Your personal Tumblr journey starts here
As a follow-up to my earlier post:
I have a friend that lives in Texas. He is eighteen; and was in the process of learning to drive when the pandemic struck. He recently visited the state DMV to renew his learner’s permit; and much to his surprise, was given a full driver’s license instead.
I get it; they are trying to keep the system working under a difficult set of circumstances. All the same, my friend is attempting to continue on with his driving education, for what he holds in legal capability, he lacks in actual practical experience and confidence.
This is what it feels like to become an entirely different gender at 37. I’m legally a woman, but I have no idea what I’m doing.
When I changed my legal name, I was required to provide public notice of the change. There are legal news services that exist for this exact purpose - you pay them a small fee; they put the notice on their website.
(At least in my county, you can request the requirement be waived; there’s a good argument to be made that it exposes one’s status as a transgender individual and that this invites unnecessary risk in today’s fraught climate. I myself did not pursue this option however.)
The website for the legal news service in my area is, uh... Well, ‘archaic’ is probably the most charitable interpretation. Sometimes I want to share the notice with people, but there’s no search function for non-subscribers - you just have to scroll through the notices until you get to the right one.
(Really, I need to bookmark it or take a screenshot or something!)
Today I was doing exactly that - trying to find my notice again - and I was struck by how many other items between mine and present day were clearly transgender in nature (i.e. from a masculine to feminine name or vice versa). I would estimate a good third or so met this criteria.
It fills a girl’s heart with warmth and hope to see so many people finding their true selves and living authentically!
Sometimes I worry that I come across as overly focused on the subject of my transition.
“So what have you been up to?” “Oh, you know. [Transition stuff].”
In project management parlance, transitioning is a multi-year project with multiple tasks, all of which have their own sub-tasks, and so on. Resources must be acquired; unforeseeable issues spontaneously arise and must be resolved.
I would not necessarily call this timeconsuming or overwhelming (although transitioning can be these things at times); but it’s pervasive. It touches every part of my life and requires constant care and attention.
A simple example: I wanted to change my legal name. In America, this generally means going to the county probate court and getting an order to that effect.
Every county has its own process and paperwork (although the vast majority at least try to adhere to some kind of nationally-distributed model process). All together, there were five forms.
I also needed to provide notarized copies of various personal records, so I had to get those.
Once everything was submitted, I had to wait for an invoice from the local legal news publisher; and then pay them to release a statement recording the name change.
I had to talk to the court and the publisher multiple times for input on what to do; to check up on the status of my case (”Oh, sorry - the person that mails out the confirmation was on vacation for two weeks”); and so on.
Eventually the court order was created, and I could pick up my copy of this incredibly important legal document.
Having done all this...
...I now get to reach out to the dozens and dozens of organizations that keep track of my legal identity and inform them that it has, in fact, changed.
...And some of them have their own requirements for updating their records; which necessitates addressing certain organizations in a certain order (BMV; Social Security; employer)...
All of this, all of this merely to change my name. One of a multitude of tasks.
Overall, this has been one of the most rewarding processes of my life; I would repeat it in a heartbeat. If however I do come across as eternally preoccupied with my transition, it’s because - at least for now - it constantly effects me, every day and in all ways (physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, legally) and I have no choice but to dedicate the necessary brainpower to managing these things.
I OFFICIALLY SCHEDULED AN APPOINTMENT TO START T!!! YEAHHHHHHH
NOT SURE HOW IM GOING TO AFFORD IT YET BUT ITS GONNA BE OKAY!!! I WILL FIGURE IT OUT!!
Has anyone else seen those videos of gender affirming surgeons “rating” trans people’s femininity/masculinity? Like they’ll stitch a video of a trans person documenting their transition and the surgeon will be like “Their face has perfectly feminized/masculinized” or “Even after the effects of hrt, their face is still masc/fem so I may reccomend getting facial feminization/masculinization surgery to really seal it”. And every time I see one of these I can’t think anything other than wait what???? Not only are you giving extremely unnecessary advice, but openly posting whether they are “passing” enough for you? Also just the assumption that all trans people want to be strictly masc and fem? That those are the only two options and that trans men/transmascs must be the epitome of masculine and transfems/ trans women must be the epitome of femininity? And it’s not like them stitching or reacting to their clients either, from what I’ve seen it’s mostly just random trans people who did not ask for this.
It feels like they are just looking at trans people like specimens to fix and perfect and force them into their neat little boxes on what they consider is a “complete medical transition” and “complete masculinity/femininity”. In the videos they act like they are the deciders of what is considered a masculine or feminine “look”. They always go out of their way to say how much of a trans ally they are and how they are helping trans people out too.
Also, never seen one about androgynous medical transitions. I have however seen them try to frame nonbinary people as trans men and trans women and force femininity/masculinity on them through “advice”.
Just because you work in trans healthcare and call yourself an “ally” doesn’t mean you are. Especially if you do shit like this. You don’t get a pass just because of your job.