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?

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 Ready for the Next Thing

I just gave myself my third 100 cc shot. Like 24 days ago when I gave myself the first 100 cc shot, I'm finishing my period. Meaning that my period is not only regular despite the hormonal havoc I am doing my best to inflict on myself, it's coming in four days under the requisite 28 days. Combine that with the fact that I've still got a couple (very minor) zitty patches and my voice came back perhaps a half step lower but no more, and I'm starting to wonder what the hell I'm sticking myself with a needle for. On the bright side, I'm not going bald, and I'm feeling if anything more solid in my desire to butch up physically.

Even though I'm not talking about the testosterone much, it feels right to be back in a position at the cutting edge of gender. The noblesse oblige of supporting a range of decisions from the most radical spot is more comfortable to me than constantly having to argue the point that not altering one's body physically to correspond to society's norms of maleness is also radical (which I continue to believe).

The irony is that plenty women have facial hair and lack curves: People just don't see them because those women spend lots of time and money trying to conform to the norms of their assigned gender. Meanwhile, the health care and beauty industries are raking in the bucks—mine included. The bad news is that through the wonders of advertising, they also get money from women who don't have facial hair, but are nonetheless convinced that their blond peach fuzz makes them look like veritable cavemen. It works like the penis enlargement spam campaign: I've gotten so many emails telling me to "enlarge my wonder worm" and "stop settling for mediocrity in the bedroom" that I've started to feel like maybe I do have a "microscopic manhood," which is absurd because $100 would buy me the most horse-like piece of equipment out there. But the first step is to sell low self-esteem. The second step is to sell a product that will never fully resolve the self-esteem problem but will keep you spending.

In many ways, I feel like the trend among butch dykes toward taking testosterone has the same phases. As more butches took testosterone, those of us not taking it were left feeling somewhat feminine by comparison—a new and undesired feeling. Seeking a solution, we do the American thing and spend money on a prescription.

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.

Another Victim of the DOJ's Abuses

Hitting the news today is a report of still more wrongdoing at Alberto Gonzales's Justice department. Prosecutor Leslie Hagen was fired despite an "outstanding" performance evaluation. How is this news? Well, Hagen's loyalty to the Republican party agenda is not in question. She was a good Republican, who was also rumored to be a lesbian.

The DOJ could hardly stoop lower than it already has. But while I definitely don't believe Hagen should have been fired for her rumored homosexuality, I hesitate to paint her as a victim. After all, she eagerly embraced a party that has made absolutely no bones about publicly slandering homosexuals and opposing their right to protection from employment discrimination. So if Hagen's as good a lawyer as they say she was, she should have seen this one coming.

Shot Accompli

100 cc's and still no crazy rage fits or humping people or objects against their will.

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.