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Now that I get acquainted with people whom don’t know and whom I haven’t told that I am transsexual I have to find a balance between openness about it and the wish to be perceived as the person I am. Finding this balance isn’t easy, I actually don’t mind being open about my transsexuality. My goal when starting transition wasn’t being a transsexual, but being truly myself. The fact that I describe my condition as being transsexual isn’t the same as entirely being myself. At this stage I can’t yet fully be myself but already the perception of others has gigantically improved. And honestly I treasure that perception more than being open about my transsexuality. Don’t come tell me that with this position I deny a part of myself, because it is not that simple. I desire to be myself, not to be transsexual, so if people perceive me as the woman I am why would I want to breach that perception by telling that I didn’t show myself (fully) as a girl for almost 25 years.
I’m writing about this because for the first time since starting hormone therapy and living as a woman someone will come over to my place for dinner, and I haven’t told her about my situation. So I presume she doesn’t know and that inviting her shouldn’t be a reason for me to feel forced to tell her just because there’s still certain things in my appartment which could give away my situation. So I came to decide that the pictures in my room of me before hormone treatment will go behind some neutral postcards. Four of the five pictures are only from summer last year, while one is from 2006.  The difference between how I looked then and how I look now is in my opinion quite significant. I presented myself more androginously feminine than male/masculine, but still certain features of how I look now were quite different back then.
It’s not that I want to hide the memory of those events shown in the picture, but I simply do not want my situation to be an issue in new relationships with people whom don’t now about it. At a point I could still decide to tell them, but for this person coming over for dinner that point isn’t there yet. Still, those pictures are from the past, they represent my recent past, but they don’t represent me as I am now and for that reason I will probably take them away and put more recent and representative pictures up on the wall.

No transsexuality is not a sexuality, I hope that’s clear to everyone. Sexuality, even asexuality, is about sexual preference in intimate (sexual) relationships, and transsexuality is about a severe incongruity between a person’s physical sex and the person’s gender identity. This post isn’t about my transsexuality, but foremost about my sexuality, and of course the impacts of my transition on it thus far.

I’ll start with that last thing the impact of my transition on my sexuality. In the run up to starting hormones I’ve always considered the possibility that my sexual preference for women wouldn’t hold entirely and that there would rise a preference for men. This hasn’t happened, maybe not yet, but clearly any preference for men is absent. What has happened these past months is that I’ve become more confident in my sexuality as a lesbian. There’s still certain physical hurdles, but participating more in the gay and lesbian scene has brought me much closer to having an intimate relationship (to a degree) than was the case ever since my ex and I broke up in 2003. So aside from acknowledging that certain men can be kind and have beautiful eyes, nothing has led me to believe that I can fall in love with men. Sure maybe that would have been different if I sticked to the straight scene, but remember before I started transitioning my sexual preference has always laid with women. There weren’t even crumbs of attractiveness towards men in my past.

I grew up in a 99% straight world, and I grew up holding on to the safety I thought being a boy handed me. You could say that this included being attracted to girls. The fact is that before and after becoming aware of my condition at age 10 I have always known that I (as a boy) was honestly attracted to girls. Alongside being attracted to girls I experienced a kind of jealousy towards them being able to be themselves. I wanted to be a girl, to be myself in fact, but I didn’t discover myself as the woman I am until a few years ago, so I looked at those girls and imagined how it was to be like them. Now all I want is to be myself, but what stayed with me was the feeling of being attracted to girls without experiencing the jealousy like I had in my teens.

Being attracted to girls never confused me, it felt really natural, something I didn’t need to struggle with like many lesbian girls. I could uninhibitedly be attracted to a girl, and although I hardly acted upon it until age 18 because of my shyness and insecurity, I didn’t need to come out for my sexuality. The sense of my sexuality feeling natural to me now continues to be existent during transition. Before I was confident enough to come out for my gender identity and transition, I as a guy then, fell in love with a girl. I had put energy and effort in looking like the guy I could credibly make others believe I was, and feeling confident about it to live my life like that. So combined with my desire to fall in love with a girl, I got into a heterosexual relationship. Although I came out about my gender identity to her in the first year of our two year relationship our relationship continued its heterosexual style. Despite my foolishness to grow facial hair since I was 17, and continuing that up til age 21, my ex-girlfriend experienced me as feminine during our relationship in different aspects. She even told me some friends of her thought I was quite feminine. Well of course this was pleasant to hear and know, but it couldn’t keep us together, and I guess we never really thought about how our relationship would be if I transitioned. It was after this heterosexual relationship and two little flings hardly worth mentioning that I decided that what I really wanted was to transition. So my transsexuality slowly came to the forefront and my sexuality went into a state of slumber. I didn’t feel comfortable being in a relationship as long as my gender situation was dubious to those girls whom would get to know me. I was uninteresting to straight girls, because of my outward feminity, and I was even more uninteresting for lesbian girls, because I wasn’t clearly a girl either. This was all in my own perception, but I still believe there’s a lot of truth in the perception I held for about 4 years. Beside that I also told myself that I above all needed to invest in myself before I could give love to someone else again. So sexuality became an issue far from my mind.

Nowadays, 8 months into hormone treatment I can say that I’m perceived as the woman I am by the people around me. My sexuality has to my perception not changed radically in any way, but did I before transitioning make others believe I was heterosexual, now I am obviously lesbian. Not the dyke type, neither the girly girly, still feminine though .Of course loving an other girl still has to be brought in practice, but undoubtfully I am attracted to girls, and being in a relationship with an other girl is only a matter of love and time.

Last Tuesday I had my first appointment with my speech coach. We talked a bit about the state of my voice the progress I already made on my own and the bits and parts of my speech and voice which need refinement. She is quite excited, called it an adventure, and she has experience with male-to-female transsexuals, so I’m sure she’ll be able to really guide me in this. Most importantly was that she was certainly impressed by my already made progress on my voice, and of course this pleased me very much. Having an experts opinion on my voice and speech means a lot to me, but the true deal is my experience with the people around whom don’t know me but to whom I do speak and whom don’t notice anything about my voice.
It’s really a wonderful experience to have people address me and see as whom I am. And there’s more and more of them, this is the most important development in my transition since starting hormones thus far.
This is also reflected in my increased social life, I should not cower away from going even further …flirting!

On th physical side of transition things are still going steadily in the right direction. I have a feeling that my arm hair is finally becoming visably less than before HRT, but I could be wrong. What I’m not wrong about are my breasts, unlike what many girls like me experience with breast growth mine are hardly painful as what I’ve read from others. At some times there is a nagging soreness, but nothing which really bothers me.
The stage I have now arrived at with breast development allows me to show some vague cleavage for the first time, with help of the pads I mentioned in previous blogs and an other model of t-shirt bra of which I bought two this week. Beside that I don’t have any interesting physical news to come up with, some aspects simply need more time, and I’m simply a patient girl.
Interesting of the past month is that I’m increasingly involving myself in the transgender community here in the Netherlands, there’s some exciting developments concerning GenderQontrast and socially I’m also extending my network in the community.
It’s a big change from when I started the whole process when I was quite hesitant about contact with others, but I’ve come to see the value of being part of the transgender community.

Next update will be the nine month anniversary of my real-life experience, which is halfway the official term that stands for it here in the Netherlands. Then I’ll try to write some more, like about the whole process I’m in.

I like looking natural, but if I’d go out all natural something would show which I much rather wouldn’t show, even better, I want to get rid of it. I haven’t got rid of it, that means I don’t go out all natural, and means I have to wear makeup. At least to look neat and add something to being perceived as female as which should be the case, I wear foundation.
Today was different though, I got up not this morning but half an hour past noon to start with, which never motivates to have an active day. Also, I didn’t have to go anywhere today, I had my groceries and I didn’t plan to see anyone. So I was content with it being an indoor day. That, until I discovered fungus between my garbage… the garbage bag had already looked full for two weeks, but these amounts of fungus were new to me and distasteful….not that I needed to eat it…it was just gross! So I really needed to throw out the garbage, which meant going outside to the garbage container of the student complex I live in. For such a little trip I didn’t want to put on foundation, too much hassle for being outside less than a minute. And I even didn’t feel like wearing the inserts for fuller breasts, so I went out all natural….all natural, for the first time in probably months. I only walked into one person, who could only glimpse at me when she walked out the door of the building and I in after I dumped my garbage in the container. And actually it didn’t bother me, I wasn’t even hurrying or so…even took out my mail. Not that this means I’ll go outdoors more often without wearing foundation, but at least doing these little chores like taking out garbage can be done in my ambiguous all natural look. Because despite still having a light shadow on my face I already do have size A breasts, and fuller hips. So until I’ve started the permanent removal of my facial hair I’ll have to live with this part of my physical ambiguity.
Most importantly though, I am rid of my fungus infested garbage bag… hahaha.

My future. My future is when I can write MSc. in front of my name. My future is when my name will lovingly share the nametag at the doorbell with someone else. My future is when you will find both those names on a birth card, being called the loving parents of … . Most of all my future will be when my name is legally my name and when my sex will legally by my sex. I know this last fact of my future will be fact in 2010, for sure.
The future. The future feels distant, although it contains so much happiness that I it to be the future now. The future can’t simply be now, for the largest part I will have to make it now. Graduate from university, finish the physical transition, fall in love, maybe even marriage, having children with her. This is all isn’t unthinkable, it is very very plausible that all of it will happen to me.
A future. A future which is now a future of one person, will be part of many persons future, friends, family, a partner, children. Many futures brought together and I will make sure to be part of all their futures. A future in which I will definitely encounter trouble, a future in which I will definitely encounter lots of joy.

I have a future, one which I will share with those whom I love and cherrish.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve been feeling a little down lately. It seems like I’m in slow-motion taking everything in the slowest pace possible, studying, seeing friends, progressing in my transition, taking up initiatives I started. Together with that I feel a kind of nagging tiredness picking on my on a daily basis. I still do fun things, but I find it hard to motivate myself and often it’s too easy to pass on those fun things. The reason for feeling down like this is the standstill I reached, I am at a crossroad and the only thing is watch the roads ahead of me disappear in the horizon worrying about what’s behind the horizon despite my intention to reach the horizon. There’s some obstacles for which I have to make a real effort and at this moment I don’t feel enough motivation to make those efforts. Somehow I much rather glare at the horizon and keep myself hooked to the thought about what could be there instead of actually getting there. I need to breach this, I need to get on with my life, if I don’t, feeling down will turn into feeling depressed. I am a positive person though, most often in interaction with other people, but with myself I’m always troubled. I lack perspective about my own life, I endure the now instead of going toward the future. There is no future if I don’t choose one of those paths on the crossroad.
It’s hard to get a positive perspective about my future, beside the fulfillment of my transition, when I have little that offers me a trustworthy perspective. I have a university education, that’s true, but I don’t know if I even want to be involved with the material I studied, this kills of quite some perspective. The argument that I could go study something else won’t work, I’m 25 studied since 2001 and I’m done with it, I can’t endure being a student for much longer and I won’t be able to pay for it either. A job would give more perspective but I have no clue what job I want. Sometimes I simply think that this world and its preoccupation with achievement, money and careermaking is the wrong world for me. The only thing I can do is finding my niche, a niche in which I can be myself, a niche which takes me beyond the worlds preoccupations.
For now though, I’m down. For now I am slow at contacting friends. For now I’m postponing study progress. For now I am at a slow pace with my personal projects. Let’s hope I can turn this around before summer, better have a summer feeling up than a summer feeling down.

Another month has passed, the 7th of my hormone therapy, and that should mean I have something to tell about it. And I have some things to tell, but not as much as past transtition updates.
In all honesty I can say that things are still going steady. Physically everything seems to be alright and on track and mentally I’m emotionally opening up little by little.
So what else can be told?
Well a number of aunts and uncles have seen me as me for the first time, this was at my parents birthday early May. It went quite well, I had some conversations concerning my situations, but besides that there was little different from previous birthdays. So that went okay, didn’t cause any emotional distress.
Also worth mentioning is that someone whom has seen and spoken to me at the lunch for GLB students (which I organize with some other people on campus) hadn’t noticed that I was transsexual until she overheard me mentioning it to someone else at the latest lunch. The thought that everyone notices my transsexuality when I come in close contact with them is thus false, at least one person didn’t notice it and maybe more haven’t noticed yet. I’m quite open about my transsexuality also thinking that people notice it, but I’m not turning in my openness for a life in  stealth. No way! I’m happy to be open about my situation at this time, being still in transition. This was a positive experience, that girl was totally cool about it.
I almost forgot, but I also had my hair cut the day before my parents held their birtday. What’s so special about that you might ask? Well, my hair hadn’t been professionally cut for about 2 years. Most part of those two years I was too ashamed and insecure to have my hair cut. I mentioned this in previous posts, I was going bald before I started hormone treatment, that’s something really scary for me and probably for any other woman. So hormones had resolved the baldness and now it was time to have my hair cut, the only point of doubt about having it done was my hairline which hadn’t really changed, only at the temples, but it went well and the hairdresser acted very polite and did a good job for merely taking off 3 inches. Next time I hope to get bangs and have my hair layered, that’ll be in August or September.
And well finally, what I already wrote about in the post from earlier today, I bought a bikini top. For the plain reason that I can now wear one, becaeus I possess what a bikini top is ought to fashionably hide, my little breasts. So that’s progress and reason to do some sun bathing this summer.

So these were the events worth telling you about of last month, maybe I have something more to tell about my physique next month, but as things seem to happen only steadily I’ll probably have little more to mention than today. Though you never now, I might just start the permanent hair removal on my face .

Moodswings, in my opinion I didn’t have them due to the hormones until half an hour ago. I was worried about a hole right next to the road, across my apartment, because I fear it’s caused by a waterleak. Can explain it in more detail but that’s not of importance now. So I called my dad who works at the regional watersupply company, and before I knew I got all tensed. I got more tensed than I was when I first discovered this hole and checked it out, I was like okay it’s a hole probably caused by a waterleak. It didn’t look like it was getting bigger so I was simply worried, not tensed. There on the phone for a reason which normally doesn’t really get me tensed I got tensed. I do not know if this is considered a moodswing, but it freaky to me for sure. Now I have been more alert on threats to my living space since a there was a nightly break-in at a neighbouring apartment in my hallway while I was home, asleep. This is something different from being afraid having my stuff being stolen, this is being afraid that a huge whole will swallow a garabage truck right in front of my window. Something which will surely shock me. I know how to control my emotions normally but it’s getting harder, today when the start of 3 days of mourning for the dead of the earthquake in China was in the news I was just one bit away of sobbing over my bowl of rice. I used to grieve on the inside about such tragic things, but I think this is starting to change now. Along with having more trouble to keep my emotions in I might have moodswings more easily too. I don’t like being tensed like I was an hour ago, especially not when it grapples me. I treasure my emotional stability. I do, but maybe I should also start treasuring being able to show more of my emotions too. Though I’d rather not have to treasure the moodswings.

There’s all kind of surgeries one can consider when you are transsexual. Foremost there is the sex reassignment surgery, which is for most transsexual persons one of utter importance. This is true for me too, but what other surgeries could I consider?
Well I’ll name all I know the existence of.
- tracheal shave (a.k.a. adam’s apple reduction)
- facial feminization surgery (exists out of different possible procedures)
- breast surgery (implants)
- hip and buttock augmentation (implants)
- permanent hair removal

Would I consider a tracheal shave?
Yes I would. I have a relatively long neck and a quite pronounced adam’s apple on it. Especially from the side angle my adam’s apple can clearly distincted. I am according to the Genderteam coordinator allowed to have a tracheal shave one year after starting HRT. This will be in October this year, so by the end of this year I’ll hopefully be freed from that thing.

Would I consider FFS?
Certain FFS aspects are worth considering for me. Too be honest though, the problem of FFS is that when you change one thing in your face another aspect needs to be change too, to keep a facial balance. For example if I’d have a forehead recontouring I would also need rhynoplasty. This because the forehead procedure would make my nose more pronounced, so to prevent this my nose would need to become smaller and thus more feminine. Other procedures like chin and jaw recontouring are out of the question for me, those aren’t that masculine that they need to be altered to look feminine. The HRT already softened my facial structures, so I won’t consider cheek implants either. The one and only FFS procedure I will definitely consider is the hairline correction. My hairline has receded too far to look feminine, I have my own way of hiding it but I’d be more confident if it would be actually altered. Different procedures are possible, the scalp advance and some kind of hair transplantation. I don’t know yet which one I’ll go for, but I hope to have it done before 2014. I hope to have saved enough money by then.

Would I consider breast implants?
It is well known that HRT doesn’t achieve a satisfactory breast size for most transsexuals. I am now almost 7 months into HRT and I don’t consider myself an exception. I will probably won’t achieve a breast size which suits best with my posture. A full B-cup would be enough for m, but I don’t think the hormones will get me there. So yes I consider breast implants, but not after I’m sure that the hormone treatment has achieved its max in breast development. Knowing that this can take up to 4 years after staring HRT I will probably postpone that until after my srs.

Would I consider hip and buttock augmentation?
I can be really clear about this one. No I won’t consider this, not now and not in the future. Because of my male build, I don’t have hips nor buttocks as a born woman. Considering though that there’s also born women whom don’t have really feminine hips or buttocks I will not make an issue of this. My shoulder/waist/hip features will never be that of an average woman, but HRT did and will continue to make my hips, buttocks and thighs more feminine simply through its redistribution of fat-tissue. And besided sitting on a pair of silicones simply won’t feel as comfortable as sitting on my fat.

Would I consider permanent hair removal?
I not only consider this, I am surely going to do this. Of course one can remove a lot of hair of ones body, but for me most important is to remove my facial hair. Body hair is influenced by the hormone treatment and is already decreasing significantly on my chest and will gradually diminish (become lighter and softer) on my legs, buttocks and arms. Facial hair removal is something I’ll start with this year, first with laser or light technology then after at most 8 to 10 sessions with electrolysis.

All summed up I will have permanent facial hair removal and a tracheal shave in the near future, in the longer run I’ll also go for breast implants and the hairline correction. Other FFS procedures aren’t excluded, but neither am I sure I’ll have those done. So I cannot tell when I’ll be done having surgery, but I hope I have those procedures about which I’m sure to undergo within 5 years. So I could be done with that at age 30.

The direction of my life is still unclear to me, mostly because I do not embrace the perspectives my study can give me. In the previous post I mentioned how this has come to be, with on the other hand the more than ever feasable perspective to be myself in full glory. No one can take away my future of personal sefl-fulfillment, my future in which I can freely be myself, unfettered from the burden my body has been all these years. This is of course only part of my self-fulfillment, the other part in general societal understandings would be making a career and personal growth, gaining money and gaining wisdom. I’ve been told to be a wise person, I’m modest but I wouldn’t entirely deny that, my life gave me a certain point of view on the world and the ability and honesty to share this wisdom with the people around me. I do think that there is still a lot of experience which I personally need to experience to really speak of wisdom. And I would be really happy if I would also be appreciated for my wisdom, bedises for being myself and an honest person. What wouldn’t make me happy is being appreciated for the career I’m making or the money I’m earning. A career  will never be a personal goal, because I do not feel like needing to achieve for personal gain to be appreciated. Friendship, love and wisdom are the only things I want to achieve, those things aren’t for personal gain, they mean nothing if I’d only achieve them for myself. Career-making in this respect is an egoistic business, which will mean entirely nothing if it doesn’t involve at least two of the three goals of achievement I mentioned in the previous sentence.
Currently I am doing a study which does enable me to achieve wisdom, the wisdom of how our world and the people on it act in all kind of situations within international developement. I will also be able to reach out to people with my love for life, my love for human dignity, my love for freedom, etcetera. I don’t know if I will achieve love or friendship, achieving these isn’t an aspect of making a career. Maybe I’m too unrealistic, because a career in whatever other business won’t make me achieve both wisdom and friendship or love directly as I would want to. The most important future perspective of being myself in full glory, still needs another future perspective, namely one of having an amazing job, but also finding true love, starting a family, admiring the beauties of this planet. In this society I live in the other ones are hardly possible if you don’t have a job, so I will go look for a job as soon as I have brought myself to finish my study. Expectations are a killer for me I suppose, but what I will be looking for is a job in which I can be creative, share my passion with the people around me and have people in need benefit from my abilities to help them.
I do believe I can become happy and achive self-fulfillment in a job which doesn’t earn me respect for the money I make. I am, though, very much pleased with the comfort of a good life with an amount of commodities that will be needed to supported by a certain income. Money does increase happyness when it takes away worries like those which the people have whom are now being evicted from their houses in the US. These are basic things, and even when you earn a lot of money you can still be unhappy when you do not achieve either friendship or love or when you fail at it. There I will need to find a balance in my life, and I will not be worrying where I will and up with my career, as long as self-fulfillment is possible entirely I will not have to fear my own future. The hardest battle has been fought, and now during the cease-fire I am certain I will find peace with myself. In the meantime I will set out to achieve those other aspects of self-fulfillment.

As a young transsexual something which has really been a strain in my life was the lack of future perspectives. Especially during these past years towards the point where I am now,  this strain put a heavy weight on my student life. In 2001 when I left my parents home to study at a university I was still in the closet, this all changed in the years to come, my life would change but I didn’t have the certainty to have the life I wished for when I would finish university. This insecurity took away all my future perspectives. I was on a path which had only one direction and without the ability to turn around, but I didn’t know if the path had a dead end or would bring me to a life I wished for. In these past 7 years I often feared for the dead end until last year when I was allowed to start hormone treatment. In the meantime the fear of the dead end inhibited me to do my study in full capacity with full concentration and full devotion. What would my study be worth if I would personally be stuck in a dead end life? I did study, got my bachelor degree and made it to enroll the master. I was persistent that’s for sure, I had nothing else to study, a switch would be hopeless whatever choice of study I would have made in that situation. I did enjoy my study, but whenever I was majorly dependent on myself I lacked the abilities to achieve what students could achieve. I am not an A-grade student, I have become a student whom has all the intelligence a student needs but isn’t motivated to study. With all the time I’ve put in my study it might be remarkable that I ever got to this point, it shows my persistence. The fact though that it took me 6 years to start my masters research, with a bachelor-degree only scheduled to do in 3 years, shows that I had a lot of trouble getting myself to this point.
So all these years of lacking future perspectives build up a heavy load to the point I have no motivation left to do my graduation research in the field of my study. My study became a burden of which I want to be freed to finally start a real life, leaving this loathsome futureless life behind me. Now that I have the life in which I see a future I cannot put myself to continuing a futureless study, I have started to question if I ever want to do something in the field of my study. It will forever be connected to the life without perspectives I lead.
It is true that my study offers me potential perspectives, for sure, when I have a masters degree I will be able to get a job and work myself up to more influential jobs. Though, what if this field of work (international development) doesn’t spark me anymore? When I started with developmentstudies I had a huge idealistic spark, but now there is nothing left of that, it cannot spark any future perspectives for me, none. I have no idea what I would want to do. Yes maybe that is because I lack a truthful image of my possibilities in the field. Due to my situation I now lack experience of doing research or working abroad, I have no ideal country nor continent to work and help the people. They should do it without me, but that’s what I didn’t see when I started studying. Now I’m left with an absence of motivation to study and work in international development on the one hand and on the other hand the future perspective to be myself in full glory. It is insane and I will have a lot to do to find out how I solve this schism in my life, what do I want with my future, I’ll go into that in the next post.

A few months ago I sent out an e-mail to my extended family about my situation. The e-mail contained nothing more and nothing less than they needed to know. I don’t have any close ties with either sides of the family, they’re all kind people (though sometimes a bit loud). A few relatives replied to that e-mail, all respectful, which I can probably give my dad credit for.
So this past weekend my parents celebrated their birthdays together, so quite a bunch of family came over and it was their first time seeing me after starting hormone treatment and visibly presenting myself as female. I sat there with them all evening, except for the 10 minutes that I had to do some dishwashing. Over the evening I hadn’t noticed any negative responses to my appearance/presence. Not everyone spoke with me but that’s not abnormal with these birthdays. With a few relatives I had short conversations about me and at one instance I was in the spotlight of the general conversation, though that was quite early on in the evening so not all guests were there. In general I have little to no reason to complain about how my relatives repsond to me, yes it is awkward for them, but it is not like they cannot or do not want to deal with the my changed situation.
And as written in a previous post, even my grandma is eager to be true to whom I am, for which I really love her. Other family members might not be that dedicated to me, but so what, it’s not like I’m that dedicated to them in everything they live thtough. It’s good enough that they accept me for whom I am and at least try to call me by my name.
When I grow older I’ll most probably grow apart from them, I will have my own life, might just migrate and have my own family like hopefully my brother and sister will have too. They mean so much more to me, as will my future cousins then will mean a whole lot to me. I don’t mind growing apart from my parents families, I trust that they will have good lives in which there is no need for me to play a role. They will always keep thinking of me as that quiet nephew, no doubt, but I don’t mind, it’s part of what I’m going through. I can’t control everything, the only reason why I would want to control my relatives opinion and view of me is their relation to my parents. I do not want to be the reason why anyone would not want to see and speak my parents anymore. By the way, transsexualism isn’t that unoridinary anymore!

A short description of how I came to transition on university last year, and how I experienced this.

Today exactly half a year ago I started with my hormone therapy, so I actually had something to celebrate, but I didn’t get to that, but I did get to writing my update .

Thursday I went for my second once-every-three-months appointment with my endocrinologist and this time the first time with my new gender therapist. Each appointment with an endo was with a different person, so on thursday I had a younger woman asking me a few questions measuring blood pressure, my weight and for some unparticular reason also my lenght. She was quite kind, so I hope to have her at least one of the next appointments. Then after that I could go straight away to my new gender therapist. She was well prepared, had probably read my entire file twice and she’d talked about me with my previous therapist, whom had been my therapist since June 2005. So we started of almost right where stopped last visit to my former gender therapist. I shared the things which bothered me and the things which made me feel more and more comfortable with myself and my surroundings. All in all, I have no reason to be displeased with my new therapist, she’s probably some years older than the other one, but she’s youthful and knows what she wants to ask me. In that sense she as just a little bit more straight forward, but I don’t mind, I’m looking forward to talking about myself more often. It won’t be as often as I’ve spoken with the previous one, but still worth to look forward too.
While I’m writing this here I feel an odd kind of mixture of tiredness and being made love with (at least it comes close to that feeling), I presume I just need to get me something to drink, not that this is an unpleasant feeling, but I need to keep focused to tell you about everything else .
So let me get to what the hormones been doing with me this past month, starting with that gorgious body of mine . I have come to acknowledge that my lips got a little bit fuller, which is good, makes them more kissable ..*haha*.. so why would I complain about that. Also I went to see how my figure has changed by making a full body picture with my webcam from behind, a picture which is of course kept very private. And what really struck me was that my outer thighs right where my butt is at its widest are almost as wide as my shoulders, so I’m really really happy about that. I don’t know how my figure is going to develop further on, but I suppose not much, at least not if I didn’t gain weight, which is not something I’m really striving for. I already gained enough, even lost some weight again, but I’m okay with the weight I have now. Anything else on my body still changing? Well of course, my breast growth continues slowly but steadily. The development is less than an inch compared to three months ago, but for some reason I am believed to fit a 38B bra now, oh well I promised not to give any figures unitl the 9 month update so I’ll refrain myself from that . They at least got more rounded, though that went along with a few weeks of more sensitiveness and sometimes painful pinches, all worth the progress!
Thus yeah my figure has clearly gotten more feminine, the sad thing is is that my body hair doesn’t seem to agree with that and still grows, though not as much as before hormone therapy, on places where every woman would love to be clean of body hair.
Despite the hair issues bothering me I still have the hair on my head issue pleasing me very much… I realy can’t wait for the day that it’s long enough to get myself those pretty bangs.
So as I said to my new gender therapist, I habe absolutely become more confident these past few months, some things are becoming more normal to do and less difficult to handle. There is still a long way to go, the facial hair needs to go, the voice needs improvement, the body hair needs to f*ck off, the adam’s apple needs a shave, my breasts wouldn’t mind to be one cup-size bigger, and then there’s that issue between my legs which needs to be reshaped and last but not least I’m still looking for the love of my life… in the longer run she’ll probably be there… I’m sure of it, just like all these other issues will get solved.

ah my future in this perspective, why would I worry? ….oh yeah, finishing my study and getting a job and a house to live in… hmm… well that’s something entirely different

So I found out that vids directly taken from my vidrecorder put on youtube don’t have sound and vision in sync, so I went to play with windows moviemaker again, isn’t that horrible. This vid is in fact a response to a previous post in which I linked you to a video which showed how I changed over the past 4 years, with the amazing music of M83. Now in this vid there’s no music on the forefront, but if you listen carefully you can hear a song from Psapp come by in scene 2 …and I was a bit in a silly mood so ignore the 3 bits at the end okay?

This is a short blogpost in which I simply want to share my love for my grandma with you. With Easter, yes already a few weeks ago, I visited my grandma together with my parents and brother. I hadn’t seen her since my sister’s birthday, just before Christmas. So we were there and my grandma was mostly chatting, and us listening, she’s quite talkative but sometimes a bit hard to understand because she speaks a dialect and her pronunciation isn’t what it was 10 years ago. She is 89 years old by the way, and my only grandparent still alive. I love her because she is a really sweet lady and she cared really good for us when we (my siblings and I) slept over when we were little. This Easter she gave me even more reason to love her. For the first time she called me Sophie, without hesitation, without once calling me by my old name. I was in a way stunned, but mostly I am really proud of her. She heard of my transsexuality on her birthday party last year, when my dad sort of outed me to her, and it shocked her quite a bit when she realized what it meant. After that I had only seen her with my sisters birthday, so yes I was surprised and proud that she called me by my name this Easter. She is my best grandma in the world, and I love her!

So today I bought one, for €10 I am now the proud owner of a body weight scale. It’s not a digital one, I don’t trust cheap digital scales so I bought a classic body weight scale, one with an indicator!
January 30th I wrote about needing to buy a scale after a visit to my edocrinologist whom wanted to know my bare weight next time I’d have an appointment with him. Back then I wrote this: “Last weekend it was approximately 152lbs, which means that on April 30th to my guess it will be 154.5lbs. So let’s wait and see“. Standing on the scale that indicator told me that I had gained *dumdumdum* 18.9lbs, that makes me only 8 pounds removed from being overweight where it once was 26 pounds. So unquestionably my transition has given me an unrivaled weight gain, where I weighed 150lbs for about 8 years I gained 20lbs since I started hormone therapy 5 and a half months ago. Okay I did intentionally eat more for a while but that has diminished, though the weight gain continued, so now I have to diminish it again to see if that halts the weight gain in any way. Becoming overweight wasn’t my intention when I started transitioning, though some bodyfat was welcome, but there needs to be healthy limit to that.
Where did all that fat, because it’s fat that I gained, find it’s place on my body? Well besides my breasts, far most of it has gone to my buttocks, outer thighs, belly, waist and a bit to my hips. I am still hoping the fat on my waist moves down to my hips, so I have to start doing some excercise. I’ve been thinking about jogging a few times a week for some months now, but hasn’t happened yet. I’ll have to get a pair of running shoes and of course jogging suit, but I lack the money in a certain way….the funds are there though. Okay then, next week I’ll have my jogging equipment, that’s a promise to myself!

So since I caught the movie editing virus yesterday, I have now made a video of pictures of how I looked the past 4 years. I won’t embed it here, because I have disabled the embed-function, don’t want this to float over the entire internet, so it’s only viewable on youtube. So go watch my video ‘Changes: May 2004 to March 2008‘, if you want to, that is. If not, then you may browse my blog more or leave it here.

March 2008
Originally uploaded by Sophie sans scrupule

My current hairstyle isn’t really a hairstyle like one would consider a hairstyle, it was never cut this way to make the coiffure I have when I leave my little home. It’s simply a bush of hair in a multitude of lenghts, I am happy that I can make something out of it, but I’m still waiting ’til I can make more out of it. I actually need to go to a hairdresser and have something proper made out of it, but it’s simply too early for that despite the split ends. I want to wait ’til I can have pretty bangs, that would make a serious difference because I rather not have a bare forehead. As I wrote before I have a lot of hair returning since I started hormone therapy, that hair isn’t yet long enough to be of any use for a new hairstyle. This is the main reason why I postpone going to a hairdresser. I haven’t been to one since 2006, that means I have quite some long hair, but misses the fulness it could have, which makes my curly/wavy hair look dry, which it isn’t. I am not afraid anymore though to show myself un-coiffured, as was the case until a month ago. So yesterday I took some pins and pinned my long hair up except in front and took a darn cute picture of myself, without makeup. Does this mean I’ll go outside with my hair like that, no, not yet, it’s all about the angle of the picture. A side angle would show too much forehead in my perception, so you’ll have the picture to admire and I will coiffure my hair until the bangs are there

After I broke up with my ex in 2003 it happened only four times that I felt I could feel something more then friendship for a girl. One was right after the break-up with a very special girl, but as you can guess it will not work to start something new right after a break-up. We’re still great friends, and I feel really grateful for that. The second girl which made my heart tick a bit faster came three months after the break-up, she was sweet, older than me, and some complication in relationship terms. In the end the click just didn’t seem there and I lost contact with her. The third girl only caught some deeper interest, also a fellow student as mine like number two, but this was Spring 2006. A time in which I was personally well into my personal transition, but I got aware that I didn’t really feel something more than friendship for her. Number four was even more hopeless, I’d seen her on campus multiple times and met her by coincedence late last year. She seemed really sweet and intelligent, but whatever she seemed when I she first talked about her boyfriend the interest was gone. Due to a slight incident we don’t speak (or see) each other anymore. In the meantime my official transition has begun and I am now living my life. As in 2003 I can impossibly hit on straight girls anymore, but now in 2008 I have seen that lesbian girls aren’t that open towards a transgendered woman. I don’t think much about my sexuality, but the thing is I do like women far more than men, that makes me a lesbian in the case society sees me as a woman, in terms of gender. I do believe I still have a long way to go to be seen as a woman to everyone, and at this stage I get the feeling lesbian girls are curious but not interested. To some I might even be an object on which they can shed their light to fullfill their curiosity.
Now when it comes to dating as lesbian I get sort of insecure because what I just mentioned and personally I’m by far not the most assertive girl in the crowd. So how do I take this on, I first have to meet a fabulous girl and than I must hope she has an open mind and that she’ll learn to know me as a person. I think my personality is my strongest point in charming someone, but even then my situation makes dating more complicated. By far most cisgendered people don’t have to be aware of their gender, they can take it for granted, when they date someone. I can’t go around it, it would be horribly unrealistic if I ignored my gender situation. It is impossible for me to take it for granted when on a date. I went through a lot to get where I am now, and I still have to go through a lot to achieve what I want for myself to be really myself. There’s no way that I want to be alone for the rest of my life, I want to love and be loved, I want to build a family and a future with the person I will love most. It has to start somewhere, but I don’t have any guide to get it started. Do I have to wait ’til people can’t see anymore that I wasn’t born a woman, do I have to limit my spectrum to other lesbian transgendered women, do I have to jump in and get myself hurt by beautiful but hurtful people??? Things have of course progressed since I came to the choice to not get myself involved as long as I didn’t feel ready for it. That was early 2004, and a lot has changed and I do feel ready for a relationship and even more, but the person to be in that relationship with is as yet nowhere to be found. For some reason I don’t meet people whom are really interested in me, and whom are open to me and whom are charmed by my personality. This all sounds disgustingly sad, but the thing is that it does make me sad, and that I should be more assertive to get myself a darn date with a fabulous girl. That is why I will do start writing about my amorous adventures, at least as far as I will have them, if not then I’ll have to write more about the absense of love, won’t I?

Now there’s only one month left before the half a year anniversary of beginning my hormone treatment. This means I have to contact the German surgeon whom I want to perform my srs. If this is arranged it would mean that I could be operated shortly after the official real-life experience period has ended in Spring of next year. There’s certain things I want to manage before that, like officially changing my name, so I’ll have the right name on my university diploma.
What’s bothering me now is that I am not really assertive in managing a lot things which I need to manage. It’s not only because of tiredness spells, which have become quite apparent this last month. I am struggling quite a bit to be myself, sometimes life feels heavy. It doesn’t depress me, it’s simply difficult and often tiresome to do the effort of being myself with this body I have. Most important thing probably is the issue of facial and body hair, the body hair isn’t retreating as fast as I wish it would do, and the facial hair is an issue of painful removal for which I have to contact a clinic, for which I need to be a little more assertive. It often feels absurd to stand in front of the bathroom mirror with shaving cream on my face, it sometimes feels like someone pulled a joke with me. Well, I can tell you, there’s nothing funny about shaving your face, getting up in the morning is every morning waking up with a hairy rash on my face. So yeah maybe I will, I really should, call the clinic tomorrow to start getting over this horrible rash!

The hormone treatment started banging on the wall which held back most of my emotions sometime last month, and it seems to have made some serious cracks in that wall. Luckily I don’t have moodswings, but there are certain issues which are very emtional to me, like the problem surrounding my motivation to study. I now know what it feels like to be unable to prevent myself from crying. Last time I had to confront myself with my study problem, I was simply forced to cry by my emotions although I totally didn’t want to cry. It is a bit weird, but obviously part of my transition, for years I had held back crying about emotional stuff, even though I was quite emotional in my younger years and cried easily. I had raised a wall to keep back most emotions, to not show my feelings of hurt, now this wall is being torn down. It makes me curious about how I’m going to handle my emotions from now on.  I will learn to live with it that’s for sure.

Well despite all the tiresomeness and emotionalities, my life in transition has also learnt me to live with applying make-up on a daily basis. Did I look up to putting on foundation every day only months before the start of my real-life experience, now I apply it with an ease of ‘that’s done in a jiffy‘. That doesn’t deny the fact that I will be very glad to be rid of putting on foundation as soon as the facial hair removal reaches it’s goal. Make-up is now necessary, but I’m not anti-makeup, I prefer looking natural, that’s all.

I do think the make-up helps me in being more passable than if I wouldn’t use it. The reaction of random people on my appearance isn’t as if they’re abhorred by my appearance, but I’m not consequently ma’am-ed either. The reason behind that could be the local culture in which people hardly sir or ma’am one another if appropriate, it could also be my youth which makes it not that common to ma’am me. Or I simply don’t get myself involved in situation in which I could be ma’am-ed, it’s hard to say, but I don’t see it as a problem. You know why? Well nobody has sir-ed me since when I started my real-life experience. I know my voice isn’t worked well yet, but I don’t sound manly which helps, I think. Honestly I don’t need to be ma’am-ed to feel like a woman, I want to be myself and I can be myself, and I simply don’t get the feeling from my surroundiing that I’m being misread, that’s what it is about.

This month there’s no news on physical developments, my weight might be fluctuating, but I haven’t bought that scale yet so I can’t tell. Besides that nothing else seems to visibly be going on with my body, maybe I’d need feedback from others to tell me if someting has changed, though I won’t be showing anyone my bare breasts. No way!
Next diary update will be on April 20th, so as predicted by myself I will not do the half a month updates anymore. But don’t be sad, there’s more about I have to tell besides transition updates.

What can I say? Little has happened these past two weeks, honestly, I don’t even have much reason to write an update now. So if you don’t mind, from now on I’ll only do the update once a month. After four months the wild water rafting (which is an exaggeration) has turned into bobbing up and down in a rowing boat on a calm lake. I have my emotional moments, the highs, the lows, but they’re few. Physically too, little happens over two weeks, so what’s left to write about. I have enough to write about none transitional issues, like my previous posts show, there’s always a connection with my transition, but no immediate connection to make it part of my diary. Hopefully I will have something to write about in another two weeks, when I’ll be on hormones for 5 months. It’ll probably be the general things, you never know though, there could be fireworks too.

And because I haven’t posted any music videos lately I have one here to make this post a little bit more interesting. It’s a song by Emily Jane White. She reminds me of Cat Power on her ‘You are free‘ album, which I totally fell in love with back then, so now I’ve fallen in love with Emily Jane White.

So this time I specially made a picture to compare myself with how I looked almost 3 and a half years ago, long before I started my hormone treatment. The left one is from November 2004 when I just had my new fashionable hairstyle, the right one was taken at the end of February 2008, which was early this afternoon .

So besides my change of hairstyle, you can also see the slight changes in my face caused by the hormone treatment. And indeed I am almost 4 years older in the right picture, would you believe that?

Four months, one third of a year, it doesn’t feel that long but truth is it’s already that long that I’ve been on hormones, still going steady, and happily, towards bigger changes.
Last week I sent out an e-mail to my aunts and uncles, to inform them what’s going on and to have some control over how they look at me and what I’m going through. I got two repsonses, a really sweet one from a niece of mine and one from my godmother which was somewhat positive but disappointed in the idea that my parents haven’t talked about it with her. I don’t know to which extent my parents have talked to all their brothers and sisters, but clearly someone would wasn’t all that much informed. I don’t mind that much, my relationship with my extended family is very limited, I hardly see them and often there’s little to talk about with them. They are nice people, but beside the bloodline I don’t feel any thorough connection to them. I’m glad I’ve sent out that e-mail though, it’s better for my parents not to feel entirely obliged and responsible to communicate my situation to all their relatives. I am equally grown up to inform my aunts and uncles to a fuller extent by myself.
On something totally different, my healthcare insurer has agreed to reimburse an amount of my expenses for facial hair removal for this year. This means I can start with the facial hair removal, though I might need to have another test session, because the result of the one I had late December doesn’t seem to be that succesful.
Regarding the hair on my head I’m still majorly thrilled to see that much hair return, what testosterone took away from me is now for a large part returning. One area though will not change that much probably, that’s the receded hairline, at the temples it has returned though in general the hairline isn’t clearly proceding again. I hope to change my hairstyle as soon as the returned hair is long enough to do something nice with it. This will take over a year, maybe two, depends on how fast my hair grows. I’m already really excited about getting another hairstyle, to throw my hair loose. Eventually I could decide to have my hairline adjusted with cosmetic surgery, but that’s not something I can seriously think about, especially because I lack the money to do so!
Even though I won’t be informing you about my exact breast development for another two months, I can tell that there’s still some awkward itchy feeling going on. It’s not as irritating as when my breasts first started to develop, but it does show that there’s still something happening. It’s not going as fast as in December, but hey I’m only four months on hormones, so there’s enough time to get to a satisfactory cup size.
Then there’s something I haven’t discussed in my updates yet, the issue of passing as female. It’s really hard to have a truthful opinion about this myself. I can’t read other people’s minds, and I don’t feel like asking every innocent bystander if they see me as a woman. Of course now and then I do notice people looking a bit too long at me, not showing an opinion of how I look in how they look at me, but they do look at me. There are loads of people when I’m walking about the city center who don’t take any notice of my possibly less feminine appearance than they might expect from a woman. Does that mean I pass? I know my voice doesn’t pass yet, and I’m slacking at contacting the local speech coach to start speech sessions, next update I will have an appointment with her in my agenda though. That’s a promise!

In honor of my best friend, Sabrina, I will end this update with quoting her opinion about the effect of my hormone treatment. It’s in Dutch, translated to English it would say: ‘Heavy stuff those hormones‘.
Sabrina said:
“Sterk spul die hormonen!”

He was wrong! Though that might be too harsh, my experience is more positive than what he made me expect. So what is this about? It’s about the hair on my head, the hair thought I had lost and the hair that returned. Due to the fact that testosterone had run through my body until age 25, I had a diminished amount of hair on my head. This was one of the things physical developments which was worrying me most before I started hormones. I knew it would happen before it began happening, because my uncles of both sides and my dad are the living proof of what my genes and the testosterone would do to the hair on my head.
I had tried to do something about it since 2005, but I wasn’t bold enough to do something about the slow action of my physician here in Nijmegen and the coordinator of the Genderteam in Nijmegen. Whom were supposed to contact eachother about it in 2006, but they failed multiple times. So in October 2007 when I started hormone treatment nothing had been done about my hairloss and I hadn’t dared to take a look at the back of my head (with two mirrors (one on the wall other in my hand)) for 6 months. Six months earlier looking at it made me really sad and angry, I was thinking of wearing a wig as soon as I started my RLT. It was that bad….because I simply don’t like wigs, I would be wearing it as a last resort.
I’m very happy though that this last resort doesn’t seem to be necessary now the hormones have kicked out the testosterone. When I had my first appointment with my endo I asked about what the effect of the hormone treatment would be on my baldness. He said that it would only reverse what I had lost in the last three months, at least that was his experience. This didn’t really make me go ‘wow I’m saved‘, not at all, because already 6 months ago my hairloss had thinned out my hair visably and I had a clear (though not yet huge) balding spot on the back of my head. It probably got worse in those six months up til October, when showering I could feel the water going over the bare skin of my bald spot. Going bald had been depressing me for almost 5 years, and the idea that I wouldn’t get much hair back didn’t make me feel happier. The effect of my hormone treatment on my hair growth has happily surprised me, seriously though it took me until less than a month ago when I again looked at the back of my head. Three months into RLT I had luckily not changed my hairdo from what it was before, which was quite well improvised to hide my hairloss. If I had gone to wear a wig I had probably cut my hair short, I’m happy I haven’t done that. The hormone treatment gave me back much more hair than my endo had predicted, not only wasn’t I going bald anymore, I didn’t have the balding spot anymore. I now have short new hair growing where I once felt my bare skin. If it’ll grow thick enough to look normal is still a possibility I think is feasable. This doesn’t look bald in any way, does it? I was really thrilled to see the back of my head, a feeling which couldn’t have been much more different from what I felt early 2007. There’s one little issue though. The hair I hadn’t lost before October 2007 lies on my shoulders when worn loose. This means it’ll still take me at least 2 years before I can really profit from my new found hairyness on my head. With the joy of having this much hair on my head again, I’ll easily survive that! Now I only don’t need to forget to tell my endo and therapist (though they are both not the same ones as I had late last year), I do feel I have to share it with them, which I forgot last week, like I’m sharing this on here! So much happyness about a bit of hair, my world is so weird, and I’m glad for it!

I can hardly say that I’m an anonymous user of the internet, not only do I have this weblog, I also have a myspace, a facebook, and a last.fm account, and apart from facebook the other three are findable when you google for ‘mutezukini’. Now don’t take the effort to google them, because you can just as easily click the links in the category Sophie Elsewhere. People who don’t know about my transsexuality, but do know my (I’ll call it a) pseudonym will easily find this blog and find out. There are as far as I know no people, whom I know, who don’t know about my transsexuality. Though the internet does hand me the oppotunity to keep my situation from someone (initially), this has it’s advantages I’m aware of that. The disadvantage is though that at this stage I won’t be able to develop such online contact to a similar offline contact. My current attitude towards this that I disclose my situation at the second opportunity. The reason behind this is that if the person would meet me offline for the first time she/he would with the probability of probably 90% get that I’m not born female. This is something I can’t prevent now, and also won’t deny, so why should online contact be radically different from offline contact in that sense. The honesty of my appearance replaced by the honesty of my words. In both situations the recipient of the information that I’m transsexual hasn’t asked to get that information, in the first case though he/she finds out herself with the help of her/his senses, in the second case those senses are very much reduced because the information is merely words and not a full appearance with the addition of experiencing my personality. So I do believe though that my appearance has a totally different impact than my words, this is what troubles me. I don’t know what the effect of this difference is on the person who gets the words, opposed to that I have enough experience of knowing the real-life reaction of people I meet offline. So I’d like to know if I should handle this different, especailly if I want the online contact to develop into offline contact. Any hints, opinions, ideas are welcome. A bit feedback on my postings here are welcome, at least if you’re able to follow my line of thought, which is sometimes probably a bit difficult.

Why did I bring this up? Well I posted a kind of contact-add (I’m looking for a buddy who’ll accompany me to concerts) at a gay/lesbian/bi-website for youth and young adults, it’s part of a magazine, and I got a reaction to my post there which didn’t mention genderqueerness, but I did mention it in my reply to her. She hasn’t responded yet, so I’m a bit doubtfull if I was right at mentioning it this soon.

Three and a half months 

So past two weeks had enough excitement to not forget my regular update every fifth of the month (which is the half monthly transition update). Though it seems that I have forgotten about updating, until now that is. So what exciting things have I done these past two weeks?
Well last week I had an appointment with my endo(crinologist) and right after with a speech coach. In a previous post I Already mentioned that my endo wants me to start weighing myself, which means I have to buy myself a scale. I still have to do that, but that didn’t keep me from weighing myself at my parents this morning (I was there for my laundry-visit) and well it made my comments to others, like my therapist last Monday, about having gained only 2.2lbs kind of disillusional. Meaning to say that I now know what it is to have a less constant weight. No I’m not telling you how much I gained, but I do hope I won’t keep gaining this much every one and a half week. It’s a good thing my bike as at the repairman, which means I’ll be walking more until Tuesday, though I actually don’t know if I burn more fat by walking to the supermarket or going there and back on my bike. I do have to say though that my endo wasn’t only interested in my weight, he measured my blood presure, which was okay, and he asked if I had any bad headaches, which isn’t the case, at least none worse than before transitioning, not that I have a headache that often.
So then I had my appointment with the speech coach. First another doctor in the presence of the speech coach filmed my vocal cords while I had to make basic sounds with my voice. This was done with a metal bar which had a camera at the end which was aimed downwards, this thing was held almost into my throat, very pleasant. Afterwards I was showed bits of video of my vocal cords moving, I was told they looked really nice, didn’t make it any less peculiar to see something beyond my tongue move. Second I was taken to a sort of recording booth where I had to read out loud a bit of a story and then had to pitch my voice in several keys and do some pitch glides. This delivered a kind of scatter plot, really interesting, this will be sent to my speech coach here in Nijmegen, so she can has a better idea of my vocal possibilities and limitations. The speech coach in Amsterdam was quite pleased with how voice already sounded and she said there was certainly potential in my voice to make it more feminine with succes.
That was last week, last weekend I went to a party for gays, lesbians and bisexuals, as described in the previous post. It was fun and I had good time for a change at such a party. The music still wasn’t that amazing, but it was definitely better than the other GLB-party I went to in November 2007. The next edition of the party I went to in November will be later this month, but I don’t think I’ll be going, the next day will be a party which has far better music!
After the weekend I had my appointment with my therapist in Amsterdam, it was my last appointment with her. She’s going to specialize on children with gender dysphoria, so I’ll be getting a newly hired by the Amsterdam Genderteam therapist. I’ll have to wait three months before I meet her, though that gives her time to go through my, by now quite extensive, files. The appointment with my therapist went well, she was very positive and said it was undeniably visible that I’m feeling better. That’s as far as the gender related events go for these past two weeks.
The day after I went to Amsterdam to see my therapist I went to Amsterdam again, though now to see one of my close friends. We talked about a lot, had drinks, a delicious soup and saw how an elderly man had to be picked up by an ambulance at the soup-bar because there was clearly something wrong with him beside his stubbornness, which was probably caused by a fearfull anxiety. So I spend a slightly extraordinary time with my friend, we don’t see eachother much, so it was really nice to talk to her again.
When I got home that night I had a weird snacking frenzy, it could claim the fame for my weight disillusionment this morning. I do need to be watchful for eating frenzies like those, not only is it nothing like me to have such a frenzy, it also instantly robs me from my snacks which could at least have filled a need the next evening in a less frantic way though.
Ah well I shouldn’t complain yet, I like to snack, but I still know my limitations. And a seldom exception to the rule won’t harm me.
Last note, I have a little party next week on Saturday, with nice people and without horrible music. One of my best and oldest friends has graduated from college, a good reason for a celabration. But what should I buy him????

This is my last post dedicated to my lyrical writings, writings which never found any music to go with, but that’s not a sin. I am glad to have written these texts about my feelings concerning my gender dysphoria. It is special to read them back after a few years, also because I have left the bulk of these feelings behind me last year, and I hope to make even more progress this year. The last lyric I present you with was written in  December 2005 when I already had a number of sessions with my gender therapist of the genderteam, but I felt I wasn’t making progress despite the fact that I went to live on my own again in October that year. Eventually 2006 and 2007 the real turning point years, in a way this text also ushered in the end of a sorrowfull period in my life. I’m also most proud of this text, maybe of all my text this one is most special to me, because it really shows what I felt and it is written in a way which is in my opinion most musical of almost all the lyrics I have ever written.

Battle the Fates

I’m too late … far far too late
It went by before I … I could sigh
I could not notice what … what I did
Now I try tricking my … my own mind
I’m too late … far far too late
I begin to dissipate
It went by before I … I could sigh
I could not notice what … what I did
Now I try tricking my … my own mind
I’m too late … far far too late
I begin to dissipate … try to battle the fates
I’m too late … far far too late

Why does life need to be fighting my fatality?
How a daughter feels … feels so weak
this is fate for a son … son of scorn
now why try tricking my … my own mind?
I’m too late … far far too late
I begin to dissipate … try to battle the fates
I’m too late … far far too late
Why does life need to be fighting my fatality?
It went by before I … I could sigh
I could not notice what … what I did
Now I try tricking my … my own mind
I’m too late … far far too late
I begin to dissipate … try to battle the fates
I’m too late … far far too late
I begin to dissipate … try to battle the fates
I’m too late … far far too late

(first written down December 2005)

How logical is it to buy something for the purpose of keeping an eye on something about which you actually don’t need to worry? Well, when your endocrinologist asks you to then it all makes sense. My weight is something about which I never needed to worry, even now after 3 months of hormones I only gained 1 kilo (2.2lbs). So it isn’t that strange that I haven’t got a scale in my posession, is it? The thing is though that my endocrinologist is interested in my weight. I see him once every 3 months until my srs. And he wants to know my weight of the day that I visit him. And because I cannot weigh myself by any other means than with a scale, I will have to buy myself that scale. I don’t even know how expensive those things are, though I won’t be buying a fancy hip digital one, no sir. I honestly would be more pleased with a kitchen scale than with a scale to weigh myself, but my endocrinologist has kindly asked if I could weigh myself the morning of my visit to him once every three months. Thus I am so kind to do so, though since my next visit is over three months I will wait with buying that scale until a day before I go to Amsterdam to have that short chat with him. Now since I only gained 2.2lbs in 3 months since I started hormone therapy I will make a bet with myself that in 3 month I will not gain more than 2.5lbs. I am not the kind of girl who’s afraid to tell her weight, but don’t ask me my weight, I tell it when I want to! Last weekend it was approximately 152lbs, which means that on April 30th to my guess it will be 154.5lbs. So let’s wait and see, I’m already really curious y’know ^-^. Ow what’s on stake with this bet with myself? Uhh, when I’m wrong, so if I gain more than 2.5lbs then I’ll buy myself a CD of one of my fav artists and when I gain less I’ll buy myself a delicious treat! Okay, that’s settled then.

Here I present you the third lyric that intensely touched the topic of my gender dysphoria, it doesn’t have the happy end as ‘Gloom‘ has, this is more about the disappointment in myself which I felt back then. Nowadays there is little reason to feel disappointed like that, a lot has changed for the better. Well here’s how it was in early 2004.

Paradox (never a queen)

She stood motionless, hoping for progress
she herself dismayed
there was no way to turn, there was no one to blame
it was her own concern
she was craving for more, while faking to be lost

She took a bite from the apple
acting as if it was poisoned
to the point she did get ill
consumed by her own guilt

She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox

She put a swan on her bed
acting as if she was bewitched
she hid herself underneath
languished by self-pity

She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox

She craves to be queen
but still . . . she believes in fairy tales
though wants . . . the happy end to fail
she’s living in paradox

She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox
She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox

What’s a princess if she’ll never be a queen??
She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox
She’s living in paradox
she’ll never be a queen
fairy tales won’t get her anywhere
Lacking all persistence
she craves to be queen
she’s living in paradox

(first written down April 2004)

So I’m finally at the point of no return, not that I’ve ever wanted to return, but still 3 months is one of the hormone therapy landmarks. I have survived 3 months, oh how difficult that was, so those months and year hereafter probably won’t get me down either. I’m still kinda ill, the fourth day, sore throat, coughing, a snivveling nose and a diminished appetite, but I’ll survive, though my intention to get on with my study has suffered quite a bit. So what’s been going on these past two weeks, beside being ill.

Well, I’m now clearly losing the smile lines, especially those around my mouth. Is it a loss? My biggest smile was always accompanied with greatly visible smile lines. The hormones have beaten them from my face, I hope to keep what’s left now though. These smile lines were part of me, just like that big smile I could put on, that big smile will never be as overwhelming if it hadn’t any smile lines. On the other hand, it is a positive sign of the change going on due to the hormones, as I’m visibly changing and people around me are clearly noticing it. I’m stuck with the question though if these changes especially in my face will be enough to convince people that I’m not a man when they see me up close? This question will eventually be automatically answered by future experiences, but I’m quite eager to know the answer to this beforehand. That would probably spoil a lot, so for now I’m satisfied with not knowing the answer.

Something that surprised me this past month were some hot flashes, officially they aren’t side effects of the treatment, but since I only had a few within one or two weeks and none before and none after I don’t believe I have to worry about some sort of structural hormonal imbalance.

A week ago I went to Amsterdam for the Humanitas ‘I am myself‘-group session, as I am now some girls in the group were ill, so we were only with three group members and the Daan and Marleen whom lead the group. It was a very pleasant session, also the first session since I started the therapy. So I talked a bit about that and we discussed the choices made thus far in the process and the choices which we wanted to make this year.
That evening I went to Hilversum for the birthday party of my best friend’s boyfriend and one of his best friends, it was a nice evening and night out, though a bit cold and with little sleep as one could have read in the two previous post, discussing the physical consequences. 

Also since last week I’ve been trying to go out more often full-figured than before. It not only means wearing the bra, but also putting on foundation each day I go out wearing a bra. If I really want to make my RLE a succes then I need to get accustomed to do so, okay I’ll be starting the laser hair removal on my face soon, but it’ll take some time before that generates enough effect to quit using foundation. I don’t know if my breast development is going to continue as it has done the past 2 months, so as long as it is winter and as long my petite breasts don’t seem to conflict with my unfoundationed face then I can permit myself going outside for some groceries without bra and make-up. Going out shopping or for visiting friends or appointments and stuff like that I will submit myself to putting on the bra and the make up. As soon as it is summer and the temperature will make me go out without a jacket I won’t be able to permit myself to do groceries flat-style, and besides I might be full-figured enough to wear the 38A bra daily.

Since this is also a full month update I will give you the latest figures of my breast development, which will also be the last for lets say half a year? Yes, half a year sounds nice, keeping up with millimeters of progress is boring and then again are these figures really interesting? To me they might be, but because it’s not smart to compare with someone elses development during hormone therapy, due to the fact that it differs per person how and in what degree the hormone therapy affects your body. So for the sake of myself here are the figures, my bustsize is approximately 95.5cm, it’s hard to get it exact because holding the measuring tape a little bit different seems to make quite a difference sometimes. In inches that makes 37.6inch, so if I’ve held the measuring tape exactly the same both times then the increase has been 2cm or almost 0.8inch. That’s what I mean, not interesting enough, and eventually I’ll probably have breast implants to get a modest B-cup, because geneti