I don't want to be trans anymore.
I just want to be a real girl.
Who killed the Blue Fairy?

Is anyone else sick of these adds popping up EVERYWHERE?
Anyway, on to the rant...

I am thin.
I do not have a flat stomach.
It is slightly pokey and rounded and is is soft and womanly and is apparently quite cute.
And I like it that way.
When I was an army person, I was much thinner (ew) and had a flat stomach.
It was ugly and hard. Above it were the painfully obvious xylophones of my ribcage and below were the visible, bony, knobly bits on my hips.

So, the problem with the whole flat stomach thing is that it is only achievable for a lot of us if we become skeletons.
I have done my skeleton time and it wasn't fun.
As another woman quipped on this subject:
"My stomach is not flat because I put food and water in it."
Amen sister.

Well, I finished up my Webcomic, Vexing Times.
Why? Because I haven't played WoW properly for at least 10 months and have no motivation to ever play again.
No, I am not a bitter ex-WoWer, I think it's a cool game with lots going for it, but I have been playing since Feb 2005 and I'm simply over it. There's not many things I can do for 5 years straight and still enjoy - and WoW isn't one of them.

Anyway, final comic (gratuitous fan service for my horny male followers):
( Look at me! Look at meeeee! )

Jacquie,

I find it heavily ironic that you're asking me to stop emailing you, after I asked you to do exactly that at the start of this email chain.
Why would you expect me to comply with your wishes when you wouldn't do the same for me?
Ludicrous!
Again you insult me by claiming that it would be some kind of punishment to 'inflict' me on stealth people, right after you apologise for calling me names.
Well, it's my turn.

Your barely literate walls of text make my eyes water. You have the grammar, punctuation and syntax skills of an eight year old with a learning disability.
Your comprehension skills are so thoroughly lacking that I wonder if you're only reading every third word and trying to string meaning from that, instead of actually reading complete sentences.
Though I don't imagine it would help if you were reading every word, because it seems that you're just too intellectually inhibited to understand what I'm writing, regardless of reading ability.

Every time you open your virtual mouth you embarrass the trans community so completely that I want to slit my wrists on your behalf. You're a mockery of trans women everywhere; you're little better than a gross parody of societies expectations of what a 'tranny' should be.
The fact that you embrace that pejorative term 'tranny' shows what a classless, common piece of trash you really are. I'm frightened for the young trans women you encounter and will attempt to 'educate', because they will become a parody of your parody and further tarnish the image of trans women, turning them into nothing more that a public joke.

Perhaps you are simply an example of why people your age shouldn't be given hormones; because you had the intellect of child already; but now you have the emotional age of a teenager to go with it.
Which is a lethal combination in anyone's books.
I'd just like to reiterate how mind bogglingly bereft of brains you are; I've had cats that could not only exceed your comprehension skills, but could probably open doors easier than you can. I can only imagine what a massively weighty millstone you would have been around the neck of the Labour party (who no doubt only included you because you were the easiest tranny to find).

Should we cross swords again in future, I'll quite happily destroy you in writing again, as I did on the GayNZ forums. If we meet in person, I will walk away - because I don't want to be tainted by your crassness and stupidity, nor by your classless and trashy behaviour.
For someone at age 60+, you know very, very little about presenting as a woman, beyond slapping on a frock and a bit of clashing lippy.

Your incredulity at my identity betrays nothing more than jealousy. However, I do sympathise. I imagine that if I looked like you and was 60+ years old, I'd be extremely jealous of viewing the pictures of this beautiful 30 year old woman named Caitlin.

I think I've sufficiently expressed my views.
You won't be hearing from me again via email and I won't be hearing from you either, because I've put your email address in my spam filter, which means that all further messages from you will be deleted before they can taint my inbox.

I hope you live to regret your behaviour, but I doubt you will.

Caitlin

Until late last year, I had never heard this name, despite being moderately involved with the trans community in New Zealand.
It turns out that she is supposedly 'much beloved' by the gay and trans community in New Zealand and is something of a gay/trans icon.

She's also a completely and utter bitchwhore.

I had the misfortune of running across her on GayNZ.com, where she displayed her ignorance about trans issues several times and I took it upon myself to correct her.
She then decided to engage me via email and tell me how I'm just a 'stupid fucking queen', amongst other things.
The email discussion became public when Jacquie posted the whole thing on GayNZ.com, like some kind of vindictive child (after I gave up all pretense of niceness and told her exactly what I thought of her).
This caused me to lose two of my close friends, who hero worship Jacquie (for what reason they worship her, I'm still not sure. I think they bought into the gay media hype).

( MOAR DRAMA )

So I'm part way through this dream where I'm at work.
Then suddenly I feel my head and all my hair has been cut off, right down to a few millimeters of fuzz.
I freak out and try and find a bathroom to look at myself, but I can't find one. I end up running out of my work building and everyone is staring at me on the street. I end up going back to my old workplace down the road and getting a job there, where they make me dress and act like a man, since my hair is short and it makes me look like a man. They also give me all the shit jobs to do, because they know I'm a weirdo and I can't really complain, since no-one else will employ me.
I end up running out of there in the end, in man trousers and white man shirt, holding my fuzzy tennis-ball head in my hands and screaming.

Thank you subconscious; I hate you.

See previous LJ entry.
I have the shoes! Spent the evening so far learning how to walk in slingback heels.

- Discovered my walk was not at fault, but the tightness of the strap.
- Made new hole in strap.
- Result: awesomeness.

They do however make me approx. 6'8" tall. Not so awesome.

These shoes...



THEY SHALL BE MINE, PRECIOUS.

While I wait for my man to bring me home delicious processed meats, I shall regale you all with my adventures in Hamilton.

For starters, I really enjoyed myself. Had a blast catching up with my aunt and her interesting collection of friends.
Best of all, due to her being awesome, she had not outed me to anyone. Consequently, no-one thought I was trans, which felt supremely kick-ass. Addictive even. Due to this, I felt kinda yucky when I hung out with some workmates for drinks yesterday - they all knew and it constantly got mentioned. I didn't like it at all.
So after my surgery, I'm going to quit my job. I'm so sick of people knowing my past and treating me weirdly because of it or treating me like some kind of novelty.
( Would you like to know more? )

So I'm heading off to Hamilton tomorrow.

I'm both excited and slightly nervous about it.
You see, this will be the first time I have seen my cousins and my aunty Pat and uncle Colin since before transition.
I'm hoping that they take it all okay and that there is no drama. Of course, there is the distinct possibility of Stupid Questions, but I'll deal with that if/when it happens. They already know that I'm trans though, so it's not like it's a surprise, which is good.

The other scary possibility is that my parents will be there when I turn up.
Gosh, wouldn't that be a laugh riot!

I'll also be visiting my other aunty, who is 17 thousand kinds of awesome and has triplet boys who turned 14 in December. Fortunately, they think I'm pretty spiffy, since they're dying to play World of Warcraft and have to live vicariously through my adventures in that game.
Which means they will love Ankh too, of course.

Anyway, hopefully everything goes wonderfully and I'll have lots of nice tales to type into my LJ when i get back.

Xmas day was awesome, overall - with one hitch. Will explore that later.

I spent most of the day running around with the plethora of children brought by our guests and drinking bubbles in the sun. Dinner was utterly amazing, thanks to Ankh's culinary skills and presents were fabulous - I now have Dead Space (PC) and Viking (PS3) to keep me amused all holidays.

Viking is disturbingly gory. I say that as a veteran gaming geek. I have no doubt that if a true Nordic warrior from eighth century was shown the killing moves and gore, he would roar approvingly, punch me in the face, then headbutt my LCD TV.
For example, one of the miniboss fights involves crash-tacking the guy to the ground then sitting astride his chest and stabbing your sword into his face not one, not two, but about SEVEN times, with fountains of blood. I thought that was bad, then I had another miniboss fight; but this time I ended up astride his neck with my sword pushed down the back of his neck and twisting it into his spinal column for a good 15 seconds, with (you guessed it) fountains of blood. There is far more, but I'll spare you the details.
Dead Space is basically System Shock 2 + Aliens + Event Horrizon. It's bloody good. It has a good old System Shock styled upgrade system, which is a brilliant mechanic.

So about this negative affirmation...
As the hours wore on during Xmas night, it was only Ankh and his brother, Dominic, left behind. Dom was (to put it bluntly) motherfucked on booze. He then proceeded to try and openly hit on me in front of Ankh!
I rebuffed him of course, then he started getting surly and called me a "he-she".
I'd like to take this moment to express how much self control was required not to knock him the fuck out, then drag his ass out of my house and dump him on the street. I'd also like to point out that Ankh, lacking his amazing self-restraint, would probably have stabbed him then dumped him on the street.
However, we kept calm and managed to put him to bed. Of course, he remembered nothing in the morning and we had to act like nothing had happened, lest we start family drama. He left to go back to Wanganui today and having to hug him before he left made my skin crawl.
Ugh.
It is flattering to be hit on, but not in these circumstances.

Anyway, probably won't see him for another year, so am free for now.

So I've been donating to Unicef for over 3 years now.
But not anymore.

Several months ago I noticed that emails from them had my previous name on them. I called them to correct this and they assured me that it would be done.
However, the emails continued to have my previous name on them. This annoyed me.
Today I check my physical mailbox at my front gate and there is a letter addressed to "Mr Kaitlin Johnston"
This more than annoyed me.

So I rang Unicef NZ.
After being called 'Sir' twice by the woman on the phone, I told them to cancel my donations, permanently.
Fuck them.
Assholes.

CAUTION! Bitchy rant!

I'm rather fed up with the public perception of trans women as freaky fetishy dudes in ill-fitting, ugly dresses with 5 o'clock shadows and pantomime makeup. I do my utmost to blend in as a normal (albeit very tall) woman with good dress sense, a smooth face and minimal makeup.
Which is why bullshit like this ANGERS ME GREATLY:

http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/36/article_7920.php (WARNING! Features near nudity of badly dressed dude in ill-fitting clothes)

The article appears to be doing nothing more than paying lip-service to the T in the GLBT by finding the most obvious (read: tragic) tranny and asking for her fucked up and ill-informed opinions. Some of you may have already heard me rant about this person, but here's you're chance to read the whole sordid tale.
Of course, I have my personal grievances with this huckmole; since she constantly claims that I'm not a 'real trans' and that I'm just a crossdresser. Fortunately the opinions of transwrecks (ha, like that?) like 'Rachael' mean very little to me.

To address some key points in the article: 'Sex change' is a vile term and should not be used - anymore than 'Hysterectomy' or 'Root Canal' should be used to describe a person. You are not a medical procedure - you are a fucking PERSON!
'Sex changes' do not in fact require any of the bullshit that Rachael describes (wigs, nails, facial surgery, laser hair removal). Balding, stubby-handed, mannish and hairy trans women need these things. I'm going to be a 'sex change' (ughh) in roughly 8 months - my hair isn't going to suddenly fall out, my nails turn to paper, my face distort into a pig's arsehole and my body sprout hair everywhere.
Anyway, back onto my main point: People like Rachael do immeasurable damage to the image of trans people. To transform her from a caricature of a trans woman into something respectable would take only a few days of showing her what to wear, changing that hideous fucking wig for something more natural and advising her that her needy/greedy attitude under the guise of superiority (i.e. "I'm a sex change, I'm a minority") is bullshit. However, better people than me have tried - and failed.
Bleh.

"So why are you getting your surgery done in Thailand? I understand it is cheaper, but wouldn't it be safer in New Zealand?"
No, no it would not, my arrogant friend. New Zealand is still very backward as far as both FTM and MTF surgeries go. So backward in fact, that it is far more dangerous to get my surgery done in NZ. Not only that, the single NZ surgeon who does SRS for MTFs is, well, crap at it and uses a 30 year old method which leaves you with a length colon for a vagina and a penis stub above it.

So I'm off to Thailand. And no, it's not because of the cost - but because they are the best.
When you're getting your genitals corrected, you want the best.
Don't buy kiwi made.

19 weeks since my last update apparently.
Who the hell counts in weeks? Is my LJ pregnant? WTF?

News: I applied to the bank for a $30k loan to pay for my (genital) surgery. If they agree to loan me the cash, I should have a fancy new vagina by Xmas next year. Who so long? Waiting list. The guy I want to go to in Thailand has a huge waiting list and he won't be available until at least September next year.

Otherwise, life is much the same as ever. Looking forward to a big family Xmas (Ankh's family, not mine - my family are still largely fuckheads).
Will be visiting the family that still speak to me sometime after the New Year in Hamilton. Should be fun.
Gonna apply to the family court to change my gender marker so I can fly on a Female passport when I go to Thailand. Not sure how successful I'll be, but it will be a good test case to see how flexible they are with MTFs.

Someone please send me links to more trans communities for me to get kicked out of. I'm going for the complete set.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not fucked up enough to be part of these communities.
I have an amazing boyfriend, awesome friends, a great career, a nice house, plenty of disposable income, achievable goals, I pass as female, I have no real issues (other than my parents...but that's their issue, not mine) and I love life.

WTF am I expecting to get out of TS support groups?
All they do is whinge, throw massive pity parties and jerk each other off.
The few people I like from these places are already friends on MSN or Facebook, so it's not like I'm missing out on the people who are actually worth talking to.

I think I've become tragically normal and well adjusted.

Nearly everytime I offer trans advice or try to share my trans experiences, I get shat on by other members of the trans community.

I don't know why I fucking bother.

I think it's time to go back to being tough-as-nails Cate who takes no shit from no one and needs no help from no one.
Or maybe I just don't belong in the trans community.
Maybe I'm too screwed up to ever fit in.
Maybe I'm not screwed up enough to fit in.
I don't bloody know.

Sometimes I feel like there is this massive target on my head that says "I LOVE BEING ATTACKED! ATTACK ME!"

So I've been having a discussion with a guy about 'passing straight away'.
I claimed that no-one passes straight away (with regards to a topic about an MTF not passing)
He claimed that he (an FTM) did - and that he knows MTF's who have passed right away.

I call bullshit.
Or more politely, wishful thinking.
And I stand by my statement.

As much as you might like to THINK that you pass the very first time you present as the other gender, you won't. Lacking many years of experience of living as that gender, you will get clocked.
I've also met individuals who are adept at clocking even the most convincing trans people (even deep voiced, bearded, male bodied FTM's). I guess it's like a weird form of Gaydar.

Until you have lived in your new gender role for a decent period of time, you simply don't have the experience.
Like anything; you can have all the theory is the world, but until you begin to put things into actual practice you're not going to be properly proficient at it.

So this bitch on the forums I frequent said to me:
"You'll never be a woman."

I complained and...
She got away with it.
The admin council deemed that she "did not act maliciously or with bad intent."
They also rattled off this piece of drivel: "The Council recognizes that you have a personal interest in a particular subject that concerns the sexuality you identify with"
What god damn SEXUALITY?
BEING TRANSGENDERED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY SEXUALITY YOU IGNORANT CORPSE RAPISTS.

I pointed out that what she said to me was no different to saying to a cancer patient "You're going to die a painful lingering death" or telling a crippled person "You'll never ever walk again in your life".
People just don't care.
They don't understand that being trans is just and real and valid as any other affliction.
You don't go around telling people the chilling, hard facts about their condition (oh, you're going to die, tough luck).
Why is it that every other affliction is treated with respect and sympathy, but filthy dirty trannies like me are allowed to be crapped on from a great height?

PLEASE, EVERYONE TELL ME THAT I'LL NEVER BE A REAL WOMAN!
THAT ISN'T MALICIOUS AT ALL!
AND AFTERWARDS, PLEASE FUCK YOURSELF REPEATEDLY IN THE CHEST WITH A NARWHAL TOOTH.