Recently Kat took their 10,000th call. That’s not a typo yes, ten thousand calls. Kat has been with Trans Lifeline since December 2015. They started their on-boarding and training for the organization at that time, then began taking calls February 2016. Trans Lifeline will be celebrating it’s 5th birthday on November 14, 2019; which as many of you know is Transgender Day of Remembrance.
After volunteering full-time for over 18 months, Kat was hired as the first full-time staff hot-line operator. Kat has dedicated their service to the trans community by helping callers in crisis and those of whom are dealing with suicidality. This article from HRC highlights the statistics around suicide in the transgender community. The numbers are overwhelming. 42% of the transgender community have attempted suicide at one point in their lives. Compared to 4.6% of the cisgender population. That’s a ridiculously high gap. In order to help close that gap, and bring down those numbers, Trans Lifeline was created as a solution. Many times family rejection, unemployment, and barriers to safe/affirming housing are the leading causes of suicide among trans people. Meaning, transphobia is the number one cause of trans people taking their own lives. Education, knowledge, and awareness is key to helping bring further solutions for the transgender population. In order to get to a place of empowerment for us to help not only ourselves, but also others, was a very long trip indeed. As a family, we experienced homelessness for two years and eight months. For nearly three years, we traveled the country, seeking a place that met two criteria: 1) Trans affirming state protections and healthcare 2) Affordable price of living In those nearly three years, we traveled 10,000 miles from Mississippi, to Colorado, moving onto the Pacific Northwest to attempt to settle in Washington & Oregon. When those locations were all too expensive, despite meeting our first criteria, we were forced to move on to keep looking. In California, I was not able to get decent medical care, or even find a provider willing to prescribe hormones, a treatment I had been on for just over a year when moving there. I was unfortunately off hormones the entire 13 months we were living in California. After seeing an advertisement for no credit check apartments in Nevada, we made the 8 hour trip from Cali to here. Thankfully, we were re-housed within two days of moving here! Although, we were already working volunteer within the community, we’ve been able to step up our game since being housed again. We now live in a small apartment, which beats the heck out of living in our camper van! I’ve been working with Trans Empowerment Project, two years as of next month! TEP Has been able to reach 500 clients with services and projects like: inTRANSitions Host Home Program, TEP Assistance Program, TRANSformations, Trans Job Connect, & Trans Mentorship Program. We are constantly seeking new volunteers, host home sponsors, and mentors for our projects. Since moving to Nevada, we’ve found out just how important community service, direct action, and banding together, really is. We’ve had to reach out to our own network, friends, and community members for things for ourselves too; like help for rent, patching through until payday, recovering our van from impound, getting food between paychecks, etc. We’ve relied on our community, network, and friends, and know that we are all pulling our resources to help one another! That’s what community is all about. We have to step up for the trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks, because things like: 1) Secure Housing 2) Food Access 3) Employment 4) Support Network All need to be addressed because of the staggering numbers of transgender people who are suffering without these things, or having difficulties obtaining these things for themselves. Resources & outreaches like Trans Lifeline, Trans Empowerment Project, among others are creating solutions to these harrowing realities for our siblings.
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These things have been on my mind lately, and although this post may seem all over the place, it's connected internally to how I'm feeling right now.
Recently, I lost my grandmother. My father's mother. Miriam was a kind, gentle person. She was in her 80's when she passed last month. No one in my own family told me, I heard it through the "grapevine". As a trans person, a high percentage of us are no stranger to family rejection. We are not an exception. As a family of four with three trans people, feeling worthy, feeling equal to isn't an easy feat. Especially when we hear those who say things such as "give a mouse a cookie and he'll keep coming back for more". What if that mouse is disabled yet denied disability 6 times over 9 years? What if that mouse has one main income source, two children to feed & clothe, rent in a larger city just to be safer from transphobia, little-to-no transportation access, and working hard for others for free or close to beans. What if that mouse is a white passing person of color instructed by several darker people not to claim the title of their own ancestors because they are 'too white' or their mixed ethnicity isn't 'definitive enough'. As a person mixed with Louisiana Creole (like Beyonce), however mixed with Cherokee/Spanish/Roma, & French Canadian (white), making me lighter than other "Creole" folks, I feel proud of my ancestry. At the same time, I feel oppressed due to my not white, but not dark enough skin color to be seen as my authentic self. When identity doesn't match the packaging, it can be very difficult to navigate life. In 2009, my back was broken, three of my vertebrae then compressed my spinal nerve bundle, leading to bilateral sciatica, and me being on bed rest and in a wheelchair for over a year. But I was accused by my father of "taking the easy way out" of life by trying to seek disability. My invisible disability, like my invisible ethnicity, and my invisible gender identity all made life seem impossible to be affirmed as myself. Guess my point is, no matter where I go, my existence continues to be up for "debate" by those who make assumptions. Yes, I was assigned female; no, I am not a woman. Yes, I am white-passing; no, I am not a white person. Yes, I am disabled; no, it does not show on the outside. Although, I have sought out medical transition for my gender identity to show externally, there isn't a way for those other parts of my identity to really show through. It's rather scary honestly, to be perceived now as a middle aged white cis-man, which is so far from the truth. At home, Kat and the kids affirm me as the disabled, queer, Creole man I am. They understand my limitations, understand my background, understand my experiences. I know others won't get it just by looking at me. But, it would be nice for folks to take my word for who I am and what I've experienced. It is so disheartening to know my own family talks terribly of me, strangers deny pieces of existence, and my children and us simply stay at home. We work from home, do school from home, and pretty much just stay home since A) there isn't any money 2) we often do not feel safe. Yes, we had dinner out for my birthday, but that put us in the hole. Yes, we have "new to us" clothes, but I went dumpster diving to get them. Yes, we are no longer living in our camper van, but rent is steadily on the rise, and has increased 3 times since we moved in 2 years and three months ago. Kat got a raise, but that put us in a higher tax bracket, so more taxes get taken out, so we get a minimal amount of increase, and now no food stamps, but we've sure seen our rent go up $240 per month, for this already expensive, tiny place we live in. Don't get me wrong I'm thankful we don't live in our van any more, but it would be nice to be able to keep our own heads above the water. We have to believe and keep faith that GOOD THINGS ARE GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN! Because if we don't keep that faith, we get seriously down. Please don't assume about people, please don't see just the outside shell and make judgements - - you may be completely wrong. We've gained many new friends, acquaintances, associates, & followers since we have been re-housed, there are several of you that do not know our backstory. So, thought I would take this opportunity to give you an overview of what we've triumphed through the last five years since coming out...
2014 When we came out we lived in our home state of Mississippi. Katherine worked in horticulture & landscape design then as a Crew Leader. I was post-partum from having a high-risk pregnancy resulting in c-section with our youngest child, so was not working at the time. After coming out, Kat was attacked & threatened at work by another employee, assigned to a different crew. Two crews were working together on one job site, when this person approached her with a shovel, assaulted them, & threatened their life if they were to ever be seen at work again. Kat was extremely fearful about returning to work after this incident. Which was reported to the supervisor (a family friend) who actually said "Well this is Mississippi, what did you expect?". There was no indication of support, or even consequences for the co-worker's attack on Kat. Over the next few days we searched high & low for employment to substitute going back to work in a blatantly dangerous situation, besides online stuff, nothing was available for Kat at that time. Slowly our bills fell behind, our electricity was shut off, human services came out to give an inspection, due to the absence of power, we could have lost our children at this point, but thankfully a neighbor was keeping them for us, while we were busy searching for assistance programs, reaching out to churches, and applying for jobs. When 5 different local places (churches included) denied us assistance with our rent & electricity, we turned to family & friends to ask for help to keep our place until we could acquire employment again *keep in mind rent is super cheap in MS* none of which could/would help. Many of them disowned us at this point. When it seemed all hope of keeping our townhouse was failing us, we made the decision to head to a more transgender affirming area of the country. It honestly felt like being refugees. When we made it into Denver, we felt invigorated, excited for a new start in a new place. We hit the ground running even before we made the 2,000 mile journey to Colorado, by listing out housekeeping & yard services on Craigslist, we had several gigs lined up for the week after our arrival. For an entire year we traveled around Colorado, doing odd jobs, working at a hotel, a casino, and applying to every possible housing program available. After the year, we decided there just wasn't anything that was going to come from staying in Colorado. Since we had bought a camper van during our stay there, we were more equipped to go on the road to someplace new. 2015 After 6 weeks in Seattle, we realized it was just too wet there, all of our cold weather gear was ruined from mildew, most of our important legal documents like birth certificates were wet/moldy. We moved onto Portland, which is where we stayed & worked for a year. 2016 Kat worked full-time volunteer for Trans Lifeline, & I worked for a local call center. Again applying for many services, and housing programs, to no avail. After the year, we moved on to the Bay Area, CA. 2017 Being traumatized by police officers, harassed while sleeping in the middle of the night, having others see us as degenerates, lazy, worthless, not-worthy, less than for an entire 3 years, pretty much wherever we went was awful, not only due to being homeless, but also worse for being transgender. After 3 years of traveling to find an affordable place to start over, we moved to Nevada, where we were housed within 2 days of coming here. And now, this month marked TWO YEARS re-housed. We've worked hard to get where we are, and we have a lot more work to do to get where we want to be, but we are eternally grateful for the ones that showed they were/are supportive, understanding, and compassionate - - the ones that stuck by us through even coming out as transgender, and homelessness & the ones that have come into our lives since then too! Recently, kat & I have been focused greatly on working, outreach, and furthering new projects within the organizations where we work. We strive our best to give quality output to those we serve within the transgender community. When that isn’t reciprocated, it’s greatly disappointing. Sadly, that’s been our experience two times here in Las Vegas, when dealing with the services designed for the transgender community.
One those of those times, during the sign up for purchasing a vendor booth, for an event happening locally; we encountered an issue after receiving confirmation of a table. We were informed they were overbooked. Previously, we were going to table for both of our orgs, but at one table, since only the two of us could be present for the gender conference; plus, we have signed up with each other’s organizations. In an email from the establishment, it outlined that we could still attend from a networking perspective, but could not table at the event. The entire family was attending that day, our children were extremely excited; after all, it was our first event geared toward the transgender community since leaving Portland. The four of us boarded the bus, prepared for a day of discussing the mission, vision, and outreach of our respective non-profits. Each of our orgs made certain we had plenty of business cards, and name tags to show our identification with each of the orgs. Once at the facility, we were greeted with cheery smiles, a bag with goodies, a shirt, and were invited to partake in refreshments. We decided to make our way into the area with the booths, which only had 7 places tabling. We were hoping for a larger crowd to meet with, but were not going to pass up an opportunity to make new connections. We weren’t there but for a few minutes, passing out our business cards, and introducing ourselves to the people there. We were asking questions about their tables, and information; as well as sharing what type of outreach we are involved. We were at the third table in our migration around the room. We were approached by a volunteer working the conference. We were told that I could continue to represent TEP but the program manager stated directly that TLL could not be represented at all. Knowing a rocky history existed between the program manager and TLL, I pondered whether this was a direct result of this personal beef with the lifeline. Potentially taking away the information of a crucial, and valuable service that the Trans Lifeline offers to the transgender population worldwide. Although the hotline has gone through a transition itself, with the administrative staff, it’s ganing momentum globally. We were directed to the reception area, where we asked to speak to the program manager; to which we were escorted outside. The volunteer that had distastefully delivered the message in front of the entire room of visitors, and vendors came toward us with loud, aggressive language and assertive body language. We were aghast at the angry, violent display towards us for speaking to others about suicide prevention, and furthering people’s knowledge about a transgender specific non-profit. When the program manager came back from his break, he too joined in on the toxic, violent behavior. To which, we were asked to get the hotline director involved via telephone. The program manager and the hotline director continued the conversation on the phone line. When I repeatedly asked for the volunteer to back up from our personal space, that we both have PTSD, and that kat has boundaries surrounding that particular behavior; no change was made, instead they got closer, yelled louder, clinched their fists, and broadened their shoulders toward us in a threatening manner. Frankly, we were appalled we were being treated with such disdain. This was our very first interaction with this group of people, with this facility, and with any gender conference at all. It left a very sour taste in our mouths for going forward. The organization dealt with that situation accordingly, and terminated the program manager. This was not the first altercation between him and other members of the community. As for the volunteer, I’m not certain what happened with them, hopefully they aren’t still with the organization. Unfortunately, we haven’t felt safe returning to the establishment since that occurrence. Thankfully, that is not the norm when interacting at trans focused events. We had a wonderful and memorable experience last month while attending the Trans Lifeline Anniversary Gala. When we were told we were all going to fly out from McCarren and into Oakland Airport, we were thrilled, since this would be the children’s first flight. All weekend before the trip, I was making certain we had enough clean laundry for the week. We were going through all of our belongings ensuring they were allowed through the security check. When everything was packed, the time had finally arrived to leave for the airport. We loaded our luggage into the Uber, and were off. We navigated our way through the terminals, to the JetBlue check in area, only to discover we were at the wrong area. The JetXSuites were on the back side of the airport in a different part of town. We had to order a second Uber, in which I left my cane I use to help me walk when there’s a lot of distance to cover, or stair climbing involved. But, we made it to the correct place, in plenty of time to check our luggage, and enjoy complimentary refreshments with the kids. When it was time to board the plane, we were escorted via limousine bus to the runway, and each of the 13 passengers loaded onto the plane via the small stair case directly behind the cockpit. We let the kids have the window seats, and each of them had one of us beside them. They loved seeing the clouds, the mountains, and the few bodies of water from up in the air. The small commuter jet flew us successfully from the Las Vegas lights to the Bay Area of California. Not long after we landed, we were whisked away in another Uber, and taken to a multiple story home, and given the entire top floor attic space, with toys, three beds, tiny chair’s for tots, and lots of space for the children to spread out to play. It was perfect for them! We all felt so special the team at Trans Lifeline had accommodated for them so well. The director even lent me a cane so I could climb all the stairs to the attic without complication. The next day was the day of the retreat for the staff at Trans Lifeline. The kids and I rode in with kat to see the downtown sights. The kids and I walked around the center for a while, then rode with a friendly Uber driver back to the Air-B-n-B rental home. We had the home to ourselves for several hours; with which we had breakfast, ate outside on the picnic table over looking the gardens in the back yard. The kids found an old tiny kitchen and enjoyed pretending to cook for a quite some time, while I enjoyed a hot cup of coffee and the warm sunshine. Then we retired to the upstairs, before I had run out of spoons to climb up to the third floor. There the kids played for a while, we attempted to do a few home school lessons, but of course all the new toys and surroundings were much too distracting to perform more than a couple lessons. A couple hours after our short lived attempt at home school, the team began to return from the retreat. The children and I were able to meet the rest of the team in person. It was nice to be included, and nearly everyone went out of their way to make the kids and I feel welcomed and like a part of the Trans Lifeline Family. We made sure to get the kids in bed early that night, as the next day was the Anniversary Event, and we knew it would be a long day out for them. Having a four year old have a cranky, sleep-deprived melt-down was not what we needed. The morning was cool, and crisp. There was a quietness in the house; the children had yet to awaken. Thoughts of how the evening might go began to stir in my mind. How were the children going to behave? Would their be comfortable seating for a disabled person like myself? How kid friendly was the establishment? It was a slow start to the day. The kids finally woke up; we had a light breakfast. We prepared ourselves for the day, and were off to take public transit in an effort to save money rather than take an Uber. After much walking around to navigate public transit, and spending $20 to purchase train tickets, we ended up getting an Uber ride regardless, simply to make the tail end of the trip easier. Still, it took three hours to navigate our way through the bus, and train systems to get from Berkeley to San Francisco, to the GitHub headquarters. Once there, we donned our pre-printed name tags, and respective pronoun stickers for the event. There was a corner of the building, away from all the hustle-n-bustle of the event, that was dedicated as a children’s space with a colorful rug, miniature table-n-chair set, with a huge tub of building blocks. Plus, there were stickers, so the kids were in absolute heaven. When we let the kids know we would be using baskets with balloons to go around to collect donations envelopes during the fundraising portion of the event, they began to jump up and down and squeal. They adore balloons, but have a hard time not squeezing them too hard, or letting them fly away. We anxiously awaited the emcee. We stood holding our balloon baskets, and watched as the director announced katherine was the recipient of the first honor ever awarded by the Trans Lifeline, the Dedication & Service Award, to them for reaching 1,000 hours of call time on the hotline. They were the first staff operator, and first full-time hotline employee. They have the most tenure of all the hotline operator staff, are a team lead, and heading up the up-and-coming SOFFA outreach as well. They have been with the organization since volunteering in December of 2015. They began training on the line February 2016. After about three years with the organization, they have shown excellence in their service and dedication to the line, being the first to reach a thousand hours. Kat currently has approximately 1500 hours of call time now. During the announcements, our youngest ran up to the microphone when kat was being presented the award, they couldn’t stand to not be included as well. Check out this video at about 15:45 is when kat & our littlest are there! It was a splendid night. The kids were all over the place, our four year old even learned how to play the game of pool, with help of a few nice TLL & GitHub folks! Overall it was a one-of-a-kind experience. We felt truly honored to be included as a family, especially since kat was directly being honored by the hotline. On the trip back into Las Vegas, seeing the lights was exciting, but maybe that was just the feeling of coming home. It has been a while since having the time to write out an update and blog entry, so I’ll dive right in! Katherine and I have been progressing along in our outreach and activism. We have been working on many things in the last several months. First, we have been able to pay off some old debts, make plans for going forward in our personal life, and ground ourselves further in our outreach. The children are enjoying the spring weather. Jay received all A’s on her report card for first semester. She had assessment testing that she scored above average or highly above average on both aspects of the testing. Josh has learned to count to 100, has a birthday next month and will be turning four.
The Trans Lifeline has an up and coming family outreach. Katherine was offered and accepted the roll of the Hotline Director for the Trans Lifeline Family Line. The Family Line is a place for cis-allies to volunteer at least two hours a week, taking calls from other family members and friends of transgender people. The overall goal is to strengthen the support structure for our transgender siblings. With a rigorous, thorough, and accredited 32-hour training course, each ally volunteer becomes well versed the issues and struggles the transgender population endures. Kat has been working diligently to get volunteers oriented, trained, and ready to take calls from trans allies. She is of course still taking calls full time and working as a team lead with the Trans Lifeline as well. Recently, a mutual friend of Kat’s and my own has asked me to come on board with a non-profit called The Trans Empowerment Project-National. The project runs a program called “inTRANSition” that is a sponsor home program for homeless and abused transgender folks 18-25. The host home sponsors are all volunteers that are either directly friends with someone at The Trans Empowerment Project, or friends of friends. We network people together to house a trans person in need to a volunteer host home sponsor. We vet each trans client as well as each volunteer thoroughly. We also have rules and regulations that we have formed from learning experiences we’ve gone through with our first dozen or so clients. We’ve housed over a handful of clients with host home sponsors so far. This project began in Knoxville and I’ve been brought on as the Program Coordinator and Online Moderator. We are actively signing up sponsor home volunteers. If you or someone you know is a positive ally, a safe person, and has at least a 3 day availability to temporarily house a trans person, perhaps a partner or pet in some cases as well please let me know. Hosts can set their own ground rules for the client to abide by when staying in the sponsor residence. There is an agreement each client signs stating that they understand that if rules are breached, the housing can come to an end and we may not be able to help them again in the future. Each volunteer host home sponsor goes through a training course with required course materials to ensure they understand how to be a safe ally. We are working hard to get more allies on board with our outreaches. If you are a cis ally or a trans person that wants to get involved in a tangible way, these are two great ways to help. www.translifeline.org and www.transempowermentproject.com Check them out! We are excited as these orgs continue to grow and the outreach continues to strengthen and extend our support systems. We encourage you all to be doing volunteer work or community service in some way, the benefits and rewards are numerous! On a more personal note, today is my father and stepmother’s anniversary. It is hard to think back to memories of them and think about how things are between us now. However, after reaching out countless times only to be ignored by my father, eventually that desire to reach out faded. Over the last several years, the few times my stepmother and I have spoken, the conversation has seemed rather cold and judgmental. It leaves me feeling as if they will just hurt me to get me to leave them alone. Either by no response or replies with ill remarks. Of course, I’ve been guilty of both as well, but eventually we should have been able to set aside differences to be civil. Unfortunately, that’s not what has transpired. It’s been difficult for me to come to terms with having no family left, especially lately as I observe our little ones blossoming into beautiful little people. They are sadly missing their lives. They are such great people, although they need pruning like any other garden flower, they are simply beautiful additions that enrich our lives so much. Knowing my kids just gives me a better handle on life, the way their minds work and how they see the world is fascinating. We are very blessed with a rich family life and love spending time together just the four of us. I am extremely thankful that we are still in contact with Kat’s father, who has become my own father figure as well. We speak to him multiple times a week and he’s been right in our corner, being a listening ear, a sounding board for new ideas, a mentor, and a loving father, father-in-law, and grandfather. Thanks for reading, <3 The Blake Family As we’ve successfully moved through the holiday season, we are very fortunate to have had solidarity, support, kindness, love, and generosity showered upon our family, to make it a very special one. There were dozens of people reaching out to us this holiday season sending blessings for a great holiday, thanking us for our work, sharing happiness, and spreading cheer. The spirit of thankfulness has filled our hearts with joy and humbleness. It’s exciting to see people taking initiative to make direct action in a marginalized person’s life. That is what outreach is all about. Whether it’s helping facilitate a safe space, providing a listening ear, sharing personal stories, lifting up the voices of others, offering support or encouragement, or directly giving to a person in need. This is all very needed and valuable ways to contribute. As activists, Katherine and I love to see the different and creative ways people can come together to help others. Just today, in a parent’s group I am a part of, a parent had a surgery recently, lost their job today, and rent was due yesterday. The other parents were rallying a PayPal pool to help the parent keep their home. Helpers such as this are invaluable and irreplaceable. Unless you have been in the position of receiving help, you may not understand how life changing it can really be. Living in Las Vegas, we can forget having a white Christmas. We did take the kids on a walk-through with Santa, elves, lights, trains, and complete with fake snow. The kids enjoyed opening the presents very much; they were thrilled! This was our youngest child’s first Christmas housed, as well as the first family Christmas dinner as a family of four. It was truly a special time. We have made many precious memories playing with new toys, games, and craft activities the kids received. We have a great deal to be thankful for from the past year. This year has brought an income, a new home, wider outreach, and more direct action to not only others' lives through us but from others to us. It's been a year full of changes, in the world around us, plus in our own lives and situation. We are re-housed 7 months. We have had an outpouring of love and support throughout this year to aide our hard work to give us the extra boost we have needed at just the right times. We are extremely grateful for our outreach, each other, our friends, and chosen family. Thanks for being a part of our journey!! The first few days of this year have definitely been great; I hope it has for you and your family too. We are looking forward to what the rest of 2018 has in store for us. February will make two years Katherine has been with the lifeline. Jayden will be returning to school next Monday, she is very eager to start back. She is half way through her first year and doing great! Josh can barely wait to start school and will be turning four in April. Looking back over Facebook memories is the only way I have to look back at photos of our family, but it’s been neat to see the progress we’ve made in, our lives, our sobriety, our family, our marriage, and transitions. We are a family with three transgender folks, and each of us I feel are still coming into our own, the four of us get to grow together as a family unit, and as individuals and it’s such a beautiful thing to watch and experience. These three are my people, they are the ones I want to come home to after a negative incident. They are my safety, my comfort, my joy, my heart, my whole life, my reason for fighting for a better world. I am so looking forward to another year with my babies. A family update.
Kat has been very busy with work. She has two webinars a month each month for training new volunteers for the Trans Family Line for significant others, friends, family members, and any ally from a transgender person’s life to call and get support, help understanding, and information about resources they may need. She reaches out weekly to her volunteers both on the Trans Lifeline, and on the Family Line. She has meetings at least once a week sometimes more. She has modified a lot of the training, adding personal experiences, and constantly making tweaks to perfect the training experience for her volunteers. She is really shining bright with the pride she takes in her work and it definitely shows. Jayden and Joshua are doing great. The two of them love having a routine at home. They enjoyed the light and water show we took them to recently. The family oriented place has fake wild life, light and water shows multiple times a day, a McDonald’s the kids like to eat at, a huge assortment of plants set up around a stream, and a waterfall. There are strings of lights trapesing the trunks and limbs of the trees, a large gazebo with chairs scattered about the area; it’s quite peaceful. We take a trip there a couple times a month. There is a park within walking distance from our apartment, and the kiddos have had lots of fun on the slides, swings, and climbing apparatuses. They had their yearly pediatric exam last month; the doctor said they are both right on target! Jayden is wonderful at learning. She’s doing great at her schoolwork. She has a firm grasp on math, language, and reading especially. She is picking up reading speedily, but then reading and books have always been a huge part of all of our lives. The kids have many books. Jayden got a bunch of clothes recently, to include some My Little Pony and Frozen decorated pieces, you should have seen the look on her face! The joy those clothes brought her was precious to see. In addition, several pair of new shoes for her as well. Joshua begs to go to school, and is learning a great deal from being close to Jayden while she’s doing school. He is typically glued to our sides soaking up as much knowledge as possible. He loves growing his hair back out. He wants badly to be a boy with long hair. He will say to me “I’m going to be a boy and have long hair!” With a shrill excited-ness only a three year old can express. Joshua loved his new clothes as well. He was so excited to get some more appropriately gendered clothing; his options were rather limited before. He also got some little cons; they are so adorable on him. We are missing the road; all of us greatly miss traveling. Josh told me the other day he misses us driving in our van. He also talks about our stay in San Francisco a lot, and tells us frequently he misses it there. Jayden says she misses Portland and wants to go back there. Katherine says she wants to travel back up to Washington. I miss traveling as well. Maybe soon we can get our van up and running, get my license, maybe take a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon. I would love to visit there. Jayden’s curriculum included it not long ago, and I think it would be amazing to take the children there. In other news, Katherine and I went to the DMV to get our state ID’s this past week. Yay, we will finally have everything swapped over to our new legal names. This was the final step in having our documents changed. Two years after our name change. Just received them in the mail today! Also in the mail, but a few days back, I received two packages from disability. I was rather excited to find out that I was finally hearing from them after a year. Well, being homeless during that time, we did not have a reliable way to receive mail. Unfortunately, when I opened the first package it said this, “February 28th, 2017 Please respond within ten days of this correspondence. Your case is up for review. More information is needed to determine your disability status. Please contact me, case manager’s name here, at telephone number here.” The second package was informing me since they hadn’t heard from me, my case was being denied. I will have to start all over again, the 90 days has passed since the closing of the case, before I even was notified. The mail sat in a human services department until they received my updated address (two months ago) and finally got around to forwarding it. Either way the denial came before we had a stable address. Thursday was my first doctor appointment in several months. It was a relief finally to see a physician. He prescribed a new medication to treat the fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, and non-restorative sleep. Unfortunately, there was a week wait while the physician and insurance got on the same page about which medication to authorize. Tonight I will be beginning the new treatment. The Trans Job group is growing, and hopefully helping people connect to valuable available positions. The Transgender Parents group is also growing. We have valuable conversations happening here. Which is helping to fuel my new project for Transgender Parents called "Three Two One Trans", which can be found @ : threetwoonetrans.wix.com/threetwoonetrans If you haven't already checked it out, please do and subscribe for the latest posts straight to your inbox! There is a Facebook page for transgender news, updates, events, media, trans creators, and more called "Trans Lives Matter". To keep up with the latest please like & follow! This concludes the update. I want this to let other transgender people know they aren’t alone when dealing with struggles like housing, finances, kids, access to food, clothes, and medical issues. You are not alone, but we in spite of ourselves and our struggles have made it anyway, so far that is. Please check out our story with Callie Wright, creator and host of the podcast "The Queer Side". Listen as we describe why outreach and activism is important to us, we talk about our life on the road, and coming out as transgender! Click the link below:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/two-trans-one-15344846 Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. The day where us trans/queer folks remember our lost siblings. Those that have been taken from us by murder or suicide. We face a much larger percentage for both violent deaths and suicide. Today we reflect on their lives and what their deaths mean. It means we need to press forward. It means we need to push back harder. It means we should not stand for discrimination in every account. It means we should stand up for our oppressed siblings. Do not let their deaths be in vain, take the knowledge of today and put the lesson into practice in your everyday life. Give to your trans/queer friends, correct people when they misgender a trans or queer person, go out of your way to be friendly and nice. These things make a difference, your kindness may inspire the kindness in others. Reach out and start being an ally in every way you can!
Also, people that are cisgender allies and may have a transgender family member, there is a volunteer opportunity available with the Trans Lifeline for taking calls in the up and coming Trans Family Line, to launch next year! Please go to Translifeline.org and sign up to volunteer if you are over 18 and have a transgender family member and want to help other family members of trans people to find support through the process of coming to understanding and acceptance. We've been working hard on new projects! Katherine of course hard at work with the lifeline, and myself working on Three Two One Trans. This is a project focused on the education and support of Transgender Parents. That is parents that are also transgender. We want to help both adults and children understand that being transgender is a normal part of life for a percentage of people. We also want to focus in on those instances where only another transgender parent can really offer you some guidance. Thanks for reading, watching, subscribing, and sharing! Oh yeah, our new website you can subscribe! Just click the button above ^.
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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