Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

I’m dating someone. Woot! It’s been, oh… approximately 3 years since I’ve done so? Which means this is kinda epic.

Or, rather, super epic.

Back in the day I had essentially resolved to stop dating for a number of reasons. First, over time intimacy had become a huge dysphoria trigger. It got to the point where I just absolutely couldn’t ignore the disconnect between my mind and body. Without dating I had a series of coping tactics I’d developed throughout my wily adolescence - such as never looking down when I was naked (or in the mirror) and ignoring the existence of my female-bodied areas as much as possible.

But when I finally stumbled into the land of intimacy at 17 years of age… even though I didn’t quite know why, I preferred that my partner didn’t touch me. It made me sad. And this preference lasted until my third relationship. When I was touched, I tried to pretend that my body was what my brain map expected - for lack of a better term, male-typical.

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I just can’t stop obsessing about my top surgery scheduled for August 11th (<— have I mentioned this date enough?). I just can’t. I’m trapped in a land of fantasy and anticipation. Every time I bicycle, I imagine how wonderful it’s going to feel to do so without a binder - to feel the wind against my skin. Swooooosh. I imagine going on hikes where I can breathe and my body can evaporate the heat. I imagine rain on my chest, going swimming, being able to go to the gym, not experiencing horrible mega acid reflux on a daily basis … but, most importantly, especially given the inevitable and relentless “side effects” of T? Getting my frickin’ self-esteem put back together again so I can set sail on the babe mackin’ boat.

Confession: It’s literally been almost 3 years since I’ve experienced physical intimacy. There have been a few times where I’ve tried, but then quickly realised I wasn’t ready and absolutely had to wait for surgery. Ever since, the fear of triggering my dysphoria and spiraling into a sad mopey dark scary place far exceeds the urge to be intimate with another human being. It only makes things worse.

On the plus side? No sex and constant sobriety =’s being a crazy excellent student. Who’dathunk.

Still, feeling desired is important to everyone. Being trans, I have a little bit of a secret fear that in getting the body I want, I’ve alienated the rest of the world. Not to mention that I’m not, in the slightest, versed in much of standard hetero-land courtship and miss cues galore. But… importantly, getting surgery will get me closer to a place where I can open myself up to someone desiring me just as I am, not as anyone else thinks I should be. Which is the sort of shindig that’s a good thing for anyone’s self-esteem.

I know that surgery isn’t going to be a catch-all. A lot of emotional damage has come from living with such severe dysphoria for such a long ol’ time. But it’s, for sure, 87.4% closer. Which is close, if I do say so myself!

Not to beat on my own lackadaisical wah wah drum, but I stopped engaging in nitty gritty a little bit before I started hormone therapy in December of 2008. Since my first dabblings in nitty-ville when I was 18, I’d been able frolic aboot in intimacy, albeit semi-uncomfortably. Partners haven’t been able to really touch me, essentially. With each passing year living female-bodied, that “semi-uncomfortable” escalated to “incredibly uncomfortable” and then to “gah! no more! enough!”. The whole shindig became way too depressing as the sensory signals from the deep recesses of my noggin screeched louder and louder, “Disconnect! Disconnect!”

It got to the point that even imagining intimacy made my stomach turn with anxiety (and still does), knowing that being touched made my body impossible to ignore and would just trigger a whole slew of mopey. Every time I met someone and tried, thinking that I could handle it, I couldn’t. What would start out as kissing would be overtaken by the neurological disconnect, and my body would just entirely shut down. I’d feel vulnerable, embarrassed and ashamed - and then would spiral into feeling awful for weeks.

Before going to my first therapy session I’d resolved to the route of dramatic abstinent rather than having to deal with the health risks and expense of transition or the pain of intimate encounters. But, ya know, drama like that also made me sad - so, therapy it was. And, in no time, this hormone journey began. Joy!

The thing is, even though I’ve reveled in the changes that have come from hormone therapy thus far, I still haven’t been able to see anyone due to my chest - which is a mega ultimate supreme mother trigger of all not-supposed-to-be-there-says-neuromap triggers. I’ve tried the nitty gritty less than a handful of times since December of 2008 and, every time, the frickin’ sad/shut down trigger. Which is made worse by the fact that shutting down all of the sudden is embarrassing for me, on top of worrying that my partner will end up feeling self-conscious and confused.

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I’d spent years before I finally decided to transition absolutely rejecting the idea of hormones or surgery for my own body. Yet, I’ve known since puberty that watching my body develop further and further in an entirely detached, foreign, and disconnected direction would only get more difficult with time.

I completely underestimated the toll it would eventually take on my poor ol’ noggin.

Throughout by wee bop teenage years I had zero interest in even sipping alcohol or trying a drug. I’d see my intoxicated friends struggle just to walk, their vision would blur, speech slurred, reaction time would get slow, memory impairment and I thought, “What the f&#k is that alcohol doing to their brains?”

And, from that, I buried my adolescent head into a slew of long ol’ dry-as-dust articles about what, exactly, alcohol does. I read something about alcohol contracting brain tissue and depressesing the central nervous system. Something about destroying brain cells that do not regenerate. On and on and on,

… essentially completely and entirely stripping out the fun factor of it before I could even get started.

Same deal with recreational drugs.

My dad’s horror stories about friends who did drugs and ended up in diapers helped, too.

So this hormone thing? The physical trauma of surgery? Gah! No way! I told myself (very untrue!) that hormones or surgery were weak and irresponsible options (for me; I never extended this logic to anyone else).

I told myself that I was strong and smart enough to “think” myself out of it. My body wasn’t “broken”, … it was just, mis-matched. And there had to be ways to cope with it that didn’t involve hormones or surgery.

So, step one, I spent my teenage and young adult years avoiding the unclothed sight of myself in the mirror. It was too jarring and unsettling; not in a way comparable to if I happen to gain a little weight or get acne - something triggering on an entirely different, physiological level.

Even though I’ve always felt that I’ve had a high self-esteem in regards to my self image; but then the sight of my own chest triggered that disconnect.

As an analogy, I suspect the sensation would be very similar if I were to look in the mirror and see scales on my face where I have been physiologically mapped to expect flesh; or, perhaps, a phenomena very similar to what people suffering from phantom limb syndrome experience (which Vilayanur S. Ramachandra has been researching). Probably not the most ideal analogies, but something on that level.

To stick to my drug free guns and to take pride in my ability to cope with my varied predicaments I listened to straightedge bands of the 1980s like Minor Threat and Uniform Choice, Straight and Alert from the Screaming for Change LP with lyrics like:

I’m a person just like you
But I’ve got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don’t even think about speed
That’s something I just don’t need

and

Who drinks the barley?
Who drinks the grain?
Who shoots that shit into their veins?
Is there really the need for the use of dope?
Does it solve ones problems
Can it help one cope?

Oh my hardcore teenage life.

I developed a very, very strong sense of drug-free pride mostly to abstain from the tempting option to escape from dealing with that pain of disconnect. To boot, I also avoided that whole bizarre dating fiasco until, at 17, I crumbled and landed my first girlfriend. And learned fast that this opened up a whole new world of triggering possibilities.

Being trans is the one thing that has always brought me the closest to spiraling into a world where it feels like my only options are to escape through any means necessary, just to lessen the pain. This despair became so easily triggered over time that I began avoiding intimacy, the trans community - anything that wasn’t a distraction.

I tried to avoid, I tried to naturally transition… I tried everything I knew of and, at long last, by the time I went to see a therapist I just exploded into tears and let it all finally surface.

Those years were all wonderful, but the gnawing from deep down got louder and more unavoidable with each new year - and ultimately brought me to step it up and see a therapist. But, I had also become too hard on myself, and let my mind turn against me and tell me that hormones or surgery were “weak”.

Fortunate for me, my therapist helped me break away from that bullshit. And, over time, I developed a positive attitude about transition. Instead of a “weakness”, I realized that it was necessary and pro-active; something that would contribute to my overall happiness, stability and ability to function.

The consequence to this, however, is that I waited until the breaking point. So anxious to finally go through the puberty my noggin has always wanted, I started to take hormones even though I was nowhere near financially read to afford top surgery. This has led to a complication or two - like at the gym, bicycling, physical discomfort, exacerbating back injury via binding, etc.

- and also, despite my relief with the bits n’ pieces of incredibly relieving physiological connection I’m at last experiencing, my chest continues to trigger and prolong the discomfort.

For some time I felt all guilty and even embarrassed about the idea of asking for any help gathering up enough funds for top surgery - especially when there are a million things in the world that I would love to see people donate to (esp. No More Homeless Pets!). But, thanks to the lesson I learned about being too hard on myself, I’ve decided to get over it and just add a little donate button to my blog - right there in the side bar! (scroll up)

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I can’t imagine the relief top surgery will bring. It’s going to happen, dag nabbit! Even with the simple things, like this feller who viddy blogged about his first topless run in the rain.

I can’t wait. I just keep reminding myself that with each new day I’m closer to my very own day.

On Saturday I volunteered at yet another frickin’ No More Homeless Pets (NMHP) fund-raiser called Canine Casino Night. I’m a homeless pet whore. This one, though, is the cream of the volunteering crop, like a cherry on the tree of NMHP volunteering; especially for little hormonally adolescent trans boys like myself. It’s eye candy central where the entire aesthetic of the event is reminiscent of Vegas, a casino ambiance where compassionate animal-lovin’ femme fatales wander while I diligently carry out my tasks.

Mmm hmm.

I mean, for serious!



Talk about a flippin’ genius fund-raising idea. Gadz. It’s also especially fun to watch guardians gaming with their excited pups not giving a hoot why they’re out so late or what in the heck is going on. All they know is that a.) they’re out with their person and b.) get to sniff a million + 1 other pup bums. It’s so excellent for everyone on so many levels.

A friend of mine who came to volunteer as one of the glammed up donation garnering femme fatales invited me to go to the bathroom with her to see what her hair looked like under the bright blue bob wig she had been wearing all night (similar style wig to the one Holly, NMHP’s kick ass executive director, is wearing in the photo above). Even though I didn’t necessarily care how ragged her sweaty knotted up hair looked, my curiosity got the best of me and I followed her to the bathroom - the womens.

It’s been some time since I’ve entered a public womens restroom. I felt the old surge of anxiety kick in, compounded by the fact that I look even more “male” now than I did before starting testosterone - and even prior I’d experienced oodles of “incidents”. My friend sensed my obvious discomfort, so she took my hand and soothed me over via saying, “I’ll vouch for you. It’s fine.”

The second I walked in, the four or so women doing their makeup at the sinks immediately looked uncomfortable. Conversation paused. Then my friend talked like that whole lotta somethun was nothun and I smiled, spoke back with my crackly would-you-like-fries-with-that voice. Everyone eased up, resumed applying makeup. My friend removed her wig, showed me her crazed hair, I was successfully amused - and then some women walked in.

One looked me up and down, then said, “Do you think you’re in the right place?”, to which I responded by walking towards the door and mumbling, “Uh, I thought so. Maybe not?”. I scooted past her and out. As the door shut behind me I could hear her complaining to her friend about the guy who was just in there. Then my friend followed behind me, giggling about the incident.

That is definitely the last time I’m entering a public womens bathroom. End of story. Case closed. Over it.

p.s. my MTF genderqueer/trans doppelganger and I kissed the other night. It’s an attraction fueled in many ways by feeling secure in the fact that she genuinely understands my situation, my boundaries, my insecurities - and vice versa. She’s also adorable to all hell. But, on the same token, despite that unprecedented sense of refreshing security, I’m not ready yet. Nope. No siree bob. I have a little ways to go here until I’m not as immersed in my own transtastic reality and all wonky acting (especially in regards to feeling like a mindless, physical impulse that, once triggered, will dance like a puppet attached to strings at such a rapid, ridiculous, embarrassing rate that every single one of those strings snaps in 2.3 seconds)