hi. bear with, this will be a long post, with a lot of parentheses.
My birth name is John Civil; call me Jan (simply put, I imagine easier on others, friends etc to get their mouths around, than suddely a different alliteration altogether).
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. After some years (of being basically perserved in amber), so I could not feel a thing, I got strung out on heroin, for several yrs, and 12 yrs on methadone maintenance. Realized I was essentially a form of living dead, and tapered off, the idea that I did not wanting to be existing, numb, like this, amongst this life (death)-style when I was 50 yrs old. Near the end of that detox I had the epiphany. This realization is of course something I fought off very hard since I was, around, earliest puberty. It's like this: My first pubescence consisted of swollen nipples, tender, hard underneath (IE both types of gynecomastia presented), which was a a bit strange to me, and disturbing to my mother. Visit to the doctor: "it'll go away, it's very common", which of course it is. Or having one or the other form is at least, or so I have read. Anyway, subsequent visits, when this issue, combined with not much development in the old basket, no fuzz on the face etc, resulted in some discussions between the parental units and the doc. These I was not privy to. The upshot is I was given a series of shots, 'steroids', which forced a male puberty (which lasted, like a decade) to match the gonads.
I was sort of made to think about all this when certain acquaintances began pointing out, now I'm on a low dose of the 'done, EG: "hey, you've breasts!" har har har. [Brain chemistry trying to correct the thing, 35 yrs late?] ('here's your breasts.' 'I didn't order these.' 'Well I believe you did, it's right here, please sign.')
Never much of a crossdresser, always tried to be a boy, a 'man' etc, not too darned well... but my relationships with girlfriends ran the gamut of what I can only describe as very sisterly friendships, to essentially sexual role reversal (with the odd extreme makeover towards that end). I am a musician, I was extremely rebellious and expressive, and did not much consider the ramifications, was not conscious. I recall a fair amount of 'sissy boy', '->-bleeped-<-got', and later, 'well I don't know if I really dig John, he's kind of effeminate' (Which is not how I saw myself. I was doing a lot better with girls than the guys making these sorts of remarks, after all.). Or Mrs Spoon at the Ice Cream Parlor, to my sis and me: "how are you girls tonight?" 'shh don't tell mom she said that!'
As a teenage acid-head, when those layers of learned ego structure were stripped away, my self-image was undoubtedly female. With a crystal-clear visual, inner mirror, to go with. Still, always fought it.
I am now aware of how unconsciously and half-consciously I have monitored every move I make, the way I walk, gesture, etc to have congruity with what's between the legs, what's expected from a het male. (Being girl-crazy all my life, I did not appreciate being labeled a male homo, or appreciate the attention from our brothers on that side of the equation.) Trying so hard to not be 'light in the loafers'.
Et cetera.
I have only an initial intake session with a therapist, went very well, but I have no primary care physician (my last one was on dope, bit of a trust issue) and will be seeing an endo, for the rec back to the therapist so Medicare will pay for it. I have no real resources for this outside of that right now. Reached a pretty low bottom.
In the meantime I am going through what feels to me like the proper puberty that got switcheroo'd some 35 yrs ago. Though I have never taken estrogen or any other agent toward this end, dressed (I do not don men's clothing for any reason, I refuse to hide behind them) and with the beard shadow adequately covered (and the penis hidden. ouch) many, if not most, persons (this does not include black folk, who seem to have a preternatural ability to read; even so, some girls on the train last week had to have a look at the salient area to be sure, giggling "yeah I saw it"... didn't think there was anything to see, but...) seem to perceive me as a (fairly gnarly, albeit) female. (a b-cup chest and budding hips, longish hair in a somewhat girly cut help, plus my natural movements are not masculine) My epiphany was in August '05, I was a tuly slovenly male then, so this feels like a long way already. I don't feel male, I have never functioned as particularly male. (My friend, 20-yr friendship, has always called me 'bitch', for instance) I could never try and play that part again. I am 100% out, don't care who likes it, is conflicted by it, do not care. if they can't take a joke. The big turning point (the SRS was a sticking point initially in my imagination of the future. Again, ow; going to require pain meds, strong ones, and that's a real danger in my case) is when I saw, I can't pretend to be a man, sexually, with a woman, what am I gonna do, strap one on? It ain't happening. Don't want it. Can't use it.
I think you get more than the drift. So here I am; don't have many friends, or even acquaintances at this point, self-sufficient in that I prefer a lot of solitude, to do the music (being clean after all that garbage, I can do this now, and have a small project studio with tools one could never have imagined in halcyon days), got a LOT OF WORK to do to get where I need to be. Needing some help, obviously...
thanx
Edit to remove certain words
