Announcement

I am putting something here that I haven’t even told all my freinds, many of them might read it here first [HI]

I am stopping testosterone, well technically I have stopped, and I am currently waiting for it to leave my system.

There are a bunch of reasons for this, firstly their have been some big personal changes in my life, which many know about but which I don’t want to talk about online here.

I have had some medical issues which are probably connected to T, which I want to deal with first, it’s not a standard risk, but it is an issue which is probably testosterone related, I am being vauge again, but you will just have to deal with that.

I have been dealing with feeling, having made this decision that I am _not trans enough_  and this makes me feel like it is a good idea for me to stop, or at least pause here, because this should be about my own comfort, not about my gender being good enough for someone else.

I was afraid of loosing femaleness, losing connection to women community, to my history, and all of this was important to me.

My politics haven’t changed. I am some what worried about people saying, well I know someone who changed their minds so some other trans people should be forced to wait longer/ jump though more hoops/not transtion at all. I am glad I went on T, I love what it has done to my voice. I still think the gatekeeping is shit, and harmful and hell didn’t stop me from accessing hormones, just made it harder for everyone.

So yeah, on would and up would.

Dear Dr Kennedy, I have some issues with your methodology

Some time ago, you wrote this piece.

I would like to disagree, so I will.

In addition to the referral letter we ask that everyone provides two photographs and an account of how gender issues have impacted on their lives

Ok, why the photos, cause that seems kinda creepy, frankly?

Only about 25% F-M come to surgery. This is probably a good thing

Leaving aside the idea that not getting treatment is a good thing, how do you? do you do follow-up, are
you sure these men aren’t seeking surgery though the kind of people who don’t think it is a bad idea that they have it? Why is surgery the end point? many trans people live in their identified gender without surgery, I don’t know if I will get chest surgery, I currently don’t have any plans for it, is my living in an ambiguous body, identifying as non binary and on T so that I can pass as male a good thing? Because I am guessing you wouldn’t think so.

Make no mistake, transition is difficult: physically, psychologically and socially.

Having started T, I feel better physically and psychologically, social life seems fairly good, most people have reacted well or at least not badly, so no, I disagree yet again, and ask do you have any evidence for this, are there studies which show that this is a more difficult time for trans people than say, staying closeted?

All in all, transition is the biggest decision of your life

You know, I think deciding to do honours, and to persue an academic career was harder, and speaking of which I am currently transitioning and doing honours, guess which one causes more stress, more insanity and more late night finishing essays, oh wait, that gives it away don’t it.

god is dead

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? – Friedrich Nietzsche.

Note, links in this post may not be safe for work, and may contain confronting pictures, and medical procedure descriptions.

I am not a fan of gatekeepers, I am not a fan of doctors who appoint themselves as experts on transgender lives while often knowing very little about us. I wrote about this before, but I went back and forth about writing this piece because I fundamentally like doctors, not when they are choosing who gets to transition and who doesn’t, but when they are supporting their patients, doing blood tests, keeping an eye out of the things that can go wrong, and this is something that people who transtion, or seek medical realated gender treatments out side of the medical system often miss out on.

But they still do it. (NSFW, genital pictures) If you have a choice I would strongly strongly recommend going to a doctor not a cutter, but not everyone has that choice, I remember a women I knew online who was in the US, facing the lost of health insurance and trying to get an Orchiectomy, so that loosing access to health insurance wouldn’t mean having to risk further masculinization. The surgery got pushed back several times and she considered doing it herself. This post is written for her, and for young trans people like her, scared, without support or resources, considering desperate measures. I wrote it because none of these things are hypothetical.

Many people who do medically transtion start hormones before they start the medical process, either by getting birthcontrol pills or HRT from female friends or relatives, or ordering homones online, or for trans men, using the same sources that bodybuilders and the gym crowd access steroids. If you are going down this road, try not to share needles, many places have needle exchanges where you can get no questions asked injecting equipment, if you can’t access new injecting equitment bleach will lower the risk of infection

To avoid the doctors, we must become doctors ourselves, if you are in a position like this, read everything you can, if you can find people to talk to, talk to them. and good luck.

Links:

Castration

Well that was fast

So some background.

I am 23

I have been aware that “something” was wrong gender wise since I was quite young.

I tick a surprising number of the classic transexual history check boxes , but it took me a long time to work out that transition was a good thing  for me.

I am currently terrified.

I entered the transexual medical system, a little under a year ago, and I sit here writing this on a laptop sitting slightly uncomfortably 4 hours post my first shot.

Today was the appointment with the nice doctor at the nice queer clinic, and given my experience of the hurry up and wait, and while you wait  we need your life story that, so much of the trans medical system seems to love, I was expecting  this to be more of the same, and I am happy to say, that their are good people in the world, and that this doctor is one of them, he treated me as a reasonable adult, he didn’t flinch when I say up front that I was at risk of pregnancy, and then he proscribed a starting dose of testosterone which he then administered. I am hoping tomorrow to have more updates on how I feel on T, as I can’t really say their is anything I can point to yet and go “there that is T”