Dear Mother,

I think we've established that we don't agree on pretty much anything. We never really have.

Though I did not recognize it in myself until only recently, it is true that I've always wanted to be a boy. I don't know why, no one ever really does, but it's true. And now, now that I'm finally getting what I've wanted my whole life, I feel great. I feel like I can take on the world. Don't you see that? You say I need to pray and get God's guidance. So far as I can tell, I have His approval. I'm becoming myself so I can better serve others.

Also, please don't argue with me about the Bible and Christianity. I took a class each semester that heavily detailed all aspects of each. I know a lot more about the scholarship than you do, or likely will. Don't talk down to me about it. Don't assume that what you've learned is the only correct thing. I don't make those assumptions either.

Besides, the Bible is about love. God is love. Judgment is His alone. If you're the best example of Christianity, I want none of it.

That said, I do believe in God, and even to some extent, the Bible. I believe that the purpose of people is love. Through loving one another, the creation, and themselves, people honor the creator and fulfill their life's purpose.

My therapist has several degrees. She's well-learned. She's not queer. She's not an atheist. She's in fact Jewish and getting a further degree in that field. She's not an idiot that is just telling me what I want to hear. She is also not feeding me things. She is simply helping me figure out who I really am. And it's working.

So all of these things we do not agree on. All of these things we should never talk about.

However, because I know that you think of these things, I know that it affects our time together. That is why I insist upon bringing a friend when I visit. I need support. I need someone who loves me for exactly who I am and not who they want me to be. And because you've said that I am welcome, but my friends are not, I don't feel welcome either. Because my friends are part of me, just as you are. This is why I will not be visiting you for any amount of time in the near future. Until something changes.

All this said, I do love you. You are my mother. Sure, we never really connected or shared much, but you raised me and I wouldn't change my childhood. It's made me who I am. And even who I'm becoming. And I know you love me, but I know you don't love me for who I am becoming, but rather who I was, or who you want me to be. And it hurts.

Larz (I will never ask you to call me your son, only that you don't call me your daughter.)

I was told I should write more. And I certainly agree. I always want to write more. Sometimes it's terribly hard for me to do.

I got a call the other day from an old friend of the family. I couldn't answer so she left me a long message. It absolutely made my day. She said she'd been talking with my parents and they'd told her about how I'd come out to them and indicated how I wanted to be treated and who I really was. She was incredibly comforting, telling me that she respected me and could see such things in me from a young age. It always feels good to be affirmed, but certainly more so to be affirmed by someone I've known my whole life and respected.

I also recently received a note from another person I've always respected, telling me simply to be myself.

And then there are my friends, taking things in stride, switching pronouns and making it seem so natural (as I suppose it really is). Sure there are occasional slip-ups, but no one makes it awkward. It's just the period of change.

These people affirming me and supporting me in every way helps me to not get caught up in the fact that my parents, my mom especially, are not at all affirming or supportive. When I talk to my mum on the phone, she always slides something in there about praying or straightening out or something like that. It makes me want to lash out. If she wants me to be Christian, she'll have to change her attitude a bit. I don't want to be anything like her.

So in the meantime, I sort of pretend I'm an orphan. I've taken over all of my bills except my phone, as it's tied into the family plan. My dad said he'd pay my health insurance, but I did it anyway. Mostly because I could and I should, but also because I'm going to be using it to see my doctor. The doctor that is going to prescribe testosterone. And I don't want that to be something my dad can take away from me.

So now is a period of waiting. Waiting for my therapist to send the letter to the doctor. Then scheduling an appointment, subjecting myself to whatever doctor-y things need to be done and walking away with a prescription. A prescription to my new life. To the rest of my life. And it terrifies me just as much as it elates me. Because this is change I will not be able to reverse. And I'm not sure how far I'll go. If I will decide that it's something I need to do for the rest of my life, or just something to change a few aspects of myself and then I can continue to live in the in-between.

This concludes my writing for the day. For the month. Happy February.

I am Human

There have been a lot of things banging around in my head, pressing for attention lately. I’ve not slept much at all. Ever…

The main thing that preoccupies my brainwaves is transitioning. For a long while it was sort of back-burner and experimental, if you will. But now, now I want to get things rolling. I need to see my therapist regularly. I want to get on track for hormone replacement therapy. I want change. I want to be me.

And I think that is terribly important.

But I’ve also been getting twinges of conscience lately. My unused degree is haunting me. I am still the idealist I’ve always been. I still want to help the world in any way I can.

And these two overwhelming pieces of me seem not to fit together very well. I will be spending heaps of money on myself. For years. For the rest of my life. And I wonder if that’s over-the-line selfish. I wonder if I shouldn’t just find a good organization to donate the equal amount of money to.

Yet I realize that I cannot really help anyone unless I’ve helped myself a bit. I feel like I will be useless until I get this piece of identity back in place. That is my rationale. Is it wrong? Perhaps I shall never know.

Everything in my life seems tied to that defining identity bit. My relationships with people for example. Things with my parents aren’t quality, though nothing devastating has occurred. My friends are generally freaking fantastic about all of this. And the pronoun transition at work has gone smoothly. I will admit it’s odd to be referred to as male. Not wrong at all, just different. It makes me smile.

The remnants of my Christian faith are still with me. I’ve recently described myself as a “back-burner Christian” which I actually hate myself for saying. Honestly, I do not think I wish to identify with Christianity any longer. However, this does not mean I’ve become an atheist. I really don’t know what to believe right now. It’s been a struggle for me for years. Long before any of the queer theory entered my brain. All I can say, over and over, is that the Bible tells us God is love. So I cling to that.

I don’t want to lose sight of what’s important. I need people to help me out. I need affirmation. Because I do sink. I do lose sight. I fall into apathy. I am sucked at by complacency. I am overwhelmed by the world, life, loneliness.

I am human.

Holiday Spirit is Dead

I remember liking Christmas. As a child of course, because I received all sorts of fabulous things. I would call my best friend after lunch and we’d compare loot. I always got clothes and generally loved them. I got books regularly and toys when I was young enough for them.

After a time I began to like it less. The excitement was gone. My mother was moody on holidays, and dampened the festive spirits. The clothing wasn’t my style anymore. I asked my mom to stop getting me clothes. Mostly because I didn’t like her choices, but I told her I wanted to simplify.

I began to like it less as I became more aware of the stupidity and cost. People rushing to purchase obligatory gifts for loved ones they don’t really know. Gifts often returned the next day. People spending exorbitant amounts for frivolity. More excuses to be drunk and make poor choices.

Last Christmas was the first spent without my family. My roommates were away with their families, and I worked and spent some time with a few friends. I bought a computer after mine died a horrible death. It arrived on Christmas Eve, a great self-gift.

I was not with my family again this Christmas.

This Christmas I gave myself a broken heart.

Perhaps next year I can share Christmas with someone and really appreciate it. I don’t have to be lonely in a room of happy people and my own sundered heart.

journey

I didn’t want this to be necessarily a journal/diary blog. I wanted it to be a space where I could share some of my thoughts on events and issues and generally show some critical thinking and thoughtful writing.

Well, in the absence of any critical thinking, I shall revert to a more-or-less personal journal of sorts.

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

Figuring out and verbalizing my gender identity. This has been a long process. And certainly no small task. It began in my head my senior year of university and has progressed quite far. Of course, the actual beginning was in the beginning. When I was young etc.

I’ve never been the typical girl, I was always a tomboy. I never had Barbies, only GI Joes. All of my favorite stuffed animals were male. All of my imaginative alter egos were male. When I was very young, four perhaps, I was Fluffy-baby-boy-lion. And I would tell everyone that, the whole phrase, as I crawled around on the carpet and roared. When I was in first grade (perhaps younger) I was John. My friend and I would play for hours that we were a couple of lost boys roughing it in the woods. It was amazing. She grew out of it. I never did. When I began writing, all of my protagonists were male. Usually around my age. Usually journeying to far away lands (but that a different story). I always chose a male avatar when playing video games. As I said, I never really grew out of it, yet I did scale back. I tried to introduce female characters into my stories (failing usually).

I never really let any of these things truly enter into my conscious thought. I was a good Christian girl. I kept telling myself I was happy being strange. Being single. Being me. I wore what I wanted (generally guy’s clothes). I cut my hair how I wanted it (generally short). Very few people questioned me. But I do recall finding it terribly amusing and even a bit exciting when people would mistake me for a guy.

I made it almost all the way through university before making a very important realization about myself. I am not straight. It was a very rough time. I didn’t know how to rectify all of what I’d been taught throughout the years to what I was learning about myself. I joined an online queer community and basically educated myself on all things LGBTQ. This is where I learned the term ‘genderqueer.’ It was almost a year after my initial queer self-realization that I began to identify as genderqeer. I realized that it really fit my situation. I wasn’t particularly unhappy with my body (most of the time), but I knew that I did not fit the typical female model. With this new label I also began to bind my chest. This made me feel much more masculine and somehow right. I began to pass as male quite often in public. In the year since then, I’ve embraced my gender and sexual identities. I have even progressed slightly more toward transgender. I have recently asked friends and coworkers to refer to me with male pronouns. So far it has been very invigorating. It makes me smile to hear myself referred to as ‘he’. The feeling is unexplainable.

There was also the nickname I ended up with. In truth, my dad was the first to really call me Larz, but in high school several of my friends used it and when I went to university, I introduced myself to everyone as Larz. At this time, only my mom still uses my given name. I am considering legally changing my name to Larz.

Besides the random gender issues, I’ve been working full time at an animal shelter. Not exactly what I want to be doing with my life, but it’s good money and not terribly difficult work. It’s also a perfect place to transition.

I’m working on moving, and quite excited about that. I’ve got a lovely bunch of friends here in Denver. I really don’t know where I’d be without them. Actually, without the affirmation I’ve been getting, I don’t know that I’d ever have been able to make some of the huge decisions I’ve made lately. Namely switching pronouns and coming out to my parents.

So that’s me. 2009 out.

On happiness as it relates to me

What does it really mean to be happy?

I’m happy. Giddy even. Euphoric nearly. And it’s because I’m slowly being able to be myself. I’ve always been me. And I’ve always been a mostly optimistic sort of person. But recently, I’ve been exploring the furthest reaches of myself. Making what I deem to be necessary changes.

I’ve had help. I would never have come this far without the constant affirmation of my friends. Knowing that I have people to stand behind me, beside me even, makes me bold.

So I’ve been honest with myself and I’m working on being honest with those around me. My parents are the final frontier, so to speak. I won’t hesitate to admit that I am terrified. It will not be easy at all. Telling them, not that I don’t want to be their daughter, but in fact, I’ve never been. Yet, I can never really be their son either. I’d rather dabble in the middle. They need to know that I prefer it this way, that this is how it has always been and where I am comfortable. They will also need to know that in general, I prefer a masculine default. Which is a change. It is scary and difficult even for me.

But even the apprehension of speaking to my parents face-to-face does not dampen my happiness. I only hope it lasts for a good long time.

I sent that package...

I yearn for change.

But,

I don’t know how to change myself. The main reason I cannot seem to figure this out is because I don’t know what I want to change into. I have absolutely no plans for my life. Nothing definitive anyway. I say I’m looking for a better job, but the truth is that I’m not looking, because I don’t know what sort of job is better. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know where I fit.

I really don’t know who I am in any realm. I don’t know where I stand with Christianity. I don’t know where I fall on the sexuality scale, mostly because I don’t know where I fall on the gender scale. I’ve been looking into all of these things recently, and I’ve come up with imprecise labels and trite expressions.

There are some things I know, of course. I know I want to become fitter. I want to be healthy. I want my body to look how I envision it in my mind: androgynous (emphasis on the ‘andro’). I want to rid myself of excess and build muscle. But I lack the self-control to eat healthier and exercise regularly.

I know I want to travel. I just don’t know exactly how. Obviously travel requires money, but I rather dislike working more than I need. I don’t quite know how to save. Of course my frequent, frivolous internet purchases don’t help much.

I want to learn to be content. I’ve realized that I simply get bored with things far too quickly. I’ve been at my job for two months and already it is mundane. Routine. Boring. It’s not that the work itself is boring, I’m just bored. I surmise my attention span has atrophied due to my excess of time spent on the internet.

I want to have personal connections. This is something that’s terribly hard for me to initiate. I’ve recently realized it is a real problem, and I’ve gone so far as to read books on how better to make friends. And in some ways it helps. I think of certain things in social situations. I try to initiate contact and be interested rather than follow my nature and stand in a corner to observe.

I suppose the simple fact that I want to change means I have some hope left. I’m not entirely complacent.

Who Is Larz?

So I feel the need to talk a bit about me. My identity. Who this person called Larz really is.

It’s been somewhat of a struggle for me to solidify things. And by somewhat I mean that it has been the hardest segment of my life thus far. Because things simply won’t solidify. I keep discovering things about myself that radically change my ideas about everything. My head has been at constant war with my heart for around two years. They’re finally just making peace now.

So this whole identity thing: I hate labels, they just make it harder to solidify, harder to explain, harder to think about really. I want to just be me. But I’ve had to rationalize many things. Though now, I’m very comfortable just being me. However, I know many people don’t understand me, so I’ve found a couple words to describe my identity.

Genderqueer.

Whoa. What? This just means that I don’t feel I fit into my biological gender or gender role. However, it does not mean that I desire to fully fit into the opposing gender or gender role either. I simply do not feel that gender is binary. I prefer to fit somewhere in the middle. My biology remains the same, but my appearance doesn’t mirror it. I don’t desire to resurrect my given name. It somewhat irks me to see it on my license and debit card. I prefer the much more androgynous “Larz”, though I’m not sure I’ll ever legally change it. Pronouns are tricky. Ideally, I’d rather have neither, but that’s not much of an option really, and since English contains no singular gender neutral pronouns, I then prefer both. Yes, both. Figure it out.

Here comes another odd word:

Panamorous.

This means that like my own gender, I don’t reckon gender into my attraction or relationships. I am certainly attracted to appearances (the more androgynous, the better), but it’s essentially about a person. I was taught at school and by my parents to love people for who they really are and not to judge them on things they cannot change. To me gender falls into this category. I don’t think love should be limited by biology anymore than by skin tone or bank account.

These two odd words are really only part of my identity. Perhaps a big part, and even a scary part, but I’m so much more really.

I’m still Larz.

I still like Firefly and Lord of the Rings. I still play Spiro the Dragon on psx. I like to take photos and write science fiction stories. I’ve developed a taste for sushi that my income cannot support. I love to travel and observe people. I’ve a heart for those that are less fortunate than I. I desire (like everyone) to be a part of something special. To help, to succeed, to love, to live, to be happy.

I realize that this may spark some comment and queries. I welcome them whole-heartedly. I know that it’s not easy to understand, and it helps me to understand more when I’m able to discuss it.

Useless Adages

They say that time heals all wounds and that distance make the heart grow fonder yet out of sight is out of mind. That familiarity breeds contempt and that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Some of these things I've found to be true and some not so much. But I've learned a bit about each.

I'm not so sure about the time thing, though I'm sure there's truth in it. I'm not sure it's a complete healing. It's just stemming the blood flow, a scabbing over. I think that a large scar will often be left if it's a real wound. I think that I will be adding, and have been adding more and more scars to my collection.

Distance I think will be very good. Hard for sure, but distance is needed. Not the extent of out of sight out of mind, but I certainly tend to focus most on the immediate. I'm not one to miss people terribly, not one for weepy nostalgia. But I do still feel connections to the past, ties to people and places far from me.

In some ways familiarity does breed contempt. I get along with people really well, but that doesn't mean that I'm immune to this. Sometimes just because I know a person so well, I can be easily irritated by that person. Sometime because I know the person, I can easily be an irritant. In this way, unfortunately, change is good. Distance, time.

As for the last phrase, I think it's bullshit. Yet I wouldn't change it for the world.

Of course this expostulation means very little in the scheme of things, but these phrases have been running in my mind of late and I wished to shove them to my needs. Or something like that.

(desperately writing to live)

The world spins, right? Life goes on. Time and distance dull the aches and pains. But there are aches and pains that remain, hidden under years and miles, waiting to reappear in all their former glory. And this is life. Hiding behind smiles. A facade of happiness to cloak the pain. We laugh because it hurts and laughing somehow relieves the ache, even for the tiniest moment. If smiles and laughter are hard to find, we turn to methods with which they can be induced. Drugs, alcohol, sex. Only further perpetuating the deepest pain. For loneliness is the deepest pain. We are placated by work, TV, movies, the internet, but the connections are lost. We miss the people as they pass. Our words are hollow, hurried, harried. With our actions we tell one another there is no time for you, only me. We don't really want to know how you are doing, how the kids are. We only want return to our menial tasks. Our routine. The routine that increases loneliness. It is the disease we rarely know we have. Sure, it springs upon us after a breakup or a death, but we seldom realize that it is caused by our society. Always hurry. All about money. And fun. But you cannot buy someone's love, their time, a deep connection. That takes time and patience and pain. It is not fun. To truly know someone we must become vulnerable. We must trust. But we are cowards. We hid behind our bluster, defining ourselves by what we do. We lose who we actually are. We lose sight of the things that matter. We are emotionally dead. Or is that just me?