ond to that.

I  had another second interview on the 18th. This is the job I want. I've been going on these interviews and knowing that I could do the jobs, but not really wanting to put the effort into quitting my current job and learning any of the new ones. This interview was different, though. It didn't really have anything to do with the job itself. I think it was the team of people with whom I would be working. They are all about my age, all just finished their MSW programs, two are queer, and they all called me he. It was amazing how it felt to be called by my preferred pronoun in an interview. Then I thought about how that used to be something I took for granted and now it's pretty much the most exciting thing I could imagine having happen in a job situation. It's ridiculous how much gender colors every single aspect of our lives. I know I'm much more sensitive to this than most people, but it's true for everyone whether we notice it or not. And it's stupid. I have poop brown hair, but no one addresses me in a way that reflects that this is how I'm perceived. I also have a vagina, but that does color the way everyone relates to me. It's starting to seem ridiculous to me. I suppose you can argue that my vagina influences the way I am in the world more than my brown hair, and this is arguably true. I think that's because I've been socialized based on my vagina and not my hair, though. Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. I am kind of tired right now.

Then I start to wonder how much of a need I will feel to take testosterone if my identity is respected in most areas of my life without it. I suppose I can cross that bridge if/when I feel my identity is in fact respected in most areas of my life. I'm excited to have my naming party and hope that this will help my friends remember that I am Aidan and I go by "he." I'm still pretty much who I've always been, but now the way I want to be coded is different. And that coding is important. I can't really explain or justify why, I just know that it is. I guess I'm starting to think that maybe I can be kind of gender neutral if I can get the important people in my life on board with that. I can handle strangers calling me "ma'am" if my friends and coworkers don't. I'm taking a little breather here before I further pursue T, I guess.

I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone but me. I guess in the end it only really matters that I get it, and I'm not sure that I do. But I think that I'm getting closer, or it's mattering less, or something. I'm on my way.

Monday was a big day. At 9 am I had a conference call with my direct supervisor, my program director, and a representative from the employee assistance program of the company by whom I am employed (who will from now on remain nameless). Well, it was supposed to start at 9 am. At 9:30 I was still the only one on the conference call and had to call my supervisor to find out where everyone else was. I guess they forgot. Whatthefuckever. Eventually, everyone made it to the call. It was an interesting experience. I won't go so far as to say it was bad, just interesting. The women from the EAP did compare coming out as trans to returning to work after having been to rehab. Then she started to question my boundaries and ethics. I did say I was moderately offended at this point, and to her credit she did apologize. The bottom line is that I am going to sit down with my program director when I get back to work on the 19th and we are going to schedule some time for clinical consultation so I can think about how this is going to impact my work and how I want to share this information with everyone. My program director and supervisor have actually been incredibly supportive, and I can't complain about that. I just got a bad feeling from the EAP person, who actually told me I should feel lucky that I'm being supported. My program director told her that this is a human right. I'm not lucky...but even though it is a human right I also know that I am lucky. Overall I guess the conference call wasn't too bad, but I did feel a little bit exposed and kind of generally like I am asking too much by just wanting to be able to be as comfortable with myself as I can be.

Then, I had an appointment with a doctor at 1:45. I just wanted to talk to him about the process of hormone therapy, what he would require, what sort of tests he'd need to run, etc. I got there, told the woman behind the front desk why I was there, and was put in a room. A nurse came in, took my blood pressure, temperature, pulse, height, and weight, and I had to explain why I was there to her as well. Then, a student came in, checked my heart and lungs, and had me explain why I was there to him as well. Then he asked some disconcerting questions and I ended up feeling somewhat on the defensive. Last, but certainly not least, the doctor himself came in and had me explain (for the 4th time in a half hour) why I was there. Let's not forget that I had also explained what I was coming for on the phone when I scheduled the appointment.

This particular doctor had told my therapist that he would not require a diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder, but then pretty much told me he does. He would not quite answer my question about whether he does require it or not, and we kept going around and around in annoying circles of me asking if he required it and telling him I would respect it if he does, but would need to find a new doctor and of him asking me what else he could possibly call being genetically female and taking testosterone. It got intense. At one point he told me my therapist had already sent him an email referencing me as having GID (although when I called and asked her about that she said she did not say that in an email to him, and I believe her). The bottom line is he won't require the actual phrase "gender identity disorder" but does require "gender dysphoria," which isn't much of an improvement. He said he won't require any more tests (and I was flipping out because most doctors require a pap smear, which is pretty much the last thing I want to do right now) and that he would give me the first injection right there as long as I had a letter to him by my next appointment. That was a little tempting, but I passed.

It was not a great experience, but it certainly wasn't the worst experience I've ever had with a doctor. It was probably the best. Maybe I have low expectations as a trans person, but I haven't ruled out continuing with him. By the end of our conversation, I felt like he had more of an idea from where I was coming and that he was being more respectful of my position, even if he doesn't necessarily agree with it. I just don't like that he lied to me about the email my therapist sent him. Maybe he was just mistaken, but something about that whole encounter is sitting strange.

I guess overall it wasn't a terrible day, but it was very stressful and made me a less than happy panda.

If I have any idea what I want, what I'm doing, where I'm going. I know I'm not the only one who asks those questions. It's just been a strange year so far. I've taken some big steps transition wise--I came out to my bosses and am working on how to come out to the rest of my coworkers and my clients, I decided I want a boy name, chose one, and have asked people to start calling me that, I did a whole bunch of research (all right, to be fair my therapist actually did most of the work) and made an appointment with a doctor about starting hormone therapy.

And it's weird, because on one hand I do think that this is the best path for me. I believe that I will feel much less constrained by gender once I pass as male and I believe that I will probably be much more of a blend of genders once I don't feel like I have to prove anything or try to conform so I won't get read as female. I want my voice to be deeper, and I wouldn't mind actually being able to grow some leg hair.

But on the other hand I feel like Reagan is watching Aidan do these things and that Reagan will never really be able to follow through with this. Reagan is too conscious about the fact that I am about to get male privilege and lose so many parts of my daily life and identity that I probably am not even aware of and about the fact that I really don't want to go through puberty again or end up bald. Reagan doesn't know how I'm going to be able to come out to my mom, my coworkers, or my clients. And Reagan doesn't know how I'm really going to get myself to A) go see a doctor, since I hate doctors and avoid them like the plague and B) inject myself with a synthetic hormone several times a month. I know that I am Reagan and I am Aidan and Reagan is Aidan and Aidan is Reagan, but I feel like Aidan is an idea or a vision that I don't know that Reagan has the courage or desire to be. I know that I have taken the steps that have been taken, but I really don't feel like I'll be able to follow through with everything Aidan says he wants.

And maybe that's the problem. I know I have to make a choice and I don't like either of the options, or the fact that I feel like there are only two. I don't really want to put testosterone into my body but it feels like the only option so I will stop worrying so much and be able to be myself again. I also don't really want to continue to exist in a way that makes me worry constantly about how I'm being perceived and how to act accordingly to keep myself safe. I am angry that there are only two genders and I am angry that I am playing into this binary in some ways. I want to live in a world that isn't so gendered, where I don't feel like every time I turn around I have to decide how to gender myself once again. It's all I think about. If I don't fight to create that world, do I have the right to complain that it doesn't exist? And at the same time, does wanting a world like that mean that I am actually strong enough to fight for it.

Maybe taking testosterone but talking about how it is an imperfect solution is fighting that fight, and maybe it's the best I can do. Still, I feel like my life is going to change in ways I'm not sure I want it to change if I take T and is going to stay the same in ways I do want it to change if I don't.

I need a nap.

 I have an appointment with Dr. J. Wesley Cook on March 10 at 1:45 pm to discuss the possibility of my beginning hormone therapy with him. It's just so I can talk to him and see what the process would be like and whether I feel comfortable with him or not, but it's still a pretty freaking big step. I'm half excited and half terrified. And I still have to come out to my mom. The package is stamped now. I think I'm going to put it in the mail on Friday.

 I had a job interview last Monday. It was at a Thresholds in Chicago for the exact same job I have in McHenry--community support specialist (which is a recovery oriented term for caseworker). The man who interviewed me had access to all of my notes, to my last evaluation, and was able to speak with my current supervisor and the supervisor from my internship. Near the end of the interview, he was all about me. He told me that he liked my social work centric view and my recovery focus. He said, and I quote, "I'd like to pursue this." Then, I asked if it would be a problem to refer to me with male pronouns. He said "I don't know what you mean." I said, "I want to be referred to as he/his instead of sher/hers." He said the only problem with that would be remembering. We talked about it for another minute or so and I got a very bad vibe. Now I've found out that he is no longer interested in pursuing the possibility of my working there.

On one hand, as I said, I got a very bad vibe off of him and had planned to turn the job down even if he did offer it to me. On the other, I'm pissed that I'm being rejected for being trans. I suppose something else could be the reason, but it seems strange that he was all about me until I dropped the trans bomb. I am a good social worker. I really am, and my supervisor would be the first one to talk me up, as I am her pet. My last evaluation had nearly all "excellents," I meet my billing goals nearly every week, and the quality department finds my notes acceptable. There's really no reason for him to not want to hire me. He could pay me shit and get a well educated, Thresholds trained, staff member. So I kind of have to believe that this is about my gender identity. That pisses me off.

I'm trying to look at this as a good thing. I mean, now I don't have to think of a reason to turn this job down. At the same time, I'm a little discouraged and disheartened that I got this reaction. This is one of those things that pushes me into taking T. Once I'm able to pass I hope to not ever have to ask to be called he. Then again, this is sort of a canary in the coal mine deal and I won't have that to let me know whether a job would be a safe place. Still, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, man who will remain nameless.

 I'm having a little bit of a hard time with how to reconcile my past and my future. And as for my present, well, I'm feeling like my life is on hold. It's like I don't want to meet new people who will know me as Reagan and I'm not quite ready or able to meet people who will know me only as Aidan, so I'm sitting here with my thumb up my ass waiting for I don't know what. T? Maybe, but that doesn't solve the problem of how to think about/talk about my past as Reagan. I can't and don't want to deny that part of my life but I also don't know quite how to incorporate both. Right now I feel like it's hard for people who know me as Reagan to reconcile that with Aidan and to remember how I want to be identified. At the same time, I can't/don't want to deny the fact that I was female-identified for 23 years and that my name has been Reagan for almost 25. One stupid example is myspace. All of my picture captions say Reagan, and I don't know whether to change that or not. I mean, in many of those pictures, I was Reagan. So where does Reagan end and Aidan begin? Maybe the problem is that I'm looking at it like Reagan has to end. I mean, I know that all of my experiences as Reagan have shaped me and many of those experiences have been good. I just don't know quite how to bring that into my understanding of myself as Aidan.

In the year I was born (1983), Aidan was not even in the top 1000 most popular boys' names. It didn't enter the top 1000 names until 1990. In 2006, it was #44. In 1983, Reagan was not in the top 1000 for girls' or boys' names. It entered the top 1000 names for girls in 1993 and for boys in 1996 In 2006 it was #155 for girls and #792 for boys. If I wanted to have an unusual boy name, I guess I should have stuck with Reagan. Still, there aren't that many guys my age named Aidan and that makes me happy.

This blog was inspired by a post in a livejournal community that said it's important for trans men to choose names that were popular the year we were born so no one will notice "something amiss." I want to still have an unusual name. I'm not hiding. Fuck that noise. 

 I've been reading a lot of blogs on feministe lately, and checking out the archives. What has really struck me is that, although trans women are talked about a lot (mostly in a positive light, even), there's hardly any mention of trans men. I can't quite seem to situate myself within feminism anymore. I feel invisible within the community that first helped me find an identity. I'm a trans man who was socialized as a female and I absorbed a lot of that. I have had 24 years as a female in this culture and, even though I've spent much of that as a very butch lesbian, I can still personally relate to feminism as a woman.

But now I'm going to have male privilege, and I know that this changes things. I may start to relate to the world differently. I think I already have, although it is hard to tell if this is about growing up or being male. Maybe some people see me as a traitor now that I've got male privilege. I guess it shouldn't matter so much what other people think. I think the thing that upsets me most is I feel invisible again. I'm sure that there is writing out there that includes trans men, but the several new blogs I've read which have addressed trans issues have really only addressed trans women. I'm trying to figure out how to relate to feminism and how to be a feminist trans man and I don't even know if feminism wants to remember I exist.

 

Dear Mom,

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I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you something for the past several months, and I’ve realized that no matter how hard I try I’m not going to be able to say what I want to perfectly. I think the time has come for me to just say it in the only way I know how.

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In your letter to me, you reference me "having issues of gender identity." You are right about that, although it does not relate to my sexual orientation in the way I believe you think it does. For most of my life, I have felt "not female." I do not know how to explain it better than that, even to myself. I just always felt set apart from girls my age—like there was some sort of script I hadn't received, or secret club I didn't know the rules to. I struggled through most of elementary school to overcome this, to start wanting to dress for and impress boys, to care about the same things as other girls, to not feel like there was something wrong with me.

It never quite worked, though, and around age 13 I decided to stop trying so hard. For the next few years, I was off in my own world and it didn't hurt so much to not fit into the larger world around me. My sophomore year of high school I started to spend time with Danny and through that came spending time with all the boys in my grade. Remember how I used to be the only girl in those large groups of boys on Friday nights? I felt like one of the guys when I was with them. I felt like I had the script and I could understand how to play by those rules much better than I had ever been able to do as female. It was around this time that I came out to myself and then slowly to others as gay. This felt like it explained why I had never fit in with the girls.

From the time I was about 17 until I was about 21, this fit. I became more and more comfortable with myself as a lesbian…but something still didn't fit quite right. I was taking women's studies classes by this time, and I began to question the concept of gender. I started to feel (and still do feel) that we are all confined by a binary gender system that tells us how to behave based on something as arbitrary as whether we have a penis or a vagina (or for intersex people, whichever one of those we can more convincingly create). This gave me a lot of freedom to remain female identified while in many ways feeling "not female." I identified as gender queer and tried to let the issue go. But it still didn't feel quite right, and this is the part I cannot explain, even to myself. I do not feel entirely "male" either, but that has always felt closer to the truth and there came a time when I had to either admit this or allow myself to remain unhappy and feeling misunderstood. And that brings me to my point. For about a year now, I have been identifying as transgender.

This has felt like a deep dark secret for some time, and it has been another thing that pushes us away from the closeness we could have. I do sometimes wonder if there is something wrong with me and if I could just go back to being a lesbian. Looking back, that seems much more simple but I know it won't work. Just like I couldn't be straight just because it might make my life harder to be a lesbian, I can't remain female identified because it might make my life harder to be transgender. As I found once I was able to be open and honest about my sexual orientation, the world was a lot more friendly and easier to deal with than it had been when I believed there was something wrong with me and I deserved to be treated badly. I have been in this same position regarding my gender. I know that life might be harder in some ways if I am transgender, but I know that it will be harder for me to try to hide and deny who I am. I am telling you this now because I don't want to hide or feel ashamed anymore. I am proud of who I am and I hope you can be too. I would like to be able to start from here and be more open and honest in our relationship, but I can't do that while I feel like I am hiding something from you.

I am telling you this because I love you and I want you to know the person I really am instead of the person I think you want me to be. I am also telling you this because in the near future, I am planning to start to take testosterone so that I will appear more “male.” This means that I will start to look somewhat physically different and my voice will get deeper. I am also planning to change my name to Aidan Holmes. I understand that this is a lot of information to give to you all at once and I respect if you need some time to let this all digest. I have had several years to adjust to this and I know it’s not fair to expect you to come to terms with it immediately. All I ask right now is that you try to understand where I’m coming from and let me know if you need more information or resources.

Love,

Reagan

feel so trapped right now, and I know that this feeling is of my own creation. I set up these parameters within which I'm trying to transition, and I am the only one that can change them. But I set them up for a reason, and I'm trying to be thoughtful about how/whether to change them.

For example, I decided that before I start taking T I want to be out to my mom and at work. That's a lot harder than it sounds, especially at work. First I needed to come out to my bosses, and now I still have to come out to coworkers, then clients. I've done step one, and I'm trying to give myself credit for that. But still, I have these two additional huge steps and I'm not sure how or when I'll be getting to take them. We are working on a plan about that, but it is slow moving and I am anxious to move forward.

I just want to start the process. I know that in reality, the process has been started and I am just not where I want to be in it. I did find the name of a doctor that I believe will prescribe hormones without requiring a diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder. I am refusing to accept that diagnosis for a variety of reasons, but it is normally a requirement for being prescribed T. He even takes my insurance. So that in and of itself was a huge step. Of course, I still have to be sure that he will do this, then get an appointment, go in for tests, etc etc. But I'm a step closer to that than I was before I had his name.

I'm planning to come out to my mom in a few weeks. I am going to Macomb to see her in the Vagina Monologues and I will be leaving her a letter and a copy of Trans Liberation when I head back to Chicago. We'll have to have a conversation I am dreading, but hopefully it will end up being okay and no matter what, it will be over. I'm at the point where I'm going to do this whether my mom accepts it or not, so I hope for the sake of our relationship that she is able to do so. I don't mean to rush her and it's probably not fair to drop this all on her so suddenly, but I'm finally ready and I don't know how much longer I can wait.

Then there's coming out at work. I'm not sure exactly what the plan is for that, and it's coming to a point where I might just decide to say fuck the plan and do what feels possible and right. I don't want to come out impulsively but I don't know if I can wait through another series of meetings. I can at least come out to my coworkers while I wait to talk about how to come out to my clients.

I think writing this has helped me feel a little bit better. I am very anxious to be at the point where I am taking T so I can get through the public transition and figure out how to live my life in a way that works for me. I feel like it's hard to start doing anything (ie find somewhere to volunteer, meet more friends, etc) because I don't want to have to tell that many more people what's going on. I want to be at the point where I'm perceived as male and I can choose to tell people, or not, whichever feels relevant and comfortable. Right now I'm just feeling like I have to constantly explain myself and then it's all I can think about. But, I'm taking the steps I need to take. As much as I would like them to be easy and over quickly, some of them are just going to take awhile. Until then, I'll just have to keep doing what I can do, do a lot of relaxation breathing, and pace. It's going to be okay, even if it feels like that's forever away.