Caterpillar to Butterfly - A record of my transition

[Black13]

Hello, LGBTQ-munity! Well, you know the story (maybe). I'm 35, I dabbled with gender and sexuality over a decade ago in college and knew I was onto something. I cross-dressed, got rid of body hair, used makeup, and for the longest time I thought that meant I was homosexual. Well, while I'm kind of all over the map as far as sexuality is concerned, it didn't give me the answer to what I was looking for. So, I chocked it up to being young and curious and went back to daily life, grinding out a living and trying to survive. I went back to the cis-gender straight male role, trying to be satisfied with my body and my lot in life. I got depressed, the sadness turned to anger, the anger turned to rage, and the rage destroyed me repeatedly. I lost jobs, relationships, and really my own sense of self for a long time because something I could not define had been haunting my whole life.
Two weeks ago, I realized something that now seems painfully obvious: I'm transgender. Well, it's a start. I have no idea where it will lead or what exactly it means, my family's gonna be pissed, but I'm fortunate enough to have friends who support me, and a significant other whom I have to thank for unwittingly bringing me to this realization. Seriously, we're out a few weeks ago, and she says to me "If you were a woman, I'd have to become a lesbian." It was the sweetest thing.

So, there's that. This is going to be a chronicle of my transition to whatever it is that I'm becoming. It's somewhat for my own sake, but I'm crowdsourcing it mostly because I really don't know anyone in the transgender community and I would love to hear everyone's stories and tips and whatnot. Every road has its first step, so here's mine. I felt I had to include the genitals because they are very pertinent to this entire subject.

 

[vizio]

Good luck on your journey may you find the path you were meant to take

 

[chinakat]

Damn, that's a big realization. Good luck with whatever comes next for you. I hope it gives you joy

 

[Black13]

Yyyyyeah, it's huge. It's one of those fight-with-it-your-whole-life realizations and now I'm in the well-now-what-do-I-do stage, which is I guess a big improvement. Nevertheless, in the face of revelation, it's a waste of life to insist on antiquated behavior. Right now, I'm just letting myself feel and act more like my truth, I'll deal with the body once I get that down. It'll be baby steps all the way, but I already feel a thousand percent more awesome!

 

[albertaboy]

Good luck

 

[Bramblethorn]

Good luck with it all!

 

[Black13]

Thanks! Well, it's been a week aaaaaand, really everything that's happening is in my own head. What am I thinking? How do I do this? What does it involve? A lot of reading and research, lack of sleep and boring soul-searching
So, I'm balding, and I have no idea what HRT and other stuff can do to help that, but I'm also not sure that I mind. Anyone ever see the first Star Trek motion picture? The droning mock-Kubrick one with Ilea, the Deltan? I would totally rock the bald if I could do that! Or Ripley from Alien 3. Or wigs…
The possibilities are endless

So, some food for thought: How many aspiring or professional cello players are there in the world? Google searching, there were about 1200 professional orchestras as of 1998, with cello sections of anywhere from 8-12. We'll say 10 on average, making 12,000 cellos in orchestras. Now, there's more for a cello to do for money than play in an orchestra, so we'll say (completely unscientifically) that there are 5 times more professional or semi-professional cellists, making 60,000. Not all who aspire, however, will become. From what I've seen coming out of music school and keeping in touch with fellow alumni, about one in ten actually stay the course and don't pursue other things. This would mean about 600,000 aspiring and/or succeeding cellists in the world. There are 7 billion people in the world, which makes this about 1 in every 12,000 people in this world who identify somehow as a cellist. Shit, let's be lenient and say 1 out of every 5,000 right?
Hokay, that was a lot of math, and admittedly not scientific. One out of every 5,000 (ish?) people in the world would identify as a cellist.
Now let's do another quick Google search: "Transgender demographics." The number is somewhere between 1 in 300 and 1 in 500. Let's take the smaller ratio.

1 in 500 people admittedly identify as transgender; 1 in 5,000 identify as cellists. So, what do we do when someone identifies as a cellist? We give them a cello.