I’m at work and I’ve just consumed a 375ml of Coke Zero and a snack pack of Barbecue Shapes. I started my 200mg of T today with the thought of trialing this dose for the next nine weeks. My expectations aren’t high, but I am expecting an increase in energy and libido, the energy being my main goal. However I realise there may be some unwanted side effects too and for that I am going to have to wait and see. At the moment however, five-hours after my shot, I feel exhausted and a little spacey. I have another three hours of work and then I am done for the day.
My anxiety levels have increased again, however I have no idea if this is due to the T or other factors in my life. Thankfully I am seeing my counsellor again in a few weeks and go through my thoughts with her. I’ve been a little disconnected from other genderqueer peeps because it’s been one thing after another – first a cold, then facilitating training workshops, another bug/virus, being busy and work. I did however manage a few quick catch-ups and I am hoping to see a few other friends at dinner this Friday.
I’m however struggling a little keeping afloat in what feels like to me a mostly trans* world. Despite people’s best attempts to introduce the topic of gender-neutral pronouns, mine were quickly forgotten, in several circumstances, when I was referred to as ‘she’. There were two events where this happened:
- I’ve been facilitating a training course for newbie counsellors within the LGBTIQ community where I am amongst two gay men, two lesbians and a trans* guy. At the begining of the course we all stated our preferred pronoun when introducing ourselves. Despite being the only person preferring gender-neutral pronouns (e.g. they, them etc.) I didn’t hear or find anyone slipping up. The next two weeks however was very different. First I heard a member of the training team slip up, so I made an effort to try and speak up. I normally let these kind of things go, so imagine when I gathered the guts and calmed my anxiety by casually saying what my pronoun preferences were. By the end of the day I felt bad because the poor person felt I could have perhaps told them in private (instead of with one person close by), which caused them to be quite upset. Anyhow without going on and on about the situation, I soon found several people started referring to me as ‘she’ and wondered why the trans* guy got to have their pronouns respected?
- Second occurance was at a social afternoon with friends where I was very aware of being referred to as ‘she’. Now while I don’t mind being called ‘she’ when someone has made the effort to ask me of my preferred pronouns (I really don’t mind but prefer the use of ‘they’) I was suprised that these friends went for the ‘greater of two evils’. Another friend mentioned it at the end of the day as we were doing the dishes and asked if I had noticed and what my thoughts were. It was my own fault for not enforcing it and it’s made me a little more determined to speak up for myself.
Anyhow this weekend we have our second-last training session and I will be co-facilitating with Genderqueer Australia to present about counselling trans* clients. I initially wanted to give my personal story to make people aware about assumptions, perhaps even to stand up and say ‘hey I am not invisable!’. However as soon as I mentioned it to the rest of the training team the trans* guy offered to tell his (not sure who knows and it may also be a bit of a ‘coming out’). I think both stories would be very powerful, actually I think anyone’s story would be, but I am not sure this is the place to do that – at least not while I am presenting to a training team I am continuining to work with. It does however remind me of the incident in NZ, and my heart just sinks a little at how invisable I sometimes feel.