there is an anxiety in my trans circles that the future might become worse, that access to surgery, new passports and stuff might become harder. i feel like i should hurry to get shit done.
but i can’t. it took sooo long until i knew for sure, i wanted to go on hrt. i am now and it’s great. not for the reasons i imagined, but for all the small things i never thought about. yet i don’t know what i want my name to be. it is such a hard question for me. i start to rethink sexuality aswell esp. since my libido seems to have vanished under estrogen. this i like also. but what does it say about my sexual identity? or my gender identity? will there be a point at which i want a bottom surgery? there are so many questions that i can’t answer (yet).
meanwhile the whole world seems to demand these answers and wants them to align with their cis-het assumptions. health care wants me to display a binary persona for access to hrt (i played the part), and surgery. my aunt immediately fantasized about me “certainly” looking for a man to have a family with. everyone really wats to have an update on how to handle me. no ambiguity.
i realised that in my trans specific therapy group i get quiet and anxious when they are all discussing hospitals, doctors, procedures and all the technicalities. i feel like i am behind. always behind. i haven’t done my homework. i didn’t know forever that i was a girl. i don’t know today. i’m just starting to get a sense of self. something that was shattered and buried through thorough suppression. i am putting together fragments like an archeologist. but being trans is in a way still just a working hypothesis. it’s highly plausible, but i can’t see the bigger picture yet.
i am afraid, that all of this will take me too long, that i will have to jump over new hurdles, or old ones, like when the rubber stamps from my therapist will be too old. i feel like i have to figure out myself now. i feel alone with that. even in self help, and therapy groups everyone is always so sure about themselves. just not me. i should seek out enby groups maybe? plz hit me up, if you ever felt this way too. 😥
thanks for putting this feeling of urgence into perspective! i guess my therapist will be with me for a while.
in writing the last sentence, i just discovered, that a lot of this urgence might come from a series of losses in the last years, that makes me feel like the world is moving to fast for me.
❤️🩹
I would add that I don’t get the feeling that most people are sure. Everyone is on their own journey, I know it feels like the rush is needed, but there is no right or wrong time to start transition, get surgeries etc. you just go at your own pace. I certainly didn’t know, or wasn’t ‘sure’ for a long time. Even then, I wasn’t sure about surgeries, I knew I wouldn’t ffs (damn capital ridge!) but the bottom surgery I wasn’t sure until I had gotten going.
To echo the other commenter, don’t do surgeries in a rush unless it’s what you want! This is your journey! Take it at whatever pace feels right to you, and don’t worry about having everything figured out instantly.
but we all act like it. sure we have to be tough in a world that tries to put us back in the closet; or i’m sure there are a lot who do really know themselves that good.
i feel though that i need to see more that others struggle and doubt aswell. that needs a lot of trust. especially when the societal climate is becoming harsher. maybe my group likes to discuss doctors so much, bc it’s easier than sharing feelings? or they really don’t feel my flavor of anxiety? well, i’m gonna need to ask this in group.
i won’t rush, but i can’t promise that i won’t feel bad about being slow at times. ;)
Oh hell yeah we all act like it. At least in public. Close ranks, claim you knew when you were still in the womb and dressing in your mom’s clothes before you could talk! But that’s for all the frustrating hoops you have to jump through, and because nobody wants to debate their right to exist.
In private? Idk, some people are sure, and have always been, but many didn’t know or weren’t sure or repressed forever.
This is a safe space to discuss feelings and doubts, I would hope!
As for not feeling bad, yeah. It’s a struggle, I repressed for a long time and did what would make others happy, not me. Sometimes I’m upset at myself, all the time missed out, all the changes from T that I might have avoided, but there’s nothing to be done now. Just move forward, try to learn, try to forgive yourself.
for what it’s worth, in a context where you have access to informed consent care like in the US, being completely honest about my uncertainty with my gender-informed therapists didn’t cause problems for me … obviously with old-school doctors and gatekeepers, you will run into issues (but maybe avoid those doctors anyway). I only mention this because you don’t always have to lie or pretend you always knew, in the right context it’s OK to be vulnerable given it’s safe.
though it’s hard in my case, because when I was 5 I distinctly knew I was meant to be born as a girl and felt there was some kind of “cosmic mistake”, and when I was 4 years old I was trying on my mom’s heels in her closet … so even if I’m on the far end of having stereotypical signs early on, I think what’s important to clarify is that I didn’t know I had those early signs until after my egg cracked as an adult, and I suppressed my awareness of it until then. I didn’t think either of those signs were indications I “knew” I was a girl or anything like that - I just thought it signaled I wanted to be a girl (not that I was one), and I didn’t know this could be roughly the same thing in terms of experience of gender identity.