It's starting to get better

More and more frequently when I look into the mirror I see a woman looking back at me, and she’s always a welcome sight. Sometimes I still look hopelessly male and I curse my reflection, but most of the time now I see the woman who I was always meant to be taking the place of the male body I so loathed, and I’m filled with overwhelming joy. There are some major male identifiers that won’t change without surgical intervention and I can accept that now. If things keep going the way they have been it will be just fine.

Ever since puberty I’ve had a major body image problem. Most of it had to do with my acne, but when I looked at the faces of other men I never saw myself in them. I always thought something was off and I could never put a finger on it before. When I first came out to myself the body dysphoria I experienced was soul crushing and it nearly overwhelmed me. After what I’ve been through up to this point, it’s hard for me to describe how wonderful I feel now. Even with still having a long way to go things are significantly better that they were before, and the sensation of dysphoria which once seemed to be so pervasive every waking moment of my life has greatly diminished to the point where a bad attack of it is rare.

It’s not just about my physical appearance though. My behaviors, likes, dislikes, the way I filter information and the way I perceive the world around me has changed as well. I think a lot of it had to do with moving out of the condo. There was a part of my brain that was clinging onto my masculinity for my Ex I think, and once I was in the new apartment the female side of me took over for the most part. My roommate says that the changes in my behavior have been profound, but I never really noticed until he pointed it out to me. (Apparently I’m a typical shy girl or something like that.) I just act normal and go with whatever feels right.

When I flip into guy mode now it’s just as disarming as it used to be when I flipped into girl mode. In guy mode I’m not dysphoric about my body; I’m dysphoric with my brain, which probably sounds crazy. It’s like something is off with my mind and my way of thinking. I’m kind of repulsed by my male brain and I wish it would just go away.

I don’t always notice the switching. I was watching something on TV with my roommate maybe a week ago and he made an innocent, jokingly suggestive comment and I burst out laughing. He told me that he could tell I was in guy mode because in girl mode I would have blushed. (I’m very bashful.) I suddenly felt almost ashamed, like if someone was to have told me that I was acting like a girl back when I primarily identified as a male. Am I that different in guy mode vs. girl mode? And how can one person be so different and still be the same person? Being bigender is confusing.

But still, even with the flipping I’m more convinced now than ever that transitioning is the right thing for me. I used to be afraid of the male part of my brain getting body dysphoria the more female I appear, but that hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, I can’t wait till I get to the point when I can’t pass as male anymore. I already did 31 years are a male and I didn’t like it much. I think female will suit me better, and I make a better looking than I ever did a man anyway.  Heck, I might even be pretty someday.

Paige

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Note – this post was written earlier in the day time.

Hi again blog.

My mood has stabilized significantly since yesterday. The tears are still close to the surface but for now at least I don’t have to make a concentrated effort to hold them back. Tonight I’ll let myself be as emotional as I need to be and I’m going to do it in a healthy, nondestructive way. (That’s my plan anyway.) 

The two people I feel closest to in San Diego, (the only two people I actually feel close to) are going away and I’m going to be here by myself.  I plan on getting my ass out and making new friends in the trans community, but what if I don’t forage any close relationships with anyone? If that’s the case all that will be keeping me here is my job.

Once the dust settles from my divorce I’ll be starting all over again and I have to say that the idea of moving to a new city and rebooting my life is rather appealing to me right now. After everything is squared away between me and my wife I’m going to get an apartment in Hillcrest with a six month lease. That will give me time to get settled, to meet new people and to save money. What I do after the six months is up in the air.

If I’m happy where I’m at I’ll just stay here. San Diego is a pretty nice place to live and I have a steady job. If I’m unhappy then I’m going to move away IF I can make sure that I’ll have a job lined up for me. Also, I’m already half way towards retirement with the organization I’m currently employed by and it would be foolish for me to throw that away. (So I’ll be able to retire when I’m 41 if I want to, although I’ll most likely keep working as I’d get a lot more retirement money if I do 30 years vs. 20.) 

If I feel like it’s time to move on there are a few different places that I’m thinking about going. I don’t like to plan really far in the future so this is just for fun. Still, I’m used to moving around all over the place thanks to the Navy and after all that I’ve been through here it might really be a good idea to get a fresh start. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking.

Florida – I haven’t said this since I was a little kid, but right now I really want my mommy. =(  I want to be close to my family and I could really use their support right now. I know also that there’s a great gender therapist over in Sarasota, which looks like it’s a really nice place to live. I’d be able to dive out on the weekends to visit my family and vice versa. The cost of living out there is super cheep and I could afford a nice apartment with just my VA check. Both Sarasota and South Tampa look to have thriving LGBT communities as well.

The problem with moving to Florida is that uh, it’s Florida. It’s kind of the deep fucking south which is not the friendliest place for gender variant people such as I, and of course I need to be able to work so that I can support myself somehow. Also, fuck fire ants. Seriously.

Chicago – I was born and raised in Chicago, so I have roots there and I still feel a strong connection to it. I also have family and old friends there and I know my way around. Chicago has a bustling LGBT community and I’m sure that I’d be able to find plenty of support there. Oh, and the food! Best food in the world. I fucking love Chicago.

However I hate the weather. In the summer time people die from the heat and in the winter they freeze to death. Also, while there are people I know there, I’m worried that it might be a bit awkward for some of them that I’m going to be so, uh, different than I used to be. One of the points of moving away from San Diego would be to have a fresh start and going back to Chicago might be defeating the purpose. There used to be a strong Navy presence there but they’ve moved most of the various schools to Texas so it would be hard for me to find a job.

Oh, and all the Portillo’s will make me fat. I’m so hungry right now.

San Francisco – The Gay Capital of America. This one is a no brainer. In San Francisco I might actually not be queer enough to be noticed by anyone. =P It would be the safest place in the country for me and it’s a beautiful, diverse and wonderfully weird place to live. Hell, even if I was heteronormative I’d love to live there.

If I could afford to. The cost of living in San Francisco is crazy and I’d have to be very financially secure to move out there. That’s the only problem I can think of. If I could afford it I’d fucking go now.

Seattle – I’ve never been there but I’ve always wanted to go. Washington is a beautiful State with a diverse ecosystem which is important to me because I love nature and I don’t like living in the desert like I am now. Seattle appears to be a very liberal city with a lot of culture. The LGBT community is huge and I keep hearing that it’s an awesome place to live if you’re trans. I just feel drawn to Seattle like it’s somewhere I’m supposed to be. I can’t really explain it.

I need to learn take a little vacation up to Seattle to check it out. There are a lot of Naval facilities at Bremerton which is really close to Seattle. (Hour long ferry ride.) If I can get a job lined up I’d really like to move there. It feels right.

That’s enough typing for now. I’ll blabber on about more pointless nonsense later!

Paige

On controlling the bigender “flip” and what it's like when everyone you care about goes away.

Hay there blog. Yesterday was a fucking catastrophe and today sucks too. My best friend who is also bigender is moving away. So now basically my whole support network is gone and I'm going to be alone here in San Diego. It seemed like one minute things had leveled out and now everything is falling apart before my eyes and there's really nothing I can do about it.

I've been in guy mode since I woke up this morning and I've been forcing myself to stay in guy mode all day. Uh, I didn’t know I could do that before now. When I'm in guy mode vs. female mode I have a lot more control over my emotions. As a guy it's easier for me to control and shut them down when I have to. In female mode I have to cry until I'm done and that's that. I need to make it through another day of work tomorrow so yeah. I need to be in guy mode right now.

So for any bigender person who “flips” between genders like I do, here's what I'm doing. (This is from a MAAB perspective, switch the genders as you see fit.)

1. No female clothing, make up, or any of that shit. I can only speak for myself, but my presentation has a HUGE influence over my gender state. If I look in the mirror and I see a female face, (or a close proximity at least =P) looking back at me then it's a guarantee that I'll flip.

2. Maintain a masculine posture. Most people don't think about this shit consciously, but when you're trans you have to learn how to not only look like the gender you identify as, but you also have to learn all the nuances that go along with said genders presentation. As a simple example, when women sit they tend to take up as little space as possible while men tend to sprawl out and claim as much space as they can. You have to learn about posture, speech patterns, how men squint and look down to the ground and how women usually have there eyes wide open and fixed on the horizon line, stuff like that. Focusing on only using the standard gender ques of the gender I wish to be in grants me another level of control over the fabled “flip”.

3. Mindfulness. This is crucial. (For me anyway.) Don't let your thoughts run away with you. Don't allow your mind to day dream or drift over to thoughts/emotions that your other gender might feed off of. Focus on your breathing, or the different things you see. Notice every detail. Listen to music and hear and feel every tiny note. Basically, focus on the exterior world rather than what's going on inside your head. I've been training my mind to do this for a while to help combat my depression and anxiety so I'm starting to get good at it. It takes practice but it can be done.

So I've learned/I'm learning to wield some control over the flip, but I also know that all I'm really doing right now is suppressing my female side and I'll have to let her out soon. My plan for tomorrow is to make it through the day, take care of all my errands and then I'll go into girl mode and confront all the feelings I'm keeping bottled up inside me right now.

The reality of my situation is that I'm completely devastated right now. My wife doesn’t want me anywhere near her and my one and only friend who also happens to be bigender and whom I regard as a kindred spirit is going away. My friend is my anchor and he makes me feel brave to be myself. I was a complete shut in until I met him. I'm still super shy, but I feel like I'm just starting to come out of my shell and his support has played a huge part in that.

I sort of assumed that he'd always be around. That we'd be friends, transition together, support one another when we needed it, have crazy gender-queer adventures together and we'd do all the stuff that best friends do. (Uh, when they're queer.) My marriage ending is killing me, and then to learn that I'm losing the only other person who I really care about in San Diego. . . fuck.

I'm really fucking weird. No one understands me and I have a hard time making friends. He was my bigender idol when I first joined the bigender.net forums and he was the one who recommended me to my gender therapist, who has literally saved my life more than once now.

Meeting someone like my wife and falling in love with her, (and having my love reciprocated) was a one in a million shot. I don't know if that will ever happen again. (I'm afraid that it won't.) The fact that my friend and I are both bigender, we're both weird, we both work in healthcare, we're both reasonably intelligent, (although he's way smarter than I am) we both seem to be going through the same shit together even though we're not really involved in one another lives, and we both think alike. . . It's like we were supposed to be friends and now that he's going away I feel like I'm being cheated; like this wasn’t supposed to happen.

I feel like we were supposed to have adventures together. He was going to take me to get my first bra fitted. I thought that we could go to San Diego Pride together to represent the bigender community. I was going to take him to get his first suit. His presence in my life has had an extreamly positive influence on me and I'm a stronger person for having known him. He made me excited to be bigender.

So when the smoke settles from my divorce what do I have left? Nothing really. I'll still hopefully have a job, but I need more than that to keep me going. I'm going to have to make some new friends and build up a support network quick or else I'm not going to make it. I can't do this alone.

I just want to go home, but nowhere is home to me anymore.

Paige

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

Dreams part 2

I can't take it any more.

Today sucked. It sucked really bad. I can hardly formulate a sentence right now.

I may be bigender, but I'm incapable of being happy or comfortable in my male body any longer. I keep going back and forth, over and over again. When I'm in male mode I'm never happy.

One trend that's been obvious to me is that when I present as female everything changes for me. I don't look in the mirror and hate the way I look, I'm happy with my body, my cloths are comfortable and damn if I don't clean up nice with some makeup.  

I still hate the male secondary traits, but I've never hated the female ones that have developed so far. The more female I look the happier I am.

When I'm in female mode AND presenting as female I feel like I can relax and be myself. I like to laugh, make jokes and dance. I'm actually comfortable in my body, while presenting as male I feel like I'm about to squirm out of my skin.

You can probably see where this is going.

For a while I thought I was going to transition but then I decided against it as I keep flipping back to male mode. However, I'm not fucking happy with my male body. The notion of continuing on this way for the rest of my life is unacceptable and it's driving me into a depression that threatens to overwhelm me. It almost has a few times already and I don't want to go back to the hospital again.

So I have revised my plans.

I'm going to start electrolysis next paycheck. I get paid in two days. My gender therapist gave me a card for someone that some of her patients were really happy with. I will call them after work to schedule an appointment.

As soon as possible I'm going to try and move out to Hillcrest, the gay district of San Diego. If I can get a roommate to share the costs, I can rent out the room I sleep in now and use it to pay my part of the rent. I've talked with my wife about this plan and she thinks it's a good idea. If we can't rent out the room then I can still pull it off, but I wont be able to save much money at all and I really NEED to be saving my money at this time.

If the getting a roommate plan doesn’t work out, then I can just stay where I am now for the time being. Once my wife has steady work I will sign the mortgage over to her and get my own apartment out in Hillcrest. While I wait for that to happen I can at least still get electro.

I want to live in Hillcrest because as soon as I can get a bit more confidant in myself, I want to start living part time as a female. Hillcrest will be the most forgiving neighborhood for this, and it's where I'll be harassed the least. (Hopefully.)

The money I'll be saving by living frugally will pay for the electrolysis, and some will also go into a second fund. My goal is to have round two of laser resurfacing no latter than 6 months from this date. Then there will be a recovery period for at lest 3 months before I make any further decisions.

I will join a trans support group of some sort. I was worried about doing so before because I'm bigender but fuck it. I desperately need to meet more people like me. 

By this time I shall have my voice, walk and female gestures down. Then I will take a good hard look at myself and reassess.

If I'm still not happy with my complexion I will have to save up for one more round of resurfacing. I don't this this will be the case, but you never know.

If I am, then I will ask myself if I'm really ready to go full time, and if this is how I want to live the rest of my life. If so, the next thing I will do is FFS, the first procedure being forehead re-contouring, hair line decent and eye brow lift plus trachea shave.

After surgery there will be a huge change in my appearance and I will start to live full time. Then I can save up for the nose-job/jaw FFS. Once I'm happy with my face I'll take care of my boobs if necessary. As for SRS, I'm fine for now. That may change at some point, so I'm keeping that in mind.

The good thing about this plan is that I really don't have to make any major commitment until my first FFS. That's not going to be for a while and it gives me plenty of time to work things out. However, now I at least have a plan. 

Of course, this is very much like my old plan when I thought I was going to fully transition and then I decided against it. I no longer have any choice. I am Bigender. However, while I may flip back and forth between male and female I'm now 100% confident that I will never be happy until I can present and blend in as a woman. 

So there you have it, back to Transbigenderqueer or whatever I am. At least I'll die in the right body.

Paige Abendroth.

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.

Today I moved from my house back into my house.

OMG it feels so good to finally be able to sit down and rest. My wife and I spent the entire day moving furniture. Tomorrow I'm going to pay for it. In the mean time, here's a little update.

I woke up this morning in strong girl mode, but when we started moving crap around I flipped over to strong guy mode. This seems to happen when I have to get shit done in a timely manner. I'm typing this now in guy mode, which doesn’t happen very often.

We cleared everything out of the bedroom and then moved my desk into there. I was afraid that it was going to fall apart and it almost did, but then my wife slapped a couple of l-brackets on it and we rocked that shit. Good thing my wife is non-gender stereotype conforming in her own way because I don't know anything about that stuff. (She owns all the power tools.)

We have a twin mattress that we moved into the bedroom for me to sleep on and the queen mattress and frame are in the living room right now until Tuesday when my wife's Dad is bringing down the twin mattress from her parents house. Then they'll take the old bed to the dump.

I got the dresser into the walk in closet and it's very easy to access. My wife is going to move her stuff out of there once I can squeeze my book case in here. Then I can finally throw away the old plastic crap drawers that I've haws since we first moved in together in Japan.

After we moved around just about every piece of furniture to another part of the house we went to Ikea and picked up my loft bed. My wife is paying the utilities now, (electric and internet) which came out to 120 bucks. The loft bed was 119. Sometimes things work. The boxes the thing came in were a lot bigger than I had expected, but I have a Honda Fit and the seats fold down to the floor. I've worked miracles with this car before, and once again I was able to bend reality to my will in defiance of the Gods. So uh, we made it fit. (Is that why the car is called a “Fit”?)

Right now the bed is unboxed in pieces. My project for tomorrow is to put the darn thing together. My wife will be in class so hopefully I'll be able to do it by myself. I put this damn desk together by myself so I think I'll be able to pull it off.

I'm a little worried that the big screen TV wont fit in here. We took some measurements and we were able to move the desk away from wall, but now there's like a three by three foot space that serves no purpose, and I'm trying really hard to use every inch that I can get. If it fits then we will get some seating in here and in the daytime and the early evening it will be the TV room. (More like a – theater; the things huge.)

If it wont then I'll put it up on Craig's List and we'll use the old analog TV in the mean time until we can afford a better one. Personally I don’t give a damn one way or the other. The big TV is fucking cool but it's just more “stuff” that's not essential to my life. (My wife want's to keep it.)

If we go with the little TV everything should fit perfect. Then between the TV and seating I'll have a nice little area for meditation and exercise. I think I will get a little round table for people to put their drinks or food on.

As I type this right now I can feel myself sliding into girl mode. In real time. Just thought I would document that.

So I have my little world set up here now. I have my most favorite show in the know universe, Mystery Science Theater 3000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000 playing on the little TV in the background. It's very comforting to me. When I was going to get married to my wife, (the big family wedding and not the quicky wedding in Japan) I had a little portable TV/DVD player and I remember I was watching MST3K. It was once of the Hercules movies, but honestly I can't remember which.

OK, now I'm rambling. I worked my ass of today and I'm completely spent. I'm tired and tomorrow I'm going to be in a lot of pain and I still have so much to do. Eh, oh well. Time for go to bed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KN2JhPc0wM

Just another status update

Hi blog. I'm supper fucking exhausted right now so hopefully this post isn’t too incoherent. Seriously, I fell like I got hit by a truck. Not much to report since the last post. When I went to work on Thursday there was a card in a sealed envelope waiting for me. I opened it up and it was from my boss, saying to take care of myself and wishing me luck on my transition. My day couldn’t have started any better. I've said it before, but my boss really is the sweetest lady ever.

My wife and I are getting along good. She was at her parents house the last few days and I had it all to myself. We will be moving into our separate parts of the house in the next few days now which is going to be a bit of work. My upper body strength is NOT what it used to be so I'm wondering how moving all this furniture around is going to go.

We had a friend over today to look at the condo and to see if he wants to move in. Looks like he probably will which is awesome as quite frankly he's the only person who we'd let in here. That will allow me to save money, which is something I really need to do.  (And my wife and I both think it will be kind of fun.)

As he left he mentioned that he was worried about me. I'm worried about me too and I think I'm trying to go way to fast in regards to my transition. It's something my therapist has brought up a couple times as well. I really need to give myself time to get comfortable with myself and to work shit out. Also as I mentioned in my last post, I'm starting to worry about not being able to pass as male in guy mode. I have a long way to go in regards to that, but as I begin to look more androgynous and my chest growth becomes more prominent (seriously, those little things are perky) this is bothering me a lot.

Is there a middle ground? I'm really not sure and this is just one of the reasons I need to slow the fuck down before I make a decision that I'll regret later. It must be nice to wake up in the morning and not have to think about what gender you are. Anyway, before I make any kind of permanent alterations to my body outside of the effects of HRT I'm really going to have to learn to accept myself as a bigenderd person.

I think the new game plan will consist of doing electrolysis over the next several months and then after I've saved up another 4 grand I'll do another round of laser resurfacing. I figure this will give me over a year to mull things over and to get well mentally with therapy and all that. (Well, I'll probably always be in therapy but I mean that I'll hopefully be in a better place.)

That's about it for the moment. Now I'm going to go play stupid video games until I feel like going to bed.  Weeeeeee.

Oh, NPR might want to interview me. Another day in the life.

Paige

Getting set up for the future (Update part 2)

So much has happened since my I last updated my journal that I'm posting it in a few parts.

So my wife and I had a plan where she was going to move out for a bit, (Only because I'm not in a position to do so) so that we could have some space and I could rent out part of the condo to make extra money so that I can transition. Her therapist actually thought this was a good idea, but I hated it as I love her very much and I felt like a horrible person, asking so much from her. At the time however I couldn’t think of any other way to make it work.

She told her parents about this plan and now they apparently hate me. My wife told me that her dad thinks that I'm trying to push her out of the condo so that I can leave her high and dry and that he apparently want's to kick my ass. Her mom want's her to get a lawyer so that she can get my promise to sign the lease over to her once she has a stable job as a matter of record, or something.

First of all I'm sad and hurt that they don't like me any more. I came from a dysfunctional family and when I met my wife I couldn't believe how wonderful her's was. They have always treated me with caring and love. There's no way they could ever understand what's going on, and I suppose that I'll just have to live with their scorn.

Secondly I'm a little pissed off. I've loved, supported and provided for my wife for nine years not counting the year back when we were in the military and she moved into my tiny barracks room with me. Even when she was still active duty and earning money I payed the bills so she could save hers. (Now I pay them all, except she pays for the car insurance with money from her GI bill.) Because she has been going to school for what seems like forever now, I do the VAST majority of the housework, cooking and so on. Everything I do is for her. I'm even prepared to sign over my GI bill to her so she can pursue her masters if she wishes.

Now all of the sudden I'm some sort of villain. I don't completely blame them. They only have a sliver of information regarding what's been going on and they are trying to make sure that their daughter is safe and protected. There's no way they could understand what I'm going through and the drastic measures that I have to undertake in order to preserve my sanity at the moment. I don't think that any of them are familiar with trans issues and I'm confidant that her old fashioned conservative father most certainly is not.

I never wanted her to move out of the fucking house. That's the last thing I wanted. However, neither of us could figure out a better option at the time. Thankfully, since then I've gotten creative and worked out a solution.

I've been looking into space saving websites and I've figured out how we can set up the house so that we can still rent it out and have room for both of us. My wife and I were initially going to bunk together in the same room but she INSISTS that I take it for myself. What I'm going to do is convert “my” room into the TV/REC room as well as my living quarters. This way we keep everything open to everyone, but if I need my privacy I can close the door. (And going through what I am right now that means a lot to me.)

We plan on renting out the living room for 450 a month. We might already have a renter, and it's someone who I trust and respect so if he takes me up on the offer it would be ideal. (My wife loves him too which is important as she's apprehensive about bringing a stranger into our house.)

If he chooses not to rent here then I am going to hit up craigs list and look for a roomie. It's going to be complicated because it'll have to be someone who's trans-friendly, lgbt friendly and female. I like the idea of renting to another trans person myself, but we can be an unstable lot so we'll see. It will be like living in a dorm, but it's the best solution I can think of given out current situation. It might actually be fun.

The current plan is that when my wife get's out of school in February and then find a stable job I'm going to sign the mortgage over to her and then I'll get a place in town. Then I'll be able to save up serious money and I'll be out in the city alone, where I hope to continue to grow as an independent woman. (It's kind of funny to type that in guy mode. Gender is weird.)

Her parents might fucking hate me but what they don't fucking realize is that this whole time I've been working on setting her up for her future. I have a lot invested in this condo and I'm willing to give it up for her. Everything I've ever done has been for her, but being transgender I HAVE to transition. It's not an option and they don't understand that. I've heard the term, “transition or die” many times before, but now truly understand what it means.

I remember one point where I was desperately trying to think of ways to pay for this and I jokingly thought to myself, “maybe I could just whore myself out.” All the sudden I was hit with the sad realization of why so many trans-girls resort to sex-work. We really are that desperate, and I'm in the fortunate position where I at least have a steady job and a roof over my head.

I don't know if my wife and I have a future together. She's not bisexuel and as I transition into a woman it seriously hurts me to know that she's not sexually attracted to me anymore. She loves me and I love her, that much I do know. We had all these little dreams that we would discuss while we would snuggle in bed. Moving to some little town when we retired, getting horses and a cow. (I always told her that she would have to clean up after them. HAY! I'm from the suburbs of Chicago after all.) We marveled at how wonderful out marriage was and how it would last forever. Everything was perfect.

But I'm fucking trans.

When you're transgender it's very important that you except yourself for who you are. It's not something that you have control over. My wife keeps reminding me of this but when I think about what we had together, all the dashed dreams, of all the pain I'm putting her through and the uncertainty it's very hard not to hate myself. I'm really trying though. I'm trying so fucking hard.

I knew that being trans would alienate people from my life. It's look's like my wife’s family are the first people to reject me. None of them have bothered to contact me to hear my side of the story. I hope that over time they will reach out and we can ay last come to some sort of understanding.

It's late. There's more stuff that I need to write about, but that will have to wait. Thanks for reading.

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.

That's more like it.

I actually had a good weekend, believe it or not. I woke up on Saturday feeling well rested and in a much better state of mind. In the evening I meet up with two other bigendered people and we went out to Mo's, which is the most popular gay bar in the city. So it was my first time at a bar, let alone a gay bar. It was supposed to be girls night out, but I'm not quite ready to go out in “full” girl mode so I just wore a female cut shirt and jeans. Actually, in retrospect I was in full on girl mode, the only difference was that I didn’t have any make up on, so I suppose it was girls night out after all.

I thought that I would be freaked out being in such a loud place so full of people, but I actually felt really comfortable. Hillcrest is now my favoretest place in San Diego. (Well, Balboa Park is the coolest, but Hillcrest is a close second.) If I didn't have the condo and I was still renting I would totally move out there, but I only live 10 minuets away so it's not a big deal.

Today I attended a gender-queer meeting near the clinic where I get my HRT stuff. I was impressed and fascinated by the different types of people there. The one thing we all had in common was that we did not conform to the gender binary, and everyone expressed their gender identity in different ways. Despite being shy as hell and being very nervous I had a good time and everyone made me feel really welcome. I will surely be attending the meetings as often as possible.

Regarding my transition - I thought that I’d been on HRT for three months now, but a friend pointed out to me that it's only been two and sure enough, he was right. I had a feeling that I was going to take to estrogen well, but I'm pretty surprised at the changes that have happened in such a short amount of time. Tomorrow I will confirm with my boss when I can get the time off for the laser resurfacing. (Pew-Pew!) Most likely my leave will start the last day of this month, and that same day I will get the laser treatment. Considering how far I've come in such a short amount of time plus knowing that the laser is really going to help my complexion, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

I still identify as bigender and I still have a “guy” mode, but it's not really masculine at all. It's more like androgynous mode. I think about all the things I want to do as a female and I get excited.  Shopping, going to clubs, actually DANCING.  So I'm still am leaning heavily towards the MTF end of the transgender spectrum. The one thing I'm sure of is that I'm in a transitional period in my life, (in more ways than one) so I'm not going to write anything in stone. Anything can happen, and as is recorded in this blog my gender identity is all over the map so I'm going to take things slow. Step by step, one day at a time.

In summery, it was a good weekend. Page is now out in the San Diego LGBT community and I'm really excited about that. I'm going to start looking up transgender support groups also in case I keep going down that route. You know, I'm normally terrified of social situations but I'm really looking forward to going out again. The gay community is awesome and I feel like I finally have a group to which I belong.

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