Spirit Month
October 14, 2011 9:31 PM

Instead of cuts, we have curves, hips, and waists. This is a hard reality friends, but having delivered this dose of realism, here's the upshot: you have beautiful, resilient bodies, and they are waiting - practically begging and pleading - for you to love them just the way they are.
- Josh Klipp, on Original Plumbing.

I have memories of being a little girl, probably six or seven, and thinking that my stomach was too big. Saying to myself, "It's ok because it's just baby fat." When I was eight I began to hate my thighs. In high school I started to resent my arms. By the time I hit college, my body was alien to me. I steadily gained weight, not really thinking about the consequences or the reasons. Looking back, I see that I wanted to hide my breasts and my curves. My stomach getting larger helped make the front of my torso uniform. I didn't wear sweats all the time, but my clothes were baggier. I hated my rolls and was disgusted with myself, which only led me to put on more weight. All in all, a pretty familiar story in America right now.

Then after college I began to pay attention to clothes for the first time. I found myself drooling over men's fashion. It was the Tom Ford S/S 2009 collection that did it (which would have been shown in Fall 2008). That took my breath away and made me feel in the pit of my stomach that fashion might be more than I gave it credit for. Sporadically over the next year or so, I'd begin noticing looks I liked and seeking out resources to learn more about this new world. I found different blogs that I still go back to. I found the tips and tricks from GQ helpful (though the editorial is some of the most misogynistic and demoralizing writing I have ever read). I began to specify what pieces, exactly, worked for me and what didn't. What looks I wanted to emulate and why. I began to have a language. I began to see a point of view and I began to cultivate my own story through my wardrobe.

Continue reading Spirit Month.
Tomboy
September 28, 2011 11:14 PM

The video below is literally all I've seen of this movie, so I can't say anything for certainty or even really trust that it's not gross, but from these 30 seconds I can say that this was me.

The Elephant in the Room
September 11, 2011 3:36 PM

There's something I've been wanting to broach on this blog ever since I started it. But never really knew how to bring up or talk about: cissexism. Which may be a new word for you.

To not really do the phenomenon justice, maybe the easiest way to break it down is to first say that someone who is cissexual is someone whose gender identity matches the body they were assigned at birth. I, as a transgender/transsexual male, am not cissexual. Cissexism, then, is marginalization which comes from the privilege granted to cissexuals based on their gender normative identities. (For one thing, I find it funny that "cissexual"/"cissexism" makes my auto-speller mad.)

I should also say, now, that while there are people who are blatantly cissexist - who would outright say derogatory comments and perpetuate violence against trans* individuals/communities - there is also the institutionalized form of cissexism (as there is for any oppression). Which is the form I would probably encounter more in my life.

Maybe the internet isn't the best way to mediate this conversation. But like I said, I never really know how to broach it. Because humans experience different forms of oppression differently, an exchange between what privileges they do and do not enjoy, what marginalized identities they do or do not have, and then how they react to each scenario. So I know that I experience cissexism differently than a lot of trans* individuals. I tend to right now be pretty blase about it and more forgiving when I encounter it. Which makes me feel complicated and makes me spend a lot of time considering my own privilege, my own responsibilities, my own comfort levels, etc etc. Which is usually why it's not a conversation I have with people.

In college, one of my favorite professors started the quarter by saying she refused to let us (and herself) refer to our classmates as "you guys". Not because it was too informal, but because it was sexist language that erased the women in the room. This kind of blew my mind. I used the example in another class, one about ethical communication, about gender and communication. That hour also blew my mind: a lot of the men in the room getting riled up and defensive, while a lot of the women in the room getting riled up and offering their own examples of when commonly used language has made them feel less dismissed/belittled, without having been explicitly told that they're worth less. A direct result of these two classes means I say the word "folks" a lot more.

Anyway. My point is that language has, since then and specifically informal language, been the most accessible way for me to talk about gender and sexual privilege. Because language is something most people take for granted, but it's something that we can easily take apart and examine to recognize its absurdity. I also think it lets someone examine how they might perpetuate oppression in small ways, without meaning to or thinking about it, in an abstract way; so hopefully they will be less defensive and will be able to process it more.

All of this is to offer up this link. If I've piqued your interest at all about cissexsim and language, this is a very short list of common questions/comments that a cis person might ask/make - but could be said better. Like I said: I'm not great at calling people out about this myself and I'm not eloquent when it comes to talking about privilege. But these are all scenarios I've experienced. I've seen lists like these before and even with this one, I'm not claiming it's the absolute most accurate. I'm not throwing all my weight - whatever weight there might be - behind this one list. I do think it's a good place to start thinking about ways language perpetuates institutional oppression. Maybe as I examine more of myself and try to learn more, I'll have more to say. In the meantime, I thought it was worth bringing out into the open.

Post-Op Disclosure
September 1, 2011 5:04 PM

I'm not sure I have a lot to wax poetic about re: post-op lifestyle. I did do some videos that I plan on uploading, because there is a dearth of material out there for Dr. Mangubat and given that I was comfortable with it, I thought it might be helpful for future dudes looking for information. So when those go up eventually, I'll link to them if you're curious about the results.

Surgery did go well though and there have been no complications (knock on wood). Healing nicely and still a little sore. Really, the most awe-inspiring moment for me was the morning of and I was sitting in the preparation room with my mom and sister. We had been talking about the level of support I've received from literally everyone I know. When Dr. Mangubat was marking my chest for the incision lines, my sister teared up with the hugeness of what was happening. And that was probably the moment that I felt the weight of everyone's support. The near-to-literal army I had behind me, rooting for me and encouraging me. It was hard to be scared when I knew no matter what happened in the next few hours, that many people would be there to help me get back up. As it happened, everything went off without a hitch and my sister was the best nurse I could ask for and I have some of the best friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and family who all chipped in their emotional and physical support. I was honestly humbled.

Sometimes, in a queer community, "coming out" is framed as a never-ending process. Because it really doesn't ever end - there are always new people who I'll meet who may or may not need to be told that I'm trans. The video below only scratches that surface, but for me at least was heartening. I've been taking a lot of comfort lately from seeing pictures and videos and reading interviews/stories from trans men who are farther into their transition by years. I can't necessarily expect my path to be the same, but to see what it might even resemble is helpful.

Mammaries.
August 14, 2011 11:07 PM

There are few things I remember about puberty. I remember the summer before sixth grade when I had my first period and the first time I thought it was because I ate too much rare steak the night before. The next month, I was traveling with my aunt and I hadn't had anything rare the night before and I suspected what was up. I got home and ran up the street to my friend's house exclaiming: "I'M A WOMAN NOW!!" (Because this is what I heard in movies.)

From my experience, most girls remember this moment. Another one most girls remember is when they first realized they had breasts. Whether it be their first bra, or tenderness and soreness, or generally being aware that this occasion in puberty had finally hit. For better or worse. I, however, have no memories of this. I was trying to think back to my earliest memory regarding my breasts and all I could come up with was a vague memory of trying to choose a bra at Shopko when I was in high school (and I presumably had been wearing bras for a few years before middle of high school). Shopko bras were not attractive, not comfortable, and it was impossible to tell what size I was. It was a shopping experience that I tried to complete as quickly as possible and give as little thought to as possible and do as rarely as possible.

In fact, I only have one other memory about puberty. Earlier than my memory of "becoming a woman". One I had forgotten about until the last few years. In it, I'm in the bathroom and I don't know what I had been thinking beforehand or talking about or any context at all. I just remember sitting in the bathroom and saying out loud, "God, I don't know if I'm supposed to be a girl. But if you make me grow breasts then I can't argue with that. So if this happens, I will stop wishing I was a boy and I will accept I am a girl because that's apparently what you want." And the rest, they say, is history.

Until I woke up fifteen years later with a very different relationship to God and a different relationship with myself. Realizing that I never really stopped wishing I was a boy and ever really only accepted I was a girl. I'm the kind of person who when given lemons, makes lemonade not because I seize opportunities - but because I make do with what I'm given; I look at what I have and I accept my lot in life and I learn to be happy around it. So it hadn't really occurred to me that the bargain I struck with God when I was eleven years old wasn't legally binding.

This is how I ended up at this week. Ended up at last May when I met with a surgeon in the Seattle area and scheduled surgery for this week. I will wake up on Friday and have two breasts. I will wake up on Saturday and won't. This time next week I'll be two days into life without these breasts and I find myself trying to think of everything but what those two days will be like (and the weeks after). Because everyone keeps asking me if I'm scared - and the answer is, shitless. But not for the surgery. Not for the blood and the cutting and the risks and decision. Only for the recovery. For the surgery itself, I'm pretty ambivalent; and for the lifetime afterward, I'm ready.

Instead of spending time worrying about a recovery I can't avoid, I've been getting super sentimental during these last few weeks. The same thing happened before my tattoo: leading up to it, I kept looking at my forearm thinking about how I've lived for 23 years with an unblemished forearm. And despite science, it's easy to think that this skin is the same skin I've had for 23 years. And now I am marking it for the rest of my life. I've never felt emotionally attached to my breasts and mostly just have thought of them as hanging bags of fat and tissue off my chest. I was never proud of them. I only ever wanted to hide them. I would feel conflicted about my round belly because while I didn't want to have the extra weight, I didn't want to have a small belly that would emphasize my chest. I wouldn't want to push back my shoulders because that meant pushing forward my breasts. I mostly lived my life with an effort to pretend and forget they existed.

Yet, I also never really associated them with feeling feminine. I only knew they existed because my body was sexed female I don't think it's surprising that I never really felt feminine regardless of my chest. But I also don't see the absence of boobs as particularly masculine. My breasts just weren't really ever part of my gender definitions. They always seemed adrogynous to me. Me having them removed is clearly a step toward masculinizing my gender presentation, and is clearly a step toward affirming a masculine gender identity, and the more work I've put into my gender identity the more important me having a flatter chest is a part of that. Yet, even before I considered myself transgender or considered hormones, I wanted these off. I wanted them gone. I only ever put up with them because I had to; then I realized I didn't have to anymore.

So with this backdrop of only tepid tolerance, I'm mildly surprised to find myself pre-mourning their loss. Mourning these two bags of flesh I never particularly liked, I can't begin to imagine what it is to mourn them when you actually do feel some attachment. Whether it's appropriate or not, I keep thinking about women who have/had breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy. Women who also mourn their breasts, who also report feeling like they're losing a piece of what builds their gender identity, but who would never have chosen to put themselves in this position. While my motivations are wildly different, incomparable even, I do feel a whole new respect and awe for these women.

So these are the thoughts I'm having as I head into the final four days of my 26 years with these breasts. Ones whose existence I tried to deny for eleven years and ones whose existence I tried to ignore for fifteen. All boiled down to four days left. Four days that I don't plan on taking for granted but that I know will speed by.

Since transitioning, I've never regretted growing up a girl. I've only ever appreciated the lessons I was able to learn and the experiences I was given which I hope make me better today. I wouldn't be who I am without being who I was. Ironically, it's the reality of losing my breasts that makes me appreciate their role in my life. On Thursday night when I am ready for bed and have a quiet moment, all I'll need to say is "Goodbye. Thank you."

edit: I should clarify that my experience through puberty and comparing it to other girls' experiences was comparing my cisgender-at-the-time female experience to other cisgender female experiences. Not all girls experience puberty with the same landmarks and regardless of what kind of puberty a girl experiences, her identity as female is not, necessarily, causally related.

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