Hair

I came out to my friend Laurel and her mum Lorraine, who have known me since I was two. They were kind of shocked, and resistant, but we actually had a good conversation about it, especially after I assured them I wasn’t going to become a bad man. And I hope I don’t. I don’t think I will. Anyway, Laurel was asking me all the questions about what female to male transition looks like. She wanted to know about the surgeries but they squeam me out so we didn’t talk about that, and besides, I still don’t know about surgery. So we talked about what testosterone does. They were really worried about side effects, which was interesting because no one questioned the side effects of my anticonvulsants. So I told them honestly what I knew about testosterone and how it works on your body, and that some of the suspension liquid it is in gives people allergies. In it’s most basic it’s steroids really. I told them it would be like I was going through menopause, and that freaked them out because of course everyone knows how intense menopause is. But I feel like I already did menopause.

Oh yeah, so we started talking about body hair, and Laurel asked me if I was very hairy now and of course I’m not, I’m really bare. And so I told her that and she said maybe I’d be like every other Indian man and have like, three chest hairs.

And it’s true, Native masculinity is SO different from other masculinities. I mean, they have girl skin. And very little hair. And they often have a sort of androgynous side. I think it makes transitioning hard because you never reach the gruff rough furry end of masculinity that we assume is the epitome. And I think even bio Native men have a hard time with their masculinity, because it DOES look so different. So probably the feminine parts of me I like will hang around.

Lorraine and Laurel were cool in the end. I think they felt better when I said they could still tease me, but eventually I was going to be totally indistinguishable from any other guy.

Laurel is having some intense dreams, woah, I can’t believe how terrified of men women are. I mean, I can believe it, which is the sad thing.