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.