Boyjuice!

Today I signed an informed consent form for Hormone Therapy.

Today I walked out of the health center with my first prescription for injectable testosterone.

Today I left the pharmacy with two tiny vials of liquid boyjuice.

Today I came home to my four non-blood family members and celebrated with a hilarious reading session of Baron Munchausen: The Roleplaying Game, along with Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and some delicious dessert wine.

Tomorrow I get my first doctor-administered injection.

HI.

adventures in doctor-land

The 21st of May: My first doctor's appointment at Callen Lorde to begin the process of Transgender HRT. As recalled one week later.

I check in at the front desk, and though I've been told ahead of time to bring proof of residence and proof of either insurance or income, in truth they don't ask for these things and seem to be taking my word for it. I head upstairs to the Medical floor and am shortly called into an examination room. A nurse takes my vitals and tells me "don't be nervous, we'll be good to you." Minutes later Hot Young Doctor Guy In A Tight Shirt comes in (I swear, I thought I'd fallen into a porn or something). As I'm more of the listening sort and am probably giving off Craving Information vibes, HYDGIATS spends what seems like the entire time talking at me about procedures and options and possibilities and side effects of going on hormone therapy. All the while he's listening to my lungs, palpating me... you know. Doctory things. Hahaha. He finishes up, asks if I have any more questions, and sends me off to another floor for my blood draw.

The phlebotomist is also distractingly attractive (and female), and I comment on her skill with the needle. She grins at me, sticks a wad of gauze to my arm, and sends me off.

At the front desk I pay my bill and ask about a counseling appointment; then it's back upstairs to schedule one. Surprisingly, they have an opening for that very day, so I head up to work for an hour before coming back.

At noon I meet with Hot Young Motherly Counselor (apparently I'm having a Shallow Day) for half an hour or so. She begins with:

"This is not a gender test. I'm not here to determine whether you're trans enough."

This is nice to hear. We talk about me a lot, and I find myself feeling oddly calm and open. I walk out of that meeting holding a list of local therapists I can check out. If I feel like it.

At the front desk, I make another appointment to see HYDGIATS in two weeks.

I've been waiting for this day for months, and at the end of it all I'm both massively relieved that it's finally happening and wondering what I was so nervous about in the first place.

A hunnert persent troo

This occurred a few weeks after moving out to New York to transition while living with my best friends; I hosted a party called Farewell Femme, wherein the guests were encouraged to come en femme. There was Drag Rock Banding. And then there was this.

The scene:

I wear a long black evening gown, elegant black satin sandals with six inch heels; my hair is down to my waist. On the chair in front of me is laid out a suit - Black, three-button, with a light purple shirt and a dark grey five-button waistcoat.

I stand in the center of a circle of friends, my head a garden of tiny braids that those friends have made. On the speakers, Bitch and Animal lay down the "Pussy Manifesto". I hold up the scissors: "Who's first?"

J's idea, so she's it. She approaches with the cheap hair scissors, dulled by casual use, and saws her way through a hunk of my long locks. She holds it up in her fist, triumphant and pleased with herself and proud of me as the cameras flash around us. She gives me a new hug: a welcoming hug. She tells me she can't wait to get to know me, steps back, shakes my hand. Nice to meet you, Gabriel. Holds up the hair: I'm keeping this forever. I'll keep this to remember Faith. J is a storyteller, you see. A real one, the classic kind, the kind to whom you want to entrust your history, knowing it's in good hands and will be incorporated into the stories that shape the future.

One by one they come at me with the scissors, each chopping off a hunk of hair to keep or to give back. We're creating a turning point in this journey from she to he, and everyone here knows it; except maybe for my cat, hiding in the other room waiting for all these goddamn PEOPLE to leave. Some of the guys shake my hand and promise to induct me into the secret handshake club of gay men (once I've gotten in touch with that part of my sexuality, of course.) All right, dude, now hug me like a man. Good ta meetcha, Gabe. Back pats. Hugs that linger, hugs that say goodbye and hello at the same time.

At last the braids are all gone, and I rub a hand vigorously through my short shagginess. I make an announcement.

"I'm going to change my clothes now! Anyone who might be offended by my boobies... well, I don't know why you're here in the first place then."

I remember a conversation from earlier in the evening, and continue,

"Besides, now? They're not boobies. They're MAN nipples."

I am VERY pleased with myself for this witticism, and begin the arduous task of unzipping my very fabulous and fancy sparkly black evening gown. It takes nearly a full minute. This is a LONG time when a lot of people are watching. Trust me. On the speakers I hear B&A singing the praises of "The Best Cock On The Block". Still struggling. At last I get the zipper down, shimmy out of the dress and shoes, and slip into a rather dapper three-piece.

My oldest friend (no no, not the friend who is oldest, the friend I've known the LONGEST) then gets the honor of taking the dull scissors and fixing the chop-do into something presentable, which is something he's apparently been longing to do for many years. I've, uh, never been one for caring about or HAVING good haircuts, you see. He tells me that he wishes he were still in seminary, because this personal ritual I've created tonight is exactly the kind of thing that could have given him a thesis topic. Then R - who's been with me through every stage of this transition from first decision on, and because she's WAY less dorky than I and knows how to dress a fashionable man she has promised to take me shopping once I'm settled into my new body-image - messes with the lay of the new haircut so it's adorably mussed and not parted in the center.

I am called alternately "Hitler Jungend -- it's so the fashion right now", "really hot as a guy - and now I'm a little more gay" and "someone who totally would fit in at a hipster bar in the West Village, that look is very in". I sip an excellent Bowmore single malt as the evening winds down and people begin to leave, though we continue to talk of gender and games and Roman emperors and orgies far into the night. At last I slip into the guest room, cat at feet and computer at the ready; I ruffle my short hair once more and smile, glancing at my shadow on the wall.

Hey, Gabe. 'Sup.

Androgyne

Tuesday, 12:30 am - Chicago's North Loop.

Three German college boys walk behind me on a narrow sidewalk with sophomoric swaggers. One darts forward to peek under my cap, past my deep blue hood. Darts back, laughs. I hear the chatter of a language I know just well enough to pick out bits here and there. A word something like "androgyne" pops out and slaps me like a sticky wet ball of tissue. I tense a little but don't walk any faster; a tiny part of me is grinning in anticipation, waiting for a shove, wanting to get into it, to make it real, to know I'm alive and I'm me and to prove to the assholes they don't control me. More chatter behind me and one eggs his buddy on, in English this time.

"Go for it."

A pause, and I'm relieved and let down all and once that he doesn't touch me, doesn't make it more personal, but he calls out loud enough I know it's meant for me.

"Hey, man, can you feel your balls? CAN YOU FEEL YOUR BALLS?"

A dozen beginnings to clever comebacks pop into my head as I roll my eyes, but witty banter has never been my forte. I raise my right hand instead, never breaking stride, and flip the guy and his buddies and any more sophomoric swaggering cocks who might be nearby a deep, silent, heartfelt Fuck You. He calls again.

"Oh, a tough guy, huh?"

A smile creeps its way unbidden to my face as I descend the steps to the Red Line.

Yeah. Tough guy.

And then I got on the subway and wrote that down.

moving about in the world of boystown

A month and a half after Beginnings I made a 'coming out' post to my livejournal. In its entirety, here 'tis.

Those who follow my twitter page will have already heard this, but I thought I'd make a semi-public post to chronicle my important life changes. The way to phrase my "coming out" to various groups of people is something that has occupied much of my mental landscape over the past few weeks, so I think I'll try out a few of the phrases I've been toying with.

I am undergoing gender reassignment.

I have decided to transition.

How would you feel about me if I were me, but a guy?

It's a boy!

Am I going to cut my hair? No, not at the present. What kind of a man has hair that long? THIS kind. It's Ren Faire hair, hair down to who-knows-where, hair like Samson's, don't you dare chop it off.

Note: This conviction only lasted another month or so, when I realized that shorter hair would help a lot in my initial transition phase.

Hi, my name is Gabriel. No, not like Sylar.

In practical terms, I'm currently negotiating the prospects of telling my employers, getting a court order to change my name, figuring out how to change the gender marker on my ID, calling up a doctor who may or may not choose to prescribe the great and revered T so my body can begin to reflect myself, and working out how to tell the extended family and so on who may have a harder time than my queer/geek friends to accept this revelation of myself as transgendered. And I'm contemplating the complicated life journey of becoming a man without having the traditional history of boyhood, but rather a rich and complex history of girlhood and all I have to say about that is...

Coming out as queer was so much less COMPLICATED.

Beginnings

On the 25th of January 2009, at approximately 10:30pm, I made a decision. Or maybe more accurately, I realized that a decision had already been made somewhere in my subconscious mind.

I decided I would live the rest of my life as a man.

I commemorated this decision with a text message to five of my friends:

What would you do/think/feel if I decided to live as a boy?

That evening, I had brief back-and-forth discussions with these friends about what I meant by that and what my name would be, and so on. Over the next few weeks I joined various trans groups discovered through the Howard Brown Health Center and started the process of planning my transition. I came out to my friends, my family, and my jobs. I was invited to go live with my friends in New York while I began this stage of my life journey.

And so it began.

on passing, or Why I Wear A Necktie

NOTE: Originally posted in 2007.


I've been thinking lately about passing, and first impressions, and my relationship thereto, and so on. Like you do.

I wore a dress today. It's a fun sort of dress: very long, brightly colored, broomstick-skirt style and thus nice and swooshy. I wear it once every few months, and if I shut off the part of my brain that is all genderqueer-masculine-expression-all-the-time it's actually really pleasing to wear. The aforementioned part of my brain doesn't stay shut off for long, though, so my thinky thoughts meandered around to something of a conclusion:

Wearing male clothing feels extremely natural to me at this point. I've been doing it (almost exclusively) for quite a few years now; I always shop on the Men's side of the store on the rare occasions I buy new clothes, and the few items of female clothing I own are old, secondhand, and rarely see the outside of my closet. I don't think much about wearing my men's cargo pants and button-down shirts (though I do still get a little thrill of excitement at putting on a necktie, but that's a whole tangent on phallic symbolism that I don't want to get into just now). For the most part my dressing habits are not foremost in my thoughts, and I no longer feel like I'm anywhere in the vicinity of crossdressing when I pick out my (male) clothes for the day.

When I wear a dress, I get a backwards sort of transvestite thrill. Like what I normally do is present my basic Genderqueerness, which is an important part of Who I Am. This is not quite the same as presenting Maleness; at present I'm too girly in my features to expect to be read as Guy, though I do smile whenever I get a gender-double-take. But when I wear a dress or especially girly clothing, it's almost like I'm suppressing my Queer and 'passing' as normal, 'dressing up' as something I'm not, doing the exciting costume thing.

Sidebar -

I don't remember where I was reading this, but to paraphrase an idea: trans- and gay- persons both use the term 'passing' to describe how they move in the world, but they mean essentially opposite things by it: To the transman or -woman, 'passing' is asking the world "please see me as the Other I wish to embody even though it's not how you expect or want to see me"; to the gay 'passing' is asking the world "please see me as a normal man/woman and ignore that which makes me different because it's not your business to know". (Perhaps it's this disconnect that's at the heart of the political clashes between trans- and gay-cultures: for gays, passing is hiding and lying and bad; for transpersons, passing is fundamental to the brand of queerness, or at least it might be. Again, a tangent for another time.) I'd love to hear thoughts on this, actually, because I'm not sure how I feel about the distinction.

But to go with that idea, when I wear a dress I'm 'passing' in the gay sense of "nope, nothing different or queer about this girl", which isn't something I can maintain for long because it feels like lying. When I wear a button-down and a tie, I'm maybe halfway to 'passing' in the trans-sense of "oh look, it's a boy." And that feels honest, because it displays my genderqueerness to those that are willing to see it. I do recognize (and ponder, and poke at) that as a female-born-genderqueer nudging the boundaries of masculinity I have a MUCH easier time of it in my daily life than does a male-born-genderqueer nudging the boundaries of femininity; that's unfortunately how the gender divide works these days.

(For more on that tangent-for-another-time please (please!) read Julia Serano's Whipping girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. ::fanbois her::)

The part of me that Envisions A Different World doesn't want to have to worry about wearing male clothing all the time, because pretty dresses make me feel pretty, and I'd like to have a mixture of presentations. But as long as I know that when most people meet me they will think "heteronormative female person" rather than "gender ambiguous omnisexual human" unless I do something about it by wearing a necktie, I'll go on wearing a necktie.

Because I'm not a liar.

I learned that much from my dad.