Two videos for the price of one! ~Sevan

Hey folks! It's Monday again. My dreaded enemy. It's no secret that I'm *not* a fan of Mondays. Ah well. Such is life.

Sunda (June 27th) was National HIV testing day. To get the word out, I made a little video:



As I've gone through my transition a number of people have asked me about pronouns. I think it comes up when the image of me changes in their mind...and it no longer feels quite right in a person's mouth to say "she" in reference to me. I know that I went through that with Cyndi. Something just clicked and it no longer felt right to say "he"....though sadly there are some people in our lifes that we're not out to, so birth pronouns are still in use and it feels foul in my mouth. I digress. Here's a video about gender neutral pronouns, and how i feel about them:




The pronouns I use in the video are spelled "ze" and "hir"

Looking back

Hi all, it's me...Sevan. You remember me right? lol...I know it's been a while since posting. I'm sorry about that. Life kinda...flipped the fruit basket...if ya know what I mean.

Anyway...something that's been stewing in the back of my mind that I've really wanted to get down on "paper" is my thoughts now about transition and what it's really *been* vs. what i *thought* it would be for me. I talked this out in therapy and I figured it'd be good here too.

Before I ever started T I thought mostly about my identity as an androgyn and what transition might look like to bring the body into alignment with my mind/identity.

My only experience with testosterone was when Cyndi was prescribed a T gel for "chronically low T" (yea...go figure.) She'd not come out to our doctor yet, so our doctor did not know that he was prescribing testosterone to a trans woman. He didn't know the harm that could cause...because we didn't quite tell him the whole story. Honestly...we didn't know what harm adding MORE T to a trans woman's brain would do either. So Cyndi was on this gel for over a year I'd say. She applied it on schedule ever day. The doctor couldn't quite understand why she wasn't getting into the male range. I came to believe that perhaps the drug just wasn't strong enough. Obviously once Cyndi needed to start transitioning she stopped the testosterone.

Taking that into account; when I was considering taking T I thought (wrongly..) that this "low dose" gel drug would be perfect for me! After all, if a natal male can't get into "male range" on the blood work with this drug, surely *I* wouldn't be able to either! It would be perfect. My identity was somewhere in-between male and female, so my hormones should be too. Right? In my mind I thought this would be the perfect balance.

Thankfully I did have the knowledge of YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) So I talked myself through a bunch of "what-ifs" before embarking on my transition via hormones. I decided that while I was SURE those "what-ifs" were unlikely and even if they were to come to pass...I NEEDED this.

I thought that what was most likely to happen would be that I wouldn't really change on the outside at all! Putting my hormones in an intersexed ranged (not fully female, not fully male) wouldn't change my voice...if it did...then maybe just slightly. Surely not noticeably. I didn't think I'd get a beard or much body hair, I just thought that perhaps it would bring some mental peace.

Now that I'm four and a half months into my testosterone use I can say....BOY was I ever WRONG! Turns out that "peace" only comes for me when my hormones are in FULLY male range. Not even particularly low within that range! Nope. So my voice has dropped quite a bit, my body hair has increased, my beard is growing in and I'm already shaving twice a week, my mind feels rewired, I respond to emotions differently and I FEEL emotions differently. Basically; everything that could change...did.

We can never know how the body will respond to stimulus. My thoughts about what I needed were totally off. Thankfully I was able to listen to what my body needed, rather than force myself to adhere to the "numbers" of the labs. The few times I lowered my dose of T to try to keep it "low dose" it didn't work so well. I was cranky and surely and so tired! It clearly wasn't what my body or mind needed.

This did lead to a crisis of identity for a little while. It's very easy to jump to the conclusion that "fully male hormone levels=male identified" but that's just really simplifying an issue that isn't that simple. I can no more fit myself into a fully male identity than I can a fully female identity.

I was looking for my hormones to be in between, and be in balance. What I found instead is a female body, with male hormones. For me, right now, that's the balance. It's precarious...to be sure. There's is still a TON of processing yet to do....but I'm in a good place. For the most part. If I shut out all the stimulus of the world and life and just tune into my body and mind...I finally feel much more at home. It's not perfect; nothing is...but it's much much better in this body than it's ever been. There's something to be said for that.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me friends. Till next time, Sevan.

PRIDE

Yesterday we marched in Spokane's PRIDE march. Well I got wheeled around in my wheel chair by a friend and Sevan. (I am disabled and need a wheelchair whenever I will be forced to be out for a long time.)
I had fun and from what I could tell Sevan did also.
We marched with our local trans suport group. Spokane Transpeople.

For all the fun I had I do have one issue that I am surprised I have.
Every other time I have been to a festival and the PRIDE I went to in Pheonix had ALOT of vendors. Our PRIDE did have some vendors but there were not enough vendors around. We only spoted 3 food kiosk. The funny thing is when I went to Pheonix pride they had too many vendors! Seems I can't have a happy medium.

We didn't stick around to watch the awards ceremony or any of the stuff they planed. We just went around the park and had fun.

Anyways...
I think if you are LGBT and have the time and are willing to be public, you should make your way to your local PRIDE this year. The more of us that show up the more we demonstrate our combined economical power. Individualy we may have varying levels of resourses, but combined we are an entity that spends enough money to draw attention.

Video blog 6-3-10