Hello, blog, it's been a while.

I've been busy doing Tumblr things and forum things and kinda forgot this was here. Huh.

So first of all, let's talk names. I am no longer an Anthony or a Connor. Hell, after spending a semester getting bitched at by the name Connor, I kinda don't wanna hear that name ever again. The name I've picked out now is Sawyer. It's sticking. I've decided that I want to keep my initials, because they've always been initials I am fond of (SEC, and I'm a Hogs football fan, you do the math), so now all I have to do is come up with a middle name. That's...harder than it sounds.

I asked my mom tonight whether she knew if I was going to be a boy or a girl when I was born. She said no, that she didn't wanna know for me or my brother. I then asked her if I would have had my brother's name had I been a boy; he's named after our grandfathers. She said no, that if I'd been a boy, she would have named me David Michael. I always did like the name David. I considered both of these names, actually. I don't think I'm going to use either of them, but...it's something I've always wondered, and the subject came up tonight.

My gender is getting weird. I've joined Bigender.net finally, after months and months of debating. I'm getting to the point where my gender isn't something I flip out about. It's just...there. I think about it a lot more than any cisgender person would, but at this point, it's not all-consuming for me. I know I want a more boyish body. I'm rethinking whether I wanna try and get on T, because the things I don't want are pretty fairly balanced with the things I do, so that makes the decision tough. I know I eventually do want top surgery still, though. That's a for-sure; I want a flat chest. I know my sex is more masculine-androgynous than feminine-androgynous. My gender...it's all over the place. And I'm okay with that.

I've told at least a couple of my friends that I'm okay with them using whichever names and pronouns they want to with me. I go by so many names, it doesn't much matter. It's kind of a selective list, though--the ones who have tried the hardest to keep up with my name and gender and pronouns, the ones who have been there and who have supported me, they're the ones who I don't care what they call me. Those who have never tried, who still call me by my female name and by female pronouns, well. They can learn to call me what I've ASKED they call me, or they can GTFO. (My friends call me male pronouns around these people just to keep the confusion to a minimum, in case you were wondering.) I know it's a complicated situation, but I don't feel my gender is exactly male or female or androgyne or neutral or anything else, and I'm still learning, so it's more comfortable to me for people to call me what they want instead of worrying, but only those who understand all I've tried to explain and learn about my own gender.

Maybe I'm being picky or bitchy. That's okay.

In unrelated news, I finished my damn thesis and presented it on Friday. I hope it went well. I really honestly have no idea. I'm just glad I can stop stressing and go back to writing whatever I want instead of worrying about having to write this ONE THING every moment of my life.

Forums are taking over my life (er, again?) and Tumblr is keeping me busy. I'm even getting bad at updating Twitter, so no promises on when the next post here at my 'real' blog will be.

On semi-fresh starts.

Not quite a clean slate, but I'll take what I can get.

I've emailed all of my professors officially coming out as trans so that they'll get my name and pronouns right. Of the five I've emailed, I've heard back from three, and they are all totally cool with this and seem nothing but helpful.  Problems may arise if I find I'm in class with lots of people I know, which given I'm a senior and am pretty much locked into my major/minor field classes, I probably will be.

My Bunnie was here for two weeks and headed back to N.C. about a week ago; she was supposed to only stay ten days, but ended up having to reschedule her flight because of a snafu with her boarding pass.  I wasn't complaining.  Neither was she.  We spent our surprise time after the airport trip fell through sharing lunch at Red Lobster and going to Barnes and Noble.  It was excellent.  As much as I love the idea of her being my girlfriend, I like her being my girlfriend in real life even more--I love the fact that we can hold hands, that we can kiss, that I can have her in my arms and everything feels so right with the world.  I've wanted this for way too long.  Of course I'm taking advantage of it.  I miss her, but I'm okay with her being gone this time, because she has her cell phone, which means I can call her without it being long-distance, we can text each other, and she has internet access, so it's like she's not really that far away.  Besides.  I'll see her again in a month when the Vampire group goes to New Orleans.

Speaking of vampires, I'm getting my fangs.  The binder is working out excellently, and now another piece of my identity should be falling into place soon.  I love the fact that my mom understands roleplay and what it means to me; she actually told me tonight that she doesn't get moms who don't get roleplay and that it's harmless and fun and we're just enjoying ourselves.  I love my mother.

Classes start tomorrow, and I'm all kinds of nervous about it.  This is the first time I'll have gone out in public actually presenting male with people knowing I'm presenting and people who know to call me Connor, and who know that I'm a guy, more or less.  I'm terrified.  It's kind of been triggering my dysphoria tonight, because I'm in a panic about looking perfect tomorrow, even though looking the part is only half the battle.  I did cut my hair again, though.  Hopefully it'll dry straight and fall right tomorrow and I'll just get lucky.  I've been PMSing for nearly a week now, so you just watch me hit my Lunar Cycle tomorrow and fuck everything up.  It'll be great.  And typical.

And on the subject of people calling me Connor.  I love my friends.  The girl's learning to call me Connor, my best friend Pookie was the first to make the switch and has been doing so consistently. (She also, after a fact, came up with the term 'chickadude'.  This is the same person who says that since I'm still fairly genderqueer, I'm a Transformer, as in the robots, and that if I'm dressed like a girl, I'm a drag racer instead of a queen.  She is the best at ridiculous gender-neutral terms.)  And my Foxy Lady has also been pretty consistent and awesome.  My Lil Sis has started calling me her Big Bro.  And I'll get my Badger to play along eventually.  No worries.  All in all?  Pretty damn good bunch of people, these guys are.

It's two in the morning and I am really damn sleep deprived.  I think I'm going to attempt to write for a bit and probably end up crashing the hell out.  Here's to tomorrow morning.

You Are Here

1. I started a Facebook page under a new name.  A male name.  One that I think I might want to start going by. This lead to a Talk from a friend that kind of left me a little shaky.  She means well.  She always does.  But my experiences are my own, the rest be damned; I hate to be so black and white about it, but if people have a problem with me creating a damn Facebook page under a male name, I really don't need to be friends with them in the first place.  Advice seconded by another friend of mine.  Perhaps these aren't things I should talk about openly, but I'm tired of being afraid and unsure, and all I want is some fucking support, and it hurts when all I get in return is people doing what feels like trying to talk me out of doing all this exploring.

2. Really missing the girl right now.  She's sick in another state and homesick on top of that, and that's making me miss her all the more, because I'm tired of sleeping alone and I want to make her better.  I always want to make her better, though, so that's nothing new.  I just really want someone to cuddle and watch movies or Iron Chef America with right now.  Stupid things like that.

3. Ordered my first binder today.  We'll see how that goes when it comes in.  In addition, I bought a pair of swim trunks today (with Captain America on them, tyvm) and some shirts at Goodwill.  The boy-wardrobe is growing.

4. Had a, ah, lovely class this morning.  I'm taking health right now so I don't have to do it this fall on top of everything else, and it's just...it's one of those classes.  This morning's assignment was a worksheet on gender roles where we had to list ten male traits and ten female traits, and whether we have any of the traits we listed for the opposite sex.  I word it this way because the damn sheet was worded this way.  Sex does not equal gender, stereotypes are fucking stupid, and there's a lot of middle ground we're ignoring completely in regards to both sex and gender.  I know, like I should be pitching a fit over a stupid worksheet in a stupid gen ed, but it just triggered my dysphoria and made me all shaky and a little freaked out and I really fucking hate this class.  Even the textbook, in the tiny paragraph on transgenderism in the chapter on sexual orientation, uses the example of a transgirl while referring to said fictional transgirl with male pronouns.  This makes me angry.

5. Writing is just not happening lately.  Shittons of RP, but I'm not just...writing.  And that sucks.

6. Hopefully, barring any more postponing, there will be a shopping trip with my buddy very soon, and I'm planning on going boy for that trip.  We'll see how that goes too.

I think that's all the updates we need.  I feel like I should have something more substantial to talk about, but I really don't.

Things Are Getting Better

Things have happened in the last few months.

One: I've started to be really comfortable with calling myself 'trans' more than 'queer', which I think is a real step forward, because it's more...me.  I'm still queer.  And I'll still be genderqueer even if I do transition--it's possible, I've decided (discovered?) to be FtM and still be genderqueer.  So I'm thinking of myself now as transmasculine, if not quite a transman.  It fits.  And I'm okay with this.

Two: Because of this, I've started going out in public in boy-mode lately.  Not all the time, because it's Arkansas, and it's summer, and it's damn hot to bind all the time, but enough.  I'm okay with it.  I'm not freaked about binding and even packing in public.  I'm starting to buy more boy clothes for occasions like this.  I bought a nice short-sleeve plaid button down the other day that'll be much more comfortable in the summer than a long-sleeve with the sleeves rolled up.  I think I'm gonna go get a pair of khaki cargo shorts soon, too, to go with it.  Which is kind of a big deal for me; I haven't worn shorts in years.  Mostly because I don't shave my legs, and I'm self-conscious about it because I'm still publicly female and therefore still expected to shave.  That said...I think it'll help me pass if I do decide to wear shorts.  I'm getting some swim trunks, too.  And, obviously, a women's swim tank, but that's mostly because it's necessary.  The swim shorts have me stupidly excited, though.  The clothing and the binding and the presenting as a boy has been really freeing.

Three: My Bunnie, my bestest bestie, is now officially my girlfriend.  This happened a couple of weeks ago, but hell.  I've been busy.  Anyway.  She told me on the phone one night--and yes, she's still away, still not home, but it's okay--that she's figured out in all this time away from me that she really is in love with me.  And we're already planning our wedding, which really, we might as well have been doing all along.

So that's my update on life right now.  I'm settling into my identity and excited about being officially in a relationship.  Next step is probably realising that this apparently makes me a straight man, which I find hilarious in so many ways.  Of all the things I never thought I would grow up to be.

On deepening dysphoria.

I just started a new job--working fast food, preferring cashier duty right now.  I'm good at it.  It's not been a bad job so far.  It's a place I like to eat at, my coworkers are great, and my boss is nice.  (The owner, I'm not sure about--I think he needs to get out of the kitchen, most of the time.)  The problem?  The first day I went in for training and got my uniform, I noticed one small nitpicky detail--the uniforms are stupidly gendered.  Barely, but still gendered.  The guys get baseball caps, the girls get visors.  From what I can tell, this is just so the girls can pull their ponytails through the tops of their visors and keep them off their necks.

I'd rather have a baseball cap, personally, but I'm not going to ask for one just now.  It's not that big a deal.

I left work early tonight because I was having dizzy spells and feeling faint.  I blamed this on the fact that it was hot in the store and we'd just had a huge post-church rush of people.  In reality, it was because I was about to have a panic attack.  But explaining that I was about to panic required explaining why, and the why is the part I can't really explain to anyone who doesn't know me.  I was about to have a panic attack because I was having an incredibly bad dysphoria attack.

I'm learning as I go along in all of this the things that will trigger my dysphoria.  Sometimes, I'll get little easy-to-deal-with bouts of it for no reason at all.  Lately, though, two things have been triggering major attacks of it.

One: roleplay is becoming a problem, since I'm playing a girly-girl.  It's no big around the roleplay group.  I'm out as genderqueer to all of them, so they know the clothes are just a costume, and they all comment on how weird it is to see me looking like a girl, which makes me feel more comfortable.  They understand.  But I get into costume in my dorm before heading across campus to the student center where we play, or over to the community center when we can get it, and what triggers my dysphoria is having to be seen in my costume by total strangers.  My friends have suggested that I pretend I'm in drag, as it might help.  Which it kind of does.  But the problem is that I know these other people are looking at me and thinking 'girl'.  No one would give a second thought to calling me "miss" or "ma'am" or "young lady" or "woman" when I'm in that costume.  I look like a girl.  Even when I'm dressed as a guy, I don't pass.  I'm not trying exceptionally hard to, but only once has anyone ever second-guessed my gender and called me "sir" instead, and that was because I was in a football jersey and being generally boyish.  That was an accident.  And then they tripped all over themselves apologising and correcting themselves, because I said something and my voice sounds like a deep girl's voice.  Point is, my costume triggers my dysphoria because I know I look like a girl, no questions asked, to any stranger I see.

The second thing that's been doing it lately is a little harder to get rid of.  My "lunar cycles".  I have pretty bad PMS as it is, which just compounds it, because I have terrible moodswings, painful cramps, fatigue, upset stomach, faint spells, the whole nine yards.  (I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I ended up diagnosed with PMDD.)  Problem is, I just started my cycle tonight, so I was sore and sick and feeling like I was going to pass out, and all of the people calling me "ma'am" while I was running the register was making it worse.  This has happened every month since the beginning of the year, and it gets worse every time.  Every month, the dysphoria gets a little worse and a little worse, because this is the ultimate marker of being female.  I can even handle not binding my chest all the time, and most of the time, I feel no need to.  But at least the option is there, and that's what makes it easier to deal with.  But this?  There's nothing I can do about it.  I can't afford birth control.  And my friends who are on BC tell me that insurance won't cover it, at least not most of it, even in medically necessary cases, such as preventing ovarian cancer.  If I could afford it, believe me, I'd be getting on one of the seasonal pills in a heartbeat.  It just seems like I'm stuck, because there's nothing I can do.

What's insane about this is that I don't feel like I'll ever choose to have SRS, and I'll probably never even go so far as a hysterectomy.  So I almost feel like I have no right complaining.  I almost feel like it would be easier if I were fully FtM, instead of this genderqueer-masculine mess that I am, because at least then I would have something to come out as, instead of feeling so lost and torn and unable to explain what I am inside.  But I know that's not true.  The truth is, I know exactly what I look like when I close my eyes.  I could explain the body I want to people, and I could explain who I want to be inside, but that doesn't explain what I am; it's like I have an idea, but no terms to convey it.  It's hard to come out when you're not even sure what you are.

Life is good.

Short post, probably, but an important one.

I came out as genderqueer on Facebook a couple of days ago to a select group of people.  I was in a bad mood when I did it, feeling the overwhelming effects of gender dysphoria, and thought for sure I was going to regret it.  I've had nothing but support from my friends since.  It makes me want to cry, I'm so happy that my friends are such a fantastically accepting group of people.

I've had two different people who called me by my given name, then quickly corrected to my chosen name--Taylor's name--and asked which I preferred.  I've had several people asking in advance which name I wanted to go by and what pronouns they should use with me.  My Sis asked me tonight if I wanted her to start having her nearly-three-year-old daughter call me Taylor instead of my given name.  It feels kind of weird, but so good.  For the most part, I tell them that I don't care which name they call me and which pronouns they use,not day-to-day.  At least, for the time being.  For now, the fact that they're checking with me and that they're rolling with this and accepting me for who I am is enough to make me indescribably happy.

Better yet?  Since coming out, the dysphoria's been easier to deal with, and I'm feeling less of a psychological divide between myself and who I want to be inside.  It's like just saying the words to everyone--saying out loud that I'm genderqueer--gave my own identity permission to integrate.

I really do have the best friends in the world.