Two genders Two Tails

Hello and Welcome back to a rare blog post! This post is a bit different to normal because it is rant, but also it is to let you know where I am on my transition as of now.I am kind of skipping the other posts I’ve not written about yet. Anyway I’m going to get straight into this post and rant away!

Transitioning is really hard and I don’t think anyone will say any different really. I do think there are people that have or are transitioning have had it tougher than I have had it but cannot I say it has been easy for me… Because it really hasn’t! Time has gone very quick which I will probably think most of if not all the transgender community will be thinking that I am nuts. QUICK! 2 years have passed since I started with changing my doctors and almost 2 years since I went on the waiting list at the GIC.


I do not think I have spoke to anyone that has said their waiting for their appointments have gone quick. Even sometimes the way I talk about myself as there is so much I hate about myself, I spend a lot of time at the gym in front of mirrors and every time I have to see a reflection I loathe but yet times goes quick it doesn’t make sense and to say I face issues that I hate about myself everyday and say this time has gone quick is well... crazy!

Fitness has been a massive part of my journey not just physically but mentally

I do think I have been lucky really and managed to keep myself busy by setting goals that I have had to hit personally, because of that it has kept my mind mainly at bay and I have not really looked at the time it will take to get help, along the way I have added some goals and delayed others depending on how much of a priority they are, but this has kept me very busy. I have lost weight which is ongoing, I have managed to get on hormones through the NHS and not had to go through their BS system with the GIC, and currently I am going through my last goal of laser hair removal. The issue with fitness and laser is that they both have one thing in common and that is it takes a while to get where you want to be.

I think from about November 2019 I wasn’t feeling me, I was not feeling the way I used to be, I wasn’t at all feeling well like a dude! I started to notice specially now of the time writing this that my hair on my face is starting to go patchy, but the issue is if I am waiting for my fitness to get better and I’m waiting for my facial hair to devitalise. The issue is I feel I am pretty much the person I want to be excluding the facial hair and to a point I am happy with my body because fitness and the gym is ongoing, I look in mirror in my bathroom after a shower and I see almost a female, I see boobs that are developing, longer hair. The only issue is there is three issues… a nob at one end and facial hair at the other! At the moment I feel generally feel female and why should I wait for the next step. That would be going full time… or am I and I don’t see it yet? I feel if the laser is going to take time, longer than I expected and my boobs are growing bigger than what I thought they would to where it is getting hard to conceal them, then maybe I should introduce another goal and that is changing my name… Like as Nick which is my male name and it is on my name badge at work. Another is my hair, I do not want to wear wigs for the rest of my life and I am growing my hair... Unfortunately I do have a receding hairline and a massive monk patch on my head, which has started to grow but like everything it will take time and probably surgery.

People ask me all the time, ‘Why Sarah?’ I ask myself that now specially now, but I ask myself why not a unisex name or keep my own? Unfortunately the name Sarah was there at the age of 14 maybe 15 when I wrote something at school and called the Sarah Series, and when ever I played The Sims I would always call the main character Sarah. The sad story about that it took me 9 years to realise anything to why that name became so important. Looking back at it now what makes it worse is that it has taken over 15 years for the name which is about to be implemented, which is what I am debating now and for me it is all about one thing timing! The question is when is the right timing for me to officially drop the Nick?

Frustration!

So with all these questions floating around I thought I would ring my Gender Identity Clinic in Leeds to find out what exactly is full time!

The reason for this is because in order to get certain things through the service you have to live as your chosen gender for a minimum of a year. In some cases it’s for hormones, and some might be for surgery. I suppose for me because I do not feel anything as my former self, and willing to change my name legally as I’m getting into that role slowly then would that count? 

Errr no! So it was not explained to me very well but I was put on hold and the person on the other end went to find out. She returned and said that would it would be discussed at the second appointment and when this was looked up it would be a further 16-18 month after my first appointment… Which by then the waiting already racked up estimated 29-30 months. With 21 months already passed it is gruelling to know as soon as I step outside of the GIC I will have to wait another possibly 18 months at the most for my next appointment… Now this is where it might get complicated as the third appointment is 14-16 months for my hormones… I’m already on them through another method so what will be next? I really have no idea but everything I'm doing is all going to be written up and documented. 

Anyway the women on the phone said that they want to know that I am confident in my 

preferred gender role, and how I dress etc… That made me mad and now commence the rant!

Why Should I go F-T If I Am Not Ready?

Right now I am in a place of;

What’s the point in waiting? 

Do I need to wear makeup everyday?

Must I have to wear female clothes everyday?

I can pretty much answer the first and part of the second one together, so for a while now I know I am confident that I could go full time now, but that is a mental state. I am changing the outside to match how I am on the inside but it does not count. The issue is I have to to live confident for 1 year minimum as my preferred gender and with laser hair removal that does not happen over night and takes months even years to achieve this. 

So why should I not move to my next goal anyway? Well this is where part of question number 2 hits. Well shaving! Right now my hair grows on my face very quickly and to go to work I would have to shave and apply makeup… I would have to go on my break after a few hours, remove my makeup, shave then reapply, using moisturiser of course but I work 5 days a week which means I would have to shave a minimum of 20 times a week! That is a lot of razors and stress on the skin which I am not personally willing to go through!

This is the depressing part as it is waiting and waiting… And waiting. 29-30 months is the current waiting time for my clinic from when I was referred in April 2018 which was 21 months ago. So 8-9 months to go for my first appointment… After that appointment it will be another 14-16 months for the next appointment which is the important one as that from when I spoke to Leeds GIC is the diagnosis. Anyway to get the official diagnosis I am looking between September 2021- March 2022 if I am working that out right.

So I have time not to worry yet but I feel that I am in a great place to where I will be full time and will be for the first or not far off that 12 month mark as female. On the other hand the more I procrastinate the process I feel this wouldn’t be doing this for me, it would be working the system to get a result. 

Do I need to wear makeup everyday?

I barely wear makeup now and wear girly clothes, as I don’t have that time right now compared to when I used to in 2016 and before. I know there will be a time where I will get back into makeup etc but right now it just is not happening. For those that have followed me I have always said before I was transitioning that clothes do not define me. Makeup does not define me either. I wore them simply because I liked makeup, I liked trying something types of clothes I never tried before and tried to style them even though I look awful at times. 

The thing is if that is the case what does wearing makeup, clothes etc have to do with living full time?  Does not wearing makeup make any girl a girl? The other issue with me is I do not really leave the house and I have gone past that wearing makeup in the house stage, I have got to that point of why spend an hour getting ready to go to town for an hour and sweating my bollocks off waiting in Primark’s queues for some socks. Shaving my body hair for that small moment to prove a point of I can do this is something I have gone past. I’ve never had anyone say anything to me, I’ve never had people stop me and to be honest I have my ear phones in anyway so I’m not going to hear anything anyway. I think the odd time I’ve had people keep looking and stare at me or stare at me but I’ve just blown them a kiss. 

I think I spend more time at the gym than I do anywhere else outside my house than work so why bother! Why bother trying to put makeup on and have it go in my eyes or rub it off? Err no. I just want to go to the gym do my exercise and get home or work.

Must I have to wear female clothes everyday?

Clothes do not define me, from the first day of learning about who I am, I have never worn female clothes presenting as male, that never changed over 5 years… Till 5th January this year I wanted to be warm at the gym. I will never really wear pants as they get in the way and can snag on my prickly leg hair and it was too cold for my Male leggings. Without thinking out came my female leggings. This year I have won them more than my regular male leggings so this is a sign!

The Grey gym leggings are the women's legging

Okay so it’s just leggings at the gym but for those who know me will know I live a very boring life! I get up, go to the gym, go to work, study at work before I start for a couple of hours then after work I go home and study some more… then repeat!

My friends tend to be off at the weekends when I am not and the team I watch ice hockey with tend to play away when I am off. I don’t wear my best clothes to go to town for an hour and sit on a bus’s/public transport’s mucky seats that is full of germs. When I stay in I wear a red knackered tank top or a Chicago Bulls tank top and shorts all day, or I will studying or doing random things… no not that!

HOWEVER! at work things are changing as the shirt I currently wear is now snuggling to adapt to my upper body parts and round the stomach area is loose and flappy… Recently a button round my breast area popped open so my boobs are getting bigger and not meant for this my new forming body shape. The gender identity clinic said they want to see me confident in my preferred gender clothing, but in this case I might not have a choice. If I did have that choice where I my body wasn’t transforming as potentially as quick as it is. For me this shows the lack of knowledge the system has because not all girls wear female clothing, just as not all trans people at this stage where I am are not on HRT. It seems the system for me doesn’t explain what is living authentically in these times and to which in my opinion is wrong and outdated. I would love to go to the gym not having to wear shorts with my women’s leggings but I have something a biological women don’t have down there and you would be able to tell. I don’t think I could get way with saying its a camel toe. I might be losing weight but also you can only tuck away so much in that instance.

This next bit is also what I now have experienced up to now, Some people might think the GIC need to give you time to make sure you are choosing the right path and that it is what you want but this isn’t about the time it takes. It’s about how they go about it. Yes I love makeup, I love wearing a dress etc but when you think about it and the lifestyle that I live which really needs to be taken into consideration the same as any individual. Do women wear makeup everyday? No, do women all wear dresses? No, tighter clothing everyday? No. So why should a trans person? What and how do they class as living authentically Really?

I will be changing my name soon I feel that I am not the person who I was, so why should I keep the name? Many trans people I have spoke to have said that it counts from the name change and the document show the change. To be honest part of me wants to count it from 5th Jan as it was the first time I had been out in female clothing in the public, part of me is saying when I change my name. All I know is that it will never change the direction of where I am going. It means I’ve got one hell of a challenge left to come, and like I have done throughout my journey so far. I am going to fight it, I will not give up and I will throw everything I can at them so show the direction I am going in.

So there you have it on this blog post, a slight insight to how long the waiting times are, and in my opinion a system in brief that needs to change. This post has hopefully given you guys a little glimpse of where I am on my journey, yes I have some blog posts to put out, which I will do within the next few months as I’m about a year behind. 

I hope you have enjoyed this post/rant 

See you guys soon

Love 

Sarah

xxx