Greetings, all! I'm Delta, and I use they/them pronouns. I'm AMAB nonbinary, been transitioning for a few years now. I started HRT 2.5 years ago, have been out to friends and in queer spaces for a bit longer than that. Most of that has been pretty easy because I was out as bi (technically, panromantic demisexual) over a decade ago, and that's plenty of time to only have supportive (or at worst indifferent) friends by the end of. My partner of 2 years is very accepting and understanding, which has been fantastic.
Family and work, though, I'm not really out to yet, with a few exceptions here and there. I say 'not really' because my presentation doesn't clearly fall outside 'male' most of the time, and my birth name is clearly a male-sounding name... but I'm clean-shaven, have long hair, and am going on 3 years with the effects of HRT (think chest here). My policy has been to tell people if they ask, and leave it alone otherwise, but mostly folks don't ask. Guess they don't want to 'offend'.
Last year, I got a new job and moved states. It was a mixed blessing, because it's exactly the sort of work I want to do and I'm a good fit for it, and I'd had no luck in my job search in over a year, but I'm 4 hours away from my partner now, so there's a lot of driving on the weekends. On the other hand, I finally have proper income, financial independence, and best of all, insurance.
Insurance has been the single largest source of stress in my life for the past 8 months, since I started looking into GCS. General cluelessness from a lot of the insurance people, even some doctors (even mental health providers who supposedly are familiar with trans issues), plenty of opacity, very few clear answers to questions that I asked months ago... I imagine more than a few of them know the drill. The most frustrating part has been getting an appointment with one doctor (primary care: 6 week wait) to get referred to another (psychiatry: only 2 weeks this time), to another (therapist: 10 weeks), to another (clinician who does the evaluations: 11 weeks before getting the referral, 5 more until the appointment), to another (second evaluating clinician: upcoming in 5 weeks, on a lucky cancellation; follow up in 11 weeks)... I imagine more than a few of you know the drill. Whereas if I'd known at the beginning what I know now (and I kept asking, repeatedly, about the process, every time asking for more detail), I could have lined up all the appropriate appointments and had my clearance back in February (unless of course I STILL am not talking to the right doc) and actually have been able to talk directly to surgeons, who are the people who need to answer a lot of my questions (they are literally not allowed to speak to me until I have been cleared). All the while, I'm expected to keep up the facade of someone who is calmly accepting ~6 months of delays on something that doesn't need a delay, and affects my life in a huge way...
So yup, there's my struggle. I've been scouring the interwebs in my own time to try to find some info on my own to steer the docs in the right direction, but there's little to nothing by way of what I'm looking for. Most recently, it's led me here.
Hi!
