There are two bits of news I want to pass along, and the first is about my Franklin Park photo book.
A year and a half ago I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the equipment I needed to create a photo book of a year’s worth of pictures about Boston’s Franklin Park. That campaign failed, but last fall I was able to get a new laptop and a smartphone with a camera that can handle the job of taking pictures to be published as an ebook. Starting on the first of March I’ll begin taking some prep pictures for the book, and beginning 1 April I’ll start taking the pictures that will become A Year in Boston’s Franklin Park., which I hope to publish in spring of 2017.
As I take pictures I’ll be posting some of them here and on Instagram to let people see what I’m getting. Right now I’m working on a plan for taking pictures of the entire park every month, with some areas getting photographed more often. Once I get a plan put together I’ll share it on the site and ask for some feedback.
And now for the other bit of news. As the year began I dropped some information on my family, and last week I told my friends on Facebook. Now I want to share it with my readers.
Back in 1990, I came to realize that I’m a transsexual. I won’t give you the whole boring story, but as the 90’s ended I looked at my life and knew I had to make a decision. I was homeless, hardly employed, not in therapy, no closer to being on hormones than when the decade started, and I decided to go back to being a guy. I did okay as a guy, and even my wife would have said I did pretty good as a man when we were married (other than the issues that ended up destroying our marriage, but my gender didn’t have anything to do with that). Since I didn’t know when I’d be getting housing again, I didn’t think I’d ever revisit the decision to go back to being a guy, although I would have always admitted my fem side was part of who I am.
In June of last year, I found out that I was getting housing again and had a good shot at getting my disability, and I decided that if I got my disability payments I’d let my fem side out a little. I got my disability and I got a little woman’s attire, but just for in the privacy of my apartment. Except the more I let my female side out, the more I realized I didn’t want to keep her in my apartment.
After Thanksgiving I made the decision that at the end of the year I’d shave off my beard and see about being myself, my female self. My main concern was how my being transgendered would be met by the folks in my neighborhood. I know some folks will be absolutely cool about it, but there’s bound to be some people would be absolute assholes about it.
I cut my hand making dinner in early December, and the night before I went to my doctor on December 22 to have my stitches removed it was time to trim my beard again. But rather than just trim it I decided to use my trimmer to take off my beard completely. I was going to tell my doctor I was a tranny then, but I chickened out at the last minute. I’ve since told him, and my doctor has referred me to see an endocrinologist, who will hopefully get me on hormones to start the physical change to bring my body in harmony with who I am inside my body.
I’m now going out on my errands with my feminine side showing all the time. Not only am I now wearing earrings, a little makeup, and earrings when I go out, I also have some curves on my upper chest.
I hope this isn’t a bit TMI, but I place an incredibly high value on honesty, and if I’m being honest about who I am on the streets of Boston and on social media I can’t be dishonest about who I am here.