Reflecting back

Upon reflection of this unit, I feel mostly good – Most things worked as intended, even if it took a few attempts to get there. I had a lot of struggles from personal life that made this unit challenging within our time frame – We was moving house, then turns out it was a renter scam, and then was offering to buy a house, and I have been trying to work on mortgage stuff ever since. My recommendation: DONT BUY A HOUSE WHILE ATTENDING UNI. Or if you do – please do it over the summer time.The stress of both is killing me, and the industry awareness part of my project is severely lacking as I just struggled to find to time do this on top of making everything else in this unit. As with all things, time management is extremely important, but a very hard task to achieve with my phyisical and mental health conditions. I had many hours this unit spend with my disability support adviser, who has been a godsend these past few weeks, and trying her best to encourage me forward, and keep me from falling too hard into a depressive swing.

My other struggle during this entire unit, has been coming to terms with my Trans Identity, and how that places me with in the UK. I am Non-Binary, and under that umbrella, Agender specifically. I don’t feel as if I am any gender, and I feel extreme discomfort when referred to as a woman. Despite a lot of my best efforts, I am still continuously referred to as female, and its disheartening. I have been trying to legally change my name and gender, but its a very hard process, and met with more severe transphobia with in the UK every week. Part of me was hoping that, after I came out of this lockdown, I would have had my hormoen therapy treatments, and be able to re-emerge as… Well, truly me. But that idea is terrifyinf to me now. I haven’t had any hormone therapy either – the waiting list is around 3-4 years long for a single introductory appoitnment, and private is unaffordable. Uni has been difficult with this too – It took a very long time to get my name changed on the system, and since going online only, people really stopped trying to refer to me using the correct name. It’s fixed now, but I know that I still feel sad that everything was back pedelled so hard when no longer in person. Even when my name was finally changed, some people still used my old name. That hurt the most.