Mental Health Awareness Week - My experience

TW: mention of self harm and suicidal thoughts.

So this week is Mental Health Awareness Week. Personally my mental health has always been something that I struggle to talk about, like alot of people. I don’t do words very well, especially out loud which tends to be the way people want you to work things out. My mental health has been very up and down over the last 6 years, I may try to write a more in depth blog post later this week but keeping it brief-ish for now.

At 19 when I finally realised I was trans, I started in a place where I was strongly considering taking my own life because living the rest of it as the person I was just wasn’t something I could imagine doing, there was no future I could picture for that person. I felt very guilty about this because I knew that I had people around who cared about me, but that still didn’t feel like enough. I ended up becoming very reclusive, I didn’t go to lectures anymore and then rarely left my room because I just didn’t want people to see me and view me as female and as someone I didn’t feel was me. I spent all my time in my room, thinking about how much I hated my body and what I could do about it, I wondered if I took my life whether I would be able to come back as someone else. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t switch my mind off. I struggled with self harm. I was just lost. I wrote a lot of my feelings down in a journal, I think I ended up throwing this away though during various house moves, which is a shame because I’d quite like to look back at it now to see how far I’ve come.

Thankfully after reaching out to someone that I met at the uni's LGBTQ Society, he signposted me to a local Trans Support Group called Allsorts. I pushed myself to go along, and I'm so glad I did. Though I remember at the first session just being filled with panic. It started off with introductions, saying your name and pronouns. You wouldn't think something like that would be so difficult, but I wasn't yet at a stage of being completely certain on a name, and I hadn't started asking people to use male pronouns for me yet. So I muttered my previous name and female pronouns, adding that I was currently unsure and that it will likely change (which it did at the next session). I managed to stay for the whole session, and met some amazing people, some of whom I'm still in contact with today.

But fast-forwarding on a bit, I decided to leave university, I started failing the year and I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than my dysphoria and I knew that until I addressed this there was no point in continuing my studies as things would just continue getting worse. I felt really guilty for dropping out of uni, especially without talking to my family about it. But I just wasn't ready to talk to any of them about what was going on. I spoke to the uni about leaving but didn't tell them exactly why. I sort of blurred the truth a bit and said it was due to family issues at home that I had to take care of.


Once I returned home and finally worked up the courage to start telling my family about wanting to
transition I had mixed reactions. I won't go into how I told them and who said what because I've spoken about that in detail in previous posts, but things could have been a lot worse. I was very fortunate in comparison to many. Some of my family were incredibly supportive. I was referred to the Gender Identity Clinic in Exeter called The Laurels and thankfully back in 2012 the waiting lists were so much shorter, my wait for first Psychotherapist appointment was about 6 weeks. To give you an idea on how much referrals have increased now, the current wait is about 12-14  months for that appointment!  I really feel for those being referred now, I don’t know how I’d cope with a wait that long.

The day I legally changed my name May 2012 vs April 2017

But this is getting too long for what I said was going to be a brief post!
So I’ll just say, I made it. I started HRT (Testosterone), I had chest surgery and lower surgery, which was really rough but completely worth it and my body is pretty much as close as it could be to a cis male now. Obviously there’s still things I don’t like, the fact I had to have all this surgery at all, while also constantly having to prove myself to health professionals that I needed it. The fact that it took such a chunk of time out of my life. The stupid and hateful comments telling me I’m an abomination and should kill myself. I still go through periods of depression and struggle with anxiety, but I’m getting better at dealing with it. I’m trying to get better with talking about it openly to the people I’m close to. I’ll get there. And you’ll get there to.

I thought this image was relevant, even though it’s a few years old now. Most scars are now covered up with tattoos, but they’re still part of me, and they use to only remind me of who I was, which sucked, but now they are also a positive reminder of how far I’ve come.

Trans Day of Visibility - 31st March 2017

Today is Trans Day of Visibility, so I wanted to write a little something.
My feelings towards being trans have changed a lot over the last couple of years. When I first began my transition back in 2012 I thought that once I had been on testosterone for a few years and completed all my surgeries that I would never want to talk about it all ever again. I wanted to be able to forget about it and never have to tell anyone. I think I was somewhat ashamed of it, feeling as though I wasn't “normal”, and also scared that if people knew then they might treat me differently, not accept me, or even attack me. But in the last year or so I have finally reached a stage in my own self acceptance where I don't actually care who knows about my trans history. Yes it does make me slightly different as i've experienced the world in a different way to many others, but haven't we all in one way or another.

In the last year I have gone a lot more public with my transition. I still feel really good about this decision and feel so happy hearing that  me doing this has helped others to understand themselves and eachother. I've managed to make the parents of some trans people realise that their child being trans isn't going to ruin either of their lives. Through volunteering at the Gender Identity Clinic I have met some awesome people in the early stages of their transition and hearing them say that just meeting me and having a chat about things has ended up giving them more hope for their future is one of the best feelings in the world and I'm so glad I've been able to do that for people.
I've also delivered some trans awareness sessions in the local hospital where I work. Which was a big decision as I was going to be “outing” myself to whoever showed up, but I did it, and I'm really proud of myself for that. Plus I've got great feedback from the staff that attended.


I've been volunteering with my local LGBTQ Youth Group which is an amazing thing to be part of. We run Gender Identity family days once a month that have been getting more and more busy. It's a chance for the trans/ gender non conforming or questioning young people to bring their families along to meet and support eachother. Seeing these young people growing more and more confident with themselves is a beautiful thing, and the parents benefit a lot from it as well. I'm really excited to see how things continue to progress.

About a month ago I had a sort of epiphany while I was at gymnastics. Myself and the other adults were all stood lining up for the air track and in the queue I was stood amongst a group of guys not much older than me who were all around 6ft with varying amounts of muscle. As usual I started the evening off feeling pretty dysphoric and inferior as I usually do around tall muscly guys with deep voices. But as the session went on and we were doing different things I started realising something. They might all be bigger and stronger than me, with more stereotypically pleasing appearances but in this situation right now, I actually excel over them. They were the ones saying “wow” when I did something, and asking me to explain skills to them. It suddenly sunk in, something that should have occurred to me a long time ago. As trans people we often feel inferior to cis people, for many different reasons (obviously i'm not saying it's just trans people that have these feelings but right now that's what i'm focusing on) but there will always be situations where we are the individuals that the other want to be as good as. These guys might have been able to do muscle up on the rings easier than me, but something as simple for me as a cartwheel, is something they struggle with.


We often look around at others, especially other trans people further ahead in transition than
ourselves, and feel upset or inferior, wishing we were where they are. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others which can be so self destructive. You can't be them, but you can be the best version of yourself. The trans community can at times be quite a toxic place, all this “you're not trans enough” business, and invalidating people's identities, especially non binary people. Also the amount of people within the trans community that insult lower surgery results needs to stop. We all need to remember that there is no one way of being trans. If everyone focused more on themselves than questioning other people's identities and feelings, the world would be a much nicer place.
Thankfully I'm now at a stage where the ignorant comments and insults on social media, even ones i've had directly aimed at me, I manage not to take to heart so much anymore. It still hurts to see things like “you're an abomination” “you're just a girl that's mutilated her body” “a freak with a sewn on sausage”, I just don't bother responding anymore. Sometimes I think I should try and fight back or try and educate but most of the people with these opinions aren't willing to try and learn.

These comments do still affect me, though less than they use to. Obviously it sucks that there currently isn't a way for me to have child that is biologically mine, it sucks that every 10ish years I'm going to need surgery again to replace the device from my lower surgery, it sucks that before I
tattooed over my scars I was scared to be topless infront of people, and it sucks that I've had to go through these appointments and procedures to finally get to a version of myself that I'm comfortable with. But if I hadn't have gone through all this, I wouldn't know the vast majority of my friends, I wouldn't have such an open mind, I probably wouldn't have the now stronger than ever relationship with my family, especially my Mum and I probably wouldn't be working so much on trying to open and educate the minds of others. I'm a stronger person because of being trans, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to transition with a good support network. It such a shame that so many people are chucked out a disowned by their families, or just can't get the courage to come out to them due to the fear of that happening.
The fact that trans people are still being attacked is tragic, and the fact that there is even a debate over which toilet someone can use is completely ridiculous, but we as a community have come a long way, and will only continue to get stronger.

As usual this went on longer than I planned, so I'll stop there and just say
Please support trans people, please support eachother and I hope that some day we will get to the stage where people aren't afraid to be who they are.

Please Sponsor my Skydive for LGBTQ Youth Cornwall

https://www.gofundme.com/lgbtq-youth-cornwall

LGBTQ Youth Cornwall is the organisation that runs YAY! Cornwall (Young and Yourself) 
The youth group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Questioning young people up to the age of 25 who live, work or who are visiting, at school or college in Cornwall
http://www.lgbtqyouthcornwall.co.uk/

I started off as a young member of the group many years ago, and in the last couple of years have become a volunteer. I wanted to use my personal experiences as a trangender man to help others going through similar things I went through.  We are mostly funded by Children In Need and I want to try and raise some extra money for resources, and help towards funding a larger space. We are desperate for a larger base because we have so many young people seeking support with us now that we don't have a room big enough to hold them all. This has resulted in us having to split the sessions by age group meaning some young people are split up from their peers and also don't get to share valuable experiences between other ages.

Along with the drop in and theme sessions, YAY also run Gender Identity Family days to support young people who identify as trans/non binary/gender non conforming or are questioning their gender identity and also their parents/carers and siblings. 
LGBTQ Youth Cornwall also provide support and awareness sessions for schools and colleges. 

To give you an idea of how important this organisation is here is one of the many similar examples given by one of the young people:
“YAY helped me discover who I was. It helped me to realise that there are other people going through similar things to me and helped me to come out to my friends and mum. At the moment YAY is the only place where I can truly be myself. YAY gave me the confidence and resources to come out to the psychologist I was seeing and pursue appointments at the gender identity clinic. YAY taught me it was ok to be who I am and let me meet other people who have experienced similar things to me and what I hope to experience in the future. Going to YAY gives me hope that I will be accepted and helps me feel less alone. It gives me courage to be myself. Before I was out to my friends and family I never felt truly alone because I had YAY. I use to have a lot of suicidal thoughts about being trans, but being able to be myself at YAY has lessened the intensity and frequency of these. Everyone at YAY is always helpful and they are son generous to give us their time it and it has definitely helped me and I know its helped others too.” For more information please check out the website on the link above. 
Myself and my family are funding the £240 for the skydive for my 25th birthday so all of your donations will be going to directly to YAY (apart from GoFundMe taking 5%). 
The skydive is booked for 24th June 2017
Any donations will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for reading,
Adam :)

Lower Surgery Q & A – Part 1

1 day post op first stage!

Please note these answers relate to the London UK surgical team, other countries do things slightly differently. It also mostly refers to forearm phalloplasty and relates to my personal experiences.

Jumping straight into the sex stuff because these are always the first questions I get, and there’s an awful lot of incorrect information being spread around putting people off phallo saying that you can’t feel it, so here we go..

Q. Can you still orgasm? 
A: Yes. it is a really rare complication to lose the ability to orgasm. They hook up the clitoral nerve to the phallus so usually you get erotic sensation all the way up the shaft, while also retaining sensation in your original anatomy. If losing erotic sensation is something you are more concerned with the team offer the option of leaving your original junk visible (but it sits inbetween your balls under your dick so could only see it if you lift your dick up) so it is still easily accessible instead of covering it over. If you choose to “bury” it then it’s just underneath the skin at the base of your penis so you still feel it.

Q: Can you ejaculate or where does the fluid go when aroused?
A: The UK team perform a vaginectomy as standard procedure unless you tell them you don’t want it. This removes most of the vaginal lining and sews up the hole. When turned on you either then don’t produce any liquid or it’s a smaller amount and get reabsorbed by the body. There is no hole left down there. Some guys have been lucky to find that the small amount of fluid does actually come out (dribble rather than shoot) out of their penis but this is very rare.

Q: Can you get erections?
A: With phalloplasty you unfortunately cannot get natural erections, instead you get an erectile device. Either the inflatable pump (most common and also used with cis men) or the malleable rod. The pump involves a reservoir of liquid placed in your abdomen at stage 2, connected to a pump which doubles as your second testicle. When you squeeze this it inflates cylinders in the your penis which makes it erect. You then deflate it with a button at the top of your ball afterwards.
With metoidioplasty you will get natural erections as it is your original anatomy.

Q: Do you have hair on the penis?
A: Depending on how hairy you are and where you have the skin graft taken from you will likely

about 4 days post stage 2

have hair on your phallus. However you can have laser hair removal prior to or after surgery to remove it if you want to. Though a lot of us just use hair removal cream every other week which does the job fine. Depending on how hairy your arms are you may need hair removal on the inner arm where they create the urethra from because hair in the urethra can cause issues at a later date.

Q: Can you pee through it?
A: Yes. If you have forearm or pubic(abdominal) phallo they use skin from your inner forearm which creates the urethra and is hooked up to your current urethra. If you have thigh they use skin from there.
It is also possible to have urethral hook up with metoidioplasty. For this they use a small graft of skin from the inside of your mouth.

Q: Does the skin have to come from your arm?
A: No. The UK team offer 3 phalloplasty options. Forearm (most popular due to more sensation and easier criteria to fulfil), Pubic, also known as abdominal where they take skin from your pubic area. But to stp you’ll still need a graft about the size of a £10 note from your inner forearm). Or thigh. However due to needing to be pretty hairless with little fat on your thighs not as many people meet the criteria.
Also metoidioplasty may be an option to consider if you don’t want any skin grafts.

Q: Does it look natural?
A: Yes. A lot of people don’t think the outcome is great because they’ve probably only seen early photos before any sort of aesthetic is done. In the second stage of surgery they do the glans sculpting to give you the glans/bellend/head appearance at the tip. There is also the option of self funding medical tattooing (or regular tattooist) to tattoo some veins or shading to make it look even more

graft 2 years 3 months post op
then 3 weeks after tattoo

realistic.

Q: How big is it?
A: The UK team aim for around 5.5 inches (length and girth) as this is roughly the cis average size. You can ask for it to be smaller. And sometimes It can be slightly bigger or smaller depending on where the graft is taken.
If you have metoidioplasty then it is the length of your current junk but sometimes slightly longer after surgery as they release the clitoris from the surround skin.

Q: How was it to tattoo over?
A: It was fine, no more painful than any other tattoo. Areas of my graft were slightly numb so it was actually less painful. I also used numbing cream on one occasion. You need to wait a minimum of 2 years before tattooing over scars/scar tissue. I tattooed over my chest scars as well.

Q: Is it a split or full thickness graft from your arm?
A: The London Team take a full thickness skin graft from your arm to create the phallus. The arm is then recovered with skin from under your bum which essentially gives you a bum tuck, and you’re left with 2 scar lines under each bum cheek.

Signing off with my face today
04/02/17

Changing feelings about my trans identity and self-acceptance

I met Fox Fisher at Trans Pride, and it was amazing!

I had a sort of epiphany/ self affirming moment the other day when I went to gymnastics. We were stood lining up for for the air track and in the queue I was stood right between a group of guys likely not much older than me (probably late twenties) and there was about 10 of them, all around 6ft with varying amounts of muscle. As usual I started the evening off feeling pretty dysphoric and inferior as I usually do around tall muscly guys with deep voices. But as the session went on, and we were doing different things I started realising, hey they may be taller and stronger, with a more stereotypically pleasing aesthetic but in this situation right now..I actual excel over them. I'm the one demonstrating the things that they're trying to do. They're the ones saying “wow” when I do something and I'm the one explaining things to them to help them improve.
It suddenly sunk in, something that should have occurred to me a long time ago. As trans people, we will often feel inferior to cis people, for many different reasons (and obviously I'm not just saying it's only trans people that have these feelings but right now that's what I'm focusing on) but there will always be situations where we are the individuals that the others around us want to be as good as. They might have been able to easily muscle up to front support on bar or rings but something as simple for me as a cartwheel, is something they struggle with. And with a lot of hard work I could also one day do a muscle up if I train hard enough.

Cornwall Pride 2016

You may often look around at others, whether they are trans people further ahead in their transition than you, or cis people and feel inferior, wishing you were them. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others, which can be so self destructive. You can't be them, but you can become the best version of you. I may not be able to make myself taller, but I could become as strong and muscular as these guys if I put in the hard work and dedication. It may take longer, but it is possible.  And on the subject of height, as it's one of the main things I struggle with due to most of my male friends being pretty tall and it gets me down every time I go to buy trousers and even the shorter leg ones are too long. I doubt even if I was born as cis male that I would be much taller than I am now. My whole family is pretty tiny. I'm the same height as my Dad and like an inch taller than my Mum, I have one random 6ft+ Uncle but my Great Granddad was tall so someone had to get that gene, but the rest of my family are all around the same height as me.
I actually managed to find a girlfriend shorter than me as well, and I've asked her if she's ever wished I was taller, she responded with “no because then I'd have to tiptoe to kiss you”. We often assume that all girls (or guys) want the stereotypical tall dark and handsome partner but that really isn't always the case and we often forget this. The world needs diversity, it would be boring if we all looked the same. I may not be the tallest, strongest, most typically attractive or most talented guy in the world, but that doesn't matter. I am still valued as a person, I have friends and family that think I'm pretty great (most of the time) and I'm trying my best to do something good with my life, help others and enjoy it along the way. Obviously I still have days where my dysphoria flares up again and I doubt that will ever go away completely, but it doesn't stick around as long as it use to, I handle it better and I am learning to accept the way I am and even embrace it.

One of my best mate's (Meg) and I at the bar

I wouldn't be where I am today, surrounded by amazing and inspiring people if I wasn't trans. I would likely not be as open minded about things, I wouldn't know the vast majority of my friends. I wouldn't have met my girlfriend. I probably wouldn't be trying to do something important and educational for others. The trans community can be quite a toxic place at times, with so many conflicting opinions, jealously, confusion, misunderstandings and personal struggles but it can also be a beautifully supportive and inspiring thing to be a part of.
When I started my transition just over 5 years ago I always thought that when I had finished all of my surgeries and been discharged from the Gender Clinic that I would never want to talk to anyone about it. That I would just want to forget about it and never tell anyone about it. I think I felt somewhat ashamed of who I was because it wasn't “normal”, along with being scared that people wouldn't accept me and would treat me differently. So much has changed. I have finally reached a stage in my own self-acceptance where I don't care who knows about my trans history. I feel good about the fact that sharing my transition with people has helped others to understand themselves or eachother. I have managed to make parents of others realise that their child being trans is not going to ruin either of their lives. Through volunteering at the Gender Clinic over the last 6 months I have met some great people at the early stages of their transition. Hearing them say that just meeting me and having a chat about things has ended up giving them hope for their future is one of the best feelings in the world and I am so happy to be able to do that for someone.

First family photo with Mum and Step-Dad since I transitioned

Obviously I still have down days as everyone does. There’s days where I wish I had a cis-male body, and get really depressed about the fact I had to go through so much to get a body that feels now just acceptable to me, but I have been much more fortunate that many others and I try to remind myself of how far I’ve come in the last 6 years. There were times when I thought dying would be the easier and better thing to do, but I managed to make it through that, with the help of great friends and family. My therapist and friends had often said that they’re amazed at how well I deal with things and always seemed so positive, but really I just found it easier to pretend like things were fine and not eating away at me. I just didn’t want to deal with things so just ignored a lot of it and waited for it to go away or work itself out, which for some things did actually work. Though I know that’s not a healthy way to deal with things.
I’m still working on being able to talk to people about things. But I think now at this stage people often just accept that I don’t like to talk about stuff and leave me be while I go quiet for a few days and don’t interact much. I use to keep a journal and write stuff down early in transition, maybe I should do that again. But also my girlfriend now seems to be finding a way to make me talk about things which is good. Sorry this ended up going in a bit of a negative direction after the positive start! I was going to delete this whole section and leave it all positive, but I think I’ll just leave it now since it shows I’m still just human and not a big positivity machine.

My girlfriend (Meg (a different Meg)) and I at Pride

Anyway, the point of this post was we all have things we don’t like about ourselves, we’ve all been through things we thought might break us but that have made us stronger and will continue to do so. If we try to focus on something we do like about ourselves to try and move the focus onto to a positive thought it can make such a big change. Even something small like “hey my eyebrows look good today” or “I really like how this shirt looks” or it doesn’t even need to be a physical thing, maybe you’re proud of the way you handled a customer or comment, or the fact that you got up out of bed that day and ate something or even went outside, that’s brilliant, Go You!! We need to try and celebrate the good things, and be proud of what we’ve managed to do and think of what we’re capable of instead of focusing on the things that didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. I will also try to take my own advice on this and not be a massive hypocrite!

I know everyone is saying this at the moment with all the crappy things that are going on around the world, but a little love and compassion can go such a long way. Be kind to each other and be kind to yourself.

Coming Out - Part 4 (other family members)

Just a random pic of me in 2013 

I told the majority of the rest of my family via email because they live all over the place. I have tried getting into my old email account to find exactly what I said and everyone's responses but for some reason Outlook is telling me the account doesn't exist, So I'm gonna do my best to remember how things went with various people. There was a largely varied response, and some were quite surprising. The people I thought would be supportive were not, and the people I thought would be a bit more hesitant, were actually fine. I had some very difficult comments from my Grandmother, which I will share later. These however were mostly horrible sounding due to the lack of education and her understanding of the subject rather than intentionally offensive. For example “why can't you just be a butch lesbian” was one of the questions asked. I will add some excerpts from a selection of responses and talk about it properly in a bit.

Firstly I am going to talk about how things went with one of Aunts and Uncles. I have 4 sets of Aunts and Uncles, these were the pair I was closest to, and they have 2 kids, twins who were 9 at this time. I sent an email to my Uncle, pretty much the same email that I sent to everyone. It just explained how I felt, and what I was going to be doing, name, pronouns etc. I thought that these 2 would be more open minded and supportive than the others, especially since we were so close. That wasn't the case unfortunately.  He said that I was too young to know that this is who I am. He also didn't want to tell the kids, which basically meant I wouldn't be able to see them any more. I am writing this now almost 5 years later and I haven't seen my cousins in this time. I have seen this Aunt and Uncle once, and that was at my Nana's funeral last year.

Me and my cousin at Mum and Step Dad's wedding in 2010

However, in the last year, the girl twin has added me on facebook, snapchat, instagram (crazy social media obsessed 13 year olds these days haha!) but it's been so great reconnecting with her. We were so close when she was little, I remember her saying once at a family meal “I want to be a tomboy like you when I'm older”, this was obviously before I came out or anything, but it was so cute, thankfully my Uncle didn't hear that. As it turns out though she's actually become quite girly instead, she's somewhat followed in my footsteps doing gymnastics though which is pretty cool. She's an amazing dancer, and I love that I get to see her growing up now, it's such a shame I missed out on seeing them over the last 5 years. I will make sure to get some photos of us when they all come down to visit next week! It's going to be so strange seeing them again, and I'm slightly concerned they're both going to be taller than me. I'm pretty sure the boy will be as my Aunt told me he has size 8 feet the other day when I asked what I could get them for Christmas! That's crazy, is it normal for 13 year old boys to have feet that big!?

Nana at my Mum and Step Dad's wedding

Moving on to another unfortunate outcome, my Mum and Grandma decided that they didn't want to let my Nana (great grandmother) know about my transition, because it would upset her. Being in her 90s and a Christian, they figured she would be very against the whole thing. They didn't want her to know I had a girlfriend before this either. This was the worst for me, Nana was also the family member I was closest to. She was the coolest person ever to me. When she was younger she was the first woman in her town to wear trousers, which was obviously frowned upon at this time. She also had a pet monkey that her brother brought back when he was serving in the forces overseas. She had afternoon tea with the local Vicar once and the monkey hit the Vicar's cup of tea out of his hand. You can't make this stuff up. I could go on and on but you get the idea, she was awesome. So you can imagine how upset I was about this, especially because she lived really close and I use to see her pretty often. But I didn't want to ruffle any more feathers, so I didn't really argue their decision. I stopped seeing her and that lasted about a year I think, something like that.

This is the Tumblr blog post I wrote about telling Nana from September 2013:

Nana and I the first time I went to see her again 

“I’m actually finally allowed to tell my Nana (great Gran) about me transitioning today.. So for the year my Mum and Gran haven’t wanted me to talk to or go and see my Nana for two reasons, one being that they don’t think she’d react well and she’s in her early 90’s, and the other being that they expected/hoped I was just going through a phase or something. But now since me having my top surgery, they’ve decided I should be allowed to talk to her and have her know why I haven’t been to see her. Apparently they have just been telling her that I have been off doing my own thing and not had the chance to go and visit her, which really upsets me ‘cause it is so not the case, and she was the family member that I was closest to before all this. So today I am going up to see her, my Gran and Grandad will already be there and have explained to her what is going on. I’m a bit annoyed that they insist on telling her themselves because I doubt they will explain it well, but I haven’t bothered arguing 'cause I just want her to know now so I can see her again. My mum won’t be there because apparently she said she wont be able to hold it together, and we rarely see each other anyway.
Really hope it goes well. Wish me luck guys, I will report back this evening.”


“So I arrived at my Nana’s house and my Gran and Granddad had already told her as they said they would, I’m not a hundred percent sure what they told her, and to be honest I was very nervous about how they would explain it. However, from the second I walked in, all three of them were very happy to see me, I went over and gave Nana a hug as its been almost a year since I’ve seen her and I’ve missed her a lot. I sat down next to her and it was like nothing had happened. My 94 year old great grandmother immediately started using male pronouns for me when talking across to my grandma and I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t been allowed to see her all this time ‘cause everyone said she would react horribly. She is annoyed at my mum for not letting me go and see her. She said to me before I left that she has a good friend who’s granddaughter was born as her grandson, and she talks to her about hairstyles and things. She was not at all phased by anything. She said I must make sure to go and see her often now, which I plan to definitely :) 

As usual, signing off with a recent pic. Jan 2017

We went by my mum’s on the way home to tell her how it went, and she seemed in a bad mood from the second I walked in the door, even when my Gran told her the afternoon went extremely well, she still didn’t cheer up at all, she probably just feels a fool now though. 
Also when my grandparents were dropping me back home afterwards they said “Nana is going to call your mum now and will be asking how is Adam and Mum is not going to be happy” but anyway, it all pretty much went fantastically.”
The next time I went to see Nana, her friend was there and as I walked in she said to her “oh is't he handsome”. It made me feel so good, which was the day the above photo of us was taken.

Trans struggles & support at Christmas

I'm taking a break from talking about things back at the very start of my transition for this post. I started writing this one with the aim of putting it up before Christmas as a way to say good luck to everyone over the holidays, but as usual I got distracted by all the plans and being between various houses etc so I've started again and it's now more of a "I hope everything went well for everyone" type of post along with how things have been for me over the past week instead.

Christmas 2011, my first ever "Son" card

Christmas can be a difficult and upsetting time for a lot of people, a large percentage of those being part of the LGBTQ community, though obviously I'm personally going to be focusing on trans individuals. This time of year most of us are forced into stressful family gatherings, which often results in being referred to by our old names and being constantly misgendered. This is usually also combined with invasive and intimate questions, along with transphobic remarks sometimes intensified by large quantities of alcohol. Many of us are forced "back into the closet" while certain members of the family are visiting, and we just have to go along with it to try and keep everyone else happy. Some decide by themselves to stay quiet so as not to make a horrible situation any worse for ourselves, or we are told by close family members that we must not disclose our gender identity to other members of the family, whether that be because it makes them uncomfortable or because they're worried about what other family members will say. Or maybe, we just haven't managed to work up the courage to tell anyone yet and continue to suffer in silence.

Christmas 2012

If there are family members that know and are supportive, being surrounded by extended family that don't know, or are unsupportive can often change the way they act around you. This really sucks, especially if for example you have a usually supportive parent, that uses your preferred name and pronouns, but now because your Aunt & Uncle or whoever else, who are either unsupportive or haven't been told about your transition yet are visiting, said parent now reverts back to using your old name and the wrong pronouns. Some may say "it's just for a few days, just ignore it and don't let it get to you", it's really not that easy,

We spend every day trying to convince the world around us of who we are, and hoping we get read as our preferred gender, any support we can get means so much, and losing some of that support, even for a few days can have a massive impact on mental health. It may just be a few days, but those days can feel like an eternity, especially when everyone around you is having an amazing time together and all you can think about is how crap you feel that you can't even be yourself around your own family. That every time someone calls you by your old name or pronouns you just want to scream at the top of your voice that that's not who you are, but instead you sit there quietly and smile, saying thank you for the strongly gendered gifts that you'll never use so that you don't seem ungrateful.

December 2015

However, in contrast to this, some trans people are confident enough to stand up and correct people when they're wrongly addressed. It is never okay to misgender someone, but we also need to remember that not everyone will adjust straight away, slip ups do happen so we need to cut people some slack sometimes, especially since it's often not done in a malicious way. For example my step mum has 4 sons plus me, and she so often goes through everyone's names before calling us the correct name, it's rather amusing. Depending on your age, your family have been calling you by your old name and pronouns for so many years, so it's usually just a habit that will only get easier with time.

My Mum took about 4 years to properly adjust, it's only now at almost 5 years since coming out that it seems to be becoming normality for her. I got fairly lucky in the grand scheme of things, she could have never come round the idea and not accepted me at all which unfortunately is the case with some families. I now get cards with "Adam" written in, which makes me so happy to read. For a few years I had cards that just had no name in them, which was better than them having my old name. With my Step Mum and my Dad I got correct name and pronouns in cards straight away, and the first year I was spending Christmas as Adam, they bought me the "Son's 1st Christmas" card that you can see pictured up at the start of this post, which I was thrilled with (even though it doesn't look like it in the photo!)

My girlfriend's birthday this December

I just wanted to quickly mention something awesome that happened this Christmas. I got to see my cousins, the twins who I've mentioned in previous posts, for first time in 5 years since I came out. They're now 13, and so grown up. It really sucks that I missed out on the last 5 years of seeing them, thankfully with social media now I've been able to see photos, and in the last year I haves spoken to the girl ("S") on facebook and snapchat but I hadn't had any contact with the boy ("T"). When they both walked into my Mum's house with my Aunt and Uncle "S" and I hugged straight away, and I felt so happy, then when "T" and I came face to face (literally now he is actually the same height as me!) we had an awkward moment of about to hug, then stopped, and weren't sure whether to shake hands like the rest of the men seem to do in that side of my family, but we didn't do anything, just smiled and said Hello, which was odd. I'm still trying to get use to this whole hand shaking thing with the males in my family. I think it's more difficult because with my step brothers and that side of the family everyone hugs, and all my male friends hug eachother so it's a bit of a shock when confronted with a handshake from my Uncles now. I might do a post about that kind of stuff at some point.
But yeah it was brilliant to see my cousins again, and "S" even wrote a post on facebook afterwards about how happy she was to see me which made me really emotional, I can't wait to see them again. I meant to take a photo with them before I left but had to leave in a bit of a rush to catch my train home and forgot. Will remember next time!

Festive beardness

I'm just going to round this up a bit now by saying, I really hope that everyone managed to make it through the festivities and family gatherings with as little hassle as possible, this post could go on for pages and pages but I hope I haven't rambled too much. I really am thankful for my family support and I have spent a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about those of you who aren't fortunate enough to have a supportive and accepting family environment. I hope that you know that anyone disrespecting and misgendering you does not invalidate your identity at all. You know who you are, and you're awesome, don't let anyone else make you feel differently. If your family aren't supportive and you don't feel like they'll ever come round to respecting you, I hope that you get to spend time with your friends and chosen family. Some times that's just something we need to do, make our own family. The LGBTQ community can be such a supportive and loving thing to be part of, I know that you will be able to find someone to spend time with and comfort you not just at this time of year but always.

And if you're reading this as a friend/family member of a trans person, please do what you can to support them, even just one extra person using the correct name and pronouns can have a positive domino effect on those around you, and something as simple as giving them a card with their preferred name in could completely make their Christmas! Good luck everyone, and Happy Holidays!

Here's me this Christmas, my girlfriend gave me a festive beard of glitter and baubles!