Disappearing

I'm in 100% girl mode for the third strait day now. This afternoon we had a going away luncheon for one of our staff members at work.  My dysphoria was already bad, but when we all met up at the restaurant I damn near had a panic attack.  My body and mind are completely out of sync.  While I know that while no one looking at me and could possibly know what was going through my head, my brain kept(s) screaming, "I'm a girl" over and over again and I became convinced that my coworkers were going to look at me see how I felt.  (That sounds odd but it's the best way I could describe it.)

I was able to come home early only to find my wife distraught, as while we spend all our time together I'm really 100 miles away in my mind, desperately trying to come to grips with whatever the hell I am and am becoming.  

She told me, "It's like you're disappearing". I sort of feel like that, but it's more like the masculine part of me is disappearing and in it's place, well, I don't know. I don't want to lose my wife, and I don't want her to lose the person she fell in love with and married.

Future complications

Note - I'm writting this from my phone so sorry for any spelling errors.

My wife hates the city and dreams of moving to a quiet, rural town one day.  I've always shared that dream, but now I'm realising that it might not be possible.

To put it lightly, I'm not quite normal.

In the city people are more tolorant and I have acess to medical care and the lgbt community.  I won't have that kind of support out in the boonies, and because of the physical changes that I need to make to my body the risk of violance against me (and my wife) is increased.

Just what am I and what am I to become?  I almost wish I was fully transgendered so that I could at least have a clear goal as to what I need to do.  Because I'm both genders, (and a little more to spice things up) I plan on making my body as androgynous as possible through hormones and minor surgery.  This is something that I need to do if I'm to stay sane.

How would people view my wife and I in a small rural town?  Would they think we were lesbians?  Would they think we were some sort of sick, sexual deviants?  Would I be forced to remain in the closet for the rest of my life?  I tend to always think of the worst case scenario and being a member of the trans comunity I know that a worst case scenario would be life ending.

Now I know that just because a town is out in the country it does not mean that all it's full of transphobic biggots.  (We have plenty of them in the city.)  I just don't feel like I will be safe there, or have the support that I need.   I knew that the path I'm on is going to have a huge effect on my future, but now I'm realising just how much it's going to fuck everything up for my wife if she remains with me and I feel guilty as hell. 

The worst part is that there's nothing I can do to change the course I'm on, even though it's going to take me strait through a hurricane and my wife is along for the ride.  I hate this.

Gender Euphoria (AKA - This isn't going to end well.)

So here I am, a woman trapped in a man's body.  I'm ok with that however, as I know that over time, with HRT, surgery, lot's of hard work, blood sweat and tears that can be corrected.  Right now as I type this I feel like I could take on the world. 

My dysphoria is gone compleatly as I know that I will one day I'll be a woman not only in mind but in body as well.  In the mean time there's very little I can do about my present condition so getting strung up won't help my cause any.  My whole body is tingling from my scalp to the tips of my toes and I feel a joyful warmth deep where I imagine religious people think the soul might be.  It's as though the fog has lifted and how my path to womanhood has been laid out before me.  I am Page and Pete is gone.

Since I began this journey I've never felt so wonderful, like everything finally makes sense and that I know what I am and what I have to do.

Very soon, I'm going to fall.  HARD.

Gender Euphoria is not an uncommon experience to many in the trans community.  While someone who might identify as a trans-man or trans-woman feel as though they are one gender trapped in the wrong body, a bigendered person experiences both genders (or more, or sometimes none) at different times.  (Many people experience gender in different ways so please don't be offended if you don't agree, I'm speaking in the simplest terms that I can for a general audience.) 

So for me, right now I am ready to live the rest of my life as a woman.  I have my five year plan ready for my appointment with the endocrinologist on the 20th and if I never shift back to male I plan to stick to it.

But I'm Bigendered and I WILL switch back, as this is not the first time this has happened to me.  All of the sudden I will think to myself, "The rest of my life as a woman?  Surgery?  Why the hell would I want to do that?"  I'll empathize with my female side, but I won't understand what it felt like to be her.

That might sound like I have two personalities but that's not it at all.  It's two different genders. (Uh, sometimes more.)  When I flip from one mode to the other you won't even notice.  With the exception of subtle differences in my speech patterns, the way I move and carry myself I'm the same person.

I've never felt more like a woman and I love it.  But while I still have so much to learn about myself at least I've gained a tiny bit of wisdom thus far regarding my bigendered nature.

"Everything changes."

I'll try to enjoy it in the mean time though. 

Page

The face in the mirror (Edit)

Edit - I need to like, proof read the stuff I write before I put it up.  What a concept huh?  Anyway, I fixed this post to be somewhat coherent now.  Sorry.  =P

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Who do you see when you look into the mirror?

When I was a child I was fascinated with my own reflection and I would stare at it for long periods of time in the giant mirror that my grandparents had in the living room. My grandmother would yell at me to stop, but I don't remember why.  Probably because it seemed narcissistic, but I'm not sure if that was the case.

I just could never really except that it MY face. I was looking at another person looking back at me. I made funny faces and he made them right back at me. (Alas, to this day I am the king/queen of funny faces.) Who was this boy in the mirror? Why did he look like me but was not me? (And me at the same time?) 

When puberty hit my face betrayed me. Have you ever seen an acne ad where they show a person with the worst possible acne in the world?  That was me.  No exaggeration.

I'm not going to be a misery dick http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=misery%20dick right now and go into my teenage years but in the aftermath my face is a ruin of scars and craters. I hate my face. Where it once held fascination it now mocks me and yet when I encounter a mirror I still have a hard time looking away. Ok, I can't NOT look away.

“That can't be me,” I think. But yeah, that's my mug staring apologetically back at me, as if to say, “Sorry Bra, not my fault your hormones are all out of wack.”

I learned to live with my face as a man because men can have scared, craggy faces and still be excepted by society because that shit sometimes happens to “us”. When I came to grips with the fact that I'm (mostly) a woman trapped in this body that all changed.

I remember an incident that occurred shortly after I finally “came out” to myself and accepted the fact that I was bigender. It was probably a day or two after I had done so. I stepped out of the shower, looked in the mirror and saw someone else looking back at me. I was a woman in mind and spirit, but my reflection was that of a pasty white, overweight male slob with a ruined face. I threw up violently in the toilet for several minuets.

That was my first real taste of gender dysphoria, and it's something that I still struggle with every day.

Right then and there I changed the way that I live my life. I eat healthy and mostly vegetarian, I do moderate exercise for an hour a day, I went to the dermatologist and I'm on retain a which has thus far had a noticeable impact on my skin quality. Les and I have two grand saved up for either dermabasion or laser resurfacing for my face, which will hopefully either eliminate or greatly diminish my acne scaring and smooth out my complexion.

I still have “man fat” around my waist that makes me feel disgusted, but my body looks sooo much better than it used to. I've trimmed at LEAST 30 pounds of fat and I had to pull all my old pants out of storage. (Despite all the problems it's raised my wife says that realizing that I'm bigender was the best thing to ever happen to my health.)

But back to my face. While there used to only be one reflection now sometimes there are more. There's the “Ugly Reflection” where I see every issue with my face that I could probably imagine amplified by 100 times. Sadly, that's the one I see the most. Then there's “Guy Face”, with his strong jaw, steely eyes and serious expression. Then Androgynous Face, still masculine by birth but soft and feminine. I like that one.

But sometimes, I look at myself and I see a phantom face behind my own. That of the woman who I so often am inside. It's like I can't focus on her, but she's there, trying to manifest herself in my world. “I'm here!” She screams, like someone trapped on the other side of a mirror in a twilight episode. “See me!”  (Don't you dare start singing The Who right now.  Well, hell, let's at least sing it together. . . )

As I modify my body through surgical intervention and as I feminize myself with hormones will her reflection become clearer? And once I can look into the mirror and see her, will it finally be myself looking back at me? Or just another stranger?

Page Abendroth

Trans-formation: My gender-queer manifesto

I'm weird.

I say that proudly, as I always have.

Since I was a young child I was the “weird kid” and that was my identity up throughout high school. I never knew why I was the weird kid , and my life up to this point had been a struggle to be taken seriously while still expressing my true self.

I made art. I did improve shows before my friends who would circle around me and wait for me to make them laugh. Who would make me laugh though?

I’ve always felt ostracized from society, yet I didn’t know why. I knew I was different and that something was “wrong” with me, so I had to act how people expected me to act so that I could function in our gender binary society.

<<Sit like a man, talk monotone, take up space, don't think about the fact that when you close your eyes that you see yourself as a woman. You're attracted to woman so that means you're normal right? As long as you don't act on your desires you're not gay. Don't stand like that! Legs shoulder length apart, don't put your weight on one leg. I want to be taken. Someone fuck me. Shoulders hunched forward. As long as you only fantasize about being with a man your not gay. Why can't I stop? I still like women so I'm OK? Squint your eyes. You can do this. Laugh at their stupid misogynistic jokes, at the stories they tell about your female friends. That's what men do and you need to be a man lest you be rejected. As long as you don't cross dress you're still safe.>>

Back then I played along but I hated myself for it. Now I feel like I'm finally growing in body and spirit while another part of me dies, or more accurately, I shed the false masculine armor that I've been entombed within over the years. It still serves me when needed, but I finally realize that it's not who I am, nor who I've ever been. Like a 17 year cicada I leave my shell behind and scream my song desperately into the night as my death rapidly approaches.

I'm not a human any longer. (I'm an Alligattoooooor! I'm a space man. . . Uh, Bowie reference. Yeah.)

I'm an heterosexual. I'm a gay man. I'm aggressive and submissive, a top and a bottom. A coward and a sadomasochist. I'm a woman. I'm a lesbian. I'm a strait female. I'm androgynous. I'm polly and monogamous. Gender is a failed concept to me; I'm a gender-queer outlaw and I don't care anymore.

Who are you? I want you for your compassion, your kindness, your tolerance, your art, your warm body pressed against mine regardless of it's configuration, your intelligence and your wit. I'm finally free from gender and it's limitations. It can be sexual. It can be friendship. It can be both. Love transcends everything. Above all, I want your companionship. I want to be your ally.

Up to this point I've been afraid to express myself because of how I thought others would perceive me. That shit stops today. As soon as I can I'm getting piercings, I'm going on hormones and by the time I'm done I have no intention of being recognizable in either gender binary unless I choose to present that way.

I am who I am, and I'm not a man or a woman. I'm fluid, I'm a contradiction, an alien, a nonconformist, a trans-person and above all an individual. I will sculpt and modify my body to reflect who I am inside and I don't give a damn anymore about blending into the crowd. I'm a gender binary smashing battering-ram and you can't stop me, or the thousands of others out there like me.

I've always been afraid to be myself because of the other people around me. I was terrified of being ostracized from the mainstream cisgender community, but in retrospect I've never belonged to them anyway and I've never felt comfortable in that world. (Nor did they accept me.) This is the end of that and the beginning of the rest of my life.

So now I am naked and unidentifiable. What am I? I'm a human being that lusts for life, love and community. That's something that we all have in common. If only we would focus on what we need from life as opposed to what divides us.

Until that time comes, I will not summit, not anymore. Today I march off to war with a flannel shirt, pink panties, combat boots, a frilly skirt and unflinching cold blue eyes. (The eyeshadow makes all the difference.)  My center of gravity shifts at random from my shoulders to my hips and I no longer try to hide it.

I'm an impossible conundrum and yet I live on, for better or worse. I may thrive in this brave new world or I may be killed without reason. I reflect upon those who have gone before me; They like to burn and dismember our bodies. I hear it's to erase our identities and to warn others - “This is what happens!” http://www.transgenderdor.org/?page_id=1663 It's the same with racial and religious hate crimes. Honor our sisters and brothers.

This is what happens when you are brave enough to be yourself. This is what happens when you try to live your life defiantly.

Yet I remain defiant, as I have no other choice if I am to live and love as I must.

I will fight to the bitter end.

By my hand upon this date,

A mammal.

A gender freak

A human

Someone who likes to wear mittens.