5 years on T

I had my first shot of Nebido the 25th of July 2010. My testosterone treatment deserves some kind of celebrating or at least some recognition and retrospection. Things have changed, alright.

The man I was and wanted to be five years ago is not the man I am and want to be now. Back then I was not only certain that my goal was stereotypical macho manliness, even if I did caution myself not to put too high hopes to the medication, I also wanted every surgery I could get and change my legal gender. At the time everything about my body that appeared female displeased me.

The effects of T (testosterone) are generally the same as cis-boys experience in puberty: deeper voices, more body hair and muscle. For transmen it's that and a different fat distribution, some experience emotional changes and physical ones in the nether regions. Everybody reacts differently, as with all kinds of medication. My voice became a little deeper but I didn't notice until a friend of mine commented on my hoarseness after about six weeks. It's now stable (took about three years) and dark enough to pass as a male voice- as long as I don't speak too softly which I have a tendency of doing in order to take up as little room as possible. It annoys me when people can't hear what I say, but I don't want to square my shoulders and use the support of my belly either because I'm not comfortable in the social position that would put me in.

I haven't changed as much on T as I hoped. A different fat-distribution, sure, but not like anyone could tell by looking at me since I was and still am very slender, but I noticed around the same time as my voice showed signs of deepening that trousers which had been tight pulling up over my thighs pre T were suddenly not. Otherwise, nothing much happened. Of course it became easier to build muscle so I got a different muscle tone but to build them you have to actually build them. I'm more fond of walking, jumping around and exercising with the weigh of my own body rather than repeatedly lifting heavy things, so I look much the same. Which includes my facial features. Some people change a lot while others do not- depending on your sensitivity to the hormones and your genetics. Much to my early disappointment I'm still as androgyny as I've always been. My beard is uneven and scarce, as the beard growth of my father and brother, but these changes also take some more time, perhaps five years is not enough or age will make a bigger difference on my looks.

Despite my androgyny, soft voice, long hair and other "feminine" sides I've stopped chiding myself for these last five years; I still feel like a man, I am a man. I just don't care as much to be stereotypical, macho or to live stealth and pass as an ordinary guy born with a dick as I used to be. I am a man with a transsexual experience, and a man that doesn't necessarily need to express "manliness" all the time. I don't even need genitals that look like what most men are born with because my gender doesn't reside down there and never has.

Five years ago I was looking forward to a number of surgeries; the mastectomy to get rid of my breasts, the hysterectomy, overectomy and vaginectomy to get rid of every evidence that I had ever had female genitalia and then, once that was done, create something that would look like a penis. After my first visit to a gynecologist the same year I was granted hormones I hated those body parts - the visit made them "real". Of course I've always known (well, at least since the first descriptions of internal anatomy in fifth or sixth grade) what kind of internal organs I have in my lower abdomen but as long as I can't see them I can block them out of my mind as something hypothetical. Harder to do at the doctor's though. So for the first time (since early onset of my first puberty) I really hated and felt emphatically disgusted by my own body and decided, on the spot, to remove the parts I didn't want.

Disgust is a strong word and a strong feeling related to hate. Body hate, or dysphoria, is common among transgendered people- I think probably mostly because society have a way of telling us what we should look like to be accepted. Of course, this doesn't only apply to transgendered but to cis-people too, since norms about body size and functionality are big issues for everyone, but to be transgender means you're doubly targeted as "wrong" and having to change because our bodies make people tell us we are the exact opposite of who we feel like. Most people want their appearance to communicate who we are (and gender identity is more "who" than "what" we are though not everybody see it that way) so when the body fails to do that we hate it. I used to hit my breasts when they were just beginning to grow onto me like some gross parasites wishing they'd crumple and die because they communicated something about my body that I didn't want to be part of. There were other things I wanted, but thought God was refusing me by making me a girl. I didn't accept my developments, I resigned to them, thinking there was nothing I could do about my body and instead directing my anger at God who had the nerve to create me this way.

Feelings have always been too exhausting for me and I seldom hold on to the really strong ones for long so instead of hating my body I learned how to feel contempt which takes less energy. Instead of disgust I felt displeasure- if I allowed myself to feel anything at all. Since childhood I've been working hard to keep myself "above" or detached to anything painful and destructive so that I'm not hurt by it, and so I've become very good at denial. That way I don't have to face the pain. So to actually see my own very real internal organs was a shock and I found them repulsive because of their foreignness (no boys have wombs and ovaries!) so my natural response to this abomination was to rip it out. But the emotions were too strong and my lack of practice to deal with them caused my long practiced defense to kick in again- I denied myself to feel the full impact of the pain for some time more and by doing so I probably and quite efficiently side stepped the impulse to plan and make an appointment to actually get rid of the stuff.

Then, I finally got my hormones. A year later I no longer had periods and promptly forgot all about the cause of such unpleasentries. Now I don't feel the least bit disgusted about my body (unless I have a cold) and not very displeased either. I'm no longer in denial about some physical facts because I now realize they don't decide who I am, only how I may reproduce. How and if I reproduce is non of anyone's business and it doesn't, actually, decide what I may call myself or what anyone else has a right to call me, but that's a different discussion I think. My body is fine as it is, now, and I am actually very pleased with it.

A transgendered body like mine isn't just a freakish parody of a man's body. It's not something fake or secondary to something better or more complete. It is what it is, and it's mine. I do whatever the f*uck I want with it- to survive. With your tax money? Yes, and my own, because if we didn't pay for this, my life, you'd have to pay for my death instead. I don't know the exact numbers but the WHO and the Swedish state have come to the conclusion that treatment for the condition called transsexualism or gender dysphoria is way cheaper than letting us kill ourselves. Why? Well, I guess it's not enough to state that it's for our own good so that we may live happily ever after so perhaps a more cynical answer will do better: a dead person can't serve society by working and pay back in taxes what taxes are supposed to pay for; like Healthcare for instance. We may be few in numbers but with treatment most of us will live longer and pay society back- and then some!

My transgendered body is not a list of failures to be something else. It is the perfect opportunity to experience life a little different than most. It is complete with all its imperfections. All it needed was some hormonal shaping and a top off, so to speak, to make me feel whole again. I was whole once before- pre puberty. Now- with the help of Swedish medical expertise and support from family and friends- I'm fit for fight. Fit to live. Life, my friends, is a struggle no matter what you look like or want to be. No matter if it's God or Nature; we don't get the bodies or the lives we want, we get what we get. Then we decide what to make of it, together and in our own minds.