I'm now three and a half weeks on T - some days my voice gets a little croaky/raspy, and I have a little more hair on my legs just above my ankles. Nothing too noticeable yet though. I've heard the capsules can take longer to have an effect, so I might switch over to gel or shots next time I see my Doctor.. I'm mostly anxious to have my voice drop, which I think will make a huge difference in getting gendered correctly. LOL just imagined me doing Mufasa's voice in the Lion King: "SIMBAAAA" :D
I'm made a few local mates from transgender support groups online, all awesome people! It's refreshing to be around people who really get what you're going through (still love being around my cis-gendered friends also of course!)
My Mum has made some progress when it comes to accepting my transition. At least she's no longer yelling abuse, just reiterating that 'it makes no sense' which it probably does not, if you are not yourself transgender. However she did correct herself the other day - when referring to me, she went to say my 'daughter' and changed it to 'child', which I thought was a pretty big step for her :) I was like 'yayyyy Mum great work!' She looked confused about how happy that made me haha.
On a less positive note... At a Christian school I teach flute lessons at, one of the Mums pulled her kid out of flute lessons with me. This was a high school student whom I got along with extremely well, who was musically gifted and we had a great dynamic in our lessons. In fact last year the mother in question sent me more than one email saying her kid loved having me as a teacher. So, the principal called me in for a chat and said that this particular Mum had been 'suspicious' of my name change, looked me up online and found this blog, hence discovering that I was transgender. She may be reading this now for all I know, but I'm not taking my blog down due to the prejudice of one person.
Even though my gender identity has nothing to do with my Music or teaching, it was apparently necessary to remove her 15 year old from the damning influence of a transgender, non-religious flute teacher (even though I'd never discuss religion or gender in a flute lesson - I mean, as if we'd have time for that anyway!) It's kind of flummoxing, I mean what do people think, that their poor innocent child will be corrupted or catch the transgender bug? Please see link below:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/my-gender-identity-harmless/
But I mean ... God FORBID a child should be exposed to a diverse range of people and genders and learn that it's okay for them to be who they really are. I mean that's just despicable... (sarcasm). I mean sorry to tell you this, but your high school student will soon be going out into the world and will be exposed to all sorts of people, religions, sexualities, cultures, genders. This is called, um, THE WORLD.
So anyway, how does the school react? They hire in a NEW flute tutor for those students who don't want to go with me any more as a result (correction: for trans phobic and small minded parents who like to teach their children that there is shame in being a social minority). I mean, has there really never been a transgender child at the school? Imagine if parents demanded such a child be removed from school because they didn't want the other kids exposed to a transgender person? What kind of people ARE these, and what kind of message do they want to send to their kids? Not to mention the harm they are doing to the kids who actually might be gender diverse and taught to be ashamed of themselves all their childhood. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??
Honestly I have tried to be open and accepting of different religions in general, but in my experience religion often causes people to close their minds, become bigoted, righteous, discriminatory and prejudice. Or maybe the people are already like that, and they use religion to fuel that.
Okay, so it turns out the above statement ISN'T always true - I actually have a new job at a Catholic School, who amazingly don't care about my gender or religion. Who would have thought it? They obviously realise that those factors are irrelevant to my flute teaching. Some sanity in the world has been restored!
ANYWAY, let me just announce that I refuse to be shamed by my mother, the people at my jobs, or ANYONE because of my identity. I'm a fully functional, intelligent person, I've completed multiple university degrees, and I am now a graduate student. No, I'm not religious, because religion just does not make sense or resonate with me. It's fine if it does with you, just don't be a bigoted a**hole as a result. I am a complete person and I have never felt more confident or happy in my identity and sense of self.
Unfortunately haters are always going to hate (often disguising this hate as righteousness). Go right ahead, but I hope your poor child one day grows up to realise there is a diverse world of people out there who all deserve equality and respect.
I took some 'nude' picture a couple of weeks ago (don't worry, nothing is showing) to try and get a raw image of myself and my body pre-transition. So this is me, and though the outside exterior may change over time, I'm still me and I hope other people can see and accept that. For all of us.. it's a difficult thing, the desire, the NEED to be really seen.
