Visibility: Part One

The Invisible Woman

Every time I think I have a handle on this one, some new bullshit opens up and compels a new segment or tangent, and apparently, because of how my brain works, this one needs to be finished before I can post anything else here. So, I've decided to sidestep the problem.

As such, I guess this is going to be a multi-part post, spread out across however many parts, and however long, it takes for me to engage with this tricky and wide ranging concept.

So, I was originally going to write up a post about this for Trans Day of Visibility, which was well, 2 months ago. But then, a few days before that day, something happened.
Something fairly innocuous to most people, but to a girl in my position, it posed a more significant potential danger. I fucked up, and after a lunch break at work, I left my twitter account open and on screen. A few people would probably have seen it, can't be sure. Nothing on the screen was immediately a problem, but it did include my screen name, which, if an inquisitive type were to use to view my twitter, would immediately out me as trans. This was not conducive to my transition timeline, or my general anxieties.

So, I locked my tweets and hid my blogs and hoped for the best.

I spent Trans Day Of Visibility hiding because it was safer to do so, and I hated it.

This is a choice trans people face every day, in one form or another. There are people in this world who do not want to see us. People in this world that, in times of vulnerability (times we find ourselves put in with cruel frequency) we may not want to see us. We are targets.

In this world today, being visibly trans is a revolutionary act.

Now, I place (and accept) no blame, shame, or disrespect for those of us like me, who were, are, or will be, unable or unwilling to risk the consequences of that revolution. We are a part of it, and we are doing what we can while remaining safe and comfortable as we need to be. Personally, though, I hate it.

I hate the times when I can tell I'm making the choice out of fear I shouldn't have to face. I go to work, with my small, hidden acts of defiance. I wear panties, I paint my toenails (but not my fingernails, though I long to, and one day, I will finally get to)
I wear bright socks. For the time between the announcement of the awful marriage equality vote, till it's final successful completion, I wore only rainbow coloured socks. My own private petulance (I can't really consider it protest if I showed no one, provided to others none of the solace that I took in seeing the rainbows hanging out windows and on umbrellas)

But that’s pretty much where my visibility ends, with the occasional flash of a sock in the trans pride colours, or the glimpse on the washing line of panties or a sports bra (which I do not wear under my work shirt for fear of a visible crease on my back when stretching the wrong way.)

Lately, I have taken to wearing cat ear headbands. (I'm just, embracing every trans girl stereotype I can find over here.) My hair is getting longer, and they keep them out of my eyes nicely. they also look super cute, which in turn helps me feel cute, a rather precious resource in itself. I now have several pairs and I like them a lot. I am more comfortable when I'm wearing them, I am more confident when I'm wearing them. Except, for the times when that confidence flees.

Earlier this week, I had to move a car in from the street. It was the middle of the day, in the suburbs, no one was around. But, our neighbour might see, and that wasn't a conversation I was ready to have with them. I debated with myself (for several seconds longer than I did in the past) if I should take them off, if the crushing act of once again, hiding a small part of who I am in order for small convenience was worth it. In the end, I took them off, and was kinda disappointed in myself for it.

It is hard to convey, I think, especially to people who have never had to do it themselves, what a toll it takes to have to do the safety/comfort/stability vs truth/openness/visibility maths for events as innocuous as deciding if you need to change your clothes to go check the mailbox, change your voice to answer the phone, sign an official form with knowingly false but legally accurate information. How crushing it can be to a persons mood no matter what decision or outcome is reached. The mere fact that, this is an everyday part of my life now, at times becomes a weight upon me. Not unbearable, but contributory. If I'm having a bad day, having to mentally correct someone who unknowingly misgenders you, but stifle any urge to do so vocally, can be a weight to make it worse. On good days, it's less a problem, but hiding who we are hurts us in subtle ways.

but

The other day, I was driving somewhere for work. It was late enough to be dark. I was literally a hundred miles away from home (well, technically 178k's which makes it about 110 miles, but the language is more poetic that way. it's the reason I don't mind that we have a bunch of like, "eight mile creek" and such)
So, driving along, wearing my cat ears, and I pulled into Mcdonalds drive through, and I didn't take them off. I sat in the car park, waiting (for ten minutes!) for my burger, and I didn't take them off.

So, I'm making progress.

End Part 1

<3
~LRP

Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Superchick - One Girl Revolution
(I can lose my hard earned freedom if my fear defines my world.)

300 Days!

We've passed the 300 day mark so here's the news on the HRT and changes so far.

As always, this post will cover such potentially awkward topics as relationships, emotions, genitals and sex drive, and in potentially off-putting specifics. Enter at your own risk.

Starting with the physical changes.

My Skin. Skin continues to be excellent. I feel it's improved further, masked perhaps by the dryness that came from winter, but now it feels really nice again. It was a noticeable change when I first had opportunity and motivation after winter to moisturise my arms all the way up to the shoulders. This was a pleasant experience and that alone was a huge shift from a bit over a year ago, where the idea of putting lotion anywhere near my skin would make my skin crawl and make me quite uncomfortable.
The other big change I noticed there was the effects of dryness. My IPL tech commented on the dryness but it had never felt particularly significant. However, in the most recent spike of heat we've had, and being on the road for work a lot, my skin, especially on my face, got dried out savagely! I actually felt that it was sunburnt (and I suspect it was a little, though I was generally pretty good about sunscreen I did forget to take my moisturiser with me) but since getting back home I have decided it was probably more just that my skin got massively dried out to the point where it sorta hurt when I pulled or rubbed on it. This is something I've never experienced before and I don't know for certain if it's the HRT changing the composition of the skin to make it more susceptible, or simply that the change in the skin and my awareness of myself prompted me to notice it this time. I suspect a bit of both, but leaning towards the former. Gonna be taking good care of it through the rest of summer though, that's for sure.

My Hair. Not a lot of change in hair, facial hair continues to thin out, though at a slower pace now. The grey hairs are particularly annoying, and IPL won't do anything about that. I will probably soon (most likely after summer) look into laser to try to kick the remaining stubborn coloured ones and electrolysis to deal with the greys. Thigh hair in particular remains quite sparse but still in small, thinned out patches throughout. My scalp hair is long enough that there've been some quite cute days recently. Getting bugs caught in it at night is an experience I had largely forgotten from previous growth, and not one I am particularly fond of.

Fat Redistribution. Boob growth continues (aided no doubt by the weight I've put on lately) and I think the same is true elsewhere. I've added to most places, but it's hard to know what is "extra weight coming back" and what is redistribution. The boobs are definitely nice though, and getting noticeable under a lot of t-shirts, they're up to a B cup now, although given how "from the sides" they are, they look like a pretty small B I think. Still, that's nice.

Nipples: No change to speak of. They're noticeable under shirts more now, but that's more a combination of "summer so less bulky layers" and "more stuff behind them" than any change in themselves.

Genital Stuff. No real change here to speak of.

Sweat and Body Odour. Pretty certainly a difference in smell, I've been told my general smell has shifted a bit too, though I'm not clear on the specifics. Next few months will probably provide more data on this one.

Nothing else in physical I think, mental stuff follows.

Overall Mental State. More improvement I think, though probably more subtle. I've been tired and stressed a lot, and I think my ability to handle such things has shifted a bit. I've definitely had more "strongly emotional" patches, but they've passed through me in ways that previously I feel they did not. Lots more contented moments, more quiet happiness, more inherent feelings of rightness.

Relationships, Sexuality, And Crushes. Sexuality has remained much the same. Time with A Girlfriend has been lovely, and continues to be so with no sign of stopping. She makes me feel good about myself, and about the future, in ways I had not realised I may have been missing so much. I don't really know how to explain how much the girlfriend thing has made my general outlook better without sounding really mushy and just sorta wibbling about her, so I'm gonna be brief and say that she makes me smile at random moments by thinking about her, and she's utterly wonderful and it's so thoroughly a different thing to any other crush I've experienced. There's a calmness to it that I wasn't expecting, and it feels very nice and very right. She keeps surprising and amazing me in all sorts of ways, and we keep finding new ways in which we sync up (or are syncing up) but there's also no pressure to change the generally small ways in which we do not? It's very nice.
As for crushes, there's been no real development, but I've pondered a bit more on their implications and developments. In particular, First Crush is still there but it's transmuted into a more stable platonic affection. This was most noticeable as it relates to a third person who we will call "ghost crush" because this person is so amazing and so "I'm into all of that" in general that it largely baffled me as to why I had not developed a crush on them. When discussing this one with a friend recently, she suggested it sounded more like, I want to be them, rather than wanting to be with them. Which is probably true. She's gorgeous and stylish and talented in basically all the ways I'd be thrilled to be. Anyway, I somehow managed to avoid having any actual crush feelings for Ghost Crush, it's something that First Crush has apparently not so much avoided, and there has been what to my eyes at least, is flirting back and forth between them. And I am so into that pairing. I ship it so hard. 6 months ago, when I thought of First Crush flirting with someone else, I got a kind of knot in my stomach, and I hated that feeling. It felt entirely unsuited to the person I considered myself to have been, let alone the person I was working towards being. Now, the other person involved is different, sure, and there's some potential weirdness about with "I totally ship the girl I had a crush on with the girl I apparently wish I was" to it, but the fact that I've gone from "knotted stomach" to "Hell yes you should definitely kiss her" seems like it's a fairly significant level up of awareness for me.

Emotions. As covered above, my overall outlook has improved, and my emotional stuff feels generally pretty good. I've had some moments (including a crying fit in the middle of the night) but as responses to situations that felt proportionate and reasonable, and I'm definitely better at bouncing back from them. HRT and transitioning in general has not suddenly fixed all my issues and baggage, but it sure seems to be helping me have a place to stand against them and to be a better more rounded person. Plus, as always, having a cute girl be super into you does wonders for a girls mood.

So, that's pretty much the state of play at 300 days, thanks for reading.

<3
~LRP

Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Tool - Forty Six and Two
(Change is coming. Now is my time.)

200 Days

I recently passed 200 days on HRT, so it's time for another recap on the changes and progress so far.

As before, this post will cover such potentially awkward topics as relationships, emotions, genitals and sex drive, and in potentially off-putting specifics. Enter at your own risk.

Starting with the physical changes.

My Skin. As before, my skin is wonderful. I feel it's improved further, but I guess the change from "eh" to "amazing" was much more noticeable to me than this current change from "amazing" to "slightly more amazing"
Being a gradual shift, the initial comparison was obvious, but more recent changes are less so. Still, I love having soft smooth skin, I am definitely not "over" this change, it's still wonderful every time I touch my arm or forehead.

My Hair. IPL continues to produce good results, though there remains work to be done, my upper body's hair is now basically all fine and relatively unobtrusive (though it grows longer than I'd like)
Scalp hair continues to grow at a pleasant rate. It's SUPER messy at the moment, but it's long enough to not be annoying and getting in my eyes so much now, and I've been informed that it has lovely curls and is looking pretty cute.

Fat Redistribution. More is going on. I've put on a little weight but my shoulders are skinnier (IPL tech commented on there being dips at collarbone that weren't there before last month, and on my latest appointment said I've changed a lot this past month) and boobs are definitely bigger (looks to be about 4/5cm circumference increase. They're definitely noticeable under some tshirts now, and if I stretch in certain ways or pull the shirt down, it makes some nice curves and a good noticeable dip in the centre. To me, they are distinctly more feminine shaped than my previous "just some fat there" I'd started to develop before starting to lose weight in preparation for the transition, but I'm pretty sure I can get away with it for a while more. If they keep going I will probably need to look into binders. I haven't really noticed much change at the waist or hips. As I mentioned I've put on some weight but so far it seems to have gone to my boobs and back to my belly.

Nipples. No notable change here from last time, they are nice, and the doctor tells me there's definitely tissue growth behind them.

Genital Stuff. Seems I am still capable of producing a small amount of ejaculate (though no semen itself, just a clear fluid) when I wait sufficiently long between attempts. Drive to do otherwise has had a few slight upticks but not strongly and all correspond with general mood and circumstance which is nice. I like the idea of feeling frisky because of reasons, not just because of "fuck it, now is as good a time as any."

Sweat and Body Odour. No noted change here. It has been winter, so not much sweating to speak of to test this sort of thing.

Temperature. I survived the winter pretty well. A few occasions where I've had to go digging around a freezer for work has been hard on the skinny fingers, and I think, harder than it had been before, in general, but not hugely noticeable.

Nothing else in physical I think, mental stuff follows.

My Overall Mental State. Continued improvement. Some of which I'm no doubt going to attribute to circumstance, but I feel that transitioning and the HRT are making me more open to the possibilities of circumstance and more aware of the general beauty in the world. I've had more peaceful moments, more quiet happiness, more inherent feelings of rightness.

Sexuality And Crushes. I'm gonna switch up the order a little bit this time, because this one has impacts on what will follow. Not a lot has happened on the sexuality side of things. I feel more secure and accepting that I'm probably both Ace and a Lesbian, and that those two things can totally co-exist. I suspect I'm pretty soft-asexual, I'm definitely far from sex repulsed, and most of it sounds nice, I'm just, I dunno, not especially driven by it?
The big news though, comes on the crush side of things. Previously mentioned crush has died down in intensity a lot. I still think she's great (I thought this long before any feelings too) and I still kinda want to smooch her and do gay BFF stuff with her, but all the unexpectedly strong emotional swings that had previously went with it seem to have faded away as my brain had time to sort things out. Which is good, particularly because of the next thing.
I got a new crush, mutual flirting, long ass conversations, feelings growing increasingly stronger, and eventually, A Girl asking me out. I have a girlfriend now, which is HIGHLY unanticipated but very nice. This one hit pretty fast but it feels different to the other one too. Stronger, yeah, but softer too. In a highly unscientific and probably totally imagined way, I kinda feel like Crush1 was the last of male hormone stuff leaving the system and kinda slamming the door on the way out. Crush2 though, that's the good shit. It also helps like, A LOT, that this one is mutual and she is as into me as I am into her. Preliminary findings suggest that girlfriends are pretty great. I'm still working out some of my feelings, thoughts, and specifics on the subject, but yeah, girlfriends (or at least A Girlfriend) gets a pretty great rating so far.

Emotions. So, alongside the onset of Crush2, I noticed a solid shift in emotion. I was more open to the beauty in the world around me (like, specific "oh that’s really pretty" type noticing the natural world on a recent road trip kind of way,) as well as just generally improved good feelings. I'm not sure how much is girlfriend goggles vs hormone stuff, but my emotions have been pretty good and pretty stable lately. I continue to be better at not letting the bad stuff (like this current marriage equality survey bullshit) not keep me down for long and continue to have an easier time feeling a generalised sense of happiness that I just never really had before. Having a cute girl who likes you certainly improves ones mood, but I don't think it's just that either. These are all things I feel were coming along beforehand too.

So, that’s what I've seen so far, ongoing progress and improvement.

<3
~LRP

Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Tool - Forty Six and Two
(I wanna feel the changes coming down. I wanna know what I've been hiding)

The Other Me

I have three gorgeous pet axolotls, I have an urge to try rock climbing again, and I have a hobby that I haven't felt inspired enough to work on since around when I started HRT.

I mention those things because they share a connection that is not apparent. They are all things where to some degree or another, I have had to (or will have to) decide if they are a part of my LRP life, or of my ORM life.

Because I had a long running online identity before I figured out I was trans, and one that in some places can be connected to my real name and personal details (although, I have largely avoided facebook and the traps it presents) I was faced with a dilemma when I realised I was transgender, and that I wanted to talk about it.
If I came out on my ORM account (I will clarify here that ORM is not an acronym for my other screen name, but in fact stands for Original Recipe Me, fitting, especially since I don't like KFC, or at least what's on the outside of it. The inner bit I tend to enjoy just fine, but the outer coating upsets my stomach.)
Anyway, if I came out on my ORM account, either in part or in total, I would effectively put the knowledge of who I am in the hands of whomever stumbled across it, and they may use that to impede my everyday life, or simply have it get out on it's own and no longer in my control. Given I am attempting to take this slowly and only release the news on my own terms, this simply would not do.

So, a new identity, one where I could be the authentic me was needed, and Little Red Panda was born. (I guess, that's another one to add to the list of rebirthdays list, along with the two others that have occurred to me since, being the day my gender is legally acknowledged, and the day I change my name, something I still haven't decided to do but am coming more and more fond of the idea.)

Little Red Panda let me talk about who I was in places I had never been to but could be trawled for usernames to dox or harass, and in places I have already existed but didn't want to be recognised by people I had not let into my inner circle. 
It proved a little awkward to get her email address up and running, because everywhere seems to want a phone number to verify accounts these days, and mine are linked to ORM. but I persevered and found a way. (I am not 100% sure if what I last attempted to achieve it worked, or if one of the earlier attempts just took some time to come through, but if anyone is in my situation, when I attempted it, a gmail account needs a phone number but a google account does not and you should then be able to use that google account to access your fresh email.)

I am much better at it now, but I have, at times, replied by accident as LRP with my ORM account on twitter. Luckily, those have been quickly deleted, and not to people where it would harm or out me. Lately, I've taken to muting people on my ORM account that I interact primarily (or totally) through my LRP account, and that helps, though it does cause some of its own problems.

LRP also has given my a space to explore my personality and any shifts that occur, of which I have noticed a few LRP is much chattier and open about her life, and her feelings, than ORM ever was. Her twitter account's ratio of "public tweet" vs "replies" is substantial, while ORM's account is used pretty much to reply to friends and artists I follow. She's more willing to just talk openly when she feels like it, and as a result, She's currently got twice as many followers and her most "liked" tweets have utterly eclipsed the equivalent in ORM's account. Even with the reduced pool of people I'm comfortable sharing this information with (which is now up to about two dozen) She still has more friends than ORM does. Or at least, She's the interaction point for more of the ones I'd consider friends.

Plus she has this blog. ORM has created a few hobby diaries on specialist forums for her works, and, as I mentioned in the opening, she had a livejournal back in highschool, but overall they've never felt the same. It wasn't much of a conversation. I would post my work, and bask in whatever praise it received, but little else. LRP though, she talks openly about stuff, not just to her friends, but in a public-ish place. They aren't reaching many people, for the most part, because this is still a small blog and twitter with very few followers so far, but she's talking out loud. I think it's nice, I guess, to think of the popularity of this more authentic me. I like her a lot more than the old me too.

All of this may be selection bias. I use this account when I have "Something To Say" where as ORM's is, as it's been for some time, used pretty much exclusively to follow friends. But I think it's a hint of the slight personality shifts I'm already beginning to see.

But I feel like this also follows in everyday life to an extent. I'm more chatty and open with the people to whom I am out, than those I am not. A huge amount of this is the selection bias that those are the people I was already comfortable with, sure, but I feel like, at least a little, what I talk about and how, in the meat world, is a reflection of the versions of my online accounts. Those who only know ORM, vs those who also know LRP.

But there is a downside to this double life, and thats where axolotls and rock climbing and such comes in to it.

With everything interesting that I do, or consider doing, I have to decide, is this something I share with my LRP friends and followers, or with ORM's? When I have an excellent day at the zoo with some new friends, if I talk about it as LRP, then I have to be careful about what (if anything) I say about it as ORM.

This means, that my cute as shit little water babies, which I adore, I have to be careful with who I talk to about. I decided they were a LRP thing, because LRP has more friends than ORM does, she's better at making them I guess. Anyway, So I have all these photos and feels, but they can only be shared through specific means, with specific people. When I go onto an art stream as ORM, I can't talk about my axolotls at all, except in private messages to people who already know LRP. It's yet another aspect of my life that is hidden, and the number of those aspects continues to grow with each such decision.

I can (and have) shared with a few work colleagues my Axolotl news, but only those who don't know me as ORM, and are unlikely to search that information and through it, connect me with my LRP accounts, and through that, my transgender identity.

Axolotls are of course, just an example, I have events and even friends that I can't really share with ORM people. (Curse LRP's increased personability!)
For the record, My axolotls are named Pancake, Truffles, and Pumpkin, and photos, anecdotes and updates about them can be found with some regularity on my twitter account.

Which brings me to the second of my examples, and the decisions it represents. Rock climbing.

One of my new friends has through her own interest in the subject, reminded me that once upon a time I was fond of it myself. I never pursued it with any real effort, but I recall a few romps at the YMCA or some such place as a kid. Once I grew out of my interest in participating in physical activities or really doing anything that reminded me of the specifics of my physical body, it went away, but I used to like climbing a lot. And it'd make for a good physical activity and method of exercise.

So I looked into places where I could try it out. A place leapt out at me. Excellent.
Only, then the ever present thought occurred, and I had to do the maths, weigh up the risks, and decide if this was an LRP thing, or an ORM thing, and more importantly, if it could safely and comfortably be both. If I signed up and started attending with any regularity as I am now, presenting as a male (albeit one with increasingly nice boobs) once I flip the switch and get to be out and female all the time, that causes some problems and potential for reactions to go poorly. Plus, what if it doesn't work, and I'm outed early? (OMG speaking of boobs, what if I have to wear a sports bra or a binder? Mens Locker Rooms are bad enough as it is! Ugh!) When you factor in the trouble trans people (especially trans women) go through in regards to bathroom and changing room situations, a gym seems like a minefield of potential transphobia, dysphoria, and general ickyness.

So, do I go to the gym, and hope for the best when in two years I show in a skirt, with the knowledge I may need to walk away from this thing I am fond of for a second time (assuming I still like it and my frail bag of meat doesn't let me down)

Or maybe I put it on hold, wait till I'm ready to go as a girl before I start. One more part of my life to anticipate but deny myself for now.

And, if I do that, well, then do I wait till I've had all my bits sorted out before I go? I'll be able to avoid the difficulties of wangs-in-the-way (or the super fun experience of rigourous physical activity while tucking!) and could skip the entire trans thing altogether. But that's another year or more further away. I'm already expecting to do that with swimming (another activity I enjoyed as a child and then immediately noped out of at the first hints of puberty) because, tucking in a swimsuit is just begging for trouble. It all starts to feel like the less great part of a desire to be a disney princess (in this case, it’s feeling very "When will my life begin?" from Tangled.)

I could try to find a different, less ideal place to learn and play in the meantime, safe to burn and walk away from once it's over or it all goes wrong. But that comes with it's own problems (plus what if there's cross pollination between the two gyms? maybe best not to chance it.)

So there we have an example of the LRP/ORM split completely away from either online persona. Again, not the only one. This is a part of my existence now, doing the maths, figuring out the risks.

Third one. My hobby. Not much to talk about, except that it's a thing I am (or at least was) visibly involved in as ORM and thus, something I cannot directly involve myself in as LRP. This may be part of why I've not picked it up for the past 7 or so months.
There's also a number of characters that I've had my various artists I follow as ORM draw. I like them, but for now at least, they are an ORM thing, and something I can't discuss here. (This is particularly frustrating because one of those characters I recently realised has some interesting (to me at least) trans-experience parallels, but she's effectively off limits unless discussed in very vague terms)

And that brings us full circle. Something LRP can talk about and ORM cannot, something between the two and the difficulties that can present, and something ORM had already claimed so has to be shut away till the "singularity" when my accounts can merge and I can be the complete and authentic me.

This is the hidden downside to my longer than many others journey out of the closet. Because I am partially still in there, part of me is still hidden, and even the people that know the LRP me, don't get to see everything unless they're someone who knows both parts. Over time, I've noticed I've begun to shrink away from my ORM accounts in favour of my LRP ones. Once the time comes to switch from ORM to LRP in the real world, I may just do the same online. I suspect a double identity will get even more tiresome over the next two years, I doubt I'll want to keep it up, so I suspect that when the time comes, ORM accounts will become LRP accounts, or continue to fade away into the past.

<3
~LRP

Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Ben Folds Five - The Best Imitation Of Myself
(Yeah it's uncanny to see, you'd really think it was me.)

Change, My Dears, And Not A Moment Too Soon.

So, the next actor to play The Doctor is a woman. The talented Jodie Whittacker was announced sometime before I woke up this morning. It was quite a pleasant thing to wakeup to, because I hadn't really been following the speculation. I wasn't expecting it.
This is a wonderful piece of news for feminism in general, to be sure, and I am excited in general, but I am particularly excited for one specific extrapolation from this announcement.

The Doctor is a trans woman!
The Doctor is a trans woman!
THE DOCTOR IS A TRANS WOMAN!!!

I have been telling myself this piece of news all day. I am so excited!
This is some truly ICONIC Transgender Representation!

THE DOCTOR IS TRANS!
Ok, she's probably going to fall somewhere in the genderfluid side of things, and I've no desire to diminish any Enbys out there who are excited for this too, but to me, right now, The Doctor is trans. She's going to transition, right there on screen! And sure, I expect there will be little direct addressing of it on the show, it'll be jokey and I anticipate some cringe moments. But there are going to be SOOO MANY moments that I can fannishly apply transgender interpretations to! (Upgrades indeed!)
And it happens right when Moffat leaves the series! It really is a fuckin Christmas Episode!

There is, of course, the fear that they'll fuck it all up. This is, as I joked to friends earlier, pretty much The Queer Experience (or at least when it comes to representation in the media) to jump between "OMG I'm So Excited!" and "How Are They Going To Fuck This One Up?" so rapidly. I've only really got one experience with Chris Chibnall and the direction he's likely to be taking the series, but so far, I LIKE IT.

I gave up on Doctor Who a few years back. I just didn't like the Capaldi/Coleman chemistry, though I adore both actors, and I was just so tired of Moffat and all the shenanigans. (Plus, I'll admit, a little bit of pining for Gillan and Smith)
So I suddenly found myself excited for this show once more. A show I'd quite enjoyed in the past, but grown apart from.

It's not just me though. I'm excited for all the cosplay I will no doubt see. I'm excited for the fanart. I'm excited for the reactions to the announcement (the heartwarming messages of support, the gleeful videos of young girls finding out, and for the congratulations going out to Jodie, but also for the spluttering incoherent rage from idiots. Like Ghostbusters and Wonder Woman, if it's prompting babbling rage from MRAssholes, that sounds like something worth looking into!)
I'm excited for all the little girls who get to see themselves in this show.

But most of all, I am so excited for all the trans and NB who will see themselves on the screen, for all the transgender visibility it will help bring. For all the little trans girls who get to see themselves in this show. For all the people who will now be able to say "It's like when The Doctor..." when trying to explain themselves. Who will suddenly have that tool at their disposal, and that reassurance at their back.

THE DOCTOR IS A TRANS WOMAN!!!

I am so excited.

<3
~LRP

Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: David Bowie - Changes
(Turn and face the strange.)

As a quick side note. I'm going to be using my Tumblr blog to start reblogging other things I like. I'll try to keep them relevant. If you're only interested in my blog posts themselves, the blogspot archive will remain purely my own work, and all my posts on tumblr will be tagged LRPSpeaks

Pride

Pride month is ending, and it's important to reflect on what it means, what's changed, what we can do better, and who gets left behind. By which, I of course, mean Heterosexual Cisgender people.


Now, I'm not Straight or Cis, but some of my best friends are, so I feel I know enough about their struggles to talk on their behalf without checking any of this with them first.


It's hard for them.
They go through life with barely any authentic media representation. Sure, you can head-canon a lot of Straight interactions, or write fiction in which your favourite character is Cis, but it's rare that a shows creator, let alone the character themselves, openly proclaim their Cis-Het identity for all to see. It's all subtext, and when they go online to talk about it they get yelled down by Queer bullies who are too invested in their own head-canons to engage in civil discourse. Cis-Het people make up a substantial portion of the population, and yet I don't know of a single time any of my Straight friends growing up had someone take them aside to explain that some people are Straight, and that's fine. No-one told them it's OK to be Straight, no parade, no month celebrating their identities, they might have even grown up not knowing they were Cis-Het at all! All this they had to figure that out on their own, without any support from the Queer community, the Government, or the Media.


And then there's the more overt discrimination. Not once have any of the Cis-Het people I know been fired from a job, been denied a service, or been targeted for "random" scrutiny because of their gender and sexual identity. How do you suppose that makes them feel? There's a whole part of our culture being denied to them, an entire spectrum of social interaction that they never get the opportunity to experience. Not to mention all those anti-discrimination lawsuits they are never included in, and the laws that fail to protect their rights and needs. (This is particularly a problem for Cis-Het White Men, who find themselves excluded from PoC social justice hashtags, and feminist movie screenings at a greatly increased rate)


We're moving forward as a culture, progress is happening in brave places like the United States where bills to protect Straight Cis people who have to poop sometimes, are paving the way for equality. But it's not enough. The number of countries where it's illegal to be Straight has remained steady for as long as I can remember, and shows no sign of budging. We need to stand alongside and fight with our friends in the oppressed majority, to offer them support when they're kicked out of home, or excluded from social movements.


What I'm saying, is that being Straight and Cisgender is a difficult experience and a lot more people are going through it than you probably realise. It's important that they are included and welcomed in any future Quiltbag celebrations.


Now please, a moments silence for all the people who have been died just for being brave Cis-Het people living their authentic lives.


...


All done? Good.


<3
~LRP


Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Ben Folds - Rockin The Suburbs
(Y'all don't know what it's like, being male, middle class and white.)

100 Days

So, this past week has had two big milestones for me and my transition.


One was that I passed 6 months since I realised I was trans. I know in my birthday topic, I said I didn't know what day that was, and I still don't, but it finally occurred to me that I could use my browser history to check when I started looking into specific terms, and that narrowed the window down to three days (between the "first significant search" and the "I'm pretty much certain I knew by then") so there's still a bit of wiggle room, a three day period of quantum gender identity. Schrodinger's Queer.


The other is I passed 100 days on HRT, and that's the one I'm going to talk about today. So yeah, progress has been made!


I feel I should put together a list of changes I've noticed. It seems the done thing, and may be useful in cataloguing my transition.
As such, this post will cover such potentially awkward topics as emotions, genitals and sex drive, in specifics which may put off some people. If you don't wanna hear about my ejaculate, best step away from this one.


Starting with the physical changes.


My Skin. My skin is wonderful. Between the pills, and the IPL treatments, my skin feels amazing. I've heard from other girls that in another couple of months it will be even better, but right now it's already so soft and smooth and I love it. As someone who has never liked her body, this change alone is pretty mindblowing, and I cannot wait for more!


My Hair. Honestly, I'm not noticing a massive change here, or rather, I'm noticing a significant reduction in body and facial hair that I attribute much more to the IPL than to the hormones. Still, it's overall showing a lot of promise. I have enough grey on my face that I'll need to start looking into electrolysis soon enough, but for now, my body hair is getting it's ass kicked. My head hair (is that seriously what it's called? Scalp hair I guess) is growing at a pretty good rate. It's reached a length where it's pretty annoying most of the time, but it's starting to get a nice curl to it. If it continues at the rate it's going, I should have a good 30cm by the time I'm prepared to come out in public.


Fat Redistribution. I'm seeing a bit of this. Not a lot on the waist or hips, but I've seen an increase in boob. Not a lot, but they're definitely kinda looking like that from certain angles. A measurement check suggests that I've gained about 3cm circumference at the nipple, and lost about 3cm circumference at the thinnest point on my torso. I've also lost about 3.6kg (though it's hard to tell because my scales lie to me, which means they were lying when I took my initial measurement too..)


Nipples. Definitely more pronounced. They've passed the first "pretty tender" phase and are, while still more sensitive than they were before I started, not sore by any real stretch. It was actually kinda nice when they were though, let me grab a quick squeeze and get immediate tactile feedback that changes were happening, which was definitely nice early on in the process!


Genital Stuff. So, the anti androgen I'm on (which I'll talk about in a little more detail some other time) is badass. My doctor warned me when giving me the pros and cons of the various options, that this one would nuke my sex drive from orbit. As someone who hasn't put that particular motive force to any good use beforehand, this wasn't a big downside to me, so I said bring it on. And it did. It was thoroughly brought. My masturbatory urges have basically disappeared. Not completely, I've had a few "feeling a bit horny" moments (though since a week or so in, not once has that been accompanied by any spontaneous erection) and I can still bring myself to arousal pretty easily if I desire. But, in general, I don't. I also, upon the last two or three such masturbations, have produced no ejaculate at all (the few prior to that were each diminishing compared to the previous) and the orgasms themselves have been less prominent. Between that, and the mild foreskin chafing that not producing precum seems to occasionally bring with it, it's generally just not felt worth it.


Sweat and Body Odour. A few minor changes here. I think I noticed a bit more sweating in some instances, but that could be observation bias, and/or the near total absence of underarm hair at this stage. I'm pretty sure that my body odour has started to shift in smell too, but my own sense of smell is fairly diminished so it's hard to tell. Actually, that's another thing that I hesitate to mention, but I've noticed smells a little more recently than I used to (since about puberty in fact, but I've never heard of such a correlation so that could just be coincidence)


Temperature. I've always had very cold fingers. It's something I've lived with all my life. My mum seems to suffer from it more than I (her toes too) but given the comparisons we've done have pretty much always resulted in mine being colder to the touch, I think maybe she just suffers more due to the cold, rather than actually being colder than mine. Still, this winter, I've had it intrude more than it usually does. Again, could be a coincidence, or it could be an effect of a slowed metabolism.


I think that about wraps up the physical stuff, on to the mental.


My Overall Mental State. Definitely improved. I've definitely been happier in general, more able to focus on the positive and pull myself out of bad moods easier. How much of this is HRT changing my brain chemistry, and how much of it is attitude changes brought on from finally taking these positive steps, that's really hard to tell. In fact, pretty much everything I'm gonna say here comes with a "hard to really tell if HRT is responsible, partly responsible, or not responsible" type disclaimer.


Emotions. So, I've had three crying fits so far. The first, very difficult to say if I would have responded differently had I not been on HRT. It was a bad situation. The other two, I suspect that hormones played a part, but both involved fights with my mother, something that has come pretty close in the past too, so how strong an effect is unclear. I have felt that those crys were generally more cathartic than the pre-HRT ones had ever been, and I've recovered from them faster than I used to. I haven't really found myself getting choked up or randomly emotional about stuff (or at least, not so much as I've noticed. Certainly not to the level that stories from other girls have described.) I did recently reread a wonderful two books, and the memories of the previous read formed I think a useful (if a little hazy) emotional control group. I don't think I got more emotional, or at least not notably so, all the parts I did get a bit choked up about were parts I can remember feeling similarly the first time. I do feel like the actual emotional response felt a little 'crisper' though, more coherent. It was an experience, and I think it went well.


Sexuality And Crushes. This one is probably worth a more detailed description in a separate post some other time, so I'll keep it general. For something like a decade and a half I operated under the assumption that I was some form of Asexual (without knowing that word for a part of that time of course) because I was never really interested in sex with me as a participant. I thought lesbian sex was neat, but it wasn't for me, because I was a dude. In discovering I was wrong about that last part, I'm re-evaluating the earlier parts too. This contemplation is being complicated slightly by my testosterone blockers kicking the shit out of my sex drive. So I'm not sure where on a spectrum of "Ace" to "Lesbian-With-Incompatible-Parts" I end up on. It's hard to know just yet what is genuine sexual disinterest, what is chemically induced disinterest, and what is girl with dysphoria stuff.
What I can say, is that I've developed a crush. This also, essentially, hasn't happened in a dozen years or more. Going through Re-Puberty may be the cause, may be a contributing factor, or it could just be the above mentioned re-evaluation letting me be open to possibilities. Hard to tell. Pretty sure nothing will come of it though, no real reason to believe this is a mutual thing and even if it was I don't believe she'd pursue anything anyway. While the experience itself is not totally unpleasant, the awkwardness and anxieties it occasionally provokes, not to mention the spikes of irrational jealousy (irrational for many reasons, not least being I have no right to feel entitled to any sort of claim over her) are all things I could really do without. I very much value her friendship too much to allow something as base as the periodic strong desire to smooch her to interfere with it. I hope she knows this, and I hope my body and brain will also get that message sorted out.
In the meantime though, I get to feel awkward sometimes, and spend a bunch more worrying if I'm making her feel awkward too. That sort of stuff I'm not so keen on.


So, those are the things I have noticed so far. Overall, I'm happier than I think I've ever been, or at least, my baseline seems to have shifted upwards, and I am optimistic for the future.


<3
~LRP


Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: Tool - Forty Six and Two
(Stepping through my shadow, coming out the other side)

Be Safe. Be Careful.

This post was very unplanned. It touches briefly on something I'd been meaning to write about at some point, but that isn't the main thrust of any of it.

It also discusses relationships with friends and no longer friends, both online, and in the meat world. If any of those things are likely to make you uncomfortable, maybe give this post a miss (or at least, give the latter part of the post, once I start talking about "todays incident" a miss)


It started off as a tweet, or a couple.
Then I realised I was on the 16th tweet was still going strong, and would have liked to expand on some of the ones I'd already written. So now it's a blog I guess.

Sometimes, people will decide not to like you.


Sometimes, people who liked you once upon a time will decide they don't anymore.


You may never know the reason why someone suddenly stops being civil.
You may have some theories, with varied degrees of evidence and circumstance to back it up, and sometimes they'll flat out tell you.


But some people will seem to just wake up one day, or see something you did, or said, or see or hear someone else taking issue with you for whatever reason.


And they will decide that they hate you now.


Maybe you were close before. Maybe you were merely cordial.
Maybe it will be an instant dislike from the moment they met you.


You may never understand it.


But they'll dislike you, they'll not want anything to do with you.
Anything you say, they'll misinterpret in some way that offends them.
Anything you do, say, or don't do, or don't say, will serve to reinforce their poor opinion of you, and there's nothing you can do about it.
You sure can't ask them why, or what happened.
Or rather, you can, but it will really really piss them off, and you're pretty unlikely to get an answer at all, let alone one that eases the hurt.


And, because the universe is a disordered, uncaring place and makes no promise of fairness of any kind, you probably wont feel the same way.
As the song says "Loving someone don't make them love you."
The same is true of everything else. Liking someone doesn't make them like you.
and someone Very Much Not Liking You does not, immediately, or by default, make you not like them.


It should.


You should be able to look at it and think "well, if they can't see my value, fuck 'em." but it doesn't work that way either.
You will probably still like them at that point, still want to be friends, still want them to like you the way you like them.
In fact, You may want to be friends even more, might want to prove yourself and make them see the error in their ways. Want to push them past whatever caused them to see you as lesser, and come out stronger because of this.


This is a mistake.


It may not always be a big mistake, but it will always be a mistake. If they're at the point where they look for a reason to dislike you in every interaction, then they're past the point of redemption, and frankly, they wouldn't deserve it anyway.


So let them go. Be angry at them if you have to be, if it helps you and gives you closure, because they won't give you shit. Don't worry about doing something that will make them think they were right all along. They already think that.
If getting angry, snapping at them, or otherwise confronting them would not help you, or would hurt you more, don't feel obliged to do it. This is gonna suck either way, and you don't owe them anything anymore. Do whatever helps you through this.


But let them go. Part ways.


In time, the feelings you had will probably fade, you will feel less hurt, betrayed, baffled.
Probably.
The closer you had thought you were to them to start, the longer this will likely take to happen.
(How close they were to you is both irrelevant, and the entire point here. Their side of the equation only matters in the way it impacts on you. You don't owe them anything at this point.)


This is not unique to trans people (or anyone from the quiltbag)
It can happen to anyone, at any time, for any reason (or no reason at all.)
But it is a feeling that queer people are generally unfortunate enough to know well.
Being Trans (or any of the other letters) can sure be a catalyst for it. If it is, you'll usually have either a good idea, or been outright told in some pretty unpleasant language, why it is. And you'll probably have to deal with this more than most cis-het folk will. Even ones who are legitimately assholes to begin with.


But it can happen to anyone. Today, it happened to me for entirely non-trans-related reasons. Well, today and also over the past several months really. But today it came to a head, and probably a conclusion.
And it hits hard. Really hard if you're part of a group that can expect the sort of winnowing of friends and connections as a matter of course. It really feels like, if you're going to face this again and again just because of who you are, then you shouldn't have to face it for unrelated reasons too. But, life makes no promise of fairness of any kind.


Trans people, more than just about anyone, have to face a very difficult decision about who to trust with this sensitive information.
They pretty much all have, for a varying degree of time, something they will want to share with people close to them (or people they think are close to them) that can cause them immense pain, and immense disruption, if it gets into the hands of the wrong people.


Even once you are "Out" in public, most won't want to share this information with everyone. There will be people who will want (and as we should all know by now, some who will attempt,) to hurt you because of it. But especially for the time when you are still closetted, knowing who to trust is a tightrope, and one that can cause immense stress and anxiety.


Who do you tell, who do you leave in the dark.


In my case, the number of people I've told is very small. A little over a dozen at the moment, and not likely to change much in the foreseeable future.
And, none of those people were people I had any serious doubts about. One friend, I was slightly concerned how they'd take it, mostly because our relationship had always had a (joking) level of absurd machismo to it. To me, it was always obviously a joke, and I felt confident but not 100% certain that this was true of them as well. But that little voice that said "Yes but what if it wasn't a joke?" made a small doubt. Not enough to stop me, and it turned out fine so that was good.


But you need to be safe, you need to be careful. And, you need to trust your instincts. I was right to trust my friends, and that the niggling doubt was caused by anxiety.


I was also very much right not to trust certain other people with this information.




I bring this up, because of todays incident.


This was someone who, I'd never been really close, but someone who I'd been quite friendly with, and who, at one point, I'd have considered adding to the list. In fact, they were still vaguely on the "Might Get Told Before I Go Public" list along with a few other friends, and some family members who live a little further away and I don't interact with all that often. I still feel, that if I told them, they wouldn't have any issue with me being a girl.


But, at some point fairly early on in the friendship, (and in what I can't help but view as quite ironic, soon enough after I'd "corrected" (or mis-corrected as it turns out) their assumption of my gender.)
Anyway, I started to noticed a trend, that they seemed more likely to misinterpret me for the worse than most other people (it was something they do to most people as I'd seen, but I began to notice that it seemed to happen to me with a higher frequency.)


And it kept getting worse. This person, an artist, whose streams and hangouts were once a place I found very comforting, started to feel more tense. I found myself watching my words around them more often, walking on eggshells to avoid saying something that would get me snapped at. Eventually restricting myself to vague pleasantries and compliments most of the time. Occasionally, I would forget myself, and say something which, with sufficient effort, could be warped into an insult. Whenever I did that (or at least, often enough that I could usually predict it after I'd said the thing) he'd pounce, and I'd get some sort of derision, mocking, threat of being banned, or general demeaning commentary. Often, phrased in the "I am so wounded that people think I'm an idiot/asshole/whatever" way to make them seem the victim.


Eventually, fairly soon after (but also fairly unrelated to) realising I was trans, I stopped going to the streams altogether. I stopped following the artists twitter (because it was substantially notifications of said streams) and I mostly stayed away. Every now and then, I'd drop in, maybe say hi, often not even that, and watch the art. But I never felt comfortable or relaxed there anymore, and over a short time, the frequency of doing even that dropped to nothing.


Today, I went back again. It was my right near my birthday, and I'd recently forgiven someone else who had once been a friend, decided I would as part of the changing new me, try to be more forgiving and less bitter about past hurt. So I went with hope in my heart.


I didn't expect free art (though in the past it had happened to some of the regulars) and while I considered the probability that he may think that was why I'd come back, I thought that maybe birthday cheer would mean that instead I'd get maybe a doodle of one of their characters wishing me a happy birthday, or at least, a stream without them at best being lowkey an asshole to me.


No such luck.


I said something trying to be helpful, just in case he'd misread something, didn't want them to waste a lot of effort on an easy enough mistake. It was worded gently. He responded poorly. "Despite what people may think, I do know how to read."


So it's super obvious that I'm not welcome, and that his actions were generally being tilted towards making me feel unwelcome so I'd leave and if not, seem like an asshole so he can be even more rude or badmouth me till I do, or ban me or whatever, while not seeming like a insecure fuckwit himself.
So, after attempting privately to ask one last time for clarification what had caused this shift (and then getting publically called out for "spamming" him with (2 whole) PMs) I left.
I imagine (having seen such a thing before) that there will be (either on stream or afterwards on twitter) some "Woe is me, thanks for all the people who didn't make me feel bad today" tirade because of me. I likely won't know because at this point, I am done. Fuck that guy.


Except, as I said above, it's not that simple. I know he's a prick, who has hurt me, will hurt me again if I let him, and who doesn't deserve my respect, let alone my friendship. But my feelings haven't caught up with this understanding, even if it's been brewing for like, half a year.
And the really fucked up part, is that, because I still think that part of it was "He treated me better when he thought I was a girl" there was this small part of me that thought, maybe he'll treat me better again if he knew that hah, turns out I was after all. He would likely not have spread around my situation if he knew even in his shitty moods and method of trying to hurt me, that's never been his style or brand image, he'd probably be fine with it but continue to hate me for whatever reason it was in the first place.


That is abuse victim thinking right there, and I locked it right the fuck down.
And I was 100% right to do so. Who knows what the outcome would be? Not me, but doesn't matter. Wrong reason. Bad idea. Hard Pass.


It still sucks.




So the point I'm making applies to any number of situations, but because it resonates with me and my blogs themes, I'm mostly focusing on the trans aspect. Be careful who you trust. If you've got warning signs, especially ones that sound like emotionally abusive behaviour, hold back. Don't risk your mental, emotional, or physical wellbeing for a friendship you hope you have, had, or hope you can have again. People can turn on you, and it can be too quick to predict, but if there are signs, get out of there!


Be Safe.
Be Careful.


And know that relationships of varying degrees of intimate or platonic nature, will end for reasons both related to, and completely unlinked to, your gender and sexuality.


And that will suck.
And that will be unfair.


Life makes no promise of fairness of any kind.
Life makes no promises at all, except for one.


Be Safe.
Be Careful.


<3
LRP


Todays Vaguely Transition-Themed Song: The Cure - Bloodflowers
(It's hard to ever really know who to trust, how to think, what to believe... Who to choose, how to feel, what to do.)