Going To The DMV, Again...

In some early posts on this blog I (briefly) discussed visiting the DMV last year after I got my name/gender legally changed.  As I said then, even though I only went to court once for both items, they were actually processed a month apart.  The young woman who inspired me to pursue the gender change pre-op even though Missouri statute 193.215(9) specifies surgery handled hers as two separate court cases.  My lawyer went ahead and handled mine as a single case - one set of court costs, yay; but the rulings were processed 30 days apart.  So I'm assuming there is some reason for this, but I never really cared what it was as I was just happy to be successful.

Since the changes were to be processed 30 days apart, I went ahead and went to the DMV a few days after I went to court - that was a Friday and even though I walked out with the court order in hand, my lawyer didn't get back to her office until later in the day and it was then she sent me the paperwork for the Department of Vital Records to amend my birth certificate.  I then had to fly out of town that Sunday for work, although due to a disaster at the airport I didn't end up flying out until Tuesday morning and came home late Wednesday, so it was that Thursday I went.  Since I only had the name change in hand I processed that and it went "so-so".  My court order for some reason had my first/middle name transposed all the way through it.  Now not just my new name, but my original name as well - it was correct in the header, so I'm not sure how that happened.  They noticed it during the court appearance and the judge/lawyer just marked through them and hand wrote the corrections.

So at the DMV, it took three or four different people reading the court order from beginning to end until they agreed to make the change - in hindsight that agitated me since Vital Records apparently didn't have an issue as they processed my birth certificate without any issue (at least that I was made aware of), but neither here nor there, I got my new license - albeit a paper copy at the time - the physical license came a couple of weeks later and I was happy.

Now, as it would be my license expires this year (actually less than 12 months from when I changed it) and I can renew it six months early which was actually a few days ago.  I got my gender change court order in November (there's a blog entry about that too), and sent it off to Vital Records a couple of days after Thanksgiving; I'm not sure why I dawdled those few weeks, but I did.  I got a revised birth certificate I believe on/around Christmas Eve, that now not only had my new name as the last one had, but also now had me as Female.  I was very happy, but I had a decision to make about my license.  It was the last week of the year which isn't a great time with Christmas/etc going on, and then New Years and at that point I could renew my license 3 months down the road for another six years.  If I went to correct it then I'd have to pay the replacement fee (a second time, I already had in October), and then renew it this year anyway.  So I decided to hold off.

As it was I thought about something else at the same time, and that was work.  I had not as of yet changed my social security card, I saw no real benefit for me doing so.  All that would do would be to cause issues with work that I really didn't need/want.  I haven't gotten into it too much in this blog; but if you visit Susan's Place and look for the "Madison's Musings" blog there (assuming it's still there, it was as of a couple of months ago); you'll see a string of posts detailing my transition and work.  Suffice it to say when I floated the idea it didn't go well.  I made the decision to transition anyway and just neglected to let them know.  I work from home and they are halfway across the country anyway; I may have to travel every so often - more this last year than the last three combined unfortunately - but really why did they need to know?  I have a job I more or less like, make a decent salary, and I probably couldn't just get another one with the same conditions.  So why put myself in a bad position and possibly jeopardize the lifestyle that J and my daughter are accustomed to?  J said she's support whatever I chose to do and I believe her, but it still wouldn't have been fair.

I thought long and hard about things, I could probably pursue a legal remedy, but that would be dicey at best, likely expensive, and as a software company there aren't a lot of assets to go after.  So I elected to pursue things anyway and just neglect to mention it.  Really, why should I?  Yes I'd have to present as a male those few times that I go out of town, but so what?  It was a trade I was willing to make.  Now my therapist and I have went 'round a couple of times over this, most recently when she wrote my letter for my orchiectomy and I finally told her that I did what I felt best for my family, and if she or the rest of WPATH didn't like/agree with it, well then so be it.  She finally relented; at the session after this debate (which actually happened via email between sessions), she said there was a clause somewhere in the WPATH that dealt with this.  As to if there is or not, I'm not really sure and I really don't care.  I'd sooner eschew surgery and such to ensure that J and my daughter don't have to needlessly have their lives altered.

So what do the last couple of paragraphs have to do with the topic at hand?  Well when it came time to renew my license this past week I decided to renew it as Madison, but NOT to change my gender.  I went and did so, and a MAJOR THUMBS UP to my local DMV as I was in and out in under 5 minutes - you guys are awesome.  I have a renewed (again albeit paper) license and should get my physical one in a couple of weeks.  When I do, I'm going to get a scan of it to keep and then go back and change my gender marker.  As to why?  Well, when/if I finally do change my name with Social Security and then work, I will be able to send them a copy of my birth certificate (remember I have two revised ones, one with just the name change which is what they'll get, and one with both changes) and a copy of my license with my "male" picture, that says "male", but has "Madison" on it.  However, my actual license will have Female on it and have my current presentation on it and not only will I finally be able to mark this item off of my "transition bucket list", I'll feel far more comfortable out in public having a correct license.

Now some of you may read this and feel I'm being unethical; and perhaps I am.  The thought of that is something I find troubling; but the response I got when I floated transitioning with my employer backed me into a corner.  We're too small for any EEOC or other regulations to apply to me; the chance I could succeed legally in any lawsuit is a (potentially very expensive) roll of the dice; even if I did win, would there be anything to win, and so on.  And personally I feel after all I've given over the years that I deserved better than what I got.  I don't complain about my salary or really anything else and I probably should as when I got hired a huge deal was made about "cost of living" being lower here than there and as such the offer was lower than it probably should have been.  Well if you were going to make that argument shouldn't I also receive at least a cost of living adjustment each year - even if I'm not getting a raise for whatever reason?  I know that whatever wrongs (perceived or real) that I could discuss don't necessarily justify anything I do/don't do; but in this case - well ethical or not, it's what I've chosen to do and I have no qualms living with that fact.

So long story short (I know too late), or for those Reddit fans - tl;dr - In a few weeks I'll finally have a license with not only Madison as the name, but with a photo of Madison, and a gender of FEMALE on it which may not be a big step for some/all people, but it will be a "baby book moment" for me. :)

- M

My Wife, My Husband...

One of these days perhaps I can get J to write an entry for the blog as I think some might find her viewpoints on things a bit enlightening.  However, until that day comes you'll have to settle for my perceptions of her viewpoint.  I've been meaning to write on this particular topic for sometime now and just wasn't sure that I could do it justice and while I probably can't, I thought now was as good a time to do it as any.  So without further ado.

J and I joke around a lot that she's now the "husband" in our relationship.  I'm sure there is at least one person out there (perhaps many) that would find that "offensive" for one reason or another and while I would respect that viewpoint, it's not that way for us.  It's more of an inside joke.  I think what started it were the incessant questions that we (mostly her) got about "so who's the boy?".  If that wasn't the number one question she took, well it was in the top two - the only other question that even seemed close to that was in regards to our sex life.  So about the "who's the boy?" questions, they never really bothered me, I mean compared to the other things that came with transitioning, questions were minor no matter how personal they might/might not be.  Now I will say that I also didn't get it very often in comparison to J; she deals with a lot more people on a regular basis and I think since she's not the one transitioning people tend to ask her things they may not ask me.  I do think it bothered her on occasion, at least early on, but now I think it amuses her as much as it does me.

As to why it amuses me (and I think J now), well even pre-transition she handled a lot of the traditional "husband tasks".  Things like mowing and trimming the lawn, moving/carrying large/heavy items, driving, shoveling snow, and so on.  I on the other hand, handled a lot of the traditional "wife tasks", grocery shopping, preparing meals, laundry (although we've went back and forth on that), and dishes.  It was never a he/she husband/wife thing, it's just how things sort of worked themselves out.  Now on occasion I'd feel guilty about the lawn since J does work at much more physically demanding job than I do and I'd go do it.  I would also try and shovel the snow at least part of the time so she could get ready for work or be able to pull into the driveway when she came home, but for the most part that's sort of how things seemed to get done.

Now when J and I first got together she wasn't much of a makeup person, in fact she even got ready to leave the house more like the "husband".  A quick shower, a quick brush of the hair (usually she'd just tie it back), a few other hygiene tasks (brushing her teeth, etc) and she could leave.  Never more than perhaps 15 minutes total.  Now over time she's to the point where she does tend to wear makeup and such.  Mostly for my benefit, but part of it with her position at work as well.  However, she's still quick and efficient with it and is in/out of the bathroom in short order.  I on the other hand, have always tended to take a bath and a long/hot one at that, and been a dawdler in the bathroom.  Since I chose to transition it's gotten worse as my hair and makeup has to be "just right" before I want to leave.  Now I'm not saying I haven't ran an errand or something with  little preparation as I have, but those are few and far between.

There are other things, her idea of wrapping a gift for example:

I'm not really sure those photos due the present justice.  I look at that and the first thing I think of is that a man wrapped it. :)  I'm not saying mine are perfect by any stretch, but they definitely don't look like that.  I'm not trying to pick on J, but rather illustrate the dynamics of our relationship.

All joking aside, we don't necessarily see that either of us "is the boy"; we both tend to refer to each our as "our wife" - although in certain circumstances (more often for J), it may be "my partner" instead.  We do the tasks we are *comfortable with*, not the ones that necessarily correspond to our birth gender or our chosen gender (in her case the same thing obviously).  We both like to cuddle; although I'll admit that it's more of a new found joy for me, she's always enjoyed that; we both cry, although it seems like it's more likely to be me doing that these days; we both enjoy long baths - especially together, we enjoy shopping together, and so on.  To me at least, if I had to try and describe our relationship in one sentence - I'd say we're simply two people in love, regardless of birth gender, chosen gender, or anything else.  For those that can't seem to wrap their heads around our relationship, then fine I think we both agree that J is my husband and I am her wife; but the reality is that J is my wife and I am her wife and we are happy; and truthfully that's all that matters to us and all that should matter to anybody else.  Yes it's not necessarily what would be called a "traditional marriage", but it's also one that's not likely to end up in divorce like so many "traditional marriages" do.  

- M

Restaurant Rant

I haven't had much to talk about the last few days, so it's been quiet around here, but I managed to get agitated today and thought I'd share that here.

It really agitates me when restaurants shove some new product down my throat via television, print media, and so on only to discontinue it a short time later.  There are plenty of examples, but I'll start with today's agitation and that's with McDonald's.

They rolled out their "Mighty Wings" nationwide a few months back and while they were very good, they were priced fairly high for what they were.  I tried them once or twice and liked them, but I just didn't think they were worth the money.  So a few weeks ago they "re-rolled" them out cheaper - $5 for 10 which was a much better price point and I've had them a couple of times since then.  Well I went to take my daughter to get lunch today and I settled on those, and what do you know they don't carry them anymore - at least not at the store closest to us.  I can only assume that they brought them back at the reduced price to liquidate inventory or something.  All that money spent on advertising and such and the product is gone.

Taco Bell is a worse offender; it seems like once a month they have some "new thing" and they push it worse than McDonald's ever did with the wings.  Then the item is gone.  What kills me is quite often they have most if not all of the ingredients there anyway to make it, so why take it off the menu and upset people?  It's gotten to the point where I won't go there anymore; although I'll probably make an exception to try their breakfast before it's gone.

Plenty of other restaurants are guilty of this and for that matter overhauling their menu.  Hey Wendy's I'm talking to you - I've had it with the constant changes to your "value menu".  Again, I won't be back.

- M

Learning To Shop - Part 2

This is a continuation of my last post since it was getting longer than I intended, which they always seem to do. :)

The first few times I went out shopping it was mostly with M, due to J's schedule and it was uncomfortable to say the least.  I just *knew* everyone was staring at me; and looking back now they probably were.  Not because of my appearance, even though it was definitely not what it is today; but rather I stood out because I was nervous and lacked any confidence in myself.  I *felt* like a guy, and as such instead of actually shopping I was spending my efforts in "hiding" in M's shadow and that was a huge mistake on my part.  Now let me say that I never had any "issues" with anyone, be it other customers or employees where we were shopping, but in my mind I had all of these ideas of what they were thinking.  Again in hindsight, that was foolish on my part.

I've worked some part-time retail before as I've mentioned and I would from time to time see cross-dressers and/or trans-women in there, it wasn't something that occurred all that often and unfortunately most of them did not "pass" very well and they did stand out.  Now personally, I always admired the fact that they were out shopping, be it by themselves (most of the time) or with a cis-female, but more often than not they did garner a lot of attention that they probably didn't want and this was always in the back of my mind.  I can only speak for myself, but passing does have importance to me; but not necessarily for the reason most would think.  Yes, I want to be accepted as a woman, I won't deny that; but the reason it was more important to me was that I was generally with M or J or both and I didn't want them to have to put up with anything because of me and my appearance.  Now I've learned over time that they both care, albeit in their own ways, about me enough that it wasn't ever something that they were concerned with; but foolishly I was and it greatly affected how I handled being out in public as Madison.

Over time things eased for me, both shopping, and being out in public in general and shopping became less of a chore and I actually started to enjoy it.  Now I cannot say that I want to spend two hours in a thrift store like M does; but I can now manage to do so without bailing for the car after a few minutes.  I won't say that I'm fully 100% comfortable with using dressing rooms as Madison, but I do use them and haven't had any issues.  In fact as with almost everything to do with my transition it's went so well I really feel almost guilty about it as I know for a lot of trans-women (well I'm sure trans-men too), they do have issues.

With all of that being said I'd like to repeat a few things from earlier posts that are relevant to this topic:

• Be confident and act like you belong.  Passing is as much about confidence as anything else, and if you feel like you belong you will be surprised at how much better things will be for you.  You may or may not pass, but at least you will be able to enjoy the experience a lot more regardless.
• If per chance you aren't treated well at a store don't hesitate to complain.  Now, if you're like me, you may not be overly comfortable doing that in person - although I have at times when the situation dictated that it was the right thing to do.  But even if it's only a phone call or email to their corporate office or owner, you should let somebody know about what went on so that hopefully it can be corrected.  Now if it's a small shop and it was the owner; well then I suppose it "is what it is", but you can spend your money elsewhere and let people know how you were treated.  But I would think that in general that this wouldn't be the case as especially with small businesses, it's often a struggle to stay afloat and the LGBTQ community can make a difference.
• On the same note, if you are treated well, let people know.  Be it feedback to corporate again so that they know that you are happy, be it simply sharing with others, those are the kinds of businesses that need the support and should be nurtured.  I'm not saying that it should even be about LGBTQ at this point, excellent service should be recognized.  Now in the case of what I'd call "trans-friendly" businesses, I know that I appreciate knowing about those and I'm sure others do as well.
• If you are out shopping, the last thing you want to do is to get to the checkout and start making excuses about what you are buying.  As I've said before the vast majority of cashiers could care less, but as soon as you start doing this you stand out and make the cashier care and will draw unwanted attention to yourself.  Now maybe you don't care about the attention, but I know I do and I'm sure others do and if I can impart any advice at all, this stands out.  
• I would say the same thing applies to buying clothing - don't tell a sales person/floor associate something like "it's for my wife/girlfriend/daughter/whatever and we're about the same size" or something along those lines.  Now I'm not saying that you can't be the same size, J and I on occasion can share certain tops, and before my daughter lost weight we wore similar sizes in pants, but reality is that it's not often the case.  If you've made it that far and are actually looking for clothes, then be honest and let them help.  Even though it may well be hard (it was for me), you'll be so much happier in the long run as you'll get things that fit and you'll likely get some good advice from people who deal with clothes every day - be it on sizing, coordinating, or even caring for them.  You're there to spend money, and they're there to see that you do, so while you might run across an exception to this, in general they *want* to help, so let them.  And if they don't want to help, then see the point above about letting people know that.
• If you're just starting to acquire clothing and aren't sure of sizes, thrift stores are excellent places.  For example around here Goodwill is prominent and they have several nice new stores with unisex dressing rooms.  You can find plenty of things very cheap and try them on without having to stress over using a dressing room in the "women's area" or dragging women's clothes to the "men's area" of a department store.  And at least at the ones around here there is no "attendant" at the dressing room so it made it much easier for me early on.  I'm not saying that you shouldn't use dressing rooms wherever, quite the contrary.  I won't say I'm 100% comfortable everywhere I go, but for the most part I am, but it took time and early on places like Goodwill were great for me to actually try things on and get ideas on sizing and such.
• You don't have to spent a lot of money to look nice.  D.E.B. for example, we've been in there on clearance and I've picked up a 7 or 8 tops for under $50.  Granted, when you wait for clearance it's hit or miss, but if you aren't overly picky and don't have to have the "in style" then and there, it's a great way to build a wardrobe.  Same with Wal-Mart and other stores.  Even more expensive stores tend to clearance things out at the end of a season.  Once you have a wardrobe assembled, it's much easier to splurge on that top or pair of shoes you just "have to have".

I think I've rambled on long enough now, probably too long.  But at least for me shopping as Madison and for Madison was a challenge and from what I've read on Reddit, Laura's, and so on I know I'm not the only one.  You may never enjoy it as much as I've come to; but it shouldn't be a traumatic experience like it often is either.

- M

Learning To Shop - Part 1

I have never been a "shopper" in the truest sense of the word.  If I needed something, if at all possible I'd dispatch M to get it for me.  If I absolutely had to go myself either because they couldn't or because I needed to actually make a decision there, well I'd go; but I'd be as prepared as I could and get in and get out.  In those occurrences if I was with M, I'd often spend copious amounts of time in the car messing with my phone or reading an actual newspaper (I know who actually reads a physical paper anymore? <G>).  Even as I developed into a cross-dress - or at least so I thought at the time, M always brought home the clothes, shoes, etc., that I'd wear; I just didn't like to shop and when it came to "that kind" of shopping, well that just wasn't going to happen.  As M and I got divorced and then reconciled into friends, this trend continued.  Even as I met and eventually married J, it was the same - except now I had two people that could/would do my shopping.

Once the transition started, I knew the wardrobe that I had wasn't going to work for me.  Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of what I had were all very nice things - even if they were mostly picked up on sale, clearance, or even in some cases at resale and/or thrift shops.  However, they weren't *me*.  A great many of what I thought were the cute items were meant for somebody 10-20 years younger than me, shorter skirts, tops that showed way too much skin, and so on.  Of what was left, most of that seemed to be for somebody 10-20 years older than me.  Things that I'd expect a grandmother to wear, so suddenly I was in pickle.  I wanted to look nice, but I wanted to look nice for a 40-ish year old woman and that meant pretty much starting over.  This is by no means an indictment on M or J for the wardrobe I had, the things that were "too young" were all styles I really liked and would wear around the house, but just didn't feel comfortable wearing out; the "too old" ones - well those often helped hide the body hair and male figure and again they were great around the house, but I couldn't see myself out in public in them.

Me being me, wanted a certain type of clothes, but I just wanted them to "appear" as they always had.  Both M and J tried and they did pick up several nice things; but it was really hit or miss.  It put me in a bad place as I was grateful for their efforts and I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but some of the stuff that came home - well I just didn't like it.  Some of it was what I'd call "frumpy", some of it would show too much skin for my taste, some of it were just simply colors and/or patterns I didn't care for.  Then there was the problem of fitting me since I was significantly larger on top than bottom and as this was pre-HRT, my hips and such weren't really proportioned for women's clothing.  Even the things I did like often suffered from poor fit issues for these reasons.

The solution was obvious, but it was something I wasn't sure that I could handle - I needed to start actually going shopping.  For many (most?) people reading this you may be thinking "what's the issue with that?", and I can understand that viewpoint.  But for me, to say I'm anti-social would be very polite at best.  It's not that I don't like people, despite me always joking to that effect.  I do like people, I just lack social grace.  I can make plenty of excuses as to why, but they really don't matter and I'm not a fan of excuses anyway.

Now, by the time I came to the the realization that I needed to actually get out of the house and shop with M and/or J, it was a few months into my transition and I was leaving the house sporadically as Madison, but these were generally simple trips out like going to lunch with M and/or J.  Just enough to get me out in public as Madison, but for short periods of time in reasonably controlled environments.  Now J has never been really into shopping, but I knew how M shopped and that concerned me.  She may or may not spend a lot of money when she shopped, but she always hit plenty of stores and spent copious amounts of time in each.  The worst were thrift shops, she could easily spend two plus hours in one browsing around.  That had always frustrated me as I couldn't imagine spending that much time in a store and possibly coming out with nothing, but it was how she shopped.

Now some might question why I wouldn't just shop on my own instead and I did consider that.  However, sizing was going to be a problem for me since apparently no two companies make women's clothing in the same size.  I mean both companies may say their jeans are a size x, but they are seldom really equivalent in size.  Well why didn't I just try the stuff on?  Well, I was terrified of using a dressing room as Madison.  Perhaps not as terrified of the restroom, but it was a close second.  Style was also a problem for me, I could easily pick out a particular item that I liked and it looked great on it's own; but I couldn't really correctly pair it up with something else.  So I'd pick out a couple of really nice tops, but then finding a bottom to match, well that was going to be an issue.  However, as big of an issue as those were the overriding issue is that I felt I needed to shop as Madison so I'd at least be reasonably comfortable in the women's section - something about holding clothes up to me when I wasn't presenting as Madison was uncomfortable to say the least; and to tell the truth I wasn't ready to be out in public as Madison alone.  It wasn't that I didn't want to, I just wasn't ready.

Well, what I had intended on being a reasonably short entry has gotten semi-long and I haven't even really gotten to what I wanted to talk about so I'm going to have to split this entry - I seem to do that a lot - and pick up with it later on or tomorrow.  As always thanks for reading.

- M

The (Not Really) Joys Of Facial/Body Hair....

As I've mentioned before, in what has turned out as a cruel bit of irony I was blessed with my father's (and the rest of his families) penchant of losing my hair.  I always kept mine very short so it wasn't a huge deal, but by the time I was in my mid to late twenties it was obvious and at M's (my wife at the time) urging I gave in and started keeping it shaved.  However, in an even crueler bit of irony, I have enough hair everywhere else, including my face, to make a Wookie blush.

In the earlier years when I thought of transitioning and instead tried to make myself happy with cross dressing it was an issue for me.  I could cover up the majority of the body hair with the right clothing, but the lack of my own head of hair and the fact that I had 5 o'clock shadow by say 9am, well it was just never a pretty picture.

Well, then along comes the middle of 2012 and my decision, with J's support, to transition.  I knew it would be a lot of work:

• I'd need to lose weight - which I needed to do anyway, but now I had an "incentive" so to speak.
• I'd have to work on my voice - still a work in progress and currently my biggest hurdle.
• I'd have to pursue therapy, HRT, and eventually SRS/GRS.
• I'd need a new wardrobe.  I had plenty of "cross-dressing" clothes, but the majority of those were ill fitting, not appropriate for my age, and so on.
• I'd have to get a decent wig and learn how to take care of it.
• I'd have to learn how to do my own makeup, I had played with the basics such as lipstick and eye shadow, but I would need to learn the subtleties of those and things like foundation and concealer - well I wasn't even sure where to begin.

All of those things seemed doable, some harder than others, but doable.  The one thing I wasn't sure about was my body hair, especially my face.  It is so thick and heavy, I just wasn't sure how much success I could have with it.  I spent countless hours during countless nights researching laser hair removal including the various types of lasers, success (and in some cases failure) stories, and so on.  I looked into electrolysis as well, but as thick as my facial hair was I didn't see that as a viable option, short of perhaps diving into something like E3000 and the cost of that seemed prohibitive - at least early on since while I was certain I wanted to transition, I also didn't want to suddenly bury us with a lot of expenses in case it didn't work out - and in this case there would've been a plane ticket, car rental, and hotel room to consider; and there would be therapy to pay for, new clothes, and so on.

As such as I focused on the laser hair removal.  I focused on places where I could pay by the treatment versus a package (such as Ideal Image) for the same reasons I had ruled out E3K, although in this case travel was not an expense I had to concern myself with.  It was either late July or early August of 2012, and I settled on the St. Louis Laser Liposuction Center, which is about 10 minutes from home, close enough that I could run over on my lunch, then grab some fast food, and be back home (ie at work) in a timely manner.  I can't remember if it was J or M (I think the latter) that went with me for that first session, but regardless I think they would agree that it was a joke.  The laser technician was very nice, but I don't know if it was lack of experience on her part or simply trying to cover her backside, but basically among the forms to fill out was one for me to assess my skin type for treatment.  For what I was paying ($229 for my face, NO neck) I expected her to be able to make that determination.  The admin people out front basically had no idea what was going on, it reminded me of some of those hair salons where each stylist is basically a contractor renting space - that was the feeling I got and I wasn't overly comfortable but I went ahead with the session anyway.  

It hurt, a lot, but I made it through.  The technician advised me to come back in six weeks and when I tried to make a follow-up appointment, the admin people couldn't take care of that and advised me that they would call me when it was time for another appointment.  Paying for the session was another joke, that took a good 15 minutes for them to get straight, Now I'm not trying to slam that particular business, I just didn't have what I felt was a good experience there, perhaps I was the exception and perhaps they'd be great for you, I'm simply relating *MY* experience such as it was.  I was not amused when I left and I decided I'd give up on laser for the time being and revisit it later on.  In hindsight this was a major mistake on my part.  Not the fact that I wouldn't go back there, but rather the fact to put it off and not immediately look into somewhere else.  

I struggled with shaving, which was fine, but it meant I was limited in how often I could go out as my face simply couldn't handle the abuse it got for me to shave it like it needed to be.  Additionally it took a LOT of time which meant I couldn't "just go", so I didn't get out as Madison as much as I wanted to  Finally in early 2013, D mentioned a place where she had started going - Infinity Laser.  She was paying $149 for her face (and I thought her neck too, but in hindsight I think I may be wrong about that) and spoke highly of her technician - Susanne.  I thought about it for a day or two and decided to schedule an appointment and it was a great choice and I probably owe D a lunch or something for it.  I've talked about Susanne and Infinity in other posts so I won't dwell on them, but I would give them the highest possible recommendation I could as she's been wonderful.  I was disappointed that I was paying more than D, I was at $249 but that was for my face AND neck so I wasn't too overly upset and the price would drop to $149 on the sixth session.  I've been happy enough that I just finished my 8th session and the bulk of my facial hair is gone; although some has turned white which I knew was a possibility.  However, those white hairs aren't nearly as big a deal and enough hair has been cleared that even if I choose to have some electrolysis done to clean things up, it will be so much less now that I'll be very happy.

All of that being said, the impetus to write today's entry is my last session on Monday night.  I think I may have mentioned before but I had never inquired as to how high the laser was set, I just knew it hurt.  Well I was talking with D and she mentioned hers was at 43 I think, so I asked and I was at 23 which made me feel like a baby as it did hurt and I was using the numbing cream and D does not.  Now I know she had far less hair to start with than I did, and as I said I don't think she's doing her neck which is where a lot of pain is, but still I felt like a huge baby.  So this last time Susanne turned it up to 27 and I managed to make it through pretty good, I was all but juggling the stress balls instead of trying to pop them.  Maybe having J in the room was part of it, I don't know, but it went really well.

That is until I left and the cream wore off.  I felt like the area around my lips had been stung by dozens of bees.  Now I've hurt before post-laser session, but never quite like this.  My face is still bad enough three days later that I haven't even considered leaving the house.  I won't say for certain it's the lasers fault or even all it's fault as I'm also sick ("Flu"-ish symptoms) so perhaps that's affected things, but it's frustrating to not be able to wear makeup and go here or there.  Hopefully it'll subside by this weekend since J is off both days; but if not then I guess it is what it is and I'll move on and be happy.  Regardless I couldn't be happier with Infinity Laser in general and Susanne specifically.  Happy enough I'm contemplating having them start on my shoulders and/or my back when I go back next since those are hard for me to reach on my own...

- M

Transitioning Away The Anger....

I've always been the kind of person who gets mad "shooting star style".  By that I mean I get mad, very mad, for a brief time, and then it's over and gone.  In simpler terms, quick to get angry, quick to get over it.  It's caused a lot of problems over the years, first with M, now with J.  It's always been worse with J as she has trouble handling me when I'd get angry; she want to just "make it all better", but the thing was the only way to make it better was to let it run it's course.  All she accomplished by trying to "make it better" was to prolong it.  To make matters worse, I tend to never forget anything and I know just how to verbally slice somebody into pieces.  Combine all of those and you have a very mean and hateful person.

One of my more important goals for transition was to put a stop to this once and for all.  Most of what I'd get angry about really didn't matter in the big picture; and even if it did matter, it really was seldom if ever worth getting upset about.  Even if J (or M or somebody else) screwed something up, what good was it really going to do for me to tear into them?  Call it un-Lady Like, call it trying to be a nicer person, call it whatever you want, but it was important to me.

Well as I said recently I consider my transition over, yes I'm still "pre-op", but other than having what I'd consider the wrong parts down there, I consider myself fully a woman with nothing else to prove.  However, if that's true then I've failed on my goal of losing the anger.  Oh, it's way better now, I can't recall the last time I raised my voice to J, and even M would probably agree that it's way better now.  But that's simply not good enough for me, it needs to go completely away.  For somebody who's an admitted perfectionist, I often try and convince J that sometime's 95% or 98% or 99% is "good enough", but in this case, it's not.  It MUST be 100% - I simply cannot think of any reason why I need to ever be like that again.  Yes the D/S has helped with that as well, but reality is that it falls on me to make this happen.

As good as I was doing I did get angry tonight.  I didn't raise my voice, I didn't even say anything overly hateful, and goodness knows a few things crossed my mind.  But looking back on it some 3-4 hours later while J is sleeping beautifully a few feet from me, even that wasn't worth it.  In hindsight the things I got agitated over were silly in the big picture of our lives and all I ended up accomplishing was letting her go to bed in a less than happy state.  That just tears me apart to realize that I let that happen.  Yes I was better, but no I wasn't good enough, and she deserves better than that.  So J, sweetie, if you read this, consider this not only a personal apology to you, but a public promise that I will do better and I will make it to 100% of the time that I don't let myself get mean or angry.  It's what you deserve, and more than that, it's what I want for myself and it WILL happen.

I love you sweetie...

- M

Review: FitBit One Tracker And FitBit Aria Scale

As I mentioned in a prior post, recently I purchased J, M, and myself a FitBit One Tracker and a FitBit Aria scale.  Even though I've lost a fair amount of weight over the last few months, I need to lose a significant amount more prior to a possible SRS/GRS procedure and J is going to help with that as well as work on her own weight.  In addition to the other things we are doing, I felt that being able to track my activity would be a huge help, and while in the past I've kept my weight in a spreadsheet manually, I felt the scale would simplify that.

I had been waiting for a Samsung tracker as I have a Galaxy S4 and J my older Galaxy S3, but I'd finally given up on that and was looking into alternatives.  There were other models from FitBit as well as other brands, but all things considered it seemed that FitBit was our best option.  The price was reasonable, the integration to their website as well as the LoseIt site, and the Android support were are pros, and the fact that they also made a WiFi enabled scale sold me.  It then came down to what tracker.  The FitBit Force looked promising, but just prior to me making a decision on it, FitBit announced it was recalling them due to some occurrences of a rash.  That left it down to the Zip, Flex, or One trackers.  I ruled the Flex out because it went on the wrist and from what I had read it tended to overstate activity which did not surprise me since I see the same thing with the Walking Mate app from S Health on my GS4.  That left it down to the Zip versus the One.  I went ahead and settled on the One; although in hindsight the Zip might have been just fine as the two main differences are sleep tracking and Floors climbed and neither of those is overly important and for that matter the floors climbed is not overly accurate for me.

At this point I wasn't certain on the scale or not, but I started pricing the One.  Wal-Mart had it for right at $100, but I was able to find it for $85 at Best Buy (for the Burgundy model, the Black was still $90).  So a couple of Saturday's back M and I were going to run some errands while J was at work, so we decided to head to Best Buy first.  By now I figured in for a penny, in for a pound and wanted the scale too, so we had to drive a little further than I would have liked, but oh well.  I guess I could have ordered online, but I am a bit old fashioned in that I want it then and there and don't like to wait.  When we got there I got the impression that M wanted one too and even though I knew it would be more of a "toy" for her I went ahead and got her one as well.  J and I got the last two Burgundy ones and M got a Black one.  The "only" difference between the Burgundy and Black is the "sleeve" that the tracker pops into and considering that depending upon where you clip in - we usually put ours on our bras - it may well not be visible.

My first agitation wasn't with the FitBit, but rather Best Buy as apparently *mine* appeared to have been a return as of the three it was the only one that was charged; the other two were nearly dead; but the price wasn't reduce as a return, nor was it marked as such.  Now I suppose it could have simply been a coincidence, but it also would not be the first time I've had this issue at Best Buy.

Setting up the trackers was actually quite easy, simply create an account on FitBit.com and make sure it's charged.  In order to charge it, it has to be out of it's sleeve and it snaps into a USB cable.  The documentation says 2 hours to charge and I believe that to be about accurate.  It also says it will run about 3-5 days on a charge and we've found that to be a major understatement.  Ours will easily run over a week on a single charge and that's with it in use constantly, and I often have it attached via Bluetooth to my S4 since it won't just sync, it will actually update stats in real-time.  I have not checked J's S3, but M's Galaxy Relay does not do this, it will simply sync when forced.  Beyond that initial setup, it's simply a matter of wearing it around.  It does come with a wrist sleeve for sleeping and you put that on, slip the tracker into it, and start the timer (hold down the single button until the timer starts) when you lie down and do the same when you wake up.  It's supposed to track how often you get up and how restless you are and it seems to do an "okay" job with that; however, the biggest reason I bought it was to track my actual activity.  One note, make sure when you do actually get up that you remove it from the wrist sleeve and put it back in the regular sleeve and clip it on; otherwise it will start overstating activity similar to the reports I've seen on the Flex.

When wearing the tracker there is a single button on it which will wake it up and can be used to cycle through the various displays.  The display cycles among:

• Current Time
• Daily Steps
• Floors CLIMBED
• Miles walked
• Calories burned
• An activity flower

I think the first two, along with calories burned are self-explanatory, but the others do bear some comments.  The floors climbed is semi-accurate in my testing.  Apparently there are things that can throw it off, and in my experience there are times that it flat out misses floors, especially when going from our basement where our workout room is, up to the main floor.  It almost always gets the main floor to the second floor where our bedroom is.  The miles walked is based upon steps and stride length.  Based upon the characteristics entered on the FitBit website this is calculated; however, you can override it there if you desire.  The flower grows in size the more active you are.  My understanding is that it's "current activity", and not the full day's activity; although how it's calculated is currently a mystery to me.

We've had ours for a bit over 3 weeks now and I've walked in excess of 70 miles with it on; and J and M I believe are both well over 100 miles.  I'm not sure how much it's influenced their activity; but it definitely has mine.  I've been on the treadmill a lot more lately and if it looks like I haven't been overly active around the house I will tend to spend more time on the treadmill to get to a reasonable activity level.  Another thing I like about it is that it does manage to count steps on the elliptical.  Now a lot of FitBit users take theirs off for this as again it's counting steps and the elliptical is more involved; but for me a simple step count is good enough.  What it also cannot do is directly adjust for using the treadmill on an incline, again that's not really important to me and I'm not sure if the other trackers can do this either.  If I had the decision to make all over again I'd definitely still go with FitBit; although I might buy the Zip instead as the sleep tracking isn't a big deal to me and the floors - well that's only semi accurate in my testing.

Now on to the Aria scale.  As I said above this helped sway me to FitBit since they had both the trackers and the scale.  I've been tracking my weight in Excel manually; but this seemed like a better option and "in for a penny, in for a pound".  This was my second disappointment and it was with FitBit.  Setting up the scale was a bit of a pain for me and I am a computer/networking person.  Reading the forums at FitBit, apparently for less technical users it can be a real hassle.  Long story short, the easiest for me was to use my cell phone to get it on the Wi-Fi which once I found the correct instructions did go pretty quick; but it should have been an easier process.

Beyond that I've been very happy with the scale.  It's also interfaced to their website and you can have up to 7 additional "recognized" users that it will track.  You do need to "invite" them from the website which was a bit of an agitation, but otherwise the process was smooth.  Your information can be private (which it is by default) or it can be shared and it tracks weight and some body fat numbers.  As long as their is a bit of a difference in the weights of the people using it, the scale will automatically recognize you and upload your weight.  If not, then it will cycle through anyone who is close to the registered weight and you tap the scale to select.  Since M, J, and I are all fairly spread out it recognizes us, I am curious to see what happens as the gaps between our weight narrows though.  Really there's not much else to say about it, it's a Wi-Fi connected scale that does a nice job.  I have read reports of people complaining that it's weight is off; but it seems to balance with the scale at my Doctor so I have not had that issue.  It's a bit expensive, I believe it was $120-$125 so I'm not sure if I'd buy this again or not; but since we have it we will continue to use it.

Not sure how much of a review this ended up being since I wrote on it over four different days, but it "is what it is".  I will also say that the FitBit site can integrate to other sites such as LoseIt and the data can flow in both directions; although in the case of LoseIt, you must be a premium member to be able to sync between the sites.

So overall I'd give the FitBit One 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, and the Aria scale a 3 1/2 out of 5.  The latter mainly due to price and the setup being harder than I think it needs to be.

- M

Transgender Stereotypes

The other day on a private Transgender group I'm in, I read an excerpt - or perhaps it was the whole article - that someone (name withheld to protect privacy) had been kind enough to share in advance of it's publication.  It dealt with Transgender stereotypes, specifically those that would apply for a MtF of which I'm a portion of that demographic.  While the piece wasn't very long; it was well written and gave some great opinions; whether or not you agreed with them, which I did.  There lies the basis for this blog entry.

The basis of the article was that there is a portion (a significant portion in my opinion) of the MtF community that seems to believe that you need to be what I'd call a "girly girl" in order to be accepted; the term the author used was "gender policing" and while it's not an absolute, it is something I see quite a bit of.  Now let me say I am the kind of girl who wants to wear heels and makeup; but as the article pointed out there are plenty of cis-women who choose to not do so and are just as much of a woman as the women who do wear those things and conform to what I refer to as the historical female image.

In fact, my lovely wife was that way when we got together; she didn't wear heels (still doesn't really) or makeup and I still felt she was feminine and beautiful and every bit the woman I wanted to be with.  Now over time she's developed an appreciation for makeup, partially to try and make me happy I suspect; but as I've told her more than once, it is *HER* that makes me happy, not how much foundation or lipstick she's wearing.  I think she's beautiful when she's sleeping and just as beautiful when she first wakes up in the morning as she is after she's put on some nice clothes and makeup for work.  Her beauty doesn't come from the clothes and shoes she wears, the makeup she applies, or anything else tangible; her true beauty comes from inside.  Yes I know that's an age old cliche, but it's one I firmly believe in.  When she's happy her smile simply lights up a room and her love knows no limits, not only for me, but for my daughter - who is her step-daughter, for our cats, for her parents, and even for her friends.  So how can anyone say that because she may eschew the traditional feminine stereotype that she is any less of a woman than anyone else?  And if we can accept that, then how can it be any different for a Trans-woman?

The answer is that it cannot and should not.  As I said above, I *will* be one of those Trans-women wearing makeup, jewelry, heels, and so on; but I have just as much respect, perhaps more, for those that choose to not do those things.  Frankly, I'd think that the Transgender population would have more/better things to worry about than whether or not I'm wearing eyeliner or not - which I'm probably not since I'm still not very good with that.  For those Trans-women that do fixate on this and do "gender police" other Trans-women, I think you need to take a step back and evaluate your own situation as your problem isn't those "non-conforming" Trans-women, but rather yourself and as long as you fixate on others, well I just don't see how you can be truly happy with yourself.

- M

When Full-Time Isn't *Always* Full-Time

For all intents and purposes I've been "full-time" since September of 2012.  One notable exception to that is when I have a laser appointment.  I can't wear makeup to the appointment and while I did wear my wig to one of them since I had errands to run afterwards that was a problem as the hair on it is short enough you can't really tie it back and it got in the way of the numbing cream so I had to remove it and after it sat on the counter for 90 minutes (60 minutes for the cream to work and 30 for the session, etc) it was in such bad shape I couldn't do much with it.  So on those days I have to revert to basically what I'd call looking androgynous.  That's not all that bad as I now normally try and go directly there and come directly home so it's not like I'm out and about.  However, in order to get a really good shave and not go in with my skin irritated I tend to have to not shave a day or two in advance of the appointment and depending upon how the session goes it's usually at least a day or two (in some cases several days), before I'm able to start wearing makeup again.

So even though I'm only going every two months now, there's usually nearly a week's time where I can't really present as Madison.  Early on it didn't really bother me, but the last few months it has.  I'm happy to be me, I'm happy with how I look (at least most of the time), I enjoy getting out and about, and it's frustrating to either have to stay home or to have to compromise my appearance for those days.  It's my understanding that electrolysis won't be much better as I believe you have to let the hairs grow out a bit first and then my face may still be broken out afterwards.  I just wish this would wrap up - it's getting closer as my cheeks only have a hair here or there, but my lip area and my chin - really the sides of my chin - still need work.

The reason this came up is that I happened to get a bonus this check and my check happened to hit on Saturday instead of Monday like it should; and at the last minute I found out the bonus was to be a bit more than I had been told.  Now let's face it, J and M put up with a lot from me, be it helping me with makeup, hair, mannerisms, etc., be it dealing with my emotional swings, and so on; so I thought a nice lunch would be a good idea.  M has a thing for lobster - myself, not so much - I tend to think of them as "water roaches", but to each their own.  When I see lobster tails on sale I'll usually try and pick up some for her and J since they do like them and they are low calorie for the most part.  Well it seems that everybody is currently running lobster specials, including Red Lobster having their LobsterFest.  I agreed to take them there for lunch yesterday; but hadn't given any thought to the fact that my laser appointment was this evening (it was supposed to be Saturday, but J's schedule at work changed).

So I was left with either cancelling on them which didn't seem right, or simply presenting androgynous instead.  Neither option was great, but the latter seemed like the better of the two so we went with that.  Now I don't have any male clothing (other than a couple of work polos, and two pairs of khakis), so this consisted of black panties, women's blue jeans, black bra, black cami, black keyhole top, and last but not least what I guess I'd call a black poncho over it; along with two sets of stud earrings, a tasteful necklace, and flats.  My nails are always done and right now they happen to have a nice red gel polish with some silver sparkles so they stand out.  In the past, I probably would've tried to tone things done, perhaps taken the polish off, forsaken the jewelry, maybe worn tennis shoes, or so on.  But at this point I really didn't care; in the past I felt out of place when I dressed like that, and while I guess I still did yesterday.  I didn't think about that; I simply thought about how agitated I was that I couldn't go out looking nice instead.  But even that shouldn't have been the case, I did look nice - from the neck down - and I guess that's where the frustration lies.  Until the facial hair is no longer an issue I guess I have no choice but to live with these occasional occurrences, but they do stink.

I will say the food and service were both excellent.  I'm not a lobster person as I mentioned above so I had some platter with shrimp, clams, scallops, and fried fish; along with a caesar salad, those great cheddar biscuits and we all split a sampler platter with clams, chicken strips, and stuffed mushrooms.  However, their food really looked good, they both got "Dueling Lobster Tails" or whatever they call it - here is a picture of each.  The first one is M's as she got her's as is:

M's "Dueling Lobster Tails" - ordered "as-is"

And here is J's, she swapped out the mashed potatoes (and apparently the green beans too, although that was NOT supposed to be the case) for some lower calorie vegetables.  Still looked great:

J's "Dueling Lobster Tails" - ordered with steamed veggies

As much as I normally won't eat lobster, I will saw I was a bit jealous of their meals, mine was good but their's looked way better.  Not sure it was worth what it cost, but I figured a nice lunch was a small payment for all they do for me.

In the meantime I need to get some work done as I need to leave a bit early for our laser appointment, I'm a bit under the weather so I'm curious how that affects the pain I'll feel.  Regardless though I'd gladly accept the pain in exchange for my face not breaking out for a change as I'd like to get out of the house as Madison as I haven't much lately because of the surgery recovery and the weather and it's frustrating.

Gotta run...

- M

Transgender Sex Drive

Sex has always been something I was more or less uncomfortable with.  My first orgasm occurred under what I would call less than optimal circumstances and it was a touch traumatic for me as my father did a poor job explaining things and this was of course pre-Internet so it's not like I could research things on my own.  My first sexual experience was at the ripe old age of 23 and resulted in the daughter I'm so proud of today so my indoctrination to things wasn't exactly off to a rousing start.  To this day I've had a total of 3 1/2 partners, which probably bears some explaining; but that's for another place and another time.  I approached sex as sort of an obligation and it probably contributed to the sorry state of my first marriage, but that marriage was doomed before it started anyway.

Now don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than to please my wife J, but as time has progressed the various medicines - both HRT and blood pressure medication - and I would assume my state of mind has made doing so in the "traditional" way pretty much out of the question.  While I think my lack of sex drive bothered her early in our marriage, once I started transitioning she seems to understand where I'm coming from (or not coming from I suppose) much better and we make do around that.

The real question in my mind lately is more what will happen when/if I do finally undergo SRS/GRS?  From a physical standpoint it seems that the vast majority of those that do are able to experience an orgasm; but I'm starting to wonder if I will.  Since going on HRT not only have the parts down south become less than responsive, but even my breast/nipple area seems far less sensitive.  I know there are plenty of cis-males who are easily aroused in that area and I was one of them; to the point that in some cases I could actually orgasm from only that kind of stimulation and yet now it does virtually nothing for me.

So when/if SRS/GRS happens, will the sex drive actually be there?  I'd like to think so; but if not I will be very disappointed.  I'll still be happy that my body will finally "match", but that's a huge cost financially, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to undergo for something that may be physically functional but in practicality useless.  I guess I should stop thinking about it as I always have more pressing matters that could use the attention, but I just can't get it out of my mind.

Sorry for the rambling on, I sort of fell of the wagon in posting here the last week and this seemed like a good topic to get me going again, but it didn't really flow out like I thought it would.

- M

Taking Off The Pounds - Part 2

As I said in the earlier entry, I made an offer to J that I'd pursue my eventual surgery with Dr. McGinn if she could help me lose the requisite weight.  I agreed to follow her guidance since while my way had worked for the first 30-35lbs, I had obviously hit a plateau that I couldn't seem to get past.  The first thing she broached was for me to track my calorie intake at either SparkPeople or LoseIt.  I'm not sure why but I chose LoseIt.

My first quandary there was what "gender" to select.  Legally I'm female, I've been on hormones for well over a year now, but I was still physically a male and there is a definite calorie difference between the two.  We agreed that I'd go ahead and track as a Female, and we'd broach it with our GP since we had an upcoming visit.  The next choice was my goal weight, we settled on 170lbs since that's still probably heavy for my size, but it's also a good 10lbs under what it should take me to get to a BMI of 28 so I'd have some wiggle room there.  The last choice was how much to lose per week and we settled on 2lbs.

I was a bit shocked at the calorie limit that I'd need to adhere to to lose 2lbs/week - approximately 1500.  Now considering my affection for Coca-Cola at 140 calories per can, that was a real concern.  Not that I average it, but there have been days that I've probably downed 1500+ calories in just soda.  My next shock was just how many calories are in certain foods.  In some cases 200-300 calories in one of the Hardee's/Carl Jr.'s fresh made buns for example?

We agreed to start this on Thursday, February 28th of this year.  My first shock was when J brought me home lunch - she and M had went out shopping.  She brought me two of the Burger King Spicy Chicken sandwiches.  I'm not really a "mayo person", but when we were on our trip a couple of times we hit BK and got them as part of their 2/$5 and I just ate mine as-is since that's how J likes hers.  Well as it would have it two of those are in the 1200-1300 calorie range and with the soda they brought with it I had expended my calorie intake on one meal - this was going to be harder than I expected.

The next day I decided to look into a fitness tracker for us; I had been holding out for something from Samsung since I have a Galaxy S4 and she has my Galaxy S3 (from when I lost it at the airport a few months ago); but I was tired of waiting so I started poking around.  The best fit for us seemed to be the FitBit One model.  I looked at others, but they were either not as cost effective, didn't have Android support (hey Nike I mean you), or something else.  I had initially considered the FitBit Flex, but upon reading the reviews it seems to overstate activity which is something I've seen with the Walking Mate that is part of the S Health Suite on the GS4, so we went with the One as it's a dongle that would clip to a bra easily to stay out of the way.  In hindsight I probably could've went with the Zip since the differences seem to be sleep tracking which isn't a big deal to me and stair climbing which is only quasi-accurate on the One anyway from my observations.  At the last minute I decided if I was going to dive in with these, I might as well look at the FitBit Aria scale as well.

So that Saturday M and I were going shopping anyway so we swung by a Best Buy and I got all three of us one of the One's and an Aria scale.  A quick $400+ later we were on our way.  There are plenty of reviews of both devices out there, but I'll toss in my two cents in the next few days; but suffice it to say the One has really given me some incentive to up my activity.  Now in the case of J and M they can easily do 15000-20000+ steps a day at work; I on the other hand sit at a desk at home so I'm hard pressed to get any significant activity; so mine comes if we go out or if I venture down to the treadmill.  I actually spent two hours on it the other day over three sessions (30min, 1hr, 30min) and have been down there semi-consistently the last week or so now that I'm feeling better.  Their Android App works well as does their website.  There is integration to LoseIt (and others); although in the case of LoseIt you need to be a premium member which ran me another $40 each for J and I; although it will also sync the scale and other devices as well.  I didn't so much mind that as they have to make money somehow - which is something a great many people don't understand when they expect everything to be "free" on the web.

The big shock for me is that I seldom get any calorie adjustment on LoseIt from the FitBit - I need to usually hit near 10000 steps to start getting calories and it's not a whole lot at that.  Now J has gotten 1500+ calorie adjustments in many cases due to her being so active - it does make me jealous at times, but I still prefer my job to hers. :)  However, calories aside it's caused me to realize how active I am (or am not) in a day and to do something about it.  For example last night I ended up on the elliptical for 25 minutes and did a hour on the treadmill over two sessions so I could hit the 10000 steps.  I don't do that everyday, but even on days that I don't I tend to try and be up and moving a lot more than I used to, so it's been worth it to me so far.  J is the same way as she's tracking everything on LoseIt as well.  For M - well it's more of a "toy" than anything, but I felt bad getting J and I one and not her, so it was worth it even in her case and I have noticed her being more active even if she isn't really tracking her food, etc.

So far it's been a bit over a week and I've had some fluctuation as always, but I'm down about 4-5lbs so far, but the key will be in say a month to see if I've been able to continue to lose weight or if I'm still stuck around the 225lbs I am right now (well 224.8 <G>).  But I have faith that J won't let that happen, and for that matter nor will I.

- M

Taking The Pounds Off - Part 1

Growing up I was a smaller child; or at least it seemed that way.  I think part of it was my age in comparison to my peers.  I did start school a year earlier than most and when my senior year started I was still 16 instead of the 17/18 most of my classmates were.  I did play 3 years of high school football as an offensive lineman, so you might think I was good sized, but that would be wrong.  In fact my senior year I actually started as the right guard on the offensive line and my weight by the time the first game of the season rolled around?  A whole 125lbs and a height of 5 feet 7 on a good day (in spikes).  At my size I was probably better than many would expect, but by no means anything special.  However, due to my academics I did some mild interest from a few D3 schools, including Washington University here in St. Louis.  While WashU would've been a nice school for me to attend, the price even with grants, scholarships, and such was higher than was really feasible for us without me burying myself in student loans.  As such as I ended up going to the University of Missouri - Columbia for year on a full-ride (that's a different story for another day).

The point of all that was that suddenly without football and football practice and being away from home for the first time I started putting on weight.  I didn't really get the "Freshman 15", but more the "Freshman 25", which made me start to look chubby, but not too bad as I had incredibly muscular legs from pushing that 7-man sled around in practice.  I stayed around 150lbs for a couple of years, but eventually I started to creep upwards.  Eventually a couple of years ago I had hit nearly 260lbs which on my frame *is a lot*.  Truth be told, all five of us could stand to lose some weight and at times we have, J did some great work a couple of years ago when she was running a lot, but she's slipped since.  Three years ago, M talked me into trying the HCG diet and that was effective for me and I lost 25-30lbs; but I couldn't keep it off and put it on within 1-2 months of going off of the diet.  I had sort of given up on being any smaller.

Then came my decision to transition.  I won't say my weight was a deterrent to me doing so as I've obviously pursued it anyway; but the further in I've gotten the more it's concerned me.  Part of that is simply my overall health, especially the last few months since J and I's relationship has gotten so much better (not that it was bad before, but it's different now), part of it is simply vanity.  I'm not saying that you can't find cute "plus sized" clothes as I have some; but as you get bigger the options dwindle and that frustrated me.  Not to mention that a larger person is simply more prone to get scrutinized and in public I want to fit it.  However, the single biggest "incentive" for me to do something is that at least some, if not all, of the "name" SRS/GRS surgeon's basically have weight limits in place.  Dr. McGinn wants I believe a BMI <=28, Dr. Bowers wants I believe a weight <= 210lbs, and so on.

Now, as I've discussed I'm in a best case probably 2-3 years from pursuing surgery, but I was also a good 50lbs (Dr. Bowers requirement) to 80lbs (Dr. McGinn's BMI requirement) over the weight I'd need to be.  Now while I initially was interested in Dr. Bowers, from what I've gathered her wait list is exceedingly long so I've moved my focus to either Dr. Brassard in Canada or Dr. McGinn.  Going to Canada is more of an "all inclusive" experience and I'd likely go alone, but if I went to Dr. McGinn then J would go and she wants that so that means 80lbs need to come off.

I started working on things when J went away for her training last year.  With her gone I was able to better watch what I ate and I started losing weight.  Over those 8 weeks I lost about 20-25lbs and got down to the 235lb range and was much happier with myself.  Over the next couple of months I lost another 10-15lbs, I actually got as low as just under 222lbs, but I more or less settled around 225lbs.  By then we entered the holidays and I would gain a few pounds here or there, but I could get right back to around 225lbs without much effort which made me happy to be able to maintain that weight for so long.

Well here we are in March 2014, I'm still around the 225lb mark which is nice that I can maintain that weight, but I still need to lose 45lbs (if I want to see Dr. McGinn).  Over the last few months I've discovered how much I do like to cook and I tend to try and make J (and anybody else who wants it) dinner most nights and we do get out more so it's gotten hard to get going again.  So recently because I know J wants to go when/if I have SRS/GRS, I made her an offer, if she can help see that I get down to 180lbs and stay there then we'll pursue Dr. McGinn in lieu of Dr. Brassard and she could go with me.  As such we've put some processes in place that hopefully will help.  I had intended on getting to those here, but this has run long so I guess this will be a 2 part entry after all.  :)

- M

When (Hopefully) Good Intentions Go Wrong....

I tend to share a lot of things here; some personal (more than I ever thought), and some actual experiences which was the initial point of the blog.  I've also shared my experiences elsewhere, with Reddit being the most common these days.  Perhaps some people can find it helpful, perhaps not, but either way I've made an effort.

The one thing I try to be careful about is giving advice.  Advice to me is dangerous ground as while we all have experiences and opinions, all of us also live/work/play under different circumstances.  Perhaps those circumstances are financial, perhaps family, perhaps job related, and so on, but no two people are ever in the exact same circumstances so what I or anyone else may want to suggest may or may not be the right thing for somebody else.  So while I'm definitely not bashful about sharing *my experiences* with people, I always am careful about commenting on anything when it is something like "<blah blah blah>, what should I do?" kinds of questions.  I'm not saying I don't make comments on occasion, but they are always thought out and carefully worded.

The reason I'm talking about this now is that I see a lot of those types of posts on Reddit - and for that matter I used to see them on Susan's and Laura's Playground too; Reddit is just "busier" and tends to have more of those; especially younger people and that's where my concern lies.  One thing that therapy has helped me with is to look back at moments in my life and how it relates to me choosing to finally transition.  Remember that I grew up well before the Internet was what it is today.  I was in my early 20's before it was what I would consider readily available to the public and I was really into my late 20's before it became the vast entity it is today.  So I didn't have the resources then that are out there today about the gender issues I struggled with and the transitioning process.  Yes people did it back then, but you couldn't just go do a Google search and find more information than you could read in a lifetime.

The first I heard about a "sex-change" was Danielle Bunten Berry.  Dan Bunten was a software designer who worked on several games that I spent a lot of time playing when I was younger such as M.U.L.E. and 7 Cities Of Gold.  I read about him a lot in the various computer magazines back then and he became sort of an idol of mine - the fact that he was originally from the St. Louis area didn't hurt either.  I believe it was 1992 that Dan Bunten had SRS and became Danielle Bunten Berry.  I'm sure it took time, but it really seemed to just happen over night and there were a few articles that I was able to see at the time (I found a lot more a few years later on the Internet).  As much as Dan Bunten was an idol to me, Danielle was even more so as she had done what I felt I wanted to do and that was transition to a female.  I was crushed later on when I read how poorly it ended up going for her and how she was basically miserable with her decision.  I won't lie, that did have an impact on my thoughts and was one of (along with getting married and having a daughter) the reasons I sort of gave up the issue back then.

So why is the last paragraph relevant to this?  I see so many younger people that are looking into DIY HRT and trying to make life altering decisions without involving their parents, therapists, Doctors, and so on; and it worries me.  I would be the first to admit that children these days are a lot more informed then I was back then; but no matter how informed they may or may not be; they lack life experiences and in many cases the understanding of the consequences that may come from a given decision.  As a parent myself I'm not sure how I would've handled it if my daughter would've wanted to transition herself at say 15 or 16; I'd like to think I would've been understanding and done whatever I could for her.  In my mind that would've been getting her to see a gender therapist and then going forward from there.  However, perhaps I feel that way because of myself; and there are plenty of parents out there who would not handle it well for various reasons.  So I understand the apprehension of a young person who feels like transitioning is for them, I'm just concerned about how it will play out when they decide to dive into the deep end of the pool with no lifeguard on duty so to speak.

Now what does the last paragraph have to do with the topic?  Well, it comes down to people giving advice on sites such as Reddit, etc.  I'm sure (most) of it is given with good intentions - at least I hope so - but I also think that a lot of it is given without any consideration of who the advice is being given to.  Now these are simply my opinions, but for example I find it incredibly irresponsible to tell a 16 year old that it's fine to start self-medicating hormones.  I find it irresponsible to tell a 16 year old that transitioning is the right choice for them when the only knowledge you have of them is a short post on how they feel.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  I hear the term "informed consent" pop up a lot when it comes to justifying DIY HRT, and for the right person perhaps that's fine, but just how "informed" is the consent of somebody who is say 16 going to be?

At 16, are they really ready for the things that come with transition?  In the right setting it may well be the right decision and work out wonderfully.  However, in the wrong setting it may well end up as a disaster and that's what bothers me so much.  I just wish that more thought was given to some of the advice that's being dispensed to people, especially younger people.  Giving them a picture of the best possible scenario - well it may make them feel better at the moment, but I think it's sending them down a path where they may not consider how it's more likely to be and that's a recipe for disaster *in my opinion*.  Just to be clear, I'm not against giving advice, I'm not against younger people transitioning; what I'm against is painting a rosy picture that all will be wonderful; when the more likely scenario is that it will be difficult at best and possible more than they are ready to handle at such a young age.  Maybe I'm wrong in my views on all of this and I welcome dissenting opinions.

- M

Being "Pretty" Around The House...

When I go out, be it by myself, or with any combination of J, M, or others; I want to look nice.  I imagine that's especially common among those of us transitioning from male to female.  Prior to my transition I was a relative slob, almost always wore khaki's and a polo, untied tennis shoes, and so on.  Now I want the outfit to be "just right" and I feel nice when it is.  The internal struggle I have is when I'm just around the house.  Now for me that's a lot of the time as I do work from home.

I've always had lots of excuses to not get "dolled up" when it's just going to be a typical day around the house, let me see how many come to mind:

1. Why should I dirty the extra clothes?
2. What if I spill something on them and ruin them?
3. Even if I do get dressed, I look in the mirror and see a "male" face.
4. I'll just (needlessly) waste a bunch of makeup.
5. Shaving every day hurts my face.
6. Without having my own hair, I think I look like a cross-dresser.
7. If everybody else is at work or sleeping (for those on the night shift) and there's nobody to see me what does it matter?
8. I feel silly walking around the house in nice clothes and shoes.

I think that's probably enough to give you an idea of what was going through my mind.  The thing is as time has passed those excuses seem to have become less valid - let's visit each of them:

1. Valid point, but considering that J & I do laundry every week regardless, I guess that really doesn't matter now does it?
2. It's called being more careful.  And in the event that I'm not, well that's life.  I could just as easily ruin something going to the store or out to dinner or whatever else.  Life happens.
3. That one - well that one is a two part issue and it's the amount of facial hair and the lack of hair on my head.  Let me address this one in points 4/5/6 below.
4. Maybe, but there's no reason I have to use my "nice" makeup.  I could use some cheap drugstore makeup for around the house.  Yeah maybe it won't look quite as nice; but it also won't cost all that much and truthfully I could use the practice.
5. Let me qualify, regular shaving isn't too bad, but when I know I'm going out I shave twice - both with and against the grain and it does irritate my face.  However, the laser hair treatments have *significantly* affected this and now it's not so much of an issue.  I'm not saying I want to shave 365 days a year; but recently there have been times where I've went out 3-4 days straight and I've been fine, so I guess we can mark this one off the list now too.
6. Valid point, but considering I have several wigs now that I like - well not so much of an excuse anymore then is it.
7. Again a valid point on the face of things.  But considering that looking nice does make me feel happy and better about myself, I guess that should be enough.  Another excuse now show down.
8. Yes, maybe I should feel silly walking around in a cocktail dress and stilettos around the house; but what's wrong with a cute skirt or some capris or something along with a nice top?  And for that matter a nice pair of flats, a cute pair of wedges, or some nice pumps?  It's not like I'd be the only woman doing it; I know some that would happily run around in a nightgown all day if they could; but I also know ones that do get up and look nice the entire day as well; so why should I feel silly?

So while I've basically shot all of those reasons down and have made the case that I can/should do it because it makes me happy; that wasn't quite enough of a reason for me.  However, I have finally found a reason that is enough to make me want to start doing looking nice on a consistent basis.  And that's my wife J.  She goes out of her way to look nice for me, even on her days off; so why shouldn't I be doing the same back for her?  She does work long shifts and I know she's tired when she comes home so I've almost always got dinner ready for her when she walks in; but why shouldn't I be capable of looking nice for her too?  Not that she's ever complained about how I look around the house; but shouldn't she get what she gives when it comes to this?  After thinking about it, my answer would be yes; so going forward she's going to get that effort out of me not only when we're going out, but every day of the week.

I know not everybody can do that or even would want to, but for those with a doting partner at home I think it's at least worth considering.  :)

- M

How Much To Share?

This is a topic that I've fought with since I started to transition.  In my mind the question really is two questions:

1)  How much to share with friends/family?
2)  How much to share with everyone else?

For me the first one is actually the more difficult one to answer.  Obviously J knows about everything.  M knows almost everything, but on occasion I spare her certain particulars.  Beyond that, there isn't much family I communicate with.  I generally don't talk about much with my daughter unless it directly affects her - such as when J and I went out of town for surgery.  M's husband, well I'm assuming she shares things with him, but in general I don't.

For those that aren't clear on "my family", let me touch on it a bit.  My "birth family" - well I have no real contact with them for various reasons.  When I say "family" I'm talking about what I refer to as my "chosen family" and that consists of:

• My wife "J"
• My daughter - I've always refer to her as that in this blog, but going forward I think she will be "P"
• My ex-wife "M".  This one is the one that most people have trouble wrapping their heads around.  We were married for just short of 10 years.  We were a horrible married couple for a lot of reasons, our age, our maturity levels, etc.  It didn't help that we shared a house with my mom, sister, etc (my mother and I had bought right after I got married).  She finally decided she wanted a divorce which crushed me and it was a little dicey for a couple of months.  However, while we did divorce we became great friends; I now refer to her as my "best friend" and more the last few years, my "sister".  Obviously not by blood, but that's how I see her.  We ended up moving back in together into a townhouse while we looked for a house.  As I said we had become good friends at the time and it would allow our daughter to grow up in one household.  She had a second (very short lived) husband who moved it, but that lasted only a few months before they divorced and he was gone.  We eventually found a new house that was nearly complete and we (M, P, and myself) planned on moving in along with M's grandfather.  Her grandmother had recently passed and her grandfather was starting to have trouble living on his own.  Unfortunately in between us closing on the house and moving in, he passed as well.  By now I had met J and she moved in with me/us.  M would eventually get married for a third time and her husband moved in as well.  So as it stands now we have a reasonably nice 4 bedroom home for the 5 of us.
• M's husband who I think I will now refer to as M2.  :)

It's definitely not a "traditional" family, but it works for us, at least for the most part.  There are issues from time to time, but no different than the issues that M and I had when living with my birth family.  Additionally, she's not family, but I do mention "D" from time to time.  She's a former co-worker of mine that transitioned a couple of years prior to me and was really the push I needed to pursue it myself.  I can't say enough wonderful things about her.

Now that I've given you more information that you probably need or wanted to know, let's move on.  Beyond my "chosen family", the only other family I really interact with are one uncle/aunt (my dad's brother) and one of their daughter-in-laws who has went out of her way to be friendly with J and I.  

I basically handle them the same way I handle the people I consider "friends" and that's via Facebook.  I share certain things there, such as pictures of me/J, and other stuff; but not a whole lot of really personal things.  But it always becomes an internal debate as how much to really share and how personal to get.  I know they care and such (more the three family members than the friends do I would think), but I also don't want to over burden them with anything as I know they have their own concerns, issues, etc., and don't need to be pondering mine.

As far as "everyone else", I think that's a more interesting question than the friends/family.  Maybe I'm wrong in that, but to me with family and/or friends you know them and can make determinations as to how they can/will handle things and the like.  With "everyone else" and by "everyone else" I really mean publicly via the Internet.  Once something is out there, it won't ever go away and while a huge majority of people don't seem to care (see Facebook <G>), it's a bigger concern for those of us who are transitioning as it can affect not only our own personal lives, but those of friends and family, employment and so on.  

From my observation there are three broad categories here; those that choose to share nothing or virtually nothing and are basically "stealth"; those that share about everything; and then everybody else.  I believe I've been a part of all three of those groups in the last twenty months, starting with the first one.

When I first chose to transition as I've discussed previously I spoke with J, M, and D; although by the time I spoke with D I had made my decision and that was more of a Q&A session over lunch with her, M, and I.  However, I really didn't share with anybody else, even at home.  I had been cross-dressing for years around the house so I figured my daughter wouldn't notice much of anything anyway - and as far as M2 goes I figured M shared with him and I didn't need to.  But I kept quiet on places such as Facebook and Susan's Place where I did a lot of reading and such, but didn't post anything, and so on.  I didn't even tell any friends beyond D.  

After my first therapist session that sort of changed and I moved into that "everyone else" stage where I started sharing some things.  I had walked out of there feeling absolutely wonderful and I guess the word would be empowered.  I proceed to create a new Facebook account for Madison and started slowing adding selected friends.  I tended to be very choosy about who I added as I knew certain people may tell others and I wanted to remain in control of who knew.  I started posting on Susan's Place, including some pictures and I felt good.  This stage continued for a long time for me, probably a year or so.

About six months ago, I decided I was going to be more open and I opened up my Facebook account privacy and started this blog.  Now I had closed my account on Susan's, but it wasn't about being private, but for other reasons that I've covered previously.  In addition, more recently I've tried to become at least semi-active on the AskTransgender subreddit; and I was recently invited into a couple of relevant Google Groups.  I do now try and share about everything.  Initially that wasn't my intention, it was more to share those public experiences, be it shopping, dining out, legal things such as the way court worked for me for my name/gender change, and so on.  I always wanted to read everything I could about "real-world" experiences in regards to transitioning, and I wanted to try and give back by sharing mine.  But over time I've found I spend more time writing personal things.  I know they aren't nearly as beneficial as the non-personal things I post about, but I think it's a good outlet for me.  I'm probably sharing more than I should and it may well come back to bite me someday; but for now it's a risk I'm willing to take.

I guess I should go, work calls.  Have a great day.

Being Afraid....

I think everyone, or at least almost everyone has fear(s) of some sort.  Some are more common that others such as Acrophobia, which is the fear of heights (which I have among other things), some not so common such as Xanthophobia - which is the fear of the color yellow - as to why I know that, well I don't know since I don't have that one. :)  Many of those fears are easily managed, for example my fear of heights - well I tend to not go anywhere high.  Others, well those tend to be harder.

I have one particular fear that has come up since my transition - I initially didn't understand why, but recently I connected the dots and now I know.  That fear is if (when?) my mind starts to go.  I have no idea what my IQ truly is, but I was accepted into MENSA which by their standards is the top 2%.  In times past I took a lot of pride in that and it fed my ego; but since my decision to transition, that's waned.  Perhaps it was the fact that there are so many things about being a woman I don't know and don't understand well - such as makeup; perhaps it was simply me wanting to be a better person, most likely I guess it's a combination of things.

The thing is, it's not about me losing my mental acuity, that would probably bother me a bit, but I can live with that.  What I truly fear is losing the memories that are precious to me.  As I said above, I recently connected the dots on why this has suddenly become so troubling to me and looking back it was when J spent the better part of that 8 weeks out of town for her training.  I've always loved her, but during those 8 weeks, I finally realized just how much I loved her and how special she is.  We've always had our good times and our bad times; but since then the good times have become so much more common and so much better, the bad have become so much more infrequent and much less of an issue.  I now cherish the moments I have with her and the memories of those moments.

I had been keeping this to myself as thinking about that happening seems to almost instantly bring the tears on, in fact that's what's happening as I type this - and it's hard to type through teary eyes.  If I started to cry about it in front of her, I tried to chalk it up to the hormones, but reality is that my dosage has been stable for a while and even though I've been more emotional since the orchiectomy (at least after the first week post-op); this has been going on since well before that.  I'm sure she at least had an idea that there was more to it than I was letting on, but took me at my word and didn't overly press the issue.  However, the other day it finally came out.  Actually it was the day we finally came the rest of the way home from our trip for my surgery.  We had stopped for lunch about 30 minutes from home at a BBQ place.  It was early afternoon, pretty much halfway between lunch and dinner so it was really quiet with only maybe three tables occupied and we were spread out pretty good.

I've been trying to get photos of her when we are doing things that I really want to remember.  While I do it at home as well as when we are out; more often than not when we are out it's when we're eating.  It's not really intentional that I do it then; it's simply practical.  We're usually sitting across from one another and I usually have my phone sitting on the table next to me.  When I went to do it that day she again asked why I was getting a picture of her "stuffing her face" (or something to that effect - I don't remember the exact phrase) and I finally felt I should come clean.  I explained to her how much I cherish the time we've been spending together and if/when my memories ever start to go I thought perhaps those pictures would help me keep hold of those memories.  Maybe I've seen one too many movies (50 First Dates for example), maybe I'm just being silly, but I never want to let those memories slip away and if there is any chance those photos could help then I'm going to keep taking them.  

J was so sweet and understanding as I started crying about and said the sweetest things to me.  She's always so supportive, but the level of understanding she showed me that day meant more than she can imagine.  With all the things to possibly worry about, this might seem silly to a lot of people; but it's important to me and she understood that and made me feel better.  Thinking about it still brings me to tears, such as now talking about it, or even last night when we went out to dinner and I got a nice picture of her eating a piece of lobster.  The memory there was her telling me the ones I recently made at home were better; and maybe they were, but probably not - but the fact that she told me they were meant so much to me, more than I admitted to her and it made it a memory I want to keep forever.  So now I have yet another precious photo to add to the collection.  

I'm not sure that I really had a point here at all, which is probably out of the norm for me, but I thought I'd feel better if I wrote this down - I'm not sure that I do or not; but at least I gave it a shot.

- M