No Really, I Haven’t Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth

S and I broke up. For a lot of reasons, I’m not going to go through the details on my blog. I’ll be writing of other things, but yeah that is a lot of why I haven’t written recently. There are a few things about it that I’ll write, or reference, but don’t expect too much.

I’ve been flirting with the idea of getting a mini skirt. I first voiced this out loud to some friends I was visiting over Halloween weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever actually worn one. But part of me really likes the idea, even though I usually hate wearing skirts of any kind, or shorts, because I hate my legs touching skin on skin.

T has been going. Acne is still a constant battle. The hardest part for me is remembering to stay hydrated. My skin always has broken out drastically less when I’m thoroughly hydrated, and when I actually get pretty dehydrated my acne gets a lot worse. So, I’m trying to remember to drink more water. My kidneys are probably thanking my skin for getting me to do this more.

My voice has leveled out. It doesn’t shock people every time I see them with how much deeper it has gotten, and I feel like even my grandmother has started to get used to the sound of my deeper voice. No more cracking (yay!) and it definitely passes. I like how I sound. I like that I haven’t changed speech patterns at all, just my vocal range has shifted downwards… but it also shrank. I have a lot less control over my tone of voice, which is to be expected seeing as I have little practice with my new range, but I also have a many fewer options of tone. I’m not just deeper, my range has actually shrunk which makes my range of expression different. I’m not intentionally more monotone, I just end up fading out a lot quicker.

Surprisingly, I really seem to like my newly coming in chest hair. Didn’t expect that. I was looking forward to darker and a lot more leg hair, and darkened arm hair. I’m still waiting for my facial hair to be something worth growing instead of just needing it shaved every few days. But chest hair? I mostly expected to feel neutral about it. Unexpectedly, I’m really liking it, and even looking forward to more. The genderfucker in me wants it darker and to wear my corset. Because honestly, I think it’d be damn hot.

I just started getting hungry again recently. After a few weeks of legitimately not being hungry and having to instill a pretty strict schedule to make sure I ate, I’m glad that it is back. It is strangely comforting, a sense of normalcy returning. Also, I just don’t like living that strictly to a schedule. I prefer being hungry all the time to messing up my schedule a bit and risk passing out from forgetting to eat.

I’ll be back to writing more often now.

Updates and Upgrades

Recent adventures have included my computer breaking. From my battery to my logic board (yes, computers have logic boards, and when they break the computer goes illogical) I have new parts and this is the most functional my computer has been since I got it almost three years ago. They also gave me a bunch of free upgrades in programs that I’d otherwise have to pay for, which was awesome.

Other adventures include tearing through novels like I haven’t since high school, and reading books on spirituality. No computer? I read. A lot.

And now it is back. So I’m back.

T is interesting. I’ve grown a lot. My feet jumped a size, or a size and a half. I’m a lot broader now, no longer so scrawny. As in, my shirt neck size went from 13 1/2 to 15 1/2, and my sleeve length got longer as well. On the upside, this means I fit into regular shirts now. My sideburns are starting to come in. I really do need to shave more than once a week now, though much of the time I’m still lazy and only do it about once a week.

Still endlessly hungry. Still have a kicked up sex drive. I’ve adjusted to the second, but the first is being a much larger problem than it should be.

But one of the most interesting changes for me throughout transition is that my reactions to pain has changed. The way I feel pain, when S bites me (or when my friend bites my arm and leaves a bruise for a few days) is completely different than before. Not just more or less, but an actual different sensation that is really hard to explain. Stingy pain hurts so much more, as well as very different. At the same time, despite the fact that I’m processing pain differently and needing to completely relearn my limits and thus am far more sensitive than I would be if I knew how things would feel, I’m still needing the pain just as much. But I also like causing pain. About two and a half years ago I realized that I couldn’t date someone who wouldn’t give me pain, and hooking up would be difficult. About a year ago, I realized I couldn’t date someone who couldn’t take pain, and hooking up would be even more difficult than the former. I like pain. Be it the bite marks on my arm, or the scratches on someone else’s back, pain is really important for me. Which makes being so unclear about my own reactions to pain really damn frustrating.

And not frustrating in the fun way either.

Eventually, I’ll figure out how things are working with my body.

Six Months on T

And what do I have to show for it?

My voice dropped into nice, low, masculine ranges. My neck sized increased, which greatly affected the shape of my face, even more than the more subtle changes on my face itself. My clit increased size, my sex drive shot up, shot up again, and then dropped a hair to a nice, steady place. I’m hungry all the time, but figuring out how to handle it, and making sure I eat at least mostly healthy food.

I’m in a surprisingly healthy relationship. Surprising because healthy relationships have been so rare for me, and it has been a really pleasant surprise. She sees me for who I am, not for my body, but also does an amazing job at being careful about what I want with my body, how I exist within my body… and how in many ways it isn’t mine.

My clothes don’t quite fit right anymore, I need to go shopping. In the last six months, I’ve moved, gotten a new job, met some amazing people, and found some awesome things. I lost friends, and found friends in places I had not even thought about.

I’ve been heartsick, and crushing. I’ve been freezing and melting into a pile of liquid xMech from the scorching heat.

I’ve stretched my comfort zone, gone to play parties and allowed penetrative sex. Hell, I’ve started asking for it more than ever. I’ve broken down mental barriers, and brought myself to the point where I can slap S… though still not on the face. I’ve marked her again and again, bites, bruises, hickies, handprints, and been marked in return. I’ve entered male bathrooms and confronted some of my ableist tendencies and language. I started relooking into religion, pushing myself past the “I don’t want to do this, I can’t examine this” and into books and articles on Judaism, Buddhism, Neo-Paganism and all kinds of alternative spiritualities. I’ve accepted that I can’t keep friends forever, and strove to rebuild my own mind.

But what do I have to show for it all?

No matter what I do, for me it will never be enough. Part of me loves that, loves that I always want more from myself, never to be static, always growing, looking for new connections to help me grow and change. I’m a person of becoming, not being, and I love it. But no matter how I contemplate Nietzsche, I am tired of never being enough for myself.

Years ago I realized I couldn’t keep a promise I made to myself, so instead I completely reoriented my life. I started to strive to become the person others saw me to be, to become the person my friends, family, lovers, and teachers saw in me, or at least saw that I could become. And it is never enough. Not because they tell me that, in fact they usually tell me the exact opposite, but I see how awesome they are, how much they deserve…

and after all these changes in the last six months, or six years… I still wonder what do I have to show for it?

A few whiskers and ill-fitting clothes just don’t quite seem to cut it. About only one thing does: I’m genuinely happy. And that is more than enough to show for anything. Just need to manage to get my mind around the concept.

Changes and Pianos

I have whiskers, and it is strange. There aren’t a ton of them, as in I am not even close to getting a 5 o’clock shadow (or a two day shadow for that matter.) But they are definitely there, and definitely very dark. The ones that are there that is.

I was looking in the mirror, and thought something was on my chin. I tried rubbing it off, and it didn’t move. Looking closer, I realized, “Oh, it’s attached!”

My shoulders are broader. I noticed this past weekend while bound, and on my way to NYC for Pride weekend. A shirt that used to fit in that “really awesome but rather large on me” kind of way now fits in that “fits perfectly to my shoulders” sort of way.  I don’t quite know what I think of my clothes no longer fitting, but I am happy with the way my body is shifting. Like, I’m no longer in the position of having my pants barely fit, but that may be due to (possibly) eating less because my schedule has been rather bizarre recently. Either way, I’m looking different, and apparently am reading as a straight guy? Which confuses me, because I haven’t changed my mannerisms at all… and my wrist? Is limp like a wet noodle.

My voice has gotten really damn deep, though. As in, multiple friends have asked me to change my voicemail message because it is a bit jarring to hear my nice, high pitched old voice, after it has gotten so much lower. Q was particularly amusing about it, when we finally talked and had a break from phone tag. Other friends have flipped out for most of a night after hearing me say “Hi,” and I consistently get “Sir’ed” on the phone. Actually, I get sir all the time now, in person or on the phone. I pass…

And it’s weird for me. I actually reached something I set out to do, what?

There is so much more I want. Some of it is coming, at least, like my facial hair. I want more, and it slowly appears. I want top surgery, but that isn’t going to be until some undetermined time in the future. I want, I want, I want! And… I’m getting it. That is the constant strangeness with my life, I want, I do, and then I actually get it.

Years ago, in my slightly more innocent years of high school, I used to claim that if a person wanted something badly enough, they would get it. If they didn’t, it was because they didn’t try hard enough, didn’t work enough, etc. A major reason I thought this was because life sucked, and I was a huge underachiever, and it was a convenient way to blame myself. Except that I was harshly proven wrong, that everything a person works their ass off for does not happen. Life sucks, and no need to blame myself any extra, but it also took away my hope that things could change if I worked enough. That was the real thing that made me a bit more innocent back then, that I actually thought if I tried, things would change. Which is part of what makes this so confusing for me.

I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and things just keep falling into place as a result. Transition, apartment, friends, job, and my wonderful relationship with S didn’t just fall into my lap, but part of me is very confused…

And mostly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or piano, because that would so be my life.

So, there is some transition update goodness. Tomorrow is Answers with an Agenda.

Body Narratives And Daily Life

Looking in the mirror, I don’t even know what to think anymore. Every time I go to step in the shower here, the mirrors are unavoidable. The back of the door with its full length mirror, right across from it over the sink and toilet, covering most of the wall is another. Reflected back in my eyes time and again, and again, reflected over and over from parallel mirrors, is my body. The half reflections in the unfrosted shower glass add angles, and at every turn it is undeniable: I was born with a female body.

What am I supposed to think?

I finally look at my legs and think that finally from the knee down my legs look right, more akin to a guy’s legs than a girl who just doesn’t shave. Yet, when I think that there is the same train of thought of how stereotypical of me: guys and girls, no matter what I believe, no matter how I actually feel, too much of my view on life is tinted by those damn notions of “gender,” “presentation,” “sex,” and “roles.” But I look down at my legs, and despite all the running narratives in my head, my legs finally look right. My neck is thicker, my arms are finally developing more muscle. Still, I look in the mirror and I see hips, I see breasts, I see how far I have to go.

I’m hungrier than I was before. I want sex more, but I don’t actually think about it in greater quantities. But hungrier, definitely. My moods have not changed much, if anything they have calmed down, stabilized. I’m no angrier, no less connected, but my moods are more consistent over a period to time. Despite the fact I’ve still been getting my period, my PMS has drastically dropped, even to manageable levels.

It’s looking at myself that I both realize things are different… and how nothing has changed.

I’m still around 5’8″ and my weight is apparently higher, but unnoticeable in its change for most people around me. My clothes fit the same, my hair only changes when I cut it differently, or just let it grow out. I still have a chest, and I look down and force myself to realize they are mine, that I feel pleasure when someone plays with them, sucks them…

Everything is connected.

Each week, I draw enough T suspended oil to reach the .5 mark. As I wipe the alcohol swab over the patch of skin to inject I notice that there is more hair on my ass. When I look down at my groin, I see how much my clit has grown, most (if not all) was in the first week or two on T. But more than just seeing that, I see the hair on my inner thighs, and I smile. There is argument about whether or not there the hair on my arms is darker, I really cannot tell if that is the case. But I know my facial hair is more than when I started T, but I don’t see it increasing much more. Supposedly it comes in for like two years, so this shouldn’t be surprising.

My voice is deeper, that alone makes this all worth it. Yet, now when I walk down the street, I’m not sure if I actually am passing any more than I used to. And part of me is okay with that, okay with the gender juxtaposition I represent, okay with causing confusion, uncertainty, and curiosity. But part of me is absolutely petrified that I will get jumped. Mostly though, I just want to walk down the street and feel comfortable in my skin, not wondering what the hell I am, not always worried about everyone around me. I want not to question basic facets of myself just to walk the dog.

Except that to pass, I become so much of what I fear. I seem to be another white guy, not too tall, but me? A lot of the time I look like a punk kid. I walk down the street, and soon that could make someone else be afraid. For me to lose my fear, I increase it in others.

So I try to work to change to make this world a place where guys aren’t the bad guy, but that would take guys stop being the bad guys so often. Our culture teaches women not to “ask for it” by watching what they wear, where they go, who they are with, how they act, etc. It is on women to prevent men from “wanting” to rape them, or at least, that is the narrative society spins. There is this notion that it is not okay for men to touch women unasked (something I do not disagree with) but that it is okay for women to touch men unasked (that part I do disagree with.) Double standards because our society still is so fucked up with gender relationships, and none of it addresses people like me. How am I supposed to think about thing when my body lies outside of the narrative of society? My existence does not fall into any of those narratives other than “freak.”

Sometimes I hate being a freak, believing it makes me undesirable, an outcast in all the wrong ways. Other times, I get around what society tells me, and revel in my identity. T hasn’t changed that. Now, I just face it in a new way every day when I look in the mirror, and see something closer to myself.

Crazy, Busy, Update-zy

Life is crazy. Mine happens to be particularly so, and busy in random ways these days. This is in part a disclaimer; I may not be able to keep updating three to five times a week. On the other hand, there may be some weeks where I update every day. But regardless, there will always be a Thursday updates for Answers with an Agenda, but there may be fewer in between. Luckily this will not last a hugely long time, but moving plus job transitions lead to jointly less and more blog time, depending on the moment.Another cool side note, I’m going to be reviewing sex toys. As soon as it comes in the mail, I will give you a nice rundown of a vibrator. Regardless, here is a lovely update on T!

Certain things have gone fabulously. My voice is definitely deeper, and even my so-often-in-denial mother agrees. Admittedly, I sound like a frog because I’m getting over a cough, but the baseline is MUCH deeper. Maybe not quite at a “normal guy range” yet, but I’m happy that I no longer squeak as much as I used to. In fact, my lovely friend Q said a bit ago on the phone that my voice is actually lower than hers, sounding quite impressed and shocked. I told her to fuck off. She laughed. That says a lot about us, I believe. We can be very insulting to one another. It’s how we show our love… But yeah, my voice is coming along nicely. Getting more body hair too, on my ass at least. Facial hair doesn’t seem to be coming in much more, but that is life.

Another good thing is that my acne has not been too bad. Only when I spend all day sweating, lifting, carrying, working, and stressing a lot without drinking enough water do I really break out badly. Which would happen to a lot of people anyways.

Sadly, not everything has gone well. I have to call in to my doc tomorrow because I got my period again. He said if I bleed at all, even spot, after three weeks from my three-month appointment, to call him. That means that last time should have been it, but no, it came again. Figured, ok, so I get one final period in just under that three-week deadline, yup sounds like my body. But now, it came again.

That just about killed my mood for the week.

It messes with my sex drive too. That could have something to do with how much it increases my discomfort with my body, but my desire for sex changes on my period. Sure, this may happen to non-transguys who get periods, but for me it actually alters my drive to more like what it was pre-T. Not to say lessen it par se, but it changes the way it feels, the way my brain thinks about it. I’m not big on the change back, it feels less me. Which maybe that is a good thing, and this just helps show myself that despite my mother’s fears, testosterone IS the right decision for me; however, that does not change my desperation to have it be fucking gone.

To quote A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Get you gone, you dwarf!”

Information: Overloaded, Undersupported

There are some really scary pieces of advice out there on all sorts of things, like masturbation. And this is what makes the internet so fucking awesome and so fucking scary at the same time, we have access to all this information but without a solid filter for sorting through that information. Statistics can be made up, so citations are useful, but in the end the only way to really know if someone is good on what they are talking about is researching yourself. Except that what if you are trying to find out something that the mainstream ‘authorities’ either don’t have information on, or completely disagree with? How do you know what to believe?

I’m just another blogger. No reason for anyone to take my word over someone else’s, as there is no basis for credibility. Actually, not only am I another blogger, but I don’t even pay for my own site. I use WordPress for free. Except that I’ve been thrown time and again into a role of a ‘knowledgeable’ friend. I’ve been the go to for everything from condoms and sex ed to what to do if a friend notices someone self-injuring again. In high school, I gave my doctor a lecture on sex-ed, because she didn’t know a lot about safe sex outside of penetrative intercourse.

So, you might have no reason to believe a word I say, you might have no reason to trust my information, but I’m taking a shot at this anyway. I’m going to be starting a once-a-week entry where I answer questions to the best of my ability. Seeing as I’m not a major blogger, hell I’ve only been doing this a few months and I’m not too big on social networking, I don’t expect to get lots of questions to answer from online. So, I’m going to start with questions I’ve been asked throughout my life.

Tomorrow, there will be an entry. The first of (hopefully) many to come. Except unlike many people I do not claim I am unbiased in my answers. They are going to be Answers with an Agenda. (Okay, title still pending but that was the best I got at the moment.) If anyone has any questions they want answered, feel free to leave them in comments!

Also, for those more tech-savy people out there, does anyone know how to make a sidebar/widget thing for people to submit questions?

Vocalization

The other morning I was talking to a friend who I am not particularly close to, but who has known me for a like a year and a half now. We were standing around and he asked me if I was coming down sick, because my voice was hoarse and that he hoped I wasn’t loosing my voice. For a second I got very confused, and then I realized, he had no clue I was on T.

I laughed, and told him about going on T. Told him about my voice cracking for the last week…

He proceeded to tell me that his voice still cracks, and he’s over thirty. Every time he is around his brother he goes “HiiIii…” So picture this, an average height ex-marine, still incredibly ripped, with tattoos all over, talking about how his voice still cracks to lil’ tranny me. It made my day.

Later that day I saw an old friend for the first time in a long while. She noticed immediately that my voice is changing.

I already could not sing to save my life. I can’t carry a tune, and most people assume I’m tone-deaf when I sing. Sadly, I actually have a really good ear, so I realize just how bad I am. But now, to make it all the worse, I don’t know my ‘range’ and my voice will crack partway through. And know what? That struggle to get out those tunes in a crowd for those songs was a great experience. Because THIS is what is supposed to happen to my body.

My pants size hasn’t changed, my facial hair growth is still slow. But my leg hair slowly darkens, and my voice cracks and that is amazing. I want more, more facial hair, deeper voice, darker leg hair, more… And so it comes.

.5 ml every week. I like this.

Quick Update

Been a busy week, and looking at another one ahead of me. But some exciting new developments!

My voice actually cracked last week. In a room full of witnesses, which needless to say caused all my friends to give me some good-natured teasing that I saw as much overdue. Because it FINALLY cracked. It’s dropping more and more. THANK YOU FULL DOSE!

My legs are getting more hairy, as is my ass. The later I noticed when doing my injections, each week I just see more hair there, because otherwise I admit, I don’t look at my ass all that much. My arms aren’t any noticeably hairier, nor is my stomach. I don’t’ think my back is, but that is more S’s area.

There is so much I want to say, and quite a few entries I’ve started but haven’t had the time to do them the justice of making them good enough. What is amazing to me is that I’m doing so well, and yet writing so much. I’m not writing because shit is going wrong, I’m frustrated that I don’t have more time to do what I want, from writing to seeing S more. Because for once, I’m in a happy, healthy relationship. I’m writing things that interest me in here, not about how my life is falling apart. Testosterone has been going really well. Etc. etc. etc.

Regardless, there are some entries coming, ones that probably contain ideas that aren’t going to be as popular as some of the things I’ve written.

Accidental Moments: Testing, Passing, Spacing

I managed to accidently get tested for HIV. I was sitting in my three-month appointment, and we were going over my blood tests, and we were talking about STIs. He asked when the last time I was tested for HIV, I said high school, and he basically said at some point soon I should get tested again, but since I’m so low risk (sleeping predominantly with women) that I didn’t need to worry about it. “Oh, nevermind. You’re HIV negative. Apparently I had you tested.”

Well, thanks? I mean, good to know, but next time let me know a little more obviously, okay?

Regardless, I’m finally up to a full dose of testosterone. The changes will come faster, my period should stop. I can become the adult I’ve always wanted to be, a strange conglomeration of truth and lie. For me, passing in all its problems is the reality. Because the person I want to come is someone who passes, who seems to be another able-bodied, white, straight, secular male. Not because I want to occupy the space of white men in American society, but because the body that is most me seems to be all those things, but I am so much more. People who look at me don’t see my ADHD, they will not see that I was raised as a girl who was good in math, who played sports, that tomboy was the first identity I ever embraced. They won’t see the history of activism, the kinky desires, if they see my desires they will probably see me dating women, as that is who I tend to go for. I will pass, and here it is the term passing, because I will pass for something I am not. I am white, but not a man. But the ability to pass as a man will be power I have, and something I can use in radical ways.

There are spaces where only women are allowed. Some, are only “women born women,” excluding transwomen. Some explicitly make sure to include transwomen, and some even include transmen. Basically some of these spaces boil down to less a woman’s space and more “No Cis-males allowed.” Which in and of itself is incredibly problematic, but what is worse is that those spaces are still needed. Those spaces really boil down to spaces of no “male privilege” (which doesn’t address the other forms of privilege there, surrounding race, class, abledness, age, etc.) because there is an extent to which banning cis-men is the only way people see that it is possible to create such a space. But many people hold male privilege, not just men, and not all men hold male privilege. Until those lines are more blurred there really is no way to distinguish though. That is one of those assumptions that I really seek to help upset. Just… so much to do. Because I’m one of those people who isn’t content to just let things be, because “the status is not quo” I need to do something with my changing positionality of power. As time goes on, and I pass more, I need to start learning how to function as a(n apparent) guy, and a straight one no less. Well, I read very gay… so maybe I won’t have to jump that hurdle just yet.

Last night, a friend I haven’t seen in a month asked if I was sick, had a sore throat. “No…” And then we realized, my voice is finally changing that much. C commented that she noticed in the voicemail I left that my voice was lower. I’ve been noticing as I (attempt and fail to) sing. It is really great, but it is definitely strange to listen to myself.