Until then…

I’ve been feeling really great since starting T. I’d been cycling through periods of depression because I hadn’t been going anywhere in my transition and that’s over. I’m also a lot more confident– I flirt with girls more than I ever used to and feel more accepted among other guys. My dysphoria hasn’t bothered me yet, but we’ll see what happens over the weekend because that’s when it gets bad.

I’ve decided to start on a low dose of T for my voice. I come from a family of baritones and I think I’ve got a good shot at getting there if I go through my second puberty like most boys. That’s my theory, anyway. God knows if it will work. It will also give my family and acquaintances some time to adjust.

I wrote my three closest, queerest friends a letter saying that I wanted to be called “Maalik” and was going to use “he” from then on, but at that point it was pretty much assumed that I was trans. And I never bothered to tell my other friends, I let them read Facebook and figure it out.

It worked the same way with my family. I never had the ‘sit down, I have to tell you something’ discussion. They just assumed and I eventually clarified that I am, indeed, a boy. I’m on a LGBT speaker’s bureau at my school, so anyone who sees a panel knows I’m trans and in class I just accept whatever label people put on me; by the end of the semester, they seem to figure it out, too. Now, however, I am confronted with my first real need to come out. And it’s terrifying.

I am living in apartment-style housing for the summer and I’ve got four roommates. They’re all really cool women, but they think I am also a woman. Between living with them and starting T in the next month (woohoo!), I think I need to tell them the truth. I have no idea how to go about it, though– I’ve never done this before! Should I sit them all down? Say it casually in passing? Come out to them one at a time? Ah…

I feel closest to one of my roommates and I think she’s more likely to be an ally, so I’m thinking about coming out to her first and working my way around. But even with this plan, I don’t know what I should say or how I should say it. I’ll keep you updated, hopefully I do it without going crazy!

Edit: I’ve also decided to integrate this blog as part of a larger transition-documentation website. It’s available here, but you have to register to get to videos/photos.

On the more personal side of things, I’ve got an appointment next week to see if I can skip therapy and go on hormones. If everything goes well I should be starting T in the beginning of March.

The way I view myself as a trans person would usually characterize me as a “transexual”– I am a man and have been a man for as long as I’ve been alive; for me, my trans status is more akin to a medical condition than an identity. Despite this, I prefer to identify as “transgendered.” I’ve tried to figure out why I do not refer to myself as transexual. While I dislike the gender binary, I am perfectly content to live within the male box and  I don’t think of myself as particularly gender-transgressive.

What I’ve found is that, like many transgendered people, I see a flaw with the definition and usage of “sex.” I am male-bodied and will be whether or not I make any effort to “masculinize” my body. I wasn’t born in the wrong body; I was a boy born in a male body in a society where ”male” was wrongly defined. For me, top surgery is like pectoral implants than heart surgery– my body does not necessarily need correction in its present form.

This isn’t to say that transitioning isn’t necessary. The disphoria I experience with my chest is very real and very serious. But it does mean that, were I able to live comfortably with my present body, there would be nothing to fix. For me, transitioning isn’t about altering my body to make it more male, it’s about altering my body to make it more comfortable.

Transgendered man, transsexual man, man with a trans history… honestly, the specific label I’m given within the trans community doesn’t really matter to me. But if I have to choose, I’ll go with “transgendered” because I’m as much about redefining gender roles for society as a whole as I am about adhering to them for myself.

As part of my transition from “trans man” to “man,” I went through my Facebook page and purged it of all references to my legal name, sex, etc. I expected the process to be uplifting– my profile would finally reflect exactly who I saw myself to be– but instead I found it somewhat depressing. My past is inextricably linked to the years of it I lived as a girl and to delete references to my “girlhood” was to delete that past.

While this only involved a Facebook profile, it says a lot about my life as a whole. If I want to live as a male without the specter of my past as a girl, I have to eliminate that past all together– awards won, photos taken, etc. And if I want to be able to have and share that past, I’ll always worry about whether I’m seen as a man or a transman or a girl.

I know that living completely stealth and completely out aren’t the only options; eventually I’ll find a balance that works for me. But finding that balance is something I don’t necessarily want to do; certainly, it’s something I wish I didn’t have to do.

1. Showing a license with the correct name on it.
2. Not having to choose between not talking or looking wierd while I talk because I’m dropping my voice.
3. Putting on just one shirt when I leave my room.
4. Getting dressed with the blinds open.
5. Facial hair.
6. Going to/from the shower without a shirt on.
7. Meeting someone new and not having to amp up the masculinity so that ze uses masculine pronouns.
8. Writing “Maalik [last name]” on school assignments.
9. Going out without having people say “Thank you sir; I mean ma’am? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
10. Building muscle.