This is the recommendation letter for top surgery that I wrote but didn’t send. Disclosure – my therapist reads my blog because I am not a big talker.

Jamie is an adult and is mature enough to decide to get top surgery. If Jamie wanted breast augmentation I wouldn’t be writing a permission letter, you’d just ask what cup size and take the money. 

As confused as Jamie has been about being trans, and as long as it took to get to this point, I don’t think anyone can talk Jamie out of this. It is her their body and I am honestly tired of listening to her them complain about wearing a binder and being a boy. Enough already. Please schedule this ASAP. Maybe then she they will deal with the remaining issues so that she they can finally finish therapy.

Grouch Marx and Chico Marx discuss the “Sanity Clause” in A Night at the Opera.

I’ve written my own recommendation letters before. A letter from a professor for a job, one from a friend for a co-op apartment purchase package, and my annual performance review at work. I always knew what to say.

Lo, those many years ago when I started therapy, I told my therapist that I had three issues I needed to work on: compulsive eating, my Dad’s death, and “gender stuff.” I spent many years avoiding talking. It’s been an expensive game of chess. One move and then a lot of silence. Then another move. When she questioned me I clammed up. Session after session. She waited me out.

I’m slow to trust and make personal connections. I expect people to judge me.

I look like an old-fashioned butch lesbian. Masculine attire, short hair, sensible shoes. A long-term relationship, a cute dog, and a dented green Subaru Outback. I thought I was keeping “it” under control. No one questioned whether I was butch enough; no one asked me if I was transgender. When there was an opening to talk about it I teetered on the precipice, but regained my balance. Continue reading →