I recently started a new job in Palo Alto. I assumed during the interview process that, like previous employers, they saw me as a bulldagger who wanted to be called he. But when I started working there, not a single person made a pronoun slip. I am passing at work!
In addition to making me wonder whether I got the cock markup in my salary negotiations, this development has led me to reassess my assumptions about how others perceive me. Now I strut a little more as I walk into the gym (incidentally, it may be true that testosterone has made me enjoy sports a little more) — then suddenly I arrive at the door to the women’s locker room — no way can I pass naked — at which point I put on my best I’m-a-girl-I-don’t-know-why-you’re-staring-at-me face and dive in.
Obviously, it’s time to have top surgery done. I also know it’s time because I’ve been “losing” sports bras at an alarming rate. I hate those things — not least because they’re expensive. I’ve only got three or so at a time and yet I somehow have to preserve at least one that’s not soaking wet or rancid smelling. When you’re transporting clothes to and from the gym 7 days a week and you’re a total dude, it’s no small task.
The other day I swaggered into a sporting goods store. Athletic socks: check. Now for another $45 quick-wicking sports bra. I went to the usual place. They weren’t there. I looked around and spotted an employee. As I approached him, I thought about how I was passing at work and made a mental note to act as if I were buying the thing for my girlfriend. First I try to call it a “triathlon top.” Blank look. Then I describe it — dismissively, like a guy might his girlfriend's lady stuff, which isn’t a stretch — as a black sports bra thing with the Nike swoosh on it. Except I make the swoosh pointing towards me, from my right to my left.
Will I ever stop making this kind of mistake? Or is it a mistake? I’m not undertaking to pretend to be someone I’m not, and I don’t want to lose the complexity of gender that I’ve been flagging for the last 15 years. But shouldn’t I be in charge of what I disclose to whom? Then again, how can you casually insert signposts like “when I was female” into idle chit-chat? I’m not ashamed, but I really don’t want to conjure up graphic visual images of my tranny cooch because that is goddamned private.
Except to the women in the locker room to whom I offer to show it, like a scar, to fend off their assertions that I must be in the wrong place. It’s the place that’s messed up, not me.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider making a small donation for my surgery or buy a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.
Showing posts with label transitioning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transitioning. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A homeless man notices my transition
Ask your friends if you look different and you come up against a really strong social tabu against making dispassionate observations about someone's appearance. Should they admit they notice that whisker on my chin? Should they acknowledge that my neck is twice as wide?
You know who's not afraid to say you look different? Your neighborhood homeless guy. Mine is sweet and harmless and has lived on my block for as long as I have. He sees me going out, coming home, going out, coming home. It's a perfect opportunity to observe someone's physical appearance without any of the emotions or preconceptions that blind us to it.
A few weeks ago, he stopped me to ask a question. I thought he was going to ask me for money for the second time ever. But instead, he started to tell me about his friend Jet who was going through a change from a woman to a man, and — was I?
My answer was, I take testosterone, yes.
The other day he wanted to chat about it again. This time the case study was a lady cop he used to see who's now such a handsome man cop that he almost thought he should go for it. (Me: You should!: Giving encouraging dating advice to a 60-something guy who lives in his car.)
Then he asked, Are you a man stuck in a woman's body?
I didn't know what to say. But later, I came up with this: I'm a mostly masculine person in a fairly feminine body in a very gendered society.
Postscript: I just went out on a sailboat where the captain told us it was okay to use toilet paper in "the head" but please not to use feminine hygiene products. Then, looking at me and my gay male housemate, he added teasingly, "You got that, guys?"
You know who's not afraid to say you look different? Your neighborhood homeless guy. Mine is sweet and harmless and has lived on my block for as long as I have. He sees me going out, coming home, going out, coming home. It's a perfect opportunity to observe someone's physical appearance without any of the emotions or preconceptions that blind us to it.
A few weeks ago, he stopped me to ask a question. I thought he was going to ask me for money for the second time ever. But instead, he started to tell me about his friend Jet who was going through a change from a woman to a man, and — was I?
My answer was, I take testosterone, yes.
The other day he wanted to chat about it again. This time the case study was a lady cop he used to see who's now such a handsome man cop that he almost thought he should go for it. (Me: You should!: Giving encouraging dating advice to a 60-something guy who lives in his car.)
Then he asked, Are you a man stuck in a woman's body?
I didn't know what to say. But later, I came up with this: I'm a mostly masculine person in a fairly feminine body in a very gendered society.
Postscript: I just went out on a sailboat where the captain told us it was okay to use toilet paper in "the head" but please not to use feminine hygiene products. Then, looking at me and my gay male housemate, he added teasingly, "You got that, guys?"
Thursday, May 19, 2011
In which the curmudgeonly blogger goes to an FTM support group
I went to an FTM support group last night for the first time.
There were a lot of amazing things about it: About 30 people showed up, ranging in age from 17 to 50-something and equally diverse in how they’re transitioning and where they are in the process. One guy was from Scandinavia and another was from the Middle East. As we went around the room, several mentioned that their families were supportive of their transition, which kind of blew me away.
But, being by character far more predisposed to criticize than to join into any kind of group ethos, there were also inevitably several things that bothered me.
I went to this group in the East Bay because I’d been told the average age was significantly older than in the San Francisco group. I also hoped the bro-down coolness factor would be lower, which it was. But despite a range in age, there were several people there who had not yet graduated from college — and one who hadn’t graduated from high school. They were the biggest talkers in the group, airing their grievances with their parents. (What it is about youth that makes one take up so much space?) I felt compassionate but had a hard time identifying with them, since when I was their age it was still very difficult to come out as gay. I’d never even heard of transsexuality.
In fact, as a person whose friends are having babies, I found myself identifying more with the parents (who, in one case, were merely insisting that the youngin’ get regular gender therapy and come to the support group). I am, I’ve had to admit, kind of transphobic, which makes it that much easier for me to see where parents are coming from. In hindsight, I see how my parents, who grew up believing it was shameful to be gay, could have responded to me coming out by saying they worried my life would be awful and lonely. It seemed comically stupid to me at the time, but now that I keep running up against the image of the tragic transsexual in my head it seems less non-sensical.
Seeing the parents’ point of view made me realize that I want to approach the gender issue with my mother from a place of compassion, which made me feel good. But it also made me feel old — which isn’t unrelated to my ambivalence about making such a big change in my life.
The thing that really bugged me about the group was that two trans guys talked about their partners needing and demanding things from them emotionally in a way that really seemed to invoke the old “you know how women are” canard.
I was angry enough to compose a response in my head as I rode my bike to a doctor’s appointment (unrelated) earlier today.
Whether, as individuals, we think about it this way or not, transmen are one front in the war on the hierarchical gender binary. If we want support for our fight, we can’t be assholes to people holding down another front.
There is a stereotype that transmen become assholes, almost as if testosterone caused it directly. Like all other negative stereotypes, it’s hurtful to individuals — myself included. I am not suddenly the enemy — and I sure as hell haven’t gotten a promotion or a pay raise! Let’s not throw fuel on the stereotype that burns us.
A lot of the guys in the room talked about people in their lives blaming their transition for every annoying thing they did. I haven’t experienced that, but it scares me that I might. Imagine if every time you did something shitty or something that somebody you cared about didn’t get, they said it was because you’re gay. Ouch, right? But, to the extent that the people in the group were kind of rolling their eyes at women being women, they were doing exactly the same thing!
I guess I keep coming around in my thinking to a conflict between individuality and cultural norms. If you want to be read as masculine in our culture, you have to be read as male. So to be seen as who you are, you have to tithe at the altar of social conformity by altering who you are.
The most empowering stories of trans identity for me are those that don’t conform to the standardized narrative we’ve come up with to explain trans-ness: I was always a man; I’ve hated wearing dresses since I was a toddler; my boobs feel like somebody else’s. (I've never been girly, but none of these is exactly true either.) It’s like difference is a little oasis in a desert of sameness: I thirst for it, and I’m grateful when I find it.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider making a small donation for my surgery or buy a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.
There were a lot of amazing things about it: About 30 people showed up, ranging in age from 17 to 50-something and equally diverse in how they’re transitioning and where they are in the process. One guy was from Scandinavia and another was from the Middle East. As we went around the room, several mentioned that their families were supportive of their transition, which kind of blew me away.
But, being by character far more predisposed to criticize than to join into any kind of group ethos, there were also inevitably several things that bothered me.
I went to this group in the East Bay because I’d been told the average age was significantly older than in the San Francisco group. I also hoped the bro-down coolness factor would be lower, which it was. But despite a range in age, there were several people there who had not yet graduated from college — and one who hadn’t graduated from high school. They were the biggest talkers in the group, airing their grievances with their parents. (What it is about youth that makes one take up so much space?) I felt compassionate but had a hard time identifying with them, since when I was their age it was still very difficult to come out as gay. I’d never even heard of transsexuality.
In fact, as a person whose friends are having babies, I found myself identifying more with the parents (who, in one case, were merely insisting that the youngin’ get regular gender therapy and come to the support group). I am, I’ve had to admit, kind of transphobic, which makes it that much easier for me to see where parents are coming from. In hindsight, I see how my parents, who grew up believing it was shameful to be gay, could have responded to me coming out by saying they worried my life would be awful and lonely. It seemed comically stupid to me at the time, but now that I keep running up against the image of the tragic transsexual in my head it seems less non-sensical.
Seeing the parents’ point of view made me realize that I want to approach the gender issue with my mother from a place of compassion, which made me feel good. But it also made me feel old — which isn’t unrelated to my ambivalence about making such a big change in my life.
The thing that really bugged me about the group was that two trans guys talked about their partners needing and demanding things from them emotionally in a way that really seemed to invoke the old “you know how women are” canard.
I was angry enough to compose a response in my head as I rode my bike to a doctor’s appointment (unrelated) earlier today.
Whether, as individuals, we think about it this way or not, transmen are one front in the war on the hierarchical gender binary. If we want support for our fight, we can’t be assholes to people holding down another front.
There is a stereotype that transmen become assholes, almost as if testosterone caused it directly. Like all other negative stereotypes, it’s hurtful to individuals — myself included. I am not suddenly the enemy — and I sure as hell haven’t gotten a promotion or a pay raise! Let’s not throw fuel on the stereotype that burns us.
A lot of the guys in the room talked about people in their lives blaming their transition for every annoying thing they did. I haven’t experienced that, but it scares me that I might. Imagine if every time you did something shitty or something that somebody you cared about didn’t get, they said it was because you’re gay. Ouch, right? But, to the extent that the people in the group were kind of rolling their eyes at women being women, they were doing exactly the same thing!
I guess I keep coming around in my thinking to a conflict between individuality and cultural norms. If you want to be read as masculine in our culture, you have to be read as male. So to be seen as who you are, you have to tithe at the altar of social conformity by altering who you are.
The most empowering stories of trans identity for me are those that don’t conform to the standardized narrative we’ve come up with to explain trans-ness: I was always a man; I’ve hated wearing dresses since I was a toddler; my boobs feel like somebody else’s. (I've never been girly, but none of these is exactly true either.) It’s like difference is a little oasis in a desert of sameness: I thirst for it, and I’m grateful when I find it.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider making a small donation for my surgery or buy a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Bathroom is Like a Superhero's Phonebooth, but I'm Not a Superhero
I spend more time in the bathroom now that I’m trying to be a man than I ever did before. It’s weird because my utterly pragmatic approach to appearance, not even to mention home decorating, is one of the strongest suits in my masculine credentials.
The shot itself takes time. I don’t want any infections, so I’m careful. On a paper towel on the counter, I lay out the syringe, cotton ball and two needles — large to load up the oily testosterone, and small to inject it. (I tried to use the big syringe to inject once and I couldn’t even get the thing in. A doctor said, "Yeah, you have to harpoon it in.") I have to feel around to make sure I'm injecting in the magic safe triangle on the side of my derriere. Wipe off vial lid and injection site. And hold a cotton ball on the spot for a second afterward.
There’s a cleanup process, too (note: It’s tacky to leave your needles and vials around for housemates to see). The needles go in their special sharps container. Of course one recycles the vials. On a good night, I might even compost the (100% recycled) paper towel.
All in all, this takes about 15 minutes once every two weeks, significantly nosing upward my average-time-in-the-bathroom stats. Don’t be fooled: These stats are a more important measure of masculinity than any sports data ever was.
Have I mentioned that shaving your face is hard? My femme friend assures me that “electric razors are where it’s at,” and I know that if shaving ever becomes a real necessity I will succumb to the utter unsexiness that is the electric razor.
I may in the not-too-distant future also find myself obliged to groom body hair. There’s an electric razor designed for that, the femme — who's Jewish — tells me, which I imagine is a hot-seller in the Walgreen’s on Castro. It’s got some boring name with the word “Norelco” in it, which reminds me of my weird father, so I’ve already decided I will call it The Manscaper.
Thanks to the testosterone, I’ve also become a regular user of antibiotic gel to keep the pimples at bay. The gel has changed my life by eliminating — yes, eliminating — a long-standing skin problem which shall remain nameless but that really wore on my self esteem while naked. For years, I suffered in silence believing it was pure vanity to ask a doctor about something so minor, but now I’ve learned there’s nothing too small to ask a doctor about. And now that I’m on testosterone — and the magic gel — I feel much more comfortable changing in the women’s locker room at the gym.
The gel is delightfully easy to put on my face. But since I’ve been taking T, I’ve developed some minor but vanity-dampening folliculitis/acne on my chest, which means I have to apply the gel after bathing and before putting on my binder. Incidentally, the binder is another life-changing purchase, but it’s tight and made from thick-ish material, so the gel really has to go on first. I’m down to one tube at present and it always manages to be in my bedroom when I need it in the bathroom, creating the perfect scenario in which to walk from one room to another with no shirt on — which I can’t do because I have a housemate, but even on the incredibly rare occasion that she leaves the house, walking from room to room with my tiny breasts exposed just begs the question of how utterly satisfying and erotic it will be to walk about freshly showered and shirtless with my future man chest.
Assuming the man chest happens before I've hardened my contours and furred up my exterior (if I ever suck up the humiliation of being furry like an animal), I may find myself acquiring yet another bizarre girlish bathroom ritual: changing in the toilet stall of whichever locker room I decide to use at the gym.
If you liked this post, please consider making a small donation for my surgery or buying a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.
The shot itself takes time. I don’t want any infections, so I’m careful. On a paper towel on the counter, I lay out the syringe, cotton ball and two needles — large to load up the oily testosterone, and small to inject it. (I tried to use the big syringe to inject once and I couldn’t even get the thing in. A doctor said, "Yeah, you have to harpoon it in.") I have to feel around to make sure I'm injecting in the magic safe triangle on the side of my derriere. Wipe off vial lid and injection site. And hold a cotton ball on the spot for a second afterward.
There’s a cleanup process, too (note: It’s tacky to leave your needles and vials around for housemates to see). The needles go in their special sharps container. Of course one recycles the vials. On a good night, I might even compost the (100% recycled) paper towel.
All in all, this takes about 15 minutes once every two weeks, significantly nosing upward my average-time-in-the-bathroom stats. Don’t be fooled: These stats are a more important measure of masculinity than any sports data ever was.
Have I mentioned that shaving your face is hard? My femme friend assures me that “electric razors are where it’s at,” and I know that if shaving ever becomes a real necessity I will succumb to the utter unsexiness that is the electric razor.
I may in the not-too-distant future also find myself obliged to groom body hair. There’s an electric razor designed for that, the femme — who's Jewish — tells me, which I imagine is a hot-seller in the Walgreen’s on Castro. It’s got some boring name with the word “Norelco” in it, which reminds me of my weird father, so I’ve already decided I will call it The Manscaper.
Thanks to the testosterone, I’ve also become a regular user of antibiotic gel to keep the pimples at bay. The gel has changed my life by eliminating — yes, eliminating — a long-standing skin problem which shall remain nameless but that really wore on my self esteem while naked. For years, I suffered in silence believing it was pure vanity to ask a doctor about something so minor, but now I’ve learned there’s nothing too small to ask a doctor about. And now that I’m on testosterone — and the magic gel — I feel much more comfortable changing in the women’s locker room at the gym.
The gel is delightfully easy to put on my face. But since I’ve been taking T, I’ve developed some minor but vanity-dampening folliculitis/acne on my chest, which means I have to apply the gel after bathing and before putting on my binder. Incidentally, the binder is another life-changing purchase, but it’s tight and made from thick-ish material, so the gel really has to go on first. I’m down to one tube at present and it always manages to be in my bedroom when I need it in the bathroom, creating the perfect scenario in which to walk from one room to another with no shirt on — which I can’t do because I have a housemate, but even on the incredibly rare occasion that she leaves the house, walking from room to room with my tiny breasts exposed just begs the question of how utterly satisfying and erotic it will be to walk about freshly showered and shirtless with my future man chest.
Assuming the man chest happens before I've hardened my contours and furred up my exterior (if I ever suck up the humiliation of being furry like an animal), I may find myself acquiring yet another bizarre girlish bathroom ritual: changing in the toilet stall of whichever locker room I decide to use at the gym.
If you liked this post, please consider making a small donation for my surgery or buying a photograph with proceeds going to the surgery.
Friday, February 4, 2011
About a Whisker
Hair on your face is creepy, if you think about it. Born men don't think about it much, I imagine, since they have no choice in the matter, anyway. But given precisely the choice to grow hair out of my perfectly nice face or to leave it be — well, with the amount of straggly facial hair I see on trans men, this has been serious barrier to committing to a regular regimen of testosterone.
But here I am taking the stuff again, partly because I've decided that it could be workable to be a clean-shaven transman and partly because I looked at my brother and my father and realized it's pretty unlikely I'll become anything remotely resembling a yeti anytime soon.
I have a whisker. It's smack in the middle of my chin. Alright, I tell myself — it's just one whisker. It doesn't lock me in to a full transition — even though lots of facial hair probably would: it's got to be better to be a transman than to be a chick with a beard, right?
I decide the whisker provides a good opportunity to practice shaving, which is one of those erotic ritual behaviors of masculinity. Except it's really hard. How can I explain? If you have experience shaving your legs, imagine that every part of your leg is the most difficult curve in your ankle and that missing a patch is not an option because it will show. And cutting yourself will also show. Maybe it's because my skin is the most delicate ladyskin ever, but shaving also gives me itchy, painful razor burn that lasts for two days. Fortunately, at this point, I really don't need to shave, certainly not every day.
But once you start shaving, you notice the hairs on your face growing in — not even to mention the single stiff whisker in the middle of your chin, which drives you absolutely insane. Even the soft blond hairs grow in all stubbly, and I find myself stroking my chin feeling them stand up against my hand. (Is this masculine, or just weird and gross?)
At one point, I see something that looks like it could be a second whisker just beneath the surface of my skin. Here I will pause to say that just as straight/gay and male/female are important binaries that give structure to our social interactions, so, too, is picker/grown-up. And, alas, if it's not already all too obvious, I am a picker. Give me a pimple and I will double its size daily until I have a disfiguring scab across half of my face. Give me an ingrown hair and I will confront it with bigger and more sophisticated tools until I've forced it to unravel and reveal itself, even if it brings a stream of blood with it. At that point I will say something like, Ha ha, I got you, you fucker.
And so it was with the potential second whisker, which turned out (I think) not to be a whisker at all, just the suggestion of something dark under the skin. Of course, once I was picking, I decided to try to pluck whisker #1. This did not work, because it wasn't long enough to grab with tweezers. End result: two small scabs on my chin that looked much worse than two whiskers, or probably even three, would have.
But until the scabs heal, I can't shave again because I will just nick them off.
They are, fortunately, small scabs. I sure as hell don't plan on telling anybody I was trying to dig out whiskers (or potential whiskers), so I head out with a poker face about the whole thing to meet my friend E. for a movie.
E. is a good friend, and therefore obviously also a picker. She has a big scab on her chin. I don't mention it.
But here I am taking the stuff again, partly because I've decided that it could be workable to be a clean-shaven transman and partly because I looked at my brother and my father and realized it's pretty unlikely I'll become anything remotely resembling a yeti anytime soon.
I have a whisker. It's smack in the middle of my chin. Alright, I tell myself — it's just one whisker. It doesn't lock me in to a full transition — even though lots of facial hair probably would: it's got to be better to be a transman than to be a chick with a beard, right?
I decide the whisker provides a good opportunity to practice shaving, which is one of those erotic ritual behaviors of masculinity. Except it's really hard. How can I explain? If you have experience shaving your legs, imagine that every part of your leg is the most difficult curve in your ankle and that missing a patch is not an option because it will show. And cutting yourself will also show. Maybe it's because my skin is the most delicate ladyskin ever, but shaving also gives me itchy, painful razor burn that lasts for two days. Fortunately, at this point, I really don't need to shave, certainly not every day.
But once you start shaving, you notice the hairs on your face growing in — not even to mention the single stiff whisker in the middle of your chin, which drives you absolutely insane. Even the soft blond hairs grow in all stubbly, and I find myself stroking my chin feeling them stand up against my hand. (Is this masculine, or just weird and gross?)
At one point, I see something that looks like it could be a second whisker just beneath the surface of my skin. Here I will pause to say that just as straight/gay and male/female are important binaries that give structure to our social interactions, so, too, is picker/grown-up. And, alas, if it's not already all too obvious, I am a picker. Give me a pimple and I will double its size daily until I have a disfiguring scab across half of my face. Give me an ingrown hair and I will confront it with bigger and more sophisticated tools until I've forced it to unravel and reveal itself, even if it brings a stream of blood with it. At that point I will say something like, Ha ha, I got you, you fucker.
And so it was with the potential second whisker, which turned out (I think) not to be a whisker at all, just the suggestion of something dark under the skin. Of course, once I was picking, I decided to try to pluck whisker #1. This did not work, because it wasn't long enough to grab with tweezers. End result: two small scabs on my chin that looked much worse than two whiskers, or probably even three, would have.
But until the scabs heal, I can't shave again because I will just nick them off.
They are, fortunately, small scabs. I sure as hell don't plan on telling anybody I was trying to dig out whiskers (or potential whiskers), so I head out with a poker face about the whole thing to meet my friend E. for a movie.
E. is a good friend, and therefore obviously also a picker. She has a big scab on her chin. I don't mention it.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Losing My Religion
I was watching the Glee episode where Finn sings Losing My Religion. It's a cheesy show, to be sure, but somehow the episode captures just how terrifying it can be to lose something so big it's hard to measure.
I've said too much. I haven't said enough. I didn't feel scared when I was coming out; I felt like I was gaining a secret code rather than losing the selfhood I'd built up. Losing My Religion was the perfect song to revel in my secret/revealed feelings.
Consider this the hint of the century; consider this the hint that brought me to my knees.
Experiencing for the first time feelings strong enough to bring you to your knees was a gift, a discovery. I didn't imagine in the moment that I finally acknowledged — with relief, joy and sly smile — that I liked women, that it would eventually cut off a part of myself and truncate the relationships I'd formed. But of course it did. There was no predicting which people in my life would feel alienated by my new identity — or maybe it was I who suddenly felt alienated from them — but my friendships, my priorities and my social standing were all, eventually, changed.
Changing my gender feels more like losing a religion. That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight. Am I a dyke anymore, savoring that complexity, if I'm a man? Do I get to keep the people who love me as I am if I'm not the person they remember? What pronoun will we use to talk about our memories? Will I float off into some foreign realm of experience, losing the understanding that I share with my dyke friends?
Transitioning would mean coming out all over again, except this time I know what's coming. I'm frankly not sure I have the energy to go through it again.
There's no neat ending to this line of thought. I feel like I have to choose between trailblazing selfhood – the brave choices I admire in others — and the selfhood that comes from stability, which I've always envied: like a kind of religion.
I want to be seen as the man I know I am — a gentle, unaffected masculinity — but I also want to be recognized as code-shifting and self-made. That sly smile has gotten me through a lot over the last 15 years.
Life is bigger, it's bigger than you — and you are not me. The lengths that I would go to, the distance in your eyes.
Somehow it's easier, at least in our pop-driven, Hollywood-emulating culture, to imagine going to the lengths of gambling your self out of love for somebody else than doing it out of grief and frustration at the limits of selfhood.
What if all these fantasies come flaming aground?
I've said too much. I haven't said enough. I didn't feel scared when I was coming out; I felt like I was gaining a secret code rather than losing the selfhood I'd built up. Losing My Religion was the perfect song to revel in my secret/revealed feelings.
Consider this the hint of the century; consider this the hint that brought me to my knees.
Experiencing for the first time feelings strong enough to bring you to your knees was a gift, a discovery. I didn't imagine in the moment that I finally acknowledged — with relief, joy and sly smile — that I liked women, that it would eventually cut off a part of myself and truncate the relationships I'd formed. But of course it did. There was no predicting which people in my life would feel alienated by my new identity — or maybe it was I who suddenly felt alienated from them — but my friendships, my priorities and my social standing were all, eventually, changed.
Changing my gender feels more like losing a religion. That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight. Am I a dyke anymore, savoring that complexity, if I'm a man? Do I get to keep the people who love me as I am if I'm not the person they remember? What pronoun will we use to talk about our memories? Will I float off into some foreign realm of experience, losing the understanding that I share with my dyke friends?
Transitioning would mean coming out all over again, except this time I know what's coming. I'm frankly not sure I have the energy to go through it again.
There's no neat ending to this line of thought. I feel like I have to choose between trailblazing selfhood – the brave choices I admire in others — and the selfhood that comes from stability, which I've always envied: like a kind of religion.
I want to be seen as the man I know I am — a gentle, unaffected masculinity — but I also want to be recognized as code-shifting and self-made. That sly smile has gotten me through a lot over the last 15 years.
Life is bigger, it's bigger than you — and you are not me. The lengths that I would go to, the distance in your eyes.
Somehow it's easier, at least in our pop-driven, Hollywood-emulating culture, to imagine going to the lengths of gambling your self out of love for somebody else than doing it out of grief and frustration at the limits of selfhood.
What if all these fantasies come flaming aground?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Kickin' It Up a Notch
I gave myself a 150 mg shot day before yesterday. The pace seems absurdly slow, but there are a few inklings of changes: hints of more hair on my thighs and my mom asked me if I had a cold when I called her on Mother's Day (answer: "Uh...allergies?")
I'm going to the doc in the next week or so to make sure there aren't undesirable invisible side effects, like too many blood cells in my blood or high cholesterol.
I'm going to the doc in the next week or so to make sure there aren't undesirable invisible side effects, like too many blood cells in my blood or high cholesterol.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Worst of Both Worlds, Part III
For the second month in a row, I've spotted between periods...which sounds like something my mom should say, or all my lesbian friends who are trying to get preggers.
And within an hour of my third shot, I got my period a couple days early. This is not how it was supposed to be.
And by the way, if you've never heard Margaret Cho on men with their periods, you should.
And within an hour of my third shot, I got my period a couple days early. This is not how it was supposed to be.
And by the way, if you've never heard Margaret Cho on men with their periods, you should.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Shot Accompli
100 cc's and still no crazy rage fits or humping people or objects against their will.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Worst of Both Worlds, Part II
Am I fat? Because I've put on about 8 pounds since I started taking testosterone. I can't tell if it's fat or bone density. I know it's not muscle because I'm still struggling with the same weights at the gym.
This was one of the things I was hoping to avoid. Fat is not a transman's friend—not when it tends to gather on the ass and hips. When I weigh too much, I look like a girl as I walk along a building and catch myself in the reflection. That is, in fact, how I define weighing too much.
In an effort to avoid having the "that's no lady, that's my ass" moment of recognition, I have been trying to figure out how to monitor if I'm gaining muscle or fat for some time now. It's totally humiliating to have to ask for help in this endeavor, because I really just seem like a girl who's convinced she's fat no matter how much I explain that I really do want to gain muscle weight. But it's equally pathetic to deprive myself of delicious foods, which inevitably leads one to talk about how one has to deprive oneself of delicious foods, which, yet again, makes one sound like a girl. Do straight biomen not have to watch their waistlines, or do they genuinely not care how fat they get? (They do a pretty fantastic job of looking terrible, so maybe they really don't give a rat's ass.)
And in the end, it's always fat anyway: Building enough muscle to gain weight without manly quantities of testosterone is well nigh impossible. And so far, testosterone hasn't been much help, because I think it's fat now, too. My ass is not looking any manlier. I hold on to one small hope: I don't think I've gotten so much fatter that all of my T-shirts should be cutting into my armpits like they are (and sports bras always do because I have pecs), so I may possibly—maybe—be getting a little bit wider in the shoulders.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Worst of Both Worlds
I'm scheduled to give myself a shot today, but I'm afraid of what it will do to me. I've got my period, and as a not-intended-to-procreate female, I get horniest just before and after my period, when there's absolutely no chance I'll get pregnant. (Which would be a nifty trick of nature if menstruating didn't suck so bad.) Before I started taking testosterone, I would find myself lolling about thinking about sex all day at these times, and usually wind up masturbating at some point. But now, the testosterone is amplifying the effects of whatever lady hormone it is that causes me to be so non-utilitarianly randy (I'm just playing dumb: I know it's progesterone, whatever that is). Now, I'm an internet porn bandit and I actually woke up the other morning with my pants down, as if I'd clawed them off myself in the middle of the night.
(Aside: Would somebody please put out for me? I'm not that bad. I'm actually kinda hot.)
Point being, I'm not sure I can handle the perfect storm generated by the confluence of my female and male randiness. If I could grow two heads and two nether regions, it could work out, but barring that I'm going to wait several days to give myself the shot.
I'm also going to increase my dose from 50 ccs to 100 ccs, since after 5 shots all I've got to show is a constellation of little zits on one side of my face. (The laryngitis persists, and since it began on Easter, I'm thinking that I may simply be reborn with a lower voice.)
(Aside: Would somebody please put out for me? I'm not that bad. I'm actually kinda hot.)
Point being, I'm not sure I can handle the perfect storm generated by the confluence of my female and male randiness. If I could grow two heads and two nether regions, it could work out, but barring that I'm going to wait several days to give myself the shot.
I'm also going to increase my dose from 50 ccs to 100 ccs, since after 5 shots all I've got to show is a constellation of little zits on one side of my face. (The laryngitis persists, and since it began on Easter, I'm thinking that I may simply be reborn with a lower voice.)
Monday, March 24, 2008
Before You Go Getting Any Ideas...
Somehow I need to say that my story isn’t that I’ve always been a man, born in the wrong—clearly wrong—body, and that I’ve hated my “breasts” (such as they are) since the moment they first appeared. I don’t want to live my life as a straight man. I’m ambivalent about facial hair—except sideburns, with which I’m obsessed. And I don’t want to go bald. I’m not sure a dicklet—i.e., large clit—will be any better than what I’ve got now, unless it makes it insanely easy to come while I molest some sweet young thing.
I do want people to stop making all kinds of assumptions about my likes and dislikes, my history and how I want to be treated based on the fact that they associate “biological female” with all kinds of other things that don't follow logically. (To take one particularly annoying example, my housemate really felt like it should be him who changed the lightbulb in the high-ceilinged hallway, even though I swear to god, he looked like he’d never done it before.) (Or the guy who called me baby at the gym.) I do want to stop having waitresses refer to my gorgeous femme date and I as "ladies." And I wanted to experience for myself what biological attributes of masculinity might come in a bottle.
I do want people to stop making all kinds of assumptions about my likes and dislikes, my history and how I want to be treated based on the fact that they associate “biological female” with all kinds of other things that don't follow logically. (To take one particularly annoying example, my housemate really felt like it should be him who changed the lightbulb in the high-ceilinged hallway, even though I swear to god, he looked like he’d never done it before.) (Or the guy who called me baby at the gym.) I do want to stop having waitresses refer to my gorgeous femme date and I as "ladies." And I wanted to experience for myself what biological attributes of masculinity might come in a bottle.
Find Your Voice (It’s Multiple Choice!)
I came down with laryngitis on Sunday night. It’s the final farewell of a cold I thought I’d outsmarted. Being more than a little bit verbal, I don’t find laryngitis much fun. But this time, I find myself wondering if my old voice will ever fully come back.
I’m ambivalent. I don’t love my voice, but I don’t hate it and I’ve had it for a long time. I’m psyched to have a lower voice—I think this will be the coup de grace that finally defeats people’s impulse to call me ma’am. It’s just a question of how it will happen. Will I sound like a teenage boy (which I figure could be kinda fun because I could bat away questions by saying "My voice must be changing," which is sort of Dada)? Or will I just feel it fill with more and more reverb (which is mostly exciting, but a little bit uncomfortable because I find myself sometimes having a visceral man-hating reaction because some guy’s voice is so loud and penetrating)? Or will I get laryngitis—which caused my (cool) coworkers to observe that my voice is "awesome," and my boss to make an uncharacteristically bizarrely sexualizing/feminizing remark that it’s "husky" (italics indicating the tone of insinuation, tampered by his lack of skills and practice at being inappropriate)—and recover with a whole new voice?
All this to say, I should be recording myself everyday...but it feels entirely too self-absorbed. And how awkward is it to talk into a tape recorder when you’re alone in your room?
I’m ambivalent. I don’t love my voice, but I don’t hate it and I’ve had it for a long time. I’m psyched to have a lower voice—I think this will be the coup de grace that finally defeats people’s impulse to call me ma’am. It’s just a question of how it will happen. Will I sound like a teenage boy (which I figure could be kinda fun because I could bat away questions by saying "My voice must be changing," which is sort of Dada)? Or will I just feel it fill with more and more reverb (which is mostly exciting, but a little bit uncomfortable because I find myself sometimes having a visceral man-hating reaction because some guy’s voice is so loud and penetrating)? Or will I get laryngitis—which caused my (cool) coworkers to observe that my voice is "awesome," and my boss to make an uncharacteristically bizarrely sexualizing/feminizing remark that it’s "husky" (italics indicating the tone of insinuation, tampered by his lack of skills and practice at being inappropriate)—and recover with a whole new voice?
All this to say, I should be recording myself everyday...but it feels entirely too self-absorbed. And how awkward is it to talk into a tape recorder when you’re alone in your room?
Doctor, Make Me a Man!
I got my first three shots at the doctor’s office. First I’d tried the patch, which resulted a few weeks into it in 11 perfectly round, itchy, blazingly red welts on my ass. Before the allergic meltdown, I felt very private about telling anyone I was taking testosterone. But the reaction made the story feel somehow more mine, and less like Lexington pulp fiction.
The fourth shot I gave myself, after being coached sufficiently by the nurse. I came home from work, wound up on X Tube, jacked off, then realized I should give myself the shot before my utterly un-gendersmart straightboy housemate got home. So I did, and it went perfectly—no fuckups, no blood, no pain (the trial run at the nurse’s hadn’t been quite so textbook).
And I felt a wave of kindness toward myself wash over me, and I thought: Somebody has to do it. (For all the feelings among the rest of the dyke community—including, not so long ago me—that trannyboys are the ultimate manifestation of the dyke who thinks s/he’s awesome and takes up a lot of space to prove it, it doesn’t feel particularly privileged to be sticking a needle in your ass all alone to become a bit of a Frankenstein.) Then I watched Law & Order, and all felt right in my private little world.
The fourth shot I gave myself, after being coached sufficiently by the nurse. I came home from work, wound up on X Tube, jacked off, then realized I should give myself the shot before my utterly un-gendersmart straightboy housemate got home. So I did, and it went perfectly—no fuckups, no blood, no pain (the trial run at the nurse’s hadn’t been quite so textbook).
And I felt a wave of kindness toward myself wash over me, and I thought: Somebody has to do it. (For all the feelings among the rest of the dyke community—including, not so long ago me—that trannyboys are the ultimate manifestation of the dyke who thinks s/he’s awesome and takes up a lot of space to prove it, it doesn’t feel particularly privileged to be sticking a needle in your ass all alone to become a bit of a Frankenstein.) Then I watched Law & Order, and all felt right in my private little world.
Monday, March 26, 2007
TransBack
I've never heard of a transguy deciding to go back to being female, but I bet, given the popularity of transitioning among those in their early 20s, it will become more popular. But maybe, just maybe this is first-ever account of (and by) a person who came to regret the decision to become a man. (There are a lot of verbs in there, but I think that's appropriate, if clunky.) Which makes blogs feel a little worthwhile again. (In my opinion, they make more sense as vehicles for voices otherwise unheard than anything else.)
Do you know of more such man-interrupted stories? What do FTMs who have fully transitioned think of them?
Do you know of more such man-interrupted stories? What do FTMs who have fully transitioned think of them?
Friday, March 2, 2007
City Employee in Florida Transitions, Gets Canned
Transsexuals in the national news, Oh my! But the news isn’t good. Steven Stanton, a city commissioner in Largo, Fl., went public with his intention to begin living life as Susan (she has been on hormones for more than 2 years) and was promptly fired.
It’s unclear whether Largo has adequate antidiscrimination legislation to bolster a case against, err, itself, and Stanton says she hasn’t decided whether to fight the move or not. (Stanton claims the city shot down a measure to bar discrimination on the basis of gender identity, but the Human Rights Campaign suggests otherwise.) The media has been all over it. Newsweek is featuring an interview, in which Stanton seems so raw and human it’s painful.
A transgender woman recently fired by a Michigan Christian university said today she does plan to fight the dismissal.
Here's a little good news. You knew it already but the girls in the Go-Go's go go both ways!
It’s unclear whether Largo has adequate antidiscrimination legislation to bolster a case against, err, itself, and Stanton says she hasn’t decided whether to fight the move or not. (Stanton claims the city shot down a measure to bar discrimination on the basis of gender identity, but the Human Rights Campaign suggests otherwise.) The media has been all over it. Newsweek is featuring an interview, in which Stanton seems so raw and human it’s painful.
A transgender woman recently fired by a Michigan Christian university said today she does plan to fight the dismissal.
Here's a little good news. You knew it already but the girls in the Go-Go's go go both ways!
Saturday, December 9, 2006
He's a Dyke
I’ve been told several times in the last few weeks that I’m a dying breed. I’m a butch dyke of 35, living in
But gender is a funny thing: It’s all relative. I thought being a dyke had taught me that lesson — I notice who’s more butch, who’s more femme, and a million permutations thereof. But the boom in testosterone-taking ex-butches has revealed how butch itself is a relative category. The more tranny boys there are, the more not taking testosterone seems like an expression of some unacknowledged allegiance to femininity. No, I don’t feel any connection to the word woman, but feeling awkward in the women’s bathroom doesn’t mean I feel like I was born to use the men’s room — especially when, testosterone or no, I will always have to sit to pee. I can’t bring myself to think that making my body adhere to the man category is the answer when, after over ten years of queer life, the gender binary (woman = feminine, man = masculine; woman ≠ man) strikes me as comically clumsy — naïve and absurdly autocratic.
Don’t panic: I’m not going to argue that all FTMs take us back to overly simplistic ideas of gender. Such generalizations are useless and don’t ultimately advance the ideal of gender chaos. But the physical trappings of manhood — except one or two that testosterone can’t give — have not been the things I have aspired to or identified with. I may walk and fuck a lot like a man, but mostly I am masculine in the ways I feel: I am tough and fiercely self-sufficient and find myself in pissing contests, even though I think they're stupid; I go awkwardly rigid when it comes to tenderness and vulnerability; I feel completely entitled to experience desire without guilt, shame or obligation and to speak my mind as I see fit. At times, I do want to feel testosterone running through my veins, like a drug I was meant to have, to give these feelings physical form. Would a low dose (one too low to change my voice or body hair) make me more of a man, in society’s view? I don’t think so, because society cannot see gender anywhere but on the physical body. I think I would still be seen as a mannish, militant lesbian who doesn’t know her place by those who disapprove of me, and as some version of butch by those who get it.
But I’m not a woman who refuses to accept her place; I’m not a woman — for me, personally, the word is irredeemably steeped in its connotations of motherhood and nurturing. (For this, I blame the Second Wave feminists.) The constitutive thrill of being a male-identified dyke is feeling like those prescriptions simply don’t apply. Problem is, femmes and other gender-savvy dykes tend to be the only ones who recognize this basic fact of masculine gender identity.
People, in my experience, have a strong desire to be seen for what they are, or, at least for the good things they are. That’s why the thought of injecting testosterone crosses my mind at times — say, when I’m sweating my balls off picking up trash for the city to work off parking tickets. I’m in Dickies and an old T-shirt. It’s me and the homeboys; there are no straight women or femmes or even middle-class folks doing it. Then somebody comes up (with the class-blind expectation that because I “work for” the city, I will have handy information at my fingertips) and addresses me with “Miss!” Miss? I may have the tiniest hint of breasts, but doesn’t the combination of actions, attitude and attire speak louder? People who call me “miss,” or who apologize profusely after calling me “sir,” mistake me for some poor old frump who can’t help but look mannish. But I am more in charge of my gender than they are: I have negotiated it; I know who I am and I like it.
Some butches probably transition because they’re tired of dealing with these situations. Their choice may be politically retrograde or politically radical or neither — only time will tell. But nobody said it would be easy to overturn social expectations, and it’s really no surprise that society willfully misreads attempts to loosen its categorical shackles. One such attempt comes in the form of folksy advice: It’s best not to give a fig how others see you. Aside from the fact that no one is comfortable being misread profoundly and negatively — they may not have experienced it, but I’m quite sure they wouldn’t like it — this advice ignores the basic fact that refusing to see people in all their complexity furthers the cause of discrimination.
But that same tone deafness is what has allowed the category of butch to exist at all. “Butch” is a space between the poles of gender and would play quite differently if the poles disappeared. The current explosion of FTMs is already shifting how it plays, and what it's called. As a dyke dude, I could feel emasculated by FTMs’ ballsier embrace of masculinity. Sometimes, say when I see them at the gym lifting twice as much weight as I can, I do. But sometimes I feel ballsier than they are for pushing the gender envelope in a more active way that FTMs who pass — or at least for walking away from a potential pissing contest with them. Being butch is a claim that can be rejected (unlike, say, being biologically female), and some butches and tranny boys respond by needing to be more masculine than the next dyke to feel masculine at all.
I will admit to being uncomfortable with the popularity of transitioning to the extent that at least some people are doing it to win at that game — a perfectly reasonable desire for your early twenties, but not one worth shaving a few years off of your life for. (Testosterone is hard on the liver and may be linked to various kinds of cancer--no one knows because no one researches it.) But because male-identified dykes are also often judged harshly for reaffirming patriarchal biases, I’m inclined to abstain from judgment. I generally think it’s better not to fret that FTMs are limiting the scope of gender play in the dyke community. The decision to transition or not to transition can be a reflection of which aspects of masculinity different people connect with, or which strategy they employ to break through the walls of binary gender. Or maybe the polarity that has resulted from some butches’ choice to transition reveals what most lesbians already knew: Gender is so complicated that sleeping with biological females is not a very strong glue with which to hold a community together. (Note to homophobes: It’s our shared experience of oppression that really connects us as a community.)
Whatever the case, testosterone isn’t a magic key to a brave new world where gender diversity — and perversity — are valued. That should go without saying. Meanwhile, some of us are still holding down the butch fort, which is — in case it’s never occurred to you that butches look working class because we can’t get better jobs— still very much under attack. Now it’s also on shifting ground.
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