Assertion and Outings

This is less a gossip post and more of a reflective post, so be warned. Less glitter and boozing and more facing realitiez.

As long as I've been out I've been in the shitty-feeling position of correcting pronouns. The scenario is familiar enough: I'm at a social gathering of some kind with some people I've just then met. I'm introduced as Russell, but the friends we have in common haven't, perhaps tastefully, prefaced the acquaintance's meeting of me with "Oh, and by the way, Russell is a TRANSSEXUAL even though he looks like a girl."

So, conversations are happening, and inevitably one of these innocent uninformed acquaintances who has assumed that I'm the faggiest butch they ever met will say, referring to me, "No, that's her sequin headband." or "She is fucking killing everyone in Cranium!" or "That girl makes the strongest martinis I've ever had."

Now, if I was a good, noble transsexual who followed my out and proud politics, I would say "I use male pronouns, cisgendered scum!" I do this sometimes--not "...cisgendered scum!", but "who you calling lady?!"--when I'm drunk, but remember, this is just a nice pleasant social gathering, a potluck or something. It's a lot easier to let it slide.

And it's not that I'm ashamed or any of that business. It's just that when, as a person who doesn't pass, you assert your actual gender, it can alter the conversation. It can easily turn from microbrews and bands to all those tedious and uncomfortable-making medical and physiological details I'm rarely in the mood to discuss in pleasant social settings. I don't always want to suddenly become The Transsexual At The Party, and a lot of the time asserting my gender--which is to say, outing myself as trans--amounts to making my gender the subject (abject?) of conversation and scrutiny.

But not correcting people is problematic, too. It makes me feel shitty, makes people with me feel awkward when they use the right pronouns, and invalidates my (and his) queerness if I'm with my dude.

And hence the seductive beauty of testosterone. As I look and sound more like a dude, correcting pronouns will not necessarily out me as trans. It will be more a case of, "Yes, I'm such a femme man that you could understandably think I was a girl, but you're wrong." Which will, instead of inviting unwelcome questions, will make whoever made the mistake wildly embarrassed. That's the kind of social interaction I'm comfortable with.

8 Weeks and Surgery and Insurance Woes.

Yesterday marked eight whole weeks on testosterone, which seems at once a long time and not that long of a time. The Changes have been slow but exciting, and after this much time they seem appreciable. My voice is starting to sound like a man voice, albeit a high nasal smurfish man, and I keep noticing little body things (thighs having more muscle than fat? WTF?) It's hitting me that this is all actually happening, for realz.

I've been thinking about top surgery in a way I haven't really before. Previously (by which I mean before the last few days) it was this event in the future for which I was saving up money, though the exact date didn't really matter because the T was exciting enough. Now I'm feeling more like it's something that I need to think about more actively, to save specific cash for, to look into doctors for; basically to happen asap.

Part of this concern is probably based on the fact that my employer, beset by financial woes, is cutting my health insurance in April. Not that my health insurance would cover surgery or that I would plan of raising the money by then, but without health insurance I'll have to pay for all my standard transition related doctor visits (which are covered) out of my own pocket. This plus student loans kicking in in January means that I'll be putting a lot less money into savings per month, and will probably have to get a second job (which could potentially be another layer of lousiness, having to explain to some coffee hut manager why there's an F for female on my various government IDs, or alternately, if I present as female, why a girl like me is growing sideburns.)

So, as a warning, I'm about to launch a deliciously decadent fundraising campaign to cut off my boobs, complete with paypal donation button and fun pie chart graphix. Look out!

Welcome to the Jungle (Juice)

I had some good passing amusements this weekend. After an all too perfect Friday Night/Saturday Day combo of Stonehenge/drugs/Withnail and I/Shari's/buying glitter at Fred Meyer/buying an entire crossword puzzle themed outfit at various thrift stores, Ben and I went to my co-worker Juliane's birthday party. It was a rather eclectic mix of recently graduated fairly conventional women's studies majors, UO bro dudes of varying ages, and OSU freshman bedecked in Beavers gear. Needless to say, Ben, in his deep pink v-neck t-shirt, lightning bolt earrings and "celestial" makeup scheme, and I in my crossword outfit, stuck out a little. But the jungle juice was flowing and people were amiable, and credulous of my gender, even if I was kicking back shots of goldschlager and wearing clip-on earrings. I dropped it on some drunk girl in a Zoo York shirt and one of the OSU boys said, "White boy can dance!" Um, sure.

We ended up in way too long of a conversation with a bro named Avery who "really likes shopping" and had Jesus tattoos all over his body. I think he called both me and Ben "dude" initially, but toward the end of the night he said something like "thank you, miss" to me (when I lit his cigarette, no less,) and of course I was drunk enough to call him on it loudly. To which he responded: "Sorry man, I thought you were a dude at first, but where are your pecs? You gotta hit the gym, bro!" Which I thought was doubly funny, because Ben recently decided that the Xiu Xiu hit "Fabulous Muscles" is "our song."

Officially "normal."

I got my lab results back from some blood tests checking my testosterone levels. The tests were done the day before my shot, so the levels reflected are at the "trough", or low point, of where my levels would conceivably be at any point during my two-week cycle, as it were. I got 355 ng/dl, whatever that measurement means. Point being, average male testosterone levels are 350-1200 ng/dl, according to the internet, so I'm officially out of the Androgyne Zone (forgive me, I've been reading The Cardboard Universe) by five whole points--and that's just at my "trough" level!

Somehow reading this, along with my doctor's comments ("these levels are EXCELLENT for this early in your transition"; literally, all caps EXCELLENT), gave me a strange confidence. Looking in the mirror I see my face as a man's face [/transsexual cliche]. Assigning a number to my physical masculinization doesn't change it at all, but there's something a bit delicious and satisfying about quantitative assessment of progress. But maybe that's the testosterone talking.

I'm playing a show tonight at Stonehenge, and in practicing yesterday I realized that I'm going to need to start changing the keys of my songs asap. It's kind of frightening, and a bit bittersweet.

Will Nature make a man of me yet?

I keep feeling like there's news, and there isn't news, though I guess it depends on what you consider newsworthy. If I don't shave every day I get imperceptible blond stubble on my chin. I think this is fucking awesome, but who am I to say?

The voice keeps droppin'. I've had a whiskey-and-beer-and-rollies-induced cold hanging over from Thanksgiving for the past few days, and though it's a little bit of regular cold-lower-voice (I'm just going to keep hyphenating words into new words), it surprises me. But then, when I hear my voice played back to me, like when my shitty phone echoes back snippets of everything I say, I'm still girlish, or butchwomanish.

I went up to see Morrissey on Monday, which was fucking amazing. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a 50 year old man take off his shirt, which he did twice. He also played This Charming Man, among other old anthems, which I appreciated. But in (not) passing news, my crew and I were stopped at a crosswalk downtown on the way to the Roseland, when an old homeless man walked up. He counted, "one, two, three, four"--which confused me, since there were five of us--and then said to me, "Four men! You are one lucky girl." I rolled my eyes. Lucas later amended it to "You are one lucky twink," which in a way, I suppose I am, though not in the way the old man insinuated.

I think that's it, unless you want to read about my dream involving a magic wish-granting vibrator, which you probably don't.

passing as a child, taking it like a man

I had my first passing-and-trying-to-use-my-ID experience the other day. I was buying cigarettes at the Quick Stop by my house. I asked for a pack, and the guy gave me the most skeptical look in the world, and said, "Uh...can I see some ID?" I handed it to him, and he stared at it for about two minutes, then scanned it twice. Then he gave me kind of sheepish look and sold me the cigarettes. I just worry about this happening at bars. "Excuse me son, did you really think you could get away with stealing your butch sister's ID?" Oh well.

I think I did a pretty good job of getting through my low-testosterone slump. Sure, I bought what Mo would describe as a "pity burrito", but no other wild purchases and very few morbid thoughts. As I mentioned, it's hard to be sad with Thanksgiving coming up.

Also as mentioned, I'm going down to Arcata with the dude to visit some friends of his from home. I don't think I've ever been introduced as anyone's "boyfriend" before. Deliciously awesome on a number of levels.

Babe-raham Lincoln

Over this past week I got some stray facial hairs in my "Abe Lincoln Area" aka the rest of my potentially beardable face besides the mustache, which was a thrill. But I shaved 'em off, because I can't really stand to look scraggly like that. I can be patient.

As far as T changes in personality, I've been noticing that I'm more likely to, or at least be tempted to, yell things out car windows or say snarky conversational things to cashiers. Do men generally feel like they have this social license moreso than women, or am I just more confident to yell things because I'm more confident in general? When we were dropping people off downtown in Portland this weekend, some drunk people ran across the crosswalk and I yelled "You drunks! You crazy, crazy drunks!" There was also a man with the tag still on his umbrella, and I wanted to alert him to the fact as we drove by, but I refrained.

I played a show at a trans/gender/queer art show last night. It was awkward enough because it was held at the non-profit where I work (the "stage" was right in front of my office door) but also weird to hang out with the Eugene young trans mostly female bodied/identified crowd. They're all so nice, even overly nice, and it peeves me a bit. I felt a little bad about singing Party and Bullshit, but I guess it was okay. On the one hand I wish I had more trans friends, but I think I'm realizing I'm not into hanging out with people just because we're both trans. And the straighties in Eugene aren't so bad.

I've been noticing that I get into a little depressive slump the last few days before my next shot, i.e. now through Thursday. I don't know if it's happening at the moment--I'm wildly tired and at work, which wouldn't be good for anyone's mood--but I'm going to make a concerted effort (as Joanie Baloney would say) to be on the up and up. After all, Thanksgiving and California vacation with the manfriend are just around the corner. Wines and turkey and pies, and then beers and sandwiches and drugs. What more could I ask for?

Whatezvs.

Needless to say, SF was the bomb. I did all sorts of terrible tourist things, like buy a copy of Tales of the City in Books Inc. and pose with it in front of the Castro Theater. I hiked to the top of Corona Heights Park and picked a buttercup and pressed it in the pages of the Maupin book. I'm ridiculous.

And now I'm back in the Euge, back at work, back with cold feet--that is, literal cold feet, because the damp here doesn't seem to get the "do not disturb" sign implied by two pair of smartwool socks.

I had a pretty severe allergic reaction to Ben's pet rats last night (Black Mamba and something else, the poor little dears.) I was having a lot of trouble breathing, and I kind of feel like I had some small seizure or something, and so work is even more arduous. I don't know what this has to do with gender, but I just needed to complain.

I do feel my voice actually changing, though, to the point that it's slightly deeper in everyday conversation. A song I started writing two weeks ago already doesn't need a capo. I'm trying to sing a bunch to keep my pitch semi-reasonable, but it's a small battle.

My mustache tufts are getting rougher, and are spreading inward. Soon I'll be 'stache-capable.

I shot myself in the butt for the first time last Thursday, and it wasn't so horrible. I was given a few glasses of white wine on the train by some young men from Omaha, and when I got home I, with a certain amount of trepidation and excessive use of alcohol swabs, injected successfully with surprisingly little pain. And boy, the rush I felt afterward. You kids should try it some time.

The usual trangsty musings and a brief record review.

The mannishness is slow coming, I suppose, despite any hair tufts or disconcerting zits. I got she'd by four different people within an hour of waking up, and I teared up this weekend at the Finnish national anthem. At least I'm comforted by the thought that all this silly inbetweenness is on its way out.

I'm also getting excited about the fashion freedom I'll have once deliberately trying to pass won't be as much of a concern. I watched "The Legend of Leigh Bowery" for the third time last night, and Mr. Bowery is still virtually my god, or at least my patron saint. It got me excited about clothes as art, as madness, as something horrifying and challenging and shocking, and not just something to make you look pleasant and respectable. I used to be more that way with clothes, but realizing that I needed to be read as male kind of put a lid on that. Egh. Sequins here I come. I at least want to glue some tiny mirrors onto my bike helmet.

But I'm going on vacation to the bay area this weekend, and I plan to somehow get a taste of the trans-appreciative culture that's been denied me. Or just get drunk at gay bars with my straight brother. Either one.

Completely incidentally, I also keep listening to music made by my good friend and all-around kind person Will Stratton. He just released a new album, the bemusedly titled "No Wonder," on Stunning Models on Display, and it's quite good. For those unfamiliar, he does a deliciously comforting take on the usual soft-voiced well-trained clever-tongued singer-songwriter. His songs, and the tracks "Vile Bodies," "Who Will," and the title track, especially, are like some thin but impossibly warm blanket in a wood-paneled basement apartment: completely tangible, familiar, oddly comforting. The "Vile Bodies" EP has some pretty swell stuff, too.

The Life and Daylight Savings Times of Rustycakes.

Oh, what a weekend. Even now there's a new roundup of T-news!

-It may just be the Pall Malls, but I think as of this morning my voice is really starting to take the plunge. Even just humming scales to myself in my office just now, I've lost a few upper notes (and some dignity, apparently, if I'm humming scales to myself in my office.) My throat somehow feels bassier, even if it doesn't totally sound it yet. This weekend when I was playing a song I wrote just a few months ago, there were a couple notes where I had to emphatically switch into a less-than-ideal falsetto. Ben said he thought he saw the trace of an adam's apple, but I think he, too, is humoring me.

-The little wisps of dyke-mustache I had pre-T are starting to build up steam. I kind of have to shave every day or every other day, especially because it would be super awkward to just have this stubbly right-above-the-corners-of-my-mouth (is there an actual word for that part of your body?) In any case, here's hoping it spreads. I wouldn't want my facial hair options to be limited to the fu manchu.

-I almost got in an argument with my mom. I never would have been assertive enough to even almost get in an argument with my mom before. But she was talking about how this whole utilizing medical resources business is "unnatural" and that if there was a way I could live without it I should really try, and I almost lost it. As in, I said, "I don't want to argue!" a little to loudly in the Chinese restaurant and then said that she wasn't going to change my mind about anything and this is really important to my ability to live a fulfilling life and I'm not obligated to educate her about trans issues or explain anything to her. Usually I just start crying our don't say anything. Woo for saying what I mean!

Shot in the Butt Part Two

I got my second shot last night, then went out with my roommates to a ridiculous restaurant and had two lavender lemon drops and my share of a calamari basket composed of tiny octopuses each the size of a thimble. So much for masculinizing effects. I then proceeded to make a anise ginger martini for myself and watch Morrissey music videos with my roommates, and then, of course, drunkenly put on my absent roommate Gracie's floral kelly green 70's sundress and almond hair oil and lip-synched the entirety of In The Aeroplane (on vinyl.) Just so you know how cool I am.

I definitely feel like my body is different than it was two weeks ago. The aforementioned notes, of course, plus the skin on my face, though not sprouting beard, feels rougher. People are saying that my voice is slightly deeper, but I think they're humoring me. My voice is definitely cracking though, on occasion, sometimes at inopportune moments. I'm definitely passing marginally, and situationally: I'm pretty sure I got a dirty look walking by the river holding hands with a dude (for some reason this observation reminds me of Woody Allen's "I distinctly heard him say 'Jew'" bit in Annie Hall), but when I'm at somewhere like, I don't know, an antique store or a foofy bar with women, it's "How are you ladies doing?" At the big silent auction fundraiser for work last weekend, someone said of me and my mom, "I thought you were sisters!" My mom got a pretty good kick out of this. I think she's getting accustomed to the whole thing.

Minor Notes That Might Gross You Out

Anyone who has read my other blog will know that I love blogging about menstruation, and since this current bout is probably (or hopefully) my last, I feel like it needs to be mentioned in passing at least. A farewell salute to the expelling of blood and flesh from my nether regions. A fond farewell, I'm sure.

Oddly and in conjunction, I don't suppose you've read what the studies and anecdotes say about growth in that region, as it were, but I stand proudly before you to declare that it's all true. It's a bit disconcerting; I have to ride my bike slightly differently. How do you penis-bearers do it? I'm officially amazed.

My next shot is in two days, and boy do I ever need it. I'll leave you with an amusing passing story from this weekend: At a party, a drunk guy I'd never met told me he envied how clean-shaven I was. "How do you shave so close?!" he said. "That's amazing!" "I don't really..uh...grow facial hair," I replied. My new little pal Ben winked at me. I told Maia that that's really why I go to parties: I pass much better in double vision.

importland

I went to Portland this weekend. Nothing terribly gender related, except I made a point of using the Amtrak Station ladies' room for the last time. The terrible florescent lights in there are superb. And I went to a superhero themed party as Super Gay. I had really good gaydar, could turn people gay with my rainbow lasers, and also I could fly.

I both am and am not feeling the T. Nothing seems remarkably different, but just imperceptibly, slightly different. I feel more "present in my body," as the hippies say, in that I have more energy and am really into stretching all of a sudden. Plus my voice feels imaginarily deeper, and I certainly smelled like a teenage boy when I got home from PDX last night.

Wild Things.

So yesterday I got my first shot. !!!!. I went pretty fabulously, I think; it barely hurt at all, and I didn't even get slightly faint.

The immediate rush of being on T was a little intense, and I didn't quite feel normalized until this morning (a day later.) I felt like I was high on some strange drug, or, rather, an unfamiliar drug; the effects couldn't quite be classified as strange. I felt like my field of vision was a lot flatter, if that makes sense. I also just generally felt hyped up, but that's probably just my generally being hyped up about starting. I felt more productive (hence, perhaps, waiting until today to write in this blog on alleged work time.) I listened to a David Cross show and scrubbed the shower until it glistened.

But today I feel less rushy, though in a certain way almost imperceptibly different than I felt a few days ago. And even though I logically know that I won't probably see too many changes for another month or so, I have an irrational expectation that people will start calling me sir immedately and I'll wake up with a Sam Beam beard one of these mornings. And somehow now my general ambivalence about going this route has evaporated, at least temporarily. It's like jumping in a mountain lake: scary, but totally satisfying when you finally get in.

I'm just glad I'm starting now and not a few weeks ago, as I still want to be able to have a good hard feminine cry when I see "Where The Wild Things Are" tonight.

Also, an update on Summer the flirtatious and perhaps-hopeless-in-the-face-of-my-faggotiness barista: she stopped by my office and gave me some chakra crystals and her digits. I don't know what to do, but I will probably call her and see if she wants to go out and do something and lead her on like a jerk until I get too uncomfortable. Does it really count as being a jerk if you're confused about your sexual orientation? Moral quandary here, kids. Help a boy out.

Again? So soon?

Just to be brief, and I know sexuality isn't the same as gender, but for me, the two are pretty closely intertwined. I'm a man and I'm a gay man, which any reasonable person will tell you is miles away from being a straight woman.

As anyone who knows me knows, I've spent a good part of my life as, ostensibly, a dyke. It made sense: I was a girl, I had short hair, I was queer somehow, at least, and not averse to making out with girls. But I think Carey Mann hit the nail on the head when he described me as "the worst lesbian he'd ever met." I was pretty bad at it. I had one really pretty fantastic relationship, but otherwise it was a lot of stilted affection and profound awkwardness.

Anyway, today I think I realized that I really am for real gay. It's not that I don't like women, or even am not attracted to them. I am just so "bad with girls" that it's not often worth it to me to get through the neurotic ridiculousness that it would take to be in any kind of real relationship, or even casual dating situation. That, and I'm more romantically interested in, and less devastatingly neurotic around, men.

Case in point of my being bad with girls: So there's a barista at the natural food store across from my office. Let's call her Summer. She is, by all accounts, totally rad and totally hot, by my kind of standards: small, bespectacled, clothes in a anarchopunk meets mall punk style. She shaves the sides of her head and has the rest of her hair up in an elaborate Rapunzel bun on the top of her head. Even better, Summer makes possibly the best, most consistently tasty coffee in town and fucking constantly chats me up whenever I go in there. Like, seriously chats me up. Once she gave me a vegan coconut milkshake FOR FREE. When I wasn't even in the coffee section of the store. As in I was buying soap and she comes over and hands me a milkshake. She remembers my name and asks me things like "How's it going in Russell-land?"

If I were a reasonable human being I would ask her out like woah. Whenever I leave I always kind of kick myself and think, "Shit, she was totally fishing for a date. And she's clearly awesome. What the hell is wrong with me?" Just today I realized. It's because I'm a huge faggot. Maybe I'll ask if she wants to go shopping.

Testosterone Ahoy!

Once again I'm writing in this blog, because now, a year and some change after starting it, I'll be starting the magic testosterone in less than a week, and it makes sense to write about my experience with it, for the purposes of mewling self-indulgently and sharing this strange and fabulous experience with others. And to procrastinate a bit.

I'm in the mode of shopping for needles, as this stuff is injectable. I believe I want to shoot butt as opposed to thigh, as I won't have to look as directly, so maybe 1.5'' would be better, though honestly I don't have much of a butt and 1'' would probably be sufficient and less frightening. I'm thinking 23 gauge, since from what I read 25 is too thin and takes forever to squeeze and 21 is too much like stabbing yourself with a steel twizzler. We'll see how it goes. I feel faint just writing on the subject. Hopefully after taking T for a while I will at least metaphorically grow a pair.

I had a fine time at the pharmacy. The pharmacist, who probably would be played by Toby Maguire in the Hollywood film version of my life (though he didn't really look anything like Toby Maguire, and if I had any control over casting would be played by some hipster-ish sandy-haired unknown with thick smoke gray frames and the dreamiest take I've ever seen on the Safeway Pharmacy uniform of a blue dress shirt and maroon v-neck), gave me an inexplicable and incredibly kind discount on my T when I went in. My co-worker Sal suspects that he was "family," though he could have just been pure magic.

In other trans news my counselor, who is totally rad and named Jordan Shin, gave me a copy of Jan Morris' Conundrum, an account of the author's life and transition as an MtF in the 70's. It's pretty hilarious in its earnest wonder at the whole process, and in a weird way fulfills the my love of 20th Century Oxford Queer Lit (Brideshead Revisited et. al.) At the same time, it is fairly dated, especially in Morris' well-meaning upper class British condescending racism, for which there is ample opportunity, considering her career as a travel writer. Oh well.

More than anything, I'm fucking psyched. Though I'm sure my own gender identity will remain pretty queer and mixed, I'm thrilled to be intelligibly masculine.

Also, thanks to people who have sent me checks recently, both for my birthday and for trans crap specifically. Nothing like good old fashioned monetary support.