Josh Anastasia

I didn’t plan on telling anyone in my family until I actually started to take hormones.  It’s not that I didn’t want to tell them, it’s just that I remember how my parents first reacted when I told them.  I didn’t want to go through that all over again on a bigger scale.

I was talking to my sisters today, Andrea and Nicole.  They are the youngest of us.  Nicole was telling me that I’ve changed and that she didn’t know me anymore.  Instead of just going along with it like I normally would have, I told her that I was trans.  I’m just at the point where I’m not going to hide it anymore.  I shouldn’t be afraid of who I am, and I don’t have to be afraid.  I’m tired of hiding and walking on egg shells.

So, I told them, thinking they’d call me a freak or think I’m weird or not want to talk to me anymore.  But that’s not how it went at all.  They were both very nonchalant about it, almost as if they already figured it out on their own.  They didn’t really ask many questions, but I guess those will come eventually.

I told them that I was changing my name to Josh and they were both asking me when and then that was it, just like every other conversation that I’ve had with them.

They didn’t judge me, at least not to me, and they both said that they accepted it.  So, I guess that was easy…

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend hate-crime protection to people who are victimized because of their sexuality. But the most immediate effect may be to set up another veto showdown between Democrats and President Bush.
By 237 to 180, the House voted to cover crimes spurred by a victim’s “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” or disability under the hate-crime designation, which currently applies to people who are attacked because of their race, religion, color or national origin.

To be honest with you, I didn’t think I needed to read any further than that, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be that easy, there had to be a catch. I was right.

Companion legislation is moving through the Senate. But even assuming that a bill emerges from the full Congress, it will face a veto by President Bush on the grounds that it is “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable,” the White House said. The vote to approve the bill did not come close to the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

Wait a second…since when is the government protecting it’s citizens “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable?” Is it really that it’s constitutionally questionable, or is it more the fact that President Bush’s religious morals are leading the way on this issue?

Debate over the legislation has been spirited, and while some of it has addressed whether the bill is necessary, the arguments in the House chamber and beyond have been colored by issues of conscience and personal morality.

Why we need hate crime legislation

The current hate crime bill doesn’t protect transsexual or transgender persons and it only covers people while they are participating in a federal act, such as voting. The bill recently passed by the house “would make it easier for federal authorities to take part in hate-crime investigations if local investigators are unable or unwilling to pursue them.”

How is not expanding hate crime legislation wrong? Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to protect people? Even people who identify as trans? How could it hurt?

Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, called the bill “unnecessary and bad public policy.” While he finds racism and sexism “abhorrent,” Mr. Pence said, the bill’s language is so broad that it could encroach on free speech.

Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the minority leader, said the bill made no sense: “We’re going to put into place a federal law that says that not only will we punish you for the crime that you actually commit, the physical crime that you commit, but we’re also going to charge you with a crime if we think that you were thinking bad things about this person before you committed the crime.”

People are perfectly free to say whatever the hell they want. There’s an amendment in the Constitution that protects that right. All this bill is trying to do is protect people from violent acts, and if needed, to classify violent acts against trans people as a hate-crimes.

Source – NY Times Article

This past week on 20/20, Barbara Walters interviewed transgender children and their families. I didn’t get to watch it since it was on at prime time and my family was home. My parents are still sensitive to me being trans, although my dad has told me that he accepts it, by my mom, however, refuses to accept it. I didn’t want to start anything by watching it, so I left it alone. But they have all the articles online.

Looking back over my childhood, I always felt like this, like I was in the wrong body. For a long time, I didn’t know what to think of myself. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about my feelings and I had no idea that other people, that felt the exact same way, were out there.

“I can’t quite explain it. It was just a feeling of being not quite in my body,” Rebecca said. “When I was in kindergarten, I would tell people that when I grew up I wanted to be a boy. I didn’t want to be astronaut, or a teacher. I wanted to be a boy.”

I wish I could have had the courage to tell my family what I was going through, but then again, we’ve never been a close knit family. I don’t remember ever having a deep conversation with my parents about anything. They’ve always just let me be. I don’t think that they would have handled it differently then they did when I told them a few years ago though. I never really knew how to express how I felt to anyone.

How do you look at someone, right in the face, and tell them that everything they know about you is a total lie? And that their daughter, isn’t a daughter, but a son? The look on their faces, I still remember it, was a look of anger, but the look in their eyes, was a look of hurt. It wasn’t so much that they thought I was crazy, because they already had, or that they thought I was a freak, because they know that I’m not, but I turned their world upside down, and they don’t like it when the boat rocks.

Getting back to 20/20, there are some great articles about the interviews on the ABC website. Here are a few:

• A Boy in a Girl’s Body
• Born With the Wrong Body
• What Is Gender Identity Disorder?
• Transgender Children: More Resources

You can also check out clips of the interviews on the 20/20 website.  There’s also a blog post on one of the ABC blogs with some excellent, and not so excellent comments.

If I were five years younger and went to Fresno High School.  But, I’m 23 and I don’t go to Fresno High School, so someone else is taking what could have been mine!  Just kidding.  In all seriousness though, this is pretty neat-o.

Administrators agreed to reverse a district protocol this week that limited males to compete for the title after Covarrubias was nominated by her classmates.

It’s really cool to see some progress being made.  It might only be Prom King, but at least it’s something.  I think this says a lot about how far we’ve already come, struggling to be considered “normal” and all.  There’s still a long way to go though, but a step in the right direction never hurt.

I’m a moderator/member of a Trans group on MySpace, and one of the members made this animated short. This is how I feel, and I’m sure a lot of other trans people do as well.

I was visiting a forum that I haven’t really had the time to visit and ran across a link to a Boston Globe article about how transmen are graduating from women’s colleges.  Transmen are people like me, FtM’s.  In any case, I’m no stranger to hearing about this kind of situation.  When I was watching Transgeneration, there was an FtM who went to an all women school and there was a bit of a trans community there. I

I’m becoming more and more comfortable about the fact that I’m FtM.  The more I become comfortable, the more people I want to tell.  But at the same time, I wouldn’t really feel safe coming out to more people in my area.  There isn’t really a great trans community here, if at all.  I know there’s a growing gay and lesbian community, and I know of a few crossdressers, but even so, it’s not the same.

It’s great to see more coverage of FtM communities, such as in the article.  The more exposure, the more people can get to know FtM’s and the more used to it they get, the better for me.

In addition, researchers believe that more young people than ever before are acting on those feelings. “It used to be that transitioning was a midlife process, but the Internet has changed a lot,” says Brett-Genny Janiczek Beemyn, one of the lead researchers in the UMass-Penn State study. “With the click of a mouse, more and more young people can find others going through what they’re going through and have a stronger sense of themselves at a younger age.”

When I first told my parents how I was feeling and that I am trans, they blamed the internet for “corrupting” me; telling me that it was influencing me in a bad way.  I don’t blame them.  They wanted an excuse, they had one at their fingertips.  I was spending a lot of time online when I told them.  The internet opened up a whole new world for me.  I was able to find information and other people who were feeling the exact same way and suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone or weird, and dare I say, I didn’t feel like a freak.

Coming out as Trans was definately the hardest thing that I’ve done so far in my life. It was also one of the best things that I’ve ever done. But coming out online, on my website, where so many people could look back at it, people that don’t know me could read it, or my family could see it was a scary thing. I didn’t know how people would react, and I definately didn’t think that my parents would be cool with it. I was surprised that people took this news so well; people like my online friends, my real life friends, and most shockingly of all, my parents.

Twenty years from now am I going to look back, after I’ve transitioned and started a “new” life, will I regret being so transparent about my situation? Will having most of my life plastered around the internet slow down my growth as a man? Will it hold me back? These are the things I worry about on occasion. Right now I don’t regret any of this. It’s been one of the best things that has ever happened to me. If it weren’t for my website, my parents wouldn’t be getting to know the real me. So I guess in a way, because I came out online, I’m forging a deeper relationship with my parents.

God knows that twenty years from now I’ll still have a website. I’m too egotistical and awesome to not have a website. But will I be comfortable with my kids looking at the archives? Or what about their friends? Or their friends parents? I shouldn’t worry about any of it. Especially now. But I don’t want my decisions now to jump up to bite me in the ass twenty years from now.

There are a lot of great people out there. They accept me, they accept my situation, and that’s it. But there are more people out there that don’t accept it. That would rather not have “my kind” around. Granted, I think that these people are uneducated, unintelligent fools and I don’t think I’d entertain half of them, but these could very well be the kind of people who are the parents of my children’s friends. You know, when I have kids.

I hope I don’t look back at this post and say I was right. That I shouldn’t have led an open, transparent, online life. Google search can dig up loads of shit on someone. We’ll see though. I would love to look back and think that this was still one of the best things that I could have ever possibly done.

Hm…so why the name change? Easy. I grew up as Jess and a lot of people look at me and think “Jess”, but they also think of me as a girl. I’m just moving on. “Jess” just doesn’t feel like me anymore. It’s been a great run though and we’ve had some good times.

Also, why wordpress.com? Well, truth be told, I can’t afford hosting, and I can’t afford a new domain. Hell, I can’t even afford to renew my old domain. I’m looking for a job, but things are just slow here in Olean, but when I’m all set up with a job, you can be sure that I’ll have my own domain and I’ll be back to my normal self. Until then, this is all that I have.

Anyway, when I have the time, I’ll put all of my older content on here and then we’ll be rockin again. So, here’s the new stuff…

URL http://joshanastasia.wordpress.com

Feed The feed remains the same as before, but just in case your want to add it, this is it: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jessanastasia

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, is coming up (hopefully) for a vote in the House and the Senate. ENDA has called for banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2003, ENDA defined sexual orientation as homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. Recently, Trans advocate groups have partnered up with other Gay Rights groups to try and pass a version of ENDA that would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the list.

In the past, Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts was the lead sponsor for ENDA, but with groups calling for the addition of “gender identity” and “gender expression” Senator Kennedy seems to be having second thoughts about sponsoring ENDA.

Why the sudden change of heart? Why back out now? ENDA has been on the table since the ’70′s, way before it was “cool” to support the cause. Now you want to back out of it? We don’t deserve to be treated equally under the law?

You stand for human rights, but you back away when a group of people is suffering because it doesn’t fit within the societal constructs set forth by a majority. You back away when the people who need defending are too different than you. It’s alright to defend same-sex marriage or people who love those of the same sex because you’ll be considered a saviour and it’ll make you progressive, but defending transgender people will just make you too liberal? Will allowing “gender identity” and “gender expression” tear at the moral fabric of our country?

Our nation was founded on Liberty. Our nation was founded on the belief that everyone deserved the same freedoms, not a select few, not most, but all. If we deprive even a small portion of our population the rights and freedoms that others have, we are not doing our country, our Constitution, all of the great people that fought and continue to fight for our country, justice. If one citizen of our country is deprived of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, then we all are.

You may not agree with how we live our lives and that’s ok. You don’t have to. But at least acknowledge that we exist and that we deserve the same as everyone else.

I’ve been working on a couple of projects lately that have kept me pretty busy. I’m not going to announce them just yet, but one will be ready to announce by the end of next week, hopefully.

For anyone just coming to my blog, you’ll soon find out that I’m Trans. I don’t hide it, and I probably don’t talk about it enough, but I’m not ashamed of it. I started this project last year, as a blog about Trans news. But as I got to thinking more about it, I realized that I could do so much more.

Trans people deserve to be heard just like everyone else. It’s not easy to come out as Trans. When I came out as Trans on my site I received a lot of support from my friends and from people that I had just met. It was a great feeling. At the same time, I’ve received some hurtful comments and e-mails. While I know that in the big picture, it shouldn’t matter, the negativity that seemed to jump out of the screen from those comments and e-mails got to me. I can only imagine what kinds of things other Trans people have heard, or read.

It’s sad when people are so narrow-minded and think the only solution to our “problem” is that we need God in our life. It’s also sad that people just don’t want to understand who we are, but just want to put us down. I’m not after special treatment, I’m after what everyone else wants and what some people already have. I don’t consider myself to be less of a person, and it’s sad that some people view me as such.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Next week I’ll be launching my project officially. So be sure to check back then. If there are any fellow Trans people reading this and want to know what it is early, shoot me an email or IM me. I’ll be happy to fill you in. I have a few more kinks to work out, so it would be nice to have some beta testers.

On December 28th, the Gender Public Advocacy, or GenderPAC, released a report about violence against gender non-conforming people. From doing my own research into Transgender violence, I can say that it’s not easy to find numbers. It’s under reported but you know it happens. At this time, the United States government doesn’t require the FBI to track gender based hate crimes, and according to the GenderPAC report, if the FBI did keep track, then gender based hate crimes would outweigh every category except race.

Continue reading →

I’m getting ready to do Ep. #2 and I figured while I’m preparing I would take a look back at the first episode. Here are some stats on the first episode:

• 733 views, 4 comments, 5 times faved on YouTube
• Countless emails, comments, and IM chats
• Posted on a class blog!

What I Think

Besides it being of crappy quality, I think it was a success. More than anything, I wanted to get it out there and I wanted to make people think. I think that is what happened and so, I’m counting this as a success. There are some things that I would change or clarify better, but overall, it was pretty good for the first one.

While I’m here, I wanted to address some of the comments that were made on the class blog. It’s a great discussion and I recommend checking it out. I want to thank whoever did it because I enjoyed reading the comments and I also liked knowing that it did make people think, even if briefly. Continue reading →

I am a man trapped in a woman’s body.  It sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone, but I guarantee you that this is my life.  When I think about how I look in my head, I don’t picture what I look like on the outside.  I see a “normal” man.  When I look in the mirror, it’s kind of surprising to see that the person staring back at me has boobs. It disgusts me that I have boobs.  It disgusts me that I have all the anatomy of a female and none of a male.  I literally get sick sometimes.

Talking about my body makes me uncomfortable because this isn’t my body, at least it isn’t supposed to be.  In order to look like how I know I should I have to have surgery after surgery.  Surgeries that are expensive and I most likely won’t be able to have them all.

The Surgeries

If I could afford it, these are the surgeries I would get.

Mastectomy

This is a fairly common surgery and it’s pretty well known.  A mastectomy is where they remove the mammary glands and fatty tissue from the breasts.  Basically, I’m getting rid of my boobs.  I’d get this surgery first because my boobs are the first giveaway that I’m not a guy.  This surgery can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $8,500.  In some cases (so I’ve heard), the doctor can get the insurance company to pick up some of the tab, but most likely I’ll have to pay for it.

Hysterectomy/Oopherectomy

I’m not going to need my uterus or my ovaries.  I’m not going to have kids, at least none popping out of me.  I don’t want an inch of anything female left in my body and removing my uterus and ovaries would be a huge deal.  This surgery runs from $7,000 and $15,000 dollars.  In some cases, the insurance company will pick up some of the tab if it can be proven that this surgery is health related.  For example if you have a history of abnormal bleeding or pap smears, among other things.

Genital Reconstruction Surgery
I’m not sure if I would ever get a genital reconstruction surgery (GRS).  The FTM GRS is pretty complicated and pretty expensive.  And while there have been some advances made, my sex life would suck.  A penis that is constructed won’t have any sexual function, at least not natural.  Sensation is very limited if at all.  These surgeries cost anywhere from $2,000 to $150,000.

Not all FTM’s feel the need to have surgeries and you don’t need the surgeries to be a man.  But for me, in order for me to be happy and comfortable, I will eventually need these.  I know right now that I can’t afford them, but if I could I’d already have had them.