GenderBendy

Adventures in cyberdateland

I’ve been on match.com for a well over a week, and have had several interesting and instructive encounters. Not in person...I’m being too cautious for that. E-mail exchanges.

Case #1: Creepy guy
Him: So you’re trans, cool, and you look fantastic!
Me: Thanks! Gonna post a pic? Tell me more about you...and hey, it’s cool you’re so cool about trans.
Him: No pic - I don’t want backlash at work. Not much to tell about me. I had someone in my family go through transition, so I know what it’s like. You should know for me this is a straight heterosexual relationship. You look amazing!
Me: (thinking: “relationship”?) Uh...thanks! Tell me more about your trans relative...I’d like to hear the story.
Him: Not much to tell; it just helps me understand who you are. You should know, at the age we are I expect to get sexual early in a relationship.
Me: Bye.
Him: Don’t deny your sexuality!
Me: (no answer)
(True confession time: while I would never hook up with such a person, his aggressiveness was good for a tickle of titillation. Such forthright single-minded desire, for me! My, my. *fans self*)

Case #2: Self-effacing guy
Him: So you’re trans...wow, you’re so brave.
Me: Thanks! Tell me more about you.
Him: Oh, I’m just an ordinary guy. I'm boring, really - not like you. Nothing much to tell...I live with five cats and my former girlfriend.
Me: Good luck, bye.

Case #3: Courteous guy
Me: Hi, I like your profile. If mine doesn’t freak you out, maybe we could chat.
Him: I just found someone, but best of luck in your search.
Him: So sorry, Madamoiselle, I didn’t put your name in my first e-mail.
Me: No worries. Thanks for the reply.
(This conversation was conducted in French.)

Case #4: Religious guy
Me: Hi, I like your profile. If mine doesn’t freak you out, maybe we could chat.
Him: Thanks, I just found someone, but there’s this book you really should read...it changed my life...(4 long paragraphs I didn’t read).

Cases #5 - 8 or so: Polite rejections
Me: Hi, I like your profile. If mine doesn’t freak you out, maybe we could chat.
Him: (polite discouraging reply, good luck)
Me: (polite thanks, good luck)

Cases #9 - 25 or so: Impolite rejections
Me: Hi, I like your profile. If mine doesn’t freak you out, maybe we could chat.
Him: (no answer)

And, finally, Case #26: Tingle tingle
Him: Your profile is unusual. I’m intrigued. Wanna get coffee or a glass of wine sometime?
Me: Thanks! I like your profile too - it’s quirky and funny. And thanks for the invitation...I’d like to, but this is new for me, so I’m feeling cautious. Could we exchange a few more e-mails first? And, please tell me more about you...
Him: No problem...we’ll go at your pace. About me: (some interesting deep stuff about life as a journey, overcoming struggles, attitude about the remaining years...)
Me: I think we have some things in common...thanks for sharing so freely! And here’s some lighter stuff about me: (description of my day, mentioning work, parenting...trying to convey an idea of my life)
Him: (no answer for two days)
Me: (checking e-mail frequently, wondering if I somehow scared him off, wondering if I should e-mail him again, aware that I will feel disappointed if I don’t hear back or get the brush-off now)

I wonder, how different would this experience be if I was cisgendered? Hmm...maybe not much. And, hey, #26, if you ever read this, as of this writing you've already touched me, and whatever happens, I will remember you fondly as the first man to express honest-seeming gentlemanly interest in me as a woman on line. That's actually pretty big...so, thanks. :-)

Hey baby, click on me!

The feeling of wanting a special someone in my life has been building for a long time, and I guess with my surgery scheduled I could finally give myself permission to look, because earlier this week I went to Zoosk.com and submitted a “woman looking for men” profile. I picked Zoosk because of their hip young vibe, figuring they would be more accepting than the stodgy old established dating sites. This was my self-description:

Well, I'm trans. I hate to lead with that, because it is not nearly the most important thing about me, but I figure it's good to be clear from the start. In short, I was born with a male body and lived the first 46 years of my life as a man, but that was all a mistake and is in the past, and now I am totally grooving on living as the woman I was always supposed to be. (I am in the process of getting the male body issue fixed). Aside from that, I'm a non-profit manager with sidelines in writing and crossword-puzzle construction; I have two teenage children, one in college and one in high school; and my big project right now is to become fluent in French. I have a dream of moving to France someday for a while to teach English, so if we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, darling, you better be willing to travel... ;-) (Note: I'm curious whether the gatekeepers at Zoosk.com will allow me, an out trans woman, on their site. If you're reading this, they did, and good for them. But if you are the gatekeeper and you are about to reject my profile, shame on you.)

Yep, shame on them. Everything I entered was rejected with boilerplate e-mails citing “inappropriate content.” While deleting the last shreds of my profile I wrote in the “why are you leaving?” text box that I felt I had been discriminated against and would appreciate an e-mail back with an explanation of the rationale of their decision. No reply.

Next I went to match.com, whose services I had used when I was dating as a man looking for women. According to one ranking table I found they have the largest customer base of any dating site. Lo and behold, my profile, with the same descrip above, was accepted! Good for them.

In my first 24 hours my profile has been viewed 54 times, and I have been winked at about a dozen times.

It’s gratifying, of course, to be winked at, but I wonder if some of these guys have done anything more than glance at my headshot before they wink, because with about half of them when I clicked to view *their* profiles, they had become unavailable. I take that to mean they went back to learn who they had winked at, discovered I’m trans, and shut me out.

Yes, I am assuming rejection. I wish I wasn’t, but on the other hand, I already know from abundant experience how freaky my mere existence is for most men. Kinda cute, still has a penis...fuck fuck fuck, run screaming from the screen! Also, most of the guys who have winked at me live thousands of miles away. Tulsa? WTF? How did you even find me?

I’ve done some searching too, and winked at four guys, discovering in the process a little more about who I am looking for. All four sound cerebral, and look and/or sound unconventional and quirky; I detect humor and engagement with life in all of them; they can all spell and write; and they are all tall. This last is shallow, I know, but I *do* so enjoy feeling petite and svelte standing next to someone... :-p I sent one, a writer in Mass, a one-line e-mail, because some word-play in his profile made me smile. No answer so far, and no other e-mails.

So here I am, sweet 49 and never been kissed. I’m feeling vulnerable and tentative, but also curious and eager; and as with surgery, I hardly dare imagine how good it might be. I might discover, for the first time in my life, what love and sex are both really about...which would be terribly sad in a way, but which could also be fucking incredible.

Out of a flame war, pandemic love

Last night my 19-year old daughter Madeleine posted on facebook some whimsical wordplay based on terms she is trying out to describe her sexuality. She has already claimed “pansexual,” (which I also am coming to prefer for myself), meaning attracted to people based on who they are as people, regardless of biological sex or gender; and she’s trying out the word “demisexual”, meaning not tending to feel sexual attraction except to a person with whom one has first become emotionally intimate (which I also like for myself...I hope you don’t mind, dearest, that I’m co-opting your words). “Demisexual” is a new-minted word, courtesy of the asexuality movement, for an old-fashioned idea: sex as an adjunct to, an extension and expression of, love. So Mad’s line was that she’s a “pandemic romantic,” which, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny.

A few of her friends posted light-hearted comments, and then one particular friend, whom I will call X, posted this: “‘Pansexual’ is an orientation. ‘Demisexual’ is not. Neither is ‘romantic’. Just sayin'.”

An escalation ensued. Points got misunderstood, feelings got hurt, and what could have been a substantive conversation about the complexities of identity quickly turned personal. An hour and 40-some posts later, several people had posted things they are probably regretting today (if they’re done fuming), my daughter had defriended X, and various friends both in cyber and real space were giving her hugs in commiseration for having been the unwitting trigger of, and scorched figure at the center of, a doozy of a flame war.

This incident has helped me crystallize some thoughts about sex, gender, and queer identity. First of all, I respectfully disagree with X. Demisexuality and being a romantic *are* both orientations. In fact, in a way, they are more radical orientations than the L, G, and B of LGBT, because, just as pansexuality challenges the unquestioned assumption behind these letters that gender matters, they challenge the unquestioned assumption that sex matters. They are a “none of the above” option. They say: “If I, whoever I turn out to be, should happen to want to go to bed with my sweetie, whoever my sweetie turns out to be, it will be because I love my sweetie and my sweetie loves me. Love is different from sex and knows no gender, and love is what matters most to me.”

I am *not* saying that LGB folk don’t understand or care about love. Completely not. But queer culture does seem to me to be as obsessed with sex as our culture as a whole is. I don’t really have a problem with that, though as a person who cares less about sex than love it makes me feel marginalized at both cultural levels. And I could hardly blame people fighting for equality for their sexual identities if they felt threatened by the idea that sex doesn’t matter. I do have a problem, though, when it becomes politically incorrect to speak of non-sexual or only-incidentally-sexual love.

And, I *am* saying that the emphasis on traditional concepts of gender inherent in the definitions of L, G, and B sometimes feels inimical to the interests of us T folk. My dear LGB friends: I thank you most fervently for the enormous amount of help and support you have given me in my gender work, both individually and, by fighting a version of the same fight first, on a global scale. I have learned and benefited from your struggle. I stand shoulder to shoulder with you against the forces of prejudice and hate which so seldom distinguish between us. And, I enjoy your company, feel at ease with you, and am so grateful to have been welcomed in under the big LGBT umbrella. But, alas, all that said, I do also sometimes see you as part of the gender hegemony against which, all my life, I have struggled. I will never self-identify as gay, lesbian, bi, hetero or homo, because all of this terminology fails to challenge and continues to perpetrate the bad old binary concept of gender. Until I come up with something I like better, I am a pandemisexual romantic trans woman.

May I invite you to join me and Mad in seeking new ways of talking about ourselves and each other which celebrate the diversity, complexity, and subtlety of gender as thoroughly as we have celebrated the diversity, complexity, and subtlety of sexuality? And could we all, please, get at least part of the way back to the charming old-fashioned notion of speaking reverently of love?

Monsieur A & Monsieur B

Earlier this week I came up with a new dream. Inspired by my planned visit to Montreal next summer I have once again taken up the study of French, and my new dream is, maybe someday I could move to France for a while and teach English. My teacher says there are jobs for Americans because of French businessmen wanting to learn to speak with an American accent.

I like this dream for two reasons. First of all, I just like it. Sounds like the new adventure I crave, and I’d become fluently bilingual, which I’d love to be. But, also, I like it because it has nothing to do with gender. Honestly, I’m bored of gender, of thinking and talking and writing about it all the time. The gender work I’m doing still matters to me just as much as ever, but I have it well in hand, and these days it feels at best routine and at worst tiresome. Several other things in my life interest me more right now, e.g.:

• Parenting: Goes without saying, really - just always need to be there for each kid as each kid needs.
• Writing: I got an article published by the Phoenix (in their Out In Maine LGBT supplement) and the editor wants more of my work. I’m writing professionally! Yay!
• Money: I still need to figure out a way to make more of it.
• The smell  in my house of some small animal decaying: Where is it coming from and how can I get rid of it?

Et cetera.

Oh, and one more big one: I’d really like to date a male-bodied, masculine person now. Doesn’t mean I’m done with female-bodied people, but I’ve tried that. Nope, for now I’m feeling hungry for masculine attention and ready to reciprocate with feminine attention. Which brings us to Messieurs A and B.

Monsieur A was my best friend through junior high and high school. He was a quiet, introverted boy with a sweet smile and the strength of character to hang out with that weird kid with the long hair who looked like a girl. We shared common geeky interests, private humor, and even for a while a private alphabet, in which we would write each other messages on the chalkboards of classrooms. From time to time he would pat me on the head. With A I felt cared about, safe, and (not clearly, but in a way which still mattered), seen. In retrospect it is clear that, in a hopeless never-to-speak-its-name way, I was in love with him.

Just one time I felt an intense moment of attraction toward A. It was during a rest stop on a hike. We were sitting on rocks, sipping water and talking of nothing in particular, and all at once I felt conscious of his closeness in a way I’ve only experienced a few other times in my life, always with men. It was more than just sexual, though it was that. I yearned to merge with him...two selves becoming one new whole. All I could make of this at the time was that it meant I was gay, and in those days I had not even begun to deconstruct the homophobia I had learned from my father, so the moment upset me. I thrust it away and expressed nothing, then or later.

A and I lost contact after college. Just once, about ten years ago, I sought him out during a business trip in his city. We had dinner at a restaurant and walked around a little, talking. Same quiet somewhat elusive man, married to a woman I have never met, with children. I felt a faint echo of the same tingle. And, recently, I’ve been thinking about him. The other day I found myself fantasizing about meeting him again...about him taking me (now him, now me) in his arms and kissing me...and I burst into tears.

I had been thinking I had come out to everyone, but I haven’t to A. Should I write him an e-mail? Hm...that’s good for butterflies.

Monsieur B is one of those few men of my present acquaintance who have started to talk to me in an unguarded way, new to my experience, which I take to mean that they see me simply as a woman. Most of the men I know are wonderfully accepting and supportive of my transition...and subtly cagey. Their eyes jitter as they compute moment by moment how to talk to me. With all the power I have lost, I have gained the power to make men squirm.

But B just talks to me. His face is open and candid, and if I meet his eyes he meets mine right back. He’s willing to confide in a minor way - everyday thoughts and feelings about work and such - and he also listens with apparent interest when I confide. He has a quick mind, which I find attractive, and he’s passionate about what he does, which ditto. So, sometimes when we talk, I find myself having to make an extra effort to pay attention to what he’s saying because I’m becoming mesmerized by his moving lips and tingling a little all over.

This is neither complicated nor deep. I’m enjoying feeling attraction toward specific present men, making a few shy attempts at flirting, and hoping that something might happen. I realize this is a passive stance, but at least for now that feels right. I can always get brazen later on if I want. In the meantime, if Monsieur B asked me out to dinner, with heart a-flutter I would say yes.

Might *you* in fact be Monsieur B? That would be telling. ;->

Overdue blurt update

Blurg...blogging backlog...too much to narrate coherently without writing a novella...slave to notion that everything must be recorded...the dammed flow of observation, musings, and purported wit rises up the walls of the mental reservoir, threatening to overflow...the walls bulge.

Weary of writing “I, I, I” all the time, Elizabeth switches to the third person. An arguably pretentious move, but it gives her more practice referring to herself with female pronouns, which she needs, as her confidence that she’s really managing to pull off this woman in the world thing wavers from moment to moment.

Elizabeth applied last month for a job at Hannaford, checking groceries for the summer, or bagging, or anything...she really needs to supplement her income. At first she thought she wasn’t even going to get an interview, because the woman behind the customer service desk gave her one of *those* looks (hooded eyes, tight mouth, stiff shoulders). Elizabeth persevered, calling twice to follow up, and got an interview. The woman who interviewed her was warm and talkative and hyperactive, and called her “sweet,” and Elizabeth really couldn’t tell if this woman could tell that she was trans...no double-takes, no slightly-too-long stares, no care with pronouns or the like. Elizabeth left with high hopes...but then the regretful message on her voice mail...polite, with a good reason carefully spelled out. And it turns out once there’s something about you which people might react to with prejudice, there’s always that question - is it because I’m trans?

Another recent consumer-life hassle centers around a smarmy eye doctor who has given her a bad prescription for new glasses twice now, the correction as off as the original try. Is he just burned out, as he seems, or is it a passive-aggressive response to the fact that she’s trans?  She realizes she’s being suspicious, and she thinks of a person of African descent she knows who takes every minor setback in life as evidence of pervasive racism, and swears she never wants to become like that person...but how? Just roll with the bullshit? Stay noble and calm and not sink to their level and let the assholes do their worst? Their worst can be be really bad, she knows...history has shown.

Then there’s the thorny question of money. Elizabeth is actively planning at this point to get Sexual Reassignment Surgery in the next year or two. It is not covered by insurance, and generally runs about $20K. And that’s not all...she also wants Facial Feminization Surgery, which runs more like $50-60K, and is also not covered by insurance. Where is this $80K supposed to come from? She could liquidate her retirement savings, but that would mean swallowing the penalty for early withdrawal, and of course no more retirement savings. She could sell her house, but that would disrupt her own life and the lives of her children, and leave her without even the modest equity she has managed to retain through divorce and other reverses. Borrowing the money doesn’t seem to be an option, because it turns out lenders won’t accept mobile homes for collateral unless you own the land underneath them too, and she doesn’t. She has one lead on a company that might still...that’s one glimmer of hope. And then there’s always appealing to relatives, but oh, my, how terribly awkward that feels...and meanwhile, she’s going slowly but steadily deeper into debt, just to live. That second part-time job grows more and more important, but it’s so hard to find.

One bright spot: Elizabeth’s dentist, a friend, has offered to give her enamelplasty to feminize her smile. Boy teeth are bigger and squarer than girl teeth, and just a little artful rounding and shaping here and there could have a subtle but significant effect. He really seems to know what he’s doing - prides himself in his denture work, which is quite an art, it seems - so she’s going ahead with the procedure. She plans to post before and after pics.

And, at some point earlier in the month, Elizabeth passed the first year anniversary of starting hormones. That has been going well. Her whole body has grown slimmer and softer, most of the hair below her neck has faded away, her face looks significantly thinner and more feminine (actual cheekbones!), and her new baby breasts comfortably fill an A-cup. She is happy about the changes, but she has also begun to yearn for the return of sexual feeling...not the old way, though, never again the old way...hence the growing feeling of urgency around the need for SRS soon.

Still very much in process: electrolysis (another expense); and voice work (slow progress, rather than any breakthrough).

Having typed for an hour more or less at speed, Elizabeth decides to post immediately, without the usual meticulous rewriting and copy-editing. Blurt it out, put it up. Save the exquisite craftswomanship for next time. And so, she thinks, off it goes. (But it should come as no surprise that the next day she can't resist coming back and tinkering.)

Ache? NEED.

Yesterday a friend was quizzing me about the surgeries I am considering, Sexual Reassignment Surgery and Facial Feminization Surgery. He wanted to know which I wanted more. I said I was planning to get the SRS in the next year or two and the FFS maybe after; but then I also admitted I couldn’t look at the before and after pics on the FFS sites most of the time, because they got me aching for it so badly. It seemed obvious to my friend: “follow the ache,” he said, and I was all flummoxed and felt I had failed to express myself, because that wasn’t right. But I wasn’t able to say right then that I also ached for the SRS.

I couldn’t say I ached for SRS because mechanisms of self-preservation are engaged...it feels dangerous to let myself feel the full intensity of my desire. An imperious NEED roils just under the surface of this reasonably sane functionality I have managed so far to hold together. I NEED that surgery to feel whole and real and natural and free. There is no way in hell I am ever again using the vestigial appendage for what men use it for, so until I can get it altered, my sexuality and my love life are on hold. I’m stuck in the in-between place, and I fucking hate it.

There is also this: to face the NEED is to face, again, the fact of how late I am getting to all this...how brief my time of comfort in physical womanhood will be. I have lost so much woman-life. It’s tragic, is what it is. Fuck.

And, I am afraid.

But, I am not going to get even the little bit of time as a sexual woman I can reasonably look forward to unless I do my homework, face my fear of awful complications, scrape together or borrow the money, pick a surgeon, and go under the knife. There is no other way but forward. It’s time to face the need and grief and fear, and take steps.

What I would do if the surgery wasn’t available, I don’t like to think. Self-destruct somehow, probably.

In her ground-breaking book on the transsexual experience, Conundrum, first published in 1974, Jan Morris wrote about looking back on SRS after the fact:  “...nothing...has shaken my conviction, and if I were trapped in that cage again nothing would keep me from my goal, however fearful its prospect, however hopeless the odds. I would search the earth for surgeons, I would bribe barbers or abortionists, I would take a knife and do it myself, without fear, without qualms, without a second thought.”

Yep, that’s just about right.

Trans chess, and the center of the Queer universe

Yesterday I had two different instructive adventures in trans.

The first was a visit to the Mechanics Institute Library and Chess Room in downtown San Fran. I have visited other chess clubs in other cities, including bullshitting my way in for a brief glance at the famed Marshall Chess Club in NYC, and based on that experience I was expecting something run down and seedy. Ha! The Institute is housed in a downtown highrise: imposing brass and glass doors, a uniformed attendant with a magnificent grey walrus moustache, spiralling marble stairs with ornate iron bannisters, 20-foot ceilings. Most of this was the library (members only), not the chess room, but still. The chess room was a pleasant space on the fourth floor with an attendant in an office. There were four long rows of old wooden tables with the chess boards built into them, and on the walls pictures of various chess legends who have passed through the club over the years. At four in the afternoon there were only about half a dozen players there, all older gentlemen. I played six or seven quick games and had a delightful time.

As noted in my previous post I wondered if my transness would cause a stir in the chess room, and perhaps discombobulate an opponent. What I forgot was that, while there are not huge numbers of trans chess players, I’ve hardly ever met a chess player who wasn’t eccentric some way or another. No one batted an eye, and my long list of places where my being trans doesn’t matter at all is now one place longer.

The other instructive trans adventure was a program called “Girl Talk” at the LGBT Community Center on Market Street. I had a couple of mistaken assumptions going in:  One was that I was going to be attending a panel discussion between trans and cis-gendered women; it was actually an evening of spoken word performance. The other was that the topic would be what I deal with every day, which is the complex of connections and failures to connect between trans and straight cis women in the straight world. Silly me. The topic was the complex of connections and failures to connect between trans and Queer cis women in the Queer world.

All of the performers were talented writers and readers.  There were some great lines and powerful insights, some very funny moments, some seriously artistic moments, and a great deal of community spirit. There was a lovely underpinning of vibrant activism. And, the audience was large, responsive, and enthusiastic. One comment: I could do with just a little less of the hard-driving short-phrased hip-hop-rhythmic poetry slam style of delivery...Honey, just talk to me...

I did garner one important political insight: clearly, even here, trans still struggles to establish and define itself within the larger context of LGBT culture. A great deal of work for change still lies ahead.

Now, in that room I got a strong sense of a nurturing, insular, and complete counter culture which I have the credentials to join if I want. Some aspects of this culture:  a complex set of social rules; an emphasis on self...self-expression, self-actualization, self-consciousiness, self-involvement; and a stance of difference and defiance toward the straight world. I felt that I was standing at the center of the Queer universe...but I didn’t feel sure I belonged there.

Why not? First of all, most of the people in the room were ten to twenty younger than I. Second of all, a dominant theme of the evening was sex, which I don’t care about much these days. Thirdly, visiting all these big city folk from my little Maine town as I was, I was feeling rather provincial. And fourthly and most importantly, all my life I have lived and worked in the straight world. That hasn’t changed post gender-revelation; and by long habit and circumstance, if nothing else, that’s still where I feel at home. I am conducting my search for love in the world generally, not just within the Queer world. There’s at least a chance that I will end up partnered with a straight man. And, if I get facial feminization surgery, I will be able if I choose to pass almost all the time as a straight woman.

It seems I get to choose which world to live in. Is that an exclusive either/or choice? Can I change it depending on circumstance? Am I actually demonstrating that I am Queer by agonizing about whether I am or not? Who the hell am I really? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions.

Sexless

Male sexuality shut down by hormones; female sexuality stymied as yet by genital incongruity. Still lugging the vestigial appendage around. Useless thing.

So, I am temporarily a sexless being. It is an instructive state.

Lesson one: The extension of the jaded palette principle.

I discovered the jaded palette principle many years ago when I decided to stop eating processed food. At first I missed my Smarties; but then, as my taste buds readjusted, an apple, formerly bland, became deliciously sweet. I discovered what pleasures I had been missing on account of having my flavor knob turned up to 11 all the time. Now candy tastes...well, it just doesn’t seem like food...it's vile...and apples are divine.

The sexual extension goes like this: of course orgasms are intense...but if you haven’t had any for several months, and there is no prospect of any in your near future, happily other things step in to take their place. For example, as I write this I am eating a pizza I made for myself. It has on it portobello mushrooms, summer squash, anchovies (not too many - just enough for that sexy salty zing), fresh oregano, and goat cheese...and when I took the first ravenous bite my knees buckled, my eyes rolled, and I sagged against the fridge. I've always enjoyed eating good food, but not *that* much. It was as molten a moment, in its way, as any orgasm I can remember having...and, honey, I’ve had some good ones.

It’ll be nice to have sex back someday...but in the meantime I’m doing OK without it, thanks.

Lesson two: Tenderness is the thing.

The stereotype is true, at least for me: when I was a man, I thought with my testicles. I saw, I wanted to fuck. Now, testosterone suppressed, I feel how unimportant fucking is. Tenderness is what matters to me now, not getting my (no longer functional) rocks off.

Actually, that was true then too, but the rocks business obsured the point. I think back to my last few romances: when my partner held me, that was what pierced my soul. Sex is fine, healthy, fun...I can do it...and it gives me pleasure to pleasure my partner...but really I don’t care that much about it. Just so long as some other time, before or after, connected to it or not, you’ll hold me.

And, it seems I am a heterosexual woman after all. I say so because, even unsexed as a I am at the moment, there is one person, and he is a male person, a man, who, if he asked me out to dinner...with beating heart I would say yes.

Mr. Prince? Hello?

Who I might actually be looking for in a partner is a good man.

I appreciate a good man. A steady, strong, humorous, intelligent man. I have very little sexual feeling at the moment, thanks to the hormones, but that person still sounds delicious to me.

A few times over the years I have felt sudden intense attractions to men, and there was more than a touch of sexy to that...but in essence it was an emotional surrender. A precipitous opening of the heart. A complete yielding tenderness. I suppose what I am saying is, I have fallen in love with men before.

I am open to that happening again. Pfft, who am I kidding...I would love for that to happen again. But I’m wary. Oh, so wary. Because....well, look at me. I’m an awkward strange sort of woman, to the say the least. I still have a penis, for crying out loud!  Among numerous other issues.

Here is what I simply don’t know: is there a man in the world I could love who could also love me?

Gee, I bet nobody ever asked that question before... :p

Actually, I know exactly who I want: my old self. Makes sense, right?  After all, I was trying to be the best possible man I could be. How’s that for narcissistic?

Well, make that my old self...less inhibited.

Two months on hormones

(Note that this post contains some mildly intimate details...if you are by any chance a teenager who is related to me, or otherwise sensitive, you might find it rather squirmy, and are of course under absolutely no obligation to read another word...)

I’ve been on hormones for two months, and have just bumped up to the middle of the standard accepted dose range for estrogen.

The changes are supposed to be gradual (for a rundown of some of the expected effects, see this post) and I’ve been warned repeatedly not to expect miracles, but having started with carefully lowered expectations I must say I am seeing changes and I am pleased with them.  

The one I’m happiest about is that my body hair is melting away.  I used to have a pretty standard hairy man-belly...now, three or four days after shaving (yes, I routinely shave my chest and stomach), the stubble is so fine I can hardly feel or see it.  My chest hair was quite thick and wiry before; now the hairs feel strawlike and brittle under the fingers.  Here’s hoping they shrink right down to fine white down...I mean, who wants hairy breasts?  I’m not a furry...

And, yes, I’ve started to grow breasts.  My chest no longer has the squared-off shape of pectoral muscles, but a rounder softer pointier-at-the-nipples sort of look.  It’s subtle so far, unless I put on a soft tight cotton T, and then I think, whoa, I can’t go out like this.  I don’t own any standard bras yet, but I have acquired sports bras for under my shirt when I run (I have developed enough tissue to bounce a little, and that tissue is very tender), and a couple of camis with built-in bra action.  (For you ordinary men out there such as I formerly was, that’s short for camisole - a skintight sleeveless undershirt to go under shear tops.)

And (phrasing carefully...this is a family blog) my sexual function is markedly changed.  How shall I put this?  My libido is much lower (honestly, what a relief to not have sex on my mind all the time) and I no longer function very much at all as a typical male...but am still quite responsive to my lover’s touch, I’m happy to say.  Buy me a glass of merlot sometime and get me talking, and maybe I’ll tell you more...maybe... ;-)

Other changes might be there, but might also be mostly wishful thinking.  I’ve been losing weight, and feel more slender, especially in the limbs.  (My face is definitely thinner and lighter.)  I might possibly be getting a little rounder around the hips.  And I might be more emotional...but I have been working on letting go into that anyway, so cause and effect get murky.

Side effects seem limited to a queasy feeling if I take the pills on an empty stomach, and a loss of energy...I get tired more easily.  Small price to pay for so close an approximation to a woman’s body as I seem to headed for, and in short I’m very happy with how it is going.

All this is only two months in, and perhaps not yet up to full dose.  Some of these changes are not supposed to be fully done for up to five years.  Who knows where I might end up?  That’s good for a widening of the eyes, I must say...