Queer as me - Part 4: Knowledge and wonderment

• Posted on 24 February 2016
• By Rachael
• Posted in Personal Stories, Queer as me, Trans
• 0

This post is PART 4 in a guest blogger series following author Rachael's transition from an A.M.A.B (Assigned Male at Birth) individual to that of a self-identified trans woman.

If you are just discovering Queer as me, start the story from the beginning here.

The doctor’s office was a quaint little house that had been separated into different offices. It was a beautiful open living room that made you feel welcomed and relaxed. I introduced myself using my male pronouns and legal name, and was very surprised when she asked what pronouns and name I would like to use instead. My smile at her question grew and I stammered that I would like female pronouns and the name Rachael if that was OK. My name was still fairly new to me and it still felt strange to think it, much less say it.

Quick back story on my name. While I was online I had a different name, but it didn’t feel right, yet I had no idea on how to go about picking a new name for myself. The other transgender women online gave me ideas on different ways that I could find a name, but none of those seemed to work for me.

It was actually one night after I had gone to bed, late as usual due to being online. Falling asleep with all these new ideas in my head was becoming harder and harder. I didn’t want to sleep, there was so much to know and learn, and I felt that I would be missing out on something vitally important if I did sleep.

But finally my exhaustion overcame my bustling mind and I feel into a dream. I was sitting with a bunch of friends having a drink in a pub somewhere, when someone called my name. Rachael Elizabeth Evans. I turned and smiled, and woke up. My name, this was it, I knew it with a certainty that had no doubt. None. I had a name and this was me. I fell back asleep smiling.

I know that you may be saying. What? Basing your name on a dream? Yes, it sounds silly, but the feeling of how truly right it felt was rock solid.

So, the doctor asked what felt like hundreds if not thousands of questions. Childhood, growing up, family dynamics, adulthood, marriage, and then why I felt that I was transgender. The flood gates opened and my words were a deluge. How I had never told anyone how I felt inside that I always knew that I was different. That I could never understand why I wasn’t like other guys. How I never felt like I fit in anywhere. That I kept to myself after an incredibly abusive childhood. That when I found out about transgender people I knew, just knew this was me. The way that people online sounded like me. How I lived a different world inside my head compared to the rest of the world, but I finally believed I’d found my people.

The doctor gave me some information about a group that met once a month there at her office. They were like me, she said. I stopped her and said “like me?” She laughed and said yes, I was right, from everything I have told her and my certainty in myself, yes, she believed that I was correct. I was transgender.

Now she did caution me that there was many steps involved, that it could take years. I didn’t care. Someone believed me. She did want me to see her three more times before she could help me get a script for hormone treatment, if that’s what I so desired. She also told me that it was okay to bring my wife with me to the next appointment. This was in response to one of my wife’s requirements. If I was going to see her more than once, then she wanted to be there.

Rachael

Editor’s Note: To read Queer as me - Part 5: The calm before the storm click here. Or click here to read the previous blog post Queer as me - Part 3: Cracks start to appear. For the latest LSOP blog posts and so much more, make sure to add us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.