Polyamory can be a tricky thing and I often see people get into it for either the wrong reasons or not fully understanding the impact of it.

Polyamory, in its core, is loving more than a single person at any one time. This requires a lot of trust, respect, and communication from all sides. There’s also an added responsibility toward all partners involved.

I especially see young people (i.e. early 20s) abuse the term to get away with sleeping around. There is no love there. It’s just sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you are open to that, but I’d like it if they’d call it for what it is. Either swinging, an open relationship, or similar. You can do some serious harm to a person by not being completely honest about your intentions.

That said, even if you are polyamorous in nature doesn’t mean you always need to have a secondary relationship in your life. Poly people can live out a happily monogamous life.

I’m all for monogamy. I see too many poly people with an elitists attitude condemn it or call it against human nature. (There’s a twist.) I cannot but disagree with that statement. Monogamy can be really fulfilling and not feel like you are “missing out”.

My boyfriend and I revised the parameters of our relationship a bit since that video I made a year ago. We’re still semi-poly but with clearer ‘rules’ and some restrictions. That, and we doubt that either of us will be able to handle a complete secondary relationship. We don’t even have the time for that so it would be a foolish thing to look for right now.

Again, I’m a huge fan of monogamy and feel that it gets a bad rep in large part due to young people rushing into relationships and even getting married before they hit 25. So yeah, statistics will tell you it doesn’t work. But statistics have to be taken into proper context to be fully understood.

As always, communication is key.

On the bright(er) side I will finally be getting my money back. Not from my health insurance but straight from the hospital.

When I was there last week I asked about it yet again and they said I should’ve already gotten the first payment. I showed them that I hadn’t received anything yet (yay for smartphones!) so some phone calls were made.

Apparently it was in fact deposited but on the wrong bank account! The one of the laser clinic no less. They said that they will fix this asap and that after paying for it myself for nearly one and a half years I will finally be getting what I am owed. Huzzah!

I wasn’t happy about this and tried to move it up. This was not possible so I got an appointment with the assistant instead in a few weeks. Still a ways away but at least it isn’t June!

Well… Can’t talk about that without having me there to give a not-so-common perspective, can you? :p

The year started with me still being on a dating frenzy which resulted in meeting the guy that would eventually become my boyfriend. In March we officially got together. He’s awesome and I love him so much. <3 He’s strong, caring, understanding, and very sexy! ;)

In April I got back in touch with my daughter. I’m very happy to have her back in my life. She also gets along with my boyfriend very well which makes me extra happy. We play games, street chalk and watch Doctor Who together.

In August, someone gave me back one of my old cats, heavily pregnant, and we wound up with kittens. Cute, but not really planned. We did eventually decide to keep one of the kittens, sparky, who I think fell into the big bag of catnip when she was very young because she’s extremely active!

Also in August I have been full time for three years and on hormones for a year.

Then in September I got approved for surgery. I saw the surgeon the next month and it seems that my surgery date will be around May 2012. I’m very nervous.

And in December we had wonderful Christmas dinners. Both with friends and with my parents. And the new year’s party we went to was great! So much fun! :)

New year’s even was great too and I had so much fun. My boyfriend and I partied until late into the night and we were so broken the next day!

Of course these are just a few of the things that happened to me last year. There were numerous other notable events, like my hair catching on fire! :p

Now I’m off to make 2012 even better! :)

Warning: Don’t watch if you are squeamish about surgeries or genital talks.

I had a bunch of questions to my surgeon about my upcoming surgery. Some call it SRS (sexual reassignment surgery), or GCS (gender corrective surgery), but I just call it surgery.

I ramble on about stuff at first, the questions (and answers) start at 5:24

[5:56] Question 1: What is the approximate vaginal depth I can reach?
[8:38] Question 2: How soon after surgery can I have vaginal intercourse?
[9:18] Question 3: How soon after surgery can I have anal intercourse?
[10:26] Question 4: Dilating. How often, and when can I stop doing it (especially when sexually active)?
[12:00] Question 5: Will I have a sensitive clitoris?
[13:04] Question 6: Labiaplasty. Done together with vaginoplasty?
[13:54] Question 7: Second (cosmetic) operation cover by insurance?
[15:30] Question 8: How identical will it be to a natal women’s vagina?
[20:54] Question 9: What are my chances of complications? What are they?
[23:46] Question 10: Am I too small statures for a deep vagina? Is my pelvic size an issue?
[24:30] Question 11: My BMI is 18. Which is only a little below normal. Is this an issue? My weight has been stable around 41.5kg.
[26:11] Question 12: Which areas would I still need to get lasered before surgery?

Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance in Amsterdam. The official day is today but it was held yesterday in order to get noticed as much as possible. Which is still needed. A big part of this day is remembering the dead but it’s also to make the people more aware of us and especially the lack of rights we have all over the world.

People were to meet at the COC in Amsterdam at 3pm and at 4pm we were to leave to a memorial monument. Everyone who wanted to could grab a white helium-filled balloon that had a string with a tag attached. On those tags were the names of the transgender people that were murdered in the past year, their place of birth, their age, and their cause of death… If known, as not always all data was properly reported.

The deaths were often brutal. The ‘mildest’ ones were where people were shot in the head, but others died from multiple stab wounds, being burned alive, dismembered, decapitated, ran over and smashed with a block of concrete. It’s pretty horrific to realize that every other day this still happens somewhere in the world, and those are only the ones we know of. It’s a frightening thought. While I realize I live in one of the safer parts of the world (there are no reported trans hate crimes in The Netherlands since 2007) it is still a thought that lingers in the back of my head.

Once everyone had arrived at the monument there were several speeches held by people invested in the trans community. There was someone from the city council, the leader from the trans rights movement in the Philippines, and more but I cannot really remember who they all were right now but their words affected me greatly. A point was made to tell everyone to please become more visible to make people know we exist and deserve the same rights as any other individual. I cried during most of this which only got worse when the part was reached where everyone would go to the microphone, one by one, recite the information of the victim listed on the tag of their balloon, and let it go into the air. There were a lot of them. Too many. And as was made clear, they weren’t even from all the victims of the past year, that number is even greater.

The sadness was overwhelming but I’m still glad I went. I’m also glad my boyfriend was with me because there is no way I could have gone through all of this on my own. It definitely left an impact.