A small step closer...

A bit of a "status update" on how things are developing over here and how it will all proceed from there.
Okay, so a while ago I called the VU, and got a letter I had to sign to allow them to check my doctor's records with my GP (not that there is much in them, lol). After that I got another letter saying they will call everyone who signed up in the first two weeks of July to pick a date for the intake.
Before the intake I have to get a refferal letter from my GP as well, because otherwise the insurance won't cover anything.
The intake is not the 'actual' start of therapy and medical process, rather they just create a "file" for you and get some basic details down. Basically that is the starting point they use for making a "plan" how to proceed from there.
After that, you will be placed on the waiting list, and the actual treatment cannot start until you are the first 'in line', so to speak.

This "treatment" will first start with A LOT of psychological tests and talks, etc. to find out some basic things, like:

1. Do you really have GID (=Gender Identity Disorder, AKA: medical term for transgenderism)
2. Do you have other mental issues that need resolving first? 
3. Are you mentally and emotionally prepared for transition 

This phase can take from a few months to multiple years, depending on how strong, mentally stable, and certain of you decision, etc. you are. I find it hard, if not near impossible, to estimate the time it will take with me, so I decided not to fuss about it too much right now, and just see what happens.

After that, if all goes well, they will diagnose you with GID and give you the "green light" to start the medical process some time later. (after some physical tests, like hormone levels and such. I am not entirely sure what else...)
This will first consist of a RLE (= Real Life Experience) where you live as your desired sex full time and get the hormones of this sex (so in my case that would be testosterone). During that time you will stay in touch with the VU and still have regular talks with psychologists. If you have doubts or feel like it's going "too quick" you can always slow the process down (on the other hand, speeding it up is a lot harder).
Once you successfully finished the RLE, you will get green light for the surgeries. There are several options and (as far as I know) you don't have to take them all, but as they are still so far away I am not really thinking about that step yet. If you guys are interested I can write another blog post about them though, and list the differences and pros and cons of certain surgeries. That is too much for this time though.

As you see this first "big" step is actually a very small one, and I still have a long road ahead of me with many pitfalls along the way. I cannot predict what it will look like and how exactly I will tread on it. That is something only time can tell.

Overanalysing

In the previous post about dysphoria, I explained the difference between body and social dysphoria, and also showed dysphoria can manifest in many different ways, depending on the situation.
However, also when dysphoria isn't directly triggered it is almost always there, but in a more... subtle form.
Basically I become overanalytical or paranoid about everything. From handwriting to mannerisms to appearance, I constantly think:

1. Do I pass/Do others see me as male/Do I look male
2. Am I "male enough" (on the inside)

The first point basically refers to anything social and physical. When I am out on the street and my eyes meet those of strangers, I try to figure out whether they see a dude or a gal walking by. And even when no-one is looking I am checking things, like "Does my butt look too big for a dude in these pants?" "Is it visible I don't have a package?" "Do I need to cut my hair?" "Do I look like a lesbian?" "Do I have too less hair on my arms?" "Do I look wimpy?" and so forth.
Basically every imaginable thing that has to do with appearance. This also includes things like mannerisms, like walking, sitting, choice of language...(though mannerisms are tricky, as they also fall a bit into point 2, but also not, as mannerisms are majorily taught, and not inborn)

The other point is something which manifests itself most when I am on my own and the need to 'pass' is less present than in public. (though still there. Some transpeople deliberately avoid mirrors, I actually constantly check myself in the mirror and try to look "through the eyes of a stranger" and decipher whether they would see a male or female. Often it doesn't leave me feeling better)
Because I am not born male, I have the feeling as if I have to "prove" to both myself and the outside world that I am "male enough" or "truly a dude" on the inside. This has nothing to do with looks, rather it has to do with the workings of my brain.
I tend to get over-analytical of everything I like (such as hobbies and interests), and how I "think" and do certain things. "Is that what a cisdude would do?"
It goes so far that I even attach a lot of value to the way my room or handwriting looks, and even try to analyse my way of thinking and looking at things, and figure out whether that is a "typical male" line of thought. Crazy, eh?

This is my handwriting (this sentence containts all letters from the alphabet), what do you think? Male? Female? Andro?

In fact, this promotes a lot of stereotypic thinking within me, like "men are this, women are that", and I KNOW that is total bullcrap, so I try not to change myself when I find a "female" trait.
There is no use in all of this if one mask ends up replacing the other. I am simply not a very dominant "Alpha Male", and if I'd try to become that, I'd end up being very unhappy.
A lot of gay men actually have a typical "female thought pattern", but yet they don't feel like women, so I figure... all of that actually says nothing at all.
My gender identity, my deep rooted feeling about what I am, clearly says male. And I should just leave it at that and stop the analysing, stop the taking myself down on my "feminine" and "tender" traits.
That, however, is easier said than done, and I cannot "shut off" those feelings. BUT I have sworn to myself not to change who I am just for the sake of being a "normal dude" (besides that... me and normal? Not gonna happen!), because transition is about becoming who you are. It completely defeats the purpose if I am going to play a role once again.

No more roles for me, unless it's in a play.

(EDIT: I changed the title from "dysphoric paranoia" to "overanalysing", because I felt the word "paranoia" was kinda... too heavy)

Games and gender identity

Lately I was thinking about 'early signs' I, and others, have missed.
I am not going to analyse my entire childhood and childhood behaviours now, as that is quite a big and complex chunk of information which I do not fully understand myself. Instead, in this post, I will focus on ONE thing that caught my attention lately, namely: gender choice in games.

As a kid/teen I played quite a lot of MMORPG games. I can't stand them now anymore, due the endless grinding and thinning down of friendliness in many game communities, but as a kid I was addicted to them. Majorily to Runescape (seriously, that game was my LIFE from 6/7th grade elementary school to 2nd grade high school), but I also played WoW for a while, even Maplestory and Adventure Quest, and various other non-online RPG games.

My WoW character, a Night Elf Hunter whose name was Asrath

But ONE thing stuck out: I would always play a male character, no matter what. I never thought of it as 'weird' back then, and I did not get as many questions about it as you might think. When someone asked me I either said I didn't like how "oversexed" the women looked (mainly referring to WoW, which has very sexualised characters and gear in general), or said I just "preferred it" or something daft like that.
Funnily enough I had lots of boys (and girls!) tell me technical lego and bionicles are "for boys" and I should not play with them, but surprisingly little people commented that I "should not" pick a male game character. Weird, eh?
At that time I did not even know "why" I always picked a guy. There was no "why", it just "felt right", if you get what I mean. But now I am wondering: was that an early sign? Or doesn't it mean anything at all?

My Runescape character raised some questions in game, though, as his name was Bella Kohler. My first character had my own name, but was "hacked" at level 10 (boo-hoo). In the end I think it was one of my classmates who did it, cause he was the only one who could read English, and we were stupid childish fuckers who knew nothing of gaming, and he had told us to pick our own name + a number as username, and use "ridder" (knight in Dutch) as password.
Stupid kiddos that we were, we listened to him. (ROFL!)
So I created a new character, which needed a new name. I did not want numbers in my name this time, and my dad suggested to name my character after my favourite plush dog, "Bella", which then again was named after my favourite childhood dog. I did not think it was "odd" to have a male character named Bella at that time at all. In fact, I saw Bella as a unisex name at that time, and also saw my plush dog as male.
Sometimes I'd change my hair colour, or even skin colour (I loved dark/toned skin), but never his gender, unless necessary for a quest, because that didn't "feel right".

I am the guy in the middle, those two others were friends

I also made both my WoW and Runescape character into comic characters, and wrote a lot of comics especially about Bella, in which he accidentally got "zapped" into the Runescape world, and then later on could travel between the real world and "game world" at will. Basically that was just a big fantasy/dream of me at that time, which I could 'live out' through the comics and drawings.

A picture from an old (traditional) drawing of Bella as a comic character (as you can see he wore his kilt, uhh I mean skirt, traditionally! ;P)

He was basically a persona of myself, and in many ways he was a lot like me, but more exaggerated or ideal (he was clumsy and messy, but his clumsyness often produced answers and solved problems rather than the opposite)
Basically he was who I wanted to be. Then how come I did not even think this was 'weird' or 'a sign' or anything like that at the time? How could I have been so blind?
Honestly? I don't know. I don't understand my own brain most of the time, honestly.

My newest drawing of him, depicted as the dog that originally carried his name. I deliberately made him look more or less androgynous, to emphasise the analogy between myself and him

I also always drew almost exclusively male characters, often the only females where my female friends (who were often also featured in the stories I wrote).
I still remember I used to create many other comic characters with a friend (sadly I lost the drawings of them), and then one of my female friends would always use their designs for a female form of my characters (she always asked first whether I was okay with that though, and didn't claim she made the design, etc.)
I never thought it was odd she did that. Nor did I ever think it was odd I only identified with males. (odd isn't it?)
Later I thought it had to be due the over-abundance of male heroes and main characters in popular media, and that I had just lacked "strong female role models", but when I look back at it... I had plenty, but just did not SEE them. It is true men seem to dominate games, movies and books, but that does not mean strong and badass women are absent either (and that's good, because I don't like sexism or stereotyping. Not at all)

Later in my teens things would become even a bit more confusing though, but that story is for another time, another day and another blog post.

A little talk on Packing and Binding

Transguys can do a lot to make themselves appear more masculine. Two of them are packing and binding.
Just a quick recap for the cisfolks out there: Binding refers to the act of using a special 'vest' to flatten one's top, and packing refers to anything a pre-op guy does to make him feel/look like he has a penis. This can range from stuffing one's underwear with a sock, to using a very expensive "prothesis" which is supposed to be almost indistinguishable from a 'real' penis in varying situations. (locker rooms, nude beach, urinals, sex, etc.)

Almost all (pre top-surgery) transguys bind, and those who don't often can't, because they are not out, for example. However, not all transguys pack. In fact, a lot of them don't, and that does not make them any less trans or male.

My personal binding story...
I did not bind for a long time, and people who know me well know I am not lying if I say I could even get away with it, because my chest is ridiculously small. I never wore a bra either, except for a sports bra which I had bought for 'binding' purposes, and to avoid having my nipples awkwardly protrude through slightly thinner shirts. (I hate it when they do that!)
At one point I could buy a cheap binder from a transbro, and I figured I should give it a try. I was not expecting much because my chest was so small, and I hardly had top dysphoria.
Even though no one saw the difference when I wore my binder compared to when I didn't, it still made me feel a lot better, mentally. If I now touched my chest, it felt like pecs, while as before it felt like weird blobs of blubber. Also when I run, or jump, or lean over, I don't feel them jiggling and wagging around anymore. I feel confident and proud to stand up and stick my chest out. Everyone may see it and how flat it is!
Binding, for me, was one of those little things which I never expected to help, but yet did. (I know for a lot of transguys binding is a pure necessity, I just happen to be lucky in the chest department)

But of course I said this blog post was going to include two subjects, binding and... yes indeed.

My packing story...
Occasionally I had stuffed my underwear with a sock, but I never felt very strongly that I "missed" something down there. Yes, okay, it makes me feel weird, but having a dick in a sudden would probably also make me feel weird, mainly because a wiener is much more... present... than a v-jay. Most of the time I don't feel like I have 'female' plumbing but simply nothing at all (shark week is an exception to this... dreaded shark week).
And no matter how realistic and expensive, a sillicone dick remains just that. A sillicone dick. It can even fall out of your pants, or unknowingly shift a little and make you look like you have a huge boner (and because you don't feel anything, you won't even notice! The horror!).
Because of those, and many other reasons, I remained sceptical of packing. When I, however, got the chance to buy a good and small-sized (I don't want a big size!) 3-in-1 packer for a discount, I decided I'd try it out anyway. (3-in-1 means for packing, pee-ing, and sex)
I felt like it would be good to at least have a packer for peculiar situations when it would be obvious I don't have male junk (like in a locker room), or when some prick wants to ball-squeeze me (gladly that never happened, but imagine if it would... again THE HORROR!), or when I just feel very insecure/uncomfortable.
And because this is a 3-in-1 it serves many more purposes than a simple soft packer (just for creating a bulge), a hard packer (for sex), or an STP device (for pee-ing). In fact, it serves all three of those purposes. (though less good than a specialised STP or hard packer would be)

This happens. A lot.

I am not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. Right now I am way too paranoid it will shift when I make a quick movement, and also does it still feel very 'separate' from me. But I am starting to get used to it more, and some moments I really already feel like it's an 'extension' from my own self. However I will have to experiment with it a bit longer to fully shape my opinion on it.
I plan to write a review on this specific packer sometime later, when I have tested it a bit better. I actually wanted to write that right away, but I don't feel like I can write a proper review right now already.

(I'm sorry to the guys/gals who looked forward to dickpicks, lol.)

Finally made the call + still waiting for my packer

A (sort of) short blog post this time, just to keep you guys posted.

I bought my first packer (= a prostetic penis), and it should arrive yesterday, or today, maybe tomorrow. But it's not there yet, so I'm kinda tense about that right now. I really hoped it would come soon, and I'm all pumped up about it since yesterday already. Anyway, I will make a new post when I got it. (don't worry, faint hearted viewers, I will post any pictures with a link, so you can choose to view them or not. After all... it IS a sillicone thing shaped to look like a phallus)
But I feel really quite sad that it isn't here yet... :c

And secondly, I FINALLY called the VU today. For the few non-Dutch readers; the VU is where our 'genderteam' is and where they can help you get the medical stuff done, as well as get psychological help/support.
I really hate calling. No I mean... I REALLY hate calling. Like seriously. Phones are like torture devices for me. I don't even like calling with friends/family, and the thought of calling a stranger induces mortal fear within me. I just kept putting making that call off, because I was too freaking scared to do it. 
But now I finally got myself together, and DID it!
The guy who answered the phone was really nice and relaxed, and my "OMYGODIAMDYING!!!" kind of fear quickly subsided (though I still remained tense, which is not good for my voice, lol. It peaks up when I'm tense!), he talked me through everything very smoothly, and explained to me I would get a letter which I had to sign to give them permission to get my medical records from my G.P., should get a refferal from my G.P. myself (because otherwise the insurance won't cover), and then they'd make an appointment with me for intake in JULY already!
Now, don't get overexcited right away. I asked some people, and found out the intake is separate from the waiting list, so I still have to wait about a year for the actual thing to kick off, which will first consist of many questionnaires and psychological and physical assessments. But still... I might have hormones in one, two years from now, and at that time I will still have almost all of my life in front of me. Not bad, I think. Not bad.

In that time, I hope me, my parents and (all of my) friends will open up about this topic and be able to discuss it freely with each other, with respect and openness. Because right now... I still feel very "stupid" or "silly" or like "making a fuss" when I want to talk with them about it. I know those are MY thoughts, subconscious thoughts that I have engrained into my being to 'cope' with my body and social role, and not THEIRS, but they still hinder me. A lot.
But it is something I, and they as well, need to grow into. Which I am certain will happen with time.  

Aaand, it appears that when I try to write something short it still ends up being long....

The Dysphoria Beast

Today I am going to talk about the mortal enemy of each and every transperson, FtM and MtF alike, Dysphoria.

Dysphoria is just a word to describe the feeling we get when we are confronted with our birth sex. Basically you have two types of dysphoria: body dysphoria, the feeling we have for our bodies, and social dysphoria, the feeling we have for our social role. Most transpeople experience both types, but sometimes one more or less than the other or more/less in different situations.
When I am reading a book or playing a game I do not have much noticable body or social dysphoria, because I am not being confronted with my birth sex in any way. However, when I am outside and I am referred to as female, I am 'reminded' to the fact that my outside does not match my inside and I will start to feel bad. When I take a bath or shower and catch a glimpse of myself I am also reminded of this fact, and will get dysphoric.
There are many situations where transpeople might feel dysphoria, basically EVERY situation which reminds us of our birth sex is a potential trigger.
Also can dysphoria express itself differently, depending on the situation, but it always has two common traits:

1. It's caused by a brain-body gender mismatch
2. It feels utterly terrible

For example, when I think I am passing perfectly as male, and someone refers to me as "miss" or "young lady", I will first get a feeling like I got a blow in the face, very intense spike of bad feelings, and then afterwards I will start checking everything frantically which might have caused them to misgender me. Was it the way I walked? My voice? My clothing? Don't I have a 'male enough vibe'? Is it my face? Is it something I can change? Is everybody seeing me as female or was that person an exception? And so on... I will keep feeling like this for a while, and when no one misgenders me again in an hour or so it will mostly go away, otherwise... the cycle starts again.

Second example, when I am going to visit some friends whom I am not out to or family, etc. I know beforehand I will be misgendered, so it will not feel like a "blow in the face". Also won't I start thinking why they did it, and get all paranoid about how I look, because I know they just have met me as female and know no better. I can look as much like a boy as I want, but unless I meet them with a baritone voice and a full beard chances are they won't say anything in fear of "insulting" me.
However this does not mean I feel no dysphoria, it is simply of a different nature. At such occasions I feel more like being an actor in a play, putting on a mask and acting as if all is fine while it is not.

Body dysphoria, for me, manifests mostly when taking a bath, going to the toilet, being undressed/changing clothes, being around cismen of my age or transmen who are further in their transition and the thought of sexual intimacy.
Taking a bath is worse than taking a pee, and being around cis/trans men makes me feel more like a little kid rather than a female. Also don't I have bottom dysphoria (genital dysphoria) in social situations, because I don't see it, they don't see it, it's not relevant and I can forget about it. That does however not mean I don't ever have bottom dysphoria or body dysphoria in general.

Also when body dysphoria hits me full-strength it tends to be worse than social dysphoria, but the social dysphoria is more prevalent throughout the entire day and thus appears more bothersome. However because social dysphoria is almost always there I can push it away somewhat better, and I only feel extra bad at confrontation-moments, like when I have to go to a public toilet, go clothe-shopping, or  get misgendered. When that situation is gone, the dysphoria fades rather quickly (say in fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on the initial intensity and my mood at the moment)
Body dysphoria, however, is mostly not noticeable for me, because the social dysphoria overshadows it. But when it does break through, there is nothing which can stop it, because even though it might have been induced by a quick action, it applies to something which I carry around all day: my body. So when the trigger is gone, I still feel bad, because I cannot just 'forget' my body is not how it should be.

Every transperson copes differently with the feelings of dysphoria, some cry, some talk, some shut themselves off.
I do the latter option. When I get dysphoric I should actually talk about it with people and tell them how I feel, etc. but what I do is stop interacting, draw myself in, be on my own, evade people, and hope to forget how I feel that way. I know it's not the right way of dealing with it. It makes outsiders even more confused and makes me feel worse, but I don't know how to change it... ignoring and repressing is how I learnt to "deal" with my dysphoria, and now it is taking it's toll on me.

I just wrote this to hopefully clear up for people what dysphoria is and try to make clear how it feels and how devastating it can be to a person, in many ways. It is one of the most terrible feelings I know, along with injustice and... lack of ice cream (hehe), and it's the feeling that causes (most) transpeople to take the step to transition, because only then the dysphoria will go away.
Never to return again.

It just did not occur to me...

I tried to write a bit on how I experienced gender when I was younger, how I eventually found out I'm trans, and why I am so "late" compared to some other transguys.
I know a lot of transguys who expressed they were boys from a very early age. A recent example is the born-deaf transboy Ryland, who got a lot of media attention lately because of his accepting parents. Many of them have clearly expressed they wanted a penis or felt like they were/should have been boys.
But me as a kid... I was both a very typical and a very atypical transboy.

I never said "I AM a boy" or "I want a penis", etc. Though I did say a few times "Why haven't I just been born a boy?" or "I wish I were a boy", but every time those thoughts were dismissed as utter crap, and thus I just shut up about it and figured I just 'had to deal with it'. I also tried pee-ing standing up a few times, but which child doesn't? As soon as I realized I was just making a big mess I quickly stopped trying.
I just never thought deeply about "D-'s and V-'s" (I was especially oblivious of the whole existence of the latter. In my head there were people with dicks and people without them.) and I thought that that little sausage was the ONE and ONLY thing determining whether you were a boy or a girl (since that is what people tell you). Even though I did not identify with the 'other' girls (in the case of tomboyish girls I could get along quite well with them though), never picked female game characters or dreamt of myself as a female, but I also knew I had no 'little sausage', thus I considered it a FACT I was a girl. Just like you can't say a black person is actually a white person or that a donkey is actually a horse.
The other fact that I did not truly feel like one of those elusive creatures called a "girl" did not take that away. I just figured I either had to be crazy, or all other human beings without a dick felt exactly like I did but just 'coped with it better'.
The whole thought that a human being can also have a GENDER (= 'sex of the brain') did just not occur to me because I saw sex/gender as some factual thing. You have XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes and that's it. A square cannot become a circle and the other way around.

I have had several phases of denial and trying to be "just a normal girl", the longest and most persistent of them in high school, post puberty, because at that point I suddenly had to face the facts of my biology even more than before. Suddenly people wanted me to shave my legs and armpits (I didn't), wear a bra (I didn't. Bras are for women) and cope with a monthly feast of blood and gore. Also did I get bullied with my boyish appearance again (my classmates would call me "it" and ask "are you a boy or a girl" in a nasty-whining tone, etc. and would not communicate normally with me at all and acted as if I was some sort of a crazy anomaly), and because I figured I ''had no choice" I grew my hair out, and tried dressing a bit more feminine, which still consisted mainly of big hoodies and jeans. At that time my tomboy friends got their puberty as well, and we'd hate together on how shitty it was to be 'female' and how much we hated the flobby things on our chest and that monthly 'shark week'. I did not feel too "off" then, as they despised their puberty as well. I thought it was normal.
But when they got older and matured into women, they started loving their breasts, female clothes and curves, I still despised them when I looked in the mirror. I did not understand what was "wrong" with me, why I could not just accept and love it like they could, why everything female felt so foreign and weird to me. I started to realize that what I felt wasn't "normal", like I had always thought, and started to think I thus had to be crazy and just out of my mind. Until I, by mere coincidence, saw a documentary about transgenders. This guy spoke on how he felt about his body, how foreign and 'wrong' it felt to him, how he had never felt like a girl, etc. and I just sat there... eyes wide open "HOLY FUCK! This is me!"
It was like I got a blow in the face with a hammer. All the time it had been staring me in the face. The awkward feelings, the feeling of it being 'wrong' and weird, of not-belonging with the female half of humanity, the reason why I never grew out of my "tomboy phase", like most kids, why the thought of being a lesbian couple freaked me out, and why I could never imagine myself to have female sex with a guy. Why the thought of being a gay guy or a guy with a girl turned me on more, made me happier, than assuming the female role in a relationship. Suddenly it just all "clicked", you know. (FYI: I am pan, which is basically bi but even more... open)
However, it would take another couple of years before I could FULLY accept it for myself and not feel 'weird' or 'crazy' or like I 'let people down' (my parents, friends, etc.), and then another year before I'd come out to quite a few of them and make the final decision to actually transition from female-to-male.

My life has been quite a rollercoaster ride, not just gender-wise, and it is difficult to structure it, but nevertheless I want to. For my own sake, and hopefully also to help others and show them things from my point of view.

Feel free to ask questions, if you have any, or suggestions for next posts, etc. whatever you want to share. I hope you are enjoying reading my blog :)

Cheers,
Erik

I'm back!

I know I didn't write for a long time... but anyway, a lot happened in my life in that time.

• I quit my study of biology and decided to follow my dream in arts and illustration (also the only thing I am truly good at AND love)
• I came out to my parents through a letter. I spoke to them about it a few more times but they still have a hard time accepting it and still call me "girl" a dozen times a day. They don't hate me now or anything, but I don't think they really understand.
• I got my first ever binder! :) Feels so good! Even though my chesticles are small.
• I am going to buy my first packer as well. A secondhand peecock 1st gen. I know the 1st gen isn't as good as the 2nd, but because it's second hand it's also a lot cheaper.
• I came out to some more friends, some who call me Erik already, some who sadly don't. I yet have to come out to my best friends, but I find it difficult because I have known them for 6+ years throughout my longest "female" phase.
• The genderteam opened it's doors again (YAY!) but the waiting list will probably be around a year (not so yay :c) and the diagnostic process will probably take half a year or more (also not yay). So HOPEFULLY I will have T within 1,5 year. Seems very long right now... but then again, I'd be just 21 (I am 19 now, but birthday in january, so in +/- 1,5 year there is a big chance I'll already be 21). Okay, I missed my entire puberty, but at that age I still have the biggest part of life ahead of me. A life which I can from then on live as MYSELF!
• Also did I subscribe to my new school as Erik and informed them I am trans. They were amazingly cool with it and changed my name in the system and all without a fuss. I am so happy about that! 

Okay, that's about all the gender related stuff. Study swap isn't gender related, but it IS an important step which I couldn't leave out ;)

Ciao later guys! I'll try to keep up with the blogs better now. I am also going to write some bits and pieces about my past and thoughts etc. How I developed as a child and typical/non-typical trans-things I did.