I just got back from a meeting with a 15 year old trans guy in my town. It was something I was asked to do by a good friend, and it was a good experience. The kid has just come out to his parents and is a little freaked out by thier response. It went well.

There’s another young bloke in town who is completely out socially spealing – same high school as the initial kid.

He got the hell beaten out of him last week, broken ribs and hospitalised because the local boys wanted to “show him how to fight like a man”.

It has been weighing heavily on my mind since – so when this opportunity presented I decided to take it.

I don’t know how I’m feeling about all this shit lately, but I’m sure feeling something alright.

Recently I have been embroiled in an inner battle – stealth. 

It’s difficult for me to articulate as I know beyond measure that I will stay stealth; it’s just how it is here. It’s safer for not only me, but most importantly my family. 

I just can’t shake that fucking nagging, tugging… I think it’s because we are finally finding kindred people. Friends. It’s lovely and reassuring and beautiful but I constantly find myself building a wall around myself. Just in case. 

It’s exhausting, tiring and I am sick of feeling like I am not living authentically, despite me knowing entirely otherwise. 

There’s a job going, I’m not only qualified for it but it’s a substantial pay increase from my current position with room to move up in the company.

I am not applying as the role is centred around working with GLBTIQ/CALD/People with Disabilities and I feel like I couldn’t do that job and not be out, to some degree at least. 

Fuck emotions are confusing. 

have you had/do you still get hip dysphoria? i’m a year on T and still trying to figure out how to manage feeling like i’m always going to have an hourglass figure despite how much i work out. i dont feel like i’m ever going to get muscular enough (because i physically don’t have time to as both a full time employee and a full time student) and i don’t know how to come to terms with that

I still suffer quite severely with hip dysphoria in particular. 
I have, as my Mother puts it “child-bearing hips” and they are often the bane of my existence. 

I find keeping my body fat % as low as I can without being silly, and working out to accentuate your upper shoulders/traps/back muscles can create the “inverse triangle” look; effectively making your hips look smaller. 

Other methods I use are buying pants one size too large and wearing them lower on the hips than I usually would – this way the pants hang straight down and don’t hug anywhere. I get antsy when I wear tight pants. 

Sometimes we’re just given body types we really don’t like. There’s not much I can do about my hip bone structure, but I can do other things to minimise the impact that it does have on me. 

Also – don’t use full length mirrors if you can avoid it. 

I hope any of that was helpful, and I’d like to commiserate with you as part of the “my hips are rather fucking large for a man” club. 

Happy New Year everyone!

K starts high school in two weeks. It’s freaking us all out! The school he chose (yep, we let kiddo choose from a bunch we thought were good) is amazing. Robotics lab, forensic science in years 11 and 12. Actually ridiculous, and I am very thankful we only have one child as it’s an enormous amount of money. 

He couldn’t go to the (only) local public high school for a plethora of reasons, the least of which being I have come across seniors who are unable to read. 
I’m fucking serious. 

Regardless, we had a great break. Mrs had some health issues which scared the living crap outta me (hospitalised for a while there, never life threatening), but Master K was kept at an arms length with friends and wasn’t aware of that. He has enough to deal with currently. 

Our homestead is coming along wonderfully. We’re already harvesting fruit and vegetables from the seeds we sowed when we first moved in. I love fresh tomatoes so very much. 

K was up the entire night vomiting with a pretty bad stomach bug.
Wifey is taking the day off work to care for him/take him to the Dr and I’m downing a million coffees before I head off to work.

Kiddo is pretty lucky that at almost 12 this is the worst illness he’s had – he can’t recall having a stomach bug before. On the downside it also meant he was absolutely seriously convinced he was dying – poor thing!

Parenting hey?

Update.

Long time, no actual update hey?

When time stretches between updates, I feel guilty. Like I owe this blog an explanation. 

Life as a Dad is still going strong – K is turning 12 this month and boy, can we tell! Emotional rollercoaster is an understatement. We’re constantly having big chats, allowing him to become the master of his own actions/reactions while gently steering him toward stronger emotional intelligence. It’s a big thing – especially when on occasion I don’t feel like I have my shit together, emotionally speaking! haha. 

Major dramas with regard to friendship circles, sorting out social hierarchies and navigating hormones alongside the looming High School thing has K on edge a lot. Family time helps, but we’re noticing he’s electing to do “his own thing” a lot more these days. 

My favorite time is when we get up in the mornings, I’ll go and make my Wife and I coffee and by the time I come back, K is usually snuggled in our bed alongside our (rather large) dog and my Wife, happily chatting and snuggling. 
I feel blessed to still have these moments with him, while he still thinks we’re the bee’s knees haha. He’s such an amazing human. 

So yeah, we bought a house. It’s terrifying and exciting all at once and I’m just about frozen with fear. We move in a month and the rental is currently scattered with boxes and cleaning supplies, with a few boxes already sealed up and labelled. My Wife is like a well oiled machine with regard to moving; she’s done it so many times. 

To (almost) have ticked off the entire reason why we moved rurally is mind blowing. Our property backs onto bushland and a creek, and it’s ¼ of an acre of land so enough to have a few chooks and a nice large vegetable patch. Exactly what we were aiming for. 

Just working my ass off to pay for it, and managing my own insecurities/depression/anxiety, whilst trying to be the best Husband and Father I possibly can be. 

I have a question. I’m not sure if you’ve answered this before. I was wondering what made you decide to go stealth? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about it myself. In a year I leave home and go off to college probably out of state. I will have the surgeries and my name is already changed with the records sealed as well as my gender marker in the process. I just want to be “normal” and safe. I have the ability of going stealth but I don’t know if I can leave all this behind as well.

Hey, 

I’ve answered this a little bit before here  but to expand:

I am stealth because my trans status doesn’t relate to anything else in my life besides from my medical history/treatment. If it comes up with regard to those things; I’ll disclose. But for the most part (read, everywhere else) I am stealth. 
I’m just a regular guy who happens to have trans history. 

Thanks for your blog. I’m sure by now you’ve been offline for awhile, but going through your blog and FAQ really helped me think some stuff through about my future. The kind of information you’ve provided is simply invaluable. Thanks for putting up with ignorant people.

Hey there, 

I’m not offline – just working tons and hardly check this place because I tend to come back to a barrage of hostility, and I just don’t need that in my life most times. 

It’s messages like this though that keep me wanting to log back in, so thank you. 

TMD’s Prosthetic Review Master Post.

A while back I recieved a question asking me to review the plethora of prosthetics/packers I have used over the years.
I’ll give each a rating out of 10, with 10 being the better end of the spectrum. 

Note: This is a work-in-progress; I can’t sit down and write all of the reviews at once. Thanks for your patience. 



Homemade Condom/Gel Packer:
There’s a first time for everyone, and mine was right here. As far as I’m concerned this still feels much more realistic through underpants than some of the more pricier store-bought packers available. Not too much to say here; doesn’t look realistic, but feels good and you can choose what size you’re comfortable with.
4/10

Novelty Sticky Penis: This was, when I was very young, my first ever “bought” packer. It was sold as a novelty, and the texture and consistency is exactly that of those sticky slapper hands you had as a kid. I had to powder it every time so it wouldn’t stick to my harness, and it was actually bright pink – but it worked and made me happy at the time. I was underage, and did not have any way to order online. This sufficed, but I wouldn’t reccomend it. (Link to what I’m talking about)
3/10

Mr. Limpy: This was the first proper packer I bought. I probably can’t say much more than anyone else has; they’re affordable, pretty realistic and come in a few different sizes. I couldn’t use any but the “Extra Small” version without feeling like I had an uncooked sausage in my pants. Does the job well, and I still use this particular packer if I am going swimming or doing particularly acrobatic activities. It stays where I put it, and it’s too large to look obscene under tight clothing/swimwear. You can easily make homemade STPs out of these, too.
Cons: Lacks the realism some other prosthetics have, can often feel a bit too squishy, needs thorough cleaning and powdering so it doesn’t get sticky.
5/10. 

MAN-GO: This was one of the first STP’s on the market which wasn’t simply a medicine spoon recipticle in a Mr. Limpy. What I really liked about this product was the recepticle; it was much smoother and easier to use than the medicine spoon I had been using prior. The packer itself was just a Mr. Limpy, although I purchased my MAN-GO when they first came out, so I can’t really comment on how they are now (or if they even exist?)
7/10

GV Sailor: This packer is probably the best in terms of realistic feel than most others as the core is a different density than the outer softer skin, giving it a realistic feel and weight. I never really used this packer much however, due to me not being able to find a comfortable way to pack with it. I was used to a smaller packer back then, and I think this was 4″ instead of 3.5″ that I was used to. It’s on par with the Mr. Limpy with regards to realism when looking at the prosthetic, however feel is far far better.
7/10

Peecock Generation 1: This, as it stands, is by far the best prosthetic I have had to date in terms of how it sits in my underpants, how it packs nicely without an obscene bulge and how easy it is for me to urinate with it. I forget I am wearing it. I never have to think about lining anatomy up, or accidentally messing myself. It also works well enough in bed for sexytimes, seeing as it’s a Pack, pee and play.
The cons with this particular product are the severe lack of realism; there aren’t as many little details on this prosthetic as there are on say, Mr. Limpy’s, but the ability for it to work so well in other areas surpasses this inconvenience for me. I also did not want to have a giant prosthetic for packing, so I opted for the smallest they had – which then made it a little too small for bedroom use.
8.5/10

Freetom 4-in-1: This has been thoroughly reviewed both in video and in pictoral format HERE and HERE.
7.5/10

Lately, as in the last 24 hours, I’ve read a couple of accounts of people coming out in support of the trans child in their life. I think it’s great that the issue is getting publicity. However, as someone that chooses to live as stealth as possible I feel like it’s not necessarily fair for their families to out them when they are 5 or 6 years old. This is not something that I would want to show up should somebody choose to Google my name. What are your thoughts?

I agree.

I often see these stories/television programs and forget that these kids will eventually grow up and most likely want to be stealth, or at the very least just live thier lives.
While I would love to have been able to access hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers and therapy as early as some of these children have, I think that comes with a certain degree of publicity and a lot of “supporters” forget that media nowdays is permanent. Archives are so readily available online that years after a story is published, a simply keyword search will yeild many results.