#and she asks me every single session about getting my name and gender legally changed

[armandism]

no cause i thought abt the talk i had with this gender psychologist or whtever the hell she is and got so mad again

[itsgivingfaggot]

Thinking about the time I went to this group therapy thing for a diagnosis I had gotten a couple months prior. But It started half a year before i got my name (& gender marker) legally changed. So I had to give the organization my deadname when signing up. This wasnt too much of a big deal, they used my actual name in therapy, my pronouns, didnt out me in the group or anything, things were fine.

Now after nearly completing the whole year of group therapy I overhead one of the women running it talking about a seperate group that sounded perfect for me, that they didn't seem to advertise in their flyers etc so I never had heard about it. So I decided to approach her after one of the last sessions and ask her about it. She seemed excited about me joining it but told me she would need to do a pre interview first. We set an appointment for maybe 2 weeks later.

Now, in the most vague terms, this was a group For Very Traumatized people. I show up to the sort of "interview" a little nervous, expecting questions abt my biography, effects of trauma I'm dealing with, how I'm coping with them, blabla. She basically opens up with "so I asked the other group members about a Man joining them, and when one of them expressed that she wouldn't be comfortable with it, I explained your situation to her!" With a big smile on her face. My "situation". She outed me to this random group of people I had never even met before. This group was not once meant to be a womens space. She simply should've given everyone the option to decide if they were comfortable with this. That's all. Not fucking outing me. For the woman who wasnt comfortable with me as a cis man? Sucks for her. But that doesnt mean this worker gets to potentially endanger me for that womans comfort. But of course she did.

So that's over. Can we finally get to the interview? Of course. However she opens up with "oh you know, I've just been super interested in how things were for you growing up. If you could tell me about that." I go "with the. Abuse?" She doesnt react. "....The autism?" "Oh, no no! The trans thing!"... I sit there a little confused. I give a short one or two sentence answer thinking we will move on to the actual topic of this group. But no. She keeps digging. What about your family? Did you have ~the surgery~ yet? How was school? What about your partners? What about your extended family? What about-

And i was unable to tell her to stop. I answered everything as vaguely as possible. But as a trans person you're always seen as fucking representative of every other trans person. You're not an individual you're either a walking advertisement for corruption or a fascinating oddity of a mystical group to disect and test and observe. If I had told her it's none of her business what's in my pants, it's not actually important to this group how my uncles reacted to me coming out? No I dont want to tell you in great detail the effects of testosterone on my body? Etc. Maybe she'd make a mental note of "trannies = rude and combative. Secretive. Dont want their ~allies~ to be educated about their experiences (why?!)" and I dont wanna be responsible for that in a setting where that person holds so much influence over someone's access to mental health care. So I mumbled my way through it.

In the end the "interview" for a fucking trauma group was 30 minutes of me being increasingly uncomfortable by being prodded over being trans, and roughly 5 minutes of her telling me about some rules in the group and asking a single question about how to best handle me when past trauma gets triggered. I ended up not joining anyways for mostly (!) unrelated reasons. But like. What the fuck was that. I dont understand how some cis people who are interested in trans experiences wont just like. Watch a fucking documentary. Read a book. Theres people who make it their lives mission to share their experiences. That Does Not Mean every random trans person you meet will wanna do the same.

Also again dont fucking out people without their consent. I cant believe we still have to say this oh my god