My Transition Journal

Though in our society we are defined by our biological components, the role biology plays in trans people is a different thing entirely. It's what's supposed to define you to the public but the presentation is false advertising, like a product that was accidentally put in a different box. In this hypothetical example, the box shows a blue and green monster truck but the contents are actually a pink and white Barbie convertible. The box tells people what your contents should be despite them being nothing close to what's actually inside.  This understanding of self is usually something a trans person knows by early childhood. They don't understand the complicated in-betweens that will come with their reality but they do understand that what people see is not who they are. As you grow older, though still as simple as the box metaphor says, the in-between becomes incredibly complicated. The biology of man and woman rarely intersects in similarity, so a trans person now has ...

I am a transwoman with a son. When my wife and I started praying about possibly adding a third little one, I at first was very nervous. Firstly because the last attempt had ended in a heartbreaking and almost life threatening miscarriage. Secondly, after the miscarriage but not at all because of the miscarriage, our marriage was on very shaky ground. And lastly, I felt I was best as a father/parent to girls and I think me and my wife both knew if we went for a third, we were getting a little boy. And we did. And he's amazing and the perfect final addition to the wonderful family God has given me.  I am now determined to not raise him in the way I was raised, with this ever shrinking box of male conduct expectations always around me. I am a transwoman with a son, determined to give him an environment with moral boundaries and Christ based principles but in a place where he is free to be himself. Regardless of what comes up, he will have a place to always come where he is safe and se...

Dad,  17 years today you've been gone. And unlike the years in the past, I'm not living to make you proud anymore. If anything, I am just trying to heal from all the deficiencies I have because of you. Your rage, yes. But also your sickness and death and your inability to pass any real positive lasting qualities down to me. The son you knew is a complete stranger to me. He was completely unaware of just how hard life would become and how ill-equipped he truly was to handle it. And now I want to introduce the person you never knew but has always been there: Hey dad, I want to introduce myself. Whether you realize it or not, you had a daughter all along, Vaela Kay, Kay to honor mom, a woman you never appreciated the way she deserved or had earned from you. I could never show myself to you because you would have been afraid or maybe even disgusted. You needed your boy not to only be your boy but to be strong for the both of you, strong because you weren't near the end, strong ...

How are people who have never experienced gender dysphoria supposed to understand it? Like everything else in life, they will compare it to the nearest thing. Nevermind the fact that the nearest thing is usually miles away from even being in the same category.  So you tell somebody about deciding to transition because of crippling, life threatening dysphoria, and in their mind they are only seeing what they can compare it to. "Well, I'm not always confident as myself either. I've had sad days. Life in general isn't easy. But we all soldier on." Okay. Yes. Your problems are generalized and vague and, though I'm sure can be a struggle, are not even close to how gender dysphoria feels. It's not entirely something I know how to put into words. It's an alien being born in human skin, a distinct and inescapable reality that you aren't the way you should be. You can avoid it and at times fit in the skin you are in, but it never lasts. Everyday in a thousa...

There are many times in a day where I revisit different moments from my childhood in my mind, both before dad's death and after. I have been a stranger to myself for so long, so preprogrammed by how I've needed to act to fit in that now I experience my days feeling like I leave the house naked most days.  I used to have a good beard and a shorter hairstyle that worked okay for me. I fit as 'typical male' in presentation. And then one day, I decided to shave so I could start to learn to love the face I have and not hide it behind a disguise. And around the same time I decided to start growing out my hair. Both have not been easy decisions since I worked hard to blend in. And now I don't. At work I'm pretty much the only one clean shaven who puts their hair in a ponytail and uses hairbands. People probably talk when I'm not around, wondering why I have changed so many little things about myself. If they do talk, I can't stop it or care all that much about ...

I've been seeing a lot about this movement called deconstructing faith. For me immediately red flags start appearing. I guess my greatest fear when it comes to spiritual truth is it doesnt take much to fundamentally change the message entirely. For example, if you deconstruct the faith, you could easily and possibly inevitably find yourself having to redefine Jesus. And because His act of brutal sacrifice and atonement for our sins is ultimately a singular exchange, one that requires choice from us, suddenly we are left reeling with a tougher, stickier set of questions: can faith in other religions transfer? Isn't it closed minded to claim only this one belief leads to heaven? After all, isn't this the God Who made the stars and knows them by name, the God Who spoke everything we see into existence? If He is so large and expansive and eternal, why should we believe that one singular act of sacrifice, though unimaginably brutal, is the only way we will see heaven? These aren...

The concept of pride month in general for those in the LGBTQ has always been one I viewed as mostly in rebellion to God when growing up. No surprise there, since that narrative is what has been sold from day one. Whenever churches would show clips of the parades, they would find the rebellious groups, the ones that are more vocal and more anti-establishment, the ones where we are told that this is not only sin but the darkest, most off putting form. As I've come to understand more about this community, especially those who are trans like me, I have found there are many people that are very genuine in their motives and in their love for Christ. Yes, genuine lovers of Christ exist in this community. Of course these people are never given a voice by church bodies and Christian media sites. No. All you ever see are the people who are in it to burn established things to the ground, the militant vocal minority that want rights just to throw them in the face of those who oppose them. Chri...

Our little boy was delivered early early this morning: 12:12 am! I was easily the most present I've ever been out of the three labors. I had a real hand in bringing him into this world this time, my wife the rockstar that she is, birthing him naturally. I am overjoyed that he is here. I can already see his little personality blooming (and he's only 9 hours old) and though I know my situation complicates things, I make a promise that I will be the best parent I can be to him. He didn't ask for a transmom but in that same regard, I never asked to be born as I am. If I could give him a classic father, I would. As of now though, I don't have real access to that option. Above all else he needs love, and support, and two parents that show him the beauty of Christ and that Christ can still use broken people to create beautiful things: him and his sisters are already undeniable proof of this. 

In many ways I look at these last 156 days as the first 156 days of my life. I have to, because this is the only way I won't drag the same self defeating behaviors I possessed as Nathan with me on this new journey. And I have too many to count, too many that unraveled the fabric of me almost entirely. I've alluded to the fact that before I decided to transition my life was starting to fall apart. My marriage, though at the time it was nearing nine years, it was also nearing the end. We were a fight, maybe two fights, away from calling it quits. So even though I can look back at moments in our marriage prior to these last 156 days and find good memories, they aren't what either of us thought they were. There were fundamental holes in the foundation and they only expanded the farther in we got. The last 156 days have been different obviously but also much stronger and connected than before.  Next, my relationship with Christ. It may seem almost blasphemous to try to move past...

I've heard this many times: "As long as you're still fighting, the devil hasn't won." Of course this is said by people who fight normal human battles, not people who wake up every day feeling wrong--wrongly made, wrongly designed, and now forced to try and fight to live in the wrong body. If you will listen, whether someone set in your ways or someone willing to understand a perspective different from your own, let me tell you what it is like to be a trans person daily.  When born in the wrong body, everything is a reminder of it. The most inescapable is just being around other males. They fit who they are and it looks effortless, whereas for you every step has to be learned and copied, every mannerism has to be practiced until you look normal. So, yes you hit some point in life where you pass as your birth gender but it's all because you've learned how to do it. When you go to the store, you avoid the womens section entirely, because it's where you re...

I want to rant. And I want to ask a very real question. How can a transperson love God acceptably? If our whole existence is an abomination, aren't we like deformed children just wanting to be loved by our Parent? We want to believe He loves us but there's no one who can say it with certainty. You ask most in the "children of God" community and they'll say, "You chose to be this way. You can choose to be normal. You can choose to be acceptable to Him." Pride is ugly. And these "acceptable" people are far uglier than us, the deformed. They think they are worthy. We know we aren't. They think they are beautiful; we know we are ugly. They think they live up to His standard and boast in it; we know we can't live up to it and fall at His feet, hoping He'll still want us. The cross is the most beautiful example of His love... But many will tell you this beautiful, brutal act wasn't for us, that we are deformed and unwanted and illegit...

I wish we could remove the poorly conveyed attributes that surround certain classifications of people. The example I give is the LGBTQ. Because certain people have tied whatever description they want to someone from this group, there is an immediate stink that fills the air when talked about. And the very worst thing you could ever do is be someone that fits in this categorization. To most in the church, we might as well be lepers. The scariest thing about life is seeing people who present as Godly but demonstrate this daily, syrupy sweet wickedness. How they treat us is poisonous, so we are left to either believe they are mistaken and don't know Who God truly is, or we have to consider the terrible idea that God only loves us if we are good enough...  I have been more and more turned off by modern day Christians (not true Christ lovers and followers, but the broad spectrum classification of "Christian") because it seems that this movement of elitism has taken over. Peopl...

Every person transitioning will ultimately have to come to a place of acceptance. Accepting that we are fundamentally changing the lives of those around us and accepting that many relationships will never be the same. It is the ultimate test of who truly loves you for your qualities and personality. And it will be both a heartbreaking discovery as well as something more affirming. It may seem cold to consider letting those changed relationships fall away from you like old skin, but all you've done is reveal who truly cares for you and who doesn't. There are far too many families out there today that have love based on conditions. Change your gender, see how many view you in the same way or with the same respect. It reveals who you should let go of, because there comes a point where you can't live for others. This isn't a universal statement and it isn't one saying "be selfish, it's all about you." This is in the context of being born in the wrong body ...

Have you ever left fabric in water too long? I'm talking months or years and then one day you stumble across it, the once clean water now tepid and not so much water anymore but instead a putrid film. What was left in the water may be something you still hope to salvage, so you dump the water out and start the process of trying to get it into the same condition it was in before the neglect. Maybe you try to let it dry in the sun. But even after days of letting it dry, the smell remains, the fabric now forever wrinkled and altered, the colors less vibrant than they once were. You even try to wash it again, in a special load, maybe even using special soap meant to revitalize and repair. When you get through with the load though, you find it and check it first and unfortunately, though it appears fresh, it still smells rancid and the fabric is still different than it was. It always will be... This is much like trauma. The prolonged period where you were soaking in filth and forgotten ...

It's hard to look at pictures of my dad, because he belongs to me mostly as a source of pain and displacement. There is so little I know about him from when he was here and obviously I know nothing of how he would be today if he hadn't died. He is "what-if" personified. He is a ghost from my past who will always exist in a specific bubble of time. A time when things, though tumultuous and terrifying, still had him as a kind of anchor. He wasn't a good anchor. But he was an anchor nonetheless. He was a source of weight that, at the time, kept us from drifting. Even through the cancer, the remissions, his and mom's terrible marriage, while he was around there was a sense that we still had control in our lives. When he died, the anchor was cut free from the ship and we were left to drift whichever way the waves took us... It's almost been 17 years since his death, and still I look back at June 19th, 2004 as the last day I had an anchor in my life. I can't...

People close to the one transitioning are known to go through the five stages of grief as they let go of the gender they knew. What isn't talked about though are the five stages of guilt that the person transitioning experiences. Now, of course this may be different for some people. There are probably even those who transition who never feel guilt in any way, shape, or form. I suppose I'll make this a less broad statement then: people like me, husbands and fathers who have built a full life as a man... ... They go through guilt. And my five stages are as follows (in no particular or graphable order) 1. My children will have to grow up being seen as weird. They probably will meet people who they want to be friends with but my transitioning will have complicated it.  2. My wife was happy (ish) with me as a man. And though we fight less now, she also has to say goodbye to the body she loved, the man that she envisioned growing old with, the future that now looks quite a bit differ...

I don't really know what it feels like to be at home in my body. Even now, there are many times I feel like nothing but a fraud. Even though Vaela is a much more real side of me, she doesn't come without complications. It's not like I get to flip a switch and just now be a real female. Instead, I have to daily shed practiced and learned male layers until, hopefully, hrt eventually makes me look far more like a woman than a man.  The complication of transitioning comes in an almost impossible to define package. In the pursuit of authenticity, I feel like I'm seen as less authentic to almost everyone else but myself. This is almost always in the back of my mind. So even though my smiles are wider and flow out of me with a certain ease that wasn't there before, I feel I'm seen as just another one of those men who are ruining traditional manhood for those it comes so naturally to. Those gun toting, hunting, skilled with their hands, gruff and rugged types that think...

Mother's day is a touch more complicated this year. The girls are getting bigger, our little guy is only weeks away from joining our family, and I am now a father who is becoming a woman. That's definitely different from last mother's day.

People preaching hell fire to gays and transgender people is not new. How it's handled is old and outdated, causing negative responses and wild arguments every single time. If the intention is to reach people with the gospel, rarely does this approach help in anyway.  Instead, do you want to know who would be an effective preacher in these groups of people? Someone who has lived it and sits among them with kindness and compassion, someone who can say, "I know this walk. It's long and lonely and confusing. Regardless of divine intention, I came out different, changed by the atmosphere of a fallen world, and have never fit... But do you want to know a fundamental truth? Jesus wants me even as I am. I've prayed many times to take this away from me, to right my wrongs, if it be in His plan. But I am still this person. Flawed and broken and in desperate need of Him daily. I am not going to point fingers at you in judgment but instead want to ask you a simple question. Are y...

I am deficient of main, functioning components. In social situations, I slink inside myself. When meeting new people, I feel two inches tall and wholly unequipped. With men I feel inferior; with women I feel like an imposter. I don't fit anywhere really. I never have. Right now, I am fighting the desire to grow back my beard, cut my hair, and just disappear back into my expected role. The in-between of transition is easily the hardest. At least, I have to imagine it is. When comparing myself against other men, I seem less and less like them. And when comparing myself against women, I feel awkward, frumpy, and like I'll never belong in the same room, let alone a similar or neighboring category.

Male clothes take on the weirdest identity when transitioning. You still have those go-to shirts you wore when presenting as a man but many of them no longer make it into your weekly ensembles, maybe not even monthly. Instead, you'll come to some point where you are cleaning up your room and realize that you are truly between both genders right now. You can't get rid of old shirts because you are still presenting as a man a lot of the times but you also don't have the same attachment to them as before.  Sure, some will come with you on the journey, maybe find they are now on the receiving end of a DIY project to convert mens shirts to womens shirts. And that's about it. Just like when I was still trying to live as Nathan, when in the midst of my day to days, wearing those very shirts, I desired to be wearing something prettier and less boxed in. And now that I wear prettier things, I look back at those old shirts with a bittersweet quality. I look at them much in the sa...