Period Cramps, Slaying the Thane of Cawdor and Becoming the Incredible Shrinking Woman.
Part 1 of a quick-fire round of unexpected changes in my life since transitioning.
In celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility I thought I would treat you to some of the more unusual aspects of my transition.
I’m shrinking… but I’m still an Amazon, dammit!
“What’s the weather like up there?”
Fun fact people don’t often talk about is that HRT can make you shorter. It was only ‘cause I stumbled upon another transwoman in a forum talking about it that I wondered to myself, “am I the same height?” Turns out I’m not. I’ve lost an inch and a quarter in height. Three centimetres. HRT doesn’t affect your bone structure (God, that it did maybe I wouldn’t be so barrel-chested?) but estrogen does affect your ligaments. What else would you expect from the hormone associated with the member of our species that gestates young? The hormone that supports a body expanding and contracting over a few short months. Connective tissue that can dramatically change shape and then in the same amount of time return back to what it was. So, everything sits a little lower. A few millimetres here and a few millimetres there and now I’m no longer six foot.
I can kill Macbeth now.
“No man of woman born shall harm Macbeth”
Since I’m no longer a “man of woman born” the fates will allow me to kill Macbeth.
Sweet.
And seeing as this “womanhood” I now possess was obtained by my own labours you could even go as far as calling me a “woman born of a man” if you wanna get poetic about it… so fuckin’ arm yourself bitch-ass Thane of Cawdor… I’m coming for ya!
I got hit in the tit!
“Fuck you weren’t lying about it hurting!”
After a six-year absence I recently returned to roller derby. I was asked by a civilian what the attraction of this absurd sport was anyway. Clearly, they didn’t know; clearly, they had never felt the sensation of driving your shoulder into someone’s ribs and feeling their body collapse under the onslaught. Clearly, they’d never experienced someone sprint at you full force and sliding your whole ass into their path, punting them off track. Or when a trio of blockers brace up like a rugby scrum to hold you and you dig in your toe-stops and feel three bodies buckle underneath you… Damn. I never realised how sexual that all sounds ‘til I typed it out? Trust me, it’s not in any way creepy…. but it DOES feel fucking great, mostly because roller derby is a reminder that this body in an instrument, not an adornment. It is a tool, not a piece of jewellery.
And now I’m back, at least casually. Last time I played I was very much living as a man and was playing against other men. The styles of play can be quite different. Imagine my surprise now when I presented my chest to an opponent, thinking I could still block them with its expanse only to instead receive a hit to the left boob which nearly dropped me, gasping at the pain of it. Ladies, y’all always said it hurt and it’s not that I didn’t believe you, it’s just that I never thought it would hurt like THIS. It is an entirely new “type of pain” for me. We all know what a stabbing pain feels like, a gnawing pain, a throbbing pain… Well, thanks to my roller derby sisters I can now add “getting shoulder checked in the tits” type of pain to the list.
St Paul thinks I should shut the fuck up in church?
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”?
I had a lot of catholic schooling. The sort of catholic schooling where instead of taking you on a senior camp or a ski trip they take you to a seminary to teach you to be “good Christian men”. It was nice in its own way. Single rooms. “Monastic Cells” is the term I believe. The catechism is still locked away in my autonomic nervous system along with the sacraments and various rites (“peace be with you/and also with you/let us offer each other a sign of peace”). As an antagonistic child I did enjoy philosophical dunking on the antiquated texts. Saint Paul’s First Blog Post to the Corinthians (the audacity to just write to a whole abstract grouping of people?) Chapter 14 verse 34–35: “Women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. And if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.” Well… this puts me in a bit of a spot now, doesn’t it. Just so we’re clear my speaking in church should not be taken as a sign that I am really a man, but instead that at my core I am, as I have always been, antagonistic when it comes to organised religion.
I almost shaved off a nipple.
“Yes, it is as painful as you think it is”
One of the major drawbacks of having significant chest tattooing is that I can’t get laser hair removal on it. The same process of heating up hair follicles is the same process of heating up the ink embedded in the skin with tattoo removal. To have hair removal on my chest would damage the magnificent tattoo work so I’m at it with the razor. It’s not so bad, annoying if anything. God, I long for an occasion where I’m dolled up, draped in a cocktail dress at some bougie event that disappoints so that I can loudly and in my deepest vocal roar, “I can’t believe I shaved my chest for this!” (Comedy gold if you ask me.)
But the problem with the tedious task of regularly shaving your chest is that sometimes, when you get complacent, you rush, you stop paying attention. And sometimes you get too close and slice a nipple. Try not to think about the patented four-blade, moisturising-strip, easy-glide system (the best a man can get, apparently) slicing through the skin of your nipple and instead imagine my shock of seeing a flood of blood running down my body in the shower.
Which leads me to…
I get my period!?
“But not the menstruation”
The cisgendered women in my life have been scolding me for some time now about not doing a terribly good job of tracking my cycle. There’s apparently a pronounced shift in my moods over the course of the month. I think this all came up when I stared getting regular lower-back pain. In the past I’d just go and talk to weights about it at the gym. I’ve always had a terrible lower back (like the men in my family?) so I do a fair amount of strengthening exercises. No matter what, the pain wouldn’t shift with the exercise but then after a week or so it would just evaporate only to return a few weeks later. Turns out I was having period cramps. So, with that and the moods it seems I have a cycle despite not having a uterus that will shed its lining.
So, no pockets in the pants and debilitating pain? Great. Just fucking great.
Chivalry is so fucking weird now.
“Ladies first!”
Living as a man I was always the sort to hold a door. The sort to slap an elevator sensor even when there was only millimetres to spare before the lift doors closed. I would always put an arm through the gap. I would always walk next to the road. I would always take the heavy bag. I would always go through a door second or I would plow through a crowd first to create a wake of empty space behind me.
I get that some people would consider it “sexist” in some way as it belongs to a bygone culture of male power and privilege. For me it was never gender based. It was just that I had a sturdy body and the convenience I could create for others with it weighed more than the inconvenience on me to do it. It did more good for others than harm for me… isn’t that how everything should operate? So now people hold the door for me and I’m like “bro, wut?”.
I still misgender myself but mostly with idioms.
“Those times I’m being a real son-of-a-bitch?”
I can’t help it. It’s like how I haven’t an ounce of religious faith left in me but I still persist in crying out “Jay-zuz Croist!” in a thick Dublin accent. It is baked into me. The body reacts, the mouth moves, the breath engages and I metamorphise into my father and the Dublin drawl of curse words erupt. I can’t help it, no matter how much I try. I try to catch my words when referring to myself but sometimes I am clawing at thin air. Those times I’m being a “son-of-a-bitch” or when I am being “the bad guy”. I mean for real… who the hell would say “daughter-of-a-bitch” or “bad girl”. The first just sounds clunky as fuck and the latter… well that’s also a thing… a very different thing with not a lot of overlap.
Speaking of accents…
Lasers… in my asshole.
“What fresh indignity awaits?”
I was never a terribly hairy man. I have fond memories of being a pigeon-chested teenage boy and an uncle, one of those not-related-to-you uncles but still “family” (read: your dad’s old drinking buddy), his thick North-side Dublin accent full of mirth telling me: “Sure, deh best way to hair to grow on yer chest is te rub salt into it before yee go te bed. An if yee strategically place a glass o’ water near yeh, at night all deh hair’ll creep out cause, sure dey’ll be gaspin’ for a drink, so dey will. And yee ‘ave t’be quick! Yeh got te grab as many as yee can while dey’re out an tie a knot in ‘em so dey can’t get all deh way back in! Sure, after a few nights o’ deh ole salt trick you'll ‘ave fine pelt!”
I think I’m gonna start telling that story to my trans masc friends more.
Sadly, the hair on my body did eventually come in, but mostly confined to legs, crotch and crack. God, the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on laser hair removal since beginning my transition. I am at the stage now were it feels like nothing but I still wish it was as easy as rubbing in salt and then untying all the little knots so they can hide away after their drink.
When I started my face-lasering, that overwhelming, irreversible step to eradicate the beard that I was so known for, I cried. I broke down and wept, the laser tech lady put her arms around me and told me I was so brave. The first time I had my anus and scrotum lasered I cracked up laughing. It wasn’t that it wasn’t physically uncomfortable (it sure as fuck didn’t tickle) but I was struck by the absurdity of it all. Laying there, eyes blackout-blinded by the goggles while an incredibly attractive young beauty therapist (you know the type) was telling me all about her next Bali trip with her boyfriend while she maneuvered my genitals and my ass cheeks in order to blast my crevice with high intensity light… The whole time all I could think of were the words: “Pew! Pew!”
–S