I’ve gone my whole life (I’m 35) NOT thinking I was trans but now I do, wtf am I supposed to do with this? How do I find out for sure? Am I allowed to be a trans lesbian because I’m not attracted to men? Can I even come out, when it will ruin my whole life? I’m jealous of the youth, being old sucks.

    • dandelion (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago
      archived

      the problem with giving the advice of not transitioning because of the political situation is that there is a very real risk of not surviving the closet … the situation in the U.S. is not yet at the point where you will be imprisoned for being trans, but the risks of suicide are very real if you don’t transition (both in my experience, but also just by the numbers)

      I think it’s smart to stay stealth, to not be “loud and proud” right now, etc. - but I absolutely think it’s important to start estrogen and not risk your life by continuing to live with the wrong sex hormones.

      Also, it needs to be said: a closeted trans girl is still a trans girl. I am noticed and targeted less for my gender post-transition (despite having transitioned later in life like OP, and only been on hormones for less than two years) than I was pre-transition.

      Pre-transition, I was an effeminate “man” and seemed gay, and I struggled to conform to life as a man. Being markedly queer that way put me at risk, but as a woman I’m entirely normal and nobody notices me - I am finally gender conforming in a real sense.

      It can absolutely be safer for you to live as a woman when you’re a woman, and less safe to live as a closeted woman pretending to be a man.

      Still, the risks are there, especially in that early transition period - my point is just that being closeted isn’t necessarily safer as commonly assumed. (It’s also a matter of urgency, starting estrogen sooner vs later - you’re asking someone to wait years to get medical help because the U.S. might end up following through with its genocidal promises? At that point the trans people won’t be the only unsafe ones, queer communities in general will be unsafe, and getting out of the country will be crucial. Dealing with that situation with the wrong sex hormones in your body will only make everything worse, tbh.)

        • dandelion (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          3·
          5 days ago
          archived

          When you get a diagnosis it doesn’t add you to any global list, and it is not disclosed to the government. The diagnosis is a record, but it’s a private medical record in the doctor’s local information system. For the government to get access, they are having to subpoena records from hospitals - so they might be able to get this information eventually, but currently they are only seeking the medical records of hospitals providing gender affirming care for minors.

          DOGE having social security records does give the potential to target people who have changed their gender marker - and the federal government can do the same with passports. There are many ways the government can and will surveil and target their enemies & scapegoats - so don’t get me wrong, risks clearly exist.

          But getting your medical needs taken care of is a high priority, and doctors are even finding different diagnostic codes (and even deleting patient records) to protect their patients. There are also options like DIY HRT.

          Regardless, we don’t know where this is going or how long it will take for concrete risks to finally surface.

          I don’t know if you remember what it was like when your egg cracked, but when my egg cracked it was an extremely vulnerable and scary moment - definitely not a time when it would have helped me to have someone’s anxieties about the political situation shared.

          I was already scared enough to transition for so many other reasons, it is always very hard to make the decision to transition and there are very few supportive voices advocating that people get the help they need (or even framing transition as helpful, so often it’s reduced to “expression” and about “living authentically” - the medical consequences being entirely stripped from the context).

          Obviously OP has some hard choices to make, and it’s not obvious what the right answer is for them. If they live in the U.S., the state they live in makes a big difference in how safe it is to transition and whether their medical care will be protected or not, for example.

          Whether they have supportive people in their life to help, whether they have a spouse and kids, and so many other factors will play into what steps they feel they can take - but I want to be careful and not send the wrong message.

          What we know, empirically, is that transitioning is the only clinically feasible option, that it is low risk and has great outcomes, and finding a path to medical and social transition is important for a trans person’s health, even in times of oppression.

          Even as recently as the 1970s there were laws criminalizing crossdressing in this country; trans people have been transitioning for a long time under objectively worse laws and criminalization. It’s important we support one another, and that we provide the evidence and reasoning in favor of transition to counteract the default transphobic social context. The pressure to be in the closet is already very strong, as a matter of harm reduction it’s important to arm people with the facts about the clinically preferable alternatives.