So, a couple of weeks ago I got a call from my Doctor asking me if it was ok for her to refer me to a gender clinic in Norwich. She was worried that it would inconvenient for me to go there as I had request to go to Cambridge (Cambridge doesn't have a gender clinic which is crazy... It's Cambridge ffs) I had no issues with this.
I did ask her to repeat herself. I asked her to whom she was referring me to. She said a gender specialist in Norwich GIC. I was shocked and happy. I was expecting to have to go to a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, priest, tescos manager, tea lady, bus driver.. Basically everyone and everything until people finally decided I was worthy to see a specialist. I told her this, she said she felt there was no need for that... She felt happy referring me strait away. Yay for me, I guess, now I just have to hope they do actually decide they want to see me, or don't throw me away after the first session or something.
God knows how long I have to even wait for confirmation of my referral.
I'm not complaining though, I am so happy I was able to get to see such a great doctor who was so understanding. I guess she might have felt that if I was brave enough to sit in that busy waiting room wearing women's jeans and a pink top in our little village then I knew what I wanted.
Thing is... I still don't know what I want, I was bracing up for the battle with the gate keepers to strengthen my resolve. I would become an expert in my arguments about why I was trans and how I wasn't trans for a whole host of reasons. I was going to fight down every single petty remark and bullshit theory just to be myself. I was going to fight and become a trans-warrior, like so many others I know who have to struggle to even get on path.
But who am I to complain, I just hope I don't get it too easy to forget how others struggle. I hope I don't go in too weak and ruin my chances on the first go. I hope they are forgiving for when I do ruin my chances on the first go (I will, I know I will).
So anyone have any experience with Norwich gender clinic?
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Sometimes there are no bad guys. Or bad girls.
So I came out to my partner a couple of months ago. I told her as much as I knew about what it meant to transition. I learnt more after that and I am still learning.
Something I came across again and again was that hormones did two significant things. One was make you sterile and the other was send you into puberty again (fun).
The first thing: the sterile thing… I have a daughter. I love her to bits and I don’t regret her at all. She is so wonderful and beautiful. I don’t feel like I want another child, I don’t feel like I can handle that after I have gone through my transition and as horrible as it sounds I don’t want to risk having a son.
I sucked as a son, I had a shitty father/son relationship and I wouldn’t want my transition status to have an effect on how they grow up. This is probably completely un-reasonable but it’s the truth as it is to me.
The issue with this is that if you tell someone that there is an absolute, then you are taking that option away from them. My SO may not have had any desire to have more children with me now or ever but she doesn’t like the idea of being forced to never have children with me again. This is reasonable. If I am to go on hormones there really is little other choice aside from a sperm bank.
The puberty thing means a lot. I am Bi-sexual at the moment. I am attracted to guys and girls, I’ve never had a sexual relationship with another guy but I have fallen in love with a couple. When I go through my puberty my feelings of desire for men may massively increase and take over. I may be uncontrollable with my urge to feel the stubble and strong arms. What girl doesn’t…?
This MIGHT happen. It MIGHT happen. If I and my SO stay together where she is strong for me and my support I could go through puberty bi and come out the other end strait. It is possible. I love my SO a lot. I can’t imagine leaving her, but I can’t account for when the chemicals in my brain change.
So all I can offer her are three things. I promise to love her, I promise to try and support her as much as she supports me and I promise to always be honest with her. So if I feel like I may be straightening out then we will have warning.
I don’t know if this will ever be enough. It does feel like the future is uncertain. But the future is always uncertain. Someone could drive home from work a happily married man, pull over to help a stranded woman with her tyres, fall in love with her and BAM. Changed future.
Otherwise, we can compromise. If I want anything from this it’s the hormones. I know they will be able to help change me from the testosterone filled gorilla I am to the Disney princess I am inside (hah).
But a compromise for me on this would be the blockers I guess. Stop the T as much as I can without the O. Even then, will I still feel the self-hate? Will I still become sterile? I don’t know. It’s hard. I really want this change. It’s what I’ve needed my whole life. I can’t believe how much I blocked it.
I spent last night in my old bed as a teenager. As I went to sleep I wished I would wake up back in my 15 year old body in 2001. A fresh start. Let me be Ahuali (I seriously need a girl’s name) from the start. But then, I wouldn’t have had all the amazing stuff I’ve had…
Bah. Life
Something I came across again and again was that hormones did two significant things. One was make you sterile and the other was send you into puberty again (fun).
The first thing: the sterile thing… I have a daughter. I love her to bits and I don’t regret her at all. She is so wonderful and beautiful. I don’t feel like I want another child, I don’t feel like I can handle that after I have gone through my transition and as horrible as it sounds I don’t want to risk having a son.
I sucked as a son, I had a shitty father/son relationship and I wouldn’t want my transition status to have an effect on how they grow up. This is probably completely un-reasonable but it’s the truth as it is to me.
The issue with this is that if you tell someone that there is an absolute, then you are taking that option away from them. My SO may not have had any desire to have more children with me now or ever but she doesn’t like the idea of being forced to never have children with me again. This is reasonable. If I am to go on hormones there really is little other choice aside from a sperm bank.
The puberty thing means a lot. I am Bi-sexual at the moment. I am attracted to guys and girls, I’ve never had a sexual relationship with another guy but I have fallen in love with a couple. When I go through my puberty my feelings of desire for men may massively increase and take over. I may be uncontrollable with my urge to feel the stubble and strong arms. What girl doesn’t…?
This MIGHT happen. It MIGHT happen. If I and my SO stay together where she is strong for me and my support I could go through puberty bi and come out the other end strait. It is possible. I love my SO a lot. I can’t imagine leaving her, but I can’t account for when the chemicals in my brain change.
So all I can offer her are three things. I promise to love her, I promise to try and support her as much as she supports me and I promise to always be honest with her. So if I feel like I may be straightening out then we will have warning.
I don’t know if this will ever be enough. It does feel like the future is uncertain. But the future is always uncertain. Someone could drive home from work a happily married man, pull over to help a stranded woman with her tyres, fall in love with her and BAM. Changed future.
Otherwise, we can compromise. If I want anything from this it’s the hormones. I know they will be able to help change me from the testosterone filled gorilla I am to the Disney princess I am inside (hah).
But a compromise for me on this would be the blockers I guess. Stop the T as much as I can without the O. Even then, will I still feel the self-hate? Will I still become sterile? I don’t know. It’s hard. I really want this change. It’s what I’ve needed my whole life. I can’t believe how much I blocked it.
I spent last night in my old bed as a teenager. As I went to sleep I wished I would wake up back in my 15 year old body in 2001. A fresh start. Let me be Ahuali (I seriously need a girl’s name) from the start. But then, I wouldn’t have had all the amazing stuff I’ve had…
Bah. Life
Thursday, 5 May 2011
So I've come out to most of the important friends and family. Only 2 people left.
Friends went well, I doubt they will read this even though i came out to one of them kind of via twitter and I am unsure if he got it or just followed because what the hell it's Liam.
The other friend went well and another one has known for like a year now.
One main friend left, everyone else I can take of leave their reaction. I'd hate to leave the main friend though as if he is cool with this he would be pissed off that he didn't find out when everyone else found out....
I came out to my mum and step-dad and that went well. My mum is a valuable resource for information as she is a nurse and used to work at a sexual health clinic in London. This didn't occur to me but she has seen it all and heard it all. So that's great.
Im pretty sure my step-dad already knew, as I think he saw the kind of porn I was looking at when I lived with them :\
Just my sister left. She should be fine, mainly she is the only person left who talks to my dad. I'd both love and hate for him to find out. I don't talk to my dad, not since he attacked me and my pregnant girlfriend. But I cant help but chuckle at the thought of his shock that everything he feared about me (and told me so again and again when i was growing up. Hello repression) kind of comes true. But in a less of a bigoted arsehole way.
So thats it. I wish to write more.
I need to write about the reasons why I felt I wasn't transgender and was just fucked up.
As well as my love/hate relationship with self-image and stuff.
Also, hello readers. please say hi. I need attention. I used to get it from those TV attention sites (I was 19/20 so sue me) some dodgy people on there that's for sure.
Friends went well, I doubt they will read this even though i came out to one of them kind of via twitter and I am unsure if he got it or just followed because what the hell it's Liam.
The other friend went well and another one has known for like a year now.
One main friend left, everyone else I can take of leave their reaction. I'd hate to leave the main friend though as if he is cool with this he would be pissed off that he didn't find out when everyone else found out....
I came out to my mum and step-dad and that went well. My mum is a valuable resource for information as she is a nurse and used to work at a sexual health clinic in London. This didn't occur to me but she has seen it all and heard it all. So that's great.
Im pretty sure my step-dad already knew, as I think he saw the kind of porn I was looking at when I lived with them :\
Just my sister left. She should be fine, mainly she is the only person left who talks to my dad. I'd both love and hate for him to find out. I don't talk to my dad, not since he attacked me and my pregnant girlfriend. But I cant help but chuckle at the thought of his shock that everything he feared about me (and told me so again and again when i was growing up. Hello repression) kind of comes true. But in a less of a bigoted arsehole way.
So thats it. I wish to write more.
I need to write about the reasons why I felt I wasn't transgender and was just fucked up.
As well as my love/hate relationship with self-image and stuff.
Also, hello readers. please say hi. I need attention. I used to get it from those TV attention sites (I was 19/20 so sue me) some dodgy people on there that's for sure.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Fear and self-loathing on the transgender trail
So for me I feel like I am held back by my own ideas of who I should be. I should just be who I want to be. Even when I have come to terms with my own trangenderism I feel like I need to validate it and set myself down to some hard limits.
I feel ugly. Yes. I feel fat. Yes. It happens. I should still be me.
I, like every other alienated teenager, love Hunter S Thompson. And like everyone else like me I felt that his writing really spoke to me personally and that I wanted my life to be lived according to his values, which seemed to me to be to just follow your passion; follow justice, look out for the little guy and try to cause as much havoc on the way as you can. But then he shot himself.
He gave up. I gave up. It’s a shit world when the man who knows its shit gives up on it. For a year I wished I could go back in time and tell him that it gets better. It always gets better.
Then, recently, I read one of his books I bought after he died; Kingdom of Fear. It was published after his death. And a line in it struck me, it was what made me feel closer to HST than anything else I ever read, it seemed to define a certain nature of his. I think it was also largely ignored. He said in the last chapter (compiled and placed there by his editor) that he felt that he was a grown man with the soul of a teenage girl. His lust for disaster and the chase of the bad boy could be traced back to that girl in his soul. This is how I felt, although my girl is less naughty and more insecure. She, me, is like the normal me. Insecure and worried and self-conscious. She doesn’t want to let anyone down even it means letting her self down. She will sacrifice a lot for the sake of others.
By this I don’t mean my family. As a dad (weird, but my notion of a dad is not like the normal idea. I fantasised my own father which means I can now be whatever I need to be) this needs to mean I provide support which I will always do. But instead of just hiding away my soul I should just let her out. She is more like me than anything else I let show, in fact she is me. She is all ME. No acting or holding back, she is let loose now and I hope to never have to reign her in. But man, o man, do I need to work on my self-perception. Anorexia is not pretty and I can never claim to have had it but I lost a lot of weight very quickly through not eating and as tempting as it is to do that again I think I'll just stick to cycling and running. Once I get enough self-control to drag myself out of bed in the morning I need to remember that the end justifies the means. By ends I mean an attractive woman and by means I mean leaving my nice warm bed to go and cycle around some boring old fields for an hour.
Either way. HST was Trans; it was why he chased everything and tried to fill the void in his soul. I also R Trans but I don’t intend to wait until I am sixty to really express this and then shoot myself in the head.
Fuck I’m drunk. TL:DR – Fuck you, fuck me. I am whoever I am. Also, I’m drunk. But meh, who read this anyway. From now on I’m going to get drunk at every opportunity and just let loose.
Next chapter of my blog will be how porn fucks everything up and makes you feel like a worthless piece of self-hating shit.
I feel ugly. Yes. I feel fat. Yes. It happens. I should still be me.
I, like every other alienated teenager, love Hunter S Thompson. And like everyone else like me I felt that his writing really spoke to me personally and that I wanted my life to be lived according to his values, which seemed to me to be to just follow your passion; follow justice, look out for the little guy and try to cause as much havoc on the way as you can. But then he shot himself.
He gave up. I gave up. It’s a shit world when the man who knows its shit gives up on it. For a year I wished I could go back in time and tell him that it gets better. It always gets better.
Then, recently, I read one of his books I bought after he died; Kingdom of Fear. It was published after his death. And a line in it struck me, it was what made me feel closer to HST than anything else I ever read, it seemed to define a certain nature of his. I think it was also largely ignored. He said in the last chapter (compiled and placed there by his editor) that he felt that he was a grown man with the soul of a teenage girl. His lust for disaster and the chase of the bad boy could be traced back to that girl in his soul. This is how I felt, although my girl is less naughty and more insecure. She, me, is like the normal me. Insecure and worried and self-conscious. She doesn’t want to let anyone down even it means letting her self down. She will sacrifice a lot for the sake of others.
By this I don’t mean my family. As a dad (weird, but my notion of a dad is not like the normal idea. I fantasised my own father which means I can now be whatever I need to be) this needs to mean I provide support which I will always do. But instead of just hiding away my soul I should just let her out. She is more like me than anything else I let show, in fact she is me. She is all ME. No acting or holding back, she is let loose now and I hope to never have to reign her in. But man, o man, do I need to work on my self-perception. Anorexia is not pretty and I can never claim to have had it but I lost a lot of weight very quickly through not eating and as tempting as it is to do that again I think I'll just stick to cycling and running. Once I get enough self-control to drag myself out of bed in the morning I need to remember that the end justifies the means. By ends I mean an attractive woman and by means I mean leaving my nice warm bed to go and cycle around some boring old fields for an hour.
Either way. HST was Trans; it was why he chased everything and tried to fill the void in his soul. I also R Trans but I don’t intend to wait until I am sixty to really express this and then shoot myself in the head.
Fuck I’m drunk. TL:DR – Fuck you, fuck me. I am whoever I am. Also, I’m drunk. But meh, who read this anyway. From now on I’m going to get drunk at every opportunity and just let loose.
Next chapter of my blog will be how porn fucks everything up and makes you feel like a worthless piece of self-hating shit.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Stuff
Well today was shit. I had a huge lift at work and felt great, but some things happened that crashed me down to the floor. I could barely drive home I was so low. But a friend on twitter asked me what was wrong (hi!) and I vented and felt a bit better.
I then came home and wrote for my novel (we all have one). I wrote 2000 words of steamy trans sex. If this gets published i fear it may end up in the porn section :\
I'll post up an extract when I have edited it.
I have more to say but less drive to say it.
Listen to this song, it always cheers me up for some reason:
I then came home and wrote for my novel (we all have one). I wrote 2000 words of steamy trans sex. If this gets published i fear it may end up in the porn section :\
I'll post up an extract when I have edited it.
I have more to say but less drive to say it.
Listen to this song, it always cheers me up for some reason:
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Damn it, fucks sake. Stupid doctors
Well that letter annoyed me.
This was my response from the doctor I saw when I went to go and talk to them about being transgendered. I don’t know about you but I find it dripping with ignorance and I also find it quite offensive. It doesn’t even offer the most basic of support that I would expect from the NHS.
Let’s have a closer look as to why I hate this letter.
|He doesn’t think that you have gender identity disorder as this is for people who require a sex change.
1. How does he know this? I have never spoken to him or made any form of contact with him. All he has to go on is second hand knowledge of what I am going through as interpreted by another doctor who didn’t even fully grasp the idea of GID in the first place. I told her I felt like I should have been born a girl. Yes I am the cliche of a woman trapped in a male body. This is GID as I understand it. I told the doctor this much at least.
2. Since when was it so black and white as to say you needed a sex change if you had GID. Also they are prepared to cut me off from further support just because I admitted that I did not fully know about how far I wanted to go with this. Of course I don’t know how far I want to go, I’ve only just come to terms with my transgender nature myself, I reached out for help.
|As I understand from our conversation you are not comfortable or confident with the fact that you are bisexual.
Right, this is not something I came to you about. I am very comfortable with my bi-sexuality and have been out about it for 4 years. So I find it very offensive that you should chose to focus on this as this is a non-issue. Just because I have never had sex with another man does not mean that I am not bisexual. I know what turns me on and I have been in love with other men. It isn’t all about where I poke my penis.
|If this is the case then Dr. Bakshi advised you to contact LGBT Group which stands for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender. Dr Bakshi couldn’t give me the exact details of how to contact them but he said it was self-referral and the contact details you can find online or in the Yellow Pages.
Now this is offensive. Not only is it condescending, it’s also inaccurate. The NHS has at least leaflets on this kind of thing as well as a whole host of support to offer. Not to mention the well-known groups such as Stonewall. This feels to me that I am just being brushed aside.
And I feel really sorry for anyone who might come to these doctors worried about their sexuality and will find no support. It’s not like being gay is a new thing. It’s not even a fringe thing any more. How can they not offer anything at all?
What I am going to do now? I am now going to request the letter than passed between the doctor and Dr Bakshi. I am going to see how accurately this represents what my issues were. I am also going to find out how I can see a competent doctor. Even if it means changing my GPs practise.
To me the biggest concern is how the proposed NHS funding changes will make this thing more common. My doctors have shown to me that they have no regard for people who are transgendered and I can imagine they are not the only one. So what if any services offered are cut, and people who are trans will have nothing to go to for help. That is a very basic way of describing it, I am not the most lucid of writers, but I think you may see what I mean. I don't mean this would happen across the UK, but certainly in small backwaters where knowledge of such issues is not very well known.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
How I feel nowadays
This is pretty much how I feel lately. I find it hard to make up my mind about my gender. I feel like could make a list of things I like and hate about being male. I think there would be more things in the hate section.
I may actually do this soon...
So I went to my private healthcare provided by my work and cried my eyes out about being trans and confused. So they booked me in to see a counsellor, whom I am going to see this Friday. Only 20 minute walk from work.
It was odd though, I rang her and introduced myself. She said she didn't generally get names and how could she help me. I was about to start explaining and suddenly she interjects with "Oh, Ahuali! Of course, yes." Felt a bit embrasseding to be honest, but her voice softened and she spoke to me very kindly. Is this something that happens now? Will I be patronised as if I am a slow witted teenager? I imagine it was just her trying to be kind and reassuring and I am not going to insult anyone who is trying to help. But we'll see.
Also, went out and about in Cambridge yesterday half dressed. I got a few looks as sometimes those jeans can look very feminine but I every time I go out dressed I care less and less of what people think of me. Although there are obviously some places I would dare to go out dressed. But Ely and Cambridge are fine for now.
I wonder when I'll be confident enough to go to work in a state of dress.
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