dysphoria

Facial dysphoria

I’m still in this weird place where I go back and forth almost every other day about whether I like my face better now or with the beard. But today as I was feeling wishful for my beard again I looked back at my photos and realized I’ve gotten used to my face as it is now and my beard looks odd to me. I guess I’ve successfully adapted my brain to my facial  structure.

I am still having a lot of dysphoria around how dark and thick my hair follicles are on my face. And how my face constantly has red bumps, whiteheads, and cuts from shaving. So I reached out to a trans electrolysis esthetician about starting the process of permanent hair removal on my face. I can’t really afford it but I also can’t afford to live with this level of dysphoria either so I’ll have to find a way. It takes so long that I know I should start now.

Today I’m also having dysphoria around my double chin. I’ve tried to ignore it as I’ve continued to put on more weight over the last 10 years but it’s a lot more obvious without the beard. My jaw surgeon said that setting my chin back may make that part worse but he will do his best to reduce it. I may need a chin tuck at some point though.

Sometimes I regret shaving but I think realistically the only way through is forward.

Beard update pt 2

So the bad news is that my facial hair grows back a lot more slowly now and the stubble gives me so much dysphoria that I’m not sure it’s worth it. The good news is my hair grows so slowly now that I think I can get away with shaving every other day.

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.

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…

Increasing Dysphoria

Isn’t being on hormones supposed to help dysphoria? I mean it’s helping my confidence in my chest and overall shape but it’s definitely bringing up more feelings about my face in particular among other things. The biggest effect that estrogen has had so far other than breast growth is that it is making it harder to ignore things I’ve been burying and ignoring.

I often have days where I look in the mirror and literally see a blank where my face should be. My brain can’t handle the cognitive dissonance between my real appearance and my identity. And even more often I find myself avoiding mirrors or hyperfocusing on my hair to avoid looking at my facial features. And I can’t decide whether growing out my hair would help that or make it worse.

I’ve kept my beard thus far because it hides parts of my face that I can’t handle, especially my chin. But more and more I wonder if it is doing more harm than good. I get stares everywhere I go because people don’t know what to do with a bearded person in a dress. And it makes it so that I can be spotted blocks away as trans. I mean it’s not like I can hide easily with my height and tendency to wear bright colors, but maybe I don’t need to make myself that easy to spot. It also gives me a lot of “not queer enough” feels and makes me avoid spaces that are supposedly for femmes because I don’t think I would be accepted with my features.

But the thought of removing my beard and having to come to terms with the face underneath terrifies me even more. I am dreading what is going to happen when I’m forced to shave next winter for a long planned jaw surgery to correct my bite. But I also find myself wondering if there’s a way to capitalize on that to change my face. From what I remember of the consult, they are already going to need to make adjustments to my chin to make my face symmetrical and I wonder if I can talk the oral surgeon into taking some of it off permanently. Or if I could work with him to do a combo jaw surgery and facial feminization technique. The thought of cutting open my face twice doesn’t sound pleasant.

Then there’s the matter of my genitals. I’m feeling more disconnected from them recently which goes along with my feelings of asexuality. Most days I’d rather forget they are there and sometimes my brain does that for me. The other day I was on a date and I was trying to get myself in the mindset but everytime I thought about what was between my legs all I could picture was a black hole. I ended up not being able to do anything with my own body because I couldn’t reintegrate. Luckily queer sex doesn’t revolve around a penis or any specific kind of sex. But when I think about bottom surgery I’m still not sure whether having different genitals would help at all.

I’ve also realized that I only feel confident at all when my chest, stomach, and legs are shaved. Which even with the estrogen means trimming twice a week. I need to go back for more hair removal but I can’t decide between laser which requires $1,400 up front for 3 sessions (probably twice) or electrolysis which has more guarantee of permanency and I can break into smaller chunks but means more sessions.

Basically I’m feeling dysphoric most of the time now but I don’t know what to do about it and what interventions would help and how I would pay for those. So my brain gets overloaded with that background anxiety and I end up being less productive or mildly dissociating. I know I should try to do things that connect me with my body more instead of just escaping into video games. But I have a hard time figuring out how to do that in ways that a) don’t involve gendered locker rooms, b) don’t trigger my asthma (running is out of the question), and c) don’t make my back and neck pain worse.

There’s a little peek into what’s in the back of my brain most of the time these days. So when you ask how I’m doing and I say I’m fine, please know that there is a giant asterisk there.

Affirming photo

So often when there’s a photo of me I go back and look at it only a few days later and dislike it because of dysphoria. But I took this one the other day using my iPhone portrait mode that I’m really loving. It feels like I can actually see myself looking back at me. My hair is extra curly here because my spouse had just helped me style it.

Caleb board portrait

Getting creative with sex

Content warning: Description of sex and genitalia

This is a first for me. I don’t usually write so publicly about the actual details of how I have sex. But I had a moment I am really proud of this weekend that I thought other people mind find helpful.

So here goes.

Are you ready?

Lately I have been having difficulty having sex that involves my penis. Partly it is dysphoria but mostly with the estrogen and the low libido it is causing I am just having a difficult time getting and staying hard. I’ve used generic viagra for awhile now for ED because I had so many issues around sex anxiety that I was working through because of how my ex messed me up. But before I started E I was using less and less. Now I need to take any time I want to use that part of my body.

But this weekend I had a date with my spouse and I was feeling more sexy than usually and decided to take the viagra. Predictably as we were getting ready to have PIV intercourse my dysphoria kicked in which usually would have put a quick end to it. As I touched myself to put lube on, it literally felt like my penis wasn’t my own and wasn’t part of my body. But this time I found a way to work with that feeling.

Without even thinking too hard about it my brain decided to make that a part of the sex. I conceptualized my penis as the best strap-on dildo ever. It was both attached to me and not part of me at the same time in a really hot way instead of a disturbing one. I could feel what was happening but it felt like I was feeling that through something else instead of directly. The part that I’m most proud of is that I was able to make that switch so smoothly that it didn’t interrupt the flow and we had great sex and I told my partner about how I had done it afterwards.

I’m not sure if I can always do that but hopefully the memory and success of that moment is transferable. How do you find ways to use your body through dysphoria?

Range of emotions

It’s amazing the range of emotions about gender that I can have just in the space of 90 minutes. I was almost late for work this morning because the first outfit I tried on was pinging my gender dysphoria and after hemming and hawing for far too long I finally decided to switch outfits. Something about the loose fitting slacks and the way my shoulders seemed to stand out just wasn’t working for me. I felt bad about not being able to wear an outfit that was probably really cute, at least according to my partner.

But I ended up switching to some tight fitting jeans, a floral top, and my black heel boots and now I feel sexy as fuck. On a whim I grabbed my new subtle lipstick as I walked out the door and I was feeling so confident by the time I got to work that I applied it in the men’s room. It felt so wonderfully subversive which for me is what being genderqueer is all about. Now I feel powerful and confident in my gender and appearance. I’m glad I listened to my feelings and took the time to change this morning.

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