Time to actually tell you a bit more about me, other than that I can get very angry at ignorant photographers.

I’m a female to male transsexual.

I’m pre-everything.

In terms of the whole transitioning process, I’m not far at all. I’m not out to many, just my close friends, probably because I still have my birth name. Actually, I’m quite lucky, in the sense that my name isn’t common at all where I live (it’s a Muslim/Arabic name), and it’s not obviously female, like “Jane” for example. Because of this, I haven’t felt much pressure to change it, or even to advance the process faster. But that could be because I’m a little scared. I’ll hopefully be writing about my fears in another entry, because that’s something I would like to share separately.

So right now? I’m waiting for the mental health team to evaluate me, and do their bullshit diagnosis to ‘allow me’ to transition as someone suffering with ‘gender dysphoria’. I understand that this process is different for everyone who decides to transition, the degree to which someone will be gender dysphoric, or feel it, varies immensely. Which, in my opinion, is the perfect reason to abandon this unnecessary pit-stop in the road to becoming male/female.

I mean, we still hear stories, read articles, and see documentaries, telling us about boys and girls becoming girls and boys (Local paper: “Boy, 12, Turns Into Girl”, Mainstream documentary: “The Boy Who Was Born A Girl”). These people (well, children), are what most people understand as “being born in the wrong body”, having a female brain and a male body, or a male brain and a female body.  It’s extreme, having hormone therapy at such a young age, even before you hit puberty. But that’s not the story for all trans people. Regardless, it seems you have to do a lot of ‘convincing’ to a GP, this cisgendered person with a diploma, to tell you whether what you feel is enough to do something about it.

Nevertheless, I still have to go through this diagnosis, to get to where I want to be. It is a long process; I’ve had days where I just want to be completely changed overnight, but then I’ve had days where I’m thankful it takes time, because there’s just so much to think about and take in.

I have to understand that despite this pit-stop, it’s what some people, with diploma’s and without, actually think about transsexualism. Being transgender – it’s something serious, you really have to think hard about it, because the changes are permanent. It’s a long process and takes time, and when it’s over and done, it might not be what you wanted anyway. You should be happy with your appearance as it is. And how are you going to get the money to do something like that?!

You’d think I was talking a friend out of getting a tattoo.

But that’s the response you receive when you’re not one of the people describing the way you feel as “being trapped in someone else’s body”. Now I don’t feel like that. I know a lot of trans people don’t either. And I know that I still want this.

P.S. Apologies if this entry seemed way more formal than usual; I’ve been working on my dissertation all day and I’m stuck in academic mode. I’m still fun.