Depression and taking testosterone pt. 2

Posted: March 2, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my aversion to antidepressants and how I’ve felt like testosterone has been acting well, in that way for me.  A reader had asked if I have experiences with being on antidepressants while starting T, and since I hadn’t, I asked for thoughts from others.  That post is here:

Depression and taking testosterone

I’m going to elaborate on some of those thoughts now because I am currently depressed.  I’ve been feeling this way for close to two weeks now, and I acknowledge that it might be a little while before I really pull out of it.  It’s not all that surprising or hard to swallow.  I suffered from a break from reality and a manic episode 6 weeks ago, and then I spent some time (weeks) in a hypomanic and slightly agitated state.  Usually what follows naturally is a rebound depressive episode.  My brain is still sorting itself out.

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time sitting and thinking.  Or laying down and thinking.  Or sleeping.  The thinking isn’t doing me any good / getting me anywhere.  It’s a lot of dead ends and connecting things to fear responses.  But it feels like all I can do at times.  Reading has been challenging.  Socializing has been challenging.  Feeling like doing anything extra has been challenging.  Writing (surprisingly) is doable, and always has been when I’m depressed (as long as it’s personal writing as opposed to fiction or academic writing).  I’ve been feeling forgetful, and like it’s tough to grasp the details of what is going on around me.

I’m trying to go easy on myself – not berate myself for sleeping 10-12 hours a night.  Accepting help from my partner and telling her how much it’s appreciated.  Letting myself off the hook for not conversing with others the way I’d like to be, or not doing the things I should really get around to doing…

Things that are sad are even sadder than they’d normally feel.  I haven’t been crying; instead I feel a sinking numbness.  Things that should be joyful and exciting are just things that happened.  Hopefully I’ll feel the joy and excitement later on, like a delayed response once I’m past this?  Like I’m storing up the joy for later?  Because some good things have been happening; I’m just not feeling it.

There is a bright side though, and that’s what I wanna focus on.  I still do think that testosterone is acting as an effective antidepressant.  Not so much on my mind / thinking, but definitely on my body / energy.  Although I’ve been oversleeping, when I’m awake, I feel good.  I don’t feel drained of energy or crushing physical pain, which is so common with depression.  It’s not hard to go through the motions of living, even though I really am just dragging my brain along for the ride right now.  That feels like a win.

My psychiatrist keeps asking, “How is your depression,” and saying, “If you’re depressed, we’ll add an antidepressant.”  And I keep saying (so far) that my depression is fine.  I don’t want to add more pills.*  I know this is stubborn thinking, and if it goes on too long, I hope I’ll have the wits to just gracefully change my tune.  But I really feel like this is a blip, and within a month, I’ll be feeling more like my usual self.

And that’s another win – a lot of times, that depressed feeling is accompanied by a conviction that it will never lift.  I don’t feel that.  I feel like I’ll be out from under this in no time.

And my brain and I might be friends again before I know it.

 

*I had been on Geodon, an atypical antipsychotic that was causing some strange hormonal side effects for me.  I’m currently switching to Latuda, another atypical antispychotic that has been approved in the US for about a year now.  I’m hoping this will go better.

Being transgender while hospitalized

Posted: February 23, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I was in the hospital for 4 nights (5 days) a little over a month ago, for psychiatric reasons.  Although this was a very trying time and I was in an extremely vulnerable head-space, I was mostly treated with respect and dignity (as much as seemed possible, given the conditions).  In terms of my trans-status, I was treated with respect and dignity across the board.

While in the Emergency / Admittance Area, my family and friends present must have spoken behind-the-scenes, on my behalf about the fact that I am transgender, because I didn’t mention it at all at that point.  My friend later told me the intake leader (don’t know his exact title) told her that he has a transgender son.

Also my partner later told me there was signage throughout the hospital about their non-discrimination policies.  I found this to be accurate in the way they run things.  Everything was by schedule and protocol, no special treatment and in general no immediate response to a want (like, “can I get a pencil?”  “Can I get a snack” elicited a quicker response.)  At times, I found the ways they were doing things to be confusing, and I wasn’t explicitly told how things are run (when mealtimes are, when med times are, what is allowed and not allowed, etc.)  I just picked up that information as I went along, as best I could.  Not sure why that kind of stuff was never conveyed to me, but it all did make sense in terms of treating everyone fairly.

I got the sense that not every staff member got the memo about male pronouns, but the more “important” positions definitely did, and they took the lead on that when conversing with other staff members.  For example, one of the team leaders asked an overnight staff person to “open the shower area for him,” and that staff member said, “What?” and looked confused.  The team leader just repeated herself and no problem arose.

I was in an extremely fuzzy, drug induced state the first 24 hours of my stay.  As I started to pull out of that and notice my surroundings, I picked up on certain things.  If you woke up early enough to make it to the morning meeting at 8am, you could get non-decaffeinated coffee and also information about the day!  I was surprised how few people came to the meeting (it felt like one of the highlights of each day.)

On the first day I was capable of making it to the meeting, I was still very much in my head and not at all with it.  An out-of-character-for-me event happened.  I interrupted the team leader 1 minute into the meeting.  I stood up and went to the front of the room.  I said I’m new here and introduced myself.  I said I’m transgender and could everyone use male pronouns?  (If only all comings-out could be this easy!!!!!  I feel really proud of myself for this one.)  Another patient asked excitedly, “What’s transgender?  That means you were born a girl, right?”  He seemed ready to continue conversing at length, but another staff member made attempts to derail him and get the meeting back on track, which worked immediately.  I wasn’t done with my spiel yet though.  I concluded with, “And there are no knives allowed – I heard that early on!” before sitting back down.

I also chatted with another patient about my transgender identity at one point.

The first day I was there, I did not have access to Androgel, but that seemed part of protocol – it takes time to clear personal belongings including prescriptions, maybe?  I did not yet have my street clothes or reading material or slippers either.  The second day, the nurse brought my Androgel and seemingly played dumb with how to apply it and how much.  I told her I apply 1-2 pumps daily (I apply 1 pump, but my prescription states 1-2 pumps).  I told her it’s supposed to be applied to your upper arms, but I do my thighs.  I told her I have to go into my bathroom (in private) to apply the gel, and she waited for me.  The other times she came with it, she referred to it as a spray and also as a patch.  She was vague about my dosing.  She let me do my thing and then hand it back to her.  Although this all felt confusing, I think it was an attempt to convey, “this is your thing and we trust that you will take care of it.  We don’t care what you are doing in this regard.”  It felt validating.

Although the hospital was far from a pleasant experience, and I would say there were a couple of instances while I was in the emergency department in which I was treated as less than a person with dignity, in terms of my trans-status, they got it right, every step of the way.

100th post / We just paid off our house!

Posted: February 19, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

This is a 2 for 1 celebratory post – the title says it all!

I started this blog a year and a half ago, largely inspired by Micah’s blog, Neutrois Nonsense to start writing my own story.  When I started testosterone, I was overly concerned with the physical changes, and I couldn’t find an answer to my question anywhere.  That question:  is it possible to be on T long-term, at a dose high enough to make a difference yet low enough to not induce physical changes?

The answer, I’ve found out through personal experience, is YES.  Of course everyone is different, but this is a great option for non-binary people who feel more-or-less OK with their appearance yet feel like something is off, something about their world might be improvable.  Testosterone could be that thing that makes a world of difference.  It was for me.

To celebrate my 100th post, here’s an excerpt of some jottings-down I did before starting this blog:
“I wanna start a blog.  I already have a name for it and an address on WordPress.  But I have yet to make my first entry.  I suppose I’m unsure of how to approach it.  I want it to be attractive and interesting to others.  I want it to be long lasting.  I wanna keep coming up with things to say, but as of now, I can’t envision that.  It’s just one step at a time though – I shouldn’t worry about mapping the entire project out…”

And that’s how it’s been.  I don’t have a backlog of ideas or drafts started.  I just take it week by week, and see what’s out there (or just in my head) to write about.  So far this has worked out for me.  There is very little pre-planning.  I don’t think it’d be sustainable, personally, if there were.  I am obsessive by nature, and this is one of the few things that I’m not stressing out about.  That’s why it works.

Like the title suggests, I’m also celebrating having paid off our mortgage!  I bought this house we live in 8 years ago, and now we own own it.  Feels good!  How did we do this on two working-class salaries?  It wasn’t through help from anyone or an inheritance or lottery win.  It was through prioritizing, saving, and strategizing.

1.  We live in a city with a low cost of living:  One of the reasons I like where I live is that things are affordable.  I don’t make much money, but it feels like my money goes far.

2.  I am a cheapskate:  This is, honestly, the biggest factor in having been able to save so much, and it’s just part of my nature.  I don’t tend to buy a lot of new stuff.  I get clothes from thrift stores, mostly.  We don’t go out to eat a whole lot – my partner mainly cooks at home.  We don’t go out to bars or coffee shops all that much, unless it’s to socialize.  Socializing at other peoples’ homes is so much better anyway!  Coffee, tea, beer, etc. is so much cheaper in-house.  You can, in fact have really high quality coffee, tea, beer, etc. at home if you avoid stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts daily.

3.  We lived with housemates for years:  From the time I bought the house, to just a year ago, we always lived with 2 other people.  Those people changed over the years; it really helped aid in a sense of community with others, and also financially.  We would have group outings and dinners once in a while.  We did a holiday photo and newsletter every year.  We hosted a Kraftnite every Sunday evening.  I wouldn’t trade in those experiences for anything.  At the same time though, it’d be so tough to go back!  Now that it’s been just my partner and me for a year, I feel spoiled.  It’s nice to feel like we have the house to ourselves.  It helped us pay down the mortgage all that much quicker.

In addition, my partner is learning how to drive, and she just purchased a car.  We are entering “adulthood” like never before, lately.  I cannot wait to be a passenger in her car!  (I kinda dislike driving.)

A more complete picture of where I’m at

Posted: February 11, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Last week, I wrote about some highy unpleasant sensations I was experiencing, that I’d deduced were from testosterone for me right now.  Then I thought some more about it.  I thought about how testosterone has never been anything but a good thing for me.  I also got some insightful comments and talked things through with my partner and my therapist.  The testosterone bit may be playing a part, but most likely it’s this new medication I’m on, being all wonky with my hormones.

Another big factor it took me a moment to think through is:  my menstrual cycle.  Although I’ve been on T for close to 2 years, the dose is low enough that I still get my period.  Do I like that?  No.  But I haven’t been wanting to increase the T enough so that it will cease.  Maybe one day I will get a hysto.  That’s way down the line though.  For now, my menstrual cycle is mild enough that I can deal with it.  Until the addition of this atypical antipsychotic (Geodon), that is.  While premenstrual, I was experiencing hot flashes and cold sweats.  I stunk all around (feet, underarms, breath).  I could not be around too much light or too much noise or too many people.  (My partner and I call it TMS for Too Much Stimulation.)  I was making it through the work day but had no energy for anything else.  Or, conversely, I had too much pent up energy I needed to expend by dancing wildly or pacing.

Another piece of the puzzle, that my therapist filled in, was the idea that I’m still coming down from a manic jag.  It was acute and short-lived, but the brain takes time to rebound from something so extreme.  She told me that, essentially, agitation and “feelings of flying/fun” are two sides of the same coin, neurologically speaking.  That made a ton of sense.  I was still having fun when I was kicking back at home, on a leave from work.  As soon as I returned to work, the stress shot through the roof.  Makes sense.

Now that I have the pieces to make sense of all that, and now that my menstrual flow is dwindling, I’m finally feeling like myself again.  Even better, actually, I’m feeling like I did when I first got on testosterone.  All warm & fuzzy, all cozy and peaceful and grounded in my body.  I know my brain <–> body connection still has some sorting out to do, and I know I’m going to get off this drug as soon as it is safe to / I feel like it.  Right now though, I am so glad I’m out of the woods on this one.

(It makes sense too, because 12 years ago, I was on Risperdal, a different atypical antipsychotic.  I was having really wonky hormonal side effects on that too.  Some things don’t change much.)

Stress symptoms due to testosterone

Posted: February 5, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

I have been under a lot of stress lately.  Between taking on an acting supervisory role at work for 3-4 months and being hospitalized, I can’t remember the last time I was so stressed out.  Probably throughout college, over 10 years ago.  And although it sucks, there are some interesting things I’m learning about myself at the same time.  Namely, that stress is interacting with the added testosterone in some typical (but surprising-to-me) ways.

I’ve been on testosterone for close to 2 years now.  And in that entire time, I did not experience a lot of the negatives you hear about – oilier skin, heightened agitation / quicker temper.  Right now, I’m experiencing that.  Plus some added hormonal weirdness:  I feel hot and then cold and then hot and then cold.  I am stress-sweating a lot.  I STINK!  My skin feels prickly, then I feel light as a feather, then I feel like I’m weighted down, back and forth.  I’m getting more hairs on my chin and around my nipples.  I am pacing and dancing and taking magnesium and doing a lot of other things to try to counteract these stress symptoms and just calm down.  I feel calm right now, as I’m writing this.

Not too long ago, I was planning on increasing my testosterone because I’d like to appear even more androgynous.  Now I’m thinking that won’t be anytime soon.  There will be a time – it’s just not right now.  I’m even considering stopping Androgel for a while, but that’s not something I’d do lightly.  For right now, I’m hanging in there, because in my own mind, I’d like to be on it…  We’ll see.  I’ll probably talk to my therapist about it, first and foremost.  She has witnessed a lot of my agitation lately.

Normally when I’m stressed out, I might tend to clench my teeth.  I will have trouble sleeping.  I will have obsessive ruminations in an extreme sense.  Those thoughts can get pretty dark and even turn to uncontrollable visions of violence.  I would probably get a cold, due to my immune system being compromised.

Right now?  I haven’t been sick all fall/winter.  I previously was having a lot of trouble sleeping, but due to my new medication, now I am not.  I am clenching my teeth a lot.  And my obsessive gauge is going at full throttle for large chunks of time.  I’m taking super good care of myself – eating well, showering daily, applying deodorant often and chewing gum, to mask bad bodily smells.

I am really off my game, but I’m hanging in there…

These symptoms due to testosterone (educated guess) are really throwing me for a loop.

A story about what it feels like to be bigender

Posted: February 2, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The 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.

From whimsical musings to invasive ruminations on transitioning, Pt. 2

Posted: January 29, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Since I have a lot of extra time on my hands right now, I thought I’d read through some of my old blog entries.  I came across a couple of pretty good ones that didn’t get read by many people, because I was just starting out.  It takes time and energy to build a readership.  I thought it’d be fun (and self-indulgent, which I could use right now) to “re-blog” one of my first posts (and edit it lightly).  See if it still holds up; maybe make a commentary at the end.  This one in particular was my 10th blog post, and it’s from a year and a half ago.  I had been on T for 6 months at that point.  It got 4 views.  I think it’s of interest to more people than that!
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For over a decade, I had been going back and forth thousands of times in my head about whether transitioning, or partial transition, was right for me or not.  At some point not that long ago, I seemed to come to the conclusion that no, I wasn’t going to move forward because if I were, I would have done something about it by now.  And I haven’t, so I’m not.  I must be lacking some internal drive, so it must not be something that I need to do.  I settled on identifying as genderqueer and trans* but not planning on medically transitioning in any way.  But I was not quite satisfied, not at all actually.  Because it was still on my mind.  Sometimes just as whimsical musings in the back of my brain.  Other times as pervasive/invasive body-dysphoric consistent ruminations.

I thought it had to be all or nothing.  I thought I had to have a case ready about how I need to transition, in order to access testosterone.  But I don’t need to transition, and I really don’t like to lie.  I thought I would need a letter from a therapist, and to jump through all these hoops, to access testosterone, at least in my town, locally.  And I wasn’t even sure I wanted it!  Eventually I reached a point where I just knew that I needed to try it, just so that I could know.  So that at the very least, I could think about it differently or think about it less often, as it relates to a decision about something I should or should not do.

I have this awesome therapist.  She doesn’t know much about trans* identities.  I’m fairly certain she had not previously had a trans* client before, although I could be wrong.  I’d been talking to her about this stuff, and she’d been following along, more or less, in stride.  When I would say I need to try this out, she would say, “then why not!”  I asked her if she’d write me a letter if need be, and she said she wouldn’t be comfortable doing that; she doesn’t have enough knowledge about it.  Still operating under the assumption that I would need a letter, I started also seeing another therapist, basically for the purpose of getting a letter.

This second therapist gave me the name of a doctor during our first session.  Turns out that, apparently, I didn’t need a letter!  Turns out I didn’t need to convince anyone at any point that I wanted to transition medically.  I never once had to lie to get my hands on testosterone.  And once I did get my hands on it, I was given the freedom to experiment with the dosing, basically use as much or as little as I wanted.  Turns out I want to use as little as possible.  Turns out I might be able to stay on it for the rest of my life without looking any more masculine than I currently do (this has yet to be proven, but it’s been 6 months now, and so far, so good).  And the internal effects, with this super low dose, are significant and pretty much better than I could have even hoped for.

Basically, for all those years of wondering and second-guessing and processing and feeling anxious and obsessing and daydreaming and doubting myself and ultimately sort of concluding by default that I wouldn’t take any steps forward, actually doing something about it has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

And in retrospect, it isn’t like there’s no turning back, to some extent.  Testosterone is a slow-moving substance in terms of long-term changes… I’m really enjoying the internal forward momentum though.
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Now that it’s been close to two years on testosterone, I am at a new normal.  I have used the gel every single day, and the benefits have been astronomical.  BUT, I forget now; I forget what I used to feel like.  I can feel myself approaching a new stage, a stage where I look like someone in between, more so than I already am.  This new stage might involve shaving (or plucking chin hairs at a faster pace than I currently do.)  It might involve a lot more explaining and coming out.  It might involve top surgery and a name change.  This is my transition, in process.

Getting some stuff done, while recouperating

Posted: January 27, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

This is pretty much the best type of leave of absence anyone could ask for.  Last week, I was in the hospital, but I wasn’t sick or incapacitated in any physical sense.  And being out of work for this week, I’m able to get to some stuff I’ve been putting off, in some cases for years.

This week,
– I’m getting my car inspected.
– I’m going to therapy Mon. and Fri.
– I’m meeting with my new psychiatrist.
– I’m having lunch or dinner with a couple people.
– I’m working on finally finishing this blanket I started 2 years ago.
– I’m finishing a piece of writing, a collaborative blog post with Michele Witchipoo.
And the big thing I’m finally getting around to:  I am cleaning my room.*

My room has been a disaster area for mostly my entire life.  I mean, I guess there were periods of time where I kept things organized throughout my childhood, but largely, it’s a watch-where-you-step zone.  There is a method to the madness, but it doesn’t work all that well, and there have been times recently where I can’t find something.  I have a tendency to not unpack bags and also a tendency to not want to touch things because they have sentimental value and are buried somewhere down there.  It’s like an archaeological dig.  This room has not been cleaned in probably 2 years – lots of dust and hair and just grossnesses.  At least no food or stuff like that – I’m good about that.

I guess I have a confession:  I am a janitor who is a messy person at heart.

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Really only a partial view. Need a panorama for this mess!

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Almost done with this blanket!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a fair amount of anxiety about returning to work next week.  I have never been out of work for this long, ever.  People might be asking me questions that I need to be prepared to field.  Although it may be tough to believe in my line of work, I was temporarily experiencing quite a lot of stress, and many changes were under way, leading up to being out of work.  I think I can manage it better once I get back, but I won’t really know until I’m in it.  Either way, I know I’ll be ready to go back – only so much I can do with huge swaths of unstructured time.  (I’ve also been playing thought experiments about how hard would it be to come out as non-binary at work?  Everyone really likes me there – I think they could get on board.  We’ll see…)

*When I say “my room,” I’m referring to the room where my partner and I sleep, and where I store a lot of my personal belongings in big disheveled swirls.  We don’t hang out in there or watch TV or anything because it’s not all that aesthetically pleasing, at least for my partner.  Also, it is the attic of our house, so it is very cold in the winter.

Kids have strong opinions about my gender

Posted: January 4, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Passing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Yesterday, my partner and I met up with my childhood best friend and her family; they were in town for the holidays.  They have two kids, ages 6 and 3, and the three year old was overwhelmingly interested in me.  I’ve never had this experience before – usually kids stay their distance, giving me sideways glances or staring and staring and staring.  I’ve been interacting with kids more at school (while I’m working) a little more lately, realizing that although I’m a janitor, I am also an authority figure they see regularly, who can help point them to preferable behaviors.  (No running, no going down steps sideways, no slamming and throwing your garbage in the general area of the garbage barrel at lunch, etc.)

This was a very different dynamic though.  We were hanging out at a nearby public greenhouse and plant conservatory, and the three-year-old daughter took any opportunity to climb all over me, instruct me to pick her up and throw her up in the air, and get right in my face.  She was overhearing everyone use male pronouns for me, and she yelled, 2 inches away from my face, “you’re a girl!”  And then again.  And again.  “You’re a girl!”  We all laughed.  It was funny.  Because she’s three.  It was also the most jarring thing I have experienced in a very long time.  Her mom went ahead and explained very simply and directly that I get to say who I am, not her, and everyone has their own feelings about who they are, and only they get to say.  She tested this with, “you’re a boy!” but then went on to state, “I’ve never seen a boy who sounds like a girl.”  “I’ve never seen a boy who looks like a girl.”  And again.  And again.  Holy cow, kids love repetition!!!

She also declared many times that I am her mama.  Whoa.  (She later clarified that she was making a joke.)  Again, all of this is funny and easy to let slide because she is a three year old, but I gotta admit it was actually hitting my psyche a little bit. It helped that her mom (my friend), let us know she often does this.  She’s super outgoing, and she’ll hone in on one adult of a group she’s with, and that person is 9 times out of 10 the most handsome adult male of the group.  I’ll take it!

I have been considering what might happen if I increased my testosterone levels.  And these exchanges really sunk in, as one more thing, in a way that makes me feel motivated to move in that direction where I appear and sound more masculine.  I am still positive that I do not want to live my life as a visible male, but how cool would it be if people had some serious trouble knowing?  I would love that (as long as they were respectful in the not-knowing).

This kid’s reaction was interesting, because usually it’s kids more than anyone else, who are not quite sure whether I am a girl or a boy.  If I am asked this question, it’s coming from a child.  I’m usually not told, strongly and forcefully, by someone making eye contact, two inches away from my face!  Haha.

Getting to know each other #3 / Year end

Posted: December 28, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Thank you PlainT (Queering the Nerd) for choosing me for the chain-style Very Inspiring Blog Award!

I’m going to move it along by selecting a bunch of blogs I’ve been enjoying lately.  If I chose your blog, and you’d like to make a post following all the rules of the award, they can be found in PlainT’s post, here:
The rules of this award are…

Then I’m going to write a few facts about myself, sort of in the vein of a year end summary.  I made a similar post last year; it is here:
This year felt different… in a good way

These community-driven awards are super important because it’s a chance for blog writers to connect with different blogs they might not know about yet.  I enjoy seeking out new blogs regularly, and I find myself feeling invested in the lives of other blog writers.  Sometimes I get bummed when a blog starts off really strong and then disappears!  Here’s to the coming year, and strengthening this online community through mutual support and inspired blog writing!

A few blogs to check out (some are mainstays, some are more sporadically written than others, some are brand new)!

John’s Thoughts
Changing Faces
Tea With Ess
Gender Drift
Casbalog
Queer Asterisk
Tangled Web
ftmfml
Dawn to Don
Musical Transparent
A Yellow Crayon
2 Women to 2 Men

Next up, here are some things about me / some things I did and felt this year:

– Overall, it was a pretty rough year for me.  I continued to settle into a new and improved place with hormone therapy and talk therapy, but I’m finding I still have a LONG way to go until I really am where I see myself.  I want to be out as non-binary in all areas of my life.  I want to go by a different name.  I want all the people who know me to use male pronouns in reference to me, not just most of the people…  I might want top surgery…

– I felt a growing closeness with my partner, newer levels of comfort and ease, which is great.  At the same time, she kinda had to put up with a lot from me.  Lots of bouts of crying.  Lots of insecurity-fueled jags.  I had a rough summer.  And fall.  And just in general, lately…

– We celebrated our having-gotten-married (this occurred in November 2013) over the summer with friends and family!

– We went on some fun trips.  To Massachusetts and Maine, to Toronto, To Philadelphia for the Philly Trans-Health Conference.

– We attended a foraging workshop with some friends, which was totally fun!  We learned about edible plants you can find in our region, and how to prepare them into meal-like food items, over an open fire in the middle of the woods.  We did that – everyone helped cook this food we’d found, and then we all ate it!

– Outdoors times were probably some of my favorite times this year.  Just going for a hike or going to a lake.  My partner and I got snowshoes recently, so we can keep getting out there, even throughout the winter.

– My pet rabbit passed away, and my co-worker retired.  These have both felt like HUGE losses.  Work has been tough and more drama-ful than need be, lately.

– I worked on 3 submissions for anthologies this year!  One is already published, and two have been accepted and are in the works, the editing stages…  This feels AWESOME!

– I got involved in a local group that is putting a new radio station out into the airwaves.  Currently I’m helping out a lot with their facebook page, and within the coming year, I will be a weekly radio DJ!

That was, more or less, what 2014 looked like for me.

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