Transition
Diary
Had first injection from Dr Russell Reid, private
consultation in
Bruised feeling now gone. Feeling more energetic (possibly psychological), no longer having problems getting out of bed in the morning. Clitoris noticeably larger. Took private prescription to Tesco pharmacy, they had to order the right size syringes and said the stuff would be ready tomorrow.
Went to the barber for first time in 3 months; he didn’t recognise me at first, then said my movements and speech have become notably more masculine, which at this stage is obviously not down to the injections but probably just me being more accustomed to living in male role. Took a few voice sample recordings for future reference, though obviously my voice is still girly at the moment! Picked up my 6mths’ supply of testosterone from Tesco, cost just under £50, including syringes and needles. Also, menstruating hopefully for the last time.
Woke up this morning with a few spots under the surface, by lunchtime I could see I was starting to break out. Not really bad, about the same as when I was a teenager, which was roughly 6 or 7 small spots on the face at once, plus patchy, reddish complexion.
This could be my imagination, but a friend backs me up here…the bones under my eyebrows seem to have changed in some way. Not enough that anyone would notice just to look at straight away, but enough so that I, who have lived with this body all my life, notice the difference. Feels different when I rub my eyes.
Second injection. I did it tonight, about 12 hours early, I know, but there was a good reason. It was the first time I’d self-injected, and I decided to do it in my thigh as I’m not as flexible as I’d need to be to do it in the buttock accurately. Bearing in mind the pain from my last injection, I knew it’d make me limp for a day or so, so I decided to get it started on Friday night, to be able to walk alright for Monday to take the kids to school.
I have to admit I got a bit drunk to give myself Dutch courage to do it!! Unfortunately though because I was drunk I made a slight error in judgement, and after injecting (which was pretty painless actually, the needle went right through my skin and muscle as if they were paper), I realised that I’d left half the stuff in the phial, so I had to suck up the rest of it in the needle and do another shot. With my thigh speared in two places it’s hardly surprising that it took about 4 days for me to be able to walk again properly!
The sex drive has really kicked in the last few days. It’s driving my nuts actually, I only have to see a woman and I’m off on one…in fact even looking at a good looking guy gets me going! Been contending with violent inclinations which are the result of me being less patient with people faffing about; I’m winning, though! Just that habit of women to congregate in doorways to gossip that has always annoyed me…
I could be imagining it but I think my chest and shoulders have changed shape slightly. Previously my body from the waist to the neck looked like an average female body, but now the breasts look definitely out of place, like they shouldn’t be there. There’s much more definition around the collar bone and shoulders. Also I seem to have become more accustomed now to the ‘mood’ of it. I mean, I’m quite a stable sort of person usually and it threw me off balance to start with, different moods and unfamiliar feelings, but I’m more at home with it now and it definitely feels more natural than what the female hormones were doing to me!
Oh yes, my voice is a bit deeper too. It hasn’t broken yet, but has started to, because sometimes I sound completely male, with a resonance and depth to my voice, other times I sound completely female. I imagine it’ll settle down though.
The sore throat that developed about a week ago is still there. The more noticeable it is, the more male my voice sounds, not just in a husky, got-a-cold type way, but with real resonance and depth like it’s not had before. Sometimes my throat doesn’t feel sore, and at those times I sound female. I’m still not passing 100% because when I took my daughter to the optician last week she talked to her about me, referring to me as ‘mum’, which greatly annoys me for many reasons besides my own personal ones.
Also, started feeling really itchy, which I’m told is my blood producing more haemoglobin and making my body temperature rise – so that’s why blokes don’t get as cold as women! It’s horrible, just itchy all over!
Fingernails are thicker, harder, stronger, whiter. Altogether a superior kind of nail!
Started another frickin period today. Thought I’d had my last one! If this isn’t the last one, I’ll be going to see the doc for sure. I dunno, I’ve only done my third injection last Friday (managed to do it in one this time, much less painful after-effects!) – four days ago – and I’m still feeling kind of low on energy compared to how I was a couple of weeks ago. Could just be because the estrogen’s still battling it out. I’ll give it another month.
7th March 2003
Fourth injection today. Been weight lifting and pumping up, and sometimes when I’m lying down it feels sort of freaky. I don’t know quite how to explain this, but I can feel myself stronger. It’s not just an illusion, because I really am stronger; push-ups are no problem now, when I lift myself off the floor, although my weight’s increased, I feel lighter. Sometimes when I’m lying down I’ll get this freaky, strange feeling like my muscles are almost bulging out of my body, it’s so hard to explain, just unaccustomed to the strength and size of them. It’s also very cool J
Also, I’m passing for male on the phone 100% now, and more in public because of my voice. I can sing deeper notes that I couldn’t sing before – and also, can’t reach some high ones that I used to. It’s still at that adolescent boy stage though, occasionally squeaks annoyingly or goes all hoarse.
Well, so far so good, still no more menstruation as yet. Let’s hope I’ve had my last one already. My arm muscles are huge!! Well, not they’re not actually, they’re quite weedy for a bloke, but compared to before, wow! Shoulders too. My face just looks more male, the cheeks have hollowed a bit and are less fleshy, my complexion is less ‘pretty’ but there’s less acne now. Hair on my arms is thicker but because I’m blond it’s not really noticeable to anyone but me. I’m feeling far, far less emotional. My usual state is now not really in any particular mood, just kind of go with the flow. The only deviations seem to be happy or angry. Or lustful! There’s not that bewildering array of emotions I grappled with under the influence of the mad psychedelic drug oestrogen! J Voice still gets squeaky moments but on the whole it’s broken. Breasts have shrunk down to about a BB or C (from DD). Aureola have also shrunk. The last injection was a lot less painful afterwards, I did it in the back of my right thigh as opposed to the front as I’d done before. Aching was far less and ended sooner.
I’ve noticed that I can tell when the testosterone is at peak levels because I get very competitive. It shows most when I’m playing computer games – when the levels are low I play strategy games co-operatively and thoroughly, but when it’s at peak, which is usually from day 3 to day 7 after the injection, I just can’t be bothered with strategy and tend to go around blatting everything, and in multiplayer games I just want to get all the stuff and do everything and outrank the other players.
It could be because I’m a pretty tuned in kinda guy, when it comes to knowing myself, and perhaps other guys don’t get this. But I’m noticing a huge decrease in emotional spectrum, proportional to an increase in emotional intensity. When I want to be left alone, I REALLY want to be left alone. When I don’t want to talk, I REALLY don’t want to talk. Before, I could be persuaded or eroded into doing it, but now the efforts that previously chipped at my resolve and got me to give in, just make me get madder and madder until I just lose all patience and have to leave the room before I kill someone! J I think it’s what the world in general calls ‘male stubbornness’. I feel short-fused with people who insist on trying to analyse and rationalise my ‘feelings’ when I don’t actually ‘feel’ that I have many of them, and it makes me increasingly impatient and irritable when I get pressed into talking about stuff like that. I think it’s er…women doing my head in. Even more than they used to, now.
Went to the barber’s and he said I looked different. My voice is also completely broken, see voice samples for reference (dated on file names). More often than not now people are taking me for a teenage boy, which is vastly preferable to a butch lesbian, but has disadvantages when I’m in need of proofs of age!
14. April 2003
I noticed in the last couple of days the hair on my arms is sort of thicker. Still very blond, as it probably always will be, but the hairs are longer and thicker now. Also have hair starting to grow on my thighs and a very fine, blond sprinkle appearing on my belly as well. My hairline is beginning to change a little around the forehead, and I’ve started to grow those tufty fuzzy bits at the back of my neck that the barber’s going to have to shave off for me! Last of all I am now needing to shave my face every four or five days because very fair and thin but nonetheless present bumfluff is growing! Where the sideburns will one day be it gets rough and thicker a couple of days after shaving, and on my lip and bottom of my chin there’s softer hair growing back longer than it used to.
All in all, a hairy week!
13. May 2003
Finally got my passport back in male name, with that wonderful little M on it where the pesky F used to be! At last, irrefutable proof of age that doesn’t have Female stamped all over it!! J When I’m out with the kids people tend to assume they’re my little sisters, and nobody’s assumed ‘mum’ for a while now. It can be frustrating because it means they behave rather dismissively and patronisingly towards me, but it can’t be helped and it’s vastly preferable to being taken for female.
I haven’t been ‘madamed’ or any other similar female pet name for a few months now. And it’s funny how quickly I’ve almost forgotten what periods are! Thicker hair is at last beginning to grow on my thighs and calves and also on the backs of my hands, and my sex drive has calmed down a bit – I’ve gone from not wanting it at all, to fucking constantly like a rabbit, to now being pretty sedate about it – always up for it if it’s on the cards, but not really feeling the need to go out of my way to get it.
I’ve begun to need to shave about once per week. I get very thin, wispy bits of blond hair growing mainly on my top lip, chin and sideburns areas, though pretty much nothing on my cheeks yet. Within a couple of days of shaving I can feel distinct prickliness coming back!
My voice being completely broken now, possibly as far as it’s going to go, I’m now practising getting actual control of it to sing again. Justin Timberlake is right out of my league, as is Jamiroquai; I absolutely cannot sing that high any more, but RHCP I can sing to.
And a rather strong development has happened regarding sexuality – I’ve now fully discovered without doubt that I’m absolutely straight. I cannot summon even the barest ghost of desire or lust for a male body any more, and believe me, I wish I could! It’s made things rather strained now between Seamus and I. Looking at women I find I have to stop myself from undressing them in my mind and the courtesy I used to have trouble remembering to show them comes more naturally since the back of my mind is always thinking of them in ‘that’ way. But even the best looking men have no effect on me whatsoever any more.
26. May 2003
Today I had to have a shave because the bumfluff was just beginning to look silly! I need to shave about every two days now otherwise I get prickly, stupid looking stubble that makes me look like a malnourished cactus or something. I’ve been getting thicker and darker hair on my thighs and my kneecaps are now hairy too. The barber said last week that my head had changed shape and the annoying wispy hairs were growing at the back of my neck that he had to shave off with a cut-throat. My shoulders are getting broader and my neck is a little thicker too. Fat is just falling off my hips; I weighed myself at the doctor’s on Wednesday and I’ve lost a little over a stone since January. A lot of that’s to do with the low fat diet I’ve been on, but I haven’t been sticking to it very rigidly at all, and before I started the T I had been on the diet for a good four months and not really lost anything, even though I was being strict with it back then. As the weather’s getting hotter I’m feeling more and more desperate to just get the money, anyhow I can (though I don’t really have any options) for chest surgery. Today it was only about 18°C and I was sweating horribly under my binding.
With my voice and the effects of the hormones on my face I’m passing better and feeling more confident, I just feel that my chest is the thing that’s letting me down, holding me back from getting close to people in case they touch the wrong place by accident or something. I’ve got this morbid fear of getting into some typical council estate argument where a bit of chest poking takes place (don’t laugh, I’ve been in a few already) and there being an occasion where the person poking my chest will for a change not be too drunk to notice that it doesn’t exactly feel right for a man’s chest!
It seems so ridiculous that I’m suffering this stress and discomfort (my ribs really ache at night when I take off my binding) for the sake of not being able to get hold of a measly three and a half grand. But with my credit rating, job opportunities and family connections, the operation might as well be a million pounds as £3500, for all the difference it’d make for me being able to afford it. It’s a prohibitively high sum, and now we’ve been set back so far by the tax credits fiasco I don’t feel like there’s any way we’re going to save it up. But to me, waiting for years for a botch job on the NHS really isn’t an option. I’ve really got to find a way but I can’t borrow, earn, win or find the money so I don’t know how I’m going to get it.
I do try not to get discouraged and down-hearted about it, but it’s hard. I’m just so sick and tired of feeling so self conscious all the time because of my chest, inhibited from letting the fearless, loud-mouthed bastard inside me out, and I’m fed up of having to be so bloody image conscious, constantly checking that my binding’s OK and worrying about whether people can ‘tell’.
24. August 2003
A lot has happened since I last got the chance to write in my diary. Physically changes have continued at a pretty quick pace. I have to shave every day now, and my facial hair is closer to proper man stuff than peachfuzz now, though still not quite there. Because of colour mostly. My muscles have all changed shape and are much more defined now, and I have body hair of varying thicknesses all over. Well, there's not any to speak of on my chest or stomach but there is light downy hair on my stomach that only I notice. My thighs though, have grown a lot hairier. On the personal side, things have changed unbelievably. Seamus and I ended up arguing a lot, mostly because of the strong mental changes and confusion that the sudden flush of testosterone were causing in me, and I think basically he didn't really do as much as he could've to keep up with my changes. Understandably, he took it too personally. When I think about what teenagers are like usually with their parents, the parents often have times when they wish they could just dump the kid somewhere and not have to deal with them any more. Only parents don't do it cos ...well, they're parents. I guess it's different with a partner, cos the whole thing about having to do it, the duty thing, isn't quite there. Or the unconditional love. Anyway, a lot of confusion was happening inside me to do with sexuality. It reached a point where I really wasn't enjoying sex with a man any more, not because of anything except that it just felt like it was emphasising the female aspects of my body that I'm still unhappy about. Basically Seamus and me have split up, and I'm looking for somewhere else to live and taking the kids with me. I don't know how we're going to explain this one to the school, since I'm supposed to be their uncle who looks after them for their dad while he's at work. I'm thinking of just coming clean to them completely about it all, but I don't know how that's going to go down at the Catholic school!