It was Bitcoin that allowed me to transition when I did. It may have saved my life, and I'll always be thankful. Crypto is so much more than just an investment vehicle!
In late 2016 the military announced that trans people could come out and serve. So I did. I had been thinking on it for years, accepting it about myself for years, and I remember that fateful morning walking into the counselor's office.
After and endless barrage of mandatory questions about unrelated nonsense, she finally got to the point - "What's wrong? Why are you here?"
"I think.... No.. Not I think." I steeled myself, held the tears back, and took a deep breath. "I know I am transgender."
"Oh sweetie," she replied, her eyes getting big. "Is that the first time you've ever said that out loud to someone?"
I burst into tears for the next half hour. It was finally done. I had come out. I felt simultaneously sick and in the greatest relief of my life.
I went back several times over the coming weeks to speak with them, and after a month I was sure I wanted to start hrt immediately. I had been waiting long enough, reading about it long enough, and I wrote in a private journal (back in Xmas 2015) that "there will be no 2017 for me without transition, I absolutely will begin by then".
That's when the military informed me the process of gender transition was so new, they didn't even have procedures in place to assign hormone replacement therapy (hrt) yet. In case you aren't aware, that's the process of stopping someone's (incorrect) birth sex hormones (in my case testosterone) and supplying the correct hormones (in my case estrogen and progesterone). It creates a second puberty in the individual which brings both the brain and body into a state where the person's gender identity matches what they are experiencing biologically.
"That's not going to be okay," I explained to them. "I have a diagnosis that gender transition is medically necessary, and you're telling me you don't know when I can actually have these medically necessary hormones? And you have no idea at all what the timeline will be to get them?" Let me assure you, it is a special hell to come out and finally accept that part of yourself... Only to be told you have to continue to suffer in the wrong sex hormones because a bloated bureaucracy can't get their act together.
My work performance declined, I became despondent, and I explained day after day to my gatekeepers that I needed to start hrt immediately. Their reaction was either confusion or to treat me as if I was spoiled for expecting that I would be able to get a prescription in any sane amount of time.
By the dawn of December I decided "f&#$ them". I had already spent months learning everything there was to know about trans endocrinology. I was the one explaining to the doctors on base how the process of hormone replacement worked. I knew far more than they likely ever would, including the precise doses I needed to slowly turn off my male hormones and replace them with female ones in a safe fashion. 2017 was coming, and there was no 2017 for me without transition.
So with the help of the Reddit trans community (/r/transdiy 💕) I found an online pharmacy and a site that let's you order your own labs and blood work. This online pharmacy was based out of Europe and had everything I needed... only problem was that the act of ordering your own medication had been deemed undesirable by the powers that be. The site that had the very thing I needed to go on living had been blocked by every major payment method... PayPal, Visa, banks, etc, etc. All except one. They took Bitcoin.
A few days into December my hands were shaking as I transferred the btc to them via BitPay and the order confirmed. A week or so later they arrived: my first dose.
12/12/2016 was day one of HRT for me. I've been transitioning ever since. The military was of course furious when they found out, but I was ferocious in my defense of what I had done. I successfully argued that if the military refused to provide me with what I needed for the condition they themselves had diagnosed me with, then I had the right to take my health into my own hands. Oh, and it was about 6 months later when they finally got their act together enough to refer me to an endocrinologist... who simply validated what I was already doing on my own. I wouldn't have been able to sanely wait those 6 unnecessary months for hormones.
I'm happier than I've ever been here in May of 2018. Before my future seemed like a grey cloud of nothing, and now it's full of life, friendship, and possibilities. I have the body I always expected and my brain runs on the right hormones instead of being poisoned daily by unwanted testosterone. And I don't stress about the periods of time when I have to switch providers, or when I need to get a prescription unknotted between cities... Because I know bitcoin and the internet will always allow me to get the hormones I need to sustain myself.
Gender dysphoria put me in a horrific secret prison my entire life, and it was Bitcoin that finally allowed me to escape it. I'll never forget that, and I'll always be thankful.
I know people are visual and curious. If you're wondering what I look like, I'm not an ultra feminine person, and usually dress rather butch in my day-to-day life. Here's me, cheers: https://i.imgur.com/WzjSGEC.jpg
[link] [comments]
from Cryptocurrency news and discussions. https://ift.tt/2JUm76j
No comments: