Please cry for me, Argentina!

Dear Argentinian Embassy,

I hereby wish to apply for political asylum in Your highly developed country. In my homeland, I belong to a minority who is denied medical treatment and correct papers of identification. I’m an illegal man in the eyes of the Norwegian state. It  is my hope that Argentina will be my new homeland.

Kind regards,

Tarald Stein

(P.S. Unfortunately I can’t afford the plane ticket (I’m an author), but if You could spare a one way ticket Oslo-Buenos Aires, it would be very apreciated!)

Argentina adopts gender identity bill

How do you know if transitioning is right?

One person I feel a deep connection with, athough I have never met him, is Matt Kailey. His book Just add hormones made a huge impact and I am forever thankful. I missed gay transmale idols and humour, and he filled that gap. On Mondays he posts answers to questions from his readers. There is always a lot of food for thought there, and I really recommend reading his blog. The quotes here are from his post Ask Matt Monday: Is This Enough Reason to Want to Transition?

I subscribe to the philosophy that transition is a necessity, and that if you need to transition, you will, and that if it is right for you, you will know.

I tried for years to define male and female, gender and sex, thinking that I needed to know what these were before I could do anything about how I felt. No one has ever been able to define these concepts in simple ways without excluding several groups of people or their experiences. And neither could I. This made me more and more depressed. When I finally decided to follow my gut feeling instead of my head, I felt extremely relieved.

The irreversible(?) changes of testosterone

The doctors usually have high reservations on prescribing testosterone to transmen. Female hormones do not cause as much irreversible changes as testosterone does.

I had a really hard time getting a prescription for testosterone because of this. Because I was not approved by the Norwegian gender clinic, I would not get testosterone from them either. I was ready to start hormone treatment when I went to the clinic the first time, fall 2006, but knew it would not happen.

My singing voice

I’m going to auditon for a choir on tuesday. So it was time for a reality check. Can I still sing?

I have thought about doing this for some time now and finally got to it. As you can hear, I’m still able to use my «old» female voice, but it’s more limited than it was. I think I still hit the notes and that it doesn’t sound too bad. What do you think?

This christmas, my mother said that my singing voice sounded better than the year before, more relaxed. I feel that way too. Transguys.com has a great article on the trans male singing voice. It suggests that starting on a low dose of testosterone is the best for the voice. That might be the reason I can still sing. I’ve now been on T for 2,5 years, most of the time on half the usual testogel dose. Fall 2010 I started Nebido injections and almost instantly felt all kinds of changes turning up speed.

The decade without a name

Where was I ten years ago?

I was living in a pecieved heterosexual relationship, and had been for the previous 3 years. I was studying creative writing (the first of two years), struggeling to write a novel that nobody liked but me. In between, I wrote short prose. A year ago, I looked at some of what I’d written and thought it was really scary.

To be taken seriously… or not?

I’ve recently had some experiences of being taken seriously and listened to in situations where I don’t expect to be. It puzzles me. Is it because my voice is deeper? Or is it a result of finally growing up? It might have something to do with the publication of my second book this year?

Winter survived

I have sirvived the winter. Haven’t been blogging lately. My new book is out and have recieved good reviews.

I am still not over my love from last year, but the relationship ended in september. We don’t talk, we don’t meet, but all the same I still think of him as the man of my life. He doesn’t love me and I should get over him.

I have no work. I have good friends and a good family. My professional writing life is moving on. And I am a mess. I am trying to figure out why.

The breakup is a big part of it. Also the tiresome process of getting all the letters so I can go and have my operation in Thailand (removal of breasts, ovaries and uterus). The latest news is that I need a letter from a gynecologist stating that my female internal parts are healthy. I don’t understand why. And I am pissed for them bringing this up now.

I am so extremely tired of living in a personal gender-limbo. I have been since 2006, so maybe it is just natural to be tired. I am just not sure how long I can keep hanging in here. My energy is mostly at an all time low.

In preparation for my surgery (allthough the date is still in the blue), I have stopped taking my anti-depressants. It went better than expected. I am feeling more, writing more and much less stable. I can go from sitting on top of the world feeling like superman to being tired of it all and not seeing any point in going on. Exhausting.

I fear that my depressions and instability may not be related to my gender issues – that it is something I just have to live with for the rest of my life. It scares me. I also fear that the process of getting the neccessary treatment in regard to gender has hurt me permanently. In my dark moments I think my experience with the Norwegian gender clinic (GID-klinikken) has made me a worse person than I was. That it has destroyed my trust in people and institutions. That it has left me unable to show compassion. And so on. I am loosing hope despite the fact that a possible date of surgery is getting closer than ever. The feeling of hopelessness takes over. I am not sure there is a point to this. I am not sure if my existence makes a difference, or maybe it makes a difference to the worse.

I miss my ex-boyfriend. He is the one person I know who could drag me out of my selfish, self-made hell. I miss talking to him. I miss the sex. I miss seeing his beautiful face. I miss hearing his voice. I am not telling him this. If it should be possible for us at some point to be friends, I can’t tell him how I feel now.

I feel like shit for not feeling that my daughter is reason enough for living. But when I am really down I listen to the people who thinks that  having a transgender parent is hurtful to children. Even though I know it is not true. And besides; guilt is a lousy reason to stay alive. Guilt for how she would feel if I died is not enough to keep fighting to be her parent.

And there it is again: I am tired of fighting. I am tired of defending myself and my own rights. I wish someone would do it for me, but I know no one will. A part of me really wants to give up, call it a day.

But I think living is a (bad) habit that I have become too used to, maybe addicted. So I am not going to kill myself. Writing this blogpost is actually a sign of things getting better. The months from January to april is blurred in my mind. I have not been taking care of myself. Applications not written, reports not sent, bills payed very sloppy. So now when my energy is occationally somewhat higher, there is an economical mess to take care of and it overwhelms me.

And please; no sympathy. Strategies for dealing accepted. No expression of joy to be expected.

Happiness ruins blogging

I really shoul blog more often. I have a lot to blog about – actually so much that it’s totally overwhelming to start. I’ve passed my one year on testosterone and will probably go to Thailand for surgery within a year. I have kind of a job – a very interesting transactivist-job. And I found a boyfriend – the most wonderful man on earth. No, I didn’t hit him in his head and drag him back to my cave. I am not that violent and I tried to be more subtile than my instincts told me to.

"Passing" too much? (Son of a preacher man)

It is kind of funny, but I guess I have a strange sense of humour.

I recently got a letter from the GID clinic explaining that they have done nothing wrong in denying me diagnosis and treatment. They still won’t accept me as a man. As expected, but still a bad christmas gift.

I am visiting my parents’ and today I went to church with them. My father is a reverend out in the countryside. After church, a woman came up to me and said «You must be the reverend’s son. You look so much like him» and introduced herself.

Later, while I was outside smoking, a man walking his dog stopped and started talking to me. I soon realised that he was mistaking me for my father, but had only seen him at a distance.

I feel like I am at a turning point. It is still more important to me to be seen as male, than vanity regarding my age. But I feel that it is about to change. I know I look a lot like my father, but I am not happy to be mistaken for him. After all he is 24 years older. I guess the man didn’t know that. At least I hope so.

(I am not very fond of  the word passing and usually use it in an ironic sense.)

The wonderful Norwegian social security…

It is supposed to be the best in the world. I you get sick, you have the right to treatment and only have to pay little of it. If you pay most of the travel, you can choose hospital. Unless you have an illness that is rare. Then it is only possible to get treatment at one place. There might be just one doctor in the country who is allowed to treat you. So what if ze doesn’t want to treat you? Then you are screwed.

Coming out – again and again and…

I took the interview at excloset.wordpress.com, so now you can read about my coming out at http://excloset.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/tarald-stein/

Too much of a man

At least in my testosterone levels, way more than normal for a nontrans-man. That may explain why I got my period back when I increased my testosterone to full dose. So I decided to reduce my dose by half. I also got thyroid problems again. I got hyperthyreosis after I gave birth to my daughter four years ago, got treatment and was pronounced well again two years ago.

I fear that the endocrinologist will tell me to stop T. I have no intention to do that.

I’ve now been on T for 4 months and 4 days. My body is a lot hairier, but very little in the face. My hairline is not withdrawing. I don’t want to loose my hair, just want to have a male hairline. My facial skin is rougher and makes me look more male.

The only doctor who could help me get my operations has got a warning from the health authorities and may loose his license if he continues to help people. I’m very sad because of this. Now my only hope is that my complaint against the GID-clinic will be heard, by the same authorities who believe in two and only two genders/sexes and that to remove breasts is a sin against humanity. Or something similar. I don’t understand their «reasoning».

I’m loosing my ass

and I can’t say I miss it. This is apparently what they call «redistribution of fat». Although I can’t se where it has migrated to. My legs has grown wider, but it seems like that is mostly muscles. Don’t know where they come from, as I haven’t exercised. My hips are also loosing fat. My jeans are suddenly too big.

This is not what I had expected. FIrst of all I didn’t thinkt the redistribution would happen so soon after starting T. Second; I thought that my thighs and hips would redistribute themselves to my stommack, but it is not bigger than it was. I also expected my damned boobs to shrink. That has not happened so far.

Standards of Care (SOC)

Until recently, I’ve believed that if the Norwegian Gender Clinic would just use the Standarsds of Care provided by WPATH, everything would be fine. I’ve thought that the SOC is ok. In my reading of the SOC I’ve only marked the parts that the gender clinic doesn’t follow.

Then I read Cedars post at Taking up too much space and realise that the SOC really can be used to defend the basic ideology at the gender clinic:

1)Procedures, not transition, not identity. There’s an almost universal assumption that these standards of care are in case a patients decides to “change hir mind” about transitioning. Putting aside of the implications of protecting trans people from themselves for a moment, transition regret is a red herring. No medical procedure can force you to live in a particular gender permanently. If I’ve been on estrogen for 10 years, have bottom surgery, facial surgery, the works, and decide I want to live as a man again? I start taking T, bind my tits, pack, and it’s no big deal. Yeah, it kinda sucks for me, but I’m not really any worse off than a female assigned at birth transsexual man (and, in fact, my situation would be remarkably similar to his).

–The point is, your informed consent is *not* about “being” a man or a woman (which no one can really truly understand in advance), it’s about the effects on your body (which, while variable, are fairly predictable). If I want an orchi, I need to be willing to take either estrogen or testosterone for the rest of my life, and be willing to either store sperm or not have more biological kids–and what gender I plan on living as in the future is fairly irrelevant.

The stench of testosterone

I sweat more than I used to, and it stinks.

"I only like the real stuff"

That’s what he said. And it came casually, like it wasn’t directed at me specifically. But I think it was. Not that I had come on to him or anything. Yes, he is good looking, but that attitude; that of course I want to have sex with him, is just a total turn-off to me. He had just told us about his new boyfriend, and there is now way I want to intrude on a happy monogamous relationship.

Since it came out so casually there was nothing I could say. I told myself that there was no need to feel hurt. He just revealed himself as a big jerk. It had nothing to do with me. And I prefer people to spell things out, to be clear from the start. So really; no need to take it personal and get hurt.

I guess it hurts because I suspect that a lot of people feel the same way. It hits me in a soar spot that I’m not concidered «the real thing», or at least my private parts isn’t, and that it is true. That’s the thing that hurts the most. And I guess it’s just something I have to accept and try to move on.

3 months on T!

Time for the monthly update. I think this might be the last one, though. The changes just continues in the same path as the two previous months: Hair keeps growing on my stommack. Other things grow well too. My eyebrows are growing together.

I increased my dosage a month ago to full dose, 50 mg testogel each day. I don’t think the changes have speeded up bacause of it. It might even be a too high dosage for me.

New this month is that my facial hair is changing; getting stronger and darker, but just on the upper lip, on the sides. Shows that the testosterone is working and gives hope for the future, although I think it will take many years for me to grow a beard.

Also new, but not welcome, is the bleeding. With no expectation of a hysterectomi in near future, I almost hope that I’ve got something really bad that require removal of all internal female organs. I’m going to see a gynecologist probably next week. It is most likely that testosterone fucks up my hormone-contraception. The only reason to keep it in there is to avoid bleeding, so if that is not happening, then it probably would be best to remove it. Not looking forward to it!

I’ve asked my doctor to prescribe Nebido injections when my current prescription of testogel expires in ca. two months. I’m also trying to find out how I can get my mastectomy and hysterctomy.

Wish me good luck!

Why did it take me so long?

Aaron H. Devor has written an article called Witnessing and Mirroring: A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation in Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, 8 (1/2), 41-67. I recommend it. It’s well written and quite easy to understand.

The article got me thinking again about why I didn’t realize my transsexuality at a younger age. I try not to regret it, not to be bitter, but it’s hard. Time after time I was told at the Norwegian Gender Clinic, that if I just had realized throughout my childhood and at least puberty; then I would have fit the transsexual box. Then I would have gotten the treatment that I need. So why was I so stupid that I didn’t understand what was wrong with me?

1. Cildhood. Nobody ever tried to push me into a girl-role. I was just me and didn’t get much trouble for it.

2. Puberty. Too much happened at the same time in my life. My family moved when I was 12 and I didn’t make any friends. I’m still not sure as to why, but probably my failure to be a proper girl did have something to do with it, along with a lot of other reasons.

3. Books. So for the next 6 years I lived my life in the books. I forgot I had a body. That didn’t matter when reading anyway. A Norwegian author named Elin Brodin had a lot of «female» protagonists falling in love with gay men. I identified strongly with those «women» and bought their rejection of altering their bodies in any way. If they could live like that, I could too. As soon as I grew up and could move away to a city.

4. Sexual orientation. I always knew I liked guys. And for a long time my sexual identity overruled my gender identity. At the same time I was unable to see myself as a straight girl. I felt like a gay man, but everyone and everything told me that was untrue. All the transmen I saw in the media was really macho and presumably heterosexual. If I had to like girls to be a transsexual man, then I had to be a girl, although I didn’t feel like one. Thanks to Lukas for revealing that transmen can be gay too!

To deal with this I have two options:
1. To blame myself and my past. I should be angry at my parents for accepting me as a child, be angry at myself for taking refuge in the books and hating myself for being gay.
2. To blame the image for transsexuals that I was presented and still have to fulfill to get diagnosis and treatment.

I’ve always preferred outward anger to inward anger; hate the world rather than myself. Until I can get to a point of peace, I will continue so. Inward anger is the path to destroying myself. I refuse to blame myself for not having enough problems in my childhood and puberty. Outward anger is hopefully the path to destroying the GID-clinic and the narrow concept of transsexualism.

See also:

Reasons I once had not to transition

T-boy Jacky: I was never  tomboy

Matt Kailey

Stealth for a day

I met an aquintance of a friend of mine today. Usually when I meet new people, I drop some comment, a hint, that I am trans. Today, after realizing that nobody questioned my maleness, I decided not to, even when we talked about how I was always reading when I was a kid, or when we talked about my book.

It was nice to get to talk about something else for a change. Usually, my hints and comments result in a lot of questions, and I am usually ok with that. I like to enlighten people about trans-issues. I guess I just have had enough with the speak I gave at Jafnadr (Nordic Queer Youth Festival) this week and the speak I will be giving at EuroPride.

I recent the opinion that transpeople have a duty to reveal our past to everyone. It should not be a duty, but something one does out of conviction, a step in trying to make this a better world for all trans-people.

This day gave me a peak into the world of stealth living.

First month on T

My first month on testosterone has been busy. I’ve not experienced very big changes, but small and important ones:

• A little more body hair
• A little more acne
• Easier muscle building (although I haven’t been training, so the change could have been bigger)
• First beard-like hair on my upper lip
• Harder to speak in a high voice
• Something is growing bigger 😉

No psychological changes, except maybe I’ve become a little more impulsive, but that doesn’t hurt. I feel more peaceful these days, but that might be because I reached my number one goal for the last two years; to get testosterone and start my physical transition.