Jaser's POZ Blog

Okay. I'm supposed to use this first entry to describe myself a little and some of my background so that from here on in whenever you read anymore of this thing you have a good idea of where I'm coming from, but it's like the most awkward thing in the world.

I thought about it, though, and I decided the best possible way to do this is to just drop all the major bombs first and get them out of the way. That's how I handle this stuff when I have to talk about them with someone in real life, so I may as well do it here - so here we go:

a. I'm 17. I've been HIV+ since I was 14, so that's 3 years now.
b. I'm a transgender kid. FTM to be more specific. No, if you met me on the street you wouldn't be able to tell. Seriously. I've been on HRT for almost 5 months now, it's a pain in the ass (literally, they're intramuscular injections and your ass cheek is a pretty muscular place) and it's difficult for such a variety of reasons (physically/emotionally/mentally/financially, is the list I usually run off) that I can promise you it's not something I chose.
c. Also, I'm gay. I like the boys. The boys like me. You know how it goes.

I'm a gay, HIV+, 17 year old trannyboy. Be afraid, bitches.

All things considered though, I'm not that strange (I know, shut up). There are a few other things that are a bit different about me than most boys my age though. I don't go to a regular public highschool. I used to, but kids suck. I'm now homeschooled via a cyber school on the net - it's safer for me, I can work at my own pace, I don't have to stress over what the kids in my class are gonna do or say to me and I get to sleep in. Also, it's much more comfortable to do Brit Lit in your pajamas. Taking into consideration the amount of time I took off for not feeling well, because I was afraid of being harrassed and because my teachers gave me a hard time because of all of that, I was missing a lot of school, as well. I'm doing much better now. My geometry grade is crap (like a really low C at the time of writing this) but everything else is all As and high Bs.

I guess one of the things that bother me the most about being + at this age is the fact that a lot of people assume that it's okay to ask me 'how I got it'. You don't ask adults how they became positive, so why is it alright to ask me? Seriously guys. Most people assume that I was born with it, or I got it medically somehow, but I didn't. And if you think 14 year olds (and even younger, honestly) aren't having sex, I suggest you take a day trip to reality to get a better understanding of what's going on. They are, and I was, and a great deal of the stuff you'll probably hear me angrily rant about is how poorly kids are being taught about sex and HIV. I angrily rant a lot, though, you'll notice. :D

As far as the transguy thing goes, I am usually pretty outspoken about it. However, I reserve the right to live my life as comfortably and happily as possible, and that includes not informing everyone I know about the fact that I am trans. I want to just live my life as a normal guy. Unfortunately there is so much trans prejudice in the world that wanting to be treated like a normal guy and simultaneously telling everyone I'm trans just isn't possible. That is why not wanting to go public about my HIV status isn't the only reason why I will not be using my full name in this blog, and why I've chosen to use a baby picture instead of a recent picture of myself. That's just how it's gonna be, at least for now and until/if I decide I'm willing to risk the chance of everyone finding out about these things - which I'm not saying is never gonna happen, but for right now I think that'd be a pretty bad idea.

I'd like to use this space to not only talk about what's going on in my life, but to bring to the attention of whoever is reading some issues that normally go ignored that are personally relevant to me. You don't hear a lot of talk about issues specific to HIV and teenagers, or how trans people are affected by HIV, either. Those are topics that are important to me so I'll probably be bringing them up a lot. Not to bore you guys or anything, just because I think they deserve some attention.

Finally, I suppose, if by reading what I write here one teenager prevents himself or herself from getting HIV, or one trans person that is already HIV+ understands there are other people out there struggling with their issues, or someone who isn't affected by any of this stuff comes away with a better understanding - and maybe even has some of their opinions changed, I would be happy.

Also, I really like to talk, so that's appealing, too. I have a couple of friends that are going to tell me to just blog about it now whenever I start ranting.

- Jase
PS: WTF. I had this entry typed out in Notepad and went to paste it here and the formatting like threw up on me, so if anything looks weird I'm sorry. I know how to punctuate and crap, I swear, it's the blog's fault.

There is so much crap going on.

Tomorrow morning we're moving the rest of our junk to my uncle's because we're going to be staying there for maybe a month. Most likely afterwards we'll be moving to Arizona, but if not we'll be coming back here - to our newly renovated place. Our landlord decided to redo the entire house so we have to get out of here for at least a month while he does that. It suuuucks.

My dad doesn't have much of an income right now. He has hepatitis C and was denied for longterm disability (there is a lot of junk going on with that I don't feel like getting into) while he's on treatment for it. Which has just fucked us all right up. His friend has been telling us to move to Arizona with him for years, but it wasn't until recently that we started to seriously consider it. I personally am excited for it, and I think he is, too, it's just the specifics of it that are giving us some trouble. I'm confident that it will work out now. It'll be a long move for me. I have never been away from the east coast, and other than a trip to Florida when I was 1 (that I, of course, don't remember) I haven't really left my PA/NJ area. I travelled to Boston twice and I was in DC once and I've been to NYC a few times, but other than that, I've never left my area. I've never even been on a commercial plane (ever ever in life!)

We're going to sell most of our stuff and buy new crap when we get down there, so that we can save on costs of bringing it with us. The stuff we have now just isn't worth taking with us.

Annnnyway, that's what's going on with that. Tonight I hung out with my friends at this queer youth group I go to. Ugh, it sucks because this guy I have the worst crush on showed up with his boyfriend and I was like, "Nooooo!" Except... not outloud. Just... in my head. :(

I took some pictures but my camera decided to die promptly afterwards, so I can't upload them until I get some batteries, but I'll post some cool pictures soon.

It's weird how close I felt to all of these kids, but the longer I go the less and less I like the kids that are showing up. They just all seem so conceited and obsessed with their looks and with just... stupid shit that isn't actually important in real life. Especially this kid Mat that I dated for a few weeks. I totally fell for him, but then I realized that he was a brainless little freak. He's really not as stupid as he pretends to be, he just does it for attention and it pisses me off. He also sleeps with like... every guy he comes across and it's really disgusting. He has no standards at all (guess that says a lot about me. D: )

I really hate this culture now where it's cool to act like an idiot and to listen to bad music and, by the way, I hate people that use the word 'hot' in like every sentence. I can't stand it. If you want to date me, my new criteria is to be able to hold an intelligent conversation for at least 15 minutes and to NOT use the word hot to describe everything.

I'm sort of seeing this kid right now but I don't think it's going to work out, mostly because he has no social skills and I really like to be around people. He doesn't know how to talk to human beings and he is frighteningly obsessive over me which, believe it or not, is a bit of a turn-off. I just wish he'd chill out a bit. (I'm really not as picky as I sound, I swear.)

And, oh! My friend gave me the idea to review a book he recommended to me here so I'm probably going to do that soon! :D So, yeah, look out for that.

And uhh. On Friday I have a party to go to. Except... ergh. There is this guy that shows up at these all the time and he's creeepyyy and he won't leave me alone. He's actually very nice but... well, you know. He just feels the need to be around me all the time and I have trouble going around and talking to other people while he's around and it's frustrating. He also seems to think that he has the right to know all this personal stuff about me and it's weird.

That's about it, I guess. I have all these ideas but when I go to blog I'm like "....what?".

- Jase.