Edited
Well, it looks like online counseling may not be the way to go :(
Apparently, a lot of online counselors won't give letters of recommendation for hrt online because they can't visit with patients face to face. If I ever decided to go on hormones that would be a hindrance. I can understand ethics behind such a thing and wouldn't blame them for that choice.
So I guess that leaves me with a different question. Does anyone know of or can they recommend gender counselors in the Clearfield-Ogden area in Utah? I'm not particularly wealthy at the moment, so if there are more affordable options of which I'm not aware I'd love to hear them. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks all!
Comments
Try asking
Dr. Laura Arrowsmith is in Tulsa and gives speeches all over the U.S. I suggest you contact her and ask if she can name anyone in your area who is intelligent enough to understand what transgender is and isn't.
I don't have any contacts for her as I've misplaced all the data I had. She was also my doc at one time. Very intelligent and I loved every visit with her. She's one of us too.
If you can't find anyone to help, get back to me and I'll start digging for you. Really should have been filing away data all these years instead of trusting a computer to hang onto it.
Hugs
Barb
Life is meant to be lived, not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the info.
I found a couple groups in Utah that cater to LGBTQ, but most of them operate out of Salt Lake. I live about forty minutes away in good traffic.
I did find this site:
http://www.lgbtqtherapists.com/directory.html
Have a delightfully devious day,
Utah
SLC seems like the center of support, unfortunately.
A search of WPATH for Utah (https://www.wpath.org/member/search/results?cb_member_search...) yielded only one helping professional in the more northern parts of SLC.
One is in Bountiful and if starting from Clearfield it is around a 25 minute or so trip?
Yes, well
I'm not surprised, I quickly concluded the same thing. Utah is one of the reddest of the red states, unfortunately (I think only Idaho is more Republican which is saying something). Salt Lake is pretty progressive compared to the rest of the state, they elected an openly lesbian mayor.
Thanks for looking!
Have a delightfully devious day,
I sent you a link
hope it helps
Love, Andrea Lena
Mama Dragons in Utah
I am very surprised at how much support for LGBT folk there is in Utah, especially along the Wasatch Front. Mama Dragons is one.
Mama Dragon's
They look like a great organization, but correct me if I'm wrong, don't they mainly cater to trans kids and their mothers?
Have a delightfully devious day,
Support
https://www.equalityutah.org/resources/lgbt-resource-guide
Thank you!
Thank you!
Have a delightfully devious day,
I don't know of any out that
I don't know of any out that way but I would reach out to Kristin Midyett. She is my therapist that I see in SLC. She currently is doing Virtual Appointments and would definitely be able to tell you right away if she could do a letter over through that. I hope this helps and kinda happy to know of someone from Utah here. :) I knew I had to create and account to answer this question.
http://www.alliancecounselingslc.com/
I also reached out to Kristin her and Susan are both doing Virtual Visits if you reach out to them I am sure they will be able to help. Just send them a message through the webiste.
If the options I've found here
If the options I've found today don't work out I may do that. I was thinking about contacting some of the LGBTQ organizations in SL and see if they might not have recommendations for someone in my area, but BarbieLee may have made that unnecessary. If it came down to it, I would drive all the way to Salt Lake if I had too, but with my work schedule I would probably have to take sick leave.
:D It's a good feeling knowing there's someone else on this site who lives in Utah, makes me feel like I'm not quite as alone now! Thanks!
Have a delightfully devious day,
Daniela, see if any of these work for you
Hon, check on them before you agree to go into sessions and ask for references.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/transgender/ut...
hugs hon, happy hunting
always
Barb
Life is meant to lived, not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Thank you!
Thank you so much for that link! There are several counselors on that site very close to me who counsel transgender folk!
Have a delightfully devious day,
Kaiser Health Insurance
I live in Oregon and have Kaiser insurance. Kaiser has a Gender Pathways clinic and prescribes HRT meds under the informed consent method. I know that Kaiser is in Utah, so you might look into Kaiser insurance and see if they do the same in Utah.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I get insurance through my
Thanks Patricia. I get insurance through my work very cheap. I'm with SelectHealth at the moment simply because I've been with them for most of my life and it's easier having access to all those years of records and keeping with familiar doctors, but I may look and see if there's anything available when open enrolled comes along that might not be a little friendlier toward trans folk. I have more insurance options available to me than any other place of employment I've been with up until now. (I'm a federal employee)
Have a delightfully devious day,
Kaiser in Utah?
I retired from Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in 2013, after working in their Northern California headquarters on Oakland. At that time, Kaiser did not serve Utah. I just checked their locations on the Web (https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/doctors-locations) and they still don't show Utah.
So Amazed!
I'm astonished at the resources available in Utah. I was a member of the SLC Mormon church for a few years and got sick of their gaslighting and general attitude about the LGBT folk.
You gotta realize though,
You gotta realize though, Salt Lake has one of the lowest per capita populations of Mormons in the entire state and it's very much a bastion of progressivism in an otherwise very conservative state. They elected an openly lesbian woman to the mayor's office. Most of the groups in Utah are out of or near SLC.
Have a delightfully devious day,
I did not know this.
This is a great surprise to me.
Best to you.
Gwen
Goodness ! They must feel so embattled, and Forted up.
I'm in PDX and for me, in this city, felt loved and supported by the local membership. It all sort of fell apart when the GA and those with them seemed to go on a rant about being Temple Worthy. It got so that every Sunday was a Temple Rant. Having lived through horrendous abuse in my earlier life, this was too much and I left, officially. The locals were so loving and the GA were such basterds. I still feel the conflict. Perhaps the Covid stuff has cured me of churches?
Gosh, I think I'll go read "Battle For Earth" again/ :)
God isn't in every church
On the other side of the aisle, not all who go to church have not a drop of faith in them.
One Sunday morning in an upscale Dallas suburb an old cowboy entered the beautiful elaborate church just before services were to begin. The church spoke of wealth poured into building it. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore rough faded jeans, a well worn denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged.
In his hand he carried a worn out old western cowboy hat with heavy sweat stains which bespoke of long hard and hot work the cowboy had done. In his hand he carried worn, dogeared Bible which showed years of reading. The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed in their expensive expensive tailored suits and dresses. The men and women wore high end watches. The ladies wore expensive jewelry. Their hair, their makeup, their manicured nails indicated hours spent in beauty salons..
As the cowboy took a seat, the others rose from their cushioned seats and moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to or welcomed him. They were all appalled at his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.
As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor: “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship.”
The old cowboy assured the preacher he would.
But the next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots and hat.
Once again he was completely shunned and ignored. The preacher approached the man and said, “I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.”
“I did,” replied the old cowboy.
“If you spoke to God, what did he tell you proper attire should be for worshiping in here?” asked the preacher.
“Well, sir, God told me that He didn’t have a clue what I should wear. He said He has never been in this church.”
Hugs people. If you feel like stabbing me, please do it via PM and we will discuss it. But before you do, put transgender in place of the old cowboy.
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
A Question about your stories...
Hi Daniela:
I don't mean to derail this thread. I just have a question. I was going to read "Battle For Earth" again and have encountered a problem. I never had a Nook, though I do have Kindle for my computer. The reason being is that my sight is failing and with the computer I can make the print larger.
So, I downloaded "Battle For Earth" and when I was finished reading, the software had my computer captured like Ft. Knox. I was able to get out by signing out of Windows. Is there a way to make this easier? I do not mind paying. It looks like Barnes and Noble no longer supports Nook.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you.
Gwen
Well...
I can't say what would cause that. I'm assuming you're reading the epub files? There are number of third-party ereader apps that will read epubs. You could try one of those. There's a number available on the Windows store if you have Win10, if not you can search for one on google or duckduckgo. I've heard good things about Sumatra PDF (it reads stuff besides PDFs), but I've never personally used it.
Have a delightfully devious day,
HRT via Informed Consent
Not all providers require a therapist's letter for HRT. That's the old(-fashioned) model.
There are a lot of providers who use the Informed Consent model. The doctor (or their staff) spend a session making sure you know what you're getting into, plus of course a physical to make sure the hormones won't cause a problem, and the next visit they give you your first prescription. Basically, this dispenses with the gatekeeper, the (cis!) demigod who gets to judge whether you are Truly Trans(tm) or not.
Someone on another site (Susans.org) had a map with Informed Consent providers, and there seem to be a number of them in Utah. Most of them near SLC, of course, but there are a few further out. I believe Planned Parenthood generally does Informed Consent. I don't remember them all, but the University of Utah health center (hospital?) was one.
That said, having a trans-aware therapist can really help in other ways. If they have a lot of experience, they can help you put your feelings and experiences in context, and in any case, provide a place for you to talk out what you are going through. In my case, it turned out that my gender therapist also has a lot of training in trauma treatment, and my C-PTSD issues are a much bigger issue for me than my gender issues.
Finally, I know other people have said this, but: don't let anyone else tell you how you have to be.
The way our society deals with gender consists almost entirely in telling people what they have to be and berating, bullying, guilting, and gaslighting them into submission. A ways into my transition I realized that I wasn't transitioning to become a woman, I was transitioning to become ME. And given the constant brainwashing society drowns you in to keep you from having any idea who YOU are, becoming yourself is a much longer and harder journey than becoming "a woman."
Oh!
Oh my goodness! Thank you so much, I had no idea. Someone mentioned informed consent in another comment, but while I'm familiar with the term, it didn't really click with me that's what she meant.
Still, I'm not really ready to take that step, but when I am, I'll definitely know what to look for!
Have a delightfully devious day,