Monday, July 19, 2010

Season's best

I hit a season's best yesterday of 65.16m which is about 213ft. I am very pleased with this since I had to take a couple of weeks off of throwing and focus in the weight room to really focus on studying for the boards.

On a non-track note, I am beginning to contact therapists with a specialty in gender identity so i can start to talk with someone about what's going on my head and try to figure out what I need to do to be happy.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Choices

I am getting to a point in my life where I need to really think about whether or not I want to continue throwing or hang up my hammers and start transitioning. I am starting to realize that my involvement in track and field is really hindering my ability to function at an equal level to my peers. I am trying to really hard to not let this one bad work situation be the make it or break it of the rest of my life, but I wish I could say that this attitude, this treatment, and transphobia is what I deal with on an everyday basis whether or not I am at work or not. I want to be seen as an equal and right now because I don't fit anyones standards of appropriate gender norms it is preventing that. I love being a physical therapist. It was never what I imagined myself doing but I am so happy I am doing it. I know I am able to be a great physical therapist but I don't think I can do it or be given the opportunity to do in the current state I am in. I don't know if I am ready to leave track though, I really feel like I have begun to sing and that I could really do a lot in the next two years. I just don't know if it is worth it and honestly I don't know if I will ever know. I think part of it is me not being ready to leave throwing. Throwing is my whole life, I have sacrificed everything for throwing and now I don't really know what to do without it. I don't have any other hobbies, I throw and lift weights as my hobby, I can still do all those things it is just without the competition which is what makes it so enjoyable. I am also worried that throwing is my form of stress relief and it is a large part of what helped me stop cutting. I am afraid that if I leave track then I won't have the stress relief that I need, and I don't know what I will do without it. I have worked really hard to continue not cutting and I afraid leaving track will open that door open again. I feel ridiculous that I am in this stiuation, I pride myself on being stronger and more adjusted than this, but I really am at a loss as to what to do without track. What is making it harder, is I really define a lot of myself as a thrower. The first time I really found happiness was in the throwing circle, about the only place I still feel happiness is in the throwing circle. I don't know what is going to fill that void.
On the flip side though I wonder if I would be happier and not need throwing to define myself if I started living my life as the person I know I can be and I started looking and becoming physically and in turn more emotionally that person. I also think part of it is that I am so afraid of the unknown and disappointing people. I guess I feel like if I leave track I will really disappoint people and that I gave up on doing what I said I wanted to try and do, and I will just let people down if I leave track. I understand that my decision to live my life has nothing to do with anyone else, but I wish I could see that as reality.
I don't really know what to do, I wish there was a magic button that I could push that would tell me what to do and that would be that. I will be honest I am leaning towards leaving track. I have a lot of goals I want to achieve as a physical therapist. I want to get myself out there for the trans community to have someone to go to, I want to run camps and sports teams for the severely disabled and I want to be seen as a professional and for the talented PT I could become. Right now it is not as I am right now. My field is very homophobic and transphobic and heteronormative so I think I need to re-work my life plan.
I am going to get started with a therapist so I can get some help with this and really get the ball rolling if transitioning the way I chose to go.
I just have remember it is my choice and only mine.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Updates

Writing has been really hard recently. Not hard to find time or anything but more emotionally hard, so I have found myself avoiding it. I don't want to relive shit, I don't want to be reminded of anything because I am already having trouble dealing with what is currently going on. I am stuck in limbo right now at a job where my requests of respecting my identity is ignored and I am stuck as a female employee that at every possible chance is identified as female so no one questions it. I can' leave, but I don't have anything else to fall on and staying is really testing my strength. It has been hard for me to handle, I was really optimistic (something I am often not) that I would be treated as a professional and instead I am finding out otherwise. It makes me really nervous about the future and how I am going to be taken seriously as a practitioner and as nothing else. I love doing my job, I love helping people and helping them live with less pain, and do things again, but the field is very heteronormative, homophobic, transphobic. How does a non-gender normative, certainly not straight, trans guy succeed? The double edged sword about it all is that my patients don't seem to have any issues with me, most of them call me he too. I say it is a double edged sword because while my identity is recongized by patients it is either "corrected" by the other employees or is used later to get me in trouble because I didn't correct them. I don't know if I need to educate the owner more which is something I am more than willing to do, I just actually don't think it is going to make a difference.
I have changed myself a lot to be more professional for work. I don't talk about anything especially anything to do with me. I have a conventional hair cut now, my tattoos are hiden, I have removed most of my piercings, I dress really conservatively for a guy. All of that isn't important though because it didn't work. I wish I could understand what is so offensive about my gender presentation, my gender identity, my gender that offends people so much. I wish I could say this is the first time this has happen to me but I can't. It makes me so angry I get so angry at other trans people then to because I feel like I can't find solice with that community either. I feel like an outsider every where I am. I don't belong anywhere. I get so angry because I have been through so much and as childish as this sounds how much more do I have to deal with. Life is hard I know, and everything happens for a reason, but it is exhausting to be strong all the time, to fight and fight just for a glimpse of hope of being treated fairly. I really just don't know what to do.