#i need to start hrt yesterday but it will still be a few months until i can get a first appointment on the public system 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[kulvefaggoth]

"girl" who wasn't posted a single image of herself for months: why is no one ever interested in me? :c

[scramblednoodle]

Day 1

So here we are.  Last we talked, I was contemplating the concept of death, and the way I approached it.  That was...2019?  My friend with ALS died.  Bean died.  And then J and I had the most amazing trip of our lives, a distraction we sorely needed, a trip across the country over 30 days and 8500 miles, camper trailer in tow.  Amazing time, amazing trip.  Did we do Burning Man?  I think we did Burning Man.  Then CFT, then the holidays, then 2020 came around, and we did Further Confusion, with Vardaman gigs interspersed between.

And then Covid19 happened.

I don’t want to talk about all of the things that have happened since then.  I’ll give a summary, though.  We found VR and found a whole new dimension of socializing.  We’ve made a TON of friends, more than we have ever made at any con, and maybe more than we’ve made at many of those cons combined, and we’ve gotten closer to some of our existing friends.  I’ve lost a ton of weight.  We got a kitten.  We’ve stayed home, we don’t eat out, save for the occasional Taco Bell/Papa Murphy’s take-out.  A lot of stuff has been done at home and with the house.  We got a 3d printer, a kegerator, and a freeze dryer.  Life has slowed down, but time has sped forward, and the two are oddly disjunct.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

See, sitting at home, doing things, and not being distracted by going out all the time has caused a certain amount of reflection.  A LOT of reflection.  I’ve had to face some things, and as a result, I’ve realized some things.  Last year I started having a gender identity crisis.  This mulled around in my head, until I slowed down, until life calmed down and I was forced to delve deep and explore this.  Early this year, shortly after FC, I admitted that I was trans, to myself, and to those that know me.  I came out on Twitter, to massive amounts of support.  I mean, folks who knew me well probably weren’t all that surprised, except that it took me so long.  To others, maybe it broadsided them, but I have thought of myself as “she” for so long, and been called “She” or “Lady” or “Her” or “Mistress” or whatever for so long, maybe it got taken for granted.

I was undecided on transitioning, but always kept the option open.  Since I’d been losing weight, I set a goal:  if I could hit 220, I would “consider” transitioning.

Let’s go back to the cross-country trip.  I stopped shaving during that trip.  I grew a great, big, Pacific NorthWest beard.  MANLY beard.  Bushy in all the right ways.  I got complimented on my beard.

I started to hate my beard.

Denial-beard, it’s called, amongst some transgender folks.  For my birthday this year I bought the nicest electric razor I have ever in my life owned, and was more expensive than my last 4 electric razors combined.  For my birthday, I shaved my denial beard.  It was the first time I had entirely removed my facial hair in years, and certainly the first time without it AND embracing my transgender self.

I loved what I saw in the mirror.  I loved her so much that I decided that my goal of hitting a weight and then transitioning was purely a projection of my continued belief that in order to physically become the woman I am inside, that I had to be svelte.  Thinner.  Sleeker.  Beautiful.

What a bunch of rubbish.

I saw myself as a woman in the mirror for the first time in my life, and I felt nothing but giddy joy.  I’m starting to tear up at the memory of it.  Do you have any fucking idea how HARD it is to look at yourself in a mirror for FORTY THREE YEARS and hate yourself?  I bet more than one of you do.

Between 2007 and 2009 I went from 308lbs to 175lbs.  I looked GOOD.  I had hot men wanting to touch me, to fuck me.  It was nice to be liked.

I hated who I saw in the mirror.  And I eventually hated what being fit and thin and desired turned me into.  A Fitness TYRANT.  My way or no way.  I started to look down on those who could not do what I did.  It was gross.

Harley died, work went to shit, and over the next 10 years or so, I put most of the weight back on.

Still hated who I saw in the mirror.

And then, thanks to Covid, I saw a woman in the mirror, and for the first time, I understood.

Fuck the weight goal.  I talked to my therapist.  I needed a head check.  Is this me?  Am I doing the right thing?  Is this a phase?  A phase, LOL.

I’ve presented as a woman online since 1997.  It started as an excuse to have cyber with straight guys; at least. that’s what I told myself.  It felt comfortable from day 1.  Over the years, my male characters either fell to the wayside, or became women themselves.  So easy, transitioning in a side reality.  Very few people would judge, and those who did would easily be blocked or ignored.  I felt comfortable.

When I started to date Kiteless, many years ago, his circles had no problems with she/her pronoun with relation to me.  After all, I was not the only dragoness with a misidentified physical body.  It was...nice.  For the first time, I felt like I could be accepted.  I WAS accepted, as who I felt I was.  That persisted, and continues to persist.  When I started dating J, he would always refer to me as “Lady”.  He never had a problem with my gender, though it took him a while to realize that it was not just a kink for me, that I was not doing it to tease him, but that I was doing it because it was how I felt comfortable.  I think he understands it now.

Speaking of understanding, it was about the time I decided to go through with HRT that the real wall started to erect itself.  Something that grew and grew, and grew strong.

My Dad.

Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t anything he did or said.  My dad is Puerto Rican, and he’s Military.  He lives and breathes the US Army, even though he’s long retired.  I don’t think he understands how to function back in the world.  I don’t think he can handle the entropy.  Or at least, it’s not an entropy he understands.  But this makes him subject to, let’s just say, a rather blunt, lopsided, and sometimes outdated view of the world.

How in the hell would he accept that his son was going to become his daughter?

So I started to build this wall in my head.  Out of bricks that I made myself.  Bricks based on assumption and self-projection.  I have ever been my own worst enemy, and this was no exception.

There is a memory, a very NOT FOND memory I have.  Before I left home, before I escaped from under HIS roof (and he never let us forget that), my parents found out I was gay.  At one point, my dad and I got into an argument, and he said “They need to take you out like that kid in Colorado and beat you.”  He was referring to Matthew Shepard, a gay college kid who was beaten severely in Laramie, WY, and later died in Ft Collins, CO.

I’ve never forgiven my dad for that comment.  I don’t know if I ever can.  The comment came from a place of ignorance and anger, but it came from him, it came from within, and it was directed at his child.  I will never forget that moment, and that moment will forever color the way I interact with him.

SO!  You can understand, perhaps, why I was terrified of telling him.  Despite our rocky relationship over the years, I do love my dad, and he’s the person in the world that, for a long time, I most wanted approval from.  In a way, I still do, and I will probably always want his approval.  Now, my mom accepted who I was without issue.  She’s always been supportive, though there was a time when I think she was hurt that I would never give her grandkids. :P  She follows me Twitter, so it was pretty clear to her what was happening with me, though she somehow missed the big news, that I was going to transition.

It was hard to tell her, but as I expected, she was supportive.  Very supportive.  I’m blushing just thinking about it, the feeling of my mom calling me her girl.  I never would have thought I’d get to this point.

When I first broached transition with my therapist, after much handwringing and self-questioning, the expectation was that I was going to start a long process of approval.  I would need to go through my Primary Care physician, then see an endocrinologist, then get a letter of recommendation from my therapist, then be evaluated for medications.  My doctor was a small-town, country doctor who didn’t listen, and whose answer to everything was Flonase.  He was OBSESSED with allergies and nasal steroids.  I was really dubious he’d be on-board with helping me transition.  So, of course I changed PCPs.  J and I were already super dissatisfied with him, so it was a no-brainer.  Ended up at OHSU, with a primary care doc who specialized in gender confirming action and therapies.  We talked.  I got a lab panel done.  And then suddenly she was prescribing me estrogen and testosterone blockers.

My expectation of 6 months was suddenly obliterated, and boy did the doubt start.  Am I doing the right thing?  Oh my god, I’m not ready for this.  I was supposed to have SIX MONTHS, and it took ONE AND A HALF.

Things moved fast after that.  A few more doctor appointments.  Some medication research.  Some frozen sperm, just in case.

Yesterday was...a roller coaster.  Yesterday, the meds showed up in the mail.  Yesterday, I got the notification that my sperm was accepted into the sperm bank and was healthy and viable.  Yesterday, I called my mom, and we talked for almost 2 hours.  It was a lovely conversation.  And I asked her to help me tell my dad.

A very short while later, I received a message from my dad.  It was cryptic, but Dad is ESL, so he doesn’t really enunciate the way most folks do.  Blunt, coarse, direct, and with odd modifier choices.  Nonetheless he made one thing clear.

He loved me no matter what.

I cried for 30 minutes straight.  My paper towels were a sopping mess of tears and snot.  I was a mess.  

I also felt more free than I’ve been in a long, long time.  That wall I built got torn down, and good riddance.  *I* built that wall, out of my own fear and projected doubts.  It was a real wall.  Those fears were real feelings.  Unfounded, but REAL.  And they’ve finally crumbled.  Finally.

I took my first HRT pills this morning.  As I understand it, I’ll be on them for at least 3 years, assuming I stick with it.  I can expect a second puberty before any physical changes.  In 6 months or something, physical changes will begin to occur, but right now I’m just...Well, my head is spinning.  I still have doubts, but since yesterday, they’re quieter.  They’re less pronounced.  They’re mostly based around trying not to get shanked by a Good ‘Ol Boy.  The usual.

And now we come to today.

Today is a special day.  Today is my Day 1.  Today begins the rest of my life.

I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m giddy.  I am as confused a jumble as I ever was.  But I’m pretty sure of one thing:

This is right.

My intent to is journal things now and then.  Thoughts, worries, etc.  We’ll see how it goes. )

Peace, y’all.

[frogthemouse]

One Month down!

So as of yesterday, I’ve been on T for a month. 

I’m not really sure what to do with that revelation.  Should be exciting, right?  Mostly though, it feels like nothing has changed since week one.  

My mental changes have stabilized.  Now that I know some of what to expect, it’s easier to gauge how to best manage my emotions and reactions to new things.   Not much to write home about there at the moment, really.

 I have discovered that I really shouldn’t take my shot right before bed. It’s better than a pot of coffee.  Just....  every time, it’s just a huge burst of energy.  And it lingers for awhile, too.  So thats kind of cool.  Less exciting when you have to be up in six hours and can’t sleep because of it, but still kinda cool.

Beyond that...  nothing else has really changed.  I’m still constantly misgendered.  The new haircut is helping a little, maybe.  People pause longer sometimes before getting it wrong.  And it does seem to help remind the people who know, but don’t see me everyday.  They’re starting to catch their mistakes more, or they remember to clarify.  

Up until starting T, it was like running across a desert or a salt flat towards a tree you could see in the distance.  It was always hard to judge how much further there was to go.  But you could see it steadily getting closer. Even if you couldn’t tell how much longer you had to run, there was some hope that you’d get there, someday.  I’m at that first tree now, though.  And I can’t even see the next one.  I know it’s out there.  But with no signs of progress, it’s hard to keep moving forward. 

It doesn’t help that I don’t really have anyone I can talk to about it all.  Most of my trans friends are trans women.  And while they are lovely, wonderful people and have been nothing but supportive, they don’t get it.  They can’t understand.  I know they probably have felt the same frustration with their own HRT (those who are on or pursuing it, anyway).  But by nature of the fact that they are women, and that their HRT is very different from my own, they can never really understand.  Just like I’ll never really get what they’re going through.  The only other resource I have that’s even a little bit close is a cis male friend who is also starting a testosterone prescription due to a medical condition of his. 

His insights have been incredibly helpful.  And I know he’s appreciated some of my knowledge as well.  For some reason, his doctors are trying their damndest to persuade him away from using injections. They’re apparently too painful, too frustrating, involve too many steps. I’ve lost track of how many excuses they keep giving him.  All the while they keep trying to shove this brand new T-Gel at him.  Don’t get me wrong, T-Gel works wonders for some dudes.  But for him and how he wants to live his life, gel is not an option.  He needs something where he won’t risk it rubbing off onto the wrong person.  Pill don’t really work.  Patches aren’t much better.  So that leaves shots.  Which are not only tried and true, but they’re not that bad.  I honestly don’t understand.  Too painful? My doctor went out of her way to reassure me that the shots weren’t supposed to hurt.  (No more than like, your average flu shot) So what’s their endgame here?  I wonder if they get a bigger commision or something from the pharmacy company that’s pushing this new gel.  That derailed a bit.  I apologise for the thought vomit. 

All that said though.  He also doesn’t really get it.  I mean, how could he?  As much as his thoughts on the mental and emotional impact of T are helpful and interesting, that’s really where his insights end.  

I just.  Kind of wish that there was another trans dude I could grab a coffee or something with.  I’m in freaking Seattle, you’d think that wouldn’t be so hard to figure out.  But I havn’t found anyone whose transmasculine, and willing to talk about it.  I don’t even really need advice or anything.  Just someone with some shared experiences. I’ve gotten close with a couple trans women, and a few wonderful genderqueer or otherwise nonbinary or agender people.  But not one trans dude.  It’s kind of lonely. 

[vinegarcoffin]

hi folks. im coming back to this account. a lot of things happened. 

this february i ran away from my family’s home to live w/ Sunn (my bf). we were hoping his landlord would let me live there since im his partner and shed previous allowed couples to live there but unfortunately after a week where i was staying there she decided she didnt want me there bc she was very strict about zoning laws and didnt tell anyone abt this beforehand so i was effectively homeless.

i stayed with my friend Earth for abt half a month during which time the landlord was “””deliberating””” whether or not she’d actually let me live there. Sunn and i were sure she’d say yes (she’d indicated such herself) but she decided to spring it on us that, due to laws she never elaborated upon, it was literally illegal for me to live there even though i was his partner and shed allowed partners to stay there before. (i feel i should make it clear that he was living in a separate part of her house that she rented out to people so the laws probably had smth to do with how many people were allowed to live in one house. i still never found out what exactly those laws were and she never elaborated.)

i always had a roof over my head (many times staying illegally w/Sunn and being very sure that his landlord never saw me) but i changed places of residence i think three times during that span of time. it’s very hard to keep count. i was staying (illegally) with three other people (they were aware of my presence and let me stay with them, i just wasnt allowed to) when quarantine happened.

even though I wasnt living with Sunn at that time, i was still able to see him bc my housemates understood the situation and were okay with us breaking quarantine for that reason (we were all rly conscientious abt social distancing and hand-washing and cleaning and that kind of thing), and since i cant drive, i needed someone else to buy my groceries for me, so Sunn would take me on grocery trips with me. and since he had a v small fridge and i didnt have a lot of space for food at the place i was staying, we had to make grocery trips rather often. after going grocery shopping we’d spend some time at either my place or his (ostensibly to put away groceries, really bc we wanted to be around each other because we were both losing our goddamn minds and being around each other was the only thing that gave us any idea where our minds even were.) 

i made another unofficial move after that and then right when i was going to graduate, i moved into what was going to be my official long-term place of residence with another roommate. i didnt get to see Sunn very much during this time and i honestly hated it a lot. the roommate was kind of an unstable person and he didn’t take the pandemic very seriously, which rly scared me, but he was never violent or anything so we just stayed out of each others ways.

during that time i impulsively threw away my benzodiazepines bc i was scared i wouldn’t be able to get my therapist to write me another prescription (this was when healthcare was still closed). withdrawals were shit and i honestly wanted to return to this blog during that time but i’d forgotten the email associated with it (whoops) and couldn’t log in. (i’ve since remembered the email hence why im here.) i stopped self harming the same day too, more or less bc my boyfriend told me to stop. that was really hard bc it was one of my few sources of pleasure and i had barely anything else i enjoyed. Sunn introduced me to 100 gecs during this time and i listened to their album 1000 gecs pretty much every day, sometimes multiple times in a row. i didnt get to sleep til 5 AM most nights bc of withdrawals and insomnia resulting therefrom. 

in May i finally got to start HRT (i was supposed to in March but the doctors at the LGBT center i had gone to to make my appointment decided not to let me because covid). i’ve been on it for three months now. 

i relapsed after a month or so after realizing i was not a functional human when i was sober and i didnt like who i was when i was sober. fortunately by then i’d had a phone meeting with my psychiatrist and she was able to give me another script for klonopin. by that point Sunn had moved into the apartment with me (the agreement was that he’d do so after graduating - we were both graduating that year - the only reason he waited was bc he couldn’t handle moving and his school workload at the same time, which was understandable). he didn’t like that i was relapsing and i disliked it even more but we both understood why i did it and i havent tried to get clean since then and i probably never will.

we were more or less stable and more or less happy for like two months until our roommate - we’d all agreed we’d live there together for at least a year - decided to move in with his partner and left us with absolutely nothing in the way of help w/finding another roommate or anything and no apology at all. 

we tried finding a new roommate and got some promising leads until our roommate dropped on us that he had signed a thirty-day notice for the lease to end and unless we were able to give proof of income (which we hadn’t been required to before but were suddenly required to now ig), we’d have to leave. he told us this ten days after he’d done it. he’d done that w/o our knowledge or consent. we weren’t able to make that happen so we looked into other housing but couldn’t find anything before the day we had to be out.

fortunately Earth and their family were willing to let us stay with them again (they’d recently bought a trailer that they were going to keep in the backyard and rent out to anyone they knew who wanted or needed to stay there). the trailer was sort of a disaster; we had no running water (only bc the water wasn’t working, they didn’t keep us in those conditions on purpose) and the AC died during a historically bad heatwave. the place we had been looking into moving into with a REALLY cool roommate we found that said we would probably get to live there turned us down bc although Sunn had found a job by that point and both the prospective roommate and I both have SSI (we’re both disabled) we didn’t make QUITE enough money for them.

we finally found a place and we moved into it yesterday. we have a roommate whose name is Izzy. they’re very stable and i don’t think they’re going to do anything awful. i’m afraid of them but that’s just bc i’m afraid of just about everyone i don’t know too well. Sunn’s at work three days of the week (he works from home two of the weekdays and he gets weekends off) and i’m here to cope with the isolation and also reblog trauma stuff that i don’t feel comfortable reblogging on my main blog. i think that’s all i have to say.

[trans-gothic]

Diary: Day 79, Known Unknowns

Okay, so. Yesterday I went out to lunch at my favorite dim sum place with my only irl trans friend. It was the very first time we’d ever actually hung out just the two of us one on one. It was awesome. It was so nice having someone with whom I could discuss all of these issues and what it’s like growing up like this and whatnot and having them actually understand and know what you’re talking about. And I know that some smug jackass out there in the audience is like “Well, Fi, this is why queer communities are important.” And this hypothetical person is invited to kindly shove it.

My friend is going to be making a terrible decision soon, from the sounds of it. See, she’s going to be going up to Canada in a few weeks to visit her long-distance girlfriend. Aaannnnd she’s talking about getting married while she’s up there. Now, this is her very first girlfriend ever. They have never actually been in the same room as each other before. They’ve been together for about six months. The girlfriend is poly. Like, I get that my friend is afraid of not finding anyone else because she is trans and gay, but, like, oh honey no. No, this is such a terrible idea. But, like, I can’t really say anything to her about it. So that kind of sucks. Okay, no, that really sucks.

Also I realized that every time I see her, my friend is wearing the exact same outfit, so that’s a little weird.

Apparently my friend has an appointment at the same clinic as me for HRT adjustment at around the same time on the same day. So I’m probably gonna get to see her and chat with her some there. That’s cool.

So what is up with the subject line? Well, two things.

My friend/coworker to whom I am out pointed out that I should probably start updating my Amazon wishlist to have more, like, feminine shit that I will need. She said something like “You probably don’t even really know what you need” and I don’t. I know I’m going to need some sort of handbag/purse/whatever. I’ve already got a compact and some make-up stuff (still waiting on my one friend’s schedule to open up so she can teach me about make up and whatnot). But past that, um, I don’t really know. So, yeah, I know that there is something there that I don’t know. The first of our two known unknowns.

The other is, well, my mother. Yeah I know, there’s a fucking minefield of a subject. My mother has, historically speaking, generally not treated me very well. However, as I continue with my transition it seems as though she has accepted that I am not going to change my mind and she has actually begun to make something of an effort. Like, she’s looking up and reading things about trans-ness on her own with no prompting from me, and that’s legitimately pretty cool.

But like, how do I reconcile that with the way that she’s treated me up until now? How do I reconcile this woman legitimately trying to be a good parent with the woman who consistently and vehemently defended the person who molested me for years, knowing full what what he had done? Do I just try and forget about that second part there? Because I don’t think that I’m ever really going to be able to forget or forgive that. And maybe this will sound paranoid, but, like, how far should I be willing to trust this new face from my mother? Like, every time so far that I’ve thought “oh hey, maybe my mom is coming around” I have wound up being sorely disappointed.

So yeah.

I feel like I’m definitely forgetting some stuff in here but I really can’t think of what it might be.

I’ve generally been feeling pretty great the last few days, but I can kind of feel that starting to slip. Not into depression necessarily, but just like the really positive upbeat feelings are definitely coasting on fumes.

I dunno.