Some of My Noticings About Transitioning from Female to Male

Dear Readers,

I have experienced some really interesting differences between being a man and a woman. The way to think about this is not in a binary way: man or woman, but what the influence of testosterone vs estrogen has on this bag of bones!

Here are some noticings in random order:

Physical:

• I am now covered in hair, and hair literally grows in every orifice. Not only does it grow, it is itchy. The only place I am hair-free is my head, which is cold frequently. The insides of my ears are cozy, though, in case you were worried about my eardrums
• When I was female, I had a very large derriere. My derriere closed up shop and moved northwest to my abdomen. Can you here "The Jefferson's" theme song playing? "...Moving on up, to the (west) side, to that deluxe apartment in the sky..."
  
• Oh, and did I mention my toes are also quite warm; the fur keeps them that way
• My strength has increased greatly. Early in my transition, I went to family summer camp with my girls. I played a game called "Knock-out" where two people vie to shoot a basket before the other thus, "knocking" them out. In order to get into the game, people take turns shooting a free throw and the first several who make the shot get into the game. When it was my turn I chucked the ball in the air and went way, way over the top and far into the next group of people sitting and talking. It looked like I did it on purpose because I missed the backboard by so much and the ball went very far away. One of the teens muttered, "asswipe," and I could see why, but I really just did not know my own strength!
• I grew from 5'6" to 5'8" and my shoe size went from a 7.5 to a 9 in men's sizing
• My nose grew to epic proportions. Men have sex receptor cells in their nostrils and apparently I got a bunch late in life, so my nose is the umbrella of my face
• Then I had my surgeries (in order of occurrence):
• breast reduction from DD to A-, prior to accepting I was a man
• After realization, man-chest surgery
• vaginectomy and phalloplasty
• scrotoplasty and glansplasty
• more on these in another blog

Emotional:

• I am still the same person in my heart that I was when I was female. However, my feelings are stored and accessed in a different way. Imagine you have a filing cabinet with all of your thoughts and feelings organized in the front of the drawers. Then one day, you look for them and the files are no longer where you had always kept them. You know they are there because you can sense them. Upon searching, you find a lockbox in the back of the drawer. Inside the lockbox everything is there but it takes longer to access them; they aren't as much on the surface or as easy to get to. 
• I used to feel dread regularly. I also hated my body and had frequent, severe judgement about how fat I was. Now those thoughts creep in once in a while, but for the most part I enjoy being in my body; in fact, I fricking love it!!!
• I am still a highly sensitive person but it just travels in a different path than it did before

Psychological:

• Testosterone has affected my psychology tremendously
• First, I still, after 13 years, forget that I am a man and:
• occasionally walk into the ladies' room instead of the men's room
• spook myself in the mirror catching myself saying, "Who's that guy in here?"
• sign my former name on check
• Find my attraction to women has changed. What I mean by this is as a lesbian, I thought things like red lipstick and high heels were ridiculous. On testosterone, I really like that stuff and my wife is actually relieved because she likes that stuff, too. She was frequently dismayed, long ago, when I preferred her in what she calls, "shlumpy" clothes. I thought of it more like an Earth-Mama look, but she is glad for my change in fashion taste
• I do not fear walking down the street, ever. This is a huge change especially from being a vulnerable butch lesbian, easy to identify. I have had my share of being gay-bashed so this is a welcomed relief, but I sure see how defensive women have to be and that is not ok!!!
• At first, I was shocked by the tight clothing my wife was wearing at the barn. There were lots of ranch hands staring at her and other females. I learned to ignore them when I was female. Once on testosterone, I understood how intense testosterone is do I told her to wear a mumu. She did not follow my advice

Cultural:

• This is where it gets weird
• I know I have more privilege than I did before but not without a cost
• Transitioning has helped me see the differences, the burdens, the advantages and the losses
• For example:
• As a woman, I could touch people and it didn't make them uncomfortable. I am an educator and would walk around the room and lay my hand on a student's shoulder without thinking about it. I was a middle school teacher. It was welcomed and part of being a caring adult. As a man, I cannot do this
• I used to hug people. As a man, this is also not welcomed. A huge loss for me!!! 
• As a woman, I called everyone, "Honey or Hun." This was upsetting for women when I said this as a man, so I stopped. However, I did decide to call every man I worked with "Honey" to see what happened. I got a lot of, "Did you just call me Honey?" The only person I didn't call Honey was the college president who was a man
• I was the manager of a statewide college program that had mostly women in it. When I would go to quarterly meetings, I stopped volunteering answers to make sure every woman had a chance to offer something before I spoke up
• I became eerily aware of how men impacted certain situations
• I noticed that (even now) if I go somewhere, like to an African drumming and dance class, women do not speak with me before or after class, but they do with each other
• On the other hand, there is a beautiful brotherhood to be found among men. Lots of men, of various ages, call me Sir or Brother or Boss. It's harder to make close friends with men, but there is definitely a warmth that I did not notice before
• One of the first losses I experienced as a man is this: when I first moved to Sonoma County, about 9 months into my transition, I came here a few months ahead of my wife and daughter to find us a place to live, etc. I joined a church choir and was at my third or fourth rehearsal one night. A teen daughter of fellow singers needed a ride home. I offered her a ride and there was a great hush and weird tension. Someone else volunteered to take her. Later I learned they were afraid I would rape her. This was a very rude awakening to the tribe I was so happy to join.

Six Years of the Salami and other Spiritual Noticings

March 28, 2022

Wow! It's been six years since I got my dong sewn on! Having a dong is, well, different than not having one, I must say! I actually just completed my first album about transitioning and one of the songs is called, "I Got My Dong Sewn on Yesterday." It's a hoot of a Blues Song. While it hasn't been released yet, you can go to my website: www.nicklawrenceftm.com to hear the first song released, called "Before (I Became a Man)" and see the photo montage that covers my life span. I will put the Dong song on here as soon as it is available. The album is a blend of raucous humor and deep spirituality with an eclectic group of songs. Many of the songs have spiritual roots. I don't mean the music genre of Spirituals, but the experience of awe in relationship to God, experienced by me in the flesh, my flesh.

I know that some people will think I am being disrespectful of God and religion in some of my songs, but I am not; I am the most devout God worshipper, ever. I just have a different perspective than some people. I want you to know that transitioning has been the singularly most spiritual experience I have ever had. The operations I endured were slow in preparation and slower in recovery, both physically and mentally. But spiritually, I have gained what I consider incredible insight.

When I went in for my Man-chest, I came out with a chest whose female breasts had been removed, but what was left did not look like a man-chest. It looked like a location where at one time, things, two in particular, had been located. Kind of like a building site that had not been fully prepped for the next project yet. Silly me, I thought my impending burst of manhood would happen immediately. It didn't. I felt relieved to not have my chesticals any longer, but I felt like I was still the same person. This may sound silly but it is true. I thought my breasts were preventing me from "feeling like a man" but how I felt inside, my personhood, really didn't change. I felt relieved. Oh, yes, I did. So much relief. Let me say it again, SO MUCH RELIEF from having my breasts removed. I kept hearing this mantra: "my body isn't me."

So I countered with ,"Well if it isn't me, why am I rearranging it? Why does it even matter then?"

Over the last six years I returned to a spirituality I found in my late teens called Metaphysics. I have come to understand on a deeper level that what animates my body is my spirit (which I encapsulate with my personality) and my spirit expresses itself through my body, but is not my body per se. When I removed my breasts, I removed the lady bits that so many women  identify as what makes them a woman. I no longer had those bits, thereby releasing me from "womanhood", which came with tremendous relief, but not having them or having them didn't change my spiritual experience of inhabiting my body. 

In fact, the experience of removing my breasts gave me a clear experience of my body surrounding my spirit, which freed me in a sense to rearrange it any way I wanted because it doesn't really matter what shape it is in at all! Meaning, that while the removal of them did not make me "feel like a man", the having of them didn't make me "feel like a woman" either! The power to feel who I am is not controlled by my body parts. While I was born female bodied, I never felt like a I was a woman. For whatever reason, my spirit in combination with my naturally masculine personality, is happier with a male presentation. 

Speaking of male presentation, however, when I got my dong sewn on, that was a different kind of experience! My "manhood" was clear but I really still felt like me, but lighter and happier.  I mean there they were: my dangly bits. Can you hear my Tarzan roar in the background? Again no change in my internal perception but more RELIEF from my external presentation. The only real drawback was the fact that I now have this giant Dangler that never retracts! Ha ha! I literally harvested the tissue from my thigh to make a fat, floppy cock with my micro-penis clitoris embedded in the base of it. WTF!!!

Who does this crazy shit? Ok fine. Me. I did. And even though my salami, Sal, is a little funny looking, he is so much fun to play with that I am filled with glee! I know I am on the right track because I love my penis. I didn't love my breasts or vagina. The onset of puberty number one, back in 1975 along with Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" only created a vortex of despair. Puberty number two created a vortex of  joy amidst the need for a whole lot of self-love. It takes enormous self-love to withstand the current of how things are supposed to be and do what feels right anyway. 

It has taken six years (post phallus surgery) to have sensation throughout my wienie. It is a miracle every time I have an orgasm. I think, "How the hell can this possibly work?" But it does (OMFG!!)  and then I remember that my body is surrounding my spirit and that my experiences are a combination of my spirit and body working together plus Mind. What I see in my mind is what I experience. To me, this is God living through me, as me.

What this means to me is that whether you are XX or XY or any of the other multitude of combinations (and, yes, there is a multitude), your expression of who you are has nothing to do with the body you were given. That's why there are very small, badass butch women, and very large Tinkerbell type men. Otherwise the template would dominate our expressions of our spirits.

And, finally, I have come to accept that the way I feel inside is exactly how this man is supposed to feel; the integrity of my inside and outside matching is a delicious harmony. I wish this kind of harmony to everyone. 

The Fabric of Love

August 20, 2016

When we are born we are born into a fabric of life, of people's lives, into a multifaceted fabric, related through blood and love and sometimes lust and sometimes just happenstance. Sometimes our birth is celebrated, wanted, desired above all else; others are tolerated, others a burden, and some detested. Regardless of how we got here, here we are, launched into the collective of our family. If we are lucky we resonate with those around us and they like us and enjoy us and even plan summer vacations to spend time together. Others are shunned or worse forgotten and wonder what those nostalgic family movies and 4th of July ad campaigns are about.

Nevertheless, our collective, our people, are like quilt squares sewn together or knots in a giant macrame wall hanging. We are held together until there is a fire or a wielded knife or the strain of keeping everything together takes its toll and there is a hole and then a great unraveling. When this unraveling occurs many questions arise; like what was it that kept us together in the first place? Was it love? Obligation? or just happenstance? or simply something in between?

There is a popular song on the radio these days and the words are, "I love you. I hate you. I hate that I love you." The question in my mind is is love a constant and hate visits without a real place to land, or are they both more like hot and cold water faucets, each with their own handles, L and H.; easy to turn on and off at a moment's notice.

If you have read my previous blogs you might recall that I am in a standoff with my 30 year old daughter. I transitioned from female to male and even though it took a few years, she somehow got to the point of just saying "No thank you" to me and has turned her sights on other women in our family to replace me.

She and my mother are closer than ever and it really hurts. I can't bear the loss of my daughter and I also can't bear my mother's acceptance of my daughter's rejection of me. I know it is silly and that I cannot orchestrate who likes who but it is a daily source of deep pain.

One of the oddest outcomes of my transition is having a fresh set of eyes within my own skin. I am still me but I am also very different. I see how I clung to a juvenile version of me for many years, not fully maturing into a woman; I just couldn't make the leap, it wasn't me. But I also missed out on developing important parts of a mature adult and find myself now about thirty years behind my colleagues in terms of career, hobbies and a variety of ways that people enjoy their lives. This isn't anyone's fault but something I live with and ask myself daily: what do I want?

Unfortunately for me, the major driving force in my pursuit of happiness has been being a parent. The rejection by my daughter and the loss of my grandchildren leaves me hollow, like a sailboat without any wind, waiting and hoping for a gust of love to bring me to shore.

I wonder how many times I will write about this pain. Have you ever burned a part of your body? I have. I burned my hand by accidentally picking up a burner grate that was still hot after cooking. It throbbed  like hell and I kept my hand in a bag of ice that I had to replenish multiple times through the night. At some point it just stopped hurting. I just haven't gotten to that point yet.

Death Becomes Her

August 13, 2016  

I have been thinking a lot about death and dying. My daughter and her husband see me as having died and are still grieving, I think, which leaves us in this odd situation. I want to be their parent and grandparent to my grandkids, but right now I don't exist anymore. They haven't told me why they cut me off, just that they want nothing to do with me at all.

When I look back at my life of 52 years, I can finally make sense of all the disjointed experiences I had: looking like a boy, being mistaken as a boy, excelling in traditional male activities, not quite fitting in, lacking in development of Self. As a woman, these experiences were confusing and shame producing, filled with starts and stops and loss of momentum. As a man, they line up and make a perfect pathway, like a racetrack, engines revved with intensity and verve.

Remember the old Christmas tree lights? If one bulb blew out the entire string would not work. My (life) string was filled with light bulbs that did not fire. Now I can look back over my whole life, a long string of light bulbs, and see the burned out bulbs come back to life! Illumination, at last!! It makes me feel whole and in alignment with myself.

This kind of experience is what life is for: to be fully alive. I cannot help what turned out to be true for me. But it brings up some interesting ideas for me. Like what does it mean to be a mother? When are mothering duties over? Does my role in my family depend on my genitals or whether I go through menopause? What constitutes abandonment? Why aren't the love, time and care I invested in my children and family built up like a bank account; rich and steadfast, able to handle this change, yet still together?

Last Saturday was my daughter's 30th birthday. I checked her Facebook page to see if she was having a party and was going to send her a happy birthday message. Instead I saw a Mother's Day montage of pictures of women in her life with the caption: "Thank you to the women who raised me and taught me such wonderful morals and values," etc. Who was in the montage? Two grandmothers, her dad's wife and her honorary Godmother. But not her mother. Me. I had a 22 hour delivery. I breastfed her. I stayed home to raise her. I coached her soccer team when she was 5 (The Cheetahs, with team cheer "Go Cheetahs, fast as lightning, goooooooooo Cheetahs!!!), I made her a layered ice cream cake with a layer for every year until she was 12 and the cake just fell over, I stood by her through thick and thin. And in my time of needing her, where are those morals and values she described? I transitioned into manhood when she was 23 years old; plenty of time to know who her mother was and is. She certainly she didn't get this particular set of morals and values from me after all. The ladies of the montage; a big part of my family and friends who I drew into my daughter's life to strengthen us and one another, including me.

And in my lowest moment I realized that that person who is so easily discarded did in fact die and the whole lot of them can go fuck themselves. We do not share the same values at all. Sometimes people change and when they do new decisions have to be made. They do not like the person I have become; when in fact they do not know me. They think that I am less when in fact I am the same and more. But the point is they do not want to know me, just as they really did not know me before. It's not their fault that I could not fully share who I was; it is their fault that they choose not to experience the full human being I am now.

The woman I was is gone. She is glad of it because her life was filled with an intense underlying sense of discomfort and prolonged, relentless anxiety and depression. If the people in my life prefer me to live in constant pain so they can feel good, there is something wrong with them and not me!

So to my former self, I bid you a fond farewell. You were a brave woman who not only endured your own pain, but willingly soaked up the pain of others to help them on their journey. You are at peace now and free from wrongful burdens. Death becomes you! I love you and am proud to have shared my life with you! You were an awesome mother and now father. Your birth child may not understand but your adopted kids love you and get you, so go forth and prosper, and let what is dead go.

Once a mother, always a mother

August 7, 2016

Dear Friends,
I stopped writing my blog almost a year and a half ago. I did this because I found out that my mother and kids were reading it and talking about it. I don't know why I thought they would not see it. The point isn't that they read it; I was glad they did. What did stop me was that I was getting to the point where I was no longer talking about the past but the present and I realized that by continuing, I would or could be bringing them into the public eye and felt it was my responsibility to protect them.

In the meantime, I have come to realize that my family has NOT been unable to make my transition with me. They see me as two different people and are not able to apply their set of female memories to the man I am today.

My wife says she is able to combine them. That I am still the same person in my heart and values. I agree with her.

They have found substitutes for me (and my wife), but we have been waiting for them to love us, to reach out, to invite us to their celebrations, etc. But the chasm of ice just continues to expand leaving me, especially, hungry for their love.

It's an odd math equation. I was a woman, I gave birth, I had lady parts. Now I am a man with male parts. Does transformation  erase life? I don't think so, at least not for me.


I cannot describe the pain I am feeling except that it is the lowest of lows and deepest of heartaches.

I gave birth and raised a daughter. I am a man that has let go of many female qualities except when talking about my daughter. Then there is still an anguished mama bear desperate for her baby; even though her baby turned 30 yesterday.

Some things cannot be undone. Once a mother, always a mother.

The view from the top

March 15, 2015

I am now four months post-op from my phalloplasty surgery. I have had a rough recovery. I am still quite exhausted and am dealing with urinary issues that I never had before. My body feels like it has been through a war. And it has.

Before I say anything else, I want to be clear that this blog is purely my own experience and does not in anyway represent trans people in general. It is my life and I happen to be transgender. This blog is an attempt on my part to make sense of all the experiences I have had and to share them because for some reason sharing them makes me happy.

I loathed being a woman. When my mother promised me a new wardrobe when I started my period, I shuddered. When my breasts started to develop I refused to acknowledge them and wore baggy shirts. The estrogen/progesterone cycle caused my first real experience with depression and I got used to it over the thirty (thirty!!!!) years between 15 and 45 from when I hit puberty to when I took my first shot of testosterone.

My self-loathing became part of my identity and my inner turmoil became a magnet for external drama and trauma. I managed to find lots of needy people in more turmoil than me and I helped them. This made me feel better about my own conflicts.

I realize looking back that I had no way of communicating what I was feeling because I did not know that others did not feel the same way. That is the problem with one's internal state of being; it is impossible to truly know what someone else is experiencing.  The things that felt natural to me like playing with GI Joes, wearing swimming trunks, playing with boys in the neighborhood, wearing boys pajamas, refusing to wear dresses, being mistaken for a boy, being called a boy's name, were fine when I was young. As I began to approach puberty, the tomboy status was not as welcomed and I had trouble finding my way. My mother was always accepting of me but this was bigger. My friends were each turning into something that I was not: a woman, and they were excited by and eager for the changes.

I remember when my daughter H started to develop breasts. I looked at her and said, "oh my gosh you are getting little boobies!" She said proudly, "Yes, I know! This one is Billy and this one is Suzy!" and then she laughed. I remember thinking, "Wow, she is a healthy girl. So this is how you are supposed to feel about getting breasts." I was truly happy for her.

And now I finally feel that way in my own skin. The body matches up with the mind and there is peace. Finally. Except that the man that I am is kind and easy going and the woman that I was was fraught with turmoil. I feel to a certain extent that I inherited someone else's life. I have a job that deals with trauma. I have a young child in my home who has intense emotional, mental and physiological issues from fetal alcohol exposure, genetics and trauma in her early life. I am lacking in stamina.

Becoming and being a man is an entirely different experience. When I started my transition I really thought I would remain the same person but with hair and muscles. I was wrong. I have fundamentally shifted in my thinking, my perceptions, my drive. I recently left the church that I was deeply committed to and find myself spiritually adrift.

My wife is taking a college class on Human Relations. One of her assignments is to describe what happiness is for her. She asked me. I said "Hell if I know."

I feel like I climbed a great mountain, with phalloplasty being the last summit. When I arrived at the top and looked out over the horizon, I saw great beauty but also great devastation. Now that I am complete, I have the task of cleaning up all the turmoil-based decisions I made. What I thought was going to be a cold beer with the guru at the mountain top, is actually a date with the janitor.

Pray for me. I need all the help I can get.

Before the Phoenix Rises

February 22, 2015

I missed a week of publishing. It was my youngest daughter's 11th birthday last Saturday (when I usually write my blog) and I was busy playing balloon-popping games with a gaggle of pre-teen girls. My daughter was so happy being surrounded by a group of girls; something that never appealed to me as a child. I frequently felt out of place.

When I was ten, I was invited to a birthday party sleep over. I was an only child and so I really did not know if my life and my experiences were that much different than other children. The party was for Michelle and about fifteen girls were there to spend the night, eat popcorn and play games including an immature version of Truth or Dare. I packed my Snoopy, my favorite pajamas, my slippers, and put on my favorite outfit for the party.

When I arrived I was the only girl wearing pants. I had on a light blue Hang Ten t-shirt and some bluejeans. I never went anywhere without my Adidas Superstars. The other girls were wearing party dresses with lace and frills. But I was used to that and didn't really care about what anyone was wearing. The shocker came when we got into our night clothes. Every other girl had on some kind of Baby doll nightgown with pom-poms, or ribbons of some sort. I brought my tan flannel pjs with green and brown trucks on them. I walked into the playroom and a hush fell over the group. "Nice slippers," Leslie smirked, "I think my brother has the same ones." I looked down at my dark brown corduroy slippers and quickly scanned the room for what the other girls were sporting on their feet. Pink and fluffy sums it up.

"Oooh! And MY brother has those same pajamas," Olivia quipped. A buzz went around the room. The girls surrounded me, looking at me, inching closer and closer. My heart raced. I didn't know what was going to happen. I started to feel very uneasy. Kelly came right up into my face and asked me, "What kind of girl are you?"

A tear began to well up in my eyes. "Umm, I don't know," I stated softly.

Michelle came sprinting into the room with a dangerous and triumphant look in her eyes. "I know what kind of girl she is, she's one of these... she's a lesbian!"Michelle had a magazine rolled up in her hands and with that tossed it across the room to Leslie who opened it while the room fell to a hush. It was a tabloid magazine. On the cover was a picture of a very masculine woman who was quoted as saying, "You can't call it rape, we were both women." Leslie proceeded to read the cover story which included details about a round bed, a meeting at a bar, and sex against the feminine woman's will.

The girls shrieked with laughter and made lewd comments. I felt dirty and ashamed. It was the first time I heard either of the words "lesbian" or "rape". I was upset by both.  I developed a stomach ache and left the party. I was never invited to another all-girl birthday sleep over again.

Years later when I came out as a lesbian I had to deal with that awful misrepresentation of lesbians that I had lodged in my child mind. That story haunted me for years.

********

My mother told me this week that she read my blog. "You did?" I asked. My mother does not go on the internet. It turns out my son-in-law suggested it to her. My first thought was, "I hope I didn't say anything bad about her!" Then I felt kind of weird knowing my family is reading this, but also glad.

My 28 year old daughter gave birth to her second child two weeks ago. I am thrilled for her because she and I both were only children and in my mind she broke our curse. I was also hit by a terrible depression. For the record, I am glad to have transitioned. My journey is not easy. I am plagued by residual pain and am really, really exhausted, but nevertheless, my transition into manhood was necessary for me to stay alive and thrive as a human being.

However, the birth of my grandson marked a moment for me where I had to grieve giving up being a mommy and a grandmother. I gave birth to one of the most wonderful women on the planet and in my pursuit of being true-to-myself, I had to alter the most primary and instinctual relationship I have ever had: the relationship of mother and child.

I love being a father, but I am not her father. HR, my darling, I feel such great sorrow for the loss of that part of our relationship. I hope you can forgive me for what I needed to do.

In Greek Mythology, the Phoenix is a bird that is regenerated or reborn. It obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. Even though I have been in transition for six years, I do not yet feel like I have risen as the Phoenix does. I feel that I am still in the mix of the ashes and the breaking down of who I was, the metamorphic processes of alchemy; the regeneration of soul and purpose; the enduring of post operative pain and narcotics; the realities of facial hair and the limitations of a man-made phallus. I am more like a caterpillar still entering the cocoon; on the outside a functioning man and father; on the inside searching for my new psychological strongholds and ways of expressing myself that both honor my past and breathe life into the man I am meant to be.

In Love and Service,
Nick