Month of kidney stones, not so attracted to that trans guy anymore...pheromones?

Well it is Tuesday and time to post.

First I got to say this month of December has been really shitty for me. I've been sick with kidney stones pretty much the whole month. I just had my second one on Saturday and I'm still sore as shit. I called out on Sunday and I should have called out last night but...

I don't make enough money to afford to, plus I had to take out a payday loan to cover the cost of prescriptions and it is going to be a little while before I catch up.

In other news, I have an interview with Aflac tomorrow, and I think I'm going to give insurance sales another go.

I HATE foodservice. I hate wearing nasty sticky work clothes. I hate looking all butch. I hate low wages. I hate the lack of respect I get as a cook.

I mean I feel like a 31 year old educated person should not be worrying whether she's cleaned the flat top or wiped out the sink well enough.

Anyway, yesterday I almost put in two weeks, but then I remembered it was probably a combination of feeling like shit and the painkillers so I suffered it out and bought a six pack on the way home.

Actually Monday night is my night for karaoke, but when I stopped by it was just a little too loud for me. I wanted a really quiet bar.

Second thing is that my car is at the shop, the car I just bought not even a month ago, yeah. Anyway, it's something with the electronics and I tend to have an effect on electronics. I have a rental which just isn't a cute, I mean, it's blue; I will never wear blue lipstick. Also it isn't European, and it doesn't have heated seats. What do they think I am, a savage?

Anyway, and seriously, I did want to mention that that trans guy I've been somewhat infatuated with for over a year now finally started T. He also asked me not to write about him because he doesn't like how he comes across in my writing.

Well I haven't mentioned him by name.

But anyway the only reason I mention him is that now I'm just not as attracted to him as I have been. Maybe this whole time it's been pheromones

And, I'm looking elsewhere. Or rather I have been. I don't date much, which I'd really like to change, but I don't know if I can. For one I have dangly bits in places where I shouldn't, and that kind of robs me of quiet a bit of confidence. I don't like them...actually, I don't find peni (really think the plural of penis should be peni) attractive on anyone. And yeah, especially when I'm interested in someone who isn't trans I'm perhaps overly cautious.

Oh well.

I can see myself as a successful insurance agent.

So anyway, I don't have a lot to write about today.

And I really am not so girly as to pick a car color to match my lipstick.

Though I have to admit, I kind of like that my normal car does.

Kidney Stones, Geeking out at a Christmas party, more about trans stigma, and interviews

I went to my first Christmas party of the season Saturday night. I didn't really know anyone there except for my date...

Actually it wasn't that awkward. I was quiet and didn't really open up too much to anyone. I drank beer and said excuse me a lot. 

Basically I can't say that I came across as all that outgoing, but oh well. Anyway stuff like that doesn't bother me anymore, and I was recovering from a kidney stone, which, by the way, is a rather hellish experience.

Actually I'll start with that, and I'll try to be brief.

Last week after writing an entry in this blog I went out to happy hour at Babe's and had several beers. I was actually in the mood to party, and go out to Karaoke, and stay out late. Sad to say I don't do that all that often anymore. I'm too much of an adult. But anyway, I was sitting at the Bar in Babe's thinking about those dollar tacos that Weezie's sells and about how hungry I was when all of sudden my back started hurting.

It felt like I pulled a muscle. 

And it got worse, and worse, and I had to excuse myself and go home.

When I got home I took off my clothes and lay down in bed. The pain got worse and soon I had to get up every so often to vomit. 

I called my friend who is a nurse and told her I thought whatever was wrong with my back was actually kind of serious, and got her to come over with pain medicine and a heating pad.

Well six pills of Ibuprofin worked for a while but by 530 in the morning I was in so much pain that I finally called an ambulance. I don't have money for medical bills, which is why I held off for so long, but by 530 in the morning I was in so much pain that I didn't feel like I really had a choice.

I threw on a t-shirt and jeans, grabbed my purse and jacket and met the EMTs outside without any shoes on. They put an IV in and drove me to MCV.

At MCV I was finally diagnosed with Kidney stones, and after a long forty five minutes with a dose of painkiller that only dulled the pain slightly, a cat scan, and the official diagnosis I was given something good, and spent the next several hours high as a kite.

I actually had a job interview over the telephone scheduled for that afternoon, which I was home for but I guess I was still a little out of it because I answered the phone with "Hi :) I actually just got out of the hospital for kidney stones."

The lady on the phone told me to email HR and reschedule which I did, but they never emailed me back.

Oh well....

Anyway, I called out of work Thursday, Friday I should have, but working at barely above poverty wages I couldn't afford to, and Saturday night I wasn't completely myself. 

So I didn't have much to say...but I'm also the type who really listens to people and gets to know what they're like a little bit before I start talking a lot.

Anyway...

Of course there was this moment when the TARDIS was mentioned by someone who said she was a Doctor Who fan. She said it was red. I had to say something.

The TARDIS is blue and it always has been. We had a discussion for a while which ended up with a quick check on the internet and she conceding to me. At which point she called the Delorean from Back to the Future black.

"No," I said, "the Delorean is silver. Or actually, stainless steel. The stainless steel construction does something to help the flux capacitor" While I'm saying this, I'm actually really glad that couldn't remember the exact Doc Brown quote talking about the stainless steel construction, and I was really hoping she wouldn't bring up Lord of the Rings, because I was really geeking out.

I like Doctor Who, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings. Those are my three really geeky things that I really like. 

Anyway...So much for keeping my composure as a not geeky person.

Then we went to Babe's.

And despite my date pressuring me to drive faster and "gun it" past people. I followed drove very cautiously. I was fine to drive but knew I was legally intoxicated....that only takes two beers.

And then I had no money to get into Babe's and I guess I missed the part where the bartender told the person I was with that she could put the cover on her card. She motioned me in and I stood back until the door person told me it was okay.

Arghhh...totally came across as this uptight person who follows all the rules and gets upset if the TARDIS or the Delorean are called the wrong color.

I'm really not that nerdy.

Okay well after I got into Babe's I ended up in this conversation with someone who was drunkenly confiding in me that she thinks she'd like to date someone who is in between sexes. Neither male nor female.

I asked her if she meant intersexed. She said she did but then started talking about two of her relatives who transitioned and I kind of think she was really talking about transsexuals.

One had been a gay guy who is now a lesbian, and another had been a lesbian who is now a gay guy.

Well I was a "straight guy" who is now a lesbian. I didn't bring that up. I told her that I didn't think it was fucked up to be attracted to people like that when she asked me if I thought it was.

We've met before, and she recognized me, and it's hard for me to believe that she didn't know that I transitioned, but at the same time telling someone who is trans that you think it is fucked up to want to specifically date someone who is trans...I don't know. I seems like a bit of a social faux pas.

Of course she also started talking about how her family just accepts her relatives who did transition and how she thinks it's great that they knew who they wanted to be and became it, and how people shouldn't be ashamed or try to hide who they are.

Which may or may not have been trying to nudge me into "coming out" to her as someone who has transitioned.

I didn't.

And it isn't that I'm ashamed of it; I'm very much not stealth, but at the same time, for practical reasons, I feel like it is better for me not to be so open about it.

It's the whole, I actually would like to meet and have a relationship with someone. I already have to face the discomfort a lot of cisgendered people feel at being attracted to someone physically different like I am, but then on top of that there is the social stigma of being trans.

By not being stealth I hope to combat that a little, but there's the thing that's happened to me, where this girl is really attracted to me, we might even be making out, and she gets pulled aside by her friends who say something to her, which I imagine is along the lines of "you're drunk, do you know what you're doing with her? You know what she is, right?" and then she isn't interested in me anymore.

Or, the people who are into me because of a fetish.

I'm uncomfortable with my body, and I am never going to get over that without surgery. I still would really like to have a relationship with someone, and I think I would be an awesome girl to date, but I would never be interested in being with someone who was into parts of me that I don't identify with, and with people who seem like they might be able to get past my abnormal anatomy, there's the whole social stigma that I think limits my options.

It's be nice to say that if they can't get past the social stigma of dating a pre-op trans woman than they aren't worth dating, but the truth is that's a big fucking stigma and it took me a long time from when I figured out that I was trans to when I willing, and strong enough to accept the stigma that comes with it. I can't judge someone for that.

It really is depressing sometimes. I know why a lot of trans people end up committing suicide.

If I had a choice, I would never choose this. 

It's frustrating how with all the medical knowledge out there, trans people are in so many respects second class citizens.

We're faulted for going stealth because people think we're trying to pass ourselves off for something we're not. I am as legitimately lesbian and female and any other woman. We're faulted for not passing well enough. I mean if I try to butch it up a little people don't see that as me expressing a more masculine version of femininity they see it as me not doing a good job at being a woman. 

It's a fucking catch 22. 

And finally, I just want to say, I've been going on job interviews trying to get a more professional job that pays better and would be in an environment I feel like I'd fit in a little better. Just a weird little observation I had before going into a job interview at an office in Glen Allen. I was wearing heels, a skirt, pantyhose, and full on makeup, what would had me accused of "doing drag" (by ignorant people who aren't really familiar with drag) four years ago and I was so much more confident than I ever was in a suit and tie. It's weird how on job interviews now I'm not really thinking about what I'm wearing while at the actual interview whereas in a suit and tie I was constantly thinking about it.

When I interviewed for a position as an insurance agent, before I transitioned the one thing about how I was dressed that wasn't on my mind during the interview was the fact that I was wearing make-up.

LOL

Here's a link that I thought was a good read:

Myths About Gender Confirmation Surgery

A really short post; no time to blog today. Check back tomorrow

This is going to be really short.

I said last week that I was going to blog every Tuesday. I only have 15 more minutes in the library so I won't be able to write a full post.

But :)

Sometime tomorrow I'm going to write a post about job interviews and a drunken conversations.

Anyway :)

For once I didn't lie when I said it was going to be a short post

Thoughts about a blog I meant to write last week and on being "straight"

So I have this goal of trying to write an entry every Tuesday. Let's see how long I can keep that up :)

Anyway...

Last week I wanted to write a little bit about how I think our society affects our sexualities and I didn't. I ended up writing about some doubts that I deal with rather frequently.

I've had a week to think about it now, plus a comment that was brought to my attention. This trans guy who I'm very attracted to, who tends to send me mixed signals, who isn't on T yet (or he just started), who I don't think is mature enough for me to date anyway, but if the situation were to arise I'd probably say fuck it and date him anyway....

Actually, I don't know.

In the past three to four years I have been growing up really quickly, kind of catching up so to speak, but now post transition I really feel like a normal 31 year old woman. And I really don't want to go back to being 26, and I don't want to date someone who is going through all that stuff, especially someone who is just starting the process of transitioning.

Transition was wonderful and a whole lot of fun, but I'm kind of glad that it is over and I'm ready to move past it.

I mean, I'm probably not the type of person to go stealth, and I really do want to be a supportive of the people in my life who are transitioning. I also think that trans issues and theories are always going to be important to me. I just  don't think I'd want to be dating someone going through that process.

Not that I think I'd have to relive to much of my own transition or carry too much of the person's transition.

But,

Basically it was this comment I was told about that really got me thinking and really put things into perspective for me:

"Some straight girls (Natalie) want me to end up being a straight guy"

or it was something to that affect anyway.

First, I found it kind of funny. However you define me I'm not straight. (That is actually a physical impossibility for me, LOL)

Anyway,

I was going to write a blog entry about how I'd never feel comfortable dating a man, how I find men attractive sometimes but I wouldn't feel comfortable actually having sex with them, how I thought that maybe that had something to do with having been raised male in a homophobic society and how maybe despite having transitioned there is still some learned attitudes towards me being with a man that I can't overcome.

Then, I realized that whole line of argument is kind of bull shit.

I don't find muscles, or body hair, or penises to be at all attractive. Actually I find them to be kind of repulsive.

I am attracted to boyish looking females. A lot of boyish looking "females" end up turning out to actually be trans men pre-transition, but when I am attracted to them that isn't what I'm responding to.

I do find masculinity to be attractive (in the type of people I am attracted to) and the whole thing becomes really confusing to me because a lot of the time I don't see someone's sex so much as I do their gender. But that doesn't change the fact that the type of body I am attracted to is female, very androgynous female.

Something so basic that I almost feel shallow for putting it this way but a person's body plays a very big part in whether or not I find that person attractive.

I am not attracted to physically male people enough to want to date them. I'm 31. I'm post transition. This isn't likely to change.

"Some straight girls (Natalie) want me to end up being a straight guy" The thing about this is...by the time that happened I seriously don't know that I'd still find him attractive.

And that might be a real relief. Nothing complicates a friendship like sexual attraction.

Also, as weird as it sounds. The argument I was going to make had something to do with having at points in my life identified as a heterosexual male and not wanting to let go of the last remaining part of that identity. But then again, when I was 13 thinking about transitioning I assumed I would end up being a heterosexual female. I thought that it wasn't so much the type of person I was attracted to but the type of relationship. I mean had I ended up being het female I would have ended up being the girl in a familiar type of relationship, whereas this whole lesbian thing is something I need to figure out. In a very real way by staying the same I have changed, and no experience I had ever had prior to transitioning could have let me know what it would feel like right now.

I mean when it comes down to it, sexuality is so complicated and hormones are so powerful that I think it is a mistake to approach transition with the attitude that "I am going to be such and such..." just relax and let the ride take you where it is going to take you.

I think the right attitude to take when transitioning is an attitude where you question everything. I knew myself at 13 but I didn't have any idea who I would be at 27, just like at 27 I had no idea who I would be post transition, just like right now I don't know who I will be when I am old.

I have to say that it's weird that before transitioning holding onto the idea of being "straight" was comforting whereas now being "straight" is a little disconcerting.

I'm going to keep an open mind. Maybe there is some guy out there who I'll totally fall in love with (even when he has hair and muscles and all that gross stuff) but I doubt it.

Transpanic? after all this time?

Well I financed a car.

That's a story in and of its self, but I'm not going to go into it here.

Just. you should have seen the piece of shit that I almost bought with the money I used for my down payment.

Anyway, I feel like a woman.

Not in the gendered sense, I mean.

It's been a long time that I've walked to work, and or bought crappy cars that I could pay for out of pocket, and/or were given to me by my parents. Actually, I've never financed a car before....and now I have no spending money.

It makes me think back on my life prior to transitioning and how I really have grown up a lot since transitioning. It's kind of the only argument I can really make to say that this is something I really needed to do.

I'm a grown up...YAY!

Other than that...I guess I've been kinda thinking about my transition and my gender and everything recently. Yeah, I know, gender is something that I think about all the time. Anyway, I have a lot of masculine traits (or traits that I consider masculine). My friends, co-workers, and people who know me might disagree with that, but what I guess I mean to say is that now that all the turmoil of a second adolescence has quieted and I'm really just getting on with my life, I'm realizing more and more that the only way I've really changed is that I've grown up more.

Well, there are other things, I'm more confident, I dress differently, I'm generally in a better mood, I take better care of myself, I'm more openly feminine.

That person I am when I'm falling asleep, or when I'm thinking, or praying, or talking to friends, or working, or doing any of the other things that I do is still the same.

And it makes me wonder whether this transition was something I needed to do.

I mean, I know it is something I needed to do but hypothetically...

It makes me wonder whether maybe I am really just a super super extreme cross-dresser. It makes me wonder whether all this gender presentation of mine is at the core all basically fake.

And when I'm wondering about that and I look at my reflection in the mirror I feel really self-loathing.Which is a feeling I am unfortunately very familiar with.

When I think about being trans, there is a tendency that I have to think of my life as having a time before I was trans, a time when I was normal, so to speak, happy about having been born physically male. But if I actually try to pinpoint that time I realize that it doesn't really exist.

Even when I couldn't really pinpoint what it was, I always felt wrong. I always felt awkward, out of place. I always felt a bit of self loathing and discomfort and feeling that somehow I wasn't what I was supposed to be.

Was I really supposed to be a boy, a man?

I'm writing all of this because: one, I want to be honest. I want people to know that three and a half years after coming out to my parents, very nearly three years on hormones, and a very successful transition, I still have these feelings sometimes. Two, I also want people to know that transitioning isn't such a straight forward thing. I know I needed to transition. I know that I fit more closely into that box that says female than I do male, but those definitions don't fit me any better than anyone else. I mean, I can honestly say that if I told anyone who knows me now that I wonder whether I am really feminine enough they wouldn't really see any justification in it. I am really femme. More femme than most cisgendered women. this whole thing is something that I really had to think about, and I really had to struggle with. And three, I am as influenced by societal standards as anyone else.

All these doubts that I have (which really aren't that major) I know don't come from within. It's just a mild re-occurrence of "transpanic," getting all panicky because of being trans.

I don't know if gay people experienced something similar back in a time and place where being gay wasn't thought to be natural.

You know I go through life with the simple fact that if I'm honest about my past it nullifies my present in the minds of a lot of people. Or even when I keep my past more to myself, someone sees something in a mannerism of mine, or a tone of my voice, or maybe a combination of factors like me being tall and broad shouldered, and they read me as a trans women, and they make assumptions about me that they would never make about any other woman.

Like, I am a lesbian...basically, that isn't so black and white for me either. I was hanging out in a lesbian bar, which I hang out at because I know people, and I like to meet girls, and hopefully meet girls I actually have a chance at dating. This one lady was sitting beside me being really annoying. She asked me how long I'd been out. First I had to ask her to clarify, because I wasn't sure whether she meant "out of the closet" or "out for the evening." She meant out of the closet. I gave her an honest answer. I left out the trans part, because I'm tired of explaining of trying to explain something that I don't really understand. Then she asked me if I had a boyfriend.

Okay she read me as trans, then made a whole bunch of assumptions about me because of that that she wouldn't have made about any other woman dressed like I was, hanging out where I was.

Why does the fact that I am a trans woman make it any more acceptable (in anyone's mind) to assume anything about my sexuality. When people assume I'm straight when I'm sitting in a straight bar or grocery shopping, or whatever...okay. I don't look like a lesbian. (I don't look like a trans woman for that matter either).

It's also, why did she read me? My voice, the fact that I was wearing jeans and a hoodie, the fact that I wasn't being overtly feminine, combined with other little things that all added up?

Why is it that as a trans woman if I'm not wearing a skirt or dress with my hair, nails, and makeup looking perfectly I get read? or rather, I don't mind getting read. Why is it in the people who read mes' minds trans is somehow something different. Me dressing a bit more masculinely for a woman (which by the way isn't very masculine) is somehow less valid than any other lesbian dressing masculinely.

How in the hell does a trans woman use clothing and appearance to indicate that she is not (generally speaking) into men without saying something about her gender that she doesn't want to say?

So then of course that whole transpanic that I talked about earlier.

Was I really supposed to be a boy/man? really?!

Honestly, ultimately, like I'm sure I've written about before, is I resolved those doubts after years of struggling with myself and my gender when I asked myself the question of how am I different? How would any other basically healthy female person have reacted in my situation? Isn't it perfectly natural for a female to want to be female?

...
I wanted to write a little today also about how show society influences our sexuality, but I don't have time.
I hope you enjoyed this little rant.

...
Oh and whatever transpanic I was feeling. I'm not really feeling it anymore.

About the TG Prom that I am planning

Okay this is going to be a quick entry.

I'm still plugging away at my book. I'm at just over 45,000 words right now, which is a long way from being finished but is also a lot more than I've ever written on any one piece of writing, so I'm already proud of it.

One thing that I'm really excited about is the fundraiser I'm planning to pay for my gender confirmation surgery. I'm planning a TG Prom for trans people and trans allies in Richmond VA, and the Gay Community Center is going to donate the space for me to hold it!!!

Right now all I need to do is raise the funds for a security deposit!



Yeah, I know. This is a shameless plug, asking for donations.

The thing about it is, Gender Confirmation Surgery is really expensive. For someone like me who makes next to nothing it is almost out of reach. I mean to have surgery in the United States, which is very preferable, will cost me more than my entire years salary.

I've actually been thinking about organizing a TG Prom for a while. For one, though I did in fact go to my actual prom, I really wish I could go back in time and go to Prom as I am now, and wear something that makes me feel good about myself, instead of the tux that I wore that I felt a little ridiculous in. And I also want there to be a trans centered event within the LGBT community. I really feel like the "T" is really misunderstood and too often ignored.

I also think as far as fundraisers go the TG prom is a great fundraiser.

And it will be a whole lot of fun for the community.

And it is a positive way to bring the entire LGBT community together and bring a little more visibility to trans issues.

And what I would like to see is for this event to become an annual thing in Richmond. Something that gives people a chance to show their support for trans issues, and something that gives trans people an opportunity to go to an event and feel proud about being trans.

What I would like to see happen is for this to happen every year and become a really big thing. Every year it can help a different trans person pay for a surgery that they wouldn't be able to pay for otherwise. Not only that but the person who the prom benefits can be a major person involved in organizing it. So it also will give that person a chance to earn money for their surgery.

I'm actually really excited about it. As I'm sure you can tell.

I mean, I actually get to have my very own prom, with my very own theme, and decoration ideas and everything, and it will help pay for my gender confirmation surgery.

I know I've written in the past what this surgery means to me, so I won't re-write it in this entry.

Anyway, I hope this thing is every bit as fun and raises all the money I hope.

So please donate and help me throw this event!

New cup size, a bit about really needing SRS, and actually being thankful to be trans.

Well I had to buy new bras.

Over the last month or so all my bras straps have been snapping. I mean I go to pull my breasts into the cups and pop there goes another strap. Well the last one finally gave way late Monday night when I took it off. Actually it had broken like a week earlier but I sewed it back together.

I'll go without a bra sometimes when I go out. I mean my girls are pretty amazing looking. I have like the breasts of a teenager and I can legally drink :)

But I always wear a bra to work. For one thing I have to wear these baggy unisex (which means guy) kitchen shirts at work and I want my girls to have the lift to be visible under the shirt especially when I get stuck in a shirt a size to big. Also, I have a very physically demanding job and well there is a big difference between having my tits bounce around when I'm drinking at a bar and having them bounce around at work.

So yeah, I had to go bra shopping yesterday. Fun.

Anyway I just went to Ross. I was fitted last year and I think I made a pretty good assumption that I had just gone up a cup size. So I went to the bras and picked out some D cups and then went to try them on.

Guess what. They fit! Yay D cups.

Actually weirdly, or not, I was pretty happy with C's. I'm starting to wonder when they're going to stop growing.

Oh and guess what. Still no cleavage. I mean the breasts touching and a nice beautiful sexy line forming.Yeah I don't get that. I have push up bras and everything.

But I guess I am a D cup now. The bras definitely fit.

I mean I don't have the "ploop" sound when I take it off at the end of the night. You know the sound of a breast being shoved into a cup too small and sweating, and then when you take it out at the end of the night it's almost stuck for a little while?

I'm exaggerating a bit here for effect.

That only happened a couple of times, when it was hot outside.

...and in other news it's looking like I'm not getting the Jim Collins grant this year. Maybe I'll publish my essay. It's a lot more personal than it was last year.

The thing about surgery for me is...I've so transitioned. I mean in every aspect of my life I am a woman. Except that one little thing.

It's hard to explain without making it sound like a sex thing. Yes I would really love to be able to take a partner home and not have to stop at heavy petting. Or even just having the confidence in myself that I don't have to hold back until I really trust that whoever I'm dating or might be dating respects that I have a part of my body that I don't like, that I really don't like.

I mean even without sex I definitely am stand-offish when it comes to a close relationship. I mean I can't be fully myself when there is a part of me that isn't really a part of me.

It's just so many assumptions people have about people because of what they have between their legs.

It's "Oh well you're still part guy right?"

Or "You must really like it up the ass."

I'm not a gay dude and never have been. I don't know it's this pressure to play a role that isn't who I am or a role I'm comfortable playing that really gets to me.

Then there's the changing my sex with social security, and not having doctors and dentists insist on calling me by pronouns that aren't appropriate. Or co-workers (actually only one in particular who I never should have let know that I'm trans) have the most difficult time believing that I am who I say I am.

FYI. Your sex is in your head not in between your legs.

I was thinking about it this morning lying in bed. I really want someone who'll spoon behind me, pressing her breasts into my shoulders with her arm around me and her hand on my breasts. I don't know where I was going with this...

Anyway, I'm really ready for this transition thing to be over, to move on with my life. To only be reminded that I'm trans when I take my medicine.

I don't know. It's hard not to be envious of cis-sexual people who are able to take their gender for granted. I mean when I was told as a small child that I had a penis because I was a little boy it didn't make sense to me. It wasn't "Oh of course! That seems right!" It was "Oh?!"

You know though. Even though I was born trans I am still really glad to be girl. I think the only thing worse for me than having been born trans-female would be had I actually been male.

Ewwwwww!

Bad grammar/spelling is not attractive, and other rants and raves

Well that guy I wrote about last time...I had to text him that I didn't think I was interested.

On Tuesday last week when we met I was going to give him a chance with a date. He actually seemed to be interested in me as a person not just a "chick with a dick." I mean, so many people, cis-gendered guys in particular don't really see me as a real person just an exotic sex object. having someone attracted to me as a woman and not as a trans-woman is really attractive.

On the other hand...

Don't leave out apostrophes it really is not attractive, nor is spelling "you're" as "your," and "when" as "ween." Also drop the "e" before adding "ing." Reading shit like "I like it ween we talked. I hop your haveing a good day" is really, really, really unattractive.

Also if we only met one time and had a rather awkward conversation and I decide to give you a chance. It doesn't mean that I want to go out the very next day, or that I want to have long conversations with you via badly spelled/punctuated/grammatically incorrect texts.

And if we'd been dating for a while asking me how my day is going would be sweet, if we've just met it's just a little too much.

Finally, although I am making an effort not to hold someone's sex against them as a criteria for dating them, if you are male you really need to proceed slowly. Although I don't like/believe in sexual categories, and you could call me "bisexual," I am now and always have been slightly more attracted to female bodied people than I am to male bodied people. Keep that in mind and don't try to move things too quickly.

I wanted to write an update to my last entry. I don't know why I care that people know who and what type of people I am attracted to sexually. It doesn't really matter.

Then again, if I try to rationalize why I need people to see me as female, there isn't really a rational reason for it.

Gender identity and sexuality has to be biological just for that reason.

In other news I contacted  a professor in VCU counseling psychology. I'm looking into being a therapist/researcher for trans people. I briefly outline some of my viewpoints on the whole gender spectrum thing and asked for advice as to what I should do to get into the program.

She hasn't responded back. Perhaps I shouldn't have written so much about what I think. I'm not sure. It wasn't a long email but perhaps I should have just been more to the point and just asked what I wanted to know, not explain where I'm coming from.

Also, I have written 142 pages of my rough draft for my first novel which is basically a memoir. Writing a book is a lot harder and more time consuming than I thought.

When I was in college I took a class in stone carving. The first day we chipped away at our granite rocks with chisels the way that Michelangelo would have. The second day we were able to use the modern pneumatic chisels. I decided that were I to carve David it wouldn't be worth chipping away at stone by hand for as long as it would take.

Writing this book is kind of reminding me of that.

142 pages in I'm really beginning to see the finished book, but it is a long way away, and I'm going to have to reorganize and rewrite so much of what I've written.

Of course, I'm at the point where I have to finish this book, and I have to get it published, and it has to be fucking phenomenal because I've put to much work into it already not to finish it.

And I really hope it makes money.

Also, I am going to figure out a way to go back to school.
I am so burnt out on cooking as a profession that I just want to escape.
Give me an office and decent income. I'm so sick of being broke.

And I haven't heard back from the Jim Collins Foundation yet. In all seriousness I don't know how much longer I can go without my operation. I'm actually really starting to get depressed about it.

About gender performance and dating.

I'm going to have to retire one of my favorite blouses soon. The reason it is one of my faves is because it is really flattering, makes me look really curvy and really shows off my boobs. When I bought it I had B cups and it was a little snug buttoning the top button. Now I have really full c cups (actually I'm wondering if I won't have to go up a cup size soon) and can't even wear it while wearing a bra. So I wore it Sunday night with every intention of going to a drag show before going to sing Karaoke. I don't really even like drag, and I got distracted on my way to the show, and ended up eating dinner at a friends.

Anyway, it's been a month or two since I've worn that top and my tits were on the verge of popping out all night. A good thing I guess, but I actually don't want to accidentally flash anyone. It's funny though, as an observation, when I had much smaller breasts it seemed ridiculous to be shy about them. Of course, when I had smaller breasts they didn't seem all that much like breasts to me either, but I'm getting off topic.

So I went to karaoke, with my tits as exposed as I would ever feel comfortable in a public place, (The top is ruffled also so I can show a whole lot without it seeming obscene.) and this girl came up to me. "I went to one of your recent shows." She said.

"Huh?" 

"The country Western show a few Sundays ago."

"Oh I don't work at Babe's"

"But don't you do shows?"

It started to dawn on me that she thought I was a performer. (I'd also been a little heavier on the eyeliner than I usually am. I saw a picture of a model with cat eyes in Glamour and thought I'd give it a try). "I don't perform."

"Oh, you should, you'd be really good!"

"I'm not a drag queen." She paused. It was actually hard to tell what she was thinking. "For one thing," I said, "These are real." I pointed to my halfway exposed right breast. "And this gender is my real gender."

Things started to get really awkward and I realized she'd been trying to give me a compliment/flirt with me, and didn't realize that she was being more insulting than anything else, or rather it had just dawned on her and was now a little embarrassed.

The other thing is...I almost never pick up on a feminine person hitting on me. I mean, I can tell when a butch is hitting on me but almost never when a femme is. Perhaps, (personal body issues aside) this has something to do with the fact that I practically never dated before I transitioned.

Speaking of which, I think I have another date, with a guy,(different guy) and I'm a little apprehensive about it. I met him in Babe's, and he's kinda short (though really built) and I read him as a trans guy, or as a possibly trans guy. I probably wouldn't have been so open to conversation with him if I hadn't.

So I gave him my number, and he texted me, a lot, yesterday. He's really into me. 

Here's the thing. I have never dated a guy before. I made out with one guy once shortly after I started living full time. (I don't remember if I was on hormones yet or not) and I didn't really feel any chemistry... then of course I slept with my date when I was a bridesmaid, but he was someone I've known for a while and trust.

It's a bit of a leap for me to go on an actually date with a guy, and I hope he has the sense to realize that. Dating guys isn't something I'm exactly comfortable with. And honestly, I'm not sure that there is any potential with any of them, cisgendered anyway.

Of course, they're a hell of a lot easier to pick up. I mean, I can be really picky when it comes to guys, they seem to make offers constantly.

Then of course the final thing to say, and I'm about out of time, is that well that guy I wrote about last entry, at first was really condescendingly dismissive of me "thanks for writing about me," he said, "You're a great writer." and now I think he took my last entry to mean that I didn't want to be friends with him.

Which isn't what I said. I don't think. 

about friendship (by request)

Well I guess I have a date with the wine delivery guy at work. He's been trying to get my number or something for months and I ran into him walking home with groceries yesterday. He asked if I would like to meet him for a drink sometime and I relented and said "sure."

Maybe it'll be a good thing. I don't think it's going to lead anywhere, but I'm trying to be a little more open because I just turned 31 and I've never been in a real committed relationship. I once dated a girl for six months when I was in college, and then after transitioning I dated a trans guy for like two weeks and a lesbian for three months.

Anyway, the wine delivery guy seems like a decent person and seems relatively healthy and mature, all of which would be really nice. I think I'd prefer that a lesbian take an interest in me but as liberal and as accepting as RVA is I think lesbians don't consider me to be someone date-able.

Actually, I'm thinking that perhaps no one does, though I'm going to work on the theory that maybe I've just been too closed for too long...and people pick up on that.

So I have been hanging out with that guy I cut off back in November of last year. He wanted me to write about him, and believe me I've been tempted, but I think he actually reads this blog.

He's going to be starting on T soon. I'm really glad that he will be.

I am of the belief that hormones are a medical need for transsexuals. I know that I was partially stuck in pre-adolescence until I transitioned, and I see that in a few of the pre-transition people that I know, not everyone, but in quite a few. I think puberty is a necessary thing to go through and I think going through the wrong puberty is similar to not going through puberty at all.

I've said this before. There were a lot of things that I just didn't get before I transitioned. And that really affected my ability to function normally.

It's complicated to explain what hormones do for transsexuals, but it is a really big deal.

That said, I've been tolerating a lot from this guy that I wouldn't tolerate otherwise. I'm also beginning to run out of patience.

I mean, I'm not getting angry, it's just that more and more I'm thinking that what I'm going to have to do and keep doing to be his friend is just way more than friendship is worth to me.

I've been trying to figure out a way to write about friendship, or rather what friendship means to me. I have a couple of friends I care a great deal for and have been friends with for a long time. I have a few friends that i haven't known for very long but I really value spending time with them and they're the types of people that I want to have more of in my life. Then there are a few more people who I trust and can depend on and are just really decent people to me and I appreciate their friendship because of that. Then there are more people who I end up spending a lot of time with because we do the same things. Then there are a bunch of people who like me and I like them and maybe we only ever meet occasionally, or we nod at each other when we pass on the street. If I was having a huge party like I used to in college I'd probably invite them.

Basically I commit to people to the level they are willing to commit to me.
I think this is healthy and what most people do.

I think with this guy I've been hanging out with again...he has no idea how he feels about me, and isn't even willing to commit to dinner...or when he does he sulks the whole time and acts like I tricked him into something.

"Investing" in a friendship is bullshit and dishonest. If I call someone to hang out it's because I want to hang out with that person, not because I feel like I need to or should or because I want something else later. If I hang out with someone every night it's because I want to not because I'm trying to build a friendship.

Although, that said, if I hang out with someone like all the time it starts to feel like a relationship.

Especially when he's doing things like kissing me good night. (Okay, little friendly kisses and only once open mouthed).

Of course after a couple of weeks he basically disappeared.

He doesn't want a relationship with me which is fine, but he doesn't seem to understand my limits when it comes to friendship.

Being friends with someone you want to date but aren't going to sucks. I've done that before and learned that however great the friendship it usually isn't worth it.

On top of the mixed signals are the flat out contradictions he makes. I think he doesn't give me credit for having as good of a memory as I do...I here him telling other people things that are completely different from what he told me, for example:

When we first met he told me he had majored in Painting and Printmaking at VCU, just recently he told someone I was talking to that he majored in Kinetic Imaging.

My friends tell me I should just drop him, (except for one) and I'm probably not going to do that...but after our conversation last November (my brother's birthday BTW, yeah I remember the date...arghhh) I don't take him all that seriously. I mean, he really wants to be friends.

I mean he told me once that he really wanted to be friends. Actually he begged. But when it comes down to it he's not really into being a friend.

He broke up with a boyfriend and then decided to spend a whole lot of time with me then he got uncomfortable because he doesn't want to date me and decided to spend no time what soever with me (and hang out with his ex again, and hit on this kid I used to work with. This of course is all speculation.

I think it also might be that he only wants to be my friend when he really feels the need to transition.

Either way I don't think I'm really a part of it.

Just, when he isn't showing off how smart he is in front of my friends, or trying to start an argument or doe something to be the center of attention. He can actually be really, really sweet.

I wish other people (at least other people I know) could see that side of him. It would make me look a little less crazy for putting up with him.

Arghh... He requested that I write about him again. Apparently a lot of people know of him through this blog. I don't know if he'll like what I wrote. Actually he probably won't.

Actually I think he might be really pissed off. I probably would be.

I'd probably stop talking to myself.

Definitions (again) which aren't mainstream ideas yet but are true nonetheless

I haven't had much to write about recently.

Not that there hasn't been anything happening, just nothing happening that I really feel like writing about in this blog. Too many people I know read this blog and there are some situations I don't want to post about here.

Some good some bad.

Anyway, I haven't written about my troubles with the TG clinic recently, and I won't. Overall I think they're doing a wonderful thing...they probably saved my life.

Also for whatever reason a lot of people I know have been making a lot of progress in their transitions recently.

I have kind of been coming to a new sense of understanding of myself as trans recently also. Which is interesting. It's really hard to explain. I do not identify as transgender. There is nothing trans about my gender, or gender expressions, or likes and dislikes, or my identity for that matter. But I do have a trans experience, and appreciation for which I'm increasingly proud of. I've toyed with the idea of doing drag (female to male) but the truth is I couldn't bear to see it. So as awesome as I think drag kings are I could never do it. Perhaps I'm not quite over the trauma of being misgendered for such a long time. On the other hand, I'm really not that type of girl. Masculinity is something I don't identify with enough to ever want to express. (masculinity referring in this instance to how one experiences their gender)

So, I am not transgender. I've talked about this with other transsexuals and maybe a few cissexuals. I don't know if cissexual cisgender people are capable of understanding it.

So to define terms (again):

Gender is how one experiences the world in terms of being masculine or feminine (or in between).
Sex is to what extent one's body is male or female.
Gender Identity refers to the innate sense of one's body (or what that body is supposed to be) as male, or female (or somewhere in between).
Transsexual is someone who's gender identity is not the same as their sex
Transgender is someone who's gender is not the same as their gender identity.

Make sense?

It is possible to be transsexual but not transgender, and it is possible to be transgender and not transsexual.

At one point I experienced my gender (masculine) as something different than my gender identity (female).
My gender never seemed natural to me (like feminine does) but I never the less experienced it. That made me transgender. I also experienced my gender identity (female) as different from my sex (male) which made me transsexual.
I gravitated towards my natural gender (feminine) over time and as I matured and became more confident in myself as a person. My natural gender matches my gender identity but not my sex. Hence I am transsexual not transgender. And there is a difference.

trans/cis misunderstandings and what I can anticipate with SRS

I posed a question on facebook asking my cisgendered women friends what they would say if they had to write an 800 word essay describing why they wanted to keep their vagina and how it played into their plans for the future.

I got a response which I kind of wasn't anticipating. I hope she isn't mad at me for reposting it here.

short answer: while i enjoy certain activities with it, the thing it's designed to do as a result of that completely horrifies me. its potential to do that thing, reproduce, causes me discomfort on a monthly basis, and general anxiety on a less regular basis. so im not a hundred percent sure i'd want to keep it, or if somebody offered me a trade for something that didn't have the potential to create life but still was utilitarian in a sexual way, i might take it.

I think that there are actually a lot of trans/cis misunderstandings encompassed in this response. So I thought it warranted a little bit of a discussion.

It would be really hypocritical of me to claim that I knew what it was like to have a period or have the potential to give birth. I don't and I never will. And I think that fact, in and of itself, makes a lot of cisgendered women skeptical as to how legitimate a woman a transsexual woman actually is. I mean, I've often gotten, "you get all the advantages of being a woman without ever having to have a period." Well...I guess. I mean I think that this is a situation where both groups really feel their disadvantage to this question.

I'll try to explain my feelings from a trans perspective, which is all I'm really capable of.

My penis is not a source of pleasure for me. At best, I don't really think about it. A lot of the time it hurts when it becomes erect, though I don't particularly like having erections anyway. My penis isn't really a source of pleasure for me either. It most certianly isn't anything I would ever feel comfortable sharing with someone else. I have had sex in the past as a male and I did enjoy the closeness to another person, but I was rather detatched from the actual act. It just was never something I felt, so much as it was an action I performed. It's really complicated to explain, because I was attracted to my partner. I think the only way I can explain it is that my mind is wired for a different anatomy. I was capable of using my penis as a penis but I never really felt any connection with that action. 

I'm not going to get pregnant. I'm not going to get anyone pregnant as a matter of fact; I don't ejaculate anymore. But I have to say that the presense of a vagina does not make any woman fertile or give her periods. That has more to do with internal organs that I don't really have the option of getting.

One could argue that my penis is "utilitarian in a sexual way," but only for sexual acts that I'm not interested in and don't really enjoy.

On top of that there is such a connection between having a penis and masculinity in our society that it will always connect me with maleness. I wrote yesterday about how important it really is for me not to be regarded as male, because on a very deep level I identify as female. What cis women have that they will never understand or appreciate is that from the moment they were born they've been identified as female, they have never had to fight for that, they've never had that denied from them, and even if they were, or are occasionally mistaken as men they can dismiss it on a level that I that I can't.

It's easy to complain about being able to get pregnant and having a period, when you don't want to get pregnant and when your femaleness is above question in the eyes of the world.

For me, at 30, I wish I could have my own children. I really wish I could have my own children. Maybe I'm not ready for them right now but I wish that it was a possibility. Maybe someday I'll be able to adopt, if I move to state where being trans doesn't disqualify me on moral grounds. And that isn't quite the same, plus, until I get my surgery I can't change my birth certificate which means if I move across state lines I'll be identified as male.

I don't know. I can never explain this. If it were required and possible for me to have a monthly period for the rest of my life so that I could be regarded as female, I would without hesitation. Even though I haven't experienced it and have no way of knowing what it is really like.

That said, when I do go for in my surgery I'll have to stop taking hormones about a week before. That won't be pleasant. My atrophied testicles will not be able to produce testosternoe like they once did but they will produce some and testosterone, expecially when it hasn't been in my system for a while makes me feel like shit, kind of depressed and really irratable. After my surgery, I'll be completely bedridden for several days, after which they'll remove my catheter and several yards of bloody gauze and they'll teach me to dilate. I'll continue to bleed off and on for a couple weeks and occassionally when I dilate for quite a while. I'll be able to start homones again, which will be nice, but after a couple of weeks without them I'll be really moody for the first month. Peeing will hurt since my vagina will basically be an open wound, and since my muscles will have been realligned it will take me a little while to figure out how. Dilating will hurt for the first couple of months; I'll be stretching my vaginal tissue and making sure it doesn't close with scar tissue. I'll have to dilate for fifteen minutes a day three times a day for a year, and then I'll be able to scale that back a little. 

That is if I don't have any complications. 

After the first year my life will basically return to normal (except I'll still have to dilate). I still won't be able to get pregnant and I won't have any periods.

I don't know what it is like to be a cissexual woman, but the physical discomfort that my trans vagina will cause me won't be any walk in the park either.

So why do I want to go through all that?

That's what I'm trying to write 800 words about, and why I asked that question of my cissexual friends. 

about body image and trans feelings and trying to write another essay for the Jim Collins grant

I wanted to write about this essay I'm trying to write for the Jim Collin's Grant, and some about  the intesity of trans feelings, and about seeing some pictures recently that were taken of me in college.

I looked really feminine. Alot more so than I realized. I looked alot like I do now. I wasn't hiding this whole trans thing quite a deeply as I thought.

And then about my appearance. I don't think I'm shallow but looking like a woman is really really important to me, or at least believing that I do. I mean, us trans women sometimes get shit on about obsessing with our appearance and posting a thousand pitures of ourselves...but then again we've lived a significant portion of our lives being called men, and being told how masculine we look, and even telling ourselves that. It's not that passing is the end all be all, but our sense of gender really is.

I mean, if I were to here things like "he's really a man" all the time, or even just constantly being "he'd" I'd probably suffer from some form of depression. Actually, I think I did back when I did. 

I mean when you transition you have a stage of gender euphoria when you first allow yourself to express yourself as the gender you identify with, but it wears off after a while. It stops being something special, it's just how you dress and who you are. If after all of that, and even maybe years of expressing who you are through the clothing you wear you still have everyone misgendering you...it takes someone really strong. I mean for a trans woman to be called "he" is basically saying to her that you think that deep down at one of her deepest levels you think she is a fake. And since our gender is such an essential truth to who we are, something that we are willing to risk our lives for, it really really hurts.

I hope that someday we live in a society where neough people understand gender that it is easy to dismiss someone who says "that's really a man," but right now we don't. If that was something I heard all the time, or chose to hear all the time, or thought I heard all the time...I might just be a little suicidal.

I mean, it actually really affected me hearing that a trans woman my age, who I saw at Babe's regularly, and who I'd spoken with a couple of times, had committed suicide. I don't know her well enough to say what her reasoning was. Or even speculate. But I do know she dealt with the same condition that for the grace of God didn't take my life, and I wanted to write something about it.

I write this blog to give a sense about who I am as a person. I write it both so that people who are in the same place I was before I transitioned can read my experience and so that people who aren't trans, maybe can know that I'm a real person. I don't live my life in costume. I really am female, and being trans can really hurt.

The final thing I want to write about is this essay I'm in the process of writing for the Jim Collin's foundation. Basically I need to explain who I am and how surgery is in my plan for the future. Basically why do I want a vagina.

Okay, yes. I do want to have sex, sex that I'm not going to feel somewhat disconnected from, uncomfortable with, and for the most part dissapointed with. I know I need a vagina for that...

But I don't want to write 800 words about wanting to have sex. That will make me sound like a perv. 

I will feel complete, it will relieve an awful lot of discomfort I feel in my body. I'll be more comfortable at the beach, or at a pool, or at a club, or hell wearing blue jeans in the kitchen, anywhere it occasionally comes untucked. It will make things a lot more comfortable without having to deal with all the secondary issues of tucking all the time...not that it is painful to tuck, but it does get uncomfortble holding it all between my legs when it is supper hot outside. It'll be nice to be able to make out with someone and not have to worry about it poping out, I mean, not that anyone I ever make out with doesn't know but it kills my mood when that thing is present.

I don't know. It isn't really an easy essay to write. 

If you're a woman...why do you need a vagina.

A short post about some research in trans theory, and a little about two trans people meeting

I don't have much to write about. Go figure. Anyway I thought I should update this blog a little.

I have decided to go back to school for a PHD in Gender Studies. I want to research and develop trans theory. Anyway I've been spending quite a lot of time reading and taking notes.

It's interesting that Christine Jorgensen explained herself as having a hormonal imbalance. that's how I've always understood myself and it seems that a lot of other trans people feel similarly. I think that whole "woman trapped in a man's body" cliche might have been something forced on us by cisgender therapists and researchers with their own agenda.

Anyway, I think I'm going to write my paper along those lines, as in what I think being trans actually is versus  how a whole lot of people have tried to explain us away while completely disregarding our experiences and feelings on the issue.

I do think things are changing though. We're not considered mentally ill anymore, which is a definite step in the right direction, and hopefully more and more of us will go into fields where we can influence how trans people are understood and treated. I think it will happen. I think it is happening.

I also wanted to write an entry about why I don't have any MTF friends...let me rephrase that a little...why I haven't really met any MTF people I get along with real well, but I don't think I have enough time. In a nutshell most of us blend in so well that we're kind of hard to spot. I mean, I could probably be considered an expert at spotting transgender people, but for me it's much more difficult to be confident that someone is trans when they are post transition.  I mean, they match. There isn't really any disconnect to see. And then in all honesty physical norms for male and female overlap so much that unless someone transitioned fairly late in life and has a whole lot of physical markings of the opposite sex it's really hard to be sure enough that someone is trans to ask them. On top of that, even when I know someone is trans, there is still the whole thing about confronting them about it, which I'm not comfortable doing. I mean, I have been approached about it (usually by drag queens or cross dressers) and once I'm like "yeah" then what? Do they read my blog? usually not. Do we necessarily have anything in common?

This whole being trans thing is kind of like having red hair only it isn't quite so easy to see.

"So hey, you have red hair! So do I!"
"Okay."

There is the whole experience of it, which is very interesting to talk to. Hell I keep this blog about it. Of course most of the transwomen I've met haven't been too interested in theory and honestly have seemed a little more interested in stuff like how to pass....Of course, Maybe I've met a whole bunch of transwomen and not even known it.

I pass, she passes, and neither one of us is particularly aware that the other person is trans.

Which I guess is the heart of it.

Am I satisfied?

So I just got home from a day trip to DC. I spent a little bit of time with an old friend whom I haven’t seen much of in the last few years. She asked me if I was satisfied.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean are you satisfied with life.”

I answered briefly that I am not satisfied with my career, that I want better friends, as in I don’t have very many close friends, that I don’t want to remain single for the rest of my life (even though I’m kinda beginning to lose hope that I’ll ever find someone) but that I am very thankful for what I do have.

It’s a strange question. It’s a very probing question that really asks me to think. We were close before I transitioned, and her ability to challenge me was something I always liked. I feel bad, because I feel that I pretty much just talked about myself and didn’t try to find out to much about what has been happening in her life since we talked more often.

I have gone through a lot in the last few years. She told me I never seemed to be inauthentic before I transitioned, that I always seemed to be sincere. “Unhappy,” she said, “but sincere.”

I will say that she is one of the few people that I didn’t hold much back from, though I’ll also say that she is basically right.

I am the same person. In fact I’m very much the same person. I’m living basically the same life I did before…well with a few exceptions. I’m generally a much healthier person, and I think that I am better at dealing with my problems.

I am more satisfied with life. I don’t feel that my life is completely wrong, (even if not much has changed) I feel like I match. I don’t feel like I look like someone different from how I feel.

Is that to say I feel like a woman? Well yes, and no. I feel like myself, like I’ve always felt. There are things about my appearance I don’t like sometimes, but basically I feel that I look like myself and I act in ways that feel natural for me. I mean, objectively speaking I look and act like a woman and feel very comfortable with that, much more comfortable than I ever felt when I looked and acted like a man. I have no way of defining what it means to “feel” like a woman, but I am pretty confident in saying that if I try to define myself I fall pretty squarely into the woman category.

Gender is a really tricky thing. I felt completely mismatched as a “man,” but to a lot of people who knew me I seemed perfectly normal. I mean, I was never a butch guy, and I did come across as Trans to quite a few people, but I didn’t seem as blatantly wrong to them as I did to myself. If I hadn’t experienced just how real it is, I would want to conclude that gender is meaningless.

Then again, if I feel like myself, and I’ve always felt like myself, and I self-define as a woman, then I’ve always felt like a woman. If I’ve always felt like a woman then I never felt like a man and I have never experienced having a male gender. All I can really say is that my gender hasn’t changed, which means, I have no special insight into the male gender.

Weird, huh?

May 24^th marks the two and a half year anniversary since the last time I ever presented as a man. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Outside of work I  presented as a woman. I had a four day weekend presenting only as a woman. Monday morning I woke up and could not force myself to present as a man ever again. I realized that for better or worse, my female gender presentation was all I had to work with.

That’s a weird experience also.

Am I satisfied with my decision to “change my sex?” Well, yes. Every morning when I wake up, and before I go to sleep and at odd times in the day when it occurs to me, I thank God that I am now living the life that I am living, and that I now have the body that I have. I’m even thankful for the little things like not having to use the men’s restroom at the Greyhound station. In another sense, it’s something that I am, not so much something that I did. Am I satisfied with being a woman? Well, I guess. It’s hard for me to imagine anything else. I mean, irregardless of how masculine or feminine I may be this is who I am.

Am I satisfied with my life? Well…

Last week I wrote a blog entry about once again getting a “thank you for applying but…” letter. I went home later that night and lay in bed praying for quite a while. “God,” I asked, “What mistakes have I made that this is my career?”

I fell asleep and had a dream. In it, I was sitting outside on a patio, around a table with about five or six other people. Some were people I knew, some were people I had never met and I was feeling disappointed that a Trans guy I once had a thing for couldn’t be there, wishing things between us could have been different. Someone commented on how big my breasts had become (which isn’t that unusual for people to tell me) One woman, a larger type, not unattractive but not my type said something about her breasts being larger than mine. “Of course,” she said, “Mine are implants.” Somehow she told me that she was Trans and that we were all sitting together to celebrate my birthday. “This is all for you.” She said referring to the group I was sitting with, “Today is your day, you’re the guest of honor, so today we’re going to serve you.” Then she gave me a birthday card.Inside there was a long “inspirational” poem. I skimmed over it, I didn’t know this woman and I wasn’t particularly interested in her advice, but I didn’t want to be rude either.

I woke up, and had to rush to get ready for work.  I wasn’t particularly happy about going to work.. About two minutes into my walk my radio shut down and refused to start playing music again. So I had my entire walk (about an hour) to think. I tried to remember what was written in the woman’s card. The closest I can remember is “Always remember that there are no right or wrong decisions. There are only choice that you make to become the person that you are.”

This actually made me feel quite a bit better about being where I am right now in my life. For one, it takes a lot of pressure off of me in trying to decide what I am going to “do” about the things in my life that I’m not satisfied with, and it makes me feel a lot better about the decisions I have made that have put me where I am right now.

In some ways Transition, once I was able to accept it, was one of the easiest, most natural things I have ever “done,” but only because it is who I am. My transition was never about trying to act, and look more like a woman. It wasn’t about learning to “pass” as a woman. It wasn’t about changing my sex. All it was was deciding that I was going to make choices to be true to myself. 

This is why it is so odd for me to ask myself if I am satisfied with my decision to change my sex. It wasn’t so much a decision as it was the only possible outcome of a bunch of tiny choices in which I could not have chosen differently and have remained true to myself.

When I was contemplating transition, I always tried to figure out why a “boy” would want to be a “girl.”  It’s the first thing people always ask me when they find out I’m Trans, and it is what makes Trans people absolutely baffling to Cisgender people. There is no answer; it’s the wrong question. The question I asked myself that finally allowed me to make sense of myself was “what if I am a girl, how am I any different from how any other girl would be given my situation?” and the answer is I’m not.

Transition is this thing that I dreaded for most of my life and then I went through and it was wonderful and now it’s in my past and I still don’t really understand it, but I am satisfied. I’m still the same person.

I don’t know. I feel like in my transition, and in everything else, there aren’t any right or wrong answers, only choices that I make to become someone I already am. I think really the only wrong choice is to choose something that isn’t who I am or what I want.

Am I satisfied with life?

In so much as it is mine, I am very satisfied.

dissapointment about my post college career, and what everyone wants to read about: 2 and a half years on hormones!!!

Well, I'm writing from the library today so I don't have much time to write.

I got yet another form letter of "thank your for your interest in working for....but we have decided to hire someone else." I quit. A decade after graduating college and sending out hundreds of resumes without any interviews I think I have to admit that my degree is essentially useless. I'm sick of it. I wish I could go back to my 15 year old self and tell "him" not to take that first job in a restaurant. I wish I had never seen the inside of a kitchen and didn't even know how to blanch green beans, but oh well. I hate my profession, and I think most people who work in my prefession grow to hate it, but I'm give up. It's the only thing anyone is willing to pay me for.

Which, sucks.

I think I'm really, really smart, and know a lot of things about a lot of different things. I think I write well and am good with people. But I guess it doesn't really matter what you can do, or even what you do well, just what you've already been paid to do. Or, what you studied in college.

The thing is, and "art" is suppossed to be free. So if that's what you want to study, better be prepared to work in some other career, probably with a bunch of people who stopped their education at high school

I've worked with some of the most intelligent people I have ever met in restaurants, and some of the most educated also. What I don't understand is that with all the low paying jobs I could have found why do I end up in something loud and fast paced. Something that gives an adrenaline high that people ride to late nights of drinking and (other drugs). As a kid I like board games and reading books maybe taking walks or playing with my dog.

Oh well.

I guess I need to write about things people want to read about: how I've changed after two and a half years on hormones!!!!

Well, I have C-cup breasts. They're pretty wonderful. I like them a lot. My body fat has shifted so that my ass is plump and my waist is relatively narrow. I had a 39" waist 6 months before starting hormone and worked that down to 36" and now without having done much of any exercises for my waist since starting hormones I have a 34" waist. It's also a little higher than it used to be. Of course I also have a bit more of a belly than I would like. I'm losing weight but  it seems that more of it stays right out front giving me a "pooch." IDK. I don't think I like that even if it isn't all that rotund. I guess as one of my friends once told me "all girls complain about being to fat and eventually either they put up or shut up."

I have no intention of doing hundreds of crunches every day so well...that's how it is.

My body hair has diminished a lot, which is also wonderful, and another thing that I think is great but I wasn't really expecting it is that my hairline is filling in and become more feminine. I was never really losing my hair but my hairline did get to be very masculine. Anyway now it is growing back in and becoming closer to what it was like when I was a child. My facial hair is softer and I think lighter. I've been working at getting rid of it for quite a while now and slowly I have less and less of it, but I don't really have a shadow when I shave. Of course I have light hair. Actually, people now tell me I'm blonde, which I also like. I guess estrogen did that.

I'm less muscular than I was. I'm built like a woman. I can really feel that in my shoulders. There isn't so much muscle mass between my bones and skin anymore, also my arms look less defined and more slender. My hips are wider but I think my bone structure hasn't really changed.

As far as how I feel. I am more in touch with my emotions. I wouldn't say I'm more emotional just more awared of them. Like, I used to supress my emotions until I exploded and now not so much...less explosions and compulsive emotionally based decisions. I do think somewhat differently but I can't remember exactly how I used to think. I think I'm slightly less linear in my thinking than I used to be but I also think it is much more complicated than that.

My sex drive has increased a lot. I actually think about sex fairly frequently now, I didn't used to. Of course at the same time my need to masturbate isn't really their much any more. It's complicated. I honestly kind of see it not so much as a change to my libido but my body coming to match my sexuality much more closely.

Oh if you haven't checked it out yet, I'm on facebook :)
www.facebook.com/thinknatalieblog

People not knowing I'm trans. Thoughts on going "stealth," and keeping my transition private. Also my new facebook fan site

Well I went to Karaoke last night. Like I have been doing every Monday night for a couple of months now. I'm a karaoke person I guess. Anyway, I recognize other karaoke people form other bars they sing karaoke at and they recognize me. One guy even gave me his karaoke singing business card.

But on another note....

I ended up talking to this girl all night. Well sort of. she came up to me when she came into the bar and struck up a conversation. She tried to buy me a shot...but...well, I don't take shots. I'm not interested in getting as drunk as taking a shot could lead to. She was kind of there, and after last call I walked with her and some guy named "Two Dicks" to her place.

She recognized something about me but couldn't quite pin it down. "As soon as I came into this bar I came up to talk to you and I never do that." She said. "You're different. There's something about you that's really different than other girls."

I actually was expecting for her to figure it out but she never did. She came as close as saying that I was so feminine but masculine at the same time, and she called me really pretty. Okay, also I was wearing my kitchen clothes, which, although I definitely look like a girl in my kitchen clothes, they're not as feminine as I prefer.

I wonder about that, how feminine I look in my kitchen clothes. Recently I've found out that several of my co-workers had absolutely no clue I was trans and were shocked when they just recently found out. And people tell me I look cute in them...so....I guess it's a whole thing about self perception vs reality, which I have to admit I have no idea sometimes how I look to other people.

Before I become too much of a rambler in this entry I want to get back to what I wanted to talk about as far as that girl (and others) is concerned, STEALTH.

I never told her I was trans, and she never figured it out. More and more I'm finding that in my interactions with all sorts of different people, they don't pick up on me being trans. I don't know how they see me exactly, but they're not picking up on my being trans. Actually, one of my co-workers didn't pick up on me being "gay' recently. He was like "You're going to find this funny, but I had no idea you were gay." to which I kind of had to respond with "Huh?" because I didn't know exactly what he meant by that. I gambled and assumed he meant that I like women, so I was like yeah, but barely; the last person I slept with was a guy.

...and that get's all confusing because of my anatomy and what I have and what people assume I have and blah, blah, blah...

Labeling my sexuality is too confusing for me to even attempt right now.

Back to the subject...again...I'm kind of in this place where people don't know, and I don't want to tell them. Actually, considering recent comments about "So you're really a guy?" that I just flat out deny without any explanation, unless someone is to specifically ask me if I'm a transsexual I'm not likely to fill them in on it.

And then I write this blog, and publish it to my facebook, and have a fan page devoted to it, and want to promote it, and want to pursue a career working with and helping other trans people. How can I go stealth?

Or rather. What is the line that I draw between people who know and people who don't?

So I was talking a girl at a party about my blog and she asked what it was about. "Transition." I told her, and  this guy who was in the conversation also asked for clarification on that.

For me Transition begins with a capital "T" but others don't necessarily know what I mean. Transition between jobs? etc.

Writing about and explaining Trans issues is really important to me but as far as that goes it isn't all of me and I kind of have it in this box that exists only in my blog and youtube videos.

If I move to another city (after I have my operation) will this whole transgender thing just be something in my past? It's weird. I grew up very aware of being different. I mean, I don't know what it is like to grow up gay, but I imagine that experience of being different is similar. But now I'm not so different, and I don't feel that different and I don't particularly identify with a queer subculture.

When it comes down to it, I fit in much more in an open minded straight bar than I do in a gay bar. When I go out to gay bars it's kind of like, "Why am I here?"

I don't know. It's this experience of wanting to transition, transitioning, and then having transitioned. Feeling different and being very fearful of being found out, very much in the closet. Coming out of the closet and being very very queer for a couple of years, and then everything settles and the hormones do their work and all of a sudden you're kind of this basically normal person without really trying.

I knew when I crossed that line of looking like a very feminine man to looking like a masculine woman when gay guys stopped being flirty with me and lesbians started. And then you stop looking like an interesting person.

It's what I always wanted. Though it was kind of nice to be REALLY interesting for a while.

Oh, and check out my facebook fan site (and see what I look like) at www.facebook.com/thinknatalieblog. Like it. Share it.

Something I'm proud of

Well, not much to write about today.

I put in a resume to work with a non-profit. I would be an HIV testing/prevention counselor. I really hope I get this job. I won't write to much more about it.

One thing I did want to write about, just because I'm kind of proud of myself. I went out on Saturday night and this girl who doesn't really know me but has seen me for a while came up to me and bought me a drink. She's a girl who is in Babe's every Saturday night and was always very sweet when I would come to pick up glasses off her table, but we've never really talked. Actually I kind of read her as FTM the first few times I saw her. Anyway she had a friend with her who leaned over me to say, "She tells me you're really a guy."

"I'm not." I answered. I think she repeated herself so I pulled out my driver's license. She examined it until she saw the little "f" written on it.

"You're the first girl whose ever shown me her driver's license..."

Anyway, I'm kind of proud of myself for doing this. For one saying I'm "really a guy" is just flat out ignorant and untrue. It implies that how I act and appear is really just some sort of costume that I shed. Also I'm tired of justifying my gender top anyone. I dress the way I like to look and feel comfortable looking. I act in ways that feel natural for me. It isn't a compliment to me to say "you perform this woman thing really well." I don't perform.

I guess the thing is I am legally, socially, and physically female. What I have or had between my legs is non of your business unless we're about to sleep together.

I think helping cis people understand trans people is important. But honestly it isn't my responsibility when I'm out at a club, or walking down the street, or grocery shopping or where ever else. Fortunately I pass well enough that this type of thing only ever happens in gay clubs when someone outs me.

Also though, it doesn't hurt my feelings really. Ask me once and it was an ignorant question, continue to assert that I'm really a guy and well I'll cut you out of my life, be it that we just met or I've known you my entire life.

And I kind of just wanted to re-emphasize that when I say I'm trans I don't really mean transgender. Being trans for me is a physical reality, it doesn't really speak much to being a gender non-conformist or feeling between genders or whatever. I am actually very normal and not much of a revolutionary. I'm not really very "queer," and it seems like, especially in gay bars, when people are like "so you're really a a guy," it's like they're paying homage to a queerness that doesn't really exist in me. I don't know, it's really hard to explain.

On the plus side I got an email from someone who watches my vlog. I'm glad to know people are reading and watching my entries. That makes it seem a little worthwhile.

You gotta get your shit together if you want to transition, and some of the stuff I had to deal with in my transition

Last week I wrote a great blog entry and accidentally deleted it.


I believe that sometimes things happen for a reason. Maybe it was something I didn’t need to post.

Oh well.

In a nutshell, I think my transition ended when I cut off a friendship with a person I was very much in love with. That’s when I started at my current job, when life really seemed to get back to normal for me, when nothing really seemed that new or exciting to me and I just kind of am what I am: a 30 year old woman.

Jesus Christ, I’m getting old.

Well I’m not, but I can see 40 around the corner and the rest of my life. I hope I accomplish something by then.

The thing is that I have to remind myself is that transitioning is a huge accomplishment. It’s something that I forget (my life being back to normal and all) when I get down on myself for not working in an office, not doing something important.

It makes me smile. I look back on my life three years ago, beer cans everywhere in an apartment that I rented above a crazy guy who yelled at me every time I came home and cut off the power to my apartment, spending money to hang out at a bar rather than pay rent and spending evenings at home in a skirt that didn’t look very good on me and a stuffed bra. Then I moved home.

I’ve been meaning to write a blog about this for a long time. I’ve talked about this with friends who have transitioned.

If you want to transition you need to get your shit together, and that is hard to do.

Transition is hard. I mean, everything is going to get thrown at you.

Let’s see. I had to lose that comfort of being thought of as a straight guy. I had to deal with the fact that I was doing something for my health that my parents really didn’t understand and had a hard time being supportive of. I had to deal with the fact that I couldn’t help my parents accept what I am. I had to deal with the fact that half my family was going to delete me from their facebook, not reply to my coming out letter, and basically didn’t support what I was doing with my life. I had to deal with the fact that my employer assumed that I am an extreme individualist who actually wanted to be different. I had to deal with the fact that I made people uncomfortable and that they looked for and found reasons to place blame on me. I had to deal with losing a job, extreme poverty, brief periods of homelessness, crazy roommates, and disappointing people’s expectations of me, not being understood, wrong pronouns, prejudice and wrong assumptions about who I am and what motivates me.

Trans people are a “high risk” group for having HIV, because we’re assumed to be promiscuous. MTF’s especially are assumed to have had some experience with prostitution or at the least to have had sexual experience with men. So I had to take a class on how to properly put on a condom.

People look up to me, people look down on me, people still think that transitioning was some sort of decision I made. Like I thought it would be nice to be a woman.

And then, God damn it! I still can’t help but to feel uncomfortable around cross dressers and drag queens. I still have that compare myself with them, and I still make jokes about being an “extreme” cross dresser because I still am insecure with myself as a female person.

I don’t mean this to be discouraging, throughout all of that shit I had to go through my life has gotten progressively easier. I mean all of that (choosing to fill my prescriptions rather than eat, sleeping in front of Union station, living on a box of bacon my roommate took from a Wendy’s dumpster) was easier than not transitioning would have been.

Yeah, I’ve experienced some shit to get to this point in my life.

And I think my transition wouldn’t have been nearly as rough if I had transitioned earlier. Transition is a need. We need to transition. It isn’t about feeling suicidal necessarily, but it is about needing to transition and as long as we don’t fill that need we will try to fill it with other things that aren’t as healthy and our need to transition does not diminish or go away it grows. I transitioned when I absolutely had to, when the discomfort of not transitioning was so great that I couldn’t really function as a healthy adult anymore.

And yet I’m writing a blog entry about getting your shit together before transitioning.

There have been a couple people I’ve met or known who needed to transition and knew it. I sincerely hope they do but they aren’t taking the steps that they need to take in order to transition.

Step one: No one, nothing is more important than your transition. I mean, “Oh I’m going to wait until I graduate and get a good job and then I’ll transition,” or even “I’m going to stop sleeping on my friends couches and have my own place before I transition…” isn’t good enough. Putting anything ahead of your transition is going to jeopardize your transition.

What I mean by getting your shit together so you can transition is not solving every problem in your life. For one, a lot of those problems are caused by the fact that you haven’t transitioned and can’t be fixed until you do transition.

What is that prayer alcoholics say? “Lord help me to accept the things I can’t change and to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Or something like that anyway.

I mean in order to transition you have to one present yourself as your “target” sex, you’re probably going to need hormones so you’ll probably need to find a therapist to approve you of it, so maybe you should make therapy a priority. Find a way to do what you need to do.

And whatever you think you need to have before you transition…that’s an excuse.
“Oh I need a good paying job…”
“Oh, I’m in transition and just got fired from that good paying job.”

I don’t know. I feel like I’m ranting a little bit here. I guess I just find it sad when people I people who have convinced me that they need and want to transition kind of just stall out and can’t seem to start transitioning.

I was like that. Hell I was 13 when I realized I wanted to transition.

Transition for me started when I started to present myself as who I am. It started when I stopped hiding and I got rid of anything that stood in my way of transitioning, including a job in an office where I got to where nice clothes.

I guess the thing about transition is that it is really simple and really hard. It’s a simple as “just be yourself no matter what,” and it’s as hard as all the things that will get thrown at you.

You gotta get your shit together if you want to transition and I think that sometimes just simply getting your shit together is transitioning.

I don’t know. Maybe I should write more about this later and try to be a little more clear in my writing.

About cross-dressing and transsexuals, and a weird dream I had last night

So I went out to Karaoke last night. Monday night after work is my new Karaoke night.

I need to sing.

Anyway in my last entry (which I did not think was very good) I wrote about being a little apprehensive about meeting a person who may or may not be a trans woman. She never showed up.

Her friend did, and was quite drunk, but we chatted for a while and then she stopped by my place after last call.

"Oh when I first saw you I thought you were a manly looking woman"

I responded "I am." Okay, so I'm not easily offended, especially by drunk people, especially by people who think they are giving a sincere compliment. It's kind of a back handed compliment though.

It got me thinking a little bit about the culture I grew up in and the culture I still live in: trans women are not as legitimate as cisgendered women. Primary transsexuals are more legit than secondary transsexuals who are more legit than cross dressers who are more legit than fetishistic transvestites.

From my perspective I was born to be woman. From her perspective I've changed, and I've done a damn good job at it.
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When I first started going out as a woman regularly I got a hell of a lot of compliments and fortunately I didn't realize (at the time) that a lot of them stemmed from people's perception that I was a man dressing as and trying to imitate a woman. Or perhaps I did, but as I told a friend the other night, when you transition you really have to turn a blind eye towards people's perception of you.

Excuse my language, but quite frankly I started looking more and more faggy in my work clothes until I reached androgynous and finally female.

Her trans friend did not show up last night and made some lame excuses. She told me how he dressed in women's clothing at work but wasn't allowed to wear make-up because he did such a bad job at it. She told me how he goes into Denny's at 3 in the morning and gets punched in the face.

Okay, it takes a lot of courage to go out dressed as a woman when you are so painfully aware that you do not look like one. At the same time, everytime someone tells me they think I was so courageous in transitioning I can't say I'm a courageous person. I did what I had to do.

I can say a couple of things about her friend, whom I have not met, based on my own experiences. First, he really doesn't have a choice as far as going out cross-dressed or wearing women's clothing at work. Second he has to be doing something really innapropriate in order to be punched in the face at Denny's.

Early in my transition when I had short hair and a much more masculine hairline (and physique) people would (very occassionally) laugh or stare at me but for the most part people don't care.

Being trans is part of the human experience and has been since the beginning of time. Even if it is the butt of jokes people are basically accustomed to seeing trans people. It isn't such an unusual thing that people will break social customs like punching you in the face. Dressing in itself usually does not make people that uncomfortable.(Of course trans people get murdered and beat quite frequently, just for dressing as they feel comfortable. I'm not arguing that they don't.)

It's the difference between drag and reality. I don't try to emmulate or imitate anyone. He's trying (and failing) to emmulate womanhood. It isn't something that can be faked.

I mean why did I start "passing" so very quickly?

I "passed" before I "passed," meaning even when it was obvious that I had been born with what would be considered a male body it was also obvious that I was authentic when dressed as a woman.

I think this is part of why I don't meet to many trans feminine people that I like.

Too many of us are trying to emmulate some abstract idea of womanhood. Too many of us buy into the idea that we can never be as legitimate as a cisgendered woman. We buy into the idea that we are claiming a gender identity and becoming something.

We buy into the idea that we're changing something.

Instead of dropping the shit that we fake in favor of something that feels more authentic, many of us stop faking one gender to start faking another. And quite frankly if you're still a fake, what's the point.

When I transitioned I worried more about being over the top girly than being too masculine. Too many trans feminine people worry about being too masculine.

Go into any lesbian bar, library, or public bus and actually look at the women you see. There are a hell of a lot of really masculine women out there.

If you're using make-up, long hair, long nails, and clothing to look like a "woman" you'll probably fail because none of those things denotes woman. Nor do big breasts and butts.

I guess it's this culture that delegitimizes people who "don't pass" that makes everyone want to look like and be like a certain ideal of womanhood rather than just be themselves.

I sat down with a group of transwomen one time and was bored to tears and actually a little frustrated listening to their conversation about how often one should get their nails done, and how they should be done, and what clothing to wear, blah, blah, blah, and this is coming from someone who flips through Glamour every month. I mean, there's a difference between being interested in fashion and trying to figure out what to wear, how to act, and how to do your makeup in order to look like a woman.

That is the difference between transsexuals and cross dressers.

And yet, painfully, many of the transsexuals I've met are like that.


I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was on some sort of journey, and it was a journey that I'd been on before. At the end of a journey was a cliff that I had to scale to get to the end. I'd scaled the cliff before also. It was a difficult cliff to scale and took all my effort and will power but eventually in every previous attempt I'd scaled it. This time I started, and then paused and took a break at it's base. I waited a while and then saw that there was a staircase that led to the top and was quite easy to climb. I climbed it and looked back down over the cliff. I started laughing hysterically (at myself for having twice before climbed it when I could have taken the stairs, and at having advised others to climb it). I sat down at a table, and a fifteen year old boy came up to me. He looked like he was twelve. He told me that he wanted my help because he was going to register for highschool as a girl. I asked him if his parents knew. He said they did but I could tell he was lieing. My father was sitting next to me and said to the boy. "Well let's not do that. How about you, Nathan, (my former name) and I go get you registered."
"That's not my name." I said. "My name is Natalie, not Nathan." I spent the rest of the dream crying uncontrollably.

I don't know. It seemed like it had some sort of meaning.