70 • THE LAURELS GENDER IDENTITY CLINIC VISIT 27

Hello *waves* future me here. One of my daily affirmations, is I am Decisive. Sadly, despite repeating this multiple times a day for years now … I still struggle with making a decision. Genital Reassignment Surgery is proving to be one of the hardest decisions to decide on. It’s now 2021 and I’m still none the wiser if I should have it or not.

Before we get into this diary entry though, here’s some photos I found this day. The one of my hand shows a lil pink S … that’s a logo I made for this site :) I kept that on my hand for months, redrawing it over and over until I knew it like the back of my hand lol I did try to include it on logo above, but couldn’t get it to work for the minute.

I wanted it to be the first letter of my name, but think I need to create a full image of the word Sophie with that design, instead of trying to merge it with standard font. The other image has such a cool vibe to it, hope you like it :)

*end of future me*

I’m writing this one on the 25th of May 2018, the day after my twenty seventh visit to the Gender Identity Clinic. Normally I write these right after the session on the train back, but for this one I didn’t take the train, instead I was a car with my Sister, Niece, Cousin and Auntie … my Sister even came into the session with me, so this session was a little bit different.

It’s not even 24 hours later, yet it feels like the session happened years ago lol So odd. Having my Sister sat beside me with my gender therapist was also strange. It wasn’t good or bad, just different. I will admit, I felt ever so slightly self conscious at first, and I noticed this feeling of wondering if it was a mistake having my Sister with me … but that soon went, and in fact, they seemed to get on really well, and I’m so glad she came in with me :)

COVERING BALD PATCHES IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS

We spoke about wearing hats and head scarfs to cover bald patches, and how i feel that may have turned from something that helped me at first to feel comfortable going to work as myself, to now being a hindrance, almost becoming a cruch. When I first started going to work as me, aka in female mode, I had to wear something to cover my bald patches, otherwise I’m pretty sure it would have been too stressful and overwhelming.

It was something that helped me at the time, gave me a bit of confidence, and meant I had one less thing to worry about; an example of the baby steps approach I’ve adopted over the last few years thanks to art, where I break big things down that seem overwhelming, into more manageable baby steps … so wearing a headscarf was a necessity at first.

It’s now been two months since I threw all my boy clothes away and went to work as me, and I need to, or at least want to, be able to go to work without feeling the need to cover my bald patches. I don’t want to feel like I can’t go to work unless I wear a headscarf, but that’s what has happened.

This has sort of created a new scary out of my comfort zone challenge though, so I guess it could be seen as a good thing, but part of is like, grrr, why didn’t you force yourself to go without anything on your head at the start lol The funny thing is, I most likely will continue to wear headscarf’s, as I love the look, I just need to do this for me, to prove I don’t need a headscarf. I guess it’s a way of showing I accept myself fully, which I haven’t achieved yet.

It’s all mental. I know deep down no one cares, and if someone did judge me based on how I looked, I don’t care anyway lol but than I must care, otherwise I wouldn’t be afraid to go to work showing my bald patches, so like everything in my life, it’s complicated.

My therapists advice was amazing as usual, recommending I try not wearing it in certain social situations first, building up to going to work without it in stages. So that’s what I will be doing :) Strangely, I started doing this already by not wearing it around Saltrum (my local woods) last week. There’s very few people around Saltrum so I figured, baby steps, it’ll be easier and less chance of anyone saying anything negative there. Cool thing is, no one cared, people even spoke to me, and I to them, as they walked their dogs, so I know this is all a mental things, it’s just feels really hard to do at the moment.

GENITAL REASSIGNMENT SURGERY

The other thing we spoke about was Genital Reassignment Surgery, something we talked about at the last visit. I had seen the Dr right before the session and said no to him, about having the surgery, but I wanted to speak to my therapist first, as I still wanted to say yes. It’s so strange, it’s not clearly yes like what other trans girls seem to feel … I even said to my Dr, I have a horrible feeling it’s fear making me say no.

After speaking to my therapist though, I confirmed the no, and am now on pause, so will be discharged from the clinic. Being on pause means, if I change my mind and want the surgery, I can say yes and will be filtered back into the system. I said how I was worried by saying no I will end up not being able to get back into the clinic for years to have the surgery should I later want it, but my therapist assured me I would only have to wait months, not years, to start the process.

After I said no to the Dr, I came out into the waiting room to see my Sister and I started crying. I got hit with this sad feeling as if I was making a mistake by not going ahead with Genital Reassignment Surgery, but at the same time, I felt like I had to say no. Don’t know why, I wanted to say yes, but I just felt like I had to say no. I guess maybe now isn’t the right time.

Feels odd being discharged though. Means I only have two therapy sessions left before it’s over. Saying goodbye to my therapist feels sad, but I realise it’s part of the process. Even if I had said yes, my therapist is leaving soon to have a baby, so our sessions together where coming to an end either way.

It was a session where I was aware it was the end of a chapter, but in a strange way, it feels right., I am at peace with so much of who I am now. I know I still have work to do, but I feel a lot of it isn’t related to my gender anymore, but othe negative beliefs that need to be understood and worked out in time, which is where I feel spiritual practices like Reiki Healing and Lucid Dreaming will help.

I am just so thankful for the help I’ve received at the Gender Clinic. I’m a different person to who I was when I started 4 years ago when I started. Really different, both physically and mentally. A large part of that is due to my therapist, seriously, she feels like a gift from the universe.

In terms of my Sister being there, that felt surreal, bringing these two parts of my life together … yeah, surreal is the best word. I wasn’t as relaxed as normal, I noticed I interrupted my therapist a couple times, which is something I do when I’m not fully aware and mindful.
The good thing is, I was aware of the interrupting … so even though I was showing signs of losing present moment awareness, I was aware of losing the awareness, so I was still aware lol that’s funny.

My Sister said to my therapist how she expected to see angels around her playing harps, which my therapist found funny and said she had thought the same of her. They seemed to get on well, later my Sister said she really really liked her. I don’t see how anyone couldn’t. She is pure love. That’s why I will miss her, but also why I’m so thankful for her having come into my life.

All I want to do now is enjoy our last two sessions together, try to go to work without my headscarf on, and continue to work on some of these negative thought patterns that keep trying to sabotage my efforts.

I’m writing this little bit a couple of weeks later having realised I made a mistake in saying no. It’s complicated, and I’m sure I’ll share it in the next gender visit session, but in saying no to Genital Reassignment surgery, I realised I was supposed to say yes. So while things seem really confusing at the moment, in a strange way, I can sort of feeling a level of clarity I didn’t have before.

Visit Twenty Eight took place on the 29th of June 2018, and was the ‘saying goodbye to my therapist‘ visit