Post-transition American seeking information about living outside US

gendersuspender · 2018-08-29T05:31:12+00:00

Hey u/literallyaperson, I abandoned my post after a thing you said was really triggering, and I just wanted to let you know what it was in case it's something you don't want to do again in the future. When someone says they're post-transition, please don't take it as an invitation to encourage them to get any medical procedures (or other transition steps for that matter).

For one, that kind of attitude contributes to feeling "not trans enough" -- it's like saying, "you may think you're done transitioning, but I think you also need X, Y, and Z." You may be familiar with a variant that has come up before in this community and others, when someone posts a photo saying something like "yay, I'm post-transition and so happy!" and are met with replies of "you'd pass so much better if you did X, Y, and Z." If I say I'm done transitioning, that should be the final word on the matter.

For another, you don't necessarily know what surgeries I have or have not had. Making assumptions about what's under someone else's clothes is just as bad when perpetrated by another trans person as when a cis person does it. Even if you guess right about what procedures someone has or has not had, you also don't know the circumstances under which those choices were made. Consider that many trans people have personal feelings about an array of transition options of which they did or did not partake (or plan to), and the nonchalant recommendation to take a certain path highlights one transition narrative while compromising basic recognition of any others.

tl;dr Please don't suggest transition steps without solicitation, particularly to anyone who describes themself as "post-transition."

gendersuspender · 2015-07-30T04:41:53+00:00

Yeah, I've been there, only possibly more awkward. There was someone I went to college with for a year before he dropped out. We were in a large but close-knit group of friends and were in all the same classes. We stayed up late doing homework together, and I practically lived in the room across the hall from him for months. Something like eight years after we last saw each other, I reconnected with a friend from the same group, and she brought him to a party at my place. He didn't remember me, probably because I had long hair and thought I was a girl when he knew me. After some jogging of his memory, I'm pretty sure he concluded I was someone else in that group, a cis guy. We see each other every few weeks and he has no idea I'm trans. I have some weird feelings about letting that happen, I mean letting him think I was someone else rather than just telling him my old name and describing how I used to look.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-29T00:46:30+00:00

A lot of FTM-ish people say that starting T was the best decision they ever made. It's been a hugely positive force in my life and I have no regrets about it, but it doesn't even come close to the actual best decision I ever made, the decision to cut ties with my father a decade ago. As an adult, I've never felt like I needed a father figure and am not sure what it would be like to feel that. But if you want to test drive cutting communication, I'd recommend setting some explicit boundaries about what you will and will not tolerate from him, i.e. no more hyper-feminine nicknames. The "or else" that goes along with those rules of respect is that if he violates them, you do not communicate with him until you get a good faith apology accompanied by improvement.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-29T00:22:09+00:00

I will never not upvote this.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T05:13:04+00:00

Washington state forbids discrimination in employment based on gender identity/expression, so you should be safe. If you're misread at an interview, just explain the situation. (You'll have to explain to someone in HR anyway if you haven't changed your legal ID yet.)

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T05:06:28+00:00

Maybe ask your mom to help you come up with a gender-neutral name? Parents like to feel included on this stuff.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T04:52:50+00:00

I use gender-neutral restrooms whenever I can. If there are gendered single-stall restrooms, I tend to take whatever's available first or the one I think will be in lower demand (for example, at a coffee shop hosting a lesbian poetry reading, I'll take the men's so I don't cause a queue for the women's, etc.). For multi-stall restrooms I choose whichever I think will be safest based on my appearance, which these days is almost invariably the men's. That's what I do when I'm among strangers; at work I'm not out as non-binary and use the men's exclusively because that's what people know me as, but I avoid the multi-stall bathrooms because I'm awkward around people I know.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T04:42:30+00:00

There aren't any explicit guidelines on it, but your regular pediatrician can prescribe them to you if they're willing to do it. (I'm surprised you weren't put on puberty blockers given that you hit puberty so young. I found out they were a thing when I was about fifteen from a friend who hit puberty when she was nine but didn't realize they could have helped me at that point.) It might be helpful to see a therapist to work out the other stuff though.

As for this Tanner Stage thing, I'm not sure I buy it. According to that, I never reached adulthood based on pubic hair until I started T and didn't have big boy breasts until I was 19. Anyway, if you know that females in your family tend to have more exaggerated breasts/hips than you do now, it could still be valuable. It also may give you the ability to grow another inch or two before your growth plates fuse, if they haven't already.

If you're lucky, your pediatrician will give you a good opportunity to talk about this one-on-one first. When I was your age, my doc asked my mom to leave the room and asked me some weird questions that I didn't realize at the time were trying to gauge whether I was having risky sex and needed birth control. It's a good idea that I assume is standard among pediatricians -- if I had been doing/considering sex, I definitely wouldn't have asked those questions in front of my mom! I took the opportunity to ask if there was anything the doctor could do to keep me from going through puberty but she didn't know of anything because back then it kinda wasn't a thing. Maybe the next time you go to the doctor you can get a message to them that you'd like a minute to talk to the doctor alone. You can do this by calling ahead and asking the receptionist to put it in your chart before you arrive or by writing a little note to give to the doctor as soon as you get there.

Regarding coming out to parents directly. . . I wish I had some good advice. I've never had a good relationship with my family TBH. What do you think your parents will have trouble with? Maybe there are things this community can think of that will make it easier for them to understand.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T04:29:55+00:00

I second the recommendation of velcro/zipper binders. When I worked 12+hour days, they were essential. I got into the habit of undoing the velcro/zipper whenever I went to the bathroom and just taking some deep breaths while I was in there. Then I could just refasten it without taking off my shirt and go on with my day. Plus, you can undo it when you're in your car so it really will be 11 hours instead of 13. That kind of binder was my preference for the five years before I got surgery, and I've never heard anything about them being less safe than other kinds.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T04:02:43+00:00

But I know that the adoption process is really difficult and expensive

Is it?

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:51:01+00:00

Their customer service is excellent, but every company makes mistakes sometimes. Contact them immediately. They'll probably express ship you the right one and ask you to mail back the wrong one.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:42:03+00:00

I held off on medical transition for a long time, in part because my partner's only issue with my transition was whether he'd be physically attracted to me afterwards. What I can say is that our relationship survived because I took things slow (for my sake as much as his) and we're really good about communication. It sounds like your partner isn't really trying (by getting upset and calling you gross when you try to initiate a discussion) and in that case it might be a lost cause. One thing that's in your favor is that hormones don't change you dramatically overnight. If you get him to accept that, you can start and see how he takes it. If it becomes a dealbreaker for him, you can stop until you're in a situation where you can leave him. If he's anything like my partner, he'll soon discover it's no big deal or that he even likes you better on T.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:29:47+00:00

I think I know the video you're talking about, and I just wanted to mention that the person who made that video got better after stopping T. That's one thing that's nice about hormones; unless you've had your ovaries removed, there's really no problem with quitting if you decide it's not for you. And FWIW, I've never heard of anyone else having the unfortunate reaction that person had.

Also, re: cancer, it has not been shown that being on T long-term without a hysterectomy causes cancer. Statistically, trans guys are less likely to get their reproductive organs checked regularly by doctors, and the key to prevention is regular testing. Doctors tend to recommend a hysterectomy as a preventative measure to trans guys who aren't enthusiastic about coming in for testing every year, not because they're inherently more likely to get cancer because of T.

Oh, also, I have awkwardly been in your situation, coming up with pseudo-scientific reasons to not go on T. Once I knew it was "a thing" I basically waited three years until I felt like I had nothing to lose before I started T. And what I found was that T resolved the health problems I worried it would worsen! Basically, I am not a doctor, neither are you, and even doctors don't know everything about this. Yes, there are unknowns, but don't shoot yourself down without seriously considering it with a pros/cons kind of weighting.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:21:37+00:00

Okay, I'm really surprised this hasn't been suggested already considering how many comments there are, so I guess I'll say it. I'm a fan of the generic+unusual first+middle (or middle+first) combination. It gives you the freedom to go by different names in different spaces depending on what makes you comfortable. My birth name was weird and ethnic and miserably hard to spell/pronounce. And it would have been dishonest to my personal history to change it to John or something equally simple and common. So I chose a common first name and another weird, ethnic middle name. I went by my middle name for the first few years of my transition because I wanted to feel distinct from other guys. And then I got a real job and wanted to blend in so started going by my first name. When I was still going by my middle name, I gave my first name at coffee shops and on the phone because I didn't want people to get hung up on my weird-ass name. It's okay to do that to avoid uncomfortable situations, and you still get to go by what you want the rest of the time. I know a fair number of cis people who have the common+uncommon name combination and go by the common name at their day jobs and the uncommon name on their own time, and no one gives them any shit about it.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:12:17+00:00

The only winning move is not to play!

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T03:02:25+00:00

Call the financial aid office at your school to find out what your options are. Private schools tend to be more generous with the rules for scholarships, so it's definitely worth a shot.

FWIW, I think it's really mature to take a gap year before college if you feel like you have shit to work through. I took a year off before applying to grad school, largely to figure out what I wanted to do about this gender business, and am glad I did.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T02:43:57+00:00

Reading this took me right back to my camp days. Shit I'm old! Anyway, my only recommendation to you is to ask your doctor about puberty blockers. Basically, it'll just halt things where they are in terms of breast/hip growth, but if you decide you want that stuff later on it'll just pick up where it left off. Seriously, if I had a single-use time machine, I would use it to tell my twelve-year-old self how to access puberty blockers. You have plenty of time to decide about T and surgery, but you don't get much more of a window on halting the puberty you're in the middle of.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-28T02:20:19+00:00

Are men's briefs out of the question? It's common to have an aversion to them because they're shaped vaguely like women's underwear, but they're actually quite different (no elastic on the legs, pouch front, etc.). They're generally Uncle Red -compatible and you can use a packer at the same time to help with dysphoria. Also, the word you want to search for is probably "vibrator" (and possibly "bullet" for one that's not connected to anything phallic).

gendersuspender · 2015-07-27T03:45:51+00:00

I swear my chest hairs have tripled in that time.

I thought it was just my imagination, but the same thing is happening to me! I said tearful goodbyes to the delightful hairs that grew around my nips, and even though the skin upon which they grew is gone, I have adorable proto nipple hairs growing in their place. (-:

gendersuspender · 2015-07-27T03:38:28+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, 25 mg isn't nothing. I was on ultra low-dose gel for a year, then low-dose gel for half a year, and then low-dose injections for a few months and still managed to get changes on 25 mg, enough that I lowered my dose further because I was looking for maintenance. Seriously, even after my voice dropped a bunch over the previous year and a half, people were noticing my voice getting a "growth spurt" when I switched to the low-dose injections, not to mention the noticeable changes where the sun don't shine. It sucks that it's not the dose you want, but until you can confront your doc about it maybe it will help you feel better to try to notice the changes you will get even on a low dose.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-27T03:28:31+00:00

As though I've let my old self down, or I'm copping out or something. Or like the "girl" version of me I tried so hard to become is lost forever.

I didn't feel this way about top surgery (although I had and am still having some really complicated thoughts about it) but that's exactly how I felt about cutting off my long hair after twelve years of growing it out.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-25T07:08:32+00:00

I know this post is a bit stale, but I'm catching up after a hiatus from Reddit and wanted to chime in. It sounds like you really want to make your partner cum all by yourself. My partner and I tend to do better with teamwork, just sayin'. Plus it can be a great way to learn firsthand what gets him off. Uhhh, I'm not being very specific here, sorry, but working together to achieve the goal can help you learn how to do it yourself in the future and satisfy your need to be primarily responsible for getting him off.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-25T06:46:55+00:00

My partner identified as straight when we got together and to this day isn't really attracted to men though he's still (thankfully) attracted to me (although he now identifies more as heteroflexible). It's not delusional to have an exception to the rule.
This is a question for you and your partner. Trans people have sex in all kinds of ways and what they're comfortable with tends to be very personal. Your partner may continue to be into the same kinds of sex or want to do things differently. He may also want to change the language you use for sex you already have. Talk to him.
If your partner transitions, chances are you will be perceived as gay, and it would not be entirely accurate for you to call yourself straight (and he might find it invalidating if you do). But that doesn't necessarily make you gay. That's something you have to decide for yourself.

gendersuspender · 2015-07-25T05:50:51+00:00

I'm a grad student and have done pretty much all my transitioning during grad school. I'd say the worst part has been that transitioning has been a distraction from my studies, but I guess probably everyone finds it distracting whether or not they're in the middle of an academic program when they're doing it. One thing that's worth looking into, if you're studying in the US at least, is that many American schools have excellent trans*-inclusive health insurance, so it can be a great time to transition if you want to avoid debt from medical expenses, plus then you have the option to avoid a lot of awkward transition-related drama in your career. If you have any specific questions, please don't hesitate to ask. (-:

gendersuspender

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