Roots

My wife requested I write this down and share it. It is embarrassing and complex, but I feel like writing it down may help put the final nails in my dysphoric coffin, without me inside. It might work, it might not, but I am ready to face this head on, even if my dignity takes a hit, because I think understanding and expressing the roots of my dysphoria puts me on a path that leads to the end of my dysphoria’s control over me.

I have talked to trans people who were able to put their dysphoria behind them.At times it feels like a pipe dream. At times it feels obtainable. I have more to lose if I don’t see how to work through this.

Because we are so close to its 15th anniversary, let me start in the middle, with September 11, 2001. I lived less than a mile away from the World Trade Center in Downtown Manhattan. My room had a direct view of the towers. It got two hours more sunlight each day after the towers fell because it was literally in their shadow. I was too close. I could see the jumpers without any magnification.

That day was the worst day, as you can imagine. And yet, it was a profoundly amazing day as well. It was glorious in one single way. It was such a profoundly tragic event, it caused a catharsis within me. I suddenly realized there were bigger problems in life than my dysphoria. 9/11 was so enormously overwhelming, it rebooted my brain and I lived for about three years without being a prisoner within my own, full blown, dysphoria.

I am not alone. Huge life altering events temporarily relieve dysphoria for many trans people. The birth of a child for example, or the death of a loved one.

I wouldn’t have found my wife, if it weren’t for 9/11 helping remove my head from my ass, albeit temporarily.

The dysphoria came back though. It came back with a vengeance. More than once, it has tried to kill me. It has come closer to killing me than those terrorists ever did.

And I am beyond ready to go down fighting. One of us needs to go, and if that means I have to tackle my dysphoria head on, and risk another crippling bout if I fail, then so be it.

I have learned that hormones too, keep my dysphoria at bay. And yet, I am just pulling out of a 6-8 month long dysphoric bout. One of the worst dysphoric bouts I have suffered.

I lost my insurance, doctor and access to medication for three months at the start of this year and that was all it took to succumb to yet another extended dysphoric bout. Having someone EXTREMELY close to me, hit me with overt and extended transphobic bigotry at the time sealed the deal. I got hit at my weakest point in years and the hit connected. And like that, I lost my ability to think critically and communicate logically for the better part of a year. Dysphoria is a mental illness. I am a lunatic when a bout takes control of me. It is like being a passenger in my own life. It is tragic, terrifying and crippling.

When I recover, I am able to begin the process of peeling the layers of the onion away, gaining control of my dysphoric triggers, and making myself stronger and less vulnerable to future bouts. This has become my life’s work.

And I always come back to one pivotal day. A day I wrote about at length in my post, A Woman’s Prerogative… but even then, I didn’t see the whole picture. In fact, until this blog, I have only been able to explain all the pieces logically ONE other time. That was earlier today to my wife, who immediately told me to write it all down and share it.

Until today, it had been a topic that was taboo around my home, for what should be obvious reasons, as it concerns my heartbreak over a lost love my wife never knew and could never fully understand. When you are still hung up over events surrounding rejection in a past relationship (and I use the term relationship lightly because it was only me, and an imaginary, emotional relationship with a woman who denied me at every opportunity), your wife is not the first person I suggest you consult.

Over the years, I have leaned heavily on friends who were there in the room on the day when dysphoria took over my life (until September 11, 2001 gave me some reprieve). Those friends aren’t very helpful because of my traditionally lackluster ability to explain things concerning this subject to them. They, understandably, get the impression that I am unwilling to let the past go. They don’t understand that I am doing about as well as I can do, by the time I have peeled the layers of the onion back to the point where once again, I can address that KEY moment in my life.

This story involves theatre, acting technique and whatnot, so at times I will have to teach you some extremely oversimplified bits and pieces of acting lessons (if you aren’t one of my countless actor friends) just so you can properly follow along. It is kind of entirely important.

The story begins around September of 1998, I had completed my BFA the year before and finally moved away from Utah to attend acting school at Circle in the Square, in Times Square NYC. An actor’s dream.

I was a hopelessly romantic, formerly fat, cockeyed optimist of a young man… very much still a virgin, and about 23 years of age at the time. My virginity was overwhelming. I knew I SUCKED at flirtation and asking people out. Why? Because I knew I was trans and really don’t have a dominant bone in my body. I had countless crushes, and failed attempts at even getting to square one with a woman. Nothing is less attractive than desperation. I was as good looking at the time as I have ever been, or ever will be again… but I didn’t know how to be a man near a woman. I wasn’t wired to work that way. It brought me immense shame. And I was extremely closeted and ashamed of being trans at the time, too.

Looking back, I think my shame of being a virgin may have been such an overwhelming thought that it helped keep my dysphoria at bay.

In Alan Langdon’s acting class, at the start of the school year, we did a quick first scene which he assigned us all, Harold Pinter’s, “Trouble in the Works”, which we all did a fairly poor job at performing… such was the difficulty of this delightfully funny and absurd script. Pinter makes Shakespeare look easy. I have grown to love Pinter and playing Pinter, perhaps more than any other English language playwright.

After that scene was done, we were told to pick a new scene and a new scene partner. I don’t remember how Elisabeth and I ended up together. I remember respecting her mind and thinking she was cute. I know we struggled a bit before settling on a scene from Clifford Odets’, “Golden Boy”. I knew little of the playwright, the script, or Brando’s performance of the role in the movie version.

We picked the scene and got to work.

Our teacher had already mentioned how music could open you to new emotions, as a tool to connect with the text, and my character, a boxer and violinist was ripe for music… in fact, in the scene’s stage directions, he whistled a tune I imagined to be an unnamed violin solo. So together with my scene partner, we went to the classical music section of the Times Square, Virgin Megastore and asked the salesman to suggest violin tunes for me to whistle. He highly suggested, Meditation from, “Thais”, a song that to this day, to me, represents everything beautiful in this world. Go ahead and give it a listen. This blog will still be here when you are done.

See? Gorgeous. It may be perfection.

So, I recorded the song to a cassette tape and had it on my Walkman on eternal repeat. It became my routine. New York City baby! With the most beautiful song as its soundtrack. Focusing on a character so madly in love with a woman, a mobster’s moll, he wins her heart, against all odds, and they drive away to escape together as young lovers. Only to die offstage, in a car wreck. It is an interesting, more contemporary spin on, the classic, “Romeo and Juliet” themes.

Through all this, and it didn’t happen all at once, I found myself falling in love with Elisabeth. I had been in love before, but like they say, this was different. It was love on steroids. I don’t know if I have ever felt anything as wonderful as being in love, and not telling her. Just feeling the love. And the song on my Walkman. And being young, optimistic, and studying acting in NYC. It was everything an artist dreams of.

The day of the scene came, and I remember leaning over to my teacher, Alan, and asking him, “Is it common for an actor to feel in real life what their character is supposed to feel onstage?”

He was obviously surprised by my question because, I suspect looking back at it, I had kind of cut through the two years off classes he was going to teach us and somehow just cut to his entire thesis. His reply was starkly haunting in tone, like an old man passing on his wisdom. “It is uncanny.”, was all he had to say in return. Not only was it common. It was uncanny.

I was shaking uncontrollably by the time it was our turn to finally do our scene for the class. My love for her was physically impossible to contain. To others it looked like fear. To me, it was adrenaline. I knew we had to finish this scene before I could finally tell my partner how I felt about her. I wasn’t going to ruin our scene by telling her before we were done. I could not wait.

We did the scene. It was ok.

I don’t have the clearest memories of her first, second, third, fourth, fifth… etc. rejections. She was gentle, at least at first, with a logical, “We shouldn’t date people in our own class.”

Perhaps, it was my being fed up with being a failure at love and an eternal virgin. I don’t know. But I just could not accept that rejection. I didn’t believe rejection was even an option when my love for her was so loud and so clear.

I didn’t go full stalker, although I did come close.

I know. When a woman says, “No.”, a man is supposed to respect that. I wasn’t unwilling to accept it, I was entirely unable.

Around that time, my assigned mentor who was a year ahead of me in school, asked what scene I was working on in Alan’s class. I told him and he almost went white. “You better remember your lines. Once Terry finds out you worked on that scene, she will never stop making you do it for the rest of your days at Circle.”

Theresa Hayden was the elder stateswoman of the school. She taught method acting. She did her early work with The Group Theatre. At the time, she was nearly eighty, and had a world hardened wisdom about her. Eyes that could see through your bullshit and a mouth that would call you on it. I saw more people reduced to puddles of tears and fits of rage in her class than perhaps in all the other acting classes I have taken combined.

I was always absolutely terrified she would just see I was trans and call me on it. Outing me in front of the class.

And of course, one day in her class she asked, “Has anyone worked on some Odets?” and reluctantly, Elisabeth and I raised our hands… and we were sent up to do our scene. It was torture.

We did our scene for Terry a total of three times that year. The second time was the doozy.

Months has passed since Elisabeth’s rejection. Looking back, that was about as close as I ever got to letting go of it while in school. And once again, we were asked to do the fucking, “Golden Boy” scene.

Midway through the scene, I forgot all my lines.

This particular exercise in scene work in Terry’s class was a demonstration of retaining memorized lines for months at a time, even years. In part, it served to show us that we could retain text over long periods of time by remembering our emotional state from prior times we worked on it. It sounds crazy, and it also, works.

Terry recognized my lapse in memory for what it was and asked me why I was holding back. I panicked, lost, I burst into tears and said, “Because I love her, and she doesn’t love me.”

Oh how young and stupid I was.

Obviously Elisabeth was PISSED to be dragged into my troubles like that. Outed to everyone as a person who had rejected my advances.

And I realize now, that WASN’T even why I was blocked from remembering my lines during our scene. I was blocked because I knew getting up there together would only make me feel my love for her again in front of others and I was already well passed ashamed of it. Trying to move on. My love for her over all this time had just continued to grow and grow, like a malignant cancer. What was once just blossoming, New York, youthful infatuation with someone cute had grown into something so grotesque, even I knew it wasn’t right.

By the time my love for Elisabeth had peaked, it was nearing the size and scope of the boy in, “Equis'” love for horses. Not only did I want to be with Elisabeth, I wanted to BE her, body, mind and soul. I wanted to give up my life for hers.

See? Fucking nuts. Even for a trans person. That is not sane. I mean, it isn’t uncommon for a trans woman to covet their partner’s say, boobs, ovaries and vagina… but to want to BE them, body, mind and soul? That is not common, even for us slightly weird trans folk. I was losing touch with reality, and because only I can see my own thoughts, and this was entirely new, I had no way to know something was off. I thought it was just that first love and heartbreak thing almost everyone else goes through too. I thought, because I was an old virgin, that was why it hurt me more than the average person. I was wrong. I was going insane, and having to resurrect this scene and the feelings that surrounded performing it, it was the perfect storm.

And that day, right there in Terry’s class, in front of everyone, full blown dysphoria took over my life. That is precisely when it took control.

After that event, I auditioned for other schools trying to work out a way to transfer and get away from Elisabeth for the both of us. No school would have me. I wore my dysphoria on my sleeve in those auditions and professors knew at a glance I was damaged goods. Not ready for prime time. Not like I had been the year before.

The following year, Elisabeth and I were moved into different classes for what I can only assume was to protect her from me… which helped in some ways and hurt in others because I knew I was to blame. If only I had kept my love to myself, perhaps it would not have turned into this uncontrollable cancer. It limited our time together, but it was unavoidable that we would work together at times. Dance class. Plays. Shit we could not control.

And the cancerous love I felt for her continued to grow in part because I could not cut her from my life. I knew I had to let her go, and my friends were constantly there reminding me to let her go, like an Idina Menzel chorus from a animated Disney feature. Like I didn’t understand that simple fact, like I hadn’t already tried to let her go, or at least get away from her. It was around then, for the first time in my life, I started to feel suicidal on occasion. Suicide could kill the cancer.

I know this is a story about me, but please, if you haven’t already, acknowledge how cruel and unfair this all was to Elisabeth. A brilliant, talented person with the magnetism of a movie star. A young woman, in the prime of her adulthood just trying to live the dream like everyone else. I see it now. I understand. She had NO need for me and my cancer in her life. She was being smart. She was protecting herself from me. Imagine how terrifying I must have been to her.

At the time, I didn’t know about dysphoria. I have since become quite the expert. At the time, I was undiagnosed and out of control. By the end of my tenure at Circle, I was a suicidal, chain smoking, cocaine addict. Anything I could do to escape the cancerous love. The harder I tried, the more impossible it became.

These 17 or so years later, I ask myself what should I have said on that day in Terry Hayden’s class and the answer that comes to me is entirely different from the one I gave. It wasn’t about Elisabeth. It was my virginal dysphoria twisting a wonderful feeling like love into something grotesque and frightening.

Wanting to be someone, body, mind and soul? That is fucking textbook insanity. Before it came out, front and center, my dysphoria was already destroying my ability to feel regular human emotions like love correctly.

When Terry asked me why I was holding back, my real reason was, “I am trans, and hiding it and not talking about it is driving me insane. I am not thinking clearly. It terrifies me.” I still would have broken down in tears. The class still would have seen what looked like a miraculous acting breakthrough. And seventeen or so years ago, I would have started my path to transition, skipping the endless suffering. I could have had girl friends instead of just trying and failing to get a girlfriend. Woulda, coulda shoulda…

Instead, I blamed love, and dragged an unwilling partner down with me. Trying to steal her away from the mob so we could drive away to somewhere safe. And in a way, it resulted in my death. “It is uncanny.” Yes Alan, it is.

If you don’t leave it on the stage, the emotions you should have released can follow you everywhere else you go.

That is the Method. That is part of the reason why method actors can seem so devoutly religious about their craft. It is partly why they can be so reverent towards their teachers.  It is like a tangible form of magic and it happens every single time you act, if you do it right. All you do is follow the Method.

Not me though. On that day in Terry’s class, I stopped being able to Method act. I mean, I still have access to it, but it is not the first tool I consciously reach for. It became too hot. Too near. Too painful. And I didn’t know HOW to always leave all that on the stage. How could I?Hell, I am only just now learning how to put this into words that I think most people will begin to understand.

So, of course, by the end of my schooling I had things like cocaine addiction to peel off my onion, slowly, meticulously, removing the layers of dysphoric damage so I can get to the root of it all.

And the root of it all, was that day in Terry’s class.

Now, imagine you’re my wife, and I start talking about this one time when I tragically loved another woman, and how that experience haunts me to this day. How would you feel?

Imagine you are one of my former classmates and I hit you up with a drunken Facebook messenger diatribe about that time in Terry’s class. Wouldn’t you want to continue keeping Elisabeth as far away from me as possible? Keep her safe from me?

In Terry’s acting class, when she addressed the oh so notorious, emotional recall, that oft misunderstood, bread and butter of Strasberg’s acting Method, she always said we need to give peak emotional experiences a full seven years before they would be reliably useful for us on stage. It sounded odd at the time but with age comes wisdom. With age and time, comes acceptance. Until you can accept a past peak emotional event, it is almost useless. A fresh memory, if used to say, help you connect emotionally with the text, may not be reliable tomorrow. Why? Because using a fresh memory helps you work through it, thus changing your interpretation of it. It changes how the memory impacts you. Also, a new memory can be too hot, prompting uncontrollable and unpredictable emotional outbursts that cripple your ability to retain control on stage.

By now, I know seven years is an arbitrary, average number. By now, I can feel when a past event is ready to be used for acting. It has to do with assimilation, understanding and acceptance. You have to get past it before you can reliably come back to it.

When we did our emotional recall project in Terry’s class, I struggled to come up with one single seven year old, peak emotional experience. I had to use my grandfather’s death, which was closer to six years old at the time. Such was my privileged and sheltered upbringing in Utah.

Well over seven years after 9/11, for example, I know the memory. I know how it makes me feel. It is not particularly useful as an actor, because it is not full of the emotions you would expect it to be full of. Again, for me, it was a release from dysphoria. A catharsis. Something I have learned is quite common for people in war zones. Since you aren’t dead, you feel more alive than ever. Odd. Unexpected. And there it is now, properly aged and ready for use.

Fresh memories can be triggers. You know what I mean? You are suddenly put right back into the emotions of a situation without any control.

Those 7 year old memories are reliable. They mature like a good Scotch. They don’t trigger uncontrollable emotions. They are accepted fact. The emotions they bring up can be used by an artist to help put that emotion to voice and text.

Actors reading this, if you have not studied Strasberg, in many ways it is an alternative to vocal technique. Vocal technique is incredibly useful and in ways, far more specific than Strasberg’s method alone, and also, far more technically difficult because you are not substituting your own life experience for your character’s, you are easing some of the most tense muscles in your body to allow emotions to flow freely through your voice and out, to the audience.

But some things are just archetypal. Like a first kiss. EVERYONE’S first willing kiss shares the firstness and the kissness in common. You know? There is something universal about a first kiss.

The Method can be SUPER efficient, and it can really help with fast paced projects like auditions and film shoots. In a play, when used expertly, it connects an audience with the actor in a way only method actors like Brando in his prime, or Phillip Seymour Hoffman whilst alive, could pull off.

So WHY, after seventeen or so years, do I keep going back to this day in Terry’s class? Why has it continued to trigger me for so much longer than seven years?

Simple. It is the root of my dysphoria and I can only process it properly when I am not fully dysphoric. I have not had seven years of non dysphoric time to process the root of my dysphoria.

I keep being drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. My friends who were in class that day must think I am playing with fire. My wife, for years, thought she was competing with my ideal, lost love. It almost ruined our marriage. It has ruined several friendships.

Over the years, I have attempted to contact Elisabeth myself, only to be met with blockades that only things like an ocean between us and a Facebook block feature can provide.

What people don’t realize, and I am just coming to terms with it myself, is I can only process that day, my single most peak emotional experience, in a class ironically intent on teaching us to use our peak emotional experiences onstage, when I have cleared all the other outer layers of my dysphoric onion. My time to process this root of my dysphoria can be fleeting. All the time, I am growing new layers of my onion, and they are trying to cover the core root.

The way I see it, I have had about six years of non dysphoric time, a few years after 9/11, a few years after starting hormones and the occasional, engaging acting gig. The right project always makes my dysphoria go away until completion.

And finally, I am starting to put this whole mess together. Finally I am understanding it and coming to terms. Finally, I accept it.

When I say Elisabeth’s name to people who knew me at the time, and when I say it to my wife, I can feel the immediate sigh. I feel it before I see it or hear it. They think I am still responding to her rejection and trying to win her back.

No. At first, I too thought it was that, and God knows I did keep trying to win her back, long after the fifty seventh rejection. I eventually came to terms with that. Years ago. Before I started transition. I get it. I accept it. I have, much to my own surprise, moved on. And I feel terrible for dragging her unwillingly into all of this.

I am TRYING to confront and process that time in my life so it fades away, like peak emotional experiences do. When it does, I theorize I will have creative control over my dysphoria and it will no longer control me.

Time IS of the essence here. Eventually, if I keep falling into dysphoric bouts, the dysphoria WILL win. My perfect survival record will not hold through many more of them.

And I am so close to processing this all emotionally. I mean, here I have explained it clearly to people who aren’t necessarily lunatics, trans folk or actors. Something I was incapable of doing just last night.

About last night. Fuck. I contacted a friend and asked her to contact Elisabeth on my behalf. She freaked the fuck out. I freaked the fuck out. I got drunk. Classic.

I have addressed my addiction to the point where often, I talk about it in the past tense, but I am still prone to the occasional alcoholic binge. I know how I get. It is ugly. Not mean. Not in a Hulk-y way. I just don’t quit. I keep beating my points over and over with a relentless rhythm. And usually, I sober up eventually and feel ashamed.

This time I sobered up to an epiphany. I explained everything to my wife and she finally understood. It was never about Elisabeth. She was an innocent victim of my undiagnosed dysphoria before I had a modicum of understanding as to what I was dealing with. She was the first in a long line of victims just for being too close to dysphoric me. She was more than just in the room where it happened. I dragged her in and even blamed her for it. I shamed her for it. I moped around, making sure everyone knew how sad I was because of her rejection.

I blamed my teachers too. Lashed out at them. Blamed the Method.

And yes, I even blamed myself, which for some reason never rang entirely true although it is entirely my fault.

It was the early signs of dysphoria. When my love went beyond regular love and became some illogical, fantastical obsession. And then, it was full blown, undiagnosed, bat shit crazy dysphoria. Something nobody knowing what they knew then could have prevented. Not me. Not my teachers. Not Elisabeth.

So, here I am.

This is me.

Dysphoria is my psychosis.

Today, I am not dysphoric. So I have to drop everything and write this all down. It is that urgent. It is that important. I need to know this makes some kind of sense to others before I can trust it to assimilate into my collection of past, peak emotional responses. It has to add up. It has to make sense, otherwise it takes longer to come to terms with. I need the memory to fully mature. I need to conquer the triggering effect it has had on my life. I have to understand what tangibly happened on that day in Theresa Hayden’s classroom.

My fear of suicide has caused me to take drastic measures like growing boobs… and another drastic measure, recently asking a friend to reach out to Elisabeth on my behalf. To tell her I understand what I did. That I never stopped searching for the roots of the problem and that I think I almost have it conquered. I asked to see if Elisabeth could finally reach out to me. Something I had stayed away from for quite some time, because I know the harm it has done in the past. I just think some sort of acknowledgement from her would help put this behind me. Just a smoke signal. An aknowledgment that we are now 40 and in different places with our lives. A sort of totem.

I know what dysphoria can do now. I know it will kill me if I don’t kill it first. It makes me want to move fast when I am able to see the root of the onion.

But that desire to see some

kind of a sign from her, once again, in my own special way, negates her fucking right to say, “NO!”

I see her name pop up on Facebook on occasion, unbolded, because she has blocked me from ever talking to her again. And it crushes me. It reminds me of all the damage I did to her.

I see how our old class dispersed in a way none of my other theatre classes did. And I feel like I broke the fucking wheel. I feel like I broke our ensemble. I broke the circle.

I didn’t rape her. I never hit her. I didn’t stalk her. I came very close to what you would call stalking, but I never followed her or went places I was not invited.

What I did was negate her right to say, “NO!”

And behind rape and stalking, right behind them in fact, is that. A woman gets to say, “NO!” No questions asked.

I didn’t realize at the time how my actions, all masculinely douchey, and frightening have been like for her and those closest to both of us.

To me, I was a submissive trans person in crisis and with a broken heart. To me SHE had all the power.

To her? I had to be one of the WORST men.

I do want a chance to connect with her. To tell her I am still working on it. To tell her I am so close to being through this I can taste it. That I am on mile 25 of the marathon. That I am exhausted. And that my love for her, not the gross kind, the real kind, has evolved, deepened, ripened and matured. It has helped me keep pressing through at times when I couldn’t do it alone, because I don’t want to hurt anyone again like I hurt her. That I have learned and still am learning from all this mess.

And I get it. It probably won’t happen. Nobody has more claim to their rights and reasons to avoid me. Nobody I have ever known. And it all happened because I loved her madly. Literally. Madly.

It may take longer without her acceptance than it would with it, and I have tangible reasons to fucking need to move this process through as quickly as possible before another layer of onion grows and I must peal it off yet again to get back to the root of the issue.

And…

I have to respect her right to her, “NO!”

I hope this sheds some light on why I have been so fucking slow to work through this and why I must keep going back. It is the keys to creative control over my dysphoria. I have to play with fire, because if I don’t while I can, it will consume me. The same thing that prevents me from putting my essence, my soul into my acting, is also what wants me dead. It is me or the dysphoria. I am fucking done sharing my life with my dysphoria, and having to take responsibility for all the terrible things I have done whilst batshit crazy, or recovering from an extended bout of being batshit crazy, that fucking sucks. It is like taking the fall for your evil twin.

Much gratitude to my wife, because she patiently listened to and understood this all for the first time today, once I finally was able to provide a logical context for her, and she showed me the importance of writing it all down and sharing it with others. Being able to explain it is a HUGE step in coming to terms with it. Thank you, Shmoopy.

Elisabeth, wherever you are, I am deeply sorry.

Aloha,
Tori

One of the Guys

I hated being a guy but sometimes I miss being one of the guys.

I was talking to a friend who is also transitioning and the discussion moved towards how our relationships with others have changed. It mostly was about our male friends. Our experiences are quite similar. We are relating better with women than men. Men are becoming harder and harder to figure out in spite of all our experience in men’s shoes.

My relationships with most men have changed vastly. Only a very few have remained much as they were before.

One close friend told me a few weeks ago that I had changed. I am like a different person now.

The discussion that followed really shook me to the core.

He was speaking honestly and from the heart. He was not being mean. All the same, it seemed like a mark of the end of our relationship. I hope it isn’t.

But shit, I have been in transition for over a year and a half now. All the while, I have been the star of my own movie. I guess I had moved past worrying about the impact my transition has on people who are close to me. This reminded me that it is a bit of an adjustment for everyone.

To me, I feel like I have changed very little. That may come as a surprise. But, I started transition with the same consciousness I have today. Whatever it is that makes me a unique and living human was never rebooted with a brand new operating system. My brain is still my brain. I started transition as me. I remain me.

Transition is SLOW. I always say it can be like watching paint dry. Perhaps my personality has changed far more than I had thought.

I think there is more to it though. Other people’s perception also plays a HUGE role. To some people, TOLERANT people, simply viewing me as a woman or a trans woman completely changes how they feel they should relate to me.

Obviously, men tend to treat women differently than they treat other men. Men, usually heterosexual, commonly avoid friendships with women. The friend zone is a bad thing according to most men. Femininity holds far less value In male circles, and women are easily ignored or talked over. The whole dynamic is different.

Then, there are the guys who have become flirtatious. What a bizarre, confusing form of flattery to someone like me who is not used to it. Many men though, only know how to communicate to women through flirtation. It rarely means anything besides the person likes me and is trying to express it.

There is just a general distancing that has evolved over time. I am far from the only trans woman who has experienced this.

The longer men have to wrap their head around my transition, the less they see me as one of the guys. They forget what it was like to hang out with me. They replace these memories with new thoughts of me being a trans female.

My relations with women have evolved too. These differences were far quicker for me to notice.

Many trans women talk about how women start behaving differently around them shortly after starting hormone replacement therapy. It just becomes easier to talk with women within a few weeks, even for those trans women who have not come out.

Obviously, part of that is the hormones. Hormones are like drugs. Men and women are all stoned out of their gourds, they are just high on different substances. Thinking whilst high on estrogen has to effect how a person interprets other people on estrogen.

The next thing is pretty cool. I think it is partly pheromonal. One of the first things to change on hormones is how you smell. That musky to foul male scent I could not always shake was replaced with something far more mild and female. I do not smell male anymore and I suspect that really changed how women act around me. Why do I think this is the case? Because before I came out but shortly after starting hormones, female strangers, female cashiers… etc. started talking to me. Just small talk. It started happening far more frequently than it did before

Finally, my sex drive plummeted in those first weeks on hormones, so I was more likely to communicate with women without that awkwardness of wanting to check out her tits while knowing I shouldn’t.

By the time I came out, I was already relating differently to females and they were relating differently to me. This has only become deeper since then, to the point where I now think I understand the women I talk to better than the men.

The main thing I think coming out did, was it showed women how I too embraced my feminine side. I did not think less of women, like many men seem to. We were on the same team.

So, back to my friend who thinks I have changed, and I am almost a different person. I guess I have changed. I guess I am like a different person. I guess he is right. I don’t know if things will or ever can return to how they used to be. I don’t know if I want them to.

All I know is, I still do occasionally miss being one of the guys… but I love transition.

Aloha,
Tori

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Bathrooms: Number One

It is time I came clean. I am not really transgender. I always knew the day would come when lawmakers like Fla. State Representative Frank Artiles (R) would see through my ruse and decide to propose legislation that will protect the sanctity of bathrooms from progressive thinkers like me. His law would make it illegal for trans people to use restrooms that correspond with their gender. In other words, I could be fined, jailed or both for using the woman’s room if this bill passes. At least in Florida.

I hatched my plan decades ago. All I had to do was feign dysphoria, struggle with addiction, attempt suicide, come out to my friends and family, convince psychological and medical professionals I was trans, get my blood tested, start hormone replacement therapy and wait for the hormones to start showing some results, become sterile, grow boobs, get my beard lasered off, learn to apply makeup, buy a bunch of new clothing, lose my muscle definition, work on my posture and voice, start this blog, give up my male privilege… etc. and after all that, I would be able to go into the women’s room whenever I wanted, you know, just to hang out and pick up chicks.

The beauty of my plan was its simplicity.

Ah well…

It was fun while it lasted… hiding in stalls, waiting for just the right woman to step inside. Not just any woman, mind you, I had to reject many and just keep waiting. Imagine their disappointment, the ones I rejected. After opening a stall door (keep the door unlocked, this is key) and discovering the majestic me, in all my glory, hunched on a toilet seat like a sexy gargoyle, so neither my head nor my feet were visible, only to be sent on her way to look for another stall, an empty stall, because she was not good enough for me. It was worth it though, because eventually, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours later, the perfect woman would enter my stall.

At these times, I typically like to start with a joke. Something to win her heart, “Hey baby, you come here often?” or sometimes a line even more clever than that.

Every time I have done this, the woman of my choosing swoons and moves to me for an intoxicating embrace, immediately forgetting why she came into the bathroom in the first place. She’s under my spell, at least until I reject her a few days later and go back to work, stalking female restrooms for my next.

It is so simple, my plan. Elegant. Seductive. Effective.

At least it WAS, until Representative Asshat, and others like him decided to ruin it for people like me.

I guess it is time to give it up, before I get into legal trouble. Hard to imagine after all this time, there were never any laws already in place to protect people who use restrooms from this type of behavior…

So, I am sorry to my friends, family and wife. I am sorry to all the followers of this blog. I misled all of you, just so I could use the women’s restroom… and I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for these meddling lawmakers.

It is time to pack up my dresses and makeup and donate them to some worthy cause. It is time to stop taking my hormones. It is time to return to life as a man.

Aloha,
Steve

The ED

WTF am I doing? After almost a year of transition, I am finally being struck by a BFO, a blinding flash of the obvious. I really don’t have any clue what I am doing. Like The Greatest American Hero, I do this all without instructions.

I realize I have no clue what being female really feels like, so there is absolutely no way to know if I am doing it right. I was raised male.

Even though I knew I identified as female, I did not outwardly rebel against my male upbringing, unless you consider my life as an actor a rebellion. I was never an alpha male, but nobody seemed to think I was trans, or particularly feminine. I did have my share of gay guys show attraction towards me, but I never entertained those options. I was a nerd, chubby until 20 years old. I got by on my personality and humor. I was not threatening.

Nobody doubted I was male. All that time I felt like a walking, talking, falsehood. After almost a year of euphoric transition, that feeling has returned. This time though, I feel like a false woman. At least I am very aware of how far I still have to go.

Perhaps I am just welcome in either club but I do not have membership, just good sponsors. I do not feel the part of a man, and I do not quite look female.

My voice is a pain in the neck. Literally. Try talking in a high range for any amount of time. It can hurt. It takes a lot of work and all the time I feel like a big phony. There is little worse than feeling like a fraud when you are attempting to be more authentic. Alas, I have a low voice. It is going to take time and effort to move past it and into a female range. It is quite possible to get there but voice is the bane of many a trans woman’s existence.

Lately though, I get struck by one screaming question: WHY? Why go through all of this? Why change my name? Why change my gender marker? Why wear makeup? Why change my wardrobe? Why change the way I communicate with people?

I guess the answer is simple. I have already stated it in this post. I already feel like a falsehood as a man.

Everybody accepted me as a man, except ME. Now I have turned the table. I am attempting personal acceptance at the risk of losing everybody else.

Transition is an action. While I am transitioning I am crossing from one place to another. Perhaps some day I will earn my ED.

What is an ED? It is when I finally get to add an ED to transition. Rather than being in transition, I will have transitionED. Perhaps that will never be the case, but many trans folk successfully transition. They earn their ED.

I have had conversations with many people since I began this journey. Most of them do not fully understand why I would ever transition, and yet they do their best to accept me. It just does not compute to them and perhaps that is a good thing. It means they are wired right and even the concept that someone else might not be is hard to grasp. I have been told that trans folk never fit in. They never look right. They never pass.

Well, after meeting a handful of trans folk (literally five) this year, who I had no clue were actually trans, I entirely disagree. Trans folk are very good at clocking other trans folk… but you only notice the trans folk you notice. It is easy to assume you have a perfect batting average because you can tell every single time you can tell. It is egotistical to assume nobody could ever fly beneath the radar. It takes time. It takes effort. It happens. Trans folk can very frequently pass.

Once you know someone is trans, you KNOW. It is human nature to start looking for flaws. Looking for things that make a person recognizable as their former self (even if you never knew them pre transition). But if someone does not know, they do not know.

One issue for trans folk (particularly trans women), and a standard placed upon them by society, is beauty. Trans women are often expected to either be beautiful (it’s a TRAP!), or obvious (it’s a MAN!). The most successful transitions I am aware of, are more often than not, the folk who do not try too hard to look perfect. Overcompensation can out you… nobody in their right mind should look like a Barbie Doll. Many trans women dress far younger than they actually are. I understand. They are making up for lost time. It sometimes makes me sad. So many transitioners are hung up on the fact they did not transition earlier.

Most non-trans folk fail to ever entertain the notion that a trans person may just try to look normal. To simply blend in. It is far easier than I thought. I have good days and I have bad days. Some times I am a hot mess no matter how hard I try. Others, I can blend in, in broad day light.

One trick; you do not want to look your best. Looking good, or even trying to look good gets people to look at you. The more they look, the more likely they are to clock you. Being clocked is potentially dangerous. In 2012, more than 50% of the LGBT hate crime murders committed in America were against trans folk, the vast majority were trans women. Eeeeep!

How do I know if I am not being clocked? People just do not look at me at all. Or their glance does not linger. Knowing glances are not always bad, usually they are the, “I know you are trans and hey, I think that is cool. Keep on truckin’.” kind of glance. But having someone’s face contort into disgust just because they clocked me happens frequently enough to keep me on my high heeled toes.

Even on a good day, I only pass every so often but it is becoming more and more common. My posture and my voice will out me almost every time I move or speak. But hey, I do ok when I stand still and am very quiet.

Sometimes I get to be a fly on the wall as friends or family debate who/what I am right in FRONT of me. “No, if she wants to be a woman, SHE is a woman!” Sigh…

So, WTF am I doing? I am working towards my ED. I am fighting to fit in, to be accepted for once by myself and by society. Self acceptance comes so much easier to me now and due to that, I hardly care if I never pass fully elsewhere. I wish safety was not such an issue. I am along for the ride, so self acceptance is a huge relief. I can’t wait for that ED though… except…

… once I have my ED, then what?

Aloha,
Tori

Back to the Future

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I went home for ten days, after eight years of being away. My primary reason for returning was to attend my 20th High School Reunion, as I had seen my parents a couple weeks prior when they’d come to Hawaii. I was quite tentative about going to the reunion. I grew up in a Red State, and I was one of the few in my school who was not religious. I grew up in Utah which is predominantly LDS (Mormon).

Utah High Schools are unique in one key way. The LDS Church tends to buy property next door to the school and, they run a seminary there, a school for studying the LDS religion. Students at the public high school have the option to take one fewer elective class from the high school and instead, go next door to take a class in the seminary building. This allows LDS students to further their religious studies while, “Technically” not crossing the sometimes hazy line that separates church and state. Still, seminary class highlighted who was Mormon and who wasn’t amongst the student body. Also, non seminarians had to take an extra class at the high school. It wasn’t exactly like we were allowed to mess around for one period a semester if we weren’t going to seminary. Most state governments would see the flaws in this system. Not Utah. This was just one example where Utah law served to highlight the differences between Mormons and Gentiles (yes, non-Mormons are Gentiles. In Utah, you can be a Jewish Gentile).

In many ways, I took being non-Mormon in a Utah public school as a challenge. I worked hard to tow the line. To live a life of morality that would put many Mormon class mates to shame. I did not wish to be the stereotypical non-Mormon bad boy. I did not smoke, drink, do drugs or sluff. I remained virginal. I kept my grades up. I even managed to become quite popular accidentally just because I was part of our highly visible, weekly, televised news program and, a member of our school’s state championship winning drama team. Being an actor at my high school was a big deal, when compared to other schools… I mean, we were still drama nerds, but cooler than many other a school’s drama nerds because we reliably brought home a bunch of 1st place trophies. Nobody voted for me and yet, people tended to know of me. Popularity can be such a big deal in high school. I never really sought it out, it just happened all the same. I’d gone from a class of 14 to a class of 500+ and somehow, I didn’t get swallowed up by it all.

Members of the LDS Church are not typically creepy, Bible thumpers. They don’t burn crosses in Gentile’s yards or go out on lynchings. I hope that much would be obvious. They are raised to be polite, loving, hard working and geared towards family. They can be intimidating simply because they are SO practiced in being good people. I mean, like really, really good people. Not phony nice… NICE nice.

The vast majority of my high school friends were/are Mormon. They weren’t constantly trying to convert me and I was not trying to get them to stray. We accepted each other in spite of our differences, and we frequently acknowledged those differences through good natured jokes.

My core group of friends were the folks who over the course of a year or so, decided to eat lunch together. We were an odd collection of people with different beliefs, politics and, ethnicities. For a bunch of Utahns, we were quite the diverse group. The things we had in common were, we were pretty nerdy, smart and, we respected people for their differences. We would spend our lunch breaks debating politics, religion, scientific theory and, whatever else we could come up with. These debates would get quite heated but they never became personal because we understood the need for differing opinions in order to have a good debate and, we collectively were willing enough to look at all sides of an issue even if that meant we may change our own opinion eventually. It is safe to say, they are the smartest, most tolerant group of people I have ever had the honor of knowing, and yes, most of them are Mormon.

Then we graduated. Many of my friends moved away to go to school. Of those who remained, most left on LDS missions a year later. They went around the world to share their beliefs with others, to ride mountain bikes, wear white shirts and dark ties and, to have countless doors slammed in their faces.

I remained in Utah. I made new friends at the University. I continued acting. I started to smoke, drink and, began a love affair with marijuana. I had the time of my life and I learned at a remarkable pace.

Then my missionary friends started to return and, I was filled with a shame that sadly kept me from completely reuniting with them. While they were gone, I had convinced myself that I had fallen too far from the tree. I no longer thought we had things in common with each other. I avoided them like I had some contagious disease and I did not want them to catch it.

It is funny to think about it now. I am sure when I started this post and talking about Mormons, many reading this thought I would talk about how terrible they are. In reality, I did not feel like I could continue living up to the high standards they’d set. I’d convinced myself that I was the terrible one. So, I broke all ties.

After undergrad, I moved to NYC to continue learning, acting and making mistakes. I had already planted the mental seed that I was not as good of a person as I had been in high school, and that continued to weigh me down.

These self doubts were directly related to my gender dysphoria. The feeling of being trapped as a male were taking their toll. Drugs and drinking helped me escape, I thought. Smoking cigarettes was an attempt at slow suicide. I came very close to transitioning. VERY close. Then, the Twin Towers fell.

I will write about 9/11 at length in a month or so. Let me just say for now that it was terrible and I was close. The thing about huge tragedy, tragedy that is unfathomable, is it can bring with it great catharsis. Something so big can really make all your other problems feel extremely small. 9/11 lifted my dysphoria for quite some time. The release from dysphoria allowed me to man up and seize the opportunity, especially when I met the woman who would eventually become my wife, just eleven days later on September 22, 2001.

We stayed together in NYC for a few years before my dysphoria started to innevitably kick in again. A common side effect of dysphoria is it can cause a person to stagnate. I had trouble holding a job, and even more trouble looking for one, or even leaving the house for that matter. I wasted my time watching television and surfing the Internet. Our relationship was deteriorating and my dysphoria was back in full force. I could not bring myself to tell my future wife I was trans. Instead, I did the same thing to her I’d done in Utah to my high school friends. I’d decided to protect my future wife from my stagnating self. I broke up with her and moved back to Utah. She was better than me. She deserved better than me. I would never change. I wasn’t worth her love.

So, I moved back “Home” and once again, i created a whole new set of friends. I avoided my undergrad friends. I avoided my high school friends. I started over. I am pretty good at starting over. In fact, I tend to thrive for a good while before the stagnation kicks in. I got a number of professional acting jobs and, I got full time work at a professional theatre. It was really a great creative time. I also, kept calling my future wife on the phone and, we’d talk for hours. Eventually, she visited Utah and we patched things up, much to her circle of friend’s collective chagrin. After all, I did dump her once.

I applied to grad schools and was accepted to The University of Hawaii. My future wife moved with me, and I got to start over yet again… again. I proposed to her, came out as trans to her and, very shortly after graduation, we were married.

Let me talk a bit about grad school. I started out very well, just like I do, but my dysphoria returned with full force more quickly than it had in the past whenever I had run away to start over. By the end of the first semester, I was dealing with full on stagnation. I would take classes and do well all semester long, only to fail to complete the final project for absolutely no good reason at all. It was a humiliating pattern I was stuck in, and my teachers were quite annoyed by it and, annoyed with me as a student. I was rude, defensive and, I carried myself around with an air of superiority that was oh, so transparently betrayed by my multiple failures. None of my professors could put a finger on the root of my problems (why was I [sarcastically] paying them?) and, at the time, I was helpless to do or say anything about my issues. To this day, the head of the UHM Theatre Department HATES me. I think he gave me my degree just to get me out the door and yet, I did eventually pass all my classes and meet all the requirements. I earned my degree. The hard way. That I made it through, with my closeted and cripplingly dysphoric secret in tow, is damn near miraculous.

The spiral tightens as it spins downward. As I closed in on my degree, the spiral wound tighter and tighter.

Alcohol addiction was getting bad, and it only got worse after graduation until I got all suicidey and realized I had to transition NOW… if only to see if it would work. It is working.

Then, I started the process of coming out to all my friends. Living in Hawaii, and not having many old phone numbers, I had to come out to a lot of people via Facebook. First, I came out to my friends in Hawaii, because they were closest geographically, and Hawaiian culture is generally chilled out, so I did not anticipate many bigotry issues. I was limited in the people I could tell in Utah, and on the mainland in general, precisely because circles of friends overlap and my mother, father and, my wife all wanted to tell some people themselves and that effect would ripple. After a month or two, I rushed my parents and wife along. Eventually, my folks had told their brothers and sisters and, they gave me the go ahead to tell everyone I wanted. My wife lagged behind.

At around the six month transition mark, I unilaterally came out to everyone on my male Facebook account and invited them to friend me over at my new, female account. There were some interesting side effects. The main ones included many friends thinking I was joking or deciding my account had been hacked. Oh, also, my wife was PISSED. Time and again during transition, things that are good for me have an opposite impact on those closest to me. I did not properly respect the fact that by coming out in such a grand way, I had outed my wife as a quasi-lesbian. She does not identify as a lesbian, but she is married to me, eventually she will be a lesbian or bi, in the eyes of the law. Of course, she, at the time, was allowed to communicate with whichever friends she wanted. I was not. Eventually, I felt I had waited long enough and I acted against her will. I never anticipated her reaction being so negative and she didn’t properly understand how isolated I was required to be by being closeted unintentionally by someone else, when I was ready to come out.

I came out to everyone when my wife was too busy bringing home the bacon to keep her thoughts straight, let alone explain to everyone she knew that she’d married a trans woman who was finally ready to be out to the world.

Of course, I had come out to many people individually. Some on Facebook, some over the phone and, some face to face. The Facebook ones were the worst. Imagine having to explain your gender individually to people you have known for years, so they would migrate over to a new, female account where I could safely remain closeted from people I had not yet told.

“Hi,

You used to know me as Tommy, but things have changed, you see, I am trans and… blah blah blah…

Aloha,
Tori”

It got fucking old, fast. Sometimes I would just try to add folks as friends without writing them the obligatory and, embarrassing note but eventually, after Facebook twice accused me of running a phony account thus requiring me to verify my existence in order to continue posting, I changed tactics.

The thing is, I could not bring myself to come out to my high school friends individually no matter how close we had been. They did not find out until I came out to everyone. Not one of them. I was too ashamed.

Once out to all of them, WOW did they support me! Long conversations began with people I had not spoken to in years. Two people asked if I was going to the 20th reunion. I said, “No”. They said I should. Both of them actually promised they would go if I did, but they were not planning on going otherwise, and yes, they both kept their promise.

Of course, I am poor and unemployed so getting to the mainland from my isolated rock in paradise was purt’near impossible. Then the Deus Ex Machina, my father in law, said he would pay for my wife and I to visit them up in Montana this summer (if we paid him back when we could). After my wife did some negotiating and, as she slowly recovered from being outed by me, she got herself a ticket to visit her family in Montana and got me a ticket to see mine in Utah at the time of my reunion.

It really sucks to think that I outed my wife against her will, and yet that very outing is the only reason I was convinced to attend my reunion. I would not have reconnected with any of these people in time for the reunion otherwise. Everything comes at a price. Sigh…

So, word started to get out that I would be attending. I remember having a conversation with one of our former student body officers online that I wanted to be called Tori and not Tommy. If we had name tags I wanted my female name or I would walk out! I was pretty catty about it. Uncharacteristically catty, in fact. Those things really do not tend to bother me that much, but my point was: If y’all can’t treat me as the transitioning woman I am, spare me the time and effort because I am already scared shitless to be doing this at all.

A few days later, he contacted me again with an interesting question: “What should we call you in old photographs?” I did not know. He suggested we go with Tori and, I went with his decision. It was right then that I realized how in some ways, simply by transitioning, I had become a person with special needs. It was an eye opener. It was humbling. I made a point to do my best not not to make a stink about little things like name tags ever again. I do not wish to be THAT trans woman.

And, what on Earth was I going to wear?

I flew to Utah about a week after my wife flew to visit her family. After catching up on sleep, getting a new driver’s license and, going to the dentist, the first social thing I did was call my former high school drama teacher. 81 years old and, she is as sharp as ever. Sharper. She confessed she struggled to come to terms with my transition, but she is still very much my mentor and she freely handed me some amazing pearls of wisdom, which I have been using ever since with amazing results. She is one smart cookie.

Then my mom took me to the University of Utah Theatre Department to get my hair cut. Well, she took me to get my wig cut. Yeah, my wig needed some work. They get old. Shorter is better. Yay! New hair!!!

The first thing I did that was at all reunion related was I went down to Orem to jam with the old garage band. The BAND!!! After high school, a couple friends from our lunch table decided I would make a great lead singer for their garage band (ha!) so they brought me in and for a while, we made some music. We recorded an album. Eventually life and school took us our separate ways. I never thought we would reunite, not even for one night. Getting back together was just like old times and we even got some poor quality recordings out of it. We actually sounded a good deal better than our recording equipment captured. There was something there. A career as rock stars? No. But there is a living pride we rightly share in not just being a band, but in writing and producing our own songs. We weren’t a cover band. We ARE Children of the Mud.

The next day was the first day of the reunion. I am thankful to have hung out with my band mates before because I now knew I had at least two friends who would tolerate me at the reunion. I was very nervous though. I tried my best to prepare for the worst. What if someone said something bigoted that was met with approval by others?

A friend of mine, my best friend from high school in fact, had arranged to drive me to the reunion and then, we would duck out early and catch dinner. It was kind of like a date. Only we are both happily married.

That said, he picked me up when he said he would. I made him wait for a minute or two while I finished getting ready. Then, he drove me to the reunion and walked me inside. Neither of us knew what to expect and yet he still walked me in just so I could hold my head high.

Now, I am a manly-ish, lesbian, trans woman but I confess that having a man there to protect me as I walked into the unknowns of my past and present, made me truly understand and respect chivalry. He asked if he could take me because he thought I might need the support. He invited me to dinner afterword because he thought I might need an exit strategy. All he had done was drive me a mile and walk inside with me and yet, it was a profoundly moving experience; both in needing and, in having his protection. Good friends are hard to find.

Suddenly, I was face to face with the former student body officer, the one who I had foolishly insisted make everybody call me Tori. He smiled from ear to ear and handed me a pre-made name tag with, “Tori” written on it. I noticed everybody else was making their own name tags and that he’d also handed me my own blank one. I wrote my name on it and placed it on my chest. I placed the pre-made name tag in my purse to save. It now resides in my high school yearbook. As a side note, this was the first time I’ve had to deal with the issue of where to place a name tag on a female top, over boobs. Eeeeep! Weird.

The reunion started off slow. In fact, there were so few people there early on, that we were kinda’ forced to talk to one another in spite of the awkward vibe we all could feel. Our high school is HUGE, and with just a handfull of people there, we only made it feel bigger. These early discussions were weird more often than not, even though I quite like the people I talked to. I think we were all getting our sea legs. A reunion is a kind of phony event, it celebrates graduation but it does not take place on the actual anniversary of your graduation. It is a get together where most people in their own way fear they won’t live up to expectations. It took about a half hour and a bunch more people arriving before people seemed to settle into a groove.

After an hour or two, I noticed I was getting pretty good at mingling. Few people dared mention my transition to my face, and yet, everybody seemed to know my name even without looking at my name tag. I imagine word got out. No big deal, I am getting used to that. Be the obvious and only trans person in a room, and people will have a fairly easy time remembering you.

Eventually, I realized I was having just as good a time talking to people I did not know very well or at all, as I was chatting with my old friends. Seems 20 years can cause people to become pretty darn chilled out and interesting.

But then, I couldn’t take it any more. I had to pee. Nooooooo!!! Couldn’t I make it three lousy hours without going? Sadly, a side effect of the testosterone blocker I take is, it makes me need to go quite frequently. I can rarely make it to the intermission of a play before I have to get up and go any more. Here I was, at my reunion and I had to do that criminal thing everyone else takes for granted and, I did not want anyone to find out. I walked around the school and all the bathrooms were locked except for the ones in the indoor courtyard where we were all gathering. Fortunately, most of the people were gathered on one side of the courtyard so, considering how I am now a ninja, I stealthed my way into the empty loo on the other side, did my business and left. I do not think anyone noticed. My discomfort with using public toilets is mostly self-imposed but really, people can argue that I do not belong in either room. I used the women’s, FYI. It is how us ninjas roll.

As I’ve said, very few people dared to mention my transition to my face. I appreciated those who did because they were willing to cut through the bullshit. I mean, I can understand the questions about wife, job, family, where I currently reside and whatnot but – HOLY SHIT ARE THOSE BOOBS REAL?!? Kinda’ seemed like my transition was also important to folks but they frequently enough, didn’t quite know how to address it. I did my best to bring it up myself when folks seemed uncomfortable. Joking can be very helpful.

“What have you been up to Tori?”

“Oh, you know… transing. Transing all over the place.”

Once it was out there and, once people had discovered I had a sense of humor about the transitioning elephant in the room, they tended to let their guards down. After an hour or two, I was no longer waiting for people to come to me, I was freely crashing their conversations… just like old times. The more at ease I became, the more at ease everyone around me was.

I discovered something fascinating. My name was not Tori to some people. To them, I was known as TommyToriOhMyGODIAmSoSorry. Being called by my full and formal name will take some getting used to. Usually I am only called that by my mother and even then, only when I am in trouble.

I suppose it is as good a time as any to mention that this night the reunion was at our old high school and there was no alcohol being served so inhibitions were lifting the old fashioned way. People were having fun in spite of themselves and in spite of the innate awkwardness that comes from attending any large reunion.

My ride and I never found the need to duck out early. We stayed until the end. We even went to an after party at a local bar.

Ahhh the bar. That was a lot of fun, at least it was once we got in. Getting in was perhaps the worst experience of the evening.

So… my ride took me to the bar where we were going to meet some friends. Three of us walked in and Bluto the bouncer, immediately stopped us to check our identification. I am fine with this, although it outs me. The law is the law. I know I do not pass often enough as female, and still, it is kinda’ embarrassing. It confirms my old identity. But first, the bouncer noticed one of my friends was still wearing his name tag from the reunion and demanded he take it off. I guess dive bars have dress codes now. Whatever… I mean it isn’t like we’d just come here from our 20th reunion or anything, and that, “Hello My Name Is” name tag had sentimental value to him or our group or anything like that… my name tag meant something to me.

Eventually, it was my turn. I handed him my Hawaii ID. He looked at it for a while. He looked at me. He looked at it again. Finally, he asked, “Why does your ID look different compared to the other Hawaii IDs I see?” I quickly explained that it was not a drivers license, it was a state ID. They look different. He looked at it again. He looked at me. He looked at it again… again. Finally, I reached into my wallet and pulled out my new, Utah driver’s license. I didn’t before because the DMV had suggested I continue using my old identification until my hard copy was issued (this one was on unprotected paper) because I would likely need a hard copy of my ID to fly home in a few days. Since he already had my other ID in his hands, I gently tossed the paper ID on his desk when he snapped, “Let me give you a bit of advice. Do not throw shit at me!” I guess, since the piece of paper did leave my hand and float through the air before landing squarely in the middle of his desk, one could argue that I threw it, but if it was thrown at him, I had terrible aim, and an even worse choice of weapon. He then compared both IDs, took out a sheet of paper and spent an intrusively creepy amount time either writing ID info down, or pretending to do so. Finally, he let us all in. My friends could see I was upset. It did feel like discrimination. I was clearly old enough to go inside. Don’t flatter me, I don’t look THAT young. I was so flummoxed, I was literally shaking. I have half a mind to Yelp him a new asshole. I did get his name…

Sigh…

Once inside, the bar was great. After a few hours, hanging out with a delightful bunch, including the delightful pixie I, and everyone else I had ever known in high school, had crushed on. My ride, the friend who had to remove his name tag, and I, decided we would soon leave and catch dinner/breakfast and then… my bladder attacked again. Guess where the restrooms were? If you guessed, right across from the stupid bouncer’s desk, you would be right.

Ninja tactics are old and deeply rooted. In order to get past this guard, I had to strategize, so I collaborated with a female friend, my smoking ally. She informed me that if I came into any trouble for using the restroom, our entire group would raise Holy Hell. I am THAT good. I had used the often whispered about, ninja mind trick. Now my whole group had my back.

So I snuck in, like I do, and I did the urine thing like we all do. I walked out, and Bluto the bouncer, or whatever his name is was staring me right in the eyes. I shrugged him off and rejoined my group. Ninja!!!

We closed the place.

Foooooood!!! My ride took me and my friend to a place called Dee’s, which is like Utah’s own Denny’s or Village Inn and yes, it is better. Otherwise, we would’ve gone to Denny’s or Village Inn. The night ended when my ride took me home after we’d chatted for a while in the parking lot where he’d once worked as a bag boy.

The next morning, my Dad, relieved to see me said, “When did you get home?” I explained that it was around 3:30 A.M. “Well, I woke up around 3 and when I realized you were not home, I almost called the cops because I just knew something had happened to my girl!”

How sweet is that? I am so sorry I worried him. At the same time, he quite likely would have slept right through if I was a guy. AND, I had a heckuva designated driver after all. I am not used to the emotions others have simply by thinking of me as female or vulnerable.

That afternoon, I went to The Pie to meet fellow members of our high school Pie Club. Actually, we used the symbol for Pi, so we could use it on our resumes and look like we were in some kind of math club. In reality, The Pie is the best pizzeria in Utah and, I promise you, one of the best in the world. You may like New York style pizza, or Chicago style but Pie is PIE. It is its own thing and, I can not compare it to other pizza without misleading someone who has not tried it. Thick crust, great sauce, TOO MUCH cheese and, grease enough to clog a heart once it coagulates. Good stuff! Oh, and they make 23″ pies. That may not sound too big, until you see one. Keep in mind, Pizza Hut’s largest pizza is 13″, and terrible.

So we filled up on Pie, then I went home and got ready for night 2: The Sequel, which was a more formal event. My Mom did my makeup, and shared tons of tips with me. Dad took pictures of me. It was kinda’ like prom night. Finally, they gave me the keys to the car and sent me on my way. I was running about a half hour late. I’ve got THAT part of womanhood down!

When I waltzed inside… well, walked inside, a group of friends invited me to their table, I grabbed an extra chair and squeezed in. Who did I sit with? Why, the old lunch table gang and many of their spouses. Sad to say, we did not spend the evening debating this time. It felt kinda’ weird going solo. I missed my wife and, I had grown tired of explaining why she couldn’t be there.

As for my wife, when I mentioned being married, I was often met with the question, “You’re married?” After showing the questioner my ring finger, several people asked me, “What’s he like?” I would politely and calmly explain how he was very much like a short woman of Hungarian ancestry.

Night two continued. There were presentations by the reunion committee, videos, lots of silly mid-90’s music, and a montage of fellow students who had passed away in the last 20 years. For a class our size, we had not lost many, but the news was often quite shattering, and the mood had definitely sobered in the room by the time the presentation had finished.

I took the elevator to street level needing to escape for a smoke. This was my first time alone, downtown, at night… and it was a Saturday night. I became self conscious. I was no longer in a safe zone. Eventually, someone else came downstairs, he kinda’ looked like a young Tom Petty and, we struck up a conversation. It was a relief to have someone to talk to. Neither of us really knew each other in school, and he actually did not know if he would even be welcomed at the reunion, because he had a reputation for being a trouble maker when we were young but, time had been kind to him and he was kind to me.

Things were winding down. I discovered that one of the lunch table gang won the award for being in school for the longest time after high school graduation (11 years!). I was jealous because I came close to winning, on top of that, I was kinda’ embarrassed since I had spent ten whole years, post high school studying acting and collecting student loans (Collect Them ALL!!!). Should have gone into medicine… sigh…

I won an award later, not the coveted, Most Changed award (which shockingly was not handed out this year), but rather a pair of comedy and drama masks in our school colors (Black, White and Gold, Forever) for answering the trivia question, “Who played Thisbee in our production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”, it was unfair, because I had played this person’s, “Lover” Pyramus, in that production… but I couldn’t resist answering since he had to cross dress in that production, while I played a guy. The irony was so irony-ee. Besides, I had lost the Most Schooling award, and the Longest Distance Traveled To Attend award and Most Changed wasn’t even a thing. I could NOT go home empty handed.

Funny thing about being the most changed; I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. 20 years gave many folks ample time to change. A few were unrecognizable in the best possible ways.

Many more had stayed very much the same. Sure they got bigger in places, balder in others… grey in spots, slight wrinkles in others… but the eyes were the same, and their personalities remained. It seems I fit more into this category. Countless people said things to me like, “I didn’t know what to expect when I first heard you were trans and brave enough to still come to the reunion, but I am so happy you came because now I realize you are exactly the same.” Epiphany time! It was true. I am the same, perhaps, oxymoronically, even more myself now than I was back then because I have nothing left to hide.

There are things that annoy me about being trans. My beard shadow and my voice for starters, both tend to get me clocked by people who do not know me. This is sometimes frightening. People I do not know tend to be polite or awesome… but sometimes, strangers see my very existence as a crime against their own understanding of the way the world as they know it is supposed to work. My body is changing due to hormones. My behavior is changing due to giving myself permission to let my inner femininity out. Passing is getting much more reliable, even in the day time, but things can quickly out me if someone inspects too closely. I know I am passing, because people I do not know are treating me like a female much more frequently. An example of passing, someone holding a door for me for an awkwardly long time because, you know, girls can’t operate doors. An example of being clocked, the look on someone’s face after they realize I am trans as I walk past them while they hold the door open for me.

I am working on my facial hair removal, but that is a long and ongoing process. Within a few months, if things continue apace, I should be able to go out without makeup, and not worry about a visible shadow.

Voice is far more complicated. Why? Because it conveys so much. If eyes are the window to your soul, the voice, at its best, translates your eyes into living language. As an actor, I think of my voice as my instrument. And here is the thing: I always have to listen to it!!! I am damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. I sound like a guy, if I do nothing… I sound insincere if I talk in a high pitch with a soft, musical tone. I sound like a bad, female impersonator. That does not convey honesty. Not to me and, not to those people around me. Eventually, my voice may come around but is gonna’ take work. It is not there yet.

So, I spoke with my natural voice and, although I have been told by several people my voice HAS changed a little, I have not made much conscious effort to do anything to it. My point is, I think my voice was helpful at the reunion, because people heard me and, not someone they’d never known. Not so helpful when dealing with strangers though…

Night two was winding down, and I had to use the restroom. So I said my goodbyes, in order to avoid the post-reunion bathroom rush then, I snuck around the corridor so I could get into the ladies room without being seen by the people who were still reunioning. One stall was occupied, so I ninja-ed my way into the farthest stall away from the occupant. I waited for her to finish, wash her hands and leave before I did my business. As I was putting myself back together, the door opened and someone else entered. I was stuck until she picked a stall. Once her stall door had closed, I rushed to the sink, washed and slipped out. Undetected!!! Damn, I’m good.

It was time for the after party at a piano bar. One of my classmates had invited us all to her dueling piano night. She rocked it and, played a bunch of silly 90’s songs for the reunion crew.

The bar was loud though, and after a reunion, I think many of the people who’d gone to the after party wanted to be able to talk a bit more easily. Eventually, a group had decided to go elsewhere and they invited me to tag along. Off we walked through the SLC streets.

We got to the destination. It ended up being a dance club with a line around the block. My Spidey Sense started to tingle. I am more than just a simple ninja. This did not seem like a good place for me. First, dance clubs are LOUD so, no real conversation and, oddly they tend to be where one goes to dance. I was a bad dancer as a man… my female moves are probably worse. Second, dance clubs are often enough, hook up clubs… and I was in no mood for anyone to try to hook up with me, let alone drunken strangers who might discover I am trans only AFTER they had attempted to hook up. That is when shit can get scary. Third, it was close enough to last call that the long wait in line would have prevented us all from having another round together.

So, I did something that surprised me. I put my foot down. I told the group that had at the last moment, invited me, that this was not a good place. I didn’t feel safe. I was afraid of being killed (that got a laugh). So, I would happily go home and they could have fun at the club. The group decided to give up the dance club plan and, to walk together to a dive bar instead.

We walked into the dive as a fight was breaking out at the door. I was at home. No need to fear for my life in here! THIS was my kind of Irish sanctuary. We ordered drinks and got to chatting.

I realized that this group we’d assembled was an odd mix of folks. We really were the late night equivalent to The Breakfast Club. We all knew a couple folks in the group, but we had never before been a group or a clique until this night, and the collective experience of the reunion and the bars was bonding us together. Young Tom Petty was there, a student body officer, a soccer player, a married couple, one delightful, self-proclaimed bitch, the lady who REALLY wanted to go to the dance club, our hockey star, and me, the token trans woman. We were quite the odd bunch and it was delightful.

I walked past another fight on my way to the loo when… NOOOOOO… a line! My ninja skills had not trained me for this. I made a mental note to get in line earlier next time so I would be able to hold it easier. The good and bad news? It was a single person ladies room. Good because I would not need to share. Bad because it would be even more of a wait. By the time I was next in line, a woman lined up behind me, doing the pee-pee dance. “Do you mind?” she inquired, “The men’s room is open and I’ve really gotta’ go! You can use it, and I will make sure nobody comes in… but the lock on the door’s broke.”

I replied, “You can use it. I am fine waiting right here.” She glared at me like I had broken some unspoken golden faucet rule and, she pee-pee wiggled towards the men’s room. Just as she was closing the door, two men burst in and kicked her out because they needed to pee, and she was in their space. It seems she too, had broken an unspoken rule. She got back in line behind me, embarrassed. I said, “It isn’t easy, this, but that is exactly why I am waiting here. I am in the right line. I hope you now understand.” She nodded, and looked down at the ground. The door opened, I slipped in, locked the door and, went as fast as I could, just so the woman behind me could find some much needed relief ASAP, but only after waiting her turn, just like I had done. I do not know if I actually used any of my ninja skills in that situation. I do know I felt a sense of smug accomplishment. I probably would have let her go before me had she not insinuated I belonged in the other room.

The bar closed, and our group started to walk people to their cars, hotels, bikes and, whatnots. The night was winding down. My old friend the soccer player and I helped designated-drive people to their cars or even to their homes. This took some time but it gave us some ample opportunity to reconnect. I do not know if either of us had realized until then, how much we had missed each other. Women used to frighten me so much, because I was both attracted to them, and wanted to be a part of their strangely complex club.

Before all that happened though, I made one terrible mistake. As we walked along, away from the closing dive bar, some random drunken stranger started hitting on me. I told him to buzz off… damn!!! My stupid voice!

“Holy shit! You’re a DUDE?!?”

Noooooooooo!!!

“Well, uh… hey, you still wanna’ get freaky?”

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

He followed me, saying creepy things for a couple of large city blocks before I finally turned around and stood my ground. I raised my voice at him in an attempt to make him stop the chase. Epic fail. He began to get upset with me. He physically threatened me. Stupid man. He thought I was a strong guy, just like his uneloquent, belligerent ass was. Now, I may be a ninja, but my training was failing me at this point. I did not want this to come to blows. I told him as much, as my friends gathered to help ease the situation. Then his friends, who had been trying to figure out where he had run off to, joined in. There was a bizarre stand off since all of us were clearly more bark than bite. Eventually, I found their group’s, “Leader” and explained to him how I was being hit on and followed by this kid, when I really wanted nothing to do with him. I was having a night out with my friends for our 20th reunion. This got his group to help remove creepy guy from the situation and, we all went our separate ways.

Still, being seen and hit on as a female is new to me, and it was only after I had opened my mouth that I realized a real ninja would have put her head to the ground, and just kept walking in silence. Lesson learned.

The night had ended and I returned home around 4:00 AM, to my worried mother who hadn’t yet slept a wink. Sigh…

I was up until sunrise, chatting on Facebook with my oldest, and very pregnant friend, my very first crush. We discussed life and stuff… she is tall…

The next day was a family reunion, with most of the people on my mother’s side coming to the house for a, “Hawaiian style” luau. I got to meet many of my cousin’s kids for the first time, and my family got to, “Meet” Tori! One aunt commented that it was all a bit sad because she had lost someone she had known, but she had gained someone new as well. I was warmed by the intended compliment, but it was surreal knowing I was the same person I had always been. Nothing had been lost in my eyes, only gained.

Rising from the ashes like a Fiery Phoenix is an image I have often reflected upon as I transition. I started at rock bottom, and I had already come so far upon returning to Utah. And yet, I had not realized until I returned home, that one thing holding me back all this time was how I had disconnected from my High School friends after we’d graduated.

It was not until I’d shown my face at that first night of the reunion, that I’d realized my friends were always there, waiting with open arms. They’d held me in as high esteem as I had held them. We all, in our own ways felt inadequate. By reconnecting, they’d returned a piece of me that I had long ago forgotten I’d even lost. I hope I’ve done them the same favor.

People kept telling me how brave I was to go to the reunion. At first I just brushed them off. Then I started to believe them. Then, I realized we were ALL brave. 20 years! What if we didn’t live up to expectations?

How many of our classmates didn’t show up because they were afraid they would fall short? That thought they had peaked in high school? Convinced they were somehow less than their peers…

This reunion wasn’t about people coming to brag about their successes. In its own way, it was about people facing their own demons and just taking a leap of faith. People who sincerely hoped, in spite of their wear and tear of the last 20 years, that they could somehow recapture something they’d long missed.

Mission accomplished.

I spent my last days in town, on a nostalgia tour. I visited old haunts. My oldest homes. My old grade school (it got small). I cried a lot of happy girl tears.

The last social engagement, my dear friend, the one who had driven me and protected me that first night of the reunion, took me and his awesome wife out to dinner and a movie. After a short and tearful goodbye, it was time to fly back to Hawaii. Paradise… yes… but not home…

I miss my home. I miss my friends. Thankfully, they gave me something to take with me. ME!

Watch out world, Tori’s got her mojo back!

Aloha,
Tori

Six Month Update

I know it is just a number. It means something to me though. Half a year on hormones. Wow.

Time has flown by, and it has crawled as well. Something about finally transitioning forces me to look inwards. I look for all the little changes. I am growing used to the slow pace of things now. Changes do not happen over night. At first, I kind of expected things to happen more quickly, now I am pleased with the rate of change. Any faster and my brain might break.

I just want to give a bit of an update. I have covered some of these things in other posts but I have really tried to cover as many new things as possible. Hopefully you find this as interesting as I do.

What is there to say? I do not really know. Six months and the new car smell is fading. Transition has become the new normal. Quite frankly, things are getting a bit boring.

After my libido drastically changed, I started growing boobs, my skin softened making everything I touch feel different, my body odor completely altered, my emotions became vibrant, my need to talk and talk and talk happened, my depression lifted, I finally want to leave the house, I am getting thunder thighs, junk in the trunk, my eyes are more open, my cheeks are fuller, I have a female hormonal cycle, I listen more, I empathize, and on and on and on… after all this change, things just feel normal. Every single thing is different. And it is normal. Change is the new normal.

I honestly do not remember what testosterone felt like. Crazy, huh? I am sure I would immediately recognize it if I was given some, not that I ever would go that route. My male self is fading away and I am loving damn near every single minute of it.

Does that mean I feel female? I have no clue. I do not know what that is supposed to feel like. Do I feel the same as other women? You tell me. I wish I knew. I never will. I feel like myself finally. I can get used to this.

I actually find myself feeling bad for other people because they have no need for transition and therefore will never know the catharsis transition brings.

It is amazing what I have learned by walking a mile in both sex’s shoes. It cracks me up to think trans folk are often considered second class citizens. We know so much more about the human condition simply by living more than one life. I find guys asking me things like, “Why do women go to the bathroom in packs?” and I am able to answer them. Why? So they can talk behind your back. Happy now?

Women are so accepting of me. It is amazing how different women behave when no man is around. God we talk a lot. Most of it is mind numbingly boring. Sometimes I just want some guy talk. Funny but true. I miss it. Guys don’t always think I still want to talk that way. My interests have not changed just my hormones.

On a side note, people keep asking me when my voice is going to change. Lots of people really think hormones will raise my pitch. It sadly does not work that way. I wish it did. I have to consciously change my voice and I have to get rid of my beard. Those things do not come with a round trip ticket.

My facial hair grows much more slowly now though. It takes about two weeks to grow what I could in three days. My body hair has slowed its growth as well, and it is becoming female hair. I hardly have a dark arm hair anymore. Sadly, the one area I want to change the most, is holding out the longest. Honestly, why does my chest hair still grow so fast and thick? It grows like three times faster than the rest of my body hair. Boob stubble is as bad as it sounds. Also, my boobs are tender. Imagine shaving around a fleshy areola. Imagine getting laser hair removal or electrolysis on such a tender area. Ah, trans world problems…

It may surprise some of you to learn that I frequently grow my beard out. If I don’t have to go out in girl mode, I can rest my face and allow the nicks and cuts from shaving to heal. Besides, I hate shaving. Also, a few days growth allows for a much closer shave. I really can’t wait to be done with the beard entirely. Even concealer doesn’t cover it completely. People will never see me as female up close until the beard is gone. It will take at least a year and cost a lot of money. Also, hair removal always hurts like Hell.

Speaking of expensive things, I am seriously considering the surgery. That is a decision for another day, but I am really starting to lean that way. I do not exactly hate my junk, not like some trans women, but it is pretty darn useless now. It would be nice to have some peace of mind in a changing room, or be able to wear a swimsuit. Yeah, I live in Hawaii, and getting in the water is now an issue. I would look odd in a bikini top, and I would look odd in a wet t shirt.

My mental state has vastly improved. I am still crazy. Everybody is. But my craziness has shifted. I am exponentially less likely to go to dark places. So much of my craziness was rooted in being closeted and dysphoric, and by transitioning, it is like the crazy has been uprooted and is now looking for other places to take hold. I swear it is like playing whack a mole sometimes. I don’t always know when or where it will pop up. My new crazy is much easier to handle though since it is no longer rooted in having the wrong chemicals operating my brain. Still, I know some of my friends have talked with me since I began transition and I was not entirely all there. I imagine this will fade over time. I am very damaged goods, and that doesn’t just heal over a day. I am very thankful to my friends who have talked me through some of my, for lack of a better term, episodes. What can I say? I am sane and crazy at the same time. The sane part is pretty new to me. The crazy part is in constant flux.

My need to drink myself into delusion on a daily basis has been greatly reduced, although I am an alcoholic and if I am not constantly diligent, it takes me over. Thankfully, I am a much more loving drunk than ever before. I mean REALLY loving. I think I have confessed my love to like twenty people, not counting my wife, since I started transition and some of those folks were really freaked out by it. Beats being freaked out by my rage, but it is far from perfect. I really am so happy now, and so able to feel love, that I just can not contain it if I am less than sober. It is overwhelming, the joy I feel, and I just want to share it. Just know, if I start gushing you with love, I am probably drunk and I do love you, just not the way it may sound at the time. I don’t have a lot of practice with these new emotions, nor am I used to being happy.

I always knew hormones do not do everything but it is really sinking in now. I have a lot of work to do. Being a woman is not easy. Learning to be a woman at thirty eight is damn near crazy hard. I was not raised into it. Never had girlfriends helping me learn what looks good on me. Never learned the unspoken social rules. Never learned how to walk or gesture.

People tell me it is a good thing I am an actor. In a way this is true, but I really feel like I have been playing a male all my life and now I kind of want a break. I do not wish to force things. At the same time, in my heart of hearts I want people to see a woman when they see me. I want them to hear a female when I talk. Being so obviously trans is akin to wearing a scarlet letter. I would rather choose who does and does not get to know. I am not ashamed of being trans, I just know it can be dangerous to be so obviously trans.

I am losing the ability to walk through the bad part of town all by myself. This is quite a loss. I always loved the ability to go and blend in anywhere. Now, not only am I more at risk, I am much weaker. It was easy taking my male musculature for granted. Opening jars is getting to be pretty hard.

Ultimately, y’all can see how happy I now am. I am frequently astounded by how effective these hormones are. All the doubts I had before transition were off base. Six months down. The rest of my life to go.

Aloha,
Tori

Transgender Sex Roles

I was asked by the author to read, “He Dresses, She Slacks: Transgender Sex Roles” an article written by blogger WeaverGrace at http://www.WeaverGrace.com it is a thought provoking article and I suggest you all take a look because this post, while self-contained, is a direct response to many of the questions she asks in said article.

Now first, a disclaimer, WeaverGrace blogs the right way, with sources to back up her thought provoking questions. I, on the other hand, choose to blog from my phone. I have no clue why this is, I just do. I have a very good memory for statistics and research, but I rarely back my posts up with actual links to sources. Part of the reason is it is an annoyance to do the proper formatting and whatnot with my iPhone. Part of the reason is this is my blog, dammit and I will blog as I please, thanks. If you do want any links to supplemental information, ask and you shall receive. I blog from a personal perspective not from the perspective of a researcher or a journalist but I do not pull (most) of my facts out of my ass.

This post will be formatted as a question and answer session. WeaverGrace’s questions first, then my answers from my trans perspective.

End disclaimer.

INTERVIEW:

* If we didn’t have rigid sex roles, what might be a reason for being transgender?

This question seems to suggest that trans folk like me, choose to be trans. Now, keep in mind, while I don’t particularly like the terms, “Transgender” or, “Transsexual”,  I am in reality, transsexual, which is a specific type of transgendered person. I am actively transitioning from male to female both physically and legally… hence transSEXUAL.

Now, I understand, the question is intended like a utopian thought, much like John Lennon asking us to imagine there’s no Heaven, or Hell. Imagine there is no gender. It’s easy if you try…

Well, gender or not, there still is sex. I was born XY (male) yet my brain runs much better on XX loving hormones. Without the concept of gender, I suspect I would still be trans, because it is not my desire just to dress, and socialize as female in gender. It is a physical and mental need to operate on female fuel in spite of my dastardly Y chromosome.

The fact that we do have rigid sex roles, paves the way for transvestism, as well as drag kings and queens but transsexualism is a step beyond just conforming to a role. Transsexualism involves having a brain that operates like the brain of the opposite sex. Really. And here is one of those places where a good blogger would post a link to a study showing that trans folk have brains that are built more like the brain of the sex they are transitioning towards. My go to example: Females tend to have enhanced social capacity systems in their brains, and better, more efficient interaction pathways between right and left hemispheres, which can aid in things such as multitasking. Men, because their hemispheres do not interact as much, tend to have an easier time focusing on any given single task.

* A bunch of questions about the differences of male and female social roles.

I will just touch upon this subject because it is not specifically trans related.

In the animal kingdom in general, although I am thinking primarily mammalian here, males and females tend to have different social roles. Non human animals just do not have their own historic texts, and gender roles, at least it seems that way. Human history, and the historic concept of gender tends to place more value over males than females. This likely originates from physical strength. Males are stronger. The strongest traditionally get to write the history. Prehistoric humans it seems, tended to place equal value on the sexes and often, they placed extra value on trans folk, because trans folk could more clearly understand both sides of the spectrum and what lies between.

Female animals are usually better equipped mentally and physically, to care for the young. Female coloration is often more muted, in part, to camouflage while nesting with and training the young.

Males animals, frequently have more physical strength, and are far more colorful. The need to camouflage is less when one frequently only has to care for himself while hunting for food, and colors also are helpful to attract a mate. Yes, in the animal kingdom, females not males frequently decide who will be their mate.

In modern human society, several of these primal urges based on old, animalistic sex roles, do govern what men and women choose to do with their time.

* Who is more conspicuous: a transgender male or a transgender female?

The one who is noticed the most.

Digging deeper, I would venture to say female to male trans folk have a slightly easier time blending in. Smaller stature plays a part, as they are just less likely to STAND OUT. Also, Western society often enough, places more value on men than women, so it is not as illogical to a cis (non trans) person to consider why a woman may wish to become male or present as male.

* Why is female clothing more colorful?

It isn’t always. Burkas, anyone?

Fun fact: Almost every single type of Western female apparel was first made for men, with some key exceptions being the bra and the g string. Why more colorful? As I said, men are more colorful than women, and women therefore, have evolved to be more keen to coloration partly, in order to choose a mate. Perhaps this is why women enjoy shopping for colorful clothes and wearing makeup, because they naturally find color more attractive than males. The irony is, for the most part, men do not care nearly as much about a female’s color choices.

* Where misogyny exists, why would transgender women exist?

The term, “Transgender woman” can be confusing, although it is easy to glean what is meant by this question. That said, I was a transgender man for 37 years. That does not mean I transitioned to being male. It just means I am transgender, and society knew me as male.

The question is a good one. Why would anyone wish to be, “Demoted” from male to female?

I will answer that question with a question of my own: Why would ANY woman not wish to be male?

* Why might a (trans person) exhibit extreme characteristics of their gender?

This in part, goes back to the question about which trans people are the most noticeable. It is quite likely you have not noticed many trans people, simply because they blended in. It is common, therefore, to think all trans people stand out. They do not.

Those that do, often lack practice, still have their beard shadow, are not on hormones, retain their male posture and mannerisms and/or overcompensate for lost time by dressing obviously and sometimes obnoxiously younger than their actual age. Just because I was born with the brain of a woman, does not mean I know how to blend into society as a woman. In a lot of ways, I am like a young teenager. Have you seen how teens dress and wear makeup? It takes time and practice to learn and mature within these social constructs.

* Men cat call and brawl. Girls giggle and cry. Are these expectations taken to the extreme?

Sometimes they are.

Testosterone is proven to lead to aggression. Estrogen in turn is proven to improve emotional and empathic expression. This again, goes back to the mammalian sex roles of the male hunter/fighter and the female nurturer/teacher.

* Why is it hard for men to be attracted to trans women?

In my case, I should ask why is it hard for this trans woman to be attracted to men?

Trans women deny much of their masculinity, and that simply does not compute to many males. There are men who are quite attracted to trans women. The porn stats for trans websites may surprise you. They are quite popular and I doubt it is just women who visit them. It is not as socially accepted though for men to be attracted to trans women as it is for men to be attracted to other men, not in Western society. Go figure…

* What kinds of challenges do (trans) people face when going through puberty? How is this different for people who don’t fit the cultural stereotypes?

Ethnic minorities do not become more of an ethnic minority during puberty. I however, became a man during puberty. Damage was done. My beard grew, my voice dropped, the shape of my face changed… etc. Male puberty greatly complicated my chances for a successful transition. It also, really hammered home the fact that I was not born female. Plus, in my case, it attracted me sexually to women meaning I became extra compelled to fixate on them. Attracted but not wired to pursue. Imagine my most honest potential come on lines, “Hey there, I uh, really like you and I also kinda’ really want to be you. Wanna’ go out?” This may help to explain why I remained a virgin until 25.

* Are men as expressive with their voices as women?

Generally, no. They tend to use a more limited vocabulary as well. Women are hardwired to communicate with words, tone and gesture.

* Why would a heterosexual trans woman like her masculine body? Why would a heterosexual trans man like his feminine body? What’s the difference between having a certain sex’s body, and being a certain gender?

One reason I like(d) my male body? Strength. Another? Peeing whilst standing.

The difference between sex and gender? Sex is physical. Gender is conceptual. If I feel female, that is a gender thing. If I, from a distance, see a man, that is gender related because I just think I see a man, I do not check between the legs or anything. Sex is ultimately chromosomal.

__________________

Thank you, WeaverGrace for the inspiring post. It is a delightful challenge to get to answer some new questions. Please continue being curious. Do not be a stranger!

Thank you readers!

Aloha,
Tori

‘Dentity Crisis

What the Hell am I? I know who I am, but what I am seems to change intermittently. I am human. I am trans. I am what is known as a MAAB (male assigned at birth), my driver’s license calls me Thomas, but I go by Tori whenever possible. I am transitioning from male to female but that means different things in different places.

I could get my name changed and my gender moved from M to F, just by filling out the paperwork, paying the fee, and waiting in line, at least in Hawaii. The only prerequisite to get my gender changed on my ID, is I need a doctor to confirm I am on hormone replacement therapy. I was born in Utah though, so I have to jump through their hoops in order to get my birth certificate changed. That means a doctor has to write a note confirming I have had, “The surgery”, my doctor tells me I only need to have, “A surgery” and believe it or not, there are quite a few options available but they all involve castration. So, in one state, I can be female, and in another male. People REALLY care what is going on in a trans person’s pants.

Why would I want to change my ID? Well, for starters, things like banking, bars, speeding tickets and air travel require identification. Not only do these places and things require ID, they expect your ID to look like you. Let’s look at air travel. I would have to dress male, and show my bald spot, whenever I fly with my male ID. If I were thrown in jail, that gender marker would determine which population of prisoners I was dumped with. At a bar, what if I just showed the HUGE bouncer my male ID, which bathroom is now safe? The bathroom issue is awkward enough, imagine throwing alcohol into the mix, and the one big guy paid to protect you, now knows you have a male ID! So many horror stories I hear happen in bars. Fortunately, I spend much less time in them any more. When I do, I tend to go to LGBT friendly bars. I do miss my dives, but better safe than sorry.

Why would I want to change the name on my college degrees and my birth certificate? I can see these retroactive changes may seem extra weird for cis people, but these documents are helpful to get changed for background checks when applying for jobs. I may not always want my trans status to be known in a professional setting. This is particularly important to trans folk who do not wish to ever be known as trans. If I ever get to that point, it is a ways off. The fact is, I get clocked (people can tell I am trans) frequently, so I have taken this awkward time to embrace my trans/feminine side. If people know anyways, why hide it?

Well, why hide it? I tell you, it is rather frightening at times for people to be able to know something very personal about me from a distance. I certainly feel safer when strangers, especially men, see me as male or female rather than trans… but trans encounters are becoming the norm. Then, even tolerant people start to wonder, am I a transvestite, a drag queen or a transsexual? How should they treat me? What should they call me?

Social situations are frequently awkward as Hell. I am a social creature AND I need the practice. Being self conscious is contagious. If I am self conscious and I walk into a new situation, then people do not approach me. When I notice I am repelling people, I get more self conscious… and so on. It behooves me to enter new situations with a friend or two in tow. Then, I have someone to talk to… it really eases things.

I dare you readers, to try breaking the ice if you ever see someone shrinking away from a social situation, be they trans or not. It is so nice when someone quickly walks up to me, treats me like a human first and a woman second, and just shoots the shit with me. It is also rather rare. That said, it is up to me to get over it. It would be really nice if I could just walk up to strangers in a social situation, and do the same… and I really struggle with that.

So annoying! Gaaaaaaaa!!!

Blending in is really starting to matter to me, although a part of me likes the attention I get for being trans since it supplements my developing lack of ability to be social. If only all the attention was good. More often than not, it is positive or indifferent, but people express their distaste frequently enough to mess with my mojo.

Am I speaking English here? Do I sound crazy?

I work on things like my walk and my mannerisms. I slowly work on my wardrobe and practice makeup. Too bad I need a bit more makeup than I would like just to cover my beard shadow. Less is more with makeup, especially when you are new to it.

The crazy and obvious thing is, when I just don’t have a fuck to give, neither does anyone else. Passing only seems to matter when it matters to me. On those rare occasions when I have something else on my mind, the world just works like normal around me. So, practice makes perfect. I have played a male for so long I never had to think about it.

Now, I have to work on how I walk, how I take someone’s hand. I have to think about how I eat at a restaurant. How I sit. How I stand. Posture.

And I have to do it all without thinking about it.

Oh, and I have to practice my voice. This means I am constantly listening to myself. Have you ever had to listen to me? My God, if you ever have, I am SO sorry! Really though, women are so much more musical with their inflection, softer in tone… much less chest resonance… and I haven’t even started to talk about pitch. I am a baritone, and for my voice to easily pass, it really needs to be in the low alto range at the lowest. This means, I have to practice speaking all day at near the top of my musical range while being more musical, and softer and using fewer resonators.

Remember Tori, to squeak the, “Choo” when you sneeze, “A-choo!” Remember to raise the, “Hem” when you cough, “Ahem”.

And I have to do it all without thinking about it.

My parents try to help. “Wouldn’t it be easier, if I just dressed like a guy? Or a butch lesbian?” They frequently ask. Absolutely, it would be easier. It would also be easier to be born cisgendered rather than trans. I love casual clothing, I love wearing jeans and a t shirt. Men have it easy. Getting ready now takes for freaking ever.

But, if I count as a lesbian, I am surprising myself to discover I am much more of a lipstick lesbian than a butch, if you are ok with those generalizations. I find I like clothing, dresses, skirts, leggings, shoes… oh my God, SHOES! I want to wear them? Why? When it really comes down to it, it is because I finally GET to.

Learning to be a woman can be a full time job and sometimes, I just need a break. I usually do not work on my movements and voice all day, every day. It is tiring, humbling and exhausting.

Transition has already turned me inward (not the surgery, sickos, I mean like, introspection). It is hard not to pay attention to every little thing all the time, because every little thing is already changing due to hormones… emotions, tactile feelings, color perception… oy!

And I love damn near every single minute of it!

So, I don’t really know exactly what I am from one day to the next aside from always being me. All I really know is it has been thirteen days since my last hormone shot, and I will be a lot happier tomorrow, after I see the doctor. I am really running low.

Woman in training,
Tori

Acting Female

“We re all born naked. Everything else is drag.”

– RuPaul

When I first began considering transition, I asked an online trans community how I should act female. I explained how I have acted professionally for much of my life and was interested in the behaviors, movements, gestures and vocal patterns that just scream female. This question was met with almost universal criticism.

“Acting is phony!”, “Don’t act. Just be yourself!”, “It is very rude of you to ask such a thing, we don’t act this way, we ARE this way.” And so on…

These almost unanimous replies came from a community of MTFs that make ten or more threads a day about whether or not they, “Pass” as female. As if how you look is all that matters.

A few posts ago, I talked about how easy it can be to offend a trans person or step on an invisible social land mine. This reaction to my question is a good example. Even trans people can offend their own community far too easily.

To many trans folk, transition is very much about looking like the woman they have always known they are. I would be lying if I said that was not part of it for me. Yet, I am much more interested in BEING the woman I have always known I am. And that requires acting.

The root of the word acting is act. It is the same as the root of the word action. To put it simply, you must do the actions of the person you present as to be perceived as that person.

Nobody is born a police officer. But when a person grows up, if they start doing police officer things, like applying to and going to the Police Academy, wearing a badge and uniform, driving or riding in a police car, issuing tickets, and eating a missive amount of doughnuts… if they start doing police officer actions, they are seen as a police officer and they become a police officer in the eyes of others.

What a person does has at least as much to do with how they are perceived, as how they look. If I put on a police uniform, drove to the beach, and spent the day swimming and building sand castles in uniform, nobody would take me seriously as a police officer. Frankly, I would worry if they did.

Male to Female trans folk often over compensate before they transition. They join the military about twice as often as cis (not trans) folk. MTFs often take up body building, car racing and other, “Masculine” activities in order to hide their true feelings.

I never really did. I took up acting at a young age. A hobby which, at least in America, does not often attract masculine men. Particularly in grade school and high school, there tend to be many more females in the theatre than males, and amongst the males, there tend to be a much higher than average amount of homosexuals. What I am getting at here, is theatre is a great place for a straight man to pick up chicks. Kidding… sort of.

I was never good at sports. Never hung out with the Alpha male crowd. Was a virgin well into my 20’s. Looking back, I did very few manly things in my life. I am rather short, not very strong, often wear my hair as long as I can grow it… well before transition this all was true.

So, much to my surprise, when I have come out to people, I have never heard someone say, “Yeah! I thought you were trans. Something was certainly up.” Instead I am met with, “You’re kidding! Wait… really?” or, “I had no clue. I would have never guessed it.” or, “But you make such a good man! Are you sure you are trans?”

All I really did was present someone who looked and acted a bit like a hippie. I like music. I like books. I like pot.

Well… I also made a helluva drunken asshole when I wanted to… and sometimes when I did not want to. I have been known to reprise that role from time to time even now… but it is much less frequent.

So, now I have started my transition from male to female. It is thrilling, frightening, humorous, sad and several other adjectives.

I have really enjoyed how being on the right hormones for my brain has allowed me to just be myself. I am not too worried about how I present, nor am I too concerned with how I act.

And yet… when I present in more feminine ways, I am treated as more feminine. When I am treated as more feminine, instead of trying to behave extra manly, I notice my behavior begins to adjust towards the feminine as well. Also, I notice I like this new pattern. It just feels right.

I have never been a manly man, and I will never be a girly girl (I am way too old), but I do enjoy this journey towards being female. It just fits like a well worn glove, like an old brown shoe, and many other similes.

I can see now why many trans folk thought my question about acting female was silly. The best stuff just comes out slowly and naturally.

There are things that will require conscious effort. Voice in particular. Talking in a female register takes practice for a baritone like myself… but imagine coughing or even sneezing in a female register.

Certain, subtle gestures and mannerisms will take some practice. Females tend to walk differently than men, but the differences can be over exxagerated to the point of mockery.

These subtle action cues are just as vital to how the world genders a person as what the person wears.

It is not the goal of most MTFs to be seen as drag queens. Drag queens are a wonderful and different beast entirely. Still, RuPaul’s quote from the top of this post rings true. So does Shakespeare’s.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time, plays many parts.

Aloha,
Tori