If you ever found yourself worrying about something going wrong with your body, you’d most likely feel safe to the hands of a medical practitioner (or a group of them) to know how to “fix you”. It’s pretty simple really. These people spent most of their lives studying the faults and functions of human bodies, and many of them are specialised to offer specific treatment for specific parts, and since your body is just another one of the thousands they’ve seen, you’re sorted, right?
Well yes. Until your body becomes part of a very small percentage of alien bodies, that not many people know how to deal with. I mean, yes sure, you’re not that special after all – your bodily functions on their majority are the same as everyone else’s. But what happens when they are not? And what happens when the data and knowledge available for these specific types of bodies are not much?
It’s scary.
Being a man who owns a vagina, let me tell you that visiting medical facilities is not the most pleasant of endeavours. Recently, I had to say the word “my vagina” to a medical practitioner and I immediately grasped a sense of “Oh! How do I deal with this right now” – not in a transphobic way, rather than in a human “I hope it’s something I know what to do about” way.
Given that I am still learning how my new body works, after years of it working in different ways, I would hope that medical practitioners would have a clearer idea about it, and they would be able to guide and support me through this process. However, most of them are just as confused as I am, and although both of us are aware of many of the things that are happening in there, we are still not sure if that’s the whole story or not.
I wish there was a specialty for transgender people. I mean, there are specialties for pretty much everything these days. It would provide so much comfort to people who need someone to empathise and understand them (us) when we go with a full on beard to a GP and talk about periods, or god forbid! vaginas.
I'm Alex Now 