It reminds me of my comfort with (and even pleasure from) shopping for clothing since transitioning. It makes sense – since I’m happier with my body and my appearance, of course I’d be more willing to try on clothing – but was nevertheless unexpected.

Before I transitioned, I really disliked shopping. I never really thought about why – boys aren’t ‘supposed’ to like shopping, so it was never really something I needed to justify. Likewise, it’s not unusual for boys to dislike wearing suits and ties, so my dislike of that also wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.

In retrospect, it seems really obvious that liking my body more and liking the clothing I’m wearing more would make me enjoy shopping more. I had just never thought about it – the idea of transitioning, of having boobs and a butt, of really presenting myself to the world as a woman – and so never seriously thought about the idea of shopping for clothing outside of fantasy.

In some ways, it can’t live up to any of the absurd expectations I might have had: i haven’t had any magical transformation in the night, so I’m still working on my own body issues. Likewise, I haven’t magically gained the knowledge of twenty-plus years of being raised as a girl and living as a woman, so I’m still feeling rather awkward about shopping, and having to work on gaining confidence in picking things out.

But, in much more positive ways, there’s something amazing about having a fantasy even come close to actually happening.

I’m all prickly and red now, though, which is obnoxious. It usually fades away in a day or two. I should rub hydrocortisone on the parts that are really itchy.

In more exciting news, I’ve almost saved enough to pay off the hair removal. When I signed on the dotted line in August, I was committing to pay $4,390 by the end of August, 2009, or start facing interest charges. I’ve been saving money in an interest-bearing ING account, and plan to pay them off in mid-August to get as much interest money as possible. Although interest rates have been dropping, a little ‘free’ money is better than none! (If you want an ING referral, let me know! If you join with something like $200 in a savings account, I get $10 and you get $25!)

So yeah. I have something like $4200 in the bank right now, and I figured if I get around $4300, most of the remaining will be made as interest. With my next paycheck, next week, I should have that off my back!

Which is good, because this weekend I am going shopping! I sent out an email to some girl friends asking for help to find me a wardrobe. I have, like, four pairs of pants and five tops that I’m just cycling through, and it’s getting ridiculous… So, as much as it pains whatever testosterone that’s left in my system to do it, I’m going on a shopping spree! Round 1 is tomorrow, with NP (and possibly a friend from work), and I might be doing more on Saturday and/or Sunday.

Ridiculous.

-R

So I sucked it up today and went to Victoria’s Secret where I learned a few things. Again, we’ll do bad news first.

The bad news is that the bras I got are, ultimately, uncomfortable and a bit too small, so will need to be returned. Specifically, the end of the underwire, between the cups, digs into my sternum rather painfully, and they’re all already stretched on the last set of hooks.

The good news is that I was sized at Victoria’s Secret and apparently my own guess of 38A wasn’t horrible, but I forgot that that also means 36B and 34C, which is how they ultimately sized me. So, armed with that knowledge, I am now more confident in my ability to find a bra (or, dare I say, bras) that fit me, get me out of the sports bras I’ve been wearing for a year, and are actually comfy.

The bonus good news is that, even with feeling a little bummed that the stuff I spent money on needs to be returned (and the friends I’ve talked to tonight ultimately said “Oh, I’m not a huge van of Victoria’s Secret’s bras…”), I was able to do it without having a panic attack and I went to Old Navy and got some tops and khakis I like and I got my hair cut today and like that, too.

As I said to some friends, I think spending all that money on clothing and hair and enjoying it means I’m suffering from estrogen poisoning, but I aint’ complaining…

-R

The bad news is my torso is apparently too large and my boobs too small to fit the straps and cups of the largest/smallest bra Target sells (36A).

The good news is that some creative scissoring meant the padded cups from the ill-fitting bras have allowed me to expand my bust considerably, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say-no-more.

The bonus good news is I just went out boot shopping, was ma’amed, and no one blinked as I was trying on women’s shoes. The cashier did pause for a second when seeing the name on my credit card, but she didn’t give me any trouble (and it could have been my imagination to begin with).

EDIT: The bonus bad news is that putting padding in a bra without padding inserts causes the wearer to develop mondo uni-boob after a few hours. (Who knew?)

The double-bonus good is it still made me feel better about myself for a little while.

-R

So the first one is about clothing, the most mundane (and yet oh-so-important) of things. L was saying I needed to just go to Target, where no one would care what I was looking at or trying on, and get something. I was whining and backpedaling and letting fear of embarasment keep me from doing it. See, among other things, I really don’t like to feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. And buying women’s clothing? I don’t know what I’m doing.

But I finally got up my courage and went to Target. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write…) After putting off the women’s clothing section by looking at all the cool Lego Star Wars toys and the GPS systems and the make-your-own-ice-cream things, I finally meandered slowly past the clothing section. I felt like a bad spy in a satire, where if no one notices the spy before they try to ‘sneak,’ everyone damn sure will after.

Then I lost my nerve and went next door to Office Max, hating myself all the way.But wait! I went back, meandered some more, looked intently at my phone as if i just happened to stop to check the time near the women’s section and wasn’t struggling with 23 years of ingrained shame about not identifying as a man.

In the end I did come home with two women’s tshirts. I dawdled some more, pretended I was looking at my shoes, my phone, anything but the clothing in front of me. But I managed to try something on, and didn’t die of cripling embaresment (because L’s right, as usual, no one gives a shit). And they’re undeniably feminine, with scooped necklines and slight waists, feminine in a way that the vast majority of my clothing is not.

And I do feel really good about having bought them, and owning them. They show that I have boobs! Oh dear god, I have boobs! Ridiculous. (Wearing them in public, however, will be a different battle…)

Shifting gears slightly. The second thing L ‘wins’ at, which ends on a less happy note, was talking to my dad.

We went biking for Father’s Day yesterday, which was actually really good. We did about 20 miles round trip, and even talked about doing an overnight trip at some point, about 30 miles each way (which I’m somewhat interested in doing, since 20 miles was pretty OK). But then on the way back, I brought up transitioning.

L had said that, since I’m an adult now, it’s not only my dad’s responsibility to keep up the relationship. That is, if there’s something I think he and I should talk about, it’s half my responsibility to bring it up. I’d felt like we hadn’t really talked about transitioning stuff…well…ever, and was a little uncomfortable about it. So driving on the way back to my house, I finally did bring it up. But I felt like every time I gave him the opportunity to ask questions or explain why it was hard for him to deal with, he just repeated “This is hard for me.” Even worse, he said border-line homo/transphobic things like “Well, how would you feel if I said I was going to become a woman?”

That hurt first, becuase I think he’s handling it worse than every other person in my life is, so I have pretty high standards for how he should be handling it. Second, he’s had literally ten years to think about my being trans and still dances around the vocab of trans-ness and transitioning.

So I ended up coming home in tears, with him insisting he loves me and me feeling like he was saying “I love you, but….” But I slept on it, and G was (of course) really good at helping me calm down and get a little perspective. I’m still upset with him, and I think I have the right to be upset. But I also am trying to see things from his perspective and not be too hard on him. As G said, I need to go easier on him, but also on myself.

So I emailed him today, in response to a brief email he said where he apologized for upsetting me but didn’t even try to figure out why I was upset, and said that I still love him and would still be interested in going on the overnight biking trip, but need a few days to figure out my thoughts before responding to what we talked about concerning the transition.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

-R