Moving Day!

Hey sooooo, Google deletes people for random arbitrary reasons and restricts my creative freedom!  I'm ditching them.

I can be found at rhysedan.wordpress.com now!

I know, I know, it's the lesser of two weevils.

Financial Straights

Financial straights are dire.  I am currently trapped in a dead-end job which recently cut all part time employee's hours, and have somewhat ridiculous requirements for moving to full time.  I have insurance but it seems like they don't want to pay for over $1000 of should-be-covered medical bills.  My student loans take more money every month than I make.  Who's got two thumbs and is boned for the foreseeable future?  This guy.

So I've made a list of things I'd like to sell.  I have LOTS of stuff.  I'm pretty sure that if you like, I could find that one thing you've always wanted in my basement or garage.   Plus, I'm the man your man could smell like.  Look away, look back.  I have two tickets to that thing you like.

Here's a list I made.  All things will go to the highest bidder/best offer.  These things will go on offer to you folks first, then after a while I will put them on Craigslist, Ebay, or Amazon.  I'm thinking a week, so speak quickly.

~~~~~~~squiggly lines~~~~~~~~~~

Nintendo DS lite with games, (Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades with guitar dealie and pick-stylus, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Black with Snively stylus, Horse Life, Brain Age, Harvest Moon DS, Lego Star Wars II, regular stylus that fits in a slot in the bottom, charger) $125

Paperbacks

Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman $2

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman $5

Misery, Stephen King $5

On Writing, Stephen King $5

Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg $5

Firefly: The Official Companion, Volume One $10

More Joy of Sex, Alex Comfort $2

Squee’s Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors, Jhonen Vasquez $5

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (movie picture book) $10

The Hard Questions, Susan Piver $2

Hardcovers

The Apartheid of Sex, Martine Rothblatt $10

The Stowaway, R.A. and Geno Salvatore $2

Food Porn Daily: The Cookbook, Amanda Simpson $20

Wicked: The Grimmerie $40

Fashion: A History from the 18th Century to the 20th Century, Kyoto Costume Institute $25

The Illustrated Book of Signs and Symbols $5

The Encyclopedia of Mammals $10

Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, Karen Casey $2

32GB wifi+3G 1st generation iPad with InCase Convertible Book Jacket, Camera Connection Kit and warranty coverage remaining until April 30, 2012.   $700

Zebra candleholder $10

Frog candleholder $20

Lantern tealite thing $1

set of 3 glass candleholders $15

Lionface slippers, size 9 $5

Totoro backpack $20

Sheepskin throw $20

Selection of Nerf Guns $40

~~~~~~~squiggly lines~~~~~~~~~

I'm on a horse.

Gender Neutral Bathrooms

Hey, I didn't ask for them.  But my job is going to take down the mens/womens signs on our two single stall restrooms.  Because of me.

That's pretty cool.

(It's not like anyone ever paid attention to the signs anyway)

Literature

I've been meaning to post something about the books and films I've seen that have resonated with me.  I don't have anything more relevant or interesting than a list, but it's a good list.  Many of the films I've acquired over the years have a fairly common theme.  Either they have Ewan McGregor in them, or they're on the topic of flexible genders.  (Or awesome, there's plenty of those.)

Films:

Breakfast on Pluto - Cillian Murphy as an adorable Irish youth, with Liam Neeson as the village priest and her illegitimate father.  While it is serious at times, it has a cheeky humor to it that I adore.
Orlando - Tilda Swinton plays first a young man, then a young woman, and all of them Orlando.  Cursed, or perhaps blessed with immortality, Orlando somehow swaps sexes midway through the film.  Woohoo!
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything!  Julie Newmar - A rollicking film about a... Troupe?  Gaggle?  Murder? of self-described drag queens on a trek across the USA to get to the Drag Queen of the Year competition in LA.  Starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo.
Kinsey - Liam Neeson plays Alfred Kinsey, who founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.  While this one is often a more difficult one to watch, it affords a glimpse into the life of a man who made a career out of sexual studies and concerns.

Books:
Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett - The 31st of the Discworld series, this is the only one of that series that I have read.  I know, I know, shame.  But I picked it up in an airport and spent the flight feeling oddly emotional as I read it.  (Should have known.)  It's really an adorable book.

I think that's all I have on published literature.

What triggered this post, aside from a desire to go through and make a list of all the best queer/drag/trans themed movies and books I could think of/own, was Jamie Wyman Reddy allowing one of her characters a brief flash in the spotlight.  Her 'screen test' as she calls it, can be found at the link below.  It's a brilliant look into a situation that hits close to home, and it stands as an attest to Jamie's abilities to look inside a character, even one very different from her, and speak from the inside out.

http://jamiewyman.blogspot.com/2011/06/eli-character-screen-test.html

My friends

Some days are a slog of boring.  Get up, check the 'net, go to work, get home, check the 'net, maybe go for a run or some thing of that sort.  Some days are ridiculously busy.  Get up, put gas in car, do laundry, go to two appointments, squeeze in a run between grocery shopping and shower, then go to work for a pathetically short shift, then go home and crash in a haze of exhaustion.   Some days I crave knowledge and want to learn everything, and some days I don't have the patience to read a single sentence, and any effort to educate me is resented.

But every single day.  Every last day.  I realize yet again that I have the most amazing friends a guy could ever have.  This afternoon, I left a comment on a blog of a beautiful woman I haven't spoken to in far too long.  Moments later, I got a message on facebook about it.  We didn't speak for long, but she asked if I was transitioning.  I told her I was, and the sheer love and acceptance was felt, oh was it felt!  She said she was proud of me.  Last night, I spent an evening at a goodbye party for a good friend and co-worker.  I got to see another of my former co-workers.  I have developed a burgeoning bromance with her husband, but she and I only worked together for a short time before she transferred to another location.  I have a huge amount of respect for her, plus, she is downright adorable. I came out to her and her response was "we love you."

I've never been the sort to cry about stuff.  How could I when all my emotions were wrapped under gauze?  But the love I felt today from a few lines of chat, and last night for three little words, made tears come to my eyes.  I like being able to feel overwhelmed by the emotions I possess.  This is way better than before.  

To all of my friends, I love you.  That is never going to change.  I love coming out to see you.  I wish so many of you lived closer.  You are all incredible people, and I am honored to know each and every one of you.

Not Suicidal

I've grown fond of saying that I had an 80% mood increase overnight when I realized and let myself embrace the idea of this whole overwhelming business.  The thoughts I was having before were... not bad, but numb.  Nothing meant anything.  I was trapped.  And the moments of clarity I had were during panic attacks, which are not the best time to do introspective work.  Basically, the only times I felt like I was being honest with myself were the times I was unable to breathe normally, acutely aware of something being wrong, but completely devoid of the ability to understand what it might be.  Something simple like being male identified would never occur to me.

No wonder suicide happens in untreated cases of this.  I was honestly considering it during some of the hardest moments.  At this moment, it seems like a far-off distant sort of silly thing to think of, but dark places have a way of getting to you, I guess.  It wasn't just the body image thing.  I am being overwhelmed by debt and family issues.  Work is a challenge.   I've always been very aware that something is wrong in my life.  I've been on medication, psychiatric and otherwise.  I've been to therapy.  I remember when I was going to a therapist in 2004, I brought up gender identitiy, though the therapist deigned to talk about it.

Having that knowledge of a problem, coupled with the other things I've had to face lately, far outweigh the knowledge that my life is actually pretty posh to an outside observer.  I work for a cool place, I don't have any expenses but the occasional drink and food at work.  I don't have to pay rent, nor did I have to buy a car when the truck died.  I'm very lucky to have such an easy life.  That disconnect has always been something I've been acutely aware of as well.  I know I have an easy life, and I know that I have no real right to be overwhelmed by difficulty.

At this point, the difficulties are becoming manageable.  Even though I have almost no money, my mood has been through the roof.   My body image issues are so much more understandable now.  The thing that's been an issue has been identified.  It's like that moment on the show House when Dr. House suddenly knows what's causing the person to suffer.  All my life has been a repetitive series of "No, that's not it." and the moment I figured it out, it brightened everything.  Eureka!  I have found it.  I'm not a woman with overwhelming and crushing depression.  I'm a man with a physical issue, that I can take logical steps to resolve.


Life is great.

Transcript from my Livejournal

I'm going to post this entry from livejournal, which was not from very long ago.  It was private, for my eyes only, but it was shortly before I figured out the whole... trans thing.  I have a few of these in my journal, sitting and gathering dust.  I don't know what to do with them aside from air them out.  Dirty laundry.  Hehehe.


---


depression is a pretty good way of describing it

i spend all my life hiding in fantasy because i don't have the coping mechanism to deal with confrontation

it started with that cuntbitchwhore that ruined my life and it just has never ended.

i've never felt as miserable or betrayed as I did then, because she told me I was bad and wrong and that everything that had been secret had been told. I think everyone knew anyway, but no one had talked about it. 

that feeling of hot and cold all over, prickling skin, sinking feeling, echoing hearing, blacking vision

she hadn't spoken to me for three months

it was like an emotional evisceration. 

I was already sick and weak. She was like the lioness performing a coupdegrace to an ailing gazelle.

now

feeling is a luxury for those who aren't bleeding

i have to bandage it cover it up hold it closed hold it tight because if i let the feelings in or out its like releasing a stomach wound and my entrails spill out over the ground

its everything now. I keep myself in a shell of safety, buried under swabs of cotton that keep my me from bleeding through. When the red seeps through i add more cotton wrap it tighter

when anyone says anything about anything beneath the cotton i get the same pricking skin echoing sinking blacking out and i'll do anything to make them go away and stop 

the cotton is stuff fantasy clutter 

my friends are outside the cotton i don't want to bleed on them


the cotton is gone for right now so im getting this out. i have such a rotten hateful core, a terrified child inside, who doesn't know the least bit about how to exist as a human being of the age that i am

i spend these moments boomeranging between a lust for revenge and infinite sadness and furious misplaced anger

how do real people deal with this? i can't be the only one that keeps so much inside. at least when I snap it's wallowing in self-pity and endless crying. I hate everything and myself and I want to curl up and die. 

And you know what? FUCK THIS. FUCK EVERYTHING. All this crushing despair and bullshit is because someone came into my room and suggested I clean it. They even brought me clean sheets. That's a fucking nice gesture. Why can't I be grateful for it? What the FUCK is wrong with me?

It's because I already know my room should be clean. Because I spend all day every day hating myself because my room is a mess and wrapping on more cotton and more gauze. So someone comes in and says "I got you this and could you maybe clean" and its suggesting that they hate me too because I can't achieve a simple task like cleaning my fucking room or buying sheets for myself

AND

It's because my stupid stepmother wants me out of here. I've bathed this room in a layer of FILTH as a protective gesture to keep her the FUCK out because I want her out of my life. She wants my room so she can use it as a sewing room. Like the room she took from me before, which is still not a sewing room. 

I spend my life holed up in my room except sometimes emerging for food or human interaction and the rest of the time I stay hidden so that I'm not bothering anyone.

Things I don't have to do

I don't have to make my mother understand.  She's going to come to it from her direction and her own way.  And that's fine.
I don't have to be "right" or "wrong".  All I have to do is be.  I'm a man inside and someday I'll be a man outside, too.  And no matter what anyone thinks about that, it's going to be.  Because it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, all that matters is that I'm happy with a male body.

Yes, I am committing to a lifetime of... challenges.  But I don't have to be daunted by them.  The filter of "this is how I should act" is slowly falling away.  I'm feeling better and better about just being myself, even though I'm still remarkably feminine.  Old habits, you know.

OH.  And I don't have to be superior online.  I've spent a long time establishing an internet presence, one that isn't a d-bag.  I don't want every discussion I have to be dominated by this, but I don't really want to hide it at the moment.  I may want to hide it someday, but my friends are always going to know, and their respect will be valued.  I got off topic there because I'm exhausted.  But the point is, I'm not a d-bag, and I don't want to be a d-bag, and I'm not going to start lurking on livejournal, being a d-bag.  The end.

Even though I'm constantly saying I want to be a misogynistic douchebag.  I don't really.  I just think it's funny that apparently FtMs do that.

Binders

I have two binders.  One of them is... more comfortable but does nothing much to reduce my persistent knockers.  The other... is harder to get into than Mother Teresa, but it reduces the DDs to barely anything.  Tonight I went dancing with some friends, and I had the best night, with the least dysphoria, since I was wee.  Fifteen or earlier.

T-Kingdom is good, but it's built for smaller guys, or for those who need less binding than I.  There may be a time in the future when a T-Kingdom binder is right for me, but my DDs are perky still, and haven't yet got the message that they need to cut it out.

The one I wore tonight was a Double Panel Compression Shirt from Babeland's Gender Expression section.  Putting it on is a hell of a challenge, but once on, it's comfortable and I spent the whole night free of dysphoria.  That's worth a bit of fighting to get into it.  I LOVE my new binder.

Frustration

Okay, so... My dad's been great, but my stepmom and my real mom have proven to be kindof jerkwads lately.  My mother insists that I was born into a female body for a reason related to a former life, and need to learn some kind of 'lesson' from it.  And the worst part of it is that I'm such a pushover to her that she's making me doubt myself.  Undoubtedly, that would please her.

The point is, reader, that I don't want my mother to hate me for making a transition.  But I want her to care enough about me to read the materials I send her.  She says that the issue is mine, and that she doesn't need to read the material to understand.  But the point is, gender dysphoria is my issue, but the transitioning process requires support and love from people who will respect my decision.

I am nearly 30 years old, burdened by debt.  I've been called a rapist, I've lived alone and with friends.  I've been to college and failed.  I've faced crushing depression and blazing happiness.  I have lived much of my life and continue to do so.  The thing that gets me the most is how happy I am right now.  Even though I'm angry because my own mother is not supporting me, it's anger.  Not depression.  I'm cheerful, wanting to go outside and play.  But... despite that cheerfulness and that internal peace, I'm antsy about my body.  I'm working out and getting healthy but I don't look the way I feel, and I won't until I have hormones and surgery.

I feel so much better when I get accidentally 'Sir'ed.  I want to pass fairly well before I go on T.  I've ordered a second binder, in hopes that I will look slightly more masculine with it on.  I'm slowly changing my wardrobe over, as well.  I have a therapy appointment next week on Tuesday, and I'm pleased to report that it'll be my second one.  Hopefully I'll be able to make some kind of breakthrough.  I am looking for community, trying to find the transguys in the area that can tell me about what they went through and can help me deal with my mother's lack of support.

Pronouns

What is in a pronoun?  Not much, really.  My computer's dictionary defines it as 'a word that can function by itself as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this).'  'He' and 'she' are third person singular pronouns, used to refer to those of a particular visible sex.  That said, how many times a day is it unclear what to call someone?  The dictionary even uses 'is that a he or a she?' as an example of one of the uses of 'he'.  Our desire to categorize and understand what's under somebody's britches is as important to us as living near others of our species.  I think it's a primal drive, one feels one must know so that one might react to an individual accordingly.  Is that person over there competition, or a potential breeding partner?  If we don't know, we're instinctively curious.  I think in many cases the curiosity is translated rapidly into fear.

I am not comfortable addressing a person presenting a gender as the opposite pronoun.  For instance, a person who was born a woman, who is presenting a female body and female attributes, is in my mind 'she' and 'her'.  Which is why I don't mind at the moment being addressed by those pronouns.  At some point, my skill at binding and my weight loss will have shrunk the breast tissue and I will feel more comfortable with the effort to pass.

Working on weight loss and muscle gain lately.  So far, everything's been more or less equal as far as weight loss goes.  I'll choose to interpret that as my muscle gain equaling my weight loss.  

Confidence and Guilt

As the days go by, my confidence both grows and shivers under blows that I deal, or that other people deal without understanding.  I understand the dysphoria now, and that was a huge step for me, but I can't just stop there.  I've decided on a new name, and I think that in many private circles, people will begin to use it. I think that's a new thing about myself that I never allowed before.  Progress must be made.  My room, which has been consistently cluttered since I was a child, is clean.  CLEAN.  That's 24 years of clutter, gone.  That in itself shows the confidence I've grown.

Guilt is another matter.  I don't feel any yet for desiring to transition, but what I have felt is a release of guilt for not being 'lady-like'.

Sense of Self

I have been feeling waves of overwhelming emotion lately.  I suspect it's from the sudden ability to self-discover after 9 years of silence.  But anything will make me choke up, from watching my dog recognize me from across a field and come when I call, to a TV show featuring Chef Boyardee that talks about how they supported the soldiers in WWII.  It's been almost exactly one month and it doesn't seem like it's only been that long, because for the last month I've been free to live life fully.

I have been exercising.  I lost a few pounds already, but more interestingly, I am fairly toned now.  I've got lots of weight to lose still, but I've been more productive.  I've been looking for houses for my mom, taking the dog out for walks, finding myself bored without the urge to open World of Warcraft.  I've been doing more reading and talking more to friends and family.  My sense of ME and what I like is becoming more defined.

Along with the sense of self comes a freedom from guilt.  The guilt from not shaving my legs or armpits, the guilt from not wearing feminine clothes, the guilt of disappointing everyone I know and everyone I don't know with my failure to act feminine.  That's gone now.  I'm even almost okay with having a D-cup and trying to pass.  Well, that's not quite true.  There's going to be an initial learning period during which things are WEIRD AS FUCK (mens rooms... oh man... not looking forward to those...) and I make a few dumb faux pas.  I guess the best I can do is to have friends with me and get in lots of practice at home.  Which is still funny to me.

Basically what I feel happening to me is the slow merging of two different images into the reality of now.  I should draw it, I could do that more effectively than express it in text.

Appointments

Today I had an appointment with a local clinic.  Pike Market Medical Clinic is a local clinic that can treat people on a sliding scale, and treats folks of all walks of life.  I worked with Rachel Beda, who is new there but is very accepting of trans stuff.  She was incredibly nice.  But they don't do mental health counseling for gender issues there.  She told me to go check out Seattle Counseling Services, which I'd submitted an application to a bit ago.  I'll be going back to PMMC in few weeks to get the ol' undercarriage checked out, since it's been about 9000 years since my last general health appointment.  Plus it will be good to build a repoire with a trans friendly doctor, for later.

I called SCS, and inquired about my application.  They found it, reviewed it, and it turned out they had an opening at 4pm.  I had an intake appointment, which was full of questions.  I set my goals for the therapy as... being comfortable with transitioning in front of people.  And to make sure that I was fully aware of all my options, and fully comfortable with all the side effects and medical knowledge before making the long term changes.

To be perfectly frank, I prefer being fully, fully informed to jumping in with both feet in this instance.  It's important to me to understand the effects of the changes, and what will be happening to my body and mind with every step along the way.

Working Out, De-cluttering Life

Oh my gaaawd, I haven't worked out in a thousand years.  My arms and stomach are killing me and I spent barely 20 minutes alternating between pushups and situps.  SO I DIDN'T FEEL LIKE WORKING OUT WHILE DEPRESSED.  SUE ME.  I really should have done... something.  Holy god, I'm like some kind of lard ball with a skeletal structure, buried deep inside.  Video games, man.  They'll kill ya.  I spent ages playing World of Warcraft.  Do you know how damn many level 80 characters I have?  And how many 85s...  And how much time I spent playing it.  And not exercising.

Well, I feel good.  I cleaned a little, which always cheers me up.  It was also so I could have some unobstructed floor space to do my situps and pushups.  I used to be able to do situps the manly way, from the toes to the arms, but I'm weak from years of video games.  Now I'm doing them the girly way, from the knees.  But I've heard that weight training not only makes you feel good, but it also boosts metabolism and testosterone naturally.  ALSO, if I lose weight, my boobs are probably going to get smaller.  Greatest plan.

I've come up with a great plan.  In preparation for moving out (which will happen eventually) I've decided to make a list of Must Haves and Nice To Haves for my future minimalist household.  And the rest of the stuff I own will get donated, sold, or thrown out.  I'm good with lists and systems, and having something to check off to de-clutter with would be helpful.  I have so much crap, and if I'm ever going to move out/get surgeries/pay for hormone therapy/move to England, I'm going to have to get rid of most of the stuff I've accumulated over the years.

Fuck History! Or, alternately, Coming Out

Well, not so vehement as all that.

I got tired of dredging up the past (though I do have a lot more hints that make me slap myself in the head and have REGRETS for my own obliviousness - let's not talk about the comic I drew which I may someday be convinced to post or god forbid continue) and today I will be talking about the present, which was my goal from the get-go.  I had to set the scene, though.  You understand.

The day or two after I found out, I told my dad.  He is an amazing man.  He has had, by far, the best reaction of anyone I've told so far.  We took the dog out for a walk and I told him I had gender dysphoria.  We're alike, him and I.  Put a fancy medical name on it and it starts to make more sense.  We also crave the printed word when we're trying to cope.  While I can't exactly excuse him for the "Dear Abby" articles left on the counter about coming out as a lesbian, I can't blame him either.  His daughter has always been a little weird, and while the topic wasn't technically correct, it was in the neighborhood.  Just 3 letters to the left.  (I'll give you a minute.  There ya go.)

We wandered for a while and I told him all the stuff I'd found out, and how I was probably 80-90% sure I was trans.  I told him I wasn't changing my name yet, and I wouldn't be asking any drastic pronoun shifts for a while (at least until the transition is obvious) and that I would share any research I found with him.  He told me he always knew I was a little different and that whatever I am, he loves me.  And that he would follow my lead in regards to my stepmother.

I told her, which was... frustrating but not devastating.  She didn't, and doesn't understand fully, but I'm not really interested in her understanding.  While I was telling her, dad was on the internet, looking helpful definitions up on wikipedia and commenting on interesting facts pertaining to transgender.  Love my dad.  She was quiet for a few days (which was a relief) but has now resumed speaking to me and hasn't mentioned it since.

I'm fine for now with being seen as female.  There's a lot of changes that have to be made before I pass as a man more than just by accident.  Knowing that my mind is struggling to reconcile the contours of my body with the solidity it expects helps so much.

T, Top, Bottom

My understanding of the medical aspects of female to male (FTM) transsexualism is split into three categories.  Hormone therapy, top surgery, and bottom surgery.   These things are around to alleviate the gender dysphoria that comes with being a transgendered individual.  I believe that each person has different primary... triggers for their dysphoria, and thus a different way of ranking the medical options in order of preference.

Hormone Therapy:
  Injecting testosterone into one's meaty bits (thighs or arse) which then causes most of the subtle changes.  Facial and body hair growth, vocal change, fat moving from hips and thighs to stomach, growth of erectile tissue (clitoral growth, basically), growth of Adam's apple and other such manly attributes.

Top Surgery:
  Getting rid of the boobies.  There are two main variations on this, called 'keyhole/peri-areolar' and 'double-incision/bilateral mastectomy'.   The first, suitable for the smaller chested, involves the nipples and pulling the breast tissue out through small incisions in the areolae.  The other option is to remove the tissue through large incisions beneath the breasts, which is then usually (but not always) followed by nipple grafts or nipple reconstruction, to get them in the right place.  These processes are performed by reconstructive surgeons.

Bottom Surgery:
  There's LOTS of options here.  Basically, there are techniques that use what you've got down there, techniques that use extra donor flesh, techniques with machinery inside, etc.  Basically, there's 'metoidioplasty' and 'phalloplasty'.  Metoidioplasty is the construction of a small penis from the hormonally enlarged clitoris and skin from the labia.  Phalloplasty involves using skin from the abdomen, thigh, or forearm to construct a tube of flesh that when finished, resembles the average male penis.  There are about a billion different ways to do either of these, and they can be combined with hysterectomies and other procedures that reduce the female aspects of the bits.



Personally, I'm all for getting rid of the boobs and starting testosterone therapy.  Sign me up.  I'm a little more skeptical about the bottom surgery.  I feel like... if I'm going to have the ability to enjoy the sexxins, that beats having a big visually obvious penis.  I can get a prosthetic if it's a problem.  There are some amazing prosthetics out there, which I'm sure I'll discuss in a future article.

Gender Dysphoria, and the Euphoria of Knowing

I hit puberty at 13, I think.  Before that, I was a lanky, long-limbed thing, wild and freckled.  I could slip through the woods of the northwest quickly.  There wasn't an ounce of fat to be found on me.  I was pleased with my scrawny form.  I chased frogs and cats and dogs and played for hours with the neighbor.  I loved baseball.

I was at a week long horse camp when I found blood in my underwear.  Picture if you can, for a moment only, how you might feel if a dreaded transition from 'child' to 'Woman' might play out in such a situation.  To me, it was something that would happen to other people and the stark reality of the pain and mess that was getting my first menstrual cycle put me into shock.  I called my mother in tears, begging her to come get me.  She refused, taking it in stride like the mellow hippie woman she has always been.  The other girls there, most of whom had already started their periods were anything but supportive.  There was a day still until I was able to go home, so I stuffed my skivvies with toilet paper and suffered through.  I don't remember the rest of the week, except the horror of having bloodied paper fall from my pant leg while my dad was picking me up.

From there, it only got more horrifying.  Breasts!  Now, please understand.  On anyone else, I would love my breasts.  They're shapely, lovely, still fairly perky for someone nearing 30.  But they're big.  They're in the way.  They make running a challenge.  Even binding them down chafes.  They're heavy.  They've increased in cup size steadily since they started growing.  Not only that, but my hips swelled.  I still bang into doorways because my mind is navigating for a body much slimmer than I am.  

When I look in a mirror, I see two sacks of fat where my smooth chest should be.  I see mounds and swells where it should be planed and toned.  I see a narrow waist, a stubby torso.  I see massive thighs that should be flat and muscular.  And every time I see that, it makes me sad.  Naked or clothed, the shape of me is wrong.  No amount of working out would make the hips narrow or the breasts go away.  

This is gender dysphoria.  When your mind expects to see something in a mirror that it doesn't see, specifically related to your assigned sex.  It's been a long time of not having a name for it, and of being endlessly depressed because of a line of 'normal' reasons.  Being called 'ma'am'.  Doors being opened for me.  Having to go through life not being able to see my midsection past the bags of fat.  All of those things, and the hundreds of other little things that happen during a day, that confirm that I am not what I feel like I am.  All of those things, like a waterfall, a pile of straw on a camel's back.

Now that I know what it is, now that it has a name, I can fight the dysphoria.  It's no longer inexplicable sadness.  It has reason.  I've been in a great state since I found out, delighted with the identification of what the depression has meant.  It's partially been understanding that there's a name for my feelings, and partially the realization that there are things that can be done to alleviate the discomfort that's been whittling away at me.

The next steps are therapy, hormone therapy, and surgery.  

History of the World (Mine)

It will become clear if you read all of this blog that I am biologically female.  I have no interest in hiding it at this point, double Ds will do that to a person.  Even though I'm very certainly transgendered, and eventually I will change my physical form to ease the dysphoria, I don't feel like I need to hide who I was.  As of this writing, I am 28 years old, and I have lived as a girl and woman for most of those years.

I'm changing some names around, for the decency factor.  

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I was born in California, into a hippie household.  At one and a half years, my family moved to Washington state, in pursuit of jobs and houses.  I grew up in a small, one-story house with my mom and dad and the various animals we kept.  My life was as thrilling as any child's, full of bugs and kites and swings and adventures in the park.  There was a plum tree that I loved to climb, and eat the plums that had warmed in the summer sun, perching on one of the two big branches that spread like arms.  We had a deck and we could watch the Blue Angels fly against a backdrop of mountains in the summertime.  I was freckled and wild and I loved ponies more than anything ever.  Instead of a sandbox, my parents gave me a dirt pile, in which I carved canyons and mountains, and flattened meadows for my toys to romp in, and made rivers with the hose.

Our house was amazing.  The floor of the den was multicolored, short, uncomfortable carpeting with hopscotch and chess boards and parcheesi boards printed on it.  My room was carpeted in light, sky blue shag, with dark red velvet curtains and white walls.  I had an alphabet poster that had Fox as the X, and a giant cat face poster.  The kitchen was Yellow and Orange and Avocado.  Our mailbox was painted like a zebra, and the first few years of my life were spent being driven about in a rainbow painted Volkswagen Beetle.  There were roach clips hanging in the kitchen, decorated with beads and feathers and upside down medicine cups, the kind that come with cough medicine.  

My earliest memory is just before my fourth birthday.  I remember vividly telling my father that it was my 'fourth birthday eve'.  I was in the bathtub, and I had colored soap crayons and I was making a mess with water all over the floor.  My dad worked, my mom worked sometimes too.  I remember a few babysitters, but nothing shocking happened.  There's the usual gamut of naked baby pictures, naked child pictures, child with dogs, child with friends, child with random petting zoo beasts.  There was little pink or blue to be found in my house.  My favorite stuffed animal was a bear named Lady Snuggles.  She is a dark brown Gund bear, with a V of white on her chest, and I loved her.  I love her still.  She still has a place of honor on my opposite pillow.

I grew up in this hippie house without feeling like a little girl.  I didn't feel much like a little boy, either, but when I was playing with the neighbors, I was always the daddy.  

In my youth, my best friend was named Miranda.  I always thought she was beautiful.  We shared a love for ponies that led to a love for each other, like children love, without thought and without impurity.  Every weekend we could spare we would spend galloping around the house, whinnying and making up elaborate stories centered around our horse toys or ourselves.  One night, when I was 8 or 9, she was sleeping on my floor, and I spent an hour crying, thinking of how much I loved her.  I should have known then.  

I never grew up thinking that men with men and women with women were bad.  I had a wonderful great uncle that had a partner.  I never thought twice about it, and my family never gave me cause to.  I never wondered overly about simple matters like love.  If I, who had been told I was a girl, could love my best friend, who was a girl, why couldn't my uncle love a boy?  I reserved my judgement for those who didn't think ponies were cool.  

I was home schooled from 5th grade through 9th grade.  I spent my days doing homework, then going out and building weapons and training the dogs and cats to do tricks.  

When I was 14, two important things happened.  Star Wars, and the Trip.

First, with the help of my friend Katie, I discovered Star Wars and it changed the course of my life.  It changed the games Miranda and I played.  We were no longer horses, we were people, doing things that people do.  Falling in love, fighting epic battles, being scoundrels and Jedi, and shooting up the Empire.  The way Han and Leia's first kiss played out made my stomach turn somersaults, but I never imagined I was Leia.  I was always, always Han.  

The Trip wasn't just any camping adventure.  My family purchased a fifth wheel trailer and a large Ford F150, and my mother planned out a trip across the nation.  We were gone 13 months.  At the end of the trip, I had been to every state in the country with the exception of Hawaii.  I became a much better friend with my mom, and on a rainy day in Cooperstown, NY, my mom and dad told me they were getting a divorce.  I wasn't devastated, really.  I was sad.  But my parents are fair people, and they let me ask my questions and rant and rail and didn't deviate.  It always seemed that they regarded each other with love laced with faint exasperation, so a little less love and a little more exasperation wasn't a huge change for me.  

I met a lot of people during the Trip, and religiously wrote letters to my friends at home.  THIS WAS BEFORE THE INTERNET WAS A THING, U GUYZ.  We had Dial Up, if we were lucky, and a cell phone was unheard of!  I had to write letters, BY HAND, and send them, WITH STAMPS!  My friends sent their letters to my father, who forwarded them to us whenever we had a few days in one place.  Mom's jobs during the trip were "Drive" and "Pay" and my jobs were "Hitch" and "Level".  Some days we fought forever.  Other days we had a great time laughing together.  

When I got home, things had changed a little.  Miranda was taller, prettier, and I was taller, and... well, prettier, if you like strong jawlines and mullets.  Not my proudest hairstyle.  I went back to public school.  Naturally, as I had missed out on the merciless mockery of middle school, the bullies had to work overtime to catch up.  Instead of dressing like a 'normal' girl, I tended towards baggy clothes.  Jeans that had once belonged to boys.  

I wasn't committed to the choice in clothes, and in my efforts to fit in and figure out who I was, I gave girly clothes a try.  It wasn't bad, aside from occasionally being uncomfortable, so I went with it.  The bullies were less of a problem, anyway.  I cut off my mullet and went with a more conventional girly chin-length style.  I started wearing makeup, sometimes.  I went to the mall.  I talked about boys.  

Meanwhile, my weekends were still spent with Miranda, playing elaborate games of make believe and loving her more every day.  Star Wars passed (though we still loved it) and we got into Pokemon.  We loved the villians, Jesse and James, and our group of friends put together a signing event in character at a local theater when they aired the Pokemon movie.  Miranda was Jesse.  I was James.  Each and every one of our friends believed with all their hearts that James and Jesse were lovers, including Miranda and I.  We started having "in character" parties.  I reveled in being a man, even for an hour or two a night.  It was freeing, and I felt more comfortable with my chest bound than I ever had without.  

The parties started having the effect that one would expect on two people who were pretending to be secret lovers.  The affectations, the secretive glances, the flustered protests we put on to amuse our friends started becoming true.  We weren't just Jesse and James at the parties any more.  It became a game for us.  We would wake each other in the night with conversations held in character, that became less fictional the more time went by.  

One night, we passed out on a fold out couch together, watching TV.  When we woke in the morning it was light, and the house was empty except for us two.  I poked her in the ribs.  She growled the name 'James'.   I cringed back, but only playfully and tickled her.  She was tremendously ticklish.  A scuffle commenced, but I used my superior size to pin her to the couch.  Chest to chest, the moment stretched out, and I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips.  My stomach flipped, and before it could escalate to something besides friendly affection, I pulled back.  She was breathless, panting, and had clearly been startled by the advance.  I leaned in again, this time kissing her slightly more firmly, and she responded.  Hands in my hair, passionate, incredible kisses.  

That was the start of something amazing.  But the most important thing about it was that I was not in a lesbian relationship.  I wasn't a woman.  At no point was my femininity acknowledged.  She would touch me like she would a man.  Go down on me like she would a man.  I would touch her like she was a woman.  Put my fingers in her, simulate male orgasm.  It was pretend and it wasn't.  We shared a bed on the weekends.  As soon as we'd graduated, we went from sharing a bed on weekends to sharing a bed on every night we could.  We couldn't get enough of each other.  

I remember at one party, she slipped a note into my hand.  I have forgotten the exact wording.  I threw the note away in a fit of anger.  I wish I had kept it.  "Were we alone, I would kiss you and kiss you until your cries for mercy echoed to the stars" was the right sort of sentiment.  I pulled her aside and into her room, pinning her against the door and let her ravage away.  It was romantic, passionate, my heart and body ached for her.  Cliche as it seems, it was exactly what I have missed in so many relationships since then.

I don't think I deserved all of what I got.  I've written about Samara on another blog, and I don't want to waste much breath on her in this one.  But she took what was a good relationship and turned it sour.  She told me that I was a dirty lesbian, a rapist, a molester.  The thought that I was a woman in a relationship with a woman turned me upside down.  It was a fantasy world, I thought, there would be no way I could ever live as a man, or love as a man.  No one else would ever understand like Miranda.  

So I spent eight years trying to be a 'normal' girl.  I spent a lot of time and energy on shaking the title of 'rapist' from my emotional scarring.  It's still there, still makes me go sick to my stomach.  I had relationships with men that ended poorly.  Here and there I had a girlfriend, but nothing long term.  Finally I started something with my friend Jon.  We were good friends, in and out of the relationship, but there was always something that bothered me about the way he treated me.  My logical mind told me, time and time again, that I was being unreasonable and that he treated me perfectly well.  

I couldn't take it any more, just recently.  I broke up with him in mid-March.  On April 11th, 2011, at 11:38pm, I realized I was quite soundly transgendered.  In the last two weeks I've been doing research, finding out all I can on the topic, and understanding more and more about it.  It makes too much sense to ignore.  I broke up with him because he treated me like a lady.  

If I had continued on any longer without realizing it, I may have reached the point of hurting myself within a year.  I had constant, horrible depression that wasn't made any better by any kind of therapy or medication.  I couldn't focus on school or work.  My room, my life, my world was a mess, falling apart.  I was beginning to suffer from panic attacks more and more frequently, over less and less.  I couldn't share any emotions with anyone.  I didn't trust anyone.  My shell of 'normal girl' was so fragile that anyone could break it open, leaving me vulnerable to the agony of self-exploration.

The words 'gender dysphoria' and some research on it led me to realize that was the name for my malaise.  I found some resources and acquired some personal accounts.  I've been reading, madly, and everything I read cements into place what I am more.  I am gender dysphoric.  I am transgendered.  The T in LGBT.  Some day, I will live as a man, full time.  In the meantime, I will continue to study, I will write, I will record my doubts and my changes and my concerns and my rather harsh opinion on bottom surgery.  Maybe someday, I will have a companion who doesn't mind the fact that the wrapping paper doesn't match the goods inside.  

I will still love ponies.  I will still be the person I've grown into over the last 28 years.  But I will be a stronger, more confident, happier person.