Let's Get Physical
Warning: this installment may be a little... personal. No, it’s not about sex. It’s about my relationship with my body, and the changes it’s going through.
I’ve actually been trying to write this one for nearly two weeks, in various different (and unsuccessful) shapes. Finally I realized that I was trying too hard to be objective, or at least what might pass for objective... to be politely, even amusingly, distanced from my subject. Which is, of course, exactly what I’ve been doing with my body for half a lifetime... no surprises there, I guess.
So - we’ll try this another way... and I’ll tell you my own, very personal tale.
This may take a while. ;)
NOTE: Please be forewarned that this post contains some pretty plain language about male and female bodies, and about transitional bodies!
So anyway...
When I chose to ask my doctor to approve hormone therapy for gender transition, it was with the recognition that this would not be a fully controllable process. We could decide how much testosterone would get introduced into my body, and how quickly - but once it got there, it would do pretty much whatever it wanted to do.
Because my introduction to testosterone has been so slow, with low dosages and infrequent increases, it’s taken quite a long time for any visible shift to occur. But just over these last few summer months, small significant changes have finally begun. Well, significant to me, anyway! Because even small changes are proof that “T” is busily working away inside my cells - it’s not on an extended coffee break. And because even small changes can make a big difference in how I feel about inhabiting this body. It’s been frustrating, exciting, occasionally startling... and overall, deeply heartening.
I’d like to share with you what it’s like to live inside a body that is gently, gradually, redesigning itself, from a female pattern to a male pattern.
Sometimes I watch with eager attention, celebrating each tiny increment of change. Other times I’m caught out by a new element that somehow managed to emerge and establish itself without being seen in its earliest stages.
Right now the fascinating new front is body hair. Even while writing this, I just looked down and noticed another new expanse of previously bare skin now colonized by tiny dark hairs. When did that happen? How did I miss it?
The answer, of course, is that I generally don’t look at my body all that much. After all, I’ve spent most of my adult life pretending it didn’t exist, essentially feeling myself to be nothing more than a brain somehow mysteriously connected to a voice box and a pair of hands.
Well, old habits die hard. And although I knew these changes were in store for me, there was no telling when they might begin. So after the first rush of excitement at finally being allowed to begin my hormonal transition, I decided to just take things as they would come, without having any particular expectations to make me feel impatient or frustrated. (And considering that it took about six months for any visible change to occur, this was probably a good call!)
The first change I noticed, back at the beginning of summer, was that the many little short straight hairs on my forearms had become a veritable forest of longer, curlier ones - actually long enough to grasp and tug at. (Ouch!) I hadn’t been aware of it in the process of changing; there it was, just suddenly changed... past tense, a fait accompli. Wow, said my mind, with a smile. Way cool!
When I realized that the same effect was taking place lower down on my thighs and calves, the reaction went much deeper. To understand this, you need to know that over the years my multiple health issues have affected my body in many odd ways - one of which was the almost complete cessation of hair growth on my lower legs. It sounds stupid, but for me this was an extremely frustrating and alienating experience, yet one more reason to disown my traitorous body: that after half a lifetime of resisting societal pressure to conform to a feminine standard of hair removal, Fate and Mother Nature would cruelly conspire to make me look as if I’d given in... as if I wanted to look like a girl. And those hairless legs just didn’t feel like my own; they were alien to my sense of touch as well as to my gender identity. More than a decade past the horrors of puberty and, God damn it, someone is trying to take what’s left of my body away from me again! I could have cried. But hey, I already had a closet I was stuffing things into, so I used it. I pretended it didn’t bother me - but from then onward I wore long pants through even the hottest days of summer, every summer. Ten or fifteen years’ worth of hot, hot summers.
After finally coming out as a Transgender male, I decided that was stupid; let people think what they would, but I was going to have to find the courage to try to really live in this body again, as best I could manage, and I might as well start now. I began wearing shorts for the first time in many years, enjoying the relief and pointedly ignoring the discrepancy in my gender presentation caused by those hairless calves. Until one day a couple months ago I looked down and saw a haze of newly-awakening hair follicles doing their jobs, right where I needed them most.
Again I could have cried - but this time it was from a wholly unexpected feeling of deep peace. It felt like a gift: my own body, mysteriously gone missing so long ago, being returned to me at last. It may seem silly, but I am crying as I type this. Because now, to my sense of touch - that most intimate of senses - I feel like me again. An old, old pain is being comforted... well, all I can say is, try living in someone else’s body for half a lifetime and maybe it’ll make more sense.
Of course, there are also... complications... to this changing body. While new secondary sex characteristics emerge, the old ones don’t just go away. So when I tell you that a couple days ago I noticed that I’m finally starting to grow hair on my chest (hurrah!!!)... you might stop for a moment and think about what that actually means for someone whose gross anatomy is still basically female.
Yep. And now you can never unthink that thought. You’re welcome. :)
Though it’s usually recommended that transmen take testosterone for a couple years prior to “top surgery” (because the hormone causes changes that can affect the visual outcome of chest reconstruction) there are some who absolutely refuse to start hormone therapy until they’ve gotten rid of “the girls.” The argument tends to run along the lines of, “I already hate my body enough, I don’t need hairy breasts on top of that!” And I can certainly understand that point of view. But in my case the offending organs are so small (not objectively, but relative to my large body size) and I’m so accustomed to ignoring their existence (a trick which I learned with some difficulty, but learned well) that it really doesn’t bother me.
It probably helps that one other (wonderful!) result of testosterone can be that the breasts sometimes... um, let’s call it “deflate”... just a bit. As the body works on redistributing its fat deposits, they can lose a little mass - not much, not enough to remove the need for surgery (alas), but in my case, enough to make them a little less... well, intrusive might be the best word. Less “perky,” less obvious under a loose shirt, less likely to show their nipples to the world through thin fabric. Easier for me to ignore... easier for others to dismiss as mere “moobs.” (After all, I’m a big fat guy, I’m entitled to moobs!)
It probably also helps that I still identify as Genderqueer, i.e., someone who does not fully buy into the standard gender binary and hence isn’t particularly bothered by the mixing of gendered characteristics. This is not to say that I plan on keeping them - oh no! But my desire to get rid of them is not about making my body conform to society’s gender standards; it’s about making my own body feel right to ME. So if, in the meantime, they don’t conform to some outside standard - big whoop. Who cares?
I will admit to having a wicked temptation to randomly text my ex-girlfriend: “Hi! I have furry boobies. How are you?” Of course, she’s probably reading this blog right now (we’re still friends) and laughing her head off, so there goes the element of surprise... ;)
But getting back to the hairy issue (*cough*) at hand... transmen on testosterone are warned to expect hair growth not only on arms, legs, and chest, but also potentially on the back, shoulders, buttocks, abdomen, and other less obvious places. I haven’t yet detected any back hair, but as for the rest... *cough*... well, I am probably one of the few persons on this earth (or at least in this very body-hair-phobic culture) who can honestly say that they’re happy about having a hairy butt. (Yippee!)
Of course, for the sheer glee of it, the clear winner is facial hair. Those who know me IRL (“in real life”) may recall that I was hirsute enough, pre-testosterone, to grow a surprisingly fair little almost-goatee as soon as I stopped shaving. (Which I’d been doing at regular intervals, though nowhere near daily, just so as not to freak out the neighbors or my boss.) That was a godsend, since it has helped me to pass as male much sooner than I otherwise would have, and made it easier for me to handle the excruciatingly slow rate at which these other changes are taking place.
And that, I will admit, is the part that I’ve actually been watching with bated breath, looking to catch the changes as they occur.
A friend asked me a week or two ago, “So how do you like having a beard?” Unfortunately I was in a rush, so I just grinned and told her that I liked it juuussst fine. But what I especially liked was being asked the question - being invited to share some of what this amazing experience is like for me! So here’s what I would have said, if I’d had more time:
I have celebrated each little hair as it emerges. I have praised and encouraged them and invited them to bring friends. On occasion I have even counted them. (My “soul patch” started coming in with exactly seven little dark hairs. They’ve brought a few friends since then, but it’s still a small party.) When I finally felt that there was enough hair to trim it into some sort of neat intentional shape, rather than let it grow wild... that was an amazing moment. For the first time in my entire life I actually felt somewhat “sharp” and “put together” - a person consciously choosing a mode of self-presentation that felt right and looked good (at least to me!)... able, at last, to cultivate an image that fits the person I feel myself to be.
Transguys are warned that facial hair can take a long time (often years) to come in, and may first come in odd patches that don’t really add up to anything. I seem to be really lucky in this regard - and I’m not complaining! For the most part, new hair has been coming in pretty symmetrically and in a connected pattern. There’s still not much of it - but in the right light, I can see the line coming down from my sideburns (hey, look, sideburns, woot!) where the hair is still fine facial down but is growing suspiciously longer than the rest... and this absolutely tickles me. How’s that for a long answer to a short question!? Hell yeah I like having a beard!! :) :) :)
And then there’s the balancing point... for T giveth and T taketh away. So while we’re still on the subject... one of the other possible hair-related outcomes of female-to-male hormone therapy is the emergence of male-pattern baldness.
I was pretty sure this was in my future, considering that I’ve already had thinning hair on top since I hit puberty the first time. (Numerous people over the years have told me, ironically, that this is probably because my body produces too much testosterone - ha! - because of course even female bodies produce some. And of course, it’s the “too much” part that I disagreed with!) At any rate, as far as I can tell, this is indeed kicking in; I can’t be absolutely sure, since I’ve never really tried to keep close track of it, but it does feel and look as if the thinning has increased.
Now, baldness holds no particular fears for me. I like playing with appearances, and more than once previously I’ve sported a shaven head by choice; it’s a look that I like, and one that feels good to me (though the upkeep is a pain). So I’d simply decided that when the top got too thin, I’d just choose to keep it shaven, or else in a super-short buzzcut, both of which I like very much. None of this trying-to-hide-it, combover nonsense - ugh!
But there was something in the realization that, suddenly, this was no longer a game or a what-if, that some options had now been taken away from me permanently... well, the truth is, it threw me for the first real loop I’ve encountered in this transition process. Suddenly my mirror seemed to be showing me a definite, unchanging future... okay, kid, this is who you are from now on. It felt... strange. Uncomfortable. Not-me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Anyway, I’d promised myself, back at the start, that if I ever looked in my mirror and felt like... well, not entirely me... I would take it seriously, stop and look at that feeling head-on. Did this represent a dissatisfaction with my decision to transition to male? A desire to go back - or at least not to go forward? Because those are always options, and it’s important to me that I listen to whatever my real truth is, even if it’s unpleasant or embarrassing. If that were the case, I was determined to accept it and move on from there.
Just in case the suspense is killing you, I’ll tell you that, as it happens, that was not the case. I am happy as male - far happier than I’ve ever been before - and I plan to go on transitioning.
And the explanation to my discomfort was pretty simple, once I was able to calm down and think about it: The mirror lied, and for a moment, I believed it. Oh, there were other contributing factors - I’ll tell you about them if you ever want to know - but that was the big one.
In a moment of discomfiture, old habits of thought reassert themselves. And I was taught, all through my youth, to fear change, to see it as loss. I was also abjured to be serious and sensible and keep to my prescribed limits. And so in that mirror, for a moment, I saw myself locked into just one way of being - no more seeking, no more play. Time to settle down and get real, the mirror said (in, I now realize, my mother’s voice). Now you know exactly what you’ll be from here on in, so you’d best just accept it.
To which I can now say: Pshaw. I am a brave and smart and flexible person. I have unlimited potential, and a magnificent beard, and furry boobies - you're not even remotely qualified to judge what I can or can’t be, baby!
So THERE! :p
[P.S. ... while this post has rambled a bit, I hope it has at least wandered into some interesting places... :) ]
I’ve actually been trying to write this one for nearly two weeks, in various different (and unsuccessful) shapes. Finally I realized that I was trying too hard to be objective, or at least what might pass for objective... to be politely, even amusingly, distanced from my subject. Which is, of course, exactly what I’ve been doing with my body for half a lifetime... no surprises there, I guess.
So - we’ll try this another way... and I’ll tell you my own, very personal tale.
This may take a while. ;)
NOTE: Please be forewarned that this post contains some pretty plain language about male and female bodies, and about transitional bodies!
So anyway...
When I chose to ask my doctor to approve hormone therapy for gender transition, it was with the recognition that this would not be a fully controllable process. We could decide how much testosterone would get introduced into my body, and how quickly - but once it got there, it would do pretty much whatever it wanted to do.
Because my introduction to testosterone has been so slow, with low dosages and infrequent increases, it’s taken quite a long time for any visible shift to occur. But just over these last few summer months, small significant changes have finally begun. Well, significant to me, anyway! Because even small changes are proof that “T” is busily working away inside my cells - it’s not on an extended coffee break. And because even small changes can make a big difference in how I feel about inhabiting this body. It’s been frustrating, exciting, occasionally startling... and overall, deeply heartening.
I’d like to share with you what it’s like to live inside a body that is gently, gradually, redesigning itself, from a female pattern to a male pattern.
Sometimes I watch with eager attention, celebrating each tiny increment of change. Other times I’m caught out by a new element that somehow managed to emerge and establish itself without being seen in its earliest stages.
Right now the fascinating new front is body hair. Even while writing this, I just looked down and noticed another new expanse of previously bare skin now colonized by tiny dark hairs. When did that happen? How did I miss it?
The answer, of course, is that I generally don’t look at my body all that much. After all, I’ve spent most of my adult life pretending it didn’t exist, essentially feeling myself to be nothing more than a brain somehow mysteriously connected to a voice box and a pair of hands.
Well, old habits die hard. And although I knew these changes were in store for me, there was no telling when they might begin. So after the first rush of excitement at finally being allowed to begin my hormonal transition, I decided to just take things as they would come, without having any particular expectations to make me feel impatient or frustrated. (And considering that it took about six months for any visible change to occur, this was probably a good call!)
The first change I noticed, back at the beginning of summer, was that the many little short straight hairs on my forearms had become a veritable forest of longer, curlier ones - actually long enough to grasp and tug at. (Ouch!) I hadn’t been aware of it in the process of changing; there it was, just suddenly changed... past tense, a fait accompli. Wow, said my mind, with a smile. Way cool!
When I realized that the same effect was taking place lower down on my thighs and calves, the reaction went much deeper. To understand this, you need to know that over the years my multiple health issues have affected my body in many odd ways - one of which was the almost complete cessation of hair growth on my lower legs. It sounds stupid, but for me this was an extremely frustrating and alienating experience, yet one more reason to disown my traitorous body: that after half a lifetime of resisting societal pressure to conform to a feminine standard of hair removal, Fate and Mother Nature would cruelly conspire to make me look as if I’d given in... as if I wanted to look like a girl. And those hairless legs just didn’t feel like my own; they were alien to my sense of touch as well as to my gender identity. More than a decade past the horrors of puberty and, God damn it, someone is trying to take what’s left of my body away from me again! I could have cried. But hey, I already had a closet I was stuffing things into, so I used it. I pretended it didn’t bother me - but from then onward I wore long pants through even the hottest days of summer, every summer. Ten or fifteen years’ worth of hot, hot summers.
After finally coming out as a Transgender male, I decided that was stupid; let people think what they would, but I was going to have to find the courage to try to really live in this body again, as best I could manage, and I might as well start now. I began wearing shorts for the first time in many years, enjoying the relief and pointedly ignoring the discrepancy in my gender presentation caused by those hairless calves. Until one day a couple months ago I looked down and saw a haze of newly-awakening hair follicles doing their jobs, right where I needed them most.
Again I could have cried - but this time it was from a wholly unexpected feeling of deep peace. It felt like a gift: my own body, mysteriously gone missing so long ago, being returned to me at last. It may seem silly, but I am crying as I type this. Because now, to my sense of touch - that most intimate of senses - I feel like me again. An old, old pain is being comforted... well, all I can say is, try living in someone else’s body for half a lifetime and maybe it’ll make more sense.
Of course, there are also... complications... to this changing body. While new secondary sex characteristics emerge, the old ones don’t just go away. So when I tell you that a couple days ago I noticed that I’m finally starting to grow hair on my chest (hurrah!!!)... you might stop for a moment and think about what that actually means for someone whose gross anatomy is still basically female.
Yep. And now you can never unthink that thought. You’re welcome. :)
Though it’s usually recommended that transmen take testosterone for a couple years prior to “top surgery” (because the hormone causes changes that can affect the visual outcome of chest reconstruction) there are some who absolutely refuse to start hormone therapy until they’ve gotten rid of “the girls.” The argument tends to run along the lines of, “I already hate my body enough, I don’t need hairy breasts on top of that!” And I can certainly understand that point of view. But in my case the offending organs are so small (not objectively, but relative to my large body size) and I’m so accustomed to ignoring their existence (a trick which I learned with some difficulty, but learned well) that it really doesn’t bother me.
It probably helps that one other (wonderful!) result of testosterone can be that the breasts sometimes... um, let’s call it “deflate”... just a bit. As the body works on redistributing its fat deposits, they can lose a little mass - not much, not enough to remove the need for surgery (alas), but in my case, enough to make them a little less... well, intrusive might be the best word. Less “perky,” less obvious under a loose shirt, less likely to show their nipples to the world through thin fabric. Easier for me to ignore... easier for others to dismiss as mere “moobs.” (After all, I’m a big fat guy, I’m entitled to moobs!)
It probably also helps that I still identify as Genderqueer, i.e., someone who does not fully buy into the standard gender binary and hence isn’t particularly bothered by the mixing of gendered characteristics. This is not to say that I plan on keeping them - oh no! But my desire to get rid of them is not about making my body conform to society’s gender standards; it’s about making my own body feel right to ME. So if, in the meantime, they don’t conform to some outside standard - big whoop. Who cares?
I will admit to having a wicked temptation to randomly text my ex-girlfriend: “Hi! I have furry boobies. How are you?” Of course, she’s probably reading this blog right now (we’re still friends) and laughing her head off, so there goes the element of surprise... ;)
But getting back to the hairy issue (*cough*) at hand... transmen on testosterone are warned to expect hair growth not only on arms, legs, and chest, but also potentially on the back, shoulders, buttocks, abdomen, and other less obvious places. I haven’t yet detected any back hair, but as for the rest... *cough*... well, I am probably one of the few persons on this earth (or at least in this very body-hair-phobic culture) who can honestly say that they’re happy about having a hairy butt. (Yippee!)
Of course, for the sheer glee of it, the clear winner is facial hair. Those who know me IRL (“in real life”) may recall that I was hirsute enough, pre-testosterone, to grow a surprisingly fair little almost-goatee as soon as I stopped shaving. (Which I’d been doing at regular intervals, though nowhere near daily, just so as not to freak out the neighbors or my boss.) That was a godsend, since it has helped me to pass as male much sooner than I otherwise would have, and made it easier for me to handle the excruciatingly slow rate at which these other changes are taking place.
And that, I will admit, is the part that I’ve actually been watching with bated breath, looking to catch the changes as they occur.
A friend asked me a week or two ago, “So how do you like having a beard?” Unfortunately I was in a rush, so I just grinned and told her that I liked it juuussst fine. But what I especially liked was being asked the question - being invited to share some of what this amazing experience is like for me! So here’s what I would have said, if I’d had more time:
I have celebrated each little hair as it emerges. I have praised and encouraged them and invited them to bring friends. On occasion I have even counted them. (My “soul patch” started coming in with exactly seven little dark hairs. They’ve brought a few friends since then, but it’s still a small party.) When I finally felt that there was enough hair to trim it into some sort of neat intentional shape, rather than let it grow wild... that was an amazing moment. For the first time in my entire life I actually felt somewhat “sharp” and “put together” - a person consciously choosing a mode of self-presentation that felt right and looked good (at least to me!)... able, at last, to cultivate an image that fits the person I feel myself to be.
Transguys are warned that facial hair can take a long time (often years) to come in, and may first come in odd patches that don’t really add up to anything. I seem to be really lucky in this regard - and I’m not complaining! For the most part, new hair has been coming in pretty symmetrically and in a connected pattern. There’s still not much of it - but in the right light, I can see the line coming down from my sideburns (hey, look, sideburns, woot!) where the hair is still fine facial down but is growing suspiciously longer than the rest... and this absolutely tickles me. How’s that for a long answer to a short question!? Hell yeah I like having a beard!! :) :) :)
And then there’s the balancing point... for T giveth and T taketh away. So while we’re still on the subject... one of the other possible hair-related outcomes of female-to-male hormone therapy is the emergence of male-pattern baldness.
I was pretty sure this was in my future, considering that I’ve already had thinning hair on top since I hit puberty the first time. (Numerous people over the years have told me, ironically, that this is probably because my body produces too much testosterone - ha! - because of course even female bodies produce some. And of course, it’s the “too much” part that I disagreed with!) At any rate, as far as I can tell, this is indeed kicking in; I can’t be absolutely sure, since I’ve never really tried to keep close track of it, but it does feel and look as if the thinning has increased.
Now, baldness holds no particular fears for me. I like playing with appearances, and more than once previously I’ve sported a shaven head by choice; it’s a look that I like, and one that feels good to me (though the upkeep is a pain). So I’d simply decided that when the top got too thin, I’d just choose to keep it shaven, or else in a super-short buzzcut, both of which I like very much. None of this trying-to-hide-it, combover nonsense - ugh!
But there was something in the realization that, suddenly, this was no longer a game or a what-if, that some options had now been taken away from me permanently... well, the truth is, it threw me for the first real loop I’ve encountered in this transition process. Suddenly my mirror seemed to be showing me a definite, unchanging future... okay, kid, this is who you are from now on. It felt... strange. Uncomfortable. Not-me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Anyway, I’d promised myself, back at the start, that if I ever looked in my mirror and felt like... well, not entirely me... I would take it seriously, stop and look at that feeling head-on. Did this represent a dissatisfaction with my decision to transition to male? A desire to go back - or at least not to go forward? Because those are always options, and it’s important to me that I listen to whatever my real truth is, even if it’s unpleasant or embarrassing. If that were the case, I was determined to accept it and move on from there.
Just in case the suspense is killing you, I’ll tell you that, as it happens, that was not the case. I am happy as male - far happier than I’ve ever been before - and I plan to go on transitioning.
And the explanation to my discomfort was pretty simple, once I was able to calm down and think about it: The mirror lied, and for a moment, I believed it. Oh, there were other contributing factors - I’ll tell you about them if you ever want to know - but that was the big one.
In a moment of discomfiture, old habits of thought reassert themselves. And I was taught, all through my youth, to fear change, to see it as loss. I was also abjured to be serious and sensible and keep to my prescribed limits. And so in that mirror, for a moment, I saw myself locked into just one way of being - no more seeking, no more play. Time to settle down and get real, the mirror said (in, I now realize, my mother’s voice). Now you know exactly what you’ll be from here on in, so you’d best just accept it.
To which I can now say: Pshaw. I am a brave and smart and flexible person. I have unlimited potential, and a magnificent beard, and furry boobies - you're not even remotely qualified to judge what I can or can’t be, baby!
So THERE! :p
[P.S. ... while this post has rambled a bit, I hope it has at least wandered into some interesting places... :) ]
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