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| Harry Benjamin |
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.
K wears a pentacle and the office is filled with pan-religious iconography, including an udjat which happens to be of my own religious persuasion. The space smells like a Traditional Medicinals tea that I used to drink. I immediately like K.
I sit and we fill out contracts to explain things like privacy policy and the price of each session. The fee scale is explained to me. She asks me to sign my birth name, I explain that my name is legally changed. I sign the contracts and pay for my first meeting, which is roughly twice the price of a regular meeting. I learn that I may be able to get away with fewer sessions if I go biweekly, and as I was already planning on going biweekly to avoid beginning transition when I was away from home, it seemed like a good plan.
From here we started a history inventory including a small genogram and several questions. She asked when I first thought about transitioning and about my presentation growing up. I replied that I was around eight or nine and had watched a talk show on transsexuals when I saw an FTM, it planted the seed that this may be what I was. I said that I was mostly a tomboy through elementary and high school and that around junior high I began identifying as a crossdresser. I said that I was binding my breasts at that age, although I did not identify as FTM because I wasn't entirely sure how to go about that. She asked how I handled puberty. I said that all I remembered of getting my period was that it happened on New Year's Eve while I was babysitting at my aunt's house. I remember it being a non-event for me. I do not at all remember developing breasts, that entire section of my life is pretty much not in my memory. I remember classes learning when we would develop, but otherwise my memory process goes like this: "One day I woke up and I had breasts and pubes." I don't think it was a traumatic event for me, either. K says I may have repressed those memories. I disagree, but would not be entirely surprised.
She asks about when I came out. I say I came out to my parents in 2004 (I now realize in retrospect that this is an error, it had to be 2003 because I came out my freshman year and the next time I saw them was Christmas, and I also distinctly remember being male-identified in math class). I came out on campus a few years later. I say that I was involved on campus in trans education efforts and that I still go to my alma mater to do panels sometimes when they ask me to. I explain that I am mostly living full-time as male and I use men's restrooms at school.
She finally asks "Why are you here?" I say that I am uncomfortable. I don't remember exactly the details of what I said, but the reason was because after so many years of living in-limbo I was getting extremely uncomfortable with my stagnancy. She asks me my goals, and we begin to formulate specific transition-related signposts. The first goal was hormone replacement, followed by top surgery. She asks if I want bottom surgery, and I say I do not like our current options for that. I say my dysphoria is mostly related to appearance rather than anatomy. She asks if there is anything else, and I say I want to get over my restroom anxiety. She says it would help if my driver license said "male," and said she would write me a carry letter to get that changed as soon as possible. In Wisconsin you can get that changed if you are in a formal gender program.
Finally we discuss doctors, and she tells me that my insurance might cover more if my primary care physician is prescribing it and that I should ask (I did later and he declined, that's mostly a non-story). She says that if he declines she has a list of people who will, although it may cost more. She says to save about $600 for bloodwork, just in case they find something that requires extra tests.
That is essentially my first therapy session. My next is on Wednesday two weeks from now, so I'll update you when that time comes.
