Taking care of business...

Funny how we tend to put off contemplating what's going to happen when we die. Granted, we won't really give a rusty duck what happens after we're gone. We won't be here, and whether folks are cursing us, or blessing us, or asking who the heck we were, it just won't matter.

Here's the hangup for me...being the person that I am, I have to be (1) organized, (2) prepared for whatever, and (3) transparent and honest. There is no alternative. So, I'm writing this to take care of the painful feeling of not having things according to the priorities above.

So...I figured the best (and let's face it...the easiest) way to do so was to post the transcript of my statement within a recent VA panel discussion. There were four panelists, the PhD moderator, and around two dozen participants. The mod hasn't figured yet how to upload the video, so I'll update that bit when it happens. The panelists were all trans or gay vets. Our panelist statements were to set the stage for our personal identity voyage.

Here is my statement:

Aloha...I’m Wendy Elaine Albertson, and I go by my middle name, Elaine. I’m 75, and I am a trans lesbian woman who underwent “the change” by court order in 1983, after completing the Real Life Test (RLT), but due to having survived MRSA, or flesh-eating bacteria infections, twice resulting in NDEs...no surgeon in their right mind would agree to performing sex reassignment surgery on me. So...I am, legally by court order, a female...but I’m also still preoperative.

Anyway...

If you do pronouns, she/her works. “Rev.” is also OK 

However, who and what I am today does not depend upon that single event of a sex change, or even that particular point in time.

Neither does that identity depend solely upon my service during Viet Nam, or those experiences alone.

I hold graduate degrees in behavioral science and transpersonal psychology; I have worked extensively over several decades in areas of security forensics and law enforcement; I was ordained in the Christian tradition in the late 80s, and pastored a couple of congregations in those decades; I have worked as a sports car race mechanic, as well as driver and navigator for pro rally teams in my younger years; and I held a part interest in a gypsy hardwood logging operation in Washington state until St. Helens decided to wake up.

Folks almost always ask how the heck that’s all possible. Well...I also have a 200 WAISR score that’s held up over six decades. Back when the Stanford-Binet was the standard (1950s) it was 300. I could master just about any complex tasking quite easily...and just as easily get bored to death quickly, or become the target of someone else in my workplace (higher up) who would be afraid that I would take their job, and constantly try to sabotage my efforts.

So...yeah, it’s been an interesting life.

I often wonder myself as to just how the hell I ended up in a nice spacious studio on a tiny subtropical island 2500 miles from the nearest mainland. That had been my dream early on. I’m here, but not via any expected route.

I think it’s also important to note, within this conversation, that I was clueless about what “gay” meant, and I mean that from birth to my first year in the military. It was just not something I felt was worth the energy to research. I knew I was female in my mind, but otherwise the world was just fine...sexually. Solely by instinct, I simply presented as male, “Bill” to the world.

Because my birth family was very structured, and I was an only, any thinking or activity on that level (who/what was gay, whatever) was just sort of ignored, as it wasn’t relevant, and most other folks thought the mention of it was dirty for some reason, so it just wasn’t talked about. Dad was third generation railroad, a higher-ranking Freemason, and had something like a 150 IQ; Mom was a third generation accountant, held some sort of position in Order of the Eastern Star, and was medically trained as a trauma nurse. She had never taken an IQ test. My folks both just graduated high school. Pop spent his teen years in a National Youth Authority home as his own family couldn’t support him. Mom’s family ran a grocery and restaurant combo.

The end developmental result of that situation was that, when I was just preparing to leave for Coast Guard boot camp in the Fall of ‘65, Pop offered to open a door for me to become DeMolay, but also advised that I respectfully decline it. Mom, who was an officer in OES, said the same. When I pushed them as to why they would say that, Pop said very clearly that, “You already know more than the Grand Master.” Mom just nodded in agreement.

It was only after the first few weeks in the Guard, and the barracks assault incident in early ‘66 (where the 80% disability comes from...I was trying to help the victim), that I finally “got it” that Pop knew more about me than I had ever realized; he was possibly trying to protect me from something I did not understand as yet.

My anticipated future in the military pretty much ended in ‘68 as a result of my wife (my son’s birth mother) having apparently lied a great deal about a number of things. That had resulted in my clearance being changed to Secret, and I found myself suddenly looking for a “it ain’t there anymore” future as an officer. I was given a choice by the base commanding officer when my girlfriend got pregnant...marry her, or forget the squadron training office and pack my seabag for Da Nang. I chose to not abandon my son. On my honorable discharge, my immediate (and my family’s) future came down to pro musician and going to college to get the GI Bill and pay rent.

You see...no one wanted to hire a 21-yr old combat vet who obviously (except to myself, of course) “had issues.”

It also began my gravitation to behavioral science, and a decades-long battle...mostly unrecognized for what it was at that time...with PTSD, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), and a ridiculously complex allergic response to literally any anxiolytic, antidepressant, or other similar pharmaceutical offering.

I was repeatedly misdiagnosed, and over-medicated, after my move to Kaua’i by a really nice, but misguided, physician. VA essentially didn’t know I existed...which wasn’t VA’s fault.

I probably should have been more cautious accepting logic from a 60+ yr old medico who chain smoked and cheated on his golf card.

At any rate, I’d almost finished my PhD in forensic psychology, and just needed to complete the dissertation. A lot happened in a very short period of time, and I ended up attempting suicide in summer of 2007, via a whole lot of Rx drugs and rather good Scotch whiskey, and a Glock .40 backup. Damn near made it, but the two other women who worked for me at the time found me at my home, and saved my life. We are, and will be until eternity, best friends and soulmates.

I don’t mind talking about it, but that’s for another time.

I’ve spent the ensuing years working with autism spectrum kids in the schools, and with their families; I then left the social services environ to establish a small business in Waimea, Kaua’i that provided specialized services to island artists, such as giclee reproduction, as well as high-end IT services, and an Internet cafe...yeah, we had a lot of them then.

Team Rubicon recruited me some ten years ago, and I rose quickly to the command and general staff working logistics. I had to “retire” from that work in January of ‘23 due to my health failing.

What do I “do” now? I work on a restomod ‘97 Ram 4x4, and trek to the unmaintained areas of Kaua’i where idiots dump litters of unwanted kittens. Seriously. I set up humane traps, and my service dog Sky and I get comfy in the truck. The kittens get fixed, vet care, socialized (which I do), and adopted out to forever homes. I work (all volunteer) with Kaua’i Community Cat Project, a trap/neuter/return nonprofit.

It beats the crap out of just about anything else I’ve done.

Who am I? What’s my “identity?”

If you figure that out, let me know. I’ll be around for a while.

-30-