Unsurprisingly being back at home brings up a lot of gender feelings. Even if I didn't have to do a lot of last minute “coming out” it's still where my gender was minted. A lot of people remember me a different way.
My parents have been mostly okay. They get my name wrong a lot, pronouns they slip up and notice but don't really use they/them. It's going to take time.
I suppose the most hurtful thing was my mother got me a lot of coats—-womens coats. This is a pretty usual thing, I've never really been a fan. Never been one for clothes (though post NB I'm actually pretty into it) and these really obviously female coats were no exception. But that alone was fine, it's just when I told her I don't really wear women's clothes anymore, she didn't respond. Don't know if she didn't hear me. She didn't say anything at all.
I did get a chance to talk to her again about not wearing women's clothes the next day, and she didn't ignore me. Made me feel a lot better. I hope that it sticks.
I am now officially Ezra in the real world (facebook). Made a pretty casual announcement. We'll see how it goes.
I'm back, after a bit of a hiatus. Spent the last ~3 weeks not thinking about gender.
It was nice. Going to take my time to resume thinking about it.
I do have a trans friend who I shared my hormone date with though, it was nice.
At some point, at least a year in the past, I noticed I had a tiny moustache. And I had Big Feels. But god knows what they were. Can't even say if they were positive of negative.
I made a big deal of it but can't say it was genuine distress. Do Not Want or repressed excitement, it's up to you.
Hah. Sounded all confident in my post yesterday but today I'm back in doubt town.
It's the small bits of gladness for what I currently have that really get to me. Last night it was just holding on to my boyfriend as we feel asleep. Not exactly a gendered concept or even something that necessarily will go away. Can't say I fully understand it to be honest.
So, technically, I have a hormones date. This is very unexpected.
Been talking to a gender therapist (of course) and basically it's all boiled down to “Do I want to take hormones or not”. All other matters have boiled away or been settled into their place. As a next step she suggested speaking to an endocrinologist, so I got a referral. In the process of setting up an appointment, they also suggested I set up the follow-up where I'd actually get hormones, so I did. And now I have a hormones date. It's not til March, but it's there.
It's difficult to say how I feel about it. For a lot of trans folk, this is a matter of celebration, but often because it's often such a laborious process to be approved. Mine is a long ways off, but I didn't have any resistance—in fact, I didn't even have to ask, and wasn't even planning to.
But the effort and the payoff aside, it still seems a matter of celebration. After all, it's a big step towards becoming who you are on the inside on the outside too. In your brain and your blood and everything else.
I still have all my doubts about whether hormones are right for me, all my uncertainty over what I'll gain and what I'll lose, about whether I'd be happier staying as I am or if I changed. But, I think, overall, I'm looking forward to it. The uncertainty hasn't gone away but suddenly the anticipation has become concrete. I feel like I can hold both of them in my head now, feel them both at the same time. I'm still conflicted, but that's okay.
Turns out you don't have to have all the answers to feel that a choice is right for you. You're allowed to move forward even if you still have doubts. Don't have to be only excited or scared. Don't have to pick one or the other. You're allowed to be both.
;)
Oh, so I had a recap conversation with my parents. It went pretty well. I think we're on the same page mostly. Except they want me to spend more time talking to them but I'm like “I still don't really trust you to not hurt me but I am at least willing to try now”.
One blip was they asked me if my therapist was misleading / influencing / brainwashing me, and while everything about the conversation suggested they know this isn't a real possibility it still stung like fuck.
Asian parents man. They don't understand the concept of sometimes it's better not to ask.
I love male fashion.
Leather detailing, limited palettes, subtle changes in texture, contraposition of materials, hell yeah.
Also it doesn't make me feel like shit.
Got cat called for the first time this weekend. Don't condone the practice but damn was I pleased about that “Hi BOYYYYYSss~”
I remember first consciously thinking about myself this way when I was a teenager, before I'd heard of nonbinary or even started thinking about my own gender. They were just sort of an abstraction that I had a fancy about, once when I was sleep deprived late at night. I mostly forgot about them, but they still tended to manifest regardless.
Mostly they show up in my writing. I have a tendency to gravitate around a similar sort of two person dynamic, a male protagonist and a female deuteragonist (or antagonist). They're not always male and female either. I think I've done every gender combination besides female/female, though I have a story sketched out for that. The personalities and appearances aren't always as I've sketched out before, but that's the general outline. Or what the characters themselves aspire to be.
But you'll notice the female aspect has a more traditionally male role, and the male aspect a female role. I'm gender non conforming all the way down.