Atypical Transgender Late Bloomer

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I live in two places, mainly. There's a BigCity and a SmallTown. Occassionally, I'm at a sibling's house. The last two years I've been bouncing around. Usually, gripes about multiple places to rest your head are focused on the management of privilege; the beach house, the country house, the Euro villa. During COVID, it seems like every NY'er had Another Place. I usually travel with three bags, shown above. The left bag is meds, which for me is a significant amount of stuff. The second bag is briefcase: laptops, power cords, a few books. The right bag, the duffel bag, is everything else: clothes, underwear, a sweater, maybe a change of footwear. A ditty bag, a cosmetic kit. When I can expect to be in a place for a while, like: possibly a month!, I have other bags for personas. There's Cyclist Me, which involves helmets and tools, clothes, and other gear. There's Camping Me, which involves five smaller bags (panniers) with Food/Fire, Tools,...

In my ongoing puzzle about Who I Am (TM), I've started micro-dosing hormones in the M2F direction. I went to Planned Parenthood, which administers gender hormones under a different paradigm - if you're informed and understand what you're about, if you're seeing a therapist, you can self-qualify for a Prescription. It was an impressive briefing, questioning, confirming session. At the end, they were convinced of me, I was certain myself, and I left with two prescriptions - an estrogen patch, and a testosterone blocker in pill format. Because of supply issues at the pharmacy, I got the Estrogen patch immediately and started it that day. I didn't start the T-blocker for eight days. I like the effect of the Estrogen; it's subtle and I feel more in touch with my feelings. Crying comes easier, which is to say that it appears sometimes rather than never. The T-blocker was spiro, and I had an adverse reaction to it. I have dysautonomia and the T-blocker pus...

I began HRT (hormone replacement therapy) today, Aug 5 2021, with the good folks at Planned Parenthood. They were excellent. Rather than saying: you have to present as a woman for a year, you have to have letters from two psychotherapists, etc, (which is a gender gatekeeping function), you have to have a note from your spouse... the folks at Planned Parenthood use a different paradigm: informed consent . In informed consent, you make an appointment, you see a clinician qualified to evaluate and treat you, and you tell them your story. They make sure you understand what you're asking for: what is and what is not reversible, possible side effects, risk factors for other bad outcomes. And if you're grounded in the facts and demonstrate that you've done your homework, you're going to leave that office visit with prescriptions in hand. It was not an exercise in pencil-whipping: they were thorough and I was convinced that if I wasn't sure of what I was ...

Still, I cannot think of (woman) without a feeling of reverence that amounts to worship, and that which I worship in her I would also worship in man if he had not banished it from his life. — Eugene V. Debs (@DebsEbooks) April 13, 2021

I have, recently, been observing what makes a figure feminine or masculine, or androgynous. Sometimes it's big shoulders, bug muscles, small hips for masculine; sometimes it's an hourglas figure or birthing hips for feminine. But often those norms aren't evident, but we still classify the person into the binary based on a million clues and that's interesting to me. I've just seen an advertisement for a TV show, Chad, a coming-of-age / awkward teen / cringe comedy about fitting it as an outsider. The advertisement shows a full-body image of a teenager, wrapped in a bulky jacket, shoulders emphasized with backpack straps - a teenage boy at a quick look. Something was off and on zooming in, it did not look like a young boy's face. The lead actor, Chad, is played by 39-year-old actress Nasim Pedrad. ( story , wiki ) Pedrad, who has chops as a Saturday Night Live alumni, developed the character and show herself. I wonder: the name Chad, which in media is oft...

“Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma in a people looks like culture.” — @ResmaaMenakem https://t.co/FXBaXJMGxi — The On Being Project (@onbeing) June 6, 2020

I was called " mad'm " by a youngster today at a drive-through window. I was not unhappy about it. Our language that requires others to correctly categorize people (in the face of ambiguity and human error) is in need of replacement.

There's a lot of challenges in beginning to present cross-gender. The clothes, the shoes, the accessories are an expense, and can be a significant expense so many people turn to Thrifting (as a verb) which is a common experience. But there are other factors - shoes (ugh!), and makeup / cosmetics. multi-jillion corporation Sephora has initiated a series of Zoom makeup tutorials to continue to support the early Trans community (and build customers, to be honest) called Classes for Confidence . So I signed up for the class and was very impressed at their initiative. Then I received an email suggesting I request a complimentary makeup kit to be used in conjunction with the Zoom class. Wow. Just wow. And it showed up two days later in discreet packaging. Double-wow. Smallish containers of about fourteen different potions and creams. It was really very nice of them (and an easy way to put a lot of sample product into the hands of an about to be customer-for-life.) The Z...