Yearly Archives: 2021

Mass Migration

  • Reading time:7 mins read

For all that I moan about my inability to hang onto body fat, at the moment I appear to weigh about 185-190 lbs, which is almost certainly the heaviest I have been. As an adult I’ve tended to stay vaguely in the 165-175 range. So it seems I am hanging onto something! I may not be a string bean forever!

What’s curious is the way this is happening. I know how soft tissues are expected to redistribute and all, and they certainly are doing that, but the way this is creeping up on me keeps throwing me new surprises. Some parts don’t seem to be gaining any more mass exactly, but rather are just taking a more refined shape. Other parts are shrinking in ways that baffle me, as I’m not sure what there even is to lose.

I feel like my breasts are getting fuller all the time. I don’t know that the volume per se has changed much the last six months, but there’s a roundness that wasn’t even there a few weeks ago. Until recently I have had shallow breasts, with all this material spread out across my upper chest. But now stuff’s moving around, figuring itself out.

A commonly used reference image around the Web; it is difficult to work out the original source, as it’s repeated so often.

I have these distinct east-west boobs, right. Even as the rest has rounded out, the sides have always been kind of weak and unsupported, creating even more of a taper with the nipples pointed out at an angle. Structurally now it seems like the sides are starting to fill in a little, evening out the support and smoothing the overall curve. Like they’re just taking on this shape that pleases me.

There’s also this general, uh, boinginess, that feels pretty new. I think the new bra first brought this to attention, but now that I notice it, it’s there just in my bathrobe now. It’s like the texture and elasticity of the meat has changed, fairly recently. I don’t remember them moving much, previously. They were uh, comparably unripe i guess.

Regarding the bra, for all the clear improvement over my earlier ones, I did have some vague issues with the fit and support, etc., that I didn’t know how to narrow down. I just adjusted all the straps, though, and zap. That was it. Well, obviously it would have been. It just took me several weeks to get around to it, because, you know. Azure. But now it’s pretty much perfect actually. I dig. This will absolutely be my point of reference for future ventures.

(For anyone it may help—bras are such a goddamned thing—this is a “Freya Fancies” underwire plunge bra, in 34 G. It’s good for east-west and possibly side-set breasts. Different styles for different boob shapes, right? There may be better options for people who have money. I got this on a sale, because I of course live in astonishing poverty.)

That adjustment, though, it speaks to a thing. Just months ago—not even six; as recently as maybe three—I had a 35-inch under-boob, which on some advice is why initially I rounded up to 36-inch straps but now am rounding down instead. This bra is a 34 G, where its sister size would be a 36 F, right? So okay, fine. I’m a 34 G. Except now, somehow my under-boob has gone down to 33. Which, uh. How did I have enough soft tissue on my lower ribs to shed so much? I know stuff is meant to move around, but it’s mostly bone! What are we losing??

I mean if we are now in fact looking at 33 rather than 35, a 34-inch strap is still valid by the same rounding logic. I just need to use the middle hook instead of the last one. And on top of my continued growth and their deterioration, I can further see why my older bras will not fit as they need to. That’s three inches too big! Even if they were still new, taking it down two hooks will only just barely keep me contained, which has been the case.

The other aspect of this is that, if I have a 33-inch under-bust, then the other way to round would be a 32-inch strap. But uh. The other way to go, the more snug direction, would be 32. Which would mean that, sister-sizing the cup upward—uh. Right now, I would be looking at an H-cup. I’m not sure that I’m in a place to process that right now. But we will see where time chooses to bring us. And God help me if that progesterone scrip comes through.

For the moment my new bra is very good; it fits. I like it. And I guess I’ve got a solid place to work from when I need to figure out its replacement. Maybe someday we’ll settle into a consistent size.

A funny thing about all this is that my breasts don’t even look that big, even as the numbers will not lie. The issue is my height. Yes, I have a slender frame, and relative to that canvas my tits are like 37% larger than average. But my body is so long, they kinda get lost along the way. It does help a bit when I go with a high waist, which just looks flattering for me in general.

The changes to my lower body are also helping to accommodate that. My hips and butt and thighs are gaining all this mass, that’s tipping the scales even as my mid-section is slimming down, which—well, I have never not wanted to work on and emphasize my lower half, and that’s finally going on. I’m getting some curves that are building in a little distinction. I’m getting some strength down there, to carry all this weight and stress that I try to push downward these days, away from my neck and shoulders and upper back. Some flexibility so I can actually move my hips, claim my space with a bit of style.

Even as I seem to lose literal inches from my waist, I keep on getting heavier. Which is… good. This is how things should be going I think. Not that I necessarily care about my waist as such, but if we can draw some distinction here between the bust and the hips and allow each to stand on their own rather than as just aspects of this endless featureless torso, that will ease so much weirdness I’ve always felt toward my body. Just the boobs were such a revelation on their own. But the more we can differentiate, the more human I think I’ll feel.

It’s hard for me to judge any of this day-to-day. But every so on we get these concrete numbers, and then suddenly I can see it. Or rather, I guess, my vague building sense of things gets validated, and I’m no longer questioning my judgment or sanity or motivations for thinking the way that I am. No, I’m actually right. What I’m seeing is real. I’m real. And I’m actually healing. Bit by bit, yet so very quickly. I’m already so far along, so much further than I had dared to hope, and I’m still only getting started.

Making it Up

  • Reading time:8 mins read

My face has changed so much in just the last year. It’s so gradual it’s been hard to tell day-to-day, but yikes. Similarities aside it’s not clear to my eyes that it’s the same person. There is of course the feminization; I feel like my naked face is androgynous as hell right now, not clearly masculine or feminine, but whee is it a leap from last May. But also, I look much younger. Significantly so. I swear, like a decade or so.

And then there are the eyes. People have mentioned this to me, but God, even last May, even three months into HRT, they were so haunted and empty. There was nobody there. And whatever husk of a person there was, they looked like they were bracing to be hit at any moment. Whereas—well, I still obviously have all these problems, right, but as autistic-blank as my expressions will remain unless I force the issue, I can now see an animating spirit in there. Azure is actively alive, in a way that other person was not.

Of course I’m still super insecure about the facial hair, though we’re taking care of that. And there’s a lot more I’d like to see happening with the cheeks and the jawline, and so on. But gee whiz, I easily look better now without makeup now than I did then with it.

Makeup is such a word, isn’t it. I mean obviously all our notions of gender presentation are exaggerated, made-up nonsense. Even if you go with a binary model of sex, people really aren’t that dimorphic. Most people are kind of androgynous if they don’t take the time to build up and decorate themselves and behave and hold themselves certain ways. The differences are so slight and individual, and easily nudged. Culturally we lean into them to try to make them big, to set the genders apart and clearly mark out who lives in what camp, lest we make an error and mess up our power structure somehow.

Gender as we know it is so unnatural and difficult to navigate, even for cis people. You can find all these stories of cis men who freak out when they see cis women in the morning with their makeup off and they just look like people. The men feel lied to and start to wonder if the women are even really women. It’s so weird. It’s like we all mythologize ourselves and the other and grow upset at every piece of evidence that the stories don’t fully map to reality.

Which isn’t to say that gender, or even sex, aren’t “real;” it’s just that it’s more helpful to think in terms of language than rational structures: here is how I choose to relate to myself, to others, to the world; and here are all the ways that I signal this kind of a relationship.

We exist in the doing. None of us is a static object. We change every day, every thought that comes into our heads, every action we take, every new memory we form. We get to highlight the features we feel important, that inform our ideology about life and how we want to live it. To be a complete person is to choose the pieces that make you up and decide what kind of a person you want to be. What you want to stand for. What you cherish. How you want to behave. How you want to treat others and to be treated in return. And all of that can change over time.

My whole life I felt this numb bottomless shame that I was forced to be a boy—seemingly with no escape. I never asked for it, never wanted it. No one ever asked my consent before bringing me into existence and telling me who and what I was, and nobody cared if I hated it. And I did more than hate it; it revolted me.

I never got the message that I had a choice. That I didn’t have to be a boy if it distressed me so much. That I was allowed to just make my own decision. I knew that trans people existed, and they fascinated me so much. I envied them. I just never made the connection. Like, they were a fact; there they were. But there I was, also apparently a fact. And I hated it, but what could I do. I was what people told me I was, and nobody told me I was trans.

I had to be good, had to do what I was told, had to carry everyone else’s shit for them that they didn’t want to carry themselves. My life was not my own; my body was not my own. I was an object in one person’s life after another—a broken object that never worked as intended. Because of course, they always got it wrong. Their map did not fit the reality of me.

I just never had that self-possession to realize I could just do things, make choices, shape my own story. I never got the message that I could just be someone else. That I could just be the person I wanted to be—that I could just be myself, and that this was not only okay but the correct thing to do.

What kind of advice would that have been, thirty years ago? “Pretending to be a boy making you want to die? Well, maybe don’t do that then. Always thought it unfair you couldn’t be a girl instead? Well, maybe that’s because you are. Give it a shot. See what happens. Neither make sense to you? Then screw em! Whatever makes you want to be alive.” We really need to work on this messaging. People don’t need permission to be themselves; that’s not for anyone to say. You don’t owe anyone your identity. You never asked to be born. You get to set the terms for who you are. You like what you’re given? Great. If not, fix it.

I am a girl because I know that I am a girl, because I want to be a girl, because I have always wanted to be a girl, and because my whole understanding of what it means to be a girl, to me, suits my views of right and good and positive, in regard to my whole place in the world. To dress in a certain way, to make myself in a certain way, to hold myself and move in a certain way, it’s arbitrary to an extent. It all serves to exaggerate slight physical features that we all have, and that can be nudged with some dedication. It’s all just signal, really.

But that’s what gender is: it’s signal. It’s role; it’s ideology. Given this common humanity, it asks, how do we want to play this? What do we want to do with this life, this body, this person, we’re given? What message do we want to put into the worlds, and affirm within ourselves? When I dress in a way that gives me joy, when I use makeup to exaggerate my features ever so slightly, bring focus to the parts I like, draw attention from the parts that don’t suit me, when I move and act the way that I do, I am reinforcing what is important and real to me.

The first person I reinforce that to is to myself. This is part of how I underline and repeat and affirm that who I am matters, that my ideas about myself are valid, that my ideas about the world are good and true and worth caring about and making real through the doing.

I am as it turns out a real person. And so I tend to the parts of what it means to be a person, to be specifically a human, that inform and reflect my principles, and I cultivate them, refining the good, the message, the relationship, the principle. I seize the affirmative. And in reifying that conversation with myself, in becoming ever more the me that I can, I serve to sort of automatically communicate with others, and with the space and the situation around me, and tell them what I consider worth caring about. And I hope that it matters to them.

If it doesn’t, well. Everyone has their own thing going on. But I know from my own conversation, the more that I knock out the truth of it, refine what works, strip out what doesn’t, that what I’ve got reflects something real and important. Something worth declaring and owning.

I am Azure because it is vitally important that I be Azure. Because now that I understand who Azure is, at least to the point where I am in the story, I recognize that Azure represents something that needs to exist in this stupid fucking world. And I am so honored to be her.

I love myself so much these days. I don’t think it’s vanity. I think it’s earnest. I think it’s based in care and in principle and in very good assessment of what matters in this life. And I hope that I can pass some of this on to others. That they can love themselves the same.

Triangulation

  • Reading time:4 mins read

So on top of everything else, I think I may be polyam. And when I say I think, it’s less doubt and more me starting to come to terms with things that have been there forever. Yeah, hi, this process is still ongoing. There’s a lot about me that it turns out does not fit into the models I have been fed. Who knows what else the future will bring!

Obviously I’m aroace; averse to sex and romance and everything to do with dating culture, etc. But were I to be in a committed relationship, that shape makes most sense to me—which feels like it should feel weird, considering how introverted I am; how much space I need mentally, physically, emotionally, in sensory terms. But there is a certain security and stability I feel with, say, a hypothetical two (?) others that’s not there with one. More context for stuff. Less individual pressure to change myself to someone’s expectations. Less of a linear powderkeg of two people against each other when problems come up. More motivation to compromise and just be kind and understanding. More room to just be human, and more resources and support and just more to appreciate and be appreciated by.

I cannot of course conceive of a practical application to any of this. As with anything to do with intimate relationships or sexuality or things involving other people (e.g. that pan business), this isn’t like some map of what I actually want or plan for in life. It’s just a matter of how I seem to be wired, what my models of emotions and relationships and the world and myself look and feel like. And I think this model has never not been true for me.

What’s kind of wild is, I have never really explored this topic actively, but on some very cursory reading it turns out that polyamory is a pretty common sort of framework for aces and demisexuals. For those who don’t build their models of relationships around sex or don’t have much interest in sex more generally, it seems to be a lot easier to rethink what an intimate relationship structure can look like. I uh was unaware of this phenomenon, though now that I see it described in so many words, it does fit things I have noticed with others in my orbit.

Again this is nothing new for me. It’s not like some idea that just landed in my head, that I’m suddenly latching onto because it seems neat or whatever. I think it’s been with me at least as long as this idea that, gee whiz, life would be a lot better if I were a girl instead of what people are telling me I am, or that I have had… certain ideas about hypothetical people of different genders. I’m just continuing to dig down, to get at the truth of me. And willikers, is it a relief to acknowledge this stuff.

This piece just kinda needed a little more time to bake, I guess. I am still unsure what to do with these thoughts, as they’re just now rising to the point where I can put words to them. But they do kinda inform how wrong the shapes of certain things have always felt to me.

Again, like. I will never fuck. This isn’t about that. It’s about my perception of myself in relation to the world and other people; what makes sense, and feels right and psychologically, emotionally healthy and safe to me personally. I just think uh I am kinda wired toward polyamory. Which, like anything else about me, is neutral. It just is what it is. As aggressively non-standard as that may be.

Late Sleeper

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Continuity of self is a weird thing. I mean we’re each a different person every day we continue to live. All the matter in our bodies turns over every seven years. But in my case it’s a bit more… specific and pronounced.

I haven’t always been here. Though this body is mine. Like, it’s always been mine. And I’ve always been me. But I wasn’t always awake, and present. I only fully came alert last summer, and inherited this body and these memories and attitudes from the person who had been carrying them around all those years. And it’s wild to sort out.

Like, I’m the real person here. But now I’ve sort of waltzed into this situation four seasons in, and I’m like okay, fuck, how much of this actually pertains to me, how much do I need to pick it up from here? These aren’t my memories and thoughts, but some I can claim easily. Other baggage I’m like… why is this here? What does it have to do with me? Why did they leave it behind? What do I do with it now?

This is my life now. I’m a complete, stable person for the first time, as many problems as I may continue to have. But there’s this ongoing process.

When I think of things that happened before, when that other person was stumbling around with this body and this life, I don’t know what to do most of the time but to say “I.” All these memories are in the first person, you know, even if I wasn’t there at the time. But I really feel like I need to stress, I was alarmingly, destructively dissociative for most of my life. And now that I’ve shed that, and I get to just fuckin exist here, the past becomes this deeply weird territory to relate to. There is continuity, but what do I do with it?

I almost feel like I’m lying when I speak in the first-person about the past.

People I knew before, like, last summer—well, obviously I know you and have all these carry-over memories and feelings and whatever. But I feel like I’m recompiling all these relationships now, and there can be occasional… hiccups, while I figure out how to build my own kind of connection. It’s funny to see all this confirmed in my interactions with people who knew some previous me. Like my therapist, who soon after the hand-over quickly realized that I was not the same person she had been talking to before.

But it’s also frustrating at times when people don’t get it. Like, people I know from years back, who kind of just behave as if nothing is different, as if they’re still talking to that person. I mean, I get it. But I’m not them. The ideas and memories that you have may not necessarily apply. I’m right here, you know. I have my own identity. Let’s try this again, maybe.

Anyway. I’m happy to be me. I just uh, kind of wish someone had set the alarm clock for 1996 instead of 2020.

Growth Cycles

  • Reading time:4 mins read

So now like three weeks and endless exfoliation later, it’s becoming clear that my first laser session did in fact do things. I have neglected to shave for a few days here, and the way things are growing in is kind of wild. A patch will seem pretty normal, then it’s just blank. It’s just ragged bits and pieces all over my lower face, though my cheeks—which are lowest on my priority list—seem to have been hit the hardest. My upper lip, which matters most to me, is only thinned in a few small irregular dots.

I do of course also have a mix of coloration; it’s not completely dark. Some is just naturally blonde or red. A few white hairs have been sneaking in the last few years. It’s unclear how much of an issue that will be in the end. But there are prickly areas with not much pigment.

Anyway this is just interesting to see, after a few weeks of thinking, hunh, well, maybe I’ll start to see some kind of effect after the second treatment? It’s pretty random what’s cleared and what isn’t. A right old mess, really. But hey, it’s definitely a start!

Getting rid of this garbage is not just a general dysphoria issue, though it’s bothered me for like 25 years, increasingly so as it filled in through my late 20s and 30s, and it’s maybe the biggest physical problem I have with myself right now. There’s also a body autonomy thing. I’ve talked about how I just… did not have control over my body for about a quarter of my life there, and how this was a particular thing I was not allowed to touch, even as it made me deeply miserable. So there’s a liberation in being able to say, fuck you, no. In closing that door forever.

God, this time next year—if I can take care of my face, and I can be on progesterone for a year, and be another year along with my steady e levels… I feel like I will be very close to where I want to be. There won’t be lots more to repair, that can actually be addressed. The only other thing I can think of is, maybe in a few years looking into FFS—but I’m really not certain about that. It’s not unimaginable, but we’ll just see where things are and how I feel. It’s hard to entertain right now, and that’s fine because now would not be the time.

That’s kind of it, though.

Maybe after my second shot I will start to think about getting my ears pierced. That’s kind of beside the point, but it’s proximate and it uh feels like it’s gonna actually happen, and sooner than later. Probably this year.

After I deal with my current… situation, that’s giving me all the stress, I’ve got someone eager to help me with my whole legal identity thing. Pro bono even. So that will also be untangled soon.

It’s astounding to me that I’ve set personal goals and I’m meeting them. When has that ever happened? My two big transition goals this for this year, they should be pretty well done by summer. I’ve even added another goal in there, that should happen in the next couple weeks. Broader life goals, I’m getting them done. Psychiatrist stuff, social services, etc.

I guess after my second shot I can also start thinking about my left-over medical stuff I didn’t get a chance to tend to last year. Of which there is so much. Getting a GP. Finally going to a dentist, after 20 years. God. I am getting my life in order. For the first time ever. What. Gee whiz.

After all this, basically the only thing left will be, how do I support myself? We’ll see how it goes with the disability. If that happens, there’s our answer; I get to just fuckin live. If not, uh, I don’t know what to do. But at least I’ll be a human being. All my parts will be in place. Despite everything. And we’ll just see where we can build from there.

The Sound of Silence

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Some thirty years ago I messed up my big toe in taekwondo class—the final excuse for quitting, which I’d been trying to do forever. The studio smelled like feet. The mix of students was strange. I didn’t really understand what I was asked to do, and was socially weird in ways that made everyone uncomfortable.

The instructor for those classes, he did try to follow up a couple of times. There were answering machine messages that I deleted. On the basis of earlier conversations, I think he was convinced I was being sexually abused. Which I wasn’t, at that time. Not as a kid. But, well. I guess there has always been something “off” about me, right.

This is really tricky and problematic to put to words, and I apologize for how it comes off. For a large portion of my life it felt really surprising to me that I hadn’t been sexually abused as a child—to the point I kept wondering if I had repressed or forgotten something important. Like, I always felt like so much about me would make more sense if that had happened to me.

In hindsight I sort of get it now. Like, it wasn’t that exactly. But I did suffer years, decades, of abuse and neglect—much of it dealing with fundamental aspects of who and what I am, and my concept of reality. This total denial of my self, this fear of allowing me to exist. This understanding that I was dirty and broken and wrong, and shameful for even considering my humanity as an individual. That everything about me had to be hidden and controlled. That I would never be good no matter what I did; that all I could do was pretend, to do my best to please. I was brainwashed, told to doubt everything except what I was told, by people who hated who and what i was. Filled with an essential fear and disgust of myself. I was basically ready to die from the time I was 11.

Some of that was to do with neurology and general mental health. A lot, though, gender and sexuality.

So this is, like—I absolutely do not want to compare my experience to other people’s violent trauma. I’m just trying to work out why it was that I always used to feel the way that I did. And, well, I certainly dive have my own trauma—much of which had to do with sex and gender, and gaslighting about the reality that I lived. It was just a different kind of violence. A different kind of self-erasure. I didn’t have the language to actually identify what my problems were. I didn’t have the resources or the models. So that comparison was the best I had available to me: some kind of abuse; something about sex (??).

Having made that comparison, though, all I could do was brush it off, because I knew that hadn’t happened to me. Or, I was pretty sure. I spent so many years going through that same weird routine: something was obviously very wrong, but the one thing I could identify that seemed to fit, didn’t really. So I had to be making it up. It had to be nothing. But if it was nothing, why were things to obviously wrong, then? Round and round.

How much this uncertainty plays into… later problems that I experienced, I don’t know. I’m not really in a place to speak to that, or begin to wrap my head around any connection. I’m just seeing a thing to note here, and going, huh. Well. There that is. But many things set me up for trouble. Broadly, not knowing who I was—except that I was broken and I needed someone to show me how to not be bad—basically guaranteed that I would wind up in ugly situations, with people eager to take me up on that dynamic; continuing to tell me who I was, and what was wrong with me.

So much of the abuse I’ve suffered over my life, I didn’t really understand what was happening. All I knew was I was failing, in ways that felt unfair but that apparently were all my fault. And I was too miserable to really question the circumstances beyond the message that I was responsible. Without the words, without the pictures, without the connections, I had no way to step away and see the dynamics for what they were.

Silence is how abuse is possible. Limiting of information. Stopping discussion. It’s about controlling knowable reality by force of will.

I make so many mistakes. I’m wrong about many things. For all my ideals, I can be as callous and petty and careless and inconsiderate as anyone. But, like. I try to deal in truth. I do my best. Because it matters. Even when it’s inconvenient, it lights the path away from harm.

It’s just amazing how knowing the right things, having the terms to communicate or look into ideas, completely changes one’s relationship to the world. It’s so empowering to be able to describe what you see and know it to be real. To be able to assert your own experience as valid

That is I think most of why I work all this shit out in public. What good does it do just in my head, or hidden away in some obscure corner of my own? That’s what abuse expects and hopes for.

I’m not afraid. I’m not ashamed of me. And maybe I can pass a little bit of truth on.

We all need help.

The Girl I Know

  • Reading time:3 mins read

A long way to go, but I am getting more and more pleased with my lower body. The shape it’s slowly churning around to. My relationship to it. The way I occupy space and move with it. Butt, hips, thighs, abdomen. It’s all starting to make sense to me the same way my chest has been

This has I think always been on my mind. From the moment I understood I wasn’t cis, to the extent my mind went to anything physical, it was my hips, my thighs, my butt. I got into hrt for the brain and mood stuff, but if it did something down there too, I felt that would be good.

It’s just, such a thing, my body actually feeling correct and familiar to me. Like, oh, there you are.

I never recognized that other person. They felt like such an alien to me. This body, it doesn’t feel new to me, like I’m creating a thing. It’s like I’m finding a thing I lost.

I feel I can’t fully articulate how right I am starting to feel. And how not-new it feels. How it’s this relief of empirical reality validating one’s memories, sort of. Like a thing you saw on TV when you were eight that you knew you didn’t dream or make up, but no one else saw. Then one day you stumble on it, and it is precisely, eerily as you remember, and you kind of go, oh my god, I’m not insane. This is the thing I’ve been carrying around all these years. I knew it. And you can show it to people and they understand what you mean at last.

I’m not eager to show my butt on the internet, mind. Or in person. But I’m just saying.

It’s not that I am feeling pleased with this whole thing that I am working to put a certain way that I want it. It’s that my body is reverting to a shape that I already understand as me. Like all the scales are falling away, and there I am underneath. This person I have missed so dearly, so painfully, even if technically I guess we never quite met until now. They’re still alive. I did not rot away from neglect. Not entirely. There’s a lot left to salvage.

I’ve got so much to do. But I have come so far, in such a short time. I have never had faith in a thing like I have certainty of the truth of me, despite everything I have been told, despite all the damage. I mean there she fuckin is. And I love her. Why was I kept from her?

Time Bomb

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I feel like I am so obviously trans, it weirds me out a bit when people don’t seem to notice. The people who are being strange at me from a distance or maybe just incidentally, okay, I can get that. But being two feet away, looking straight at me, having a drawn-out conversation?

Obviously none of the stuff I do with myself has to do with “passing” or whatever, right. Hell, I’m non-binary. I’m just trying to figure myself out, build a healthy relationship with me. Other people don’t factor into my mess. I spent my life pretending for their benefit.

It kind of messes with my head a little when none of the fuckin’ glaring signifiers seems to tip people off and contextually I know they’re not just being polite or treating me as Azure specifically, but seem to interpret me as some random cis woman I guess. Like, it’s one thing to be considerate to me because I’m a person and treat me like anyone else. It’s another to jump the fence and say, oh clearly she’s in this other box. I will project this new set of assumptions on her, rather than the set of assumptions I might have before.

How do you imagine that I am cis? I have no control of my voice when I speak to other real people. I am an alien insect giraffe, twice as tall as you. My face is maybe androgynous at best, and littered with hormonal damage. As for my throat, well. There it is.

I guess it builds up this pressure in my head. At what point will they notice? What will happen when they do? How much of their own nonsense will they then blame on me, as if I’m not just minding my own business, being myself? As if I’m responsible for the way their head works? Like there is some kind of a time bomb, and I don’t know how big it is or what the timer is set to. Like their not “Getting it” somehow becomes my problem. I am so used to accepting everyone else’s problems, accepting blame for whatever garbage they project on me. No more please.

I guess there may be ways to avoid accepting that kind of responsibility. Boundaries are still this strange and difficult territory for me. I guess Azure does deserve someone to stick up for her. It’s a bit of a puzzle how to do it, though. That’s not my native tool set.

Anyway, people are people. None of them are categories or functions or anything to do with you in particular. Each is an individual, and none of your expectations necessarily apply, so when you deal with them, do your best to wipe the board each time and take them as they are.

I’m just Azure. I’m not, whatever you want or expect or imagine me to be. I’m just me. Don’t try to get me to perform shit for you, to make you feel better about your grasp on the world you live in. That’s not my concern.

And same goes for anyone. Same goes for you. Be a person.

A Different Era

  • Reading time:7 mins read

I started to notice the genital changes around the 11-12 month mark. I wasn’t sure, but it’s been pretty clear for a while that stuff is happening. As it might do. And—sure, okay. To an extent, whatever. This isn’t a big priority in my life, you know.

I’ve gone into this before, but I have this sort of ambivalence toward my genitals, in the sense that I like them, find them pretty, wouldn’t change anything; have no desire for, wouldn’t see the point of, anything else. But I also don’t like to use them for anything. They’re just decor. They’re just kind of there, and flattering to me. I am so pleased that I don’t really experience random arousal the way I used to and that they generally don’t work as they did, which always bothered me. I don’t like to stimulate them. But they’re a part of me, right.

So the mechanical changes I’ve gone into, and they’ve been going on for a while. But more recent are the physical changes. And. I mean. Sure? They’re no more a surprise than any of my other changes. Even if this super bothered me, I wouldn’t change anything else I’m doing in response. There is what I can now say is obvious shrinkage, haha—to all components. I’m not whipping out calipers. But it’s noticeable. Which in combination with the changes in texture and behavior, it’s—well, interesting I guess. In some ways it sorta reinforces my identity. Kinda.

I don’t know how best to phrase it, but… well maybe like this. The two sexual partners I have had made a very emphatic and continuous deal to me about my anatomy down there. I would try to shrug it off; I guess it’s just proportional! I deflected. They assured me it doesn’t work like that, and continued to insist.

And, well. It is now working on a different scale than it was—vestigial, by comparison. Likewise my testes seem to be half the size they were; maybe not quite that far, but it’s getting there. And the whole area covered by the scrotum has shrunk and kinda smoothed out. Combine this with the very different shape that my abdomen has been taking on, with all that puffy feminine pubic padding and all, right, and it’s all kind of… different. I mean, yeah, girldick; internet; memes; words; sure. This is a thing that people talk about, and we know this. But in the specific case of me, the overall tone of everything has shifted. It’s frickin’ feminized, that whole area. And that process is ongoing—soft tissue continues to moosh around on me—but it’s also very much the current reality.

And. This is good. It’s also weird. And I guess I’m just having trouble fully wrapping my head around it. The changes mostly suit my whole self-concept, in gender and in role and in priorities and this and that and whatever. But I guess there are a couple of things I’m sort of. I’m not fully digesting yet.

One is the just—I don’t know, maybe knowing what the “before” was like in my case it makes a difference, but it feels so surreal for my pubic area to be so feminine, right, and in such a way that this feminized penis fits right in somehow, and just—it is so clearly a girl’s dick, right. It’s not masculine at all, unless you’re going to be some weirdo who genders genitals. And okay, but it’s not just about the penis or the scrotum or whatever, but the whole scenario and how it fits together and the impression it gives. And—what is my point here, exactly?

I guess, I just did not anticipate the scale or the coherence of the changes. There could just as easily be a vagina there; I could imagine one clearly—but there isn’t. There’s a penis, that looks and feels every bit as natural where it is. And I like it, and it’s good and nice. Obviously. It just feels a little surreal, I guess. I feel like I still haven’t found words for exactly what I’m feeling, or why. It’s not negative. It’s not necessarily positive either. It’s just… different, in a way I can’t quite understand yet. It’s confusing I guess.

And I guess the other thing—whee, well, uh. Again it’s not a big deal. But I used to have, I guess, a really big dick. Significantly so. Which was neither here nor there because, you know. Who cares; it was never going to be of use, etc. But now, it’s not, so much.

People in my past who… I guess never really respected me as a person, kind of… would not shut up about this particular part of my body, right. It was one more thing to objectify. And it kind of embarrassed me. But also, it was sort of an interesting thing to be aware of, right. You know, a factoid of the self. Azure actually has a really enormous cock. Not that you’d ever know! Not that more than two other people have ever seen it since I’ve been an adult!

Except, she doesn’t. Not anymore. Or, not in the same way at least. I have no real frame of reference.

And instead she has this whole other situation going on, which is interesting and confusing in its own way, and I’m not 100% sure how I feel, which isn’t to say that it’s bad. And again there are many ways to argue that it’s Good Actually. But, it’s a big change I guess.

I guess I’m sort of trading structures here. As one shrinks, others grow. My tits are their own strange situation, though it’s easier to know how to feel about them of course. And I suppose it’s a fair enough trade, all things considered. I get infinitely more from them than I ever did my dick. My penis never had anything to do with my self-image or my presentation or my concept of reality or my gender, or anything to do with me really. Again it was always just kinda… there. My breasts have changed my world in ways I never could have anticipated. They are significant to me.

I guess, maybe this is just—sometimes things pass, you know. Even things that didn’t really mean a lot to you personally, when they’re over, there can be this poignant moment. That’s done. We’ll never be back there again, huh. Weird. That world is over now.

That’s what it is. I’m pretty sure it’s like—that stupid pizza shop on the main street of the town where I grew up. It was awful, and it changed its name every five years, and never got less awful. And I’m never returning to that town again. But, I saw that it had finally closed a while back. I was never going to go back to that dump, but now I never can. Nobody will ever go there again. My memories of it are all that exist—well, mine and others’. And that feels so strange. It’s like I’ve shifted timelines.

It was always there. How could it be gone?

But, that’s life.

The Uplifting Plunge

  • Reading time:5 mins read

I absolutely needed a new bra. I’ve been feeling for a while like the camera is gaslighting me on the matter, considering the empirical data I know I have. Clearly my situation is not insignificant here, and the tools I got ain’t containing things for more than a couple minutes at a time. And that inadequacy may speak to why it’s so hard to document my boobage. Gotta keep the material in one place. That’s the point of the things. Otherwise, the meat will meander. Obviously presentation isn’t the biggest concern. I just always feel weird how in pictures it’s like, where are they?

I was so nervous of how it would fit. I’ve done the measurements so many times, I have the technique down so hard now, I knew they were correct in theory. I put all that research into different bra shapes and boob shapes and how different styles and features support things differently. I knew I should be looking at stuff like plunge bras and things with side support. But I also get things wrong, and I can’t control for outside factors. Different bra styles fit differently. Different makers do things differently. I didn’t know how the material would feel.

My first couple bras, I basically just looked for things in my then-size, that looked nice and were cheap. I had more theory going on this time, which made for more things to mess up. Theory does not necessarily map to reality! And one misses things. Frequently. I guess I was just scared of disappointment. I am so easily scared of my own emotions, is really what my problem. I needn’t be, of course. My feelings are my own. They’re not some invading force. I can just let them be what they need to be. And it’s fine; it’s normal. And It’s just a frickin bra. Chill, Azure.

So it came today. And when I unwrapped the thing I was like, oh no, did I get this wrong? Why is it so big?! I knew that sounded off. I don’t see how I could have messed up the measurements or the calculations but of course I did. How would it makes sense for me to be 34G? What kind of vanity was I injecting into this process?

…

Welp.

No, I didn’t get it wrong. It’s only that big because uh, whee!

Jesus.

So okay, I guess I really do have bigger-than-average tits huh. Fer realz even. Not just theoretically.

Ok.

Well, uh. Sure, fine. I guess I’m okay with that.

So, this one fits way differently from my previous bras. There are lots of things going into this. The band is the correct size, for one; I’m in between sizes, right, and previously opted to round up. Nope. Down is the answer for this girl.

Also this is my first bra with an underwire, which uh… really… feels unusual. This rigidity is—I mean, I’m not sure what to make of it yet. Between that and the (necessarily) tighter band, I’m getting even more of a corseting effect. It’s a major whoomph to slide into this, compared to the old ones. And that’s fine. It’s whatever. Maybe it’s good? I don’t know yet. It’s only been a few hours.

The cups work very differently also, from what I’m used to. I guess the underwire carries a lot of the weight now, and the different shape here works to a different mechanical purpose. This is a plunge bra, which is meant to be particularly suitable for my breast type, so the cups are shaped to encourage the tissue to sit a certain way. And yes, they do indeed collect it well, all in one place. But the fit is sure something to get used to. Also though it’s clear this is just about the right size for me, the opaque part of the cups just barely covers my nipples—which is, I guess, a stylistic choice? I don’t know.

My previous bras have also been lightly padded, so I don’t know how this is gonna be with the chafing and—well, another angle on the potential nipplevision situation. But I guess these things one will come to understand in time.

An result that I did not anticipate, from having my breasts supported properly for once and all sort of in one place, is that I am, uh, experiencing a kind of… a jelly effect, that I did not previously know. Like, there’s this… fluid quality, as they sit there. I’m not accustomed to this particular kind of a boing.

So whereas this seems to be something close to the right bra for me, right now, it’s kind of wild how different this is as an experience, compared to what I have known. It is indeed not the case that a bra is a bra is a bra. You change a couple of things, and they have a totally different effect on your body. I expect this won’t be the last time I think these thoughts, as my body continues to change.

(Seriously, where did all this jelly come from?)

A hilarious thing to consider is, what effect progesterone may have if I do get on that in a couple weeks. It’s only like 16 days until my next follow-up! I’m mostly after the mood stabilization, but—well. It sure is known to have its other effects, is it not.

Well, we shall see how this pans out.

Crossed Wires

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Everyone is different, right, but being aroace can and often does mean having the most bonkers inner life, even as one has no interest in seeing it manifest. Like, this is just for me. And that lets it ply on certain ideals, to elide certain logic, to do exactly what it needs to. In hindsight I can see how this might possibly have been confusing for my past partners. Every… intimately complicated relationship I’ve been party to—I’m unsure how to define half of them—has begun online, way back to 1994 or so. And my actions have never added up to the words I can spin.

It was never my goal to lead anyone on. I guess I just still am working to understand how it is that allos live really. All this stuff I see in our culture that seems so silly, that people don’t really think or behave those ways… I guess many of them do actually. It’s bizarre. Yeah, I have this whole universe that does not and never would translate to reality. I’m bursting with goo in the abstract. But, like. I just don’t feel that stuff in the concrete. I don’t comprehend it in real terms. Or want it. I just want to be me, and for that to be enough.

But it never has been. They always want the other thing. The thing that makes no sense to me, that makes me so uncomfortable. And they can never understand why I’m being so weird about it. And they make up so many stories in their own heads as to why I am the way that I am. And all the time I’m like, why don’t they even seem to like me? I thought we were friends. Why are they demanding I perform all these things for them? Why do I feel like some broken toy?

I imagine they must have their own questions. But they never communicate. They just accuse. I’m always denying them what is theirs. I’m always holding them back. I’m a cold fish. What’s the point of even having me there if I won’t fulfill my part of the bargain. And I’m just like. But, I like you. Why don’t you like me? I don’t get it. Why is it always like this?

Anyway. I guess I can see how I might seem to send mixed messages. Which sucks. I never wanted that. I’m just, you know. Me. I’m just a dumb ace girl who falls in the deepest platonic love, who adores the teeth of one person after another, who all end up being after some goal.

A Kind of Speech

  • Reading time:3 mins read

It’s not about a power dynamic, not really. I don’t do power stuff. I don’t get it. It’s about roles and ways to relate to another. I’m the receptive one. I’m so very receptive. Receptive to anything, if it’s true and it’s kind and it’s fond and made out of love for the other. I’m not the actor, never the active agent. I will not assert—except perhaps in reception. Active listening, if you will. Following up. Touching base. Making sure. Finishing a thought. Continuing the conversation. Demonstrating my interest.

There are so many ways to receive it’s hard to know where to begin. In my dreams, there is so much to do. Maybe start with four of them? One to occupy my g-spot, another my tongue. A couple on standby, maybe to lend me something to grab. And as things progress, so they swap in. I’ve been on the other end; I know these things can’t last forever. But I can, now. Or just about. As one finishes his run with me, and sends me his gift, the next steps in with his own distinct energy.

It all starts so gentle, then grows to such an eager pitch—the thrust and the slap and the rhythm and the pressure. Kind yet firm and overcome with the frenzy, sending the shudder through my perineum, radiating up all the nerves of my body. Warming my chest and my face. And that’s before even the warmth of the deposits—in me, on me, drizzling so slowly down my tummy and my breasts and what parts of my face they find. As the ones I’ve teased earlier each rotate in, find my main hole, and one by one give me what they’ve brought.

I want it. I want it all. I want the burning heat of it. The sickly slick of it. In my dreams it’s always love, it always means something. It’s never just the thing. It’s always a kind of speech. The semiotics can be so perfect I never have to question, never have to hedge. The semiotics of semen. All the signal, clarifying my being.

And as my face and my arms and my chest explode and my legs and my toes threaten to cramp forever, I want nothing but to live. To be. To exist. Right there. No rush to clean up. No shame. Just stars in my vision. Just me, being human. Just the fondness of the other. The hypothetical form to hold. The light and the music and the feel of the pillows. The lilt of the air of the fan on the ceiling, reminding me of my flesh. This awareness of the moment. This drunken existence. My femininity.

I am a real girl. As I have always been. It’s never been a mystery. But there I am. And I am reminded. And I am in love with myself, as I should be. As I was never afforded. And through that love, I love everything else.

It is worth being alive. I never really got that message.

Determination

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I’ve said this not infrequently, but I am very happy to be trans. Like, given the option to be some cis take on who I am, whatever that could possibly mean, I would say no. I wouldn’t ever want that. What I would want is to have understood myself and received necessary care some 30 years ago. But that’s different.

I am exactly the person I want to be, aside from the damage from the neglect and other people’s problems, right. I don’t want some other body in order to fit someone else’s ideas of propriety. Self-determination is more important than fitting into a broken, wrong-headed world.

I genuinely don’t understand cisness. For decades I played along with what other people told me about myself, because I didn’t know I had another option. But I didn’t like it. I did the bare minimum. I knew they were wrong. I just didn’t have the language to piece together how. I’ve never had a situation where people have known what’s right for me or acted in my best interest. Everything those with control over my life has told me has been wrong, often maliciously. I’m the only person who knows me. Why should I trust their judgment about my very being?

I want to be who I am, not who someone tells me I am. I don’t want to change any part of me so that my idea of who I am matches the ideas of someone who doesn’t give a shit about me. Why would I do that? What purpose would that serve? The only problem with my body again is the years of neglect, that I’m doing my best to mitigate now. Otherwise, it’s a part of who I am. And I like it. What’s wrong with it? Why should I give up what I have just to make other people feel better with who I correctly say that I am?

I just don’t get this narrative one hears, of wishing one were born in another body or whatever. It sounds like some kind of a confused cis fairy tale. Why the hell would i want that? What would it even mean, to a non-binary chick? What I want is love. I want acceptance. I want respect. On my own terms. I’m not going to apologize for my existence. I’ve already done that since as young as i can remember speaking.

I’m great. Being trans is a part of that. If I were to start over with a blank slate, the only thing I’d adjust is knowledge—not having to live in ignorance for all those years. To know that I deserve care.

Self Improvement

  • Reading time:8 mins read

So the journey continues, reclaiming my body for myself, fixing the damage that’s been done to me over the years. There are a few things going on right now, all of which are really exiting for me. One that’s been going on for a while is that I’m finally on Ritalin, and after two months it seems to be having a positive effect on balance (though whee are there ever things to adjust to, some of which play into my inherent problems with food and sleep). The second has now officially begun, and the third I’m gonna pounce on a month from today, at my next HRT follow-up.

Yes, I did have time to fix my nails before my appointment.

In regard to the second thing, it’s happening. I’m all committed now. All signed up. This face is gonna be clear. After HRT, laser therapy was the second big thing for helping me out of this horror show I’ve been living for three decades.

My first appointment was three days ago, and it’s going to recur monthly until this is gone. It’s a bit of an oof financially for someone without a reliable income, but the payment is spread out and if I were actually receiving money on a regular basis it would be negligible. It’s not by the session; it’s for the procedure as a whole, which is guaranteed, unlike with most laser places. Like, it’s a lifetime investment. If any touchups are needed down the line, they’ll already be covered. And you know. I’m barely surviving here, but this is necessary medical treatment, so I’ll figure it out.

The experience has been weirdly positive so far, just dealing with the people. They seem all about making sure their clients have all the information up-front so everyone is talking on the same level and can understand what’s going on and communicate clearly. The main lady seemed kind of nerdy, and appreciated my whole neurodivergent approach to things. They were accepting and seemed to totally get it. They get all the transes there, so they know.

Also she kept telling me how pretty I am, which I guess is her job, but it felt kind of nice.

The procedure itself was even quicker than I had come to expect, and largely painless except for my upper lip and, to a lesser extent, a sensitive part of my throat. Mostly it just felt like someone flicking my face over and over. The upper lip was intense enough that I needed to ask for a five-second breather after every zap. It was bearable, but yikes. I think it was when she was doing my right cheek that the nurse commented on the roots just popping out of the skin, as they can and will do sometimes, the ones that die right then and there. There was this smell of a birthday candle being put out.

To be sure, I don’t have a lot of facial hair compared to some people: very thin, rather fine. Lots of gaps. Grows slowly. I’ve been fortunate that my natal puberty was so underwhelming in nearly every regard. The nurse was poking my upper cheeks, asking me, “Don’t you want me to go up here? Why didn’t you take off your makeup in these places?” And I’m like, there’s no hair there. I didn’t do makeup where there was hair.

So between that and the one-two of my complexion and my darker hair pigment, I want to think that this should be a pretty straightforward procedure with me. A neat thing is, where the follicles aren’t dead, they are likely damaged. The effect here is, the hairs are likely to get finer, fairer, and to grow more slowly. Which is a result in itself, albeit one that may take a little while to present itself.

To that end, it was hard to tell exactly what effect the first wave had until I gave it a couple days for my skin to recover and for me to exfoliate any dead hairs that didn’t just pop out immediately. After the weekend things were less raw, and were easier to judge. The upper lip in particular was too pink to really see what was what. The impression I got after about 24 hours reminded me of past cycles following long periods of compulsive plucking, as stuff would begin to grow back in, a little weirdly at first.

As of today I can maybe assess things a little better. There’s been enough growth that I can shave it all evenly, and the redness has gone down enough that I have decent contrast. The first treatment was no miracle, as I had no reason to expect it would be, but I do see some patchiness developing. It’s not like big sections, right. It’s more that one out of every five or six spaces where there should be a hair there isn’t. It’s thinning out, with the occasional space half the size of a pencil eraser where things seem basically clear, at least for this growth cycle. Which seems pretty much according to plan.

As one does, I had these ideas in my head that I might be the miraculous special case where somehow half the work is done on the first go. But no, this seems to be be normal. Nothing really obvious yet unless you’re me and you’re staring at this garbage every day while it eats your soul alive, but we’ve got progress. I can’t say yet how any damaged but surviving follicles are doing. I think with my growth rate, what little hair has grown out since Friday is what was still in the sockets, right, under the skin. Over the next week it may get clearer if and how the remaining hair may have changed in character at all.

My next appointment is a month from Wednesday, and that may build on this exponentially. They say typically it’s 6-10 sessions to get everything, so two of them will be between a fifth to a third of the way there. I imagine the progress will be easier to measure at that point.

This should be basically done by the end of the year. Fixing the damage. Reclaiming Azure for Azure. September will be the six-month mark, which puts it on a similar cycle to my HRT. Around the time I’m finished here, I’ll be up on my two-year Azureversary—to which point, we have my third and pending intervention.

Now that I’m up to my optimal estrogen level (any later wobbles and adjustments aside), and that my T levels mope about in the single digits, I figure I’m going to pounce on the micronized progesterone. I know there’s not been enough clinical research, like with any goddamned trans healthcare, but the anecdotal support is overwhelming and provided I go with bio-identical hormones it can’t possibly hurt. And I can just take another pill; it’s fine.

My next HRT appointment is in 30 days, two days before my second laser appointment. And so long as my body isn’t secretly exploding, which would surprise me as I’ve never felt better in my life, I’m sure they’ll shrug and allow it. I looked at the provider’s website, and on their /trans/ sub-page they call it out by name. I talked to my therapist, and she said oh yeah, they absolutely do progesterone there—which isn’t a given, right. I know a lot of providers push back on anything that’s not clinically proven to hell and back.

I hadn’t really considered adding this until the last week or so, when I realized, this will be my first follow-up where I have no new immediate goals to set. And every day I read something new about how great this stuff is. All the transes go nuts over it. And I’m at a stable baseline here now, and this is a year of just improving things, getting my life in order. So, hey. Why not give it a shot. It should be good, right? Just biologically it feels like a missing piece, the more I read on it. If not for my particular medical condition, my body should already be producing this in some quantity that it isn’t.

So this is pretty exciting actually. I get how people who have chronic conditions they’ve been treating their whole lives might not love maintaining this daily thing just to keep going—but as someone with chronic conditions that have gone untreated for 40 years, this is all kind of… good. I like it. I like the routine of taking care of myself in this measurable way every day, knowing that I’m doing something to make things better after decades of misery. It’s a daily dose of self-love. Rebuilding this relationship that was taken from me. And each of these suckers is different. Different color, texture, quantity, schedule. It’s so interesting to me.

I am so grateful and so happy to have all these gosh-darned pills to take now. I mean yeah, in an ideal world my body would just work out of the box in a way that didn’t make life unbearable. But as with so many people, it doesn’t. And now I can address that to some extent. So, hooray? Keep it coming, sure.

I’m only going to keep getting better.