Tag: coming out

A Small Coming Out

On October 12, 2015

My aunt asked me if I had a cold, referencing my more-gravelly-than-she-was-used-to voice. I took that moment to make the choice to share with her and my mom that I have been taking testosterone since January. This is only sort of true, as since I started I’ve raised and lowered my dose, paused in my taking it, started again, and am currently playing with the dosage/levels in order to find the right fit for me.

This was the first time I told any of my family about taking T. I was asked if I had a goal, an end result that I was shooting for. I said I’m not trying to go to male (whatever that means anyway), and I’m pretty close to where I want to be. And I realized this is true. Mostly femme-presenting, but not always. A little confusing in the right lights. Genderqueer femme. Pangender genderfucker. Genderfabulous. In the sometimes-called “middle,” though gender is not actually a line like that, but T levels are (or, at least, we talk about them that way).

I’ve gained so much of myself over the last a bit over nine months since I started, and I feel simultaneously more visible and more invisible for various reasons. When I started I didn’t know if or how long I would stay on. I had confidence that my body would know, that I would be able to feel if it was right for me, and I did. And I’ve thought a lot about what I’m getting from T, what I’m not getting from T, what it “means” to be on T, all of that. And I “altered” my “natural” hormones plenty before T through ten years of various types of hormonal-based birth control, so I also figure: how is this any different? It’s really not. And yet it also is.

Both my mom and my aunt were accepting. Not phased much outwardly by it, but clearly a little shaken up by it and the casual way that I shared this information. I was also shaken up by the casual way that I shared this experience I have hid from many people in my life for the last three quarters of a year. My therapist assures me that it’s my choice who I tell and who I don’t, that I don’t have to tell everyone, and I know that is true. And it has become an integrated part of my experience already, and it’s mostly the people who haven’t seen me or heard me for a while that would notice anything different anyway.

I’m not always likely to volunteer information about myself, in fact I rarely do, but I don’t like to intentionally dodge or lie when asked directly about myself. I strive to be genuine in all that I do, so it felt good to share, even if it was jarring and a bit disorienting and if I had been planning it I could have fortified myself a bit more. I didn’t expect any other reaction than what I got, my family is pretty accepting, and also pretty stoic, and that combination is the reaction I received.

More than anything, though, this experience made me realize I’m closer to where I want to be than I thought, and I know more about where I want to be than I have before. It’s still amorphous, liminal, and difficult to describe, and I know it will change as I change. However, I’m no longer trying to grasp it so tightly, define it, dissect it, or understand it out of confusion and desperation. And that’s a big difference.

A Big Beginning

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 24, 2015

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I will be starting testosterone on Monday.

I have an appointment with my doctor at 3pm on Monday to learn how to inject it properly. This is both exciting and terrifying for me, but the more real it becomes the more I’m really looking forward to it and feeling like it is the right thing to do.

I had my first appointment with this doctor over a year ago, November 2013 to be exact, and that is when we began discussing the possibility of testosterone. I had been talking with my therapist about it before that. At that time I decided to wait until after I was done with Grad School and I had lost some weight for me to start (I was also just generally nervous about some of the side effects and obviously not ready at that time). While I am not done with school, nor have I lost weight (in fact, I’ve gained a bit through this thesis process), I am tired of waiting and it feels important for me to begin now.

I have understood myself to be genderqueer for nearly a decade, though I have been genderqueer for as long as I can remember. Around 2011 I began playing with the identity “femme trans guy,” but I didn’t entirely know what that would entail. I did not think things like testosterone and surgery were available to me, so even with starting to call myself a femme trans guy I didn’t completely know what to do with that information.

Since 2011 I have had times where my gender has come forward, and other times when I was trying so hard to be a femme woman or a femme genderqueer or anything other than what I have slowly come to realize I am. I have denied myself for so long, and it is past time to really embrace all of me. I am a guy, and I am genderqueer, and I am also undeniably femme. My pronouns are they/them/theirs, or any other neutral pronouns (this has been true for ages), though I may want he in the future.

At this point I am far more terrified of the social aspects of transitioning than anything else. The process of coming out and experiencing other people’s transphobia and transphobic microaggressions feels excruciatingly exhausting to me. I tend to be a fairly private person, and this is not something I can be completely private about. I plan on telling people slowly, in my own time, or maybe not at all. We’ll see.

I am also aware that I won’t fully know if testosterone is right for me until I try it, and possibly until I am on it for a while and my body can really feel into it. I have had the T in my possession for a couple of days now, and the more I look at it, touch the little glass vial, feel into what it will be like to take it and if it is right for me, the more it feels comfortable and right. I don’t know if I will be on it forever. I don’t know if I will want surgery in the future (though I do really like my breasts in general, but who knows). I can’t predict the future at this point, all I know is that I will be starting testosterone on Monday.

Sexual Identity Story

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On January 28, 2014

In a Love: Onyx, a Love: Rose, Identity: Queer Intellisexual, Polyamory, Sexuality

I was recently answering a question in a queer poly FAAB/woman/feminine-oriented group I’m part of and thought it would make good blog fodder. I have a ton of posts I keep working on and meaning to finish, but keep putting off, so I figure I could slap this one up. I have no idea what my readership is like these days (not that there’s many of you since my writing gap has grown larger and larger), but I imagine this might not be new information. Oh well!

Question posed: What is your story with your sexual identity? What’s your relationship with being queer?

My post:
(tl;dr, early bloomer. much queer, but always awkward. so genderqueer. much kink.)

I had my first sexual experience around third grade with a female friend of mine at the time: kissing and rubbing our bodies, including genitals, against each other while sleeping over at each others houses. I fooled around with a few people in middle school and high school, had my first boyfriend in middle school, where we ended up in a polyish relationship where he was dating me and another girl for a period of time. We weren’t together for very long, but mostly because it was middle school and less because of the poly. I had a few girls who were maybe sort of almost girlfriends, but who were mostly friends who were girls that I made out with or had sex with once and not really ever again. I was horribly awkward and shy and I didn’t know how to approach girls, or anyone for that matter. I did experience some discrimination and uncomfortableness from others because of my visible and unapologetic queerness, but I was used to being othered for most of my life anyway.

Being attracted to people regardless of gender was always a non-issue for me to some extent. When I learned the term bisexual around 6th grade I began calling myself that and coming out as bisexual, which lead me to being the President and Co-founder of my high school’s Gay/Straight Alliance (as they were commonly called then), and also lead most of the people in my school and my hometown thinking I was a lesbian. I came out to my mom somewhere around freshman year of high school and her response was: “oh, I thought you were a lesbian.” A non-issue. My older sibling identifies now as queer, as I do, and they were where I learned the term bisexual from all those years ago.

I discovered the concept of bdsm/kink around 6th grade as well, having had fantasies about it for as long as I’d had fantasies. That became and has always been a central part of my sexual identity as well. I first believed I was strictly a Submissive or Bottom, but have been identifying as a Top and Switch for the last seven or so years now.

I started playing consciously with my gender in high school as well, probably also leading a number of people to assume queerness from me (even though the conflation of gender and sexuality is inaccurate and not useful for anyone, imo, it is unfortunately pervasive, and gender does in fact tie in to sexual identity, since sexual identity is based on it, e.g., one cannot be homosexual or heterosexual without having a gender to base the homo or hetero aspect of that identity on. But, I digress). My genderfucking once included a fellow student that I didn’t know once asking me if I was a guy in drag (I was wearing a wig and “feminine” clothing). This was highly amusing to me, even though it was obviously meant to be offensive (I didn’t take it that way, though). I also did a lot of acting all through school (elementary-high), and basically during the plays in 6th and 7th grades I went through a phase where I only wanted to play guys (a big part of that, I think, was that I was always taller and larger than all of the girls and most of the guys in my age range at the time, but also probably something else).

I started identifying as queer around when that became common language, somewhere around 2005ish while I was in my undergrad in Gender Studies. I started identifying as genderqueer around the same time, though I had played with gender for long before that.

Onyx and I met when I was 19. It was my first real long-term relationship, and we have been together ever since. We’ve been poly since we met, and I had a long-distance relationship at the time we met as well, and that was also a non-issue. I wasn’t familiar with the term polyamory when we got together, but I knew the concept of an open relationship and was happy to expand my identity to include poly as well. We were only theoretically poly/monogamish for the first few years of our relationship, though.

For the first few years of our relationship I also had a difficult time with him being cis male and us being in a seemingly heterosexual relationship. I was not used to experiencing heterosexual privilege and it was really uncomfortable for me. I felt invisible and ignored by both queer and non-queer communities and people. I began feeling uncomfortable in queer circles and queer community because of my primary partnership with a cis guy, and I experienced individuals change their way of relating to me once they found out about that. I had my first serious girlfriend when I was 23; an attempted triad with me and Onyx that ended horribly. We were mostly monogamish for a while after that, until over a year ago when I met Rose.

International Transgender Day of Visibility

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On April 1, 2011

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

March 31st was the first International Transgender Day of Visibility and I hope it won’t be the last. While I don’t exactly identify as transgender ((though I am starting to think I should more and more)) I think this was a wonderful idea and want to help it spread for next year!

It also happened to be the same day that I got my first official binder. After some work to get it on, for which I enlisted Onyx’s assistance, I wore it all day long, including to class that evening. I’ve been wearing my makeshift binder around lately but I needed an upgrade, and this definitely is one. It doesn’t exactly make my large chest go completely flat, but it does what it can.

Here is what I wrote on my non-blog-related Facebook wall for the day: “March 31st was the first International Transgender Day of Visibility and I want to make myself visible. I currently identify as genderqueer, an identity I have claimed for quite a few years. I love that a day like this now exists and want to take a moment to extend heartfelt gratitude to everyone in my life who have supported me on my gender journey, and those who will (continue to) support me in the future as I continue on my path. I also want to take the time to thank the trans* and otherwise gender-variant people that have influenced me, both those I have met face-to-face and who I’ve only me through their writing or video, especially those that came before me and made it that much easier for me to discover my own gender. Without all of you I would not be who I am today.”

I didn’t get any responses, but I got a whole lot of people who liked the post, so that was good enough for me. It’s not something I usually talk about so openly, especially on the FB profile that has my family and friends from High School on it and such, but I was happy to do it, and for a reason to do it beyond just my own desire to come out.

I look forward to having the opportunity to be visible again.

By now, most people are aware of the Transgender Day of Remembrance that happens every November 20 to memorialize the people we’ve lost.

Over the years, there have been calls by some trans people to make the TDOR a more happy-happy joy-joy event, to which the founders and others have resisted. TDOR does serve an important function in terms of focusing attention on anti-transgender violence.

Rachel Crandall, the head of Transgender Michigan is one of the people who asked why couldn’t the trans community or someone start an event that celebrates who we are?

Then she asked the question that led to the formation of this event, ‘Why isn’t that someone me?’

Hence the first annual International Trans Day of Visibility was born.

National Coming Out Day

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 12, 2010

In Equality, Gender Galaxy, Identity: Queer Intellisexual, Introspection, Polyamory, Sexuality

Yesterday (October 11th) was National Coming Out Day. If I had been on top of things this post would have come out then, but I’m a little bit behind on just about everything at this moment. I used this day to reflect on my identities. Here are some of my thoughts.

I’ve been out for quite a while. Unless this is your first time here and/or you haven’t read the about page yet you should already know that I have a long string of labels I like to use in order to describe my identities. I am a genderqueer fat femme drag queen fagette and pomo queer intellisexual polyamorous switch. I am also an occultist, sacred whore, astrologer, and all manner of other things. Specifically NCOD refers to coming out of the proverbial closet, or LGBT(QQIA) people coming out, so I focused on my identity string.

I’ve talked about this before, but the main reason why I use so many identity words strung together like I do is so that it is nearly impossible to pigeonhole me into one identity or another. Instead, it forces people to acknowledge the way the identities blend and interchange between them, and how my identities are fluid. At least, that’s my theory.

I don’t really have a story of coming out to my parents. I remember being a teenager telling my mother I was bisexual. Her response? “Oh. I thought you were a lesbian.” And that was it. During the triad with Marla I told both of my parents about her and our relationship configuration and they both responded without judgment, just asked practical questions about the situation.

Coming out, ultimately, is an ongoing process both for me and, really, for everyone. While there are people who fit into the stereotypical way that a certain identity or another looks there are just as many if not more people who are not so easy to categorize with a look. For those of us who are not blatantly obvious we have to come out over and over again, to just about everyone we choose. This is compounded by the fact that I present femme most of the time and have a cisgendered male partner so we are often mistaken for a straight couple even though neither of us is straight.

This isn’t to say I walk up to new people and give them the string of identity words I used above, but it does mean that there are times I have to come out, sometimes coming out multiple times to the same person.

It can be exhausting, but I appreciate the ability to live stealth as well, so I can be privy to those possibly bigoted conversations and attempt to put in my own two cents, and as a result maybe change some minds.

One thing that continues to amaze me is the ability someone has to be an inspiration for others simply by being themselves. By doing what is right and good for you others can be inspired to do the same for themselves, and I love this. Every time you come out is an act of courage. Feel free to come out in the comments.

Coming Out

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 14, 2009

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Identity: Queer Intellisexual, Introspection

I’ve never really had to come out before. Until I met Onyx I was heavily involved in queer activism, which isn’t to say there aren’t straight queer activists because there are, but people assumed I was queer instead of the other way around. I had to come out as in a relationship with a man on many occasions after Onyx and I got together, which was weird in and of itself, but I got used to it. I’ve come out as queer a few times while living with Onyx, but usually it was to queers or queer allies and involved musing about the circumstance of being queer while in a heterosexual (though not straight) relationship.

Now that Marla and I are together, however, I am realizing coming out in a way I’ve never really had to before.

I recently started a new job (hooray!) and I haven’t officially come out to my co-workers. While I do sport my newest rendition of a super short awesome fauxhawky hairdo I also wear skirts and generally have fun bluring gender lines as much as possible. I don’t really make it a habit to talk about my personal life with coworkers, but the one time I referred to Marla in a conversation I called her my roommate. It was odd, and I’m not sure why I did it.

For the record, I’m not upset that I said “roommate,” and Marla isn’t mad about it or anything as that is what she called me for the first few weeks at her job, more than anything I’m curious as to why I said it and why I didn’t just say “girlfriend” or “partner” or something like that, and I’m interested at this new position I’m in to actually come out to co-workers in a fairly uncomplicated way.

I know the store I work at is queer friendly, as there are plenty of other queers that work there, and I think part of it has to do with my position of having not just a girlfriend but also a boyfriend and not wanting to get into the whole poly business with people I barely know and may or may not get to know much better in the future.

I have a feeling part of it is because of the temporary position of my job. While I’ve worked with many of the people multiple times I haven’t yet been offered a permanent position despite applying for various different ones. I think in some ways I don’t see the need to be open and honest about it with people I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be seeing again. Then again, I can’t tell if that’s even a reasonable reason, or if any of this really matters that much.

From the way I look and the way I dress now I think I’m much more visibly queer than I used to be. I also have a rainbow bracelet that I wear which Marla made for me and am sure that is a tip off for those who actually care.

Maybe that’s part of it too, though, those who actually care. If they care they would probe and it’s not as big of a deal to me as it used to be, it’s part of life but not something I feel the need to shout to everyone like I used to when I was in high school and would wear my shirt that says “I kiss girls” in rainbow letters. Maybe it’s not as big of a deal anymore because it is how it is and these aren’t people who would really care if I have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or both, as the case may be.