Expect Problems

A transition blog.

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mental

Fear

The other day a friend sent me a casual message, inviting me to go with them to an event. I read the message, saw what the event was and my heart began to

Elissa Harris
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What Now?

For two years (and change) there has always been Something Else To Do. At the beginning, it was utterly terrifying things, such as talking to doctors, coming out publicly, taking meds to completely

Elissa Harris
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Two Years of HRT

If you ask a medical professional about feminising hormone therapy, the most helpful response you get seems to be a furrowed brow followed by, "Look, we generally consider it to be a

Elissa Harris
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"Was it everything you hoped?"

One of the most common questions I get asked by people I come out to is some variation on "what's it like being trans?". Of course, that's a really tough question

Elissa Harris
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Body Awareness and Transitioning

There's a joke going around at the moment on twitter, similar to other observational jokes I've seen for a while, but done particularly well: Male Writers Writing Female Characters: “Cassandra woke up to

Elissa Harris
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Compliments, Consent & Relationships

I've been thinking about the complicated nature of relationships. And for a moment forget the "relationship = partner / girlfriend / boyfriend" thing. I mean relationships as in the way to define how we

Elissa Harris
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Gender-Coded Behaviour

Every trans person had their own ways of coping before they transition. Some have "always" shown behaviour somewhat reflective of their true gender identity. I, on the other hand, got so

Elissa Harris
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Social Anxiety

My own social anxiety never made much sense to me. It was so specific and so seemingly-random (pro-tip: it wasn't random; it was when I was treated in a gendered way or segregated

Elissa Harris
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Acceptance Day

A year ago, I wrote this facebook post (slightly modified for re-posting here)... 16 September, 2016 A year ago today, I broke down crying. It was in the morning. I had gotten up

Elissa Harris
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Shoulda Known

One of the interesting discussions I've had over drinks with lots of other trans people is the one that begins this way: "I have no idea how I didn't figure it out

Elissa Harris
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Hey, Baby

CW: Public attention from creepy dudes. Most of my transition blog posts have been either general observations about an aspect of transitioning, or specific discussions of experiences I've had. This is... half way

Elissa Harris
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"So maybe I wasn't that ugly..."

I used to passionately detest the way I looked. I grew a beard and kept it from about age 21 until right before I began transitioning, and GOD I hated it. On myself,

Elissa Harris
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Identity and Dreaming

Pre-transition, gender only factored into my dreams and internal monologue when I had no choice. I was so deeply uncomfortable being gendered male that in most of my dreams I had no noticeable

Elissa Harris
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The Sound of My Voice

Voices are really interesting things. For me, my voice was actually the one part of myself related to my body that I wasn't ashamed of. I liked the range of my voice. That

Elissa Harris
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Emotional Dissonance

Emotions are a major part of our lives. They inform how we react to situations from big (grief, loss or joy) to small (stubbing our toes or finding a buck on the sidewalk)

Elissa Harris
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High School

I was recently thinking back to my high school days. I went to an all-male high school, which is a pretty shite idea at the best of times, but for a clueless trans

Elissa Harris
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Please Just See Me

I can't open up my news feed right now without seeing article after article about trans rights in the united states. I can't escape it. At precisely the same moment it feels like

Elissa Harris
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The Dysphoria I Don't Feel

Before I began hormone therapy, my dysphoria could get very bad, and it was incredibly frequent (I've written about it several times in detail, but a good summary of my dysphoria experiences is

Elissa Harris
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Reactions

Regenerating your whole goddamn body with hormones and lasers (fuck it sounds cool when I put it that way) is a strange experience. But I'd imagine for others, especially those who aren't used

Elissa Harris
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Being Trans Is Rad

It's easy sometimes to focus on the stress and problems of being trans. There are bad days or bad moments that stick in your memory. Moments of loneliness or feelings of isolation. But

Elissa Harris
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Your Past Self

It's not uncommon that trans people find it a little uncomfortable to see images of their pre-transition self. This is definitely true for me. For the longest time it was uncomfortable as hell

Elissa Harris
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Lost In The Middle

(This is effectively a continuation of my recent blog post on "always knowing you were a woman".) I've had a growing sense of loneliness and isolation that's been hard to shake.

Elissa Harris
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Welcome To Your New Body

Note: this is based on my experiences with feminising (oestrogen-based) hormone therapy. It's also intended to be fairly light in tone. As always, remember these are my experiences, even if they're written in

Elissa Harris
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"I Always Knew"

I always knew something was wrong. Something was different about me. I remember a thought when I was very young - maybe 4 or 5 - thinking that I wanted to be a

Elissa Harris
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Subjective Age

As I've written about before, one of the strange and relatively unique aspects of my current experience I keep running into is the combination of being in my mid-thirties and having a circle

Elissa Harris
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