anything short of perfectly gender conforming and straight
Shit, I fell directly into that category & I still delayed my sex change by 10 years after my first attempt at coming out.
It worked until it didn’t. And yes it was hell, I lost years of my life, and wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I think about how much I missed every day, but also, younger me wasn’t wrong.
Yeah unfortunately your experience was common. Transition used to be seen like how some Christians see abortion “necessary in some circumstances but to be dissuaded as much as possible and only done when absolutely necessary.” Many straight and gender conforming trans people were stopped in some way from transitioning and stories of bi and gay trans people lying our asses off to doctors in order to transition were common enough to eventually contribute to the removal of orientation from the diagnostic criteria.
The fact is I transitioned at a unique time. I started hormones in 2015, I was 20 and people far braver and more self aware than me had set up the ground work for me. I had old ideas that I’d picked up as a teenager in my “am I, no I can’t be, but am I” waffling. I was brave to tell my therapist I’m a lesbian, but if I got a no I’d’ve probably just done DIY. Same for if RLE was demanded of me. I was on a downward spiral from puberty to that point and I’d waited until it was transition or die, like I’d been told to do by other trans people. And of course that was the advice back in the day, they put you through hell to transition.
I like to think I might have been more like Susan Stryker back in the day, but it took seeing someone like me be trans to accept myself. Sometimes self preservation looks like digging in your heels, baring your teeth, and telling the world to try and stop you, but so often it’s doing what you did, accepting a wound and going back to hiding for some time. Self preservation is a virtue.
Shit, I fell directly into that category & I still delayed my sex change by 10 years after my first attempt at coming out.
It worked until it didn’t. And yes it was hell, I lost years of my life, and wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I think about how much I missed every day, but also, younger me wasn’t wrong.
Yeah unfortunately your experience was common. Transition used to be seen like how some Christians see abortion “necessary in some circumstances but to be dissuaded as much as possible and only done when absolutely necessary.” Many straight and gender conforming trans people were stopped in some way from transitioning and stories of bi and gay trans people lying our asses off to doctors in order to transition were common enough to eventually contribute to the removal of orientation from the diagnostic criteria.
The fact is I transitioned at a unique time. I started hormones in 2015, I was 20 and people far braver and more self aware than me had set up the ground work for me. I had old ideas that I’d picked up as a teenager in my “am I, no I can’t be, but am I” waffling. I was brave to tell my therapist I’m a lesbian, but if I got a no I’d’ve probably just done DIY. Same for if RLE was demanded of me. I was on a downward spiral from puberty to that point and I’d waited until it was transition or die, like I’d been told to do by other trans people. And of course that was the advice back in the day, they put you through hell to transition.
I like to think I might have been more like Susan Stryker back in the day, but it took seeing someone like me be trans to accept myself. Sometimes self preservation looks like digging in your heels, baring your teeth, and telling the world to try and stop you, but so often it’s doing what you did, accepting a wound and going back to hiding for some time. Self preservation is a virtue.