The "T" Party.

TodKurtis

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It sounds like he's probably going to an endo at an informed consent-based clinic. They're fairly new so not standard practice yet, and there aren't many of them around.

Generally it is considered a good idea to have therapy during transition for support, but he may have other sources of support (such as very close friends, local trans community, etc - it may be that he hasn't told his family about them if they disapprove; my family definitely doesn't know most of my trans friends, because they tend to try and chase them off). It may also be that he can't afford therapy, or couldn't afford it without involving his parents because he's still on their health insurance and they would try to push him towards a therapist that would try to 'cure' him, and he was urgently in need of moving forward with his transition.

Generally, I would say - don't worry about it. It would be ideal for him to have support, but the truth is that while many trans people do feel that they needed the support of their therapist, there are many others who don't see their therapist as a source of support at all and just go through the motions to get approval for hormones, etc. It is not as much of a necessity as some people make it out to be. He may be able to find a free counselor at his school to talk to if he needs it (I know my state uni provides them, I'm not sure what the norm is for community colleges) but I think the best thing to do is assume that he knows what's right for him and not panic about it. Everybody experiences transition differently, so there's no single 'healthy' way to go about it, just like any other major life decision.
 

Nonny

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So if I am out of line asking this here, please let me know. A friend has a family member who came out as transgender late last year. He is not yet living as male. I think he is 19, going to community college, living in a mildly disapproving household. he doesn't have any transgender friends or mentor type wiser folks. My friend is trying to be as supportive as she can be, but she is really worried because he found a doctor to start him on T injections without any therapy/counseling/advising/educating/anything about feelings, beliefs, expectations, etc. now whatever changes he will go through, physically and life wise, he has no emotional/medical/mental health support for. Is it usual, or good practice, to do that? What do you think this young man could do for a healthier transition?

This is a newer practice. Older standard of care (which is changing) requires therapy and, I believe, living as the preferred gender for a certain period of time before hormones. Newer theory is that it's pretty hard to live as preferred gender without hormone support, and that most people don't come to that decision lightly; I have actually known a number of younger trans people who have gone on hormones without therapy.

Which... honestly, for them? They said that they found a lot more support through online groups. Depending on where you live, trans-friendly therapists can be difficult to find (and depending on what else informs your identity, it can be even more difficult -- a disabled trans queer POC that also needs a pro-feminist and sex-positive outlook is going to probably have a more difficult time finding a therapist that "gets" them and their needs). Intersection is harder than it would appear; most of my friends had good luck finding therapists to help with the "regular" issues, or the trans issues, but not both. My ex, who is now living in SF (*waves to Robert if he's reading!*) has had the best luck of everyone I know, and well, SF is a little more up-to-date on progressive issues.

So, I wouldn't actually be too worried. Your friend's doc probably knows that it's really hard to find a trans friendly therapist, a therapist that understands whatever issues exist on top of that, and a therapist that meshes personally. Even if the therapist is good at all these things, it's entirely possible that they will have an approach that just does not jive with you. (My psych is this way. She's great with meds, but her attitude towards therapeutic stuff? It's very positive-thinking focused and I find it condescending. If I could just think it away, I would have done that already.)

I think it is a good thing that his doc isn't tying his treatment together with therapy. While therapy isn't bad, as I've just said :) there's barriers (plus therapy is not always covered by insurance!), and many of the trans folks I know have done great with online or RL support groups, which allowed them to meet other trans people and talk to people who are going through or have gone through the same things. Some of the folks I know whose doctors insisted on therapy weren't able to get hormone treatment because they weren't able to afford the therapist or they couldn't find one that was trans friendly or that meshed well with them.

You say that your friend is going to college -- is there a trans support group on campus? Community colleges sometimes still have those resources!
 

Kim Fierce

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Or at least an all-inclusive GLBT group on campus should be common, and hopefully find trans support there. But I have heard that the extensive therapy is being seen as not always necessary myself.
 

DancingMaenid

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I think it is a good thing that his doc isn't tying his treatment together with therapy. While therapy isn't bad, as I've just said :) there's barriers (plus therapy is not always covered by insurance!), and many of the trans folks I know have done great with online or RL support groups, which allowed them to meet other trans people and talk to people who are going through or have gone through the same things. Some of the folks I know whose doctors insisted on therapy weren't able to get hormone treatment because they weren't able to afford the therapist or they couldn't find one that was trans friendly or that meshed well with them.

I agree with this.

In theory, seeing a therapist can be a good idea. But I'm not comfortable with it it being a requirement, and in practice, it can be more of a barrier or a hassle than anything else. It can be very hard to find a therapist who's not only sympathetic toward trans people, but also has training and experience working with them. For example, I had a therapist for a bit who was extremely sympathetic and tried to help me come to terms with my gender identity, but I could tell it just wasn't her area of expertise, and she really didn't have any feedback or suggestions that helped.

Also, because therapy is often a requirement for treatment, that can hinder a therapeutic relationship between the therapist and patient. I think a lot of trans people feel like going to a therapist is something where they have to go through the motions, and that they have to say the "right things" so that the therapist will believe them. And sadly, sometimes this is true.

So I think gender identity-focused therapy can be a wonderful idea for people who are starting to think about transitioning, or who are coming to terms with their gender identity. But the current model doesn't really supply that.
 

Guardian

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I'd have to agree that therapy can be a hit-or-miss that can even raise more problems than resolve them. For instance, my boyfriend attempted therapy and the therapist began questioning if his history of sexual abuse is the reason why he is trans. Some people may want to investigate that kind of questioning, but to others it is dismissive and offensive - (are straight survivors of abuse asked if the abuse may have cause them to become straight?)

Unfortunately, there's a history of therapists being used to try cure trans or homosexual people. I can't say how prevalent those therapists are vs ones that would actually not try to convert anyone, but I'm aware of this bad reputation. It's the reason why I myself am nervous about discussing my homosexuality with a therapist, and the reason why my boyfriend is nervous about talking to doctors or counselors or others. Also, he just plain has an unbelievably horrible record of experiences - no one would help him with his anxiety attacks, for instance. Ugh.
 

Kim Fierce

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I'm not trans, but my experience with therapy is mediocre at best. I have learned more by talking to people I have met, or online, who either go through the same things or can relate!
 

Mara

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Therapy can help with the transitional period, but there's a long, nasty history of quacks with harmful theories acting as gatekeepers. The new Standards of Care and most other modern documents have moved mostly to an informed consent model, because required therapy turned out to do more harm than good overall due to bad therapists.

So, it'd be nice if he had a therapist to help out, but it's not mandatory. As long as nobody was pushing him into this and lying to him about the consequences, it's all pretty ethical.
 

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Therapy can help with the transitional period, but there's a long, nasty history of quacks with harmful theories acting as gatekeepers. The new Standards of Care and most other modern documents have moved mostly to an informed consent model, because required therapy turned out to do more harm than good overall due to bad therapists.

Before anyone consults any therapist, I'd suggest referrals from other medical professionals, verifying licensing and training, and if at all possible, a personal referral from a patient.

There are a lot of less than ethical people out there. A lot.
 
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Kitty Pryde

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Thanks for all the thoughts, peeps. Much appreciated. One thing that my friend has noticed, and her nephew has stated many times, is that he is isolated, doesn't have support or help on this issue, and feels very lost and hopeless in general. His family is not quite supportive, but not rejecting him either. What you say about therapy makes sense. I am going to ask some local guys if they can recommend a social group or cool supportive type person for him.
 

Becca_H

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Agree with basically everything of the above. Therapy is a necessity, but it can come from anyone or anything. In early transition, supportive friends are worth a million times what a therapist can be. And if a therapist is sought, absolutely pick them carefully. A routine visit to my school counsellor about something completely unrelated turned into her trying to convince me to detransition, because, you know, "society" didn't "approve" of me.

There are many good trans-experienced counsellors out there, and many will do ad-hoc email/telephone/instant messaging support (I can recommend one if anyone wants to PM me). And I would recommend that one if these is found.

The problem is that transitioning is for life, but support for it only really happens at the start. There are support forums for trans people, Facebook groups, etc. But as people progress through transition, they often identify less and less as trans, and have less and less to do with the demographic.

An example I can give from my own personal experience is this. When I transitioned, I knew this would affect me having kids. It was a problem, but not the biggest problem I had at the time. Ten years later, not being able to have kids is a big problem for me emotionally. I have days where knowing I won't ever get pregnant or give birth to a baby can really get to me. I'm also pretty much stealth, so hardly anyone knows I'm trans and the friends I can talk to about this are very low in number.

When I was under psychiatric assessment (or whatever it is they like to call it) I often asked the psychiatrist about adoption, and the success rates trans people have. Did he know anything? Nope, because he never saw people after he considered them "fixed". But I happen to still see a medical practitioner who works with trans people well, well past the time they're considered post-transition. I asked her how many trans people adopt. She said "most of them" and went on to tell me how it's not a problem, and I generally felt much better. I probably couldn't have got that support from a trans forum with people (mostly) in early transition. And likewise, while many women experience infertility problems, I can hardly go to a support group for it and say I can't have a baby because I'm trans - I'd likely get evil stares for it.

So while a therapist isn't necessary, in 5-10 years time, it might be good to have someone who he can confide in, who knows him, who has experience with trans people pre, during, and long post-transition who he can talk to. Because stealth is a very lonely place sometimes (as is the constant fear of being read or outed, but that's another thing).
 

Mara

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Arise, old thread!

I just thought I'd be a bit self-centered and give a melodramatic update. Hope people don't mind. :) This starts on a low note but gets better. I think I've had one or two of these in the past, so I'm getting good at them.

Going to Norway to see my fiancee for three months was awesome. I felt like an adult again, I felt confident, I socialized more comfortably than I ever had in my entire life, and I was popular and charismatic. I also didn't have much in the way of concerns about my appearance, and it was nice to be able to hold hands with my girlfriend and not have to worry about homophobes glaring, yelling, or worse. I also got a lot healthier because the food there has less fat and sugar, and we ate less of it, and walked a LOT.

It's been almost a year since I arrived in Norway, nine months since I left. Coming home to the small southeastern town where I live with my parents wasn't so great. I missed my fiancee a LOT. I missed living independently--something I haven't been able to do since I split up with my ex-wife and moved back in with my parents about the same time I lost my teaching job. I missed having opportunities to socialize with new people, and I missed feeling confident and popular.

This conservative town actually has been pretty welcoming to me as far as being trans goes, but somehow I think holding hands with my goth/punk trans fiancee wouldn't go over so well. Even if it would, we wouldn't have much to do other than huddle in the house, because there's nowhere to walk to and few places to go even when driving.

Coming back home sapped some of my confidence, which meant that my perfectly-passing voice went back to sometimes-passing from insecurity and lack of use. Depression and unhealthy food resulted in me regaining all of the weight I lost in Norway, and then some. I started having anxiety issues again, approaching the levels I'd had before transitioning.

I didn't have a job, anxiety made it a lot harder to look, this area has a high unemployment rate anyway, and my skill set is "historian with writing skills" in an area where teachers and academics are losing jobs left and right. (I actually almost got a decent-paying writing job before I left, but someone else just barely beat me out for it. So, very good sign, there. That's not the sort of thing you think about when you're anxious and depressed, though.)

Anxiety also made it harder to consider moving, and having no money and being dependent on my parents again made that scarier. I started getting depressed, I stopped writing for the most part, and when I did write, it sucked. I spent a lot of time thinking about how it had been about four years since I started transition and decided I was going to get my life together "soon. It had also been that long since I joined AbsoluteWrite and started seriously trying to write.

See, the really bad thing about anxiety and depression is it makes you focus on the dumbest things. :) I had a few breakthroughs where the feelings went away for a few weeks, and I thought everything was better and got hopeful, but they'd always come back, often for no reason and at seemingly random times and I started to despair.

Then I found out that the times weren't random. The depression and anxiety always hit after I ate a certain amount of carbohydrates or calories in general. And since I'd returned to the old habit of comfort eating, it was happening a lot. Norway had been better for me in part because I wasn't eating like that, and I'd been much more clear-headed, confident, and intelligent.

It sounded ridiculous that food could affect me that strongly, but I've spent the last few months eating _much_ more carefully, and it's nearly wiped out the depression and almost totally wiped out the anxiety. For the first time in my life, I have an immediate, short-term reason not to overeat, and that's been a blessing.

My weight has been dropping at about a pound per week, which is a rather safe rate. I'm feeling better, feeling smarter, and feeling more confident. I look better and my voice sounds reasonably good. My writing and creativity have improved drastically, and I'm doing some of the best work I've ever done in my life. I'm actually networking a little bit and getting some good advice, and there's a reasonable chance I'll be able to at least start freelancing to supplement my total lack of income. Maybe writing doesn't pay a whole lot, but _anything_ is better than what I'm making currently. And I find myself habitually writing 1000-2500 words a day without realizing it or having to push myself.

I sorta drifted away from AW during my depression because I'd effectively stopped writing, and coming here often made me dwell on that. But I'm better now, and writing again, so I hope it's okay if I sorta drift back in? :)
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Mara,
I'm so far out of my field in this that it isn't funny. But I gather there are some studies linking diet and serotonin prouction that might indicate a link to some aspects of depression. If all those subjunctives are accurate then the comfort food, depression link you experienced is not surprising, and change of diet (along with keeping to the life you know you should lead) may well help.
 

Mara

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Mara,
I'm so far out of my field in this that it isn't funny. But I gather there are some studies linking diet and serotonin prouction that might indicate a link to some aspects of depression. If all those subjunctives are accurate then the comfort food, depression link you experienced is not surprising, and change of diet (along with keeping to the life you know you should lead) may well help.

*nods* I've looked at some things online about that. It seems like there have been a few studies that indicated a link, but only a few, and it's generally not considered conclusive. I know in my case, there's probably some kind of chemical relation, but I don't know if that's common or not.
 

J.S.F.

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Mara, can't comment on the diet thing too much, but nice to hear you're back in the swing of things. Writing is good therapy for me even though it tends to drive me crazy more often than not.

Seriously, it's like I feel good when I'm writing something--even if it's total crap--and almost suffer withdrawal symptoms when I can't write or don't have the opportunity to. The money will come in time, but you have to write first.

BTW, congrats on your getting settled relationship-wise. Good news to hear!
 

Mara

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BTW, congrats on your getting settled relationship-wise. Good news to hear!

Thanks. :) We're long-distance again for now, but incredibly functional and working to be in the same country. That seemed nearly impossible six months ago, but now it's starting to seem reasonably probable. The Supreme Court could make that easier or harder than expected sometime this month, depending on how they rule on DOMA (and Prop. 8, though I really doubt they're going to do much with that.)
 

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That awkward moment when you haven't been able to do any type of transition due to being jobless and not having family's support, while getting male attention online. And not just, "Let's cyber!" type of attention, but from decent guys that I've been talking to online for a while and know me purely as a girl. I swear I've gotten a lot more attention from possible partners over the last few years, since I've been presenting as female online than I've ever gotten before.
 
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JustSarah

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I definitely fall under the t catagory. I'm a trans woman, though one wouldnt exactly call me masculine or feminine.
 

robertsloan2

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Purr, thanks for mentioning me, Nonny. Yes. I lucked on my therapist here in San Francisco. She's fantastic - and retiring from doing therapy so that she can devote herself to the activism that being a therapist for a gender clinic opened up for her. Try to do something about the many issues we face medically and in life.

I'm getting a new one that she's recommending and have some high hopes he will be good. They're good friends and she does know me well enough that I think she could set me up for a good fit. Time will tell.

I have had numerous bad therapists and they've either been ignorant of trans or disability issues or religious issues or poverty issues or my writing. Those are the main conflicts that made therapy worse than useless in 49 out of 50 cases. Their ignorance of any of those things led them to steer me down wrong directions. At best I'd wind up spending all of my paid time educating them on something they should've studied in the first place before attempting to help me.

It gets ugly with the therapist who's approving you for hormones. I could not trust that therapist at all because he was constantly judging me for whether I was trans or not. It got terrifying because I've lived without hormones or treatment for decades by sheer poverty and that wasn't for not qualifying or wanting treatment. It was for not being available. The therapist didn't get how deep a hole I was in with my physical disabilities or how hard that made normal life in the first place.

I have been depressed for about a year and a half now. I'm pulling out of it and getting ready to get down and serious about my writing. I'm sick of being sick. I'm sick of my day job as cripple. I've got to do something to get self employed again and writing is the most practical solution as well as the one closest to my heart.

My therapist understands this and has been extremely helpful getting me moving in this direction again. She's one of the rare few that did understand how important my writing is to my fighting depression over a lot of real situations that are not going away. One category of them did - the trans thing has reduced its intensity to a large extent since I got surgery and ID. It didn't solve everything in life but it more or less solved that thing with the exception of a few still existing forms of discrimination, like, say, whether I can marry anyone in some states.

I still have some hangups on writing that I need to punch through. The last of them is going past the "made a pro sale or two" stage into "and now I do it like I sold art, just do it when I feel like it and get better at it all the time."

The final stages of editing novels are still problematic. Though not for short stories, I seem to have editing those down to a simple process. I have not been writing novels lately because I haven't wanted to write the type of fantasy novels I was doing for so long. Something else in me is screaming to be said.

This afternoon it hit me that maybe horror is the way to go with it, if I'm dealing with dark subjects and don't necessarily want to write the same things I was doing before. I've always had good ideas for horror and strong themes that'd work well in horror. So that's what I'm trying next.

I'll come back and post a bit more now. I am trying to discipline myself to the "Work schedule" that worked when I was a successful artist. I have done a dry run of this on another artistic career and made a go till the physical demands were too much for me. Writing does not take those physical demands. It takes my sitting down to do it and getting rid of or getting through the terror that what I'm about to do is sucky. I need to quit beating up my writing and just do it.

Trust that it really is like art, if it's not great literature but some people like it, doing a lot of it will both get me better at it and my readers used to finding it from me.
 
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Apologies if I'm in the wrong place - I wasn't sure if this post deserved its own thread. Anyone seen the new-ish TV series Hit and Miss? Chloe Sevigny plays a pre-op trans killer for hire. One of the better shows I've watched in the last few years. Just thought I'd mention it as trans main characters aren't terribly common.

ETA: WORDFAIL. The character Chloe Sevigny plays is a pre-op trans, who also has the vocation of assassin. The plot begins with *spoiler, highlight to read* receiving a letter from an old flame who's dying of cancer, letting her character know that she has an 11 year old son.

Really great show, y'all.
 
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robertsloan2

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Yorkist, I haven't seen it but it sounds fun!

Though I would love to see one where the serial killer's victims are transwomen and a detective gets fed up with no one chasing this monster down. Complete with the "thriller" aspect of a gorgeous sympathetic tough heroine-at-risk who gets caught and turns the tables while detective's coming the other way, like in some Koontz thrillers, except she's trans. Nice hetero romance plot in it and she winds up going private detective or karate instructor or something. And she's black - killer is maximizing the injustice factor to reduce police interference, thinks he's being clever in his choice of victims. But someone's not buying it and he's just your typical homicide cop who takes his work seriously and will defend ANY innocent.

If she's an ex-military vigilante thinking she's got no backup, you get them rescuing each other from the monster and it becomes action-romance. Someone take this prompt, please. Hard boiled isn't my genre but I'd love to read it.
 

robertsloan2

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Where to begin?? My life turned right side up this week!

Headline: MINDQUAKE IN SAN FRANCISCO!

Rob, slogging along living on $100 under his subsistence level SSI, struggles with massive stress related fibro pain that's constant and almost starves before a Salvation Army food program closes the calorie gap and ends the catastrophic speed of weight loss combining "too much exercise" with "too little food." Dreading the point the ramen runs out. That was previous doctor visit, got the food program, life stabilized, I can survive.

But I have no hope other than the slow crawling pace of working on my writing and hoping that I can somehow put together some "all or nothing" grand slam replacing SSI with my writing income all at once, within one month, so that SSI doesn't just soak every dollar earned before the business expenses of producing it are paid. Best hope was "Survive till 62 and start releasing when I get the gentler old-age rules on earning. Also incidentally cutting my Social Security age benefit by a large "early retirement" bite in favor of surviving it.

While the cost of food goes up and my income stays static and I could appeal that I can't afford that payment - if I could overcome my PTSD reaction to even contacting SSI, reinforced by the interrogator who caused that "overpayment" problem.

Roller coaster. I lose my good therapist. She retired to go full time activist and her biggest thing was educating the State of CA to cover phalloplasty. They do as of the first of the year. All of it if I get cheap metoidoplasty and balls and vaginal removal. Some of it if I wanted the more expensive, dangerous procedures with grafts and the stick inside it and size - I could have size and the on-off erection control, or I could have natural function and sensation at the size it is and live like any cisman with a micropenis. Metoidoplasty was my choice for pleasure vs. pretension. I have had lovers and pleased them. I can get toys if my new love likes penetration. But if it's got no more sensation than my arm, then I'm trading a small real one for a flesh dildo to avoid guys gawking at the urinal, where it's rude to look anyway.

"Gee maybe someday I'll be strong enough for surgery." I have hope but it's dim hope. Then the SSI thing comes down, last session with wonderful Julie she gets me the actual forms for the plan. I start working on the Proposal. SSI's rehab division has realized that after the recession, a lot of folks just have trouble getting jobs. Sometimes it's better to invest in their self employment.

Then at the fateful doctor appointment, I get my hormone shot. I tell my beloved male nurse Glenn about my plans for surgery and medical marijuana to replace self medicating with tobacco. Glenn is all for it. We joke around about how I'll still smoke it because well, I like smoking and always wanted to look like Gandalf. So now he teases me "See you in a couple of weeks, white wizard!"

I only have one white hair in my beard but that just sort of made me glow. I wasn't being that silly. It made sense. Someone else threw a nickname at me that fit!

Besides, I have played Wizard of Oz to more people who didn't think they had the Talent to be an artist or a writer or whatever they love than I could count. It's not a bad nickname at all.

I lost so many pieces of my soul in the journey and they all start rushing back to me as that last level of denial comes tumbling down. The bitter "I'll take what I can get and endure what I have to and tell myself it's chemical when I want to kill myself, because it really is better and I have reasons to live, I only think of it when the pain hits level 9 or 10.

News Flash: pain doesn't hit 9 or 10 with full medication unless I am being harassed and my PTSD set off. Those heavy flares happen with the everyday microaggression. How much it takes also relates to overexertion at the time - and forcing myself to function in that state is always overexertion because fibro knots my muscles and depletes all my energy when I've gotten a shock. I know the sensation of a flare from the pain of the sports injury it causes or sheer exhaustion.

I've believed for years that I was not going to make it, that I couldn't close the gaps to have both a life and a career. Run around in circles and tried, still moving in the direction of my writing because otherwise I have no hope, but whistling in the dark and not believing in the hope.

Now the horizon's pink and the road actually leads out of Mordor, I can see past it.

I am very close to body acceptance. I like what I see in the mirror. I play with my beard. I don't get shy about taking my shirt off, I feel proud - my chest looks tons better since I lost weight. I am almost okay with my legs, a bit more toning and I might even wear shorts, at least knee length ones. But being naked flares unless I'm with a lover who's accepting.

I internalized a whale sized load of disability shame too and have been struggling with that for years, ever since my leg length impairment was diagnosed. I'm not normal. I never will be normal. No matter how much I work out and how much surgery I get, I will not be able to be good looking and stroll into a bar and be hot. I have a big double problem with body acceptance with that.

But some of it was "bottom surgery isn't practical, I'll never have the money." I looked good even when I didn't look good. People don't see appearances, they see what they think they do. They overguess my height as much as they underguessed my weight (the latter has a physical basis, height doesn't.)

I'm not measuring myself against Americans now, in San Francisco I'm not short. I'm just not tall. Lots of men shorter than me and they don't seem to have the height-defensiveness short guys in the rest of America did. The height jokes don't get overheard. No one mentions my height. It's just rude, pointless, sign of a rude tourist that kind of attitude. In context I'm just a guy with disabilities like all those other guys in chairs or using walkers. A rather handsome one. I looked good in the GBLT seniors lunch crowd. I was the baby, the young hotness. I got attracted glances and I was attracted, both trans ladies and gay men were giving me the eye. It did wonders for self esteem but inside I flinched at what'd happen when we're alone and the lights go out. I flare in the bathtub. I dread prison rape because the risk is much higher if I don't have bottom surgery.

That eliminates the worst case, they'd have to do it like they would any other man, mouth or rear, not the organ that shouldn't be there. That terror mingled with shame at my cowardice flared me during Occupy. I wanted to go and didn't dare, between pepper spray and jail-risk I did not dare risk it. Too much sacrifice for one event, too high a risk level. Not even a high-impact martyrdom if it happened.

It all came in reach. Denial started crashing down. An article about libertarians in AlterNet broke another layer. My grit and determination to become self employed made me look like a Randian hero. It's real. But it's no different from a low-IQ janitor who worked hard to learn his job and loves his job. It's the natural drive of a disabled person toward independence and freedom instead of having to be dependent even on nice people who help and treat you with respect. There is always someone who doesn't and there is always some level where they don't make your choices. The pleasures missing from my life read like prison privileges.

I eat very good food now, better than I could afford. But I didn't shop for it or get to choose what it is. I don't get to look at the freezer and decide "I think I wnat the turkey pot pie today, still got several of those, don't feel like the beef." Little choices like that have been gone since I got on the meals program. Self employed, I'll go back to grocery shop nonperishables in a single mad huge run every several months and get perishables by sending home care with a list. Or pick them up on my way in and out.

Not being able to do that hurts. I don't feel like an adult, this dependent. But I do not advocate self employment for everyone. Even someone who wants to be a full time writer just like I do may be better off with agent-and-contract pro publishing or by saving up without quitting your day job till you can afford to do it without loss of life style. For me it was that desperate because it was that or no job, every time I did self employment. The working conditions are better and I get more done. No one can schedule me as efficiently as I can. Disability adaptation.

I might do my share of proofreading on the side and if I had a skill that worked with telecommuting that might be possible - but any friction with the boss and I lose function. When it's a bad customer you can set the threshold of when it's not cost effective and tell them "Go away. Get someone else. I can't work with you any more." And refund or partial refund if appropriate.

I feel like I'm myself again. My old self. The Robert that was lost as soon as I found out I was physically disabled, not just depressed and transgender. Depressed by how I was treated as transgender was no real mind bender - it left me believing transition would cure my mental health problems. (It will, PTSD is curable.) But not being able to change my bones or the fibro meant the door got slammed and I didn't have the body resources to stay the course. That a lot of my failures were brick walls of body function that'd never go down.

Now some of them have and enough of the social justice barriers have that I can see the pass through the mountains out of Mordor. Or maybe this is the part where Gandalf comes back from the balrog.

Enough for this post. For all my trimming it's enormous long.
 

robertsloan2

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Consequences:

In the middle of the mindquake, the Big Writer's Block went down. The layer that kept me from that last effort to get published. From trying pro-publishers during my first SF year when I had more SSI check and could afford a printer cartridge and a manuscript box. I could have sold out one of my stand alones potential series in order to get in the door on a first-timer advance, gone that route.

But I didn't. I put it off. I didn't write much. I have not been writing other than at Nanowrimo or goofing around writing, the million word backstory therapy exercise (which did excellently tighten my backstory on so many things and has nuggets of novel concepts scattered all through it and smaller chunks that could be edited into short stories.)

Sometime after disability denial crashed, I gave up on really making it work. I still wrote and still said I believed to myself but was whistling in the dark. The issue of "being known as the transwriter" hurt. The "famous after death and doesn't ever get any of the money" was a constant terror. Maybe safer to leave all that intellectual property to Kitten and let her throw it in print so I don't have to live with the trolls and the flaming and the harassment over gender.

I wasn't up to the fight but no one is when they're short on the strength to get up and make it to survival needs.

It changed my writing completely. Halfway through thinking it through with Nonny, my Pleistocene fantasy novel - the most-finished of my stand alones - slid to the top as most done, probably first release, needs the least work on triage.

Kuvo the shaman was written as an I-guy who's cisgender. I tackled my disabilities in it and made him a tribal shaman in a world where the spirits magic is real fighting a cannibal shaman that's attacking his tribe with his warlike cannibal tribe. (The one that makes it to the battlefield is both fighter and shaman, very dangerous opponent and very high status cannibal guy.)

I realized that nothing in the book would change if Kuvo was transgender. Except that the reader wolud have some reality-based reason for why everyone in the book on all sides including spirits thought of him as "the greatest magician of his times." Transgender's rare and queer of all stripes go shaman along with some cisgender disabled, that's exlpained by Magic's Price. Spirits don't like perfect men and women good at being hunters and gatherers, they want a shaman's entire attention. So the kid that got his arm crippled became the shaman's apprentice and to them this is juts how life works. Being trans is demonstrated visible magic - look, it's a boy, and he's got lady parts, that's magic. The spirits really love him! And from age four he was "The talented mage boy" and raised by a very good female shaman who taught him enough of women's traditions that when they didn't have a female one he could fill in. I'm sure his new partner the heroine will understand that lore much better than he does - to him it's the hardest part of his work and training, he really is me. He memorized a lot without understanding.

I did that once in a neopagan ceremony in New Orleans. My partner, a ciswoman, priested and I did priestess and it was very hard for me but spiritually rewarding. That's written from life - that whole scene needs to be more realistic.

Things flow through every one of my books and stories that I pull back on because they're from my experience and I didn't dare out myself in it.

Now I'm out. Now I'm close to full self acceptance - in fact knowing this is just final stage transition and not the best I can get in life, emotional acceptance just came to me. IT'll be done and over with when it is and I'll be as happy with that as I am with my chest.

I do not have an expensive scars-removed perfect sculpted chest and liposuction and fancy treatment to make me a handsomer guy. I have scars. I'm also a pushing sixty guy who had a hard life, scars are no big deal. If I'm out, my transition scars don't have to be lied about or handwaved. They're not that disfiguring. In fact, the more hormones work on my muscles, the better my chest looks and the prouder I am when I take my shirt off. A couple more years and I could go posing in good lighting for a clinch cover as long as I'm hips-up or something - unless my legs get cool looking too, then it's just pants on because like my cat, my skin is bigger than my well toned body. It dangles in some places.

I'm pushing sixty and don't expect to look like a young hardbody.

I'm going to look like me with my clothes off and that really is enough. Anything more is just vanity. Getting my teeth done would be top of my list, replace all of them so that for once in my life I could eat an apple would be a bigger life upgrade.

When that heals I will deliberately go to a clothing optional event and stand there like Andy Dufresne in the rain scene in Shawshank Rebellion and then dance my crazy shuffle dance, glad to be alive.

This is awesome. And it is the last writing block. Everything else now is just catching up on skills needed or hiring others that have them. I'm putting classes with Dean Wesley Smith and lectures by Rusch on the proposal too, they are the right teachers. SSI will love that continuing education part. So will I when my books come out right, I know how that feels with learning perspective or composition in art.

I made it into the good world and I did make the hero's declaration to the quest. Now it's public. I will be out and I will write GBLT topics, both memoir and fiction. Not limit myself to those topics but be true to them and yes, use the visibility of topic search to draw attention to all my writing.
 
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DancingMaenid

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A bit of a rant/personal tangent:

I'm tired of people acting like they know more about my gender identity than I do. I'm tried of accusations that all genderqueer people are gender essentialist, or that trans people in general are gender essentialist if they care about things like wearing clothes typically associated with their identified gender. I'm tried of double standards and being damned if I do and damned if I don't. Lately, I feel like I'm always having to defend myself in some other online communities I belong to, and I'm just getting sick of it.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I think a valid discussion can be had about the topic of gender essentialism and gender stereotypes. And there can be some crossed wires within the genderqueer community, I think, because while it's a way of describing our gender identities for many of us, there are some people who essentially use genderqueer to mean "I don't fit gender stereotypes," which results in some different definitions popping up.

And I would be willing to talk about gender roles and stereotypes more, but so often people are accusatory about it, acting like if a trans man cares a lot about wearing men's clothes or not shaving his legs, then he's being gender essentialist, or he's just a "masculine woman" who can't accept it. But a lot of people don't get how complicated fitting gender norms can be when you're trans. On the one hand, adopting things like new styles or habits can be one of few ways for a trans person to demonstrate their identity in a tangible way. But more insidiously, a lot of people don't take trans people seriously unless they fit gender norms. If you're a trans man who liked playing with dolls as a kid or who doesn't mind dressing up in a dress and heels occasionally, people will use that to question your identity.

So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you fit gender stereotypes, you're being gender essentialist. But if you don't fit them, then you're not "real." It's a shitty position to be put in.

And the really ironic thing is that I'm not that "butch" by any means. I've had people ask me, in all seriousness, why I can't just be happy as a "masculine woman." But I'm not that stereotypically masculine. As a guy, I'm pretty metrosexual. As a kid, I played with Barbies constantly. And I don't have any problem with men and women defying gender stereotypes.

When I was in my teens, and still IDed as female, defying stereotypes made me feel proud. I don't think there's anything wrong with women fitting stereotypes if they're happy, but I was proud of myself for not feeling like I had to. I didn't shave my legs, didn't wear makeup. I started wearing men's clothes because why the hell not?

I didn't start identifying as genderqueer, or as male, because I couldn't handle being a gender non-conforming woman. In a lot of ways, I miss being a gender non-conforming woman. The things that made me a bit of a rebel, like my hairy legs are now...normal. Not in the eyes of the public, maybe, because I'm still read as female pretty consistently. But in my own mind, I'm not defying any stereotypes any more, and being the rebellious sort, I miss that.

I've seen some women talk about how they used to wish they were men, but then they became more comfortable having short hair and having "tomboyish" interests, sometimes with the implication that most female-assigned-at-birth genderqueer people just need to come to the same revelation. But for me, it was the opposite process. I was totally on board with the idea of being butch and maybe moonlighting as a drag king. But getting my chair cut short and adopting a more masculine style just made me more aware of how uncomfortable I was with my body, and how what I really wanted was for people to look at me and see a guy.

Pressure to conform to gender stereotypes is a real issue that warrants discussion, and it's something that I think a lot of trans* people can relate to, too. But I'm really sick of defending myself and explaining to people that no, being trans* is not the same thing as being unhappy with the gender roles associated with your birth sex. And it's not the same thing as defying gender stereotypes. I've never felt like I couldn't be a woman just because I have hairy legs or short hair, or that I couldn't be a guy without hair legs and short hair. (I'm uh, vaguely considering growing out my hair, actually. I'd probably regret it, but maybe I could pull off a Sam Winchester look?)

Sorry for the long rant. I've just gotten really tired of being on the defensive and wanted to vent to some more understanding people.
 

Mara

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I totally understand and agree with that venting.
 

Rhoda Nightingale

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Hey gang,

I see it's been months since anyone was around in here, but this seems like something worth looking at: What Grantland Got Wrong. WARNING: much calling-out of ignorance and talk of suicide. I don't know if 'triggering' is the right word, but some elements are certainly...unpleasant.

Brought to my attention via John Scalzi's Twitter feed. This is...chilling. I had no idea the suicide rate within the trans community was so high. That's unthinkable.