Tag: transman dad

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

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. 

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

So here’s the artists impression my very good, very talented friend did of me a while back. None of these are entirely accurate, but there’s a lot of ‘me’ in all of them and that makes me feel exposed and vulnerable I guess.

My friend said no credit was due, and that also protects my anonymity somewhat so I am thankful. But I’m very very appreciative of the work that went into this “very quick sketch”.

As always, if you know me IRL please respect my privacy.

Growing Up.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

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I feel as though K has crossed some kind of threshold into pre-pubescence in
the last couple of months. It’s natural for my Wife and I to occasionally
remark about him looking “grow up” in certain attire, or when he’s just had a
fresh haircut, or when he uses a particularly complex word in the correct
context.

But this time it’s actually different. He actually is growing up – I
can without effort envisage him as a teenager. He’s always been taken with
music, but now he puts his iPod on his speaker, closes the door and sings at
the top of his lungs. The way he interacts with the world around him has
changed, not necessarily in any negative capacity but more so with a general
feeling of growth. It’s difficult to articulate.

Last weekend, my Wife and I took K on a roadtrip to a small quiet rural town
that had a “great” skate park, according to friends. K is super into riding his
scooter, and it’s kind of hysterical because I grew up obsessed with
skateboarding – scooter riders being an active enemy in my youth.
I digress – he and I had such a good time together, me skating and him on his
scooter. We had the park to ourselves for hours, my Wife and our family dog
were going on short walks, playing fetch and watching alternately. K and I were
cheering each other on, doing lines around the skate park following one
another. Afterwards we walked to the nearby café and bought some lunch to eat
in the park, and then K and I played on the play equipment.
Our car was parked back over near the skate park – our gear already in the boot
but when K lamented at the fact we were going home, and asked for another 15
minutes at the skate park – it didn’t take long for either of us to oblige.
I think we’re going again this Saturday.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

There’s something inherently magic about being the only one in the house.

When with my Wife and K, there was always a period of time within a week (often many) where I would have the house to myself for a few hours.

Here, there’s generally always people home, even if everyone’s in their rooms.

I got home from an appointment this morning and found myself to be the only one home besides from the dogs and cat.
It’s a warm breezy day, yet the house is cool and quiet. It’s lovely.

I’ve had so much I’ve been meaning to write, but each time I’ve had the opportunity I’ve been so very tired and simply chose sleep over writing.

There’s been so much happening I actually am unable to give a rundown properly.
My Wife and K have been having a difficult time in general settling in; K’s having school issues (which we are sorting out), my Wife is settling into a new job in which her manager is incompetent at best, I’m absolutely swamped with major assessment items which all seem to be compacted into the same few week period.
And we are all missing the ever loving shit out of each other, so we’re emotional.

I’ve become the absent hero of K’s world; which tended to happen in reverse when we were all together – that being my Wife would go on a work related travel endeavor and K would, the second she left, insist that his Mother did x, y or z better than I did and Dad’s way just isn’t good enough. Turns out that since I have been absent nothing my Wife does is acceptable, or pales in comparison to “the way Dad does it”.

K turned 9 the other day, and he literally grew a few centimeters in the four weeks since I had seen him last. He’s so smart. Often a little too smart, arguing back to his Mum and blatantly ignoring perfectly acceptable requests such as “Can you please help me tidy the lounge room?” – my Wife and I have been waiting for the rebellious boundary-testing stage for a while. Here it is!

Anyway, there’s tons more stuff I could write about but I’ll attempt to write more often.

Kids and Triggering Medical Issues.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

So, my Son is uncircumcised – this has been causing a few issues of late…

We took K for a general health check-up yesterday; there’s a few things that have been out of sorts including his legs being sore when playing basketball or excercising, and the fact that his foreskin still isn’t able to retract much, if at all.

I knew this would be slightly triggering, but I didn’t understand just how severely it would affect me.
Our family Doctor is fantastic, especially with children, and put K’s mind at ease about speaking to him regarding his penis. He made sure K felt comfortable with the examination, and gave him the utmost respect and privacy which was very appreciated. He prescribed some steroid cream to hopefully aid in thinning out his foreskin so it can be retracted over time, and gave K the direct instructions on how to apply it properly. K thought this was absolutely disgusting and gross, but understood that it was better than a surgical alternative.

Our Dr asked my Wife if it was okay if he could show K a photograph in a medical book of an uncircumcised penis with the foreskin retracted fully, so he understood what he was aiming for. My Wife was more than happy to let him see this, as I can’t provide it. The Doctor had difficulty locating a photograph that wasn’t an erect penis, and discussed this with my Wife. She was not concerned if he saw a photograph of an erect penis, due to the nature of the photograph itself (very medicalised) and the situation at hand. K was absolutely disgusted with the photo and thought it was pretty funny!
It was then that I realised he probably had never seen an adult male’s penis before, and that he didn’t realise my body was different from his. Dysphoria central.

Fast forward to when we arrived home and K had to apply the cream. I bowed out of this one due to me already having dysphoria around it, and let his Mum explain the application procedure one more time before she left him in his room with the door closed so he had privacy. K has obviously not begun his journey of physical discovery just yet, but I think having to apply cream to his penis twice daily will get the ball rolling, so to speak.
We explained about masturbation, and how that it’s perfectly normal etc.

So, the kid is doing well with his medicine and is now very comfortable speaking to us about his genitals, which is great. We explained that we are here to talk to, answer any questions etc.

Then, in the midst of discussing this I simply blurted out “Daddy doesn’t have a penis like yours, the testosterone makes a very small penis for me but I still have the parts that female’s are born with.”

He was shocked, and began asking questions which I didn’t have trouble answering. He used words I wouldn’t use to describe my own anatomy, but I understood he needed to use words that meant something to him.

I then also explained that I could not urinate while standing without using a device. I said “When you grow, your penis will grow. As it is now, your penis is already larger than mine – and it will continue to grow perhaps to the size of the penis you saw a photo of at the Doctor’s”
He was really surprised to find this information out! He was very respectful and understood the conversation completely. He apologized for having a larger penis than me, bless his little cotton socks, and I laughed and said “No worries mate!”. I needed to show him that I was okay with my genitals, even though I’m not. Not at all.

After K had gone to bed for the evening I retired to my bedroom and my Wife came in, realising that I had taken this very hard. She attempted to comfort me, but it’s very difficult to comfort someone when there isn’t really anything that can be done.
She listened whilst I blurted out a million different reasons why the situation upset me, including not being able to deal with “penis problems” like most other father’s can.

I am not sure why I am telling you this, but I felt I needed to write about it here. For those of you who perhaps know me IRL, please keep all of this confidential.

If this is uncomfortable or you don’t want to answer that’s fine but I was wondering, did you carry your child or did you donate eggs or did you do the thing where they change the eggs into sperm or what? sorry, just trying to understand my furture options if i ever want to have kids.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t uncomfortable at all.

K is not my biological child, he is my Wife’s biological child that she had 11 months before we met. K’s maternal “dad” left shortly after K was born, he was an unplanned pregnancy and my Wife did not feel abortion was an option she wanted to take.

Turns out, K had a Father all along. When we met, I wasn’t called Dad straight away (obviously). Soon it became very clear that I wasn’t going anywhere at all – and my Wife asked me if I wanted to be K’s Father. The rest, as they say, is history.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Learning about male socialization at the same time as my Son….

I’ve been “transitioned” – that is, living as stealth except under certain circumstances since I was 18 years old. I’d just gotten out of high school and felt as though the end of that era would be the perfect opportunity to start new, without people knowing my history. As a result, I never really got the opportunity to learn how to socialize with men on a male level until I myself became a Father.

I’d had an easy time pre-puberty; I preferred to keep the company of boys over girls, played on a football team entirely consisting of boys minus myself, however those things seemed far less complicated upon reflection, and it all felt very distant from the awkward social crusades I’d been embarking on since I’d not only left my parent’s home to transition, but the state entirely.

I was lucky in that K was only 11 months old at this time, and children’s socialization is fairly neutral in terms of gender politics up until they reach school. Often even after that. How lovely.

What that meant was that I had approximately 5 years give or take in order to get this shit down so I could have some answers when asked in the future.

Various disasters and me being completely anti-social and awkward to begin with aside, I learnt how to be comfortable in situations that had previously made me uncomfortable. 

When K began school, he actually found it odd that some of his friends that were male expressed dislike that he chose to play with little girls occasionally. To K, these things were irrelevant; if you were into playing in the sandpit, you could damn well play with him.
We simply explained that kids can get a bit funny with girls vs. boys type things, and told him we were proud of him for standing up for his friends.

Fast forward a year or so (Grade 1), and K is exclusively playing with male friends except for rare occasions. He has two girlfriends (who are both aware of each other!) and he finds this quite acceptable but his mates think this is absurd. Why would you want to hang out with girls, let alone have a girlfriend?!

Year two came around and things got interesting. All of a sudden it was certainly not cool to have a girlfriend (he’d had one the entire year! haha) and girls who were simply play friends before became completely uninvolved from the very serious games of pokemon and spys in the yard. He came home one day, very upset because his girlfriend had dumped him without citing why and had that same day decided Henry would make a more suitable companion.

All I could think of was “You are 8. This isn’t supposed to happen for a long time jsdgajskdfga!”

I did the whole “There’s plenty more fish in the sea!” dealio, all while explaining that it took his Mum and I a lot of years to find each other, and that he will lose a lot more girlfriends in the future but I’ll be here to answer anything he needs and listen whenever he wants.

I explained that this is all part of growing up.  But sheesh kid, you’ve got soooo long to do that.

What I found confronting with all of this was that I didn’t feel remotely qualified to be having these little talks about the nuances of socialization in the school yard with my Son, simply because I didn’t have the history I should have.

Who am I to try and help you when I am learning too?