Susan's Place Transgender Resources

  At the recommendation of my family doctor (who will be prescribing my HRT) I went to a fertility clinic by her referral.  In what I consider the improbable circumstance that I'll find a partner who wants to have children, I am banking sperm in case HRT renders me sterile.  At least I'm still young enough that parenthood isn't entirely out of the question.

  The clinic is operated by one of the major hospitals in Toronto.  There is a separate cubicle in the office dedicated to the banking program and facilitated by one woman.  Not ready for the full-on strangeness of attending a male-focused program while presenting as a woman, although it would have been mildly amusing, I went as male.  However the referral gave my preferred name and as they frequently get referrals of this nature from the LGBT health program at my health center they knew fully what was going on.  While they were happy to address me as "Violet" and the facilitator kept calling me "sweetie" and trying to be nice about the whole thing, the hospital had to use my legal name and birth gender tied to my health card and issue a hospital card with it.

  This got all the more strange later that day when I returned to the hospital for a required blood test and by this point was in female mode having also gone to see my family doctor in between.  The receptionists and the nurse at the lab were entirely professional about it though and didn't say a word or act odd.  I guess they get a lot of this in downtown Toronto.  This was also the first place I ever used the womens' washroom and it was in the main area on the busy ground floor.  No one batted an eye as far as I could tell.

  Today I returned to the fertility clinic, again in male mode, for the 'sample'.  They really don't speak much in explicit terms and what little information is provided comes in paper form.  There must be an extreme amount of discomfort for a lot of men in this setting which would explain why all the 'tip-toeing'.  I on the other hand had a much different reason for feeling odd about it obviously.  The 'sample' cup is provided inside a little brown paper bag just in case you're really embarrassed about passing someone in the hallway with your finished sample cup.

  You have your choice of a number of private rooms for 'doing the deed' and each has a red light outside that turns on when you lock the door.  Kinda reminded me of my college radio days going "on the air", although 'broadcasting' in this setting would be rather messy and counter-productive.  (Sorry!)  There were big fold-out sanitary/absorbing pads they said nothing about that I figured out were meant to be placed on the chair under your butt.

  At this point I realized just how gender and sexuality binary-focused and stereotypical the setting was and that I had little interest in any of the printed or video assistive pornography provided.  (Heh - if only Apple knew what their AppleTV box was being used for!)  Sure there were some hot-looking chicks in the material but certainly nothing oriented towards a lesbian (obviously).  There really was also no provision for anyone requiring or preferring anything other than a few minutes of straight-up wanking for stimulation.  And because they didn't want anything contaminating the sample there was no lubrication of any sort offered.  I'll avoid getting graphic here but would note that this form of masturbation barely works for me anymore and also doesn't mix too well with my disphoria.  I came prepared with an insertable vibrator but had to resort to saliva for lube because rubber certainly wasn't making it in there otherwise.  This arrangement would have been much easier if I'd had a third hand for the damned cup.

  Once finished you go to a little frosted window and press a button to ring the nurse.  They slide up the window and then have you state your name and date of birth so they can check it against the label of the cup.  I'm sure this is both to ensure no errors and also to make sure no one is intentionally screwing around with the process trying to mis-represent the source of the sample.

  All told, I guess it made sense to do the banking anyway because you never know if illness or injury will steal your fertility.  Plus you get a proper analysis of the quality of your sperm which otherwise you might never know before running into an awkward situation with a partner.  Who knows - I could have been born sterile and never guessed.  Still I'm hoping for good results and the banking will give me some piece of mind during the upcoming 'experiments' with my body.  Satisfactory results are the last hurdle to clear before getting my HRT prescription, hopefully next week.

I felt much the same about a lot of those things Violet, it was a bit of an odd experience to say the least donating.

Quote from: Violet Bloom on September 13, 2013, 04:39:07 PM
Who knows - I could have been born sterile and never guessed.

LOL I said the exact thing to myself before and afterwards. I was wrong, lol. I might be now though hahahhaa

The clinic informed me that I've successfully banked "20 Straws".  I'm not entirely sure what that means but it sounds like a lot.  Looks like I'm also fertile after all!  That ties up the last loose end for my HRT approval.  Hopefully I don't have to go back there again.