The first time I stepped into Persad Center I felt a little uncomfortable but not overly so. The office I went to was in a very questionable area of town (in Pittsburgh) but the inside didn't reflect that at all. The first thing they had asked me to do was what they called an "intake." I had to pay a one time fee of like $134 dollars to get evaluated and assigned to a therapist. They had me fill out a bunch of forms asking me all kinds of questions including both personal, medical, and questions about my family. After filling out the intake forms I was taken upstairs by an assistant to my therapist to be and she went over my intake forms with me in order to make sure everything I put on there was correct. She also filled out another form herself asking me questions as to why I was here and what I wanted to accomplish through therapy. Needless to say, I received a call after a couple days saying that I was accepted into the Transgendered Clinic there at Persad. I was also given the okay to schedule an appointment with my new therapist Judith Diperna.
It was well over a month's wait before I could get an appointment but it was well worth my "wasted time" in order to get into Judith's office. What can I say really...she was very kind to me from the start and we both clicked almost immediately. I remember my first appointment with her felt so short. It was ninety minutes long but it only seemed like ten minutes. My first visit with her lay down the frame work for every visit that I would have with her to follow which basically entailed me talking about myself and her nodding and occasionally asking me a few questions. I had to fulfill certain requirements to be diagnosed as a transexual and she made that well known to me from the get-go.
I drove every week to see Judith who's office was over an hour and a half away from where I lived. I remember having to pay two tolls, cross a state line, and drive through downtown Pittsburgh just to get there. It got tiring, believe me. And at one point I drove down on Tuesday nights for a group therapy session with other transexuals. At the time I did not like that at all, I was so scared to be in front of people for whatever reason.
After about two months of therapy I stopped going in September of '05 because I got involved with a guy that said I was fine the way I was and that it was perfectly okay for a man to be feminine. We had a short relationship needless to say and because I had stopped therapy I felt both betrayed and stupid for listening to him. Yeah, I'll agree that it it acceptable for men to act/be feminine, but the simple fact of the matter was I wasn't a feminine guy, I was a female and there was nothing nobody could tell me to think otherwise. I didn't recover from this until over a year and a half later in March of '07 when I finally decided to put my foot down and finish my therapy with Judith so I could become the beautiful person I knew I was.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
My Very First Steps
If I remember correctly I was nineteen years old when I finally decided to let my family know what was going on in my head since I was a child. I was struggling with this for YEARS, and extremely fearful of the possible consequences of the wrong people finding out that I was a transexual. I can remember going over in my head time and time again the exact steps I needed to take in order to get my dream of becoming a woman a reality. I always thought for the longest time that my only chance to do this was to move away from my family and start my new identity away from home. I'm going to say in retrospect, that this would've only complicated my situation and quite possibly made it practically impossible to get where I am today. Especially in respects to money.
I had no choice but to tell my family if I wanted any chance to make my dream a reality. I had no where else to go and no where I could safely transistion in good time. So after psyching myself totally out and going over what I was going to tell them in the mirror about sixty bazillion times I walked into the living room and sat down for a heart to heart with both my brother and mom. I guess they took it okay, they didn't seemed to bothered by it at the time, and I had told the to "Expect the worst."
Over the course of the next few months I had begun to explore myself openly like I never did previously. I really had no shame and I laugh about that now, nothing quite like walking into Sears in a short short skirt and a strapless corset. I'd never do that now but I guess it was something I needed to get out of my system, and afterall I was only nineteen or twenty at the time so my view of what it meant to be a woman was very unrealistic.
After telling my family, I had realized that I needed to find some sort of professional help to point me into the right direction of people that could change me physically. I had no clue as to where I should look. From what I read I needed to find a therapist/counselor to evaulate me based upon the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. My mom had suggested to me to speak with a guy at my work place who was gay and find out if he knew of any groups I could get involved with. Once again after psyching myself out I approached him outside and told him about my situation. He had advised me to seek out a group that frequently gathered at a local bar a little ways from where I lived.
Consequently, I had made a contact at this point with the "Lady-President" of the organization and we began to meet up at the group's gatherings. It was here where I met most of the transvestites I've ever known, but few were true blue transexuals. Luckily for me the the Lady President was, and she had pointed me in the direction of a place she had went called Persad Center in Pittsburgh. She even drove me down to Pittsburgh to make sure I could safely get there in one piece.
It was here where my first real serious steps towards becoming a woman would begin, but also the beginning of quite possibly the darkest period of my life. This mainly had to do with a struggle to keep myself from destroying myself and the people that were supposed to love me no matter what. It was here where I learned to not care about what others thought and to do what was right for me instead of what was right for others.
I had no choice but to tell my family if I wanted any chance to make my dream a reality. I had no where else to go and no where I could safely transistion in good time. So after psyching myself totally out and going over what I was going to tell them in the mirror about sixty bazillion times I walked into the living room and sat down for a heart to heart with both my brother and mom. I guess they took it okay, they didn't seemed to bothered by it at the time, and I had told the to "Expect the worst."
Over the course of the next few months I had begun to explore myself openly like I never did previously. I really had no shame and I laugh about that now, nothing quite like walking into Sears in a short short skirt and a strapless corset. I'd never do that now but I guess it was something I needed to get out of my system, and afterall I was only nineteen or twenty at the time so my view of what it meant to be a woman was very unrealistic.
After telling my family, I had realized that I needed to find some sort of professional help to point me into the right direction of people that could change me physically. I had no clue as to where I should look. From what I read I needed to find a therapist/counselor to evaulate me based upon the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. My mom had suggested to me to speak with a guy at my work place who was gay and find out if he knew of any groups I could get involved with. Once again after psyching myself out I approached him outside and told him about my situation. He had advised me to seek out a group that frequently gathered at a local bar a little ways from where I lived.
Consequently, I had made a contact at this point with the "Lady-President" of the organization and we began to meet up at the group's gatherings. It was here where I met most of the transvestites I've ever known, but few were true blue transexuals. Luckily for me the the Lady President was, and she had pointed me in the direction of a place she had went called Persad Center in Pittsburgh. She even drove me down to Pittsburgh to make sure I could safely get there in one piece.
It was here where my first real serious steps towards becoming a woman would begin, but also the beginning of quite possibly the darkest period of my life. This mainly had to do with a struggle to keep myself from destroying myself and the people that were supposed to love me no matter what. It was here where I learned to not care about what others thought and to do what was right for me instead of what was right for others.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
A Little Bit About Me
My name is Ava Langdon, and when I was a little girl, I wasn’t. In fact, when I was a little girl, I was a little boy, if that makes any sense. Which it should, if you have ever heard the term transgendered or transexual. But in case you haven’t, or you are totally clueless as to what I am talking about I will gladly give you the text book definition of what it means to be a transexual taken right from our trusty friends at Wikipedia.com:
“Transsexualism is a condition in which a person identifies with a physical sex different from the one that they were born with[…]”
What does this mean exactly? It means I was born into this world physically a male. Though that does not mean I accepted or lived with the fact that I was and am now to some extent physically, well, a male. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember, identified emotionally as a female.
It wasn't until I was actually around five years old that I realized I was different from other girls. That is, I had extra equipment that they didn't have and was encouraged to behave differently from them. I was supposed to like Tonka trucks, and getting dirty though I always found myself wanting to make-believe and play with dolls over going outside to play with the boys.
Laugh as you may but this is who I wanted to be when I grew up at four years old...
I mean, seriously. Think about this. What normal boy would want to be Jessica Rabbit? None that I know, so I was either extremely crazy or I really, truly, honestly identified myself with this kind of thing. To me, there was just something extremely alluring to being as pretty as she was. Not to mention the fact that I for whatever reason related to the way she carried herself in"Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
I was born in Okinawa into a very humble home. My mom and dad had me when they were barely eighteen, and barely married. I was born into a military family and my dad was very hard on both my brother and I. We were both expected to behave and act like men by doing what we were told and to like it. So needless to say I never spoke to my family ever about how I felt about myself on the inside in fear of having my transexualaity “beat” out of me.
I had a somewhat normal childhood despite all of this and even though it was difficult through my entire adolescence trying to conceal my true feelings from my family and the people around me. I managed to find ways to express myself over the years with art. I used to draw a lot, I still have folders of my old drawings, all of which were mainly women. I grew to love Japanese Shojo, think Sailor Moon, around that time of my life as I could relate to some of the same things the characters in those shows would be going through. Towards my mid to late teens I also developed an immense love for Gothic music and metal to the point where I actually formed a somewhat successful band with my brother which lasted a little under five years time.
As with most people in my generation, that is, those born in between 1983-89 video games have also played a big role in my life. We’re the generation that had stopped playing outside. Instead of digging holes in the yard, or climbing trees, or playing with dolls, we had a controller in our hands playing in a new sandbox generations before us couldn’t possibly conceive when they themselves were children.
Between the anime, the Gothic music, and video games I had plenty of outlets to express my feminine side without having to show it to my family, or at least be so blatantly open about it.
“Transsexualism is a condition in which a person identifies with a physical sex different from the one that they were born with[…]”
What does this mean exactly? It means I was born into this world physically a male. Though that does not mean I accepted or lived with the fact that I was and am now to some extent physically, well, a male. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember, identified emotionally as a female.
It wasn't until I was actually around five years old that I realized I was different from other girls. That is, I had extra equipment that they didn't have and was encouraged to behave differently from them. I was supposed to like Tonka trucks, and getting dirty though I always found myself wanting to make-believe and play with dolls over going outside to play with the boys.
Laugh as you may but this is who I wanted to be when I grew up at four years old...
I mean, seriously. Think about this. What normal boy would want to be Jessica Rabbit? None that I know, so I was either extremely crazy or I really, truly, honestly identified myself with this kind of thing. To me, there was just something extremely alluring to being as pretty as she was. Not to mention the fact that I for whatever reason related to the way she carried herself in"Who Framed Roger Rabbit"I was born in Okinawa into a very humble home. My mom and dad had me when they were barely eighteen, and barely married. I was born into a military family and my dad was very hard on both my brother and I. We were both expected to behave and act like men by doing what we were told and to like it. So needless to say I never spoke to my family ever about how I felt about myself on the inside in fear of having my transexualaity “beat” out of me.
I had a somewhat normal childhood despite all of this and even though it was difficult through my entire adolescence trying to conceal my true feelings from my family and the people around me. I managed to find ways to express myself over the years with art. I used to draw a lot, I still have folders of my old drawings, all of which were mainly women. I grew to love Japanese Shojo, think Sailor Moon, around that time of my life as I could relate to some of the same things the characters in those shows would be going through. Towards my mid to late teens I also developed an immense love for Gothic music and metal to the point where I actually formed a somewhat successful band with my brother which lasted a little under five years time.
As with most people in my generation, that is, those born in between 1983-89 video games have also played a big role in my life. We’re the generation that had stopped playing outside. Instead of digging holes in the yard, or climbing trees, or playing with dolls, we had a controller in our hands playing in a new sandbox generations before us couldn’t possibly conceive when they themselves were children.
Between the anime, the Gothic music, and video games I had plenty of outlets to express my feminine side without having to show it to my family, or at least be so blatantly open about it.
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