Sometimes life does get a little boring, or not

So, I have been wanting to write the last week, but realized I did not have much to say. Or at least I thought that I did not. My first week at work was a total success, especially since two days into I was notified that I would be promoted. As this week began, I started to realize just how “normal” life seemed to have become. Not that there are not issues to deal with, or that my being trans has totally faded into the background. 

The trans issues have faded though. In the past, so much of my awake time was dominated by ignoring, running from, or trying to cope with my gender dysphoria, I never realized how much of that time until the last couple of weeks. All of a sudden I am no longer preoccupied with my gender identity and my gender presentation. Getting dressed in the morning is no longer an ordeal. No longer do I have to don male business attire, only to run upstairs when I get home and take it off as quick as possible. I am me, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I feel good about myself, and I can look at myself in the mirror. Ok maybe I do that too much sometimes, but then I actually finally like what I see so who can blame me! 

So, on Monday of this week, I moved to the branch where I am going to train for the next month. Really the only people who knew about me and my transition were the branch manager and the assistant manager, and they actually figured it out on their own. Ok, so I inadvertently freaked some people out when I took my two and half weeks off. You see, I turned in all my keys to my old branch. I wasn’t really working there, but I was still assigned there, so really I could have held on to them. As usual, I trusted my intuition, and figured I wouldn’t need them anymore, so I turned them in to the acting assistant manager. This apparently freaked some people out who had not idea what was going on with me. They hear I am on vacation for a few weeks, but that I turned in my keys. They wondered if I was even coming back. Add to that the fact that the branch where I am training should have been included in the communications, but do to an understandable oversight, they were left out of the loop. 

How then did they figure it out? Well, they saw that James was not at the branch anymore, but Kathryn was. Being smart, they put two and two together. So, only the management team at my current branch know that I transitioned, or at least openly know about my transition. It is interesting that the staff was not and has not been told. It’s not that I care if they know or not, I don’t feel the need to hide anything, and don’t really plan on being stealth. So, all of a sudden, I am essentially working in a setting where most of the people do not know about my gender status, or, if they do, are being respectful enough not to bring it up or make an issue out of it. 

The only person that has made an issue of anything was this “customer.” I put that in quotes because he is not a customer of the bank, but he used to come by my last branch every morning. I think he has nothing better to do than hang around grocery stores all day. So, he used to stop by my old branch all the time, would always ask about bank stock prices. As time went by and my hair got longer, her would ask me when I was getting a hair cut. Of course my hair got longer and longer as time went by. So, I saw him in the grocery store where my training branch is located. He was hanging around on Monday. On Tuesday I saw him again walking into the store. A little while later, he walked into the branch, and asked me,”What’s the deal?” I replied with an,”Excuse me?” He said it again and then asked if I used to work at such and such branch, AKA my old branch.. I said that I did. He then said ,”sorry about the hair.” I assumed this was his way of apologizing for teasing me about my hair before and I told him I never took it personally. He then walked away. It was a weird interaction. It was also unnecessary. He is one of those older guys who like to hear himself talk, and just had to say something when he saw me. My training manager was more upset about it than I was. I think she is hoping he will come back by so she can tell him off inform him that he is not welcome back. I love some of the people I work with, they are awesome!

Other than that there has not been much going on here. I’m busily training so that I can show I am capable of having my own branch. The weather has gotten hot. And I have been pondering a question that comes up from time to time on Trans-Ponder. For those of you who are not familiar with Trans-Ponder, it is a podcast hosted by Mila and Jayna. They cover all sorts of trans related topics. From time to time they have asked what happens after one goes full time, what happens to the need for support groups, what fills the gap that remains. For Mila and Jayna, I think the answer if obvious, activism. They are very involved in the community at all levels, from transgender media to activism. I really feel that is part of the answer for me as well. To be honest, I never really got involved with support groups, but got more involved with activism than anything else when I was going through transition. Outside of that, I realized that I spent a lot of time looking at trans related websites, searching for any information to help me navigate transition. Now, I don’t really need all that web surfing. Now I am left with figuring out the best and most productive use of the extra time and brain power. Of course, using some of that time to be totally unproductive would be nice now and again.

I think I will write more on this later. This is a good start, but this is the question of what does Kathryn do now? I am sure you noticed the title change, there is a reason for that, and I’ll explore that more next time. For now, I am going to go be completely unproductive by going to bed.

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