been thinking

Aw you had cancer :< I'm glad you're better.

 

I hung out with a friend on Saturday. She was kind enough to help me pick out a new shirt as well as some boxers, which she sewed the opening close so that nothing showed when I walked around the house with nothing but them and a shirt on. Hey its close to 100°F outside, gotta keep cool somehow.

But we were talking about her cousin. I use to be a friend of his till he stabbed me in the back. A few months ago he came out as a trans woman. I know how this sounds, but we don't believe him. The fact is, me and her no longer hang out with him because of how much he lies.
As an example, a few years ago I see a Facebook status on his wall saying to pray for him because he can no longer see. He explained that he was just walking in his home and everything went dark. My first thought and question to him was "if you're blind how are you posting on Facebook?" He deleted my comment but then proceeded to answer every other comment for two days. His parents actually took him all the way to another city to see a specialist. They were in the building and stepping out the elevator when he suddenly could see again. He told his parents they can leave, they don't have to see the doctor now that he can see. His parents made him go anyway, they felt that something like this should be checked out wither he can see now or not. At the end of the appointment the doctor pulled the parents aside and said that he couldn't find anything wrong with their son that would cause blindness, and from what son explained it to be like the doctor doubted that he had actually been blind. It would be a few months later that I heard the guy joking with people that he had made up being blind because he thought it would be funny to watch people freak. His lying got him kicked out of his grandma's house and he moved in with my friend, his cousin. She was happy when she left because he did not but lie and cause drama, almost landing her 16 year old brother in jail as well.
So when he told ever one he was transgender we are taking it with a grain of salt. As she put it, he is flamboyant and does cross dress from time to time, but he has a very strong masculine side as well. She just can't see him being trans. I explained to her that being trans has nothing to do with being masculine or feminine. So we agreeded that we mostly can't believe him because he lies so much for attention.

She then said that she believes me when I say that I am trans because I have a lot of masculine traits, and she has seen through the years that I tend to repress these traits a lot. Since coming out to her I am more myself and seem happier, though I get anxious about wearing a binder in public and shopping in men's department.

 

I was talking to a trans friend of my mom's and I was trying to describe how I felt gender wise.
Without even thinking I said "its like I'm a mix of androgynous and male, with a dash of female thrown in due to upbringing and societal expectations/views."
And that is when I realized that that was how I truly viewed my gender.

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about when I was a kid and how hormones play a role in things.
I can remember my periods started when I was 12 and they weren't regular since. Of course I was just entering my teenage years and hormones are all a flux. But that was the year I started gaining weight. Every week I put on more and more pounds, despite being an active teen who's diet and sweet intake was carefully monitored. I became an angrier person, a depressed person. I found I just wanted to die. I wonder if hormones could of played a role with this.
The next year, 13, and the headaches began. Every day, they would start before i got to school. Most days I could ignore them but by time spring came around I would be in the nurses office as I tried to fight off a migraine. By the end of the school year the nurse came looking for me to ask if I was alright, if I had any medical issues. I said it had to be allergies even though I had never had them before.
The next years (14-16) saw the occasional headache that I managed to ignore. My periods were abnormal but that was normal for me. I had depression but I chalked it down to a new place, new school, all these outside factors. My anger issues were growing worse though. It was during this time that I started growing facial hair. I was freaked out. Girls do not grow facial hair, but it seemed that the women of my family did. I was always aware of the hairs, as I thought ever one was. Unlike other women of my family, my boobs were huge. People treated it like a good thing, I felt uncomfortable with them. More than that, I hated them. My body was doing two things; becoming more female while becoming more male. I'm sure hormone imbalance was a huge factor but at that time I just hated myself and wanted to die. I didn't know why outside of those two factors. I often felt like my body knew something I didn't, like maybe I was suppose to be male and female. At that time I wished I would of just been male. At least then I wouldn't have huge unsightly boobs. It was then that I grew jealous of trans men, those guys who were born girls but knew they were suppose to boys. I would of given anything to be them at that moment. But from what little I knew about trans I knew I was not one.
Skip a few years and I'm 18. My depression had cleared up hugely. Maybe my hormones cleared up, who knows. I do know I went to the doctors about having to pee every 5 minutes and left being told I had hypothyroidism and gallstones. Pills for the thyroid help with a lot of things. My weight actually increased though, but my periods finally became normal. My boobs were still a source of shame but my facial hair I hardly noticed. A few weeks after graduating my gallbladder was removed. A week after that I began to notice that I was in pain after eating. 5 weeks after surgery I was on the floor in pain after eating a swiss roll. Go to the doctor get put on medicine. It helped but I was still in pain. I began to notice things, my facial hair was growing thicker. The hair on the top of my head was thinning. I was fatigue but not depressed. If anything I felt mentally better than I had in years, and while fatigued I still had a lot of energy. I have a hunch my hormones were out of whack again, my estrogen levels dropping due to an undiagnosed disease. Of course I would be diagnosed with celiac disease when I was a few months shy of 21. A change in diet and I was fine. A year later I was healthy again. 22 years old and I looked in a mirror and I saw a boy. I never realized that I didn't like my reflection in till I did like what I saw. And of course now we have me hear wanting more than anything to be man.

I bring all this up because hormones seem such an important part of being trans. And I keep wondering about when I was that depressed teen. What were my hormones doing to make me depressed. Was it an increased in the female? Maybe is was an increase in T. Hard to say and I will never know.

I do know how I like to look. I know that when I shave the facial hair off and am left smooth I no longer like my face. I know transitioning and being trans is more than how well you like your appearance. But trying to appear more male feels right. When I view myself as male it feels right, but that doesn't mean seeing myself as female feels wrong. They are both me, one just feels better than the other. But if I try to focus on one more than the other its just doubt and confusion and stress. If I let go of it and let what happens happens, think of it as a way of expressing myself then I feel more and more transitioning is right. Hormones is the what if. What if I start T and find it throws my mind into depression. I don't want that. At the same time what if I need estrogen for something and makes me female completely. I don't want that either. I'm stuck at not wanting to be female but not knowing if I am male. Stuck with wanting my boobs gone but afraid I won't like it afterwards. The familiarity of the known vs the fear of the unknown. Time is the great decider but time seems to be something I am running out of.

Fear is a mountain that has been stopping me my whole life and it is only recently that I have begun to climb. I don't want to go back to who I was. Worrying and Harding everything about myself. Gripping the bathroom sink and glaring at the person in the mirror, wishing that person dead. That female yet not female person. That male yet not male person.

Why am I typing this? Guess I just need somewhere to store my thoughts.

 

One of my earliest memories is a four year old me asking my mom why she decided to have a little girl. I know why I asked this. My mom is one of five girls that my grandfather had. Her oldest sister was nine years older than her. She had a daughter who is sixteen years older than me, so I don't actually include her when I think of my cousins. That female cousin had two sons 3 and 5 years younger than me.
My mom had two boys and me, her twin had one boy 6months older than me and another 3 years younger than me. Their little sister had a heart condition and thus never had kids. Their half sister had a son and a little girl, both of who I don't actually know since I only talked to them at my grandpa's funeral.

So four year old me was looking at all the boys popping out and I wanted to know why my mom had the only girl. My mom laugh, it was a common question kids asked. She told me about how when she found out she was pregnant she asked my brothers what they wanted. They both answered a sisters. I felt pleased with this answer as a four year old. I was wanted and I admit to feeling special for being the only girl.

As I got older I would ask the question several more times. "Why was I born a girl?" What were the odds that I was to be born the only girl in a mostly male family. Why did I have to be the different one, why couldn't I of been a boy like them? The onset of puberty had me asking these questions again. I did it again when I learned my brother's unborn child would be born a boy.
I thought the universe to have a cruel sense of humor, placing me in a family of males. No wonder I had a hard time fitting in with girls! But in the back of my head I was going "other girls are born into family of males and they feel female enough."

Of course, now I wonder if these seemingly innocent questions were signs that I am only now understanding. Maybe the universe didn't make a mistake. Maybe I was born into a family of boys because I am one as well.

Something I can think about at least. I'm starting to think that I've always wanted to be a boy but never really realized it or let myself think about it. I was born to a girl so I thought that was all I could be.

 

I lay in bed as I wait for the headache to pass. With a sigh I rub a hand over my face and stop as I feel hair scratching at my fingers. It could be considered a small mustache, the hairs my fingers are gliding over. I follow it to my chin. I run my fingers over the two weeks growth and smile a little as I feel the slight cleft of my chin.
In this current moment I feel very much like a man, and if I keep my mind blank I can easily imagine that I a man. But I can never really forget that little tid bit of being born female. A two weeks worth of growth for me is one days worth for my brother. And going to the bathroom brings me to the mirror. There I do not look like the man I had just been imagining. I look like a teen boy with a hairy neck.
I think about how my friend is coming over today and I should probably shave. But I don't want to. I'm out to her so maybe I won't shave. I will have to tomorrow when I go to my aunt'saunt's, but not today. I want to wait and feel that little bit of maleness for today.

I have spent the last two days not feeling much dysphoria and wondering what it means for me being for trans but I realize that what I was experiencing was dysphoria in it's own way, or a routine against it. I spent years doing it, all the while telling myself I didn't want the hair. I was always afriad about what people will say about me having it. Now I just wish I had a face to fit it.