Quote from: Bunter on October 21, 2014, 07:02:39 AM
CT-
I think your posts almost deserve their own thread. It's really an important story to share.
Did you feel you were pushed into transition? Or was it just youthful enthusiasm?
I'm the older generation where everything was done to not let anyone transition, it was forbidden to even start before the age of 23 if I remember rightly. It was a horror story to be trans 30 years ago. Nowadays, as much as I am happy that people have it so much easier, I sometimes get the feeling that some people get pushed into transitioning out of misinformation or something.
For one thing, we live in very gender conforming times again. Gender variance is not seen as normal variation, but rather it's all "trans(sexual)". Even many butches and drag queens get pushed towards transition at early ages, which is a bit of a 180° turnaround from the situation in the early 1980s (not that that situation was better).
Then, there is no identity for gender variant "straight" people. While you can live as butch or drag queen, without transitioning, there is no such choice if you are "straight", esp. if you are an ftm cross dresser or gender variant. Tomboy is not really seen as a viable transgender identity for adults.
Also, straight cross dressers are in some way much more stigmatized and invisible than gay or lesbian cross dressers.
And all the talks about "trans brain" that you have in the US often gives the impression that if someone has "male brain" or "female brain", this is like a diagnosable physical condition that means you *must* transition, instead of one way to deal with gender variance.
The decision to transition should in all cases be something that we make ourselves, not something that others tell us. Especially not when they feel a person is somehow "different", a square peg, and by transitioning, that person would fit in better with the gender binary.
And we should be really aware that transitioning is only *one* way of being trans or gender variant.
I would be happy to write a complete post if a Mod might sticky it, that way I could tell my story all in a row, include everything, and it wouldn't be bits and pieces scattered throughout other threads. If so, someone just PM me and I will make a new thread and include everything I can, and really take my time to write it well. Just wondering, but are we allowed to name specific institutions? I think it's important people be aware of what they're walking into if they go to the same place I went for care...
This odyssey began when someone close to me told me they thought that I was a transsexual. I was very insistent that this was not the case - I'd often thought about how things would be 'if I was a boy' or if reincarnation was real and I were male in a past life, things of that sort, but I had never given myself the label of 'transsexual'. Yet the person was very persistent and pointed out to me the fact that many of the clothes I liked (baggy jeans, baseball hats, tank tops and t-shirts, etc) were men's clothing, that the tattoos I wanted were masculine, and that I liked having short hair and very badly wanted a mohawk although at the time I was not able to have one. He pointed out that I didn't like girly stuff or have positive feelings toward women, among other things. After arguing about it for some time, I began to see the 'evidence' piling up all around me - indeed, it did seem that I must be a guy mentally if not physically.
When I went to see a counselor and told her about my childhood, the things I liked, and my feelings toward women and men, she only met with me that one time and wrote me the name of a clinic where I could go for transgender care - meaning hormones. At this point I had never been diagnosed officially with GID but she said I seemed like I was serious and did not need to continue coming all the way to her (a state away from me) when the other place was closer. Note, she did not write me a letter of recommendation, did not give me a diagnosis, and did not contact the clinic for me. She simply told me to call myself.
At that clinic, I was evaluated on one occasion by a person who turned out to be an FtM themselves... that individual talked to me for less than one hour and I told him I felt like I was a transsexual, and that when I was a child kids had mistaken me for a boy because I'd had short hair and worn baggy jeans and t-shirts, etcetera, and that I liked men's clothing and wanted tattoos and all that. At no point did the person ever tell me that maybe I was not a transsexual. They never asked me if I thought it was okay for girls to like those things too, or if maybe I could be happy expanding my idea of what was acceptable for women to wear or look like. Instead, they reassured me that if I took testosterone I could look 'just like a normal man' (I had feared that I would not, especially because at the time I was 108lb and just under 5'4... nope! All I got was reassurance - the counselor told me that I DID NOT NEED to undergo a year of therapy, and that at the clinic they will prescribe people medications without following the Harry Benjamin standards of care!!!
At that point in time I was only 20 years old... not even drinking age!
I then saw a doctor at that same clinic and she spoke with me to ask if I understood the effects of HRT and gave me paperwork to sign, assuring me that if I initialled all of the spots on the form, I would be given testosterone. This was the first time I had seen her, and the next time I did so I was given an injection of testosterone - immediately after I had turned 21...
The story does go on, but just to let you know what they are doing in Washington DC, no there isn't any real difficulty securing hormones and they diagnosed me with a condition that has no known cure and the only treatment is to hormonally and surgically alter your body. Something I deeply regret, but even now it has been YEARS since this happened and I am not even old enough to rent a car! A 23 year old should not be picking up the pieces from trauma like this, encouraged by doctors who spent around 20 minutes talking to me and had NO real medical history on me, had only just met me... I think it's truly a tragedy.
The worst part is that when I spoke with the compliance department and asked what was being done to prevent this from happening in the future, they blew me off, saying 'We came up with our own guidelines that we follow which is that we interview patients and only treat them if we honestly believe that they are truly transgender and this is going to be best for them'. REALLY? A transgender mental health professional who does not discourage patients at all and only meets them once before sending them on their way to a prescribing doctor, and a prescribing doctor who only meets a patient once and sends them home with the consent forms... no, that is absolutely inappropriate - even if you do not consider my age or the fact that they knew nothing about my medical history, it was very negligent of them.
