Tag: trans

Dating

Because life goes on and that, I posted a personal ad on a dating site that I’m not going to name here. And so I went on a date. With a straight woman.
She seems like a nice woman and may one day read this, so I’m not going to talk about her here, but I do want to talk about the evening.

Yes, seriously

Back when I was a lesbian, I knew to stay away from straight girls because of straight girl syndrome. Some straight women will treat lesbians as a lark or an experiment or a distraction, which can be bad if you get your feelings caught up in. Better to stay away.
But I’m not in that position anymore. I’m a man who likes women. And I’ve limitted myself to bi women, but that’s a small population of people, in comparison with the larger pool of all women who like men. There are just a hell of a lot of straight women around; many of them are good looking; many of them are good people, so why not give it a go?

Did she know?

So, when to disclose? There are a lot of people who have never knowingly met a trans person. And there’s a whole lot of negative stereotypes, misunderstanding and transphobia in society. I suspect that many people would reject a trans person out of hand, motivated by ignorance, rather than malice. (Of course, these two things can be hard to tell apart.) Therefore, I decided I’d rather be evaluated on my merits or lack thereof and thus not disclose on my personal ad. And If I say something on the first date, it would overwhelm any other get-to-know-you blahblahblah. So my current plan is to disclose on the third date or before serious snogging, whichever comes first.

What happened

So I was sat across from my date and we were talking about our pasts. But this thing about who I was and who I am runs through my past like a mighty river. My queer identity is fundamental to my sense of self. And yet, apparently, I’m also straight.
The jacket I wear most often (but not that night) has a badge on it that says “transgender.” I hate discolsing. But more, I hate not disclosing. It’s unnerving. And it’s even more unnerving, when I try to talk about what I’m doing with my life. I joined the London Gay Winds, because, um, I wanted to play tuba, and um. I go to a queer bar because it’s fun and um, my band has played there a few times.
I feel that my presentation of heterosexuality is not credible. And so I was unnerved.
Both I and my date have both been divorced and so we talked a bit about that:
Me: So I was married too.
Her: You got married in the States?
Me: In Canada, actually.
Her: Why did you get married in Canada?
The real answer is because same sex marriage was legal there but not at home. Which I probably should have remembered before automatically saying “in Canada.” Normally, it’s a pretty good story. It ends with the first same sex divorce in the state of California. But, since I’m not discolsing, I now need a dfferent answer to something that I shouldn’t have brought up.
Me: For the Elvis impersonator!
It felt like lying. And probably made me look like a nutter. But, I mean, that chapel employs the best Elvis impersonator in Canada, so . . . yeah, I looked like a nutter.
And because we had been talking a bit about how marriage interacts with legal residency status:
Her: Was that valid in the states, then?
Hahahaha, well, it should be according to international law, but the Defense of Marriage Act had been interpretted to mean that the US can ignore international same sex marriages, which, since it’s a treaty violation, makes that application of DOMA unconstitutional. But it was good enough for a divorce, so:
Me: More or less

And

In the bad old days, being trans was like joining the witness protection program. You had to change your name, leave town and lie about your past. You weren’t supposed to tell anybody, or doctors could retaliate by taking away your hormones, which has serious health consequences. In these more enlightned times, the NHS just makes you change your name, but you don’t need to move or be stealth. And, god, how could I? I went to a women’s uni for my undergrad.
But really, I don’t know if the unnerving bit is trying to pass for straight. Or that I seem to be succeeding at it. Or that it’s what I might be now.
A man and a woman out on a date. What could be more heteronormative than that?

Terre Thaemlitz says

When I look at members of the transsexual community who are actively seeking out physical alteration of their bodies… on the one hand, of course, I have this anti-essentialist reaction against it – that it’s about transforming bodies towards something that is, in the end, I think, conservative. But on the other hand, I do have this envy of their body transformations, which I feel are beyond my capacity. And part of that is because of the mythology in the media about the beautiful, successful transsexual. Because that’s who you see in the media. You don’t see the people who got totally fucked up, and look totally fucked up – which I would say are the majority.
— The Laurence Rassel Show “On Transgendered Authorship”

Terre Thaemlitz thinks that “the majority” of transsexuals “look totally fucked up.” And published an mp3 saying so. Why should we care what this Julie Bindel-wannabe thinks about trans people? Because Thaemlitz is one of two serious composers that I know of who are out as trans.
Yes, he says, “I’m a transgendered identified male (both my transgenderism and maleness are documented in different public spheres)” (http://www.chaindlk.com/interviews/index.php?interview=TerreThaemlitz) No, that doesn’t mean that he’s ftm. He’s a very subversive guy who dresses up like a woman sometimes in order to fight patriarchy. Or something. I’m not being terribly respectful of his identity in that description, but I’m afraid I’m infuriated by his failure to respect mine.
And terribly, terribly disappointed. I wrote about this guy in MA thesis and thought he was awesome, especially since he was not only out as trans, but tackling trans issues head-on through his work. He would show up to very technology-based music institutions in Germany and give lectures that were full of gender theory. He, like me, wants cis people to have to think about gender sometimes and how it’s constructed. Heck, the purpose of this project I’ve quoted from is purportedly, to “[deal] with issues of authorship and copy-left from feminist and transgendered perspectives.” (Ibid) But for him, despite using a plural form on “perspectives,” I guess there’s only one legitimate gender position and that’s his. People who transitioning are “reactionarily conservative,” passive victims of the “medical industry” He says, “The transsexual community that focuses on transitioning the body . . . in the end, it’s capitulatory.” (“On Transgendered Authorship”)
He says, authoritatively, as a cissexual,

For me, transgenderism arises out of the problem of not fitting in. and it comes out of those crisis – not only a gender crisis, but a larger crisis of social relations. It’s not so much a crisis of the body, which Gender Identity Disorder and the medical industry want to present it as being about.(Ibid)

It’s really great for him that he’s never experienced dysphoria. But he goes from “I’ve never experienced dysphoria,” to “therefore it must not exist.” Well, a lot of men have never experienced any kind of trans identity. So if bloke A has never experienced wanting to cross dress, does that mean that it also doesn’t exist as a valid perspective?
A big part of Thamelitz’s problem is that he sees trans a a radikewl thing to do. A way to challenge patriarchy. Alas for him, my goal is not to “[indtroduce] a new breed of masculinity into the male workplace, into the male social structure.” (ibid) Heck, I don’t think my masculinity is especially new or in any way subversive. Indeed, I object even to the idea of “the male workplace.” Alas, the gender balance of some workplaces is not ideal, but I can’t imagine terming any place the male workplace. What kind of feminism and transgenderism in this, pushed forward by a male-identified man? I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually understand what these words mean.
The piece I really loved from him before dealt with problems faced by intersexed people, who were often forced into surgery as babies, which was treated as an emergency when it was not at all life-threatening, just a social crisis. But now I fear he doesn’t see IS people as people, just as symbols of non-gender essentialism. Living examples to prove his theory. The ultimate gender queers. And I wonder why he feels like he has to exploit trans identities and IS identities to prove his point.
This is profoundly disappointing and an example of how divisions can be sewn among trans people. If there are multiple perspectives, one of them must be wrong, because I can be the only right one. And in his case, it’s not enough that he be the only true transperson, he has to fall into a load of transphobic, sexist, and transmysoginist language. Does he really think he isn’t just repeating a tired old trope when he says that transwomen are ugly? Trust me, this idea has been well circulated previously. It’s tiresome, untrue and sexist as hell. Judging women by their appearance is not feminist. Maybe the reason the German government backed out of broadcasting this is not because feminism is not “sexy” (http://www.chaindlk.com/interviews/index.php?interview=TerreThaemlitz) but because he’s failing at it.
Terre Thaemlitz, I used to think you were cool.

Writing my godparents

This is a draft of the email I’m planning on sending to my godmother and her husband:

Dear M and K,
When I saw you last week, you might have noticed that I look kind of different and that I’m going by a different name. I began transitioning from female to male in December of 2007 and since that time I’ve felt much happier and at ease with my self. Because I’ve been abroad so much and because it’s kind of a difficult conversation, I have put off telling people who are important to me, like yourselves.
Last December, I went to see Chuck, thinking I should tell him that I was planning on changing my first name to Charles, but it seemed awkward and I didn’t bring it up. I don’t know how he would have reacted at first and I thought I had more time and could bring it up later.
I should not wait to tell the people I love about something this important. I’m changing my first name to Charles and making Celeste my middle name. I’m asking people to call me “Les,” but “Charles” is also ok. I’m also asking people to use “he, him, his” etc when referring to me.
If you have questions, I can try to answer them, but a lot of things are difficult for me to explain. However, a writer named Jennifer Finney Boyland has written her memoirs about transitioning in the other direction, and, while it’s her story and not mine, she explains things better than I think I could. The book is called “She’s Not There.” Also, PFLAG has information for family and friends of transgender people: http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=380.
I don’t think I’ll be back in the south bay before I fly back to England on the 16th, but I will be back in California for a bit around Christmas. It would be good to see you then.
Love,
Les

I realized I was kind of avoiding them, despite them having been part of my life since I was born. I was ok to go to a post-funeral dinner with a jerk that I hate, but I was shunning people that I love. Life is too short to be stupid like that.

I promised more blogging

I haven’t written about gender stuff for a while. I finally had my appointment with the Charing Cross Gender Clinic, after months of waiting. Fortunately, the shrink had actually read the amusingly stupid report from the previous shrink, so I was not forced to recount my childhood yet again, just a few details of it. I don’t know why they care about it. Some trans people aren’t dysphoric at all before puberty. Heck, some aren’t really dysphoric until well after puberty. And I hate that my unwillingness to skip rope is considered a sign of being trans. It was mostly a sign of being a huge nerd, something that was not tied to gender at all. I was awkward and unathletic. I also was unable to protect my face during dodgeball and hated it too. Does that mean I’m really a girl after all?
They need two appointments before they will give me a referral and they’re understaffed, so appointment number 2 is in february. I might be able to call occasionally and see if something sooner has become available, but I don’t want to feel guilty about queue jumping, so I might not. The UK economy is kind of fucked, so maybe I should just pay privately, especially if I can get a part-time job.
All the gender stuff is still really vital to me, but I just don’t want to talk about it. Somebody on a website had a go at me a few weeks ago about my gender issues and history and it really sucked. So I quit posting anything of import there and I’ve quit posting here and I quit seeing my shrink when T died, but the not-talking-about-it school of dealing with life seems to work as well as the talking-endlessly-about-it approach. After a while, it all gets boring. My cousin had a book called “After Enlightenment, the Laundry.” Like, no matter how fascinating your current thing is, after a while, the mundanity of real life reclaims the center stage.

Speaking of which

In my real life, shortly after I gave my concert in May, my dad came to the UK for a month. He stayed down the street from my flat for a bit and traveled for a bit and then we went to Ireland together and then he went home. In July was gay pride and a bunch of other stuff that seemed to suck up all my energy and now I can’t even remember what it was. Helen and I cycled in a big loop around the Isle of Wight, which was nifty and very hilly. I love biking. August is going to slip quickly past.
I joined a bad called Helen’s Evil Twin. I’m the bassist, so I’m in the non-acoustic line up. My first gig with them is on August 13th. As it happens, this is a high profile gig and a large percentage of people I know in London will be there.
In other news, I’m trying to get caught up with where I should be in my PhD, but this is making the writers block thing worse instead of better. It seems like everything I write takes a long time and then comes out boring. I should write a whole huge amount of stupid crappy pieces, just to get going and then pick the good parts from all of them and combine them into one good piece. Or something. I’m worrying too much and I think I need to do a masterpiece or something. I keep reading about symphony composers from a hundred years ago, and they’re all geniuses who write masterpieces and spend years on them and say something really meaningful. Intellectually, I’m against that, but intellectually, I’m against a lot of things that I can’t actually seem to shake free.
And now, here’s a boring blog post to go with my boring attempts at music lately. I had a conversation with a guy a couple of years ago about how he would rather be crazy and write good music than happy and boring. I’m happier than I was when I had that conversation, but I think I would have ended up musically boring either way.

Further Adventures with the NHS

I went today for a psychiatric assessment. I spend a lot of time being evaluated, alas. This one was at a Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust medical center. It seemed like most of the other people there were for more body-focused medical stuff. It didn’t have the kind of security that Dutch mental health centers have. Indeed, the doors opened automatically as I approached.
My appointment letter was for “Ms Celeste,” which is better than Miss, at least. The receptionist looked at the letter and looked at me and asked who the appointment was for. I said my name. She looked at me a long second and then said ok and told me to sit.
The shrink was youngish. He had a student sitting in, a man about my age. I said I was ok with that. “Just ignore him” said the shrink. Right.
He had me go on and on about my childhood. Which, frankly, is not that interesting. Any fascinating memoir of my life would start later. I mean, the first time a gender shrink asks you about your childhood, you get to construct a narrative of yourself in regards to gender. Did you always know something was different? Were you blissfully unaware? Did others point out locations of difference that you didn’t see for yourself? All of this tempered by the understanding that the receiver of said narrative is a hurdle between you and hormones/surgery/whatever you’ve come for.
So I banged out a narrative for an hour about how I’m a totally reasonable sane person. He wasn’t a gender specialist, so when I said FTM, he asked what that stood for. So gender issues weren’t even that present in the conversation. He did use the phrase “Gender Identity Disorder” though, and it got my hackles up a bit.
I don’t like being called disordered. At all. The catholic church calls homosexuality “intrinsically disordered,” which is a value judgment that I’m not keen on either. Why must every location of difference be called a disorder? Could it be a condition instead? Some other medical phrase? I’m proud of who I am. Indeed, to be different means that you have to be proud or be crushed. My identity is not a disorder, it’s just atypical.
Then funding came up. He asked me when my student visa expires and started talking about “planned elective surgery.” Which, I mean, Tower Hamlets is not awash in cash. It’s one of the poorest boroughs in London. Why should they allocate their tax money to a foreign student? I don’t know how NHS funding works, but it seems to be geographically divided. Are the residents of Tower Hamlets the main funding source for their primary care trust? Or does it come out of a large pot and then is distributed by population?
In order to change my documents in California, I need to get top surgery. Also, to be able to go swimming or wear a T shirt ever again in my life. So if the NHS won’t fund it, I can . . . wait or self-fund. I don’t think it’s reasonable to try to get it too far from where I’m actually living, so surgery in California is not a good plan unless I move back there. It’s possible for people in the UK to “go private” which means pay themselves for stuff rather than wait for the NHS to decide to pay for it. I have no idea how much this would cost here, nor if it would effect them covering my T prescriptions or anything else. Aside from whether or not I could afford it, there’s issues about recovery time. It’s long. I won’t be able to lift things for weeks. This sort of situation requires close friends and I’ve only lived here since August. So even if I got NHS funding, it still might not be a reasonable plan. So maybe I’m destined to wait years no matter what.
When I do get it, if I still have savings, the first thing I’m going to do is buy the bike jersey I’ve been wanting, which I so can’t wear right now.

Transfeminist Disucssion

I went to panel discussion on Trans Feminism at the London Transgender Film Festival yesterday, which I think was a very good discussion, although emotions did run high. The panel had four people, two of whom were mtf and two of whom were F2-genderqueer.
Near the start, one of the panelists made an excellent point about how gender is a force acting on everyone in society, but trans people end up being perceived as responsible for all gender because of transition. (I’m not stating this quite right.)

The panelists were talking about second wave and third wave feminism. Bridget, a panelist, talked about conflicts between second wave feminism and trans people and noted that the people in conflict were feeling wounded and attacked by society in general. And the people who were the most vocal were the most hurt. And that, I think, shed a lot of light on the conflict between radfems and trans people. Both of those groups have common cause, but both of them have suffered terribly under groups that (falsely) appear to have commonality with the other.

It also came up that a lot of women’s groups avoid having a trans policy to avoid controversy and then trans people don’t know if they’re welcome or not. Given the history of acrimony, these groups should be willing to make a statement for trans inclusion. For example, one of the Take Back the Night Marches last year was not listed as “official” because it had trans participation . . . which is so terrible because trans women have an even higher incidence of rape perpetuated against them than do cis women.

One of the audience members was involved in some women’s march in London (the one that shut down their mics rather than let a sex worker speak!) and she was talking about how she was in favor of trans inclusion and everybody come along, etc. But she wasn’t speaking on behalf of the group, so it was an invitation to push for inclusion.

This didn’t come up, but I want to note that “not having a policy” is a position of privilege. Cis people get to avoid having discussions they’d rather avoid. And then trans people get mixed messages about whether or not they should show up. And then, if they do come, all of the controversy is directed at them. So their quiet allies can avoid having to get involved. I’m a bit bitter about this because I got involved last spring with a feminist thing without an official policy and, as I was on T barely four months by then and feeling incredibly vulnerable anyway, a controversy focused on my own gender presentation was hugely stressful and not ok.

Anyway, somebody in the audience wanted to note that the experiences of trans women resonate with dysphoric (read: eating disorder) cis girls, and trans feminism is thus a valuable contribution to feminism because it benefits cis women. This did not go over well. I know she was well-intentioned, but it simultaneous came off as “they think THEY have it bad, but look at you (exotic) lot!” and “well, your stuff also matters to REAL females.”

The person sitting in front of me tried to defend Julie Bindel, by raising the point that Bindel apologized for the tone, but not the content, of her transphobic column in 2004. But she gave up quickly. During the break, she said she had been hoping for a panel of ftms talking about how we still care about feminism. And she wanted to talk about socialization. Given that this is a cornerstone of why some feminists are transphobic, it’s easy to see why the panel wasn’t keen to bring it up. Also, I’m concerned about why a feminist discussion that mostly included ftms would be more desirable than one that included mtfs. The implications trouble me.

What was largely lost in the whole discussion, was that third wave feminism, as an extension of second wave feminism is thus a validation of the second wave. If the second wave hadn’t been useful and made great gains, there wouldn’t be a third wave. We want to build upon the success of the second wave while, at the same time, making critiques of some of the shortcomings of the previous wave. Second wavers were feeling attacked and third wavers get annoyed and don’t spend much time on the positives of the second wave. Which is logical, really, I mean when you’re complaining about radfem transphobia, you shouldn’t have to start every complaint with an acknowledgement that they were the originators of the concept “patriarchy.” But it should come up more often than it does. We owe these women a great debt, but it doesn’t mean theyre right all the time on everything.

Anyway, the discussion was lively and I think productive and it can’t help but continue.

New Information

DOROTHY: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
GLINDA:
You don’t need to be helped any longer.
You’ve always had the power to go back to
Kansas.

DOROTHY:
I have?

SCARECROW:
Then why didn’t you tell her before?

GLINDA:
Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She
had to learn it for herself.

I have a French friend, Sasha, staying with me for a couple of nights. He asked me why I wanted to change my name. I gave hi a look, but before I could speak, he continued, “It’s a gender neutral name in France.” And went on to tell me that it was exceedingly traditional.
Saint Céleste was the second bishop of Metz, around the end of the third century. My middle name is “Marie”, which is a traditional masculine middle name for Catholic French men. To pick an unfortunate example, it’s the middle name of Jean Marie Le Pen.
Sasha said, you can’t get much more traditional than that, the name of a bishop and then Marie as a middle name.
It’s somewhat archaic. In the 18th century, it would have been male all the time. Now, it’s more often given to girls, but still can go either way.
All my life, I’ve wished I had a gender neutral name.
What do you mean I’ve had it the entire time?!
I had filled out zero paperwork towards trying to get my name changed. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass, obviously, especially living abroad. I was going to wait until I could also change my gender marker, which will also require a new passport – and thus a new student visa. It took me months to get the last one, so you can see why I hesitate.
It’s certainly simpler not to change my name at all. Ok, in English, it’s almost always given to girls, but it’s not an English name. Really, what was my mom thinking giving me a French name in the first place? There’s no French in my family, even, except for a rumor that her maiden name had distantly French origins. Like, Norman Invasion sort of distant.
I have a hobby, and that’s second guessing myself.
But name wasn’t nearly as girly as I thought. Plus, I have a saint day, the 14th of October. (This is something that matters in Catholic school . . ..) And the saint was a dude. If I wanted to change my name because it was much too feminine, but it turns out to have masculine roots and a masculine present, well, that changes things.
In the states, nobody will have heard of such a thing, but it’s not common there anyway and I’m not going back in the next two years, so . . . What to do? I want to work this out sooner, rather than later. It’s a funny thing, Sasha brought it up because I was changing it, but never mentioned it earlier.
I feel kind of like Dorothy in that scene in the Wizard of Oz. (that’s so so gay.)

Keep calling me Les

There’s never a convenient time to get a sex change. I mean, really. There’s always other things going on in your life that are going to get disrupted. 90% of you reading this think I’m talking about surgery (and are quietly crossing your legs, I’m sure), but it’s like a million fucking things. (Such is the poor scheduling of post teenage puberty.) One of the most annoying is the name thing.
I have a tiny smattering of people who may search for me under my given name on the internets. I’m not a famous composer (yet), but I’m out there a bit. I would like people who have got something from the first 10 years of my production to be able to find me.
If I were more radical, I would leave my name unchanged Right now, though, that’s not working for me. So I started going by the middle three letters of my name. And then I started doing music with the appellation, but I think this is a mistake. People from earlier won’t find me. It makes the “C Hutchins” on my podcast kind of inexplicable. It’s not the thing to do.
So if trying to leave my name unchanged will make me unhappy and ‘Les’ isn’t the answer, what to do? An ideal name would: Start with C. Somehow be related to what my parents might have named me (I would have my brother’s name, so I think about what they would have named him) or have a connection to my family. Contain a “Les” in it someplace, so I could keep using it as a nickname.
My uncle and great grandfather were named Charles. Ok, perfect.
So, for people searching for me on google, I can go by “Charles Celeste Hutchins.” So I’m going to publish music under that name from now on and I’ve stuck it on my email. It will go on future business cards, etc.
And you can keep calling me whatever you call me.

Wrong Pronouns

In the last week, I’ve twice experienced old friends using the wrong pronouns in front of a third party. In the first case, I was buying lunch at a counter and my friend said, “she” to the cashier, to refer to me. The cashier stared intently at me for several moments, but was otherwise polite and didn’t say anything. It was a bit uncomfortable. Afterwards, my friend apologized profusely.
In the second instance, I was talking with a neighbor that I’ve spoken with a few times before. My friend (a different one) said, “she. I mean he. Sorry.” The neighbor stared at me a few moments, but the conversation carried on. A few minutes later, he said something about “we boys” including me. Later, my friend apologized.
Ok, wrong pronouns happen. I’ve done it to other people. People will do it to me. It’s not the end of the world. I appreciate your effort. I know it’s a challenge.

How to deal

When you use the wrong pronoun, correct yourself. You had a moment of space out, so treat it like that. We all misspeak from time to time.
Obviously, I’m not stealth, but I don’t want to be out loud and proud every moment of every day. Imagine starting every conversation with every person with “Hi, I’m queer.” Like, “Hi, I’m a queer. Can I pay for my meal.” “Hi, I’m a queer. I’d like a half pint of Guinness.” It would be a bit much. And as weird as straight people are about LGB people, it’s a bit more intense with trans folks.

My Bank

Ok, I signed up with my bank, despite witnessing what looked a lot like open racism towards Chinese foreign students. I was disturbed, but it didn’t effect me, right? Because a culture of discrimination could never bite my ass. (Attention white people: it will bite your ass.)
I went in over a week ago to change my address. The form I filled out said that I would receive a letter in the mail confirming this. The guy at the desk said it would take 24 hours to go through. He asked for my passport to photocopy. When he got the copy out of the machine, he studied it and frowned, but was polite to me. Until I turned to leave. I could feel him staring after me. As I got out on the street, I could see him, through the window, looking at me like I climbed out of the Black Lagoon.
Obviously, he must have noticed the gender marker on my passport. If I were a stronger person, I would have gone back in and asked if there was a problem, as he seemed to be looking at me as if he wanted to say something. Instead, I felt shitty about myself, lost my passport for a few days, panicked, found it again and wondered why my letter for address change never came.
I went in today to get my automatic rent payments straightened out and discovered that my address was changed. To Berkeley. All of my statements are going to California, which is not really helpful and also not at all what I asked for.
There is some possibility that the bloke that originally took my paperwork thought he was preventing fraud. Somebody came into my bank in California, impersonating me, complete with fake ID, and tried to cash a bogus check. The teller got suspicious and the lady buggered off. The bank got highly concerned, froze the account, and called me to tell me about it. And that’s what you do if you think there’s fraud.
In this case, the guy pretended to be polite, didn’t ask for any other documents or security questions and must have noted that the picture on my passport is obviously me. It has the weird reflective thingees embedded in it, so it’s also clearly the photo that came with the passport. In short, he knew that it wasn’t fraud and he didn’t act like it was fraud. He might have told himself that he suspected fraud when he threw all my documents in the bin, but I highly doubt that he was following the set procedure of the bank. Why would he ignore procedure? Because he knew it didn’t apply.
So if bank workers feel empowered to stare at me like a monster and fuck up my bank account metadata on the basis of me being a trannie, you can see why I want you to use the right pronouns. It’s my lot in life to have to deal with a certain amount of bullshit, but I’d rather not. And speaking of outing people, why the fuck is there a gender marker on my passport in the first place? It’s got my name age and picture. Isn’t that enough? Having a legally defined sex is bullshit and it’s only practical use is to discriminate against queers. You can’t marry that person. You’re going to be fucked with every time you go to the airport. It’s bullshit.

NHS endo

I’ve just talked to an endocrinologist in a british hospital.  The hospital, Birlingham City Hospital is a newish building.  It has large windows and an airy, almost pleasant interior. There is a large central atrium in the center of the outpatient wing. This is part of a shared waiting area. It’s almost like cafe. Food and drink are available.

I arrived early for my appointment, as directed and checked in and waited.  The receptionist asked where the patient was. “I’m the patient.” She double checked everything and aplogized. Later, when a nurse called me, she also double checked my name and address. The NHS has me listed as “Miss Celeste.” My efforts to change this have, so far, failed, alas.

The endo’s assistant asked me a bunch of questions and sort of hinted at scary things that can go wrong on T. Blindness?!? Um, not that I’ve noticed.

The endo then came around to talk to me and ordered a million blood tests and said his assistant would write a letter telling my GP to prescribe sustanon, which is the form of T given to transmen in Europe. I can do it every 3 weeks instead of every 2. Huzzah. I’m to return in 6 months for a follow up.

He ordered 17 blood tests, so now I’m now waiting to have my blood drawn. The tests are for various hormones, cholesterol, glucose levels, things that I don’t recognize. Gods help me if they have to take 17 vials. I’m using that blood!

Anyway, the hospital is clean and bright and airy. I’ve also been to a hospital in france, alas, and this is altogether more pleasant.  But that was Paris’ “worst” hospital, so maybe this isn’t a fair comparison.