I’ve been saying, “I was born without a uterus”, which so far seems to answer honestly without directly outing myself as trans.
Any thoughts on how to best navigate this? Ideally without disclosing I’m trans 😅
I’ve been saying, “I was born without a uterus”, which so far seems to answer honestly without directly outing myself as trans.
Any thoughts on how to best navigate this? Ideally without disclosing I’m trans 😅
Knowing biology, I’m sure it’s complicated and any generalization will be false. For example, there might be genetic conditions that derive from having two X chromosomes that we could argue are intrinsic to the sex (or more accurately, intrinsic to that karyotype), but for the most part my understanding is that differences relevant to lab ranges are mostly mediated by hormones, so I use female ranges.
Either way, my PCP seemed to indicate I shouldn’t disclose trans status but that the one exception was that I eventually need to find someone for prostate exams once I hit that age (if I hit that age, I guess). The endo that prescribes my HRT has never mentioned whether I should disclose or when to.
I should say, even when my medical chart was shared across hospital systems and my gender dysphoria was listed in my chart, the ER doctors didn’t seem to do uptake or change the way they treated me, even when I walked through my HRT and explained I couldn’t be pregnant. They still thought I was a cis woman and asked if I could be pregnant - I think people mostly just operate based on what they see, and it’s a shock when you say you are trans. It creates an extreme chilling effect sometimes, people stop meeting your eyes, or even interacting (sometimes interacting through a third party instead, like a cis family member). I’ve even talked to a neurologist through the details of my vaginoplasty and he didn’t seem to do uptake that I was trans. Unless I say the words, they just won’t put the dots together. (Meanwhile a trans woman at Sephora’s will clock me from across the store.)
Sounds like you’ve already had the conversation I was encouraging if your PCP said that.
Hormones are pretty wild. The more I study them the more I understand that what I do know is barely a scratch on the tip of the iceberg, so I’d caution against making an assumption one way or another without bouncing it off a doc who specializes in that stuff.
I would guess you’re correct about the ranges, but my confidence in that guess is fairly low due to how insanely powerful hormones are.
Oh 100%. I’ve been a surgical tech for about a decade, and have seen how people get tunnel-visioned. That’s actually one of the reasons I want to switch to nursing, since I’ve caught myself kind of flying on autopilot, and then when some case deviates from the norm, I still do things like open the all the usual supplies, some of which may not be needed this time, so it’s just waste. It’s time to step out of my comfort zone. Anyway, nurses and docs do the same shit after their duties become routinized for too long.
That is fucked up. I don’t know where you’re getting care, but your team absolutely knows better. Even if you’re that rare break from their routine… and in all fairness, you probably are - in that decade I’ve been a tech, I’ve only ever had like three patients I’ve known were trans. But like Ada mentioned, one of the best sources of info in those cases are the patients themselves. They should be treating you the same as any other patient, both medically and socially. Some curiosity is expected - your team should want to get to know you, but standoffish shit like you described is a red flag that merits correction. Don’t be afraid to call that shit out in things like patient surveys if you have the energy to fight in that battle - they need some better training at bare minimum.