Cleaning House

How do I figure out how to say what I want to say? Every time I think of doing this, my heart literally hurts, and my stomach tightens and churns. My body has developed a characteristic response to fear--a physical manifestation of the psychological disturbance that would otherwise go unnoticed save by people who have an eye for catching those in deep mental turmoil. This fear is my pain, but that's not the only pain I have to worry about. I worry about their reaction and what this all means for my relationships with them. You see, I know that my parents would never turn me away permanently. Well, my brain knows that, but that won't stop my insides from writhing about as if the reverse were the case. But my friends...They aren't obligated to stick around. They can just as easily choose to turn away as they have chosen to stay.

And how do you even begin to explain this to people for whom the concept is entirely foreign? People make careers out of explaining this stuff and theorizing about it. This is the stuff of dissertations and other forms of scholarly discourse. People dedicate their lives to discovering adequate and accurate representations of "transgender", and I'm supposed to be able to justify this to people in a few minutes or in an email. It sounds crazy to me. You know what else is crazy? Spell-check doesn't recognize the existence of the word transgender. I think that says something.

There's an element of desperation. But I am not desperate. I am hopeful. There is an element of fear. I am afraid. I am excited. I am anxious. Nervous.
This is who I am.
It's how I feel.
Imagine waking up and looking in the mirror and feeling disfigured, even if the rest of the world thinks you look perfectly normal. Beautiful they may say to you. Maybe handsome, depending. But you feel like something is missing or something doesn't belong. You don't know what but something is definitely wrong.
My whole life, I've been in the middle. I'll always be kind of in the middle. I guess I've known for a very long time that I'm not a girl. Never was. Dressing up in high heels, eyeliner, and all that jazz for me is true drag. Sure, it's fun sometimes. But it is other. foreign. not of Myself. Woman was never an identity I could embrace, not out of disrespect for that identity but because I could never figure out a way to connect myself, not fully. And I don't really connect as fully a man either. But I have found a connection with transgender. I'm neither and more than either one. This decision is simply my way of expressing that. Maybe I shouldn't have said simply. And I know that I don't have to adhere to anyone's idea of what being a man means. I'm doing this for myself. I want this because I want to feel like my body and soul align, and I want the world to appreciate me for who I am to myself rather than for who they think I should be. I know I can do something about this. I have the tools to change things if I don't like them.
We're all so mutable, really. Girls have it easy. Excuse me, biological females. I mean, we all start out that way. Excuse me, maybe I should have said biological females who are transitioning in comparison with biological males who are transitioning. Phwew...Now that we're clear...I mean, we all start out that way. Testosterone comes in and transforms the body into one that is typically considered male.
What's the difference if it happens in the womb or right now? I've felt so incomplete, so much younger and more immature than my friends. Maybe that's just that prepubescent feeling. I've been waiting. I guess I've been secretly waiting for things to just magically occur on their own. But that just doesn't happen. Every month I run further into my shell because I just can't stand dealing with that ultimate marker of femaleness. The bleeding, swelling...It horrifies and terrifies me. I feel like I could say so much more.

Maybe you just need to ask the right questions.

I may not have all the answers worked out yet, but I have the feeling that I wouldn't be able to do that alone anyway.
I'm scared because I have no idea where this will take me. The rest of my life?
Things are going to be that much harder for me. I'm aware of it.

But I don't want to survive. I want to live.

I know I'm going to meet people out there who will never be able to accept me once they know "the truth." Truth in that sense doesn't mean very much. It's almost silly to even point out. The truth of a person is who that person has been to you. Does knowing what's down there really count enough to change that? I'm not going to go all philosophical on your ass about what constitutes truth because that'd be lame. It's crazy to think of my family's reaction too.

I know I'm not ready to be saying all of this. Indeed, a lot of this was meant to be said tonight in front of everyone, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it. So I failed again, in a way. I've needed to tell them for a while now. I know I've missed things, and maybe a few things are even more unclear.
I've lost a lot of sleep over this. I keep weighing my options. And the same thing keeps happening. The ultimate point I keep reaching is that I WANT THIS. I am afraid. There are innumerable and ever-present uncertainties.
Defining myself and choosing who I want to be.

I'm in class, and it's really hard to breathe. I'm getting dizzy from thinking about approaching people, and my professor's words are just flying over my head right now. I feel so far away from this classroom. My mind has been all over the place. Dealing with this is nuts. It's not the transitioning that worries me this much, although that still does to quite the extent. I'm worried about my family and friends. I wonder if anyone else in this room has any idea what the fuck is happening in my head right now. My mind's a fucking hurricane. Hazy. I don't know how much longer I can put this off, but I don't want to miss anything.


So this was the end. I wrote most of that during my last class of the day. I don't even know why I went. I had just finished taking an ASL test, and I have no idea whether I aced it or failed. I don't really even know what happened in that last class.

And how is this going to make sense to anyone who doesn't understand that gender is a continuum and that most people don't fall on either side anyway? Now that that's out there, let's say that I'm in the middle again, and maybe that makes more sense. But let's say that I want to shift to the side a little bit. Fluidity. Not just going with the flow but making your own waves. Finding your current.
So what does that make me? Like I said, I'm both and neither, but obviously that really doesn't make things easier for the everyday human being. So yeah I'm a boy. I'm a trans boy. Does that make me a straight guy? No. I was never a lesbian. Fluidity. I go both ways, as they say. So I'm a queer, as always.
What does this mean for me? What do I have to do? I guess those are also topics of interest. It's hard to tell what other people may not know, being so immersed in it myself. I imagine that's how some professors feel. They are so far into the subject already that they can't even explain the basics anymore. I try not to be that way.

So, first I'd have to see a therapist. Since a lot of people in the medical community, at least the people important enough to have a say in the publication of such texts as the DSM, believe that being trans is some kind of disease. Gender Identity Disorder. Like there's something wrong with you for liking blue over pink or wanting muscles instead of curves. Like you are a freak because you play with a toy of a different shape and color than the one that supposedly belongs to your gender. Maybe it has wheels instead of hair you can brush, but the rest is all plastic, right? Maybe it was even made in the same place. They think there must be something wrong with someone who goes to the other side of the store to buy clothes. Are they really men's clothes if a self-identified woman wears them? Does that make her sick? What about a man in a dress is so despicable to people? Simple human desire for self-expression has been medicalized so that societal norms have been incorporated into the biological definitions of maleness and femaleness. We begin to take these as facts of being human when they are nothing more than social constructions that have varied across time and place. Basically, we're being labeled as mental invalids because we don't fit in to what society thinks we should be as men and women.
So after telling my tales to this therapist and jumping through the necessary hoops,and after living full-time for a certain length of time( 6 months or so to a year, maybe shorter...maybe longer), I'll be given a letter to take to an endocrinologist saying that I understand what the treatment will and will not do. I'll be given a prescription for testosterone. I'll have to get regular checkups and heart and liver function tests. I would take T as an injection once every two weeks for the rest of my life. Some changes are reversible. Others are not. There are risks of liver and heart problems, as I alluded to, as well as risks of male pattern baldness. And did I mention that rights for trans people aren't really in existence? I could be fired at any time for being trans. I could be beaten and raped and murdered. It's a very real thing that happens all the time, even in this country that supposedly claims equality for all its citizens. I'm aware of the risks. But I'd rather live than exist. I'd rather be happy as the person I have always wanted to be than miserable trying to pretend to be the person everyone thinks I should have been.
So T...What will it do?
My vocal chords will thicken, and my voice will get deeper. Facial hair. Body hair. Increase in musculature. No more menstruation. Body fat redistribution. Oilier skin, maybe worse acne. More RBCs. More bad cholesterol. Less good cholesterol. Rougher skin. Emotional changes. Increased appetite. There are a few others...but basically, it's puberty all over again.

I know this is getting pretty long, so I'll stop here and continue in another post if you don't feel like reading anymore. The next stuff is a little different anyway.
Thanks for being patient.