Was at the doctor this morning for my monthly check-up.
My blood work is progressing along nicely.
He doesn’t think that the collapse that I had last month had anything to do with me being on anti-depressants or taking estrogen for my hormone therapy.
I’ve had a long running history of syncope. BP was 112 over 73. Not bad.
And my liver seems okay with the estrogen.
My testosterone results were online at the time of my appointment and they were around 1.1. I’d like to get those down as low as possible, but we’ll have to wait and see whether I can do this chemically or if I can do this surgically.
So, I’ve graduated up to three patches twice a week. That’s 150 microgram of estradiol per day. Whooo-Hoooo!
My most recent blood test revealed that I am at 479 pmol/l which is the same as a woman in her early 20s
I’m aiming to go for an estradiol level of 800 pmol/l which is about 210 pg/ml. This is equivalent to a woman in her late 20s.
Puberty to maturity in less than 6 months.
And then there’s going to be the eventual tapering off.
My body is old. Usually human bodies only undergo one sexual development and maturity per lifetime. Putting my body through a second sexual development and maturity is gonna be tough on it.
Is it worth it?
I think so.
I get a taste of what could have been.
I realize that there was absolutely no way that I could have transitioned early in life, especially not as a kid living on Canadian Armed Forces bases.
And even in my adult life, there would have been very few chances I could have had to have transitioned previously.
In a way, no matter how much psychological trauma I had to endure being involved with the Canadian Armed Forces “justice” system from 2011 until 2020, I wouldn’t have ever been able to contemplate transitioning until I came to realize just how damaged and fucked up the Canadian Armed Forces are and how as an organization they’re willing to destroy the lives of those they deem to be inconsequential so long as the CAF can persevere its public image.
Once I realized just how ethically damaged and psychologically challenged members of the Canadian Armed Forces such as Colonel Daniel Edward Munro, Captain Terry Totzke, and Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill were I began to realize that all of the hose shit that Captain Totzke and Mcpl Gill had shovelled into my head from age 9 to age 16 was nothing more that the military’s standard bullshit that was deployed to keep secrets.
As I said previously, when my brother called me in 2019 to let me know that Richard had died in 2017, I felt an honest sense of relief knowing that the silly fucker was dead and gone.
And that was when I started putting some serious thought into transitioning.
Well, as you should know, I started hormone therapy back in May of 2024. I really didn’t have the opportunity to do this sooner in life no matter how much I wanted to. And with 2027 coming up I figured that this was the only chance that I was ever going to have to transition.
May 2024
May 2024 was when I started. This blood test was to establish what my base hormone levels were.
June 2024
June was the first blood test after I had started taking estradiol. My testosterone levels were cut just over half. Estrogen was starting to make its presence felt.
July 2024
The July blood test showed a nice jump in estrogen levels. By this point in time I had noticed that my facial hair growth had slowed down, my skin was a lot softer, fat on my body was squishier, and I was starting to grow breasts.
August 2024
The August tests show that my estrogen levels can stand to go a little higher. Hopefully the “results are pending” for my testosterone levels indicate that my testosterone levels are so low that they’re running the samples again to make sure that they’re not misreading the results.
It’s going to take a few months for the changes to really start to set in.
I’m going to reside somewhere in between the worlds of male and female. Never wanted to be male, but won’t be 100% female either.
What kept me from transitioning earlier in life?
I would have to say wholeheartedly the environment that I spent my childhood within.
This was Canadian Armed Forces policy from 1973 until 1994.
Yes, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence will both wholeheartedly point out that I was not a member of the Canadian Forces. But my father, master corporal Richard Gill was. My social worker, Captain Terry Totzke was.
A report that was commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces in 1996 and released in 2001 entitled “Canadian Forces Response to Spousal Abuse in Military Families” had a few interesting things to say that might explain how catastrophic CFAO 19-20 was toward me.
I have never been able to find a corresponding report on violence against children in military communities.
Military social workers were seen by many to be “company employees”. And that they were. They were officers within the chain of command. They had rank over members such as my father, plus they also had to answer to their own superiors.
Military social workers were often lacked the credentials required to be a civilian social worker, and often simply remustered from other branches of the military. This was the same for military police back in the day. You didn’t join the Canadian Forces specifically to be a military police officer or a member of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit. You could simply transfer from another completely and totally unrelated branch of the military if you decided that you wanted to be a member of the military police.
So…….. here we have Captain Totzke, instructed by his training in the Canadian Forces that ANY sexual abnormality was an undesirable mental illness that needed to be eliminated from the Canadian Forces at any cost, and here we have me, fresh off of CFB Namao and fresh from the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal in which the military police, the CFSIU, and the base commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro knew not only about Captain Father Angus McRae having committed “acts of homosexuality” with children on the base. But the military also knew full well about the actions of the babysitter.
No doubt the military rationalized that we were all homosexuals.
If Captain Totzke didn’t really have any type of credentials for social work, this might explain why his actions were completely baffling to my civilian social workers. Might also explain why he thought that it was completely appropriate to threaten me with arrest by the military police if I ever kissed or touched another boy on base.
As far as the military was concerned, there was no difference between us kids down at the lower age spectrum, and the 14 year old babysitter, and the 50 something chaplain. We were all guilty of committing the criminal code offence of Gross Indecency , which was the crime of two males having sex.
So yeah, it would be safe to say that the Canadian Armed Forces, CFAO 19-20, captain Terry Totzke, master corporal Richard Wayne Gill, and pretty well the entire military hierarchy enforced by the National Defence Act slammed me into the closet, and slammed the door shut.
I’m almost 100% certain that the abuse at the hands of the babysitter and McRae on CFB Namao had no effect on my gender identity nor my orientation.
I’m of the belief, and science backs this up, that gender and gender identity rely on more than just XX or XY chromosomes. There’s the timing and levels of hormones released in the foetus, there’s the mother’s exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, and there’s just good ol’ variations presented by the expression of the genes.
The human foetus, just like the foetus of most mammals, is predisposed to become female.
This is why you can’t generally scan for the gender of a foetus before 10 to 11 weeks as all foetuses will appear to be female.
If the foetus has XX chromosomes its gonads will develop into ovaries, which will then start secreting minute amounts of estrogen which will allow the foetus to keep developing towards female.
If the foetus has XY chromosomes its gonads will develop into testicles, which will then start secreting minute amounts of androgens. This will halt the development of female external and internal reproductive organs, and start forming masculine reproductive organs. The brain of the foetus will undergo masculinization.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are both “hard coded” in utero.
If the brain didn’t have orientation or identity hardwired into it, human reproduction would have been almost absolutely impossible.
Nobody goes to school to learn how to have sex.
The brain is hardwired for this.
Only ignorant institutions or ignorant people would think that gender identity or sexual orientation are something that someone chooses on a whim
Well, it’s Pride Weekend here in Vancouver. My apartment sits right on the parade route which is on Beach Ave to Pacific Ave this year. Meanwhile I’m over at a nice little coffee shop on the south side of False Creek over by 2nd Ave.
As I’ve said before, the commercialization and the promotion of alcohol have always been turn-offs for me.
And then there’s the do nothing politicians like Hedy Fry that wrap themselves up in the gay pride flag for votes, but then come up with every flimsy excuse for their inability to help their constituents with governmental issues.
If that’s the one benefit of having grown up in a dysfunctional household on various Canadian Forces Bases across Canada is the fact that I learnt very young that I’m on my own and there’s literally no help coming from anyone.
In fact, I learnt very young that I’m better off just keeping my mouth shut as people in positions of authority don’t like finding out that there are problems and that these persons in position of authority are more than likely to blame me for bringing the issue to their attention as they are to actually do something about the issue. The “squeaky wheel” syndrome where instead of fixing the issue that caused the squeaky wheel, you just pump on massive amounts of grease until the squeaky wheel stops squeaking whether or not the underlying issue is fixed.
So no, I’ve never felt any benefit from the “community” or a need to “belong” to the community. Especially not a community that is extremely selective with its chosen “cause célèbre”. And not a community that is extremely protective of lame duck politicians because said politicians wrap themselves up in the pride flag and wave from a float in a parade.
Queers, gays, lesbians, trans, bi, and other people on the gender spectrum have existed since time immemorial. This need to be officially sanctioned by the local LGBTQ+ community is something relatively new.
When I first came down to Vancouver in February of 1992 to apply for a job in Burnaby, I knew that there was something different about Vancouver. When I got back to Deadmonton later that week, my mind was made up. Into the dumpster went all of my furniture, gave the keys back to the landlord, and off to Vancouver I went.
Of course I migrated towards the West End. But sadly when “queer went mainstream” the West End changed. The GLBTQ+ crowd that could, moved away. The Pride Parade at the same time went from being a massive “fuck you!” to the society in general that shat all over the queer community because the church told them to, to being a massive corporate advertising campaign for banks and booze.
And I don’t ever see this changing.
And now that the GLBTQ+ crowd has had a taste of acceptance, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep that acceptance, even if it means no longer making society feel uncomfortable about issues involving the GLBTQ+ crowd.
A trans teen goes missing from a Canadian Forces Base and no one bats an eyelash when their body is found in a river near the base.
Someone brings to light the fact that the Canadian Forces gave conversion therapy to the victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse due to the assumption by military social workers that male-on-male child sexual abuse was nothing more than homosexuality. Not one single fucking person cares.
This isn’t a community. This is just an excuse to get shit faced and wear glitter in a parade.
My blood work looked fine, so I’ve graduated from 50 microgram patches to 100 microgram patches.
And we’ll do the same thing in a month’s time. I’ll got for another blood test. And if my liver isn’t showing any signs of not liking the estrogen, then I can graduate to 150 micrograms. And so on and so on.
The goal is to get my testosterone down to around 1.9 nmol/L while getting my estradiol levels up to around 500 pmol/L without going over 700 pmol/L.
Should be an interesting ride for the next few months.
Well, I realized that the results of my latest blood test were posted on my health account for me to view.
At first I was a little concerned as when I logged in the system said that there was a test that was outside of normal limits.
Not sure what was wrong, I clicked on the link to see my lab results.
The Alanine Aminotransferase at 16 indicates that my liver seems to be doing fine.
The estradiol at 179 pmol/L indicates that I have elevated levels of estrogen in my blood stream, but not yet near the upper limits for men. For trans females the ideal range for estradiol in my blood stream will be 367–734 pmol/L so I can stand to go up some more.
But the reading that I am the happiest about, and it is the reading that got flagged by the system, is my testosterone levels. At 4.95 nmol/l I’m below the range acceptable for males which is 6.30 nmol/l at the lower limit. The target for this seems to be 3.4 nmol/L to 1.04 nmol/L.
So, I’ll have to see which way things go on my visit to my doctor next week.
Hopefully I can get my estradiol dosage upped a little.
And it would be nice to look at the possibility of androgen blockers.
Well, one thing that I’ve noticed over the past few weeks is how soft my skin is now.
Since I started taking estrogen a few weeks ago my skin has become noticeably softer and smoother.
And yes, this was to be expected, but I didn’t think that it would have been this noticeable.
My breasts are noticeable, but not that noticeable. I’ve seen guys with bigger Molson boobs than what I currently have.
They’re just barely large enough to show through my tops, but they are large enough to snag the shoulder strap of my laptop case.
I don’t think I’ll have to resort to the Judy Blume exercises…….
But hot damn my nipples are super sensitive.
My body fat feels different too. It’s a lot more squishy and jiggly.
Mood?
My mood is different. Can’t quite explain it, but it’s different.
I’ve got an appointment with my doc next week.
See how well my kidneys and liver are taking to the new hormones.
This will be the first of my never ending blood tests and we’ll see how much estrogen was in my bloodstream on the final day of the four day period for my patch.
We’ll decide if I stay with the same patches or if I go up in strength.
And we’ll eventually decide if I go on androgen blockers.
Then I’ll know for sure what the mood difference is between androgen and estrogen.
Sometimes when I go to apply a new patch, the exposed portion of the patch will fold over and touch itself. Because of the adhesive I can’t get that half apart. I wasn’t sure what to do with the 1/2s that were good. Well, I can actually cut off the stuck together part of two different patches and then use the good parts as one patch and cover them with Tegaderm. Just like new!
I’m currently on patch #3, patch #4 will be on Wednesday.
Not too much noticeable in the way of changes, but there are some changes.
My facial hair isn’t growing as fast.
My nipples have started to change shape, and now it feels like there’s an empty void behind them.
And my testicles are smaller.
Other than that I’m still waiting on the muscle loss.
I did go for physio last week and the one thing we noticed is that my muscles aren’t as stiff and tense as they usually are.
I don’t expect the really noticeable changes to start occurring much before June.
June is my vacation month, so I am expecting to go back to work looking a little different than I did before my vacation.
That should be very entertaining……..
A co-worker of mine whom is aware of my blog and my desire for M.A.i.D. has asked me if finally being able to transition will put an end to my desire for M.A.i.D.. I told them that we’d have to wait and see. We’ll have to see what awaits in 2027.
Beeshive 