Transition

Salvador Dali once said, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs”. Well I don’t need drugs either my darlings, as I am forever high on life. While I tend to think I will try most things once, I do not find them worth the money or the after effects. I love my mind; it is all that I have that is my own, and taking something which alters it other than alcohol chills me to the bone. Imagining myself on drugs is something horrific. 

So why is it that imagining myself on male hormones seems so appealing in my mind’s eye? Granted, the affects could prove absolutely horrific but still; what would I look like on them? How would I feel? Better or worse? Regret? Mourning for the last shred of femininity that I have left? None or all of the above? 

All I know is that I am somewhat drugs already. Maybe I shouldn’t ask the question what would happen if I took hormone replacement therapy, and more like what would happen if I stopped taking the daily cocktail of drugs that try to preserve my few feminine features and habits. I cannot speak as every transgender or inter-sex person, and hell, maybe it is my imagination, or maybe it is dangerous for me to say it, but I definitely think that when I accidentally miss a few or they stop and start whatever cycle of drugs I happen to be on, I feel a lot more stereo-typically masculine, as I seem to fail to be open with my emotions. I hear a lot about trans-men on HRT whose personalities have altered since taking T and it does make me wonder.

Anyway, should I ever stop my medication altogether or further still start to take testosterone and transition, I genuinely wonder if I would look the way that I see myself in my minds eye, or instead of curing all of my problems, would it simply generate more and change me to the point where I am barely recognizable to myself? Because to transition and feel dysphoria about having a male body, or to miss my more emotional personality traits would be absolutely heart breaking to me, and I would truly miss myself. When it comes to relationships as well i am not sure how I would feel, but the one thing that both equally worries me and comforts me is this poem.

"When you peel layers of clothing from his skin

Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient

Even though it’s highly likely that you are.

Do not ask if she’s “had the surgery.”

Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt

If you are being offered a body

That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel

A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies

That come with some assembly required

Whatever you do,

Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape

Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue

Looks almost natural."

-How to Make Love to a Trans Person' by Gabe Moses.

I find it beautiful, and it highlights genuine problems and solutions on how my transitioned body would look to another and how positively or negatively I might be received. I have after all only partially dipped my toes in the ocean of dating while being out and openly trans*. At the same time though, I have not yet ruled anything out, and maybe one day I will wake up everyday, instead of the occasional week or month, believing that transitioning will make me feel much more comfortable, confident when I am with a partner and ultimately, it will actually get me closer to be me.