Hello everyone, I am not Spencer.
My name is Val and I will be subbing for him today.
This weeks topic is Pre-Teen Transitioning and if I wished I would have transitioned
sooner.
Here we go.
So for trans people who come out after we've already been thoroughly socialized into a
gender that we don't identity with, we go over that identity in our heads for
months, years maybe more than that before we go YES, MEDICALLY TRANSITION THE
FUCK OUT OF ME!!! or before we go "NO, MEDICAL TRANSITION IS UNNECESSARY FOR MY COMFORT,
HAPPINESS AND HEALTH AS A TRANS PERSON, IRRELEVANT TO MY IDENTITY AND I WILL NOT FALL VICTIM
TO HETERONORMATIVE SOCIETY or something between those two things
But, my point is, this is something we think about a lot.
For me, I came out as trans when I was 15 and couldn't to medically transition until
I was 18.
Months before coming out, I kept on going over in my head again and again, like, if
what I was feeling was really what I was feeling and if transitioning, even just socially,
was really what I wanted and needed.
From the moment I began dissecting my trans identity, until and probably for the rest
of my life, I've been wondering how much of people's transition related decisions are
related to influences from societal pressure, the gender binary, internalized misogyny,
how gender relates to expression, like, all of these things!
And as happy as I am and as much as I love the trans community, as much as I advocate
for it and as much as everything I saw about our identities being valid and us needing
what we need, all of that I believe truly and fully, but from time to time I still wonder
if, really, as a trans person, is there something wrong with me?
Every once in a while I struggle with the thought of how can I justify the way that
I exist in the world when it cost me so much money and parts of me are man-made?
I had and I have these questions and at the same time, ever since I was 15, every sense
and instinct inside of me told me that I needed to transition and there is not an ounce of
regret that I have.
Transitioning has made my life one million percent better, it's been night and day and
the daylight feels good.
Drama.
When I was 18, I told my therapist that if I couldn't start hormones before I went to
college, then I didn't even want to go because I did not want to move my life forward in
any way if I was being seen as someone I was not.
There isn't a part of me now that wishes that I could've started hormones sooner or had
top surgery sooner, but by the time I was ready to go to college, I couldn't wait anymore
and if I did have to wait, I wanted to pause my life and just exist without existing and
unfortunately that's, like, a better situation than a lot of trans people find themselves
in when they realize that they can't live any longer in a body that they don't connect
with.
And, really, I'm saying all of this just to say I know what it feels like to be 100% certain
that I need to medically transition and at the same time, be full of uncertainty.
I know what it feels like to feel like life and every experience in it will not be worth
it until I'm in a body that connects with me and an identity that can be seen.
Just because I didn't have these exact feelings when I was like, a young kid or a pre-teen
doesn't mean those people don't have those feelings because they sure do!
These feelings happen at all ages.
For everyone.
We're all trans.
I also know that all of these feelings can be super dangerous for a person and if, like,
a 4 year old kid has to deal with that until they're 18, that could really mess them up
or worse.
I know parents can have a lot of concerns with how certain a young kid can be about
things like this, but maybe the fact that they're discovering their gender identity
before they even have a chance or, like, the scope to think about internalized misogyny
and heteronormativity and the gender binary and all of this stuff that's super complicated
that I'll never stop thinking about, maybe that makes us even more sure of their pure
and genuine, less biased perception of themselves.
Plus, if all of us trans people waited around to transition until we were 100% certain,
no uncertainty left, then we'd be waiting around possibly forever or we're just like
omniscient beings that are like gloopy blobs from space and don't have genders.
As far as socially transitioning goes, like a kid being able to choose their own name
and choose their own pronouns and own their own physical expression and pick out their
own clothes, you will only be doing harm as a parent if you don't allow that to happen.
Just let people explore dammit!
Even if they one day deviate from that identity and expression and change.
That's good, that's healthy!
As far as medical transition goes, there are some concerns about the affects of hormone
blockers and puberty suppressants, mostly revolving around fertility, but other than
fertility, really, if that person ultimately decides to not transition and not go over
to hormone replacement therapy, the puberty that they were going to have is going to happen
anyway.
There are side-effects, there are pros and cons, but I'm not a doctor and any family
considering medical transition involving a minor, they should thoroughly be doing their
research.
They should know most of everything there is to know, most of everything to can know
at this time.
That's no different than how, like, any other trans person comes to the conclusion that
they're going to transition medically.
But, really, I understand that this is a hard one for parents just wanting to do the best
thing for their child and really I think the worse thing you can do is not even consider
options that your child says will make them happy.
I mean, medical transition is a major decision and major decisions for minors are major,
and parents making it minor that a minor is making this major decision are making a major
mistake!
So... that.
I'm going to stop talking now, but for those of you who want to become a better advocate
for trans youth and just want a little more knowledge in your brains, I'm going to put
a link in the description that is a link to some clinical research done in 2014, pretty
recent, about the effects and everything of hormone blockers and puberty suppressants
and stuff like that.
Anyway, for those of you who know me, it was nice seeing you, for those of you who didn't
know me, it was nice meeting you.
Goodbye.