8/18/2022 0 Comments If You Must Go: Poem by StilesI tried to steal some serotonin from the sun
Laid in the scolding warmth till my back burned Much too shy to face it I pretended not to know what words meant That they meant anything at all Life is easier without meaning Just much less like life Just much less worth it I damned the stars They’re too bright But not enough like the sun Not enough Not enough
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8/10/2022 0 Comments Coming OutI have always had a lot of confliction centering wanting to talk publicly about being queer. There’s a lot of personal reasons for that some of which I don’t feel like I want to share right now honestly but, growing up I always found solace and permission I needed to be who I am from other people who were willing to tell their story. And it didn’t have to be nicely done or wrapped up neatly. Sometimes the stories that stayed with me the most were messy and ranty and emotional and dark and uncut.
I’ve had a lot of blogs over the years. Video blogs and written blogs, websites and Tumblrs. You could probably still find some of them. While I’ve never particularity thought I was the smoothest blogger a few of you have liked them. If you remember any of those, ya know thanks for listening to my messy twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen year old feelings. I’m twenty one now and next month is my birthday and around that time I always feel like- Like I’m trying to figure out how I want to start writing the next chapter of a book. And I think every year I say…fuck it to something new. So this year I’m saying fuck it to content creation and I’m gonna try and really throw myself out of my comfort zone and into where I want to be. I have a lot of ideas and often times I find myself too scared or too down on myself to actually execute them. I want that to change. And get it or don't, this is my step one in doing so. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell people I’m trans since I was sixteen years old. Really since before then because honestly I didn’t even know how to tell myself till then. Like a lot of people in the LGBT+ community, it took a long time for me to have the language to put to all of the things that I was feeling. I got it wrong a lot but that’s not really the story I’m trying to tell right now. Maybe someday I’ll say fuck it to that too. Maybe it’ll just live in my books. I’ve found that I don’t think there’s an easier way than just saying it. I’m trans. It gets easier to say, I know some of you reading this might think that’s bullshit because while I really hoped so. Just last year I thought it was bullshit. That’s okay though. It’s the truth. I don’t think I’ve ever like- formally come out online. Which is so crazy to me because I thought about how I’d do that a lot as a kid growing up seeing so many coming out videos that I’d comfort myself with at night. I know for a fact there are a lot of people who follow or know me that don’t know despite some of the things I’ve posted. So I guess this is that post. I kinda thought it’d be easier to know what I wanted to say here but I kinda feel like I’m just word vomiting and trying my best to keep from boring you to death. Editing is gonna be a bitch later. I think a lot of people would say that I started my transition one year ago on March 17th when I took my first testosterone shot. But really, I started it in December when I was fifteen at a sleepover and after agonizing over it all day finally gave my friend a note that was far too long but basically said I was too afraid to say it out loud, I’m trans and I understood if she didn’t want me in her house because I was a boy. And while I think part of it was some attempt to ask her to treat me the same way she would any other guy friend, for the most part, I just expected rejection. When I sat on my bed a few days later on the phone with the friend I’d called that I had no idea why I’d called not saying a word. Until I finally told her that after all those observations they’d made about how they had never seen me happier than when we did a larp (that’s live action roleplay for you noobs) where the whole day I got to be a boy named Micheal, the questions about why I hated anything girly so vehemently and had no problems with the girls in my school groups saying I looked like a boy and teasing me for being so guyish, and after months of playing with gender expression in secret and making accounts no one knew about where I’d let everyone assume I was a boy. I was sure that I’m not a girl but I wasn’t entirely sure I was a normal boy either. I’ve come out to a lot of people sporadically over the years. Some dismissed it and forgot, I guess thinking it would pass (hah, bet ya’ll are pretty surprised). But thankfully a lot of the first few I told quickly became rocks in a storm for me. When I was a little kid I was obsessed with Hannah Montana and I truly believed that living two lives was the easiest way to be able to be yourself but still survive in the world. I got to do that, for six years, and it sucked. I had people who knew, and around most of them I could breathe for a brief moment when we were alone. But we had to keep everything quiet, I had secret wardrobe hidden behind my closet and at friends houses. Bought myself my first binders the moment I got my first paycheck at seventeen and had to wash them in the shower and wear a jacket before I left the house so no one could tell the huge difference it made. I volunteered at the local GSA (Major shoutout to Jasmyn JAX y’all are the literal best) so I could have a safe space to breathe without having to worry so much about if people found out. Stayed with the one friend who’s mum I told as a practice run for telling my own parents and who immediately took me in as another son. I had pockets where I could exist, but I didn’t feel like I really did. I think one thing baby me was not paying attention to with Hanna, was just how exhausting it is to live a double life. It took a lot out of me, but I was too afraid of what would happen if I stopped keeping the secret. The career I wanted was public, not everyone in my life was understanding or kind about trans people, and the world certainly was not. So I stayed quiet and I got more depressed and life got harder. It’s thanks to the support from some really amazing people in my life that in a new December in 2020, I finally started the process of bringing my two worlds together. Really? It felt like destroying them both. I could sugar coat things, and I could lie like a lot, and I thought about it because I really don’t want this to be something that discourages people from doing what I did. But…some of the messier stories helped me do this the most. People telling me it would all be okay isn’t what made me start to come out of my proverbial closet. It was people who told me that I was strong enough to get through it being shit, and that I wouldn’t have to be strong alone. It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of tears and yelling and growing pains. I felt like I couldn’t be myself and I’d taken a hundred steps back. So I went to therapy. And I talked to my friends SO MUCH like if you got eight brick walls of text from me in the middle of the fucking night and answered you are literally my favourite fucking person. My favourite thing my therapist told me was when I told her I was afraid to leave my house in a dress after just coming out and insisting that no one use she/her pronouns for me, that I was scared I’d be judged or not taken seriously. She said “That’s their problem. Why should you be worried about it?” and I have internalized that fully. It was difficult to tell my mother I was changing my name. It never felt like mine, but it was something she gave me. And after twenty years I knew it would be hard to give back. But this was a year of learning to do things for myself, because I need too. I spent the past six years transitioning slowly, like a dripping faucet in winter, and suddenly I was turning up the water. I started a book around the same time to deal with all those messy trans feelings and in the book one of the biggest transitions is really that one character teaches my main character how to be selfish. I could never finish it, and I realize it’s because they were teaching me too and I hadn’t finished learning yet. My name feels like the most important part of that journey because it changed so many times and the first iterations took me a long time to realize weren’t as much for me as to comfort people around me. I’d gone by one name for maybe five years before what you all know me as. Funny enough, Nico was a nickname that I clung to because it felt like me and I wished it was my name. Then I realized, that’s up to me. It took for fucking ever but my full name means, Victor of the people, creator of his own joy. And that makes me feel strong. It reminds me that I am. So if you’re trying to pick a name and thinking “Man I wish that could be me” just fucking go for it mate. It can. It probably already is and you just don’t even know it yet. We always know ourselves better than we think we do. All those things we wish we were, that we identify with and don't really know why. It’s because they’re in us. We are everything we want to be and everything we think we could never be but fuckin wish for every day. We already have it in us. We know that we just can’t always see it. Believe yourself. A few months into the process of changing my name, I called up Planned Parenthood to discuss hormone replacement therapy. And let me tell you they are so fucking important to the community. I’ve always believed that they need to be protected. I’ve never felt more comfortable and taken care of at a medical facility than there. I was so nervous about starting and literally felt like I was gonna have like a breakdown in the waiting room but they played music and the pictures on the walls smiled and I read a book (pretended to read a book) and tried not to like- cry. Which I had been doing earlier. I was like an hour late for my appointment it was a DISASTER getting there I had missed my bus I didn’t ask my friend to take me cause I figured I’d take an uber or lyft NEITHER APP wanted to give me a ride because during this pandemic we’ve had a huge driver shortage so I was in tears thinking I’d miss my appointment and a bunch of stuff was going on that day and I was at my end. I finally got a fucking cab which cost me so much fucking money oh my gods and I was panicking lowkey in the back seat because I was having one of my “I’m an idiot I’m making a terrible mistake the doctor is gonna look at me and be like I know you aren’t trans AHHH” freak outs that you don’t know about but in my tiny circle of trustees I am fucking famous for. So if you’re having one of those let me tell you something I needed to hear often, you live in a society that your mere existence is going against like 80% of what you’ve been taught about how life works. It is OKAY if you’re scared and it is normal to have a little impostor syndrome or go back and forth. Take some time. Think it through. Trust yourself. And HRT is something that a lot of people but not all trans people want. It is a big medical commitment that is a little hard to find definitive info on and we all kinda teach eachother a lot about and you can’t be 1000% sure how will effect you so if you’re nervous even if you’re sure you really want it? Give yourself some grace. If you WEREN’T nervous it would be wild like okay balls of steel. It’s totally normal to be scared of new things. While I’ve had a few doctors I’ll always remember my first who was snarky and fun and treated me like a friend. You rock Dr D. She wrote up my gender marker letter and gave me my prescription with no issues just informed consent. We talked about what changes I wanted to see, how I felt, how long I’d felt that way. Did some basic doc check up stuff. And started me on a really low dose once a week that we’ve since slowly uped in order to find my right dose. Now. I found my perfect dosing at exactly a year into HRT. So it takes time, my Doctor literally said some people it takes longer, so if it takes awhile for your levels to mellow out to a place you and the Doc like, that is also normal. I like to tell you things are normal cause I like to text my friend who’s been medically transitioning longer than I have in the middle of the night “Is this normal or am I dying???????” Maybe three months into HRT on the suggestion of my endo (the hormone doctor) I got a vocal coach. I love her, her name is Anne and she’s helped me a lot with my voice transition being so smooth that I literally barely noticed how much it changed till I did my comparison. My voice was probably the biggest point of dysphoria beside my name especially since much less people ever called me by my birth name in Highschool and partly why it was so hard to keep up with videos. I hated hearing it. Now, I have a lot more voice control so I’m actually like proud of it. My coach helps me with singing aswell which very much makes me happy since out of all that I create, music has kind of always been…it for me in a way I can’t really describe, so being more confident in my singing voice feels like it translates into everything I do. I’m just more confident in general. This is the school if you guys wanna check it out it is online so you can sign up from anywhere. https://www.yourlessonsnow.com I came out at my first job when I was nineteen, before any of this, and while I didn’t experience any real blatant homophobia, I still never felt like a guy. A big part of that was working at a salon no one thought it would be a good idea to be clear about that because they knew I’d lose clients since not all women were comfortable with a man working on them and no one could really understand where while I wanted money sure, I respected that more and both wanted my clients to make that decision themselves and wasn’t interested in compromising myself and who I am because it would make me more money. So I quit. (Fuck capitalism anyway) That’s not at all the only reason but it certainly helped. The next job was complicated, as it tends to be. I was starting hormones and legal name changes at that job, it was the first time I came out during the onboarding. And while I had some issues due more to ignorance about how to deal with certain things and a couple smaller things, I had few issues honestly. A lot of my coworkers were so super kind to the point of correcting guests for me (retail job) and no one walked on eggshells around the subject. The only thing is, when I found that in a workplace, it made me stay longer than I wanted because I didn’t think I ever would again. I tried to leave the job one time and even did a training interview at another store (paid don’t worry folks it was a fight but I got that check for every moment. Never work for free.) where I ended up quitting after the on-boarding because I was told to my face by the manager “You look like a chick so don’t expect me to be mad if people call you one.” Among a whole slew of other insanely inappropriate things to say to another human being. So I left. Ghosted a little, called and asked for a check. While I was livid, I was also scared. Was that all I could expect in the working world? Did I have the best I was gonna get working at a crappy retail job for minimum wage that I barely wanted to wake up for anymore? It was another couple months before I left. Worked the Holiday season at a higher paying retail job that was also pretty crappy and honestly probably violating a lot of OSHA guidelines frighteningly enough. Then got a job where I work now. And let me tell you. You don’t have to deal with “a few issues” there’s always better. Because this is much better. I was terrified to branch out, and I will not lie to you it took a long ass time to get this job my Indeed box looked like a warning sign just red X’s of rejection everyyyyywhere. Some of the companies that did wanna hire me when I looked into how they treated LGBT employees??? Hahahaha no. Please Google these mofos before you take a job. And now this post isn’t about where I work but I think it feels relevant so I will say a bit about that. I work as a Community Engagement Associate for an App called Quirkchat where I get to make content (kinda like this) talking about nerdy geeky shit and figure out fun and interesting ways to well engage the community. I really love my job because I’m not just told that I’m appreciated, I’m shown it. And me being trans? Is literally never an issue. Not even discussed outside of things like when I bring it up for a topic because the reason I really wanted to work for the company is the focus on including people like me. The geek community can be brutal for us Queer folk of colour. I wanna change that, and so does the rest of the team at Quirk. Having those pockets where I could be myself was all that got me through the past few years, and I want to make sure everyone has those. So now I’m here. Obviously that’s not everything, and it’s been a long time so while this is a long post think how six years of transitioning was? Whoof. I’ve been on HRT for over a year, I did my shot last night actually my bandaid has Charazard on it so I’m very content. My family all know and if you think little siblings have a hard time? You’re so wrong cause my twelve year old sister is like my biggest supporter. If she could have a trans flag cheerleader uniform I really think she would. It’s been a really long journey, and it isn’t over. Cause it kinda never really is. You never really stop coming out, because you’re always meeting new people aren’t you? But I mean I never stop telling people I like cheese either. It’s just a fact about me. Like any other. I eventually want top surgery, I’ll probably be on HRT my whole life, and I think I’ve decided I wanna share my journey with the interwebs. Partly for me, because I’m big into documenting, I still go back and look through my old blogs from years ago. And partly because seeing things like this meant a lot to me as a kid, so even if there’s just like, one kid out there somewhere, reading this under the covers so no one knows and like…I dunno feeling something. Or one parent who needs to get it starting to understand and maybe feel a little more secure that their kid can be happy still. Then it all feels worth it. I realize in all this I never really explained what I meant by I don’t feel like a normal boy, and if I go too far into it gods this is gonna be too long. It is already long as fuck. But I’ll sum it up a little and maybe talk at length in another post. Hi, my name’s Nic. Or Stiles. Or Izzac. Or that weird red headed bitch I’ve answered to that one a couple times too. My pronouns are he/they and I’m trans masculine nonbinary. I know, a lot of words. I think there are a lot of words that could sum me up. But I’m okay with that. It feels like that’s how it should be. I’m queer, and I’m actually really fucking proud of that. And that’s normal too. Till next time. Signing off, Stiles. |
AuthorNico Vazquez. Archives
September 2022
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