Bathroom anxieties: a genderqueer janitor’s perspective (pt. 3 / summer edition)

Posted: August 22, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The bathrooms (all except for two) at the school I work at are getting a complete makeover this summer!  (This is only a part of the remodeling / demolition that’s been going on – it’s been a fairly chaotic and atypical few months.  Most of the time it feels like, how is all of this going to be completed by September 4th?!)

Here’s a quick rundown of the bathroom count:
3 boys gang bathrooms
3 girls gang bathrooms
1 mens staff bathroom
1 womens staff bathroom
2 gender-neutral staff bathrooms
1 girls gym teacher bathroom
1 boys gym teacher bathroom
1 nurse’s office gender-neutral bathroom
7 classroom gender-neutral bathrooms
2 girls single-use bathrooms
1 boys single-use bathroom

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that my workplace has more bathroom options than pretty much anywhere else, ever.  As a genderqueer person, I have never stressed out about where I was going to go pee.  Never, until this summer.  All bathrooms are out of commission except for one girls gang bathroom and one boys gang bathroom.  “Gang,” in this case, means that more than one person can enter and use the bathroom at a time.  I am missing my gender-neutral option!

Before I came out at work, I was using both womens and gender-neutral bathrooms.  After I came out at work, I gradually transitioned to only using gender-neutral bathrooms.  One good thing about all this upheaval is that when they’re done, there will be 4 more gender-neutral bathrooms than there had been previously.  !!!  !!!

Until then though, I’ve had to make some tough decisions.  As the bathroom options started to shrink (due to demolition), I was getting creative, for a while.  For example, I realized there was still a toilet not yet destroyed in on of the classrooms, and I was using that for a while.  My co-worker, who knew I’d been only using gender-neutral options, asked me, “So which bathroom are you going to use?”  Being semi-facetious, I replied, “I’ll use the womens for #1 and the mens for #2.”  And I actually was doing that for a while.

But then I started running into other people who were also using the bathroom as the pickings got slim.  And I started getting nervous.  I’d rather people saw me as male and used he/him/his pronouns for me than not.  Some people get that I’m neither, and that’s great, but I don’t need the whole school understanding this nuance.  Things have been so much better for me since coming out; I just want to keep up that momentum.

So I made a stark, black and white decision, that I was going to use the boys gang bathroom, no matter who was around or who wasn’t around.  It was tough to wrap my head around because, since top surgery, coming out, and being on a regular dose of T (in that order), I’ve been in all sorts of bathrooms depending on the context, how I’m feeling, and what the options are.  But I STILL prefer and gravitate towards womens rooms.  And I STILL have not been stopped or questioned once.

But, in this case, I’ve been feeling like I gotta do this because I’m trying to assert and simplify my identity so everyone gets the picture / is on the same page.  It’s been working.  Almost everyone (except my former supervisor who keeps leeching onto the building) uses he/him/his pronouns for me.  Essentially, I haven’t been wanting to confuse people or have them question where I’m at.  Even the contractors – all of them have been calling me “buddy,” and that actually feels really good!

It defintely has been nervewracking though.  A few times, I almost ran into the girls room when I heard that someone was in the boys.  I’ve never been in a mens/boys room with other males.  (Er, actually, maybe a handful of times when I was traveling in Turkey, but that’s it.)  But I stuck it out and passed them at the urinal in order to use the stall.  Or was in the stall and heard them using the urinal.  Or at the sink, etc.  I went into the boys room while B&G (buildings and grounds – for the district) workers were around, while my co-workers were around, while (female) teachers were around.

And in the end, it’s all been OK.  (It was a little less nerve-wracking, overall, because contractors were made to use a port-a-potty outside.  Sucks to be them!)  All I mean by that was that there were way less males using the school’s boys bathroom.

As soon as I can though, I will be right back in those gender-neutral, single stall bathrooms, which will be all over the place!!!

Wanna see other posts I’ve made in this series?  Here they are:
Bathroom anxieties:  a genderqueer janitor’s perspective
Bathroom anxieties:  a genderqueer janitor’s perspective (pt. 2)

Oh, and, as always, I’ve been all over both the girls and the boys bathroom, in order to clean them, daily.

Voice drop

Posted: May 31, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

I wanted to highlight this change, on testosterone, because I’ve vacillated so much over time, and it seems worth noting.  Initially, this was the thing I feared the most.  It’s one of the changes that happens early on, is irreversible, and is most noticeable.  I wanted to avoid it all together, partially because I wasn’t ready to come out beyond what I was comfortable with (my community and friends).  I didn’t want this change to “out me” before I was ready.  Also, I didn’t want to tip the gender balance – I wanted to be, over-all, androgynous and not definitively masculine in any way.

When I was on a low dose of Androgel (for over 2 years), I successfully kept things right where I wanted them.  Then I went off T completely for a while, and in that time, I started DJing for a community radio station.  I didn’t like listening back to my shows at first, so I just didn’t.  They felt cringe-worthy.  Eventually I started listening, and improving, and switching things up.  I started to find my voice, suuuuuuper gradually.

About a year in, I was ready to plunge into T-injections and all the changes that may come along with that, including my voice dropping.  I had already come out with family and at work and had changed my name legally, so those things were no longer road-blocks.

It was a bizarre and largely private thing to go through.  I don’t talk all that much in my daily life, to begin with, so it was a lot of testing out the changes, daily, in my car alone.  And then also the radio show, weekly.  I know there were times when my voice cracked, but I haven’t listened back, specifically, for that.  I’m sure I could find those moments, in the archives, if I really wanted to.  But I don’t!  Haha.

Fast forward, and I am super satisfied with my voice as it is now.  I have a hard time relating to how tortured I felt about it in the past.  Along with increased confidence and comfort with my body and my place in the world, my voice just feels natural.  It also just feels so much easier to find words, to converse in all sorts of situations, and to be more out there.  It is awesome in so many ways.

In preparing for my 100th radio show, I did go back to those first few shows and listened to them probably for the first time.  And they WERE totally cringe-worthy, haha.  My voice was stilted and stiff; I sounded so unsure of myself.  I did a cool thing where I isolated some of the sound clips from those early shows, and then I played them live, on my 100th show.  Here’s me, talking about lunch over the course of a handful of shows, before T-injections, and then me interjecting over top of that – you can really notice the change in my voice that way!  Also my best friend was there in the studio – she’s the third voice on this track:

Hair

Posted: May 22, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My hair is the longest its ever been.  It’s also only 3/8 of an inch, on the sides.  I cut and buzz it myself.  I’m not sure whether it was a conscious decision (probably partially conscious), but as my face has become more masculine, I’ve grown my hair out in the back so that it falls over my shoulders slightly.  Also, it has gotten a lot more curly since I’ve been on testosterone.

I was initially on a low dose of Androgel for a few years, and there were really only 2 reasons that I stopped, in December of 2015:  1) I wasn’t sure what it was doing for me, at that dose, anymore.  And 2) Was it causing my hairline to recede?  That was totally freaking me out!

Two years later, I was ready to give testosterone another try.  The pros I envisioned (lowered voice, redistribution of fat and muscle, heightened libido, bottom growth) outweighed the cons I was pretty sure I’d come up against (feeling hotter, sweatier, potential hair growth and hair loss.)  And now that it’s been close to a year and a half, on a “regular” dose of injections, I’m still “in it” with that balance.  I don’t love all the changes.  But I love some of the changes more than I dislike others.

Hair is a big factor.  Probably the biggest factor at this point.  I’ll start with the easiest, most fun change:

Happy trail!!!  I’ve always wanted a happy trail, and now, finally, I have one.  That’s all I got to say about that.  It is awesome!!!

Facial Hair:  I do not like the increased facial hair at all.  I regularly – daily – pluck out chin and moustache hairs with tweezers.  I kind of love this activity – it’s satisfying to grab and pull out, one-at-a-time, each hair.  However, it’s more and more time-consuming, over time, as I have more to pluck out.  In addition, I’m sure I’m missing a bunch, especially finer hairs that can be seen in the sunlight.  Is this OK?  I guess for now, but it is a fine balance.  You know that old belief that may or may not be true?  That if you shave, the hairs will come back in thicker and darker?  I kinda believe that.  I don’t want to take that chance with my face.  Also, I’m not ruling out electrolysis, as a long-term solution, if it really feels that overwhelming in the future.

Hairline:  My hairline has definitely changed since being on testosterone.  I have a much more pronounced “widow’s peak.”  This is worrisome.  Balding definitely runs in my family.  I feel vain about it.  As of now, I just arrange the curls on the top of my head so that they fall forward, curly bangs covering up male pattern baldness.  But I’m not sure if I get to do this forever.  Probably not.

I also got some hair growth going on in other parts of my body, like my lower back and legs – all this feels neutral and natural.  I’m neither bothered nor excited about it.

I’m actually leaning toward lowering my dose now, as it gets warmer out.  I don’t want to feel overheated and smelly and sweaty.  And if a lower dose will slow some of the balding down, I’d probably feel better about it.  As long as my menstrual cycle doesn’t come back – that’s the balance I’m aiming for right now…  I’m sure I’ll feel differently at other points as well, but this is where I’m at.

One year on testosterone

Posted: January 19, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Passing, Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Today 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

I’m not a man, but am I a boy or boi?

Posted: December 22, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Recently, while in the midst of yet another gender confusion stream-of-consciousness ramble, directed at my therapist, she reminded me, “You used to tell me that you didn’t think you felt like a man, but you wanted to be seen as a boy.”  But that was like 15 years ago, when I was 20, 21 years old.  At that point, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to be seen as a 15 year old boy.  Right?  Or at least, not nearly as much of a stretch as a 36-year old (me, now) wanting that same thing.  Do I still want that?  Not really, anymore.  But, it is happening at this point, sometimes, more than ever before.  (Well maybe not more than when I was 10 years old and there was no way to tell me apart from a boy of that same age..)

When I was first grappling with what it meant to be transgender, one of the first terms I latched onto was “boi.”  It’s a deviation of “boy,” something that’s queer and edgy but also kind of  just “testing the waters,” experimental, non-committal.  Wikipedia has a whole slew of other meanings for “boi,” which is worth checking out, here.

It seems that this term has fallen out of popularity, similarly to how “hir” and “ze” have given way to “they.”

I gotta admit I don’t identify with “boi” anymore.  Nor do I feel like I am a boy.  BUT!  There are certain things that are great about being seen that way.  When people mistake me for a 16 year old boy, I feel like I will live forever!  Hah, not really, but there is something exciting about it.  I almost always get carded unless I’m at a place where people know my face.  Fine by me!

Sometimes I have trouble inhabiting this body.  it has gotten waaaaaaay easier since top surgery and testosterone.  BUT!  Do you know what’s cool about this body?  The size of my body is exactly between “boy’s” sizes and “men’s” sizes, in every way.  I love that – it’s kind of perfect.  I can wear boys XL shirts (as long as the sleeves are long enough) or men’s XS shirts (kind of hard to find).  Men’s pants start at size 28 waist, and boy’s pants end at size 30 waist.  I fall right within that range – lately since testosterone, going more toward the 30.  Boy’s size 20 means 30X30 which is pretty much perfect, if I can find them.

And shoes!  Boy’s go up to size 6y (the “y” stands for youth).  And Men’s start at size 7.  Either of these fit me.

I wear unisex size small t-shirts.  I wear both boy’s and men’s underwear, but gravitate more towards boy’s because it’s generally waaaaaaaay cheaper.

When I was 20, 21, a close friend and I strongly identified as “bois,” together.  We played catch with baseballs and mitts, or frisbees, countless times.  We peed in the woods, whenever we had to go, no big deal.  We worked on an organic garden, we went camping and swimming in the lake in just our briefs and A-frame tank tops.  We got free ice creams at the place my brother worked.  She now identifies as a bisexual woman.  And I identify as trans, as genderqueer, as non-binary, as queer.

But, although I have a history with it, I probably would not say that I am a “boi.”

 

3 ways I have asserted my gender identity, recently

Posted: September 23, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, name change, Passing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

As 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!

I’m doing something I dreaded, and it’s not so bad

Posted: September 12, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

At the school I work at, there are two main sections to be cleaned – upstairs and downstairs.  For the vast majority of my time there, I’ve always cleaned the downstairs.  The water fountain was better.  It was cooler in hot weather.  There were more people to interact with.  The rooms were cleaner (for the most part).  I was closer to things that I needed to access:  receiving room with supplies, dumpsters, the custodial office.

About 2 years ago, I cleaned the upstairs for roughly 6 months.  It was not my choice – things were rough in a lot of different ways, and this was just one more thing.  One more really big thing though, in my head.  I was in and out of work a few times, due to a serious depression.  When I was up there, it felt as if I could barely do the tasks, and the fact that they were recurring forever and ever was intolerable.  I was rushing myself, always feeling like I didn’t have enough time to do everything.  I was at a loss as to what to do about all the recycling, which for me is a “must do.”  I just felt like I did not belong up there.  I was trying to pop in and out of areas before kids were out of school, and then backtracking, which felt totally inefficient but seemed to be the only way to keep busy.  Just being felt painful.  And the fact that the being was on the second floor made the pain feel compounded so tightly within itself that I was struggling beyond belief.

By about mid-October of 2015, I was told I was switching back to the first floor.  Apparently my co-worker wasn’t doing a great job, there were complaints, it was more important to be clean on the first floor than the second floor.  ??  Anyway, at that time, I was sooooooo relieved.  It was a visceral feeling.  All the negativity was left up on the second floor, and although I was still struggling, I fit right back into the first floor.  A few months later, I got on a medication that really started working for me, and the next two years went really well for the most part.

Sometimes a little too well:  As I’ve mentioned before, I went through a manic episode in May, and I was out for two months, recovering from that.  In a good way though – so far so good on the avoidance of a rebound depression.  However, I lost my status at work.  When I got back, it was clear that the new guy was now the new second-in-command.

In the past, this would have felt devastating, and I would have clung onto whatever control I did have, to the detriment of myself, only, really.  I know because I’d already put myself through all that, big time.  This time around, I decided to take it all in stride, as best I could.  Instead of arguing about how I couldn’t do the second floor or anything like that, I spent time “staking it out,” I guess you could say?  Just, spending time up there visualizing this or that and getting accustomed to the idea, before kids came back.

Now that school is back in session, I am IN IT.  And it’s not actually bad.  So far it has felt preferable, in fact.  I’ve made some changes to my routine that really feel like they’re making a difference.  Instead of bringing my cart plus mop bucket plus garbage barrel to each and every classroom, I am “sweeping through,” first with the garbage and rags to wipe everything down, then with the vacuum for all the area rugs, and then with the dust mop.  I am taking WAY more steps going through multiple times instead of going room-by-room, but it’s feeling good.  Feeling faster, even.

And the weather has not been too hot.  And there’s a new drinking fountain up there as of a couple months ago – the kind where you can easily fill up a water bottle from, and it says how many plastic bottles you are saving by doing so.  I love it!  And I like the fact that the teachers clear out early up there, for the most part.  And the rooms have been clean thus-far.

Best of all, I have my own “room” to store stuff, up there.  That’s new.  So while things are kinda turbulent with co-worker dynamics, I am so glad to have all my stuff and activities separate from theirs, more-so than ever before.

All the negative associations I’ve held about the second floor have pretty much melted away.  A lot of that has to do with mental health and coming out at work.  I don’t feel like I’m trying so hard to get in and out of places.  I actually feel like I belong.  When I talk with people, I like my voice.  When I walk and do all this physical work, more muscle mass is making it feel much more effortless.

The only thing I’m dreading now is “gym use.”  Coming soon will be screaming children using the gym for their cheer-leading practice, from 6-8:30pm.  And once that’s over, it’ll be basketball all winter-long.  We’ll see how well I can adjust…

Trichotillomania and taking testosterone

Posted: August 13, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I have a mild case of trichotillomania.  It’s come and gone during different times in my life, and it’s always been specific to the hair on my face, not on my scalp.

Trichotillomania, to paraphrase wikipedia, is an impulse control disorder, also known as “hair pulling.”  It’s generally triggered by anxiety and stress, and is usually treated with CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy.)

In the past, I have honed in on eyebrow and eyelash plucking, using my thumbnail and pointer finger-nail as tweezers.  It hasn’t been bad over-all, like I still have eyebrows and eyelashes, it’s just that my left eyebrow is a little bit sparse.  It’s barely noticeable.

I also would get chin hairs, from time to time, starting in adolescence, and I would pluck those too, with my fingers or tweezers.  This was, apparently, “pro-social” behavior, because I was socialized as a female, and therefore, it’s necessary to eradicate any hint of a mustache or “chin whiskers.”  ???  I mean, there’s a whole industry just devoted to that – bleaching the “mustache,” laser-hair removal, waxing, etc.  Blah!

Still though, I keep pulling those hairs out not as a gendered statement, but rather because I liked the sensation of getting at them from the follicle, that very specific and very minutely visceral feeling of a “pull” away from something rooted underneath some of the layers of the skin.  It’s much more satisfying to get them with my fingernails, but I also use tweezers, so I can get ’em all!  The reason I’d say it’s within the realm of “trichotillomania” is because I will do this out in public and I can’t seem to get myself to stop.  It’s not just in front of my bathroom mirror.  It’s during break at work, with people sitting in the same vicinity.  It’s during a meeting, because I am bored.  It’s during a movie with a stranger sitting two seats away.  Etc.  Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a big deal.  It’s a rough life to be constantly conforming to societal standards, at least in my opinion…

Facial hair, for me, is a hard limit.  I do not want a beard.  If I have a shadowy mustache, that’s fine by me, but that mustache never stays for very long before I start plucking out each hair individually.  It’ll always happen eventually.

Now that I’m on a regular-ish dose of testosterone, I am getting more facial hair.  And I just will not give in and shave.  First off, I don’t feel like it!  I prefer my methods, even if it ends up taking 10 minutes per day – more or less – to “groom” my face.  Secondly, I do think that I believe that old wives’ tale, on some level, about the more you shave, the thicker and darker the hairs will fill in.  I do not want to do anything that could potentially promote more facial hair growth.

I do realize this is a little bit counter-intuitive (is that the phrase I’m looking for?)  Like, most people who are taking testosterone are embracing the full effect, whatever that means for them.  But as someone who is non-binary, it’s a little trickier.  Like, I like this effect, but this other thing screams “masculine” a little too loudly, and I’m not really feelin’ it.  Something to that effect.

If my facial hair growth ever did start to feel unruly / out of my control, and / or the “grooming” ritual were creeping up toward closer to a half hour per day, something like that, I would not rule out laser hair removal  At this time, it just seems a little too extreme, expensive, and unnecessary.  But, hey, with this kind of journey, sometimes you never know what is coming up next!

6 months on testosterone

Posted: July 19, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Today is 6 months on 50ml injections / week.  I didn’t know I would end up liking it as much as I am.  At this rate, I may be on it for a while, whereas previously I was thinking roughly 6-8 months.

I have not noticed anything major since the 3 month mark, except for probably just my voice, and also some psychological changes, which can be chalked up to any number of different things, first and foremost my “mood disorder” and the tweaking of my psychotropic meds.  (All for the better, thankfully!)

I also just celebrated 4 years with wordpress (got a notification from the company haha)!  That’s pretty cool – I’ve been writing roughly once a week this entire time.  I have over 200 posts “published.”

Also, locally, we just celebrated pride in our mid-sized city.  We’re always a month behind everywhere else with that.  Why?  I have no idea!  But I definitely do love the fact that it’s in mid-July as opposed to June.  It makes it all the more easier for me to be involved, with work and everything else going on with the end of the school year.  I’ll be making a post about that, as I do every year, for sure!

Speaking of work, I will be going back to work tomorrow, finally.  I’m neither nervous, worried, or anxious.  I’ll just see what’s what when I get there.  I have been out for 2 months.  Since my hospitalization in mid-May.  That is a long time to be out.  It has been relaxing, exciting, productive, and eye-opening.  I hope I can keep that feeling with me as I go back to the drudgery of a 40hr / week routine.

Hey, my T shot is also tomorrow, so I can have that to look forward to, at the same time.  And, the fact that I’ll be working again does not negate all the awesome things I’ve been up to.  Gonna try being more social and friendly and network-y.  Wish me luck!

Also, here’s my face:

6 months!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

before injections

 

 

 

 

 

Pain is relative

Posted: June 25, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Content note:  blood, needles, things that might make you squeamish, self-injury.

Three days ago, I did my 24th shot of T.  I started to psych myself out – for some reason, it suddenly seemed super-difficult.  The needle looked extra long, and it has been looking that way for a while now.  I decided maybe I should stick it in a “meatier” part of my quad muscle.  I did, and must have hit a vein – it HURT a LOT and it bled quite a bit.  I just felt like, “Damn, I’ve been working myself up about the pain more and more lately.  I just wanna do it like a routine, without any glitches!”

It then occurred to me to look up the gauge online and see what was the range.  I looked at my zip-lock baggie from the pharmacy, full of my syringes.  I suddenly realized that my newer ones were a different shade of green than my older ones.  I was looking at 23 gauge versus 21 gauge.  In addition, the 21s were 1.5 inches, and the 23s were 1 inch – my fear that I was gonna hit my femur was semi-legit!  I need to go back and get more 1 inch needles, pronto!

Needles are scary, right?  It makes sense that people would fear needles.  They hurt.  Also, what about negative associations to getting shots at a doctor’s office, as a small child, vaccines and booster shots, stuff like that.

And then there’s the taking of the blood.  Like, say, you have a medical condition that causes you to need regular blood draws to make sure everything is on track.  If you are transgender, this is a common best practice.

When I was 17-21, I had to get regular blood work done every 3-6 months, because of a psychotropic drug I was on.  I can’t remember the reason why. ( To check liver functioning, and/0r cholesterol?  I forget.)  It was a hassle, at the very least.  But I did start getting very comfortable with it:  I was present, it barely hurt – I just looked away so I didn’t have to see the vials filling up with blood.

Because of this, probably, I was intrigued by the idea of donating blood.  I did it a handful of times between these ages (17-21), both at my high school and at my college.  It was one of the most bizarre things, in my opinion:  Here we are, a bunch of us, all laying down on cots.  Any one of us might pass out at any time, and that would cause a chain reaction for others to pass out too.  There are these nurses hovering over all of us, making sure we can stand up OK as if we are rising from the dead, with these baggies of blood tied to us.  They are on hand with cookie packets and juice boxes.  We can have as many as we want…

The one reason I stopped doing it was because I had a hard time maintaining the minimum weight requirement during college (110 lb).  I didn’t have an eating disorder, per se, I just didn’t have an appetite or desire for much of anything at all.  I also struggled with anemia.

And self-injury too.  In that case, pain was my friend.  I guess I can best describe it as, I would work myself up into such a frenzy that cutting my skin felt like the only thing that would bring me down.  I was hyper-ritualistic about it.  It was a fairly common occurrence for years, but never “severe.”  And I don’t do it anymore.

Testosterone has changed my relationship to pain, for sure.  I’ve written about that here:
Differences In How I Experience Pain

Here’s a quick excerpt (I wrote this somewhere around 3 years ago):

Before I started taking testosterone, 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.

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.

So what am I trying to get at?  I guess I just want to acknowledge that sticking yourself with a needle, in an ongoing way, is a really intense thing to do.  And it’s totally understandable that some trans-people would just have a hard limit and say, “I’m not doing that.”  For myriad reasons.  So at least there are other options:

– Gels, patches, and creams (unfortunately, quite costly)
– Sub-cutaneous injections (not as deep)
– Stuff like Nebido that’s injected every 3 months or so

Does anyone have experiences with switching methods?
Doing self-injections feels like a badge of honor, but I’m not quite sure that it feels like an “honorable” thing to do…

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