I think I am done with gay bars for a while

Well I think I'm done with gay bars for a while. I go back and forth about gay bars. When I first started presenting as female I chose a lesbian bar because I was scared of going out to a straight bar. I got over that fear pretty quickly and I also started passing pretty quickly (at least in a straight environment) and then I started preferring straight bars. Of course I ended up back at a gay bar because I like(d) women and as I was looking more and more like a woman I kinda had to choose a gay bar to find the type of woman who would be interested in me. Now I'm kinda going back to where I really don't want to be in a gay bar environment.

I have to apologize for that above paragraph; it perhaps isn't as clear as I would like it to be. Nothing in my life is very clear right now. What a lot of my cis-gendered queer friends don't understand is that I don't enjoy gay bars as much as they do. It's a catch 22. People out at gay bars are more accepting, but they're also more apt to read me as trans. I hate being asked if I perform. I hate being compared to someone's gay brother. I hate that some "gay" guys are really really into me. I hate that gay guys seem to think it is okay to touch my breasts; almost every Saturday some gay guy will grab my waist or try to cop a feel. Maybe I'm also read at straight bars, but straight men don't seem to think inappropriate touching is okay.

Okay and of course the other thing is: I don't particularly identify with being lesbian or gay. I mean I certainly don't identify as a gay man, but somehow I also don't really identify as a lesbian. I feel like I fit in more with a group of kinda femme straight women than I do with a group of typical lesbians. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about friendships or how I'm treated or anything; I love my lesbian friends. The thing is now that I'm on the other side of transition I don't feel particularly "queer."

I don't want to go so far as to say that I'm straight. Where I am now, I don't think I want to be physically intimate with anyone until after I've had my operation. It isn't about shame, it's just that when I do get intimate with someone I can only go so far. It isn't going to be particularly satisfying for me. It isn't satisfying just having my boobies felt up anymore. It's nice foreplay but it makes me want more...and I can't have that right now. I don't have the right equipment, and what I do have doesn't work the way I want it to, particularly since estrogen has changed my sexuality and sexual expectations to be more female than they were before. So the meeting someone for a relationship or hook-up at a lesbian bar is kinda off the table right now.

The big thing that cis-gendered queer people don't understand is that "transsexual" isn't an identity like L, G, or B. I experience it like a medical condition that I treat with pills and eventually surgical intervention.  Being read, even when it is accepted, is having my medical problems out on the table. I'm more likely to be read at a gay bar and when I am read it's more likely to be taken as an identity; "Oh you're transgendered."

Do you identify as cis-gendered?

I'm not going to tell my co-workers I'm trans at my next job. I don't want people to know. This isn't going stealth, it's simply that my medical history is not my identity.

Whether I am gay or not, I simply don't know. I honestly can't identify by it right now. So that leaves me, for the moment, basically where I was prior to transitioning. I'm transsexual by definition but I'm not transgendered. I'm not into gay men. I'm not into straight women. I'm not comfortable with being physically intimate with anyone they way my genitalia is now (though at least I'm pretty happy with the rest of my body).

Anyway I would kinda like to date an open minded, liberal, handsome, straight man, but that desire is so fucking complicated. Too complicated to explain in this entry. For the time being I'm still a lesbian, simply because it fits me better than any other category, but I don't know how permanent that is. Being transsexual forces one to have a flexible view on life that allows for change and sees things in shades of grey rather than black and white.

Right now I need to step back from the gay community, not my friends, but the gay bar scene.

no longer an auxiliary woman

Monday I went to the DMV and officially changed my sex. Legal sex is really just a letter on your ID, but it was pretty amazing how when I used the restroom immediately after getting my temporary license (which reads "sex: F" ) how I didn't feel like an auxiliary member anymore; Yes, I'm female I have the paperwork to prove it. So that it something exciting.

new estrogen levels, sex change with the dmv, a very stupid class

     So I had my doctor's appointment today and got the form filled out to change my sex with the DMV. I will now be legally female in the state of Virginia. I can no longer get married, but now people will actually have to ask me if I'm trans if they suspect(ask me if I'm a man or woman and I will honestly and truthfully say I am a woman), and that's a good thing. I might not pass "perfectly" but I know I pass well enough that no one out right says that person is a man when they meet me. I'm happy about this.
     I'm also happy because my nurse practitioner doubled my prescription for estrogen. I've been having very good results on my current level. Actually my body is basically female, but I've been progressing at the same rate my natural puberty would have progressed at. With my new level of hormones my body should finish changing much more rapidly. I'm almost thirty. I've wanted the body I'm entitled to (as a female) since I first started going through that awful thing called "male puberty." Now I'll get there quicker. I do think I'm gonna end up with C cups. I also hope that maybe my ass will fill out a little more and my waist get narrower. I think I deserve to look completely female (and fucking hot).
     The final thing I want to blog about regarding my appointment is this new "mandatory" class that I'm supposed to take. One of the trannies from that group I left just recetnly took over the TG clinic. She has decided that everyone receiving services from the tg clinic needs to attend a five session two hour long class on "street smarts," ie: std's, alcohol and drugs, emotional coping, and safe sex. This is bullshit. This is another "gatekeeper" mentality thing, and what really pisses me off is that another transsexual is implementing this. For me, especially now that I have been on hormones for about 17 months, and I've been living full time for a little longer, my hormones and blood tests are only a medical need for me. Requiring me to take a class that I feel is of little use to me to continue to recieve services that no endocrinologist would require me to take is taking advantage of my trans and economic . I go to the TG clinic simply for medical supervision of hormones that are necessary for me. My psychological and social needs are met elsewhere. My therapist who knows me and my needs much better has never suggested that I take a class on emotional coping. I don't need it; Of course it is supposed to promote community; I did write an op-ed saying that Richmond has very little trans community.
     I can't attend. I mean, I will do whatever I have to do to continue my hormone therapy, but attending this class would cause me to miss ten shifts at work (because I work doubles on Tuesday) and will do absolutely nothing for me.I know that the real purpose of this class is to build community, but I resent any authority telling me who I should become friends with.  I do want more transsexual friends, but I basically see transsexualism as a medical condition. It is great to hang out with someone who has experienced it but I don't feel that is absolutely necessary for my health. Afterall I have so many similarities with cisgendered women.
     Anyway I hate that this woman would assume that just because I am transsexual I need to have huge amount of transsexual friends, nor that I'm not adjusted, and don't know how to get along in my daily life.
     Fortunately I think my work conflict gets me out of taking this class.

I peed standing up last night: a little blurb about pissing

     So last night I peed standing up. I was on the way home. We stopped so the one guy riding with us could go pee, and I guess I got a little nostalgic, so I went to.
     So anyway I'm really embarrassed about it now. I shouldn't be; I know. But I guess it's about what it says about my gender; what I don't want to say about my gender. The thing about it is, my entire life before I transitioned I always had to remind myself that "boys pee standing up" every time I went to the bathroom. It isn't really something that came as instinct for me. Peeing standing up was one thing I did to say to the world and say to myself  "I'm a boy." It's really hard to describe most of the time it was humbling for me; as in, "I don't have the body I should have, I'm not the way I should be."
     It is an ability that I did appreciate at times; road trips when I really had to go, walking home drunk at 3 in the morning etc. But I think the only time I really really liked it was back in college when my buddies and I all decided to pee off the pedestrian bridge to Belle Isle at 4 in the morning. Something about watching urine fall one hundred feet into rapids was really cool. I guess that's what I was nostalgic about. It was probably my last time. So at least it is memorable for me. Anyway I wish I hadn't.