the trans news network
Aug. 27th, 2019 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitRecent events:
1) I have medical approval to start testosterone! Yay!! Now I learn if my insurance will actually pay for it or if they're going to try to ignore state law.
2) I went to a meeting of the local transgender support group. It was . . . interesting? Because I live in a small city, there's one group for everybody--trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, questioning people, dramatic teenagers who turn up an hour late and take over the discussion. I'll go again, but my feeling of "I have nothing in common with these people and not much to say to them" was pretty strong. There were two other trans men besides me, both straight or straight-ish. I'm trying to keep an attitude of solidarity, as well as of other people's experiences being useful to me, but I'm struggling against the force of my entire personality which insists that We Do Not Say Personal Things To Strangers, And Those Who Do Are Untrustworthy.
3) Oh, I'm out at work now. I wasn't really expecting problems, although of course that didn't stop me from being terrified of problems. All of my co-workers been very nice, and a few people have even thanked me for telling them, or congratulated me. I don't think any customers have noticed yet, although I now have a pin with my correct pronouns attached to my name tag. (It was given to me by a colleague, a trans man who transitioned many years ago and who nobody at workplace knew was trans until he came out during a discussion of LGBTQ related issues. Him coming out was the single biggest impetus in my coming out. Some customers are likely to be nasty to me--there's one horrible woman who said something unacceptable to a trans woman colleague recently--but at least my colleagues have my back. And there are, to my knowledge, three trans people and two nonbinary people in a workplace of fifty-odd, plus probably a couple more people I don't know about. The ratio is unusually good.
4) Upon strong urging from my primary care provider, I saw a therapist to talk about transitioning-related stuff. It was not helpful. Much too woo-woo for me ("my mentor learned this relaxation technique from a healer in the Amazon" is not a phrase to fill my heart with joy, and nor was her attempted sciencey explanation about emotional energy grounding itself in the earth by flowing out of one's palms). Also, while she wasn't absolutely ignorant, she clearly didn't know a lot about trans-specific issues. She gave me a referral to someone else--someone who, if I'm not mistaking names, was the facilitator of the trans support group meeting. I don't know if I'll follow up, now that I know that therapy isn't actually required for transitioning. I occasionally feel that my emotional repression is like the dikes in the Netherlands--it's all that's standing between me and the sea, and I don't want to poke any holes in it.
It has been an eventful few weeks. It's all good, as are the changes in my job giving me more autonomy and responsibility (and more money), but it's also all STRESS. I'm very tired. I need a vacation but I'm not going to get one any time soon. I did sleep eleven hours last night, though.
1) I have medical approval to start testosterone! Yay!! Now I learn if my insurance will actually pay for it or if they're going to try to ignore state law.
2) I went to a meeting of the local transgender support group. It was . . . interesting? Because I live in a small city, there's one group for everybody--trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, questioning people, dramatic teenagers who turn up an hour late and take over the discussion. I'll go again, but my feeling of "I have nothing in common with these people and not much to say to them" was pretty strong. There were two other trans men besides me, both straight or straight-ish. I'm trying to keep an attitude of solidarity, as well as of other people's experiences being useful to me, but I'm struggling against the force of my entire personality which insists that We Do Not Say Personal Things To Strangers, And Those Who Do Are Untrustworthy.
3) Oh, I'm out at work now. I wasn't really expecting problems, although of course that didn't stop me from being terrified of problems. All of my co-workers been very nice, and a few people have even thanked me for telling them, or congratulated me. I don't think any customers have noticed yet, although I now have a pin with my correct pronouns attached to my name tag. (It was given to me by a colleague, a trans man who transitioned many years ago and who nobody at workplace knew was trans until he came out during a discussion of LGBTQ related issues. Him coming out was the single biggest impetus in my coming out. Some customers are likely to be nasty to me--there's one horrible woman who said something unacceptable to a trans woman colleague recently--but at least my colleagues have my back. And there are, to my knowledge, three trans people and two nonbinary people in a workplace of fifty-odd, plus probably a couple more people I don't know about. The ratio is unusually good.
4) Upon strong urging from my primary care provider, I saw a therapist to talk about transitioning-related stuff. It was not helpful. Much too woo-woo for me ("my mentor learned this relaxation technique from a healer in the Amazon" is not a phrase to fill my heart with joy, and nor was her attempted sciencey explanation about emotional energy grounding itself in the earth by flowing out of one's palms). Also, while she wasn't absolutely ignorant, she clearly didn't know a lot about trans-specific issues. She gave me a referral to someone else--someone who, if I'm not mistaking names, was the facilitator of the trans support group meeting. I don't know if I'll follow up, now that I know that therapy isn't actually required for transitioning. I occasionally feel that my emotional repression is like the dikes in the Netherlands--it's all that's standing between me and the sea, and I don't want to poke any holes in it.
It has been an eventful few weeks. It's all good, as are the changes in my job giving me more autonomy and responsibility (and more money), but it's also all STRESS. I'm very tired. I need a vacation but I'm not going to get one any time soon. I did sleep eleven hours last night, though.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-27 10:51 pm (UTC)That therapist sounds a real flake and not at all useful.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 12:16 am (UTC)Honestly, the workplace solidarity sounds better than the support group?
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 12:59 am (UTC)work, however, sounds lovely. glad you have a reasonably safe place to work during transition; it's important, methinks.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 02:53 am (UTC)Nice. I'm glad people so far have been supportive, congratulatory, and generally cool!
Much too woo-woo for me ("my mentor learned this relaxation technique from a healer in the Amazon" is not a phrase to fill my heart with joy, and nor was her attempted sciencey explanation about emotional energy grounding itself in the earth by flowing out of one's palms).
Ack. I tend to think that it has never hurt anyone to have a good therapist, but that does not sound like a good therapist, and I am glad you are not obligated to stick with them.
Good luck with your insurance!
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 11:02 am (UTC)(I'm in a queer/pride type FB group for my local area and yeah, it's hard to do, and I totally hear you on the solidarity aspect of it. That's why I'm there, not because I like interacting with people.)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-28 04:56 pm (UTC)Fwiw, I feel a bit out-of-place in trans communities it seems like most of the people are younger and less binary than me (which strikes me as ironic, as I spent a long time trying to fit a non-binary identity because I was convinced that no-one would ever accept me as a man, and that was as close as I could get) and those who are not are "elders" who started transition decades ago. I even feel a bit orthogonal to queer communities in general because of a lasting sense that I'm not queer enough.