I too thought of a BLT sandwich.

I can see through ignorant BS generally well.

I had a renter Gary that was a trans and had the surgery. He told me his/her story. He had moved to Southern Iowa from KC. I had actually rented the house he/she had moved into to with the original renter.

The original renter moved out and into a house with a man she is still with today and now lives a normal life. She had became involved in the life the trans/he/she was living.
He used to come sit on my porch and pour his heart out to me. I felt a lot of compassion for this poor soul. He/she told me in retrospect he would never have done that surgery again. He explained to me his losses. They were ones of the heart and he wanted so much to go back but could not. He/she was trying to find at that time how to cope with what he/she had done.

Prior to meeting him/her. He/she had told me about His/her days that were filled with drugs, sex and a search for some kind of peace.

"Confused" I believe would have been the proper word for what I saw and heard.

My heart honestly goes out to people like this. You have to know it is a crazy feeling to have "feelings" that indicate you should be one gender but have the outward appearance of another. I could not imagine what that must be like.
And in that way I can see where they fit into the GLBT movement. Because as much as I like debating whether homosexuality is "normal" I can't believe that any of them seriously feel that it is really "normal" to be attracted to their same gender. But then again, there are people that like smearing poop on themselves. So I could be wrong.

And no I'm not saying gay people like smearing poop on themselves.

Rod, might I make a humble suggestion? Next time you have opportunity to meet a transgender person, ask them if they prefer to go by he or by she. Then you wouldn't feel the need to write the He/she to all you do disclose about your encounter with a transgender individual. I am just gonna betcha that the person that you are writing about does prefer to be identified by one gender or the other. In fact, so much so that this person even did have a very involved medical/surgical proceedure to secure that preferred identity.
I am also going to guess that this person has a first name that is a clue whether the desired identity is male or female.

OhDear

Goodness Gracious, this song just makes me cry. It is supremely beautiful and one can listen to it and feel the anguish, the innocent wishes, the need...

Antony and the Johnsons...google them.

OhDear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<obje...mbed></object>

Garysher, please tell me what you are getting at. It seems you are trying to make a comparison between someone referring to another in informal vs. formal terms and someone referring to another in an all-inclusive terming of He/she rather than simply identifying the person as he or as she, according to what that one does believe to be.

I only pointed that out to Rod, not as a criticism but as a suggestion. For sure, she did not address the person in both terms, but now when talking about that person she is using both terms.

And for the record, given discussion about transgender, I feel we ought to dispell the ideas that make people consider this as earlier stated, "weird"...Because the pain and confusion felt by transgender folk, no doubt comes from the way others discount them as "weird".

When in fact, maybe all you Bah-ble Buh-leavin' folk ought to know that Jewish theologians hold to the paradigm that man was first created as male and female. And perhaps too, everyone would do well to realize as did Carl Jung, the male and female poles in our minds. The anima and animus.

The Creation of Woman

The Building of Woman

And to also mention, the God of Abrahamic religions is often described in both male and female terms. Compared to a mother hen even...
So perhaps God is as well, hemaphrodite.

Again, people are resistant to embrace as normal any movement away from their own comfort zone of sexuality. Sexuality sure does seem to be a stickler for so many. And Garysher, it is my conclusion that you want to "pick a bone" with anyone who might make you realize your own vulnerable sexual orientation and identity.

I wish you well Garysher as you further pursue learning and growing and becoming the person you are meant to be, a person secure with his own being first, so that you might go on to embrace others with that same confidence and understanding.

OhDear