Under Radarz.

It's been too long. Too long! Though, honestly, not a ton has happened on the gender front. I went to my friend Samuel's Gender Bender birthday party last week repping as many genders as I possibly could: doc martens, tights, booty shorts, ripped up 70's t-shirt, lacy poet blouse, blonde wig, drawn on mustache, and a fucking ton of glitter. Plus a clip on earring with an empty vial of testosterone dangling from it. One person "got" the significance of the vial and I got to briefly do the "how has it changed you?/that's so fascinating!" song and dance, but otherwise i somehow still generally passed as male. One group of dudes said, "How did you get your hands on a vial of testosterone?" to which I ambiguously replied, "I have my sources." One of the guys suggested, "From your weightlifting days?", and I said yes.

I went to San Fran with Gracie for Thanksgiving and hung out with her wild and amazing family. I also made a lot of martinis for a lot of aunts, and ended up charming a lot of them with my mixology skills and my good-natured slavishness. I was definitely playing the Jack McFarland to many Karen Walkers. Only Gracie's immediate family and a couple of lesbian aunties knew my deal (though with the frequent hot-tubbing there may have been some raised eyebrows I didn't catch,) but everyone was at least polite enough to not say anything.

The lesbian aunties did keep saying, rather cryptically, "And you're so BRAVE!" I've discussed this meme with others, including other trans men, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it's nice to have the occasional struggles of transness acknowledged, instead of just getting massively awkward personal questions. But then it seems a little presumptuous. This isn't exactly a choice of mine; calling me "brave" feels a little like saying, "congrats on not committing suicide, having an irrecoverable nervous breakdown, or otherwise failing at life more than you have!" But the intention is good, and I don't really mind, and morbid as it is, it's a little nice to be congratulated on not being dead.

Perhaps needless to say, my politically-correct compulsion to be pansexual has passed with the falling leaves and the pumpkins. At the same time, I realized the other day that perhaps I don't want a relationship at the moment. I'm applying to grad schools, I'm busy as hell, I'm frighteningly content to read The Sun and watch documentaries and make curry and hang out with my cat. The whole throwing myself at people in the hopes that one of them will be intrigued game has become a bit exhausting. Here's hoping I end up in a metropolitan area with cool boyz.

Female Trouble

So many things to report, I'm sure. I'll start of with the physical, as usual, though there haven't been so many significant changes in the last month. Facial hair continues to march boldly onward. I look at pictures from a few months ago, and I notice how I've come to look more masculine about the face (regardless of any glitter) than I did then. My jaw is more square, etc.

I got my DUI out yesterday, after (TMI warning) three weeks of especially ridiculous cramps and constant blood. I had kind of a funny Planned Parenthood experience, as usual, in which the nurse practitioner asked me all sorts of fairly irrelevant questions (the ever popular "...so, bottom surgery?") and didn't know anything about the battle royale that is testosterone vs. hormonal birth control. I already feel a return to the sharpness of mind (not knocking the alternative) that I associate with my preferred T-heavy hormonal balance, which is nice and comforting. But perhaps expect a return to me muttering curses under my breath at cars.

I'm a little over a week away from my one year testosterone anniversary, so I feel I should put together some sort of State of the Union. Expect that in a week or so.

Once again, as is my apparently yearly tradition, I'm in an intellectual quandary about liking/being liked by women. I realize it's possible that anything I fret about to this extent isn't worth pursuing; I should just do what feels comfortable and leave it at that. On the one hand, I know I'm a faggot: I love men and I love being with men, and I love what it means to be man into men. When I am pursued by a woman I feel disoriented, if you will. On the other hand, this isn't to say I don't feel interested, or intrigued, or various other things one feels in a romantic/sexual situation--I just lose my bearings. I'm realizing this is especially true now that I'm a guy, and more-convincingly-a-guy to others. The concept of being involved with a straight woman baffles me--I never learned how to do it, and I generally disliked the girl/guy dynamic when I approached it from the other side. Am I expected to be the big spoon all the time? How am I supposed to initlate action without seeming like an invasive creep? Is it weird if I talk about faggoty shit? Do I even count as a faggot anymore? Am I just another dude? Is there anything terribly wrong with that?

I'm beginning to realize that I'm so fiercely (not in the Christian Siriano sense) faggoty because my ability to be a gay man has been so hard won (no pun intended.) There is a part of me, I admit, that feels like being gay--well, being "queer" in identity (as in having a varied and "radical" and decidedly non-hetero gender and presentation), yes, but "gay" in orientation, as in just into dating men--ties a nice little bow around my otherwise messy sex/gender life. Sometimes I get exhausted and sad trying to parse this all out, and declaring my orientation at the very least to be relatively simple makes me feel like I have some modicum of control, or even, dare I say, normalcy.

But then who am I to be so hung up on gender? Shouldn't I be open to women in the same way I would hope the boys I like would be open to trans men? Isn't a gender just a set of signifiers, and isn't there enough overlap of signifiers between genders as to render the specific label, at least in this case, a bit irrelevant? Can't I just buy into that old bi/pansexual maxim, "I fall in love with people"? Is it entirely necessary to consult a sociology textbook every time I get smiled at by someone who doesn't have a dick and a moustache, to use my friend Joey's phrase?

Who's to say. Clearly there's not a real answer to this nonsense, but this is what I've been thinking about lately. That, studying for the GREs, which are totally bilking my mellifluence.

Sad/Amazing, Hot/Sprung

Last night Gracie and some friends of hers from California and I sneaked into Cougar Hot Springs. I'd never been, but I fucking love it up there (which is to say up the McKenzie.) The stars are so incredibly bright and the air is so delicious. It had me seriously considering giving up this whole library science dream in favor of working as a park ranger of some sort. And this isn't hyperbole; I think the answer (or one of the answers) to me being pleased and happy with my life involves being surrounded by trees for several miles in any direction.

The hot springs ended up being quite the social occasion; we ran into some of Gracie's other friends there who were camping up the road, and about 20 minutes after we got there who should show up but Jessica, Cordell and Pat, swigging whiskey and smoking their menthols in the steam like hipster snow monkeys.

But where is the trans-relevance in this? It was weird being naked in front of so many people. It was weird having just met Gracie's friends, and not being out to them as far as I know, and then suddenly taking off my clothes and revealing myself in that way. Nothing horrible happened, and no one said anything--no one used female pronouns, even--but I still felt a self-conscious, and I still got a slight feeling that people were uncomfortable or at least a bit surprised. Maybe it was even stranger since I couldn't wear my glasses in the steam, so I had the peculiar feeling of being seen while not being able to see anyone else.

The experience made me anxious for top surgery. There's a certain level of acceptable discomfort I have with my chest, but at this point, and generally, it doesn't bother me too much in the short term as long as I keep it bound down. But being not just unbound but naked in front of people, even in a dark/foggy situation, was kind of a mind fuck. It made me realize that, though I've gotten pretty good (with the help of hormones) of appearing male, the basic shape of my body is as it was, which was surprisingly frustrating.

So I had the thought of, "If I got top surgery, I wouldn't be having this problem." But then I realized, of course, that my lower business isn't going to change (or rather, given the current expense and modern technology and my own personal reasons, I'm not planning to change it) into something male-appearing in a standard way. This gave me the sad realization that I'll probably never be comfortable at a hot springs again: where once I felt like my body was awesome and babely, now it's something that needs an explanation, something that is inherently challenging, something that makes me slightly defensive. And this just made me feel sad and doubtful and frustrated and like I've fucked up my life.

Angry Mood Swings and "You, sir, in the glitter and the kidskin loafers!"

Last Friday I took a shot a day earlier than I was supposed to since I was going out of town for the weekend and didn't want to bother with losing an $80 vial of golden boy serum to an uncompromising TSA chump. Maybe it's just that visiting Las Vegas made me a ball of nerves, but since the shot (and since coming back) I've been either a bit of a downer or a seething pile of vague rage (, I'm speaking in hyperbole to a degree, you must understand; I'm not actually that angry, just more angry than I usually have been, which is to say angry at all.) Granted I haven't done anything violent--just a lot of very forceful housework (you should SEE our refrigerator!) but I'm getting tired of it. I almost miss my depressive anxiety over this new active impassioned kind. It only gets worse, too, because I get frustrated with myself for being mad, and then it just turns into a feedback loop of listening to country music and scrubbing dishes and yelling, "I mean, COME ON!" Any thoughts on how to be calm? I've never had to work at it before.

There were some amusing passing bits this weekend, I suppose. I had a nice 100% success rate of airport clerks and officials calling me "sir" even as I was handing them my ID with the big F on it. I've always said I would start using the men's as my default bathroom (I usually only use it if the place seems especially queer-friendly) if I ever got hassled in the women's, and lo and behold I got a dirty look as I was putting on pink liquid eyeliner in the ladies' room in the Vegas airport when I first got in. I did use the women's a few more times since that incident--some guy was taking FOREVER in the stall at Caesar's Palace and I didn't want to wait around to sniff the outcome of his labors--but when I got back to the airport in Vegas, I boldly strode into that gross, frightening men's room with all the confidence of an effete pubescent teenage boy.

A brief PSA: I'm at the point in passing where I don't want to talk about it when it happens. It's less and less of a surprise or an accomplishment in and of itself, and when you say "That waitress totally said "he" about you!" or when you give me a knowing glance when I get that "Sir" in line at the airport, it just makes me feel self conscious and patronized. I know it may seem like a double standard since I have this whole damn blog dedicated to chronicling the minutiae of who sees me as male and how often, but I'd like you to trust me on this. I don't want anyone to walk on eggshells with me and never ever mention my gender either--that would be silly--but maybe try to keep it in the realm of actual conversations about gender, and not just bring it up all the time, if you could? Kind of nitpicky, yes, and I'm very lucky to have people around me who are excited for me to pass, but if I can't peeve here where can I?

Odd Angsts

It's been far too long, I know, since I've posted last. There has been plenty of gender-related sillyness.

I was involved in a top surgery benefit show for myself and two other trans men this past Friday. It didn't exactly go as smoothly as planned for a number of reasons, but we made a few hundred, which is a start at least. I'm tempted to whine about what went wrong (and whine especially about the phenomenon of a lot of friends not showing up--I'm sorry kids, this wasn't just a Pegasissy show, this was a chance to support my transition and show that you cared about this struggle; not to be lame, but I'm a little hurt) but it's not so productive. Oh well. I suppose this is what happens when you invest yourself emotionally into something that happens at a bar (though the bar in question, Cowfish, was exceptionally gracious and kind in letting us use the space for free.) And a lot of things did go perfectly fine. A co-worker of mine came with his partner and seemed pretty amused by it (by "it" I mean my maudlin performance in a "chill wave Roy Orbison" outfit and my participation in the fashion show segment wearing a blond toupee and a bridesmaid dress with nipples embroidered on the front.)

Speaking of bar incidents--and I'm not going to into it in depth here--but I had a crazy anti-trans experience with the staff at John Henry's a couple weeks ago. Briefly, a friend and I got our IDs checked for gender by a bouncer when we were trying to use the bathroom. Pretty fucked up. If you want strong drinks for cheap in Eugene, just go to my house. JH's doesn't need your business, and you don't need their bullshit.

Let's begin properly with the physical changes. My voice dropped down a little more after my shot last week, though I'm still trying to work it out. My voice does this thing where when my voice first drops, it actually sounds pinched and high because I'm still trying to resonate it in my throat instead of my chest. I'm working on this. I think I might start attempting to actually talk from my chest and not be a totes squeakbox all the time, just as an experiment. I am slowly acquiring sparse but definite sideburns, and I keep shaving 'em in the hopes that they will one day blossom into something reasonable. My increased hirsuteness (not to be confused with hir cuteness) is, while not necessarily troubling, a bit of a marvel to me. Today my endocrinologist mentioned how lucky I was to not have gotten any acne, though I was a tad alarmed earlier this week when two zits appeared on my face simultaneously, an occurrence more or less as rare as conjoined twins.

Testosterone-fueled emotions continue to be a wild and interesting ride, but one I'm lately more able to predict and get a handle on. I've had occasion recently to feel irrationally possessive in a way that is perhaps stereotypically male, and though it kind of put a damper on my night at the time, I've since worked it all out. My post-T emotional patterns--I'm just going to politically-incorrectly call them my "male" emotional patterns--are kind of a double edged sword, if you will. I find myself feeling things like possessiveness and rage that I hadn't previously experienced, at least to this extent, but somehow my left brain has been freed up too in a certain way, so I can, increasingly successfully, step back and dissect the venom out of the raw emotions and figure out what I'm actually angry about (which is rarely the thing that sparked my anger in the first place.)

It was in one of these dissection sessions that I realized I'm not totally out of the woods as far as being completely satisfied with this trans business. I like to believe that, now that I'm just over ten months into this testosterone stuff (!!!), everything has stabilized and I'm totally home free. But I realize I'm still pretty self-conscious and nervy about this sometimes. I keep trying to write about this in detail and then realizing that my personal insecurities don't need to be on the internet. Ugh.

From The Tumblr pt. II: Butch->FTM->WTF?

Another question from the Tumblr, this time touching on the perennial Butch/FTM border wars, and on the many meanings of little girls in cargo shorts.

Anonymous asked: so i'm totally pro-trans, but as a butch dyke, it rubs me the wrong way to see people using their non stereotypical gender conforming behavior as proof that they must actually be a boy or girl as the case may be. i played with trucks as a kid. i hate wearing dresses. but that doesn't mean i secretly want to be a man. it means i'm a butch. i have had so many people tell me that i'm not really butch, i must be trans, but i like my female body. i fear butches are disappearing or being pressured to transition to fit in. i feel like that takes credibility away from people who actually are trans. I guess my question is what do you think of this?

Now, a good, meaty question, and good meaty issues! Forgive me in advance for not addressing everything brought up by this inquiry.

First, I’ll clarify my below post: I didn’t mean to come off as “I played with such and such and therefore I am such and such.” I meant the recitation of my childhood activities more to challenge that binary notion, or even the notion that the gender(s) we exhibit as children will predict or determine how we will identify as adults. By and large, my girlhood was just that—a girlhood—but the nostalgia I have for my three story Victorian dollhouse doesn’t make my manhood any less valid. I was trying to describe, with these mixed signifiers of Barbies and legos, that I existed in a kind of ungendered/multigendered ether as a kid, and didn’t put much thought into my girlness or boyness until later.

I am with you on the notion that gendered behaviors or preferences do not have the same implication for every person who performs them (ie. hating wearing dresses does not equal being a boy, or even a boi.) As an effeminate man (my giant silver rings are clicking against each other on my red-nailed fingers as I type this) I know this all too well. I like to wear dresses sometimes, and lipstick, and stilettos, but this does not make me a woman (even if I was raised as one) and it doesn’t mean that I want to be a woman: it means that I simply am a man who does these things. I think we’re at the point in pop gender theory where people agree that sexuality and gender are separate things, but the differentiation between gender (still too often essentialized to man/woman) and gender expression (femme/butch/androdyke/genderfuck/queen/etc/etc) is still too hard for some people to parse.

On the issue of butches and transmen specifically: I’m uneasy about the idea of “people who are actually trans.” I think deciding who is really trans and who is really butch or genderqueer (engaging in “ftm/butch border wars,” if I’m recalling my Judith Halberstam right) is as specious as deciding who is “actually a man” and who is “actually a woman.” Everyone’s reasons for transitioning, or for being a confirmed butch, or for living a conventional heterosexual life, for that matter, are different, and none of us wholly match the platonic social ideal of our gender. I also like to think there is room for fluidity—that a butch can take hormones and still be a butch, if one so chooses.

I don’t think it’s a zero sum game, and I’m not sure that the sudden visibility of transmen means a decrease in butches. I think we can support each other’s struggles (and celebrate each other’s lives and accomplishments) without diminishing our own or fearing the others. I personally have the greatest respect for butches, for the strength it takes to live in our culture as a masculine-appearing female-bodied person, and for what it takes to stake your territory in what we are told is an ambiguous space. So kudos to you, anonymous butch dyke, and keep askin’ questions!

From the Tumblr: "Did you always know?"

So, I've started a tumblr account called Render Me Boobless, which is a more focused chest-surgery donation push and general depository for pithy man-boob silliness, as well as a way to thank donors with amusing youtube videos. There's a question/answer function on it I've dubbed "Ask The Transfag," and recently I got a bite. The anonymous asker asked, simply, "Did you always know?" Here's my answer:

Kind of a personal question, but let's just imagine for a moment that you plan to donate plenty of money to the surgery fund to the right of this post, and that I'm willing to shill my unusual psychological development for a few dozen dollars you're my therapist. This is always a question (the question?), and it has variable answers. I was a pretty androgynous child in a lot of ways--yes, I was a Girl Scout and dressed as a fairy princess for Halloween (exactly), but I also loved Legos and action figures and usually preferred shorts to skirts (though I had a pretty serious spandex obsession.) While I definitely--and outwardly--fell into the spectrum of how young girls are expected to behave and appear, I don't think I had the same concept of myself as a girl that other girls had. In playground games of Girls Chase Boys I would generally run alongside the boys cheering them on in getting away from the girls (#storyofmylife.) But I didn't realize in a meaningful way that gender variance existed or was something with a name until later, and didn't start identifying with it until I was 10 or 11, and even then in a fairly rudimentary way. I didn't consider transition or living as male as something that interested me until high school, and I didn't give it serious logistical thought until maybe three or four years ago. So there's really not just the question of "did I always know," but of what it was that I knew, and when.

But perhaps more importantly, how relevant is the answer to this question? I hear the question of how long I've "known" with pretty great frequency, more or less at a dead tie with surgery questions. I think it stems from a fear--and even just a benign, fascinated-unsettled fear--that perhaps anyone can transition, that someone can look entirely normally-gendered one day and then POOF (so to speak), one can wake up a trans person, Orlando-style. Knowing when trans people realize that they are different (and, ideally hearing the "ever since I was a small child" answer) calms this fear. It keeps trans experience neatly separate, and keeps it from infecting the stable and conventional gender identities of others.

Did you always know you weren't trans?