Group Therapy

Ok, so tonight went really well.

My parents had to come to therapy with me because I am a minor. I have to admit that even though my parents are pretty great, I was a little apprehensive. But things turned out really well. They both ended up expressing their concerns, which was nice to hear without either side becoming hostile or defensive. And it was good for us all to just sit and talk about some of these issues. We talked about:

- safety (both medically and socially)
- financial commitments
- surgery procedures
- pronouns and name stuff
- their understanding of where I am heading

It was a good thing. A very good thing. It felt better for me to be able to discuss these things knowing that I was in a constructed environment and I had one person on my side. Not that I was expecting any negativity from my parents, but I always get nervous talking to them. Especially about this. I don't know. Anyway, it was all in all a good experience.

I am really happy with my therapist as well. I am definitely very comfortable with him. I feel at ease when talking to him or even to my parents with him there. I don't know. I wasn't expecting much out of this whole therapy thing, but it's become nice to have someone I can just talk to about me. And I would normally feel like that sounds horribly selfish, but I'm paying him. So I don't feel so bad, hehe.

Alright, well, I hope that the experiences of others were as positive as mine, although I'm sure a lot of them aren't. I wish everyone the best of luck with everything surrounding the whole parent issue.

The Job of an SO

Maybe I’m overly optimistic, or naïve, or wear rose colored glasses, or any of the above clichés, which, for the record – no one has ever, ever used to describe me, but I simply can’t understand why anyone would not be supportive of someone transitioning. Even if you don’t understand it, which, oddly I suppose, came very easily to me, why can’t you support someone you love in doing what they know is best for them? Especially this. Do you think this is some easy decision to make? Do you think anyone would make this decision unless they felt so strongly about it, that they could not live without making these changes? Based on that evaluation alone you should understand that you have no choice but to unconditionally stand beside the one you love for anything they may need.

I sit here at work in tears, my stomach in my throat, and my hands not quite still to think that someone, anyone, could not support a decision made by someone they care for, just because it is not one familiar to them. Never mind my own personal life, but someone living a substantial part of their life assigned the incorrect gender should be met with applause and smiles when they come to terms with that and begin a process to overcome it.

Surgery? Surgery? To physically alter your body under these circumstances is not a physical alteration, so much as a correction, a necessary (to some), life fulfilling procedure which is much more than a “physical alteration.” It’s the least of any transgendered person’s worries, I would think. Yes, it’s dangerous. Yes, it’s invasive – it’s surgery. But isn’t it so much worse to live a life in which you perpetually feel uncomfortable … more than uncomfortable – alien, to yourself? Isn’t it a thousand times harder to wake up everyday, essentially lying to yourself and everyone else? Living every single day for your entire life not wanting it to be your life? I know that I can’t even come close to understanding what that must be like to go through, but I can understand that it is much harder when there are people who are close to you in your life telling you they cannot understand it, they cannot see it, and they don’t support it.

It just makes me so sad that something I see as a decision that is so healthy and beneficial and that takes amazing strength, someone else can see as harmful, destructive, and terrifying. It makes me so sad that it makes me upset to know how upset you will be hearing this, and I’m sorry I can’t do more to protect you from things you have no business dealing with. I only hope that everyone can find one person, just one, who loves them and who will support them and care for them through the entire process, and I hope that then you will keep this person in your life forever so that both of you may enjoy all of the time and effort and love that was put into getting you past the most unhappy times. Because, I promise, that person who supports you can do it for the rest of their lives and more if they truly love you, and they have what you need to get past all of the opposition you may meet.

Out Loud

Ok, so I think that I'm still getting used to hearing my friends or people I know using "him" or "he" or "Camdin" out loud. It's much different than in print. I'm not sure how long this will take to get used to. And I should really tell my parents about the whole pronoun and name thing. It's hard though, talking to them.

Especially about this subject. I feel as if I should be able to talk about things when I'm ready. I feel as if I should be able to be like "I need you to call me by male pronouns and the name 'Camdin'" and have that be the end of it. Have them say "Ok."

I'd be curious as to how other trans people reacted in this situation. How did you tell your parents to change your name and pronouns? Or better yet, did you tell them? Better still, did they?

It just seems to sting everytime I hear "Caity" or "her" come from their mouths.

Names and Pronouns

Since there has been a lot going on recently in my life surrounding pronouns, names and all those labels and stuff, I will formally address it.

In my thinking about the whole transitioning process, I didn't put much thought into what I was going to change my name too. I have never liked my own name, so it wasn't important to me (at first) to pick a name that I really felt good about. But then after a conversation with my dad, he made me feel a little bit differently about the whole issue. He pointed out that while I don't see a problem with leaving my name as Caitlyn, other people who will be calling me by male pronouns might. Now, I don't usually see a need to change myself based on others' opinions, but this is slightly different. At least to me.

Anyway! So after all this I set out to look at baby boy's names. My name now is a little bit Scottish and that's not necessarily something that is important to me, seeing as how I've only ever been to Scotland once and I don't really identify much with... Well, anything Scottish. But I digress. The point is I decided to go looking at Scottish names as a starting point to this quest.

After my initial laughter at the fact that 'Macbeth' and 'Macduff' were on this list of baby names, I thought seriously about what sounded right when I said it outloud. Which ones did I like because I liked the name or which ones did I like because I thought I could claim that name as my own or myself? It was all very confusing because most people don't pick their own names. (That's what parents are for right, haha?) But I came across one that I really liked: Camdin.

Now, when I semi-decided on this, everyone said they liked it and it fit. And I think it does too, so that's a good thing. But then, talking to some of my other friend's who has transitioned, some of them expressed that picking a name was really hard for them. Their advice was pretty much "Hold off on that until you're sure." I'm not sure if I have any advice on this tpoic as of right now, but I don't mind people calling me Camdin. I actually like it. Since I hate 'Caitlyn', I'm just happy to have people calling me something else.

So the whole point of this long post is: I have no advice for people pre-name change, but I can say that I like my choice so far.

Then as far as pronouns go, I love most male pronouns. Well wait, I mean, for the most part, I love it when people call me by male pronouns. I would have to say that the only part of it I don't like is when I realize it's only by mistake and then I get a little bit depressed because I don't want it to be a mistake. I don't want to feel like I should correct people. I want "Excuse me sir." to be the correct and proper way to address me.

Many people have different feelings about the pronoun issue, so the only advice I can give anyone who is dealing with either transitioning themselves or someone who is transitioning is talk to people about it. If you don't tell people and just assume, you'll probably end up with angry friends. And if you don't ask and just assume, you'll probably offend people. Also, extra sensitivity to this topic is usually recommended because of everyone's drastic differences in personal preferences and ways of expressing themselves.

So, that's name changing and pronouns addressed in a nutshell. For now at least. I'm sure I will have much more to say about this later when it becomes more pressing.

From the Beginning

It was near my birthday (August) and we were laying in bed, in the dark, and Camdin was acting very strange. I hate to out you like this sweetheart, but Camdin is a very big...

Cuddler.

And he wouldn't even touch me; he kept trying to roll over close to the wall. I instinctively knew what was coming. I held him tightly to me and he cried and cried and pulled away from me.

"I'm scared." That was all he said, and cried some more.

When Camdin told me that he felt like a he - it sounded about as redundant as that very statement. He was a he. Of course. If only that is where the complications ended. What I am saying is, that revelation did not come as a great shock to me. So that made it very easy to be supportive and to move forward more quickly than if I had to get over the initial step of seeing him as a man.

At this point, Camdin and I had been together for about 9 months. At about 9 days I knew I was going to marry him.

It seemed like for two weeks, it was all we talked about. But at the same time, he wouldn't talk to me about anything at all - never how he felt, just about what he thought he wanted or didn't want. Neither of us really knew any specifics on the process, me much less than him. He told me he had been looking at pictures of chest surgeries on transster, so we looked at them together. We didn't look at any bottom surgeries - at this point he was not interested in either that or taking hormones.

Looking back, for the first few weeks I was pretty desensitized to everything. Honestly, part of me believed that he would go as far as he wanted to with this, but I just knew it would never come to surgery or hormones. I clung to that for a long time, actually. It wasn't until our one year anniversary that I can actually say that I supported Camdin with my entire heart and soul.

Months before that we sat down with his mother and told her together that Camdin was thinking about chest surgery, but that he did not (yet) want to take any further steps toward transitioning. No one other than she and I knew. I think this helped me rationalize my fears. I was so busy trying to be supportive of Camdin, and considering all of the things that he might be afraid of, or that he might need or want that I was really just covering myself so that when Camdin finally decided he didn't want to go through with any of this, he could never think that I didn't love him or support him and want the best for him.

I put a lot of time, thought, and consideration when I was away at school into research on surgery, hormones, legal issues, and stories of men who had gone through the same things as Camdin would. The more I learned, and even the harder I realized this was going to be - the more I realized that this really was the best thing for him.

Camdin came down to Champaign (I was attending the University of Illinois) for our anniversary (November); we had gotten a hotel room for the weekend just to enjoy the pleasure of each other's company in private. Our conversations now seemed to always find their way back to this topic, and tonight was no different. The only thing was, this night I fell in love with my man for the thousandth time, and this night I finally realized that he was my man - with one word: Dad. He didn't care about being a son, a brother, an uncle, a boyfriend, or even a husband - he just wanted to be a dad. And I wanted to make him one.

In that instant I knew I could be a Mom to his Dad, a wife to his husband, a girlfriend to his boyfriend and I knew that that was what I wanted to be for the rest of my life with him.

His starting therapy has been exciting for me, and I hope for him too, because we can finally move forward on everything that we have only been able to talk about and overthink for the past six months. Since the day we got together I have told Camdin that I only want for him to be happy, and healthy, and safe.

We're getting there.

Therapy 102

So tonight was another good session. It focused mainly on the younger parts of my life, which for me are a little bit... Maybe not hard, but some word I can't think of right now that is similar. I just don't like it. And things always sound worse when you say them out loud as opposed to just thinking about them in your head.

Anyway, as far as some factual things I learned:

- If you are a minor, a therapist can see you five time before needing parental consent.

- A slight change to an earlier "fact": For hormones and chest surgery, you only need three months of therapy with one therapist. You need two letters and six months surgery if you want anything more.

Yeah, sorry about that correction. My therapist did some more extensive research. The only other thing I can think of is that if you are cynical about the whole therapy thing, at least give it a shot. I don't think that it is for everyone, but I do think that two heads are better than one. I'll take all the input, advice, stories, wise words-- I'll take anything I can get basically. And not only because this is my own attitude, but personally I think it's a good one to have.

Awkward Moments

Tonight my dad had a party for all of his stage combat buddies. I'm not a huge fan of parties, but I don't mind when my parents friends come over. They're nice. They make interesting conversation. You know, all the fun things that happen at parties. But the other thing involved now is that introductions have become pretty awkward for me.

"This is Caitlyn, my daughter."

No, this isn't. I don't know; it's hard I know. It's hard for them to deal with. And I guess it reflects badly on them to have some sort of complicated child. I know it's easier to say your daughter. But that's not what I am anymore. They don't understand that. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I should do more to make them understand, but that's hard for me as well. Whatever, I guess it won't change until I physically do. Mental changes aren't very respected. I am a man to me. I am a woman to everyone else.

Introductions are just hard right now. Hopefully they'll get easier. Soon.

How and Why

So today (because of therapy yesterday) I was thinking a lot about both how and why I feel this way. And you know, it's very hard to say. Just feeling something or just knowing something sounds so cliche and bogus, but I think that's really my only answer. When people mistake me for a man and call me sir, I like it. It feels right. And I want it to be right and I want for it to not be a mistake. It's hard though, explaining that to someone else. Or at least, justifying that reasoning to someone else because most of the time then they'll be like "But why?" and you're like "I don't know!" Or at least I am.

But also I've been trying to figure out what I mean when I say "I want to be a man." I've been trying to figure out what that means to me. Am I just feeling like I have to change my body to fit with the way that I feel because of society? Am I just conforming to these stereotypical roles of male and female? I don't think so. But then from that, here is a question I feel myself asking people post-transition:

How could you possibly know that this was the best thing, 100%, and that this was totally right for you?

Input, please.

Therapy 101

Ok so today I had my first meeting with a therapist. It was overall a good experience. I would feel much more comfortable discussing my experience on an impersonal level, as far as not divulging the person's name and information just because I wouldn't want any misinterpretations of this information. But anyway, I felt as comfortable as you can be talking about stuff you aren't so comfortable with. It's just a little odd speaking with someone so strange to you about things so... Not strange. So personal. But I enjoyed my time there and felt like I could continue with this particular therapist, so I will. More to come on this topic later when I have actually been to more than one session.

The important things I learned tonight would be...

- 3 months with one therapist and you can start hormones, 6 months (total) with a therapist and then you get a second letter of recommendation (sort of) from another therapist and then you can start surgery.

- Even though this might seem petty or obvious, talking is always good. Even just those 50 or so minutes I spent talking with the therapist made me feel more... Soothed? Pleasant? Relaxed? I don't know, but some emotion that was better than the one I walked in with. Talking is good. That is, when you want it and are comfortable with it.

Keep in mind that any information I post on here that isn't personal is always subject to change and if there are discrepancies with anything, I would love corrections in the form of comments. Thank you.

What it's about.

Now, let me preface this silly introduction with one statement: I hate themed blogs. With this said, one may wonder, why am I making one? Well since currently this is the only (inexpensive) way to chronicle one's journey through anything in a mass reach fashion, I will conform to that and give in to the pressure that is themed blogging.

Ok, ok, now onto the real introduction. This blog is basically going to follow me, Caitlyn Gray, through all of the trials and tribulations of transitioning from female to male. I hope that this blog will be useful to some who, like me, just want to read about how a person actually accomplishes all of these daunting, yet necessary tasks from changing your name to getting surgery. That is, if that's what you're looking for. I want this to be a resource, not in the sense that I am so wise and should be looked up to, but in the sense that people should be able to come here and not only learn more about this topic, but also ask questions or provide their own information and experiences. Maybe this can be a sort of meeting place for people post-transition, pre-transition, non-transitional and everything in between. Or maybe it will flop like lots of other blogs! Haha, we'll see...