Alien Girlybrain

8 years ago on 2 September i stood up for two seconds in a courtroom and when i sat down my legal name was something different to what it had been before i stood up.

the judge even congratulated me which was nice.

i feel so much conflict now about having transitioned but for a short while in my early 40s i was full of certainty that this was the right thing for me. wish i could get that back, or know for sure that going back would fix anything. ah well.

Travis is just back from his followup visit with Dr Maddie and has his prescription for testosterone! Huzzah! He got a nine-month supply of testosterone cypionate, needles and syringes and a sharps disposal box for $74. He goes back in a month for a followup on the 13th—and I already had an appointment myself to see Maddie then, so we'll be able to go together! Yay!

I may be more excited about this than he is, but that's OK. I'm so happy for him being able to start on hormones and take the next step in his transition. Hormones have done wonderful things for me. I hope they are as beneficial for him.

I got my new social security card in the mail today. I'm official now! And damn if this doesn't make me feel extra-good! Now, if I could just get my driver's license squared away! I made a second attempt today only to discover the DMV is closed today. Budget cutbacks, I guess. Oh well, I'll try again on Monday.

Mike responded to my email…

( In which I am called out for being intolerant of his bigotry and asshattery )

On 3 August 2009 I took my first dose of estradiol. Since then I have taken a varying dose (between 2mg and 6mg) every day, with only a couple misses in there. When I started out, I was very masculine. I was worried that I’d started too late to derive any real feminisation from the estrogen, but a year later I can tell you that I have become very feminine in my appearance. Behaviour…well. :)

I had a party on Saturday with several friends, only one of whom I knew from the before times, but from whom we'd been separated for a long time and only reconnected with after I'd begun transition. I'd invited other folks who were, for one reason or another unable to attend, but I felt their presences in spirit.

It's so strange to me to think that I've been taking hormones for a year now. I've come a very long way in just one year. HRT itself is a huge undertaking, but I have also had major surgery as a part of my transition, in the form of my orchiectomy. Today I'm presenting all the time as Carla. My family knows, Travis's family knows, and all my friends know. Once my name change goes through next month the government will view me as Carla as well. My breasts have come in nicely, and I'm a small B, I think. Maybe a large A. I guess I should measure myself. It would be nice to know for sure.

Emotionally I feel so much more than I ever could before. I've heard this ascribed to estrogen's effects, but in my case I believe it's more to do with the lack of testosterone first caused by adding spironolactone to my regimen, and more recently my orchiectomy. When I was off spiro for a few weeks this year I lost contact with my emotions. I was numb. It felt to me as if my emotions were surrounded by a testosterone haze. The only emotions which could penetrate it were strong, sharp emotions like anger and impatience—which were the most prevalent emotional responses I felt before HRT.

Physically, I have changed. I'm softer, rounder. My butt and hips are larger. My hips—oy, how they have pained me this last year. My breasts have grown (and far larger than I ever imagined they'd be at the end of a single year) and my skin has changed. My hair grows faster and feels softer. My nails seem to be stronger, too. My upper body strength has fled me. I get cold more easily, endure heat a little better, and cool down from being overheated a lot faster than I ever did before. I even think my feet have changed size a little. I can NEARLY wear a size 12 in women's. The men's shoes I have are looser than they were a few months ago. Some of that can be attributed to stretching, but my Birkenstocks did NOT have a half-inch of play in the sole before.

I've dealt with a lot of depression during this first year, but I think I'm coming out of that stronger and better able to cope with things. I'm starting to take a long view toward my physical development. In women who are female assigned at birth puberty can take ten years to complete, and the same is true of trans women. In simple terms, I'm a 12-year-old girl just starting her journey to womanhood. Who just happens to have the body of a 43-year-old man. :)

And perhaps most amazing of all is the friendships I've formed over this last year. There are too many people to name here, and that makes me happier than you can know. I've met a few of you in person, and hope to meet even more in the coming year. I hope you'll stick around and see how things turn out. :)

It's been wonderful thus far, despite the severe depression I've experienced, and I cannot wait until the end of year two. I hope you'll stick around to see how I'm doing then!

Today has been a very good day, overall. I had a dental appointment with my dreamy dentist, Luke (yes, that's really his name). When I came out to Luke and my former dentist, Drew, both of them were instantly accepting and used my name and the correct pronouns in that same conversation. Since then Luke has been very considerate of me. Today he introduced me to his lab partner, Josh. I don't know where UCLA is getting its dental students, but both Luke and Josh are very good looking guys. And Josh is taller than me, which… wow, I kind of like that. :) But he was very cool. He shook my hand and said, "Nice to meet you, Carla". Later while we were waiting for the instructor we were talking about school and I mentioned my horrible semester of doom, and was talking about the stress and depression brought about transition and coming out, and he was very sympathetic. No judgment, no standoffishness, none of that, just easy acceptance.

The instructor was also very cool. She sat down and introduced herself to me and then said, "OK, let's see what you found in his mouth". I said, "Oh, actually… I'm transitioning, and you can call me Carla." She was kind of excited about it, and told me about another trans woman who's a patient of hers. She slipped on the pronouns, but always corrected herself and was very, VERY sweet, and used my name.

But the cutest moment today came when I got x-rays. The lady in the radiology department was so sweet. She sat me down and said, "Do I have the right patient? Is your name Bruce?" I responded that it was, but not for much longer. "What will your name be then?" "Carla." "Oh, Carla! That's a nice name! I like Carla!" She was so cute!

Things have been going very well for me, presentation-wise, even without makeup. My breasts are now large enough that, when I'm wearing a bra, they're plainly visible, even under men's tee shirts (which don't cling to boobs the way women's tees do). This is a major thing for me because it means I'm being read as female (boobs = girl in a lot of peoples' minds, it seems, though I know a few trans men who'd disagree) most of the time. Even without TRYING to present as female I'm being read as female. This is big.

Also?



Huzzah!

And then, to cap it all off? Travis ordered pizza for dinner! I love that man o' mine.

I am just now back from the Santa Monica Municipal Court where I have applied for and received a fee waiver and filed my petition for change of name. Everything went smoothly. First I went to the Civil Court filing window and filed my paperwork. Then I took the fee waiver and a copy of my papers to the courtroom I'd been assigned to for approval. Once my fee waiver had been approved I took everything back to the filing window where everything was finalised.

Once I was done at the courthouse I was able to go to the Santa Monica Daily Press and arrange to have my notice published. The court mandates the notice must run for four weeks, and the SMDP charges $60 for this, so I paid my money, got my receipt and came home.

My court date is 2 September, which is my mother's birthday. She's sure to be THRILLED about that. It's actually kind of funny. I started estrogen on 3 August, which is my father's birthday, and my name change will be granted on 2 September, Mom's birthday. I'm tickled that these two important dates in my life coincide with my parents' birth dates.

And now I'm here, utterly exhausted because I was stupid and walked home, but there wasn't a convenient bus. I do need to get out more and exercise, but this is kind of excessive.

Also, I need to make sure my Birks are fastened properly. They feel really loose and they slip a lot. I got a blister today, on TOP of my right food. Oddly enough, this matches one on my left foot I got a few weeks ago in Portland. There's a very good possibility that they don't fit correctly because my feet have shrunk, or at least changed their shape. This is one of the oddball effects of estrogen, the rearrangement of foot bones and sometimes other parts of the body. My hip bones have moved a bit (and not without a considerable amount of pain, I might add). I know others whose feet have shrunk, some whose wrists have narrowed, others who've lost physical height. And I do know my feet are different because the size I was fitted for is a 12.5-13 men's, which means I should wear a 14-15.5 women's, but I can fit a size 12.5 women's.

And now…I must rest.

Tonight I was very, very depressed. That's not the point of this post, but I wanted to put that out there so you have a frame of reference to work in. There are reasons for this, and I think the biggest is the fact I've dropped my dose of estrogen from 4mg/day to 2mg/day. When I dropped from 6mg/day to 4 it played silly buggers with my moods. So while I was feeling like shit, I went and had a shower and s shave, because sometimes a girl just doesn't feel her best when she's sporting a week's growth of beard, you know? And as I was dragging those thin strips of metal over my delicate skin I kept thinking, ”This is only temporary. By the time I go to bed tonight my face will be prickly again.“ And so it is. :(

This has lead me to consider priorities for my transition. Mind you, while I was deep in the throes of this depression tonight I was seriously considering ending my transition and just going back to living as Bruce again, leaving the estrogen out of my daily regimen and getting back to my old, eating-myself-to-death dietary habits. That's right out, by the way. While I've not been taking as good care of myself during recuperation as I might otherwise want to, I AM NOT going to stop transition. If anything, I need to step it up. So here are my priorities, in no particular order:

1. Name change.
2. Voice.
3. Presentation.
4. Get in better shape.
5. Finish electrolysis

Voice could be construed as being part of working on my presentation but I think it's pretty important, so it gets its own entry. Under presentation you might find things like learning how to put on my makeup, or do my hair, or pick out nice outfits. These things are important to me.

I have the documents here for my name change. The legal support folks at the Center started working on them. I don't know for sure what needs to be done to finish preparing them, but I think tomorrow instead of sitting on my ass watching movies and cartoons all day I'm going to read the Transgender Law Center's ID guide and see what I need to do, and then go file the documents. The sooner I file them, the sooner I will have the name I desire.

My voice…well, I have tapes and DVDs to listen to and watch which are meant to help me with finding my female voice. I think my voice as it is isn't bad, but obviously it's not as good as it could be because people asking for Carla on the phone are surprised when I say, "This is she." *sigh* Practise, practise, practise, though. I wish I could afford to see a voice coach, but they are not cheap. There's a speech pathologist in Burbank named Joanna Cazden who I think could be helpful to me, but her prices are, even with her student discount, a bit high. Still, she might be worth consulting a few times. We'll see.

And then there's my facial hair, the single largest source of body dissonance. I need to start going to electro again, frustratingly slow though it may be. If I could afford it, I'd book Layla and her daughter both to do a marathon 6 hour session on me. But I don't think I could stand to be still for that long. I couldn't afford to do both electro AND voice therapy at the same time, unless I did them on alternate weeks. It's a thing to consider.

Presentation isn't really something I need to focus on all at once. In fact, it's probably the lowest priority on this list. I'll work on learning to do my makeup gradually. I can do my nails fairly well already (though I'd still rather go to a salon and have them done professionally). I also need to expand my wardrobe a bit. I've got lots of nice tops, but really only two pairs of pants: a pair of cargo shorts (which are super cute and fit me VERY nicely post-op) and a pair of black jeans (which can be dressed up or down as needed) but which are too loose on me. I have several skirts, but only a couple of those are ones I feel comfortable wearing out of the house. What I'd like is a nice pair of blue jeans and maybe a pair of khakis.

And as for getting in better shape…eh. We'll see. I'm not going to make any grand predictions here. Right now I'm too weak to do much in the way of exercise. Just standing up makes me lightheaded. So for now this one goes on the back burner. I guess I was wrong about my presentation being the lowest priority then. :)

So there we are. I welcome comments and advice, especially in regards to learning to put on makeup. And now I think I'm going to try and get some sleep. Maybe this time I won't toss and turn for an hour and then spend ten minutes crying because I remembered out of nowhere that a dear friend is dead. Yay.

Exactly two weeks ago today (8 July), on 24 June, aris_tgd drove me to Lake Oswego to Dr Tuan Nguyen's office for my orchiectomy. Since then I've been on a bit of a roller coaster ride to recovery. I've been seriously weakened, unable to do much for myself apart from sit around watching TV and movies. What a hardship, I know. Last week I went through some post-surgery depression, brought on by a variety of factors which I've already talked about in excruciating detail, so I'll spare you a re-hash. The depression isn't over yet, but it has faded fairly quickly. I'm coming to terms with my new body, and things are looking good.

( Cut for TMI )

Emotionally I've settled a lot. I still cry my eyes out over emotionally powerful scenes in the TV series I've been watching (Babylon 5, mostly) but I'm not dissolving into a ball of tears and snot every time some little sad thing happens. I feel happier and more confident. The other day I walked to Fosters Freeze (which is literally 300 feet from our house) and when my turn at the counter came up, the lady (who knows us because we come in a lot) said, "What you you like, ma'am?" I was ridiculously, STUPIDLY happy about that. It was exactly what I needed to hear. :)

Physically I seem to be OK, but I am still terribly weak. My stamina is gone. The least effort leaves me puffing, it seems. I have good days and bad days, but it's frustrating. My feminisation is continuing. I seem to be returning to how I was before having to quit spiro in March. My upper body strength is disappearing. The other day I picked up a six pound box and it felt easily two or three times as heavy to me. Annoying though this is, it's an excellent sign. I'm also starting to get cold more easily again. I'm also starting to re-connect to colours, too. It's slow, but it's happening, so I'm OK with that.

I'll try and find other stuff to talk about now. :) If something major happens I'll tell you, otherwise I'll give you an update on my progress in another couple weeks.

I'm in a hell of a lot of pain tonight. I have but a few percocet left, and while Russann says she's mailing me a refill prescription, I have no way of knowing when it's going to get here. The five pills I have left might have to suffice for a week, I don't know.

But that's not the only area in which I'm suffering tonight. Two people have made comments today which (unintentionally, I know) have made me feel like a freak. I am pretty much asexual. I don't enjoy sex, and I don't want to have sex. Physical contact is pleasant, and I love flirtation, but I don't want it going any farther. But these comments were phrased in a way that made it sound like there was something WRONG with me for feeling this way.

Ordinarily I'd just shrug this off but today…today I've been in a strange emotional space. I think this is because of the operation, though whether it's because of the absence of testosterone or whether it's because I've radically altered my body and I need to work through that change emotionally I cannot say. A friend told me tonight that any kind of surgery carries with it the risk of emotional turmoil, and something as radical as orchiectomy is going to have its own special flavour of turmoil. I've carried my testes around as a part of me for forty-three years, and now suddenly they're GONE. Ignore the fact this is an apparently simple out-patient procedure. My TESTES ARE GONE. Men and MAAB people are told from an early age that their genitalia are central to their value as human beings. We're told that anyone whose genitalia are damaged or malfunctioning is less of a man. And I'm afraid I've internalised a lot of that bullshit, no matter how much I despise my body and my genitalia. So I've got that to work through. I hope I can get this sorted because I don't think I can deal with this emotional turmoil much longer.

And I don't think Dorothea's transphobic email helped, steeped as it was in language which recalled an especially poisonous Chick tract called Wounded Children which I read as a child. It damaged me mentally and emotionally and lead to me believing that I was a horrible person for having body dissonance and believing I was a little girl. So that…yeah, that didn't help one fucking bit.

So once I process all this crap maybe I'll be OK. Maybe. And maybe one of these days I'll post about something other than my orchi. Maybe.