My first act of defiance against gender norms was to throw away my razor. Well, I did continue to shave my pits for awhile, because I just couldn't wrap my head around not doing that, but even that went away. Baby steps.
The problem with hairy legs is the lack of acceptance among the mainstream public, or at least my perceived version of them. The irony is that if I were younger, it might be seen as a quirk, but because I'm older, it's just gross, right? What would you do if you encountered me at the gym, or walking along the mall in shorts, with my hairy legs on display?
About that gym. My gym has a great pool, and I want so much to take advantage of it. There are many awkward things about the gym all of a sudden. First, I don't intend to dress in a women's suit. I was thinking of men's swim trunks and a tank. The boobs can be addressed with a lightweight chest binder under the tank (now compare that to someone born male who can just throw on the trunks and hop in the pool). That's all well and good until you consider I can't drive home in a wet suit. I'll be in the women's locker room, changing (tugging off that chest binder) and showing off the leg and pit hair. The stares I'll get (unless I go at a really quiet time).
Have you ever had to put this much thought into going for a swim? Or changing out at the gym? Suddenly it's a problem for me, and I'm paying for a gym membership I'm not using. I figure once I'm on hormones for awhile, once I've gotten the boobs removed (which is still a long way off, because I have to be on hormones for a year first), and once I look more male, I will be able to have the privilege of using the men's changing room (also not a great option) and wearing just the trunks. That will take some getting used to.
I haven't come out to my healthcare providers yet, but I was in the ER last night to get fluids and get checked out for a severe bout of gastrointestinal problems. There were my hairy legs. When I had surgery a few weeks ago for a broken and dislocated finger, the nurse took a beat when she pulled back the covers to put the squeeze bags on my legs to prevent DVT. To her credit, that hesitation was all that happened. I imagine, though, as medical personnel tend to do, she shared the story later.
In a few weeks, I have an appointment with my gynecologist who once told me that if certain functions didn't improve after my pelvic mesh surgery, "Prayer helps." A doctor who would say that might not take kindly to having a trans guy as a patient. It will be weird enough to have to see a gynecologist for certain healthcare needs, but I'm sure he and his nurse will be impressed by my very hairy legs. The thing is, I need to have my ovaries taken out so that any estrogen still leaking into my body will stop, but I'm not sure he will do it. I might end up at Chase-Brexton in Baltimore for that, though, since they have a major LGBT clinic that takes care of our needs. I just don't know yet.
If it were just the hairy legs, you know, it would be a lifestyle choice. I remember a Puerto Rican girl I worked with in the 80s. She said she never shaved anything. "My husband likes my hairy legs!" she proclaimed. In a world full of bikini waxes, full Brazilians, and aestheticians who will take it all off for you, hairy legs are a major deal!
But it's more than that. It's my only outward sign (other than the men's haircut) that says, "I'm not doing this girl thing anymore. I'm not conforming to the gender I was assigned at birth."
Can you tell I'm a person who overthinks everything? So much change. Yes, the outcome will be worth it, but I'm not young anymore and I don't like change, necessarily. But I can't live like this anymore. The thought of finally looking on the outside the way I feel on the inside makes it worth it. And when I think that way, the black cloud stays away. Gender dysphoria. That's for another post (or maybe several).
Don't even get me started on bathrooms. If you haven't watched this TED talk, please do. All anybody needs when nature calls is a safe place to pee. Peace, Jude.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Monday, March 7, 2016
Coming into it
Blue rooms.
This is my second blue room in a row. It's up a switchback flight of stairs and a little to the right off the landing, across from the laundry room. It's a much deeper blue than that of my last room; the difference between the shallows and the deepest part of the ocean. Fitting, considering that I'm entering unfamiliar waters. I may indeed be out of my depth.
I'm not the only person who has come out as transgender this late in life. At 53 I'm starting over...really starting over. I'm trying to figure it all out, and it's a little terrifying.
Can I tell you that I've suffered from depression for as long as I can remember?
Wait...that's not right. I've been depressed since puberty. Until then, I was a fairly happy child, despite having the misfortune to be born into a family with a violent father and a mother who knew how to push his buttons. Despite the frilly dresses I had to wear and the many expectations of a girl in the south. Somehow, I just thought I would remain in that happy, genderless state forever (as that is how we all are in the beginning; yes, maybe one can pee standing up and the other not so much, but we are all flat-chested, prepubescent little saplings). At that point in my life, I thought it would all work out alright. I thought that I would eventually get to be like my brother - driving and wearing blue jeans and riding motorcycles. I thought the world would ease off the frilly dresses.
But when puberty hit, I felt as though I'd been thrown - at 100 mph - from a motorcycle that had come to a dead stop. The total loss of control. My body was doing something it did not have my permission to do. My mind raced back to health class, when 40 or 50 giggling girls had sat in the dark, sweaty from recess, staring at a screen filled with strange images of internal organs and passing around sanitary napkins and belts. When the blood began to flow from me, my mother and older sister wanted to celebrate my becoming a woman. I went to my room and lay on the bed, facing the wall. That was when the sadness came, but I lived through it.
Upon reaching adulthood, in addition to getting what jobs I could find and trying to make some kind of living, I did what the world expected me to do. I was a woman, so I married a man who was my best friend, and we had a beautiful family -- the two best kids anyone ever had. But I was the world's worst wife. Part of me was incredibly happy, but a larger part of me was growing uneasy and increasingly unhappy. I did some terrible things, which I'll save for another time. I can't hit you with it all at once.
In 2009, one of our beautiful children, our daughter, died of a prescription drug overdose. She was only 25 but had suffered from mental illness since she hit puberty. Apparently that's a bad time for us in my family.
Not long after her death, I packed up my car to go on vacation for a couple of weeks and ended up staying in the Blue Ridge mountains with a woman who had been a high school friend. Since childhood, I had been attracted to women and had had affairs with them. But I never wanted to divorce my husband or divide my family. In the wake of my daughter's death, however, I felt as though each moment of my life needed to mean something, and it must be savored!
That relationship fell apart within a year. The next one fell apart in a matter of months. And the last, a marriage, is dissolving. I am living in this beautiful blue room in my son's house.
I wasn't, in fact, a lesbian. Last fall, I finally admitted out loud (because I had known consciously for some time) that I was transgender. I'm not transgender just because being a lesbian didn't work out. I just finally feel safe being who I am.
The temptation, as I came to this realization, was to continue to live in this body, stick it out for the years I have left. But would I be lying on my death bed in 20...25 years and saying, "What the hell did I do? I missed out!" Yes. That propelled me toward my truth.
Would I continue to live in that closet out of fear? Knowing that plenty of people in the world hate, maim, and kill trans people every day? Knowing that I could be attacked just for using the men's room? No, I could not. I can't be peaceful if I'm coming from a place of fear. That propelled me toward my truth.
So here I am, learning what I should have learned during that pubescent period - how to be a man. I hope you will stick with me on this journey. I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking of what the future holds.
And you know what? I'm not suffering so much from the depression now. My low days are related to situations rather than to a black cloud hanging pointlessly over my head. I can lie in this beautiful blue room and begin to sort out my new life, with the excitement of a child jumping into the deep water for the first time. A little scared, but a lot elated!
Peace, Jude
This is my second blue room in a row. It's up a switchback flight of stairs and a little to the right off the landing, across from the laundry room. It's a much deeper blue than that of my last room; the difference between the shallows and the deepest part of the ocean. Fitting, considering that I'm entering unfamiliar waters. I may indeed be out of my depth.
I'm not the only person who has come out as transgender this late in life. At 53 I'm starting over...really starting over. I'm trying to figure it all out, and it's a little terrifying.
Can I tell you that I've suffered from depression for as long as I can remember?
Wait...that's not right. I've been depressed since puberty. Until then, I was a fairly happy child, despite having the misfortune to be born into a family with a violent father and a mother who knew how to push his buttons. Despite the frilly dresses I had to wear and the many expectations of a girl in the south. Somehow, I just thought I would remain in that happy, genderless state forever (as that is how we all are in the beginning; yes, maybe one can pee standing up and the other not so much, but we are all flat-chested, prepubescent little saplings). At that point in my life, I thought it would all work out alright. I thought that I would eventually get to be like my brother - driving and wearing blue jeans and riding motorcycles. I thought the world would ease off the frilly dresses.
But when puberty hit, I felt as though I'd been thrown - at 100 mph - from a motorcycle that had come to a dead stop. The total loss of control. My body was doing something it did not have my permission to do. My mind raced back to health class, when 40 or 50 giggling girls had sat in the dark, sweaty from recess, staring at a screen filled with strange images of internal organs and passing around sanitary napkins and belts. When the blood began to flow from me, my mother and older sister wanted to celebrate my becoming a woman. I went to my room and lay on the bed, facing the wall. That was when the sadness came, but I lived through it.
Upon reaching adulthood, in addition to getting what jobs I could find and trying to make some kind of living, I did what the world expected me to do. I was a woman, so I married a man who was my best friend, and we had a beautiful family -- the two best kids anyone ever had. But I was the world's worst wife. Part of me was incredibly happy, but a larger part of me was growing uneasy and increasingly unhappy. I did some terrible things, which I'll save for another time. I can't hit you with it all at once.
In 2009, one of our beautiful children, our daughter, died of a prescription drug overdose. She was only 25 but had suffered from mental illness since she hit puberty. Apparently that's a bad time for us in my family.
Not long after her death, I packed up my car to go on vacation for a couple of weeks and ended up staying in the Blue Ridge mountains with a woman who had been a high school friend. Since childhood, I had been attracted to women and had had affairs with them. But I never wanted to divorce my husband or divide my family. In the wake of my daughter's death, however, I felt as though each moment of my life needed to mean something, and it must be savored!
That relationship fell apart within a year. The next one fell apart in a matter of months. And the last, a marriage, is dissolving. I am living in this beautiful blue room in my son's house.
I wasn't, in fact, a lesbian. Last fall, I finally admitted out loud (because I had known consciously for some time) that I was transgender. I'm not transgender just because being a lesbian didn't work out. I just finally feel safe being who I am.
The temptation, as I came to this realization, was to continue to live in this body, stick it out for the years I have left. But would I be lying on my death bed in 20...25 years and saying, "What the hell did I do? I missed out!" Yes. That propelled me toward my truth.
Would I continue to live in that closet out of fear? Knowing that plenty of people in the world hate, maim, and kill trans people every day? Knowing that I could be attacked just for using the men's room? No, I could not. I can't be peaceful if I'm coming from a place of fear. That propelled me toward my truth.
So here I am, learning what I should have learned during that pubescent period - how to be a man. I hope you will stick with me on this journey. I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking of what the future holds.
And you know what? I'm not suffering so much from the depression now. My low days are related to situations rather than to a black cloud hanging pointlessly over my head. I can lie in this beautiful blue room and begin to sort out my new life, with the excitement of a child jumping into the deep water for the first time. A little scared, but a lot elated!
Peace, Jude
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