The beginning

Hello to whoever makes it here!

I’m starting this blog tonight to document my transition as a FtM(Female to male) transman.

My hope for this is to one day help others by sharing what I might go through in the years to come. I’ll just start off from the beginning.

I am 27 year old married (mother) of 2 children. I’ve been married for 8 years this year and been together 10. My husband, let me just say, has been a wonderful light in all this confusion I’ve had. We’ve had our ups and downs as I’m sure many couples have had but we’ve been beating those mountains down and I couldn’t be happier to be married to this man. I also have 2 children. A 7 year old daughter and a 4 year old son. Who are lights of my life. They are so wonderful and smart. I couldn’t of asked for more.

Now we sound like your typical cisgendered family of America. Sure we sound normal from the outside but if you dig deeper in, you’ll start to see, just like anyone there is the under layers in all of us. The stuff that makes us, us. Right now in the past 5 years, things have started to really look up for us. We’ve been low income for a long time and relief really came when my husband finally landed a second stable job. I have been working as a full time freelance artist for the last 3 years and for a family of 4 it just hadn’t quite been enough until now. So on top of me coming out, we are also hoping to move this year and look at much better prospects in our lives.

So, as of right now, I am a low income, married mother of 2 children. You might ask yourself now, “Well Hex? That sounds like a fairly decent thing to have going minus the financial part. Happily married, living an mild American dream. Why would you want to upset the apple cart and switch genders all of a sudden? Are you not happy? What about your children? Isn’t this mentally not ok for them?”

Well reader, I’ll tell you I’ve thought a lot of those things this past week actually. And you know what I came to realize? I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who has done this, gone through this and I won’t be the first nor last. Now you might of read many reasons from other trans* persons who have spoke about why they finally chose to transition ect. And I’m going to say about the same thing. I was born into the wrong body. Is this feeling a mental disorder? I don’t have really an answer for that. A lot of people think so, others do not. I just feel what I feel.

I won’t try and go on a massive back story of my life but I will tell you it took many many years of looking deep with in my self and my life to come to this decision. It wasn’t an over night thing. I don’t think I voiced about it at a young age really. I was influenced actually by family members to be more girly. Dresses, makeup at age 6, practicing shaving my legs with my grandma when I was 7. Perfumes shoved in my face. The color pink comes to mind. And sure, at that age I felt like I wanted to make my family happy. I felt if I followed what they showed me, how to be my gender role, it would make them happy and in turn make me happy. Seems simple enough. And it was for a while. I tried fitting into my society given gender role for a while. My mother wouldn’t let me get my hair cut short until I hit 18, and I was too afraid to ask her to buy me boys clothes so I was pretty much stuck as a girl growing up. Which I dealt with ya know? I just put a smile on my face and lived day to day.

By the time I was 16 though, things started to shift. I noticed that my mannerisms started fitting closer to a males. I farted loudly, had burping contests with friends, and ranted randomly about sex. I was comfortable not being the gossip girl. And actually I attracted more male friends than female because of this. (Of course this was perceived as me being that boyish hot girl to most) so that’s probably why they stuck around. Who can resist a gamer girl right? During my highschool years I also discovered I was sexually attracted to girls just like guys. Insert learning about being bisexual. That was pretty neat. I often spent times after school at a lgbt group for youths when I was 17. This is when I started finally being able to get my hands on more male geared clothing and as soon as I hit 18 I cut my hair as short as my mother allowed. From there I started to bounce because my life turned for a curve ball at 18-19. I got married to my boyfriend at the time of 2 years and we got pregnant. I was ecstatic about being a mother. When my little girl was born, nothing else mattered. And from pressure of other mothers I had met, I tried to fit into being the best mom I could be, including carrying my self like one. Dresses, nice shirts (still no makeup use. Stuff makes me uncomfortable) high heels ect. I tried, I really did because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

Fast forward a few more years, life has way of throwing major curve balls at your face as fast as it can. It really tests you. In 2008 my husband who previously was thought to be hetero, came out as bisexual. And we actually grew closer believe it or not. In 2009 I had my son. By this time I was still struggling with my gender. My son and daughter are massive parts of my life and I’m so very blessed to have them. Into 2011 I started to really sit and question my self. I’d force my self to go shopping in the women’s dept looking at any way or style I could fit into being the best mom my kids could have. Eventually though I started shunning shopping. I started wearing more casual clothes including my husbands shirts most of the time, bought more boy sneakers and baggier female pants. Last summer in 2013 I had a life changing “click” moment. In 2012 I tried getting my hair cut in a pixie cut to see if having super short hair would make my uneasiness go away but the haircut turned out horrid and really sent me into my hermit shell socially. Well spring back to 2013. We had taken a much needed trip up to Canada to visit friends. And one day at a local mall something dropped in my stomach and I went straight to the nearest salon.

I sat in that chair, with my hair being about jaw line length and told the lady, I want a boy haircut. Short and nice looking. And she asked me once if I was sure and I was. The day I walked out of that mall I couldn’t of felt more comfortable with my self than I had my whole life. Days after, still in Canada, we perused some local thrift stores and I bought some mens shorts and Tshirts. I was in heaven. I was so more comfortable, I enjoyed the trip, being out in public. It was that one thing, that finally clicked for me.

Over the course from last summer to now I started really digging and questioning my self. Was it worth it, shunning my social life because I was too embarrassed and uncomfortable with my self presenting my self as a female? Was it worth it living any longer in a role I didn’t fit? I spent nights hammering my brain, searching for answers. And one day it clicked. I did a mental add up and here I am today. A week out of my shell.

I came out to my husband 01/18/14 at around 2am after I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in mid panic attack as I blurted it out to him. And this wonderful man, without missing a beat said, “I’ll love you no matter what gender you are.” And I can’t express how thankful and blessed I am. I really can’t. This feeling can’t be pushed into words. So now I’ve started slowly coming out to my close friends(I only have online friends right now) and 100% all of them have been supportive and wonderful.

I came out to my children on the 20th and I’m still unsure really about all of that. My son didn’t quite understand at all. Instead he opted for giggling fits and parroting what I said haha. My daughter seemed confused and shocked. But she wasn’t hurt, and when she starts seeing more change I’ll be sure to address it as it comes. For now I’m still mommy and that’s fine with me. I’ve ordered my first binder and am waiting on that to come.

My birthday is next Wednesday, the 29th and I hope my binder is here by then. I’d also like to finally purchase my own pair of male pants to proudly call my own. You know for a while I’ve through of my self as male. But thinking it and saying it is a new experience. One I’m getting used to. Also I tend to have these little adjustment shocks. Like shaving. Ok you don’t normally think about it. It’s a habit as far as most women are concerned. Shower, shave the areas and be done. The thought of not shaving my underarms or legs anymore was definitely a new one. Also will be buying a wallet and ditching my purse. That idea I do like a lot haha. Just the small things no one really mentions, it’s been super fun to think about and do.

As far as my transition goals go? I’ve been told many many times to take it easy haha. I’m one of those plan a head, research and be prepared type of people. So I’ve of course thought about what I would like as far as being comfortable with my self at least in the next 5 years. I want to be on T(testosterone) as soon as they let me. I want to pass as a male for sure and I’m about 95% sure I’ll need T to do that. I would also like a hysterectomy and top surgery as well. As far as bottom? Eh I can wait ya know? I’m curious to see how the medical advances go in that department first. The sheer cost alone is enough to scare me away not to mention the amount of time and pain.

So this post has gotten super super long now. Yay for rambling right? But it’s nice to get this out in the open finally. I don’t want other trans* to think they are alone. I’ve gotten the lucky side of things so far. And that could change sure. But at no point should no one be alone in this suffering. So that’s pretty much it for now.

If you’ve made it this far have a cookie! You deserve it! And good night!