Hi everyone,
I'm Keagan. I'm ftm and use male pronouns. I'm a graduate student getting my degree in Clinical Psychology, and right now most of my research is focused on sexual health (not too much gender or GID stuff--I've done a lot of that in the past, though), though I have widespread interests and am always eager to join research or projects in different realms. I'm also a Graduate Teaching Assistant, which basically means I do all of the bitch-work for the professors I work with and get very little of the glory and money. But I love teaching, so I love every minute of being a TA. I also work in a school-run assessment clinic, and I test for learning disabilities, ADHD, and memory malingering (AKA people who try to pass ADHD tests to get ritalin to sell).
Let's see...I'm in graduate school so it's very difficult to have a life
, but I enjoy music (writing/editing/recording/everything), working out, getting tattooed or pierced, snowboarding, and video games, among other things.
I'm joining this board because I just recently realized that I need a safe place that can truly understand trans/gender/sexuality related stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love the people in my life (most, if not all, of which are straight and gender-sex congruent) and am very lucky, but I don't think I need to explain that look/vibe of panic some people set off when you start casually discussing hormones, shots, and surgery.
The analogy I thought of is that expecting straight people to understand any of the billions of difficulties that come along with being gay/trans is like expecting scratch-off lottery tickets to pay your bills; sometimes you're pleasantly surprised, sometimes you just win enough to get your money back, and most of the time your disappointment is proportionate to your investment. So, with that analogy, joining this board is kind of like my getting a job to pay my bills.
I'm excited to get to know more of you!
