What's In a Name?

It's official! My name AND my gender marker have been legally changed by the state of New York as well as the Social Security Administration! (Insert confetti)

Now I just have to change it with the DMV next week and then everywhere else that is still using my old name. Hopefully it doesn't take me 4 hours in there to get it done. (Insert laugh track)

I didn't think that it would be so important to me to have the M on my license instead of the F. I mean who really looks at that anyway? They usually just check DOB - but surprisingly I'm really excited about it. I suppose it became more exciting once the SSA passed the policy that no longer required surgery to be a pre-requisite to changing your gender marker. Once they allowed a letter to do the trick I think my excitement started growing from there.

It used to be necessary to have full gender reassignment surgery before a marker could be changed in their system, and now I walked in with a letter from the surgeon and (although there was a bit of debate at the office) all was changed right there.

It's astonishing to think that things are changing so drastically in such a short amount of time. Now that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide - we can start working on trans issues and trans rights going forward. I can tell you this, it is a very exciting time to be alive and I can't wait to tell my kids all about how much better it is for them growing up than it was for us just a few years ago.

Things are happening!

It has, admittedly, been too long since I've posted. Two months is too long!

I have been meaning to post since this new opportunity had presented itself but I didn't want to count my chickens...

I was brought into contact with someone who is now identifying as trans* and he had some questions for me about being trans, and surgery, and hormones - so I wrote him a letter. He wrote 5 questions, I wrote 6 pages of personal experience as well as factual information to answer his questions.

My favorite question was "can I wear guys' underwear?" To which I said, "OF COURSE YOU CAN LET'S GO SHOPPING!"

This letter was passed to him through a third party, who read it and shared it among their peers - who then got back into contact with me.

I am now booked for 2 workshops at a conference out east in November! I am beyond excited about this, and have already started putting it together using - of course - some posts from the blog as well as other inspirations.

I have also been contacted about perhaps doing a Q&A Panel for parents at the high school so that any concerns or questions they have can be addressed and perhaps answered.

So maybe I should be looking into how to make this a career path because not only is this something I have experience with, but I am passionate about it and I LOVE teaching others about myself as well as sharing other information I know about Gender and Sexuality in general.

I can't wait to see where this goes...