Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Black&table
I AM LIVING IN LOS ANGELES NOW!MY INTERVIEW FOR TRANSAMERICAN LOVE STORY
I was a bachelor vying for the affections of Ms. Calpernia Addams on Logo’s reality dating show “Transamerican Love Storyâ€. You can view the show on ITunes and NetFlix.
"The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me." ~Fredrick Douglass
FROM THE TIME I KNEW THAT THE WORLD WAS ESSENTIALLY A GENDER BINARY, I KNEW I WAS A MALE SPIRIT RESIDING UNWITTINGLY IN A BIOLOGICALLY FEMALE BODY.
Your initial reaction may be, "What...that's a girl?!?" To answer your question as best as I personally understand it through the experiences of MY life, I can only say that yes my PHYSICAL BODY was originally BORN biologically and chromatically female, but I was NEVER a girl in my mind and spirit. I am living in my truth and ask that you please not make assumptions about how it feels to be in my shoes until you have educated yourself. Because I will be the first to tell you, just dealing with this uninvited condition ALONE is difficult enough on top of trying to remain positive through the onslaught of insults from people who do not even know me.
Hopefully by the time you're done reading, you will see I am just a human being like you, trying to make it in this mixed up world. You have struggles and I have struggles, alot of them are the same damn struggles, welcome to the human condition. If you have chosen to read on that's a positive step because it shows you are willing to open your mind just wide enough to see what else is out there. So I say thank you, not only from me, but the rest of the planet that is at a time in history where we are in such desperate need of brotherhood and sisterhood. Remember, before we love others we have to love ourselves.
In 2001, I legally changed my name to James Logan Howley...but you can call me Jim. I began giving myself hormone shots with the necessary 21 GAUGE NEEDLES(fun, fun, fun!)and had what would be the first of a handful of surgeries to transform my body so it matched my mind and my spirit. Beginning in October of 2003, I have had a series of gender reassignment surgeries that I have deemed necessary for my own personal transition. Yet, all transitioning people are different; some choose surgery and some do not. I did...with my last one performed in September of 2006. I am not altering my body surgically for the society at large to be more accepting of me...I am doing it so that I feel comfortable in my own skin. I believe a man or woman should be judged, if at all, by what’s between his or her ribcage and ears before what is or isn’t between their legs.
I also changed ALL of my legal documentation, which meant standing face to face with complete strangers and their judgments and prejudices toward you; yet to my surprise, although people seemed curious and a bit nervous...no one was outright hostile. I changed my name to Jim because my mother has told me she was going to name me James. People sometimes ask me, "What's your real name?" With a laugh I answer, "My REAL NAME IS JIM." It's interesting...when someone gets married and changes their name, the question is typically, "What was your name before?" But you throw gender into the mix and suddenly I am not real to you?
There's also a misconception held by some people that somehow I "chose this". I didn't CHOOSE to be born transgender; it is something akin to one's NATURAL eye color, hair color, skin color or sexuality. We have no control over these things...sure, we can change them from that which we were born with...but we have no control over the sex of the "shell" our soul comes wrapped in at birth. With that said, in relating my struggle with other "obligatory" struggles such as skin color or sexuality, I am not attempting to diminish other minority's obstacles. While all minority groups have their individual struggles, I am focused on our commonality. Revolution knows no color lines, sexual preference or gender differences.
The best example I can give for you to understand how I have felt my entire life is as follows: Pretend you are in a car accident and end up in a coma. While unconscious, the doctors caring for you perform several surgical procedures on your PHYSICAL BODY, to fashion you into the opposite sex from which you were prior to the coma. For instance if you went in as a man physically you are now a woman. Once you come out of the coma you must climb off the table and function in the world...knowing that your spirit and mind are male...but being betrayed each time you look in the mirror. That was my existence until 2001.
I can recall as a nine year old that I informed my parents and my grandparents that I was "going to get a sex change operation" when I grew up. A moment of stunned silence was followed by uproarious laughter. "I'll show them!" I thought. It amazes me that in this day and age kids as young as four are proclaiming that their gender ideation is different than their biological genders...I guess I was just ahead of my time!
Then this demon from hell called middle school tracked me down. For me, middle school went something like this:
“Are you a boy or a girl? My friend wants to know!†It was always the friend that wanted to know, these people lacked the guts to be honest. Ridiculing a school outcast…that kind of senseless bullshit is what causes incidents like Columbine. I feel the same way today as I did then, if you can’t look me in the eye and tell me what you think of me, you lack a backbone.
I attempted suicide for the first time at 15. It would be the first of NUMEROUS attempts to end my pain and suffering permanently. Research literature has provided the estimate that gays, lesbians, and bisexual youth attempt suicide at a rate 2-3 times higher than their heterosexual peers. Some studies indicate that the rate of attempted suicide for transgender youth is higher than 50%. HALF OF US ARE DYING BECAUSE WE ARE TOO AFRAID TO LIVE!
HALF OF US ARE DYING BECAUSE WE ARE TOO AFRAID TO LIVE!
I went into the Air Force approximately two weeks after I graduated from HELLiard High School and remained in the Air National Guard for 6 years. This was before my transition and I completely disregarded the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell†nonsense. I was happy and proud to have a girlfriend and no government agency was going tell me otherwise. Or “don’t tell†me, as the case were. The Air Force paid for my college when I wouldn’t have had the money for it otherwise. I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from The Ohio State University and college, while slightly different from high school, still posed its dilemmas.
In 1995, after 2 years in the Air National Guard, I took all of my money out of the bank and bought a one way Greyhound bus ticket to Los Angeles...alone. During my time out West I got into the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was killed. The Ambassador Hotel has since been torn down.
I also went to Marilyn Monroe's house and stole two bricks from in front of her door. When I moved out to LA in 2004, I went back to Marilyn's place and noticed a thick WELCOME mat in front of the door and upon lifting it, discovered two vacant spaces, hidden by the mat, where my bricks once resided. A repairman gave me the ok to enter the house so I just walked right in. After about 10-20 seconds, the lady who owned the place came screaming at me from the kitchen to the right talking about how she "was going to call the police if I didn't get off her property, blah, blah, blah...but for 10 solid seconds...it was just me and Marilyn Monroe.
Back in 1995 however, I was considered A.W.O.L. from my Air Force unit at Rickenbacker and returned two weeks later, broke and confused. Upon my return from LA in 1995, my parents put me in a mental hospital and upon my release I told them I was into girls...But I knew even then there was something missing from the picture. That something would remain missing until in 1998 when I was thumbing through a campus paper and a picture of Brandon Teena caught my eye. I no longer had only 99 pieces to the 100 piece puzzle set. For those of you who don't know who Brandon was, the movie "Boys Don't Cry" is based on his life and untimely murder. If you haven't seen it watching it will give you ONE perspective on a female to male individual's life, but fortunately we don't all end up as tragically as Brandon did.
I have survived countless physical injuries, being beaten up, being hit in the head with a lead pipe in West Hollywood, drunken car accidents and shenanigans which include, IN A BLACKOUT, walking down a bar and kicking every last drink off, slinging a beer bottle and ending up in cuffs (on probation), roughly seven suicide attempts and several mental institutions. While I don't regret anything I have done in this life; that does not mean that I do not feel sorry for some of the things I have done.
In 2004, I packed up my car and drove from Ohio to Los Angeles by myself to see if acting was my purpose in life. I lived out in LA from October 2004 until December 2005. In just a little over a year's time I managed to get arrested for a First Degree Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon charge and placed in the men’s section of the LA County Jail. I was busted on the Sunset Strip. On May 11, 2005, I was surrounded by several armed squad cars and a helicopter in my "Twin Terrors" shirt. {For full details of what lead to my arrest...check out the blog.}
Today my life is going much better. Not only did I make it to the “final three†bachelors on Logo’s reality dating show, “Transamerican Love Storyâ€; but I am also the subject of a documentary entitled, "Sex Change Hospital" produced by World of Wonder Productions, that has already aired in the United Kingdom and is in the process of being shown here in the US on Women's Entertainment Network. This documentary depicts just ONE amongst the several surgical procedures I have undergone to allow my physical body to be in harmony with my mental and spiritual self. If you don't understand that or accept that, educate yourself. If you CAN'T understand that or WON'T accept it, then I am sorry but that's your problem, not mine.
"IN THE MIDST OF A MEMORY"
I don't believe I should have to be a martyr in order to tell it...a story that may prevent another gender confused teen from the pain and loneliness of isolation, tauntings both physical and verbal, eating lunch in the high school bathroom...or worse.
I have completed Part One of my autobiography, "IN THE MIDST OF A MEMORY" and am in currently in the editing process for the entire book. Please click the link below to read Part One, which depicts my life from birth to 1993 when I joined the Air Force. I thank you in advance for your support and welcome any and all feedback.
PART ONE OF IN THE MIDST OF A MEMORY
NOTHING WRONG WITH A LITTLE WISHFUL THINKING!!!