|
|
@@ -0,0 +1,431 @@
|
|
|
+<!DOCTYPE html>
|
|
|
+<html lang="en">
|
|
|
+ <!--Copyright (C) 2018 E. Blåsten
|
|
|
+ Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
|
|
|
+ document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
|
|
|
+ Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
|
|
|
+ Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and
|
|
|
+ no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the file
|
|
|
+ "LICENSE.html". -->
|
|
|
+ <head>
|
|
|
+ <meta charset="utf-8" />
|
|
|
+ <title>Trans FAQ</title>
|
|
|
+ <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
|
|
|
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="../include/mathstyles.css">
|
|
|
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="../include/homepage.css">
|
|
|
+ </head>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <body>
|
|
|
+ <nav>
|
|
|
+ <ul class="navbar">
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="../index.html">Home</a></li>
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="../contact.html">Contact</a></li>
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="../research.html">Research</a></li>
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="../photos/">Photos</a></li>
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="../trans.html" class="active">
|
|
|
+ <span style="line-height:100%"> ⚧ </span>
|
|
|
+ </a></li>
|
|
|
+ <ul class="navsubbar">
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="coming-out.html">Coming out</a></li>
|
|
|
+ <li><a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a></li>
|
|
|
+ </ul>
|
|
|
+ <li class="logo"><a href="index.html">Dr Blåsten</a></li>
|
|
|
+ </ul>
|
|
|
+ </nav>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <div class="paper">
|
|
|
+ <section class="content">
|
|
|
+ <h1>Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <section>
|
|
|
+ <h2>So you're transgender, what does that even mean?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Transgender is the 'T' in the LGBT-acronym. It means that
|
|
|
+ I don't agree with the gender assigned on my birth
|
|
|
+ certificate. The opposite of transgender is
|
|
|
+ cisgender<sup><a href="#footnote1"
|
|
|
+ id="fn1src">1</a></sup>. More precisely I'm a trans woman,
|
|
|
+ i.e. a woman who had the extremely bad luck of being born
|
|
|
+ with testicles instead of ovaries and was thus raised as a
|
|
|
+ boy. So for most of my life I believed I was a man and
|
|
|
+ that most men thought like me. On hindsight, after talking
|
|
|
+ more personally with many of my close male friends, that
|
|
|
+ is a very silly thought.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>You don't think like men?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Surprising, isn't it? As I recall several dozens of events
|
|
|
+ from my childhood, puberty and adulthood, I now feel
|
|
|
+ extremely stupid for having imagined these were thoughts
|
|
|
+ that most men would have.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ For example, most of my life, since the first puberty, I
|
|
|
+ thought that just like me, all men fantasized of having
|
|
|
+ breasts. I mean <q>surely</q> that must have been the case
|
|
|
+ since they are so obsessed with them… However I
|
|
|
+ thought that that could never happen, so that's why nobody
|
|
|
+ ever mentioned it out loud.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I also thought that everybody else is also constantly
|
|
|
+ fighting their subconscious preferences whenever there's a
|
|
|
+ gendered choice to make, for example between choosing a
|
|
|
+ feminine or masculine version of an item, like a camera,
|
|
|
+ clothes, shampoo, etc., and that most people also had to
|
|
|
+ often take the least favourite option just to follow the
|
|
|
+ gender norms and avoid being bullied.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ As a kid moving to a new school, I thought: <q>all my
|
|
|
+ teachers are women, so I'll grow up to be a
|
|
|
+ woman</q>. What kind of kid gets thoughts like this, and
|
|
|
+ also recalls them every year ever since?! Well now I
|
|
|
+ know: a trans girl.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I feel like there were so many hints that I should have
|
|
|
+ realized my identity much earlier. I don't deserve to keep
|
|
|
+ my PhD!
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>So you want to become a woman?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I don't want to become a woman, I am a woman. Before, I
|
|
|
+ wasn't <q>out</q> as a woman. Please don't reduce people
|
|
|
+ simply to the sum of their body parts. People who seek
|
|
|
+ treatment to their menopausal symptoms don't want to
|
|
|
+ become women either. They are women. My situation is the
|
|
|
+ same but more extreme: I have mental pain because my body
|
|
|
+ produces the wrong balance of sex hormones, i.e. too much
|
|
|
+ testosterone and too little oestrogen. That makes my body
|
|
|
+ look different than how I see myself as, and also affects
|
|
|
+ my mood. So I want to fix that, and feminize my body and
|
|
|
+ voice through medical treatment and vocal practice. This
|
|
|
+ is called <em>transitioning</em>.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>Couldn't you be mistaken?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Mistaken, like being delusional? That would mean my
|
|
|
+ primal wishes and fantasies of waking up in a female body
|
|
|
+ since adolescence don't mean anything; that I have been
|
|
|
+ delusional for most of my life? That doesn't even make
|
|
|
+ sense. On the other hand perhaps it's not my body's
|
|
|
+ problem but a problem of my brain not growing up
|
|
|
+ masculine. But guess what? The brain is the one in charge.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>What if you change your mind later?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I can see two possible ways I would change opinion on this
|
|
|
+ later: a) of my own free will after having lived as a
|
|
|
+ woman for several years, or b) by society's transphobia
|
|
|
+ that makes transitioning very difficult. In the first case
|
|
|
+ there's nothing wrong and I would feel very proud to have
|
|
|
+ another experience under my belt. In the second case
|
|
|
+ please encourage me to continue with transitioning. My
|
|
|
+ inner child is a little girl. If b) happens, that girl
|
|
|
+ who's been struggling to get heard for this long would get
|
|
|
+ locked up, or worse. I would be like an empty husk
|
|
|
+ afterwards.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>How did you know you are trans?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ This is a long story, but the gist of it is as follows: I
|
|
|
+ have always dreamt of having a female body, but I didn't
|
|
|
+ even know transgender people existed or that there is such
|
|
|
+ a thing as hormone replacement therapy. I thought this
|
|
|
+ must be a pretty common fantasy, albeit one that's
|
|
|
+ impossible to come true. Then one of my quite distant
|
|
|
+ friends came out publicly as trans, but I ignored that for
|
|
|
+ a while since I thought it meant the same as
|
|
|
+ cross-dressing. Then my subconscious gender started
|
|
|
+ manifesting even more, and I stumbled upon an article
|
|
|
+ about the various gender choices Facebook introduced a few
|
|
|
+ years ago. Suddenly <q>transgender</q> was a real serious
|
|
|
+ word for me, and I started reading about it. The stories
|
|
|
+ of other trans people resonated well within me, and that's
|
|
|
+ how I started on the path which I'm on now.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ That was the short and boring version. The more detailed
|
|
|
+ version includes angels, toxic plastic, and a great deal
|
|
|
+ of self-deception. I might post it one day more publicly,
|
|
|
+ but for now you have to meet me face to face if you want
|
|
|
+ to hear it.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>But you didn't know it as a child?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ It's true that in the news and media transgender people
|
|
|
+ are often depicted as having known it since they were
|
|
|
+ children, for example by insisting on playing with the
|
|
|
+ toys of the opposite gender. Like most issues in the news
|
|
|
+ this is an oversimplification. There is no particular age
|
|
|
+ limit on when people can realize this part of
|
|
|
+ themselves. Furthermore it's a fight between society's
|
|
|
+ external pressure (transphobia, cisnormativity, gender
|
|
|
+ binary) and the person's primal sense of self. For example
|
|
|
+ if I had grown up in a more liberal country and had seen
|
|
|
+ other transgender kids, I might have connected the dots
|
|
|
+ already in primary school. I simply thought, like my
|
|
|
+ parents and teachers had taught, that having a penis meant
|
|
|
+ being a boy, end of story, and that all boys are on some
|
|
|
+ level jealous of girls.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>So you liked guys?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ No! Gender and sexual orientation are different
|
|
|
+ matters. However I want to feel good about my own body
|
|
|
+ first before thinking of this issue too deeply.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>Subconscious gender?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ This, or <em>subconscious sex</em>, is one of the terms
|
|
|
+ coined by Julia Serrano to explain gender variance in
|
|
|
+ people. Everybody has a subconscious gender, but for most
|
|
|
+ people it is the same as the gender assigned to them by a
|
|
|
+ doctor looking at genitals at birth. When it is not, it
|
|
|
+ tends to manifest itself in subtle ways. Let me give you
|
|
|
+ an obvious example: the first time I saw myself in a
|
|
|
+ dream, I saw a woman.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ A much earlier and much more subtle example: the store
|
|
|
+ from which I bought my first camera had two colors for it,
|
|
|
+ red and blue. Most people would just pick the color they
|
|
|
+ like best and be done with it. My mind raced, <q>I should
|
|
|
+ take the blue one because it's obviously for boys/guys,
|
|
|
+ but I like the red one much more. Moreover since I'm so
|
|
|
+ tall and strong, nobody would dare to insult me for taking
|
|
|
+ the girly choice</q> and I bought the red one. Basically
|
|
|
+ often when there was this type of choice and I felt I
|
|
|
+ could get away with it I would pick the more feminine
|
|
|
+ option.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ The words <q>get away with it</q> are relevant
|
|
|
+ here. Society is much more tolerant to masculine girls
|
|
|
+ than feminine boys. When I was young I had long hair. And
|
|
|
+ I was insulted of <q>being a girl</q> or <q>being a
|
|
|
+ tranny</q><sup><a id="fn2src"
|
|
|
+ href="#footnote2">2</a></sup> so much just for that. So I
|
|
|
+ mostly let these gendered thoughts come and go and
|
|
|
+ dismissed them. But fighting against my deepest thoughts
|
|
|
+ was a losing battle. Over time there were more and more of
|
|
|
+ these kinds of thoughts which also became more and more
|
|
|
+ explicit. Each time I acted on them I would feel
|
|
|
+ inexplicable joy.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ For example I used to sit cross-legged until I was ten
|
|
|
+ years old or so. Then one of my classmates said that girls
|
|
|
+ sit like that. I didn't want to be bullied, so I stopped
|
|
|
+ sitting that way. Ever since, every single day, every
|
|
|
+ single time when I sat down I consciously avoided crossing
|
|
|
+ my legs. This summer of 2018 I went against that. I sat
|
|
|
+ down legs crossed for the first time after 20 years. It
|
|
|
+ felt like fireworks! It felt like freedom! It felt like
|
|
|
+ that's the proper way to sit down! Silly isn't it?
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>People mention gender dysphoria…</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ There is no precise definition of gender dysphoria. It
|
|
|
+ encompasses all the negative feelings related to the
|
|
|
+ incongruence of your subconscious sex with your external
|
|
|
+ or perceived gender. A related but opposite concept is
|
|
|
+ <em>gender euphoria</em>: the feeling of joy when your
|
|
|
+ actions or how people perceive you is congruent with your
|
|
|
+ subconscious sex. As with most feelings, these can be
|
|
|
+ subtle or very explicit. Recall the example above of
|
|
|
+ feeling strange joy from buying the red camera. Similarly
|
|
|
+ I felt very glad when my wife said that many women would
|
|
|
+ be jealous of my eyelashes. That's gender euphoria.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Gender dypshoria is more difficult to detect before you
|
|
|
+ admit consciously to yourself that you are
|
|
|
+ transgender. There's always some excuse for why you would
|
|
|
+ feel bad. As a kid I did enjoy breakdancing and
|
|
|
+ partying. During my teenage years I skipped all the fun
|
|
|
+ and partying and focused my mind 100% on maths. I simply
|
|
|
+ didn't see anything worth celebrating or enjoying in what
|
|
|
+ puberty brought forth. I thought I felt bad exclusively
|
|
|
+ because of my father's death. But that happened many years
|
|
|
+ earlier, and I had been happy between that and the start
|
|
|
+ of puberty. I was especially sad and felt like nothing
|
|
|
+ could be done about the beard and the changes to my
|
|
|
+ voice. Similarly, the typical milestones of getting
|
|
|
+ married, buying a house and becoming a father never felt
|
|
|
+ that important to me. It was like that's what was expected
|
|
|
+ of me, so I'll gravitate towards that then. It felt like
|
|
|
+ someone else's dream. However now if I go back to those
|
|
|
+ milestones and imagine I would be a mother, that changes
|
|
|
+ everything! It really makes me want to pursue that dream.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ After you know you are trans, gender dysphoria becomes
|
|
|
+ painfully obvious. I can give you some examples again: I
|
|
|
+ feel mild discomfort whenever I book a flight ticket and
|
|
|
+ have to choose <q>male</q> because that's what's on my
|
|
|
+ passport. I'd rather not look at mirrors if I can avoid
|
|
|
+ it. Same thing with seeing myself in photos. When I go to
|
|
|
+ shopping centers I feel a deep sorrow because the women's
|
|
|
+ clothes I see there wouldn't look good on my masculine
|
|
|
+ body. And I have no interest in men's clothes. If I see
|
|
|
+ someone pregnant I feel happy for them but also that fate
|
|
|
+ has played a cruel trick on me. Some days when I interact
|
|
|
+ a lot with people who see me as a guy I cry for hours
|
|
|
+ after returning home. Now as I have to let my beard grow
|
|
|
+ for electrolysis, I have to remind myself of no pain, no
|
|
|
+ gain to get through the day. Some days before I had
|
|
|
+ started hormone replacement therapy, I wished
|
|
|
+ I <q>only</q> had depression instead of gender dysphoria
|
|
|
+ and that I would not feel pain whenever I see myself.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Over time the feeling of gender dysphoria became much
|
|
|
+ worse for me, conjuring up suicidal thoughts in case the
|
|
|
+ doctors would not prescribe me oestrogen. That's why I am
|
|
|
+ transitioning to living and being perceived as a
|
|
|
+ woman. This is despite having to sacrifice many things for
|
|
|
+ that. These sacrifices are well worth it to avoid the pain
|
|
|
+ of the previous paragraph. But as it turns out, they are
|
|
|
+ only scratching the surface…
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ One hour after taking the first oestrogen pill, I realised
|
|
|
+ how bad my mental state had been. I felt a rush of
|
|
|
+ cheerfulness. I laughed. I started giggling. I felt
|
|
|
+ great. I felt what actual happiness is. I felt as if I had
|
|
|
+ had a glass of Champagne, and that feeling still lasts to
|
|
|
+ this day. What I thought was a normal mood earlier was
|
|
|
+ actually a state of depression. I had had thoughts of
|
|
|
+ suicide at least once a week for many years whenever I
|
|
|
+ would feel bad about something, and that something was
|
|
|
+ usually the thought of having to live according to the
|
|
|
+ typical male gender role. Suddenly these thoughts were all
|
|
|
+ gone. Poof! just like that, life felt like it's worth
|
|
|
+ living. Seems the oestrogen receptors in my brain had been
|
|
|
+ starving for quite some time. So for me gender dysphoria
|
|
|
+ was also a hormonal issue in the brain.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>What are you going to do?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I am going to <em>transition</em>. This means different
|
|
|
+ things for different persons, and doesn't always involve
|
|
|
+ medical treatments. In my case it means the following. I
|
|
|
+ am already getting permanently rid of my beard with tens
|
|
|
+ of thousands of small electric shocks. I am doing vocal
|
|
|
+ exercices with the goal of learning to control my larynx
|
|
|
+ and soft tissue in the vocal tract to make my voice sound
|
|
|
+ womanly. I started hormone replacement therapy so that
|
|
|
+ people would look at me and see a woman, and that I would
|
|
|
+ finally develop the breasts I've been hoping for for so
|
|
|
+ long. Just these three items will take a long time to
|
|
|
+ complete. While this is happening please be supportive.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>Hormone replacement therapy?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ This, or HRT, in the context of transgender people, is
|
|
|
+ medication that will make the body start looking the same
|
|
|
+ gender as your mind is. I am having feminizing HRT which
|
|
|
+ means firstly that the testosterone produced by my body
|
|
|
+ doesn't affect me anymore, and secondly I am taking
|
|
|
+ oestrogen. In essence I am going through parts of the male
|
|
|
+ puberty in reverse while at the same time having the
|
|
|
+ female pubery (no, I cannot get periods or pregnant
|
|
|
+ unfortunately).
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>Don't you know that trans people get harassed and
|
|
|
+ discriminated against??</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I do. Now I'd rather be bullied for who I am than live as
|
|
|
+ who I am not.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>I'm serious, trans women get killed in bad neighbourhoods</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Look, I am already very dysphoric about my own body, and
|
|
|
+ counting how many times I've almost died because of my
|
|
|
+ diabetes and risky motorcycle driving, I'm not going to
|
|
|
+ waste any time living a life I don't enjoy. Being harassed
|
|
|
+ and having to avoid dangerous looking people is nothing
|
|
|
+ compared to what I would feel if I continued my life
|
|
|
+ without transitioning.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>How can I help?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ Great question! You can google <q>how to be a trans
|
|
|
+ ally</q> and get general suggestions. But in my case you
|
|
|
+ can do the following:
|
|
|
+ <ul>
|
|
|
+ <li>
|
|
|
+ Call me <em>Emilia</em> (or Emily or Em or <em>爱美
|
|
|
+ 丽</em>) and use <em>she/her/hers</em> when talking
|
|
|
+ about me and my stuff. This will show everybody that
|
|
|
+ you respect my gender identity.
|
|
|
+ </li>
|
|
|
+ <li>
|
|
|
+ Use my new email address
|
|
|
+ <a href="mailto:emilia.blasten@iki.fi">emilia.blasten@iki.fi</a> and
|
|
|
+ as a backup
|
|
|
+ <a href="mailto:emily@countermail.com">emily@countermail.com</a>.
|
|
|
+ </li>
|
|
|
+ <li>
|
|
|
+ Give <strong>helpful</strong> suggestions if you think
|
|
|
+ I'm doing something that could be done better.
|
|
|
+ </li>
|
|
|
+ <li>
|
|
|
+ If you have any questions, please just ask. I'd rather
|
|
|
+ answer than let you guess wrongly.
|
|
|
+ </li>
|
|
|
+ <li>
|
|
|
+ Keep in touch with me. Now that I'm taking several
|
|
|
+ months off for transitioning it's very easy to become
|
|
|
+ lonely.
|
|
|
+ </li>
|
|
|
+ </ul>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <h2>What about maths? You left academia, no?</h2>
|
|
|
+ <p>
|
|
|
+ I did leave. But I'm an academic, and ended up quitting
|
|
|
+ the job at the bank. Currently I have enough savings for a
|
|
|
+ while after Hong Kong, and I want to calm down and let my
|
|
|
+ mind rest a bit. Transitioning is the number one priority
|
|
|
+ in my mind right now, at least getting rid of the
|
|
|
+ beard. It would take several months. Once that's done, I
|
|
|
+ feel I'd be ready to start working full-time again. Don't
|
|
|
+ worry, I'm keeping my mind sharp and am working on several
|
|
|
+ papers meanwhile.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ </section>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ <section class="footnotes">
|
|
|
+ <p id="footnote1">
|
|
|
+ <sup><a href="#fn1src">1</a></sup><em>trans</em> is Latin
|
|
|
+ for <q>across, beyond</q>; <em>cis</em> means <q>on this
|
|
|
+ side of</q>.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ <p id="footnote2">
|
|
|
+ <sup><a href="#fn2src">2</a></sup>This is a slur. Don't
|
|
|
+ use it.
|
|
|
+ </p>
|
|
|
+ </section>
|
|
|
+ </section>
|
|
|
+ </div>
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+ </body>
|
|
|
+</html>
|
Emilia Blåsten