I thought I would blog a bit tonight. I’m in Atlanta right now and will be here until Wednesday.

I spoke with my brother about his continued use of “He” and “Him” on Tuesday. Five years ago he told me that I would always be a man no matter what I did to myself. I was really nervous about talking with him because I really, really want a better relationship with him and after 10 years the time had come for him to come to terms with my transition or I needed to move further away from him. So, going into the discussion was really nerve-wracking for me. Interestingly, his immediate reaction was completely opposite to his reaction 5 years ago. He immediately apologized for getting the pronouns wrong, said that he loved me and that after more than a decade, he needed to get on board with everything. He was also able to articulate his feelings well. He said that it had felt as if he had lost his brother – that the only “male” influence in his life had abandoned him. The discussion went better than I hoped… and by the end of the talk he choked up and I had shed a few tears too.

On Wednesday, I was in Austin at a the request of the City of Houston. I was there to talk about working with the TG community as a service provider. Since my great aunt was on the way to Austin, I kidnapped my grandmother so that she could have a night with her big sister.

My great aunt (L) and my grandmother:

The hotel the City put me up in was amazing. It was the most plush hotel that I had ever stayed in. I kept expecting to see a movie star somewhere. My room had to have cost several hundred a night.

This is after walking down the entryway hall into the living room.

This is the bedroom:

The topic I spoke on was “Working with diverse populations.” I had some of the Remembrance booklets with me. By the time I had finished my presentation, more than a few people had started to weep openly. Another speaker tore me up. Her name is Deana Grey. She is an HIV+ advocate and service provider. Her opening line was “You know… you people suck.” While she was talking about being a poz person AND service provider – how hard it was to work alongside others who did what they do because its just a job – or worse… that they talk about clients – like herself – after the client leaves… That hey forget that she is poz too and that she was just like the clients they are downing at one time. By the end of he talk, I wanted to ball like a baby. I’ve been around (non-HACS) service providers who talk crap about people like me – they forget or don’t know I’m TG. I get to see what these people who are supposed to be caring for TG clients really think – and it hurts.

I have so much pain around this subject… and Deana put it all into words for me – in front of these providers. While she was coming from the HIV perspective, her feelings were exactly parallel to mine.

I drove back to Houston on Thursday morning and went straight to work. And – OMG – I had so much work to do. Afterwards, I went to the Thursday Night Social. To those who say that the GLBT Community Center isn’t that dirty… This is a pack of doughnuts Georges cleaned out of the refrigerator:

I woke up Friday morning and raced to work to complete my paperwork for the month. I ran out to Target to pick up supplies for the TG World AIDS Day event at the HACS TG Clinic and made it to the clinic just before the event started.

One of the things that we were doing was making small art pieces to be later used in a collage – a sort of TG AIDS quilt.

Saturday, Carolyn and I flew out to Atlanta. so far, I’m not too impressed. Atlanta is a trashy city – literally. In comparison, Houston is spick and span. It also has a huge… really, really huge homeless population.

It is funny to watch people’s reaction to the question, “Do you know of a restaurant that has any vegetarian food?” Today, Carolyn and I wound up at the Hard Rock Cafe:

Today, there was an informal gathering of all the TG programs at the conference. This group represents TG programs from San Francisco, San Diego, Puerto Rico and Houston: