#029 - First time with makeup. (HRT Day 257)

Sunday, March 16 2014


My roommate who's in her mid 60's wanted to do my makeup today. I agreed and this was the result. Keep in mind that, although my eyebrows were trimmed, they still need work. I'm also still wrestling with facial hair which is a major obstacle to passing. My lips are super chapped which makes lipstick look terrible, but doesn't really show in the pictures. I'm also trying to lose about 30 or 40 more pounds. I started at 215, dropped to 180 and I'd like to go as low as 140.

As for the makeup.... I'm ok with it but not really all that thrilled. I think makeup, like fashion, goes in and out of style and I think this is a bit out of style. I'd like to not have to use so much concealer on my face but I'd have to if I wanted to conceal facial hair. The makeup looks really REALLY obvious and it doesn't really work to conceal under my chin and jaw bones.

Still, it's another big step in transition and I wanted to share.

#028 - Forced to go full time soon, money troubles worsen and time for makeup. (HRT Day 256)

Saturday, May 15 2014

Well it seems I may have to go full time a lot sooner than I had planned. Warm weather is coming soon which means I can't wear baggy clothing to hide my figure anymore. Without it, I clearly have an hourglass figure and boobs going on. Combine that with chin length hair feminine looking face (more so than the last picture), and it's clear what's going on.

Tomorrow my roommate wants to take me shopping for makeup and to get my eyebrows shaped. I'm not really sure what to think of all this. I was nice and comfortable just popping a pill and going about my day. But I guess it's time to leave my comfort zone and further my transition. All I know is there are awkward times to come.

I'm not sure how well facial hair concealer will hold up to heat and sweat. Facial hair isn't going away nearly as fast as I was hoping for. I need to buy another six sessions of laser hair removal soon and I have no clue how to pay for it.

Money has become a growing problem lately. Bills are piling up and I simply cannot keep pace. I'm looking for a second job, but that may take a while to get. My tax return was confiscated by the US Navy in their efforts to recoup my enlistment bonus. I was really counting on that money to help take care of bills and for makeup/salon needs.

Honestly, I'm kinda scared about going full time. I've been neglecting my voice practice and workouts which are important. I still mostly have the pitch of a guy but with some playing around I can get my voice where it needs to be. Physically, I'm very flabby. Bicep muscles have turned into fat but still look large. I really need to lose 30 pounds at least.

That's about all I've got going for now. I may sell off the last of my paintball/airsoft gear to help pay bills and such. I don't really foresee ever playing again.

#027 - A push to pass, eight month mark and looking for a second job. (HRT Day 247)

Thursday, March 6 2014

So I've been wanting to write in this blog for a while but honestly I haven't had much happen to write about. Was considering writing about personal opinions on news, current events and general ramblings. I may still do that but not this blog entry.

So two days ago was my 8th month mark on HRT. It still hasn't been a month on prescription HRT yet but still, even on DIY hormones there's still plenty of change for the best. But I think it's finally time to start trying to pass. For the last eight months I've been playing the waiting game. Growing my hair out, working out, losing weight, and just going about my life as is. Comments from my coworkers were a clear indication that I need to start putting forth effort into passing.

Now I need to look into getting eyebrows shaped, practicing makeup, practicing my voice more often which I've been neglecting for the most part. I have one voice trick that just clicked for me where I roll my tongue back a little and sort of half open my epiglottis. It's that little flap that separates your trachea and esophagus in your throat. It seems to work ok I guess, but to me it sounds like Lois Griffin from Family Guy. I definitely need to practice more because to my ears it comes out awkward as fuck.

I've got a shit ton of plucking and tweezing and waxing to do. I still have all of my facial hair which is one of the two biggest barriers I have to passing. I'm thinking maybe beard cover would help with that, but it would have to be a daily upkeep and stubble would still be a problem.

My other biggest barrier is my body mass. My arms, though thinner, are still bulky because of fat. They're large, squishy and flabby which is annoying. I can't cross my arms without them looking manly. My legs are a bigger problem. I used to ride a bicycle everywhere around Austin, Tx which left my legs absolutely massive. Even with a shave, they're still massive and bulky as hell. This means I can't wear shorts, skirts, capris or dresses anytime soon. It's awful and I hate it.

I'm planning on hitting the gym a lot harder, possibly every day for hours a day. I'm also considering starting a veggie diet with an occasional break. I definitely want to pass 100% percent by the end of this year. That's the goal. If I visit family in Austin this Christmas, I want to be smoking hot and shove all my families doubts and stereotypes in their faces.

#026 - Still employed! Also, finally on prescription HRT and terrible dreams. (HRT Day 228)

Saturday, February 15 2014

So it's been a little over a week after telling my supervisor about my ongoing transition and I'm still employed. No demotions, no lightened workload (actually, more on that another time) and no reassignments. My supervisor turned red in the face and admitted that my place of employment is tolerant and accepting of everyone, but he has absolutely no clue how to deal with this in the workplace.

His response made me laugh a bit. "Yeah.... me and uh... (other supervisor) kinda had a suspicion that that was the case" (other supervisor knew for quite some time already and I think he's been dropping hints here and there).

He directed me to speak with HR about transitioning in the workplace, to which I told him about our previous encounter. Our HR representative is equally clueless on how to deal with an employee transitioning in the workplace.

I'm casually looking around the internet for resources and materials to give my HR rep. So far nearly everything I've found is horribly out of date or too bizarre for transgender people to understand or take seriously. I'll probably piss someone off, but I think the pronouns Ze and Zer are easily the stupidest terms I've ever heard. There's no way I can seriously present that as a transgender understanding resource.

My supervisor did assure me that any inappropriate touching, slurs and sexual harassment towards me would be promptly and harshly dealt with (assuming I don't go around intentionally causing confrontations which I wouldn't).

Anyways, during my last trans support group meeting, I was given contact information for a trans friendly doctor. His office is surprisingly close to my house, almost within walking distance. The doctor was actually really nice and understanding. No looking down on me or talking to me in a condescending manner.

The doctors office is a planned parenthood and LGBT healthcare center. It's actually kinda tucked away and difficult to find if you didn't already know it's there. But yeah, they don't take insurance so I had to pay $100 out of pocket and on the spot. Sucks, but my health insurance did cover the blood test and the prescription meds all for free.

I have to do go back to him in 45 days for another blood test. He gave me a slightly lower dose than what I've been on for the past 7 months just to get a feel for where I should be at. So I'm down 12mg of spiro and down 2mg of E for my normal daily dose. Still, it's a huge relief on my budget to have this covered by my health insurance.

Moving on, I think for several months now my dreams have been more vivid and memorable. I used to dream in dreary black, white and gray. Sounds and other senses often were not involved. Now it seems my dreams are using all my senses. Everything is in color. I don't know if that's the HRT or if it's just me dealing with depression and accepting being trans.

I've had quite a number of good dreams. Some about SRS and some regarding adult themes, but my latest one was really bad actually. For whatever reason I've been on this mom kick and I have no clue why. In my dream I was married, my husband and I were adopting a baby. As I was holding this baby this intense feeling of calm and happiness washed over me. It was definitely a new feeling. Then social services stepped in and took the baby away from me. I struggled to keep it but I lost. It was the most horrible heart breaking feeling I've ever experienced in my life.

I woke up in a cold sweat, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. I'm surprised my roommates didn't hear me down the hall. Or if they did they didn't say anything. HRT is a hell of a drug. It left me shaken all that day and it even still bothers me a little just writing about it. My new roommate would love to hear every detail about it, but this is something I'm not comfortable sharing (or at least sharing with people that know me IRL).

Anyways, As time goes on, I'm physically starting to become more and more passable. When I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans my hourglass figure is clearly obvious. Boobs haven't really increased in size much, but they've definitely rounded out a bit and are quite noticeable. My face is looking very feminine but I've yet to do anything about my eyebrows and hair style definitely needs work. For the most part it's just been growing out with little upkeep aside from cleaning. I'm playing with a side part which looks far better than a middle part.

I want to go to a salon and have that all worked on, but my roommate would be crushed. She claims to be a beautician expert despite dropping out of that school. Frankly her makeup and hair style is awful. She wants to do mine and I don't trust her at all to do a good job. But if I go out and have a professional do it, it would hurt her feelings.

Regardless, I can finally stand to look at myself in the mirror now. I'm not where I should be yet, but I'm definitely getting close to the finish line. I still want to lose about 40 lbs and get a surgery or two. We'll see what happens. Budget is still too tight to do anything.

#025 - Happy 7 month anniversary, found a doctor maybe, and coming out to supervisor tomorrow. (HRT Day 217)

Tuesday, February 4 2014

So today is my 7th month on HRT and I can most definitely see noticeable changes in my face, my body, my mental and emotional state. All doubt as to whether HRT works is gone. It definitely works. So much fear and doubt in the beginning and it drove me nuts.

But yeah, I have to wear multiple shirts, a hoodie and a sports bra to keep my hourglass figure hidden. Something that's going to become VERY obvious in the future at work when the weather gets warmer. So I've decided to tell my supervisor now and not spring it as a surprise. I wanted to tell him today but he was far too busy with work and said "how about tomorrow?"

So sometime tomorrow I'm going to be telling him that I'm going through the transgender process, what to expect and how coworkers should behave, and most importantly, shouldn't behave towards me. No groping, no "grab-ass'ing", no asking about genitals, no using slurs such as Tranny, and such. I guess the biggest piece of advice for coworkers to treat me is to not make a big deal out of it.

I'm not coming out full time at work nor changing my name yet. I'm not demanding proper pronouns be used either. I'm simply giving my supervisor a heads up on what's coming down the road in a few months. I can't wear all these layers of clothing in the summer time and my figure will become quite obvious.

I honestly have no idea how it's going to go and I'm nervous as hell. My supervisor is a cool guy and I haven't been in trouble or anything at work. My last employee evaluation was nothing but praise for my work ethic and punctuality. I don't think I've ever been late to work and he's even admitted that he doesn't have to keep an eye on me to know that I'm doing my job to the best of my ability. I think you're doing something very right when your supervisor trusts you enough to not feel the need to supervise.

But it could go south and get nasty. I really hope it doesn't but I'm already looking at new job opportunities in case things go sour. At least I can go back to my old temp agency to get another job. I worked very well with them in the past.

Anyways, my health insurance gave me a bunch of endocrinologists numbers and told me to go find one on my own who actually does trans health care. After a week of wasted lunch breaks and dozens of calls, I gave up. Last Saturday I went to my regular trans support group and they were kind enough to give me a couple of numbers to doctors who actually do support trans people. I've got an appointment set up for next Tuesday. The only downside is that they do NOT take insurance of any kind. The initial visit cost has to be out of pocket which is $100.

It doesn't sound like much to the fully employed, but I'm already way far behind on some of my bills. I may not even be able to get my tablet out of pawn, it's already been quite a while. I'm afraid I missed the payment date and it's gone for good. It also means I can't get my pistol out of pawn yet again. I've been keeping up on that one and have been repawning it each month at $20 each month. Still, I'm really far behind on my car insurance bills and I have no idea how to catch up. Maybe a little at a time each month? I don't know. I do know that I won't have savings of any kind for quite a while.

My tax return is looking grim and sparse. Last year I got almost a thousand dollars back. This year is a measly two hundred dollars at best. I don't know what happened but I really REALLY needed that money to lift myself out of debt.

I'm still looking for an extra part time job. I need the money to save up for surgeries, but it will cut into necessary appointments such as laser hair removal and doctors appointments. If the part time job is shitty, I may have to choose between keeping the job or taking care of my needs.

#024 - Moar laser, starting a fundraiser and searching for a doctor. (HRT Day 205)

Thursday, January 23 2014

So I've been struggling to find something to put in this blog. I'd hate to fill it with random daily nonsense. That's boring.

But yeah, just a few days ago Monday I had my third session of laser hair removal on my face. Since then I haven't had the need to shave. Growth has slowed significantly and noticeably. I still have my doubts as the hair is still there, but the slowed growth is a good sign. I'll do a complete shave tomorrow morning as it's just barely long enough to actually shave.

Anyways, I finally got around to starting an online fundraiser to pay for various surgeries..... and I've received nothing so far. Here's the link in case anyone is interested:

http://www.gofundme.com/53z5vo

The goal is to reach $50,000 but I highly doubt I'll ever reach that, or even a third of that. Still, if I can get enough for just one surgery through this fundraiser, it would've been worth it. The fundraiser doesn't cost me anything to keep open so why not. I'm still trying to figure out how to promote my fundraiser. I tried Facebook which didn't get far. I'll ask around and see how others do theirs.

Finally I'm currently looking for a doctor, specifically an endocrinologist, to start prescription HRT. I'm currently DIY'ing which is super expensive. My health insurance covers the exact same meds as the ones I buy online. The difference is that those same meds are 100% free on my plan. I've called up Anthem and they gave me a list of all the Endo's that they cover. No word on whether they're trans friendly or not so I guess I'm going to have to call each and every one of them up and ask.

Sounds tedious and possibly aggravating, but that's the score. That's the way things seem to have to go. I'll start calling them up one by one during my lunch breaks.

And as a final thing to add, I'm stopping the progesterone cycling and instead taking one tablet (5mg) every day. Progesterone is reportedly supposed to increase breast growth, fullness and roundness. Right now I'm sitting at a little over an A cup but not quite a B. There's definitely enough mass to require a bra, but I have bras in B cup size that are a little too big. I'm thinking that maybe if I switch to taking P everyday instead of cycling it once a month, I might fill it out, maybe more.

#023 - Chilling with old shipmates, laser fail and boring holiday. (HRT Day 187)

Sunday, January 5, 2014

So I finally got around to writing this blog entry. A lot has happened since my last entry and I hope I can remember most of it.

So lets see. I had a Skype conversation with my family back in Austin. This one was far shorter than the last conversation. They were clearly eager to get on with their celebrating and wanted to close Skype ASAP. The entire conversation lasted less than 15 minutes and most of it was camera adjusting. I felt a little hurt by their eagerness to leave.

I was also a bit hurt after learning that mom paid for my sisters plane ticket home, after paying for her college. Before she was going on about how they can't afford to buy me a ticket or offer any sort of help. Afterwards seeing parents shell out tens of thousands of dollars for my sister hurt a bit.

It's nothing new though. They've done this for all sorts of things when I was a kid. They claimed they couldn't afford to send me to the dentist and get braces, yet all other siblings received theirs soon after. When I was homeless, they claimed they're strapped for cash and couldn't do anything for me. Later discovered they bought my brother a new car because they thought his old car was ugly.

Still, it hurts.

Anyways, I finally got my second laser hair removal session completed... finally! It was delayed for almost a month because the laser broke down. The second session stung as expected. So far I haven't seen ANY hair removal results which is concerning. I've been told that I shouldn't expect to see results until the fourth or fifth treatment, but since they're a month apart it's going to take a very long time before going full time.

*edit*
Upon inspection of my stubble, it seems to be a bit spotty. It looks mostly unchanged but there are a few spots where hair is not growing. Nothing significant, but slightly noticeable. I've also been using my home laser hair removal tool after shaving. It's the Silk'n Sensiple but I'm still not convinced it works yet.

Moving on, I'm definitely starting to see physical changes. Definitely an hourglass figure is forming and looks sexy as hell. I'm not skinny but neither am I fat. I'd say a healthy plump with an hourglass figure. I may have to go full time before warm weather sets in because it's getting difficult to hide.

Boobs are still coming in, albeit slowly. They still ache, itch and are super super sensitive. Every time I move my arms I bump into them. Their shape is quite visible when I'm wearing a T-shirt. They aren't fully rounded out yet which is disappointing. Plus they're somewhere between an A and a B. I already bought a few B cup bras, but they don't quite fill out yet. Almost.

Anyways, hair is getting longer. There's so much to learn about hair care. Most important points for me is to use shampoo every other day, conditioner is my friend, and getting a small trim every few months to prevent split ends is important.

Arms are getting fairly skinny. They no longer look muscular but rather a little fat. I still have a bit of a muffin top belly which is annoying. Seems like nothing will make it go away. Legs are still pretty much as they always were. I used to do a LOT of cycling which is why they're so large. They still give me that sexy looking shape underneath jeans, but there's no way I'll be wearing skirts or shorts anytime soon. Shoulders are looking a bit less broad, but there's still significant muscle mass leftover. My face has definitely changed and looks a LOT younger. I've been told by a former shipmate, who hasn't seen me in almost two years, that I look ten years younger and a bit girly.

All in all I'm putting serious thought into starving again. I've been reviewing some of my old pictures vs how I look now and I have most definitely lost weight. I'm not where I want to be yet, but there's definitely visible change.

About a week ago I came out to one of my coworkers. She is a friend of one of my other coworkers who already knows. He loves to ask questions and has told a few others without my permission, despite denying it. I thought she already knew but it turns out she didn't and was surprised by it. The resulting conversation became super awkward. At one point she asked if I didn't want to talk to her about it anymore because she's a girl. I responded that It's difficult to talk about because it's so awkward. Like going through second puberty to which she laughed and said she'd never want to do that again.

We haven't really spoken since, mostly because she works in the office and I work in the warehouse. Occasionally she'll come by to say hi to others and we'll wave at each other from a distance. I'm usually to busy to stop for lengthy conversations. She offered advice and stuff during that first conversation yet I politely declined. In honesty I would just find it a bit awkward.

Last Friday some of my old shipmates called me up and invited me out for one last night of drinking and partying around town. I found it a bit surprising as I haven't talked to any of them since I left the Navy. I always felt disgraced and ashamed to ever face them again. It may have been all in my head, but that's how I've always felt. Regardless, they invited me and I went.

They were shocked when they saw me which was very self gratifying. They're the ones who made the comment that I look really think, ten years younger and a bit girly. We played a few board games at his ex girlfriends house (not exactly sure why we were there because he hates her). We went out drinking and dancing at a club called Toby Keith's. Not exactly my first choice of clubs but whatever. And as every time I and my shipmates have gone drinking, I was the designated driver. I don't mind to be honest. There's nobody there at the club I'm interested (or to be specific, would be interested in me).

This was the last weekend before my old shipmates changed their home port and permanently moved to a new state. So I figured I didn't have anything to lose by telling them I'm not "in to women" per say. They think I'm gay and were shocked but cool with it I think. They made a few gay jokes and I rolled with it to humor them. I told one of them privately that I'm transitioning genders and he laughed and didn't take me seriously. That's fine I guess. It doesn't even really matter since I'll probably never see them again.

And I think that's about it for this blog entry. My main focus for now is cosmetic changes. I want to get my eyebrows cleaned up and shaped. I also want to start looking into makeup but I have no idea where to start. I DEFINITELY need to work on my voice as I haven't even started yet. I've been procrastinating like you wouldn't believe.