5 Aug 2020

-tomorrow, i'll be filling out my name and gender marker change forms and going to get them notarized to send to Virginia (where i was born), to get my birth certificate amended

-on June 9th, i'll be 2 years on testosterone, i feel and look completely different from when i first started, i still can't believe it. I'm starting to get hair on my stomach and face (not much, but it's still exiting), and i can feel my adam's apple

-on August 5th, i'll be getting double incision top surgery with Dr. Pranay Parikh at Baystate. it's taken so much to finally get a date set finally take this step i so desperately need, i'm counting down the days

Sometimes i feel more masc, sometimes i feel more femme. But i always feel 106% Super Gay

Wow, i guess I'm somewhere around a year and a half on testosterone?!? When did that happen??

9/4/18

Hello Again! Holy shit its been almost 4 months! (15 weeks) The time has kinds flown by. 

Medical

I am going back to the doctor on the 11th for blood tests and to check in, so I’ll post about how that went next week! I am still using the same intramuscular needles but I am going to change to sub-q soon. 

This seems obvious but it took me a bit to figure out: INJECTIONS ARE EASIER IF YOUR MUSCLES ARE RELAXED which mine almost never are lol. Give youreelf a little massage before you stick a needle in there.

Noticeable Changes

My mustache is starting to come in! I have named him Monsieur. I am not quite to the point where I’m going to start shaving but I like that he’s up there. 

My sex drive is still a lot higher than it was pre-T, but it's not as intense as it was in the beginning. I am having more breast pain and tenderness, but I have also been binding more which is definitely a factor. 

My voice is not audible changing quite yet, but I can feel it catch strangely in my throat so I think that will start soon. 

Acne is not as crazy as feared, and it still follows my annoyingly present menstral cycle, but both are under control. 

The intense bursts of energy and mood swings I had been getting at the beginning started to die down around month 2 and have stopped completely now. 

Thoughts

Many people have told me that at the beginning of transitioning, your dysphoria can get worse, and I think I have been feeling some of that. 

Partially, it that the more things change, the more the things that still bother you stand out; But its more that the further away from a binary gender presentation, the more out of place I feel. I am trying to make sure I embrace the parts of womanhood that I love as well manhood, instead of feeling like I am drifting away from both of them, but it’s hard sometimes, especially as I anticipate things like coming out at work. 

Ultimately, however, I still feel better, more myself, more settled in my skin. Before I started my transition it was so much harder to love the aspects of womanhood that I identify with. I feel like I can finally embrace my heritage instead of trying to wriggle out of its grasp. I recently saw my mother, who lives 12 hours away from me, and who had a very hard time when I first came out. She said that for a long time she saw a kind of simmering anger underneath all the time that isn’t there anymore. We are on good terms right now and I hope it stays that way. She has come so far though and we are able to talk more honestly than we have in years. I’m really happy about that. 

Lastly, I am thinking more seriously about changing my name.  I am named after my great-grandmother, who single-handedly snuck her 5 children out of Spain during the civil war, right before WW2. I have loved this connection and taken a lot of strength from her, but I think that having a feminine name is holding me back at this point. I am trying to reconcile changing my name without feeling like I am rejecting my family history. 

That's about all for now. I am happy to talk more about anything or answer questions, and I would love to hear other trans people’s experiences with names, heritage, and history. 

Much love,