A MidWestern transgender woman trying to survive in the real life.

Tag: gender transitioning

Living Through the Coronavirus

A lot of shit has been happening since the last time I posted on here. First off, happy Mothers’ Day to all the mothers out there. I sent my mother a gift card to Amazon. It was done digitally, but she hasn’t picked it up yet. They have limited access to the internet. She’ll get it sooner or later.

March 17th marked my fiftieth birthday. This milestone still blows my mind. Frankly, I never expected to live this long. Yet, now that I’m at that age, it doesn’t seem like I’m as old as I thought I was going to be.

February marked the sixth year that I went on HRT. I still have no regrets about it. If  I had to say one thing about it, I wish I started sooner in my life. Yet, I know that if I came out when I was fifteen that my parents’ wouldn’t understand or support me. At least, that is what I thought at that point in my life. Then when I was out on my own, I didn’t want to do it because I thought that I would never be able to find a job. Actually, that still haunts me since I lost my job with the Federal Government.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. The elephant in the room is the coronavirus going around. I think it is crazy. I never thought that I’d live to see a pandemic such as this one. I’ve been in quarantine for about a week after my birthday. I have been out to get my car fixed, but for the most part I haven’t been out at all.  Thanks to my agoraphobia it hasn’t been affecting my mental health at all. Of course, it isn’t helping matters either. I’ve been seeing my therapist virtually. It is cam-to-cam so we can see each other.

The Trump administration isn’t helping us out either. He said some pretty dumb stuff early on and currently. First he thought it was a hoax made up by the Democratic Party. Then he said we are nearly zero. Then it was a good job if it just killed off two hundred thousand people. Not too long ago he thought it made no sense to test for the virus since one day you can have it and then the next day you do have it. Don’t even get me started on him saying that injecting or digesting disinfectants can cure you of the virus. I wish he would just step down and let the scientists take over.

Joe Biden wasn’t my first pick for the front runner for the Democratic Party’s bid for the Presidency. I was behind Kamala Harris before she dropped out. She’s done a lot for the LGBT community during her time as Attorney General of California. Sure there was that one time she ruled in favor of transgender women inmates being in men’s facilities, but I think she answered the question well when she was at the HRC debates. I do think she wasn’t the most liberal candidate on the ticket. I think she just sways with the times. Many politicians included Obama were more centralist in their viewpoints. Yet, I am backing Joe Biden for 2020.

Major Life Change: Two Weeks Away

My last post was a little over a week ago. In that post I mentioned that I will be having a major life change. Two weeks from today I will be undergoing hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) to begin my transition from a male to a female. I don’t know what could be more of a major life change!

My therapist faxed a referral to my primary care physician about two weeks ago. She also called to confirm that the fax was received. Yet, when I got there my doctor didn’t know anything about it. There are only two people on the staff plus my doctor. I can’t shake the feeling that maybe the referral intentionally didn’t get to her. My doctor wanted to talk to my therapist about this, so I signed a release of information. So far, my therapist and my doctor have not been communicating.

I turned to Howard Brown Health Center, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clinic in Chicago. I set up an appointment with them for next week. A week from today. I’ll get some blood work done with them at that time to check my hormone levels. Then a week after that I will be given information and my hormones. There isn’t a therapist consent needed. Instead they operate on an Informed Consent practice.

So, two weeks from today a new journey will begin for me. I actually have an appointment for consultation with laser hair removal tomorrow as well. It’ll cost me a bit to get rid of all of my body hair, I’m sure. Not to mention the clothes shopping I’ll need to do on top of the cost of the hormones themselves.

I am both excited and nervous to begin this new phase in life.

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