Trans People Are Not Up For LGBT Debate

You  know, I don't want to spend a hell of a lot of time on this because it's just going to frustrate me, but reading the asinine comments in the Advocate about how "Work It" is totally not offensive to trans people because the characters aren't trans people has really gotten to me.

I just want to say that I'm sick of LGB groups acting as if trans people are or should be a subject of debate.

I'm sick of the fact that the Advocate seems not to moderate comments to get rid of cissexist minimizing about how trans people shouldn't be offended by things that are offensive.

I'm sick of the fact that there are lesbian blogs in which it is considered perfectly OK to write nasty hate bile about trans people where it would be considered absolutely appalling to write similar critiques about sexual orientation.

I'm sick of the fact that even Bilerico's Bil Browning seemed to kick and scream in 2009 before he'd take a transphobic article off of his website because it happened to be written by a gay civil rights leader.

I'm sick of the fact that I've had to sit through LGBT meetings where people turn down all ideas for trans inclusion because they aren't "marketable."

I'm sick of the fact that the HRC has actually given people poorly written surveys in order to "prove" their membership doesn't consider our freedoms important and to justify not fighting for trans people equally.

In short, I'm just getting really fucking sick of the fact that it's not just an issue of ignoring us and keeping us invisible,  I'm sick of being a topic of debate.  I am not your topic of debate any more than you should be mine.

Welcome to T-Land, Jack...

I have been kind of freaking out since I got my T prescription on Friday because I learned at that appointment that my doctor and/or nurse was not going to be there for my first shot. I'd mostly heard from guys who had their first couple shots done by their doctor, and plus, those needles are fucking huge in case you didn't see them before.

And I'd really built myself up thinking this was going to SUCK but that I'd just begrudgingly do it anyway because I wanted to be on T so bad. I went to my aunt's house (you can hear her and my cousin in the background) because she also has to do injections (I mean, not this kind, but injections nonetheless) and I wanted somebody there for support.

It all went really fast. Like, the video I am posting right now is about nine minutes long, a lot of which is filling the syringe, and even that would have been much shorter had I not hit a blood vessel my first shot:


So, well, that was easy. And I am now officially on testosterone as of yesterday morning! Huzzah!

Guess what I got!

I will give you two guesses, and they'd better both involve huge needles.

Yesterday was my last pre-T appointment with my therapist.  She gave me my T letter for my appointment with an endocrinologist for today.  I stayed at a friend's house because both were in the same area, rather far away from where I live, and bright and early the next morning there I was.

It was a lot easier than I thought.  They basically did a regular physical, then wrote out a prescription.  Then, after I already had my prescription, they took some blood for a baseline reading.  Interestingly, I hear all these stories of guys who have their first several shots at their doctor, but mine literally just told me how to do it and as soon as I fill the prescription I'm supposed to just, you know, pick it up.

I'm on .5 mL every seven days.  The needles in the picture are actually my practice needles.  I mean, they're the same needles and they're sterile, but they were given to me so I could practice and not to use for T.  Those needles I get when I buy them from whatever pharmacy I buy them at.  I get paid on Tuesday, so that'll probably be when, and I'm going to give myself the injection on Thursday because I'm meeting my aunt.

So that's that!  I'll keep you posted!
Happy Trails,
-- Jack

Five-Minute Packer Pocket

Why is this in the "fashion" section?  I don't know.

I was thinking about soft packing lately.  It's not something I've done for a long time, although there are certain times in my month when I really, really want to do it (it's bizarre, I get hypermasculine).  The problem?  I wear boxer briefs.  I used to wear briefs, and I could just sit my packy in there, but that doesn't work anymore if I don't want my dick falling down my pant leg, so I stopped packing altogether.

Got sick of that, so I came up with a five minute solution until I find something better.

Step one: Find an oversize sock.  Set your packy inside and line it up with where it should be on your crotch.  Cut the sock off where it meets your waistline.

Take a few safety pins and pin it to the waistband of your underwear.  Like so:

This way it'll hang down but it won't slip down your leg.

The results aren't bad, either:

If you want something more permanent, you can sew it onto the waistband., although in such a case I would personally only sew one half of the sock so I could get the packy out.

This was my "Coming Out Day" Status.

Since there are still eight minutes left of coming out day, I'd like to explain something because it is probably the one major source of depression in my life. I know that not all of you understand it, but I do not use female pronouns, I use male pronouns. I do not use female labels (sister, girlfriend, etc.), I use male ones. I am transsexual. I am not just saying this, I have a medical diagnosis from a gender professional, it is written in black and white on paper and in my medical records. This is present-tense. It is not future-tense, like "some day I will be male." I get hormones in January, but I already am male. It says so on my identifying documents, my school records, and my work records. If you really wanted, I could even get you numerous references from people who know me as a man and have for several years. And since it seems to come up really often now, if comparing me to Chaz Bono helps you understand it, then fine. I'm like Chaz Bono.

I already consider myself "out." There is nowhere I cannot refer to myself as either trans or male. So this "coming out" is not really "coming out" so much as an explanation that when I came out to you, I actually did mean it. If that fact makes you uncomfortable, consider how uncomfortable you would feel if every time somebody referred to you they used the wrong gender pronoun. Wouldn't that just suck?

Australian trans men no longer need bottom surgery for recogintion.

First off, a "Gender Reassignment Board?"  Jesus!

Two trans men in Australia appealed a decision the Western Australia state Gender Reassignment Board made that they could not be recognized as male because they had not had sex reassignment surgery, and won because gendered characteristics are (to quote the ruling) "confined to external physical characteristics that are socially recognisable" and not stuff most people don't see, anyway.

Doctor appointment scheduled.

Today I scheduled my appointment with an endocrinologist.  December 19th.  Four days later than I intended, but you know, who cares?

Got it with my second phone call.  The first wasn't taking new patients, although the receptionist seemed to try very hard to get me to set up an appointment with someone else at the same hospital.

"Are they experienced with transgender patients?"
"Well, err.... uh... I don't know, I can ask."
"I have some other people I can call who I know are, I think I'll call them."
"Are you sure?!  I can ask, it won't take that long!"

She starts rattling off doctor's names, which I don't recognize, and I'm trying to find someone who might take my insurance and I know all of the people on my list at least take it for non-transgender stuff.  So I tell her I'll call back if I don't find someone else.

Next call, I asked if the endo was taking new patients, she said "yes."  I say I want to start hormone replacement therapy.  She asks if I have a letter (angelic noise).  I say I will have one, but that's not the point, the point is that the receptionist actually knew something about the subject.  She said I couldn't set up an appointment without bringing in a letter, but somehow she still set it up.  I think I may have misheard that first bit, maybe she meant I couldn't have the appointment until then, but again, that's a moot point because my therapist and I already planned out when I should go in, so the letter will be done by that time.

Not my T-date, though.  My T-date is probably going to be in early January if there are no problems found (fingers crossed).

Herp derping around the Internet...

I know I'm not the only person who has taken it.

My results were 50 in the male range, which as it turns out is absolutely average:

Not that I take too much stock in quizzes like this.  My favorite part of reading the results was when they were showing the average scores for men and women and they were exactly the same.  What?  Really?

Actually, no, I take that back.  My favorite part of reading the results was this:

Not because I nailed it, but because I remember that part of tests from when I was in elementary and middle school and how confused all of my chromosomal-essentialist teachers got when someone who at least looks to be lacking a Y chromosome can actually *gasp* move pictures in their mind!

I actually have a really bitter viewpoint of how teachers underestimate girls in math and stuff like that because when I was little they basically went "Well, Jackie, you got another D, but you're a girl, so it's OK."

The problem is that I'm really good at math.  They just decided that my decision not to apply myself was because as a girl I was bad at math.  Which is the problem with quizzes like this.  The fact that men and women are different (I know some of you will slam me for saying it, but we are) does not make women or men inherently good or bad at anything, at least not to the point where you can just give up on a child's abilities over it.

But yeah, that's my soapbox for the day.

In today's appalling trans male news...

Occupy Wall Street: NYPD Chains Trans Man to Jail Restroom for Eight Hours

From the article:

A transgender man arrested Saturday as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest at the Brooklyn Bridge was verbally and physically humiliated by the New York Police Department (NYPD), including being inappropriately patted-​down, segregated from other arrested persons, refused repeated requests for food — despite the fact that other prisoners were fed — and chained for eight hours to the wall of a restroom in an NYC jail, according to a statement he released.

Really guy? Really?

Sometimes there's stuff out there that's so well-meaning but which still makes my head hurt:

I added the mars symbol to point out that this is a guy because I don't post real names.  Usually.

Clearly this is supposed to tell me that you cannot be either bisexual, transgender, or Pagan, and since my cissexism sense is rapidly tingling I assume you mean that you aren't trans because OMFGLOL no straight woman wants a trans guy, right?  Or a trans woman, for that matter, because it clearly has never happened that a straight woman married a trans woman who didn't know she was a trans woman yet and just happened to still love her enough to say.  Crazy world, say I.

Honestly, I think this kind of thing in some ways this kind of thing annoys me more than any bullshit Keith Ablow could pull out of his ass, simply because people in general are so ill-informed that they think this sort of thing is supportive.  And he's really trying to be, don't get me wrong, but seriously, straight allies, don't do this.

LOL Jon Stewart

"HE'S GOING TO GET PENISES PUT ON HIS KNEES! SEVENTH GRADE RULES!"

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Dear Cis People...

"I like, don't have any problem with trans people, it's like, their choice and all..."

Why is it that cissexual LGB people often feel the need to announce they don't feel entirely male or female when they clearly do feel like the one connected with their birth sex?  Why is it they feel the need to announce that trans people, many of whom have a legitimate medical diagnosis confirming it, are making a "choice" and then turn around and complain when some anti-family bigot says it's a "choice" that they're gay or lesbian?  Seriously, cis people, can you just stop saying stuff like this?

My Therapy Postponement is Apparently Overexaggerated

My next therapy appointment is on September 22nd at 2:30.  The reason?  My Dad called me this morning, said that my Mom had gotten a bunch of money she was owed, and told me to schedule my next appointment.  So I did, and there you go.

If you were planning on donating anything, please still do, because I'd rather my parents have to pay for as little of this as possible.  But, at the very least, everything is still going and mostly on schedule.

Browsing Hulu...

Found this:

Which I'm sure most of you won't care about, but my family watches DWTS so, well, there you go.  And yes, I'll be rooting for Chaz.

I have no problem pimping this out.

I am a big fan of Early to Bed.  About half of what I lovingly call my "dick toolbox" is from this website, and it is a formidable toolbox indeed.

So I am really excited that Early to Bed is having a set of contests with some very awesome prizes.  Today's contest includes a strap-on harness, a strap-on-friendly dildo, and some other cool stuff.

To get it you either tweet or blog (guilty) about the contest, or add the Facebook page.  And I either want that package or want one of my readers to get it, so go sign up darnit!

Therapy Postponement and Stuff I've Learned So Far

I've had a huge run in with money (namely my school funding fell-the-fuck-through) and sadly I need to pay for school before therapy.  It's a difficult choice, but if I'm not in school I'll have a fuckhaul full of even more problems.  Talked to Kara about it, who said something about how I should rush testosterone, which quite frankly offended me a little but I'm sure I'll get over it.  Maybe I'll write about that someday, but right now I'm not in the mood.

By the way, yes, I'm resorting to begging, so if you like this blog please consider leaving something in my ChipIn.  It's in the sidebar to the left, or you can just click here.

But anyway, on to the actual interesting part of this post.  The thing is, for the past couple months I have been living more fully as male than I ever have been.  It was actually a pain in the ass to leave camp because most of my family still "she"s me all the time (even though they know), which they don't regularly do at camp, but I will tell you this:  At work over the summer, at work now, and at school, I am a man.  I mean, I'm a man otherwise, but other peoples' perceptions of me do give me a great deal more confidence in myself and leads to some interesting... learning experiences.  Which, of course, I'll detail here.

1. Women flirt with me.  Wait, women flirt with me?
   No, seriously, this was a big shock to me, because I still have it in my head that people are perceiving me as female, so when they act toward me in a manner similar to the way they interact with women, I assume they're just viewing me as women.
   As it turns out, in a substantial percentage of women, treating men in a way similar to how they treat their girlfriends is a method of flirting.
   In other words, I spent half the summer leading women on because I assumed their actions meant they secretly saw me as a woman, when in reality they saw me as a suitor.  Boing.

Close one?

Suddenly I feel almost happy about FTM invisibility.  Well, not really, but sometimes even shitty things have their advantages.

One reason I haven't been updating that often (as well as the fact that I'm at summer camp right now, which is another animal in and of itself) is that I've been in a little bit of a bind as far as how my transsexualism is being used against me in other contexts.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because I want to protect myself, even though the issue should be over with, but the basic story is as follows.

I was accused of sexual misconduct with a child I was watching.  I'm not going to go into detail, again, as to what I was accused of doing, but it was by the girl's father, who has limited custody.  I should mention, of course, that it was not true and that I was not the only person he falsely accused.  I freaked out, had a good talk with a friend, was a little better, wound up talking to my boss about it (remember I work at a summer camp?  Awkward.)

In the end, the people involved had a phone conference in which he told the entire story of what he "thought" I had done and said.  The entire story was based on the premise that I was a male-to-female transsexual.  Not even in a generic sense.  It was clear that the guy had made up this entire story based on the premise that because I am trans, I am a trans woman.

In other words, it was so utterly unbelievable that only the most mind-stretchingly stupid people could have possibly believed it.

So I'm back, probably, because that blew over and also because I have my computer back.  Huzzah!  Assume that a lot of my personal information from here on is going to be about how camp has been handling my transition, the answer to which is "surprisingly well, actually."

Regards,
-- Jack

I was a chugger, too.

This video showed up in my Original Plumbing feed today.

It's the testimony of somebody who worked for what I have come to know as a "liberal sweatshop," it's a canvassing contractor used by a lot of large lobby organizations like the Human Rights Campaign.  And I totally was a canvasser for them, so this is a very personal thing for me.

So you're not a dysphoric transsexual. Want a cookie?

We're going to make this I guess an etiquette article as well as a viewpoints article because although it's clearly a viewpoint essay it's also based on etiquette.  And that etiquette lesson has to do with an open disregard for other trans people regarding identity and dysphoria.  Recently it reared its head in a discussion of non-dysphoric trans men.  It started with an honest question and then devolved rapidly into mocking dysphoric trans people.

There were a couple myths thrown around in this discussion I'd like to address, as well as a sort of etiquette warning.

1. Dysphoria isn't what everyone seems to think it is.
2. Dysphoria isn't a failing on the part of dysphoric people.
3. It is not cool to mock dysphoria if you don't have it.

Which I will explain after the jump.

Therapy session five. Also, therapy isn't that bad. Seriously.

Scientologists.

Has it been two weeks since I posted anything?  Wow.  Oh, it was a little less than that because I delayed my therapy post.

So I had my last therapy session until September.  I already planned on postponing to work on the other half of the state through the summer, I had to postpone early because a clinic I went to five years ago decided I needed a surprise bill! for about what one of my sessions cost, and I want to avoid borrowing money.  I'm not in a bad mood about it, though, because I'm excited for the summer, my brother's wedding, and some other stuff and I know testosterone is going to happen anyway.  I told my best friend about this and he said "You've been waiting a quarter of a century, what's another two weeks?"

So today's session was actually devoid of depressing stuff!  But I've also for the past few weeks been thinking about the attitude I've been seeing among trans people with regard to therapy.  I'd like to address that, and we'll see how long it takes for my little hit counter to spike from somebody being angry at me ^_^

My Therapist Talks To My Spirit Guides, Also Dreams

So, I am a Pagan spiritualist.  Did I mention that already?  Well, it's true. Mostly I work with rocks because my God is a God of infertility and I can't work with plants very well.  But anyway, this came up at my therapy session and my therapist, who is an energy worker, said she wanted to try some energy work with me.  And I consented.

I'm not saying I regret it, and I like her a lot as a therapist, but honestly pretty much everything she told me was stuff we'd talked about at my third session.  Namely that I have been trying to transition into a different clothing style, but I trip up for... well, pretty silly reasons.  So basically a lot of "pay more attention to your personal appearance" stuff which was actually kind of my idea.  But, well, I'll take it as motivation to continue on this quest anyway.

Some relevant recent crap.

It's been kind of stressful lately what with the ridiculous amount of transphobia out there and the ridiculous amount of people saying they aren't transphobic because women are incapable of oppression.  My favorite recently was that somebody had made a comic that used trans women as a punch line... not the worst punch line I've ever seen, but a punch line nonetheless.  The author was all upset that people called her "privileged" because people were using the word "privilege" as a weapon against her.  The fact that you can say this, by the way, without most people thinking it is an unreasonable request, is because you have privilege.  Zing!


Recently of course the big issue was a trans woman who was assaulted in a Baltimore McDonalds bathroom while an employee did what any upstanding US citizen would do and taped it to put online while people sat by and laughed.  Of course, talk to most people and it's trans women who are the bathroom predators, so how come I'm not hearing more stories like this in which trans women are the ones doing the beating?  This is not a particularly rare occurrence, either.  But noooo, we need to "protect" cis women because they are perpetual victims.  You know what just put the icing on the cake here?  When the story first broke it didn't mention she was a trans woman because the reporters weren't sure about it, and people were commenting on trans-positive blogs with comments like "The article says she was a woman, not a trans woman!"  Seriously.  People on trans-positive blogs commented that.  Of course the articles said she is a woman.  She is a woman.  And even if she were cis, which she is not, she was clearly assaulted because of a perception of being trans, which is still anti-trans crime.

I believe there is also a petition to McDonalds to hold people accountable (last I heard at least one of the employees was fired, good riddance) at Change.org, but it's been down for me so, well...

(Trans) Male Privilege

You ever get pissed about something and then you sort of do a 180 over it later once you calm down?  So, white female privilege.  Bring this up and  it seems like scores of people come out of the woodwork to yell "there is no female privilege!"  I never actually said anything, but yes, my brain went there.  I've identified as a feminist for a long time, and there are some themes within feminism that are pretty much drilled into your head, largely that oppression is one-way and therefore things like "female privilege" or "black privilege" are considered nonexistent.  Which also makes me think about several times in which certain trans women have railed against trans men for various things, like the existence of trans male only support groups.  So I thought about how ludicrous I thought the idea of "trans male privilege" was.  I believed (as I continue to do) that I have male privilege, but trans male privilege seemed a stretch.  So I was looking at the idea of white female privilege, as well as black male privilege and some other various phrases used, with that lens.

Once I cooled down, though, I realize that it's not as problematic as I thought.  Including the concept of trans male privilege, which I'd like to keep the focus of this simply because I am a trans man and don't want to be telling women what's what.  Also, the way people fight against this usage is I think sort of indicative of the same attitudes that drive some groups (particularly people of color groups) away from feminism.

Please contact WYFF4 and tell them this is not acceptable.

Does this look like a man to you? Me neither.

So I just learned about this through I think TransGriot but from Google magic I learn they've had this problem for quite a while.  WYFF4, a South Carolina station, is reporting on the disappearance and later discovery of a trans woman not only as a "transgender man," but as "a 22 year old Hispanic man who dresses as a female and has breast implants."

What the fuck, WYFF4.  Seriously.  So I am inviting anybody who reads this to please contact them politely to get them to change this.  It is both offensive and against established reporting guidelines to refer to trans people in this way.

Fun with Google Analytics...

Not many people come here through search engines.  Most come through my church (oddly enough) and Trans Queer Nation (not even a little odd, actually).  Only six visits recently, in fact, are from search engines.  On an aside, one of my other blogs gets visits mostly from people trying to figure out if that story with the woman suing the family of a dead man for child support because she had sex with his corpse and got pregnant is real.  So only six visits on this site does not unsettle me.  Go back to December and there are a few more, but anyway...

It is interesting though to look at what search cues people used to click in and which ones made people stay.  In the case of this blog, "dont use the word tranny" got a hit from a person who didn't stick around.  Whoever got here through "transitioning without testosterone" probably hit my essay on how I distrust Natural Transitioning and also did not stick around, "my gender transition" and "i hate being trans" also left hastily.  Somebody came here after searching "dianic trans pantheacon" and stayed for a few minutes, and "dianic trans exclusion" got a hit, too.

My favorite, though, is that somebody who got here with the interestingly non-trans-related "things I hate about being a man" and then surfed a total of 32 pages for a total of 28 minutes.  Maybe I need to re-think my audience.

Or not.

Medical Misgendering

I was thinking about top surgery doctors lately, and the two names that were given to me in my program were Dr. Brownstein in San Francisco and Dr. Steinwald by Chicago.  I am looking around at other doctors too to find the right cross between price and results (of course, I have time to save money for this, so more weight on the "results") but as I was looking I did notice something unsettling I'd like to bring to your attention.

It concerns the FTM mastectomy results on Dr. Steinwald's page.

For example:

21 year-old female seeking gender reassignment/top surgery; presented with a youthful/fuller B-cup bra size and aesthetics, which made her an excellent candidate for a single-stage FTM chest masculinization as an outpatient.

Since I know most of you are coming here from sites criticizing me for pointing this out because not all chest surgeries are done on male-identified people, I'll state that yes, there are male-identified people on that site being referred to using female pronouns who did not consent to this and who do not appreciate this.  He apparently uses female pronouns on his medical notes, too.

Recently I also noticed that some trans men's therapists put female pronouns on their T-letters.

I don't have much to say about any of this right now except that it's disturbing that people who work with us would make such a big mistake.

After a long stay at the DMV of evil...

Went to the DMV today with my carry letter after a failed attempt at getting my social security information changed.  No big deal, in the state of Wisconsin it's legal to get the sex changed on your driver license without hormones or surgery provided you're in a formal gender program.

And, well, I am!  So I take the carry letter in and the first lady looks at me with this irritated look on her face as I explain I am there to get the gender on my license changed.

"Really?!" she says in the most snotty voice she can manage.  I am used to this kind of behavior from this particular DMV service station... I usually go to the one in the same city I go to school in because they've always been nothing but friendly to me, but the one I went to... well, I just went there to avoid the extra trip.  I expected this from them because they're always like that.  She gives me a form to fill out and I swear to Gods sort of "flicks" the ID at me, as if she wanted to throw it like an inaccurately-gendered ninja death star.

More Natural Transitioning Stuff

Another warning against trying Natural Transitioning without actually following it from TheSLOfox:

Natural Transitioning

[Im Cr Sage Ross]

This essay is subject to a lot of edits as of December 18th, 2011.  It's basically a whole new article.

I'm going to be sort of frank and blunt in this essay because this is an opinion I really want to make clear to people.  A lot of my trans guy friends are getting into a particular method of transition and are becoming nearly evangelical about it.  It's a method to increase the amount of testosterone an FTM man's body makes without injecting testosterone. It's called "Natural Transitioning^TM" and involves essentially using the same techniques and supplements bodybuilders use.

So why do people use NT?  It has essentially been advertised as something for trans men who have medical problems preventing them from taking testosterone, but honestly there are few people who actually use it for that reason because for as massive an undertaking hormone therapy may be, it doesn't have all that many contraindications that wouldn't also contraindicate NT.  People do it to avoid therapy, because they believe it is safer, because they can't afford some part of the medical process, some even because they are either vegans or natural health junkies.  If you are in these categories, I'd advise you to take this to note.

Alright, wow.

Wow, seriously. This video doesn't make me stop supporting Planned Parenthood, but what the fuck. Based on the people I initially saw posting this I thought it was going to be something inclusive; in my community phrases like "vagina-havers" is meant to be a way of referring to the physical health of cis women and trans men, or just whatever bodily function happens to be recognized... "menstruators" was another one.

But, no, this is another one of those "When we say 'has a vagina' we mean women. Period. Huh, huh, period!" campaigns.

STP Journey, Part 1

I have bad bathroom anxiety.  Essentially what happens is that I can easily walk in and out of a men's public restroom with no difficulty... I pass well enough and I do not feel nervous about that aspect.  I don't mind going in a stall, either.  But I do mind sitting to piss.  It's not that I think it's going to get me in trouble, I have been in restrooms several times where men have been sitting in the stalls and pissing, and nobody whispers "I think that might be a girl!" as they do it.  My therapist said maybe it would help if my driver license said "male," which may be true.  Something I decided though was that I needed to start pissing standing up again... I used to have an STP (Stand-To-Pee) device that I made out of a packy, a piece of tubing, and a medicine spoon but I currently don't know where that is.  I eventually will make one of those again, but for now I have a Freshette.

Why did I pick the Freshette?  Honestly, one of the main reasons was that I had an Amazon gift card and they sell it there.  It didn't have the same female branding that the Go Girl has and I wanted the luxury of tubing.  It came yesterday, so here's what I think about it.

Because I'm not a woman.

My identity is incredibly simple.  I understand that not everybody's is... but mine is.  I am a transsexual.  I am a relatively traditional one.  I was born biologically female, but mentally and socially I am male.  Fully male.  Not halfway male.  Not female but masculine.  I am male.  Why is that so hard for people to get?

This list is written as a way to hopefully slap people into an understanding of what is really going on in my life.  It seems that no matter how I try getting people to understand what my gender identity really, they still consistently ask me "Why?" or "Why not?" when they learn I do certain things or refuse to do others.  I don't understand how I can make this more explicit to you people, so for some of you this will be my last attempt.

• Why do I keep cutting my hair as soon as it starts "getting to a length that looks good on me?"
• Because you are judging my appearance under the assumption that I am a woman.  The reason you think my hair looks "better" on me when it is longer is because you are still viewing me as a woman.  I am not.
• Why don't I shave my legs or under my arms?
• Because in my culture women are the ones who regularly shave their legs and underarms.  Men do not.  I am not a woman.  I am a man.
• On a side-note, I don't understand why you care about women's shavinghabits so much either.

Dietary Transition

[Im Cr USDA]

Every so often I talk to people about what I call my "dietary transition."  When I talk about this I'm referring to the dietary changes I've been making to transition from a high-carb-vegetarian to a whole-foods-near-carnivore on the advice of a doctor to help with my weight and insulin resistance.

One of the "side-effects" besides the weight loss I already went through  was a noticeable spike in the amount of body hair and muscle I have which is probably due to a spike in my androgens level.  Because of this sometimes people sometimes ask me to elaborate what the hell my diet is so they can decide if they want to try it.  I don't particularly want to be a dietary proselytizer to the trans community and I can't promise good results for you, but I'll put a summary here for you.

My First Therapy Appointment

Harry Benjamin

Yesterday was my first therapy appointment.  I figured in case any of you are going to start therapy I'd talk about what goes on at my appointments.  I assume that this stuff varies from therapist to therapist, but that's just the way it goes.  It's also a personal transition diary.

I am going to call my therapist K because from what I hear her program is kind of popular and I don't want to slam her with more requests.  It uses the Harry Benjamin standards of care, which I didn't want to do but which I don't regret.  So far.

I show up early enough to go to the post office to mail something to Australia.  The office itself is in a residential building on the top floor, I punch the numbers into it and am let in.  K tells me through the speaker to use the elevator.  When I get to the top, she greets me and I enter.

Passing Privilege: A Kind-Of Response

I call this a "kind-of response" because when I first read the essay Macho Men & The Femme Factor by Sabrina Pandora I was irritated beyond all belief.  I had a lot of plans to write my own observational essay on why trans women and trans men don't always hang out together at the soda shop or whatever the kids are doing these days, but it never got published because I didn't want to alienate trans women just because one trans woman wrote something that seemed to entirely blame trans men for the lack of collaboration between us.

This is a revised, much more cooled-off version of what I would have written back then which I hope does not automatically pin either trans women or trans men (or in fact all genderqueer people or all traditional transsexuals or anybody) as the reason we tend to gather in cliques.  The thing is, it really isn't just one group of us doing it... it's all of us.

On Dianics and Cis Women's Space

Pictured: Not Dianics. [Im Cr ShahMai Network]

So I don't know if any of you heard, but there's this conference called PantheaCon which is a huge conference for Pagans and people of similar religious paths, and this year there was a huge controversy which I guess was new to some people but not to me.  There was a "Lilith Ritual" put on by some Dianics and, surprise surprise, trans women were asked to leave at the door.  Some may be shocked by this, but honestly I can't be.  When I hear the word "Dianic" my body fills with heebie jeebies because I pretty much associate it with transphobic bile.  I'm also a men's mysteries spiritualist which adds an opposite-but-similar twinge to this.  So honestly, this issue makes me burn like Hell.

Nightmares!

I'm having a great deal of stress lately, premature stress.  I haven't even gone to my first therapy session yet (one week and five days!) but I'm having so much stress related to testosterone it's insane.  I mean, it's at least around three months and two weeks before I even will know if I get the damned stuff and I'm worried about stuff like whether or not I'll be able to self-inject or whether or not I'm going to go bald.

I have financial worries, too, but right now I have enough support where I shouldn't worry too much.  Plus I have a job interview on Monday, and if they've hired my cousin, they should hire me.  My main reason for stress there is that I don't want them to fire me for being trans... not just because of the getting-fired-for-being-trans part, but because this is one of my favorite stores and I don't want to feel obligated to boycott them for firing me for a stupid reason.  But anyway, although finances are stressful, they aren't the stressful part of this.

The nightmares, though, are.

Drowsy personal updates time.

I'm the one on the left.  Yeah, go Packers!

This is a personal diary kind of which goes over:

• My state of health
• Therapy stuff
• Testosterone stuff

 I shouldn't be that tired, but today was a lazy day.  I "cut" class (I don't actually consider it "cutting" because there was no way my two-wheel-drive pickup truck which is nearly old enough to drive on its own was going to tackle the snowdrifts on my driveway, even with how much of my therapy fund I sacrificed for new tires) and so I slept in and tried to be productive.

So today I'm feeling good.  Based on the picture to the right and comments made by my friend Tina (also pictured) I am starting to be able to conceptualize how much weight I've really lost.

LGB People: No, you can't use the word "tranny."

Ann Coulter: Not a "tranny."

I've been cooking this one for a few days now.  I've decided to become involved in my old Rainbow Alliance again, even though I graduated from that school.  My current school I'm pretty sure doesn't have an LGBT group and I'm awkward about joining a new one, so off to the old one I go.

First, background.  I was an officer of this organization for I think two years (Or was it three?  I'm pretty sure it was two, but I was an officer in a lot of clubs and orgs in College: First Attempt so I may be wrong).  In the three years I was involved in it, I became kind of that go-to token trans guy who you talked to when you wanted to understand some trans issue and helped people who wanted to understand radical queer politics.  So while I was there, there wasn't all that much crap being said and done to our trans population.  Yes, there was cissexist garbage, but it was easily controlled because there were people who were advocating.  When I left, a different trans guy (who technically is an author of this blog, too, although he hasn't written anything) kind of took over.  Now he's gone, too.

Is putting trans people in mainstream advertising ever okay?

Edit:  Sabrina Pandora of TQ Nation has a different perspective on this commercial which you can read at REWARDS WHERE DUE on their WordPress.  Quite a few trans people are considering this commercial to be a good thing, so I figured it was important to show that they have perspectives on this too.

The commercials during the Super Bowl were pretty crappy this year, but somewhere between the pre-game show and kick-off this commercial came on and I immediately had to rewind the DVR because it confused the hell out of me.  It took me a while and a little talking with others to finally decide whether I was okay with it or not... and the answer, spoiler alert, is "no."

Do I Pass?

I've noted a trend that isn't recent but it is common among trans people online, and that's the habit of posting a picture of yourself online and asking the fatal question "Do I Pass?"  Recently a part of it included the tendency to get pissed off when people actually answered the question honestly, which I can only partially condemn because a lot of that advice really was pretty shitty.

But anyway, there's my basic opinion on the whole issue:  Most advice you get from people looking at your picture will be neither necessary nor accurate.  And there is a very good reason for that.

I'm accidentally stealth.

For those of you who don't know, "stealth" is when you live as your target gender (in my case, male) without disclosing that you are trans.  I've never been stealth before.  I'm not on testosterone so I assume that I don't pass.  And in most cases, I don't.  So recently I spent a lot of time arguing that trans women make too many assumptions about how well trans men pass.  One of the comments recently was something like "short hair, binding, and swagger and trans men pass, even pre-T."  I still stand by my assertion that this isn't necessarily true.

Transsexual differences in brain structure...

Found this article today through my feed reader... they've done yet more studies on trans brains to see if the structure more closely resembles brains of cis males or cis females.  We already know that in the brains of dead trans women, there is a difference in the area of the brain called the stria terminalis compared with cis males.  In other words, it's closer to perceived sex.  Interestingly I've seen this study quoted a lot by gay men to justify homosexuality, which is weird because there was no difference between the stria terminalis when it came to sexuality.  This is a relatively old and well-known study, and if I recall right they did do the same on trans men and found similar results.  The brain differences were there regardless of whether or not the trans person in question was on hormones.

But I digress.  They have a new study, two new studies actually, based on four particular areas of the white matter of the human brain in which males and females differ significantly, and in fact it can be done while one is still alive.  One study dealt with trans men, the other with trans women.  In each study, roughly 20 cis men, cis women, and trans people had their brains scanned to look at these four particular areas.

A list of things I hate being told by non-FTMs...

Because sometimes I just need to write a list and sometimes when the holiday season is over I am forced to mull over the massive list of things people have said to me that are what-the-fuckery at its finest.  Some of them, of course, aren't that obviously obnoxious, so maybe this will help for the SOFFAs out there.

(Or not.  I'm only one guy, after all, and it's inevitable a lot of people don't consider this stuff irritating as I do.  Say them to me, though, and you have a problem.)

• Personal questions when you don't know me.  Hell, even if you do.  Stuff like what medicine I'm on (if any) what surgeries I'm having (if any) and how I have sex are none of your business.  In fact, in most of these cases it wouldn't even occur to people that they were any of their business if I weren't trans.