Aug 1 98

On Thursday I have an appointment with the doctor, and on Friday with the therapist. I’ll call ahead on Tuesday and see if everything is good to go with my insurance and everything. I’d also like to give the medical doctor a head start on thinking about giving me estrogen. In other words, if I can get him to read my file, or consider what must be done to write a prescription prior to my visit, then I have saved some time so-to-speak. I don’t know if he can legally write me a prescription. But if he can’t, maybe he can refer me to an endocrinologist who can. I’ve got 23 days till my insurance runs out, and I intend to use them if I can… if nothing happens, well, at least I have the wheels turning. Perhaps they can give me a month’s worth of estrogen which will get me by until UF gets it’s own act together.

Do I still want to ‘be a woman’? Yes. In fact there have been several things this week that make me believe that is the right way to go. One of them was my reaction to seeing a movie… I got warm and fuzzy at the love story… not to say that a man can’t get mushy, but I did not see it as being ‘getting mushy’… I just felt… well.. I’d have to analyze it… hmmm. I did not think that ‘it is okay for a man to feel this way’.. I did not think at all. It just felt right… that I, a woman, can feel this way. Hard to explain.

I guess for so many years… take for example when I was at Wal Mart… I was looking at the ladies fashions and saying ‘oh that looks nice…’. Before I would do some mental gymnastics to justify what I said… whereas this past week it all just happened… and I did not have to think about it. Kinda like when I wear my bra… I don’t rationalize wearing it… I just do and it feels natural.

Aug 2 98

I was a bit upset during the day because I saw a large percentage of women.. all shapes and sizes wearing clothes that I think I would wear… T-shirts and shorts.. even a jumper or skirt thrown in… but they mostly all the style/color/cut that I would/could wear. It was funny when it started, but as the day progressed I saw more and more models of what I might appear like in the future… and it made me sad that I don’t have that now, and of course that I don’t have that naturally. Makes me doubt the world.

8:30pm

Typically, when I decide to go for estrogen, I feel better and I get off of the idea.. only to find myself back to it again. This time, however, I plan to stay with it, and so far so good. The woman in the mirror is starting to come back out again… I guess with every hair I zap she becomes more pronounced… it’s hard to feel feminine when you’ve got two weeks worth of facial hair on your face… heh.

I saw more woman my size again… made me feel good. God must be up to something. I had a long chat this morning with my mom… things are going good there…. Really no complaints…. I’m just taking this one day at a time… and zapping them hairs…

Aug 6 98 – 8:00pm

Well… today was my doctor’s appointment… with Dr. A. Seemed like a nice enough fellow. I guess he was the second doctor I sought for hormones. The first was at UF, at the health center. It was a little Phillipino woman… she was small and lithe. I remember saying “I’d like you to put me on estrogen”… and she turned white as a sheet and staggered a bit. I think Dr. A knew what was coming. When I tried to see him two weeks ago I wrote on my form that I wanted estrogen.

And, I am happy to say that I still do. Nanny-nanny boo-boo… heh. It is one mater to sit behind your computer (especially if you spend your time on the internet) and tell someone in some chat room that you are ready for estrogen… it’s another to show up at the office wearing woman’s clothes and say it… and even more curious is when you get the prescription, get the meds, and then take them. I remember celebrating the initial pill with a taco… heh. I’ll have to come up with something else when I get them this time around.

What can I share with you about my visit… to give you an impression of what it was like? Hmm. Well… assuming you’ve never gone to K-mart, perused the women’s bras, found one that fit, and then bought it at the check-out… well… that is humiliation. But… I must say I felt very comfortable… and within minutes my mouth was chattering away telling my life story. Wow… what can you tell someone in five minutes to explain what you feel, and why you think taking estrogen will change your life.

I’ve been doing this off and on for a while… the only thing I can suggest is no rehearsals… just go with it. When you’re asked questions, be honest… and talk. I remember reading on one of the listserves that you should ‘trick’ your way though things… as if there’s a sequence of answers to get you on estrogen… if there is, I don’t want to know it… I’d rather just talk from myself and go with the flow.

But for an outsider… or even a curious party… there are some interesting questions that pop up when someone you’ve never met before, but has the ability with the flick of his pen to get you estrogen, asks you why do you want it… to Dr. A’s credit, he merely asked how he could help me… and that was nice… it sort of put the ball in my court.

So what did I tell him? Well… basically that I knew in 1990 that I was a transexual, and that only estrogen would allow me to be more comfortable with me. Since then, in a series of highs and lows and adventures that might one day make an interesting movie, I have reasoned out, and experimented with, everything but taking estrogen on a long haul. So sure we could ask about a,b, and c… but they’ve been tried before, and here I am at “I know I am a woman, and I would like estrogen to fill me out.”

And that’s that. I’ve had good relationships, I’ve had bad ones. I have had for the better to change my profession/career because of the desire to act upon my feelings. And this is the time… I can really think of no better time to do it… take the pills… develop. College is the best place… a transient population, a highly liberal community… lots of support and friends…. So sign me up for that estrogen… please.

Aug 8 98

I don’t know. When I look in the mirror I see myself as a woman… far more than I ever have been. And I think if I can live with myself, then I am better off than if I couldn’t. Despite my size and mass, there is lots of clay to play with. And, the estrogen will move that clay around so that I do have thighs, I will have breasts, and of course a softer face. All of those things.

From my mind’s perspective, I welcome the chances estrogen will make up there. I have dreams of having a family… I can’t bear children myself, but I can raise them, provided I can find them somewhere. I don’t know to many people who would turn down love and care. So I think I’ve got the maternal bases covered.

So really it’s just a matter of time. Time and bras. As a test, I am thinking about wearing a bra everywhere I go outside of the apartment… they don’t bother me, mind you. In fact after your body adjusts to them… you really forget it’s there. I think it will be more obvious, however, when I am on estrogen and I start to fill the darn thing up. And, genetic women typically hate wearing them.. so my ‘in the middle’ feelings are also on base.

I don’t want to wait… but as has shown in the past that’s what I have had to do. Typically I get distracted (or feel even trying is futile) and I find myself dating women and saying I’m not ts… until I notice it again. For whatever reason it did happen, my suicide attempt has told me that I am ts… and I do need to do something about it. So go figure.

I guess that was another big issue that I talked with Dr. C about… and that is that it is important for me to be on estrogen… even if it is so small that it does nothing (of course any dosage will do something, even if it is only to thin out my hairs)… the fact that a ts knows s/he is taking hormones… that will make a positive difference in their life… because they are doing something about it.

There is a very high degree of satisfaction from knowing that one is ts. And… despite my feelings of doubt from time to time, there are other things that say I am doing the right thing, and I feel that I am doing the right thing. So, perhaps right off the bat there is 85% satisfaction from ‘knowing’ you are ts. I think you could get near 100% when you buy clothes, tell people you know, even doing some hair zapping. But as time progresses… all that satisfaction compresses, and you need to be doing more. I think 98% is possible with hormones and srs. After that… well, you’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you. But in the mean time, well… I think ‘knowing’ will get you 30%… and if you are like me, and you’re not planning on srs for 10 years… then you need estrogen to get that satisfaction level to something acceptable. So even if I am taking a meaningless dosage, at least I am doing something about it… and I can only go up from there.

Aug 12 – late

Hello again… another night… zapping hairs… reading about ts stuff. Yawn. Friday will ask for estrogen from UF. I kinda would like to know if Dr. A will get me estrogen. How come doctors become the high-prophets and priests… no bad feelings… just an observation. Why do they lock estrogen up… or even testosterone for that matter. I did the insurance bit this morning… tired.

I feel that I have both genders, and I feel uncomfortable enough I think I’d be happier with estrogen in my veins and breasts… I want to function in society as a woman… take that for what you will…

Aug 13 98 – 8:55am

Good morning. I had a weird dream last night… I had been injected with a new form of estrogen… the results were impressive.

Can you tell what’s on my mind? I have a friend in Seattle who had a divorce and got custody of a two-month old child. Can you guess who want’s to be a mommy? It can be difficult at times to tell the urges ‘one day’… one day. When?

I paid my insurance… tomorrow I can go ask for estrogen at UF. I know I won’t get it… there will be red tape and I’ll have to wait. At least the wheels will be spinning, so to speak. I feel bad for leaving Dr. C and A… but it’s merely a matter of insurance. From my past experience, I think UF won’t want to touch me, so they will send me elsewhere… there is a good chance that Dr. C and A might be on the PPO list… so who knows… I may end up back with them.

I must say, however, that it can be difficult not to have someone to talk with… maybe that will change in the fall. I don’t know… like most things… when you are having troubles, you have to deal with them yourself…. And for the young and up-coming ts, well… who wants to chat with someone who is doing/has done something you want to do? I don’t know… I am happy that someone got to do it… but why not me?

I’ve been thinking back a bit, and I think my life has been a series of tests… I’ve been testing a hypothesis all along… the question was ‘do I want to live my life as a woman… function in society as a woman’. And that has been an on-going experiment. I feel like I have done a variety of things to ‘test’ myself… and the conclusion is that yes… I do…so the next step is to get the estrogen and continue to prepare for the future… meaning eating, sleeping, exercising… being healthy on a variety of fronts. And of course the hair zapping.

Maybe this is a new thought… I’ve stopped trying to be different extremes… I don’t think that I’m a woman in a man’s body… just that I am me… who happens to be more woman than man… and I would like my body to reflect that… does that make sense? So… rather than ‘be man’ in some places, and ‘be woman’ in others… I guess I’m just me, and leave it at that. I don’t want to exchange one closet for another… I just want to be me… and my current physical condition does not reflect that… so I’d like the hormones to allow me to be more of myself in society.

My past experiments have shown me that I would not be happy living in society as a man, and that I am not happy with a man’s body. Do I need to explain more? Do I need to justify more? I can say the above with confidence… hmmm. And the clock ticks…

Can you imagine a society where people alter themselves between male and female? There would still be different genitalia… but a person could mix genders.. so to speak. In other words, there would be men with breasts… women without them… there would be a physical continuum between ‘male’ and ‘female’ in terms of social roles and expectations.

There would be no need for feminism, or male chauvinism… no equal rights… people could just be. Hmmm. Perhaps the transsexuals are the pioneers of such a movement? I was walking along yesterday and I saw a sign for a “Woman’s Theater” play… and it really got me very angry. The more I thought about it… I guess I don’t like segregation. If it were a “Man’s Play”… that would be controversial… anyway… I felt so angry and Upset… because I am neither woman nor man… and I would be excluded from both.

All things considered, however, I think I would survive and prosper living as my third gender in the female role… with a female body… and go from there. I can see myself as being a wall-breaker and a bridge builder. But… when I need to run for cover, or hold out in the trenches… I want to have breasts and a volva… and maybe a nice man to love.

Aug 14 – 12:23am

Today was another milestone in that I went to college and asked for estrogen (again). I am to wait. I also bought a new bra, which is far more comfortable than my old one. I am setting myself up to be some kind of gender outlaw or something… I climbed into the tub and proceeded to shave my legs and arms… I feel the most physically female than I have in a long time. Of course, my month old beard does not aid to complete the picture. I have what looks like a really-hip beard from all the electrolysis I have been doing.

I wonder when I will cross the line…heh…when will people start to notice (if not already) that I am dressing more and more female… So far I’ve been hovering at the androgynous mark for quite a while.

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