One thing that I really wish cis people would understand is that boys and girls, men and women, aren’t that different.
I grew up constantly being told how different they were, how it was built in, it was intrinsic.
Men’s brains are like spaghetti, womens are like waffles.
Men are impulsive, women think ahead.
Girls are kind and sweet, boys are rude and loud.
Hey everyone, I just want you to know, it’s all bullshit. It’s all made up.
Its ok though, it’s actually better that way.
It means we understand each other more than we ever thought.
It means each of us gets to be our true selves.
Think of every gender trait you should embody but don’t.
Think of every time you aren’t “man enough” or “women enough.”
Now think about how none of that actually is real or matters. Let it all go.
Let it go for yourself, your partner, your kids, your parents, your friends.
Sometimes people try to back up these ideas with brain structure, which there is no modern science to back up.
Every older study which showed a difference between the sexes brains was actually just sexism at play. There is no real brain differences between the sexes.
People will then say, well its hormones, it’s the hormones make us different.
And I can attest that hormones do affect how you feel to a degree, but having lived in both an estrogen dominant body and a testosterone dominant body I’m here to say, it’s different, but not that much different.
My day to day thinking and feelings, and way of being in the world is still basically the same.
There were times I struggled with being irritable before and there are times I do now.
There were times I felt joy before and times I do now.
There were times I was sad before and times I’m sad now.
I still experience every feeling in the same way.
There just is no big significant biological difference between men and women that should or could be used to possibly justify the insane gender differences our culture expects and even demands.
Men and women both experience strong feelings of every type. They both experience the word in extremely diverse ways that are not tied to their sex. Its tied to being a human in a body.
I just want people to stop acting like men and women are different species.
We are all people, and we are at a basic level all the same.
So have some goddamn empathy for each other, becuase you are all far more alike than you are different.
Depression
The last few weeks I’ve been struggling really hard with depression.
The last two days… I’ve suddenly felt a lot better. So now, I have an even clearer view on just how deep I was.
It was bad. And the worst part is that I know it will come back. It might be tomorrow or in a week. If I’m lucky it will be years. But most likely sooner than later, because the biggest stressors that led to this most recent bout aren’t going away.
There is still a pandemic. It is the worst it’s ever been.
My business is still mostly closed. I can’t host sessions, or classes, or lessons. The things I designed my business to do and the things that make us the most money.
Luckily I do have the retail side of the shop and I’ve really bulked it up since March when we closed the first time.
This pandemic has really stretched my problem solving skills.
But you can only problem solve yourself so far.
A week or two ago I was agonizing over the fact that I couldn’t come up with the perfect plan to make up that lost income. I couldn’t figure out a way to hold outside sessions, or a venue to do lessons. I just couldn’t problem solve my way out of it. That was one of the biggest things that pushed me deeper into a place where I felt hopeless and I mostly shut down.
I’ve had moments of suicide ideation over the past few weeks. I’ve never been in any danger. I know how to handle it well enough when it comes and when it’s bad enough to get help.
The fact that it happened at all was scary and alarming though. I don’t think I’ve felt that since before I went on testosterone.
I’ve been scared to write about this or even talk about it for fear that people would think my depression is transition related. I don’t want people to think that it is becuase I’m on HRT or becuase I had surgery.
My transition is one of my greatest sources of joy! But that joy can’t out weight the heaviness of nine months of pandemic.
The only reason I am still in my home is thanks to our loan companies generous forbearance program. The only reason we have most of our bills paid (not all) and have food on the table is thanks the the generosity of friends and various aid programs.
Christmas time has brought out even more generosity in our friends and family and that has helped lighten the load on my shoulders.
Today a friend was able to give me the exact gift my son asked for this Christmas. The only thing he named which would have cost me over $100, she had in her basement and was ready to pass on.
Several friends have sent us money this month, from very small amounts to larger amounts and I greatly appreciate every dollar.
The other night frozen pizzas, soda, and a salad appeared on our doorstep.
These acts of community have lifted me out of my slump.
I also upped my dose of testosterone a bit this week after my 1 year results came back on the very low end of normal. I am absolutely sure that has played a role in my feeling better.
The reasons both for becoming depressed and for coming out of it are complex and impossible to know completely, but I know the pandemic is the largest contributor.
If you read this and you live in the US, please, stay home this holiday season. If you must see other people keep it close to home, keep it small, keep it masked.
Our lives are in your hands, and all gatherings are dangerous right now.
We can do this. We can stay home this Christmas so more people can live to see another year. Vaccines are coming. We just need a few more months to get them rolled out. Stay strong and stay home.
Doubt and Comfort
As I move ever closer to my transition goals, my top surgery, my name change, the increasing effects of testosterone, it seems I become more comfortable in who I am and experience less dysphoria. This lessening of dysphoria has me feeling more doubt. If I’m so comfortable, do I really need these things?
Suddenly the few places I need to use my old name still don’t bother me so much. Does that mean I never should have changed it in the first place? Or am I just content that knowing within a few months it will be essentially erased from most people’s memories and most legal documents. Is the light at the end of the tunnel making the remainder of the tunnel more bearable?
There is a peacefulness I feel some days that is what I imagine most cis people live with all the time. I’m increasingly comfortable in my body, my name, my identity. I love myself. I like being me. I like being a guy, a man, a queer man, a non-binary man. I’m becoming comfortable enough that those daily little annoyances of hearing my old name, or being called “she” just bounce off a little easier.
This peace and love makes me question if I needed all this hard work the past year and a half. All the sudden, I’m wondering if I should back out of top surgery. Yet I still work hard each day to make my chest as small as possible.
It’s strange that this happiness and doubt come hand in hand. But if you handed me my 2017 body and name and asked me if I would be just as happy with that I would shudder in discomfort.
I’ve just come so fucking far since spring of 2019 when I first started realizing I was trans. I’ve come so far. Sometimes I just need to take a big deep breath and sit in that accomplishment.
Coming out may have been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. So hard I didn’t even do it all at once. I did it extremely slowly over about a 6 month period. But by October 2019 most people who knew me knew I was trans. Its a year later now.
I’ve made it this far and now I have another big step ahead of me.
My top surgery is October 6th. Thats 11 days from right now.
I’m scared and I’m ready.
See ya’ll on the other side, as literally a new man.
International Women’s Day
One year ago I made a post celebrating my “women owned business.” We were just over one month away from the grand opening and working like crazy to finish the build. It was just one short month after the opening that I had my gender crisis™️.
Owning a business slowed down my coming out pretty significantly. I realized I was “Not-cis” so quickly after I opened the business. I had been on TV and in the paper and met hundreds of people in person how could they now possibly learn that I’m not who I just said I was.
I tried to just not come out for several months. It didn’t work. I was starting to loose it a little bit being one person at home and another at work/in public. I needed to be fully me.
Here we are a year later and I’m fully out. Lots of people still don’t really know or if they do they don’t get it. Most people still see me as a women. I’m not.
Upon my gender crisis™️ last May the first thing I knew for sure was I was definitely not a cis woman. I wasn’t sure what I was, but I knew what I wasn’t. I very quickly started using they/them pronouns and I still use them today.
This year’s international women’s day was hard. I didn’t feel right hanging out with my skater friends at an international women’s day event. I didn’t feel right at all. I was exhausted physically from a big event yesterday, and exhausted emotionally from being misgendered about 1000 times at the event. Then just add some sensory overload to all that from the same event and you’ve got a big mess.
After an early morning at work I was home at 2pm and spent nearly three hours in bed on and off napping. I woke up just feeling the weight of not fitting in.
I don’t fit in with men. I don’t fit in with women. I just don’t fit. I never have.
I’ve come to terms with my identity as a non-binary trans man, and I’m totally open to that identity potentially changing or evolving in the future, but it feels like no one else has accepted that’s who I am. People don’t do much to acknowledge it. Only those in my inner circle get my pronouns/titles correct. Most people still call me she/mom/wife.
Today, fortunately, is the day of the week my wonderful non-binary support group meets. I was able to be heard about how hard today is and have some people empathize with me in these feelings. I’ve also spent some time texting with some really supportive folks, some who have experienced transition themselves.
I needed that reminder that I am not alone. There are other people who this is their first year realizing they aren’t a women. Or maybe their relationship to womanhood has changed. Maybe this is the first year they are celebrating being a women, as is the case for my partner.
Today is not bad, it’s just complicated. I have a complicated past with womanhood and a lot of baggage to work though still. Gender is hard and I’m here for the ride.
Next year should be a whole lot easier.
Three Months on Testosterone Update
Three months in and life is good.
There is a part of me that is more happy and at peace than ever before. There is another part of me that is constantly disappointed and frustrated. It feels like the part of me that was frustrated with my gender has just morphed to now be frustrated with the way the world responds to my gender.
Lets start there.
For the first time in a long I have a growing sense of character. I know who I am. But this can be hard to communicate to people who have never struggled with their gender, especially because I don’t fit easily into the gender binary. Even though I feel comfortable with calling myself a trans man now I still strongly identify as non-binary. My full answer to who I am gender wise is, “I am AJ, a non-binary trans man.” That’s too much for most people though.
Depending on my audience I introduce my gender identity differently. Usually in introductions in queer or progressive spaces I just boil it down to “I’m trans” and let them figure out what they think that means. Only in small trans or non-binary specific spaces do I bother to explain the whole thing.
Most of the time moving though the world though, I’m not introducing myself. People see me and they make an assumption of my gender, as we all do in our strongly gendered western society. 99% of the time they gender me as female. “Good morning Ma’am” “Thanks Miss” “Nice Lady” I get these all. the. time. every. single. day.
Twice now someone has greeted me as “Sir” and then “corrected” themselves to “Ma’am.” These interactions give me hope. I’m starting to confuse a few people. Confusion is better than being read as female all the damn time.
This is one of the only negative parts of my transition thus far. Each day being misgendered over and over starts to wear on you. You get tired and frustrated and sometimes I just need to go home and have a really big cry. I think any man walking though the world being called a woman non-stop would feel similarly frustrated. I expect many would react much more angrily in the moment, whereas most of the time I just grimace and move on.
Passing is complicated and problematic, but I would rather be read as a man than a woman if I had to choose. The lack of this out in the world can really get me down.
Let’s move on to the good stuff.
I’m happy. Overall I’m happy and less stressed and less anxious than I was a year ago. All of my close friends get my name right now and most of them get my pronouns correct (they/them). I love this. It makes me feel right inside. There are times people deadname me, and I honestly don’t realize they are talking to me. Changing my name to something not strongly gendered has allowed me to fully explore who I am with less baggage and expectations that come with a strongly gendered name.
I enjoy seeing myself in the mirror (at least above the chest) which is something I’ve never experienced before. I used to look in the mirror and see a stranger, I would stare at them and say “Who are you?” Now I see a boy hitting adolescence, just a bit later than most do and I smile. Even though my cowlicks frustrate me, I enjoy doing my hair. I love getting tips from other guys on how to style it. I have a reason to care for the person in the mirror, I like them. I want to be them. I want to be this version of me.
I need to shave now. I LOVE shaving. It’s one of the single most affirming things I’ve ever done.
My dad died so young I have very few memories of him, none of him shaving. But I remember strongly staying over at my cousin’s house at a young age and watching their dad shave in the morning. I was fascinated. I remember the smell of the shaving cream, the water running, him rinsing the razor and looking closely in the mirror. Now I have enough facial hair to need to do the same every few weeks or look like patchy 14 year old boy (which looks extra weird when you have a large chest ). I’m obsessed with my mustache stubble (the only part that feels like real stubble so far, just give me another year or two) and I’m looking forward to being able to really rock the full stubble look.
I love the way my relationship with my partner has changed. This might be the most wonderful and fulfilling part of it everything so far. She understands what I need better than anyone in the world. She knows when to throw those masculine terms in to just make me perk up and help me feel great. She also understands that most of the time I feel best with neutral terms and pronouns. She just gets it, and the way we interact has changed a lot, for the better. We are constantly checking in with each other about gender stuff, and looking out for each other. We communicate well and affirm each other in new and wonderful ways.
There is something different about the energy I exude now. It just feels very masculine and just… right. I know that sounds woo as shit, but I really don’t know how else to explain it. It’s taken me a long time to allow myself space to feel and express myself in this way becuase its always always felt off limits. The space I inhabit mentally feels like it’s less work now, less of a performance and more natural. I can just be.
More practically speaking (and the question most often asked), is about how I feel physically. Being on Testosterone has made me hungry, horny, hot, and hairy. Also pimply. The acne is getting really bad, but it comes in waves. One week it will be awful and painful and everywhere, and the next week will be mostly ok. From what I understand this will get worse over the coming months, and then, hopefully, slowly better. I have a routine and it seems to be helping, but it’s just part of the process of going through some extra puberty.
I’m so hungry that some days I feel like I can’t stop eating. I’ve definitely gained weight, and gotten larger in both my gut and my shoulders. I’ve gone up a shirt size, but my pants still fit fine. I’m not a gym rat, but I try to do full body strength training at home a few times a week and I went from barely being able to do pushups to doing ten quite easily in a very short while. I’m looking forward to continuing to gain strength and very much looking forward to some fat redistribution, even if it means a bigger belly.
I don’t want to go too deep on the horny part except to say it’s confusing and hard to work though and somehow good all at once. My whole experience of sexuality is shifting so massively despite the fact that I don’t experience much in the way of sexual attraction. It seems like something that’s still evolving rapidly at this point.
I’m hotter. I’m just straight up warmer than I used to be. I’m not in hoodies and shivering all the time. I’m sweating at the skatepark when its 65 degrees, and then I come home to our 70 degree house and it feels like a furnace. I wake up sweaty at night and pull of all my blankets. I’m very worried about summer, as I already don’t do well in heat. I will be getting our pool fixed before any hot days come and probably have the AC on more often!
Lastly, the hair. I already talked about shaving above, but I’ve already got more body hair, and I love it. Every time I get out of the shower I take stock of how much its grown and I revel in it. At least one trans friend of mine is jealous (haha, sorry dude). Lots of trans guys want body hair and struggle to grow it. That’s not gonna be a problem for me, the men in my family tend to be pretty hairy, so it’s in my genes and I can literally see the progress every week. I’m going be a short bear before you know it.
Overall, I’m so happy with where I am and where I am going. There are growing pains along the way, but no real growth comes easily.
Don’t Grieve Me
Coming out is a slow hard process.
I started doing it slowly, but eventually had to kind of do it all at once when I decided I needed everyone in my life to call me AJ.
There are a lot of peripheral people in my life I don’t see very often. Some I haven’t seen in years. They don’t necessarily read my blog or follow my instagram or my youtube channel.
The word is getting around. They are finding out I am trans, they are finding out I’m changing my name and pronouns. They are finding out I am on testosterone. They are finding out I want top surgery.
They are finding out from family and friends. They aren’t talking to me or asking me questions.
They are reacting. And the reactions are mixed.
Today I heard about one family member who cried. She cried tears of loss in hearing I’m transitioning. She told my mom she was sorry for her loss.
My Mom had a bit of hard time at the beginning of all this, but now she’s an incredible ally. She tells people, “My kid is happy, why would I be sad?”
Today we talked openly about names. I said “I want to go by AJ, but when I legally change my name I want to write a full name and I want your opinion on what that should be.” She suggested “Al” becuase that’s what she’s called me for much of my life. I don’t want to put “Al” on my legal documents. Maybe Alex, becuase Al could be short for that. I told her I liked Adam, which is what I know she would have named me if I had been assigned male at birth.
She was worried about me picking a name that belonged to one of my cousins. I reminded her I wouldn’t be going by that new name necessarily, I really like AJ, and even if I did, I haven’t been in the same room as one of those cousins in probably 10 years.
We didn’t discuss this, but I literally have two sisters both named Sam (blended families ya’ll). People having the same name isn’t that big of a deal.
The difference between my mom, and those other people who cried, is that she is celebrating with me. She is choosing to listen, directly to me, and learn both from me and from other resources about trans people and trans experinces. She’s also known me my whole life and isn’t terribly surprised. I spent most of my childhood trying to be one of the boys.
Grieving me when you aren’t even listening to me is the worst thing I can hear. If you care, call. If you care, listen. If you care, learn.
People aren’t bothering to even learn the very basics of trans identities and it fucking hurts.
I’m still me. I’m the exact same person I’ve always been. I’m the best version of myself yet. I’ve had so much time to grow and learn. I’ve moved though careers and life stages and I even run my own damn business now!
I love my life. I love it so much.
I can’t imagine still holding on to the role of woman that was so uncomfortable for so long. It just wasn’t right. It never was. Not when I was 3 or 13 or 33.
I’m learning to love myself as a trans person, and I wish you could learn to love me too.
Don’t grieve me. Celebrate me. Because for the first time in my entire life, I’m starting to do that. I’m celebrating myself, I’m celebrating myself as a trans man and I just want my family and friends to get to know me and celebrate with me.
My Sexulaity is Evolving!?
Reader be warned, this blog is going to talk about my sexuality, primarily sexual and romantic attraction. Not sex itself.
I got my first crush when I was seven years old. Of course it wasn’t sexual at the time, but I knew my feelings for this boy were different from how I felt about anyone else. I remember writing furiously in my first little diary about him. I cut his picture out of the year book so I could tape it where I could see it everyday.
I loved a boy. I didn’t really talk about it. I didn’t know what to do about it besides try to play with him more at recess and try to get in more group projects with him.
It happened becuase he was nice to me.
I have been bullied for as long as I can remember. Sometimes worse than other times. I went to a new school in 2nd grade after a poor experience in our local public school. In our class our seats were arranged by our last name, and this kid happened to sit next to me because of our last names. He turned out to be a very kind person. He never made fun of me for my height or gender or lack of fine motor skills or anything. He never made fun of me.
I don’t remember a lot of specifics from that young of an age. I do remember he was nice to me and part way through the school year it made me get new big feelings. I had heard enough about crushes to know that’s what this was. But I also knew I didn’t want to like… kiss anyone yet.
This crush lasted on and off for about seven years. It was my only grade school and junior high crush.
Because our school was small we were with the same kids all the way through 8th grade. So he and I were in the same class and same classroom, often next to each other becuase of the ongoing last name organizational system for years. And he was always nice to me.
We were friends all those years, and as we got older even did very typical Jr. high things like go to McDonalds together and see movies. But they were never dates. Even though in my heart all I wanted was for them to be dates. I’m not sure how much I told him, I was very scared to share any intimate feelings at that age. I don’t know if he knew or if he knew and wasn’t interested. Either way he stayed kind.
We went to the same high school for one year, but that was the same year my heart found its next crush.
This boy also sat next to me at school. We had our last class of the day together our freshman year. I already knew him from the skatepark. We would often sleep though our last class and then go skate after school, catching a ride from his brother or my mom to a skate spot for the afternoon.
It really didn’t take long for me to fall for this boy. But it was clear that once again that the interest wasn’t mutual and I had to fight down those feelings for fear of losing my only good friend in my new scary high school. This was the worst year of bullying in all my schooling and I had drifted away from most of my friends from 8th grade in this new school, leaving me vulnerable.
After that year I again switched schools, starting at the local public high school for my sophomore year.
I still hung out with the boy from freshman year all the time, and my heart still crushed on him pretty hard, until my junior year when I became closer with a kid who I had met though our school music program. This kid was a year younger than me than me, but we had become very good friends and eventually I realized I liked them more than a friend as well.
My heart had moved on to its next love, who happened to be my new best friend. All three crushes had been best friends at some point before becoming crushes.
Throughout all these years average teens were a mystery to me. They seemed to have actual crushes on celebrities and people they barely knew. They were attracted to people just by looking at them. I literally could not understand this. I had never experienced this. I had only fallen for best friends.
The third crush was my last for a very long time. We started dating my senior year and got married a few years later. We are still together. I married my third crush, the first one to return my romantic feelings.
My fourth crush didn’t come until more than a decade after the third one. I literally felt no romantic or sexual attraction to anyone except my partner for over ten years. And then I found a new best friend.
We had known each other for a while, but eventually we started hanging out together late at night smoking weed and just talking for hours. After a few weeks of this, I fell hard. I hadn’t experienced a crush in so long that it was all consuming and wrecked me.
It was hard on my marriage but ultimately something that forced us to talk about a lot of things that had been previously “off limits” due to our time spent within conservative Christianity. The experience helped us grow as a couple and stay close to the person I was crushing on. He’s still one of our best friends, and his new partner has also become one of our closest friends!
A few years ago I discovered the term “Demisexual”, which describes a sexuality in which you only develop sexual attraction after forming a deep emotional bond with a person. When I learned what it meant I immediately identified with it. Read more about demisexulaity here. I used this term for myself for the past few years, but now I’m not really sure anymore.
It turns out as I’m figuring out my gender my experience of attraction is changing dramatically.
For the first time I’m finding myself attracted to seemingly random people. I’m getting these weird small crushes, and they are entirely on queer people, or people I am close with. People whose gender is hard to figure out are the ones I’m most likely to fall for. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of genderqueer people until very recently.
It’s taking me by surprise.
I’ve never experienced life like this. Just seeing a random person at a bar and thinking “Oh they are cute, I would totally be into them.” Having a friend get flirty with me and not only feeling anxious, but also feeling somewhat into it. Its all new and weird.
Looking back it turns out all my crushes except crush number 2 are openly queer in some way. Number 1 came out as gay at some point and I found out when I found him on facebook years later. Number 3 is my trans partner who wrote an entire album about her bisexuality. Number 4 recently told me he’s bi.
There’s something about queer people I guess. And now that I’m more comfortable in my body and my identity than I’ve ever been I’m finding myself attracted to people in various ways all the time! It’s really wild. But overall it’s good.
I’ve always understood sexuality as fluid intellectually, but now I’ve experienced it first hand. Sexuality can change and evolve! It can catch us off guard, it can overwhelm us with feelings. It can be a gift and seemingly a curse at times, but I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for healthy intimate relationships of all types. I’m happy to have so many in my life both past and present. I’m extremely thankful for those boys who befriended me and protected me as a young person who was so often bullied.
I once heard it said “Once you love someone you love them forever” and with those four big crushes I have I found that true. Even if I’m not close to them today, my heart will always have a special place for them.
A Big Step Forward!
I’ve spent the last few months wrestling with my gender and what exactly I need to feel more like myself.
I’ve consistently found that the more masculine I allow myself to be and feel the happier I am.
When my partner or good friends drop a masculine “He” or “Husband” my heart leaps out of my chest. Yes. That is me. That is what I want.
I still have a lot of work to do and each day I’m slowly tearing down walls. I still believe I’m not allowed to be this or do this. I’m not “allowed” to be a boy.
When I was a kid I was intensely and quietly jealous of my male cousins. I wanted to be them. I wanted that maleness. I didn’t want to have to constantly prove my identity as “one of the guys” but I did have to prove that over and over again.
I had no idea that trans people existed when I was a kid. If I did I would have spoken up. Instead I just did all the boy things and played with all the boys. I was recognized as a tom-boy, but when it came down to it, I was a girl. At school I was in the girls uniform, girls teams, girl everything. Besides having two great female friends to hang out with in those situations, it sucked. I wanted to be with the other group. I was in the wrong group.
“It Feels Selfish. It feels like giving myself… too big of a present.”
– Maia Kobabe on Top Surgery
I heard one of my favorite authors, Maia Kobabe*, say in an interview on Gender Reveal that top surgery would be “too big of a present” to emselves.
This resonated deeply with me. I feel this way about top surgery, I also felt the same way about testosterone. Its too nice, too big, and I don’t need it, so it’s just like a huge gift to myself. I also had a lot of worries about testosterone. Both of these thoughts slowed me from making any quick decisions, or even seeking out a doctor to talk to.
I’m a very sensitive person, I don’t do well on most meds, so I worried about just messing with my system at all. I worried about becoming angry and irritable. I worried about not getting to pick and choose my changes. I might get really hairy. I might go bald! I might have a lower voice! I might… I might… I might…
After months of research and watching videos and talking to trans friends, I finally decided it to move forward. I knew I could do a low dose and stop at any time and if I stopped early on I wouldn’t experience many changes and it takes time to reach the irreversible ones.
It took a few months for me to get in with a new doctor who cares for several trans people, but when I finally did the appointment was amazing. He was so affirming and kind and gentle. I was anxious but decided walking in that I had to be 100% honest and if it didn’t go well I could find a new doctor. That wasn’t necessary, he was great.
I struggled to articulate to him why I wanted to go on testosterone, “I’m not looking for any specific physical changes, I know it’s kind of a grab bag. I just want to feel… more like me… and I think maybe this will help.”
This cis-male dotor was tearing up and replied “I understand what you are saying and have heard similar sentiments from other paitents.”
I told him I wanted a low dose and he listened and did exactly that.
This day was the first day I felt confident enough to write “non-binary trans man” on my paper work. I had only said “non-binary” publicly before this. I gave myself more freedom to be me and it felt really good.
After finishing with the doctor I got my blood drawn. At the end of the blood draw I noticed the man who had taken my samples for testing had a trans flag sticker on his name tag, and was only about an inch taller than me. Until that moment I had read him as cis. I don’t know that he’s trans for sure, but not a ton of cis people go around wearing trans flags, and a lot of trans people work at this clinic.
This interaction alone gave me so much hope. Maybe someday someone will see me working my job and call me “he” and think I’m a short cis-guy.
A week later on 12-4-19 I went back and met with a nurse (also trans) who taught me how to do my injections and watched me do the first one around 11:30am. I felt really anxious.
After that I went on with my day, we got coffee, I went to therapy, had lunch with a friend to celebrate the occasion, and went to work. I didn’t feel any different.
The next evening I was just doing stuff around the house, hanging christmas lights, and all the sudden I felt different. I felt warm, calm, happy, energized, and… horny…. What?? I felt so good! I honestly think this is what I first felt the testosterone in my system, about 34 hours after my first shot it was affecting me and it felt awesome.
Over the next few days I realized I was actually excited about every possible change. I’m not sure how many times I’ve mentioned how hungry and tired I am to my friends (common feelings when you are early to T). I’m actually looking forward to my voice changing. I’m watching the hair on my belly start to get darker. I’m happy about all these things and more! I’m happy about the things I was scared of!
Going on T has been one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself and I have zero regrets here in week two!
Footnotes:
* Maia’s book “Gender Queer” was what helped “crack my egg” or make me realize I wasn’t cisgender. In the book Maia talks about Spivak pronouns which Maia uses. Here are links to eir book and info about Spivak pronouns.