My sister Arlene has an interesting post on her trixiestar.com/news blog. She mentions how it was at a time when one could thumb a ride and if the VW bus that stopped had a peace symbol on its side, you had found some people that were willing to help with not just the ride, but food and shelter as well. I don’t know that time, but it sounds wonderful. I do know that if I try to thumb a ride today, there is a good chance that I will wake up dead. The hippies that she references were a real community and they were willing to help each other and others as well, without thinking, “what’s in it for me?”

I wish the Trans community was like the hippies of the past. Now I know that not all Trans people are the same and there are those who are willing to help others in the community. However, if the truth be known, the ones willing to really help are far and few between. It is estimated by Lynn Conway (I hate dropping icon names) that there are 30.000 to 40.000 post-op trans-women in the US, just the US, not the world. There are probably as many post-op trans-men. So just in the US we probably have close to 80.000 post-op transsexuals. Where in the hell are they? Evidently they must be in hiding as I only know of a few. I would think with that many post-ops that there would be more help available, real help not those useless support groups.

I recently saw first hand the quality of support from the Trans community. A while back I did a very stupid thing, well actually two things. The first was locking my keys inside of my car. The second was worst; I panicked and smashed the window to get back in my car. Now I am unemployed. I help clean flats a few times a month to earn enough to keep the electrics turn on and pay a few other expenses like petrol for the car. I am living at, no, below what is considered poverty level in the states. So I resorted to begging. I put up a page so I could accept donations and I asked for one dollar, just one little dollar. I was very surprised when not one member of the Trans community, either here on 360 or from my local support group, sent me a dollar. However, my dear sister Arlene wasn’t the least bit surprised. Yes, I know that I was begging and I was not proud to do it.

If I ever hit the lottery, I think I will buy an old VW bus. I think I will paint a peace symbol on its sides and start traveling the US looking for trans-persons just like me and my sister Arlene. I think I will ask my dear sister Arlene to travel with me. We will bring back the times she mentions in her post. We will really help those fellow trans-persons struggling to make a go of it. We will make sure that they don’t have to put up living as a woman with a beard, or a male face that is impossible to hide. Look for us; it will happen one day if I find a way.