Your Happiness: The Fastest Way To A Life You Love

happiness is the goal

Your life is supposed to be an ongoing series of happy experiences that get better and better. Then you return to where you came, reveling in the joyful adventure you had on earth. Transgender or trans-attracted, this is supposed to be your life experience.

That includes all the lovers you might want.

We call it living “happily ever after.” That’s why you’re here.

A lot of people would probably say being transgender or transamorous means you’ll be or must be unhappy. Feeling bitter, frustrated, angry, scared, annoyed, jealous, or insecure seems to come with the territory.

But there is no circumstance in which you can’t be happy. You only have to learn how it’s done.

In happiness you get all you want. Including love and security. No matter how many transgender women get murdered. No matter how many work in the sex industry. Those numbers don’t condemn you to an unhappy life.

The only thing keeping you from being happy and having all you want is literally “doing” life wrong. With practice and patience you can not only have the life you want, you also can be an example for others.

GOTTA BE HAPPY BLOG

How to be happy

Happiness is not the result of doing. It results from being.

In other words, it’s a “being state”.

You become happy by being happy.

“That sounds like a circular argument, Perry. What do you mean?”

Let’s clear up some misconceptions.

Pursing happiness through material consumption or acts, including sex, is bound to disappoint. That’s because feelings you get from buying things, or from your action aren’t meant to be permanent. They’re meant to make you want more.

Which they do.

That’s why the good-feeling from buying a new pair of shoes, for example, goes away after you’ve worn them a while.

It’s why when you have a casual sexual experience, after the orgasm, you tend to feel hollow.

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When you figure out how to be happy as a being state, not through doing things, then actions you take from that being state are the way you express your happiness, not how you achieve happiness. They are also more powerful regarding getting what you want, including a lover.

In other words, your doing is an expression of your happy state, not a means to being happy. How do you find happiness? By first understanding what happiness is.

Happiness is an emotion. Yeah, you know that. But, what is the role of an emotion? Have you thought about that? In all the conversations we have about this, no one (so far) has thought thoroughly about what emotions are for.

They just accept their existence.

Emotions serve a purpose. Figure that out and you understand why being happy is important. Then, when you’re not happy, you know why.

Next, learn how to make happiness happen. Then and only then can you become happy when you’re not happy. It’s not true that you are not happy because of what you’re experiencing. You’re not happy because you’re not trying to be happy.

If you know how to make happiness happen, then when you’re not happy you can become happy. You only have to know how. Then practice. Once you’ve practiced, becoming happy at any time is easy.

Stay happy long enough and you’ll create “happiness momentum”. Happiness momentum is when happiness becomes your steady state. It takes a while to get there, but when you’re there, it’s easy to keep it going. This is crucial for living happily ever after.

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Happiness momentum begins with you being happy for no other reason other than because you say so.

Here’s why.

Once you have created your own happiness momentum, then you’ve got it all. Because a consistent, happy state is the open door through which all you want easily comes.

There are other things you must to know. For one, you must learn to see signs telling you your practice is working.

What do we mean by that?

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It’s simple science!

The world around you is your subjective life experience. Your life experience comprises a series of accretion events. They look like random compositions of people, circumstances and objects coming together in a certain timing.

These accretion events show up through a process guided by something. It’s not random.

What seem like random events actually are planned events. Who is planning them? You are. How? Two ways that work together. One is what you pay attention to, the other is how you feel when you pay attention.

Look at happy things or think happy thoughts. That organizes accretion events to match your happiness. These become your life experience. Look at unhappy things or think unhappy thoughts. That organizes accretion events to match your negative feelings. These become your life experience.

So, you decide what events, people, elements and circumstances become your experience. And you know which ones are coming by how you feel.

It’s that simple.

Nearly everyone on the planet forgot this is how life works. And that’s why people try to “make” happiness happen through doing: buying things, going on trips, being with others, having sex etc.

The pursuit of happiness doesn’t work because the pursuer forgot she carries her happiness with her. Happiness is not found in the physical world. That’s not what the physical world is for.

We know this seems preposterous pseudoscience. But a little test on your part can prove that it works 100% of the time. Like many things requiring mastery, you need someone to remind you how to see the signs of it working.

Make your life purpose happiness and you will live happily every after. Including finding all the love you could possibly want.

We guarantee it. We also can show you how it’s done.

A Normal Man’s Guide To Loving Transgender Women

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Photo: Kevin Grieve On Unsplash

I love transgender women. Because I am out and proud about this, I get emails and calls from all kinds of people (men, women, transgender women, trans men) asking all kinds of questions about their transamory.

Men have the most trouble finding reconciliation. They find transgender women beautiful, worthy of love and, frankly, irresistible. Even while realizing dating transgender women sometimes comes with extraordinary drama levels. Despite that, many of these men aren’t struggling with that. What’s difficult is reconciling their attraction with being a “normal” man.

I’m writing this story –– my story –– for those men. The following is universal. Yet it is uniquely helpful for men right now. I mean “normal” men.

I write “right now” because men face intense (self-inflicted) scrutiny. Scrutiny well deserved. This January, the American Psychological Association (APA), said traditional masculinity is sociologically harmful. “[It] stunts male’s “psychological development, constrain[s] their behavior, result[s] in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence[s] mental health and physical health”, they said.Traditional masculinity is what I call normal men.

Feminism suggests the APA’s findings originate in male awe, envy and ignorance. Feminists call this Womb Envy.  That’s a term coined by German psychoanalyst Karen Horney.  Normal men find awe in what they instinctively know: Every human enters life through a womb connected to a vagina. At least for now. Forgetting their part in life-creation, normal men feel insecure and envious. Their envy becomes all-consuming. Willful ignorance replaces envy, allowing the subordination of women. Normal men gain superiority this way.

The result: Masculine wholeness –– which recognizes the female in the male ––  gets lost.

This is what I’m seeing in the Gillette controversy. Men’s life experience is reflecting back to them their out-of-balance-ness. Like children, some men are reacting first, to Gillette’s spot-on ad, then thinking. Or not thinking at all.

What does this have to do with loving transgender women?

A lot.

It is this acting out first then thinking, or not thinking at all, that gets a lot of men in trouble. It also gets many transgender women killed. All, believe it or not, for the sake of love.

· · ·

I realized I was transamorous in my 30s. Before that, I saw “masculinity” and “femininity” as two parts of a whole being. Sometimes I felt more feminine than masculine back then. Even though I was having sex with girls.

Sometimes I would sneak into my mom’s closet. It was an endless sea of femininity. There, I would dress in my mom’s clothes. I used her lipstick and pranced before her full length mirror, with its ornate wooden frame and chipped paint. Her lingerie particularly intrigued me.

Often these sessions would end with masturbation.

That’s how I got busted.

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Mom when I was young (Photo: Gruber Family)

One day my mom called me to her room. How did she know it was me and not one of my brothers? Let’s just say it was mothers’ intuition. Otherwise I don’t know. In any case, my mom’s love trumped anything else in our little chat. She didn’t want me playing in her clothes, she said. But it was ok that I was exploring.

That could have gone a lot worse.

This was before “transgender” was a thing. I mean, it was a thing. Transgender people have always been around. But it wasn’t in the public eye as it is today with high-profile transgender models, actresses, politicians, Julia Serranos, Stef Sanjati’s.

Even it if was, I was too young to know what “transgender” was. Thinking about that time, and times today, I can imagine how it feels to be transgender. Not knowing you are transgender. Then discover the word “transgender” for the first time.

It must come with profound relief to know you’re not alone.

The same is true for men attracted to transgender women. They think they’re alone. But they are not.

When I discovered my transamory, “transamory” wasn’t a thing either. I didn’t know, for example Lou Reed had a long term relationship with a transgender woman. But I sure loved his song.

Nor did David Bowie’s gender-bending persona catch my eye.

So when I fell in love with the first transgender woman I ever saw, in a Yakuza bar in Osaka, Japan, I was blown away. Blown away by her beauty. Blown away by the circumstances. And blown away for how deep and instantaneous my attraction was.

I was in the Marines at the time. My girlfriend, who would become one of my few fiancés to never cross the threshold, took me to see her home town. She thought I’d get a kick visiting a Yakuza bar. I don’t think she knew how profound that kick would be. It kicked off what would culminate in everything I am today. That and how I tell my transamory story with recovering “normal” transamorous men looking for solace.

My ex-wife used to call me her “gay boy”. It’s true, my feminine side is well-developed. I don’t cross dress or anything like that. I do enjoy reveling in that part of me that is soft, kind, receptive and open. And yet, I do present male, although I consider myself gender neutral. I recognize the female in me as much as I do the male.

And here’s where love comes into the picture. And by that I’m referring to self-love.

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Photo: Bima Mentara on Unsplash

Many of my fellow Marines weren’t as appreciative of my nature as my ex-wife was. Or my mom. It wasn’t constant, but Marines can be callous towards someone not embracing the macho, natural-born-killer persona believed to enshroud what it is to be a Marine. Of course, the occasional taunts ended once I became a Sergeant of Marines. Yet, the juxtaposition between my feminine side and my masculine side represented a crossroads back then. The path I took was embracing both. Choosing to be me, I said to hell with everyone else. After all, if I could take shit from Marines, I could take shit from anybody.

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Me as a Marine circa 1982. (Photo: USMC)

In other words, I chose loving myself for all that I am. I chose that over caring what other people think about what I am. An aspect of what I am is a man who loves transgender women.

As I love myself, I love the blend that is the transgender female form. I love the struggle transgender women must go through. I love their strength. I love that they are sometimes reviled not only by men, women and society, but also by their parents sometimes. I love them because I know all these challenges make them who they are.

As my challenges made me who I am.

Today, I am no longer married to the woman who was my wife. Ours was a marriage of convenience. By that I mean, there was no better relationship for us than the one we had, which called us to become more of that which we each are are: more clear about what we want and more clear about our authenticity.

· · ·

I met my wife online. I hadn’t been successful dating transgender women. I had relationships, but the early ones reflected my own trans-attraction insecurities. My insecurity showed up in meeting transgender women who also were insecure. Insecurity is no foundation for healthy coupledom. It didn’t help that I dated in secret. In between cis-gender lovers.

Maybe that sounds familiar.

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My wife and I New Years 2012 (Photo by Kyle Layser)

Insecurity transamorous men feel initially shows up in many ways. One is fear of being seen in public with the woman they find attractive. It’s an early “trans-attraction” stage of transamory. It sounds dumb, but it’s real. And it’s a step older transamorous men go through more than younger ones these days. Some younger generation transamorous men reflect their generation. Their generation accepts gender fluidity, so they do too. So they don’t experience as much insecurity.

Pro-tip non-sequitur for transgender women: Ridiculing and shaming men for being in this stage prolongs it. Want men to be proud to be with you in public? Stop shaming them.

When I met my wife, I was not intending to marry. I was open to a non-traditional relationship. Anyone I found attractive and compatible would do. Yet I entertained preference for a transgender partner. I knew, however, my insecurity wasn’t going to match me with a transgender partner of my dreams.

Today, many of my clients are having to unpack decades of being married to cis-gender women, when they knew they were trans-attracted before they got married, but didn’t own their authenticity. In some ways, I was no exception.

My wife was determined to break her streak of meeting men who were not good for her. Like me, she realized she was her problem. Not the men she dated. So we were a perfect match.

Relationships are always like that. Perfect matches.

Our marriage was a training ground. In it we were helping prepare one another for partners we eventually will have. It was our agreement.

As we together grew into our individual security borne of authenticity, we accepted who each other was. Our marriage’s dissolution reflected that.

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Photo credit: The Transamorous Network

If you’re trans-attracted or transamorous, married or not, you can’t love the object of your affection until you first love yourself. Especially if you’re married. A lot of transamorous men are married to cis-gender women. There is nothing wrong in that.

Still, if you are married, your wife knows on some level that you are different. I assure you fights between you two have a lot to do with insecurity born of that awareness.

Hardness creates more struggle. So does insecurity. Extreme cases result in death. Almost half the murders of transgender women in 2017 happen in the context of intimate relationships gone awry, according to research I’ve done online. Seems to me the sooner you embrace who you are, the better you and everyone else will be. You’ll be one less transamorous man hiding in their shame. That can prevent a murder.

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It’s time more transamorous men embrace all of who they are. (Photo: Ozan Safak on Unsplash)

Men loving transgender women is normal.

Love between humans is the norm. So it is normal that a human would express love for another human. Both men and transgender women are human. So love between them is as normal as any other love.

But I would argue there is no such thing as a “normal” man.

There are all kinds of men. The Gillette controversy shows that. If you’re trying to be a normal man and think that’s ok, you’re not expressing your authenticity. You’re expressing insecurity. Your “abnormality” is the norm. Your “perversity” is the norm. Your “sin” is the norm. Abnormality, perversity and sin are words reflecting societal judgment.

Fuck that.

Your individuality is the norm. That means there’s no such thing as a normal or traditional man.

Transgender people are here to help all humanity to come to grips with the fact that to be human is to be different. There are a lot of normal men out there confronting their normalcy in light of their transamory. Some respond violently, with tragic consequences for both victim and perpetrator. Others call me, or send an email.

If you find transgender women attractive, you’re in good company. All men will find the attractive ones attractive. Until they discover that attractive woman is transgender. But that doesn’t negate their initial attraction. It only masks the attraction with shame expressed as revulsion. You’re still attracted to her.

If you find transgender women worth loving, but struggle with it, that’s ok. You don’t have to figure it all out now. You will in time. My experience is, the journey is worth it. For you, for your relationships and for the human race as a whole.

The journey is sweeter, though, after you accept what you are.

On your way, consider doing something now to sweeten life for LGBTQ people. You might meet your match in the process.

Feeling Good: The Best Way To Find Love

Alex Iby its not hard FB blog
Photo: Alex Iby

Make a habit of feeling good. It’s a sure way to find love. Especially if you’re transgender, or transamorous.

Feeling good eliminates drama too. It also makes improving your life easy.

Finding trouble finding love? Finding it difficult to accept your transamory? Or maybe you’ve accepted it privately. Now you want to “go public”. But something is stopping you.

Feeling good can help with all that. And a lot more.

We are all meant to be happy.

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Feeling good is happiness. Happiness includes prosperity and freedom, including financial freedom, time freedom and freedom of an easy love relationship. Everything you think as necessary to being happy, you can have.

You don’t have to deprive yourself. Or compromise. Especially in relationship.

You’re meant to be continually happy. If you’re not doing that, you’re making life harder than it needs to be.

It’s funny how we sometimes say “If I have that guy or girl I’m looking for as a partner I’ll be happy.” Or “He makes me happy.” Relationships don’t make a person happy.

Having that perfect partner in your life doesn’t make you happy. That relationship, no matter how wonderful, comes with button pushing, unmet expectations, and lots of growth opportunities.

Can you be happy in a relationship? Yes.

But not because of the relationship. You’re happy because you’re happy.

Happiness doesn’t come from having that new job, or that car or house you want, or that money you’re wanting either.

When you satisfy a want, you feel the satisfaction, sure. But notice: over time, that satisfaction fades as new wants come up and old satisfied ones get…well…old. 🙄

Relationships are like satisfied wants. They are meant to be fulfilled. And, just like you have satisfied wants, you’re supposed to have satisfying relationships.

GOTTA BE HAPPY BLOG
If it seems like “no duh”, then why are so many not happy?

It takes a while to get to lasting happiness. Not because it’s hard – it’s easy.

It takes a while though because you have to slow your old way of living’s influence. Thinking life is hard, that you must work hard, that relationships are hard, that “you don’t always get what you want”, that men are all X and women are all Y, these kinds of thoughts act against your happiness. You have to replace those stories with new ones. Then you have to make them as automatic as the stories you now tell yourself.

Once that happens….oh my.

So the trip is worth it.

So here’s how to start the journey to feeling good:

Step one: Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate. Write down how much you appreciate. Try expressing appreciation for things you take for granted, such as the device you’re reading this on, the shoes on your feet, soap, toothpaste. Start with simple things.

Step two: Pay attention to what you’re feeling. Your feelings tell you what kind of story you’re telling. Develop a habit of checking in with yourself throughout the day. We can help you develop these powerful habits. We’re really good at it.

Step three: Stop listening to the news. We know this is difficult for some people. But the more you listen to the news, particularly negative news about the transgender community, the more unhelpful stories you create and the more you reinforce your old stories. It’s hard being happy and listen to the news.

Besides, very little – actually almost nothing – in the news pertains to you.

Step four. Get out more. Take more walks. While you’re out there, practice step one above and notice things in the world you take for granted. Getting out in nature has huge mood enhancing benefits.

Step five. At the end of each day, acknowledge all the good that happened, including your success in doing these five steps.

Practice these five steps daily. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself well on the way to unshakeable happiness and freedom. Then, and only then you’ll get all you’re wanting. Including that relationship. And you’ll get it all with little effort. We guarantee it.

The Best Way To Be Awesome And A Minority

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Photo: Levi Saunders

WARNING: Contents of this story may be triggering.

In our opinion, a person can’t for long explore transness without furthering exploring race. Both topics are near-identical.

And while we prefer not to refer to ourselves in certain, socially-accepted ways, it is this socially-accepted identification which prompts our writing.

You see, before 2015 or so, we identified as a black male human being.

However, since that year, we’ve discovered some number of things which make that identification irrelevant. That is, unless, we feel the impulse to write about topics like this one.

Then that identification adds credibility.

Today, we are writing about our blackness, our maleness and our cis-ness because sharing our experience might help just one person. If it helps just one person, we consider the time investment a win.

 

Transgender is the new black

Humanity continues to expand into itself. What that means is, the potential that is humanity, is being explored by humanity. Some of what humanity discovers about itself shocks itself. That shock often causes reprehensible-seeming human behaviors.

Eventually though, everything balances. And the exploration continues merrily.

It took a while for example, for humanity to begin seeing “blacks” as worthy enough to merit rights and privileges “whites” enjoy, at least under law, if not socially and culturally. We are putting “blacks” and “whites” in quotes, simply because that distinction is a fiction. There really is no appreciable difference between a human described as “black” and one described as “white”.

Indeed all that stuff was made up specifically to divide humanity. Briefly: In the “new world” wealthy land owners created the idea of “black” and “white” to cause poor “white people” to reject their economic and human peers who happened to have darker skin. For a time in colonial America, many “blacks” and “whites” who were poor, lived closely with and felt solidarity towards each other. They slept together. Ate together. Had sex with each other. They married. They ran off together. They saw each other as comrades.

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Photo: Jose Escobar

That is, until the wealthy divided them with this made-up distinction.

Why? This multicultural group far outnumbered wealthy landowners. That was a problem. So the wealthy concocted a new belief: whiteness.

Over time poor “white people” began believing they were better than poor “black people”.

The rest is history.

And that is enough history.

· · ·

Our point is, we no longer see ourselves through many false lenses which have no relevance to who we really are. But many people still do. Even though they are fundamentally no different than we.

Most humans identify themselves by something which separates them from the rest of their kind. Hard to deny, right?

We don’t have a problem with that.

Except that while distinctions can bring people together, the “coming together” is always also an exclusion: those who are not distinctly similar become outsiders.

Comparison happens. And judgement. In judging, insecurity rises. “Judge not lest ye be judged” is a reference to that. Insecurity always fosters fear. And in that fear and insecurity one always finds external life circumstances that justify one’s fearful and insecure feelings.

Whether you’re black, trans, gay, latino an original people, or, in today’s, world a cis-het-white male, nearly everyone goes in and out of fear and insecurity.

We suggest being transgender is the new black when it comes to social justice and equal rights. That’s because transgender people experience today, socially, what blacks did in the 50s and sixties and earlier. There are differences, of course. Rarely was a black person shunned by their family, for example, the way many transgender people are.

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Photo: Ken Treloar

It’s a common, although unnatural human reaction to try to “one-up” one’s historical suffering. It’s as though humans see suffering as a badge of honor. It isn’t. So when we compare the black experience with the transgender one, we are not saying they are equal. What we’re saying is transgender and black people face many similar struggles. And in that similarity can be gained huge leverage towards positive change.

But neither can do that while standing in fear and insecurity.

For example, segments of both groups appropriate self-referential slurs and recast them as terms of empowerment.  “Nigga” is the most obvious from the black community. “Tranny” and “bitch” are similar in some parts of the transgender community. The more impoverished the subgroup, the more empowerment such appropriation seems to be. That’s been our experience.

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“Blacks” taking on such identity have participated in their own oppression. Photo: bimo mentara

And, while “nigga” as a term of empowerment in the black community is well known, “tranny” and “bitch”  as similar empowering terms may not be as familiar to some transgender community members. Among transgender people of color, however, it is far more common and understood.

Of course, enormous experience diversity exists throughout both groups. And, while it may be taboo to acknowledge, it can’t be ignored that intense inter-group hatred also exists within both groups. It’s odd to us that members of an oppressed group would turn around and oppress one another. Behavior we see between in-group members sometimes rivals that which comes from those who are recognized haters of said group.

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Two transgender women attacking one another.

 

This is so consistent, one has to wonder why more transgender and black people aren’t more understanding of the people who hate them. For the same insecurity and fear transgender and black people feel in their lives, is identical to that being experienced in the minds and hearts of those who hate them, don’t understand them or who refuse to acknowledge their very real existence.

Human is human.

It doesn’t matter what triggers fear and insecurity. It is a fact some “white, cis, males and women” feel fear and insecurity when faced with both the “transgender movement” and the “black people”. It doesn’t matter why they feel frightened and insecure. The fact is, that’s what they are feeling.

And if you think about any time you felt those strong emotions, you’ll remember how difficult it was for you to think straight. Let alone open-mindedly.

If you’re triggered right now, you may be feeling that lack of ability now.

Now we’re not denying the very real power and leverage other groups have over transgender people and “black people”. Our experience with the few people we’ve worked with however tells a compelling story.

The story is corroborated by our own life experience: A belief is a powerful thing. Humans are far more than human. When an individual human does something about the beliefs they have, instead of directly confronting their life experience, their experiences faithfully reflect work done at the belief level.

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Photo: Steve Johnson

In other words, when a person examines then changes their beliefs about life rather than confronting life experience directly, their life experience begins reflecting the newly held beliefs!

This is not the case at the group level. Groups, for example, have a hard time accomplishing what we’re sharing here because individuals comprise groups and individuals are the main event, not the group. No group of people shares life experience. Each life experience is unique. So making changes of the type we’re describing at the group level is not possible.

But when an individual chooses to change their beliefs about anything, the reality of the thing that is the subject of the belief changes!

This is why we do not advocate humans joining other humans, even though that seems like the expedient method of change.

An individual human is always more powerful than millions of humans grouping together when that human becomes aware of what they are underneath their humanity and exercises that in the direction of what they are wanting.

But when a human lives in fear, insecurity and vulnerability, they have no power at all. They are literally at the mercy of their life experience. In that, it seems their world and the people in it have far more power than they do. And while they remain in fear, insecurity and vulnerability, other people do have more power. And so, it makes sense so many would want to join forces with each other, in order to even the odds.

Now more than ever

We’re not arguing against joining others in pursuit of what you want. We’re just offering perhaps a new perspective for individuals, which can make individuals more powerful.

Whether they join with others or stand alone.

 

“Black” and “transgender” are deeply disempowering

A person who identifies with an identity such that that identity disappears becoming part of their “what is”-ness, the belief and identity also diminishes who they are into a single dimension. A belief held long enough becomes “just what is.” It is no longer questioned. It is no longer thought about. It’s just there in the background. There, in the background it shapes all life experience to be consistent with it.

That’s how powerful beliefs are. They are alive and are literally the stuff of life.

When a human creates for themselves, or takes on a belief such as this, they lose their connection with their natural invincibility and instead experiences directly the disempowering nature of the belief.

When a person identifies as “black”, for example, they take upon themselves all that is conveyed by that. Both the good and the bad and all the experience lumped under that story/belief. Same with transgender identity.

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Taking on labels can empower. Usually though they greatly diminish one’s real identity.

A “black” person therefore acts in cahoots with those on the other side of that belief. He or she reinforces perspectives held by “the other side” as well as those on their own side. It doesn’t matter if that “black” person is financially, materially or socially successful. They become a function of everything it “is” to be black.

Taking on the belief, they look out in life and identify with experiences of “blacks”. They look at people attacking “blacks” and identify with the vulnerability of those being attacked. Identifying with that vulnerability, they get angry. Anger is a natural response to feeling vulnerable because vulnerability is decidedly not what any human is.

But the moment that vulnerability is embraced –– and it happens in milliseconds –– life experience begins reflecting that. Held onto long enough, life experience will reflect more and more overt experiences consistent with being vulnerable.

Until the person chooses a more empowering belief.

A personal example may clarify.

· · ·

We remember when very young, after our parents’ divorce, our “mother” moved us from California to the east coast. She needed support from her family as a single black mother of three boys. We (the we that is Perry) loathed that move. Our love of California was absolute. Leaving it filled us with resentment.

Arriving in Virginia, we were immediately treated poorly by people who looked like us. Our manner of speaking, our scholastic excellence, our west coast behavior attracted attention that was stark in comparison to how people who didn’t look like us –– “white people” –– treated us in California.

Thus anger, resentment, then fear and more vulnerability fomented in us. Did the life experiences generate the feelings and beliefs? Or vice versa? To gain clarity, lets back up a bit.

In California for a time we lived in a black community. Our family experience was not the best and so we developed beliefs quite consistent with being vulnerable and fearful. Taking those beliefs outside the house, we had met people who looked like us which reinforced those beliefs. We were bullied, got into fights, were attacked by dogs, etc.

There’s a saying: every old sock meets an old shoe. It applies to beliefs and experience: every belief will draw to it a corresponding experience.

Later, we moved to an all-white community as our prosperity increased. We felt relief leaving an environment we interpreted as hostile (not recognizing the connection between beliefs and reality).

There, we made friends. Everyone around us was “white”. Life got better. Our feelings of insecurity and fear soothed as our family situation improved. Or seemed like it. We were there long enough so that we developed a sense of peace, security and comfort, even as our parents’ relationship deteriorated.

When the divorce happened and it was clear we’d be moving, our old beliefs resurfaced. Landing in Virginia rekindled more underlying fears. Every old sock meets an old shoe: experiences with “black people” consistent with those beliefs returned.

We attempted to compensate becoming proficient in martial arts. It helped shift old beliefs into new more empowering ones. But the momentum of old beliefs weren’t done with us.

One day while delivering papers on our paper route, a gang of “black” youths cornered us in an apartment complex and attempted to rob us. We had no money, but the experience was insightful.

It wasn’t until three months ago (some 40-plus years later) that we saw how our beliefs created all our youth experiences, leaving us with a profound sense of empowerment.

What insight!

Recognizing how our beliefs created our life experiences inspired new possibilities in us.

Those possibilities implemented in the last five years leave us where we are today. Today where we no longer feel the need to identify with labels created by those seeking to soothe their insecurity by keeping us in our vulnerability.

We now look into the world through these insights. What we see are humans doing their best to make sense of a world around them, not understanding how much leverage they have over that world as an individual. So they join into groups and fight against that which they want changed, not knowing that in their fighting they are allying with their oppressor.

Again, we’re not saying don’t join groups and don’t work to change the status quo.

What we are saying is, individuals can be far more productive than they are when they assume identities (beliefs about themselves) that, paradoxically both give empowerment to the individual and legitimizes within the person their “less than” status.

We’ve noticed an interesting phenomena around this topic among transgender women of color and trans-attracted men of color. Before we detail the peculiarity, we’ll provide some context.

· · ·

Three years ago, we launched The Transamorous Network. It was an exploratory project. Through it we intended to help men who are attracted to transgender women and transgender women interested in having wholesome relationships with cis-men. We felt we could help soothe the struggle both parties have finding love in their lives.

Our own trans-attraction, and our struggle to find meaningful, wholesome relationships with transgender women legitimized our desire. We believed our approach, which has eliminated the struggle we experience through our trans attraction, could be helpful for others. Others who resonate with our message.

Trans attraction blog
A meme from our work at The Transamorous Network

Over the years we received emails from different kinds of people. Not just trans-attracted men, but women and transpeople wanting help. We consider these people, people who are attracted to transgender people, part of a “broadened” transgender community. All of them were relieved to find a website like ours, one that assures them their trans-attraction is wholesome and normal.

Not long after launching the website, we began interviewing people in this demographic on YoutTube and through a podcast. Then we began a Facebook Live show talking about more urgent issues our audiences was interested in from our unique perspective only.

From the beginning we’ve always approach each topic from the same accurate perspective. This perspective can be frightening and off-putting for people deeply immersed in the struggles of their lives. So we have some experience hearing the thoughts and beliefs people in the broader transgender community have about themselves, their struggles and why they think they struggle.

Curiously, a far larger share of men of color seem to comprise the population of trans-attracted males. In one private Facebook group of 100 such men, 60 of the men are men of color, for example.

When we look at that, we believe it represents an “entanglement” between male people of color and transgender people. But that’s another story.

Our perspective in our content is highly confronting to transgender and black people. What we are essentially saying is if you change how you think about yourself and your world, then take action from those new perspectives, your world will easily change. But if you try to change the world first, before changing the way you think about it, you are going to have a frustrating, painful and unhappy life experience.

The reason we believe this is so confronting to these two particularly oppressed groups is because they can not fathom that they are at the center of all they are experiencing. And, being in the center of it all, they have all the power to change their experience.

letter from trans attracted blog
Excerpt from a letter from a trans-attracted man.

Consider a person who believes in “man” and “woman” so deeply, the belief disappears into their consciousness, becoming simply “what is”. Then that person is confronted with what they see as a “man” who claims to be a “woman”. The dissonance, incredulity and shock of such an experience blows away this deeply held concept of life, even though life is sitting right there in front of their eyes, telling that person that their belief is too narrow as it regards human life.

Such a deeply intimate relationship between a person such as this and their belief can’t tolerate confrontation. The only response to such confrontation is retaliatory confrontation. Feeling intimate insecurity of a deeply held belief, this person will knee-jerkingly try to control the circumstance (the life experience) so that it reconforms to the belief.

When instead, the more simple, more powerful approach is to just change the belief.

We know. Easier said than done.

Well the same is true for a person whose deeply-held belief goes thusly:

“I am a single, vulnerable, fallible, mortal human being. Here for god knows what reason, in a physical world that is scary, upsetting and cruel. Sure there are moments of happiness, but on the whole this thing is a struggle. And the fact that my blackness/transness makes it so much more of a struggle is so unjust! What else am I to do about it???”

So when we suggest to a human to change your story and your life experience will change, and we offer evidence from our life, our clients’ lives and our colleague’s life demonstrating the accuracy of what we say, we get the same response from transgender people that blacks get from white supremacists and transgender people get from transphobic people (and that gay people get from homophobic people): They can’t even fathom the possibility that what we’re suggesting will work.

Transgender people and the people who love them, particularly trans-attracted people of color, are here as powerful examples to the rest of humanity. Part of them being here is to live their wonderful, joyful and convincing example of the farthest, further-forward-est edge of what it is to be human.

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Possibly the leading edge expression of humanity. (Photo: Jorge Saavedra)

But they also are here to demonstrate something to themselves. Like we were in our youth, many have temporarily forgotten to examine the beliefs in our backgrounds.

What’s great about this is the sweetness of the return to awareness is so directly proportionate with the amount time one is oblivious.

When we hear “social justice”, we think about the day when “the meek inherit the earth”: when those who appear to be oppressed realize they can at any moment turn the tide with but a thought, consistently applied. That’s what is happening underneath advances we are seeing in entertainment, business, politics and more. As more transgender people as individuals come into their own individual power, then decide to act from that, they change the entire world.

The same is true for ordinary individual black people.

And ordinary individual trans-attracted people.

The most powerful potential lies in transpeople of color. For they represent “both” “and”. What a powerful human combination.

Coming into the world for every human, was a decision you made in joy and eagerness. The world awaits the imprint you came to make upon it. We too are eager to see what you do as you explore who and what you are beyond what you think that to be.

 

 

 

 

Transgender, Trans-Attracted…And…Over 50

Find love FB blog

Once when visiting The Philippines, I spied a man –– probably in his sixties –– who was walking hand-in-hand with a woman. Not only was this woman less than half his size (and a quarter his girth), she was clearly a quarter his age.

Now I don’t have any issue with people dating whoever they want. That’s not the point.

The point is, while some transgender women may think all trans-attracted men are looking for relationships with young transgender women –– significantly younger –– there are trans-attracted and transamorous men out there who would prefer a transgender woman from the same generation.

And, guys, there are transgender women of mature age looking for guys their age too.

I know for sure this is the case, because both groups are writing me emails.

And while it’s probably ego-boosting, guys, to think about being with a very young transgender woman for the sex appeal perhaps, or the beauty maybe, listen up.  A long term, meaningful relationship that isn’t based on some kind of unstated, commercial exchange, is more likely with someone who has some life experience. Someone with common beliefs, and, likely, common desires.

In other words: someone whose stories match yours.

It’s highly unlikely a 58 year old’s and a 20 year old’s stories are going to match.

Unless, again, a commercial exchange is the story bringing two together. After all, there are plenty of older men out there willing to pay for the company of a younger woman. Including a transgender woman.

Happens all the time, right?

 

I’ve commented on social media accounts featuring transgender women asking moderators how come they don’t feature older transgender women.

I haven’t got a response from any of them.

hearts

I speculate mature, senior transgender women are likely too busy living their lives to post as regularly as young ones do on social media. Perhaps young transgender women who are prominent on social media find telling their stories on social media as natural. About as natural as, say a senior transgender woman sharing her stories in person.

Maybe.

Whatever the case, middle-age and senior transgender women’s and trans-attracted men’s relative absence online may cause these groups to think their matches aren’t out there, when, actually, there are lots of women in that age range. And guys too.

Interestingly, research by UCLA’s Williams Institute found that there are almost as many elderly transgender people as young. The study estimated that 0.5% (or one in every 200) of Americans aged 65 or over identified as transgender, compared to 0.7% among 13- to 24-year-olds.

So there are bound to be transgender women of all ages in your town.

Same goes with trans-attracted/transamorous men.

And remember, guys (and gals), you only need one.

It’s not surprising older men (and many older transgender women) who write us ask “is there anyone out there for me?”

That’s why we don’t encourage online dating, cruising social media or trying to find your partner anywhere other than in your hometown. Or at least nearby. But always in person. Because online dating can be brutal to one’s positive stories.

CNN recently featured a story about a person who is photographing and chronicling the joys and struggles of senior-age transgender people (yes transgender men as well). I loved stumbling onto this article because it confirmed for me there are transgender people of all ages out there.

You don’t have to settle. You can have what you want.