Random bits and pieces.

I’ve developed this weird little rash on my neck where my Adam’s Apple should be.  Yesterday, it looked like a hickey, which is weird because nobody’s been kissing me there.  Today, it feels bumpy and weird.  I don’t like to make a big deal out of unrelated events, but it just kinda tickled me- as if my body is going, “Look here.  You see this?  This here?  This is where this lump should be, and it’s not.  What the fuck.”

…

Also, I’ve been pumping, so “little friend” (as I call it) has been growing, I think.  I don’t know how much bigger, to be specific, or if anyone out on the interwebs needs to know the details, but my partner said it looks bigger, and he’s not the sort to say things just to make me feel better.  So that’s kind of exciting.

…

Insurance is being a dick.  I keep doing something wrong, or sending something in the wrong date, or etc. etc., and all I really want is to be able to go talk to a doctor about getting a T prescription.  I’m not asking for insurance to pay for it, I’ll pay for it myself, cent for cent.  But this is taking FOR-FUCKING-EVER, this red tape.  Plus, social services screwed me over for food stamps last year.  They said that when I was trying to cancel food stamps, THEY made a mistake, some sort of clerical error, and need ME to pay them back $200.  Are you kidding me?  I’ve been trying my damnedest just to hold on to $200, let along the $500 I need to get my car fixed- and yes, I’m in a situation where I don’t need help with food, but I AM ALSO in a situation where I DON’T need to owe people money!  This sucks azz, bro.

It just seems like the world is trying to hold me back from medically transitioning, because it’s taking forever to get this freaking ball rolling.  I’m going to be filling out the paperwork, AGAIN, hopefully for the last time, today.

…

I think my body’s catching on, though, in lieu of the ability to get testosterone in my body.  For instance, I’m noticing hair growing on my back and shoulders and all kinds of areas where I never really noticed any before.  Also, apparently my voice is deep enough for me to at least pass as a 15 year old boy.  I think it might be more of an inflection thing, and some of the voice stretching exercises.

Although I quit the minoxidil a little while back (read the comments on “Quick update: Minoxidil” for the reasons why), my eyebrows have been growing in a more male shape, which may or may not be due to the minoxidil.  I’ve been shaving my face a lot more often lately, too- it was kind of hard to let go of the tiny bits of peach fuzz at first, but then reading that it can actually incriminate more than having a clean shaven face (because men either have stubble or nothing and only women have peach fuzz), I reluctantly picked up the razor.  I’ve read both ways- that it’s an old wives tale that shaving makes your hair grow in darker, or that it’s just because the ends are more blunt when you shave off the tips, but either way, I think it’s been growing a little faster.

In order to give me more incentive to shave it off, I went to the store and bought this totally badass razor that has all these metallic bits and functions, and it came in a set with a bunch of guy-smelling soap and deodorant, all for $8, too, so I felt really good about that.  I was getting low on my shampoo.

…

All these little things and everything else coming together, plus just relaxing into a male identity and being more confident about it, I think is contributing to the amount of people reading me as male lately.  It was funny- at Faire, that group who initiated me, they were first a lot more awkward trying to tell me that they’d decided amongst themselves that I looked way better as a dude than as a chick.  They couldn’t imagine how epic it was to hear that!

I think it’s when you travel back, you can see how far you’ve come.  Last night, I was practicing one of my theatrical makeup techniques (specifically, how to make your eyebrows disappear without shaving them off) and it worked so well, I wound up turning it into a celebrity impersonation photoshoot for my makeup portfolio.  If you’ve ever heard of Amanda Palmer, you know it’s necessary to have no eyebrows to dress as her.  But you’ll also understand why, dressing as her, it was the first time in a long time I felt that comfortable wearing a dress.  She tends to defy gender boundaries, and that makes me happy.

Anyway, I noticed something in the pictures that jarred me a little- I didn’t look female when I put on makeup anymore.  I looked very distinctly like a drag queen!  That tells me how far I’ve come- I can’t look completely female anymore, even when dressing as one.  I knew that day would come, but I didn’t expect it this soon.

…

Family issues- my dad’s was trying at first, I think, to be accepting, but something’s going wrong here, because I don’t think he’s taking me seriously.  I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m going through a phase, and his latest hobby has been dropping little hints to remind me “what I really am.”  I think that he thinks he’s doing me a favor.  It feels like shit.  Like, every single little time I let my front of masculinity down the slightest bit, he’s there to catch me and remind me that “men do this and this,” or “you wouldn’t get it, it’s a guy thing.”  I have to conform to every single binary to get my dad to take me seriously, and it sucks ass, because I know he thinks I’m fake, and the way it’s going, he’s basically making me act fake so he’ll think I’m real.  He’s the only person who has power over me this way.  With everyone else, I can flaunt the gender binary and laugh when they look confused.  I don’t much care what people think.  With my dad, I really, really want him to think of me as his son… and he’s making me jump through hoops to get it.  It doesn’t help that I’m going out with a guy, either.  I’m sure that if I’d been born completely male, and if I were going out with a guy, he’d think I was a sissy-boy, too.  I don’t know how to resolve this.  He needs to understand that I’m not a traditional, cut-out male, but I’m not female, either.  I’m just his kid, hopefully his son, and if I’m not perfect, then too bad, because I’d be really boring if I were.  I’m doing the best I can to reconcile the two sides of my gender, and he’s not making it any easier.  In fact, he’s making it harder than anyone else, because I actually value his opinion.  I wonder, if he saw that, would he try to hurt me like this all the time?

Personal update; natural transition?

So, since the last post, I’ve had a few more blowups in my life, one involving an old friend and one involving my partner.  One has resolved and the other, I really haven’t had to gonads to pick up again.  I was called immature in a direct response to my last post by someone who wasn’t even involved with the events in it.  Generally when a major fight like this ensues and I walk away from it and give myself a few days to cool off, I’ll come back with a renewed perspective and see how I was in the wrong.  However, and this is rare, three days later I still don’t see what I did that was so immature other than vent about my frustrations on an online blog.  I’ve even come to reconciliation with the person I mentioned fighting with IN the blog.  But since the last thing I said before storming away from the person who accused me of immaturity was “YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW HOW IT’S BEEN,” I’m not sure how my opinion on my own personal maturity will hold up.

It’s complicated.

I honestly don’t feel compelled in any way to apologize though, because I can’t find any error in what I’m thinking, feeling or saying (other than that final blowup, which ultimately might have made the accusation of immaturity right.)  But even that, however wrongly it was said, is still the truth to me.  The last thing I need right now is someone who hasn’t been through any of what I’m dealing with giving me lectures on how badly I’m dealing with it.  I just… NEED HELP DEALING WITH IT.  I’m not finding it anywhere, you know?

I’m finding:

a) people trying to tell me how hard it is on them, which I’m already aware of and only makes me feel guiltier,

b) people telling me I’m not doing a good job of handling this, which kinda just makes things worse because I already know, which is why I’m asking for help in the first place,

c) people who don’t want to hear it, which is fine with me, as long as they make that clear up front so I can find someone else to talk to,

d) and generally just people who don’t seem too interested in supporting me- just criticizing me.

…

I don’t NEED criticism right now.  YES, constructive criticism is great.  It can really build character when you’re looking to build.  Right now, I’m just looking to hold out as everything in my mind is getting torn down.  Criticism of any kind is really like a baseball bat to the gut right now, and while I’m not looking for anyone to coddle me and treat me like a delicate little butterfly or anything, I just want you to know that if you think that what you have to say might be hurtful in any way, it’s NOT GOING TO BE HELPFUL at this time in my life.  I’ll work on building character when everything’s settled and I can start moving forward again.  Right now, I just need people to listen.

I’m spread open on the operating table and open-heart surgery is taking place.  If I let you into the operating room, if I trust you enough to let you in at this most crucial time in my life, I don’t need you barging in, unscrubbed, with a sledgehammer and a wrench and trying to fix things on top of what’s going on in here already.  This is DANGEROUS.

I’ve found myself at staggering lows of depression in the last few weeks, scary, suicidal places so deep that I’ve never known them before, places that make me want to do crazy things.  It doesn’t take much to push me when I’m even remotely like this.  Last time I got almost this low and weirded out, I wound up in a homeless shelter.  I think that, since I’ve finally found out what’s been wrong all these years and now there’s a goal to fix it, I’m more likely to keep my head on straight, but then again, maybe not.  I don’t want this to read like a threat, I just… don’t have many people I can go to, and being alone in a scary time in my life like this makes me just want to bail out.  If you can be the one person in my life who is just there for me and isn’t trying to…

fix me…

it can make all the difference.

…

IN OTHER NEWS, and ending on a much brighter note, I’ve been noticing slight changes to my body that make me wonder if my body is reacting to me focusing on transition by upping my testosterone levels.

For one, I noticed a single, long chest hair this morning that was just eccentric enough to give me the shits and giggles.  I decided not to really lay any meaning on it- it’s just a hair, right?  People grow single, random hairs on their bodies all the time.  No biggie.  But it still made me kinda happy.

But then, this evening, (well, this is slightly graphic and awkward, but it’s relevant so just bear with me,) I was spontaneously checking out various parts of my body and I noticed that my clit has definitively grown, in circumference and length.  It’s really not anything to speak of one way or the other in terms of dick measurement, but it kind of shocked me to see it.  I wasn’t even aroused.  What does this mean?

Am I seriously producing testosterone holistically?

I was on an FTM forum a little bit ago, and they were listing foods that can raise your T levels naturally.  I realized I’ve been craving a lot of the foods they listed, somewhat all my life, but particularly lately.  Maybe my body craves T and naturally knows where it can get it.

Either way, not being formally on HRT, I’m pleased with the way my transition is going.