One Year Later

Please view and comment on this post over at my new wordpress site here.

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This week (Monday, to be precise) marks my one-year anniversary of deciding to transition. It’ll be a little while before the anniversary of Transition being anything other than a thought in my mind, but January 25th 2009 was one of those days I'll remember forever because of that very important thing that happened in my head.

Since then I have reached out to local transgender support groups, made several trans* friends, reconnected with an old one, had a ritual coming-out party, started T, run out of my T prescription, failed to get around to legally changing my name, started two classes where I am simply known as male and not as a transitioning person, started blogging here, left off blogging here, gotten a job, begun training in stage combat and acting, sought prospects for my future as a performer, and felt a consistent desire to have a future as — well, anything. I have learned to design emails and websites with HTML and CSS, to use words like “SEO” and “affiliate marketing” and “link building”, and how to hand-roll a cigarette. I have remembered that acne is a pain in the ass and that short hair is fun. 2009 was quite a year.

Now we’re near the end of the first month of 2010, and I’m sitting in my neighborhood coffee shop whose employees know me as Gabriel and who know my regular order (grilled chicken wrap, black coffee) and who tolerate my working on my laptop for hours at a time. :)

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Since starting to move in the world as a man it’s not uncommon for a woman walking ahead of me on the sidewalk to glance nervously over her shoulder, then move more quickly or shift to the side or cross the street. Which sparks thoughts of a more complicated post on how I’m now, oddly, more comfortable participating in conversations about gender dynamics and the fear of male-stranger-assault that is supposedly ingrained in every woman. (I have in the past felt awkward in such discussions because I cannot recall ever living with that walking-down-the-street fear and I felt there was something wrong with either me or with the premise, but now that I can comfortably remove myself from the category “woman” to which that rule applies, I can interrogate the rule without it being so personal? Something?)

There is also a post in there about my awakening awareness of rape culture and the male role in overturning it that’s been tumbling about in my mind ever since cereta’s post “On rape and men (Oh yes, I'm going there)” that practically everyone on livejournal commented on.

This is not that post, but those are things I want to formulate thoughts on and talk about. Now here's a question – what do YOU want me to talk about? All six of you that read this blog, that is. Prompts and questions and commentary are more than welcome.

Happy genderbending. Happy 2010.

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ETA: Also, I'm thinking of shifting the design and possibly the service for this blog. Anyone have experience with blogger vs. wordpress or typepad or anything else?

ETA RETURNS: Please view and comment on this post over at my new wordpress site here.

Can't stop the signal

Just finished watching Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen, which I ordered a few days ago and which just arrived today! If you haven't already seen the link passed around, check out the trailer:

Overall I was impressed, there's some good filmmaking and some great interviews in there. I suppose really it is just a bunch of people talking about themselves; but when "themselves" is an intersection of transness, maleness, blackness, and various other -nesses, there's a lot to be said. This bit in particular struck me:

It's been important to recognize for me that my spiritual transition needed to precede my physical transition. That the physical transition without the spiritual is not fulfilling and is kind of perhaps leaning towards problems down the road in terms of self-acceptance and acceptance in the world.

And I would say, again, give the people that you are causing to transition with you at least as much time as it took you to find self-acceptance. Don't be impatient with your parents and your siblings and all those folks, because they don't get it. It's not theirs to get. We're in a position when we transition, we force people to transition with us. Our loved ones have no choice. They can either do it gracefully or not. But we're moving on, and they have to kind of get dragged along with us, and so sometimes that feels exactly like what's happening to them, they're getting dragged along like a hostage. And we have to try to make room for them to wrestle with their own stuff, and the ways in which I've found the most loving to do that is to just be present, and to be whole, and to be pleased with who I am. And to not be argumentative, or defensive, but to say, you know, I completely understand how you don't understand this. I wasn't fortunate enough to be born in the body that fit me, but if I had, maybe I wouldn't understand it either. Give them room to not understand.

-Louis Mitchell

from "Still Black"

I completely understand how you don't understand this.

re: The Biology of Forms

The above linked article at Questioning Transphobia is a followup to one the author Queen Emily originally posted in July at Feministe. Feministe is a ciswoman-dominated space, and thus generated a rather different response than that at the trans-heavier QT.

From the followup article, on the complicated intersection of biology, identity, and documentation:

The other goes that it is medically necessary to have “accurate” records, on the grounds of me being really a man, “biologically” speaking. Now this is a rather common idea, but it is nevertheless based on a misunderstanding of trans physiology.
...
Now this is of course rather flawed. Bodies just don’t work that way. Hormone treatment as many of y’all know changes all kinds of things. So for one of my emergency situations, when I checked in as female, I was having these stroke things causing me to lose control over one side of my body. The cause? Complicated migraines, a disease overwhelmingly experienced by women and intimately related to estrogen levels. In other words, if I’d checked the “biologically accurate” male box, it would have misled the doctors much more than my checking female is imagined to.

On a personal note: I recently bought a plane ticket. I have not gotten around to legally changing my name yet (for which I have only myself to blame). So when I filled out my travel forms I declared not only my gender but my Title (Ms, Miss, Mr, Mrs, Dr, etc) -- no title was not an option. So I lied, and claimed to be a Female, Ms. (name), because that's what will allow me to travel without question -- at least, if my presentation isn't too confusing when I go to the airport. I'm actually thinking of wearing a girly shirt that day, because these days, when I'm not in Faerie mode I get read as male much more often than not. Which, biologically speaking, is not entirely inaccurate.

Just a thought.

"I have a c*nt, so that makes me... a man"

Found this gem via bilerico. Funny, sarcastic responses to some of the questions trans persons get asked... a lot. <3



I especially like Charles' response to the first question,

"What if you were born into the right body?"

Um... I sort of like being trans. Uh... Do you mean into a body that might get me laid more? I kind of like my body. I don't... I don't think I understand this question.
What if you were born into the right body?

Sure, I experience body dysphoria at times. Sure, certain things about my life now would be easier if I'd been male-assigned at birth. And menstruation was pretty much the suck for most of my life and now that the magic of hormones has ended that I'm pretty much thrilled. But, two buts (heh, I said butts):

1. Easier is not the same as better
2. There are lessons I learned as a modern dancer about inhabiting exactly the body that I'm in as my instrument and using it and loving it. Body-positivity as a political and personal truth is really important to me; so if there are changes I want to make to my physical form, they are to move forward from this point, not to correct a mistake in the form God gave me. The complicated and unusual history that's written on this body is a blessing -- sometimes a difficult one, but never a curse.

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Sometimes I find myself in the position of being the 'good' trans friend that you can talk to about stuff without setting off a landmine of rage. In large part this is a choice, a natural one that comes from my generally even-tempered approach to the world, from my tendency to detach and intellectualize problems and think about them calmly and rationally, and from my intense desire to understand the world from perspectives that are not my own. Sometimes I recognize that this can be problematic, and sometimes I have to remind myself that understanding other perspectives doesn't have to undermine my own. I wish there were an easy way to communicate that the reverse is also true -- that my perspective on gender does not have to invalidate that of my cis* friends who have trouble shifting my pronouns and/or don't think they'll ever be comfortable thinking of me as a he. As long as there is tolerance, and a recognition that if that barrier to accepting my male identity exists, it will be a barrier between us in certain situations. And as long as we all remember that I am more than my trans identity (and really, if we're not the most intimate of friends, as long as you use my new name and the pronouns I ask you to use, I don't really care if in your own head you think of me as a man or as a nontraditional woman -- that's a concession I wish I didn't have to make, but it is a reality.)

Sometimes it's really nice to see the kind of truthful sarcasm in the above video, though. So when I'm asked the standard questions, I'll probably answer them kindly and truthfully, or tell the asker to please back off because my genitals are none of their business, but my inner monologue might be a little different. Especially if I'm tired and cranky.

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In transition news, I've started to see a tiny bit of growth on my upper lip like a wisp of a hint of a mustache. \o/ It's possible I'm the only one who can see this.



It's the little things that make me happy. :D

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FTM voice recordings

So a few weeks ago I started doing little voice recordings to chronicle the changes I'm going through. I have no idea if they'll be of interest to anyone but me, but today I started uploading them to imeem anyway. My page is here:

gelasius on imeem

... and the first two recordings are uploaded here:

Gabriel Faith 071609

Gabriel Faith 072409

That's all, folks. :)

Last night, on chat...

Gay friend: Can I ask you a really personal question?
Me: Of course.
GF: When you're ready for the surgery, do you get to pick the size?
Me: *sporfle*
Me: That's not what I was expecting.
GF: Because I want to help you shop.
Me: [gives Trans101 explanation of how there isn't really a The Surgery for FTM and how it's unlikely I'll be doing anything of the sort anyway.]
GF: I'm just saying, I know dick.

Then we talked about packies and STPs for a while and he told me I'm hot as a guy and would totally give me head (might want to check with his husband on that one, *koff*)

::amused::

that was a joke, ha ha, fat chance

One of those 'well, duh' facts about transitioning around people who knew me before: Make jokes.

It's a truth well known that humor is good for defeating the elephant in the dining room. My friends are kind, generous people who don't want to hurt or offend me, so for the most part they're not going to make the first jokes while still concerned about slipping up on their pronouns. Since I'd MUCH rather my friends feel comfortable around me and sometimes call me 'she' than tiptoe around me and worry all the time and always always call me 'he', I've been working at demonstrating my willingness to be communicative. Examples:

S: Yeah, last year her boots... 'his' boots were different. SORRY.
me: No, 'her' is right. Last year it was 'her' boots.
S: *frustrated glare*
me: I'm just messing with you now.

(Okay, so that was a little mean. But S. said it was actually helpful in not worrying so much. So.)

[on a swivel stool that won't stay put; usually it rotates to the left, but when I sat down it started rotating to the right]
me: See? I go both ways.
G: Yes. Yes you do. *snickers*