My Transition Journal

In this, my first year of transitioning, my list of firsts, surprisingly are not all transition based. Or, not directly related to transitioning, at least. Back in one of my first posts I referenced the tar still left behind, the tar of learned masculinity, the tar of irrational aggression, etc... I broke my hand. Up until now I've lived 30.5 years without breaking any of my bones--and then the year I start to really embrace the woman I am, I break my hand in, annoyingly, the most male way possible: frustration at (and with) work made me punch a hard surface. I have a nondisplaced fracture of the base of my third Metacarpal on my right hand. In layman's terms: the bone that connects to my middle finger. Oh this tar. It still remains in places, and some of it has proved harder to get rid of than I initially expected. But this act of stupid aggression also led to a few very real moments of sobbing. Cathartic moments. Needed moments. It was probably naive of me to think thirty yea...

When you're trans, most people will only now focus on that about you. It's immediately definable and puts you in a category labelled 'I don't need to hear anymore'. Though we all have stories of how we reached this point, for most people trans is viewed as the beginning and the end. It is an island of a destination, separate from the established lands and will forever be treated that way. Male. Female. Other. Trans fit as Other, but how Other is seen is like scraps or shavings left behind. Our existence isn't seen as legitimate. People would rather you toil in the defined genders. It's what they understand. It's what they can accept. So even though the defined gender of birth is killing you, leaving it behind is a death sentence all its own.  When you tell people this is who you've always been, they then question if anything was real about you before. Was everything fake? Was everything a show? No. But everything was two dimensional: a simpler, less ...

Lots of little things have happened since my last entry. And yet I find myself grasping at straws with what to say. I don't really like talking about it daily; it's simply my reality. And though it's easier to look in the mirror now and far easier to shuffle through my wardrobe and find things I'm excited to wear, I also realize the enormous difficulty of this path.  I am someone who has never fit really any mold. In my Christianity, I wasn't conservative enough. In my personality, I wasn't simple enough. My complexity often has been my greatest disconnect from people. My view of the world, molded mostly by grief early on, has always left me feeling like an alien among earthlings. It's never been harder for me to write than it is right now. I hate just putting words down on paper to fill the space. There are updates I can give but there is no motivation to give them. I start to analyze something, decide to write on it, and then the factory stops. And suddenl...

Nine months today. I haven't regretted this decision for one moment. At times I have taken pause simply because of the enormity of it all. But I've never once truly considered stopping.  You see, Nathan was this, technically still alive, dead thing. So my process of shedding him has been the process of something you'd see in nature. For creatures that shed skin, they often have to use their environment to help the process, meaning it is often uncomfortable. But discomfort with a purpose has a different feeling.  In the last week or so I have started to really shed my skin in a more permanent way. At work, my nails are always painted and my hair is styled in more feminine ways. I wear headbands that have animal print on them and care very little how I am perceived.  I've never been a popular person. Though I feel I have a unique, quirky personality, few people connect with it. At my personal peak of popularity, I had a record breaking two friends. Now I am down to one. T...

The question I will ultimately have to answer ad nauseum is if I'm still saved. Some will say I'm lost, that I've fallen away from Christ entirely. My answer is simple: If that's true, I was never really at home with Him, even in the best of times. And if that's true, He was never actually holding me and He was never actually my Savior. Because if my transitioning means He no longer wants me, He never truly wanted me.   I am a child that has reached her hands up for the duration of my life, just looking for acceptance and safety and the unending, matchless love that Christ demonstrated by willingly dying on that cross for me. As a parent who has been blessed with three beautiful children, the sight of your child reaching their arms out to you does something profound within. You just want to grab them and hold them close and let them know they are safe in your arms. Even now that I am a full grown adult, I am still that child reaching her hands up, hoping to be held ...