TRANSPINAY

Bago ang lahat ... betchay ko naman sanang i-publish ang isang email na itez from Lea! Thank you very much for this, I appreciate it and I was moved by your story. More power .. and yes .. ang Harsh Talaga Ng Reality.

But I know for sure ... you'll be able to get through this!!!

Hi Badinggerzie!

This is the first time that I emailed you or attempted to communicate with you. I know that you are busy and you might not even be able to read this but I am taking my chances.

My name is Lea. You might not believe it, but I have been one of your “silent” avid readers since 2006. I came upon your blog through a friend’s email. It was a forwarded email that I almost marked as spam but your name “Badinggerzie” caught my attention and I read your story about your brother. Then, I googled you and found your blog.

It is so nice to finally see you blogging again. I never thought that you’ll be back. But now that you are, I’m very glad to see you sharing your stories to us again. I know that I share the same feeling of a lot of gays and transgenders out there that enjoy and find inspiration from your blogs.

But I want to take this opportunity to share my story. I’m a thirty-year old pre-op transgender. I’m currently living in Perth, Australia with my life partner, John. He is an Australian and we have been together for almost seven years. By the way, he is also a fan, although, I have to translate each and every entry to him and most of the time I fail to convey the same energy and spirit that you have with your words. I know, it’s the “gay lingo” thing, and coming from you, it’s like magic. I don’t know most of the words anymore but nevertheless I know and seamlessly understand everything.

I decided to go abroad when I was twenty years old. I barely finished my college education. I got an opportunity to work as a performer in Papua New Guinea. I didn’t leave because I wanted to work. I just wanted to escape. My family, especially my father, never accepted me. When he found out that I was gay, he kicked me out of the house. I was first year college, then. So, I had no choice but to work and support myself through college.

Growing up and maturing as a tranny in Manila was not an easy breeze. I had my share of gay bashing, people wouldn’t hire me and I was stereotyped.

On the other hand, it was not also a “nightmarish” experience. The good thing about gay life is being “gay” itself. Finding ways to have fun, to resolve conflict with laughter, and to struggle through problems and hardships with humor. That’s one thing you can’t take away from us. While reading through your blogs, feeling the nostalgia of my past gay life in Manila is a constant thing for me. It always brings out the pain, the laughter and among everything else, all the values and the lessons learned.

Me and John met in the bar where I was working as a band’s lead singer in Papua New Guinea. I was a stranger in a strange country and he was a tourist.

At first, he thought that I was a woman. And so, I pretended to be a woman for weeks. I didn’t know, then, that our relationship would be a lasting one. Also, I knew that he was not from there and that he will soon leave and go back to Australia.

To cut the story short, he fell in love with me, and I fell in love with him. But I don’t like lying very much. I had to tell him the truth. When I told him, he was so angry he slapped me and broke my nose. I cried like a baby, not because of my bloodied nose but because he couldn’t accept me.

The next day, he took the first flight out and went back to Australia.

I hadn’t seen him for six months.

Then, he returned. When I saw him again, I couldn’t believe it, I thought he might just be someone who looks like John. But after my set, he approached me and told me that he had gone through the worst six months of his life, struggling to get over and forget about me. Until he decided to come back to me and tell me he still loves me.

After a few weeks of catching up and testing the waters, our love grew for each other. He asked me to go with him back to Australia.

We haven’t been separated ever since. Five years through the relationship, I thought everything was perfect, that I am living my dream. But I knew deep inside that I was not complete yet. I still have to fulfill my ultimate goal – to undergo a sex change operation.

Then, everything changed that same year preparing for the operation when I received a phone call from my mother. At first, I found it odd, because they never called me, I always call them.

When I answered I received a shocking news. My mother asked me if I remember April. I said yes, she was my girlfriend when I was in high school, when I still wasn’t “out”. She said that April has to go to the states and left someone in our house because she couldn’t carry him with her. I asked who, and my mother said, my son!

I couldn’t believe it. I never knew I had a son. I tried to recall if April and I had sex, and yes, there was this one night, when both of us were intoxicated. We were sixteen, then, about to graduate from high school.

I found out that my son was already fourteen years old and my mother said how he truly resembles the “old” me.

I told John about it and he was bewildered as I was.

At first, meeting my son was never even an option until John convinced me to go back there to the Philippines and meet him. After all, he was my son.

So, for the first time, me and John went to the Philippines. For the first time in so many years, I met with my family. My father still had that same look he had on me. Although, we have grown older and more mature, I sensed that the abhorring feeling was still there. I couldn’t do anything about it.

Then, I saw my son. I didn’t believe in “lukso ng dugo” until then.

He looked up at me with a puzzled face and asked me if I was his father. I said yes. I expected that he would run away and hide in his room or something. But he didn’t. Instead, he embraced me.

The whole day, we were just talking. April did a good job raising him to be a smart and open-minded boy. Apparently, April didn’t keep me hidden in the closet and my son accepted and understood my situation even before he reached puberty.

It has been a long and arduous process, until I got the chance to talk to April and ask her if I could take our son back to Perth. She agreed, but she said that that was not something permanent. Once, she gets settled in the states, she has to get her son back.

I agreed.

So, as of this writing, it has been two years already since I took my son here in Perth. He went to school here, had his friends. We were a family.

Everything was so perfect until almost three months ago when April finally decided to take our son with her in the states.

I wouldn’t want to give him up but there’s nothing I can do. I had no legal ownership of some sort over my son.

I never felt so sad and depressed all my life since my son left. I have been trying to fill in the void that he left in my life but to no avail. I’m just thankful that John is here to console me.

I just don’t understand how unfair life is. It would give you something bad, then something good, and then take it all away again until you’re back to your empty self.

Oh well! As you put it … “Ang Harsh talaga ng reality!!!”

But nevertheless, life must go on. And life will go on for me. I might or might not meet my son again, but I hope that he knows that I love him. We are still exchanging emails up to this point.

This year, I am already scheduled to undergo my sex change operation. We decided to go back to the Philippines for me to recuperate. Wish me luck!

And if you got to this part without getting bored, I thank you for the time. You might not know me personally but as I have mentioned, you have been a big part of my life here in Australia.

Keep it up and good luck!

PS. If you want to have an aussie boyfriend, just tell me, I can hook you up with a lot of nice, young aussie lads here.