11 posts tagged “transition”

Other than a rough day on Friday, September 2008 was arguably one of the best months of my life.  I didn't realize the impact of worrying about my transition, but now that I'm not feeling as nervous anymore I find that I just feel completely free.  I think that my outlook on life in general has been more or less right where I want it, especially now that almost everyone I know has seen Michelle by now.  I feel like it's a waste to just keep posting "oh hey, I'm really happy!" all the time, so this post is going to be about some observations/antecdotes from the last month.

In September:
(1)  I moved to a new apartment in a new neighborhood, with a roommate I get along with and much reduced rent.
(2)  I transitioned at work and was met with nothing but support from pretty much everyone.
(3)  We hired a new desktop support technician at work, which should greatly lower my work stress.
(4)  With a haircut and expanded wardrobe, I haven't been concerned with passing as female at all.  It feels more like a given at this point.
(5)  My legal name change finally went through!
(6)  I have money again.  Huge sigh of relief, there.
(7)  New seasons on television of House, Survivor, the Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and the Amazing Race.
(8)  I have been following politics.  Not so much because I care about changing the country (because I accept that I can't change very much), but because I think it's really fascinating from a sociology point of view.
(9)  Red Sox in the postseason!  They're 2-1 in the seventh as I write this.
(10)  Phish is playing a reunion show in March!  Even though I saw them once back in 1995, it wasn't until 2004 - weeks after they broke up - that I discovered how amazing their live shows are through the power of the internet.  They've been my favorite band for years, so I'm going to put a lot of effort in getting tickets and organzing a trip to VA next year.

Nice month!  In other news...

I'm still really appreciative that I can now shop for clothes without fear of how I'm perceived.  I still really enjoy the process of shopping, and I love seeing how I look when I try on different clothes.  However, shopping is slowly moving from the "luxury" column to the "necessity" one.  I used to look really forward to making the male > female switch when I got home form work and then going shopping and looking for clothes - lately, I've just been really tired after work and in the mood to relax.

Shopping is a lot harder now, too.  What I wear is under a lot more scrutiny as a female, which can be stressful since I have historically been oversensitive to criticism.  I'm also fighting the fact that I'm still discovering exactly what sizes/shapes/colors look best on me - shoes and pants in particular have been a nightmare to fit correctly.  I do feel like I'm slowly figuring it all out and developing a 'look' for myself, so I suppose all I can do is stay positive and be thankful that I've gotten this far.  I want to pierce my ears, but I'm admittedly nervous about it.  If someone wants to volunteer to drag me in and make sure I don't chicken out (as I've done a few times now), they're more than welcome to!

The amount of name/pronoun slip-ups at work has gone way down.  On Friday, I think I noticed something around 15-20 (which, as was probably evident from my last post, affected me a lot more than I wish it would) - I don't think I've heard more than 5 in a day this week.  Honestly, I put a lot of stock in other peoples' opinions of me - admittedly, at times, to a fault - and it's been a huge mental and emotional boost to have people seeing me as female.  Also, this paragraph is dedicated to Christina Servideo, who has been great not only with adjusting how she addresses me, but making sure that others don't slip up either :)

One last thing: a lot of my friends have been going through tough times recently.  In a lot of cases, I do my best to listen as best I can and give advice where I see fit, but it's frustrating not being able to help people.  All I can do is say that I'm always willing to lend an ear or a hand if people want, and that if you're my friend I wish you the best!

I'm back!  I had a mostly-completed entry on my laptop but ended up accidentally losing it.  As such, this post took forever to write.  Sorry about that.

I'm almost there!  Work knows that I am transgendered, and people are quite overwhelmingly supportive.  Once September rolls around, I'll be living honest-to-god full-time.  I'm alternatingly excited and nervous about it.  I definitely can't wait until my IDs have been changed - for whatever reason, I feel like it is validation that I am legally female.  One I get the ID, I feel like I'll be able to stop worrying so much about how I'm seen since I'll be "legitimate".

Money has been tight.  All the usual bills, plus first/last/half-fee on the new apartment.  It's blindingly obvious that the apartment that I'm living in is too expensive, and I will be greatly easing that burden once I move.  On August 31st, I will get a paycheck that I will not need to immediately spend on rent.

Work has been stressful.  Not the coming-out part, just the actual work part (yes, life goes on!).  I need a vacation - and I'm taking mine starting on September 1st.

It's going to be one heck of a September for me!  Unfortunately, I'm finding it very hard to wait.  I think it's starting to show.  I have been really lax with taking care of the apartment and I haven't been going out as much.  I've pretty much just spent the last two weekends killing time around the house in an attempt to save money.  Not the best plan for me, since it tends to bring out my negative side.

It's like being in the period after high school where I've just been accepted to a college for the fall, and now all of a sudden everything in high school no longer feels as significant.  All I can do is hang around with my friends, save a bit for the coming years, and wait for September to roll aournd.  And much like in my senior year of high school, I like to keep my writing short and sweet...

So, without going into the whole story, yesterday was a really trying day consisting of my running around Boston, missing trains, paying fines, and trying not to die of a heat stroke in the process.  When all was said and done, I got my car back, so that's good.  It was definitely one of the more trying experiences in my life, complete with my air conditioner breaking when I got home.

However, I didn't want to let the negativity of the day bring me down from the positivity that I was feeling on Monday, so I decided to continue moving forward.  I spent the night presenting female and hung around with my friend Anthony - we didn't really do anything or go anywhere, but that was fine.  Tonight I got home and again changed quickly, and spent some time with Kristen, then with Joel/Amanda.  Basically, I'm finally starting to integrate myself back into the group as a female, and while it's going to be weird at first, I trust that the status of my gender will eventually settle itself.

This has done a couple of things.  First of all, since Monday I've pretty much stopped using falsies.  I have breasts, albeit tiny ones, and if I am going to go out of my way to hide them when I'm at work, I might as well start trying to accentuate them.  Secondly, my comfort level is going way up - it's seeming like less and less of a big deal to go out as Michelle, which is a huge deal.  Also, my happiness in general...way up.  I've wanted to be female my entire life, and it finally feels like it's actually starting to happen for me.  Holy crap, right?

I'm going to spend the next few weeks getting used to being me, and then I'm going to start looking into all of the legal stuff.  After that, it's coming out at work on a large-scale level (at this point I will hopefully be comfortable responding to 'Michelle', dealing with pronoun mishaps, meeting new people, etc), and then the Real Life Experience, and then ideally, SRS in a year.

I'm going to cut this post short tonight because I haven't been getting enough sleep this week. 

Usually, when a week passes and I don't write an update in this blog, it means one of two things.  Either I've been busy and will eventually catch up with all of the interesting progress I've made, or I've been lazy and thus frustrated.  Unfortunately, last week has been a lot of the latter.

Things have been going well from most perspectives.  My job is continuing to work with me in terms of arranging how I will come out to the company, and I've been happy working.  I'm getting my stimulus check in the mail this week, which should help with some bills that I need to pay.  I've been plenty social and have had fun being around people.  Despite all of that, though...I had been kind of down.

Last night, I went out with friends to watch the Celtics game around bars in the North End.  I don't have any particular stake in basketball, but Wes and Bryan from CT were up, as well as my friend Dan, so I figured I'd tag along and drink myself into enjoying basketball.  While I was there, I decided to take some a mental inventory and figure out what was going on with me.

1.  I don't really present female, with the exceptions of:  (a) therapy, (b) BATs meetings, and (c) hanging out with my friend Lisa.
2.  I am not comfortable leaving my comfort zone, and have come up with every possible reason in the book to delay doing so.  Stuff like, "This isn't an appropriate place to present female", "I'll need a debit card/license so don't want to present female", "It's too hot to go out", "What if ___ sees me?", "I need to wait until laser works more/my breasts are larger", "I don't want to confuse or embarrass my friends" - I've used all of these in the last week alone, and there are probably more that I can't think of.
3.  Without leaving my comfort zone, I'm stewing in negative expectations which is leading to more rationalizaions, which leads to more frustration as I don't do anything.

So I let myself think about this (while drinking) last night, until I realized that it was past eleven and we were still out.  I decided two things at that moment: that I wanted to start spending significantly more time as Michelle, and that there was no way I was going to be able to soundly work the next day.  Besides, Bryan and Wes aren't usually around, so I decided to take a Mental Health Day today, sleep in late, and then figure things out.

This morning, I woke up and went out to eat breakfast with Jesse, Wes and Bryan.  I rejected presenting female because I hadn't showered, and because I didn't want to feel like I was trapping anyone into an uncomfortable situation, but made a promise to myself to do so later since I had taken the day off and wanted to buy clothes.  I came back to my apartment because I knew that there would be a real estate showing my place and figured that I would clean up a bit.  I couldn't remember what time the agent said they were coming (as they called while I was at the bar) but I thought it was two o'clock.  Since I didn't want to interact with strangers while presenting female, I threw on a t-shirt and shorts and basically sat around my apartment until five.  At this point, I was disgusted with myself for having still put off going out presenting female, and yet was still figuring that I wasn't giving myself enough time, and that I should just go shopping tomorrow.

Eventually, around 6:15, I left my apartment.  For the first time, I went out presenting female without wearing false breasts - I found that my chest looked more believable if I threw on my training bra* and threw one folded tissue in each cup.  I wore a yellow top that I think Amy gave me that covers my shoulders but (gasp!) doesn't have sleeves, and a black skirt - after years of wearing t-shirts/button-up shirts on 90+ degree days like today, being out in the sun felt absolutely amazing.  I had no problem making eye contact with people, even saying "hi" to strangers as I passed them, and once again I don't think that I was read at all.

The plan was to go to Mass Ave., withdraw from the ATM, go to Tello's/Payless/Goodwill and buy cheap clothes, and then head up Pearl Street to Micro Center to purchase some computer equipment for Pete.  Clothes-wise, I only made it to Tellos, where despite a closed dressing room I bought a sundress and some kapris.  They only seem to reach my knees, so I guess they're 'shorts' now - is that a fashion no-no?  Also - there were a couple of people that I considered inviting, but decided that I wanted to go it alone at least once - if people want to shop, just let me know when!

At Micro Center, I had an interesting moment - the cashier was charging me the wrong price and was insistent that he was right.  I held my own and tried to explain, in a female voice with a long line of people watching, that I knew he was charging me too much, but eventually just declined to buy anything and left.  I think it was my first conflict situation while I was presenting - really nerve-wracking at the time.  In retrospect, I'm glad it happened, because even though I was in an argument with a stranger, he didn't appear to read that I am transgendered.

All in all, I absolutely needed today.  I have done a lot of talking with a lot of friends recently, and it seems resoundingly clear that it's me, not my friends, that seem to have the issue with my presenting female.  I am consciously going to be spending more nights and weekends as Michelle, hopefully amongst my friends (although I plan to stick to private settings before braving public ones, I think to everyones' benefit), and I will try to enforce my name/pronoun when doing so to get that awkwardness out of the way.  People have started to ask for pictures of me when I'm presenting, and I will share some (probably via email or facebook) to those that ask as soon as I figure out a way to take pictures of myself where I don't look goofy.

Right now, my goal is to spend Monday-Thursday night female, so if you make plans with me, expect it! :)  I'm also going to be assuming that people don't take an issue with it?  It completely gets in my head if I start thinking I'm making people uncomfortable, so I might as well assume that I'm not and just ask people to say something if it will be weird for them.  Either way, it's really about time!

*there is an interesting story about where I got that training bra, twelve years ago.

The meeting on Tuesday with Cathi (HR Director) and Denise (of the IFGE) went reasonably well.  Beyond being happy that my company is willing to go this far with me, it was nice to meet face-to-face and talk with someone who has gone through what I'll be going through in the next couple of (weeks? months?).  Her best advice that I took from the meeting is to frame my coming out in a positive manner (like someone announcing a pregnancy) - ultimately, I'm doing this because it will make the rest of my life happy, and that is the point that I should be getting across.  Because more and more people at my job are starting to find out, Cathi and Denise seem to think that it will be worth getting the ball rolling on my coming out and doing it sooner than later.  Denise told me - and I can certainly see this being true for me - that if I wait for the moment where I'm 100% confident, I'll be waiting an awfully long time because there will always be uncertainties.  I asked them for a week to think about it, and will be meeting with Cathi tomorrow.

It was certainly a tough week - the idea of how I'm going to come out (and subsequently start presenting full-time) has been weighing on me.  I started thinking about what specific things are still making me uncomfortable with going full-time, and managed this list:

- Breast growth: while I certainly have breasts, they are quite small and reasonably invisible unless I wear a tight top (which I hate doing, as there is still weight in my belly that I would like to shed).
- Voice: I have found that, when presenting female, I am reasonably comfortable keeping my voice in a range between 'androgynous' and 'female'.  When not presenting female (male at work, or androgynously), I find it hard to keep my voice in the range that I want.
- Legal documents: I need to get the ball rolling on changing my legal name and gender.  This includes a name change, followed with updating my social security card, birth certificate, driver's license, passport, credit cards, bank account, and probably a million other things.
- Facial hair:  I started going back to hair removal appointments last week, which is good.  However, I've noticed that since getting zapped, the facial hair above my lip simply will not go away, even after I shave it.  I'm not going to hinge my coming out on this alone, but it is a big deal and I definitely want further progress on my face before making the change.
- Comfort being female: to be honest, I have very few friends/family with whom I am comfortable just being female around.  This mostly falls on me, because I get ridiculously nervous and self-conscious around friends, mostly because I start thinking about how I'm failing on all the counts mentioned above.  However, I think it makes sense to fit in amongst my friends and family before doing it professionally.
- Wardrobe: while I have a lot of female clothes, much of my collection has been purchased (a) before I was brave enough to try things before buying them, (b) in a rush while I was still paranoid of being seen shopping for womens' clothes, or (c) from a clearance rack, thrift shop, or dollar-a-pound pile.  I'm still trying to figure out my sense of style.  This is easily the funnest of the issues on this list to attempt to correct :)

Tomorrow is another meeting with Cathi where I explain what I've been thinking about.  I'm not going to try and hold out for some magical moment where I'm no longer nervous about this, but I am going to wait until I've made more progress with my transition.  I have some plans over the summer to spend extended amounts of time as female, including a possible trip to Provincetown, and so I'm going to let that be the next thing to focus on.  I still might come out to the company and just wait a few more months after telling people to go full-time, but I have been warned that this will confuse people.  So I suppose I will just wait a few months before taking any public action - rumors might start to fly about me, but that isn't anything I can't deal with as it happens.

It's been awhile, blog!  I still have a bunch of other stuff I want to write about, as well as a bunch of people that I was hoping to send emails to, but they will have to wait until tomorrow because I'm dead tired.  My goal for this week is to spend at least four nights (a) presenting female and (b) leaving the house and going somewhere.  I need to get more summer clothes to make this goal realistic, though :)

G'nite, all!

I had a brief but nice conversation with my co-worker Christina (if you're reading this, hello!) today about my being transgendered.   She asked me if I had given any thought to how I'm going to come out at work.  The honest truth is that I'm kind of terrified about it.  We both agree that I should be fine in terms of the company stance, since we're all about Diversity.  At my last BATs meeting I met some people from the Massachusetts Transgeneder Political Coalition who have offered to, at some point, call my HR department and ask them direct questions like "what would you do if someone came out trans?" so that I can at least be prepared for what to expect.

The thing that I'm much more afraid of is the people within the company.  I can't imagine that there wouldn't be people who, be it overtly or covertly, would have an issue with my transitioning.  Will the women that have known me as male for ~2 years have an issue seeing me in the ladies room?  Will there be some random former friend that just has a problem with queer behavior?  I already concede that there will probably be a lot of whispering about me behind my back, which I'm just going to have to learn to take. 

My original plan when I decided to transition was to grind out appearing male until I can go full-time female, and then to up and move somewhere to start over.  There is still a lot of allure to this, although I certainly don't feel like I'm ready yet.  I'm beginning to lose faith that I'm going to be able to stay at my company for too much longer for reasons completely unrelated to transitioning - the only problem is that if I were to leave now, I would have no idea what to do with myself.  I don't want to start another job as male and worry about all of this, but I'm scared shitless to interview at a company as female, especially given that I haven't started worrying about changing my legal documents yet.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the amount of things I have to do/money I have to pay/stuff that I have to be conscious of, and it completely stresses me out.  Therapy, laser hair removal, endo appointments, BATs meetings, trying to change my voice, trying to change my demeanor, trying to change my name/pronoun from a social standpoint, trying to change my name/pronoun from a legal standpoint...augh.  It came up today in my conversation at work today that I've cried at work three times since starting hormones three months ago - to be honest, on some weird level it makes me feel like the hormones are affecting me, and I like that, even if it is inconvenient. 

In other quick news:  the trip back to CT this weekend was amazing, and if I had to trudge through another Friday morning/afternoon to get there I'd do it again in a heartbeat.  Most of the Barron's crew made it out, along with some out-of-state magic players that I haven't seen in years.  I have heard rumors that we're going to try to make it a semi-regular thing, because we do all really enjoy each other's company.  It's funny that despite the whole group being male, I find myself certain my transitioning it won't be an issue.  I'm kind of hoping that it just circulates around the rumor mill so that no one is surprised, and that if people have questions they'll ask me so that at least no one is weirded out.

Also!  My brother and his wife had their third child - a healthy boy named Carter [last name removed].  I'll be honest - I was hoping it'd be a girl, but either way I'm excited to have a (probably second, since his brother is two years old) nephew that will grow up knowing me as his aunt.  Kevin, Tracy, if you are reading this, congratulations!

Time for bed~

I've been on my hormone regiment (that I will be on for the rest of my life) for 10 days now.  For four months I sat around impatient waiting to start it; now that I have, I am sitting around impatiently waiting for notiable effects.  My sex drive is noticably lowered, which I suppose makes sense given that the Spironolactone is there strictly to kill of my testasterone production.  There was a major mood swing at work (happy Tuesday, depressed beyond belief on Wednesday, happy again on Thursday), but I can't really tell how much that was affected by hormones as opposed to my job.

In other news, I came to the realization somewhat recently that perhaps I've been handling the transitioning process wrong.  There was a BATs meeting perhaps a month ago where I explained that I more or less ended an old blog to restart this one from a female perspective.  I was asked why I ended the old one as opposed to just modifying how I write there - was this because I felt the need to end my life as [male] in order to be accepted as Michelle?  I think the problem is that I had never really considered the ramifactions of this.

On one hand, I've been who I am my entire life, and there are facets of my personality that I like that are decidedly masculine.  On the other,  I use the term "presenting female" all the time in this LJ - I do this because there obviously has been some sort of need to differentiate the two.  In the past, I couldn't even go into the woman's section of a clothing store because I had this huge irrational fear of being seen as a male that didn't belong there.  In other words, the idea of being seen as a "guy playing a game of pretend" was a huge fear, and I think I might have let that rule me without considering that it's not a big deal in the first place.  I am fully of the belief that the need to separate my male self and my female self in the past has caused me problems.

One issue is that I had never really considered how slow the hormonal changes would be.  Yes, I knew about them, but I didn't really process how this would affect my transition.  I have always had the plan of "eventually, I will look more female than male, and everything will fit into place".  That, in and of itself, isn't going to work.  My goal, starting yesterday when I finally sat down and thought about this, is to slowly "merge" [male] and Michelle into...well, into me.  I haven't been making nearly the effort in that regard as I should have, and I'm going to do so more.

I have already started trying to apply some makeup/do my hair right even when not going out of the way to "present female".  Changing my voice is tough, but it's an ongoing process to make my female one (a) better and (b) my default voice.  When the weather changes and I no longer wear a coat with 12 pockets I plan to switch over to purses for good.  All in all, I guess the goal isn't to stop presenting female, but rather to make it so that I'm not totally reliant on doing so to be seen in that way.

Other than that, not much to report.  I have been mostly staying at home and keeping myself busy with forms of mindless entertainment, but I blame that on the New England weather more than anything else.  After a failed flirtation with the bass guitar sometime around this time last year, I borrowed a keyboard from Joel and have been enjoying re-teaching myself piano.  There has been a sometimes-losing battle with keeping the apartment clean.  Work is like my own little Big Brother house - ups, downs, and a lot of crazy people.  I haven't really been as social with people as I'd like, so that's something to work on.

And that, in a nutshell, is how a bill becomes a law.

Well, I'm doing a bit better.

This post was just going to be a continuation of the last one.  Essentially, it was going to be a list of things that I have been feeling anxious about lately.  This is a result of my hyperfocusing on the negative - basically, I kept coming up with situations, trying to prepare for the worst, and then tricking myself into assuming it would happen.  There is still a lot of stuff on my mind that I'm nervous about, but I think (as usual) I just had to get it out of my system by writing it out.  I'll get to that later.

I saw my endocrinologist today!  He did some routine tests, asked me some questions, gave me details about what to expect from hormones, and I left with a prescription for estrogen (Premarin) and androgen-blockers (Spironolactone).  I will be taking these pills for three months before my first follow-up appointment where my doctor will check hormone levels and make sure that everything is allright from a health point of view.  Because the spiro is a diuretic and the pills are one-per-day, I will be starting tomorrow morning.  As it stands right now, I'm excited.

What biological changes am I expecting?  Over the next few months/years, I will be:  developing breasts, experiencing a redistribution of body fat and loss of muscle, developing a more female hair pattern, experiencing emotional/mood changes, losing my sex drive for awhile, and getting softer facial features.  Hormones don't help stop hair in places where it already grows, so I will be continuing with laser hair removal (or possibly switch to electrolysis, since I'm starting to feel concern that laser isn't working) for a long time.  Hormones aren't going to help my voice at all, so it's something I'm just slowly going to work on.  The hormones/anti-androgens themselves are going to make me pee more, possibly give me headaches, and will up my risk for blood clots and other health risks.  And yes, if anyone asks, I am aware of where Primarin comes from.  I still think it's worth it.

As I feel the hormones kicking in, I am hoping I will start to find myself able to naturally switch into/stay in 'female mode' until I am able to be perfectly comfortable.  It will probably take awhile.  Eventually at some point, I'll either stop being able to hide it or stop wanting to hide it, and I will come out at work, and I will likely stay full-time as Michelle at that point.  I would say "I can't wait!", but the fact is that I have to wait.  The end goal will make me complete as a person, but the way there can be potentially scary if I let it.

Anyone reading this: if/as you start to notice changes in the way I look or act, please feel free to let me know, because I will be curious about how I am seen and might not notice on my own.  Don't be afraid of offending me in that regard - even if you tell me "you're acting like a total bitch", at least that lets me know that the hormones are getting noticable.  And if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

Tomorrow I'm getting my face zapped, which hurts and sucks, but is necesary.  Friday after work I will be going to a gathering with work friends (which is desperately needed, since my job is once again getting depressing with low morale).  I am thinking of going to a transgender conference (please ignore the terrible webiste) on Saturday afternoon to check out some of the workshops.  Sunday I will be working in the morning, and then I assume I will be watching the Patriots beat up the Chargers.  Monday I'm out to Framingham for therapy.  This is a lot more plans than usual, for me! 

As for tonight, though - that's all I got.  Goodnight!