Obla-di, obla-dah...

Hello friends.

Long time no see. Life continues to chug on, and so does this crazy train I'm riding.

This morning I had a brief consultation with an electrologist to get her assessment of my prospects for facial hair removal; I’d mentioned to her ahead of time that I was considering starting with laser, then cleaning up the stragglers with electrolysis, and she was super helpful in walking me through how to structure that (in a nutshell: 3 or at the most 4 sessions of laser, 8 weeks apart, then zap the rest until we’re done). I thanked her for her time, and went to work.

So tonight, when we were all home, I shared some of my morning experience with DW, keeping it as matter-of-fact as possible, answering her questions, but otherwise trying not to come across as too excited about it (she’s almost always uncomfortable talking much about anything transition-related, and I try to be sensitive to that). At first I felt like she was okay with what I was telling her; I mean, I’ve always hated shaving, and for years (even before I was out to her) I’ve brought up laser as something I’d be interested in doing, and she knows I’ve been slowly saving money up for this exact thing.

I think I was probably just kidding myself.

After talking for a few minutes, she said something remarkably similar to something I just read in Jenny Boylan’s memoir, She's Not There (which, by the way, is excellent, and which I've thoroughly enjoyed), which her spouse said to her when they were standing more or less where DW and I are now. As best as I can remember it, she told me:

“You’re going to do what you’re going to do, but I can’t help but feel like it’s another part of the person I fell in love with slipping away.”

It made me so, terribly sad. The real tragedy of relationships like ours is that we love each other’s hearts & souls, but everything she loves about my body are the things I most hate, and making my body more comfortable for me makes it less so for her.

When we got married, I was convinced that her love could save me. Fix me. That our perfect unity could make this yearning I've always felt, this profound sense of disconnection with my assigned gender, just melt away forever. (I spent the first 40 years of my life hoping and praying that God would take it from me, too, but He never saw fit. Or He couldn't. Or something. I don't know. But that's a subject for a separate post).

We've shared countless joys and sorrows. Built a happy life together. We're the proud-but-often-frustrated parents of two amazing teenagers.

But the gender thing is still hanging here between us, and I'm afraid it always will be. Our friendship is as strong as ever, but our romance is no more. There's no blame or hard feelings about this (at least I don't think there are), but it's hard not to feel pretty melancholy sometimes.

I have no idea what the future holds. For now, we're keeping the family together, in no small part to give our kids the best possible home life. But I think we're both wondering how long that can last.

Rebirthday: Hair, Skin, & Nails

Well, so much for restarting my blogging habit here. It's been a month since my last post, but here's the next, much-belated entry in my series marking my first year on hormone replacement therapy. Let’s talk about three things that usually get mentioned in the same breath, for some reason: hair, skin & nails.

Skin

I’m going to save hair for last, because I have the most to say on that subject. Skin is much more straightforward: it’s getting softer. Smoother. I bruise more easily than I used to, and get nicks & scratches a little easier, too. It’s also a lot drier than it used to be, so I find that my lotion budget has gone up quite a bit. But I do like the way it feels (and smells), so I don’t mind that at all.

Nails

Like my skin, my fingernails also seem a little thinner, and tear more easily. I’m keeping them a little longer than I used to, and keep a shiny clearcoat on them most of the time, which does help strengthen them a bit more. A few times I’ve also ventured to be a little more daring, and have worn them painted to work, to my therapist’s, etc, mostly on significant days (like trans day of remembrance). To my co-workers’ credit, nobody’s batted an eye or said a thing. (bless you, San Francisco!). I like them painted; it’s a little cue to others and a quiet reassurance to my sense of self. But until I’m ready to be more visible in all aspects of my life (including my kids’ church, which is notoriously queerphobic), I’ll probably stick to special days (Next on the calendar: March 31st, Trans Day of Visibility).

Hair

I’d started growing my hair out some time before starting hormones, but it was kind of… well, my daughter said it was mullet-y. Since then I’ve started working with a stylist that’s helping me to take care of it while I grow it out. I know there are plenty of girls, cis and trans alike, who can rock short hair, but right now, honestly, I need it long. I’ve lived my whole life without being able to wear it long, so I need this, emotionally. (plus, anything to help me pass is a plus).

One of my major dysphoria triggers has always been my receding hairline. Hormones have helped a bit, halting its progression, but they haven’t done much to promote regrowth (a few stray hairs here and there, but that’s it). A few months ago, a trans friend recommended rogaine, which had done wonders for her, so a little over a month ago, I started trying it. Sure enough, after a few weeks, the receded areas started to show signs of life again… it’s been agonizingly slow, but there’s just the faintest patch of peach fuzz there now, which is encouraging.

Body hair has seen slower changes on HRT than I had hoped. I’m genetically predisposed to “sasquatch” levels of body hair, which has been another major trigger for a long time, and it’s incredibly time-consuming (and very visible to others) if I shave, say, my arms, legs, and chest. But things are sloooowly getting better. A few months ago, I used a few Amazon gift cards to invest in a starter epilator, and have used it a couple of times on my legs, and this week, on my arms. The hair that’s growing back in both areas is finer, thinner, and slower to regrow, so it seems that my body may finally be taking the hint. Huzzah.

That leaves my facial hair, which I “affectionately” refer to as my chin moss (not my term: I heard another trans girl on Tumblr use it, and it fit well enough that I adopted it). My #1 dysphoria trigger, and most likely the main thing keeping me from being correctly gendered more often. But dealing with this one is stressful and expensive. I have to shave every single day, and even then, I have a very visible beard shadow, and would prefer not to have to hide it using a lot of makeup (it would make me feel deceptive, tbh, but I know that’s just me). Anyway, I’ve started a separate savings account with my bank specifically to set aside money so that I can invest in laser hair removal for my face & neck, hopefully later this year. More on that, hopefully soon.

Happy Rebirthday!

It's no secret that this blog has been a bit of a ghost town for the past year. Most of what I would have put here, I either shared with friends on Tumblr, or wrote in my diary, or maybe expressed one on one with a friend over instant messaging. Regardless, I felt like I should try to post a few things here about what's going on in our lives.

So... this is the first of what I think may be several posts marking my first year on hormone replacement therapy, and how it relates to what came before. Because it marks the anniversary of the day when my rebirth began, I'm going to call it "Rebirthday."

This time, I’m going to be talking about my boobs, so if any of you feel like that’s TMI or triggering in any way (and if it is, I’m sorry :(), maybe don’t click through the “Read More.”

Trans Awareness Month, Day 14 - Passing tips?

(This is part 14 of my observance of Transgender Awareness Month, my answers to the 30 Day Trans-Challenge.)

14) What are some of your passing tips or things you do to pass?

Um, well, first of all, "passing" is a loaded term. Passing as what, exactly? There are an almost infinite number of variations in womens' hair, skin, body type, voice, and on and on and on, so meeting some arbitrary set of criteria that everyone will read as "female" is somewhat laughable. I'm not saying there aren't ranges on every one of those categories that roughly equate to "female" and "male", because there probably are. What I'm saying is that ultimately, as a non-binary identifying person, it doesn't matter to me.

... much.

Actually, it does matter to me, I guess. But it's complicated.

I don't really alter my presentation all that much for different social situations, other than the obvious one of getting more dressed up for church and work than, say, a quick trip to the corner store. That being the case, I have a couple of important criteria in mind when I get dressed:

1. I want to embrace my femininity in minor ways that nevertheless remind me of my identity. My hair is a big one. A little jewelry sometimes is another. The cut & color of the clothes I wear. Basically the stuff I talked about in my "coping" post a few days ago.
2. I want to look like "Dad" to my kids, in a way that doesn't make them (or their friends) uncomfortable. Having a daughter in her early teens, this one matters quite a bit to me.
3. I want to be attractive to my sweetheart. I don't care much if anyone else thinks I'm good looking, but I want her to.

If I pass those three tests, nothing else really matters to me. :)

"The Dip" and Coping

I'm still alive!

Lately I haven't given a lot of attention to this blog, largely because I'm in a dip, or ebb in feelings of Gender Dysphoria at the moment. Also, I imagine, because I'm starting to figure out the things that trigger my GD, and finding coping strategies that take the edge off. Fellow nontransitioning MTF Calie has what she calls her "TIDE" recipe, which inspires and informs my approach quite a bit:

T - Trans friends who understand me.
I - Immersing myself in my work and hobbies.
D - Diet and eating right.
E - Exercise and staying healthy.

I should probably add "pure will-power" to the list.

Thanks to the Internet, I definitely have Trans friends who understand me. Thanks, everyone! :)

I have indeed been immersing myself in work, home & family time, and returning to some hobbies I haven't made much time for this year. Being busy helps.

I've been paying a lot of attention to my health this year, exercising regularly (almost daily when the weather and my health allow it), eating less, and almost entirely cutting soft drinks out of my diet (but I do drink a lot of Crystal Light, because I'm a little obsessively particular about the taste of water). All told, I feel WAY better about my body and overall health than I did a year ago (face scar from this summer's epic bike crash notwithstanding). Still not the body my inner self wants to see looking back at me in the mirror, but closer.

Back!

Peek a boo...?

Just a quick note to say I'm still here and still have a lot I want to get around to blogging about. Shortly after my last post, two things happened that have affected my ability to blog here:

1. I got busy with work and my side business.
2. I wrecked my bike, earning me a stiff neck & shoulder, long and uncomfortable nights of restless sleep, and a nasty face scar that sends my dysphoria into overdrive if I stare at it in the mirror for too long, because of how it makes me feel about myself (there's probably a blog post in there somewhere).

So, yeah. You'll probably see me pop up in the comment threads for my friends' blogs, and I occasionally jump in to a conversation on the two LDS email groups I joined (TGI Mormons and NorthStar), but I have three or four posts in draft that I'll be posting soon, the biggest of which is the story of how I came out to my wife, and the effects that it's having on our relationship.

That one's heavy stuff, and I don't want to be misconstrued, so it doesn't exactly write itself. I'm hoping I can carve out some time to finish it later this week.

Tall for a Girl

When I was a teenage guy wanting to be more like my tall Dad, I would round my height up to 6 feet exactly. Nowadays I usually say I'm 5 feet/11 inches, which somehow sounds better to me for some reason. Still, that makes me pretty tall for a Caucasian woman, since the average height is apparently around 5 feet/4 inches. Which makes me feel like it would be hard to find clothes that fit, and unlikely I'd ever be able to "pass" as a woman in public, even if I got around my hair issues.

Then again, there are women around my height, including Brooke Shields, Michelle Obama, and even Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter! So, maybe I'm not such a tall freak after all! :)

Hairy

I've got a real love-hate relationship with shaving.

When I was a preteen, I saw my Dad shaving with his electric shaver, and thought it would be neat to have enough peach fuzz to need my own (I was one of those boys that want to be "just like Dad"; whatever gender confusion I may have had was buried pretty deeply at that point). Then I got hit by the "body hair fairy", and I quickly discovered how much of a hassle it can all be.

For starters, I've got a LOT of hair. Arms, legs, chest, back, and of course on my face. Way more hair than any genetic female would ever have, and enough that people notice when I shave it. For my face & legs, that's fine... guys can do that, especially if they're cyclists (I am). But everything else? Arms, chest, back, shoulders, armpits...? When that hair goes missing, people tend to ask questions I'd rather avoid.

So, I shave what I can safely shave in our culture without raising eyebrows. Not the best, but I can live with it for now.

Unfortunately, even for the places I feel free to shave, I have issues. I've always had super sensitive skin, which makes using a blade of any kind tricky — I tend to cut myself, a LOT. Plus, my face gets pretty irritated if I shave on anything approaching a regular basis (like daily). And as if that isn't enough, my hair grows in at a weird angle, so that even the closest, smoothest electric shaver leaves me with a Homer Simpson-style 5 o' clock shadow. Sad face! :(

It's taken me years to figure out how to deal with this. For a while I tried growing a goatee, because it seemed like it would be less of a daily hassle. I was also in a phase of my life when I was trying to deny my feminine side, and I thought having a beard would make my GID feelings weaker, or at the very least easier to ignore. I quickly found that I was wrong in both cases: it took even more effort to keep a goatee neatly trimmed, and after a few days the prickliness would really start to bug me (and my wife, for that matter), so I'd end up shaving it all off, and the feelings would come roaring back.

More often than not, then, I end up being lazy and looking like a less-masculine George Michael, with a day or two's worth of shadow. Yuck.

Honestly, if electrolysis / laser hair removal weren't so expensive and time-consuming, I'd have probably done my face and legs already. Le sigh.

Ah, yes, my legs. I've been shaving them on and off for years. Once, early on in our marriage, my wife commented on how sexy my legs would look if they were shaved. So that night I took the opportunity to shave them... slowly, and with several painful nicks, but I rather liked the results (my girlish feelings were just reawakening after being dormant for most of my college years). I loved their smooth silkiness, and the way my pants fabric felt slipping over them when I walked was absolutely delicious. My sweetheart was surprised when she saw what I'd done the next morning — I think her original comment was just playful and not really serious — but if I remember right, she liked them. (I was riding my bike back and forth a lot to college classes at the time, so my calves were pretty toned). But shaving my legs was so time consuming, not to mention hard for me to explain, so I'd go months or even years without doing anything about them.

Fast-forward to last year. I've spent the last few years exercising on my lunch break at work a couple of times a week, usually just power-walking or some light weight training in the gym in my building. Then I had the brilliant idea to bring my bike to work and leave it in a corner, so I could RIDE on my lunch breaks instead. It's easier on my bad knees, and I can go further and burn more calories in the same amount of time... win-win! Plus, as a serious cyclist, I finally had a justifiable reason to shave my legs on a regular basis... make that win-win-WIN! I've got my own Venus shaver for the job so I don't mess up my wife's blades, and she's come to accept my doing it.

I've kept my legs clean-shaven pretty much constantly since then. Doing maintenance shaves maybe once or twice a week is enough to keep them soft, smooth, and comfy. I still wish there was a better way besides shaving to get my face and legs to where I want them, and wish I could follow suit with the rest of my body, but for right now, this feels like a good compromise between sasquatch and naked mole rat, and makes me feel just a little bit more like myself.