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.)

A Little Bird Told Me

Twitter doesn't know I'm a girl.


Today, I discovered, in what is a fairly Icky Move, that if your twitter account doesn't have a gender selected in the options, Twitter will select one for you. It does this based on its observations of your behaviour apparently, though what observations or behaviours, I do not know.


On my Original Recipe Me account, which has been around much longer, I am fairly certain I have never identified my gender. I just went and checked the slightly over 400 tweets I've not deleted in various purges (which i stopped doing a while back because I decided that ICBF) and not a single one do I say anything to identify my gender explicitly. I say a few things that sort of imply female in replies but not heavily. It's possible I said something in one of the deleted tweets, but I doubt it. In fact, online I pretty studiously used gender neutral language when talking about myself for years prior to reaching my understanding.


Twitter decided that account belonged to a guy.


My LRP twitter account, which has fewer tweets, and has only existed for a relatively brief time so far (but does have a much higher percentage of "public" tweets) is, according to Twitter, of Unknown gender.


That's kinda hilarious to me. The account where I carefully avoided discussing or revealing my gender, they picked something for. They got it wrong, but so did most everyone else for thirty years, so I'm not blaming them for that. The account I created specifically to discuss my nature as a trans girl, and use pretty much exclusively to talk about my gender, that one, they're not sure about.
I don't know what algorithm they use to determine what gender they give to their users, but looking for tweets about being a girl doesn't seem to be part of it.


Honestly, I think they must mine other sites with that username. It's possible, on some other sites, I had ticked a male box under my initial signup, since some of them were created well back before "leave this unspecified" was an option, and some probably before I realised I preferred not to say. But I definitely never told twitter one way or another.


Anyway, that whole thing is somewhat gross. There have been, so far, two saving graces.
The first, is that I have seen some "Assigned Male At Twitter" jokes, and I appreciate those.
The second, is that the options they provide for selecting a gender if you're not keen on the one they have given to you, are Male, Female, and "Other" which is a blank field for you to write whatever you want in.
So they might be doing a bunch of research into how best to market to people who identify as "Fuck You Twitter" in the near future.
(In all seriousness though, the option to write in your own is more progressive than most any other site I've seen, and way way better than what I expected. I'm not criticising them for that, just for their "if you don't pick one we'll snoop about and pick one for you" stance.)


I should, I suppose, end this with a link to my twitter account, as well as mention that my blog is being crossposted on Tumblr
Both links should be over to the right of the post under "Where to find me"


<3
~LRP

A Girl Of My Dreams.

I was never the most vivid of dreamers, and much more often than not, would not recall much if anything about them, even immediately after awakening. In the dreams I did recall, I usually didn't notice my gender.  For the longest time, I assumed that I was male in most of them. I knew, whenever I was aware of my gender, I was always female. At the time, I took that to just be observation bias, if I was aware of my gender, it was because it was different and thus noticeable. I cannot recall a single instance in which my gender was prominent or notable, and also male. But again, even now, I cannot help but wonder if that's just bias, rather than a definitive sign.


I recall feeling more "at peace" after waking from these dreams, and they would always evoke the relatively common "it'd be nice if" daydream/thought process, but, as with all the other signs, none quite managed to get enough of a foothold against the surprisingly flimsy reasons against them.


Since beginning HRT, I have been remembering dreams on awakening slightly more and more vividly when I do. Not a massive uptick, but more, and they never seem to make any effort to show me stuff I'm hoping for. In them, I'm still more often not aware of any gender. Any post-waking analysis or mental retelling of them casts me as female, but again, I can't take that as having any direct value either. My understanding is that dreams are presented in a short burst of semi-incoherent images and feelings, and that the brain processes them, creating stories and linearity out of apophenia driven storytelling urges. So, I still don't think there's any grand meaning to my gender or lack thereof in my interpretations of my dreams.


I bring all this up because I've seen comments about the subject from various trans girls and their experiences and interpretations are as varied at they are., and felt that my own might help add one more point of data to the scatter plot. But also, I bring it up because of a story a friend recounted to me this morning.


They'd had a dream in which I was present, as an older brother. A bunch of stuff happens (as it is wont to do) including me getting kidnapped, but the way it ended was noteworthy. Apparently, the dream ended with a voice over epilogue, in which I was declared "Happy and safe, and had everything they needed." which is a lovely sentiment, especially coupled with the images at the time, of a sort of Cinderella transformation, and I quote, 'a lovely girl meeting you with a look of love on her face.'


That sounds pretty fuckin good to me. A++ sign me up for some of that bibbidi bobbidi boo!


My friend commented that upon waking, they were exasperated with their subconscious for starting me off as an older brother, but eventually decided to go easy on it because "It got the ending right after all."


I feel, as I told them, that this was all perfectly apt and understandable. I mean, my LIFE begun with me cast as an older brother, involved some confusion and misassumptions about gender, then a bunch of stuff happened (as it is wont to do) and now we're here. So, as I begin my slow magical girl transformation sequence, I can only hope that life too, gets the ending right.


<3
LRP


Current Vaguely Transition-Relevant Song: The Cranberries - Dreams
(All my life is changing every day, in every possible way.)

Birthdays and Rebirthdays.

My birthday is coming up within the next week. My first birthday since I realised I was trans.
And I don’t know how I feel about it.


I’ve never liked my birthdays much. Or, perhaps it would be better to say that my birthday and the celebrations I am expected to participate in because of it, have made me uncomfortable since sometime around puberty. It’s not that I don’t like my birthday, or that I care one way or the other about my age, it’s more that around that time I developed my distinct dislike of being the centre of attention, and my general anxiety at the thought of socialising (I’m usually fine in small groups once it happens, but I definitely preferred to avoid it anyway) and a Birthday, especially mine, has always been a high-end compilation of those things.


I liked getting presents, especially thoughtful and interesting ones. I just didn’t like getting or opening them in front of a group of people much.


I liked cake (though my current diet makes me a little wary of it, I’ve reached the “Fuck it, I’m doing OK” level of results and HRT driven increase of self happiness that I’m more inclined to indulge) I just didn’t like people singing to me when I get it.


I liked spending time with friends, and to usually a bit lesser extent, spending time with my family but doing that when I am the focus of attention drains me faster, and my introverted nature kicks in fairly hard.


I liked nice food (although I tend to get twitchy about how much eating out costs, I’ve always been a fairly spendthrift kind of gal, and that’s only solidified now that I have a pretty hefty stack of medical bills in my future. Even when someone else is paying, I tend to pick the cheaper options on the menu.) but I generally much prefer eating in than going out.


I think, on some level, I’ve just never really liked celebrating being me.


But, maybe now things have changed a bit. A substantial part of Pre-LRP-Me’s personality was formed by the effects of undiagnosed dysphoria, how much is not clear, but in my periods of self reflection, I stumble across new nuggets of “Well, I wonder if this is a part of it too” all the time. Certainly I expect it is at least part of the stuff above. The last part certainly sounds like it.


So, maybe the new me likes her birthday. Certainly I feel there is more to celebrate this year than there has been for the last several. Or, maybe not. Realising I was trans has given my desire to not be focused upon some perspective and explanation, but it’s also given it some new pretty good justifications too. I feel safe with my friends, with my family. Everyone who knows (a quite small number actually, a little over a dozen) is someone I trust, and since I am not “Out” or otherwise presenting in the wider society, and my HRT is not far enough along that I’ve got anything that might be noticeable to an outside observer, there’s no real threat for me to be worried about at the moment. But I have some idea of what is coming down the track, eventually, and if nothing else, my anxieties are looking slightly more like a justifiable fight or flight response in training.


Maybe that will make it harder for me to enjoy this event. Maybe it will just counteract the reasons I’ve got for me to enjoy it more than I have in the past, and it will all even out. Maybe it’ll be great. Point is, for the first time in close to 20 years, I am less able to predict how I will feel about the day, or on the day.


One more Not-New-But-Viewed-Through-New-Eyes experience.


And then there is the other issue. My upcoming birthday is when the Old Me was born, and on some level I am already trying to separate that identity from what New Me is becoming and will become. Plenty of trans people celebrate their Rebirthday, and that concept has more direct appeal. I’ve never had a big connection with my birthday, even when I was young and enjoyed the party or whatever. This Rebirth, however, has direct links to the “have more to celebrate” thing I mentioned earlier. I’m pleased, and proud of what is going on. So surely there’s something to be said for celebrating that one instead (or as well.)
Plenty of people do, and maybe I will too.


Only, this is a transition. It’s a journey, so when do I celebrate that journey? A lot of options present themselves, any number of which could be the “moment” of my rebirth, and I don’t know which of them, if any, to use. Which ones are Milestones, and which are more Stepping Stones, things to be cheered as they pass, but not necessarily turned into a ongoing celebration. For me, I expect my feelings will not change drastically enough that I’ll want to celebrate multiple yearly events, certainly not to any big level. Some may though, and good for them, but for now at least, I’m still not really sure I want to celebrate once a year!


Anyway, here is my list of candidates so far.



There is the day I realised.


The day the scales fell from my eyes and I looked back at my life and went “Well that all makes much more sense now.” (something I continue to do in fact, for all that it is a sledgehammer sometimes, Dysphoria is a subtle bitch too.)
Except of course, that in my case, that wasn’t really a day. I made no note of the day first vocalised to myself or otherwise had the single coherent thought that “I am trans, I am a trans girl and that is who I have been all along.” probably because, at the time, I had some fairly heavy shit on my mind, and chronological documentation was a priority that fell by the wayside. I can nail it down to a chunk of time, knowing it happened between different dates I have records of, the first, being the thing that stood out to me as unusual enough to warrant further consideration, the second being when I first wrote an email with the phrase “I have recently come to the conclusion” but those are further apart than I realised, so while I am fairly sure it was within a few days of the first event, and definitely at least a week prior to the latter, its still way less precise than it could be, so may not suit.



Then there is the day I first came out to anyone.


If that’s including medical professionals, it’s a fairly rubbish date and not a great impact anyway. It didn’t feel like an epic step, it wasn’t without nerves that I wrote that email, but it wasn’t exactly a momentous feeling either.
I know I’d figured it out on my own by then, and was mostly putting it out there as a bit of “I’d always considered myself a fairly self-reflective guy, and apparently I was dead wrong about one of those things, and the fact that I missed noticing that for a good ten plus years after I probably should have seen doesn’t speak very highly of the rest of it either. So maybe an outside opinion to check I haven’t missed something else equally massive is warranted.”


If we instead go with the more personally impactful (and more nerve wracking) “Day I First Came Out To Friends and Family” then that’s a better day (although it does fall perilously close to my brothers birthday, but the comedy of timings of my coming out is a story for another day) and potentially marks a better day as the beginning of my “rebirth” but it’s also somewhat external and the awkwardness over the timing makes for a nice anecdote but not so great a Momentous Date In History so it doesn’t really feel right either.



There’s the day I started HRT


The day I actually began taking chemical, tangible steps towards my rebirth. This one, honestly, seems like the front-runner at the moment. It’s also the one most other girls I’ve talked to have used. This one has the advantage of being something I directly chose, something I did physically and not just mentally, and contributed the most to the changes that are ongoing. It also, in a kinda neat way, means that my rebirthday falls in the same month as every other blood relative female in my immediate family except for one, my aunty who is a little over a month earlier.
(I could also celebrate the day I first got my prescription for HRT, a day about a week prior to starting to take them I guess, but again, while it was definitely a big deal, I think there are bigger deals had, and definitely bigger deals to come.)



Those are the milestones I have passed already, the ones I have a definite date (or chunk of probable dates) to pick from so far. But there are some pretty big milestones that are to come, and maybe one of them will be better.



There’s the day I first start presenting as female.


This one, for me, is likely to be a fair way off, because it ties in pretty closely (probably, in fact, all but the same day ) as another upcoming milestone



The Day I get Facial Feminisation Surgery.


That’s likely two years away at least. Stuff is expensive, and I want the hormones to have had a good time to get their part of the work done. It’s possible, once they have, that I won’t feel the need, or that I may start living publically as a girl before then anyway, but I’m pretty sure at the moment that I’m going to want some work done, and the “plan” at the moment, is to not come out socially until I’m comfortable presenting and passing at work (an entire other thorny issue I am not going to get into here, this is already turning out pretty long)



There’s the day I get my Junk-Sorted.


That is likely at least another year or so further down the track from FFS. Unless I find myself with a very unexpected financial windfall, I expect to keep my penis for a good three or more years. I’d prefer it gone, but it’s definitely not the most important priority in this journey for me. Also means, in a lot of ways, it’s not the most important symbol of that rebirth either. It is though, likely the last “tangible defined moment” on that transition. Not the end of the Journey, but the end of the map.



Each of those have some sense of finishing a part of the journey, and birthdays are when we’re born, not when we’re conceived, so there is something symbolic there too. They’re also something I have some degree of control over, so that’s nice. Maybe I can book my FFS or Dewanging on my original birthday and kill two birds with one stone!


And then there are other milestones that are completely dictated by events outside my control. I don’t think any are especially solid as a Rebirthday candidate, but they make for days potentially worthy of celebration at least on the day. So these would almost certainly be more those Stepping Stones I mentioned. Things like “The day I was first correctly gendered by a stranger.” (hopefully the same as the day I start presenting as female, but you never know your luck, may happen earlier than that, or my first attempt may go disastrously) or “The day I first looked in the mirror and saw a girl looking back.” (We know the brain lies about what it sees, who knows when that will be!)


Those ones, as I said, don’t seem to be days that directly mark a Rebirth, although they do in some ways mark pretty important milestones in that transition, and might be worth celebrating. I think, for me, those would be a “celebrate it on or around the day” thing (in the same way as “Day a friend first used female pronouns unprompted” was) rather than a yearly remembrance. Likewise, things like “[X] days on HRT” “1 year on HRT” etc, which are definitely worthy of note, even if only a small smile and a treat for myself or whatever.

So, that’s where I’m at right now on the subject. I have often said when questioned about my stance on birthdays, that I don’t really have a problem with the idea of celebrating a birthday, I just don’t particularly like celebrations in general, or celebrations of mine in particular. But, well, the one I’m approaching, maybe that isn’t a celebration of me, but of Old Me, and maybe that will make things easier too. I have a bit less than a week to ponder, and then I’ll (maybe) know how I felt.


<3
~LRP


Current Vaguely Transition-Relevant Song: Ben Folds Five - Smoke
(Those who say the past is not dead can stop and smell the smoke.)

Hellos and Welcomes

So I have decided to start a blog. I guess I’ll get to why in a bit, but first, I should introduce myself.


Hi, I’m LittleRedPanda, welcome to “More Expensive - Less Pockets”
I’m in my early thirties, I live in Australia, and I’m a trans girl.


Which is, I guess, a big part of why I am starting a blog. I’ve never really had one before, so this will be yet another new experience for me. (I seem to be collecting those.) In the past, I’ve never really felt like I have anything to say, or anything much to share. But now, I have, and am having, experiences that might help someone. Some blogs out there have really helped me recently, just by sharing their experiences, and letting me see the things we have in common, and the things that impacted us differently. They let me know I wasn’t alone. An event had left me feeling suddenly quite isolated, but then, the very next day I stumbled onto another aussie girl. Her experiences matched my own in a lot of ways, and it really helped me feel like connections may be easier to make than I expected after all. If this blog helps out someone in a similar way, then I’ll be happy, but either way, I figure that it may help me to clear my own thinking, share some stories, and make some friends.


The name comes from the fact that as someone moving from Guy Clothes to Girl Clothes, I could expect to find my future getting more expensive for less pockets. I’m not really sure what this blog will become, I have a few post ideas sketched out, and an overall feel for things right now, but a lot in my life is changing (that’s kinda the point, actually) and so who knows where this will end up. I will offer this promise at the start though. I am new at a lot of things, and I will probably mess up. If I do, please tell me, and I’ll try to sort it out. I will do my best.


A general content warning, I will be posting about my transition a lot, which will involve talk about some more mature subjects. If you’re not going to be comfortable reading about genitals, about surgery, about mental health, sexuality, or discussions about privilege, transphobia, or other social issues, this may not be the blog for you. I’ll try to tag and offer specific content warnings, and if you’re a reader with specific triggers, let me know and I’ll try to accommodate them too. I am also likely to swear, so if such language bothers you, then maybe keep it to yourself. I will absolutely not say that this is an 18+ space, because plenty of kids might benefit from this information too, but please be careful ok.


I should also mention, if you’re someone who knows me in my other life, then you might show up in the stories here, no names, of course, but you might be able to pick who you are, or you might think you can. If that (or what I might say about you) bothers you, maybe don’t read, or let me know, and I’ll warn you away from any relevant posts.


I hope you like it here. I hope I do too.


<3
~LRP