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He said he had to wait at least 2 years to be approved for gender reassignment. Isn't the same in the US and during that time you see a psychiatrist and undergo hormone therapy?



There is no way I could answer this question halfway decently without writing several pages about it. But, as you all know - whores are lazy and sometimes dizzy. So, just take my word for it that there is more to be known then can be possibly summed up in a few handy paragraphs. I'll try anyway:

In 1979 a well-meaning doctor sat down and drew up a paper about his ideas as to how best treat transsexuals. He called his document "Standards of Care".

He made up some rules. Just like you and I could make up some right now.

At the time it was a step forward, but that document then became sort of "de facto" law for medical practitioners who had/have no clue about transsexuals. (To this day there are only very few specialists in the field.)

The "standards of care" are flawed because they start from the premise that a person that comes to the doctor's office talking about gender identity must be crazy. Such person must prove to the doctors that he/she is not crazy. Nowadays it would be called a pathologizing approach (like Christians telling porners that there is something wrong with them and that they will go to hell unless they change their evil ways).

Part of the premise is that doctors know what's best and that doctors have the right to decide about how someone should/can lead their life. Nobody gave the doctors those powers, but they do have them in the case of transsexuals.

It's an absurd notion. Who would want to go trough this ordeal of living as a trans unless it was for a deadly serious reason? You really think people are going to risk losing their jobs, their families, their social position, virtually everything just so they can indulge some fanciful, so-called "lifestyle choice"? I hate that term so much: "lifestyle choice". Like, are we going to live in country club A or in country club B?

In Europe most countries have some sort of "National Health System" and you're stuck with it and whatever the system decides. In the UK it's the NHS.

I've lived in the UK and I couldn't get the same prescription hormones I had already been taking for years in the US. The amounts the NHS doctor (who had never seen a transsexual before) prescribed me were ridiculously low (that's why so many look like cross dressers in the UK). They only prescribed estrogen, no progesterone. To circumvent their bullshit I had my hormones shipped from the US (legal or not?). At some point the NHS threatened to suspend all my health care because according to them the hormone levels in my blood were too high. Duh...

I had already been living for years as a woman yet I still had to somehow prove that I was transsexual. Thankfully I had letters from the US, but how absurd was that? Suppose you are black and your doctor asks you to prove that you're really black... good luck.

In most European countries to "prove" that you are serious you're meant to live as a man who wears women's clothes for 6 moths before you can get hormones. (During that time you probably will lose your job, your career, your family, your roof and your mental health - but never mind). If after those 6 months you come back alive, and you bring two letters from psychiatrists then you can get hormones. If you want surgery you have to live as woman for two years + waiting lists. I personally don't care about surgery, but for some it's a core concern (see above act of desperation).

In the US you can get hormones after 3 months of psychotherapy. Again, it's not a law; it's just a de facto rule, people trying to cover their asses. You can get surgery with two letters from a psychologist and a psychiatrist, but there is no minimum time you have to live as a woman before surgery. Overall doctors are more service orientated here (in L.A.), trying to help instead of being barriers.

In the past insurances in the US did not cover any of this, but I know of at least one carrier - Kaiser - that is working on changing that.

People end up going underground to get what they need if they can't get it from an official and certified source. Without hormones there is little hope for somebody with a male body to ever "pass" as a woman in daily life.

The entire process is expensive and I'm not sure how other people pay for it. Prostitution is often the first choice if not only option. Required psychotherapy: $100 per session. How many weeks/months? Hormone injections cost $80-$130 or more, once a week. Pills, maybe $50-$100 a month. Beard removal: 300 hours needed for a normally bearded male at $70 per hour or more ($20,000). Breast implants $3,000 - $7,000. Other surgeries, if your face is extremely masculine? Genital surgery in the US: $25,000 - $35,000. Makeup, hair and wardrobe? It's too much to add up. If you've ever been a sugar daddy you know how much it costs to keep a high-maintenance girlfriend...

For me living as woman has brought a cataclysm in terms of career and other areas I can't go into. But I don't regret it. It's one of the few things I can safely say I did do right.

Oh fuck, this is way too long for xpt. Who's going to read it?