Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the web.

I'll begin by telling you a little about myself.

I am a graduate student at a major university in Texas and am currently teaching an introductory course in Public Speaking.

I consider myself transgender, as you can tell from the title of this blog, but I know that's ambiguous for a lot of people so I'll expand a little. I am a crossdresser and have known about my desire to dress as a woman since I was a young child. I am in the beginning stages of dressing full time as a woman but I do not currently have any plans to pursue surgical options to become I woman.

I have been contemplating starting this blog for a while now and have reached an important milestone in my life so I feel that this is a good time to start.

The milestone is that I will begin teaching dressed as a woman on Monday!

We just recently started the second summer session at the university I teach at and I was very impressed with my students' responses during a diversity activity we did in class. Their openness and willingness to consider the challenges faced by people different than they are moved me to share my transgender identity with them. I had included transgender as a aspect of diversity that is not normally discussed and said that the reason I chose to include transgender is that I am transgender myself. I went on to say that professors often discuss diversity with their students and encourage them to be accepting of people different from them but are often reluctant to share their on diversity with their students.

I decided to go a little bit further with my students in class today. I discussed the fact that the examples used in the activity were hypothetical and then asked them how they would feel if it was more real, if, for example, I came to class in a dress. A few students said that it wouldn't bother them because I had already shared that with them and that as young people, they tended to be more accepting of difference. One student said that she would appreciate the experience and the opportunity to interact with someone who is different from her and another student said that college is a place to learn, not to judge people.

I was even more impressed with my students responses and attitudes today and it further cemented my decision to begin dressing the way I want when I teach.

So we'll see how it goes.

The point of this blog is to give me a place to record my thoughts and experiences as I begin this new phase in my academic career. I don't know if this will interest anyone else but for those of you who do stumble across this blog, I hope you find it informative and entertaining!