Tag: stealth trans man

Re the post on your son K favoring you for some authority on things at the moment (which is I think wonderful in its own way) : I’m not sure if you’ve said before: is he aware of anything to do with you being trans? I’m wondering if you’d broached the idea with him before and that doesn’t affect how qualified you are for him to come to with even “guy’s stuff”. As a trans man, in times that I think about parenting, I wonder what I would tell my kids and how that would affect our relationship.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

K knows I am trans – FAQ here – but he completely forgets and doesn’t know my junk is any different to a cis dudes. It doesn’t affect our relationship at all because he honestly needs to be reminded on occasion when it’s popped up again. 

But that doesn’t affect how I feel with regards to being “qualified” – he still exclusively comes to me for penis related things and puberty related things, which has been happening far more frequently as of late, and I guess those are the exact kind of things I don’t particularly feel qualified to answer, so to speak. Despite me knowing the answers to all of his questions. 

Regardless, it’s those situations which reaffirm to me that he literally forgets my junk is not exactly like his. Questions like “Dad, how do you handle random boners?” have been popping up frequently, and I guess explaining how to do the gentleman’s tuck to your kid feels kinda shitty when you’ve never actually needed to do it yourself. 

Boy’s business.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

K has officially entered the stage of favoring me over his Mother for things. It’s interesting to me because I am the “strict” parent, whereas my Wife is the “easy going” parent – she’s the fun one and I am the rules guy. 

K’s always been a Mumma’s boy, not to say he doesn’t love hanging out with me or whatever but his personality and my Wife’s personality are so damn similar. Even in looks he’s like a mini, male version of my Wife. 

Regardless, now it’s “No, I need to talk to Dad about this” or “Hey Dad, come here!” – whereas before it would have been either of us, or his Mother. Now when my Wife responds, he occasionally specifies that it’s a Dad-related thing. 

This is actually adorable, but to be honest has me feeling like I’m less qualified than ever before. Hah. I guess despite having raised this kiddo since he was 11 months old, I can’t ever shake that feeling that there’s just a bunch of male related shit that I am probably not the best authority on. 
And logically speaking I know that’s just my own personal insecurities, but there you have it. 

Anyway – we get the keys for our house this Friday. It’s all we are thinking about – dreaming about, talking about. We did the final inspection yesterday, and when we pulled into the driveway my Wife looked at me and said “Welcome Home!”… I’m not the most emotional man ever but I definitely almost cried. 

I’m super excited to spend some quality Father/Son time with K painting his room whatever colour he chooses, getting him to help me with all of the million DIY things I have planned. My Father is coming to help fix a leak in our laundry and install a new toilet (he’s was a plumber before he retired) and I plan to have K help, even if it’s just passing tools. That’s the kind of shit I fondly reflect on with my father, being knee deep in a trench “helping” (although upon reflection he was just entertaining me… I was likely hindering!). 

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Did I tell you all we bought a house?
Signed the contracts last week. We move in early September.

I won’t believe we finally did it until I’m standing in our own house.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

The Wife and I have spoken recently about the large amount of questions/asks we get about “how” to find love.

It makes both of us really sad that a ton of trans people are under the impression they’ll have to settle for someone who loves them, or that they may never find that in the first place.

No, stop.

You will find someone who is right for you. It may seem stupid, but I honestly believe there is someone (perhaps even multiple people) out there for everyone. It might be more difficult in the beggining because as trans people, we don’t tend to allow ourselves enough room to love our physical apperance without a lot of work and dedication, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

It’s also spurred conversation about how we might be able to take a non-identifying “family photo” of sorts. Perhaps of the back of us, perhaps in a location no where near where we reside. Perhaps it will never happen at all, but there’s been discussion around it.

Can you go into more detail about how you changed your gender legally?

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Sure can.

I waited until I had my hysto before I changed my gender, as I was able to get my hysto covered by the government while I was still legally female.

There were mere months before I “had” to get my gender changed, in order to be able to legally marry my Wife. We’d booked out wedding, sent out invitations etc.

Right after my Hysto I began the process of getting my marker changed on my birth certificate. There were forms I could download from the Births, Deaths and Marriages website, which included explicit instructions detailing what evidence I must provide etc.
The “main” thing was the form requiring two independant statutory declerations (legally binding) from two different Medical Doctors which had either administered Hormone Treatment or Surgery pertaining to my gender reassignment.

My chest surgeon was a few hours drive away, and ridiculously expensive for even a consult requiring just a signature. I decided to get my treating GP (of almost 8 years at that stage) to sign one of the stat. dec’s, and my Hysto surgeon the other. It was pretty specific in the fact that they both had to be present and witness each other’s signings, but luckily my GP was super accomodating and met me at the Hysto surgeon’s consult rooms one day after they’d both finished work.

I was super paranoid that B, D & M’s wouldn’t, for whatever reason, accept my paperwork – so I overcompensated by providing official copies (signed by a Justice of the Peace) of every single piece of medical paperwork, psychological reports etc pertaining to my transition to date. I also had to pay a fee somewhere in the vicinity of $60-$100. I can’t remember exactly.

All in all, I certainly went overboard but the turn around time was fairly rapid for a Government organisation, and I had my ammended Birth Certificate in the mail. Previously my old Birth Cert had, on the reverse, a “change of name” declaration, indicating my name had been changed from BIRTH NAME to CURRENT NAME in giant, bold letters. Now, there is no such thing on my Birth Certificate – it says “Male” next to my Sex, and has my current name without mention of previous – which was a welcome relief.

Internal Conflict.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

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I often feel like a hypocrite, or paradoxical at the very
least.

I have been stealth for my entire transition, “deep stealth”
for the last nine years. It’s the way I wanted things to be, because being
transsexual is not my identity and is not who I am.

But recently I’ve begun to yearn for some form of… not
visibility per se, but a safe place where I can speak openly about my history
and the issues that go along with being post-transition.

In a town such as this, where being different could mean
something as small as not conforming to the town’s narrow and outdated idea of
dress codes, it feel suffocating to know that those around me would likely
literally harm me if they were to find out about my history.

I am relived that we are fitting in here so well according
to societal norm, while at the same time frustrated with the lack of open
minded individuals. Not even in relation to outing myself, because I guess that’s
not entirely the crux of the problem – more so just feeling as though I can
relate on a wholly human level without a sense of pretence or distain for those
that may not share my views, whatever they may be.

this might be a bit of a weird and personal question to ask so i’ll ask off anon in case you’re uncomfortable doing it on anon, but i saw you’re post that youve been on T for ten years. now, my mom is unsupportive constantly trying to say that HRT doesn’t work etcetc but i want to hear how you feel about it. is life treating you well? are you really happy where you are? if you don’t wanna answer it’s fine since this is pretty personal.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, it’s not that I had any reservations with answering these questions – I just wanted to give them the attention they deserved. 

Is life treating me well? Yes. Very much so. In the past 12 months I have really felt like things are finally going how I’d like them to. I graduated, got a great job in my field, moved to the country and have for now at least “finished transitioning”. 

Am I really happy where I am? Yes. Very much so. That’s not to say I don’t battle with depression, anxiety and dysphoria – the former two not particularly related to transition, and have been long-standing conditions I’ve had to deal with since very early in life. Transition is a battle, and by no means easy – but I always reflect on the choice I made initially. That is, it was not a question of “if” I should begin HRT, but if I should continue to live. It really was that black and white, and I felt I had nothing to lose by going on Testosterone. 

I never thought I could be this happy, really. I have an absolutely amazing little family – again something I never thought I’d have. A Wife, a Son. We’re working towards buying our first home and although it may take a while – we actually have money in a designated savings account. I wake up each day knowing I am absolutely blessed, and cannot believe my gorgeous family would choose little ol’ me. 

Hey man, sorry if this is rude and you don’t by any means have to answer this, but did you experience any hair loss on T and when did you start to? Also, if so, which side of your family did you obtain the balding gene from? Sorry mate, I’m just a bit anxious and would like some input on someone who’s been on T for so long.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Hey.

I unfortunately do suffer quite a bit from balding. I guess it began shortly after my 19th Birthday – so just over a year on T. It wasn’t particularly significant until approximately five years ago, where my receeding got quite noticable and bad alongside significant thinning on the top of my head.

Genetically speaking, I was fucked either way. Both of the men on either side of my family have the same male pattern baldness, but I really feel I got it from my Mother’s side. Her Father and Brothers both went bald early as did I, and they now sport what I like to refer to as the “Port Phillip Bay” (an Aussie thing…) where they only grow hair on the side of thier head. My Father, his Brothers and my paternal Grandfather however went bald the exact same way, just not as rapidly.

At first, I was so distraught from going bald. I was angry that I had waited so long to be outwardly male, and that I only got perhaps one year with a non receeding full head of hair. I felt cheated. I grew out my fringe, trying to hide it – as was the popular style at the time. It looked horrible. I didn’t want to be that dude with the comb-over, and thankfully I never let it go that long.

Eventually, somewhere along the line I made peace with it. I realised that if I was born properly, I would still be dealing with this. I began buzzing my head really close and kept it that way for some years. It looked much better, but there was a noticable difference between the stubble on the sides of my head as opposed to the top: it was obvious why I kept my hair that short.

Nowdays, I shave my head absolutely bald. I grow hair just fine on the sides, very thick – and I still grow hair on the top of my head however it is far thinner and blonder than anywhere else on my head – and particularly receeded. Shaving it bald makes me feel more confidant – it’s amazing how freeing not having to worry about hair feels. I have a beard, partially so I don’t look like “an egg” (one of my greatest fears!) and partially due to the fact that I may as well grow hair somewhere on my head if not the top of it.

I couldn’t imagine having a full head of hair now. I did mourn the loss of it for sure, and I can safely say that accepting my baldness has taken quite a lot of personal battles – but in no way do I regret taking testosterone.

Quite frankly I’d rather be bald and alive, than dead with a full head of hair.

Don’t let this dissuade or scare you; I personally know men who have been on Testosterone for just as long as me if not longer and they still have a full, luscious head of hair. It’s all in the genes.