Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 - 1:23am
post-FTM is kinda like post-modern, innit?
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There are reasons that I'm indecisive about the FTM conference. I'm not sure how much I really have in common with other FTMs. We share some experiences (mostly related to taking testosterone as adults), but my history pre-transition is pretty different from most trannies I've met.

I'm thinking about doing a panel about post-transition FTMs who aren't really satisfied with living as a man. I'm one of those people, and it never gets talked about, and anything that "isn't talked about" I want to talk about. Could I go to this FTM conference as a non-FTM or post-FTM or whatever I might be? If I decide to go back to living as female (in whatever capacity), I don't want to be the one who disappears, never to be heard from again. I want other FTMs (and pre-FTMs) to know that it can happen. It can happen to me; it can happen to you.

Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 - 4:13pm
stuff people may be wondering about, or things that have been on my mind for weeks
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In my last entry, I mentioned that I might go back to being a girl, in part.

There are lots of things going on, of course. There's not one individual reason that's making me think about changing. (Nor is there one individual person; the crush is merely one more straw on the camel's back.)

Part of it is the ongoing fight to look masculine. Whenever I wear anything that's not a plaid flannel shirt, I run a 50% likelihood of being read as a girl. Whenever my hair gets longer than 1 inch, likewise. If I bleach my hair, doubly. If I wear rings or earrings, again. If I smile, if I wear bright colors, if I wear my apron at my job, if I talk on the phone, if my ID is checked, if I'm out with a group of women. It's frustrating, to say the least. And it's not so much that I get upset every time I'm read as a girl, because I don't. It's that I'm making all these efforts, and if I slack for a moment, the sum of all those efforts is a failure to pass as a guy.

Those things I do to make myself look more masculine? They almost always make me look or feel unattractive. I hate plaid shirts. I look better with longer hair. I like bright colors and accessories and being clean-shaven and tidy and all those things that seem to get read as female. I miss being pretty.

Things I'm happy with: testosterone, and 90% of the changes it has caused. I intend to stay on T for a number of months, at the very least. I may stay on it until I want to get pregnant (not in the immediate future) or it causes some other health issues. I love not having periods. I like putting on muscle mass when I go to the gym. I like my sex drive, even though I am my only outlet for it.

I'm also pretty happy with my chest. It's been about 5 years since my surgery, and it hasn't caused me any troubles. I like taking my shirt off when it's hot. I kinda miss having my chest stick out farther than my belly, but the belly can be remedied if I care enough. (T also increased my appetite for food.)

The other thing is that my sexuality - my identity when thinking about (or having, although it's been a long time) sex - is pretty much female. I feel like a girl when I have sex or when I think about sex, or at least I feel like what I think a girl feels like. Also, I seem to be attracted to straight guys about 10 times more often than I'm attracted to gay guys. I'd like to date again, and I'm tired of being dismissed by most of the people I might want to date. For as much as I am queer, I've always had reservations about queer culture - I fit in more with geeks and nerds than with gays and lesbians.

So, yeah. I'm not planning to stop taking T or to have breast implants put in. What I'm doing now is ceasing the stupid, pointless, ugly-making artifice. I'm letting my hair grow in (It's up to about 3 inches, and 5 inches is my goal). I've stopped tweezing my forehead (which I had been doing to give me a more male hairline). I shaved my armpits - god bless the ability to get antiperspirant/deodorant on my skin again. I'm not going to wear any more plaid shirts. I'm not going to worry if a particular color or cut of clothing makes me look less masculine.

I'm not ever going to be a normal girl, but I was never going to be a normal guy, either. I knew that when I began my transition.

Monday, May 24th, 2004 - 10:02pm
girl, continued (work strategies)
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It looks like I'm gonna stick with the girl thing, rather than the guy thing. The last two weeks have demonstrated how much effort it took to pass as a guy and how little effort it takes to slide back to passing as a girl. I'm just not willing to do all that extra work to be a guy - it's not that important to me anymore.

I don't feel like I'm very different on the inside. I mean, pre-transition, post-transition, post-post-transition - female, male, female - it's all pretty much the same to me.I suspect I'll always be surprised at the people who think I'm suddenly different.

Today I went and bought girl underpants. It's been too hot to wear guy underpants, so I've been going without. But I don't especially like going without, and I got rid of most of my girl underpants back in the day, so now I get to buy new ones. Well, the old ones woulda worn out after 5 years, anyways.

Tomorrow I plan to talk to the store's Human Resources person about my switch back to girl-ness. I just want to see what she thinks, maybe get some input on how to get the message to the rest of the store. Right now, I'm thinking that I could easily just tell the people in my own department and let the news trickle out to the rest of the store. But maybe it'd be better to tell everyone at once. I could stand up on a register at a store meeting and announce, "This is Rumor Control. Here are the facts!" I could proceed to tell some 180 people that I'm now/going to be a girl again.

I'm considering posting a FAQ in the log book for my department. That's the most efficient way to get the news to the 60+ people in my dept. I should really start telling people that I consider friends. I've told a few, but I'm on a mission now to tell the rest. Tell, tell, tell. It doesn't come up in conversation lightly.

"Hey, how's it going?"
"Good, what's new with you?"
"I'm gonna be a girl again."
"...."