My last post was about the long journey from questioning my gender to finally reaching a place where being Krista mostly just felt like being me. Almost immediately afterward, life decided to test that conclusion. A man who brought a group to the planetarium objected to the fact that I am transgender and complained about me to my supervisors. For years, that was exactly the sort of thing I feared. I imagined that if I became too visible, somebody would object, people in authority would become uncomfortable, and I would discover that all the acceptance I had experienced had limits. Instead, something very different happened. My supervisors supported me completely. Nobody suggested that I tone myself down. Nobody asked whether perhaps I could dress differently around certain people. Nobody treated my identity as the problem that needed to be solved. The problem was that someone was behaving badly toward one of their employees.
That mattered enormously. The ending made it even better. Apparently the angry man eventually realized that he had pushed this much too far and had better back off. His attempt to do so was later described to me as a stammering apology to my boss in which he came across as something of a fool. I wish I could say that transgender people never have to deal with bigots. Obviously that is not true. But there was something wonderfully satisfying about discovering that when someone finally did challenge me, I was not the person who ended up embarrassed and retreating.
A few days later I had a very different conversation with my friend Jessie. We were eating together and they really looked at me, not one of those quick, automatic "you look great" compliments. They studied my hair, makeup, earrings and face. I told them that I assumed people could always tell I was transgender. They disagreed strongly and told me that they thought I probably passed to quite a few people. I still have trouble believing that. I have spent years looking at myself through a very unforgiving lens, and I think I developed a habit of assuming that everybody immediately sees what I see. Perhaps there was some self-protection in that. If I expect everyone to clock me instantly as trans, nobody can disappoint me by doing so. But lately I have started wondering whether the picture I carry around in my head is simply out of date. That does not mean I suddenly think I pass everywhere, and I am not interested in making passing the test of whether I am doing womanhood correctly. I know perfectly well that some people read me as transgender. What is changing is my certainty that everybody does.
Meanwhile, another coworker saw me on Zoom and private messenged that I looked beautiful. She didn't back away from that opinion when I saw her the next day.
Sometimes I think I look pretty. There. I said it.
There has been another important shift too. For a very long time, I calibrated how feminine I allowed myself to look according to the audience. Who was going to see me? How much could they handle? Would a skirt be too much? Would red lipstick be too much? Would this top make people uncomfortable? Would I be safer if I toned it down a little? I am doing that less and less. Recently I went out to play disc golf and made a conscious decision that I did not want to dress in some neutral, almost-male outdoor uniform just because I was doing something athletic. I wanted to feel like a woman while I played. So I wore black leggings, a feminine top, lipstick, earrings, red nails and my rainbow shoes. And I felt wonderful. I was simply being female while doing something I enjoy.
The same thing happened at Dungeons & Dragons, although admittedly with considerably more sparkle. I wore a black satin sleeveless V-neck top, a light-blue pleated mini skort, deep red lipstick and red holographic nails. When Amber saw me, she lit up and greeted me with an enthusiastic, "Oooooo...look at you!" followed by a hug. I loved that, not only because I liked the compliment, although I certainly did, but because I had stopped asking whether that outfit was too feminine for the room. I wanted to wear it, so I wore it. That is becoming my rule. I still care about appropriateness. I am not going to wear a cocktail dress to hike through a canyon. But I am increasingly unwilling to make other people's possible discomfort the deciding factor in how feminine I am allowed to be.
Some parts of this process are much less glamorous. My voice is one of them. I recently started a structured voice feminization program and began by measuring where my voice actually is rather than relying on vague impressions. The numbers were not particularly comforting. My longer readings were around the low 110s in average pitch, with one longer paragraph around 109 Hz and conversational speech around 119 Hz. That is a low voice. I am not interested in pretending otherwise. At the same time, I noticed something about my reaction to those numbers. A couple of years ago, something masculine about myself could become evidence against Krista. I might have spiraled into questions about whether I was fooling myself, whether I was really female inside, or whether I was simply playing dress-up. Now I look at the same problem and think: I am a woman with a voice I want to change. Between D&D and some theater, I'm used to changing my voice. I'm enrolled in a class and moving forward!
There are changes happening to my body as well. Hormones are slow, and I am very aware that I am still early in the process, but lately my chest has started feeling different. Not simply sore nipples or something I could explain away as a side effect. The area feels softer and broader. There is beginning to be actual breast tissue there. That has affected me more emotionally than I expected. I wear breast forms, and I like them. They help clothing hang correctly and help my body look the way I want it to look. But increasingly I am aware of the distinction between those and what is happening underneath them. I want my breasts. I do not want enormous breasts. In fact, the B-cup forms I wear can already feel fairly large to me. What I want is something much simpler and much more profound: breasts that are part of my own body. That feels increasingly possible.
And then there is my wife Michelle. She remains one of the most important parts of this entire journey. For years, my fear of losing my marriage slowed me down more than almost anything else. Her acceptance mattered enormously then, and it still does. I love her. I want my future to include her. Nothing about becoming more certain of myself has made that less true. But something has changed there too. I am learning the difference between desperately needing someone's permission to exist and deeply caring how someone I love feels about the person I am becoming. Those are not the same thing. Michelle's feelings still matter tremendously. Her comfort matters. Our relationship matters. I want us to navigate this together. But Krista is no longer a hypothesis that survives only if Michelle approves of her.
My name change is happening everywhere. Hundreds of accounts and apps. I dislike seeing my dead name. It's a nearly endless process but rarely now do I see my birth name. I've chosen Ida as my middle name because it was my beloved Grams name and my wife's middle name. Legal is next, after I complete one legal process under my old name.
A few weeks ago I wrote that being Krista rarely felt daring anymore. It mostly felt like being me. I still think that is true. What I did not yet understand was that once Krista began to feel ordinary, the journey did not end. It simply became a different journey. Now I am not trying to prove that Krista exists. I am learning how to live as her. ❤️
