My book Straight Boy/Queer Girl: a memoir. It's actually #13 in the kindle category Biographies and Memoirs>Specific Groups>Gay & Lesbian! so that's something to be proud of. The sales are still coming in slow.
Honestly, I think it's an important book to get out there. I think the story needed to be told. So please everyone check it out.
Also, check out my author page on amazon: Natalie Gates. It has links to my blog posts, my biography, and a link to my twitter account. Yes, I sold out and finally have a twitter.
Other things going on in my life right now:
1. It's pride weekend in Virginia. That means I'm going to be super super busy at work, and no I am not going to Pride again this year. I don't really know many of the performers, so I can't say with certainty that none of them are particularly of interest to me as a trans person.
Okay, so I'm also a lesbian.
The thing is, growing up the fact that I was attracted to women was not what made people whisper about me behind my back, and it isn't something I've fought, and eventually come to accept. I like women and I always have and I think also after having come out as a transsexual it kind of trumps anything about my sexuality anyway.
You know what I mean? I'm the queer one in a group of queer people. Who honestly gives a shit whether I like men or women.
But I guess that's it. I guess that's why I really think more effort should be given to include trans people in Virginia Pride, (which maybe they have and I just don't know the performers, and there is a reading group for trans children--a small token). But oh well.
2. Just a small thing, but interesting. I was talking to this trans guy friend of mine and he told me how in kindergarten he lined up in the boys' line and had to be corrected by the teacher. I remember doing the same thing (in the girls' line, of course). I didn't even think about it.
It's weird though (and I think it comes across in my book) for me anyway, it wasn't that I didn't know I was a boy but it's that I really just didn't understand gender (not the same as my classmates). I was going to grow up to be a woman because, well, why wouldn't I. It was just a bunch of little things:
"You can't be pretty, you can be handsome. You can't be a princess but you can be a prince."
Who the hell wants to be a handsome prince! Talk about boring. Jeez!
3. I'm going to hang out with my friend Nikki and do writer stuff this afternoon. You should remember her name. We're going to be famous authors together; she had a dream about it.
She has a blog also. (I think that's one of the things we talked about when we first met.) anyway you should check it out: Hummuscidalmaniac.
She's really funny, and writes a lot of good vegan recipes.
4. I was craving stuffing, and roast poultry this morning (afternoon). So I went to the Golden Corral on Midlothian.
I don't know if I wrote about the time a waitress refused to serve me at the one on Gaskins. She totally ignored me, talked to every table seated near me and refused to even look at me. I complained to the corporate office and got a phone call from the manager. I described myself as "LGBT" which he had to look up because he'd never heard of it.
Kinda makes you think doesn't it. It hadn't occurred to me that there were still people who didn't know what LGBT was.
Also, you know, I didn't describe myself as trans when I complained. And I'm not sure why, except more and more I just don't want strangers to know.
5. About the book again, Straight Boy/Queer Girl (and I know I'm shamelessy plugging it): I am so glad I'm finished with it. Especially the past couple months working on it basically full-time, as in eight (plus) hours a day five days a week, it really affected my mood. My mood just lifted when I published it and didn't have to think about it anymore, or not so intensely.
I think I have PTSD related to my life before transition. I seriously do. And really, talk about a traumatic event: living in the wrong gender. But I feel like my old self again, or rather my new self, or I don't know.
Prior to transitioning I was depressed and irritable all the time, but since transitioning I'm basically a happy person. No, I was never Eeyore. I did my best to smile and laugh and tell jokes, but sincere happiness...I don't think I knew that before I transitioned. And this book really put me back in that place, at least partially anyway. Like I even had a couple dreams that I hadn't transitioned, and OMG! I just can't imagine.
Anyway, it's over and done and I'm glad it is and I deserve to make a lot of money with it. I'm back to waking up in the morning seeing my breasts and feeling my fleshy thighs and ass and soft skin and just everything the past four years taking estrogen has done and just before I can even really stop myself, saying; "Oh, thank God! Thank God! It's over! Thank God!"
If you haven't lived it, having your body develop all wrong is one of the most horrible things to ever have to experience.
