Personal Updates...

 Anyway -- I know I have very few followers here but I want to, I don't know, apologize for my absence? I have a lot of half-finished drafts for this blog and very little finished writing since I changed it over. Most of this is because I keep second-guessing my thoughts and feelings on certain topics, especially ones relating to transness and trans-masculinity in particular. It can be pretty fraught talking about these things on places like Tumblr and twitter (which, if you're on either site and in the trans circles that I am, have had some serious kerfluffles and drama lately, to put it very blithely). 

Which is a really weird experience for me because before, when I was presenting as a woman or a nonbinary person (who was very much not a woman) I didn't have this sort of hesitancy to state my opinion or talk about my experiences. I think this is just because I genuinely, very deeply, do not want to be seen as just Another Man™ trying to speak over women or something like that.

That being said... It was my birthday on the 4th -- I'm now thirty years old! Which is ten years older than I ever thought I would be. I was a deeply depressed kid and it only got worse in my late teens (especially after I had my first trans awakening and then deeply closeted myself) and for whatever reason, I was 100% convinced I'd die by twenty. That very much did not happen (despite all jokes about being dead/undead) and I am very happy about that but currently, also, very frustrated. 

The 3rd was my breast reduction consult with a local plastic surgeon... And it went pretty badly, all things told. If my blog description didn't clue you in, I am fat. I'm superfat or infinifat, or even midfat, I don't think? But I am fat. Definitely fat enough not to qualify for top surgery. Which is frustrating because while I did mention some chest dysphoria to my PCP when I got the referral, my primary reason for wanting to get surgery is that I have a 40K bust size. I can't breathe when I'm lying on my back and I have difficulty standing/walking because of the weight of my chest. This is especially frustrating because, looking at the American Board of Plastic Surgery's website and the before/afters for breast reductions, there are definitely people my size or bigger who have gotten them. I can't help but wonder if part of it was that it was labeled as being for transition and it seems that the standards for weight are a bit stricter for trans men when it comes to top surgery than they seem to be for cis women with breast reduction.

I say this especially because my roommate -- who is my exact height and was my exact weight when they got theirs -- had a breast reduction and it was covered by their insurance. I've found out their doctor is still practicing and I intend to contact him this Monday if I have the emotional energy to do so. 

All things told it was... really disheartening. Especially since I've been dealing with a restrictive eating disorder since 2018/2019, my breasts are nearly half of the weight the plastic surgeon wanted me to lose and a [study] showed that breast reductions are one of the safest surgeries to perform on people with a BMI <40.  I really wish it were a thing where I could just... I don't know, sign a waiver? Saying "I understand that my BMI makes it more likely to have complications from my surgery and in the event of said complications, I won't sue for malpractice nor will my family sue for malpractice if, somehow, I fucking die".

Leaving out like, what bullshit BMI actually fucking is re: whether or not someone is in good enough health to get surgery. I'm really hoping the doctor who did my roommate's surgery about a decade ago will be able to do mine because if I have to continue life with 20lbs of breast tissue... I just don't know. I really don't. I have wanted this done since I was a teenager and I was only an E cup back then. I've had consistent mammary growth since my pregnancy -- gaining 5 cup sizes and like, 20" across the bust (I also gained 6" in the band). And they have continued to grow despite starting T. Thankfully they did finally fucking stop lactating! Things they don't tell you about pregnancy is that that can fucking happen. I gave birth in 2013, btw. 

I just...yeah. I'm not sure if I'm going to write a lot more posts soon or not because I'm kind of... very down about all of this. I'm keeping track of calories just to kind of idk, show the next doctor "look, this is my caloric intake, I'm already eating well below "maintenance" level calories for my BMI and I can't safely exercise with my disabilities and my giant chest" 

Might be feeling better once the binder I bought that night comes in though. My GC2B went missing somewhere and the other binder I have is the econ-binder from Underworks which is admittedly really nice for days when I can't handle a heavier duty binder but it doesn't offer a whole lot of compression... So I bought myself their highest compression tank binder...At least it'll help with the little bit of chest dysphoria I have (Which is mostly social, let's be honest) and helps keep them somewhat out of the way...

I was just... I don't know ugh. Everyone told me "there's NO WAY they'll turn you down, not with how big your chest is" and getting the "your bmi is too high, I won't do it until you lose 55lbs" just fucking gutted me. I was so hopeful that this summer I wouldn't have to deal with all the bullshit my chest causes me but now it's... it feels very hopeless that I will ever be in a more comfortable body.

Anyway, because this was supposed to be a fashion blog -- here's some recent selfies:

Reintroduction, Realization and Reinvention...

From a photoshoot I did with a friend shortly
after getting my lip pierced at the end of July.

Long time, no see blogger. Some things have changed since I last actually posted here -- like, a lot of things have changed. And honestly, it's all been for the better, in my opinion. 

So, about three years of news to update readers on, huh? I think one of the most obvious things is that I'm finally out as a trans guy now. I had my original "realization" that I was a guy back in 2009 at the tender young age of 17. I was living with conservative queerphobic parents at the time and while I kind of socially transitioned for a little bit, I eventually went whole hog into pretending to be a girl again... 

From 2014 (when I left Wisconsin, moving to Rural PA, 14 hours away from the rest of my family) onward, started to experiment with gender and try to figure out what I was and what felt right to me -- going from woman to genderfluid to nonbinary femme to nonbinary to bigenderflux and (for now, at least) settling on nonbinary trans man.  A very gender nonconforming trans man but that's what makes me happy -- and being happy is what matters most to me in my life. 

I ended up mostly homeless at the end of 2018 but my boyfriend and I were lucky enough to have found some amazing friends with whom we're kind of still staying -- the problem with rural towns is that landlords from big cities come here, buy up all the cheap housing and think that a town with almost no full-time labor can afford Pittsburgh's rent. 

Channeling the 80s with leopard print

Physically, my health has kind of continued to decline, which is deeply unfortunate. I don't really get to go places very often because "going places" requires walking, which on a lot of days is something I'm really not up to doing and my wheelchair is sadly not in good condition anymore. I just recently started new medication for my arthritis though and so hopefully that will result in a decrease in my pain and allow me to move around a bit more.

The summer weather, however, is really not helping with being able to go places -- since there's a good number of my medications that cause it to be more difficult to deal with the heat and shorts are a nightmare for my dysphoria, apparently! I'm experimenting with my fashion a bit more and trying to figure out what kind of "masculine" looks make me happiest and what feels the best to me.

A very blurry photo from karaoke
(8/5/2021)

In 2018 I also started going out to karaoke! Which has been fantastic for my self-esteem and also for overcoming some of the problems I've had with my singing voice thanks to overly critical voice coaching courtesy of my mother. I'm eventually hoping to start creating my own music again at some point in the future and instead of doing the old "girl with an acoustic guitar, vaguely indie sadpunk" style I was doing before I'm hoping to lean in to goth and industrial styles -- channeling my love for Nine Inch Nails, Sisters of Mercy and Blutengel into something that's more listenable than me badly playing acoustic guitar and scream-singing about my mom trauma (though I cannot guarantee there won't be scream-singing about mom trauma in the future).

Mostly though, I want to start actively posting again because there's a near total lack of fat goth dude representation out there and someone needs to get that started. On top of that, I'm getting exhausted with the algorithm-driven, instant gratification-centric, constant content creation & comparison model of most social media. It's exhausting to feel that kind of pressure to constantly create and constantly be offering myself up. Especially since social media like Twitter really encourages a lack of nuance and proper understanding... Not to mention the fact that sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram are all loaded with weightloss bullshit and actively work to repress self expression and punish adult content creators (I'm a former online SW and I'm also an erotica writer who makes illustrations for his work so...) As such, I'm working to create an online presence for myself that's a bit more detached from that sort of thing.

A recent OOTD 

Starting to work on my blog again is part of that -- the other part is creating a website for myself on neocities.org! (Which you can find at http://ex-rosa-per-noctem.neocities.org -- or just click the "personal website" link in my sidebar). It's absolutely designed to look as "retro" as possible -- based around the kinds of websites I made for myself back in the day (2004) and it brings me immense joy to look at. You'll be able to find my writing and art there (once I get my art uploaded and the pages finished). It's very, very much under construction at the moment, lol. 

So, what does all of this mean for my blog? Well -- I'm not really going to change much. I still want to focus on goth fashion and try to do more DIY type posts because the commercialization of goth is beginning to irritate me in my approaching middle-age. Spending time with cranky elder goths is fantastic except that one begins to develop a very "get these whippersnappers off my front lawn!" sort of mindset. Not to mention I'm just going through a very nostalgic period and deeply longing for the days when goth didn't look so perfectly put-together and not everyone was an influencer doing promos for K*llstar, D*llskill and Bl*ckcraft...

In addition to all of that, I started T in February and I'd like to occasionally talk about that as well as just making posts about living as a trans goth guy in a rural area.

I think that about covers it for now! I'm looking forward to making a comeback and hopefully I can actually stay somewhat consistent in posting, lol.

Photo Gallery ("recent" photos I like)