For a trans inmate access to hormones has been a major stride for healthy living. It used to be that you only got hormones if you took them on the streets before incarceration. Now, thankfully, we can get them after a series of carefully navigated obstacles.
This is a major point for me coming clean as trans in the first place, it seemed a lot less hostile for me to do so. I have a great support network, I'm well-informed, I have become emotionally stable. It was time I got rid of my last secret. Now I have clean closet, so to speak. There is nothing anyone can say about me that I haven't brought out already, that feels good.
But, dealing with psychiatry to access hormones can be frightening. I have happily dealt with mental health professionals my entire incarceration and have grown so much as a result, I truly got tools to help me be a different person. I was a new person, until I came out as trans.
Since then, I have been accused of using a trans identity to distance myself from my past. Which is insanity and quite frankly, hurts. Taking responsibility for my actions has been a source of...pride for me. It is the least I can do for the community that I hurt. One, say it happened and it hurt people. Two, fix what was broken inside so I never do it again. Which is precisely what I've done.
So while I am excited that I will finally be free of any skeletons, it may have cost me my physical freedom because one psychiatric employee made a stereotypical judgment from one 20 minute meeting in which a discussion about why I'm trans never even took place. How this is ethical or responsible is beyond me.
Now, I have to go see this same person in order to access hormones. Why does it feel like he is going to make me trade my freedom for a healthy self-image?
God, this hurts.
Subscribe, Follow, Interact, Comment and change YOUR community.
With Love
Jeff aka Ruthie Utnage
www.lgbtqprisonsupport.com
This is a major point for me coming clean as trans in the first place, it seemed a lot less hostile for me to do so. I have a great support network, I'm well-informed, I have become emotionally stable. It was time I got rid of my last secret. Now I have clean closet, so to speak. There is nothing anyone can say about me that I haven't brought out already, that feels good.
But, dealing with psychiatry to access hormones can be frightening. I have happily dealt with mental health professionals my entire incarceration and have grown so much as a result, I truly got tools to help me be a different person. I was a new person, until I came out as trans.
Since then, I have been accused of using a trans identity to distance myself from my past. Which is insanity and quite frankly, hurts. Taking responsibility for my actions has been a source of...pride for me. It is the least I can do for the community that I hurt. One, say it happened and it hurt people. Two, fix what was broken inside so I never do it again. Which is precisely what I've done.
So while I am excited that I will finally be free of any skeletons, it may have cost me my physical freedom because one psychiatric employee made a stereotypical judgment from one 20 minute meeting in which a discussion about why I'm trans never even took place. How this is ethical or responsible is beyond me.
Now, I have to go see this same person in order to access hormones. Why does it feel like he is going to make me trade my freedom for a healthy self-image?
God, this hurts.
Subscribe, Follow, Interact, Comment and change YOUR community.
With Love
Jeff aka Ruthie Utnage
www.lgbtqprisonsupport.com
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