Well, I finished up getting my Masters in Computer Science. Yeah! What's more, my transgender based Human and Computer Interaction research project has been dubbed as having a "reasonable" chance for publication by my old professor, provided my partner and I do some user testing. The extra nice thing about that is this professor doesn't like to publish just to get to a quota. He likes the research he publishes to matter and be cited by other works. I'd love it if my research was published, but even if it's not, on both my academic and gender levels I find myself feeling satisfied.
Just sucks that I gotta start my new job as a guy tomorrow :(. I'm not on hormones yet, I gotta go in for prelim-blood work later this month, but I socially transitioned in my program during my last semester in school. Despite all the problems it caused I found presenting and carrying myself as a woman made life easier on the whole. I was more out going & sociable, calmer, far more confident, maybe even more productive. I know I wouldn't have made it through my last semester if I didn't come out. Being in the closet & 12 grad credits & 20 to 25 hours of work a week would have been just too much! As I write that last, I find myself reflecting on how much I loved getting ready for my day. I can't stand it when there's a TV special about a MTF transperson and there's the obligatory shot of said transperson putting on their makeup. Yet for me I found that time like meditation and I miss it. I wasn't thinking about pushing bits around in a computer. It was a nice time of day, even if to do it meant I had to get up earlier :P. Back on topic, I also made my first female friend who knew me primarily as a woman in school. So what also bugs me is I know I'll be working with women in my new job. I'm not happy they have to meet my faux male side first.
Losing the social part of my transition for a while is going to be very hard...
B-U-T the health insurance company for my new employer does have plans that cover hormones and SRS. Don't know yet if my employer has one of those plans but I'll be going through the paper work tomorrow to find out. Everyone at my new employer is at minimum a Senior Developer too and I'm finding my region to be cool with being trans on the whole. I haven't had a car these last 2 years so when I came out in school and started going there presenting myself as the woman I am it was the bus for me with the general public to get to campus. I had one incident while on board but was far more often than not fine. So a girl can be optimistic that she'll be able to lose her male facade sooner rather than later, can't she?
I do hope my paper goes forward. I see it as my best vector to going full time. It'd be something out there that would create the perception of, "Hey, she may be trans but she does good work" to people who don't know me. I don't even know if we get to go the conference my colleague has in mind but if we do, the only scraps of men's clothes in my suitcase will be for the benefit of the TSA.
September girl, hold on till September...
Good luck with the new job and congratulations on your graduation.
Just remember to keep the right balance of work and life. Most CS jobs seem to demand crazy hours. If you aren't careful it is so easy to get burned out.
As far as insurance, why not check and see if your company is on the HRC list of companies that cover HRT.
I finished my MS in CS 15 years ago and unfortunately I don't know how much more I can take of the endless hours and arbitrary deadlines. Learn from my mistake and demand breaks when you are feeling worn down before it is all gone. I'm sitting here planning to go back to school so I can do something that actually matters and feeds my soul instead of crushing it.
Congratulations on the paper. Nice! ;D
I am 1st year BA, so will have a while to wait before I think of Honours, let alone Masters or PhD.
Kaz.
While I did a bad job of coming out, I did a good job of impressing upon them that I work to live. I've been doing software engineering for 8 years already and I know all about how we engineers can be abused. I don't mind having to work long during a crunch time, but all the time I can't do anymore. I did nothing these last two years except work for school or employment and I did not find that life very satisfying.
Gotta fill my coffee cup and head on out for da bus. The one good thing about not being out yet is I only woke up 39 minute ago. I'd of had to get up at 5 if the real me was going in today.
♫ Always look on the bright side of life ♫
WAHHHH!
Huh, I felt like screaming and oddly just typing one made me feel better. Every introduction today was like a punch in the face. After being called by my female name for so long and having female pronouns used on me going back into male mode was really distressing. I wanted to come out today cause I think my reaction may have lead me to make some poorer first impressions than I would have otherwise.
The work itself is not a problem. Same thing I've been doing, just without a restricted domain and I have to say how many hours something will take me. The latter will be a issue for me but I'll figure something out. But having to be a man again, even if only until September, I don't know how I'm going to manage. I figure I'll figure something out but it's really stressful.
I feel bad that I didn't grok how bad "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was until I came out in school. It would be hard having to talk about your "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" or otherwise play linguistic gymnastics to accommodate the policy. This mis-gendering stuff though, it hurts so much. I can't blame my new co-workers cause they don't know, well they don't know for sure anyway, but talking about your social life doesn't come up that often in my experience. Names, pronouns, they're kinda frequent.
My new employer is small, not even 20 employees though they hope to be 20 by the end of the year. I think they'd be all right with me. Still, we're consultants at the end of the day...
/me suddenly feels like Rockin' the Suburbs.
Let me tell ya'll what it's like /
Being female middle age and trans /
It's a b***h if you don't believe /
Listen up to this parody shamon!
I should finish that sometime when I'm in a better humor.