Ending this blog was a paid domain

Hopefully my blog has been helpful to some people, and time to say goodbye as I have nothing else to contribute.

I like my nail polish but sex?

I decided that having French nails on both my fingers and toes is for me but still unsure about a sexual relationship. Having been on both sides of the gender fence I now know the desires from the male side which can range from having a quickie to a long term relationship while as a female I don’t want the quickie but instead meaningful foreplay which I find much more satisfying when finally climaxing.

I’ve learned that being with a female of the same mindset is much more fulfilling when the minds are running on the same tracks which is more likely than the rare cases of a man interested in pleasing a woman as most men (not all) only care about the release of their juices.

It’s not in my nature to simply have sex, instead I want, no I demand if there is sex/loving making it has to have passion on both sides. Funny thing is, I’ve been luck to have come close with men, females and the third gender.

I’ve learned that many times when at a bar it appears nobody pays any attention to me but then learn through others that is the complete opposite. At least three times since transitioning I’ve been in situations where after sitting for a while the man or woman I was attracted to did have similar feelings. Once a beautiful woman stood next to me, looked like she would not give me the time of day. She dropped stuff of the table we shared and when I went down to assist she stares me directly in my eye’s and says “let’s dance beautiful”.

We danced, kissed and embraced each other but sadly she was a married bi-sexual so that’s as far as things went.

Another time I had a similar encounter where when I passed a (way to young) young woman, directly after passing her she said, you smell and look sexy. I thanked her for the compliment, ordered my drink and sat down across the room. Five minutes later she scrolled over, sat down, my hips touching her hips. We chatted for about ten minutes when I informed her I was transgender, she looked at me, kissed me and said so what.

I was sitting there waiting for a group of cross dressers for a theme night of “Prom Night”. The cross dressers only knew me from online, never met.

They walk in, I see them and wave, the young female next to me waved at them too.

The cross dressers kind of dropped their jaws (later I found out because they didn’t recognize me and thought this was cool), came over and I introduced myself to them.

Later the young female while dancing asked for my phone to put her number in. After I left she kept texting me to come sleep with her (and I surely would have if not for the age difference, I have a daughter older them her).

The young female was my shade of nail polish but just a little to fresh.

I notice it but not the why

Before transitioning through surgery I had tendencies towards dressing in sexy clothing but after surgery those tendencies went away. Coupled with that the majority of the time was in my house as I knew I could draw attention from those who would do harm to me for being different.

Now I know that it’s not only myself but just about every cross dresser or transgender I have come in contact with are the same way, they present themselves in sexy clothes, no matter the age be it 16 or 70 years old although I think many over 65 do realize unless they are in a LGBT setting they stand out like a sore thumb. I never feel compelled to warn them of the dangers because most of them only go out to LGBT clubs. The few that do go out to other places tend not to dress sexy but age appropriate.

All I can say is if you are one who dreams about leaving the house in sexy clothing be sure that the clothing is age appropriate and that cisgender females in the area would wear this or similar clothing so not to stick out like a splattered bug on your windshield.

What prompted me to write this entry was after shopping today, saw a dress and my first thought was “would other woman my age wear this?” and I knew they would. I even added a cardigan to compliment the dress. And I don’t wear dresses or skirts very often outside of work and that is the trend in my area.

Thoughts on passing

I’ve recently joined a closed group on Facebook where the majority of male to female members will post pictures of themselves and ask if they pass physically. Just about every since member who post and ask if they are passable indeed passable.  Having been on this journey would like to offer a small piece of advice which is forget about passing physically and focus on your female voice.

When I or any heterosexual male or female encounters a female without thinking “are they really female” expect a softer voice then a male voice. When the female speaks in the same tone as a male that will make the heterosexual male or female wonder or think “is this really a female”.

My guess is many male to female transgender or cross dressers realize this already but want to stress that this can not only lead to people wonder about you but also may very well cause them to be embarrass and infuriate them to incite a mindset to cause you physical harm.

There is only one method to circumvent this when out in public which is to practice speaking as a cisgender female does. For many it’s not easy, like myself I had to practice, practice, practice. The most difficult part as one gets older is to not only train your voice but also to retrain your brain.

Example, as you close to finish speaking your brain says “now I can relax” and attempts to to back to the male voice if for no other reason that it’s easy while speaking in a female tone is hard work especially keeping a conversation going.

If you can afford to take voice lessons even for a few sessions this will assist in building a proper foundation for what you need to do later to keep up appearances both with your physical looks and sounds that come out of your mouth.

Several times a month I go out with several cross-dressers and transgender groups in my area and I’m the only one, say out of twenty that use a female voice. All of them speak like men and if they didn’t speak the majority would pass one hundred percent as cisgender females. Do they go out in public? Several do yet are known to locals as cross-dressers and never will pass.

For the next part a little history.

I joined a cross-dresser group who are located 40 miles from me back in 2000. At that time I was not even trying to transition in the public and never made it to any of their events which are several times a week. Another group opened in my immediate area and they have one member who belongs to the other group (40 miles away). The decide to meet here in my town in a gay bar, I thought, great, finally get to meet them.

Went to the bar, walk in and there is this thirty something cisgender female with a guy sitting at the bar, she looks at me and says, hi gorgeous, you smell sexy. I said thanks, got my drink and sat down. Five minutes later she come over to my table, sits down next to me and we start chatting. Shortly there after the one cross dresser group walks in, they are all wearing prom dresses (the theme of the evening, not be thou). I wave at them, remember they don’t know me and they stare until I wave them over. I introduced myself and the night was fantastic. Later on the leader said that when I waved and she looked over she thought we were two cisgender females and was dumb founded that I was post-op as my voice passed with no hints of male.

Fast forward to last weekend, the leader of that group was suppose to be down by 8:30 but arrived at 7:30 (I’ve been there since 7). I greeted her and said, thought you would not be here until 8:30? She said, I know you don’t stay late and wanted to talk to you which I thought was cool. Had a great conversation to say the lest. Another member who didn’t know I was trans or post-op was told by another member and was shocked at how well I controlled my voice.

Pause: Although my voice is not a 100 percent it’s fully passable. Even to this say I do warm-up exercises because my brain will still fall back into old habits.

With that I want those who have decided to read this far to know that it’s not easy (some may disagree but they are the minority), one must be committed to not only appearing as a female but make efforts to speak the part too.

Have you heard Autumn? https://autumnasphodel.com/222/transgender-female-voice I feel the same as her in regards to mindset. There are plenty of resources on the web so thre is no excuse not to try.

The power of the mind is incredible

Diversity and inclusion

I’ve been invited to speak at an event at Microsoft’s MVP Summit on Sunday on the topic of diversity and inclusion of woman and the LGBT community.

Let’s look at the main types:

From my perspective woman are thriving in the field of technology but there are few when it comes to software developers at least in my locale.

I’s nearly impossible to gauge the gay community because most are not flamboyant and are no different in appearance than heterosexual counterparts.

As with the gay community, cross-dressers are invisible too as the nature of a cross-dresser is they are in the closet when they transform into their version of themselves of the opposite gender. Lastly, a cross-dresser may or may not be gay, some cross-dress for pleasure while others to please their partner.

Then there are those who identify as the opposite gender then their born gender. To complete their transformation they are required by law to live in the role of the gender they wise to transition to for one year, 24/7.

Thoughts on how to include the above into the field of technology. For cisgender females

• Many woman believe technology is a “boy’s club”, same goes for parents of girls. If the woman believes this then they will not identify being in technology. The main place for change is in the home, parents need to encourage their daughters.
• Discrimination, lack of parental leave especially in a face-pace industry. This needs to change in how management thinks,

Transgender, how do we include them in technology. This is extremely difficult for the heterosexual employees and management to buy into no different than one hundred years ago in discrimination of African Americans, it take time for people to embrace, in this case transgender people into the workforce.

Heterosexuals many times believe the transgender to be a deviant which in some cases may be the case but the majority of those in the transgender community are no different then their heterosexual counter-parts. A transgender had no choice in being transgender, it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain to that of their heterosexual counterpart.

With that said, a transgender may very well given the chance be the best at a chosen profession but they have two things against them (actually more but focusing on these).

• Presenting in the opposite gender, at many stages will not appear proper for the new identity, examples a female to male no matter how hard they try breast my be visible or a male to female and for both their voice may not fit the new identity.
• They are not intelligent because after an employer reviews their resume sees they had no employment prior to this application or had low paying jobs which comes from perpetuation of cisgender employers perception of a transgender individual and the transgender community at large.

I have personal insight into the above information as I was born as a male but was from the first time I could rationalize myself with others I was indeed a female with the wrong body.

Having lived as a male to conform with male hormones my brain worked as mostly male and for the most part was forced to act as a cisgender male. After beginning hormones and living as a female I have a unique perspective on how men and woman differ in how they think and see the world. With that in mind my unique perspective allows me to advocate for woman, gay and transgender community. When I see potential in one of them with technology no matter their age will encourage them to consider working in technology.

When I think of inclusion, Microsoft is the first company I think of from interacting with them and they know my background. There are other companies, like Microsoft who embrace a diverse work force yet that is not enough. Myself and others who are thriving in technology need to, when appropriate educate others such as educating parents of female children, employers on gays and transgender (left out cross-dressers because they are in the closet).

UPDATE: 11/07/2016

Last night myself and several other woman spoke about inclusion and diversity. I believe it went extremely well gauging by the attendance.  Have to give a huge thanks to Microsoft.

Defensive tactics

This blog entry is to provide a place for my credentials for teaching self-defense.  Credentials are important but not everything as someone can have an array of credentials but not a good instructor. I’ve taken the time to not only learn skills for self-defense but also attended various week long sessions were the focus was not learning new skills but instead to learn what it takes to be a good instructor.

I offer several classes that revolve around empty hand and impact weapon tactics but not limited to these. Although I have and can still teach firearm tactics my belief is there are many full-time instructors in the area that are best suited for this so I defer to them and will recommend them.

Skills alone are not good enough so I begin all classes with several things e.g. the force continuum, legality and mindset.

A typical class involves four hours of me teaching, a long lunch then review and practice what I taught prior to lunch. The long lunch break may sound odd but after four hours of working through the techniques taught requires some downtime. Overall class time is six to eight hours but can be shorten dependent on students time.

Prices, contact me for a price and more than happy to sit down with you to discuss a plan that best suits your needs. Minimal size class is four with a maximum of 12.

Attending class, dress comfortably. Any jewelry needs to be removed prior to start of class and any weapons must be removed from your person for the safety of others other than a kubaton or tactical flashlight.

For the LGBT community I teach at no cost provided there are at least six students.  For woman only classes my fee is half of my normal cost for a class.

Contact: karenpayneoregon@gmail.com

BIO:

• 2001-2013 senior instructor for “The Jacobe Group LLC” in Salem Oregon lecturing in a concealed handgun license class each Thursday evening, live firearm instructor, lead instructor for empty hand defensive classes, LLC (specialized impact tool) instructor, Kubaton instructor, handgun retention/disarming class and defensive cane instructor.
• Twice each year assisted in lecturing to 300-500 college students use of force and requirements for obtaining a concealed handgun license with the Jacobe Group
• 2005-2008 provided specialized empty hand training to Marines and Army at the Jacobe group
• 2002-2010 Executive protection for several clients
• 2008-2012 provided specialized classes to two Fortune 500 companies.

Certifications

• Certified instructor by CSSDSC.
• 2014 voted into a prestigious martial arts organization (they are mainly Grand Masters which I’m not) for impact and edge weapons tactical instructor.
• Certified with American Council on Criminal Justice (Law Enforcement organization) for empty hand tactics, handcuffing and batons
• Certified with ASP as a baton instructor
• Certified handgun retention/disarming instructor with Lethal Force Institute
• Certified Kubaton instructor with Lethal Force Institute
• NRA Firearms instructor

Completed level 4 at Lethal Force Institute (now MAG) while under the ownership of Massad Ayoob. Level 4 is an intense firearm course where attendance is capped at 20 people every four years.

Assisted as range instructor at Firearms Academy of Seattle for Massad Ayoob.

Paused teaching in 2013 for GRS surgery, 2014 to present been teaching private classes.

Bad surgery story

The following is scary to say the least. 

Ten days ago I was there for a male to female having reassignment surgery. The surgery lasted too long in my opinion and that the reason was the surgeon caused a rectovaginal fistula. A friend of hers was told (but not me) that she had gas coming out the vagina on Friday and the friend got her to call the hospital who said they would get back to her but never did.  I did not hear about this until this morning, she text’ d me and said she was concerned. I went over and got her to take pictures and send them to the surgeon. Now this is 10 AM this morning, he said to come in a 5 PM. seriously, this is one bad thing after another.

I learned that while she was in the hospital the care provided was unprofessional from assisting her keeping clean (they would not clean her breast or bottom) to providing sedatives for pain (I had sedatives pushed into me non-stop). Just the other day I learned that OSU, the hospital here in Oregon had a bad reputation for how transgender people were treated and that they were in a transition period to overcome the bad reputation.

Any ways, just received a text from her, they are keeping her tonight. I did not inquire why but a decent guess is because of the rectovaginal fistula.

Now with all this mentioned, she had no real choice being on social security, out of work, never being able to afford surgery. Couple this with extreme dysphoria and a surgeon who has done six reassignment surgeries prior is a recipe for what happened. It really is a catch 22 per-say, boxed in with a one way pass to live with the dysphoria or roll the dice with a surgeon with little experience.

Lesson to take away, if you don’t have the funds to obtain reassignment surgery you may very well be in the hands of people who may perform a bad procedure and as with this person have poor aftercare. If this is you, pay attention to your body after surgery, don’t dismiss even the little things, call them out to those who are taking care of you and this might simply save your life.

Little did I realize

Since last September I have been driving with a Mazda Miata club every Saturday. Before joining the club my car seemed to have everything needed for my needs yet in my first drive with the club I knew more was needed. I was told my skills were very good and that the car could not be out driven but failed to hear the words (customization of the suspension would be needed to do what the top two drivers in the club do).

Roughly eight months later I was totally pushing the car way pasted it’s limits so customization started and finished in three weekends, all work done by professionals who understand what I wanted and the parts were custom also with a good deal of research, trial and error before these parts were put on my car.

So in the past few months I only push the car to it’s current limitations were before doing the same style of driving was pushing the car way passed it’s limits.

Little did I realize how proficient my driving skills are coupled with a fine tune car until today.

A man drove 50 miles to check out our club. Indicated he had exceptional driving skills and want to know if we were going to take a drive today? The lead driver said yes, I simply get into my car as the lead driver knows I am going. Another driver (current club member) indicates he wants to go.

So before continuing, there are drivers who simply love a nice casual drive in the country while the other extreme (my style), we live for twisty roads that have a level of difficulty yet must be safe as this time of year there are people riding bikes or jogging so we are careful.

Well we start off on some soft turns, 30 MPH ones on straight roads, on declines. The new driver is right behind me, seems to be doing well. Next we get into the thick of it, very challenging roads that demand skill and reaction times. Come out of that section and the new driver is now at least one or two minutes behind us so we slow down to wait for them.

We repeat this on other roads, pretty much the same, the two drivers behind us are minutes behind me with me behind the lead driver who is about three car lengths ahead of me.

At the end of the run there is only three of us left, the last driver had peeled off, headed for home. We asked the new driver what he thought of the run. He pretty much called us crazy but used more elegant words. He expressly indicated he could not keep up with us and that he noticed myself and the lead driver virtually never hit our brakes. We simply listened and said “hope you see you back again” but I very much doubt we will.

In hind sight we could had told him that we have mild driving too yet that is not that often.

Going back to the new driver indicating he had great skills, it may be but not for the type of driving we do.

Aggressive driving

When I purchased my 2016 Mazda Miata it seemed like it was the perfect little sports car for me until meeting up with the local Miata club where they are in short very aggressive drivers.

What I mean by aggressive drivers is that we take back roads that rarely see much traffic and take the turns at a much higher speed than recommended. For instance, the speed sign recommends 15 MPH, they take them at 40 to 45 MPH. Now (at least for me) it gets crazier, imagine going on a down hill decline with no more than 30 yards between these turns and it’s one lane with no side of the road.

From September of this year until two months ago I have been very lucky in that while taking these turns (without any braking) I managed to stay on the road. Then at about two months ago I was second to the lead driver, he rounds the turn, no issues (an his car is highly modified suspension wise), I take the turn (zero suspension work) and do a 360 and then some. When it was all done, I am stopped, get out of the car and look at the front of my car. Missed hitting a tree by less than one inch.

Lead driver had stopped, looks out his window and said “think we took a wrong turn”, nothing about me doing the spin. Well we turn around and do the rest of the drive then at lunch he says “that was simply a learning thing, not a mistake as the car is in one piece).

This driver has 20 years doing this type of driving and the fellow who was second to the lead has over ten years in. The one behind me let’s me go in front of him so I can learn better from the lead driver.

So the following Saturday, before heading out on the drive I talked to both of them about what should I get done to better handle the road?

Both recommended specific tires and anti-sway bars (they reduce body roll) with specific settings on the sway bars. Optionally springs which reduce the roll on the tires. 

Went online to the store which sells the anti-sway-bars and springs, ordered them but they arrived two weeks between so I had to hit the auto-shop twice in two weeks.

So my assessment, tires were mounted, made somewhat of a difference, sway-bars where next, they in tangent with the tires made a significant difference. Then the springs were installed, couple the tires, sway bars and springs and the difference was huge.

With all modifications done I took seven 15MPH turns at 45MPH and the car simply attached itself to the road. Tomorrow will be the real test where the drive has been pre-planned and know for sure there will be some fantastic turns.

Okay, important note here in regards to aggressive driving. Unless you know what you are doing please don’t take your car out and hit roads and turns as mentioned above. Even when you have experience it’s dangerous and without experience it could very well be your last time out driving.

I first learned from taking a LEO (Law Enforcement Officers) week long course which is not the same as aggressive driving but the physics and methods are the same. In my youth I was able to drive Corvettes, Porches and Triumph sports cars on similar roads I drive now but not nearly as aggressively. My last car was a Toyota Camry with beefed up suspension and that kept my skills up yet with all that there was still a learning curve driving with this club. So be safe, know your limitations and come home in one piece.

Zoom-Zoom 

Loaned out

I work for a state agency for the past twenty years and recently another agency close by asked my manager if they could borrow me for a week. The request was urgent so after my manager received I was on my way to the other agency. When I arrived the CEO, a former employee of my agency greeted me, thanked me for coming right over. Within an hour I was assisting them with the problem that brought me in for and finished the day out.

Day two, in the afternoon the woman who greeted me the first day brought a manager over to meet me. This other manager had also worked at my agency and unlike the CEO who knew me in my male identity did not know of my transition. So in the introduction the manager asked how long I had been working at my agency. In return I said twenty years, mostly in one division. The manager in turn said she had worked in this division at the same time and does not remember me.

So she ask me question after question trying to remember me but can’t. The entire time I am waiting for her to say something like “Hey you were a male before” or something like that. I could see she is not going to give up and now know she is not going to put two and two together.  The image below is before (me on the left teaching) and after.

So I finally said “wait a minute”, grab some paper, write my former name down and hand it to her. She looks at the name, looks up, looks down and then finally looks up and says WOW I would not had guessed. She puts the paper down and hugs me. We chat for a few minutes and then she was off to a meeting.

Two days later and several days after that we talk more but never once bring up my past again and treated me like a friend/co-worker.

So with that there is something to be said about those either starting in some place into a journey of transitioning that it gets better as time goes by. What I mean by it gets better is (for those who are cisgender) when a person either male or female begins thinking of transitioning are usually very fearful of a) being discovered b) thinking they will never be accepted by friends, family and co-workers. Sure the ugly truth is there are backwards thinking people who will never accept a transgender person but the majority will. More times than not the rejection comes from the person transitioning by words, actions and attire which causes cisgender people to feel uncomfortable with them.

It’s easy for me to say “I have been there done that” and say nothing else but the truth is, I was frighten to step out my front door in fear of being made but learned from others before me that it does not have to be that way. Also, when I told my neighbors about transitioning two of them said, “what took you so long?” I responded with “What do you mean”, they said yeah we have seen you sneaking out dressed and thought that I should had just came out then.

I said I was fearful of doing this especially before obtaining a letter to allow me to have surgery. Wish I knew that then but I am now telling other transgender people the truth, you may believe you are sneaking out but there are always eyes watching.

Take it from someone who has been there, like with the manager I mentioned above and she was not the first this happened with me, at least 10 people in my past could not recognize me. Hormones and confidence in oneself goes a long way to blending in as the gender you were suppose to be.