A Little Glimpse Into My Life

[Guest Dutchie]

Hiya,

I had this post on my mind and at first for a brief moment on my "About me" page. I felt uneasy, talked about it, (THANKS for listening!! You're a darling!) took some advice to heart and voila, here is a glimpse into my life. I live in a region of France which is known (internally) as the most conservative. Conservative means in this case 50 years backwards in time, mentality wise. Coming out here is not easy to say the least, finding the appropriate help here is near impossible!

The biggest problem here is national health care (NHC to make it easier on me). The NHC doesn't like transgendered people, they have thrown up big barriers that you need to overcome, they don't inform family doctors, and worse of all, they don't encourage therapists and endocrinologists to stay up-to-date. The consequence is that if you do want to transition, you go first to your family doctor who (very likely) will not help you, if (s)he understands the issue in the first place. Why? (S)He fears being monitored by the NHC! Any step outside the strict rules and regulations of the NHC can cost him/her his job! And since most family doctors haven't got the time to start investigating if they can help you at all, they prefer to give up ahead. Every following step (therapy and so on) only gets worse.

That's why so many of us leave the country (for a while) to transition.

Despite the warnings from the "local" support group (2 hours away by car) that it will be a great disappointment, I did see a specialised therapist here (who happened to speak a decent enough level of English, yes, I also have a language barrier!), and I can say, it was rubbish. With my history with psychs, I know how to prepare, so I arrived at her office with my written autobiography. I handed it to her after some introductory talk and she said (after glancing at it) "I see that you understand your issues quite well, go on like that and do what makes you feel comfortable. You do realize that you'll never be fully the same as a genetic woman?" Yes, of course I know I will never have a womb, or a period or pregnancy (yikes!). I do know I will not be a beauty either. All that I did tell her and after that I was on my way again with the message "you're doing great, if you ever feel depressed or stuck, just call me for an appointment." and that was it! And she is supposed to be helping us! (Don't get me started on endros...)

Anyway, more about me, since I'm not France, the NHC or therapists.

I'm 41 years old, felt female from earliest memories and have "proof" of times before that. I'm not out and about. But I do know for 2 and a half years in which position on the genderscale I belong. My partner knows and encourages me, he is actually kind of my opposite, although he is comfortable in a female (albeit very androgyne) body and dresses relatively masculine, even in daily work life. You could say he had not an easy life either, trying to fulfil the "feminine" image whilst feeling different. That changed during the last year or so, since I encouraged him to be more himself. (Hey that is only fair isn't it? He encourages me to be open and myself, I can only do the same.)

Anyway... In my daily life I'm dressed relatively masculine while going to work and as soon as I arrive home I drop my male act (and ditto clothes) and put on something comfortable (usually what they call "lounge wear" or similar) yet feminine.

So for the coming (likely 16) years I'll be leading a sort of D-I-Y FTM/MTF life. I know I shouldn't do it like this, but hey, can you blame me? Do I need to drop everything that I have now? If my well-being is the big point, I rather try to avoid the big destructive transition and carefully step by step build up something livable for all of us. My partner and children all love me for who I am, not for what I represent at work.

So in all, what to do? Well, I live as I am doing now, anything is better than staying male and depressed (even suicidal at times). The quality of my life has greatly improved now that I'm a "part-time" part-female. I do want to go all the way, as I am still feeling incomplete. It will happen, it's just going to take time (and money).

I thought it would be fair to let you at least know how life in this corner of the world is.

That's all for now,

Dutchie

[Sally]

Hey Dutchie,

I'm sorry to hear about the NHC problems, but you and your family seem to have reached a very practicle solution. I would say to stay with it until you start to feel like you need to move forward - then is soon enough to worry about details.

Live, love and be happy,

Sally

[Guest Dutchie]

Hiya Sally and everyone else.

[Addition after finishing: I wanted to elaborate on the problems I'm facing, since I wrote my first post in a rather timid way. It got more political than I intended, please take this for information only, I don't want to start a political discussion since it will not help at all. The French government is like that, we can only hope that someone will be brave enough to stand up for us and with us. Keep in mind that fora like these are my life-savers! It is the *only* place I get understood, besides my SO.]

Thanks, but since there is no-one "local" and qualified to talk to about the deeper issues, I run regularly into a wall. It isn't so much the practical part, that I can manage.

It is the psychological part that worries me, depressive periods, feeling stuck, running in mental circles, feeling not understood... You probably know theses feelings all too well too.

This comes and goes (after a lot of work), much like the tides although in a different time frame and not as regular. What does scare me is the intensity sometimes. Lately it's gaining force.

About 20 years ago I did see several therapists, spend roughly 3 to 4 years in therapy without resolving much. At that time there was no internet, no openness about transsaxuality or gender dysphoria and I had no clue about what transsexual really is. (The "general" thought back then was that transsexuals were something very strange, TSes were seen by society mostly as transvestites/cross dressers. I couldn't identify myself with them.)

The message I got through all that therapy was "accept who you are and what body you got, eventually you'll feel better", I'm still waiting for the "feeling better" part. I didn't know exactly what was wrong with me, I had all these feelings of not-belonging to my peer-group, feelings of wanting to be "on the other side", and so on. Back then Nobody cared enough, nobody of the professionals in psychology I have seen looked into the issue... "It was all in my imagination". Believe me, the weird stuff being used in the name of pshychotherapy is unbelievable. It goes all the way to questions like "Why do you wear socks with Garfield on them today?" And then the therapist starts analyzing my answer "what has that got to do with anything?" Suddenly I am considered having "an overly active defence and trying to avoid deeper issues." You see the problem? No matter which approach you take, if a therapist wants to push your buttons, they do, if they don't know which buttons to push, they jump to unrealistic conclusions.

Now I'm wiser, had loads of time to learn from all over the world and I'm stuck in a country that doesn't want to know about people like us. People tend to like statistics. In a news article about a ultra-cheap sec change clinic in the UK was a mentioning of the amount of men having the GRS (or whatever label you want to give it) per year. I compare the UK with France, because the two are both Western European and have almost the same population (France has a few million more). Ok, back to the GRS numbers. UK: 350 men per year, France: 30 men per year. Sad isn't it?

Let me quote you some things that are so true, but never in the news:

In an answer from one of the very few support groups to someone who didn't know where to start the official track for HRT:

Get in touch with a pseudo French team, and wait endlessly (at least two years follow-up psy) for the agreement of HRT.

Again from someone else of one of the very few support groups to the same someone asking the questions:

> Darn, that is unbelievable! I would have expected a few [doctors or gender teams] to be there. It's sad.

Trouble is that the Social Security's so-called official so-called team controls everything around Paris, so other doctors are scared to accept trans people.

> Pretty much the same everywhere in France, I guess?

More or less, yes. But it's especially bad where there are those transphobic "teams".

And I haven't even started on the problems as simple as finding a family doctor who wants to treat you for NON-TRANS health issues!

France is supposed to be a Western European country and if I look around at how things are for transgendered people for our neighbours, I have the impression France is still far behind! If you care to read a now 2 year old action letter to the state from one of the few support groups, it can be found here at Trans-Aide.

I quote an important part:

In France, they are particularly medical and health administrations of the State participating in the ban transgender people: we are dealing with "mentally ill", we impose illegal "protocols" relevant medical genuine psychiatric abuse as much as physical, it refuses, illegally, to take charge of our medical care, it forces us to social exclusion by refusing to change our Social Security numbers, function of our visible social identity... Openly discriminatory approaches that are the direct cause of a huge rate of social insecurity among transgender people of France.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with the relative strong prose above, it is how I (and many like me in this trap) feel. Another apollogy for becoming political in this, but unfortunately it directly influences MY life. I am relatively "lucky" to have a support group "nearby". People in/around Paris(!!!) have nothing! And this is a modern country with a population over 1/5th the size of the USA!

Back under my rock,

Dutchie