Can't sleep. Thinking about the queerness. Haven't typed a blog post in a bit so let's see if this one makes it past draft. (seriously, you have no idea. at one point I had like 12 drafts on here. trust me, you don't want them to go past draft. just thinking about being bored by them is something I wouldn't wish upon you all)
So last year, I came out as a "non-binary man" so for all intents and purposes I'm enby. And pretty happy about that. Thinking about it still gets me pumped. I get why a lot of people don't talk about this too in-depth but so far, I have had no issue answering people's questions about this sort of thing. Again, I want to make absolutely clear: nobody should feel pressured to be the queer bible for anyone who doesn't know about how any LGBTQIA+ stuff works. You don't have to be the gay encyclopedia. Anyone who expects you to be that is an asshole. As for myself, I just like talking to people about it anyway. Yes, they can just fucking look this kind of stuff up online for themselves but if they ask me in the moment, even if it comes down to what's happening with my crotch, I usually feel pretty comfortable answering.
[edit: I now just identify as non-binary, not a non-binary man. I am still okay with he/him pronouns as well as they/them pronouns and don't hate she/her pronouns but aside from that I really don't like masculine labels anymore]
Anyway, god that was a fucking tangent. What even is the point of this blog? Huh?!? I titled this entry "Transition-y"! What does that even mean?!?!
I think putting out my current goals or even fleeting thoughts could help someone else who is struggling with this sort of thing feel nice. Maybe someone who is mostly pretty content with their gender magic will like this post too? I don't know, haven't gotten that far myself. And of course, any shade of ally might get some insight on some stuff that will spark a good Google spree. I'm happy to provide that spark.
So what have I really done in terms of transitioning since I came out last summer? It has almost been a year after all. Well, the name change, but I was thinking about doing that for a long time anyway, gender notwithstanding. I can't say in full honesty that facing my gender head-on didn't sway that decision thought. If I was 100% manly man, I would have picked "Brutus", not Ayden, and wouldn't have picked a purposefully feminine-ish last name. Since doing stuff with my name in various systems and with various companies was such a huge bitch to deal with, I have become more adamant about people not deadnaming me. I have a semi-decent arsenal of women's clothing now. Not a lot but enough for me to feel good about. Beyond that... eh?
And before I continue, I want to point something else out that will probably be a no-brainer for freshly out genderqueer and trans motherfuckers: this part of the human experience is about being comfortable with yourself. So if you're AMAB, come out as enby, and then get mad at yourself for not having six-inch-long eyelashes and Jessica Rabbit bod, just take a step back and appreciate what you have accomplished. If you haven't made any large steps since then, appreciate the sheer thought of being who you want to be. Accepting yourself is the most important part. There is absolutely no fucking checklist for this sort of thing. However, in direct hypocrisy to that heartfelt sentiment, here is stuff I have been trying to do and want to do because I have a checklist!
Voice therapy
I'm putting this first because I have actually tried it. The only reason I'm not doing every 1-3 weeks is that the insurance I grind away for doesn't cover this shit. However, I have worked that out to where some of that will be covered. Safely feminizing my voice was going to be back on the menu but even the covered costs will be above $40 a session, it seems. Haven't landed an appointment since then. I tried and nobody got back to me. The only person who has talked to me was the one in charge of billing that fought for me to get my insurance to cover my stuff in the first place. I still have a few sheets to help me out with exercises and stuff. If you've heard my voice up until recently, testosterone has fucking decimated my throat and life. I have a lot of work to do. I know it can be achieved and if I just *did* the voice exercises once or twice a day, I would probably be farther along by now. Knowing that just isn't enough. It's probably the most dysphoric thing about me next to facial hair. Even having a typical speaking range of like three semitones higher would probably give me a fighting chance. Knowing that androgyny is a pipe dream fucking sucks. But I keep trying to trick my voice into being higher anyway. I know that if I rush it, my voice won't be helped in any way so I don't strain or use falsetto to talk. The best part (not being sarcastic) is that I know I'm mostly doing it for me. I'm not doing it to "pass" as anything because testosterone has already made me fail. I'm doing it to make myself feel better. If it takes ten years, it takes ten years.
HRT
Haven't done it yet because I'm afraid of sliding scale fees. It's the only way I will ever be able to afford this sort of thing and I'm still not 100% sure if it works the way I think it does. If it does, I should have started it in 2020. If not, I'm glad I waited in utter fear. I'm thinking of taking spiro. Full-on estrogen might be using cartoon spring shoes for a 1-foot hurdle for me. My first "appointment" is in a month from now.
Makeup
Still don't know how to do this. I was going to experiment after getting my tax return and the IRS is absolutely ravaging my asshole. They currently owe me a little over $4000 and I don't know how to tell them to get their shit together. Even if I wanted to tell them specifically "get your shit together", I wouldn't be able to. I've been trying for months. So no makeup time for me. I don't want anything huge anyway, just stuff to cover up hair shadow and all that. Too bad I guess because I'm not even allowed to have my money that I haven't spent yet.
Voice surgery
This is the fucking dream. If money were no object, I would go through the risk of fucking up my voice for the chance of a minute rise in pitch. Anterior glottal web formation is when they put a big icky scar band in your inner gob to raise overall voice pitch. You can already learn a lot of how to do that from voice therapy without hurting yourself though. The difference here is that you wouldn't have to try anything. Once the admittedly long healing period is over, your voice will just magically be higher. The caveat here is that this is right in your pipes so breathing might actually be a little harder. I don't know to what degree. Fun fact: a lot of people confuse this process with a tracheal shave. Tracheal shave doesn't really do this. Tracheal shave surgery is for a more cosmetic purpose. Glottal web doesn't work like kids' cartoon body-swap episodes either. You still have to maintain the "feminine" voice you desire. I mean, at the end of the day, it's your voice so if you're perfectly content with just a little pick-me-up, this could work. For me, most of the time, the deep, gravelly voice you hear me scream at video games in is not the voice in my head. I genuinely fantasize about getting glottal web. It's arguable I've wanted this before I even knew that it was a real thing you could do. To those who are not transitioning to a more feminine state and don't already know how much this sucks; this is not a popular procedure but it is a tried-and-true option. What I'm saying is, most of these people sound the way they sound through dedicated training and research. Transmasc people on the other hand have a lot of the work done for them by taking testosterone. This is true of those who are taking testosterone anyway, as a generalization. Even in these more typical cases, relearning how to speak is a mentally fucked process that transmasc people still have to go through. I'm not really saying anything anymore at this point, just kind of spitting out info that I've looked up on my own because a lot of people still have no idea about this kind of stuff. It's cool, right? Yes? I thought so.
Electrolysis
Weirdly enough, this seems more realistic than ever getting voice surgery. That said, it still won't be cheap, especially because I want to zap pretty much everything. I have tried at-home IPL and it didn't work for me. This isn't to say IPL doesn't work (when applied correctly, it does do something), my face and body hair follicles are just too resilient. This is important to me because my facial hair is one of the things that makes me feel the most uncomfortable psychologically and physically. It's also something I have to slice my face open for every day
Clothing (last one)
Half of my pants are men's with a few pairs being women's and two pairs of sweatpants that are maybe technically unisex? I'm not actually sure if that's how that works. I didn't like sweatpants growing up. I like the women's pants though. You're probably thinking "duh". I don't like them because they make me feel "girlier". I like them because there are just more characteristics about pants that I like in general that those pants happen to provide over what I have experienced with years of wearing regular fit men's jeans. I still wear men's shoes and socks because I don't like the idea of heels and my feet are pretty big anyway. Women's tops are where it's at for me now. I don't get super frilly though. I've tried some pretty feminine-looking stuff and the vast majority of that category has been pretty uncomfortable. A lot of the stuff I've liked the most has not been too far from what I was wearing before. However, I feel way more confident with women's tank tops than I do with men's tank tops. Women's graphic tees look really good on me. In addition to all these gender-annihilating shenanigans, I bought my first necklace. To clarify, I've had necklaces in the past but they were all cheapo family gifts that didn't feel personalized to me at all. They would be like arrowheads and stuff that didn't even look good on me. I bought a Persona 5 "Point Up!" music note pendant thing. I will buy more when I'm more comfortable with money. I have already worn the Persona 5 necklace in public several times and I will continue to do it a lot.
Well, that's all out there now. I will probably talk more about this sort of thing in the future but not as in-depth. Lengthy. When I said "in-depth", I meant "droning".
