So today its a year now that I've been going through life as a woman, as defined by the anniversary of me coming out to another person for the first time and actually starting the phase of my transition where other people know about it... A birthday, of sorts. And, reflecting back upon the past year seems appropriate.
There really is no easy way to organize my thoughts on this... So, I'm just going to let them flow out stream of consciousness style. I'm musing on here in case someone else can get something out of this.
On coming out...
Coming out was NOT an easy thing... How do you tell someone that you have felt all your life like you were the wrong gender? Social implications aside, the question I always feared being asked in response is "why?"
I can't answer that question. I've searched for an answer my entire life, and I always tend to wind up self debating the existence of a priori knowledge. Ie. How do I know I should be a girl without the framework of knowledge that comes with having been a girl? I finally had to accept for myself that there is no direct answer to that question.
I actually had attempted to come out prior to this year. I told my ex on our second date that this was something I was interested in doing. She dismissed it as a sexual fetish she wasn't interested in, and because at the time I very mistakenly felt like my priority should be a relationship I shelved it. The first of many mistakes I made in that relationship.
So, fast forward two years, and I found myself alone in the Midwest. In a new place, surrounded by new people who had no prior associations with me. And I realized that transitioning was a viable option here... So I started dropping subtle hints to the few friends I had started making here, and they in turn dropped rather large hints back that they'd be okay with it. So, December 30th, 2013, I sent my friend Beth a really awkward rambling somewhat cryptic text message.
She responded supportively, and invited me over so she could paint my nails and talk girl talk. She outed me to her husband that night, and her kids the next day.
New years eve I outed myself to a few more friends via text message. And for the next month and a half I outed myself to roughly one person a week. Typically I did it via email or text. And every single time I felt like I had to explain why, and I couldn't. So, I'm sure pretty much every single personalized "coming out" I did made me sound insane. Everyone I contacted was supportive, albeit surprised. The last person I contacted personally was was my best friend, who was living in China at the time. He was the hardest to contact. He's closer to me than anyone, and I knew it would blindside him. But, he didn't respond negatively.
I was working at Walmart at the time. And there's no way in hell I was coming out to anyone in the workplace, so my female persona was largely a theoretical entity at that point, expressed only in the company of those who knew and in the privacy of my own room. But in mid February I got myself fired. I became a woman full time from that moment on.
That left my extended circle of friends as the only people who weren't "in the know"... Being tired of coming across insane, and the tediousness of contacting people individually, I simply changed my name and profile picture on facebook, and posted "This is a thing. Ask questions if you want. Unfriend me if it's a problem" or something to that effect. The response was largely supportive, although a number of people I wasn't terribly close to did unfriend me. Strangely, there were a handful of people who surprised me in how much they stepped up to be supportive, and there were a number of people I expected would be supportive who bailed. Proof that you can never really know a person... But on the whole I was pleasantly surprised.
Since then I've just let people self select out of knowing me. I am a woman. All the time. I introduce myself as such. It's still quite obvious that I'm a transgender person. So I typically don't bring it up. In situations where I'm forced to go by my legal name, I still don't bring it up, and I let people make their own assumptions and decide in their own way how to handle it. So far that method has largely worked for me. Even when I found my current job, the closest I came to bringing it up was telling my supervisor on my first day what my preferred name is. I left filling in the blanks to her, and thankfully she filled them in correctly and made everything happen for me to be me at work.
On being on female hormones...
I started hormones in mid January. I've been on them all year, save for a gap between May and August where I hadn't been able to afford them.
Initially I was psyched about it... Like telling a kid they get to go to Disneyland I was like "Wheeeeee!" Funny how that changes with time. Not that I don't appreciate what they're doing to me and for me. But, they've become just another daily obligation. One which I sometimes forget to do, or forget I already did and thus do twice.
In terms of physical changes... The breast growth happened early, and happened fast, which I understand is pretty atypical for transwoman. Especially those that transition outside of their teens/early 20's. And here I am approaching my mid 30's and I'm currently a small D cup, and I'm probably not done growing. +10 points to my genes, I guess, and many thanks to the boob fairy.
Redistribution of body fat is taking much longer. It is happening, but, being that the hormones have killed my metabolism enough that I've put on nearly 40 pounds in the past year. Well, I'm pretty much just fat. Operation diet was a no go. Operation exercise by walking home from work in the summer got me assaulted, and promptly ended, although that actually had caused results.
I see some changes in my face. Not as many as I'd like. I'm guessing that's the tradeoff for the tits - I don't get to be as cute in the face as I'd like.
My skin has become thinner, less porous. Especially on the legs. It's also much softer overall. But it's also drier, and thusly is super irritatingly itchy.
My eye color has also changed... It went from being monkey>-bleeped-< brown with tinges of hazel, to being hazel with tinges of blue green.
Changes to my muscle mass have taken their time, but it has happened. It's mostly noticeable in the shoulders.
On my emotional state...
I am only within the last couple of months finally settling down to where I can once again be emotionally objective about life. Transitioning is such an overwhelming experience that one cannot properly prepare for all the emotions which come to the surface. Hell, I couldn't even begin to foresee all the variables involved.
The first month and a half, before I went full time, it almost felt like I had taken up a new hobby. I could remain detached from it. Objective. But once "hobby" had become "lifestyle" there is no real way to step back from it. I know many trans people take a year or more before making the jump to full time status. I did it in 7 weeks. Was I premature? Probably, in retrospect, but, sink or swim has been a method that's pushed me through many of the most anxiety inducing moments life has thrown at me, and I figured this was no exception. In the end I was right. But, it took nearly a year to see it.
But... Those first few months of full time were the worst. Before I could fully process one issue, five more popped up. Then another ten. Then twenty.
My confidence and self esteem had largely been destroyed in the relationship I had prior to transitioning, and I hadn't given them time to heal before embarking upon this phase of my life. So, I didn't have them to lean on. So I leaned on friends. And like a bad trust exercise they were all caught unprepared, and let me fall. And the farther I fell, the more they stepped away. Many friendships that I had were seriously damaged. A few completely ended. Some haven't yet recovered. Some probably never will.
I plummeted into the worst depression I have ever known. Even when good things happened, they were masked by much more horrible things. For example, I got offered a good job at a vet clinic, after several months of unsuccessfully trying to find a job, and then my cat died in my lap two days later. Life got bleak.
I don't want to say I reached a point of suicidal ideation. But I did reach a point where I emotionally shut down. Completely. Didn't feel happy. Didn't feel sad. Didn't feel anything. A small handful of people started to worry that I was contemplating suicide, but, really I was mostly amused by the idea. If death is a way to feel nothing, and I already felt nothing, what's the point of death?
I actually got to the point of self sabotage. When good things happened, I expected bad things to follow, so I made bad things follow – I guess it gave me a sense of control during a time when I felt I had none, sort of my version of being a cutter.
That period of my life actually ended in a surprising way. One day at work a whole pile of good things happened all at once. I don't remember specifically what anymore. But, expecting life to >-bleeped-< on me, I went to self sabotage. There is a girl I work with, whom I had met pre transition. She had piqued my curiosity when I first met her, but I had walked away never expecting to see her again while I sorted through my decision to transition. Upon meeting her again on my first day of work I was surprised, but otherwise gave it no thought. But... On that good day, where I was in the mindset to self sabotage, she initiated friendly conversation with me for the first time since I had started working there, and it dawned on me – getting rejected is a pretty >-bleeped-<ty thing, and that'll return the expected balance to my life. Or so the logic went in my head at the time. So I asked her out for coffee. In my pessimism I had expected a no. So firmly in fact, that when she said yes I walked away without realizing that she said yes. It didn't dawn on me until ten minutes later, and I ended up sheepishly walking back up to her to plan the date.
That was a turning point for me. I have no idea why she said yes. I still don't. But, it allowed me to open my mind to the possibilities that good things can happen to me again. And over the next couple of months I found that not only had my outlook changed for the better, but I've also finally found the confidence and self worth that I had lost even before transitioning. I enjoy life now. And, while, yes, there are still bad days, I keep an outlook of optimism, looking for ways to find the better, and to make the better happen. And, finally, for the first time in EVER, I feel a sense of contentment with myself.
On social integration...
I've always been a pretty introverted person. Huge social gatherings of strangers intimidate me. Always has. I prefer small groups of good friends. And when making new friends I prefer to do it one-on-one at my own pace. So, largely, this has always meant I spend a great deal of time alone pursuing my own interests, with occasional bursts of social activity. Transitioning has not changed that, largely. However, transitioning did until very recently make me feel like my isolation was not my own choice.
Having had friends bail. Friends who didn't understand. Couldn't understand. Wouldn't try to understand. Taught me very early in my transition that people have formed opinions about this lifestyle. Opinions so etched in stone that they'd write off a good friend over them. It left me with the impression that making new friends during my transition would be impossible. And being that I transitioned so soon after moving here, I have relatively few local friends.
Compounding that problem was the fact that I transitioned fully into my new role before I actually presented the part. And I knew it. So in the back of my mind was the ever present fear of being judged, or having someone call bull>-bleeped-<. This was especially present when I entered the workforce as a woman. People accepted my gender identity, to my face. But I felt like I was wearing the emperor's new clothes, and that any moment some 8 year old boy would pop out of the crowd and call bull>-bleeped-<,and suddenly everyone would realize that I'm actually standing there naked. A poseur. So I kept my head down, and made little to no attempts to integrate myself socially, or even be friendly. I lamented "no one talks to me!", but, I've come to realize my body language screamed "DON'T talk to me." Having recently made efforts to correct this, I've found people are quite willing to talk to me, and quite friendly.
That said. I'm sure many people have negative views of my lifestyle. But, the fact that they're willing to be friendly to my face means they're open to getting to know me as a person. And perhaps in time they'll adjust their views of my lifestyle based upon their interactions with me. The lesson in here is to give people the benefit of the doubt. And going forward, that's what I plan to do.
On dating...
Romantic relationships are an unsolved problem for me currently. I can't blame that exclusively on my transition. Historically I've always been surprised that women find me interesting/attractive. I don't want to say it's a low self esteem issue, but, perhaps stemming from a lack of understanding of myself. But, the result of that is I tend to jump into relationships very quickly, with little to no vetting of the other person. The result has been that I've largely ended up in >-bleeped-<ty relationships with women I'm terribly incompatible with. The highlight of that was my ex... I had known her for two months, and we had been dating three weeks, when I moved from California to Ohio with her. The result was I MASSIVELY emotionally over invested in the relationship waay too early. And when things started going sour, rather than realize it wasn't a healthy relationship, I clung on, and like the captain of the titanic I rode that ship to the bottom of the ocean. It wasn't a pretty sight. And every friend I made in Ohio got to watch that awfulness happen - got to watch as my confidence and self esteem died and left me a neurotic emotional mess.
In the end it was my downstairs neighbor burning down my house that provided me with the kick in the ass to get away from it. But it was hard letting go. Even after I had moved out of the state it still took a longtime to clear my head enough to think objectively about how I had not only allowed that to happen, I set myself up for it. But, I've learned from that experience, and with any luck I'll never again commit myself that seriously to a girl who hasn't demonstrated that she's a good match for me.
As far as dating since transitioning goes. I've attempted it three times.
The first time was with another transwoman. She had never had a relationship before, and really didn't know what she wanted. But rather than be open and communicative with me about it she just went along with everything as if it was what she wanted. And then on our fifth date she freaked out because I had kissed her on the cheek. Rather than discuss it with me, tell me she was uncomfortable, and that she wasn't sure if that's what she wanted (I would've gladly backed off had she let me know, in any way shape or form, that I was making her uncomfortable), she instead vanished without a word. And because I had no idea what had happened, and because the rest of my life started falling apart at the same time, I ended up being a little too intense in my attempts to contact her. The end result was she involved the police and the local transgender support group. The police, thankfully, told me just never contact her again, and the matter dropped. The woman who runs the support group, however, banned me for life from attending after basically accusing me of being a rapist. And to this day I have had zero support from the local trans community as I've transitioned.
Attempt two went nowhere. Girl bailed on our first date last minute, and no call no showed when we had rescheduled.
Attempt three is really the most adult dating experience I have ever had. I've learned more about how dating should work in three dates with her than I did with all the girlfriends I've ever had and all the women I had ever gone on dates with before. And, the girl is the most emotionally secure and self assured woman I've ever been interested in. I'm hopeful it continues to go somewhere. Although I'm going to be taking things REALLY slow, and in many ways with her I feel like I'm 13 years old again and just trying out dating for the first time. Hard to explain... But, fingers crossed I don't screw it up!
On passing...
Passing is kind of this weird concept that a lot of people don't understand, especially by my CIS friends... I'm told things like "Screw other people, own yourself. You don't need to impress anyone." Or I get bull>-bleeped-< blown up my ass, and people tell me I'm the visage of femininity. Or, y'know. Any one of a hundred other self serving comments. People seem to miss the core ideal, which is that I want to look how I feel. I don't feel like some weirdo occupying the demilitarized zone between genders. I feel like a woman. So that's what I want to look like. That's how I want to see myself. And that's how I want others to see me. "Passing" means I've achieved that goal. It actually feels REALLY nice to be referred to as ma'am, or lady, or miss, in a genuine and sincere way. But, it's still rare. Most of the time people are careful to construct what they say around me in such a fashion as to avoid even using pronouns – though I tend to do that too around other women, for reasons I'm not entirely yet sure of.
Have I accomplished "passing"? I want to say no. I've gotten to the point where I can mostly look the role if you're not looking at me too closely. But, look closely, or if I speak, game over.
The voice is hard. When I do the girl voice I sound like a chipmunk that's been doing helium whippets. It's not pretty. And I slip out of it real easy because it requires an immense amount of conscious thought just to do it, and when thinking about what I want to say I stop thinking about doing the voice. But, I've mastered the art of ordering from menus or talking to gas station cashiers in the girl voice. There are even a few people at work who as far as I know have never heard my normal voice. But only a few, and they're people I rarely see and have very little reason to talk to. Most people have heard me pop in and out between voices until I just say "screw it" and talk with my normal voice.
In terms of physically passing... The motto for most of my transition has been "the clothes make the girl." As in, the more feminine I dress, the less people question my gender identity. The strange converse to that is the less feminine I dress the more I get hit on by men. Not quite sure how that works. But lately I've discovered that I can pull off jeans and a tee shirt and still look like a girl, albeit an unattractive chunky girl. But, people will still ma'am me. And that's what matters.
Work, however... I don't pass there... My uniform is hideous and unflattering, and it emphasizes every masculine attribute I still have. At first I rocked makeup every day... But, I spend half my shift wearing a surgical mask, which just smears around the makeup I use to cover the beard shadow and the result is I look like a really cheap and badly used hooker as soon as I take the mask off.I'd rather look mannish than cheap and whorish. So. I gave up on wearing makeup at work. Although I still will on really rare occasions if I had some reason to put it on before work. Long term I'm not sure how to make myself pass better at work. At this point I'm just accepting that I look strange for now, and hoping once the facial hair eradication is done, and my head hair has grown out enough that I can give it a feminine style, that it'll go a long way towards allowing me to pass there.
On gender specific spaces...
They still terrify me. I have not yet used a women's only space. I don't know if/when I ever will. Thankfully my work has unisex restrooms, and a private room I can use to change into scrubs. I did attempt to use the women's locker room, once. I had this terrible feeling that some girl was going to walk in, see me, then run out screaming "Rooster in the henhouse!" so I turned around and walked back out. And thankfully I've managed to completely avoid the issue elsewhere, so far.
On legal issues...
There's still much to do legally for my transition.
I still have to have my name legally changed. This takes money and time. I haven't the money. I also still need to decide on a new middle name.
Once I get that accomplished, I can get the state of California to reissue me a new birth certificate with my new name and an F for gender. Ironically that's the easiest and cheapest part of all the things that need doing. After that I have to go around updating my name and gender with everyone – social security, BMV, my employer, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, etc. Tediousness. But, it's something that needs doing, and a huge step towards really enjoying my life as a woman.
On surgery...
I've basically done the one year of "real life experience". I still have to talk to a couple psychiatrists and get them to write endorsement letters, but,that should be easy enough. The hard part is coming up with the money. When I first set out to do this I organized my priority for surgeries. First is the vocal feminization surgery. ~$12k to get me to Korea, get it done, and get back home. Don't have it. Don't see having it anytime soon. Next would be facial feminization surgery. Have my adam's apple shaved, my chin and jaw feminized, my nose buttoned up, and my caveman forehead contoured. $45k-$75k... I haven't even bothered to get an official quote, being that if that's the range knowing the exact figure doesn't matter – I can't do it. It's a shame, though. The doctor I'd go to for that is in Chicago. I can just drive up there for it. And lastly is the surgery for the genitals. I could go to Thailand and have it done for $10k, but, I've narrowed my top two down to a doctor in California and a doctor in Montreal. Both charge around $30k.
To put that in perspective... I grossed maybe $13,500 this past year. And most of my net went towards fiscal responsibilities and not starving. So, surgery is some win the lotto pipe dream. And given that I don't play the lotto, it ain't gonna happen. So, I've largely had to come to terms with the fact that I'm never really going to be what I want to be. But, I'm closer than I ever was before,so I guess I should find contentment in that.
On misogyny and male privilege...
"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone?" Yep, that lyric about sums up male privilege for me. I never saw any evidence of having it as a guy. But I've sure as hell noticed it's absence.
The first time I was completely dismissed and ignored in a conversation where I knew more about the topic than any of the men in the conversation was really confusing until I realized that it was because they all saw me as a woman now. At that moment I hopped on the feminism train.
My personal safety is another thing that took me a while to consider. As a guy I lived in some scary ass neighborhoods in California, and never had any fears about my safety. So, I figured in this small midwestern college town life would be peachy keen. NOPE. During the summer I walked home from work to get in some additional exercise... My shift ends at 2:30AM and I live 3.7 miles away from my workplace... That's not a huge distance, and at that time of night there aren't a lot of people around. But, I had random strange men do all kinds of creepy things to me... I had one guy drive by me three times in one week and honk his horn and blow a kiss at me... I had another guy in a beat up car with no muffler pull up and offer me a "ride somewhere"... I had people on the other side of the street shout "hey baby!" at me... It was all really really incredibly unnerving. And the coup de gras was being assaulted - one night while walking down my OWN STREET some guys sitting on a porch started shouting "hey baby" "Girl! Hey girl!" "Whassup sexy thang!" etc. I ignored them and kept walking, and then one guy says "Bitch, don't you >-bleeped-<ing walk away when I'm talking to you!" and he got up and started following me. I started walking faster, and he ran up to me and grabbed my shoulder, at which point he figured out that I'm trans and shouted back to his friends "it's a >-bleeped-<ing dude! Let's beat him to death!" I wrenched out of his grip and ran the rest of the way home with them following, and shouted out "I'm calling the cops >-bleeped-<s" as I closed my front door. They dispersed. I called the cops, the cops came, took my statement, and did nothing. They didn't even put the correct address on the report. And I got chastised for walking so late at night. So much for "protect and serve"... Now I carry pepper spray with me everywhere except at work, and I never walk anywhere.
On going forward...
I have no predictions for the future. Life is an adventure, and right now I'm just letting it happen and enjoying where it takes me. I'm in a good place, finally, and that's a nice thing to say.
Things to work on as I go forward are mainly working on my voice, and continuing to work on social integration. It would be nice to build a good bunch of friends - people who can understand my transition, and people who can be genuine allies (which most of my cis friends have demonstrated they're incapable of being, even if they appear supportive on the surface)...
Anyway, here's to another year!
