Hormone Therapy

i see a lot of bias in the T community between stealth T and activists.

People don't realize how thin the line is that divides us when it comes to gender. Some spend their lives building that narrow line into an impenetrable wall, to match their dual morality and black-and-white reality. Some spend their lives trying to climb over the top of that wall, and some spend their lives tearing that wall down brick by brick.

My first suicide attempt occurred at puberty. The reality that i was not physically a girl rested its full weight down on top of me, and i could not take it. So after gathering every pill i could find, i swallowed them only to pass out and throw up. After that, i had what can only be called a nervous breakdown. My fundamentalist family bore down their 'cure' upon me, and i learned how to repress everything.

My second attempt occurred after another failed relationship, where yet again i attempted to be the person friends expected and family demanded. The bullet jammed in the slide (spare me your 'act of god'...it was packed with sand after being kicked around on the beach between killing snakes). i made a deal with myself that i would leave my small town behind for the big city and make one last attempt to change. It didn't work. But during the attempt, i learned of others like me.

While writing out a letter of apology to friends and family during my third and final suicide attempt, i realized who i was and what i had to do. It was a choice between ending my life literally, or figuratively. i made my decision and went home.

Then i threw myself behind learning about how to reach my goal. Coming out to my friends and family was secondary to me in importance; when i made the decision to live, i accepted the odds of losing every relationship i had. i loved them and wanted them to take it well, but any negative response would not dissuade me. Acceptance would be welcomed. Rejection would be ignored.

After absorbing a mountain of medical information for months, it was to my annoyance when i learned that a letter of recommendation must precede any treatment. Before beginning therapy to eventually obtain one, i sought out and found an obgyn who did not require one. My gynecologist was the embodiment of indifferent. i went in prepared, armed with a specific battery of tests and follow-up tests carefully mapped out over two years. It was my hope to compare my ideas with his treatment plan, and possibly avoid any side effects. He had no treatment plan. The conversation went something like this.

Him: "So what is it that you want here today?"
Me: "Well...i need to begin hormone therapy with the eventual goal of GRS, and resolve my GID once and for all."
Him: "So what is it that you need?"
Me: *confused* "i'm sorry...i don't understand..."
Him: "What are you looking for?"

At that moment i realized he was asking my opinion on my treatment. i threw everything i had at him. Avoid conjugated estrogens, ethinyl estradiol, cyproterone, and progestagens. Start with a baseline pre-treatment free testosterone level check, liver function test, complete blood count and pre-treatment prolactin levels with a follow-up on both every six months, etc...

Him: "Yeah...I don't think any of that's necessary. Why do you want to avoid conjugated estrogens, ethinyl estradiol, cyproterone, and progestagens?"
Me: "Well...they have widely reported side-effects. Some are even dangerous..."
Him: "Interesting. I hadn't heard that. Well, you people typically use an estrogen and an anti-androgen. We'll go with that. Any preference?"
Me: "Uhh...i'd prefer estradiol and spironolactone. Keep the cost down with generics."
Him: "Sure, we can do that." *Starts writing prescription* "Spiro...how do you spell that?"
Me: "S - P - I - ..."
Him: "Got it."

At that point everything in my life leading up to this moment crashes in all at once, and when he hands me the piece of paper that will be instrumental in saving my life, i start crying. It's only for a half a moment, and then i regain my composure and try to convey to him how much it means to me. He sits expressionless and stares blankly at me without responding, so i get up to leave. My intellect squirms through my emotion before i step through the door though.

Me: "Shouldn't i at least have a testosterone check done? What if the anti-androgen dose needs adjusted?"
Him: "If you insist, let the nurse know. The dose should be close for your size. Come back in a year."

Since then, I have received a letter recommending treatment (i am a 'text-book case'), and made an appointment with an endo well-respected in his field. In the intervening months, i will order follow-up tests on my own to track test- and est- progress. When incompetence is merged with indifference, the combination is something less than helpful. Sometimes it's harmful.

i'm not passable, and never will be. i'm o.k. with that. i just want to get through my transition and then live my life drawing a minimum amount of attention to myself. The wall is in my way. i need to get to the other side. Choosing to tunnel under it rather than attack the bricks with everybody else isn't self-serving. It's self-preservation.

And i believe enough of us that do choose the less confrontational route may end up collapsing the wall from below, leaving conservatives on the battlefront against Ts to wonder what the hell happened.

Fundamentalism vs. Common Sense

Thank you, Keith. If only all men were as real and strong as you.

Hate 1.0

A lot of ignorant, knuckle-dragging, frat-fuckhead hate gets slung around in my life, in person and online. i've grown more or less numb to it all, but for some reason this really managed to resurrect the type of anger i thought wiped out by the spiro fairie.

From Tyler Durden's website...

"Us magazine has confirmed the rumors that this season of Americas Next Top Model will feature a transgender contestant. Oh that’s right baby. One of the 14 girls is a guy, pretending to be a girl."

"Whatever. This dude needs therapy, not a modeling contract. Thinking you’re a woman is no different than thinking your Jesus or a vampire. Knock it off jackass. Or at least don’t expect me to play along with your creepy fantasy. The voices in your head can address you as whatever they want, but I feel no obligation to abide by titles given to you by your insane delusions."

The responses are equally as enlightened.

"I first read that the headline as ATM. And fuck trannies, they're about as useless as retards."

"This is only funny until he wins."

"Considering none of the previous skank winners topped anything better than a weak Playboy spread, I guess Tranny Banks feels the best woman for the job is a man..."

"I have 5 beautiful women and one fucking homo standing before me.........""

"Seems like the obvious choice to me. Designers want models who are unusually tall with no tits and boyish features. Isis here could be in with a chance, at least if she manages to put her makeup on with a brush instead of a cement mixer like most trannies seem to."

"In fact, that'd be pretty fucking funny if she won. We could turn round to all women and say 'Look, look; y'see; men are better at literally everything, even being a woman!"

"Mobywan is a transgendered pig that thinks that he's a human."

"I'm sure I can tell which one 'it' is. They're rather obvious."

"This is the only mental illness that is treated by reinforcing the patient's delusions. Giving a guy a sex change because he "feels like a woman" makes about as much sense as grafting wings on someone who believes they're a bird."

"Wouldn't this tranny be the most likely to perform favors to that flaming rastas on the show? Wouldn't that cap the win for him/her/it?"

"Fuck the hell off and die you monstrous retard."

"Nah he probably had a 3 inch cock to begin with and figured he sucked so much at being a guy that he'd try being a girl instead. Also it reinforces their delusions to call them "she" - if they can't handle 'him' it's best to stick with the gender-neutral 'it'. "

"Countdown to some tranny with sand pounded up its "vagina" coming in to tell us how we are all responsible for the Holocaust."

i don't have a sand-pounded vagina yet. If i did i wouldn't be working multiple full-time jobs to pay for it. But even if i did i wouldn't bother wading into their cess-pool, because it wouldn't do any good. The battles i pick are those involving people who are inexperienced and uncomfortable around trans, but not particularly negative. It's my belief that showing them there's nothing to fear will be the only way to turn the tide against us.

The physical assault i suffered recently while driving home reinforced a lot of things in me. Fear, for one. The next day i spent as planned, at the theater watching movies. i was so completely shaken with each prolonged look, each moment i found myself facing another group of young guys, each corner i had to walk around, i finally gave up and went home. So in a sense, for that day, they won.

But it also reinforced my resolve. i'm smaller than most. i'm skinny. i'm getting weaker with each passing month. i have no boyfriend to count on when i'm out alone (spare me your outrage, i'm third wave). The only thing i can do is get up and head outside all over again, into a society that has religious-sanctioned intolerance and state-sanctioned oppression. But you know, despite that, i still feel good about myself, thanks to living true and correctly.

i am not a man or a monster. i am a real woman. i am a beautiful human being. You can assault me online. i welcome the opportunity to use you for an intellectual work-out bag. And you can *try* to assault me at home, but you might regret it. T-girls can have a rude surprise when you least expect it, and it's not what you think.

Marriage.

i'm sitting here in the middle of my living room, alone in my house, and i just finished watching the marriage of a trans-woman. The tearing-up was over, and then i found myself sub-consciously doing various things to keep from thinking about it. But no house-cleaning chore or book or video game is going to distract me from myself.

i hope to eventually fall in love with a man i respect, who loves and respects me in return. One who is as intelligent as i am (if not more), one who makes me laugh (cliche as that sounds), and one who has at least as much courage as i do (which is immediately recognizable on the first time out together in public). So i guess, in short, i want it all. My odds of a man that has at least some of these traits following the instructions of his heart to the 'T' are pretty long.

i wonder if whoever coined the phrase 'dare to dream' had any real idea just how big of a triple-dog dare that could be for some people. It's very warm and fuzzy for me to see this woman buck the odds. But i also can't help but feel frustrated over the fact that once my GRS is complete, the legality of any marriage i'm in could be challenged by anyone who dug too deep into my past. i have the dubious 'joy' of being born in one of only three states that refuses to alter birth certificates for trans people. The track record for militant fundamentalist voting and pre-emptive constitutional strangling of GLBT rights in these states all but guarantees that i will have to ride on the coattails of gay and lesbian rights for marriage, which is like asking two people on a tandem bike if they can squeeze you on while trying to pedal through a highway mountain pass in the middle of winter.

Several of my hetero friends have expressed surprise when i tell them about some of my bad experiences being accepted (or more accurately, rejected) and how some of the worst occurred with gays and lesbians. Others have tackled the subject, and i can confirm that i have experienced the bias firsthand. My first gay-pride event was...less than fulfilling. With a couple of thousand people in attendance, i saw only one other trans woman. Nervous and excited about finally meeting someone like me (in at least an identity sense), i quietly approached and was met with the death glare of all dirty looks. i'm not sure what provoked it. Perhaps it was my unknowingly violating the unwritten two-tranny rule.

Some time later i attended a gay film festival with a bi cis girlfriend, and i seemed to draw an unusual amount of attention, despite being dressed ordinary in every way. i am typically recognized up close, and when i inquired about the availability of a film that had been shown, the man in charge of the event (very friendly to that point) turned and loudly shouted to an event worker across the room, "Hey! This gentleman would like to know if he can get his own copy of that movie we played earlier?!"

Several people milling about stopped and started gawking, because they didn't notice my bio until the organizer announced it. Gay and lesbian people. Gawking. His insensitive and off-hand act made it clear to me. Keep moving on, girl. You're not understood or wanted here either. And activists in the community are clueless to wonder why post-op transsexuals drop out and disappear. Or worse, activists actually get angry at those that drop out instead of being vocal and staying visible for the cause. With the treatment i have received in person and online, i don't blame them. Combine that with getting thrown under the bus on capitol hill, and that leaves me personally in some muddy middle-ground. My state won't let me fully reform, leaving me legally stranded with a crowd that isn't particularly warm to my presence. And i'm not alone in feeling that way.

i have no use for the concept of faith, but i do have hope. For the time being, i guess i'll just have to hope that despite any narrow-minded hate, love will find a way. Even if it's not legal.

A sad loss.

After the anger i felt with my last post, i thought i should switch gears very briefly with something at once both humorous and sad that occurred tonight. Since i don't believe clones are in your cards, i must say farewell, number 24. You will be dearly missed.

Love thy neighbor.

It's my first Sunday post, so i may as well get my views out of the way now. i read a story this morning that just floored me. Excerpts follow....

PONCE DE LEON, Fla. - When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

And despite all that, many in this conservative Panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong.

"We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong," said Steve Griffin, Holmes County's school superintendent, who keeps a Bible on his desk and framed Scriptures on his office walls.

Full story courtesy of MSNBC can be found here.

i declared a philosophical war on religion as a teen. In the realm of outrageous things i have witnessed at the hands of 'God's soldiers', this ranks pretty high on the list, and i have sparred directly with a lot of their so-called rational people before. Nobody's opinion on these matters is going to be swayed by a blog post, and i'm not particularly interested in preaching to the choir (pun intended) of intellectual freedom fighters that already exist.

But if you're interested in arming yourself with knowledge for well-reasoned rebuttals to gird yourself when attacked for being an 'immoral atheist' incapable of decency, start with The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer, and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

I see the same cycle of behavior again and again: fear what you don't understand, hate that which is different from you. Sometimes i feel bad for those Christians who have condemned, mocked, raged and directed disgust at my existence. At the crime of simply being me. Their philosophy states to love your neighbor as yourself, and anybody with that much white-hot-intense self-loathing deserves some measure of pity.

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Thomas Jefferson - 1781

Oh sir...if only you could see the hostile takeover of America that fundamentalists have initiated, and their distortion of your intentions.

Now if you'll excuse me, i'm spending another unpaid weekend caring for a hospice patient dying of cancer. Just one of the many things us sick, immoral, 'it', he-she freak creatures do among you...

For my cousin....

She has been there for me, fully and whole-heartedly supportive of me for each clumsy step of the way. i would not stand a chance at being able to develop and grow to my fullest potential without her. You totally rawk, you whore!

Identity...

i've only been on hormone therapy for a short amount of time, but have already undergone some radical changes, the majority of which are emotional; i simply don't get angry or depressed anymore, whereas those two emotions ruled my existence before.

i am in awe over how profoundly a pill (actually several) can change my life for the better. Of course, medication is only half the story. Finally being able to live correctly as my true self has lifted the sense of oppression from me, despite the sporadic 'bad moments' i occasionally endure from the ignorant and intolerant. There are details of my transition in day-to-day life that might prove more interesting and empathic to other trans, but for now i will 'keep it simple' for those who are not trans, rather than risk overwhelming them with 'gory details'.

The diversity found within the full width and breadth of the human spectrum regarding gender identity and sexual orientation just staggers me. For those friends and family (such as mine) who are curious about others than break the mold and live outside the box, allow me to present a basic (and likely over-simplified) breakdown so that they may easier understand:

Gender Concepts

------------------------------------

Cissexual:

Identity and biology are aligned as one and the same.

Transgender:

Identity and biology are not and may or may not ever be aligned.

Transsexual:

Identity and biology have been or will eventually be aligned.

Intergender:

Identity and biology are not and never will be fully aligned.

Physical Status

----------------------------------------

Non-operative:

Gender reassignment surgery is unnecessary or unwanted.

Pre-operative:

Gender reassignment surgery will eventually occur.

Post-operative:

Gender reassignment surgery has been completed.

It's been my experience that most people overlap in some measurable degree (however small that may be) in the following ways. But in general, the following may help you understand those who are different from you as well:

Sexual Orientation

-----------------------------------------

Heterosexual

Attraction to people of the opposite biological sex.

Homosexual

Attraction to people of the same biological sex.

Bisexual

Attraction to members of both biological sexes.

Pansexual

Attraction to people regardless of gender identity or biology.

Polysexual

Rejecting binary gender and are attracted to more than one identity/biology.

Asexual

No sexual attraction to anyone.

Androsexual

A trans person with an attraction to men.

Gynosexual

A trans person with an attraction to women

For the record of those who may have felt too awkward to ask, i am a pre-op andro transsexual, surrounded in my daily life by hetero cissexuals (any one of whom may possibly be something more, but for now will not fess up to the truth about themselves - statistically speaking, one of them is living in stealth).

Life is much more wonderfully diverse than rigid, black-and-white narrow-minded thinking would have many people believe.

i know what i am...

"There are some clear-cut, high-intensity transsexuals."

- Diane Watson

I feel the need to present - in part - online material from Q.U.C. to clarify what I am, for those who may want to know but are for whatever reason unable to ask.

One in 30,000 people is fully transsexual - believe they were born in the wrong biological body and want to live fully as the opposite sex. One in 5,000 to 10,000 is to some degree transgendered — altered or want to alter their birth-designated gender through appearance or medical intervention. "We’re likely underestimating the number of transgendered," Watson adds.

Also known as a 'primary' transsexual, I have been oriented as a female since the first grade. 'Secondary' trans sexuality (though no less important) has been thought to be provoked at middle age with the variation of hormones.*

*(The Alliance of Les Bi Gay Trans and Straight Ally Students)

Transgender is increasingly a political label, brandished by self-proclaimed "gender outlaws" in the academic, arts and queer communities. Transgender is also, however, a medical concept; the World Health Organization classes "gender dysphoria" as a psychiatric disorder.

I spent a lifetime resisting my compulsive nature once religious-oriented shame was pounded into me during puberty. It gave me a life of crushing despair, uncontrolled anger and two suicide attempts. Since accepting myself, I now know what it is to be truly happy and at peace for the first time in my life.

Its cause is unknown. Research from the Netherlands, where most of the endocrinology work is being done, has tentatively linked it to brain development. A human embryo starts to develop genitalia at 12 weeks; the area of the brain that determines gender identity does not develop until 16 weeks. Fluctuations in levels of androgens (male sex hormones) in the womb in that period may affect the development of the brain; there is also a tentative suggestion that the cause may have a genetic component.

Research is on the verge of turning a corner with genetic mapping; for example, a higher rate of trans sexuality and transgenderism occur in those with Klinefelter (XXY) syndrome.*

*(National Institute of Child Health and Human Development).

The rate of attempted suicide among transgender youth is estimated at 50%; every one of 12 transgender and transsexual people interviewed for this story, save one, has attempted suicide at least once.

It's estimated that two out of three trans attempt suicide by age 30. One out of three succeeds. When you also consider the estimated 75% who suffer violent and non-violent hate crime, it narrows our sliver-size minority into even smaller numbers.

"It's very, very hard to live in our society in a non-specific loophole," says Dr. Watson. "People become very anxious with a person they can't peg."

The following is excerpts from a speech given in New York City on Thursday, March 4, 1999.

"Nearly everywhere I go, I am seen as a trans person and I am seen as queer (of course, that's the most polite way to phrase it — I usually hear far, far worse). I am seen as trans, 24/7, by almost everyone, at all times. Like most trans people, my body has become a political act: Because of the way I look...and because of who I am seen as."

"The identities of trans folk are continually erased from mention by the media. As a result, our dead are usually mis-identified as gay men or lesbian women. And we are labeled as just a transvestite, just a cross dresser, just a drag queen or JUST a prostitute. But trans people are not being killed because of our sexual orientation. Trans folk are being killed: Because of the way we look...and because of who we are seen as."

"When I am beaten and raped by someone who cannot accept the fact that he is attracted to me, or when I am hosed down with water on the street by youths washing their car, or when I am confronted, pushed and shoved by men wandering the streets on a Saturday night, or surrounded and shouted at for 20 minutes by 20 people on the A train, at those moments, I am not being attacked and abused because of my sexual orientation, I am being subjected to that terror: Because of the way I look...and because of who I am seen as."

"When I am followed by a team of 4 security officers as I try to shop in Daffy's, or my sisters and I are asked to empty our pockets and empty our bags and to take off our coats and be searched at the Rite Aide drugstore, we are not being harassed because of our sexual orientation. We are being harassed: Because of the way we look...and because of who we are seen as."

"And so I have lost most of the privilege that our culture claims we are all entitled to. I have learned to be afraid:

To move.
Or change jobs.
Or fall in love.
Or take the subway.
Or go into different neighborhoods.
Or walk to the store. Or go to the emergency room.

It is because I look and I sound just like a transgender person looks and sounds. I know this true because this is who I am."

Carrie Davis
Director of Operations for GenderPAC Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center

(Excerpt material from Queen’s University, Canada – Human Rights Division)

i know what i am...

i love pink.

There are a lot of trans-oriented blogs out there. This is going to be a little more basic, for the benefit of my friends and family who have no knowledge about people like me. i hope any trans who might visit will forgive the T 101 style. Not to be confused with an older-model terminator. i will now start with something simple about me, and maybe reveal a piece at a time as i get more comfortable over the months ahead.

i love pink. To a vaguely unsettling degree. Seriously, i think i have some sort of obsessive chroma-specific disorder. Pink lap-tops, pajamas and bathroom-color schemes aren't enough. I'm seriously considering buying this.

The stress over it all is starting to upset my stomach. i think i'll go take some Pepto.