Just a drill

The other day I installed some coat hooks on the wall in the front entryway of my house. I got to play around with a power drill, a stud finder, a level and a tape measure; I figured it all out on my own and the results look pretty good. A few years ago, when I was in denial and trying very hard to be male, this sort of accomplishment would have made me feel like Yeah, I'm a man, gettin' stuff done. Now that identify as mostly female, it made me feel like Yeah, I'm an independent woman, I don't need a man around to do stuff for me.

It's telling (and kind of funny) that the exact same activity could have a completely different gendered significance in my mind. A woman using power tools is exerting her independence; a man doing the same thing is just being a man. That, I'm sure, is a reflection of the culture I grew up in.

On an unrelated note, I think I've decided to wait until I find a job to start electrolysis, just because I would hate to start and then have to stop again for lack of funds. I'm not super thrilled about this descision, but I'm pretty sure it's what makes the most sense.

Disorientation

I usually do it without even thinking about it, but it's always kind of funny to me when I catch myself. My roommates are all boys, and when I'm just hanging out with them around the house I tend not to be overly concerned about my appearance. But when a girl comes over... quite often I'll slip off to my room, quickly dab on some foundation, maybe a bit of mascara, tie my dreads back (they look a lot more feminine that way), take my glasses off (they're a very masculine style, and I can see well enough without them), and spritz on some floral perfume. I come out again, still presenting as a boy, but feeling just a little bit prettier.

It's silly of course, but what can I say? I'm attracted to women, and like most people who are attracted to women, I want to look good around them. It's just a little disorienting when you happen to be a queer woman presenting as a feminine man around straight women.

Then again, my orientation has long been a source of confusion to me, just in different ways at different times. The thing is, while I've always been primarily attracted to women, I've never quite been exclusively attracted to women. As far as I can tell, I can be physically attracted to people of various different genders, but am romantically attracted only to women. Figuring that out would have been difficult enough on its own, but growing up trans made it more complicated still. For that matter, so did growing up religious.

I'd never heard of transgenderism or transsexuality when I was a kid. At most, by the time I was in my mid-teens I had a vague idea that there was such a thing as a "sex change", but I didn't have a clue what one might entail, and just assumed it was some kind of bizarre fetish thing. Certainly, at that age, it would never have occurred to me that someone changing their sex probably had feelings very similar to, if not the same as, the ones I was dealing with.

So, not having a concept of trans-ness, I made the best use of the meagre and distorted concepts I did have: I knew I was boy because everyone said so and I had boy parts; I knew, in some vague sense, that some aspect of me was deeply and fundamentally feminine; and I knew, because I'd learned it from my culture, that feminine boys were gay. Not surprisingly then, when I finally became honest enough with myself (around 19 or 20) to admit that there was something "different" about me, I thought it might be that I was gay. This despite the fact that I was primarily into girls.

There was another concept in vogue at the time that helped me make sense of that inconsistency: the so-called ex-gay movement. Nowadays of course the ex-gay movement is widely discredited even in most Christian circles. But this was back in 2008 or so, and we evangelicals all thought it was legit. There were stories everywhere of people whose homosexuality had been "cured" by their faith in Jesus. Some of them had even gotten het-married and had kids. They all smiled as if they were happy. And it was in this context that, desperately trying to make sense of my gender and orientation, I thought I might be one of them.

My feminine personality is that of a gay man, I told myself, but I'm mostly attracted to women because Jesus is healing me. Yeah, that makes sense, right?

Now I find it downright embarrassing to admit that I ever thought something so stupid. I will only say, in my defence, that if you've never been deeply religious you probably have no idea how badly it can screw up your ability to think.

And so it came to pass that, in the summer of 2010, while camping out with two fellow believers in the beautiful Alberta wilderness, I came out as "possibly gay" for the first time. Except you don't say "possibly gay" when you're an evangelical Christian coming out to other evangelicals; you say "struggling with homosexuality," because you have to pretend being gay is bad even if you can't for the life of you think of a reason why.

"I struggle with homosexuality," I said.
"It's okay," they assured me, "it's no different than any other sin. We all struggle with sin."

The second time I came out was much the same. But the third and final time something important happened.

It was late 2011, nearly a full year before I gave up on faith, and about a year and a half before I figured out I was trans. I had joined a small group bible study that met weekly, and at one particular meeting the discussion turned to the question of why homosexuality was wrong. We knew it must be because the bible said so, but we were scratching our heads trying to figure out why. It didn't seem like it hurt anyone, and God wouldn't just make up arbitrary rules, would s\he?

It seemed like a good time to come out to the group. "That's actually, uh, that's something I struggle with, personally." I said quietly. They all thanked me for trusting them enough to share that with them. The discussion would simply have continued from there, except for the curiosity of one group member.
"Wait. How does that work?" he asked.
I looked up.
"I mean, sorry if it's a personal question," he continued, "but like, do you actually find men attractive? Like, are you attracted to men the same way that I'm attracted to women?"

Not a very tactful question perhaps, but I'm glad he asked it. Because, for the first time in my life, I was forced to try and put into words how I felt. No longer could I cling to the ill-fitting constructs I'd been using to understand myself. "Um, well, for me personally it's not so much about being interested in men, it's more like..." my mind raced, trying to find a way to express something I'd never had a name for, "...it's more like... I guess I've always felt a bit like a girl trapped inside a boy's body."

Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't a totally accurate description of how I felt. But it was much, much nearer the truth than everything I'd been saying up until then.

To illustrate what I meant by it, I told them about a time I'd seen an adorable pair of red strappy high heels in a store and felt almost heartbroken that boys couldn't wear shoes like that. (Obviously, high heels are absolutely not what being trans is about, but I was still over a year away from even learning the word "trans"— at the time it was probably the best explanation I could give.)

"I don't think that's gay," responded the guy who'd asked the question. "I mean, not if you're not attracted to men. I don't know what it is, but it isn't gay. Gay guys like guys."
"Maybe," I said. "I don't know."
"Well, they do."

The room fell silent for a moment, then one of the women spoke up. "I feel really sorry for someone like you," she said. Her eyes shone with compassion. "Like, if a girl wants to wear boy clothes, people just think she's a tomboy and nobody has a problem with it. But if a boy wants to wear girl clothes, in our society people judge him for it. And that's just so, so unfair."

I appreciated her concern, but inside I was thinking: No, you don't understand. This isn't something that's wrong with society...

This is something that's wrong with ME.

Evidently no one present that evening knew what being trans was. If they had they'd probably have said, "but of course you're transgender!" and I'd have gone home and googled the word and learned I wasn't alone and gotten a year-and-a-half head start on figuring out my identity. But that's not what happened. And in a way maybe it's for the best. Getting out of religion first and then learning I'm trans has meant I've been able to work out my identity without needing to worry the whole time about what God thinks. That seems to me a much better way to go about it.

So, I didn't learn I was trans that night. But I did learn that loving cute shoes doesn't make you gay, and that was an important thing to learn, too.

In 2013, when I did finally learn the word "trans", I was amazed to discover that the "boy trapped in a girl's body" formula has been so over-used that it's become cliché. To this day I'm still not 100% sure if I made it up that night or if I'd heard it somewhere before, but I don't suppose it matters either way.

Of course, just learning I was trans did not mean I instantly and automatically understood everything about my orientation. For a while there I worried that maybe who I really was was a lesbian, and that my limited interest in men was just some kind of penis fetish arising from a subconscious heterosexism that viewed female sexuality strictly in terms of being penetrated by a man. That is to say, that I liked the idea of being with a man because in some twisted way I thought that's what would make me a woman. Soon enough I realized that's probably not where that interest comes from, that I probably don't have such insidious ideas lurking in my subconscious, and that even if I did (or had at some point), that wouldn't make an interest in men bad in itself— heterosexism is the problem, not heterosexuality.

The most important thing I've learned, though, is that a sexual orientation is something to be enjoyed, not worried over. I'll probably never understand how butch women can make my heart skip a beat, or why I think Eddie Izzard looks gorgeous in a dress but not so much with a beard. I'll probably never understand why I find narrow hips and broad shoulders sexy in other trans women even though I dislike those features in myself. But it doesn't matter.

Perfectly understanding myself is not a prerequisite for being myself. And I can continue to make myself look pretty around girls, disorienting though it may be.

Stupid tunnel

This whole is thing is stupid.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it's there. I know it's real. But I've stopped moving towards it. I'm no longer putting one foot in front of the other. And why? Because... it's too dark, I guess? I mean, come on, you could stub your damn toes walking around in the dark!

So instead I'll just sit down here and bash my head against the tunnel wall for a while.

Of all the lights at the ends of tunnels that Google images returns, I like this one.
Image from here.

Okay wait, what does this metaphor even mean?

What it means is, because I haven't been taking any actual steps toward transition or even making any effort to express my gender, I feel depressed. And because I feel depressed, I lack the motivation to take those steps or make that effort.

And I am just barely restraining myself from actually bashing my head against a wall— that part's nearly not a metaphor.

Stupid tunnel.

Sad songs

Gender isn't always at the forefront of my mind, contrary to what you might think from reading this blog. There are times when it matters less. Sometimes, especially if I'm focused on a particular task, I can forget about it altogether. This happened the other day at work. Which, of course, was nice.

It didn't last very long, though. Without really thinking about it, I started humming a tune, as I often do when I'm working. Then I started singing the words to it, again without really thinking about what they were.

The problem is, the song happened to be For Today I am a Boy, by Antony and the Johnsons. And the words I started singing were:

One day I'll grow up, and I'll be a beautiful woman
One day I'll grow up, and I'll be a beautiful girl
But for today I am a child
For today I am a boy

Well... crap. So much for not thinking about it. I was pretty bummed out the rest of the day.

I've got to hand it to Antony Hegarty, though. He* is very good at capturing a certain mournful feeling that can come with living in not-quite-the-right gender.

Oh gosh. Now I just listened to this song again and I'm actually crying.

So... just to balance things out a bit, I'll add that I had a great weekend hanging out with friends and with my brother and sister-in-law. It's not all bad! :)

*He prefers male pronouns, even though he doesn't identify as male.

A very gendery day

I somewhat outed myself as at least gender non-conforming on Facebook today. I posted a happy status update about "listening to Wintersun and painting my nails". And it felt good to simply express how I was feeling.

Now of course, my gender non-conformity isn't news to anyone who sees me on a regular basis, but there are a lot of people on Facebook that I haven't seen in quite a while. Most of these are friends from the conservative Christian community I was a part of in my "previous life," before I moved to Edmonton. I can't help but think that many among that group might be close-minded about all this gendery stuff.

Wintersun, the band I mentioned, is a heavy metal group from Finland. I listen to fairly wide variety of music genres, but metal is what first got me into music as a teenager, and it will probably always hold a special place in my heart. Lately I've come to appreciate a certain defiant attitude that pervades a lot of metal music: it's the same kind of defiant attitude it takes to go out into the world as a boy with a kick-ass shade of red on your nails.

Defiantly pretty

I was at the mall today— the very big one that Edmonton is sort of famous for. (As a side note, it's kind of weird being from a town whose greatest claim to fame is having a very big mall. Two years ago, when I was in Japan, I found myself chatting chatting with a local fellow who spoke English. When I told him where I was from he said, "Oh, Edmonton! I've been to your mall. It's... very big." What else is there to say?) Even with my red nails, my cute flats, my purse and the quick dash of mascara and I'd applied, I was in boy mode. I wasn't wearing any foundation to cover my beard shadow, and I was flat-chested (as in no bra, just a t-shirt over my ordinary male torso).

When I had to pee I opted for the men's room. I figure that if I'm presenting somewhat ambiguously, the fact that I'm standing at a urinal should tip the scale toward male for anyone present who might be confused. It's always stressful though. I was glad there were lots of people around so I didn't have to worry about getting beat up. When I washed my hands the guy at the sink next to me stared at me the whole time. I was very, very glad to finish up and get out of that gendered space.

Immediately after this I went to buy some souvlaki at the food court. The cashier called me "ma'am." Like three times.

Holy shit, are you serious?

I remembered many years ago, when I was doing a very good job of suppressing my gender, that I used to get taken for female now and then because of my long hippie hair. At the time this bothered me (because, like I said, suppressing my gender), so as soon as I could I grew a hippie beard to go with it. That seemed to convince everyone I was a man. Heck, I nearly convinced myself.

Nowadays, of course, I am generally very happy to be seen as female, because I'm beginning to accept that that's who I am. But in this case it kind of freaked me out. It's stressful when you don't know whether the next person to look at you will see a man or a woman. Or at least it is to me.

What I gained today is an even deeper respect for genderqueer and other non-binary people who present androgynously on a regular basis. Navigating a binary world that doesn't have a category for you is just plain hard sometimes.

(And in case you're wondering, I spent like five minutes taking pictures of my fist and another ten messing around in GIMP to produce the illustration for this post. I am far too easily side-tracked, it seems.)

Wibbly-wobbly

That's just something I came across on the interwebs recently and wanted to share. I thought Michelle (who reads this blog) and Jeremy might appreciate it, among others.

For those of you who don't watch Doctor Who, or at least haven't seen season 3 yet, it's referencing the Doctor's wonderfully unhelpful explanation of how time works. The episode in question, Blink, also just happens to be my favourite Who episode of all time. (Though I still have a couple seasons of Matt Smith to watch before I'm all caught up.)

The original line is clearly the writers' way of telling the fans "don't bother trying to figure out how time works in this show; you just have to trust us when we tell you the Doctor can't cross his own timeline and stuff." And of course, that's often how gender is, too. Ultimately, we kind of just have to take people's word for it that they experience it the way they do.

I'm a Ms.

I received a generic form letter the other day. It began "Dear Mr./Ms. [last name]". I took my thumb and covered up the "Mr." I looked at this amended version, and it made me smile. Dear Ms. [last name]. It was just... right.

I'm a Ms.

I find this surprisingly reassuring. Every now and then I'll get these sudden doubts about my identity. I'll think, What if I'm actually just a feminine man? What if this is all just about the clothes? What if I'm just trying to delude myself into thinking I'm female to avoid the stigma that society puts on men who like skirts? What if I medically transition only to figure out I'm not a woman after all and spend the rest of my life dealing with transition regret?? Aaaaaaahh!!!

But the difference between Mr. and Ms. has nothing to do with masculine or feminine. And it has nothing to do with clothes. It only has to do with male or female.

It's just another sign that I'm headed in the right direction. Even if I still don't know where I'm going to end up. :)

Fishes and mermaids

This didn't hurt as bad when I was in denial about it.

It's strange to think about that, but it's true. Up until least year I'd spent my whole life trying very hard to be a boy. And even though I knew that something was amiss, and that it was gender-related, I had never experienced anything but life as a male. And just like a fish doesn't know it's wet, I never knew how crushed I could feel by living in the wrong gender.

Things have changed now, of course. I've seen, and more importantly been seen as, the real me. And going back to the pretend after experiencing life as myself can be fucking hard. I'm not an oblivious fish anymore: I'm more like a mermaid, cast back to sea after knowing what it's like to live on land.

Like this chick

And so there is this paradox, that accepting my trans-ness has given me the chance to do something about it, (for which I am very glad), but it's also brought into focus a whole lot of pain that was once vague and ill-defined. And today especially, for whatever reason, I'm having a really hard time with it.

One thing is clear though: the only way through it is to move forward— going back now to the denial that once numbed this pain is no longer possible, nor is it desirable, and honestly, I think it might even kill me if I tried. So... forward it is.

By the way, I actually had a dream the other night that I was turning into a mermaid. It was more like a nightmare, actually. Perhaps it means I spend too much time thinking about gendery stuff!

Becoming real

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word
And then that word grew louder and louder...

—Regina Spektor, The Call

Not so long ago, the female version of me existed only on the internet and in the confines of my bedroom. "Ashley" was a name I used here and in a crossdressing forum. I would dress as a girl in my room, but I was still in the closet to my housemates, so I couldn't even open the door. I would snap some photos and post them online so that I could be seen by someone, somewhere.

But as I've been coming out to more people and going out into the world, that has been changing. Now, as Ashley, I've felt sunshine on my face, and grass beneath my feet. I've been smiled at by strangers (and once pointed and laughed at, but I won't dwell on that). And last Sunday I had two more important experiences as part of this gradual process: I introduced myself as a girl to someone I'd just met, and I visited my mother.

According to the website of my local Pride Centre, there's a trans social mixer that meets there the last Sunday of every month. I'd been wanting to get involved in the community, and to interact socially as a girl, so I decided to go. And oh my goodness was I nervous. Meeting new people and being in new social environments just scares the shit out of me. I parked my car around the block and spent nearly ten minutes sitting there just convincing myself to go through with it. But I when I finally walked through the door I discovered I needn't had been so nervous: I was the only one to show up.

The only other person there was one of the people who run the centre. He told me that the guy who organizes the mixer was running late, and that he doubted anyone else would come. "Now that it's summer and the weather is nice, the number of people attending this thing has dropped," he said, "but you're welcome to stay and see if any one else shows up."

I decided I'd wait for a bit. "I'm Steven, by the way," he offered. (Not his real name.)
"I'm Ashley," I said. We shook hands.

I'm Ashley. It was the first time I'd said those words out loud. The first time someone had known me by that name outside of the internet.

I chatted with Steven for about fifteen minutes before I left, but no one else came. It was kind of disappointing. Having made the effort to look like a woman I didn't want to just go home. I texted my mom saying I could stop by for a visit if she wasn't busy, and gave her the heads-up that I was in girl mode. (My dad was out of town for work.) She said I should come over, and that my brother and sister-in-law were there too.

And the whole experience was actually very normal. We all just hung out like we usually do: our regular, goofy selves. The only time the subject of gender even came up was my ma noting how the dogs made no distinction between boy mode and girl mode, which lead to my sis-in-law and I wondering whether animals would notice if someone were on HRT. I'm so glad to know I can be myself around my family.

I wore my locks in a bandanna: sort
of a transy pirate look, I guess? :)

Like Regina said, it started out as a feeling. At first my female self was nothing more than a vague sense that something was wrong. Then she was a hope, then a reflection in a thrift shop mirror, then a girl in a photo with an unspoken name, then a smiling stranger passing people on the street. At last she's meeting people and hugging her mother. She is becoming real.

At first my male self was nothing less than an unquestionable reality— all I knew and thought reasonably possible. Then he was a weight whose absence I could imagine, then a prison whose walls I had walked briefly beyond. At last he's rapidly crumbling around me.

And I look forward to a day when he is nothing more than a memory.

Struggle, decision and hope

Today it's really hard. And it's not just the gender issues, it's a whole bunch of things. I've always suffered from depressive episodes and I seem to be in the middle of one right now. I've also been having headaches and trouble sleeping for the past two weeks. And now that school's done I need a summer job, but I haven't found one yet and I'm running out of money.

And as much as I'd like to think that all these other problems would magically go away if I were living as a female, I know that's not the case. So I can't even really blame gender.

Aaahh bare shoulders aaaaaahhh!!!
(Actually I look pretty good here, I think)

I did get manage out in girl mode once last week. In fact, I'm kind of proud of myself: it was my first time going out with bare shoulders and bare legs. I felt a lot more vulnerable not having all the layers to bundle up in like I did during the winter. But it was a beautiful day, and it felt so good to take in the sunshine as me. I'm not under any illusions of having passed, but I did get called ma'am by a cashier. That was nice of him. :)

On Saturday I was at a restaurant with a couple of friends. I think our server might have been trans. She was certainly tall enough for it, not to mention the broad shoulders, huge hands and small bust. She was very pretty.

Envy isn't the right word for it, but there's a certain feeling I get when I see other trans women having the courage to be themselves. And every time I do it's one more nagging voice saying: Ashley, you need to do something about this gender problem. And while that tends to trigger the dysphoria, it's also kind of inspiring. (The same thing happened when my classmate at school started presenting female.)

And that brings me to the question: what am I going to do about it?

While I still haven't totally figured that out, I have made one decision: I need to get to a point where I can function normally before I go back to school. I failed a lot of classes these past two semesters, and most of the problem was my inability to focus on anything when the dysphoria struck. It doesn't make sense to keep throwing money away on classes when I'm not dealing with the issue. So I'm going to see a doctor sometime soon-ish and maybe start counselling. I'm going to return to my local support group. And I'm going to start electrolysis.

That last one just makes a lot of sense. I've realized that even if I decide not to transition (which seems unlikely), I'm still never going to actually want a beard. Even if I am just a feminine male (which I doubt), I still have a gender identity that's incongruous with facial hair. So transition or not, electro is a good idea.

What this means is that I won't be going back to school in the fall, since I can't afford both that and hair removal without going deeply into debt. I might go back to school in January, or I might just take a whole year off from academics. We'll see how it goes.

I'm also starting to reconcile myself to the fact that HRT may be in my future. There are a number of reasons why I don't want this. The biggest one by far is my desire for biological fatherhood— I want babies!!— but also lots of little fears about the phyisical and emotional changes that would take place. But at the end of the day if you need HRT you need it: it's not like gender dysphoria gives a shit about your hopes and fears.

So yeah: I'm struggling today. I'm pretty darn depressed. But I can see the steps I need to take (find a job, see a doctor, start electro...) and for now that's giving me something to work towards. So, in a way, I guess I'm sort of hopeful too.

They say it gets better. I hope they're right.

Out in the sun last week.
See, I was happy then at least! :)

"Pretty"

I was visiting my mom the other day and the subject of my gender issues came up. She admitted she still had a lot of doubts and confusion, which is understandable. (She also told me my dad was having a easier time accepting it than she was, which is kind of what I expected.) I tried to address some of her concerns, but I don't think I did it very well. At one point during the conversation I offered to show her some pictures of what I look like as a girl. She seemed curious and agreed.

I grabbed a computer and brought up a photo from New Year's Eve. "Wow! I love that dress,"she said. "You know, you're actually really pretty," As we continued to peruse photos she added, "I think you're prettier as a girl than you are handsome as a boy!" I grinned and said, "I hope so!" :)

As much as I loved the affirmation of my gender, it was also slightly awkward. When you come out as trans there are certain gendered aspects of how you relate to people, and of how people relate to you, that have to be relearned. Of course, my mother never called me pretty when I was her son, so this was one of them. Afterwards she asked, "It's okay for me to say you're pretty, right? 'Cause you want to be pretty, right?"
"Yeah, it's okay," I said, "I'm just not used to it."

It was a little weird for both of us. But that, I'm sure, will change with time.

In other news, as of last week it's been one whole year since I figured out I was trans! (Perhaps some time I will write a post about how that came to pass, but not today). I've come a long way since my first terrified foray into the cosmetics section, but more and more I'm realizing I still have a long way to go.

The strangest thing happened...

I put my books in my bag, donned my shoes and walked to class, trying to recall kanji characters I should have memorized by now. We had a quiz today I hadn't really studied for, and, even worse, I had missed the previous lecture.

I'm taking Japanese as my arts elective this semester. I'd spent a few weeks in Japan in 2012 and wanted to learn more of the language.「みなさん、こんばんは」 said our sensei as I came in and sat down: good evening everyone.

And then I noticed it. One of my classmates— a guy, or so I had thought— was dressed as a girl.

Or was she? Yes, I decided, that's definitely a woman's jacket. And arched eyebrows. And makeup. She was clearly presenting female. That's strange, I thought. At first I worried it might be some kind of transphobic joke: perhaps "he" had lost a bet or some stupid thing like that. But when she opened her mouth to ask a question, and I heard her straining to speak in a higher register the way a lot of new trans women do, it was clear to me that this was serious. I guess she's a girl now, I said to myself.

Later I would learn that during the previous lecture, the one I had missed, she had come out to the class as transsexual, stating that she would be presenting female from now on. Ironically, I had missed that class because of my own gender dysphoria: it was one of those times when I just couldn't bear the thought of interacting with others as a boy. Of all the classes to miss, I miss the one where someone comes out as trans.

There are two things about this that are kind of blowing my mind. One is the statistical improbability of it. There's only 21 people in that class: the odds of selecting 21 people at random and getting two closeted trans girls must be pretty low. The other is that I hadn't noticed anything before. When I tell people I'm trans the response is usually along the lines of "well obviously." But in her case, I didn't pick up on any clues. (Well, there was the time she crossdressed for a skit, but it was done so deliberately badly I didn't think it meant anything...)

I didn't get a chance to talk to her after class, and now there's only one class left before the semester ends. I don't actually know her very well, and I don't really know what I would say— ("I'm a girl too, let's be friends!" ??), but I feel like I should reach out in some way. We t-folk gotta stick together, right?

"I'm a girl too!"

A fantabulous night!

I wore a dress for New Year's Eve! In the eight months I'd been crossdressing it was the first time I'd ever worn one, as unbelievable as that may seem. I should clarify, it was the first time I'd worn one as a girl. I'd tried on dresses in boy mode, but that's not the same thing at all.

Carson and Jamey (that's my brother and his wife) had me over at their place to ring in the new year. None of us are the sort of people who really enjoy large parties or spending loads of money at bars, so we figured we'd have a little get-together just the three of us. And just for the hell of it, it was decided the evening would be a formal affair. After all, they both enjoy dressing up fancy, and I hadn't yet had an occasion to do so as a girl.

On the day before I managed to pick out a gorgeous dress that, for some reason, actually fit well and looked good on me. That night I was so excited about wearing it the next day I could hardly sleep! I'm a bit silly like that, I guess. :) The following afternoon I bought some fabulous shoes and jewelry to go with it. I even went so far as to buy some of that shapey hose stuff, which, ironically, ended up being the most expensive part of my outfit.

I arrived at their apartment in boy mode that evening. Jamey and I did our makeup together. She helped me out a lot, and insisted I use several of her products. I learned a lot from her, and my makeup definitely looked better than it ever has before. It was a ton of fun, too!

...aaaand this is what I looked like! Possibly my favourite photo of me ever! :D

Then the three of us had a delightful evening of sushi, boardgames, and drinks, though we missed counting down to midnight because we were busy discussing how Jupiter's gravity causes gaps to form in the asteroid belt. (Yeah, we really do talk about geeky stuff like that, I'm afraid). And it was such a relief for me just to be in the right gender, especially after all the stress I had spending Christmas at my parents' house.

The three of us looking fabulous. (Posted with their permission)

I can't express how grateful I am to have those two in my life, nor how much I appreciate that I can be myself around them. In fact, there was a much more important "first" that night than just my first time in a dress. It was also, technically, my first time presenting fully female in front of them. It's just that, we reached that point so gradually I don't think any of us hardly noticed. Over the months since I came out to them I've let them see increasingly feminine iterations of my male presentation (once even wearing heels in boy mode!), so that by the time they finally met girl-me, it wasn't a big deal.

At one point during the evening I apologized to Carson for how weird it must be having a crossdresser for a brother. (Of course I know I can't help being trans, but I still feel culpable somehow). He shrugged it off: "It's a little weird, but whatever." Then with a smile he added, "You're a crossdresser, but I'm more feminine than you are!" My brother is not a typical "manly man" by any means, and his point, I think, was that I wasn't the only one with an atypical gender.

Depending on your definition of femininity, and that's a very difficult thing to define, he might even be right. I'm a bit of a tomboy; he's a bit of a pretty boy. In the end it probably doesn't make sense to compare one person's femininity to another's, since it's something each person defines for hirself. But it does go to show what a complicated, convoluted thing gender is.

Also, SUSHI!!

It was a great night, both in terms of fun and gender expression, and I'm thinking I just might need to find more excuses to get all dressed up!

Christmas in the closet

The past two months have been a time of very rapid progress for me. In a short amount of time I've advanced from peering out of the closet to taking my first tentative steps into the world as my real (female?) self. And I felt comfortable as me, and it was like fresh air and sunshine.

And then, with its great clattering of tacky songs, comes Christmas. Suddenly I am hurled back into the suffocating darkness of the closet. The door is shut and latched, and I am forced to contend once more with the absurd fact of hiding my identity from people I love.

This is because, of course, all the progress I made stopped short of coming out to my parents.

In my previous post I wrote of walking to the grocery store and buying lunch as a girl. That day also happened to be the first time I spent an entire day as a girl, which was lovely. I hoped that with all that girl-time my gender might stop bothering me for a while and I decided to be a boy the next day. But it was just as difficult as ever, and this more or less confirmed for me that I will probably have to socially transition.

A couple days later I was a girl again. This time I put gas in my car, got a bunch of groceries, talked to the cashier with my first attempt at a female voice, and went Christmas shopping at an antique store. What I've learned from all this is that either I pass, or people in general don't give a shit about crossdressers— and to be honest, the latter sounds more likely— because no one gave any signs that anything was out of the ordinary.

Christmas is a huge deal in my family, and in general I actually enjoy it. We had our celebration early, on the 22nd, because my brother and his wife, (henceforth known as Carson and Jamey), were planning on spending the 25th with her family. My family always spends the day before Christmas together as well, which meant two days of pretending to be a boy. And not the effeminate boy I usually look like when I'm presenting male either, but a "typical" boy.

And so Christmas was fun, but it was also hard. It helped a lot having Carson and Jamey there, as they at least know about me. After we finished unwrapping the presents Jamey nudged me to follow her down the hall and gave me a small container of makeup from MAC: a clandestine Christmas gift. It wasn't much, but what it meant— an affirmation of my gender at a time when that's exactly what I needed— was huge. I ended up having to lock myself in the bathroom until I stopped crying, silly me! Sometimes the tears are just one more thing you have to hide...

I went home that evening thinking I had made it through a Christmas in the closet. But as I mentioned, we did Christmas early. And since I was still in town over the 24th and 25th, my parents suggested I spend those days at their house too. I didn't have a good reason not to, and resigned myself to continue the charade.

On the 23rd my brother and his wife were making the ten hour drive to visit her family in British Columbia. Someone turning left onto the highway didn't see them coming and pulled out just in time to cause an accident. My brother texted me from the ambulance. No one involved seemed to be seriously hurt, but they were going to the hospital just to be sure. Their car, however, was totalled. In the end Jamey had some minor whiplash, but that was the only injury. They actually made it to their destination that same night, somewhat later than intended. Carson asked me not to tell mom and dad about this incident, and I understood why: we all know my father is a chronic worrier. Still, this meant one more secret to keep.

Their car. Yikes...

The next day I returned to my parent's house. And even though I love my parents, I hated being around them. I'm very bad at pretending to be happy when I'm not. After two days of this they were fairly certain that there was something wrong with me that I was keeping from them. I would have liked to have said, "Relax guys, I'm just trans, it's not a big deal." But I was in no emotional state to have that whole conversation, so I left with the source of my malaise still (mostly) unknown.*

They've been pretty worried about me since then.

The ironic thing is that, with the exception of the last few days, I've actually been doing very well lately. I am, in general, happier than I've been in a long time— taking the first small steps toward living in the right gender has a way of doing that, I suppose. But of course that's not the part of me they saw. How could they have?

I suppose I ought to come out to them, and soon. Not just for my sake anymore, but for theirs too. It's unkind of me to let them worry so much when there's really nothing wrong. I'm kind of annoyed to have had my hand forced in this way, but I guess that's life. And in any event, I've been thinking about telling them for a long time.

I hope all goes well when I do.



* My mom did pick up on a hint that it was gender-related, but I won't go into that now because this post is already really long.

The fear of needing to

"Wanting to be a woman isn't what I'm scared of. Needing to be a woman scares me juiceless."

I read that, or something like it, on a crossdressing forum back when I was first beginning to try and make sense of this stuff. The speaker had recently begun crossdressing herself, and she, like I, was recovering from a case of fundamentalist Christianity. Her words, and the fear they represented, stuck in my mind.

Do I want to be a woman? Maybe, but I don't want to need to.

I sat on the edge of my bed, paralyzed. It was last Sunday and there were a bunch of errands I needed to get done. I was dressed as a boy. At that moment it seemed like the only reasonable thing to do would be to laugh, Ha! I look like a boy, better fix that!, make myself up as a girl and be on my way. The thought of doing anything else seemed completely insane. But I couldn't go as a girl, and I couldn't bear to stay a boy, so instead I just sat there. Eventually I started crying. Then I got angry: Why am I transgender?! I never fucking asked for this!!

Do I wish I'd been born a girl? No, not really. I'm happy to have had the experiences I've had as a boy. I'm grateful for the perspective that being trans gives me. I don't hate my body, though there are some changes I might consider. Most importantly, I'm happy with the person that I am, and that's not who I'd be if I'd been raised as a girl.

Do I wish I were "normal" boy? No, not at all. I love my femininity. I love that I love heels and skirts and nail polish, and I would never want to lose that part of me. I just wish I could enjoy that stuff while still being comfortable as a boy— lots of crossdressers do, after all. Or I wish I could switch my gender on when it's convenient and off when it isn't. But gender doesn't work like that.

Do I want to be a woman? More than anything I just want to have some say in the matter.


[EDIT: In the time since I wrote this post I've come to realize that some of the terminology I used is problematic. Especially, I should have written "assigned female at birth" rather than "born a girl." But even so, I've decided not to change it because it reflects the understanding I had at the time.]

Ungendering Facebook

I use Facebook quite a bit. I'm on there at least once a day, and for a number of people in my life, it's my primary means of keeping in touch. (Whether or not this is beneficial is debatable, but that's a different topic.) Like anyone, I want the persona I project online to reflect the person I feel I am. I recently made two small changes in Facebook-world that I feel very happy about.

I'm now they instead of he. This was surprisingly complicated. Facebook, ostensibly, does not allow users to unspecify their gender, nor does it provide any non-binary options. You have to choose a gender, and it has to be male or female. At best you can choose not to display your gender on your profile, but it will still refer to you with gendered pronouns based on your choice. However, it used to allow gender to be unspecified, and still retains the functionality to use neutral pronouns. With a bit of screwing around and some help from this thread, I was able to outwit Facebook and force it to stop gendering me: take that, Zuckerberg! :) I'm honestly surprised by how much better this makes me feel.

"themself"

(For the record, I'm not a huge fan of singular they either, though that has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with linguistic pedantry. Even so, I'd much rather be mispluralized than misgendered.)

The other thing I did was to change my profile picture. My last one had been up there for nearly three years, largely because I'm never really happy with pictures of boy-me (for obvious reasons) and I'm still mostly closeted about girl-me. My new picture is, in fact, a photo of girl-me— I was fully crossdressed when I took it— that's been carefully edited. It's cropped so that my boobs are out of the frame, and desaturated so that my blush and lipstick are nearly invisible. The result is that it doesn't scream "crossdresser," but looks much more feminine than its predecessor, replete with beard and bushy eyebrows as it was. And I feel so much better, knowing that the face I'm presenting is that of the real me.

Boy? Girl? Who knows!

Facial hair and the power of kind words

Sometimes I let my facial hair grow out for a few days. I know it's really psychologically unhealthy to do so, but I'm lazy, and shaving sucks, and it can be a bit of a trigger too. (I recently made the impulse purchase of an epilator, hoping I'd be able to use use it on my face. The prospect of no shaving, no beard shadow, and three weeks of no re-growth seemed fantastic. I gave it a try, but it's just too damn painful. There's a lot of torture I'm willing to endure in order to look pretty, but even this t-girl's gotta draw the line somewhere!) It's always kind of surreal when I go to shave after a few days of not shaving. I'm inevitably struck by how good I look, as a guy, with a bit of stubble. As gross as it feels to say this, I make a very handsome boy, and I definitely look better stubbly than I do clean-shaven. What a pity I'm so uncomfortable looking like a guy...

Epilator? More like holyfuckilator...

Yesterday I was the recipient of some kind words (and possibly speculations?) about my femininity, from a cis girl. NL is a friend of one of my roommates, and she's started to become a friend of mine, too. She was over at our house for a visit when she caught sight of my hands and asked, "Did you do your nails?"
"Yep!" I responded, holding them out for her to look, "Aren't they pretty?"
"Wow, did you do them yourself?"
"Yep!"
"Really? Right and left hand?"
"Yep!"
She seemed pretty impressed. She made a comment about me being like a nail salon, and added, "You should do mine some time!"
I giggled at this suggestion. Then she asked, "Did you do your eyebrows, too?"
I grinned. "Yeah, I might have."
"Awww," she said, "You've just been, like, experimenting?"
I didn't really know what to say to this, and answered, slightly awkwardly, "Yeah, I guess so."
Then, before I knew it, the conversation had turned to something else.

It's such a small thing, she probably has no idea what a difference it made. But because of that little excahnge I felt a lot better about myself and my gender than I had in a while. Who would have known I had such a knack for nails? (Maybe she was just being nice?)

I haven't yet come out to three of my four roommates, (and yes, I live in a house of five people. And we share one bathroom. And I'm a crossdresser. It's pretty insane, actually). This conversation, ironically, took place in front of precisely those three. If they didn't suspect something before I'm sure they do now! In retrospect it was probably the perfect opportunity to tell them (and her), and I'm a little annoyed that I missed it. But, the fact that they all seemed unfazed by it gives me hope for acceptance when I do let them know. Which, all things considered, should probably happen sooner than later.

Purple! ♥

Way back in this post I mentioned I was thinking of dyeing my dreads. Well, guess what I finally got around to doing last weekend?

Ta-daa!!

It came out a bit darker than I wanted, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

When I started crossdressing I wondered whether dreadlocks would be feminine enough. I considered cutting them off and using a wig until my hair grew long again. Then I learned of the beautiful and talented film director Lana Wachowski— and watched this— and realized a trans woman can actually look great with dreadlocks! And so far that knowledge has kept my scissors at bay. Well, that and the fear that having short hair would seriously aggravate my gender stress.

It's funny: I often forget I have an unconventional appearance. Sometimes I'll be out walking somewhere and wondering, "Why does every one keep looking at me? Do I have something on my face or what?" Nope, I just look different, that's all.

Different and beautiful! At least that's what I tell myself...

Today was a very different day than yesterday. Yesterday I was as depressed as I've ever been about my gender. I managed to go to my classes but otherwise pretty much spent the day in bed. Today however, I set aside time to get all pretty, (and took the photos you see here), and I feel so much better having done so. It was the first time I'd fully crossdressed in over a month. I guess expressing my gender makes me happy!

I'm not really a "boy" anymore

It hasn't yet been three months since I started this blog, but I've come to feel differently about my gender in that short amount of time.

In my introductory post I referred to myself as a tomgirl, which I defined as "a boy that likes girly things." At the time I sincerely hoped that I could be comfortable as a male so long as I got to twirl about in a skirt every now and then. But now, more and more, I'm beginning to recognize that this is probably not the case. Identifying myself as a boy, even a "boy that likes girly things," just doesn't feel right to me anymore.

At the same time, I'm pretty sure I'm not a girl either. At least, not fully. Or if I am, I'm not ready to face it yet. So I've started thinking of myself as "non-binary, tending toward female." That's a lot more complicated, and takes a lot longer to say, than just "boy" or "girl," but no one ever said gender was simple, right?

(Well, actually people say that all the time, but... they don't know what they're talking about!)

The blog's subtitle still reads "the diary of a tomgirl." I may change that at some point, though I'm pretty sure "the diary of a non-binary person who tends toward female" would only compound the awkwardness of the blog's already impossible name! We'll see what I come up with...

Feeding the gender-dragon

My location on the gender spectrum doesn't really change: I always feel like more of a girl than a boy. However, the strength of that feeling can vary widely. Sometimes my "gendered-ness" is no more than a quiet, nagging whisper: present, but able to be ignored. At those times, presenting as a boy doesn't bother me too much, and I'm able to get on with life. But sometimes, it's a deafening, piercing shout. It drowns out everything else and demands to be heard. And that gets awfully frustrating.

The past four or five days have been really bad. I haven't been able to focus on schoolwork (I had to skip a small assignment) and I've been having trouble paying attention in class. Lately it seems like gender, and my sense of discomfort with my male-ness, is all I can think about.

Sometimes having these gender feelings is like living with a dragon. I have to satisfy the dragon's hunger or it will devour me. So I say to it, "Look gender-dragon, I bought you some frilly pink panties. Now will you leave me alone?" And if it's content with that I can breathe easily for a few days. But soon enough it gets hungry again, and each time it wants more.

The first thing I did when I figured out I was trans was to shave off the scraggily beard I'd been sporting for two years. That in itself brought me a huge sense of relief. Then it was makeup, then clothes, then breastforms, nail polish, shaving my legs.... And it makes me wonder, when will it finally be enough? When I'm out to everyone and can crossdress most of the time I want to? Or will I have to go full-time and change my name? What if it takes electrolysis, HRT and surgery?? Needless to say, I don't want to mess around with those last three if it's at all possible.

Roar!
(artwork by John Bauer)

I don't know why I have these feelings, but I do know some things I can do to help. As much as I detest it, I should probably get in the habit of shaving every day: that really does seems to make a difference. The same thing goes for wearing makeup, too. I think it's bullshit that our society has decided 20 minutes in front of a mirror each morning is an indispensable part of "feeling like a woman," but whatever: if it helps to assuage my gender stress, it's probably something I should do.

Earlier this month I read the book She's not the Man I Married by Helen Boyd, which, as you can probably tell, is about how her husband's trans-ness has affected their lives. (And come to think of it, that book also uses a dragon as a metaphor for gender, though in a different context). I quite liked it, but I have to admit, at least part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was simply that it allowed me to live vicariously through Helen's husband, Betty, who has been much more able than I to explore and express her own femininity. That's probably not the healthiest way to read a book.

The other reason I liked it was that Helen writes from a very feminist perspective. Before I knew I was trans, I thought I was such a good little feminist because I had no interest in fulfilling a traditional male gender role. I thought to myself, "If I, as a man, would rather stay at home and cook and clean and raise the kids, then I should marry a career-woman." And that was that. But when I learned I was transgender, I started to wonder: what if the reason I want to cook and clean and raise the kids is not that I'm an open-minded man, but simply that I'm a woman?? I was appalled. Had I suddenly gone from defying traditional gender roles to reinforcing them? After that there existed some tension in my mind between feminism and trans-ness. The trans-inclusive feminism in Helen's book helped me to see that being trans doesn't make you a misogynist, and being a feminist doesn't make you a transphobe.