Maëlys McArdle

Category: Trans Rights

Discussions on trans rights and perceived gender non-conformity.

  • Casual Violence

    Casual Violence

    An acquaintance wrote a good piece the other day that discussed how violence was just another part of her everyday like brushing her teeth. She begins:

    So I’m playing a nice relaxing puzzle game online, trying to be a little less depressed so I can study for finals, and I happened to glance over at the chat board attached to the side of the game, and people are making jokes about “mutilating trannies.”

    “That’s me,” I think. “They’re talking about torturing and killing me.” Then, I keep playing my game.

    This is a normal thing to happen to me. Being confronted sporadically with the idea of my death and dismemberment as a joke is my status quo. I’ve internalized it as part of my routine. If I made an (honest) list of my daily activities, alongside brushing my teeth and feeding my cat would be worrying about being killed, and then worrying that were I to be killed, whether the newspapers would call me a man. When I get out of bed and groggily pull on a cami, I’m equally likely to think about getting a breakfast sandwich with extra bacon, and whether or not today is the day someone pulls a knife. I love pockets in dresses because they keep my hands warm and I can put pepper spray in them. I like bars, but I barely drink in public anymore because getting carded might mean getting raped. I budget for these things.

    I wanted to talk about that fear. I’m so habituated as to barely mention it or have to think about it too hard.

    It’s there though. I base hundreds of calculations around it each day. What I wear. How much I cover up. What section of the store I’ll visit. How I’ll peruse those areas. How I talk. How I walk. Which coffee shops I go to because of their bathroom arrangement. How I package explanations.

    There’s this perception that what I fear are isolated acts of aggression. The strangers who shout slurs at me from the streets for wearing a pretty dress. My acquaintances who were refused service. The people who beat up my friend.

    Such acts bear their mark. Were it a freak occurrence, it could be healed and relegated to time. But for every one of these gestures there’s ten weekly acts of micro-aggression to sustain it. Reminders of how I shouldn’t exist. They never cease.

    Those greater acts of aggression are not then the isolated misdeeds of a lone perpetrator. They are instead a minor and entirely predictable leap from a society deeply hostile to trans women. A hostility so normalized that it goes unnoticed. It is this invisibility that grants people the latitude to believe that the perpetrators act without support.

    In the end it’s not that single, small, leap to violence that causes me to live in fear.

    It’s the entire package.

    And it’s why I have a separate “for work” and “for living” clothes. Why I avoid medical care. Why I dread shopping in stores come summer when I won’t have my coat to protect me. Why I don’t go into some stores at all. Why I don’t ask for help when I do. Or try clothes on in change rooms. Why I selectively correct family and friends on pronoun usage. Why I avoid family events. Why I’m afraid to say anything back when someone shouts “fag” or “freak.” Why I don’t go out to the Byward market late when the drunks are out. Why I hold my pee in. Why I keep my hands as fists in my pockets. Why I avoid sitting at benches if there’s a playground nearby. It’s even why I chose this name as it lacked the gendered association that could out me.

    Success in Perspective

    We are in a period of success stories.

    There’s a handful of trans people in pop culture now. They’re known for things other than being trans. Actress Laverne Cox plays a prominent character in television’s Orange is the New Black. Lana Wachowski most famously directed the The Matrix. Laura Jane Grace is singer guitarist for punk band Against Me! The teen television drama Degrassi had a central character who was trans. The weekly Canadian news magazine Maclean’s had a sympathetic front page piece about trans and gender variant children.

    Meanwhile there’s legislation passing in provincial and federal jurisdictions. It was only fifteen years ago that major gay rights organizations like the Human Rights Campaign refused to advocate for trans people citing political viability.

    We are in a defining decade and it’s the best it’s ever been. But best as compared to what. In some sense these are very pitiful things to call victories. A handful of people in the media. An interview where the subject isn’t dehumanized.

    Even then, these moments remain underwhelming exceptions in a deeply hostile environment. It does little to change why I live in fear.

    The Whole Package

    So let’s go back to this idea of the whole package. I’m seen as unfit for this world.

    I know the province I live in thinks of me as unfit. They require trans people to undergo sterilization in order to change their gender marker on their identification; to the detriment of those who will have to use them.

    I know the medical establishment thinks of me as unfit. I’m infantilized. I need medication. I spent four months with someone deconstructing my motives just to get a referral to a doctor that might help me. The doctor then set out to do the same. It’s been over a year and I still lack a prescription. For surgical care, you have to wait two years, write out an essay for your motives, and go before a panel of doctors to defend yourself.

    I know my religion of birth thinks of me as unfit. The Catholic church has been a vocal opponent of every non-discrimination and anti-bullying legislation inclusive of trans people. They forbid discussions of gender identity in their official support groups in schools. Teachers have reported experiencing fear in supporting their students. The church has been at the forefront of efforts to oppose adoption and same-sex marriage rights abroad and still speaking against it at home. It has ramifications for trans people.

    I know my political representatives think of me as unfit. They say that I shouldn’t be allowed to use the washroom to pee. They say that I’m just a sexual predator that will go after little girls if I do. They nickname legislation “the bathroom bill.”

    I know my newspapers thinks of me as unfit. The National Post and Ottawa Sun run stories that dehumanize me. They too think I shouldn’t be accepted. They too echo these thoughts that I’m a sexual predator. This is why I’m afraid to go pee.

    I know film and television thinks of me as unfit. Those positive interviews I mentioned always elicit a flurry of excitement because they’re still so rare as to be cause for celebration. Rather, in most sitcoms and interviews, I’m told I’m not legitimate dating material. That anyone going out with me should be ridiculed. I’m just a he-she. A tranny. An Adam’s apple. Interviews rarely fare better, with hosts reducing guests to their genitals.

    I know pedestrians think of me as unfit. They shout things to let me know. Comments they would never say to anyone else.

    I know my work thinks of me as unfit. A coworker came up to me to talk about how their ex-boyfriend came out as trans. It wasn’t done in a context of support but rather how it was a freak thing. My words to help him be there for him were brushed off.

    I know that the people on the dating site think of me as unfit. One told me I should just go sleep on the train tracks. The moderators make dehumanizing remarks about trans members in private. Mostly I’m just ignored.

    I know my family thinks of me as unfit. I’m delusional. I know that I’ll be tolerated and loved but never accepted.

    So I enter any public space knowing that the people I will deal with will be shaped by this toxic environment. They’re told I’m a sexual predator. That I should never be considered date material, only something to fuck or jack off to on porn sites. That I’m an aberration not to be accepted as I am. This is why I’m afraid.

    Casual Violence

    The perception is that assaults and murders alone define the violence we face. That the tacit support these aggressors receive up until their final act is simply valid expression. Passed off as fair debate. Religious freedom. Or comedy. That this support is normal and that challenging it is what would be intolerable.

    The violence of this support system is not a hypothetical. It bleeds through every interaction and people die from it. Forty percent of trans people attempt suicide. We have the studies. We know that the reason so many die is because of the hostile environment.

    When it’s one hand that kills us, they call it murder. When it’s a dozen, they call it suicide.

    This is the violence.

    To make people live in fear is a form of violence.

    To make them die is a form of violence.

    To inhibit them from challenging it is a form of violence.

    Yet this violence is so well accepted that it’s just part of my everyday routine.

    Casual violence.

  • Anatomy of a Transphobic Article

    Anatomy of a Transphobic Article

    I was deeply dismayed when the Globe and Mail published a transphobic article written by Margaret Wente over the weekend. I bring it up because on the outset that article seems innocuous. Clearly the editorial staff didn’t see any problem with it.

    To give a bit of context, this article follows a positive piece done by MacLean’s on gender variant children. If you haven’t read it already, I would recommend that you do so. I’ll wait.

    MacLean's article on trans and gender creative youth.
    MacLean’s article on trans and gender creative youth.

    Margaret Wente’s article by contrast has a negative take on trans and gender creative youth. She perpetuates harmful misconceptions and concludes by advocating against acceptance of these children’s expression. Absent from her article are the voices of the subjects for whom this is supposedly written to benefit: the children or their adult selves. Instead, she only gives platform to their detractors.

    I want to talk about this because this is what transphobia and for that matter homophobia looks like in Canada. It’s damage can not be understated. Mainstream society has a misguided belief that gay marriage and bashings serve as indicators of bigotry. This is only partly true. The brunt of the hostilities are manifested in an environment constantly hostile to genuine expression. 

    It’s everywhere. Canadian politicians openly equate trans women with pedophiles. Films and television shows aired in Canada regularly treat trans folk as no more than living jokes. Positive portrayals are so rare as to be applauded. Ontario schools still move to ban support groups aimed at queer youth.

    Then there’s the public whose views lag the legislative framework. 74% of trans students report receiving verbal harassment over their gender expression. 37% report being physically harassed. 64% report feeling unsafe at school. Half the homeless youth in Ottawa are queer. 57% of trans people face lack of acceptance from coworkers. When we are talking about acceptance around youth, we are talking about saving lives.

    Margaret Wente contributes to a climate that views diverse gender expression as something to be suppressed. Let’s look at glimpses of her article in more detail.

    What happens when your son tells you he’s really a girl?

    Twenty years ago, you probably would have crossed your fingers and tried to wait it out. Today, you might buy him a whole new wardrobe, find someone to prescribe hormone blockers, and help him live as a girl. Maybe he’ll even become a celebrity. A recent Maclean’s magazine cover, posing that very question, featured a lovely 11-year-old with long, flowing locks and enormous eyes. His name used to be Oliver.

    What’s noteworthy here is that the subject is a young girl. This is her identity and has been for as long as she’s had the ability to express herself. She’s been seeing a pediatrician at the McGill University Health Centre to assist her for years. In the MacLean’s article she affirms that “for the first time ever, she’s comfortable.”

    Margaret Wente doesn’t use her name, referring to the male one she was assigned at birth, and repeatedly refers to her as “he” and “his.” The author makes it clear that there is no bar for the child to attain at which Wente would have accepted them. This sets the tone for what follows.

    Suddenly transgender kids are everywhere – in the news, on Dr. Phil and in your neighbourhood. School boards have developed detailed transgender policies. Clinics to treat transgender kids have sprung up. A condition that used to be vanishingly rare, perhaps one in 10,000 children or less, now seems common. In a random sampling of 6th- to 8th-graders in San Francisco, kids were asked if they identified as male, female or transgendered – 1.3 per cent checked off the transgendered box.

    …

    “The No. 1 factor is the Internet,” he said. “If you’re struggling to find out where you fit, the Internet is filled with things about gender dysphoria.”

    “When we ask, ‘When did you first learn about this label of gender dysphoria’, they’ll say, ‘Me and Mom watched Oprah,’ ” adds Dr. Hayley Wood, a member of his team.

    References to the Internet and talk shows is meant to discredit the voices of the youth. It plays to the stereotype that these are unreliable sources of information. Granted, they absolutely can be. However, the places people go to aren’t someone’s GeoCitie’s page from 1996. It’s the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. It’s the Central Toronto Youth Services. It’s the Vancouver Coastal Health. Provincially funded establishments that use evidence-based research to inform. This is where people turn to.

    Furthermore, let’s not forget that finding words that resonate from a talk show guest doesn’t invalidate your own experiences. Sometimes it’s the only place to find a voice on television that doesn’t dehumanize trans people.

    The insinuation looking at the upsurge in self-identification are that this is a fad. Absent from her discussion are other reasons to account for the rise. As one person wrote: “there is no sudden “queer identity fad” caused by the internet. you’ve just been wrapped up in your sad tiny world, never noticing the expansive world of queer people you’ve been erasing the existence of by assuming they’re all cis and straight like you.”

    That’s why Dr. Zucker takes a watch-and-wait approach. He even advises parents of princessy six-year-olds to say, “You’re not a girl. You’re a boy.”

    And in the hotly politicized world of gender politics, that makes him, in many people’s eyes, a dangerous reactionary.

    Just what constitutes a “princessy” six year old? Why should anyone shame a little child for expressing interest in any thing merely because it’s associated with girls? This mentality just makes me so sad.

    Note too that those who would support such a child are attributed the hyperbolic statement of “dangerous reactionary.” The hyperbole serves to discredit them. But no one has really said that. Wente is giving them a voice she imagines.

    One reason is that social norms have dramatically changed. It is now fashionable to embrace your diverse child.

    The author portrays embracing a diverse child as a negative, which I find disheartening.

    Parents who encourage their kids to change gender “are socially rewarded as wonderful and accepting,” while parents who try to take it slow “are seen as unaccepting, lacking in affection and conservative,” she says.

    These days, parents who don’t like the slow-and-careful answer can shop for another one. Ms. Dreger is highly critical of what she calls the “hasty clinics,” which are happy to help a kid transition right away. “Parents don’t like uncertainty,” she says. “They’d rather be told, ‘Here’s the diagnosis, and it’s all gonna turn out fine.’” Teenagers can find fast help, too. Plenty of doctors are happy to help them out with hormone treatments just for the asking.

    This absolutely ignores the reality of how care works. First off, please point me to one of these clinics. Then I wouldn’t of had to have waited ten months after first applying to start hormone replacement therapy, not to mention four months of having my gender deconstructed by a stranger.

    It also ignores the long journey that both parent and child take. It’s not that the kid voices things on Monday and Tuesday they’re on hormone blockers. There’s a long process there. That’s the reality of the care.

    For some people, including some adolescents, transgender treatment is lifesaving. But these treatments are neither simple nor benign. They may, among other things, retard maturation, suppress your growth or render you sterile. And in the end, medical science cannot create a body that makes you forget you were born the other sex.

    In the end, people like Margaret Wente make sure that you never forget that you were born the other sex. Cue her opening paragraph. But the aim in medical transition isn’t to forget the past. It’s to have a future. This inability for others to get past a person’s trans history or their gender expression is something else entirely.

    Disturbingly, data on long-term outcomes for transgender kids are scarce. No one is tracking the evidence on puberty-blocking intervention either.

    This is factually false. There is plenty of research on puberty-blocking interventions and trans youth; Margaret Wente just had to do a quick search on Google Scholar to see as much. However, not everyone who reads her article on the Globe and Mail will fact-check this. That makes such statements harmful because they perpetuate misconceptions that could be used to delay or deny care to the youth who need it.

    Here’s more unwelcome news from Ms. Dreger. A child’s gender issue may merely be a symptom of other family problems. “The dirty little secret is that many of these families have big dysfunctional issues. When you get the clinicians over a beer, they’ll tell you the truth. A lot of the parents aren’t well in terms of their mental health. They think that once the child transitions, all their problems will magically go away, but that’s not really where the stress is located.” Clinicians won’t say these things publicly, she says, because they don’t want to sound as if they’re blaming gender problems on screwed-up families.

    This statement is of very shoddy journalistic integrity. These are entirely unverifiable statements. I have never heard this to actually be the case, though I am familiar with the trope. It plays into a stereotype that the reason a kid grows up gay or trans is because of their mom or family troubles.

    It’s a mark of social progress that we are increasingly willing to accept people on their terms, for who they are. But maybe we’re manufacturing more problems than we’re solving. If we really want to help people, we should remember the old rule: First, do no harm.

    Unfortunately, harm is exactly the outcome of not accepting children for who they are, imposing patriarchal gender roles, and denying them voice. This is the stuff that makes people seek therapy later in life. This is what transphobia looks like. It is pervasive. It is toxic. I think it’s quite telling that Margaret Wente did not choose to interview actual children or the adults they grew into, nor their families. I suspect their story would have gotten in the way of spreading falsehoods.

    Gender variance isn’t abnormal with children. Some of them might end up realizing they’re gay, trans, or none of the above. Especially that latter possibility, because there is nothing wrong with a boy that plays with dolls. Nonetheless it’s perfectly okay to not know what to do when a child expresses something you don’t understand. But one thing you do know how to do is to embrace them and inform yourself.

    Fear mongering articles like this want to scare you away from taking that first step of informing yourself. You’ll discover that there’s lots of avenues for support for people like you and your child. That seeking care doesn’t mean medical intervention tomorrow it just means being there for your child today. That the people you turn to aren’t doctors with revoked licenses, but mainstream practitioners. That your child is able to express themselves more authentically, however that may be, is not a bad thing.

    Margaret Wente doesn’t see things that way. She doesn’t view trans and gender creative children as to be accepted. She’s not alone. Most of the country is pretty intolerant around gender expression and that has a demonstrable health impact on the recipients of their scorn.

    It is not wrong for her to question practices. However, merely having an opinion does not give it equal worth. The suppression of individual expression that Margaret Wente advocates is rooted in neither science, studies, nor the voices of her subjects. They’re all quite clear on the harm of that oppression. It is only based in personal prejudice. A reputable national newspaper should know better than to be a platform on which to further marginalize a vulnerable segment of society.

    I’m deeply disappointed at the Globe and Mail for having published this transphobic article.

  • Trans Day of Rememberance

    Trans Day of Rememberance

    Today, November 20th, is the trans day of remembrance.

    The name is a bit of a misnomer, because gives the impression that it’s about the past when unfortunately it speaks to a very real present.

    I’d like to share some statistics:

    • 64% of LGBTQ youth report feeling unsafe in their schools.
    • 90% of trans youth in Canada hear transphobic comments daily or weekly.
    • 74% of trans youth report being verbally harassed, 37% of them daily.
    • 49% of trans youth report being sexually harassed in their schools.
    • 37% of trans youth report being physically assaulted.
    • 27% of them by their parents.
    • 40% of youth in Ottawa’s streets are LGBTQ.
    • Youth of colour are disproportionately affected on all of these metrics.

    This is today.

    The television shows and movies they turn to ridicule them. The pillars of their world – parents and teachers – too often reject them. I wish I could say that most of my friends were still able to talk to their parents, didn’t face regular harassment on Ottawa’s streets, or weren’t ever told that they ought to die. Sadly, that isn’t the case. It is in this environment that 43% of trans folk report having attempted suicide, 10% in the last year. Not because they are trans, but because of the social shame and isolation.

    This is where you come in. As adults, if you know of a gender creative or trans youth, be there for them. Accept them.

    It’s not silence or wishful thinking that will make their life better.

    Sources

    1. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/half-of-homeless-ottawa-youth-identify-as-lgbtq-1.1699604
    2. http://mygsa.ca/setting-gsa/homophobia-transphobia-statistics
    3. http://ohmygay.tumblr.com/post/11020923645/ontario-pc-party-distributes-misleading-homophobic
    4. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/social-shame-heightens-transgender-suicide-1.1179394
    5. http://badtransjokes.tumblr.com/
  • What’s been going on (or why I’m transitioning)

    What’s been going on (or why I’m transitioning)

    This blog is part of my public identity, and therefore I exhibit a fair amount of care in terms of what I divulge. One consequence of this approach is that I have very little insight into my past internal emotional state despite ten years of blogging.

    In an effort to have some record of this tumultuous period, I’m going to talk about what’s going on with me. I said in July that I was taking the steps to transition. That followed an earlier post in March where I noted that something was up gender-wise.

    I’m still getting assessed for hormone replacement therapy. I had my fifth of six appointments at a community clinic this week. I should probably start on HRT come January.

    Since my last update, I changed my name to Maëlys. It popped out at me when I was looking at popular French girl names. I hadn’t wanted to use variations from my birth name because I associated them with specific people. I liked that Maëlys was uncommon, that the first letter was in keeping with the names of my two other sisters, and that part of it was also an homage to a good friend.

    Despite these traits I still wasn’t too sure about it at first, but as I’ve been using it more and more it’s come to feel right. My pronouns have also changed and are now she/her.

    On that note, I was given this card the other day to honour the name/pronoun change. The friend wrote inside that there needed to be Hallmark cards for these milestones. It was a really kind gesture.

    Transitioning wise, I was going to talk about when I started to shave my legs this summer, but actually it goes a fair bit further back. It wasn’t entirely with that awareness.

    There are signs that go back to when I was 18 but on their own they were pretty inconsequential. Then in 2010/2011 things started to get more serious, in particular around sex and my bottom bits. It got to be that sex was really painful for me, but again I let it go.

    It wasn’t until the early months of 2012 that I started to make an effort to hide my secondary sex characteristics whenever taking pictures of myself. I’d tuck, make sure I was shaved and take photos from angles that would seemingly round my face. I wasn’t able to verbalize it, but the masculinity I was seeing was a real problem. Even though I never admitted it, I loved it whenever someone mistook me for transitioning the other way. That happened a fair bit because I was posting selfies to a queer-friendly social media platform and it meant that maybe one day I could be mistaken for another sex.

    That’s also about when I got my first strap-on from a vendor at Sexapalooza. I couldn’t enjoy sex with my own parts anymore; initially because of the pain and then because whenever I saw it as the male appendage it just completely killed it for me. A strap-on changed the game. It was cheap mainstream sex shop crap designed for impotent men, but that didn’t matter.

    I knew that if I could make a wish and wake up in a girl’s body, I totally would. I knew that even sexist 18 year old me would have too after coming to terms with my internalized misogyny. I dreamed of being able to trade my body with someone of the other sex. But that wasn’t my world, so I just kept going on.

    Come summer 2012, I got my first RodeOH harness. It felt so validating. I kept getting confused for a trans guy. I bought my first binder in the spring of 2013. It suggested I had a chest to hide, and that message was affirming the body I was seeing in the mirror. By this point I knew I needed to quench this disconnect with my body.

    At first, that was in the form of seeking bottom surgery. Really I could live on as a guy, I just needed to fix what was down there. If I contemplated hormone replacement therapy, it was just to follow the narrative to access surgery.

    Outwardly transitioning wasn’t really an option I thought. I had no hopes that I could live on as stealth and that was really discouraging. I feared rejection. Meanwhile, all the trans women I was aware of seemed to be very feminine, which further made me feel isolated as that wasn’t my path. Genderqueer was more apt but that seemed to only to mean female-assigned-at-birth. I felt like I didn’t really belong anywhere.

    I kept thinking more on transitioning, and I realized that no – actually I wanted what the hormones would bring me. Belonging be damned. Bottom surgery started to get less important. I reflected much in this period. I realized that despite all these fears of going at it alone and forever being ostracized in a deeply transphobic society, that it was better than the alternative.

    A big driver was looking at year old photos and realize that I was masculinizing at a fast pace, and that soon I would look like what men do in their thirties. I felt that any shot of inhabiting the body I desired was dropping rapidly. I felt that it was time to get the ball rolling.

    I consulted friends on how I could start HRT given that I didn’t feel like I could out myself to my GP. Fortunately, a local clinic was starting a program to offer free assessments for hormone replacement therapy. I called them and after a while was able to see someone.

    Those assessments started in the summer of 2013. I wasn’t in love with the idea of transitioning but I was doing an enormous amount of processing. The pause and simultaneous feeling of progress with the assessments helped in this regard.

    By that point I felt like I was suffocating. I was going through this difficult period, for which talking would have helped immensely, but I couldn’t do that except in great confidence with a few friends. The mediums that I was using to express myself, like this blog and Facebook, were becoming jails. I couldn’t say anything otherwise risk compromising my relationship with my family and my work situation. Suppressing myself on every platform, however, was taking a toll.

    So I started to make spaces where I could be free. I deleted my Facebook account, creating a new profile where I only friended those that would respect me regardless of my identity. I came out on this blog and to those in my life I could trust.

    Outside of that, the transition kept progressing. I went out with a friend and picked up my first sports bra. I was too scared to go alone. It’s difficult to convey how liberating and good it felt to finally wear it. That was an important moment. I soon bought my first sports bra on my own.

    Weeks before Pride, that friend and I went to Value Village where I picked up two skirts. I wore that skirt for the first time outside a week before Pride. I was so afraid before then that I would be destroyed by comments from judgy passerbys. I had witnessed such homophobic and transphobic vitriol over the years in Ottawa. But at the same time, I needed to do this for me. So I femmed up and walked outside.

    I did get inappropriate comments. But I didn’t care – because what I noticed as I walked down the street is that virtually no one so much as gazed in my direction. That lack of attention was in itself so affirming that when someone finally did say something nasty, I just didn’t give a shit.

    Pride came, and I wore that skirt again. I felt so real.

    Two days later, I announced that my name had changed to Maëlys.

    By then I was wearing and stuffing sports bras every day including to work. Not wearing one made it as if all the air in the world outside my apartment’s door were as heavy as molasses. I still dressed in a masculine fashion, which was in line with my gender expression.

    I nonetheless did like to occasionally femme up. That said, wearing skirts started to make me feel very uncomfortable about my hairy legs. I wanted those hairs gone but I was scared to shave because I thought people at work would notice. I was afraid of what would happen if they did.

    But at one point it became too much. So I shaved. The second I was done, it felt so right. All those fears about work just melted away. A few weeks later, I went through the same thing with my arms. Same anxieties, just as quickly vanished once done. As it turns out, no one at work said a thing.

    Meanwhile, my processing started to bear fruit. I continued to have reservations about starting hormone replacement therapy. The question became should I move ahead while having these doubts.

    I came to conclude that the answer was yes. I recognized that those doubts would persist for as long as the dissociation with my gender continued, which could be the rest of my life. Hormone replacement therapy would bring me a resolution.

    There was also reassurances in thinking of what if I was wrong. If I did this and was wrong, I could just stop and things would be more or less reversible. I would have many months to evaluate the slow changes and see if I liked what I saw. However, if I didn’t do this and was wrong, I’d be in real trouble. I would have squandered my one chance to do this as young as I did, and by then I’m not sure I could stand myself. I can barely do it now. I don’t know if I could carry on.

    If it turned out that this reversal of feelings came in ten, twenty years – then I would of had all these years of good life that I made happen. That’s an excellent thing to be able to claim and I can deal with whatever steps I need to then.

    The sense of victory in terms of my bra and shaving did lead me to believe I’d likely feel pretty good about HRT too. Doing these things had been like weights lifted off of my shoulder that I never knew had been there until they finally came off. Now being cognizant of the relief in their absence, I could never go back. There was also a pretty good track record with the transition of others, though I never felt like I quite matched up to their exhibited resolve.

    Then finally, there was how I felt about regret. Which is to say that it isn’t the things I do that I regret but rather the things I didn’t do because I was afraid. Regret doesn’t belong with the outcome but rather somewhere much before that point. For me, that was a discussion spanning months on how I could transform this very unhappy set of years in terms of my body into something good. That I won’t regret nor the decision it led to.

    I started to gain some confidence with my newfound identity. A part of that was being able to have friends that didn’t bat an eye at treating me like a girl, and sharing intimacy with people that respected my body as feminine. So much of my lack of confidence had been rooted in the poisoned depiction of trans women in mainstream society – from being treated as threats in the washroom by this country’s elected officials, to openly derided in television and games, to desired in a creepy objectified way as “shemales” by straight men. In all of these cases, we are no more than genitals to them, as if to say that that’s all a woman is.

    It also helped that I finally found role models that made me feel less alone in my approach. There was a talk by butch trans women at a conference that was absolutely affirming for me. There were people in the local queer community that showed that having side burns didn’t mean you were disqualified from being she’d.

    That confidence led to me being able to finally change my gender marker on a dating site. It also led me to being able to hold up my own in the face of disapproving parents and not be affected by ignorant messages like that below:

    Messages I’ve received from men while dating.

    So there you have it. My name is Maëlys. I’m 28 years old, queer, and go by the pronouns she/her. Pleased to meet you.

    Note: Even though this site is public, please don’t disclose what I’m doing to others. Allow me to decide for myself when I’ll disclose to those who don’t read this blog. I’m sharing this because I hope that it being out there as yet another narrative might help someone else feel a little less alone.

  • A Baby Step Improvement

    A Baby Step Improvement

    The company I work for has an employee assistance program through its insurance policy. It’s a self-help website with material focused around health and well-being.

    A year and some ago, I approached them about their stuff on queer and trans issues. It was just a mess. In particular, their articles touching trans issues were so bad as to risk causing harm if consulted. The worst of the bunch was one called Transexuality, transgenderism and sexual identity.

    There was silence, and I contacted them again in February of this year. In the months since, there has been some back and forth. I explained to them a few times why the information was offensive and harmful. They would thank me, give me some details that helped elucidate matters from their end, and promise updates.

    Well, the changes finally came through. They removed all articles pertaining to queer issues except for two, one being an updated version of the cited problem article. The article meanwhile was reduced by two thirds, definitions were plagiarized from a better website, and the rest of the content was reworded.

    It was clear to me that no one with experience in trans issues was involved in the writing of these articles. Through our communication I learned that they didn’t always vet articles by experts, and that this article was put together by a copywriter. I offered them resources to professionals, but they never took me up on that.

    So I’ll post the original and revised articles below, and go into what was so bad about the original one, and what changed with the revised version.

    The Original Article

    Transexuality, transgenderism and sexual identity

    Overview

    Understanding transexuality, transgenderism and sexual identity

    • Basic terms and definitions
    • Sexual orientation and gender
    • Sexual orientation and transgenderism
    • Supporting a transgendered or transsexual co-worker

    The difference between transexuality, transgenderism, and sexual orientation can be confusing. It’s important, therefore, to understand the differences in order to fully understand the need for some people to bring their external appearance into line with their internal gender identity.

    Let’s begin by examining the basic terms and definitions surrounding the subject.

    Basic terms and definitions

    • Gender. How society, biology, or culture defines “male” and “female.”
    • Gender identity. How an individual defines his or her gender.
    • Gender role. Rules assigned by society that define what clothing, behaviours, thoughts, feelings, relationships, etc. are considered appropriate and inappropriate for members of a given gender. Classifications of “masculine,” “feminine,” or “unisex” vary by class, culture, location, occasion, as well as other factors
    • Transgender. An individual who defines his or her gender identity as opposite from his or her biological identity at birth. For example, a man who was born with male genitalia and identifies his gender as “female” or vice versa.
    • Transexual. Similar to transgendered, a transsexual associates him or herself with a gender identity opposite from his or her biological identity at birth, but undergoes sexual reassignment surgery to change gender. An example is the 1970s tennis star Dr. Richard Raskind who was born “male” but felt “female.” He underwent sexual reassignment surgery to become physically female — Dr. Renee Richards. Other notable transsexual people include photographer Christine Jorgenson (born George William Jorgenson Jr.), writer Jan Morris (born James Morris) and musician Wendy (born Walter) Carlos
    • RLT. Stands for Real Life Training and means a transgendered individual wishing to undergo sexual reassignment surgery must live as the member of their preferred sex for a period of time prior to having surgery.
    • SRS. Sex Reassignment Surgery. After successfully completing the RLT stage, a transgendered person completes the final stage in aligning his or her internal and external gender.

    Sexual orientation and gender

    According to the Kinsey Reports, sexuality is not a fixed state and is prone to change over time. Instead of three categories (heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual), the Kinsey Report used a eight-category system. The Kinsey scale ranked sexual behaviour from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 completely homosexual. A 1 is considered predominantly heterosexual and only incidentally homosexual, a 2 mostly heterosexual and more than incidentally homosexual, a 3 equally homosexual and heterosexual, and so on. An additional category X was created for those who experienced no sexual desire. The majority of us land on the heterosexual side of the scale, while one in 10 will identify as homosexual. In between are those who identify as bisexual.

    Simply put, sexual orientation refers to the gender to which we are sexually attracted.

    Gender, on the other hand, is the physical appearance and internal wiring that makes us either male or female. Unfortunately, nature sometimes doesn’t align our internal wiring with our external appearance. The result is someone who experiences a disconnection between his or her inside sense of self and gender and external, physical characteristics. The physical package may say male but their sense of self may say female or vice versa. These people are labelled as being “transgendered”

    Sexual orientation and transgenderism

    It is important to separate sexual orientation from transgenderism. Sexual orientation is the direction of our sexual interest – our sexual attraction to members of the opposite sex, the same sex, or both sexes. Transgenderism has nothing to do with the choice of sex partner.

    For example, a transgendered male attracted to females will still be attracted to females after sexual reassignment surgery. He will go from being described as a straight male to a lesbian female. Consequently, a male attracted to males will continue to be attracted to males following sexual reassignment surgery and will go from being described as a gay man to a straight woman.

    This may be a little confusing but if we keep in mind that orientation is about whom we are sexually attracted to, gender is how our individual physical and internal wiring dictates whether we are male or female, and that gender role is how we appear physically externally, then we can begin to better understand the issue. We can then see that transgenderism and transexuality is merely correcting a disconnect between the external appearance and internal self.

    Most transsexual people will only feel whole when their internal self matches their external appearance.

    Supporting a transgendered or transsexual co-worker

    It can be confusing when a person with whom we have worked begins to transform into the opposite gender. Often ignorance and myth are the cause of much fear, anxiety and discrimination. We are, after all, human, and humans generally fear the unknown. Sometimes we feel tricked by the transgendered person, believing that he or she has betrayed us by keeping such an important secret.

    Some of us may fear that a colleague’s gender change will result in a change in sexual orientation and that we may become targets of the transgendered person’s affection. Many of us are afraid we’ll say or do something that will result in a distancing from a person to whom we were once close. In some ways we are grieving the loss of someone we knew and are having to get reacquainted with that person all over again.

    All of these reactions are normal.

    Co-workers and friends of a transgendered individual need to keep in mind that sexual reassignment is not a decision anyone makes lightly. It is difficult and requires courage. It’s important to understand that while your transgendered colleague’s outward appearance may be changing, he or she remains the same inside. He or she has the same personality, the same sense of humour, the same professional skills and qualifications. If we care about that person, we need to respect his or her decision and understand that this isn’t about making a statement, but rather about feeling a complete – and correct – human being.

    It is also important to respect our co-worker’s right to privacy as he or she makes the transition. We can ask questions, but the most important one is “Is it okay for me to ask about the process?” Don’t ignore what is happening. For a transgendered person, ignoring this life affirming change will result in him or her feeling as though you either don’t care or that you have a problem with the situation.

    Don’t be afraid of being awkward. It’s normal to feel a little awkward when we are presented with a new situation. Be respectful, be supportive, remain interested, and your colleague’s transformation may just change your life as well.

    What’s So Wrong With The Original?

    Let’s start with the fact that they get the gendering and pronouns wrong. Let me just say that a woman is a woman, irrespective of any medical history. Irrespective of outward appearance. Irrespective of genital configuration. She is a woman if she says she’s a woman.

    This article starts to get things wrong starting right with the definitions. For “transgender”, they say “For example, a man who was born with male genitalia and identifies his gender as ‘female’ or vice versa.”

    They’re describing a woman. Yet they call her “a man”, use the pronouns “his”, and put “female” in quotation marks. Everything about this says that they don’t really think she’s a woman. She’s a man. Using the wrong pronouns alone can be very hurtful when dealing with someone, but this takes it a step beyond. This is not a good start to get people with no exposure in the right mindset.

    The next set of examples, in the definition for “transexual”, are equally bad:

    An example is the 1970s tennis star Dr. Richard Raskind who was born “male” but felt “female.” He underwent sexual reassignment surgery to become physically female — Dr. Renee Richards. Other notable transsexual people include photographer Christine Jorgenson (born George William Jorgenson Jr.), writer Jan Morris (born James Morris) and musician Wendy (born Walter) Carlos

    Again, everything here serves to de-legitimise the person’s gender identity. The tennis star is not referred to by her actual name, but by her masculine birth name. It says that she “felt” female, and that “he” (wrong pronoun) underwent surgery to become “physically” female. Again and again, a denial of her womanhood.

    Then it goes on to cite other examples of famous trans people, feeling it necessary to put their birth names there. Tip: don’t bring up people’s birth names – ever – unless they gave you explicit permission to do so.

    They go on to define “real life training”, which ignores the reality that every day is real life training. It’s rooted in an antiquated approach by the medical establishment to dealing with trans people. It’s also based on very strict gender roles for what a “man” or “woman” ought to dress and behave like.

    Finally, it’s the definition for sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), which they call “the final stage in aligning his or her internal and external gender.” Which is of course just plain wrong. Some people will go through SRS. Some won’t ever. But the identity of both are equally just as valid.

    You are more than just your genitals. Something that this article gets wrong time after time.

    After definitions, the article discusses orientation. They mean to say that sexual orientation and gender are independent. That’s a good message. However, they do so invoking the Kinsey scale and bringing up the long disproved statistic that 1-in-10 people are gay. Whatever though.

    What’s troubling are their examples in this section, where they get it all wrong:

    For example, a transgendered male attracted to females will still be attracted to females after sexual reassignment surgery. He will go from being described as a straight male to a lesbian female. Consequently, a male attracted to males will continue to be attracted to males following sexual reassignment surgery and will go from being described as a gay man to a straight woman.

    With the first example, what they mean to say is that a trans woman attracted to women will still be attracted to women. She will go from being described as a lesbian woman to a lesbian woman.

    Let’s unpack this first example, because the subtext is what’s quite harmful. First off, remember that a woman is a woman. If you put “trans” in front of it, she’s still a woman. But they call her a “transgendered male” because the person was likely assigned male at birth. And according to whoever wrote this article, what makes the difference is your genitals – notice how she wasn’t recognized as a lesbian woman until after she had SRS?

    This example gets the definition for trans man/woman reversed, and their gender identity isn’t respected until “the surgery.” That’s a really harmful message to propagate, because it suggests that all those men and women aren’t there aren’t real unless we can peek down their pants.

    But that’s not the worse of it. That comes in the next section on support:

    It can be confusing when a person with whom we have worked begins to transform into the opposite gender. Often ignorance and myth are the cause of much fear, anxiety and discrimination. We are, after all, human, and humans generally fear the unknown. Sometimes we feel tricked by the transgendered person, believing that he or she has betrayed us by keeping such an important secret.

    Some of us may fear that a colleague’s gender change will result in a change in sexual orientation and that we may become targets of the transgendered person’s affection.

    …

    All of these reactions are normal.

    These reactions are not okay. Again let’s unpack.

    The article says that fear and ignorance drive discrimination, but then justifies it with “we are, after all, human.” They say that it’s a normal reaction to feel “tricked” and “betrayed” by a trans person for being themselves.

    The more disturbing one is the expressed “fear” that we could be the “targets of the transgendered person’s affection.” Why is this even in there at all? And why the use of the words “fear” and “target”? Oh, because the affection of a person isn’t the same if they have a trans background. Right.

    This article normalizes hostile behaviour towards trans people (“we are, after all, human”). It uses language like “fear”, “target”, “tricked”, “betrayed” when discussing a trans person for just existing. This is what makes this article harmful. It’s subtle – look at the vocabulary used – but it promotes a way to frame the issue that’s hurtful for trans folk.

    The messaging towards the end of the article gets better. It states that people are still the same they’ve always been. That’s important. But it also screws is up once again. It equates being trans with surgery – perpetuating the destructive idea that it’s your genitals are what legitimises your identity.

    We can ask questions, but the most important one is “Is it okay for me to ask about the process?”

    I totally agree, consent is important. But get away from this obsession with “the process” – which given the wording is really is another way to talk about genitals. How about just asking them how they’re doing? Furthermore, different people would be quite content not to be reminded how they’re seen as different all the time.

    Like some people might want to talk about it, which is totally cool. But bringing up intimate details about someone’s body, especially in a work situation like this article, I don’t think makes for a welcoming environment. Do you really want to go to work to be asked about your genitals even in a polite way?

    Don’t ignore what is happening. For a transgendered person, ignoring this life affirming change will result in him or her feeling as though you either don’t care or that you have a problem with the situation.

    Actually, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with treating the person as you always have, new name and pronouns aside. In fact, that might be pretty fucking desirable. Depends on the person. It’s not a sign that you don’t care or have a problem, it could be the very opposite. Pretty sweeping assumption though, well done article author.

    So yeah, just a terrible piece of work. I mean the intent is to have people be more supportive of trans people in their workplace, but instead they get told that trans people’s identities are reduced to genitalia, that they aren’t really that identity anyways, that it’s normal to fear them being attracted to you, etc.

    On to the revised version.

    The Revised Article

    Showing Respect for Transgender or Transsexual Co-workers

    Overview

    Understanding and showing respect for transgender or transsexual co-workers, colleagues or business associates.

    • Basic terms and definitions
    • How you may feel when you learn that you have a transgender or transsexual co-worker
    • Ways to show respect for transgender or transsexual co-workers

    Basic terms and definitions

    The term LGBT is widely used for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, but each of those groups is unique. Here are some definitions to keep in mind:

    • Lesbian, gay and bisexual are words to describe a person’s sexual orientation – a term that indicates whether someone is attracted to the same sex, the opposite sex or both.
    • Transgender refers to gender identity, and not to sexual orientation . Gender identity is the sex that a person identifies with on a deep psychological level, whether or not his or her birth certificate reflects it. It is “an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth,” according to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center (www.gaycenter.org). “The term may include but is not limited to transsexuals, cross-dressers, and other gender-variant people. Transgender people may identify as female-to-male (FTM) or male-to-female (MTF).” A transgender person can be straight, gay or bisexual.
    • Transsexual is an older term that refers to someone who identifies as a member of the opposite gender and who, through surgery or hormone therapy or both, acquires physical characteristics of that gender.  The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center says that many people who have had surgery or hormone therapy call themselves transgender rather than transsexual.“However, unlike transgender, the term transsexual is not an umbrella term, and many transgender people do not identity as transsexual.”

    At work and elsewhere, it’s best to use the term the person prefers. Avoid using the term “transgender lifestyle.” Transgender adults have many lifestyles, just as others do.

    Many transgender people have gender reassignment surgery (SRS), the term preferred to “sex-change operation.”  But, not everyone wants or can afford to have the surgery, and not having it doesn’t make gender identity less important to the person.

    How you may feel when you learn that you have transgender co-worker

    It can be confusing when a person whom with you have worked for some time – and particularly if you know him or her well – begins to take on a new gender identity. If this happens, you may:

    • Feel hurt or even betrayed that the person kept an important secret from you.
    • Wonder if you will become the object of the person’s affection.
    • Worry that you will say or do something that will result in a distancing from a person to whom you were once close.

    All of these reactions are normal. In some ways, you may be mourning the loss of the person you knew, and feeling as though you need to reacquaint with that person all over again.

    Showing respect for transgender co-workers

    If your transgender co-worker has made the decision to go through the process of gender reassignment, here are some important things to remember:

    • Keep in mind that sexual reassignment is not a decision anyone makes lightly. It is difficult and requires courage.
    • Remember that while your co-worker’s outward appearance may be changing, other aspects of their personhood aren’t.Your colleague has the same personality, the same sense of humour, the same professional skills and qualifications. In order to maintain a good relationship, you will need to respect his or her decision and understand that this isn’t about making a statement, but rather about feeling a complete and correct human being.
    • Respect your co-worker’s right to privacy as he or she makes the transition, but don’t ignore what is happening. Ignoring this life-affirming change may make the person feel as though you either don’t care or that you have a problem with the situation. If you aren’t sure what to say, you might simply ask your colleague, “Is it OK for me to ask about the process?”

    You may also want to visit the website for PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Canada – www.pflagcanada.ca),which has an extensive section of transgender resources that can help you understand your colleague’s experience and possibly even the changes that he or she may be experiencing.

    Don’t be afraid to feel awkward. It’s normal to feel unsure of how to act when a new situation arises. Be respectful, be supportive, remain interested, and your colleague’s transformation may just change your life as well.

    So… Better?

    The title sets the right tone, with “Showing Respect for Transgender or Transexual Co-workers.”

    The definitions this time round are actually okay. It helps that they copied-and-pasted parts of them from better websites. Gone is the incorrect gendering and the use of surgery as what validates your identity. In fact, there’s now a paragraph about how surgery isn’t the arbiter of identity. The definitions could stand to be improved (there are more orientations than just straight/gay/bi), but it’s a big step up from before.

    Justification for discrimination, and words like “tricked”, “fear”, and “target” have all been removed. That’s good. What’s less good is that the gay panic shit remains, albeit reworded in less strong language (you may “wonder if you will become the object of the person’s affection.”) That should just be removed entirely.

    Because much of the revised article is rewording of the original, the association between surgery and identity still remains in spots. There’s still that suggestion of what many would associate with asking questions about their genitals in a work setting (“Is it OK for me to ask about the process?”)

    The revised article concludes by suggestion the reader visit PFLAG’s website. So overall, the new article is better. It’s not a very useful article, given that their approach to making it acceptable was to cut, copy, reword – rather than write something decent from scratch. But better that than the original, which was spreading really terrible ways to look at trans matters.