It seemed to be triggered with some kind of emotional cycle I have now. I’ve had a cycle before, in my teens, it was a couple manic days every 28 days. This does not seem to have a mania. And the period (scientific term, not menstrual) is different this time – 21 days.

Every 21 days I seem to crash emotionally. At least since I started tracking, and it’s pretty exact. One was 22 days. but 4 in a row now. Usually it’s just being really emotional (for me this is saying something), and a bit depressed. It lasts a couple days, and I get better.

That didn’t happen this time.

On day 21, I woke up feeling crappy because I didn’t sleep well. That is normal enough for this cycle. I showered, and got dressed. Felt a bit better. I think we went and looked at an apartment open house, and went for coffee. That evening Teresa had wanted to get dressed up nice and go for dinner down by the ocean. I thought this would be a great way to get me to cheer up, I always like getting dolled up.

So, we headed home, got changed, and I put my hair up, put a flower hair clip in, did my makeup and that’s when things went south. I took a couple selfies because I thought I looked good, but none of the pics were looking flattering. I went to the kitchen for different lighting, and tried again. I sent one to Melissa who said I looked great. Teresa said I looked great. The more I looked at the photos, and then back to the mirror, the less great I thought I looked.

I began to hate how I looked. I eventually took the flower out, and let my hair down, which helped enough to get me out the door. The damage was done, a spiral had started. I was quiet on the drive, but was trying really hard to snap out of it. After all, I know I look somewhat attractive. People keep telling me this. I had been telling me this for the last 7 months or so. All that disappeared in a cloud of self doubt and even some self hate.

At one point I went to the bathroom in the restaurant and cried. After dinner we went and sat by the pier for close to an hour. Hundreds of people much have walked by, with no looks of disdain, or scorn, or hate. Just a few smiles, and mostly just people glancing over me, not singling me out for anything (even with purple hair).

It didn’t help how I felt at all. When we got home, I took my makeup off, and that actually eased the dysphoria a lot. I don’t know why. I had done it the way I usually do when I put a lot of effort in. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but it felt like it just accentuated all my masculine facial features.

The next day wasn’t much better. I put less makeup on, and that helped, but I was still only seeing ‘boy’. Talking with Melissa later, I figured it might have been from me being dehydrated a bit combined with non-uniform swelling from electrolysis. Subtle changes in skin can really affect how you look.

It took 5 more days until I finally saw me in the mirror again.

The makeup thing is still there though, I think. I feel way better about how my face looks with just mascara and lipstick and a touch of blush. If I start going overboard with eyeliner, or foundation, my brain is rejecting it. This is fine, but I’d like to know why or what changed.

On the flip side of this, is an amazing ability to go days without shaving, and not having dysphoria about that. My face, essentially, does not need shaving anymore. I don’t think I would be doing as well with it, if the stubble was on my face. But it isn’t on my face, it’s on my neck. And 99.5% white hair.

I’m a little worried about it in bright sunlight (white hairs tend to be fairly reflective), but so far, my feelings about it are pretty good. I’m ok with the stubble because it means less shaving (the act itself is dysphoria inducing) and it means the hairs are much easier to deal with at electrolysis.

So, just a wordy update that I wanted to get out there. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Hugs.

PS – I was able to hold off from any self harm even though the desire was super high.

I’ve even made progress with how I feel about my breasts. They’ve been growing ever so slowly, and yesterday I was able to go without a bra for the first time since June. Maybe I let my guard down because things were going so well.

Today started off well enough, but then after my shower I had to shave. And that’s when things went sideways. For some reason the hair on my upper lip and my chin were very problematic today. I wound up bleeding and splotchy right in the most prominent area of my face.

Then I was seeing masculine features again in my face. At this point I’m not sure if that was psychological or real. It doesn’t matter, my brain saw it. I broke down. Then after about 10 minutes of waterworks, I pulled myself together and covered the scabs and redness with foundation.

The rest of the afternoon/evening I was feeling normal again, until I got home from school. Then it hit me again. So, I cried a bunch more, and decided to write this post.

My coping mechanisms are working and I did not resort to self harm. Crying is still my best defence. I also played some video games to release more stress. And my support network also came through (I only needed a couple people to talk to and it helped). I’m hoping tomorrow will be a better day, and that today was just a one-off because of school stress, and a buildup of emotional fatigue. It feels like that is what it was.

It still takes effort to go out, no matter how confident I am. That effort builds up over time, and eventually I need to reset. I’m going to leave my homework for tomorrow and try and sleep this off.

Thanks for reading,
Jessica

Today, for the first time at work, I was audibly gendered correctly. This is big for me. It took just over 2 months to happen. I know without any doubt I do not look as female at work as I do outside of work. But I DO think I look female. ish. mostly.

Without hair framing my face, all the masculine features leap out. Granted, there aren’t a TON of them, but they are there. And even most of them are subtle, but add them all up, and people make assumptions. This really isn’t about passing, but it kind of is. If I passed, this would be a non-issue.

It’s about presentation and reaction. If I present properly as female, I should get reacted to that way. A lot of my problem in my work environment is my fault. How I view myself affects greatly how I present myself, and vice versa. It’s a vicious cycle. I know I don’t look the way I know I can look, so that gets projected. Muscle memory is a great thing a lot of the time, but not so much for a transwoman in my job. When I’m at work, I have to do a lot of things that rely on muscle memory. A lot of things I don’t need to rely on muscle memory for, come along for the ride, unfortunately.

So, this is what happened:

Having lunch in the truck, an Indian fellow (about 55 years old) walks up to the truck (I believe he is a shop owner in the strata mall we’re pruning at). He says hi, and then asks how he can make his plants grow, with all this sunshine, his aren’t growing.

I get a few words out to find out what kind of plants, as he spots my uncle on the other side of the truck. “Oh, I will talk to the boss,” he says, and walks around to the other side of the truck. My immediate reaction is great, I don’t have to deal with this. Then my second reaction is, wait a sec, I’m the crew chief.

My uncle proceeds to find out it’s vegetable plants this guy wants help with. Neither of us are that familiar with growing veggies. I kind of zone out of the conversation at this point. Until I hear, “How much does she work for?”

Wait. What? She? Holy fuck. He said it completely matter of factly, not questioningly as I envisioned the first time being. He KNEW I was a she.

“I could hire her to look after my tomatoes,” or something like that. “$25 an hour for her to do that,” again he says. Then he said something about she should work for nothing, but I didn’t catch why.

It was over and over again, “she” and “her”. I was flabbergasted. I, in my opinion at least, did not look my best today. I’ve had other days where I could have sworn I was very cute and rocking my head scarf and still got called sir/he/him. I had minimal makeup on today – foundation (to hide electrolysis redness), eyebrows, blue eyeliner. That is it. Not even mascara today.

As he went back to the store, he offered us drinks (because of the heat) which we declined – we had lots of water anyway.

For the next while I was over the moon happy about this. Then I started thinking more about it. Was that a little bit sexist? Was I just a victim (albeit a minor one) of sexism? First thought; yay! Second though; that’s a completely inappropriate response.

I am completely of two minds over this. Sexism of any kind is horrible, and here I am happy it happened to me. wtf? I guess I kind of have to live with the fact that I’m happy about this one time. If it wasn’t the first time ever getting correctly gendered at work, I would NOT be happy about it. And it was relatively minor, could even just be ageism. I can’t discolour my first time with negativity. So, I’ll try and forget the ‘isms’ of it, and just recount the happy.

So yeah, ultimately – Happy.

Hugs,
Jess

For transgender individuals, it is often a mental necessity to pass. In some areas of the world, it is a vitally important survival tactic.

It can become an unhealthy obsession, leading to multitudes of plastic surgeries that never leave the individual satisfied. It can lead to severe depression, and it can definitely impact a life greatly.

Not all of us feel a need to pass. Some don’t even want to. It’s as varied as humanity itself can be. Self image is something almost everyone struggles with every day, but couple that with dysphoria and it can become a monster. I’m constantly seeing trans people doubt themselves, get down on themselves, and seek validation. It’s why support groups are so important to us. We need to rely on our allies to help build us up as we break ourselves down.

I think I’m one of the lucky ones in that I don’t feel a ‘need’ to pass. This is partly due to where I live being very accepting as a whole, and partly because I’ve taken ownership of the things that used to own me (height, hands, feet, nose [to a lesser extent], chin).

That being said, I would still love to pass. I would love to not second guess the looks that people give me. To just accept someone looking me up and down as a normal day to day occurrence instead of seeing it as being ‘read’ (or ‘clocked’ or seeing the wrong gender coming through).

I still find myself constantly asking Teresa if my hair looks alright, or if my beard shadow is showing, or if my clothes look okay, etc… I don’t have a problem with being noticed, but I want that notice to be because of things I’m doing right, not things I’m doing wrong. So, even with all my confidence that I present well as a woman,  I still have lots of lingering self doubt. I’ve only been told by a couple people that I pass, but then I’ve never outright asked either.

My voice is one area I have a bigger issue with. For the most part it’s a personal issue, since no one I’ve actually talked to in public has reacted in any way at all to my voice. Teresa has, on occasion, suggested I really need to work on my voice though. Especially when it sounds too much like ‘James’. Currently, all I’m doing is taking the base out of my regular voice, and raising the pitch VERY slightly. It still sounds like me, but more androgynous you could say. And sometimes at home, I forget to do it. It’s still a very conscious thing to do, and takes effort.

I mentioned it to my therapist, and she said she hadn’t even thought of my voice as an issue, just thought of it as my voice. It is something I want to get right by the time I’m full time, but I also don’t want it to be so different as being unrecognizable as me.

I’m hopeful hormones (starting in March) will help with feminizing my face a bit, to get rid of some of the masculine hard edges. They can have an affect, but they work differently for everyone. Some get very little, others react to it like they were born for it. I’m hoping to be in that latter group.

– Jess

It’s interesting how, her insecurities, have led her to withdraw and close off in the past, much the same way my being transgender did for me. Being true to yourself is not something the LGBT community has exclusive rights to. Everyone can feel judged, or rejected – but likewise, those same people can feel accepted and supported.

The comment Teresa received earlier in life, when she had lost weight, and gotten healthier, totally destroyed the positive impact. That one comment has echoed in her mind for  20-odd years. It has made any efforts on her part to get healthier again, a huge uphill struggle (of which she gets no bonus calories burnt). It can turn into self-sabotage when she does make progress as well.

The comment, “Turn around and you’ll find it,” about lost weight, probably sounded very funny in the mind of the person that said it. I’m sure it wasn’t meant in a negative way. But, this is one of those cases where meaning and perception are very different.

Teresa, in turn, has had problems coping with her insecurities, and not taking them out on me. As others have done to her. Sometimes, when I’m looking for reassurance about my appearance (I’m not always very confident about how I look) she’ll throw jokes back at me. This is a hard habit to break, as she grew up having this done to her. I’m sure I’ve even done the same on some occasions.

It’d be nice, if we could all, collectively, stop putting other people down – whether it be on purpose or inadvertently. Let people be happy.

Cheers,
Jess