June & July '98

I AM DEVIN!!!!!

Well, summer has arrived. I bemoan the fact that like the rest of the guys, I cannot go shirtless. That day still remains in my future. Future. Pretty cool after more than a decade of not having one, to be able to think that way. There is a future. Already so many dreams have come true, and what I dreamed of for the future a year ago is beginning to come true now.

The month of June started off with a family affair, the high school graduation of my niece. Here was another chance to get my sister and her daughters used to how it will be the rest of my life. We had a great time the night before, all hanging out, but then the morning came. Everyone was dressed and ready when I came out in my shirt and tie. My nephews looked at me a little strange, my parents told me how nice I looked, as did the one sister who accepts this, but my other sister and her daughters just ignored it. At the graduation, my niece introduced me by my feminine name as I stood there with a shirt and tie, being taken for a guy by everyone who didn't know me. It was very embarrassing. But, I guess that is the way she is dealing. Anyhow, that was another hurdle down, being myself in front of my family.

I also got my first pics in a tie. My dad was cool the first time he saw me with one on, he said "you look more like you than you ever have" unbelievable!!! To be able to get through this with support like that is more than I ever could have hoped for. I just wish I could get my one sister not to feel so threatened by this change. I guess time will take care of that, I just want to feel as easy around her as I do the rest of the family.

Anyhow, on to other things. I had enough of my job, I wasn't going to take lower sales due to management inefficiency. I was sure I could get another pretty quick. Well, it didn't happen. I took a few days off to play and just do what I wanted, and then that stretched out to weeks, and I realized I was depressed again. Still being called She at home, a female name, no way to get a checking account with my old name, I couldn't stand it, having to look for a job under my old name, and no money to get my name changed...blah, blah, blah...

I was sinking back to hopelessness. I was hanging on to this viscous circle. I kept telling myself every night that I would just get any job, just to get the money for a name change, and then get a good job under Devin. But, every morning I was unable to go out of the house looking like a man, feeling like a man and applying for a job as a girl. It caused an old sensation to come back....screaming inside my head. I didn't realize till it stopped, but all my life I have screamed my defiance of the way things were in my head. Every time someone said what a pretty girl, I cried out against it. Every time the guys went one way and the girls another and I had to go with the girls, I screamed to be let go. Well the screaming had stopped for a year. I was happy with what I was doing, who I was. Now the frustration and the screaming were back. I felt unable to cope with so many things again. Old behaviors rearing ugly heads. I was sliding down a pit, and unable to go up.

The love of my life intervened. She didn't judge me and my present behavior, she listened and then reached out to help me out of the pit. She paid for my name change. She took me to job interviews, she gave me hope.

On July 7th, I became legally Devin.
I could hold my head up and write my name on applications. My drivers license followed, my social security card, my voter registration card, library card, oh how great it felt to show my ID. I feel like I have several birthdays. The day I found out I could be a man, the day I started living as a man, and the day I assumed my male name. A year earlier I couldn't imagine how I was going to manage work, friends, home, leisure, all as a man. Today I live it. It seemed so impossible, so many obstacles, so many times you are told you must do this, and that, but it is then made nearly impossible to do so. And it takes so much money. But it is not impossible. Many others have gone before me, and now here I am. So much to go, but so much accomplished.

I found work as a waiter a few blocks from my house, so transportation went to $0, and I started work as a man. My first job as a man. It went pretty well, I was even asked out by one of the young girls...I was liked, accepted, one of the guys. For the first time since I was 5 or 6, I began to feel normal. Nobody or nothing special. Just an average guy, going about my life with its ups and downs just like everyone else. For the most part anyhow. Other guys don't have to get up and bind down a part of their shame every day. They don't have to worry what will happen if anyone finds out. But hey, it's worth it so far to feel like a real person. This is so much better than anything I ever imagined in my past life. I am thankful and happy that this much opportunity to live like I was meant to exists. So it's not perfect, it is better than it was, and will over the years get better.

The one thing that was not so great this month was the inability to find a Dr. to start me on hormones. I called and talked, but no one will take me on. I guess that is a good thing as I just got a new checking account and there is not much money in it. I need to get more financially secure before I commit to another monetary expenditure. I look back at last year and the things I thought would be so hard or impossible, and yet here I am, so I have to trust that I will find the way to get a Dr. and begin the most exciting part. Changing the deformity of my body to a more normal state. Oh how I long for the changes to start. Patience, patience, patience. That's the hardest part.

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