Poke. Poke.

It feels good to be busy. City life is demanding, and I've never been so glad to lose my free time. While I'm no longer able to devote long hours for self-reflection as I've grown used to, I find that I no longer need to. I've got a firm grasp on my identity, and now I just need my body to catch up. The changes are proceeding in a slow-and-steady manner, which I suppose is really the best way to approach something so important. Well, actually scratch that, I'd like some big tits now, please.

Guy mode is still more common than girl mode. It takes a considerable amount of preparation for me to be satisfied with my female appearance, and it just isn't feasible for me to spend so much time every morning getting ready. I'm thankful that I can default and be scruffy when I want; it's easy to throw on a shirt and pants, then pretend to be a boy. I'm pretty good at it, although it's getting harder to be convincing. My face is a lot softer, having lost whatever ruggedness it once had. And while my voice hasn't actually changed, I find that I no longer speak all the way at the bottom of my register. Effectively my voice is a little higher, and I also don't put quite as much force into my words. 

Girl mode rocks my world. With a leather jacket and combat boots that make me 6'2", I make a pretty butch girl, and I absolutely love it. I spent a single night in a Chicago bar dressed this way, and I got a lot of attention, but it was an entirely new experience as a girl. As a gay dude, I'd been approached by guys at Vice Versa, and we were always on even footing, equals. This was different. I'll admit that I probably just had a run of bad luck, but at the end of the night I was ready to just be a lesbian. Holy shit, seriously guys, learn some manners. 

It may seem that at this point that I'm on cruise control to lady-town. There's a lot of bumps in the road that I didn't consider beforehand, though I'm sure any biological girl could have warned me. For example, one of my jobs is in retail clothing. On days when I work there, I spend a lot of my time around simply gorgeous girls trying on clothes. While I don't actively ogle the customers, it's hard not to notice that they have the shape that I want. I'm tall and, even though I'm slim, I'm still mostly boy shaped. I simply will never have the body that my mind has decided is ideal for a female, and that thought can get me pretty down. As a good friend pointed out to me, the same is true for all girls. 

I'm not entirely boy shaped, though. In my 5 months of hormone therapy, I've put on 16 pounds, and most of it's been ass and hips. Hooray for not being a stick! My chest is growing too, and while I don't think that they're big enough to deserve a letter yet, they are certainly big enough to poke. And I do, all day, every day. 

Poke. Poke. Poke.

Happy

It feels strange to have self-esteem. Thinking back, I've generally been a happy person, but the emotion never came from within. Great friends, enjoyable work, and relaxing hobbies all soothed my constant melancholy, but I was never capable of helping myself. When alone, I flickered between apathy and depression. As you might expect, I endeavored to spend as little time alone as possible. The strategy worked reasonably well, but it left little time for self-reflection, and this is the reason why my decision took so many years.

I always, always resented the masculine behaviors that were expected of me. I didn't really have any idea exactly what that really meant, though, and straying from the male "norm" was a slow, careful process. I acknowledged my attraction to men and came out as bisexual, and while it was a step in the right direction, it wasn't enough. So I declared myself gay, assuming that then I could be as feminine as I wanted. I lingered on this step for a couple of years, but I kept finding that gay guys were attracted to my masculine side. Wow, really!? Big surprise there.

Thinking is hard.

Whether I was dating a boy or a girl hadn't been the problem. Whether I was masculine or feminine hadn't been the problem. But they were simpler answers than the truth, and I had to rule them out. And really, what are the odds of being transgendered, anyway? Hell if I know, but I couldn't just jump straight to that conclusion. When I learned about transexuals at 12, I thought, "Me, get a sex change? Preposterous!" Haha, bollocks to you, past self!

I used to be a boy. That thought, all by itself, lifts my spirits every time I think it. I used to be, and now I'm not. I'm not a girl, though, and I don't reckon I ever will be. Not a real one, anyway. Luckily I don't care - I like being trans, and that puts me in the minority of a minority. More accurately, I love it. I don't know how far down this path I will go, and I'm not worried about that in the slightest. I've figured out who I am, and I'm going to enjoy wherever it leads me.

Strangely enough, being truly happy has made me much more of a pariah than being a pink-haired tranny ever could on it's own. It's rare for me to stop myself from constantly smiling, and I'm always excited for even the most mundane tasks. For example - "I'm not just riding the bus, I'm riding the bus and I'm awesome! Haha!" I'm just so damn happy to be me, and it catches people off guard. We're not used to cheerful enthusiasm, we expect strangers to treat us rudely or ignore us entirely. Being too happy makes people suspicious. Ah well, not my problem!

I love my friends, I love my jobs, I love this city, and I love myself.

 In the infamous words of Cobra Commander, "I wasss once a maaaaaan!"

Singular

Every person is a unique. Each of us is a one-of-a-kind mesh of traits, and every imaginable quality can be found in someone. Admittedly, some traits are more common than others, and folks with an abundance of scarcely seen qualities are either outcasts or celebrities. Either way, the poor bastards are loners.

Up until today, the titty skittles only effect on me emotionally had been the constant feeling of amazing awesomeness. Yet while watching a kid's cartoon about dragons, a short phrase from one of the characters essentially punched me in the brain. It sparked an epiphany, and I spent the next two hours in tears. Now the emotion has passed, and in retrospect it seems entirely unreasonable. I was aware of the offending knowledge beforehand, yet for some reason it completely overwhelmed me for a passing moment.

My girl side is young, inexperienced, and anxious. When she's dominant, my emotional stability is fragile, and I find myself looking for a strong, masculine persona for support. Luckily, I've got one of those. Of course it's nothing like having a loving partner, especially since I'm not always able to choose which of my traits are predominate. Hopefully once my inner girl grows up it won't matter.

Oh yes, I know this shit's confusing.

I'm glad to be in Chicago. There are theatres everywhere, and so far everyone has been exceedingly friendly. One street has several stores with every sort of punk and goth merchandise you can imagine, and the next one over has more rainbows than you can count. Once the weather becomes more favorable and the snowpocalypse has ended, I'm sure I'll be able to find some genderfucked kindred spirits. For now, at least my bumps are getting bigger.

Journey

I am moving to Chicago. The first 25 years of my life have been spent almost entirely in my hometown in West Virginia. It has four perfectly balanced seasons, beautiful forested countryside, and all the pickup trucks you could ever want. Mine's red. It's mostly peaceful and I love it here, and I really couldn't have asked for a better place to grow up. It's just too damn small.

West Virginia lacks severely in two things that I need to thrive: frequent theatrical opportunities and a bustling gay culture. All I need is a foothold somewhere with access to these two vital resources. The dice have fallen on Chicago. Tomorrow I depart on a new adventure, one that's only limited by how awesome I am. I've packed my crafting tools and charisma, but honestly I wish had better armor.

Luckily, I will not be entirely without allies in the big city. Two of my friends independently migrated to Chicago in the recent past. One is an Electronica DJ and musician, and the other is a Norse puppeteer. And I'm a tranny who makes costumes and cobbles shoes. Come on, how could this not be interesting?

Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world.

It's More Than a Feeling

There are so many different kinds of trannies that I can't keep track of us all. MtF's, FtM's, genderqueers, androgynes, bi-genders, kings, and queens are all different enough to be justified in their frequently short tempers with people who refuse to use the correct word. Within our own communities, we are sensitive enough and knowledgeable enough to use the terms preferred by each of our peers. To most folks, we're all just gay.

This is, of course, insulting and irrelevant. Gay is an orientation; it denotes who you like. Transgender is the other check-box next to male and female; it denotes who you are. A lot of this confusion comes from the  LGBTQ grouping. It started out as the gay movement, then it became gays and lesbians, and it has continued to expand into a sort of convenient, catch-all category for non-straight people. That's total crap, though, because MtF's can exclusively like men, and FtM's can exclusively like women. Both cases result in a man and a woman gettin' busy, and that's as straight as it gets.

Over-categorizing ourselves is a lackluster prospect. The benefits are few, and it teaches that being queer makes you different. You can be male, female, trans, or whatever. You can like males, females, trans, or whatever.

You could be a person that likes people.

Girl Power

A coworker recently grabbed one of my tits at work. I'm fairly certain that he intended it as bro-style horseplay, but it was the first time I've ever shouted death threats in a crowded room. He saw me as a guy, and guys constantly bullshit with each other. When I reported the incident as sexual assault, my boss's initial shock of concern quickly lost it's edge. I was treated with respect, but it was clear that he understood the "sexual assault" I claimed as no more than a couple of dudes playing grab-ass.

As I continued to explain, there was a very definite moment of revelation in which he fully grasped the situation. In an instant, his view of me changed from a guy complaining about nothing into a girl with a potential lawsuit. I could feel complete control of the situation suddenly fall into my hands, and it happened the moment he acknowledge me as female.

My lawyer.

A lawsuit was in fact the farthest thing from my mind. I want to educate, not punish. I was focused on something entirely different; my employer had demonstrated to me that I now hold a new power: girls are protected. Generally, men are expected to defend themselves, while women are expected to need help. I'm aware that that statement is ridiculously sexist, but that doesn't mean it is invalid. Regardless of how accurate these assumptions are for any given person, the important point is that one's initially expected behavior is based on gender.

As a man, I have always been treated as competent by default. If I intend to portray myself as a strong-willed and self-sufficient woman, then I've got to earn those adjectives. Good or bad, that's just the way it is. And if I chose to, I could always just join the ranks of women who manipulate the impulse people have to protect them. I could be a witch.

Thanks David

Kittens: No gender, just cute.

Fact: Androgyny wins. No one is ever really quite sure what to make of you, which manifests throughout each day as a multitude of polite, awkward smiles from strangers. You may also be sure that you will receive the best service at all sorts of businesses; professionals generally like to avoid offending anyone who looks like they are probably in some sort of minority or another. Most importantly, you may wear anything.

At 3 months into HRT, the stuff is kickin' in, and I am gliding across the gender spectrum towards female. The changes are sneaky, though, and I never notice them from day to day. The thing is, well, hormones don't fuck around. I've manned down significantly already, and the process is ongoing for another 2-3 years. I may actually end up losing my androgyny. While I was out yesterday, I wore brown cargo pants and a leather jacket. A boy gasped in shock after he heard me speak, then started yelling to his friends, "I thought that was a girl!" It seems like my masculine and feminine sides are both becoming ladies. Since they're in the same body, that works out quite nicely. 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

• My beard grows back slightly slower.
• My body hair grows back much slower and is much finer.
• My skin is softer.
• My face sits differently. I can consciously feel that it's not quite the same shape, but it's very subtle.
• My chest has a pair of painful, hard bumps, which are requiring additional layers of clothing to hide.

And it is awesome.

Turn and face the strange