and I apologize for not always reacting better.

This is my last rant about this subject. I just want to do the best I can. If you care and want to support me in my efforts to help, awesome. I will continue to repost what I feel pertinent and write about what stimulates me.
All I ask, is that you help spread the word by sharing where you can and doing whatever you can personally to enlighten yourself about intersex and transgender awareness and understanding!

To my core group of supporters that are always there for me, I love you and you give me strength to carry on. To those who, for whatever reason have faded away, pretty please come back-you are needed. And for the haters and ignorers, well, your the ones who have to live with yourselves.

Okay, based on someone else's post referencing Gofund me, I have a hypothetical question.  I'm pretty sure what the general consensus will be due to my dwindling supporters. Obviously, if I could go to some events, it would help me to network and introduce more people to me personally, which is where everyone says I am most effective. My reality is I can no longer afford that. Every place I've been to promote Beau J. Genot's wonderful short about me has been at my own expense. I just can't imagine anyone interested in my passion of intersex and transgender awareness and understanding would be interested in sponsoring me. I have already lost many I thought supported me by asking for help getting work that would help me fund trips. I will continue to support others, because that is who I have to be, but I realistically think my 15 minutes of fame have run it's course. Would love other honest opinions.

As a student of history, I find it interesting that educated and enlightened people learn the lessons of the past and those who choose to close this marvelous brain the creator gave us, are doomed to repeat the mistakes. All atrocities of the past have been perpetrated by those either seeking to control or by those consumed by fear and ignorance of things they have no desire to try and understand. As far as we have come in civilizing this planet of ours, there is still much work to be done.

One of the most touching and heartwarming moments of my life was on the Derek and Romaine Show (DNR). An over the road trucker, Bobby Spain, called in wanting to know how to be a more supportive father to his gay son. I cried. This is just one example of years of caring and sharing on this show. There is not one other show this can happen, nor all of the hundreds of other calls dealing with coming out. Shame on you Sirius XM.

I want everyone to be clear. I love Frank DeCaro and Doria Biddle along with Keith Price and Xorje Olivares. However OutQ is supposed to be LGB"T" programming. The only place for trans awareness was on the Diana Cage Show, cancelled just like DNR Show with no notice. Sirius XM does not support in anyway, shape or form the transgender or intersex people and I can no longer in good conscience support them. They've taken away the last talk show where people who might be too embarrassed to ask elsewhere about LGBT issues can call in and get good information from people who usually know the answers to the questions or have listeners who call in with the information. Most of these people are isolated and confused. SHAME ON YOU SIRIUS XM. YOU HAVE DEPRIVED OUR COMMUNITY OF ONE OF IT'S MOST VALUABLE ASSETS! Please sign the petition and let your voice be heard.

Calpernia Sarah Addams posted about the pope saying trans people should just accept the body god gave them. This infuriates me. If the pope says to accept the body god gave me, I want him to explain to me why I was given the chromosomes of both male and female. I was never physically able to reproduce. Am I supposed to live my life in limbo? I get so frustrated with people playing god and telling me how I feel. This pope would have me live a life of confusion, being treated like a freak.

No matter how hard I have tried, because I had to grow up differently than other people, sentenced to a life of never being a real mother or real father, I have not and never will feel like I am worthy of the love one spouse has for another. I blame sanctimonious people like him. I know in my mind I deserve love, but because what people say about people like me, my heart is incapable of feeling it.

For whatever reason, I and others like me were born a combination of male and female. Most people don't even want to try and understand. They have compassion for others not born perfect, but very little for intersex and transgender people. As a human being that hurts me to the core.

Trying to hide what I never should have to have been ashamed of in the first place screwed me up so bad that so much of the potential I might have had has been lost. Trying to educate people about intersex and transgender awareness and understanding eases the pain somewhat. While being appreciative of the limited and somewhat dwindling support for my cause, I won't give up because it is truly the only chance I have of feeling worthy of love. 100,000 people can tell me I'm worthy and while it is nice to hear, we all know self worth has to come from within.

So please, don't tell me I'm worthy of love. If you really care; if you really want to help me feel worthy of love, help me spread intersex and transgender awareness and understanding so anyone else born like me doesn't have to go through what I've been through.

People get tired of me complaining about the lack of shares I get here and when I post about my Trucker Patti blog and my blogging on Huffington Post. I kind of equate it with the old adage of guys and fat girls. They are interested in hooking up like people like what I write, but they don't want their friends to know about it. Just saying.

I want people to understand that sharing intimate and painful details about my life takes a toll. Writing is like reliving things all over again. I spent years pushing all this back in the farthest corner of my brain I could so I could live a normal life as a normal woman. I was a miserable failure. Sharing can be somewhat cathartic, but not in a public forum. I screwed up my life for so many years so I want whatever time I have left to mean something so what I have to go through to do so is worth it.

I am not looking for sympathy. I want sharing what I've been through to keep someone else from going through the same thing and to make people aware! It's easy for people to look the other way when they don't know what could be happening.

When you understand and are aware, if you are a kind and compassionate person, you can't look the other way any more.

So, no matter how uncomfortable or embarrassing or whatever making my life an open book affects me, it's something I have to do and I have to keep encouraging people to share. I just posted about another murder, and I'm tired of my sisters dying and trans kids killing themselves or being exploited so I will continue.

I write about violence against transwomen and rarely does a week go by without something like this in the news! For everything you see on the news feed there are at least 10 we don't hear about. When you take into consideration the percentage of transwomen in the general population, that should tell you something. These women have people who love them. They are deserving of love, protection and respect. The reason there is so much violence against transwomen is because society allows it. I don't know what the answer is. I just hope someone smarter than me can figure this out.

It's been an interesting year. I have met some crazy talented and creative people who are really smart. I remember, during Outfest last summer, coming back every day to the home Larry Campa and his husband, Damian Molina who were kind enough to host me for ten days, and telling them my brain hurt just trying to interact without looking like the small town bumpkin I am. These sweet men made me feel safe and cared for in the midst of all the craziness.

Everyone I met was really lovely to me. I'm a pretty what you see is what you get kind of person and I generally say what I mean and mean what I say. One of the hardest things for me, was figuring out who liked me for me and who was just being nice to because they felt sorry for me or because they thought maybe I was going somewhere and I might be a good contact. It's nothing personal, just how it is. Many times it's more about who you know than who you are.

I've allowed my heart to be a little bruised, but I own that now and, more importantly, I have learned. I would not trade the experiences of my ten days of Outfest. I doubt I will get invited back again, but if I do, I will take better care of myself. There really are some genuinely nice, authentic people as hard as that might be to believe.  My skin is "officially" (thank you Detox!) thicker! Love and hugs from Trucker Patti!.

Caitlyn Jenner. A few thoughts. Was it calculated that in Bruce Jenner's interview with Diane Sawyer that he appeared rather dowdy and awkward and not necessarily confident, kind of a metaphoric "ugly duckling," and now on the cover of "Vanity Fair" Caitlyn emerges in a very short period of time as this poised, graceful and elegant "swan?"

Most any transgender person I have ever known will tell you that transition is a long process, so forgive me if I see the money centered h...and of the Kardashian brand in this.

However, statements were made about truly wanting to help the transgender community, especially the youth and anyone who knows me knows I'm all about understanding and awareness. I'm expecting to see Caitlyn putting her money and her celebrity where her mouth is.
I celebrate the fact she is finally getting to live life as her authentic self. However, pardon the skeptic in me, and I know I'm not the only one for saying I will celebrate even more when I see her out there working hard for those who lack the protections and resources.

I'm not big on politics because I still think politicians are more for the party and self advancement than representing their constituents, so I just feel frustrated. I hate that voting is always about the lesser of two evils and it makes me feel public.

One thing that seems clear to me. George Bush senior had a chance to eliminate Sadam Hussein with minimum risk to our troops and he blew it
W totally misread the situation and thousands of dead and wounded and scarred for life and over a trillion dollars later, money that our country so desperately needed for education, infrastructure, too many living below the poverty level, it is more of a mess in the middle east than ever.

Now another Bush wants to be president. He says he is his own man, but does not honestly look at the mistakes of his father or brother. Common sense would tell reasonable people don't put another Bush in charge.
Just a thought to transition to their authentic lives as opposed to this whole media process being just another Kardasian spinoff. I'm rooting for you, girl!

The Navy ruined a career that I loved because I wanted to be me. I was a navy musician playing woodwind instruments and my last duty station was the Navy Steel Band, playing steel drums from Trinidad. This caused me to lose my love for music. I have a Native American flute I occasionally play. I don't want any good, patriotic sltrans service person to ever have their dreams crushed like mine simply because they need to be their authentic self.

For anyone interested, this is the source of my meltdown yesterday. You can decide for youselves if it was justified or if I'm just a selfish narcissist looking for attention. Two years ago I was just another trucker running around the country and breaking up the monotony calling into shows on Sirius/XM OutQ. I went on a cruise and met some awesome gays and lesbians and discovered they knew little about transgender people and nothing about intersex people of which I am both. I am also someone who transitioned and had surgery at a time when few were having the same experience. I also blended (stealth mode) into society. I then did something rare. After more than 25 years, I came back out.

A filmmaker I met found this interesting, came out on the truck with me for ten days and for forty or fifty hours I was filmed behind the wheel telling stories about my life. The filmmaker financed this totally on his own and the forty to fifty hours was edited (brilliantly I thought) into just under 15 minutes. "Trucker Patti" premiered at Outfest last summer and has screened in San Francisco, London, Sydney, Melbourne and some other places in Australia and maybe some other countries in Europe. Most of the content was about me being kicked out of the navy and two of my three marriages. There is only so much you can do in 15 minutes. I believe the filmmaker hoped to get financial backing to expand. That didn't happen. I felt responsible and that I had let him down by not being good enough.
Failing to be interesting enough to justify the hundreds of unpaid hours of work for the filmmaker made me feel horrible. I thought if I did every appearance and interview, started a blog about some very painful and private experiences, maybe I could be good enough.

Then a couple of amazing things happened. I am not a good writer and it takes me hours to put together anything. Because of my calling in to a show, I had an acquaintance with an editor at Huffington Post. He kindly posted several of my blogs. At first, I had tons of support on Facebook and Twitter from people I thought were friends, but as of the last one a couple of weeks ago, not even one like.

From the beginning of my foray into social media, I begged for people to share. I was blogging about at risk trans kids and seniors, my amazing experience on "Glee" with the largest transgender choir ever assembled on TV. My thinking from the very beginning was the more people who knew who I was, the more I could reach with my message of intersex and transgender awareness and understanding and possibly enough interest for the film.

I know I've touched some people and I am so thankful for the people, despite all my clumsiness, have been supportive.
What set me off was the whole Duggar scandal. I had tried and failed miserably last year to get everyone to share my attempt to get TLC interested in Trucker Patti. I don't know if all the people who liked what I posted did so just out of kindness (most likely) or because they didn't think their friends would be interested in me or transgender or intersex issues. I just hadn't done enough or done things right.

Anyway, I had been a big fan of the Duggars till I realized how bigoted they were and Josh went to work for the FRC. I don't want to be judged so I try not to. When the scandal broke and it was revealed Oprah knew as early as 2006, I just sort of snapped. TLC had done stupid gay in denial mormons but nothing about transgender (although I hear there is finally something in the works) let alone intersex or transpeople from my generation having to live stealth. Nothing that would help my community. So, I failed my filmmaker, I failed to get even gays and lesbians-which had been my media focus, intersted in intersex and transgender awareness and understanding and even the Duggars who are a bunch of child abusing frauds managed to do what I couldn't.

I'm intersex and transgender, I'm a Vietnam era Navy Vet who had been in the elite Navy Steel Band, I got kicked out of the navy for needing to be my authentic self. I did drag in New Orleans in the 70's and 80's and got to know Dick Cavett and his wife. I was in the San Francisco Pride parades in the beginning. I had gender affirming surgery in 1982 in San Francisco with a blood transfusion and still survived the AIDS epidemic. I am a multiple rape-once by a New Orleans cop-survivor. I've survived two cheating husbands and cancer. I spent the better part of 25 years as an over the road truck driver and at one time weighed 430 pounds, but I'm not interesting and the freaking Duggars fooled everyone and still blind fools are saying oh they were just kids and they were prayed over-more like preyed over-so I went a little nuts and now I'm re-evaluating everything. And one last thing. No surprise I suffer from PTSD, which has made everything I've done in the past couple of years even harder. It's hard for me to trust or to feel worthy of love or even good enough period. I found out yesterday that someone I had let in and trusted was a real friend wasn't.

So I had a really bad day yesterday and have aired much of my dirty laundry-you probably saw the post about my greedy brother- and now I am trying to figure out where I go from here. I am out and proud and will try to find a way to advocate hopefully better than the crappy job I've done so far. I am fortunate in my hillside safe sanctuary with great neighbors and I have my two furry love muffins.
I'm not giving up. Just regrouping


 

 

 

CAITLYN JENNER, HERO SPIRIT

Now that the dust has somewhat settled from Caitlyn Jenner's debut, I felt like it was time for me to weigh in.  I want to start off by saying, that while Ms. Jenner made quite a splash on the cover of "Vanity Fair," coming out the way she did was inevitable.  Being under the umbrella of the Kardashian brand and publicity machine, there would have been no way for Ms. Jenner to pull this off quietly.  She has obviously made the most of the resources available to her, quite beautifully I might add, and my hope is, in the long run, that this will positively bring the awareness and understanding of transgender people that is so close to my heart.  To those who have weighed in negatively, you are entitled to your opinion no matter how counterproductive it may be, but seriously, PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT TRANSGENDER ISSUES! To me, that is HUGE!

I personally want to wish Caitlyn all the best that this new chapter in her life has to offer.  I feel bad that anyone should have to wait until they are 65 years old to be able to live an authentic life.  Given the high profile nature of who she is, it had to have taken an amazing amount of courage to finally decide that she could no longer go on living a life that prevented her from simply being herself.

Transition journeys are as unique as the people who undertake them.  Hormone replacement therapy and different types of surgery to help bring a person to where they comfortably feel that their outside matches their inside, as well as many different kinds as psychological therapy and living life in female clothing are the main commonality in a male to female scenario.  Pretty much everything else is unique to the individual.  My biggest fear is that unenlightened people will use Caitlyn as a template for the male to female transition experience.  For so many reasons, what she has shared and what has been written about her unique journey, is not anywhere close to the experiences of the majority of transgender people. 

I think the best way I personally can help enlighten people in this context, is by sharing some of my own transition journey and compare it with Caitlyn's.  We are of a similar age, 61 for me and 65 for her and come from middle class backgrounds, me in Wisconsin, her in New York.  In an effort to cure myself of whatever it was that I did not understand about myself at 21, I married a woman.  Caitlyn married a woman.  There is where our paths diverge in totally different directions.  I got an annulment and she stayed married and had children. 

There are some myths related to transitioning.  Body parts and appearance do not make a woman.  Gender has absolutely nothing to do with sexual preference.  Everyone's needs are different.  Many unenlightened people assume that all transgender women or men for that matter, want to or need to have every kind of surgery imaginable.  One of the most rude and arrogant questions an unenlightened person can ask someone who is transgender, is "what surgeries have you had," or "what surgeries do you intend to have."  A person's surgical history or desire for surgery is very personal and private.  In an effort to help enlighten people, I have made myself available to people I meet to ask me any questions they want.  That is my personal choice and don't assume all transgender people feel the same way. 

Some people require several surgeries to come to the level of feminization that they feel is what they need to make their outside appearance coexist comfortably with who they are inside.  Surgery comes with a whole set of challenges all by itself.  Adam's apple shave, facial feminization, breast implants, genital surgery, hair plugs are just some of the procedures that people have in total or in combinations for the different needs of individuals.  We all know that surgery is painful.  We also know that any time you are under anesthesia, you put yourself at risk for not waking up. 
There is a huge list of other physical complications that can come with any kind of surgery. 

One of the worst, for many, is the anxiety related to surgery.  How much pain am I going to have, what am I going to look like, will I function normally, are just a few contributors to the anxiety of someone transitioning.  For myself, and most people I know who have transitioned, the biggest anxiety was, how am I going to pay for it all.  I would imagine Caitlyn had a combination of anxiety, but was fortunate enough not to have to worry about the cost.  They say money can't buy happiness, but it sure can buy surgery.

In my case, I feel very fortunate.  I started my transition in the late seventies.  In 1980 I was diagnosed by my endocrinologist as being intersex.  Like all women, I was born with two X chromosomes.  But, like all men, I was also born with a Y chromosome.  In my case, the Y chromosome was always the extra chromosome.  My earliest memory is of saying my nightly prayers at the age of four asking God to let me wake up the little girl I was supposed to be.  I was always very effeminate and when I went through puberty I developed large breasts.  I never had the challenge of trying to look female.  My challenge, as I was being raised male, was to look and act like a male.

A wonderful thing happened to me.  After all those years of stressing out over how I would pay for surgery, because of my intersex diagnosis, my health care provider paid for my genital surgery, the only surgery related to my transition I felt necessary. 

Before surgery, I was required to be evaluated by two psychiatrists and a psychologist.  This is something that is absolutely crucial.  No surgery should ever be undertaken lightly for any reason other than it is absolutely necessary.  Genital surgery is irreversible, so being in the right psychological frame of mind is essential.  Something happened to me during the psychological evaluation process that would direct me down a very damaging path until the age of 53, when I finally started living my authentic self.  I may have gotten the correct plumbing at 28, but I was still living a lie.

Passing or going into stealth mode, in other words, blending into society as a woman without people knowing you are transgender, is something that is a concern for transgender women.  I never had a problem with passing.  Because of this, one of the psychiatrists I saw told me that if I wanted to have a normal life, I would have to keep my gender situation private.  This was told to me in 1980 when little was known about the long-term ramifications of living as a transgender woman.  Thankfully, this no longer happens.  The fact that I was intersex and born with two X chromosomes helped me to justify staying private, even from the two men I eventually married and divorced.  The fact that Caitlin is living her authentic life out and proud was something that took me over 25 years to come to terms with.  I don't recommend anyone live with secrets.  It damaged my life in too many ways to list here.

Growing up male was for me and many other transgender women that I know, very traumatic.  I was constantly confused about who I was and how to conduct myself.  I am heterosexual and at the age of 14, because I had an attraction to boys, I was lured into a situation where I was sexually assaulted by two 17 year old male friends of my brother.  Had I been raised with the knowledge that I was fine the way I was, this would have not happened to me.  Children need to be loved and encouraged to be themselves, whoever they are!

That was my first experience with sexual violence, but would not be my last.  Transitioning in the late seventies and early eighties was dangerous.  I was raped by a New Orleans Police sergeant and beaten and raped by a man that would go on to murder a transgender woman.  They were nice to me at the hospital until they found out I had a penis.  I was then told to leave as none of my injuries were life threatening.  The police who were supposed to take a report of what happened to me and 3 nurses were laughing and catcalling at me as I was leaving.

You would think that in this day and age, all transgender women along with Caitlyn would be able to transition safely.  Unfortunately, that is not the situation.  Transgender women are at risk for violence in a disproportionately higher rate than biological women.  Many who transition young like I did, wind up in the streets addicted to drugs because there are no jobs available for them.  Many have no family support and there are few, if any community resources available to them.  The bottom line is we need, at the very least a trans inclusive ENDA. 

I was consumed in those early years trying to figure out how I was going to pay for surgery.  I started college, but could not concentrate and had to drop out.  I could barely hold a job.  A job that I had only because I could pass. These are all problems that access to resources can solve. Most who wait until much later in life to transition and have financial resources, like Caitlyn, do not face these problems.  However, it comes at the cost of losing all of those years living as someone who they are not.  Many who wait that long also have families and all the associated problems that come with that situation.

When I came back out at the age of 53 and told everyone in my life my story, it set me free.  Since then, because of all of the breaks and good fortune I have had, I am doing everything that a disabled, retired truck driver living in a nice little RV in Missouri on a fixed income can do to promote intersex and transgender awareness and understanding.  I am proud that I survived growing up, I am proud to be a survivor, not a victim of sexual violence and you can add to that list, cancer survivor.  People think I have had a tough journey, but compared to many, I am blessed!

Our youth deserve every break they can get on their transition journey.  In her interview with Diane Sawyer, Caitlyn expressed a desire to do what she can to help transgender youth.  I am looking forward to her being in the struggle with the rest of us that just want to live our lives in safety and with dignity.  We all need to pull together and do what we can to make things better for the younger generation.  With her current resources and whatever resources come from the reality show path she goes down, she has an opportunity like no one before her to make a real difference as she has said she wants to.  I have faith that she will. We know the hero spirit resides inside Caitlyn and I am looking forward to seeing her set it free.  Love and hugs from Trucker Patti!