I’d been warned he was a little weird, maybe even slightly creepy, and didn’t have the best bedside manner. What I saw was a slightly nerdy, tall, athletic, grey-haired guy with a quirky, dad-like (prone to bad puns) sense of humor, a staff that likes him a lot, and a four month old dachshund puppy that he clearly adores. He’s a little hand-wavy about medicine when it falls outside the purview of his specific surgery, but I didn’t actually expect him to have more than the most rudimentary of understandings of my rare immune disorder. Honestly, I felt pretty comfortable with him. He clearly does a ton of these surgeries, knows what he’s doing, has confidence in himself, and more to the point, has earned the loyalty of the people who work for him. You don’t get that by being creepy. If he’s a little quirky for specializing in trans medicine, hey, at least he’s doing this by choice.

DK went with me for moral support and because he has a vested interest in this subject himself and wanted to meet Brownstein, too. Afterwards he asked me if I had any hesitation about it. The honest answer is no. If I could have a flat chest tomorrow, I’d do it. My apprehensions aren’t about finally freeing myself from breasts, they’re more mundane: I’m afraid I’ll wake up during the surgery. I’m afraid I won’t wake up from surgery. I’m afraid that the wounds won’t heal well because of my CVID. (That one’s justified – the day after they sent me home from the hospital following my hysterectomy the incision came open along its full length, and I ended up with an open belly wound and daily dressing changes for three months.)

I’m afraid that it won’t be enough – that even with a flat chest and a deeper voice, I’ll still get called “ma’am”.

But I’m not at all afraid of what it will mean to not have breasts. I don’t care in the least that I will have scars, and that I will lose “erotic sensation” in my nipples. I don’t have much to begin with, honestly, and even if I did I’d trade it in a heartbeat for being able to wear slim-fitting shirts and have them look right.

I had an odd moment today of considering whether I should do one last dress up as a girl before I have this surgery. It was weird how apprehensive the idea made me. Just the idea of putting on a bra and panties, a skirt and makeup, feels so wrong for me. Almost makes me want to do it, just to push my own boundaries.

Lenda Bates DuBose ~ July 21, 1943 – December 6, 2011

My mom died December 6th, at three minutes to midnight.

I’d spent two weeks in November in Nashville, visiting her at the hospital, talking to her, listening to her, in the weeks before Thanksgiving. I was there in Nashville again, but not at her bedside, when she died. She was in the Alive Hospice unit at St. Thomas Hospital, where she’d been since early November. I’d gone out to get dinner, and was just arriving back at the hospital when my sister called to say Mom was gone.

DK was with me, for which I am forever grateful. He and I had arrived December 3rd for a weekend visit, and Mom got to meet him. (She told me later, when he was out of the room, that she liked him. I knew she’d like him.) We saw her the evening of the 3rd when we arrived, and she was fine (as fine as a woman dying of peritoneal cancer could be), but the hospice nurses called at seven the next morning to say she was struggling to breathe. Mom never really came back to herself, though she had a few more lucid moments. Somewhere in those last days I got to hear her tell me she loved me one more time, in a voice barely a whisper.

Mostly, from early in the morning of the 4th until 23:57 on the 6th, Mom was either unconscious or suffering, while her family sat helplessly by her side keeping a vigil.

DK stayed with me in Nashville, taking time off work so he could be there for me for the memorial. I wore a suit and tie, and when the pastor read a poem I’d written that Mom had asked be included in her service, she said it had been written by Lenda’s son. Mom’s obituary, too, listed me as her son.

During the last conversation I had with her, Mom told me she was glad she’d lived long enough to see me be fully myself. She told me that Zachary was a much better name for me than my birth name. She told me she was proud of me. She also told me she’d left me a small amount of money which I should use for my chest surgery. She was a regular reader of this blog, and a frequent commenter. I feel so lost knowing I’ll never hear her voice again.

I’ve wanted to update this blog with stories of transition, stories of observing manliness in Tennessee, and stories of being consistently read as male while there. Stories of traveling with a passport and license photo that look nothing like me and list my name as unequivocally female, and the raised eyebrows I garnered from the TSA screeners and rental-car agents. Stories of the trans-friendly chaplain in the hospice, the nurse who clearly assumed I was cis-male. I wanted to talk about all of it, but I couldn’t.

I hope, now, that I can. I’m back in California, trying to pick up the pieces of my life and move forward again. Trying to feel Mom’s spirit with me and her love surrounding me. I feel like I spent the entire autumn in suspended animation.

So much happened in those last few days. My relationship with my stepfather, which had once been dreadful, then slowly, painstakingly improved over the course of decades, went up in flames. I know he was angry that Mom, the love of his life, was dying. I know I was just a handy and familiar target. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, really, although I can feel some pride in having not risen to his baiting. As an adult, now, not a child of fourteen, I could be the better man when I needed to be.

My aunt and uncle, who were there and saw what was happening both took me aside to talk to me, to remind me that I am and will always be precious to them, a part of the family. That Nashville will always be a home to me. My sister, too, was caught in the middle. She held together with admirable grace and dignity.

I hate that it came to that. I hate that in the end, the one thing my mom had most ardently desired — that her family be okay without her — didn’t happen. But I know that on my own I will be okay. That my sister will be okay. That she and I will have each other, and even if we aren’t together we are still a family. Whether our stepfather wants me to be a part of it or not.

So. That is the end. The “mom” tag will probably get a lot less use now. But Mom’s love and encouragement, her support and understanding, her cheerleading for me, will always be a part of me.

I love you, Mom. I was never the best daughter, and I never really got a chance to be the best son, but I know in the end you believed in me.

How about seeing someone who looks just like the you in your head looks?

I see him every now and again, and he isn’t always the same guy, but I recognize him just the same. He has shaggy, longish, light brown or blond hair, sometimes with a bit of a scruffy soul patch. His eyes are light and twinkly with secret mischief, and he has an easy smile. He slouches or lounges or saunters like he’s so at home in his body it just flows onto whatever surfaces he’s near.

He’s slender, tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. You’d never peg him as a team sports sort of guy, but you’d be sure it was the truth if someone told you he was a surfer or beach volleyball player. He sings or plays guitar, doesn’t smoke, has tattoos, wears a necklace and maybe an earring or two, and has big hands and feet. He wears faded jeans and a plaid shirt, or a graphic tee and dark grey painter’s pants, or a thermal-weave shirt that looks so soft and comfortable it could be made of a baby blanket.

And boots. Solid, worn-leather boots.

He’s queer. Bi, probably, but he doesn’t really like the label. He votes liberal, gives money to charities for clean water or nature conservancy, isn’t afraid to call himself a feminist, and feels a little guilty about how he likes meat too much to be a vegetarian. But not guilty enough to do anything about it.

I saw him at the vet’s office today with a giant Saint Bernard and a couple of female friends. I’ve seen him in a music video singing a bittersweet country song about being the man you can count on when things are going wrong. Seen him in an indie rock video singing a lullaby — “Everything’s gonna be alright…” — and I believed him, at least for as long as the song lasted.

He’s a tenor with a sweetness to his voice, and he’s old enough to have loved and lost and learned to love again. Or he’s young, just settling into being a grown man, with some things still to learn but the easy confidence that he’ll manage if he just tries.

I’ve seen him at the beach in a wetsuit, balancing a turquoise and white longboard on his head as he strode across the sand towards the waves. Seen him at the airport buying a Rolling Stone magazine and holding a brown leather satchel. I’ve seen little-kid-him, too, with his hair wheat-blond and his smile so wide it lit the whole outdoors, laughing and running across the grass at the park.

It always takes my breath away just a little when I see him. And makes me sad, because the next reflective surface I come to, I look for him, and he’s never there. Not to the naked eye. He’s there inside me, but not a soul will ever see him and know he’s me, but me.

By the time the family decided I should fly out, Mom had already had the surgery, but instead of bouncing back as expected, she was struggling, spending days in the ICU, breathless and with an irregular heartbeat. I arrived on a Thursday night; my aunt and uncle picked me up at the airport and took me straight to the hospital.

I’ve never seen my mother look so frail. She’d lost a lot of weight, but worse, she couldn’t lift her head. She had an oxygen mask strapped to her face, and though I’d expected her to look bad, I hadn’t realized how little she would look like the Mom I remember. The elastic straps of the mask cut into her cheeks, making them look even more sunken then they were, and there was something about seeing her without her glasses that just changed everything. I remember that first night sitting at her bedside, looking at her, and thinking, “This isn’t my mom anymore. This is a changeling, someone else that cancer has put in my mother’s bed.”

But then she spoke, and it was Mom after all, hidden inside. She called me Zach, her son, and told me she loved me and was glad I was there, and it was all I could do not to weep.

Over the course of the week I was there she recovered strength and stamina, and more than that, the will to go on. She’s home now, and though she’s lost ground, she’s at least able to be in her own surroundings, with good art and good music, with the comforts and safety of home and family.

If she is able to regain her strength over the next couple of weeks she will resume chemotherapy with the addition of a new drug, Avastin, which can limit the accumulation of fluid in her chest and starve out the cancer by eliminating its blood supply. I have a good friend who works at Genentech, the company that makes Avastin, and he tells me that when the drug works, it really works. I’m hoping and praying that Mom will be able to resume treatment, that it will work for her, that it holds the magic she needs.

I don’t have any illusions — at this point we aren’t looking so much for a cure for Mom’s cancer as a way to buy time. Time when she can feel, if not well, at least well enough. Well enough to play dominoes with her friends, or watch a movie with my stepdad, or share a meal with my sister. Well enough to tell me one more family story, to enjoy a piece of caramel cake, to see the Christmas amaryllis bloom.

My mom isn’t alone. My sister lives in Nashville, and my mom’s sister and her husband, my cousins and their wives and children, and of course my stepfather and all Mom and Stepdad’s friends. I’m the only close family member who is far away.

Maybe it’s because I’m not there that I’m trying so hard to hang on to hope. While I was there, I could see my aunt and sister both already beginning to grieve. They see the same future I do — one where if we get six more good months with Mom we’ll be lucky — but where I see potential they see dreadful loss looming. I’m trying not to face that loss yet. I’m trying to hold on to hope that the time we have now is the important time.

I know that even when Mom isn’t in her body, she will be with me, and I know that my role is to be the hearth for hope’s tiny flame. But every now and again, I realize that I’m not okay.  I can feel a well of grief sitting just under my breastbone — a terrible fragility. A dangerous thing that might erupt as impatience or anger or neediness or fear. Or dry, choked back tears.

I’m grateful to my friends who are edging around the powder keg and haven’t abandoned me. I’m trying so hard to be the man I want to be: to have integrity and courage, kindness and fortitude, compassion and faith. To face the unfaceable with grace. To be a source of strength for my family. For my mom. For myself.

I feel like a tightrope walker with a vast chasm to traverse and no clear idea of what lies on the other side. I know that every soul that’s come before me has faced this journey. My own parents have traveled this way, lost their parents, found a way to go on. Day follows night follows day and season follows season. I’ve loved and lost dozens of pet rats — my short-lived animal companions have taught me much about grieving and surviving grief and finding life again. About enjoying the present, because the future is too soon. Maybe that’s why rats are the animal companions I’ve chosen, because I needed to learn to face death and remember that life will follow.

Testosterone lowers your voice. (Duh.) My research indicates a lot of transmen who sing go through serious vocal instability as their voices change, and some never recover their singing voices, so I was pretty apprehensive about that aspect of transition. My friend and housemate DK suggested that I ought to make some recordings and document the ways my voice changes as I physically transition, which I intend to do. I don’t have any recordings yet, but I can at least write about it.

I have (had) a big range. Before I started T, the bottom of my range was a D3 (the D below middle C), and the tippy-tippy top was around A5 (the A two octaves above middle C) which, according to Wiki (which I know is not a citable source, but it’ll do for this), is pretty much dead on for a contralto (F3 – F5) and then some.

Here’s the exciting thing: since I started my low-dose T in June, I’ve noticed very little in the way of obvious vocal changes, but that formerly rumbly basement D3 is no longer the bottom of the barrel; it’s comfortable and resonant. My new ground floor is currently a B2-flat. That means all the tenor and even some of the baritone range stuff I’m singing now is sounding sweet. My lower voice has taken on a new resonance, too. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and it is so damn awesome.

Of course I’ve lost some range off the top, but so far not a lot. I’m still pretty comfortable vocalizing up to an E5, although there’s been change there, too. Unless I’m thinking about it, I sound more thin on top. Like, funnily enough, a guy singing falsetto.

I’ve also found that in general, while I’m not having massive pitch instability, I do have to work a little harder at singing. My ear has no trouble discerning whether or not I’m matching the pitch, but my vocal muscles are a little squirrelier, presumably due to changes in my vocal architecture as my vocal chords lengthen, and my brain is a litle more taxed managing it all. (Also, I’m having to learn to read bass-clef. Sight-reading was already a challenge for my dyslexic brain, it’s nigh unto impossible now, especially if the music is in bass-clef.)

My speaking voice is maybe a little lower and a little raspier. I’ve had a low-level sore throat for the last couple of weeks, too, which might be allergies, but might also be from the T. As of last week I’ve doubled my dose to 50 mg/week, which is half the standard replacement dose. At 25 mg/week my blood levels were just under the bottom of the normal range for men, so we’ll see what 50 mg does for me.

I’m hoping I end up a tenor. I’m singing tenor in my choir now and hitting the notes just fine, but I still don’t quite have the right resonance. With a little more change, though, that should come. My voice teacher told me that guys who sing alto in boys’ choirs usually end up tenors, while boy sopranos become baritones and basses. She also said I have a tenor’s build: barrel chested, broad-shouldered, short-necked — like Pavarotti. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Luciano Pavarotti

I’ll say this anyway: it feels fantastic to sing low. It feels different than it did before. More resonant and rich, more supported, more solid. I’m still apprehensive that it’s all going to go haywire any minute now — that I’ll get typical teenage boy vocal cracks, or transguy rasp. But I’m also secretly hopeful that I could be one of the lucky ones who manage the transition with singing voice not just intact, but better than ever.

After his shower he would shave. He’d set me on the countertop next to him and apply shaving cream to my face, too, and give me a bladeless safety razor to scrape the foam off my cheeks.

I still shave the same way my dad taught me, cheeks first, then under the jaw, then chin, and last of all upper lip.

When he applied aftershave, I always begged for some, too. “Sweet stuff!” I’d demand, and he always obliged me, splashing a little of the astringent tonic on my face from his domed crystal bottle. It smelled like gin and juniper, like cleanliness and masculinity.

I wish I could find that aftershave now; I’d wear it every day.

I’ve spent hours Googling, trying to find a photo of that aftershave bottle, maybe even find one for sale on Ebay. It was distinctive, and pretty enough that surely someone kept one. Frosted pressed glass in a domed cylinder that looked a little like the dome of the National Gallery in London.

National Gallery Dome — photo by Erich Kesse

At the apex was a glass stopper topped with a textured sphere. There’s a drawing of the very bottle in one of my favorite books from childhood, In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendack. I remember being thrilled to discover the bottle of Daddy’s “Sweet Stuff” in my favorite book (and a little mystified as to why a bathroom item was in in the kitchen.)

See it there, on the right?

I was absolutely certain that one day I’d grow up and have a real beard and use a real razor in all its sharp glory to shave my face after every shower. I’d apply the sweet stuff when I was finished, just like my dad, and I’d wear wingtips and a suit and tie to go off to work, and carry a briefcase and stride with importance across a stone-tiled lobby to press elevator buttons I could reach without stretching.

My dad taught by example, but he also gave lessons. The man should always walk on the road side, to shield the woman he is escorting from passing traffic. The man offers his arm to his companion if the path is sippery or she is wearing difficult shoes. He stands when a woman enters the room, waits for her to be seated (and sometimes helps her to her seat) before he takes his own. He holds doors for her, opens and shuts her car door when she is his passenger, helps her in first to taxis and trains and busses, has a handkerchief at the ready in case she needs it, and always, always protects her.

He did these things for my mother and for me, with me playing the part of the girl because I was a child, and children were accorded the same chivalrous treatment from grown up men, but somehow I never understood that one day I was supposed to grow up to be the woman. I knew — knew — that the role I was understudying was my father’s, not my mother’s.

In retrospect, I have to assume my father thought he was teaching me how to be a lady, and what sort of treatment to expect from the men in my life.

I wonder now, did I misunderstand the lessons? Or was some inner bit already set by the time I was three that said “boy” and not “girl”, all physical evidence to the contrary? Surely the vast majority of “daddy’s girls” grow up comfortably and certainly female. If not, then there ought to be a whole lot more transmen out here.

I wasn’t really a daddy’s girl, anyway. I wasn’t daddy’s little princess; I was his shadow. I wanted, more than anything, to grow up not to marry a man like my father, but to be one.

I wonder, now that I’m finally working to make that a reality, what he makes of it.

I went in for a blood test on Friday, to see what my testosterone levels are doing now that I’ve been on the very low dose (25 mg/week) regimen for six weeks. I wasn’t anticipating anything much more than the usual hand-over-insurance-card-and-lab-slip, get-poked, get-bandaid, leave routine. This was because I hadn’t looked closely at the lab slip. Right there where I had to fill in my address and so forth was a big old gender box. Of course the lab needed to know — the reference ranges for normal levels of testosterone are radically different for bio males and bio females. I debated for a moment, then crammed “FTM” into the space allotted for a single F or M.

The phlebotomist, a young Filipino woman, didn’t bat an eye. She just called me in, drew the blood, and pressed on the bandaid. I figured I was home free. But as I was about to leave she called me back. “Um, I have to… this. I have to put it in the computer or I’ll get in trouble,” she said, looking apologetic and pointing to my ‘FTM’. “On your insurance card it’s F…”

“Uh,” I said, momentarily stymied and lacking in glibness. “It’s changing. I mean, it’s not legally changed yet, but it’s changing…”

She looked up at me (she was a good deal shorter than I) with that same apologetic understanding. “I’ll just put F this time, and maybe next time you can change it, okay? The computer won’t let me put anything but M or F, and it has to match your insurance card.”

I agreed that maybe next time I saw her it would be different. And I left feeling like I had an ally in that phlebotomist. It was oddly comforting.

And then there was last night. Last night I had to go to the ER. (Here is my housemate DK’s amusing account of the proceedings. He’s a much funnier writer than I.)

To set the stage, you need to know that I have a Very Special Immune System — which is to say I have a primary immune deficiency that affects about one in 50,000 individuals called CVID. My B-cells don’t work quite right and I can’t make antibodies to certain types of bacteria, which means I am prone to recurring infections, some vaccines just don’t work for me, and I have a few other annoying issues like lung damage, joint pain, and fatigue.

Early last week I developed Yet Another Sinus Infection, and was trying to pretend it would go away on its own because I really just didn’t want to go back on antibiotics for the fourth time in two months, and was being a child about it. But it had gotten bad enough that by Saturday I had decided I’d call the doctor Monday and get the antibiotics.

Sunday I woke up with a crazy bad sore throat, and a weird, painful swelling inside one nostril, on top of the existing sinus infection symptoms. I was annoyed but not alarmed, and resigned myself to calling the doctor first thing Monday morning. (Well, second thing Monday morning. First thing was going to be driving my housemate DK to a job interview.)

Sunday evening DK and I watched a couple videos and hung out, and then as midnight approached, we declared intentions to go to bed, since there would be early rising for the job interview and so forth. As I was putting on pajamas, my body, with epic timing, decided to manifest something entirely new and unpleasant: painful, hard, hot, rapidly progressing swelling under my chin and jaw. Over the course of a half hour it went from “that feels weird, it sort of hurts” to “Oh My God OW” and I couldn’t swallow easily or put my chin down to my chest.

I went back out to talk to DK about it (thankfully he was still awake). He was justifiably alarmed. In truth I was also a little alarmed, but also trying very hard to convince myself I could let it wait until the morning. After all I didn’t want to ruin DK’s sleep the night before his interview, and I didn’t want to go running to the ER for something that wasn’t really an emergency. It clearly wasn’t an allergy, and it wasn’t affecting my breathing. But when I’d gotten an infected puncture wound on my hand and developed cellulitis  it had done exactly the same thing, and cellulitis is a Really Bad Infection and shouldn’t be toyed with. But this time there was no external wound to blame, so how could it be that? But rapidly progressing swelling affecting the throat is scary…

I called a doctor friend but he didn’t answer. DK said hang the interview man, let’s go to the hospital already, that is not right. I called a nurse friend. She also said, essentially, what the hell are you waiting around for? Go to the ER already!

So we went to the ER. The triage nurse was the one who was unexpectedly and amazingly awesome about the whole trans thing this time. She was also Filipino and I’m not sure how that’s relevant, except that it was an interesting coincidence, I guess. I’d written Zach on the sign-in sheet. As she took my information down and had to enter my legal name, I said something like “I don’t really use that name at all. Everyone calls me Zach.” And she looked at me and DK and said, “Oh I understand. I have a sister just like you. My kids call her Daddy B.” She repeated the tale of her sister several times in the course of the conversation, and neither DK nor I could tell whether she meant she had a sister who was now a brother, or a brother who was now a sister, but it didn’t matter. She had a trans sibling, and she understood.

She called me Zach and he, and evidently said something to the other staff, because despite the little hospital bracelet identifying my by my very feminine legal name, the X-ray tech and the other nurses all also called me Zach and he (although one nurse had to correct herself, which was kind of cute, actually, because she did it so spontaneously. She was talking to DK at the time, about me. “He, I mean she, I mean he! He will just be a minute getting his CAT scan, you have to wait here.”

So. I saw a doctor and got a CT scan, and they determined that I had cellulitis in my neck and face, probably related to the sinus infection. They gave me antibiotics and told me to call my doctor and that it was a Very Serious Infection and not to be toyed around with if it showed any signs of getting worse. It had clearly been the right call to go to the ER, since if I’d left it till morning it would have been much worse.

Let me repeat that: I admit it, I was wrong. Thank you DK and Michelle (and Pat, Michelle’s wife) for insisting I go to the ER. I’ve had two doses of the antibiotic now, and I’m starting to feel a little better.

Yeah.

He’s right, sort of, if you think of a kicked dog not just as an anxious animal looking to see if another blow is coming, but as one who might bite if it does.

I’m a wad of tension today: my heart keeps racing and I’m defensive as all hell, cranky and irritable, and almost vaguely nauseated or something. What the hell is wrong with me? Do I just need some exercise? Do I need to chill out with some TV? Do I need to write? Do I need to sleep? Am I stressed because of the dozens of yet-to-be-unpacked boxes and no end in sight to the moving-in process? Is it biorhythms, or sharing living space after ten years of living solo, or am I picking up on DK’s being in a snarly mood himself and amplifying it back? Or maybe…

Is it because yesterday was the day I was due for my testosterone, so I was in a trough when I woke up today? Or is it because I took my dose this morning so I’m amped up now?

All of the above? None of the above?

I’ve been on T for six weeks, and so far I’d say I’ve seen almost no changes that I could ascribe to the hormone. I’m on a very low dose — just 25mg a week to allow my singing voice to transition slowly and completely — so that’s really not all that surprising. But honestly? I’d like to go ahead and get on with it. Raise my dose and risk my voice, and screw this transitional phase. I’ve stopped being a girl, can I please be a boy now?

Every morning I look in the mirror and see the same old me looking back, and it sows seeds of doubt: why the hell bother with transition, it’s not like it’s going to change anything. I’ll still look like a girl, with my tiny mouth and dished nose and flabby face, and sound like a girl, and people will “ma’am” me to my dying day.

(Reading that back I kind of want to kick myself. Sack up, man! So what if you have a girly looking face? It’s not like that’s the end of the damn world. You’ll probably grow a beard and drop your voice eventually, and if you don’t, well, gender-bend the hell out of life and quit whining.)

But here’s the thing: I’m more than done pretending to be female, but at the moment it feels like I’m only pretending to be male. I’m somewhere in the middle again, but I’m not enjoying it.

I feel like Wile E Coyote — I stepped off the cliff quite some time ago, but I’ve only just now looked down and noticed I’m standing unsupported in thin air. No way back to the cliff top, if I have a parachute I haven’t figured out how to deploy it, and the ground is a looooooong way down.

But then I think, “Why did the coyote step off the cliff?” Because he was hungry. Starving, even. He could stay there on solid ground and continue to starve, or he could go chasing after the roadrunner. Poor dumb bastard, at least was taking action, even if it never got him anything.

Besides, there was at least one episode where he ended up happy, I’m pretty sure of it.

Scene: A doctor’s office in Northern California, mid-day, early June. A pretty, middle-aged doctor draws medication into a syringe while a patient with short, bright blue hair (Nezu) watches.

Doctor: Now before I give you this injection, you should be aware this can cause facial and body hair growth, and deepening of the voice.

Nezu: *pause* Um, yes, that would be the point.

Doctor: *laugh* OK. But I still have to tell you.

Nezu: *laugh*

Doctor: Also it might cause baldness. Is there baldness in your family? If it does there are medications you can take to block the baldness effect.

Nezu: If I go bald, I’ll tattoo my head blue.

Doctor: *blink, pause, laugh*

Nezu: *laugh*

In other words, I started testosterone today.

My first shot was a very low dose (25 mg) with a plan to ramp up slowly to the expected dose of 100 mg per week, and thus, hopefully, preserve as much of my vocal range as possible while my voice deepens, since I am a serious singer.

So far I don’t feel any different. Except maybe a little more legit. And pleased. A little giddy, even, though I’m 99% sure that’s entirely psychosomatic.

Actually, I feel pretty damn good.

This is the card I’ve designed for myself to announce my name change (click it to embiggen and clarify, wordpress is resizing it and making it all artifacty). I’ve been pretty careful not to use my “real” name on this blog, but it’s really hard to talk about changing your gender without talking about changing your name. So here it is: moving from A to Z, Andrea becomes Zachary. (Also, I must give thanks to The Artist Formerly Known as Prince for zir contribution to the American idiom lexicon, which entry I have appropriated to my own purposes.)

I made the card because I joined an Artist’s Way group, and we had to make name tags for ourselves for our first meeting last night. Some of the people in the group are strangers to me, and some are people who knew me as Andi/Andy, so I decided this would be the ideal opportunity to unveil the new name, the gender transition, and all of it, with humor and style.

It’s still all new and strange, but I think I can get used to answering to Zach. It’s got a z in it, so it’s got some kin to Nezu, which is a name I answer to, and it has a soft a, which matches the a in Andy. I kind of liked Zeke as a nickname, but somehow Zach fits me better I think. Zach for Zachary. I’m keeping the Andy as a middle name, so it’s Zachary Andrew. That way people like my family who don’t want to change will still be calling me by my actual name. And I’ll still be named for our family friend Andy.

Here’s another awesome part: my last name starts with M, so my initials are ZAM! It needs the exclamation point, don’t you think? ZAM!

Also, is that not an awesome design? (Caveat: I’m a graphic designer.) Now I know I’m prone to being in love with my designs when they are fresh and new, but I’m really quite in love with this one. I want to make it a t-shirt with just the graphic elements. Can’t you just see it with foil embossing on the people symbols? I could do pink for the boy and blue for the girl, just to be extra queer. It could be a tattoo. It could be a greeting card. I should probably sit down and make an MTF version, too.

Yeah. And then I’ll sell my awesome t-shirts and so forth and raise money for chest surgery. It’s a plan.