gender identity
 

I know that for most people this topic will be outside of their experience, but in any case, I am having some fairly major issues with this right now. I am getting support in the form of counselling, but for unrelated issues, the counselling I am getting is supposed to help me with work related anxiety. I initially opted to focus on this on the rationale that I could clear out non gender related issues first and then address the gender stuff once I had got myself to be more stable. I'm starting to think that I made a mistake, it took a lot of guts for me to tick myself as being transgender and write my preferred name in the box, and yet, this seems to have been completely ignored by my counsellor. I am starting to think that I cannot sort out my work related stresses without looking into my gender issues, since most of my stress relates to the fact that I do not see my degree as being something which is taking me anywhere.

The reason I see my degree as being pointless is because, as things stand, I will end up having to work as my birth sex and dress accordingly. The thought of doing this horrifies me, I occasionally wear female clothing, say, for the purpose of visiting my family, but the result is me feeling deeply uncomfortable and out of place, if I had to go to work like that every day I'd just fall apart. Uni gives me a sense of security through being able to be myself without divulging anything too personal. The thing is, if I get a degree, all it will do is catapult me into the job market and into discomfort through hiding myself behind a false exterior in order to "get on in life". In this sense, it makes no difference to me if I have a degree or not, in either case I'd be living a lie. I don't see how graduate employers would want to take me on if they saw me in an interview they would either see someone who clearly didn't like being in their own skin, who lacked confidence and was generally unemployable, or, if I went as myself, they would see a cross dresser.

My only option right now is to stay in the university environment until such a time I can get myself through the system in order to be legally male, and be seen as such. The only problem is that this isn't financially viable for me.

The fact is, I can't see a future for myself outside of academia, at least, not until I can be myself, but in the meantime, I cannot afford to stay in academia long enough to get to that point. I will only get to that point when my family situation changes, since as things are, my hands are tied, I cannot tell my family about the things I am going through since the family is a mess right now and any further disruption could break the already fragile situation.

Basically, I have issues with work related anxiety, but I also have issues with family and future employment which are nullifying my achievements at uni giving me no motivation, but the counselling I am receiving does not acknowledge these things. My counsellor has never addressed me by my preferred name, in fact in the last appointment she used my legal name (worst of the three names I have) and on occasion has made comment which may infer that the gender stuff is irrelevant, but I can't tell if that is me being paranoid over it, or she is in fact dismissing it.

gah, messy post.

First off, I didnt think it was messy at all, very well atriculated!

I don't really have any advice for you. :-( To be honest, I can't imagine what you are going through.

Also, that councillor? She sounds like a dismissive arse. You are there for her to help you and support you and she doesnt (or refuses?) to call you by the name you specified? Not useful in my book, that will only alienate you more. What a tit.

You deserve better than that. You can be who ever you want to be: be pink, purple, fat, thin, man or woman for all I care as long as you are happy then it shouldnt matter.

I know this isnt advice but I just wanted to let you know someone is on your side. Please, PM me anytime.


Love,

Julie x

Heyya,
The only advice I have for you is that you should tell your counsellor that your stress/anxiety issuses are down to your gender identity. Maybe he/she doesn't realize how much this is affecting you. If you feel you can't talk to her/him maybe write a letter to them explaining what you've just told us. Take care. x

Hey, have you ever thought about contacting a transgender support group? I don't know what part of the world you're in, but here's a link to a worldwide trans group list: http://http://www.lauras-playground....ort_groups.htm

Maybe you can find some people who've been in the same situation who can refer you to some better help than that hack counseler that you've been seeing!

Good luck :)

HI, thanks for your replies everyone, I have been involved in the trans community and have a fair few trans friends, but the thing is that there's many things I try to keep separate from that space i.e. I don't speak about my personal issues with them too much. As for the counselling, it is what I can get for free through my uni, I could always get myself reassessed and see another counsellor, but I've already done this onvce, although, in fairness to the previous one, I had not mentioned any of this to her but I didn't feel able to bring it up. The person counselling me is different to the person who did my reassessment, and so any record she'll have of it will be in the paper work that was handed to her. I had said nin my reassessment that I wasn't too worried about sorting it out in the time being because I had wanted to focus on sorting out uni work first since it seemed to be the most important thing, the idea being that I could disect and seperate out all my problems. After having cut out all the surrounding problems my plan was to then focus on the gender issues without bringing anything else into the mix, however, I'm starting to realise that actually, I can't just seperate out different parts of my life like that since they all seem to be interacting.

I think that I may need to bring this up with my counsellor, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

Okay,
I know this will probably sound ridiculous, but have you spoken to your GP about being referred to the councelling services on the NHS? Honestly, they're so much better than uni services, who are well meaning, but ultimately shit.

I dunno, and I know that Easter is only like 2 weeks away, but they have started to help me quite a lot, it was a tough ride at the start, but if you are prepared to work at it, then they may well be good for you, and they also have all sorts of specific services. I don't go there for the same issues as you, but I do know that they do spend time adressing identity issues, as I had to go through all of that.

I was referred by my psych and I had to wait less than 4 weeks for an appointment, plus, the site is really close to certainly my house, so I'm assuming probably yours too.

Probably a useless reply, but yeah

I had considered going to my GP, but once again, I find that I get nervous about these things to the point of freezing up. I've had two doctor's appointments this academic year, the first one was to do with pain around my ribs (was a strained muscle) and I almost told the doctor about binding (wearing an elasticated vest designed to squash tits) because it may have been relevant, but I didn't bring it up. The second was for mitigations due to anxiety, and with that I brushed over quite a few issues and told the doc the bare minimum required for a doctor's note.

GPs + trans stuff is very complicated in terms of half of them not even knowing the NHS guidelines, let alone following them, plus, I am actually scared shitless of GPs, or anything that involves a waiting room/office for that matter. So yeah, being terrified of doctors really doesn't help, especially when there is a fair chance that you are going to have to explain NHS policy to them, which I'm guessing most GPs don't take kindly to.

Looking at it though, I will, at some point, have to approach the medical establishment, I'm just putting it off because its intimidating.