Reflecting on our community’s pain

What we do to survive

I am hoping to meet up with a couple of eunuch friends sometime soon. We have a little group chat and don’t live too far from each other; we could all meet in London without too much difficulty. I am excited and nervous about this, although no date has been set yet.

During the conversation, things turned to our various attempts at self-harm and suicide. Both of these friends had made serious attempts on their lives resulting in significant stays in hospital. Myself, I took an overdose attempting to self-castrate during which I didn’t care if I died. I think every single eunuch or nullo that I have ever spoken to has either made a serious attempt on their own life, or self-harmed in a life-threatening way. All of us have regularly self-harmed in non-life threatening ways. One of these friends knows of others whose suicides were successful. That is just too much pain.

I received a few sessions with a psychologist after my overdose, which were welcome, but aside from giving me a better understanding of myself and some coping mechanisms, didn’t change anything nor did it move me any further along my path. He said that he wasn’t a gatekeeper and couldn’t provide access to surgery.

Eunuchs aren’t recognised by the NHS, so it’s not possible to obtain help from a Gender Identity Clinic, even if you’re willing to wait the five or six years before you’re given a “first” appointment. I am certain that I would be dead by the time my appointment came up, so I suppose that I’m glad they rejected me quickly.

How many of us are there? How many in the UK? Is there enough of us to even cause a statistical blip? Are we such a small group so as to be irrelevant? Even if we are a group of only the people I have spoken to directly, we don’t deserve to be ignored and discarded. We are treated with contempt.

In the UK, there is a lot of noise about mental health and about men’s mental health in particular; eunuchs all start as biological men and yet we are ignored, dismissed as crazy, or what we need is regarded as a frivolous choice – whatever people think, our needs are depriorised. Medical incompetence is acceptable because we don’t matter. Lost referrals, delays in referral, rejections, all contributing to our stress and unhappiness – and putting our lives in danger.

It doesn’t stop when we eventually find a way to address our body/gender issues. We are punished for our differences and made to wait for care, or when we do get it, it can be quite uncaring care, or punished because we broke our own bank to get treatment abroad or from some dirty and dangerous backstreet “cutter”.

Under these conditions, is it any wonder that a man like as Marius Gustavson (the “Eunuch Maker”) was able to have such a thriving business? Had he still been free when I was looking for help, I think I would have used his services. If it didn’t kill me, then it would have destroyed my marriage. I’m not sure that even knowing what I know now about him now, that I would have been deterred – especially given the crazy things I was prepared to do to myself. I am glad that my husband, though greatly troubled by my need to have this transition, understood and was compassionate enough to accept and partly encourage my trip to Mexico despite his own feelings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68977469

A little check in

Yesterday was a good day. Third day cycling to work. My scrotal void is a little sore today after the rides, so I’m glad that I’m not cycling today. I’m even sleeping ok, despite the warmer weather (which is great because I love warm weather and don’t want to be one of those people who complain all winter AND then complain all summer – although that is a very British thing to do 🤣).

I’m also finding that my sugar cravings this week have returned to pre-menopause levels – at least for now!

My endrinocolgy appointment for June has been cancelled with no explanation other than they are working to find me an alternative date. So now I don’t even have an appointment!