Penny talks Transition

There is a startling amount of misinformation available about what it is like to go through gender reassignment. Its fair to say that the most misinformative articles and reports are put out by veriantly anti trans institutions. There are entire blogs dedicated to disavowing the existence of Trans people, radical groups of feminists who are openly calling for the death of Trans women, religious factions of all shapes colors and sizes denying the humanity of trans individuals and general public disgust at our presence.

I have been out as a Transgender women for two years now, in that time I have learned what ignorance really looks like. I have been shown what lack of education will do to a perfectly reasonable human. I have learned that truth is not what people want most of the time, complexity is difficult and in today's america complexity is the new witchcraft, education is slipping here and its starting to show. In 2017 I learned twice that if a group of middle aged men have had a few beers they will in fact kick the shit out of a trans women. Ignorance is rarely painful for the ignorant, but its downright painful for the bridge builders of the world.

There is an unquestionable consensus in medical circles around the planet that Transgender individuals exist and are medically explainable and treatable. Gender is unquestionably a spectrum, harvard, yale, annshutze, have published multiple papers confirming double blinds, now that these studies are actually beginning to be funded we are getting more and more confirming information and it all points to the truth of the matter, being transgender is a medical problem, the answer to the problem being to transition to varying degrees.

I began my transition after seven years of weekly visits with a therapist I trust deeply. I began sessions trying to work through my ptsd, the journey landed me in the most surprising of places. Not what I expected at all, however, I did find happiness, joy in fact. Something i had never experienced outside of my children's birth up to that point. I began taking Hormones, this process is called HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) it involves different steps for different people, for me it started with finasteride, spironolactone, estradiol and progesterone. These meds do different things but the general gist of it is they block testosterone and introduce androns into the body. After six months of this combo I was desperate to drop my testosterone blocker as it made me need to use the restroom all the time! So I gathered my money and found a doctor in south Carolina that could do an orchiectomy that month, then off I went. An orchiectomy is more commonly known as castration. So both of my testicales where removed in order to eliminate all the testosterone in my body and make it possible for me to drop the drug that was causing the issue for me. After surgery I changed my name legally and my gender marker was changed as after surgery in the eyes of the law I am female.

I just recently got a job not working for myself so that I could get insurance and afford the rest of my surgeries. That insurance kicked in this october, had to be there a full year before they give you the option of getting it. Now that i have it things are starting to move forward. In the near future I hope to have my vaginoplasty done and my chest. The hormones will be a life long endeavor but its worth it.

That is the sum total of a transition, its hard work, painful, scathingly uncomfortable and generally a trial. To those who need it however its a necessary medical procedure. All of this is my journey, my transition. I have chosen to be public with it because I believe knowledge is key to unity. There is nothing insidious about being transgender. I was not a boy who turned into a girl, i've always been a girl, now i am claiming my right to live that way and correct a birth defect of mine. Its my struggle, i have never asked for help in completing it. I have not used one cent of government money to obtain my goals and at no point have i even thought of trying to convince others to be transgender, it simply doesn't work like that. I dont beg for equality, I am your equal, and as such i can tell you that people in the general public are awful to trans people, there's no reason to be however there is not one single day I don't have a run in with at least one person, its for this reason I keep talking about who I am. I find that even the people who are most skeptical, most fearful start to understand after we have talked face to face a bit. Education breeds understanding which breeds acceptance. Plus im super fun.

I get told to shut up, and take it nobly allot, my answer is always the same dispassionate no. I talk about all this stuff not because its fun but because the voices of bigotry and disinformation are getting louder and the world needs more truth. All of this is complex but at the end of it we are all humans trying to do our best in this life. Hating people for there medical issues or sexual preferences or disabilities or hair color, its all the same level of stupid and the only way to combat it is to talk, to learn and to grow.