{"id":35,"date":"2014-10-09T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/typingmonkeys.com\/ait\/?p=35"},"modified":"2018-02-21T21:33:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T01:33:27","slug":"day-17-pronoun-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/day-17-pronoun-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 17: Pronoun Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday morning 3 A.M.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not just a Simon & Garfunkel album anymore. It’s me in my hotel room and I can’t sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

I send a note of gratitude to my boss for her wonderful and loving support, and continue pacing the hotel room.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Because in the morning I have my appointment at Beth Israel Medical Center about my self-medicated hormone use and subsequent blood test. On the positive side, my nurse practitioner is transgendered so hopefully she’ll be understanding what I’ve been going through.<\/span><\/p>\n

I finally fall asleep, but awake hours later and the pacing continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

My wait finally comes to an end and I arrive at Beth Israel on 14th Street. Everyone there is extremely nice and supportive, and I am directed to fill in my personal information.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am then confronted, for the first time in my life, with a new choice. Male. Female. Transgendered<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I smile and circle Transgendered. I smile again and can’t suppress a laugh this time. “I accept!!!”<\/span><\/p>\n

I wish I could recount more epic tales of bravery, but I panic when it comes to my insurance. Do I want my insurance company to know I’m transgendered? Do I want that on my permanent medical record? I blink and decide to pay out of pocket for now. I’ll cross that<\/i> road at another time.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am beckoned in to have my blood pressure taken. Yeah, that shouldn’t be too<\/i> high, especially for one afflicted with white coat syndrome (artificially high blood pressure due to anxiety about having your blood pressure taken). But to my surprise it’s 113 over something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I’m more at ease about all of this than I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

I then meet my NP (I’m new to the world of medical acronyms, but officially Family Nurse Practitioner, Board Certified. FNP-BC for short. NP for really short). Regardless, she is a delight and let’s me nervously share my story over the next half hour. She intersperses my running dialogue with head nods and comments like, yup, that’s normal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Normal. Not a word I ever expected to hear when it came to being transgendered.<\/span><\/p>\n

She seems satisfied with my story, progress and therapy, and innocuously asks if I want to continue my hormones. That catches me off guard as I was expecting to be reprimanded for my previous self-medicated use, and taken off all hormones until I had proceeded further down “official” channels.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think about it and nod my assent. Yes, I would. The subtle changes so far are welcome, and I feel like I’m making progress. She gives me a release to sign about the hazards of estrogen and before long I have my prescriptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

She then catches me off guard a second time with another question. What pronoun would I like to use? I suddenly have a vision of the Bugs Bunny cartoon with Daffy Duck, Rabbit Seasoning,<\/i> where Bugs repeatedly tricks Elmer Fudd into shooting Daffy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daffy Duck:<\/strong> Let’s run through that again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bugs Bunny:<\/strong> Okay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bugs Bunny:<\/strong> Wouldja like to shoot me now or wait till you get home?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daffy Duck:<\/strong> Shoot him now, shoot him now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bugs Bunny:<\/strong> You keep outta this. He doesn’t hafta shoot you now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daffy Duck:<\/strong> Ha! That’s it! Hold it right there! Pronoun trouble.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daffy Duck:<\/strong> It’s not: “He doesn’t have to shoot *you* now.” It’s: “He doesn’t have to shoot *me* now.” Well, I say he does have to shoot me now!<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t think I’m ready for “pronoun troubles” just yet and request that we just use “DiG” for now. Pronouns can be sorted out on another day.<\/span><\/p>\n

I then get my blood taken and finally depart for the front desk. As I’m about to pay, I decide, screw it. I am<\/i> transgendered. I circled the damn word on the form. Damn the torpedoes, let’s submit to my insurance company and let the chips fall where they may.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, I may be brave, but I still torture analogies with the best of ’em.<\/span><\/p>\n

I leave Beth Israel feeling great. And again can’t suppress a laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n

You, my friend, are officially transgendered.<\/span><\/p>\n

Note: When I began transitioning in 2014, I was known by my nickname DiG, which sufficed until I learned my mom had chosen Jennifer had my birth gone differently. So for historical sake, I leave my posts and podcasts as originally conceived, but know that my name is and apparently always was Jen.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday morning 3 A.M. Not just a Simon & Garfunkel album anymore. It’s me in my hotel room and I can’t sleep. I send a note of gratitude to my boss for her wonderful and loving support, and continue pacing the hotel room. Why? Because in the morning I have my appointment at Beth Israel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblegirl.com\/sotheresthat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}