Shivering With Antici.......pation

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Yesterday's email brought:

Shelly,

The group has changed somewhat, depending on when you had come last.
Currently, the meetings are strictly business and social, as the
university has taken on the support side through Counseling Services for
students. However, you are more than welcome to attend for informal
support, in terms of meeting others, and we do have some TG members
which could be good contacts for further support. If you are interested,
the Meetings are in Alumni B1 in the MUB Wednesdays at 8pm. You are more
than welcome to attend, and from there, you could decide if you need
more support or if simply being amongst others would be enough support
at this point for you. It was very difficult to balance support and
social aspects for the organization in the past, and we had never been
able to find a happy medium, which is why we no longer focus on support
within the organization, as we now have a professional counselor
mediating the support group, which is safer and better for the
organization and the students.





I'm scared, happy and excited all at once.

Shelley

An Intro

[butchick.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna make this one a little short, simply because I'm not feeling well and want to get back in bed. I'll have a fuller post later, hopefully tomorrow.

I've recently joined this community to try to expand my connections with people in the transgendered community. I am a lesbian who has been out completely for over 4 years now. As of recent, there has been a situation that has made me consider my gender identity a little more closely. I live in Baton Rouge, the "great" capitol city of Louisiana, and without much detail I'm sure everyone knows how little our LGBTQ community is here, especially the T. I have a few close friends, including my partner, who have been helping me through this. One of the hardest things for me in finding a group is that I do not feel as if I am a transexual, nor do I feel as if my gender expression is similar to that of a genderqueer or genderfuck. I simply am a transgender butch lesbian. If it could only be that simple. I am a woman, and I am comfortable and happy with many of the parts of me that are "woman", but I wear men's clothes, do "man" things, and sometimes feel more like a man than a woman.

There's no specific question or request here, just a simple intorduction to who I am.

Now, I'm off to bed, and hopefully to shake this bug I picked up.

Oh, and thanks for having this group available.

Career & Transition

[missmonsterette.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone!
Here is my story in a nutshell.
My SO was recently laid off from work.
I guess that this happened last year after the holidays. They lay her off for a couple of months until they are financially back on their feet.
Well, originally they said that they were going to be calling her in 2-3 months, which would be the end of March or early April. My SO hadn't heard anything so she'd thought she'd ask the boss if she had any estimate on when she could come back. The boss replied that she doesn't have any estimate what-so-ever & thinks it might not be until the summertime.

(Yes, I think that some of this has to do with the fact that my SO finally spoke to them about transitioning. Even though they said that they were okay with it lots of little "problems" have happened since she spoke with them. This leads me to believe it is an "issue" for them & this is why they aren't hiring her back. I am trying to talk the SO into just having a free consult with a lawyer about this. So, we'll see. I won't get into it here because it's long but if you are curious or have any legal input, please let me know.)

Anyway, my SO cannot wait too much longer for them to make up their mind. Unemployment payments will run out in about 4 months from now. She wanted to go back to work at this job because she thought it would be the easiest choice during her transition. They already knew & they claimed to be okay with it. She wishes to be full time by April 1st.
My question is:
How would one handle the interview process & discussion of the transition?
Are you up front with possible employers during the interview or should you tell them after being hired & working for a few weeks?
If anyone has gone through this challenge, I would like to hear your personal experiences & how you handled it. Please feel free to contact me via IM, email or comment here.

Thank you for your input!

x-posted to m2fandpartners, partners_of_tg