Thread by @RDW_Heather

#LGBWithTheT
GC/TERF stuff is once again trending on my feed, and for some reason it put into my mind a particular experience I had to deal with in my past that particularly highlights, at least for me, why places to be authentic are so important. A 🧵:

1/21 I'm 41. So a bit of an old soul at this point. Had first struggles with gender concerns at around 12-13. Didn't recognize due to upbringing. Didn't finally learn the science until I was about 21. That's a different story though.

2/21 Started attempting to transition full time at 24, couldn't until about 28. From 21 to 28 are a different set of stories, maybe another time if people are interested.

3/21 From then until the time this story takes place, even just a name change was only for those who were rich where I lived, and the state I lived in would still dead-gender me anyway. So, everyone in my personal life knew me as Heather.

4/21 Anyone who looked at my 'official' records saw my dead info, and no amount of reminders or notes on my record seemed to fix that.

So a bit over 10 years ago, I moved to Oregon. Disabled, effectively broke, and couch surfing.

5/21 Oh, and in the middle of a full mental health breakdown. It was a breakdown that had been building for years, but within a few months of moving here everything broke. Lost the last ties to society I had.

6/21 Lost my family, my friends, my home, had a plan to make my exit as painlessly as I could. Capitalism has a way of doing that to disabled people. The only thing I had going for me was I was a veteran, and had health care.

7/21 Got checked into the local VA hospital, inpatient for mental health (and no, gender issues had nothing to do with why I was in). Ended up being in close to two weeks out of the next three on two separate instances before my head got on straight.

8/21 Still in the top five decisions I've made in my life. Even with all the issues I'm about to bring up.

So, VA leans heavily on 'official' name and sex. Both were still now that I have since fixed.

9/21 But the VA, even 10 years ago, was at least putting in a good effort to treat me properly. They couldn't house me in the women's wing because of my ID, but they could at least get my name right most of the time. And they made sure I had a sleeping room 'to myself'.

10/21 Would have been a shared bathroom except the other bedroom was empty the whole time I was in.

Anyway, first trip helped me get off the streets, somewhat stabilized, but didn't help the lack of will to live. Second trip in was where a lot of that work went in.

11/21 And that's where my mind has mostly wandered to here today. The second visit I was treated infinitely more femme than the first time. It was also the time they told me about the women's 'lounge' that I could go in (even if I was still roomed in the men's wing of the ward).

12/21 Bonus for books that a long term male patient hadn't peed all over, forcing their destruction. But just having that place where I could go and be with other female identifying people ... it was intensely validating for me, made me feel tons safer and a lot more comfortable.

13/21 Especially in reflection of the night that one of the male patients made his way into my room, while I was in bed. Thankfully it wasn't a huge deal at the end. He was disoriented, probably some degenerative condition, and just didn't realize it wasn't his room.

14/21 But the staff didn't realize what had happened at the time. Not until I briefed them after.

15/21 Before my disabilities piled up so bad, I'd worked in group homes with long term mental compromised clients, so I had the skills to de-escalate his confusion and help redirect him out of my room.

16/21 And I was near discharge myself (I think the next day) so I was infinitely more stable and self-aware than I had been before.

I look back now, and shudder to think of all the ways that could have gone different. If he'd been violent in his confusion.

17/21 If he'd been malicious. If I hadn't had the skillset I had. If I hadn't been as stable as I was at that point. So many ways that someone could have been hurt. And most of those ways would have had me as the one injured (in crisis, I hurt myself, not others).

18/21 This is where my brain goes when I hear GC types talking about 'men invading women's spaces'. I think about that confused guy barging into my bedroom while I was reading in bed.

19/21 And then I think about being enthusiastically welcomed with open arms into a 'women's only' space, and how much that safety, that comradery, that validation did to help me then and after.

20/21 I think of the donated quilt that was given to me by one of the other female patients when they were discharged, and how all these years later it's still a treasured belonging of what should have been one of the darkest times of my life.

21/21 And yet, in reality this all came together to be the break of dawn of a new life for me.

@threadreaderapp unroll please