Alec Gray, 21, who grew up in the Glasgow area as a girl, describes another stage in his transition to becoming a man
I tell myself time and time again that it is never a good idea for me to cut my own hair. I do usually pop down to the local barbers and get it done properly, but this time for some reason unbeknown to me, I thought that it was a marvellous idea.
Having friends that are students, I am usually the go-to guy if they're low on cash and need a haircut. I must say, I do a ridiculously good job on other people, mimicking the movements of an amateur barber.
There are a few things that I lack in order to do a perfect job with my own hair. These are mainly: eyes in the back of my head, stretchy arms and any real skill whatsoever.
So now I'm stuck with some sort of squinty bowl cut that I'll need to go to the barbers with, having them shake their heads at me in dismay at my foolish attempt while they cut the rest of it off to even it out.
My life is pretty much jam-packed with all these little moments where the neurons in my brain seem to pause for a second, making it create the impression that things are a good idea.
Being a pre-surgery transgender guy doesn't help either. I've had a couple of accidents where things did go a bit wrong, but thankfully the humiliation only lasted a little while.
I'll tell you a story…I go to a few Anime (illustration) conventions dotted around the country throughout the year and usually take a train down as they don't take particularly long.
On one instance, I brought along my new STP. If you've never heard of a stand-to-pee (STP) device, it looks like a funnel-type implement to aid female-to-male trans people to go to the bathroom standing up.
I didn't take into account the repercussions of using such a device on a moving vehicle and managed to have an accident down the inside of my leg.
It was probably the most embarrassing thing to happen to me to date; my face the colour of a tomato as I slowly made my way back to my seat, my good friend giving a little chuckle at my misfortune.
Being a pre-Testosterone trans guy, I pass as male probably 50% of the time. I'm at the really awkward stage where I don't look quite female and don't look quite male.
This makes using public bathrooms fairly difficult. I get the strangest of looks walking into any bathroom as though I shouldn't be there; some people even check the sign on the door to make sure they're in the right one.
There was one instance where I was coming out of the gents in an LGBT friendly bar, another guy coming in. He stopped to look me up and down, a small frown on his brow in befuddlement before finally opening his mouth to ask if I should be in there. I quickly nodded and moved back to my seat.
I'm pretty much your average guy, even though I tend to be clumsy. Even in between writing this I managed to smash starter dishes trying to free a casserole dish from the depths of the cupboard.
I have what you may call 'blonde' moments.
Read the first installment of Alec's journey here.
Read Chibi's A girl to a Man blog here.
For further information:
LGBT Youth Scotland is the largest youth and community-based organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Scotland. They hold regular Trans Youth groups for young people who identify as transgender or are gender variant.
All About Trans is a project run by On Road, a not-for-profit organisation that works in partnership with communities to solve social problems using the web and the media. All About Trans is about encouraging better understanding between media professionals and transgender people and inspiring more accurate and sensitive representation in print, broadcast and online media in the UK.
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