Ugh. Pardon the silence here (and the fact that no one but Amanda is getting presents until at least next week), I've had a sinus infection since last Thursday -- and not one of those "oh here, have some antibiotics" infections, but a viral one where the Nurse Practitioner can't offer anything more than a suggestion that you use a neti pot. Which actually has helped, even though I have yet to use said pot successfully -- the salt water always either pools in my nostril or heads down my throat and half-drowns me. I expect I'll have it figured out not too long after I don't need it anymore. So, It's been a week of monkey pajamas and black tea, though the kitties have been in paradise to have me in bed all day. K. climbs under the sheets and snuggles against me, then Gwen hops obliviously on her head as Cass tries to chomp my toes through the blankets.

As I said in the last post, I'm finally free of the Fenway (more or less) -- I've switched to seeing a trans doctor in Davis Square who I know through MTPC, and who, entirely by coincidence, is also Amanda's doctor. ("Uh... did you come here because you knew I was trans?" Dr. D asked hesitantly at Amanda's first appointment when Amanda mentioned her partner was trans. She actually hadn't.)

It sounds silly, but it makes a huge difference to have a doctor who's trans. You might think that after two years as a patient at an LGBT health clinc whose listed specialties include "transgender health" that I'd have had that experience before -- but if you did you'd be wrong, of course.

For example, there's nothing that bothers me worse -- or gets me misgendered more often -- than my dense, coarse black facial hair. Since I can't afford to get rid of it right now, my routine before I'm comfortable and feel safe going leaving the house or even having guests over is this: hot shower (to soften it up/open my pores), shave, touch up the areas that ignored the razor the first time (sometimes I have to just shave all over again), moisturize, give my face 15-20 minutes to heal and dry, then foundation makeup and powder. It's a big pain in the butt, and I often don't go places and do things because it just isn't worth the trouble.

And when I woke up yesterday I felt so bad I could hardly stand up, much less go through all that just to see the doctor. But if I'd been going all the way across Boston to the Fenway to see someone who isn't trans, I'd probably not have been comfortable doing it bare-faced. But going to Dr. D's clinc -- even to see her cis Nurse Practitioner -- which is only a mile or two away, I was comparatively comfortable just wrapping a scarf around my face a la 90's comic book character Chamber and calling it good. I didn't even feel obligated to keep the scarf on in the waiting room.

So, silly, maybe. But it makes a huge difference walking into a place where trans people aren't just supplicants coming to ask cis people for help (which they can choose to give or not give and no one can say "boo" either way since it's not illegal in MA), but are also actual staff members -- or, in this case, even running the joint. Being shown -- not told, but shown -- that I'm as valuable as any other patient makes me so much less afraid to have the people around me know I'm trans. Having concrete proof that the difference doesn't mean anything makes it clear how the difference really doesn't. Does that make sense?