Growing up Trans - Intermission #3 - The Dark Side of the Knife

[dolari]

Growing up Trans - Intermission #3 - The Dark Side of the Knife

After the web finally became popular in the late 90s, Usenet began to get less and less traffic, and more and more spam bots. I left it in 2000 once I moved back to Austin, to focus more on my transition. My main conceit about that time is that I'd managed to stay on Usenet for seven years, become somewhat popular, and without anyone seriously questioning my gender. I guess I typed like a girl as well.

Moving offline from Usenet, I did keep in touch with many of the folks from Usenet, most of whom I came out to when I moved to Austin. All of them took to it well, but then, there was a reason I kept in touch with them after leaving: They were just cool people.

One of these people was Alice. Although Alice wasn't going by that name at the time, as she was a man during those years.

I first met BoyAlice back in the mid 90s on Usenet. He seemed like a really fun person, witty, made music and had lived around the world. When I left Usenet, I made sure to keep contact going with him, and he was one of the first people online I'd told that I was trans. He took it well. Too well. And sure enough, it was only a few weeks before he came out to me. Alice was also transgendered, and just starting out.

I remembered all my time trying to figure out who I was, and find other transfolk as I was coming out. I wanted to make sure I was there for her, and to help her through her transition. This ended up being a very bad thing for the both of us.

During her own transition, I made sure I was there as often as possible, answer questions, listening to the trans angst we all have, offering advice. At one point she questioned wether she wanted to go through with it after all, and I encouraged her to continue, which she did. All that coaching and advice, and even coaxing helped her get her surgery.

It didn't take long, but she had her surgery, and made it out to the other side as GirlAlice.

And she regretted it. She was in a manic phase of her life, and believed that having a sex change would allow her to erase her past mistakes by taking on a whole new identty. To that end, she did everything she could to make it happen, and it did. Once the manic phase ended - she realized what she'd just done and now found her self knee deep in a new society where everyone expected her to be a woman.

She wasn't transsexual before, she was now.

Whole she doesn't blame me, to this day, I feel guilty for my role in that.

It's also precisely this reason I changed Allison's story in Closetspace. In the original drafts she was just a crossdresser deciding wether or not to actually go through with surgery. In the end, she chose not to. Alice's story, and the terrible price it exacted, made me change that story to a person who had the sex change surgery, and regretted it. With so many comics out there focusing on how wonderful being trans is, and the good that comes from surgery to correct that, someone needed to say "It's not for everyone, and for some, it could be a terrible decision."

I take a lot of flak because I always suggest following the Benjamin Standards of Care. Many trans people feel that it's a way for Doctors to prey on transfolk and eat up their money, or that they're barriers to their absolute right to transition. I've never seen it that way, and I still don't. Despite what unscrupulous individual doctors and therapists are doing, the Standard of Care are there to keep this kind of thing from happening. And if it's right for you - you will pass with flying colors. As I often say, I'm batshit insane, and I still got my surgery papers.

Alice still regrets the decision, but has moved on with her life, and made peace with her new gender. She lives her life as a woman, and has become a successful computer programmer.

We're still good friends.

Growing Up Trans Chapters:
Preschool - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2238402.html
Elementary School - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2238626.html
The Nightmare of Fifth Grade (NSFW) - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2238939.html
Middle School - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2239155.html
High school - Year 1 & 2 - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2239578.html
High school - Year 3 - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2240215.html
High school - Year 4 - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2241302.html
Opening up to a Whole New World - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2242118.html
Intermission #1 - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2245139.html
The Boulton and Park Society - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2243005.html
The Birth of Jenn Dolari - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2243105.html
Life with Geri - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2244596.html
False Starts - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2244834.html
New Name, New Home - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2245871.html
The Real Life Test - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2246452.html
First Impressions - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2246872.html
Lone Star Rising - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2247894.html
My Chemical Romance (NSFW) - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2248223.html
Lone Star Falling - http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/2249137.html

Comments

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

And if it's right for you - you will pass with flying colors.

Not to be a troll, hon, but...how's that workin' out for you?

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Somehow I knew you'd speak up.

I have everything I need for my surgery. The only thing keeping me from having the surgery is a complete lack of money to do it, and I've since stopped trying for surgery because I don't think I'll ever have the money to do it anymore.

It worked out for me. What failed was my ability to pay for it. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd be on the first plane to Thailand.

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

*nods* It worked out for you.

It doesn't, for a whole lot of people.

And, to be frank? Keeping the Benjamin standard is a big part of why SRS isn't something that can just be performed at your local hospital, or covered by your insurance. It's not like it's a horrible bad evil thing, but it was a start, that's all. We need fewer "celebrity surgeons" and more treating this like a medical procedure, like something you do for the patient's health care -- not something you have to scrape and save and build a life story around.

Nothing against life stories and the challenges that shape people -- I just think, and so do a lot of people, that this should be less like getting an extreme form of body mod (pay a lot up front, no recourse if you don't like it, lots of hoops to jump through) and more like, you know, a medical procedure.

People will have experiences like Alice did no matter what. But I think if we have less of the "life journey toward the big chop" and more of the "talk to your doctor about your options", the less you'll be seeing peer pressure to fit your identity into any one narrative.

[agent_dani]

This!!!

I know I'm about 2 years late to this, but jenndolari just pointed me here. I'm one who has had a very successful transition and was content with my life until the gatekeepers started pushing that I had to make a choice between having SRS or abandoning my transition. Of course, they couldn't force me to abandon it as such, but they could make things difficult by screwing with my HRT prescriptions, etc., which they did to convince me.

I had SRS and regret it while not regretting the rest of my transition. I'm working on how to be okay with my surgically altered body (I don't think "happy with it" is possible.)