Why I Do This

When I get e-mails like this, I forget how much work this really is and am deeply appreciative of who and what I am.

Hi Kandi,

I recently met and communicated with a very wonderful lady on Flickr named Amanda [Yes, THAT Amanda!]. She has been so kind and sweet to me in every communication and shared a lot of wonderful advice from her own experiences about who and what she is, helping me to discover who and what I want to be. In one of her messages she talked about you and mentioned your site as a resource that might help my confused mind come to terms with my body in this journey of self discovery, that she recently became a contributor to. I knew exactly who she was talking about as I have followed you on Flickr for some time now, but had never visited your site. I’m kind of a shy background type of girl most of the time, even on the internet and often feel somewhat hesitant to comment or fave lots of pictures as I really don’t want to draw attention or ridicule to myself. There are a lot of lovely ladies and tgirls on Flickr that I follow and admire and even feel like I know them well, but they probably have no idea that I even exist. So although I hesitate to draw attention to myself I am thrilled whenever someone does reach out to me or drop a compliment or fave any of my pictures!

I’m not hardly on the internet much anymore and less so on Flickr. I finally got a chance to come on and visit your site and I really enjoyed the few articles I’ve read from the wonderful contributors. I don’t have a lot of time to read it all like I wish I could but I just wanted to contact you and let you know that I really enjoy your site and the wonderful advice and experiences that older out and about transgirls are willing to share. It means a lot to me and I am so grateful to Amanda for directing me to it. She has already helped me answer a lot of questions about myself and bringing attention to a lot of things I really hadn’t considered before, which sent me on a whirlwind of thoughts and research for which I am thankful for. She’s like a mother to me teaching her inexperienced daughter about the facts and realities of life for a transwoman and someone like me who wants to be one with all her heart.

Your site is a treasure trove for someone like me, and I hope as I have time, to go through and read everything. I especially love the pictures and that is the reason I’m on Flickr as well. I absolutely adore beautiful tgirls and dream of being so beautiful as well. But I like the reality of it and not just the fantasy, so it is especially a pleasure to read real stories and experiences and to see girls like us in real life pictures and situations because that is the life and reality of being a transwoman. I do like living in reality and not some fantasy world or metaverse. 

Anyways, thanks for all the pictures and life experiences you share both on your site and on Flickr. I felt so special to have someone like Amanda reach out to me and share her advice and lived experiences and I’m sure you and all the lovely wonderful contributors here would do the same for an emerging and blossoming tgirl like myself who still has so much to learn. 

Good night and I’ll talk to you later! 

Name Withheld

This, your message, is EXACTLY why I have the blog and do everything that I do.  From this point forward, we are sisters.  Reach out with questions, reach out when you are struggling, simply reach out to say hello!  What you need to understand about me is that when you reach out, you will get my immediate and full attention.  But due to the need I have to work, be a husband, have my adventures and all the online stuff I do, including writing the blog, I am awful and reaching out myself.  But those that I care about, and that now includes you, get my full attention.

The blog brings me such pride, but sometimes I feel like I am screaming into an empty wilderness, so messages like this mean so much!  Amanda is a doll!  We all struggle with this, all of us.  It may appear I have my stuff together, but you have to remember (it’s all on the blog), I struggled with this for over 50 years and then I started to figure things out.  I am very much a student of human nature and what I know, what I have observed has helped me tremendously as the woman I now am.  If you think I look nice, that is the result of accepting all of this, becoming internally happy, then working my tail off daily to get my body in shape and keep it there.  I recently qualified and will be running the Boston Marathon and that dream, that goal, is 1,000% due to my accepting that I am indeed female, in my head, if not in full time reality.

This is my advice to you going forward.  It’s pretty simple but very difficult all at the same time.  Love.  Love yourself.  Love others.  Express that love.  Once you get there, things get easier to cope with and you will begin to make the journey joyful and not what it has been.

I love you for being you and I particularly love you for reaching out!

Your sister, always!
Kandi

Me

Dear Kandi, 

I don’t know what to say other than I am overwhelmed by your warm and loving welcome. I feel so honored that you would consider me a sister. I was going to say that you don’t know what it means to me but I think you probably do. Your perception is right on and obviously you do understand human nature very well. I think especially you must understand girls like us. Your heartfelt reply and kind words mean the world to me and I feel so special that you would take time for me.

I love looking at your pictures and have to say you look amazing and so happy. What you are saying makes so much sense and I believe it, that accepting yourself as a woman has helped you achieve your dreams. Obviously it has taken a lot of work to get to the point where you are but it must be so fulfilling. You have an amazing figure and truly are a beautiful woman, but as you pointed out, obviously you’ve had to work hard for that. I think that’s amazing that you will be running the Boston marathon. Will you be doing that as a woman too?
[No, I will not, the race is hard enough!] Just looking at your photos, your happiness radiates like a ray of sunshine and I’m sure it has a lot to do with the love you both feel and share for others. I think it has a lot to do with the reaching out and giving of yourself to help others. It does make us happy to receive gifts and attention from others, but I think you exemplify it well, that there is a greater satisfaction and happiness in giving than receiving. 

I could feel your genuine interest and love in the message you sent and I feel deeply grateful to have you as an ally and contact that I can reach out to. I feel like I shouldn’t have to be afraid to talk to you about anything. I think it would be such a pleasure to meet you in real life someday [I wouldn’t want to disappoint you….] if that ever works out! Your advice is timely and I think I really do need to reach out and love others more. I spend so much time thinking of myself but I can’t say I really love myself, the way I am. So, I will work on that to make this journey of life as joyful and fulfilling as it is possible to be. After all what is there to life if we can’t be happy and enjoy it to the fullest, even making the most of the adversity and tough times. I think you are an example that it is possible to go through all that and come out a stronger and better person. 

I have to tell you thank you so much for reaching out to me. You’re blog does mean a lot to me. Though I don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, I wasn’t aware of the massive presence of tgirls and like minded people on Flickr until about 2 or 3 years ago. I had discovered Rachel Williston’s site and I think I haunted it for quite a while. I read the bio of every cover girl and admired and envied them so much. It was like my feminine soul went to heaven. But through that site was what got me going on Flickr. It wasn’t until a little over a year ago that I finally took the plunge, joined Flickr and actually dared post some pictures of me online, pretending to be female. I say pretend because I was absolutely terrible at doing makeup and adopting feminine mannerisms. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive and has helped a lot in building my confidence. I’ve watched a lot of tutorials and received some advice from others on how to do makeup, but I’ve never been out or brave enough to dare go somewhere and have a professional makeover. I think I’ve came a long ways this past year since joining Flickr but I really do hope to soon go somewhere where I can have a professional male to female makeover and actually see what is possible with this face I have. 

I was so happy to read in your bio on Flickr about your zero tolerance policy for any kind of pornography. That alone made me realize we should get along fine. I hate pornographic displays or images with all my heart and find them disgusting and repulsive. As I’m sure you’re well aware of all the creeps on Flickr, in just the one year I’ve been on this site, I’ve had my own share of messages and comments from perverts like these that only want to show their junk and probably pleasure themselves. I’m getting to the point where I don’t hesitate to block or delete such people and messages from my life. I cannot tolerate it and it does make me feel almost physically sick to be exposed to such things. So, I just have to say thank you for your comments about it. Just reading what you said about that was enough for me to say, “this is the kind woman I want to be like.” 

No one in my family has a clue about Name Withheld, she is firmly in the closet as far as they are concerned. I know because of religious beliefs they could not accept her and I would never try to force that upon them. I love my family but if it ever got to the point where being myself became a problem, I’m sure we would have to go our separate ways. I can’t really explain how I feel like I was born this way. I’ve loved girls things and been deeply attracted to femininity for as long as I can remember and it has only grown stronger as I’ve gotten older. For whatever reasons, I think a lot of us must be born this way and it is something we have to deal with and figure out, just like we do with every experience and problem that life throws at us. 

I already feel like I can say anything to you and you will keep it confidential so I really don’t feel too concerned about my privacy in that regard. About sharing my message on your blog. I would be so thrilled and honored that you would think enough of it to want to post it! So if you think it or any part of it is worth doing a blog post over, I would be so happy to think that maybe it could help others. And thank you for being so respectful of my privacy. I would be a little shy about you leaving my name in it because I don’t like to draw attention to myself. 

Thank you again for reaching out. I sure hope to have more time soon to continue browsing your blog and read through the wonderful articles and comments from everyone there. 

See you later, I hope to talk to you again soon
Love from your sister and friend…

Name Withheld

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