Category Archives: Authenticity

Informed Consent

I walked out of my appointment at Callen-Lorde, on Thursday morning, with a box of 30 packets of 25mg of 1% testosterone gel (Perrigo brand, expires 5/2018) and a signed Informed Consent form.

The week before the appointment I kept flip-flopping. When I walked in, I didn’t know if I was going to bring it up again. I didn’t know if my new Nurse Practitioner even remembered that was why I came in a year ago, when I had my intake with her predecessor, but, right after she asked me how I was feeling, she asked me if I wanted a prescription. I squeaked out “Yes.” She said my blood work looked good, my cholesterol was down, and if I chose to use hormones she’d monitor my progress and work with me.

She took out the Informed Consent form, and quickly ran down the risks: increased cholesterol, increased number of red blood cells, acne, and increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and liver inflammation. Then she read me the irreversible body changes: deepening of voice, facial and body hair, fat redistribution, and male pattern baldness.

I signed, she signed, and another Callen-Lorde staff member signed as the witness. It took less than two minutes. She asked me if I wanted to set up a follow-up, and I told her that I wanted to wait a while before I started, if I started, and that I’d set something up when I had a plan.

Before I left, I asked her if she had other clients who took low-dose testosterone and how they fared on it. She said that everyone was different, but that it was not uncommon to start on a 1/2 packet (12.5mg) and wait and see what happens and how it feels. The gel is slower and less of a shock to the system than injection. It is matter of personal preference, but she hadn’t worked with anyone who regretted starting. Continue reading →

What I’ve Learned From Women Who Detransitioned

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How does someone decide between living as a butch lesbian or a trans man? What if you make the wrong choice? What if neither identity feels authentic?

These questions stick with me through my journey. At first, and still to some extent, I was envious of trans men who were absolutely certain they wanted to transition. Who knew they were men. Who wanted everything to happen as fast as possible. Reincarnation. To make a clean break with their past.

I watched videos and read blogs. Some were too pat. Too insistent that everything was fabulous. They weren’t struggling, except to get coverage for top surgery. They proudly documented their changes on testosterone week by week. Then I watched a video about going off testosterone. They stopped because it didn’t feel right. Because they didn’t like how they felt on it.

Each detransition story I’ve heard is unique, but the unifying message is that they didn’t feel authentic being a man. It felt false, they didn’t recognize the face in the mirror, or they felt they’d lost their soul. Some accepted they were transgender, but were closer to genderqueer or non-binary than male. Some went back to butch. Some (re)embraced being female and gender non-conforming. Continue reading →

Mx. Fix-It

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I miss transistor radios. In the summer, I’d lie in bed, trying to stay awake, listening to the radio station of the New York Mets. Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner gave the play by play. They held out hope that somehow, someway, the Mets could turn it around and win the game. I held out hope that somehow, someway, I’d wake up and be a boy.

Transistor radios were magical. Portable. Cheap. SImple. They had an on switch, a volume control dial, a tuning dial, and an earphone jack. I still own a variety of boy toys that play music. My iPod and iPhone are the current pocket size devices that keep me connected me to my past.

For the first time in my life I am having trouble keeping up with technology. Not just computers and smart phones, but appliances that have too many bells and whistles. Unless it is made by Apple, I am no longer able to look at the box, unpack it, and go right to the quick-set-up-guide. I am doomed when the first step is to download the App and go into product settings.

I’ve always been good at setting stuff up. Cribs, IKEA furniture, stereo systems, or computer networks. I’m careful, I’m logical, I’m diligent, and I read the instructions. Lately, I’m afraid of turning into the angry old man who rails at the sales clerk that digital files are the devil’s handiwork and that nothing will ever sound as sweet as an analog LP (i.e. a vinyl record album) and a vacuum tube amplifier. Continue reading →

The Seductiveness of Masculinity

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Prometheus and the Eagle

When I identified as a butch lesbian I envied other butches who were more masculine appearing than I am. The butches who were taller, slimmer, squarer, and more muscular. The butches who were mistaken for teenage boys, who had no curves, and looked natural in black boots and motorcycle jackets. I knew I couldn’t pull it off, I knew that if i tried I would look like a pear-shaped dorky wanna-be. Better to look like a butch nerd.

Before the transmasculine support group at The Center starts, while we are siting around in a circle, I compare myself against everyone else. I’m trying to suss out who reads as female, as transitioning, or as male. I pay attention to clothing, facial shape, voice, and beard growth. I know I am ranking all of us, with female at the bottom and male at the top, with pre-T lower than already on T. I’m hoping that I’m in the middle. Continue reading →

For Ryan

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Ryan Powell died last week. I know Ryan from the transmasculine support group at the LGBT Community Center. Ryan was sweet. He listened intently, and without judgement. In a group you can tell whether someone is really listening or just waiting to speak. He didn’t interrupt, he didn’t cut anyone off, he didn’t roll his eyes, or keep turning the conversation back to himself. He wasn’t trying to be cool. He said he was in recovery and struggling. He died of a heroin overdose. He was 34.

I know random things about Ryan, but not his whole story. It is hard to get anyone’s whole story. He told me that he transitioned in his teens, then realized that he was not binary, and went off testosterone. I know he didn’t like having facial hair. I know he liked to play with make-up and nail polish. I know he was an artist. There is so much I don’t know about him. Continue reading →

Reconsidering Puberty

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Roz Chast’s take on puberty, from The New Yorker.

I was ten years old, when my brother was Bar Mitzvah’d. It was a big deal. The synagogue was packed and there was a big party at a fancy restaurant afterward. I have no memories of the event at all. I don’t even remember what my mother made me wear.

I do remember watching my brother prepare for the ceremony. Week after week, he struggled to read his Torah portion, in Hebrew, out loud. His voice kept cracking. He was becoming a man. I was still a girl.

The next year I got my period. I didn’t want to become a woman. I didn’t want my breasts to grow. I didn’t want to wear a bra. I didn’t want to get my period or sprout pimples all over my face. I didn’t want to shave under my arms. I alternated between being angry and wanting to cry. I hated that everyone was waiting for me to “blossom”. I withdrew. I didn’t want any parties or celebrations.

I think, if you asked me, at age 11, if I’d rather go through female puberty, male puberty, or no puberty at all, I would have answered no puberty at all. I mistrusted adults. I did not understand teenagers. I was scared of dating, sex, pregnancy, marriage, and parenthood. I wanted to be a boy. I wanted to keep things simple. Continue reading →

The Land of Enchantment

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New Mexico landscape

Pico Iyer wrote “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.” in two weeks Donna and I will be going on an eleven day trip to New Mexico. It is the first time we’ve traveled together in two years. First, Donna had open heart surgery. Then, after she completed cardio rehab, we planned a trip to northern Italy. The week after we paid for our airline tickets she broke her ankle. Donna is walking with a cane, but it is the cancelled trip to Italy that still hurts.

New Mexico should be a painless trip. Donna won’t have to do a lot of walking. We won’t have jet lag. We will be driving though a beautiful part of the country, with many Pueblos, adobe churches, ancient cliff dwellings, and petroglyphs to visit. We were there 25 years ago, but I barely remember it, even when I look at the pictures.

Jamie, 1992, New Mexico

We both need to shake up our routine, and traveling is the best way for us to do it. Sometimes you can only make sense of your world by stepping out of it. After we visit Santa Fe and Taos, I have no idea where we are going, except that I’ve insisted that it include a soak in a hot springs.

We are trying to not read too much into the trip, but we are both thinking that if we enjoy it then we might be able go to Italy in October. Donna doesn’t know if her current condition is as good as it is going to get, or whether her energy and walking strength will continue to improve. I don’t want New Mexico to turn into an eleven day stress test to see how much she can do before she wilts. We need to figure out what pace is comfortable, and make our peace with it.

Donna is anxious about the effect of the altitude (7000 ft. above sea level). I am anxious about the attitude. The airport security, public bathrooms, making a spectacle of myself by wearing trunks and a rash guard in the hot springs, and getting a massage.

I haven’t flown since I had top surgery. The last coupe of times I went though airport security were stressful. The TSA stopped me, patted me down thoroughly, questioned me, and swabbed my palms for explosives. There was also an unpleasant incident with a male security guard in the women’s restroom in the Houston Airport (this time we have a stop over in Dallas). I am bracing myself for another strange encounter.

If anything, this time around I am a bit more ambiguous, and a lot less likely to apologize when something happens. When I laid out my clothes for the trip (using Rick Steves’ Packing Checklist) I realized that I will be a study in blue. Blue striped T-shirts, blue plaid button downs, a chambray workshirt, blue swim trunks, and denim jeans. A blue zip hoodie and a midnight blue Gore-Tex jacket. Everything I am packing is something that I am 100% comfortable in. It is the best travel wardrobe I’ve ever assembled and not coincidentally, the most masculine.

One thing I like about travel is that I can leave my personal history at home, and be anonymous, or at least taken at face value. I experience myself differently in a new place, through my own eyes, and through other people’s eyes. Hopefully, I can take a break from my incessant questioning of where my transition is going, and just enjoy being where I am. The land of enchantment.

Notes: The Pico Iyer piece “Why We Travel” can be read, in its entirety, here.

The “Land of Enchantment” is the official nickname of New Mexico. Unfortunately, the official nickname of New York State is the “Empire State” which is much less enchanting.

There Is No Turning Back

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There are three boxes of Streit’s Passover 100% Whole Wheat Matzos on my kitchen counter. I don’t eat bread during Passover. I don’t eat any chametz (wheat, barley, spelt, oats or rye) for the eight days of the holiday. I’m not particularly observant, but eating matzo and creating a queer/feminist seder help me feel connected to my heritage and to other people who are struggling to be free.

The rule to “eat matzoh but nothing else made from flour” makes sense to me. My parents explained that we made matzo because we (the ancient Jews) were fleeing persecution and didn’t have the luxury of letting the bread dough rise and baking it in an oven. Once Moses set foot in the Red Sea there was no turning back. I understood it symbolically, but I wished that matzo tasted like a pancake instead of a burnt cracker. Continue reading →

Magical Thinking

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When I was a child, I believed that I could become a boy by wearing boy’s clothes and acting like a boy. My first attempt to transition was when I was five. I got a short hair cut and I took a new name (I didn’t tell anyone that I changed my name, but I thought of myself as Paul). I refused to wear dresses. I waited for other changes to start happening. I waited for people to notice that I was really a boy.

It was magical thinking. I really believed that if I tried hard enough and wished for it fervently, then something would happen. Then my mother would finally allow me to wear pants to school. Then my teacher would allow me to lineup with the boys.

I refused to accept the obvious because it hurt more than insisting on the imaginary. I kept believing that it was possible, even probable, that I would wake up one day and be boy. While I waited, I lived “as if”.

According to Piaget, the prime ages for magical thinking are between two and seven years old. I started on time, but I missed the cutoff by about 50 years. I am a magical thinker. Continue reading →

I Am Not My Car

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I own a sage green 2006 Subaru Outback with 84,000 miles on it. I park it on the street. In Manhattan. Last year someone keyed a big scratch in the passenger side door (maybe they didn’t like our bumper stickers?). It has a lot of parking dings. I’m good at finding parking spaces, but not so good at fitting in them. I’m also responsible for bringing the car in for routine maintenance, and keeping the insurance, registration, and inspections up to date.

I don’t know much about cars. I grew up in the city and my parents never owned a car. A couple of times a year, if we were coming home late at night, my parents would splurge on a taxi. Mostly, we took the bus, or stayed in our neighborhood. I thought people who kept a car in the city were crazy. Then Donna inherited a little money from her father and used it to buy a house in the country. We got a car. I learned to drive in my thirties.

Friday afternoon, I packed up enough food for a long weekend upstate and left the bags in the lobby of our apartment building. I took Gracie for a walk, and then we went to pick up the car (where I had parked it the day before after the street sweeper went by). I put Gracie in the back, slid into the driver’s seat, and put the key in the ignition. The dashboard lights and the radio came on, but the car would not start.

My brother knows about as much about cars as I do. His coping mechanism is to buy a shiny new Lexus SUV every three years. I wish we had grown up around cars. I wish our Dad could have taught us how to listen to a car, how to parallel park, and how to merge into oncoming traffic safely. I wish I could have called that Dad on Friday.

Instead, I called the auto repair shop I got my inspection sticker from. They said it could be the ignition switch, the starter, or the fuel pump. They told me to call AAA and get a tow. After I assured AAA that I was stuck in a safe (albeit tight) parking spot, they told me it would be about an hour. Gracie and I waited. I called Donna and told her to bring the groceries back upstairs and put them away.

Exactly an hour later, a small AAA SUV arrived and a slight goateed guy in his twenties hopped out and asked me to pop open the hood of my car. I drew a blank. I couldn’t remember where the hood release lever was. I would have let Mr. AAA find it but Gracie was jumping up and down, barking, and bearing her teeth. I finally found it on the left side under the dashboard. I thought “If I was a real guy I would have handled this better.” Continue reading →

A Boy and Her Dog

Traversing the Border between Butch and Transgender