Gender

The Week(s) in Review: 2012-12 & 2012-13

Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for quiet times at work that allow me to take some extra days off here and there. Not just because yay-freedom, but also because I have a lot of in-my-head things going, what with the genderprocess and all. Some extra days to deal with stuff are nice.

I’m happy because I finally have a new appointment date for my genderteam intake. It will take place April 23rd. This time they actually managed to refer me to the shrink so this really is it: the start of my road to fully being who I am. It’s going to be a long journey, and it’s not going to be easy, but I’m more than ready to finally get this show on the road.

I’m also happy because the Postcrossing is taking off quite nicely. All but one of my cards have been received. The only one still in transit is one to a school class in the USA. I got my first five cards, they came from the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Poland. The cards can be seen on my Postcrossing profile. I requested new addresses yesterday, which I will pick (and write) cards for tomorrow.

Last Friday we went out with (almost) the whole e-mail squad from work. Nico and I put the thing together, and since it was meant as a getting to know each other better thing after the team expansion from early this year, we settled on bowling and food. The evening was a grand success, a lot of fun was had.

I learned I need a lot of warm up time before I throw proper balls, and that if I want to throw a strike, I first need to drop the ball behind me so it rolls back to the people on my team.

I discovered that it is actually possible for naturally (somewhat) touchy people to be like this in a fun, non-obnoxious, non-threatening way. Normally when people, for example, hang over my shoulder to ask me something, or randomly grab my arms, I have this knee-jerk reaction to pull back and get this ‘get the fuck away from me’ vibe. I’m glad to say I did not have this then. Yay, progress!

The Week in Review: 2012-09

Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for the many supportive comments last week’s blog got, both here and on Facebook. I’m also grateful that the scratches Milo gave me were not that deep and are healing nicely (even though the itching is driving me nuts).

I’m happy my ukelele books arrived. I’ve decided to approach this learning how to play thing fairly seriously so I’m assigning myself two or three pages of the book per week so I have enough time to practice before I move on. This will hopefully prevent me from rushing through it and not really retaining any of the stuff I read or play. I’m also happy with the end-of-year review I got at work.

I’m slightly annoyed that it’s hiatus season for many of my favourite US TV shows (especially Glee), although it does give me a chance to catch up on others I’ve missed. (This is what you get when I have no proper things to be negative about 😀 )

I learned notes on the c and e string of the ukelele this week. Expect many ukelele related learnables in the coming weeks 😀

 

I’ve decided to add a fifth point to this thing to turn it into a bit more of a full fledged blog post since I don’t always blog in between, and as the (internet) saying goes: “Five things make a post.”

 

I discovered Postcrossing and DrawSomething. I knew Postcrossing, I looked into it a couple years ago, and was intrigued but then I forgot about it. This week I saw it come up in my news feed on Facebook and remembered again. So I decided to sign up for it, and I’ve requested my first five addresses. I’ll be getting cards and stamps this week so I can send then to Russia, Taiwan, Belarus, Germany and the US. I’m excited already about the cards I’ll be getting back.

DrawSomething is a game I downloaded on my iPhone tonight and even though I’ve played it for like ten minutes, I love it. I believe it can also be played on Facebook. The point of the game is to draw one of three words you’ve been given and then your opponent has to guess what it is you drew. After that, the roles reverse and you guess the opponents drawing.

Of Baby Steps and Giant Leaps — The Gender Edition

2 Comments

After being quiet about the subject for quite a while I feel it’s time to start talking about gender again. And specifically mine. At first I wasn’t going to, at least not yet, but if I want this blog to be a real representation of my life, I need to incorporate this. And I find writing shit down (in addition to vocalizing to myself) helps me process things. Secondary to that, I hope this will make it easier on my friends, family and wider social circle (in a probably mostly vain hope that more than five people read this).

So, last time I spoke about my gender identity, which was March 2011, and before that (with more detail) December 2010, I mentioned how I was growing away from identifying as genderqueer (being beyond and both man and woman) to a more masculine identity. This process has continued, and not too long after the March post I realized the genderqueer moniker no longer fit at all. Woman was not a part of my gender identity. The older I get, and the more I let myself be the man I am in thought, and appearance, the more I realized I could no longer live in this body. At that point I started to seriously think about transitioning, and doing my research. Because, even with a real life example in my friend circle, everyone’s experience is different and my process will be different than his.

So, at that point I came out to myself as a transgender man.

I allowed myself to live with that (silent) label and to experience the feeling and as time went on, I felt so much more at peace on such a deep level. Even though I could (and can) still not look at myself, unclothed, either directly or in a mirror and am in denial of my body whenever I am not binding, I felt myself moving forward.

When the new year came around, I adopted my motto for this year  ‘Just Do It‘  and decided now was the time to start taking practical steps. After all, the process of transitioning can take two, three years easily and I kinda want to be whole by the time I turn 30.

So, early January I went to my doctor and asked for a referral to the Gender Team at the UMCG. She was supportive and seemed to understand at least a little, and she went to make it happen. I would get a letter with my appointment date.

Later that week or early next I don’t quite remember, I received that letter. The appointment for intake was for February 24th, at 13:45. This also meant it was time to tell The Parents. While this was a very butterfly-stomach moment, it went well. They took it better than expected (granted, they were aware of the binder and some related shit so it couldn’t really have been a total surprise). Mom understands the whole thing a bit better than Dad does, but it will come.

I told Nienke the day I’d gone to my doctor for the referral. I told Eva and Ingrid during a game night at Eva’s place along with Jarig who was obviously also there, and Anneke and Julius who dropped by to dress up Ingrid 😀 I told Gert about a week and a half or so before the appointment. I wasn’t sure yet when and how to tell others, so I decided to keep it quiet for now.

I spent the month and a half I had to wait for the appointment being ecstatic and nerve-wracked (in a good way) at the same time. Finally the day came. I’d taken the day off work, and Mom offered to drive me. I really appreciated this, not just in the ‘thanks for the ride’ way, but also on a deeper level as a show of support and love. We got to the hospital plenty on time. After I registered at the front desk, we made our way to the relevant clinic where we sat and waited for twenty minutes or so.

Then the doctor showed up and I went with him. And then it turned out the referral hadn’t quite been processed right…

Yes, the doctor was part of the Gender Team, but he was the plastic surgeon… Not quite the one you need for the intake. So we did a quick history with a basic ‘this is how I feel‘ thing and some medical history and he then wrote a consult for his Gender Team colleague. So this means I will be getting a new letter, with a new appointment some time this week (I hope) and I get to do the giddy nervousness again. Especially since there’s no telling how soon the psych guy can fit me in. I hope it’s soon.

This ending is a bit abrupt, but I’ve been going on long enough now, and I don’t quite know how to knit a proper ending here. Plus I’ve been hovering over the publish button for the last five minutes deciding if I’m ready to put this out there. I hope this will lead to a more gradual coming out, versus having to suddenly go ‘hey everybody, listen up!’

Around the Internets III

3 Comments

Yale has created an online repository of digital images of their cultural collections. These images are freely available and can be used without license. For more info see the press release. Browse the collection here.

At bechdeltest.com you can find a (user contributed) list of movies and if they pass the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test consists of three criteria to determine if a movie (or any kind of story, really) is inclusive of women. The story is judged on whether there are at least two women present, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. The website specifies this a bit further by requiring two named women (so ‘woman in background during fight scene’ doesn’t count). Interesting to see that even movies that have strong female characters can still fail this because, for example, these women never talk to each other (case in point: LOTR).

Josh MC draws awesome Disney Princesses that are more than capable of kicking anyone’s butt. See his version of Pocahontas above. For more, click through to his deviantArt gallery.

How to sew a terrarium from vinyl. It looks awesome, I might have to cannibalize some of the pillow bags I still have. Especially with some tiny (fake) animals like in the picture it becomes a little world.

Wicked Witch of the West bookmark. I must make this!

It’s Life, Jim, Just As We Know It

Leave a Comment

When I got my iPhone last October, my old phone became my Mom’s new phone. However, I think I’ve dropped it a little too much over the two years I had it, since over the last week  the screen started shorting out. Mom figured this would be a nice time to get a new phone, so when I suggested we head to the phone shop together, she wanted to go the next day 😀

So, Saturday The Mom and I took the car to the transferium and from there the citybus to the centre. After a stroll across the market, I wanted to see if Jansen&Jansen had any new fun stuff, which they had. Before I’d left, Nienke asked me to see about finding her a new pair of slippers. I didn’t find any pretty ones at the market, but found awesome ones at Jansen&Jansen 😀 Fuzzy clog-shaped slippers, pink with red hearts on them 😀

Of course I had to bring these for Nienke. I also bought myself (and her) a duck for our collection. After this we headed for the T-Mobile shop to pick out a new phone for Mom. After discussing it with the sales guy, we decided on another Nokia, since she’s used to that in terms of control and looks.

Then we hit the main shopping street, bought some clothes (shirt, t-shirt, hat), shoes, had lunch at Hema and then made our way back up towards the market.

Some more looking around there was followed by a last stop at the craft store to get latex (to make a vampire forehead), some music-themed charms and a paper maché leaf for Florian the Flower Faerie to sit on. By then we were getting a bit tired so we decided to grab the next bus back to the Transferium and head home.

I hung around at the parents for the rest of the afternoon. When I got back home, Nienke was much pleased with her slippers 😀

After some hanging about and watching another episode of Stargate Atlantis, I decided to finally start sorting through my clothes, which I’d been wanting to do for a while now. Nienke took her laptop and accompanied me while I tried on everything to see what still fit, what I still liked and so on. Much fun was had, especially with all the typical female clothes (women tunics, dresses, female tops and so on). It felt like another step in my gender process from gender neutral towards masculine, as wearing these clothes made me feel like a drag queen. (It did give me an awesome idea for a dress-up though: dress up as a drag queen while wearing my binder, so sort of being a woman being a man being a woman again.)

After sorting, it was too late to fold everything, so I stuffed it all back in the closet just so my bed would be free and I could sleep. Nienke had sorted through her clothes a few weeks ago, but not yet put her stuff back either, so Sunday evening, after procrastinating all day we decided to fire up Skype, and both go about folding and putting our clothes back.  It was much fun, although the whole process took hours. Photo was about mid-sorting I think.

Monday I had a day off. I messed around in the house, did dishes and such. Made a cake, made a painting and painted the paper maché leaf I bought on Saturday.

That Was The Year That Was: 2010

2 Comments

January

  • I started Working at KPN
  • We had a very severe winter, which resulted in public transport being down frequently, which is very! annoying
  • Had a tea party with friends at Mellien’s place, it was very fun

February

I’ve got nothing for this month. For some reason I only took 3 pictures in the whole of February… And I didn’t blog that month either. Sadness. Here, have all three February pics to cheer you up from this huge, huge let down 😀

March

  • Spring was on its way! Not that enthusiastically yet, but I saw the first real flowers peeking their heads above ground
  • Finally found a good design starting point for my future tattoo
  • Chocolate fondue with Eva & Ingrid, yum!
  • Bought new plants for my back yard
  • Found an awesome stick to turn into a staff. So far it’s still standing unused in my mudroom, but this year I strive to actually make something out of it 🙂
  • Went balfolking for the first time (no, it’s probably not a proper verb, and yes, I’ll tell you what it is; it’s dancing old ball and folk dances on medieval-and-slightly-later type music)

April

  • With Eva, Ingrid and Nienke to Lauwersoog, which was hilarious since we got stuck in the parking lot for two hours due to no traffic regulators being present
  • This was also the month mom turned 60, Happy Birthday!
  • Nienke and I added a garden door to our shared backyard to keep the neighbourhood kids from using our space as a shortcut path

May

  • Went to see the Men’s Choir of Warffum (of which my uncle is a member) perform at the museum estate Verhildersum
  • Spent Liberation Day in Parentville, where the whole street came together to decorate it for the festivities, great sense of community then, it should be like that more often
  • Ingrid came by, time for scrabble in the sun. Eva & Mellien dropped by a little later, on horseback.
  • Saw a hedgehog in the yard, awesome little critters
  • Joined the LifeLines research project about long term health

June

  • Dad’s birthday, 67 for him. Happy Birthday!
  • With the summer in full swing, Nienke and I tried outdoor computing
  • It was also the time for the yearly full family visit to my aunt and uncle in Harderwijk
  • Went to visit Soestdijk Palace with Mom and a friend of hers, it was awesome! I’m very glad I got to see the place before they closed it down

July

  • Celtic Midsummer Fest! Need I say more? An awesome weekend in which I went re-enacting for the first time. Great friends, great environment, great things to see and do, in short, a great time!
  • Also, aforementioned festival will (for me) henceforth always be connected to ‘that time I banged my toes into oblivion on a tent peg’ 😀
  • It got so warm I regularly spent my free time lounging outside with my feet in water. At first in two buckets (one for each foot) and later in a giant tub-like thing. Monkey approved of this, always enough water to drink nearby
  • I bought my binder this month, which turned out to be a huge step on the road of self-discovery and gender identity

August

  • Castlefest! Again, need I say more! Another awesome weekend! I’d not been able to go to Castlefest for some years, so it felt great to be back here. I love the atmosphere at this particular fest, plus being able to see Omnia live again for the first time in a couple of years as well was great, too.
  • Nienke had a BBQ in honour of her birthday, it was tasty!
  • Mom started knitting socks, after a conversation about how the warm socks we had were not getting any better.
  • Went out for a sudden and unexpected pizza with Eva & Nienke
  • Dad, on request, cut off the hedge in my front yard
  • Monkey got weird spots on his back leg, he ended up with a salve treatment and antibiotics and return appointments at the vet three times in a row. Fortunately, they have cleared up completely
  • And finally, this was the month I decided to continue blogging here, instead of trying to maintain both this blog and a LifeJournal

September

  • I burned my arm a wee bit by splashing hot olive oil on it. Fortunately I washed it off right away, so it didn’t go much further than some light second degree burning one one spot and some intenser first degree burning on the others. The second degree spot left a scar, it’s pretty 🙂
  • Had Tessa over to dog-sit, and got both her and Monkey in the same room without Tessa trying to eat Monkey, and without Monkey trying his best to hide as far away as possible
  • Had my own birthday, turned 26. Happy Birthday me!
  • Got the flu right after the birthday parties, ended up having to stay home for about a week, and had noticeably less energy the weeks after that while I was recovering further, not fun 🙁

October

  • Became obsessed with Glee 😀
  • Got my iPhone
  • Mom started knitting gloves, nice and warm for the winter
  • Went out to wok with Eva & Ingrid, yum!
  • Attended Julius’ birthday, which was a sort of High Tea type thing with a whole bunch of cakes he and his mom made, it was awesome (and very, very tasty!)
  • Bought two awesome pumpkins for Halloween and carved them; one a face, the other a sort of cheese with holes kinda idea with mice in the holes

November

  • Was a bit down for a good part of this month, a combination of Daylight Savings Time ending, winter coming up and some other random shit. Took a while before I saw the colours of the world in full shine again, instead of dulled
  • Mom knit me a pretty hat to match the gloves she made, my mom rocks 🙂
  • Discovered the Instagram iPhone app (among many, many other apps; I <3 apps 😀 ) which is fun to play with

December

  • Had a St. Nicholasmas (a combination of St. Nicholas and Christmas) party with Nienke, Eva, Mellien and Ingrid. It was fun and very nice to have a group get together again.
  • CATACLYSM! W00t!
  • The snow really hit. It looks awesome, but just like last year, it’s wreaking havoc on the public transport system. Which is kinda ridiculous as they spent the whole year winterproofing their systems and all, and they were sure it would be better this year… And then the first few days we have heavy snowfall, everything falls apart, again.
  • December was good, even though in the beginning of the month I wasn’t sure about that (residual gloominess from November)

Gender on My Mind

3 Comments

I can tell I’m back to normal after the upheaval that is winter, I’ve gone back to full on gender-think in regards to myself. In my last big gender post, which was late July, I just got my binder. That was also the first time I took a conscious step to drastically hide my bio-body and emulate the masculine one. I had the epiphany then that I’d been hiding or at least minimizing the bio-body for much longer than I’d realized. Then, shortly after, Castlefest happened, and I wore the binder all weekend, having a male persona. Even pretending, for a small photo shoot, to be cinderella’s prince 😀

The weekend was awesome, and I felt really good. At that time I was identifying as genderqueer; beyond and both male and female. I’d been identifying as such for a long time then. I first articulated it on the blog back in November ’09, but the identity was already there then. Now, over the last few months, I’m noticing a shift in identity, I’m moving more and more towards masculinity. I wear the binder a lot more, not just at home but also to work and such, and in dressing I’ve almost completely stopped wearing feminine clothes. I still wear stuff that is technically women’s clothing (on account of it being bought in women’s sections of stores) but never things like skirts or tunics or things like that anymore. Instead I’ve been shopping in men’s sections more and more, and have even amassed me a couple of ties 😀

I’ve also been taking a good look at my (upper) body, and the more I really see it, the more I dislike it. I’ve done a good job of ignoring my body for most of  my life, but the last six months or so, the breasts are becoming a huge pain in the ass, and they’re not even that big. However, when I wear the binder and put on a nice shirt and it all looks straight and flat and such, I get this sort of giddy, happy feeling.

I’m not ready to fully draw any conclusions from this, but I am moving away from the gender neutral to a more masculine/neutral form, which may lead to a full male gender identity. And should that happen, which I would not be surprised about, there’s some additional choices to be made.

Some ALGBTQ Internet Finds

Leave a Comment

November 20 was Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Science has discovered that by turning off one single gene, the ovaries of mice turned into testes. If this is something they can eventually use in/with/for humans as well it would pave the way for easier gender reassignment than the surgeries that are now needed. Read the article here.

About gender identity, how about identifying as Fabulous? 🙂

In an interview, Project Runway’s Tim Gunn recently came out as asexual, sort of. He doesn’t seem to fully see it as an/his orientation, but it is nice to have an asexual famous face. Quotes from the interview he did to be found here.

“In my twenties, I was madly in love with the same man for almost a decade. It was fabulous. [Then] one night he told me he’d been sleeping around. I could hardly breathe from grief, humiliation and despair. Much of my boyfriend’s “I’m over this” was about sex. I’ve always been kind of asexual. That breakup was a cold shower to last a lifetime.”

“When people hear I haven’t had a boyfriend since 1982, they often whisper, “Does he not have sex?” That’s right! Could I get Psychiatric help? Probably. It’s a little late.”

He’s also written a book, Gunn’s Golden Rules, which Gray Lady reviews here. Here’s another quote, this one from his book. I’m getting really curious about it now, I might have to go and read it.

“Sometimes people ask me when I figured out that I was gay. Well, for a very long time, I didn’t know what I was. I knew what I wasn’t: I wasn’t interested in boys, but I really wasn’t interested in girls. A lot of it was denial, but it was also that I didn’t feel unsatisfied. I’ve always loved working and have made that my priority. For many years, I described myself as asexual, and that’s probably still closest to the truth.”

Some videos to end with:

When Did You Choose To Be Straight?

The Trevor Project has been making a lot of It Gets Better videos as shout outs to LGBTQ youth who are getting bullied and harassed on a daily basis, to let them know that it will get better. Pixar has made a heartwarming video of their employees talking about their struggles, and how it does get better.

Around the Internets I

Leave a Comment

Neil Gaiman proposed a new Halloween tradition to give each other scary books on Halloween: All Hallow’s Read.

Stud Magazine. To quote their own blurb: An online based magazine aiming to redefine the term stud and introduce non gender conforming females into mainstream media. There’s some awesome photos to see on the site! See also their Facebook page. Their definition of Stud: Stud (std) noun. A person belonging to either female or intersex sex that blurs society’s understanding of gender. Often displays “masculine qualities”(strong, dominate, powerful, and independent ) and/or varying degrees of “masculine” appearance.

Jessica Joslin is a sculptor who makes awesome skeletal animals from bone and metal. Very steampunk, I like! See some images of her work here.

How to explain the internet to a 19th century British street urchin.

More flowchart! Evolution of the Geek!

When the Yogurt Took Over, by John Scalzi.

Are you awesome? Or maybe cute?

Since I just bought me a new tie (purple! yay!), this one’s mostly for me. I had dad tie my other tie and have never untied it because I can’t manage to properly re-tie it.  This site has instructions AND videos.

A helpful Venn Diagram.

And finally some inspiration for when I carve my pumpkins tomorrow. It’ll be hard to decide what to do. Probably more pumpkins next year 😀

Encore: Pumpkin soup and pie recipes. Plus a basic guide to carving pumpkins focusing on tools and preservation.