Documenting my journey through the mental health system

At work at Sacred Heart – and flashbacks are not so terrible as they were. When I drove by the mental hospital, I was able to keep breathing and eventually slow my heart. When I saw all the ambulances in the ER bay, I looked away and kept moving. When I got up to the floor, I didn’t have any patients in restraints. My formerly catatonic patient is much more alert and not threatening to kill anyone tonight.

A microcosm of my city and the wider society is in these walls. I see things most people don’t get to see. Mental issues and addiction are widespread and chronic. Everyone is getting angrier and angrier. There is a sense of hopelessness among some of the patients and even staff as we fight to work in a system that rewards profit and little else.

I can tell they want to ask me about all the emails I’m getting from President Musk. But for fear of sparking a political discussion or argument, they glance my way and hold their tongues. But that’s silly to me. I don’t mind the questions, and I don’t take others’ opinions that seriously. I can’t even take my own beliefs that seriously. I’ve been psychotic and delusional, believing I was being kidnapped and held for experimentation. So, I can’t even take my own thoughts that seriously.

Trans people are being systematically erased. LGBTQ people and our history is being erased. Through executive orders, through disinformation, and other nonsense. Through a society clearly galvanized by this new era of hate and fear.

I’m very lucky – I pass well. I am also FtM, which gets less attention and hate and murder than trans women (MtF). I’ve been in transition for years and have been taking testosterone since 2017. Part of that transition included updating my documents. Years ago, I updated my ID and passport with my correct gender – male. But my birth certificate was something I never thought I would need to change. So, in the wake of anti-trans Trumpism, I got my name change documents and copies of my ID and filled out a form and sent it all in to the department of health’s statistics office.

The law now is your birth certificate must match your ID and passport. Project 2025 suggests these will be the new requirements just to be able to vote. That would disenfranchise a lot of married women.

I will violate the new law. I will not “de-transition.” My documents all match now. They do not match my sex assigned at birth, and they never will. I got my updated birth certificate this week. My mother would be horrified, haha.

Washington has made it easier than most states for trans people. I updated my ID and passport years ago now, and all I needed was a note from my doctor. Once the ID was updated, it was very easy to get my new passport. I left my birth certificate as it was because I didn’t think it would ever matter. I had hoped over time, people would be less icked out by trans people, and more educated on the medical side – we have ample research that shows trans brains really are different and the best treatment for gender dysphoria is transitioning. Trying to talk a trans person into being the sex assigned at birth is like trying to talk a straight guy into being gay.

They insist we’re delusional, playing pretend, that we’ll never be who we feel to be. They compare us to a schizophrenic hearing voices, and we shouldn’t tell such a patient they are real. But I always ask the same question – how would you talk a trans person into being the sex assigned at birth? Since people are grossed out by us, and seemingly don’t want us to transition, how would you stop it?

No one has an answer for me. They just don’t like trans people.