Amberspace: Information resources for transsexual (TS) and
transgendered (TG) persons. Follow the journey of Amber,
a post-transition MTF TS.
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Your youth is slipping away.
Your results will be worse later.
You've got credit.
Don't wait. Limted time offer.
Do it now. Now. Now.
I was listening to a public radio broadcast tonight about how the middle
class is sinking greater into debt and is starting to truly suffer financially.
That got me thinking about some of my fears about transition. I know way too
many people who are, IMHO, in too much debt. They tell me that they had to do
it. And that they were willing to take on risk. If someone was to ask me
what I thought of the situation the words that have always
come to mind are: impatient, irresponsible, short-sighted, impetuous,
precarious. But
I'm not here to criticize. I'm here to warn.
When I first started examining the so-called TG community and embarking on my
own transition it was in '98. At that time most of the people I had met were
a bit older, professional, and travelled. I'm not saying that they had the
best financial sensibility, but I believe that they came from a generation
that was used to bank accounts, not receiving stock, and not being
dependent on credit. Theirs was the generation of hard work, of corporations
you could work a lifetime for, and retirement strategies.
They had financial reserves from years in the workforce
and the discipline to spend
more cautiously. How things have
changed for my generation and the ones that follow.
We, on the other hand, grew up in a time of targeted advertising for children,
of on-demand systems like cable TV and computer games, credit cards, IPOs,
and all sorts of toys aimed at depriving us of our money. We're
used to spending and spending, as if buying all this extra superficial crap
is going to make us happy. (In fact, I would argue that as a generation we
are more detached from each other than ever before, but that's another topic.)
And we've also gotten into this real evil thing of expecting that credit will
always be there whenever we need it to be. It's like free money!
That the trouble, isn't it? Money isn't free. Using credit means using
someone else's money. Money you don't have. Money which requires paying
back interest---which further devalues the money. And here there are so many
people attempting transition by mortgaging their future.
I worry about those young transitioners that will get stuck in gender limbo,
possibly having ceased their high school or college education---which makes it
really hard to enter the workforce later. I worry about the middle-aged
that have
children or alimony to pay. And, I worry about those who are much later in their
lives who have used up a large portion of their life savings to complete their
transformations.
In today's time everyone, in general, is overleveraged. We're stretched too
thin and without a solid back-up plan. Credit used to be a backup plan.
Now it's part of our main strategy. And so when our main strategy fails
we don't have a way to help get ourselves out of the hole except to rely on the
good graces of our friends, family, or miracle workers.
It's very much like being "house poor" where all of your
income goes to pay the mortgage and you don't have enough left over to buy
furniture or go out for entertainment. In our case, we're "body poor" such
that especially in that full-time year we don't have enough cash to enjoy
transition with new experieces, trips, classes, clothing, dates, etc.
No, the RLT period becomes a struggle just to stay alive.
Don't get me wrong. I understand the argument that when you need to do something
that sometimes you have to do whatever it takes. Thus we can rationalize utilizing
credit to satisfy our immediate needs. (The fact I believe that we're all part
of a very impatient society is yet another topic.) So we undertake a great deal
of risk in order to try to get through transition on someone else's dime. I
think this is too much risk to take.
We have the great potential to create a lot of unhappy transitioners.
Remember that the current economic market is already pretty tight for the normal
non-GID person! But add to that the physical and mental stress of transition,
the fact that most of us get laid off from our jobs, that most of us have
problems finding relationships, that many of us have problems assimilation,
that many of us are in emotional distress, that many of us carry debt from
surgeries, that electrolysis is neverending,
and that we're also readjusting to life in the opposite gender role...
Isn't it obvious this is a recipe for disaster?
I've thought a lot about my own timeline. I realize that I would have had a
very difficult time doing it any faster than I did. By going moderately
slowly I was able to spread out the financial impact over all these years
and (so far) I've survived with almost no debt owed and a little money still
in the bank for a rainy day. I hate paying credit cards 18% interest and
I don't like the threat of bankruptcy. I'm not implying that my way was the
way to do it. I'm just saying that I tried to be patient, to live well
within my means, and to be vigilant about surviving transition having enjoyed
the journey along the way.
There's so much pressure out there to complete transition once you get sucked
into the world of the TSes. Everyone has their palms outstretched and they
want to take away your money. And they want it now. There's
this growing attitude that it's OK to be in debt to meet your goals. I'm
just afraid that the elation of transition will be negated by the reality
of bankruptcy.
