11 Months on Testosterone
voice clip : 11 months
I’m still not shaving, although it’s purely obstinance that’s keeping me from it. I always look scruffy, and I should really be using the beard trimmer every day. There are a couple of darkening hairs outlining where my “soul patch” will eventually be, and the hair on my cheeks is darkening a bit more, though it’s nowhere near as thick as the hair elsewhere on my face. I did notice a while back, however, that I have one or two hairs on the upper part of my left cheekbone. Creepy.
I feel much more solid these days. Especially in my arms, I feel that my muscles are more defined, although I haven’t been working out. There are a few hairs showing up on the backs of my hands, and my chest and belly fur is filling in quickly. The acne is gross, but I think I’m just going to have to accept some level of it for a while, until my puberty has run its course.
I’ve been fairly comfortable in my body, most of the time. I am more comfortable being shirtless and/or without a binder around my closer friends, so long as I am in my house. Binding, of course, is incredibly physically and mentally painful. But I have found myself more and more comfortable with my partner touching my chest–I’ve even enjoyed it. I think this is partly because I know that my partner sees my chest as a male chest, and my breasts as simply a part of my body. Also, I resent my chest less than I ever have. I think that they’ve always been the point upon which I fixed all of my body dysphoria– for whatever reason, they’ve been the symbol of my femaleness. But, now, they just feel out-of-place and vestigial. They’re uncomfortable, but not because they make me female, or because they make me appear female (to myself or to anyone else), but rather because of the huge disconnect between them and the rest of my body. I look–I am–male. I just also have breasts, and I relate to them in what I imagine is a similar way that cissexual men with gynecomastia relate to their chests. While I am as certain as I possibly can be that I won’t regret having chest surgery, I’ll admit that it was much easier to send these guys to their deaths when I hated them.
My sex drive remains high, and I find myself attracted to more and more types of people. Most notably, I am increasingly attracted to more masculine-appearing men (beards, body hair, broad/square body types) and to feminine-appearing women (I am suddenly intrigued by long hair). The total number of people in any given room that I will find attractive has increased, too.
