A brief interregnum...

I have not lost interest or forgotten about the Den.

We had a massive electrical storm come through here a few days ago, which led to a series of brownouts that somehow took out my desktop PC. I do have my craptop, and access to all my work (the hard drives are fine, but I lost the motherboard, CPU and RAM), but as the name implies, the laptop is...less than impressive.

Thanks to the kindness of friends who totally believe in social anarchy, I have new parts on their way to me...they'll get me a 3 years newer PC in terms of MB/CPU/RAM.

But the performance on lappy makes things very difficult.

So please extend me a little patience, and I'll be back here soon!

Trans 101 With Julie - Interlogue 13 June 2017

“And when language corrodes
all our faculties falter and blur.
Nobody knows how our tongues got so swollen and furred.
What truths are there left to be told
when we're all lost for words?    
   
Incoherence, When Language Corrodes
Peter Hammill”


So much I wanted to do, and say today.

Instead, this.

I always worry about treading too far over an invisible line that is, for me, still very real. I am many things, and many of you come to me from many different places. Some of you knew me before, some of you are just getting to know me. And I know, for example, that I often find myself defaulting to quoting others when my own words seem pale and insignificant. But, indeed, I am large, I do contain multitudes, and as I am predisposed to death by drowning in my own analysis, I do often worry that perhaps I am presenting too much of one part of me, no matter which part that is.

I do not necessarily want to be the trans girl who only talks about trans stuff. But being trans IS my life. I do not necessarily want to focus on the politics of it, the discrimination, the lack of understanding and willingness to try and understand by so many people. Yet again, being trans IS my life, and some small part of me hopes that in the saying and the telling, some small amount of...something...even if it is insignificant and unimpressive...to be tossed into the sea of information that is our mutually shared lives.

I do not want to write about the fact that three people I know and follow on Twitter had a transphobe directly attack them in order to ridicule them. Yet I just did.

I do not want to write about the fact that I woke up this morning in agony, both physical and psychological, yet I just did.

I do not want to write about the fact that every day I come on Facebook, I come on Twitter, and I am at once faced with the breadth and scope of hatred and erasure that we face...yet I just did.

I don't want you, reading this, to finally sigh and say 'I am sick and tired of Julie writing about this stuff. Can't she just be normal? Can't she just...not constantly focus on this?'

And yet...I just did.

I make certain allusions in my writing from time to time, to past events and past things I have had to deal with, as a way of trying to create metaphors and comparisons that might be more easily digested. I don't know if they are at all successful. I know that they are uncomfortable comparisons, borne from the fact that two things massively changed my life, and I can do nothing but try and find connections between them. I am NOT those things...yet those things ARE me.

I don't know how to say the things I want to say, because for every one of you who tells me that I am such a good writer, I sit here erasing and deleting and reshaping and throwing out and carving and whittling away and adding to in an attempt to hide each glaring flaw, each miscut, each place I took the easy way out rather than do the craft properly. Somehow it seems to work, yet for myself, I see every patch, every join, every poorly engineered angle, and wonder why no one else sees them. I question you because I question myself in all things. As I write this, I realise how unfair this is to you, yet there it is, laid bare...I question your words and actions because for everything, I do not know how you do not see what I see. Is it me being hyper-critical, or is it simply a case where no one wants to damage an already broken Julie?

I don't know the answer to that question.

And any answer I am given would be placed under my microscope anyway.

So the question, ultimately, is rhetorical.

The more I become myself the more I am terrified of myself. Does that sound as strange to you as it does to me? Each step I take away from the lies that were my life, the further I go into truly uncharted waters, the stronger the fear grips me. Will I finally go too far out, will I lose sight of the shore, will I finally submerge and drown in the depths? Do I want to submerge?

What if I fall?

What if I fly?

~~~//||\\~~~

At the core of it, I am an angry, sad, scared girl. I have never seen girl, when applied to myself, as a diminution of who I am. I do not feel limited or minimised by the tenor of that word. I am a girl, and I have no problems saying that. I am angry that I have to fight every day just to be myself, that I have to fight to stay alive, that I have to fight in order to feel as if I have value to someone, anyone. I am angry that I have to speak out against people that are supposedly members of my own community. I am angry that I have to create my own community because the one that was created for me is a load of cobbler's. I am angry that I am 44 years old and I have waited this long to transition. I am angry at a person who held me in their thrall so much that they cowed me into silence, into a kind of submission that I do not accept, and who ultimately kept me from doing this sooner. I am angry at myself for allowing that to happen.

I am sad for the girl inside me who has spent 44 years waiting to live. I am sad for every lost opportunity she will never have. I am sad for a childhood I will never know, I am sad for teen years I will never get to experience. I am sad for things I will never have the ability to experience because of the circumstances of my birth. I am sad that there was no way for that last one to be overcome. I am sad that I will never experience the things that some people cling to as being the only defining elements of womanhood, because I was born with a penis and testicles, not a vagina, uterus and ovaries.

I am scared that no matter what, I will end up losing the people closest to me. I am scared I will never be trans enough, that I will never be good enough, that I will never be woman enough. I am scared that I will be left behind. I am scared that I waited too long. I am scared that I will spend life with people thinking I am a bloke in a dress. I am scared by things that I am dealing with today, at this very moment, and the degree of uncertainty that comes with those things.

I am angry.

I am sad.

I am scared.

All those things are part of me today, and I feel that I should keep them inside, keep them secret, keep them safe.

I spent all my life keeping everything inside.

Secret.

Safe.

And look where it got me.

~~~//||\\~~~

Over the past nearly 3 years I have lost a lot of people along the way, and I talk a big game about how none of it matters to me, how they obviously didn't belong here for the journey.

And I know each and every one of you knows that for the lie that it is.

Because every one hurts.

I have been told that I talk too much about depressing things. And that statement is correct.

I have been told that I spend too much time on politics. And that is probably right too.

I have been told that I am too militant. And I am. I know I am.

But. At the same time.

I've tried being other things. I've tried being other people. I have tried being nice. I have tried being a push over, a door mat, and I know when I am those things I am easier for other people to stomach. I am somehow sweeter, more polite.

Nice.

Nice people are the ones getting shot, spit upon, murdered for being themselves.

And what is left are people like us. Angry. Militant. Pushed to the edge. Left with nothing else left to us but a chunk of rock and a piece of broken glass. And when you are pushed that far, when all that is left to you are scraps, you take those scraps and make a choice.

And do you want to know something?

Neither of those choices is a defeat, because both of those choices is an act of survival. Resistance. Militancy.

I am fighting for my life every day, by inches and feet, scrabbling by my fingernails dug into the dirt. Life is trench warfare, muddy and dirty and choking gas filled wastelands of terror that no person should ever have to be confronted with. There is no wonder so many of us are diagnosed with anxiety, with depression, with PTSD. We are not even metaphorically at war. It is literal, and it is real, and it is war without end forever and ever Amen. It is a war fought on more than one front because even as we are fighting a world that often vocally expresses a desire to stamp us out, we are fighting a war inside our brains, trying to find some small amount of advance even as we are being shelled from within and without.

All those times I have joked about losing my sense of humour during the shelling of Sevastapol in April 1943? Understand that it is not simply a way of joking that I'm a Time Lady. I am living that shelling every bloody day of my life.

And thus here we are, surrounded by the wreckage that is my life, trying to tend the small space I have allowed myself, hoping that the seeds I have planted will find some way to bloom in this otherwise grey blasted cratered landscape of terror and sadness that is Life, 2017.

If I act needy, it is because I am.

If I act like I am clinging, it is because I am.

I am reaching for anything I can hold onto in this swirling maelstrom of chaos, hoping it'll be enough for me to stay afloat one more second...minute...hour...day.

What if I fall?

What if I fly?


“And if language explodes
in our faces like shrapnel
all self-defense is blown away.

In the end this reasoning's sound:
how can we be found
if we're lost for words?

Oh, still in the search for the words...

I've said my piece,
I'll take my leave now,
breathe not a word 
of my disarray.

Ssh.

All of the words have flown away...”

Incoherence, If Language Explodes
Peter Hammill






(NB: as always, this is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)

Trans 101 With Julie, Lesson 5: Bringing it all back home

Hello everyone and welcome to another Trans 101 installment.

This time around, I want to bring things a little closer to the quick, so to speak, and talk about some more personal things. I'll be talking more about me throughout this 'lesson,' and I want you to understand up front that because of this we very well may hit some very heavy emotional points. I'm not really going to trigger warning anything in here, but, just to spell things up front (and without any foreknowledge because, unlike other installments, I am completely doing this one on the wing with no semblance of an outline of what I want to say)...the road that follows may well be exceptionally fraught.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Here there be dragons.

And other things as well.

~~~~~//||\\~~~~~

One of the biggest stereotypes, I think, when it comes to trans people (and I think it may be possibly more prevalent among people talking about transwomen) is the idea of a 'woman trapped in a man's body.' It's something that I've heard said for decades, and it seems to be a resoundingly familiar narrative for a lot of people.

I don't want to deny there is some kind of artistic poetry to that. In fact, it does somewhat tie into the metaphor of butterflies...a concept that is very common in the community (as a side note, one of the larger known clinics, at least on the east coast of the United States, is named for butterfly in French). There is something mystic about bursting forth from a chrysalis...it's a beautiful image. I won't deny any of this.

I will say it's far from universal, and far from a truism.

I feel trapped by my body...but I do not feel trapped because it's a man's body and I am a woman. I feel trapped because other things...my arthritis, my crippling depression, my a-fib, my anxiety...are major impediments for me. My depression keeps me from even wanting to get out of bed many days. My arthritis keeps me from doing some of the activities I love...and yes, that's even with stretches and heat and anti-inflammatories and so on. My heart means I have to limit my caffeine intake (which I try but do fail at), and I have to be very careful about just how hard I push lest I do accidentally push myself into fib.

Those things trap me, or make me feel caged...my brain the worst offender of the mess. I can tell you that people have said that I've seemed like my brain has actively tried to work at every opportunity to hurt me and break me, and I don't deny this. I have a lot of damage, and I hurt myself more than anyone else ever will or ever has.

But it's not because I'm trans.

And it's not because I'm 'a woman trapped in a man's body.'

Allow me the opportunity to let you in on a little secret, OK? I have a woman's body. I was born with a woman's body. My woman's body just happened to come with a penis and testicles rather than a vagina, uterus, ovaries and labia. I don't have an issue saying this. I don't LIKE any of what I have. There is a massive amount of discomfort and disassociation with them. But I also don't run from the fact that they are there. Like any person, I just don't talk about them because who really talks about their plumbing in polite conversation (NB: the trans peoples I run with on Twitter definitely does, but that's different)...do you see posts from your male friends saying 'Boy, my penis feels really great today...no lumps on my balls either. Yee haw!'

If you do...I may actually be interested in who because honestly, that's pretty funny.

Realistically, in most polite conversation amongst strangers, however, you don't talk about your gonads. And neither do I. My plumbing defines me every bit as much as my hair...that is to say, not at all. I still want to modify my plumbing if at all possible, both to ease the discomfort I have mentally as well as to emotionally know that I am aligning with my internal knowledge of who I am, but who I am is not walled in by that part of my body.

And yes...I do see the irony in spending a lot of words talking about my genitals in a piece that starts off talking about how polite conversation doesn't center around the current weather conditions of a stranger's groinal regions, but...well...to paraphrase Wolfie in Amadeus:

“Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar woman!”

This is one of those areas that really...if anyone ever decides they trust you enough to talk to you about such things, feel honoured. And treat that trust like it's the suitcase with the red button in it. Violating that trust is violating the deepest personal secrets or information a person can share with you...and it may well do more than just cost you a friendship. It could cost you a life.

~~~~~//||\\~~~~~

Another common misconception, I think, is that being trans causes depression.

A number of researchers, whose work has been widely discredited and moved out of the medical mainstream, have maintained that medical/surgical treatment for transmen and transwomen (i.e., contra-hormonal therapy, subcutaneous mastectomy, vaginoplasty, etc.) exacerbate existing mental health issues, and/or the desire on the part of the trans individual to have these procedures done is borne from their mental illness. Additionally, they claim that post-therapy/post-procedure self-harm/suicide rates are no different than pre-therapy, those proving that these treatments are not as important as intensive psychological and psychiatric treatment to find a 'cause' via psychiatric disorder.

Some of the info that follows is from some articles by Zinnia Jones, and I'll be annotating appropriately. I want to give you some exact points of reference so when I move forward, you have a basis on which my thoughts will be built.

First off, from Paul McHugh, formerly of Johns Hopkins University and now widely discredited, though he doesn't think he is:

“We at Johns Hopkins University — which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery” — launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied” by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied” but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.”

Well, I wonder why MuHugh said all this. He couldn't have an agenda, being a doctor and all, could he?

“…Johns Hopkins was one of the places in the United States where this practice was given its start. It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it.”

OH.

Well then.

Here's some data ZJ has gathered:


“A study from Belgium in 2006 found that trans people’s rates of suicide attempts dropped from 29.3% before surgery to 5.1% after.
    Another study of 50 trans women who received genital surgery found that their physical and mental health was not significantly different from samples of cis women.
    A 2013 study of 433 trans people in Canada found that 27% of those who hadn’t begun transitioning had attempted suicide in the past year, but this dropped to 1% for those who were finished transitioning.
    And a 2010 meta-analysis of 28 studies showed that 78% of trans people showed an improvement in psychiatric symptoms after transitioning, with a level of psychological functioning similar to the general population and greater than that of untreated trans people.

Several additional studies have since confirmed that hormone treatment for trans people is associated with reduced stress levels, a lower prevalence of depression, less anxiety, a reduction in functional impairments, and a higher quality of life. There is no excuse for using a study from 1979 and missing the entire body of evidence that’s accumulated since then.”

(Paul McHugh is wrong: transitioning is effective (Gender Analysis 10), 1 Sept 2015. http://genderanalysis.net/2015/09/paul-mchugh-is-wrong-transitioning-is-effective-gender-analysis-10/)

Those of you who have been been around me for a long time know that I have struggled with crippling depression for a very long time. I am not shy about admitting this; I am not stigmatised by this in any way. It does handicap me in so many ways, from affecting my work performance to my ability to enjoy regular day to day activities to my appetite to so many other things.

Do you know how my depression is associated with my identity?

We'll start by explaining that Gender Identity Disorder, as defined under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Volume 4, has been replaced by Gender Dysphoria in the DSM-5. The biggest difference may seem semantic, but it is incredibly major. Disorder implies...no...outright states that trans gender identity is an all encompassing mental disorder/illness, something that is wrong with a person psychologically and ergo must be treated in the same manner one would treat depression or schizophrenia or bipolar or what have you.

There is evidence suggesting that people who identify with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth may do so not just due to psychological or behavioral causes, but also biological ones related to their genetics or exposure to hormones before birth. (Heylens, G; De Cuypere, G; Zucker, K; Schelfaut, C; Elaut, E; Vanden Bossche, H; De Baere, E; T'Sjoen, G (2012). "Gender Identity Disorder in Twins: A Review of the Case Report Literature". The Journal of Sexual Medicine. 8 (3): 751–757. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02567.x) This is to say, gender identity disassociation or discomfort are not simply caused by some underlying mental health issue, but may exist separate from that; therefore, depression/anxiety/etc are symptoms of the dysphoria, not the other way around.

My dysphoria manifests in a number of ways. There is great dissatisfaction with my body structure as a result of a lifetime of testosterone poisoning and its resultant modification of my secondary sex characteristics:

Body hair
Facial hair
Hair recession to the Caucasus
Male pattern genital hair
Broadening of chest/shoulders/neck
Squaring of chin
Fat distribution
Vocal range

and probably many more than I simply can't think of at the moment.

It sounds like I am describing a man's body when I type all of that, which seems to run counter to my assertion above that I do not have a man's body, but rather a woman's. The thing is...a wide range of these characteristics can be caused by a variety of conditions in AFAB woman, including polycystic ovary syndrome among other things. In at least the case of PcOS, these characteristics are caused by (gasp) elevated levels of androgens in the woman's system.

I'll let you mull that one over.

No, really.

I'll wait.

(pours some lemonade)

Moving back to the psychological...my depression does not cause my discomfort with my body. I am not trying to escape my problems by running from my old life and trying to create a new personality to hide in. My depression comes from the fact that society sees me one way (even, perhaps, when I am able to fully present femme) and that perception is at odds with my self-knowledge. Every time someone calls me sir, or he, or brother, or uncle, or by my deadname, it hammers in the fact that I am not seen as the person I really am, but rather as the person people want me to be.

It wears on you.

It grinds you down.

It becomes a huge millstone strapped to your back; unlike Sisyphus, however, there is no top of the hill to reach whereupon the stone will roll back down to have to be carried again. The hill is never ending.

My anxiety comes not from the discomfort of 'being trapped in the wrong body,' but instead from my inability to do daily things without judgmental looks and comments. Buying make up? Buying clothes? Trying on shoes? Walking around? Going to the bathroom? Going to the drug store? Do you know the number of places I actually feel safe going to by myself presenting in full? 2...my comic book store and my psychiatrist's office. I might be able to pull off my cardiologist...but I haven't asked if there would be an issue. I shouldn't feel I have to...but I do.

Otherwise, I won't go anywhere without someone. I can't. The fear gets far too great. I panic. I hyperventilate. I shake. I start crying.

My identity doesn't cause that.

Society causes that.

My depression comes from trying so hard for almost all of my life to try and be someone I was not. It comes from years of psychological and emotional abuse from someone I trusted, to the point that I started denying reality unless I was told something was real by my abuser. It comes from someone telling me I wasn't a 'real man' (well duh), that I'd never account for anything. It comes from being told 'you're too old, you'll never look like a girl.' It comes from so many places. It comes from places you wouldn't even expect, but perhaps you should.

To wit:

Every clique has a pecking order. You probably remember that from high school. While on the top your clique was all for one and one for all, the reality of things was generally far different from the intended theory. Someone always gravitated...or floated, rather...to the top. If you were lucky, that person didn't take advantage of that float. More often, they did. The same is true in the LGBTQIA+ community; there are decided cliques and power structures and power struggles even within that group of people being oppressed by a white cishet male power system, and there is a decided sense of 'once I get mine the rest of you can pound sand,' or 'I want mine because I deserve it, y'all have to wait.'

It's literally replacing one form of systemic dominance with another.

And quite frequently, the groups that get hardest...and I'm not even TRYING to factor in race or anything...are bisexuals and the trans community.

(Please don't ask me to try and put together a hierarchy of the community...I have feelings, and those feelings are that WOC and transwomen are at the absolute bottom, but I would think that, wouldn't I? I bet at least part of that is really true tho.)

 And it gets crazier when you consider that even within the trans community there's a hierarchy based on how long one has been out, how young they transitioned, passing privilege, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum unlimited rice pudding. It's every bit as possible...and very often, more likely...that you'll get dragged and attacked as hard if not harder by someone in your 'community' as without. And as bad as it feels for some rando to tell you you're ugly, not a real woman, a freak, it hurts a billionty and eleven times more when it comes from someone who in theory is supposed to have your back. How easy is it to feel despair when you don't even feel you have a community of like-minded people to go to when you need support?

And people wonder why I won't be a part of the trans support community.

My depression comes from my dysphoria...my dysphoria does not come from my depression.

~~~~~//||\\~~~~~

There's one additional thing I considered for this essay, but it really fits better in a different one that's in the works, so I'll hold off on it for a bit. This one is pretty lengthy and, as usual, fairly heavy even by my standards, so before I drive the despairmobile off depression cliff, I'll close things up. As always, I encourage questions and interaction; part of the purpose of this is to create launching pads for conversation to start.

Share it around if you found this of any use or interest, or think your friends might find something in this that would be enlightening.

See you all in a week or so.




(NB: as always, this is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)

Trans 101 With Julie - Interlogue 11 June 2017

I want to tell a story this morning before I lose myself in Azeroth. I should make this a blog entry, and I very may well in the future depending on how long this is, but we'll see. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long and bumpy ride.

~~~//||\\~~~

I have suffered from depression all my life. I mean the word suffer; at my worst I am suicidally nihilistic. It's always there, it's not something I escape from...even in my quietest moments there's a voice there telling me how much I don't deserve this. I have been depressed ever since I was in single digits...I was not a happy go lucky kid, I was not allowed to be part of things with other kids my age, and I gravitated to adults, who I could at least speak to and with on a similar kind of level.

The obvious thing here is that I knew even when I was little that something was terribly, horribly wrong, and that everyone made a huge mistake and thought I was a boy because of physical attributes, but try explaining that when you don't have the language to do so, when you are so deep in your self examination that you've turned yourself inside out.

I was hospitalised 3 or 4 times for varying degrees of suicidal ideation between 1990 and 200-something.

The first time I openly expressed my real identity was in the early 1990s. Having been exposed to RHPS after I went to college, I felt I could finally put words to the things I felt. could finally see that I was...well, I was still broken, but I could see there was maybe a way to put the pieces back together.

Cue Julie singing 'I know the pieces fit cos I watched them tumble down...'

I had a therapist, we'd talked extensively about me transitioning, she was calling me Julie (see how long I knew my name?), she was looking for a specialist for me so I could get the ball rolling on actually transitioning. She agreed with me that this was something I needed to do in order to rescue myself.

Abuse, emotional and psychological and external, kept me from doing that. I sublimated, subsumed, subverted, sub-everything-ed it.

I stopped seeing that therapist.

Another 10-ish years of abuse and gaslighting followed, interspersed with feeble attempts. 2000-ish I made a grab for the ring...and a few months later was diagnosed with lymphoma. 2008 everything had fallen apart in my personal life, the relationship if it could be called that was a farce, and I leaned again.
That's when I had my heart attack.

I have kept struggling. I have kept fighting. I started seeing a new therapist. She seemed amenable to dealing with my gender things...and other people at the mental health center certainly were...my psychiatrist and the staff on that side were, and are, amazing. But when it came time for a letter...she disappeared. I'd invested over a year in therapy for this, and in the space of 2 weeks it disappeared.

I was done.

I was so done.

I was already out here...I'd stopped hiding and lying here in July of '14. But I kind of reached the point that I was certain I'd be able to go no further.

I did some researching, but it was half assed. I emailed a few places, and never got any response back...including from the clinic in New Hope, where I'd pinned my hopes on going. The depression was hard core, and by this point I was on both an anti-depressant and a mood stabiliser/bipolar medication to keep me functional.

I sent one last e-mail out.

(Side note: I just took a look, because I have a weird tendency to keep stuff that I'd have no reason normally to keep...and I do in fact have the initial e-mail I sent out:

"Hi!

My name is Julie Knispel, and I'm a female identifying individual living in New Jersey, about an hour give or take from Philadelphia.  I've been researching clinics and service providers that might be able to assist me with my transitioning, including contra-hormonal therapy.  I've read a lot of very nice things about Mazzoni Center, your website looks awesome, and I wanted to reach out to find out how to make things...work, I guess?

I've known about my identity for a long time...adolescence, really, when my body did things that didn't quite equate out with what I expected it to.  Like a lot of people, I had a lot of issues understanding things, made worse by living in the middle of nowhere pre-internet and thus no way to look things up.  Add in generalised homophobia in my area (as in, loads of people ridiculing New Hope PA because of the strong LGBT presence there, and thus terrifying me even more), and it was a perfect storm of stuff.

I haven't self-medicated, tho I suppose it would come as no surprise that the thought passes my mind.  But I want...no, need...to do this right.

A lot of preface and prelude, and I am so sorry...nervousness 😊

Anyway...is there any info you can provide?  I'm at a point that I >need< to move forward.  It's tearing me apart inside having to deal with the soup of stuff that feels so ick inside me.

Thank you SO much for any info and advice you can offer."

Side note ends.)

And 2 days later I had a response from Mazzoni in Philadelphia with attachments and info and an actual friendly sounding voice in the e-mail...

>>> Hello Julie,
Thank you for contacting Mazzoni Center! I know it can be difficult to reach out, but I am so glad that you did. My name is Abby Roh, and I am the Trans Care Services intern at our family practice health clinic. I would be happy to try and answer questions that you have. I’m going to include a lot of information in this email about our services so that ideally you’ll be fully prepared when you come to us for care. <<<

I had a feeling. I really did. I tried not to get my hopes up because they'd been dashed against the rocks SO MANY TIMES, but I wanted to believe. I really did. And they said 'when you come to us for care,' as if it were a foregone conclusion, that they knew they were the right choice for me.

So I called. I was scared, and shaking, and so afraid I'd be told over the phone 'no sorry you don't sound trans enough buhbye.'

I got a friendly voice on the phone, who spent like 30 minutes with me. They sat there, answered my questions, were patient when I got weepy, and I decided to make an appointment.

At which point I was told the first appointments were 6 months out.

And I nearly lost it.

This was the closest I had ever been, and I suddenly felt the ring being pulled away.

I leapt...because if I fell, it would be OK, there'd be no other reason to carry on anyway.

I scheduled the appointment.

Six months later, I walked into a clinic in Philadelphia with my friend Gillian. She sat with me through the whole thing...added insight and stuff to the doctors and social workers, who were amazed someone I'd gone to prom with in HS as a boy would do this for someone.

I walked out of there that day with a script for aldactone.

One month later I had my first script for estradiol.

I still need my antidepressant and my mood stabiliser.

But here's the important thing.

Estradiol is what is saving my life.

I don't disassociate, I don't feel like a shell moving through life like some automaton. I feel like a human being.

I feel.

That's the big true thing. I feel. And yes, those feelings can be intense. When I laugh sometimes I don't know when or how to stop because it's something that continues to be new and I have no basis of a lifetime of emotional knowledge to understand. And I cry, but the tears are less a way to get out the fact that I am in agony so I can continue to not feel and more an expression of everything. I cry when I'm happy because it's so intense and pure that it shocks me into being unable to do anything else. I cry when I'm sad because it's so real. I cry when I see beautiful things, hear beautiful things, because they are so emotionally true.

This bottle is what is saving my life.

And when I got this filled at the clinic's pharmacy, and saw my very first pill bottle with MY name on it?

I cried.

And laughed.

And for the first time in my life, I felt I HAD a life.

~~~//||\\~~~

If, as they say, the past is a foreign country (and it truly is), it is also true that what's past is prologue. And I tell my prologue in order to say this:

If you're on HRT, you know these feelings, because you've prolly had similar ones.

If you're not, but are going to be...it's going to get so much better. It really is. Trust me.

And if you're not and don't need to be...it might be difficult to understand, and I'm not sure I have a good metaphor, save to maybe say that finally having the proper hormones in me is like finally finding the one missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle you never bring out cos you can't finish it, only now you can and the picture is beautiful.

Estradiol is saving my life.

And it gets better.

Thanks for hanging with me on this. I'ma go pretend I'm a blood elf in black plate armour smashing demons in the face with my swords that are 40% longer than I am tall, cos I'm hardcore.



(NB: as always, this is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)

Some really amazingly cute/cool artwork

I woke up this morning to a post from a dear friend (and sister) on Facebook showcasing these drawings from an artist named Mochiron.

To quote Cecil Baldwin from the very first episode of Welcome to Night Vale...

"And I fell in love instantly."

So I had to share. These are amazing. And. Also. The artist made a demisexuality one! This makes me impossibly incredibly happy!

I hope you like them as much as I do!

You ca check the artist's work out here: https://www.facebook.com/mochirondesu/

Trans

Demisexuality

Gay/Lesbian

Aesexuality

Pansexuality

Genderfluid

Bisexuality

AmeriKate

America Chavez is one of my fave Marvel Comics characters (along with Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Kamala Khan/Ms Marvel, Jane Foster/Thor, Angela, Sera, Nadia Pym/Wasp, Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen hey wait I detect a theme here).

Kate Bishop/Hawkeye is pretty awesome too.

I want the two of them as a couple. In canon. Not fic.

Here's a pic I found.

It gives me smiles.

Trans 101 With Julie, Lesson 6: What to Expect When You're Expecting (HRT, that is)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the latest in our now apparently more regularly regular series of barely cogent rambles I am calling my Trans 101 series. Yes, I know this installment's title is clickbaity as damn. Yes, you really should be expecting me to be tawdry and quirky by now. No, I'm not sorry.

This time around, we're going to be taking a closer in-depth look at one of the major parts of male to female transition...contra-hormonal therapy (CHT). I like that phrase more than just calling it hormone replacement therapy (HRT) because I am fancy and like big words. In reality, it all means the same thing...you're replacing the poison in your system (in my case, testosterone) with super happy girl juice (in my case)...estrogen and (sometimes) progesterone.

As we go through this essay, we'll be looking at how CHT/HRT affects and effects you, both in the short term and in the long term.

Without further ado to do, let's do the dew.

~~~//||\\~~~

What is the purpose of male-to-female contra-hormonal therapy?

I'm glad you asked!

The purpose of this form of HRT is to cause the development of the secondary sex characteristics of the desired sex, such as breasts and a feminine pattern of hair, fat, and muscle distribution. It cannot undo many of the changes produced by naturally occurring puberty, which may necessitate surgery and other treatments. The medications used in HRT of the MTF type include estrogens, antiandrogens, and progestogens.

While HRT cannot undo the effects of a person's first puberty, developing secondary sex characteristics associated with a different gender can relieve some or all of the distress and discomfort associated with gender dysphoria, and can help the person to "pass" or be seen as the gender they identify with. Introducing exogenous hormones into the body impacts it at every level and many patients report changes in energy levels, mood, appetite, etc. The goal of HRT is to provide patients with a more satisfying body that is more congruent with their gender identity.

This regimen does a number of things over varying lengths of time, and to differing degrees from person to person. A huge number of variables contribute to the efficacy of CHT/HRT; these include but are far from limited to, the following:

Age beginning CHT/HRT
Genetics
General health
Naturally occurring hormone levels (i.e., Julie already has sub normal serum testosterone prior to beginning any of her HRT)
Dosage and specific types of medications used
Methodology of intake
...
...prolly a dozen more variables I can't think of because damn it Jim I'm a transgirl not an endocrinologist!

Taking all of that into account, let's look at some of the amazing things hormones will do for me:

~~~//||\\~~~

EARLY EFFECTS: 1–3 months after starting CHT/HRT

•  softening of skin
The uppermost layer of skin becomes thinner and more translucent. Spider veins may appear or be more noticeable as a result. Collagen decreases, and tactile sensation increases. The skin becomes softer, more susceptible to tearing and irritation from scratching or shaving, and slightly lighter in color because of a slight decrease in melanin.

Sebaceous gland activity lessens, reducing oil production on the skin and scalp. Consequently, the skin becomes less prone to acne. It also becomes drier, and lotions or oils may be necessary. The pores become smaller because of the lower quantities of oil being produced. Many sweat glands become inactive, and body odor decreases. Remaining body odor becomes less metallic, sharp, or acrid, and more sweet and musky.

There is a reason it's a cliché that we like moisturiser. That reason is we need it. Yeah, it smells awesome, and yeah it makes our gradually softer, smoother skin feel even more lovely, but without it out skin will crack and be very ouch-ridden indeed. I mean, not to the degree of Lady Cassandra from Doctor Who, but not in any happy way whatsoever.

More importantly, at least from a comfort level...sweat glands become less active, and we stop smelling like guys. That second one sounds weird, doesn't it? But it's true. There's no longer that sort of acidic man smell, and a softer, almost sweeter scent. And yeah, it gets more sensitive to the touch.

My understanding is that the skin even tastes different.

Not that I...you know...taste skin or anything.

* clears throat *

Anyway...

The skin change is a very cool and good thing, even for those of us who have semi-somewhat-almost-kinda-verging on ok-skin.

And despite the fact that this isn't happening...yet...I do love my moisturiser.

•  decrease in muscle mass and increase in body fat
HRT causes a reduction in muscle mass and distribution towards female proportions.

Don't like your big muscular chest and shoulders? Can't stand your over-sized quads from leg press sets at 600 pounds? Don't worry, that will start reducing. No, you won't suddenly get smaller shoulders structurally...your bones aren't going to magically shrink. But without weight training, muscle definition will decrease. Muscle mass will decrease. You'll lose some of your blockish or possibly triangular shape (i.e., broad shoulders tapering to a thinner waist.

Now...if you're younger...if a transgirl is younger, and bone growth is not complete, some of what I just said does go out the window, because bones WILL adjust somewhat. The pelvis will widen, etc. But that is very much an age-specific thing. Once your bones have finished growing, outside of losing bone mass due to age or osteoporosis (yes, you need to make sure you take calcium and D3 supplements), your bones are your bones are your bones.

•  redistribution of body fat to a more “feminine” pattern
The distribution of adipose (fat) tissue changes slowly over months and years. HRT causes the body to accumulate new fat in a typically feminine pattern, including in the hips, thighs, buttocks, pubis, upper arms, and breasts. (Fat on the hips, thighs, and buttocks has a higher concentration of omega-3 fatty acids and is meant to be used for lactation.) The body begins to burn old adipose tissue in the waist, shoulders, and back, making those areas smaller.

Do you want a booty?

You'll start getting one.

Hallelujah praise the lord.

You'll also get hippier (or, if you've never been hip, at least somewhat hip). You'll lose more of your thickness in your waist and shoulders, and pick up more in the thighs (replacing the muscle mass you'll be shifting) and breast areas. Basically? Welcome to puberty point two. If you're still in puberty point one, these changes will be much more dramatic...but it'll still be there for those of us who are full grown adults and ostensibly the captains of our fate. Obviously a load of other factors come into play here above and beyond age, but this is one area where we start seeing things that can really help with our image and dysphoria issues.

•  decrease in sex drive
Some transgender women report a significant reduction in libido, depending on the dosage of antiandrogens. A small number of post-operative transgender women take low doses of testosterone to boost their libido. Many pre-operative transgender women wait until after reassignment surgery to begin an active sex life. Raising the dosage of estrogen or adding a progestogen raises the libido of some transgender women.

Welp.

See, here's the thing...and yes, I am obviously telling this from Real Life Adventures With Julie, issue 27: The TMI Special. It's now out at comic book stores everywhere, with 5 exclusive variant covers. Collect them all.

Julie is demisexual. This means that sexual attraction is a thing that can only happen with someone she is exceptionally close to. Demisexuality is part of the aesexual spectrum...it's a form of grey-ace sexuality. There are lots of times I didn't want sex even before starting meds. Wanna cuddle me, hug me, touch me, kiss me? Yes please, hell I'll even bring the strawberries, chocolate and salty chips.

Yes, when the mood strikes, I want it. Who doesn't?

But it doesn't drive me. And it drives me less now.

This obviously CAN be an issue. And there are ways of working with this. But absolutely it can be a very difficult issue to deal with if you are not on the aesexuality spectrum. It may be the cause of depression, anxiety and angst. I will never say otherwise. And I also know that the plural of anecdote is not data, but...I know a surprising number of transwomen (shock, I know), and they are on wildly different parts of the expressway. For some, the idea that they are not driven by the impulse to have sex is helpful, and they know that when the mood hits they're ready for where it follows. Others have told me post GCS that they enjoy getting to know and understand their changed body and how it reacts to things. And some have told me that they're just as easily turned on by a light breeze as ever.

So mileage may, and will, vary. Make cure to check your fluid levels at all times, and it's a good idea to keep an extra quart of oil in your trunk. Just in case.

Those may or may not be entendres. Not even double, because hey, do you expect anything other than by this point?

•  fewer instances of waking up with an erection or spontaneously having an erection; some MTFs also find their erections are less firm during sex, or can’t get erect at all
Spontaneous and morning erections decrease significantly in frequency, although some patients who have had an orchiectomy still experience morning erections. Voluntary erections may or may not be possible, depending on the amount of hormones and/or antiandrogens being taken.

Oh the horror.

Actually, it's not really.

Ar at least, not for me.

Listen...I don't like thinking about them, OK? I don't like being reminded they're there. Imagine going through puberty certain that you'll wake up one day and your outie will finally have become the innie you know you're supposed to have...but it never does. It's not easy. It's not fun. I can, and probably will, write a whole piece on how much hell puberty was on me as changes happened to me that I couldn't control, that turned me into something I knew I wasn't, that I desperately tried to adjust to because I figured I had to and which drove me further down the pit to the point that I was looking into the abyss.

(Yes...as a teen I did read my Nietzsche, thank you for noticing.)

Being blessed with normally pre-HRT low serum testosterone, the whole erection thing has always been a bit of a sticky wicket, and that came with the frontal lobe knowledge that it was there and thus problematic. Not having it be an ur-drive for me? Not having that primal urge of MUST WANK NOW RARRRGH is an amazing thing. I can function and go for days and days without even once thinking 'Julie has penis, Julie must use.'

It's fucking LIBERATING.

The down side is, if the urge actually does hit, it's more difficult to get to the Summerlands. How and ever, I've found that eve when those urges hit, I don't need to, cos just the rest feels pretty damned good and I don't need to really go over the top.

•  decreased ability to make sperm and ejaculatory fluid
HRT can cause infertility, eventually leading to chemically induced aspermatogenesis. The reversibility of this effect may depend on the duration of treatment. HRT of the MTF type is not a substitute for other birth control methods.

PLEASE NOTE AND THIS IS SO IMPORTANT I AM PUTTING THIS FIRST AFTER THE CLINICAL STUFF:

HRT is NOT a substitute for birth control!

I repeat:

HRT is NOT a substitute for birth control!

Yes, you can be transitioning to female, and on estrogen and spironolactone, and you can STILL get someone pregnant! Practice safe sex! In fact, not only is HRT not a replacement for safe sex, it does NOT protect you from venereal diseases! So...PRACTICE SAFE SEX!

Now...

There is a massive difference between puberty blockers and CHT/HRT. The idea of puberty blockers, and I am bringing this up because it seems to be a somewhat controversial thing among a certain subset of the community (read: conservative alt-right Whiteites), is that it stops the body's natural puberty process so a pre-teen or teen has the ability to work with their identity prior to puberty causing permanent changes to all the secondary sex characteristics we've talked about. Puberty blockers are 100% reversible, and they do not cause sterility.

Now, part deux...

The changes due to CHT/HRT, while in some cases reversible, because more murky here. It is possible that stopping HRT will bring back fertility and motive functioning spermatozoa. However, in many cases, infertility is permanent. The appearance of semen will change...it will become thinner, less milky, and lesser in productive volume. It will be harder to actually achieve ejaculatory orgasm. For me, this isn't even a thing...I very rarely feel the need or desire to actually peak in that manner, and the less I have to think about those bits the happier I am quite frankly. Ancillary to this, I was already sterile before any meds became involved, so the idea that I'd become sterile is more of a 'welp,' than a 'OMG BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES THERE'S A STORM A BREWIN!'

If you think at some point that you want kids, and you are not sterile in advance of starting HRT, talk to your doctor about banking sperm. That way, when or if the day comes that you want to pass down your genetic legacy to a wee one, you can do so. I really recommend considering this...I know it's a cost, but if it's something you feel is important, do not remain quiet about it.

•  emotional changes
This is important to mention: EMOTIONS ARE NOT PERSONALITY! Just because your emotions may (or may not) be affected by CHT/HRT that does not mean your personality will! Likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, et cetera...all those things are determined by who you are, not what chemicals you have coursing through your system. So often I hear people freak that the whole person disappears and some stranger shows up in the same place, and that's really so far from the truth.

Do some people change things? I'm sure they do. I'm sure for some people, the cleaner the break from the past the easier it is to carry on in their proper gender. But it's not the hormones doing that...it's a conscious change. It's internal, sure...but don't blame it on estrogen and spiro, or testosterone.
Also, and this is equally important to mention...in fact, so much so that I am using this text from a booklet provided by Vancouver Coastal Health, Transcend Transgender Support & Education Society and Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition:

“Many people experience positive emotional changes with hormone therapy.  But you’ll likely find, after the excitement wears off and you’ve incorporated the changes into your day-to-day life, that if you were shy you’re still shy, if you didn’t like your laugh you still don’t, and you’re still afraid of spiders.  Whatever things you think of as your strengths and weaknesses will still be there. Hopefully, you will be happier, and that is good for anyone. Hormone therapy may help you to be more accepting of yourself. But if you are expecting that all your problems will pass away, and that everything is going to be easy emotionally and socially from here on in, you’re probably going to be disappointed. 

This extends to mental health concerns as well. Trans people who were depressed because of gender dysphoria may find that taking hormones greatly alleviates their depression. However, if you have depression caused by biological factors, the stresses of transphobia or unresolved personal issues, you may still be depressed after you start hormones. Likewise, if you are having problems with drugs or alcohol, hormones will not necessarily get rid of those problems.”

HRT is a godsend. It truly is. But it is not a magic potion. It is not a cure all. It is a part...a VERY IMPORTANT PART...of proper health case for trans people. So many other things play a role too, and all need to be considered together holistically.

~~~//||\\~~~

GRADUAL CHANGES: 1-2 years after starting CHT/HRT

•  nipple and breast growth
Breast, nipple, and areolar development usually takes 4–6 years to complete, depending on genetics, and sometimes as long as 10 years. It is normal for there to be a "stall" in breast growth during transition, or for one breast to be somewhat larger than the other. Transgender women on HRT often experience less breast development than cisgender women, and many seek breast augmentation; it is rare for an HRT patient to opt for breast reduction. Shoulder width and the size of the rib cage also play a role in the perceivable size of the breasts; both are usually larger in transgender women, causing the breasts to appear proportionally smaller. Thus, when a transgender woman opts to have breast augmentation, the implants used tend to be larger than those used by cisgender women.
Oh dear.

Breast growth.

How will I EVER manage having breasts.

Please wait as I LOL.

* LOLS *

There, better.

Results here vary. If you are young and starting HRT before puberty is over, you will have much more prominent results. Even taking that into consideration, estrogen will cause breath development and growth to anyone. Yes, many transwomen do opt to have augmentation done as well to help as the broader masculine skeletal framework means that breasts will seem smaller and further apart, but breasts will occur.

Some AMAB have breast development before any HRT...or even if they're cisgender and AMAB. Some medications can cause gynecomastia. Kleinfelter Syndrome, a kind of karotype trisomy (XXY male), can result in breast development, and I'm honestly not sure if this would be considered an intersex condition or not.

The point is, breast development happens. This is huge for us. It really is. The more our bodies redevelop to exhibit the characteristics we know they should have, the easier it is to manage all the beautiful side effects that come with our permanent subscription to trans life magazine, like dysphoria and depression and everything else. Those things never go away...not fully...but when things are rough, we do have boobs to play with.

•  slower growth of facial and body hair
Body hair (on the chest, shoulders, back, abdomen, buttocks, thighs, tops of hands, and tops of feet) turns, over time, from terminal ("normal") hairs to tiny, blonde vellus hairs. Arm, perianal, and perineal hair is reduced but may not turn to vellus hair on the latter two regions (some cisgender women also have hair in these areas). Underarm hair changes slightly in texture and length, and pubic hair becomes more typically female in pattern. Lower leg hair becomes less dense. All of these changes depend to some degree on genetics.

There's not a single bad thing here. Really.

Listen...I know everyone's hair is different. Some women have very fine, light hair even if their head hair is thick and lush and black as a piece of volcanic glass. But when one considers that AMAB can often find themselves looking more like Gorilla beringei beringei than...well, not...anything we can do to lighten the texture, length, colour and density of body hair. It makes laser hair removal or electrolysis easier. When one considers the irritation of those procedures (skin reddening, inflammation, irritation, et cetera), anything that helps make it more tolerable is a positive.

And for those of us who don't want to buy stock in Nair or a razor blade company...or at least, not any more than we already have...this is a big plus. Plus no icky caustic chemicals sitting on your skin. Win win win.

•  slowed or stopped “male”-pattern balding
Head hair may change slightly in texture, curl, and color. This is especially likely with hair growth from previously bald areas. Eyebrows, however, do not change because they are not androgenic.

Yay for the ending or slowening of MPB.

I know slowening is not a word. It is now.

Testosterone does horrible things to our hair. My hairline is making a strategic advance to the rear in the Caucasus on a daily basis. There is sweet fuck all I ca do about this. CHT will help slow or stop this.

Will lost hair grow back?

It depends.

Genetics play a huge part in this. I come back to that a lot. But it's true...your genes will contribute in a significant way to how well your receded hair grows back or not. Some people have exhibited some very nice, or even amazing results. Other people don't get much result at all. Anti-androgens such as spironolactone help block 5α-dihydrotestosterone (5α-DHT), a hormone that contributes to male pattern baldness. Combined, there's the potential for things to get better.

I'm still gonna rely on my wigs tho.

Even if I can finally pull my hair back in a tail now.

•  decrease in testicular size
Testicle volume is reduced by about 25% with typical dosages and as much as 50% with higher dosages, especially after a year of HRT. When testosterone is dramatically reduced, spermatogenesis is halted almost completely, and when the cells that are involved in these processes go unused, they atrophy.

The prostate and bladder shrink. The line that runs down the underside of the penis and down the middle of the scrotum darkens. Minor water retention is likely, but spironolactone tends to counter this effect because it is a diuretic.
If your baby batter factory is making less product, it's gonna shut down manufacturing lines. It's as simple as that. This very much plays in with the things I discussed above with regard to decreased ability to make sperm and ejaculatory fluid, and so I'll repeat what I said there:

“If you think at some point that you want kids, and you are not sterile in advance of starting HRT, talk to your doctor about banking sperm. That way, when or if the day comes that you want to pass down your genetic legacy to a wee one, you can do so. I really recommend considering this...I know it's a cost, but if it's something you feel is important, do not remain quiet about it.”

Additionally, take it from someone on spiro...you will pee a lot. Add in the wonders of estrogen, and you will pee so much you'll be afraid that you'll dry up and blow away. Because spironolactone is a potassium sparing diuretic, you'll have the urge to eat lots of salty things to make up for the salt you're peeing out. Your fluid intake will go up (and it's a good idea to anyway, cos it's healthier for you), and you will pee a lot. A LOT. Get used to it. It's your new normal.

Oh...and you'll have to lay off the potassium. No more, or many many fewer, bananas. High potassium and electrolyte imbalance will cause nasty cramping. It's not fun. Be careful and smart.


Other side effects:
These are important to mention, even though these are side effects we don't want to see. My...your...body is going to go through a metric tonne of changes, and it's very important to understand that they may not all be wonderful. It's important to be aware of the following:

Estrogen can contribute to increased rates of blood clotting. Deep vein thrombosis occurs more frequently in the first year of treatment with estrogens.
Estrogens may increase the risk of gallbladder disease, especially in older and obese people.

Your metabolic rate may change, causing an increase or decrease in weight and energy levels, changes to sleep patterns, and temperature sensitivity.
Androgen deprivation leads to slower metabolism and a loss of muscle tone.
Migraines can be made worse or unmasked by estrogen therapy.

 HRT in transgender women does not appear to increase the risk of breast cancer. Similarly to the case of breast cancer, prostate cancer is extremely rare in transgender women who have been treated with HRT for a prolonged period of time. But you will need to check your breasts regularly just like any cisgender/AFAB woman.

Estrogens can also cause prolactinomas. Milk discharge from the nipples can be a sign of elevated prolactin levels. If a prolactinoma becomes large enough, it can cause visual changes (especially decreased peripheral vision), headaches, depression or other mood changes, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and symptoms of pituitary failure, like hypothyroidism.

There's a reason why once you're on HRT you get regular labs drawn and see your prescribing attending doctor frequently. It's not to get money out of you...it's to help monitor things, adjust dose as necessary, and to pick up issues before they become critical or terminal.

~~~//||\\~~~

This has been quite long, and there's a lot of clinical stuff in here, but it's all important to know. I get a lot of questions asking about how HRT makes someone feel, or what the side effects are, or 'have you woken up with a spontaneously generated vagina and uterus yet?' or 'my daughter identifies as a squirrel what HRT does she have to go on ha ha ha?' and I'm hoping that some of this is useful knowledge to have around, so when someone you know is going through this, you know some of what they may be feeling or experiencing.

And if you're one of those talking about squirrels, well...don't let the door hit ya where the lord split ya, as I say.

Thanks for making it all the way through this lengthy bit of info. I'll see you next time with more Trans 101 With Julie.

Au revoir. Auf wiedersehen. Adios. And other farewells as well.






(This is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)

Trans 101 With Julie – A Is For Affirmation, That's Good Enough for Me

Good afternoon and welcome back to Trans 101 with Julie. I am Julie, your gracious hostess with the mostest...and by mostest I mean snacks and sodas. Pull up a spot on the comfy couch, help yourself to the crisps and drinks and settle in. There's plenty of salt and pickles to go around, so no need to be stingy.

Let's face it, people...right now, life is rough. We're not even 10 days in on an administration that is dead set and determined to try and tear apart every bit of progress that our society has made over the last 8 or so years. Believe me, I understand all too well how much it sucks, I feel what you're feeling, and I will neither tell you you're wrong for feeling what you feel, nor will I tell you to stop feeling it. All your feelings are valid and appropriate, and this is a space you can definitely know that it's safe to be yourself.

Now, having said that...there are small things we can do for ourselves and for each other that will help. Maybe this will only be in small ways, mind...but sometimes, small beautiful events are what life is all about. So, having said that...

...let's talk about affirmations.

Affirmations come...can come...from all sorts of directions. It's wonderful, of course, to have someone outside you affirm your existence positively, but right now, we need to find those affirmations for ourselves more than ever. I'm going to discuss some of the things I've done, and do, and while individually these may seem tiny, and in some cases very much reinforcing of the binary, they are things that make me feel (usually) a thousand times better than I did before.

~~~//||\\~~~

1) Heels.
OK. I know. Walking in heels can hurt. I know, trust me. 6 or 8 hours in heels and I feel it. I get it.

But.

There is a sense of power for me every time I hear the sound that a heel makes when it comes down. It's a series of little affirmations that remind me that I'm so strong that I will allow myself to be myself...that I will not let anyone stop me from becoming more wholly every day the person I am. In a way, it's very like the sound of plates of armour clanking as a knight moves forward. It's a sound of strength. It's my armour.

I have a pair of black strappy pumps that my dear friend Sara gifted me (along with a awesome pair of Nike running shoes, which are my day to day shoes these days), and a pair of black ankle boots. Right now, being winter, the ankle boots get worn whenever I have the opportunity to. They're comfy, and they look good, and honestly, in my finer moments, I will go as far as to say they make my legs and ass look great. And while I went through a period when I started wearing heels that I tried my damnedest to not bring attention to me wearing them, now? I make sure I'm heard.

It doesn't hurt that I'm like 6 foot 2, 6 foot 3 when I'm in heels.

So yes...heels are a biggie. And no, I don't have to wear them all the time. I don't feel the need to. But I feel great when I wear them. And the thing is...like for anyone else...I get to CHOOSE if I want to wear them. And having that choice feels great.


2) Makeup.
Bout...2 years ago, I think, I went to spend the day in Frenchtown NJ with my friend Sara. I'd been out to her for a long time, but I had decided to actually go out in public wearing some makeup for the first time. I don't remember a lot about that day, save that it was amazing in every way. I think that might have been the day of the magical fairy unicorn dress, but...

Makeup is huge. It really is.

For SO many of us, it's the first thing we can do for ourselves that allows us to feel even a little bit more like us. A little eye-shadow...a very pale lipstick...even clear nail polish. No one might even see it, or comment on it, but when we go out in public...again, it's like a halo of protection. It's that step towards ourselves.

So often trans women find themselves caught between Scylla and Charybdis...if we play up to the binary and act/look very femme, we're mocked for being the stereotype uberfemme, and thus are clearly just playing a fetish. How and ever, if we don't, we're not making the effort and obviously aren't who we say we are. Eve though there's 3, 520, 000, 000 ways to be a woman (hey, that's roughly the number of women in the world today how about that?), we have to be one way. But not too much that way.

Can you follow that? Because I can't.

I love makeup. I love having my nails done. I love wearing eye-shadow and mascara. And my rue of thumb for lipstick is 'everything darker than everything else,' a.k.a. 'How much more dark can it be? And the answer is none. None more dark.' You've seen it here in my selfies. Dark eyes, dark lips, call me Báthory Erzsébet.

I also keep my nails cut super short...in part because of the work I do, in part because my nails are fragile and chip easily, but also because I like short nails and think mine look even more great when they're short. There may be other functional reasons for it (cough cough), but...short nails, yo. And sometimes I only do eye-shadow. I'm still learning eyeliner...and for every one time I get it right, there's 10 times threatening my eyeliner brush that I'll sacrifice it to someone if it doesn't get its act together.

Friday, I posted that I'd been struggling emotionally, and I had a psych appointment that morning. I dragged myself to the bathroom, 'scaped my face, and did eye-shadow and lips, and when I was brushing my hair before tailing it, looked in the mirror and seriously did a double take before saying 'Hmm...I almost look presentable today.' Sometimes that's all it takes to get myself out of the ditch.

It's...it's a way for me to mentally prepare myself for the day, and affirm to the outside world as well as to ME that I am who I am. And it may be a small thing to you, but to me? It's huge.


3) Bras/Lingerie.
OK OK OK.

If you think this is gonna get all saucy, you can just reel in your expectations right now, Sunny Jim or Jane. Me not that kind of Orc...

Um...

I mean...

Well, OK, I AM that kind of girl, but that is neither here nor there.

Let me start up top, OK?

All of her life, Julie has had gynecomastia. That's almost a misnomer in this case cos, you know, Hi I'm Julie I'm a girl, but...Julie has been boobilicious for a decent swath of her life. Meds have really only served to make what my mama gave me a bit more bountiful than they were naturally. I have more than a handful, and I would love them to be more than a handful plus, but...we're working on it, OK? Point is, Julie can wear a bra. And she does.

Now, I know what a lot of you may think. Y'all can't stand them, and can't wait to take them off at the end of the day. I won't lie, after 8 hours I often feel the same way. But...considering what I've gone through to get here...consider that for me, getting to wear one is FUCKING HUGE. Knowing it's on under my shirt or hoodie? You have NO idea how nice it feels, how it makes me feel inside. Despite what I have I do boost the girls up a little with two small silicone cutlets...nothing egregious like I see for some people, but just a little bit. And it's just...

How to explain?

OK. I run from work to 7-11 for a coke Slurpee, because I am a delicate feminine flower that requires coke Slurpees to survive. And I can feel the little bit of pull. And I can look down and see some bounce. And there are times, and I am not embarrassed to admit this, there are times that I will stand in place and hop on my heels a little just because of that bounce and pull. And it's such a huge boost for me. It's massive to look down and see the outline of breasts under my shirt. It's amazing to sit in my room after work in sweats and my bra and just feel...one with everything. It's the most natural thing in the world. It's something that feels 100% right. And maybe it's because it's something I had to come by on my own that I feel so strongly about this, but...there it is.

The same can be said for other bits of fundament. Obviously I have fitting complications that aren't taken into consideration when it comes to fit and stuff, but wearing something cute and maybe a little sexy can mean a world of difference for me emotionally. Wearing knickers or a bra or whatever isn't something sexual (unless, of course, I am wearing them when I am having super happy fun time with she who has chosen me)...I'm not a fetishist who gets her jollies by wearing cross-gendered undies...mostly because these aren't cross-gendered, they're correct gendered and why do clothes even have genders anyway have any of us asked them how they like to be gender identified I think NOT ladles and jellyspoons and other dining utensils that are neither ladles nor jellyspoons I mean come on REALLY.

(breathes)

Point is, it helps me feel more like me. It's another form of armour. And I realise I keep coming back to armour as a metaphor for these affirmative things, which seems very militant. Thing is, they are protective for me. I know that they off-balance people who aren't sure who or what I am. I know from experience that when I am out with friends and I have gone the full mile (hair, makeup, skirt, boots, etc.) the majority of people who pass me don't pay a second more notice than I think they would anyone else. If I'm wearing jeans and my pink hoodie, no hair, but makeup, there are looks...and I don't care. No one says anything, or if they do they mutter quietly enough that I don't hear. And if that unbalances them enough that they keep silent, then the armour worked.

Besides...do you really want to mess with the 6 foot 3 in heeled boots, 200 pound red-haired Valkyrie threatening you with a plastic spork?
I think not.

~~~//||\\~~~

Here's another thing:

Each of these has brought me more confidence in other ways.

When I was a teenager, and experimenting with makeup for the first time, I was scared to death of even looking at the makeup department at the store for fear that someone would figure me out. You do not want to know the number of absolutely horrific colour choices I made in my misspent youth trying to get in and out as fast as possible...going to stores 30 miles away so I'd never have to go back there again...

Now?

Fuck that...I stomp into the makeup aisle at CVS and fuck with everything. Yeah, I'm buying an eye-shadow palette...you got a problem with that? Well, you should say something...because let me tell you, those colours are totally wrong for you, and I have some recommendations.

Shoes...you don't want to know how many heart attacks I had trying to sneak to try them on without someone noticing the 'guy' is trying on a pair of knee high boots. Admittedly, my last boots I bought online, but I have no fear now.

Same with lingerie. I'm not bothered when I'm trying to pick knickers that I like. Next time I need new bras? Pfft, go ahead and stare. They're nice now and they're gonna get even nicer with spiro and estrogen.

Am I like this all the time?

Hell no.

There are days that none of this helps. There are days I don't want to get out of bed. There are days I just want t hide away from everything and everyone, where even the sound of my voice reminds me how I know the rest of the world sees me even in the absence of evidence to prove that. None of these affirmations are 100% foolproof for me.

But they help.

They help so much.

And as awesome as it is when a friend says something nice about a selfie I posted...the momentary feeling of looking at that pic and saying 'You know...I see me there.' linger. And I can go back, and look at those pictures when I am feeling particularly down, and remember how I felt at that moment.
And that is the best affirmation of all.

~~~//||\\~~~

Thanks for reading along with me today, and I hope you come away with a bit better understanding of some of the things I use to help build me up on some days.

I'll see you back here next time for more Trans 101 with Julie




(This is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)

Because it's true...

Trans 101 With Julie: The A in LGBTQIA does NOT mean ally

Hello.

Welcome back to another installment of Trans 101 With Julie. I am the titular Julie.

I have spent the better part of the past 24 hours mulling some thing over, and trying to come up with a way to discuss things without resorting to vaguebooking or doing the essay length version of subtweeting. I'm still not sure I've come up with the best way to achieve this, but let's work our way through the mine field that is Julie's brain, OK?

We'll start our little excursion here:

white feminism: A brand of feminism centered around the ideals and struggles of primarily white women. While not outright exclusive, its failure to consider other women and its preoccupation with Western standards and the problems faced by the "average woman" is often alienating to women of color, non-straight women, trans women, and women belonging to religious or cultural minorities.

When I say...and I do...that I loathe white feminism, this is what I mean. You can be white, and a feminist, and not be a white feminist. I know lots of white feminists who don't practice white feminism...they are aware of the unique problems, oppressions, and lived experiences of people outside their social bubble, and ready to step back and ensure that those unique things are noticed and spoken about.

I have seen some pictures that equate the A in LGBTQIA+ as 'ally,' and it makes me sick. It's centering. It's stating that a cisgender or heterosexual ally is an integrated integral part of the community, that their experiences are the same as ours. And that is filled with so many falsehoods that I don't even know where to start.

I have made no small reference to the fact that I do not like ‘allies.’ I don't like the word ally. For me, this is what ally means: you're someone who talks the talk, but when it's time to walk the walk, you shrink back. You post all kinds of stuff all over the place about things, but when it's time to put money where mouth is, silence ensues. While we're out there living our lives and experiencing things you can't understand but might be able to at least see if you weren't busy posting the latest cause you're supporting, you're...talking about how people have so much more to learn.

I'd laugh if I wasn't crying.

Or is it I'd cry if I wasn't already laughing?

It's hard to tell sometimes.

I do not exist to make people feel better about themselves. I do not exist to placate and coddle. I exist to exist, to live my life as safely and fully as possible, and to evolve from the pupal stage I was in for far too long into the person I have always been but hid away under lock and key. If someone steps out of their lane, steps into my lane, and starts telling me how I should interact with them, expecting anything other than a slap back is disingenuous beyond reckoning. I won't be polite. I won't be kind. I'll call you out on your bullshit, and I will call you what you are. I won't be belittled, I will not be denigrated, and I will not stand for being told I'm rude for 'talking down' to someone, or that I haven't earned their respect. I don't want respect that is only given for fitting someone's societal norms.

Someone that really cares for people in a community do certain things. In my mind, these things include, but certainly aren't limited to, the following:

1) They listen twice as much as they speak. I have a saying I live by, and that's 'I have 2 ears and 1 mouth...that tells me how I should act.'
2) They speak with, not for. They amplify our voices, they don't speak in lieu of us.
3) They listen when we say something is ignorant, offensive, or hateful. When one of my friends says something is racist, I trust in their lived experiences that it is what they say it is. This has tripped me up in the past, and I felt horrible about it. I've learned and trust those voices. Basically I don't act as if their knowledge and experience is less important than my opinion.
4) They collect their own. They tell their social group when something is wrong, and direct them to resources to provide empirical evidence and lived experiences to amplify their assertion.
5) They do not give power back to the oppressor.
6) They apologise when they fuck up in a timely manner. And they offer an honest, complete apology. As examples:

I'm sorry for hurting you.
I'm sorry you’re upset by what I said.

What's the difference between these two? Simples: one takes ownership of the fault...the other defers ownership to the injured party.

Which one do you think I would want when someone makes a mistake?  

~~~//||\\~~~ 

A number of things have changed for me over the past several months. I am in more fear for my continued existence than I have ever been in my life. I do not know what the next four years are going to bring for any of us who is not a white cisgender heterosexual Christian male. And I have been presented with a choice.

To wit:

a) Live my life with my head down, try not to get any attention, and try to skulk my way through the shadows in order to try to blend in and keep 'safe.'
b) Be myself. Get angry. Express my anger. Fight. Point out stuff. Talk about my life in the hopes that sharing my experiences, from my depression to my grey-ace/demi orientation to my transgirl identity, help others to understand theirs should any of those resonate with them...and hopefully, for people who share none of those characteristics, that it gives them some sort of basic understanding of something outside their bubble.

I have spent tens of thousands of words over the past several years talking about my life as a transgirl (and please note...I use the term transgirl because I claim it. Just like I claim the word queer to describe me. You don't get the privilege of using them. They're not your words. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and I'm a woman who happens to like the word transgirl and applies it to herself. Quod erat demonstrandum.). I have spent countless hours tearing bloody open my life and splattering the rawness of it on the digital page for it to be examined. I don't have to do this, and a good number of people have in fact suggested I might be happier, or at least more content, if I didn't. And maybe...it's possible. But the thing is this: while I have a choice, I don't feel that I have a choice. There is so much false information out there, and so many people trying desperately to paint us as mentally ill, delusional, and not 'truly' trans as there's no such thing as 'a true trans.'

In life, we all have a choice. We can choose to live on our knees, or die on our feet. I have spent too much of my life on my knees, trying to metaphorically suck off whoever I need to in order to sneak by in life and keep my head down. And yeah, that's maybe an explicit analogy, but I'm far beyond the point of caring about the words I choose to express myself in matters such as these. I am not a politician, I don't make nice, I don't do respectability or apology to people trying to bring me down or invalidate my life. You can argue all you want, but if you're racist I'll call you a racist, if you're fascist I'm going to bash you, and if you're saying stuff that's transphobic, you can be sure as eggs I will call you a transphobe. And I won't apologise for it.

My initial plan for this, before things went pear shaped, as to write about a number of things that started with the letter A that I felt were important (attitude, acceptance, affirmation) both internally (i.e., the self) and externally. I was even outlining a course through this when I had to put it aside for...reasons. And so, you get this instead.

Thank you for reading. I'll see you back here next time, hopefully with a more optimistic, positive bit of essay.
 
 
 
(This essay is free to share, and I encourage it. This is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)