Hi everyone. I know I've barely posted here but I feel this is a good resource so I hope folks won't mind if I vent a bit and maybe some people will have some helpful tips. I am a trans woman who transitioned over 5 years ago (went full time, started hormones, had legal gender marker changes, and a name change). During the beginning of my transition I was seeing a therapist who was money hungry and manipulative. This woman told me that I needed to see her every month for the rest of my life until I got my surgery and when I had trouble paying one time she flipped out. And this was a therapist who made disparaging remarks about a court-ordered anger management class she ran in which if the folks couldn't pay she would send them back to prison. I quit seeing her.
Now that I have the money to pay for the surgery (and have already paid for it in full) I started seeing a different therapist to get the letters. After a few visits in which she thought I was doing great she told me she would write the letter for the surgery and also a "letter of passage" in case I have trouble with doctors, cops, bathrooms, etc. Then the Orlando attack happened. I happen to be a religiously observant Muslim. No letters arrived. When I called suddenly she was all different acting and insisting I see two psychiatrists. After seeing one and taking a test she is now saying she won't write the letters until I start seeing the psychiatrist on a regular basis and still wants me to see two of them. I have not seen this test result but the questions were all true or false and some of them were stereotypical. In the past few months I have had incredible amounts of stressors placed on me which I have actually been handling considerably well. A true/false test of course doesn't take any of that into consideration. While I probably can't prove this has anything to do with me being Muslim, the timing and sudden reversal of her protocol in light of an attack involving an LGBT Muslim did not go ignored by me and feels like stereotyping and suspicion.
This same therapist was previously pushing me to see a new surgeon who has just started doing SRS and has only done one or two of them. This surgeon's office (which has two of them) is also pushing this new doctor insisting that the waiting list will be shorter. When I voiced my concern of having a doctor who has no experience of SRS doing this on me, the response was dismissive. When I asked this surgeon's office for a consultation with the doctor who has been doing the surgeries for over a decade or two, they repeatedly told me I "don't need a consultation" but that if I want one it's an 8 month wait. I also called a surgeon's office in another state who really had no interest in treating me like anything other than a number in an assembly line, also said I don't need a consultation, and that the waiting list was out to 2018.
I find it disturbing that this gender industry wants to put me through endless mental health hoops to get a very invasive surgery with medical risks and yet the actual surgeons are telling me I don't even need a consultation. I have also known many trans people over the years and almost none of them had the surgery nor wanted it. Yet there is still this expectation that somehow we need this surgery to be treated as women or that I need some shrink's approval that I'm a woman even though I've been living as one for over five years.
The more I research the more I'm uncovering stories of people who are not happy with the surgery and had medical complications. None of these surgeon's offices seem to have any program in place that will allow trans people considering the surgery to talk to other trans people who have had it. And I have yet to see testimonials where people were just flat out ecstatic about the results.
So I've been considering simply getting a bilateral orchiectomy as a final procedure which is something really not promoted by the standards of care and they still require all these letters and expensive therapy and psychiatric evaluation. I do understand the need to make sure people are ready but in my experience what is happening is that I am being treated as a cash cow that the system wants to milk endlessly and is using manipulative means in doing so. For instance, even if the therapist isn't ready to write the surgery letter, it makes no sense to not write the "carry letter" considering I've been full time for 5+ years.
I would like to hear from others if they have similar or different stories of having to go through all these expensive hoops and how you dealt with them. And if people have links to older threads I'd be happy to read them. I don't like feeling forced to participate in a system where people decide what gender I am when that is not up to them to decide. I'm literally this close to just forfeiting the deposit, having the surgery money returned, finding another country that will do the orchiectomy without all the BS, fly out and get it done and get on with my life. Thanks to those who have heard me out.
