During the past few months I've been on the road a lot, and it hasn't always been possible to log into my server. In early March I was e-deprived for three weeks, and tomorrow I start a trip that will keep me out of touch until early July. No, not Kilamanjaro or Everest. Just far enough away and enough out of range that I'll be able to log on to TGF infrequently. I'm going to miss it.
There is a support group where I live, and by all rights I ought to have joined long ago. There are good reasons why I haven't, just as there are good reasons why I've never been to a Texas T Party, even though several have happened a few miles from my house. So TGF, and the people I've met through it, are something of a lifeline to
the world of my own personal, transgendered reality.
That moves me to meditate on what this site is accomplishing. Before I found it, I bailed out of another that I had joined, because all I was getting from it was hassle. In the words of a post-op good friend of mine, the people there were acting like men. That's a pretty heavy insult and I do not mean that ironically. I wasn't, and am not, looking for sexual titillation either. Once, when somebody came on to writers in
the BBS I protested to Cindy. I hope I'm not a puritan. But if I want that (or anybody else wants that) it's easy enough to find. Just try the back pages of your local throw-away newspaper.
What I like about this site is how eclectic it is. There is a huge discussion within our community about categories: TV/CD/TG/TS/whatever. This site ignores that nonsense. Every wretched/blessed one of us who logs in here is in some sort of discomfort with the body and identity that nature provided. We can reconcile that discomfort in many ways. Much more than a little, fortunately, this place allows discussion of practically all those ways.
Words, words, words, there isn't one I haven't heard, sang a frustrated Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. I think we go beyond that. I'm a words person. I write books. I'd like to think that what I write makes some sort of difference (though, in truth, I know better). There have been moments of something like magic when TGF has gone beyond words. Maybe, just maybe, the responses to the Holiday Inn business and to the persecution of Sabrina Robb have made some real difference. If it did, it's because the existence of this site has provided a prism for justified outrage.
As I wrote, when I began this piece, I find that I miss TGF when I find myself unable to read it or write for it. I'll be out of touch for a while. But I won't be disconnected.
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