Happy New Year 2011

This past year was a challenging one, to say the least. However, my young family and I made it through, all be it I had to give up on transitioning to make that a reality. The past few months have gone surprisingly well, except for a serious case of pneumonia, which hospitalized me throughout much of September and October. My feminine alter ego has remained largely in check ever since, if only because my illness made me too tired to bother putting on make up and doing my hair.

In 2011, I’m not sure where my transgender feelings will take me. Maybe they will stay in check and I will have domestic bliss. Maybe they will explode and I’ll finally go through with the transition I’ve been wanting since I was 14. Who knows. Either way, I hope my breasts get bigger. JK! Happy New Year to everyone!

Kate

On and On it Goes…

It’s been about two months since I ended my hormone regimen for the third time, and I’m trying to figure out where I go from here. My initial plan was to dress in private periodically, to quell my urges to be female. This worked for a few weeks, and I even got my wife into the act a few days ago. As usual, though, she played along for the affair, but has since verbalized her regrets and described the stress that my gender identity disorder continues to cause her. She’s worried – perhaps rightfully so – that I’ll one day decide that dressing in private isn’t sufficient and I’ll need to go full throttle and give transitioning one more shot. This leaves me confused about future directions. Should I keep trying to address my cross-gender needs by dressing in private or should I divorce and again attempt to transition? Both decisions have a chance at failure and at success, so it seems like a crap shoot. Oh, the joys of being transgendered.

k

Being Sure

For the third time in a row, I have found myself losing interest in transitioning after 30-60 days of hormone treatment. If this had happened once or twice, I might chalk it up to lack of will to do the hard things in life. But, three’s a pattern, so I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I don’t need to address some other things first.

One thing I’m wondering about is the affect of pornography on my identity. I started watching porn relatively early in life, which could have altered my development in meaningful ways. When I’m on hormones, I watch a lot less porn. So, is it a coincidence that I stop thinking so much about how great it would be to be a female when I stop watching beautiful women make love to each other all the time? Can close to thirty years of watching beautiful women get off on each other make you want to give that a try?

My therapist and medical doctor have both pointed out to me that fully transitioning is only one option available to me. I could also crossdress in private periodically or even go out on the town as a girl from time to time, without fully transitioning. I’m beginning to think that these are better options than fully transitioning – or, that maybe I should give those options a try, before permanently altering my body and life. I want to make the best decision for my well-being that I can, no matter what others think and feel towards me. So, if I’m being honest, it might be time to stop taking hormones, give Kate a part time role for a while, and test the waters that way. If it isn’t satisfying, I can always start my transition again. If it is, I’ll have saved myself a lot of grief. I know this isn’t necessarily a popular decision for a t-girl to make, but I think its the one I might make, if I’m being honest about my feelings.

Kate

Day 50

Today is momentous, because we live in a base-10 world, but, also, because it’s day fifty of my hormone use. This is the third time I’ve been on hormones (raise your hand if you didn’t know that). The first time, when I was 24, I was on them for 30 days. I had dinner with a beautiful woman on the 30th day and I decided I’d better give being a heterosexual male another shot. Well, it wasn’t just that, I suppose I just wasn’t anywhere near mature enough to transition at that time and I knew it.

The second time was this past summer. I was on hormones for about forty days, give or take a few. They were breaking up my marriage, however, and I just couldn’t have that. So I quit. This time, at 50 days, they are still breaking up my marriage, but I’m handling it better. All the trying to be a guy in the world – even if it meant staying married – just wasn’t working out for me. I had to start to transition or I was going to go nutty. So, here I am.

Will I make it this time? Maybe. Its really hard work changing genders, though. Also, its heart wrenching to watch your family dissolve. But, here I am, doing all of this stuff, in an attempt to be a happy, healthy woman. Only time will tell if I will make it. For a minute, earlier this week, I didn’t know if I was gonna make it at anything; I was terribly anxious and stressed over my relationship loss. But, after some chatting with friends and some refocusing, I’m hanging in there – at day 50.

Kate

Alone, On a Bicycle for Two

The brain works in funny ways.

Now that my wife is treating me more like a friend than a spouse, I’m finding myself coping in strange ways. During the past week, I’ve had a series of dreams, in which I am either with another woman or dating or flirting, etc. Today, when I went to the mall at lunch, I found myself making eye contact with lots of women, a habit I thought I’d broken when I got married. I guess my pre-frontal cortex is doing its thing.

Most oddly, I’ve had the urge to rear a child today. Not sure why…

Kate

D Word: Divorce

After a week of talking about it and, frankly, going back and forth about the matter, the Mrs. went to see a divorce lawyer today. She made the appointment a week ago, but this weekend she was saying that she would give life with Kate a try, if it avoided a divorce. I suspected that she would recant and go to see the lawyer, if only because she had the appointment.

We went out to dinner tonight and the Mrs. was quiet and sullen, so I asked if she had gone through with it. She said she had and that she was going to wait until this weekend to tell me. I guess I’m glad I guessed it. Apparently, it will be a few weeks – maybe two months – before I get papers about it all. Then we will meet with the lawyer and settle any differences we may have. We don’t anticipate any, as this is a friendly divorce that neither of us wants, really. But, we have the definition of irreconcilable differences, so it must be.

I’m saddened, naturally, but trying to stay focused on the future. The big challenge will be selling our house, which we only bought a little more than a year ago. Since we bought at the bottom of the market, I am hopeful that we have a snowball’s chance in hell of recouping our money, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we can’t. In any event, I have no qualms about a “strategic default,” since I already have another house (a rental) and neither of us has much credit score left after the past two years. Only time will tell if it comes to that.
Kate

Planning for the Future

Today is day four on hormones. No significant changes to report.

Last night, my wife and I talked more about our plans for the future. We’re going to get an abortion and the Mrs. and our little one are going to separate from me, probably sometime after the school year is out. My wife wants to move to Florida, where she has always wanted to live, to start over. I don’t know that that is a wonderful idea for someone with such poor credit and a penchant for being sick (instead of going to work), but maybe it will help her turn a new leaf.

As for me, I’m planning to move back to my rental property, complete my transition, travel, and go back to school. If anything, my future looks very bright. It will be a sad day when we part, but, as we laughed about last night, both of our therapists told us to run far and fast away from each other, many months ago.

Kate

Back on Hormones

Its official.  I’m back on hormones. I started back on them tonight, by taking four 1.25 mg capsules of Premarin. I’ll add Provera to the mix tomorrow.

I haven’t told my wife yet and I don’t know when I will. She doesn’t seem to handle it well when I talk to her about gender issues. I know I’ll never get out of this relationship, if I don’t push this issue, however, so I’m going to start taking hormones now and get on with something I should have been doing for years.

Of course, there is the issue of my wife’s pregnancy. She is saying that she wants an abortion. I told her that I would raise the baby, but she said she’d rather not bring a child into this world that she doesn’t want and that would start off in a broken home. I can’t say I disagree with her. So, we may go next week. Then again, she is very flip-flopish on issues like this, so we’ll see.

I am using the last 18 days worth of hormones that I have from my previous prescription, which means that I need to go see my doctor within two weeks or so. That shouldn’t be a problem, but sometimes he’s busy and its hard to get into see him. Maybe they can write me a new script over the phone. Either way, he’s going to want to see me, since I started and stopped hormones over the summer, without going back to see him.

Wish me luck,

Kate

Visit to the Hormone Doctor

Yesterday, I went to see Dr. Wilson and get myself a prescription for feminizing hormones. This was the first time I have been to see Dr. Wilson since I first met him three years ago, when I first began pursuing transition, but before I gave it up briefly.

Dr. Wilson’s office is located in a majestic office building near downtown Detroit. He was previously located in a large, corner suite, with a big reception area and views of the city. Unfortunately for me, he recently moved his office to a much smaller, creepier looking suite. The new suite is painted a pale blue; its as big as my office (which is not very big); it resembles what I imagine an abortion clinic looks like; there are books full of surgery pictures on the table; and there are many, many signs that say you have to pay first. He really needs to move back to the other suite.

Anyway, I went in to see him. He said hello, then proceeded to read all the notes he had written in my file from the time I saw him before. He had written quite a lot of notes, so I waited patiently for a very long time. Then he began with some very short questions, like, “Do you still like girls.” Yes, I assured him. “Are you still doing your ‘grants’ thing [in reference to me working as a grant writer]?” Yes, again. “So what do you want to be?” He asked. I’d like to be content, I said, but failing that, I choose girl.

We bantered back and forth for a brief while. I brought him up to speed on my situation. He wrote me a prescription for Premarin, an estrogen, and Provera, an anti-androgen, then made a crude sexual joke I won’t repeat [honestly, you have to be odd to become a doc who helps people change sex]. I took the script to the front desk, they made a copy, and I was on my way. I had the script filled downstairs, on the first floor. Then I got giddy.

I have yet to tell my wife that I got the hormones, though she knows I was planning to do so. The right moment hasn’t happened yet. I’ve always said I wouldn’t start them without letting her know, so the bottle remains filled, in my dresser drawer. I hope to tell her tonight, if she’s in a good mood. Admittedly, I’m having some cold feet/second thoughts kind of feelings, as anyone must have when embarking on a life changing journey. Still, I am not deterred and I know, in my heart of hearts, this is a journey I must make, one way or another.

On a walk tonight, I was thinking about what I could be scared of, what is causing me hesitation. I could lose my job; so what. I could lose my family; that’s a big one, but I’m prepared, should that happen. I could become physically amorphous; that one worries me quite a lot, but I need to remember that stigma is what others feel toward me – its not my problem, per se. Perhaps most troublingly, I could have sexual function problems. I like sex and all that it entails quite a lot, so this one is a big one. However, if my libido crashes while on estrogren, I don’t suppose I’ll be upset at not wanting sex, since I won’t want it. It will be more the loss of a pastime, I suppose. And, thinking back, some form of sex has been my pastime for, let’s say about 13 years – nearly have my life! So, it would take some getting use to.

I guess, honestly, I just have some nervous apprehension that things won’t go smoothly; I’ll lose family, friends, my job, my self-confidence, and my libido. These are unfounded and irrational fears, that I must crush. Its more likely that I’ll find the real me on my path of self exploration. Its more likely that I’ll really like what I see, when I look in the mirror at the girl me. Then again, life is a big experiment and we can’t possibly know the conclusion, without collecting the data. So, off I go…

A Date with Destiny

I’ve scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday with Dr. Neal Wilson, a plastic surgeon, who specializes in transgender care. My intention is not, of course, to get plastic surgery, but to get a prescription for female hormones.

This will not be the first time I met Dr. Wilson. I actually met him before, in 2006, when I made a brief run at transitioning before. My recollections of his office in Detroit’s historic Fisher Building are few, but vibrant. His is a small, private office, hidden behind a nondescript glass office door, the kind you see in movies from the 20’s and 30’s.

Inside is a long table of beauty magazines and a small smattering of chairs, usually filled with a handful of strange denizens. The front desk girl is poorly trained and says little, though an office manager, perhaps the doctor’s daughter, brightens up the atmosphere for those in the waiting room.

My anticipation regarding my next visit is high, though its tempered by the reality that my marriage doesn’t probably stand much chance, once I start taking estrogens. Sex will undoubtedly be affected and sex is an important part of any successful marriage, as far as I can tell. There is some hope, I suppose, as many couples stay together without sex. But the reasons we may have trouble in the bedroom are much different from couples where a spouse has been injured, for example. We’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.

I am looking forward to the softening of my skin and the lessening of my hair growth; the development of a sensitive chest, then breast buds, then breasts themselves; the rounding of my backside; and the changing of my cheeks and facial fat. I must remain focused on the fact that, no matter how hard this is on my relationship, these feelings of cross-gender identification will not go away, no matter how much I sometimes wish they would. I will not be denied my personal wellness and happiness, in order to please others (though I’m often tempted to do so).