U-Turn: a UU transman ponders sex, spirituality, and the power of stories

So last week my doctor called just to reassure me that she had not forgotten me. My file was on her desk, she told me, and a call in to an endocrinologist, regarding how to safely proceed with hormone therapy despite my ongoing health issues. I was still recovering from that nasty sinus bug, and the call had happened to wake me from an extra-late sleep, so I was a little fuzzy, but I remember she said something like, “I feel strongly that we can move forward with this.” I truly appreciated the call, and her encouraging statement about moving forward - even though the immediate content of the conversation was that I’m still basically in a holding pattern. I mostly keep this issue out of my everyday consciousness. I try not to dwell on it, or worry much about it. But there’s an undercurrent of tension that continues to swirl quietly around it, way out there in the background. I can handle waiting... but there’s still and always the fear that “Wait” will turn into “No” at some point. ...

Still catching up from my three-plus weeks of illness (gah), but aiming to get back on a regular schedule now (crossing fingers). Was it Jubal Harshaw who, if he didn’t write, got “spiritually constipated”? I forget. Anyway... I think I’ll write a bit. This world takes a lot of digesting! A few folks here and there have asked me “technical” questions about the phenomenon of being Transgender. It’s easy for me to forget, considering my lifelong fascination with issues of sex and gender, that this is a sort of esoteric knowledge, in its way - widely available, but not widely familiar. So tonight, I’ll take a stab at actually explaining some of the technical stuff. (And please forgive the Rocky Horror quote in the title... you’ll soon see why it was irresistible!) The most important thing to understand is that being Trans is now understood to be a physical and physiological problem, not a psychological one. (Though it can certainly cause its share of psychological problems, including ...