Archives

Some Good Things

May16

I’ve been neglecting the blog here a bit, except for that political piece yesterday, for over a month. But I should mention several good things going on.

HRT under the new estrogen regimen is working much better than under the old. I’m seeing rapid changes now that I like. A year ago, I still had a fairly boney male ass. Today, I have a nice rear end back there! Breast development is accelerating finally. Body shape is changing. Overall weight is only down about 7 pounds since I began HRT 19 months ago but the body shape continues to change due to closely monitoring my diet and trying to engage in regular exercise (though I’ve been lax about that since Christmas). That body shape change has resulted in me dropping from size 14 jeans with no rear end to speak of to size 10 jeans with a rather attractive hiney. 🙂

Also, as the physical aspects of transition continue, it’s becoming harder and harder to pass as a male. A few weeks ago I went into the office (I work from home mostly) to pick up a new battery for the laptop. I tied my hair back in a ponytail and put on a cap, male polo shirt, and jeans (though they were women’s jeans) and headed to the office. I thought I had the “geeky guy” look going pretty well. People who knew me identified me as male but I got some odd looks that had me perplexed. Then on the way out the front door, a guy I’d never met from the second floor steps ahead of me, grabs the door handle, and says, “Let me get that for you, ma’am.” And suddenly I realized what the odd looks were for – people were looking at me, expecting male and thinking male but not seeing that.

That happened again that same evening, still dressed the same way going to dinner with my spouse. We were addressed as “you ladies” and I was addressed as “ma’am” multiple times even when not carrying a purse and trying to look male. I guess I’m hitting the “male fail” line now. 🙂

And I have another facial hair removal session in two weeks again in Dallas. The entire chin/lip area is getting very sensitive and while I can see a small overall reduction in total facial hair, it’s still pretty dense in those areas. I am hoping the fourth session in two weeks, and the fifth session in July will make a big dent in that.

My benefits coordinator at work continues to try to get a straight answer from our health insurance company about gender surgery. Nothing useful so far on that front. I do need to contact the other HR rep though, because I want to get moving on the official coming out meeting to my team mates. I don’t want to come in on a Friday, announce that I am trans and then show up on a Monday in a dress. I want them to have time to assimilate the idea, ask questions, and for it to become a non-issue. HR wants to bring in a third party coordinator for this but has not found someone they want to use yet so I may have to push a bit on that front.

Legal name and gender change (on driver’s license) is still on track for early fall. That’s been my plan and I am going to stick to that barring some financial catastrophe along the way. I can admit that I am already looking forward to seeing ‘Cara Elizabeth’ and ‘F’ on my driver’s license though.

So things are slowly progressing in the direction I want. I’m still probably 18 to 24 months out at least from GCS (or SRS as some call it). I’m holding off on voice surgery since my voice is now changing due to hormones alone, something that usually doesn’t happen on hormone therapy but can occur rarely. I think I will wait to see where my voice ends up before I decide on voice training versus voice surgery though if I had to pick today, the voice surgery would be my choice.

Anyway, life is generally ok. Not quite where I want it but not horrible either. My adult sons and their families continue to pretend I don’t exist but I can’t do anything about that. Their loss. My ancient 1998 Z-28 Camaro has required no serious repairs (yet) and looks ready to pass inspection for another year after a recent tuneup. I want a new car but I have other financial priorities at the moment so unless my hand is forced, the Z-28 is it for a few more years anyway.

And that’s where things are for the moment!

Third E3000 Session Results

Apr11

Below are the before and after for session 3, on April 4, 2014. Of note to me, I am seeing significant change in the upper and lower lip area between session 1 before and session 3 before. The chin and jawline are still pretty dense.

E3000_session3_before_after

As a reminder to myself, costs were over $1100 for the first session, over $1000 for the second session, and $751 (and change) for the third session. The first two sessions involved two techs for 5 hours each (10 total hours) and 4.5 hours each (9 total hours) respectively. The third session was actually harder because it was one tech but I was in the chair for 7 hours total. There were breaks in there, including an hour for lunch, but total actual chair time was about just under 7 hours. So there was maybe 25% less hair total to be removed than during the first two sessions.

My next appointment is May 30th. I’m eager to see what the before photo looks like then.

I will note that my face has been smoother this time for longer than each of the first two sessions. I also took a few hours the second evening back and used tweezers to pull dead hairs that had broken off. It’s very easy to tell which are dead and which are not. The live hairs still hurt like the dickens when yanked! The dead ones don’t hurt at all, and occasionally slide out so easy that it’s funny. I got about a hundred dead hairs then couldn’t find any more, though I did yank 6 or so live ones along the way.

I will also note that now, a week after this session, there are still zero beard hairs showing this time yet. There are lots of very fine and small facial hairs, that many women often have, but no beard follicles yet. The process does appear to be slowly whittling down the number of facial hairs and HRT may be affecting new growth as well.

The HR followup

Mar25

I really didn’t learn much in my HR meeting on Monday, the 24th. The benefits coordinator was out and unable to give me an answer to questions about trans surgeries and health care. We did cover my tentative legal transition schedule and that I was planning to go full time at work after that, so in the second half of this year.

It sounds like the surgery situation is somewhat ambiguous. I did point out that I would have letters of medical necessity when that time came, and that she should mention it to the CIGNA rep.

I also have permission to come out to my team mates. I need to coordinate that with my boss.

An amazing week in Memphis

Mar25

From March 15th to March 23rd, I was in Memphis, Tennessee, visiting two wonderful, supportive and close friends, and in turn making nearly a dozen more friends. It was a 10 hour drive from Texas but quite doable and as a side note, that old Z-28 that I drive managed to get 24, 26, 25, and 27 mpg on the four tanks of gas to and from Memphis. Of course, that car loves to cruise at about 75-80 mph, so letting it flex its muscles was the perfect opportunity for it to stretch out and run, like a thoroughbred horse.

I arrived in Memphis late Saturday evening, gave friends a couple text messages, then got unpacked for the evening. Now to put things in perspective, back home in Texas, I’ve been living a more and more female/androgynous mode but hadn’t gone all out yet and wasn’t presenting fully female full time. Memphis was going to be a week where I didn’t have to soothe anyone else’s discomforts and could just be myself.

Sunday came and we went thrift shop hopping for several hours. I picked up several new items, all of which I loved and we did dinner together and spent time chatting. Monday was more shopping and more clothes to take home. Tuesday was various activities with friends as well as a visit to one friend’s Pagan temple. The wonderful woman there who was the priestess did a tarot card reading for me that seemed, to me, to be very positive about the future, and especially about the question I asked (which she did not know until after, when I told her). That question was rather simple – will I always be alone? And her answer suggested no, I would not. I hit it off well with her and we’re going to keep in touch via Facebook.

Wednesday was a rest day, in which we got together a bit in the evening but mostly we took the day off to catch up. We’re not that young anymore! Thursday was the zoo, with lots of walking, seeing exhibits, admiring the expansion of the zoo, which the friend from Memphis was more than willing to explain to us. The Memphis Zoo has come a long ways, with many larger open enclosures versus the small cages of years ago. That evening we did barbeque and Central BBQ and then I chose to retire, being rather worn out from the long day. Several others went to another friend’s house and played board games. I wish I’d felt up to doing so but it didn’t work out that way with me falling asleep a bit after I got back to the hotel.

Friday was more running around getting eyebrows waxes, manicures, and then followed by a ceremony at the temple specifically for me. I was taken into the women’s circle, embraced as one of them, and really felt some overwhelming care and love from those there. I cried a lot, which I fully expected, hence avoided eye makeup that evening, else I’d have been a racoony mess!

On Saturday, my friend from Wisconsin had to depart with her family. We all had lunch together, chatted a bit, exchanged hugs, wished each other well, exchanged hugs again, and then they were off on the first leg of their drive home. On Saturday evening there was a large gathering at the temple but I skipped that, given my hearing problems when among large numbers of people, and because I needed to pack for the drive home Sunday.

On Sunday, I checked out of the hotel, had lunch with the friend who was local to Memphis, then finally got back on the road. This time I took I-55 south to I-10 west (with a few dog legs along the way). This trip was also about 10 hours overall.

One thing I was not aware of until one of my friends told me was that different men had asked to be sure I was going to be safe going to and from my hotel alone. As she noted, that question isn’t asked for men but it is for women.

It was an amazing week for me, and one which completely reaffirmed my own belief in my transition. I’ve never been that completely comfortable with myself anywhere and I was not misgendered once the entire week there. Below is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Memphis_20140321-1

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way

Mar11

On Monday, we completed our usual planning session for the next two weeks of work and afterwards I stopped in to talk to my boss. Along the way, he informed me that the person I know best and trusted in HR just retired. Uh-oh. That threw a spanner into my coming out plans with HR. I had planned to talk to that exact person in early April since I’ve had contact with her before but not openly about this specific issue. My boss saw this bothered me so asked why. Given that I do trust him and have no reason not to talk to him, I said, “Let me close the door. We probably need to chat.”

So out it came. He now knows. And his reaction? “I don’t see this impacting your place in this organization in the least. In fact, if it does, I will be very disappointed in whomever tries to make it an issue.” He also said with my HR contact having left the company last week, he will find out who is best for me to talk to in HR so I’ll either have an HR appointment later this week or probably the first week or second week after I get back from vacation. I did explain that I am aiming to complete the legal aspects of transition in the second half of this year with a soft target date of September. Once that is done, I can really be full time and start the clock towards GCS.

That also means it’s all in play and live. And my boss? He congratulated me on tackling something that must be very difficult to face. He also said that I probably have enough stress from this outside the office (which is true) but he wanted to make sure the office was zero stress on this specific issue.

I work with great people, for a great company. I hope I can continue to say that going forward.

Addendum: Today I received an email from our new contact in HR. She wants to see me the first day I am back from vacation, which is Monday, the 23rd.

My boss also reiterated that if I need to speak to him at any time, his door is always open.