Thursday 21 January 2016

Update on the update.

Well what a week I've had ! It's been just over a week since I set the day for my phone call to the NHS. For around 4 months now I've been chatting to some of my close friends about the possibility that I might transition. Since that night out in October where I was...let's be honest attacked for who I was I've felt super exposed. I've to make a choice about what I wanted to do with myself going forward. Am I happy to remain as I am? Essentially a guy who presented female when I can. Or was it time to start thinking about making the BIG decision.....

Am I going to transition?

I've gone back and forth on this for a while, and in all honestly I still am. I don't know 100% what I want to do and this changes each day. I knew I had to at least make the call and speak to someone about it. And right now if you were to ask me what I want to do then my heart is telling me that it's time I set the wheels in motion to transtion.

Omg ! Whaaaaaa? Really?

In a word, yeah. Like right at this moment, taking in account everything that's been happening to me over the last year I want to transition.

So what has changed? It wasn't so long back that I was totally ok with being genderfluid. And yeah for a while it was working quite well. It gave me a safety net to express my gender and to retreat back to my masculine side when it was difficult to present female, even if I wanted to or not. The more I've been open about this however the more I'm beginning to think that it really isn't right for me, or at least the way I am right now looking/presenting male 90% of the time. I'm going to use the D word right now....it was making me feel dysphoric.I've been increasingly more uncomfortable with people using male pronouns when referring to me, hell I down right despise people using my male name these days. It feels like it ain't me and my inability to express that is affecting my life quite a lot.

This ain't the first time I've considered transitioning, when I was first starting University (approx 2007) I thought a fresh start would enable me to make this big change in my life. I decided not to and that decision has haunted me a little. I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that frustration has led me to hit out at people quite a lot and that's something I'm not proud of. So now I want to at least give this some serious consideration with a medical professional. You know what though? When I am presenting as Charlotte. I feel calm, I feel at ease with myself and my surroundings. I don't feel like I have to pretend.

This is like the first time though that I've ever really talked about dysphoria on this page. I usually keep it out of my vocabulary here because I didn't even realise I felt that way. That kind of changed as I said earlier on that night out at the end of October. My gender identity being ripped from me by some ass hole on a dance floor really cut me deep and that sudden, unwanted shift in my identity hurt. I hated that person but more than that I hated myself. I hated how I felt and how I looked. Not how I looked then at that moment but afterwards. Ever since then I've been trying to gear up for this appointment with the doctors and well...now I've done it.

Where do I see this going then? Do I want to eventually up having HRT? GRS? Am I going to tell my family? What about work? Well right now the plan is to get referred to whatever clinic a girl from the valleys gets to go. Hopefully with more time I will be able to make an informed decision. If you were to ask me right now though I'd say I want to start HRT. I want to do all the legal mumbo jumbo and change my gender on my driving license (haha). I want to start living my life not as two genders and not as a man. I want to live my life as Charlotte.

Let's see though yeah?




Tuesday 19 January 2016

February 2nd at 8:40

Yesterday I tweeted everyone to say I had a secret phone call to make, and now I've done so I wanted to reveal to y'all what that was. It's nothing earth shattering but you know......well.....

I just booked an appointment with my GP to discuss transitioning.

February 2nd at 8:40 in the morning !

I mean....I have no idea what I'm going to say or do. I know this is just the first tiny hurdle in an uphill battle. Even now just 5 minutes after making the call I feel like my future is far more uncertain than ever. But the more I sit and think the more I feel like this is the right path for me to take. So let's see what will happen in 2 weeks. On February 2nd at 8:40 in the morning.

I can barely get up before 11 so this should be fun.

Saturday 2 January 2016

2015 Review : June - October

Even during a summer break I can't crack a smile.


JUNE

Probably my least favourite month of this year. I only posted about 3 blogs throughout the summer and they were quite controversial. Although my blog on Facebook's use of the pride flag was incredibly popular (The highest page views out of any of my posts) I remember June mostly for this....

http://transpottingtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/6-month-update.html

Not much to say about this one, just lots of juicy stories for you to sink your teeth into surrounding a night out in Bristol and my first real taste of twitter trolls.

JULY

I took the summer off to work on some other projects (which are still coming) so there's only one thing I can post here, it's part one of my coming out vlog...

http://transpottingtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/coming-out.html

I'm amazed looking back how far I feel I've come since then, it makes me excited and nervous to see what the next 6 months will bring.

AUGUST

I did nothing in August. Too busy sleeping and working, pretend I wrote some amazing expose' on the Government or something

SEPTEMBER

I only wrote one real piece in September. It's all about representation of trans people in the media. Mostly how the media portrays trans lives and some ways in which we can move in a positive direction.....

http://transpottingtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/representation.html

I quite like this piece, it's something I feel could be expanded a little more in a vlog or some form of group chat, but as a small off the cuff thing I'm ok with it.

OCTOBER

October was going to be my month of genderfluid stuff. While I had some big plans for it I have been hit with more responsibilities at work making my blog writing time significantly less. I did however put together this little piece....

http://transpottingtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/an-open-letter-to-my-man.html

One of the things I find when speaking to people who I.D as GF, especially those who are not open about it is the sense of feeling torn. This can lead to resentment and anger towards ones self , something that I've experienced quite a few times in my life. Since writing this piece I feel I have a much clearer image of where I'm going and what I need to do.

So that's June to October. This was possibly the difficult period for my blog but I take every opportunity as a chance to learn something new. Come back on Monday for the last two months and some final thoughts

Look how happy I am