I'm out and proud! (Plus a public service announcement for any friend or family member who ever reads this blog.)

This has been an awesome weekend. On Friday I called my Mom and I finally came out of the closet. Once I got her on the phone I could hardly speak; I don't remember the last time I was that scared. She told me that she was confused, (which is very understandable) but that she loved and supported me.

JOY!

Then I called my sisters and they were both incredibly supportive and cool with it. Then I posted my Facebook note and I've been overwhelmed by how positive most people have been. Everyone who's not happy about this has kindly kept quiet. If I knew it was going to go this well I would have come out months ago. =P

I have a serious problem where I expect a worst case, apocalyptic scenario out of every life situation and it's NEVER as bad I'd feared. One of my sisters rightfully pointed out to me that for a person who doesn’t want to be judged I sure did a lot of judging. If you're someone I know and you're reading this – I'm sorry if there's anything in this blog that you find personally insulting.

Until Friday I felt so alone and I was terrified that I was going to lose the last bit of connection to my family. Now I feel more loved and closer to everyone that I ever have. I was so happy on Friday that I was sobbing. I've cried so much over the course of this past year; to cry because I was happy was a new experience and it felt wonderful.

And now for a quick public service announcement -

If you are a friend or family member reading this there's something you should know first. I created this blog for a couple reasons. First, it's a form of therapy for me. I've had to keep all this stuff to myself for a long time and if I didn’t get it out somehow I was going to go crazy. Second, I thought that by doing this then maybe down the road some other bigender person who going through what I have will stumble upon it and it might help them.

For this reason I have held nothing back in this blog. I talk about everything that's been happening to me.

Everything.

Including TMI stuff relating to my transition that might be good info for someone else who is in my shoes but that you probability REEEEEALLY don't want to read. I personally don't care if anyone of you read this stuff as I have nothing to be ashamed of. Just a friendly warning. =)

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the letters L, G, B and T.

Paige

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

HRT kicks ass

I kind of have a body image problem regarding my female presentation. (OK, so it's really bad.) A little while ago I was going through and purging all the old pictures on my phone when I came across one that I'd taken before starting hormones. (A pic that I'd originally took to document how I used to look before HRT, and had subsequently forgotten about actually.)

Anyway, I was checking the calendar and I was surprised to see that it's only been four months since I started on estrogen and even earlier on Spiro. (Jan 13th to be exact for the E.) I thought it was six. So four months ago almost to the day this is what I used to look like pre hrt-



And about 10 mins ago -



Umm, that's not quite what I had expected on the low, newby dose of estrogen that I'm on. (Hopefully they will be increasing said dosage next week when I see my Doc.) Seeing how I'm 32 I figured that hrt would hardly effect me at all, but even though I'm super critical of myself even I can't deny that I look different. (In a good, more feminine way.)

Moral of the story - hormones kick ass, (if taken safely under a doctors supervision blah, blah) and if you feel like you need to be on them then do so as soon as you can. Don't let anyone try to tell you to wait if you know that it's what you need to make you happy regardless of your life situation.

Quick edit - If anyone has before and after pictures they feel comfortable sharing that might be nifty.

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.