My Texas Debut

At 9:50 a.m. on March 14 at Stacey Pool in Austin, Texas, where I often swam before moving from Austin to San Francisco in 2004, I took off my shirt and got in the water.

I love swimming. It was one of the things I thought about a lot when deciding to have top surgery. With very small breasts, I could have gotten away with binding or even just having my nipples reduced if I didn't want to be able to take my shirt off in public.

The other men swimming at Stacey Pool on March 14 were old. One younger guy was pretty overweight, so what remains of my seromas didn't make me stand out all that much.

As I left, there was a bearded Texas hippie type preaching the gospel to a young blond lifeguard. There's a richness of experience in Austin that you don't get in San Francisco.

Later that day, I indulged my inner cowboy, who was bucking for attention while I was in Texas: I bought some cowboy boots at Allen's Boots -- one of the last real-Texas businesses on South Congress. (When I lived there, there was a gun store across the street.) I told the cowboy who rang up the sale that I hoped I would wear them because in San Francisco, you have to create your own space to be able to wear cowboy boots.

His response was "You're a Texan, man!" It was especially beautiful because he had already checked my driver's license against my credit card.

It was my last day in Austin. Later, as I changed planes in Dallas heading back to San Francisco, the gate attendant called me Scott, my last name, even though my boarding pass, as required by the FAA, listed my full name. I thought it was a clever way of not dealing with what he didn't understand.

But as I waited in the gateway to board the plane, he came up and asked me if I was [NAME REMOVED].

Yes.

He continued, with a line full of people behind me, that my boarding pass listed me as [NAME REMOVED] and said that [NAME REMOVED] was female. Did I have an ID identifying me as [NAME REMOVED]?

I asked him if he'd like to see my genitals. Then I boarded the plane. Everybody knows Dallas sucks.

But, yeah, it's time to change my official IDs.

If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider making a small donation to help me finish paying for my surgery — or you may buy a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.

Texas Lez 3, Texas Leg 0 (Or, My Grudge Against Warren Chisum)

Way back in 1999, a ridiculous Texas lawmaker named Warren Chisum was on the record defending the state's sodomy ban (which applied to hets as well as homos, prompting one sane and humorous lawmaker to ask Chisum if she should go to jail if her husband happened to slip during intercourse [and by the way, we're laughing with her husband, not at him: it's easier to do than you might think!]). Chisum also supported a law that would prevent gay couples—and all households of which any member is suspected of homosexuality—from adopting.

Wow, I was one pissed off little baby bulldagger those days, since I was living in Texas and had just been thrown out of a creative writing class because my queer politics were disruptive—about which the University of Texas said, "Wait, are you calling this sexual harassment? Because it's not, and that's the only way we could make a case against it."

But I digress. Chisum. Yes, Chisum continues to be the world's biggest asshole, claiming—gosh it seems like yesterday, but it was actually a whole week ago!—that Jews invented the theory of evolution (and the Copernican revolution), making it a religious theory that cannot be taught in public schools. (Silly reader, Christian theories are OK, because, well, the people that made them up didn't have big noses!)

Trannydyke Messes with Texas

It matters which state you live in, and whether that state offers any protections for minorities and the poor.

Quick example:
Minimum wage in Texas, place of your bloggerbot's previous residence: $5.15
Minimum wage in California, state where he now blissfully resides: $9.14

Unlike Texas, California also protects its citizens from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. So does New York City. Protective laws, or lack thereof, will likely determine the outcomes of two cases hot off the wire. A transgender woman in New York was refused admittance into Loehmann's dressing rooms. She is suing, and will almost certainly win because the store's policy violates city law. A woman in Texas had an employment offer rescinded when the would-be employer, River Oaks Imaging and Diagnostic, learned she was transgendered. She has sued. According to the suit, the company claimed "she misrepresented herself as a woman," brazenly announcing the reasons for its actions because there are no laws against them.

Go west, young man, go west. (Or move to New York, but I hear there are no butches there.)