#lifeascalvin

Hi guys ✌🏼 Just tryna remember I’m a boy and appreciating how masculine these Calvin Klein briefs make me feel ❤️💁🏻‍♂️

I’m going to try to do better at writing on here but for my lovely followers and anyone else who might see this, feel free to message me. I, by no means, have all the answers, and each day is a different take on this journey. But ultimately, the theme is positive, and I will always push others to stay in tune with their true selves and to always always love yourself. You are all beautiful people, and let’s not face this journey alone...let’s face it all together.

01/21/18 Feeling truly happy in where I am now and where I’m headed. Grateful to have lived 24 years as Carissa but excited that I’m starting off my journey as Calvin ❤️

#prettyflyforatransguy

Well well well, ya boy got a girlfriend ❤️ So thankful for a girl who fully supports, adores, and accepts me as, not only a guy, but as HER guy. It’s truly remarkable to meet someone who finally supports me as a whole hearted person. She’s been by my side as I’ve identified as a lesbian with a ponytail, as I’ve identified as a lesbian with short hair, and now as a trans guy navigating through the murky waters of finding my most authentic self. And she’s never flinched. She’s liked me in every form of myself.  I’m not perfect and neither is she. We both make mistakes when it comes to the gender thing - when talking just to her, I sometimes still refer to myself as “she” and “Carissa”, and once in a while she’ll slip up too. But it’s a work in progress. The best part of it all is that she calls herself out on it. For example the other day, she called me a “hard working girl”... I let it slide and carried on the conversation after a kinda awkward silence and she laughed and said, “No, babe did you hear me? I said girl...I meant guy.” And I heard her, but sometimes don’t have the confidence to correct certain people....or, especially with her, don’t feel the need to because she knows, and is trying her absolute best. But it speaks VOLUMES about her respect for me as a trans man when she owns up to misgendering, corrects it, and apologizes.  It’s so beautiful being on this journey with her...and I’m so lucky I get to be her boyfriend :) JMS <3  Thanks for loving me as Calvin, babe. 

Well well well, we are 5 days into the New Year and I have yet to make a single update about everything with my family and friends and so on. Things have been crazy. I’ve quickly learned that staying in NH for a week when your best best friend moved way up north, is way too long of a stay, because then there is legit no place for me to go. For my final night here, I checked into a hotel so I could be free from cat hair, dog hair, cigarette smoke, and honestly just to have some time to myself. Now, I’m sitting in my hotel room, with a nice glass of wine, baggy hoodie, and reflecting on my past two weeks of vacation. Though details are hazy now, I’m going to say that coming out to my parents was as positive as it could be. They are both going to need time to digest and are both going to need time to get educated. I respect them for still loving me and still acting relatively normal while I stayed the rest of the week. My mom was wicked clingy though, constantly hugging me and kissing me and looking at me. I feel for her because I know she’s terrified to lose the only daughter she ever had, but the truth is, I was never here to begin with. My mom also asked me millions of questions a day, which, though at times got very annoying, I respected, because it showed she cared and wanted to learn. I’m thankful that there was enough respectful communication floating around that allowed us to talk openly about something so new to all of us. The thing with my mom, is all her questions were good fucking questions. They were all questions I asked myself before too...and those were the hard ones because they made me feel doubt within myself again. With all her questions, it came down to a point where I just had to tell her a lot of things don’t have answers. She kept asking me “what ifs”. “What if you’re not an attractive man” “What if you can’t find a partner that will love you” “What if this makes it harder for you to get jobs...” And the thing about “what ifs” is that we can ask them until we are blue in the face, and it still won’t give you an answer. Because “what ifs” are filled with fear and anxiety....the uncertainty in the unknown. But the thing about these questions is that I won’t know, and we won’t know, tis I get there. I can’t live my life in fear of these things if I feel that me taking T and becoming my most authentic self will make me the happiest. I am honestly so God damn happy and content with my life right now and I know taking testosterone will fill a void in me that I’ve been missing for such a long time.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shaken up a bit though by all my moms questions, kinda resurfacing my lack of confidence in my situation, one I was so sure of when I was out in Seattle. And this is how I know I’m not entirely ready to be out to the world. I’ve though long and hard and have come up with many ways on how I can go about it. But coming out to everyone is not going to be as positive of an experience as it could be to me, if I come out when I’m not ready. By not ready, I mean, I need to feel confident setting boundaries with certain people who can’t respect my identity or continuously mess up my pronouns and name. I need to be ready to insist I’m male when I know I sure as hell don’t pass as one yet.. And all of this is going to be hard, because I’m not confrontational with that kind of stuff.. I’m very timid especially when it’s stuff that’s new and big and scary for me. My parents and brother didn’t change anything about how they are addressing me but I want give them time. I never even told my other brother while I was home visiting because I couldn’t find it in me to tell him and handle his negative reaction that I’m more than positive would have happened. I am kinda disappointed with my visits with my friends. I loved spending time and felt comfortable with them knowing about me, but not very many asked if they should change my pronouns or if they should call me a different name. More so than not, it was the people I saw who I don’t really consider my “best friends” that were most receptive to calling me he/him and referring to me as Calvin. I wish more of my friends would have tried it, and more of them would have asked questions and talked to me about it and my preferences.  This also proves how I’m not ready to stand up for my own gender identity yet,  and that I need to work on that, but just putting a note here that I do appreciate those who go outside of their own comfort zone to refer to me as something I’m trying to work on and build my confidence with.. I’m excited to go back to Seattle and kinda check back in with my psychologist. I think I’ve moved forward a lot from the last time I saw her and I think we still have a lot to work on as far as confidence in my gender identity goes. I look forward to my journey, and you won’t see me fall even if i stumble. Thanks for the support, all <3

Lots of people told me this mirror pic was “studly”.....so did your mom 😏🤷🏻‍♂️ Things have been going great over here; expect a blog post soon about my family processing my coming out and how I’ve dealt with their worries and concerns. Keep it real people! Love, Calvin Khorey 😘

I’ve been wanting to write this out for a while now and with today’s turn of events, landing on a bus driving north for 8 hours instead of flying, I have plenty of time to do it. It’s also important to put it into words and really outline how I feel considering I am going to try to come out to my parents while visiting.  I had a really important conversation with an older gentleman that I work with last week.  I tend to do these things, where, especially if I’m closeted or trying to figure out what people feel about a situation, I play the opposite side of what I actually feel, just to gain some perspective. I’m not sure how it came up, but me and this guy started talking about transgender issues. I brought up the argument that I’ve come across more and more as I’ve started accepting myself because I wanted to see if he could give me some other way to look at it. Now, this guy is like an old man in his 60′s, black, with 2 sons…. And his response inspired me. I asked him what he thought about the fact that you can’t exactly change biology. I told him about how many articles I’ve read and videos I’ve watched that have argued that you can “SAY” you’re a boy ally want, but it will not change your biological sex and your DNA make up… This is  an argument I’ve struggled with because I haven’t known how to argue it. And haven’t found anyone who ever has in a way that made me believe the other side. Because you know what? Those scientists and Docters and whoever….they are right. No matter how much I say I’m a boy, I will still always have been born a girl. No matter what, my DNA chromosomes will always be XX. But this is what he said- “How many time has mother nature ‘fucked up’. How many times have people been born ‘wrong’. What about people with 6 fingers instead of 5? Or the people who are conjoined twins? What about the people born with heart defects? And what about the people born as both? You really mean to tell me that because people were born outside of the norm that they have to deal and live with what makes them different? No. People get extra fingers removed. People get medicine to fix a heart defect. Conjoined twins get surgically split from each other. And you have no one telling them they were born that way so they should stay that way. Mother nature fucks up. That’s just the way it is. So if a transgendered person feels they were born in the wrong body, than who are we to say that that’s wrong or thats right? How awful must it be to feel that…” Now obviously I’m not out to the people that I work with, nor did I make any indication to the fact that I was. I mean, why would a trans guy challenge his own beliefs and try to lead you down an argument that goes against who I am as a person? Lol, I guess I’m kinda twisted. But, also just very open minded. I’m not scared to listen to peoples perspectives if it is done so respectfully. And look, people surprise you everyday. The way he worded it, of course I paraphrased, but it literally blew me away. I literally had goosebumps because I had never really found an argument like that. The material I’ve read that have strictly based facts about biology and DNA makeup have really had me stuck and I didn’t know how to fight it. I am a very facts based person…so you present me with the facts and I can see how those facts are true.. But I love perspective. I love shaking the globe and watching the snow fall from a different angle. I think you learn so much that way. And his response changed me entirely and quickly made me feel more confident in the fact that trans is REAL. Trans is okay. And that isn’t something that is an easy thing to get to. I am trans myself and I looked at all possible angles to see if I was just being crazy. But he’s right. Mother nature fucks up. People aren’t born perfect. People are handed certain cards and it’s how you chose to deal with them that makes you who you are. Could I live the rest of my life as a woman? Probably. I’ve done enough work internally and searched within myself to know what outside factors contribute or don’t contribute to my happiness and have adjusted. I’ve also done enough searching to know what to change within myself…what parts of me are toxic and what parts of me are just genuinely good. I don’t want to transition because I am unhappy as a whole…I want to transition because I’ve never been at home in my body…and I found that through some deep soul searching in myself. And it’s a beautiful thing.  I chose to take the cards I’ve been given and not blame the universe for putting me in the wrong body. I chose to feel blessed for being dealt the wrong cards so I can learn how to navigate through struggle. I chose to thank God for making me such a strong individual that can handle something as tough as being born as the wrong sex. I mean, do you even know how much strength that takes? It’s a crazy amount of strength. And I’m proud of the people in the trans community that are still here, and still pushing, and thriving. I’m proud to be a part of a community with so much fucking power in just knowing themselves….because I’m sorry, not enough people know themselves enough. And not enough people dig deep enough in themselves to learn the things that make them who they are…and the things they need to let go of as well as pursue to make them better. Becoming aware is the key to happiness and growth and I am just so happy I’ve transitioned throughout my whole life to gain so much perspective everything. I am truly blessed and truly happy…not because I haven’t been and now have this “thing” to fix it, but rather because I know myself, and have found what it feels like to be at home in your body, just by having my pronouns changed and having a select few people call me Calvin. I feel amazing. I feel excited. And I feel empowered.  I feel less reliant on others because for the first time in forever I’m fully reliant on myself because I finally met him, and he’s a great guy. I hope to have the courage to introduce myself to them as the great man I know I am and will continue to become.  This life is beautiful, man. Embrace your journey and stay positive you beautiful souls.