#the simple queer joy of going for a run after top surgery | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aintgonnatakethis · 1 year

Note

hi, this may not be the kind of question you normally, but would you mind talking about your experience being trans in the uk? i'm headed there for uni at the end of the summer, and while in many ways it'll probably be better (i'm coming from a very catholic conservative area in the states), i'm kind of scared.

Sorry this took a few days to answer. Originally I thought there wouldn't be much to put here but then I started writing and wow! I have actually had a life, haven't I? 😂 If you have any other questions I'm happy to answer them for you.

I'm going to put this under a readmore because it got so long, but TL;DR: Find allies in LGBTQ+/queer clubs at your Uni, if your professors deadname/misgender you complain to the Uni, register with multiple NHS GP surgeries to doctor shop for a trans friendly GP, same with NHS dentists, if you're socially transitioned and get lucky with GPs you might be able to get a bridging prescription for hormones (details below), if you're faced with medical transphobia know your rights but discretion is the better part of valour.

So all in all I think I've had things pretty easy. I'm a social recluse so even before covid kicked off I wasn't going out or going to school/working a job. It's only recently (since top surgery) that I've felt confident enough to go out and do things and that's because I now pass all the time.

I don't know where you are in your transition or whether passing is even an option (and I also wouldn't say passing should be the automatic goal for all of us - going stealth is just my personal preference) but if people can take a quick look and "clock" you, it will obviously be more dangerous for you. Though I don't think that differs much from place to place; trans people are always in danger if we're outed.

I would recommend looking for any LGBTQ+/queer clubs your Uni might have. Sometimes those groups are awful and they just bleed chronically-online-made-real-life, but sometimes you'll make friends for life. It's important to get a support network going around you I think, as well as know what rights you have through the Uni when it comes down to professors referring you to with the correct name and pronouns.

Talk to the professors first obviously - the fewer waves you make the better - but if some of them continue to deadname/misgender you, stick to your guns. I know it's a tough sounding piece of advice, but if you let them get away with it once, they'll do it forever. Find out who in the Uni you're able to file complaints with. If you need to, do it. Don't take no shit!

If you're on a student visa and are here for more than six months, congrats! You get to enjoy the sparkling joy /s that is the NHS. Something that differs greatly between the US and the UK is that you can doctor shop super easily over here. I'm presuming that Uni=a town at least, so there should be multiple GP surgeries within your range and 2-7 doctors at each depending on the size of the area they're looking after. You're allowed to register at multiple surgeries without informing them you're doing so (and our medical records aren't on a centralised system so they aren't likely to find out). Do that ASAP and then if you run into a doctor who's anti-trans you can just bounce, no questions asked, either to another doctor at the same surgery (which is what I did) or to another surgery altogether.

On a side note I'd also register with every NHS dentist in the area as well, as waiting lists for simple check ups are 6 months long currently. The only thing with multiple registering you have to worry about is if you have an appointment either turn up or cancel it. If you no show they'll remove you from their list entirely.

If you're already on hormones and are looking to continue taking them here, I'm afraid I have no idea what the transfer system is. I know GPs can write bridging prescriptions (hormones while waiting for the Gender Clinic to get through their waiting list) so if you have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a doctor in the US then a GP might be willing to do that.

I was referred and 2 years later my GP (who I love and would die for) was like "well this is ridiculous, you're obviously socially transitioned so I'll supply the testosterone for you." She wrote that bridging prescription for 3 years, gel only (which I've stayed on because I have a needle phobia), and blood tests every 3 months (now every 6). While she was writing the bridge she had to check the blood tests herself, but when the Gender Clinic finally got off their arses they're sent there.

A bridge will be a lower dose (ig micro dosing?) than you'd get properly, but it's better than nothing. If you're looking for that, bring proof that you're socially transitioned and have been for at least two years. If you've changed your name any letters/documents are good. I have 7 years worth of shit saved, just like my grandad used to do with receipts so when it came time to do his taxes he'd have everything together. ❤️️

Obviously the GP in question might want to get to know you a bit first before giving you anything, especially if you're looking for T as that can be used for sports enhancing purposes. But without knowing how long you're going to be here, my wait on the Gender Clinic waiting list was 5 years so I'd guess that's not gonna work for you.

Transphobia I've suffered from the medical industry. Right.

First time was before I moved to where I'm living currently and came out in tears to my then GP. She said "you've obviously thought this through" but then did not refer me to a Gender Clinic, thus breaking the law. Me, not knowing the law at the time, did nothing. Lesson: know your rights.

First time where I understood what was an NHS dentist. It was before I started taking T, obviously before top surgery. I did not pass. He came into the waiting room called Mr. <name> and when I stood up the look of disgust on his face was fucking haunting. That was a tough appointment to get through with him sticking sharp things in my mouth, let me tell you. He also informed me my wisdom teeth weren't fully done coming through yet which was why I was in pain, which turned out to be a lie as when I went to a private dentist (massively stupidly expensive wnr) the following month they told me they were impacted and I'd literally been chewing on myself every time I ate or spoke, hence the pain. I haven't been back to that NHS dentist place since, though I do want to get back on their waiting list now I pass properly. Lesson: get second opinions.

No direct transphobia from the private place, though after I'd voiced financial concerns and then said I ate a lot of chocolate, one tech did say "well, after you've paid for today you won't be able to afford that anymore". Unknown whether she said that because I was trans and she wanted to get a dig in or just because she was a cunt. 🤷‍♂️ I was stoned at the time as I do before all dentist appointments so didn't even work out it was supposed to offend me until later.

For the regular blood tests that are required a nurse at the surgery does it. This particular nurse was always fine and lovely to me before I started T and began to pass as a man, suddenly got very weird and standoffish, calling me 'honey' and 'sweetheart', things you do not call young men here unless you're an old woman. The kicker was when she drew blood and (knowing I have a phobia of needles) said "all done" and made sure to wait until I was looking before pulling it out. A few seconds passed and she said "you okay?" in the most vindictive tone I've ever heard. Sadly for her my panic is internal so she got fuck all. The shift times for each nurse are available on the GP surgery's website. She does afternoons, so now I only go in on mornings. Lesson: when you come out, change your name, start hormones, start passing - at basically every step of the process - there'll be people who'll treat you differently for no reason. If they're friends, sit down and talk it out before deciding what you're going to do. If they're not, avoid them.

GP referred me for a hysterectomy. First place turned me down because I'm trans. Second place put me on their waiting list. GP was pissed off.

I won't go into detail about the problems I've faced from the Gender Clinic or the surgeon as that probably won't be useful to you. If it turns out you'll be working with a GC or getting surgery done over here let me know and I'll add stuff.

Good luck at Uni, friend! 🤜🤛

#i hate the term 'passing' but couldn't think of anything better #trans #transgender #trans stuff #transphobia #transandrophobia #transmisandry #mine #trans advice #anon #about me

8 notes · View notes

everythingisgreenandsubmarine · 5 years

Text

Netflix's "Queer Eye" Is the Perfect Feel-Good Reality Show for Everyone

I am not someone who tends to enjoy reality shows. Except for the occasional Gordon Ramsay show or old re-runs of Ghost Hunters that I watched when I was a kid, I tend not to watch any reality television simply because I don’t tend to like it. The main reason I dislike reality television is because it feels fake. As a filmmaker, I can tell when emotion is being elicited or edited in, rather than organically integrated. American television is especially guilty of this. Yet here I am, about to praise and laud a reality show for being both honest and realistic.

Queer Eye is not the kind of show I would seek out on my own. When I was introduced to it by my girlfriend and our friends I was initially skeptical. After all, I don’t like reality television and I really don’t like makeover shows — they’re just not my thing. Yet Queer Eye approaches these genres with a fresh eye and an exciting amount of energy that makes it infectious to watch and impossible to skip. While it adheres to a specific episodic formula (as most reality television does) every episode is imbued with its own personality, often based on the subject the Fab 5 are tasked with assisting.

Most importantly, what helps set Queer Eye apart from other reality shows, and other television currently airing, is its genuine heart and the five affable men who star in the show. Whether they’re helping an older guy who likes making redneck margaritas and going to car shows, or helping a trans man become more confident after his top surgery, they approach each person with honest endearment and affable joy, so much so that it is compelling and heartwarming.

That’s a core part of what helps make Queer Eye a great show for all kinds of people, no matter where on the sexuality spectrum you find yourself. Every member of the Fab 5 brings a unique perspective to each episode and to each person, elevating the show above the typical “reality show” feel and injecting heart and engaging humor in a genre that is often lacking both of those qualities. More importantly, each member of the Fab 5 is drastically different and unique — and did I mention they are all genuinely friendly and loving? I’m actually speaking from personal experience here: I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Antoni Porowski before an event at a local college, and he is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met.

I think if I was going to come to a general thesis of this blog post, it would be simple: Queer Eye and its team uses the reality television formula and aesthetic to communicate the love, joy, and happiness they want to spread into the world. That’s part of what helps separate it from other shows in its genre; it’s not trying to use misleading editing to create drama, nor is it listless and devoid of meaning — far from it. Rather, Queer Eye (which only releases 8 episodes a season) approaches every person without judgment and with the sincere desire to help. In a time where cynicism seems to be around every corner, that kind of optimism is desperately needed.

In an early interview, after the first season dropped on Netflix, the Fab 5 did an interview (which I will link below) where they discussed both the show and their approach to it. Tan, the fashion perspective on the show, brought up an interesting point that gets at the heart of what I’m trying to say (it starts at 0:53 for those who are interested in watching).

"The original show was fighting for tolerance, and it was different to our show because of this: the original show, it was at a time when the audience wasn't ready to hear about the intimate lives. They wanted the glossy version of what gays are, and that's all that America was ready for. That's all the world was ready for. Times have changed. We don't want you to just think that we're a bunch of gay guys who can make something pretty - that's not the case anymore...We want you to accept us as your kin. We want you to accept us as the people we are. We are just men who are out to help, and do the best we can to help everybody that we meet." -- Tan, FOX 5 DC Interview

No matter what your sexual identity or orientation is, I can confidently say you should give Queer Eye a shot.

More important than that, though, I can promise you that you will not find a more enjoyable, uplifting, wholesome, or optimistic show on television right now. The lengths that this team goes to to make both the heroes (as they affectionately dub the folks they help) and the fans they meet happy and feel loved is unlike anything I have seen on television before. It’s something everyone can connect to, whether you are straight, gay, bi, trans, asexual, or anywhere in-between on the sexuality spectrum.

Give it a shot. Watch an episode or two. I have a sneaking suspicion that you won’t be able to stop, just like I wasn’t able to.

#queer eye #netflix #television #reality tv

6 notes · View notes

cutsliceddiced · 4 years

Text

New top story from Time: I Let My Child Create Their Own Gender Identity. The Experience Has Been a Gift for Us Both

“What are you having?” I’d be standing in line at the post office or a movie theater, and I’d realize a stranger was staring at my belly. The kind person thought they were asking me a simple question with a simple answer: Is it a boy or a girl?

If you want to get technical, my partner Brent and I had found out our child’s sex chromosomes in the early stages of my pregnancy, and we had seen their genitals during the anatomy scan. But we didn’t think that information told us anything about our kid’s gender. The only things we really knew about our baby is that they were human, breech and going to be named Zoomer. We weren’t going to assign a gender or disclose their reproductive anatomy to people who didn’t need to know, and we were going to use the gender-neutral personal pronouns they, them and their. We imagined it could be years before our child would tell us, in their own way, if they were a boy, a girl, nonbinary or if another gender identity fit them best. Until then, we were committed to raising our child without the expectations or restrictions of the gender binary.

I have a gender-studies degree and a Ph.D. in sociology. In the decade before Zoomer was born, it was literally my job to study and educate others about gender. There was no shortage of gender-disparity statistics, but I felt confident that progress toward gender equity was gaining momentum. In my Sociology of Gender and Sexuality course, I would lecture on discrimination against queer people, the motherhood penalty, men’s higher suicide rate, violence against transgender women of color, and the way intersex people–those born with biological traits that aren’t typically male or female–are stigmatized or completely overlooked. But I also taught about the victory of same-sex marriage equality, more women running for office, fathers demanding family leave, the rising visibility of transgender actors in the media, and the movement to end intersex surgery.

With every new semester, the number of students asking me to call them by different names and use different pronouns than they were given at birth grew. Women confided that they were experiencing sexism from their chemistry professors. Men vented about the pressures of masculinity. These 18- to 20-something-year-olds were feeling crushed by gender stereotypes. I could relate. I was raised as a girl in the Mormon church, and it took a long time for me to untangle myself from the conditioning that the only things I should want (and could be good at) were marriage and motherhood.

I could see the trail of bread crumbs. How gender inequalities get their start in childhood. How girls do more chores than boys and are paid less allowance. How kids are dressed in shirts that say “sorry boys, Daddy says i can’t date until I’m 30,” yet when a child says they’re gay, they’re told they’re too young to know that. How girls are discouraged from running for student government. How boys are discouraged from playing with dolls. How queer and trans youth are kicked out of their homes. People have asked me to prove that gender-creative parenting will have positive outcomes. I double-dog dare someone to prove that hypergendered childhood is a roaring success.

Kids fare better in environments where they are accepted for who they are. The negative outcomes that are often experienced by queer and trans youth are mitigated by supportive families and friends. Parents take precautions to keep their children healthy and safe by enrolling them in swim lessons, teaching them to stay away from fire and cutting food into tiny pieces. Holding space for the possibility a child might be trans or nonbinary or queer is also preventative care.

The goal of gender-creative parenting is not to eliminate gender—the goal is to eliminate gender-based oppression, disparities and violence. The aim isn’t to create a genderless world; it’s to contribute to a genderfull one. We as a society have an opportunity to shake up childhood gender socialization in a way that creates more healthy and equitable adulthoods for everyone. What have we got to lose? The patriarchy? Good riddance.

The summer before I was pregnant, I noticed a young sprints track meet banner fastened to the chain-link fence of the local high school. I can’t wait till I have a little one who can run in that! I thought.

Three years later, I left that track meet in tears after I found out that despite assurances to the contrary, the 2- and 3-year-old girls would run in different heats than the boys. “I not running?” Zoomer asked as we drove away. I felt terrible for leaving. Zoomer just wanted to run. But I also would have felt terrible if I had stayed. It is these moments that plant the seeds that boys and girls are dramatically different, and in the case of track and field, that boys are better. I refused to have our family participate.

The experience was disappointing, if not unexpected. When I was pregnant, I would dream up hypothetical situations with cruel pediatricians refusing to use they/them pronouns and flight attendants treating Zoomer like a stereotype and anxiously think through how I would react to these circumstances. I was afraid that my family members might be so nervous about accidentally using a gendered pronoun for Zoomer, so nervous about offending me, that they would distance themselves from us.

But for the most part, the past four years have not been filled with tears and strife (at least no more tears than you’d find in any home of a young child and tired parents). Our life looks remarkably like a lot of other families’ lives, filled with joy and affirmation. And color. Lots of color.

Courtesy Kyl Myers (4)Top left: February 2016; Top right: June 2018; Bottom left: Father’s Day 2017; Bottom right: March 2016

When people think of gender-neutral, their minds often go to a grayish beige, potato-hued color palette. But we don’t dress Zoomer in burlap sacks, or only give them toys the color of Wheat Thins. We give them options, and they thoughtfully pick what they like the most. For a while, Zoomer’s favorite color was pink; then it was orange. They picked the pink, purple and aqua bedsheets; the fire-truck socks; the outer-space sleeping bag; and the violet climbing shoes. They wanted the Cars Pull-Ups one time and the Minnie Mouse ones the next. Zoomer has a stuffed dog named Dante that goes everywhere with them and a baby doll that they named DeeDee. Zoomer loves Play-Doh and molds neon-colored animals and pretend food. They say, “I’m not going to eat it.” Then I see that their teeth are bright blue, and they have, in fact, tried to eat it.

A common critique of gender-creative parenting is that “the kid will be confused,” but Zoomer doesn’t seem confused at all. In fact, they have a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender than a lot of adults. We teach them to use gender-neutral words until a person tells us about themself. We call kids friends. We have taught Zoomer about their own body without using boy-girl labels. Zoomer understands that some girls have penises and some boys have vulvas, and some intersex kids have vulvas and testes. Zoomer knows some daddies get pregnant and some nonbinary parents are called Zazas. At day care, I tell teachers, “Please snuggle them and wrestle with them. Please compliment their painted toenails and let them get muddy. Call them handsome and beautiful; sensitive and brave. Give them the opportunity to play with the Hot Wheels and the kitchen set.” Because Zoomer has been raised with a focus on inclusivity, they have an instinct to make everyone feel welcome. When a character on a kids’ show says, “Hello, boys and girls!” Zoomer adds, “And nonbinary pals!”

A friend of mine recently told me when she first found out how we were going to parent, she thought, That’s going to be endless work for Kyl. “But now I actually think that you are so lucky and had some great foresight,” she said. “I spend so much of my time tearing the walls down that people are trying to build around my daughters. People aren’t trying to build walls around Zoomer because they don’t know which walls to build.”

I wanted to give my child a gift. The gift of seeing people as more than just a gender. The gift of understanding gender as complex, beautiful and self-determined. I hadn’t considered how much of a gift I’d also be giving myself. While curating an experience for Zoomer to come to their own identity, I inadvertently started taking a closer look at mine too.

One day, Zoomer and I were playing hide-and-seek. They cupped their eyes as I hid in the pantry, then walked around the house mimicking the words we use when we are trying to find them. “Mommy, you in the plant? No … Mommy, you under the couch? No.” As they got closer, they called out, “Kyl! Where are you?”

Gender-creative parenting comes with a giant mirror and forces me to ask myself, “Kyl! Where are you?” I’ve examined my own gender identity and expression more in the past four years than I had in the three decades before becoming Zoomer’s parent. As I’ve tried to create an environment where Zoomer is free from the chains of binary gender, I am working to figure out what about my gender is authentic and what was prescribed to me, and is it even possible to differentiate at this point? I love my body, but I don’t love that I was assigned a specific gender role because of it. In my early 30s, I’m climbing out of the girl box I was placed in in 1986. I’m trying on new labels and pronouns, and giving myself the same encouragement to play with gender that I am giving my child.

Not everyone has the support that Brent and I have. We sprang gender-creative parenting on our families, and they decided to get on board. They shared in the emotional labor and took it upon themselves to educate our extended family and their co-workers, neighbors and friends. They are champions at using gender-neutral pronouns. Some of my friends have not been so lucky. They’ve lost touch with family members or have strained relationships because of their decision to do gender-creative parenting. I know of a grandparent who keeps a stash of clothing, so whenever their gender-creative grandchild comes over, they change them out of the outfit the child picked to put them in something more stereotypically associated with their sex. Some of my friends’ family members have called child protective services, reporting their grandchild is being abused, simply because they weren’t assigned a gender. This is also a reason I feel strongly about being a public advocate for parenting this way—many others don’t have the safety, support and resources to talk openly about it.

Around their fourth birthday, Zoomer started declaring a gender identity and claiming some gendered pronouns. Brent and I are honoring Zoomer’s identity and expression and answering all their questions in an age-appropriate and inclusive way. (I’m using they here because Zoomer is still exploring gender and I want them to have some autonomy over how they share their identity with the world.)

I’m witnessing my child create their own gender—and who Zoomer has become is greater than anything I could have imagined or assigned. Instead of us telling the children who they should be, maybe it’s the children who will teach us how to be. We just have to get out of their way.

Myers is the author of Raising Them: Our Adventure in Gender Creative Parenting, from which this essay is adapted

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

1 note · View note