How has it been over eight years since I last posted here? Madness.
Anyway, a relatively quick, reflective update, because I'm a couple of days away from being 12 years post op and 13 years on testosterone, which both seem like obscene periods of time.
So much has changed since I was last here. I spent quite a lot of the intervening eight years in a kind of holding pattern, so it's even more wild to me that my life is in many ways unrecognisable. I've been skimming old posts from here where I was agonising about whether to proceed with stage 2+ of meta, agonising about feeling I could never be in a relationship for the right reasons, etc., etc., and I just want to go back and tell past me that it really does get better. So I guess the next best thing is coming on here and telling anyone who's still actually using tumblr that it gets better.
I never went ahead with further stages of meta, and it's very unlikely I ever will. I just don't feel the need. I did eventually clamber through the red tape to get a hysterectomy last summer, and it was surprisingly liberating. So, as far as I'm concerned, I'm done cooking. I still take testosterone, but a relatively low dose, because I'm happy with where I am physically. Having been quite strongly on the binary/transmedicalist side of the fence early in transition, I've relaxed a lot as I've become more secure in myself. I no longer hold those views, and mostly consider myself nonbinary these days. That's something that could be unpacked in more detail, but I won't delve into it right now.
I've been deliberately and voluntarily single for almost all of the past thirteen years. I was nominally in a relationship for my first few months on testosterone, but the relationship had almost entirely broken down by then, and I thought for a very long time that I couldn't inflict myself on other people/that I could never be accepted within the gay community. But about six months ago, a chance encounter with a guy in a pub led me down a rabbithole that led to grindr, and not to put too fine a point on it, but I've finally entered my slut era. Better late than never. The experience has been genuinely revolutionary. Being this far into transition, I'm comfortable and secure in my body in a way that I never imagined could be possible, and have also learned that there are a lot of open-minded gay guys out there.
So, all in all, things are going well. Maybe I'll post some actual comparisons in the near future, or maybe I'll forget this blog exists again. Who knows? Not I! But since I was here, thought I might as well give a potted history of the last few years, and again, emphasise that things really can get better.