U-Turn: a UU transman ponders sex, spirituality, and the power of stories

I once attended an odd little theatrical poetry-reading affair - the brainchild of an advanced English class - in which one of the performers, a tall, bearded youth, ascended the stage to nobly declaim a piece about Being A Man. In sweeping, over-the-top, glib hack-poetic phrases, he expounded the many virtues of Masculinity... until, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary-grin, he delivered the ending line (“For society has given me permission/ To have hairy pits!”) while proudly baring a well-furred underarm to the audience, then madly dashed offstage to thunderous applause. It was terrific. (As a side note: I’d really like to find that poem, so if anyone can identify it, please pass it on!) That memory floats by as I ponder what it will be like to really own the word man. You see, I don’t really consider myself a man - not yet. Male, certainly, yes, but not a man. And that has nothing to do with my body, appearance, or abilities... with anything I have or don’t have. It’s just that ...

Well, now that I’ve gotten the deep thinking out of the way (only temporarily - trust me!), I’m going to actually toss up this second post (two in one week, is that even legal?) just to catch up anyone who’s curious on what’s been happening in my transition process (rather than just in my head) during this unexpected break in communications. Because my big news, transition-wise, is that in mid-January I finally, finally, FINALLY started on testosterone. (!!!!!!!!) When the moment actually came, after SO many setbacks and false starts, I found that I was suddenly reluctant to immediately share that information with too many people. To be honest, I was still sure that SOMETHING would find a way to go wrong. I’d end up being horribly allergic to the preparation that had been prescribed, or I’d have some dreadful side effect - or, heavens forfend, cardiac symptom - that would force a re-evaluation, and start the whole roller-coaster all over again... But no. I have never been so grat...

As a lover of words, I’m quite fond of the phrase, from a Robert Burns poem: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men aft gang agley.” There’s just something about its compactness of metaphor, succinctly implying the highs and lows of ambition, as well as its old, foreign wording... “oft go askew” just wouldn’t feel the same. At the moment, I’m wondering how I let things go so far agley - er, I mean askew - that I haven’t posted to this blog in... ye gods, has it been THAT many weeks?? Of course, it’s easily blamed on the many unexpected challenges Life has recently gifted me - from a highly persistent respiratory infection that’s had me more or less laid up for nearly a month, to this insane run of quasi-crippling Antarctic East-Coast weather and an ever-so-slightly problematic home internet connection... but hey, if you don’t like any of those excuses, I’m sure I can come up with a few more! But in the meantime, I’m busy recalling some of the other paths and promises of my life, th...

Predicting the future has always been a tricky job, even when it’s just five minutes into the future. Is it going to rain? Will I miss the bus? Will she say yes? Things rarely go exactly as we imagine them. I sometimes wonder if that’s because our imaginations just aren’t big enough. These past two weeks have held a series of unexpected moments for me, both good and - well, let’s call it “not my preferred outcome.” Nothing truly bad, just... not the way I planned it. Moment #1: I finally get my prescription for testosterone. I literally had to sit in my car for a while to cry and shake and let out the tension. (Well, okay, so I could have stuffed it back in - very much “the guy way” to handle it and my usual instinctive way of coping - but perhaps one of the blessings of my odd gender-screwed life is having learned that it’s sometimes better not to.) I’ve mostly done a pretty fair job of pretending not to be worried, but the knowledge that medical problems unrelated to trans...

And so it’s the New Year. It's not a 2015 that I ever expected to find myself in. Or maybe, more accurately, I’m not the self that I’d have previously expected to find here. (Trust me, this is NOT a complaint!) I’m not the type of person who generally makes New Year’s resolutions. I’ve found that I’m either ready to make a change, or I’m not; the symbolism of a fresh new year doesn’t really provide me with any greater sense of push, in the long run. But I do consider the New Year to be a time for pondering, looking backward and forward, and for that matter inward and outward... taking the lay of the land, as it were. Looking back, it’s been a year of unexpected experiences, directions, and accomplishments. (And also times of tremendous nervewracking strain... but we’ll leave that aside for the moment!) I’ve been called brave for coming out as Trans, after half a lifetime in a closet I didn’t dare even consciously recognize as a closet for many, many years. I admit, I wrestled w...

This is the season for looking back, right? It has been an interesting year, to say the least... truthfully, the best year of my adult life. On March 2nd, 2014, I stood up in front of my entire UU congregation and outed myself as being Trans, via the following reflection. Rereading it has made me cry. I've come quite a distance since that moment. At that time, it was all very raw, very full of questions without answers. But being willing to start from there, openly - from a place of no assumptions or expectations - is what has made me able to move forward as honestly as I have. Looking back, I can see how far I've come in such a short time, toward knowing myself. So today, again, I share this with you. I've changed only one thing, the name - I used my "mundane" name on that day. I'm still choosing for now to not include that information in this blog, though I suspect I eventually will. Some of you were there. Some of you are "hearing" this fo...

Ah, another Christmas approacheth! And I’m remembering the Christmas maybe ten years back when I came out to my mom as gay. I had always wondered why, in heaven’s name, so many people seemed to choose Christmas or some other big family holiday as their moment for coming out. (It’s even become a standard warning, included in just about every list of what to do and what not to do when coming out: whatever you do, DON’T do it at Christmas!) I can’t think of a worse time, except possibly at a funeral - and I admit, I’ve done that, too, sort of. Go figure. What I finally realized is that there are simply certain times of the year, certain types of events, that automatically create, well, definitely not a good environment for coming OUT, but quite assuredly a horrible environment for being IN. People end up throwing wide their closet doors at Christmas because that’s when it suddenly feels the most stifling to be locked inside. At other times, closets merely feel small and cramped; but a...