AS - Trans MTF

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My biggest gripe with the ENTIRE trans support system is that it did not really help ME.

The doctors my mom took me around age ten did nothing for me, and again the doctor at age eighteen even told me in our sessions -" you are so beautiful and smart" - [note: codewords for "you are trans"] - and yet did not tell me what was going on. I could barely function because of too much T, and I could not even speak back to the doctor in our sessions. Yet, I got no help.

Later, the hospital psychology people diagnosed me as "schizo-affective", saying I was delusional about being a woman. I was taken from a psychology session where the doctor said , "You have something wrong and we should commit you for observation, and we can do that if we take you to the emergency room". However, my insurance would not pay for it, so I was not committed and I stopped going there because my work did not like to see that I was trying to be committed on their insurance and Resperdal was like $600 a bottle I think; it was some expensive stuff.

Oh, that was when I was taking Reperdal to "cure" my "delusions" and calm my supposed anger. A male doctor was lecturing me that people are born male or female and my arm starting shaking in fear so they said I needed Resperdal.

I told my mom at this time, "I will live in your basement, and not work, no one will hire me because I am too mentally-ill" because the Resperdal made me think I was a hopeless. However, I did think Resperdal might cure me. When I got the bottle from the pharmacy I was thinking, "Finally ... this will fix me".

Later, my mom and I went to a trans-psychologist together, and put the expense on her medical insurance. This lady did nothing for me. I wanted help to fix my mind. I was having intense mental gender dysphoria. NO ONE said, "Hey, these trans people have hormonal problems, so perhaps you need to correct your hormones. Apparently , that is not taught in psychology school to people who SPECIALIZE seeing trans people. Also, no one pointed out, you poor thing, you have been suffering under the wrong hormones for so long, it has probably caused a lot mental dysfunction in your brain. Nope, she was no help.

Later, the autism doctors at the VA hospital. I did not even bring up trans issues with the autism doctors because it did not go well before. I can say that they knew I was trans, because a woman doctor there chuckled, "You are so good-looking and smart [Note: these are codewords for "you are trans"] AFTER my main doctor got my medical records from the other hospital. I called the VA ethics hotline and reported that this doctor got my records without my permission and shared it with other doctors - this woman doctor - for what laughs- like - look how screwed up this person is - however I did not pursue that cause my anger had subsided later on.

None of the trans people I met at various places, including the support groups, ever said anything - NOT ONE TIME - about correcting my hormones and the development and emergence of my personality. Instead, they probably thought I was a crazy person and they were right. I was still on the wrong hormones and unable to express my personality - that equals crazy.

If you visit trans support forums, then you will see scant information about hormonal correction or "partial transitioning". How can a person is in the depth of mental illness possibly comprehend this ?? How can someone who last had use of a personality at age what two or three , possibly know what the world will be like to get use of that personality again ? It is not possible to understand such an unimaginable thing. So, I needed help. I need someone to tell me the unimaginable. However, not one person explained it to me.

There are few "trans friendly" GPs in my area. I picked one out of the trans website, and I went to him. He wanted me to go through the SOC. I don't blame him. Heck, I could barely speak at that point as T was making my brain ever-increasingly more dysfunctional. Get this. I went to him three times. And he makes a tape recording of every visit. He spoke with me in my room, and then I could hear him record his impression of me on his tape recorder. He said something like , "disturbed individual .. agitated ... displaying signs of ..... ". He did not seem to understand. Well , hello, I was converted into a guy, had my personality isolated in my brain so that I was a non-person, I was on a hormone that was closing off my brain functions and I have an ASD. So, how is your life going ?

I will stop, this is getting too long. However, one more thing, where is this in the DSM 5 ? It does not even recognize hormonal intervention for trans people, or partial transition to relieve gender dysphoria.

You can see that I feel strongly about this.

LoveNotHate,

The DSM is a diagnostic manual, not a treatment guide. There is this, however:

http://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Librar ... erCare.pdf

I attempted suicide when I was 14. I then came out to my parents and grandmother about being transgender, and didn't get much. My dad didn't approve and he was gay. My grandmother was predisposed to believing that it was caused by problems with my mother. My mom didn't know what to do. I think she has AS and it was sort of overwhelming for her to deal with it and everything else. I ended up moving in with my grandmother, and going to a counselor. I hated going to the counselor. I wasn't mature enough to face my problems and I feel I sort of shot myself in the foot. I learned later that when I stopped going my psychologist told my dad that if I didn't solve my gender issue now it would come and haunt me later. My parents were divorced and my dad didn't push that hard to get it taken care of. I wish he had. I wish my mother had dealt with it. I wish I had been more mature, but a combination of all those things. A sh***y combo as it turns out, and I didn't get to deal with my gender issues till I was much older. It's different then what you went through LNH, but I think the feels are somewhat based similarly even at differing levels with how inaction or mis-action on others parts didn't help. I wish my father had done something.




This is something I noted also. No-one except for the rare person speaks about only going part way. It's only a woe is me, I need to go all the way and so should you, all or nothing mentality. The few I've seen that were okay with just HRT, or partial changes and surgeries never stuck around. It's a sticking point with me also that not only is it the all or nothing, but it also must be done right now, regardless of costs, regardless of actual viability, debt, etc... I'd get looked down upon or made light of because I took things responsibly and slow. I'm not willing to go into massive amounts of debt, or surgery after surgery increasing my risk of indirect health problems from to much wear and tear under the knife. It may just be that a lot of people who identify somewhere on the trans got stuck and didn't mature and exhibit this kind of behavior. I know that I didn't mature as fast as others, and only in the last four years with me trying to deal with this have I matured enough to actually deal with it and be responsible about myself.



That's weird and kind of disturbing about the recording thing. I know that there are transcriptions made for a few things, but I've never heard of it done for a GP visit.

I wish there was a better way to find info on what local docs there are who deal with trans. There are two docs in my area that I know of that deal with the LGBT community and I heard of them by word of mouth and got mixed reviews on both. There are others I think. I started with one and switched to the other, and it was actually due to what I felt ended up being incompetence on his part. The doc was good with the trans stuff. But I developed a problem with my right knee. I went about 8 months with no solution. Nothing. No referral to a specialist, nothing more then two x-rays and continued admonitions to lose weight. Well I'd already lost 60lbs since I started transitioning let alone started seeing the guy. That weight loss occurred before I hurt my knee. It got to the point where using an elliptical hurt, and I stopped exercising regularly because it was just to painful. I switch doctors to the other trans friendly one. Got a range of motion test on my knee immediately, and they think something is wrong, and I get a referral. I See the specialist, get physical therapy for two months, got an MRI, find out I have a large tear in my medial meniscus, and I have surgery scheduled next week, and then I recover and get back to transitioning. Why the first doc couldn't do that and save me 8 months of lots of low-level pain, I don't know.

It seems that some medical professionals don't even understand non-trans healthcare let alone trans-related healthcare, and we should be doubly careful.

That's good info Beneficii. Thank you.

Despite the APA's position, I think a lot of people will be stick in the mud with us. But if we don't run away and stand up for ourselves as best we can, we'll win out the day or something like that.

"Unresolved gender issues" - was your brain telling you were a girl?

And it was not resolved mentally, until you corrected the hormones , correct ?

Thus, it seems that GD is fundamentally a hormonal problem, not the physical body problem? That was what I was saying in the prior post - that the trans support community does not recognize that the hormones need to be fixed first.



Don't all GD people have to do at least partial transition? The mind cannot stay in the incongruent state - formed by the wrong hormones, and unable to fully express itself ?



My woe is only my past.

The NT trans-woman would of been social woman. The loss of the social experiences might make their situations feel more tragic to them.



"Stuck around" .. lol .. does this mean suicide?



Can you elaborate on "maturity" ? Eight years I did six months on estrogen, and my personality did not emerge to be congruent with my changing body, so I had to back down on the hormones.

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 02 Dec 2013, 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks.

Your analysis is hilarious.

Yes, my brain tells me I am a girl. Growing up, I thought I was a girl, tried to do girl things with the girls, and this lasted up until school where the teasing and bullying came out of the woodwork and I learned to switch from interacting with others, to hiding myself away to protect myself unless I wanted to get hurt.

I'm not sure if my GD was resolved mentally by hormones. I wasn't able to start HRT until I was 29. My initial bloodwork showed an extremely low T level, and a higher than average estrogen level for me supposedly being male in appearance. My hormones were messed up from the get go. I think that I'm better having started HRT, but issues crop up every so often. The issues I have on occasion are I think rooted in the fact that it's not naturally produced hormones and thus heavily subjected to influences as my body takes it in. If I'm sick, or if I eat anything that causes an interaction, or I get too stressed, or any number of things, can throw off how my body takes in hormones before it gets to use them rather than actually have them already in my body to be used.

Really, hormones are a body problem. it's Chemistry vs Physical construction, but Hormones are molecules which technically have physical properties as they interact in the body. As to how the GD is caused specifically whether it's a brain construction issue that then misues hormones, or a misproduction of hormones, or genetic influence widespread throughout the body that doesn't know how to use the hormones correctly, or whatever. It's most likely both, chemically hormonal, and physical structure.




As a cross section of the whole process yes. Anyone who transitions all the way, transitions at least part way. I'm sorry and apologize if this comes off as playing captain obvious with this statement. I'm not sure if there is something more to this question I'm just not picking up on this morning. I'm really stressing about stuff here at work, and I think I'm coming down with a cold/cough/flu/???.



I agree. Everyone does deal with their own battles which although may have an outward appearance as people interact, may be completely different internally. One of the groups has an attendee who has cancer, and she always complains that her cancer meds are super expensive and she can barely afford it, and we heard it every meeting, sometimes several times a meeting. Broken Records, and she's not the only one. Others have similar issues they feel they need to be a broken record about and share there misery with others, and I just can't deal with it. I have my own problems. I don't want their problems. If anything they should tell me something good that happened so I can be happy about it or share something great that happened. I don't empathize well enough as it is because I have a sh***y empathy filter and get overwhelmed.



Not suicide. They left the group because they couldn't stand the constant life sucks attitude others tried to spread. They couldn't stand how depressing the group was for them and left so as to not be depressed.




I'll post on the maturity thing later when I have internet access for a longer time.

On the supposed wondrousness of the Canadian health care system when it comes to SRS funding:

http://beneficii.blogspot.com/2013/12/u ... anada.html

Did you understand what was going on ? If so, why did it take you until age 29 ? There must of been a mental block?

I figured out what was going on at age 32; it took lowering my T for my brain to realize what was going on.

You make it sound like you were aware of being a woman your whole life?



So, T did not antagonize your brain ?

Your personality after years of HRT is the same as before ?

My experience perhaps is so different. It took me hormonal intervention to realize what was going on, and years of changed hormones to fully develop my personality.

That is why it is hard for me to relate to trans people. That is why I dig into the hormonal stuff. My body never got masculine, I always looked like I was a young boy - people would tell me that - they would say I am not aging - it is because of the high estrogen as a youth - because of the incorrect hormones in my body -hormones that smashed into my brain and cut my brain functions - creating I think a counter-process generation of estrogen to equalize the hormones - my bone structure never became "manly". The hormones made self-understanding impossible.

Thanks for writing. I was hoping to find someone among the ASD-trans group that experienced this "hormonal hell", and more so the difficult process of emerging the personality after decades of destruction from "hormonal hell". I will just have to accept I am one of a kind.

Thanks.

I sort of understood being transgender as far as the information I had, which wasn't much, but increased. I know information about being transgender several magnitudes greater then I did back as a child or during high school. I actually came out to my family post suicide attempt, saw the counselor, and nothing came of it. I blame myself partly, and my parents somewhat. I lied about being cured of my gender issues because I couldn't function without being overwhelmed and stressed out with all the activity that went along with dealing with being transgender. I didn't know I had AS/HFA then and I feel that if I didn't have that, I would have had a handle on it. I attempted to solve it again in college but ran out of money and in order to cope with all the stress and anxiety and depression in my life, I tried to suppress being trans and ignore it which didn't turn out well. Finally as an adult with a job, living on my own, I found I could deal with it, and reduce other stressors. I feel that my AS/HFA has been the biggest stumbling block in my life in regards to transitioning.



I would say in general yes I did believe myself to be female or at the very least not male, but I would condition this self view with a lack of awareness. I didn't know what transgender was until later in my life. I knew from the get go that I didn't fit in, and I didn't like a lot of the things I was required to do or be because of male. I didn't socialize well, or communicate effectively also, and I definitely shyed away from socializing so I was behind the curve when it came to fully realizing this. But me as say a four year old, had a very poor and limited understanding of the world versus me as a fourteen year old vs me as a thirty year old. Younger me didn't know enough to clearly know what I know now if that makes any sense. And younger me with AS/HFA couldn't communicate worth s**t and that compounded the problem and delayed me making any progress until recently.



I think T did antagonize my brain and my body. Post puberty was hell with T, and I detest my masculine looking body from it.

Your description of how your body developed reminds me of something that I think should be realized by the LGBT community. Not everyone on the T spectrum starts or goes the same way with the actual technical reasons/causes if any that can be found. In one of the support groups I don't like going, we had an FTM who had PCOS and speculated that was a significant factor in being trans. There was an MTF who was not masculinizing and whose parents forced T shots on while going through puberty and later found out she had Kleinfelters. Another FTM whose work with an endocrinologist and other specialists found that her body turns any excessive T into Estrogen at a lower threshhold level then average, and another who found her body can't process T in a supposedly normal manner to masculinize properly.

There are any number of reasons that factor into being transgender hormonally or genetically. You may be one of a kind, but I doubt that although my reasoning isn't going to help. I think that out of the seven billion people alive on earth, you may be one of a dozen or maybe one out of a hundred. But that's just technical nonsense. As a species we really don't have the infrastructure in place, or the tech base to know what everyone is afflicted with let alone mitigate or cure everyones issues, so it seems like you and I are alone. This is one aspect of what I'm struggling with being Trans and AS/HFA. I don't know if that made any sense at all.

I had written out quite a bit while sick over the last two days on this and then didn't save the text file to copy paste later. Way to go me.

Here's the short version.

With anything in life, the more you experience, given you have nothing obstructing your perception of what you are experiencing, you get better at it. This gets to the point where the law of diminishing returns applies unless a paradigm shift occurs such as tech base increase, new methods & techniques etc... Also the concept that things take time should be considered. Nothing happens instantaneous.

As to my specific use of mature that I think you mentioned, quite a few of the people who are trans between the two groups, just tell everyone that they should do everything as soon as possible, regardless of the consequences, as if rushing through this will work out. I detest hearing that. The safest and responsible path should be chosen. Give yourself time to heal between surgeries. Don't go into debt and ruin your credit in the short term to partially meet your goals when in the long term, you just shot yourself in the foot for making any progress. As one example, an mtf bought a brand new charger, and then laments that she can't afford to get SRS. That's the maturity. A lot of people gloss over actually being smart about transitioning and instead think only of the short term, and when that doesn't go as they want, they're all boo hoo, life sucks.

I'm doubly careful or at least try to be because my AS/HFA has given me a crap executive function that is unreliable which makes being not stupid about transitioning a bit harder. I also have non-trans health problems which are of concern and need to be fixed in addition to trans-related care. It's frustrating seeing and interacting with the mentality that it's all or nothing, all right now, damn the torpedoes mentality. I prefer to check myself before I wreck myself.

It's also frustrating seeing so many health care insurers in the states completely deny transition-related care. I just got the exclusions list from a co-op health insurance company here in my state, and yup, sure enough, transition-related care is completely excluded. From a co-op, something that's supposed to be for the little guy.

I tell you, It's stuff like this that makes me start biting s**t. I so goddamn hate my f*****g state with all its stupid f*****g hick people; they all f*****g deserve to have their juices squeezed out of them.

Here's my problem. As I work to try to get some sort of coverage for SRS, every time I fail, I will only get angrier and angrier.

I know those feelings of anger in regards to transitioning. Mine are mostly rooted in feeling stuck.

My insurance is Aetna and they contradict themselves on whether they cover it or not. My plan says that it's not covered, but my plan also says I have to jump through stricter hoops than the SOC demands to have it covered. Which is it? They've covered all the visits, scripts, bloodwork, psych visits so far, so I don't get it. I just hope they don't pull out the rug at a future date in time. If Aetna does this, I'll turn around and say, you okayed it and if it was a no go then Aetna mislead me, and are the ones at fault, not me.

I am still under the impression I need to save on my own. It's hard because now I'm in debt for getting my hair transplant surgery and my knee surgery is going to cost a chunk of change. There are so many things I've avoided so far in life because I'm always in debt trying to get out of it and this transitioning s**t costs money. I try and save up, but it's slow. I have enough to fly to maybe fly to Thailand and visit, but not much else, and that money is my emergency money where I can live for three months on it. I could go into debt as I know a few SRS surgeons offer financing, but I don't want to end up where even though I have gotten my SRS through financing myself into debt, I then can't repay it, and screw my future self over long term with a low standard of living. I feel like I shouldn't have to do that, but I probably will.

Oh, some surgeons offer financing? Are these Thai surgeons or American surgeons?