When I was in California a month ago I met up with my climbing buddies for a nice outdoor session and then dinner there. They’re still close buddies for me and it was great seeing each other and catching up, and I was able to share with them my plans for top-surgery this upcoming winter. I didn’t feel ready, however, to tell them yet that I’ve started HRT.
At that outing one of my closest buddies from that group wasn’t present because he was traveling somewhere else at the time, which was a bummer. But yesterday I got one of the loveliest affirmations ever from him via text message.
He & I were quite close during my last six months or so in California before I moved out here last winter, meeting up for dinner sometimes besides climbing together, having some deep conversations, and sometimes even flirting in a light-hearted way. And he was one of the first people from that group of climbing buddies to whom I had mentioned my non-binary gender identity — but now I’ve come a long way since then…
The other day we had been texting about motorcycles, since he rides as well. And then I felt comfortable enough to share with him a photo of myself wearing a new men’s tank-top with the writing “This is what trans looks like”. His response to that was positive and genuinely curious, caring, so I told him that I’m feeling more towards the masculine side of the gender spectrum and that I’ll be getting top-surgery at the end of January 2023. He asked me what top-surgery is, so I explained to him about masculinizing mastectomy. And then he asked me, “So will you be starting hormone therapy as well?”
So at that point I told him that I’ve started HRT already. And his reply was one of the cutest replies I’ve received from a cis-man friend:
“Welcome to dude land! You’re a dope dude”.
I’ve been very fortunate, so far, receiving some really wonderful responses from all my male friends and buddies about my gender identity & masculinization process. They’ve all been more than accepting: they’ve been enthusiastic and affirming, reflecting back to me the boy in me and how well I am now that I’ve finally found “him”. Most of my friends overall have been responding in wonderfully affirming, enthusiastic and positively reflecting ways, and I’m really grateful for it. It means A LOT to me.
In the case of cis-male friends, though, it has a particular meaning for me now, I guess, because I somehow feel an instinctive need to be accepted by them since I feel that I’m almost one of them…
The Little Prince and the Fox 