I’m becoming pussified* by testosterone
Posted: December 3, 2013 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: ftm, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, non-binary, pain, pain tolerance, self-injury, self-mutilation, testosterone, trans, transgender 10 Comments*I made up this word, I think (actually I just looked it up, and I totally did not make this word up), but that doesn’t mean some people don’t like it. Let me know if you don’t like it; I’ll think more about it. The root word is “pussy,” which I don’t mean to use in a derogatory way. More like it has a certain ring to it; it is an accurate descriptor for what I mean to say. I’m writing about becoming a pussy when it comes to pain, basically.
Also, trigger warning: self-injury
Before I started taking testosterone (about 9 months ago), I had a peculiar, but not really uncommon, relationship to pain. In many cases, I derived pleasure from pain. I would create sensations of pain, within my control, in an effort to calm myself. Also, when I’d hurt myself accidentally like for example, hit my arm on a doorway, I would feel alarm, followed by an adrenaline rush, followed by a pleasant soothing wave. I think in retrospect, I had a lot of potential to really get into BDSM, except for the fact that before taking testosterone, my sex drive was pretty close to non-existent, so none of that was all that appealing in a sexual context.
Now? If I hurt myself, it hurts! If I accidentally ran into a doorway, it would not be pleasant in any way, shape, or form. I remember the first few times I got hurt in little ways, in the first couple of months of being on testosterone; I was so surprised by how much pain was coursing through my body. I just felt like, aaaaaah! I’ve been swearing under my breath and feeling unnerved by how much stuff hurts.
When I’ve been feeling particularly upset or depressed, I will still have the urge or flash-image to self-injure myself, but there is no real desire to follow through with it whatsoever.
I haven’t self injured since last winter, which is so incredible to me. I hated that it was such an effective coping strategy. Probably my most effective coping strategy, for about 13 years or so. I’ve had such a long, complex relationship to self-injury, both as a concept and as it relates to my body. And I’m so glad to see it changing.
Is pain tolerance a gendered thing? I’m sure the way people experience pain is all over the map, but are there generalities between genders? Such as, females have a higher threshold for tolerating pain. I have no idea, but I’m really curious about it.
And seriously, how cool is it to be living through such a transformation on so many different levels? Like when I started testosterone, it never occurred to me that I might feel differently about pain and be cured (so far at least) of my self- injuring tendencies!
8 months on T without physical changes
Posted: November 18, 2013 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, libido, non-binary, sex drive, testosterone, trans, transition, voice dropping Leave a commentI’m continuing to walk this fine line between experiencing incredible internal changes, which makes the decision to continue taking T a no-brainer, and feeling concern about long-term physical changes. So far, this line is still in place, and all is well.
I’ve been posting about progress on testosterone super infrequently. There’s a couple of reasons for this: 1. I’m definitely feeling like I’m in it for the long term (both taking T and writing this blog), so it’s more like spurts of data over a lot period of time, rather than data overload and then burnout, or something like that. 2. There’s really not a whole lot to report! I mean, I’ve been experiencing a ton of internal changes. But things are feeling pretty stabilized, and there’s not a ton of exciting new information. Here’s a recap / rundown:
I’m using Androgel 1%, 1 pump (1.25g) daily.
Physical changes: what I have noticed has been sooooo minimal, which I’m so psyched about. And these changes happened within the first 2-3 months, and I’m not seeing much new here since. I noticed a slight filling out of my mustache, a few longer light-colored hairs on my chin, a slight broadening of my shoulders with some muscle growth in my pecs, biceps, and shoulders. My clitoris got bigger over the course of a few days about 2 months in, and hasn’t changed since then. I’ve gotten a little sweatier and smellier (feeling the desire to shower more frequently), and I seem to have a higher tolerance for cold, which is awesome! There is one physical change that I’m noticing more recently: I’m seeing slightly darker hairs at the application site. I apply the gel to my upper thighs, and there’s definitely some slight hair growth. The one change I’m feeling ambivalent about and unsure of is voice dropping. I keep being hyper aware and concerned. No one else seems to be able to tell there is any difference. So far, I haven’t made vocal recordings because I don’t want to obsess over it any more than I already am. I think the difference is so slight, and that voices are moving, dynamic, changing things anyway, that there’s really no cause for concern. Largely, I worry that certain changes plateaued soon and were pretty negligible, but that perhaps my voice will keep dropping the longer I’m on T. I’ll just have to wait to find out. I may start making voice recordings, if I think it’ll help.
Internal changes: The internal changes I talked about at 5 months included drastic decrease in anxiety, increase in sex drive, feeling grounded and connected and warm and fuzzy, and changes in sensations of pain. I’m still reveling in all of these things. It is still plenty of reason to keep taking T, despite my concern over experiencing physical changes. For about 6 months, my anxiety levels were at 0, which I have never experienced before in my entire life. Now they’re fluctuating, like life tends to cause, but at a much lower, more tolerable level, than I was experiencing pre-T. Increased sex drive feels sustainable, and has allowed me to explore new (dormant?) areas of my sexuality I hadn’t been able to tap into before. Sensations of pain and feeling connected to my body have been starting to dwindle in awesomeness, I think because I’m getting used to it, and can’t recall what it used to feel like, to compare then and now, as much. Everything is dwindling in awesomeness, and I keep trying to remind myself how different in a negative way, my bodily experiences were, pre-T.
The effects of T have been a dream come true for me. I’ll be back with a T update in a few more months! (These photos are from 5 months and then 8 months. I guess I’m looking at whether there’s a change in my face shape over time. So far, I can’t notice anything. This pleases me.)
We took the plunge!
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: agreements, ceremony, coming out, create-your-own, genderqueer, getting gay married, honeymoon, lgbt, lgbtq, marriage, non-binary, relationships, rituals, trans, wedding 2 Comments
We did that thing – we got married! And! In the process of getting married, I came out (sort of) at work! But first thing’s first – we got married on Saturday, at a nearby park with a stream and some little waterfalls. We went to brunch first at a vegetarian Greek restaurant, with all our parents, who had yet to meet(!) after all this time. Then we went to the park from there, where 3 friends, and 2 of my partner’s siblings all met up to do this thing. My partner’s brother officiated, and she and I came up with all the wording ourselves. Everyone stood in a circle, we did a go-around where everyone introduced themselves and said what brought them here, and then we played a song on a boombox. Then C (I’m going to switch to “C” instead of always writing “my partner”) and I gave a 2 part lecture on the nature of love, which probably lasted over 10 minutes! Hope no one was sleeping! After that, we said some “agreements,” in which there was a lot of laughing and we agreed on some things. Then we kissed (a huge deal for me because I can barely get myself to take her hand in public), played another song, and had everyone join hands and do some hippie-like circle formation dancing and spinning. It was pretty great. Then we broke and handed out fancy sodas, like the kinds in glass bottles, and clinked glasses and took some photos.
It was very close to how I pictured it going in my head. Which was a huge relief, because a hang up about getting married at all, for me, was that wedding ceremonies and traditions? I don’t get it, and don’t connect with that, at all. So we created something we did connect with.
Right after, we took off for a fun 3 day weekend in a town about 2 hours away. We went to some restaurants, saw 12 Years a Slave (nice “honeymoon” movie pick), went to some botanical and herbal gardens and an arboretum, went to an art museum, went record shopping, and just relaxed and stuff.
So, nothing really feels different, other than that C can now get on my health insurance! Wheee!
The thing that actually feels like a bigger deal than getting married, is that I told people at work about it. Basically, no one at work knew I was in a relationship until 6 months ago, at which point I told my co-worker, my supervisor, and the head of the kitchen. But… I’ve been in a relationship for 7 years, and I’ve worked there for 6 and a half. And I’ve even wrongly implied that I’m single. So finally, those 3 people knew (I decided to share because I was going to be working closely with them all summer, and thought it was time to be more open.), but there were so many more people I see every day and never ever say a single thing about myself. Teachers, admin. assistants, the principal and assistant principal, the school nurse, etc.
And I didn’t really have a plan or goal to share my news. I was actually planning to (by default) not share. I started last work-week that way, and it just started to feel really shitty. Like, I was about to be getting married, and no one even knew I’m in a relationship. I imagined they could guess I’m gay (I’d prefer queer and genderqueer, but imagine people might think I’m a lesbian), but I’d never said a damn thing. I wonder if one day I will come out as non-binary, genderqueer, trans*, ask for a different pronoun, everything along that line… We’ll see; one day at a time.
So by midweek, I decided to take the risk and share my news. I wondered, how many people would I have to tell before they start spreading the word and I don’t have to do the work anymore? I guessed 5. In the end, I surpassed that goal of 5, and told 10 (and I’m still telling people)! And the word did start to get around; people were coming up to me and congratulating me. People were gushing with excitement and wanting me to bring in pictures for them to see. People had all kinds of questions about what we were going to do. I got a card from the whole school with a gift card in it. The first grade teachers pitched in and gave me a gift basket. It was as if my dark and dreary, mysterious and reserved, shy and distant demeanor at work got a huge boost, and I’ve been trying to run with that.
I could be a totally new person at work (slowly, little by little)! I even took my hat off! (I’ve been wearing military style caps every day as long as I’ve worked there, and it was getting old – I was tired of hats, but I couldn’t seem to get myself to take it off. Now? It seemed like no problem! Hat gone!)
Continuing to work through a specific trauma
Posted: November 12, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anniversary, communicating, coping with trauma, depression, disconnect, medical records, mental health, psychiatric hospital, psychotic break, therapy, trauma 1 CommentFourteen years ago today, I was taken to the emergency room and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for nineteen days. It was by choice – I voluntarily admitted myself, but once I got there, I realized that basically, I was stuck, and things got much much worse for me. Essentially, I went from being in a confused and vaguely depressed state to suffering a full-on paranoid psychotic break from reality, which in retrospect, I believe could have been avoided had I not been there at all. My plan in my head was to go there and sleep and restore my mind and body for a day or two, and then make a plan from there. Their plan was to do what they do, on a medical and legal basis, and this took so long, I was unsure if I was ever going to get to leave. Also, I was a month shy of 18 years old, so I was not yet a consenting adult, and my parents signed everything that needed signing. (On the other hand, I’m relieved I was not yet 18, because that month’s difference was the difference between being on the Adolescent or Adult unit. I am glad I was with people my own age and younger.) This was during my senior year of high school. I went back to school with a (mis)diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and even more of a disconnect from everyone around me. I felt even more isolated, and self-stigmatized than before. I sank into a severe depression. I dropped out of a few of my classes and took a leave of absence from my job. I tried to stay occupied with some art classes at school, but nothing at all interested me. As the summer before college started, things finally did start to lift. I got my driver’s license. I started to hang out with friends a little bit. I felt excited to be moving two hours away and starting college.
This experience has stayed with me as a lasting trauma. In college, I wrote a lengthy personal essay about it, trying to capture every tiny thing I could remember. I was in therapy for a long time after – I was actually doing a lot worse in general after being discharged. I was on a lot of pills and unsure if they were helping. Therapy, at least, was helping. Therapy has been the one thing I’ve done for myself that has made the biggest difference in my adult life. Therapists have taught me how to be a verbal person and communicate with others.
About a year ago, I worked at talking through this experience that still haunts me, in therapy. My therapist was a little hesitant to delve into it – she’s not too big on rehashing the past. But she did help me through it, and encouraged me to talk with my mom about it, in order to dis-spell some long-held beliefs that might have actually been way off. Such as, “it didn’t really affect my mom that much, that I was there.” So I did talk to my mom about it (however difficult that was), and felt myself getting to a new place through doing that.
And then this year (every year around this time, I’m thinking a lot about it again), I decided to gain access to my medical records from back then. I didn’t know how to go about that because the hospital I was at has since been closed, demolished, and rebuilt into a new multipurpose health facility. But I was told my records are somewhere, on microfilm, and I can get them at a fee of $0.75 per page. So I went through the request form and noted I’d like to be informed of the length of the document before it’s sent. Two weeks later, a heavy package arrived, with a bill for $168.10! I thought we were talking about something in the range of 40 pages! This thing is 210 pages, and this bill is much more than I want to pay. (So I did email back and forth, explaining my request was ignored, and I did get the bill knocked down to $100.88 – still way more than I was planning to pay.)
The document itself is largely made up of pages that have no interest to me. And many pages in which I can’t read the person’s handwriting. But, in the process of gleaning as much as I can from it (and skipping over quite a few things that feel triggery, for right now), I’m coming to some kind of new terms with what happened to me, way way back then. And, something is lifting.
Licensed to wed
Posted: October 27, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: gender identity, genderqueer, getting gay married, lgbt, lgbtq, marriage, marriage license, marriage rights, non-binary, same-sex marriage, trans, wedding planning Leave a commentLast week, my partner and I went to city hall to fill out our marriage license. We didn’t yet (and still don’t) have a definite plan for how we’re going to do this thing, other than we want to do it legally and simply by the end of this year. And then we want to have a celebration with a big bunch of people and include a performance piece in lieu of a “ceremony,” this coming summer.
So the actual getting of the document was a little stressful – we were crunched for time and unsure about how these things go. We gave ourselves time to get down there right when they opened at 9, and then I was going to drive her to work directly from there, by 10. We were the second ones in line and everything went smoothly with filling out the form itself. In the section where you mark either “M” or “F,” it said, “Sex (optional)” which was super fucking amazingly awesome and unexpected and we both purposefully left it blank. My partner joked that it meant sex is optional in a marriage, and they want to make sure you know that going into it.
We brought up the form, and then a clerk basically typed up a new form, from what we had handwritten in. She then asked us to check for errors. We found two and she made the corrections before printing it out, having us sign it, and putting it in an envelope with some other information. It was heart-racing exciting; we walked quickly out of there and talked about how we had time to spare to have some coffee at her place of employment before she started her shift. I kinda did a victory leap down the steps and she laughed.
As we were walking back to the car, we talked about the fact that there had been errors. Then she said, “I hope she didn’t fill in our sex markers.” My stomach kind of dropped, because, honestly, I forgot to check that. She pulled the document out of the envelope, and sure enough, there were two F’s typed into that section. It felt devastating. By this time, we were already in the car. Our meter had run out, and we had no more change anywhere on our persons or anywhere in the car. I started driving away, going back and forth in my mind about the logistics of getting this corrected vs. the importance. In the end, importance won out. My partner felt more flexible, but I needed mine to be blank. So we parked elsewhere illegally, ran back inside, waited (because there was now a line), explained in an out-of-breath manner, crossed our fingers we wouldn’t be charged an additional fee (we overheard it was $10 for later corrections), got the changes made, and didn’t have to pay!
I did a double victory leap off the stairs, and upon seeing a man in a safety vest walking along the cars, sprinted toward ours so I could put the flashers on: just standing, not parking illegally, sir! Turned out he wasn’t a meter maid anyway, and I got my partner to work with zero minutes to spare.
Telling an old friend about new directions
Posted: October 21, 2013 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: childhood friend, friendship, gender identity, genderqueer, pain, puberty, trans, transgender Leave a commentRecently, out of the blue, I got an email from my childhood best friend. We’ve been in touch off-and-on throughout our adult life, but I haven’t heard from her in probably about 3 years at this point. She wrote to me about searching for who she is and what she finds important in life. I wrote back and similarly talked about recent journeys, finding myself, gender-wise and otherwise. I wrote about starting testosterone 6 months ago and what that means to me. I then wrote that if she has questions, I’d be glad to answer them. (Because I assumed she’d be accepting, but not fully understanding / not knowing how I identify / not knowing much about trans* identities. She just now responded back, and re: my request for questions, she said,
“I don’t really have any questions about it that you didn’t already answer: that you feel more normal than ever. You feeling comfortable in your own skin is something I have wanted for you ever since we hit puberty. That change is difficult for everyone, but it seemed to wreak havoc on you, as I’m sure it does on everyone who doesn’t fit in the tiny little boxes our society has labeled “girl” and “boy.” It was surreal to watch you struggle with your identity when, to me, you were always YOU. And I did a truly shitty job of being your friend and supporting you at that time. I’m really sorry. Now, I just feel so happy to hear that you’re ridding your life of the things that no longer serve you and that you’re finding solutions to elements of your life that never seemed to fit quite right before.”
When I read this, tears started streaming down my face; it’s one of the most touching things someone’s ever written to me. Largely because she’s saying that she KNEW, and at the time, I had no idea anyone could see how much pain I was in, and I guess I didn’t even see the pain, or, I just did my best to normalize it. And also because even though I’m not sure how versed she is in trans* identities and gender politics, that actually has no bearing on her knowing what I’m saying. She knows, because she knows who I am, and that feels so personally connecting, and intensely empowering.
Thirty-one year old kid working as school janitor
Posted: October 21, 2013 Filed under: Janitorial work, Passing | Tags: androgynous, flu shot, gender identity, genderqueer, high school, janitor, passing, trans 1 CommentLast week I got my free flu shot, in the cafeteria of the high school I used to work at (I now just work at an elementary school). I went around back, and luckily ran into a former co-worker who was dumping garbages. It was cool to get to see him, and I was able to just go directly inside along with him, instead of going through the front, going to main office, checking in, getting visitor name tag, etc. etc. I chatted with him for a minute, then followed others down to the cafeteria to get the shot. A lady was there to organize us and hand out the forms we need to fill out. She looked at me kinda sideways and said, “How old are you?”
“Me? I’m thirty-one.”
“Oh, I thought you were a kid!”
“Oh, yeah, I get that sometimes.”
“OK good… well you’re lucky.”
I think she meant lucky that I look so young? I do feel lucky – I like passing as a kid. And I was even wearing my janitor uniform including ID badge on this occasion and everything, ’cause I was heading straight to work. Don’t know of many high-schoolers who’d be sporting that outfit.
Coming out as “getting married”
Posted: October 13, 2013 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: genderqueer, getting gay married, lgbt, lgbtq, marriage, marriage rights, non-binary, relationships, testosterone, trans, transgender, wedding, wedding planning 2 Comments
Hey, my partner and I have been planning on getting married! We finally reserved a venue, this here house, in one of the county parks. It’s starting to feel like a real deal now, that we’re going to be doing this thing… We’ve been “engaged”* for a while now, and at least from my end, I’d been sort of putting off planning / making things more concrete. There’s probably a lot of reasons why that is, and I’ve been de-tangling all of that little by little. I don’t think I’ll be going into all those thoughts here and now (hint: a lot of the thoughts surround the idea that for so long, we couldn’t legally get married anyway, and more recently we can yet so many others can’t, and that’s confusing to say the least), but one thought really stands out as it relates to my current low-dose testosterone adventure: When I started testosterone last March, I really had no idea where I was going to end up! I mean, I thought I would end up very close to where I’ve been at already, but I couldn’t know ’til I tried it. And I still can’t know for sure, but I feel a little more secure than I did six months ago.
In other words, I feel like the possibility to legally transition is floating around nearby me, always. But the first few months of being on testosterone (trying something radically new) was a pretty sure bet for a time period where I might start feeling differently than before.
In some more other words, if I were going to want to legally change my name and gender markers, the early months of being on T was a time period of higher likelihood for feelings like that to emerge, potentially. (Not to mention maybe realizing I wanted to increase my dosage and transition in all ways – physically / legally / socially / etc.) But I didn’t really, feel that way. Which isn’t to say I won’t at any other point in time, of course! It just seemed like a strange time to start planning a wedding, if I was more unsure than normal what name and gender might go on our marriage certificate and other legal documents we pursue together.
Some of that uncertainty started to dissipate over time. I’m feeling really happy with where I’m at. Which is maybe one or two steps away from where I’ve been at before, in terms of my gender identity. I’m not planning on taking a hundred steps closer to being seen as “male.” I mean, my partner sees me as male, as well as all the other shades of gender I want to be seen as, and that’s really what feels most important. I’ve been starting to feel more ready to take some steps with her toward a different relationship identity.
I don’t think I ever directly articulated this to my partner! Guess it’s time for some more conversations! (One of the cool side effects of having a blog, or, you know, writing in general.)
*word is in quotations because it doesn’t feel like this “stage of our relationship” has much to do with what might traditionally be assumed, by being “engaged.” Nor will our “wedding” or subsequent “marriage” resemble much of what the mainstream might assume, by the use of those words… for example, there’s no engagement ring, no plans to combine or share finances, I could go on, but I don’t really want to! Why can’t there just be more word choices?!!
Passing as a teenager yet again
Posted: October 2, 2013 Filed under: Passing | Tags: androgynous, ftm, gender fluid, genderqueer, non-binary, teenagers, trans 4 CommentsThe other day, I was walking home from the library. I had my red backpack on, full of new media. My pants were probably partially saggy; I was wearing skate shoes, as usual. As I mentioned last week, I’ve been in a pretty low mood, so I’m sure I was slouching quite a bit, probably staring at the ground as I went. I was crossing the street to get to my side street before I realized some teenaged girls on a porch were yelling to me.
“Hey! Yeah, you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah! What’s your name?”
“[I said my name.]”
“JC?”
“No. [Said my name again.]”
“JT?”
“Yeah. [Still not my name, but realized it didn’t really matter.]”
“Nice to meet you!”
I kind of did a little wave and kept walking, worrying I was going to start running into them a lot since this was pretty close to my house. This isn’t a direct account of an instance where I passed as male, but I’m pretttty sure teen girls wouldn’t have been so adamantly yelling if they saw me as, basically, a female-bodied person in their early thirties. So I’m going to count it!
janitorqueer 