An Exclusive Halloween Ogre Just for Us

The leaves are falling, blanketing the parks of Bucharest with their gold and red.  The breezes bring a chill now as the days shorten.

Halloween is in the air, the time of witches, fairy princesses, hobos, Boo Radley, and the Hollywood fantasies of a childhood younger than mine.  It is the gateway holiday that opens the door to the soon to come turkey and then the mistletoe.

Halloween is a favorite transgender holiday, a time when society gives us license to dress to our fancy.  I must admit that I, for one, never took advantage of this license, so deeply was I in the closet and weighed down by the knowledge that a disapproving spouse would not grant me even this one day.  Instead I would accompany my own son as I was, taking joy in his delight, never forgetting the look in his 4-year-old eyes when our kind neighbor-turned-witch put his hands into a bowl of candy.  His joy and the delight of walking him through our neighborhood of wizards, monsters, witches, and princesses were enough.

But on Halloween there is also a ogre exclusively for us.  He lurks in the dark, ready to pounce on any person walking the transition path.  It is my pleasure,  friends of all gender persuasions, to introduce you to the transgender exclusion.

Let's get to know him a bit better.  If I refer to him as he, it is because I see him as big, muscular, well-fed, fantastically wealthy, and without an ounce of sympathy for others as he dominates his space.  He is, in fact, a powerful figure in the U.S. health insurance industry, where he flexes his muscle to deny coverage of transition-related care to transgender persons.

Knowing that many of my readers are from outside the US, I will digress for a moment.  You see, in the US almost all people who have health insurance receive it through their employer.  When I worked for Computer Sciences Corporation, my employer paid for most of my insurance and gave me a small pool of plans from which to choose.  Now that I work for the U.S. federal government, I have a wider selection from which to choose in the Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) pool.  The various insurance plans are administered by private, for-profit corporations.  What they cover and do not cover is set in contracts negotiated between employer and provider, the premium payments from the employee set in accordance with these contracts.

The transgender exclusion has a long history.  Going back to the 1970s, if not earlier, almost all insurance plans in the US have contained paragraphs that specifically exclude coverage of anything related to sexual transformation.  This means that insurance coverage of counseling, hormone therapy, and blood tests -- not to mention any and all forms of surgery -- is denied to us.

Over the past decade the situation has begun to improve slightly as a few employers have negotiated contracts that do not contain this exclusion.  These progressive employers recognized that the cost of providing coverage is minimal given the small number of transgender persons who embark upon transition.  Providing coverage makes for a more welcoming, accepting workplace in which transgender employees are affirmed and become, in fact, more productive.

Another landmark was the 2011 ruling by no less than the Internal Revenue Service -- the U.S. federal tax agency -- that transition-related procedures are medically necessary and, therefore, tax deductible.  The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and a growing number of medical associations have called for elimination of the transgender exclusion that discriminates against a small and, until recently, not very vocal minority.

"Has the U.S. Government (USG) joined this group of progressive employers?"  I'm glad you asked.

Over the past decade the USG has made great strides in accepting the transgender members if its diverse workforce.  The 2008 federal district court ruling that discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression is, in fact, sex discrimination was a landmark without which I might not be writing these notes today.  The U.S. State Department has proclaimed that LGBT rights are human rights, a policy that has become a rallying cry for LGBT people around the world.

So what about health benefits?  Alas, I regret to report that the transgender exclusion is still alive and healthily flexing his muscle in the FEHB plans offered to federal employees.  Sigh.  As equal employment opportunity and workforce diversity policies have progressed, health insurance has remained quaintly in the age of disco.

Our Halloween ogre is ready to pounce at any moment.  For me it was Halloween in June when I received a formal letter from the exclusion himself.  I had expected the letter for a year, wondering how long it would take for him to notice me and figure me out.  Given that I have not as of yet gone for any surgical procedures, I have not exactly incurred major expenses that would have drawn immediate notice.  If anything, it must have been my legal name change that stood out like a red flag in the hands of a toreador.  One sight of red and the bull began to paw the earth, preparing to charge.  

Was I surprised to receive a letter from Mr. Transgender Exclusion himself?  No, not really.  Like most of the U.S. transgender population, I knew my transition would be self-financed.  Like others, I expected to be devastated financially.  In this belief it appears I will not be disappointed.  Thank you, Mr. Exclusion, for acknowledging my existence.  I feel honored.

Am I upset with my employer, the USG?  No, not really.  Things move slowly in any any large organization, and the USG is one of the largest.  If anything,  I am amazed at the rapid expansion of transgender rights for federal employees over the past decade.  The transgender exclusion will go, if not this year, then next year or the year after.  It takes a village, and our village of progressive forces will prevail in the end.

So beware as you make your rounds this Halloween night.  Amidst the witches, hobos, wizards, and zombies, our own exclusive hobgoblin lurks, waiting to pounce.  Someday he will transform into a beautiful fairy prince or princess, ready to grant all wishes.  Of this I am certain.  It hasn't happened quite yet, but like any fairy tale, this one too will have a happy ending.

Autumn Comes to 45-deg N

October Rains in Bucharest

The autumn rains have come to Bucharest, latitude 44.5-deg N.  It's a lazy Saturday morning.  Oana and I lingered long over our morning coffee and looked out the door to the veranda where cloudy skies and a light rain announced that autumn has come.

Boarding the Bus for Chisinau

Under Picnic Skies in Moldova

A week ago today I took a seven hour bus ride to latitude 47-deg N to spend the long Columbus Day weekend with OD and her partner D.  On Sunday we had a reprise of last May's picnic in the woods on the outskirts of Chisinau.  Moldova's transgender community came out for the day.  The sun shone brightly and warmly.  We all said it was a day на заказ, made-to-order for a summer picnic.  We spent hours enjoying shashlyk prepared by the guys over a wood fire.  The women served up the salad, and a bottle of homemade Moldovan wine was passed around.  Everyone was still worried about documents.  The Office of Registries (загс) is contesting last spring's appellate court decision in favor of granting new documents to transgender people based on hormone therapy.  The matter is now before Moldova's Supreme Court, and no one knows for sure how long it will be before there is a decision.  One of the guys, a big man with muscular arms, is worried that his long-delayed marriage is as distant as ever.  But as we lounged on the grass and soaked in the sun, the worries drifted to the background.  It may have been October, but it was day made-to-order for a July picnic.

Lounging with OD on a Rainy Columbus Day

The rains came to latitude 47-deg N that night.  By Monday morning the temperature had dropped to breezy +5C as the rains continued.  I traded my summer outfits for slacks and a jacket, and we walked quickly through the streets as we ran our errands for the day.  Once back inside, we spent the afternoon and then the evening watching old Soviet-era comedies, snacking, laughing, and talking about life.  D entertained us with a show of strength by whisking each of us off the ground in turn and throwing us into the air.  Laughter filled the room on this made-to-order autumn day that had come so quickly on the heels of summer.

Back in Bucharest, it was time for the winter wardrobe.  When I went to an official meeting in downtown Bucharest on Wednesday, it was in a woolen skirt suit that I last wore in March.  I now wear tights and a jacket on my bicycle commutes, returning to that amorphous, gender-less blob that we bicycle commuters become in the colder weather.

On Friday I had the misfortune of eating something in the morning that must have been spoiled.  I have had food poisoning enough times to recognize the symptoms quickly.  In Uzbekistan, if one did not come down with Tashkent tummy at least two or three times in the first year, something was wrong.  I made it through the day but didn't venture far from the rest rooms.  In the evening Oana put me on the couch and kept the tea, lemon, broth, and honey coming until, slowly, my intestinal track returned to normal.

Oana

Oana headed out this morning after our slow breakfast.  Although it was not planned that way, Oana has become my adopted daughter, in the emotional if not in the legal sense.  In State-Department-speak, she is now my member of household as she has taken up residence in my guest bedroom and has taken over almost all cleaning and housekeeping duties.  Dinner is on the table when I get home in the evening, and the coffee or tea are ready when I wake in the morning.  I do the fancier cooking on the weekend.  I look at Oana and remember myself at her age.  As long as I am in Romania I can give her refuge and time to get on her own feet.  I wish I could do more, but at least I can give her the gift of time.

Howland Bridge Opening

Oana won't be back until tomorrow.  Lingering over my tea, I opened the Lincoln News and read about what has been happening in and around my U.S. home town of Burlington, Maine, latitude 45.2-deg N.  It's a clear, cold night in Maine as I write these notes, but it is supposed to rain later today.  A new bridge opened in Howland last week, and the town came out in force to celebrate the new span across the Penobscot.  According to the Lincoln News, it was a chilly but memorable day.

Autumn has come to latitude 45-deg N.  In my old life this was the season when I would listen to Joni Mitchel's Urge for Going, feeling an immediate connection with that urge.  Now my urge is quite different.  It's an Urge for Staying, for holding on and making every day count.  There is joy in pulling out the autumn clothes, listening to Oana's latest joys and sorrows, and watching the rain and the changing of the leaves.  The autumn in Bucharest is golden and happy.  May the same be true for you wherever this autumn may find you.

* * * * * * * * * *

No longer do I feel a sadness when I hear Joni Mitchel sing Urge for Going, but it is a beautiful song nonetheless.

Turning to the East

The next time I board an early morning plane at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport, my ultimate destination will be to the east.  Skirting the Caspian and Aral Seas, I will fly over Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the country where I had already begun walking a path towards transition in 2008-10 without quite knowing it yet.  (See I Wish I Was in the Land of Cotton.) Tashkent,  my home for two years, will pass below.  Perhaps I will see the Charvak Reservoir to the east of Tashkent, the scene of so many weekend trips with friends and especially with F1 and F2 to escape the burning Central Asian summer heat.  Then we will cross into Kyrgyzstan as the mountains rise higher and higher.  Soon we will fly over the highest mountains of all, the Himalayas, as we hurry on ever eastward.

The final destination is Thailand.  If the route is familiar to me, it is because it won't be my first visit.  In 2008, still fresh to the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan, I boarded a plane in Tashkent and flew to Bangkok for a regional conference on economic issues.  It was a week of seminar talks, small group sessions, and evening dinners.  I had two suits tailor made.  I walked the city by night and on the weekend, my first time ever in an Eastern country and culture that is so different from my own.  I was enthralled.

I was also sad.  I had known for years if not decades that Thailand had become a mecca for those seeking gender confirmation surgery (GCS).  It was a bittersweet thought that here I was in that mecca but that GCS was further removed from my reality than ever.  I had contemplated transition three times in my life and each time had failed.  A fourth time there would not be.  Impossible.

After the Bangkok Economic Conference, 2008

But as readers of these notes have learned, the fourth time did come.  Against all odds, I succeeded just as I thought I had lost everything.  I am now approaching the one year anniversary of my transition to living full time as a woman, and with that anniversary behind me, I will fly to Thailand not for an economic conference but for the GCS that seemed out of reach only four years ago.

In July I wrote about my decision making on which surgeon I would choose for GCS (Looking for Spa Therapy) and advertised that I would make my choice by mid-August.  A few dedicated readers may have been wondering all through September, "Well, what did you decide?"

Indeed, I have my destination for GCS, my spa therapy, and it is with Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn at the Phuket Plastic Surgery Center in Phuket, Thailand.  It was a difficult choice to make, as all five of the surgeons I was considering are leaders in this field.  I had good rapport with all the clinics on my list, and  I particularly enjoyed meeting Kathy Rumer in Philadelphia in early August.  I had a delightful correspondence with a staff member at Dr. Suporn's clinic who had once herself lived in Bucharest.

So why Dr. Kunaporn?  First of all it was his willingness to correspond with me directly by e-mail without going through his office.  Then there was a referral from an independent surgeon who spoke highly of Dr. Kunaporn and the many testimonials on the Internet from others who had been to him for GCS.  As I sat speaking with Kathy Rumer in Philadelphia, the word came to me that crystalized why I would head east:  Nadine.

I have heard from many people how important it is to have a close friend in attendance during GCS, someone to help you through the recovery period.  At first I saw this as a reason to go to the US for surgery, where Philadelphia is not that far away from my two sisters in Maryland.  Another transgender friend cautioned me, however, that no matter how supportive one's family members might be -- and mine are very supportive -- they will have conflicted feelings.  Far better, she said, to go with a friend who knows me only as I am today and who may herself be walking the same road.  For me that person is Nadine.

The even better news is that between donations, Nadine's savings, and my own funds, we will have enough for us both to have GCS.  Our surgeries will be two days apart in late January, and then we will help each other through recovery.  Depending on my physical condition after surgery, I may also have some limited facial feminization surgery (FFS) about two weeks after GCS.  Overall I expect we will be in Phuket for 5-6 weeks.

Crossing the Himalayas, 2008

Almost four months remain before Nadine and I fly to Thailand.  There is much to do, much to prepare between now and then, yet time is moving forward inexorably.  Tomorrow the calendar turns another page to the first full month of autumn.  A crispness has entered the morning air, and already I need to turn on my bicycle lights for part of my morning and evening commutes to and from Embassy Bucharest.  Before long the leaves will be changing color as thoughts turn towards the holidays, and then there will be the first snowflakes of winter.  As those snows come, Nadine and I will pack our bags and fly eastward over Tashkent and the Himalayas to fulfill the dream that has been with both of us since earliest age.  Only this time it will not be a dream.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Although our funds are nearing what we need for both Nadine and I to have GCS with Dr. Kunaporn in Phuket, they are not quite there yet.  Please consider making even the smallest donation to the fund I have established to pay for Nadine's GCS.  You can find a PayPal link at Nadine Chilianu GCS Appeal.

Foreign Service Bidding and Transgender DADT

Ah, bidding season.  It's a ritual in the Foreign Service.  As a tenured Foreign Service Officer (FSO), I may have a more-or-less guaranteed job unless I fail to perform or commit some egregious transgression, but yet I must find a new job every two or three years.  It's a bit of a contradiction.

Here's the way it works.  When I entered the Foreign Service in 2004, I was an entry level officer (ELO) even though I had had a prior 25 year career.  Like many other FSOs for whom the Foreign Service is a second career, I threw my accumulated private sector seniority to the wind.  It's part of the price we willingly pay to begin again in a new field.

ELOs have only a limited say in where they are assigned.  They are directed to their assignments, and thus my first postings to the Russia Desk and then to Moscow were nothing but the best of luck.  I was tenured and promoted shortly after leaving Moscow in 2007, but my follow-on assignment to Uzbekistan still came under the ELO umbrella in that I was directed to this assignment before receiving tenure.

Only in 2009 did I bid as a mid-level officer for the first time.  As anyone who has read Pacing the Cage knows, that bidding season ended in a fiasco.  My eventual assignment to Romania was accidental or, as I now prefer to view it, evidence of a gentle and loving intervention by a higher power.

A year ago I bid again as a mid-level officer, and I successfully lobbied for and received a one-year assignment to Washington, DC, that will begin in the summer of 2013.  At the time I said nothing about any impending changes in my life, as I knew that everyone who interviewed me for the position would be long gone by the time I arrived.

So what happens to me in 2014?  Yes, the time has come to bid yet again.  Bidding season began in early August with the publication of the official list of openings for 2014.  It remains open until early October.  During this season it is the responsibility of those bidding to lobby the various embassies, consulates, and offices to express their interest in a given position.  One must also provide 360 references from supervisors, colleagues, and staff that, one hopes, will support the argument that you should be selected for the position.  Some positions attract five, ten, fifteen, or more bidders.  The competition can be stiff, so it is never wise to put one's eggs in a single basket.  The official bidding system allows an FSO to enter up to fifteen bids, and the wise FSO will lobby seriously for many or all of the positions on  his or her bid list.  The opposite side of the coin is that one should never bid on a position that one is not willing to take if selected.  If one fails to heed this advice, Murphy's Law will intervene and see to it that this is precisely where one will end up.

So here I am, bidding as a mid-level officer for the third time, searching for the dream posting that will be my life from 2014 to 2016 or 2017.  There's nothing to worry about, is there?  It's just another 2-3 years of my life, nothing to be concerned about, right?  Gulp. . . .

Let's see, is there anything different about me this bidding season that was not there a year ago?  Now what is it?  Hmm, my hair is much longer, I wear a dress and earrings, I've developed an acceptable female voice, and all important ID documents proudly highlight the letter F.  That's right, I've transitioned gender!  How could I have forgotten?

So does this play any role in bidding for my next post?  Aha, here we go again with transgender don't ask, don't tell (DADT).  (See also Old Clothes and Transgender DADT.)  Who needs to know of my transition, and when do they need to know it?

As far as bidding is concerned, I started from the view that my transition is no one's business, especially since the State Department's human resources' office in Washington finished rebuilding my personnel file in late July.  My record of federal employment has been modified all the way back to my summer internship at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1976.  There is no evidence anywhere in any accessible written or electronic file that anyone other than a woman named Robyn McCutcheon has ever worked for the U.S. Government.  That includes all past performance appraisals, in which not even one errant pronoun of the incorrect gender remains.  My old personnel file was sealed and sent to an archive that in my mind's eye is the warehouse at the end of the original Raiders of the Lost Ark.  (See also Remove the Document, and You Remove the Man.)

So far so good.  I don't need to say anything to anyone as I bid for 2014 positions.  Unless, of course, they knew me back when.

Yes, although I have been thorough in coming out to family, friends, and all current and many former work colleagues, there was no way I could come out to everyone I had ever worked with.  Sure enough, a few of these people who are not in the know have turned out to be at the center of my lobbying attention for several positions.  Sigh.  My e-mail letters to them included sentences such as --

You may remember me from the days when I worked on the Russia Desk (or in Moscow or in Uzbekistan).  I am very interested in bidding on position XXX in country YYY.  By the way, you may have noticed that my name has changed since we last worked together.

In a few cases I have left it at that.  When I was in Washington, DC, in August, however, I visited Main State twice to lobby in person.  In this case I had to add another sentence to my e-mail --

There is something else you should know before I come by your office.

All my meetings went well, and only once did I feel a few surreptitious glances with the implied question, "So this is what it is to be trans?"  Still, there is no way I can know what was in the minds of these gatekeepers on the road to my future assignment. I can just hope for the best.

Then there is the matter of those former colleagues who are serving as my 360 references.  They all know my story and are very supportive, but a full three quarters of them serving in far-flung corners of the globe have yet to see the real me in person.  How likely is it that not one of them will make an absent minded slip with a gender pronoun when corresponding or talking about me with a potential future supervisor?  How likely is it that not one of them will call me by old name at least once?  I would say it's about as likely as a winter of no snow in Romania.  I can already imagine the perplexed look on that potential future supervisor's face should an errant pronoun float into view.

What we have here, dear friends, is another instance where theory and reality go their separate ways.  In theory my gender transition should not enter into the bidding process at all.  In reality, I'm certain that all potential future supervisors will be aware of my transition by the time the bidding process is complete.  It feels inevitable.  The question is, will that awareness play a role in their decision making?

Transgender DADT is real whether I wish to acknowledge it or not.  With time I'm sure it will play an ever decreasing role in my life, but it will never go away entirely.  It is a tangible burden, although when I think of the burdens I carried before transition, I smile and move forward.  Wherever this bidding season and fate should send me two years from now, it is the real me who will go there.

Try to Remember

Try to remember the kind of September.  With those musical words, El Gallo opens The Fantasticks, the longest running off-Broadway musical of all time.  I first fell in love with the score of The Fantasticks in the early 1970s, when I would skip gym class at my all-boys high school in midtown Manhattan in favor of the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts.  It wasn't until 1975 that I found myself in the Sullivan Street Playhouse to see the play along with two of my sisters, our tickets a summer gift from our mom.  I've seen it two more times since at other theaters and continue to enjoy the simple story and light, lyrical score.

Those opening words from The Fantasticks come on my mind each September.  Once again that time of year has come.  Do I still remember?  

In August I was in the United States for vacation and a training week.  I found myself one day at Main State, the State Department's headquarters building in Foggy Bottom.  As I walked the hallways, I thought back to my first year at State in 2004-05.  I had just left a career of long standing to start anew, and I walked those hallways in a suit and tie.  Most of the time I had a knot in my stomach as I tried to prove myself in my new profession.  (See Looking for George Kennan -- or -- The Day My Universe Changed (2002-11), Part 2.)  But do I remember what it felt like?  Walking those same hallways in 2012, I found the memory had faded, overwhelmed by a happier present.

Reunion Lunch with CSC/NASA Friends

Another day I had a reunion luncheon with co-workers from my first career.  Over a dozen people came, including several I had not seen since since leaving in 2005.  Although all knew of my transition, none had yet seen me as I am today.  We talked over old times and good memories.  I told the story of what had happened to me after the launch of Hubble in 1990 when I spoke out loud of being transgender for the first time . . . and found myself in a psychiatric ward for my pains.  (See Hubble Goes Up, I Go Down -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go? (Part 7).)  I recalled for one old friend and colleague how we had walked around the lake at Goddard Space Flight Center one day that hot summer not long before I stepped forward into disaster.  How I had wanted to talk with someone that day, but the fear overpowered the need.  Looking back, I wonder how it would have been different had I had the strength to speak that day.  Try to remember, but mercifully, even the emotional pain of that summer has faded.

With My Marvelous  Son

My marvelous son is now quite the independent young professional man.  We spent two evenings together, and the memories that came were the good ones.  I remember lying on the floor to give crawling lessons when he was just months old.  Then there were bike rides, school projects, scouts, swim meets, and the first high school dance.  I hope it is those same good memories that come effortlessly to my former spouse as they do to me on these September days.

With Kyna, Repaying a Hug

And there was Kyna.  My best friend and helper on the road to transition in the winter of 2010-11 is in Washington now, and  I was finally able to repay the hug I owed her from over a year ago.  (See Kyna.)  The fearful memories of that long winter have faded even as the memories of a good friend to whom I owe so much remain.

My Little Home in the Maine Woods

At Home in Maine

From Washington I made my way north to Maine.  My neighbor Kelli met me at the bus stop; two years ago it would have been her husband Frank.  Kelli left me off at my little cabin just as the sun was setting.  When I went in, I saw the calendar hanging as I had left it nearly two years ago, the page still showing October 2010.  Should I try to remember the fear and outright panic I experienced in August and September of 2010 as my career and my life unexpectedly unraveled?  I remember the pain, but the emotional memories are beginning to fade even as I continue to live in amazement that that somehow, miraculously, this fourth lifetime attempt to transition gender has succeeded.

With My Sisters in Maine

Three of my sisters joined me in Maine two days later.  For a week we lived in delightful isolation from the Internet and even cell phones.  They rented a house not far from me on one of the many lakes in that part of northern Maine.  This time trying to remember required no effort at all.  As we sat outside looking at the water or the clear Maine sky, I remembered many a day with them at mountain lakes in New York in the early 1960s.  I smiled in those old photos, still in the magical thinking that although I knew myself to be different, it would all work out.  I can feel the sand and hear the transistor radio from those years.  Those good memories of childhood remain.

After Maine it was back to Washington for a week of training.  As I sat in a room with two dozen strangers, I thought how wonderful it was that no one knew my life story and that there was no need to tell it.  I was simply RM from Embassy Bucharest.  As I walked the streets near the Courthouse Metro one evening, it dawned on me that I no longer wonder anxiously whether I pass and that if I perversely wanted to attract stares, I would need to put on a suit and tie.

Try to remember the kind of September, When Life was slow and oh, so mellow.  As much as I loved the score of the Fantasticks through the years, those words never seemed to apply to me.  My life was always full of carefully hidden inner turmoil.  As I landed at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport after my four weeks in the US, I knew I had come home to the magical land where, at least for me, dreams are kept beside your pillow.  Oana, Raluca, Nadine, Kyna, and so many others here both in the LGBT community and at the Embassy have made my dreams come true.  If I should look back deep in December in some still-distant future, the ache I will feel will be for the beautiful memories of these friends, these times.  The beauty of my present will be the memories of my future.  May this be true for us all.

* * * * * * * * * *

Jerry Orbach sings Try to Remember from the original cast recording of The Fantasticks.

3F@RM's, Stepbystep_ts, and Our Transsexual Summer

Friday, July 20, was another 3F@RM's event.  That's Third Friday at RM's if you prefer.  Last October I decided it was time to start a tradition in Bucharest.  Although I had already met a number of transgender women and men in Romania, I found no support network, commonality of purpose, or even a tradition of getting together to talk about life and be oneself.  Don't get me wrong.  I wasn't thinking of myself as the American big sister who had come to impose.  It was just the opposite.  I was the one who wanted to learn from others, from their experiences, from their life stories.  If that meant starting a tradition, so be it!

It took awhile for 3F@RM's to get off the ground.  In the beginning it was more a RM and Raluca evening, as Raluca was the only one who came.  In March more people started to appear, and now we are up to about a half dozen or so regulars, both MtF and FtM and sometimes significant others and allies.  Last night was more a mid-summer party than support evening as we grilled meat on skewers and filled plates with potato salad and baked beans before getting the chilled Romanian beer from the fridge.  After all the work that had gone into Bucharest Pride in June, it was time to unwind and celebrate.  In the fall we hope to talk about documents, medical care, and other serious issues, but this 3F@RM's was just for fun.

I had lots of help for this 3F@RM's in the person of PE.  If OD has become a sister, than PE has become my lovely daughter.  She is only a week younger than my son, studies the same math that I once used as an attitude analyst for Hubble Space Telescope, plays classical and modern guitar, and is a whiz with computer graphics design.  Have you noticed the makeover of Transgender in State's layout over the past week?  That was all PE's work.

PE is also transgender, and when I see her, I see myself as I was in college in the mid-1970's.  (See Wahoo Wa! -- or -- So How Far Back Does This Go (Part 3).)  She is dealing with the same issues today that I failed to deal with then in a society that is only slightly more evolved on transgender acceptance than was the US then.  PE lives with her parents in Targoviste, a provincial city about fifty miles or so northwest of Bucharest.  She works in computer support for a European company that established itself in Romania because of the inexpensive but highly educated workforce.  PE is also nearing the end of undergraduate studies at a major Bucharest university, having completed almost all of her coursework on-line.  There's no two ways about it, PE is smart.

Three weeks ago PE wrote and said she would soon be coming to Bucharest for her university exams.  Could she stay with me for two weeks instead of at the university dorm?  Well, of course you can!  In fact I would have felt awful to think of PE in a sweltering dormitory room just a twenty minute walk from me in this hot Bucharest summer.

And so it is that I now have a daughter.  It's been delightful to come home at the end of each workday and fix dinner together.  When PE is not studying and I'm not at work, we've found time to have friends over, go to an outdoor performance of As You Like It, and talk about the challenges of being transgender.

PE's mother, father, and brother in Targoviste all know she is transgender . . . and are doing everything they can to stop her.  The pressures on PE in a small city where everyone knows everyone else's business are enormous.  PE's dream is to move to Bucharest when her studies are complete, find work here, and live her life fully as herself.

PE is also a future leader.  She sat quietly in the audience at the transgender digital video conference we held at the U.S. Embassy last month.  (See Proudly from Bucharest.)  She listened as Mara Keisling spoke about the National Center for Transgender Equality in the US, thought about what she had heard, and decided it was time to do something.  Together with OD-1 and Gabriela Gribis, she started a new Facebook page called Stepbystep_ts with the stated purpose of bringing together the transgender communities of Romania and Moldova.  It's in Romanian and Russian, but you will find occasional postings in English from the likes of me.  Speaking of liking, do go to Stepbystep_ts, click on like, and leave a few words of support.  What I was trying to do with 3F@RM's, PE is now doing with Stepbystep_ts.

This has also been Our Transsexual Summer.  Together PE and I have watched more transgender and transsexual videos and movies than I knew existed. That included the British series My Transsexual Summer about a group house of transgender men and women helping each other through transition.  In a way, PE and I have done the same over the past two weeks, transgender mother and daughter cooking dinner together, entertaining friends, and helping each other on the road of life.  

PE heads back to Targoviste tomorrow and to the difficult reality of non-accepting family and friends.  She has a long road ahead, but she has already shown far more courage and achieved more on the transgender road than I ever did in the mid-1970s.  I'm proud of you, daughter, and I'm going to miss you even as I head to the US for vacation in seven days.  Stay well, stay safe, do better and go further than I ever did, and come back soon.  Your bedroom is ready and waiting.

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I'll be on vacation and in training until the end of August, so please excuse me as Transgender in State goes on vacation also.  I'll me in Maine for much of the time and plan to have fingers that are covered in butter from lobster and summer sweet corn.  I also plan to catch up on my reading, kayaking, and communing with my sisters on lazy Maine summer afternoons.  I'll put my writer's fingers back to keyboard when the plane touches down again in Bucharest.  Until then, I wish all my readers love, success, acceptance, and the peace and joy of a summer fully lived.

Looking for Spa Therapy

Three months of planning and then living Pride Month in Bucharest are behind me.  The year 2012 is beginning to divide nicely into quarters with no forethought on my part.  From January through March I concentrated on voice.  It was a good way to spend the long, snowy winter in Romania, and it was the best possible use of time and money.  There will always be more work to do, but today no one ever mistakes my voice as anything other than that of a woman.  Given the expense of transition, the money and effort one puts into voice comes off as a relative bargain.

April, May, and June went to Pride.  So what comes next for this transgender Foreign Service Officer (FSO)?

The answer, dear friends, is that I'm looking for a spa where I can receive SPA therapy.  I wish I could have invented the term spa therapy, but full credit belongs to Caroline in the UK, whose web journal Time Regained has been an enjoyable means for me to learn from the experience of someone several years ahead of me on the road to transition.  In Caroline's phrase, SPA is an acronym standing for sexual preference adjustment.  Gender confirmation surgery (GCS) is a much softer description of the process we go through than is the clinical sounding phrase sexual reassignment surgery (SRS).  Although Caroline's name includes the word sexual, I like it for its whimsical take on what is a very complex medical procedure.  I do like the thought of looking not for a surgeon but rather a special type of spa.

For those who have been reading and wondering, the answer is that I do intend to go for spa therapy.  I have been researching, reading, and corresponding for several months now, much longer if you add that I was reading and researching as early as 1975.  It's just that this time there is nothing distant, out-of-reach, or hypothetical about my research.  My intent is to check in at the spa of my choice early next year not only for GCS but perhaps also for some degree of facial feminization surgery (FFS).  I have already put in for six weeks of medical leave, and my finances will be in order, albeit just barely.  One benefit of having lived through an expensive legal crisis in 2007-11 is that I learned to live on very little and have been able to save funds for surgery faster than I have ever saved in my life.

The question is, which spa should I choose?  It didn't take me long to narrow down the geographic options.  There are only two locations I would consider:  Philadelphia and Thailand.  Three of the best known GCS surgeons in the US happen to be in the Philadelphia area:  Dr. Sherman Leis (http://www.thetransgendercenter.com/), Dr. Kathy Rumer, and Dr. Christine McGinn.  I will see all three of them when I'm in the US on vacation in early August.  I have already corresponded or talked directly with all three, and I find reasons to like each of them.  Dr. Leis is the most senior of the three.  My friend Shannon went to him for GCS several years ago and has told me of her experience with him -- all of it positive -- in great detail.  Dr. Kathy Rumer (http://rumercosmetics.com) had a first career working for Lockheed, and since I worked on the Lockheed-built Hubble Space Telescope for longer than I've worked on anything in my career, I feel there is something appropriate about one former engineer putting herself in the hands of another for surgery.  Dr. Christine McGinn (http://drchristinemcginn.com/) herself transitioned from male to female, which gives her an insider's understanding of the entire experience.

Thailand offers a smorgasbord of options ranging from cheap and scary to as expensive and good as surgery in the US.  One or two of them may be better than any U.S. surgeon.  I began by contacting several of the Thai surgeons, but with time I whittled the pool down to two:  Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn in Phukett (http://www.phuket-plasticsurgery.com/home.html) and Dr. Suporn Watanyusakul in Chonburi (http://www.supornclinic.com/).

All of the surgeons I am considering have excellent reputations and almost always ecstatically happy patients. The U.S. surgeons, as I understand it, all practice the standard penile inversion method of vaginoplasty.  This technique has been around since the beginning and was even being performed at the University of Virginia's medical center when I was a university student the mid-1970s.  The essence is obvious from the name:  a vagina is created by inverting the penis, a clitoris is created using the head of the penis, and scrotal tissue is used to create the labia.  The Thai surgeons have all developed their own variations on the standard technique, and Dr. Suporn has turned everything on its head with his non-penile technique that uses scrotal skin to line the new vagina and creates the labia from penile material.

My thinking on each of the five surgeons has cycled several times.  Each has been No. 1 on my list at least once.  I find good arguments in favor of each and in the end will decide based on the best information I will have at hand on the day I commit.  That day will come very soon now, no later than mid-August, as almost all the surgeons I named have waiting lists of 3-6 months or longer.  Thus surgery in February 2013 dictates that I reach my decision next month.

And why, you ask, do I feel I must check in at the spa of my choice in early 2013?  The answer is elementary, Dear Watson:  the Foreign Service rotation cycle.  In Romania I have a support system both at work and in all of my life that will be very important in my early weeks and months of recovery.  I expect to leave Romania for good in June 2013 and will then take up a one-year assignment in Washington, DC, where my support, as wonderful as it is, is not as developed and all-encompassing as it is in Romania.  Moreover, I don't want to inform my new supervisor on my first day of work that, "Hey, I thought you should know that I plan to request six weeks of leave for GCS surgery later this year."  Life will be simpler and healthier all around if I complete GCS months before I depart from Romania.

Then there is the small matter of medical clearance, which all of us must have as FSOs posted overseas.  Even small medical matters can lead to one's clearance being reduced or removed, so this also dictates that I complete GCS well before going overseas again, presumably after the completion of my Washington assignment in mid-2014.  By completing GCS in early 2013, I will have nearly a year and a half of recovery behind me before I must again go before a medical clearance board.  That should be enough to satisfy the concerns of any doctor on the board about post-operative complications that might happen while I'm posted, let's say, to Tajikistan or some other country far removed from Western hospitals.

Finally there is the matter of the emotional experience and support.  If I choose to have surgery in Philadelphia, then I know I can count on two of my sisters, several friends, and my son, all of whom live in the Washington area.  If I choose Thailand, then I will need to factor in the expense of paying for a friend to go with me as support.  You may be surprised to hear that I do not consider this to be a negative side of opting for surgery in Thailand.  Whether this applies to me or not, a friend by correspondence reminded me that no matter how much one's close family is supportive, for them GCS may still have overtones of being the final stage in a dying rather than a moment for celebration.  Also, at several of the Thai clinics, GCS surgery is a communal experience as people come from around the world to complete one of the important final steps in their medical journeys to a new life.

Decisions, decisions.  Stay tuned, dear friends, as Robyn enters this third quarter of 2012, the first half of which will be dominated by medical correspondence, in-person consultations, and an ever more detailed spreadsheet to compare and contrast.  In the end, however, I already know each of the surgeons I have listed is excellent.  From there I enter into the realm of imponderables and feelings where the heart rules as much as the head.

I can already see it.  On the evening of August 7, my in-person consultations done, I will board a midnight train in Philadelphia for a fourteen hour journey north to my adopted state of Maine.  By the time New York has slipped behind me and we cross into New England, I will have made my choice.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

To learn the decision I reached regarding my destination for spa therapy, see Turning to the East.