Daily journal: facial feminization surgery

getting to talk as Her is such a safe feeling

Yesterday we learned my favorite orange floofy boy has to have significant dental surgery. I'm worried for my Woof of course because he is absolutely everything to me and he's going to be going through surgery on so many of his little teeths.

I hate everything about this, it makes me scared for my fluffy boy and also makes me panic at the cost of surgery.

What was nice, and what always feels nice, is getting to genuinely talk with someone outside my small group of friends as “her” or “she” and to really feel it's being respected and understood. It's weird to experience some level of joy in hard times like this and yet here we are.

Little bits of conversation with technicians who cared about cats and who talked with us, and me, as me. We talked about my nails even, which admittedly look pretty great (Hannah did an amazing Glamnetic installation). They didn't ask if I was trans, didn't ask if they were getting my pronouns right, didn’t ask about “the surgeries” we just chatted.

Since coming out as trans, it takes me time to assess every single conversation to see how safe I feel and how involved in a discussion I want to get based on that level of safety. It's not just about using the right name or pronoun, it's about body language and smiles and sharing information. When safety is created, I feel relieved and relaxed.

It lets me smile too and lets me share my own stories and worries and concerns and keeps me from worrying about how deep my voice is or if they are looking for any signs of man to identify me.

A place filled with cats and cat people is an obvious type of place for this kind of interaction.