Still No Resolution Nailed Down on My Top Surgery

I’m getting frustrated.

 

There is still no resolution nailed down re my top surgery, although the Insurance Commissioner’s office says the procedure cannot be denied if coded properly. (The receptionist assured me that she coded it properly, but it’s coded wrong in the letter I received from her when they wrote to  ask me to get the go-ahead from Medicare, so I’m taking that with a grain of salt.)

 

My case is reportedly still stuck in the financial services department at the UW.

 

I also can’t get any information on whether I need to jump through any more hoops prior to the surgery: get a more recent mammogram, blood work, or wellness check. They say that will be discussed at my my first appointment.

 

That’s too late. I want to expedite getting this done. If here’s more to be done, I want to do it before my first appointment sometime after April 2nd. I can’t get these things done quickly with a phone call; they have to be scheduled in, if they’re required…

 

My top surgery, when it finally happens, seems to be the only good news I’m going to get this year (unless Bernie pulls ahead in the delegate count and becomes the DEM standard bearer for the November 3rd election) and I’ve been looking forward to feeling great about something for the first time since 2016 when the Orange Cheetoh became our POS (abbreviation intended).

 

Maybe I just need to cool my jets and let the matter resolve itself in due course. But after 60 years of lugging this excess baggage around, I really want to put it all behind me.

 

I’ve been imagining sunning myself in the back yard shirtless this summer… not for long, because I burn easily… but just to be able to do it would be HUGE to me.

 

These small joys that guys take for granted have been denied me for too long. I want my pre-boob upper body back! It was stolen from me unwillingly and I’ve been pissed about it ever since.

 

I don’t think anyone who doesn’t have gender dysphoria can understand how infuriating it is to be encumbered by the wrong body.

 

I expect a Mercedes Benz guy would feel utterly distraught to find himself driving a Ford Fiesta… but this is worse! The Mercedes Benz guy can refuse to drive a vehicle he didn’t choose and doesn’t want to be seen in.

 

Until about ten years ago, I didn’t even know I had any choice but to be confined uncomfortably in a model I don’t recognize and do not like (for myself, let me be clear. I’m not anti-woman: I’m anti-ME as a human being who appears in the form of a woman).

 

I’m just eager for my gender reveal. Wearing guys’ clothes and having a guy’s haircut hasn’t indicated strongly enough that I am not who I appear to be; people see the boobs and think, “Lady… life-long tomboy… lesbian…dyke…” or whatever…

 

These are the default illusions. And they’re light years, galaxies from who I am!

 

I am a man in a woman’s body. Whether I was born intersex and altered as a child, or whether I simply have a male brain, the fact remains that I’m a guy raised as a girl.  I never bought being a girl, from day one. I never will.

 

Cisgender girls and women love who they are. They embrace their curves and femininity.  There is no disconnect between their bodies and their minds. They are congruent.

 

Not this kid. Not this adult. I am not who I appear to be. I’m unwillingly disguised.

 

And I hate deceiving people. I want them to know who I really am.

 

I don’t want to live the rest of my life, or go to my grave, as anyone’s sister or aunt or girlfriend. If they feel that way, I want them to keep it to themselves and address me in the way I want to be addressed: brother, uncle,  male friend.

 

Whenever it happens–whenever I’m addressed as “dude” or “man” or spoken of as “he, him or his,” tears flood my eyes with gratitude because I know they’re honoring the me I’ve proclaimed myself to be despite the huge balloons on my chest. I realize it takes guts to do that on their part.

 

I’ll have to get over tearing up  every time it happens…but the more people  do it, the sooner I’ll be able to get over it!!! I want it to become a default response, not a novelty, not a surprise or a wonder or a blessing.

 

It’s who I’ve always been. It’s who I’ll always be.

 

I don’t like being unseen or disregarded in my essence.

 

We all want to be known for who we are.

 

It’s unsettling to have our truths questioned, disregarded or ignored because our truth makes someone else need to reconsider the way they’ve been seeing us “wrong” for far too long.

 

My top surgery is my ticket back to who I truly am. It’s a marker that proclaims, “Don’t keep seeing me the way you’ve been seeing me. I have never been that. I’m still the me I’ve always been, but I’m freeing myself from your mistaken notions of who I am. THIS IS ME!!!”

 

In The Greatest Showman, the bearded lady and other marginalized “freaks” (so-called in that day and age) belt out, “I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I’m meant to be. THIS IS ME!”

 

Yeah. I get that.

 

I’m glad others do, too…