In Which I Wax Poetic

Lately I've been telling a lot of people about my favourite poem. Lucky you, I'm gonna tell you too! My favourite poem is by Williams Carlos Williams:

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

For me, this is a poem about not having regrets. He says "Forgive me," but he doesn't say "I'm sorry"-- he says, "they were delicious." For me, this poem is about not apologizing when I'm not sorry. It's about being able to acknowledge the collateral damage of my choices without ever forgetting why I made those choices. It's about choosing the things that I actually want, instead of the things that will result in the least resistance from others. So it's a very soothing poem for me; I've had this poem memorized for years, and I like to turn it over in my mind, like a worrystone, reminding myself of its shape.

Regret has played a huge role in my life thus far. I have regretted pretty much every life decision I've ever made, ever. I regret both of my serious girlfriends, each in their own way. I regret coming to Duke. I regret leaving Duke to go on medical leave. I really regret coming back. I have regretted every purchase and every joke I have ever made. I regret 90% of my social interactions-- and I definitely regret every time I've gotten drunk.

I don't always regret these things-- in fact, most of the time, I'm okay with the decisions I make, or at least I'm able to move on. It's just the awful social anxiety that makes me replay everything in my head, late at night when I'm trying to sleep, and everything I do seems so much stupider-- it's only in those moments that I regret. Well, and then in the morning I regret spending so much time focusing on my regrets.

But this is changing. More and more, I'm able to remember why I made the choices I did-- and more importantly, I'm able to remember the positive outcomes of those choices, and not just the negative ones. My regrets are more fleeting and less heartfelt, and they never keep me awake any more.

And, I now have two major life decisions under my belt which I have never regretted, not even for a moment. The first is my decision to write a thesis. For the first time, I allowed myself no excuses. I turned in a project that was the very best I can do. This is honestly pretty scary, because it means that if my advisor says it isn't any good, I can't blame something else-- it'll mean that I'm not very good at what I do. But that would be better than failing because I'd never even tried. Even then, I wouldn't regret.

The second thing I never regret: starting testosterone. It's been a little over five months; people have been commenting that they can see changes-- a little fuzz on my cheeks, a different shape to my face, a deeper voice. I don't see any of it, but I do feel... different. More solid. More okay.

I don't think I could have written my thesis, without testosterone. For one thing, T cured my writer's block! I hadn't even realised how hard writing had gotten until it was suddenly easy again. But more than that, being on hormones, and therefore making progress on the path I want to live-- it allows me to just not think about all my personal shit all the goddamn time, so I can think about Romantic-era novels instead.

I still waffle a little about some parts of transitioning-- I really love the middle name Isaac, for example, because I like the name and I like the homage to Isaac Asimov, but it makes my initials LIE, and LIE is even worse than LEG. But testosterone-- every single day I feel more at home in my body, more content with the direction of my life. I've been having a hard time, lately, explaining How I Know that I'm trans, since I don't fit a "typical" trans narrative, and I didn't Know until pretty recently. But the answer is-- I never regret a single step that I take toward transition. On testosterone, I feel more like myself. And for the first time, I also feel happy about being myself. I can actually imagine a future in which I don't regret anything. It's a remarkable new outlook.

So these days, when people ask me how I'm doing, I say I'm fine, or I even say I'm great-- but inside, I'm always thinking, delicious.

In which I begin testosterone

On October 28 -- a month ago tomorrow -- I took my first dose of testosterone.

Since everybody always asks: it's a gel, that I apply to my shoulders. It comes in little packets. I take it every day.

Since nobody asks: it reeks of alcohol in a way that makes the whole process feel clinical and maybe a little alienating. I have to wash my hands afterwards and be careful not to touch my female friends.

Maybe I'm unusual in feeling this way, but I don't feel like I've crossed a milestone. I don't think transitioning has any milestones, not really. Well, there are milestones -- markers that show you where you are on your path -- but there are no thresholds. It's not a journey with a grand arrival, where you walk through a door and declare, "Today I am a man, whereas yesterday I was not."

I don't think it's even a journey at all, not really. I don't feel like I'm going anywhere. I've been here the whole time. I'm just putting my affairs in order. I can see alteration within myself, but no change from one clear category to another; it all just blends together into the process of growing up, the inevitable effect of time on a person's character. Starting testosterone is like declaring my major - a formalization of a longstanding internal shift.

And yet, it seems like testosterone has become a symbol for my entire transition in others' minds. There's a clear before and after in people's reactions. People comment on perceived changes all the time; to a certain extent, it's painful to have to say "no, you're imagining it, I don't have facial hair yet," or "no, my voice hasn't started changing," or "no, I haven't put on muscle" -- I really want to say yes to all of these things, and it's frustrating to be put in the position of denying them. Or, in some cases, I feel like I have somehow changed categories in the other person's mind, and they now think of me as being a transman 'for real'; people have started taking my transition seriously in a way that only reveals that they weren't taking it seriously before.

I don't want the tone of this post to be misleading -- in their own way, these are both positive things. It's great to hear that my friends perceive me as more masculine, even if their perception is based more on my changing attitude than a physical alteration. And it's great for people to realise that I am serious about my transition.

Moreover, I'm thrilled to be on testosterone. When I applied my first dose, I was so happy I literally cried. I was euphoric for a solid day. And now I can think about the future and feel excited about it. My 'dysphoria fits' do still happen, but they are always bearable, in a way they never used to be before. Even the decision itself helped me, independent of the testosterone; since I decided not to wait for my parents' approval for this choice, I've become a lot more independent in general. My relationship with my parents is more of a relationship between adults.

I just don't think that starting testosterone changed me.

This Thanksgiving, I went home to my family. Everyone knew I was trans, but no one knew I was taking testosterone. We didn't talk about it. And I had a blast, because I still love my family, and I still love spending time with my brothers. I was really nervous about my brothers in particular, because I was worried things would become awkward between us; the most valuable part of my relationship with them has always been how comfortable things always are between us. But we made each other laugh just as much as ever.

I hope my parents noticed how much fun this weekend was. If they do, I hope it helps them understand that my goal isn't to completely destroy my former life and to become a stranger -- my goal is just to grow up and become myself. Just like anyone else.