On lockdown

I've been in Coronavirus lockdown now for 28 days. I know this because I decided to let my beard grow while I'm here and I've been taking a photo of it every day to see how It progresses. I've always said that on a good day I can manage a bad goatee, and guess what? I now have a bad goatee! Take a look at that bad boy:

On the plus side no-one is misgendering me while I have this, and it's been interesting to see how people react. There is no question that I am passing 100%, even if the goatee is on the weak side. My M2F friend actually screamed in surprise when she saw it which made me laugh. My next objective is to see how long I stay in lockdown and let it grow, then when this is over venture to a local barber to get it tidied up. I need to formally change my name in the next couple of months anyway, and then its time to replace my driving licence and my passport so I'm guessing I will keep it at least as long as the timescale for that to get all my official ID photos updated.

On clothes

I've been wearing jeans, hoodies and T-shirts for as long as I can remember. Always men's/unisex and I expect that will continue. People have never really batted an eye at that beyond the odd comment that it's not very feminine and as that is precisely what I have wanted that's really not been a problem for me. However, as my masculinity develops I've decided to up my game. I've been acquiring jackets, good shirts and even a couple of suits and silk ties from ebay. A couple of times I've caught myself being convincingly male in the mirror, so I am starting to switch to wearing the jackets and shirts more often.

On shaving

My facial hair has slowly emerged over the last 15 years. First there was fluffy peach fuzz, then some of it grew longer and eventually darker hairs started to come in. After about 5 years I had a pattern that could loosely be described as a bit of a goatee.

My moustache is thinly spaced and does not join in the middle. Only recently has a thinish line of hair started to link that to my chin. My chin coverage is patchy on places, it does not fill in fully. More recently, almost as if a switch has flicked, I've started to get visible hairs on my cheeks, and some hairs start to emerge in the sideburn areas. The one area that did become quite hairy quite fast was my neck. I could grow a neck beard! But they are ugly so I won't.

Hello World!

It feels like I've been transitioning for ages. This is because I have. Like every other trans person I've known I'm trans since I can first remember. It took a long time to realise that there were other transpeople out there, and then the people I first became aware of were all M2F. I thought I was unique and alone. It took longer to realise there were other F2Ms, and that it was also possible for us to transition. There are much fewer of us, and I don't really know any others (say hi if you happen to find this blog!). It took even longer to ask for help; I was in my late 30s when I finally did. Every step was hard to take. Seeing a psychiatrist who dealt with dysophoria and openly talking about it for the first time was hard, but alsostrangely affirming. There was little doubt about the diagnosis. My GP at the time refused to prescribe anything to help (they said they would pray for me instead, as I needed the type of help they couldn't give). I complained to the local Health Authority and was switched to another GP who was prepared to help. That was my first full on encounter with transphobia. Unpleasant.