Medical Misgendering

I was thinking about top surgery doctors lately, and the two names that were given to me in my program were Dr. Brownstein in San Francisco and Dr. Steinwald by Chicago.  I am looking around at other doctors too to find the right cross between price and results (of course, I have time to save money for this, so more weight on the "results") but as I was looking I did notice something unsettling I'd like to bring to your attention.

It concerns the FTM mastectomy results on Dr. Steinwald's page.

For example:

21 year-old female seeking gender reassignment/top surgery; presented with a youthful/fuller B-cup bra size and aesthetics, which made her an excellent candidate for a single-stage FTM chest masculinization as an outpatient.

Since I know most of you are coming here from sites criticizing me for pointing this out because not all chest surgeries are done on male-identified people, I'll state that yes, there are male-identified people on that site being referred to using female pronouns who did not consent to this and who do not appreciate this.  He apparently uses female pronouns on his medical notes, too.

Recently I also noticed that some trans men's therapists put female pronouns on their T-letters.

I don't have much to say about any of this right now except that it's disturbing that people who work with us would make such a big mistake.

After a long stay at the DMV of evil...

Went to the DMV today with my carry letter after a failed attempt at getting my social security information changed.  No big deal, in the state of Wisconsin it's legal to get the sex changed on your driver license without hormones or surgery provided you're in a formal gender program.

And, well, I am!  So I take the carry letter in and the first lady looks at me with this irritated look on her face as I explain I am there to get the gender on my license changed.

"Really?!" she says in the most snotty voice she can manage.  I am used to this kind of behavior from this particular DMV service station... I usually go to the one in the same city I go to school in because they've always been nothing but friendly to me, but the one I went to... well, I just went there to avoid the extra trip.  I expected this from them because they're always like that.  She gives me a form to fill out and I swear to Gods sort of "flicks" the ID at me, as if she wanted to throw it like an inaccurately-gendered ninja death star.

More Natural Transitioning Stuff

Another warning against trying Natural Transitioning without actually following it from TheSLOfox:

Natural Transitioning

[Im Cr Sage Ross]

This essay is subject to a lot of edits as of December 18th, 2011.  It's basically a whole new article.

I'm going to be sort of frank and blunt in this essay because this is an opinion I really want to make clear to people.  A lot of my trans guy friends are getting into a particular method of transition and are becoming nearly evangelical about it.  It's a method to increase the amount of testosterone an FTM man's body makes without injecting testosterone. It's called "Natural Transitioning^TM" and involves essentially using the same techniques and supplements bodybuilders use.

So why do people use NT?  It has essentially been advertised as something for trans men who have medical problems preventing them from taking testosterone, but honestly there are few people who actually use it for that reason because for as massive an undertaking hormone therapy may be, it doesn't have all that many contraindications that wouldn't also contraindicate NT.  People do it to avoid therapy, because they believe it is safer, because they can't afford some part of the medical process, some even because they are either vegans or natural health junkies.  If you are in these categories, I'd advise you to take this to note.

Alright, wow.

Wow, seriously. This video doesn't make me stop supporting Planned Parenthood, but what the fuck. Based on the people I initially saw posting this I thought it was going to be something inclusive; in my community phrases like "vagina-havers" is meant to be a way of referring to the physical health of cis women and trans men, or just whatever bodily function happens to be recognized... "menstruators" was another one.

But, no, this is another one of those "When we say 'has a vagina' we mean women. Period. Huh, huh, period!" campaigns.

STP Journey, Part 1

I have bad bathroom anxiety.  Essentially what happens is that I can easily walk in and out of a men's public restroom with no difficulty... I pass well enough and I do not feel nervous about that aspect.  I don't mind going in a stall, either.  But I do mind sitting to piss.  It's not that I think it's going to get me in trouble, I have been in restrooms several times where men have been sitting in the stalls and pissing, and nobody whispers "I think that might be a girl!" as they do it.  My therapist said maybe it would help if my driver license said "male," which may be true.  Something I decided though was that I needed to start pissing standing up again... I used to have an STP (Stand-To-Pee) device that I made out of a packy, a piece of tubing, and a medicine spoon but I currently don't know where that is.  I eventually will make one of those again, but for now I have a Freshette.

Why did I pick the Freshette?  Honestly, one of the main reasons was that I had an Amazon gift card and they sell it there.  It didn't have the same female branding that the Go Girl has and I wanted the luxury of tubing.  It came yesterday, so here's what I think about it.

Because I'm not a woman.

My identity is incredibly simple.  I understand that not everybody's is... but mine is.  I am a transsexual.  I am a relatively traditional one.  I was born biologically female, but mentally and socially I am male.  Fully male.  Not halfway male.  Not female but masculine.  I am male.  Why is that so hard for people to get?

This list is written as a way to hopefully slap people into an understanding of what is really going on in my life.  It seems that no matter how I try getting people to understand what my gender identity really, they still consistently ask me "Why?" or "Why not?" when they learn I do certain things or refuse to do others.  I don't understand how I can make this more explicit to you people, so for some of you this will be my last attempt.

• Why do I keep cutting my hair as soon as it starts "getting to a length that looks good on me?"
• Because you are judging my appearance under the assumption that I am a woman.  The reason you think my hair looks "better" on me when it is longer is because you are still viewing me as a woman.  I am not.
• Why don't I shave my legs or under my arms?
• Because in my culture women are the ones who regularly shave their legs and underarms.  Men do not.  I am not a woman.  I am a man.
• On a side-note, I don't understand why you care about women's shavinghabits so much either.

Dietary Transition

[Im Cr USDA]

Every so often I talk to people about what I call my "dietary transition."  When I talk about this I'm referring to the dietary changes I've been making to transition from a high-carb-vegetarian to a whole-foods-near-carnivore on the advice of a doctor to help with my weight and insulin resistance.

One of the "side-effects" besides the weight loss I already went through  was a noticeable spike in the amount of body hair and muscle I have which is probably due to a spike in my androgens level.  Because of this sometimes people sometimes ask me to elaborate what the hell my diet is so they can decide if they want to try it.  I don't particularly want to be a dietary proselytizer to the trans community and I can't promise good results for you, but I'll put a summary here for you.

My First Therapy Appointment

Harry Benjamin

Yesterday was my first therapy appointment.  I figured in case any of you are going to start therapy I'd talk about what goes on at my appointments.  I assume that this stuff varies from therapist to therapist, but that's just the way it goes.  It's also a personal transition diary.

I am going to call my therapist K because from what I hear her program is kind of popular and I don't want to slam her with more requests.  It uses the Harry Benjamin standards of care, which I didn't want to do but which I don't regret.  So far.

I show up early enough to go to the post office to mail something to Australia.  The office itself is in a residential building on the top floor, I punch the numbers into it and am let in.  K tells me through the speaker to use the elevator.  When I get to the top, she greets me and I enter.

Passing Privilege: A Kind-Of Response

I call this a "kind-of response" because when I first read the essay Macho Men & The Femme Factor by Sabrina Pandora I was irritated beyond all belief.  I had a lot of plans to write my own observational essay on why trans women and trans men don't always hang out together at the soda shop or whatever the kids are doing these days, but it never got published because I didn't want to alienate trans women just because one trans woman wrote something that seemed to entirely blame trans men for the lack of collaboration between us.

This is a revised, much more cooled-off version of what I would have written back then which I hope does not automatically pin either trans women or trans men (or in fact all genderqueer people or all traditional transsexuals or anybody) as the reason we tend to gather in cliques.  The thing is, it really isn't just one group of us doing it... it's all of us.

On Dianics and Cis Women's Space

Pictured: Not Dianics. [Im Cr ShahMai Network]

So I don't know if any of you heard, but there's this conference called PantheaCon which is a huge conference for Pagans and people of similar religious paths, and this year there was a huge controversy which I guess was new to some people but not to me.  There was a "Lilith Ritual" put on by some Dianics and, surprise surprise, trans women were asked to leave at the door.  Some may be shocked by this, but honestly I can't be.  When I hear the word "Dianic" my body fills with heebie jeebies because I pretty much associate it with transphobic bile.  I'm also a men's mysteries spiritualist which adds an opposite-but-similar twinge to this.  So honestly, this issue makes me burn like Hell.