I've been having an impossible time passing to anybody. Children, adults, teens. I'm read as male/man once out of every thousand times. I've tried my hardest to be confident. I've attempted different hairstyles, different binding techniques, different clothing. Nothing seems to work in covering my overly curved frame, and enormous chest. It's just growing to be more and more difficult to maintain a healthy self esteem. I cannot get T now (although I am saving to do things "the wrong way") and feel as if it's a cycle that won't end. I won't be prescribed T until I've completed a real life test. In order to do a real life test I need to pass. In order to pass I need T.
So, to those who were not born with a boxy frame, or soft features: how do/did you stay sane?
Any advice as to what might help?
Lower your expectations. Thats it, dont expect to pass without T. Sounds harsh but seems true in your case >.<
Didn't need RLE for T. Passed for years without it tho.
Quote from: Nygeel on November 12, 2009, 01:05:57 PM
So, to those who were not born with a boxy frame, or soft features: how do/did you stay sane?
Any advice as to what might help?
What he said. Lower your expectations, and realize that you can possibly fix it in the future. Focus on that.
Quote from: Nygeel on November 12, 2009, 01:05:57 PM
I've been having an impossible time passing to anybody. Children, adults, teens. I'm read as male/man once out of every thousand times. I've tried my hardest to be confident. I've attempted different hairstyles, different binding techniques, different clothing. Nothing seems to work in covering my overly curved frame, and enormous chest. It's just growing to be more and more difficult to maintain a healthy self esteem. I cannot get T now (although I am saving to do things "the wrong way") and feel as if it's a cycle that won't end. I won't be prescribed T until I've completed a real life test. In order to do a real life test I need to pass. In order to pass I need T.
So, to those who were not born with a boxy frame, or soft features: how do/did you stay sane?
Any advice as to what might help?
Pre-transition, I wore a 38-K bra -- meaning I couldn't even bind. I found myself in a similar sort of rut that you describe -- the first couple people I tried said outright that they wouldn't letter me for chest reconstruction, much less HRT, unless I could do the RLE, which I couldn't do without surgery (and couple this with the fact that I'm on Medicare & Medicaid, meaning I'd never get two surgeries covered, one reductive and one total recon -- it had to all get done at once by a surgeon who was willing to fudge around with the system -- and it becomes even more apparent what a bind I was in). My solution? Shop around for a therapist who was willing to work with my circumstances, and I found her after less than three months of searching. T-Vox has a great wiki listing of therapists, doctors, and surgeons by state and country.
In the meantime, lowering one's expectations can help, but if you know that you're otherwise going to find yourself in this circular rut with your current people, then just... shop around.
Also:
For some quacked-out reason, the TS standards of care are far more permissive for FTM persons -- RLE is not a requirement, unlike the standard push for MTF persons, and is generally far easier to get than it is for MTF persons. There are a lot of explanations for this, despite the fact that the effects of FTM HRT are more-irreversible than the HRT for MTF persons; the standard "feminist" explanation is "well, society just hates women", while others note that the immense gender liberty that cis-women have in this society makes it far harder for FTM persons to get read as men without HRT. So yeah, if your current therapist isn't giving you a letter for HRT because you've yet to prove you've had "the required RLE", point out that "Real-Life Experience" is not a required standard of care for FTM persons:
http://www.ftminfo.net/soc.html (http://www.ftminfo.net/soc.html)
In fact, looking at this, it looks like RLE for TS persons, in general, for the procurement of HRT is now out-dated. You don't need RLE to get HRT. Print that page, point it out to your therapist, and if they still won't letter you, find a different one.
SilverFang and Zelane: So far I've found out that I can't fix it any time in the near future (might work it out without therapy which would make it very fast). I have lowered my expectations but it's still a blow to my self-esteem to always be called by female pronouns. Heck, there was an evening where I was called "ma'am" for an hour. Drove me nuts.
YoungSoulRebel: I'm a 36 F...I still bind even though I really shouldn't and can get it down to about a B/C (I think). I'm using family health plus (similar to medicaid). I haven't been able to find a therapist, but a guy I know had to do a year long real life test with therapy before getting a letter for T. He was stealth without T so it wasn't such a big deal for him.
Yeah, it would drive me nuts to be called "ma'am" for an hour -- of course, the way you wrote it is making me think that it was a bunch of people, or even just one person following you around and repeating "ma'am" for an hour straight. That would drive me nuts on various levels. Of course, one of them would be the fact that I'm under thirty years old and unmarried -- I am not at all old enough to be "ma'am", even if that was my proper honorific. Hell, I often get read as five years my junior, even when people do still occasionally mistake me for a lady, which makes it even more insulting -- like, they admit that they think I'm twenty-two or such, but still address me by the same honorific as was enforced by all the nuns of my old school, except Sister Zoe (my kindergarten teacher), who was twenty-one, twenty-eight when I moved, and was informally addressed as "Miss" the whole time. "Ma'am" is for married women and spinsters, not for teens and twenty-somethings lacking a band.
Yeah, can't really say much to somebody else's "required RLE" for HRT and so on. I admit, I am rather lucky in having easy access to a local TS/TG therapist who is often rated as "one of the top three in the U$" (Dr. Sandra L Sammons) -- she's a part of World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and is rather permissive when considering the self-expression of her TS/TG clients. My primary care physician (Dr Pamela Rockwell, DO) isn't a TS/TG specialist, she is familiar with TS needs, the standards of care, very friendly, and about as permissive as Dr Sammons for expression. Both also realise that all patients are different and while any standards of care is a decent outline, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing, and sometimes adjustments will have to be made to best serve the patient.
You could always move to Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti, Michigan -- I may hate it here, but it's a great area to transition in, I'll give it that. ;-)