Is transgender a finite journey?

Here I am, 2022, and, for all intents and purposes, there really is nothing ahead of me of a specifically transgender nature.

I'm a wealth of experiences, but, that might be about the size of it.

Lots of "been there done that". But nothing new is on the horizon.

Some day I will be old enough to transfer to a Canada Seniors Pension. Not really a biggie.

Eventually, I will end up older than old. If I remain. Not sure what that will be like. Even on my mom's last days, she was able to attend to something as minor as personal hygiene. So unless I can't shave, I will remain beardless.

I take daily hormone pills. I don't pay for them.

There really nothing left for me to be concerned with inasmuch as being transgender is concerned.

I found out I was, I dealt with being, I transformed my wardrobe, started hormones. Name change and gender marker change. Got used to being female. Waited for GRS. Got new breasts and a vagina. Healing was a year of uncomfortable. Not much really.

The only process that took time and was random, was watching people decide they couldn't cope with me being me. But it didn't involve parents or school or work. I got off easy. I was an older adult on a pension who lived alone. Small town, nearly no resources. Fucking lonely.

VERY fucking lonely. GRS only modifies your body. It won't make you more of a date.
Less trouble maybe in the change room. But then, I never go to a gym or pool.
But, man, it was soooo depressing realizing, that no one really gave a fuck. Dating past 25 sucks entirely. Dating past 40 is nearly impossible. I was trying to do it at 55.

The only portion of my transition that truly hurt, was dating.
And it hurt a lot. It almost made me quit life.

I found D'arcy and everything changed.
I do NOT want to imagine my existence without her.
Surely a living death.
Or I'd spend most of the day talking to my teddy bears. And likely not adequately socially balanced.

But at this moment, there is nothing really to distinguish me as transgender.
Or likely more correctly, nothing about being transgender to get me to spend any time on being so.
This is really, about the only place online where I even spend any time on the subject.

My routine day is making a model, or playing a wargame if not reading a book.
I get to eat out at a local eatery occasionally. We are well enough liked.
We walk around and we just do our own thing. Shopping.

I think the town is over us. No longer thinks about us.
We have lost interest value perhaps.
I'm sure it is harder for our high school-age friend. Kids can be cruel to each other.

Nothing to say

Yes, it stresses me greatly. The idea, that my own experience is so completely outside of the reach of so many.

I hear of how great places like the US are, and then I think of the 'great' state of Texas, and I'm "are you fucking kidding me?"

The US is supposed to be so great. It isn't. It might as well be Russia or Saudi Arabia.
Russia, where the law hates me. Saudi Arabia, where their religion is so rigid.
Where's the difference in Texas, where the law hates me, and religion works to make me out to be the reason for everything bad.

In Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code, make it plain that your 'freedom' to spout hatred is curtailed in favour of protecting my freedom to not have to be harmed by another's desire to be free to hate on me.

We don't permit anyone, religious persons included, the permission to preach hate.
Hate is never good for anything.
If it means a 'lack' of freedom to some, tough.
We went to war in Europe in the 30s and 40s to crush that form of hate. It bothers me the US is proud PROUD to permit the freedom to allow that same hate. All those lives lost, and for what? Hollow worthless freedom to hate.

So many Americans are so surprised, that I do not want to live there. I don't want to visit there. I will even take steps to avoid just flying over the US. They respond with, "so stay out, we don't want you." They just don't get it. It's their dislike of me that is the reason for me not going. And their dislike, just makes me all the more unwilling to go there. But I will gladly state, that the US is a beautiful place. The land, the soil, the country. It's a pity about the government. And the government is the people. Not always entirely of course.

I don't wish to ever visit Russia, Saudi Arabia, a host of decidedly Muslim countries, and China which is ostensibly non-religious. Russia the land though is basically Canada in terrain. China is a beautiful land. So many places are only bad because of the people there. I don't have a passport, mainly as there is nowhere I wish to go to. Well Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand perhaps. But I might as well just go see BC. Same thing. Mountains streams trees and snow. But the cost.

Life was nice to me in one area. It put me here.
I'm poor. No problem. OHIP paid for my GRS. All 30 thousand. ODSP paid for my ride to the train, for the train, for the limo from the train to the bed and breakfast before the hospital. The only thing I provided, was me. I stayed in a recovery facility in Toronto for a month after my post-surgery recovery location next to the hospital. it paid for my brother to take me from Montreal to Toronto.
This is what being Canadian means.

I told my doctor I was female. That it mattered enough to me that I needed his word on paper. That was all the process for the gender marker change.
I wanted my legal name changed. A lot of papers later, and a modest fee, and an official process and wait time of about a month and a half, and my name was changed. Cost me 137 bucks (bureaucrats are never free). 35 bucks at the government office in town and a new ID. Photo ID equal to driver's license and my OHIP card. Both were obtained long before my surgery though.

Do you want to know how simple it was? I got fussy and wanted my middle name changed again, so I changed it all over again. I had to pay again, but that was my decision. 200 bucks. No different than buying myself a new tablet.

This is what is NOT commonly possible in the oh-so-great USA.
Heck, in Iran, they will gladly give a transgender person GRS. They hate gay but don't hate transgender. They want you to be male or female. If you are male and say you are female, they will ensure you look as you want to look. I am not sure how it is for FTM though.

Freedom is a word too many think means something else.
Religious persecution isn't always a religious person being hated. Sometimes it is a religious person hating the non-religious. The US government isn't nearly as secular as it claims. If you run for office, you do NOT claim you are an atheist. You lie and state you are a nice god-fearing Christian even if it's a fucking lie. And you sure ain't Muslim. And it helps if you are as white as a Norwegian.

Canada isn't a 'melting pot'. People come to Canada, and they generally stay who or what they were before coming here. We support being 'different'. We care for everyone. Including our poor. Including those that are not 'normal'. And we don't allow hate. In fact, a lot of what is common in the US will get you arrested in Canada.
Beat up a transgender woman in Canada, and that is a hate crime, a federal crime, that comes with a serious response. Human rights case. Serious potential jail sentences. Even including being labeled a sex offender. Kiss your life goodbye time. It's safer to rob a liquor store with a gun.

The only people saying they are 'leaving Canada' for better elsewhere, are well-to-do white heteros who only want more money. Fine, they can leave. No thinking transgender person is going to complain about being in Canada.

D'arcy had a rough spot in her life a few years ago. Suddenly without a home. She was able to access a safe place for women in a similar situation. She's pre-op, by choice too. It didn't matter that she and her binky were in a woman's shelter. And she didn't make the staff and other women there freak out.
I have been in the hospital for several reasons. I didn't experience any trouble.

Granted, Canada isn't perfect. I've experienced transphobia. And the transphobic are AWARE of the price too.

Actions speak louder than words.
In Canada, we simply offer what many other countries claim they do but don't actually back up.
In so many ways, the US is a lot of talk and no real action.
I AM really free in Canada.
In the US, if you are transgender, your constitution isn't there for you. If you are black, it's a lot worse. Being Black and transgender in the US is a very dangerous thing.
If I was a black transgender woman in the US, there's no way anyone would be told it by me.
And I'd do whatever it took to get out of the US.