Hello Everyone! I'm blogging here because I was concerned that the Comments for my Deal or No Deal Story was getting a little off tropic but I decided that I did have more to say.

As they say first some ground rules okay? Please be nice and considerate this is just my opinion and most of us here have experienced at least discomfort from being uneasy in our own skins!

I have wrestled with and fought with myself nearly my whole life over the difference over how I feel and how people react to me based on my appearence. It is only in the last year that with the help of the wonderful supportive woman who is my wife that I've been able to face some unpleasant truths.

How I feel won't go away, and ignoring those feelings just makes everything worse. Literally stumbling over the community has helped me give terms and a vocabulary that I had lacked.

I am still exploring just exactly what I may be and the reading I do here at BCTS and other helpful sites aid me in that. My own writings which started in Sept of '06 with "A Princess's Wishes: A Halloween Fairy Tale" is another part of that exploration. I do love a good story but for me it should have some sort of other message. Themes of Friendship, love, compassion and hope are all part of what I write about.

Deal or No Deal came about after reading some of Stardust contest entries concerning Earth getting visited by Space Traders and watching Howie's Deal or No Deal on NBC. In the Game this Shadowed figure tries to convince you to sell your case for a lesser amount. The not-knowing what may be in your case and the Banker in the Shadows creates a lot of suspense. For the contestants this is a life changing event and yes some leave with little more from the game than pocket change.

That got me thinking about what a advance civilization could offer us here in the community.The most obvious is of course the chance to be fully functional of gender of our choice. But what would be the cost?

Some here are in a lot of pain from the heartache of fighting our own bodies and tying ourselves up in painful knots. Others have found ways of dealing with that pain though many different ways.

The journey each of us makes in our discovery of ourselves are very different from each other. For some it is the strength of character and lessons learned on that journey that lets them thrive and survive while others become overwhelmed by it and only desires for it to end.

The Personality Death issue has caused quiet a stink here but for some it is a ignoble surrendering of the very things that makes us unique in the universe. For others it is an way of achieving that impossible dream and ending the pain.

I am not the only author to address this point in the contest. Aardvark's excellent entry show a man who although he eventually accepts her fate, she does not lose the things that made her unique. Scott Ramsey's tale is one where a persons very identity and memory is stolen.

I thank everyone again who commented on my work and humbly ask that we all help each other along our journeys.
Hugs!
grover