Urologist Update

Well, I had the talk with my urologist yesterday and he seemed quite knowledgeable regarding transgender.  Makes me wonder if he has trans patients.  He asked some pertinent questions, who was my endo, had I thought about any surgeons yet, etc.  I told him who my endo is and told him I was thinking about McGinn in Pennsylvania or Marci Bowers in California.  So the final result of the appointment is, with a letter from my therapist, he will do the orchiectomy.  Plus since he's treating me for orchalgia (pain) on the left side and because of the 10X greater risk for cancer right side due to undescended testicle that has reascended, he will use these as the diagnosis for removal so Medicare and my insurance will pay for it.

When he was asking me the questions he was sitting sort of behind me at the computer.  My wife said as we were driving home he seemed impressed that I was answering the questions quickly and knew what I was talking about.  I kind of laughed and asked her how many friends we've had that transitioned.  I said she could have answered his questions instead of me.

Urologist Appointment Monday - Orchiectomy?

I see my urologist on Monday for the first time since my therapist recommended HRT.  One thing she also recommended was an orchiectomy (castration) so that, due to my age, I don't have to take anti-androgens like spirolactone or finasteride along with estrogen and, maybe, progesterone.  She said she could refer me, with a letter, to a surgeon here in town who does orchis for trans people.  I told her what I would do first is talk to my urologist, since he has been treating me for orchalgia (testicular pain) and my insurance should cover it as an ongoing problem.  Plus I have a 10X risk of testicular cancer on one side and medical protocol calls for it to be removed.  If he's reluctant, then my therapist can refer me to the other surgeon.

My main thought is how to open the conversation with him.  When he did the nerve block back in December he mentioned removal if it didn't work.  I said something then about me not not being bothered removal and he said, "Yes, but your wife still wants a husband, not a sister."  Of course both of us burst into laughter and he was looking at my wife and I like we were crazy.  So I may start out with mentioning his joke, then moving into talking about seeing a gender therapist and go from there about HRT.  Wish me luck.

An Interesting Day

I attended a panel discussion called Striking A Balance - A conversation on balancing civil rights and religious freedom.  It was held at the Center for Civil and Human Rights sponsored by their LGBT Institute.  A couple of the speakers were Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with Richard Cohen CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  There was a discussion on the fact that many of the bills in the Georgia Legislature are supposedly about religious rights and the fact that some of these bills if they became law would protect the KKK because it claims it's a Christian organization.  Mr. Cohen pointed out that the most danger though was not from hate groups like the KKK, it was from the haters in business suits in the legislature.  The second panel consisted of state leaders including Jerry Gonzalez of Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, Monica Simpson of Sister Song, Stephanie Cho of Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Francys Johnson, the state president of the GA chapter of the NAACP.  Probably the most significant remarks came from Mr. Johnson that combining interests of many groups helps fight bigotry more than opposing as individual groups.  As he said, "We were never interested in saving just one room in the house.  We are interested in saving the whole house."

I was privileged to meet three local transwomen, a local transman with HRC and of course my friend Rev. Dr. Erin was there.  It was a great day.