 |
| Rainbow-coloured lights projected onto the inside of a roof; a photo of Charing Cross Hospital's welcome sign, nail varinshes in Transgender Pride colours, a hospital corridor, the Transgender Pride flag, and the words 'Transgender' 'Non-Binary' 'Intersex' and 'She's what now?' |
Content warning — includes description of gender dysphoria and emotional rock bottom.
You may have
strong opinions about transgender issues, bathroom usage, and what teams trans
sportsmen or sportswomen should play on, or you may be unsure what a
transgender person actually is. Are we the horrors that the popular press
and certain high-profile people make us out to be? Do we live ‘on the
edge’? What does that even mean? What is a non-binary person?
Which sex are transgender people attracted to, either romantically or sexually?
So what does it mean to be transgender?
Before I answer that question, I should note
that I’m writing from a very privileged point of view; I transitioned many
years ago and my surgery was completed in late 1993. I can write from that experience, but I am
very aware that I cannot know, for instance, what it is to be non-binary (neither
fully male nor fully female), nor can I ever know from experience what the
complications and implications are for people born physically intersex.
Being ‘transgender’ (often shortened to
‘trans’) means that your sense of who you are in terms of your sex/gender does
not align with the sex as recorded on your Birth Certificate. It's an oversimplification, really, but yes, trapped in the wrong body does describe it pretty well. Some trans
people, like me, undergo surgery to transition, but there may be good reasons
why somebody can’t do that.
I knew, by the time I started school,
that I was actually a girl even though my plumbing said otherwise. As simple as
that. I went through my childhood
knowing that, then my teenage years and early twenties, trying soooo hard to be
the person people thought I was - being ‘trapped in the wrong body’ is utter
misery. You see the wrong person in the mirror, you hear the wrong voice every
time you speak, and everyone – literally everyone – misgenders you. I literally used to think that it would have
better if I’d been stillborn, and that’s not a feeling I would wish on anybody.
Eventually, I plucked up the courage to talk to my GP. He didn’t initially know what to do about the situation, and he asked me to book an appointment to return a month later. During that month, that wonderful GP found the Gender Identity Clinic (specialist unit working with transgender patients) at Charing Cross Hospital and referred me there. Under their guidance and care, I was diagnosed with what is now called gender dysphoria and I transitioned to the female role. So much of the language around transgender issues didn’t exist then – the term ‘transition’ had not evenbeen coined yet and we were called ‘transsexuals.’ Transitioning was not an easy option, or a 'kink' - it was the last resort, the only way for me to live my life and to be who I always knew I already was.
The first step, for me was [what is now
called] a social transition – changing my name and living entirely as a woman. I shouldn’t need to say this, but for someone
trans, there’s nothing sexual about wearing the clothes of your affirmed sex (the
sex you know you really are) – they’re just the right clothes for you.
A few months later I was started on oestrogen, the female hormone which brings about the development of breasts, softens skin, etc. This started my medical transition. Transgender men, in contrast, take testosterone which deepens their voices, increases their muscle mass, and increases body and facial hair.
The gender specialists assessed their
patients constantly, making sure that we could live and function successfully in
society as our true selves, earning a living and being accepted by people
around us. That is called the life test
(nowadays often called life experience).
After you had completed that, you were
finally referred for surgery. In my day,
this was called ‘sex change surgery’, the more modern name for it is ‘Gender
Reassignment Surgery’ (GRS). For transgender
women that involves the creation of female genitalia – it used to be called
‘having the operation’; for transgender men it involves a double mastectomy
(‘top surgery’), a hysterectomy, and [often but not always] phalloplasty – the
surgical creation of a penis.
Non-binary people may or may not undergo
hormone therapy and/or have surgery; for some, a change of pronouns (often to
the singular they/them) is enough, others may have the same surgery as binary
transgender people.
For me, transitioning was the making of
me; and I might not still be here if I hadn’t taken a deep breath and
transitioned. In the 1980s, it was not a
common thing to do; employment law was very different then and we had very few
employment or civil rights, and until very recently I would have said that we
have pretty much the same rights as everyone else. For people who hold a Gender Recognition Certificate
(GRC), we have been recognised as members of our affirmed sex for all legal purposes.
We can get married as members of our
affirmed sex, and having a GRC means that after we pass away, we can be buried or
cremated as members of our affirmed sex.
The recent Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC’s interim guidance based on it has seemingly cast doubt on the status of GRCs and of trans people, but I suspect and hope that this will be temporary even if ‘temporary’ means ‘quite a while’ and quite a lot of work. The ruling has followed increased bullying, harassment and discrimination against us, and in the current social and political atmosphere some of the gains making us more equal to the rest of society are being reversed with very negative effects on our lives.
Toilets and Sport
Making us use the toilets of our birth
sex is both ludicrous and cruel; I can foresee women being scared when a muscular,
bearded man walks into the Ladies – but if he is a transgender man, that’s what
the Government and the EHRC are saying he must do (except when they tell us he can't do that, either). A transgender woman walking into the Gents could
be in real danger, and I can also foresee some sudden zipper accidents when men sees a woman walking in!
There is a lot of attention being paid
to the presence of, in particular, trans women in women’s sport with bans in
multiple sports currently being enacted.
I’m not the expert here, but I do know that some sports have particular requirements
from trans women in terms of hormone levels and suchlike that then allow them to play. I’m also not the best person to comment on the presence of transgender
people at elite sports levels – and at present debates there are generating
much more heat than light. But banning transgender
people from a pub football team or local hockey club where they have been made very welcome?
Our lives
The simple fact is that we just living lives
where our medical backgrounds are just one thing about us. We lead normal, boring, lives getting up in
the morning, doing our day's work, going home and eating dinner, and then
reading or watching television or whatever.
All we ask of society is that we can continue to do that; we don't ‘live
on the edge’, we certainly don't think we're special, we just want nice, peaceful - and dare I say even boring - lives.
Speaking purely for myself for a moment,
transitioning has enabled me to be me - just the woman I always knew I
was, with my outside matching my inside, my body matching my soul - and it is an
unbelievable blessing. I see myself in the mirror, not a miserable
stranger. I see a smile that includes my eyes. I live with a partner who loves
me and whom I love. I have the right
clothes hanging in the wardrobe. Friends, colleagues and strangers treat me and
address me as the woman I’ve always known I am. I earned a degree I would never
have undertaken if I’d not transitioned, and I have a life and career I could
never have imagined. Life hasn’t gone
the way I expected - it’s been far better. Heck, yes, it’s been
worthwhile - and that’s all any transgender person could ask.
Comments
Post a Comment