Mixing With His Friends

Even without hormones, I have changed since I began transition. Nothing drastic, other than a lack of hair, I’ve let the hair on my head grow, and its not right yet. Of course it will never be exactly right because of male pattern baldness, but that’s another subject.

Getting back the fact of my change, I went to a writer’s conference last weekend. The male who I was, learned to network with people who would never understand some of the stories I’m writing now. We talked about my inability to submit my manuscripts and I realized it’s because of my transition, but I’ll talk about that in a second.

Most of my writer friends noticed changes, but I don’t think they put them together with what’s really going on in my life. It’s been at least a year since we’ve seen each other and his Facebook profile still has a beard.

I watched their eyes. They knew something was different and I kept thinking, Yes I’m changing, but wait until next year. I plan to attend the conference then after going full time. I will be a woman. I bet they won’t recognize me.

So there we were, trying to catch up, while my soul wanted to scream out, “I’m going to be the woman that I always wanted to be.” Instead, I talked about some of the writing projects I finished, and what I’m currently working on.

I strategically omitted the book about the woman who finds a lesbian lover just in time for somebody to murder her abusive husband. Then there is the mystery that revolves around a trans woman who has decided to live an authentic life.

I talked about his writing projects. He wrote woman’s fiction that I’m rewriting. I’ve discovered I write differently than my masculine self.

Anyway, at one point, my emotions took over and I felt like a fraud. Not because of transition, but because of my writing.

As any transgender person will tell you, my life is in flux. I am neither, him or me. I am vulnerable, but what do I do with a book he published, I can’t be who he was, anymore. I can’t do book signings as him, because I’m not him.

So there it is, in a nutshell, so to speak. I will publish the books he wrote, and I will give him credit. I know that solution seems simple but it’s been a real quandary for me. I feel liberated. Time to move forward. Time for me to get an agent.