So we have now, at least in principle, completed our trifecta of girl pills. The insurance is another issue, but we’re working on that. In the moment, my latest follow-up went smoothly—if a little strangely. Everyone I met was different from before. New, kinda rad physician (don’t know offhand if she’s a doctor or NP or what), unfamiliar nurses. Different procedures, different room. But it was all straightforward and so supportive: just walk in, say that things are great, ask for what I want, and get it. No hitches at all! I brought it up to her and she nodded and was like, “Uh-huh! Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, we usually want to wait until about where you are now. So, you know how this works? You do? Okay.”

The practitioner was complimenting me on how reliably boring my bloodwork is. It’s always the same, she said; nothing of any note with general body stuff. Hormones remain in ideal range. If I feel fine, then there’s nothing to talk about. The new pills complicate things a little, otherwise she wouldn’t even have me come back in person for a while. But with the change, we’re following up in another three months as usual.

August again, already. Cripes, 18 months!

It only comes in 100mg or 200mg capsules, I’m told. The starting dose is 100; the max is 400. So on prior art, I’m guessing I’ll be gradually stepped up over the next year, such that on my second “birthday” I’m likely to land on 400mg. Yet another landmark for next February. This will be a big day.

On the way back I picked up some groceries across the way, then the bus driver took a second to say hi, and complimented me on my “chain”—he gestured to his neck. Which was nice. Some non-creepy random affirmation, for once. Dude seemed all right; I later saw him chatting to someone else. Just an amiable fella. However he also did not stop when requested, and drove like four blocks further. Which uh was less than wonderful. But still, girl got so much cheese. It’s nuts.

So things were at a high—and then next day, reality hit. The prescription was showing up strangely online, and I had to call and talk to the pharmacist. I did so (waiting on hold for 15 minutes), and the fella was like, “Um, I’ve never seen this before, but it says your insurance won’t cover this for males…” I told him that, erm, I was transgender actually and that this was kinda the whole point, and he was like, yeah, this was weird. It didn’t seem right. He said I should call my insurance and see if I could get an override or something, because this was super irregular as a policy.

So I called my insurance; after 10 minutes of infuriating menus, the rep I got was flabbergasted. She also had never seen such a thing—and there was nothing in the system to account for it, for her to know what to do. So she called her supervisor. Her supervisor was equally stunned. Maybe it’s a prior auth issue, he ventured; I should contact my provider and have them request a prior auth; see what happens with that.

So, fuck. Fine. Next I called Planned Parenthood—and, as it happened, got a trans on the other end! I explained the situation and she was all, WTF! She had just started progesterone herself, and also had never seen a thing like this. She said they’ll work on this for me, and call me when it’s sorted out.

In summary: health care. Even under the best conditions, we now must navigate health care while trans.

Anyway the pharmacy has the pills in stock. They’re perfectly ready to fill this. They just need the insurance to say okay—and it’s unclear why they’re not, because no one has ever seen them not, in regard to this medication, for this reason before. But Planned Parenthood is good, and is gearing to fight for me. So I just have to trust this will work out fine. It’s just weird, and may take an extra few days.

I am sure I will be alive in a few days. This will be the smallest of bumps. And I am encouraged by how very baffled and sort of upset everyone has been on my behalf.

I’ve said this before, but I feel like people have been a lot kinder to me since I’ve come out than they ever were to my precursor. I imagine that living in New York helps this a bit. But in general people do seem to genuinely want to help me now, to an extent that surprises me every time. Why this is, I don’t really know. But there’s this sort of a protective tone, in the space where I’m used to getting suspicion and scorn and dismissal. I’m used to being so alone, being brushed off no matter what I’m dealing with.

And, sure, okay. I will accept being treated like a person. This is good. Confusing, but I sure will not complain.

Anyway, this is just a nuisance. The progesterone is happening, and I’ll have it in a few days probably, and I am so excited. Like, I’ve got nothing left to do with my estrogen levels, and my T levels—which ideally I should be keeping under 100, are at uh, nine, last I saw. So this is the last thread. Supplemental girl juice, adding the art to the rough architecture hewn by the estrogen. We’ll see how this it goes, but transfeminine legends well precede it.

(Of its indicated effects, I sure could use some mood stabilization, cripes.)

The nature of progesterone speaks to what is I guess my year-two mission: refinement. Next February is gonna be so good. My face stuff should long be done. I’ll be up to final dose on everything. My ID issues will probably all be resolved. At least for the short term, there will be nothing really left to do except to keep going. Even as changes will likely keep on churning for a few years yet, the actual transitional phase of transition will be done. I’ll have the basic elements of me all checked off and can move on to figuring out how to just live.

I have so many frickin drugs now. Goddamn. Fixing me up. Making me who I need to be. It’s all good. I’m proud of myself, tending to my needs after a lifetime of neglect.

You know how when you meet someone special you’ll have this sense of, if only we could have met years back; we’ve missed so much time together? That is kinda what gender euphoria can be like sometimes—this sort of, gosh, what could have been, had I met myself 25 years ago? Appreciating the moment, looking forward to the future, while dreaming idly of the past you were denied. What would it have been like?

It’s not so much lament as it’s a matter of wanting more. It’s about having trouble quite believing that relationship wasn’t always there, because it’s so obviously right and true and natural that it’s hard accept a life without me. Wanting to fix the history I know, so that it makes a sense I can accept in light of the present.

I can hardly believe I’m on progesterone now. Two years ago I was like, clearly I’m not cis. I didn’t know what I was, beyond that I’ve never been what they tell me. That the gender I was handed had never worked, never fit; it grossed me out, made me not want to be alive. But I didn’t really get gender, had never had a chance to develop my own relationship to it, and was reluctant to commit to any conclusions.

I was so nervous. Clearly I was a kind of non-binary. Beyond that? Well. I had… thoughts, feelings. Were they real? Were they reasonable? Was I just confused? Did I dare own up to them? How much sense did any of this jumble really make? Did I even understand it properly? There was so much, I hardly knew how to chip away.

For an age it was just little, cautious gestures. One by one. Step by step. Stitch by stitch. Does this feel right? Does it hold together? Does it follow from what I know to be true? Is this leading in a direction that I like? Yes? To all of that? Is it secure? Is it gonna hold? Okay, then. What’s next?

And at the same time, every bit of femininity that I embraced, I had to reconcile it with this fundamental disagreement with the concept of a gender binary. What was I even doing? Why was I doing it? Was it for the right reasons? Was it truly coming from inside me? What did it all mean? I had no goddamned clue. Just grasping in the dark.

I had these idealized notions, but they were like some pipe dream, surely just beyond my grasp. Surely it was a folly. Surely that could never be me. Surely I wasn’t that much trans. Surely it was way too late. Surely I’d never have the support. Other people can do things. I’m not other people. I’m just me. I don’t have any options in life. I’m not allowed happiness. Whatever that even is. Anything good is a forever what-if.

But, well, I kept asking: okay, but, what if? Just, one small if at a time. Gnawing on the question. Refusing to move on until I got an answer that made sense. Take another bit. How did it feel? Did I die? Was it a mistake? No? So—one more nibble, then?

I mean, we make our own gender. We figure out our own ideas about ourselves. I kinda knew I was some kind of transfeminine, from the moment I realized I could be trans; that all I needed to be trans was to want it to be true. I just, I couldn’t allow myself to think more than a yard in front of me. It was too much. I had too many obstacles, and I cannot multitask.

Ultimately I am just Azure. I’m not quite a woman; that doesn’t seem to fit. Maybe someday it will. Maybe if I ever grow up? I can’t know yet. But I am exactly the kind of a girl that I want to be. On my own terms. A person I can love.

Damage aside, I am the person whom I was always so depressed that I couldn’t be, that I wasn’t allowed to be, that I was cursed not to be. The only thing I’m lacking is a past—all those years that I lost, when I was asleep. I mean I was always in there. I’ve always existed. I’ve always been me. But this other person was steering the ship. Badly.

And God, I genuinely am this much trans, huh. Specifically, this much transfeminine. We’re not even sticking with the basic HRT; we’re going for the good stuff. And it’s the correct thing to do. For a non-binary girl, there is a heck of a lot of girl going on in here, goddamn.

I mean, gee whiz, it just keeps going. More girl, you ask? Why certainly, yes. More? Absolutely. Bring it on. Keep bringing it. This is working. This is good. This feels good. This is what it’s like to actually feel good. This is what it means to be human.

And I am allowed. I get to define myself. I get to make the rules of me.

Two years ago I was aiming at androgynous. Now I have no clue where I’m going, but it’s making me so fucking giddy. I’m so deep into the forbidden zone now there’s no way to find my way back.

It’s just that every step I make is so right. I have never been so right about anything. It’s bewildering to me. I’ve never gotten so much out of trusting myself.

It seems though I’ve had little chance to articulate or explore or come to terms with it, deep down I have a very firm idea of who I am. Or at least, I know what’s right when I come to it—and I’m not prone to wild, incautious leaps. Everything true has to be based in something more basic, right. Piece by piece, there’s a logic to how it all fits together. I can extrapolate pieces by the empty spaces.

This is me, apparently. I am whoever Azure is. Quite reasonably I think, I am who makes me feel alive. And I’m nowhere near done with me. I’ve got half a lifetime to catch up on, and another half to enjoy.

What a goddamned thing, to be alive. I had no idea what it was like.

How alive will I be a year from now? How much love will I have in me then?