This was my fourth trip to the Abbey for the Annual LA Gender Center Party and will more than likely be my last appearance. This is because it has reached a point where ‘the gang’ has simply moved on with their lives, having drawn as much as they could from the programs that the center offers.

I suppose my friends were right; they have had it hanging out with women in transition and wish to occupy themselves with strictly ‘civilian’ activity. I invited three of my close friends, all of whom have lived as women for 7+ years and none wished to come down (two of them came last year). I felt much as Calpernia, entering a room of perhaps 30 total strangers whose only commonality is their having been born male.. An example is the topic of conversation between another postop and me who had surgery at about the same time as me. We started comparing post surgical dilation regimens, the aftercare facilities and other now boring subjects. Only two of the women from the group I last attended two years’ ago came to the party: Linda, who had her surgery with Dr. Alter about a year ago and Jeanne, who is a 75 yo retiree who cannot afford surgery.

I did find that a wonderful couple I’ve known for at least three years is leaving Los Angeles and relocating to Belington, Washington at the start of the New Year. Michelle and her spouse Janice have been running the Center for Gender Sanity in Lancaster and will move their workplace transition counseling to the Puget Sound area. Michelle was a pioneer in having transitioned as a fire captain in the Los Angeles Fire Department. We will miss them and their wise council.

So I’m glad you had a fallback position in the open-air area of the Abbey. I would have left earlier myself but for an anticipated extra guest of mine.