My name is Kareal and I started going back to college for my nursing degree. My current degree is not making me any money whatsoever.
With that said, I love nursing. I've always been interested in nursing since I was 5 but I also have a condition since I was 5. Gender Identity Dysphoria. It basically means i have a mans body but mentally, emotionally and my soul is a woman. In about 4 years I will have SRS sx to become fully female.
With that said. Have you seen any transgendered in the nursing field? Is the medical field good to transgendereds?
I think you'll be fine. I don't have any transgendered coworkers (that I know of), but I work with several gays, lesbians, and other persons in fringe or disenfranchised groups. Where I work, if you work hard and take good care of your patients, everyone else seems to overlook the other stuff. We've got some pretty big "other stuff" on our floor, but we also all have common ground.
Good luck. You've got a tough row to hoe, but it sounds like you're going to be fine.
Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.
I do understand the difference between crossdressing and crossgendered. What I was referred to is the fact that the crossgendered people that I have known have been required to live as their intended sex for at least 2 years prior to their surgery and this would be hard for you while you are in nursing school. My husband is a crossdresser but in the group that we know we have several crossgendered friends so I am very familiar with the issues that go alone with this type of decision.
I do understand the difference between crossdressing and crossgendered. What I was referred to is the fact that the crossgendered people that I have known have been required to live as their intended sex for at least 2 years prior to their surgery and this would be hard for you while you are in nursing school. My husband is a crossdresser but in the group that we know we have several crossgendered friends so I am very familiar with the issues that go alone with this type of decision.
ok :) Sorry
The SOC changed the real life test to one year now versus two.
My name is Kareal and I started going back to college for my nursing degree. My current degree is not making me any money whatsoever.
With that said, I love nursing. I've always been interested in nursing since I was 5 but I also have a condition since I was 5. Gender Identity Dysphoria. It basically means i have a mans body but mentally, emotionally and my soul is a woman. In about 4 years I will have SRS sx to become fully female.
With that said. Have you seen any transgendered in the nursing field? Is the medical field good to transgendereds?
Thanks for any input!
When you ask "have you seen any transgendered..." or ask whether the medical field is "good to transgendered" I think you're setting yourself for a lose lose situation. I say this because any field in any modern day society is supposed to be good to their populace. Furthermore, if someone is transgendered it is not like there is a sign hanging over their head pointing out such. Nor would any organization, individual or policy come out and say (positively or negatively) particular statements regarding a transgender.
This concept of being "transgendered" is very personal, as you surely are aware, and it would be a disservice to all individuals if the concept was put on a stage to be analyzed.
I see you wrote: "It basically means i have a mans body but mentally, emotionally and my soul is a woman. In about 4 years I will have SRS sx to become fully female."
Unfortunately your line of thinking is faulty. By whose standards are you judging mental/emotional capacity as feminine or masculine? This is a serious question to consider.
Furthermore you will never be "fully female". This is an impossibility. There is no medicine, technique, etc. etc., that can change a man into a woman. The surgical technique is at "face value" only... literally.
Your physical state (male or female) aside, you are the one who is making comparisons among the rest of society to judge which gender you are. Surgically altering your body is not going to make you more feminine. If you believe you are a woman then shouldn't you be happy that you know you are a woman? However, if you want other people to believe you are a woman, then surgery is indeed a good way to go about it because it brings forth the illusion that you are a woman.
When you ask "have you seen any transgendered..." or ask whether the medical field is "good to transgendered" I think you're setting yourself for a lose lose situation. I say this because any field in any modern day society is supposed to be good to their populace. Furthermore, if someone is transgendered it is not like there is a sign hanging over their head pointing out such. Nor would any organization, individual or policy come out and say (positively or negatively) particular statements regarding a transgender.
This concept of being "transgendered" is very personal, as you surely are aware, and it would be a disservice to all individuals if the concept was put on a stage to be analyzed.
I see you wrote: "It basically means i have a mans body but mentally, emotionally and my soul is a woman. In about 4 years I will have SRS sx to become fully female."
Unfortunately your line of thinking is faulty. By whose standards are you judging mental/emotional capacity as feminine or masculine? This is a serious question to consider.
Furthermore you will never be "fully female". This is an impossibility. There is no medicine, technique, etc. etc., that can change a man into a woman. The surgical technique is at "face value" only... literally.
Your physical state (male or female) aside, you are the one who is making comparisons among the rest of society to judge which gender you are. Surgically altering your body is not going to make you more feminine. If you believe you are a woman then shouldn't you be happy that you know you are a woman? However, if you want other people to believe you are a woman, then surgery is indeed a good way to go about it because it brings forth the illusion that you are a woman.
I think you really read into my statement wrong.
1. Of course I dont think SRS will make me feel complete. I feel like a woman now. I need the SRS for my own personal benefit and to be legally a female as recognized in the United States of America. You cant change a birth cert without SRS. I cannot get married until I have the SRS or it would be considered same sex (which is fine to me but thats not what im after).
2. Please define "fully" female for me please. I guess those who had a hysterectomy is not fully female, huh? I hate that comment. To me, once everything is said and done I will be "fully female" as you described it and no one will take that away from me.
3. Of course i know there will be issues when transitioning and I know there are laws protecting GLBT. I merely asked in the healthcare was beyond than just the legal mumbo jumbo and really are accepting. I found out YES they are.
4. No, when I transition I wont be going around jumping and skipping all about screaming "look at me, Im trans!!!" No. The only people who will know will be those at work during the first year when I transition to real life experience. After that if i transfer to another hospital they wont know. No one will know. 1 in 12 transgendereds are murdered and I plan on not being a statistic. The only person who will know who i WAS is someone i can trust in a relationship and hopefully they can see me for who I am NOW.
Specializes in ER preceptorship, almost a year on PCU..
Hi :) I completed a female to male transition before I started nursing school and had no difficulty whatsoever, though I imagine it would be more difficult to be going through transition during school. In fundamentals, there were some comments about TGs when we discovered in the lab that the genitalia on the mannequins were interchangeable, but nothing mean -- just speculation on what it would be like to discover that a patient doesn't have the parts you expected to see. I also gave a presentation in the psych clinical on cultural considerations in the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender patients (GLB in the first half and transgender in the second half of it), and it was received very well. What's funny is that no one assumed that any of that applied to me! By the end of the program, two people did know -- one because we were both assigned to the ER the day I stopped by medical records to get a copy of mine from the hysterectomy, and she wanted to wait with me instead of going ahead on the way back from lunch. She was very confused at first when she saw what procedure the report of operation was about, but accepted it and it didn't change anything. Another found out when she was talking to her brother's girlfriend, who was a friend of my brother (who'd said that he had two sisters) and while she had a lot of questions, she was also very accepting. Oh, and there was another who initially thought I was going from male to female because I was growing my hair out and was "nice and polite"!
I think that nurses are, overall, a much more accepting group than most, and more likely to see it as a medical issue for which one is undergoing medical treatment than a psychological disorder. Even those whose religion makes it difficult to accept learn to put aside personal religious beliefs in the treatment of patients whose beliefs are different, and while it may complicate patient interaction until transition is complete, I should hope that your program judges you more on your performance than your medical history. Good luck!
SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN
10,263 Posts
Hey, Kateal, your mother rocks!