Hello everyone. I just joined here. See my intro thread:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,164281.0.htmlWhat brought me here is I'm having some frustrating issues at the moment that I'm trying to resolve. I'll try to keep it brief but I do tend to ramble. The situation is real simple for me but made complicated by others. I am a woman and my womanhood is not up for anyone's discussion or debate, period. I have a gender condition that is really a private medical matter that nobody is entitled to know about unless I choose to tell them. I'm going to list what is happening in a few points:
I am not homosexual nor do I have anything to do with homosexuality and I do not appreciate being treated as "LGBT" because I am not LGBT as this gender condition has nothing to do with homosexuality at all. Further, I do not appreciate it when people treat me as "transgender" using this label without my permission when the only correct way to treat me is that of a female and no different than any other female in this country or on this planet. And the good news is that this is what I get almost 100% of the time wherever I'm at. Nobody treats me as anything other than female at work and at public places I normally go to (stores, restaurants, banks, etc.). The same applies at my apartment complex with the exception of one person and at the many medical offices I go to with the exception of two of them and there is a pattern.
The person at my apartment who has openly and rudely treated me as a man and made a point to tell everyone including the management and the police when there was a crime (that she did not witness and thus had no business butting into) happens to be a lesbian.
The medical offices I go to are all aware of my gender condition. Yet the allergy/asthma place where I get my allergy shots at treat me as a female without issue or question. The sleep doctor where I have had my sleep studies and get my CPAP supplies all treat me as a female without issue or question. The two offices where I am having the issue happen to be offices in which the primary demographic (including the providers as well as the patients) are gay men. One of those offices is an HIV/AIDS center and the other one is my primary physician who specializes in AIDS and supposedly specializes in "transgender care" although I have my doubts about his integrity on that one.
I am not a judgmental person but I do not ignore patterns. In my bio in the intro thread I stated that I was involved in the gay male community before my transition (due to being attracted to men and having been assigned male back at that time). Since my transition, I have left that community. The reason I have left that community is twofold: 1) as I'm a female attracted to men then the community is no longer is applicable to my life and 2) because for years I have been treated rather horribly by gay men and some lesbian women on a consistent basis due to my gender condition while I have not had such discriminatory treatment for the most part by the mainstream heterosexual populace. And the real issue is that these people have made it clear in so many ways that they want to include me in their politics, their agendas, and their lifestyles against my will when none of it even applies to me and none of it even benefits me. Lumping me into "LGBT" when this gender condition has nothing to do with homosexuality is not acceptable to me. It is like lumping all Brazilians in with Spanish-speaking people continually glossing over and ignoring the fact that most speak Portuguese rather than Spanish. It is not appreciated.
At the end of the day I really don't care if someone is homosexual or heterosexual but I should not be associated with something that doesn't apply to me against my will. And I have never understood what the problem is that heterosexuals have no problem understanding that I am a female even after I've told them about my gender condition yet gay men and lesbian women more often than not have treated me as no different than drag queens, crossdressers, and as a third-gender "transgender" rather than simply as a female with a medical condition.
And I have to put up with this because I can't find a doctor that specializes in AIDS and transsexual or intersex endocrinology who is not a gay man lumping me into a community I'm not a part of. They will ask me if I am going to PRIDE or who I know "in the community" and I'm like "What community?" And then they get weird about my religion which is Islam (as I wear a headscarf) and can't understand how I'm "accepted as transgender" in the Muslim community mentioning concerns about sharia, etc. Yet the mainstream heterosexual community generally has not made an issue over my religion or dress and generally treats me positively. It has gotten bad enough that when I brought up the issue of islamophobia among the Muslims in the community almost unanimously they cited the problems as coming from gay men, not right-wing white guys, not Republicans, but gay men. Last time I checked, I am there to receive a service like any other American regardless of sex or religion. I'm sick of being othered and included in politics and agendas that don't apply and questioned about things (i.e. my faith) that are none of their concern. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone and I'm sick of it.
Thanks for letting me vent.
