scrubjayspeaks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2023-12-08 07:21 pm
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2023-12-08 07:21 pm
Entry tags:
On Six Months
[CW for frank discussions of body changes, discussions of (reclaiming) queer terminology, and talk of dysphoria. I'll be putting these updates fully (well, only MOSTLY this month) under cuts, as they are less general interest on the topic of gender/transness and more "what do I personally have going on with my bits these days." Niche interest and all that.]
Holy shit, yo, six months! So let’s talk overall impressions before I get into the usual details. How am I feeling after six months on T?
Going into it, I wanted to go slow. I was afraid. Would I like the changes? Would they freak me out? Would my body suddenly feel unfamiliar? Knowing that microdosing was an option was a big part of what let me finally feel like it would be okay to try out HRT.
Looking back, what I wanted was to look more androgynous. More ambiguous. I hated the idea that people could look at me and just tell that I was female (and therefore must be a woman). I wanted to be unreadable. And for me, that meant moving toward masculinity. But I’m not sure if masculinity, in its own right, was the goal.
After six months on T, what I want is
a) to keep being on T forever until the heat death of the universe,
b) to be a big, fuzzy bear whose so-called “femininity” is in liking sewing and flowers and colorful clothing (aka things that don’t actually have a gender unless you’re an insufferable killjoy) rather than in appearance,
c) and to be a man.
I haven’t stopped feeling nonbinary. My relationship to gender is stillfucked up complicated. But as I both started experiencing new and increased masculinization and allowed myself to lean into my existing masculine embodiment, I felt so good. So safe--not in the world, but in my body. It felt right to be in my skin. It felt like home. I could feel my body becoming male in small and big ways, and it was the best thing I had ever felt.
The desire for ambiguity feels like it was a necessary but temporary waypoint. I couldn’t imagine what being male might feel like, but I knew that being female felt awful. Being nothing-in-particular felt like an antidote to that poison. And it has been. Allowing myself to set down the burden of trying to somehow be a woman was a great relief. Choosing to pick up manhood instead is, honestly, kind of intimidating. But it feels like more than just a relief, a cessation of distress--it feels joyful.
I can understand why some people have begun reclaiming the term transsexual. Transgender has become the accepted term, and that’s fine. But the demonizing of transsexual as too medical, too old-fashioned, too whatever the objection is, seems very sad to me. Likewise with the term FtM (female-to-male).
That becoming male aspect feels so precious to me. I am changing my sex. I put hormones into my body, and my body said, cool, we can work with this. It’s magical, really, what the body can do with hormones.
I don’t necessarily love the “born in the wrong body” narrative, and I certainly don’t think it’s universal to all trans people. I don’t think people need to change their body in ANY way to qualify as “trans enough.” People have all kinds of relationships to the gender they got assigned at birth, and to the gendered experiences of their childhood and life leading up to whatever transition they pursue.
But I should have been born a boy.
It wouldn’t have solved every problem in my life, but it would have been correct in a way I can’t fully articulate. I should have been male from the start; I should have gone through a testosterone-based puberty the first time; and I should have grown up to be a man.
I’m going to be playing catch-up for a long time. But I’ve spent my whole life feeling like I was lagging behind everyone else in some fundamental way. Being late to the party, I’ve discovered, is a shitty reason to not try something at all.
So yeah. That’s six months of T. Turns out, under it all, I’m just some guy. And that’s great, actually. Best thing I’ve ever done.
Face
I don’t know, really, what changes I’m expecting/hoping to see eventually here. But whatever they are, I haven’t seen them yet. I’m just a Bruce Springsteen lyric: I check my look in the mirror // Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.
Voice
Made some small progress on the voice class. My baseline continues to drop--rather noticeably, in fact. Staying in that lower range is mostly a matter of how relaxed I am. If I get worked up, for good or ill, I start climbing up the register. I am, ironically, even more self-conscious about that fact than I used to be (and I have always been WILDLY dysphoric about my voice) just because I know how much lower it can be under ideal circumstances.
Also, talking to my new dog makes me go so high and squeaky, my voice doesn’t so much crack as shatter. It basically comes back around to a low rasp, more air than sound.
Body Hair
The enfurrification continues apace. Really pleased with how well it’s filling out all over. Is it wrong to stare admiringly at my own furry forearms? If so, I don’t want to be right.
Chest
Please excuse me while I chant in a corner “I hate it, I hate it, Ihateithateithateit.” Really, deeply frustrated by it lately. I just want a flat chest.
Junk
I bought myself a packer for the first time. I can only use it at home for safety reasons, but I’ve been enjoying it. I’m probably going to post about it separately, because I ended up having way more emotions about this than I expected to. The short version: it truly is a prosthetic, and my brain’s reaction to it has been to readily add it to my body plan.
Energy and Strength
I’m going through another round of body aches and tiredness of the specific sort that I went through in the first couple of months. I’m hoping that means I’m going to see another surge of changes as well.
Mental
For reasons not directly related to transition (the bad radio in my brain gets both loud and varied once one thing sets it off), I’ve been having a lot of distressing thoughts about what I can’t do. Come out at work. Change my name. Wear facial hair or pack and generally try to pass visually as a man. Which is partly because I need top surgery and more time on T to change my overall look. And also largely because I don’t think it would be safe or pleasant to come out at work, which has the knock-on effect of preventing me from things like a name change.
I’m just so tired of flinching every time someone refers to me in third-person or calls my false name. I’m tired of knowing that I cannot correct them in any way. I’m tired of standing right in front of a person and being unseen.
Holy shit, yo, six months! So let’s talk overall impressions before I get into the usual details. How am I feeling after six months on T?
Going into it, I wanted to go slow. I was afraid. Would I like the changes? Would they freak me out? Would my body suddenly feel unfamiliar? Knowing that microdosing was an option was a big part of what let me finally feel like it would be okay to try out HRT.
Looking back, what I wanted was to look more androgynous. More ambiguous. I hated the idea that people could look at me and just tell that I was female (and therefore must be a woman). I wanted to be unreadable. And for me, that meant moving toward masculinity. But I’m not sure if masculinity, in its own right, was the goal.
After six months on T, what I want is
a) to keep being on T forever until the heat death of the universe,
b) to be a big, fuzzy bear whose so-called “femininity” is in liking sewing and flowers and colorful clothing (aka things that don’t actually have a gender unless you’re an insufferable killjoy) rather than in appearance,
c) and to be a man.
I haven’t stopped feeling nonbinary. My relationship to gender is still
The desire for ambiguity feels like it was a necessary but temporary waypoint. I couldn’t imagine what being male might feel like, but I knew that being female felt awful. Being nothing-in-particular felt like an antidote to that poison. And it has been. Allowing myself to set down the burden of trying to somehow be a woman was a great relief. Choosing to pick up manhood instead is, honestly, kind of intimidating. But it feels like more than just a relief, a cessation of distress--it feels joyful.
I can understand why some people have begun reclaiming the term transsexual. Transgender has become the accepted term, and that’s fine. But the demonizing of transsexual as too medical, too old-fashioned, too whatever the objection is, seems very sad to me. Likewise with the term FtM (female-to-male).
That becoming male aspect feels so precious to me. I am changing my sex. I put hormones into my body, and my body said, cool, we can work with this. It’s magical, really, what the body can do with hormones.
I don’t necessarily love the “born in the wrong body” narrative, and I certainly don’t think it’s universal to all trans people. I don’t think people need to change their body in ANY way to qualify as “trans enough.” People have all kinds of relationships to the gender they got assigned at birth, and to the gendered experiences of their childhood and life leading up to whatever transition they pursue.
But I should have been born a boy.
It wouldn’t have solved every problem in my life, but it would have been correct in a way I can’t fully articulate. I should have been male from the start; I should have gone through a testosterone-based puberty the first time; and I should have grown up to be a man.
I’m going to be playing catch-up for a long time. But I’ve spent my whole life feeling like I was lagging behind everyone else in some fundamental way. Being late to the party, I’ve discovered, is a shitty reason to not try something at all.
So yeah. That’s six months of T. Turns out, under it all, I’m just some guy. And that’s great, actually. Best thing I’ve ever done.
Face
I don’t know, really, what changes I’m expecting/hoping to see eventually here. But whatever they are, I haven’t seen them yet. I’m just a Bruce Springsteen lyric: I check my look in the mirror // Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.
Voice
Made some small progress on the voice class. My baseline continues to drop--rather noticeably, in fact. Staying in that lower range is mostly a matter of how relaxed I am. If I get worked up, for good or ill, I start climbing up the register. I am, ironically, even more self-conscious about that fact than I used to be (and I have always been WILDLY dysphoric about my voice) just because I know how much lower it can be under ideal circumstances.
Also, talking to my new dog makes me go so high and squeaky, my voice doesn’t so much crack as shatter. It basically comes back around to a low rasp, more air than sound.
Body Hair
The enfurrification continues apace. Really pleased with how well it’s filling out all over. Is it wrong to stare admiringly at my own furry forearms? If so, I don’t want to be right.
Chest
Please excuse me while I chant in a corner “I hate it, I hate it, Ihateithateithateit.” Really, deeply frustrated by it lately. I just want a flat chest.
Junk
I bought myself a packer for the first time. I can only use it at home for safety reasons, but I’ve been enjoying it. I’m probably going to post about it separately, because I ended up having way more emotions about this than I expected to. The short version: it truly is a prosthetic, and my brain’s reaction to it has been to readily add it to my body plan.
Energy and Strength
I’m going through another round of body aches and tiredness of the specific sort that I went through in the first couple of months. I’m hoping that means I’m going to see another surge of changes as well.
Mental
For reasons not directly related to transition (the bad radio in my brain gets both loud and varied once one thing sets it off), I’ve been having a lot of distressing thoughts about what I can’t do. Come out at work. Change my name. Wear facial hair or pack and generally try to pass visually as a man. Which is partly because I need top surgery and more time on T to change my overall look. And also largely because I don’t think it would be safe or pleasant to come out at work, which has the knock-on effect of preventing me from things like a name change.
I’m just so tired of flinching every time someone refers to me in third-person or calls my false name. I’m tired of knowing that I cannot correct them in any way. I’m tired of standing right in front of a person and being unseen.