[Music]
Chase: Hey guys, my name Chase
and today I'm going to be talking
to you about
the fear
of transition.
[Dramatic sound effects for emphasis]
Spooky
Why am I talking about this?
I'm like seven years on T,
four years top surgery,
all my legal papers have been changed.
I should stop-
No.
Kay, listen toots,
I remember
like it was yesterday,
what it felt like to fear
the idea of transition.
I thought I would make this video to talk about the
experience that I had when I was younger.
To talk about
the way that I found out I was trans
and how I was terrified
to transition, or to even
believe that I was trans
and maybe talk about the things
that I have gone through
and maybe give a little bit of insight
as an older trans person,
in the trans community.
I'm also old.
Kay?
I'm old.
When I look at all these kids transitioning
and they're like twelve years old,
I'm like "oh my god, I'm twenty-six."
Like I feel very old,
but I'm glad that I am here with this amazing platform
to show you that
I did it,
and I am super happy
that I did, and I am
glad that I got through my fear.
So, maybe I can give you some tips on what I did and what I've done along the way.
I realized I was trans when I was fifteen,
[laughter]
and I found some YouTube videos
and I was like "oh my god, is this me?"
And I was really confused for a very long time.
This story, you've heard a million times, but I'm sure
some people have never seen my channel before-
hello, hi, nice to meet you,
please click the subscribe button.
Kidding.
Not kidding.
[laughter]
This was back in 2006
and
hooooph!
I was
I was confused
and I didn't know what to do,
and I made a bunch of videos that I deleted.
I deleted them!
I don't delete anything, I've been taking a picture of my face every single day for seven years.
I like to document every single part of my transition.
I cry and I post videos on it and pictures.
Everything!
Yet, I was like "no, no, no, I can't be trans...
this is disgusting,
I'm gonna delete it."
And as I pressed delete,
and then you go and you have to like permanently delete it from your computer
I go to the recycling bin, I had a PC back then
and I press like delete forever, or whatever it was called back then
and it said "are you sure? They will be permanently deleted."
And I bring the mouse over and I say
"I'm gonna regret this one day."
Boop.
And guess what
I regretted this day.
I am so mad at myself,
I literally
want to go back
to 2007
at that point
and look at myself in the face and
f***ing slap me.
You know why?
Those videos were the rawest,
rawest of me that you would've ever seen
and that was when I was so
scared
and that was the fear of transitioning is in those videos
and I can tell you that I remember what I said and
a part of me is actually glad sometimes that I don't have those videos because literally
it makes me so sad to
think that that's how I felt
and it makes me so sad-
Like I don't even remember sometimes feeling like that,
I just remember
kind of, there's a lot of that I don't remember
because it was so traumatic.
So, I don't remember it.
But kids feel like that
and people who are older feel like that,
that those videos of me
being so confused and it hurts so much.
So,
what did I do?
I literally went back and forth
for so long.
"Yes, I'm trans."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes."
"No."
"No, this is disgusting, I don't wanna be trans, I don't want to do this, this life is so hard, this is gross,
this is disgusting, this isn't me,
this is not the life I want
it's gonna be such a hard life to have."
So, I ignored it for a very long time,
and I had bought all these trans books
and then I had bought all of these trans things,
using my dad's credit card,
and my MuchMusic pre-paid credit card that I had when I was like fifteen.
I got that card literally to buy a binder and a packer, by the way.
And I just had other things
and I just threw them out
and I bought again, and I threw them out
and it was just so overwhelming for me
to have to go through that cycle, because literally
I would say "never again, no!"
And I would sit there and be like "[scoff] it's gonna come back, it's gonna cycle back."
And guess what would happen?
And then I would again go "no, I'm not."
And then it would come back,
and after that happening like six, seven times,
it gets emotionally exhausting, by the way,
and those six, seven times are literally
fear.
That fear is like, imposed onto me,
I was like "I can't do this anymore, this is too much,
I'm just gonna have to accept it, and figure out what I am
and what I'm gonna do."
So, I didn't tell a lot of people, I kind of just walked around it for a very long time,
but I was so scared
and it even came to a point where, after highschool, I told my friends.
I was like "hey, so, I have an appointment with like a gender clinic."
And like
they accpeted me, they didn't even ask questions, they were like "we know."
They were just there for me.
It was really great to have friends like that, who just really didn't care.
I feel like they knew something was up with my gender,
but when I asked them recently, they were like
"we just supported you with whatever you needed to do, we just wanted you to be happy."
But even with my family-
oh no, not my family, sorry,
my friends,
basically family,
my friends' support
I was still terrified
and then when I didn't get into that clinic, because I wasn't trans enough,
they said that, by the way,
they literally said "hey, you're not accepted because you're not trans enough,
but we'll give you some free therapy
with an intern who's doing her master's."
And I was like
"I don't even know what that means, but okay."
So, I got therapy.
I didn't like it at all.
It was horrible, I don't feel like I got anything out of it honestly,
but I did it just because I could do it,
and I was so scared for the eight months that I did therapy with her.
"Do I transition?"
"Do I not transition?"
And it was
so hard because I felt like I was in the middle,
I always felt like I was
non-binary.
That term was never a term that I had heard of before,
it was more genderqueer,
or gender neutral.
I don't even think genderfluid, that I had ever heard that before either.
So, I thought I was more genderqueer
and
they, in their minds, saw that as "you're not trans."
Like you don't know that you're trans-
You really need to know you're trans to get into this program.
I'm like "what's the point of this program then?"
Because they're the ones who decide when you transition,
they're the ones who decide when you go on T, and when you can have top surgery.
Yeah, cool, like "oh my god, surgery is covered here."
They decide when you're read though.
And that's like, the biggest gatekeeping of all gatekeeping.
It's like - god, the heaven's door
not letting you in because you stole a gum when you were like five years old or something.
I really need to come up with some better analogies, honestly,
but
point was, is I was terrified, okay?
And I didn't know what to do
at this point, so I just,
I just dove in.
Not advice I would give people, okay?
I dove in, I found my own endocrinologist,
I got my letter from a therapist,
and I just went
and I got on T, and I swear to god,
I was so excited, "oh my god, I get T!
June 16th, 2010,
today's the day!"
I go to my endo, I pick up my prescription, I go to the clinic,
this sounds like a song,
the nurse gives me my shot, and I swear to god,
even the second before my shot
I swear to god, I was so excited,
there's pictures of me, I look like I'm so excited,
I was fucking terrified.
I was terrified!
I was
so scared
that I was going to regret this, and the fear of transitioning
is like the fear of regret.
It's almost like those are the two same things
and they're so similar, and they're so intertwined
and one cannot live without the other.
That's what it felt like.
[deep inhale]
And that's not what it is, literally
I just didn't know what it was, so I went on T
and I was on it for a year, and I was like "you know what? I don't wanna be on T anymore." And I went off.
For me to be able to do that, that took balls, honestly,
I don't like that term, but like
that took courage, I guess?
I don't like that because it kinda associates with
whatever.
It took a lot of courage for me to be like "no, I'm gonna go off T and I'm gonna talk about it to you."
I got so much hate.
"Our lesbian is coming back
to us, oh she's coming back!"
All of these things from all of these radical feminists.
And it was not fun to deal with, but I did it for myself,
and like eight to ten months later, I went back on T.
I was so scared.
And there was so many things I was scared of and the reason why I went off of T,
I was scared,
that I, not that I was making the wrong decision, because I wasn't detransitioning. I was still me,
I was still Chase, I was still male, I was still trans.
I just felt like I needed to take control over my body,
because I feel like for such a long time, I never had control.
The hospital didn't accept me in that program, I had no control over transitioning.
Then I got this random therapist, no control.
I had to like control and like go get some T, but then someone had to give it to me,
and I had to have a letter, and I had to pay for the letter, and I had to have all of these things
that were just so exhausting to deal with and I never felt like any of it
was, was fair
and that it's not fair that I have to go through all of this, so I said "you know what?
Let me do something
for myself. I feel like I need to be off T,
and I don't even care at this point. I'm gonna go off of T,
because that's what I want, and I'm gonna take control over my body."
And that's what I did, and I'm really glad that I did
because it made me realize how much I need to be on T.
And I don't regret going off T for one single day.
I'm very, very, very glad that I did.
And I think that after
realizing that I can take things into my own hands,
I realized that the fear of transitioning was
more like the fear of not having control.
Which is very funny, because in transition
you're kind of molding your body into how you feel inside.
But it doesn't feel like that when you have people like
"mmph, you're not trans enough."
"Mmm, I can't give you a letter."
"Mmm, I'll give you a letter, but for a hundred and forty dollars."
Really? Why do the gatekeepers gotta exist?
Why can't we just have clinics everywhere that have informed consent?
You go in, they tell you everything you need to know about T,
you do your own research, and then you sign and then you get T,
and it's literally that easy.
If it was that easy, I feel like,
yes, you still have the fear of transitioning, it's still there, "am I doing the right thing? Is this right?"
"Are people gonna accept me?" And all of these other things that you could think of,
but I feel like, for me,
that would've made my life so much easier.
Yes, there are informed clinics everywhere now, that's fantastic.
There was one in Montreal, the waitlist was two years,
I literally was like, "I am not waiting that long."
So, I got myself an endo,
and I did it by myself, and like seven months later I got a call from the place,
"Hey, do you want your T now?"
And I was like "no, I did it by myself."
So, there's just a very long waitlist and that-
No.
It didn't end there though,
because then I booked my top surgery,
and I cancelled it,
because I wasn't ready,
and I was like "I'm taking control over my body.
I'm not gonna do something that other people are gonna expect me to do."
And then I booked it the next year, and I did it.
And I was terrified
and I was so scared, but
I remembered what it was like to go off of T,
I remembered what it was like to
cancel my initial surgery date in 2012,
and instead, I'm now in 2013,
I'm crying because I'm so anxious about
my
top surgery that is coming up in two weeks.
I made a video "Top Surgery Anxieties", I am crying in this video.
'Cause I am so scared, because it's a surgery, and I remember how I feel.
It was so hard for me, it was-
to accept that I have to modify my body in order to be happy with myself
and it's not that I can have so much,
so much therapy to accept myself,
it's that I've always felt that I needed a flat chest.
The second that I started growing the titty, when I was like 8,
I was like "okay, but when can I wear a t-shirt again?"
How sad is that that an 8 year old is thinking that? And I'll never forget
ever in my entire life, I know exactly where I was the first time I thought that,
and I thought that my entire life, until
the fucking day that I got top surgery
and that day changed my life forever
and after realizing I did what I needed to do and that I'd finally completed my body,
the fear of transition is now a thing of the past
I don't fear
transition anymore, I embrace it.
And I am so glad and so privileged
to be at a place that I can do that.
Yes, bottom surgery might be something that I would want in the future,
I'm not sure yet, who knows? I don't fear it
as a part of my transition, I fear it-
-bless you, Minou-
as a part of
maybe like the complications
or how long it's gonna get me to get there or something like that,
but it's more like I-
that's what I fear, I don't fear the aspect of
moving along in my transition.
And maybe it is because I'm like 7 years on T,
4 years top surgery now,
and that I've grown into this person that I can accept and love who I am,
and love my identity as a trans person.
And I think that the fear of transitioning was so embedded in the
"am I trans enough?"
And me not accepting that I'm trans.
Even though I make these videos for like the last six, seven, ten years,
whatever, how many times I've been making these,
how many years I've been making these videos,
it's still very hard to accept
that this is who you are,
and 100% love yourself for being trans.
And I am at a place right now, where I can say I 100% am okay
and love that I am trans.
It sucks that I don't gotta peen,
but I can always have surgery.
I can have phalloplasty, if I want in the future,
to get that, and that's great.
But other than that,
the only other things I can think of that suck about being trans are
if there's something wrong with my documents and
one of my papers wasn't changed legally and I get mail with my birth name on it
and I wanna kill someone.
Or if I'm bleeding, or something like that happens and I have to go on hormone blockers and deal with all these things.
Those are the parts of transition that I hate,
and that makes me hate being trans,
but
me loving who I am,
I am the person I am today because I am trans.
I would not change that for- I have suffered
so much, but in the last years
even suffering through things that aren't even trans related, I've realized that
that suffering as
horrible as it was, and how I wanted to die,
and I didn't want to deal with it,
have made me this person.
This person who can stand here
in my room, in this
apartment that I rent
for myself. I make my
living reviewing products for the community,
I'm a grad student, I do all of these other projects and all of these things,
I can tell you, I can sit here,
I can stand,
and tell you,
I'm okay with who I am and I'm alive
and this is really hard for someone to accept,
but if I was 15 and somebody had said
"Hey, I'm 26 and I have a life, and it's not just about being trans, but I love who I am, because the person that I am
has only manifested itself because of my trans identity
and I embrace that so
so much, it's the core of my identity, to me is
embracing who I am
and who I am is trans,
and that's me."
Please remember though, I don't represent the entire trans community,
this is how I feel inside my body.
There are a lot of trans people who do not like
their trans identity, and
treat their trans-ness as more of a medical condition
and transition medically,
hormones, surgery and then kind of go stealth and don't really talk about being trans.
More power to you, you do what you need to do, boo.
You do you.
I'm on the other side,
where I have medically transitioned,
yes, but I don't see my
trans-ness as a medical condition.
It technically is, but
I see it more as a part of my identity and I embrace who I am
and I exploit it for the internet, let's be real.
Anyways, the fear of transition is there,
but don't
be scared of,
of really
looking into yourself, and
what this fear comes from,
why, why are you feeling this?
Talk to other trans people who are
in the same spot as you, or in
and older transition, so if you're not on T yet,
they're on T, or if you're on T and you're not sure about top surgery, talk to someone who's had top surgery,
because I guarantee they had some issues.
Yeah, I want top surgery right now, but you can't tell me for one second, in your head you weren't like "ooh."
Because even if "ooh," is "oh, it's surgery." You still had an "ooh," moment
and that "ooh," is fear.
I don't know. In my opinion.
[claps] For me.
I don't represent the whole community though. Anyways, let me know what you think
about this concept, let's have a conversation and I will see you guys soon.
I love you all so much, have a great week,
bye!
[music]