A bunch of blogable things have happened over the last several weeks,
but I was too busy falling madly in love to post. Now that it's
official that I'm in a relationship with my Darling Deb (it says so on
facebook! :-)), I have time to do a little catching up.
First, pronoun gifts. I've received two. The first was from the man who trained me to be a census taker, a rather straight-laced and literal-minded lawyer in his sixties. I took my old male shell to the census work; man clothes, "Dee" for a name, hair gelled back (more or less) behind the ears, and just my demure green-glass gem ear-studs to remind me of who I am. I didn't tell anyone that I'm trans. At the end of the third day of training he asked me to help collect some forms, and he said something to the class like: "Give them to Dee; she'll be...he'll be collecting them."
He picked up my femme vibe! I was pleased. But what pleased me more was that both the slip (as he saw it) and the correction were unforced...no special emphasis, no flicker of the eyes toward me, no embarrassment. The vibe-catching was completely unconscious. Cool.
The second pronoun gift was on the job. I work at a radio station which is administratively a sub-department of a large university. I am out as trans at the station, but not university-wide...but word gets around. So, I was in an office cross-campus, arranging to use a classroom for station training, and the person who was helping me was kindly drafting an e-mail on my behalf to a third office which was the one which could actually help me, and she read it back: "I have Dee Bunker here, and she's trying to reserve a room..."
This pronoun gift was completely conscious, based on what she'd heard through the grapevine. I wasn't presenting very femme...just how I looked at the census training, actually, except for danglier earrings...but she wanted to respect the self she had heard I professed to be. I thanked her most sincerely and left smiling. And I learned something: when word spreads, you can't manage the subtler points of the message. My memo at the station said "I'm trans and starting to transition," but at least some rumor-mill listeners have heard that I'm already living as a woman. That's a little unsettling, but gratifying.
The other thing I've wanted to blog about happened at a visit to my dentist. I'm out to him because his son is one of my daughter's closest friends (Hi Sam!). Lee is a kind and humorous man who clearly enjoys his work. Somehow we got on the subject of masculine and feminine teeth. There is (or can at least sometimes be) a difference. It comes out particularly, it seems, in denture-making, because unlike in most other areas of cosmetic body-alteration, the denture-maker is starting from scratch and so enjoys complete creative freedom.
Lee showed me his sample trays, full of teeth-sets of subtly different sizes, shapes, and colors. Turns out that boy-teeth are often squarer, particularly at the distal (away from the midline) corner; girl-teeth are more rounded. Lee had me smile, stared intently at my mouth, then said he could round off just a couple of my top teeth on each side, and lessen the pointiness of the canines a little. "Very subtle," I said, meaning to imply it was so subtle I wasn't sure I'd ever bother, but he nodded and said just that little change could have a strong impact.
Hmmm...maybe, someday, after (if) I have the new face I want to get for myself...we'll see. I struggle to decide how much alteration to undergo vs. how much to just sashay forth and carry it. I've made the cyber-acquaintance of folks who seem addicted to cosmetic surgery...this stuff can definitely be taken too far.
Coming soon: hormones.
First, pronoun gifts. I've received two. The first was from the man who trained me to be a census taker, a rather straight-laced and literal-minded lawyer in his sixties. I took my old male shell to the census work; man clothes, "Dee" for a name, hair gelled back (more or less) behind the ears, and just my demure green-glass gem ear-studs to remind me of who I am. I didn't tell anyone that I'm trans. At the end of the third day of training he asked me to help collect some forms, and he said something to the class like: "Give them to Dee; she'll be...he'll be collecting them."
He picked up my femme vibe! I was pleased. But what pleased me more was that both the slip (as he saw it) and the correction were unforced...no special emphasis, no flicker of the eyes toward me, no embarrassment. The vibe-catching was completely unconscious. Cool.
The second pronoun gift was on the job. I work at a radio station which is administratively a sub-department of a large university. I am out as trans at the station, but not university-wide...but word gets around. So, I was in an office cross-campus, arranging to use a classroom for station training, and the person who was helping me was kindly drafting an e-mail on my behalf to a third office which was the one which could actually help me, and she read it back: "I have Dee Bunker here, and she's trying to reserve a room..."
This pronoun gift was completely conscious, based on what she'd heard through the grapevine. I wasn't presenting very femme...just how I looked at the census training, actually, except for danglier earrings...but she wanted to respect the self she had heard I professed to be. I thanked her most sincerely and left smiling. And I learned something: when word spreads, you can't manage the subtler points of the message. My memo at the station said "I'm trans and starting to transition," but at least some rumor-mill listeners have heard that I'm already living as a woman. That's a little unsettling, but gratifying.
The other thing I've wanted to blog about happened at a visit to my dentist. I'm out to him because his son is one of my daughter's closest friends (Hi Sam!). Lee is a kind and humorous man who clearly enjoys his work. Somehow we got on the subject of masculine and feminine teeth. There is (or can at least sometimes be) a difference. It comes out particularly, it seems, in denture-making, because unlike in most other areas of cosmetic body-alteration, the denture-maker is starting from scratch and so enjoys complete creative freedom.
Lee showed me his sample trays, full of teeth-sets of subtly different sizes, shapes, and colors. Turns out that boy-teeth are often squarer, particularly at the distal (away from the midline) corner; girl-teeth are more rounded. Lee had me smile, stared intently at my mouth, then said he could round off just a couple of my top teeth on each side, and lessen the pointiness of the canines a little. "Very subtle," I said, meaning to imply it was so subtle I wasn't sure I'd ever bother, but he nodded and said just that little change could have a strong impact.
Hmmm...maybe, someday, after (if) I have the new face I want to get for myself...we'll see. I struggle to decide how much alteration to undergo vs. how much to just sashay forth and carry it. I've made the cyber-acquaintance of folks who seem addicted to cosmetic surgery...this stuff can definitely be taken too far.
Coming soon: hormones.
Careful with the tooth-filing -
An orthodontist did some to me, when I was a teen, to even the length of my incisors (nobody asked /me/, ah the joys of being a minor!).
The result was a much less enamel covering the sensitive part of one tooth. It was very hot/cold sensitive for years!
As with all changes, lots to consider...
I still owe you some earrings, I haven't forgotten!
~jw
Posted by: ~jw | 05/31/2010 at 10:42 AM