R U Still in 2 It?

After a perfectly stellar weekend, weather-wise, it's back to grayness. I guess that old groundhog knew a thing or two.

I had some stellar passing times this weekend, in a revealing muscle tee with minimal binding, no less. I went to order new contacts at the mall wearing tight american apparel jeans, my floral print docs, and my Harley-Davidson Muscle tee with James Dean's face on it. As I said, stellar weather outside left me scantily clad and wicked femme. And I was "sirred" by the salesperson! How about that?

Recording is coming along slowly. I think I need some time (or some extra takes, at least) to get used to where my voice is. I haven't quite dropped down so much that I can sing my old songs an octave down, but I can't quite hit the high notes on the old versions any more. Bring out the capo and make due, I guess.

Also, um, Mogwai? Still a great band.

Oh, gosh, really?

Nothing big lately, just a steady increase of mannishness, in the standard uberfem way. The neckbeard part of my beard--that is, the part that that would look especially terrible if I neglected it--is coming in with terrific force. Otherwise, still fairly babyfaced. So, unless I want to look like a teenage metalhead virgin, shaving it is.

My voice is getting pretty relatively deep, I think. It's hard for me to gauge sometimes. I'm going to start recording the new Pegasissy album this week, so I think I'll get a better sense of where my voice is when I hear it compared to it's former version. Needless to say, I can no longer sing the Roy Orbison song "Crying" like I used to.

I still am not actively passing too much, I think. Yesterday a giant Rastafarian street person stopped by CALC insisting that he was a member and stating that he was looking for lost relatives "in the philosophical sense." He asked my name, and when I said Russell, he said, "But that is man name! What is your woman name!?" I just said it was my name, and that I had to get back to my lunch.

I'm certainly a teenage boy in a lot of ways these days. My emotional responses to situations are different, and I half don't know what to do with them. I am more likely to get "pissed off", which is to say likely at all. At the same time, I realize that I'm being angry and short[-tempered], and usually calm or apologize myself out of it pretty well. Plus, I'm finally figuring out what I want to do when I grow up. For the past few months I've been leaning toward faggy high school English teacher, though as of last night, I think it will have to coincide or even be superseded by bartender. I had a realization that I should really stop worrying about having a respectable career that helps the future of tomorrow when all I want to do is stay out late and make drinks.

If anyone reading this is in the mood for a counselor, trans-related or not, I just want to give another resounding shout out to Jordan Junechul Shin. She is hilarious and pure awesome.

Marginalia

All kinds of gender business, I'm sure, but I'm going to keep this post marginal.

-I went to a Dress As Your Spirit Animal party as a cougar, complete with short skirt, blond wig, and visible cleavage. A very drunk girl felt my boobs and immediately fell over into a pile of broken glass.

-Ben and I went to the Gateway Mall to see a movie but ended up just wandering and taking in the madness. It's getting to the point in my transition where I actually look like a guy, more or less, and was slightly worried about harassment, as we were kind of holding hands and generally looking like a couple (as a side note: so fun to have a date at the Gateway Mall for the first time in years. He won a stuffed pikachu for me at Tilt!) On the way out, a three year old turned to her mom and said, "Mommy, he looks like the Jonas Brothers!" It's most likely that she was talking about Ben, what with his sweeping brown hair and leather jacket, but in the official version that I'm telling, she was referring to both of us.

-I actually for real have to shave every day, which probably means I should stop borrowing my roommate's razor.

-I think that's it.

Drooling Over ___

Sorry there haven't been posts and posts--it's just been a slow time in gender news, I guess. The holidays--as my boss would say, "Christian holidays and the Gregorian New Year"--came and went with little trans-related to-do. I mostly did a lot of drinking and lazing around, rather, more than usual.

Today is shot number seven, and just in the nick of time. I need to talk to my RNNP about getting shots every 10 days instead of 14. A few days every other week I turn into a Bennington student again. Ugh. I thought I'd received my diploma, and thereby my ability to get through a day without multiple naps.

My legs are getting frighteningly muscular. As in there's a muscly part that juts out just above my knees. Are these glutes or something? Hamstrings? I'm lost. Alternately, my masculine gut is on the increase, though I can actually feel muscles under it, for once. I may have to stop dining exclusively on egg sandwiches and Chinese food.

My voice is getting actually pretty deep, and consistently so. Give me a call and marvel, if you haven't talked to me lately.

At the same time, I don't know that I'm passing much more than I did. Or maybe I am and am not noticing. I guess I am in little ways. I was biking to work today and I checked out some guy, or really his outfit, as he wasn't much to look at, as I rode past. Instead of the usual flirtatious-smile-back, I got the slightly-frightened-sup-dude-head-nod. Success?

I've spent today drooling over the website of Dr. Christine McGinn, who offers ftm mastectomies for a mere 6,300 smackeroos. This is a price I could be comfortable with, and her results look pretty fine. Also, she is kind of a babe. And her website is covered with butterflies. How can you not trust that? Anyone want to put me up in Philly this summer? Michelle Zauner, I'm looking at you.

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."