"You're so cute sometimes."
I haven't felt very masculine for a while now. I think it's been at least a week since I last posted. Instead I've been sporting some rather androgynous clothing, with the occasional dick thrown in for balance. My chest is hid pretty well under winter layers and my new haircut is killer. It is a thin Pompadour that can be slicked back like Macklemore's 'do.
 |
| Inspiration for haircut. It looks more plastic with product though. |
Without gel it looks like a long set of bangs that will be swished to one side or the other. My sides and back are shaved and the only hair is on the top of my head. When slicked back I appear most masculine, or at the very least very queer, but when let loose it hangs to the side and gives me an extraordinarily feminine look. This is a common look among dynamic black women who usually sport a short 'do that will stay mostly vertical, or at least puffy and adorable.
 |
| My hair looks like that without gel. Except it lays flat, and down. |
My female roommate gave me this amazing thick sweater which is both tight and flexible and hides a lot. It makes me feel sexy, very sexy, especially with my haircut and my big black boy boots. I'm not sure how others perceive me with it but it feels very European and conservative and adorable.
I also got some new boy clothes from my new transwomen friends. Well, at least one of them is a transwoman. The other prefers non-binary pronouns and I guess they would be more comfortable identifying as androgynous. I should probably ask. Anyway, they gave me some sweet t-shirts that are the appropriate sleeve length and collar size that I am most comfortable with. With my binder on I almost pass. Maybe an extra layer on top or underneath will help. I'll be grabbing another bag of clothes just one size bigger from them again shortly. I can't wait! I should probably invest in some more boy pants to match my new shirt set too.
The other day while I was waiting for a friend at a general store I was wandering for almost an hour. It was in a predominantly black neighborhood and it felt weird glancing at the door every couple of minutes, which was where most of the employees also hung out, near the cash registers. I'm pretty sure I looked suspicious for the first 30 minutes. Finally my friend showed up, also with a back pack, and they pointed him towards my direction immediately, as if they knew we were together. He came my way and told me how the employees mentioned his friend was looking for him, saying "Yeah, he's right over there", referring to me. Woohoo! I passed! I wasn't even trying that day, really. No binder, no packer, but I guess the winter coat and slicked back hair really helped.
I think the reason I haven't really been dressing full boy is because I've been somewhat busy and with the connections I've already made until the guise of my female identity, I didn't want to switch things on them immediately and challenge my own professional credibility (which is a big issue for trans* folks everywhere). For example my professional email is my female name, and it's kind of hard to keep using that email while I'm expecting everyone to use my male name.
Sometimes I'm seeing multiple people in a day, some people who know me as the female, some who know me as the male, and I don't exactly have the time or resources to switch up dress in the middle of the day to accommodate the people who know me as one person or the other. Sometimes still I'm networking through multiple people, some who know me as one thing, and some who know me as the other, and it's also hard to keep everyone from being confused. For example at my former school I am known under my female name, and it's a female school so that's that. I was connected to a bike organization through this identity and someone whom I work with at a similar bike-related institution knew me as my other identity. It was confusing for the person whom I just met and gave my female identity, and then being called out by this other person under my male identity. Fortunately this was only seconds worth of an interaction and they didn't interact with each other about the issue, but it was obvious that I had tits to the person who called out, "Hey Eddie!"
... Awkward.
It's hard to maintain a binary identity in a binary society when you feel neither male nor female, but when you have to present as one or the other in order to make other people comfortable and to not confuse anyone.
As far as sex goes, I haven't been triggered lately, which is good in that it means I'm becoming more comfortable with certain sexual techniques which in the past were used against me in traumatizing ways. It also means I'm more comfortable in general about sex, and my own sexuality, considering identity and sexuality and often very fuzzy things in the beginning years of "coming out", whatever identity(ies) one chooses to explore.
If anything my bed partner and I have been negotiating power dynamics. It's not terribly complicated thanks to our fluid sexual tastes. Over time I have been recognizing how much of a dominant character I am in bed. I prefer being the giver rather than the receiver, and I prefer to top than to bottom, to pin down rather than be pinned, to call the shots rather than to follow them. The only tricky part comes with the fact that we are both dominant personalities. We've gotten to a point where we negotiate who goes where, and when, and to do what. Usually we take turns being the receiver, acknowledging actively what we would prefer to be doing at that same moment.
Receiving is good for me to actively challenge my triggers and overcome them, but it challenges my core personality at the same time, which is directly related to my gender preferences. I'm pretty sure this is something many transguys go through, trying to negotiate their pleasure reception and their gender identity. No one wants to be left with blue balls, but not everyone wants to be bent over and fucked either. Considering most orgasmic pleasure is derived from a person's genitals, and considering a female bodied individuals genitals are much closer to their body than a male bodied individual, the whole '"receiving pleasure" thing is more often defined internally for females than it is for males, who may receive orgasmic pleasure internally or externally.
Deriving pleasure internally is a tough concept to negotiate with, especially when one's body dysphoria is so great as to consider genital reconstruction. I can only imagine what those individuals have to go through to just to get a little nookie. Jeez.
Anyway, my partner is an interesting person, very queer in a different way, and we get along in all contexts. However we are strictly friends and bed mates (cuddle buddies?) and have agreed to not pursue romance for the interests of not only our respective identities, personal and professional, but also because it's so much simpler that way. Less social expectation, less binary expectation, less stress for friends and families. What we have is a private affair and is, frankly, no one's business (save for my blog readers).
It's a liberating experience for me since this relationship gives me the freedom to practice walking and talking and fucking like a guy without the negative ramifications that come from romantic relationships. Usually when you get involved with a person you not only get involved with them, but also their friends and their family and everyone they know in a public sense. We are not public about our relationship, and therefore it is not restricted to the social expectations of all of those other people. There is no harassment about my gender, about my sexuality, about my future or my past, and about my partner either.
Negotiating this relationship is very different than the relationships I've had to negotiate in the past. We visit each other when we are available instead of trying to focus our schedule around each other, which is usually about once a week. We stay over when it is convenient and play when we're in the mood, instead of always spending the night and there always being an expectation for sex. In public contexts we are strictly friends, instead of partners, but close friends, and behind closed doors we are whatever we want to be. We role play, we take turns, we fantasize and visit the past and the future, we play pretend, we use toys, we tie each other up, we get serious, we slap each other, we wrestle, we stand we sit we climb we fall off the bed, we do as we please. I enjoy it immensely and find it quite liberating because I can be what I want to be without the scrutiny of a binary, concrete, socially expectant relationship. Because this is not a binary, concrete, socially expectant relationship. It is so much more fun than that, so much less defined, so much more creative, and private.
I often wonder how my relationships with my other friends reflects on my gender identity. I tend to gravitate towards straight guys and queer women, all of which are some degree of strong, dominating, fierce, powerful, and ultimately awesome. I tend to gravitate towards these people as friends, which causes me to wonder exactly what I find attractive in a mate. Do I want a strong mate, or a passive one? Do I want a dynamic personality, or a quiet one? I've had some really great experiences with a very introverted mate who let me do my thing and never challenged me but encouraged me to be myself and do as I please, but sometimes I like to be told "No." and to be given direction, and to be challenged. More on negotiating relationships later.
I will be going to Qigong later today, the single digit class led by a cute queer transman. For the last two weeks I have been trying to get a hold of the same LGBTQ center for gender therapy classes, but my emails have been received by no one. I wonder what's up with that. I will ask this guy again to see if I can get some direct contact with someone, since emails aren't doing really great. I have health insurance! I have money! Take it! Please someone tell me your professional opinion about my gender! I need some help! Give me hormones! Wahh!
Last week I went to the research clinic for my three month checkup. The research study that I'm enrolled in, in case you've forgotten, is a six month ordeal that studies the effects of hormonal contraception on women's immune systems. I learned it is a study funded by the Bil & Melinda Gates foundation and it has one location in the U.S. (conveniently where I live) and also in Africa. It's purpose is to find a link between contraception and the reception of HIV/AIDS, since there has been some other studies that found a link between one of the hormonal contraception methods and HIV.
Anyway, so I went to the clinic, got some vials of blood taken, had my cervix bitten and my endometrium taken tissue samples of, which was less painful thanks to the ibuprofen, got a few more months worth of birth control and got some money. All the while I was lead through the questionnaire and sample collection process by a cute 20-something research assistant. She has short hair and a similar affection for bicycling and she held my hand through the painful bits and had also been abroad for a semester to a random country. If I see her again in the next three months I'll be sure to invite her for a coffee and then a bike ride. My current partner won't mind.
While I was half naked on the observation table she mentioned my leg sores as well and recommended I see a dermatologist about these things. While we all agree they are the ripped-open scabs of summer time bug bites, they're gross enough to get checked out. I really don't want to see a doctor about it since I know they'll just give me some anti-itch, some antibiotics, and tell me to wait it out until spring. I don't want to pay for that. But whatever, I have insurance, might as well use it. We'll see what happens.
