It's Me, Esme

One of the big questions that face many a transgender person, is their name. And this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, thanks to my previous post.

I have never, ever, picked a name for myself other than the one I was given at birth. I will have dalliances with names, but soon flit to the next shiny thing.

As should be patently obvious, "Kaylee" is not my real name, nor is it anywhere close to my birth name. I picked it because of a mood at the time six years ago when I made this page, and I've kept it for this, and it fits here, but it's still not "me". I don't think I would ever introduce myself in public as Kaylee, nor would I ever legally change my name to it. Or I might. Hence my issue. Well, hence today's issue. I have many issues. I have whole trade paperbacks...

The difficult part is, I do not have a name that easily flips to a more feminine gender, like a James, or a Pat, or a Michael, etc etc etc.

And much like my gender, my name was also something I didn't like when I was younger, and through my teens, for wholly different reasons. But once I learned what the name meant, I realised I had grown into the meaning, and the name genuinely suits me, I feel.

I also never knew what my parents might have named me if I had been born a girl, so I don't even have that option.

There IS a variant on my name that some people have used for me, but...I absolutely hate it. Well, HATE is a strong word. I would maybe not mind it so much if there weren't other things it was associated with I didn't care for.

So I sit here wondering who I am, while also knowing who I am, while still not knowing who I am! And that all actually makes sense to me.

So many questions.

I've been sitting around a lot lately questioning myself that if - and it remains a big if! - if I did transition, what would my name be? And I have a few options in my head, but there's always that doubtful part of me that says nono, those are just your latest obsessions, give it a week and something new will catch your eye.

Hey peeps! It's been surprisingly little time since my last post, but thought I'd write a little thing while the holidays are going on as a little gift.

Speaking of gift, I got a little something in the mail from my best friend, a little DVD for a movie called "Sam".

In my otherlife, I do movie reviews, but this is one I probably can't get too into over there, as it might stick out. I can always say hey, these are my reviews, I review what I want, you're not the boss of me! but to play it safe, I'll let my Kaylee side talk about it instead.

Which gives you a clue what the main idea of this movie is all about, probably, but let me give ya a bit of the plot anyways.

Sam is your typical male chauvinist pig. He's not the brightest crayon in the box, he's all about hitting that at the bar, moving on from girl to girl to girl. One night he stumbles into the wrong little shop, mouths off about chicks, and wakes up the next day as a woman himself.

If you're familiar with TG fiction, this isn't really new ground, and the movie doesn't really do anything new or creative with the story, but it does what it does very well.

They actually manage to AVOID some of the common tropes, and they get past the whole 'grope at the wrong body' stuff pretty quickly, to get back to the plot.

Sam (Nice to have a gender neutral name, huh? I wish I had that problem.) rushes to his best friend, who naturally doesn't believe the strange girl saying strange, unbelievable things.

The rest of the movie revolves around Sam adjusting to his new situation, trying to get Doc to believe him, and learn a little something about people, women, and himself.

The movie is REALLY fun, with a really fun sense of humor. It rarely takes itself too seriously, unless it has to for the plot. The moments when it needs to be serious land all the better because they've made you care about these people.

Natalie Knepp, playing the female version of Sam is so great. She's charming, and sweet, and that even shines through when she's still playing Sam at his Sammiest. He may be a pig, but he's not without his charms, and this good person underneath all the macho bravado, the toxic masculinity, shines through.

And she also does a spot on job of a woman playing a guy as a woman. She changes the way she moves, acts, sits, speaks, eats, everything. I could write up an entire post just on the arc of how Sam's character changes by just the things he does throughout the movie. A lot of thought, work, and research must have gone into all that.

The movie isn't perfect though, and there are some frustrating moments. The biggest one is that I don't fully buy into Sam's change in personality. I think we needed to spend more time with Male!Sam, get to know him, and see that while he's a dude's dude, that we see he could be this person she eventually becomes. While she does go through some training to be more female, and that helps, it doesn't really explain why that affects how she behaves. There's a LATER scene, once Sam is treating people better, that she tries to partake in a football game with the guys, and the way she is treated is horrible, and humiliating, and THAT really needed to be before the personality change, and would have more easily paved the way for the changes she goes through. As it is, too much of that change happens when we're not watching, and it just doesn't feel truly earned.

Second of all, the filmmaking needed to be a bit more nuanced. The editing between scenes just made me cringe. The movie loves to fade to black then fade back in to the next scene. It makes it feel like a made for tv movie with the commercial breaks clearly visible. Is that somehow part of the origins of the movie, and that would explain why it's like that? There's also a few awkward bits of dialogue, and some dodgy science (But we're not hear for science, and again, Sam's not that bright at times, so I can roll with that), which makes me scrunch up my nose.

Finally, the ending really works. It's not something that's often seen in commercial TG fiction, and I am a sucker for this sort of finale.

I really enjoyed my time with "Sam", and if you like tg body swap/gender change movies, you should check it out! It's not the greatest, most original, mind blowing movie ever, but definitely a good time that really touched me at times.

Hello interwebs!

It's been awhile since your lovely lady of laziness has had something to say. I'm still pondering what balance I want to strike here, what other things to talk about...I mean, there's only so many hours in a day you can talk TG.

I didn't want to post anything on April Fools', since that could go horribly wrong, and then just never got around to anything of import or interest.

But there is a two part topic I can hit up for now, writing. Let me start off with other people writing, and get back to me later.

One of the things that really got me into TG, or through the doldrums back in the day, was Fictionmania. I imagine most folks in the land of transgender interests have heard of Fictionmania, and probably once frequented the site.

I used to love it. I used to go there all the time. I loved a lot of the stories that were posted, and the captioned images, and it was a nice place to visit to get new ideas, and stuff like that.

But somewhere along the way...something changed. There have always been many sides of TG. As I've said, I'm more into the fantasy elements of it all. Some people like the crossdressing side of things. Some people like scifi over magic. FM *used* to cover ALL bases, in a pretty equal measure, but definitely leaning towards the fantastical element. Series like Spells 'R' Us, the Medallion of Zulo, etc.

A few years ago though, I really began noticing most of the stories there became more and more about sissification and dom/sub pairings. Now, that's all well and good for what it is, and if you like that, as I keep saying, hey that's fine! But it just became, and I recognize the irony of saying this, so damned dominant on the site. There was still the occasional posting of stuff more to my tastes, but it became so few, so far between...I don't think I've even been by the site in the past year or two, and only then to peek around the corner.

My final straw was coming across a story that was literally nothing more than someone's brief autobiography about their own sissification. There was some other element that I can't really recall after all these years, and I don't want to say the wrong thing. I felt uncomfortable even looking at the synopsis, and realized the entire page of new submissions was pretty damned similar, so I started to lessen my visits, and eventually stopped almost entirely.

It was such a shame to see that shift happen, and in some ways, it's kinda indicative of the genre in general. Every time I try and slip into a new TG community, invariably the first question is if I'm dominant or submissive...and THAT is a post for another day.

Things change, things shift, and people move on. If it fills a niche that people want, and clearly it does if it's become such a HUGE part of things, I can't really complain too much. Well, I *can* but if that's the way the wind has shifted...sigh. Makes me long for the older days of 2001. It is just such a bummer to have the thing shift so far from what I, personally would like to see, but it seems I am in the minority.

I know there are still TG fantasy/scifi/etc writers out there, but that side of things has really become increasingly difficult to find, and the effort just isn't as worth it anymore. I'd love to hear suggestions of a more varied, well maintained source for TG fiction.

K
And look, new userpic!

And sigh, I need to set aside my lazybones and make some more userpics.

K

Hello! :D

So yeah, first thing you should do is look at my profile to get an idea of just what you might be in for if you start reading these rambling thoughts of mine. But here's the cliff notes.

I'm a person interested in transgender things, and yes, that means I feel like I'm often in the wrong body. I've accepted my lot in life, but my desires remain. Sometimes this gets me down, and I need a place to whine and mope.

But I also love other things, and will babble about those too from time to time. TG is not the end all, be all of my life, but I really needed a space where that corner of my life could be gotten into without incident.

I'm friendly, usually, and welcome anyone with an open mind to hang out and chat and enjoy a cup of joe. Or cocoa, or whatever is your poison.

And yes, being open about this kinda thing, even if 'open' is hiding behind my online, female persona, is a daunting thing, but it needs to be done.

K