I've been living away for a month now, and I've finally got a letter through saying that I'm registered with a GP down here, but I've heard things mentioned about check up/induction to the surgery thing so they know of any existing problems, or something like that at least. I've not got any word from them about it so far, and I don't know if I should wait to see if I get any other letters, or if I should just try and book an appointment without any one here finding out what it's about.
I just know that I can't keep burying my head in the sand, and it's going to be my best chance of getting the ball rolling now that I'm within walking distance of the GP and living away from home. I should probably tell my parents actually... It's getting harder and harder to deal with lying to everyone whenever they ask me about being a lesbian, or last night, when I ended up sounding like a complete pigheaded moron because a guy was talking about how he disliked being overweight and how it differs to what he sees in his head. Instead of being able to say "yeah, I know, in my head I'm 5'10" and have a penis, but I look down and see tits", I ended up quickly changing tack saying some rubbish about body fat percentage, which is lower than most females here.
I don't pass here because I'm pretty distinguishable being the shortest person here and there's only ten "females". And I'm always wearing an ID card around my neck. I thought this would be a clear break for me, I knew I'd have to wear the female label, but I didn't think I'd have to be lumped in with them so much, or get constantly invited to go for a girly night to Nandos and then shopping for heels, or to the spa, and treated like a lunatic when I pull a face and walk off.
And the dysphoria... ooh that's fun. Anyone know how to get around motion sensor lights? I can't be dealing with well lit showers.
Sorry about the random ranting, I know I jumped about a lot. I've just missed being able to talk to someone about this sort of stuff.
I will post a longer reply tomorrow when it's not so late but I admire you for your strength through this. You know you can always PM me if you need to talk. Keep smiling man, you're doing so well.
This just reminds me of studying engineering so much it's not even funny
There were only 2 girls in the whole class (around 150) and I got lumped with them at the start. Slowly but surely I started getting more guy friends and it got better but I was still seen as the girl of the group and that was tough.
The main hardship was during work visits where I'd have to wear ID labels (my name was very feminine) and wear the pant suits. It was like any (albeit little) good got undone and I just absolutely hated it.
But the thing is, not far off a decade later, I regret letting that make me stop the course and my current plan is to go back and finish. So my advice would be to do your utmost to at least try not let this affect whether or not you stick with it because I loved engineering and my dysphoria made me quit something I love. Not that that's the issue here but just reading so much I can relate to, so I felt it worth at least mentioning.
I can relate to the girly nights out stuff. Man those suck! Spas are like my worst nightmare, I think they would be for a lot of us,but yeah, ewww! No thanks!
If I were you, I'd absolutely try and get the ball rolling. Just knowing it's actually in process can help give you little boosts in confidence along the way and I think that could be helpful in your situation.
I hope that aside from these issues that you're enjoying the work. A good rant can work wonders though so I hope at least posting helped!
I thought it would be VERY hard. I am really proud fo you though for going in and doing this even knowing it would be so hard. I also hope the work is at least interesting.
--Jay
Quote from: aleon515 on September 28, 2013, 08:21:29 PM
I thought it would be VERY hard. I am really proud fo you though for going in and doing this even knowing it would be so hard. I also hope the work is at least interesting.
--Jay
I agree with Jay, we're all proud of you Alex for going in and doing the internship despite knowing you'd be put in with the girls. Tell us how you make out at the GP and how you plan on tackling your transition.
Is there a way that you can try to hang out with the guys there more often? If the girls invite you out, can't you see if there's some guys who might tag-a-long to make it a co-ed thing, or see if you can ease yourself into whatever it is the guys do when they go out? With only ten girls there, I'd imagine some young guys would be trying to get with the girls and would be dying to go along, even if it is out shoe shopping.
Quote from: Jack_M on September 27, 2013, 09:55:06 PM
This just reminds me of studying engineering so much it's not even funny
There were only 2 girls in the whole class (around 150) and I got lumped with them at the start. Slowly but surely I started getting more guy friends and it got better but I was still seen as the girl of the group and that was tough.
The main hardship was during work visits where I'd have to wear ID labels (my name was very feminine) and wear the pant suits. It was like any (albeit little) good got undone and I just absolutely hated it.
But the thing is, not far off a decade later, I regret letting that make me stop the course and my current plan is to go back and finish. So my advice would be to do your utmost to at least try not let this affect whether or not you stick with it because I loved engineering and my dysphoria made me quit something I love. Not that that's the issue here but just reading so much I can relate to, so I felt it worth at least mentioning.
I can relate to the girly nights out stuff. Man those suck! Spas are like my worst nightmare, I think they would be for a lot of us,but yeah, ewww! No thanks!
If I were you, I'd absolutely try and get the ball rolling. Just knowing it's actually in process can help give you little boosts in confidence along the way and I think that could be helpful in your situation.
I hope that aside from these issues that you're enjoying the work. A good rant can work wonders though so I hope at least posting helped!
Odd you should say that it reminds you of studying engineering, because that's exactly what I'm doing here. I don't want to say too much more about what I'm doing, because it would be very easy to find my company and exactly where I am, which I don't want on the internet for more reasons than just that I'm trans.
There's just over 200 of us here in total, and I'm lumped in with the girls a bit, although this weekend I've almost exclusively hung around with the guys which made a nice break for me, and it made me realise that going to a proper barbers with a pole and everything isn't such a scary thing after all. It is irritating how one guy always ruffles my hair and pushes me in the right direction when we're in the supermarket, but I can almost believe that it's just something he does because I'm short.
Fortunately the only difference between our uniforms is that the girls get different boots (lucky them, I've not got any yet because they keep insisting on giving me them two sizes too big and hoping I don't notice), but that's only because the boots they use for the smaller sizes are a slightly different version, not an exclusively gendered thing because one of the girls has feet big enough to have been given the "man" boots. The ID cards are something we've got to wear all day every day, but mine has a nice habit of turning around on the lanyard so no one can see it.
There's no way I'm going to leave, I wouldn't be able to afford to even if it got to the point where I was considering doing it, they've already spent a couple of grand on us I think, and we'd be expected to pay it back if we left. I regretted it enough when I first went into engineering and found that there was no job opportunities where I lived for me, and then didn't get the job to start with, but fortunately by a stroke of luck I got offered the job again, and as a bonus they also offered to move me half way across the country to where they need work and will pay for my accommodation there for two years! I got given a second chance and I'm not going to ruin that in a million years. I hope you manage to get back into engineering and are able to do what you want to be able to do.
I've never been on a girly night out, and I'm not planning to. Luckily I can use the excuse that it's depressing to see other people drinking and not being able to for a while, but that's going to wear out soon, and then I'll have my birthday and it won't be valid any more anyway.
The work's been pretty slow and will be for a while. For the first year we're getting all of the qualifications they want us to have before being released into the wild, and last year I did several of the units at college so I've been signed off having to do half of it again. Later on in the year things should pick up and I'll actually have something to do, but for now I'm not going to complain about getting to sit and read my book while getting paid.
Quote from: Joey. on September 27, 2013, 06:58:26 PM
I will post a longer reply tomorrow when it's not so late but I admire you for your strength through this. You know you can always PM me if you need to talk. Keep smiling man, you're doing so well.
Thanks, sorry I keep forgetting to reply to your PMs, I don't get round to going on my laptop that much these days.
Quote from: aleon515 on September 28, 2013, 08:21:29 PM
I thought it would be VERY hard. I am really proud fo you though for going in and doing this even knowing it would be so hard. I also hope the work is at least interesting.
--Jay
I'm not sure if it's harder or easier than I thought it would be. It's different to say the least, I thought I'd exclude myself from all the girls completely, but that's not happened and now I feel terrible every time someone says how glad they are that we've got all of the awkward stuff out of the way to start with and know everything about everyone etc. Please stop, you know nothing.
Thanks though, it's good to know people out there understand that it's really tough being here.
Quote from: LearnedHand on September 28, 2013, 09:10:41 PM
I agree with Jay, we're all proud of you Alex for going in and doing the internship despite knowing you'd be put in with the girls. Tell us how you make out at the GP and how you plan on tackling your transition.
Is there a way that you can try to hang out with the guys there more often? If the girls invite you out, can't you see if there's some guys who might tag-a-long to make it a co-ed thing, or see if you can ease yourself into whatever it is the guys do when they go out? With only ten girls there, I'd imagine some young guys would be trying to get with the girls and would be dying to go along, even if it is out shoe shopping.
It was too much of an opportunity to pass up, even though it's hard being here. I'm going to wait a while to find out about the GP and whether or not I have to do some sort of medical before I can start making appointments, because I keep getting contradicting information on it, but I'll definitely keep you updated when I get over to talk to someone.
I hang out with the guys quite a bit, but the ones that I want to hang out with are the older guys, and not the sort of people who are interested in going for a pedicure or something. The younger guys are a bit disappointed as half of the girls are either gay, have partners, both of the above, or actually male. And the girls from the other apprenticeship are much better eye candy, even if they've all been brainwashed into thinking we're the scum of the earth... Hopefully they'll never get around to actually organising something anyway, or I can pretend to be ill if they do, apparently I always look ill/tired anyway, so it won't be too hard.