This blog contains nudity and post-surgery images

This is a story about being true to yourself. A story of loving and being who you truly are. This is a story about finding true love along the way.

Please keep an open mind. You can never walk in other's shoes. You can never know what another feels. What would you do to feel whole and complete? We have created this blog to inform and educate about transgender people.

There are so many lonely souls walking this earth. Please remember that things will change. Things will improve. You are worth it. You are perfect and never allow ANYONE to tell you different. I have linked various sites below. Reach out for help. YOU ARE NOT ALONE! WE LOVE YOU! XOXO -Sarah

These images are not edited. We thought it was important to keep the photos as is.

These photos document a small part of my journey as a transgender man with the beautiful queer woman I married who is taking this journey with me. They show the raw emotions of love, and also pain. My wife and I decided to let Sarah be a part of this story because it is so incredibly important for the world to see. To know what we go through to present who we truly are; to know that we have love just as precious as any other; to find some way to relate and be inspired; and to educate those who would open themselves up to learn; and for other trans people to find hope, and stay strong.

Kris’s journey:
I find that coming out and transition stories can be found easily all over the Internet, not that that invalidates those stories in any way, but I don’t want that to be the main focus of my story. I came out as a lesbian at 15 and played the butch role for years. I found that it was the closest I could get to my inner self. I was in and out of relationships like most young people. When I was 28 my ex-partner and I had a daughter together and the following year in 2012 is when I began realizing that I am transgender. I spoke to a friend at a wedding who casually informed me that he was transitioning, to call him by his new name and use male pronouns. Honestly, I was floored, I had casually heard of female to male (FTM) transitioning, but FTM people were not in the media as widely as male to female (MTF). And on top of that, I had felt that being transgender was, ironically, strange. It did, however plant a seed in my mind that made me begin to question everything I thought I knew about myself. Then one day I was lying on the couch watching MTV’s True Life: I’m Transgender and it all came pouring out of my mouth. I told my partner at the time that I believe I am trans and then began looking all over the Internet about what that might mean. I contacted my friend from the wedding and was given an amazing source for help and guidance, the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRCNM). After going to several support groups and doing a lot of research and I guess what some might call “soul searching,” I realized that I definitely am transgender and transitioning from female to male was definitely the choice for me. I began taking testosterone cream to medically transition in February of 2013, March of 2013 I came out at my job and April of 2013 I got a hysterectomy and I was actively transitioning until August of 2013. At the end of August my partner at the time and I broke up (I want to note that we did not break up due to my transition at all), and I felt my world turn upside down. I began to question everything, so much so that I stopped taking the testosterone and told everyone in my world that I had made a mistake by beginning transition and I would be returning to living as female and using female pronouns. Looking back on it, I know exactly why I thought I had to live as female, I was terrified of never finding love as a transgender person, but only a couple months later I would start a journey that would prove how very wrong I was.
In October of 2013, I decided I was ready to begin casual dating, but would in no way be looking for anything serious. I joined OK Cupid and went on a couple of dates. I found out that I really had no idea how to use the OK Cupid app because I just began swiping pictures back and forth to look (for anyone who doesn’t know, swiping one direction means you are interested, swiping the other means you are not), and suddenly one day I got a notice with a profile attached that said, “you two like each other.” I wrote a quick message to this random girl with the sides of her head shaved and curly red hair on top and said, hey looks like we like each other, yes lame, I know, but she wrote back, confused actually because as I found out later, she too was just swiping pictures back and forth. She wrote back, interested actually, and…I ignored her. I had taken a closer look at her profile and while she was beautiful, she didn’t seem like my type at all. A couple of days later she tried again, I wrote a few words, and then stopped talking again, after all I wasn’t looking for a relationship, if I wasn’t interested, I’d just move on. And then, she wrote one more time, she asked me to get a beer with her, to be down right honest, I was horny, and she was hot, so, I said F*** it and invited her to my house to have a couple of beers. Well, she came over, was even more gorgeous than her photos and it went very very well that night, so much so in fact that all we did was talk and laugh all night and then she went home, nothing more. She came over the next night for what we had both originally intended, but it took forever just to get to that point since we still just talked most of the night. Now I am not a believer of fate or in “the one,” but this girl, oh this girl, was I wrong about her. I couldn’t get enough and it had only been two nights that I saw her, the following Tuesday, we both admitted to each other that we didn’t want to see anyone else. After two weeks I asked her to move in with me. Now remember, at the time we were both identifying as lesbians so we were pretty much right on schedule with our relationship. But in all honestly, we truly matched and complimented each other in ways I had never been with any other partner. We rushed, I mean we really rushed our relationship, we got legally married after 3 months, in fact our one year anniversary is at the end of this month (January, 2015). Yes, it was crazy, and irresponsible and the best decision I have ever made. We were at the time, two lesbians delighted to be able to get married. However, those feelings, those same feelings that began to creep in before, they had never really gone away, and they began to keep me awake at night.
What have I done I would ask myself; I would have inner battles about my own identify while trying to hide it all from my amazing new wife. She knew that I had tried to transition before, but now we were playing the perfect lesbian roles, happy in a same sex marriage state. I felt like I had led her on, and more so that I had led myself on, continued to tell myself a lie because I loved a girl who loved girls. I carried on for two more months, not saying anything, but dealing with turmoil in my own head, how was I supposed to live this way, and on top of that I began living as female in every other aspect of my life again. I can’t come out all over again, I told myself. I feared so greatly that I would be seen as a joke, that people would take my example to argue that trans people choose these lives whimsically. I cried alone all the time, but could not bring myself to tell anyone. In March of 2014, we went on our honeymoon, a road trip through the south for my wife to introduce me to her family and friends. At our first stop in Tulsa, OK, I got drunk, and on the floor of my wife’s best friend’s house, I said “I think I might be genderqueer.” My wife was completely fine with it, but it was the most I could say at that time and I didn’t really bring it up for a while, and though I had let a small piece out, the rest was eating away at me. Slowly I began to talk about it more and more with my wife and to my surprise, the more I talked to her about it, the closer we got. In so many ways, the weight had begun to lift and I could feel myself getting closer and closer to who I was born to be. Eventually the entire truth was out, I told my wife that I know I am transgender and she agreed 100%, and she did not just stand by my side, she was proud to be my partner in this journey. As of July 2014, I started taking testosterone again, this time in shot form and was again actively transitioning. On December 29th I had top surgery performed by Dr. Morehouse at Mariposa Plastic Surgery here in Albuquerque, after I had it done, my wife said, “there you are, you look so much more like yourself.” She cared for me like no one I’ve ever known, with love and compassion. My wife has become my greatest ally, a true partner. I have given her all that I am and she has done the same. We have built the life that we both deserve and it is the most beautiful thing that I have ever known. We raise my daughter together with my ex and her husband, and we are currently in the process of trying to have a child together.
I wanted to tell the story of my relationship above anything else to show that though transitioning is the hardest thing I have ever been through, it made me a better person, in the end it made my life so very much better. This love is amazing, and I am lucky to have found it, but it wasn’t until I began to truly live as the person I was meant to be that our love began to become what it is today. Hiding myself only put a barrier between us in which neither of us could get as close as we are now. We as transgender people face so many obstacles; people that hate us simply for who we are, a healthcare system that is not on our side, families that often disown and berate us; but we can make our own way, we can stand up and say, I can have what I want and need while being who I truly am. Dan Savage was right, it does get better, find help, find someone, because it’s out there I promise. I dedicate this story to Leelah Alcorn and the countless other LGBTQ youth in our world who suffer solely on the basis of who they are.

Notes
- Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico is a one of a kind center in Albuquerque, NM dedicated to helping and guiding trans people across the spectrum. It has helped me and continues to help me in more ways than I could begin to explain. Director Adrien Lawyer and Assistant Director Zane Stephens are nothing short of heroes in our community and I would not be being doing them justice if I did not thank them for where I am today. Our community is extremely lucky to have them and the safe haven that they have built in TGRCNM.
- Dr. Morehouse is an Albuquerque plastic surgeon who is very well known for performing top surgery for transmasculine identified persons. Not only is he, in my opinion, a wonderful surgeon, but he is a trans ally who spends time educating himself and others on transgender issues. He treats his patients with the utmost dignity and respect and he did an amazing job on my top surgery.