For those of you who have been wondering with some of the links I’ve been posting lately, I’ve set up another blog over on Livejournal.  This new blog is about the filmmaking, pop culture side of my life.

ashley-lynch.livejournal.com

I am the Gingerbread Girl.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to tell stories. Growing up, I wanted to write novels, mostly because it was clear to see how you wrote one… the words just went on the page and told the story. Then as I got older, I became engrossed in the art of comics, with its ability to transpose my ideas into a more visual medium. Then I noticed that whatever I created, I always had it in the back of my mind that it would become successful enough to be adapted into a movie. I was always obsessed with movies from a young age, and to me, movies were the ultimate form of entertainment. It finally occurred to me, I should just be making movies.

So I set out on my grandiose quest to write a good enough script and make an independent feature that would rocket me towards that dream career. Try as I was never able to make the kinds of contacts and friends that allowed me to develop a film career amongst peers. Instead, my film ambitions always seemed to be more of a pie-in-the-sky annoyance to the people around me. But still I persisted. Screenplay after screenplay, I worked at honing my writing abilities in hopes I would develop a project worth making. One I would actually see through to the end.

Then everything came to a halt. It comes as no great surprise to me that the last screenplay I finished was in 2001, coincidentally the same time that first considered the fact that I might be transgendered. Man proposes and God disposes. The next decade of my life became consumed by issues of gender and all my creative efforts during that time period seemed to wilt before my eyes. I had even given up on the idea of ever making a movie.

In 1999, not long after moving to Vancouver, I found myself overcome with an intense depression. I was overwhelmed with feelings of loneliness and lack of direction. I was literally feeling like an invisible specter wandering the wastelands of a urban stratosphere. Time was continuing to march on by and still I had no prospects for getting my film career off the ground, nor any friends that I would consider true. I was alone. During this time I started a project that tried to capture as many of these feelings as possible, and while I always felt it had a strong start, every attempt I made always collapsed about half way through under the weight of the plot. Indeed, it seemed everything I did to try and fix the story only made it worse. So I signed off on it as a failed effort and filed it away.

Fast forward to 2009. I am depressed again, and I’m still no closer to having the film career I’ve almost given up on. I’m also acutely aware that the film industry is a young game. At 34, I’m practically over the hill. Common sense says I should just give up on this particular pipe dream. But I can’t. It’s what I love. So again, I picked up my screenplay from 1999. I asked of myself, if there was one story I would like to be able to tell, what would it be? It is this one. More than anything I’ve written, it is filled with heart and meaning. It is now finished, after ten long years. I almost seems impossible that it’s finished, but it is. Not only that, but I think it’s good too.

Now it feels like it’s all or nothing. My one last shot at actually making my movie. Time to either shine bright or go down in flames.

I am Gingerbread Girl Productions. This is my movie.

Ashley

I am depressed.

I sit here at the end of another completely unproductive day of being unable to get up off my couch, and unable to find the desire to do anything. I’m lacking motivation, passion and drive. In short, I simply no longer care. I don’t want to be in this place, I really don’t, and every single thing I try to do to get myself out of this pit of despair simply doesn’t work. In fact, I don’t even really have the energy to write this blog entry, sad as it is.

Sometimes I can’t help but feel that my life is just one big false start. I wasted my energetic days because I never felt I had a life worth living. And now that I am the person worthy of living that life, I feel like I’m bogged down by all the baggage of my past life, and the added hinderance of having a new one. It’s a bit like trying to run a three legged race where the person you’re tied to is dead.

And to be honest (yes, this is the poor me segment of the post), after all the shit I’ve been through in the last couple years, and now to be facing job loss, homelessness and potential need to declare bankruptcy…. Well shit, it just makes me tired all over. I’ve literally exhausted my mental resources and no longer have the capacity to move forward. I feel a bit like Carlito in this moment. “Just lay down. Lay down.”

I’ve had to come to the unpleasant conclusion that medication is in order. I simply can’t will myself out of this one. I know, I’ve tried. And as much as I despise the pharmacological answer and our over-medicated society, I’m at a point where it’s do or die. I’m out of options. And I feel weak and pathetic for it. People tell me that it’s far from that. That this is the smart choice. That to not take the medication would be weak, and maybe they’re right. But I’ve had such an aversion to this crutch, that to now have to take it, it feels like I’m letting an important part of me die. I suppose that’s better than letting all of me die, which is what things feel like currently.

I just pray that I can get things back on track, because I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.

Ashley

Let’s talk about discrimination. But not the obvious discrimination. Not the tranny hating discrimination, or even the fags belong in hell discrimination. I’m talking about a more subtle and deadly discrimination.

In consulting with a lawyer awhile ago, he told me that most people discriminated smartly now. Few people will be stupid enough to do something like fire you for being gay, or trans. Instead, they’ll come up with other, less measurable reasons for it. The wife wants sole custody of the children not because her husband is trans, but because of this, this, this and this…. even if the real reason is because her husband is trans.  Starting to get the picture?

But even less blatant than this is another kind of discrimination, and that’s the kind that is indirectly a result of your minority status. In fact, it’s so indirect that people don’t even know they are doing it. We all discriminate in various subtle ways. We don’t want to believe that we do, but we do it. Most of us are good people and we try not to let those discriminatory thoughts affect our lives or, worse yet, affect the lives of others. But as part of human nature, we like to categorize and separate things off. There’s even a Sesame Street bit about it. “One of these things is not like the other… one of these things doesn’t belong…” So being trans is like walking around with a big, red flag on your head. It’s that triangle in a box full of circles. It’s being painted with a scarlet letter T. Even if someone isn’t a discriminating person, in fact they are even in total support of your transgenderism, there’s no getting around the fact that you’re constantly sticking out them as the odd one out and there’s this human nature need to segregate you off.

Don’t believe me? Watch as this manifests itself in many different ways with people you know depending on the dynamic of your relationship: condescension, passive aggression, degradation, pettiness, lying, backstabbing, dismissal, and many other negative reactions. These are things that occur naturally (unfortunately) in any relationship dynamic, but as visible minority, you’ll find that people don’t need a reason to marginalize you and try to force you out… they just need an excuse.

Now this isn’t a specific phenomenon to being trans. I’m sure people of visible minority ethnicities would say “well duh, tell me something I don’t know” and depending on your surroundings, people may encounter it in more or less intense ways.

So what’s the final answer here? Is it just that people suck? I hope not. I think it just means that you have to watch your back twice as hard and know what’s going on in the background. Keep your bases loaded at all times because if you lapse for a moment, someone will knock you off just because they can.

Ashley

The world is a beautiful place.

I’ve been trying to figure out what is intrinsically different about the world for me now that I’m on the other side of surgery. After much soul searching, I’ve come to decide that it is the absence of shame.

Before there was always this fear that someone was going to stop me and say “hey, why is there a bulge in your pants?” or ask me to prove that I wasn’t a man. I remember a scene in Crocodile Dundee where the main character just outright grabs at a crossdresser’s crotch and announces with the innocence of a boy that she was indeed a man. The joke in the fish out of water story was supposed to be that the Aussie outbacker had never encountered crossdressers where he was, but that the streets of Manhattan were a very different place. In the Crying Game and so many other movies, there is the big reveal of the trans girl as a deceiver, allowing for either shock or laughs the fact that she has unveiled her penis on an unsuspecting target.

Indeed, I always felt like the dirty little secret inside my pants was exactly that, and maybe even worse, maybe even a jumping off point for violence.

So now that it’s gone, I feel incredible relief, like I’m no longer living a lie and asserting from the rooftops that I’m something that can be disputed by anyone with the balls to demand proof. I can finally wear a bathing suit in public. I can wear any piece of clothing without being paranoid about people seeing my “package”. I don’t have to constantly shift and adjust to try to contain said “package.” For something that in some ways has made my life more complicated, it has equally made it less so.

That package proved to be deadly for Angie Zapata. She was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher last year when a guy found out she had a penis still. The accused is currently going to be the first person in Colorado to be tried under hate crimes as a result of gender identity violence.

When I came across an entry on Facebook about Angie, I was struck at how passable she was. Maybe that was her great crime, she looked TOO female. To be honest, it scared the shit out of me. It’s hard not to look at someone as passable as her and question “if she got killed for being trans, then is it only a matter of time for me?” How long is it before I just run into the wrong person at the wrong time? So far I’ve been lucky and I try to create a supportive environment around myself. I wonder if it’s like a game of Russian roulette that eventually the odds say you will lose.

The world is a scary place.

Ashley

I am the Gingerbread Girl and here I lay here wondering why.

Wondering why I’m even here.

My lingering pain in a Demerol haze demands to know why I couldn’t just have been born right.

Looking at the thing makes me wonder if life was really that hard before.

And then she realizes through the fog of pain medication and post-op disorientation, “Fuck, I just made my life more complicated, didn’t I?”

She names it “BrundleSnatch” because it looks like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Red, pulsing, swollen, gooey, and covered in prickly, coarse hairs.

The other night I had a dream that I woke up laying on an escalator that was coasting down. When I got to the bottom, two poorly passing transsexuals were there to escort me back into The Matrix where the hospital was. I had apparently escaped.

I’m whiny, grumpy and belligerent towards everyone that comes into my little world. I will tear it all down with me.

I will bemoan the fact that my newfound investment requires me to stick things uncomfortably into myself 4 times a day. The concept of rest becomes an illusion.

This was what I wanted?

Thank God for hope.

Ashley

I am the Gingerbread Girl. I am made of untold sweetness, decadent spices, and mysterious ingredients that will be taken to the grave.

After years of trial and error, the Gingerbread Girl feels complete. This is the recipe that will win the hearts and minds of those who try it. This is the one that will live on and on, defying expectations and odds along the way. This is the one that after only a moment, people find themselves compelled to think “this is just the way Gingerbread Girl is supposed to be. Don’t change a thing.”

This level of fulfillment comes at a great price including sacrificing incredible amounts of comfort, well-being and certainty. I’ve had to pass myself off into the hands of a man who has been raised to level of God by his clients and asked him to give me the one thing I need to complete the package that is Ashley. Anyone who’s contemplated this journey knows the severity of what it means. Anyone who’s completed this journey knows the severity of how it feels.

The package of Ashley is really not a package at all, but an expression of my inner most thoughts and feelings. A true expression of my soul. The embodiment of the real me. As such, the creation of Ashley will never be complete, as will no person on this planet. But the creation of Ashley from the point of misconception to where she can be that normal adult woman living her life, a notion that at one point was confined to fantasy, is now a reality.

Now it’s time to let the Gingerbread Girl go off into the great unknowns of the world. Of course it would seem the Gingerbread Girl was always there.

Ashley

Things are quiet. Too quiet.

I’m in Montreal as I write this. Day two. Last night was spent at a lovely B&B in the company of a very lovely French couple. All in all a very warm welcome to a lovely city. This is my first time in Montreal, it almost has the feeling of being in a foreign country. There’s a lot of people who do not speak English and it’s hard know exactly what some of the stores are selling. If it weren’t for the familiar logo, I wouldn’t know that that the Pharmaprix here is really Shoppers Drug Mart. Tonight I’m staying at the convalescence home where I’ll be spending much of my time after the surgery. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the hospital and then on Monday is the surgery.

And yet today is just a pleasant and relaxing day.

Why am I not nervous about this? There’s another girl here with me and every once in awhile she starts to freak out a little. It’s pissing her off that I’m not freaking out. I don’t know, I just can’t freak out about it. I’ve rarely felt so calm, centered and certain in all my life. That’s all well and good, but this is major surgery we’re talking about. Where are the butterflies? Where is the anxiety? Where is the concern? The worry? I really don’t know. Maybe it’s because I went through a mini-freak out a month ago. Maybe it’s because this was in my plan all along and now here I am on the timeline I already made for myself. This other girl, she’s been waiting 10 years for this moment to arrive, so I’m sure she has a bit of a feeling of waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under us.

We were discussing why it feels off and we decided that it’s because from the moment you land in Montreal you are taken care of. A limo came to pick us up at the airport. We were taken to a nice B&B that was paid for. We were escorted over to the care facility, and so forth and so forth…. I remind myself that people who don’t have MSP pay for their surgery are shelling out close to $20,000 for what we’re getting. So the expectation from the client’s end is that we be treated like queens. What’s disturbing about it though is that we’ve had none of this handed to us. This whole process takes a lot of work and determination. Transition often seems like you’re driving a rusted out Volkswagen with no clutch or tires, just grinding stripped gears and metal rims on pavement determined that you are going to limp this fucker over the finish line no matter what. And after years of pushing against grain with finish line in sight, suddenly a limo pulls up and says “hop in, it’s my job to take you the rest of the way.” There’s an overwhelming feeling of wanting to say “no thanks, I’ll do it myself.” Now really there’s only so much I can do myself, and there reaches a point where you have to say “I’ve done my job all the way up to here and now it’s time to let the surgeon do his job.” But it feels really strange to have to do all that hard driving for so long and suddenly find yourself in the lap of luxury for the finality of it. It all makes sense from a logical point of view, but it doesn’t make it feel any less awkward when you’re here.

I’d like to say that I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling like a new woman, but in reality I’m going to wake up tomorrow feeling like shit… even if it is happy shit.

Ashley

Sometime ago I remember writing that I really didn’t subscribe to the grandiose claim that many girls do in saying that testosterone is poison.

I’m here to say testosterone IS poison.

I’ve been off my hormones for 2 ½ weeks now and it’s driving me absolutely insane. To be honest, I don’t know how guys even function in their day to day life. It’s distracting and overpowering in all the worst ways. I suppose it’s one thing to be living with it on a day to day basis, after all I survived with it in my system for 32 years. But it’s another entirely to cut it off for 2 years and then open the floodgates to have it all pour back in suddenly. I’m feeling angry, agitated and horny all at once. I told someone the other day that I wanted to punch a hole in the wall and then fuck it.

There are a few reassuring aspects of this whole thing. First I’m very reassured that I only have to put up with the poisonous little fuckers for about another week. Even more reassuring is how unnatural and wrong this feels. Throughout this whole process the hormonal changes have been so gradual that I haven’t really felt overwhelmed by them, but the rapid release action of the testosterone into my body makes it painfully apparent… THIS IS NOT ME. It really adds justification to my whole journey, an exclamation point on the truth that indeed, yes, this was the right thing to do.

I’ve heard girls talk about testosterone as poison before and I always brushed it off as a simplistic answer. But really, these two little testes are responsible for many of the hardships in my life. Without them I never would have to overcome the obstacles I’m facing today. I would even be better off if I had been born with no testicles but still had a penis. That’s correctable. But my voice, hair thinning, facial hair, physical build… all the things that make my life more difficult, are a direct result of that horrible hormone produced by those horrible reproductive organs.

There will be no love loss seeing them removed entirely. Like the extraction of cancer from the body, it needs to be removed as quickly as possible with extreme prejudice.

Ashley

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick……..

The hour is quickly approaching. In just a few short weeks on March 9^th, I will be undertaking that final step in my transition as I get wheeled into a Montreal operating room. It’s all been such a whirlwind, I can hardly comprehend what’s happening.

A few weeks ago, I finally got word that MSP had approved my surgery had been approved. A quick contact with the clinic later and they offered me a March 9^th date, only a mere 6 weeks away. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I quickly got to work trying to make proper arrangements to have this all happen in time. The pieces are coming together and I’m completely on track.

There’s a strange sensation that takes over at this point. Since then the pit of my stomach has become a cavernous empty hole and to be frank I find it difficult to eat. The second is a little more amusing. My balls are aching like crazy. It’s almost like they know they’re going away and like some instinctual sense of self-preservation, they’re crying out in protest. But it falls on deaf ears.

Emotionally though, it’s nothing you can prepare for. From the outside perspective I’m sure everyone is assuming my emotions are that of excitement and relief… and there certainly is that. But even more so, there’s feelings of overwhelming anxiety, nervousness, fear, and a whole slew of others. It makes sleeping difficult. Now I would expect this to be natural. It is a major surgery after all with all the inherent potential complications. But there’s one omnipresent emotion that almost no transgirl will admit to as they enter this stage… doubt.

It’s not something you want key people to know you are feeling as you enter into something that you’ve fought tooth and nail to get. Having jumped through endless flaming hoops to prove without a shadow of a doubt that this is who you are and what you need, and then to stand at the forefront of the eve and go “maybe?” It just doesn’t make much sense. I can only chalk it up to fear. Fear of both surgery and what’s to come. It’s a huge unknown. It’s also very much a point of no return. I could stop hormones right now, cut my hair, change my name again and turn my back on the last 2 years of my life. Of course I know without question that it would be the single worst mistake I could ever make and I’d give myself 12 months before I killed myself under those conditions. But still, the fact remains that I COULD do that, and the emotional point of no return is less concrete than the extremely physical one I’m about to endure.

Then there’s the feeling of “completion” which is almost ludcrious but hard to ignore. It’s almost as if reaching this point adds legitimacy to everything I’ve been doing over the last 2 years. The exclamation point on an assertion that’s been shouted from the rooftops endlessly. But in the end, it will ultimately become a silent affirmation. I won’t look different to people. They won’t suddenly see me as female unless I happen to be naked. It feels like a badge of validation that as it is handed to me comes with the message “you’re a woman now. Shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone.” My secret to share only with those close to me.

In the end it’s about resolution. It’s consolidation of my body with who I am. I’m told by so many people who know me that they really can’t see me ever being a boy. It’s not because of how I look or act, but just the woman I am at my core that they’ve gotten to know. I am a woman and it’s cruel to think of forcing any woman to spend their life in such a disparaging situation. It’s time to fix that.

Ashley