sandra-leigh
09-27-2013, 12:47 PM
I recently filled out an application for a Canadian federal disability pension. My depression has made it impossible to consider any kind of regular paid work, for a variety of reasons. I fought accepting that I needed to, but Yeh, I need it.
On the application, I filled out some standard well-understood disabilities: major depression, anxiety/panic, agoraphobia. Those would have been enough on their own.
But I'm also feeling (literally) sick of being pretending I am male to the government, so I also added in Gender Dysphoria. Knowing that probably it wouldn't be understood, and knowing that it might damage my application -- but at this point it is more important to me to be who I am, Sandra-Leigh, than it is to get a disability pension. If someone were to offer me $100,000 to go back to being male, I'd tell them to get shoved.
Well, this morning, I received a phone call from the government RN assigned to my case as medical. She asked for Sandra-Leigh _______ rather than for my legal male name. As the application was an official government application, I had applied under my male name, in at most one place using "Sandra-Leigh", but my medical records contain an entry "Please call her Sandra-Leigh", and that is what she did.
From the conversation we had, I could tell that the medical report my doctors submitted did indeed mention gender dysphoria prominently, and I could tell that the adjudicator, at least, was taking it seriously. The adjudicator was not treating the dysphoria as the most important element of the application -- but that is as is appropriate for the circumstances, as the key question for the purposes of the application is whether or not I am able to work, and the gender dysphoria will, it appears, be considered with regards to whether this inability to work is likely to continue indefinitely.
The medical adjudicator did not indicate that my application is going to be approved; there was one clause during the discussion that hinted that it perhaps might not be. Which would be pretty standard: apparently 80% of first applications are rejected. For example, the adjudicator could potentially rule that I have not sufficiently proven that I cannot work part time.
None the less, I feel some relief at having stood up to the government for my gender dysphoria when it would have been easier and safer not to -- and in having at least someone in the government accept that it is a legitimate concern that deserves consideration.
God I'm mixed up some days, and don't know what I really want or what I'm willing to risk. But it's times like this, where I can't bear to deny my gender dysphoria when it would be "better" if I did, that make it clear to me that underneath, at some level I find it difficult to normally access, that part of me is desperately dysphoric.
On the application, I filled out some standard well-understood disabilities: major depression, anxiety/panic, agoraphobia. Those would have been enough on their own.
But I'm also feeling (literally) sick of being pretending I am male to the government, so I also added in Gender Dysphoria. Knowing that probably it wouldn't be understood, and knowing that it might damage my application -- but at this point it is more important to me to be who I am, Sandra-Leigh, than it is to get a disability pension. If someone were to offer me $100,000 to go back to being male, I'd tell them to get shoved.
Well, this morning, I received a phone call from the government RN assigned to my case as medical. She asked for Sandra-Leigh _______ rather than for my legal male name. As the application was an official government application, I had applied under my male name, in at most one place using "Sandra-Leigh", but my medical records contain an entry "Please call her Sandra-Leigh", and that is what she did.
From the conversation we had, I could tell that the medical report my doctors submitted did indeed mention gender dysphoria prominently, and I could tell that the adjudicator, at least, was taking it seriously. The adjudicator was not treating the dysphoria as the most important element of the application -- but that is as is appropriate for the circumstances, as the key question for the purposes of the application is whether or not I am able to work, and the gender dysphoria will, it appears, be considered with regards to whether this inability to work is likely to continue indefinitely.
The medical adjudicator did not indicate that my application is going to be approved; there was one clause during the discussion that hinted that it perhaps might not be. Which would be pretty standard: apparently 80% of first applications are rejected. For example, the adjudicator could potentially rule that I have not sufficiently proven that I cannot work part time.
None the less, I feel some relief at having stood up to the government for my gender dysphoria when it would have been easier and safer not to -- and in having at least someone in the government accept that it is a legitimate concern that deserves consideration.
God I'm mixed up some days, and don't know what I really want or what I'm willing to risk. But it's times like this, where I can't bear to deny my gender dysphoria when it would be "better" if I did, that make it clear to me that underneath, at some level I find it difficult to normally access, that part of me is desperately dysphoric.