3 Years on Testosterone
voice clip : 3 years

It’s hard to believe how much my life has changed in the past four years.  Then, I could barely leave my house sometimes because of my anxiety and depression.  I couldn’t seem to keep a job, and I was losing hope that I would ever find a way to finish my education.  I hated my body and was struggling with the realization that I needed to transition.

While I still struggle with anxiety and depression, it is nothing like it once was for me.  I am able to get out of bed and function in society pretty much every day.  Just as importantly, I’m about to bounce back from the brief periods where I do have trouble functioning.  I have had the same job for almost three years.  I’ve been accepted into my college’s highly competitive nursing program, and will start the curriculum in about a week.  I still struggle with body dysphoria and the knowledge that there are still steps I need to take to correct it.  While I am not completely at peace with my body, I can honestly say that I love it, and myself as a whole.

My body hasn’t changed much in the past year.  It’s a bit furrier all over, and that’s the biggest change.  I’ve got a good bit on my back, and my tummy fur is darker, thicker, and a bit longer, though I think it looks better and less random than it did before.  I keep most of my body hair clippered. The backs of my hands have a little bit of hair on them now, but it’s hardly noticeable–my arms aren’t very hairy.

facial hair after 3-ish years HRT

My facial hair continues to do its thing.  It’s getting thicker and fuller, and filling in the blanks.  It’s going slowly, but it is happening.  I still keep a short beard, though lately I’ve been less meticulous about shaving the hair around my mouth, even though it’s not really “there” yet.  Since I’ve been so lax, though, I do have a picture to show you my facial hair development at this point.

Before testosterone, I could grow patchy sideburns and two thick patches on my chin.  I knew some guys who envied me for being fairly hairy pre-testosterone.  It might have been some consolation for them had they known that it doesn’t seem to have given me much more than a short-term advantage.  I have more hair than many cissexual men my age, and less than some who have been on HRT a much shorter time.  Fortunately, I am still young enough that my facial hair pattern is pretty typical, and it’s acceptable (if not exactly stylish) for twentysomethings to grow shitty proto-beards in my area.

Most of what I talked about here remains true for me.  I still haven’t disclosed to anybody at school, and I still have no plans to.  When trying on uniforms, I’ve been shirtless with other men in my program, and my chest either went unnoticed or unmentioned.  A few times, it’s come up that I give myself shots to maintain a normal testosterone level.  I’ve never needed to lie or contort the truth; I don’t have to fabricate stories.  I just don’t say “I was assigned female at birth.” and it’s that simple.

Unless something major changes, I absolutely intend to live an increasingly “stealth” life.  I feel more at-ease and friendly with acquaintances who don’t know I’m trans than with those who do.  I feel like I have a more professional relationship with those coworkers with whom I’ve never discussed it.

Basing a community around the assumption that I naturally belong in a category or community with other people who are trans/have transitioned is not only longer useful for me, but it actually seems to hold me back.  Having an area of my life in which I am completely “stealth” has made it easier for me to focus on other things.  I withdrew from spaces where the only uniting force among participants was the idea of transness.  I’ve funneled that extra free time into my hobbies, mainly reading and riding my bicycle.  Besides, most of my time and energy will soon be spent studying and working.

I’ve also become fairly confident that my future holds a hysterectomy (with the removal of one ovary, if not both of them) and radial forearm free flap phalloplasty, but that is the subject of another post.

March 2010

June 2010

Back then, though, I couldn’t escape it.  Every time I got dressed, or answered the phone, or introduced myself, I had to think about it.  Whenever I met someone new, I had to weigh the pros and cons of telling them.  If they knew, then there was a chance that they might respect my name and pronouns.  If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have to worry about being on the receiving end of transphobia, or suddenly being asked to do Trans 101.  That’s a lot to deal with when you  really just wanted to do some local volunteering.

Because it was such a big part of my life, and because cis people couldn’t really relate to most of the things I was going through, finding community with other trans people was a huge priority.  It was really affirming to go someplace and be asked what pronouns I use, or to not have people assume they heard me wrong when I introduced myself (“Kayla?”).

At the time, the most ideal situation I could imagine was to have somebody know that I was trans, and respect my identity anyway.  Today, things are completely different.  When I’m getting dressed, I don’t have to squeeze myself into a binder; I don’t think about whether the pattern of my shirts minimizes the size of my chest.  People automatically assign me the correct pronouns, and no one is surprised by my name when I introduce myself.

At first, it felt like I was getting away with something when people respected my identity.  I felt like I was “passing” as male.  Once the novelty wore off, though, I was simply left feeling comfortable.  Much of my social anxiety disappeared.  I still let most people I met socially know that I was trans, but it was primarily just out of habit.

I’ve gotten really used to being treated simply as male, without any scarequotes or footnotes.  And the longer I live this way, the more right it feels for me.  My transition is over for the foreseeable future, and my body dysphoria has lessened significantly since my chest surgery.  At this point, my trans-ness exists as a treatable medical condition that is essentially no different from male hypogonadism.

Eventually, disclosing my trans status (or having my trans status disclosed) to acquaintances started feeling less comfortable.  I began noticing that I was treated differently by folks who knew my medical history–and not in a way that made me feel more understood and respected.  I started to feel like it actually limited people’s ability to understand me.  For example, most folks (who don’t know I’m trans) attribute my femininity to my queerness.  So do I.  I look, speak, and act like an effeminate queer man because I am one.  Instead of taking my gender expression for what it is, many people who know my trans status assume that it’s really some sort of residual femaleness.

In actuality, I don’t feel that I ever was female, and I don’t think that most things have anything whatsoever to do with my transness.  But as soon as most cis people are made aware that my birth assignment isn’t what they had expected, they relate pretty much everything back to my being trans.  Learning “the truth” tends to bring them further away from really understanding and respecting me than they would’ve been had they not found out.

When I enrolled in school back in September, I enrolled without disclosing my history to anyone. It hasn’t come up, and it hasn’t felt relevant to bring it up.  Sure, there are lots of opportunities to tell people.  I just don’t see a reason to.  I get plenty of chances to talk about being a survivor of family violence, too, but that’s hardly ever relevant, either.  People can get to know me professionally and personally without ever knowing many intimate details of my life.  They might be surprised if they learn some of those things later on, but people are always finding out what happens when they make assumptions about other people’s experiences.

Not so very long ago, I thought that it’d be dishonest for me to interact closely with someone and not disclose–that I’d be hiding something, or lying about my past or present.  Instead, I feel like I’m being seen for who I am, without other people’s misconceptions about gender or transition getting in my way, for the first time in my life.  It feels great.

As my life has gotten busier, my involvement in local and online trans community is taking a backseat to other considerations.  I don’t know to what extent I’ll be “out” or “stealth” in the future, but I suspect I will always keep my medical history private at work in school.  At this point, most of my close friends know my history, but I can’t even remember the last time I disclosed to a cis person outside of an activism setting (actually, it was probably when I corrected my Social Security information).  If this trend continues, I might eventually find myself almost completely stealth.  It’s still not something I’m particularly looking for, but I’m certainly not opposed.

21 Months on Testosterone
voice clip : 1.5 years
voice clip : 2 years

I’m finally back in school, working towards an Associate’s Degree in Nursing at my local technical college.  My tuition and fees are covered by scholarships and the Pell Grant, and my Granny is giving me extra money each month so that I can afford to work less hours and go to school full-time.  I’ve not disclosed my trans status to anybody at school, and it’s been a really affirming and amazing experience so far.

I’m planning on writing a post at some point about my changing attitudes towards disclosure/non-disclosure.

I think that over the past few months, my body has changed some–it’s barely perceptible, but I’ve noticed.  My voice has lowered somewhat.  My usual speaking voice hasn’t changed, but I’m able to talk in a deeper register more comfortably these days.  Also, I’m able to hit lower notes when I’m singing now than I could a few months ago.

The hair above and below my lips is starting to fill in more darkly.  I should have a full beard before long.  These days, I tend to wear a short beard, with my mustache and “soul patch” shaved off.  I think it suits me pretty well–much better than the sideburns/goatee thing I wore for so long.  The beard is somehow more feminine, and I like the way it looks combined with my hair, which I’m growing out.

I got the results back from the lab work I had done in late September on the 4th day of my 10-day shot cycle; my serum testosterone level was 314 ng/dL, which is on the lower end of normal.  I’ve been on 100mg every 10 days for my entire time on HRT, so I’ve decided to experiment with a  140mg/10-day cycle (which is pretty close to the standard dose of 200mg/14-days) to see if I experience an increase in energy or a more stable mood.  I’ve only done one dose this way so far, so we’ll see how it goes.

13 Months on Testosterone

14 Months on Testosterone

First, whenever I order something vegetarian and K (who is usually perceived as female, FYI) orders something with meat in it, I am usually offered the meat dish.  This has happened twice in two days.  The first time, with a barbecue sandwich at a pizza place, and the next time today at a local Thai restaurant–both places which we frequent, and where I’ve consistently ordered vegetarian meals.

Vegetarianism is very, very feminized.  It makes me feel weird to eat meat, in a strange way.  It makes me feel like I’m butching up.  Even though I really, really like chicken and fish.

Also, people assume things that they didn’t assume before.  At Panera, the cashier assumed I wanted chips with my meal, instead of the other options.  When folks thought I was female, that rarely happened.  This might’ve been a coincidence, but I suspect that the cashier wouldn’t have assumed that a woman would automatically choose the least healthy/low-fat side option.

Weird.

When K and I first showed up, I think I was quickly introduced to the new LGBT director, and that made me think about K and his relationship to my gender and my transition.  I’ve always made it really clear that, at this point in my life and in our relationship, it’s important to me that K feel able to disclose my trans status when/if he wants to, to whomever he wants to.  And I think he believes me.  I’m pretty sure, anyway.  But, I’ve definitely noticed that he’s become as ambivalent about when/how/if to disclose as I have.  I worry some that it’s more about making me comfortable than making himself comfortable, but K of course is capable of meeting his own needs in this regard.  Still, I wonder about our visibility/invisibility.

It’s pretty straightforward outside of queer spaces–it all depends on how K is being perceived.  We’re either gay men, or a kinda funny looking straight couple.  People usually seem to think we’re pretty precious, either way.  But inside queer space, we’re looked at for longer.  People who assume K is a lesbian are baffled, and once they see how gay I am, usually just end up confused and fascinated.  People who know K’s a trans guy focus directly and pointedly on me.  I think it’s to figure out if I’m a cissexual gay man who’s actually okay with dating pre/no-ho pre-non/op guys (you know, a PINK unicorn, even more rare than the regular unicorns who will date post-transition trans men), or a trans man, or what.  That annoys me slightly.  I guess I could interpret that as “I’m okay with however we’re perceived, so long as my trans status isn’t brought up”.

So, I wonder how the director perceived me.  She’ll know eventually, probably, if I hang around.  But figuring out when to disclose is weird and new, and I don’t want to look like an ass, like “Hi, I’m Caleb–would you like to hear about my genital configuration?”  And, of course, there’s the fact that I don’t really like talking about it all that much anyway.  It was especially strange because I wasn’t sure if the person I was actually talking to (who is a newly-out trans woman) knew, and I definitely wanted to give her the secret handshake or whatever, so she’d know there was a community here.  Even if it is a bit of a sausage party… sort of.

In introductions, I didn’t think to continue the “name + pronoun” intro that K had tried to start, although I really should’ve thought to; I’m not really interested in othering people whose gender reception and pronoun preference don’t match just so I can enjoy my new privilege.  I was just too engrossed in thought, I guess.  Oh, and then I didn’t come out at first, because there were three people there (two facilitators and a student) I wanted to feel out first.

It’s almost like being drunk on power.  I have the power to have someone I just met never, ever know that I am not a cissexual man.  And it’s hard coming out sometimes, even in a situation in which I want to, like gender chat.  I’m not sure if I’ve written about it here, or just spoken about it in private conversations, but disclosing is different than coming out, by miles and miles.  Coming out as trans meant seeking respect for my identity.  It meant giving someone to whom I’m disclosing to know more about me, to get a more complete and accurate idea of who I am as a person.  It was a lot like coming out as queer.  It was kind of empowering in a way.

Disclosing doesn’t make me feel that way.  Disclosing to people I assume are cissexual has, in general, more cons than pros.  The pros are mostly that I get to know whether the person I’m coming out to is a transphobic douchebag I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyway, and that the person won’t be confused when I talk about things like my boobs, my puberty, my menopause, my uterus, my ovaries, my ex-lesbianism, my intimate familiarity with things that most guys know absolutely nothing about.  That’s about where the good bits end.  Someone finding out that I lived as female-ish until about a year ago causes most cissexual folks to start painting a mental picture of me that’s 1) inappropriate and 2) wrong:

My body becomes scrutinized, and if one more fucking person congratulates me on how “real” or “bio” or “genetic” or “magickal” I look for a transsexual (read: woman), I might start congratulating them on how trans they look.  Especially feminine cis women–they all look like femme trans women to me, anyway.  It’s so nice that they can go around looking trans to me, despite being [usually] uterus-laden imposters.

No, I haven’t had any surgeries.  Yes, binding fucking hurts.

No, you had it right the first time.  I’m faggy in the same way as a cis queer guy.  It’s not a holdover from my “natural” womanly mcvaginaness.

No, I’m not dating K because I only date other trans people, nor am I dating him because only other trans people will date me.

No, my family doesn’t need to be praised from the rooftops for not disowning me because of my decision to transition; if you wouldn’t be supportive and understanding of a trans family member, that makes you an asshole, it doesn’t make my family angelic.

Because the male-female spectrum exists de facto, “coming out” put me more towards the male end, which felt more accurate; “disclosing” puts me more towards the female end, which feels less accurate.  The way I’m perceived now is almost exactly how I perceive myself, and how I want to be perceived (fantasies of waking up one morning and having the body of my tall, thin, twinky, genderqueer fag roommate aside).  It’s not as easy to convince myself to go through all that when I don’t usually get anything out of it, except someone thinking that we’re BFFs and that I’ve really opened up to them.

K and I went to The Grill late that night and talked, and I think I’m getting somewhere with my genderqueer stuff.  I’ve been examining my genderqueer identity lately, because I’m the type to pick at a scab.  And there’s some stuff about all this that just sits wrong with me, and I want to figure out if “genderqueer” is a vestigial identity at this point, or if it’s just evolved.

When I was living as female, before I transitioned, being genderqueer, for me, meant a freedom to express masculinity/maleness in a way that resonated with me, without invalidating or repressing my feminine qualities.  Even when I knew I would transition medically, I still identified with “trans-masculine” genderqueers and lesbians/queer women.  We looked alike.  Our experiences were a lot alike, or so I felt.

That’s just not the case at this point in my life.  My maleness is now affirmed by basically everyone I interact with.  These days, my non-binary identity is more about my expressions of queer maleness and femininity.  The genderqueer issues I wrestle with myself cause me to identify pretty strongly with genderqueer-identified people whose gender expressions/presentations usually align with binary maleness/masculinity.

Despite all the theory, I’ve never really seen too much breaking down of binaries, and the idea of the “spectrum” sort of looms large.  I feel like “transmasculine” people and “transfeminine” people are quietly pushed to either side, according to birth-assignation.  I feel like if my trans status is known, I’m pushed to the wrong sort of side–like I’m seen as the far-end of the female masculinity spectrum.  And, I know that tons of guys who ID as genderqueer totally see themselves this way, which is fine.  I just don’t.  Maybe a part of that separation is because the genderqueer community is so heavily female-assigned and currently-or-formerly-lesbian-identified?

I think that may be the root of the anti-cissexual male sentiment that shows up/peeks out sometimes in my conversations with other genderqueers.  And I’m not very comfortable with that idea.  At this point in my life, the only essential difference between me and a cissexual guy is what’s under our clothes.  And I’ve seen trans guys get away with so much misogyny and so much bullshit, and even if they’re called on it, they get the benefit of the doubt.  The possiblity that cissexual men may make those exact same mistakes is used as the reasoning for their exclusion.  I’m not interested in being a part of anything that would include me but would exclude cis men, because, as someone has pointed out, that is so literally phallocentric.

I am perceived as male.  100% of the time.  It’s been a long time since I worried which bathroom I belong in.  I’m even starting to get pretty good at understanding male social codes.  I’m completely relaxed about pronouns, and I still prefer male pronouns.  Sometimes, I’ll realize that someone I’m getting to know has absolutely no idea that I’m not birth-assigned male.  And I like it.

I don’t particularly feel like a man.  I don’t really know what that feels like.  I do, however, know that this makes me happy.  I’m not sure if I’m genderqueer, exactly, except in the sense that I see gender as mutable, arbitrary, and often nonconsensual.  If I appear gender-variant, it’s only in the sense that I don’t look straight–in sexual orientation, not gender.  I’m only visibly genderqueer in the sense that the social markers of queer sexuality are often perceived as gender-cues.

And maybe that’s what it’s about for me?  Maybe it’s not about gender identity at all.  I’m not a masculine woman.  I’m an androgynous-dressing, feminine-acting, non-woman.  When I’m read as a queer guy, I feel affirmed.  And I just want to be read as something that comes reasonably close to how I see myself socially.  And I am, now.

These days, the most awkward social situations for me are ones in which I am perceived to be the straight-male half of a socially-sanctioned heterosexual relationship.  I’m not all that upset about being perceived as a straight dude–I find it silly.  But I hate for any of my female-assigned partners (none of whom identify as female or straight) to be read as straight because of me.  But it’s not like being read as a lesbian couple was doing them any favors, either.

I’m not a man.  I’m definitely not a woman.  I might not really be genderqueer.  I don’t really identify as transsexual.  But I like the way I look, and I like where I am right now.  So, I must be moving in the right direction.

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.