Top Surgery Consultation

I received a call from the surgery center yesterday and was able to set a consultation date for my top surgery.  January 29th is the date!  I am very excited, but funding is going to be a HUGE fucking issue.  I suppose my only choice is to make it happen though, right?  Stay positive and make it happen.

The person that set-up my appointment told me that the Dr. wants a letter from my therapist, which is fine, but I thought that was no longer required – oh well she also said that he likes his patients to be on T before their surgery.  I want to do it backwards.  Nix the boobs and then see how I feel before starting T.  I have hated my breasts since their arrival, so regardless of whether I take T, they need to go.

It feels so good to be moving forward with my transition.  I am afraid,  but it is fear of the unknown.

I thought I might be able to get a part or all the surgery covered as a breast reduction, but the woman at the clinic told me that it will be next to impossible since the Dr. has to weigh and record the size of the breast and the amount of tissue removed.  I suppose it doesn’t really count as a reduction if there is nothing left.  Oh well, ultimately I don’t care about the cost.  It will be worth every fucking penny.

The Cost of Being Me

I just made an anonymous call to my insurance company and as it turns out they don’t cover any services related to transsexual health issues (no big fucking surprise)

I feel really stressed out about money, but also feel like my hands are tied.  I have an appointment with my PCP tomorrow to talk about breast reduction surgery (ie chest reconstruction).  I am wondering if I can get insurance to cover my top surgery and hysterectomy.  I have a family history of breast cancer and have DD breasts.  I do have neck and shoulder pain, so hopefully that will count for something.

Here is what I think I am going to have to spend this year:

• Therapy- 12 sessions at $108= 1296 (min)

• Top Surgery – if out-of-pocket $5,000-8,000

So for just therapy and top surgery probably $10,000 when all is said and done.  Give or take a few thousand which will easily go to more Dr.’s appointments and T prescriptions.

Perhaps it is time for some fund raising!

Timeline

I have decided to write down a time-line as I think it will help me gain a clear picture of my transition.

Childhood:

• Always wanted to play the dad or Bo from Days of Our Lives during role play
• Used to make my Mom paint on a mustache before I would go out and play
• Used to “shave” with my dad and talk about how I would have a beard when i got older.
• Saved my own $ to buy a dirt bike after my parents bought me a pink, flowery Schwinn
• Snuck into my brother’s room to play with his toys.  Specifically his helicopters and Star Wars figurines
• Asked for “girl” toys because I knew that this is what I was supposed to like and then only played with them when I knew I was being watched.
• Loved playing kick ball and wiffle ball with the neighborhood kids
• Wanted to be just like my Dad (beard, shirtless for chores, etc)
• Wanted to wear boys clothes, and shoes, and even underwear.
• Used to tell people who I was going to grow up to be a boy.
• Was ostracized by my parents, brother, and peers for nonconformity.  Learned very quickly to pretend to be a girl and to like girl things.  This was around the same time that I started to use food for comfort.  My food addiction really started at around 5 when all of this was going on.  I remember that going to school was very difficult and that even at 5 I didn’t fit in.

Middle School:

• Didn’t want to shave my legs
• Wanted to play with the boys.  My best friend was Seth and we would play GI Joe for hours and would also go fishing.
• Cut my hair short like Bo from Days of Our Lives (he was my idol – ha ha)
• Had this overwhelming sense that something was wrong with me
• Wanted to play with the boys, but knew I was supposed to play with the girls.  Jr. High is quite segregated.  Looking back, I can see how depressed I was.
• Girls started telling me that I hugged too close and stopped wanting to hang out with me
• Walked into the bathroom in 8th grade and someone had written all over the walls in permanent marker that I was gay.  I lived in a small town in the Midwest, so it was devastating.  Plus, I didnt really know what was wrong with me, just that I didn’t fit in anywhere and that any time I expressed myself, I was shunned.  I mean that has been my life experience.  My Mom was constantly berating me for not being feminine, the boys didn’t want to play with me because I am a girl, and the girls didn’t want to play with me because I acted like a boy.  Holy Shit -

High School:

• Didn’t understand why the boys all wanted to be buddies instead of my boyfriends
• Grew out my hair to fit in and prove that I wasn’t gay… (It was pretty clear that I was not a girly, girl.  No matter what, any attempt I have ever made to look feminine has resulted in my looking like a drag queen!)
• Started hanging out with the “bad” crowd.  The only people who ever really accepted me was that crowd in H.S. …the misfits.  The kids who had bad home lives, who were abused and neglected.  Who were as damaged as I am.
• Started smoking, drinking, and experimenting with drugs.
• I realized that I could be a hippy if I were a stoner.  This worked for me because I didn’t have to wear makeup or fix my hair or wear dresses.  I could state that I was non-conventional for political reasons, ha ha!
• I had best girlfriends, but looking back,  I loved them and treated them as I would a partner.  I also had best guy friends…Zach and Brendan – they were my buddies.  It is interesting to really look back on those times and see how naive I was about my own identity.
• Had random sexual experiences with 7 boys from 14-19.  Never any girls.  My motivation for sleeping with the boys was to fit in.  I would sleep with them and then spread rumors so that everyone would know I was “straight” and leave me alone.

College:

• Dated a few guys, but always ended up hanging out and playing play station or selling them weed.  Ha ha!  I really was clueless
• Still had this overwhelming sense that there was something wrong with me.
• FINALLY realized that I was attracted to women when I was 21 and then came out as a lesbian.  (coming out as a lesbian seemed like the natural thing to do, but it never felt quite right to call myself a lesbian either.)
• Lived as a lesbian from 1995 until 2005.

In 2005, I was dating a bi-sexual woman (I will call her C) who during a sexual encounter said “you are such a boy”.  I was really offended at first.  I had really found a way to forget about and  stuff down the gender identity crisis that I had throughout my childhood.  She explained that I had more male energy than most of the men she had dated.  It took a little bit for me to come out as trans to myself.  But I started to let myself remember my childhood.  In 2004, I stopped using drugs and my a lot of things changed for me.  During the process of gaining my sobriety, I was celibate for about a year.  Looking back, all of my sexual experiences prior to 2004 occurred when I was high.  I did everything I could to avoid being present.  Even with my lesbian partners, I was shut down, and always felt wierd about being touched.

It was when I met C in 2005, that I really started to explore my trans identity.  She never touched my breasts and never touched my genitals. She started referring to me with male pronouns and is the person who helped me pick out my new name, Sid.   It was the most sexually rewarding relationship that I had ever had. I stopped identifying as a lesbian and started identifying as trans. in 2006.

In the Spring of 2007, I started seeing my first gender therapist.  Although I started therapy with the intent of transitioning, it didn’t happen.  I explored possible sex addiction, learned about co-dependence and addiction.  I also learned that in all of my sexual relationships, I let my partners touch my breasts and genitals, even though I didn’t want them to.   I wanted to be accepted and loved and thought there was something wrong with me or that I was denying them what they had a right to.  I vowed to stop having sexual relationships in which I couldn’t be present.  After seeing her for about 8 months, I decided to see explore life in the middle.   What would happen if I found a way to embrace my female body and my male mind?

Over the past 2 years, I have really explored this idea.  Have tried on having a positive relationship with my breasts, with my clit.  I did try, I really did.  I think I even deceived myself into believing that it worked.  But.  Every day I woke up with this overwhelming sense that something is not right.  A few times during the past 2 years, I have had MAJOR break-downs over my gender identity.  I think I needed those break-downs.  During those times, I would cry for days or something would come up about gender identity and I would just cry and cry and then get very depressed.  I realized that I had not developed a positive relationship with my feminine body or my breasts, but instead had found a way to look past them.  To avoid the mirror when naked.  To only look at myself when dressed and to then skip over my curves and only look at my shoulders or my butt or that when I look in the mirror, I always imagine that I have a beard.  To check our during sexual interactions.

I have also explored how I fit into my community, the possible loss of lesbian identity, what it means to be queer, what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man.  I will continue to share more about  these discoveries in other posts.

In January of 2009, I met my current girlfriend.  When we first started dating, I told her that I couldn’t have a relationship based on sex.  I was still in the mode of trying to have a positive relationship with my female body so I told her that at the time I was not thinking about transitioning.  It was true on some level, but on another level, I guess I was really deceiving myself.  I told her that I am unwilling to have any sexual encounters in which I am not fully present.  This has been very hard and has resulted in her only being able to touch me a few times during the past year.  I am just not sure what I am supposed to do.  I really want her to be able to experience my body, but can’t let her do that and stay present.  It is a strain on our relationship.  It then goes back to this overwhelming feeling that I have always had that something is wrong with me.  Every day I wake up and think about what it would be like if my outside matched my inside?  What would if be like if I looked down and didn’t see 2 HUGE breasts.  I have really big breasts.  If only I could have been born with a huge cock instead of huge breasts…ha ha!

A few months ago, I had my final breakdown over my gender identity.  Being in my current relationship has really caused me to hold a mirror up, a magnified mirror at that.  This is the most satisfying relationship that I have ever had, by far.  She is an amazing woman, just amazing.  She is sweet and caring and is just a beautiful person on the inside and out.  She really loves me.  She really does.  She has been so understanding about my dysphoria and very supportive.  When I had my final breakdown, I realized that I was not going forward with my transition because of every body else.  What will my g/f do?  What will my parents say, what will my coworkers and friends say?  Will anyone stop talking to me?  Will anyone try to hurt me physically?  Will the lesbian/feminist community feel as if I have betrayed them by becoming a man?  And then I realized that it doesn’t matter.  I am not responsible for their reactions or feelings.  If anyone doesn’t accept me when I have a male body, they didn’t ever really accept me at all.  The reality is that nothing about who I am at my core will change.  The only change is that my outside will match my inside.  When I think about what it will be like to look in the mirror and finally see me, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of relief.

So, I started seeing a different gender therapist in November, with the intention of starting T during the summer of fall of 2010 and having Top Surgery sometime between now and then.  Funding is the issue there.  I think I found a surgeon and today I left a message about a consultation.

And I guess here we are in January of 2010.  This year, I will say goodbye to my female body and hello to my male body.  A body that I have dreamed about for the past 30 years.  Bring it on!

January 2nd

Happy New Year everyone!  Assuming that there is anyone reading this, which according to the stats there isn’t.  No shame in talking to myself – ha ha!

I am excited about this year!  I am really looking forward to Top Surgery.  I have been thinking about $ though.  If I want to have surgery in August, I need to earn /raise/save about $1,000 per month.  No fucking way that is going to happen.

My therapist said that some people can get their surgery covered by insurance as a “breast reduction”  I do have DD breasts and I do need them reduced…all the way to nothing.

I had a melt down on New Year’s Eve.  I have PMS and feel really bloated and my breasts are very sore.  My binder was really tight and very painful and my clothes felt too tight too.  I wound up not wearing my binder and settling on jeans, black boots, and my favorite Harley hoodie!  I had this idea that I should go out in drag and put on a stipple wax beard, but decided that I looked like a fraud and washed it off.

Lately I have days that I don’t even want to leave the house.  It is not like I am depressed, I am just done living as a woman.  I really want this all behind me, but realize that in many ways I am just at the  beginning.  I have been climbing up on this steady path and all of sudden I am staring at a huge mountain with no way around but up.  This year is going to be difficult and rewarding.

A few old friends from H.S. posted on my Facebook page wishing me happy holidays and they used my old name.  It made me feel really bad, but I know they don’t mean anything bad by it.  I am also not out as trans to them.  I need to figure that one out.  I grew up in a really small homophobic town and I am not close to any of those people, just randomly reconnected through social media.  I have been thinking of un-friending them and then changing my last name or just not accepting their friend requests.  Maybe I am being too harsh though, it is very possible that they don’t give a shit if I am dude.  It actually might make sense to them.

I have so much to say about my transition and so much to work out.  I feel like I could just ramble all day!

December 31st

What a year 2009 has been for me.  I have really begun coming out as trans to others.  The past couple of years, I have gone through therapy and have really started coming out to myself.  I have stopped going by my female gendered name, they even call my new name at work.  My goal is to have my legal name change by July!

It took me about a year to really come out to myself.  It was incredibly painful and I realized that I had stuffed most of my childhood memories deep inside and have used food and substances throughout my life to keep from really feeling the pain.  It seems like every time I really express myself the way I am, I am told that it is not okay.  Even to this day, people tell me that I have such feminine features and why do I try to hide them.  It is tiresome.

I went to therapy for about 6 months and my therapist encouraged me to look at the parts of me that are feminine, what do I like about being a woman, what would the impact be to begin living as a man in my 30′s and what would it be like to acknowledge that I am transgendered but to find a place in the middle, to honor my masculinity and femininity.  I did this for a couple of years trying to convince myself that I love my breasts, that I love being a woman, that I am a lesbian.  The fact of the matter is that I am not a woman, I am not a lesbian, I do not like my breasts (I hate them), I do not feel like me in my body.  Not at all.  So, I hide from myself…don’t look in the mirror, I have stopped allowing my girlfriend to touch my breasts and have only allowed her to fuck me a few times since I have known her.  I just can’t be present.  I can’t experience sex in my body and feel okay.  I wish I could for her and in my past would always allow my partners to fuck me because that is what lesbians do right?  I have spent most of my adult life having sexual interactions in which I am not present, in which I dream of a flat chest, of broad arms, of a hard body of looking down and having my outside match my inside.

I have come out to my family and they all know that I am going to be transitioning over the next couple of years.  My mom is very supportive and she really pushes my brother and dad to be cool with it.  They are coming around and I know they love me no matter what.  I know my dad is afraid of what his family will think, but really they haven’t talked to me much since I came out as a lesbian 14 years ago, so I doubt my transition will have a huge impact on them.  My parents live in a conservative midwest community, but are quite liberal, so that helps.  They really are making an effort to call me Sid and they only slip and call me my female gendered name occasionally!   I keep joking with them that it is okay for know, but when I have a beard, they will have to call me Sid…ha ha!

Right now I am in therapy again with a gender specialist.  She is not quick to prescribe T and I like that.  My plan is to go through my name change as well as have my top surgery by next August.  Then I will see how I feel, but am most likely going to start taking T by next October or November.  Perhaps sooner, perhaps later.  I really want to explore what it will be like to live as a man before I make the permanent decision to take T.

This is what I know today:

• I don’t care about going bald – fixing my hair is a pain in the ass
• I really want facial hair – like more than anything
• I don’t care about body hair.  I stopped shaving my legs and they are VERY hairy.  I love, love, love them
• I don’t want to come out as a “straight male”  I have always been and always will be queer
• I am worried about my relationship with my g/f.  Will she still be attracted to me?
• I am worried about my coworkers and keeping my job
• I am worried that my parents will have to deal with undo stress from my Dad’s side of the family
• I am worried that woman will be afraid of me
• I am not concerned about losing my identity as a lesbian.  I am not a lesbian and don’t really like being identified as one.  People always assume that since I have a female body and date women that I am a lesbian.

I could write all day, but think this is it for now.  Thanks for reading.

December 30th

I am beginning my physical transition from Woman to Man and decided that I should blog about my experience.  I have always felt like a man on the inside and it has become impossible to love myself with my extreme body disphoria.  I long for facial hair, a broad face, to look in the mirror and see what I feel.  This blog is for me.

I will be blogging about my past and present.  Ideas, fears, etc.

I would like to start taking T by this time next year and would like to have my top surgery by July or August.  That gives me 8 months to save $7,000.  Well allright!