The Why

Trans Day of Visibility 2022

Today is Trans Day of Visibility and while not all trans people want to be visible, I am very happy that I am. A lot of people are sharing before and after photos but for me, there never was a true before and after. I have always been trans, there were just phases of my life where I didn’t have the language to access that part of my authenticity. From a young age I was very gender non-conforming and I adopted that label quietly in college at age 20. It wasn’t until 2014 though that I finally began to see myself as Genderqueer and falling under the Trans umbrella thanks to help and advice from other genderqueer folks. At that time I was still trapped in an abusive marriage so I couldn’t come out publicly. But in 2015 I finally escaped and with that freedom, claimed the first parts of my true identity openly.

My path to coming out was slower than many people because I was so scared of not being accepted for who I really was. When I first learned about trans women in college, I didn’t think I belonged in that category because I could never “pass” and I thought that to be a woman meant you had to be primarily attracted to men. I didn’t have access to the kind of tomboyish, lesbian-leaning gender and sexuality that I needed. Even when I came out in 2014/15, I was afraid of even attempting to be treated as a woman because of all the negative self-talk about my body and ability to change those features. So for many years, I kept my beard as a way to hide the parts of my face that were most dysphoria inducing.

Slowly by 2018 though, I accepted that I am a woman, even if I am a gender-nonconforming, nonbinary tomboy, and I started to take the medical transition steps that I needed. I started hormones 4 years ago this month which is one of the best decisions of my life. My body quickly began to change shape into the beautiful curvy shape I am now. And in October 2018, I finally took the scary step of shaving off my beard and facing the long uphill battle of hair removal.

Now I am nearly complete with my physical transition. I am still trying to get insurance coverage for the last remaining hair removal I need to be able to stop shaving occasionally but my surgeries are finished and my body finally reflects what I want to see. I am so happy that my face has softened and rounded out and that my breasts have filled in and give shape to my clothing. Getting here was a long hard path but now I get to reap the reward and enjoy myself more. I still have mental health challenges, but I no longer feel ugly all the time and avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I appreciate the body that I have, even if it took modification to get here.

Thank you to all the people that have supported me on this journey, both emotionally and financially. Being trans is hard and expensive at times but the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow is definitely worth it.

Me today in March 2022
Me in 2016 before my physical transition

Angry at the world

Some days I just get so angry at the world for being born trans. Why did I have to inherit a body that was set to hard mode? Why couldn’t I have just been a cis woman with a brain that matched my genitals from birth? I hate that I have to have all these surgeries just to fix something that I didn’t ask to be born with. Being Bisexual feels like something I can be proud of but right now being Trans just feels like I got the short end of the stick.

Sorry for the rant. I’m feeling very emotional today. Earlier I had a good long cry for no discernible reason. And now I’m so angry that if I wasn’t in a city I would go scream at the sky. I guess it’s the after effects of the anesthesia or meds or something.

Gender Euphoria Tipping Point

I think between my bottom surgery and facial feminization from hormones and hair removal, I’ve definitely passed a tipping point. I now experience far more gender euphoria than dysphoria. So much of my daily existence before was spent actively ignoring parts of my body and now I can actually relax into my body.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point through your emotional and financial support. Having a wonderful community around me has kept me going through the hard parts of transition.

Fuck TERFS

I am so sad that one of my favorite fandoms has been ruined for me by a transphobic author. I am so angry that I can no longer see the anti-bigotry story lines in Harry Potter the same way now that JK Rowling has turned into a Trans Exclusionary “Radical Feminist” and become a bigot towards my community. I am so scared when I see that same dangerous rhetoric being thrown around by lesbians in my own small communities. It is like a virus that destroys feminism from the inside out. I just want to be able to enjoy Harry Potter like I used to without having to worry that every friend posting about it is secretly a transphobe. Why do TERFs ruin everything?

Trans is More than Transition

I know that I’ve spent the last 4 years here writing mostly about my transition. And lately I’ve been very focused on surgery. But I want to take a moment here and remind you that being Trans is about so much more than Transition.

I started my social transition around the time I started this blog 4 years ago, but eventually that period of my life will end and my life will go on. Because ultimately this period is going to hopefully be a blip in the grand scheme of my life. And while I talk a lot about the challenges of transition and life as a trans person, I hope you’ve also taken away how rewarding my life is now that I am able to be my most authentic self.

My life is about so much more than transition and the world is filled with thousands of trans people living their lives, creating art, building relationships, and doing so many more amazing things than just transitioning.

The reason I share my (very privileged) story here is in the hope that by baring my soul and opening myself up to you readers, other trans people don’t have to do that education work. I live my life as an open book because that’s who I am. But for so many people, the stories I share are painful memories and open wounds.

So please, do not take away from my blog that it is ok to ask Trans people about their bodies, their journey, their medical details, and especially not “the surgery.” There are a million reasons why including that a LOT of trans people never want surgery. But the most important reason is simply that it’s none of your fucking business!

Our lives are not a performance for your benefit. Our stories are not open to your analysis unless we choose to make them open like I am here.

I write my story first and foremost for myself. Because I’ve found immense therapeutic benefit to writing out the burning thoughts in my head here. It really helps me crystallize what my brain is ruminating on and gives me an outlet for my emotions that benefits more people than just myself.

When I first came here, I honestly never thought that people would ready my work. I wrote this blog so that I, with my terrible memory shaped by trauma, could remember what I was thinking at each step along the way. And that’s still the primary reason I write. I never expected over 14,000 readers to visit my blog more than 27,000 times.

And while I’m very honored that you take the time to read my thoughts and sometimes rantings, I want to be very clear that this should not be your expectation of what being trans is like for everyone. Each person has a different path and honestly if there’s anything I could impress on you about the Trans Community it is that each of us is far more different than we are similar.

Going Through the Motions

Being in transition for me feels like everything in my life is temporary. For the past 2 years I’ve been taking all these steps to try to feel like a normal human. This week is my two year anniversary of being on hormones and I’ve also had my braces for over 2 years now as I get my bite corrected. I’ve been getting hair removal all over my body and preparing for bottom surgery. I’m been doing all the necessary things to treat my gender dysphoria and address other medical problems that I’ve been putting off for when I had good health insurance. But all these things just feel like going through the motions in hope that on the other end I can rejoin the real world and live the life I actually want.

Many days I feel like a ghost, like an interloper from another plane of existence trying to navigate a world that isn’t built for me. I feel like I can interact with the real world but I’m not a part of it yet. Like I need to somehow “earn” my way into that life by doing all the right things. And in the meantime my life feels ethereal and temporary, like it could all be washed away by a really bad day.

And now with all of the Seattle area on lockdown for this COVID-19 pandemic, life feels even more temporary. It’s hard to make plans not knowing how long this will last. And scary to know that my surgery date could be effected.

It’s not that I’m afraid of dying; in fact that’s partly the root of the problem. I don’t feel any attachment to living because most days I feel like I never actually have. I’ve never fully lived the life I want as the person I want to be yet so I have no stake in protecting that. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that after all this transition work, I can actually have that life. I don’t know if it will be better or feel more real, but it’s the only anchor I have to reality right now.

And now that I’ve lost a lot of my routines and physical interactions, even more of my life feels unmoored. I feel like I’m adrift in a world that is panicking and chaotic while I sit here at home mostly feeling numb. I keep saying that I’m ok but if I’m honest I’m not really. I’m spending most of my time dissociating by playing video games to fully immerse myself in a different reality. A reality where I have achievable goals and can actually go out and kill the bad guys and save the day. Don’t get me wrong, the video games are essential to my survival right now. But they are also part of this temporary feeling where the real world isn’t real to me.

I’m not sure when these pandemic measures will all end but I keep holding on to the hope that I will still be able to have surgery in August. And that surgery gives me some grounding in my body and in the real world. Because I do want to live. I just don’t know how to yet.

Reflecting back on my beard

Last night I came across this photo in my Instagram history and I had one of those rare moments where I thought “Wow! That beard really was great sometimes.”

Caleb board portrait

To be honest, when I look at this photo I see an absolutely gorgeous queer person that I would date in an instant. But the problem is that it doesn’t look like me and never really did. What I see in the older photos of me isn’t the same person that I actually am inside. I may as well be looking at an old friend that I’ve grown apart from.

For a long time I despaired of ever getting my appearance and identity to match which is why I didn’t take any steps towards medical transition. I think now that I’ve done a lot of hair follicle removal and my facial features are changing, it’s getting closer. But I still have a hard time focusing on my face in the mirror.

My final jaw surgery, which includes some feminization of my chin, is in 3 weeks. Hopefully once I heal from that and get my braces off next year, I will be closer to who I am.

I need new genitals like, now

Content warning: I’m going to be talking explicitly about sex here so proceed at your own risk.

I can’t wait for bottom surgery. As in the idea of waiting another 11 months seems like torture. I need it so badly and while it feels good to finally have it planned and even some of the money raised, it still feels like forever away.

I tried for so long to feel comfortable with the body that I had, but I only had mild success. There were times where I was comfortable with partners who I felt truly saw me that I was able to have enjoyable sex, but for the most part it always felt awkward and performative. I wanted the connection and release so badly but the means I had of accessing that weren’t great.

The best sex I’ve ever had has always been with queer sex. The kind of sex where someone’s fingers or toy is inside of me and they are using their mouth in the ways that it seems only a queer person can. And the most comfortable I’ve been penetrating others is when I’ve worn a strap on. Otherwise being in that role feels weird for the most part.

This week I decided to try having sex “the old fashioned way” one more time to see if there was anything I’d miss about it. I took some generic Viagra because I can’t have those kinds of erections otherwise anymore and had some anniversary sex with my spouse. And while I love having sex with her, it just felt awkward and I was distracted the whole time by how uncomfortable I was. It felt like I was using body parts that didn’t belong to me but that somehow still transmitted sensation to my body. And not in the good way like I’ve managed to access a couple times. We eventually stopped and switched over to the ways we know we both like.

I feel like that was the moment that any last shreds of doubt I had were banished. I’ve proved to myself that my dysphoria really is “bad enough” to warrant the amount of money I’m spending and the amount of pain it will take to get my new vagina. Which is a terrible way to feel. Like you have to justify not wanting to be dysphoric all the time by degrees of severity.

So this week when I met with the PhD level psychiatrist to get my letter for the red tape of insurance approval, I was able to say with confidence that I know I’m making the right choice. And luckily I can also say that I have the right support in my life now to make that plunge. My work and my spouses work are both being very supportive in giving us the time off to go down to San Francisco for a month. And my community has been so generous in helping me raise $880 in less than a month already (plus a promise of airline miles) to put me well on my way.

If you are able to donate to support me as well, I would be very grateful. I can’t wait to finally get this surgery. https://www.gofundme.com/f/haven-gender-confirmation-treatments 

Lesbian Gender Aesthetic

The other day I was on a panel for a sex therapist class and I described my ideal gender presentation as “lesbian.” Now I know that lesbian is a sexuality, not a gender, and that lesbians have a very broad range of gender expressions from high femme to hard butch. But as a kid, I was always drawn to lesbians because of how often those were the people I saw in society breaking down gender norms. Where “tomboy” wasn’t just a phase as a kid but something you could be every day throughout your life. Where you could have short hair and wear plaid shirts and still be feminine. Where the people you slept with wasn’t dependent on how you dressed but it could still be a way of expressing your sexuality through clothing.

The closer I get to being a lesbian, the happier I am. Even though I know both my gender and sexuality are more complicated than that, it’s the person I always wanted to be as a kid.

Dysphoric Bandaid Beard

There are times when I wish I still had my beard. In a lot of ways it was like a security blanket for me, allowing me to exist without having to constantly focus on my dysphoria around shaving and my chin shape. When I first grew it of course I had no idea what dysphoria was or why I hated my face so much, but I used it as a crutch for 12 years.

When I made the decision last fall to get rid of the beard, I knew that my dysphoria would get worse before it got better. And it most definitely has. It is starting to get better now that my growth rate and amount of active hair follicles have been reduced from laser therapy and electrolysis, but the first few months were hell.

Ultimately, the reason I chose to shave was because I chose to believe that it could be better eventually. That somewhere down the road I could be happier and less dysphoric than the low level that I was at with my beard. Sometimes it is hard to see through the high level of dysphoria I have now to that hope that I held for a better future. But I have to keep reminding myself that transition is just a stage in my life and the point of it is to pass through it to emerge from my cocoon as the beautiful butterfly I am.

I am lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people who constantly tell me how beautiful I am at every step along the way. But the thing is, attractiveness feels good but it doesn’t alleviate dysphoria. Dysphoria and dysmorphia aren’t the same thing. The only way to treat dysphoria is by addressing the medical and social needs around gender affirmation. Words alone can’t cut it. But luckily we live in an age where we have plastic surgeons who know what they are doing and are constantly refining the process to create and re-form the body parts that we need.

Thanks to a new trans friend for the title of this blog post and some of the thinking behind it. Maybe someday I’ll make the queer band to match.