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.

Second Puberty

Last night I think I started to realize what HRT is going to mean for me and my family. Like I mentioned last time, I was due to consult with my doctor on hormone treatment options, and that happened Tuesday. I've been on Spiro and Estradiol since then, and overall it's been a huge improvement to my state of mind, but after work yesterday I met DW & our kids to do a school thing for DD, and all of a sudden, I got completely sideswiped by an intense anxiety attack. Too many people, all looking perfectly well adjusted and cis-normative and able to blend in to society completely naturally (I don't know if they all were or not, but that's what my brain was telling me), and this powerful fear of rejection washed over me. Like no matter what I do mentally or physically, I'll never be able to be an anonymous part of that kind of crowd.

(This is all going on in my head, mind you. I'm not out to our son yet, and DW who tries to support and understand what I'm going through, had enough on her plate without having to coddle me, so I just leaned against a wall and closed my eyes until I could regain some measure of control)

Mind you, DD's in high school, maybe midway through her own puberty. DS has gotten really irrational and emotional in the past month, so we suspect he's on the verge of his as well. Now this. When we got home, I tried to explain what I'd experienced to DW, and her comically exasperated comment? "Aaargh, I don't know if I can handle THREE people all going through puberty at the same time!"

She's right. This is going to be a second puberty for me. Hopefully this one will go better than my first, and I'm still confident that I'm doing what I need to address my dysphoria, but I have no doubt it's going to be a roller coaster of a year.

Where I'm at

So... I kind of dropped off the planet halfway through my 30-days-trans-challenge. Things since November have been hectic, and a lot has changed, but more on that in future posts.

The big news is what's been happening in the past month. Last week, I began transgender-focused primary care at the UCSF Women's Health center in San Francisco. My GP, Dr. Deutsch, is a trans woman, and was very helpful and understanding as I explained my situation and that I'm looking for something to manage my dysphoria, but not take any steps toward transition. Next week I go back in for a follow-up appointment and consultation on HRT options (yay!).

She also suggested I should see a therapist, not for gatekeeping reasons (they're an informed consent clinic, so I don't need a therapist's letter as a precursor to treatment) but just so I can better work out my goals and how to include DW. Well, with a great deal of nervousness, tonight I had my first appointment with a trans-friendly therapist. She was incredibly patient and accommodating, even though I was kind of all over the place about my faith, my body, my job, our marriage, our kids, and on and on. She asked a couple of pointed, clarifying questions, but otherwise, sat back and let me begin to untangle this Gordian knot I've been calling my "gender issues". It's still early days, but so far, I feel like it's going to be a very productive and positive relationship. I'm hopeful. :)

Trans Awareness Month, Day 11 - How do you manage dysphoria?

(This is part 11 of my observance of Transgender Awareness Month, my answers to the 30 Day Trans-Challenge.)

Yes, I realize I'm very behind schedule. Maybe it'll be Christmas before I finish; I dunno. Anyway, here's question 11:

11) How do you manage dysphoria?

Woooooo. This one is a little tricky, because I know it's so different for so many of us. So I'll preface this by saying these are just my strategies. They may not work for everyone, and a year from now they may not work very well for me either, because I evolve them as my needs change.

Presentation

As I've said previously, my agreement with DW is that I no longer present femme, even in the privacy of our home. That doesn't mean I'm stuck wearing frumpy, baggy lumberjack clothes, though. Over the last 18 months, I've built up a decent little collection of attractive, androgynously-cut clothes I absolutely love to wear: a couple of pairs of jeans, some dressy slacks, a few chinos, some button-up shirts and nice tees to layer with them. I don't really push the gender boundary too hard, though... I work in a pretty male-dominated field, and I'm not entirely sure if that wouldn't end up being a career-limiting move. But it's a blessing that my field also has a fairly relaxed dress code, so I don't have to go all "Mad Men" with a suit & tie (honestly, that would drive me bonkers really quickly).

I've also been acquiring a small collection of gender-neutral jewelry: bracelets and necklaces, mostly beads, shells, or natural fibers. It's a little touch, but sometimes it's just enough to remind me of my identity and help me to feel a little more confident about myself when I'm surrounded by testosterone.

I pay more attention to personal care than I used to. I try to keep my fingernails neatly trimmed, and occasionally treat myself to a pedicure (once on an anniversary date with DW, which was unexpected & fun). I try to shave my face every other day; I really ought to do it daily (or even twice daily, really), but I also have very sensitive skin, and over-shaving it makes it irritated. I've been using moisturizer morning & night, and that seems to be helping a bit. I've also been growing my hair out; it's long enough now to pull back in a little ponytail, which is a new experience for me. I'd like to go a little longer, but that's a conversation DW and I haven't had yet.

Chemical

In addition to all of the above, I've been on herbal supplements since this spring: Saw Palmetto as an anti-androgen, and Black Cohosh for its phytoestrogenic properties. They're both much milder than HRT, but they serve to take the edge off my dysphoria just a little bit. But really, I need to find an endocrinologist and get set up with something a little more official and professional, if for no other reason than to make sure I'm not messing up my liver. The herbals have been a nice stopgap while we were in transition from the East Coast, but now that we're more or less settled and back in good health, I think it's time to start doctor shopping.

I've also made a habit of eating more healthfully. I've almost completely eliminated soft drinks from my diet (the occasional Mountain Dew at a restaurant still happens from time to time), which has made a pretty big difference. I eat a lot of salad (I'm talking rabbit levels of salad consumption); it fills you up just as much as carbohydrate-heavy stuff, without the negative effects carb-loading can have. I otherwise haven't really cut anything out of my diet, I'm just smarter about portion control, and try to reach for fruits and veggies first if I need a snack.

Another chemical change that has been very helpful is regular exercise. At least a couple of days a week, I try to run (well, more like power-walking most of the time) during my lunch hour. It wakes me up when I might otherwise get a little sleepy after lunch, and it revs up my metabolism so that it's more efficient about burning calories (which feeds back into my diet). Since I started my exercise program in earnest, I've lost about 35 pounds! I'm not quite where I want to be yet (still have a bit of a "spare tire" to lose), but looking in the mirror isn't quite so distressing as it once was.

Social

I've talked before about how helpful it's been to have friends that know what I'm going through. I participate on a couple of email discussion groups for LDS transgender people, and it's been very rewarding. Sometimes I'm able to say an encouraging word or two when a friend is feeling down. Other times, someone will do the same for me. Often the discussions we get into will expand my understanding of some facet of the Gospel, or of what it means to be trans and stay a faithful member. Sometimes my friends and I get into off-list conversations over Google Chat or Facebook or whatever, and those conversations have also been really rewarding and enriching.

Just as importantly, I'm out to my wife, and lately we've had some really great conversations about faith and faithfulness. We have kids that don't yet know the fulness of my issues, and I don't have anyone else I can really talk to in person, but having DW to talk to has been a tremendous comfort, and I've very grateful for her and her attempts to understand me and support me in my challenges, even as I try to do the same for her.

Spiritual

Finally, last but not least, is the spiritual component to my coping. I have about a 45-minute commute to work most days, and although sometimes I spend it listening to NPR or music, I've been making an effort to plug in my audio scriptures and listen to at least a chapter or two every day from the Book of Mormon. It's been really interesting to me to study this way, because the lessons I'm gleaning from the long sweep of Nephite/Lamanite history are new to me, and I'm learning a lot about human nature, righteousness, wickedness, humility, pride, and what it means to have faith, even when I don't know the meaning of all things.

Disclaimer

Again, these are my coping strategies as of November 2013. I reserve the right to change them as my needs change, and I make no claim that they'll be a silver bullet that eliminates all traces of gender dysphoria. Doing these things haven't eliminated mine, either, but taken as a whole, they've certainly made it more manageable. And for right now, that's enough.