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About where I am emotionally.
Sep. 3rd, 2012 09:46 amThis post will probably get a little dark. I assure you that I am okay, just not great right now.
I've struggled with thoughts of suicide. Last night I realized that one of the more powerful motivators against it for me is that if I did, my death would be used as part of the fucked-up justification supporting ever more restrictions of the bullshit sort that I have endured for four years (and counting.) That's how it works with gatekeepers and their supporters - that people have problems under that system is used as proof that the system is good. That I have any regrets from dealing with the process, even that those regrets are of having to deal with the bullshit, are taken as proof that it is necessary and needs to be made even more stringent.
I describe myself as both lesbian and a trans woman. While neither can be truly separated for me because they are tightly intertwined, they are still distinct in many ways. One example is that I am comfortable being out as lesbian at work but I am not comfortable being out as a trans woman at work. There's a simple reason at play: being out as lesbian does not put me under undue scrutiny while being out as a trans woman will. It's a matter of familiarity; lesbian and gay individuals aren't so foreign to them and, thus, the actions of one aren't so much used to judge all. I know that I get a significant amount of that already as a woman in a part of the IT field which is very much overwhelmingly male; being out as a trans woman would most likely make me the only one they know and that has the effect of putting me under a microscope that I do not want.
I am also asexual, which doesn't factor into this point, though I have had punitive treatment from medical professionals for that reason.)
I feel even more that I sold my soul. With the customer last week I was directly supporting something with which I strongly disagree. Also, a part that I didn't say from the therapy appointment, was seeing someone I know, who is fairly early in transition, walk in for the next appointment as I was leaving, knowing I had effectively just reinforced what was being enforced upon her.
I've struggled with thoughts of suicide. Last night I realized that one of the more powerful motivators against it for me is that if I did, my death would be used as part of the fucked-up justification supporting ever more restrictions of the bullshit sort that I have endured for four years (and counting.) That's how it works with gatekeepers and their supporters - that people have problems under that system is used as proof that the system is good. That I have any regrets from dealing with the process, even that those regrets are of having to deal with the bullshit, are taken as proof that it is necessary and needs to be made even more stringent.
I describe myself as both lesbian and a trans woman. While neither can be truly separated for me because they are tightly intertwined, they are still distinct in many ways. One example is that I am comfortable being out as lesbian at work but I am not comfortable being out as a trans woman at work. There's a simple reason at play: being out as lesbian does not put me under undue scrutiny while being out as a trans woman will. It's a matter of familiarity; lesbian and gay individuals aren't so foreign to them and, thus, the actions of one aren't so much used to judge all. I know that I get a significant amount of that already as a woman in a part of the IT field which is very much overwhelmingly male; being out as a trans woman would most likely make me the only one they know and that has the effect of putting me under a microscope that I do not want.
I am also asexual, which doesn't factor into this point, though I have had punitive treatment from medical professionals for that reason.)
I feel even more that I sold my soul. With the customer last week I was directly supporting something with which I strongly disagree. Also, a part that I didn't say from the therapy appointment, was seeing someone I know, who is fairly early in transition, walk in for the next appointment as I was leaving, knowing I had effectively just reinforced what was being enforced upon her.
