Well, tomorrow is three months and three weeks on T. I’m very excited. I’ve been wanting to do my shot for about two days now, and only one more day to go. I can feel my cycle now. I also sound like Cookie Monster a majority of the time now.
I shaved for the first time this week. It felt weird, but right. Now I have more visible hair on my chin. I probably need to shave again. That is the only place I’m comfortable shaving on my body, and I’m fine with shaving there.
Last night I went out with some friends. Well, I went over to a friends house, and it was like a pride festival. It made me feel loved and accepted and great. Her Mom is super supportive of everyone and reminded me of Momma Gay from St. Cloud. I haven’t been in that kind of environment for a while. I mean, yes, my Mom is definitely awesome, and I don’t think I would be transitioning physically if it weren’t for her. But I mean, I’ve never had a massive group of queers over and my Mom hasn’t been like, yay queers! I don’t think I’ve ever had a massive group of queers over except for my seventeenth birthday party.
We were all hanging out in the basement and my gay uncle was visiting. It was mostly gay boys (one of them my ex boyfriend, we had dated as a cover up, which I was fine with, because I was still trying to figure out myself and had never done anything physical with a guy, so it wasn’t a big deal) because there weren’t many lesbians in high school. Or if there were, we were mostly so deep in the closet we could find Narnia, or we went to different schools.
Anyway, I think one of the reasons I haven’t had many queers over is because of my Dad. But it was really nice to be at my friends house. I was one of the only people to stay sober, but I had so much fun, and to me, it was like, I don’t even need alcohol to have a good time. I know that when I first came out, I was drinking a lot, and I think that was because when I drink, I don’t think about being trans*, and now that I’ve been living this way for almost a year and a half, it has gotten better. I am a lot more comfortable in my skin and that, I think, shows.
But anyway, about four or five of us, all queer, are looking for a place together in Greensboro next year. I’m trying to move there this fall but I want to live on campus for a year.
So, I might have found people to live with, and then rent would be cheap and utilities would be included. So there’s a plus.
As for the activism, I know I’ve kind of talked about this before. But one of my friends runs the blog effyeahtranspride on tumblr. And he asked me if this summer I would start a blog called ftm problems, so that we are fully represented. My friend is cis, and said, I’m not ftm, but I’ve dated FTMs and I know you can handle it and there aren’t any FTM problems blogs, so you should start one and I’ll see if I can have someone help you run it.
Well, I’ve been running it for a little over a month, and each time I get a message from trans* guys saying they need help coming out, how did you do it, how do I deal with my parents, how do I deal with being a student? How do I deal with shaving and dyshporia, and all of this, every time I see a message from someone like this, I just get a big smile on my face. Because yes, it sucks that we have to answer all of these questions for ourselves. It sucks when parents think they’ve failed as parents because they have a trans* child. That’s how my Dad thinks of it. But every time you get a message from someone else with the same sort of problems as you, it reminds you that your struggles are real, they are valid, and somewhere out there is a guy trying to navigate his way through the gender boxes, and you aren’t as alone.
Lately, a lot of the problems people have been having is coming out. The 19th of August is a year and a half for me since I changed my name. But I was basically living as a man for a lot longer than that, I just didn’t label myself as trans* until the 19th of February of 2012. But lately, a lot of guys have been asking me how to come out to parents, and what to do if they freak. Or now I’ve come out and my parents are freaked out.
What I’ve been saying is that it takes time. To us, we’ve known for a long time. I’ve known since I was a child. I’ve had time to process it. I went to therapy for months before I finally said yeah, I’m trans*. Our parents and friends and relatives haven’t had that. So give it time. Get in a place where you are supported, but give it time.
But every time I see how a guy has been helped by my little blog, it reminds me that I’m doing enough and that I am capable of helping someone along the way, because I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t reached out to me along the way. It’s my way of giving back. And that’s one of the reasons I want to go to UNCG and study writing and gender and write about it. I still want to go to England, but I have to make sure that I am healthy, and UNCG is only an hour and a half to two hours away from home.
Some Assembly Required 