Tag: transsexual

Update.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

I promised an update a while back, then promptly never got around to writing it. It’s been so long and there’s so much to say that I often attempt to begin only to find myself pretty overwhelmed with the task. 

I’ll do my best, even if it’s only short.

K turns 13 this weekend. It’s ridiculous that I can even say that – thirteen. He’s grown so much, entered High School (!) and is loving having more independence. Due to our rural locale, he has to get up early and catch the bus to his school – then in reverse. This see’s him have longer hours than a lot of 9-5ers, and at first we were concerned about how this would impact him. 

To his credit, he’s taken things in his stride. He adores his campus and his teachers, and his last school report is the best one we’ve ever had yet. It’s such a lovely change to see him enjoy school for the first time since we moved here. 

I taught him how to shave recently, too. We got his school photos back about 4 weeks after they were taken, and in the photo his moustache was significant and noticable! His school is fairly strict on a no-facial-hair policy, and on a whim I decided to teach him how to wet shave. I’m a bit proponent of old school style wet shaving with a badger hair brush, shave soap and a double edged razor. Needless to say, kiddo got a bic and used my brush and soap. He only had to shave his moustache, and he missed the edges so I had to help get those. 
I’m not going to lie, it was quite emotional. My Wife snapped a photo of the process and I will cherish that. 

What else? He’s begun singling me out to ask more questions relating to men, as opposed to his Mum. That’s new, because he’s always been a Mumma’s boy. This is apparently a developmental milestone in kid’s teenage years. 

All in all, K is such a wonderful human being and I am so thankful for the privilege to be his Father. 

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

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. 

A decade on Tesosterone.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

So I had my shot yesterday. I always put it off, but I’m getting better. Sort of.

It got me thinking about the process of taking testosterone and how that tends to play out for me emotionally speaking, as the years progress.

Sometime this year, I can’t remember exactly – June or so I believe, I will have injected testosterone into my body for 10 years. A decade. That’s a pretty intense thing to reflect upon, let alone live.

During the first few years, maybe the first 4 or 5, I did my own shots in my thigh. I was taught how to do it initially by my GP, and did the same thing, alternating sides every fortnight when my shot was due. As time went on, I began to resent the medicalisation of my life, the fact that I needed artificial testosterone as I was unable to produce my own. After five years of Testosterone shots in my thighs, I had scar tissue built up around the injection sites. I let my shots fall later and later, to the point where my Wife (fiancée at the time) asked if I would prefer she do it. I knew having regular shots was integral to my mental wellbeing and physical health, but I was my own barrier. I was thankful for her help.

I am now on a kind of testosterone called Reandron. This is a large dose of testosterone of the slow release variety, meaning I now get shots once every ten weeks. This has severely reduced my resentment toward the shots themselves, and although it’s large volume-wise (4ml as compared to 1ml injection) the benefits outweigh the slight tenderness of an injection site for a few hours. If it wasn’t for Reandron, I’d be late with my shots consistently, and that’s something I don’t want – it fucks with my hormones and my head.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Little K is becoming more aware of things lately.
His own body is changing, and perhaps that’s why all of a sudden he’s a bit more concerned with other people’s bodies than he’s ever been previously.

None the less, it’s a bit confronting when you’re not the biggest fan of your own body, all the while trying to instill body positivity in your child.

Last night I was tucking K into bed, we were both shirtless and in boxer shorts as it’s summer here and quite hot.
We were having a conversation about what he did that day in the school holiday program (kids here still on school break and Wife and I work) – when I caught him talking to my chest scars. I shaved my chest a few days prior so I guess they were fairly visible.

I let him stare, of course. We carried on the conversation until he was satisfied and he went to sleep.

Often more for K than myself, I wish I was born properly.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

Went ahead and ordered the freetom prosthesis, exciting!

Will let you know when it arrives. I live in the middle of nowhere, Australia so I’m expecting it to take a good while.

Isolation.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

It’s a funny thing when you finally get what you want. There’s always something more to aim for, something more to “get”.

That’s what I’m finding lately; besides lower surgery, which seems unobtainable until we buy a house and pay off the mortgage – I feel as though I’ve arrived at the state of simply male.

Yet I find myself yearning for contact with other guys like me, even though each and every single time I’ve been to a group or something specifically for the category of man in which I reside – something nags at me the entire time and I find myself leaving frustrated.

I don’t quite know how to articulate the feelings I’ve been having, but I can hear quiet echoes of my sentiments ebb and flow across tumblr. This is comforting, albeit sad.

In a town where even gay people go “stealth” – for thier literal saftey as much as piece of mind – this whole rigamarole feels wrong. Ungrateful somehow?

I have just completed gender therapy and am about to begin my testosterone treatments. Can you share your experiences with just starting hormone therapy? What can I expect in the near future?

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

To be brutally honest I don’t remember all the nuances and important details of starting HRT, but I’d hope very much that if you’re undergoing that process your treating Doctor would have informed you exactly of what to expect, and a brief timeline of such events.

Basically: dick growth, sensitivity, hair growth, voice breaking, pimples, sweat, hungry, horny. You’re going to go through puberty, man. And all that comes along with it.

Happens at different stages for different folks, as hormones react individually with your body as opposed to someone else’s.

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

This blog has 700 followers!

Thank you.

I am so humbled, and thankful that people seem to have taken an interest in this blog.

I also want to apologize for my absence; work is really busy, I’m trying to also run my own business and be a Father/Husband alongside it all.

As per usual, if there’s anything you’d like me to write about or respond to – don’t hesitate to send me an ask and I’ll get to it when I can.