#tranxiety

[itsaspiracle-blog]

Viewer discretion advised: transphobia/transmisogyny, poor self-care

We’re here with you, Jess.

Play it here: https://riotjayne.itch.io/tranxiety

[thefirefly14]

[thefirefly14]

Full-time was too much too soon, apparently...

[thefirefly14]

Fuck it, let's ride!

When I get around to finally doing something, I move quickly and I sure as hell don't do it half-assed.

When I wanted to get away from home after high school, I didn't go off to college like most people...I joined the damned Navy (and even after that, I picked a school that's about as far away from home as possible while still being in Wisconsin).

When I started looking for my first summer job, I didn't apply at the college or look for work back home...I went to freaking New York, to a camp that's completely outside of my experiences before or since then.

When I started poking around the whole atheism thing (one of the few things that I've backtracked from even a little), I didn't join a campus group right away...I went to Washington DC for the Reason Rally and a national conference for atheists (got books signed by Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss there, too).

And last night, when I finally became ready to climb over the last hurdle separating who people see me as from who I am...well, it's head-first and full speed ahead, just like it's always been.

Climbing over boulders to reach my shining Destiny...

Andrea

[brinconvenient]

A thing that happened

Yesterday, as mentioned in a previous post, GF and I attended a wedding of a friend. I was having a bit of tranxiety about it, almost overwhelmed with the feeling of being a complete fraud as a woman, and that fact being totally obvious to anyone who looked at me. I was doing ok, though, in boosting my confidence a little, despite a snide comment from my ex-wife on the facebook post duplicating the post I made here. 

In fact, I had started to relax and have fun. I was wearing a dress I'd had in my closet forever, which was perpetually too dressy to wear to any event I attended, ended up pretty satisfied with my hair and makeup, and even had my very first set of fake nails done. And! I got to take a tour of a real working microbrewery (since the reception was at a brewpub).

And then, during the reception, the bride came over to our table (what I had dubbed the PQK - Poly Queer Kinky - Table, since most of the bride and grooms family members seemed pretty conservative) and told me, in normal conversational tones, with no regard to who was at the table, that she had gotten a few questions about me, and explained with all the pride of a misguided ally, that she had told them that it is customary when someone is presenting a certain way, to address that person with the pronouns that match that presentation. Also, there was someone who wanted to know if I'd be willing to talk to them about being transgender and answer some questions about it.

So, this had the following effects: A) It told me that I was apparently not at all passing the way I thought I was B) The bride not only didn't tell these people to mind their own business, but instead confirmed my trans status to people I've never met C) and she put me in the position of having to play educator to someone I've never met.

To say I was crestfallen would be an understatement. GF immediately went to find me a cigarette, which, unfortunately, took a little while, leaving me to have awkward conversation about it with the rest of the table (to whom I'd already implied, if not outright acknowledged, that I am trans). My favorite part of this though, was this suggestion from the African-American man at our table: "Do what I do. I like to stick out my hand and say 'Hi, I'm black.'" There was something very tempting about walking up to someone and saying "Hi. I'm the trans woman you've been talking about all night." :P

Eventually, though, I was able to regain my footing enough to pull the bride aside and explain that I would rather have had that conversation in private. She blushed, and immediately saw the faux pas and apologized. I'm glad I said something instead of stewing on it, and letting it become bigger than it was. I chose not to explain how she mishandled the situation otherwise, but I think that is something that would have been inappropriate to address at her wedding. GF and I will have to have them over for dinner and games or something to have a chance to better explain how I'd prefer she try to be an ally in the future.

Ultimately, I decided to go ahead and speak to her family member, who was, actually, quite adorable. I figured that if I can provide a little education, I might spare the next trans girl they encounter the heartache I felt. She was quite elderly, and remarkably spry despite the oxygen tank she had to wheel around. She had been on the brewery tour with girlfriend and I, so she was familiar to me. She said she works closely with the Lurie Children's Hospital  which has one of the only childhood gender identity clinics in the country. She wanted to try to understand the "transgender event" (as if I was just walking down the street and then BAM! transgender! - I think the phrasing was pretty cute, though). She said she understands it has to be a difficult situation and that she hopes I have a lot of support and people behind me. I thanked her for her kind wishes and explained that I do have a pretty understanding family and my girlfriend is quite awesome, not to mention many friends. She was glad and stammered a little before saying that she didn't really even know what her question was, but would I be willing to give her my email address so we could talk further? I agreed and we exchanged emails and so we'll see where it goes from here. Frankly, given what I know of the bride's family, it really could have gone much, much worse. 

In the end, I ended up quite drunk, but overall very pleased with the night. Most of the family left before the dancing started and it pretty much just ended up with the PQK folks and the wedding party. I made some new friends and ended the night feeling pretty confident overall. I'm glad I decided not to leave and chose to stay instead.

[thefirefly14]

A Personal Glasnost

I can't tell if the walls are coming down or if I'm just opening gates to areas closer to the innermost keep.

I should probably back up here. I went to an event yesterday with one of the student orgs that I'm involved in. 55 degrees, cloudy, windy, we were outside, and most of us were dressed for 70 and sun. (I, at least, was wearing jeans and a sweater). Four of us were sitting on a bench watching one of the speakers, and the org vice-president was snuggling with someone who might be her boyfriend (if he wasn't, then it looked like he was trying to be). The club treasurer, in his usual obliviousness, decided that he wanted to cuddle with them, and he wrapped his arms around both of them (he was on the other guy's side). Now that the mood was entirely ruined, I figured that I might as well jump in, and snuggled up to the girl as close as I dared.

I've always described my self as a tiered fortress, with the successive keeps as progressively more hidden, closed off to more and more people, with the innermost sanctum closed to all (I occasionally forgot where I hid that key). There used to be five tiers (in order): the public self, the self that I showed in smaller groups (classes and the like), the "family and closest friends" self, my Internet persona...and then, at the very innermost core, there was (or what would become) Andrea.

Yeah, I'm still having trouble opening that particular gate (in fact, I'm still keeping the old Internet self going). I feel like I'm being torn between two different parts of myself...this has happened before, but I was able to reset and refocus then, cutting parts that didn't quite fit with who I had become.

The problem with this is that who I'm becoming--who I should've been all along, really--is so far outside who I've had to be that I just can't make that transition where I am. (The fact that this is rural Wisconsin doesn't help that part much.) It'll take some kind of miracle for me to be able to do anything more than run in place in the next couple of years, and the pulling just continues all the time.

You don't have to worry about Destiny getting in your way, since she's a bit busy in mine at the moment...

Andrea

[sneetsnirt]

i was suppose to be in canada today.

instead i was a moron. and now i'm just plain stressed out. 

i'm also on shark week which just makes me feel insane. i have Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. that basically means, every period is like... being hit my a car. 

maybe that is a bit drastic, but i have a mother with PCOS as well and she's given birth to 4 kids, she claims the cramping from these periods are far worse than the contractions of labour. 

and i don't even feel like i should be having this. i'm a dude. dude's don't bleed. i mean obviously some guys do but sldkfjlskdf. i hate this. every month, coupled with horrible anxiety over nothingness, pain that is immense, i'm also told my my body " HAHA YOU'RE NOT PASSING BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS YOU'RE BLEEDING" 

i am so frustrated with my human state. 

this year it will all change. i've decided i will start T and beg for top surgery as soon as posible. i am goign to eat so well. i am going to drop all the extraneous fat form my lumpy lumpy torso (srsly i take off my clothing i'm like a peach coloured lsp with legs and fat arms, it's srsly unfortunate). i'm goign to body build the crap outta everything. 

i'm gunna look great. 

no pictures from now until september 23rd 2013. im turning 23 which is my lucky number. that is gunna be my year. i need to be hot for it.