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I have always been skinny. Rail thin. When I was growing up in a small hockey town in Canada I felt incomperably small next to the other guys. I used to wear baggy clothes and hoodies just to make myself look bigger in the hopes that anyone who thought I'd be an easy target for bullying would think twice about it - and that usually worked. I've also always been tall. When I was 12 years old I had my growth spurt which left me 6 feet tall and head and shoulders above all my friends and classmates. I didn't gain any weight at the time and after a number of fainting spells my doctors told me to stay off my feet for a while - my heart simply couldn't take what was going on. When I was in highschool I can still remember how much I weighed because any time I weighed myself I would come up with the same number. 156 lbs. After I first moved out I was in a content relationship and wasn't taking care of myself very well through film school. Over a few years eventually my girlfriend started teasing me about my "belly" which I was surprisingly self concious about! Even though secretly I did like the fact that it was fairly well distributed and even gave me a bit of curve, when I finally weighed myself I was up at 190 lbs. After we seperated my weight was a big point of self-consciousness for me - which, in hindsight, was really the least of my problems. So I started biking daily, I gave up soda and tried to start eating better. At the point where I was feeling the most confident of course was when the rest of my problems took hold and before long I was living the drugs and party lifestyle. When I finally had to look in the mirror I was not much more than skin and bones. This was also around the time I decided to transition. Conveniently I was so skinny that any clothes that I wore did most of the work in making me passable as a woman - my face has always been on the feminine side anyways. (one of my girlfriends jokes that in past pictures of me it looks like I'm a lesbian wearing a fake beard, LOL) Needless to say that I was enjoying the attention I was getting from men around that time. A friend of mine put on a Mental Asylum themed burlesque show and asked me to perform for it. I through a number of costume changes I was asked to come home with one guy before he realized I was a drag queen (- on three seperate occasions!). I continued to rollerblade almost 10 km daily to keep myself so skinny. I was down to 140 pounds. However - these days, 2 years into horomone therapy I'm getting frustrated by the polarized opinions. In particular one ex-partner who insisted I put on some weight so that my body would be more feminine. Xe insisted that if I put on 10 lbs it would go to all the right places and I would feel more confident. At that time however, I had found that being so so skinny was becoming difficult working on a movie set. I simply didn't have the strength to do the long hours and heavy lifting. I added a bit more meat to my diet and now I am at... 156 lbs. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with this decision. Back when I first started my transition I even said to myself, "If I want to be a passable woman I am going to have to be a bigger woman." - I am incredibly lean for the amount of muscle on me, but still much too broad for a woman so skinny. But at the same time allowing myself to be feminine has been the first time I've ever felt comfortable, even good, being so thin! Especially knowing inside that I am able to "keep up with the boys" on set. My work mates tease me about how skinny I am but these days it doesn't bother me. If I squeeze through a tight space they'll tell me to have another donut or they'll say I "need the extra piece of dessert"when we are going through the lunch line. Other people joke that, "that's going to go strait to your hips!" with a friendly laugh - I usually reply, "I could use some more weight there!" My endocrynologist mentioned at my last appointment that he was "expecting more development at this stage" and added that, "there might be more if I was someone with more body fat," adding as well, "but you do have that 'athletic woman' look that we talked about". I want to be more comfortable in my own skin. But knowing that every woman on the planet picks and pines over their bodies makes me feel a little more at ease. When I was dating women I prefered bigger girls. Is that why I don't feel comfortable as an althetic woman? Then why won't I let myself be a bigger one? My ex-partner tells me I shoulg give it a go to see what happens and that the results are reversable. He's right. My endo also tells me my metabolism is "through the roof". I imagine it will be for at least a few more years still, being in my mid-late 20s. TL;DR - Does anyone have experience with adding weight this late into a transition? I think my main fear is that it's going to go to all the wrong places - which is silly considering that even before hormones it made me more curvy. Maybe it just feels weird that I'm self concious about how skinny I am and I feel like I should just relax? Maybe - just like before - there's more to it than that and I'm fixated on the wrong things. Maybe that scares me the most x) This felt good to get off my chest though. I'll leave you now with pictures for comparison. Here's me as I am now - and me at my heaviest.

When my dysphoria started becoming too much to handle on my own, I confided in a trans friend. She's been extremely supportive over the last few weeks and I honestly don't think I could have even started to make peace with my feelings without her support. I'm starting to buy some clothes that I can wear when I'm alone. One of the biggest things holding me back is trying to change my thinking from "I want to be a woman" to "I am a woman." When I'm in girl mode, it's easier to make that distinction. I've talked to my friend about that and she said she had a similar experience. She asked if I wanted her to change pronouns for me. I didn't at first, but I eventually became comfortable enough. I even started changing to girl mode at her place. When I was able to look at myself in the mirror and feel like I was looking at a woman, I was excited and wanted to show her. Somehow the topic of dating came up. I've actually had a bit of a crush on her for a while now, since before we started talking about these things. It turns out she felt the same way. We've been dating for about a week now and I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. When we're alone, she refers to me as her girlfriend and uses my chosen name. She cleared all of that with me because she knows I find it difficult to think of myself as a woman, but it's not as difficult when I'm with her. She respects my boundaries and she doesn't push any issues that I'm uncomfortable with. I'm in a little bit of disbelief over all of this. I was so stressed and miserable for so long, and now I'm in a relationship with an incredible woman, I'm actually happy most of the time now, and I can see she's happy too. I don't usually like writing about my life if I'm not ending on a question or observation, but right now, I'm giving myself permission to gush a little. I'm a secret lesbian. Don't tell anyone.

I started the process for my name and gender change the last week of last November which took five weeks. The gender part in short (I did write about this before) is allowed before surgery by a therapist on a special DMV list. In the month of January I did my social security card, all my credit cards, bank checks (did not arrive till after I returned from California) and PayPal account. Today the final card arrived, my insurance card. Wish I had this card before surgery simply because there were some additional fees billed to me by the hospital because they had no insurance listed and had to make several calls to get things right. I have two doctors, one for primary care, one to assist with HRT. Two dentist, one primary and one for deep cleaning, an optometrist also. All of these needed to be updated. Oh, my electrolysis and hair stylist. Those all were in person. Dang, one more, the electric company who wanted me to do the change at their office. The electric company closed out my current account and opened a new account. By closing the old account I got a check for $272.45 but gave that to my daughter. All in all it took just about three months to change all the documents. It could had taken longer but I was driven, when an opportunity presented itself I would take a day or half day off to do what needed to be done. Really despised weekends a lot as they slowed me down, so did two weeks in December for the holidays. If I had not been driven my guess is I would still be doing name changes. So I am 99% sure all remnants of my old make identity is gone. Soon as I hit the publish button another one will surface.

I am still on sick leave but went into work yesterday to try out my new username for signing into the local network. Talked to my boss, told him that I most likely would not be back next week as Marci's office has not given me a letter to return to work yet. He was fine with that. He then said, could you please write something up for your business partners whom do not know about your transition. I told him that I already did this. He then asked if I would write something up for our IT division, I replied, no problem if you would send the message out which he agreed too and did before leaving, asked him to review it, he said it would work. I did include a paragraph on the topic of me using the female restrooms in that I symphonize with those who might have issues or concerns and that I did get approval from human resources to use any restroom I felt comfortable with. I could actually still use the male restrooms but not going there and sticking to female restrooms only While there I talked to a few people that knew of my transition but had not talked with them yet and they treated me no different than before transitioning. One thing I am having troubles with is that some call me ma'am which to me feels old so my thing will be to ask them to simply call me Karen. There is one employee whom I have been working with for 20 years and saw him yesterday talking to other people, waved at him but he did not wave back and I thought he was not okay with my transition but about ten minutes later he came over, shook my hand and said "Hi Karen", when you have time I want to talk to you about a guitar I am buying and said yes. I spent about one hour talking with my team members (three of them) about things being worked on and that they ran into an interesting problem that they could not find a solution for then remembered I gave a code sample two months ago, from the code example they easily figured out how to remedy the issue at hand which made me feel good. Joked around a bit also which showed me they really have no problems with my transition. Looking forward to when I can get back to work.

It's a wonderful day, today. My wife is away this morning on business and while I miss her I have the opportunity to be myself for a couple of hours. After my shower I dressed with some feminine underthings (well concealed by layers of more masculine apparel) and headed out to our regular Sunday haunts, the coffee shop in Palo Alto, Trader Joe's, and the farmer's market, where I picked up long-stemmed tulips, a couple of heads of lettuce, some fresh asparagus, and cauliflower. Now, I'm at my computer, having changed into my dress, and listening to a Karla Bonoff "best of" album. Life feels pretty good at the moment. Later today I'll head back out to buy some fish for tonight's dinner, and after, we'll dive back into a couple of episodes of House of Cards and a rather large bowl of popcorn. This week will definitely be interesting. On Wednesday evening we have a couple's meeting with my therapist. Thinking about it now I'm a bit apprehensive but I think it will be okay. Thursday afternoon I have a 1:1 meeting with the same therapist. He asked me to bring my small collection of female clothing, which I plan to do. We didn't talk about what the goal is but I assume that by doing that I'll further see through experience that I am really okay. On Thursday evening I will attend the monthly TG support group. Last week I bought some black ballet flats on Amazon which actually fit! (I did a fair amount of research into foot measurements, and took an educated guess of my size which turned out to be 11M. Here's a funny aside: I measured my left foot's length and width to determine the size; I learned later when I received the shoes that my right foot is slightly larger. It still fits okay but I'm trying to stretch it a little with a shoe tree.) For the meeting I plan on wearing some black tights under my jeans and then change into my ballet flats nearby, for the meeting and dinner afterward. They say we should take baby steps and I know by many measures these are indeed small steps. It's great to have something to look forward to. Have a nice week! Emma * Illustration from Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers