Quote from: Anne Blake on September 24, 2016, 09:09:24 PM
But all is not lost because my second point is that the journey is so neat it is too good to blow through quickly. Slow down and enjoy every step, it is a marvelous journey and you only get one chance at each new step...
I couldn't have put it better myself.
Looking back over my transition, I loved the steady pace of things. Some things take courage to build up to. Then you wonder why you were so worried about it. Here's just a small list of the bizarre, joyous and amazing things that have happened over the last 18 months whilst I have been exploring my new gender:
- Talking through with the endocrinologist all the effects of hormones I could expect. The blank stare on my face when he said that changes in brain shape and volume can cause some minor headaches initially. WTF?
- The first day I took estrogen and dreamed I was pregnant
- The doctor at my consular interview who performed a full physical examination. She was excessively curious about whether HRT has caused my genitals to shrink, and spontaneously handed me a string loop of wooden testicles of various sizes and asked me what volume they used to be. I told her "a lady never discusses the size of her testicles!"
- Trying to do my nails for the first time and getting more on my fingers than my nails
- The nurse at the blood bank who worked systematically with doctors over the phone for about 90 minutes to ascertain that I could indeed donate blood while on HRT and anti-androgens. She was delighted to take it from me. I was glad to be participating in the community.
- The weekly Monday morning ritual of transferring everything from my purse to my wallet and from my handbag to my backpack.
- Wearing a puffy jacket to work every day without fail for a year to conceal breast growth. Thanks heavens those days are over. It's oppressive!
- The day my birth certificate arrived with my new name. I jumped around the room in happiness.
- The beautiful feminine scarf my mum knitted for me
- The first time the other women invited me out for cocktail night
- The first time I got called ma'am by a waitor. I hadn't even noticed until someone else pointed it out to me.
- The girls at my dance class who were discussing vaginal infections in excessive detail to intentionally to make me uncomfortable.
- The first time I ever wore a skirt. It was Mardi Gras night. I was wearing it backwards. Some random lesbian pinched me on the butt.
- When my friend took me for my first bra fitting (awkward, as I was dressed in boy mode on my lunch break, and it turned out the customer service person didn't know the meaning of the word 'transgender')
- The day I tried to trim the fringe on my wig with kitchen scissors. Apparently hairdressing is a specialised skill.
- The day I went to get the fringe on my wig fixed by a professional, but the hair stylist didn't realise it was a wig. He stuck his comb in it and flung it across the room. 10x women staring wide-eyed.... Awkward.....
- My first pair of heels
- My first blisters from the first pair of heels
- Finding the courage to go and do a 2 hour makeup lesson in a busy store, despite not being remotely passable.
- The female family heirloom my aunts sent to me from interstate
- Realising my urine and body odour smell very different now.
- The weekly ritual of visiting the ladies at the laser clinic. They have pretty much removed every hair on my body (except down there, which I refuse to let them near!)
- Doing social experiments assigned by my gender therapist - I did plenty of shopping with another awesome trans chick... but we never quite found the courage to take a photo of us trying on wedding dresses !
- When I was visibly between genders and an innocent young child on the train very politely asked me if I was a boy or a girl. I didn't know what to tell him. "I don't really know. I guess I'm somewhere in between at the moment."
- Sitting with a friend at work eating soy crisps and discussing whether they fall into the realm of healthy. He informed me they have high quantities of phyto-estrogen, so "so you don't want to eat too much or they will turn you all girly." I mumbled something about the weather.
- The suitcase full of old clothes my mum sent to me. Who knew she had such expensive style !
- The shock on my face the one and only time a colleague took me aside and asked me point blank if I was transitioning. Unexpected.
- Learning about bathroom queues. That sucks.
- When my friends barricaded the door and wouldn't let me out until I took my bra off and compared breast sizes with them
- The awesome new friends I have made with transmen and transwomen.
- Realising hormones had completely seized control of my emotions - I burst out crying because I accidentally killed the only flower on my favourite pot plant. The preceding week it was sunsets. Before that it was animals.
- The hundreds and hundreds of hugs, emails and text messages of support, unconditional care and solidarity from my friends at work.
- When I came out at work and several people admitted that they had seen me at various places in public in female mode, and already knew I was transitioning. They had never mentioned it to me, but always remained discrete about it.
- Joking with my gender therapist about whether I could give him legal advice about ways to defraud the medicare system.
- My friend who drove me to work on my first day back, bought me a coffee, and walked me to my desk.
- The day the CEO of my company sent out the email notifying 1,200 people of my gender change. I sat on the kitchen floor bawling my eyes out with fear and anxiety - and then my friend turned up on my doorstep with a bunch of flowers, and took me for a pizza and a glass of wine.
- My first day back at work when the blokes thought it would be a good idea to ask the newest female in the office for legal advice about what forms of porn are illegal in Australia. SMH.
- Last week at work when it hit me like a freight train that a stranger was actually man-splaining my own subject matter expertise to me. No dude, that's not how it works...
