For all of my friends and cohorts who know me, know of me and can call me family (you know who you are), I have been struck with a revelation just today! I am not transgender, I am transsexual. I am working to get that stigma understood for my friends and family to really understand, but I think time will be the best healer and leveler of the playing field, so to speak.
I feel strange about this revelation. I feel stupid about it, though. One thought in one direction and multiple in another, and it led me to the Logo TV website. Another couple of hours later and I stumbled upon “TRANSform Me”, a television series that takes three transsexual women and make-over a pleading woman who lacks her own style and fashion sense. It’s a wonderful program. I enjoyed it.
I am looking for some assistance. I live in Mississippi and not too many people here are up-to-speed about the LGBTQ lifestyle, much less our community. It totally sucks about what I am doing in my new job. My roommate, who also used to work for my boss, told me to “dress like a guy to get the job, but work through it a few weeks and gradually change it up.” I couldn’t completely do that; I brought my purse the first day, and dug through it to get my hairbrush and my pens and cellphone. Sorry, I will reveal all, but not too soon. (I wear my man-pants like I would as a woman would, and I like it better that way.) I do wear “t-shirts” but are just pull-over blouses that look like close-fitting t-shirts. It does help me to feel better while working in a mostly female environment.
After coming home sick on Friday with laryngitis, and trying to stay out of the family’s way while I recuperated, I surfed the internet for some stuff and played Eve Online, too. I’m still struggling to stay warm in a warm house; frequent chills are getting me down. (I might have something that I don’t want to go to hospital for; I got out of there for pneumonia in early April, and I don’t think I recovered from it.)
I like my job, don’t get me wrong, but it’s harder than most telemarketing jobs I’ve had. There’s no training course to get through. There’s no hand-holding here. It’s all about the quantity of the calls you make and how to get back into the mix when you’ve gotten a bad call or an answering machine or the customer on the other end forgets who you are and why you’re calling and makes you look like a fool (that part’s recorded).
I now have a purpose and a direction. I need to have my surgery, grab my paperwork and assess what needs to be fixed first, then go from there. The easiest one: my Social Security card. The hardest I think will be my drivers’ license and passport. I can’t wait to get this underway! I need a job to carry on making money to do these things; without one, I cannot even start hormone therapy and counseling. I feel this job is a step backwards and it feels like someone is swatting my hands with a wooden ruler every time I try to make forward strides.
The family I live with love me, the kids don’t want me to move. I can understand that, too. I do love it here. I feel better here than I do at my sisters’ homes; B’s home is smoke-filled because she and my brother-in-law both smoke. C’s home isn’t so bad, but she’ll go into any room with a lit cigarette and then apologize when she’s in the one I’m borrowing. Her husband, T, chews tobacco, and that’s not as bad as second- and third-hand smoke.
I discovered that my closest counseling location is in Gulfport, MS. That’s quite a distance from where I currently reside. I don’t want people to think I’m lazy or disrespectful, but that’s nowhere near Tupelo! I want something closer to me. (If I can have a lawyer assist me with getting Medicare for my diabetes and depression, then I’m one step closer… I think.)
So tired of people giving me the run-around and telling me they can’t help me unless I have some sort of income! That’s monetary discrimination! Everywhere I turn, if I don’t have the money, I can’t get the treatment I need. I have bill collectors already hounding me for money, for a 3 1/2 day hospital stay! It totals to almost $9000! Moved to another state and I’m in debt already– within the first 6 months– is the state of my luck!? I sure hope not.
What can someone like me, in dire straits, do to get the help I need? Should I check myself into a mental health facility, tell them about my suicidal tendencies due to my depression and lack of support system? What options do I have short of getting labeled disturbed or insane? I’m caught between a rock and a hard place and can’t seem to get enough purchase to thrust myself away. Please help me.
Whenever I can, I check my Yahoo!Groups for the latest conversations and pictures. I want to have these kinds of good things happen to me, too, but I cannot where I am living! Florida, in the county where I moved from, I was denied all kinds of care related to my transsexual nature: hormone therapy, individual counseling, AND surgery. Denied them ALL! I was on county healthcare, and they took care of my diabetes supplies and meds, my depression and ‘head shrinking’ meds– all of it!– yes for something as simple as getting prepared for my transition and making way for the new me: FORGET IT! They apparently thought that I didn’t count. I didn’t matter. They had their medical stuff covered, whatever it was; I didn’t because, apparently, I’m just barely human enough to be considered human, to partake in that medical system. I have to purchase medical insurance out of my own pocket, and with my job, I don’t even think I can do that right now…
If I had some way to get the treatment I need, the connection to others like me in a location I can call home, I would be so happy right now! I am so depressed right now, and sick, that I’m thinking about “it” while I’m playing with my tiny multi-tool. I just need someone to hold me close, and tell me “everything’s going to be okay” and really mean it. I’m struggling to keep a fresh face and happy mood. This facade-crap I have to play at work is really getting me down! I think that’s my I’m ill now, too.
Why should I compromise my values and ethics for a boss who has no clue about who I am? I want to tell him. Nowhere on the application did it list GENDER. Nowhere! I am not a man, I am a woman who has needs and wants and goals and feelings.
Please leave your comments. I want your advice and assistance in this. If anyone is interested in hiring me for logo design, font work and other such graphics, please comment below. I want to move in the worst way, have a valid drivers’ license, and want to get out of Mississippi in the worst way!