Because I’m over 50 my doc wants to work me up to the full dose of between 100 – 400 mcg of Estradiol
My starting dose will be two 50 mcg patches per week.
I’ll have to go for blood tests every four or five weeks to see how things are progressing.
The blood work will guide us in ramping up my dose of estrogen.
Once the estrogen is under control then my doc will start me on an androgen blocker such as Spironolactone.
Between the estrogen and the androgen blockers my testicles won’t stand a chance. They’ll start shrinking on their own.
It’ll be about a year before I can request surgery to remove what I want to have removed.
If everything goes fine then I should start sprouting breasts in about 3 to 6 months. My breasts will max out in about 2 to 3 years. And if I stop taking hormones my breasts will remain.
My testicles will start to shrink in about 3 to 6 months and will reach maximum effect in 2 to 3 years. This will be permanent even if I stop taking hormones.
My muscle mass will start to decrease in 3 to 6 months and I will have achieved maximum muscle loss in 1 to 2 years.
Decreased growth of facial and body hair in 6 to 12 months with maximum effect in 3 years.
My skin will start to soften between 1 to 6 months. It’s unknown when the maximum effect will occur.
If my gender dysphoria and my gender related issues resolve with hormone therapy, then I should be able to decrease my anti-depressants.
There are some side effects, such as an increase risk for stroke, blood clots, etc.
But to me the risks are more than worth it.
Am I happy that I’m finally starting to transition?
Yes.
This is something that I have wanted to do for so long.
Am I upset that I let the CFB Namao issue get in my way?
Honestly, had I started to transition back in 2008 when I had changed my name in preparation for transitioning I think that the CFNIS would have taken me even less seriously if I had shown up for my video statement in a dress with breasts than they already did.
I can only wonder what Richard would have thought seeing me after my transition.
Work is going to be wild over the next while. Yeah, I’ve worn dresses, skits, kilts, etc. for an eternity at work. But I don’t think that anyone at work has any ideas of what’s coming down the pike.
What makes this whole matter much worse for me is the fact that people knew.
As I’ve said before.
My father knew about the assaults.
He may not have known about them when they were happening as he was always living off base.
But he knew about them when he eventually had to move back into the PMQ with us on CFB Namao.
Richard used to wear wool sweaters at the time and I used to refer to him as “wooly bully” at the time as in the song by Sam Sham and the Pharos.
When Richard moved back in with us, he was a different man. I was certain at the time that my real father had died on a training exercise and that the Canadian Forces had replaced my father with a look-alike.
Richard may not have known the true extent of what had happened on the CFB Namao, but knew what the babysitter and I had been doing as my father would be in the “counselling” sessions that I started having with Captain Totzke when we were moved down to CFB Griesbach in October if 1980.
Richard was present when Terry told me that he had the base military police watching me and that they’d tell him if I ever kissed or touched another boy.
When Terry said that I shouldn’t play sports because of the change rooms, my father ran with that. Richard never once questioned it. In fact Richard used this logic to deny me permission to go on a swimming trip in Edmonton.
And I know that Richard also used this logic when I was going to Sheppard Public School in Toronto while we were stationed at Canadian Forces Base Downsview. My grade 6 class was going on an end of the year school trip to Quebec City in Quebec. The school was covering the costs of the transportation, and the meals, and the accommodations. Richard didn’t want me going on this trip out of fear that I was going to be uncontrollable with other boys in their beds. Somehow Mr. Cross and Mr. Blair convinced Richard to allow me to go.
It’s obvious that Richard knew.
And it’s obvious that Richard’s attitude towards me was heavily influenced by his knowledge that from age 7 to age 8 I had been sexually abused numerous times over the course of a year and a half.
The fact that Terry had described me as a homosexual at age 9 and that if I didn’t change my ways that I’d be going to prison wouldn’t have really been very beneficial to the relationship between my father and I.
What I wouldn’t know though is how many people knew.
But suffice to say, a lot of people knew.
It’s not the fact that people knew that is driving my desire to die.
It’s the fact that people like Captain Terry Totzke and my own father, Mcpl Richard Gill knew, but allowed my mental health problems to fester untreated.
It the fact that my gender identity and my sexual identity were destroyed by Totzke and my father.
At this point in time, I really don’t give a fucking rat’s ass as to why it was decided to keep me from receiving proper psychiatric counselling for my issues. But, just remember that the DND and the CAF did throw a “wall of secrecy” over the entire Captain McRae matter.
Were they afraid that if I receive counselling for my mental health issues that I’d blab about what had happened on the base, and that this would get the civilian authorities asking questions that DND and the CAF didn’t want asked?
a “Wall of Secrecy”
In fact, I would say that the actions of my father, Mcpl Richard Gill, served to amplify my mental health issues and my suffering.
Just because I didn’t know until 2011 that I had been diagnosed with Major Depression and Severe Anxiety, or that my condition had deteriorated by the summer of 1982 to the point that I was supposed to have been institutionalized in a psychiatric facility, doesn’t lessen the damage.
In fact, not knowing what was really wrong in my head made things that much moe fucking worse as I always blamed myself for being a fucking loser and a fucking fuckup.
There were times in my life when I couldn’t believe how fucking stupid I really was.
The fact that I didn’t know until 2011 that I was in the process of being removed from the home and placed into residential care or foster care doesn’t lessen the fact that the house that I was living in was emotionally and physically abusive.
As I’ve said previously, my father had his own treatments for my depression and anxiety. It was literal kicks in the ass, open handed smacks across the face, hits to the back of the head, the leather belt on my bare ass.
My step mother had her own treatments for my bed wetting and my depression.
My grandmother had her own treatments for my issues.
If I wasn’t left to suffer all of these issues on my own, and if I had received timely help with my issues, what would my life have been like?
Boyfriends, girlfriends?…….. who knows.
Trans, gay, straight, bi?……. again, who knows.
In a way I wish that I didn’t have any sex organs as I really don’t like the idea of sex. Since Namao I’ve always really despised my genitals.
Nowadays there is emasculation surgery, which would remove my penis, my testicles and my scrotum. Absolutely nothing down there save for a little hole for me to pee from.
At least I wouldn’t have that fucking thing down there. That fucking thing that caused so many problems in my life.
The reason I changed my name back in 2008 was more than just to get away from the Gill clan. I had no idea what my gender was. My gender has always confused me. I’ve never really identified as a male. I’ve never identified as a female. I don’t like having sex with women. I don’t like having sex with men.
Actually, that’s not true. Sex with men is great, I prefer sex with men over sex with women. But I don’t have it very often because Totzke and my father are screaming at me in my head. Sex is really unenjoyable with that shit going on.
And as much as I like having sex with men I can’t stop wondering if I’m a homosexual because of what happened on CFB Namao.
So, it really is a no win situation with me.
In 2008 I changed my first name to Bobbie. Bobbie is the unisex spelling. Bobby is the male spelling, Bobbi is the female spelling, and Bobbie is the unisex spelling.
I really loved having a first name that didn’t indicate the junk between my legs.
Is Namao alone my reason for my gender issues. Probably not, but Namao and Totzke really didn’t help with my issues.
There were so many opportunities that I missed out on in life.
Finishing high school?
Trade school?
College?
University?
Theatre?
Arts?
I have no idea of what I could have been or what I should have been.
And remember, I wasn’t able to make these choices because I was lazy, or because I was scatterbrained.
I wasn’t able to make these choices due to intentionally untreated mental health issues that I was left alone to struggle with.
Drugs won’t fix my fucked up brain.
Drugs won’t fix my gender issues.
Therapy, nope, been through a lot of therapy since 2011.
Maybe if I had therapy back between October of 1980 and 1990 things would have worked. But I’m 52 now. The rot in my brain has been allowed to fester since 1980. That’s 44 years now. And it’s not 44 years of issues that no one knew about. That’s 44 years of issues that were started off by 1-1/2 years of sexual abuse and 2-1/2 years of very inappropriate counselling.
I know that there are those who will say that I have to simply try harder. That I need a positive attitude. That I need to be thankful for every day that I am alive. And that I need to stop whinging about something that happened over 40 years ago.
Nope.
I just want M.A.i.D.
If society doesn’t want people like me obtaining M.A.i.D. to escape our pain and our torment, don’t let us suffer this pain or this torment in the first place.
Finger wagging at me, and tut-tutting me are completely inappropriate responses.
I don’t owe it to you to suffer another 20 years so that you can say that you saved me, like I’m some fucking pet project of yours.
My life is my life, I lived it, and I don’t want to live it any more.
To those of you that have known me prior to May of 2008, you may have known me under a different name.
In August of 2006 I had a very detailed and pointed conversation with my father relating to the events of CFB Namao and his parenting skills and abilities. These conversations continued on for about a month until Richard got bored.
It was then that I realized that there was never going to be a “father – son” relationship between the two of us. His ideals of family norms seem to have been shaped by television and popular media. Not the slightest were his ideas based in reality. This may have been a side effect of his having been in the Canadian Armed Forces since his 17th birthday and not having any idea of what the real world function like. The chain of command told him all he needed to know. His station was not to question.
I decided that seeing as how my past was acting like such an anchor I’d do something that I had always wanted to do.
Change my name.
It’s actually not a hard process to undertake, but there is a process none the less.
First, you have to choose your name and how much of your name you want to change.
I changed my entire name.
First name, middle name, and last name.
The first name was easy. I never really like the name “Robert”. As a kid friends of the family had always called me Robbie or Bobby. Both names had an appeal to me. Bobbie even more so than Robbie. Robbie was still too close to “Robert” for my liking. Bobby I didn’t like as it was too “male”. However, I did like “Bobbie”.
Bobbie is an interesting name. Bobby is the masculine spelling. Bobbi is the feminine spelling. And Bobbie is the unisex spelling. Throughout the last 100 years according to the various censuses, Bobbie has gone between being a dominant male baby name to being a dominant female baby name. The unisex aspect of it appealed to me as I’ve never really identified as either male or female.
It took a while to decide on my last name. It wasn’t until I was working as a canvaser for the 2008 City of Vancouver Municipal Election that I came across my last name. I had decided when I wanted to change my name that I wanted my last name to complement my first name. As I was making my way though a voters list I came across someone with the last name of “Bees”. I did a bit of research on the Internet. Turns out the surname Bees has quite a long history behind it.
I also liked the name “Bobbie Bees” because it actually has a lot of “B’s” in it.
So, please with my new name I decided to head off to the Vital Statistics office to initiate the process. This was basically collecting all of the paperwork required and then filling out the paperwork.
“Bobbie Bees” was almost my new name until I was ready to submit my paperwork. When I took the paperwork in, the worker at the counter asked me if I really only wanted a surname and a family name without a middle name. I hadn’t really planned on having a middle name as I’d never really used my previous middle name. The worker suggested that I should pick a new middle name as this would give me an alternative name that I could use depending on the situation. The worker suggested that I choose my birthstone as my new middle name.
My birthstone is sapphire.
The worker agreed with me that “Bobbie Sapphire” and “Sapphire Bees” both sounded like stripper names.
In the list of birthstones I happened to spy “Garnet”.
I checked the definition of “garnet” in the dictionary. It was a red coloured gemstone known for its abrasive qualities.
And Garnet was also the name of one of my favourite characters from Final Fantasy IX. So Garnet it was.
Now that my new name was chosen, it was time to finalize the paperwork and pay the fees. I also had to attend the fingerprinting section of RCMP “E” division headquarters to get my finger prints checked.
I couple of weeks later I received a letter from the RCMP notifying Vital Statistics in both BC and Nova Scotia that I had passed the records check and that there was no reason to deny me the name change request.
The next letter I received from from Nova Scotia congratulating me on the name change and letting me know how to request new birth certificates and how to properly destroy my old certificates.
All my other ID had to be updated as well.
At this point in time I’m of the opinion that people should have “childhood” names and “adult” names. Childhood names are often picked by people who don’t have any idea of what their child would like to be named and they pick the names based upon reasons that may mean nothing to the child. When a child turns 16, they should be encouraged to pick a new name that suits them, that suits their identity, and fits with their idea of the world that surrounds them.
There were some unintended consequences of my name change.
In 2008, I hadn’t spoken to my mother since February of 1992 when I moved to Vancouver, BC. When I legally changed my name, my “dead name” ceased to exist. The only place my “dead name” exists is within law enforcement. Even today, I am not allowed to use my “dead name” for any legal purpose.
My mother would have turned 65 in 2011. So she would have been eligible to collect her CPP. For some reason she had to be able to prove to CPP how many dependent children she had had. She requested my brothers birth certificate from the Nova Scotia government. But when she tried to obtain mine, the Nova Scotia government told her that my birth certificate was restricted and that she could not have a copy.
When I tracked my mother down in late 2013 to ask her about some of the answers my father had given me in a Federal Court of Canada matter she said that she was surprised to hear from me. She explained that when the Nova Scotia government wouldn’t give her a copy of my birth certificate she had assumed that I was dead.
She didn’t really seem to care that I was still alive. But I think at that point in her life she was just too broken down and defeated to care.
I’ve been Bobbie Bees for over 12 years at this point in my life. I wasn’t able to kill off Robert like I had hoped I would have been to. “Robert” lives on due to the trauma , neglect, and abuse he was subjected to. “Robert” and the people that harmed him will be with me until the day I die.
But at least Bobbie Garnet Bees allows me a respite from “Robert”.
Beeshive 