Answers part 2

Okay, I have tried repeatedly to get all the answers in there – I wrote it in word, and it looks like it’s pasted into the edit window, I hit save, and the end disappears.  So, here’s questions 4 & 5 with answers, cause I’m tired of messing with that entry.

4) For how long have you kept your eye on trans-issues, and what has changed over the years? What would someone my age never imagine, say, 27 years ago… I have a clinic two towns over, my therapist doesn’t think I’m schizo, etc. But I can’t imagine… I don’t know. How a young trans would have felt, in the sixties,the seventies… especially one who wasn’t "out" yet.
Oh, jeez, I guess I’ve been watching trans things since I was about 16 or 17, and that was around 1970 or so.  Seriously, there was no internet, no email, no books, just an occasional article in a national magazine – the first one I ever saw was about some artist who was mtf, they didn’t  use those terms back then.  That was when I first realize there were others like me and OMG there were doctors who could do something about it. 
I went to college in Houston (not U of H) from ’72 thru ’81.  The gay community wasn’t far away from campus, and there were lots of stories of folks being found dead in fields out of town, shot.  Trans-folk, usually hung out in gay bars, got picked up by someone who thought they were really a chick, and just shot them when they weren’t.  Folks got beat up.  Stories on the national news of trans folk getting murdered.  Back then, being gay was life threatening, being trans was a perversion on top of that, well beyond.  The gay guys were flamboyant, promiscuous – all this was pre-AIDS as well, mind you. The only trans folk were the she-males in porn magazines. 
Renee Richards came out and wrote a book, that broke a lot of ice. She was a doctor – hey, one could be trans and have a real job and not be forced into porn. 
There was no way to find a therapist experienced in this stuff – the first one I tried was a miserable failure.  After a year and a half, she tried to convince me that surgery was “mutilation” – yes, that’s the word she used exactly.  I quit going.  It took me another 12 years to actually find a real therapist who knew what the f*** she was talking about (thru the internet).
Gender clinics were few and far between, and they themselves came and went as the political/social issues about this were fought over.  Some in the medical community didn’t think their schools/universities/hospitals should even be doing these unproven dangerous surgeries on such unstable patients.  There was no consistent thought about proper treatment, psychologically. 
I have friends through OD who still have this problem – no good, experienced therapist within miles, and it’s too far to take that much time off work.
I had friends in our crowd who came out as gay.  I felt even more repressed, I didn’t want to be gay (didn’t want to have sex with men, that is), and didn’t like that flamboyant, extroverted lifestyle, that wasn’t me, never has been.  Yes, I felt very isolated.  The internet probably saved my life, I guess.

5) What worries you, about youth? We have so many orientations. Pansexuality, genderf*cks, hetero-flexuality. If we’re ignoring something, if we’re forgetting something, please say so. Our music, our fashion… I realize this is vague, and I’m sorry.
Geez, actually, I’m not really that worried about youth. I’m more encouraged, to tell you the truth.  (note the inherent “ageism” in the question, as if only an old person would have a perspective on “youth” that needs asking into…  just kidding, is okay).  And you don’t have to apologize for asking a vague question, really, if I don’t understand, I’ll say so and you can rephrase.  Or if my answer misses the mark, feel free to ask again.
My son and daughter talk about their gay and lesbian friends without caring much. My son has fended off approaches without anger or rancor, and it apparently doesn’t bother him that some in his crowd like him that way.  He does like girls. 
I think kids today take this all a lot more for granted, it’s just part of the environment. Naturally, not all kids feel that way, and I’m sure there are some guys that would love to take a faggot out behind the gym and beat the snot out of him just because.  There are probably guys around who’d like to do that to a black person too.  It takes generations to get these prejudices out of our system, because they are learned, parent to child, and we have to wait for occasionally a child to reject the prejudices they see in their predecessors.
Every generation has its fashion, music.  The one thing that is a concern is the degree of overstimulation – walking with your iPod earbuds in, texting on your blackberry, all at the same time.   The endless apparent need to always be in communications with other people.  It’s habit forming, and I’m not sure it’s a good habit.  Then again, I am introspective by nature, periodically practice meditation and believe it’s a good thing, and that there is wonder in silence, and listening to nature. 
So I guess my complaint is more against modern, materialistic, capitalist society as opposed to some problem in youth itself.  I do have entries where I come across as somewhat of a socialist, and I won’t deny that.  It’s not the same as Communism, which is also not the same as what the Soviet State or Communist China actually have in place.  Socialism has an undeserved bad reputation, IMHO…

I have no problem with anyone anywhere on the gender spectrum as long as: a) their position helps them be a better person, and b) they’re having fun and not hurting anyone else.  A person’s path to enlightenment does not have to be obvious or justified to anyone else, including me.