An astronaut of social roles
Q: Is transsexuality a mental illness?
A: Anyone who wants to go through puberty twice has got to be funny in the head.
I just swallowed a 5mg progesterone HRT tab. The pamphlet what comes with says that it may cause an absence of menstruation. I'll remember to look out for that.
(No doctor, it's okay ~ my pants are soaked in blood)
Here's a run-down of the big changes over the last two months.
Hai-ya: I've been dubbed!
Unable to sound female as yet I have been unconsciously annunciating so as to sound... less. I don't like this, so I'm going to learn how to play the requisite voice tricks. In the meantime, if I'm alone, clothed and silent, I can look down and see a body that strikes me as either gender-inspecific or female. If I look ahead and speak, I can't see myself, but can hear what sounds like a male voice. However, if I can both see and hear myself (such as in a restaurant with mirrors), I get contradictory stimuli that, after a couple seconds, my brain reconciles as "film dubbing."
Nothing like delusion to get you through your day.
A similar unconscious/alarming mental trick has seen me asking "why am I packing?"
Lighting-dependant gender.
Assuming that I'm not talking, how people (including myself) read my visual sex has a lot to do with how I'm lit. If the light is bright and/or overhead, I look like a gay boy. If the lighting is behind me and/or dim, I look like like a woman in her thirties. Straight-ahead illumination is a toss-up.
So:
- at noon at work in public -> boy
- at night walking around alone -> girl.
Excellent!
Physical changes:
Starting to become more obvious now. I'm losing weight (the progesterone may change this). My waist has thinned out by a couple more inches, while my butt seems to have rounded. On most of my torso I've lost both subcutaneous fat and some muscle. My acne has shifted from occasional large boils on my face and back to numerous red bumps across my inner thighs.
Hair:
The laser hair removal has nixed most of the darkest hairs on my face, leaving a more sparse strawberry blond stubble, which is pleasantly inobvious. Something similar goes for my chest, where what has grown back is thinner and lighter.
I should have stopped going bald now. This is a good thing.
Breasts:
After a week, my nipples were sore and prominant. After three weeks, there grew a nickel-sized hard bump under each. These have softened and swelled into two lumps the size and consistency of a half-timbit. At the same time, there seems to be more fat from my underarms towards my pectorals. I am growing breasts.
I used to wear baggy shirts in part because otherwise my nipples suggested that was just making out in a blizzard. My current inventory of black tees, and shirts with strategically-located pockets or patterns serve a similar puprose. Taking estrogen is not helping. It's not a problem, I just feel a bit self-conscious.
I am also learning to manuever with sensitve nipples. Friendly hugs are now something of an art.
Social issues:
Washrooms
In safe places, I use either the wheelchair or women's; otherwise it's the men's. My clothing choice can sway me either way (such as the Rainbow Brite Tee that I realized I was wearing... in Calgary), as can the presence of alcohol. I have not yet had any problems, which is spiffy, seeing as the CFS conference was sharing public washrooms with kids on a school trip.
Dating
I hadn't anticipated this. What do you say?
- "I'm flattered, but I don't think that you'll like the news I have to give you"
or
- "would you like to meet for coffee in, say... six to twelve months?"
I'll sort something out. Thank G-d for bis and pansexuals.
A: Anyone who wants to go through puberty twice has got to be funny in the head.
I just swallowed a 5mg progesterone HRT tab. The pamphlet what comes with says that it may cause an absence of menstruation. I'll remember to look out for that.
(No doctor, it's okay ~ my pants are soaked in blood)
Here's a run-down of the big changes over the last two months.
Hai-ya: I've been dubbed!
Unable to sound female as yet I have been unconsciously annunciating so as to sound... less. I don't like this, so I'm going to learn how to play the requisite voice tricks. In the meantime, if I'm alone, clothed and silent, I can look down and see a body that strikes me as either gender-inspecific or female. If I look ahead and speak, I can't see myself, but can hear what sounds like a male voice. However, if I can both see and hear myself (such as in a restaurant with mirrors), I get contradictory stimuli that, after a couple seconds, my brain reconciles as "film dubbing."
Nothing like delusion to get you through your day.
A similar unconscious/alarming mental trick has seen me asking "why am I packing?"
Lighting-dependant gender.
Assuming that I'm not talking, how people (including myself) read my visual sex has a lot to do with how I'm lit. If the light is bright and/or overhead, I look like a gay boy. If the lighting is behind me and/or dim, I look like like a woman in her thirties. Straight-ahead illumination is a toss-up.
So:
- at noon at work in public -> boy
- at night walking around alone -> girl.
Excellent!
Physical changes:
Starting to become more obvious now. I'm losing weight (the progesterone may change this). My waist has thinned out by a couple more inches, while my butt seems to have rounded. On most of my torso I've lost both subcutaneous fat and some muscle. My acne has shifted from occasional large boils on my face and back to numerous red bumps across my inner thighs.
Hair:
The laser hair removal has nixed most of the darkest hairs on my face, leaving a more sparse strawberry blond stubble, which is pleasantly inobvious. Something similar goes for my chest, where what has grown back is thinner and lighter.
I should have stopped going bald now. This is a good thing.
Breasts:
After a week, my nipples were sore and prominant. After three weeks, there grew a nickel-sized hard bump under each. These have softened and swelled into two lumps the size and consistency of a half-timbit. At the same time, there seems to be more fat from my underarms towards my pectorals. I am growing breasts.
I used to wear baggy shirts in part because otherwise my nipples suggested that was just making out in a blizzard. My current inventory of black tees, and shirts with strategically-located pockets or patterns serve a similar puprose. Taking estrogen is not helping. It's not a problem, I just feel a bit self-conscious.
I am also learning to manuever with sensitve nipples. Friendly hugs are now something of an art.
Social issues:
Washrooms
In safe places, I use either the wheelchair or women's; otherwise it's the men's. My clothing choice can sway me either way (such as the Rainbow Brite Tee that I realized I was wearing... in Calgary), as can the presence of alcohol. I have not yet had any problems, which is spiffy, seeing as the CFS conference was sharing public washrooms with kids on a school trip.
Dating
I hadn't anticipated this. What do you say?
- "I'm flattered, but I don't think that you'll like the news I have to give you"
or
- "would you like to meet for coffee in, say... six to twelve months?"
I'll sort something out. Thank G-d for bis and pansexuals.