I am sitting on the eve of my two year anniversary on testosterone. Of course April 6, 2010 was neither the first day I was queer (and as readers might know, I go back and forth on how much I identify with that label nowadays anyway) nor was it the first day I was man. I’ve been male since birth and I’ve lived as a man since sometime in 2009. But I don’t know the date I first wore a binder or first asked people to use “Sebastian” or first corrected someone’s pronoun usage for me. I certainly don’t know the date I first felt firm in a male identity or even the first date I questioned my female identity. But oh boy I will always remember April 6th.

It’s not like I was thinking as I rang in the new year that I would be celebrating my two year T anniversary in 2012. I haven’t marked April 6th on a calendar anywhere. It was brought to my attention actually because a band I’ve fallen in love with (Perfume Genius) is playing in my town that night. I went to buy tickets and was like oh April 6th, that’s important to me for some reason - OH YEAH!

So without further delay, let’s start off with what 85% of the people reading this want to know. What does 2 years look like compared to 1 year compared to 2 weeks? What are my physical changes, my physiological changes? Well ladies and gentleman I’ve finally started growing facial hair. It is blonde and soft and looks too much like (sort of invisible) head hair for me to grow it out long enough to judge what could come of it. But I do get soft stubble almost everywhere and I shave once or twice a week. I have more body hair than I did a year ago. A noticeable amount downstairs growth since the one year mark. Face widened, skin is a little coarser too. Happy to report no balding or receding of hairline though!

Something that I’m pretty excited about and really thought was never going to happen is my shoulders are officially and noticeably broader than my hips. This has gotten more pronounced as I’ve started working out again, but I think another year into fat redistribution really knocked off some lil pounds from my hip area (and my butt). Although I am still quite skinny and smaller than the average man, my body has really shifted into the shape of most XY men. I’ve never liked when people refer to non-trans men as male-bodied, because I think trans men can be male-bodied as well. And I certainly think of myself as male-bodied. And I think that I feel more solid/comfortable with that terminology than I did a year ago - whether that’s the changes that make me more stereotypically male-looking, whether it’s just another year living as a man, another year older/wiser, who knows?

Emotional stuff: I’m sure I’ve mentioned this on here before, but since I started testosterone, I found it harder to cry. I get sad certainly, but I don’t cry. This has not changed, though I’m pretty used to it now so I don’t really think about it. Sex drive has not really changed but I’ve learned to control/ignore it much better than I did the first year on T. Still something I struggle with though as I often can’t turn it off (so to speak) when I would prefer to just have a nice nonsexual intimate moment with a partner, and while a year ago I still was working on not acting upon those impulses and I think I Have that under wraps now, it is a distraction that I wish wasn’t there so I could be in the moment 100%. Or at least like 75%. I think I’m at about 50% attention when sex is on the brain unfortunately. I think impulse control in general is something I continue to notice as a challenge since testosterone. I’m somewhere between trying to manage it and also coming to terms with being a little bit more impulsive (in terms of instinct/desire/gratification) than I used to be. I have noticed recently a little more aggression in territorial-type conflicts with other people (typically other men). When in my past I would have been upset or saddened, I find myself literally wanting to fight them or having built up physical aggression that I want to take out somehow (I go to the gym). I don’t know if this is testosterone or my male socialization or entirely unrelated to my transition and instead to the relationships and situations I find myself in. But I think it is worth noting.

Identity stuff: Over the past year I think I have struggled with the trans and queer part of my identity. I have known for a while now that my male identity rings truer or at least more significant in my life than my trans identity. That I see being transgender as more of an experience than an identity. But I went through fluctuations of really wanting to distance myself from a trans identity and a queer identity to the point where I actually questioned whether or not I wanted to continue to pursue a career dealing with trans* issues in psychology and counseling. For a month I decided I wanted to go to law school and live mostly stealth and just be a man. As I think I have grown more and more comfortable (though we all still have our days right?) with my body and its increasingly masculine structure and appearance, my male identity has felt more and more natural and less and less constructed. I think with increasing comfort on my male identity, I have been able to reclaim trans and queer as part of my identity. I am actively involved in school consultations where I immediately announce myself as a transgender man and use that as a tool of exposure and education. In the fall I applied to 4 or 5 PhD programs in Counseling Psychology, specifically applying to do research on trans* psychology and issues in counseling. I also began working as a coordinator/advisor of two youth programs for trans* and gender-non-conforming youth and their allies. Although I have not kept up on this blog and basically handed in my writing position at Autostraddle, I have made trans*-related work a part of my life again and in a rather prominent way. And this summer I’ll be moving to Louisville to study under Dr. Budge and the rest of the faculty at UofL’s Counseling Psychology doctoral program, and will be doing a lot of work surrounding trans* issues and advocacy. I know for a fact that I could not have done this a year ago and would not have wanted to. I continue to not think of myself as part of a queer community or culture, but identify as queer-minded, as a feminist, and I do identify with my transgender experience. I think on a similar note, I am in a relationship with someone who I knew prior to transitioning. A year ago I was pretty big on not wanting to do that ever again - I was involved with someone whom I had met as Sebastian and needed that timeline to feel comfortable within our relationship. Again, I think my increased comfort with my male identity and male body have allowed this increased comfort with my past.

I mean I wrote a whole post with all the specifics and the ramblings because I think that is what is expected when we write these T anniversary posts, but the reality is, I am just living my life. I’m living my life as a man. I’m living my life as a person who transitioned. I’m living my life as someone who has two X chromosomes and a uterus. I’m living my life as a straight person. I’m living my life as a guy pursuing a PhD. As a guy interested in education reform. As a guy in a relationship. As a guy with great friends. As a son who still tells his parents he loves them. As a big brother. As a guy who has to pay taxes and worry about car repairs. As a guy! Every time I write one of these I think I say the same thing, which is that before I transitioned, I couldn’t have imagined a day where living as a guy was something easy or natural, something I didn’t think about. And here I am two years on testosterone, with big things on my mind, very little of which actually have to do with me being a man, and even less with me being trans. I get down on myself from time to time for various things (and sometimes even body things) but if I can take a step back and realize where I was two years ago, I feel like the sun just comes out. The weight of first coming to terms with yr gender identity or of trying to figure it out or trying to express it to other people, the burden of being visibly trans or gender non-conforming, the stress of being early in transition, of changing documents and getting letters… when you’re in the middle of all that, you feel like you’ll never be able to let it go, to move on. But then you do. You can, you will. I’m not throwing a party tonight. I’m going to a concert I’m excited about and my girlfriend is arriving on a bus. My celebration is in writing this, in reflecting on the changes and reflecting on the peace of mind I’ve gotten to (at least related to gender stuff! don’t get me started on taxes), and in sharing with you all a story that I hope will give you hope for your futures and all they hold beyond your gender identity and expression and transition. 

This song really is my anthem (drug abuse aside). I live a beautiful life.

Much love to you all

Lo-fi photobooth documentation of face changes on testosterone.

Photos are from April 6 in 2010, 2011, and 2012. (Pre-T, 1 year, 2 years exactly.)

Bored in the airport. Made this video of my face through the past few years

In the photos from the past few weeks (my 24th birthday, my bud’s 25th birthday) you can really see me feeling at home with the concept of being (and looking like) just one of the guys.

Granted, they’re great guys and are feminists and sensitive and not too concerned with demonstrations of masculinity or heterosexuality. So “just one of the guys” comes pretty naturally.

(oh the “adios” is from this disposable camera that randomly printed post-card like things on each photo…)

I feel like I should also mention that I’m about 18 and a half months on testosterone.

Well, first I had computer problems and couldn’t write any long form posts or access my questions for over a week!

But, truth be told, I have been really busy with unrelated stuff in my life. And then I thought, hey - I should write about being busy with other stuff - about my transition no longer being the top thing in my mind. Because not too long ago, I couldn’t imagine a time in my life when transition and “trans stuff” weren’t taking up the bulk of my headspace.

When I was first coming out and dealing with dysphoria and all the challenges of telling the people in my life, it seemed I couldn’t think about anything else. It created tension with my girlfriend, was an obstacle to school work and class attendance, and even got in the way of DJing. And even when it wasn’t all bad stuff, my transition was the main thing in my head - my life revolved around it. Documenting changes, excitedly watching other guys’ transition videos with anticipation, talking to my buddies about trans politics.

Somehow through all of this, I managed to graduate college. But I left school without any clear plan for my future, even my immediate future. I didn’t have a job, had loose plans to take the GREs (which I didn’t follow through on) and spent almost all my time on xxboy. (I actually remember a small fight with my girlfriend because I seemed to be more interested in trans tumblr blogging than anything else.)

This is not a bad thing and it is sort of a reality of transition. I read some blogs by post-transition guys who warned that it can be really depressing and confusing to get “through” transition, because it no longer dominates yr life and you feel like you are missing something.

I have not felt this way. Instead, moving through the bulk of early transition (I’m just over a week away from 1 year on T, 8 months post-topsurgery, legally changed the docs I intend to) has allowed me to move forward in other areas of my life. I have a job I’m good at and really happy with. I have a bustling and satisfying social life (including a romantic life), only a fraction of which involves talking about trans stuff - in most of my friendships it never comes up, except when we talk a little about my blogs or writing, etc.

So since I got my computer fixed a week ago, I went on vacation (where I tanned topless heyo!), helped my parents convert my old bedroom, met up with old friends, have been working a lot (which to be fair does have something to do with transition, since I often share my perspective on trans issues with my boss), made new friends, and DJ’d.

I do not plan on ever letting xxboy go this long without a post again, but I do think it is pretty nice that I have so many other things going on in my life that my transition is not a point of actual obsession anymore.

I think about trans stuff in terms of educating the public and helping out other trans people, and hardly ever thinking about my own transition. (Now I still have things that I want to change about my body, etc., so I am not without passing gender dysphoria or at least occasional focus on my transition, but it is rare and often fleeting.)

And now for good measure, here is a photo (courtesy of wonderful photographer Grace Kim) of me after a lil DJ gig this weekend. I hope everyone is well and I’m going to answer some questions tonight and have some longer posts coming up, including some new stuff at Autostraddle.