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🥳 On a more personal note: I started testosterone several months ago. 🎉

I didn’t want to talk about this initially. I definitely didn’t want to post about it on social media. Despite the whole shtick I’ve got, with the jokes and everything, I’m a private person. I figured my medications are between me and my doctor. And that is still true, but there might be someone out there who needs to hear this, so I figure I should say it.

I’m 42 years old. Even though I know it’s never too late for anyone to do anything, I privately thought there was no point in me getting T if I wasn’t going to get all the benefits from it that would’ve been more likely if I’d started younger. I also thought once Trump got back into the White House, there would be no point in starting T if it was going to get taken away from me at some future date, which is what all the signs are pointing toward. This, on top of all the usual fears and annoyances: if I, god willing, grow a beard, will I need to change the gender marker on my ID even though I don’t vibe with an M so much as a “?” Will I need to update my passport and if so will I want to put that flag up for the federal government? Will I ever be able to go through airport security without getting detained? How will this affect my career? Will this make me more unpalatable and unmarketable? Will I be able to afford my healthcare in the long term? Etc., etc.

In the end, the answers to those questions don’t change the fact that I want to live my life. And damn, for the first time in 42 years, I feel like myself. I knew myself to be a certain way, and I would sometimes have flashes of getting close to it, but this is the first consistently inhabited state of personhood I’ve had. Ever. And that’s really something.

This is why I can’t stand the bullshit around criminalizing trans kids’ healthcare. Kids shouldn’t have to go through what I went through. As I was composing this message, my own local healthcare provider NYU Langone abruptly and without making any arrangements for patients elsewhere ended their world-renowned program for trans youth. Hospitals around the US are doing the same, all in an effort to protect their federal funding. The message this sends to trans kids is clear: money is more important than your life. And that’s absolutely bullshit.

If you’re reading this newsletter you surely already know, but just in case you’re forwarding it to a friend or loved one: don’t swallow the lies about trans healthcare. Existing treatments are tested and effective to a level that is nearly miraculous. To deny patients care they need is literally torture. But this administration has already made very clear it’s pro-torture of children, as evidenced by its ICE detention facilities for babies and kids; it’s up to you to stand against it and remember it’s fucking wrong. The decade-long fear campaign against trans people (funded by billionaire transphobes who are all VERY open about it) targeted trans children first because they’re vulnerable, not because they’re growing up to regret their transitions en masse. It will be one of this country’s many, many enduring shames that we failed them so badly in this moment. If you live in NYC, tell the mayor to stand by his campaign promise to hold our hospitals accountable when they deny trans patients care. If you live elsewhere, tell your officials you support trans healthcare today and always.

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Anyway.

For me, T has been an enlightening experience. I’ve heard some trans people comparing their pre-HRT lives to piloting a mecha robot: you’re pulling the levers and pushing the buttons to move the suit around, which is difficult and stressful even if you’re really good at it. If I could be even more nerdy, for me it was like piloting a Jaeger from Pacific Rim (a perfect fucking film, do not even try to argue with me) solo. It was a feat of physical and mental strength, and it left me completely exhausted. And I couldn’t understand why everyone else seemed to be doing it with relative ease. AND I DIDN’T EVEN GET A COOL SWORD OUT OF IT.

I’m not piloting anymore. My HRT has its hassles—testosterone is a controlled substance, so unlike estrogen or progesterone there are no refills; every month is a new song and dance, plus I need to pay for regular blood tests and and doctors’ visits—but for me it’s worth it. It’s the difference between owning a body instead of renting one.

Cis people loooooove to study before & after photos of trans people to point out what they perceive as gendered physical traits, and I honestly hate that shit, so I won’t be doing that for a general audience. If you’re trans and want to talk to me about the physical changes/compare notes, cool, but otherwise, I’m not interested in hashing that out publicly. However, here is a short list of the other ways in which T has benefited me that I think cis people might not have ever considered:

1. I haven’t had a panic attack since I started. Could be coincidental but it’s a record for me.

2. My anxiety is generally manageable, which, given everything that’s happening, is a miracle.

3. I’m sleeping better.

4. My blood pressure has improved.

5. My creativity is heightened. Writing is easier. (Though, of course, never easy.)

6. My opinion of humanity as a whole has improved as I have been helped through this transition, and particularly our broken healthcare system, by people who see me as a person despite everything the news has told them. I’ve been lucky. And I deserved better.

This is all to say, as trans rights continue to be eroded, fuck ‘em. Whatever happens, whatever gets taken away, I get to say who I am. The truth of gender liberation, for cis and trans people alike, is that we all have that power. What a frightening thing for those who think themselves masters of our lives. What a small, sad world they must inhabit.

I want to end with a bit of a reading/watching list, just things that have helped me in the last few months:

We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan 1961-1991, edited by Ellis Martin & Zach Ozma. I bought this at the excellent bookstore A Room of One’s Own when I was only a few weeks on T and finally got around to reading it. God, it’s nice to read Lou’s own words about being trans in a time before I was born. If you’ve had access to voices from the past who went through what you’re going through, I don’t know if I can describe what it’s like to experience that for the first time.

Liftoff: Couch to Barbell by Casey Johnson. Part of the trans masc experience seems to require getting into weight-lifting. Sorry to say I am a walking stereotype in this manner. But I can pick up my cats’ Chewy boxes without throwing my back out now, so that’s all I really care about.

Throat chakra yoga iykyk

Thank you for reading about my little update. Although it was a big step for me, the result feels so natural and normal that I sometimes forget it’s happened. And I thought, since reading Lou’s own words during this time was so healing, maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to share this with y’all.

The pronouns are still they/them, by the way, though once the mustache really fills in, you’re welcome to call me daddy. 👍

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