Getting ready to come out!

The Stars Are Right!

No, Great Cthulhu isn’t going to make his return just yet, (Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn) but it IS time for me to finally come out of the closet as bigender to my family and old friends. After a lot of emotional turmoil, self loathing and unbearable guilt, I'm finally perfectly happy and proud to be bigender and I want everyone to know it.

I feel bad about keeping this from my family for such a long time, but until this point I just wasn’t ready to handle the strong emotion feedback I'll likely receive. Now I've been on HRT for almost six months and my former partner and I are separated. They deserve to know what's going on with me, even if they don't like it.

(Note – it makes me sad to type that last bit. We're still technically married and I don't know what else to call her. She calls me her “roommate”, but shes more than that to me. “Former partner” is the best I can think up.)

Until I'm out to the world I feel like I won't be able to fully claim my identity as a queer person. No one should have to hide who they are from anyone just because they are scared of rocking the boat. I don't want to just be out on the internet, but in the real world acting as an advocate for bigender and non-gender conforming people everywhere.

My biggest fear is of course rejection. I'm worried that when I come out, the people who I've known all my life will suddenly hate me, and I’m the sort of person whose not comfortable with the fact that there's people out there that don't like me. However, seeing how I'm now resting comfortable beneath the Trans Umbrella, I suppose that’s just something I'm going to have to get used to. I've never been super close to my family, but I still love them and I hope that they'll still care about me when this is over.

If not – tough shit.

If someone is going to reject me just for being who I am then I don't want anything to do with them anymore, be they family member or old friend. I've gone through hell and back over the course of this past year and I'm not about to let anyone’s bigotry invalidate my identity, nor am I going to let anyone make me feel bad for being me. I'm transbigenderqueer and I'm fucking magical.

I think that Friday shall be “The Day”. I'll call my Mum, then my sisters and then my brother. I think that my brother is the person most likely to accept me so if everyone else freaks out hopefully he'll have my back. I've prepared a message for Facebook as well, which is how I'll come out to the rest of my family and the world. I think it's pretty good but it lacks a certain warmth. I'll have another crack at it tomorrow. It has to be just right.

I'm feeling good, it's pride month and on the 18^th it'll be my six month HRT anniversary. Unleash the motherfucking rainbow!

Paige

Perky!

Hi there ducky!  I've been in guy mode a LOT this week but I'm back in female mode at the moment.  Not too much has been going on in my personal life, but of interest is the media attention Bigender people seem to be getting due to the SDSU study that I've mentioned in this blog previously.  On the Bigender.net forums it seems that some people are not happy about the study, or the way it's been reported in the media, or. . . something.

Queue rant.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what the fuck problem is.  The idea of "Bigender" is less than a decade old and almost no one knows about us.  Well, now they do, and not only is this a golden opportunity to show people that we exist and that we're normal people who just experience the world differently than the average person, but perhaps through the study of our unique life status scientists will be able to learn more about the human brain.  I mean, this is amazing just for the scientific aspect alone, but we should be embracing this using the media attention to educate the public and let other gender-variant people know that they aren't alone.

A friend of mine got this whole study started through shear force of will and today he made a post where he apologized for it because a few people are taking this personally for some reason that I can't fucking comprehend.  WTF?  He doesn't have a damn thing to apologize for and I'm pissed that other people would make him feel bad seeing how because of his efforts we're currently experiencing an amazing time for our tiny community, not to mention the fact that we might be able to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of gender and identity, and how it's programed in the human brain.   Fuck, fuck, fuckedy fuck.

End rant.

Elsewhere in the news, today I bound my breasts for the first time.

OK, they're tiny, but they're also damn perky, or pointy or whatever.  When I wear most of my regular shirts and work shirts I now have two sharp points sticking out which kind of gives my game away.  So today I took an ace bandage and strapped them down, which wasn't hard because there's not really much of anything there.  =P  So it's not proper binding in the traditional FTM sense seeing how I have very little to strap down, but it's something.

Anyway, now it just looks like I have regular guy pecs and I can wear all my old cloths again.  Yay!  I'm only into hrt four months so I'm not sure how much bigger they will get, but I imagine not very much.  I'm both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

I think that's it for now.  I've settled into living in my bachelor/bachelorette pad and I love it.  I started to put my loft bed together today but I hit a point where I'm going to need help so that will  have to wait until my wife comes home tomorrow.

Yup, that's all.  Sleep sweet!

Paige

Oh, this is me making a funny face.  Weeeeee.

Episode IV - Puberty Strikes Back

I'm 32 years old and I'm going through puberty.

Well, it's the second time I've done this now and I'm more prepared but it's still hard. Going through puberty as a male was hell and testosterone wrecked havoc on my face, mental health and my body. Estrogen however, is treating me fairly kindly. As a teenager there are all kinds of neural pathways that are being finalized during puberty also which makes things even more confusing, but I'm all old and stuff now so I get to skip that part. I think.

The thing is that there is a very limited amount of research regarding transgender people and the effect that HRT has on them at a biochemical and/or neurological level. (At least to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge.) MTF folks have reported changes in mood, sexuality, levels of empathy, feeling more forgetful then they were before, as well and liking different activities and abandoning other behavioral patterns that they used to enjoy partaking in before HRT.

I have immersed myself in trans literature since I accepted my true nature, and almost everything I've read thus far regarding Transition is based upon anecdotal evidence. Being scientifically minded this bugs the shit out of me. Hormones are extremely powerful and they can have profound effects upon a persons mind and body. It would seem to me that MTF and FTM persons who are in transition would be excellent subjects for studies regarding left/right brained gender based neurological studies. But hay, I was in the behavior disorder class from seventh grade till I graduated high school, so what do I know. (At least they let me out for all my art and literature classes. =P )

So yeah, I'm a 12 year old girl right now. Except I'm also a 32 year old bio-male. It's complicated.

My dysphoiria is soul crushing. Almost everything about my body is still wrong. I basically identify primarily as female, but when I look in the mirror I just see and ugly dude looking back at me and it hurts like hell. My appearance has become MUCH more feminine, but still I don't look female enough that I could ever pass as one, and I am stuck playing this game at work and in public where I have to conform to my assigned gender lest I be ridiculed for being myself, or worse.

It's gotten so bad recently. Last night I made a pretty positive post. Afterwords I started having some bad (but practical IMO) thoughts and the next thing I knew I was in the shower with the water blasting as hot as I could get it, curled up into a ball on the floor and sobbing uncontrollably. I cried for two hours and I couldn’t stop. I eventually got so emotionally drained that I had to go to sleep. I had nothing left in me.

This happens a lot.

Who am I? WTF am I? How do I explain this to the people I love and respect? When I do, how do I accept the fact that they no longer want anything to do with me at best? I work in a machismo cultured work environment where I am afraid that I will no longer be taken seriously if I present as female. Not to mention that I'm so socially fucking awkward as it is that I can hardly communicate with people I know no matter how much I want to. I just stutter and make a fool of myself. Now I have to contend with being judged by everyone that I come in contact with.

I am terrified of conflict and I just want to make everyone happy so they like me or at least ignore me. I am about to draw a whole bunch of attention to myself and I don't know if I can handle it. I have never felt so alone before in my life.

Trying to end this post on a positive note – my awesome gender therapist has recommended to me that I start going to the “Coming Out Group” at The Center and I think it's a great idea. I will probably meet a lot of people who are in similar situations as me and this is a good gateway to the San Diego LGBT community, which I really want to get involved with. After I get my face burned off and I heal I'm going. I'm desperate to make new friends and to find my place in the community.

Anyway, I know that no one reads my obscure little blog but in the event that you are also Bigender and looking for reassurance in regard to your gender identity please note that most male-assigned-at birth folk seem to take well to hormones. They feel less dysphoria and they report a sense of resonance between their female and male half. So please note that my gender identity issues are not the norm.

I'm different, but I always have been so whatever. Let's see where life takes me. I try so hard to be optimistic, but when looking toward the future all I see is heartbreak, personal wreckage, pain and eternal loneliness. Then again, I believe that we forge our own destiny. Despite all the crap that I've been through up to this point I'm still kicking and screaming. Hell, I thought that I would be dead by 26 and here I am today all responsible and in excellent health.

I can still forge a life for myself no matter what happens. Fates be damned - I make my own luck.

Page J. Abendroth

P.S. - I AM the personification of the “Socially Awkward Penguin” meme. http://www.quickmeme.com/Socially-Awkward-Penguin/