In between dicks

I’m feeling a lot of different things.

I’m functional, a bit numb even and focused on my assignments. With a digital term and a pandemic going on there was a lot to do at the end of the term. I hoped I’d be finished earlier. The most important things will be turned in two days before surgery, but nonetheless, I hoped I could enjoy the excitement throughout the weeks leading up to surgery a bit more.

I’m also excited. I can’t believe I will be having a penis to hold in my whole hand. I can’t believe I will have those wounds, then turning into scars and to own that new bodily situation.

I’m also stressed. Besides my assignments, there’s so much to organize: to secure funding for my next semester, a few applications I’m waiting to get notice back, subletting my room. It’s still unclear whether I have to bring a COVID-19 test done by my GP into the clinic or whether they’ll do it inpatient (having it with the GP won’t be covered by insurance), and uncertainty is stressful.

I’m stressed by my attempts to calm my anxiety. A huge amount of tiny details needs to be dealt with, and it seems even more stuff pops up “that would help me be calm during recovery because I dealt with it beforehand”. I’d love to get so much done before surgery. I’m yearning for a clean slate. I think I have to realize that’s just not how transition works (never did). Probably I have to accept that surgery disrupts my life, because major surgeries do disrupt lives and especially phalloplasty is known to do so. That it’s okay to experience uneasyness and disruption since it’s in the nature of the situation. That I can’t control that phalloplasty won’t disrupt my life. That I can recover from this disruption and that it’ll be worth the short term pain.

I got an appointment, at short notice, and it seems the current situation re COVID-19 will allow it to happen. August 6, 2020 is the day.

I’m currently processing my duties and feelings around surgery.

I do so by watching videos about phalloplasty. How people prepared, what they were anxious about, what recovery looks like. I have watched a lot on youtube over the years, but as my own date gets closer, I keep relating in a different manner, closer to myself.

I start to see myself in the mirror, both in other people’s experiences and literally, as I take my packers out again. I hold them, I measured anew. I try to extend the image of myself beyond what’s there right now, into the direction of what’s supposed to be there. I do this “inner image” work in a more calm, neutral way, less anxious, less dysphoric than before.

I had my last appointment for electrolysis on Saturday, July 18 and my last treatment for laser on July 20.

I stopped drinking caffeine and alcohol, cut out sugar. I’ve been doing cardio exercises throughout the whole lockdown, since the beginning of June the gyms re-opened in my area I’ve been climbing regularily. I try to stay in a fit-ish shape.

I’m subletting my room, since I’ll be staying for 3 weeks in the hospital and can rest at my boyfriend’s for a week after. I’m moving my personal stuff to him.

I arranged regular appointments at the hairdresser’s, with my orthodentist and dentist and paid anything due in the month of surgery in advance.

I try to get accomodation for my uni assignments and to complete everything I can prior to surgery, so I’ll have a clear mind to recovery properly. I completed three major applications.

I reached out to friends to let them know I’ll be having surgery and to negotiate how they can support me.

For this surgery, I’m less rigid than before. For my first surgeries I watched my diet much more closely (e.g. I cut sugar weeks in advance completely, now I have my ice cream every once in a while, not monitoring every nutritional intake carefully). I think I’m getting used to a more relaxed approach.

I’m settling into a good-enough situation. It’s certainly not the very best moment to have major surgery throughout a pandemic, but it may be good enough to move on. The date has a few advantages, too: it’s amidst the summer where no big travels can happen anyway (so it’s socially very accepted to take a tranquil time). The beginning of fall term has been moved, so I’ll have three full months to recover. It’s before autumn and a potential second wave may force trans-related care into a halt again. I can have the next surgery in February and have a surgery-free next summer. During the semester break friends may have more headspace and resources to support my recovery.

Since the boulder clubs re-opened after the lockdown, I’m meeting up with a colleague of mine to work out. It’s fun, he’s encouraging, not toxic, and generally a relaxed cis man with a friendly, open-minded style of behavior, communication and relationships (as far as I can tell). We may become friends over time.

Were I cis and straight, I’d like to be a guy like him.

Instead, I’m afraid.

I’m sad that I cannot tell him how much I achieved, as far as sport goes: I’m coming from a place where I was numb, disassociated and dysphoria-stricken most of the time. To get into sports and to practice regularily was HUGE for me, the more a sport that relies on whole body control like climbing. Working out was something that I would’ve never achieved without medical transition. I’m coming from a place where my progress was disrupted for prolonged periods due to surgery and is going to be disrupted for a while. That changed how I trust my body and abilities (not necessarily in an exclusively negative manner).

Among straight cis men I feel I cannot explain where I’m from. I’m alert. I feel I have to hide the story of my body. Not because something like my scars or small feet or anything could out me as trans - but because there are all the little details in my living and becoming that tell I’m “different”: I had to fight and I put money, time and effort in things they neither see not understand and so much more.

I’m having a difficult time to relax and to ease into this socialization. I know I need to be open-minded, curious and un-stressed to learn and to really understand I can be part of this. But it’s just so hard.

Most of the time, I rely on being “good at something” to feel I belong. That presents an obstacle in my way to relate to other men. I’m doing okay-ish in my boulder style, but my colleague is clearly better than me and that makes me anxious. In general, I’m doing ok as a man, but I want to get better at it. I know I have to overcome this coping mechanism and to truly understand that I am “enough”, that I belong, that there’s plenty of time to figure it all out, that I don’t need to hold standards of “normal” etc.

I’ve been on T for almost 6 years. I’m lifting weights and do different kinds of cardio regularily and have done so for around 5 years by now. I’m eating well. I’m growing a beard. I pass. I’m living stealth except from my queer friends.

From an “objective” point of view, I’m considered an athletic, reasonable muscular guy. I also did my research and the expected time to develop a different body fat pattern has set in for a while now.

Still, I loathe my thighs. I don’t want to gain weight because a part of it settles on my waist (I’m fine with getting fatter on my belly though). I’m checking my hip/shoulder ratio in the mirror. I still watch out for my waist and thigh on photos. I’m still comparing to cis male bodies. None of my cis buddies said that those parts of my bodies were “irregular”, “feminine” or anything, even from a cis POV.

Still, I can’t get no rest. It still makes me dysphoric.

Other trans people, well into their medical transition (T 5yrs+, post top, some post meta), seem to experience similiar distress. They check their outfit whether it highlights dysphoric body parts. They find dysphoria-related traits on footage.

I know that there are some small changes in body patterns likely to occur, since cis male puberty also lasts ~10 years overall and resources on HRT say so as well. However, I expect those changes to be only marginal and to not make any difference in the big picture.

So, when will this be over eventually? Will it ever be?

Does managing dysphoria re genitalia enhance overall dysphoria experience? (Do I expect unreasonable things from phalloplasty?) Will there always be a certain dysphoric perspective on ourselves we need to manage? Or have I forgotten what “normal inconvenience” looks like compared to dysphoria, after experiencing it for so long, so I’m mixing up different body experiences? (Am I even ready to look at myself without dysphoria? How do I get ready?)

Today I’m sitting with a lot of sadness.

This weekend a fellow ftm friend stayed with my ftm boyfriend and me. Another ftm friend who moved into the city just a few months ago came over for dinner as well. We’ve all known each other since we met at a trans youth camp, in 2013 or 2014. Another nb friend I met in a queer youth group joined us. Living in different parts of the country, we’ve been meeting far and in between on Pride over the years.

I feel so close to all of them, in a way that’s both warm and painful. We’ve been coming a long way. We’re looking different now. We have different names than the gender neutral ones or even dead names we introduced ourselves with at the time. We’ve been so lonely. We’ve been fighting so much.

There was so much pain in our respective lives. Each one having their very own inner argument to decide whether to go on T or not. Each one having their fight with insurance, bureaucracy and discrimination.

We’ve been coming out ok. We got our respective genders recognized legally and we got insurance coverage and changed awful workplaces. I think the worst is behind us.

I just can’t stop to shake and cry.

We’ve been coming such. a. long. long. way. I’m feeling as if the last few years were ages ago. We have seen each other in so much pain, loneliness, anger and desperation. I read Rs poetry slam about dysphoria. I sat with M at the fireplace when he showed me his scars. I had wine with C talking about my sexual struggles.

There are so many people I can’t tell where I have been once: at the trans youth camp, amidst forest and hills, among fellow trans people and I was able to feel my pain for the first time. Clear and sharp. I saw a few people with flat chests and scars on their upper body and forearms and that’s when I understood that it really could be possible to ... live, someday. I didn’t understand it at the time how alive it made me.

Saturday, we had a walk to grab some ice cream. Light was fading slowly at 10pm and the air was warm, people chatting in the park.

Two years ago a young transguy from the youth centre died by suicide after he was declined medical transition from every practitioner in the area. M said, it was so very close that he could’ve been this guy. We all could’ve been. We’ve been close to this point for a long time. It’s still a miracle we’re alive.

What I didn’t understand before I came out was that transition can be more about who you become than who you are. Instead of ruminating “who you really are” or “who you resonate with”, a question to guide yourself through coming out could be: Who do I want to become? What do I want to learn more about, and from which point of view?

I decided I wanted to learn a certain style of maleness. I want to spend more time and get in touch more deeply with other men and masculine-of-center-people, both cis and trans. I’m still not sure what “maleness” is all about and whether I’m “man enough” and how I relate to other genders, but I’m content that I’m exploring maleness right now and that I may continue to do so for the rest of my life.

For me, one way to tap more into “malehood” was medical transition. Prior to transitioning, I didn’t understand how much about gender is doing gender, after all.

In feminist spaces I was introduced early to the concept that gender was “(just) doing gender”, often in a dismissive, cis-normative way: either that my assigned gender resulted in a certain socialization process, hence socially imprinting my gender, or that I just needed to “perform differently” to be seen and experience myself as male, thus no medical transition necessary.

That “doing gender” may entail a trans-centered, empowering perspective is an interpretation I just got to explore fairly recently. That I “do gender” means that I can learn how I relate to my gender expression and to other men, that I get to grow, every day doing malehood means getting better at being a man, that I get to decide how I do maleness.

It means there is so very much to learn. It means that transition really is a life-long process and that there are no shortcuts. I didn’t know how much fun it can be to figure out my gender expression. I may want to try out different things over time and that I am allowed to fail in maleness: because every man does.

No cis person has carved out their “final” gender expression, once and for all. Since bodies and gender roles change over time, they simply cannot. Cis people certainly are “ahead”, as much as comfort, knowledge validation, experience, repertoire of their gender, body and sometimes sexuality go, since indeed they have some gender-supporting socializing years more under their belt. On the other hand, they also have a lot of toxic things to unpack in their “correctly gendered” childhood and adolescence. So, to closely examine any labels, expectations, and stereotypes is something cis and trans people do have in common, after all.

I’m trying to actively engage in learning to “man in”. I try to ask all these questions about boyhood, adulting as a man, developing one’s masculine-centered gender expression, how to use the tools of gender (in a mindful, non-violent, oppression-reflected way) to handle struggles related to manhood. I try to see cis men with less projections and to relate more. Cis men struggle, too. They don’t have it figured out. Not any more or less than I do at this point.

I had about 11 (probably 2-3 more) sessions by now, about 1.5hrs each. That’s around 17 hours so far.

I continue electrolysis treatment. Usually, I get 1.5 hours every 2 weeks in. Every session removes every new grown hair and as soon as my skin is fully healed I have the next appointment. I’m seettling into a rhythm.

We’re targeting the fine, light and blond hair now. It’s very smooth and hence hard to see. For my first appointment in February I dyed my hair black a day before I had my next session. The eletrologist confirmed she was able to work a lot faster. I’d recommend to try this out (for people on the light-ish spectrum of hair colours)!

My next treatment is scheduled for Thursday and I tried a different branding today. I needed to scrub my skin very intensely the last time, since a lot of colour also went there. I tried a brand that advertises as “natural colouring”. It smells like my wheat grass nutrition supplement: earthy, herbal, a bit sharp.

I mixed the herbal powder with boiling black tea. I waited for the paste to cool out. I listened to a youtube video from a transguy, talking about his phallo process. I applied the black, greenish mixture to my left forearm. I felt oddly close to all the witches and sorcerers throughout centuries, getting some magic done to make gender a bit more convenient. I wrapped it up with plastic film, covered everything in a warm white towel, fixed with a rubber band.

Research was for the longest time how I coped with my unfulfilled needs, longings, messy feelings, incongruencies re my body. That’s how I bore the unbearable. That’s how I could hear and speak what I couldn’t dare to admit. 

I tried to control my body and gender and my dysphoria by getting to know them. It worked, insofar as it allowed me to name feelings and find community with the language I acquired. 

I kept hoping that I’d find a secret workaround. 

To make HRT feel safe. To find an accessible, non-fallible way to have a penis. To control the outcome of surgical interventions. To find something, anything that would get more than a compromise, that would go beyond known methods of medical transition.

Something that had somehow gone unnoticed below the community’s waisteline. A scientific article that wasn’t as recognized by Western mainstream science. Some little known detail we didn’t take as seriously.

Damn, I hoped so very much.

Every so often I come along a trans forum. Recently, a person wrote he was taking a closer look into metoidioplasty now, posting an article about Djordjevic’ methode of “Extensive Metoidioplasty”, back in the early 2000s. It promises a metoidioplasty within the range of average adult male cis penises. Of course there isn’t anything in it that isn’t already known, tried, advanced, evaluated or thoughtfully rejected. In his well-written, throughoutly researched posting I painfully found a  familiar research pattern mirrored.

I didn’t kept looking. I gave up on researching. I stopped reading as much. I got less critical in conversations with medical professionals. 

At the end of the day and after sunrise still I - will have surgery (likely not the Very Best Technique In The World, not under perfect circumstances, probably not even in the way that will be considered “standard” a decade from now). Because I need it. And because I may will not like my genitals immediately, but I’ll much more enjoy my process of getting to know and to love this changed body parts.

It is liberating that I don’t have to be smart any more, on one side. There is nothing smartness can do about my body, my feelings, my needs. This pushes the door wide open to take full advantage of anything that is known and practiced in present time. This is a reliable silver lining, but a sad trade nonetheless.

On the other side, I’m mourning.

I’m currently attending a progressive muscle relaxation course at my uni. Often, I’m meeting up with a friend of mine in the library and we head over to this PMR class together. Last week I still collected my things while my friend (afab, genderqueer, not on testosterone) waited for me, leaning besides the door.

The instructor smiled warmly at them.

“Usually, the man waits for the woman, not the other way around”.

After we left, we checked in with each other how uncomfortable this situation was for each of us. We were able to resolve how cishet norms hurt us. 

This is a situation I didn’t anticipate in my early days after coming out. Although I do pass as cis male and even heterosexual and have for years by now, other members of our community still experience misgendering. 

Also, I got the call by my clinic to get a new date for my phallo surgery. As ist seems, May seems to be the next possible option. Which is ok.

I’m frustrated on three levels. 

For one, I have hoped to have surgery earlier since by May I’m already well into my next semester. As the weight of weighting shifted, I felt how much energy is bound by me waiting. I would’ve liked it to be over with most healing starting into the next term, to be fully present, eventually.

For two, I feel how much foreign control over my body I still experience. I am assigned a surgery date, I and have little saying in when. It would be so much better for my mental health to negotiate and letting all my other responsibilities in my life be considered and integrated into my surgery process.

For three, the person from the patient management wasn’t very friendly with me at all. She asked if I “really wanted phallo”, whether “I actually felt ready” and that I have had behaved “unreliable” and “jellyfish-y” (her actual words) by moving my surgery date. This was part of what I was anxious about as I moved my scheduled appointment (to appear “unreliable”, “unsure”, “not ready”, “not trustworthy in my surgical choices”), eventhough I had good arguments to opt out of this initial possibility (and honestly, they should be glad that people act self-determined and do not end up jumping from the OR or going through surgery in a state where they likely do not heal as well).

I felt she crossed my boundaries by questioning me about my feelings. I’m angry I’m still dependent on her for getting scheduled. 

Also, to make things even worse, the situation in which I got the call was stressful: she called me Wednesday. I got back to her on Thursday, didn’t reach anyone. They called back later that day when I was in the library. The environment was noisy and the connection flakey. Then I dropped my phone out of nervousness. The call was disprupted. I tried to call them back, didn’t came through, and vice versa. So I tried again on Friday, three times, got two calls back which I missed bc I was working at the time ... And so I reinforced this impression of being “unreliable” by this situation. 

So, I’m still not having a surgery date, but a lot of frustration and pain :( 

A week ago, I graduated into another level of coolness. I was taking a shower at the gym. There was another man already, we weren’t looking at each other. 

I had already conquered a bunch of anxiety to shower at all, since he took the corner that is least visible from the changing room. It was just mere weeks ago that I started to use this second most private part of the showers at all, in case someone took the most private spot already, so I’m still new to this semi-exposed position. 

So, we were showering and at some point he turned towards me.

“Hey man, may I use your shampoo?”

He had turned with his full body visible, smiling, casually holding his penis in his hand, pointing it sideways.

There was no other choice than to turn as well. Since I already used it, i had put the shampoo at the self opposite to me, stepping into full visibility of anybody looking over from the changing room. 

“Sure, you’re welcome!”

I tried to appear relaxed and casual as well, taking the shampoo from the shelf, being tickingly aware of my possible exposition, grabbing into my crotch area as well. I smiled and nodded and I threw the shampoo over to the other guy. 

“Thanks man!”

He grabbed it and used some shampoo and threw it right back. I nodded and thanked him as well. 

Totally cool to ask! I decided not to take my appointment in November. My reasons were that 1) I wasn’t confident that the amount of electrolysis done by then would’ve been sufficient to minimize complications for my urethra, 2) three people in my support network fell sick around this time and needed care for themselves and I wasn’t sure whether I had enough resources left (both in physically and psychologically terms) to get through the process and 3) I had to move relatively soon after I would’ve been discharged from the hospital and I didn’t know whether I could’ve coped with this additional stressful circumstances.

On the other hand, in this time I had already blocked for surgery and recovery a bunch of good things entered into my daily life. I was able to attend a meditation group that started around my former surgery date, had a succesfull interview for a good job and an internship, both good steps in the career I’m pursuing and started to participate in a support group for men (more about that in another entry some time). So, I’m telling myself I gained some other resources and possibilities that weren’t possible had I taken this option.

Although I’m ok now with my decision it took a bit of time to process my feelings of sadness, disappointment and shame.

Recently, I came back to one of those questions that haunted my lingering closeted thoughts re transition: Should I do it, and what does it mean?

It’s among the first things one learns through counseling and community resources that transition can, to a varying degree, mean changes on a physical level (hormones, hair growth pattern, body shape, for instance) as well as social (differing gender roles, adapting to shifting social expectations and opportunities, ....) and psychological (linked to aforementioned changes).

For me, transition turned out to imply, indeed, changes on all three levels. Changes in one aspect oftentimes asked for and resulted in adaptions in different parts of my personality.

Lately, I read a thread over on reddit where someone wrote that transition for them meant also growth and change on a spiritual/developmental level. I read statements that expressed similiar thoughts before, but this is the first time where this actually resonated with me.

Because there are some core beliefs and perspectives on being a man, being a man of transitional experience, being a man undergoing profound medical changes really are different (and for the better) than the thoughts I initially got into transition with.

Transition improved how I relate to other men. I didn’t stop comparing myself to cis men altogether (what a bliss that’d be), but the more I keep transitioning (thus discovering more levels of my very own masculinity) the less important this comparison gets.

I dread buying trousers. Legwear is probably the most dysphoria-inducing article of clothing for me.

For one, I need trousers that don’t emphasize physical traits I feel dysphoric about (e.g. thigh, hips), so it’s necessary to find well-fitted clothing. Also, I decidedly don’t want to feel my thighs and hips in my trousers at all, if possible. Those are two traits that rarely go together easily. 

On the other hand, I hate to go shopping for trousers. I hate that I have to try out different brands, sometimes seeing myself mirrored in the worst ways possible. I hate that I have to make compromises between both desired criteria and feeling drained and empty after shopping. I hate that my body still doesn’t fit custom-made sizes: when they get the negth right (29/30), they waist is usually either far too wide or far too slim. Hence, I gave up on getting the right length altogether. Then there’s the problem that a good fit on my waist usually is too tight on my tights. The proportions on my leg seem to be odd, out of place, not masculine enough.

I despite buying new trousers so much that I can go for a long time with a pair and even whore a pair of shorts throughout a whole summer once (being washed every other evening or so).

I needed to buy a new pair of trousers for a job at a music festivals I did the past few days. Since the context is rather formal, there was no other choice than to show up as necessary.