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LONG-ass post
Apr. 19th, 2001 12:28 pmHere's a copy of the e-mail I just sent to Dave, my oldest friend. I cut out the copy of the letter to my bro -- it can be found on my journal on 10/30/00.
hey there,
thanks for the address. I'm still going to send you those pictures, like I said, but I also managed to find an electronic copy of something I wanted to send you too. So I figure I'll just e-mail it which is much quicker and easier, especially for my sometimes lazyass!
obviously a lot of stuff has happened to me since we last spoke, since it's been close to a year -- or so it feels. I was sort of in the midst of stuff when we talked on the phone last spring, but i didn't feel ready to tell you yet, since we were busy catching up with other stuff. anyway, i haven't come up with a particularly clever way to share the big news, so i'll just say it. i've come out (again!) as transexual. which means i've begun living my life as a guy. no, i'm not kidding -- it's so drastic, it has to be true, eh?
ok, so here's a copy of the coming out letter I sent to my brother and sister in law right before christmas (probably right around the time you called me):
Coming Out Letter to Brother and Sister In Law
[[cut out]]
_________________________________
So lemme back up a bit. It was just over a year ago that I actually came out to people as trans. I had been thinking about my gender for several years, and sort of just identified as a "butch dyke" or "transgender lesbian" or something of the sort. But after I graduated and had time to really think about who i was and what I wanted, I started to realize that I had deeper issues that went way back. I started reading everything I could on the web about transsexuals and FTM (Female-To-Male). It was pretty scary to think about going through a gender change, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's really who I am. So of course, I started therapy to deal with all this insane amounts of knowledge and self-discovery. My therapist is really cool, and has worked with trans clients before, though mostly MTF's. It was sort of a relief to be "diagnosed" as having gender dypshoria. I don't necessarily feel lik I'm sick or mentally ill, but it does explain the lifelong battle with depression and anxiety. I still deal with it, but to be honest, I've felt better about myself now than I ever have.
Ok, so that's sort of the psychological stuff. Now the physical stuff and everyday stuff. Pretty much everyone in Chicago knows me as "Raymond" or "Ray". I've legally changed my name to Aaron Raymond. I started taking hormones about 6 months ago, and my health is great. Testosterone doesn't feel like a foreign substance to me -- by that I mean, I'm not moody or aggressive or oversexed or feeling ill. I feel like I'm in much better health than I've been in years. I've even lost a good bit of weight -- I'm still sort of a "big guy", I just look better proportioned. The weird thing is, I feel like each day I look more like my father. Or at least how my father looked at my age. Sort of scary. I sometimes describe my appearance as saying I look the fag twin brother of my former dyke self. When I came to the wedding, I hadn't started hormones yet (though I was probably already called "sir" half the time in everyday life). Oh, and my voice has changed to -- I'm more of a tenor than an alto! That's part of the reason I e-mailed instead of called, because I knew it would be jarring to hear me speak!
My parents know, and they're....well....it's sort of complex, I guess. They didn't disown me, and they're working on being supportive, but in some
ways, they're still the same distant people they've always been. My brother freaked out and doesn't want me to contact him. Which is weird since both he and Sharon were super-supportive of me being a lesbian. Apparantly I crossed some line.
As for folks from Atlanta, the only other person who knows is Amanda LeDuke -- I told her right before christmas break, and we went out for a drink one night when I was home. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to tell you, Dave. I think I just felt weird calling you up out of the blue after not talking for awhile and dropping a big bomb on you. Plus, I feared a negative reaction. I hope you'll be forgiving for taking so long to tell you.
As for my personal life, that's seen some big changes too. Karen and I broke up last summer (I think it was right after your wedding!). We were having some communication problems, and I think in some ways our relationship probably shouldn't have continued past graduation. Plus, there were some obvious issues surrounding the fact that, um, she was a lesbian. And if I was "becoming a guy", then it could be a little problematic. We tried to stay friends, but I think it was sort of too hard for her. I would send her e-mails and then not get a response, so I decided to just let it go, and sent her one final note last month wishing
her well.
Ok, so last fall I moved into a new apartment and was living by myself. I was really happy to finally have some time and space to myself, and liked living directly in the city. Last fall was about getting used to hormones, making the changes and coming out to friends (telling them to call me
"he" and "ray"), and starting a new chapter of my life. Sort of saying goodbye to Amanda and thanking her for bringing me this far. I think it made it easier to deal with the breakup (we were together for about a year and a half) because I was moving on to exciting things. I spent a lot of time reconnecting with friends in Chicago who I had lost contact with, and hanging out a lot with my best buddy Damon (who is my former roommate). I was also happily single, and went on a few dates, including with a boy! (Yes, I came out as bisexual, but my primary attraction and interest is women, despite my love of musical theater and
Barbra Streisand!) Then right after thanksgiving, I went to a volunteer party through my work and met this woman Melanie. We talked for awhile that night and exchanged numbers. I invited her over to my apartment on Sunday night to watch a movie with several other friends. We talked for a long time again, and I asked her out on a date the following weekend. We went out several times before going home for the holidays, and during the
time away, we e-mailed and talked on the phone a lot. By the time she came back after New Year's, we were together almost all the time. And it's been that way since. I was really hesitant to get into a relationship so soon after Karen (even though it had been almost 6 months), but we click together so perfectly. Plus, she's so amazing with regards to my identity. She's dated both men and women, and she likes the fact that I'm sort of the "best of both worlds". This past weekend we drove to Philadelphia and I met her family for Easter. It went really well, and it was sort of strange to be "the boy" who got brought home! Which brings me up to now. I'm still working at Lambda as the legal assistant. It's going well, and I still like the people here. I'm hoping to move on to something else sometime early next year, but I'm not sure what yet. I still do most the things I used to do, like go to movies all the time and buy CD's obsessively. Or I hang out with Damon and play video games. I'm planning on taking a class this spring on sound engineering, because I'd like to get into DJing, music production and such. I'm not sure if it'll be a hobby or a possible next career, but we'll see how well I do with this course!
I think I've set a record for the world's longest e-mail. I hope I didn't distract you from your studying for too long. I'm sure it might take some time to absorb this -- hell, it'll take some time to read the whole thing!
And I know you're busy with tests this week -- good luck, by the way. Maybe this weekend if you're around, let me know and I'll call you. I have photos from the wedding -- one of me and Martha, plus I have some photos from last fall, when I first started hormones. I want to get my
latest roll developed which has photos from last weekend. It might make it easier to see the transformation! Maybe I can drop those in the mail next week.
Hope to talk to you soon.
Love,
Raymond
>[-----Original Message-----]
> From:
> Sent: 2001-04-19 01:06:33
> To: Raymond Johnson [mailto:PandaRay@bboy.com]
> Subject: Re: from your long lost best friend
>
>
> hey there!
> i'd about decided that i must have pissed you off beyond all
> recovery
> somehow. we're doing well. i'm probably every bit as swamped in work
> now as
> i was back at tech, but i like it a lot better here. the scenery
> beats the
> hell out of downtown atlanta, and the company does, too. besides the
> one
> professor i have that i believe belongs in the chemical engineering
> dept.
> back at tech, i like the professors a lot more too. and for the most
> part
> the classes are really cool. term papers kick my ass, though, and
> continue
> to do so. i've got 3 exams this week (2 down as of the 3.5 hour exam
> today), then big homework in all my classes due next week, plus a
> term
> paper i haven't even started yet, and then final exams the following
> week,
> with 2 of the 3 the first monday of the week. but then it's over for
> the
> summer, and i'll just do research, which is a whole other big thing
> that
> isn't working out much to my liking at all, unfortunately. but it's
> the
> only way i could get the money to come here, so i'm just looking at
> it as
> working to get a paycheck, albeit it awfully small.
>
> stacey's working teaching kindergarten about 15-20 miles from our
> apartment, so that's what really pays the bills. she's enjoying it
> and
> doing well. and did you hear through the grapevine that my brother
> got
> married about a month ago? it's pretty much turned my parents upside
> down,
> i think, since they really didn't approve. his whole situation has
> been
> pretty crazy, and to a point we still can't quite figure out exactly
> what's
> going on. i gotta go help with dinner since i didn't stop studying
> for my
> exam wed. until after 6 tonight. but out address is:
>
>
> can't wait to hear from you, and i'm really glad you're ok and not
> really
> mad at me or something, and i miss you, too.
> love ya,
> dave
>
hey there,
thanks for the address. I'm still going to send you those pictures, like I said, but I also managed to find an electronic copy of something I wanted to send you too. So I figure I'll just e-mail it which is much quicker and easier, especially for my sometimes lazyass!
obviously a lot of stuff has happened to me since we last spoke, since it's been close to a year -- or so it feels. I was sort of in the midst of stuff when we talked on the phone last spring, but i didn't feel ready to tell you yet, since we were busy catching up with other stuff. anyway, i haven't come up with a particularly clever way to share the big news, so i'll just say it. i've come out (again!) as transexual. which means i've begun living my life as a guy. no, i'm not kidding -- it's so drastic, it has to be true, eh?
ok, so here's a copy of the coming out letter I sent to my brother and sister in law right before christmas (probably right around the time you called me):
Coming Out Letter to Brother and Sister In Law
[[cut out]]
_________________________________
So lemme back up a bit. It was just over a year ago that I actually came out to people as trans. I had been thinking about my gender for several years, and sort of just identified as a "butch dyke" or "transgender lesbian" or something of the sort. But after I graduated and had time to really think about who i was and what I wanted, I started to realize that I had deeper issues that went way back. I started reading everything I could on the web about transsexuals and FTM (Female-To-Male). It was pretty scary to think about going through a gender change, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's really who I am. So of course, I started therapy to deal with all this insane amounts of knowledge and self-discovery. My therapist is really cool, and has worked with trans clients before, though mostly MTF's. It was sort of a relief to be "diagnosed" as having gender dypshoria. I don't necessarily feel lik I'm sick or mentally ill, but it does explain the lifelong battle with depression and anxiety. I still deal with it, but to be honest, I've felt better about myself now than I ever have.
Ok, so that's sort of the psychological stuff. Now the physical stuff and everyday stuff. Pretty much everyone in Chicago knows me as "Raymond" or "Ray". I've legally changed my name to Aaron Raymond. I started taking hormones about 6 months ago, and my health is great. Testosterone doesn't feel like a foreign substance to me -- by that I mean, I'm not moody or aggressive or oversexed or feeling ill. I feel like I'm in much better health than I've been in years. I've even lost a good bit of weight -- I'm still sort of a "big guy", I just look better proportioned. The weird thing is, I feel like each day I look more like my father. Or at least how my father looked at my age. Sort of scary. I sometimes describe my appearance as saying I look the fag twin brother of my former dyke self. When I came to the wedding, I hadn't started hormones yet (though I was probably already called "sir" half the time in everyday life). Oh, and my voice has changed to -- I'm more of a tenor than an alto! That's part of the reason I e-mailed instead of called, because I knew it would be jarring to hear me speak!
My parents know, and they're....well....it's sort of complex, I guess. They didn't disown me, and they're working on being supportive, but in some
ways, they're still the same distant people they've always been. My brother freaked out and doesn't want me to contact him. Which is weird since both he and Sharon were super-supportive of me being a lesbian. Apparantly I crossed some line.
As for folks from Atlanta, the only other person who knows is Amanda LeDuke -- I told her right before christmas break, and we went out for a drink one night when I was home. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to tell you, Dave. I think I just felt weird calling you up out of the blue after not talking for awhile and dropping a big bomb on you. Plus, I feared a negative reaction. I hope you'll be forgiving for taking so long to tell you.
As for my personal life, that's seen some big changes too. Karen and I broke up last summer (I think it was right after your wedding!). We were having some communication problems, and I think in some ways our relationship probably shouldn't have continued past graduation. Plus, there were some obvious issues surrounding the fact that, um, she was a lesbian. And if I was "becoming a guy", then it could be a little problematic. We tried to stay friends, but I think it was sort of too hard for her. I would send her e-mails and then not get a response, so I decided to just let it go, and sent her one final note last month wishing
her well.
Ok, so last fall I moved into a new apartment and was living by myself. I was really happy to finally have some time and space to myself, and liked living directly in the city. Last fall was about getting used to hormones, making the changes and coming out to friends (telling them to call me
"he" and "ray"), and starting a new chapter of my life. Sort of saying goodbye to Amanda and thanking her for bringing me this far. I think it made it easier to deal with the breakup (we were together for about a year and a half) because I was moving on to exciting things. I spent a lot of time reconnecting with friends in Chicago who I had lost contact with, and hanging out a lot with my best buddy Damon (who is my former roommate). I was also happily single, and went on a few dates, including with a boy! (Yes, I came out as bisexual, but my primary attraction and interest is women, despite my love of musical theater and
Barbra Streisand!) Then right after thanksgiving, I went to a volunteer party through my work and met this woman Melanie. We talked for awhile that night and exchanged numbers. I invited her over to my apartment on Sunday night to watch a movie with several other friends. We talked for a long time again, and I asked her out on a date the following weekend. We went out several times before going home for the holidays, and during the
time away, we e-mailed and talked on the phone a lot. By the time she came back after New Year's, we were together almost all the time. And it's been that way since. I was really hesitant to get into a relationship so soon after Karen (even though it had been almost 6 months), but we click together so perfectly. Plus, she's so amazing with regards to my identity. She's dated both men and women, and she likes the fact that I'm sort of the "best of both worlds". This past weekend we drove to Philadelphia and I met her family for Easter. It went really well, and it was sort of strange to be "the boy" who got brought home! Which brings me up to now. I'm still working at Lambda as the legal assistant. It's going well, and I still like the people here. I'm hoping to move on to something else sometime early next year, but I'm not sure what yet. I still do most the things I used to do, like go to movies all the time and buy CD's obsessively. Or I hang out with Damon and play video games. I'm planning on taking a class this spring on sound engineering, because I'd like to get into DJing, music production and such. I'm not sure if it'll be a hobby or a possible next career, but we'll see how well I do with this course!
I think I've set a record for the world's longest e-mail. I hope I didn't distract you from your studying for too long. I'm sure it might take some time to absorb this -- hell, it'll take some time to read the whole thing!
And I know you're busy with tests this week -- good luck, by the way. Maybe this weekend if you're around, let me know and I'll call you. I have photos from the wedding -- one of me and Martha, plus I have some photos from last fall, when I first started hormones. I want to get my
latest roll developed which has photos from last weekend. It might make it easier to see the transformation! Maybe I can drop those in the mail next week.
Hope to talk to you soon.
Love,
Raymond
>[-----Original Message-----]
> From:
> Sent: 2001-04-19 01:06:33
> To: Raymond Johnson [mailto:PandaRay@bboy.com]
> Subject: Re: from your long lost best friend
>
>
> hey there!
> i'd about decided that i must have pissed you off beyond all
> recovery
> somehow. we're doing well. i'm probably every bit as swamped in work
> now as
> i was back at tech, but i like it a lot better here. the scenery
> beats the
> hell out of downtown atlanta, and the company does, too. besides the
> one
> professor i have that i believe belongs in the chemical engineering
> dept.
> back at tech, i like the professors a lot more too. and for the most
> part
> the classes are really cool. term papers kick my ass, though, and
> continue
> to do so. i've got 3 exams this week (2 down as of the 3.5 hour exam
> today), then big homework in all my classes due next week, plus a
> term
> paper i haven't even started yet, and then final exams the following
> week,
> with 2 of the 3 the first monday of the week. but then it's over for
> the
> summer, and i'll just do research, which is a whole other big thing
> that
> isn't working out much to my liking at all, unfortunately. but it's
> the
> only way i could get the money to come here, so i'm just looking at
> it as
> working to get a paycheck, albeit it awfully small.
>
> stacey's working teaching kindergarten about 15-20 miles from our
> apartment, so that's what really pays the bills. she's enjoying it
> and
> doing well. and did you hear through the grapevine that my brother
> got
> married about a month ago? it's pretty much turned my parents upside
> down,
> i think, since they really didn't approve. his whole situation has
> been
> pretty crazy, and to a point we still can't quite figure out exactly
> what's
> going on. i gotta go help with dinner since i didn't stop studying
> for my
> exam wed. until after 6 tonight. but out address is:
>
>
> can't wait to hear from you, and i'm really glad you're ok and not
> really
> mad at me or something, and i miss you, too.
> love ya,
> dave
>
