25 March 2012
On Bodies
A lot of narratives about trans* people (and I do say 'about trans* people' rather than 'trans* narratives' since so few of them are actually written by us without coercion) rely on the idea that we get 'a brand new body' with surgery.
Das bullshit, tbh. (And I don't want to step on the toes of trans* people who do believe that, I'm speaking purely from my own perspective.)
Because really, every single cell in the new permutation of my body will be a cell that was there before. All of the skin, the nerves, the everything, I already have them all, they are just in a different format. Pretty much nothing gets "cut off," we're not just "carving a gash" (gag) like some anti-trans* narratives say.
I've also been thinking more and more about this body, and what about it causes me stress, and what parts make me happy. And I've reached a very, very important conclusion:
The parts of my body that are going to be changed by this surgery are not the parts that bother me the most. In fact, I rather enjoy the parts of my body that are going to be changed by this surgery.
This does not mean that I don't want to have surgery! Because I do. I'm really excited to explore and understand the new permutation of my body. But I'm not leaving behind some awful, tragic, disgraceful genitalia for some lush pink shiny new bits. I'm leaving behind one enjoyable permutation for another equally-or-probably-more enjoyable permutation. In my mind at least, these two different stages of my body are definitely *different*, but neither of them are shameful.
And that's pretty cool.
Das bullshit, tbh. (And I don't want to step on the toes of trans* people who do believe that, I'm speaking purely from my own perspective.)
Because really, every single cell in the new permutation of my body will be a cell that was there before. All of the skin, the nerves, the everything, I already have them all, they are just in a different format. Pretty much nothing gets "cut off," we're not just "carving a gash" (gag) like some anti-trans* narratives say.
I've also been thinking more and more about this body, and what about it causes me stress, and what parts make me happy. And I've reached a very, very important conclusion:
The parts of my body that are going to be changed by this surgery are not the parts that bother me the most. In fact, I rather enjoy the parts of my body that are going to be changed by this surgery.
This does not mean that I don't want to have surgery! Because I do. I'm really excited to explore and understand the new permutation of my body. But I'm not leaving behind some awful, tragic, disgraceful genitalia for some lush pink shiny new bits. I'm leaving behind one enjoyable permutation for another equally-or-probably-more enjoyable permutation. In my mind at least, these two different stages of my body are definitely *different*, but neither of them are shameful.
And that's pretty cool.
Being On Testosterone Again
(I want to start this post with a disclaimer: My experiences should not be interpreted to mean anything grand, overarching, or essentially true about the experiences of people with any amount of estrogen, testosterone, both, or neither.)
So, two weeks before your surgery, you stop taking your anti-testosterone pills (generally spironolactone).
Now, I've been on these things for over two years. I was 17 and 9 months when I started them. For 3 months I joked about how I felt like an ameobous genderless blob, then on my 18th birthday, I started taking estrogen. It was a really intense experience, undergoing a pretty radical hormonal shift like that. Especially at first I was really really emotional, I would joke about how I needed to rewatch any show I'd ever watched because I was reacting to them differently. This is to say nothing about the physical effects. Eventually my emotions settled the fuck down (even as I increased my dosage gradually), I think it was just the shock of this (comparatively) new hormone that sent my brain in overdrive.
I'm currently in this interesting position of effectively being on testosterone again for the first time in two years, and let me tell you, I'd really, really forgotten what it was like. As I put it to some friends of mine, my train of thought upon seeing anyone lately has gone like this: "You have a body? *I* have a body! We should have sex."
Granted now, this isn't far from my normal pattern of behavior. I've always been a very sexual person. But having testosterone in my system again (or at the very least, thinking I have testosterone in my system again) has amplified that. And it's calming down, for sure, I think the initial rush of "omg I have testosterone in me again!" has begun to subside.
I used to kind of giggle at transmasculine people's reactions to taking T for the first time, but this has been a really needed reminder of just how real hormones are. I'd forgotten just how important this step was to me back in the day, and how essential to my happiness being on estrogen has been. My dosages will be decreasing drastically for both estrogen and spiro after surgery, but I'm never going to complain about these pills again.
So, two weeks before your surgery, you stop taking your anti-testosterone pills (generally spironolactone).
Now, I've been on these things for over two years. I was 17 and 9 months when I started them. For 3 months I joked about how I felt like an ameobous genderless blob, then on my 18th birthday, I started taking estrogen. It was a really intense experience, undergoing a pretty radical hormonal shift like that. Especially at first I was really really emotional, I would joke about how I needed to rewatch any show I'd ever watched because I was reacting to them differently. This is to say nothing about the physical effects. Eventually my emotions settled the fuck down (even as I increased my dosage gradually), I think it was just the shock of this (comparatively) new hormone that sent my brain in overdrive.
I'm currently in this interesting position of effectively being on testosterone again for the first time in two years, and let me tell you, I'd really, really forgotten what it was like. As I put it to some friends of mine, my train of thought upon seeing anyone lately has gone like this: "You have a body? *I* have a body! We should have sex."
Granted now, this isn't far from my normal pattern of behavior. I've always been a very sexual person. But having testosterone in my system again (or at the very least, thinking I have testosterone in my system again) has amplified that. And it's calming down, for sure, I think the initial rush of "omg I have testosterone in me again!" has begun to subside.
I used to kind of giggle at transmasculine people's reactions to taking T for the first time, but this has been a really needed reminder of just how real hormones are. I'd forgotten just how important this step was to me back in the day, and how essential to my happiness being on estrogen has been. My dosages will be decreasing drastically for both estrogen and spiro after surgery, but I'm never going to complain about these pills again.
Having Children
Hi y'all,
So I'm about 38 hours away from waking up from surgery. I've had lots of finals and theatrical performances and things over the past few weeks, which means I haven't been writing. I'm hoping that tonight is a very productive night. Which gets us into our topic for the evening: reproduction.
So I'm never going to be able to have biological children. There's never been a successful uterine transplant for a trans* woman, and even for cis women they are EXTREMELY hazardous, experimental, and just not done. They've been doing some research, but it isn't especially promising. They certainly aren't going to figure it out in the timeframe that I would be of childbearing age. Besides, even if they could, it would be EXTREMELY expensive, and I know that I could never justfiy spending many many tens of thousands of dollars on an experimental surgery to carry a child when there are so many displaced and adoptable children.
I have a pretty massive attraction to the idea of being pregnant--it's one of those things that didn't matter to me at all until I realized it could never happen, granted, but that doesn't make the want any less real. It's gotten to the point where every time I look in a mirror I see a teensy baby bump, even though that obviously isn't reality. I try to stop it, I really do, but there it is. I find myself unconciously imitating the stances that I've seen pregnant people hold. It's really really unhealthy, but I haven't found any resources that help me cope with this reality yet. I asked some friends, and they recommmended some books about pregnancy from the perspective of trans* men, but I didn't find *anything* written by a trans* women. Maybe someday.
(Some trans* women freeze their sperm before they begin hormone replacement therapy, but that's prohibitively expensive for me. I don't even know if I would have wanted to go this route even if it had been covered by insurance.)
Adoption also isn't likely for me, at least not through a conventional agency. They do pretty extensive background checks, and since I'm still classified as mentally disordered for being trans* (and that's not going to change any time soon, with a special shout-"fuck you"-out to the cissexist assholes revising the DSM-V) I'm not going to be eligible. It also doesn't help that I'm anticipating ending up with a female-identified partner (or multiple partners) and all of these things means no adoption agency would seriously work with me.
So in terms of becoming a mother, I'm pretty much stuck, and that sucks pretty hard. Nothing to be done about it, at least right now. Maybe someday adoption rules will be different, or somehow I will end up being a mother in some other way--maybe I'll have a partner with a child(ren) from a previous partner, or maybe my partner(s) will get pregnant some other way, who knows? But there's no easy path to having a child.
Several months ago, one of my partners and I had a pregnancy scare. It wasn't an extremely serious thing, just a few days late, and we both knew that given my hormonal status, the likelihood that I could get hir pregnant was extremely extremely low, but the risk wasn't zero. And when I got the text that we had nothing to worry about, I was definitely relieved--I mean, having a child while you're in college is one of the more difficult life paths. But damn if there wasn't a tiny little part of me that was desperately hoping that we would have a child, since I'll never have the chance to get someone pregnant again.
In conclusion: bodies are hard, and surgery won't give me everything I ever wanted.
So I'm about 38 hours away from waking up from surgery. I've had lots of finals and theatrical performances and things over the past few weeks, which means I haven't been writing. I'm hoping that tonight is a very productive night. Which gets us into our topic for the evening: reproduction.
So I'm never going to be able to have biological children. There's never been a successful uterine transplant for a trans* woman, and even for cis women they are EXTREMELY hazardous, experimental, and just not done. They've been doing some research, but it isn't especially promising. They certainly aren't going to figure it out in the timeframe that I would be of childbearing age. Besides, even if they could, it would be EXTREMELY expensive, and I know that I could never justfiy spending many many tens of thousands of dollars on an experimental surgery to carry a child when there are so many displaced and adoptable children.
I have a pretty massive attraction to the idea of being pregnant--it's one of those things that didn't matter to me at all until I realized it could never happen, granted, but that doesn't make the want any less real. It's gotten to the point where every time I look in a mirror I see a teensy baby bump, even though that obviously isn't reality. I try to stop it, I really do, but there it is. I find myself unconciously imitating the stances that I've seen pregnant people hold. It's really really unhealthy, but I haven't found any resources that help me cope with this reality yet. I asked some friends, and they recommmended some books about pregnancy from the perspective of trans* men, but I didn't find *anything* written by a trans* women. Maybe someday.
(Some trans* women freeze their sperm before they begin hormone replacement therapy, but that's prohibitively expensive for me. I don't even know if I would have wanted to go this route even if it had been covered by insurance.)
Adoption also isn't likely for me, at least not through a conventional agency. They do pretty extensive background checks, and since I'm still classified as mentally disordered for being trans* (and that's not going to change any time soon, with a special shout-"fuck you"-out to the cissexist assholes revising the DSM-V) I'm not going to be eligible. It also doesn't help that I'm anticipating ending up with a female-identified partner (or multiple partners) and all of these things means no adoption agency would seriously work with me.
So in terms of becoming a mother, I'm pretty much stuck, and that sucks pretty hard. Nothing to be done about it, at least right now. Maybe someday adoption rules will be different, or somehow I will end up being a mother in some other way--maybe I'll have a partner with a child(ren) from a previous partner, or maybe my partner(s) will get pregnant some other way, who knows? But there's no easy path to having a child.
Several months ago, one of my partners and I had a pregnancy scare. It wasn't an extremely serious thing, just a few days late, and we both knew that given my hormonal status, the likelihood that I could get hir pregnant was extremely extremely low, but the risk wasn't zero. And when I got the text that we had nothing to worry about, I was definitely relieved--I mean, having a child while you're in college is one of the more difficult life paths. But damn if there wasn't a tiny little part of me that was desperately hoping that we would have a child, since I'll never have the chance to get someone pregnant again.
In conclusion: bodies are hard, and surgery won't give me everything I ever wanted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)