Musings on Living Authentically

Musings on Living Authentically

Grace Anne Stevens

Smashwords Edition

Graceful Change Press • Lexington

Musings on Living Authentically: Special Color Edition

© 2016 Grace Anne Stevens

Graceful Change Press

EPub Edition ISBN: 978-0-9863003-3-2

Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-9863003-2-5

Special Color Edition ISBN: 978-0-9863003-4-9

Smashwords License Statement

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Contact:

Grace Stevens

(781) 789-6103

gas333@verizon.net

graceannestevens.com

314 Bedford Street

Suite 105

Lexington MA 02420

"No! Maybe? Yes! Not Just a Transgender Memoir," interview with Grace Stevens used with permssion:

opednews.com

Books Sure to Empower Women in the New Year, by Joan Schweighardt, used with permission:

everydaypowerblog.com

Unless otherwise credited, all photos and illustrations are those of the Author or Creative Commons (CCO) not requiring attribution.

Product of the United States of America

This book is dedicated to all those who

Have chosen,

Are choosing,

Or

Will choose

To live their true life.

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it. I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know, but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay."

– Virginia Satir

Contents

Foreword

Preface

My True Self

Bereishit: In the Beginning

Transitioning at Age 64

Living Your True Life: What Everyone Can Learn from the LGBT Community

Hard Choices That Were Not Only Mine

Where Is God?

When I Was a Young Girl

To the Partners of Those in Transition

Explain It to Me Like I’m a Six-Year-Old

Remember

Hearts and Minds

Time Travel Is Not That Hard, But Stopping Is

Reflections

Sharing Secrets and Releasing the Shame

This Old House

Modern Pen Pals

Whose Life Are You Living?

Commencement Dreams

Walking in His/Her Shoes

Cover Girls and Tipping Points

I Feel the Earth Move

Teaching Moments: Where Is Caitlyn?

Father’s Day…and You Thought Pronouns Were Complicated!

Where Do the Children Play?

Chicken Is to Egg as Understanding Is to Acceptance

No! Maybe? Yes! Not Just a Transgender Memoir

I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who…

What Makes a Hero?

Learning to Say Thank You

Home Is Where the Heart Sings

Maine-lining

Denial, Betrayal, Abandonment, and Other Monsters Under the Bed

The Lost and Found

Second Chances

Labels and Boxes

(R)evolutionary Love

Assimilation?

Playing with House Money

No Bang, No Whimper, Just a Small Smile

Bad Dreams

Optical and Other Illusions

Choices

Grandma’s Closet

Everyday Transitions

The Circus

What We Have Learned from Apollo 13

People Like Us

Mind, Body, Spirit

Making Every Day Thanksgiving

Downloading a Friend

Superstar

Dys-informed

Trans-expectations

Not Then, Not When, the Magic of Now!

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Grace’s Next Book, Coming Soon: The Alphabet of Self

Book Review from everydaypowerblog.com

What People Are Saying

Invite Grace to Speak to Your Group

About the Author

Foreword

My friendship with Grace Stevens began in 2015 when I read her blog post Where is God? in The Huffington Post. Unapologetically direct and yet with a profound sweetness, Grace writes about her faith and about what she sees as the limits of religion. I was struck particularly by the contrasting of the emptiness of the celebration of her bar mitzvah milestone as a thirteen year old who knew she was not really becoming a man and the blessing years later of being able to embrace her truth and proclaim Today I am a woman. As a fellow blogger on The Huffington Post and a Rabbi, I was moved by her powerful words and shared with her my appreciation. Since then we have exchanged writings and availed ourselves of opportunities to connect on social media. It is my great honor to have been asked to contribute this foreword to Grace’s musings on her personal journey

I have found in Grace’s writing what I believe so many have also discovered: a powerful expression of what is at stake in living your authentic self. Her story is not simply an exploration of What is it like to be transgender? but rather What does it mean to accept yourself and your experience of yourself as real?

From a distance, questions about transgender people may seem like matters of faith or worldview, and for some, they may always be seen through such a lens. However, from inside a person’s own story, gender is another way to recognize who we are—no more or less real than religion, sex, race, sexuality, or a myriad of other markers that cannot be pinned down definitively from the outside.

Grace’s essays animate my perspective on my own Jewishness, a broad identity that she and I share, even though it manifests itself very differently in our lives. Her story speaks to me particularly as a person of faith. I find it somewhat ironic that the same faiths that teach that the intangible trumps that which can be seen in the world, have been so often called upon to deny legitimacy to those who know the wholeness of themselves regardless of what others insist about the parts of their body.

While labels and categorizations seem to be the currency of identity, overly defining ourselves and others hides an opportunity to discover a vital teaching. In seeing the authenticity in the unfolding life of another, we understand that there are multiple authentic truths. My unfolding life and identity is rendered more potently authentic as I learn yours.

When it comes to real we are to a certain extent programmed to look for the definitive yes or no. However, our own experiences and encounters with others belie the simplicity of a world divided into what is real and what is not. Whether race, religion, sexuality, mental state, health, nationality, gender, relationship…no person's identity lives separately from interpretation by others and even ourselves. As social media brings more and more of the world into our view, embracing the stories of other people’s lives opens us to learn from the reality of others rather than impose our judgments on others.

Writing such as Grace’s reinforces that who we are is personal and irreplaceable; a product more of stories in progress than labels and categories. I hope that Grace’s reflections on what she calls her transgender life will find themselves into the consciousness of a wide variety of readers.

– Rabbi Michael Bernstein

Congregation Gesher L' Torah

Alpharetta, GA

Preface

A long time ago, I remember learning about the phrase credited to Rene Descartes:

Cogito ergo sum

I think, therefore I am

I am not the first person to take the journey to transition their gender. Nor will I be the last.

Our paths are all so different and ultimately unique. Perhaps the most common trait that we share is how much we feel alone and scared on our journeys.

It has taken me some time to understand these feelings are actually a fully human trait and not one that is reserved for trans people.I have been writing about My Transgender Life, but I know that what I share is for everyone, and each person has their own stories that may be similar to the ones I share.

I think of this book as a compilation of my love letters to the universe.

You may want to write some of your reflections too.

My True Self

It may sound a bit surprising to some, and perhaps even outlandish to others, that the actual act of changing my gender from male to female was not the hardest part of my transition.

I know a number of people who have taken years to transition. Some were on hormones for some time as their body and skin slowly changed in ways that were noticeable to others. I am pretty sure that parts of them loved the changes, while there were other parts in strong denial that anyone else noticed. Many were not even aware how other people saw them as they wrestled whether they could actually cross that line called transition.

That was not the path that I chose. I was 64 years old, with a bald dome, and sagging wattle that long ago was a smooth neck. When I cross-dressed and went out in public, I had no sense that I would be able to live my life fully as a female. I knew that first, if and then finally when I chose to transition, I could only do it if I had what is called facial feminization surgery, or FFS. For me this was a nine-hour procedure that required four weeks of healing. My transition at work was a step function. I left work for four weeks, with only a select group of managers knowing what I was doing, as they were all told that this was strictly confidential. My coworkers were not told, and some tried to contact me to find out if I was OK. I assured them I was without much detail. The third week I was out, there were training classes for a few hundred people to let them know that I would return in a few weeks as a woman named Grace Stevens, and that I might look a bit different. I shared some of this story in my memoir, No! Maybe? Yes! Living My Truth.

I was overwhelmed by the fact that I actually did it. I transitioned my gender. I was now living full-time as the woman I knew I was. Of course, this was not an easy journey, and I had no idea where it would lead me. I had no idea who would accept me, or who may reject me. I had no idea what people would say to me to my face and behind my back. It took me a little while to realize I did not really know this before I transitioned either.

I was euphoric, in that I was expressing the woman within me the only way I knew how—with clothes, hair, and makeup. Each day was a fashion show for my coworkers. However, almost everyone said that Grace was very different than Larnie used to be. Grace always was happy, they said. I learned that this is what they said behind my back. Happy is how I felt, but I had no idea that they could see it.

I knew that transitioning was not all about the clothes, the hair, and the makeup, but I think that those of us who take this step function path of transitioning will go through this part of our journey. As my days of living my truth continued, I wondered who I—who Grace really was. What do I believe in? What do I stand for? Now that I am no longer hiding from the world, do I have a voice that defines who I am? There were still so many voices inside me who were there for so many decades. Some were quite vocal and some watched all that time in silence. Many of these voices had a chance to express their thoughts and feelings which I shared in my memoir, but there were many more voices. I came to understand that the act of changing my gender was far from the end of this journey.

Some people are adamant that the event of gender transition is the hardest journey anyone could ever take. Even if I thought this way for a moment, I struggle with generalizing these journeys, as I could only speak for my own experience. I knew how hard it was for me to make the decision to transition, but the actual act was an adventure, not a burden.

I did not even know my own real voice. I knew I was living aligned as the woman I am, but I knew there was discovery work to do. I have learned to be patient. I think that transitioning at age 64 testifies to that. I was beginning to understand that all those voices, all those internal debates, were all parts of me but no single one of them defined me. I knew what the next set of tasks was going to be all about. I needed to find my voice. I was living my truth, as my true gender, but I still needed to find and speak from my true voice.

True Colors

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

True colors are beautiful

Like a rainbow

– Lyrics by John Kenneth Wetton, Geoff Downes

It was Thursday, April 28, 2011. My facial feminization surgery marked my transition to live as my true, authentic self. There were so many unknowns ahead of me. I felt a sense of peace, mixed with amazement that I took that step without knowing anything about where the journey would lead me. By Friday night I was home, back in my own bed to recuperate for the next four weeks. I was now Grace Stevens 24/7. Between the pain-killing narcotics those first few days, I knew I needed to learn who Grace really was. The inner voices telling me I was not living my truth quieted down, but there was another voice or two asking, Who are you really? I needed to figure out how to answer this question. The only way was to take one step at a time.

I was bandaged and black and blue for weeks, as I recovered and worked through my next steps. In the picture below, you can see my recovery from day 4, 10, 21, and 28 post surgery.

I had a friend who once asked the question (and not the joke version) of what is the difference between a cross-dresser and a transsex ual? The answer was that a cross-dresser gets dressed up and a transsexual gets dressed. I had a lot of women’s clothes overflowing my closets. Every piece was meticulously picked out, and I used to obsess as to when and where I would wear them. I can still find the files both in print and digitally of me in each and every piece of woman’s clothing I owned.

Facial feminzation surgery recovery.

However, I was not quite ready to understand what everyday life, working in two jobs, days and evenings, would be like for Grace—now the 24/7 Grace! I had no idea how I would dress when I returned to work. I needed to do something. I did! A friend had recommended an image consultant to me who had helped her when she had transitioned. I called and made an appointment and was so pleasantly surprised by this adventure. I went to see Ginger Burr of Total Image Consultants (http://totalimageconsultants.com).

I had the most marvelous experience as Ginger evaluated my colors (I had no idea about this process) and interviewed me to get a sense of who I was—which was what I was wanting to know myself—and then also helped me select the proper makeup and gave me lessons on how to apply it. As part of the package I ordered, a week later she joined me on a two-hour shopping session where she was my personal stylist/shopper, and helped me buy a completely new wardrobe. I have no idea how I would have gone back to work without her help.

Grace's color pallette and spirit.

Of all the amazing experiences with her, when I received my color palette, I was floored when I saw the card that captured what she called my mood. The words that she felt defined me—Grace. Here it is:

Blissfully authentic; carefree; radiant; gracious; soulful

I was only a few weeks into my new life, and Ginger was the first new person that I, as Grace, had contact with. She saw me as blissfully authentic. Perhaps this was the right path for me. At that time, I had no idea that I would become a writer and teacher, about living authentically. I could barely see past my nose (the new, smaller one, that is!) I thought about this experience a lot. I am certain this was the beginning of my musings on living authentically.

I owned a great deal of clothes that did not match my palette, I needed to purge from