I have been running around like a headless chicken to all sorts of medical appointments. They were things I needed to get done and was planning on doing – after the pandemic – but the inquiries of being under the second disability review in six months makes me feel like I need to be doing them now to appease the powers that be.
And it’s strange. In all this time going to and from and complaining about issues I know the medical community can’t do diddley squat about I still run into other problems that continue to be a complete surprise. This last one was so stupid and yet so profound. There I was sitting in the waiting room filling out what I always considered pretty useless paperwork when some of the first little bubbles to fill in completely threw me. They asked for my sex, gender, preferred pronouns, and preferred name. Normally I would see this as a sign that society is improving and becoming more inclusive and I’d be happy about it but this time it just felt like a trap because I know all this will make it’s way back to the board that decides whether or not to continue my disability and this… could be a problem.
I have never identified as female although it was my sex at birth and filling out paperwork has always felt wrong. Things have gotten worse in the past few years as I took on a masculine name and started to abandon my birth name. Every fiber of my being wanted to fill in the form with my actual identity, preferred pronouns, and the name which everyone outside the legal and medical community know me as now. But I didn’t. Why? Because I live in a turbulent time where a large number of the politics in my country run on vitriol and hatred of anyone different. The changes made to the disability process from the Trump administration were sweeping and devastating. And you can’t blame me for not trusting that listing myself as a nonbinary they/them could give them reason to cut me off. There’s no laws preventing this and it wasn’t so long ago that transgender individuals were banned from our military. Is it paranoia or pretense? I already feel like they’re looking for any excuse to leave me high and dry.
Truth be told it’s not just me. Talk to anyone in the disability community and you’ll hear whispers, grumbles, rumors, and advice like don’t look too happy on social media because they might be watching and we all know the unwritten rule to being on disability is that we must suffer to be kept on it. Or at least that’s how it seems. Look too happy, too well adjusted, like you’re getting somewhere in life, and you run the risk of being tossed off because clearly you can’t be disabled and mentally doing well. You must be a fraud! It’s ableism at it’s most cynical and it’s what I fear every day because it seems it’s already starting to kick my ass.
And so looking down at the form I sucked it up, wrote in my legal name, and declared myself female. It didn’t feel good knowing I had options to do otherwise but this is the world I live in.