Relief- Coming out

I had been planning to come out to my mother today for some time now. As I mentioned before, I was quite nervous about this process, as I think many of us are. We fear losing those who we love, losing the connections we have built up over a life time, losing support during a time when we need it the most, in short, we fear rejection. This fear is renewed with each time we come out to someone else.

For me, coming out to my mother caused me so much fear. In the back of my mind I knew that I would never lose her love and acceptance, but, still, I feared for the worse. As this week went by, with her here visiting, I found it hard to hide the fact that I had something substantial on my mind. I could see it in her eyes that she knew I had something I needed to talk about. It began to eat me up. 

Last night, as I went to bed, my spouse asked me how I planned to go about coming out to my mom on Sunday. I was not sure if Sunday would be the right day. I told my spouse that I would do it on Monday.  Today came. We had fun with the girls in the morning, including a water balloon fight in which my mom and I both got soaked by little ones. After that I had some homework to do for school. I was also not feeling well. The stress of not talking to my mom was beginning to eat at me, and make me physically ill.  I managed to work my way through my reading, and then I curled up and I cried. With my face in my pillow I cried in my room until my spouse came in. I told her that I could not wait any longer and asked her to go get my mom.

She did, asking my mom to come upstairs for a minute. Then she gave the reassuring words of,”Be strong.” I don’t think she picked quite the right words before bringing my mom into our room. I was still in tears. After an long embrace, and reassuring my mom first that I was not dying, I explained to her what I have felt and known my whole life and that I was trans. She responded with love and support, concern and reassurance that her love for me would never change. We talked, we laughed, we cried a lot. We talked about hormones, transition, and what the future holds. Later we pulled my step father aside and I came out to him. Again I received words of love, understanding, and support.

A massive weight was lifted from my shoulder today. I received such unconditional love and support from some of the people from whom I value that kind of love and support from. I realized that I have to trust my gut instinct, that I know the people around me so very well. I have formed deep, loving, and trusting relationships with my close family and friends. These are relationship that transcend gender. We accept each other no matter what.

I sit her tonight so grateful for those I have around me, my spouse, my family, my friends. I have many more people to come out to in the future, but the future is a little brighter, a little easier to negotiate with each positive and supportive reaction. This is a difficult journey that we all make, it is one that is filled with so many unknowns. We never really know what lies ahead, how people will react, or what each day will hold. We push ahead anyway, we risk losing it all to become who we truly are inside, to bring our presentation into alignment with the person we are on the inside. We would not take these risks is this were not so vitally important to our living a meaningful and happy life. These are necessary steps. 

I took a risk today, even though it was one I was sure was not a huge risk, and I stepped away from it with the ability to be more honest and true with my mother than I have even been able to be. Her love is so important to me, and I love her so much. Thank you mom for being you and being my mom! And finally and thank you to my friends out there who voiced their support or silently kept me in their thoughts, you are all amazing and I love you all.

Being Comfortable

Thursday evening, after watching Trinidad, I was out in front of the theater talking to a few friends. To set the scene a little bit and put my thoughts and feelings into perspective, the theater was on Austin’s 6th street. For those of you who are not familiar with 6th Street in Austin, this is a main area for live music, bars, and is heavily trafficked by college students, especially on the weekends. This last Thursday was not different, UT was not is session, so all the college students were looking to get out and have a little fun.

As we stood on the corner in front of a bar next the the theater, college students strolled by on their way to an evening likely filled with too much alcohol and a lot of raucous fun, you know, the kind we used to have back when we were that age. The topic came up about me and my transition and what brought me to the point I am at. We were covering this topic since I had just met one of the people who was with us. I covered my story and what brought me to the point I was at, and then went into some of my current feelings about my transition. For those who know me, you know that I am proceeding rather confidently through my transition, forging ahead with each new step determined making the best of it. I then began to comment on how I felt being out in public as myself, as Kathryn.

I commented on how much more comfortable I was at that moment, standing on that corner, surrounded by college students, much more so than I would have been if I were standing there in “guy mode.” If I were in “guy mode,” I would have been much more self conscious and just not comfortable being out there. I commented on how this is how I have always felt I was meant to be, and I just fell more comfortable this way. There is not stress, no incongruity, no conflicting feelings, just peace and calm. 

In many ways, it is hard to imagine why I had waited so long to take these steps towards transition. I have known for many years that this was a journey I would take, I only kept putting it off. I avoided the issue for fear of rejection, and fear of knowing that it was entirely possible for me to transition successfully. Back then, I had so little confidence in myself, that I couldn’t take that first step. Instead, I went through many years of being uncomfortable every time I was in public. I many ways, it was like walking out the front door naked. I always felt like people were looking at me and judging me by the way I moved. I always tried to walk “more masculine,” and appear to be nothing less than a man. 

To be out as myself is so different. It is such a more genuine way of being for me. The thoughts go through all of our heads when we take our first steps out into the world, dressing for the first time, going to dinner or the store for the first time, the thoughts that,”everyone is looking at me.” For me, those thoughts faded away. I felt less of the “everyone” is looking at more, and more of just a few people may be looking at me. I began to feel more at peace with my surroundings, and more at peace with how I was presenting to the world. In short, I felt more confident. I did have nervousness about interacting with some people, and still do to some extent. As I get out more, that nervousness decreases. I can, however, walk down the street, or walk through the mall without the feeling that people are looking at me and judging my presentation. 

These steps just seem to continue to confirm for me that I am on the right path. They give me confidence to keep moving forward, to push ahead and take the next step. Everything about transition has just felt right. I can honestly say that nothing I have done in my life to date has felt as right as transition does to me. I think part of this comes from the fact that I accepted my gender identity many years ago, and accepted the fact that some day I would transition. I just put it off, until I was coaxed out of my shell and given the opportunity that I needed. I was pulled out of the dark by someone who was supportive and just wanted to see me happy. She did it at a time when things seemed so dark and each night I fell asleep wishing for the opportunity to transition. Because of this, I hit the ground running. I was ready, it was time for me to be me.

Now, I proceed forward with my life, with anticipation that I will finally be comfortable with who I am. With the self confidence that it doesn’t matter what others think of my decision to transition, that it doesn’t matter if people are looking at the way I move or the way I am dressed. What matters for me to be happy is that I am being true to myself. I not longer have to navigate through life being uncomfortable in my own skin. I am shedding that shell, and trading it for a presentation that I am comfortable with. I am getting more confident, more out going, and this is all because I am comfortable.

Access to Health Insurance

I want to start off by just apologizing for being a little haphazard in my posting here. I am hoping to get on a more regular posting schedule. I have had I lot of different things going on, and I have had a lot that I have wanted to write about but little time to do it. I do appreciate those who have stopped by to see what is going on here, and I look forward to writing more and engaging in some discussions of the topics and issues.

I just got off the Town-Hall conference call with Donna Rose, Jamison Green, and Becky Allison. I thought it was a good start, and I hope there can be more opportunities for our community to come together like this. I think one of the major benefits of calls like this is the breaking down of economic barriers. Todays topic was essentially health care, and underlying the need for coverage is the need to break down economic barriers. Far too many in our community are unemployed or underemployed. For many, making the journey to a conference may not be possible for economic reasons. Calls such as this will help those members of the community to be able to reach out and interact with the Transgender community at large. I think this will also be of value to those who may live where there is no trans community to speak of. 

Now on the topic. I think most of us have heard about the AMA resolution in June and the WPATH statement in July. These were both significant statements. I would like to start with the AMA statement, which was actually three statements related to removing barriers to care, removing insurance barriers, and removing financial barriers. The one thing that struck me was the repeated use of GID throughout the statements. They did, however, reference GID as a medical condition, and referenced not only the DSM but also the ICD. Now, I was not familiar with the ICD until this evening. I would appreciate information about it if anyone knows a little more about it, and how GID is treated in the ICD. I think that it is positive that the AMA referred to GID as a medical condition as opposed to a mental disorder. I am curious about how this statement in conjunction with the WPATH statement and other papers could serve to help legitimize our need for treatment if GID were removed from the DSM.

I am behind Kelley Winters’ efforts, my only concern being that we have another avenue by which can can continue to gain the medical treatments necessary to transition. I know some have argued that they do not want to be medicalized. To those I would argue, how can one justify medical treatment in the absence of a medical condition. I want to be medicalized, I just don’t want to be pathologized. I believe that part of our process towards equal health coverage is strengthening the medical need and the recognition of GID in the medical community as a medical condition.

I rather liked the fact the the WPATH statement included things such as chest reconstruction and FFS. A Jamison mentioned, many chest reconstruction is the only surgery that many FTM’s want at this time, and for many of them, this surgery is very validating for their gender presentation. The WPATH statement acknowledges that the path to transition is about more than GRS. There are other surgeries and procedures, which some consider cosmetic, that go a long way towards helping to affirm ones gender identity and help make a transition more successful and less emotionally painful (I think anyone who has been through laser or electrolysis knows these don’t reduce physical pain!). 

I think one of the most powerful things in this statements was the AMA’s statement of dispelling the myth that treatments, procedures, and surgeries for trans people are cosmetic or experimental. For us, these procedures are necessary for us to be able to live a life that is more genuine and more true to who we really are. These procedures reduce the emotional stress that can cause so many other health problems. When it comes to insurance companies arguing about cost, I have a few examples of my own situation. Prior to coming out and beginning transition, I smoked almost a pack of cigarettes a day and I was borderline high cholesterol. Within days of coming out, I quit smoking. I stopped cold turkey, now that I was on the road to being me, I didn’t need that crutch. I also changed my eating habit and reduced my stress levels significantly. I was no longer eating the bad foods we eat when we stress eat, fast food, high fat foods, high cholesterol food, you know that stuff that tastes so good but is horrible for you. Since then, by cholesterol is half of what it was before. Not smoking and reduced stress are also significant. Essentially, I likely saved my insurance company easily hundreds of thousands of dollars by transitioning. I greatly reduced my risk of heart attack and stroke, reduced my need for cholesterol and blood pressure reducing medications, slashed my cancer risk each year that goes by, and greatly reduced the potential costs if depression were to lead to suicide of suicide attempts and the related hospitalizations. You tell me, which is better. I think I would take the road of paying for therapy for a few years, GRS and a few other procedures, and HRT. Over my lifetime I bet that it will cost them a lot less then the bypasses and other procedures I was headed towards! 

Another thing I did take away from this was the need to education, Educating our employers, the insurance companies, and the insurance brokers that our companies deal with. There were several stories of brokers discouraging Trans benefits, or pricing them too high to be affordable. I worked in the insurance industry for a brief period of time, and when you are a smaller company, you have little or now ground to negotiate when it comes to benefits. It all comes down to what can I and my employees afford, and what do we have to give up this year. The education has to start with the insurance companies and the larger companies that have the negotiating power. If every company listed in the Fortune 500 index said we want full coverage for out trans employees, I am sure that the insurance companies would take notice.

I find it interesting that many insurance companies offer full benefits to their trans employees, and yet make it difficult and expensive for other companies to provide the same benefits. I wonder about the concept of creating and index that would measure and rate insurance companies not only on the benefits they provide their own employees, but also on how they make the same benefits available to subscribers. Imagine being self employed and having to shop for health insurance with trans benefits, I am sure that is impossible, and if possible prohibitively expensive. 

We need insurance companies to recognize trans benefits as a fundamental part of any group or individual plan. Spread over a sizable group, the costs are negligible. I believe one study showed that it was pennies per premium. I will find that presentation and post it later, I think it was from and Out & Equal conference. If this is part of every policy, cost would not be an issue, and we would finally have equal access to health insurance and the procedures that we need. 

I look forward to future calls, and the discussions and actions that they will generate. There are a few things out there that are dividing some of us, we need to concentrate on many of the things that bring us together. We will always have differing opinions on how to tackle a particular issue, but I think we need to respect the diversity of opinions in this community. We are an educated community, and we need to realize that there is more than one way to approach an issue. Good night to everyone, and hope to talk about some of this more.