Two years on testosterone
Posted: January 24, 2019 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: androgynous, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, lgbtq, medical treatment, mental health, non-binary, queer, testosterone, trans, transgender 4 CommentsThis past Saturday was my two year mark on T-injections, 40ml / week (this was just recently lowered, from 60 – my initial dose was 50). I still very much look forward to every injection (not the act itself, but the being-on-T part), and I still regularly think about the ways hormones have improved my life; I don’t tend to take it for granted.
My original plan was for this to be a short-term thing. But I kind of love it. I think my dose will vary over time, but I don’t anticipate stopping really, probably ever. (Of course that’s subject to change!) Not having a menstrual cycle is huge. Being seen as male 100% of the time is… well, there’s some ambivalence there, but it’s definitely an improvement. Now instead of getting confused for female, I am regularly getting confused for being very young. Which can be awkward but mostly is fine.
I’m able to engage socially in ways I really never could have dreamed of. I look people in the eyes way more. My anxiety is almost zero, where previously, I was operating regularly with an underlying sense of fear and dread. Some of these mental health changes can be attributed to finding a medication that actually works well for me, but a lot of it is the disappearance of gender dysphoria.
I’m still legally female, which is on purpose, and I still almost always go into women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms. I’ve never been stopped or questioned.
I don’t love all of it. I still daily pluck hairs out of my face because I don’t like them and I don’t want to shave. I’m pretty concerned about my receding hairline. And if I were really being honest, I liked the way my face looked before being on injections, more-so than now. It just so happens that the way it is now reads as “male,” and that works out way better for me. Oh well…
So here are the face comparisons:
two years
One year
Before injections
One year on testosterone
Posted: January 19, 2018 Filed under: Passing, Testosterone | Tags: androgynous, androgyny, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, lgbtq, non-binary, queer, testosterone, trans, transgender, transition Leave a commentToday is a year on T-injections, 50ml / week. I’d been on Androgel prior to this – from March 2013 to November 2015. During that time, I didn’t experience many physical changes at all, which was what I was looking for at the time. And it’s kind of the reason I stopped too – it became unclear what the purpose was, as if it didn’t make much difference whether I was on the gel or not.
So for that whole next year, I was trying to square away other elements of my transition, not sure whether I’d get back on testosterone or not. It just felt like I wanted to get top surgery, change my name, and transition further socially before I would potentially want to pursue a level of hormones that would definitely change things in a noticeable way. In the summer of 2016, it started to feel like the next step. I was still pretty regularly seen as female everywhere, and more than anything, I wanted to be more firmly planted in the middle.
It took about 6 months to get an appointment and get started on injections. I was doing intramuscular injections at first for about 9 months, and not liking it. The need to get psyched up in order to jab in the needle was not fun. When my endocrinologist gave me the option to switch to subcutaneous, I jumped at tat. I am loving this method. I wrote about making the switch here: 9 months on T-injections
I like being on this dose of testosterone a lot more than I thought I would. The only aspects I’m not liking are the facial hair growth and the loss of a sense of smell.
I would say that I am seen as male more than I am seen as female, now. That’s huge. I don’t want that to tip too far in that direction, but so far, so good. I’m still legally female, and I still almost always go into women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms. I’ve never been stopped or questioned.
There are a lot of changes I could write about in depth, but right now I feel like focusing on my voice. When I started Androgel, I was overly anxious about my voice changing, in particular. I think it dropped ever-so-slightly, and I freaked out and lowered my dose even further. And that worked – it didn’t change any further. When I started injections, I was aware that my voice would probably be the most noticeable thing changing, early on. And I was OK with that – something had shifted over the years.
I’m a DJ on a free form community radio station, and I’ve done an hour-long show regularly every week for the past two years. It’s been a total blast. And, it’s been a way to effortlessly track the changes in my voice. When I hear pre-T recordings, my reaction is total cringe. Which is quite the shift, since I used to want to “preserve” that register. Now I really hate it! And I love how it’s changed. I can never go back, and I’m totally fine with that!
Aaaand, here’s my face:
one year
before injections
3 ways I have asserted my gender identity, recently
Posted: September 23, 2017 Filed under: coming out, name change, Passing | Tags: androgynous, androgyny, coming out, gender, genderqueer, lgbtq, non-binary, queer, testosterone, trans, transgender, work 5 CommentsAs top surgery results and testosterone have been working their magic, I have felt less hung up on how I am perceived. This is great news! I feel less drained when I go out in public, generally. I’ve taken things into my own hands when I feel like I’ve needed to, and this had not been psychically difficult, by any means! Here are some ways I have been true to my non-binary identity:
1. I Tampered With My Driver’s License.
Since I don’t live in Oregon or California, I still have to legally be either “Male” or “Female.” Although I legally changed my name to something more masculine, I opted to remain “female,” legally. This has led to feelings of dysphoria, but being “male” would have anyway, as well. So, as of a few months ago, I decided to put a bright neon sticker over my “Sex” on my driver’s license. At first it was neon orange. Currently it’s neon green. The color doesn’t make too much of a difference – just the fact that no one can see whether it’s “M” or “F” is huge for me. I’ve shown it at the pharmacy, bought beer with it, gotten “carded” at restaurants, shown it to bouncers at bars and nightclubs. No one has commented or had an issue with it – they just need to know how old I am, and that I am who I say I am! That’s it. (As an aside, when I traveled abroad, I did take the sticker off, because I didn’t think TSA agents would be too thrilled about that…)
2. School Pictures
I am an elementary school janitor – every year, I go through the same routines: first day of school, winter concerts, spring concerts, curriculum nights, open house, book fair, the 5th grade breakfast, last day of school, etc. No one can forget school pictures! They happen within the first weeks of school – this year, it was a week ago, today. As a staff member, I have to participate, and then I get some free photos, and I get a sheet of all the faculty and staff, every year. In the past, I have gone by the initials that I used to go by, which was “KT” and then [last name]. Unless I wasn’t feeling like speaking up (which was the case on a couple of occasions) I made sure the picture company had me down as “KT” instead of “Mrs.,” “Ms.,” or “Mr.” This year, surprisingly, I “passed” as male, as I saw the picture lady write down, “Mr.” and then ask me what my last name is. Without hesitating, I gave her my last name (new, legally changed), and then said, “Can you change that ‘Mr.’ to ‘Mx.’? It’s neither ‘Mr.’ nor ‘Ms.’ ” She replied, “I guess I can,” and I watched her cross out what she had and re-write “Mx.” It was awesome! I kinda can’t wait to get my sheet of faculty and staff photos this year.
3. Playing It By Ear, As I Go
This last one is a bit of a contradiction -I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I cannot assert my non-binary identity in every and all cases, so, if people are given a heads-up that I’ve changed my name and pronouns, in some situations, that is good enough. Especially at work. Teachers have been great about switching over. And I honestly don’t know how many of them get the nuances I’ve tried to convey. A couple of them for sure, because they asked me questions, and I had some really satisfying conversations. But in addition to this, there’s a larger group of people who are slowly hearing about it (or not) by word of mouth – mainly buildings and grounds workers. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC specialists, people I see now and then, but certainly not every day. If they get that I am a trans-person, and they are respectful, then, that is good enough. There’s this one guy who is over at our school a lot. A few weeks ago, he took me aside, and, obviously nervous about the exchange, he said, “So, I just want to know, because we are friends… It’s Kameron now?” He was just verifying something he wanted to make sure he was getting right, and, in my eyes, I was really psyched about this because he’s a guy that I think other workers look up to. So, the more positivity around it, the better. The less nasty gossip behind my back, the better. And, to that end, I just went to a union meeting two days ago, and the secretary addressed me by my old moniker, “KT.” I almost didn’t correct her, because… I don’t know… the picking your battles thing, I guess. BUT! Someone else corrected her, someone that I didn’t know knew yet! And so, I riffed off of that, asserting, “Yep, it’s Kameron now. I changed my name.” She shrunk into herself at hearing that, but, whatever. Another buildings and grounds guy took it from there, telling me loudly that his “niece” just transitioned recently into his “nephew.” We sat down and continued to converse so that anyone and everyone could hear, if they tuned in. He was just overjoyed to be accepting “Shane,” his middle-school-aged family member. At no point did I try to assert that I was neither male nor female. If he got the gist that I am trans, and he spreads the word with a positive attitude, then that is better than good enough. Acceptance, even if limited in understanding, is still worth it!
Drag king stories #5
Posted: April 22, 2016 Filed under: Drag King, Drag King Stories | Tags: androgynous, androgyny, drag kings, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtq, non-binary, performing, Prince, queer, trans, transgender 4 CommentsPrince was sort of an unlikely artist for me to try to emulate. I usually gravitated toward the detached, spaced out robot/alien type vibe – people like Gary Numan and Ian Curtis and Peter Murphy and David Bowie. Prince is sex, right? And, I never felt like I could pull that off. (Also, of course, he’s African American, and I’m not.) Lots of drag kings (or at least the ones I saw) exuded an overtly macho, hyper-sexualized persona. Off stage, they were laid back, just hanging out and smoking on the back patio. I just kept to myself for the most part, feeling too nervous to interact, eating pop-tarts and re-writing lyrics back stage. Incorporating jerky movements into every performance. Falling back on hacky-sack or yo-yo onstage to make things more interesting.
Years later, I was no longer performing at a gay bar – I was doing monthly shows at a community space. It was freeing and also draining. I also did occasional shows elsewhere, like a David Bowie Tribute Night at a bar that’s mainly a music venue. Someone was organizing a Tribute 2 Prince at this same bar, and I think he’d seen my David Bowie performance and thought I’d fit in well with bands doing Prince covers. I immediately agreed and started getting excited. It’s like, I would have never taken on Prince of my own volition, but when someone suggested I do it, I was game.
I probably had about 2 months to get ready, and I really took it to heart – I put a bunch of Prince songs on my iPod and listened every day at work, narrowing down good ideas, learning lyrics, just getting a sense of the breadth of his many types of music. I danced and lip-synched in front of the mirror in the bathroom at work. I started to cull songs that would work well as a medley, and also, separately, I started to have some ideas for the song, “Diamonds and Pearls.” It’s a duet (with New Power Generation member Rosie Gaines), and I had to see if I could enlist my drag king buddy to do it with me. She said sure; we did lots of practicing at her house. (We also did a photo shoot.)
I remember that I scoured thrift stores for cheap diamonds and pearls to no avail. Then, the weekend before the show, my spouse and I were in Philadelphia visiting friends and attending the Philly Trans-Health Conference. We stayed out late one night, so late that we missed our chance to take the subway back to their apartment. We had to get a cab. This is maybe one of 3 or 4 times I’ve ever been in a cab. Our friends said at a certain point, “this is fine, just drop us off here.” We opened the door, and right there, out on the curb with a bunch of junk, was a tangle of a bunch of diamond and pearl necklaces. For real. Right there. I still have them.
Around this time (this was late spring/early summer of 2012), I was sort of questioning/re-exploring my sexuality, and talking about it a lot in therapy. It kind of helped things, to throw myself into emulating Prince, at the time. After the performance, I wrote this to my therapist (amongst a lot more words, haha), “so this was by far the sexiest performance I’ve ever done, and some people were responding to that (I got gyrated on in the bathroom, some people were touching me) yet it does not translate to me feeling like I am a sexual person. It’s just a role.”
Even so, I had a blast! I did 2 sets – the medley I edited, which was “Uptown/When Doves Cry/Gett Off/D.M.S.R.,” and then “Diamonds and Pearls.” It was so fun performing with my drag buddy again, and we totally nailed it. The place was packed, and a lot of people approached me afterward to talk to me / say how much they liked it. I was Prince.
… and, from our photo shoot!
How do I know if a name is right for me?
Posted: April 29, 2015 Filed under: coming out, name change | Tags: androgynous, coming out, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtq, names, non-binary, preferred names, queer, trans, transgender 27 CommentsThe number one piece of advice I would give someone who isn’t 100% yet about a potential new name: try it out in a controlled setting where you are surrounded by strangers (if possible). If it’s a temporary setting, even better.
I’m the type of person who isn’t going to go with something till I’m really really sure. Other people might be fine with trying a name amongst friends and then switching it at a later date, or trying out a few names with a few people all at the same time. These people can disregard my advice!
Sometimes finding a new name is more of an ordeal. It has been for me at least – I’ve been considering new names for many many years. What could be a fun and creative process might end up feeling like a never-ending search for a perfect fit. About a year ago, I wrote a post on finding a new name. I thought I had it! I was pretty excited about it!
It is here: Ruling With Elf Wisdom
I started using my new name at my new doctor’s office, and then I made no further progress after that. Something was off, but I assumed it was just that it would take some getting used to. Now, a year later, I can easily say it just wasn’t the right name for me. (And/or I just wasn’t ready.) It looked good on paper. It sounded good in my head. However, it sounded strange, for me, in the real world. When a nurse called me back from the waiting room, it just did not feel right. Lots of other blog writers have addressed this too:
A few years ago, Micah wrote about how he had an online presence as “Maddox,” which he thought fit well until he started trying out the name at a conference. It is here: Misnomer
Jamie Ray wrote about their process of over-thinking a name until one just came to them, through a Starbucks barista hearing their legal name wrong. It is here: The Name Game
I started thinking about names again a couple of months ago, once I really started to accept that the name I thought I might go with, “Avery” was not a good fit. I wanted an androgynous name, and I felt like I’d heard them all (and I might have, with all the time I spent searching names online). It wasn’t until I had a conversation (not the first) with my partner (at a Starbucks, coincidentally), that a name I had glossed over many times before suddenly popped out more. “Kameron.” I like it because it’s more of a masculine name than a feminine name. I like it because it’s close to my legal name. I like it because Cameron is the name of the first trans-guy I met in real life (the first trans-guy I knew to be trans anyway).
I just feel more sure this time. It’s not really explainable – it’s just a feeling. So far I’ve told a handful of friends, my mom, my partner’s mom, and the partial hospitalization program I am currently attending.
The PHP is a perfect place to try this out. No one knows me there, and I probably won’t be seeing any of them again after 5-10 days. Plus there are lots of opportunities for people to address me, and everyone else, by name. I started to get called “Kameron” a lot, and it’s been treated like it’s just my name. They don’t know I’m not using it yet; it doesn’t matter! When someone says “Kameron,” it fits.
I don’t yet have a timeline for legally changing my name, but I know that I will. I know the change-over will be hard and it will take a while for everyone to get on board and remember. That’s OK – a lot of good things take a while. Even settling on a name to begin with can take a while. Try not to get discouraged – your name is out there!
If barbies were “People”
Posted: April 6, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: androgynous, androgyny, children, creativity, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, kids, non-binary, play, queer, toys 10 CommentsI got asked a fun question a couple of weeks ago. A reader asked,
If you were to create a new line of barbies (and friends) for tomboys (or whatever you prefer to say) what would that line look like?
I would make a lot of changes to the barbie doll. First and foremost, the bodily dimensions would resemble the range of shapes and sizes that people actually are. When I think of a barbie, the image that comes to mind is a naked doll with these weird neutered bodies and impossible measurements – for some reason, a naked barbie seems more common than a clothed one. Kids get lazy and leave them around without dressing them? For this reason, these new dolls would have clothes that don’t really come off. When I think of people, they are clothed. When I think of myself, I am clothed. Although it’s fun to interchange clothes, these dolls would just wear clothes and then they’d be versatile in other ways.
They’d have knees and elbows that bend better than barbies, and they’d have hands that grip better. There’d be interactive toys to go along with them, but they wouldn’t be dream mansions and safari jeeps and jet skis. There’d be homes with the roofs removed and different things to do in each room – frying pans and food ingredients, TVs and computers and books, brooms and vacuum cleaners. Gardening tools and bikes and basketball hoops.
I would rename these barbies “People.” They would reflect different experiences – different ethnicities, different ages, different sizes, different abilities. One or two might be in a wheelchair. One might be gender-ambiguous. There would be babies and children, adults and old people.
These “People” would hopefully appeal to boys, girls, tomboys, and other gender non-conforming children. Playing with them would center around realistic life choices instead of fashion and glitz and glamor. It’d be a lot like playing house, with plenty of interchangeable activities and roles to experiment with different configurations.
And now for the fantastical part – these products would be manufactured by people making a living wage and they would be an affordable toy option. Haha.
Anyone have other ideas for a more gender variant version of barbie?
2 years on T without noticeable masculinizing changes
Posted: March 18, 2015 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: Androgel, androgynous, androgyny, gender identity, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, lgbtq, lgbtqia, non-binary, queer, testosterone, trans, transgender 6 CommentsToday marks 2 years! I bring this up each time I do one of these posts, because it’s that important: although I haven’t changed much on the outside, my internal world feels significantly different, and that’s why I stay on it. I don’t have any changes to report, but these back-posts say a lot:
one and three-quarters years
one and a half years
one and a quarter years
one whole year
eight months on T
five months on T
I may be changing my tune. I might increase my dose in order to look more masculine/androgynous. I just don’t know yet. Just wait and see. For now though, here’s some pictures of my face; I don’t think I look different over time. Maybe slightly rounder face?
2 years. I keep taking these photos outside and end up squinting in the sun!
1.75 years on testosterone
one year on testosterone
To celebrate this milestone, I figured I’d post an (edited) email reply I sent an internet friend. They asked, essentially, how I finally made the decision to start testosterone. They were wondering if I felt a hormonal imbalance prior to starting T. I said,
_______________________________
A story about what it feels like to be bigender
Posted: February 2, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: androgynous, androgyny, bigender, estrogen, gender identity, genderfluid, genderqueer, hormone replacement therapy, language, lgbtq, non-binary, testosterone, trans, transgender 3 CommentsThe other day, my partner alerted me of a really cool podcast story, and we listened to it together (for her, she listened a 2nd time). It’s about a subset of trans-people, and a subset of non-binary people even: people who identify as bigender. I’ve heard this term before but didn’t have a clear grasp on the experience of bigender people, largely just equating and blending it in with people who identify as “genderfluid,” in my mind. The two terms definitely overlap, and the podcast didn’t mention “genderfluid” as an identity, but it told a very gripping and personal story of someone who is bigender.
I’m just going to summarize this person’s story, but if you have a half hour, listening to this podcast would be a half hour well spent! Here is the link:
Invisibilia Story About Paige (Go ahead and skip the first 2 minutes – it’s just podcast producers doing introductions and general banter.)
Paige is in her 30s and lives in San Diego. Her story is not a common one, even within the trans-community. She grew up MAAB (male assigned at birth) and was largely fine with that, didn’t think twice about it. She had fleeting feelings maybe she was supposed to be a girl, but they were very rare, and she didn’t dwell on them. She joined the Navy and enjoyed it. She got married; got a job, a car, a house – everything most people hope to do. When she was 30, still living full time as a man, her body mysteriously stopped producing testosterone. She got put on testosterone replacement therapy, and that’s when things started getting strange. Those fleeting feelings of being female returned full force and with more frequency. She began to feel a really strong split between “guy mode” and “girl mode,” and she had no control over when or where it might happen. When in “girl mode,” she began to feel repulsed by her body, even to the point of vomiting from disgust.
She talked to her wife, and decided to stop taking testosterone and start taking estrogen instead. The disgust started to wane as her body changed, but at this point, she was aiming for androgyny so that she could feel comfortable in both guy and girl mode, something she kept flipping between, often multiple times within a day. There were certain things that changed for her depending on which mode she was in, perception-wise and personality-wise.
It’s been confirmed through psychological tests on a small sample of people who are bigender that there are in fact some differences going on. This research is really in its infancy, and nothing has been conclusive on a large scale thus far. But, well… makes sense! (I am far from saying men are from Mars and women from Venus or anything like that, haha.)
Parts of her story are really sad. Her marriage didn’t make it. She spent a long time feeling like an alien, hiding her true nature, etc. A lot of things a lot of people can relate to…
The interesting thing comes in the conclusion though. It seems that the longer she was on estrogen, the more she “settled into” being female, on a psychic level. She has stopped “flipping” uncontrollably, for the most part. It does still happen, and it’s super jarring, but she is living close to 100% in “girl mode” these days.
This is super fascinating to me – although I am really in neither “guy mode” nor “girl mode” ever, my gender identity is static. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to go back and forth, uncontrollably, at inopportune times.
More than just a few people experience this though. Something like 8% of MAAB trans-people, and 3% of FAAB trans-people.
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.
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 