The plus of certain local straight bars over gay bars is that they play nicer music then what’s played in the two gay bars which I’d visit otherwise. Without having to really convince my three lesbian friends we went to a bar/club which we all consider straight. It wasn’t too crowded also a plus, maybe because it was Saturday and many students aren’t in town then. I know the music there to be more to my taste, but I hadn’t been there for over a year, so it was a bit of a wild guess to go there hoping there’s be nice music. There was over the evening quite some nice music, and music to which I could adapt, for the sake of having a fun time. So the music was okay and the four of us had danced happily at that straight bar.
It was also the first time I had went there after starting hormone treatment, and getting into the gay scene. This was somehow the true closure of going out straight in straight bars I have done ever since I was almost 16 years old. Now of course in the past half year I’ve been to some gay parties, but I hadn’t really gone out dancing and making it late in bars and clubs. Yesterday was the first time, and because it was too quiet at our favorite gay bar we ventured to that straight club. In my opinion that club is an openminded place, but it is clearly where the squares reign, although with a more alternative attitude and musical preference. I was once among them, because I was once not openly a woman and a lesbian. So yeah I had no problem being there, neither did my friends, they obviously had an enjoyable night out.
The peculiar thing about straight clubs though are the desperate straight guys, not only desperate but obnoxious too. There were three of those last night, which manifested their despair in different degrees. Which also resulted in three different kind of “eeeeewww”s coming out of my mouth in response to their behaviour. We survived their obnoxious straightness and didn’t let them spoil our night.
Yes going out straight is still possible, but honestly I’m really looking forward to the alternative gay club night at a small venue in Utrecht later this month. That combination is truly ideal, also in respect to meeting other girls. It’s time to have some fun!!!

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.

From age 4 to age 12 I was a little boy in primary school. Here in the Netherlands we call it basisschool, and from age 7 onward going there wasn’t as pleasant as I had wished for myself. The first year of basisschool was in a little village, but short before my 5th birthday we moved to a town 25 kilometers east, to a slightly more urbanized region at German border.
There, like in that little village, I went to catholic primary school together with my brother who was one class above me. It was not like the school was led by nuns or something like that, but simply that there was a morning prayer in the lowest classes and from third year on all would get weekly lessons in catechism. So that much about the school’s background.
My first 3 years on primary school were quite okay, being able to be the unspoiled kid one expects from 4 and 5 year olds to be. This didn’t mean I was doing well in every aspect, I wasn’t that talkative being quite the shy kid in class, though I was quite the busy bee when I got to play in the playcorner. So already then I was more in my element when able to enjoy myself in a small group on one hand and being on the background in big groups of kids on the other hand. After what you could call pre-school, the first two years of primary school, the oppurtunity to have fun in the play corner was gone and all creative and playful activities were done with whole the class participating at once. This in fact made me vulnerable, because I wasn’t the kid who’d stand up for itself and I was thus an easy target. This started taking its toll at age 6, the year I did the holy communion, not only was that a bore, but already then I felt uncomfortable looking the neat boy I was supposed to look at the ceremony.
So that year the hardship started, I was most vulnerable because I couldn’t defend myself. As long as I can remember I was a kid that started crying when others would get angry, the first time I stood up for myself was in grade 7, at age 10. Not that I didn’t cry because of the insult, but still I think it was cowardess to hit that boy. Most interesting about the incident is that it was one of my best friends whom had insulted me behind my back and I overheard that. I think I only pushed him and gave him some weak slaps on the chest, and then ran away. I apologized two days later, didn’t want to lose a friend, and I knew it was wrong to hit someone.
That was the only event in which I stood up for myself in the 5 years of hardship on primary school and it wasn’t even against the kids that were the meanest to me. More importantly to know, something my gender therapist was interested in when we spoke about my early youth was to know how I acted as a boy. As mentioned in other posts, it wasn’t until about age 10 that I came aware of what bugged me, my gender dysphoria. As a boy, I was as mentioned shy, quiet, introverted. I tried to get along with the boys but never got the hang of it, even with being the fanatic kid in gym-class I was also fine to play along with girls which was much less of a hassle the first years until the age that girls interest in playing with boys became ‘not done‘ for most girls. There were two boys whom were friends of mine all through primary school, and only one girl, and sometimes especially the earlier years I played along with different boys and girls. The interesting thing is that I never opposed playing girl things with those girls, I willingly played with barbies, not only together with my little sister. On the other hand, I could be fiersome when playing with LEGO or Playmobil. And I also loved to draw, make puzzles, and play dress up. In watching TV I also watched all kind of kids TV-shows, as violent as The A-team and Transformers, to as lovely as the Carebears. So my youth with all its unpleasant experiences on school wasn’t one significantly showing my gender dysphoria. I certainly believe that it has been present all along, thus being partly the cause of my behaviour in those years before I came aware of what this feeling was. To anyone around me when I was in primary school I was simply a shy and vulnerable little boy, whom they in fact never really understood. Would it have helped if someone would’ve really attempted to get through to me, hard to say, but it wouldn’t have hurt if someone at primary school had done that. The most awkward thing was that my teacher in final grade of primary school gave me the role of mustache wearing swimmingpool superintendent in the primary school partition musical. Not only was the mustache super icky, I had never felt more out of place in any school performance I had been in. Despite the good intentions of the teacher, he had better given me a girls role, though I might have felt too ashamed to take it…. ah well it’s all in the past now. No hard feelings against all those people who wronged me back then, in all honesty.
So in the end aware of of my feelings I went to secondary school even more introvert then I started primary school, with only one physical assault on me and only one incident in which I stood up for myself. It could have been worse. Still I hoped things would only get better when I left that primary school, but I’d be in for a more difficult time, because I still was that vulnerable kid when I started secondary school.

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.

Yesterday at the mega-Pann in Utrecht I had my first far too obvious eyes-flirt since ages. Yes even an eyes-flirt excites me. She was cute not hot, simply really adorable with playful eyes and a joyful smile. Too bad I didn’t want to stay there on my own when my friends kinda wanted to go back to the bigger venue of the mega-Pann. So an eyes-flirt was all I got to. Honestly I think that is really promising, knowing that I hadn’t flirted in any way with any other girls in over three and a half years. I have changed a lot and found a niche in which I seem to be able to at least flirt with the eyes. This doesn’t mean I’ve overcome all the obstacles which I think that problematize flirting with other girls. Undeniably though, there are no external obstacles, they only lie within my mind. If I’ll get to the stage of succesfully flirting and end up ending my kiss-less period within this year,  although still slightly uncertain. I have work to do on myself, and so I will .

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.

My world is changing, I haven’t moved or anything, neither did I graduate from university, nor did I find love and started a family. Nope, none of that.
I am …becoming part of the queer world, this month is a beautiful example of how I am now out of touch with the straight world.
It all started the night of May 31st to June 1st, I went to the Pink May Festivity here in Nijmegen, with my queer friends, so this month started queer. During the past two weeks I’ve been busy arranging a meeting for my transgender organisation, GenderQontrast, a first small meeting will happen on June 25th. Then there’s the Pink Lunch I organize on campus with some friends, the first of this month was yesterday.  That evening I went to a straight movie called ‘The Happening’ with two of my lesbian friends. Maybe tonight I’ll go to a local queer bar with some friends to watch the euro-championship match between France and the Netherlands. Than there’s this Saturday a big queer party at a venue closeby my home where I’ll go with a lot of friends. Saturday 21st I’m going to an even bigger queer party in Utrecht with a lot of people here from Nijmegen. The next day I’m at a transgender youth meeting in Amsterdam. Then on the 25th I’ll have that GenderQontrast meeting and in the evening there’s an info-meeting of the Dutch Genderteam in Amsterdam where I’ll be at and in company of some other transgender girls. Then on June 26th the second Pink Lunch on campus of this month and the last of this season will be organized. Finally on June 28th I’ll be present at a queer event called Pink Saturday, which is really big and exciting.
All of this is evidence that my life is being engulfed by queer people and a lot of queerness. And you know what? I really enjoy it, I’ve never had so much lovely people to hang out with and exciting fun things to do as I have now in my queer life

Here in the Netherlands the transgendered people aren’t really organized. In parts of the country they have their meeting spots, where the socialize, and for especially the crossdressers and pre-op transsexuals it is a place where they can be themselves away from the people which inhibit that at home. It’s good something like that is possible, but it doesn’t get the community closer to emancipation, beter health care and health insurances. Now since a few years there is the Transgender Network Netherlands, in which multiple organisations come together and do….. …..too little, in my opinion. None of these organisations is meant to be representative organisation which has as its goal to get the interests of the community translated to politics, emancipation and action. One organisation, part of the TNN, is the National Contact Group for Transvestites and Transsexuals, they organize these meeting spots and once a year an information-day. The thing is that transvestites hardly have the same interests as transsexuals and other transgendered people. You could find this somewhat harsh, but it’s true. I’m not going to explain it, use your own logic, public versus private, trangendered/transsexual versus crossdresser/transvestite, need for legal protection/public healthcare versus privateness functions as the untimate protection.
So this organisation is due to it’s split interests unable to represent the public transgender community, is there an alternative organisation? No, there isn’t, this brings me to ask if there even is a true community? Many transsexuals post-op want to live their life as normal as possible, want to pass and be seen as there true gender. Being active for a community is troublesome in this respect. So even if these people would benefit from an organistion representing the community you won’t reach them.
The Transgender Network wants to represent the community, which is positive, but they can’t claim to do so. The TNN is dominated by transgenders age 30 and older, to represent the whole T-community they should invest in younger transgendered people too. The case is that I am now in the mids of founding a transgender youth/student organisation. My initiative is already known by a number of organisations member of TNN, but there has been no word of getting my initiative into the Network. I am afraid I’ll have to go arrange this myself to be part of the Network, the lack of effort to reach the transgendered youth and invest in future transgender leadership is an undeniable shortcoming of TNN. I hope they’ll fix this, without me being the instigator of that. Sure it’s a young network, only just started, but even then, if you want to make change then you simply need the youth to be part of your effort for change.
It’s now an exciting time for me, my initiative, GenderQontrast, will be registered as a foundation this summer and the first projects need to be running at the end of the year. It would be sensable if all of this would be supported by TNN, they want to represent the community so they will need GQ to be part of their network, it’s as simple as that.
A true transgender community in the Netherlands is possible, and GenderQontrast can be a major player to sustain one in the future. It starts with the youth, there you’ll find the future leaders of the Dutch transgender community.

I hope I made some sense.
More on GenderQontrast in the future, I’ll be seeking international relations for GQ. So if you’re young and want to know what transgender youth are up to in the Netherlands, let me know.

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.