I have a few things I'd like to just throw out here in my experience so far as a transgender.
1. My mother has a really hard time with pronounces, I am unfortunate in that sense that my native language being Icelandic has many more male/female pronounces than English, we have male/female words for nearly everything: example "tired, hungry, lazy, sweaty, wet and all those description words, along with "them (group of guys/girls) and things along those lines. So switching to male pronounce over here is not just him/her his/hers its changing the way you speak about a person entirely. I am patient with my mother, She has called me her daughter for 26 years. But every once in a while I get frustrated. For example the other month my step dad came to visit (they are divorced) and they were speaking about me and my sister and they both kept saying "the girls this, the girls that" without even trying to correct it. This along those lines and my mother using female pronounces to describe a group of girls (me and my sister). I try my best to be patient and I know my mum is trying her hardest to be supportive and get the pronounces right, but there are so many words to change for her, its literally turning her whole vocabulary upside down when speaking to me and about me.
2. I have good friend online, in World of Warcraft which I play a bit these days, and naturally I presented myself as male, but after a while I was forced to tell him I was transgender, he wanted to add me as his "real ID friend" within the game because he was moving to a different server, and being a real ID buddy would enable us to keep in contact, and of course my World of Warcraft account is in my legal name which is my female name (for now) at the risk of losing my friendship with him I decided to tell him and he took it very well... Except now he treats me differently, I noticed it right away, suddenly I'm getting favours from him and special perks which he wouldn't have done before and never had. That pisses me off a lot.
3. Passing comes easily for me, I have not been on T very long (profile picture is pre T and pre haircut, my hair was just kinda wild after I had shaved it off last time). I was at the art studio in my town and it was around closing time and I forgot my paintings in the studio so I go with a mate up to the office and ask if they had a key so I could get my paintings, she was nice about it and said she would open it up for us, She had a look around the studio and complimented my paintings and my mates leather craft he had made, and she says "This is really good boys" and this was after I had spoken to her and 1 week on T.
My voice has not changed much, I feel it has dropped like 1 pitch level, but its not much if at all.
Another example of passing was this old woman at the bank who was trying to figure out the queue system, where she takes a number by selecting options at a computer screen to get her turn number. I talked her through it and after she got her ticket she says "Thank you so much young man" and this was pre T. Tons of small things such as these examples I experience all the times by strangers and people who do not know me. It makes my day every time and I am amazed how well I pass seeing as my voice has not dropped at all.
My female voice has always been rather deep for a female voice, (not male deep) but like this "brown tone" if that even makes sense which I am hoping will allow me to get a very nice deep male voice once my T begins changing it, which I hope will be soon.
I think part of the reason I pass well is because I have very masculine mannerisms and always have. Never has there been a feminine bone in my body, and I even looked "odd" wearing feminine clothes (as rarely as that happened) in my past. As a teen and early 20's that is, I looked adorable when my mother managed to cram me into a dress (after a lot of struggle) as a child lol
4. I've always had huge problems with my body, not at all because I'm fat, but the other reason I don't have to explain. Coming out as transgender has given me a relief in a way that people in my close family no longer expects me to present myself in a typical female way, as it was before I came out. Nobody comments on my bushy brows pressuring me to pluck and shape them, nobody comments on my unshaved legs and pits, nobody wonders anymore why I cant be bothered to put on a little mascara, which I never did but was tried to pressured into doing it more often. Before transition being fat worked well for me, guys didn't hit on me (thank god) and I didn't have curves, now however I would like to lose this weight and shape my body in the way I've always wanted it to be.
I've always had a destructive attitude toward my own body, I did not go to doctors, I had huge down stairs problems, irregular monthly, to a point where it was happening maybe once a year, I never had this checked because it worked for me, I didn't want it to return, in 27 years never saw a gynecologist until 2 weeks before starting T my endo said she wouldn't allow me to began T until I saw one to make sure everything was ok since I had never gone.
At the gynecologist office, I had never been so nervous in my entire life. I was lying there with my shame exposed. I can barely touch this area let alone a complete stranger. I cried while she poked and prodded, she did not notice. On her monitor I saw those dreadful internal organs which made it all that worse, I had always secretly hoped they weren't there, or were damaged or deformed, but there they were, perfectly healthy.
After the exam she left so I could get dressed, and I couldn't even look at her, I couldn't even stand from the emotional exhaustion this little exam cost me, and I could NOT control my crying, and the poor doctor came to check on me.
So I'm rushing my hysterectomy a.s.a.p, my number one priority, even before top surgery, I need this gone, knowing these organs are there and after seeing them, I am in such a rush to get it removed.
So this is long enough already, These are just some of the things I wanted to get off my chest, for those who actually read the whole thing, thank you for taking the time to do that lol,
Thanks for existing guys (and girls if you read here:) I may not be an active poster but this place has been a huge help
-Markus (aka Kit)
