Hi. I'm Evander. Most people know me as Ender Kou, or just Ender. I'm 19, living in Rhode Island and working at Gamestop. Yes. I am a game advisor. AHAHHA.

This thing is essentially so I can blab about my female to male transition without flooding my main journal, deadstar with it. Because, well.. it's a pretty big part of my life, and could quite easily take up all my entries LIEK EVER on that journal. Which doesn't appeal to me. That journal would lose it's glory if I stopped talking about farts in it. Anyway. UGH, speaking of, my cat just took a fucking huge dump... Argh, I must leave the premises. SO SMELLY. Right. Back to the... ah, subject at hand. I'll post updates concerning passing, work, parents, friends, ET CETERA. So, yes. Like I said. Big part of life, here. I'll post a recent picture and voice clip every entry once I start my hormone therapy, which is a couple big steps in the future, so that may be a bit. And yes, I did steal that from samsabug. Shh. I'm uncreative. Is that a word..?

I'm keeping all these entries public, so read at your own risk. If you wish to vomit homophobia all over here, go ahead. It'll go ignored. Sorry :( What I will do is answer questions to be best of my ability. But I can't guarantee that. I have rage. Burning rage. :D I'll try. Essentially, this is for my own benefit. I want to keep a running document of all this stuff. Mmh. Feel free to add. Like I said, entries are public, so I won't need to add back - that way, I can check my own LJ off of this ones friends list. HAHAH! Ah, yes. Righto, anyway. That's about that.

So, first appointment was today! It went alright, I think? It was mostly just a mess of paperwork, her asking me if I ever thought about death, me laughing innappropriately, and her being amused by the fact that I am AWESOMELY FINE except for the whole... not the right body.... nn.. thing. Anyway. What did make me pee a little was that the only reason she'd been calling me C----e and 'she' was because she hadn't read my entire file. o__o; So, the second she read it, she asked what I wanted to be referred to as. She also said something of great importance - she said she's got a few connections, and she's going to see if she can get me a little help with grants, etc for surgery and DRUGS. Omgz. She also knows an endocrinologist, and says if I work at it, she might be able to approve me for T in as little as a coupla months. EEE.

T.

IN... IN A COUPLA MONTHS?!

My pessimistic thought cycles have been crushed. My, "argh, it's gonna be forever 'til I can start this crap, cos of no insurance and damn money and..." and now...! Is that even possible!? Like, all the research I've done has screamed, 'NO T FOR YOU, ASSHOLE' until I do all SORTS of crap, and Casey's all, "oh, yeah, lemme talk to some people". O___O

GLEE. Ok. Ok... not getting my hopes up. Not getting my hopes up. Noooot getting my hopes up.......



X3..~!!@$^!%@$

That's right, folks. I got myself a counselor I can afford, finally. Her name is Casey, and I have my first appointment on Friday at 2PM. The rate? Ten bucks an hour. Yep. It's a state-funded counseling center for poor-as-fuck people, so they base the rate on your income, and your town pays the rest. Thankfully, everyone in Barrington is rich except me, so they've got lots of cash to spare. She's not specifically trans-counseling oriented, but hey. I'll take what I can get, thanks, and that's all I can get. Once I get insurance, I'll probably get a more specialized counselor, but I think this is a good step.

In other news? I finally FINALLY settled on a name. Took me long enough. My dilemma was this: I hate the name Andrew, but felt I needed it if I was to keep Ender as a nickname. They kind of go together, ja? And I wanted a name that WASN'T Ender to use for all legal stuff. So, I grudgingly went along with Andrew. That was, until I did a little bit of searching. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I've fallen into Tony's 'male fashion doll' stigma. I'm doomed to a life of misplaced shoes, for I've settled upon Evander. It's Greek, like my given name, and ENDER WORKS WITH IT. Glee.

Tying into that, a bit, I emailed my professors for this semester about what to call me, and how to address me. Hello, nervewracking! However, I got the first of five emails back today. It was from my Lit professor.

...

She was absolutely, completely fine with it. No questions, just acceptance, and a laugh at the nickname 'Ender', for she's a fan of the books. OH SWEET RELIEF, YOUR NAME IS PROFESSOR ELLEN WILLARD.

Updates on how my first counseling session goes later! For now... I must urinate.

Edmund S. Pereira to me
Hi,

I'm the local recruiter for this area, and I was told that you'd like to get some more info about the Army.

Can you please give me a call so we can arrange a time to meet and discuss your options.

Thanks!



SGT Edmund S. Pereira

U.S. Army Recruiter

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Ender Kou to Edmund S. Pereira
Hi,

Before we go any further with this (and sorry for taking so much time to respond), I have a couple of questions. I don't nessecarily support either George Bush or the war in Iraq. However, I find myself currently quite.. well, desperately needing the training, hard work, service and discipline that I feel only something like the army could provide. You can see, then, perhaps, how I'm a bit reluctant to get involved before the mess over there is a bit... less messy. So I'm not really sure where to go from here, how to proceed, et cetera.

I'm also transgender, and if I was to do something like enter the army, I'd want to do it as male, whereas my physical body is currently female. More issues. Heh.

Sincerely,

Andrew Damkoehler.

---

Edmund S. Pereira to me
Hi, thanks for the response, but i must tell you that you are disqualified from military service. i do thank you for your interest and if you anyone that wants info feel free to have them call me


SGT Edmund S. Pereira

U.S. Army Recruiter

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Heheheheh.

In other news; compression vests. Oh, yes. When you first order them, you can't contain your excitement. Perfection in one garment! All the way from Taiwan! GLORIOUS BOOBIE HIDING! And it arrives! And you unwrap it, and you put it on, and you wear it for a whole day.. and...! By the end of the day you're so sore you just want one of those asian massages with the oil and the sexy and the yes and then sleeeeeep. Your back has never hurt so much! And then you realize, "hm, maybe I should have gotten a bigger size..." but in your haste to have compression, you ordered your $50 vest with next day delivery, spending a total of $80! So you wear it every day regardless.

Mmhm. Yes, so far a year of painful compression, and I'm too stubborn to admit I should just reorder. Damn you, t-kingdom.com! Why must you be so unaffordable!? WRYY!??!

The end.

Tomorrow I start my workout routine. We have a family membership at the YMCA, which has a pool with lap lanes and a lot of equipment in their weight room. I'm aiming to lose fat around my thighs and hips, build muscle in my arms, shoulders and abdomen, and get my endurance up. We'll see how that goes.

My Da has been pushing me to get into acting classes. I don't really know how I feel about that, for a few reasons. I feel mostly like I can't get seriously into anything like acting or singing until I've completed my transition, because of the large part gender plays in careers like that. I want to at least be on hormone therapy, if not gone through the whole thing. I always seem to miss my chance to tell Da that, though, and I feel strange just walking up to him and saying, "hey, know how you were talking about Fred's acting class the other week? Well, I feel like I can't because..." It's complicated. I know this is something I need to do by myself. This is something I want to do for myself. But I have no health insurance, and the cheapest counselor (the first step I have to make) that knows his stuff regarding transgendered people is $150/session. I make that every two weeks. If I had insurance, I'd just be paying co-pay. Now, if I get into school, I can possibly get health insurance from that.. but if I get into school I'll have to cut back my hours at work. It's a vicious cycle.

During one of the many big discussions about my transition I've had with them, they said they'd be willing to help and support me, and wanted to be kept up to date. So, I sent my Da the link to Tomas Fronkzac's site, and in the discussion we had afterward, they essentially revoked that statement. It's not something I'm angry over - like I said, this is something I have to do myself. I just wish they hadn't given me that glimmer of hope. But now I feel like whenever I bring up the fact that I feel like I'm being held back from the things I want to do because of my stasis as far as my transition goes, it makes me uncomfortable. Like I'm rubbing in their faces the fact that they said they can't help me pay for counseling. The best thing I can probably do is to tell them that's not the case.

Have I mentioned I really hate talking? I want to talk to them about it, because part of me knows I have to, but I absolutely hate doing it. I always end up angry and wanting to just punch holes in everything, but I can't let myself. They're really trying, so I should, too. Fuck. It's mostly Mum. She just says things that really get under my skin and make me want to scream. "As long as you know you're male, does everyone else have to?" What the fuck? I'm sorry, but I don't like being taken and seen for something I'm not. I can't grasp how she doesn't understand that. I don't want to be seen for my female body. I don't want to be acknowledged as "transgender". I'm a man. I want people to take me as such. That's like... a fundamental aspect of life.

In other news, I told Kevin, the assistant manager at Gamestop, my sticky situation. He said he'd be behind me 100%, and if Brian fires me when I tell him, he'll be more than willing to back me up in court. Brian, the manager, has a touch of homophobia. Fantastic, hm? If things don't go well, I'm going to try to get a job at Strawberries. They pay more, allow piercings, and are hiring full time.

I'll end this on a light note. My best friend, Sully, said something that perhaps made me happier than I've ever been. I'd promised him cookies (I'm a damn good chef, and that includes pastry) in exchange for crappy chinese food. So, I was making them at his house, because.. I'm lazy and he has a better oven. When they were done, I let his whole family share them. Sully runs up the stairs with an airgun and starts shooting me, hilarity ensues, and then his sister pipes in with, "she bakes us cookies, and you shoot her?!?!" Sully just froze in his tracks and says, "I did, and Ender's a he." I didn't even have to correct her. Sully did it for me. That just really goes to show how supportive my friends are. In thanks, I didn't shove cookie crumbs down his ass crack like I had intended. The end.