Hitting the Big Time

Today is the day. What day, you ask? The day that I began the long, slow process of rearranging my body’s chemistry from boy to girl.

Now that I have begun hormone therapy I can lecture all the rest of you about how little you understand about what it’s really like being transsexual. Kidding, of course. I’ve taken one fifty milligram pill of Spiro. There is no discernable effect yet, nor am I expecting any for at least a few weeks. Even that “more frequent urination” side effect means little to someone who drinks coffee all morning and herbal tea the rest of the day. More frequent than pretty much always needing to go? I doubt that.

The plan is to leave me on this dose, then return for a checkup in three weeks time. If things look good then she’ll increase the dose. Wait another three weeks. Get tested again. Repeat as necessary for about three or four months. Only after that time would I start on estrogen.

I’m a little concerned about one of the test results my doctor went over with me before prescribing the Spiro. Everything else from my physical was fine save for elevated liver enzymes. Possible causes: heavy drinking (guilty as recently as a month ago, but not since), hepatitis (eek!), scarier things we won’t discuss in detail yet – let’s retest to make sure the numbers aren’t some one-time thing.

So anyway, I’m waiting for my retest results before worrying too much. One down side specific to me if I do have elevated liver enzymes is that my doctor will not put me on estrogen without consulting with a specialist first. Estrogen and the liver apparently have a dicey relationship as it is, so she’s unwilling to increase the danger for something already looking dubious. If the liver numbers are still elevated on the next test she’ll refer me for a CT scan to look inside me before moving on. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to worry about it yet.

Interestingly one common side effect about Spiro I didn’t know about until recent internet research is that it can begin breast development. Obviously that sucks for male patients taking it to control their blood pressure (which is the more common reason it’s prescribed). But that’s just a head start for people like me. That should be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

It’s also supposed to decrease my sex drive, which is fine with me for the moment as I have no sex life anyway. But this does mean I get to answer lots of rather personal and intimate questions from my doctor as she checks on the side effects during my next appointment, so she warned me. Having sex chats with a doctor… my life sounds steamier than it lives.

Anyway, the big news is just that the process has begun. I’m really quite patient rather than hyper about expecting Big Results. So don’t expect daily or even weekly updates on my progress. I’ll just note the important things when I notice them and otherwise try to remain interesting.

Back On Track

Things are getting back on course, albeit still a bit chaotically.

The two big items to report are: I have a new job; and I met with the doctor about hormone therapy. I'll tackle them in that order.

The new job is a temporary contract that runs through the end of February. However the pay is pretty close to what I was making before. It comes with benefits (albeit expensive and not as extensive as they were at my previous job). Therapy won't be covered, but medical will. And I can ride that situation alright through February if I must.

Also I became engaged with some good long-term employment possibilities while I was searching. Each of them seem like a possible long-term fit for me. Since they didn't have anything available right this moment, I took this other contract. I'm going to try to remain on their radar to see if I can align things to join one of them right after this contract ends. Or, if not, there's a possibility I could stay on with a contract extension and possibly a pay increase at the current place. All in all a much more relieved situation.

Which brings me to the next item. I met with the doctor about hormones last week. She had to take some blood to run some tests, so the REAL first appointment where I might be prescribed hormones in next Monday. She wants to start with only spironolactone and level that up safely before progressing to estrogen. Sounds sensible and safe to me. And a bit faster than I expected, as I didn't expect I could start on hormones at all before meeting with an endocrinologist, and I figured that would be a 2-3 month wait to get that appointment after getting a good health bill from this doctor.

Anyway, something about all this seems to have the spouse going backward and forward over her level of acceptance of the whole thing. She seems to have made some kind of unspoken resolution over the past week to try to stay close and be supportive to a level she hasn't shown any serious interest in before. I don't exactly know what triggered it. Maybe she's just finding her own inner milestones much like I am given enough time to reflect on the situation.

She did annoy me earlier in the week by poo-pooing my plan to come out to my sister. My sister is going through some family medical problems of her own at the moment, and initially I agreed to hold off for that reason. But the big crisis for her has fallen back into endless testing mode which, while scary in its own way, isn't quite the same, and is something my sister has lived with pretty much all of her life. Anyway, there isn't anyone else in my family or among my friends I'm close enough to anymore to start with. So either I tell my sister or I tell no one.

At lease now that the unemployment situation is over we can finally bring that up to open up some communication with the family. We were keeping that news private until we had it resolved. Our family members are more gossipy and nosy than helpful in such situations, and we really didn't need that. The funny thing is, none of them realize that isn't the BIG news about what's going on in our lives lately. Mwah-hah-hah!

Progress

I'm not sure losing a job has official stages one passes through, like the five stages of grief. I mean, some people think everything goes through the five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In my experience this isn't always so.

Here have been my stages so far: bewilderment, panic, insomnia, pissiness, meh - I'll make do somehow, relief at losing all the baggage of the old job, optimism about future possibilities.

It's really only those last two phases that have allowed me to rekindle some of the thinking about my upcoming transition. Well I guess that's not entirely true. The insomnia phase included a lot of panicky thinking about the upcoming transition. I should modify that to "constructive thinking" about the upcoming transition.

Obviously a big factor regarding the transition is financial. And when one has lost all streams of income that tends to focus the mind in that area. But as I look toward the future I don't see the likelihood of that loss being permanent. And that being the case, I can still map out a general map of how I expect my transition to go.

For one, I made my pre-hormone physical appointment with a tg friendly doctor the very same day I lost my job. And I intend to keep that appointment. It's something to look forward to. I've never been to a doctor before with whom I could openly discuss my tg issues. And in this case I will. I expect I will have that normal physical appointment before I begin hormone therapy. But who knows. This doctor is willing to prescribe hormones and I intend to discuss it.

However the official plan is to have the physical first. Then make an appointment with the hormone specialist afterward. I expect to be on a 2-3 month waiting list for that appointment. Which would have be beginnign Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) in the early February time frame.

Between now and then comes the "coming out" part of things. That will begin with my sister and progress from there somehow. No real plan. It's kind of odd, but I'm not really scared of telling people like my parents or brother at this point. If anything I'm kind of annoyed by the imminent drama. I've already reconciled to the probability that they'll want little to do with me once they hear about the upcoming transition. That will not be a tremendous change from the current relationship, so it's hardly a huge adjustment to my life. I no longer feel guilty about being transexual, so they don't have that to hold over me. The only "fear" I have there is fear that I may be bombarded with unwelcome attempts to "cure" me or "talk some sense into me." I expect all the usual "you're being selfish" accusations. The idea bores me, but I know I need to let them have their say in order to move on. I'll be pleasantly surprised if anyone beyond my sister intends to stay close through and beyond the transition. Less that sound too cold, it would mark the first time in my life my family seemed to want any closeness to me in the first place. It's not a really "huggy" kind of family literally or metaphorically.

Coming out to my own kids is a whole other tricky area. And one I don't have any clear idea about how to approach. There's nothing about my current unemployment holding me back there. Just general cluelessness about the best way to handle it. I don't know anyone else going through this who is still living with their young children. Others I know have either moved away, or their kids are old enough to have moved away themselves. I still don't know how to do that one, but it's important. I need my home to be a place I can feel comfortable expressing my true gender if I'm to make any serious progress in my transition. I feel that intently, though the spouse is clearly scared by the implication of it.

So that's about where I am now. Building the new wardrobe is on the back burner as I look to regain some gainful source of employment. But there's plenty else to work on in the meantime. My mind is getting back into a healthy state to deal with that.

The Journey Gets Longer

So I was having a pretty good day today. Slept in. Made an appointment with a tg friendly doctor to have my pre-hormone replacement therapy physical. Kohl's was having a free shipping thing on their website, so I was browsing and ordering some new non-male clothes to try. Then, at exactly 4:11pm my phone rings. It's a guy from my office... but one who never ever calls me. Uh-oh. My brain was instantly on edge so I only recall the essentials of what he told me...

*Buzz buzz*

So, you've probably seen the e-mails the last week of all the reorganizing going on in the company...

*Buzz buzz*

... and unfortunately you've been caught up in that, so I'm afraid this is your last day with us...

*Buzz buzz*

... it's not about your performance. The company is just moving in some new directions....

*Buzz buzz*

... only ever heard good things about your work...

*Buzz buzz*

... since you weren't given any warning, the company will pay an additional two weeks...

*Buzz buzz*

... Are there any questions?

Umm... yeah. I had questions. Like "how does this affect my ability to transition on the job?"

HA! I keed. Unlike a lot of trans-folk this lay0ff struck pre-emptively. I was let go BEFORE I could let any of my transition oddness give them any motivation. They just "reorganized" me out. Along with a lot of other folks. And you know what? Misery doesn't like company in that sense quite as much as I'd expected.

So obviously now, priority one is finding another job. Before we lose the house and can't feed the kids and all. And you know why that sucks even more?

Because just this morning I was in this happy place where I had my transition path starting to come into the clear. To make sense. I had started a new weight loss / lifestyle plan just today. I was about to step on the treadmill at the time the freaking phone rang with news of my unemployment. And now... well now that CAN'T be my major focus. I have to go actively back into "guy mode" to procure a new job.

Times are going to suck. I'm going to be resentful at the very real delay... delay, not cancellation... this is going to cause my transition. I'm going to be angry about the one who managed our household's finances to the point where I can earn more and more money but still only live paycheck to paycheck.

It's going to be a dark time for me for a while. But I have experience making it through dark times. Now that I have serious motivation to live my life, I'm going to face it with more resolve and attitude than the debilitating depression I've grown so tired of. I'll survive and be stronger for it in the end.

Unlearning

One of the most daunting aspects I see before my transition isn't necessarily the learning of all the norms of the gender I've been trying to hide all my life. It's unlearning all the habits accumulated from a lifetime spent trying to fit in to the gender I was born into.

If you think about this for any length of time, you realize this is not a simple thing. Gender aside, people learn how to behave in large part by observation, practice, repetition, and adjusting to peer feedback. Those of us who are transgendered had a hard time with this, but because of that we had to put that much MORE effort into getting it right. None of it felt natural, so we relied more than most others on the repetition, and adjusting to peer feedback portions. We honed our identities to fit in for reasons we ourselves scarcely understood.

The problem comes when one tries to give that up. To give up a lifetime practicing habits that allow one to pass as a "normal" male, is not an easy thing.

As I observe myself with any kind of detachment as I prepare to learn to take on a new and more natural gender persona, I almost have to laugh at how many male habits I will have to UNLEARN. And it's not like these things ever came easily, or were welcomed. I would have much preferred to have emulated feminine role models. But... well that would not have FIT IN for someone with my body. And fitting in was the goal. Happiness and self-fulfillment were airy concepts I only learned about much later in life.

So when I find myself sitting in a chair, arms spread out, knees apart, seizing my "space" in a rather assertive masculine style, I can't help but chuckle. But I also sigh, because part of being comfortable and natural is based upon practice and feedback. And I've never gotten that in anything other than a masculine role. It's like I'm back to being an awkward adolescent, but without the forbearance of people chalking up my errors to youth and inexperience.

And the thing is, I so badly WANT to UNLEARN. If there was a pill to take that would erase it all, I would probably take it, complications and all. I find myself instinctively falling back on learned masculine habits and I inwardly kick myself. I have finally made peace with the notion that I no longer HAVE to do that stuff. But, not knowing another way in many cases, I fall back upon it all the same. It's pretty frustrating. And will probably be more so as I try to replace these habits with the ones I will be trying to develop, but are far less practiced or habitual just yet.

Partings... Or Not

Much of the shock of the gender transition is the shock of how it impacts one's current relationships. This is especially true if one is married to a spouse who (mistakenly) believes she is of the opposite gender.

Most everyone else I know who is Male to Female transsexual lost their wives as partners when the transexxual part of their self came out of the closet. I'm in the unusual situation where that has not happened.

My spouse/partner remains on board with me to this day. I suppose I should count my blessings, but certainly not count on this being the permanent situation. I love her to pieces, to the extent I'm not sure I can conceive how to live my life without her. But... she didn't sign up for this gender journey when she married me. And as far as society and the law are concerned, as soon as she decides she wants to end it, it will be over. My opinion won't matter.

Does that sound overly pessimistic? It's no different that I think about any other relationship. I presume they will all find me unworthy for some reason at some point, and therefore I stay distant. It avoids what I see as the inevitable abandonment. At least it avoids it emotionally. In part.

The thing is, the more I try to work up to braving a talk discussing parting from my spouse, the more I come to TALK to her... and remind myself how much I love her and how great we are together. I don't WANT to separate from someone this wonderful, who gets me SO much... just because.

I want to separate from her so I can start my new life though. Set out my flag of independence as a SHE!! Which is really impossible to do while still playing daddy for our 3 kids.

But I CAN'T leave my kids. I love them all... I've watched them grow up... I want to see the rest of the story.

And so... we are bound as a couple by habit, by inclination, by institution, and by momentum. All things being equal I'd be happy with that. I'm not unhappy with her in the least.

Yet... I still have this craving to BE the "her" in that kind of relationship. And there really can't be two of us.

I fear this will be a point that will be impossible to overcome going forward. But I'm willing to be surprised, so I will move forward without pre-deciding.

The Beginning

This is not going to be an easy thing for me to write. I hope it gets easier with practice. The very act of writing it is running against a screaming inner voice telling me to shut the heck up. I have lived a lifetime listening to that voice. Ignoring it, as I intend to here, is a new experience.

I am a transsexual person. By this, I mean the apparent gender of my physical body does not match that of the mind inside me. It never has. I've done a lot to try to make this work from the side of conforming my life to the physical side of things. That ultimately hasn't gone well. So now I've decided to give a shot at making my life work by trying to get the physical side to conform to the inner gender I've carried with me my whole life. I was born with male body. But my mind is female. I intend to make these reconcile more closely going forward.

This is not an easy decision. It's also not impulsive. I've been in therapy for over a year chewing on this very thing. And this therapy has been building upon a lifetime of thoughts on the same matter.

There will be a lot to talk about as this journey goes on... and I do see it as a journey. I'm determined to see it to the end, but I fear some of the hazards I expect to encounter along the way. I'll be talking about those more in future posts.

A few initial thoughts:

1. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a very negative reaction to anyone who suggests this is a selfish move on my part. I'm choosing a path of personal pain, insult, loss of friends, income, and even family. But that's not really the part of my situation in question. What I had to consider was whether those truly dependent upon me would be able to bear this. That still is the most crucial and harshest thing that weighs upon me. But I had to weigh that against the likelihood I would be able to go on living without this change. It's been a wrenching, and very personal journey just to get this far. People who flippantly suggest they have some keen insight about how this might affect those closest to me which I missed ought to be prepared to dazzle me with their originality. Hitting the same things I've been wrestling with, and which are still sore spots, is likely to set me off.

2. There's a lifetime of being raised and conditioned as a male that will never go away. These are real experiences that form a very real part of the person I have grown to be. The fact that inside I was feeling awkward and alien to the whole "male" part of these things doesn't erase the fact that I experienced them. This will always set me apart from those raised within an entirely female sphere... and I will always feel a sense of loss for not having their equivalent growing-up experiences. I will always be set apart by having lived so much of my life under the influence of one gender, rather than the one I believe I belong to. I get this. And it makes me neither one or the other, really. I never got as much out of the one I had as those it was meant for, and never got at all those I was denied. But I do appreciate that this gives me a rather unique perspective.

3. I've never, ever wanted to be the gender I was born into for a single moment. I have always been coping with it as some kind of "make the best of what you have to work with" situation. This may be hard for some others to grasp. But it's true. Every moment of "male-pride" for me was an action of trying to fit in to my peers. It never felt right. I never believed it. Not one time. Every memory I have of any event where those of one gender were split from another, I only remember feeling like I wanted to be on the other side... like I had to pretend I belonged on the side I was on for the sake of other people's feelings.

4. This experience is kind of like a death to me. I expect most all of those I know to go away and act as if I died. And emotionally, in preparation, I've been treating them the same way... for quite some time now really. Call it an emotional pre-emptive strike. It hasn't been intentional. But now I'm to the point where all my former friends likely think I'm dead anyway. So what's the harm in telling them the cause of death? It would be nice if a couple of them decide to summon the poltergeist I've become to stay in touch, but I'm not counting on it. "You will lose all your friends" is a fait accompli to me by now. Anything in the other direction is a pleasant surprise.

So anyway, this will be the spot I talk about thoughts, feelings, and experiences of my gender transition... my jender journey ( yes, of course it was intentionally misspelled. That kind of alliterative intentional misspelling gives me giggles. And as I have no audience but me to speak to at the moment... it rules).

I hope others going through similar experiences, having similar thoughts, or having salient thoughts on the topics to discuss, will chime in.