In Retrospect (or, How I Feel about Transitioning, so far)

I sat down at the computer after a twelve-hour workday, and after staring at the home page of my blog it hit me: I’m eight months on testosterone today. It shocked me for the briefest of seconds, because thinking back on my transition up until this point, I never would have imagined I’d reach a point where my trans life was so mundane and ordinary to me that I’d forget semi-major milestones. Back even a year ago, everything and anything about transition seemed so new, foreign, and wonderful. It’s crazy to think that in just a matter of months the concept of being transgender has become this normal, everyday thing.

And in a way, this makes me sad. I never thought of my gender identity as something so general and forgettable. If things were a simple, “I was born in the wrong body, now let me fix it with hormones, surgery, and name change” I probably wouldn’t have to think twice about my recent lapse in remembering my eight month mark. But it really is so much more complicated than that, probably because gender itself is so complicated. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, stuck as I am for 10-12 hours a day at work with only the term “man” to go by. It just seems too ill-equipped a term to fully encompass who I am and how I experience myself in the great sea of all things gender.

It almost makes me question everything about myself, just to double check and make sure I’m on the right page with everything. I know that hormones are right for me, so I’m not panicking just yet. So then I move on to my name change, for which I’m in the process of setting up a court date: do I really want to change it? Talking with my mom the other day, I realized that for the most part it is a necessary change, so long as I can avoid changing my birth certificate. I want to work towards my future, not cover up my past, after all. And surgery? Heck yes, this will happen, just as soon as I can get things squared away and scheduled.

Now I’m more in the process of trying to give all of this a name, so to speak. I’ve finally started encountering the trans and/or queer community where I live, and of course I’m ecstatic about all of the individual differences among us trans folk. I just don’t understand yet where I fit in. Am I an FTM? A trans guy? A queer male? A gender-neutral transmasculine person-type-thing? Or something else entirely? Do straight up “he-him-his” pronouns fully encompass who I am as a person? So many questions…and so much more time in my life to answer them. Life’s a process, even after beginning my transition. Even when I’ve met all of the benchmarks of what I want my transition to be, I will still have a lifetime of learning about myself and who I want to be. And I, the ever excited student, am excited to learn more about what I have to offer this crazy world I live in.

Five Attributes of Trans Allies

Reblogged from Matt Kailey:

Last week in my Transgender Studies class, and also at a Diversity Day presentation that I made on the Auraria Campus, we talked about allies.

In my opinion, allies are an important component of any group. They add numbers, they add voices, and in some cases, they bring a certain amount of power that is lacking because of the way that a particular group is seen in the "mainstream," where the group is trying to gain at least equality, if not acceptance.

Read more… 1,075 more words

I've gone back and forth on how I feel about trans allies. So give this a quick look through, because I at least found this quite informative and interesting.

Dating a Trans Man

I did a 3-part series with my girlfriend for YouTube.  It was actually her idea, however for privacy’s sake she remained off camera.  We wanted to try and discuss how it was for us to go through my transition, because everyone’s experience is different and we wanted to try and explore our experience.  The videos will be posted below.

Male Stereotypes

Before I go any further, I want to start off this post by stating that these are stereotypes most noticed by me in my daily life.  Stereotypes of any kind are very culture-specific, and even someone living in the same country as me might view what I’m about to talk about as somehow inaccurate.  Rest assured that these are only specific to me and my experiences.  What’s more, they only carry as much meaning as we let them.  But more on that later.

Considering my very mild social anxiety and general interest in noticing patterns and quirks of social interactions, I first started keeping a list of typical “boy” and “girl” behaviors in the ninth grade.  I gave up after two days.  Since then I’ve been acutely aware of the stereotypes surrounding men and women in American society, and in particular I noticed how much I didn’t want to fit into the feminine stereotypes.  But since I identify as off the gender binary, I didn’t necessarily automatically fit into masculine stereotypes either.  I was always just me.  This meant that while I dressed masculinely and gravitated towards general boy-ness, I didn’t deny the fact that I enjoyed other feminine things as well.

Yes, SQUEE AT THE CUTENESS!!!

Yes, I’m a demisexual trans guy who likes to bake, make friendship bracelets, and squees for joy at cute fuzzy animals.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That all being said, I’ve been noticing with concerning frequency the number of restrictions there seem to be for men in this society.  They don’t show as much emotions, or limit their facial expressions.  Sex needs to be brought up in casual conversation at least once a day.  Shoes are definitely a sign of one’s coolness factor.  And whatever you do, if you are a man, you absolutely may not talk with your hands.  Talking is to be done only when necessary — or when you’re extremely pissed off.  And did I mention you can’t make gestures with your hands?

As a trans man, I find this incredibly frustrating.  Firstly, I can’t help how I express myself.  Facial expressions are things I’ve worked quite hard at, especially in light of the flat affect that my dysthymia gave me for the majority of my high school years.  Emotions, too, fall into the category of “I’ve worked so hard to get you, please don’t leave me!”  And I’m sorry, I’ve tried and tried to gain control of my hands.  They just fly about without my meaning them too, and they’re just so darn happy to help me express myself.  There’s no stopping those guys.

Ultimately, what I’m getting at is that I can’t abide by any of these cultural expectations.  As much as I’d love to call myself a man, be it trans or not, I almost feel unworthy to do so because my culture’s definition of manhood is so drastically different from my own.  While it caused me so much dysphoria to be seen as a young woman, it doesn’t help when all I want is to be “one of the guys”…and then the guys look at me and go, “Who is this weirdo and how did you infiltrate our community?”  It’s a very isolating feeling to realize that most of the guys I interact with on a daily basis didn’t grow up socialized as female.

But in the end, I am the one who gives these stereotypes meaning.  And I refuse to try and emulate guys I know in order to be more seen as “one of them”.  If being a “real man” is to compromise parts of myself, or to deny who I am in any way…then sorry, I’m not having it.  And besides: I didn’t set out on my transition to be seen as Brannen the Man.  I set out to be seen as myself.  So that’s who I’m going to be, crazy hand gestures and all.

Everyday I’m Tumblin’

Made a new Tumblr.  Long story short: I deleted my first one.  Then I realized I kept tabs on different friends and acquaintances using Tumblr.  So, here’s version 2.0: http://mxtrmeike13.tumblr.com/.

Being Stealth

First of all, I want to preface this by saying that I don’t pass 100% of the time.  On a related note, I’m still working on correcting random strangers when I end up being misgendered.  That all being said, I’m stealth at work, and at this point this makes up at least 50% of my life.  And although I’m sure my coworkers either know or have guessed at my trans identity, none of my clients seem to have a clue.  So I go about my life pretending that I’m stealth in the workplace.  It’s a nice fantasy.

…Or is it?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be stealth.  This isn’t just a workplace issue.  This extends to friends, family, even the web.  I know of people on various social networking sites that have separate accounts so that they remain stealth online.  Basically, being stealth extends to just about every aspect of life.

And while I may prance about at work, not making any mention of my past life growing up female, and not really addressing my trans status at all…this is not my first choice.  Ideally, I would be open and honest with everyone I interact with for any great length of time.  It’s not so much that I want or need people to know I’m trans — I just like people to know exactly where I’m at, and what sorts of goodies I can bring to the proverbial table.  Knowing that I grew up as female, but now prefer to be closer to the manly/neutral side of things, is as essential to knowing who I am as it is for me to know what someone else’s hobbies are, or what sort of music they listen to.  Basically, it’s kind of important to understanding me as a human being.

There is a part of me that just wants to slide neatly into the male categorization in general interactions, don’t get me wrong.  I just feel as though I’m holding back from people if I don’t tell them I’m transgender.  I’m not entirely sure how to address this odd place I find myself in, but I suppose only time will tell how it’ll all work out.

Boihood with Brannen #10

It’s been a while since I posted one of these….

Trans plans

I’ve been thinking lately about what my plans are for my transition, and specifically about how they’ve changed over the past three or so years since I started identifying as transgender.  So now I’m going to write about it and force you all to think about it, too.  Merry belated Christmas.

As I’ve probably alluded to before in other posts, I’m an incredibly oblivious person, especially when it involves myself.  The fact that I can exhibit any amount of personal insight and write this astounds me.  So it should come as no surprise that when I started questioning myself and my gender identity, back around Christmastime of 2009, I had absolutely no plans for transitioning.  I didn’t even see myself as transgender, to be honest.  I just thought there was something wrong with me that required psychological attention.

So then I start therapy around April or May of 2010, and I went into the appointments understanding that my therapist specialized in sexual and gender identity issues.  But I still had no intention of transitioning.  Fast forward to Germany later that year, and by the time Christmas rolled around again I finally started identifying as trans.  So far, so good.  But I was solidly convinced that I would never take hormones, and instead I chose to focus my efforts on top surgery.  This remained the case until I returned back home to Minnesota, when my therapist pointed out to me that, typically, surgery took place after hormone replacement therapy.

By the time Christmas of 2011 took place I was walking a very thin line between identities and plans for transition.  I knew for sure that I wanted top surgery, but hormones and other potential surgeries were still up in the air.  To top things off, I had started to question my previous identity of being gender-neutral; could I possibly be FTM?  I still wasn’t ready to make this leap, but through therapy and much angst on my end of things, I determined that hormones was something I needed to seriously consider utilizing.  And finally, on September 12th, 2012, I started on testosterone.

I breathed a sigh of relief on that day.  I’ve been pretty relaxed about transition since that point, since it honestly gave me the chance to sit back and let things progress at their natural pace.  At this point I anticipate being on hormones for the long haul, but that doesn’t mean that my transition is anywhere close to being over.  I’ll be working on my legal name change by the end of this month, and one of my New Year’s resolutions to myself is to figure out when I’ll be having top surgery done.  So where does this leave my blog?  Right here, of course!  I’ll be documenting changes and big news here, as per usual.  Be prepared to follow along for the ride.

On having a mentor

When I first started looking into all things gender, it became clear to me that a lot people going through a gender transition have some sort of mentor.  Or someone that’s been super-duper supportive of their transition, was the first to get on board, etc.  Someone that either has been where they are, or is going along on the journey with them and is their number one ally.  And I get it, we all have mentors for various things.  When I was an itty bitty person, my mentor was probably my dad.  But as I embarked on my gender journey I came to a depressing realization: I did not have a mentor.  And not only that, but I would search and search, dismantle the internet and ravage the books, and still find no one.  Ultimately, I felt alone in my decision to transition.

I think this left me with a huge complex.  Seriously.  I would run into older trans* folk, or people further along in their transition, and I would get ridiculously frustrated or sad.  I’d get that whole “not trans* enough” thing going on.  It’s not the happiest place to be.  But then I realized that this is what we were ultimately told when beginning transition: “Find somebody to model or emulate.”  With vocal training especially, I noticed that lots of my trans friends were told to find someone they could copy vocal patterns, or even body language, from.

So then I got to thinking.  And I decided that maybe it wasn’t so bad that I was figuring out myself all by myself.  I mean, isn’t the point to transition more fully into who you are?  Considering this, I wondered why we were being told to copy other people.  It made no sense to me, and the point continues to elude me.  While there may still be times that I long for someone who I can identify as my trans* role model, in the end I’m happy that I can claim sole responsibility for my becoming who I am today.  (Not to say that I haven’t been influenced at all by my friends and family, of course.)

I admit that this is kind of a vague topic on my part.  So I’m curious about whoever’s reading this: have you had mentors, for transition or for any other important life event?  What are your thoughts about the whole thing?  Are they necessary for transition to occur, or just a natural part of the process?  Inquiring minds are dying to know.

Dysthymia

I’ve been sitting on this topic for a while, primarily because it’s one that hits very close to home for me.  But the more I think about it, and the more I experience it, it becomes undeniably clear that this is a post that desperately needs to be written.  Plus, it gives me an opportunity to stick my Psychology BA hat on and look all smart and learned.  Go me.

As I mentioned in this post, I was diagnosed sometime within the last three years as having dysthymia, also known as dysthymic disorder.  But the more open I become with friends, family, or others about my mental health status, it becomes increasingly obvious that almost no one outside of the mental health community is familiar with this diagnosis.  The short, nitty gritty definition I usually give is “chronic, low-grade depression”.  But this too fails to properly encompass the essence of dysthymia, and in the end people tend to not take this diagnosis terribly seriously.  One may think,

“Well, it’s just low-grade depression — that means it’s not all that bad, right?”

Sadly, this is most certainly not the case.  And this misconception is one that hurts the individual diagnosed the most, which in the end could have them thinking the same thing about themselves.  It’s a vicious cycle.  So here’s what important to know about dysthymia….

The chronic aspect of the definition is obvious; it is recurring, and not something that is just cured one day and gone the next.  The current version of the DSM describes it like so:

“Depressed mood for most of the day, for more days than not…for at least 2 years.”

It goes on to say that:

“During the 2-year period of the disturbance, the person has never been without the symptoms…for more than 2 months at a time.” 

Basically, the negativity and low mood is constantly with you, day in and day out.  It’s exhausting, to put it mildly.  This is a departure from major depression, which is what we usually think of when we talk about depression.  Major depressive episodes come and go, and one could be not depressed for months or years before feeling depressed again.  Additionally, one could never have a depressive episode again.  But with dysthymia, the low mood never really goes away, and if it does it’s incredibly short-lived.

Here are the basic symptoms associated with dysthymia:

Poor Appetite or Overeating

Insomnia or Hypersomnia

Low Energy or Fatigue

Low Self-Esteem

Poor Concentration or Difficulty Making Decisions

Feelings of Hopelessness

Here’s the interesting aspect of all of this: while you could be suffering from these symptoms, a major depressive episode could sneak up on you.  So not only would you be dysthymic, but you would be majorly depressed as well.  And once the depressive episode goes away the dysthymia is still there — and since you’re not depressed anymore, the dysthymia starts to feel pretty normal and non-threatening.  But all the while, the disorder is still there effecting your daily life, sometimes without your knowing it.

This is why most, if not all, mental health professionals tell me that dysthymia is so much harder to treat than depression.  Many also go so far as to say that dysthymia is virtually untreatable, save for managing the symptoms.  To anyone seeing a professional for depression and looking for a good outcome for treatment, dysthymia is kind of like a death sentence.  There is no fast and easy way to get out of the disorder, mainly because after a while it becomes more of a personality trait than a set of symptoms.

But like many other mental health diagnoses, there are certainly things you can do to help yourself if you are diagnosed with dysthymia.  Cognitive behavioral therapies, dialectical behavioral therapy, and a few Eastern practices like mindfulness (and, by extension, mindfulness-based therapies and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) usually are very beneficial in addressing dysthymia both in the short- and long-term.  Like any bad habit, the symptoms of dysthymia can be fought against through constant practice and use of the methods taught in these forms of therapy.  It is important to continuously practice them, however, because once the coping strategies fall away it gives a chance for the disorder to start right back up again from where it left off.

So to all suffering from dysthymia, or those who know someone with the diagnosis: there is hope.  It just takes a lot of willpower, and practice, to get there.