The Other Son

The anonymous blog of an English trans man in his 20s.

[the-other-son]

Win a Transthetics Real EZP Stand to Pee Packer

Click for details.

[the-other-son]

jimmydanzig replied to your post“Had a flick through The Mirror, today, and saw a piece about a...”

interesting... Do you have an article link

No, sorry. I just happened to have a flick through the newspaper in physical form.

Ah, I just looked up the article online. Here it is. It seems much more sensationalist online than it did (and than I was expecting it to be) in the paper. And there's some videos (which I haven't watched). Doesn't seem to have the little explanation thing by Dr Barrett online, though.

[the-other-son]

Apologies to anyone who has messaged me. I had no alerts (not even on logging in) and tbh I assumed no one would really have anything to say to me! So I didn't see anything fishy in the fact I never got any messages! However, I have just read them and replied to the ones that seemed to require a reply. I had a couple of messages about binders, and I don't have any binders left. I sold them all quite a long time ago, actually (I'm over a year post surgery!). I suppose my old posts are coming up in searches or something. If I can fix that I will do so...

[the-other-son]

How did you realise you were trans?

I'm not sure when you messaged me, anon. Sorry if this is very late and useless!I realised bit by bit, and mostly it was a kind of hindsight, I suppose. A lot of the things I thought/felt/experienced I was just not able to give a name to. I didn't know anything about transgenderism/transsexualism. I think I thought that you weren't trans unless a doctor told you so!So, in hindsight there are lots of times when I realise I did know I was trans, but I didn't have the words for it. So this is quite a complicated question for me to answer.As a child I knew I should have been a boy. I remember being very young and just thinking about how this mistake had been made, and praying at night and waking up hoping I'd have become a boy. But I didn't realise I was trans, then.Throughout my life this feeling remained but I thought it was kind of tough luck and I'd have to just... not ever be recognised as being male.And at around the age of 17 I realised that this was a feeling that not everyone else had, and that trans people had, and I wanted to speak to someone about it but never did.I even watched programmes about trans people and WISHED I WAS TRANS SO THAT I COULD TRANSITION. Not realising that that might be a big clue to the fact I was trans. I started to socially transition a few years later when I realised that people COULD do that. The more steps I took the better I felt about myself, and the more I realised how much I needed to transition. So I suppose I realised I was trans gradually, really. I had the thoughts and feelings typical of trans people, but I gradually found ways to process them and to put a label to them and to realise how to deal with them.

[the-other-son]

Had a flick through The Mirror, today, and saw a piece about a bi-gender person, which I found quite interesting, but I don't know much about bi-genderism so I don't know how common this person's experience is and how much variation there might be between different people and how they experience their bi-genderism. The person was male bodied, and mentioned in the article that they might like hormones in future to make themselves more feminine, but otherwise didn't want surgery and was happy as they were, being able to live as whichever gender they felt like from day to day. They had a girlfriend who seemed to love them equally, regardless of their gender, and she even mentioned how she felt she got more out of the relationship because of the role shift between being in a straight relationship (where her boyfriend would treat her like a princess) and being in a lesbian relationship (where she liked to treat her girlfriend like a princess). She also said it was obvious which gender her partner was on a day to day basis because if they woke up feeling male they'd have completely different body language to if they woke up feeling female. And the person mentioned how their gender could change during the day - they'd be walking through town as a man, and would then see a dress in a shop window that they liked as a female, and their body language would become more feminine. The experts explanation thing was written by Dr Barrett from CHX: "Dual-role transvestitism is quite common and most people don't feel the need for treatment and are happy to express themselves in their own way - we only get two or three cases of a year at Charing Cross. We might suggest psychological therapy but hormone therapy or surgery are unsuitable. With time people may settle down to one gender or the other."

[the-other-son]

I can't put this under a cut, but warning for transphobia (particularly geared towards MTF trans people). Just caught the end of a very transphobic episode of NCIS. DiNozzo was on some kind of date with a woman, and it turned out she was trans and had killed an agent (so of course it was personal, making her even more evil than in ordinary circumstances). On discovering her previous identity because of her fingerprints, they of course said that she WAS [her previous identity] and started to refer to her as 'he'. And a joke was made of the fact DiNozzo 'made out' with her (saying that he'd made out with a man, that sort of thing). And, to top all that off, they claimed that she wasn't a woman yet because she hadn't had surgery (they also mentioned that the surgery had been scheduled). I get that people are ignorant, but holy fucking shit, how stupid do you have to be to think that's an acceptable way to treat trans people? It also completely ruins the characters, because obviously they are supposed to be the good guys, and I'd have imagined at least one of them might possibly be less idiotic/douchey and might correct the rest, but nope, they were all well on board the transphobia train. Not to mention the actors themselves and pretty much everyone else who works on the programme who didn't think to say, "Hang on a minute, that's not right." Wow.

[klarionchaos]

Yesterday my phone broke and also I started my period… I had my 4th shot on 24th!! WTF!?!?! So yeh I’m not in a good mood at all, let’s hope it improves.

In good news it’s the boy’s birthday so I can finally give him his present and my swelling has gone down. ONE MONTH POST UP. Pictures later, promise ^_^

[the-other-son]

I think that generally if your periods haven't stopped after three months on T you need to get your T levels checked (both peak and trough) and in all likelihood the frequency of your dose will need upping.

[the-other-son]

Haven't been on here in a while!

[exeggcute]

aside from being cissexist the whole XX = female and XY = male thing is Straight-Up Wrong

AFAB people can have XO, XXX, XXXX and XY chromosomes while AMAB people have have XXYY, XYY, and XX chromosomes and since the...

[alonelybellsprout]

Can someone help me out?

Ok so my birth name is Imogene and it is special to me because my mum chose it and my mum died when I was eight so I really would like to choose a name that is similar but I can’t think of any. Also I don’t like the name gene or moe. Te name I’ve been going by is jett but I don’t know if it is fitting. Any advice please?

[pugs-plugs-n-drugs-deactivated2]

Timothy is the only one that struck me, going by Tim for short might feel similar to if you went by Im as a nickname before?

[the-other-son]

The only name I can think of that's similar is Morgen (alternative spelling of Morgan, but having looked online it seems like an accepted one, and although it seem the name Morgan was originally masculine, it's now unisex).

Or Ingram/Ingraham, Graham, Gershon, Gresham? If you don't like any similar names as a first name, though, perhaps you could choose a similar name to Imogene as your middle name, instead, so you'll always have it, but you won't have to go by it.

[the-other-son]

Received a letter form student loans (lol as if it's even worth it because like fuck are they getting any of that money back). Wrong name of course because apparently the person who said they'd send off my deed poll etc (so that I didn't have to look at it or deal with it) hasn't done so, despite the fact they HAD a letter all printed up and ready to send along with the deed poll. Ugh. So that's fucked up my day, royally. I had to add a hand-written rant to the letter to berate them for sending a letter (risking my safety and privacy) despite it being agreed on the phone (with the person dealing with this for me) that they wouldn't send anything out. Incompetent pricks. Thanks for the cash, though, jerks!

[the-other-son]

Cis people being encouraged to make sure they include the fact that they are cis (and their preferred pronouns?) in their sidebars... ... Hello dysphoria, hello feeling very 'different' and excluded from the general population, hello worrying that this will become the new norm and I'll be forced to either omit information and risk people assuming I'm trans (or that I'm trans-ignorant), OR outright lie to maintain a stealth identity.

[pugs-plugs-n-drugs-deactivated2]

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/agaycollab-remove-the-youtube-video-reacting-to-gay-trans-guy-porn#share

I know it sounds over the top to make a petition but you can see from the youtube comments that the makers of the video “do not believe they need approval”...

[the-other-son]

  m-m-mad-madness replied to your post:jimmydanzig said: I didn’t even know there’s a...

  Tis the 26th :) which reminds me, I need to buy train tickets…

Damnit, I 'knew' it was the 26th!! Thanks for that.  I hope whoever is going has a good time. I'm sure I'll find a way to survive my isolation... on that day of unity... Hahaha.

[the-other-son]

  jimmydanzig said: I didn’t even know there’s a trans pride…

Yeah, it happens in Brighton. I've obviously never been, but I've heard of it numerous times, and know of people who've been, and I think it's coming up (can't remember exactly when but I think one Saturday soon?).

[the-other-son]

Pros of going to Trans Pride: Possibly a nice day out. Not being the odd one out (with regards to my previous body/current body/history). Possibly meeting other trans guys (although I'm not very good at making friends so it's unlikely I would actually manage to make any friends, but..). Cons of going to Trans Pride: Everyone who sees me knowing I'm trans, or at least suspecting. Basically not being able to be stealth for the day, despite being surrounded by strangers. I'm not sure I could stand the cons, so I really don't think I'll be going to Trans Pride.

[the-other-son]

The last time I went to the gym I went with a girl friend, the woman behind the counter was on the phone and didn't look at me/I was partially obscured from her vision behind her screen, and twice referred to us as 'ladies' (apologising for the delay whilst on the phone, then again when she got off). The first time I didn't comment, but the second time I said, "Apparently I'm a lady today!" The woman behind the counter laughed, and my friend said, "It's too early in the morning!" and she said, "Yeah, I'm half asleep!" Then she apologised by referring to us as 'lady and gent'. I don't get misgendered anymore, ever, and she has never misgendered me before, but it made me slightly paranoid that I looked feminine that day (even with facial hair). I was less bothered than I would have been previously (basically thinking a bit more like a cis guy who got misgendered, I think), but even though I was quite chilled and reasoned that she just hadn't bothered to look at me and had assumed that my friend would have gone to the gym with a girl, and because I'm short, but I couldn't quite stop thinking about it. Her reaction also leads me to believe she just plain hadn't looked at me, though, because she wasn't mortified or surprised, she just kind of laughed at herself. Almost like an, "Oh yeah, obviously, haha," instead of a, "SHIT I DIDN'T REALISE, I"M SO SORRY!" Also, I used to always go with a guy, so my being short wasn't a 'thing' but the girl I went with is really tall and so I suppose it was a bit weird to think that a short guy would be hanging out with a girl that tall, especially as the assumption tends to be that you're partners if you are opposite genders (for some reason). I dunno why I'm talking about it here tbh...