#like eight different layers of my own transphobic brain damage try to fucking end me every time i think about this

[jaywhere]

im about to drop so much unnecessary information but i think i need to like write this down and get it out of my system bc i dont think ive ever actually like put it on paper all in one place but

i went to graduate school in like 2019 i already knew a bunch of the profs in the program and id promised myself that if i got into this program specifically i would bite the bullet and transition bc it was going to be the cheapest option so id actually have the money and i would have at least some social support bc id be close to home and like. yadda yadda transitioning is bad grad school is toxic you end up spending like 8-12 hours a day with 30 random high achieving people and its Bad, trans stuff was not the only thing that everyone was bad about.

i have been trying very hard recently to find like joy in being a man and loving myself and all that extremely gay shit but back then i was this like tightly wound ball of anxiety and insecurity and transitioning in that environment while not knowing a single other trans person irl was kind of unhinged of me and i dont mean to sound like an asshole but i did graduate with a 4.0 and im good at my fucking job now despite all that shit and i am extremely brave and awesome for that. and i could spend a lot of time talking about how all of that fucking psychologically fucked me up but i am here today to talk about one specific person who at the time i made a lot of excuses for but looking back on it im. i just need to write it out lmfao.

so i went to grad school not for fun academic reasons but bc my current profession is like one of those things where u gotta have a special license and training and all that jazz, not gonna doxx myself but u get it. one of the pieces of that is u have to get a certain number (like Many Hundreds) of direct hours practicing how to do this job, usually on site at the university for the first year and then externally as a graduate intern at some kind of real world job site. some programs make you find your own internships but mine was one where we were directly assigned -- a thing my anxious undiagnosed adhd ass was specifically looking for lol -- and there was one lady who was in charge of finding those placements and picking out which student goes where. she also had minimal teaching responsibilities where we had a 1-hour long lecture with her once a week and it was extremely pointless everything else im about to say aside this lady was either sleep deprived all the time or really just not very smart

so you know me, baby trans, publicly transitioning in this toxic environment, constant microaggressions from my peers -- dear lord one time this lady in her 40s with like kids who used to be in the military made me sit with her in grad work room and explain to her what rights exactly i think i dont have as a trans person a lady from the fucking MILITARY who was enlisted in the fucking DONT ASK DONT TELL ERA and then i just had to move on and sit there for like three hours studying -- christ!!! anyways it was not great but this particular professor would literally constantly misgender me in her class, like to the fucking point where i had other students point it out like "why does she do that like youre not even raising your hand" and it became this whole thing where i was like. fuck do i need to sit in the back and even though my adhd ass really needs to be in the front do i need to just start loudly interrupting her so she feels as embarrassed as i do or am i gonna get in trouble for that can i ask other students to help me out JOKES ON YOU i tried that and it did not fucking work for like 8 different reasons

so i eventually just started trying to interrupt her and tbh it made her do it more frequently and draw even more attention to myself and i honestly would have just started skipping the class if it wouldnt have flunked me and you know how theres that whole thing they do in academia (other minority postbach homies will understand) where theyre like "well you say this thing is due to [minority status] but you didnt clearly communicate to us your needs why are you only telling us now" and its like i dont fucking know what about any of this situation (massive power difference between me and a prof, ability of prof to literally end my career before it starts, ability to make my life so miserable i get depressed and completely stop functioning only to say im not "cut out" for your highly selective program) makes academics think anybody is gonna feel okay communicating openly and honestly with them. so i never fucking complained like a chump just jay out here living in literal hell all the time always

and then she gives us these. god awful fucking case study type presentations. they are based on real people, one of them is trans. i wasnt assigned to the group that had that case but i got this awful feeling about it so i read through it and the whole thing was so fucking awful, like calling this poor trans woman's name a pseudonym bc its not her birth name, giving really inappropriate details about like gential surgeries which were really not relevant, super outdated language like we're just throwing the word transsexual around and defining "passing" wrong, i'm pretty sure misgendering this poor lady just to be like "well JUST to be CLEAR she (he) is really a MAN"

and like setting aside how awful that made me feel because, you know. looking back on it that's what literally everyone around me was thinking about me all thrle time. i had this whole conversation with myself where i was like. i have not complained i dont want to rock the boat i have approached literally every interaction ive had here trying to be a fucking model minority and it is straight up killing me a little. but i cannot let my classmates think this is an acceptable way to talk about trans people. shit that happens to me is my choice, shit that impacts others is not.

so i made an office hours appt with this lady. there was no fucking way to casually talk to her so it was like formal appt a week in advance felt like i was gonna throw up for days and i walk in psyching myself up to be so nice and helpful and understanding i just want to learn this shit and get my fucking degree. i explain so nicely like hey this maybe isnt the best. i wouldnt feel good if someone talked about me this way. i know it must be hard to find resources about trans people. we're so niche. id be happy to help you find another resource. we could maybe even salvage this one, or we could use it as-is and also talk about why all these things are bad. i dont want to take away everyones opportunity to learn about trans people, its so valuable and important, i just want it to he good info. i was so fucking -- i do not think i could have behaved better

and anyways here are some things this lady said to me during this meeting: oh yeah i thought when you made this appt it might be about this. she misgendered me like three fucking times -- how the hell do you even do that in a 1-1 conversation??? -- and acted like she didnt notice every. fucking. time. she did it. lady had the gall to like brag??? complain???? to me about how she ignores the emails she gets from turning point usa like WOW THAT MUST BE SO FUCKING HARD FOR YOU...ignoring emails...dear god, the moxie! (foreshadowing) and then admits that she knew the resource might have been shitty when she assigned it but felt assured that i would come to her and let her know if it was bad. which to this day makes me so fucking angry i spent so many hours freaking out about that meeting NOT FUCKING STUDYING -- and the whole fucking program was so vocal about racial/ethnic diversity and disability she would have immediately realized how inappropriate that sentiment is if it had been about NEARLY ANY OTHER MINORITY GROUP!!! and then she fucking is like "well ill just scrap it and we wont talk about trans people at all" and i kept pushing like hey no, hey no, please dont do that, dont let all these people graduate without having to have this conversation just once. and she was like eh and i OFFERRED to find someone to try and come give a fucking training (that didnt involve a fucking privledge walk and extensive discussion of the word womyn god i hate universities so much!!!!!!) and she was like uhh maybe and i immediately fucking went and found some folks to do it ANYWAYS bc i was struggling so much

and then covid hit like two weeks later and none of that mattered anyways!

i then lost all of my opportunities to get hours on campus (while other folks were able to continue virtually). it was entirely random but it was extremely shitty considering id gotten fewer hours in the fall bc the program had just relocated and there were all of these resource issues. i was meant to be included in an intensive project over the summer where i'd get a ton of hours because of the focus area i'd chosen, but i ended up getting less than half the hours that had been projected bc we had to do it virtually. so i ended out my first year of grad school with something like 85 hours out of 400. i wasnt in close contact with all my classmates but as far as i could tell i was definitely on the lower end in my cohort.

the semester starts in like august and this lady does not give me an internship placement until late october. i am literally the last person to be placed along with my classmate who shared the internship site with me.

in addition, the location and setting in which i am placed. i live in a major city in texas -- not awesome but i do not feel actively unsafe out in the world and there are visibly trans people Around. she assigned me to the kind of location where pulling into the wrong driveway as a visibly queer or nonwhite person can get you shot. and its a setting for trans people that is, i would say, at significantly higher risk of getting you fired or written about in fox news.

its august. i have been on t for about a year, but i hadnt had top surgery yet. and im likr 5'1 and kinda chubby. i have just started to reliably pass but its very context dependent and i have to put a Lot of work in.

this lady hasnt seen me since february. no one from the program has. she straight up does not think i pass. as she made abundantly clear to me.

not once did she ever try to contact me to let me know who of the people id be working with knew i was trans, give me any advice on how to approach the situation, or offer me literally any kind of support.

i have thought about this a lot over the years, because at the end of the day nothing ended up happening. i spent like an hour and a half every day driving to this internship fucking STRAPPED in my binder so i ended up wearing it for like at least 10 hours a day for months. i had to show my id to the front desk staff every time i went in and they would print me out a sticker i was supposed to wear with my deadname and my picture from my license where i was very clearly a woman. id have to wear just long enough to leave the office and immeditely strip it off in the hallway and discreetly throw it away before my supervisor saw, because i quickly INFERED that my supervisors did not know i was trans. the front office ladies would whisper about me every day. i was literally constantly on edge worrying when she shoe was gonna drop and my supervisors or the site admin or a client would find out and i'd get kicked out of the internship.

and this lady had spent so long yelling at us about how she cannot guarantee that youll graduate on time if you turn down an internship and you go on the bottom of the list for a new placement if you get kicked out and if you have to stay to get more hours you have to pay for a whole other semester of hours. i was already behind bc of covid.

i want to make it clear that in hindsight i understand that this was discrimination, quite obviously actually. at best it was straught negligence and at worst outright retaliation. at the time i really thought about complaining to the director or making a title ix complaint but i knew they were just going to blame it on covid. and if i went through and made a complaint and they completely agreed and removed me from the site, covid would be a great excuse to not give me another placement right anyway so either way i was just. boned.

my next placement was a lot safer thankfully but it was at the exact same setting as before. which, you know, not the best setting for trans people and the way this job works out, if you don't get practice hours in a specific setting its really hard to make the shift after graduation. i ended up getting a job at this place after actually which is great but its like. i got shut out of this whole area of my field. and that is NOT typical, even with covid most of the people in the class got more varied placements than i did. like ive told people in my field about getting two of the same type of job site and they were like "wait you can do that and graduate" and like a ton of people dont even WANT to have varied placements bc they already know exactly where they want to working im sobbing. like ive been trying to get into the one area of my field where we work with trans people and its so hard bc i just dont have any of these foundational experiences i need for that!!!

and now i am. screaming im screaming no im moving out of state bc we are getting to the point where if i stay here and things get any worse im going to be able to get charged with a sex crime for pissing at my place of employment and lose my fucking license or just have to explain it to every fucking landlord and licensing board for the rest of my life forever and like. just like the placement, is it likely to happen? probably not. but i dont deserve to live in the fear of losing my livelihood every day!!

so im in the process of leaving the damn state bc its not fucking safe for me. and the state im moving to needs this fucking paper filled out by my graduate program saying im competent to do this damn job and i did all the hours which is so fucking stupid bc they GRADUATED ME with a fucking 4.0!! and i have emailed this lady twice trying to get her to fill out the damn paper and she has not responded

im just like. so tired. i thought so hard about filing a complaint with the chair or title ix. i didnt, because i didnt wanna "burn the bridge" or whatever and i wasnt gonna win anyways. like i knew it would just be me having to relive all that shit and getting told i didnt advocate for myself well enough and its actually my fault AND I WAS PROBABLY RIGHT lets be real but i am like. regretting not doing that bc then at least there would be a paper trail.

i had like a whole fucking freak out today realizing that this lady 100% has the power to put me through that exact same awful insidious kind of discrimination that's so hard to meaningfully prove and its making me feel out of control. i know im putting the cart before the horse it is just like. its genuinely hard to describe how awful and dehumanizing everything was during that time in my life. i pretty much stopped writing after that first placement and i fucking always had ignorant fucking assholes talking shit to me in my dms and ao3 comments, trans people picking fights with me over fanfiction and fucking say shit like "no trans person would ever say xyz" and "hes a disappointment as a trans person" and "i just dont think his trans fic is good representation" in public, zero fucking apology, i got on antidepressants for the first and only time in my life. and i was in a fucking emotionally abusive relationship! that shit broke my fucking brain!!

i am doing better now not the same guy anymore i have joy sometimes and i am functioning better than i literally ever thought possible and i am going to move so i can have a life.

but also even though it feels very bad like im talking every time i think about this my chest gets all tight like im gonna have a panic attack and it has been SO LONG since i felt that way, i am going to send the emails and and call the front desk and email the department chair and fucking drive up there and bother the shit out of her until she does it. and like hey maybe she fucking wont! but if she gives me a hard time. it will cause me significant professional consequences and little if any professional gain but like fuck if i deserved any of that!!! its been so many years and i keep talking down to myself like it wasnt that big of a deal im just being self-centered it was probably a coincidence youre blowing things out of proportion bc thats how all my cis classmates talked about it but like i WASNT. i wasnt, i was not being dramatic or sensitive or whatever. i was not safe and i had basically no power in that situation and it was messed up. i finished my hours fucking three days before the deadline! three days from having to pay like $3k more than all my classmates and cancel my fucking top surgery if i wanted to graduate!! lady fundamentally changed the course of my career for no motherfucking reason!!!!

all that to say if she gives me a hard time i am going to file a discrimination complaint against her national certification it takes like a year and there's like 0% chance i'll like "win" in arbitration or whatever regardless of whether or not she signs the stupid fucking paper. ill either have to pay like $3k more go to back to school or pay like $1k to pull some morally dubious license and certification nonsense or try to transition to another setting if she doesnt. but like fuck her and every academic like her who thinks they can get away with that kinda shit without any consequences

NOT TO BE DRAMATIC BUT I YHIMK GRAD SCHOOL GAVE ME TRAUMA ACTUALLY