So, I've been feeling pretty good for a crazy trannie who just abruptly went off her mood stabilizers and androgen blockers, and further-tapered her anti-depressant dose (in response to the liver situation, discussed in the last post).
Today, not so much. I was getting along fine until I spoke with my mother, and she began dispensing relationship advice--I guess this is separation advice at this point--while I was trying to get out the door to get to my first voice therapy session.
The call shouldn't have been a big deal, and the voice therapy session was good. Yet, three hours later, I was still walking around glowering, thinking about putting my own eye out. Mood alert! I can't be trusted!
But I didn't change course. I couldn't see the iceberg hiding in Change, the lingerie store I was bound for, where I could purportedly buy better bras and bathing suits. I had some problems to solve before next week's trip to Italy
Everything looked fairly innocuous when I arrived at Change. Many of the bras were too lacy for me (i.e. there was lace involved), but there were some slightly sleeker ones too. As expected, most of the bathing suits looked like they would be too small to cover my breast forms entirely.
Then, suddenly, I was forced to submit to the fitting. It should have been fine. It really should have. But it was completely awful instead, sadly.
At Change, they have re-calibrated the bra sizing system (hence the purportedly better bra mentioned above). They've added bonus cup sizes to improve granularity, and they measure each and every new customer. Whereas I was wearing a 36B, I now find myself wearing a 32D (their size; a normal 32D will not fit me), and it's by far the most comfortable bra I've ever worn.
However, in order to engineer this perfect fit, the sales person needs to see you IN the bra. I barely let myself see me in a bra! My boobs are fake, and since they're expensive, and I hate their fakeness anyway, they're patched with packing tape where they've ripped in a couple of places. They could not be uglier, or more compromising.
She brings me this gauzy purple bra, and announces that she would like me to put it on, and then she would like to see me in it. I just stood there for a moment, staring, flummoxed.
"I'm not sure I can do this," I said.
"Umm...why?"
"I'm not comfortable with you looking at me in that."
She traded it for something less lacy. I put it on, and it seemed to fit quite well, but a large band of silicone breast could be clearly seen above the top of the bra.
She wanted me to show it to her. I demurred. She explained that all she needed to do was to tug on the band. I let her into the fitting room, covering the tops of my boobs with my hands, feeling utterly ashamed of the falseness of my womanhood, and of being seen with my disguise exposed.
She tugged at the band around my chest, and tightened it, opining that the band could be tighter. She brought another, but the cups hung away from my chest, leaving gaps at the tops. I requested something less airy, and the the third bra was the one.
Then I began trying on bathing suits. I tried on five or six, and eventually arrived at one that was ever-so-slightly too small to cover my boobs sufficiently. A year ago, I likely would have convinced myself to buy it, but I have learned that close to big enough = not big enough, when it comes to women's garments.
The whole time, she's talking to me, and handing me things, and being totally nice, but all I can do is hear my male voice (or my falsetto, whatever it is I've got going on these days), and see my tape-encrusted fake boobs jutting out of whatever cute bathing suit she's brought me, and I'm slowly descending into this pit of despair.
Thankfully, I still managed to be nice to the people at the store. But I've spent most of the rest of the day in a state of fairly pronounced dysphoria--really harsh, fist-clenching negativity. This is a part of the "real" drug-free me that I don't miss.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
What do you mean I have an asymptomatic liver ailment?
Today didn't start off in the best way. I awoke to my phone ringing. That's not all that surprising, or bad in itself. Based on the volume, I concluded that it wasn't in the bedroom, so I let it ring, certain I'd never make it anyway.
Then it started up again a moment or two later. I always answer the second call. Two consecutive calls means "pick up the fucking phone if you're there you phone-phobic bitch!"
When I picked up the phone, it was Dr. B., my endocrinologist. He told me he already had my blood results from yesterday at 3pm, and that my liver enzymes were elevated. He sounded a touch upset as he explained that the drug he has me on wasn't known to have that side-effect, and wasn't known for having rare side effects. I gather, based on this, that some drugs must produce completely outlandish side-effects in a very small number of cases. In his view, it was possible that I was the only person ever known to have contracted drug-effect-hepatitis from my T-blocker, Androcur.
He told me to stop taking the Androcur, and to come in for new blood work in a week. This entire conversation was happening pre-coffee. I think I had managed to shrug on a bathrobe, but I might have been naked.
I nearly began crying when he said I had to go off the Androcur. The day before, he had agreed to prescribe estrogen once he had good blood work and a letter from Dr. M. (no problem there), and I was practically flying! I am very keen to take estrogen.
Why? Because I am SO tired of gender dysphoria. Most recently, it really has felt dysphoric, too. The trans makes me want to tear my own eyeballs out, or scalp myself. I don't actually injure myself; it's more about visualizing self-harm, but that doesn't make it pleasant. I have no idea how much better hormonal transition will make me feel, but I'm certain it'll help. And there I found myself, still not having brewed a coffee, being asked to let the testosterone back into my system!
I dazedly wondered whether "no" was an option, but decided not to argue with the eminent professor emeritus of endocrinology, who was at his desk phoning patients with their fucked up blood results before I had even managed to brew a coffee.
I agreed to stop taking my meds for one week, and come in for a fresh blood test next Wednesday. That's a really quick turnaround for the eminent super teaching doctor. I have this image of him as some super human being who trains people to perform miracles while knowing more than anyone about hormones and the like. He's a very nice man. He just happened to call with bad news before coffee.
Feeling torpedoed, I brewed coffee and stared at my computer screen while drinking it and taking deep pulls from my marijuana vaporizer. I moped around and wrote inconsequential emails for a couple of hours, and then began my junket of therapy sessions (well, if two can be called a junket).
My first session, with Dr. M., was fairly helpful. He consulted his thick manual of drugs for treating mood disorders--it looks like the phone book for a small city--and it turns out that Seroquel, my "mood stabilizer" (if you look it up, it's called a second generation atypical anti-psychotic, I believe, but we call it a mood stabilizer because I'm not psychotic, and I'm taking it at dosages well below those that the bona-fide psychos get), does cause hepatitis and "fatty liver" (something I pray I don't have) in some people.
I recall starting Seroquel almost exactly when I first saw Dr B (and started Androcur), so I'm laying my money on the Seroquel being the culprit. Sadly, I'll have to wait a week before we'll know. I'm anxious that Dr B, my endo, will feel the need to be conservative in the wake of this. I feel the need to move forward with my hormonal transition.
Then it started up again a moment or two later. I always answer the second call. Two consecutive calls means "pick up the fucking phone if you're there you phone-phobic bitch!"
When I picked up the phone, it was Dr. B., my endocrinologist. He told me he already had my blood results from yesterday at 3pm, and that my liver enzymes were elevated. He sounded a touch upset as he explained that the drug he has me on wasn't known to have that side-effect, and wasn't known for having rare side effects. I gather, based on this, that some drugs must produce completely outlandish side-effects in a very small number of cases. In his view, it was possible that I was the only person ever known to have contracted drug-effect-hepatitis from my T-blocker, Androcur.
He told me to stop taking the Androcur, and to come in for new blood work in a week. This entire conversation was happening pre-coffee. I think I had managed to shrug on a bathrobe, but I might have been naked.
I nearly began crying when he said I had to go off the Androcur. The day before, he had agreed to prescribe estrogen once he had good blood work and a letter from Dr. M. (no problem there), and I was practically flying! I am very keen to take estrogen.
Why? Because I am SO tired of gender dysphoria. Most recently, it really has felt dysphoric, too. The trans makes me want to tear my own eyeballs out, or scalp myself. I don't actually injure myself; it's more about visualizing self-harm, but that doesn't make it pleasant. I have no idea how much better hormonal transition will make me feel, but I'm certain it'll help. And there I found myself, still not having brewed a coffee, being asked to let the testosterone back into my system!
I dazedly wondered whether "no" was an option, but decided not to argue with the eminent professor emeritus of endocrinology, who was at his desk phoning patients with their fucked up blood results before I had even managed to brew a coffee.
I agreed to stop taking my meds for one week, and come in for a fresh blood test next Wednesday. That's a really quick turnaround for the eminent super teaching doctor. I have this image of him as some super human being who trains people to perform miracles while knowing more than anyone about hormones and the like. He's a very nice man. He just happened to call with bad news before coffee.
Feeling torpedoed, I brewed coffee and stared at my computer screen while drinking it and taking deep pulls from my marijuana vaporizer. I moped around and wrote inconsequential emails for a couple of hours, and then began my junket of therapy sessions (well, if two can be called a junket).
My first session, with Dr. M., was fairly helpful. He consulted his thick manual of drugs for treating mood disorders--it looks like the phone book for a small city--and it turns out that Seroquel, my "mood stabilizer" (if you look it up, it's called a second generation atypical anti-psychotic, I believe, but we call it a mood stabilizer because I'm not psychotic, and I'm taking it at dosages well below those that the bona-fide psychos get), does cause hepatitis and "fatty liver" (something I pray I don't have) in some people.
I recall starting Seroquel almost exactly when I first saw Dr B (and started Androcur), so I'm laying my money on the Seroquel being the culprit. Sadly, I'll have to wait a week before we'll know. I'm anxious that Dr B, my endo, will feel the need to be conservative in the wake of this. I feel the need to move forward with my hormonal transition.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Why can't I just get a clay ashtray and a hug?
There is way too much overhead in every situation in my life these days. Father's Day is a prime example.
I assume that most fathers with young children are eagerly awaiting this Sunday's consumerist celebration of dad-hood, but I'm having difficulty looking forward to it at all.
I'm irritated that Father's Day has to be complex in the first place. All I really want is to be able to get a hug or two and maybe a clay ashtray from my son.
But how am I supposed to feel comfortable on Father's Day? My son has already spilled the beans that he has made me a tie. A manly concept. Hopefully the result is cute enough to be worn with pride, and a skirt.
My son coming home with a tie is one of countless gender-binary-reinforcing messages that I'll be bombarded with this weekend. I've already spent a week being inundated by ads for RV-sized gas grills and navy blue shirts cut for a 40" waist. Somehow, Father's Day is a celebration of manhood, not parentage. Dads are assumed to want--on this, our special day--to indulge in ball-scratching and the grilling of huge steaks without fear of ridicule. For one day a year, the normally embarrassing middle aged man is celebrated for being himself.
I completely support the idea. I just don't want to be tarred with that brush. I'm not that person. I am a very different kind of father.
Which, in some senses, means I'm a failure in the traditional father role. I can't show my son how to throw a ball because I've never been able to do it properly myself. I will not be initiating him in the ways of manhood because I am stripping away my manhood as fast as I can, and I'll be long finished by the time he's a man. Whatever special gifts a father offers to his son by virtue of his gender, I can't offer.
Rationally speaking, I know that I offer more than enough, and much more than many fathers, but I do feel guilty about stopping being that boy's father. I'll always be his parent, but I won't identify as a dad. The dad archetype is explicitly male.
I guess there are lots of queer parents out there in similar situations. Eventually, I'm sure we'll come up with some alternative to Father's Day that works, but this year, I have to pretend I'm happy as a dad. That feels like more lying to my son about who I am, and I hate doing that.
On top of my own relationship with my identity as a father, I have my relationship with my own father to fret over. My dad is struggling to accept my transness. He loves me unconditionally, but he's abrupt and emotionally handicapped at his best moments. My coming out launched him into a whole new galaxy of awkwardness. When the whole family's together I am acutely conscious of the complexity that my changing has injected into all of our lives.
If I want to get together with my whole family, I have to climb partway back into the fetid coffin of my manhood. I have let my Dad avoid seeing me "as a woman" thus far. He has seen me wearing androgynous clothes intended for women, and makeup, but never with the breast forms or a skirt. That's the same way I present around my son (bad for me, best for him), but my Dad hasn't even seen the most current, feminine, version of that look. I doubt he'll take it smoothly, so that means I'll have to weather his awkwardness, and that's guaranteed to get my guilt going.
Who wouldn't be looking forward to Father's Day?
I assume that most fathers with young children are eagerly awaiting this Sunday's consumerist celebration of dad-hood, but I'm having difficulty looking forward to it at all.
I'm irritated that Father's Day has to be complex in the first place. All I really want is to be able to get a hug or two and maybe a clay ashtray from my son.
But how am I supposed to feel comfortable on Father's Day? My son has already spilled the beans that he has made me a tie. A manly concept. Hopefully the result is cute enough to be worn with pride, and a skirt.
My son coming home with a tie is one of countless gender-binary-reinforcing messages that I'll be bombarded with this weekend. I've already spent a week being inundated by ads for RV-sized gas grills and navy blue shirts cut for a 40" waist. Somehow, Father's Day is a celebration of manhood, not parentage. Dads are assumed to want--on this, our special day--to indulge in ball-scratching and the grilling of huge steaks without fear of ridicule. For one day a year, the normally embarrassing middle aged man is celebrated for being himself.
I completely support the idea. I just don't want to be tarred with that brush. I'm not that person. I am a very different kind of father.
Which, in some senses, means I'm a failure in the traditional father role. I can't show my son how to throw a ball because I've never been able to do it properly myself. I will not be initiating him in the ways of manhood because I am stripping away my manhood as fast as I can, and I'll be long finished by the time he's a man. Whatever special gifts a father offers to his son by virtue of his gender, I can't offer.
Rationally speaking, I know that I offer more than enough, and much more than many fathers, but I do feel guilty about stopping being that boy's father. I'll always be his parent, but I won't identify as a dad. The dad archetype is explicitly male.
I guess there are lots of queer parents out there in similar situations. Eventually, I'm sure we'll come up with some alternative to Father's Day that works, but this year, I have to pretend I'm happy as a dad. That feels like more lying to my son about who I am, and I hate doing that.
On top of my own relationship with my identity as a father, I have my relationship with my own father to fret over. My dad is struggling to accept my transness. He loves me unconditionally, but he's abrupt and emotionally handicapped at his best moments. My coming out launched him into a whole new galaxy of awkwardness. When the whole family's together I am acutely conscious of the complexity that my changing has injected into all of our lives.
If I want to get together with my whole family, I have to climb partway back into the fetid coffin of my manhood. I have let my Dad avoid seeing me "as a woman" thus far. He has seen me wearing androgynous clothes intended for women, and makeup, but never with the breast forms or a skirt. That's the same way I present around my son (bad for me, best for him), but my Dad hasn't even seen the most current, feminine, version of that look. I doubt he'll take it smoothly, so that means I'll have to weather his awkwardness, and that's guaranteed to get my guilt going.
Who wouldn't be looking forward to Father's Day?
Monday, June 9, 2008
A day without makeup? What am I--sane?
I can't remember the last time I went an entire day without applying any makeup.
Ok. The truth is that I smushed a little pink lip balm onto my lips a couple of times, but that was it. Like lip balm counts.
This is important because I use makeup for feminization. Sure, it's also about making myself look prettier, but the process of doing that accomplishes the far more important goal of feminizing my appearance, and that makes me feel better in some strange and basic way. It makes me feel more secure in who I am. Writing that sentence makes me cringe at my insecurity. I don't like feeling dependent on makeup for my sanity.
Anyway, today I just never got around to it. I looked at myself in the mirror several times, and I saw woman-in-waiting, not man. I managed to stay in the positive column on the gender scale all day, fueled only by internal certainty, and the acceptance and support of the family and friends around me.
I feel like I should get a ribbon. This is a win! Sure, some people aspire to more, but a makeup-free Sunday at the cottage is downright sane, and sane is highly prized by me.
I'm dying to put on my makeup tomorrow. :D
Ok. The truth is that I smushed a little pink lip balm onto my lips a couple of times, but that was it. Like lip balm counts.
This is important because I use makeup for feminization. Sure, it's also about making myself look prettier, but the process of doing that accomplishes the far more important goal of feminizing my appearance, and that makes me feel better in some strange and basic way. It makes me feel more secure in who I am. Writing that sentence makes me cringe at my insecurity. I don't like feeling dependent on makeup for my sanity.
Anyway, today I just never got around to it. I looked at myself in the mirror several times, and I saw woman-in-waiting, not man. I managed to stay in the positive column on the gender scale all day, fueled only by internal certainty, and the acceptance and support of the family and friends around me.
I feel like I should get a ribbon. This is a win! Sure, some people aspire to more, but a makeup-free Sunday at the cottage is downright sane, and sane is highly prized by me.
I'm dying to put on my makeup tomorrow. :D
Friday, June 6, 2008
George Smitherman gets my vote
Tipped off by a friend, I went to see George Smitherman speak at the University of Toronto this morning. He was the opening speaker at Healthy Queer Communities, a one day free conference on Queer Studies in Education, put on by OISE (the education faculty).
I must be a little heated up about this SRS + CAMH situation. I've been fighting depression and low productivity for years, and suddenly, within the space of three weeks, I've written a lengthy letter to the Health Minister, and gone guns-blazing to the CAMH "support" group. And now I found myself pedaling sweatily over to Bloor and St. George at 9 am (!) to put the Health Minister on the spot, in person.
He was well prepared. He touched on several topics. When he began addressing trans rights and access to SRS, he tried to proactively address the community's concerns by talking about Sherbourne, and about how many people felt that it was the leader in trans care, and how he envisioned it as a "Centre of Excellence" for trans care (it already is, so far as I can tell), and felt that eventually, it would have a place in the gatekeeping scheme for trans care like SRS.
It's not hard to tell why he's a successful politician. That is one charismatic, slick man. Likable, and slick. He'll be around for a while. I'm delighted to have him on my side (the queer side).
I want to take a moment to paint a picture of how queer-positive Ontario is right now. It is SO exciting! This morning, the (gay) Minister of Health for my province, with a population of more than 10 million people, spent time talking about trans health care, and about the province launching research programs to better understand the needs of queer communities. He said "there seem to be more people identifying as trans today, so far as I can tell." He has an informed personal opinion on the prevalence of transness. He talked about how proud he was personally of getting SRS funded.
I was so pleased that I almost let him off the hook.
The first question was from another trans woman. I know her first name was Susan, and her credentials included sitting on the board of the Rainbow Health Network. She was fairly effusive too. I think she cited some ongoing concerns, but she spent more time itemizing all the queer-positive things he had accomplished.
He smiled and joked that since the province has queer Health and Education ministers, 69 cents of every tax dollar flows through queer hands. The queer community has the ear of the province, he said. Ontario seems to have been reading its Florida. Being queer-positive is sound strategy, politically.
Finally, I stood up and thanked him for funding SRS, explained that I had written to him, and that I had had a bad experience at CAMH, and was concerned about the idea of giving them more power over trans people. I asked him for a timeline for the initial implementation of the funding, and for the promised reform of the gatekeeping function (and the way trans care is handled in the Province overall).
"The initial implementation is already complete" he announced, to scattered applause. It was exciting to hear. It IS a reality.
He could offer no timeline for the research and reform of trans care in Ontario. He promised that they would happen, but the details clearly haven't been worked out. I will write him to remind him that if they aren't worked out before his tenure ends, they may never be worked out.
He frankly admitted that he needed to include CAMH in any resuscitation of SRS funding, because that was the way it had been before it was delisted. He promised to renew the Gender Identity clinic at CAMH.
I jumped back up to the mic to chip in:
"I think renewing CAMH is criticial! I was at the trans support group there last week to see what their standards would be. Maxine Peterson, the only full-time resource--this is not a big organization--explained to me that she had been there 26 years, and that their policies were not going to change. So they're quite proud of their 26 years of rigidity over there."
The woman in front of me was laughing. He smiled, and said "well I'm a very persuasive person," and then something to the effect that he would find a way to make this work.
I was nodding the whole time. He seems to already have the bare bones of a strategy in place: re-list SRS as it was, renew CAMH, research changing trans and broader queer community health needs, and implement some sort of strategy based on that research.
It sounds like exactly what we need. I wonder if we'll get it. I don't live in Smitherman's riding, but I will be voting Liberal in the next election. My home is adapting to make room for my people :).
I must be a little heated up about this SRS + CAMH situation. I've been fighting depression and low productivity for years, and suddenly, within the space of three weeks, I've written a lengthy letter to the Health Minister, and gone guns-blazing to the CAMH "support" group. And now I found myself pedaling sweatily over to Bloor and St. George at 9 am (!) to put the Health Minister on the spot, in person.
He was well prepared. He touched on several topics. When he began addressing trans rights and access to SRS, he tried to proactively address the community's concerns by talking about Sherbourne, and about how many people felt that it was the leader in trans care, and how he envisioned it as a "Centre of Excellence" for trans care (it already is, so far as I can tell), and felt that eventually, it would have a place in the gatekeeping scheme for trans care like SRS.
It's not hard to tell why he's a successful politician. That is one charismatic, slick man. Likable, and slick. He'll be around for a while. I'm delighted to have him on my side (the queer side).
I want to take a moment to paint a picture of how queer-positive Ontario is right now. It is SO exciting! This morning, the (gay) Minister of Health for my province, with a population of more than 10 million people, spent time talking about trans health care, and about the province launching research programs to better understand the needs of queer communities. He said "there seem to be more people identifying as trans today, so far as I can tell." He has an informed personal opinion on the prevalence of transness. He talked about how proud he was personally of getting SRS funded.
I was so pleased that I almost let him off the hook.
The first question was from another trans woman. I know her first name was Susan, and her credentials included sitting on the board of the Rainbow Health Network. She was fairly effusive too. I think she cited some ongoing concerns, but she spent more time itemizing all the queer-positive things he had accomplished.
He smiled and joked that since the province has queer Health and Education ministers, 69 cents of every tax dollar flows through queer hands. The queer community has the ear of the province, he said. Ontario seems to have been reading its Florida. Being queer-positive is sound strategy, politically.
Finally, I stood up and thanked him for funding SRS, explained that I had written to him, and that I had had a bad experience at CAMH, and was concerned about the idea of giving them more power over trans people. I asked him for a timeline for the initial implementation of the funding, and for the promised reform of the gatekeeping function (and the way trans care is handled in the Province overall).
"The initial implementation is already complete" he announced, to scattered applause. It was exciting to hear. It IS a reality.
He could offer no timeline for the research and reform of trans care in Ontario. He promised that they would happen, but the details clearly haven't been worked out. I will write him to remind him that if they aren't worked out before his tenure ends, they may never be worked out.
He frankly admitted that he needed to include CAMH in any resuscitation of SRS funding, because that was the way it had been before it was delisted. He promised to renew the Gender Identity clinic at CAMH.
I jumped back up to the mic to chip in:
"I think renewing CAMH is criticial! I was at the trans support group there last week to see what their standards would be. Maxine Peterson, the only full-time resource--this is not a big organization--explained to me that she had been there 26 years, and that their policies were not going to change. So they're quite proud of their 26 years of rigidity over there."
The woman in front of me was laughing. He smiled, and said "well I'm a very persuasive person," and then something to the effect that he would find a way to make this work.
I was nodding the whole time. He seems to already have the bare bones of a strategy in place: re-list SRS as it was, renew CAMH, research changing trans and broader queer community health needs, and implement some sort of strategy based on that research.
It sounds like exactly what we need. I wonder if we'll get it. I don't live in Smitherman's riding, but I will be voting Liberal in the next election. My home is adapting to make room for my people :).
Monday, June 2, 2008
CAMH Support Group, Part 2
As I was seating myself, I commented to Maxine, CAMH's facilitator (a trans woman herself), that I was surprised to find the group so small given the news.
"I had expected it to be a full house, given last week's announcement."
"So did I," she said, and then paused for a second, before continuing "but they still hate us."
"Yeah. I'm part of that group, actually" I admitted as I settled into my seat.
Turning towards Maxine, Helen, the other woman in the group, asked "why does everyone hate CAMH?"
Maxine turned towards me, lifting her face and raising her eyebrows to pass the question my way.
I was worked up. Just being in that place again was making me crazy. Receiving care from a sexology clinic at a mental health hospital is implicitly pathologizing. The doctors at CAMH believe that people like me are slavishly pursuing a self-destructive course because we love (in a fetish-like way) the notion of ourselves as women. This is not the prevailing view among transgender care professionals.
I had smoked weed and taken a Clonazepam (anti-anxiety med) before going over, because I could tell I was ready to bite someone's head off. The drugs didn't take much edge off, but I think they helped me avoid flying off the handle. I was aiming for a forthright sharing of conflicting opinions, not a counter-productive conflict. And when I'm upset, I can be possessed, and let fly too angrily and meanly, damaging my cause.
"I'm upset because you encouraged me to fight myself. You offered to counsel my parents, and then encouraged them to frustrate me instead of support me!"
"I did not! I have never encouraged a family member to frustrate anyone."
"Well, after my Mother came here, she developed a strategy that we later called 'the doctrine of frustration.'"
"I have no idea what that means!" she said, looking hurt, rather than hostile.
"That's fine. She comes up with things on her own. I can accept that," I demurred. I wasn't sure who had coined 'the doctrine of frustration' (DOF), and I was prepared to believe that it wasn't Maxine. My mother had never told me that Maxine had outright told her to frustrate me. What she had told me, repeatedly, was that Maxine "seemed to be suggesting that they shouldn't offer me any help."
A year later, by the time she and my father were meeting with Dr. McDermid, my trans-positive MD, this had matured into something McD referred to as the DOF. He told me that Maxine Peterson seemed to have advised my mother to adopt this strategy.
When you're the only advisor that people have on an issue, there's little difference between explicitly encouraging someone to oppose a loved one and implying that frustration would be the best course of action. But I backed down anyway.
"Ok fine. There's a better reason that people hate you. And I don't dislike you, Maxine--I dislike your organization. I'm not sure how I can criticize the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic without criticizing you, since you are the clinic, but I respect you--just not your modality. You're pathologizing. You are massively out of step with the rest of the transgender care world. I worked SO HARD to finally accept that I had gender issues, and to start to deal with them. And then I came here, and you made me feel worse. From your vantage point, I'm sick. You diagnosed me with Gender Identity Disorder! My experience here made me feel so much worse about myself, it set me back months!
"If there weren't a disorder, there wouldn't be care," she said. She probably says those words in exactly that way several times per day. She's right, too.
"I realize it has to be listed somewhere in the manuals that doctors have, and until it's listed somewhere else--as an endocrine disorder, perhaps--it should remain in the DSM" (the diagnostic manual for psychiatrists). "But the fact that it's listed in the DSM has no implications for care. There's no treatment! So providing care from the vantage point of a sexology clinic isn't helpful. It's not supportive."
So far as I'm concerned, the sexologists should be free to do their research. If they, as people who strive to explain everything they can in terms of sex, need to believe that I'm motivated by sex, I can live with that. But there is no synergy between a group of somewhat renegade sexologists and the delivery of care for trans people. A separate organization that can be honestly trans-positive is the best thing for trans people.
"And we're not out-of-step. Several provinces (she listed four or five) use the same standards that we do."
"Which are?"
"Two years in full gender role."
I gathered, after more discussion, that legal name change and proof of income, using the new name, were critical components of my full-time womanhood. So, though I live as a woman full time, I can't punch my card to begin my interminable two year wait until I change my name.
Adopting regressive standards just because they happen to be in place in other jurisdictions is foolish. We should be asking what standards are appropriate.
I wonder if I could keep my given name, and just change my M to an F, or perhaps a question mark, since I think that the gender binary is a bullshit construct. Insisting on legal name change and proof of income is hugely demeaning, especially to anyone who feels most comfortable between the genders. It would be appropriate to insist on a sustained, rational understanding of what it is that they want to do, and to determine that they're not suffering from Dissociative Disorder (trying to build themselves a new persona so they can dissociate from some trauma in their past). Anything beyond that is discriminatory. What if I'm independently wealthy, or an incredibly successful leech, or a sex worker who can't declare legal income? What if I want to live my life as a woman, under the name "John Thomas?" What business do they have telling me I can't?
I don't want to live between genders. I want to live as a woman. I don't believe in the gender binary, but our entire world lives by that model. My goal is to bend my gender to my will, so I can become more comfortable as myself inside our gender-binary-loving society. But I know people who would like to live between genders, but desire surgeries.
For example, I know an FTM person who isn't comfortable specifying hir gender. When ze was coming to terms with hir transness, ze decided that ze didn't want to take hormones. So, ze binds hir breasts, and dresses as a man. Ze is as trans as I am, and would very much to have hir chest surgically reconstructed without breasts, but can't qualify because the blatantly hetero-normative standards applied by places like CAMH don't provide for hir existence. Ze is well into hir 30s, in a stable, long term relationship with a female partner, and lives life dressed as a man, with breasts bound tightly against hir chest, so as to be undetectable. In what way would the removal of those breasts, which would make ze much more comfortable in hir body, risk making hir life more difficult? Oh no! The invisible breasts are gone! Think of the ramifications!
"How often do you review your standards? What's the process? Who takes part in the review?" I asked.
"It's usually a group thing," she replied, "but Dr. Dickie has the final say, obviously."
"So do you expect to be changing those standards anytime soon?"
"I highly doubt it. I've been here 26 years, and I think that you and the community can take that to the bank. We will not be changing our standards."
I refrained from asking how any conscientious transgender care provider could have made it through the last 26 years without modernizing their standards. Were I her, I would have been embarrassed to admit to that sort of rigidity, but it seemed a matter of pride to her. Her chest puffed up with implacability--like she was certain that she had always been right, was still right, and was going to prove it by refusing to yield, regardless of how marginal her views become.
The rest of the session was fairly unremarkable. l had accomplished my goals: finding out what I needed to do to qualify for surgery coverage, and letting Maxine (aka CAMH) know that I disagree with their approach, and that I was submitting to their care under duress. Once that was done, we chatted more amicably about my transition, and about Goodhandy's.
Neither of them were familiar with Goodhandy's the darling of the trans community. GH's is a queer sex club. Sex among customers is encouraged. The trans community loves GH's for giving trans sex workers somewhere safe to go. But don't rush over there right away. You have to go on your day(s). On Wednesdays, gay male porn studs have their ways with one another on stage. On Thursday, it's MTF night. The trans sex workers have a safe place to go, perform, and dance. They meet new clients, and turn tricks inside small private booths. No money is supposed to change hands in those booths--referred to as The Diamond Room--but the reality is almost certainly quite different. Friday is FTM/dyke night (but I've felt quite welcome), and Saturday is pansexual night. Anything goes!
"This is the Toronto outside these walls!" I exclaimed to the two of them, trying to point out how cloistered and pessimistic things are inside The Clarke.
Right about then, the clock struck 7:30, and the session was over. Clearly weary of clashing with me, Maxine collected her things, and we left the room as a group, pretending I hadn't just verbally assaulted her life's work, or maybe that the assault was ok, since she's a professional, and I'm entitled to my opinion.
"I had expected it to be a full house, given last week's announcement."
"So did I," she said, and then paused for a second, before continuing "but they still hate us."
"Yeah. I'm part of that group, actually" I admitted as I settled into my seat.
Turning towards Maxine, Helen, the other woman in the group, asked "why does everyone hate CAMH?"
Maxine turned towards me, lifting her face and raising her eyebrows to pass the question my way.
I was worked up. Just being in that place again was making me crazy. Receiving care from a sexology clinic at a mental health hospital is implicitly pathologizing. The doctors at CAMH believe that people like me are slavishly pursuing a self-destructive course because we love (in a fetish-like way) the notion of ourselves as women. This is not the prevailing view among transgender care professionals.
I had smoked weed and taken a Clonazepam (anti-anxiety med) before going over, because I could tell I was ready to bite someone's head off. The drugs didn't take much edge off, but I think they helped me avoid flying off the handle. I was aiming for a forthright sharing of conflicting opinions, not a counter-productive conflict. And when I'm upset, I can be possessed, and let fly too angrily and meanly, damaging my cause.
"I'm upset because you encouraged me to fight myself. You offered to counsel my parents, and then encouraged them to frustrate me instead of support me!"
"I did not! I have never encouraged a family member to frustrate anyone."
"Well, after my Mother came here, she developed a strategy that we later called 'the doctrine of frustration.'"
"I have no idea what that means!" she said, looking hurt, rather than hostile.
"That's fine. She comes up with things on her own. I can accept that," I demurred. I wasn't sure who had coined 'the doctrine of frustration' (DOF), and I was prepared to believe that it wasn't Maxine. My mother had never told me that Maxine had outright told her to frustrate me. What she had told me, repeatedly, was that Maxine "seemed to be suggesting that they shouldn't offer me any help."
A year later, by the time she and my father were meeting with Dr. McDermid, my trans-positive MD, this had matured into something McD referred to as the DOF. He told me that Maxine Peterson seemed to have advised my mother to adopt this strategy.
When you're the only advisor that people have on an issue, there's little difference between explicitly encouraging someone to oppose a loved one and implying that frustration would be the best course of action. But I backed down anyway.
"Ok fine. There's a better reason that people hate you. And I don't dislike you, Maxine--I dislike your organization. I'm not sure how I can criticize the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic without criticizing you, since you are the clinic, but I respect you--just not your modality. You're pathologizing. You are massively out of step with the rest of the transgender care world. I worked SO HARD to finally accept that I had gender issues, and to start to deal with them. And then I came here, and you made me feel worse. From your vantage point, I'm sick. You diagnosed me with Gender Identity Disorder! My experience here made me feel so much worse about myself, it set me back months!
"If there weren't a disorder, there wouldn't be care," she said. She probably says those words in exactly that way several times per day. She's right, too.
"I realize it has to be listed somewhere in the manuals that doctors have, and until it's listed somewhere else--as an endocrine disorder, perhaps--it should remain in the DSM" (the diagnostic manual for psychiatrists). "But the fact that it's listed in the DSM has no implications for care. There's no treatment! So providing care from the vantage point of a sexology clinic isn't helpful. It's not supportive."
So far as I'm concerned, the sexologists should be free to do their research. If they, as people who strive to explain everything they can in terms of sex, need to believe that I'm motivated by sex, I can live with that. But there is no synergy between a group of somewhat renegade sexologists and the delivery of care for trans people. A separate organization that can be honestly trans-positive is the best thing for trans people.
"And we're not out-of-step. Several provinces (she listed four or five) use the same standards that we do."
"Which are?"
"Two years in full gender role."
I gathered, after more discussion, that legal name change and proof of income, using the new name, were critical components of my full-time womanhood. So, though I live as a woman full time, I can't punch my card to begin my interminable two year wait until I change my name.
Adopting regressive standards just because they happen to be in place in other jurisdictions is foolish. We should be asking what standards are appropriate.
I wonder if I could keep my given name, and just change my M to an F, or perhaps a question mark, since I think that the gender binary is a bullshit construct. Insisting on legal name change and proof of income is hugely demeaning, especially to anyone who feels most comfortable between the genders. It would be appropriate to insist on a sustained, rational understanding of what it is that they want to do, and to determine that they're not suffering from Dissociative Disorder (trying to build themselves a new persona so they can dissociate from some trauma in their past). Anything beyond that is discriminatory. What if I'm independently wealthy, or an incredibly successful leech, or a sex worker who can't declare legal income? What if I want to live my life as a woman, under the name "John Thomas?" What business do they have telling me I can't?
I don't want to live between genders. I want to live as a woman. I don't believe in the gender binary, but our entire world lives by that model. My goal is to bend my gender to my will, so I can become more comfortable as myself inside our gender-binary-loving society. But I know people who would like to live between genders, but desire surgeries.
For example, I know an FTM person who isn't comfortable specifying hir gender. When ze was coming to terms with hir transness, ze decided that ze didn't want to take hormones. So, ze binds hir breasts, and dresses as a man. Ze is as trans as I am, and would very much to have hir chest surgically reconstructed without breasts, but can't qualify because the blatantly hetero-normative standards applied by places like CAMH don't provide for hir existence. Ze is well into hir 30s, in a stable, long term relationship with a female partner, and lives life dressed as a man, with breasts bound tightly against hir chest, so as to be undetectable. In what way would the removal of those breasts, which would make ze much more comfortable in hir body, risk making hir life more difficult? Oh no! The invisible breasts are gone! Think of the ramifications!
"How often do you review your standards? What's the process? Who takes part in the review?" I asked.
"It's usually a group thing," she replied, "but Dr. Dickie has the final say, obviously."
"So do you expect to be changing those standards anytime soon?"
"I highly doubt it. I've been here 26 years, and I think that you and the community can take that to the bank. We will not be changing our standards."
I refrained from asking how any conscientious transgender care provider could have made it through the last 26 years without modernizing their standards. Were I her, I would have been embarrassed to admit to that sort of rigidity, but it seemed a matter of pride to her. Her chest puffed up with implacability--like she was certain that she had always been right, was still right, and was going to prove it by refusing to yield, regardless of how marginal her views become.
The rest of the session was fairly unremarkable. l had accomplished my goals: finding out what I needed to do to qualify for surgery coverage, and letting Maxine (aka CAMH) know that I disagree with their approach, and that I was submitting to their care under duress. Once that was done, we chatted more amicably about my transition, and about Goodhandy's.
Neither of them were familiar with Goodhandy's the darling of the trans community. GH's is a queer sex club. Sex among customers is encouraged. The trans community loves GH's for giving trans sex workers somewhere safe to go. But don't rush over there right away. You have to go on your day(s). On Wednesdays, gay male porn studs have their ways with one another on stage. On Thursday, it's MTF night. The trans sex workers have a safe place to go, perform, and dance. They meet new clients, and turn tricks inside small private booths. No money is supposed to change hands in those booths--referred to as The Diamond Room--but the reality is almost certainly quite different. Friday is FTM/dyke night (but I've felt quite welcome), and Saturday is pansexual night. Anything goes!
"This is the Toronto outside these walls!" I exclaimed to the two of them, trying to point out how cloistered and pessimistic things are inside The Clarke.
Right about then, the clock struck 7:30, and the session was over. Clearly weary of clashing with me, Maxine collected her things, and we left the room as a group, pretending I hadn't just verbally assaulted her life's work, or maybe that the assault was ok, since she's a professional, and I'm entitled to my opinion.
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