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
Monday, September 24, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
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.
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.
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