a step in the right direction
Mar. 31st, 2022 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anacedragon[this is a submission to the March 2022 Gender Exploration Carnival, hosted by Aro By Design on the topic “Transition/Transformation”.]
i’ll be honest that this post is less put-together than i was hoping for it to be, but i did want to at least get something submitted this time around, as the topic this month is extremely relevant to my life right now. i want to start by saying that for a long time, i didn't have a very strong desire to transition medically– i knew i'd like to have top surgery someday, but in general, changes in presentation were all i really wanted. i’d wear a binder sometimes, but only really when at lgbt student org meetings or in seminars where i knew people would be paying attention to me, lol. and then, well, the pandemic happened and i wasn’t around people as much and so it wasn’t on my mind as much. i can’t point to one thing exactly that made up my mind, but last summer was when i decided that i wanted to start the process of getting top surgery, which meant getting new insurance, meeting with a therapist, scheduling a consultation... in the process, i got a new doctor, who’s trans himself, and i began to seriously consider starting testosterone– for a long time, i didn’t think i wanted to go on T, but especially after getting to know some other trans folks and doing more research of my own, i realized that none of the changes testosterone would cause were things i didn’t really like, and there were several things that i really did want, even if i hadn’t quite realized it before. ironically, i only mentioned wanting to start T to my doctor last november, but as soon as i definitively told him i wanted to start it, he prescribed it to me during that same visit and i was able to start it the following week; meanwhile, i started the process for top surgery in august, and i was finally able to schedule the surgery last month (for june).
quick aside: while talking about scheduling top surgery, i had a friend say something along the lines of “if you've been waiting your whole life, what's a few more months?” and while i don't disagree with the sentiment (for myself personally, not a huge deal), i do disagree with the characterization that i've been waiting for this my whole life. at least, maybe not in the way she probably meant it or that is a popular image of dysphoria and transition. it’s been sort of a background thought for years now, but the only stopping me before now was myself not being committed to it, not direct outside factors holding me back.
the steps i’ve taken towards medical transition, as well as deciding that i don’t want to be deadnamed at graduation, have also led me to come out to members of my family that i’ve been... unsure about for a long time. this past week, i came out to my dad via email, and he responded much better than i was expecting (which was a relief), and i’m working on coming out to more extended family in the near future as well. mainly because there’s only so long i’ll be able to hide changes due to testosterone and top surgery lol, but i’ve been meaning to do it for a while anyway, so it’s good to have that excuse. more than ever, i’m realizing that i’ll have to come out many, many times, but it can only get easier from here (hopefully).
because of this sort of sudden change in my transition goals, i've also been thinking a lot about the way people see me. especially over the past few weeks as my voice has been noticeably changing, i’ve had to think about whether i want to correct people that casually refer to me as “sir” or “man”, how to introduce myself when i might need to use a credit card with my legal name... all things i’ve considered before, but that quickly became relevant in a way i wasn’t especially prepared for. one incident early on was when i was meeting with a mentor of mine, and after telling her that i'd started testosterone and was working on scheduling top surgery, she asked me if i would still be using they/them pronouns. she didn’t explicitly say she was expecting me to star tusing he/him pronouns, but it stuck out to me because it represented an attitude i've heard about but hadn't encountered myself directly like this, this assumption that being nonbinary is a transitional– or, rather, transient– identity. i know that there are people who use it that way, because they feel safer coming out as nonbinary than as a binary trans person, but i'm not one of them, and it rubbed me the wrong way even if i knew she wasn’t trying to be antagonistic.
i use the word ”nonbinary” because i don't understand what people mean when they say they “feel” like their gender. i know there's nuance to this idea and the way people relate to it, but i've never “felt” like i was a particular gender the way other people seem to experience. maybe my feelings on the matter will change as i become more comfortable with the way i look, and i’m open to that possibility. but right now, i know for certain that i don't like being mistaken for a woman, and all the baggage that comes with that. i'm less bothered by being mistaken for a man, but not strictly because it's “closer” to my “actual” gender, just that it at least shows that something in my presentation has had an impact on people’s perception of me. even so, it still doesn't feel right to me. one idea that resonated me when i first read it was in coy’s post on butchness and eir use of the term “sex dysphoria”. while i do definitely experience gender dysphoria myself, i do find that avoidance of being sexualized is also a significant part of the way i present myself. as a sort of silly example, i joke sometimes about like, minecraft steve or ruby from steven universe (or anger from inside out lol) being my ideal body type because of the lack of gender markers in their design, but also because that very square design provides something similar to the way coy describes wearing baggy clothes.
i realize that at this point, i’ve spent a lot of time on gender-related transition, but i’m in a very transitional place in a lot of areas of my life right now. in a couple months, i’ll be transitioning from full-time college student to a full-time job, transitioning from undergrad to grad school, from college dorm to apartment life, potentially from student leader to faculty advisor... honestly, gender is one of the things i’m least concerned about right now, because even though i’m in the middle of a very literal transition, not much about the way i feel about my gender has changed for while now. the other transitions i’ll be going through will certainly inform (and be informed by) my gender-related transition, but i feel much more likely to have a crisis about housing or employment than about my gender, which is nice, in a way. it feels like i’m at least taking a step in the right direction.
i’ll be honest that this post is less put-together than i was hoping for it to be, but i did want to at least get something submitted this time around, as the topic this month is extremely relevant to my life right now. i want to start by saying that for a long time, i didn't have a very strong desire to transition medically– i knew i'd like to have top surgery someday, but in general, changes in presentation were all i really wanted. i’d wear a binder sometimes, but only really when at lgbt student org meetings or in seminars where i knew people would be paying attention to me, lol. and then, well, the pandemic happened and i wasn’t around people as much and so it wasn’t on my mind as much. i can’t point to one thing exactly that made up my mind, but last summer was when i decided that i wanted to start the process of getting top surgery, which meant getting new insurance, meeting with a therapist, scheduling a consultation... in the process, i got a new doctor, who’s trans himself, and i began to seriously consider starting testosterone– for a long time, i didn’t think i wanted to go on T, but especially after getting to know some other trans folks and doing more research of my own, i realized that none of the changes testosterone would cause were things i didn’t really like, and there were several things that i really did want, even if i hadn’t quite realized it before. ironically, i only mentioned wanting to start T to my doctor last november, but as soon as i definitively told him i wanted to start it, he prescribed it to me during that same visit and i was able to start it the following week; meanwhile, i started the process for top surgery in august, and i was finally able to schedule the surgery last month (for june).
quick aside: while talking about scheduling top surgery, i had a friend say something along the lines of “if you've been waiting your whole life, what's a few more months?” and while i don't disagree with the sentiment (for myself personally, not a huge deal), i do disagree with the characterization that i've been waiting for this my whole life. at least, maybe not in the way she probably meant it or that is a popular image of dysphoria and transition. it’s been sort of a background thought for years now, but the only stopping me before now was myself not being committed to it, not direct outside factors holding me back.
the steps i’ve taken towards medical transition, as well as deciding that i don’t want to be deadnamed at graduation, have also led me to come out to members of my family that i’ve been... unsure about for a long time. this past week, i came out to my dad via email, and he responded much better than i was expecting (which was a relief), and i’m working on coming out to more extended family in the near future as well. mainly because there’s only so long i’ll be able to hide changes due to testosterone and top surgery lol, but i’ve been meaning to do it for a while anyway, so it’s good to have that excuse. more than ever, i’m realizing that i’ll have to come out many, many times, but it can only get easier from here (hopefully).
because of this sort of sudden change in my transition goals, i've also been thinking a lot about the way people see me. especially over the past few weeks as my voice has been noticeably changing, i’ve had to think about whether i want to correct people that casually refer to me as “sir” or “man”, how to introduce myself when i might need to use a credit card with my legal name... all things i’ve considered before, but that quickly became relevant in a way i wasn’t especially prepared for. one incident early on was when i was meeting with a mentor of mine, and after telling her that i'd started testosterone and was working on scheduling top surgery, she asked me if i would still be using they/them pronouns. she didn’t explicitly say she was expecting me to star tusing he/him pronouns, but it stuck out to me because it represented an attitude i've heard about but hadn't encountered myself directly like this, this assumption that being nonbinary is a transitional– or, rather, transient– identity. i know that there are people who use it that way, because they feel safer coming out as nonbinary than as a binary trans person, but i'm not one of them, and it rubbed me the wrong way even if i knew she wasn’t trying to be antagonistic.
i use the word ”nonbinary” because i don't understand what people mean when they say they “feel” like their gender. i know there's nuance to this idea and the way people relate to it, but i've never “felt” like i was a particular gender the way other people seem to experience. maybe my feelings on the matter will change as i become more comfortable with the way i look, and i’m open to that possibility. but right now, i know for certain that i don't like being mistaken for a woman, and all the baggage that comes with that. i'm less bothered by being mistaken for a man, but not strictly because it's “closer” to my “actual” gender, just that it at least shows that something in my presentation has had an impact on people’s perception of me. even so, it still doesn't feel right to me. one idea that resonated me when i first read it was in coy’s post on butchness and eir use of the term “sex dysphoria”. while i do definitely experience gender dysphoria myself, i do find that avoidance of being sexualized is also a significant part of the way i present myself. as a sort of silly example, i joke sometimes about like, minecraft steve or ruby from steven universe (or anger from inside out lol) being my ideal body type because of the lack of gender markers in their design, but also because that very square design provides something similar to the way coy describes wearing baggy clothes.
i realize that at this point, i’ve spent a lot of time on gender-related transition, but i’m in a very transitional place in a lot of areas of my life right now. in a couple months, i’ll be transitioning from full-time college student to a full-time job, transitioning from undergrad to grad school, from college dorm to apartment life, potentially from student leader to faculty advisor... honestly, gender is one of the things i’m least concerned about right now, because even though i’m in the middle of a very literal transition, not much about the way i feel about my gender has changed for while now. the other transitions i’ll be going through will certainly inform (and be informed by) my gender-related transition, but i feel much more likely to have a crisis about housing or employment than about my gender, which is nice, in a way. it feels like i’m at least taking a step in the right direction.