Transitioning for a Better Life

(ah, that frustrating feeling of having saved a draft only to find that it didn’t save)

I’m going to speak about we/us, the general collection of FTM men with the understanding that it is not all-encompassing.

It’s interesting to find that though we transition to improve our futures, our impression of the improvement and the ability to see the plan through beyond short term repercussions. For example, all too often we focus on getting a therapist to approve us for T and to make enough money paycheck to paycheck to pay for T out of pocket since the effects of testosterone for those first few years are so important to our ability to pass. We work tirelessly, straining ourselves for that future. Why not work that hard at developing emotional and technical skills to have a career that pays enough to afford testosterone and other important bills (mortgage, cell phone, car, etc). Being able to pay for T and to get it is important, but being able to financially support oneself for the decades beyond the first years on T is even more important.

I’m not calling us all immature. (though I know many immature people of all genders) I think it goes beyond how we find ourselves in a secondary puberty that makes it hard to not feel 16 years old again…. (though that’s another hard truth to stomach, for another day)… But we are so ingrained at ignoring the long future. For so long, the future was an unavoidable, painful truth that we were stuck in bodies that did not portray the gender that we are.

I could never see myself as a grown woman. I was never growing up as I was in my mind. Even thinking about how I would structure a family was difficult (I know I’ve written about this experience in childhood)- it wasn’t until college that I put my finger on wanting to be dad. Even in my transition, there have been some short-sighted moments.

If I had known 3 years ago that it would be so much easier to get life insurance than it is now, I would have gotten a policy together. However, now as a 24yr old HEALTHY man I am temporarily denied life insurance based on statements written in my therapy record by a therapist. I am betrayed by my own honesty in a closed room, and further I am betrayed by the distortion of comments and snippets of a human being.

The technical reasons for the denial are sketchy and can be changed, but it’s going to take time and money. It’s a bunch of bullshit. I could have avoided this bullshit, if I had been able to think about what I would be needing in my future- beyond school, hormones, surgery.