The Importance of Being Earnest: Transition and Life

[Shana A]

The Importance of Being Earnest: Transition and Life
Posted October 22, 2008

http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/the-importance-of-being-earnest-transition-and-life/

The comment is a fresh one. So fresh, in fact, that it hadn't registered on my email when I logged on. I was expecting the first, had read it and approved it away from site, in fact. But the second caught me by surprise. Yes, Nica and I have some history, not all of it positive, but I think we both see now in her what was evident to me a long time ago: that she should make her own way and find comfort and value in that movement. Transition is not an easy movement to make. Nor is it a whim that one easily waltzes her way through. But, for those who are driven my heart, mind and body to do so, regardless of obstacles, transition completes what was misbegotten at birth. It makes whole the broken ragged pieces of a life that's relentless with dissonance.

[tekla]

I'd go with the dream is often not in reality what we expected it to be in fantasy.  As Paul Simon said "Everything looks worse in black and white."  But it might be even more subtle than that, my experience was more along the lines of Pooh.

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

[NicholeW.]

OK, Bear of Very Little Brain, I really like the way you put that. Where the heck were you when I was writing the blog?!! I could've quoted you!!

Get your California-behind over here and help with the next one!! 

Nikki

[tekla]

Oh I don't like to travel past the east edge of the Rockies anymore, the rest of the US has become weird and scary.

But, to the point, haven't we all wanted something that once we got it turned out to be not what we wanted?  We got that big promotion, or that 'dream job' and didn't like it. 

I think there is a lot of pressure, on the internet at least, to go that route least you be seen as something less.  But whatever path gives you the comfort, the joy and the grace is the one you should be on.

[NicholeW.]

Nothing to add to that, tekla. It's right as rain in my opinion. Excellent post.

Nikki

[Kate]

I think there is a lot of pressure, on the internet at least, to go that route least you be seen as something less...

It's not just that, it's also that sometimes the only way to really, REALLY find out something is to TRY it. This crazy need to change my sex has driven me crazy all my life... and once it became more important to me to FIND OUT rather than constantly worrying about WHAT IF I FAIL?...

I transitioned.

Success or failure, I didn't CARE anymore. I HAD to know.

~Kate~

[NicholeW.]

And now you know. Or at least appear to know. Although for someone who was "driven crazy all my life" you seemed rather sane to me when I've been around you. Musta been the hormones?

N~

[lisagurl]

But, to the point, haven't we all wanted something that once we got it turned out to be not what we wanted?

You make the bed you sleep in it. A good case against a national health care system that provides transition.

The problem with credit and marketing. It does not happen if enough time is spent understanding the consequences of your actions. Being aware of what happens when action is taken seems not to be a part of todays education.

[NicholeW.]

Ah, more hard-boiled realism, Lisa?

Although I have to agree with your basic point that research of the procedures and research of one's self are probably the two most important aspects of transitioning.

I'm not sure I see what relevance a single-payer health-care system would have to transition. For those able to afford it the single-payer systems all allow opt-outs for procedures not covered or desired by the participants. I don't see that wasp-features would be eliminated from transitional surgeries if a single-payer system were involved.

That doesn't appear to happen in UK, Canada or Germany, for instance. Now why would it happen in the USA which has a much deeper bias toward "rugged individualism" and Ayn-Randesque single-vision that any capito-techno-industrial republic on the face of the planet? 

Nikki

[lisagurl]

That doesn't appear to happen in UK

Because they are limited to a budget of only 10% of the demand. Most who want it go outside the UK and then are not covered when they get back. As Canada has very little in the budget for transition and people can wait 15 years or more as it is not available in all provinces.

[NicholeW.]

And the difference between that and USA where a lot of people wait decades? Why not ask Lia how long she was on the waiting list in Canada, or someone else who did the Canadian transition? I'd be very shocked to find that 15 years was even close to being anywhere near the hockey-arena.

Nikki

As for going elsewhere, I think you just made my point about single-payer systems for those who have the money to go elsewhere.