From permatemp of gender to full-time.
Nov. 27th, 2010 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agent_daniAround two years ago a dear friend told me, "you're the permatemp of gender" as a fantastic way of describing a position I found frustrating. I found it quite appropriate and remembered it, repeating it to her in a recent conversation. She didn't recall it but admitted it was the sort of thing she would say.
I've realized this fact has been the source of much frustration. Not long ago I wondered, "is transition to be my reward for a life well lived." It's a phrase borrowed from my previous employer (a Jesuit institution of higher education and about ordination in the Jesuit order) modified by my frustration with how my transition has progressed. Back story for the new(er) followers is at the bottom, but a quick summary is: dealing with gatekeepers who insist they aren't. I don't think it too much an over-reaction on my part that when (supposed/so-called) professionals claim to me that "gatekeepers don't exist" I immediately expect them to be some form of gatekeeper. That claim has been stated by both my therapist and endo, both of whom went on to demonstrate that they have gatekeeper natures.
Late this summer I began taking a voice and communication class/group that's offered by UNC-Greensboro (it had some recent press.) I don't want to sell it short; it's a wonderful program with incredible people and I have learned a great deal. However, the single greatest thing I've learned is my own confidence in my ability to do this - to accomplish my transition.
And so I'm now at the point where I feel the need to make progress on social transition. I want to be full-time within a year. $SO and I have discussed this and are working on how to deal many matters. Perhaps the most difficult for each of us is informing with our respective families. It is perhaps easier for her family as they're all 500 miles away. I have some immediately family (parents) living in the region. Our paths are unlikely to cross as they don't come to my side of the triangle and, although I do have to go to Raleigh periodically, it's never so far over as the area where they live. I used to worry about it with my endo as that office was a couple doors down from where my mother worked, but mom retired before the second appointment and the endo moved.
Still, I need to work out how to tell them. I've intentionally waited due to history - that my immediately family always felt they had the right to argue and debate my life (not to mention demanding that I yield to their preferences for my own life) so I've wanted to limit the time available for them to attempt that. It won't change my path, but it's simply aggravation I don't need.
I think the thought of losing them is also a hard one for me in a way I hadn't expected. Although I have significant issues with how my mother did (didn't, more like) deal with things in my youth, she is why I have my career and still someone I professionally admire. The position she retired from was that of Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest public schools in the US (it has about as many school buildings as there were students in my HS class.)
When talking to the permatemp quote friend later in the day she asked how I felt about the impending social transition. "Hopeful, excited, anxious, nervous, scared...probably a bunch more feelings. Mostly in that order." She noted that I listed the positive ones first. It really is how I feel, and I realize that's exactly why I need to make the move now. Delaying will only give time for more of the negative emotions to forment, possibly leading to me going back into denial again as I did fifteen years ago, and the result of that would merely be a repeat of what happened in the years following that first, failed attempt to transition. I sometimes have to try hard to not think of what could have been...where I could be today if only... Thinking that accomplishes nothing, but that fact makes it no less seductive. Channeling that into something useful: I don't want to find myself emerging from a depressed fog at 50 and feeling that way about 30 years of my life.
Part of me feels like I'm about to take the step off a cliff. Part of me sees it as walking away from the ledge. "Can't sleep, future will eat me" really gets at how I feel.
Back story: I had my first therapy appointment in the later part of the summer of 2008. It would be ten months before I was finally able to darken the door of my endo (time taken to finally get the referral [what my therapist does rather than giving me my HRT letter] plus lead-time for the next available appointment at the endo,) the first actual steps of HRT would be 3-4 months later, and summer 2010 arrived before I was finally able to get onto a reasonable course of HRT - that is, a reasonable amount of estrogen and anti-androgen. The AA profoundly changed things for me, and the most significant changes weren't physical. That I'm still on it should tell you the nature of those changes - I could not have imagined how much better of a place I'd find myself in, e.g. I'm now able to have a healthy relationship with negative emotions such as annoyance and anger - not to say I don't feel them (I would consider that bad as they do have a valuable function and place) but that I'm able to deal well with them, something I was largely unable to do before.
The late summer of 2010 was a tough time for me. One night found me broken-down and absolutely sobbing in $SO's arms. Two years had passed since the first step of transition and I felt like I'd had no progress.
I've realized this fact has been the source of much frustration. Not long ago I wondered, "is transition to be my reward for a life well lived." It's a phrase borrowed from my previous employer (a Jesuit institution of higher education and about ordination in the Jesuit order) modified by my frustration with how my transition has progressed. Back story for the new(er) followers is at the bottom, but a quick summary is: dealing with gatekeepers who insist they aren't. I don't think it too much an over-reaction on my part that when (supposed/so-called) professionals claim to me that "gatekeepers don't exist" I immediately expect them to be some form of gatekeeper. That claim has been stated by both my therapist and endo, both of whom went on to demonstrate that they have gatekeeper natures.
Late this summer I began taking a voice and communication class/group that's offered by UNC-Greensboro (it had some recent press.) I don't want to sell it short; it's a wonderful program with incredible people and I have learned a great deal. However, the single greatest thing I've learned is my own confidence in my ability to do this - to accomplish my transition.
And so I'm now at the point where I feel the need to make progress on social transition. I want to be full-time within a year. $SO and I have discussed this and are working on how to deal many matters. Perhaps the most difficult for each of us is informing with our respective families. It is perhaps easier for her family as they're all 500 miles away. I have some immediately family (parents) living in the region. Our paths are unlikely to cross as they don't come to my side of the triangle and, although I do have to go to Raleigh periodically, it's never so far over as the area where they live. I used to worry about it with my endo as that office was a couple doors down from where my mother worked, but mom retired before the second appointment and the endo moved.
Still, I need to work out how to tell them. I've intentionally waited due to history - that my immediately family always felt they had the right to argue and debate my life (not to mention demanding that I yield to their preferences for my own life) so I've wanted to limit the time available for them to attempt that. It won't change my path, but it's simply aggravation I don't need.
I think the thought of losing them is also a hard one for me in a way I hadn't expected. Although I have significant issues with how my mother did (didn't, more like) deal with things in my youth, she is why I have my career and still someone I professionally admire. The position she retired from was that of Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest public schools in the US (it has about as many school buildings as there were students in my HS class.)
When talking to the permatemp quote friend later in the day she asked how I felt about the impending social transition. "Hopeful, excited, anxious, nervous, scared...probably a bunch more feelings. Mostly in that order." She noted that I listed the positive ones first. It really is how I feel, and I realize that's exactly why I need to make the move now. Delaying will only give time for more of the negative emotions to forment, possibly leading to me going back into denial again as I did fifteen years ago, and the result of that would merely be a repeat of what happened in the years following that first, failed attempt to transition. I sometimes have to try hard to not think of what could have been...where I could be today if only... Thinking that accomplishes nothing, but that fact makes it no less seductive. Channeling that into something useful: I don't want to find myself emerging from a depressed fog at 50 and feeling that way about 30 years of my life.
Part of me feels like I'm about to take the step off a cliff. Part of me sees it as walking away from the ledge. "Can't sleep, future will eat me" really gets at how I feel.
Back story: I had my first therapy appointment in the later part of the summer of 2008. It would be ten months before I was finally able to darken the door of my endo (time taken to finally get the referral [what my therapist does rather than giving me my HRT letter] plus lead-time for the next available appointment at the endo,) the first actual steps of HRT would be 3-4 months later, and summer 2010 arrived before I was finally able to get onto a reasonable course of HRT - that is, a reasonable amount of estrogen and anti-androgen. The AA profoundly changed things for me, and the most significant changes weren't physical. That I'm still on it should tell you the nature of those changes - I could not have imagined how much better of a place I'd find myself in, e.g. I'm now able to have a healthy relationship with negative emotions such as annoyance and anger - not to say I don't feel them (I would consider that bad as they do have a valuable function and place) but that I'm able to deal well with them, something I was largely unable to do before.
The late summer of 2010 was a tough time for me. One night found me broken-down and absolutely sobbing in $SO's arms. Two years had passed since the first step of transition and I felt like I'd had no progress.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 10:25 pm (UTC)Family is hard. I'm hoping for the best with yours... we told our respective families in very different ways (with mine, I blurted it out on the phone with my mother. With Tasha's we had a big sit-down with all of them) and it's very hard to lessen the shock. I don't know if there's a good, better or best way to tell them, really. Do most of your friends already know?
I remember that once everyone who needed to know finally knew, though, I had no reason to stay male outside of work at all. Pretty much as soon as I told my boss at work, I was full time everywhere else (waited about six weeks to transition at work). I ran out of excuses, too, which helped. :)
I hope the road ahead is clear for you, you definitely deserve it!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 10:37 pm (UTC)Family and work are the only ones who do not know at this time. Local friends have known for a long time.
Much of the delay was that I simply didn't feel comfortable doing so before, and that so much of The Standard Transition Narrative says that starting HRT is among the last steps really held me back.
The only real excuse I have anymore is just plain old fear. :-\
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 11:00 pm (UTC)The whole big point is to feel comfortable! If you weren't comfortable before, then there was no reason to do it. I'm frankly beginning to think the Standard Transition Narrative exists primarily to torment me and people I know! Ah, well. I went so fast that I didn't have a lot of time to process things as they were happening, which means that it's been catching up with me over the past couple of months. If I'd been a little saner, I would have gone slower! Alas. I wasn't.
The fear is awful... I don't blame you one bit. There's lots and lots of terrifying stuff to do. I remember it all... I just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. I'm still scared of a lot of situations. It's not just the whole fear of being clocked thing, or the coming out fears, it's fear of how to deal with a completely upended world. I can remember sitting there at meetings at work and thinking, I'm gonna queer this place up but GOOD in a couple of weeks. And then what?
Here to talk if you want to! susanjbigelow at gmail. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-28 12:06 am (UTC)At the Scranton job I had to wear dress shirts and ties, which I thought ridiculous. Pre-reorg my current job was that less the ties, now all but one in my group wears polo shirts and jeans (that exception is my former manager, now coworker, who wears t-shirts with prints.) So now, the button-up short sleeve shirts have hung in the back of the closet unused for a year while I cycle through about a dozen polo shirts and 20-30 t-shirts for non-work use.
Comfort really is the thing. I've had some fun saying that about clothing as there's more than one way to consider "comfort" in that, er, fashion.
I don't know that slower is a good thing, though; all it has done for me is let me build-up the arguments against it.
I'm still unsure how well transition at work will go. My employer does have a non-discrimination that specifically includes gender identity and gender expression, but that doesn't prevent the hostile-but-not-quite-actionable environment from existing. My division seems to get the worst of both worlds - academia and business - in many ways.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 04:15 am (UTC)One of the guests at my aunt's t-day dinner is a transsexual man who had reassignment surgery (I think, but I guess I'm not 100% on that). I wasn't told until just today. I did notice something different about him, but I thought he'd had gastric bypass. Who knows, maybe he did. :) Anyway, that is all to say that I hope that someday you will have the same experience. A room full of people will accept you as female without any question.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 04:25 am (UTC)The events of this past weekend have made me feel vastly more comfortable with it - experiences where I was accepted in that way.