sinisterporpoise

 I’ve avoiding posting political updates, health statuses, and even stories about transgender issues on Facebook lately.  I’ve not been too successful with some of these, especially items about the health, but I got the impression that most people do not really care. They just want to hear the phrase “I’m fine” even if I am not, although I do appreciate the one friend who keeps asking if I’m all right every time I give some expression of pain.

If I examine why I avoid things, it’s the fear of criticism. I know this old demon from social anxiety disorder, and I’ve always found it strange I can share things with people I’ll probably never meet face-to-face on the Internet.  I need to stop doing this, and in fact, I’ll have to go out of my way to start re-posting transgender updates and political posts on Facebook. No one who knows what I’ve been through in the past year should be all that surprised that my views might have changed.  And I’d be surprised if the Terre Haute Mind’s Eye Society people don’t already know that I’m transgender. Testosterone has already done its damage, and it’s hard to hide at my age, even though it is not impossible.  Besides, I also believe Mystique was right when she said “I shouldn’t have to” in the second X-Men movie.

Avoiding health status updates is more complicated. I tried to at one time because I thought people were getting annoyed.  Then I started getting probing, concerned, and somewhat ridiculous questions from my grandmother like, “Will you still be able to walk?”  (Uh, why wouldn’t I? I only had bone spurs removed from my big toes.)  I’ve gone back to doing some health status updates just so the family information network gets to where it needs to go. 

Other Issues

I found out something I did not know about low-income housing in Terre Haute. Not all of it is connected to HUD or Section 8. If this extends to other places as well, other than the small towns I lived in long ago, it may give me a chance to go someplace where the safety net programs aren’t quite as restrictive or unsupportive as Indiana.  I will have to look into this further.  Now, where do I want to go?  Pennsylvania is familiar, and I’ve wanted to go to New Mexico for a long time. I might avoid the desert southwest, however. I don’t think the drought is going to end until the region’s population declines

And an unrelated note, I found out my ankles have an unusually large range of mobility. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information. It’s nice to explain the ankle problems. She also said it might be why soft-tissue inflammation is showing up on the ankle X-rays that have been taken this year.  Does it mean I should switch from low-top sneakers to high tops otherwise?

 People who are socialized as male – whether they are male or not – are taught to keep most of their feelings to themselves. They are expected to display three feelings at most. Anger, joy and a null state of emotions are all society allows. Feminists decry this as one way the patriarchy harms men, but I am not going to use their language, even if I am using their arguments.  However, transition is in many ways a life-changing experience. While I would not give up what I have gained in the past few years, it is also important to note that I have lost things in the process as well.   Sometimes, however, transgender people do not take advantage of what they have gained, even though they should. Being able to display feelings more openly is one advantage of transition that does not take place easily.  Hormones do not change a lifetime of societally-enforced behavior. Even if someone can show their emotions more freely, it does not mean that they will. Crying might be one of the biggest examples of this.

Men are taught not to cry, or if they do, not to do it openly. Special circumstances, such as the death of a loved one, grant an exception.  Since starting HRT, I’ve found that tears come more easily, especially if it’s something that makes me sad, like hearing of the death of someone’s pet.  Last night, was one of those occasions.  Even though I can cry more freely and openly, I felt the need to hide my tears, because that is what I have always done.

HRT caused many changes, physical, social and emotional.  One of the more difficult ones I faced was experiencing a greater range of emotions at first. (Of course, there was also a childish glee at having breasts, something I wish would have subsided much sooner than it did.)  Even the way I felt anger changed.  It is not the expression of normally repressed emotions; it’s expressed because I have reasons to be angry.

And I must admit I’ve experienced a greater range of mixed emotions, although they are not necessarily contradictory. Perhaps the most recent example is finding out I have the beginnings of osteoarthritis.  While I’m not pleased about this, I was happy that it wasn’t what I feared. In fact, I felt like celebrating because the news was considerably less bad than I feared. (If German doesn’t have a word for this, it should. It’d probably be a variation of schadenfreude.)  I also have mixed feelings about being referred to a physical therapist. I’m afraid, excited, and filled with a desire to waste as much of Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shields funds as possible for all the crap that they’ve put me through when not covering my estradiol in the past. There’s also a desire to use as many of Indiana’s resources as possible because of their failure to provide adequate safety nets.  Experiencing an array of emotions over a situation is something I rarely experienced presenting as male. I might have once, but my peers, bullies and other quickly taught me that emotions were bad things to have.

As I go through the process of learning to be female, an experience I was denied, I find myself questioning whether I should be hiding this. People may state something if I become too emotionally charged, or view me as overly emotional, but they won’t openly ridicule me.  Women may do a lot of things behind the scenes that I do not understand or know about, and this, unfortunately, is also part of the learning process, and because it’s a social skill, I’m not sure I’ll ever learn it fully.  Maybe one day I’ll even be okay with openly crying rather than trying to hide it.  [Spoiler Alert!] At least for the moment, I’m glad no one saw me cry when Tris’s mother gave up her life for her in Divergent.

[Hmm... I wonder if I should post this on my Blogspot blog.]

 1.) Lobby to provide low-income coverage to residents of the state of Indiana and get approved
 2.) Provide paperwork that shows an impressive array of services  at what are supposedly cost-saving measures.
 3.) Sign up  the state and get customers to pay a modest premium
4.) Do everything you can possibly can to prevent those services from being provided
5.) Ignore federal law that says you can't discriminate against transgender people, frequently change the gender marker every time a doctor's office sends in paper work with a gender marker that is the opposite of your legal gender
6.) Refuse to pay for this low-priced medication on principle, even though you've already refused to cover Linzess and probably certainly wouldn't cover Lyrica because there's no generic for it at the moment. (Thank goodness I'm on gabapentin.)

Okay, I'm done complaining.  This is the second time they've pulled this particular trick. I'm getting sick of it.   It was a fairly good day  until I went to pick up the prescriptions.

During the last few months, I have spent more time in the company of doctors than I would like. The thought that visiting the doctor causes sickness has crossed my mind more than once. However, I've dealt with male and female doctors, and I've noticed a pattern emerging in the way they interact with me. 

I'm sure this will not come as a surprise to any cisgender person or a transgender woman who has presented as female for a long time, but the male doctors are less likely to listen to me than their female counterparts.  My endocrinologist is likely to order the tests I ask for, as long as there is a good reason for them, and she will order them if she thinks there is a good reason for the test, even if I cannot articulate it clearly.  

The male doctors, however, usually assume there answer is right, and the main doctors has fallen into the "It's probably just your fibro" idea.  

Also having one part of your body feel too warm while another is cold is a weird sensation...

Note: This post is part of a writing project. It's working title is Fireside Chats with a Sinister Porpoise.  I have told this story elsewhere, so I do not care if it gets read here. 2nd Draft.

When I cam to Indiana three years ago, I did not know what to expect exactly. I knew the state did not have the mountains I knew in Pennsylvania. I also knew that the state leaned somewhere on the conservative and libertarian axis. It also meant increased difficulty in finding Middleswarth Potato Chips, Birch Beer, Lebanon bologna and a few of the foods to which I'd grown accustomed. (I can no longer eat flavored Middleswarth Potato Chips, but that is a different story.)

Even though I expected a somewhat different political landscape, I thought the attitudes would be similar to those I found in rural Pennsylvania. When I paid attention to the political cycles, even going so far as to attend a Wabash Valley Tea Party meeting, I discovered the erroneous nature of my assumption.

Republicans in the Midwest do not behave the same way as do the republicans from the Northeast. Like many people from the Northeast, I find Michelle Bachmann's political ramblings extreme. Her philosophy seems dangerous. Native Hoosiers -- especially those living outside of Indianapolis, Bloomington, or LaFayette, think Bachmann can steer the country in the right direction.

As I spent several campaigns here, I found that the Republican candidates were more than willing to do more than pay lip service to opposing LGBT rights. At the time of writing, Indiana's legislature considers a license to discriminate bill, similar to the one that Arizona's governor vetoed. They introduced this bill a year after they failed to pass a constitutional amendment that would have barred same-sex marriage. While I may not plan on marrying anyone anytime soon, transgender people are usually even less popular in red states than are gays and lesbians.

The change also comes after years of doing what I am supposed to do. I am working and I am doing my job well. I am doing my job well, and doing everything the right way, but this has not improved my situation any. My employer will not put wages above their current pay rate, and they implement policies to keep the number of hours each employee receives down. I cannot even go back to school because of student debts, even if further education. Even if I were able to return, the job market remains shaky. (There is plenty of factory work available here, buy I have never been able to keep up with the machines at these places.)

It's obvious that the way my father did things and tried to teach me to do things does not work. It never worked for him, and stubbornness maybe the only reason I continue to do things his way. Stubbornly refusing to change may be a family tradition, but it's not a very practical one. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate all of my assumptions.