Well, I'm out of the hospital after my scheduled surgery for a bladder outlet obstruction, back home, with a hose hanging out of me for the next week. Overall, it was a pretty smooth procedure, went well, with the only surprise being how long it took the spinal anesthesia to wear off (6 hours!). For the technically inclined, the procedure was a transurethral incision of the prostate, with modified resection to trim an obstructing bit. I had a full transurethral resection of the prostate done 6 years back, but, as the urologist phrased it, "You grew!" (Pesky testosterone. We know how to fix THAT!)
Unfortunately, because this was a hospital surgery session, my presentation naturally was horrible. No hair, cosmetics, or anything else. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but...
My medical record clearly indicates my nature, preferred name and such. Heck, just the medications list makes it obvious what's up. So, what happens?
The nurse reviewing my records and meds in the pre-op area has my records out. She's going through everything from date of birth and phone number to the last time I took my spiro, and where my estradiol patch is located. "And where is the patch, SIR?" "MISTER P, when did you last take..." "SIR, is this your current address?"
Gah. Excuse me, but could you please stop saying SIR? I prefer Michelle or "Ma'am".
"Of course, sir... Ma'am. I'll just make a note of that. Now, when was the last time you took aspirin, sir?"
One of the other nurses did pick up on all of this, and apologized when I was being rolled out of the hospital later. We had a little discussion on the topic, an educational opportunity for him, I hope. I think I was up against seriously ingrained force of habit, as this is a big hospital, and the staff might have had 30 different people in pre-op at the same time, maybe 100 people a day coming through. The big outside world is sort of new at this whole "Be nice to the transgender person" thing.
It still really grated on me.
