The "Impulse"

Although it has been a fairly long time since my last post, I have been examining more literature to better understand the sex/identity change. In particular, one book, The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male, by Max Wolf Valerio, is valuable to my research because Valerio discusses openly the change in sex drive and physical attraction to women when he began using testosterone to physically be a man. From jeering to staring, men grow accustomed to treating women like objects and although it doesn't excuse this behavior, testosterone, Valerio discovers, has a great deal to do with the desire to be physical with women. I remember listening to a radio broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) about a transgendered man rediscovering himself after the hormone treatment began. He remembered clear as day walking down a busy, city street and passing an attractive woman, only to discover that the hormone treatments were causing him to have such strong desires for the opposite sex, that he actually turned around to glance at the woman's backside while she continued passed him and sauntered off down the street. It was this actual occurrence that represented, for the interviewee, the significant differences between men and women and it became the individual event that stood for the rest of the speaker's life as a man.

Valerio describes more in-depth the sexual differences he discovers between men and women:

Testosterone, the "male hormone," is actually a sex hormone that everyone has, but men possess this virilizing chemical in astronomical amounts compared to women. When I changed my sex, I altered my ratio of testosterone to a male range. The result was not only an amazing physical transformation evident to anyone who meets me, but also an even more amazing and unexpected change in my perceptions, sex drive, and emotions. (Valerio, 2006: 9)

Valerio, like Gavi, from my previous post, discovers the experience-side of the sex change. Interactions with other people, whether they are direct or indirect (such as the attractive woman walking down the street), are altered. Even internal thoughts and feelings are significantly different, as if the individual has left their comfort zone and entered a new, unfamiliar social existence:

I feel more confident, expansive, cocky. It's a pounding-on-the-chest kind of feeling, a swagger, a strut. Testosterone is an androgen, an up, pure raucous power. "Raw power!" as Iggy Pop sings. I'm beginning to understand certain things in waves of sharp relief. The adolescent boys who whip past me on skateboards--shouting, grinning, turnings wild tricks, jumping curbs, weaving in and out of traffic oblivious to skinned knees or passing cards. Men in groups--loud, boisterous, joking with maniacal enthusiasm. Gay men in Castro bars--sweating, stripped to the waist, dancing to throbbing, relentless music. It's that energy--sizzling, pounding, surging, thrusting, a little loud or tight-eyed, paranoid around the edges, territorial, tense, on guard, expansive, cranked up. Testosterone is party energy. I'm finding it hard to contain. If I lie down, I beat off. If I get up, I feel like walking, walking, and walking. I wake up with a start in the mornings, charged. I wish I could channel it... On estrogen, I was more relaxed. I couldn't have known it; I had no means of comparison. I felt submerged in a sweet, dense fog, like walking through liquid--slow, languid. (Valerio, 2006: 20)

Transgendered people are given the unique opportunity to experience both the lives of men and of women. Valerio describes an example of the switch as an "impulse" to watch women, rather than a given choice that many may experience in a cross-cultural encounter that demands the attention of our conscience. We are conscious of our mistakes when we find ourselves in awkward situations, even though it is usually impossible for us to understand another culture. Similarly, a transgendered man or woman is conscious of the changes affecting their body, emotions, and feelings, so while the experience is of another kind than being introduced to a new culture with new values, there is a similar sort of consciousness over feelings that people of this sexual and personal identity experience. I am beginning to understand the type of encounter that occurs within a culture and within the transgendered community; it begins with the newfound self, which is missing in the cross-cultural encounter. Usually, it is questions of others that we ask ourselves in a cross-cultural encounter, rather than questions of our selves that we are faced with.

~ Katherine Niemczyk

Sources -
Valerio, Max Wolf.
2006, The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.