Let’s talk about Being Transgender – Part 1

 

My first blog post since resurrecting it was about being a transgender person in a modern America. This time around, I want to talk about being transgender in general. I want to talk about our struggles and our triumphs. I want to talk about our fears and our hopes. I want to share the perspective I don’t think many who read this understand and hopefully shed a little light on this community through my own personal stories.

I want to start by telling you all a story about my own journey. At the time of this writing, I have been on hormone replacement therapy for gender transition for 4 years. I always knew something about me didn’t line up. I always had mannerisms that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. When I look back at it now, I was always more comfortable doing “girl things”. However, I didn’t exactly have people I could talk to about it. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, most of this stuff was just kept hidden and that is exactly what I did.

I fought my nature for years. Even despite the evidence presented to me by my own actions. Then I moved out on my own. When I was 19, I moved to Greenville Texas. Not exactly the most progressive town in America. I had my own place and time to actually get to know myself.

I had put all the pieces together but still didn’t have the answer. Then I saw something on television that made me understand. I saw a news article about a reality tv show featuring a “transvestite”. I did my research. Remember this was back in the day when home internet was still in its infancy. I found out what that term meant, and I was shocked but not in a bad way. So, I tuned into this show to see this for myself and there she was. If you asked me her name today, I couldn’t tell you. I have had too many drinks in the past 20 plus years to recall that information.

I watched as the woman on the screen just “lived” her life. She had been born one gender and transitioned to another. Again, back then the terms to describe medical transition were different from what our community was called. Now granted when I say lived, it was on reality television where it’s not exactly real.

The point is I discovered something I didn’t know was possible. Something I laid in my bed crying and wishing for was actually possible. I could change my gender. My outside could finally match what I felt inside. It was a massive revelation for me. And while my path was unconventional due to reasons, there was hope for the first time being me.

Now, why would I tell you all that story? Simple, while it is unique to me, I wasn’t the only one who felt like this. The things I felt were also being felt by others even though none of us knew that. I wasn’t the only one who felt my inside and outside didn’t match. I wasn’t the only one who cried at night hoping to wake up as a different gender. I wasn’t the only one begging God to make me feel correct again. There were others.

Today, transgender people make up just over 1% of the population globally. All of us have similar yet unique stories. All of us come from different backgrounds and ethnicities. We come from different cultures and religions. But we all have one thing in common. We simply want to live our lives as our authentic self.  Yet, that isn’t always possible.

To transition from one gender to another, a person can take several paths. There is a simple social transition. This is what it sounds like, simply transitioning genders in social or societal way without any forms of medical intervention. There is medical transition which can involve processes like hormone replacement and gender affirming surgery. And then, there is both, which most transgender people fall into. Each of these is a long and involved process. Some take longer than others, but all have the same goal, to feel like our authentic self.

In the transgender community, we usually refer to our journey. This is because that is exactly what transition is. Everyone’s journey is different. Some people stop after social transition because it meets their needs and gives them exactly what they have been searching for. Others take longer paths. The one thing to keep in mind is that no path to being transgender is wrong. How you get to your peace is totally up to you.

For me, it’s not just a social transition. I live my life everyday as the woman I am. I present as female. I wear women’s clothing. I do my make up and jewelry as any other woman would do. But for me, social transition wasn’t enough. I began taking androgens and hormones to help my body become more female. I can happily say that I have been on those medications for several years now and have seen remarkable changes in myself. And still, that is only part of my journey, there are still medical procedures I am exploring and researching that could help me feel more complete.

I have spoke with transgender people who didn’t take the exact path I did. I know several that skipped the hormones and went right to surgical procedures to give them the feminine form they needed. Every one of my decisions has come after mountains of research. I am an over thinker, and I analyze everything multiple times. I don’t like to be impulsive. Exploring the options I had wasn’t just doing the research though. I also had discussions with my family and with my doctors. I have been in a relationship with a wonderful woman for 17 years and for 12 of those we have been happily married. Some of the hardest things to do was to make sure that she was involved in these conversations.

All these conversations brought up risks about following this path. From medical complications to social interactions and even acceptance. All of these aspects were things I had to think about and in the end, like most transgender people, the risk was worth it. That doesn’t mean my life suddenly was perfect. Transition didn’t suddenly cure all that ailed me. It did bring me a measure of peace. It gave me the opportunity to get to know the real me better. It gave me the chance to start to heal myself as went through this metamorphosis.

Not everyone gets that though. There are a lot of reasons why people either don’t transition or stop their transition. There is still a lot of mystery behind the process even though it’s backed by 100 years of research and trials. There are still a lot of misinformation and stereotypes out there about transgender people. Sadly, there is a lot of rhetoric and hatred towards transgender people as well.

I am hoping for this series to help dispel some of that. Its not often we get the perspectives from transgender people. I know my insights won’t match everyone and that is okay. It doesn’t have to. My goal is to make people think. I’m not out to convince anyone to transition. I’m not out to push an ideology upon people. I am not out to target any group of any age. I simply want to inform and make everyone who reads this think. Now, on to part 2.

-Robin Alura

Let’s talk about Inflation

 

During the election cycle, Republicans ran a campaign on three issues, immigrants, transgender people, and inflation. While they spent more time and advertising talking about the previous two issues, most of the people who voted for Donald Trump stated they did so because he was going to “end inflation”. The problem with this is that most people who voted for him because of this don’t actually understand how inflation works.

Let’s start with the definition of inflation. Economic inflation is the general rise in the cost of goods and services over a given time period, usually a year. Inflation can, however, be tracked by a monthly metric as well so it’s not just comparing year to year but that is the usual way it’s measured. This means that it’s simply a way to track if things are getting more expensive or less expensive. Inflation is affected by things like the cost of materials, labor costs, tax cuts and increases, higher demand, and economic policies.

Most of us in school were taught the concept of supply and demand. If you weren’t, do a google search. It’s not a hard concept. The basics of inflation are the more it costs to make something and get it to the consumer, the more it will end up costing the consumer. This a really broad stroke on the definition as inflation, like everything else when it comes to economics, can get complicated very quickly.

The reason I wanted to talk about inflation is back the idea that Donald Trump will actually “save” the economy and bring down inflation. Let’s be honest, the economy isn’t bad right now. I know it will hurt some people’s feelings to say this, but Donald Trump is the reason for the near record inflation that we all experienced at the end of his first term and the beginning of Biden’s term.

The first time Trump was elected, he inherited an economy that was very strong. It was the result of eight long years of hard work by the Obama administration. Donald Trump came into office and immediately began telling everyone who would listen how “Obama made bad deals for America” as he set out to undo everything that administration had done just because Barack Obama was involved in it.

Trump’s economic policies during his first term were nearly nonexistent. Like with many things, he didn’t have a plan. He just made it up on the fly. During his campaign he never mentioned tariffs the first time he took office. Suddenly he enacted them, and foreign products started to cost more. Add in that he gave a substantial tax break to corporations and the wealthy, and it was obvious to every economist out there that inflation was going to rise, and we would head towards a recession.

Now, I am willing to give a little leeway here. It wasn’t long into Trump’s first term that Covid hit, and things went from bad to worse. I can admit, some of the inflation could have been affected by the pandemic. We saw businesses close, sales tank, and supply chains come unraveled. However, Trump’s actions were not enough to save the economy. In fact, the one thing he did enact to help keep small businesses afloat was riddled with misinformation, fraud, and abuse. The Department of Justice is still prosecuting individuals for their schemes wrapped up in this debacle.

When Donald Trump left office in 2020, inflation was over 9%. This means things cost 9% higher than they did the year before. But that wasn’t the only result of inflation. The average wage of the American worker didn’t increase in accordance with the inflation. Add in the fact that more and more business filed bankruptcy and closed during his first term and a skyrocketing unemployment rate and that was the perfect recipe to destroy a once healthy economy.

During Joe Biden’s term as president, he tackled inflation with economic policies designed to create jobs that were lost, grow businesses, and help reduce the costs of goods by removing the previous administrations disastrous tariffs. Biden focused on infrastructure, technology, clean energy, and manufacturing to help bring both inflation and unemployment down. His strategies worked. At the time I write this, inflation is down to 2.6%. That is lower than the long-term average which is 3.28%.

That is a much better number than when Biden took office in 2021. However, Trump and his MAGA Republicans continue to talk about how our economy is broken. How Biden and Harris destroyed what he had built during his term. How things were more expensive than they were when he took office. In the later part of the campaign, Trump started using the slogan “Harris broke it, Trump will fix it.” I heard post-election interviews with people talking about the price of eggs. Yet, after the election, when Trump was declared the winner, he and the Republicans changed their tune suddenly. As if overnight, the economy was magically better than they said. If that is true, then its not because of the economic policies of Donald Trump.

I want everyone who reads this to take a moment and think about it. For those who voted for Donald Trump because of inflation, let me ask you this. Do you really believe that a man who tanked the economy with radical and disastrous policies during his first term should have a second chance to do so again? Should we really be taking economic advice and direction from a man who has failed at business more times than the average billionaire? Should we really follow economic direction from a man who has filed bankruptcy more times than most corporations?

Forget all the other insane and terrifying things he has said for a moment. This man has blatantly said how he plans to cut taxes for corporations and impose tariffs on all good coming into the United States. He has proposed a 10% to 15% tariff on all goods from foreign nations. He has proposed a 60% to 100% tariff on goods from China alone. Think about how many things in your household are made in China. Think about how many things in your life are made in foreign countries. All of those things are going to get more expensive.

Some out there are going to believe the idea that these foreign countries are simply going to “eat” the cost. First of all, that’s not how business works. Second, didn’t he say the same thing about Mexico paying for a wall on the US – Mexico border? And third, do you really expect a nation like China to just absorb that cost to keep doing business with us when our leaders talk about how horrible of a nation they are? Of course not. To believe this is like believing Jesus was a white man. The facts just don’t back up the claims.

To those who voted for Trump, remember this. None of his economic policies will actually help you. Not a single one. He has told you several times he plans to make sure the wealthy stay that way. He has only talked about cutting corporate taxes and taxes of the wealthy. He has talked about imposing a hidden tax on all goods coming into America. In his first term, he failed to restart American manufacturing. He caused inflation and unemployment to reach some of the highest levels it ever has. He took credit for work that wasn’t his and put blame on others for the work he did do.  Donald Trump isn’t going to fix anything. I want you all to think about this when those eggs you were complaining about cost fifteen times more than they did before.

-Robin Alura

Transgender Day of Remembrance

 

I wanted to take a moment on this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance and talk a little about this. This post is going to be geared a little less towards the community and more towards our allies and those who are just hearing about it. First off, let’s stop calling this day a holiday. Its not. It is not marked on any official calendars by any government. There are no unified sanctioned events for this day. We don’t close the banks or postal services in honor of those we mourn on this day. Transgender Day of Remembrance is about mourning those we have lost in the transgender community.

Its not secret that transgender people have faced more anger and hatred in recent memory than ever before. Many even feel left out in the cold by those we thought were our allies in the LGBTQ+ community and by many left leaning politicians. Republican controlled states spent the past few legislative sessions discussing our validity and debating our rights to things such as health care, sports, and even restrooms. The transgender community has watched as bill after bill passed through these legislative sessions with only a whimper of opposition to become laws legislating what we can and can’t do simply to exist.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is the day we both mourn and honor those whose lives were lost because of these actions and the continual spreading of discriminatory and derogatory rhetoric about our community. Transgender people have recently had major increases in violence and suicide. Dangerous rhetoric, such as calling transgender people pedophiles and predators against women and children, have significantly increased the rate of violent crime against them by others. Murder rates have increased over the past year with many defendants attempting to use the “panic defense” to not be held accountable for their actions. Suicide rates are also on the rise. It has been reported that 3 out of 5 transgender youth have contemplated suicide because of the constant abuse and hatred projected towards them.

I’m not going to sit here and give you all the statistics on these rates. Why? Because first, you can Google this information and find a lot on the subject and second, that isn’t what this post is about. So then why, you ask, as well you should, did I even bring it up in the first place? Simple, to help underscore the reason for this day of mourning and honoring.

There have been so many people lost to the violence and rhetoric. We have all been impacted by someone who has killed or was thinking about killing themselves. I know I have. More than once, I went down that path. More than once, there was someone who pulled me from the edge. More than once did I watch my best friend walk that same path. More than once, I did everything I could to pull her from that edge. As she is very fond of saying, we helped each other see the daylight, a reference to a song by Shinedown by the same name.

So, on this Transgender Day of Remembrance, that is what we do. We remember. We mourn the ones we couldn’t pull back from the edge. The ones who will never see the daylight. We remember those who’s lives were cut short simply because they were transgender. We remember.

It’s not a party. We don’t have large gatherings where we laugh and have a drink to celebrate. We don’t have pizza parties and show movies about trans people being visible. We mourn. We honor. We remember. In some case we do gather. But it’s less of a party and more like a funeral. We do tell stories of those we lost. Not as a celebration, but so we know that they live on in our hearts.

On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, I want to do something I don’t usually do. I want to challenge our allies and our community to think about those memorials you put on. I want you to consider how you would feel about these events if they were about your community. I want you to consider before you put on any sort of event, talk to members of the community. Especially those who have lost someone. Especially those who were on the edge of being lost themselves. We all know many of our allies want to be supportive and show us they are our allies. Just take a moment to think about these things. We want to recognize and remember those we lost, not dishonor and tarnish their memory.

-Robin Alura