What do we celebrate?
This month, I threw a kind of party I've never intended or anticipated before. We've been calling it a T(ea) party, and it was in celebration of my starting hormone replacement therapy.
I never planned to take hormone therapy. I don't have a lot of dysphoria, so it always seemed like it was more trouble than it's worth. For one thing, it took me till I was well into my 30s to finally defeat acne, and I wasn't in a hurry to get back to that.
But identity is never as tidily boxed up or as stable as culture, language, and mental categorization habits aggressively suggest. And a few months ago I heard a rumor that low doses of testosterone prescriptions are thought to help with hypermobility- the condition that causes me basically daily joint pain. I wasn't sure how much stock to put into this, so I tentatively, lightheartedly brought it up to my doctor. She agreed airily that that's been a known technique for ages and agreed that it could help me.
She knows I have joint pain, and she's told me outright it's because of hypermobility, so I had to ask her- why had she never told me about this treatment option before?
"There's side effects" she said. Since I'm not a queer in isolation, I know that perfectly well- I rattled off a few- lowered voice, facial hair, changed facial structure, increased muscle mass, and so on. Acne, of course. She nodded along, but didn't add any I didn't know about. None of them were significant health risks for me.
That was when I realized that she'd never mentioned this as a treatment option to me because she assumed I was a cis woman, and that cis women would refuse a medication that could impinge on their gender identity. It never occurred to her that my gender could be one that opened options for me, instead of limiting them.
I made an appointment to see a doctor specializing in HRT the very next day. And tomorrow, I'll start taking low dose testosterone gel. By this time next year, I hope to sport a lovely tenor voice and improved stamina and mobility.
So, this month, I threw a party to celebrate!
I'm lucky to have a community around me that consider this more or less normal. I myself have attended boob-voyage parties, Dickquisition Shindigs, a Vaginoplastypalooza, and a name-change bonfire. When one of us takes a step towards truth, comfort, or joy, we celebrate. It seems like the most natural thing in the world, to me.
Obviously, the larger world seems to consider transition related events shameful, or at least, embarrassingly private. In a world that thinks all trans people seek first and foremost to seem cis, the idea of congregating to talk about and celebrate transition milestones is baffling, even though these are changes we're actually and actively seeking out, to improve our lives.
So much of the world assumes that stories of transness or gender nonconformity are stories of loss and tragedy. We don't talk nearly as much about trans joy or community, even though that's part of the lived experience of many of us. Even in my books, my characters might struggle with gender identity related stuff from time to time, but their transness is never, in and of itself, a tragedy of any kind. That's what I write, and that's how I live.
So I got together a handful of trans and nonbinary friends, and we had a beautiful lakeside tea party to celebrate something that brings me joy and hope.
This month, I have two questions to ask any of you who want to answer:
1) What unusual or "different" celebrations have you attended or thrown?
2) What song should I make a video of myself singing? I have a goal of singing a duet with myself- starting with today's somewhat breathy soprano, and eventually concluding it with my tenor voice in the future. But I'm having so much trouble coming up with songs to sing with myself! Your suggestions would be very welcome.
Closing out- I was hoping to have some actual consecutive sequences of animation to share with you this month, but we had to keep Starling home from school several times, and that is the first thing to fall off my schedule. But I'm still incredibly proud of this little snippet!
Lee Brontide
PS- yes, the photos at the top are from the actual party. I didn't steal them off Pinterest or something.