more sex thoughts

[another half-finished post finally rescued from limbo. I'm really on a roll today! also, as with all sex-related material on this blog, I'm going to post the disclaimer that people who might read this blog but with whom I don't usually discuss my sex life, please feel free (nay, encouraged!) to skip over this entry, or at least pretend that you still don't know anything about my sex life the next time we're face to face.]

I just read a very interesting article from an old issue of NY Magazine, about porn and feminist attitudes about it. I thought this was the most interesting (and, to me, resonant) quote:


"But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so."


I'd never thought of porn quite like that before, but it's an analogy that I think really works...particularly in the sense that while I don't always agree with how some arguments are laid out ("junk food makes you FAT so it's BAD!" or "porn is full of DELUDED, EXPLOITED WIMMIN so it's BAD!"), I do agree with a lot of their underlying premises (for food: processed foods don't really deserve to be called food, are involved in a lot of economically shady, environmentally criminal supply chains, and are definitely not as good for you as whole, local food, etc; for porn: there is a lot of misogynist, exploitative porn out there, watching a lot of porn will definitely affect one's sexual inclinations, substituting porn for a real sex life probably isn't the healthiest thing, etc).


And I'm bringing it up in the context of this transition journal because sex drive and sexual habits are something that get examined a lot when testosterone comes into play.


My experience through the past two years of taking testosterone has been that the quality of my sex drive has definitely changed. By that I don't necessarily mean good or bad- I'm neither more nor less pleased with my libido. Just that, qualitatively, it is a different animal. It's increased slightly in frequency, but that's sort of like saying I went from thinking about sex frequently to thinking about sex REALLY frequently, so that's not saying much!

Probably the main difference in my libido is that I jerk off these days, which I never used to do before. Well, I did very infrequently, without much success. Whatever combination of body dyshporia or differently structured sex drive I had going on, it meant any masturbatory efforts were just not very fulfiling. My pre-T sex life was awesome when it involved other people (though not as awesome as it is now, by god. I thought it was good then, but I had no idea!), but solo efforts were not at all successful. I was not so pleased with my own body, so I wasn't particularly interested in having sex when just that body was involved. Over the past two years, however, I slowly discovered that that is no longer the case- whatever happy re-arrangement of my libido has nicely combined with my steadily disappearing body dysphoria to open up a whole new world for me, a side effect that I am definitely pleased with.

So, mostly, what's happened is that my sex drive has become more insistent/urgent, but at the same time, easier to satisfy....or if not satisfy, at least nourish. By which I mean, I find more things stimulating or sexy than I used to. I'm more visually stimulated than before, and less choosy about the things I find stimulating. If it's sexual, it's probably sexy to me, to at least some extent.

My porn consumption has definitely increased, particularly now that my solo sex efforts are more successful, and it does get me thinking about what kind of impact such consumption is having on my arousal patterns, etc. "Junk food" porn is more appealing now than it was before, just because most things are more appealing than they used to be, and I hope I'm not doing myself any permanent harm! Then again, I'd imagine no more harm than most guys do to themselves (I gotta stop with the harm remarks, too many pun capablities) during their first few years of puberty, as they get used to new sex drives.

Anyway, one thing I do want to be clear about is that I do NOT believe it is true that testosterone gives one an "uncontrollable sex drive." Yes, it has sharpened and made more urgent my libido, but it is still ultimately something over which I have control and for which I have responsibility. (I'm resisting the urgh to add "Duh." to the end of that sentence.)

something's lost, but something's gained in living ev'ry day

[I started writing this post a few months ago, and just got around to finishing it today. interestingly enough, the sentiment about gains/losses it ties a lot into thoughts I've been having about babies, and the thoughts about the changes I've seen in libido have stuck with me, too- both thoughts which I've started exploring in other half-finished posts.]

As stated so succinctly by Dolly Parton (though I guess Joni Mitchell said it first), life is all about the give and take. Certainly transitioning has brought immeasurable improvement to my life, but not all of the changes have been exactly 100% positive.

So, here are some things that I feel are different for me now as opposed to 2 years ago- things that I can't prove have been directly caused by my transition (or, more specifically, by using testosterone) but that I nonetheless feel are caused in large part by my transition. This is all largely qualitative, subjective, anecdotal information- I haven't charted anything, haven't so much as tried to keep track of grumpy days and less grumpy days. I will say that about 6 months ago I started injecting my T on an 8 day cycle instead of the 7 day/weekly cycle I'd been using...I'd been one day late a few times in a row and noticed that I seemed to be less irritable, so I kept up the pattern. Who knows if it's really better than a 7 day pattern or not? I will say that my acne is better on the 7 and 8 day cycles than it was on the 14 day cycle- that is a definite!

1) Attention span
I don't have the attention span that I used to. It's harder for me to focus on something, and harder to follow through on a task. This could be due to post-college drop off in flexing my brain, of course! But it feels different than that. I'm much more likely to just bounce up and get a snack every 20 minutes when I'm trying to do something, or to start a project and then start thinking about something else and start a totally new project without resolving the first one. [or start writing blog entries and get distracted and let them sit for 4 months!]


2) Irritability
Oh man. This is a pretty big one. I've got a much shorter temper than I used to have. I used to be able to let most things roll off my back, and I still let a lot of things go, but it's much harder, and I can't let it all go.

It's a weird feeling, too- I'll start to get irritable or defensive about something and I can feel myself tightening up and closing off and getting irritable, but it's very hard for me to just defuse it and let it go, though sometimes deep breathing helps. Even when I literally say out loud to myself "Eli, you're being irrational, you're being defensive, just let it go!" it's hard for me to get back to normal without snapping a bit, which usually immediately defuses my feelings, but often makes me feel bad.

On the other hand, it has helped me be more forthright about my needs- if anything, I was a little TOO meek before, and liable not to speak up on my own behalf. I don't always like the way I go about doing it (words spoken irritably are not the most effective, or the kindest way to do things), there's no question that I am speaking up for myself more now.

3) Patience

This ties in pretty closely to the previous point. Not only am I more liable to get irritated/defensive about things, I have less patience than I used to. I noticed it first in very specific situations: restaurants, where the bill or the food wasn't coming fast enough. Particularly when it seemed to me that there was no real REASON that it wasn't coming. Whew! I get impatient much more quickly these days. I was a pretty intensely patient person to begin with, though, so I'm not TOO worried about it. I'm still more patient than the average bear, I think. But I can tell a difference.

4) Sex drive!

Yes, it has increased, but not a huge amount. As I've mentioned before, I still think about sex just as frequently as I did before. It's just much more insistent than it ever was before. I think my Dad said something once (and maybe he was quoting someone) about how women think about needing sex like needing chocolate: you want it, you like it, sometimes you absolutely crave it. Men think about needing sex like needing food: you prefer really good to mediocre, you prefer to have it frequently, but the bottom line is that it's necessary for survival.

It occurs to me to wonder if this might have something to do with what I mentioned above about my attention span. I'm much more likely to let thinking about sex distract me from a task or project than I was before, maybe because of a double whammy of more insistent libido and less focused attention span?

5) Verbal ability

This is the one I'm least sure of, and most scared of. I can't say for certain, but it feels like my verbal fluency has decreased. Again, who knows how much of it is my brain languishing post-college, but even if you look at my blog posts, I feel like there's a difference in my ability to be articulate between two years ago and now. I'm just not quite as fluent...I have a bit of a harder time expressing myself. And that includes my feelings, too, which I've found in a few so-cliche-could-it-really-be-true? moments when having conversations with my partner about 'processing.'

I feel like my spelling has gotten worse, and it just feels harder than it used to for me to string sentences together into a coherent whole. I wish I could back that up, but I can't. And maybe it's all in my head! Just wish I'd had some kind of increase in spatial reasoning or something to make up for it!

6) Reaction in upsetting situations

I used to be prone to tears when faced with stress. Now, I will still feel stomach-clenching distress, but I no longer have that sense of tears threatening to break lose. I'm more likely to get angry than watery eyed. This is both good and bad- I feel much more in control than I used to. I hated the feeling of tears threatening when I was upset, particularly in public. It made me feel so weak, and like everyone who witnessed those tears was thinking me weak as well. Reflectively, I think that's too bad, and clearly part of this notion that we have in society that tears are only okay when you're (legitimately) sad, not when you're just upset or freaked out. Especially for dudes! And really, tears are a great reliever of stress and adrenalin and whathave you, and now I sometimes wish that I could just cry and get it out. And it's not so good because, while being angry may make me feel less weak, ultimately it's not a preferable reaction- I don't think clearly, I'm much more likely to say something I'll regret, or do something that doesn't improve the situation.

Anyway. Now, when I do tear up (and it's often in sort of funny moments, like when reading about an underdog sports team), there's a momentary flash of heat and wetness in my eyes, but it very rarely blossoms into actual tears. I cried one solitary tear when I went to see that movie "The Savages" even though the sad and upsetting emotions it raised in me were pretty intense.

more media coverage

There was an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine last weekend about a transguy who goes to Barnard, which is a women's college. I've met the guy a time or two, and he seems like a good guy, so I'm particularly glad that this was, on the whole, quite a good article.

It brought up the 'trans issue' not in a sensationalist way, but rather as a thoughtful examination of an interesting ramification: the issue of non female-ID'd students at women's colleges is a fraught topic, and I am sure that it's going to continue to be in years to come. The author was respectful, did good work talking to a variety of folks, and generally produced a good, informative piece.


Still, I found a couple of things to take issue with. There's that note about "asked that his given name not be printed to protect his privacy." That implies that, had he not asked about that, the newspaper would have printed the name. Why oh why do journalists (of all stripes, not just print media types) feel the need to print trans people's old names?

Hard as it appears for some folks to understand, I changed my name because I didn't want it used to refer to me anymore! Why do you think it's appropriate to ask me what it is? Let alone print it in a public forum! I personally am rather fond of my old name- it was a beautiful name- and haven't taken great pains to hide it, but I'm still not comfortable with it being used to refer to me, and I'm certainly not comfortable with complete strangers who didn't know me in the past knowing it.

Also, what's with the gratuitous bottom surgery reference? Towards the end of the article: "He received no “bottom surgery,” as it is known — few transmen do, in part because the operation is thought to be too rudimentary and in part because many transmen view it as unnecessary."

These references to transguys not getting bottom surgery have become the party line, and it is only a bare half step better than previous references to The Operation or The Sex Change, which imply that manhood is contingent squarely upon one's crotch. I'll be the first to say that it's supremely irritating when one surgery (and usually without even acknowledging the variations and options that exist within that surgical procedure!) is used as synecdoche for an entire transition, and I'm glad when stories about trans folks don't focus on lacking/seeking to obtain the 'proper' genitals.

But actually, maybe it's not better. It's good to acknowledge that not all transfolks choose to pursue the same options/surgeries as part of their transition, but statements like this swing much too hard in the opposite direction, and really marginalize men who DO choose to pursue lower surgery of some variety. Besides the fact that statements like "it's too expensive and it doesn't really work" are hurtful and insulting to folks who have already gone through with such surgeries, there remains the equally important point that such tropes perpetuate an outdated, fearmongering perspective that brings with it its own form of peer pressure.

Surgery is really expensive, yes, and that sucks, but to imply that a surgery is "not worth the price," whatever the price, is to place a value on the happiness and fulfilment that can come with eradicating (or at least ameliorating) dysphoria for a lot of guys. That kind of relief, as the cliches and commercials will tell you, is priceless.

Furthermore, there are a wealth of surgical options contained within the terms "lower surgery," (check this site out for some basic introductions) and those options are being practiced and improved and expanded upon by a variety of highly skilled and experience doctors every day. Leaving aside the irritating assumptions about what constitutes "successful" or "functional" genitals, surgically modified or not, it's just not true that "very few" transmen pursue these surgeries, or that they "don't work." The techniques are changing and improving all the time, in no small part because the surgeons are performing them frequently!

So while it's certainly not something that needs to be considered a limiting or trumping factor in transitioning, and it's true that it's not something that everyone pursues, it's still frustrating to see lower surgery constantly insulted in print like this.

Which leads me to the original point- why does this guy's surgery status or ambitions even need to be mentioned? There is plenty of material to talk about in an article about a (trans)man attending a women's college without inviting the readership to peek into his underpants.

That being said, I do try to understand why journalists/interviewers routinely employ these offensive tactics such as dredging up old names, or bringing up surgery, particularly genital surgery. This article is actually quite good, in comparison to many- it's positive in tone, respectful and consistent with pronoun use and appropriately gendered terminology, it doesn't harp on the surgeries.

And so if I'm being generous of spirit, which I usually try to be, I wonder if maybe this is the only way journalists know how to broach a daunting or unusual topic to a wider audience. To most people (and thus, most of the readership of this article, though I imagine that the NY Times readership might be a little more up to speed than, say, the Spokesman Review of Spokane, Washington), transgender people are a complete unknown. The only thing they're familiar with and understand is that boys will be boys unless they cut their dicks off and go on Jerry Springer and then they're Sex Changes.

So to try to bridge the gap between that world and the trans-savvy world, where we are familiar with terms like gender identity and transition process and the nuances of people who are not comfortable with the sex assigned to them at birth, journalists have to try to keep us trans people grounded in framework that the rest of the world still operates under, that framework that believes the doctors when they say "It's a girl!"

So references to our former names allows people to understand that I used to "be" a girl, and while now I "am" a man, I'm not a normal one and pretty much never will be.

There are some folks, I know, who believe that the answer to this is to try to limit such journalism, try to stop bringing the details of trans life into the public spotlight because it makes our lives harder when we're trying to be normal people. A little bit of information is a very dangerous thing in the minds of a still-mostly-misinformed public, and when somebody reads something about trans people somewhere, whatever information or assumptions they cultivate from that article will henceforth be projected and branded onto any trans people they happen to encounter in the future.

And that sucks, and agree that it probably DOES make our lives harder.

But I still don't think that invisibility is a good approach. It's harder to go increase the education so that people aren't still making and projecting those frustrating limiting assumptions onto us...particularly when there isn't exactly common agreement about what information that education should consist of. It'd maybe be easier to just try to keep quiet and not broadcast info about trans folks. But I think it'd only be easier in the short run.

tres fashionable

So the trans issue of Out Magazine has hit the stands, and looks to be pretty good. The photo shoot that I was almost a part of (alas!) is actually really good. I was a bit wary when I heard that I didn't 'fit the look' that the photographer was going for, because I know that to a lot of people, I don't look particularly "trans" anymore, in the sense that most people automatically read me as male, and I don't have a particularly androgynous or "boi" look. I was worried that the photographer was going for that look, because I think it would be a disservice to misrepresent transguys to the readership of Out as being uniformly androgynous/still-sort-of-dykey looking.

It'd be particularly problematic in Out magazine, I think, because so many LGB people think they know what the "trannyboi" thing is all about, with all the "dykes who want to be boys"- I'm still smarting from interactions I've had with Gay people who were so sure they they got it, that I was one of those boyish dykes. Anyway, I think it's pretty problematic that a lot of people have this androgynous/boi image in their heads when they think of "transguy" and it is limiting and unfortunate to the community at large when those sorts of images are the only ones presented.

At any rate, that isn't what ended up happening for this photoshoot, and I'm glad to see it. There is a very nicely diverse range of guys modeling in the shoot, and the photos are gorgeous.

you know the T is working when...

I had a few flashes of insight this morning into things that I take for granted now that now fly under my radar until something happens to jolt me into reflection.

The change in my upper body strength, for instance. I've never been one for really working out (despite frequent thoughts and plans and mapping out of three day workout splits), and in the past 2 years, my musculature has increased significantly. I've mentioned before how funny it was the my biceps seemed to show up overnight, and my chest- which seemed so worriedly sunken and ill-defined immediately post surgery, has filled out considerably in the time since.

I was reminded of my muscle gains this morning when, in a fit of resolution, I decided to finally start doing the daily push-ups/sit-ups regimen I've been thinking about for months. Not having done a push-up since well before the end of 2007, I was able to crank out 10 with no effort, 15 before I started to feel it, and 20 before my arms got shaky. Not great numbers in the grand scheme of things, but it reminded me of how two years ago, I couldn't do three consecutive push-ups. Same diet, same exercise (or lack thereof) in my life, but presto! Different muscles.

It reminds me of how envious and weak I felt in my early teenage years, hanging out with my cousins and their friends, all boys, all 1.5-2 years older than my sister and me, and all carrying around seemingly effortless muscle that I couldn't hope to match. Of course, they were all active with the hiking and the basketball and the wrestling and the climbing everything they could find...and some of them 'pumped iron' as well. I remember especially vividly one of our late night shenanigans which involved climbing up onto the roof of the local elementary school. They all hoisted themselves up to the dumpster, then the ledge, then the roof, and while I was still struggling to find purchase, ,one of them reached down and basically hauled me up after him. It wasn't unpleasant- it's a bit exhilarating to be lifted through space by someone so much stronger than you- but it was a bit embarrassing even then, while I was still blithely accepting the label of adolescent girl, to be shown to be so clearly different from these boys I unconsciously compared myself to.

Now, seeing how much easier it is to gain and keep muscle with a body powered by testosterone, it makes sense to me and doesn't rankle. I have more respect than ever for female athletes, particularly female bodybuilders, who make the most of their bodies at what seems to be to be a comparative disadvantage to their male counterparts. It was frustrating to me, before T, to work out and see slow/agonizing progress in strength; I invariably quit my few brief forays into training. Now, though I still don't much exercise (which may reveal more about my willingness to commit to training than my capacity for muscle gain!), it's much more tempting, and more rewarding when I do. If some of the external factors go away (like living in this crazy city demands fast busy living, or the fact that I don't wake up in the same place every day), I think I'll be more willing to work out. It pays off better these days!

shaving

As I was blearily scraping away at my face in her bathroom yesterday morning, Rochelle asked me where I'd learned to shave. I think the best I could come up with is "Uhh....here and there."

Now that I think about it, though, the history of my shaving education is quite an interesting amalgamation of knowledge. I remember only once as a kid being close to a grown man shaving his face, and that was during one brief visit with my Dad. It was at my aunt and uncle's house in Spokane, WA, actually, and he showed up with only a moustache, as opposed to his usual luxurious beard. The next morning, he was in the bathroom shaving, and he invited my sister and I both to "take the wheel" and lightly drag the flimsy plastic razor down his jaw. Both of us giggled nervously, a behavior we rarely indulged in under ordinary circumstances but that became more frequent around him. Anyway, I remember being very nervous that I was going to slice up his face, and I don't think I shave much more than the top edge of the lather, being too afraid to put any pressure on his skin.

Five or so years after that, my mom taught us how to shave our legs and armpits. Plenty of soap, rinse the razor frequently, careful near the shinbone. I have such dark hair that if I really wanted hairless legs, I had to shave at least every other day if not daily, and that really didn't last long. I kept the armpits up longer, but stopped that soon, too, as my willingness to do the upkeep dropped at a rate inversely proportional with my desire to fit in to normal female beauty standards.

The next thing I started shaving was my head, though I really only used an actual razor on it twice. Once my first year of college, when I eliminated my latest mohawk and then decided to go for the gold and "Bic it!" as the saying went. A hallmate told me I looked like "a thumb with glasses" and I decided it probably wasn't the look for me. But a few months later, just before leaving to return to SRC for my sophomore year, I went for another mohawk, and shaved the sides again. Again, I felt the strange too-smooth warmth of totally naked skin on my head, and let it grow back as quickly as possible.

Long before I started T, I used to have long dark hairs growing on my neck, around my Adam's apple area. I tweezed them for a while, but there were a lot of them and, wistful as I was about the thought of someday growing facial hair, scruffy neck patches weren't exactly what I had in mind. I used a little clipper marketed to women called a 'magic touch for unwanted body hair!' or something like that, and buzzed my neck once a week or so.

When I moved to NYC and decided to get my transition rolling, I decided to start shaving those hairs in a more manly fashion- I was grasping for as many straw to bolster my masculinity as I could, in those days. I bought a can of Barbasol and a 3 pack of Bic disposables, and felt pretty damn butch. I used it for months (since I never needed much at a time) to shave my straggly neck hairs, and sometimes also to shave off the 'peach fuzz' on my cheeks, I think partly as a feel-good ritual, and partly because I'd read that "women and children have peach fuzz-men don't! if you want to be seen as male, shave off the peach fuzz!"

Once I started T and really needed to start actually shaving, I decided to read up a bit on the subject. I found a few GQ articles in passing, and got some tips from this exceptionally useful FTM focused website. I also found and read this website, which gave some great tips and also instilled in me an as-yet-unfullfilled desire for my own double-edged safety razor and boar bristle brush.

Though I do actually have a brush- my aunt gave me a brush-and-cup set that she'd found at an antique store, and she and my mom both confirmed that it looks almost identical to the one their grandfather used to use. Apparently, he also had a ritual where he would finish shaving and then go around and kiss every woman in the house- wife, child, grandchild, neighbor over to borrow a cup of tea, whoever.

If and when I get myself a nicer razor and start using nice soap and brushes, I might have to pick up that family tradition.

In the meantime, I use Target brand mach-3 knock-offs, and use a new razor about once every 5-7 shaves. I got a few cans of shaving cream as presents for my manniversary party two years ago, and I'm still working my way through those. When I'm finished, I'll probably try to find something with a lower environmental impact- maybe something that isn't blue? I get some razor burn and irritation on my neck, too, and I'm thinking a nicer shave set up might help that situation. It's just another one of those things that I could probably do for myself right now, but have set away in my mind as Something to Do When I Grow Up. and who knows when that will be?

why so surprised?

So, file this one under "Situations related to my transition in which I try not to be irked and inevitably fail:"

I get annoyed when people react to my physical transition with surprise. When I went to karaoke a few weeks ago and Miss Jackie did a double take because she didn't recognize me with my facial hair, and then asked "Wow, what did you use, Rogaine?"

When I answered in the negative, she replied, astonished "That's from hormones? Wow!" and I was irked. Why are you so surprised? Didn't you expect me to look "like a guy" as my transition progressed? Oh, that's right, I forgot. You still think of me as a boyish girl person, and so you're surprised when you see me with the signs of "real" manhood, like big fluffy muttonchops. Though on second thought, the manliness of fluffy muttonchops might not be universally accepted. But I digress, and facial hair does pretty much signal "man" across the board. So it's irritating to me when people are surprised to find such a blatant 'male' signifier on me, because it says to me that they don't actually expect me to be a guy.

The reason I try not to get irked by such reactions is that inevitably, not all of them are coming from an objectively offensive place.


Some of the surprise comes from people who are surprised at the pace of my transition- fine. I know that not everyone's transition proceeds at the same rate, and mine has been on the faster side of the scale. But you know, not everyone's puberty progresses at the same rate. Are you going to be surprised that some high school boys have sideburns and some have straggly patches? No! Because you know that every guy is dealt a different combination of genetics and testosterone levels and will grow his own facial hair accordingly. So why am I left out of that equation and greeted with surprise?


And of course, some of the surprise isn't really there. I'm sure that sometimes, I'm being overly defensive, and just projecting onto comments made by folks who are merely remarking on an observation of how my appearance has changed. Which it has! It can't be denied- I do look different, and that is due to my transition. Even people who are on totally board with my transition are going to mention it- in fact, it'd be more than passing strange if it wasn't mentioned! What an elephant in the room that would be, if we all just pretended that Everything Is Normal.


A tempting elephant, though, if I'm being honest. The longer it's been since the beginning of my transition, the more frequent the occasional thought that it really would be nice if I hadn't had to deal with all the fuss of this transition- though I couldn't tell you whether I'd prefer that to mean not having a conflict between my gender identity and physical form in the first place, or having had an ordinary ascent into masculinity (descent into hirsuteness!) like any other boy.


But it's a fine line, and it's hard not to hear such comments in the greater context of how other exceedingly similar comments are made: subtly bolstering the idea that my transition is a second-rate, synthetically-aided route to 100% imitation manhood. Because the flip side of being surprised at my facial hair is to expect it, and accept it as normal, which is what I do.

I realize there's a great deal of ground to be trod upon very carefully when throwing words like "normal" around, but I guess what I'm saying is that I undertook this transition specifically in order to set myself on the masculine trajectory of sideburns, belly hair, even-god-forbid-back-hair, and I'm surprised myself and then defensive and irritated when people are surprised at what I've accomplished. I can't help hearing skepticism and invalidation in their surprise, and I have to stop myself from saying "what, you expected Mary Martin as Peter Pan forever?"

Which I would regret the moment it left my mouth, and am now having trouble not deleting from the screen. It is an unkind thing to say on a lot of levels, not least because it smacks of the kind of jockeying for position between different types of trans folks that I've always been dismayed by. I don't want respect for my choices to come at the expense of respect for other people's choices. But I do want my choices to be understood! I put a lot of thought into making them, and then a lot of effort into carrying them out, and it's damn hard not to get defensive when that work is questioned.

---

Anyway. Speaking of hairy faces, here's the latest incarnation of my 'burns.

small moments

I was helping a woman at work yesterday and she commented on my Martin van Buren muttonchops.

"I like your facial hair! You men have so many options."

Ha! I thought to myself. It's true! We do! I'm enjoying my muttonchops a lot, despite the fact that I now have more cleanshaven surface area to maintain. It's nice, too, because without the moustache (and the corresponding obvious space where it doesn't connect to my beard) it's harder to tell that my beard is still in a nascent stage. I'm glad not to look like a high schooler, though I guess looking like our nation's 8th president is a bit of an odd trade off.

--

At dinner last night, telling a new acquaintance that I have a twin, he asked "Fraternal or identical?"

I gave my long-ago-formed standard answer "Fraternal- my sister and I don't look alike at all!"

To which he responded, "Oh, a sister! Fraternal, of course. Ha, does anyone ever ask you if you're identical? Haha!"

And I remember being a kid and being similarly scornful of those poor ignorant folks who didn't understand that identical meant from the same egg! So of COURSE they couldn't be one boy and one girl! Now that my situation is more complicated than that, I have to smile at my own former ignorance.

Of course, I could've said to the guy "Well, actually, I'm a transsexual, so technically we could've been identical."

I didn't say it- another of the myriad ways, growing more myriad every day, in which I don't challenge the world's assumption that I'm a non-trans man (cissexual)- but as I'm writing this, I wonder, could we have been identical? I know I've read somewhere, or maybe seen a short PBS segment on, a transman and his sister who were identical twins. But thinking about what makes me who I am, and how we used to joke as kids about if we'd been identical, and what if there'd been two Kates or two of me! If we'd been identical and both from my egg, would my mother have had two transsexual children?

Curious! Goes back to the great unknown nature/nuture/etc debate about what causes us to be who we are. I think one of the arguments put forth in the PBS segment about the other trans/non-trans twin pair was that their mother had been in a car accident while pregnant and the trans twin had absorbed all of the adrenalin/other hormones that were released, which caused masculinization of the brain, which caused transsexualism. No explanation of why only one twin got the full dose, though. Anyway, it was interesting to my family because MY mother was in a car accident while she was pregnant with us! Just a small one, much less intense than the one on television, but a car accident nonetheless! Maybe that's the reason...

now i'm angry!

[ETA: More coverage and eloquent explanation of this tragedy can be found over at Feministe.]

I read something pretty offensive on Gothamist.com the other day, and dashed off the following email to the author with the subject heading "wow, way to be offensive."
--
This is in response to the 'news item' you posted yesterday on Gothamist.com about the transwoman found murdered in the Bronx. (http://gothamist.com/2008/02/10/transgender_hoo.php) Beyond the basic insensitivity you showed in refering so callously to a human being who was senselessly murdered, you added insult to injury by referring to this woman as "he" and a "man."

I realize that Gothamist isn't a "real" news outlet, so perhap you don't feel bound by the same regulations as professional journalists, but how about taking a cue from the AP Stylebook, which has this to say about refering to trans individuals:

"Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly."

You can find some more information about that here: http://www.glaad.org/publications/archive_detail.php?id=3869

At the very least, take a hint from this woman's neighbors and acquaintances, all of whom had the common courtesy and decency to refer to her with respect in the manner which is not only appropriate to her feminine presentation, but also clearly the manner which she prefered.

I really enjoy Gothamist, but reading this post was an exceedingly unpleasant experience. I hope that the feedback you've received (what I read in the comments, as well as my own email) can help you learn about why the things you wrote were so offensive, and how you can easily avoid such errors in the future.

Let me know if you'd like to discuss this further- I'd be happy to.

Sincerely,
Eli
--

I typed it all up and sent it in a fit of rightous anger within about 15 minutes of spotting the post. That same night, I got a short email back:

---
Eli,Thanks for your email. This is an area I admit that I do not have a lot of knowledge about and appreciate the guidance that our readers give us. That said, I did not mean any malice or ill will. Best, XXXX
---

Well, I appreciate that she returned my email so quickly, and I realize that I came across as pretty mean in my intial email. I sent her back a short note saying "Sorry I was brusque, thanks for responding, hope you learned your lesson."

But now I'm wondering if I should've apologized again. I think I was pretty justified in my anger at the intial post, and I think maybe I let her off the hook too easily- particularly considering that her email wasn't so much of an apology or even an acknowledgement of wrong doing so much as it was a purely mollifying response.

She didn't acknowledge explicitly that she'd been offensive, and she didn't give any concrete indication that she's going to follow through on the "guidance" that we readers are offering her, and stop with the offensive language in the future.

Just gets my blood boiling, realizing how easy it is for a non trans person to say something as fucked up as that, and then fall so short of actually acknowledging or taking responsibility for any personal privilege and transphobia that led to the statement in the first place. "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings- I didn't mean it!" is not the same as "I'm sorry I didn't know that my comments were insulting, demeaning, and offensive, and I will try to rectify my ignorance by learning about the non-trans (or cissexist) privilege that I am practically drowning in, and seek to be more respectful and accurate in my language in the future."

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.