Binders And Broken Bodies

When I first came out as transgender the first thing I wanted more than anything was a binder. No I don’t mean the plastic folders that have rings inside them that hold paper, I mean the item of clothing that compresses your chest to flatten it. I wanted to hide the 42 G monsters I had been cursed with. I knew that I needed to get rid of the very things that were causing me the biggest stress of them all. Getting my first binder was the most magical experience ever. Whilst my chest was still too big for me to “pass” 100%, I had more of a freedom to go out and be the authentic me, and not the person I had pretended to be for 25 years of my life. I got my very first binder in 2012 and in 2017 I had surgery that meant that I would never have to wear a binder again.

The day I had top surgery

Now, I wished this was how my story ended and I wished I could tell you how I progressed to lower surgery and I live my life as a “passing cis male” but that’s not how my story ended. In fact it is where it started. It had turned out after all that time, the only thing that had been keeping my spine in place for several years was my binder.

When you wear a binder, as well as it compressing your chest, it can often compress other parts of your body, such as your rib cage and spine. For years I had been experiencing severe shortness of breath as well as a painful spine. I had chalked this down to wearing a binder, the size of my chest causing huge pressure and a horse riding accident I had when I was in my very early 20s, so I pushed forward for my top surgery and after lots of bullshit and funding drops I finally got it done. What we didn’t know until about a month after my surgery was that my spine was actually moving and the hypermobility I had in my knees, and arms had progressed to my back. During that year I also suffered a serious seizure due to one me being epileptic and two me drinking excessively because a friend had just died. I have had seizures for years but this was the first time it had really start to affect my nervous system. We don’t know if it was because of how much I drank, whether other illnesses had a factor into it, or whether my brain just gave up fighting so hard, but I became seriously unwell.

I’m now a wheelchair user. My transition had become a bittersweet pill, because now I was finally becoming the comfortable masculine person I had always wanted to be, but after years of torturing my body of drink, drugs and self hate, I had broken myself. It was the most drawn out joke but the punchline had just been so terrible no one laughed. I however do not pity myself for this though.

Whilst things have been shit, it gave me a second chance in life where this time I actually didn’t give a fuck anymore. I was able to finally start realising that I needed to look after myself and that I needed to focus myself on life and being happy. Being forced to recognise that I am actually broken and disabled was the greatest thing that could have happened and if I never recover or if I even die tomorrow I would have no regrets in my life because I had actually lived.

Not many people can say they have lived many different lives in one body and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Alienation

When you think of disability and how to make lives more easier for disabled folk the first things that are often though of is access requirements and the truth of the matter is, that it’s a highly important thing to think of, but how do we even contact disabled people to come to events to make them accessible for them in the first place? This question is just as valid when we are talking with the trans community as well, and if you have just joined me you might think that this is a very weird tangent, but I am both trans and disabled and I need access.

There is quite a cross over in the LGBT community and disabled one. We don’t know why that is, it might have something to do with the fact that if you can be open with yourself as to who you are, it is easier to admit when you have problems. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. But what I do know is that there is a serious feeling of alienation in both communities that needs to be addressed. There is a constant talk about how you want people to reach out and get to services and events, but there is no actual conversation on how we reach those who are most hardest to reach. Not much effort is put into it either.

The first things we can do is to research places that are already formed. I’m not talking about just buildings and physical meet up spaces but also online presence. Often where we are at home often, that is the starting out point of how to reach us. We can’t know of a thing designed for us if it’s not on a platform we would be using. Secondly, when you say you are accessible, what even does that mean to you and your venue? Accessible toilets are great, but if there is 5 steps to get in and no ramp, how is that accessible. Is there translators, does anyone know sign language? Are your staff have knowledge of autistic people. We are not demanding that you do everything, but listing off what your event and service provides is also a good place to start.

Alienation is not just an inability to access venues though. It’s a social issue as well as a mental health one. It is a feeling of hopelessness and lack of self worth. Something that has been programmed into both disabled and trans people as our entire world is designed for cisgender able bodied folk. We are reminded every day that people think we are second class citizens and it does drag us down to the point where we do not feel safe outside. The best thing to do with us is really simple. STOP DOING THAT. Each little back handed compliment and in your face insult just isn’t needed and behind those toxic thoughts and words are real people who are experiencing hell.

The final bringer of alienation is often how we behave ourselves as humans and as our own community. We all fuck up. All of our shit stinks but the queer community has a tendency to pick and choose the type of people they will “kick out” of the community and often some of the offences are nothing in comparison to the people they leave in. Life still feels like a popularity contest and trust me I’ve seen people who have been metaphorically dragged out for saying the wrong thing but the same people doing this go to venues that support racism. There are people who get shit for making a mistake due to being ill or neurodivergent but there are famous trans people who rip off hard peoples work and cause physical distress but they are left alone. Our own community is pretty fucking toxic and we need to be held accountable for the actions we do to our own peers, especially our own disabled peers. We need to pack our shit in.

Alienation is a terrible thing and we need to do everything in our power to try and stop this from happening to the most vulnerable members of society. Look after your friends and remind yourself that there are people out there that might actually need your help.

Trans Is Not Just For The Young

Most of the time when you see people mention about being trans (especially in the media) they are often in their teens, white, able bodied and often have a planned out set idea of what transition means to them and a goal plan set into motion. Surprisingly, in the real world and especially not online, this is not the case. Whilst white, I can certainly put to bed the suggestion as I started transition after my teenage years and I’m certainly not able bodied.

People are coming out in their later years more and more and this is bucking the trend of assumption that everyone has to be young to be trans. But why is this the case?

There are many reasons why people are coming out later and later but the truth of the matter is that we are having more of an open dialog of gender and sexuality and it is feeling like it is safer to be LGBT then it did many years ago. There is more access to medical care these days and we have so many resources at our finger tips.

It is becoming common for trans people to start transition in their 30s 40s and 50s now and this is because people have finally learned that they are not the only ones who are feeling the way that they do. That its OK to be who you are and you are not alone. Gender and sexuality has become a hot topic and it has saved lives.

If you you have started your transition later, please feel free to comment as to why you started when you did, we would love to hear from you

Top Surgery – A Year On

So I finally hit my surgery anniversary and there is no balloons nor candles , nor do I feel even in the mood to celebrate getting rid of the one thing in my life that was causing me the most distress. Honestly it has just felt like every other period of my life throughout the past 12 months. 

I mean yes, I’m fucking happy that they are banished from my life, but it has been the hardest pill to swallow. If you are new here (hi) it’s also the marking point where I was last physically well. This point is the pivotal moment when my body gave up on me and I spend a lot of my time going out in an electric chair. I am trying to look at the positives but I can tell you now it doesn’t end up all sunshine and rainbows for me at the end of the tunnel. 

Believe me, I’m fucking happy with my results of surgery and I’m looking forward to my hysto next month but I am just so fucking tired all the time. I at least wanted a couple of good years with my body before it packed up on me. I just wanted to be a real boy ™ for at least a moment before I needed mobility aids. 

I know you were kind of expecting something a little more positive, but I am just so tired of being trans and barely human anymore 

Absence And Apologies

So as you have noticed, I have been away for a little bit. 

Physical health hasn’t been great as of late and adjusting to being a semi permanent wheelchair user has become in all honesty and exhausting challenge. That and I started having massive problems with loosing bits I had written, such as reviews and events and it had honestly torn my heart out loosing content I had worked so hard on.

On the light side of all of this. Problems are now reasonably resolved. Things are looking up and I am finally on route to getting my hysterectomy. This has been a long time coming and well potentially be the last thing to do in regards of physically transition. So yes, touch wood, I am now back and things shall be progressing on this site. 

Things to look forward include the possibility of a podcast in the new year, transcribed into blog posts, a talk in line with a clothing company, museum gossip and well this gay agender half cyborgs rants and posts about transition and the rest of life’s bullshit. Oh and the discussions of the PreP trial

Whispers – Queer Dating Series maybe back for a special wheelchair issue, so watch this space

Let’s raise a glass to progress, the up and coming new year and everything good that is coming out now.

Tyler ❤

Five Years Of Transition

So this year, at the beginning of August marked 5 years of me officially coming out as trans. 

5 fucking years this has been going on for and whilst I have found this a wonderful journey, it is something that I would not wish upon anyone. Yes I am happy, yes this is what I have always wanted but the confusion, the physical endurance, the surgery panic and a loss of friends has taken it’s toll on me. 

I still have my hysterectomy to be booked and sorted but that’s officially it for me. Having top surgery and a wonderful consultation with the amazing Dr Lorrimer also managed to clear my head in regards to my own gender identity and I came out as Agender earlier in the year. I also came out as gay also, as I realised that me being bisexual just didn’t fit anymore. I’m attracted to masculine folk and I’m masc/andro presenting and masc/andro gender identified so gay is in all honestly how I see myself. 

Hormones have been still the burden of my life, I still do find them a bit of a drain but I’m doing much better than I was. On a scale, I’m about 4/5 of the way through puberty and my skin has cleared up at least, but losing my hair has been quite upsetting. 

Top surgery was this year though, and that was good. I decided not to bother with getting my nipples tattooed in the end, but it means I don’t have to worry so much about getting my chest tattooed. I will be probably having a revision as one side is slightly wonky, but the results past that have been AMAZING. I couldn’t have asked for more to be honest.  

I look forward to the final changes that I do have in myself, and that I hope that one day I can grow a reasonable beard. 

Till then I’ve just got these facepubes to contend with. At least it’s something though. 

As the years progress I hope I finally find peace with my ever changing, constant breaking body, and next year I hope that my medical transition is complete. 

The Conference

It has taken me several weeks for me to post this. Not because I couldn’t. But in all honesty I have been so fucking exhausted. For those who don’t know and are new (hi), I did a talk for the Trans and Non binary conference in Brighton University in the lecture room. I was originally going to bail out of it. I had become really unwell, to a point where I’m now in and out of a wheel chair and talking about transition with chronic illness broke my heart because it was so close after Finn had died and even now I am still grieving for him. This post does mention him and his suicide. Please be aware of this.

I finally realised that the only way I could actually show people what it’s actually like to be disabled , chronically ill and trans was to physically show everyone what it really was. Not sugar coated. Not painted in a beautiful light, but how it actually is. Raw and fucking terrifying. Oh yeah, and I got a fan sign made for me, which is cute as fuck and I still have it at home.

I am aware that the conference itself got sold out and there was a huge waiting list for tickets to go to it. Unfortunately I havnt seen anything come out of it, such as audio of the lectures or transscripts, and since I’ve been asked a few times now what I actually said. I have decided to write a blog post kind of detailing exactly what I said. It’s not exact because in here there is more that I wanted to say. I unfortunately was so bad, I couldn’t manage the whole 15-20 mins. I barely managed 10 if I am 100% honest. Also, it’s me here, and the swears will still be in here.

Good Afternoon everyone

Before I start this, I would like to point out to those visually impaired or can’t see over to the right of me, there appears to be a fan sign written in black and red glitter on yellow card that says “we love batdad”. Turns out members of my own committee like to embarrass the fuck out of me. Teaches me not to rule with an iron rod. I will talk to all you fuckers later about this.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Tyler, I’m the chair of Navigate, a trans support service for AFAB and intersex folk. I am a blogger who actually specialises in sex and complaints. These are not always together although I am known as the bitter queen of complaints. I’m 30 years old. And I’m disabled. Well I assumed at this point you probably gathered by my partner bringing me on in a wheel chair, but I actually wasn’t in the chair before I submitted my application to do this talk. I have a spine injury from a horse riding accident, I’m hypomobile, I’m osteoarthritic at this point now, I’m pre diabetic, I suffer psychosis, oh and I’m epileptic. If I was told that I could do a power point presentation, I would have shown the clip on the Simpsons where the Dr tells Mr Burns that he doesn’t know how the fuck he’s still alive and that all of his illnesses are just jamming in the door.

At this point in my life being transgender is the wrapping of the rest of the bullshit that I have to contend with. I should at this point state that whilst I present male, and have had top surgery, I take hormones. I do not identify as a binary gender. Infact what the fuck even is gender. The closest I have visually to the gender I identify is Rodger the alien from American Dad. This probably doesn’t help my case now that you are all picturing that now being me since I’m now bald. Basically I’m Agender, gay and really fucking camp.

So why am I here talking to you? Well one, I couldn’t get out of this even if I wanted to and two, someone needs to say how much being disabled and trans sucks.

And it fucking sucks. You think gate keeping for trans folks with no obvious medical issues is tough. Try telling them that you need top surgery and having your diagnosis of bipolar disorder thrown in your face that you got when you were 16. Try getting your hormones signed off when they start picking apart your physical conditions. Fuck sake, try binding when your spine is fucked and your disks are out of place. This is only a tiny proportion of the about of bullshit that we have to contend with on order to be seen as valid by our doctors, peers and society. I’ve got permanent spine damage because I HAD to bind with an injury. They dragged my fucking top surgery out for 4 years. 4 FUCKING YEARS. My funding got dropped twice. To put this into perspective of how big my chest was, when I was perceived as a cis woman, I was entitled to a reduction because the NHS knew that 42 G breasts were not only painful to live with but fucking dangerous. That magically disapeered the moment I came out as trans by the way. Like my medical problem suddenly vanished over night and it was only until February this year I finally received top surgery, and that is only because I chose a surgeon that had 2 months waiting list.

You would say that hormones was easy for me, and yes accessing them was a piece of piss in comparison to the hell that was, but because of being on hormones I am now suffering because of this. I am in pain because of arthritis now and it’s not getting better. I was told that in all honestly this could have been prevented or delayed if a hysto had been done sooner and my body wouldn’t go through the continued menopausal shit it has had to endure. I am STILL awaiting a hysto. And to top it all of recently my medical notes have vanished so my doctor thinks I’m making shit up half the time because there is no record of stuff. He just claims that my pain is because of me being fat. I realised this wasn’t the case, because I went from 114kg to 80kg and felt worse. It was only pointed out that I was in pain all the time because of the bendy problem and that should have been spotted years ago. It was only spotted early 2017 after YEARS of me telling my doctor that I knew I was, but guess what, he didn’t listen and blamed of on either me being trans or my weight. The thing is. I’m not the only person who goes through this systematic bullshit every day. 1000s of trans and non binary people are constantly neglected by the system. We have three routes we can take, we fight super hard to get our basic rights, we don’t transition at all or we end up dying.

I said at the beginning of the day that I didn’t want to do this talk. Loosing Finn, loosing others in the past couple of months, my own chronically ill community siblings has honestly taken out every fight I have had in me. Having someone, someone you fucking work with kill themselves because they had no fucking option shouldn’t happen. We are forever being failed by medical negligence, we are treated like shit because we are trans, we are treated like shit because we are disabled. We are in an endless loop of no hope that our only option is to kill ourselves rather than feel like we are being a fucking burden to our friends and loved ones. Finn should never have been failed by the system. The system was what caused his death. That was what drove him to suicide. He is not the only one. 100s of others are doing it every fucking year and with our government cut backs, a benefit system that disabled people can’t even manage, and the ever rising cost of living. This number is going to increase every fucking year. And does this shit even get reported in the media? No.

Actually whist I have everyone’s attention, is there any trans and disabled people in the media? If you know one please put your hand up because I need some hero’s. (No one did) See. We are surrounded by these ideals that trans people need to be slim, able bodied, articulate, well polished and preferably white middle class. Where the fuck are my poor, working class, disabled trans folk. We are great in numbers and no one wants to show the real fucking lives of actual trans people. How are we even meant to get any rights when we are not even visible ? We need to get some better representation.

At this point I realised I has lost my entire place and couldn’t see my notes because I felt so dizzy.

I am going to have to cut this, but I need to say this first. We need to make trans activism inclusive of everyone that is trans. We need to get better representation of not only disabled trans people, but people of colour, sex workers and working class folk need a voice too. We are not the people you can throw under the bus to get your rights, we need rights too and it’s your job to make sure we have a platform at all stages of our transition regardless of our intersections.

Thank you for listening.

And We Are Back

So it’s been forever since I have written anything and I suppose it’s time to explain why I have actually been gone for a long time.

Remember when I said that I was ill, well I ended up with psychosis and I am now currently in and out of a chair because I am so tired all the time now. Plus side, I have been in therapy for quite some time now and mentally I’m on my serious way to recovery. 

So the chair. Well I said in February that top surgery would elevate the pain I have been in. Well it did, for a month. I now have arthritis and it’s not helped with me being hypo mobile. We are also slowly trying to work out a diagnosis for chronic fatigue syndrome, and the possibility of having some nerve damage. 

That and my seizures are back with a vengeance!! 

So yeah. That’s been the main reasons why I have been so quiet. 

Things that have happened though –

*I spoke at a conference about being trans and disabled

* ran a charity open mic night

* ran the trans tent for big pride in Brighton. Yes.. Really?!

*filmed for a HIV organisation 

So whilst I have been of the radar, I have been busy. But now I am now back, and everything shall be going back to normality. 

Tyler
PS – Oh yeah, I also came out as Agender and now awaiting my hysto, and a revision for top surgery. Oh and I’m not getting my nips tattooed on. 

Goodbye Hair

So for a while, I knew it was going to happen. I had spoken about it being a side affect of T, but lately with so much that has happened, it started to fall out quickly. 

I’m sad that it’s happened, I really am. I no longer have brightly coloured unicorn hair. I finally took the plunge and shaved what was left off and I feel so much better. Least of all that I don’t wake up every morning with huge clumps on my pillow or it just coming out each time I touched it.

When I finally shaved of off, there was barely enough to fill a hand. 

So yeah, this is now me

Goodbye hair. Hello bald head. 

C – Cisgender

90% of all of my life’s interaction has been with cisgender people. 90% of the bullshit I have put up with is from cisgender people 

Now before I continue, cisgender just means people who are not trans. It just means same in Latin. Two, don’t start with the whole “not all cis” bullshit. You know I don’t mean every fucking cis person in the world and you know it. When a trans person talks about being stuck in a cisnormative society, you listen to them because we are getting pushed through the cracks of society because of medical and social stereotypes and assinptions that come with being trans. 

I don’t think I could be in a relationship with anyone that’s cis. It turns out that cis people are really curious about genitals. Like grossly. It’s always the first question that comes up when you start trying to date someone. For context of how bad it is, if you type in queer dating into the archives, you should find a few gems of the bullshit we have to deal with cis people. 

Secondly, cis people think that one of our role models is Caitlen Jenner because she’s a huge face in the media. That’s like us saying that Noel Edmonds or Kat Von Dee is every cis persons hero because they are cis. I mean yeah sure they may be some cis peoples hero’s but they are problematic as fuck to many and their transition status (or lack of) shouldn’t be a deciding factor of which role models we should take. 

What’s cis peoples fascination of passing for that matter? Why is it that cis people say “I bet you can’t wait till you look like a real girl/boy?” Firstly what the actual shit, can you all stop saying this shit. We are really pissed off with this.  Secondly who the fuck set the bar on what the fuck we should look like and how we should appear. Thirdly and this is a huge thing, you are erasing non binary identities in the process of your binary steroypical bullshit. Non binary people exist, non binary and intersex people are fucking real. There is not just male or female identities on this earth. Passing is not a thing for some people and you need to fucking respect that. 

Then there is sexual health and medical care. An assumption of that we are “lying” about our gender and our bodies, and you saying that we won’t get the right care, is total bullshit. Treatment and care is often just done by height, weight and body type. The only time when gender may come into question is when it might have something to do with genitals or fertility treatment. And even then your doctor should know what the fuck you have. Also yes we do have sex, please make your services accessible to us please so we can practice safer sex care and access birth control. 

Also on this notes, drs and psychiatrists. Not everything that is wrong with us is because of transition. I don’t have a broken arm because I’m trans, I don’t have asthma because I’m trans. Google trans broken arm syndrome and see the misdiagnosis that happens because you are obsessed with our gender. 

Finally cis people, stop acting like you need a prize because you have a friend that’s trans. You really do not need to tokenise us please. If you continue to be like this, we may no longer be our friends. 
This has been day three of the A-Z challenge and day three of different rants. Tomorrow is D