Fashion and Passing

The only thing they have in common is that I’m bad at both though sheer laziness.

Well, and I need one to do the other.

It’s really not as easy as it was for being a guy, or really even probably as easy as it would be being cis. I’m tall, significantly taller than most women since I stand at about 5’10. I don’t quite look good enough that I can try and draw attention to my newly budding feminine traits — my breasts — and I’m not quite thin enough that I could pass for flat chested.

I’m probably not going to be model pretty. I’m probably not going to look like a movie star. I’ll be lucky to be on the 6+ side of the 1-10 scale. If there’s any indication about my fashion sense, my clothes are going to be a bigger hamper on my looks than my actual body, though. Things I think are cute don’t look cute on me. This becomes problematic because I’m interested in more butchy girls, and so I tend to think butchy clothes are cute.

This makes me look rather butch or tomboyish, which is problematic because I’m trying to pass for female, and my clothes are making me look male.

It’s really not something we think of very much. Generally pulling anything out from the women’s section will make you look like a girl where pulling things out of the men’s section will make you look like a boy. It’s when you have physical cues not often associated with the gender you’re trying to appear as that you have issues. Short, slim men are probably much more likely to be mistaken as girls than tall, muscular men. The opposite, tall, broad women are much more likely to be mistaken as a boy than short, petite women.

Even though right now I look feminine enough to pass, and most people do kind of figure tomboy and not boy, there is always the issue that I have to compensate for being taller and broader than average women.

I guess I could just throw on a dress and see what happens, but then it comes back to that whole breast thing. My best option for showing femininity is to draw (unwanted) attention to my breasts, which aren’t big enough to warrant attention yet.

Of course, if I could stop my voice from seeming completely androgynous and finally hit full out feminine, that would probably help too.

Such frustrations in daily life. So many things to think about that I never cared about before.

Oh well, at least I’m happy enough that I can wear my four inch heels in public and just kind of ignore the occasional looks some people shoot me.

Sixty Days

Or two prescriptions or two months or ~1/6th of a year or ~1/124th of my life. A nearly insignificant amount of time by drawing back far enough, but we’re humans, and all time is significant — hopefully.

I came out back in January of this year after having struggled with it for nearly 8 years. I remember the first thing that was kind of a hint was when I was 12 and had the option to pick a male or female character in RuneScape. My heart fluttered as I picked female and actively “pretended” to be a girl. I did this in MMOs and my online life for a long time, finding enough to cope so that I wouldn’t go crazy.

Of course, what amounts to an extended lie makes you realize you’re lying to friends which depresses the hell out of you. Along with the whole never feeling right in your skin thing. I tried to tell someone when I was sixteen — four years ago — but I was too afraid. I had a chance to tell a therapist what I was feeling, and I could’ve gotten help right then, but I was afraid. That fear cost me four years of my life that I will never get back. That fear cost me four years of intense anguish because I knew the problem, knew I could fix it, yet was too petrified to move forward.

In October of last year, I met someone and became really close with them. It was an odd relationship, and I found out we both were lying to each other, them about being single, me about being a ciswoman. While I always had a golden rule of making sure no one fell in love with me, I messed up and fell in love. The depression was too strong, and I ended up breaking down and telling them. It was the first moment where I confessed I wanted to be a woman to another living person.

It took me a month to recover, and our relationship was strained, but they continue to be the closest person to my heart to this day. They’ve been supportive and caring, and without them, I don’t think I would have eventually escaped from the closet. So thank you Elle. <3

I told my mother in March. Through a text message. In the middle of an airport. I was a coward. I was afraid. I still didn’t think I was ready. I wanted to tell her in person, but the opportunity never arrived as she lives in another state, and when she came to visit, there was always an escort of some sort. We talked a little, but she didn’t understand. She still doesn’t really understand, but she’s helped me quite a bit and tries to embrace me.

On my trip to Rhode Island — the reason I was in an airport — I met my best friend, Tom for the second time in my life. We met on the internet something like six years ago. We’ve helped each other with our problems, and we made fairly good companions, each balancing the other out in some way. Tom was the first person I told face to face. He had some girl that wanted to have sex with him, texting him and eventually propositioning him that I could join in and we could have a threesome. Wanting to get rid of her — I can’t have sex like that, gosh no! — I told her the only thing I could think of. “I’m not comfortable with that because I’m a transsexual.” I told Tom at the same time, completely out of the blue. We talked for a while, he gave me some confidence, and I returned home a better person.

I started therapy almost immediately afterward. I went weekly, often staying over time with my therapist. She isn’t a gender therapist. At this point I didn’t need a gender therapist. I was resolute, knowing where I was going and how to get there. She focused on dealing with my anxiety, my issues coming out, my stresses, teaching me how to build a strong social network, and most importantly, she taught me what it was like to actually feel real emotions again.

I understood what was in front of me, and I knew how to tackle it. I’d dealt with it and over thought it for the last four years, and, to be quite honest, I wasn’t going to take “no” or even a delay for an answer. In early June, I had an appointment with an endocrinologist who supplied me with my prescription. Since then, I’ve started painting my toe nails, wearing lip gloss, started removing body hair — though I’m waiting another two months until I start electrolysis as a good chunk of my facial hair has stopped growing — and even started wearing some girl’s clothes.

I’ve been happy and at piece. My entire family knows. I’ve not had problems with any of them directly — and honestly, they know better than to try and cause a problem around me — and now that I’m out of my father’s house — who wasn’t quite so gungho and has many reservations — things are looking up. I’ve lost 25lbs, now down to 229 and aiming to lose another 50-70ish by April of next year.

I’m at piece of myself for once in my entire life, and I’m looking kind of good to boot. I just wish my hair would grow in faster so it didn’t look like such a train wreck. -_-

I have no idea what can be gained from this story, but I needed to share. Thank you for reading it, even if you skimmed or didn’t read the whole thing. It’s just nice to have some place where I can think a little bit louder.

Sex Drive

Vroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom.

That’s what I always think of anyways.

Mine has been crushed. This happened long before HRT. I’m not sure why it happened, really. I just don’t have a sex drive anymore. I don’t particularly mind in some sense of the word, it’s really not a big deal. I never really enjoyed it much, but I liked the sense of arousal. It was nice to think about sexual things and to dream a little. I’ve jokingly said it has just stopped working altogether, and I’ll be a sexless creature forever.

At least, that’s kind of what I thought was going on. I’ve been on HRT for nearly two months now. In all that time, I never touched myself. It was… strange. Very strange. I’m not sure why, really. I mean, I guess it’s not too much of a difference of my normal schedule. This morning, I felt a bit frisky though.

It was an amazing feeling. Arousal means something completely different to me, I can’t even comprehend it entirely. The feeling itself is difference, it’s like a rushing tingling sensation that trials from the crotch to the heart. It’s not even focused in the stomach, and if I let it go just a little longer, it spreads through to the rest of my body.

It’s really quite strange. I wonder if the hormones are responsible or maybe it’s just me being more comfortable with myself. It’s really shocking how much your own comfort can affect your life. It’s a really nice thought, really. I hope these improvements continue. I’m already so happy, though.

Oh Glorious, Base Sexism

I have a guilty pleasure. At the moment, I kind of like some parts of sexism, specifically, sexism aimed at me as a woman instead of as a man. Yes, yes, I’m aware all sexism is bad, and that I shouldn’t be taking it with a smile and a giggle. I can’t help it, though, it’s validation, even if it’s based on a negative event. I’d probably feel good if people called me a bitch at this point and meant it in the snide/catty woman kind of way.

The event that inspired this was I was moving furniture with my two roommates. They’re both pretty good guys, very nice, very supportive, would start calling me my chosen name at any time. They’re also shorter and smaller than me. My cousin is roughly three inches shorter than me and is more ball shaped than anything else. The other roommate is probably a solid five or six inches shorter than me, and he’s entirely made of skin and bones.

However, when it came to actually moving, they seemed reluctant to let me handle the bigger objects like the love seat and the dressers. I didn’t question why — I could see why quite easily from their expressions. I let them struggle to carry the various objects up and down stairs, only holding the doors for them, even though I could’ve done each thing on my own quite easily.

It’s interesting, really, to observe sexism from this side. I’ve always been a bit naive because the women in my family were always physically active and strong, along with what I can only describe as complete independence. I’ve never even considered doing heavy lifting for a woman while she held the doors.

I’m kind of wondering how far it’ll go and what way I’ll best be able to handle it. A laugh or a giggle when they’re doing something so silly to diffuse it, perhaps? Just a very interesting question to figure out sometime.

Hair

I love my hair, really. I was sad when I realized I had a receding hairline which meant, one day, I was going to end up bald. Thanks to HRT and a certain antiandrogen, this has been effectively stopped and my hair is regrowing where once I was bald. It’ll probably take a while, a long while, for it to look good, but this is a process.

My hair is kind of ugly these days. It looks okay for me as I identify as a guy, but the style really is sloppy and just kinda bad. It grows in naturally layered, so I should probably adopt a layered style. It’ll really help me look like a woman, too, as I’m lucky enough to have a rather feminine face. I’ll have to get some advice from my support, and maybe I’ll get it cut before I visit Oregon, or maybe cut while I’m there, who knows!

But that’s easy. That’s hair I can pay someone relatively little to take care of. Body hair is a problem for me. I’m… far too hairy for my own comfort. I tried shaving, which was okay, but I hated the scratchy feeling of my legs or arms, and I had to do it every single day too. If I included my chest and stomach, a razor wouldn’t last many uses before it started cutting, and it really just was a pain in the ass.

So I tried waxing. Waxing yourself is hard. It’s very hard in fact. Waxing your arm properly is pretty much impossible. Also, being overweight makes it even worse as you have to tighten the skin. I think I ended up permanently making the bathroom at my father’s permanently sticky in some places.

It’s also kinda costly. Really just not worth it.

Nair works pretty well, but you can’t use it everywhere, and sometimes it’s just a pain. I still use it on my back, as it lasts quite a while, and since I started HRT, it lasts even longer.

Without any other option remaining I bought an epilator. I love it and I hate it immensely. It works wonders, completely removing hair by ripping them out from the root. It’s painful, far more painful than waxing. It lasts close to the same lengths, about two or three weeks for me at the moment, and it has one very nice advantage. It makes the hair regrow from nothing. Some hairs simply don’t regrow. My arm and leg hair has been thinned quite a bit by it, and I’m entertaining the idea of letting it grow all the way out, so I can see how much it has thinned.

Using it on the stomach, chest, underarms, and thighs has been mixed. It works great, though on the chest it doesn’t remove it for nearly as long as the arms. It also hurts. A lot. A whole hell of a lot. I still haven’t done my shoulders completely because it hurts too much. I’ll finish it, but I’m honestly scared of the pain. I’d love to use it on my back, but reaching is a problem. Maybe I can round up a volunteer….

A woman is not made by her purse.

At least I hope not. I spent 4th of July dealing with probably my first overt experience of sexism in person. I’m still not entirely sure how it was aimed, that I wouldn’t be able to pass as a woman if I didn’t have a purse or that women are defined by them having purses or not, but I was left feeling somehow kind of pissed. Maybe it was the continuing that I’d have to get my ears pierced, and that I would have to adopt some sort of obsessive infatuation with drama films.

This is not how a woman acts. This might be how women act, if you want to play statistics, but how 99% of people act is of no concern for me. My goal is not to be a walking stereotype. My goal isn’t to be some perfect embodiment of femininity. I have no desire to put a dress on just to prove how girly I am, though if I’m honest, yeah, I’d like to wear a dress. That’s the thing though, I want to wear the dress. I don’t care if someone wants me to, or if society at large wants me to do something. It’s simply of no concern to me as an individual.

Maybe I’m on the strange side. I can’t speak for every transsexual, and sadly my exposure to others in my situation is a lot less than it should be, but I never thought the idea was that I really just want to wear a dress and have my hair long and wear stockings and heels or whatever. I’ve always felt that I want these things — minus the heels — because I’ve always identified with women much stronger than men, and it’s because women typically wear them that I want to. It has nothing to do with any sort of biological imperative to dress or even necessarily act feminine, it’s much more personal than obeying some social constructs of what to do and how to do it.

Sadly, it’s something that I’m going to have to be better at explaining if I want people to understand me. It’s strange in some sense, I want to adopt many feminine traits, it’s just not necessarily all of them, and if I argue some of them, I’ll be questioned if I want to actually  be a woman or not. Do people really think is has to be all or nothing? It’s just so… short sighted and uncritical!

Regardless, I know I’m a strong enough person to do what I want to obtain my happiness, even if I have to leave a few people behind to do it.