Summer

I kind of, I had no idea that this was like this was me. And I, ‘cos I didn’t really yeah, I never really sort of explored or experimented like with myself. And then like so I did, I did my four years. I did my time there. Then I came to [city] and for postgrads, maths. I had like the last year before I realised I was trans. I was like 21 and I was having a lovely time in [city]. I had friends all of a sudden I was studying and it was fun. And that was like the yeah, that was like the last year [laughs] of kind of just believing myself to be like a sort of oh you know queer, bi guy, whatever. And then, that summer like it was so corny and I like I read the Danish Girl which is this novel about very loosely based on a true story of a transwoman from Copenhagen in like the 1930s. It was kind of like, as I was reading it all these doors were kind of crashing open in my mind [laughs] and I was like, shit, shit.

This is, yeah, this is like and then there was this sudden urge, this need to like I don’t know, live as a woman, become a woman try and, you know, do everything I can to get away from maleness, ‘cos all of this kind of sort of, I suppose, yeah, over the years I’ve never really thought about, there’d been moments when I’ve been like, I’m done with gender. I don’t, I don’t care about gender and there was me, you know, being like a feminist in university and getting really into that. And these were kind of, I think, subconsciously ways for me to syphon off my kind of feminine identity being like, oh yeah, well I have this, I have that and that, you know. And then, yeah, so I have been transitioning some 20, 25 tomorrow. I have been transitioning for two years now. And yeah, I kind of went all hell for leather, at first like I kind of ‘cos I, ‘cos the things I had no idea I was trans beforehand. I hadn’t had any years of like secretly cross-dressing or trying make-up or blah, blah, blah, whatever. I was at this position of being completely socialised male and now trying to bring myself over to the other side and just shed myself of all of the toxic masculinity I didn’t even realise I had and I don’t know just learn this whole new way of being and it was really messy like trying to find out how to present myself and months of getting very consistently misgendered at the start. Yeah, it was pretty miserable. But then I kind of—I don’t know why I started going to a lot of support groups and yeah, just meeting other trans people. The important thing for me was having role models, having kind of people that it can be like okay, well, I don’t pass, but neither does she and she’s really cool and so it’s okay. Just kind of things, almost like that and meeting other trans people and realising that, you know, rich diversity that exists and because when I first realised I was trans, I was just like the first thing I looked up and I think a lot of people have this is like, well, there’s no point in even trying and if I'm like not gonna be able to pass. The first thing I looked up on YouTube, which is, which is stupid because later on in your transition you realise that you don’t have to and well a lot of people, for a lot of people it remains important, it’s important for me, to some extent, but I don’t know. At the start it just feels like so important. So, the first thing I looked up on YouTube was like voice feminisation and then there was all these videos of these like obvious trans girls from like even like ten years ago when the landscape was so different when it was all about blending in and passing and like just assumed that if you wanna transition then you want to work on your voice and like, whatever [laughs].

I was on holiday with my parents at the time, I was reading the The Danish Girl and I was kind of sneak off at like half hour intervals to shave my legs, in the shower [Laughs]. It was like, I need to do something now to feminise myself. What can I do? I can’t ask my mum to borrow her make-up. I don’t even have like a hair tie up. I used to tie my hair back. I only have these clothes. What can I do? body hair, I’ll get rid of my body hair. Didn’t have any shaving cream with me. So, I was just go into the shower and, you know, this mass of like men’s leg had that have built up over the years of puberty. I was just dragging this razer across it and it took net like, a few hours, must have been. And that was, that was, was my first step. It was satisfying. And when I first came out to, the first friend I came out to over WhatsApp she was like, ‘Ooh, interesting.’ And then I was like, you know, do you think it’s possible you could come to see me as a girl? She was like ‘Yes. All that matters to me is that you are happy.’ And then I was, and then I text her saying, ‘I just finished shaving my legs.’ She texted, ‘Moisturise your legs, quick.’ [Laughs] ‘Cos, I didn’t even realise that you moisturise things after you shave them. So, that was my very first step. A couple of weeks later, telling my family I was having issues and then when I got back to [city] buying some make-up and looking like a clown and you know sneaking into Primark and sneaking out with androgynous clothes, yeah. Those were the first kind of steps. Getting back home and the clothes don’t fit. And then I cry on my bed ‘cos I think my essentially male body will never fit women’s clothes. Such nonsense.

So, I would just sort of wear these sort of kind of and—I don’t know, I just found slightly androgynous women’s jeans, women’s T-Shirts and I would just wear a bit of foundation and a bit of like nude lippy and I had a—and yeah, I just have this kind of androgynous look and I am coming out to my friends and sort of came out to them sort of one by one at first, I’d meet them, but just because it was like, I have to do something. What can I do? I can start coming out to people you know, there is the transitioning element. There is the change to the way you present yourself. Changing the way you think about yourself. Changing the way other people think about you, okay. You know, I’ll tell me friends and I’ll start, you know, getting some make-up, getting some clothes. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, for months.

I found that there is some, there is a lot of misinformation in the trans community. That’s one like main bug bear I’d say. Of course, the other main bug bear is the waiting lists and the fact that trans healthcare isn’t a priority of the NHS. If you go private, you know, exorbitant cost of it. It’s pretty bad. And the struggle to get on hormones in this country is quite disgraceful. Like finding out about trans healthcare, I think well I went to the first trans reach out and there was some people talking about the GIC and I found out about that. And so, I feel like, yeah, going to trans groups and stuff, the information has been readily available. There are always people who know stuff. The problem is that they are also the people who don’t know stuff, but talk anyway. That’s how misinformation happens and kind of, because my experience with the hearing about trans healthcare, yeah. I think it’s been what’s been quite difficult for me is, finding out about all the options there are and then which one to go for because I have this kind of selection anxiety. You know, like if you have all these options, for example, moving in here, oh we have to choose like an energy provider now. Well, fuck. You know, what do I do? Who do I choose? What are the differences? You know, and then you end up just picking something even though it’s not the best option just because to pick something. And that’s kind of been my experience of trans healthcare like this. I found out about, you know, Gender GP which is a much quicker and cheaper way of getting on to healthcare, but then someone said, ‘They’re a bit dodgy.’ Which is bollocks. And that’s part of the misinformation, but then that set me back because I was like, oh, well, I’m not gonna go with this dodgy thing, you know, I’m gonna go via the correct pathway, which of course, turned out to be the expensive pathway. I’m gonna to go to this clinic, they have a nice website and everything. There’s a lot of and then there’s a lot of misinformation about hormones once you get them. And, I mean, I suppose it’s finding out about—and also trying to find out about where you can get the hormones for self-medding is really a difficult—‘cos people are quite prejudice against that and so it’s difficult to meet someone whose actually gonna say to you, okay, this is a really useful site. This is how much the hormones are. It’s safe. It’s a pharmacy. This is what you can do. And like, I try to be that person to people that I meet who are starting on their transition as much as possible like, you know? These are your options. This one is good for this reason. This one is good for that reason, you know? And yeah, because that’s been my—

What was useful to you at that time?

What was useful? What was useful was when I would meet a person who knew what they were talking about. A trans person and a trans group, usually. And you would say, okay, you should do this because this is quick and it’s cheap and it’s easy and this and this. There was, there was a non-binary trans woman I met who I am still friends with who has been so helpful with that. She really knows her stuff. She kind of just told me yeah, just everything I needed to know.

It was quite negative at first. So, at my surgery in [area of city] like there are four GPs, I think. I made an appointment with one and she was very sort of, so I said, “I’ve been thinking, I’ve been questioning my gender. I’ve looked online. I’ve found there’s this gender identity clinic, can you refer me to it”. She was like, ‘Well yes, I can refer you to it, but you know, there’s very long waiting times and this and this.’ And I said, ‘Okay, would you be amenable to shared care if I go to a private clinician and they write the prescription or I go there and pay for the appointment, but then they write to you and you prescribe the medication.’ She basically said, ‘No.’ She wouldn’t do that because she had this power complex that some GPs have where they don’t like to be told what to prescribe and they just are afraid of having their arse bitten if they get sued if they prescribe the wrong thing and then and they’re just really caught up in this abstract notion of risk and things like to the point where they just don’t prescribe what people need.

And so, I didn’t see her again. Instead, I went to see a different doctor at the same practice who was great. And she was like, yes, you know, I would do shared care if they write you the first prescription I will take it on. Tell me a bit about yourself and what’s going on. You know, she actually was interested in hearing, rather than with this first GP it was like an uphill battle even to because I felt she wasn’t listening from the start. This second GP, she was going do the shared care for the whole time I’ve been on hormones and she is, yeah, she is one of the good ones. And, but the first GP did at least refer me to the GIC and didn’t like say she wouldn’t then not. Yes, that’s been my experience with the GP.

Once I actually got there to the appointment it was, you know, there were instructions to get there and it was fine. It was pleasant. The clinician who spoke to me was very pleasant and respectful on the surface of it. The thing is, I know how this works and I know that you have to tick a certain number of their boxes and you have to get through a certain amount of stuff and so I was giving the longest answers to the shortest questions where the guy would ask me something about, what’s your gender history and I realised five minutes later, I’m already talking about my penis, you know. Because I know that we have to cover that, don’t we, you know? I kind of oh, it came up very naturally in conversation that he asked me, do I use my penis in sex. But, I think he was always gonna ask that, you know? And it’s really none of their business. And so that, so the experience was actually was pleasant and he was a pleasant guy and we had a nice conversation. But there were these questions that shouldn’t have been there and. You know and there were things like where he didn’t know what non-binary was. Like he kind of you know, he said, ‘Oh well, so your partner. So you, you know. I’d mentioned about some of my sexual history about fancying men or women or whatever. So, and your partner—kind of as way of conversation and he was like, ‘Oh and your partner at the moment is a woman.’ I’m like, ‘No, I told you earlier they’re non-binary.’

But and you know and he was like, ‘Ah, but born female, I’m like assigned female at birth, yes, but that’s not important because they’re non-binary.’ There’s like clinicians could do with a bit more a bit more education like the actual bedside manner, not bedside manner, but the manner, great for this particular clinician. And I had a good time and he made me feel relaxed, but, but they need to really separate out the sexuality stuff and realise that’s none of their business. And, and yeah, just learn what non-binary is, really and [Laughs] like yeah.

So, this first appointment was half of my assessment. So, I have [Laughs] the second appointment in a year and that’s when I get the diagnosis and that is when the GIC write my prescription. That is when they take over my hormone care. Even though I turned up to them and I was like so yeah, I’ve been living full time as a women for two years now. I’ve been on hormones for a year. Here’s my gender history. “Oh okay, we’ll take over your hormone treatment at the next appointment in a year.” Like, I mean in my case, at least it’s like well, I’m not gonna die. I do actually have a supply, you know, of the—but no, because in that meantime I’m now gonna have to pay another £250 for another appointment at the private clinic and so they’ll keep treating me. You know, it’s just rubbish. Like, one a year, yeah, it’s usually and that’s what the guy said to me, it’s probably like a year’s waiting time and it was, until very recently, I think six months or nine months was standard in between appointments. So, should be a year plus inflation, right, [Laughs] for my second appointment and then also there’ll be some speech and language therapy session I think maybe a year after that, the consultation for surgery, which will probably be the orchidectomy, but who knows.

I take so I’m on six milligrams a day of oestrogen. I have one in the morning, so two milligram pills, one in the morning and one in the evening. The decapeptyl blocker which I’ve just started is a bum injection every three months. Which is intramuscular, so like I had a really sore like arse muscle for most of the day that I had it. And then there’s another pill that I take for the first two weeks after that blocker because there’s a surge in testosterone and you have to block that. So, at the moment, I take that blocker and one oestrogen in the morning and two oestrogens in the evening.

I still desperately want that facial femininization surgery. I am saving up for that. And yeah, I mean, I kind of, it annoys, yeah, I want the boobs. I want the bum, you know? I want, it depends I will get my facial surgery and then see how I feel because I just, because what gives me dysphoria sometimes is when I see the shape of cis women and just how, you know, just the different bits are accentuated. And I just kind of yeah, I just kind of want that, like so I’ll think about it for a few more years before I go and get breast implants, bum implants, whatever. But like I feel like I suppose that’s just, I just like the idea of having, you know, those things there. And then orchidectomy, maybe in a year or something when I’ve only just started—when I get started on a more effective blocker. I’ve been on a blocker for a while. I’d like to get orchidectomy and then, and then think. Maybe think indefinitely whether I want lower surgery because you know, maybe I, maybe I do want vaginoplasty, but I don’t want it for another ten or twenty years, you know? So, I think transition is like something that’s gonna keep going for the rest of my life. I don’t want to get to a point, I don’t see myself getting to a point where I think, I’m done now, you know? So, I suppose yeah. I don’t know if just getting to a place where I’m more comfortable with my voice as well, I suppose is something that would help. Electrolysis on my face. Just sort of, yeah, little things, little things like that.

I definitely want facial surgery. I, that to me is the most important one. That to me when I think about the surgery is that’s my surgery, you know. Because I feel like it might just give me the option of going outside without make-up and being less likely to get misgendered, you know? Or just it would bring me closer to this idea of being able to tell people I’m trans or not, if I choose not to, maybe. And yes, it’s being able to face myself in the mirror. So, that, that’s surgery I want, but it’s ridiculously expensive and it’s affecting the whole way I live my life, because my life is geared towards saving money for it. So, there’s that. And, yeah, I think I have all these ideas in my head about getting breast enlargement, bum implants and orchidectomy and maybe vaginoplasty, but it’s all, haven’t thought in detail about those ones, but the face ones are the main one.

I had so I remember at [university] and [university] I got free counselling through both of those. I had eight sessions at [university] that was reasonably helpful. Yeah, that was at the start of my transition and so I had a lot of that stuff to talk through and the guy was helpful. And then, after that I had six sessions with CliniQ which is the trans healthcare and wellbeing service which was, they were great for what they were. There were only six that was only every two weeks. So, it wasn’t really enough. But again, I had a lot of stuff to work through and a lot of dysphoria stuff, validity stuff, yeah, gender stuff. It was all about the gender earlier on in my transition and then next of all I had, next of all, next I had [Laughs] counselling through Spectra which is another trans service and that was really good. I had eight sessions there, but in my mind it just feels like more because I got so much out of it. At that point, there was dysphoria stuff going on, but there was also alcohol stuff going on and a lot of, yeah, a lot of stuff related to social transition and it was really, I was really big on the social transition then. And my, my issues with it and needing to have this and that, yeah. And then, I tried a couple of appointments with someone at [university] and didn’t get along, so I gave up on that. Then I had a couple more appointments with ClinicQ because I went through their like three month waiting list again. But then I missed a couple of appointments, because I was scatter-brained and on holiday and in the wrong place and I didn’t, I guess I didn’t desperately need it at that time, so I didn’t. So I didn’t make it my priority to remember and they discharged me and sent me back on the waiting list and since then, I remember my mental health had really taken a dip and I hadn’t had any counselling to fall back on. I think I’d go back to Spectra now because that counsellor was the most helpful and yeah I need it.

Yes, I am definitely autistic. And like, I’ve it’s nice to have actually realised that. Because it gives me like an excuse for ‘cos there are so many times when I’m, when I’m trying to talk to people and I can’t or when I have all sorts of issues with socialising and things and I just think, why am I like this? And, and, yeah, all of these little things correlate with the symptoms of Asperger’s and I’m like, okay, this is, I do have this thing and I have an answer, you know, like, even though all it really means is there are other people that have it, you know, to some extent or another, but just having a name for it is so helpful. The things is like, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was like 12 or something, but then my mum decided that I didn’t have it because like, oh, I’m super sociable. But, I mean, she kind of whenever I mentioned having it, she’s like, ‘Oh, but your super sociable.’ Like it’s not in a massively toxic way, but it did get under my skin a bit. Like, because I like, sometimes I am sociable whatever that means, but it’s like, it’s such a struggle a lot of the time in so many ways and just like, yeah, like I guess I do wish I was, because my partner is super neurotypical like in a lot of ways and they can really deal with a lot of situations that I can’t and that makes me more aware of it on a daily basis. But like, hey that’s just another thing to live with and own and, you know.

Does it impact in relation to being trans?

Yeah, I think so, because it means a lot of stuff I don’t have to blame on my like male upbringing. And, you know, when I think, you know, so let’s say I was struggling to make conversation with someone, my brain can be saying to me, that is because you never had to learn to make conversation because you were brought up as a man and you have male privilege and you still feel, you know, like you are entitled to interrupt people because of your male privilege and blah, blah, blah. And then I can say, well, actually, maybe it’s because I’m autistic. You know, maybe it’s not because I’m like irrevocably male in some like gender critical, yeah, bollocks way. Like maybe actually, you know, it’s just—it helps me to siphon off some of the shame and some of the dysphoria in just saying, ‘Actually, okay, so maybe some of it is because I had a different upbringing to most women, but some of it is not.’ I think it’s because my brain is actually wired differently to other people. But also, before I knew to call it autism it made my transition more difficult. I couldn’t just like oh, you know, I’m being a girl now. I’m gonna like have my girl group and girls are suddenly, women are suddenly gonna talk to me in the office and I’m gonna make loads of female friends because you don’t get that if you don’t have the passing privilege and if you don’t have the neurotypical privilege of being able to get along with people. So, both of those things have made transition harder.

Well, with sexuality, with dating, I guess and with sex like going on Grindr now as a trans woman, as a trans woman [Laughs] you know, and that there were now these guys, these straight men who would go on Grindr looking for trans women and that I was now having these kinds of—because I’d been on Grinder before, as a guy and I’ve met guys and they didn’t realise and I didn’t realise that I was secretly being a woman the whole time, during sex was like one of my main outlets for femininity and that they didn’t even realise that I’d forgot to mention earlier [Laughs]. But like, that was, I guess another facet of it that I would meet men who found me like desirable as a woman. And then, but then I still have this hang-up that there wouldn’t be women who would find me attractive as a woman. I thought cos I’d internalised a lot of the TERF nonsense, you know, oh, you know, it’s wrong for a trans woman to expect lesbians to be attracted to her. And like all that pathetic rubbish. Like ‘cos like when I, I don't know well I met someone who was this, this lesbian, who is cis, who was really cool and I fell for her and I wanted to be like her and then I was like, but I am fucked, because no lesbians are ever gonna find me attractive because of this and this. And then, but then, I now went to a party where there were lesbians that found me attractive and I was like, wow, this is like, this really is like the social transition coming along. And like I went to this trans summer camp and all of the girls were getting with each other and I was like part of that and I was like, wow, like I’m really a girl now if I’m like a lesbian, which I don’t, I don’t identify as a lesbian now. My partner is non-binary. But like it was exciting to be like well if I can even be a lesbian like then you know I’ve really made it [Laughs].

I think it’s sort of like a whole new world with like ‘cos there’s kind of sexuality in terms of, oh, do you fancy men or women, which is the usual way that the discussion is phrased. And then there’s this whole world of the energy that exists between trans people, trans people are dating each other and having sex with each other. And, like you know, just sort of how I’m attracted to women, especially trans women because there is this shared thing. There is this energy that exists between trans people and so that all gets incorporated as part of my sexuality just this thing about like how hot it is when like trans girls date each other, you know? And like and just how, how sweet it is when, you know, when you get trans couples who like support each other and when that all gets incorporated into the sexuality and then also, you know, the body parts you have and what you can do, but maybe what you can’t do in regards to dysphoria and how there’s this whole other level of communication in the bedroom in relationships and like and also with all the people I’ve met who are either asexual or a romantic or both who aren’t necessarily those, but who have romantic attraction and sexual attraction and therefore it’s separate. And that has often been the case for me in my life. And so, basically, a transitioning, the more I transition, the more of the sexuality has kind of opened up and the more I’ve been able to think about it and the more it’s kind of changed and becomes more fluid and yeah. Now it’s like it’s not just about who do you fancy, people of what gender? It’s like what attributes do I find attractive now?

And am I attracted, you know, to like trans women more than cis women or generally or am I, you know? And, I like yeah, understand now the energy that I have with my partner who is non-binary where like at moments it feels like having a boyfriend and at moments it feels like having a girlfriend. And, because they sort of are rapidly fluid, but also it’s just having a partner, you know, and it’s just them. And that gets incorporated into my own sexuality as well, as well as this. And so, yeah and just even like you have an appreciation of what is attractive because I kind of, I have this kind of down to earth moment recently where I said to a cis straight guy friend of mine, we were talking about just like a friend, a mutual friend who is a trans girl and I was, ‘Don’t you think she’s like so attractive.’ He was like, ‘No.’ And it was just like like ‘cos just, ‘cos I’d forgotten that like cis standards of attractiveness are so much, you know like kind of you have to be oh, should I put this, you know, to be all one thing or all the other and you can’t be like there’s no, I don’t know. Like some, some cis people do fancy trans people, but then, sometimes it’s in this chasery kind of fetishy way and that yeah. Most trans people I know this about it or entirely differently.

Yeah. I went to a fertility clinic before I went on hormones to freeze sperm. I went on these like Well Man tablets, type of thing for a month long and they tested my sperm and they were like yeah, it’s good but you need more volume. Go and take these pills and like so I take the pills and I don’t wank for like five days or something beforehand. I come back and I do the business and like have these ampules of sperm which are now frozen and then I went on hormones because as soon as you go on hormones it can start to impact your fertility can’t it. And now, I have no idea what my fertility status is. And I can confirm that there’s a different volume and a different consistency and so I think it is changed, yes.

It’s a fucking disgrace. This is the thing that I really get angry about is the way that trans people are talked about in the media. It actually makes my blood boil how TERF-ism is seen as a valid point of view in all of the mainstream papers and how they focus, they focus on entirely the wrong aspects of the discussion, which so they’ll, newspapers will focus on the one story of someone who detransitioned, the one story of a trans woman who was a rapist. The one, you know, and all of these other things and they’ll be like oh, you know, so they’re not discussing the suicide rate for trans people. They’re not discussing how actually what the conversation is do people deserve their human rights. You know, do people deserve to be recognised for who they are? That question has been put on the back burner because it is considered more important for people to air their whimsical little concerns about maybe someone will feel uncomfortable if someone with a bit of a five o'clock shadow goes into the women’s toilets. You know, like, that isn’t important.

Well, they need to train more clinicians at the GIC. They need twice as many as they have now. Three times as many don’t just bring in two more people and don’t start to, you know, train them now for ten years in the future. Bring in a lot of people. Train them up and move to a bigger venue and just you need to be able to cope with the number of people who need this service. And like and just stop asking, stop asking us about our sex lives. Stop asking us about stuff that isn’t relevant, you know. Stop asking me about my childhood when I transitioned two years ago. Ask me about my trans, ask me about my transition, you know? Like just, do away with the, you know what also hormones have to be more readily available. A trans person should be able to go to the GP and say, I want hormones and get hormones, because it is not going to cost the NHS that much. And it is not that risky and people should be able, people know what they need, and yeah. That like greater access to hormones is a really, really big thing because that causes so much anxiety for trans people in this country. Training up more people at the GIC. More GICs. Like, yeah, why not? More greater awareness among trans like trans specialists and healthcare professionals in general about who trans people are and who non-binary people are and like, you know, what dysphoria is and what it entails.