Worry & Fear

I’ve been living in this body for 42 years. I always thought I was stuck with it, so I learned to live with it. When I was a teenager I tried to live as a male. Eventually I gave up on it due to my height and harassment. I forced myself to be more female and as I got older I learned to tolerate it even though I longed to have a male body. I had to. There did not seem to be any options for a person like me until I learned about medical transition three years ago. I only seriously started to consider this option last summer. A few weeks ago I discussed this with my GP. She said she would help make this reality. I told her that I didn’t want to rush and would seek some therapy to help me sort out a few things first, while I finish my training.

My biggest fear of medical transition is being disrespected by medical professionals. This is a huge deal since I was emotionally butchered and mistreated by them in the mid 1990s at a children’s hospital. It left me traumatized. Now I fear regular interaction with medical professionals, since I’ve been subjected to so much mistreatment and disrespect. Whenever I meet one for the first time I expect to be misunderstood and judged, so I approach them with extreme caution. Can I subject myself to that kind of harm to live as a male? I don’t know right now. All I know is that I would never pass without hormones.

I need some suggestions on how I should deal with medical professionals. How can I pursue this without becoming an object that they can probe and ridicule? How can I be treated with respect?

I know, I need to seek out the services of a therapist who specializes in gender. The pandemic is making that very difficult to do right now.

Well... I'm too old to transition. (They always say you're never too old. But for me, I'm too old.) However I have also feared doctors in the past for a variety of reasons I won't go into. I still do. (I have seen some hostile, unfriendly doctors in my day.)

I don't know if I have any particularly great answers to this. (I actually seldom see a medical doctor. And, in fact, I just received a letter a couple of days ago saying the doctor I did see occasionally is no longer with the clinic where I saw him. (He was an older man. It's possible he retired.) So I'm now without a GP entirely.

One thing that has occurred to me is that, at least where I live, I think there are lists one can access of LGBTQ+ friendly physicians. So now that the doctor I used to see on occasion is gone, I might check around & see if I could find one of those lists. I would suppose there might be something on the web. Or perhaps I could contact our local LGBTQ+ advocacy organization & they might have something.

I do know some medical clinics nowadays even indicate, on their website, they're LGBTQ+ friendly. I suppose one other thing a person could do is to call a particular clinic one thought one might be wanting to be seen at ahead of time & ask about their LGBT policies. I don't know how much genuinely useful information one might get from that though.

Of course, presumably, the doctors you'll see in the process of completing your transition are going to be considerate & supportive since working with people who are transitioning is at least a part of what they do. But as for the rest of the medical profession, there is always some risk in seeing someone you haven't seen before.

I don't know how one avoids that or that there is any simple way to deal with it if-&-when you unexpectedly find yourself in an exam room with a medical professional who thinks they somehow have the right to diss you based on your gender identity. Of course, ultimately, you do have the right to simply walk out if necessary. There's no rule that says you're required to put up with some ignorant medical professional's abuse.