wickedjr89 life

My nonbinary trans journey

I grew up not feeling like a girl, but I also grew up hearing anything queer was a sin. I also grew up only knowing about trans women, trans men simply weren’t a thing i’d ever heard of until my late teens and I was in my mid-20s before I heard about nonbinary. So as a kid I knew I didn’t feel like a girl but I also knew I didn’t 100% feel like a boy, though it was much closer and comfortable, so I had to assume I just couldn’t “girl” properly. Which makes absolutely no sense.

That “not like other girls” trope? Yea, I loved that. I know now it’s problematic, but also, i’m actually not a girl, but back then I didn’t know any other options existed. But girls, like another other gender or lack there of, come in many varieties. There is no right or wrong way to be any gender. It’s just what feels right and true to you.

I hated long hair (and was forced into having long hair growing up) and many girly things. And there was some girly things I actually did like and man I felt embarrassed by that, but I tried to ignore it and just liked what I liked (and you should just like what you like). Like, I loved Lisa Frank for example. I said I hated the color pink on principle. I never hated the color pink. Though my favorite colors are blue and green but that’s because they remind me of the ocean and nature. However as a kid I couldn’t pick a favorite color so I said mine was purple because my favorite Backstreet Boy, Howie, said it’s his. I’ve since learned doing stuff like that is actually pretty autistic of me lol. I am autistic, always have been, but was nearly 32 when I learned that.

I always wanted to BE a boy, even pre-puberty. Then puberty came, and I hated it. And yes, I know, everyone hates puberty, but it was also a factor of “this is wrong, so very wrong, this isn’t what i’m supposed to look like”. I don’t know how else to put it. I was hoping i’d grow out of it, get used to it. I never did. I’m 33 now. I want to transition but currently am not able to. Hopefully one day. So for now I still “look like a woman” (you know what I mean) and I know this doesn’t invalidate me but hello dysphoria!

And yes, I realize now you are whatever gender you know you are, regardless of what you look like or what you were assigned at birth. But i’m just learning that in my 30s. So when I say I wanted to BE a boy, I also mean I wish I was born amab, instead of afab.

I was always jealous of guys, of how they looked, wished I looked like that. Jealous of girls with small boobs and could not for the life of me understand why they were jealous of my huge ones.

Of course i’m also bisexual so i’ve had that thought “Do I want to look like him or fuck him?” when looking at a cis guy and the answer has been

I’m multiply physically disabled, known i’m bi since 13 (still am), and knew I was “weird” before I knew i’m autistic, and have multiple mental health issues on top of it … so when I heard about nonbinary in my late 20s, already married to a man (who I loved and always will have a place in my heart, he died Feb 16th, 2021), I was scared.

I was scared because I was already “too much”. I can’t be any more strange, please no for the love of God NO!! That was my thought. I refused to look into it.

I had a breakdown at 30 and realized, i’m nonbinary. I came out and told my husband, he was supportive (even when I told him I want to transition). First I figured i’m agender, then demiguy (which for me is part agender part man). Gender had always been a source of pain and confusion so I just wanted to say “fuck it” but also had to realize, some gender i’m happy with and agender wasn’t my whole story. At first I said “any pronouns” but it became obvious she irked me.

Oh, that reminds me, when I still thought I was cis i’d have instances of people thinking I was a guy, say online or before they saw boobs, and I would never correct them and I realized it made me happy when they did that and very annoyed when they “realized” and corrected themselves and I couldn’t understand why it annoyed me for them to correct themselves, I mean, I was a woman, right? (no, and that shoulda been a friggin’ neon sign for me! But alas, the brain can refuse to realize things it doesn’t want to/isn’t ready for).

So eventually I changed my pronouns to they/them then they/he. They/He are my pronouns. I also go by Tyler now.

Other things that shoulda been neon signs: I’d daydream about being a guy, masturbating imagining I have a penis and am the guy I wish I was, wish I could chop off my chest, straighten out my curves, have a deeper voice, like the facial hair aspect I got of what appears to be pcos (though I could do without the pain thank you) and wish I had more facial hair. I have a lot for an afab person not on T but no where near a beard or “male-level” facial hair. I know there’s others i’ve realized but can’t think of them off the top of my head. Look up trans guy memes or something, you’ll probably find them.

I haven’t legally or physically transitioned at all yet, but i’d like to. Unfortunately things stand in my way, but hopefully i’ll get there. I’ve heard of trans people coming out in their 40s, 50s, 60s, even older, so I get hope from that, knowing there is no such thing as too late. And regardless, I know who I am, and the right people will respect me for who I am.

And now i’m starting to cry. This is my nonbinary trans journey so far.

And you know what? I hated dresses as a kid (though i’ve always liked skirts, certain ones like skater skirts that weren’t too girly to me) and even now being too feminine (in terms of looks) would make me very uncomfortable. I already have a huge chest and people constantly see me as a woman, it’s just … I don’t know how else to put it. But I can see myself if I get to a point of physically transitioning and looking more like I want, who I know myself to be, then feeling more comfortable dressing and being feminine. I’ve heard other transmasc people say the same thing so I know i’m not alone!

Who knows, maybe i’ll transition, and then wear a dress. I could see me doing that, when i’ve said countless times growing up “you won’t catch me dead in a dress” and shit like that. But sadly, I also know, i’d be terrified to go out in public as a man in a dress. I know there’s nothing wrong with being a man in a dress, but it can be unsafe to say the least. Who knows, I might get the opportunity to be who I am, but still be too afraid to be 100% me, because of the way society is. But I have to hope.

By the way, I also say i’m a nonbinary man. Nonbinary means not 100% either binary gender, some people, like myself, have a connection to a binary gender (or both), some have no connection to either. Of course gender fluid people also fall under nonbinary and they might go from one binary gender to the next. I hope i’ve explained that well enough, apologies if I have not.

I don’t need to make sense to anyone else. I love Jeffrey Marsh and what they’ve said at one point (look up Jeffrey Marsh on Twitter or Youtube, please, they are awesome); that respect has to come before understanding, it doesn’t work the other way around. Understanding can come after respect, but also, it’s ok if it doesn’t. I know people have this desire to understand everything, but it’s ok to not understand everything, just respect people for who they are even if you don’t get it. I don’t understand why that’s hard for people. I am sorry if it’s hard for you, but I believe everyone has the capacity for kindness and love. I’m not saying it’s always easy, i’m saying I believe everyone has the capacity.

When I refused to look into nonbinary and said “I don’t get it” (because I didn’t want to, as explained) I still respected people when they said they were nonbinary and did my best to use the correct pronouns. It wasn’t hard, despite me pushing away my own nonbinary-ness out of intense fear. It was years, like 4 or 5, of me knowing about nonbinary people before I would admit to myself that I am one.

I hope this makes sense, sorry it’s all over the place, but this is my story so far and I know who I am. Life is a journey and it’s never too late to learn more about yourself.

Edit before posting (good thing I write things up ahead of time) to add, not having the words for how I felt growing up and thinking how I felt wasn’t real and I was all alone, is why labels are so important to me. Also for thinking anything not cishet is a sin growing up. You can understand why labels are important to me, I finally have the words to describe how I feel, and I also didn’t make them up myself, meaning others feel the same way and i’m not alone! (Also, to certain people: all words are made up, language is a living thing). Labels don’t need to be important to everyone, but for some people they are, and both are ok.

Also, representation is important. I read Gender Queer and in a lot of ways, it was like reading my own story, so again, finally, seeing that i’m not alone. And I learned more words for things I had no idea had words! Feelings I didn’t know had words to describe them, that other people put into words before me. Words and representation are powerful.

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wickedjr89 life

My Bisexual Journey

I am a nonbinary trans guy. I have to say that to explain all this. I didn’t realize i’m trans (in large part because I didn’t have the words and was also already queer and disabled I felt like too much already, even before learning i’m autistic as well) until I was 30. So until 30 I just assumed I couldn’t “girl” properly, which makes no sense whatsoever.

So when I realized I was very attracted to girls at 13, I knew then that i’m bisexual. I’m still bisexual, that hasn’t changed. I was also raised though to believe queerness is a sin so I tried for years to “pray the gay part of me away”. And of course me and my big mouth did say to my parents “I think i’m bi” right away because I didn’t think first. Mom cried, which broke my heart. I forget what my stepparents said. My dad said “it’s a phase” and of course a sin. I shut up about it and just silently prayed to be straight, for years, while reading the bible.

Also, i’m pagan now but that’s not the point of this post. I don’t care what religion someone is as long as they don’t use their beliefs to hurt others or try to shove their beliefs down others throats. That’s it.

I’ve only been with cis guys. I’m mostly attracted to women. Now that I know about nonbinary yes i’m also attracted to nonbinary people (and as mentioned, am one myself). I can be attracted to all genders. Could I call myself pansexual? Apparently, but I have my reasons for being comfortable with bisexual. Read the bisexual manifesto from the 90s, it was NEVER trans-exclusionary. Also if you say (this is only specific people) “I say pansexual because I am attracted to trans men and trans women too” THAT is transphobic because when a bisexual person says they are attracted to men and women, trans people are by default included in that as trans men are men and trans women are women, if you feel the need to separate them, the problem is with your internalized transphobia and not actually seeing trans men as men and trans women as women.

A part of me wishes I could leave it there but I must say, I know it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. We all have internalized crap or don’t know things. It’s just feeling the need to say “I’m attracted to men, women and trans men and trans women” just … it’s awful. I don’t know how else to say it. That’s implying trans men and trans women aren’t really men and women. You see the problem? I’ll get to nonbinary people in the next paragraph. (quick side note: You can’t help who you are or are not attracted to. I am NOT saying you have to be attracted to trans people. That is not what i’m saying. Before people put words in my mouth…)

Are there transphobic bi people? Of course there are. Again, that’s specific people. I have nothing against pansexual people or the label. We’re all different and that’s beautiful. My issue is with certain people not the label. I’m just comfortable with bisexual and am stubborn and want to break the stigmas surrounding bisexuality. It’s not transphobic. It can include all genders (a definition of bisexuality: Attracted to 2 or more genders). There, ya got your 2 and it can include all. Again, bisexual manifesto, 90s, look it up if you want. It even says “don’t assume there are only 2 genders”.

Back to my journey with it. Because religion I had shame about being bisexual for years. Eventually I did break that shame, but it took awhile. I married a cis man in 2014. He died last year in 2021 but we had been together since 2010. He was a wonderful man and I loved him and always will have a place for him in my heart. When I came out as trans and discussed it all with him he was completely accepting.

Now, i’m a single widow. I’m only 33, so who knows what might happen with the rest of my life. If I find love again, who knows what the gender or sex of the person might be. As long as we work together and are happy, that’s all I care about.

I did mention I am mostly attracted to women, but also sometimes to men and sometimes to nonbinary people. Something funny I guess is once I accepted i’m bisexual and had pride a part of me was like “well at least i’m closer to gay than straight” even though that’s not how that works and bisexuality is it’s own thing. I still find this kinda funny though, feel free to laugh if you do to. Now? Me realizing i’m trans has kinda flipped that on it’s head and made me go “oh … crap … but i’m still bi!!” 😂And it’s true. I am still bisexual.

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wickedjr89 life, Uncategorized

House Fire (in 2012) and Online friends are real friends.

I was in a house fire Sept 8th, 2012. I’ve talked about it before but all of it might have disappeared because I know I mentioned it on Youtube but I deleted all my old videos with my deadname because dysphoria, but I have mentioned it in places before.

Me and my then fiancé (who I since married in 2014 and he passed away last year in 2021) were renting a house. We had one car. He was at work with the car, I had a messed up sleep schedule so when he left for work that day I first tried to get my cat Mandi in (we had a then outside dog and 3 inside kittens) but couldn’t (thankfully) so knowing she’d be ok I locked the door and went upstairs to bed.

We had taken some fire alarms down at some point apparently, I have no idea, at any rate there wasn’t any upstairs. There was one somewhere downstairs but my ass couldn’t hear it until I opened the door. I woke up in the afternoon because I smelled smoke. My nose woke me up. I went to open the bedroom door (It wasn’t hot) and was greeted by smoke. I was trapped. Despite how long it’s been this is STILL hard to talk about.

We were living in the middle of nowhere. Literally, no cell phone service (except for whatever reason in the attic and the middle of the road) so we had a landline. You had to have a landline there. There was a phone by the bed so I picked it up and dialed 911. I was able to tell that my house was on fire and my address before the line went dead. The fire had cut off the phone.

It was getting harder to breathe. I went to the window and opened it. Like I said, it was afternoon, and neighbors were looking at the house. One of my neighbors, I think he yelled if anyone had a ladder and someone said someone specifically did and he ran to get it, temporarily stole it from what I remember but gave it back of course, he got the ladder in place, came up and in. At this point the room was filling up with smoke, not that I was aware of much. The smoke was getting to me so I all managed to say at one point was “i’m naked” (I was in my underwear). He pulled the covers off the bed, didn’t occur to me at the time he was just a shadow (because all the smoke) and wrapped me up in it. He picked me up and shoved me out the window, where the fresh air woke me up enough I climbed down the ladder. Upon telling the fire people later (they weren’t there yet, again middle. of. nowhere.) and Dr’s how I was acting, they said I was ThisClose to passing out from smoke inhalation.

My neighbor wasn’t a fire fighter. It wasn’t his job to save me. But he did.

On another note, i’m white (and a nonbinary trans guy but I wasn’t out at the time, even to myself, so I looked, and annoyingly – because that’s not who I am and haven’t been able to transition yet – still do, like a woman, not that any gender has a “look” but you know what I mean) and the guy that saved me is black. My dad said he’d quit the black jokes since a black guy saved me. I was later told that lasted a week.

Anyway right after we got out, flames shot out the window. The fire people still weren’t there. He saved me. Eventually the firefighters did arrive. I’m sure they were going as fast as they could. I can’t say middle. of. nowhere. enough here.

Our lips and such were black, but we weren’t burned. They asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital, and I thought for a second and realized if I didn’t go then my fiancé would make me. I also forget what the hell we did about the fact I had my colostomy then (still do). Must have gotten supplies from the hospital until we could get more I guess. So I went to the hospital. Coughed up smoke for awhile, it hurt.

Was told that my fiancé tried to call me after he got done work but couldn’t get through, so the fire had already cut off the phone by then. He called someone else or they called him, I don’t remember, a friend of his, and told him that there was a fire on our (small!) street. They didn’t know if it was our house or not but that combined with the fact he couldn’t get me on the phone he sped home.

Like I said, our cat Mandi and our dog was outside. I still have them. Though the dog has a tumor now, he has surgery soon to get it removed. I won’t know if it’s benign or malignant until they remove it and check it out. The dog, Bear, will be 11 next month. Mandi turned 13 back in October. The 3 kittens … they died. They probably died before I even woke up. They were 6 months old and there was 2 boys and 1 girl. The girl had just had, 10 days before, her surgery to fix her. It takes 10 days to recover from that …

The guy that saved me, his name is James, James said initially he tried to get in through the front door (I think this was before I went to the window) because it was open, but the fire prevented him from getting through that way.

I had locked the door before I went to bed.

James also told me the downstairs windows were open.

They were shut before I went to bed.

Upon calling someone, I won’t say who, to tell them of the fire, they weren’t shocked. At all. Until they were told I was upstairs asleep.

You can probably put the pieces together.

But it was quickly too late and would’ve been “he said she said”.

I’ve been terrified to say this much about it. And I won’t say anymore.

On one hand i’m glad you can’t convict someone with words, people lie after all. But sometimes that means people get away with shit. Hey, i’m just stating this as a fact.

This is what I remember. I won’t say anything is for certain, and it’s been a long time now. You can do what you want with what I remember. What’s done is done.

Why am I mentioning this now? Because I saw yet another arson joke. “Hypothetically – would it be a crime to set fires so that firefighters come rescue me?”. I see this shit every so often. Different arson jokes. They aren’t fucking funny! I am so tired of them.

On a good note we had a tent in a shed out back and our friends let us use it in their yard. Their wasn’t room inside but we stayed with them for a bit until we could find another place to rent. It was hard with my medical issues but obviously I got through it and it could’ve been worse. I had simmer friends, I love The Sims, online, who i’ve never met, but upon learning what happened made a fundraiser and sent me a care package including books, crystals, a laptop and Sims 2! Stuff they knew i’d love and proved they actually paid attention to me, it was that specific. Due to the fundraiser we were able to find another place sooner.

Don’t EVER tell me online friends aren’t real. Do you fake friends do that? I didn’t think so.

Last year, beginning of the year, we moved into our own home. Weeks later my husband died. Infection left too long, lack of health care because health care here sucks. I heard shortly after we left the previous house we rented, the one we moved into post-fire, it caught on fire to. I truly think that was probably an accident, sort of anyway. There were so many problems, including electrical, with that house and we couldn’t get anyone to do shit about it. We knew it was a ticking time bomb. Seems like I got out of there just in time to.

There are so many reasons, even apart from what i’ve stated here, since birth (I’ll probably make a post about that too someday), that I really shouldn’t be alive. My life doesn’t sound real to me sometimes. Maybe I do have guardian angels or something looking out for me. If so, I wish they’d stop. I am so fucking tired of all the pain. Sorry to be depressing, but that’s my truth.

But at least there is some good here. Seeing that real heroes exist (though James said he doesn’t want to be labeled a hero and refused to have his picture taken for the newspaper) and that online friends can be real friends.

wickedjr89 life, paranormal

I think I saw the spirit of my husband

My last update mentioned I lost my husband on Feb 16th. They thought his cancer had come back but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He had very bad teeth and it looks like he had an infection that got out of control, septic shock, heart failure (from a ton of fluid build up damaging his heart). Based on him having cancer in the past and the symptoms thinking it came back made sense, but no, it was just an infection that ran wild too long. Please take care of your teeth, see the doctor if you have anything odd going on even if you think you’re ok, and let your loved ones know you love them (I know it’s a cliche but it’s true, you don’t know how long you have with them, so cherish the time you do have).

Anyway, last night I was having a nightmare and I woke up, with my head going back and forth and it was a little after 4 am. I was a bit foggy brained but I turned and looked beside the bed, and I swear I saw an apparition. There wasn’t details, like facial features or anything, but it was human-shaped and I believe about the height of my husband, the outline looked like it could have been him. It was just white – like mist, but distinct. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I know what I saw. I kept blinking, hoping it’d get clearer (or possibly go away and tell me I was just seeing something that wasn’t there) and…it stayed. As I blinked again and again and waved my hand at him and said his name “Harley” “Harley, is that you?” (I think I asked that). It just…stayed as it was, seemingly a bit bent over looking at me.

It might have been a few minutes of that before it faded away, and I couldn’t get back to sleep for hours (I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately – I wasn’t scared or anything, I just couldn’t get back to sleep).

Normally i’m a skeptic believer, if that makes sense. I believe in ghosts, spirits, etc. but I also know sometimes there are other not paranormal explanations, so I believe in the stuff but I try and see if there could be another explanation first. And sure, maybe there is here, but I believe I saw him and that he’s watching over me. Maybe he even woke me up seeing I was having a nightmare.

If I saw what I think I saw, it was (to my knowledge) my first paranormal experience. Though obviously I wish he was still here with me, alive, since that isn’t an option, at least believing he’s watching over me is comforting.