Then last night I was browsing transsexual case law in Australia. It's something I occasionally do, as it keeps me up to date on what's going on. Years ago it was fighting around getting identifying documentation (driver's licences, passports, birth certificates) updated. These days, it's.. Parents petitioning the family court so their transsexual kids can go on hormones.
WTF. Where did this come from? Parents. Facilitating their kid's transitions. Going in to bat against an incredibly opaque and cruel bureaucracy so their kids can have a decent life.
I'm not so young. When I was a teen the accepted method of transitioning was running away, working for a while as a prostitute, pretending you weren't for your psych, saving the huge pile of money that transitioning, surgery, etc. etc. entails, living in abject poverty, and hopefully emerging from the other end of that with your sanity intact, without HIV, and without a drug addiction.
I ran away twice. Figuratively, anyway. I left school earlier than I should have so I could get a job and get away from my abusive parents. Then I had to do it all again. My girlfriend fell pregnant a few months later and I swallowed the "I'm going to buckle down and be a father" pill for a couple of years. I managed to avoid prostitution. I managed to avoid HIV. I managed to avoid drug addiction. That's not to say I didn't take drugs or have risky sex. I did, and I was incredibly lucky. I have my husband to thank for quite a lot.
Anyway, we lived in abject poverty for my twenties and thirties. While my workmates and straight friends were saving their house deposits, I was paying for psychiatrist, endocrinologist and electrologist bills. I was saving every spare penny so I could afford breast augmentation and genital surgery. I was (rather ironically) paying child support for kids that I wasn't allowed to see, at least until they were teenagers with their own agency discovering themselves. I managed to work my way through a degree part time, despite everything. My workmates see me as irresponsible, because I'm in my forties and still renting. If only they knew.
So, now I'm reading of transsexual kids who's parents are determined and tough and fucking incredible, going up against a bureaucracy that's intent on causing as much harm to kids as it can, and paying legal and medical bills in the tens of thousands, so their kids can live normal lives and not go through the years of hurt and pain that my generation did, and it makes me want to laugh and cry and punch the air with the joy of it all.
Anyway, I just wanted you guys to know that what you're doing is just. fucking. amazing. Power to you.
"Normal" lives.... I can't really say I agree with you on that
ReplyDeleteA more "normal" life maybe.
I guess it depends on how one defines normal, but from a biologist/anthropologist kind of perspective I think "normal" is actually females that can have babies and males that can father them.
Based on statistics of the percentage of humans who surgically reconfigure their primary sex characteristics vs those who don't, I don't think it is "normal" to do so, regardless of age or how early one accomplishes it, so if that is or was something experienced in a person's lifetime, then their life really wasn't a "normal" one.
That said, in some ways I agree, if the child is transsexual then it can be quite positive for them to have help and support from parents, I wouldn't wish my personal experiences on anyone.
On the flip side though, I think supportive and assisting parents can come at a personal cost (that most don't consider) to the individual as well.
I think surviving transsexualism long term takes a certain degree of resilience and that can only be learned By hardship.
Sorry you feel that way, Rachel. It's a cruel twist of fate that I, who isn't particularly clucky, have a couple of kids, and you can't, but clearly desperately want to.
ReplyDeleteLots and lots of women can't or don't have kids, and they're perfectly normal. I don't think we're defined by our ability to have children any more than our chromosomes or genitalia.
I'm confused about the bit where you say supportive parents can have a cost. Are you talking perhaps of the costs in being held to a past that you don't identify with? I guess there's something there - much like staying in the queer community, where acceptance is often at the cost of validation. I think there's a whole new post in that idea. Let me cogitate...
Yes, I would very much like children, however, please don't misunderstand me, that was NOT the motivation for my above comment.
DeleteThe point I was trying to make is that biology IS relevant.
Like you, I believe myself introspectively to be female, however there is this small issue called "reality" and the reality for me is that I'm biologically male.
So! putting children and reproductive ability (and what I might want) aside, I DON'T believe it is "normal" (relative to the rest of the human species) to be transsexual or to attempt to change sex, no matter how well one integrates, nor how early one does it, nor whether or not parents are "supportive".
That fact is difficult to live with, and I think that enduring it requires a certain amount of personal resilience, which I don't believe one learns if their parents make things "easy"
However, in order to understand what I'm getting at here, I think one needs to be relatively at ease and comfortable with themselves and their situation