On the future of the site and loss and grief

Why hello!
Again.

So for those who are unaware, the TransGriot has told her last tale.  Monica Roberts, a dear friend, a great boon, and a truly great person, has passed away.

The last time I spoke with Moni, she wanted to know why I had let the blog lie fallow, and why I had shifted so much of the thoughts and writing that used to be here to FB.

The truth of the matter is that I got lazy. But my excuse was that much of what I had done was — when I did it — way ahead of the game, and I kinda ran out of juice, because I am driven by the issues of the moment.  Underneath all of that was the death of my husband and the resultant grief driven misery and depression that followed. 

I have never handled grief well or easily. IT is an ongoing challenge and a hard thing for me to get around, because I never really developed the coping skills attendant to such.

I also retreated into my own head to a degree that frightens me now — but I had allowed my dreams and a chunk of myself to become tied to the future that I was going to have with my husband. I listened to Landslide a LOT.

In the years since, I took on a new position. Finding work when your last position was an the executive director of a small Trans led service organization  — even though it was actually very large and covered an entire state, but the State was Arizona which is best known for a big ass hole in the ground and being hot and having cowboys kill each other — was not easy.

Indeed, I sorta didn’t expect to get anywhere.  And didn’t — I finally ended up sleeping in the back of my car. Celebrated my birthday homeless.

Things had gotten so bad that I was about to do the most damn fool thing I could have: take a job teaching sociology in Idaho.  A place where it snows. A place where “hot is defined as 80F.

80F is my normal operating temp.

And then, a friend, who is a DNP, FNP that had a practice and that I showed how to deal with trans stuff in Phoenix, called me up and asked if I would come and build that program I had always dreamed about.

Choice: A desert where I can keep working on trans needs, or go to hell and freeze to death while teaching about my third love?

yeah, no brainer.

So now I am in Southern California.  I am the Director of Trans Services for the largest Federally Qualified Health Center in the United states. Last year, this company helped 260,000+ people through over 3 million visits.  I have a team of mostly trans folk, and my reporting chain is the COO and the CEO.

And I have a clinic dedicated to trans medicine opening next month.

So I like to think I have a few excuses.

But…

Monica wanted me to get back to it.  And, truly, I have developed new insights and forward thinking things and then I have an entire new set of issues and challenges and stuff to talk about.

So I am absolutely coming back to this.

I will likely keep the general format, but you will see more posts about trans folks who have ben murdered or assaulted, covering those events in a style more in keeping with what Monica did.

I will talk more about history and icons and the leaders in our community. 

I won’t be “up tot he minute news” — Pink News, and LGBTQ Nation and Headless Bullies do a hell of a lot better job than I cold in that area.  I am analysis and raw reportage post facto.

But I will more clearly tie events in to the history we have, the challenges we face, and the needs we endure the denials of.  I don’t expect to replace or even come close to what Monica did.  Those are not shoes I can fill.

And I don’t think anyone would want me to, even if I could — it would be a betrayal of who I am.  And for someone who lives by the maxim Know Thyself, I can ill afford that.

Now, the real hard part is the “when”.

The plans for that are tied to the day I am allowed to begin some of my lobbying and governmental affairs work. And that day is November 4th.

I may post a bit before then, but mostly I will be getting used to the way the site works and looking at stuff about it and all that all over again — as well as weaning myself off the FaceBook platform.

And Besides, I haven’t done a recent version of How To Spot a Trans Person in years!  Gotta do that.

Now, to that end, I will be doing something I am going to hate, lol.  I will be reopening the comments section here. I will also be combining several sites together under this rubric.  So there will be some collision, but really, let’s be honest:

A lot of folks haven’t seen me go to town on haters.  TERFs and “gender criticals” (my god that is a laughable term) and so forth have become bold and entitled.

And I have been quiet enough for long enough.

hear that?

I just unsheathed my claws.  Going to get my nail file and titanium coating.

Because the bitch is back, and she is in a mood