The What

Building my first cosplay

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a huge Steven Universe fan. On the surface it appears to just be a kids cartoon but once you dive deeper you find out that it is a multifaceted show about complex emotional topics with an amazing story arch and fabulous queer and nonbinary representation. Rebecca Sugar, the show’s creator, has recently confirmed that she is a “nonbinary woman” (yes, those terms can co-exist) and that all the gems are too. But more importantly, Stevonnie, a character introduced in the first season, is one of the best representations of nonbinary gender anywhere on TV. I nearly squealed with delight when it was shown in a more recent episode that they grow facial hair and have to shave. Which confirmed what I’ve been thinking for awhile – that I need to make a Stevonnie cosplay outfit.

My favorite convention of the year, Geek Girl Con, is coming up next weekend in Seattle. It’s the only con I go to because it focuses on intersectionality in geek culture and isn’t too crowded for my anxiety. The last few years I’ve done some really basic bounding (simple outfits merely inspired by a character) costumes but this year I decided to go all out. I’ve been collecting costume pieces for awhile now including a Rose Quartz gem, a Steven Universe crop top, denim capris, and pink Converse with a star on the side.

This weekend I did some major crafting and creating the best parts of the costume – Stevonnie’s magical shield and Rose Quartz’s pink sword. I used a child’s metal sled as the base of the shield and after several failed attempts to get the paint to stick, figured out a way to paint it with the colors and patterns using a matte spray paint as the base. For the sword I used a cardboard base with a dowel in the middle covered in craft foam and held together with tape and hot glue. I’m not totally happy with the hilt but it’s my first attempt so it will do.

Cosplay

Come see me next weekend at the Seattle Convention Center and check it out! More photos to follow.

Beard update

Things I’ve realized so far:
1. I hate shaving
2. My skin hates shaving
 
3. I really liked my beard. It was dramatic and beautiful and served a role rather similar to makeup for me in giving shape to parts of my face that I wanted definition on. It was gloriously dense and curly which also means that underneath the hair follicles are really thick and visible without it.
 
4. I feel like the biggest reasons I shaved was about other people, not because I wanted to. I was curious to see if my face had changed underneath and if I could get used to it, and in that regard it was a successful experiment. But mostly it was because I feel like having the beard makes a lot of people jump to very gendered expectations of me and they are less likely to see me as trans even if I’m wearing a dress. And I am really tired of living in such a gendered world and in a society that bars me from many activities if I don’t look like I’m trying hard enough to be a woman (even in supposedly trans inclusive spaces). But the solution isn’t necessarily for me to try to conform to that image but to keep trying to do what I want and fits with my own experience and dysphoria. And to continue trying to learn to ignore other people’s opinions and prejudices.
 
5. Seeing the dark shadow on my lower face and feeling the scratchy texture of my skin gives me far more dysphoria than having the beard. If I do want to get rid of it, I will likely have to wait until I can afford laser hair removal.
 
I think I’m going to start growing it back which shouldn’t take long with my face. Though perhaps longer now that I’m on estrogen than before.
 
Thank you to everyone who was so affirming of my little experiment and gave me so many lovely compliments and shaving advice.

Names in transition

I feel like I’m in such a weird place of flux and transition with my name right now. It has been a long time, so long that I can’t even remember when I last felt a strong connection with my birth name. I’m not averse to it and it doesn’t feel like a “dead name” that brings up bad memories or feelings. I just feel apathetic to it. As in it’s something you can use to identify me but the name isn’t the same as who I am.

When I got married last year I changed my last name to something that my partner and I created together based on our matriarchal heritages. And that feels meaningful in a special way. I also decided to take the opportunity while I was doing all the paperwork to change my legal middle name to the name I have thought for years would be a good fit for me. Something mostly gender neutral but feminine leaning.

The last few weeks I’ve switched to using the chosen name as my primary name in most of my social circles and my friends and partners have been amazing about picking it up consistently and quickly. But I’m still using my first name at work. And it’s creating this odd dissonance for my brain.

I told my boss about it and she is very supportive and really loves my new name. But I haven’t rolled it out to my team yet because it feels so complicated to educate everyone and change it on all the various documents and systems. Not to mention feeling like a burden for being confusing. My strategy was going to be to wait until I got a new position because I was interviewing this month for a job within the company I found out I didn’t get. So now I’m not sure if I should keep waiting and hope I switch jobs soon or if I should just go ahead and tell my team and do the work of educating and updating now.

Being in transition is such an odd experience.

Beard update – day 3

It’s been 3 days since I shaved and I’m still not sure how I feel about being beardless. I am getting used to seeing my face and my chin is causing less dysphoria than I expected. But seeing the 5 o’clock shadow from my thick, dense hair follicles that never seems to go away is causing a lot of dysphoria that I never felt with an intentional beard. And it’s aggravated by the fact that no matter what I do, my face is still getting red bumps and reacting poorly to shaving.

Unless I can figure out some technique that simultaneously gets me a smoother face with less irritation soon, I think I’ll just go back to the beard at least until I can afford laser therapy for my face.

I shaved!

So I got the hair-brained idea in my head yesterday to shave. It’s been 12 years since I grew my beard and I’ve only shaved completely twice, the last time being 5 years ago. I was going to get it professionally shaved by a fancy barber on Saturday but he was out sick so I bought a nice shaving supply kit and did it myself.

And it seems that 7 months of estrogen has worked it’s magic and softened my face sufficiently for me to feel beautiful. The cleft in my chin is almost completely gone. It also helps to have other gender affirming markers like my hair, glasses, earrings, and clothing. Now to work on evening out my skin tone to match.

It definitely takes some getting used to. My chin alternately feels cold when there’s a draft and warm when there’s not because it’s not insulated anymore. And I haven’t gotten used to my face in the mirror yet so it doesn’t feel like me. Can’t tell if that’s dysphoria or just an adjustment.

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Jaw feminization

I just talked to my oral surgeon about what can be done to feminize my chin, the biggest source of dysphoria for me at this point, when I go in to align my teeth this Winter. This is a major oral surgery I’ve been dreading for almost 10 years now as I waited for the right insurance and financial stability to make it possible. But now that there is the possibility it could make my face more tolerable, I’m actually excited.

I started the process 2 years ago when I first met with the surgeon before I was out and thinking about what the impact of my prominent, square, cleft chin was. I’ve been using my beard to cover it up for so long that I sometimes forget that this really ugly-feeling part of me is underneath. I found out just how much it would cost and realized I needed a new job to make this work. The next step was the braces I got installed in January which re-align my teeth back to where they will need to be after the surgery. Unfortunately, in the short term, the braces have made my dysphoria and confidence worse. The first day I had them I dissociated so badly that I felt like I was walking around viewing the world through a long, dark tunnel. It has gotten better since but I still can’t wait to get them off.

But the end of stage one is finally in sight so I got up the courage to reach out to the surgeons office to find out if there were parts of facial feminization that could be accomplished as part of this procedure. I was both excited and terrified as the appointment got close this month fearing that he would just dismiss my concerns and focus on function. But it went surprisingly well. For an old white cis dude he seemed to really get it. He talked about the various things that he can do to tilt the lower jaw back, shave off the harsher edges, and bring it more in line with the rest of my face. He even was aware enough of the gendered aspects that he is suggesting increasing how much of my upper teeth are visible when my lips part because apparently that is a feminine trait.

He was cautious about over-promising and he is limited with how much he can do because of the potential impacts on my breathing and sleep apnea and the amount of muscle I have on my chin. But I am hopeful that it can be enough better that I can actually face myself in the mirror without my beard. He promised to do some advanced prediction models and show me several options we can discuss at our pre-surgery appointment so I can have some say in how my new face will look.

I’m especially excited for this since my insurance doesn’t cover facial feminization. And overall that’s not really a primary concern of mine on the rest of my face since I have great cheekbones (even according to the surgeon) and a good nose that balances my face. So if I can get this all done in one surgery that I’ve been planning for so long, I will be very happy.

Now to see if I can actually live without the beard for the next few months before surgery. I haven’t gotten up the courage to go into the barber yet…

Shaving prep

So I’ve decided that I’m going to at least try shaving soon and see if I can get used to my chin. I was going to wait until just before my jaw surgery this winter but I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable with how people read me due to my beard. While I want to be confident and not care, I think it leads to even a lot of allies not realizing that I’m trans. And it gives me a lot of impostor feelings.

One of the many reasons, other than latent chin dysphoria I didn’t have a word for at the time, that I grew the beard in the first place is because my facial hair is very dense, thick, and curly and grows quickly. Because of that, I got a lot of ingrowns and my face didn’t tolerate shaving well. So I definitely need to step up my game. I talked to a friend who is an expert and I’m going to go into The Art of Shaving to get good supplies and tips. Other than a quality razor and exfoliating at night, what else can I do to keep my face smooth and soft?

It’s been 12 years since I’ve shaved regularly. This is going to take some getting used to.

Curves and Clothes

With the changing of the seasons and the rainy season beginning here in Seattle I’m pulling back out the clothes I haven’t really worn since before estrogen. And I’m amazed at how much better they feel on my body and how great I feel in even some of my older androgynous type clothing from the men’s section. Having curves underneath an otherwise straight cut pair of pants or shirt makes the whole outfit quite a bit more feminine and affirming.

I wish I could get a photo of how good my butt looks in these stretchy pants (including matching Chucks) but this will have to suffice for now.

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Queer Choir and name change

A few weeks ago a fellow enby told me that the former associate director of the gay men’s and women’s choruses in town was starting an all gender, queer-focused choir. This is literally a dream come true for me. Some of you may recall that a year and a half ago I tried to start my own choral group for trans voices because I was so frustrated with the lack of options in town that weren’t either too binary or too heteronormative. I forgot to do a follow up post here but basically while I found lots of people who were initially interested, I didn’t have enough musical talent to train them and not enough people auditioned to make it work.

So I’ve been waiting either for the right people/time to try again or for someone else to start something so I could join. And it finally happened! Someone else had the same vision and was much better connected than I am so she managed to not only get 80 people to audition but got a well known and very talented artistic director on board.

Last night was our first rehearsal and it felt so good to be singing again after a 3 year break. And what was even better was being part of a bass section with several other nonbinary people as well as trans people from both directions. The tenor section was half women too which was super fun to hear. I got several of my friends to join and I’ve already started making new friends.

I realized about halfway through the rehearsal that this is my opportunity to try out my new name in earnest. I switched my middle name to my chosen gender neutral/femme leaning name last year and I have been trying it out at home and among close friends tentatively the last couple weeks. But here I have a chance at a new start with a group where the only people who know me are fellow trans people and it is by design mostly (if not all) queer and very inclusive. I did have to do some explaining to some people who met me at auditions or when I first came in the door but people were very understanding.

So double excitement! A chance for a fresh start and new name context as well as the choir I’ve always dreamed of! The first rehearsal went so much better than I expected and we sound amazing. There’s about 70 people and everyone is equally enthusiastic. I can’t wait to hear how we sound by our concert in Dec.

Sex vs Gender: two sides of the same coin

So I know a lot of trainings, including many written by trans people, like to separate sex and gender into different concepts. But in my experience they aren’t all that different and are so integrally tied that you can’t actually separate the two. From an external perspective I think sex is what you are assigned at birth because doctors and parents make an assumption about a binary future for you based on your genitals (and sometimes force surgeries on intersex babies if they don’t match that vision because sexual characteristics aren’t binary either). Gender is what people assume about your genitals and often your behaviors and experiences based on visual cues later on. They are just two sides of the same coin. The only real difference is what external markers you are using. When I was born they assumed I was male based on my genitals and now people assume things about my genitals based on signs such as my beard and build.

Well this gets complicated of course when you are trans or nonbinary. You can do a lot to change your external appearance through clothing, hormones, and surgeries. And since sex isn’t actually based on chromosomes since most people have never been genotyped, I think those changes arguably change your sex tangibly as well. I don’t think I am a feminine person with a male sex. I now have breasts and an estrogen dominant body that is clearly and visibly nonbinary now. I would need to make major alterations at this point via surgery to go back to being a male.

So when I see forms that ask me what my sex is, I get annoyed. You can ask me what my sex assigned at birth was as a data point if you need. But my sex and my gender are the same thing viewed from different lenses.

Now internal gender is a lot harder to define but that’s a post for a future day.