CW: medical discussion; dysphoria; misgendering; somewhat graphic descriptions of anatomy

Last year I came out. I had spoken about being nonbinary in the past, but last year was the first time I made a distinction that I wasn’t a woman and didn’t want to be considered one. I declared my pronouns for the first time.

The last year hasn’t been easy. Coming out isn’t the first step, and it definitely isn’t the last. It takes a lot to say “this is me”, but after you do that it becomes a daily struggle of folks wanting to let you know – subtly or blatantly – that they don’t understand, or don’t care to understand.

While I was able to come out to my doctors with a compassionate and understanding response, medical visits are about a 50/50 (sometimes 80/20) chance of being misgendered, deadnamed, and sometimes done seemingly with intent.

It feels often dehumanizing, but not because I want to be special, or because I think I’m more important. Because I’m asking to be treated like any human being and there are people that aren’t very far from me that would do everything they could to treat me the opposite. It’s not about morality, or righteousness. It’s ignorance, hate, and stubbornness.

Coming out to medical professionals isn’t just because you want to be gendered correctly, or have the correct name used. You can’t get gender affirming care if they don’t know you need it.

I asked my doctor about a hysterectomy last year. It was dismissed so quickly I don’t even know if she heard me ask for it. It was reacted to in the same way as if I asked to have my brain transplanted into a different body. As if I didn’t quite understand the severity of the question.

I was given tests that showed my uterus was completely normal. Nothing was wrong with it. There was nothing at all found.

So, I came out to my doctor. I told her that I was trans and that I didn’t want to have a uterus. Immediately I was listened to and she referred me to a surgeon who took my uterus out a few months later.

I cried in disbelief when I woke up from surgery. The way I feel about my body post-surgery is absolutely different than I felt before. I feel as if I have a semblance of autonomy, as if my body might actually belongs to me and not that I was stuck in a body I didn’t ask for.

The biopsy on my uterus after surgery however showed that I had multiple issues with my uterus and cervix. They weren’t normal. The results showed that I had a disease that was incurable that causes pain and suffering during (and around) menstruation.

The healing process from my surgery went fine, but it took months for the internal sutures to dissolve. So, I could feel them inside me, and was in a lot of discomfort on a regular basis. It was “normal”, because it’s all normal. I just had to wait until the stitches took care of themselves, but let me describe to you what was happening:

My cervix was removed, so I had to have a cuff sewn internally to seal my vagina where the cervix used to be. But, the sutures that were used started to come out, break off, and internally stab me. I was told it was normal and just not to have vigorous sex. But, it hurt. And it was just… normal.

The reason why I’m explaining this is to let you know that we’re expected to be okay with discomfort and pain, just as a rule. AFAB (assigned female at birth) bodies are expected to just deal with pain.

Every time I mention painful ovulation I’m told that’s just something that happens. It’s re-explained to me as if I don’t know what it is I’m talking about.

I found a lump in my breast last month and I reached out to my Dr. about it. They rushed me in right away for an exam and ordered a mammogram. It took almost a month. The lump was painful, it is painful, and it wasn’t going away. It wasn’t cyclical, it was just there and it hurt.

Almost an entire month later and I’m receiving my first mammogram at the age of 37. There was less discomfort than I expected, but also more pain than I was ready for.

At the end of it, after waiting a month, they told me there was nothing wrong with my breasts, my breast tissue was simply fibrous and dense. They handed me several pieces of paper on breast pain – explaining the different types and that nothing can help – and sent me on my way.

I was fine.

I should have been relieved.

I wanted to be relieved.

I was fine. I am fine. I’m okay.

I just have pain and that’s all. Just pain.

But, it made me once again feel powerless in the body I was given.

Being trans, being nonbinary, being not cis isn’t just about pronouns. It’s about listening to people talk about men and women as if only two genders exist despite that being biologically disproved. It’s about being referred to as “he”, and being treated like a woman. It’s about hearing people gender you correctly, and then group you in with women because they see you as one.

Last year, during one of my failed attempts at being assessed for autism (failed as in, the assessment never actually took place), the psychiatrist assigned to me asked me about work history. I responded about always having issues, but that they seemed more anxiety inducing after coming out. He inferred that I never had difficulty at work until I came out as trans.

While grossly untrue in many factors, the glaringly obvious one is that my difficulty before coming out was the same as after.

All of the fears I had before I came out were simply realized once I had actually done it. Coming out just meant I was telling people who I really was, not that I wasn’t already this person. I had already become this person, I had only been keeping parts of myself secret to keep them safe – to keep me safe.

Coming out isn’t step one, because you have to know that this is what you want before you take that step, and it isn’t a fad, or a phase, or something to do just to feel cool? It’s isolating and terrifying, and you come out because the pain of not allowing yourself to be who you are is greater than the fear of what people will do, or how you will lose people you care about simply by stating your own truth.

Legislation is being written to diminish my rights as a human being just because I don’t want to have my gender assumed by others.

But, when people look at me, they see a woman. They might know I’m trans, and if I’m lucky they might even use my pronouns, but when people pass me on the street, when people see my pictures, when people talk to me, they assume I am a woman.

There’s honestly no good way, no right way, and no easy way to come out.

And at times I just don’t bother correcting people, because it isn’t worth knowing if they’re being intentionally cruel or just painfully ignorant. It feels rude and unnecessary to be transphobic at this point in time. A willfully ignorant move to ignore science and nature – we are who we are, that’s a beautiful thing and not something fearful or dangerous.

It feels terrible to be told that my body should feel pain. It’s normal to be in pain with a body like mine. Which I feel ignores the fact that I don’t identify with the body I have, and the parts that pain me, remind me of my lack of autonomy and make me feel more dysphoria about that lack of autonomy.

Transitioning – my transition – has to be my own. And I don’t want to explain it to anyone and it will be private and I will be keeping things to myself. But, I also am transitioning, and I am changing, and my body is not the body I was assigned at birth and will continue to changed whether you notice or not.

I am beautifully scarred, and I’ve also been scarred by ugly things both inside and out.

Coming out isn’t the last step. Coming out isn’t the first step. It’s one of many.

Some part of me regretted coming out when I did, because I feel like my transition isn’t going fast enough for me to be seen as who I really am. But, like I said, there’s no good way, or right way, or painless way to come out. My transition cannot be what someone else wants it to be, or expects it to be, and maybe what I end up becoming isn’t going to be who you think I am, or should be.

I just want to feel like I can be me. I don’t want to be told that my body should just feel pain because of the parts I was born with. I don’t want to be told that it doesn’t hurt as bad as it hurts.

And this isn’t just an issue of being trans or cis – bodies are policed all of the time. If you’re fat, you’re not taken seriously. If you’re Black, you’re not taken seriously. Your pain doesn’t matter if you’re poor. This isn’t a singular issue for me, or for anyone.

I don’t believe that I deserve to be treated like a human being over anyone else. But, I also don’t believe that I deserve to be told that my pain doesn’t matter. No one does.

I can’t help that it feeds into my dysphoria. That it reminds me that I’m just a woman in the eyes of doctors and medicine, and my course of treatment is to be treated as such.

It’s a larger issue than just me. But right now, I’m feeling it. Right now, it’s making me feel bad about myself, about my course of treatment. And I don’t know how to ask for help when the answer I’m given is just “deal with the body you were born with”.

We are all born with a body. And that body is what it is, whether we feel at home in it or not isn’t a choice. It’s okay to ask for accommodations. It’s okay to request ways to feel at home inside the body you were given. It’s okay to need that, and that doesn’t make you a bad person.

It’s a struggle to figure out what accommodations I need. It’s not super easy to feel supported or understood.

I’m not talking about it to get sympathy, or attention. I’m not talking about it because I think no one understands. I’m talking about it, because I don’t want to feel ashamed. I don’t want to feel afraid in times like these, or give in to the idea that something is wrong with me for how I feel.

I just want to be treated like I’m human.