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When I left the evangelical part of my religious life I left many parts of myself behind me. I don’t know if this is one of those parts or if it just is an unavoidable part that just comes when you grow up no matter where you do it.
The part I am think of is appreciating people for who they are and not for what they represent. When I was The Good Christian Girl that was all I seemed to appreciate for but more frustratingly it was the different roles people around me succeeded to live up to I appreciated them for. I judged people according to how well I thought they lived up to the role I thought were they primary role in their life. It was very important to me that my partner was the perfect partner, my parents was critically reviewed based on my image of A Parent and how they lived up to that and so on for friends, colleagues, pastors and basically everyone I ever met.
When I stepped away from the environment where I fitted in to a scary place where I was the most unusual person everyone had ever met and didn’t fit any template for how someone should be I could finally step away from my bad habit of only judge people in that way and start appreciate people for just being nice people. In some ways I never got to know my partner, my parents, friends and others until way after I came out. I was mainly interested in such a small part of them.
I just spoke to my parents for a rather long while. I feel so good and re-energized when speak to them nowadays. When I try to get to know them and appreciate them for who they are as persons. They are very nice and likable persons in a way that I didn’t recognize when I compared them only to my model of perfect parents. But honestly? Who want’s anyone to be perfect? The only thing I think a perfect person around me would give me is angst over my imperfect sides. Being an imperfect child to two perfect parents would be exhausting. I very much prefer to be myself along with two nice people that I share both good and bad sides with.
I don’t know if I needed to get away from church to grow to this place but I am very pleased to be here.
Today I yelled to my middle daughter over having Lego on her floor. A perfectly reasonable thing for a six year old to have and I was tired after a week with migraines.
I remembered my father yell with almost the same words to me over Lego parts when I was 6 years and the old me would be freaked out of being an imperfect parent and having a daughter that I haven’t brought up perfectly. This more energy-effective environmentally safe me just feel a very strong bond towards both my daughter for being messy in the same way as me and to my dad for getting annoyed for the same semi-resonable minor things. Old me: Dissapointed, feeling desperately immutable and alone. New me: A part of something big, content with just getting to know people no matter how well or badly I perform.
So I smiled, helped my daugther to figure out a way to store her Lego that fits her way to play with it better than her previous way and then I called my father and chatted for a while.
I bet there are very few people missing old me anymore. If they do they just didn’t know her as well as I did.
Now I am off to sleep and hopefully I will yell less tomorrow. And write less self-absorbed blog post and clean this messy apartment up more.
I am writing this in as I sit in waiting room at the Swedish National Board of Health. I am meeting with their Legal Council today. Waiting room is maybe to nice a name for this. It is the xerox room with some chairs in. A rather small room. The chairs are nice but the xerox machine is huge, makes a lot of noise and it is probably 90° in here.
I drove down from the northern parts of Sweden to the capitol Stockholm two days ago. It is close to 400 miles to drive here. Will drive up again tomorrow.
I came to this meeting an hour ago. First I got to meet dr Andersson who will present my case to the Legal Council. Now I have to wait for them to get to my case.
I am here because I have applied for:
* A legal sex change in the government database
* A name that fits my gender
* Castration
* SRS (Sex Reassignment Surgery)
In Sweden all citizens are registered in a national database at our Skatteverket (IRS). Every citizen has a number called personnummer (person number). It begins with the birth year, birth month and then birth day. For me born the fifth of June 1979 have a personnummer that starts with 790605. Then we have the important last four digits. Well, three of them are just to make sure two people wont have the same number but the last one indicate sex. Even numbers for women and odd numbers for men.
This personnummer is the written on your drivers license, in your passport, on your journals, in every database ever keeping track of you like in schools, at work, in most clubs and organisations.
To get a new personnummer you have to do a 2-5 year long inquisition that is lead by a physiatrist. When that is done that physiatrist will approve that you apply for a new personnummer. But to get the new personnummer you need to be castrated and had your SRS. For transmen the SRS is sort of optional but women has to do it. But we can apply for all that at the same time. As I did and that is why I’m here.
In the nearest hour I will be called into a room with the Legal Council and they have already got my papers and read them thru. dr. Andersson has already said that I am genuine and will pass. So this is just formalities.
Oh, thats another thing. Being genuine. That is what it is all about. For a transsexual to get a new personnummer and everything that comes with having paper telling the right gender you have to be “Genuinely Transsexual”. It is classified as a sickness. I have yet to meet a transsexual person that don’t find that term horrible. Are you genuine enough or a bit to false?
So everything you chase for during several years is to get the label genuine put on your papers. That can mess any insecure person up. That can mess any stable person up. Am I genuine enough? Will they see that I’m genuine? If I walk like this, will they discover I’m genuine sooner? Several years of trying to prove that you are genuine enough. The inquisition is made just to find the ones that are not and sort everyone out that has any faults and aren’t genuine enough.
I started my road to this room in may -05. In a matter of minute dr. Anderson will come and get me. We were three people here today. One woman that went in first and came back just 10 minutes later a minute ago. She came back absolutely radient. Now a man sit across for me and looking fairly calm but I guess he is as nervous as me.
Just to be here means your papers are in order. I will pass, I will get everything approved and as soon as the hospital will do my surgeries I will get my name and my identity. But never the less I am shaking and sweating. So much hard work to get here.
Now dr Anderson came and called for the quiet man infront of me. You can hear a couple of seconds before he comes because of a locked door with a code on it. Will it only take 10 mins for him too? I need to go to the bathroom. Should I wait or should I go? Why didn’t I bring my bottle with water? My mouth is dry. The xerox machine just quieted down. I want a cigarette. But I quit. Or did I just run out of them? I haven’t decide. It was a while ago so I guess I have quitted. As most I smoke one pack a month so it isn’t that easy to know when you stop and when you just don’t do it for a while.
The other man just came back. He is glowing like the brightest star. Took him only five minutes.
I just took a photo of myself here in the xerox room. Here it is:
Is it minutes or seconds left for my turn? How will it go? What will they say?
Now I hear the beep from someone pressing the code at the door. It is just seconds…
Today I got a mail from my doctor telling me I had to reapply for my sex-change once again. So now it is get again 4-9 months until I become a real citizen again.
By some reason I got really shaken up by Benazir Bhutto’s death. It left an unproportional hole in my stomach. Than later on that day someone I really care about got ill for a while and that made me very worried and (what ever the word for that feeling you get when someone you love hurts. It must have a special word since it is such a specific feeling. But I don’t know a word neither in Swedish nor English).
Stupid last 24 hours!
The only good thing I can see in all this buer bear byer bureaucracy mess is that I have grown an incredible amount of empathy towards every illegal immigrant. To live without any real possibility to identify yourself is just crazy in this socialistic controlling country.
I’m a tad bitter today. But it will pass. Ohh, it seems like it did the moment I wrote it. Well, then I have nothing more to blog about. Everything is alright now.
I am very easily pleased during the holidays. But soon and very soon it will be all normal again and I’ll be back!
