Recurring trans related body issues

Well, the cat is out of the bag at work as to me being trans.

It's funny. I've actually been avoiding writing in the blog, because I always post entries on my facebook page and I was kind of trying to stay stealth at work. I hope that it took people a little while to figure it out. Though no one has been messing up on the pronouns which is more than I can say about the gay bar I was working at before.

I'm not feeling well today. I had to call out sick. What I thought was probably a hangover at 9 in the morning turned out to be a bug. I got out of bed at 2 this afternoon, took a shower, let the dog out and spent five minutes vomiting water. I really didn't drink enough yesterday to justify a hangover like that. I hope I feel better tomorrow. Anyway I mention this because my thoughts are less positive when I am sick.

I want to re-emphasize that transitioning was the healthiest decision I have ever made, and I am really happy being a woman. Being a "man" was pure hell for me.

That said, I really wish I could be a cisgendered female.

It isn't about the childhood I missed, though I cried uncontrollably about that the moment I realized that there was no other explanation for feelings I had been fighting against from the time I learned I wasn't normal.

I guess this is what this entry is about: being normal. I guess that's why when I found out all my co-workers know I'm trans my heart sunk a little and I started seeing the "man" that I once was.

Trans women really are just like other women. I see those models in magazines and the actresses on TV and wish I could look like that. And I look good by all standards. I wish my voice wasn't as deep as it is, and that I didn't have an ongoing struggle with facial hair, that my jaw wasn't as square as it is, or my forehead as broad, that my shoulders weren't as wide, that my hips weren't quite as narrow.

I wish I had never had the experience of looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection of a man.

But I have.

I wish that I didn't feel like I needed to conceal my past. Or rather, revealing my past shows me up as being different.

I wish I could have children.

I have body issues. I think that really goes without saying. I have this love/hate relationship with my body and have for as long as I can remember. I remember hating that my hair color was the same as my father's when I was a little kid. I remember hating that looked like him. Small or big there have always been aspects about my body that I couldn't stand.

I wish I could have the type of sex I would enjoy.

I really try to explain this being trans thing to cisgendered people. It's hard because I don't really understand it myself. I have this need to be seen and accepted as female that is a driving force in my life. I was talking to my therapist about surgery, about how much I need it. How if that possibility were to be taken from me, it would probably be my end. I don't think I could live if it were a fact that my body would always have male parts. I also know that my need for surgery is becoming more and more of an issue for me.

When I think about all these things, about how important it is to me to be seen and accepted as female, the fact that my perception of the degree to which I appear masculine or feminine has such a powerful influence on my mood, how really nothing could have stopped me from transitioning short of death, I have to conclude that gender is somehow on the same level as instinct. That for whatever reason I was born with a female mind that absolutely has to be recognized as such.

Being trans is a blessing and a curse. I can't describe the joy I feel when I see the reflection of a beautiful young woman in my mirror. Having lived as a "man" I know how much I love being a woman, and I think that is a gift that only trans people get to experience. Yet there are times, even now over two years of hormones and living 24/7 as a woman, that I doubt myself, that I wonder if I'm not too masculine in looks and personality.

And then I think to myself that there probably isn't a woman in the world who doesn't have similar doubts occasionally.

I think that when it comes down to it, this whole trans experience is more simply a human experience, and that I'm really not as different as my body makes me feel sometimes.

Cutting off a friendship because I fell in love, and another reason I need SRS

It's been a while since my last blog entry and a lot has happened in my life since then. Actually this is going to be a blog entry that I meant to write a earlier, but I needed a little more time.

So, the boy I liked: I really really liked him. He is a trans guy. He hasn't started hormones yet (well he might have by now) and he has like this somewhat cocky way of holding himself that I found really attractive. He has like this really arrogant front he puts up. Anyway I also think we really connected on a lot of different levels. 

What happened: 

He blew me off for a while. Basically our friendship was such that several times it seemed like we were about to begin a relationship, each time more than the last time, and each time he would distance himself from me before anything really happened. Also this is a pattern I recognized, and though (ask any of my close friends) I have girl emotions, I am very very good at hiding them. I think he was scared of a relationship and I think he kept himself distant in an attempt to not have one. There's more I could write but it probably isn't important.

Well I decided that he really wasn't being much of a friend, and that whatever his reasons were and however much I understood them I wasn't going to stand for being blown off for months at a time. So, I deleted him from facebook. He noticed like a day or two later, and started showing up at my work (which was still the lesbian bar) and telling me all night how much he "loved" me, and then sent me a text begging to stay friends.

Actually the text said something like "Please can we be friends, I secretly love being the geeky guy who is friends with the kind of bitchy, really popular girl." I thought about it overnight and told him we could stay friends but he had to start treating me better. 

And he basically did. Then we met up for karoake and he brought this guy with him and it looked like a date, and I lost it. I started getting crazy jealous and left the bar early. I stewed over it the next day debating whether or not I should tell him I didn't like him dating other people and then early Friday morning I told him. And I told him that I really couldn't be a friend to him if he was going to be dating other people. Then he told me it wasn't a date and I had to apologize for getting crazy. Well that night he came in and was in a really good mood about it. Contrary to being mad that I basically told him we weren't going to be friends if he dated other people he seemed quite glad it happened, and actually started acting more like my boyfriend than not. And even turned down a couple situations that would have led to a lay.

This went on for a about a week and then we actually had the conversation we really needed to have. He told me he didn't want a relationship and I told him we couldn't be friends. So it ended that night. I think we both wish things could have been different.

He told me that he wasn't in to women, or that he was but only occasionally, and that he thought we had an intellectual connection. I think that was bullshit, and I told him. I think he was/is scared. He's had a couple really bad, abusive relationships in the past, and I am not someone he can control, and that scares him because he can't be the victim again. Also though we held a lot of similar interests, and mental capacities our relationship wasn't strictly intellectual.

Anyway, a part of me wants to say that I did a very selfish bratty thing by cutting off our friendship, as in "You won't be my boyfriend. Fine. We can't be friends."  But the reality is, I was completely honest with him. I am not capable of being friends with someone I am in love with. I tried it once before and in the process I made myself miserable, and caused he a lot of misery as well and though we did become very close, she did eventually dump me and we barely talk anymore and I doubt that will ever change. I think in this regard, there is a certain closeness even beyond physical that I don't like having with someone who isn't committed to me.

Maybe were I a "perfect" person, I'd be able to be friends with all the amazing people who bring that inner person out of me, that person most people never meet, and I wouldn't get jealous when they continued to date other people. I'm not a "perfect" person, and I'm 30. I know what my "flaws" are and they are unlikely to change. Furthermore, no friendship is worth going through what I would have to put myself through to be friends with him.

So it's been a couple weeks and I pretty much haven't seen him since we had that conversation, and I doubt he will ever be in my life again, and that hurts, but not as much as it did when it happened. And I doubt I'll ever be completely over him. I've had a few exes I've never gotten over. I don't have the ability to forget connections I've really felt with other people.

Oh and I'll just quickly mention that I'm going to be moving into a tiny studio apartment. It's the best location of any apartment I've ever lived at, and I can't wait to be living alone again: just me and my dog.

And I'll be able to save for my SRS.

I have this pattern in my life of falling for people whom I can't have a relationship with and those with whom I can, it never lasts very long. The longest actual relationship I've ever had was for 6 months with a girl who told me repeatedly not to fall in love with her because she could not love me back. I think this pattern probably has a lot to do with my body issues. Any sexual relationship I get involved in is going to include a body part of mine with which I absolutely do not identify. I don't think I could ever be intimate with someone I really cared about using my current equipment. It wouldn't be me and I would always resent the person for having sex with something that wasn't me. 

I don't necessarily want to harp on this surgery, but it is kind of the most important thing in my life and getting the funds for it seems almost impossible. There is absolutely no way to describe this condition to non trans people. There is no way for me to describe how much I really want to fall in love with someone and have a relationship and how that isn't possible. It isn't that I'm worried other people won't accept my body, it's that I know that I can't. I can't. I tried for years, and it isn't even a self acceptance issue. My body is wrong.

Click here to donate to my SRS fund.

Being (somewhat) stealth at my new job

I only have two more nights left at the gay bar where I have been working for a little over a year. It's time to move on.

I'm not going to write anything bad about Babe's or the management. I'm sure you've heard all the complaints you'll ever hear. The truth is it was a job that payed decently when I really needed a job. One way I'm different than I was four years ago is that I'm not so quick to quit a job because it isn't perfect. I've had a couple of job offers since I've been looking but where I am now is the one I accepted.

And I think it's going to work out REALLY well for me. I'm proud of the food the kitchen puts out, I'll have the freedom to get creative and be able to create some of my own recipes, I think it's a kitchen where pretty much everyone is on the same page, and I'm comfortable with the menu and atmosphere. It's very close to what I would like to open up if I were to open up a restaurant.  I'll also have much better hours.

Oh and no one except the owners know I'm trans. I discussed it in my cover letter and said I'd rather my co-workers don't know. This is what I want to write a short entry about.

It is so wonderful. I'm treated like a normal person for the first time since I started transitioning. That isn't exactly a fair statement to my other friends and co-workers. It isn't that I've been being treated like someone weird or something; everyone has been incredibly accepting. It's just that I've been different. I'e been a woman who isn't quite a woman. I've been a man who is becoming a woman. I've been someone in transition. Now I'm just Natalie, a woman who works in the kitchen and is probably a lesbian.

Well actually in that regard I outed myself the other night when I complained about my current room mate who is also an ex-girlfriend. And everyone knows I'm coming from the lesbian bar.

Of course I don't consider myself a lesbian. I'm still figuring this one out. Maybe pansexual; I think that fits me better than most. Odd how many trans people identify as pansexual, but anyway...

I really hope my co-workers don't find out, which might be next to impossible considering how many people in Richmond know me, but it is giving me the chance to taste what life in another city might feel like. I think I want to move elsewhere after I get my surgery.

Being trans for me is really just an embarrassing medical condition. I mean I'm not a man who really really wanted to become a woman. I'm a woman who had a severe prenatal hormone imbalance, or something. Anyway I do seriously believe that my mind and spirit are as female as any other woman's. And I guess when people aren't aware of my past that believe the same thing.

I feel that in hiding the fact that I am trans from my new co-workers they are actually forming a more honest opinion of who I am. I think they are better able to see the real me. and I guess this is one big differenence from being gay and being trans.

When people assume that I am exclusively attracted to men I feel like I'm hiding from them a big part of who I am as a person. When people assume I'm not trans I don't feel like I'm hiding a big part of who I am. I mean it's more like I've had a trans experience rather than actually being trans.

I've written before that being transsexual is not being transgender. I think that's why I'm glad no one knows at work. I don't want everyone to know what medications I have to take and what surgeries I need to get, especially since "transsexual" carries so many assumptions about queerness that I don't feel paint a realistic picture of who I am.

Really what I have at this new job is what I've always wanted: to feel like people see the real me.

I wonder if I can ever truly have that in an environment where everyone know my trans past.

new job same person, trans happiness and this whole gender identity thing

I started a new job yesterday. It's in the same neighborhood that I've worked in multiple times and I got the job based on a recommendation from Shannon, my old boss who employed me as assistant kitchen manager and had me on a salary of 30k a year; it was a mistake to leave that job. Actually when it comes down to it, I still think I had to leave that job. In retrospect I could definitely have transitioned there but I was never going to know it. I held a lot of responsibility and respect there. It's really really hard to come out of the closet to an employer as trans; I also quit an insurance sales job because I couldn't come out.

I don't want to write this blog about why I quit my job a assistant kitchen manager; it wasn't about transition,

The reason I mention it, and the thing that inspired me to write this blog is this: Four years ago I woke up every morning around 7, got dressed, shaved well, and put on make-up. Then I rode my bike to work, completed a prep list, and worked the line a little, and rode my bike home. At home I would change from my work clothes into a skirt, eat dinner, watch politics on tv with my dog and drink beer. Yesterday went almost exactly the same way except I no longer wear makeup in such a way that it can't be noticed, I don't have much facial hair left,  I have breasts that fill a bra, and when I came home I didn't change into a skirt to feel "girly" but rather because I had to wash all my other clothes.

It was even the same skirt from four years ago. Of course now it looks good on me.

I like this new job. I felt like I fit in well. Weirdly it felt just like working did before I transitioned, except now I'm a "she" and I used to be a "he." Which when it comes down to it is really the only thing I've changed.

Of course in making that change I've grown up a lot. 

But this isn't an entry about how I've grown either.

The thing that I find really curious about myself is why I had to transition. When it comes down to it I think I am the same person as a woman that I was as a man. I even look like the same person (except of course that I look like a woman), and yet I'm happy. 

Four years ago I had a better position than the one I just started, and I felt like I was not living the life I was supposed to be living. I don't mean that I constantly was thinking "I should be a woman." That thought was there but I was usually able to suppress it, at least enough that I wasn't consciously aware of that being the cause of my dissatisfaction, and hell maybe it wasn't the sole cause. I bitched about working in a kitchen, wearing clothes I knew were going to be ruined, getting off or work stinking and sweaty, looking like someone really blue collared.

Maybe it was solely about my need to transition. Okay I still don't particularly like how I look coming home from work but I don't mind it so much. I don't look like someone I'm not. 

Oh and it was actually easier to be my girly self in a kitchen surrounded by guys than it is in the lesbian bar. When it comes down to it I really like being the female in a male/female dynamic. I think, though this is off subject, maybe that's why my trans friends are pretty much exclusively female to male...but back to topic.

I think more than anything else I transitioned to feel comfortable in my own body. I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin than I ever did before. Even as a little kid I used to feel very uncomfortable with my appearance and I didn't even have an explanation for it. I hated that I looked like my father and little brother but not my mother but it didn't occur to me that it was because I didn't want to look male. 

Gender dysphoria is an experience that cis people can't even imagine. I know this because of how happy it makes me to look in a mirror and see a woman, and how happy it makes me to look down and see breasts, and how happy it makes me feel that I am allowed to wear heels, and makeup, and skirts and dresses and all the girly clothing that was denied to me for so long; that I am allowed to express myself as female.

Sometimes I am so jealous of cis women because they have always had this, they will never have any doubts as to their gender, as to being perceived as their gender, as to their right to express themselves as their gender.

Of course they take it for granted, and some call trans women shallow people who are trying to be stereotypes; you know it is actually difficult for me to publish that statement above about liking heels, and makeup, and skirts and dresses. I do, but it isn't a huge part of me and I don't like them all the time. I really like expressing myself as female. It feels natural, and comfortable, and right. And I feel more confident when I'm dressed in an outfit I like; a friend told me I "glow" when I like an outfit. To say I'm shallow for that, or that I'm working against woman's lib because of that is really unfair.

I have this happiness with my gender that most women don't get to experience. I mean, I know what it is like to be perceived and treated like a man, and for a female gendered person that is a pretty horrible thing. As bad as this woman thing gets it never compares with that.

And yet I'm still the same person I always was, and have the same dynamics with people I have always had. This gender identity thing is such a weird thing. It's so hard to actually define that were it not for my experience with needing to transition I wouldn't even believe in it.

Trans confidence: the good, the bad, and the unknown

It's late and I need to go to bed soon. I hope this won't be one of my longer blog entries.

One of my best friends recently got engaged. Our friendship goes back a long way and I could write a lot about it. Se was the first person I came out to (well my second first coming out but that's complicated), and I was the first person she came out to so we share that. More importantly she's the woman who helped me through my second adolescence, who helped me sort out the new emotional experience of being a woman, and who (before I started taking hormones and after) talked me through many cases of trans panic and told me things I needed to hear like "You're not a freak." So I'm really happy for her and her fiance. I really like both of them.

I find myself in a similar relationship with that trans guy I wrote about in a previous entry. Granted I've crushed on him and haven't known him as long, and our friendship reminds me of one I had with someone else who is very special to me also. I don't want to write to much of an explanation about this right now.

Suffice it to say that trans people need someone supportive through their transitions.

There were many times when I freaked out and questioned if I was doing the right thing, or when my transition seemed to be happening too fast. I needed someone to reassure me and be there for me in those moments of crisis.

Trans people need to transition. It's a drive that we have that there is no denying. If you haven't experienced I can't explain it to you except that my transition is the most important thing in my life: more important that any person or thing. When I tried to deny myself transition it caused such severe dysphoria that I could not be healthy.

We have other issues besides transition but they're impossible to take care of until we transition.

My experience with transition is that I've faced all the same challenges I did while living as a man, only I'm more capable of handling them

Still, when you finally reach that point where you realize that you need to transition, that it isn't just some desire you can repress, it's kind of a blow to your confidence. Or rather, I've always felt more confident dressed as a woman than I ever did dressed as a man, even when I didn't pass; it just feels right. But as a man I did have that "Oh I'm not transitioning. I'm not one of those people" type of thing that you  throw away when your start transitioning. Plus I had years of experience telling me how to act in various different situations

As in: A man comes up to you in a dark alley with a knife. I'm fairly confident now that my reaction wouldn't get me read, which is a good thing, it might be the difference between getting mugged or murdered.

I'm not sure that I would have been read a year ago either or that I wouldn't be now, but what I do have that I didn't have a year ago is more confidence in being trans.

Jayson, showed up at my work last night. (yes I spelled his name correctly, fucking attention whore has to spell his name special). He's the crazy, effeminate, sociopath that lived with me briefly in the shittiest apartment in all of Richmond. (Oddly he took my engaged friend's room, a little over a year after she moved out).

here's that story again

He still hasn't apologized. But honestly, even if he were to apologize, sober up, start getting his life in order and taking personal responsibility for his actions I won't forgive him, or rather, I will not tolerate his company.

The thing is that it isn't just his actions it's the fact that he took advantage of me when I was at my most vulnerable. There is a special place in hell for people who take advantage of a transitioning transsexual.

We transition and we go through a year or two where we have to re-evaluate everything we ever learned about ourselves, and everything is in constant flux. People have thought of me as a woman for quite a while now, and people treat people they perceive as women quite differently than they do people they perceive as men, but they also treat a woman with C-cups differently than they treat a woman with A-cups. My body has looked female for a while but it looks significantly more female than it did six or even three months ago. Even people who don't understand what it means when someone is transgender, or even really believe it, treat me like the woman they see.

Transition isn't as simple as going to sleep one day as a man and waking up the next day as a woman. Thank God! But the truth is sometimes it feels like that. You go through all sorts of levels of passing really quickly, and have to adjust, like the first time I realized I was a sexual target (to some men) walking through the city. (I had a creepy guy follow me with his truck for nearly a mile).

Further all those issues that you have to put aside, or that you couldn't really handle without transitioning catch up with you at some point. When Jayson and his boyfriend moved in, I had just caught up on my own back rent and was seriously worried about being evicted if I didn't find someone to fill vacant room they took.

I think my financial difficulties of just over a year ago was the result of many of my actions as a "man." The fact that prior to transitioning I kept my dysphoria in check with drinking, expensive meals, not working, and not taking care of things. I'm glad I got through it, and that it is over. I wish I had transitioned when I first tried to (at 19) or when I first realized I wanted to (at 12) rather than when I realized I needed to. I might not have had the ordeal to go through that I did.

Irregardless, Jayson manipulated his way into my life and apartment, at a time when I was very vulnerable to being manipulated. And then, he took advantage of my situation and turned abusive when he couldn't control me or have things totally his way.

Now he has the nerve to try to manipulate me into friendship again? "Natalie, I love you." He says all whiny leaving the bar last night.

"I don't care." I respond.

This was a night of ignoring him, and when he brushed my wrist to get my attention telling him very firmly not to touch me and that I don't want to talk to him.

He blames everything on being manipulated by his boyfriend. His boyfriend is in jail for robbing a laundromat at gun point...not the most intelligent person in the world, not capable, and even were he... it doesn't make up for his actions.

But what I actually am trying to write about in this entry is trans confidence. I've grown and Jayson hasn't.

Well...he is starting to get kinda fat, but not the same thing. (I hope he also loses his hair and his teeth)

10 months ago I was afraid of a confrontation with him, now not so much. 10 months ago I was still trying o distinguish between myself and my male socialization. 10 months ago I was still a little ashamed of my male socialization.

Now, I sing "Whole Lotta Love," at karaoke.

What I used to be ashamed of is now a source of self pride.

I'm trans. I'm a trans woman. I transitioned from male to female. I am sexy, I am intelligent, and I am not ashamed of the abilities I gained by living as a man. I am one of the strongest people you will ever meet.

Jayson really isn't a very significant threat. He's more of a nuisance.

An effemintate, sociopathic drug addict, alcoholic, vs a healthy happy male to female transsexual...Please. No contest. I'm not the fucked up one.

Being trans is more of a blessing than it is a curse. And being trans is closer to perfection than it is to flaw.

Why I need to have a "sex change"

Surgery is something that is really hard for cis gendered people to understand.

Basically, my entire life my sexuality has centered on me having a vagina. It isn't a fetish, or a sexual desire, it is who I am. Getting surgery to have a vagina isn't about fulfilling some sort of sexual kink. It's about being the person I already am. It's about being complete.

The thing about surgery, and transition in general is "How do you know?"

I mean, "How do you know you will be happier living as a woman than you are as a man when you have never experienced life as a woman? Is it possible that maybe you're just a really feminine man?"

or, for the situation I am in now

"How do you know you will like having a vagina? You were born with a penis. Isn't that how you should be?"

My answer to the first question is that prior to transitioning I wasn't sure, but I did know I had to try it. I knew that thinking about living my life as a woman was so consuming that I had to try it. I knew after I started living full time that I could never again live my life as a man and that I really needed to try hormones, that if I didn't like what hormones did well...I was going to be stuck in the middle, which I didn't want but I was willing to accept. I knew that every change I saw happen to my body and mind that was caused by hormones I loved.

I know that I love being a woman. It isn't about make-up, or cute clothing though I like both of them. I know that I love waking up with soft fleshy hips, and breasts. I know that when I touch feel my breasts it just feels right. That everything about how my body has changed just feels correct.

It is hard to explain. My body always felt wrong to me when it was male. I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't like the way it felt. It just felt wrong. It felt incorrect.

I know that the only thing about my body that still feels wrong is my penis (and testicles). It's the one part of my body that doesn't feel like it is a part of my body. It feels separate. It feels like a growth or a tumor or just something that is no supposed to be there. It is the one part of my body isn't a part of who I am.

My trans experience is an important part of who I am. My [currently] intersexed body is not. I would learn to accept myself if I was someone with an intersexed brain, but I have a female brain.

It isn't about being feminine. I am but it isn't about that.

It's not about wanting a more perfect body, or about feeling my sexually desirable, although the more feminine my body appears the more desirable and more perfect it seems. And I do want to be more desirable and perfect.

It's about needing my body feel right, to feel correct. It's how my chest felt wrong before I had breasts. It's how my muscle tone and firm narrow hips I had felt wrong and how not only do I love being softer and curvier it feels right. It feels like that is the way I should be. I feel like physically I am how I should be except one thing.

And well it's kind of a big deal.

Try being a sexually fulfilled and gratified woman without having a vagina. Having a handicapped sexuality is kind of a big thing.

Okay if this type of surgery didn't exist or wasn't very good I'd get by. But this surgery does exist and it has very good results. My vagina will look and feel just like I was born with it. And I know because I have transitioned and because I do truly love being female that I will love my vagina and it will feel good, and right and correct.

What this surgery means for me and to me is hard to understand if you ave never been in a similar circumstance. You probably can't imagine what it is like to so totally not identify with a part of your body, to feel so hindered by it, especially since it is something that looks like something that a lot of people have.

Imagine you were to grow a huge tumor on your genitals that hindered your ability to perform sexually, and that is pretty much what I have. That is the type of thing that you would do just about anything to have corrected if it was possible to correct.

This is why I need this surgery. This is why I can't pursue any goals which my hinder or delay my ability to have this surgery.

I know you don't understand, but please try to.

I set up this website:http://www.gofundme.com/nataliegatessrs.

This surgery costs a lot of money but it is acheivable. I am saving as much as I possible can to pay for this surgery. I have also applied to the Jim Collins Foundation.

Please try to understand that this life changing surgery is something that I need. Even as little as $1 puts me closer to my goal of getting this surgery in the United States. I know it is difficult to understand, and that some of my readers don't know me, but please go to my website and donate what ever you can.

I will be really really thankful and grateful. My transition and this surgery is the most important thing in my life. It's so important that I was willing to risk losing my family, friends, and social standing just to feel right in my own skin.

Thanks for reading my blog. Even if you can't donate to my vagina fund reading my blog regularly helps to pay for it.

Here's the link again.
http://www.gofundme.com/nataliegatessrs

Transition timeline, and dating and relationships in Transition

I consider my transition to have begun when I first started building a social identity for myself as Natalie. That was in April of 2010. It took me a couple months to have the confidence to introduce myself as Natalie, but prior to then I had always gone out with a group of friends or (more often) dressed privately. I think it's when I began to own my identity as a trans person that I began transitioning.

I came out to my parents in June of 2010.

I started living "part time," or I lived socially as Natalie but continued to work as Nathan in September of 2010.

I started seeing a therapist shortly after going part time and then came out to my mother again in October of 2010.

After Thanksgiving weekend of 2010 I quit my day job because I couldn't force myself to go out as Nathan any more. This was much earlier than I had planned. What I thought prior to transitioning is that getting to a point where I "passed" adequately as Natalie to live full time would be difficult and that it would take me a year to decide if I wanted to take that step. What actually happened was: it is so much more natural and easy for me to live as a woman than it ever was as a man and by Thanksgiving I was pretty much done with my life as a man.

I started estrogen for the third and final time on December 21, 2010.

I stopped teaching art lessons in February of 2011. I had been dressing as "Nate" for about one hour a week to teach art lessons to a 12 year old. I know my appearance was changing and I know that my ability to come across as a masculine man was very quickly slipping. I had definite breast growth, facial shape changes, and my hair had grown when I finally stopped teaching lessons. Actually, I was looking feminine enough that I'd step out of my car to pump gas dressed as a man and someone would come up to hit on me before realizing I "was a man" and back off.  At that point presenting as masculine was important to me only insomuch as I didn't want to come out of the closet to my student and his parents. Fortunately I never had to.

By July of 2011 I had built enough of a life and identity for myself as Natalie outside my kitchen job, and passed well enough that I was confident applying for other jobs. I left my kitchen job to work as a canvasser for HRC and to hold a job that I had applied for and gotten as a woman.

I had a rough couple of months due to poor planning on my part, got fired from a kitchen job, and got hired where I currently work. In August I broke ties with a male to female support group I had been loosely affiliated with because of political reasons mostly. By October of 2011, the hormones had done enough to my body that I looked female in jeans and a t-shirt. Since then I've continued to look less and less male.

From October until December I had my one and only lesbian relationship, spent some time homeless because of a dangerous living situation.

In February of 2012 I met a femme girl who would turn out to be the trans guy I had a crush on. "She" came on to me a little bit and invited me to her art show. I almost skipped it but something told me it was important that I go. "Her" paintings were actually good, which was much more than I expected, and I enjoyed being at an art opening again for the first time in quite a while. We met up for Karaoke later in the week. "She" talked my ear off at first and then when "she" realized that I had decided to give her a chance, "she" started pointing out all the other girls she was interested in and hitting on them.

I decided "she" wasn't interested afterall.

In March I met my first, (or second) transsexual friend, an ftm, whom I never would have read had he not outed himself to me. We all went to another bar. His girlfriend and I made out for a bit, him and I kissed, and we exchanged facebooks.

I started publishing my zine again, and the first trans guy who still looked like a girl started paying attention to me again, as a friend. "she" wanted to work on my zine with me. We bar hopped with another friend of mine and I read something about her that I found really attractive. "You're not really my type." I told her, "I look at you and see a femme. I'm not usually into femmes. I don't know why but you are the type of person I could really fall in love with."

"She" told me "she" was "ex-trans," that "she" had thought about transitioning but would end up a cross-dressing trans-man. I asked her what was wrong with that.

A while later "she" told me "she" was saving up for top surgery. Then a couple weeks later came out to me as a trans guy and started dressing more like a man. He started to make sense to me. I started crushing on him, but tried to suppress it.

In April my estrogen was doubled to it's current levels and my breasts grew from a B cup to a C cup and are still growing. This summer I had a great swimsuit body, and socially I got to the point where no one sees me as a man, or masculine person. None of my friends (I see regularly) can imagine me as a man, and I look better than ever.

Over the past couple of months I have been reconciling my guy self with my girl self. I'm incorporating more of my guy self into my girl self. It isn't that there was ever really a separation between the two or even that I suppressed my masculine side. I actually have been very good at not doing that. The truth of the matter is that I am starting to see myself as much more complex than a girl who was born with a boy body. I'm starting to think of my life more as a continuum than actually divided between my former life as a boy and my current life as a girl.

I have a greater understanding of my sexuality and basically I am bisexual, and I think I always was even though I was not a bisexual male; my sexuality involves my own body as much as anyone else's and two male bodies together is not something I find appealing, actually I really don't like it.

The thing about transition that I keep coming back to is that it really is a second puberty. It's like reliving the most difficult years of my life the way they should have been lived. Of course I only just turned 30. I don't know what it would be like to transition later.

One way that transition is particularly like being a teenager again is when it comes to relationships. A little over a year ago I had my first boyfriend, a trans guy who wasn't on T yet. It definitely wasn't anything serious and it was actually quite innocent. We didn't do much more than make out and sleep together. I dumped him after two weeks and then a couple months later dated a girl for about two months. I met this other trans guy after I broke up with my girlfriend, and at the time he was almost too femme for me to be interested in.

But hey, if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that I really find other people's attraction towards me to be very attractive. Of course he only shows that intermittently, not at all anymore. Of course I have been going through an excellerated puberty and my self in relation to him has been changing this whole time.

I think were I to compare where I am now as a woman to my growing up stages as a man, I would put myself at about twenty two. One year ago it would have been maybe fifteen, and in spring of 2011 I would put that closer to thirteen.

Keeping the comparison of transition with teenage years I would say I started my transition where I had stopped maturing as a female. For me I would say age 9 or so. That's when I really started making a conscious effort to be a boy. I think that during that time before I started hormones was maturing to the point  as a female to where I could begin puberty.

Which is where this trans guy, the one I was crushing on, is now.

I know it makes me sound a little sick for crushing on him, but keep in mind we all have some sort of sexual maturity that we reached through our original puberty. It isn't the same as a twenty two year old being into a twelve year old.

But it is reason enough that I really could never act on any type of attraction I have towards him.

I don't know what his transition entails. Transition is not about surgery or about hormones. It's only about self realization and actualization. Hormones have most certainly changed how I realize experience myself and my identity.

Transition has been an incredible healing experience for me. I wouldn't take that from anyone, nor expect anyone to give up that experience for me. And quite honestly, a huge part of the healing process for me was my sexual experiences with other people. Finding out that people were attracted to me, as I am, who I am, even without everything that hormones have done for me since.

But I'm getting off track from where I wanted to be in this entry.

Right now I'm starting to accumulate a group of trans guy admirers. I'm the really good looking, popular trans girl that all the trans guys want to be with. :)

That in itself is like reliving my teens the way I wish they would have been. And that is pretty cool.

I think in this regard trans people are really lucky. Here I find myself with a whole bunch of people who are going through the same thing I am (though in opposite directions) whom I am attracted to and who are attracted to me. Let's all be twenty something (and thirty something) adolescents together and date each other.

Oh I didn't miss out on the whole teenage dating/relationship thing afterall. I just get it later, when I can add in  alcohol and sex without fear of getting caught.

Clothing, cross dressing, me as a guy,

Recently I have been thinking more and more about my guy self. I've kind of lost touch with him.
Actually practically none of my friends I see regularly ever knew me as anyone other than Natalie.

In a sense that is the point of transitioning, right?

As a teenager I used to day dream about moving to some distant city and starting my life over again as female, passing so well that no one knew about my former life, no one even able to imagine me as the guy I had once been.

I'm kind of there. Well, I'm very open about being trans. Being trans is such a part of who I am that I don't know that I could ever deny that part of me and feel whole and complete.

Being trans is something that sometimes I hate and sometimes I think is pretty cool, but it is always there. It always has been there. One thing I realized about myself when I finally was capable of transitioning is that I have no idea what it is like to be cis-gendered. I can't look back to a time when I was happy with being a "boy" or when my penis seemed right and normal.

There's a tendency to look back on life and divide it into when I was a "straight" man and when all that went away.

In another sense I really was a straight man, or rather, my queer experience is very much a trans experience not a gay experience. I liked girls and all the guys I knew liked girls and basically that made me "normal."

Never mind my secret stash of women's clothing that I purged frequently enough to convince myself it wasn't something inherent to my nature.

In another sense I was very much like a cross-dresser.

Which gives me this weird relationship with cross-dressers. For me it was never about the clothing. I dressed to give myself a feeling of having the body that I instinctively knew I should have. It wasn't about expressing my feminine side, but then again, that is what clothing is all about. Of course I express femininity with how I dress. It's why I'm not butch, it's why I want to look cute in everything I wear, and why I'm not going to wear unfitted baggy t-shirts and trucker caps.

Then again, why do I prefer aquas, and purples, and pinks? Why do I prefer silver over gold?

Clothing is such a unique part of being human. We use clothing to communicate who we are, culturally, physically, our personalities. Clothing and body adornment is intrinsic to being human.

I just have a more complicated relationship with it than most.

I am much more aware of using it to express gender than most people are.

Actually I am much more aware of expressing gender period. I know how men stand, I know how men move, I know how men communicate and I can usually distinguish between a male brain and a female brain.

That's why I usually recognize FTM's, why it can actually be difficult for me to call a femme closeted FTM "she" even when they look and act almost perfectly like women. And why even the butchest lesbian who isn't trans doesn't seem trans to me.

Which brings me back to my guy self. He caused me to have a lot of problems, and usually I only seemed male to people in kind of a superficial sense, but as far as impersonation goes my male self was pretty flawless.

And on a deeper level, it was me. I was the same person I am now reacting to the circumstance I found myself in. I am female and always have been, but I found myself in circumstances that required me to act like and insomuch as was possible think like a male and from a male perspective. Partially that came down to survival.

I don't think I am capable of doing it any more. Whatever I had that allowed me be seen as a man I've lost. I could probably still "pass" as a man at a glance but I wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny. Even before, I came across as "possibly queer," now I would probably come across as so unbelievably queer that no one would buy me as a man for long.

Something I've noticed but I doubt most cis people have, is that when you try to imagine a really butch cis-gendered lesbian as a man, and look at her performance of gender not her physical features, you would actually consider her to be a really, really effeminate gay guy, let's say "OMG! Flamer!"

That is what I think I've lost. Even the most masculine woman still uses her body language and expressions to  communicate that she is a woman. The reality is, though this really makes some people uncomfortable, the difference between a male and female body is really really small. It's small enough, that we need to communicate to others constantly whether we are male or female.

With really subtle, unconscious things, that can't be faked entirely.

That's why I came across as weird as a guy but I don't come across as weird as a girl. Plus whatever ability I had to fake those subconscious actions I don't have any more. It's been almost two years since I even tried.

But that's the other thing. I know who I am as a woman. I know what type of woman I am, I know what I like and what I don't like. I know that anything I do or say is feminine because I am feminine. As a guy it honestly was a wild guess at appropriating masculinity. Or rather let's say a very informed guess. I studied how men acted and how people reacted. My gendered presentation was very learned, very informed, and very intentional.

So given that what I remember about being a guy the most was my constant struggle with trying to pass as a cisgendered guy, I don't really know how I came across to other people. Except that I did come across as masculine, I think, or masculine enough.

And more and more I am valuing the friends I still have who knew me as a guy. The ones with whom I let down my guard, and who weren't particularly surprised when I came out as a transitioning transsexual.

"I kinda figured," or "now you make sense." types of reactions.

Still of all the millions of different ways to be a guy, what type of guy was I?

I'm writing an autobiographical memoir and it's actually really emotionally draining. I've been taking a bit of a break from it. It's had me thinking about my life and my experiences as a "man." and really judging from pretty much all my sexual encounters there is something about the way people related to me that isn't any different from how they relate to me now.

I was the guy other guys would ask when they wanted to figure out what a girl was thinking. I was the guy girls felt comfortable changing in front of and confiding in. I was the guy that (like, I was told, I am as a girl) people felt like they needed to protect. I can only say that I have this really strong feminine spirit that my body could never really conceal.

Anyway. This blog entry was ranty, but hopefully a little interesting.

Turning 30, a little about my time in Indiana, and why trans people are awe inspiring

I just wanted to write something about my upcoming 30th birthday.

I'm genuinely looking forward to my 30's and I am genuinely thankful that I had one full good year in my twenties as a beautiful young woman. Actually I went full time nearly a year before that. That was something I prayed for actually.

When I was 25 I spent about 6 months living with my uncle in Indiana. I moved out there to help him with his upholstery shop. I think part of me was thinking that maybe I'd feel "normal" if I lived in the small town where  I should have I grown up, and I think I also was trying to run away from being trans. I quickly realized that that wasn't the case. There was a moment driving out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but snow covered fields for miles that I knew I had made a mistake, and that Kendallville IN wasn't considerably different from where I grew up. It turned out that my gay uncle is no more feminine than any other man and my theory that maybe I was thought more like a gay guy even though I was straight turned out to be absolute bull.

I know that theory sounds really absurd and even a little judgmental, but it's pretty common to equate sexuality and gender. There really isn't a connection, and femme is not feminine. Also in my defense I really hadn't know very many gay guys other than my uncle and really didn't know him very well until I spent 6 months living with him.

He's probably my favorite uncle.

Well anyway I realized I had to move back to Richmond and saved up money substitute teaching.

Also I am grateful for having lived in Indiana simply for the fact that I was able to spend time with my grandpa and get to know him better before he died. He was the only person who kind of understood where I was coming from when I moved back to Virginia. Almost my entire family on my mother's side lives in Indiana but it isn't my home, and though I really was only thinking this on a subconscious level when I moved back I couldn't have transitioned there.

When I did get back in town something clicked and I knew I had to transition. I've told that story before. Anyway I prayed for one full year in my twenties as a woman. I've had that and I am really really grateful.

One thing I realized then is that the times in my life when I had it together or was getting it together were when I was working towards transition and times in my life when everything was falling apart were when I took transitioning off the table. I realized that I was at the point where either I'd become a raging alcoholic, or I had to transition.

I tried to make a compromise with myself. I decided that if I let myself "cross-dress" in the privacy of my own home I wouldn't have to go through the whole horrible process of coming out to everyone and being permanently regarded as one of those "weird" people who changes their sex, and I wouldn't have to drink quite as much.

Well that didn't work, and it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything when wasn't dressed as a woman, and I really wasn't controlling my drinking.

I'm not an alcoholic, but I drank like one. Actually there was a book I read called Dress Codes where the author's father was a closeted transsexual who eventually transitioned. Before transitioning he was emotionally abusive, and as his doctor said "working really hard at becoming an alcoholic." I saw a lot of myself in that description.

My compromise ended with me moving back home with my parents and realizing that transition really was something that I had to do.

That was hard.

As an adult I have cried only for times. One of those times was when I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was definitely a transsexual. That was before I tried to compromise out of transitioning.

A woman just flat out can't live her entire life as a man. That would have killed me.

I'm turning 30 and I don't think I would have had I not transitioned. With me, it wasn't that I lived for years not knowing. I knew when I was twelve that I was very likely a transsexual. I did not want to be and I looked for all sorts of reasons why I wasn't, even as I was talking about with a trans friend of mine looking at the statistics and saying it was highly unlikely.

Of course how I was able to use a 1/20000 chance to say I probably wasn't a transsexual and still justify playing the lottery, I will never know.

So when I moved back out of my parents home I started transitioning, and I knew that I had to take a step back from everything I thought I should be.

On my birthdays I used to get a little down because I thought it was a failing on my part that I didn't have a good job, that I was drowning in student loan debt, that I've never really had a serious relationship, and that everything I thought I was supposed to accomplish in my twenties never happened (except graduating college in four years cum laude).

But the reality is I never could have any of those things without transitioning. I mean the amount of effort it takes to be someone you are not takes so much effort that I flat out didn't have any energy for anything else. I don't know what it's like to be a closeted homosexual but with that at least your aren't living in a gender that feels totally foreign to you, at least you aren't hiding that from everyone.

Gender is so fundamentally a part of who we are that trying to deny our natural gender is pretty much impossible.

And then with me, I am naturally more feminine than most people. So it wasn't like I was a really androgynous woman trying to live as a man. I was a really femme woman trying to live as a really masculine man.

So when I transitioned I took a step back from trying to accomplish all the things I knew were not possible for me until I transitioned. I missed out on an adolescence I needed and didn't get until I was 27.

So I'm turning 30 and I am pretty happy with where I am in my life and relationships

I liken transition to being a teenager again at an excellerated rate. I missed out on a fundamental part of being a teenager which I am now making up. I mean early in transition trying all sorts of different styles and looks, having really non-serious "boyfriends," making out with people etc. That whole thing we all go through as teens where we learn to be adult men and women. So as far as that goes I'm probably at about 18 now. I'm pretty much a mature woman but not quite.

On the other hand I didn't miss out on my entire teenage years. I'm also very much 30 years old and in most things I have the maturity of a 30 year old. And I suspect that soon everything will catch up and I will be my age in all regards; my breasts will stop maturing, I'll pretty much have the body that I'm going to have, and I will have made up for all the things I missed out on as a teen and in my twenties.

So I'm going to write this because I know other people feel the same way sometimes. Don't feel bad that you haven't accomplished the same things that your friends have, or that they seem to have their lives in order so much more than you do, or even that you haven't accomplished the things you wanted to have accomplished by this time in your life.

Dealing with being trans is a big accomplishment.

Dealing with being trans is a huge accomplishment even if you are still closeted and no where near beginning to transition.

Dealing with being trans is a huge accomplishment even if you haven't even allowed yourself gender variant.

Living one year part time as a man caused Norah Vincent (the writer of  Self Made Man) to have a nervous breakdown. We live with living cross gendered for years and years full time and hold ourselves together mentally. That is awe inspiring, even if most cis people don't realize it.

Yeah, that is something to be proud of. It's a burden most cis people can't even begin to imagine carrying, and a burden that would quickly break most cis people. So yeah, if you ever want to meet someone strong.

So yeah, I am really looking forward to my 30's.

It's going to be everything my 20's were not.

The difference between men and women: What cis-people want to know

I was taking a shower and thinking about trans shame.

Yeah, fun.

Anyway, basically it's that I would love it if I got to a point where I looked completely cis. On days when I don't feel good about my appearance it's usually days that I think I look particularly trans. On the one hand this might just be me buying into the cultural ideal of what a perfect woman should look like, and no trans women should just embrace looking like a man in a dress.

It's a fine line between what is trans shame and what isn't.

But it did put me on the line of thought that we're kind of messed up as a society that my knowledge of the difference between men and women is something I should be ashamed of.

Okay. I don't know what it's like to be a man. I never felt like a man, never thought like a man, and I never even really identified as a man. I did, however, study men pretty thoroughly.

As in: What is the proper way to move and talk so that people don't whisper behind my back (mostly when I was younger and this is pretty easy to learn)
          What is the right way to express my opinions so people don't think I'm weird? (a little harder)
          What are the appropriately masculine opinions to form? How are men (am I) supposed to think? (pretty difficult actually)

So here it is: Now that I have lived (and passed) as both a man and a woman, the difference between being a man and being a woman. (I suspect this really is what most cis people are curious about)

Men think more logically and linearly except for when they don't.

Not too descriptive I know, and it doesn't say too much but I think that's the best I can do.

I can say that about 6 months into taking estrogen my thought patterns shifted from what I would call androgynous masculine to feminine. For about 3 months I had access to both worlds; I could think as much like a man as I ever could and I could think like a woman.

I don't have access to that thought pattern anymore, and I can't even imagine it. Actually were it not for the fact that I remember talking about it when it was happening and immediately after it happened with my therapist I probably wouldn't even remember that it happened.

Though occasionally I do come across something "Nathan" did intentionally (like a particular way of organizing or something I saved) that makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. And it's kind of like "who was this person?"

I think I did think more linearly before. I think I remember discussing it with my therapist and that being the best word to describe it, but it is really a vast oversimplification.

Emotions: I have the same emotions I always had and even the same range I'm just more conscious of them. Testosterone gives you protection from your emotions. It really is kind of like a shell. I remember one day after the first time my NP upped my estrogen level I was walking somewhere and noticed every little comment about me, every little stare, and all these nuances I hadn't before, because my shell was gone. So I'm more vulnerable that way. But also, now it's much easier for me to recognize my emotions for what they are. Like I have always made decisions emotionally (a very feminine trait by the way) but now I am aware of more information. As a guy I definitely quit jobs and made drastic decisions based on emotions that I was feeling but wasn't really fully aware of. Like, now I doubt I would have quit my job as a sous chef when I did, because now I would be aware that it was primarily an emotional decision. Then I just rationalized until how I felt made sense.

So in that regard I think I function much better with estrogen than with testosterone. I think the way I think and always have thought is more suited to the information estrogen allows your brain to absorb.

On the other hand I am not as good at directions (as in where am I) and I can't make rapid decisions like I used to. Like expo-ing in a kitchen with about fifteen tickets and calling out directions, I didn't used to need to be as aware of what I was calling out. I could call for three burgers, four fries and whatever else and it they wouldn't be as clear in my mind as they are now, but without that clarity I was a little faster.

I wouldn't say other people would necessarily notice it, but maybe that has something to do with why in restaurants women tend to gravitate towards serving and men tend to end up working the line in the kitchen.

So sexism: Both sexes get it, and it was very frustrating for me when people perceived me as a guy how that influenced how they interpreted my opinions or what I said. Like complimenting someone's nail polish as a guy always came across as a little creepy and/or weird. I used to always justify it with "I majored in art and really like color." Being "gay" would also have been justification, I guess, but men do need some justification for noticing colors, and more frustrating for having emotions.

It's not just that it is more difficult to cry under the influence of testosterone but it usually comes across really wrong: horribly manipulative, self centered, and what not.

Of course my opinions did hold more weight when people perceived me as a man. People would stop, listen and consider what I said. (and ladies this holds true with both men and women). Like now when sometimes I'll say something that I think should really be considered and the conversation just continues as if I never spoke. Even a couple of times when the conversation was gender...which of course I had to really assert myself and be like "Well I'm a transsexual, and I kind of really know about gender and it isn't like that." But I also have to say that I'm never accused of being too quiet anymore, and people do listen more carefully to women (as in to actually hear us). Every job or social situation prior to transitioning I was always "soooo quiet" and told I needed to speak up.

I don't know I could go on bullet pointing a whole bunch of points and experiences about men and women, but that wasn't really the point.

I think that rather feeling pressure to feel ashamed of our trans experience we really should feel proud of our insight.

And yes, my nipples are much more sensitive than they were before.

And I never really "decided" to become a woman, it just wasn't something I could fight for very long.

Lesbians, Pretendbians, and the rest of us

I just read a blog entry on "Pretendbians" and thought I'd post some thoughts on the whole concept.

For those of you who don't know, "pretendbian" is a derogatory term used for trans women who identify as lesbians. It plays into the belief that a trans woman can never be a "real" woman, that she is and can only ever be a man pretending to be a woman and a lesbian. 

On one level total cis ignorance.I disagree with the idea that one relatively small body part dictates our personalities, and personal identities. For me being lesbian isn't about having a vagina and being attracted to other people with vaginas it is about preferring to participate in the type of sex that results from two female (bodied) people having sex. Hence the idea that someone can really be a lesbian trapped in a man's body. I for one never really enjoyed sex with a woman as a man. I've never had sex with a male bodied person as another male bodied person and I doubt I would have liked it. 

Sexual identity is about the type of sex you prefer, not necessarily your ability to have it.

In this sense, yes some trans women are lesbians. The term "pretendbian" is derogatory.

Though I have to take it further. Cis people do have a little bit of credibility in this. They just don't know how to voice it. Some cis people will flat out reject a trans woman's lesbian identity as pretend simply because they aren't sexually attracted to trans women, or pre-op trans women.

Guess what. I'm not either. A woman with a trans past would have to appear very very cis for me to take much of an interest in her.This is simply sexual attraction, no more no less, and I can see how trans women lesbians threaten the sexual identity of  cis women who define themselves sexually as lesbians and to whom genitals play a large role in their sexual preference. 

Quite simply for someone who is used to self identifying as a person who is attracted to lesbians, having a large group of people who call themselves lesbians to whom you could never be sexually attracted to threatens your definition of your sexual self identity. 

Yes, I strongly agree that having a penis makes me no less a woman, but to argue that it is prejudiced for someone not to want tohave sex with me because of it is really unfair.

I never felt comfortable defining myself as a lesbian. I think the standard definition of "lesbian" excludes trans people. I always said I was sexually attracted to women. Of course I would be more uncomfortable using my penis in sexual intercourse than I think most lesbians would be in having sex with me using my penis. I can't say that for certain, but that's not the point.  I'm much more fluid in my sexual attraction than I am in my sexual identity, and my sexual identity doesn't really involve my penis.

Wow, this is starting to sound a little personal. 

Actually, another reason I don't really feel comfortable with defining myself as a lesbian is because I don't think I am. Right now, I tend to find trans men more appealing than most women, and I think that it is a very real possibility that post surgery I'll tend to find men in general more appealing than women. Of course, I don't know. I do know that right now I don't usually notice cis guys.

Everything changes in transition. 

I think basically, I am primarily heterosexual. Right now I'm a trans woman who is attracted to trans men. (Of course I definitely still find women attractive and will definitely still sleep with them. I don't see myself giving that up in the near future)

So I'm kinda left with this range of people I could be sexually attracted to which excludes trans women and cis men. It has nothing to do with me grouping the two groups in the same category; I'm trans and I do not consider myself to be male. It's simply that I do not find the cis or cis appearing penis to be sexually appealing.

The trans penis, or penises that trans men grow after being on T for a while...that's another story and another blog entry.

So this leaves me with the conclusion that yes "pretendbian" is a really hurtful and mean phrase to describe someones sexuality. Just because I have a penis doesn't mean I have any desire to use it as such. At the same time sexual attraction is sexual attraction. 

I think sexuality is unique to every person. Let's try to move past labels or at least realize that just because you consider yourself a lesbian doesn't mean you are obligated to consider everyone else who considers herself to be a lesbian a potential mate, and it isn't discrimination when someone does not find you sexually appealing because of your anatomy.

Feeling pretty satisfied with life and relationships

Sometimes I'm really glad I bike to work; it gives me a chance to think.

Had a weird week. Actually let me take that back and say that rather I've been presented with a new situations and experiences this week that I haven't had before. I'm not going to go into details.

Basically I had a chance to think about my week and the change in my relationships with several of my friends and though I'm stepping into new territory, I'm comfortable with it, and I don't need to do anything. I don't need to write any letters, or explain myself. Actually I'm pretty much happy with things as they are.

Anyway not a good blog entry, but thought I'd post an update.

A little about transsexual sexuality, questions about categories

This is going to be a quick entry. I'm not feeling well and I'm taking the night off from work. There's an "I Love Lucy"  marathon on TV.

So I had beers with this guy I like and we talked briefly. Well we hung out for quite a while but only briefly about my blog entry about him. It wouldn't and couldn't work out, but at least he respects me and I do understand where he's coming from. I mean the beginning of transition is not the time to start a relationship for most people, I don't think. It certainly wasn't for me.

So I'm disappointed in the situation and I'm a little upset that I always seem to fall for people with whom it can't work out. Arghhh!

Right now I'm kind of on the prowl. IDK. I kinda of want two things right now. I want what I've wanted since my last relationship ended. I want something with someone that moves fairly slowly through friendship and eventually dating. I mean I don't want to commit to something serious with someone until they know me and I know them. I also kind of want something not serious and just fun. Someone to sleep with who makes me feel attractive. Honestly for me a big part of my sexual desire is about feeling desireable, and I kind of need that right now.

Well I don't "need" it, not like I "needed" to be in love with some girl to have any type of male identity. If I'm honest about my past I have to admit that a big part of the intense feelings I had for this one person were that it gave me some sort of identity as a male. Towards the end, right before she sent me a "Dear John" I was pretty miserable. I needed to transition, but I couldn't bring myself to let go of the idea of a relationship with her. On a certain level I knew a relationship wasn't going to cure me. Actually I was "cross-dressing" quite often and rather glad she lived in Northern VA. "How the fuck am I going to keep this out of her sight if were to ever be together?" Anyway, that's all in the past. My first entry was sometime fairly soon after that "relationship" ended.

Of all the relationships I've never desired one more and never been so miserable. If you know me you probably can imagine how miserable I would be trying to be a man. Ughhh. For me, living as a man was about the most horrible thing I can imagine experiencing...pure hell.

Anyway....I'm not that person anymore. I really have grown up a lot since transitioning. It seems that some people who transition later in life were able to have some sort of adult life before transitioning, but I think for those of who need to transition early it's a matter of not being able to mature really until we have corrected our hormone imbalances. So enough on that.

So....

What I really wanted to write this entry on is this: I tend to be attracted to FTM's. This makes me heterosexual? or bisexual? or gay? I mean I could be all three depending on your perspective. As a trans woman I understand that I was never really anything other than female and I really don't see trans men as anything other than male, but a lot of the times (and most of the trans guys I've hooked up with) look a lot like women. So if I like trans guys, and I tend to find them attractive regardless of where they are in their transition, does that make me bi? See the more I think about it the more I don't like our categories of sexuality. I think they completely ignore the trans experience and I think they are overly simple.

I mean, from a cissexual perspective I'm bi-sexual but I'm not really interested in a relationship with a cis man  or trans woman, and in my experience I haven't really had a great time sexually with cis women. SO I really do have a sexual type but that type spans what from a cis perspective is two categories: female to male.

I don't know; label us the third and fourth sexes, but I don't like that either. I am no less a woman than any other woman nor is a trans man any less a man.

This is something that I find to be very interesting. This is part of what I want to go to grad school to study. I think this might be the topic of my research paper that I need to apply to the University of Maryland Women's Studies PhD program.

It has been such a long time since I've done academic research that I don't even know where to begin.

My actual sexual experience as a trans woman, and some pretty intense feelings of gender dysphoria last night.

I think too much.

Well I spent yesterday thinking about my last blog entry where I talked about some of my hold ups about sex, also thinking about a lot of my insecurities about it.

I'm kind of in a difficult position. I don't want a "sex change" operation because I "want" to be female. It's more because I have the deep feeling that my body is just wrong.

I mean, I am really feminine. It isn't actually something I'm consciously aware of. I think I come across to others as being a lot more feminine than I feel. Unlike coming across as masculine, it doesn't feel false. It just isn't something I think about. Despite this, being transsexual is more about having this deep seated sense that my body is wrong. I've explained this before; I didn't transition to wear dresses and makeup, I transitioned to have breasts and (hopefully soon) a vagina.

Yeah, talk about a hell of a thing to come out of the closet about; "Hey, Mom..."

Anyway, take into consideration that I am really feminine and I have a penis. So...yeah I already have the typical body issues plus amplify that. There haven't been any campaigns for trans girls telling them their penis is beautiful.

Sex is kind of a big deal for me, at least anything involving my penis is. I mean, it's like if I had another sort of birth defect and people wanted me use it every time they want to get intimate with me.

I am also an artist, and though there has never been any positive penis campaigns for trans girls I do recognize that my trans feminine body is beautiful.

And it is kind of what I got.

I don't refrain from touching myself. Though it is [admittedly] a modified form of female masturbation.

Also growing up my entire sexuality was centered on having a body that I did not have. I have never been male in a single sexual fantasy I have ever had. On top of that most of my sexual fantasies were heterosexual. In other words I was the woman sleeping with a man.

Those aren't fantasies you admit to. I mean it's a little beyond being kinky.

No there is nothing wrong with it. Actually when I gave myself permission to try to understand myself from a trans point of view it makes perfect sense.

But take that into consideration also. Prior to coming out, everything I had ever expressed about my sexuality was a lie. It was a lie based on what I'd heard boys and men say, and a point of view that I don't understand and cannot ever understand. I don't know what it is like to have male sexual desires and can't. I never had them.

So prior to transitioning I had very little romantic experience. I still don't have a lot, and I'm almost 30. So as far as asking for what I would like...I don't have a lot of confidence or knowledge.

On top of all of this people confuse transsexuality with sexuality. My sexuality is very much influenced by my gender identity but my gender identity isn't really influenced by my sexuality. People assume that transsexuals are freaky in the bedroom.

I mean I've actually been pretty open to sexual experiences since I started transitioning, but the opportunity isn't really there that often. By any standards I'm beautiful, but most lesbians won't touch me with a ten foot pole and then (though this is probably a stereotype) men who are into to women like me expect some sort of really freaky sex. I mean just the comments of "I would like to try it with a girl with a little something extra" wink wink. Type of thing.

So I'm not really a prude, I'm just not really very freaky either. If you want to be with a shemale I'm going to disappoint. If you are capable of seeing me as just a normal woman who happens to have penis you pretty much have the right idea.

I've slept with one lesbian and several trans guys since transitioning.

The lesbian was expecting something different than what she got. I mean I think it is about "freaky sex" but not so much my limits as to what she thought I was. I met her ex, a trans woman who wasn't very feminine, and then in arguments or when she'd try to "out femme" me in some type of disagreement. I mean feminine is kind of my natural default.

Then the trans guys never wanted to expose their breasts. I get that. I spent the first couple of paragraphs talking a little about my relationship with my penis. I respect it also, and as it goes other than my own, I'm not that into breasts anyway. I mean I can take them or leave them, but it isn't something that tends to attract me. Of course..."you don't trust me with your breasts why would you expect me to trust you with my penis?" It isn't that I wanted to see or play with them but a lot of times it felt like I was more physically available to my partner than he was to me.

So there you have it. I spent yesterday thinking about my friend saying I wan't available enough and how much that sucks. Because I am who I am through circumstances and personality, and at least from the experience I have, it's kind of a double standard. Well...take away any specific people because I honestly don't know how comfortable this particular guy is with his body, and whether he does or would have the same limitations as other trans guys I've had experience.

Take in consideration also that I did have sex as a man, and I was for the most part "available." I mean it probably wasn't the kinkiest sex ever, especially since I had to be led, and blow jobs were not something I liked, but I wasn't a prude.

I mean the thing about my limits are...There is only one body part that I really am uncomfortable with. It really sucks that it is where it is but, I mean there has to be a way around that. Also when it comes down to it even if I was having "actual sex" it wouldn't really feel like it for me. So my limits are kind of just that: my limits.

Having a penis is for me like having a chastity belt.

Okay so of course all this leads back to the feeling of being an absolute undesireable freak. It sucks having limits imposed on my sexuality that hinders my ability to have relationships with the people I want to have relationships with. (of course there's other factors; he's likely gay for one. This is mostly hypothetical) Which of course leads back to those feelings of despair that this whole trans thing is sometimes.

I've been a while in transition so trans panic isn't for me usually all that intense, and I'm past the point where I could de-transition even if I actually wanted to, but here it is: Gender dysphoria
"Oh my god! Here I am undesireable to anyone because I don't fit in my body...still. This has to end. God I wish I could just die."

No I'm not actually suicidal. Actually I'm quite happy. Socially I fit quite well in the gender role I have, and physically I look like the type of woman I would like to look like. (yeah I wish I wasn't quite so huge, and I wish my shoulders weren't quite as broad, and my hips quite so narrow) It's just I want closeness. I want to be sexual in a way that feels completely comfortable and natural. I'm tired of a physical thing getting in the way...and I'm scared that even after I've had my operation people won't want to touch me with a ten foot pole. (even though mtf gender confirmation is almost perfect in function and appearance)

This trans shame sucks. Yeah, I still feel it, and to be honest with myself. I don't know whether I don't have any mtf friends because I haven't met any I have much in common with or if I just flat out still have some prejudice that "men" shouldn't try to be women. Sometimes I wonder if I'm so gung ho about trans rights and having others understand what I truly know to be true about being trans because I still kind of see my self as wrong, that I should have tried harder to be a man (even though I know that would have killed me).

I don't know, lot of thoughts. I think too much.

About having sex, and crushing on someone

I'm starting to have feelings for this trans guy and I know I shouldn't. That's what all my friends I've talked to about him say, and I agree with them. I want to say he's been sending me mixed signals, but the truth is I'm not sure that he has. I fell into that rap with someone else: thinking we were eventually going to have a relationship. It broke my heart repeatedly and now we don't even talk. I'm going to have to be more careful to keep this guy distant. I have to do that for myself. I mean, I don't deserve to be hurt, or at least I don't need to hurt myself.

So conscious ignoring signs and signals on my part.

I tried that before too. I don't know that I can. Enough about this. Maybe the best I can do is to acknowledge that I have feelings for a guy who probably doesn't have the same feelings for me, or who probably can't have the same feelings for me, a guy who has a lot of casual flings.

I don't really have casual flings. I don't know. I have in the past,  not that many. Here's what I wanted to write a blog entry about: sex.

Technically speaking I don't have sex. Yeah, all that "shemale" fantasy stuff is not really me. I'm just a pre-op transsexual; I'm not really interested in being this erotic third sex in the bedroom. Which makes sex kind of a difficult thing for me.

I don't know if I necessarily have to be in love with someone to have sex with them. I would have to be regarded as female.

Okay so I did have one relationship in the past where I had sex as a man. Yeah, I'm that innocent. Actually I think that's really common for mtf's, but I don't really have any mtf friends so I don't know. It seems that ftm's don't have the hold ups that mtf's do. That could really be a gender thing. I do want to adress that relationship. I needed it. We weren't really very emotionally close, but I liked her and trusted her. I needed to feel attractive and desirable at that time in my life and being in a sexual relationship helped me to feel that. Other than that one relationship I never had much luck as a guy. Part of it is because of my hold ups, part of it is because straight women generally speaking don't want to be in a relationship with another woman.

So it's complicated. Everything is complicated. Arghhh!!!!

It's not that I don't desire sex, it's that I don't want to be third gendered or male in sexual activity. That makes anything involving my penis kind of troublesome. I don't think it could work with a cisgendered person. Cis people don't understand having the physical attributed of one sex and actually being another sex. I can see the scenario of another trans person being capable of totally seeing me as female even while we were in the act of having sex, and that could be a beautiful thing.

That's where it becomes more of an issue with trust. I have issues with trust.

So I got my hair cut yesterday; it looks great. My hair stylist who is a friend of mine was talking to me about this trans guy I really like. Her thing was, "he wants something you're not willing to give him." He wants to have sex and I don't. I think that's a little oversimplified. One that is so archeotypical of guy/girl relationships, it's almost a stereotype. "He'as kind of a freak and you're kind of a prude, you're open minded buit until you get your surgery you're not into doing anything." I did say that about myself, of course I said that about myself only considering cis-sexual activity.

Being pre-op makes sexuality so fucking complicated.

What I would need, with him anyway, is an actual relationship. I don't think he's willing and/or ready for that with me. Actually I don't think he wants a relationship with me. It wouldn't be casual. Iv'e had casual relationships in the past, but I couldn't have that with him. I already have feelings towards him.

The other thing that makes this whole situation I'm in uncomfortable, is that even if I thought  I could coax him into a relationship I wouldn't do it. It has to come from his end. I know from my own experience that when I was in the early stages of my transition I didn't want to be committed to anyone. I mean it was so great to socially and more and more physically have the gender role and appearance that I always wanted. I wanted to flirt with, make out with, sleep with as many people as a female that I possible could. All the things I missed out on as a teenager and college kid I wanted to make up for. Hell I needed to make up for.

I had a trans boyfriend for like two weeks. It wasn't anything serious, and I knew it couldn't be. But there isn't anything wrong with that. It was something I needed and wanted to help me figure out who I am.

And that is a perspective I didn't have before. There is nothing wrong about being in a relationship that is not ever going to be serious.

So all this in a nutshell is that I think I could actually have sex with a trans guy (I'm not into trans girls) pre-op. I do have hold ups especially with trust and I don't think that my surgery is going to completely change that. I mean I will be much more comfortable with my own body and probably will be much more into sex, but a lot of it is just who I am.

I want an actual relationship. I deserve an actual relationship. The thing is that with me it's going to take some time. It isn't easy for me to let someone close to me (emotionally more so that physically actually). I hope whoever that person is, is willing to be patient with me.

A self portrait collage I did in high school

I was going through some boxes of old stuff of mine and came across this self-portrait collage I did for photography class in high school. I was looked like a cute boy with kind of a Beatles' haircut, as in how they wore their hair just before they grew it long. Anyway the collage had a photo of me among a bunch of magazine cut outs I thought represented who I was. There were actually quite a bit of trans references in it, hidden of course but not really.

This isn't going to be a long entry. I just wanted to write a quick blurb about it.

Sometimes I look back on my life and think of myself almost as two people. There was my guy-self and then there was my true-self. It's easy to think of myself as having been at some point a normal boy. The truth is and it shows in that collage. I was always a very transgender boy. I actually am not so transgender as a girl. It's easy to brush over the fact that every day in high school I was struggling with the question "Why do I feel like I need to be a girl so bad?" That every night I browsed the internet for hours looking for something that would definitively make me transsexual or better that would make me not transsexual.

When I realized that I had to transition I definitely thought back on how my entire life prior to transition was centered around the fact that I was a female trying to live a male life.

I failed utterly at that.

Or rather, I doubt others really see it that way. The truth is I failed utterly to gain some sort of peace with myself and my body as a male: something that actually comes rather easily to me as female.

It's easy to look back on my life from how other's saw me, because for a significant portion of my life I did "pass" as a cisgender male. I say pass because in my memory there really isn't a time when it wasn't an effort on my part to "pass."

Another great thing about transition is that I don't have to think about how to be a girl. That just kind of comes naturally.

I'm actually really glad that my self-portrait collage referenced my transness as much as it did. It's nice to see evidence of how my life is a continuum like every one else's.

Essay I wrote for Jim Collins Foundation

            Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS) is the last step remaining in my transition. I feel as if not having GCS is hindering me from pursuing my other goals and dreams. I cannot allow myself to jeopardize or delay having my surgery by returning to school or taking a career risk, hence until I have had my surgery I have limited options when it comes to improving my situation.

            My situation has already improved dramatically since I began transitioning. “Passing” as a man took a great deal of energy on my part. Prior to transitioning I didn’t have energy to work on projects that are important to me. Now I write op/eds about transgender topics for GayRVA.com, I publish a zine, blog, post youtube videos, and I am working on a novel with a transgender narrator.  I am much more comfortable with myself now that my gender presentation matches my internal sense of gender identity. I make more sense to myself and to other people. I don’t experience social anxiety like I used to. Since transitioning it has become easier for me to meet people and make friends. Most of all I feel that transitioning has allowed me to mature sexually and emotionally. I experience myself more fully as a person than I was able to before transitioning. I feel that GCS is the only thing standing between me and my ability to experience myself completely as a sexual being and form intimate relationships.

            Transition was an absolute necessity for my mental, physical, and financial health. Like many other transsexual people, I lived my life trying to find ways to ignore my gender dysphoria prior to transitioning. This caused me to live recklessly and irresponsibly. The biggest regret I have about my transition is that I waited until I couldn’t keep up with my finances, live healthily, or maintain close relationships before I transitioned. Had I transitioned in college, like I originally planned as a teenager, I believe I would have avoided most of the major stresses of my transition. I wouldn’t have had to overcome financial stresses caused by years of avoiding my gender issues. Transitioning has allowed me to begin building the career I deserve, taking steps towards financial security, and developing relationships that need to live a healthy life. The cost of saving for GCS hinders my ability to pay down student loans, attend graduate school, and save for retirement.

            I now live my life to educate others about transgender people and topics through my writing. Most of the transgender theories I have encountered have been written from a cisgender perspective. I think I would have gained self acceptance and understanding of myself as a person more quickly had academic writings from the transgender perspective made a larger portion of transgender theory. One life goal of mine is to obtain a PhD. in Gender Studies so that I can offer a transgender perspective in transgender theory. I think it is important that I offer my knowledge and experience to people. I think it is important that people are made aware of transgender opinions and experiences. Currently I am the only transgender voice on GayRVA.com. I have a transsexual woman’s perspective and can’t speak for all transgender people, but I think it is important for my voice to be heard. I believe my purpose in life is to help transgender people gain more mainstream acceptance through research and education. Much of my energy now is devoted to obtaining GCS. My need for GCS hinders me from devoting all the energy I could towards research and writing about transgender topics.

            I believe that GCS is a necessary step to take to allow me to fully be the person I am meant to be. Transitioning this far has been a huge improvement to my satisfaction with the life I am living and has increased my ability to form close meaningful relationships. I feel I need GCS to experience myself intimately in a relationship. Transitioning has allowed me to begin building a financially secure and healthy life but the expense of saving for GCS is hindering me from saving towards other financial goals. I have an important perspective to offer the world and am an important voice in Richmond’s LGBT community, but I currently am unable to devote myself as fully towards expressing my opinions and sharing my knowledge as I will be able to after obtaining GCS. Gender Confirmation Surgery is for me a need that takes precedence over other needs and desires of mine. I am much more capable and functional now that I have transitioned as far as I have but I won’t be able to live up to my potential until I have met my need for GCS.

Talking about a blog entry that was like a giant pile of jello: My failed attempt at describing the trans spirituality and shame

Well I want to address my last blog entry. I don't think it was written very clearly.

It's hard to describe something for which you have no words.

I grew up feeling a lot of guilt and shame over something I could not change. Who I am is exactly who God intended me to be. For whatever reason I am transsexual. I was born transsexual and rather than asking "Why would God ever do this to me?" because prior to transitioning being transsexual is really hellish, I think the question to ask is "What is this gift God has given me?" Because despite everything being trans is a gift, and it is one hell of a spiritual journey. I don't have the language to describe it because everything falls short and everything I say seems to come out wrong.

I don't want to get too cheesy here, and I'm really tempted to take my last entry down, but this blog is often how I think and how I am thinking through things.

Sometimes I do fail in describing an experience. Oh well. That's not the point.

I once tried to make a 3 foot cube of Jello. It collapsed all over the studio floor and it smelled bad. It was still pretty awesome: a glorious failure.

I think really the way to read my last entry is between the lines.

I know I was born to transition. I don't know why clearly. Were I given a choice I would absolutely go back and be born cis-female. This whole trans thing is a lot to live with and a lot to go through. I wasn't given that option, and I can honestly say I am a much better and more complete person than I would have been had I been cis. I hope whatever spiritual growth or lesson was intended by my transness is something I've learned and never have to do again, but...

Being trans is a blessing. Sometimes we don't get to choose our blessings.

I have this spiritual belief that there isn't really right or wrong. I don't want to say it would be wrong of me not to have transitioned. That would have been a spiritual death for me, but I can't say it would be "wrong." I can only do what I can, and I can only be who I am, and I think that letting guilt get in the way of the person I have the potential to be helps no one.

I don't know. I wanted to try to capture some of a really good conversation I had that helped me with a lot of insight and I feel that I failed rather miserably. Maybe it wasn't meant to be shared.

Oh well.