Life at the moment is different from how it used to be in many ways. And yet, it is exactly the same! I've been transitioned now since January. That is I live as a woman, I present as a woman, I have a female name, I am taking female hormones, & I am learning to speak and act as a woman. People call me Stella and refer to me using female pronouns. Most people interact with me now as a female - which is interesting and something I might talk more about another day.
I could say that I am already where I always wanted to be. And it would be true. But it is no longer where i want to be. By that I mean its just not enough. I always dreamed of being a woman. Then for decades I thought such a dream was ridiculous. Only in the last 5 years have I given serious thought, yet again, to becoming a woman. And if asked in the last 5 years how i would like to see myself in the future, for a while I would have said I'd be happy just being a man able to present in a feminine way and to opt out of the gender construct known as masculinity, something which never really suited me. Then, almost as if I had an epiphany, an event occurred which cut me loose from previous obligations and left me a free agent. Then I knew what I wanted. I wanted to live as a woman. Be a woman, to transition. But even then, I didn't think I could really carry it off. I was too much of a bloke. I asked a few people I knew and trusted what they thought and few of them could see me as a woman. It was disappointing, but wasn't going to stop me.
I'd been out as a woman a few times before and it always felt fraught, frightening and I was scared to death! I sneaked about. I hid. I wouldn't go anywhere by myself unless it was at night or I had a valid excuse, such as fancy dress.
These experiments coloured my expectations. I thought I would only get through this by hiding my face, under make up and behind a curtain of black, thick hair.
But, last year, I gradually feminised myself, almost imperceptably... with a clear goal in mind, but one I still wasn't sure I could get to. I used to look at pictures of trans-women coming out at work, their first day en femme in the office. I could never see that being me. Never! What a minefield... half the people in my office are women... how could I dare to enter that arena and hold my head up?
The gradual feminisation yielded great results and i slowly picked up friends and allies, both at work and in my private life, and, most importantly, through Twitter. i started going to a trans friendly LGBT pub near work on Tuesday nights... getting dressed in the shower room and travelling a couple of stops down to the Vauxhall Tavern. Through this period I became less frightened. I worked on my voice, my walk, my presentation in general. I tried out new outfits. I met up with friends all over London, and on two occasions even travelled out of London to meet people. I was given a name. I was shown how to apply make up so I mostly passed as cis female , which was an absolute revelation. I'll never forget that weekend in North Wales!
I wrote about most of this on my previous blog if you're interested... put Just Say Noam into Google or follow the link in yesterday's post.
So, flash forward to today.. I'm in the office wearing a faux leather skirt, a cowl neck top, and my hair and make up is extremely feminine. But when I'm getting on with things, out and about, I hardly even think about it. I have to spend a bit longer getting dressed in the morning... I never used to really worry about hair, and only ever dabbled in make up very occasionally! But once I'm out and getting on with my day I hardly even think about my appearance. This is serious progress!! It's becoming natural.
My job hasn't changed either.. my friends are the same, I do the same things... the same, all the same.
And yet different. I feel different. I'm happier. I tend to be more confident. I'm better with people. I have empathy. I'm more efficient at getting most things done. But there's more than that going on.
The differences manifest themselves in various ways... the confidence.. the smiles... the fact that I suddenly find myself attracted to men... but there is something happening deep inside me too. I no longer feel like a bloke. I don;t feel male any more. I have to assume that this absence of being male means I am feeling more female, but having never been female before, I'm not abolutely sure.
The women I know say they accept me as female. They say that they don't think for a second while talking to me that I am a bloke disguised as a woman. They say I am a woman. In actuality, I think I always was, which is why I was so crap at being a man. If they had said otherwise, its possible I would have given this whole thing up as a pipe dream. But its not just women who confirm my femaleness, plenty of men do too.
So that's me today... I am where I always wanted to be, but now I want more. I pass as female a lot of the time, but not all the time. I feel mostly female, but not completely... some of that latent male socialisation is still in there, i can tell... probably kicking and screaming, knowing its days are numbered! I see myself moving forward almost on a weekly basis. I think the first three months on HRT were bound to be like this though... eventually there will be a long period of no visible progress.. and I wonder how I will manage...
No comments:
Post a Comment