Monday 19 January 2015

Picture This

I often find myself reflecting on my personality and asking myself what parts of me are there because I am transgender. I guess in a way I try to think how the rest of the world must feel about something then compare it to how I feel about it and then decide if growing up unsure of my gender had anything to do with it. Well partially. A lot of the times I think back on things I have thought about myself or have done in the past and I see how being transgender directly affected that.I feel like I can't stop myself from doing this. It feels to me as something that is just intrinsic of who I am. Ironically, it is something that is a result of being transgender, I think.

I struggled with being transgender for years, that is true, but I always kinda knew how different I was. While lack of information was the real culprit, that combination of being transgender and not knowing it was even a valid life option lead to me dealing with who I was, affected who I was, in many ways.

The thing that made it difficult for me to see the truth about myself was that to me, I was "just me". I don't mean that in some cute way, I mean I was just a kid being a kid, like all kids. When I became a teenager and started to become self conscious, like all teenagers do, I realized I had this part about me that didn't fit what was "ok" for a boy to feel like.

Because we we all taught that as young as possible, aren't we? What makes a "good" and "bad" boy/girl/person? From the fire fighter who's a hero and helps people to the kid who's a bully and teases people. I can't say I remember how, but somewhere in my life I learned that boys were not allowed to be like girls. That boys that liked feminine things were perverts and men that liked feminine things were either gay or disgusting (those two words at the time only just starting to not be synonymous).

So what was I?

I know one thing I was, I was lucky. I was lucky that I was born stubborn and confident. For the majority of my teen years I struggled daily with this idea, "I'm a good person, why do I have all of these "bad" feelings, wants and desires?"

I remember being in a girlfriends bedroom, or any females room for whatever reason and I would feel like my world was closing in on me. I wanted to look at everything, I wanted to get some sense of what it felt like to live as a girl at the same time I would be inches away from my horrible secret that it would kill me if anyone found out. I didn't really realize what I was doing, to be honest. There was just something that drew me to these things and living like it that made me feel comfortable. I was just "being me" as before, but now that "me" had a label on it, one that made me hate myself.

In bed after days like these, or similar ones, more often than not I would cry myself to sleep. I'd be asking myself that question, "Why do I feel like this? Only 'bad' people feel like this." I would hate myself for feeling that way, and I mean hate. Hate that manifested itself in everything from cutting myself to year long depression. I would see a girl and think she was beautiful, and instead of imagining feeling her body against mine, I'd imagine what it would feel like to have that body. After realizing what I was feeling, and not being able to deal with it internally, I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't a bad kid, I didn't get into trouble, I didn't drink or be out late or whatever. I think cutting myself with something was the best thing I could come up with that wasn't hurting anyone else and besides, it was to this body that didn't really feel like mine anyway.

That is something else that is a result of being transgender for me. I was never really attached to my body... I'm not sure how else to say it. All of my life the idea of something happening to my genitals didn't really bother me. My body just felt like a box carrying "me" around. This happened later in my life than my teen years, maybe it started in my late teens. I started to gain weight in my early twenties. I was a very healthy and in shape teen, athletic. What happened was I started to gain weight almost at the same time I started to find language to put my feelings into terms that were real. I distinctly remember looking at myself in the mirror after gaining weight and thinking "hey, now I look like I have a hips like a woman." I was pretty pleased with myself. I was wrong, I looked awful, but I saw what I wanted to.

Later in life after allowing myself to buy and wear some female clothing again I realized women's lingerie was not meant to go on a man my size. I told everyone my motivation was seeing the built men on "300" but the truth is it was because I wanted to look good in lingerie. What happened at the same time however was a crushing quasi-relationship that had me hating myself even more and blaming it on this "sick person" I am. So I decided to never go there again, and kept up with the exercising and losing weight until I was too thin. I think I could have been anorexic for a while. Another trait passed on to me from being transgender is listening to what others say about me, and after hearing several people give me the "Uh, you aren't fat at all. In fact you're too thin." talk I started to be sensible about it.

The point I'm trying to make here is being transgender has been hard on my body.

The part that really gets to me when I stop to think about it is how being transgender has affected my mind. Not just my thoughts, and feelings, but my very essence, my beliefs, my desires, my self image. I have lived my life questioning everything about me, a self-doubt that is pervasive throughout everything in my life, everything that makes up me. Questions that the outside world will happily, quickly, and with zero conscious and empathy give you their answers to. I'm not sure if it is fair to say this is true about all trans people, but for me growing up as a transwoman was traumatic. Something that only recent talks with my therapist has me thinking about. Again, to me I was just "being me" going through life, taking and dealing with things like I assumed we all do.

However, like any trauma victim it has left deep scars on who I am that are so much a part of me that I have no idea when they are influencing my life and decisions now. Feeling like no one could ever love me, which is progress from no one SHOULD love me, or feeling like I am my own best company which works out because I also feel like no one wants my company. Having no sense of "self" or who you are because I, until relatively recently never was who I am.

There are other things that being transgender has created in me that are neither horrible, or joyous. Being self reflective was something that was forced on to me. It started from what I mentioned earlier, how I had that one question always in my mind, "I'm a good person, why do I feel "bad" things?". I picked apart everything I did. Every. Little. Thing. Especially anything that had to do with a moral or ethical choice. I had to make sure I was correct, that I wasn't a bad person. It was possible I thought I was good but I actually wasn't. I had read enough to know of the villain who believes he is right in his doings. The time up until reaching the conclusion that I am indeed a rather "good" person was very hard. This was my massive depressive stage. After my depression I started to realize that regardless of what people may think of the OTHER stuff going on in my head, I'm still a good person.

This lead me to another frame of mind that is intrinsic in me now as well. How open minded I am, particularly sexually, or sexuality. After realizing I was a good person even though I felt the way some of the "worst" (read perverted, really) people in the world felt I couldn't help but think that I must not be the only one. I started seeing people in a very different light. I started to see individual struggles. How the people with the worst ones tend to be the most quiet, and how, like me, they have a hard time accepting help. I developed an empathy or these sort of people, something I think my friends picked up on, as I have mentioned before. A part of me wishes I choose a career path that would have lead to me helping those people but I had other things on my mind.

There is a point to this whole post. Yesterday I took a picture of myself. (wtf does all of this have to do with a picture, I know.) This picture is of me with no makeup. I took this picture and posted it to facebook and immediately contacted the few friends I have to take a look, even called my parents. People don't seem to understand what this picture means to me. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was faking being a woman. Right or wrong there is a part of me that gets utterly disgusted when I try to look feminine and when I look in the mirror all I see is a crossdresser, basically. (No offense CD's out there). This time though, I came out of the bathroom and walked in front of my full length mirror and had to stop and go back to it to look some more. I couldn't get over how feminine I looked while totally naked, makeup and all.

That changed my entire outlook instantly. It has been so powerful that I could feel my state of mind, emotions, self awareness, sexuality, and more starting to shift all day yesterday. To see a genuine woman looking back at me in the mirror is finally allowing me to feel like a genuine woman in general. My body is beginning to feel like mine now, like it never did before. I'll admit to being a little "catch phrase-y" in the past when describing how significant things have been but this time I'm not sure what to say. I feel like my whole being has started to change. It's hard to imagine such an impact coming from such a simple thing. A picture that, admittedly, doesn't make me look gorgeous, but does make me look decidedly female, and with no make up, no "faking it".

The change is real though, I actually feel like a woman, I am now able to picture myself doing things, like typing on this computer, and see the woman I always felt I was. What is changing is many of the things I started talking about on this post. My self worth especially. I'm starting to feel attractive, desirable even. I'm starting to feel power in my femininity.... power. Imagine?

I feel like I'm running out of ways to articulate myself now so what I will do is leave you with said picture. I barely stop looking at it, I can't believe that is me in the picture. Anyway, take care everyone.


Friday 2 January 2015

Number One

Well everyone guess what. I have finally had sex with a man. And holy god damn was it ever fun.

I met him over the internet. Of course right? Who actually meets people in person anymore? We talked a bit over a few days and I invited him over. This isn't the first time I have met someone from the internet and every other time was kinda lame. Honestly, the main reason I had him over was I was getting to the point that I had to do this.

Not to long before this actually happened something changed in me. I mentioned a while ago the changes that had happened in my breast, we those changes happened everywhere. My body has gone under some major changes in the last few months, and still is. (more on that later). Along with the physical changes I started to become more comfortable with my body emotionally. It feels so much more like a woman's body, a difference I notice regularly.

Ok, off topic, but I want to say this. Over the course of the last year and a half of being on hormones there have been times that I have felt like I am actually supposed to be a man, not a woman, and I'm screwing up here. 90% of the time that feeling comes from seeing or picturing my body or how I move or how I emotionally react to my body. Essentially it is what is left of my dysphoria now. To use my therapists favorite word, the "incongruence" triggers my dysphoria.

This new change has started to keep those feelings at bay. I found that at first the HRT made me feel better for a few reasons. I knew I was doing something to start my transition, the hormones in my body started to level out to where they should have been, and I would see changes being made, like my skin softening. What is happened now though makes those earlier changes seem almost superficial. At almost 2 years, my body is now beginning to really fill out as a woman's. Honestly, my figure has changed more then I had expected it to when I started and I easily see more changes coming. Right now, there would be no way for me to pass as a man. Not shave for a month I guess. But clean shaven, and maybe foundation and I could stand in front of you in my panties and you would not tell I was a man without looking quite closely.

Almost done with my tangent. what I want to say about this, is this. Over the years the dysphoria we face as transgender people is oppressive.... smothering, it can leave you doubting everything about yourself and it can leave you feeling like it will never end. I'm here to tell you it can, and it will. Those of you out there finding it hard to carry on, like I have so many times before, keep on pushing. Transitioning is the hardest thing someone can do, in my opinion, but I promise, it will be worth it in the end. It will be worth it as you go along, I am finding out.

Ok, so, where was I? Right, this guy. One of the side effects of the changes to my body was my confidence started to grow. As my confidence and appreciation of my body grew, the more sexual I found myself getting until finally I got to the point that I thought "Ok! Time to share this with someone!" I felt like a teen again, just wanting to have someone touch my body. I have to say, seeing that from a more mature age made it feel more passionate for me.

And speaking of passion.... this guy... damn. I can't say he was cut from marble or anything, but he had a wonderful body, nice smile, cute/shy-ish way of talking. However, he wasn't shy when we started to get naked... nope. Being on this end of things was amazing. Having someone pick me up, move me around, position me *cough* was different. That plus his touching me, enjoying my body, running his hands and lips... wherever. God it was different..

ok, I need to take a breather, lmao.

The experience was all together amazing. No offense to her, but it was far more passionate, and intense then my first woman. Being sexual as a woman, letting myself feel how I want to feel... or simply letting myself feel, is part of me like having sex before never was. Instead of being a locksmith I ride a wave of pleasure. It is exquisite.

Thursday 1 January 2015

Poof

Sorry about the long hiatus, between work, my computer not working and my internet connection not working it became quite difficult. Now I have another problem, I have no idea what to write about or how to write, I've kinda lost it a little after not using it for a while. So I'm just going to dive right in, in typical Rebecca fashion.

There has been something on my mind for a good while now, even before last writing here. I think I may have briefly mentioned it before, but it's something that is seriously on my mind and I just may go through with it.

What that is, is moving off, starting a new life. I don't just mean going to another city and trying life there. I mean doing all but faking my own death and disappearing away from everyone I know and starting my life completely new in a completely new city. From my understanding many transgender people feel this way at some point. Honestly, I'm surprised I don't personally know of any. I guess then that it would only make statistical sense that I be the trans person I know that has done this.

I feel this way for a lot of reasons. It seems to be another one of those decisions I've wanted to make in a long time but haven't yet. What I have learned about myself is those are the things I always eventually do and after I do them I always find it was the right thing for me. I'm actually getting to the point that I let that feeling I get for these sort of decisions to make the decisions for me, if I find I can't come to one without it.

So why do I want to do this? Well I want to move for several reasons. I guess some of it is a "grass is greener" sort of view, but I live in a small city, a city I have always said was too small for me, and I think I would have more opportunities in a different/bigger one. This may be some what redundant but I'm also kinda done with this place. The available work, the weather, and to some extent even the people. The people for two reasons, one is the close-mindedness of too many people here, the other I'll get into in a moment.

That's just why I want to move. Why I want to disappear obviously has to do with people. I have to say the single biggest reason I want to disappear is to completely shed my past. Nothing reminds me more than people.

Here's the thing. I often reflect on my past, the "boy" I used to be. I really have become to see her as the young very confused and lost trans-teen. These reflections however, are mostly me sorting out where being transgender came from. Something I often say you shouldn't try to do I know, but it's impossible not to. I pass by places in this small city that remind me of past relationships, or stages of my life and some of them make me think "meh" some of them make me wish in the worst way I was a woman at the time, and those are the ones that get to me.

What people do is not let me let go of the emotional baggage of being transgender and they also trigger just about everything that makes being transgender difficult in your own mind.

For example, people who knew me in the past and either refuse to call me "Rebecca" or forget to so much that I just as well not have changed my name. The holidays were more or less the last straw for me. I seen a good bit of family and the majority of them got my name wrong most of the time. Yes yes, I know, I should be patient, they have been calling me that for 30ish years... blah blah blah. However, I am sick of it. It has been almost two years, my name is Rebecca. It has gotten to the point that it has become a major reason to move and disappear. If I never hear that name again, or be called "him" once more it would be worth it.

I also met an old co-worker that flat out refused to call me Rebecca because she "knew me as <insert name here>." If I wasn't in a nice restaurant at the time I would have completely lost it but I managed to keep my cool and just eat my app without any bloodshed.

I guess to these people, it's simply a matter of it being "no big deal" to them. I can even sit here and admit that that is a reasonably good way for them to be, it's kinda nice that they don't see the difference.

However.

I forget where exactly I read this, it was something that I scrolled by on facebook. It was someone talking about, and to, our transgender allies. Or actually now that I think about it, it may have been a lesbian who wrote it. Either way, it is the perfect message to our allies and it sums up nicely how I feel and that "no big deal" isn't as nice as you may think. Essentially what this person said is that that isn't enough. We don't want you to just be blind about it, we want you to see us. I may want the general public to just look at me and think "she" because that's how I look and act, etc and that's how I want to be. My family and close friends and allies though, I want them to call me by my correct name (because it is legally changed) and use proper pronouns because they know who I am. They know I am transgender, they see it, they fully accept it and they call me the correct things out of respect for who it is that I am.

Knowing I'm transgender and continuously calling me my old name and pronoun hurts far more than some random person. If a store clerk looks at me and thinks I warrant a "sir" then that's "my fault" for not looking feminine enough (oh please oh please, let's just leave this as is for now and not kill the poor clerk or get into how that's an awful frame of mind on my part.) But if my family, or friends call me sir, they know. They know that hurts me, they know that reminds me of a time of my life that was nightmarish. They know better.

Besides that, I find myself still catering to the people of my past a bit when it comes to my personality, interests, lifestyle and life choices. Many of which, I feel, are more suited for a larger city anyway. There are still some people I spend time with and ever so subtly start feeling like that old person and it makes me want to jump in a shower...

...of fire ants

Which brings me to another point. If I move to a place full of strangers, at this point in my transition, I would simply be "she". Everyone would treat me as a cis woman and I LONG to know what that feels like. Right now I live two lives, the people that think I am a cis woman and the people that know I am not. I am a different person around both groups of people and I like everything involved in everyone thinking I'm a cis woman a lot more. Imagine never talking on the phone to someone that might accidentally call me "him" from memory. Or not being on the outside of the social dynamic because people don't know where you "fit" anymore.

As I said, I have been thinking about this for quite some time. During that time I have slowly eliminated the various things that were keeping me from this decision. One of those that is gone is giving people time to "get used to it." whatever that was about. People expect you to change your language instantly on a regularly basis, some people in my life can't be bothered with it for my sake. Another that is slowly going away is my fear of doing it. In fact, I'd say that is gone now too. And honestly, that is usually the last step for me in these big decisions.

Also, there are a handful of people that I wouldn't want to leave behind, people that I would tell where I was going and talk to while I was there. I used to feel like that was half assing it, honestly. If I'm going to vanish, then vanish 100%. This is something else I have gotten over.

The main thing currently holding me back is money and knowledge. I need to pick a spot, I need to find out costs, living arrangements, etc. It is possible I will overcome the financial situation in a reasonably short amount of time.

All of this being said, dear reader, I will keep everyone here filled in and probably won't be giving it up as part of my disappearing act.

Well, a short one today, I had to get back into the mindset, sorry if this one isn't up to par.