Steps to Become a Man

Step 1. Find yourself trapped in a woman's body

Step 2. Spend years and thousands in counselling, paying an educated quack to try to figure out what's wrong with you - when you already know.

Step 3. Get diagnosed with a "mental illness"

Step 4. Live as your true self while still wearing the woman's body, strapping your chest down and fighting the people who tell you that you can't use the men's washroom, shop in the men's department, even though you have been living as one.

Step 5. Begin taking weekly shots, suffering not only the indignity of having to "shoot up" every week, but the ache of reforming bones, the looks as the timbre of your voice changes, cracking and squeaking, skin covered in acne, though you're well past puberty.

Step 6. Wait a year until the shots become "dangerous to your health" so that they will perform the surgery to remove your reproductive organs, freeing you from the monthly reminder of your birth that may not have stopped with the shots.

Step 7. Scrimp and save, though it's harder for you to get a job these days, so that you can afford to finally remove that bind and have the deadly lumps removed. Hope that your skin is versitile and the scars that might betray you heal well.

Step 8. Spend months and money arguing with the government so that you can legally be the man you know you were born to be, officially removing the letter "F" from your legal documents and changing your name to that perfect one, the one you chose with love and care to be your own.

Step 9. Live.

There is a reason transmen are better men. If biological men had to fight this much, they'd be better men too.

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel

New

Things that are new this week:

A new "relationship"
Ok so it's not exactly new and it's not exactly a relationship, but it's a good thing, even if it's just being figured out right now. We're deciding on boundries and are in agreement on everything so far. He's trans so it's it's really important to him that he's not in anything committed until after his transition, which I fully understand. I've heard alot of people say that when they started to transition, their relationship failed. But it's good. I really like him, he's amazingly sweet and seems to genuinely care, which I'm still getting used to. I've had people pretend to care before (see: D) and it's taken some time to get back to where I can actually believe it.

A new job
Temporary, but it means that until the company I'm working for can find a new receptionist, I am officially working 68+ hours a week (this depends on whether or not I pick up Fridays. If so, it'll be 76 hours). And since they need to find someone with Simply Accounting, I may be here awhile (I looooove having a computer at work that I'm allowed to use during break time!)

A new blog
I've started a blog specifically for my dirty dirty writing. Lots of lesbians and vampires and bondage, so go check it out. I'll be starting to post sometime this week or next. Not from work obviously lol.

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel

Pride and Prejudice...

I am proud because I have aquired a second, if temporary job, working as a secretary at a company that builds incredible homes. I am proud because my close friend is working a job that he loves and because he can walk taller at that job with the bind I gave him. I am proud of my friends that are deeply in love and planning to get engaged.

I am proud of myself for getting into my school of choice and not giving into the emotional pressure that begged me not to bother trying. I am proud of myself for being strong and standing up to the people that were hurting me, even if they turned against me in the end.

I am proud of the friends that have ignored the rumors and the lies and stood by me. I am proud of those who have showed they are true and ashamed that I was blinded by the false ones who so readily believe and spread hate about me.

I am tired of the prejudice against me because I spoke my mind against my roommate who sat around like a lump in my home for next to no rent, not working, not cleaning up after anything unless I got angry at her, while I worked so she could eat, so we had electricity and internet (which she used guiltlessly). I am tired of people thinking that I mistreated her when I, at the suggestion of a "friend" asked her to leave my home. I was wrong in telling her to get out before the end of the weekend, but she was abusing my trust and my home and I corrected my misdeeds by allowing her as long as she needed (which turned out to be nearly three months) to get her things out of my apartment.

I am tired of being judged on my mistakes and not the good deeds that I try to do. I am tired of having to keep my mouth shut when people start to badmouth my friends because I'm so worried about telling them that they are wrong, because my honesty has been my undoing.

I try to remember the good in my life. I have three people that I am seeing, not dating, just spending good playful time with, I am due to attend an amazing school in March to further my career in photography, and I will be capable of paying for the rest of my body modifications before I return to school.

But the bad... the hatred and the whispers, the accusation that I ruined the relationship of my two friends because we are having fun together (all three of us, no exclusions), my so called childhood friend making me into a villian who mistreats her when I am simply calling her out on her own bad behavior... it seems so much bigger. And I am afraid because I don't know how much longer I can fight it off.

Love and Kisses,
Andro Angel