Theo

I’ve never been able to be a woman. And that’s when I identified as trans male and that was about 2018. I think I’ve always felt like, even though my outward, sometimes my outward expression maybe feminine. I mean I have comparatively long hair compared to some men, often dress sort of feminine like I have, sometimes I wear a pink shirt or I don’t dress like a very masculine person. And, as a child, I’d often wear girlie clothes, I’d have really long hair. I never wore make-up. But I did things that maybe classed as feminine. So, I’d do knitting I did sewing. I liked kind of girl’s TV programmes and books. I always felt that I was not female. When I was, when I was a kid and so like really young, so like two, three, I felt definitely felt like I was not female. I didn’t wanna wear dresses. I only wanted to wear boy’s clothes. I would refer to myself using male pronouns. One time when my brother, he was younger than and he was learning to talk. He actually called me he by mistake, ‘cos he was just a two year old and he didn’t understand and I said, my mum said, ‘No, use she.’ And I said, ‘No, I want him to call me he.’

I think the first thing I did was I changed my name socially. So, I had a meeting with some staff from my university. This was actually at the time when I detransitioned, but I wanted to change my name because whether I thought I was trans or not I’d always had a problem with my dead name from when I was four years old and was the earliest time I remember, I’ve always had a problem. Even before I knew I was trans. I knew I wanted to change my name. So, I had a meeting with staff at my uni and they said they were gonna change my name on my ID card and get all the teachers to change my name. That was kind of first thing so I did it socially. But, actually, the other students, they knew me as a nickname. So, I didn’t have to, that wasn’t really an issue ‘cos they just called me the nickname and that was fine. But there was, a tutor who actually when I first told the tutor I was trans, he said, ‘That’s a very big decision and I don’t think you should rush into it.’ I was like, ‘Who are you, a gender specialist?’ That was not his place to say that. And then, when I’d changed, it was arranged that I changed my name and have my new name on my ID card. And then when they were giving out ID cards, the tutor gave me an ID card with my dead name on it. I said, ‘Hang on a minute. I don’t want this.’ He said, ‘Well, you’ve, we’ve talked, you, you said to the special needs coordinator that you want to keep your dead name.’ Because can’t remember why, but that’s not what happened. And he said, ‘The most heart-breaking thing is when you tell your parents that you’ve changed your name.’ It’s like that’s really not his place to say that. And he just he was basically saying things about like keep wanting, I was talking about, about like some staff saying I, agreeing that I wanted to keep my dead name and that’s not what I said. I have no idea where he got that information from.

Yeah, well, I stupidly got my name from an anime, because [laughs] there was this character in an anime that looked like me. So, I used his name because he looked like me so [Laughs] That was why. I’ve identified as trans since I was nineteen. So, about three years ago but I have detransitioned twice because of when I first came out in 2016, I told my dad and he refused to believe me. He said, he’s not gonna believe I’m trans until I have an official diagnosis and that’s obviously very wrong. He said, I should look at books by Simon Baren Cohen. I have no idea what he has to do with trans people. I should look at books by Simon Baren Cohen and read them and make notes, until then, I cannot identify as trans, he said. But which is so wrong. He knows nothing about trans identities and he should have actually looked up things himself rather than telling me to do things like that. He got his friend who is a doctor to come round and tell me that I am not trans. So, I detransitioned after that because I was, they put so many doubts into my head. They weren’t accepting at all and they said, well I never noticed you had, you had any signs of gender dysphoria when you were a child, but when I first got a boyfriend he didn’t even notice that for about two weeks. He’s not very observant. Anyway, there doesn’t need to be any evidence. I could have, I wore dresses and had ballet lessons as a kid, but lots of cis boys could, would do that if it wasn’t such a taboo. So, gender and gender expression are two completely different things and he didn’t understand that. So I detransitioned then. And then, a few months later, I thought I may be non-binary because I felt dysphoria and I thought I may be non-binary.

I remember probably primary school, I knew about sex changes. There was a book, I think it was some sort of science book at my school and this, one of the kids picked it up during break time and was reading out a thing about it said something like, a man called, Bill had surgery and now Bill is a woman [laughs] which was not, didn’t say anything about her chosen name or dead named her and called her he and—not the best representation. So, I thought you can just sex change is just like somebody can just decide that they will go to have an operation and they become a woman but now they are still dead named and called he and that it’s a very, the textbook was very outdated.

When I first came out, I would, I was in a hospital. I was in hospital and I would tell people I was trans and they’d just be like, what’s your nickname dead name? I was like it’s not a nickname. It’s my name. And then they would misgender me and they’d just dead named me and it wasn’t very—there was this nurse, I think who’d from the Home Treatment Team who came round to my house after I came out of hospital and I’d ask about how do I get treatment for gender dysphoria. And she kept changing her mind. So, she’d say, ‘You have to go and see a GP.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ And then like five minutes later, she’d say, ‘No, you have to see a psychiatrist.’ And then, another five minutes later, she said, ‘What’s stopping you from going to see your GP about gender dysphoria?’ I said, ‘Well the fact that you have just said I should see a psychiatrist.’ It was very weird and then she said something like, ‘What’s your favourite thing? What would be the best thing about being a boy?’ You’re not really, this person is completely misinformed.

The reception staff, I sometimes have problems with them misgendering me. Actually, another time, this wasn’t a GP but I was going to have a contraceptive injection and I went to, I went to the reception and I said, I gave them my name and my date of birth and they couldn’t find me. It was taking ages to look for me and I was like, they kept asking for my name and I repeated it and asked for my date of birth and I repeated it. They couldn’t find me. I mentioned that I’d been with a trans sexual health service and moved. They said, ‘Oh.’ ‘Cos they just selected my gender as female and so it didn’t come up on the system. I just think that’s so like ignorant, because they didn’t, if my date of birth’s wrong and my next, if my date of birth is right and my name is right, they could’ve just go, your gender’s right isn’t it? Wouldn't even be a rude question just to check. And I, the other problem is that cis people are so offended at being asked their gender or their pronouns that it’s people are afraid of asking trans people and I think it makes it harder for trans people. So, if I went, I don't know, if everyone and so if GPs asked everyone they saw what their pronouns were, I’d feel safe whereas cis people would try and make it about them.

I went to see him and I said, ‘I’m experiencing gender dysphoria. Can you refer me to see a gender specialist?’ And he said, ‘Well, I think you should wait until you graduate.’ And like well, that’s really—if it was something else, say, if I needed to have a hip operation and somebody said, no, no, I’m not gonna operate until you get a degree. That’s just really not a very good thing to say. I mean, with the way the GIC waiting lists are [Laughs] if I’d been a full-time student, I would have graduated [Laughs] but I think that was very insensitive. I think he was trying to cover up the fact that he knew nothing. And he was he said something like, ‘It’s okay. There’s lots of ladies who are into ladies.’ It’s like, I’m not a lady. I’m telling you I’m not a lady and he said, ‘Recently, I heard on Radio 4 there was a lot of ladies coming out with gender dysphoria.’ I said, ‘They are not ladies then are they.’ Stop saying ladies [laughs].

I think being autistic has had a major effect on my life. I am actually not sure in what particular ways, because I don’t know what it’s like to not be autistic, so I can’t really say what it would be like if I wasn’t. But I know I think with my dad, I told my dad that a lot of, I think it’s common for autistic people to be trans. A lot of people say that that the two gender dysphoria and autism sometimes overlap. I told that to my dad and he said, ‘Does it mean you have to conform or does it mean you are like that?’ I don't know, yeah. I think, often people will ask me things that I don’t understand the question. Like when I came to the GIC this was the third appointment and they said, ‘Why have you come to the gender clinic today?’ I had no idea what I was supposed to say. So, I just said, ‘Because you sent me an appointment letter and if I missed the appointment I’d get into trouble with the NHS.’ But I think I did find that weird because it was the third appointment and I’d find that more understandable to ask on the first appointment. If that make sense? And, ‘cos I’d seen the therapist I was seeing before. It’s not as if it was the first time I’d met her. I found it a bit weird to ask that question. I, I find that some people may misinterpret the way I act. So, when they thought I didn’t want another appointment because I was anxious and maybe, maybe they misinterpreted the way I acted and also because I find it, with mental, with medical professionals, I find it difficult to defend myself sometimes, because I don’t, I think, apparently this is quite an abnormal thing to experience, but all my life, I have believed that I am wrong and everyone else is right.

Do research. For all three, parents, teachers and healthcare professionals, stop telling people how hard it is to remember their pronouns. Actually remember their pronouns. It’s not that hard. If you know what to do and don’t try and tell somebody how hard you are trying to remember their pronouns, because it just makes almost making it all about the cis person whose trying so hard to help the trans person, ‘cos that’s not what it’s about. For healthcare professionals, I just think having training is the best thing and listening to somebody. If a patient comes to a GP and says that they’re trans, the GP can’t say, you’re not trans or don’t identify that way. You have to think about it, ‘cos for all they know, they have thought about it. They could have been thinking about it for years. They can’t tell—and actually, not even the GIC professionals can tell someone how to identify, ‘cos at the GIC they say we can’t tell you how to identify, we are just about giving treatment. People seem to think that you have to go to a GIC and be told how to identify and so they say, based on what you’ve told me, I diagnose you with non-binary or something that is just, that’s not appropriate. It is a personal thing how some, someone’s gender is a personal thing and you cannot tell someone what their gender is. Nobody has that power over another person and GPs need to realise that. Just because they have a PhD and they have loads of money, that doesn’t give them any power over someone’s gender.

The NHS could get more money and I am pretty sure everyone wants that. I’d want there to be shorter waiting times and shorter times in between appointments and I want them to have more staff. More, be easier to contact. I’d like them to reply to their emails within 48 hours and to usually to have somebody available to answer the phone. I feel like there’s only, I wonder if there’s only like one person on the reception there because it’s going through to the answer phone so many times I would like, I would like there to be more GICs. I’d say there should be a GIC in every major city so that people don’t have to travel ridiculous distances. I would like them to be a bit more understanding of autistic people.

Acknowledge that gender is fluid and so a trans man can wear a dress if he wants to and then not all trans women have to wear dresses, ‘cos not all cis women wear dresses. And also that the Gender Recognition Certificate that should, the way the panel, the way the obtaining it, you have to go through a panel of people who have never met you, that shouldn’t be, that shouldn’t happen. It should self-identification and there should be a third option on a passport where’s it an X, Mx should become a recognised pronoun sorry, recognised title. All GPs should be aware of trans issues. I would, I thought when junior doctors are training, they have to go through all sorts of, all the types of healthcare it seems that trans healthcare is left out. GPs should be trained and nurses or any medical professionals should be trained, even a receptionist should be trained. I don’t, I can’t remember if that’s everything, but yeah, I think and also the spouse thing where somebody’s spouse has to consent. I mean, there could be people who were like estranged from their partner, but are going through the process of a divorce and the spouse may not consent for all sorts of reasons and like it’s not the spouse’s business and then they don’t have control over that person’s body. And, and that’s also outdated from when same-sex marriage was illegal, wasn’t legal. There needs to be a lot of improvement.