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Finding my transition foundations

IT’S been sixteen months since my first testosterone shot. I have kept to 100mg doses to effect a slower smoother transformation, especially with my voice.

As a result, I don’t pass yet. I don’t try to. I wear the same shirt-pants-belt-flat-shoes-watch as before and I don’t bind. Since I feel mostly secure about the coming changes and having access to hormones and the rest, I feel calm and patient. Sure, some days I wish things would hurry up already, but mostly, I am fascinated by the transformations manifesting bit by bit, taking my time to grow into them. I don’t worry about pronouns yet either – I figure they will come when the time is right. Besides, I have only told a few people.

One reason I have not made a clear cut declaration is because during my initial insecurity I didn’t want anyone’s energies of disbelief, doubt, or anger to enter the fabric of my new being. I don’t live in a vacuum, but as much as I can, I want to create my foundations alone, whatever the outcome.

This is especially so with regards to my parents. It’s a given that most parents worry. Few can stand back with an objective outlook. Mine also happen to be traditional Iranians who believe offspring are personal extensions of parents and have a duty to respect and obey unquestioningly. Add to that their solid conviction that men are men and women are women and each has clear responsibilities based on that. Anyone into postmodern notions of genderqueer, move swiftly along please! I didn’t believe they could give me the emotional support I wanted. These last two years, I have had enough time to become secure within myself, to be able to help them with their initial grief when they eventually figure things out or question me.

And yes, they’d have to question me, because this has now become my secret social experiment: at what point will my daily companions register the changes? When does a ‘woman’ become a ‘man’ in the eyes of those with a conventional view of sex and gender? One close colleague noticed my slightly deeper voice after just three months and actually asked me if I were on T! My experiment just might work!

I have spilt the beans to a few close colleague-friends who after hearing the news, confessed that somehow they were not at all surprised. Then, swiftly offered their espionage services, promising to report any suspicious curiosity from colleagues not in the know. We now regularly compare bodies, moods and feelings. These very straight guys have offered to go clothes shopping with me to give me advice, and answer all my questions about social behaviour and expectations, while they ask their own in return. One very curious question each has asked me is if I feel more inclined to pass wind! Huh?! I guess we all seek hormonal justifications for our ways! (Incidentally has anyone experienced changes in their digestive system and appetite towards the stereotypically masculine?)

I feel lucky to work where I do. My boss, upon my disclosure to her, declared that we owe it to ourselves to explore life and find our happiness wherever it may be. Then she wished me well and put her hand on my shoulder – our first physical contact in 4.5 years.

Recently I have been probing what my gender actually is. Before my initiation into this nuanced world, I thought I was a ‘(gay) man trapped in a woman’s body’. Simple. But on this inward journey I have come to know myself as a human and notions of ‘sex roles’ have become blurred.

What I have also realised is my desires are and have always been physical: I have longed for bulging veins running along lean muscles, coarse body hair on arms and legs, the M-shaped receding hairline, the stubble, the flat sexy chest that makes shirts sit gorgeously on, the deep voice that resonates through the torso, the daily ritual of shaving, the colognes and ties…

If I were the last person alive on earth with a (mysteriously never-ending!) supply of testosterone, I’d keep taking it. So when anti-trans writers like Julie Bindel claim transsexuals are self-hating homophobes who crumble and conform to heterosexist expectations, I feel baffled. I love masculine people and I want to be one!

There are days though when I feel the despondency of relying on external hormones. What if the law changes and I lose access or move to a country where things are not as easy? What if they stop making synthetic T? Why can’t I just go about my daily business without reminder notices on my wall to renew prescriptions before my supplies run out?

And on occasions I catch myself with a bolt of shock and disbelief over what I am doing. What am I doing? Cowardly conforming to roles? Undoing god? Bravely experimenting with my own existence? Discovering freedom from enforced artificial categories? (Ab)using ideology to dismiss nature? I’m certain only in that I’m following the only true reality I know, my own life-long urges.

Finding my transition foundations (2009) Torque 9(1), 7-8.