A personal announcement, emphatic thank-you, and cheers to Fedora.

Hypatian wrote:

I just realized an interesting thing. I'm not that dysphoric about my body, usually—although that's been changing a bit as I get used to the idea of wanting to pay attention to it again. But, I am [em]super[/em] dysphoric about things like in-game avatars and characters. I can kind of deal with a male-only main character in a game (although it makes me sad), but with my XBL avatar, well... At first, I was like "I guess since I have to have this now I'd better make it a guy avatar, because most people seem to put in a representation of themselves, and enough people know I'm a guy that they might get weirded out."

I forget how long that lasted before I nuked it and made a female avatar—not super long. I was actively upset and wigging out over it, I guess probably because of the intrusion of my birth-assigned gender into the online and gaming space that I'd always allowed my "female self" to occupy. Feeling pressured in that one place of refuge just totally set me off.

So: Female avatar, and screw you, world. :p

That's awesome. I think that's what I was trying to get at with my question to Clock, but last night I was completely blanking on the word I wanted. So now I remember that that word is "empowering". So yeah, Xbox avatars etc: not entirely stupid, but also empowering since they can give you the opportunity to manifest the real you, in a space that isn't restricted by accidents of biology. More or less?

MrAndrewJ wrote:

So I had this thing hiding in me, only it can't stay hidden any more. It can't even stay. Shame isn't really an issue. Fear of being disbelieved or dismissed or even scorned (again) was/is a huge issue. It was pretty easy to be inspired by all of you.

No touching high fives! The kind where we deliberately miss so we don't touch

It's great that you were courageous enough to explain your problem.

On the topic of Xbox/Wii/etc avatars, is anyone else mildly peeved that you have to pick male or female in most avatar systems? Wouldn't it be cool to make non-gendered avatars? Maybe that's just me.

My avatar is fairly average, but I like my gamer picture.

IMAGE(http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/NSMike/avatarpic-l.png)

Rubb Ed wrote:

MrAndrew, I don't think there's any shame. Yours is a personal announcement, one that deserves great cheers for your bravery in being able to say "this is who I am," even if it's not the same type of personal announcement that's been being said prior.

Congratulations on owning that aspect of your life and starting the process of healing with your class. That's a BIG deal, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

+1

And thank you for sharing, MrAndrewJ. Your courage is, in turn, an inspiration to me to be courageous in my own life. Thank you.

If totally make a non gendered avatar. As it is, male avatars never get my hair right.

The class has known for months that they just need to hug, touch, whatever the show needs and let me get used to it. They have been great about it.

And yes, the whole thing is about healing. I need to choose between that dead weight or happiness and there is no more middle ground. I'm pushing for happiness and wishing it for everyone here.

NSMike wrote:

My avatar is fairly average, but I like my gamer picture.

IMAGE(http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/NSMike/avatarpic-l.png)

I can't look at it without grinning. 100% fantastic (or really this whole thread)

Comforting no-touch thought waves from me, too, MrAndrewJ!

Gravey wrote:

That's awesome. I think that's what I was trying to get at with my question to Clock, but last night I was completely blanking on the word I wanted. So now I remember that that word is "empowering". So yeah, Xbox avatars etc: not entirely stupid, but also empowering since they can give you the opportunity to manifest the real you, in a space that isn't restricted by accidents of biology. More or less?

Sort of both. The whole "make this a cartoon version of you!" vibe was extremely unsettling to me. With the picture-style avatars, there's a bit more room for it to be "any old picture you think is cool." Nobody's really going to be surprised if you have a picture of Faith from Mirror's Edge as your avatar, no matter who you are. But once it moved into "customize your avatar into a version of yourself, and then play dress up with it and maybe give it a couple of toys", things got... more awkward. That same pressure to conform to expectations intrudes a bit, and... For me, anyway, it was a bad feeling.

Customizable characters in RPGs and the like... that felt empowering. Especially with really powerful systems with tons of sliders like in the MMOs SWG or APB. There's quite a lot of empowerment there in terms of projecting the kind of style and look and overall aesthetic sense that I've never felt able to apply to my own body. I love playing dress-up in games, because... it's such a great big huge "what if?"

So, yeah, feeling like that space had been invaded by "the real world" was kind of harsh. And I guess that in a sense, deciding to say "Screw it, I have to keep expressing myself here the way I always have." was a sort of mini-step towards coming out and towards transition. Nobody ever asked me about it, and I really don't know what I would have done if they did. I did worry sometimes... but I just couldn't handle not doing it, even with my worries about being asked.

I guess using female avatars and playing as female game characters has always been my form of cross-dressing—and that might explain part of why I haven't felt the need to bring that into my "real world" life for such a long time.

Demyx wrote:

On the topic of Xbox/Wii/etc avatars, is anyone else mildly peeved that you have to pick male or female in most avatar systems? Wouldn't it be cool to make non-gendered avatars? Maybe that's just me.

Yeah. Again, I think it's connected to the (in my opinion) misguided idea that the avatar should somehow be a representation of "the real you", as opposed to being a form of [em]expression[/em] of yourself. Also connected to the whole "handles vs. real names" thing. And then mix that with the common misperception that everybody belongs to precisely one of two genders, and...

MrAndrewJ wrote:

If totally make a non gendered avatar. As it is, male avatars never get my hair right.

The class has known for months that they just need to hug, touch, whatever the show needs and let me get used to it. They have been great about it.

And yes, the whole thing is about healing. I need to choose between that dead weight or happiness and there is no more middle ground. I'm pushing for happiness and wishing it for everyone here.

I am genuinely happy for you being able to have the courage to do what you need to for your own good.

There are many days where I get very down on humanity, and this thread is sometimes the only thing to give me any reason to cling to at least some vestige of optimism. You folks are the best.

Demyx wrote:

On the topic of Xbox/Wii/etc avatars, is anyone else mildly peeved that you have to pick male or female in most avatar systems? Wouldn't it be cool to make non-gendered avatars? Maybe that's just me.

Not just you

One game that got it right? Glitch. You can build an avatar at either end of the gender spectrum, or somewhere in the middle. This is mine:

http://www.glitch.com/profiles/PUVKA...

Yes, that was one of the great things about Glitch.

Dragon's Dogma is the most progressive game in history.

I shaved my arms today. I'd been thinking of doing it for a while, since I've been shaving everywhere else that I can reach, and they were really starting to make me feel icky in contrast. But I didn't want to do it until the weather started to change enough that I'd feel reasonable wearing long sleeves for a while. (My arms were really really hairy, so the change would be pretty noticeable as an over-night thing.)

Looked down in the shower afterwards and cried. It's amazing how less bulky and manly your forearms can look after removing a bit of fine dark hair. It's amazing how it feels to look down at these appendages that are most of what I see of myself all the time, and really feel like they're mine and don't belong to some sasquatch whose body I've had to borrow.

My second electrolysis session was today. It seems a bit more painful as the hair density increases, but still not too bad. I still haven't been contacted about a schedule for therapist appointments. *sigh* But it wouldn't be super surprising for that to be another week or maybe a little more.

In FTL I now have Hypatian and Clocky as humans on my ship ... as women.

garion333 wrote:

In FTL I now have Hypatian and Clocky as humans on my ship ... as women.

Tamren might have to update his X-COM clones, too!

I just bought my first dress. Take that, "how to be a man" thread!

Hypatian wrote:

I shaved my arms today.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just bought my first dress.

Well, aren't you ladies just humming right along now!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just bought my first dress. Take that, "how to be a man" thread! :P

Woo! Congrats!

garion333 wrote:

In FTL I now have Hypatian and Clocky as humans on my ship ... as women.

Soon to be dead women? How cruel!

I've been busy, so I missed the latest explosion of posts. Glad to see you popped in for this one Clock. If you don't mind, I'd like to share that PM I sent you a while back, it seems kind of fitting.

In a PM to Clocky I wrote:

My 3 year old shared something with me today, and I thought it might bring a smile to your face.

She has a cuddly toy beagle. An inexpensive thing her Uncle bought her for her birthday this year.

She named him Rufus, seemed like a nice enough puppy name, and all was right with the world.

We were getting in the car to get some groceries this morning when I reminded her to go and get 'him'.

"Daddy, Rufus is a big girl dog now"

"Really, when did this happen?"

"It not matter, she were a boy, now she a girl. It's OK. I still love her and she still my bestest friend in the whole wide world"

I hope she keeps that clarity as she ages.

Cheers to the GWJ 'female coffee grinders'

Just goes to prove that Awesome is not gender specific.

Heh, I recall my teddy bear being gender fluid when I was little, too.

I find women's clothes to be kiiiinda bullsh*t. They're generally pretty and cater more to individualism, but your average women's clothing items cost more than mens even though the quality is the same (or sometimes worse!). With men's clothes, you can have variety of style, but to get anywhere near the level of variety that women get, it's pretty pricey.

But the pockets in women's clothes are utter bullsh*t. Beware, stuff will fall out of them ALL THE TIME. They're useless. A disgrace to pockets everywhere.

(Mike, your avatar is delightful!)

Amoebic wrote:

But the pockets in women's clothes are utter bullsh*t. Beware, stuff will fall out of them ALL THE TIME. They're useless. A disgrace to pockets everywhere.

Haha, yes. If you're gonna wear women's pants and skirts, you're gonna want some nice purses to hold your stuff.

Demyx wrote:

Especially the dress clothes, oh man is it hard to navigate the dress clothes. I sincerely wish that you have better luck than I have. It seems like everything formal is either made for teens going to prom or old ladies going to a funeral with no in between. I just want a sensible dress for a business dinner!

This is a department store thing. It's this way for men too, really. It just isn't as obvious because clothing styles don't vary as much across ages. It was a real adjustment for me when I moved away from NYC and the only nearby clothing source was the mall. Suddenly I had to start actually making an effort to find clothes I liked.

Demyx wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

But the pockets in women's clothes are utter bullsh*t. Beware, stuff will fall out of them ALL THE TIME. They're useless. A disgrace to pockets everywhere.

Haha, yes. If you're gonna wear women's pants and skirts, you're gonna want some nice purses to hold your stuff.

The pockets are awful. This is why I usually buy men's jeans or instead of a skirt, get a pair of dress pants with pockets. Also because I'm really not a purse person, as I will lose it by the end of the day.
The bra counts as a purse too for things that aren't going to be pulled out all the time or touched by others.

Actually, one of the first things I did was start treating my shoulder bag more like a purse. Not as an affirmative "this is more girly" thing, but because carrying much stuff in my pants pockets chafes the heck out of my legs, and shaving them makes that worse. :X

The lack of useful pockets in most women's clothing is still notably stupid and annoying, though.

St.Hillary wrote:

The pockets are awful. This is why I usually buy men's jeans or instead of a skirt, get a pair of dress pants with pockets. Also because I'm really not a purse person, as I will lose it by the end of the day.
The bra counts as a purse too for things that aren't going to be pulled out all the time or touched by others.

I get shoulder problems if weight is distributed unevenly across my shoulders, so my usual purse is actually a small leather backpack. I guess you just get used to always having it with you.

Oh, and in the winter, winter coats usually have reasonable pockets so I can ditch the purse.

Went to a bar last night (the Blue Moon) to meet some trans folks. I guess Saturday night get togethers are a fairly regular thing. Anyway, not many people showed up, but that was nice--got to talk with just a couple of people for a long while. Probably a good thing, because I don't really go to bars, period.

One of them was someone I had met at Transpitt, and the other I hadn't met before. She was nice, but I kind of felt like she was trying to pressure me into dressing up more, which kind of made me roll my eyes. On the other hand, I had been thinking about wearing my wig, even though I don't think it's a good color for me (it's pretty much pure black, and I expected it to be more brown from the picture online)... and I gave up and just went bald. I think I might have been more brave, except that since I don't drive I had to take the bus over to that side of town and then walk about a mile from the bus stop to the bar. Still, I think I might go again next week, and maybe wear the wig. (In other words: While I still roll my eyes at the way she was staying stuff, she was right to be encouraging me to be more brave.)

Of course, drinking three beers while I was there totally blew my diet, but I don't think I did any serious damage.

Overall, a success. Tonight, I'm staying at home, wearing my wig, doing laundry. Getting used to living with the whole "Hey, I have hair, and it kind of gets in my eyes" thing again. And just feeling nice.

I think my big adventure in the next week is going to have to be starting on makeup. Going to have to do some Web Research(tm), because I remember absolutely nothing. T_T I guess I should probably try to start early, since I can't shave between Wednesday morning and Saturday because I need my beard grown out for electrolysis.

Um. Oh, and on the subject of bravery, I guess I'll share some photos. (*gulp* I think the last time I had a photo of me anywhere was... um... 2002?) They're both kind of crappy. One outside last month, waiting for the bus home. (Super crappy.) One taken just now, with my wig on, in the mirror. (Really crappy, OMG dirty mirror.)

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-poPwYgoyos0/UGkmcyliDjI/AAAAAAAAAYs/ubA7vtVyfig/s288/photo-2012-08-30.jpg) IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iR5rTxnPh5U/UGkmc7FubOI/AAAAAAAAAYk/6CgJ12ia8fI/s288/photo-2012-10-01.jpg)

(No pics before shaving my goatee off, sorry.)

Hair! And cute hair, to boot!

Feel free to PM me with (or just post) any makeup questions. I'm a proverbial font of knowledge on that topic.

One thing to notice, "crappy" photo or not.

Notice how you're so NOT smiling in the pic on the left? And how you're totally smiling in the pic on the right?

Yeah... that right there is worth it.

Rad!