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.)