Come to Me: Six Stories of Transgender People
In the Russian-language Internet You can read about transgender people in the crime bulletin rather than the usual neutral news such as “The transgender model will take part in the Miss Universe contest.” Of the latest high-profile stories - the scandal in the club "Ionoteka", where a security guard insulted a visitor because of a "male" passport, and confusion among the prison officers about the detained Nazar Gulevich (he was not accepted into either the male or the female isolation ward).
While in Russia they are arguing where to identify Gulevich, the world medical community has refused to consider transgenderism a disease: the transsexual diagnosis has disappeared from the list of mental disorders in the new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). This is a big breakthrough, but it does not guarantee that the situation will drastically change for the better: at least until 2022, transgender Russians will still have to be examined by a psychiatrist and receive transsexual certificates to change documents and make the necessary medical procedures. In October 2017, the Ministry of Health approved a single form of the certificate “on sex change” - before that, it was often necessary to hope for the tolerance of a specific registry office or to seek one’s own through the courts. Due to the complexity of changing documents, many transgender people begin the transition independently of bureaucratic procedures and live with irrelevant passports. Because of this, both tragedies and funny incidents happen: for example, St. Petersburg resident Irina Shumilina was able to enter into an official marriage with her girlfriend, although in Russia same-sex unions are prohibited.
Trips to St. Petersburg or other cities where you can go through a paid commission, the examination itself, medications and surgeries cost a lot of money, and there are no benefits for patients diagnosed with transsexualism. In addition to material and legal problems, transgender people are constantly faced with domestic discrimination: they get from ordinary people who are not savvy in matters of gender, and from supporters of transexclusive radical feminism. One of the common misconceptions is the idea of a transgender transition as a “sex change”, a specific event that turns a man from a man into a woman or vice versa. In fact, this is a process that does not necessarily include surgery.
We talked with six very different characters about how they realized their transgenderness and decided to go, where they got the information from and what difficulties they face in the process.
Already in three years, I felt that I was not a girl, and did not understand why I had such a body. I remember that I was in the hospital, where the girls played their games, skipping ropes, etc., and my friend and I were busy with cars. I was a boy, and with the boys I was more interesting.
At twelve years old, I read in a magazine that the film “Guys Don't Cry” comes out about a girl who feels like a guy, and asked me to buy it for my birthday. Parents did not go into details of what the movie is about, and I watched it with my boyfriends. Everyone, of course, laughed, and I, too, for the company, but for me everything fell into place: I learned the name of my condition and what to do about it. Since then, I dreamed that I would grow up and correct everything, I would do an operation, bring my appearance in line with what I felt.
I am from a small town, so to speak, in the middle of Russia. Everything is pretty harsh there, tough guys live. I had a couple of friends at school, but in general I dreamed that the school would end as soon as possible. I thought about suicide, but did not do anything because of responsibility to my grandmother — she had no one but me, so suicide would be selfishness on my part. At school, I did not call myself masculine, but I dressed as close as possible to the masculine style, and then I became interested in hip-hop and began to look appropriate: pants, pipes and everything wide. A social teacher even came home to me, she tried to explain that I was somehow not wearing the right clothes. Grandma said in response: "You know what, I gave a lot of money for it, so let it wear." There were, of course, attempts on her part to dress me in a dress, but I successfully resisted. In high school, I was often visited because of how I looked, they even suggested I should go to the arrow. But I was doing judo and could stand up for myself.
I tried several times to talk with my parents, but the more I tried to get through, the more I faced the negative and understood that I wouldn’t wait for support. If a person is not ready, to explain and impose something on him is meaningless. My mother died when I was nine years old, and my grandmother brought me up - a man of the Soviet school. I had little contact with my father, he once again showed up when I was already a teenager. I told him at the age of fifteen, he said that everything was okay. My father had a lot of different things in his youth, so he is generally freer in this area. Then I told his wife, she had no problems with her either. Since then, they turn to me in the masculine.
If my wife gives birth, she will do it with my egg - it will be genetically my child, but she endures it
When I went to college and went to the regional center, it became much better. I had the opportunity to independently manage my time, I talked a lot, participated in amateur activities, a year later I began to meet with a girl. At first I met people under my passport name, and then I was revealed; by the end of the first year, close friends already knew everything. The institute was a center for gender studies, and I talked with teachers from there, began to write research papers. All problems are due to the fact that people are either given false information or are not given any at all. For example, one can read that transgender people live less than cisgender people, although this has not been proven at all, and all monitoring suggests otherwise. My doctor says that in the last ten years no one in Russia died because of transgenderness - there was one fatal case among those observed, but there a person got into a car accident, that is, death is not related to transgenderness at all. Transgender guys often write to me, who have been reading fiction on the Internet and believed it, without even talking to a doctor even once.
At some point, I threw out all my wardrobe, a little bit similar to the female, and began to dress fully in the men's departments. I pretended to buy things for my brother or someone for my birthday, but then I scored on the salesman’s sidelong glances and stopped pretending. As a teenager, I tried to wrap my breasts with elastic bandages. So you can go for a maximum of four hours, then your back starts to hurt, moreover, at any moment it can get loose and get something out. Then I bought myself a cheap hook-up shirt with hooks on AliExpress. She holds, but I don’t know who the Chinese are sewing on, usually Chinese things don’t suit anybody’s hand cutouts - sometimes I have blood on my armpits. But I walked in it almost days, only at night I took pictures.
I found a permanent job: when they found out that I was a transgender guy, I was offered to get an official job, only with the condition that I would not do anything with myself for two years. The chief believed that it was a whim and everything would pass with me, - I replied that it had not passed in twenty years, so I can hardly count on it. In Europe, for such statements, all the bosses of the company would have been fired with scandal. But I agreed anyway, because I had a goal to make money on the transition.
In 2015, I finally had the opportunity to go to St. Petersburg to Isaev (Dmitry Isaev is a psychiatrist and sexologist who headed the commission at the St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University. - Ed.). To get on the commission, you must first show that you are mentally healthy, you do not have schizophrenia, you understand what you are going. Everything went well, but a week after I passed the test, the commission was closed (In 2015, Isaev was forced to leave the university due to harassment from the advocates of "traditional values." - Ed.). I was in a panic: all the money went on a trip to St. Petersburg, at that time I had no work, nothing — I planned to get a certificate, change documents, and then it was normal to get a job. After seven or eight months, I learned that another commission had opened. New contacts helped find then my girlfriend, and now his wife. She and I went to see Isaev, he remembered me - in the end I received a certificate. In the summer I moved to the girl in Moscow, in the fall I already had the upper operation, and then the vitrification of the oocytes (freezing of the eggs). Already a year, as I officially changed the documents, but, in principle, I had no problems in different instances and trips before: the main thing is that your passport picture at least roughly corresponds to what it is, then no one will get to the bottom.
They say that the transition is expensive, but I believe that if you really need it, finding money is not a problem. I myself am from a small town and for a long time I was a poor student, but I had a goal - I knew that my life could change. Someone gives out flyers to save up, I also took on different work, looked for orders, put up with work, where they climbed into my personal life. There are still various tricks - I know a guy who has managed by OMS to do the operation for free himself. There are even some quotas for free operations, but here it must be very lucky.
Before the operation, of course, you worry, but now it's still not the Middle Ages, they explain everything to you, they warn you if there can be problems. I, for example, have a hard time with anesthesia - well, I felt sick, but everything ended well. They said that there may be scars - I have a tendency to keloids, but here, too, in the end, everything is OK, just follow the instructions of the doctors, use special patches, ointments.
As for the lower operation, I am not sure yet: it is not clear where to look for an experienced surgeon who has already done hundreds of such. As far as I know, now the most advanced technology is pumping, it looks like it looks like, and even gets up normally. Maybe someday I will, but it all depends on finances and quality: I don’t want to pay just for the sausage - I want a full body with normal sensations.
A common parental argument is that since you are a transgender person, you will not have biological children. This is not true, everything can be organized. Saving eggs took only a month or two, although I thought it would take half a year. First, normalize the cycle, then prick female hormones, then the operation under general anesthesia - they take eggs and freeze, you are free in two hours. You can use the services of a surrogate mother, if this makes a gay couple cis- and trans-, then you’ll get completely their biological child. If my wife gives birth, then for the first time she will do it with my egg - it will be genetically my child, but she endures it.
A week after taking the eggs, I started hormone therapy and put the first injection of testosterone. The first thing that changes is the voice: it becomes lower, wheezing, breaking, as it happens with teenagers. The standard dosage of the hormone did not fit me - because of this, my legs initially swelled up, the pressure rose, my head ached. Many transgender people are starting to take hormones on their own, but I am opposed to doing so without seeing a doctor. Each organism has its own characteristics, so first you are prescribed a standard therapy, and then corrected - for example, I was assigned another scheme two weeks later. You yourself can not figure it out, and the consequences can be bad.
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When I was twelve, I had a small operation on the genitals, after which, as I usually say, I jumped back - I realized that I did not feel like a guy. At that time I had diabetes for four years, it so happened that I did not accept either my diabetes or my male gender. Then I met a very interesting bisexual girl, from her I learned that in general people have different orientations, and there are much more genders than two. I had many problems with communication, I spoke little, practiced a variety of escapism. I began to write stories, poems, play games, invent different stories.
Up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, I tried somehow to fight with myself, I doubted if I needed a transition, then I went to college and for some time did not think about it at all. Thinking when I met a transgender guy, he moved in with me to live. We talked a lot about transgenderness, and somehow he said that I need to understand what I want from life and who I am to find my happiness. We did not work out with that guy in terms of romance and sex, we broke up, but I thought about his words.
I moved back to my parents and became self-contained again, it became disgusting for me to look at what was happening in the world, everything ceased to interest me. Games were for me the only friend in my life, but I abandoned them too. Everything was rolling to hell, I realized that I could not continue like this.
Relations with parents were getting worse and worse; once in the New Year we just sat for half an hour together, I went to my room and began to cry uncontrollably. It was not such a cry, as before, for me it was a completely new emotion. After that, for some reason, I unconditionally accepted myself as a girl, I realized that my body is disgusting to me and that I want to change, I want to fulfill the dreams that I described in my stories before. At about twenty-four, I completely accepted myself as a transgender girl.
I have no special claims to my body - only to the genitals
Everything went well with my mother: I told her, she did not drive me out of the house, I understood my choice, and within two or three months I took it completely. With her, I went to buy my first hormones. I am pleased with the situation with my mother, but I am afraid that something bad will happen anyway, because everything cannot be so good.
Grandmother did not want me at all, but still believed that child abuse would help build his personality, but my mother always protected me. Mom recently told my grandmother about me, she was confused. Relations remain the same, we do not communicate very often, she uses the male pronoun, as before. I can not say that I have some strong emotions about this - she was such a twenty-five years, I used to. I do not blame her.
This year began very well: I passed both commissions, all very quickly, from meeting with the NCPP (Scientific Center of Personalized Psychiatry. - Approx. ed.) before getting help, people were surprisingly tolerant at the registry office. August 11, I received the documents.
I work in a coffee shop, sometimes guests come to me as a "young man." But I do not want to expose my colleagues and make a scandal, spoil our reputation. At work, I suffered for about a month, before the exam, and then I tested the ground: I spoke with colleagues about LGBT - I realized that everything was in order. Colleagues know that I came to work with the main goal - to save for a commission. I achieved this, I like working, and there were no problems with my colleagues, I didn’t even have to explain to everyone separately. They see that I am pleased when people use the correct pronoun. Now it is even more pleasant for me to come to work than to go home. I am proud that in our country there are people who do not think by Soviet standards.
On hormones, the changes are going very fast: an endocrinologist and experts at the NCRP believe that I have a successful genetics. I am often told that I have facial features and hair that looks like Emma from Adele's Life. I also plan an operation, most likely, only on the bottom - but this is the last thing I want to change in myself. I don’t need any plastic, I don’t intend to put money into implants either. I have no special claims to my body - only to the genitals that do not correspond to my real gender. There still nothing works, I was told at the NCPP that I would not be able to have biological children. The body itself makes me so that I was a girl: I feel much better on hormones than before, which means that the body accepts them, and the psychological mood also improves.
In PND(psycho-neurological dispensary. - Approx. Ed.) I was diagnosed with depression amid anxiety. This was facilitated by parents, but I try not to blame them. They do not understand that it is possible differently, that they, with their talk on high voices, made me ill. For now I’m staying with my family, primarily because of the money, but if it’s really bad, I’ll eat it. For two years I will definitely save, and then I will start looking for where to do the surgery: I don’t trust our surgeons, I will go somewhere abroad.
The operation costs at least 500 thousand rubles, but you need to save more, because you cannot predict what will happen next with the body. When the testicles are removed, testosterone in general ceases to be produced, there may be hormonal failure, you will have to adjust the treatment. Many say that this is all expensive, but hormones cost one and a half thousand a month - Kamon, this is not money at all. I now have enough for hormones, and for hair removal, and to go to a restaurant with someone. I don’t worry about money at all. The main thing is that I am happy now, I have a job and people who support me. I change the way I dreamed since I was twelve. Конечно, мне хочется отказаться от длинных джинсов и маек, я бы с радостью носила платья, но пока страшновато делать это одной - если бы была компания, с которой я могла бы пойти гулять, то надела бы.
Планы на будущее очень большие: выучить иностранный язык, съездить на разведку в Европу, а потом взять билет в один конец. Сейчас многие валят в США, но я не воспринимаю США как истину в первой инстанции, знаю, что там есть гомофобные и трансфобные настроения. Я хочу жить там, где народ в целом добрее, чем в России, не только к трансгендерным людям, но и просто к тем, кто имеет какие-то особенности. I dream of a shop, a small bakery or a coffee shop: I really like making coffee, I like to cook, I always have a passion for it. Most likely, I will receive refugee status, but prepare for it too: first, go to the country once, see the sights and generally learn how to save money there.
I feel that I am drawn to Germany, and especially to Austria - to all these meadows and cathedrals, it seems to me that I will be fine there. I am now gradually learning German, switching to it in games, sometimes I read articles. I do not believe that LGBT in Russia can have a quiet life. It seems there are some progress, for example, in ICD-11 there is no diagnosis of transsexualism. But I think that these changes should not be expected earlier than in five years.
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While my parents were engaged in elder brother, I was often left to myself, I could entertain myself for hours and walked on the street without supervision. I remember when I was five or six years old, my toys — pistol pistols — did not please my grandmother, and my brother broke them. He loved to sit at home, read or play computer, and I frolicked in the street. For dolls never pulled, but always liked to catch up, bike, war. At the age of twelve, I already had an adult shooting range: from a small-caliber rifle from 50 meters I beat out 98 out of 100.
At the age of five I first wondered if it was normal that I didn’t like boys, but girls. My brother mentioned that he had a bisexual girlfriend, later I started googling and found out that there are different orientations at all. When I started a relationship with girls, my parents somehow very quickly reconciled, probably guided by the principle "what would the child not play around, if only she would not get pregnant." It was believed that this teenage and will pass.
For some reason, adults, when they found out that I like girls, asked if I was going to change sex - apparently, because they thought that a man must necessarily meet a woman. They jokingly asked: "What are you, man?" I replied: "Uh, probably not." I knew that transgender people exist, but I was afraid to even think about the transition, because I knew how difficult and expensive it was. Classmates knew about my hobbies, some also thought that it was not serious and would soon pass. My friends were mostly not at school, but from the outside.
Now I am a barista, I work in a coffee shop at the airport. I did not present myself as a man’s name, I didn’t want to shout from the doorway: “Hi, I’m trance” Everything is according to the documents, you come - the badge is ready. And the guests do not care what your name is, just to bring coffee. Besides, I cannot walk for a long time in an utyazhka, so I look like a woman at work, I have a fourth breast size. True, my mentor on the first day realized that something was wrong, he asked a direct question - I answered. He loosened up, now everyone knows. Colleagues do not believe that this is my deliberate choice, they believe that I got into the sect and someone washed my brain.
When you are called not by your name and pronoun, but by your passport, this is insulting. It cuts off hearing, feeling as if it had been pricked with something. My mom is still confused. Her colleagues, friends and grandmother do not know, so she has to talk about me in the feminine with them, and in the masculine with me. Previously, she did it on purpose, tried to convince me so unobtrusively, but now she has reconciled. It's hard for her, but what can I do.
The voice has become rougher, vibrations are felt, as if cold and wheezing. It is very nice, you feel that the process has begun. Every hair cut is awesome.
When I came of age, I independently began to take testosterone, this has been going on for two or three months. The next stage is to save up for a commission and fly to St. Petersburg to Isaev, get a certificate, and there it’s already official move on. At seventeen, I tried to go to an endocrinologist at a children's clinic. The doctor at first thought that I was kidding him, but I showed that I had a dummy in my pants. There are several types of models: universal, for urination, for sexual intercourse, you can simply imitate what you have in your pants. It is of great importance, you immediately feel more confident.
Among my acquaintances, there are people who, in principle, refuse to admit that I am a transgender guy. I try to minimize contacts with those who do not want to communicate with me in a comfortable way for me. It’s not so difficult, I don’t ask you to bow to me when I meet you, I don’t even ask me to make tea - just call me in a certain way. Some people pester with questions, try to find out if I'm a guy or a girl, but I try not to satisfy their curiosity. I think this will be easier when my beard and mustache grow back.
I already feel the changes from the therapy, the mustache began to grow thicker, there are already two or three hairs on the chin. My chest and legs were hairy before that, perhaps because I had a high testosterone level for a girl before that. At first, there were mood swings: I usually control myself completely, and here there were straight tantrums, once I broke the door in anger. The timbre of the voice has changed a bit, it has become rougher, vibrations are still felt, as if it is a cold and wheezing. This feeling is very pleasant, you feel that the process has begun. Every hair cut through is awesome.
I plan to continue my studies as an architect someday, but for the time being I’ll linger at a job in a coffee shop, pass a commission and get a certificate. If everything is official, I will be able to calmly receive the drugs I need - since testosterone is considered a potent substance, now it is not easy.
Transgender person is very difficult to find a partner. That's earlier, when I thought I was just a lesbian, it was easier. It is not very clear who to look for when you are in the process of transition - lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual? They also treat you strangely: you are a stranger, a stubborn, something in between - it is not clear what to do with you. There are those who want to get acquainted with people who are in the process of transition, but they are most likely perverts who want to have sex for one night. It seems to me that even transgender gays are easier to find than a heterosexual transgender people. We have known my girlfriend Dasha for five years, during this time we dispersed and converged, now we live together. Five years ago, Daria was a feminist lesbian, she had reason to hate men. Then she did not want to talk about my transition, but then she accepted me. Some say that Dasha will leave me, because I am such, but it seems to me that people already come and go, it does not depend on who you are and who you sleep with, whether you are or are not.
Dasha:
Despite the separation, we have a great love for more than five years. At first I did not attach importance to what he calls himself in the masculine, then there was even such a fashion among girls. But then I realized that everything was serious, and for me it was a shock: I knew nothing about it, I had never met transgender people before. And it turns out that my favorite person is a man, and I’m kind of like a lesbian.
I completely took it all just a couple of months ago, when I finally realized that I could not change anything. I decided that I would be there and I would try. Now I help Sasha to make injections with testosterone. We work together, however, always in different shifts, I try to convince someone at work, I explain that it is important for Sasha that he is called male pronouns, that this is not a joke. My family itself is rather conservative, when they found out about my orientation, I took everyone in turn to a psychologist.
I am in different communities for transgender people: there is a group where they provide legal assistance, a group on operations, where people throw off their pictures before and after. I was at one meeting in real life, but being in the second month of therapy, I felt uncomfortable: I still didn’t look the way I would like, and there everyone looked like guys, with a beard and a normal voice. I still do not even have the courage to go to the men's toilet in the mall, I prefer to endure to the house.
24-25 years old is that age when many transgender men already complete their transition, then the transformation is already on the side where you are definitely not a girl, you will not be confused. There are two options that you can do afterwards: either you hide from everyone all your life that you are a transgender guy, or you remain in the community and share experiences with those who are just starting. I, probably, would prefer to hide, because I consider my past humiliating. Many also believe that the history of their own transport is better to hide. What do you, parents of your wife say that you are not a biological guy, and changed your gender? At what point do you have to tell people about this when meeting them? I know a story about a guy who is going to have a child with a girl, and they first decided to tell her parents that he is a transgender person. They sent the guy for a compulsory psychiatric examination, and he "suddenly" was found to have schizophrenia, now he is generally officially incapacitated.
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At twenty-two, I got the film “Shocking Asia,” there they were talking about intersex people. Perhaps it was a bell that I need to understand myself. In general, at the age of five I felt that something was wrong with me, but life in a small town, in the naval garrison leaves an imprint - you understand that it is better not to talk about your “abnormality” and in general about such topics. About a year after the film, I came across an interesting article about transgender people. I won't say that there was insight after it, but I felt something. I talked with different people, read the literature and decided that I should go to a sexologist.
Then I just quit the civil service and worked in a small company. I was lucky that our whole department was from informals and it was possible to come in general in any kind. After the army, I grew my hair, put an earring in my left ear again, sometimes I painted my nails black - the company was good and no one dug out.
I went to the doctors, the sexologist advised me to take tests and go to a psychiatrist. He said that I most likely did not have a tendency to cross-dressing, but something more. I spent a very long time with this, worried about the possible reaction of the family: my father was military to the bone, my mother was also so vigorous.
It was scary - what if I really transgender? In the end, I went to a psychiatrist, the assumptions were confirmed, but I asked not to write down the diagnosis officially, so that it would not surface anywhere. At first I wanted to try to just live with it, but I could not live in peace: I had the most severe nervous breakdowns. Now I understand that even before this, dysphoria was eating away at me, but I ran away from it - at critical moments I was busy with something, for example, I rode roller skates with my friends all night or hung up at a computer club. But I understood that it could not continue forever, and the longer I tried to please others and worried that someone would find out, the worse for me.