I thought long and hard about writing this post and then even longer about publishing it, simply because I don’t want the narrative of „suffering“ trans people to be exploited even more. More than that, I could never imagine that I would ever have anything to contribute to the topic. Neither would I classify my level of suffering as particularly high, nor did I ever have the feeling of being discriminated against. Until I realised that maybe neither of these things was as true as I thought. Someday I will share all the happy moments that come with being trans. Today is unfortunately not that day, today is one of the days I sat down and did what I can’t stand: Showing vulnerability.
On 20 April, I waved into the laptop one last time, smiled, clicked a red button and flipped the lid shut. I had moved and after two years my second therapy was over. The third, if you count the unreliable acute help from all social services during the Corona lockdown. I was allowed to learn a lot: self-efficacy, feeling feelings, saying no, radical acceptance, empathy and facing one’s fears. All in all, many positive consequences for my everyday life and yet I had mixed feelings. There was one thing I had not been granted: the letter of I had not been granted one thing: the „letter of indication“ that trans people in Germany need if they want to start hormone therapy with an endocrinologist.
I wish I could say I was expecting it, but unfortunately, I have to report the opposite. At the beginning, my therapist had said something different to me she had given the impression that it was „no problem at all“. In January, she even proudly told me that she had signed up for a training course that dealt specifically with the topic of trans people. In retrospect, this did me a little good; I hope my successors will have better luck with her.
Another reason why the rejection hit me harder than I thought was that the need for a letter of indication had been the reason why I wanted to start another therapy in the first place. Did I make that clear during our initial interview? Yes, I think I did. After two years on the waiting list and three weeks after the Bundestag’s first rejection of the Self-Determination Act, I sat across from her, and the following exchange of words ensued:
„I don’t really see a point in living. I don’t feel welcome, and I don’t feel I belong here.“
I could tell from her reaction that she had expected a lot, but not this. She just asked back, „Why?“
„Well, the government makes it pretty clear…“
To explain, it was one of the highlights of my „radical phase“ that had been going on for years: radical mood swings, radical self-hatred, radical world views the whole nine yards. At that time, only awkward minutes of silence followed until she finally replied, „I think we can do something against that.“
Today I know psychotherapy achieves many things, just not necessarily what I wanted at the time. I didn’t kill myself even though I felt like that after she told me that she was unsure about if I was trans and that it would be in her favour if I would see an actual specialist for that topic. The irony was that I could have even done that if she had told me earlier. Of course, I had put myself on several waiting lists, one of which belonged to our city’s psycho-specialist practice for trans people. It was exactly there that I had cancelled an initial interview a few days before this „relevance“, because I was sure I would get the letter. I had also been on the waiting list for two years…
After six weeks of depression, acute frustration, sadness and anger followed. The follow-up conversation with her did not bring any clarity, but rather the opposite. She explained her point of view to me again, I explained mine to her, and apart from recurring frustration, nothing happened. I moved, called other practices and had to wait and hope again. Someone smart once said that „hope and hope“ were so incredibly passive and that „having confidence or being confident“ was somehow the more active attitude. This is probably true on the whole, as long as there is some form of self-efficacy. Meanwhile, I’m not so sure to what extent trans people in Germany have the possibility of legal self-efficacy. Friends, clothes, names, appearance, education – all that is possible, but when it comes to the important things that also have „far-reaching“ consequences, the state and society go on strike.
The current state of affairs is that I can understand her reasoning somewhere. Self-perception and external perception are two completely different things. I didn’t do her (and more importantly myself) the favour of sneaking into the surgery every week suffering, just to tell her how much I was suffering from my current pre-transitional state. Because most often I didn’t, which was due to my very supportive environment: liberal university, great friends and parents who had stopped questioning their child, even if they didn’t understand me from top to bottom. All I could say to my therapist was „I’m not sure what or who I am, but a cis woman isn’t it. I never was and I’m 100% sure of that.“ Apparently, that wasn’t enough for her… which is a little scary and tiring. I don’t want to suffer like Jesus Christ on the cross every day, martyred by some socio-political norms that were actually invented by Victorian, white, cis men.
Sure hormones are an intrusion on the body…. just like breast augmentation, hip surgery, ear piercing, or tonsillectomy. Some sports affect the physique so much that you see/feel the consequences even though you haven’t played the sport for years. More so hormones are not a magic bullet, you don’t wake up the next day in the shape of a bug in your desired body and be „done“. Nowadays young women are prescribed birth control pills (nothing but hormones!) at the age of 16 simply because they have acne.
Maybe I should have shown her my trans CV that I had to write for another therapist. Maybe I should have told her that I felt sick afterwards and couldn’t do anything else for three hours. On the one hand, I was emotionally devastated and on the other hand, I couldn’t imagine how I would go on living my life if it turned out that I wasn’t trans after all. Not in the sense that my purpose in life would be lost, but rather in the sense that it would be an absolute horror for me to have to live the rest of my life (and be perceived) as a cis woman.
I wish I hadn’t been quite so confident and hadn’t cancelled the appointment with the specialist practice. I also wish I had started doing things for myself and for my transition earlier, but three things I have learned: Realizing that you are trans is one thing, accepting that you are trans is another, and doing things about is a whole other sphere, even for me who grew up in a very liberal household with liberal parents who have their own interesting gender dynamics and lots of queer family friends.
On some days there is nothing worse to know that I can dress as manly as I want, having the shortest hair and as soon as I don’t bind or start to talk, I will be addressed as a girl. This would be great if I was a butch lesbian or a tomboy, but unfortunately, I am just a trans man that tries to pass and tries not to feel like three racoons in a trench coat.
So, I guess my conclusion for today is that I thank all the people who do not question my identity and accept me as I am. It should be a basic value of humanity, but apparently, it still isn’t sometimes.