So, I started a low dosage 1 mg E, 100 mg Spiro (3 mos — before going to 2 for 3 and then 4 for 9 months) and now am up to: 6 mg E, 200 mg Spiro. 100 mg prog, 2.5 mg finas, & topical spray .
My bald spot is closed, and folx it is getting long and curly and thick where I used to have no hair! It’s great. I even have limited bangs, for now. I haven’t cut it since Feb 2022. I can finally do cute girl things with my hair!
Breast growth — getting more full by the day. I love them. They show under a shirt.
More emotional changes — more nuance, more attention to relationships, more mental clarity re: everything. Sex drive is returned but nowhere near what it was like on T. My partner still arouses me in the same way she did years ago, which is a good thing. My attraction to men is more or less the same.
Pelvic tilt — started this fall — its kinda glorious. I didn’t know what I was experiencing until another trans girl filled me in on what was probably happening. Which means my center of gravity has shifted.
My thighs are thicker. I do a lot of thigh and butt cardio and walk up and down my steep stairs with a mission. My butt is the biggest it has been and I think I can get it bigger with continued exercise. But, pun intended, it is only going to get so much bigger.
At work, I’m pretty much out. I put my pronouns in my work email “they/them” and local gossip spread, predictable in this place where I have worked for nearly 20 years. A teacher whom I don’t particularly find noble outed me to whomever he could, and reveled in it. There was a two week period where some staff members purposefully avoided me in hilarious fashion. Had I been active in addiction those moments would have triggered some serious self destruction. I’m a fuck up, basically, if you don’t recall, so instead of getting mind numbingly intoxicated over what other people think of me, I laughed, I found all the clocking and staring from grown adults to be comical. I’m a brick, remember, 6 feet, narrow and utterly unpassable “except in small moments” or “windows” (Hil Malatino, Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad). No matter where I go and what I wear, people are looking at me. I’m in that awkward phase where my hair isn’t long enough to sell my gender, so to speak. I wear women’s clothes, carry a bag, etc, yet everyone pretty much just thinks I’m gay. I can’t really tell what people know and don’t know. Visibly trans.
Which is exciting, to finally have some hair to be somewhat cute everyday, to be disruptive in social settings, so punk rock.
I’m slowly turning over my wardrobe. I wear nothing but women’s clothes, but at work that isn’t or hasn’t been very cute or exciting, dark or khaki bottoms, unisex docs, or vans (with flowers), and a ladies polo or unisex collared shirt. I wear jewelry. Pride shirts as well, especially after Club Q. My boss actually thanked me for wearing it that Monday. That it was important for the queer kids to see an adult sporting pride gear after a hate crime. Which was really cool of her to say.
The teacher’s association said they back me. They also tell me that if I don’t make public announcements about socially transitioning that I will be better protected — this was communicated in the true teacher association fashion, in a classroom over coffee. I don’t see myself making grand proclamations on Facebook. I don’t see myself getting tokenized by my county admin. If these “patriot” parent groups come after me they have to expose themselves to legal liability because I have not made public statements, is the thinking. These groups have gotten ugly as of late.
We’re doing cool stuff for queer kids this year, a conference with other GSAs and trips to social justice history sites, including Stonewall.
We have a trans history bulletin board up as we speak.
It’s been a great year, but also…I’ve been sick like four times (and counting) thanks to mask mandates being repealed.
I estimate that I am 3/4 of the way to “full time”, maybe a tad more. I have one more obligation under my dead name and then I’m done with it, writing wise.
I woke up the other day, and I was like, I’m a woman now. Love this journey. We will see if this feeling continues.
I have NOT gone back to electrocute my face as I promised myself I would. Too busy.
I’m scheduled for a new tat (which I consider part of my transition) in December. More birds. More monophonic birds! Morning dove spreading tail feathers, plus pretty flowers!
My partner is basically still on a day by day basis with us, as a couple, as she is hetero-romantic, but she is growing in her acceptance, and my going slow in the social realm and giving her agency in the social compartments of her work/social/fam life is helping her feel less like the world is turning upside down, I think.
But I don’t really know anything other than queerness is infinite in its possibilities. That I have to remain sober to live. That I have to be joyful in my queerness to live.
My partner is far more queer than she used to be. We may make it yet. I don’t know anything, and that’s just fine.
Of course, some poems:
This journal publishes the best, and I’m listed with some big names in the contributor section, so exciting.
An old picture, some good wolf poems. I read for the first time, sans wig, with some amazing writers.
Some poems inspired by queer ecology, about queerness, of course.
A trans wolf poem
In my first reading this year, I looked and felt like a man in a dress — Little Pawtuxent Review, but here, I am much more comfortable in my skin, plus you can get an idea of where my hair and voice are.
