I sat on the end of my bed this week to pull on socks, and broke the rail. No big deal, except that it’s the bed I made very soon after my wedding, out of about £20-worth of wood, to a design sketch that I still have (left), in biro on a scrap of ruled notepad. Degree finals exam notes are written on the back! It is still a bit special, and I’m glad I was allowed to claim it when I left. The problem is that it’s pine, and this is the one place where a large knot shouldn’t…
On Tuesday this week, I had an appointment, to return to the hospital I left two months ago and review things. You know, those things. There is often a need to make minor adjustments, because as things heal and any swelling goes down, not everything may be quite as good as it can be – even peeing slightly sideways can be worth correcting – and sometimes a bit of cosmetic improvement is needed. I’ve been happy enough, from my mirror-and-feeling-around point of view, but there is always a chance that something might come up in the conversation to suggest a…
| tiller hand | on polished wood | |
| imbued with salt | worked | |
| a partnership | seaward or home | |
| familiar | this practical bond | |
| shared | between many | |
| tillers | hands | |
| so present | comfortable | |
| her hand | on my knee | |
| a reassurance | leaning, home | |
| familiar | this practical bond | |
| shared | between many | |
| sisters | hands | |
| toes, connected | knees | |
| shoulders soft | strong | |
| a belonging | through journeys | |
| familiar | this practical bond | |
| understanding | we need | |
| tillers | hands | |
| tell her hand | on polished knee | |
| salted by eyes | she steers | |
| a journey | no harbour, no beach | |
| familiar | this practical bond | |
| because we are | many | |
| sisters | islands | |
2014 © Andie Davidson
Now that the gender dysphoria bit is over, I am walking over some old ground, just picking up stones, those things that hurt the feet of people following after me. You see, I remember walking down Fulham Palace Road to the gender identity clinic the first time, knowing every step of the way had been trodden by so many like me, and quite a few with familiar names …
Well, in recent months, maybe this past year, there have been more and more sensible and informative media events about trans people. Some more competent than others, some quite personal and individual, others more documentary style and explanatory. But overall, quite a lot is being said that reveals us as pretty ordinary folk, living ordinary lives. The trans celebs who are noticed more are just saying the same as us as well, which brings us all down to a level, a commonality.
Suddenly if feels just OK to be trans, and here am I fussing over my privacy being broken at work! I transitioned before I got my current job, and it still felt like I was the peculiar one, so much so that I welcomed my work colleagues being warned in advance that a transsexual employee was on her way – so behave! And now I don’t want anyone to be told, whilst at the same time posting my photo on Twitter under #WhatTransLooksLike, which turns out to be terribly (confusingly) ordinary.
And yet.
And yet all of this ordinariness and growing acceptance (at least in general, and from a very poor start) underlines something extremely sad and tragic. And it is that for the majority of us it has been a mixture of terrifying struggle, self harm, self hatred, self doubt, despair, loss, depression and suicidal intent.
I want you to think: how much do you talk (or hear) about how society ‘tolerates’ trans people? Or about an increasing ‘acceptance’? At work, it seems people have been ‘accommodating’ of my being trans among them. Are these feelings you have, as a way of saying things are getting better? How do you think it would make you feel, if something about you meant that you as a person needed tolerance, acceptance or accommodation? Or knowing this, would you willingly place yourself in a position where this would even need to be so?
In a world that really accepted that some people are born trans, things would be completely different. Imagine, if you will, for a moment, that every child growing up was free to express their male-female-both-neither selves freely and without criticism. Imagine every adult simply knew this was the way things are. Imagine no penis-adult minded a penis-child wearing vagina-child clothes, and no vagina-adult minded a vagina-child avoiding vagina-child toys. How comfortable those children would be that the other children knew this from their parents too. Each could find their sexuality as they developed, and learn the differences between love for reproduction and love for friendship and love for life. It isn’t that families would cease to exist, or that adults settled in their gender would not pair up to have children. But just maybe, everyone would be a bit more comfortable doing what comes naturally. Fewer spouses would turn away from their beloved partners because it was all a mistake, had they known before. Maybe it would help break the sexism that pervades society, if it were not odd to find a woman with oily hands, power tools and an executive job, paired with a man in feminine clothes working as a childminder and organising dance events.
People on the trans spectrum may be one in a hundred, but that doesn’t make us rare, it just means most are invisible because they are suppressed.
I do wonder what proportion of trans people would be happy to be the woman with a penis or a man with a vagina, if nobody else minded either. Not all of us, because gender dysphoria runs much more deeply than this, and there is a level of inateness that predates any social expectation. But for some whose gender identity sits uncomfortably in the gender binary based on genital expectation, maybe, just maybe, there would be peace in growing up and living a normal life freely as they feel themselves to be.
Where are we with acceptance now? This is how it has largely been for people like me: if you feel you don’t belong with other penis-children-called-boys, you belong nowhere. You do not fit and you cannot explain it. Somehow people, especially parents and teachers, don’t want to know, because you screw up the way things are, and you make things awkward. You add something that has to be catered for and coped with. You are a nuisance to them and to yourself. If you are a vagina-child who doesn’t belong with other vagina-children-called-girls, people don’t notice quite so much at first. But underneath the tomboy is a place grown-ups don’t want to go.
Somehow there is an undercurrent to this view of you that is linked with a moral or ethical dimension. These are the rules that seem to come from nowhere, and just ‘are’ because they get repeated. What you feel is not quite right about you, in terms of likeness with others, becomes something wrong. People don’t like it because they think you are being deliberately different, that you have a choice. Some will say that it (the way you feel about yourself) isn’t natural. Others will say that their god says it’s bad, and bad that you should dare to even think it might be OK. That you must therefore change, and put all these feelings about yourself away forever. Hence the prevalent self hate, self harm and self destruct, mental and physical that trans people experience.
Worst of all, gender and sex have long been so confused a distinction that being trans has been viewed a sexual perversion, a bizarre psychological pathology. And if sex is naughty or dirty or bad (my upbringing taught me this), then being trans is doubly so.
Because the adults think this, their children, your friends and classmates think this too. You get bullied, or at best left out and seen by some as not to be included. This combines with your sense of not belonging. There is no way out, because no-one is talking about it, leastways not so as to allow that it’s natural or normal or permissible.
This, as I grew up (and is widely still the case), was an inescapable truth about myself: there was something bad and wrong about me, deep inside. Trans people simply knew there was nothing they could do to get rid of the disconnect between being a penis-child and a vagina-brain. Cis people, generally speaking, thought they could and should. And now this is changing, bit by bit.
If you are not sure whether this move or drift towards trans-as-normal is comfortable for you, think what it does to trans people growing up, and the legacy it has left to those of us rather older. I’m not seeking pity – far from it, only saying please understand, when you think you are being kind for letting us live and look differently, that your attitudes and reactions, if anything short of full acceptance as equal and normal, are creating inner traumas still.
I fully recognise that I did not grow up recognising diversity, that I too felt uncomfortable with everything LGBT because it is what I was taught to think and feel. What this means is that the denial I lived with, and above all the guilt, must have been there as I brought up my own children. My son thankfully was trans-aware probably before I was. And my daughter’s current inability to be associated with me in any way must in part be down to what I brought her up to think. I wonder what she will teach her children one day when they ask about their missing grandfather …
Does anything strike you about these statements? If this is how we bring up our children, and how we speak to each other about red-haired people, left-handed people and lesbian people, they will intuitively understand that these three ‘conditions’ are suspect and not quite right, that these are people to be wary of, who are not quite what they seem (Wait until she takes her hat off! Did you see when he started writing? I went to her mum’s house once and she lives with a woman!).
This is exactly the inference we exchange amongst ourselves about transgender people. This is why it took me 55 years to realise that my self-hatred, my sense of guilt and shame, my constant self-destruction inside was completely unfounded and unnecessary.
Can you begin to understand this stone in the grass that I’ve picked up? Don’t leave it for someone else, above all someone else’s child, to cripple themselves on.
I can at last love myself, and indeed, I love my ‘new’ body for the first time. Shame about the five decades.
Never tolerate me. Never accept me. Never accommodate me.
I am. We are.
Just like you.
Continue reading Watch words: self hate, self harm, self destruct »
This blog is long, but here are the headings: Return to work; Being the anomaly in the workplace; Confidentiality and the Gender Recognition Act; Social media; Disclosure; Advice.
I had fondly dreamed of a triumphant, joy-filled, regathering with my colleagues, dropping my handbag on my desk and announcing ‘I’m back!’ I mean, is that not how it goes? Not to applause, but at least welcomed back with a sense of belonging?
Well, no. Return has in fact been a very stressful and hurtful time for me. So I thought it may be helpful for you to know a few useful things when it’s your turn to negotiate this – from either side, employer or trans emloyee.
Important
I wish to make it abundantly clear that here, on my blog, I make a point never to name anyone, nor to speak against anyone or any organisation personally, but only to observe as factually as possible, the experience of transition in its many aspects. I do not even identify my place of work on Facebook, where I exchange life with friends. But I do feel there are important principles about being a trans person, and that we must be free to speak about them, share them, improve things for the next generation. This does not make me disloyal or uncommitted in any way, nor do I ever make personal attacks on anyone, even if I were to feel I have a grievance. Even I may have genuinely misunderstood. But I nevertheless feel vulnerable because I know there is next to nothing to protect me, and you should know that too. Our voice is valid, but we are vulnerable.
I was reminded (by a trans friend) that we are an anomaly at work, and that therefore we are treated differently. We create an issue simply by having had gender dysphoria, simply for being transsexual. Nobody really knows what to do, what to expect, and they certainly are not going to take our word as the living expert on ourselves, for anything.
If you are trans, you are different, so expect to be treated as if you have a little-understood disability, perhaps like a disfigurement. Yes, HR will go out of its way to protect you from adverse treatment by colleagues. But you in turn must express gratitude for this accommodation. You are the anomaly; don’t assume that the rights you have to equal treatment are simply about human respect. No, any protection or accommodation you are afforded is because your employer will want to protect themselves. And of course they do, quite rightly. But I sort of think I am not just a possession of the organisation, but also a person, and that normal respect applies. That you have a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria usually has no bearing on your ability to do your job, and adds no additional special or concessionary management requirements.
Accommodation of your needs at work? You mean acceptance as a real person with equality of treatment? Someone said to me recently that rule number one for the trans person is never to express gratitude, never to apologise for what you are.
In the early stages of transition, awareness helps ensure that there is protection from harassment. After that it is simply not relevant. At the point of surgery, I maintain, it is nobody’s business other than yours and a single point of reference in HR.
At the same time you will quite possibly experience sexism at work. So that means, for the trans person, normal sexism as a woman (or man) plus cis-sexism (i.e. the compartmentalising or othering of trans people as not quite included in the normal world, neither one thing nor another). Expect it; I hope you may be lucky.
Some while ago, and for several months, on top of the normal sexism, I had a female colleague whose questioning, in open plan office, in front of colleagues and manager, was quite intrusive, very personal, and at times disconcerting. I, as you know since you read me here, decided to take it head on, simply to demonstrate that I am just another person, capable of stating my case, clarifying that gender dysphoria is a medical condition, not a behavioural trait, and that in every other respect I am just another woman. I did not silence it, though perhaps I should. I did not complain, though perhaps I should. I do not want special treatment, and I am not a natural complainer, except in cases of real unfairness. Argue my case? Oh yes; but not to create waves or to play games.
As a trans person, you do not need ‘accommodation’. You need fairness and equality. As an employer or HR person, you are not accommodating the trans person. If having a trans person on your staff is an awkward thing, the problem is the people in your organisation, not the fellow human being who is inconveniently not quite like you. Do not see fairness and equality as a special effort you must make, for a person who is ‘difficult’ simply for being misgendered at birth.
Like me, you should indeed be thankful for correct treatment during early transition, and yes, always be thankful for correctness. But gratitude for being treated fairly and equally? Think about this a moment, if you yourself do not have a ‘difference’ of any kind.
Point made, I hope.
The first point to understand in the UK is that you have few rights at all until:
and finally:
It does, however, apply, if your employer knows that you have applied for a GRC. Therefore you must put this intention in writing. Mine was, if I remember right, merely verbal, but we did discuss it and the patronising nature of the process.
Until this point, protection of your personal data, details and status under the Gender Recognition Act need not always apply. After this, records relating to gender change must be sealed. All disclosure then legally becomes entirely your own. But, let’s also be clear, anyone disclosing your gender history who claims they honestly did not know that you had, or had applied for, a Gender Recognition Certificate at the time (I mean, the more you flash it around the more you are telling everybody? Right?) may claim they are not culpable (Gender Recognition Act, Section 22 on data).
If they do know, then clearly disclosing surgical descriptors (i.e. GRS) is disclosing part of your protected gender history.
See also GIRES on the Gender recognition Act, Section 22.
I have two levels of expectation about disclosure. Among friends, and here on my blog where everything is explained and contextualised, I am open about gender dysphoria (which I no longer have). At work, in public spaces, in my everyday life, it is nobody’s business but my own. Of course this causes ambiguity, but I do only need to be asked if it’s OK to reveal and discuss my gender! This is called respect.
The same probably applies to very many, probably most, trans people, especially those who have fully transitioned, put it in their past, but wish to remain supportive of others. Few go ‘deep stealth’ (totally invisibly trans), and I am an example of those who are open to talk about it, but for whom it has little to do with everyday life.
If you find me on Facebook, and if you friend me and if I say yes, you will see that I belong to a number of transgender groups, some with closed membership. What a giveaway! I have been open on Facebook to my friends throughout my transition. This is probably true of most trans people.
I write a personal blog every week, to relate this whole journey. What a giveaway! Yes, but if you are reading ‘Observations of gender dysphoria and beyond’ then you are in a context, a serious one that looks not just at me, but the issues surrounding transition. Maybe you have a blog too.
Let me then make it abundantly clear that this does not mean anyone can use it to do anything other than observe that I was born with gender dysphoria. It is not an excuse to disclose anything not essentially and legally necessary to people, as if it were relevant to a situation where it is not.
But of course, with so much social media, everyone is much more personally exposed than ever before, and some employers use it more in order to find evidence against than evidence for. I would bet more people have fished in my blog for comment, or my Facebook pages, than my endorsements and skills on LinkedIn, for example. I’m just saying, be aware.
The question is, just because you are detectably transsexual on social media, does this mean that the Gender Recognition Act protections are done away with? Not quite, but it is there to ensure that information exchanged in the workplace (for example) is strictly on a need to know basis. I shall quote here from the UK Equality and Human Rights website:
Gender Recognition Act 2004
The Gender Recognition Act (GRA) gives legal recognition to transsexual people in their acquired gender.
If an application to the Gender Recognition Panel is successful, the transsexual person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender and they will receive a full gender recognition certificate (GRC). The GRC allows for the creation of a modified birth certificate reflecting the holder’s new gender.
In specified circumstances the GRA prohibits disclosure of the fact that someone has applied for a GRC or disclosure of someone’s gender prior to the acquisition of the GRC. Such disclosure constitutes a criminal offence liable to a fine.
The privacy provisions apply in most circumstances where the information is received by someone acting in an official capacity. The exceptions are very narrowly drawn, so it should generally be assumed that if you are a employer, manager or colleague; or if you are working in any capacity for an official body or service provider, the law will apply.
Unlawful disclosure applies not only to direct word of mouth communication but also to uncontrolled access to paper or computer files. A transsexual person may consent to you disclosing the information if they decide that it is in their interests to do so. However, such consent must be explicit. It may not be assumed.
As a general rule it is best to agree what to do with information when an employee or service user informs you that they have applied for or obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate. This may often necessitate physically destroying records that reveal inappropriate information, or sealing them for use in specified exceptional cases.
I wish I had read all this before, but there are some definite points for attention, if you are heading this way:
I wrote this piece because I could not see the relevance of the nature of my surgery to my return to work under a new line manager. My surgery was disclosed, and I observed that no woman in the organisation would wish the nature of her gynaecological surgery to be disclosed to a male manager, unless that detail was directly and specifically relevant to her ability to resume her work (i.e. cover the employer’s liability).
The complicating factor here is that post-surgical maintenance for gender surgery needs initially to be done three times a day. This requires privacy and washing facilities, and if not available at your place of work, you will need to negotiate working from home, at least to cover a mid-day half hour. Now this does not take a lot of imagination as to exactly what you are doing, so how do you request a degree of working from home for a short period (so you don’t need to stay off sick longer than absolutely necessary)? For me it is perfectly sufficient for any manager to know that you have had surgery, need a recovery period, and can return to work making allowances (lifting, maintenance etc.) for confidential reasons.
Am I right? Please tell me if I am not, especially if you are in HR, and I can correct this blog and this advice.
Back to the post-operative maintenance: by telling anyone else in the organisation that your surgery is gender-related, immediately tells your manager (what, a man?!) that you wish to work from home in order to dilate your vagina!
This is why extra sensitivity is required by HR when deciding just how relevant it is to tell another member of staff that the nature of your surgery was to do with your genitals. I don’t care how understanding or empathic the man in my office is, or how discreet he may subsequently be. It is none of his business; it is intimate and personal to me, and most of all, it has no bearing on my work situation whatsoever.
Please, so that you do not suffer the same distress, explain this to your HR contact well in advance, otherwise these unnecessary accidents will happen.
Phew! Finally … If you are in UK HR, and anything I have said is inaccurate in its interpretation, find me on Facebook and tell me so that I can correct it. If you have useful things to add, please also find me and tell me. We all need to know these things and ensure better handling than I feel I experienced.