funny lookin'

It's a funny thing bout my gender dysphoria...I didn't realize the extent of it til it was gone, in some ways. What gets me thinking that tonight is the realization that I really like how I look now. I consider myself handsome, and attractive, and while I fret about my love handles like everyone else I know (about their own, presumably, not mine) I have a basic level of satisfaction in myself and my body that not only did I not have before transition, I didn't even realize I was missing.

I watched a movie about a farmer the other day, and there was a brief scene in which a farmer girl intern is harvesting tomatoes and talking about how tomatoes helped her realize that voluptuous things are beautiful and desirable, and her curvy body is gorgeous like a ripe tomato.

It was an 'awww' moment for me on several levels, starting with the basic tug (I still feel it, though it's getting fainter) of connection and empathy with a woman discussing her body and its travails. The next was a moment of connection, of insight of what it means to look down or into a mirror and smile....or not even have to look, to just have a moment to smile inward slightly, she as she hefts a reddened tomato, me as I run the back of my thumb along the coarse fuzz on my jaw.

I didn't know how unhappy I was with myself til I made something happen to become happier. it's a bit funny, that gradual realization of self that inspires realization of happiness.


Also, it gives me a bit of insight (though not any more sympathy, mind you- suck it up!) for the folks, and usually they are someone's folks, parents or whatnot, who can't wrap their minds around how important transition is for someone. "But you never seemed that unhappy/miserable!"

Seems like there's a whole iceberg under that tip of dissatisfaction that gets shown to the world. I didn't myself realize the extent of how weird things were as a girl til I stopped being one. No wonder other people, without the benefit of my feelings, didn't realize how wrong it was.

more thoughts on Pride

and a few more pictures!

Pride was really a good time, discounting the hot/sweaty/waiting around two hours for us to have our turn to start marching parts. Once we got going, it was real nice to be a part of something so big, and filled with such positive energy. Everyone watching was smiling and cheering, and we spent lots of time waving to the crowd, and getting waves back.

I've mentioned before a feeling of growing apart from the Transmasculine community, like it's not something that I feel such a strong desire to be a part of, as most clearly evidenced by my tapering off and then disappearing attendance at the Group run by the Center. Marching in Pride, though, seems to clarify my feelings about being part of the community.

I want to be part of the community in the sense of sometimes attending big events, and feeling pride in my queer/trans identity, and helping to support folks by going to film festivals and suchlike, and participating in activism/outreach by being on panels or helping with mentoring programs, or what have you. I don't want to be a part of "the community" in the stock sense of the word that tends to homogenize more than anything else. I don't have the angst or the patience to be a part of a support group right now, in part because my transition is becoming a different aspect of my life now (a more personal one), and in part because I don't have the sensibilities to be part of a "bonding with my tranny brothers" mentality. A lot of my friends are trans, and a big part of my social world is the queer/trans scene in the City. But I really am resistant to the idea that I'm in an automatic brotherhood with all the other dudes with vaginas in this world because quite frankly, I can't stand a lot of them.

My friends are the people that I connect with and bond with, and lots of them are transdudes also because we connect on that point- but oh man, I'm tired of the notion (coming from inside the community and out) that transmasculine folks are all the same, and so are automatically buddies.

Anyway. I had a great time at Pride, marching with a lot of great people. It felt good to connect with all sorts of transmasculine folks on that level, of being part of the TMC Network, and marching in solidarity with each other. And part of what was so great about it was limiting the interaction to that particular venue.

Other thoughts...there was a fellow running around with a video camera interviewing folks, and he talked to some people in our group about what TMC Network is. Then he asked Kate about her shirt, and I asked him who he was...at which point he assured me that he'd done all sorts of video interviews with all sorts of people, including "some lesbian women who say that transgenders make the perfect man! What do you have to say about that, considering that you don't, uh, don't necessarily look like you're one of the transgenders?"

I paraphrase, but it was something along those lines...well meaning, but definitely a bombshell that I didn't feel inclined to touch. I did what is generally known as "sticking to your talking points" and said something about how glad I was to be a part of the TMC Network, it's a great social and political organization, I was very glad to be visible and part of the parade."

He accepted that and wandered off to interview someone else, fortunately, since I didn't know quite what else to say. I wasn't going to get into my views on tranny-chasing (though I have had some interesting thoughts about that lately...fodder for another post, I suppose), and I didn't know quite how to react to his rather blunt assessment of my passing privilege.

I did of course feel a tiny swell of pride- he meant it as a compliment, of course, and I couldn't help but take it as one, even as I was aware of the lousy assumptions built into the foundation of that compliment. I know my flat chest/fuzzy face/5'8" stature lets me break ranks with a lot of other trans dudes and I'm grateful for it even as I'm frustrated by it, and anxious about being complicit with the binary gender system. Not sure how to convey those complex feelings in a Pride March soundbite, that's for certain.

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Speaking of fuzzy face, I'm two weeks in to my beard growing experiment, and I realized that I don't have enough experience with beard growth to know whether mine looks sparse because I'm too young (facial hair wise) to get anything good, or because all beards look kinda sparse their first few weeks in existence. No one has told me I look stupid, though, and I trust my friends/family to be honest with me and let me know if I really need to bust out the razor. My plan is to grow it out til it comes time to head back to Portland to visit the extended family in two weeks, at which point I'll try to make as objective an assessment as possible to determine whether it'll impress my relatives or make them chuckle.

so proud

I marched with the Transmasculine Community Network in the New York City GLBT Pride Parade yesterday- super fun! A lot of us wore TMC Network t-shirts that read (albeit in miniscule print) "The T is not silent!" My excellent sister wore a hand lettered tank top that read "I *heart* my trans-man twin!"

That's me looking scruffy and Kate in all her sharpie ally glory...I thought about writing "I *heart* my non-trans twin!" on the back of my t-shirt, but I figured I wouldn't ever wear it again if I did that, and I could probably get some good gym usage out of it if I left it as it was.

Dawning of a New Era

or in other words, have you ever wanted to know what I look like, as they say, IRL. Have you ever dared dream of the day you'd see me become a....what is it now....vlogger?

See what the digital age hath made possible.

First video, April 12, 2006. Second, June 19, 2007.





I know, right? I said it, too. "Whoa, turbo!"

warnings/apologies: vocals seem to be slightly out of sync in the first video, the volume is uneven between the two, the camerawork, such as it is, is shaky at best, and I've got a slight but definite lisp. forewarned is forearmed.

10 months, give or take a day

please to forgive vacant open-mouthed stare, unruly chest hair patches, glimpses of messy room, etc.

chest status: alas! + cake

I realized the other day that one of the benefits I get through my work it the option to enroll in a pre-tax medical expenses flexible spending account. In other words, they take out money from my paycheck pre-taxes, and use it to reimburse me for medical expenses incurred over the course of that year. Up to $3,000 can be taken out per year. And I ask myself...why the HELL didn't I use that to help pay for my chest surgery? What with the tax-free status, it would've been like getting a free extra thousand bucks. What was I thinking?

Also, I could've used it this year to help pay for my glasses!

But you can only sign up for it once a year, and you can only use it to pay for things that took place during the same fiscal year. So alas, it's no good to me now.
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I bought some cocoa butter lotion (with Vitamin E! it declares on the tube) to rub into my chest surgery scars, since I've just run out of the oil I'd been using. I think the oil did some good, and I think this cocoa butter stuff will be good, too...it's certainly a very effective moisturizer, and it makes me smell like cake batter, which is a definite bonus. It's pretty thick, so it requires some vigorous rubbing in to get it to soak in to my skin, and I think that itself is good for my chest, too...massage is definitely proven to help break down scars/prevent adhesions, and I suspect it'll help with nerve regrowth, too, to have that stimulation. Certainly, my chest tingles pleasantly for a few minutes when I've finished my vehement cocoa butter rubdown, morning and night.
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Scars are looking good- still quite pink, but fading and flattening. It's pretty much only under my right armpit that it's still lumpy, and I can tell that it's going to keep getting better. My right nipple is not as nice as my left- the areola is more lopsided in shape, and has some persistent dry/flaky skin. But the left nipple itself has a little discolored bump (I suspect from where the Evil Milkmaid pinched me at that Halloween party last year), so I guess they both have their little quirks. Still not much sensation in them, but they definitely get hard and soft in response to temperature and sometimes in response to tactile stimulation. And sometimes for no discernible reason.

I'll post some pictures later tonight.

sci fi foolishness

So I'm going to see some some movies on Saturday with the Transmasculine Community Network (aka all my buddies). There are four films being shown (Gender Redesigner, Bro Crush, F Scott Fitzgerald Slept Here , and Kaden) and it's only 7 bucks for students (13 for everyone else, at the AMC Lowes on 34th Street at 8th Ave. Details, tickets, etc www.newfest.org.

I'm looking forward to going to the movies with friends, and supporting the community, especially since at least one of the movies was written or directed or acted in by various friends of mine. But I was also a little hesitant when I first saw the invite, because (as I mentioned last post, I think) I've been feeling myself pull back a bit from 'the transmasculine community' lately. I tried to pull the feeling apart a bit in therapy yesterday, and I got some ideas, but I still can't totally pin it down.

I think part is coming from a feeling of being tired of being Trans with a capital T. It was a hard year or two while I came out and got my bearings and got transition up and rolling, and it was draining, and I'm tired of it. Now that my transition is taking up less personal energy, I'm feeling the urge to let it totally die down, to just...ignore it for a while.

Then there comes this big wave of guilt, because I know that the fact that I can choose to ignore it is due almost entirely to my newfound passing privilege: the fact that I get read as male consistently, and (for the most part) have the luxury of checking out...something I couldn't do pre-transition, and many many other folks can't do.

Amy reminded me that there's an ebb and flow to everything, and that it's reasonable for me to be tired of spending a lot of energy on trans stuff, and that not going to one event (or even lots of events) isn't going to cause me to lose my place in the trans community.

And I think a larger part of it is a desire to shut the door on that chapter of my life for a little while...the early transition angst chapter. I unequivocally want to see the short films being shown, partly because they're the work of my friends, but partly because they seem to be something definitively different than the standard 'transition documentary' which is what the feature film is. I had a gut reaction flinch to the description of that film...I don't really want to see a documentary about one person coming out as trans and then beginning medical transition.

Why not? Maybe because I just finished living that story, and don't particularly want to relive it through someone else's lens just yet. Maybe because I'm grouchy and irritable these days, with less patience for things that make me uncomfortable...or movies that remind me of past and sort-of-still-present discomforts.

--

All that personal stuff aside, I'm also somewhat ambivalent about supporting this festival, due to some hullabaloo about a transphobic movie that was shown a few days ago. As my buddy Pete pointed out, there's some bullshit afoot . "NewFest, an LGB and supposedly T film festival, proceeded to show The Gendercator [link to Director's website] in New York this evening, despite outcry from trans activists and allies and the fact that it was pulled from NewFest in San Fransisco."

The director's note, from the website, reads:
Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change themselves, instead of working to change the world. This is one story, showing one possible scary future. I am hopeful that this story will foster discussion about female body modification and medical ethics.

So basically, a parable about how we trans folks really ARE part of that evil transsexual empire that Janice Raymond got so worked up about in 1979. Great.

So yeah, plenty of more articulate and intelligent things have been written about this already (check out the Susan Stryker comments Pete links to), but I've got to throw a few more of my own cents into the mix.

This film is ridiculous for a variety of reasons, not least of which is once again, the notion that being trans = anti-feminist, patriarchal, repressively binary. Please. My transmasculinity is not impinging on your gender freedom. I'm not denying the patriarchy or colluding with it by living my life in a fully realized, satisfactory manner.

Also, as Pete says, this notion that butch lesbians are being pressured to transition is one that I've never encountered. I certainly have noticed (and remarked upon here in this blog) how there are master narratives within the transmasculine community as within any other, with various notions of the "best" ways to transition being privileged above others, and hierarchies built into the community. It's important to note, however, that a lot of that is anti-trans baggage coming from society at large, being perpetuated by people (trans and non-trans alike) who don't have the time (or perhaps, sometimes, the social agency/necessary privilege) to examine and deconstruct those notions.

This film is masquerading as 'a sci-fi satire' but (as best as I can say based on what I've read, having not actually seen it) seems to be mostly a tirade against transsexuality, coming from someone who is taking some basic misinformed assumptions and running away with them. The director writes that she wants to foster discussion, and I think that indeed it needs to be discussed, so that it can be picked apart and revealed for what it is.

So while I'm a huge free speech advocate, I don't believe that this film has a place at an avowedly LGBT positive film festival. (Though I can't say that I'm surprised that a transphobic film slipped through the cracks, since it seems the T is once again mostly an afterthought in this festival.) I think that it's not appropriate for films with anti-trans morals to be shown at a festival supposedly celebrating and bolstering (however belatedly) the trans community. The film's anti-trans rhetoric cuts more deeply when it's lent validity by appearing in a supposedly safe space, and I think that i is unacceptable for NewFest to have shown it anyway.

unite

As you can no doubt see for yourselves, I've added a fancy new header with a picture of yours truly because I saw the words "Add a photo to your header!" on the blogger homepage. Now I can't decide if I like it or nay- it's rather large, since I'm not much for figuring out how to resize photos without mucking up the resolution, but that was such a lovely day last January, when it was 72 degrees out and all was right with the world, that I think I'm going to keep it up there.
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Speaking of photos, I received my new digital camera in the mail today...expect photo and video posts to increase in frequency! Nothing like easy digital documentation to add a little spice to this little blog. I'm thinking of doing some kind of Pre-T vs. Now photo comparison post, since it's such a classic of transition journals everywhere, but I might be a little too cynical to embrace that particular trope.

Though I have been thinking lately about my cynicism (and occasional bitterness), particularly when it comes to my transness. I find myself of late being less interested in participating in some of the classic trans undertakings, like posting my own Testosterone Timeline, or going to see trans documentaries. Part of it is reactionary against some of the less appealing narratives of trans identity that are out there- I have no interest in being a trannyboi, or of helping to reinforce some sort of transman master narrative, in which I was a dyke, and then I decided I was a queer guy, and then I changed my name, and then I started T, and then I had chest surgery, and then I started flinching away from everything Trans* because my life is more than just the haphazard letter at the end of those happy homo acronyms, dammit.

Um, yeah. On the other hand, I think part of this is just a sort of weird reaction to gaining a lot of passing privilege in the past...oh, 6-9 months, and trying to figure out what (trans)manhood I really want to shape for myself. This is proving to be somewhat tricky, and while I've been thinking lately about maybe stopping therapy in July when my current therapist leaves, I'm thinking now that maybe I still have some things to talk about, after all. Might be useful to have a new therapist to go along with this new stage of transition- I think I'd call myself "mid-transition" right now, rather than early, and while it's a lot easier in a lot of ways, there are still some unexpected issues to untangle.

Though no more, I'd like to think, than a lot of other people have to deal with, in growing up and deciding how to live their lives. I say that as a reaction to something I've been hearing a lot lately, friends whose families are objecting strenuously to their transition plans, in part (I think, at least) because of some underlying sense of "Oh no, a life of difficulty and freakishness for my child! No way!"
Well, sure, being trans is hard sometimes, but denial and invalidation pretty much doesn't help.
--
So speaking of being trans, and NOT distancing myself from the trans community, I'm having dinner tonight with two trans folks who are also somehow affiliated with the University where I work- we're going to discuss ideas for building up some trans resources here, since there seem to be none. One thing we've thought of thus far is setting up some sort of mentoring program, where students could get in touch with another trans person at the University...though I wonder if there would be some sort of rules about which directions the mentoring could go in. Could students mentor staff? Would it be available to students only?

Also, what does 'mentoring' really mean? Hanging out? Being friends with? Pointing out resources in the city? Might not be a bad idea to have some sort of NYC specific resource guide put together, including information about the GLBT Center and their Gender Identity Project, at least, to be available whether or not a student wants to request a mentor.

We'll see what we can brainstorm tonight, I suppose!

muscle memory

My sister has graduated from college and is coming to live with me (hurrah!) and this past weekend we spent a bit of time scurrying around starting to get things ready for our apartment. One of our endeavors was the acquisition of a bed for her, and luckily enough, she found one on Craigslist, being sold about a half a mile from our apartment.

Unfortunately, there's a rather sizable park (with a more than sizable cliff/towering set of stairs) between the two spots, so we undertook to load the full size bed (Ikea mattress and frame, so light, but still big) onto a handtruck and cart it an additional 7 blocks up and down and around the park, from door to door.

It was a pretty arduous task, given that our handtruck had a pretty flat left tire, and that the sidewalk was in a few places rather too narrow to accommodate us, etc, but great fun was had by all. The surprising part of the whole adventure was how much I ended up shouldering the load. Especially as we were coming back through the park, pulling the handtruck up the stairs- it was much easier for me to pull the cart than it was for Kate.

I know that my shoulders have gotten broader, that my muscle mass has been building, but this was one of the first real bits of tangible evidence of my increased strength that I've had. It felt normal to me to haul that cart up the stairs almost casually, until I saw that it was a heavy load for Kate. That was a definite moment of disconnect.

When we were younger, Kate was stronger than me. She was the one who could run faster, and farther. She could shimmy up poles and ropes, through some combination still unknown to me of arm strength and sneaker maneuvering. I would never agree to enter an arm wrestling contest against her, because I knew I'd lose. She used to be the buff twin!

In a slightly different context, my therapist said to me this morning "It's not like you don't know your own strength, Eli."

She meant that I am (or at least, I try hard to be) conscious of my size and space and presence, of the eddies I cause in the flow and exchange of power in the world. I take up more of it now, in my maleness, and I'm very aware of that, in contrast, as Amy was pointing out, to many other men, to whom manhood came more naturally. (Among that group I definitely include both trans and nontrans men, though I think there are far more nontrans men, numerically of course but also percentage wise, who fit the bill.)

So yes, of course I do know my own strength, and I know it physically, too- I've been proud as my push-up count has risen from single digits ending in noodle-armed exhaustion to my current sets of 15 that I try to remember to do every day. But this hauling of the handcart reminds me that, for all the work I try to put into my body, the payoffs are still sometimes a gentle surprise.

opposite of war isn't peace

There was a big reunion at my college last weekend, and I didn't go, for a host of reasons revolving around other obligations in the city and overly complicated logistics around getting there. Now, reflecting on the opportunity I missed, I'm finding that my regret is definitely tinged with relief.

I'm still nervous about returning to places in my life where there are people I'm no longer in touch with, people who may or may not have heard about the changes in my life and the way I live it now.

I've gotten awfully comfortable with myself and my life these days, in large part due to the fact that I'm not fighting anymore. I'm not defending my masculinity or fighting for my identity. Everyone who is in my life understands and respects me; me, Eli, son, brother, boyfriend, guy-behind-the-library-desk. Strangers understand me as Eli because I've now got more of the cues that usually indicate guy (sideburns, tenor voice) and fewer of the cues that indicate girl (breasts). The people who are in my life (family, friends, wider circle of friendly people) know who I am because I've told them and reminded them and they've had time to readjust their notions and gain a new understanding, reinforced, of course, by those same shifting cues.

It's funny and satisfying and a little sad to understand just what those cues mean. This seismic shift of the past year/18 months has changed my world, even as I have changed in ways that are seemingly totally different and yet utterly connected. I'm not the same person under all these cues, the acne and body hair and scars that have landscaped my body into something new. I'm not a new person, but I'm not the same, and how much of that is due to what, I don't know. I don't know if it's even productive to try to sort it out. Am I restless now because my self-directed energy is still high, but the amount of maintenance required for my transition is falling off at a rate inversely proportional to the amount of maintenance required by my facial hair? Or is it the vaguely ADD-esque effects that I suspect testosterone is offering to my attention span? Or is it the early-twenties post-college crisis that I'm just about due for?

It's satisfying to know that transition has, in a sort of grossly defined way, worked. It has brought me happiness and fulfilment in my own skin, and it has caused the rest of the world to get a much clearer picture of me, putting an end to the aforementioned (and formerly ongoing/exhausting/demoralizing) fighting.

It's funny to think that the removal or addition (as the case may be) of a couple of pounds of skin and tissue from my chest or a couple of square inches of dense hair to my face can make for such powerful allies in that fighting. It wins the battle with strangers before anything has to be fought, and it made the difference for quite a few folks who were hesitant to really understand my maleness until it had a form that they could more easily understand.

And that there is the sad part- that 14 months of hormones can accomplish what years of assertions and explanations sometimes can't, that it still takes the same traditional markers of masculinity to establish respect. I'm thinking of my favorite queen karaoke hostess, who despite repeated promptings/reminders/requests on my part, couldn't get my pronouns straight until confronted by the big guns: a rebuke from my mom, and my own physical transition. Miss J got much better after my mom joined the fray, but the battle has only really stopped now that I've got my flat chest in tight t-shirts to gird me.

I read the other day a comment along the lines of "I'm not a man, and not because I'm trans, but because there are no such thing as men."

That resonates with me really powerfully, because I hear in it my own convictions about the sadness and folly of the necessary tactics in the Battle of the Sexes...not in the original sense of the tennis-match skirmish, but the larger Battle, the ongoing one about what it means to have a gender in this system, and the fighting and revolution that's necessary to change it.

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I'm starting to ramble, in a manner much more grim and bellicose than I intended. (it's the T!! the T that makes me use these militaristic metaphors!!!)

I want to return at least briefly to my original point, which is about the relief that's been tempering my regret about missing my reunion. That relief is coming from an understanding that going back to Simon's Rock would have meant re-entering the fray- facing a slew of battles, big and small, about how I am seen by people who haven't had the benefit of time and explanations and understanding. That prospect is daunting, and I don't know if it makes me a bit of a coward to be glad to wait til my beard fills in a little more, til I have bigger and better armaments, before I return to the front lines.

slip away

So, I forgot to give myself my shot yesterday. It was only when Ro asked "so, how'd your shot go this morning?" late last night that I realized it was, in fact, Wednesday and while I'd been home and puttering around the house for a good two hours, I totally neglected my usual Wednesday morning ritual of masculine hygiene: brief workout, mostly of crunches/pushups; shower; shave; injection.

I think there's a post back in the archives of this blog somewhere, musing about how long it'd take for the excitement of transition to fade. Well, not long, I guess. I'm going to go home tonight and do it, and I've been marking it on my calendar, so if I pay a little more attention to what day of the week it is, I should be fine in the future.

I don't think there have been any ill effects, but I did realize that I was in an exceptionally good mood yesterday, and also managed to be slightly more patient than usual during a couple of moments of frustration.

Could be coincidence- my life is pretty good all around these days, what with the sunshine, and my sister's upcoming move to NYC to replace my imminently departing roommate, etc. I'd chalked my cheerfulness up to those factors. But maybe my late dose contributed, as well? It's food for thought, and has me wondering about adjusting my dosage and/or dosing schedule. I'm due in a week or so for my quarterly bloodwork check-up, so maybe I'll see where my levels are at and discuss it with my Doc.

I've been thrilled with the pace of my transition thus far, but I think I'd be willing to trade in quicker puberty for fewer bouts of grumpiness.

all my transsexuals

I don't think I ever wrote about it, but a couple of months ago, back in January, I met a soap opera star at my favorite gay bar. This fellow was playing a transwoman on the soap opera "All My Children" and was friends with a transwoman who works at the bar. Apparently he'd talked to her a lot to prepare for his role playing 'Zarf,' a sexually ambiguous David Bowie type who begins to transition to Zoe over the course of a few episodes, while trying to make out with the lesbian character. Or some such appropriately soapy plotline- appropriate clips can be found on YouTube, at any rate.

The woman who works there introduced me to him as, I suppose, the only other trans person who frequents the bar, and he wanted to spend some time chatting and asking questions, and telling me about how the producers did all this research with the appropriate GLBT organizations, like GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and how it was really important to him to get it "right" and etc. I think he was hoping to both show off a little as a trans ally, and also try to mine for more information he could use to further his understanding of his character, or some such.

And I'm trying not to begrudge him that, because I think he did do a credible job with the role (what bits I saw from my own YouTube explorations, anyway), and he was sincere in his desire to be respectful and educate himself (again, like my karaoke friend Orlando, with the self denigrating question mixed with flirtation: "May I ask a question? If it's offensive, you can punch me! You can do anything you want to me, actually.").

But I wasn't really in the mood to play "ask-a-trans-dude." I just wanted to sing my songs and hang out with my friends.

I thought of this event again because this past weekend I was at a party and saw a guy I went to college with, not someone I was ever particularly close to, but we had a couple of classes together and were on the cheerleading team (such as it was) together, and at a small school, that's enough.

Clearly, he'd been filled in, whether through Facebook or the grapevine, or by the host of the event, because when I got there he said "Hey Eli!" and greeted me without a blink, which I appreciate, especially since there were folks who know me from my work there as well, and I really didn't want to deal with pronoun/name confusion in front of them.

Later, he told me about his work running a free health clinic, and asked a mildly curious question about the timeline of my transition (I can't quite remember his phrasing, but it was interesting, something like "So, when did you shift?" that was certainly respectful but rather unusual) which I was happy to answer. Then he wanted to ask me about what I think best about how they should ask about gender on their intake forms, and I don't think I gave a particularly straight answer.

Those two interactions are making me feel very keenly the edge between tokenization and education, and the rights and responsibilities of being trans. I have the right to be left alone, but the responsibility to help educate people in my community. It's important for people to educate themselves, but they often seek out and tokenize individuals when doing so, which places undue burden on any one person to try to be the spokesperson of the community. It feels like a double bind- if I don't speak up, then misperceptions will never be corrected. But if I do speak up, there's the weight of all of these notions suddenly squarely on my shoulders, and I know that I can't (and shouldn't try to) speak for all trans people in some sort of pronouncement.

I know that I do my part to try to be proactively educational (like when I participated in that panel a few weeks ago) but I don't always feel like being pressed for details about trans issues on the spur of the moment.

It gets me wondering about how much work I should reasonably be expected to do, and how much work people should reasonably be expected to do as allies. All kinds of people claim space as 'trans allies,' and I certainly think that being trans and being a trans ally are not mutually exclusive, though they often are. The work that I do when I try to educate folks is definitely ally-work, though it has different connotations depending on whether I'm being read as trans or not.

Advocacy on my own behalf carries different weight than someone else advocating on my behalf. I'm grateful for folks who are allies, but I don't know when that gratitude becomes too much. I don't think I should have to be grateful for common courtesy (like not outing me in front of strangers, as my college friend refrained from doing), since that's my right as a human being. But I don't want allies to feel like they're not appreciated for the work they're doing, because I don't want them to stop doing it!

Also, the trouble with being used as a resource (and I think this is a broader question, that extends beyond the interactions I've been describing here), is that one person's requests are another person's insults. The terminology which I find appropriate and acceptable to describe me may be totally different from what another person with a similar history/biology might desire. Makes having a cohesive trans community pretty tricky, but maybe a cohesive trans community oughtn't be the ultimate goal after all?

inching along

I'm not sure if there's any truth to it, or if it's transition-related or just still-in-my-very-early-twenties related, but Rochelle has suggested and I hesitantly agree that I may have grown a bit in height. Maybe half an inch to an inch, but we've both noticed, and while it's not enough to spring me out of my short-guy stature, it definitely warms my heart a bit. Particularly if it means I'll have an easier time finding pants...I have the worst time with my inseam.

Other than that possibly negligible effect, there's not much to report on the physical transition front. Puberty continues on as expected- facial hair is filling in, chest hair and belly hair are making distant threats of someday conquering my torso, and my voice seems to have dropped a tiny bit more. (latest voice post is from last week) Spurred on by reading the ftmfit livejournal community, and also visiting my sister and learning some of her tennis exercises, I've been doing some small, in-home bits of working out, and my musculature is responding with gratifying speed.

Gave myself another shot this week, and seem to be learning some tricks (higher up on the thigh, hold the muscle in a stretch for 30 seconds or so after the shot), because there was no pain or cramping at all. Excellent.

Acne seems to be subsiding slightly, but I've been making an effort to drink more water, have been washing my face semi-regularly, and have started taking a multivitamin that contains vitamin A, said to be good for one's skin. so who knows if it's T-related or not.

chipper

The panel was fine! Mostly just each of us talking briefly about our identities, etc, and then some questions at the end. I talked (though not as articulately as I might've hoped to) about the difficulties I had obtaining my name change, and why it was particularly illustrative of two common frustrations for trans people. First, by trying to require me to provide "medical documentation" of my "sex change," the judge was holding me to a higher level of scrutiny than non-trans people, and directing that scrutiny in particular at my body, in an invasive/inappropriate/uncomfortable way. And not only that, but he was basing that scrutiny on unfounded assumptions about what it means to be trans- he was structuring his request for 'proof' around his narrow ideas about what it means for someone to "get a sex change" and those notions are limiting and oppressive when applied to individuals who may or may not be pursuing medical transition as part of affirming their gender identity. And all this to impede my attempt to normalize myself by changing my identity documents to better reflect my male identity and presentation!


Anyway.


The other presenters were interesting and articulate, and the questions were perfectly fine, for the most part, although one person asked me "What was your name before, and why did you change it?"


I replied that this was a teachable moment, and a perfect example of what NOT to ask a trans person; that the reason I changed my name was because I wasn't comfortable with the one I had before, and I wanted to legally change my name so that it would be the one that I wanted everybody to call me, and so I didn't tell her what my name used to be.


This led to a rather productive little discussion about how respectful questions are always welcomed, but there's a fine line between education and curiosity, and that sometimes curiosity ought to be satisfied by reading a book or finding a resource rather than asking an invasive question of an individual. Or asking an individual in a safe space, such as this panel, so that they can do what I did- answer the relevant part of the question (I changed my name because I was more comfortable using a masculine name rather than the feminine, though very beautiful, name I'd been given as a baby) and explain why the other part of the question is inappropriate (I'm not comfortable revealing my former name to a stranger in a public forum in order to satisfy their curiosity).


Also, led to some talk about how questions are always better than assumptions, especially respectful questions. I've had some of the most troublesome interactions with people who assume that they're coming from a respectful place, and make assumptions about how I identify, and end up being the most offensive- like Miss Jackie, bless her heart, the karaoke hostess who never fails to mention lesbians whenever she talks to me. Or the social work student who invited me to her "weekly women's dance party down in the Village." I might have looked like a dyke once upon a time (and identified as a dyke even longer ago) but I'm not one now.
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Speaking of questions and dialogue, I'm catching up on some backlogged comments in previous posts that I never responded to, so if I never replied to a comment you posted a while ago and you're burning to read my witty replies, check later today.

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In other news, my sister took this really cute picture of my while she was here this past weekend. I think it shows off my sideburns nicely, as well as my overall happy state now, Spring 2007, just after my 2nd Maniversary.