For me my first step toward transitioning was when I stopped taking testosterone. This act grants me a fair amount of autonomy over my body and over my transition. It grants me the freedom some trans women do not have, the freedom to see testosterone as merely another medication for another person. That concept of autonomy was the inspiration for getting my tattoo. I think the concept of owning your identity and letting it guide you is incredibly valuable. I am not a fatalist, but I have had to, over my life, recognize the futility in trying to control every aspect of what people will think of you and dive into it. Which is why I got my trans symbol tattoo. Continue reading “A Life Tattooed”
A Hormone Trip
In the beginning there was serenity and warmth. I sat there in the living room for what seemed like the first time. The sun glowed on the crimson and earth tones carpet. I smiled and absorbed the world again. What happens when I stopped taking the testosterone I don’t produce at first makes for a steady calm. I felt my mind return to the focus I had long ago. But when I boosted the estrogen that mind mind and body want, it was like pulling on a warm blanket around an exposed body.
I live in my body more deeply, and everything becomes a little more my own. The feeling I had coming back to jiu jitsu was one of a new found strength. Not one derived from a hormone pushing oxygen through, but of my mind feeling more at ease with the body it inhabits. The interface now connecting ever more closely to the form.
On top of appreciating this strength, I am also seeing a confidence in my work and ability to sustain myself. I love and look forward to every day I take estrogen. Everyday I took testosterone, rubbed it on my skin, was just another day to be happy I had the insurance to provide a drug subscribed. But it’s no longer a medicine, it’s a joy, the sensation in my body of this switch being turned on and a thrumming, coursing lightness. And while my physical arousal has decreased, my mental and creative arousal kick in.
Now that my skin has softened some and that my figure is shifting, I am beginning to feel a confidence in my own sensuality. It is a pleasure all to my own. Ive known this feeling before when I spent two years off testosterone. I never knew that I would cherish those years so, even though that period was still accompanied with the pressure of seeking out testosterone, a hormone that was so incongruous with my own happiness and sense of self.
None of that seems to matter now that I feel the fruits of my self discovery pay off in an interesting way, breast tenderness. Who would have thought the simple state of my chest becoming physically uncomfortable would also act as a source of affirmation. Today I let a friend of mine know at jiu jitsu that something they did while we rolled hurt. I told them they punched me in the boob. And for me those words contained confidence and matter of factness that would otherwise represent nothing more than just what happens when you practice martial arts. I never expected those words to feel like the most normal and pleasant thing to say.
It was an honor and a privilege to say for the first time and literally mean it, “you punched me in the boob.”
Through Metaphor
In my youth, what started as electricity, a faint current running through with lights being turned on, became a systematic hammered and hawed sense of self until only some sparks popped out on occasion for a few careful viewers that there was something more running behind the scenery of pleasantry.
I lived in movies, dolls, books, chat rooms, and video games to recover this lost sense of self. I imagined myself as Princess Peach in a very remote way, and no one questioned it. On Yahoo, I imagined myself as a woman with long, flowing black hair and wearing a jade and leather outfit. In the 90’s I watched The Birdcage and saw myself somewhere in this club, but not sure exactly who. This is where the sparks shined a momentary glimmer.
I had no clue why I felt different, but I knew I had left some breadcrumbs for myself to seek shelter and safety when necessary. It was as if I lived in so many other dreams other than my own. My parents want the dream of a safe upbringing with as little discomfort as possible. My brothers live their own dreams of masculinity and what it means to be an individual. And then there were the tender dreams of partners who imagined me into their lives and cast me in a role that complemented their own.
I found myself in many of these dreams throughout the years, and found so many of them to be lacking a sincerity to who I am. As I get closer to my own true dream, I see two children approach it. The boy I felt I was expected to be, and the girl whom I had to suppress. The dream itself was of an edible and sweet confection, and what lie within that was a truly loathsome creature, or so you’re to think if the fairy tale is to believed.
With Hansel and Gretel though, they ate the house and destroyed the witch. But why destroy anyone here? Why pretend one exists over the other. In my own personal nightmare it turns out Hansel is the witch. He holds untold power over the other two, and his trick is that his magic works. He is assigned conqueror and enlists Gretel to assist in destroying the other, effectively replicating himself in a feminine form. There’s no real change here, just a power structure fulfilling its own commandment. Man above all else.
I see the ending only in compassion and forgiveness, in the empathy of many Others coming together. Lost children and a seemingly ill-intentioned solitary figure, these constructs represent those of fear and desperation. Who are we? When are we both? And how do we let them examine each other without one consuming the other?
How does Hansel get to bow out peacefully and allow Gretel and the witch teach other? I want to live within this agreement without replicating the values of an outmoded concept of gender or be dehumanized because I refuse to live by a measure created to divide. I want people to understand that that hope, a dream of my own, I felt as a child lives on and builds with each day, and is not an unattainable fantasy.
Enough is enough is enough is enough.
You know what? I guess I have to say it, but enough is enough with the whole respecting my identity, preferred pronouns, and that doing this isn’t a walk in the park no matter your station in life. I’m really sort of tired of the whole treating me like a person and not a disorder. I mean come on, people. I get it, you just want the attention of being kind and compassionate. Nobody’s impressed, you’re not winning any awards, just stop.
Yup, you’re all pretty glorious. Recognizing that this hasn’t been easy for me to talk about, encouraging me to be out, and that this is a significant thing in one’s life and how they relate to the people around them. That was sarcasm, btw. Get it? Whatever, you’re all too respectful to understand good humor. You and your being inclusive rather than ambivalent. God, really, how dare you.
How dare you accept me and not try to undermine the decisions I think are important. I’m just offended really. You think you can just /be nice/? Buh, what? Whu- what what what’s what’s that- what’s that even about? Puh. Fuh. What is with that you guys, really.
I mean I can’t even deal with your attitude. You know what? That’s what you have right now, an attitude problem. Expressing your feelings of support openly and allowing me to be available without betraying my trust. Geeze, you guys need to sort some things out cause that is messed up. Srsly. Srsly. I can’t even use real words right now to describe the fake feelings I’m having right now. Wtf. Wtf. God, you guys, just stop it! *flails and walks out in a huff*
Srsly. <3
A Leaf In The Wind
When Amanda picked me up, I was nervous. They reminded me to breathe, and helped get the nurses’ attention when we needed to check in since apparently the office was closed for lunch (and “No Knocking on the Window!” Despite the FedEx guy doing just that.) They held my hand in the examination room, took notes, and exchanged glances with me when the doctor told me I should get in contact with transgender groups. (Wouldn’t you like to know!) They can attest to the anxiety I felt before coming in for my Jan 22nd appointment when I received my first prescription for estrogen and spiro. And I can tell you, the words I have used since to describe how it feels to finally take estrogen are warmth and serenity.
First, before I continue I want to say some things, hormones are not the thing that defines gender. It’s not the thing that makes people trans, and it’s not any measure of how really trans you are or any sort of medical gate keeping to “true” transness. These are choices that people make and understand to be more true to themselves than how they are prior. People have the right to live and express gender however they want. There are no rights or wrongs. The same as when I finally came out as bi, now queer (the less binary-y label,) I am doing what I know to be how I have felt all my life, though haven’t always been able to understand its full extent.
With that in mind, since being off testosterone for three months and starting estrogen I have never felt more at peace with myself. I am able to tackle honest yet tough conversations, be more compassionate and confident, and recognize my feelings in a direct way. Now, it has been tough coming out and having those difficult conversations. Not everything’s a dream, but my ability to recover and shed stress is just something that testosterone and the increasing dysphoria of testosterone’s effects made more difficult. There is a strength and peace in my body that has been missing for a long time. (Although my endurance on a treadmill has fallen off just a smidge.)
This may sound blunt and personal, but believe me, I have had to have this discussion openly with people and over time, I naturally produce less testosterone than a cis woman does. It is something that I was told needed to be fixed and I internalized that “need”. I thought I would be less of a person without testosterone. I assumed I needed to take it because that’s what people need, right? They need a hormone to keep their body in shape. But half way through 2013 I found myself unemployed and uninsured, from that time on I went about two years without testosterone. I had never felt more calm in my life. I had never felt more able to dive deep into a well of patience than at that time. It was quite possibly the most calm and healing part of my 20s. I was really able to cry and explore my feelings about a great many things. Then I started my “nice” job.
I loved the job. I was excelling at it. I had a significant raise when my six-month review came up. I went in with focus and humility, and felt rewarded. Then, about a month after that, I went back on testosterone. I even told Amanda at the time, “I’m afraid of becoming the person I was.” I will never speak more prescient words. Plus the doctor gave me twice the dosage. My sex drive spiked, and I was hoping to build some muscle mass to protect appendages. I thought everything would get better, but no. I felt this unease still in my life and the feeling intensified with the increased sex drive. It seemed like I couldn’t escape the cycle of anxiety and pain. I grew angry and frustrated with others and with myself. My work suffered. I felt overwhelmed constantly. Like I could not, and I’m borrowing this from a Laura Jane Grace interview, compartmentalize anymore. Everything felt like too much, and the world bore down on me. Once I was terminated some of the anxiety dissipate. Along with that, stopping dating a manipulative ass, and other sources of stress starting to lift at that time, I could see myself more easily.
Now, I recognize myself more and more as I take estrogen, do gender affirming things, and open up to people. Living and acting on a truth is difficult, it is not something done lightly, but it certainly has been one of my most compassionate acts to myself. That is why I see it now as one of my greatest strengths. I see the warmth and serenity I felt when I started on estrogen as the power to defend myself. It has granted me a sense of agency that is immeasurable, and the people who cheer me on and support me are those who recognize that strength that has always been there. They are the ones who have seen me bawl and shake when I felt destitute and weak, and see me now, exploring and living and happy.
I am a leaf in the wind, wherever I fall is less significant than the breeze that carries me through.