Pronouns, correcting and moving on

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When I finally came out as trans at work back in 2015, it took a little bit of time for my coworkers to get up to speed. Most of them were great at simply self-correcting and moving on. There were always a few people who would start to make excuses for how hard it was, though, and go on and on at length about it, citing the pronouns that they used for me when they first met me or whatever. This latter behavior is a bit irritating, but I eventually got some of them to stop.

At my current job, where I started out female-presenting but visibly trans to begin with, I’ve only had one coworker have any trouble with my pronouns, and she’s always been great at self-correcting and moving on, with no further comment. And that is exactly what I want.

Most of my friends have been great about it too. When I was using they/them (as a concession to “how hard it is”), most of my friends were good at either self-correcting or mutually-correcting each other. There would be a few holdouts, but none of them really turned out to be actually friends – they’d all turn out to have some deep-seated transphobic baggage that they refused to address, and I’d have to cut ties with them. Fortunately that was the vast minority. And much more recently when I realized that I definitely prefer she/her, but they/them is still fine, well, I still have the same friends who are still being supportive in the same way.

In particular, one of my oldest friends, who is now also my business partner, has been amazing at self-correcting, in a way that is apparent to others and gets others on board. And he’s even gone through a second phase of that when I did the they/them to she/her switch, which isn’t even that necessary but I so greatly appreciate that he makes the effort.

But there are certain people in my life who claim to want to be on board but keep on making excuses for why they can’t, and why it’s so hard for them, and eventually shift the blame onto me. And they are people that I can’t simply cut ties with.

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Medical terminology for trans healthcare

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I am finally enrolled in Kaiser Permanente’s transgender healthcare program. (Why I didn’t get enrolled when I first signed up for it is a mystery, but whatever.) Today I finally received my insurance form for submitting reimbursement claims for my hair removal.

It gave me a diagnostic code of F649 with an explanation of “Uncomfortable with one’s gender.”

This is… not great phrasing.

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On the current dumpster fire

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Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence:

The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

[…]

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

To everyone who wonders why trans people are always so unhappy, or why I keep on caring about politics and getting upset about things I can’t control, THIS IS WHY.

This policy isn’t just about nomenclature or bathrooms (although those are both very important!), it also affects me directly in terms of the health services I can receive. It is yet another case of the Republicans being the party of personal freedom but only for the freedoms that they want.

Gender is (partially) a social construct, chromosomes don’t tell the whole story, intersex people exist, trans people exist, dysphoria is real, choose love, be kind.

I refuse to be legislated out of existence.