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hello i am a transperson; should i go to grad school?

  • Hello. I'm a trans (MtF) person of color. I live in a mid-sized East Coast city. My partner lives in Williamsburg, BK. I got into grad school in the Heartland. Please help! Hello. I'm a trans (MtF) person of color. I live in a mid-sized East Coast city. My partner lives in Williamsburg, BK. I got into grad school in the Heartland. Please help! After fucking around for a few years after undergrad I applied to PhD programs in a science (theory, not lab) & got into a few of them. I am trying to choose between a school in the Triangle Area (Durham/Chapel Hill) and a school in Columbus, OH. This is sort of complicated by the fact that I am kind of interested in the field and kind of just trying to get health insurance and transition. So, I can't just pick the school that covers hormones on health insurance if the cost of hormones is manageable otherwise. Note: I haven't started hormones yet, but I am fairly small, have longish hair, and look sort of like a stereotypical non-passing tranny :C. So, there is the benefit that when I start hormones, people who notice will not think it's out of nowhere. But, I also don't get the added initial lift of establishing credibility using zomg hetero male privilege (not that I think it's worth the tradeoff … I would much rather look like this than look more in line with traditional masculinity and only slowly transition). Also, I am in my mid-twenties, so I am not willing to wait on hormones past the end of the year. Here are my questions. If the first one gives you a headache, please feel free to answer the second one only. 1) Should I go to grad school? I have anxiety and exhaustion and clinical depression issues, so should I not even think about grad school? This is complicated by the fact that I have no current job prospects, esp. for a face-to-face position. And remote positions seem to require a gradual fade-in from on-site responsibilities. And, I am almost out of savings. I pretty much know the pre-qualifier curricula for the PhD programs, so if I decided it wasn't for me, could I just slack off for two years, pass quals, (hopefully have transitioned), and leave with an MS? I am actually as conversant with the material as I am with AP Calc or whatever, so please tailor your advice more towards interpersonal stresses I may face rather than intellectual stresses. Both places have nondiscrimination policies inclusive of gender identity or expression, but … sexual harassment policies don't automatically stop sexual harassment. Will I have to face significantly more plausibly-deniable discrimination than someone in e.g. the Lit department? Sciences are pretty conservative fields, and on top of that is moving out to Middle America an extremely untenable change from my current situation? It's not a science w/ an experimental component, or a fieldwork component, so I could just go to classes and meet with my advisor, right? (Instead of having to deal with lab personality conflicts or feeling stranded out in the middle of nowhere, reliant on a cissexual person who's going to be like, “tough it out, fairy”). Or are there negative consequences to keeping to yourself? Do grad students haze each other; or have stupid, hazing-like team-building activities? Do professors haze students (in personal ways, not in ways pertaining to research)? Will people try to get around the nondiscrimination policy using euphemisms (“professional appearance,” “we want to promote a certain image of the department,” “we expect better of you,” etc.)? Are there ever gatekeeper-like situations where you can't enter a required class or get a required signature unless you give in to someone's ideas about gender norms or dress codes? I mean, if I am the only one who is singled out, that is de facto discrimination, but I assume someone clever enough to have departmental authority is also clever in being devious. Here is some information about my boundaries and personality: I have stringent personal boundaries. I think boundaries are infinitely more important than connections. I am reserved (maybe even insular) … what if I don't want to tell anyone immediately that I'm trans and have people respect my boundaries no matter whether it confuses them or not? I am also genderqueer and I don't want to repeatedly spout off paragraphs about how crotch -> identity is not a well-defined mapping. I am not willing to be a model representative from LGBT-nation to straight people. That is, if I feel degraded I am not willing to pretend I don’t feel shrill and indignant. I am willing to tailor my dress to a formality level, but I am not willing to compromise on things like maintaining a masculine dress (and certainly not more permanent things like a masculine haircut). Part of my anxiety about this is that I don't know what the worst is that can happen to me in academia. Is anyone going to put their hands on me? Is the worst that I get ostracized or given an ultimatum or perhaps underhandedly kicked out or whatever? (I'd much, much prefer ostracism to being repeatedly “offered the chance” to look more normal in a way that makes me feel cornered over and over). If I go to department happy hours will I have to watch out for people waiting for a vulnerable moment in order to masculinize me and fuck up my life? Will I get cut much less slack than someone else? If people are alienated by my identity, will they find out some way to flunk me in objective courses? I don't think this will be a problem, but if there is a judgment call or if I am being accused of mis-attributing sources or plagiarism or whatever, will they suddenly see it as their opportunity to offer me a devil's bargain whereas with someone else they would be offered a free second chance to revise? I am part of a queer art collective and make sort-of-controversial installation/conceptual/post-langpo art (controversial both in terms of content and in terms of appropriation). I use pen names, but if it is connected to me, do I risk being forced out under some vague respectability clause (content) or academic honesty clause (appropriation)? I have visited these schools, but when I visited, I looked somewhere between a tranny and a hippy (I wore non-form fitting clothing and didn’t shave for a few days b/c I am scared of the TSA), so they probably just assumed I was a hippy or GNU-nerd or whatever. (The field I am applying in is not as stereotypically anarchic like CS or math or physics; otherwise I would just say I'm from the counterculture or whatever). I did visit another school where I shaved and wore clothing that is closer to what I normally wear and people were generally polite, but the two adcom members I met looked pretty appalled and like they wanted to be anywhere else in the world in that insecure + judgmental teenage boy way, except they were perhaps 35-45. Could it be that the schools that I am trying to decide between are just in recruitment mode? Will they pull the rug out from under me later? Like, oh haha we were trying to make you come here earlier, but now that you are here we have certain Expectations. 2) Which one should I choose? This is what is running through my mind while trying to decide between the two locations: General: OK, so I just put my partner above to signify that we both have hipsterish tastes. They work from home, and we plan on having some organic split where they live with me two weeks a month or so. (I don't think I will have enough free time to regularly go to NYC). So, it basically comes down to where I will feel more at ease. And, if I feel out of place, are both locations basically live-and-let-live locations? Like, if you are an outlier, people will notice but not necessarily try to normalize you. If they try to normalize you is it general peer pressure, or more busybodyish stuff? I don't have a car, and don't really know how to drive. Is this a problem in either location, assuming I want to do more things than just go to class and buy groceries? (Also, this is kind of vague, but I am slightly agoraphobic and like things to look walkable). If I have to leave my graduate program, where would I be less stranded w/o a car? (For jobs; for getting out; for getting an apt w/o manhattan landlord criteria) How is the queer scene (both LGB and T)? Are they segregated from each other? I am omnisexual, and my relationship is open; will I face problems being a transperson? Outside of the queer scene, where will I face more problems for being trans? (Both on campus and just walking around to the store or wherever). Neither state has hate-crime legislation inclusive of gender identity or expression, but each university has a nondiscrimination policy. Is that actually useful or toothless? How are the indie rock, experimental poetry, and gallery art scenes in each location? Is it hard to be involved in the arts community without a car in either place? Does one place have a significantly more square scene? Is it safe to live in a house or apartments that open to the outdoors (as opposed to a building where you go inside and take the elevator)? Both in terms of general crime (burglary, property crime), as well as being targeted for being trans. Is it hard to get an apartment w/o roommates with just a deposit as opposed to complete credit check, etc.? Are tenants' rights strong? Both are top 25 programs. One is top 10. Does that matter a huge deal for academia, or is top 25 enough so that only your publications matter? Would it look bad if I left after getting an MS and applied to schools whose insurance pays for surgery? Do schools weed out for those types of applications? CH/Durham: Health insurance doesn't cover hormones or surgery. :C Presumably, they would cover doctor visits, where I could get an Rx. Would a grad student salary suffice for paying for hormones out-of-pocket? My major expenses would be single-person apartment + (maybe?) car. Is CH/Carrboro actually progressive? Or just relative to the rest of the state? If you stuck it into San Francisco, would it be known as the retrograde neighborhood? When I visited local businesses, people consistently refused to make eye contact with me, but I don't know if that's b/c I am trans or b/c I gave off some other vibe (I was going on 24 hours of no sleep). I actually like Durham's architecture better … would it be safe to live there? And, will commuting to grad school vs. just walking a mile be noticeably inconvenient? Funding for the program is year-to-year research assistantship. Most people hook up with a professor and don't look back. If I get defunded and word gets around, would I have a hard time finding another person to work with (especially if I get defunded for not letting someone violate my boundaries w.r.t. gender norms or such)? I met the person I would be working with and they seemed OK, but as per above, maybe I was just parsed as a hippy, and maybe they are just trying to recruit me. Columbus, OH: Health insurance covers hormones but not surgery. Don't know if it's informed consent. Don't know if Rx can be from anywhere. I've heard it's an extremely “Midwestern” place, and I've also heard it's a refuge from the Midwest. What exactly does this mean? Funding is basically guaranteed, but changes year to year. First year I have a research assistantship. However, in any given year most people are TAs and lead recitation sections. Would that be a problem (i.e., are undergrads mean and gender-normative to the extent that I will feel threatened)? Sorry I am such a mess and sound contemptuous. I am not actually contemptuous of red-blooded America, but I am understandably in a precarious situation in that I have found a pattern of life that sort-of works, but I don't have a job and need hormones and want a PhD, so I don't feel I have a margin of error when examining whether every little thing that differs from my current situation is a benign change or not. Any help would be appreciated, and of course it doesn't have to comprehensively address everything I wrote out above.

  • Answer:

    This is sort of complicated by the fact that I am kind of interested in the field and kind of just trying to get health insurance and transition. . . I have anxiety and exhaustion and clinical depression issues, so should I not even think about grad school? Yeah, I wouldn't. Doctoral programs are incredibly stressful places even for people without anxiety and depression and about to undergo transition. You're incredibly underpaid, usually scraping by just to live, let alone having to buy what I'd imagine are expensive drug treatments. Maybe you don't have any real prospects right now, but... I just can't believe that going half-heartedly into a grad program would be any better, because the people who go in half-heartedly are the ones who don't make it, let alone get a real career in academia if they do manage to finish.

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This is sort of complicated by the fact that I am kind of interested in the field and kind of just trying to get health insurance and transition....This is complicated by the fact that I have no current job prospects, esp. for a face-to-face position. And remote positions seem to require a gradual fade-in from on-site responsibilities. And, I am almost out of savings. It sounds like you are nervous about these programs because of very real concerns about how closely they police gender presentation, which I hope some of the answers above will either assuage or illuminate for you, but also like you are nervous because you aren't super-enthused about graduate school. I think a lot of kids our age turn to graduate school because it seems like such a neat, familiar path- there will be semesters, grades, and a degree at the end. But it sounds like what you really need is substantial income, good health insurance, and possibly the support of a strong, in-person social network of transpeople, and grad school might not provide that, or might not provide it in sufficient quantity (esp. the money), and probably isn't the easiest or most direct way to get any of them. It also sounds like you might benefit from some mental health care, especially if it could make you more employable by getting you to a place where you can work in an office or handle more sustained person-to-person interactions with others. I can't say whether or not you should go to graduate school right now, but I think in your shoes I would put the energy and mental space I was using to weigh the decision into getting employed with benefits. I hope I don't sound flip saying that; I know it's a terrible job market, and I would definitely keep the graduate school option in my pocket as long as possible, but it doesn't sound like the best option for you particularly at the moment.

Snarl Furillo

Choosing graduate schools should be a two-way interview process, not just the one-way of them interviewing you. Do you have a faculty contact at these schools with whom you could discuss your concerns? Did you meet graduate students that you could visit, call, or email and ask how they think your experience of the program would be, given your worries? When I was deciding on graduate schools, I had one-and-a-half pages of single-spaced questions that I wanted answered before I'd be willing to commit to a school. Some of these questions were questions like, "Do I need a car?" or "Do you know of a local community garden?" while others were more pertinent to the program itself. At the school I picked, I got all of those questions personally answered by the director of that school as well as had individual meetings with several faculty members, a tour, and several hours of interaction alone with graduate students. I am still happy with my program. Two other students entered in my same program and class, did not do the same level of research beforehand, and left the program within the first year because it wasn't what they were actually looking for. I know you said what if I don't want to tell anyone immediately that I'm trans and have people respect my boundaries no matter whether it confuses them or not? I am also genderqueer and I don't want to repeatedly spout off paragraphs about how crotch -> identity is not a well-defined mapping. I am not willing to be a model representative from LGBT-nation to straight people. but I think that going over it all once, beforehand, with both a trusted faculty member and current students will be infinitely easier than spending the time and money to dive in completely unprepared and hoping for the best. You can even include in your queries to these people that you typically dislike discussing such personal matters and are doing so in this case just to make sure the atmosphere will not end up being toxic for you. And going over your non-personal questions like, "What happens if I get de-funded?" are absolutely the sort of things you should find out before you accept a position.

vegartanipla

The sense I have of Columbus (my husband grew up in Ohio, and a couple of friends teach at Ohio State, but in the humanities so I don't have any specifics about the vibe of the sciences, alas) is that there is a "university" community and a "state government" community and that there isn't a lot of back-and-forth unless people seek it out. My friends' grad students are very hippieish or hipsterish grad-student folks, as far as I can gather. "Is this going to be a safe and welcoming community for me?" isn't a contemptuous question, and neither is "Am I going to feel isolated because there won't be a community of people who are going through similar experiences?" Contacting the http://osuglbt.clubexpress.com/ might give you some first-hand data from people who have "been there" while they were there.

Sidhedevil

I haven't done grad school, but I'm inclined to side with The Michael The here. That being said... Is CH/Carrboro actually progressive? Or just relative to the rest of the state? If you stuck it into San Francisco, would it be known as the retrograde neighborhood? I went to undergrad at UNC, live in Brooklyn now, and I found UNC/Carrboro to be extremely progressive. Carrboro is basically a tiny, much prettier version of Brooklyn. I had a roommate who was trans at one point, and she found it to be a pretty accepting environment, although she was not out to everyone at the time that she lived there, so I can't speak to that. But I didn't know a single person during my entire college career who expressed a negative opinion about GLBT people. I'm sure they existed, but they probably exist in BK, too.

showbiz_liz

I have friends who are trans who lived in the Durham area and really liked it for many reasons; they felt it was fun and quirky and fairly progressive. Then again, they were from the Midwest. And they eventually moved to San Francisco which they like a lot more. (But while they still lived in Durham I had lots of conversations with these friends where I was all like ZOMG you live in THE SOUTH, how do you deal? And they were like, "Actually it's more progressive than St. Louis where you live -- you should move here.")

BlueJae

You don't sound contemptuous at all. I have enough experience with both of those places to A. Never want to live in either. B. Feel for you lots. This is a tough decision. If you live in a place now where people are generally not ignorant about gender and sexuality issues, either of these places will be tough. Wherever you go, you really need to look at the different neighborhoods, and take a lot of care in your housing decision. Live around where other students are living. Even if you are older than a lot of your neighbors, I think you might be more comfortable and have less to worry about that way. I am in CS, and am a bit of an odd fish. The women in this field try way too hard to seem professional and anti-feminine, and I think that I make a lot of people uncomfortable. (this is nothing compared to your situation, I know, I'm just saying that academia is very cliquey and has a lot of unsaid rules and expectations) If you just go to class and do what's required (I worked all the way through so I had no choice but to do this though I wish I hadn't) you will miss out on a LOT of networking, and professional connection-making, and a really really big part of the experience and benefits you are paying for. Especially if a lot of the faculty is working in their field and doing stuff outside of teaching, which if they're any good they will be. If you aren't absolutely certain that you want a PhD, go for the MS and skip it. maybe this is not appropriate to say, but if you're transitioning, why not be a girl and use the feminine pronoun all the way, even if you don't "pass" in every circumstance. I think (or maybe this is naive hope) that a lot of the times people are really just confused about how to address a trans person or what gender you ARE (regardless of your genitals), so making these things clear right away helps everyone be more comfortable.

sarahnicolesays

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slow graffiti

Live in Durham and you'll be surrounded by an extremely queer crowd. And the queer crowd is very mixed, almost equally white and non white, but the entire young community there is overwhelmingly supportive and in love with the queers! Seriously. It's very gay and hip! And lots of people of color, including radical folks of color, a vibrant activism and community building scene, delicious food, cheap rents, awesome pace, and an excellent quality of life. I personally know about....10? 12? folks who have transitioned in Durham in the last few years. Of course there would be others that I didn't know. There were certainly more FtM folks but on the whole, I personally think it would be a great place for you! But grad school, not so much. It would probably be a mistake for many of the reasons you list, and many more. It f*cks with your head even when you're in a perfect state of mind. And it encourages far too many bad states of mind, and doesn't really ever let up. Highly encourage you not to go to grad school right now. Remember this: grad school is almost never the solution to the problem you think you have. But you should move there anyway :-)

barnone

Another consideration: I am a PhD student and my insurance situation and level of coverage has changed alot in grad school so far depending on my funding from semester to semester. I would not count on grad school for providing the kind of consistent coverage you need to transition. For example, do you know the policy on summer coverage? What about the fellowship vs TA coverage? At my school those are two very different insurance plans and I have switched between them based on the source of my funding. Are you absolutely guaranteed that the coverage level will not change next year when the university renegotiates their contracts? What happens when something changes halfway through your hormones or if you want to drop out but your treatment isn't finished?

slow graffiti

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