Finn

Well, I kind of always knew that there was something a little bit off. I’m not really sure how to phrase it or how I’m supposed to talk about it if you think that there is something a little bit different about yourself, it’s not something that you can really summarise in words. It can be small things like in primary school. It was just not necessarily clicking that brilliantly with everyone else. It was a case of you were friends with everyone, but, at the same time, sometimes you felt like you were looking in through a box and that happens sometimes.

But, of course, as a kid, you don’t really know if it’s just like I don’t fit in or I don’t have friends. As a child, you don’t think, mmm…my gender’s weird, because you’re a kid and you don’t care about those things. You care about like comic books and stuff. You don’t actually care that much about whose a boy or whose a girl. But then as you grow up a little bit, it starts to hit you a bit more because everyone is starting to hit puberty and everyone is starting to change and people are just starting to just grow a bit different and that’s when you start to realise hey, I still don’t fit in or hey. My friends are all different to me and I don’t know why I always feel like I don’t fit in with them, which is a bit annoying. But they’re not really things you can bring up in conversation, especially if you’re like in year seven, because year seven’s are still kind of kids and at the sixth form we are looking back on year seven’s, I still think that they’re really small and so, if I talked about them, when I was in year seven like, even I think the future wouldn’t have believed myself. I would have just said, you are just a year seven, don’t worry and it gets easier.

It’s probably just because you’re going through a lot of change right now. So, for a while, I didn’t really address anything. It was just, hey, it’s all part of growing up and that’s okay to be told that, I think. It’s all right if you are confused because growing up from being a kid to like a teenager is wild in itself. I don’t think it would have been good, even if I’d tried to tackle it, because it would have probably ended up even worse than I am now [Laughs]. But as I settled into friendship groups and stuff like that. Stuff that doesn’t really matter, because I still don’t remember some of my friends from year seven. And, to be fair, I went to an all girls’ school which was entertaining to say the least in trying to figure out who I was. It’s only started to click from year seven to year eight and I think it really helped, ‘cos I had a close friend that I ended up in a relationship with for a while and I think they were experimenting with gender and what they thought was gender for a while. And I think apart, a couple of days before me they ended up saying, okay, guys, I think I’m trans and then when they did that, it kind of felt like a slap to the face for me, because I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a word for it now, I guess.’

Wearing a binder, don’t do it for extended periods of time. Oh my God, not enough people know this. When I first like started binding and it was a case of, I want to bind 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the day I take my final breath I will be binding. And then it got to the point where it was like, yeah, I can’t breathe. My ribs hurt. I physically like even after taking it off, I feel like I’m being constricted and I can’t breathe. So, if we’re wearing a binder, it’s very half and half of what you should do. Like, at home, I don’t bind, which a lot of people find strange. I don’t think it’s strange. If I am alone, I’m really grateful to be in a position where like I can, I can cope with maybe feeling a bit dysphoric, becauseI just wanna remind myself, look, I’m in my own home. It’s okay. I’m allowed to just wear like a pyjama top and like curl up in bed and take a nap. I don’t need to bind right now. Shut up. I think I will exclusively only bind if I’m out and about. Like, only if I have to leave the house will I bind. And then, every time I was like, the moment I’m in I will like, the moment I’m inside, in my room, I will stop binding and change into comfier clothes, just because most binders are really good. Like, even some makeshift binders like layered sports bra and like sports clothing; like those can be really good. But for extended periods of time they will hurt you like no matter how much like padding they have or no matter how much they are designed to like lessen the stress on you and your back, they will hurt you in the long run. And I don’t wanna sugar coat it but they can be quite damaging if you’re not careful with how you bind. Like, I know one of my friends, they used to use bandages and I’m very very grateful that he only did it for a short period of time. But, that being said, it was a case of they would have times where they just simply couldn’t breathe. And, I think even the other like day and like one of my math’s classes I couldn’t actually breathe. I just sat there for a minute thinking, I can’t breathe in right now, what the fuck is going on? And that was just because I was like binding a bit too tight that day. And it was really not a fun experience. And as much as it’s great for your like mental health, ‘cos you’re like, hell fucking yeah I pass like life’s good. I feel happy about how I look. Physically, it has a toll on you after a while and I found that after days like sometimes I don’t get home until like five or six, it like taking off like the binder and just like falling into bed. I just feel utterly exhausted. And like drained and like I’ve been slightly out of breath all day, so. I don't know. Bind safely, I guess, if that makes sense.

Any tips about how to bind safely?

Don’t bandage. Don’t use tape for extended amounts of time, because there are some brands of tape that drag kings use because if they are like, ‘cos I was watching this whole big thing, sometimes drag queens, drag kinds sometimes will go topless down runways and there’s like this is the tape that they use. But that should never be used for like a long period of time. That should only be if like yeah, just don’t. That’s not an effective like way of binding for a long period of time. Get a binder, if you can. Invest in a good binder for like GC2B, I think; I think that’s the brand. They are brilliant and they do give-aways like every other week and they have very decent binders and they’re made by trans people, I think. And I think their’s are the best that you could get currently. I’m not sure in the UK. I think they are an American company from what I remember. I think you’d have to pay for shippng. From what I know, their one of the most effective and like long lasting and good brands of binders that you can get. And, obviously, for binding safely like I know it’s very tempting for a lot of people, but don’t obsessively bind. If you’re are having like a rough day, but you don’t need to go outside, just wear like a sports bra and just throw on like a really baggy, oversized top like a hoodie, because it’s not worth like lounging around in a binder when you’re hot. Like if you’re happy with that, do it. But, in the long run, it’s not gonna be the best for you and it’s gonna like, it’s gonna be bad for you, so just take care of yourself, basically.

Oh my god. Oh my god. There’s, this was so bad for me. This and the toxic masculinity was so, so bad for me. And I’m so glad that I’m out of it now. Because, when I was younger, my idea of the trans narrative was like, okay, come out, get a binder, get referred, top no, shit, the other way round. Start hormones. Top surgery. Bottom surgery. Happiness. It is not like that. It is so not like that. Oh my god.

It like I’m sorry, like if people do follow that narrative and they end up happy, that I’m more than happy for them. To immediately like box someone into this narrative of like, this is how your transition is going to go. This is and I know that some people, people usually follow this like a lot of trans people who happily transition will follow this. But, for people who are uncertain of their gender and people who are unsure of whether or not they’re even trans at all to immediately like be told, okay, so when you’re trans this, this, this, this is gonna happen. Have fun with that. Like, it can give you a sense of like, it gives you a sense of direction, but if you’re uncertain of whether or not you even want to transition or even uncertain in what your gender is at all, it is really, really bad and damaging, because for a while I wasn’t even sure about, for a while I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to take hormones. So, I was like, okay, the time for hormones is growing closer and I don’t know what’s going on and so it was really bad for me. So it was bad for me at least. But it did give you a sense of direction though. You know, some parts of it are good, some parts of it are bad. So, yeah.

For the most part, every single teacher I’ve had is angelical. My teachers are brilliant. Every single one of them are brilliant from, the ones I had in year seven who knew me by my dead name first before my name now. They, they very quickly were able to deal with. Okay, you’re called [name] now, nice like Gucci ma dude that’s fine. And for the most part all my teachers have been very, very good with it. They’ve just gone, ‘cos my school sent out an email to all of them just saying, Oh yeah, this kid is called [name] now. On the registers it’s [name] now, you know? It’s [name] now. It was, it was drilled into their heads. There was one teacher, one god damn teacher who just didn’t really click with that. She was all like, no, I’m going to dead name you and use the wrong pronouns and I was just sat there like, for the love of God, just read your—she read the email like in the class once and then just like dead named me when is this referring to you and I was just like, oh my God, please, please just get it right. And I think there was a couple of times when she dead named me when I wasn’t in the class and then like my class mates actually corrected her. They were like, ‘Yo, lady you gotta stop.’ Which was really like nice. It took her like two years I think like I know I started dreading her classes, ‘cos I knew that I was gonna get dead named and anyone whose trans and who knows that when you’re like, when you’ve got your like actual name being referred to you and you’re like, you’ve got your actual pronouns and it is banging. It is absolutely like wonderful. And then when you have this one person who won’t like just, just follow the rest of the crowd. The one sheep who decides to turn the opposite direction and go away like it, it sometimes it feels like a slap to the face, ‘cos you’re just chilling out, doing your thing and then boom you’re like being dead named and wrong pronouns and you’re just like, that’s not brilliant. Please don’t do that. But, yeah. They came around in the end. I’m on fairly good terms with them now. I don’t really see them much anymore, ‘cos they’re not my teacher anymore. I think they just, I don't know, maybe they, I don’t think they just click that well with trans people, because they find it very confusing and all a bit much. I don't know how to explain it. One of that, those people.

I think a very honest, hey, Tavistock has a fuck tonne—sorry, a lot of referrals right now, look chances are you are not gonna get any appointments at all like you are an adult and so it might be time to start kicking in with those coping mechanisms early, because not in a bad way but, unless you were like rich and your parents fully supported you and there was no way that if you were referred to Tavistock, you would be seen in like the next year and a half or even that like. I think just being told, look, you need to start kicking in some really healthy coping mechanisms now, because chances are, if you don’t do that, you like you will be in a horrific state by the time you get any response from Tavistock. And, to be honest, it’s been radio silence from Tavistock since I, as long as I remember and I don’t blame them for that. They are absolutely swamped with referrals. It’s not like, I don’t hold anything bitter to that. It’s not their fault. I think if there was information on like, hey, we know this can’t be a long term solution but coping mechanisms, you know, help yourself because chances are you won’t be able to see a professional for a very long time. I think if that was made clear earlier, that might be better. I feel like it’s a really grim response and it shouldn’t be like that. It’s the kind of thing that you have to bear in mind. Unless the NHS suddenly gets a lot of money and Tavistock and other trans clinics become like a huge priority, that’s not gonna change for a long time, so, yeah.

I don’t think people quite know how decent having a good supportive group of friends is, because we all have friends and people we know. But having a really healthy supportive group of friends that [coughs] looks out for each other and checks up on each other and or like that doesn’t be kind of toxic behind your back or doesn't have a bad influence on your life, that’s really helpful. Obviously, it doesn’t cure anything. It doesn’t, it’s not like seeing a therapist, but it helps a lot and having people that take the time out of their day just to say, hey, how’re you doing? How are you feeling right now? How have you been like I was, I was ill off school the other day and I am just still evidently quite sick right now. And I think my mates, I think every single one of them just casually dropped the message just saying that they hoped that I was okay and that they wished me well. It’s very small things that make you feel supported and loved and cherished and valued, but small things go a long way and I think if people have these groups of friends and groups of healthy people around them where they feel like they can talk and reach out for support, that does a lot for you, even if you don’t realise it. And then, yeah. That’s one of the biggest things for me I think.

It’s been helpful. It [sighs] it’s been helpful in the sense for me in that I’ve been able to effectively describe how I feel, because for a long time, all that I felt because of it was words, not words, just emotions like I couldn’t voice exactly how I felt because of it. I couldn’t voice what it meant to me. But counselling and talking about it to someone who knew about it and understood it already helped me almost visualise it for myself and be able to construct a good picture of what it meant to me and how it feels for me and how I should tackle it and take it on. I don’t know if that makes sense at all. I don’t know how it would make, I don’t know how to explain why constructing and visualising my identity was good, but it meant that I was able to cope with it and healthily take it on, because it wasn’t so much as just emotions bottled up inside me, they were something like I’d laid out on the table saying, this is what it is. And then, because of that, I was able to start coming up with solutions and like healthy ways of dealing with it and putting up with it, I guess, instead of just okay, I’m bottling it up and I’m not gonna think about it ever again, if that makes any sense.

It’s been helpful. It [sighs] it’s been helpful in the sense for me in that I’ve been able to effectively describe how I feel, because for a long time, all that I felt because of it was words, not words, just emotions like I couldn’t voice exactly how I felt because of it. I couldn’t voice what it meant to me. But counselling and talking about it to someone who knew about it and understood it already helped me almost visualise it for myself and be able to construct a good picture of what it meant to me and how it feels for me and how I should tackle it and take it on. I don’t know if that makes sense at all. I don’t know how it would make, I don’t know how to explain why constructing and visualising my identity was good, but it meant that I was able to cope with it and healthily take it on, because it wasn’t so much as just emotions bottled up inside me, they were something like I’d laid out on the table saying, this is what it is. And then, because of that, I was able to start coming up with solutions and like healthy ways of dealing with it and putting up with it, I guess, instead of just okay, I’m bottling it up and I’m not gonna think about it ever again, if that makes any sense.

I am much happier with where I am. But I’m acknowledging the fact that I still have a long way to go before I’m fully happy, if that makes sense. And I’m not saying that being happy should be everyone’s goal in mental health. Sometimes just being stable and being able to regulate your emotions is brilliant in itself. I mean, for me, I’m currently in a space where I can regulate my emotions and I’m very good at controlling how I feel, when I feel and how I deal with unexpected emotions or how I deal with feeling like I’ve been upended in something like I feel very much more in control. So, not necessarily happier, but more in control and more able to understand how I feel and why I feel certain ways, which is why my mental health is better than it was before. At the same time, no, I still do have periods of laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there’s any point of being alive at all and obviously being here by existential, existential dread of, hey, we’re all gonna die anyway, so why am I alive in the first place? Does it really matter? Do I matter in the grand scheme of things? But I have these thoughts with the extra perspective of well, yeah, I do matter, ‘cos this is my life and I don’t necessarily have to live it for a reason. I should just live it ‘cos it’s a miracle that I’m here, so it’s cool and I want to learn about things, so. I guess I have a driving force that keeps me going even when my mental health dips or isn’t as good, necessarily now, which I didn’t have before.

Anything is better than bottling it up, ‘cos if you just sit and you bottle it up and you don’t talk about it will just get worse. Other coping mechanisms like put the anger and the unhappiness you feel into something, use that as a driving force. For a long time I used like spite and anger as a driving force behind like how I would revise or how I would like, how I would express myself online and God knows I have so many like abandoned online accounts, which were just vented out for me to just write stupid, angry poems and do stupid pieces of art work that just got my anger and frustration out. I never had, good, healthy coping mechanisms for a while and that’s not a good thing, but learning, like, from a very early stage being able to like learn how to regulate your emotions and control them healthily like that’s probably the most effective thing that could help you in the long-term.

I was brought up in a mixed-race household. My dad is from the north, well, not the north but—he’s English, basically. My mum is Chinese. And there were very big differences in culture. And I can’t speak with the views of every single person who was brought up mixed race or brought up in a mixed household or brought up maybe with ethnic parents. I mean, not ethnic. People of different ethnic backgrounds. I can’t speak for them. So, but from my—I know that some people share my experiences of there is very big differences in what’s socially acceptable and what isn’t. I think it’s just different cultures have different ideas of what’s appropriate. I know that for my mum it was really confusing, because she didn’t see it as like a mental health thing, because she just thought, oh my goodness, my child, it’s trying to, it’s becoming a man. What do I do? This is abnormal and it’s like my mum immediately thought, okay, I’m being influenced by the people around me and I think to a degree I was. But I was being influenced and I was not hanging out with the right people and I needed to be like taught what was right and what was wrong, because, you know, it was abnormal and it wasn’t right.

For my dad it was just like, bloody hell, oh no, what’s this? Like kind of, you know, but to be fair, I think both of them thought, okay, when it was first was broached in conversation it was like, oh, it’s like I’m 13 and it will grow out of it. This child will grow out of this and here I am, a couple of years later still just exactly the same, but you know, a bit older now. But definitely culture means that there’s different ways of trying to tackle it and deal with it in conversation. I know, one of my friends is a Muslim and when they found out, when they figured out and not found out like, surprise, I’m trans. No, when they slowly came to terms with like who they were. I’m not speaking to them anymore, but their parents I think absolutely lost it. Like I think they thought they were gonna be kicked out, but their parents just blew a fuse. They were very, very angry and I’m not in contact with them anymore, ‘cos I stopped being friends with them a while ago. It’s just, you know, different directions in life.

We just didn’t really talk very much. Over time and I think their parents did make the effort to try find information online and try find support for it, because [coughs] there are resources available and their parents were actually very lovely in the sense that they tried to accommodate and they tried looking at resources and the last thing I heard was their parents were trying to apologise for how they reacted and they were trying to help, to a degree and figure out how to figure it out, if that makes sense. And, I don't know, it’s because everyone is brought up differently. I found that western culture is much quicker to accept immediately, no questions asked, oh my goodness, okay, are we gonna like refer you to—at least from what I’ve heard. I know that that’s not the same case for everyone. But from my experience like a lot of the western like parents will almost immediately like, they’ll either accept it or they’ll take a few weeks, but they’ll come round to it a lot quicker than other cultures would.

Sexuality is a weird one I don’t, this is bad, but I kind of drifted from giving myself a label a long time ago and that’s purely just because I started having very bad encounters with people from the community, the LGBTQ community, I think that’s the acronym at the moment. I’m not 100% sure. So, I’m really sorry if I got that wrong. But for a while I thought that I was gay and then I was like, okay, maybe not, because everyone is kind of cute for real though. Everyone is really cute, what’s going on. I’m confused. And then, I think if I had to label myself it would be bisexual. I got absolutely like—I got confused because there was these big like, I used to see these big arguments between like my friends and people online about the, the borders between pansexual and bisexual and that was a mess-up in itself, because I once said that I am bi and then someone turned around and went, no, you’re pan and I was like, why like you’re dating a trans person, meaning that you are pan and I was like, but they are male, therefore bisexual. They’re like, no, it’s because they’re trans. I was like, trans isn’t a gender within itself. I just, I started finding it really bad like people telling me like telling me what I was. They were like, no, you’re clearly not this, you’re this. I was just out there like just let me find out what I am. Let me figure it out and I’m not, I don’t wanna be labelled. I want to label myself. And then I got to this point where I was like, I can’t be bothered with labels. I’ve just like, I mean, I’m in relationship with someone and don’t need to label who I am. That was, that was basically what it became, because yeah, I just found that I found people, if I found someone attractive it was just like, oh, they’re kind of cute, I guess or hey, I quite like this person. It was never, it kind of, over time I less, I just less identified with ah yes, I’m a homosexual. I’m a bisexual and this select group of people are attractive, it’s more of, this individual’s kind of cute. They’re kind of funky. I wanna get to know them and it, kind of just went like that. And then I just stopped aligning with caring about what my sexuality would be, because I mean, right now, I’m in an amazing relationship and I wouldn’t look at anyone else for the world. And if I was asked to define my sexuality I would say, bisexual because like I don’t really know nor do I care at the moment, because I don’t really, I’m just kind of with the person I’m with and I don’t really wanna think about anyone else, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

I have no bitterness towards the NHS or professionals, because it’s under a lot of strain and it’s a bit annoying when you get referred to Tavistock or the other closest gender clinic or wherever that may be or CAMHS even and the waiting list is like a very long time. I think Tavistock I find still on the waiting list. I still have about fifteen months which is, I think by that time I might be eighteen, I’m not 100% sure, but I might be eighteen by that point. I might just take my name off Tavistock actually, because I think I’d be like holding up dead space on that list. It’ll be quicker to refer myself as an adult, but. It’s just, I think, as a whole, mental health needs a bit more like funding support for young people needs funding, ‘cos it’s not just trans people. Like, if you get better support for people who are struggling and unable to cope healthily, that will help general mental health. I know it’s not like mental health trans like it’s not like they go hand in hand, because as much as they’re very closely linked, just because you improve one doesn't mean you’re necessarily improve the other like you can give someone a million and one healthy coping mechanisms and they will still feel terrible gender dysphoria from time to time or they’ll still feel incredibly like unhappy with their life. If you give more support to people and give them spaces to talk about it, because to be quite frank not everyone finds it enjoyable when the school has mental health days and tells them, hey, are we gonna talk about our issues. Not everyone enjoys that, but if you give them the spaces to reach out then I think it would be a lot better.