beard, scars, etc

Time for another visual update!

First with the face shot.
I'm putting this one up because it rather nicely showcases not only my beard, but also the brand new smile-wrinkles I'm getting around my eyes. While it's true that I'm not a spring chicken anymore, I doubt that I'd be showing my lines quite so quickly if it weren't for the testosterone. As dermatologists and other assorted doctors will tell you, it's estrogen that makes your skin soft and smooth and glowy and young looking. I don't mind- it's frankly nice to see some signs of maturity on my face after feeling for so long like I was staring down a 14 year old every time I looked in the mirror. I was just commenting the other day when I saw a pre-T picture of me that I had such a baby face! Ro pointed out that my face still has some of the same shape- I haven't really lost the roundness that most people associate with babyfacedness. But what I really meant was that my skin no longer has that estrogen-plumped smoothness to it, that made me look like such a young boy (or, of course, a girl). Now, my face is starting to roughen, not least because of the facial hair, and I like it.

Next we have another beard view, and also a straightforward chest shot, though you can't really see my scars too well from this angle. You can see that my wispy chest pelt is growing, though!

Here's a better look at my chest scars. This is, let's see, just about 18 months since I had surgery. I've regained a lot of sensation in some of the areas of my chest between my scar and my nipples that were numb right after surgery, but there's still a wide swatch of numbness along the top of the scars themselves. Also, my nipples are still pretty numb, though I can feel pressure, and some sensation, and they do get hard and soft quite nicely, mostly as a reaction to temperature changes.
I used the flash for this one, and it reveals that I had just rubbed oil onto my scars. I'm using Dr. Palmer's Scar Serum ($9.99 at RiteAid) these days, and I try to do it twice a day when I remember, though I often only do it in the morning since it stays sticky for a while and I don't much like wearing a shirt to bed.
Here's another angle. You can see that the scars have faded the most along the front, and are still darker along the ends up under my arms. I think that's because there was more stress placed on the scar there, because I was moving my arms and moving the scar tissue more as it was healing. Also, you can see between the two shots that the visibility of the scars really depends on the angle that you're looking from, and the lighting. In bright light (and sunlight), they're much more visible, but they're also less visible when you're looking at them straight-on; they tend to blend into the curve of my pectoral muscle.

At any rate, I'm exceedingly pleased with my healing, and my chest as a whole. It's hard for me to remember what it was like before surgery- as in, the memories are fading, and also, it's hard because I don't like trying to remember. And it's harder still for me to wrap my brain around the idea that I might have not done this, that I might still have breasts today. This feels so natural, which I suppose is the pudding that contains the proof, or whatnot.

Fatherly Wisdom

My sister and I are going to visit our father who art in Massachusetts in a few weeks. We're going to head up to his place for the weekend and do a little candlepin bowling and then all watch the SuperBowl together, which seems like it'll be a nice little trip with enough pre-planned activities built in to keep all of us from stressing.

I really like spending time with my Dad, probably because I don't do it that often, but especially now that I have the perfect excuse to pick his brain for knowledge on everything from electric razors to what kind of tie to wear on a job interview (something with personality! show them you're not a drone of a worker bee!). We get along better than ever since I've matured into being his eldest son, and I sort of feel like we need to make up for lost time with the whole Father-Son thing.

Not to mention the fact that he's a guy who's been around a few different blocks a few times, so he's pretty familiar with what's what and who likes it that way. That being said, he's not of the same radical, consciousness-has-been-raised crowd that I generally spend my time with. So I feel like his perspective is both informed but also quite different from my friends/peers, and I appreciate getting his take on things.

I remember back in the early days of my transition when I fretted a bit to him about what I was going to "end up like." I don't even recall if I was talking specifically about my appearance or my identity or what. He came back with something like "Well, I don't know if this makes much sense, but it seems to me that as you go through with this, you're going to end up more and more like yourself."

Which was, of course, spot-on. These days, I feel more like me than I ever have before, even if I still have the same old post-college-grad "who am I??" crises about what I'm doing with my life. At least I know whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to do it as me.

Anyway, I keep meaning to write down as much as I can of the little bits of fatherly wisdom that I pick up when I'm with my dad. After all, with masculinity being the learned social construction that it is, when I'm around a teacher I ought to at least take good notes.

Trans Health Conference Proposal

Well, I just submitted a very last minute (technically late, since the deadline was yesterday) proposal for a workshop to the Trans Health Conference that happens every spring in Philadelphia. This year it's over Memorial Day weekend, I think. I went last year, and thought it was a reasonably good conference. There was some talk online in an FTM forum that I'm a part of about the Chest Surgery Show-and-Tell that is a perennial favorite workshop, where guys can take off their shirts and tell their stories, and folks who have not yet had surgery (and often their partners and families) can get a chance to see some results and ask questions.

I think it's a great resource, and I would've liked to be able to go to one (or more!) before I'd had surgery, to get a chance to see some 'real live' results, and get a better sense of what I was in for. Last year, I participated as a 'show' volunteer, which had its own rewards in terms of my own voyeurism (how do all the other Brownstein guys look?) and vanity (hey, all these people want to see me shirtless! sweet!), as well as feeling good about getting to be a resource.

I felt like the format of the workshop, though, could use some help. The organizers invited people to come up in groups according to which surgeon they'd visited, but then had each person give a sort of 2 minute spiel about their experience, which was nice...except everyone in the audience had to sit through every single introduction, many of which did not stick to 2 minutes. I felt like it was totally useless to someone who, for instance, wasn't considering Double Incision as an option to hear so many DI stories, and likewise useless for someone who was only thinking about going to an east coast surgeron to hear all of us Brownstein guys talk about our experiences. Not to mention, I had to wait through everyone else's presentation before getting my chance to get up there and take my shirt off, and (as Rochelle can attest!) that made me really fidgety and impatient.

Some of the guys on the forum I was reading about were complaining about the format as well, so it can't have been just me who was frustrated. So I sent in a proposal suggesting that the workshop be held more as an interactive, circuit-based situation. Here is the description that I included in my proposal:

--
I would like to present a Chest Surgery Show-and-Tell, but organized differently from such workshops that I’ve attended in the past. Rather than have everyone who wishes to share stand at the front and present one at a time to the entire audience, I believe it would be more efficient and useful to everyone present if the people who wished to display their chests and/or share their stories broke up into groups around the room according to surgeon. Everyone who comes to the workshop would then be free to circulate around the room, asking questions of the people who have had experience with the type of surgery or particular surgeon that the individual is interested in learning more about.

While this may result in the volunteers having to repeat themselves, it will prevent the entire audience from having to listen to everybody’s information, whether or not it is relevant or useful to each person in the audience. Furthermore, it will allow for more in-depth conversations to occur, as it is easier to ask for clarification and follow-up questions in a smaller group. Likewise, it will be easier for shyer individuals who might be shy to participate in smaller group settings: where they might be uncomfortable getting up in front of a large room, here they would only have to interact with the individuals interested in hearing their particular story.

I will make announcements at the beginning, and lay down some ground rules, including:

1. It is imperative that we all respect everyone and their bodies. There will be NO tolerance for disparaging or insulting comments, or judgments about anyone’s identity, transition choices, or surgical results.

2. No one is required to share more of their body or their story than they feel comfortable with; volunteers may take their clothes off or not, as they feel comfortable, and give out as much or as little personal information as they choose.

3. Please keep questions and information relevant to the topic at hand.

4. When sharing information, speak from your own experience: don’t make generalizations or spread unsubstantiated gossip.
--

We'll see if they even consider the proposal, since I missed the deadline. And maybe there were other show-and-tell proposals that sound better organized, or from someone with more experience moderating show-and-tell workshops. But I figure it was worth a shot to try out a different format, and see if it's more satisfying for both the volunteers and the audience members.

keep away from small children

I heard this from a friend the other day, while the friend was describing reasons that their recent ex had given as to why the ex didn't think they could be together long term: "And then he said...and don't take this personally...that he didn't want to raise a family with someone who has a transgender best friend."

I didn't really mind the "don't take this personally" bit from my friend, because I know how hard it is to think clearly when one is in the midst of heartbreak. One is entirely liable to say things that amount to "my ex-boyfriend wouldn't want his children exposed to you, but don't take it personally." When you are in love with someone, it is possible and even easy to overlook or forgive or even not clearly hear what they're saying when they come out with such a an astonishingly ignorant and offensive statement.

What I do mind is that this is a guy whom I shook hands with, spent a bit of time with, invited into my house on more than one occasion, and generally considered an all right guy. And now to hear that he wouldn't want me around his children? I can't figure out if I'm more appalled that I was friendly to someone who has such thoughts, or that there even ARE reasonable, intelligent people in this world who even HAVE such thoughts.

It's such an alien concept to me. I mean, I get that there are plenty of people who think I'm fucked up. I get that I'm blessed to live in relative peace, with an entirely loving and supportive network of family and friends. There is no one with whom I am truly close who responded to my explanation of my (trans)masculinity with anything worse than confusion or (relatively gentle) questions about whether I knew what I was talking about.

I know that there are people (plenty of 'em!) in the world who think I'm anything from wrong to confused to sick to laughable. I believe that it's mostly due to confusion and lack of knowledge on their own part. Sure, trans people are unusual. We're not common, we're not like most people, we are a minority. We are not, technically speaking, normal. But I don't think it should take all that much common sense to grasp the concept, with a bit of education, that just because we're not just like you doesn't mean we are WRONG. I mean, this is elementary, right?

It's the people who can't get over that, and persist in turning their confusion into fear and then into belligerence or aggressiveness or hateful/hurtful sentiments that I just don't really understand. Just like the anti-gay marriage folks, with all their "hate the sinner, love the sin" crap. I think that's pathetic. You can't parse me into little bits like that, it's a ridiculous game of semantics, and it's even MORE ridiculous to classify some of those bits as "wrong" because they're unfamiliar and thus scary. You really don't have anything better to do than worry about how my sex life is going to ruin your marriage? Really?

So ditto to the transphobes. Am I too optimistic by nature when I believe that the bigotry is just stemming from lack of knowledge and exposure? I guess I'm just not used to discovering that people with whom I have normal, totally pleasant interactions are (apparently secretly) harboring such hurtful, awful opinions about me. Because I would think that a reasonable, educated person, when meeting and interacting with a reasonable, pleasant transsexual person, who is held in close esteem by his partner, might revise his previous opinions about not letting the scary transsexuals near his children.

a few for the blog

Been almost a month since I've posted- whew! If my pattern holds, expect a flurry of posts in the next day or so as I catch up with everything. To start off, here is a mishmash of moments I've had in the past few weeks that have all ended with me thinking "well, there's one for the blog."
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While at home for the holidays, I went for tea at the Pied Cow (fave Portland coffehouse) with an old friend from high school, her girlfriend, and a few of their friends I'd never met before. At some point, the conversation turned to having babies, and being old enough to have babies- I think we were talking about teen pregnancy, maybe- and two of the girls were saying "Wow, pregnant in 6th grade? That's crazy! I didn't even get my period til 7th grade!" "Yeah, me too!"

and without thinking, I chimed in "Yeah, me too!"

The comment mostly got lost in the flow of conversation, but one of the girls I'd just met gave me a funny look, of the "What are you talking about, bro?" variety. I guess maybe she thought I was just trying to be funny. Or maybe she heard the note of sincerity in my voice and thought I was just talking about when I was first old enough to be fertile. I don't know, is there a corresponding milestone for non-trans dudes? Is it when they start having 'wet dreams' or whatever that health class euphemism is? Or maybe she is actually a super trans ally and was giving me a look of "oh hey, you're a dude who used to menstruate, then? cool!" and I just misinterpreted it. somehow I doubt it.

It was a reminder of some of the things I still have in common with most women: some cultural references and shared historical experiences. I do, for instance, know what it's like to choose amidst the dizzying array of feminine hygiene options (maxi? thin or ultrathin? with or without wings? dri-weave or plain? good lord!). I acknowledge those similarities, and I further acknowledge that those are commonalities that are not shared by most men. But I don't think those few shared experiences are enough to keep me forever in the girl camp, either, despite what the womyn-born-womyn folks would have one believe.
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Just this past weekend, my sister and I had another uncomfortable encounter with an apparently well-meaning but incredibly offensive individual. We went to a birthday party at a champagne bar (woo, fancy!) for one of my sister's friends from Smith College. The birthday girl's partner is on the transmasculine spectrum, and pretty much everyone there was gay or queer, which might lead one to believe that everyone there is pretty much on the same page, re: how not to be a jerk. but hey, surprise! no such luck.

Apparently there was a girl there who was in a writing class with my sister, and who therefore had heard some of my sister's writings, including some about me and my transness. This girl had apparently been offensive then, too, though I didn't get all the details- but something about how she came up to my sister and went on about "wow, that's so crazy! your twin is so trendy! i don't understand, why don't those tranny bois just keep being dykes?" etc., to the point where my sister just walked away from her.

So she comes up to where my sister and I are standing, and starts making small talk, etc. My sister introduces me with "This is Eli" and we shake hands. More small talk, and then the girl says "So, how's your twin?"

Not with a malicious emphasis, exactly, but definitely not a neutral tone- with a bit of a smirk, as if at a private joke.

My sister just gestured to me, and I took my cue and said dryly "I'm fine, thanks."

The girl gave a bit of a start and said "oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize it was you! haha..." and made a little more small talk before beating her retreat.

We rolled our eyes and moved on, but then later she came up to my sister and said "Oh, I'm so sorry about my faux pas earlier! I didn't realize that was your brother! I mean, I guess I'm just saying- and my girlfriend agrees with me- that he's the most convincing we've ever seen!"

My sister managed to avoid being downright rude to the girl, and extricated herself quickly, but as we took the subway home later, we tried to figure out what could possibly be going on in that girl's head that she would not only think it okay to say that, but that she would offer it up as a positive, placating remark.

Does she not realize that she is in effect offering up her judgement and on something that she has no right to police? That she is trying to tell me that, wow, I almost meet her standards for masculinity, gosh, she was almost never would've known that I'm a not a real guy, just a fake/freak/imposter who is "really convincing!"

We tried to think of how to respond to such a situation, which (as I'm sure I've mentioned here before) comes up not infrequently. Do you say "Yeah! and you know, you're very convincing as a decent human being! not quite though. maybe next time."

Or would it be better to ask them what they mean by that, and keep asking questions until they are forced to say out loud all of the condescending and offensive words and assumptions that are riding on their semi-innocuous comment. That might work- worked for Socrates!- but never underestimate the power of people to ignore their own privilege/offensiveness.

It's so hard to respond to shit like this, particularly when you're not expecting it, particularly in the middle of a social situation or party where you want to take the high road, and respond gracefully, and not make a scene. Do you just be the better person and ignore it, even if it means missing out on a teachable moment to possibly try to make the offensive idiot in front of you into a better person by pointing out their ignorance?

So hard to decide what to do! But if there's one thing we can be sure of, it's that there will be a next time. I guess we can practice our witty repartee til then.
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So, last but not least, I was very nearly America's Next Trans Model for a minute there. I heard from someone who works with OUT magazine that they are doing a trans-focused issue soon, and they were looking to find some trans folks to be the models for a photo shoot to go in the issue. One of the standard fashion photo shoots that they usually do, except with (amateur, clearly) trans folks as the models. I was initially a bit dubious- the first contact email had the subject line "tranny photo shoot" and I was immediately squicked, in no small part because I think the word tranny is pretty much juvenile and degrading in any context, and I have a hard time taking anything seriously that uses it in a non-mocking/satirical context. I've been known to use the word myself occasionally, but only in very heavily tongue-in-cheek manner, and pretty rarely. Not to mention the fact that it didn't initially mention the name of the magazine, and I've gotten a couple of dubious contacts before from people over the internet looking for sexual/naked pictures of me, so I'm always just a bit wary of random email contacts related to trans stuff.

But! I learned more about the person who contacted me, who seemed very cool, and I heard a bit more about the project, which also seemed like a good plan- why not have a wide variety of trans folks as the models? It'd be a great change of pace from their usual hardbody chelsea boy models! And when I heard that it was for OUT, which I consider definitely a legitimate organization, I agreed.

I went to an initial meeting, and meet the person who was contacting me, who was indeed cool, and the photographer. There were four other guys there, and I was pleased to see that there was at least a reasonable range of diversity- about half and half on hormones, more than half white but at least not ALL white, a few in our 20s, a couple older (30s and 40s, maybe?) , some clean-cut, some scruffy/punk looking. Seemed like it'd be a good mix, and I was definitely excited to be part of a professional photo shoot.

But then I got an email this morning saying that the photo editors had decided to keep it down to just two or three models, and the photographer had decided to go with a more "genderqueer" look, so it turns out I was going to be needed for the shoot after all. Which is fine, if a bit disappointing. But editorial decisions have to be made, etc.

What makes me a bit dubious is the notion that the photographer wants a more "genderqueer" look. That's a legitimate artistic vision, of course, and it fits in more with some of the other photos of hers I'd seen.

But...I guess I just got the wrong impression, that it was going to be a trans* focused photo shoot, because it seems a bit odd to try to pare down a reasonably diverse group of transguys to just the genderqueer ones if you're trying to present images of the transmasculine community in general. In fact, it seems like the sort of thing that would get one's hackles up, with conspiracy theories about 'lesbian' photographers shooting for 'gay' magazines only wanting to take pictures of the 'visually transgressive' guys who are still 'blurring gender binaries' and don't look 'too straight' and still look hot to dykes and still look like non-threatening 'others' to gay men. in other words, not guys who look like me...post-transition to a large extent.

that said, at the meeting they did emphasize that no decisions had yet been made about the style or content of the shoot. I don't know anything about what kind of discussion or decision making actually went down, so it's entirely possible that they just decided that they wanted to only represent more 'genderqueer' folks in this particular shoot.

And maybe here again is the problem of trying to push together all sorts of people under one big 'trans*' umbrella. You have everyone from genderqueer people to people with transsexual medical histories all being looked at the same when really, we all have quite different needs and perspectives and opinions, and it can be damaging or insulting to conflate us. Everyone's needs are distinct, but there's enough blur and similarity that it's also damn hard to parse everyone out. Like me, for instance: I identify as male first, transsexual second, but I also acknowledge that I had female/dyke experiences, and I also have genderqueer leanings, albeit from within a male framework, such that they tend to get expressed as drag queen tendencies. So that's a little complicated, right?

Anyway. The moral of the story is, I'm not going to be in OUT magazine. I'm not too worried, though, since I've been in OUT magazine before (one of the OUT 100 in 2001! woot.) and also because it's not really my business how the photographers and photo editors at OUT choose to cast their photo shoots. I'll be interested to see how the shoot turns out, though!
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and while we're talking about super fashionable transsexuals, here's a shot taken while I was home in Portland, in the middle of an intense muffin-baking binge. I believe I'd just taken my third batch of the night out of the oven. You can just about almost see my chest hairs poking out above my homemade Oregon pride a-shirt.

teh gay

I'm going home with my partner for New Year's, and I'll be staying with her family for a few days, and meeting her friends from high school and her grandmother, etc. I'm quite excited, and the usual small amount of nervous. I'm also curious as to what it's going to be like for her to bring home a man, since she once spent no small amount of courage and energy explaining to her loved ones that she's gay. The real picture is more complicated, of course, since she doesn't identify as lesbian so much as [gender]queer, and she has dated folks of a variety of genders. But she's bringing me home, and I'm a guy, and that's a hefty thing to plan for.

Of course, I'm not a straight man, but this is something that she'll probably share with most of her friends and none of her elderly relatives. I'm also a man who grew up as a girl, which is something she has shared with some close friends and her parents, but probably also won't be told to the acquaintances/grandma.

And it's the former, not the latter, that is the reason we are not in a straight relationship, despite appearances to the contrary.

I find it impossible to say that my experiences growing up female and trying to find myself as a dyke didn't contribute to the kind of queer person that I am today, but I also feel strongly that the fact of my transness does not automatically make me queer, nor does it automatically make my relationship with my girlfriend automatically a gay relationship. It's a frustrating connection that a lot of people try to impose upon trans folks and their partners, and I think it's a delicate operation to properly refute their flawed reasoning without resorting to either reactionary homophobic statements or keeping separate two things that are, in fact connected.

That is to say, my trans experience has contributed to my queerness: I remember what it's like to be a dyke. Though I feel compelled to add that I have no way of knowing what it's like to be a dyke who doesn't feel like a guy on the inside, so my experience of lesbianism is possibly (if not probably) pretty different from most lesbians. And there's also the fact that I feel a little silly saying something like "Oh, I only date women!" when I know the huge range of people and bodies and genders contained in that statement, not to mention the ones who ought to be but get left out.

So those are some reasons that I'm queer. But there's also the fact that I'm a guy, and while I mostly date women, I am into guys as well. Hypothetically, for the most part, since I've been in a committed relationship for most of my transition, and I didn't really date or hook up with men before my transition. That is, I believe, mostly due to gender issues- I didn't want to hook up with a guy who thought I was a girl, because I couldn't handle it mentally, or could I handle being intimate with a masculine body before I'd changed my own body...the disparity would've freaked me out.

So. Coming back to my original topic. There are a lot of reasons that Rochelle and I have a queer relationship. Her queer identity is just as complex as mine, and it all adds up to us not being straight, but often being perceived as straight, and how to deal with that.

It's uncomfortable sometimes because we often get (appropriately) read as queer individually, which means that we get looks from people thinking "Why is that dyke holding hands with that fag?"

And just as there's an uncomfortable omission of queerness when the straight world takes us at their own face value, I am hesitant sometimes to say the words "my girlfriend" when I'm talking to other gay people because I don't want my queerness to fall away from me. This is especially problematic when gay dudes are hitting on me. The most forthright thing to do would be to work the words "my girlfriend" into the conversation, right? But this is complicated by the fact that I am still new to being welcomed into the queer guy club, and I like being there, and I don't want them to step back and start assuming that I'm straight. I don't want to be kicked out of the club! I'll say "my partner" sometimes because it feels less straight.

Going to her world is going to be an adventure in masquerading in straightness (not least because she's from the South!), and I know we'll be talking about how to handle it without feeling like we're invisible, or making any molehill mountains. I know it's not necessary to defend our queerness to the entire world- enough of this is about our sex life and our romantic relationships and our personal identities that it doesn't need to come up all the time. But hey, the personal is political, too, and there's a raft of heterosexist baggage that I don't want to be carrying around all the time.

I don't want my trans body to become the battleground for any ideological skirmishes, though. We're not straight because we're both queer. And I'm queer in (small!) part because I'm trans. but that doesn't mean that we're not straight because I'm trans.
But I don't want my

recognition

I went out tonight and saw some people that I went to high school with, one of whom I haven't seen since high school itself, practically. He didn't really bat an eye, just chatted with me like everyone else. One of the other guys, who I've seen frequently, complimented my mustache, and asked me, with genuine curiosity, if I get hit on by guys.

Now I'm home and, reflecting on those interactions, I have two thoughts.

First, I have a pang of guilt about how fiercely angry I can get briefly when people say ignorant or stupid things, because I forget that often they really don't know. They don't know that they're being offensive. They're just curious, and (strangest of all to me, living in my trans community) they don't have any context or frame of reference. I'm like an alien- certainly an alien concept. It's such a normal, no-brainer idea to me that gender identity is self-decided, and sometimes in conflict with bodily evidence. I forget that most people who have never experienced any gender dysphoria or gender identity conflict have no idea what it's like to feel this way, and consider it totally weird/alien/crazy that anyone ever would. So I ought to cut a little bit of slack to people whose minds have not yet been expanded.

Second, it made me wonder about what exactly goes on when I run into people socially whom I haven't seen in many years. Do they recognize me? Do they recognize that oh, that's that dyke I knew in high school with a beard, so she must be he know, what's that called, transgendering? Is there a grapevine- does everyone know by now that I'm a dude these days? Are all the bearded pictures on my Facebook profile sufficient to clue everyone in?

Or do they not recognize me? Does someone have to pull them aside and clue them in? Do they recognize my sister, and then put pieces together? Are they confused? Do they understand that I'm a transsexual? Do they doubt the veracity of their own memory and wonder if maybe those twins they went to high school with were always a boy-girl pair?

I'm so curious!

I have no sense of how recognizable or unrecognizable I am now, 2 years into transition. I think I still look like me, if a more attractive me than has ever existed. I know that I can't have changed that much. But I have a beard now. So, who knows what people are seeing. I guess they'll see what they want to see?
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Here are two snapshots that I took in front of my wall of ties. The first is from early 2006, a few months before I started T. The second is from last week.


A lot can change in 18 months. But it's hard for me to tell how recognizable the person in these pictures is from the first to the second. Clearly, they're both me...just as I think it's clear how much more settled and, well, real I look in the second picture. But how different do I look?

what can you say?

What is there to say to people who make unknowingly loaded comments? On the mild end, there's the regular patron at the library where I work who said, six weeks ago, "hey you've got some fuzz going!" stroking her chin to indicate my nascent beard. I replied, a bit sheepishly, "Well, it's wintertime, gotta keep the face warm!"

Fine. But when she says "You didn't do it last winter!" what do I say? I didn't say anything at all, but what is the acceptable combination of "I'm a later bloomer!/Beards weren't in last year!/Actually, I couldn't grow a beard last winter because I didn't have enough testosterone in my body." No response was really needed there, since I'm not accountable to her (or anyone!) for my facial hair or lack thereof. Should it happen again, I'll probably respond with some sort of gently self-mocking comment about being a late bloomer. But I'm not used to knowing when to be comfortable with familiar/friendly teasing, and when to be defensive. She certainly didn't even intend to tease, I'm sure, and had no way of knowing the history and hard-won context of my facial hair, and why I might be touchy about it.

--

Then there's the uncomfortable comments that aren't teasing, that are meant to be compliments...except the person issuing them somehow can't see what a bigger and bigger hole they're digging.

So what can you say to the person who isn't a close friend but certainly isn't a stranger, when they start saying uncomfortable things? What about when it is someone you'd think of as a friend, though not a close one?


A month of so ago, a good friend of mine was in town just for a night (let's call her LongLostFriend), and was out on the town with some other friends of ours- I met up with them at a downtown club, and they were all drunk as skunks and mostly adorably so.

At one point, one of the girls started in with the particular brand of questions and statements that drunk people ask and make when they're trying to hit on you but pretending they're just being friendly. I don't even remember, now, what this girl was saying, but a few lines stick out.

"Your name's Eli? All the Eli's I know are tranny boys!!"

Me: "That's nice. It's a good name."

Her: "I LOVE tranny boys! I date tranny boys and butch girls and they're so dreamy!"

Me: "So, I think I'm going to go find my other friends now!"

What was going on there, and what to say? Was she trying to suss out whether I'm trans? Just trying to make conversation with the ambiguously queer guy? How to say "Gosh, those are some offensive, fetishistic over-generalizations you're making there. If you're trying to hit on me, you're going about it the WRONG way!"

Later, standing outside with the friend I'd come to see(LongLostFriend=LLF), I had to navigate ANOTHER round of uncomfortable conversation. Another friend of hers was there, someone I'm not close with but whom I've known a long time, since my first year of college. And this woman (let's call her LeftHandedComplimentGirl), who hasn't seen me in a long time, launches into monologue about my appearance, clearly intending to be complimentary, but stepping further and further out of line with each successive comment.

"Wow, Eli you look so good! I haven't seen you in such a long time, you're looking really...good! You look like a guy! Like a guy-guy, not just a trans-guy! And, I mean, I knew you when, I remember what you looked like! You are a much better looking guy than girl. You have muscles!"


This last comment she punctuates by, rather frankly, feeling me up- running her hands over the lines of my pecs, over my tight t-shirt. Which I put up with rather good naturedly for about 10 seconds. Meanwhile LongLostFriend, noticing that this other woman is out of line, starts agreeing with her but in a neutral, appropriate manner. "But seriously, Eli, you do look really good. You're so handsome."




And there was the difference between the appropriate and inappropriate compliment- it lies in the content, the context and the delivery.

The well-meaning girl was just like the well-meaning gay men who say similar things: "Wow, you look so hot these days!" I can do without the lefthanded compliments, "you look so good!" and the implied, elided transphobia that I inevitably fill in silently. ("...for a transgender!") Why do these people think they have the right to comment on my transition? That's what it is, not a compliment. It's a judgement on my masculinity, on whether I've successfully made myself up into the kind of guy they don't expect "tranny boys" to be able to look like. There are all sorts of evaluations tied up in there that I'm not interested in hearing, and that they don't really have a right to hold me to.

This in contrast to the compliment from my friend which, like the similar words I hear from my family, I will accept gladly. They are close to me, they have a right to comment on how my personal appearance has changed. They are not surprised, or in judgement, and they are coming from a place of affection and support.

But what to say to the other people? How to tell them that I don't want to hear these things from them? The fact that they were dunk and I was sober put up a definite roadblock. You can't reason with drunk people, I've found- it's hard enough to explain to a sober person why their words are offensive. Drunk people get twice as defensive twice as fast, and often can't follow the line of reasoning anyway, so why bother? That's probably a big part of the reason why I employed my smile and nod and keep-the-conversation moving techniques.

But I also just don't want to engage with these people, and that's where I worry if I'm doing a disservice. I know it's not my responsibility to engage with them- I don't need to lay my body down as a roadblock every time someone comes barreling down the Transphobia Interstate. But how is anyone going to be educated and know to stop saying such things if I don't step up sometimes? I can't leave it all to the allies. And to them, I'm an authoritative voice, as their token trans friend, and a friendly face. They'd probably actually listen to me.

--

And then there are the flat-out offensive remarks, uttered by a non-trans person who believes himself to be surrounded by non-trans people, and their casual cruelty? Last night at a bar, my sister and her friend mentioned that they'd both gone to Smith. And a guy in the group says "oh, Smith? Were you there when all that stuff with the transgender people was going on?"

Slightly awkward pause.

"You know that TV show, the documentary?"

Someone replies "Oh, you mean TransGeneration?"

He brightens. "Yeah! Did you know her?"

More awkward pause.

He says "Uh, I mean, him? uh, gir? shim? whatever! Haha!"

Awkwardest pause yet. I sip my beer, and I feel curiously blank, though there are words like Closeted and Beard and Ugh, Moron running around the edges of my brain.

The three people in the group who know that I'm trans exchange uncomfortable grimaces. The other three people in the group who don't know I'm trans but who have some tact exchange a different set of uncomfortable grimaces. The dude continues

"Anyway, I just love male to female transsexuals!"

So, not just awkward, but confusing, too! Really, what IS he talking about? The Smith student on the show was FTM. My sister and the other Smithie start to answer "Well, yeah, there was some overlap...I knew Lucas, who was one of the guys in the show...I was in the background of a scene..." and then someone else offers CaptainOffensive a beer, and the moment fades. No worries.

Later, after CaptainOffensive leaves, his friend, the other Smithie, who has known me for years, leans over and says "I'm so sorry!"

And I explained that, well, sometimes I just decide that I'm not going to interrupt an enjoyable evening to school someone about their offensive rudeness, even when they clearly need it. It was an energy that I just wasn't willing (or ready, on the spur of the moment) to expend.

Now I'm not sure that was the right choice. It was an uncomfortable moment for all of us, and I didn't make any move chide the guy. I needn't have outed myself to do that, though I could have. I could have said anything from "I think "him" is the word you need" to "Y'know, I don't really think it's appropriate to refer to anyone with mocking, made-up pronouns like that" to "gosh, do you only say such offensive things about trans people when you think there aren't any listening to you? because guess what? I can hear you!"

I guess I wasn't a very good trans ally last night. I didn't step up to educate someone during a teachable moment. Neither did I let the stinging words sink into my skin and burn for the rest of the evening, so I guess that's one small victory of my own strength that I can claim. Huh. Maybe next time.

huzzah! legal identity!

I got home to find that the last piece to the puzzle of my legal identity had arrived in the mail.


It took an astonishingly fast three weeks or so- I sent off the complete application, my certificate of citizenship with my old name and picture of my 10 year old tomboy self on it, and certified, notarized, original copies of a) my name change court order and b) my letter from Dr. Brownstein saying I've had "irreversible sex reassignment surgery."

Now the United States of America fully recognizes me as a male citizen, and I can go about getting new jobs, etc, with whatever amount of disclosure I so desire. Sweet!

looking up

I found out last week that Jane Rule died at the age of 76. She's a favorite author of mine, a "pioneering lesbian writer" though she was something of a reluctant poster-child, as those obits make apparent. Nevertheless, she recognized the dearth of lesbian writing and lesbian role models in Canada (or anywhere, really, at the time) and stepped up, writing for the gay press, and granting plenty of interviews as an "authority" on the subject.

Anyway, besides the fact that I like her writing very much, and I'm sorry to hear about her death, reading her obituary got me to thinking about role models.

She was clearly a role model for many young writers, young queers and young women (not to mention young queer women writers!) and she was definitely one of the people I looked to when I was younger, if only through her writing, as a sort of elder guide. By which I mean, I get a lot of my moral compass ideas from what I read, and when I first came out as queer, I thought I was a dyke, so I read whatever lesbian-themed or -authored books I could get my hands on. Jane Rule came into the picture because my Mom recommended that her to me when I revealed my gayness.

At any event, it's struck me that my earlyish adolescence, a time for finding role models and hero(ines) and writings to inspire one, was filled with reading and admiring lesbian writers, and history and culture.

Rochelle says she counts herself lucky that her boyfriend is so familiar with the lesbian cultural landscape, and I myself told my dad that I still feel affection and nostalgia and more than a little bit of empathy for the lesbian community. I don't consider myself part of it anymore, but I do feel a connection, from having felt a part of it for a number of years, and having sort of grown up in it. (I identified as a dyke from 13-17, roughly, with my awareness of my masculinity starting at around 15, so there was definite "am I a dyke or am I a dude?" overlap time).

Anyway, my meandering point is that many of my favorite authors, musicians, political figures (Bella Abzug!), and general role models are women, usually queer women. Which is great, because they're great, but...I would like to have more men in my life, so to speak.

I've probably written about this here before- I know I've thought about it before. I don't have a lot of male role models- when my first therapist asked me for one, I said "Tintin." But I'd like to have more men (outside of my immediate family, I'm thinking authors, etc) whom I can learn from and admire and emulate.

I want to re-set my cultural compass, slightly.

Not that I'm ever going to abandon or disavow my lesbian roots. They served me well at the time, and provided a great foundation to where I am now. I will always admire Jane Rule and her writing, and I will always feel a pull to lesbian writing/culture. I don't belong to it anymore, but I do have history there.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm thinking of reading recommendations here- I'll take fiction, essays, manifestos, what have you. I just want stuff written by men or about men/masculinity, and/or that is rooted in or an window into masculine culture. The two (pretty disparate, so you can see I'm casting a wide net!) examples that I have on my reading list already are Hemingway and John Stoltenberg. You can't get much manlier than the former, or so I've been told. And the latter wrote a book I very much enjoyed called "Refusing to be a man." He is a longtime feminist, and was partnered to the late Andrea Dworkin. I clearly don't admire the entirety of their 2nd wave opinions, but I do admire their partnership in no small part because they both maintained their gay and lesbian identities, respectively- much like Rochelle and I maintain our queer identities and declare ours a queer relationship, despite its heterosexual trappings.

--

On a not-entirely-unrelated note, my father is visiting this weekend, and one of the things I most admire about him is his excellent beard. Or perhaps I should say was- he's clean shaven these days. But I've always loved his beard, that I remember vividly from my childhood, and while I often emulate him in other ways (flirting with waitresses, being charming to strangers in general in an attempt to add a little more pizazz to this world, putting interesting and eloquent outgoing messages on my voicemail for same reason, etc), I'm quite glad that at last I have the hormonal capacity to start growing a beard like his.

So it was with nothing less than total warm delight that I received his compliments yesterday afternoon- one of the first things he said to me was "Son, I have to tell you, you look great!"

He followed that up later by telling me that I've managed to successfully avoid a trap that many beard-wearers fall into, which is shaving the neckline too high, so that the ends of their beards hug their jawlines and don't properly end on their necks. I was tickled to hear this, since it was something that I deliberately planned for while growing this sucker out. I've read up on the subject, you see!

In any event, there's no better praise for my beard than from him, whose beard I have always admired. So cheers to that.

shifting perspective

I had a few moments of dysphoria last night, that lasted into this morning for a while, and it took me until breakfast to figure out why I was so withdrawn and shut-down feeling. I'm not used to those feelings anymore (a fact for which I'm very grateful) and it was hard to realize that I was feeling, once again, a specific grief/frustration with my body and how it is formed and what it can do for me. I hardly ever feel betrayed by my own self these days, and I've forgotten how to deal with it, except by defaulting to a sort of silent aloof grumpiness that is inexplicable until it falls away and I understand, in its absence, how inhibited I was.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the little cycle of distress I went through last night/this morning (uncomfortable body'd moment-distance and withdrawedness commences-bell jar of disconnectedness lifts and I blink as I realize what I was just experiencing) is sort of a microcosm of my trans experience. Transition has been a great answer for me, to problems that I wasn't even fully aware that I had while I was having them. I didn't know what I was missing out on til I got myself into a body and lived identity that connects every bit of me together instead of enforcing frequent (continual?) disconnect.
--
Related to that, I've been thinking about how my goals for and perceptions of my own transition have shifted over the course of the past year or so. Everything, of course, is magnified early on- I'm sure that's true for most large undertakings. Every minute change or step forward is a MAJOR MILESTONE and cause for celebration. It does, of course, lead to a certain lack of perspective. When I first started growing out my facial hair, it was patchy and fine- there was a hole in the middle of my right sideburn, etc. I was so proud of it, though. I'm proud of my beard now, though it's still heavily skewed towards my jawline, and my (slightly wispy, if not actually patchy) moustache doesn't connect to the rest of it. I'm much happier with it now, but in a few years I'll probably look back and wince fondly at this experiment I'm calling a beard.

I found these pictures to illustrate some of what I'm talking about. The last two are from this morning, the first from over a year ago, just a few weeks after I had surgery. I was so delightedly, blessedly happy with the state of my transition. Now, I'm just as much again happier with how my body treats me, and I look back at the first picture with the satisfaction of having moved past an unfulfilling moment. I felt satisfied then, though. I wonder how my perspective will continue to shift?

I hope it'll continue to be positive. I remember, when I was first weighing my options for transition, hearing from some guys who found that, after the first blush of euphoria, found that some aspects of their dysphoria increased- getting closer to feeling "right" but still not perfectly satisfied, their feelings of distress increased around certain things. That scared me, and I'm glad that it hasn't been my experience. But I guess I'll have to add a 'yet' onto that, because I'm starting to understand that it's not much use to make pronouncements about how I feel about my transition and my trans experience. It's something I'm going to have to keep experiencing, and I'll have to call it as it goes.
--
first picture, fall (october, maybe?) '06
next: this morning (11/21/07). current mood: whimsical!
and here's a more straightforward look at my chest; 15 months post surgery.

Eagle-eyed

I'm going on a field trip tomorrow night- a friend of mine is taking me to the Eagle for Code Night. It's a gay leathermen's bar, and on Thursday nights they enforce a dress code: leather and uniforms only. I'm going to whip out my leather pants for the occasion, and my friend told me that I would probably be fine wearing those and a white tank- he could loan me a uniform shirt if I wanted or, he told me, "since you've had surgery, you could just take your shirt off!"

I certainly could, but it's funny to me that he'd assume that I'd be fine and anxiety free about taking off my shirt in front of a bunch of gay men I've never met before. Certainly before I'd had surgery, I envisioned surgery as an answer to all of my chest anxieties, as an utterly freeing experience. It definitely has been freeing, to the point where I hardly remember anymore what it was like to be worried about my chest and whether my breasts were visible...but I remember enough to not be so eager to give up the safety/invisibility that a t-shirt gives me and my scars.

Particularly in a space where I know my masculinity is going to be noticed and evaluated (hello, gay bar!), I'm still wary about taking off my shirt, at least now while my scars are still pink against my pale, relatively chesthair-free skin. I'm not saying that I intend to try to hide my trans identity/experience from anyone that I meet, but it'd be nice to keep feeling like I have some measure of control over who is aware of the complexities of my manhood.
--
I know part of why I'm feeling wary again is a combination of nervousness about entering an environment that I'm unfamiliar with but excited about (the Eagle) and some tiredness from yet another interaction I've had recently with a well-meaning but totally drunk and therefore pretty out-of-line acquaintance.

In the event that I do get around to publishing a book, or taking part in anymore Trans 101 seminars, I think I'm going to try to get the word out about a few things that are pretty much not okay to say to me, or whichever transdude you've managed to corner . Topping the list:

1. "Do you like your vagina? Are you going to keep it? Are you going to get a [real] penis?"
2. "What was your name...before?"
3. "You are soooo good looking! I never would have known you were trans!"

Maybe later I'll have time to get into some of my thoughts about why these aren't questions that are particularly appropriate to ask, but at the time, I've mostly just tried to be good natured about them- particularly since, as I've mentioned before, it's not very easy to explain to drunk people why they're being offensive. And I figure it's a bit easier on everyone to hold my ground and refuse to answer truly offensive questions, but be a bit indulgent on ones that are merely curious, if perhaps inappropriate. Particularly when they come from someone whom I'm fond of, or whom I know to be a generally good hearted individual.

At any rate, it does make me a bit nervous about going into gay men's space, because I seem to be entering the phase of my transition where I'm hardly ever read as trans, and if and when I do "reveal" my status, I have to put up with a bunch of left-handed compliments about how "good" I look...that is to say, how "real" I look. Almost like a real boy, not one of those trannies!
--
On another note, I updated my voice posts last week with # 17. I don't think there's been much difference for a while, but I'm hoping my voice will continue to fill out and mature over the next couple of years- much like my beard!

bits of odds and ends

I haven't posted here about it yet, but after giving blood last week, I got a letter from the Blood Bank requesting that I "refrain from future donation." After calling them back and discussing the matter, I'm not allowed to donate blood anymore. I wrote a couple of long posts about it over at the FTM livejournal community, so I'm just going to link it (click here) rather than rehash it. There's a link in that post to my earlier post about it, as well. Basically, the New York Blood Center still thinks my blood plasma is "female" and they don't use female plasma, and because I'm a guy but I have (according to them) female plasma, their heads are spinning round and round and they've asked me to stop donating blood. To which I grudgingly said yes, mostly because I was chagrined at how polite and reasonable in his request was the guy I spoke with, and because it's actually fairly legit, unlike what I had immediately suspected of them upon getting a letter telling me not to give blood, which was "OMG teh tranz is dirtydirtydirty, can't let him give blood anymore!" So that was a nice surprise, but still- frustrating. Especially because I'm skeptical of his reasoning that my plasma should be considered "female."
--
Speaking of frustrating, had a funny moment this weekend while at a bar watching the Oregon Ducks whup Arizona State. I was there with my sister and a bunch of friends from high school who live in New York now, and surprise surprise, we ran into a girl who'd also gone to our high school. I didn't recognize her, but she recognized us- my sister, especially, since they were in band together. So she came and chatted to our table for a bit, whatever. But then, as we were leaving, she apparently said to Kate "Wow, I didn't realize you were here with your sister-slash-brother!"
and Kate, bless her heart, my stalwart champion, said right back "I'm here with my brother. No slash."
to which the girl replied "oh, uh, well, what's the name?" [ed. note: way to ask for my new name without having to use an appropriate pronoun. very sly!]
Kate told her, and then she bounded over to (the oblivious) me, and shook my hand and said "Nice to see you again, man!"
So that was funny and annoying and, as Kate said, "Another moment for the memoir!"
And it seems that after all, while I'm clearly much more masculinized, I don't look THAT different than I did in high school. Not to mention that between being one of a set of high-profile, extremely sociable twins, and my various purple mohawks, and being the only out dyke amidst all 1600 high schools- well, I guess I'm pretty memorable.
But I'm sad that Kate gets put on the spot like that, even as I'm glad to have such a stalwart person to speak on my behalf. It's a reminder that while transitioning was (has been/is) a huge personal endeavor for me, it hasn't been purely personal. My family and friends have had to transition with me, and- particularly my immediate family and particularly especially Kate, being my twin- they have had to shoulder some of the burden of making space for me in the world. Sometimes too much burden, for my liking. It's something I'm forever guilty about and grateful for.
--
And speaking of masculinizing, I inadvertently started my Great Winter Beard Experiment 2007 a few weeks early. I'd been planning to stop shaving as of November 1st, and grow out the whiskers til it came time to go home for Christmas, at which point I could assess to see if I looked reasonably okay, or too dorky/adolescent to be seen in the family Christmas card, at which point I could take appropriate measures. But I got sort of lazy towards the end of October and just didn't shave for about 6 days, at which point I figured why waste a week's head start?
Anyway, I try not to obsess to much about my growth pattern, and only spend about 5-7 minutes a day tilted in over the sink in the bathroom, examining my chops. It's clearly still an immature effort, thicker along my jaw line and sideburns than up on my cheeks, and with a moustache that doesn't connect to the rest of the beard and still looks a bit like it could be gotten rid of with a good washcloth scrub.
Talking to some friends who said that they first got their real beard growth towards the end of college, I realize that it'll probably be another two years until I catch up in hormonal age with my peers and am able to grow out a respectable/adult beard. But oh, I love my whiskered face so much. It's hard to wait!
And while I definitely think I look like I have a young beard, I don't think I look downright ridiculous. So I'm going to keep it for a while longer, and see what I can manage to produce by Christmas.
--
Pictorial evidence of the beard, such as it is, from this past weekend. The last picture is also a nod to my friend who asked me a few months ago whether I could possibly be in fact F-to-Monkey, given my hirsute nature.

blood

I'm getting out of work early today, and I'm going to use the extra time to go to the Red Cross Blood Drive that's happening across the street this week. I'm having a difficult time deciding whether or not to lie (by omission) on my intake forms or not.

There are three questions that give me trouble, and each time I try to decide how to deal with them, and thus far I've been (mostly) honest, and it's been nothing but hassle for me and the employees.

There's a question "Have you ever had any trouble with your heart?" to which honestly I must say yes, since I had an SVT arrhythmia when I was younger. But it was corrected by surgery in 1997, and I haven't had a lick of trouble since, and each and every time the beleaguered intake person has to go try to look up my former condition in the guidebook and/or ask their supervisor, only to find out (as I try to point out) that it's no barrier at all to me giving blood. So that's not such a big deal, but I am tempted to just put "no" to save us all the trouble.

Then there's the question "Have you recieved an injection anytime in the last 14 days?" which is always yes, because I'm always on a 7 or 8 day shot cycle with my T, so I've always given myself a shot relatively recently. Once or twice this hasn't been a problem, the person has just asked me what for, written down "testosterone prescribed by doctor" and we've carried on. Last time, though, there was a whole big fuss because the woman asked my why I take it and I said, quite matter-of-factly, "Because I'm a transsexual." hoo boy! so much fuss! she tried to tell me I can't give blood, that's not allowed, also, what kind of people do I have sex with? etc. After much fuss and talking to her supervisor, I was allowed to proceed and give my warm red pint but boy howdy, that didn't make me feel that great about the whole process. So should I put down that I've gotten a shot? Or should I put it down, but lie and say "endocrine disorder" if asked about it?

And then there's the one question that I've consistently lied to, the one that says "Are you a man who's had sex with another man even once since 1976?" I always check "no" even though it's a lie, because I know that to check "yes" is to be automatically disqualified, thanks to outdated homophobic restrictions that the Red Cross established decades ago. On the other hand, if the Red Cross knew the whole truth about my anatomy, they'd probably say that I don't qualify as a "man" who's had sex with men, anyway (since the woman to whom I described myself as a transsexual certainly raised a fuss about my 'no' answer to this question- after already having gone over it with me, she went back to it twice more once I'd made my little revelation). So, I'll probably just continue to lie and answer No to this question, since I know my HIV status is negative, and because I'm against this question on principle.

Still, it's hard for me to lie on doctor's forms, and I'm annoyed that the fuss over my trans history is such that I should even be thinking about it. Hopefully, I won't run up against any trouble this time.