$45/month for hormones (assuming I stay on a similarly good insurance plan)
May go up to $60/month if/when I go on progesterone
TOTAL COST: Somewhere around $650 so far…going off for a while this summer makes calculating the exact amount a little difficult…probably somewhere around $30,000 over the rest of my life (making a lot of assumptions, including that the cost of drugs will never go up or down)
$1,000+ forfacial hair removal, so far.
I need to go back and do some more touch-ups, each one running an additional $100 per session
$4,390 for body hair removal, including chest and torso, arms, and legs
Like facial hair, I’ll probably need to do additional touch-ups at some point, each running hundreds of dollars
This also doesn’t include my back, neck, or shoulders, all areas I may want to do someday
Around $45/month for therapy
I’m counting this as an indispensable part of the transition, and once I use up my insurance-alloted number of sessions it’ll go up from $15 out-of-pocket per session to the full $90 (unless I can talk my therapist down from there…)
TOTAL COST: Somewhere around $750 so far
At least $6,700 spent so far
More than my rent for a year
More than my car is worth
More than I spent going to Paris twice last year to visit G
Here’s a mosaic I just built with Mazaika from about 4,000 pictures of friends and I. (The image below has about 1,6000 images with about 1,000 unique photos.) I used Zoomify to create the zoom-able image, and although I’m not thrilled with the results of the flash dohicky, it’s hard to argue with free.
I’m still processing a lot of the performance experience last month, having been overwhelmed by the whole thing. So I haven’t written about this because I honestly wasn’t thinking about it much until recently.
A few trans people I know through the trans youth program I’ve been going to (although not recently…it’s hard to feel motivated to go out after work on a Wednesday when it’s SO COLD!) came to the performance. After, as they were leaving, one of them mentioned how cute a friend of mine was and that I should get her his number. The whole thing slipped my mind, but I’m wondering now what my responsibilities are in this situation, and to who.
Basically, do I have a responsibility to the trans person I know – someone I’d like to continue a relationship with and eventually become friends with – to not disclose that she’s trans, or a responsibility to my friend – someone I have a relationship with – to disclose that she’s trans? (I’m going to call her A, even though that’s not her initial.)
I changed my name on Facebook a while back from J to R. I stressed about it at the time, but the only responses I’ve gotten have been positive, and I haven’t gotten a ton of responses to begin with. But, although I have an ‘alias’ email address which sends as R, my primary email address still sends as J.
Now – as I’m moving toward transitioning at work, have both of my parents calling me R (although my dad does it somewhat awkwardly, that’s OK for now), and have all of my friends calling me R – I’m wondering if I’m ready to take that ultimate plunge.
Am I ready to change the name which shows up in people’s inboxes for my primary email address?
This also plays into my name change thoughts. I’m still thinking of changing my name to JR (a different J…) and going by R, my new middle name. Two reasons for this are A) I like the way it sounds, but like thinking of myself as R more, and B) I don’t want to have to change my email address from jlastname@, particularly because rlastname@ is, in my mind, my dad’s email address.
Yes, I’m actually planning my name change in part on how it will affect my email.
As I mentioned before, a group in Chicago is working to create a GLBT-friendly high school in Chicago and are (or were) calling it Pride Campus. The proposal was shot down earlier this year, and the proponents are regrouping and figuring out how to procede.
One of the people working on it recently got in touch with me, after being given my name by a friend, and asked if I’d like to be involved in the planning process. I emailed her back saying, basically, “Maybe – what would you need from me and what woudl I need to give you?” But, being on auto-pilot, I signed the email J rather than R.
So she emailed me back giving me some more information and asking which name I prefer to go by – she addressed me in the first email as R. And now I feel like a jackass because I have to figure out a way to say, “Oh. I guess I forgot my name there for a minute.”
I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep the last couple nights, unable to quiet my mind as I’m laying in bed. Specifically, I’ve been feeling a pit-of-the-stomach panic, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in at least a few months.
It’s no fun.
SS said I should take her therapist’s advice from a while ago and exercise lots while avoid sugar, booze, and caffiene, which is probably always good advice but does make particular sense in terms of having excess nervous energy.
Going through notes, I found this old outline of what I was thinking about for the solo performance while I was working on it. The most recent edit was on 9/30/08.
I think that works well going into Children’s Games, though I’m not sure. I also need to write something about bathing suits, and maybe this is a a good place to put it.
Talk about fear of change – needs new writing. I think I should talk about separation anxiety and fears I had going into puberty (not that I saw them that way at the time, but looking back in retrospect…)
Third section of Ares and Aphrodite – needs to be written. A jump taking the story from 10 (following the dream) to 20 (when the main character does something about it)
Thought people might enjoy seeing this…it’s, basically, the final version of the script I used for the solo performance from a couple weeks ago. Video is (hopefully) forthcoming.
GENERAL LIGHTING- CHILDHOOD GAMES
Run on as an airplane, get shot down, tumble down, look up at audience – coming on with that excited, child-energy
When I was young – I must have been 6 or 7 – I remember playing ‘make believe’ with a friend, running around in the park behind my house.
Have another moment of make-believe
I remember that, at some point in the make believe, I was captured by the bad guys -
Being captured
- and transformed into a girl. My friend had to rescue me! But ‘rescuing’ me didn’t mean ‘transforming me back into a boy,’ just ‘freeing me from the bad guys.’ I didn’t really want to be transformed back into a boy. And I remember it being important (for some pre-pubescent, gender-affirming reason) for me to be naked on the bed in my room, my penis tucked between my legs in a hairless V.
I’ve been thinking about transitioning at work. I’m out to everyone where I work, but the situation is made slightly more complicated because I work full time in one office which is down the hall from the office running the organization where I teach part time, both of which are in a building filled with other offices of people I’m on a first-name basis with.
I’ve been talking with the teacher I’m assisting at the Workshop, SB, about coming out to our high school class, which we both think will be smooth because they’re pretty awesome. As part of that process, I talked with the artistic director of the Workshop for a while today, JG, and she basically said, “We support you 100%, so lets figure out the best/smoothest way to do this.”
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Themocracy