The ring of invalidation

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When I think about my inability to have MtF SRS, my stomach burns. I've had discussions with people about this inability, and I will go into some of what these people say. Other trans people tell me, "Join the party! I'm waiting for it, too! It's not all about you"; "You'll be fine"; "You know. It's perfectly OK to go about living as yourself without surgery." My endocrinologist has told me, "You're just going to have to accept and live with the fact that it's not available for you, that insurance won't pay for it and you don't have enough money." My psychologist, upon my telling him I have no hope to save up for it due to my executive dysfunction, told me, in a voice like I've finally come to accept a crucial life lesson, a kind of flippant voice, "Well, it's pretty expensive. God, it'd take years!" Previously, he had told me, "You're just going to have to accept insurance won't pay for it" My psychiatrist says she considers the anger I had over not getting it to be obsessiveness and a sign of bipolar disorder. My HR manager has told me, "You may not use the women's restroom until you get the surgery." My mum says don't worry about it, just be androgynous. Yet my stomach still burns.

I can do better than they. No one really needs that surgery, so it should not be covered anywhere. Trans people everywhere, if they want it, must save up, strike it rich, or whatever, but they should not be able to expect it from their governments, neither from their insurance carriers. Trans people should use the bathroom of their birth sex until they can get the surgery; if they can't afford it, then tough. Kosilek should go to hell. As for me, personally, I have a history of psychotic disorder, a risk factor for negative outcome after surgery. Also, executive dysfunction means that dilating would not work for me and I would have closing. Plus, I barely take care of my appearance anyway, and lots of people refer to me as 'he', so that would be another predictor of bad outcome. I wouldn't qualify anyway.

As I go through this thought process and cling to these thoughts, I find my stomach stops burning, and it feels like I'm more grounded, more in the world, with greater vitality.

Until the stomach burns again...

I thought you weren't in favour of transwomen using the womens restrooms anyway...?

You do sound like they'd be wary of greenlighting you for surgery if you could pay for it... perhaps you need to take the time to work through a lot of issues?

Sorry to hear about the hard time you're having.

Many moons ago I was a homeless drug addict in the street. Eventually, I ended up in a 9 month inhouse rehab program in NYC. Since I was dirt poor and in need of medical and psychological care, they enrolled me in Medicaid. I was then able to see a psychologist.

One day, as a senior member of the drug treatment program, I was escorting a junior member to a medical appointment. While there, I located a urologist and asked him if Medicaid would pay for a circumcision. He said it was possible but I had to prove being uncircumcised was detrimental to my health.

I wrote a note about how my extreme low self esteem, combined with the disgrace of owning an unsightly uncircumcised penis, led me to feeling sexually unworthy, which led to drug addiction, which led to my eventual homelessness. My psychologist corroborated my note, I presented it to the urologist, and I received my circumcision. I was 31 years old.

Too bad it took me being a homeless drug addict to prove need. If there was some way you can get a psychologist to state that, without the SRS, you will likely head that way, that might work to your favour.

Well, aside from self-invalidation, another technique I used to manage this feeling is to distract myself with other stuff. Sometimes, the thought of surgery intrudes on my distraction, but it works all the same. I'm watching NFL with my father, such a guy thing. Yet another reason why I should not get surgery.

I see my psychologist again next week and I will probably want to bring up the burning stomach thing, but I anticipate that he's going to get snappy and be like, "You're going to have to accept that insurance won't pay for it," like I don't know that already. I wanna come back at him. I often rehearse my conversations and I anticipate it would probably go something like this:

It also makes you look like a complete as*hole.

I feel dysphoric. I feel like I am apart from other humans. I was reading the adult and women's section on this forum, and I feel so separate from all that. I feel even separate from aspies and trans people. I'm having a hard time typing this because I keep slipping into staring, which soothes my pain a little.

I've read things about newly post-op transsexual women whose libidos increase after SRS, but who have to be careful to wait for healing. It seems their libido increases because their bodies are finally in a state in which they are comfortable having relationships and sex.

I was thinking about if I became newly post-op, how what I was waiting for would finally arrive. I then thought about how I would cut loose and I would move from relationship to relationship, from sex partner to sex partner. I would then feel sick, and consider the whole matter dirty. I would no longer be watching myself, keeping an iron grip on my will. I feel that the world is dirty and that most people are dirty, and that by doing what I do, keeping myself down, I can keep myself clean. Being denied a body that I can cut loose in only helps that.

I then wonder if maybe it is good that I can't afford SRS and if it would be good for me to be forever denied it.

Psychologist: You're just going to have to accept you're not getting the surgery anytime soon. I agree that insurance should cover it, but it doesn't. You just have to accept it.

Me: My stomach still burns.

P: Think of it like this. I want a luxury car, but I can't get it. Life moves on. I go onto other better things.

M: You think needing that surgery is like wanting a luxury car?

P: In a way, yes.

M: So, in reality, you don't really think it should be covered with insurance.

P: What? No. I think insurance should cover it.

M: No you don't. If needing this surgery were like wanting a luxury car, then why should insurance cover it?

P: Beneficii. You're being selfish. Think about all the starving children in the world. Think about something other than just yourself, for once.