Transition Transmission : May

It's nice to post something positive for a change.

Hi folks ! I know it's the middle of the month an all but I thought this might be a good time to talk about my appointment yesterday. It's not super interesting but if it helps one person then I've done my job I guess.

So as you're aware, in order to get a referral my GP pushed me through the local mental health team, it was frustrating but I played ball and in some ways I'm glad I did. It's felt quite lonely doing all this recently, I know I have some amazing support online but human interaction is incredibly important to me and not being open to my family has made things feel quite isolated. 

I didn't know what to expect with this appointment, I thought maybe the person who saw me would try and pry into every aspect of my life, I thought Freud had somehow come back from the dead and was ready to tell me my dysphoria was because I tied my left shoe first. It was honestly quite frightening, after my last experience with my GP I was worried things would go wrong again, but in reality things couldn't in my opinion have gone better.

From the very off when I told her about my desire to transition she began using female pronouns. For a bunch of annoying medical reasons we had to fill everything in with Mr's and Him's but 'unofficially' I was female. This is the first time I've ever experienced this, and it was amazing ! Like I can't even put into words how nice it was for someone to actually use correct pronouns and things. I've had a bit of an uphill battle with terms in my friend circles, there are about 4 or 5 close friends who instantly switched to Charlotte etc but there are still one or two that need constant reminding that my dead name is no longer in use. Actually I call them friends but I've kind of stopped speaking to them because of it. If they can't respect my name then I can't continue our friendship but I digress.

She told me I had essentially the 20 minutes to talk about myself and she would not pry into things if I didn't want to. I was kind of ok with questions as I'm still finding it hard to get my head around the "I'm transitioning" stuff. Saying it now still feels weird for some reason so having someone ask questions about my life helped a lot. I went through the usual thing, known for years and wanted to begin down the pathway. There was one or two awkward questions about my sexuality however I was more prepared this time. Then she said something that initially made my heart sink but it was actually kind of great to hear. After saying this is what I want to do, it's not a phase or me trying to be different. I've not wanted anything more in my entire life and I'd fight to get it she said.

"Well there isn't much I can do to help"

I was taken back at first. What do you mean you can't help me? I need help. I was readying my emotional speech about how this is going to save me when she said.

"That came out wrong, what I mean to say is you don't need me to help you".

She then went on to explain that from the initial assessment I seemed like a determined young woman, I know what I wanted and no amount of counseling would confirm anything. She did offer a course of sessions if I wanted to make sure this is the path I wanted but instantly said that she doesn't feel I need it. What I needed is support to get to the next stage. In her words someone to fight in my corner to push for this. That's when she offered to push this forward and get the referral sorted.

I had to physically stop myself from diving over the desk to hug her, finally after all this time here's someone with actual clout who believes me. Who treated me as I wanted to be treated. Someone who has said in as many words "You are trans".

We spoke a little more about the dangers of publicly coming out, how I could get support from groups with things like coming out, with work and what have you. I was jumping with excitement while speaking to her, I don't think in 27 years I've ever felt as happy as that one moment.

Before leaving she said something which will stick with me forever.

"If you are a woman let nothing stop you, go for it girl"

I've not been able to stop smiling since, I am kind of weary of people who work in these sorts of fields. Like is she only asking for my skin care routine because she is interested or is it just a way to make me feel comfortable. Either way I was happy and if more people want to give me compliments then that's fine (HINT HINT CLOSE FRIENDS :P )

So that's where I am now. Waiting for my next referral appointment thing where hopefully everything will be sorted. Now it may seem like I'm taking things slow, which I am but I have a plan. Once I know my details are sent off then I'm going to start pushing for private treatment. I've been saving for a while and can at least support myself while doing this. Then it's the next big part, telling my family.

Honestly after what she said I could have gone home to tell people, I don't feel ready yet though. I want the coming out to my transition stage to run smoothly, that's why I'm slowly bringing it up in conversations. For my friends who don't know I'm introducing them slowly and for work I'm trying out a whole new wardrobe. I'll still probably continue to wear my hair in pictures until it's grown to a length that makes me feel confident but I don't want to be wearing it when I come out.

And that's basically it. I'd like to ride this wave of positive and post nice things for a while, let's see how that goes.

Charlie xx

Babies first appointment

After months of planning and thinking I finally had my first doctors appointment this week, I've had a few questions about what happened so instead of telling people individually I've decided to put it down here.

My appointment was on Tuesday (Feb 2nd) at 8:40am. The first hurdle I had to get over was finding a way to leave the house early in the morning without too many questions from family. I don't work on Tuesday's so I couldn't exactly pretend I was off. I do however have the uncanny ability to bullshit my way out of any situation. The night before I accidentally discovered I needed a pile of supplies for my work from town and that I wanted to go in early so I'd have the full day. This worked with minimal fuss and well, as much as I find my ability to dodge questions quite amazing it isn't really how things should be. I should be open and say what I'm doing, but for the time being let's just continue to evade a little longer.

Now here's a little fact about me. I've not been to the doctors in around a decade, I just don't visit for any reason. I could be falling apart and have 3 minutes to live and I'd still be afraid to make an appointment....mostly because the NHS wait times are longer than 3 minutes, but mostly I hate the thought that people don't believe me when I say something (Judging by my question evading superpower this makes things kind of weird). So it was a big thing going to talk about this to my GP, I felt like I had to in some way, even at this early stage convince them that I needed to transition.

The appointment itself went as expected, I was told by my friends that in a lot of cases GP's will know the basic terminology but are in no way remotely able to find the right path at that first appointment and this was the case with me. I'd gone through it in my head thousands of times in the days leading up, what I wanted to say and how I was going to say it. I didn't want to give my GP any chance to sway me or suggest alternative paths, I wanted to get referred and that's what I was going to do.

Well the best laid plans and all that, I kind of totally forgot what I wanted to say as soon as I sat down. Starting with a joke about "this ain't the kind of thing you hear at half 8 in the morning" perhaps wasn't the greatest start but after fortunately my GP put my at ease. She is actually super cool and was really open to what I was saying.

So what did I say? I told her (as best as I could) that I'd felt like this for years and I wanted to get referred to the GIC. That it was getting increasingly difficult to present as male and I wanted to get the ball rolling before I reached my 30's and settled down more. I was warned by a few trans folks not to go to deep into terms and keep it really simple. This worked really well as she wasn't totally up on different terms and the like. She asked questions about my sexual orientation and some physical things but other than that it was focused on getting me the support I needed. She asked if I wanted to see any physical changes and that if I needed to was I going to change my name etc. Now I'm sure we all have different experiences with GP's and I bet there's someone ready in the comments to talk about if she said the right or wrong things but all that matters is that she listened. For the first time I could speak to someone outside my friends or family about what I wanted and I feel that I was treated with respect.

She did ask if I had told any of my friends and how I was going to go about it. We chatted for a while about how I was going to do that and she came up with some suggestions which was super nice of her. Despite her lack of understanding about what to do in this situation she was at least open to listening to me. However because of the newness of this situation she wasn't totally able to help at this first meeting, I was told that I'd get a call in about 2 weeks to come back in once she read up on the process.

Now my current situation

Just 2 days later I've been given a second appointment for the 15th of Feb ! From the brief chat we had on the phone we are going to at this meeting get my application off for referral and to speak with someone who may have more experience with this sort of stuff. What I found kind of interesting was the apology she gave for using my current name after I mentioned in the previous meeting I was going to (eventually) change it. We may complain about our GP's but there's still so many who care, even if they don't have the answers straight away.

So where am I now with my transition? I've not really changed much since my last blog, I still feel like transitioning is right for me and that it was probably always an inevitable thing. But (and although I use the term a lot) I'm finding it super difficult to say "Look I'm trans". This may sound super odd to some of my readers I'm sure but I've always been able to hide behind my masculinity, even if that was sometimes a source of pain. The thought that I may actually be just a trans woman, is a scary and exciting thing to me. But aaaahhh shuuutttt it Charlotte that's going to be another blog next week :P.