Blog For My Gender Thoughts

I didn’t say anything about being stressed that when I suddenly went from never being out alone to spending most of my day at bus stops or on the bus surrounded by strangers from a very conservative town while medically transitioning. I kept telling myself that I would be fine, it wasn’t people like me who got hurt. That I had to be brave about it because I wasn’t a direct target.

When some stranger cornered me on the bus and kissed my hand without permission I felt like I had to laugh it off, joke with my friends about it cause I’m a guy so another guy doing that kinda thing is ridiculous. Laugh at the, “lol, what if he realized you where a guy? He’d be so uncomfortable,” or “you should have asked if he was gay,” instead of acknowledging how nervous I was about that. About how this person who was all up in my space could have noticed the binder, or the bits of facial hair that recently started showing up, or how, since I was nervous, I couldn’t help but use a higher pitch and that was causing my voice to crack. It’s not like I could move, I was in a window seat, I was stuck next to this person and had no idea how they would have reacted to that information. But I felt like I couldn’t tell my friends that I was afraid because that would be ridiculous. I’m a trans man so obviously he would have just gotten embarrassed, maybe cussed me out, and then left me alone /s. I really thought that I was an idiot for being afraid because I was convinced it wasn’t people like me who where at the most risk, and that I should have said something to him.

She’s always known about the issues I’ve had around my body and about my dysphoria even if we didn’t know that it was called that. She was the first person to know I wanted to get something like top surgery (again we didn’t know that was a thing at the time but that was basically what I was asking for). She had always tried to help me feel better about it, she even tried to help me get a reduction when I was getting close to 18 but I stopped that cause I wanted it to be more than a reduction. When I came out as non-binary and said as much she seemed understand and want to help me with that.

All of this is why this odd tension is so confusing. I don’t see what went wrong other than the fact that I realized I was trans masc. Like she cried in the car about my testosterone which makes no sense to me. Suddenly I’m getting weird angry lectures about feminism (which fine if she wanted to just talk about it but its always so accusatory, and honestly, creeps worryingly close sounding very rad/fem like) when I bring up the fact that I don’t want to go to some states because they worry me. Or get told that she thinks I’m making being trans my whole personality just because I got rid of some Harry Potter stuff when that shit storm became more public (I honestly had no idea it was a thing until later as I’m not on Twitter and never really paid much attention to the author) despite the fact that I was never as into it as her. Sure I enjoyed the magic festivals around it and stuff but I didn’t even read all the books so I don’t see how it’s surprising. Just the other day she went on about how she doesn’t worry about how other people see her and I shouldn’t either, as if that’s any help at all and we hadn’t had that discussion before.

I don't see why I'm suddenly being treated so oddly, cause it's not like how my brother or my cousins (her sons) are treated. None of them get lectured about "women's issues" (reproductive rights and other stuff that doesn't just affect women) or told that they should be more feminine cause it doesn't matter how people perceive you. The opposite actually, my cousin asked me to paint his nails, picked a shimmery blue, and I got told not to do that again because he could get picked on for a shiny color. But I should obviously be above worrying about what people think when they see me. It's not like the fact that most people assuming I'm a girl makes feel like shit or anything. They don't get told that "you really are a boy" in some condescending manner when they forget something or do something she thinks is gross (I like to collect bugs and bones that I find, she does not think they are as cool as I do).

Part of me thinks it’s because there is something about me that she can’t understand and I think that bothers her. She gets so pissy whenever I point that out, that she obviously doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trans and/or have dysphoria. I don’t mean it in a mean way though and I’ve tried to explain that but I get nowhere. We both used to assume that my dysphoria was body image issues and that it was normal for a “girl my age” to be insecure so it seemed like something she had personal experience with.

Another part of me, though, thinks that is has to do with me wanting to get seen a boy now cause little changed before that came up. She has three sons, no daughters, and I was always her tag along to thinks like nail appointments, hair stuff, and was the designated helper for PTA meetings. We hung out all the time. Sure I very rarely participated with the nail stuff or the hair things unless I was getting it dyed but I was still usually around. She’d complain about her husband and I’d nod along, later I’d bitch about school and she’d listen maybe offer advice.

That’s all over now. We don’t go out nearly as often and when we do I always feel like I have to tread carefully about what in my life I can share. There’s just no reason for this. I don’t mind doing these things, I don’t mind following someone around while they shop if it means we get to hang out. But we don’t, because I’m a guy now and apparently that means I can’t hang out with her. Like, yeah, I’d rather not call it "girls night" but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around the person I used to be closest to. I don’t see why me transitioning is an issue. Me being a guy doesn't mean my personality has had some drastic shift. Just because I don't want her doing my makeup anymore doesn't mean we can hang out.

On the other hand, I finally got boy deodorant. It’s for guys and now I have it.

My brain after my shot: Oh… that wasn’t bad at all. And now we have our T and a pretty bandaid (lol, a tea bandaid). I feel so nice, can’t wait till next week.

For example my great grandmother had a lot to say about my transition, most of which I actually didn’t listen to. I honestly never planned on coming out to her, we weren’t close, she wasn’t going to be around for all that long (she was like 87), I didn’t really see a reason in bugging her about it. She was very progressive on most issues so that wasn’t why I didn’t want to come out to her, it really just seemed like a hassel. But she apparently noticed that my chest seemed different (not in a creepy way it’s very noticeable if someone was used to seeing me in a bra not a binder) and asked my aunt who outed me to her. So when I went over to her house to help my grandma care for her the first thing I’m met with when I walk into her room is something along the lines of, “why don’t you want to be a woman? Women are amazing?,” along with something else I didn’t hear cause I just told her to mind her own business and walked away. I’d always found that almost lectured odd because I’ve literally never said anything about women in regards to my transition other than the fact that I’m not one. I was able to force an apology for this by just refusing to go over and help take care of her. I know it wasn’t sincere but she was always extremely stubborn, and never said sorry for anything so it felt like a win in my book. Maybe that was mean of me but not much I can do about it now.

My aunt had a semi similar comment. I mentioned that I didn’t want to go to Texas because of the laws there (at the time they weren’t as crazy as now but still bad) and she went on this weird rant about women that ended with, “but you think being a woman is the worst thing in the world,” then finish it with, “well I guess it is,” referring to how women are treated especially in places like Texas. This whole conversation felt just so accusatory, and kinda te/rfy. I don’t mind discussing feminism and things like that with her but she turned a convo about me not wanting to go to Texas because of the anti-trans laws there into what seemed like a competition about who had it worse. Then seemed to turn this whole thing on me, as if I was transitioning to avoid misogyny which is just classic te/rf talk. Because obviously me declaring that I’m a trans guy means everyone treats me like a man now /s.

In both these conversations it really felt like they considered me transitioning to be somehow hurting them. Idk, maybe it’s because I’m the only person in the youngest generation of our family born afab, and they feel frustrated now there’s not a daughter in the family or something. It’s just so frustrating cause I’ve never said anything bad about women or anything like that. I’m just not one and for some reason they act like that’s me insulting them.