I get the difficulty. My preferred pronouns are fae/faer, and no one ever uses them. Thankfully I am quite happy to be referred to using she/her as well.
I’ve also noticed that tendency to read gender presentation and use the traditional pronoun that comes to mind based on that. It’s pretty well drilled into us from when we can first talk, so it’s understandable and I don’t sweat the occasional slip-up. But I do have to laugh when I’m in makeup and a low-cut dress showing cleavage and get called ma’am until I open my mouth to speak and get sir back.
The first time I got ma’amed through a fast food drive-thru speaker was euphoric. Still, almost 20 years after socially transitioning, it’s my voice that sometimes gets me sir’d. If it’s on the phone, I can tell they’re kind of guessing, though, from the hesitation. My voice is pretty androgynous.
This article from 2022 might not be all trans joy, exactly, but I read it as mostly positive. It’s a great example of people doing what they need to do regardless of obstacles!
Just as with underground abortions, underground trans care will be making a comeback if Trump gets his way. And, as great a job as that underground clinic did, most will not be as good, and people will die. It is a mostly positive story, but I fear for the reality coming soon.
100%. There was a case of a botched orchi locally back around 2001 that really stuck in my mind. Basically a transfem from Calgary came to Saskatchewan to get an under the table operation and it went badly. I remember the reporting being quite bad on it, and it definitely helped me build up the closet I’d be in for the next 20 years.
Anyone who wants to look at how bad substandard surgical care has been for us can google John “the butcher” Brown or silicone injections.
Brown was actually a Dr- but he did things like fuck over surgeries really badly on women he didn’t like and performed them on a kitchen table. That collapsed during the procedure.
I was leaving the grocery store tonight and overheard a heavily armed security guard go “They banned trans people from sports” and thought “Oh boy, here we go” and dude goes “The government is going too far. This sh!t has got to stop!”. Yall. We aren’t alone.