man alive

Post-surgery, five months on T, and nobody ever thinks I'm a girl anymore. It's been happening so gradually that I didn't really notice at first- it's become normal to be read as a guy all of the time. And I mean all of the time- I can't remember the last time a stranger she'd me.

The other day one of my coworkers said something along the lines of "Hey, I helped someone out just a minute ago, and she said she was looking for a book that the man behind the desk had helped her find earlier. She called you he! Good, right?"

And I said something like "Uh, yeah, though not so unexpected." Which I now realize was a fairly ungracious thing to say, since 12 months ago I was constantly nervous and stressed about whether the students were going to get my pronoun right out not. Now that's something of a fading memory.

Which is an interesting point to explore later- are my memories of being female-bodied person going to start fading away? I imagine they will, like memories of any other circumstance once it ceases to be true. I hope that I can hang on to the fruits of those experiences, though. I'm not about to consider myself post-transition (not for a long time yet, if ever!) but I am ready to acknowledge that I don't consider myself a female-bodied person anymore. I don't consider myself a male-bodied person, either, exactly....a transmale-bodied person, I guess. What else? But to that end, I want to let my memories of what it's like existing as a more visibly gender variant person guide me as I become a visibly congruent man.

I mean, it's good not to have to worry anymore. It's weird that there are students from last year who thought I was a girl (dyke, what have you) who have returned this year- wonder what they'll think now? But that's one of the few remaining pockets of anxiety I have, most of these pockets being inhabitated by peripherial folks from my past who never really got it for one reason or another. It's not until it has ceased being such a drain that I've started fully realizing how much energy goes to worrying about whether or not I'm being appropriately seen.

And I have to say, I think my voice, my sideburns and my new delightfully flat chest are all bringing me into new territory, replete with new assumptions about my history, etc being made. For example- I went to a baseball game the other day and someone in our group asked "Did you ever play baseball?"

I blinked for a moment or two before it dawned that, seeing as how she didn't know I was trans, she might very well assume I played baseball in high school. (Though reflecting now on my scrawny self, maybe she was just being kind!) But it's symptomatic of a new and larger theme in my life: namely, that there's a whole world of history that I didn't share with most guys, and another world that I did share with most girls, and that side of my story is no longer readily apparent to everyone else. My common ground with the rest of the world is rather out-of-sync, and not everyone is going to know that at first sight anymore.

--
I got some Mederma scar cream on Thursday, and I've been rubbing it into my scars three times a day- when I wake up, get home from work, and right before I go to bed. It's not too greasy, smells okay, and call me silly but it already seems like my scars are slightly less red/puffy. I'm glad I've gone with this option- it makes me feel like I'm actively helping my scars heal better, but I don't have to tape anything to my chest anymore. It's making me feel much much further on the road to recovery know that I don't have any gauze or tape anywhere on me...I can just wear a shirt like everyone else! I'm rather proud of how I look in my t-shirt, little pot belly and all. In thin white tees and tanks I can see the lines of my scars through the fabric, but probably just because I'm scrutinizing myself in front of the mirror.
--
Oh, and I put up another voice post.

weird notions

I think I haven't been writing in this because I have some sort of weird notion that I can't put anything down here unless it's well-thought out and supported and fully fleshed out; perhaps this is a result of publicizing this blog more widely. Because I've had sporadic internet access lately, I haven't been posting. I never feel like I have time to fully cover a topic, so I decide to put off blogging about it, because I want to wait til I can put down everything I have to say about it.

Until I realized that I haven't written in this regularly in weeks, it's driving me crazy to have all of these half-finished thoughts bottled up in my brain with no space or time to air them out, and (newsflash!) there will never be time to write down everything I have to say about something. I'm just wordy and verbose like that, and isn't that what coming up with new ideas is all about? Continually revising and updating one's thoughts?

So, dear readers, I've made a few resolutions.
1) I'm going to try to go back to pretending I don't have an audience. Not because I'm not exceedingly fond of you (I am), or because I'm modest and don't want attention (I'm not and I do), but because I think it is giving me a little bit of performance anxiety to think about y'all. But! I still want comments and questions, and to engage with you (see parenthetical asides, above) so please keep reading and keep commenting or emailing me with questions. (I've given y'all my email address already, right? it's cislocative [at] gmail [dot] com.)

2) I'm going to post whatever I've got whenever I've got it, and if it's brief or not fully formed, and I end up repeating or contradicting myself later, then so be it! Also, this may result in more frequent posts of a shorter length. Fine and dandy.

--
Okay, now I'm done with all that weird self-referential business, I think I'll go eat lunch. And then blog some this afternoon. Cheers!

fifteen men on a dead man's chest

Yo-ho, me hearties! Have not been getting the chance to write in this like I'd like- the wireless internet I'd been pirating at home has been secured, and so I don't get much signal anymore. So in this quick fifteen minutes before I eat lunch, I'm going to try to get down as much as possible. Ready? Go!

I'm spending a lot of time and energy paying attention to my chest and being absorbed in my recovery. It's going very well, I think, though I've never really been injured like this before, so it's hard to tell. But everyone keeps telling me the scars look great, and my nipples certainly look great, though kinda scabby and without sensation.

In fact, there's a pretty big chunk of my chest that is pretty numb, along and above the incisions. Very weird to play my fingers along my skin and then start sliding along alien, unfeeling skin. But! It's also resolving itself- I have more sensation now than I did two weeks ago when I first got to take a look at everything. So I'm schooling myself to patience, and waiting to see how things go.

I've still (still!) got traces of the purple marker on me where the surgeon made his marks, and I'm still moving tenderly and cautiously, but I feel good good good when I can go out in just one layer. I'm wearing t-shirts and a-shirts and muscle shirts and walking around the house in just my boxers, and it feels GREAT.

I finally took the tape off my incisions a few days ago, so now I'm just keeping gauze over the nipple grafts for another week or so, and then I'll be free of bandages.

However. I'm trying to decide my next course of action when it comes to scar treatment- silicone sheeting? Mederma creams? I'd thought that silicone sheeting would be best, but I've gotten some feedback saying that silicone sheeting is mostly only necessary if you've got keloid or hypertrophic scarring, and otherwise just keeping them moisturized with a cream like Mederma is fine. On the other hand, I don't want to take any chances. On the other hand, the strips are expensive (eh) and somewhat difficult to use, since their self-adhesive properties aren't always all that great. Honestly, that last point is something of a sticking point with me, since one of the WORST parts of this entire recovery process has been taking the gauze pads off my nipples when it's time to shower- the bandaids and tape I've been using to hold them on are SO PAINFUL to remove! I know I'm just being a big baby, but they hurt like hell, and irritate my skin, and they're ripping out all of my tiny new chest hairs that are sprouting, which makes my skin more irritated, and more painful, and OMG I don't want to have to tape anything else to my chest ever again.

On the other hand, the skin around the incisions is pretty numb, so if I had to tape stuff over the incisions, might not be as bad to remove.

*sigh*

Time for lunch, never enough time to get everything out of my brain. Didn't even go into all of the Big Important Thoughts that are swirling around in there, just superficial things about my chest.

But I'm happy, even if my brain is full, and I'm feeling and looking good these days (I finally look in the mirror and think "Damn, you're looking good, buddy!"

So I suppose my vanity will get the best of me one of these days, and pictures will appear here. If my internet starts cooperating!

Last but not least, I've put up some more voice posts [CLICK HERE], so you can listen to my loooow manly voice.

will be back in NYC on Wednesday, with real internet access once again, so expect a slew of posts as I try to pour out everything that's been in my brain for the past two weeks. and hoo-boy, have there been a lot of thoughts bubbling to the surface.

also, check out story on transguys in Sunday NY Times Style section from yesterday. I've got very mixed feelings about it. More on that later.

Also, I've been getting tons of comment spam, so I'm turning on word verification for commenting. Hope it's not too annoying!

alive, well

in San Francisco, doing well, recovering nicely. today i'm going to the doctor to get my drains out and get unwrapped for the first time- very exciting! i'm stealing a few minutes of internet on the hotel computer, so i'll be in better touch when i'm back in PDX> for now, suffice it to say that things went very well, that i'm looking forward to the big unveiling this afternoon, that my family has been taking spectacular care of me, and that i'm looking forward to being more fully recovered.

woo!

only just out of reach, down the street, on a beach

Less than a week. Only six days til I get up early early early in the morning, head to the surgery center, meet Dr. B, get some lines drawn on my chest, and close my eyes on this body for the last time. The last time I was put under general anesthesia, they gave me a relaxing drug first, which made me loopy and amnesiac. I don't remember it, but I'm told that I took a swing at a resident who jokingly suggested that I got good grades in school through cheating, and later I was riotously calling for the doctors from that tv show ER when they wheeled me down the hall. Perhaps I'll comport myself with rather more decorum this time?

I had dinner with a friend last night, and she gave me some advice about preparing for surgery. Visualization! Creative and positive visualization is key. She suggested that I spend time imagining excellent results, visualizing a well-healed and perfectly executed chest- there's a strong connection between mental exercises and physical health. I believe it, and I certainly am invested in focusing positive energy (mental and otherwise) on myself for a while in an effort to make this event as easy and successful as possible.

But the visualization part...well, that I've been having some trouble with. I think it's because I really don't know what I'm going to be like, not on an emotional level. I've never really had a good self-image, good here in the sense of accurate. I'm not very good at picturing myself, because I've never really liked focusing on the reality of my physical self, and so I don't think I have a strong mental image to begin with. Add to that the "anything could happen!" factor, and my efforts to picture what I'm going to look like a few weeks from now are pretty stilted.

I mean, I know what trans bodies look like. I've spent enough time scouring Transster (and other online picture-sharing resources) and pestering my friends to have a pretty good idea what post-surgery chests look like. I can visualize a transmasculine body, but it's surprisingly more difficult to visualize MY male/transmasculine body.

I've always been...not surprised, exactly, but slightly disappointed whenever I look in the mirror. It offers up a little reminder of what I actually look like, and I'm always a touch surprised when it's still not what I want. Lately, that's been changing- I'm enjoying ever more frequent and longer-lasting spells of comfort. I've been thinking of these changes more as "adjustments" to my own self which, while I don't feel terribly comfortable in it, and do have flashes of surprise/disappointment when I remember it (ah, dysphoria), at least is familiar.

And now I'm doing something radical and sudden! I think for a while, I'm going to be surprised again when I look in the mirror. A good surprise, now, rather than a disappointed one, but surprise nonetheless. A fresh start, I guess.

Also, there's a little part of me that doesn't quite believe yet that I'm going to be able to make this work, to effectively shape my body the way I want it to. I'll believe it when I see it, I guess!

look! a sideburn!

This isn't much of a post- I've been so out of touch lately! I mostly wanted to say that I've put up another voiceclip from last night, and that I also recently shaved my head in acknowledgement of the summertime, and because I'm getting ready for surgery. I won't be able to shower for a week post-op, and I don't want to have dirty hair on top of everything else. So instead: no hair!

I haven't had hair this short since college- it's reminding me of my days as a bright-eyed, bushytailed baby dyke. I was a bit worried that this cut would be feminizing, but it hasn't turned out that way. In fact, it turned out to reveal my burgeoning sideburns in a very nice way! Actually, make that "sideburn." As I may have mentioned before, it appears that my left sideburn is rather in better health than my right. I'm secretly very proud of my sideburn, and I keep turning slightly in pictures and when I'm talking to try to present my sideburn side.

It's troublesome, because my sideburns are uneven, so really I should just shave them off and try to start over, but I really LIKE my one sideburn! I'm very fond of him. You can see him here in this rather blurry portrait from Sunday afternoon.


Alas. I can't wait til the rest of my facial hair starts coming in! I'm looking forward to being a bright-eyed, bushytailed, bearded young fellow.

Luck, let a gentleman see

There are 13 lucky days left until the last morning that I wake up with breasts. Can't believe it's less than two weeks already! Seemed like such an eternity when I made the appointment. I'd wanted an appointment in June, and settled for August because that was the soonest one by the time I'd made up my mind to go with Brownstein.

I'm finding myself getting more and more excited as the days drop away...this surgery is looming larger, expanding out of its ever present place in a corner of my mind to infiltrate the rest of my thoughts as well. Hardly a few minutes go by now that I don't find some reason to think about it, whether I'm thinking about my trip, or the people I want to see, or the things I need to bring with me.

I think a lot about preparation- what clothes should I bring? Do I have enough DVDs to keep me occupied? Have I taken enough vitamins? Did I do enough push-ups? I also wonder a lot about the aftermath. I'll be reaching for a book on the top shelf and wonder how long it'll be before I can easily do that again.

With my rising excitement is coming a small but persistent case of nerves. I hope that everything goes well- that the Dr. is going to have an 'on' day, and do his best work, and make a nice job of it. (The fact that he does, as far as I know, 3-4 of these procedures a week is very reassuring to me on that count.) I hope that I don't have some previously undiscovered tendency for keloid scars...I hope that my scarring is minimal and manageable, as much as it can be. I hope that I don't lose a nipple!

These nerves are basically tied up in two things- worry about the unknown, and worry about somehow mucking things up. I'm nervous because I don't know what my limits are going to be as I'm healing...I've been asking around to find out what kind of timeframe other guys had before returning to normal, but honestly, it's all such an individual thing that no one can tell me how long it's going to be before I can lift my arms over my head, or hoist a heavy box from floor to counter, or even pull someone in close for a hug without caution.

Which contributes to my second fear, familiar to those of you who recall my anxiety dreams about this exact subject, of mucking up the results. I'm pretty sure Brownstein's going to do excellent work (or I wouldn't be going to him!) but I'm worried that I'm going to try to do too much too soon, and stretch my scars, or something. It sounds a little silly when I type it out- I've been doing meticulous research, and I'm going to be surrounded by people (family, friends, loved ones) who are invested in my recovery and are going to help me. I shouldn't worry that I'm going to do something wrong. But there it is.

I wonder if it's some sort of knee-jerk, "I can't believe this is actually happening!" reaction. Like, I can't believe that I'm finally going to have a body that I love, and enjoy, and am unashamed of and unabashedly enthusiastic about, so clearly, I'm going to do something to mess it up.

and speaking of my body, I'm having all sorts of complicated feelings about it as the time for surgery draws nearer. Surgery has been something of an abstraction til now. A desperately sought, carefully tended goal, but not a reality. I've been looking at photos on Transster and reading guys' transition diaries for five years, and now it's my turn; it's starting to sink in that I'm going to have my own set of Before & After shots.

In less than two weeks, I'm going to be altering my body in a permanent and fairly drastic manner. That's, uh, intense.

And it raises big questions. Questions about why I'm doing this, where this comes from, what does it mean to be trans and to need this surgery? These questions scare me, sometimes, in their enormity and seeming unanswerability. I can answer them, but such answers often lead to more questions. Because I'm not comfortable in this body, because I need the rest of the world and my own eyes to be able to easily and readily see my masculinity, that I'm exercising my rights and agency over my own self (my bodily, physical self) in order to make my self (that is, me) happier and in some tangled way more normal. I don't know what kind of world I could live in where I wouldn't want or need to transition- I don't know if that world is anything more than a specious exercise in armchair philosophy. It's enough to me now to know that the world I'm living in isn't such a world, and I'm having surgery in 13 days.

--
It feels to me like perhaps this is the next step in this transition. Now that I've made my decisions, not to sit and rest on them, but to continue to examine them, tease them apart, flesh them out and trace their roots and get at the nuances and subtleties and possibilities. I need to learn how to do this in a way that's positive, and productive, and thoughtful, without second-guessing, invalidating, or stressing myself out too much. No sweat! Right?

Well, my progress these days is trying to turn anxiety into anticipation- I want to relax my way into this triumphal moment. It's going to be a vacation, after all!

I'm spending some quality time with my body- enjoying it as it is now, and visualizing how it's going to be soon. I don't know if I'm going to miss my breasts, exactly, but there is a thread of sadness to this endeavor. Guys have warned about post-surgical depression, as a possible chemical reaction to anesthesia, and also as a psychological reaction to a surgery. I can't help but think that any depression is going to be swept away by my delight, but you never know, so I'm trying to gird myself against it nonetheless.

I hope things go well.

Day 104

I'm getting another shot on Tuesday, so I suppose it's time for a brief roll call of changes. I just plugged the dates into an online date counter, and figured that it's been 104 days since I got my first shot. Three and a half months, nearly! Time sure flies when you're having fun. I'll keep this brief- I'm not being particularly systematic about these periodic descriptions, I guess, which is not an altogether bad thing. I'm trying not to be too transition-focused, trying not to examine every hair under a magnifying glass. This is aided by the fact that some of this is starting to become commonplace...I'm getting used to having stubble on my face, and being able to dip my voice down looow, to the point where I'm starting to forget that it hasn't always been like this. But milestones are always nice, so I'll keep trying to cover the salient points here.

The most noticeable effects continue to be my voice and hair growth. My voice has been breaking like crazy this week. It dipped down quite low about a week ago, right after I got my last shot, and then has spent the days since breaking rather crazily. I put up another voiceclip here if you care to listen, though the quality isn't great. My voice has gone back up a bit today, I think. I really do feel like Greg Brady...all squeaky without any warning. And last night I had the striking[ly obvious] realization that just as I'm gaining low notes, I'm losing my high ones. Duh, Eli. But for some reason I forgot that it's not all gain and no loss...so much for being able to sing up high! I guess I can develop a falsetto or something once my voice settles, but it was a funny moment of "Oh yeah. This is permanent, and it goes in both directions."

Hair continues to sprout up all over the place. I'm starting to get a slight trail of belly hair, and hairs everywhere continue to darken ever so gradually and fill in. If I weren't so scrawny, I'd predict that I'll end up as a furry little cub one of these days. Woof! I'm still shaving all of my facial hair every couple of days, because it's still all patchy/scruffy/utterly teenage. But I think my sideburns probably are stronger than I think...I haven't ever let them grow out more than a few days, and they start to get pretty thick. It's going to be interesting to see how they come in while I'm in SF, unable to lift my arms up to shave. Maybe if I get a good week's worth of growth then, I'll let them come in for real. Won't that be a nice surprise, to return from my vacation with no breasts and sideburns!

It's wonderful to see how quickly my hair has been coming in, reinforcing my earlier suspicions that I'd become a very furry guy. I've got pretty significant facial hair for only having been on T for 3.5 months...not just sideburns, but my throat and under my chin as well, and some amount of moustache. There are still a few swathes along the side of my jaw and my cheeks that are pretty smooth, but I get the feeling not for long. Let's here it for being from a hairy family!

Reminds me, too, what an individual process this is. Not every transition is going to proceed at the same pace. I've got more facial hair than a lot of guys who've been on T for much longer. Then again, a lot of guys start T and immediately start losing weight, whereas I've been noticing my waistline steadily increasing for the past few weeks.

Part of my weight gain/size increase is muscle mass, which I enjoy. But I've also just been packing on some extra pounds, I think...my gut is getting bigger, and my hips/thighs/butt aren't really getting any smaller. I think metabolism and fat distribution changes will probably take some more time to really settle in, but I can definitely tell that my shape is changing.

It's becoming a more masculine shape, though, so I'm happy! My pants are all too tight now, but my silhouette has definitely become less curvy. My shoulders and upper arms are broader and more solid, and my waist (thanks to its increase in size!) no longer dips in quite so much. And all this without going to the gym! When I'm enrolled in classes again in the fall, I'll have access to the gym again. I'll need to wait a bit before I can start things in earnest- at least 6 weeks post surgery, according to the Doc, but I'll probably wait longer just to be on the safe side.

So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Still a lot of sweat, still not too much acne. Looking forward to getting home and seeing the people who haven't seen me since before I started T, so they can give me a fresh review.

raindrops keep fallin

The other day I was at the library, and it was raining like gangbusters outside, replete with thunder 'n lightning- I kept thinking about how much fun it is to run around like a madman in the ran. Courtesty of my Portland upbringing, no doubt. Later that night, I actually did get caught in a cloudburst, and I wanted so badly to take my shirt off and just let the rain make rivulets down my chest. I didn't, for a couple of important reasons. One of them is likely to remain- I was on 14th st, between 1st and A, and there were all sorts of people around, and it would've been pretty improprietous to just whip my shirt off on the street. The second reason, though, is going to disappear in less than four weeks. In fact, it's only twenty-six days (if you're counting!) until I won't be embarassed of my chest in public any more!

That phrase "in public" just flowed out, but it's true...I'm not nearly as uncomfortable with my chest in private as I am in public. I think that there's a lot packed into that short feeling, about what it means to be trans, about how my gender is as much about how I relate to others as it is about how I feel about myself.

I can't go into it in depth right now, because I need to close the library soon, but there's a lot of interesting things to be said about what being trans means for me in terms of my body, and necessity. I'm uncomfortable standing shirtless in front of a mirror, true, but not nearly as uncomfortable as I am with a shirt but no binder on in front of other people. I'd rather not have breasts- and that desire strikes much harder at some moments than at others- but I might might might be able to deal with them if I were never to be seen by another person again. I don't need to wear my binder in the shower...I can tolerate my body when I'm alone. But I'm REALLY looking forward to making myself presentable to the outside world. with a little help from Dr. Brownstein, that is!

---
Got another shot on Tuesday- the nurse gave it to me really high up on my hip, and it hurt like the devil. It's never hurt at all before! I exclaimed, and she promised to give it to me lower next time. Ow ow ow. Doesn't hurt now, but going in? Ouch.

I've yet to take another picture in front of my wall of ties- must remember to do that tonight when I get home. Things continue to progress nicely...after my next shot, I'll do another overview of changes, etc. But in the meantime, I've put a couple of clips of my voice up online at http://translocative.livejournal.com. Livejournal lets you make voiceposts if you have a certain kind of account, so I put a few up...I'll keep adding to them, and I'll mention it here when I do. I wish I'd thought to do the first one before I started T! There are some records of my voice in existance (Mary Ellen has one, Rochelle has one) but I don't know how to easily put them up for comparison. Anyway, my voice is sounding great lately...my own mom didn't recognize me on the phone the other day, and last night at karaoke I had a strange moment of not recognizing my own voice as it came back through the speakers at me. Whose handsome tenor is that, I wondered? He sounds a bit like me...

who can judge a judge?

Haven't posted much lately- I've felt pretty closed off this past week, and unhappy. Most of that can be directly traced to the rather stinging rejection I received at the hands of the Manhattan Civil Court last week, when the judge denied my name change petition.

He cited in his denial a particular case from 1992, when a transperson was denied a namechange because they failed to submit any medical documentation from doctors/surgeons etc providing proof of medical transition. As far as I can make out, the judge's reasoning is that if you're not actually having a "real sex change" (the words raise my hackles just to type) then you can't change your name from a "girl" name to a "boy" name because it's fraudulent.

I could spend the rest of the day unpacking why that is unfair, narrow-minded, oppressive, unreasonable and ridiculous, though it basically extrapolates from the basic tenets of 1) who the hell are you to say that I need to be undergoing certain medical procedures to validate my gender identity? and 2) who are you to say that the name I've chosen is legitimate only if I meet your notions of a real transsexual?

But I'm at work, and I don't want to work myself up, so I'm just going to leave it by saying that I'm very unhappy. Particularly because under the law in New York, the judge CAN'T require me to provide medical documentation in order to grant a name change. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project has done a lot of work in just this particular area (www.srlp.org, go to Issues on the right and select Identity Documents) to ensure that just this sort of thing doesn't happen. Which is why I didn't bring any documentation in the first place. I think it's fucked up that the court would try to require it, but that doesn't mean I'm not tempted to just suck it up and do what they want in order to make this go smoothly....on some level, I want my name change to go through without a hassle more than I want to stand up for my rights. (is that awful?)

Anyway. So I was rejected (and consequently dejected) last week, and it's sticking with me. On the advice of the clerk at court, I filled out an amended namechange petition that made no reference to gender, just put down "personal preference" as a reason for name change, as she seemed to think that might sneak in under the radar. If it does, I'm just going to take it and put this behind me. If it doesn't, I think I'm going to square my shoulders and deal with the hassle and take this where it needs to be taken...there is no reason for me to be rejected in this name change. Every single other person in the court room was approved without hassle, while I got to hear "All petitioners except [me] proceed downstairs to the clerk who will give you your paperwork."

I'm supposed to hear about this decision by Friday, so I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, that was pretty much a lowpoint in a week with some other tough moments. I haven't been to group lately because I work late on Wednesdays now, but the last one I went to was pretty intense...we were talking about fears and self-defense in physical situations, and then just at the end of the session got in a few upsetting and emotional comments about emotional self-defense, and taking care of ourselves in an often unforgiving, unwelcoming world. I was reminded of something a friend of mine once said...."Everyone just wants to be seen, but a lot of trans folks want to be seen as something the world doesn't know how to see."

I forget sometimes, when I'm so happy, how painful that can be....not just not being seen, but everything that spins out from that. It's not always easy being trans. It's often not easy.

This last week, I got a lot of reminders of that- my friend's ribs, trying to juggle my next shot into my schedule, the judge rejecting me, a couple of the random but regular flashes of dysphoria happened to strike, having an intense talk in therapy about being scared. It was a hard week, and made a little harder by my instincts to withdraw, and my still unfamiliar and unsteady hormonal state. I'm still not used to my new hormonal balance, and it's not even steady yet.

Everything sort of built on everything else- the Judge's decision was stinging in its invalidating and hurtful denial...I read that short order (DENIED) and basically heard him saying "I'm not going to allow you to continue pretending you're a man." Way to kick a guy when he's down, after a hard morning in therapy where I let my guard down and admitted to Amy that I feel sad sometimes about what it feels like I'm giving up to transition...I'm giving up the chance to grow up and be an adorable old lesbian, giving up the chance to really be a part of the sisterhood, letting Emma disappear and be replaced by Eli. I know that some of those things aren't 100%true (my past is not going to disappear), but it's hard to feel them, and harder still to articulate them when there's a voice in the back of my head (backed up by the same public narratives about trans people that are enforcing the judge's decision) telling me that any feelings of loss or sadness mean REGRET! UNCERTAINTY! You're not REALLY trans after all!

Needless to say, all this has chipped away at the carefully, joyfully cultivated feelings of solidity that I've been enjoying this spring and summer.

But while I'm remembering and relearning the downs as well as the ups, it bears mentioning that while last week was definitely a low, this week is getting higher all the time. I'm getting a shot tonight (#7? #8? Is it crazy that I can't remember right away which one this is?), and Rochelle is cooking me dinner afterwards. Tomorrow is four weeks to the day til my surgery. This coming Saturday is the Gender Identity Project's Trans On The Sands! Day, when all sorts of gender-nonconforming folks are planning to take Coney Island by storm. I haven't been in the ocean in about a year. It's going to feel good.

excerpt:

...email email email....
Love
Mom
PS Eli - the check was mailed to Dr. Brownstein today.
As Julius Caesar said: "Alia iacta est."

misc.

I'm going to court tomorrow morning for the hearing on my name change. I don't actually know how it's going to go, but I have a vision of there being a hearing, and a somewhat bored judge going through each petitioner one at a time, asking any relevant questions, then slamming a big stamp of APPROVED down on the order. I don't expect there to be any trouble with the decision- why should I be refused?- but I do wonder whether or not the judge will grant my request to be exempt from the publication requirement. That'd be nice. Needless to say, I'll detail the entire experience here forthwith.

I'm also looking forward to therapy tomorrow morning, and talking about feelings of loss around transitioning. I think it's hard for me to feel (let alone express!) these ever so slightly mournful feelings because I am terrified that they'll be perceived as regret. I don't regret my decision to transition! I'm just trying (carefully) to acknowledge that there is a balace to everything I've gained since starting this particular path, and that's the loss of some possibilities. I'm never going to be part of a wonderful older lesbian couple, of the kind that my friends and I cast secret admiring glances at during Pride. Hopefully, I'll be part of a wonderful older queer couple of some variety when I grow up. But- and this resonates with my pre-transition worries of losing my ties to "the sisterhood," whatever I mean by that- I'm not going to fit that image, and that's a little sad.

I'm actually a little nervous about talking about this tomorrow, because I've been a little emotionally fragile today. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that I'm still being subjected to the vagaries of menstrual cycle hormones in addition to my new hormone cycle...which, itself, is a little off, since I was supposed to get another shot this morning but instead was rescheduled by the doctor's office to next tuesday. That's 6 days late! Almost a full week! I'm a little perturbed by this, but I'm trying to reassure myself that it's going to be fine, that my fine proto-sideburns aren't going to fall out in six days. Still, it makes me nervous about my emotional state for the next few days. I was almost reduced to tears on the subway this morning reading a story about a high school basketball coach, the first black basketball coach in Amish Ohio, who took his teams to the championships for 20 years and became beloved by the whole town, and then died of a brain tumor. Blink back those tears, Eli!

and, uh, the rest of you? Watch out for the Hormonal Dude in the last car.
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Speaking of being upset, but with far better reason- today I heard from a friend of mine who has been in a lot of pain lately. Turns out he's popped some of his ribs out of place from binding. It makes my own chest hurt, not just from thinking about the few times that I tried to bind too fiercely and found myself with an aching back, but also with a heavy heart that he has to endure that to keep the gender dysphoria at bay. Why does surgery have to be so inaccessible to trans folks?
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Last but not least, at the Trans Day of Action a few weeks ago, Activist!Eli says: "What do we want? TransJustice! When do we want it? Now!"

if you should chance to pass this way

I got she'd twice in the past two days, but it didn't bother me too much. Both times I just ignored it, even though it was in front of other people. Though now that I think about it, I don't know if I'm more or less likely to say something if pronoun slippage happens in front of others. It's more embarrassing when other folks have to hear it, but it's also a bit harder to say something when there are witnesses around...Some part of me doesn't want to make a scene, or something. Anyway, it wasn't a very big deal in either case- once was from a woman in Human Resources who filed my paperwork when I was hired, and assumed from my name and documents that I was a girl, and once was from a person who hasn't interacted with me since I've transitioned, and so probably isn't quite used to calling me he yet.

The incidents were partly remarkable for the way that they were unexpected and surprising. A new realization came to light- namely, that I haven't been she'd by a stranger in weeks. With my voice dropping and my body masculinizing, I'm being very consistently read as male. Even this weekend, when I was at a friend's house, his parents called me he without question even though they don't have a particularly stellar track record with trans folks, and I wasn't binding very well. I think I'm really being seen as male by the world at large 90% of the time these days.

Which is great! And also leads me to another thought. I'm very deliberately not using the term "passing," although that is the word that enjoys general usage in the trans community...Most guys say that they're "passing" or not, and I've used the term plenty of times myself. Lately, though, it's been rankling me in ways that I'm still trying to unpack.

I think my main issue with it is the connotation of falsehood that it carries with it. It's coming from a historical context where it meant someone who was one thing (black or female) successfully pretending to be something they're not (white or male). That's what gets to me. When I say that I'm not being she'd by strangers anymore, I don't want to say that I'm passing- I'm not fooling anyone. I'm just finally being accurately assessed by people who don't know me.

There's another term that's often used in the trans community that gets to me in somewhat similar ways, and that's when guys who aren't out as trans are described as being "stealth." I have fewer issues with that term, because in some ways it is accurate...There are things about my past which are not typical of most folks who have similar gender presentations, and so my trans history is something that can be thought of as hidden, that I'm being stealthy about.

But I'll never be totally comfortable with that term- it sounds too much like I'm lying to the world, or deliberately being sneaky, rather than just choosing when to talk about my past. It puts the onus on me as being someone who's "hiding" something, who's got a Deep Dark Secret. I used to feel like my gender issues were a deep dark secret, and it wasn't a good feeling. Now that I've addressed them, I don't want to feel like I'm still hiding something.

And it's got too much in common with the uncomfortable part of the terminology of "passing." That is, an assumption that I'm secretly really NOT a guy, I'm only passing as one.

Here we get into slightly trickier territory, of trying to decide what 'is' a guy, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't have an uncomplicated relationship to being a guy. I'm not a typical guy, and I wasn't always a guy. (That last piece being the trickiest...I need to really unpack what it means that I haven't always identified as a girl, particularly in light of issues brought up by the dyke march. I used to call myself a dyke, but was I really a dyke, or was I just pre-trans? What does it mean to be really a dyke, anyway? Was I a guy back then, because I'm a guy now? Am I still partly a dyke now, because I was a dyke back then? Whew! It's like messing with the space-time continuum on Star Trek.)

So in a sense, there is some ring of truth to "passing" in that I'm usually (outside of queer/trans spaces) being read as a 'normal' or non-trans guy, which I'm not. But I am still a guy now, and I want to be acknowledged as a guy, and now that I am being consistently acknowledged as a guy, I don't want to undermine that with language that evokes the historical shame and invalidation pressed onto transfolks.

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This brings up a lot more thoughts that we were talking about in group the other day, about disclosure, and when and how to disclose. Also, about being caught in the balance of wanting some privacy, but also being unable to have it. The tension of wanting to be out, be in the vanguard of the gender revolution, and also being exhausted and angry from constantly having to bear the burden of carving out space for oneself. The responsibility one has to one's community or family to be a role model and be helpful, but also being tired of doing Trans 101 all the time. Very interesting situation.

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Last but not least, an amusing anecdote- one of my friends was apparently telling one of her friends the other day something about me being underage, but still being able to get into some bars, partly because I act and dress very maturely, and so can get away with joking about my youthful appearance to the bouncer and can sometimes talk my way in. Discussing how this works in queer spaces, the friend who didn't know me said "Oh, so he passes for a tranny boy?"

Clearly, she was thinking about the phenomenon of trans guys often looking a LOT younger than they actually are, and are often given the benefit of the doubt with regards to their age- she must have thought that I was a non-trans guy who just looked youthful and could take advantage of that situation.

Beyond the initial "Ha!" reaction to the irony of that statement, there could be some deeper twists to it...I don't identify as a "tranny boy" first of all. I actually pretty much hate that particular term- to me, it evokes condescension and fetishization. I know, too, that there are plenty of guys who happily and easily use that term (and what I think of as its counterpoint, "boi") to describe themselves. Power to 'em. But I think it's funny that just as there is a model of hegemonic masculinity that I can "pass" as belonging to, there's also starting to be an archetype of FTM that I don't necessarily fit in with any better, and so could also "pass" as belonging to.