Pickin' the Pear of the Big Pawpaw

I had trannyguy coffee with some of my elders yesterday. It’s remarkable to me how willing guys are, even guys who are “stealth*,” to share their experience, create a tribe. It does, on the other hand, seem like a manly thing to do: give a brother a leg up. I caught a ride with my friend and ringmaster M, a charismatic, bearded, hairy guy about my age, with the little potbelly most of us have by our 40s. I always search for the dyke in these guys, and in M I see it most tellingly in his eyes, which are deeply communicative, darkly lashed, and always seem to be sharing an in-joke. Women must have been, and probably still are, captivated by those eyes.

As we pull into the parking lot, M points out this beefy, hairy**, topless dude, puffing away in the sweltering Carolina sun on a bicycle. “That’s C” he says triumphantly, flashing those eyes. He knows I’m going to be blown away by the sight of this dude, who will be joining our trannyfest. C is a big bearded bear of a man. It never ceases to amaze me, to behold the transman who’s been on T for more than a couple years. You just would never know they’d been born women. Even the more delicately boned, lithe ones, like my friend Cole, emit some strong male spoor, some inexplicable energy, almost an odor, that surrounds them like dust motes in the sun when you smack a pillow.

Their transitions differ tremendously, C having transitioned in the deep South in 1990, and M on the eastern seaboard in the last several years. Their differences also speak to the nearly unnerving cultural awareness brought about by the internet and the pregnant guy. Listening to them rib and engage one another I feel like Mowgli in the Jungle Book, seated across from Bagheera and Baloo. Sometimes it’s Disney Jungle Book, like when C talks about how he had no male vocabulary, wasn’t assimilated that way: “I’as talkin’ ‘bout some woman, and these guys were like ‘did she have big breasts?’ and I shrugged and said 'I guess so, yup' and they were like ‘did you titty-fuck’er?!’ and I was like ‘what!?’ I had NO IDEA what they were talkin’bout!”

M and I nod sagely; we both know what “titty fuck” means. M proffers this profound wisdom: “when men ask you if you’ve done something, just say ‘yes!’” But the point being, most of us, as women, did not experience these kinds of conversations with one another.

But sometimes the conversation feels more Kipling, more darkly, terrifyingly jungle, like when C talks about working with people who are blatantly homophobic, right here, right now, who are hard-core rednecks vested in UNC; who, if they found out who and what he really is, might actually kill him. Certainly they would harm him. I’m moved that this guy, who feels his life and livelihood is on the line, would meet with someone like me out in public, who looks like a tattooed, butch dyke - which is threatening to people in its own way - to share his experience, strength and hope. That’s a beautiful man, right there.

There was a passing exchange between my new mentors about who was voting for whom, with a little eyeball volley that stated, Eastwood fashion, “we are not getting into this, Brother, and by the way, you are WRONG.” Later M and I process this. It blows our minds that C is Republican. We think of other things: it blows our minds that a transman can be a bigot. “Where does your compassion for ‘the other’ go!?” But C, I point out, had been amazed to learn there were gay transmen. Man on transman ak-shawn. So we each have our ideas about what a transguy ought to believe, how he should behave in the world.

Later I find myself, as I am wont to do around men, talking shite about the womenfolk. “They’re freakin landmines, Dude! I spend half my time with women thinking ‘what did I just say!’ because somehow now we’re in a fight.”

As M busts me for misogyny, I abashedly recall that the common denominator in all my relationships is me. It’s me that donned my big ol’ clown shoes to go stomping about the mine-laden front yards of people I knew to be deeply insecure and highly sensitive. With the male v.s. female thing, I fall prey, again and again, to my own deep insecurities which I then mask in patently stupid ideas about men and women and how they all (mis)behave.

I’ve been having this reoccurring thought, that if I had been born a boy, or had transitioned earlier, I might not have had to get tattooed. All I have ever been doing is trying to claim this thing, this form, as mine. What it looks like, how masculine, how feminine, how hairy, is out of my hands. I just want, like every other mook on the orb, to feel comfortable in my own skin. And, of course, look fucking FINE doing it.

*passing as a guy, not being out as trans.

** much discussion of body hair would ensue. C scrutinizes my forearms and says “so you shave your arm hair?” The men in my family have like 6 chest hairs, total. We’re seals. C hastened to reassure me that I could end up as hairy as my two new brothers in a year’s time. I’m really okay with not being quite so hirsute, if it means I keep my head hair.

I am deeply indebted to M, and to C, to Cole, to all the men in my life. You want to bust up your sick ideas about men, try transitioning. There are amazing men out there, everywhere.

Unce, Tice, Tee Times a Mady

Being on testosterone is like having a V-8 engine in a V-6 frame. I feel like I’m revving at higher speeds, which, being as it boosts metabolism, I guess I am. This has the unfortunate effect of boosting my already jacked-up levels of stress and anxiety. Here’s the dramatic backstory:

In January 2008 I decide to clamber into the diving bell and drop deep into my wakening consciousness. Reports from the depths indicated that this human might actually be male. I decide to investigate these reports with characteristic zeal and curiosity. These traits almost always impel me into waters I will have heretofore found murky, impenetrable, even terrifying.

I dive into this “I think I might be a man-thing.” Meantime, I’d made the decision, as an older lady, to go to college. I mean 47 aint even MILF-land anymore. It’s post-MILF. (Hey, I could’ve been a mother! Fine, I wasn’t even near that country; you get my picture, smartass.) I’m old and in frickin Community College, which frankly is also not a tad terrifying for me.

I’m starting full-time college, when the woman I’m pretty sure I want to spend the rest of my days with leaves me. Now, in her defense* her departure probably had nothing to do with my decision to go all trans-nova and such. But when one has committed to profound life changes with the implicit trust that one is supported by one’s partner…well shit. We’ve all been there – made the decision to go ftm and had our loved one dump us.

Anyhoo, so that’s happening. I’m literally waking up every morning thinking I’m going to have a heart attack and crying – nay, sobbing – at every mealtime, and this is before I start injecting the T. Fortunately, I’ve begun to connect with other transguys, and cling to them in what have become extremely choppy waters. I don’t know that I’ve met one guy who was in a relationship that wasn’t dumped when they decided to be themselves. I know that’s not unilaterally true – it’s just that the Universe put men in my life that I could relate to and draw strength from. The Universe is cool like that.

I begin gender therapy. It’s required: you must do 12 sessions of therapy in order to get your man papers** so you can get your hormones. In April my closest friend dies. In May my other dear friend gets gravely ill and I travel to be at what might be his death bed. I am fuckity fuck fucked UP.***

Buried beneath these successive heartbreaks, I’m also freaking out about becoming a man. I’m not sure I want to do this thing. Two months after being on T, I’m waking up going “what the fuck am I DOING!? I WANT TO BE A WOMAN!” This is unsettling.

In this place, I am completely alone. I meet people who are sympathetic, but no one is put in my path who has had this experience. I am praying for guidance, for clear signage, a billboard maybe with David Beckham and his enormous package on it (although how would I interpret that – I want to be him, or I want to do him?). “Please God, I’ll do whatever the fuck you want, you know I will – just fucking tell me if you want me to be a man or a woman!” That, by the way, is a typical and fairly effective prayer, should you need it.

I’m confused. I’m grieving the loss of my (me) woman, but it’s complicated by all these other transitions, passages. I think I might just die myself. I think I might just wake up dead one morning.

My therapist tells me that for me, being a woman is like staying in a bad relationship. You have a couple good days and you fall prey to the comforting delusion that it aint so bad, after all.

Going somewhere else, liberation, is too frightening. I’m clinging to the rock I know, even as it’s become increasingly slippery with seaweeds and goopy creatures, which as a guy you think I’d find interesting and indeed I do, but it’s time to loosen the grip. The water is actually fine now.

Jesus I’m scared. She tells me I should say these affirmations, that I am “a strong and courageous man.” She tells me to say them in first, second and third person. I wince; my personality balks at well, this kind of crap. But I do it. It’s a testament to just how miserable I was that I will say what I now call my Manfirmations. And by golly, something shifts. Within days of repeating my Man-tra, it occurs to me to create a checklist for when I’m doubting my transition, which looks like this:

Do you feel as though you have man stuff hanging twixt your fleshy thighs? Strangely, yes!

In your mind’s eye what does your body look like? Kind of…manly, actually!

Did you or did you not say that being a woman is “something you finally figured out how to do” like it’s a shtick? Aye, that I did!

Do you think real women have these thoughts, about their intrinsic gender, their body image? Nay, it’s unlikely Laddie, unlikely!

And there you have it, in a nut sack.

*and I did defend, sometimes! There’s this interesting phenomenon: when you’re heartbroken and devastated, sensitive people intuit that it’s ripe time to tell you how they really feel about your ex. I'm quite sure she received her share of "well meaning consolation." Bless us.

**this is a letter from your counselor saying that you meet the qualifications of “gender identity disorder,” that you’re – beyond being a big ol’ trannyman – of sound man-mind if girl-body. I was calling my letter my “man visa” in the hopes I could get it stamped at titty bars and NASCAR.

***Those friends that DIDN'T DIE are the best friends ever. Without Jessica, Judith, Kevin, Hadley; sans Betty, Jerilynn, Aakara, Keith and Eric I surely would've upended upon that rock. R.I.P. David Clay, the sagest, "zoomiest" most genius guy role model I've ever had the privilege to be in love with.