My experience/ timeline

Below is a very condensed bit of background history chronicling how i have moved through my identity thus far...

 

2003 – I "discovered transness" and considered for the first time medically transitioning. I secretly declared that upon completing college in 2005, I would "fully transition" i.e. - have surgery and take hormones to pass as male in society.

 

2003-2005 – I kept quiet about my desires, but secretly absorbed every bit of information available, including personal websites, community websites, bad psychology text books, Judith Halberstam, Kate Bornstein and the like. For the first time I tried to introduce my biological family to gender identity, in some ways trying to prep them for the long haul, knowing that at some point I would make changes.

2005 – Graduation came and went. I was simultaneously ambivalent and terrified by the idea of surgery, but wanted to pass. I came out as what I and others called a "no-ho, no-knife" trans guy, meaning to acknowledge my current choice to not have surgery or take hormones while still identifying as male.  At this time I changed my name and pronoun.

2006 – Witnessing the process of a friend's surgery made me reevaluate the intrinsic feeling of owing somebody something, and denying yourself things. What the fuck did I need? Something. Following this experience, I decided to start (gasp) working out, thinking that if I could get my body feeling really good, and work on my chest muslces, I might avoid feeling that surgery was a necessity. I had self-starvation/binge eating/whatever issues through out my teens and early twenties, and I felt very strongly that to undergo something as dramatic as chest surgery, I needed to be sure that my the chest was in fact a problem, and that my problem wasn't just me as a person. So my iron pumping ways became about me needing to differentiate things. (Side note – Fat identity and fat activism kicks ass. Reclaiming beauty and sex appeal, and finding power in difference, and fucking the ways in which society pressures us to conform is awesome). I'm not sure why I forged ahead with surgery and not testosterone. It seemed that surgery was somehow a smaller step as it didn't relate to trans-political issues for me, but in retrospect, there is no small step. Hmm. Later that year I had my first chest surgery consultation with Dr. Brownstein in San Francisco.  Ten minutes in and out, shirt up, shirt down, I wasn't sold at all.

2007 – Working out and feeling strong and solid has been one of the things I absolutely need in my life. For lack of better phrasing, it makes me feel like a tough guy. And helps me overall just feel "masculine." I move more confidently, despite the fact that I am self conscious of my hips and tits and shortcomings. All during 2007 I desperately searched for the surgeon for me. I had decided that keeping nipple sensitivity was at the forefront of my desires, and therefore needed to find a surgeon who could work with that need, which is less common than the usual grafting of nipples. At the end of 2007 I declared to S and L that I was going to have chest surgery. I didn't know when or where, but I was going to do it. S revealed that she loved my body the way it was now, and would love it then too. L was apprehensive, and concerned that I would hate my body even more. We had a little tiff over it, but ultimately she was also supportive of my decision.

2008 – In January I consulted with Dr. Paul Steinwald in Lake Forest, IL, just an hour north of my hometown Chicago. He spent a good hour with me talking and gave me a folder of very specific info.  I toiled over how to proceed for the next 4 months. Then started telling everyone in my life I was having surgery in the fall. Even though I hadn't scheduled anything, I think I used this as leverage to hold me to my decision. Then in late June, after far too much anxiety over the decision, I made the appointment. September 11th. Yes, I picked it because firstly based on scheduling I needed the surgery to be the second week in September, and secondly because I found it morbidly humorous and thoroughly ironic – September 11 – the twin towers fall.

I told my parents, which was just as grueling as I had expected it to be. As expected, my mom was emotional and certain that I was making the wrong decision, and my dad was quiet, as per usual. Silently his face said 'do what you need to do,' while verbally consoling my mom. They shouldn't have been surprised; I'd been prepping them for this possibility for 2 years, not to mention passed as a boy from the age of 7-11. So here's the full dish.

2010 - Life continues after surgery... On February 9, 2010 I began taking a very low does of testosterone, applied daily in a compounded eucerine cream. I'm taking this dose through the skin (as opposed to intramuscular injection) because it absorbs more consistently in the lower dose this way. I chose this method because I want to allow my vocal chords to stretch slowly and evenly fall into place. Over the course of the next year I will be slowly uping my dose to get to a full injection. of course this is all granted that it makes me FEEL good. Putting a hormone in your body can come with undesired effects, and I am willing to recognize those should they interfere in an unproductive way. A great thing about hormones is you can stop fucking taking them whenever you want (and it's not gonna make you any less trans!)