Luminis Kanto
Transition Headshots Tagged
I was tagged by a couple of Second Life Flickr friends to share facts about me. I thought I'd share an array of photos spanning the years I've been involved in Second Life. [If you'd like to see what I look like now, see www.flickr.com/photos/12609729@N07/7767922140/in/photostream.] And here we go:
1. Check out the first photo--that's me in full femme, as I looked in August of 2007, when I'd been in Second Life for a few months and was starting my research project there on avatars and identity.
2. At the time I took that first photo, I had no idea what changes the next couple of years would bring. I was trapped in unhappy life circumstances (poor health, poor domestic circumstances), and resigned to presenting as a woman.
3. Some background: I was born intersex (a so-termed "true hermaphrodite") and assigned female at birth. I never identified as a woman, though I mostly lived as one for 44 years. I did in fact attempt to gender transition once, in 1990/91, but the world was different then, and the partnership of the law firm I was then working at implemented a dress code just to stop me from "cross-dressing." (The code required "women" to wear "professional feminine dress and light make-up," sheesh.)
4. After my first transition fiasco, I thought I might try again after moving to San Francisco, but other life goals wound up taking priority--namely having a kid (quite a medical and social adventure for me). I wound up with a really cool one--check my First Life set for photos. But like most parents I made sacrifices for my child, and for me, deferring hope of gender transitioning was a big one.
5. Enter Second Life. It's hard for me to put into words how much my life out here in meatspace has been transformed by the friends and communities I was given the grace to meet there. Check the second photo; that's me in November of 2007. I don't know how different I look to you, but I felt very different. I was interviewing gender transgressors in SL, and I'd met my partner (now RL spouse) Beta there. Zie too is intersex in RL, and had made the move to transition from an inappropriate gender assignment. I was re-exploring my androgyny in RL, and enjoying it.
6. The third headshot is from the fall of 2008. I'd made the decision, with the support of my SL friends, to gender transition to male in RL. I hadn't done anything medical, but you can see the changes I'd made in my presentation. It's funny--looking at this photo now it looks quite femme to me, but at the time, it felt really boi. Such is the nature of transition--each step feels significant, weighty. A haircut is more than a haircut, it's a shearing off of fallacy. You can see how exciting I found it all.
7. The fourth photo is from early in 2009. By this point, Beta had moved to Wisconsin to live with me, and I was actively pursuing medical transition. It was hard--jumping through the hoops of getting access to hormones proved difficult, and took a lot of time and energy. I'd socially transitioned--my friends were calling me "he," and I had purged all the girlclothes from my wardrobe--but most people still read me as female, and I worried that I'd never be able to change that. I think I look rather worn thin in the photo. . . I relied heavily on the support of my SL circle of friends for the strength to push through.
8. But as the fifth photo shows, I was able to move things forward. I started taking masculinizing levels of testorsterone in June of 2009, and this photo shows me about ten weeks in. There weren't many physical changes yet, but I think you can see a vast difference anyway, and it has to do with my attitude. I knew changes were coming, and I was able to use my doctor's letter and a legal name change to get my identification altered to read "M" instead of "F," which made a huge psychological difference to me.
9. Finally, the last photo is of me yesterday. I've been on T for 9 months. Look closely and you can see my chinpatch, heh. I can't tell you how pleased I am with my wee beardlet. And it's been wonderful to have my SL friends celebrate my second puberty with me, in my 40s.
10. So that's the story of how I got to gender transition with the support of my SL community. Beta has been prodding me smilingly toward having a bar miztvah in SL when I feel I've come into my full manhood ("today I am a man!"), and I think I shall.
Much love to all of my Flickr friends. May you have the opportunity to fully express and realize yourselves, to stretch and to grow.
P.S. my journey continues. More recent photos of me can be found in my First Life set.
I welcome your comments.
Transition Headshots Tagged
I was tagged by a couple of Second Life Flickr friends to share facts about me. I thought I'd share an array of photos spanning the years I've been involved in Second Life. [If you'd like to see what I look like now, see www.flickr.com/photos/12609729@N07/7767922140/in/photostream.] And here we go:
1. Check out the first photo--that's me in full femme, as I looked in August of 2007, when I'd been in Second Life for a few months and was starting my research project there on avatars and identity.
2. At the time I took that first photo, I had no idea what changes the next couple of years would bring. I was trapped in unhappy life circumstances (poor health, poor domestic circumstances), and resigned to presenting as a woman.
3. Some background: I was born intersex (a so-termed "true hermaphrodite") and assigned female at birth. I never identified as a woman, though I mostly lived as one for 44 years. I did in fact attempt to gender transition once, in 1990/91, but the world was different then, and the partnership of the law firm I was then working at implemented a dress code just to stop me from "cross-dressing." (The code required "women" to wear "professional feminine dress and light make-up," sheesh.)
4. After my first transition fiasco, I thought I might try again after moving to San Francisco, but other life goals wound up taking priority--namely having a kid (quite a medical and social adventure for me). I wound up with a really cool one--check my First Life set for photos. But like most parents I made sacrifices for my child, and for me, deferring hope of gender transitioning was a big one.
5. Enter Second Life. It's hard for me to put into words how much my life out here in meatspace has been transformed by the friends and communities I was given the grace to meet there. Check the second photo; that's me in November of 2007. I don't know how different I look to you, but I felt very different. I was interviewing gender transgressors in SL, and I'd met my partner (now RL spouse) Beta there. Zie too is intersex in RL, and had made the move to transition from an inappropriate gender assignment. I was re-exploring my androgyny in RL, and enjoying it.
6. The third headshot is from the fall of 2008. I'd made the decision, with the support of my SL friends, to gender transition to male in RL. I hadn't done anything medical, but you can see the changes I'd made in my presentation. It's funny--looking at this photo now it looks quite femme to me, but at the time, it felt really boi. Such is the nature of transition--each step feels significant, weighty. A haircut is more than a haircut, it's a shearing off of fallacy. You can see how exciting I found it all.
7. The fourth photo is from early in 2009. By this point, Beta had moved to Wisconsin to live with me, and I was actively pursuing medical transition. It was hard--jumping through the hoops of getting access to hormones proved difficult, and took a lot of time and energy. I'd socially transitioned--my friends were calling me "he," and I had purged all the girlclothes from my wardrobe--but most people still read me as female, and I worried that I'd never be able to change that. I think I look rather worn thin in the photo. . . I relied heavily on the support of my SL circle of friends for the strength to push through.
8. But as the fifth photo shows, I was able to move things forward. I started taking masculinizing levels of testorsterone in June of 2009, and this photo shows me about ten weeks in. There weren't many physical changes yet, but I think you can see a vast difference anyway, and it has to do with my attitude. I knew changes were coming, and I was able to use my doctor's letter and a legal name change to get my identification altered to read "M" instead of "F," which made a huge psychological difference to me.
9. Finally, the last photo is of me yesterday. I've been on T for 9 months. Look closely and you can see my chinpatch, heh. I can't tell you how pleased I am with my wee beardlet. And it's been wonderful to have my SL friends celebrate my second puberty with me, in my 40s.
10. So that's the story of how I got to gender transition with the support of my SL community. Beta has been prodding me smilingly toward having a bar miztvah in SL when I feel I've come into my full manhood ("today I am a man!"), and I think I shall.
Much love to all of my Flickr friends. May you have the opportunity to fully express and realize yourselves, to stretch and to grow.
P.S. my journey continues. More recent photos of me can be found in my First Life set.
I welcome your comments.