Monthly Archives: November 2007

The idea that one day my transition will be essentially over is scary and funny.  I’m not sure I entirely believe that someday strangers will truly look at me and believe I’m male.  It’s like I’m getting away with the most ridiculous and far-fetched practical joke ever.  I find it hilarious that people look at me and find me female, too, though.  But it’s not as funny, because I feel like that joke is on me.  The lesser of two gendered evils is the one I picked out myself.

I panicked a few nights ago while taking a shower, because I suddenly realized that my mental image of myself at the time was female.  when I imagine myself taking a shower, I see myself as a 14 year old girl.  I don’t know why, and I’m not even sure if other people have ‘mental pictures’ of themselves, so it’s hard to explain to other people.  But when I picture myself doing that particular activity, I see a woman showering.  And that is really disorienting.  All of a sudden, I worried whether or not that meant I was making a mistake in transitioning.  As if I was somehow ‘less trans’ because I was conceptualizing myself in a female body.  It took a while for me to talk myself down.

I have a female-appearing body.  I most likely will always appear somewhat female.  But I believe that even what we think of as “female-appearing” and “male-appearing” is completely constructed, and there are always variations.  The person I see showering in my head could just as easily be a male-appearing person, if I adjust my thinking.  For that matter, the person I see showering in my head is male, simply because I am male.

I still wish I could’ve had top surgery first.  I hope that a miracle happens and I can have it soon.  I love the changes I’ve experienced so far from the testosterone, but I feel like I would enjoy my body so much more, enjoy my puberty so much more, enjoy my life so much more, if I was doing all of this without breasts.  My hatred of and anxiety about an entire–rather large–section of my own body terrifies me sometimes.  When I’m falling asleep, I often feel like I’m going under general anesthesia.  I’m so convinced that when I wake up, they’ll be gone.

It’s really affecting the way I dress.  I’m changing sizes a lot these days, as my metabolism is sort of, as E says, being put through a blender.  My arms and shoulders are developing muscle that is pretty well-defined and noticeable for someone who isn’t working out.  I’m happy with most of my body, most of the time.  But the way my chest looks in the clothes I prefer to wear is really depressing.  Button down shirts and dress pants make me feel fat and female.  Sweaters emphasize my chest in a way that has brought me close to tears on more than one occasion.  It’s been the biggest self-image problem I’ve faced so far.

I feel like I’d be passing most of the time, even this early on, if I’d had top surgery.  I haven’t been binding much, oddly enough.  I’m not sure why, exactly.  I suspect it’s because I’m afraid that I won’t ever pass, even when binding.  I like having some control over how I’m read.  I like knowing that I’ll be read as something when I leave the house.  I like being able to tell myself that if I was wearing my binder, that this person or that person would have done this, or wouldn’t have said that.

I’m just afraid they’re too big, too hard to bind, too uncomfortable.  I’m afraid that it’ll be years and years and years before I can afford to have surgery, that I won’t pass without it, and until then I’ll exist in this in-between space where I more-than-occasionally fear for my physical and emotional safety.

I like having a choice.  I don’t like non-consensual genderfucking.  I don’t like the gender panic I’ve been having every time I need to take a piss–it’s so ingrained that it happens even when I’m in my own house.

I’m tired of thinking about gender all the time.  I want to just relax and watch my sideburns develop.