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July Update/Dump
10 years ago
I had originally planned to update this fairly regularly, but just never felt I had enough to write about. So I have been making the odd notes over past month or so, and this has given me reminders.
In terms of events, a lot has happened:
In February I received a letter from the Nottingham Gender Identity Clinic confirming that I am on the waiting list, and it should be around 6-8 months till my first appointment (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....50029904044032). While this is a long time, it at least let me know they had recevied my application. I am expecting to hear from them soon with a specific date.
In April I had my make-up tutorial, and have since got myself some make-up from Bare Minerals (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....96891885551616). However, I have never wanted to be a particularly pretty/girly girl, I just want to look female. So I try to use make-up to disguise my man features rather than prettify myself. I tend to feel silly with anything beyond primer/foundation, and my experiments with eyeliner have only resulted in pain so far.
In May I went to Confuzzled where I gradually built up the courage to wear something nice on the last day (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....84983994789889). By this point I dress fairly gender neutral pretty much everywhere other than work. Confuzzled was shortly followed by my birthday party, which was spent almost entirely in girl mode.
And finally, just this month I had the 2015 boat trip, during which both Gorfy and I managed to present female for most of the week. It was an amazingly liberating experience, and I give a huge thanks to this years crew (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....65917255192576) for making us both feel comfortable.
The following is just a collection of the thoughts that often go through my mind, provided to try and help people understand me and what I say/do.
I have heterosexual feelings, but it is almost entirely based on jealousy rather than attraction. I therefore fancy girls that represent how I want to be, and am equally jealous of how they look. However, I still want to cuddle with girls, because they feel and smell right, but have no interest in sex. This is apparently due to my brain craving the female hormones I can't get, and the touch/smell giving me indirect access to that, but it doesn't make me feel any less creepy. To complicate matters further, my male hormones are still giving me the physical urges/responses associated with breeding, despite me not consciously wanting my junk to be doing anything. So the few times I have shared a bed with a friend I have then felt embarrassed/disgusted when my body responds accordingly, even if they say they aren't bothered. If/when I start Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) I hope that it will address both of these issues.
I am also interested in what else HRT might affect, including who I am mentally. How much of what I think or do is driven by hormones? I am fairly certain it will significantly effect my moods, but I am also hoping it might reduce my general levels of anxiety since my brain will be getting the right signals finally. I guess if anything I will be closer to the true 'me', but I do worry about how much it will change me. Thankfully I know my friends will be there regardless. Although I desire the physical changes hormones will induce, and my current aim is to pass for female, there is a good chance that once I have the body and hormones it will all just feel so right that I won't care about hiding my past.
The urges associated with female hormones are easier for me to justify, since there is a scientific reason. However, the social aspects are harder for me to come to terms with, such as clothing. Wearing a skirt has nothing to do with anything biological, it is purely driven by the social understanding I have developed as I grew up: girls wear skirts, so I want to wear skirts. I can deal with this generally, since at the end of the day it's just clothing, but underwear causes me slightly more distress. I want to wear cute underwear, but I still occassionally get aroused by it, so I just end up feeling disgusting and perverted. It is still just clothing, but I have developed a social association that perverted men like wearing womens underwear. And it is probably this association that ironically causes the arousal. I am trying to get over this by wearing it more often, make it more of a normal thing, but it will never be comfortable with anyone being able to see my junk and women's underwear isn't made for keeping it hidden.
One of my biggest fears is girls finding out about any of this and thinking I am a pervert. I think this is partly why I value the acceptance by females more than males. It probably also has something to do with them confirming they accept me 'as one of them'. So I tend to feel bad when I react differently to my friends offering me support depending on their gender, and also that my attention is probably biased towards my female friends. There have been several things friends have done that meant more to me than they probably should as a result, such as going with me to a public toilet and borrowing my clothes.
It is also hard to talk about this stuff with people who aren't also going through the same thing. All of my friends are extremely understanding and supportive, but when I talk about some of the deeper stuff I tend to feel like I have to explain why I feel that way, which I can't because I don't really understand why myself. Once I get to know a fellow MtF transgender person I know that they are likely to feel (or have felt) the same way, so I don't need to explain and can just talk. Whenever I visit my friend Matt who set this all off for me, we spend most of the weekend just talking about how stuff makes us feel, and it really helps to have someone else confirm that this is 'normal' for people like us.
Names are another complicated issue, and so far I have three options I am considering:
a) Kristen - It sounds phonetically the same as my current name, but is a female spelling. This then wouldn't cause any upset for me, or embarrassment for others, if people got it wrong. Plus, I will still be me, so it seems odd to change my name.
b) Catherine - It is different enough to signify that this is a big change, and when people use it I will be reminded of who I really am rather than what I was. So the rewards for people getting it right should outweigh the bad times people get it wrong.
c) Kirsten - Somewhere between the two above. Could be misheard as my actual name, so I can gloss over people getting it wrong.
This is of couse further complicated by the fact that my friends all call me Za anyway, so this will only effect work/family. And I am fairly happy with being called Za regardless of the gender I am presenting as, the idea of changing to Ze seems strange (mostly for the reasons given above against other names).
Presenting female to family and work will be more difficult than to friends, and is one of the scary things I need to get over. It has been suggested that I should announce my plans at work before I actually start presenting female full time, so that I at least don't get paranoid about hiding any signs of the progress I make. It would also give my colleagues time to adjust before the shock of me coming to work as female. I might do that once I have had my first clinic session or when I have been given hormones (i.e. confirmed I am definitely going down this path). My close family already know, but I guess I should tell everyone eventually. Presenting as female in front of family is more difficult. I have had a lengthy conversation with my mum and sister about this last Christmas, but haven't really talked about it with them since. Despite them both being as supportive as my friends, I still feel like I am putting more of a burden on them. My friends have had time to adjust to my more feminine ways, but I don't see my family often enough to give them that chance. So it feels like I am telling them they are losing their son/brother, and gaining a new daughter/sister that they don't really know. I was going to start asking my mum about names in a recent email, but ended up deleting that part before I sent it.
In terms of events, a lot has happened:
In February I received a letter from the Nottingham Gender Identity Clinic confirming that I am on the waiting list, and it should be around 6-8 months till my first appointment (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....50029904044032). While this is a long time, it at least let me know they had recevied my application. I am expecting to hear from them soon with a specific date.
In April I had my make-up tutorial, and have since got myself some make-up from Bare Minerals (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....96891885551616). However, I have never wanted to be a particularly pretty/girly girl, I just want to look female. So I try to use make-up to disguise my man features rather than prettify myself. I tend to feel silly with anything beyond primer/foundation, and my experiments with eyeliner have only resulted in pain so far.
In May I went to Confuzzled where I gradually built up the courage to wear something nice on the last day (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....84983994789889). By this point I dress fairly gender neutral pretty much everywhere other than work. Confuzzled was shortly followed by my birthday party, which was spent almost entirely in girl mode.
And finally, just this month I had the 2015 boat trip, during which both Gorfy and I managed to present female for most of the week. It was an amazingly liberating experience, and I give a huge thanks to this years crew (https://twitter.com/ZeKitty/status/.....65917255192576) for making us both feel comfortable.
The following is just a collection of the thoughts that often go through my mind, provided to try and help people understand me and what I say/do.
I have heterosexual feelings, but it is almost entirely based on jealousy rather than attraction. I therefore fancy girls that represent how I want to be, and am equally jealous of how they look. However, I still want to cuddle with girls, because they feel and smell right, but have no interest in sex. This is apparently due to my brain craving the female hormones I can't get, and the touch/smell giving me indirect access to that, but it doesn't make me feel any less creepy. To complicate matters further, my male hormones are still giving me the physical urges/responses associated with breeding, despite me not consciously wanting my junk to be doing anything. So the few times I have shared a bed with a friend I have then felt embarrassed/disgusted when my body responds accordingly, even if they say they aren't bothered. If/when I start Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) I hope that it will address both of these issues.
I am also interested in what else HRT might affect, including who I am mentally. How much of what I think or do is driven by hormones? I am fairly certain it will significantly effect my moods, but I am also hoping it might reduce my general levels of anxiety since my brain will be getting the right signals finally. I guess if anything I will be closer to the true 'me', but I do worry about how much it will change me. Thankfully I know my friends will be there regardless. Although I desire the physical changes hormones will induce, and my current aim is to pass for female, there is a good chance that once I have the body and hormones it will all just feel so right that I won't care about hiding my past.
The urges associated with female hormones are easier for me to justify, since there is a scientific reason. However, the social aspects are harder for me to come to terms with, such as clothing. Wearing a skirt has nothing to do with anything biological, it is purely driven by the social understanding I have developed as I grew up: girls wear skirts, so I want to wear skirts. I can deal with this generally, since at the end of the day it's just clothing, but underwear causes me slightly more distress. I want to wear cute underwear, but I still occassionally get aroused by it, so I just end up feeling disgusting and perverted. It is still just clothing, but I have developed a social association that perverted men like wearing womens underwear. And it is probably this association that ironically causes the arousal. I am trying to get over this by wearing it more often, make it more of a normal thing, but it will never be comfortable with anyone being able to see my junk and women's underwear isn't made for keeping it hidden.
One of my biggest fears is girls finding out about any of this and thinking I am a pervert. I think this is partly why I value the acceptance by females more than males. It probably also has something to do with them confirming they accept me 'as one of them'. So I tend to feel bad when I react differently to my friends offering me support depending on their gender, and also that my attention is probably biased towards my female friends. There have been several things friends have done that meant more to me than they probably should as a result, such as going with me to a public toilet and borrowing my clothes.
It is also hard to talk about this stuff with people who aren't also going through the same thing. All of my friends are extremely understanding and supportive, but when I talk about some of the deeper stuff I tend to feel like I have to explain why I feel that way, which I can't because I don't really understand why myself. Once I get to know a fellow MtF transgender person I know that they are likely to feel (or have felt) the same way, so I don't need to explain and can just talk. Whenever I visit my friend Matt who set this all off for me, we spend most of the weekend just talking about how stuff makes us feel, and it really helps to have someone else confirm that this is 'normal' for people like us.
Names are another complicated issue, and so far I have three options I am considering:
a) Kristen - It sounds phonetically the same as my current name, but is a female spelling. This then wouldn't cause any upset for me, or embarrassment for others, if people got it wrong. Plus, I will still be me, so it seems odd to change my name.
b) Catherine - It is different enough to signify that this is a big change, and when people use it I will be reminded of who I really am rather than what I was. So the rewards for people getting it right should outweigh the bad times people get it wrong.
c) Kirsten - Somewhere between the two above. Could be misheard as my actual name, so I can gloss over people getting it wrong.
This is of couse further complicated by the fact that my friends all call me Za anyway, so this will only effect work/family. And I am fairly happy with being called Za regardless of the gender I am presenting as, the idea of changing to Ze seems strange (mostly for the reasons given above against other names).
Presenting female to family and work will be more difficult than to friends, and is one of the scary things I need to get over. It has been suggested that I should announce my plans at work before I actually start presenting female full time, so that I at least don't get paranoid about hiding any signs of the progress I make. It would also give my colleagues time to adjust before the shock of me coming to work as female. I might do that once I have had my first clinic session or when I have been given hormones (i.e. confirmed I am definitely going down this path). My close family already know, but I guess I should tell everyone eventually. Presenting as female in front of family is more difficult. I have had a lengthy conversation with my mum and sister about this last Christmas, but haven't really talked about it with them since. Despite them both being as supportive as my friends, I still feel like I am putting more of a burden on them. My friends have had time to adjust to my more feminine ways, but I don't see my family often enough to give them that chance. So it feels like I am telling them they are losing their son/brother, and gaining a new daughter/sister that they don't really know. I was going to start asking my mum about names in a recent email, but ended up deleting that part before I sent it.
I'll support you every step of the way if I can because you're my friend and I value your happiness. I also think you're going to be a ridiculously sexy clanky tom boy ;)