My Transition Journal

I'm not only tired of fighting to be a man, I'm tired of settling for just enough. I'm tired of settling for sad smiles when I could have the happy kind. I'm tired of trying to like the way I look instead of loving my look, my style, my personality on display. I'm tired of trying to earn my worth... with my family... with friends... and, hardest of all, with my God. If I'm an abomination to Him, then I was born an abomination. I believe every story is different. And just as some trans people are divinely given the keys back to their assigned at birth gender and are able to find it fits when it didn't before, there are plenty of us that never have that happen. And we are left to find God, not in the words of others, but in a genuine relationship with Him. Many will say I've fallen. If anything, I've only now revealed what my struggle has been... Even when they thought I was on the straight and narrow, this has been my reality. My most real secret plac...

Getting to a place where dressing isn't a special event has happened very quickly. That doesn't mean the excitement has died down at all. It simply means that, as I expected, I've always been more comfortable and felt more at home when presenting as female. Instead of getting bent out of shape about few or no results so far, I'm focusing on defining Vaela daily. I'm currently not talking with a different voice, though I do work on some exercises at times to find that female voice I eventually will have ready in the chamber. As I change and work on getting into my career, it will be important to be as passable as possible. Now is about finding levels of comfort and normality as I further embrace the woman.

A trans woman in an interview said this very simple and profound thing: "It's like going from two dimension to three dimension." I couldn't put it better if I tried. Rarely do I sigh heavily anymore. Rarely do I find myself bogged down by the simple details of the day. I'm a fuller, more fully realized person already, and that was never true of me when presenting as male. I was always a rough sketch when I instead desired to have much more detail and time put into my overall design. 

I've had to come to a place of little expectation for the time being. Maybe I'll start to see some results near the end of this month or maybe a nice surprise is awaiting me for my 30th birthday.

Yesterday was the first time I had nothing to say. I was tired from the day, covered my thinning hair with a headband and started researching when and how and hoping HRT brings hair back to a much fuller state. Today I was able to see my blood test results and for the first time saw where I am on this journey. My testosterone levels are at 366 and my estradiol levels are at 27. To give you perspective, normal male testosterone levels are between 250 and 1000 and normal female levels of estradiol are somewhere between 75 to 150. So... as I assumed, my low dose month didn't do much to help. And I'm hopeful that at my next checkup, my numbers show something closer to where they need to be. Instead of counting this as day 34 with no results, it's more accurate to consider it day 8 of being on a more effective dose. I'm not scrapping the first month entirely but it's been confirmed that my levels are still very male and the only way changes start happening is when my lev...

The end of month one and I feel many things. Excitement for the future alongside a very real fear of how everything is going to work out. Is it better to be accepted as a man I've never fundamentally been instead of facing an uphill climb as a transwoman and getting to live a more authentic life? My little boy is still forming, still being knit together by Abba God. His name is a combination of mine and my wife's deceased fathers' middle names. What he represents for me is the toughest position I can imagine. Never fitting as a boy, now it's my job to help him find his place, to help him fit in a gender I mostly understand but don't relate to. There isn't a greater challenge I can imagine. But I also have to remember that if God has chosen him for us, He already has given me the knowledge and know-how to navigate this.

I had a date night with my wife last night. Our girls had a sleepover with nana and we finally got to have alone time. It was much needed. I love the expectation around how I'm going to present now. Before I decided to transition, when we would have a date night, I'd watch her get ready, doing her makeup, finding that perfect dress, etc... I would put on a dress shirt, wishing it was a dress. I would wash my face wishing it would be step one to starting my makeup routine. Last night, that's exactly what it was. After getting home from work, I showered, shaved my underarms in said shower, and while drying off chose that perfect outfit. It ended up being my speckled beige top with my black cardigan and black jeans. And because my hair is far from pretty right now, I wore my leopard print headband. I did a pretty natural makeup, using light light pink for the brow bone, pink for the lids, and a lighter purple for the crease. My earrings were a cute glitter silver hoop. Once I ...

There are those that live in a world of black and white. Things are either right or wrong. There is no middle, no such thing as gray. And these people are the ones that like to point fingers at things they don't understand. And they are the kind of people that will never look at situations from another point of view. I think transgenderism, just like any other type of lifestyle tied to the LGBTQ, should be looked at on a case to case basis. No, I don't believe God made me to be a woman. I believe he made me to be a man, but somewhere along the way, early in my development, genetics and ultimately environment, played a big role in the woman I am now embracing. So, I'm not going to claim that my lifestyle is right or godly, but I'm also not going to immediately categorize it as wrong. If it's just wrong, then people born with both genitalia (for example) are immediately in the black. If everything is just cut and dry, God has no desire for them and has already tossed ...

What will this look like another month from now? What day will I notice my first real girl change? Though I'm sure some things have been changing internally, I'm waiting for that first obvious thing. It's sometimes hard to write daily because the beginning weeks of my transition haven't been very eventful. I'm operating in the mundane, anticipating when the mundane takes on new characteristics, like when putting on my work shirt in the morning will be a slightly more complicated endeavor, or maybe how my changing skin will respond to the cold Wisconsin air. All anticipation for when I finally get to start the kind of puberty I always wanted.