Low self-steem issues.

[Bird]

Working as a guy kills my self-steem.


I'm a med student, I haven't officialized my name change yet, but I am full time. This is recent and I havent had the opportunity to ask my superiors to accept me as I am. So for now, I am working with a male white overall with my male name stamped on it

Most patients aren'tgendering me anymore,, that is they avoid stating if I'm a girl or a guy, and there are certain days where they all take me as a girl, male overcoat and shortish hair aside.

Then my teacher (I'm still a med student) walks into the office saying my male name and adressing me with male pronouns and it all sucks. I'm forced to accept this genderism and by consequence, the patient who was doubtful of the person with male overcoat but small hands and girl voice, is reassured by a DOCTOR that I'm male.

I'm passing sometimes, but this is killing my self-steem and has me feel like I don't pass AT ALL and that I should stay hidden at home. It is not a rational feeling, because I KNOW that no matter how girly I look, in that specific situation I'd be adressed as a male. However, dysphoria has this funny thing that it is irrational.

So I began the day feeling great, now I'm struggling with anxiety to leave home and go have lunch. I will have to get back there in the afternoon and will be even more anxious tonight.

[AbraCadabra]

I guess that's the time you grow some elephant skin --- or you don't, which spells trouble.

You want to continue your education and so you have to eat it up. Can't run away, that be just to painfully emotional and silly.

I find, I have developed an inner attitude that may be arrogant, I say to myself SO WHAT!?!
I do my thing, do it best and DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING, and learn to ignore them for THEIR ignorance or what ever. You can not change it/them. ONLY TIME WILL DO THAT.

In the long run it actually will make you stronger, it is one of those hurdles that will come up over and again. Also, and that is for me, it helps to remember we ARE transwomen, so if someone calls you being a guy, just LET HIM. Water of a ducks back.
You will never be able to force such issues and are reliant on TIME, GOODWILL, and TOLERANCE.

But it's fine to vent. We, all of us have been there in some way or another. And if all fails... go to the loo and have a good sob, usually I feel for the better after it.

Hug,
Axelle

[Bird]

*hug*

Thank you axelle.

This is part of how I function... I just needed to vent and to talk. I'm weak, but I find I'm strong in my weakness.

[Stephe]

I dealt with this at work too. I worked in a field that was 99.9% male (restored old cars) and even though I was very feminine looking (as much as possible for the job I was doing), it still sucked as I began to deal with being TG. Many customers would assume I was a woman but then the boss would use male pronouns and they would look at me like  The rest of my life I was living full time so the whole -back and forth- was very depressing. I was lucky that I was older than you and in a position I could take a break from working for a while, so I did. My boss is a good friend and now he basically accepts I'm a woman but I really can't and don't want to do what I was doing before. And I really was ready for a career change anyway, working on cars breaks too many nails

I understand how rationally you should just ignore this but it is REALLY hard to deal with. Honestly, in the end I couldn't deal with it and had to do something else. Maybe you need to -deal- with this now as far as your name and gender with your supervisors or I'm sure there is an HR person you could talk to? You aren't at the end of your career where you can make the choice I did or start over doing something else. You really do NOT want to have to do/deal with this later when you start working and have people knowing the "old you and the new you". I think in your profession this change would be accepted and understood better than most. In your profession being a woman isn't unusual at all so there isn't a real reason you can't do this. You look very "girl" to me and I doubt you would have a lot of trouble pulling this off. You really just need to suck it up, take a deep breath in and finally "jump ship". Trying to get up the courage to do it is the hardest part.