perspectives on stuff from an angry feminist
Jun 27th, 2008 by Rebecca
It’s a bit of a small world.
I came out fairly widely to my friends when I was fifteen, and I lost more than a few at that stage. It’s been seven years, and for the most part, the people who weren’t exactly what one might call supportive then are long forgotten, and most of them are half a continent away.
But one of them just popped up with a supportive comment on Ryan’s blog.
It seems as if some people do come around eventually.
May 17th, 2008 by Rebecca
There’s a not-half-bad post up at Reweaving at the moment expressing frustration (from a radical feminist perspective) at the vast amounts of transphobia in the radical feminist community, and specifically with regard to trans-exclusive women’s spaces. It’s worth a read, and there’s a good comments thread as well.
However, there’s a couple of things that get my goat. It’s something one sees a bit with cispeople who have gotten down with the whole “transpeople are human, yay!” thing, but haven’t quite said farewell to their own transphobia.
I think there maybe times when cisgendered woman only spaces need to be available and I think that there are times when trans women only spaces need to be available but by and large I think women only spaces should be for cisgendered and transgendered women both and that trans women shouldn’t just be tolerated in them but should be actively accepted in them and be an inherent part of the organisation and structure of them.
The F Word’s Laura espouses similar sentiment in comments. [Comment redacted per comments thread.] Thus, we see:
I think that there is a need both for non-transwomen, inclusive and trans-only spaces, but the idea that automatically excluding transwomen from women only spaces will somehow protest women from male ideas and privilege is, as you say, ludicrous.
It’s the “well, I guess we’ll generally allow you to come, but you’re there at our pleasure” argument.
I’ve said this before, but it warrants saying again. Using the idea of “safe spaces” to exclude transpeople is a disgrace, and there it’s exactly the same as men claiming it to exclude women, white people using it to exclude POC, or able-bodied people using it to exclude the disabled. It’s a position that’s positively swimming in cisprivilege, and I have a real problem with anyone claiming to be a trans ally while holding it, even if they’re, if you will, still learning. Now, I recognise that, with both the people here, the rest of their comments over there were laudable - but nonetheless, I get frustrated at this sort of privileged jerkery.
I can think of quite a few places where it would be plenty justifiable to have a group which would, in practice, wind up being ciswomen-only. This would not, however, include general-purpose women’s spaces who happen to have transphobic people in them. Rather, it might be say, a subject-specific space around something which transwomen actually don’t (in reality, as opposed to in theory) experience. It’s also something that would be completely uncontested by rational people. I’m reminded of the scene in Fight Club where Marla briefly has an argument about being allowed to attend a testicular cancer support group. I’ll put it this way: if it has to actually be disputed, and it isn’t as ludicrous as that, then chances are, you’re being an asshole.
May 7th, 2008 by Rebecca
It’s been a bad week for LGBT stuff, but I’ve just gotten an email that suggests that the Rudd government might be starting to move on trans issues.
A transwoman who’d stayed married to her former partner but had had SAS has just been notified by Centrelink that the guidelines have changed and they are now considered a same-sex couple. They don’t mind, for it means that they receive more money - and it means that the government is starting to actually recognise the proper sex of transpeople. This is a refreshing argument from the last government, which was insistent on considering us in accordance with our assigned sexes in most cases, except where restrained from doing so by the courts, as in Re Kevin.
This is a positive sign in light of the coming battle to do away with the discriminatory passport regulations once and for all.
May 6th, 2008 by Rebecca
via The Bilerico Project:
The American Psychiatric Association has named the members of it’s working group to reassess the inclusion of Gender Identity Disorder in the forthcoming new edition of the DSM, the DSM-V. It could almost not possibly be worse. The list reads like a who’s-who of obsessed creeps who’ve made a career out of attacking trans healthcare.
Let’s start with the chair of the working group. It’s Kenneth Zucker, of Toronto’s notorious Clarke Institute. As Mercedes Allen notes over there, he’s notorious for his use of “ex-gay” style “reparative therapy” to try and beat the transness out of trans kids. This is a man who shouldn’t even be allowed to practice medicine, let alone be put in this sort of position of responsibility.
It doesn’t improve from there. The next one on the list is none other than Ray Blanchard, the creator of the theory of “autogynephilia”. This is a theory that has zero credibility outside of right-wing circles, is patently unscientific, and relies on ignoring the entire existence of transmen to even pretend for it to make sense. How in the hell was this man let anywhere near this working group?
There’s one clinician on the list who’s actually well-known for dealing with trans issues in a realistic context: Peggy Cohen-Kettenis. It isn’t a bad choice; she’s prominent and supports proper healthcare, but I’ve read some kinda odd work of hers that did take on board a bit of Blanchard’s work - perhaps the only respected psychiatrist to do so. It could certainly be worse, but I ain’t thrilled about it either.
There’s only one other person on the list who seems to have any knowledge about transpeople at all, and that’s an endocrinological specialist, Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg. Unfortunately, he looks pretty terrible too: according to Robbie: “Meyer-Bahlburg seems pretty ambivalent about whether trans people should be treated at all, especially trans youth, and thinks that Money’s notorious ideas about intersex treatment need “only minor modifications”".
Of the rest (according to Zoe Brain in comments), we have a guy who specialises in violent male sex offenders, a guy who specialises in female orgasmic disorders, a guy who specialises in sexual dysfunction, a sex therapist, and another specialist in sex offenders. None of these last five have any relevant experience in dealing with actual gender issues.
This is nothing short of a nightmare. Think of it this way: what if you were queer, and the decision over your future legal status just got handed to Peter LaBerbera?
I just don’t even know what to say. It’s obvious that WPATH weren’t even consulted in choosing the makeup of this working group. I’m hoping to god that Cohen-Kettenis and some of the randoms can inject some sense into the process, or otherwise that the results of the working group get tossed out at a later stage, but this is just inconceivable. These people have the power to abolish trans healthcare as we know it.
Update: Mercedes Allen suggests in comments over there that the resistance to this has already started, with people pointing out that having Zucker anywhere near this group makes a mockery of the APA’s past clear opposition to reparative therapy being used against the LGBT community, and starting to link up with some of the veterans of the fight to take homosexuality out of the DSM. It’s a start, but god I hope it works.
May 5th, 2008 by Rebecca
It’s been a fairly sombre day after yesterday’s revelation that the Civil Partnerships Bill, or at least the most important elements of it, were dead in the water.
We’ve done what we could to get at least some comment out there; for my part, several comments from me are included in this morning’s Age, and I’ve spoken to both ABC and Prime News during the day; a colleague spoke to several other papers. We now start preparing for a snap action on Saturday to make community outrage absolutely bloody clear, but the battle for this bill at least seems over. It isn’t the end of the line for the campaign, though - as I’ve been telling the press today, it may now be five years instead of five weeks until we see civil unions in the territory, but we ain’t going anywhere.
We’ve learned a lot through this campaign. Starting from a base of practically nothing in February, we’ve been given a crash course in everything from handling the press through to dealing directly with politicians; the challenge now is to make sure that experience doesn’t go to waste. There are still LGBT issues here that need fighting in the short term; the Discrimination Act is badly written; the trans sex recognition laws are flawed, and there’s a near-complete lack of queer support services in the territory apart from those directly related to sexual health. In the long term, we have campaigns for civil unions and same-sex marriage to fight, and it’s about time we started using our proximity to Capital Hill to our advantage.
There’s one last thing I want to put out there about yesterday, though. It’s my personal position that the ACT government did do everything they could do to get this bill up, and while I wish they had ploughed ahead anyway so we could have given the federal government a kicking, I can understand why they wouldn’t in the face of practically certain defeat; hell, I told Simon Corbell personally during the week that I was concerned about couples who need legal rights now being screwed if we were left without relationship recognition laws for another year due to an override, even in light of the above.
Which is why I find the timing of yesterday’s announcement very curious. The ACT government has everything to gain from blowing this sky high, even in defeat; being the defender of territory rights and the party of progressive reform are popular themes here (Stanhope’s popularity went through the roof the last time we went through this in 2006, even though he lost then too), and they’re facing an election in five months where the main threat to their majority is coming from the Greens, not the Liberals.
Yet they chose to release the news that the bill had been withdrawn under pressure on a Sunday afternoon that also happened to be the day of the Logie Awards, and the day before the territory budget, with previews of the most important spending commitments leaked to the media. While Stanhope has been on the attack today (I haven’t had time to read the reports yet, but the reporter from the ABC told me that he’d had some rough things to say about Rudd), that’s a timing that smells very heavily of trying to bury the story. There was no clear reason why the announcement needed to be released yesterday in particular, yet they have nothing obvious to gain from burying it. I’m still prepared to publicly come out in support of Corbell and Stanhope’s actions right through until today, but the cynic in me might say that I smell a bit of a rat.
Apr 27th, 2008 by Rebecca
I find myself having a strange dilemma these days.
I’ve never really passed for straight, or at least not until recently. From the time I was old enough for people to make assumptions about my sexuality, people have thought I was queer. In my early teens, that meant most people assumed I was gay. In my later teens, and then initially at uni, that meant that they still probably thought I was gay, but otherwise genderqueer and a bit confusing. And then when I first transitioned, when I wasn’t particularly confident and didn’t have the money to replace my old wardrobe, I found myself pretty seamlessly going from being read as gay to being read as a dyke.
As a consequence of all of this, I’ve never much cared as being read as queer in the past. It’s just been assumed, and it always felt as if it was being trumped by the trans stuff. I’m probably one of the more out queer people on this campus these days; I’m a past president of the campus queer group, and I tend to wind up being called up whenever there’s something happening here that calls for a queer voice. I’ve had closeted queer people that I’ve never met come up to me and come out to me before so they’ve at least been able to tell someone in this city. I’ve never had a problem with being the one to speak up when it’s needed; it’s been barely a month since I was interviewed on the TV news about the civil unions campaign, and my name’s probably going to be in the paper again in a couple of weeks when I speak at this press conference. So I’m pretty out on that front; I find myself in the slightly odd position these days where many more people I know read me as a dyke than know that I’m trans.
The upshot of this, however, is that I’ve generally only lived in queer, or otherwise really progressive circles, even a bit of a bubble if you will. I’ve never really had to take crap from people specifically for being queer (or not since I was about fourteen), because I tended to get judged based on being trans first. I’m not in that position anymore, though; since I don’t get misgendered accidentally any longer, it’s increasingly only those who need to know that I’m trans who find out about that. And since my presentation has changed some as I’ve become more comfortable with who I am and gotten myself a little bit more money, I’m increasingly being read as a straight girl by people that I’m just meeting. While this is very useful in environments where being out as queer might not go down so well, and a great relief not to even worry about being othered, I also find it very odd in light of all of the above.
There’s something deeper at the heart of all of this, though. I had a fairly conservative and heteronormative youth compared to most of my friends these days; most people I know now find it hard to believe that of all my friends from my mid-teens (who I was very much out to and who were fine with me), I’m the only one who isn’t engaged or married - at 22. I may have been presenting as in some way queer for years, but the expectations learned in those years, for me, have always been pretty ingrained. There’s a certain life that I’ve always expected I’d wind up having, even if delayed a few years because of the delays I had in transitioning. I’d always identified as bisexual because I knew I was attracted to women too, but I think on some level I always thought I’d wind up in a het marriage. Which is where I get to my current dilemma.
I’ve been starting to realise over the last couple of months that I don’t think I’m actually bisexual, and that I’m rather more likely a dyke. I’ve never really had to consider sexuality before, but now I find myself having the sort of internal battle over being a lesbian that most of my friends here had years ago. The prospect of going without that het privilege for good really scares me, and for one thing, it means an end to that particular idealised future. Beyond that, it means that I’m always going to have to worry about how less progressive types are going to react to me, even now that my transness is largely reduced as an issue.
I’m feeling that one directly at the moment. I have a job where all of my coworkers are straight, and where I suspect my being found out to be queer would probably result in my being treated differently, especially by the older women, meaning that I’m very much not out, and with no plans to become so. I’m not used to having something to lose by being outed as queer - but after a coworker saw me at a gay club on Thursday, and I’m assuming saw me kissing another girl, I find myself pretty worried that it’s going to get back to the girls in my department. It’s a situation I’m not used to being in, and a fear that I’m not used to having. There’s something else, too: the prospect of coming out specifically as a dyke feeds into my internalised transphobia, for being a lesbian is a bit of a cliche for transwomen, and I hate finding myself fulfilling those stereotypes with a bitter passion.
So I’m in a bit of a strange situation, and it’s all the more difficult for being unable to coherently explain it to most people. I’ve been effectively out as in some way queer my entire life, but it was either at high school, where I was so marginalised anyway that I really didn’t give a damn, or it was in the comfortable bubble of the queer community. Now that I’m stepping outside that, and finding comfort as being read as normative for the first time in my life, the prospect of actually being a dyke, as opposed to bisexual, and of being outed outside that comfortable bubble, appears as pretty fucking terrifying - and it’s a fear that I never really saw coming.
Apr 26th, 2008 by Rebecca
Sometimes, you have experiences which virtually hit you over your head with your own privilege.
I misgendered another trans woman at work yesterday, and I came within a couple of seconds of putting her in a very embarrassing position because of my own assumptions.
To explain what happened without actually explaining what my job is, a large part of my day job involves taking calls from people. A person rings up with a deep and masculine voice and a female name. I happen to read this as “my god, this guy has an unfortunate name”. I put said person’s details into the system, and just before I was about to put them through, double-check everything, as I’m supposed to - at which point she corrects me about her gender. And at that point, the penny dropped, and I realised to my horror that I’d misgendered another trans woman.
Had she not had the chance to correct my screwup before I put her details through, it’s pretty safe to say that I’d have put her in a very awkward situation. I have no idea how I didn’t twig earlier, and I’m embarrassed to say the least. This woman didn’t know that the person screwing up on the other end of the line was also trans, but if she can’t even expect another transperson to not make assumptions about her voice, what must she from people who are actually ignorant or even hostile towards transfolk?
I’ve posted before about how lucky I’ve been with my voice. I’ve been lucky enough to have a voice that will never result in me being misgendered. I will never be harassed, lose or job, or be placed in an damned awkward situation such as nearly happened yesterday because of my voice. Hell, I work in a job that requires me to spend much of the day on the phone, and I’ve never had an issue. In my life, it’s easy to fall into the assumption that I’m the only trans woman in the village, and to forget how for so many of my sisters it will never be that easy. And then sometimes, like yesterday, I’ll have an experience which hits me over the head with just much privilege I really do have in that regard.
Apr 20th, 2008 by Rebecca
I’ve been seriously conflicted this year about the notion of community with other transpeople. I like having people around who can really understand what I’ve gone through, and there’s so many conversations which it’s just very hard to have with even the most understanding cispeople. But at the same time, there’s something that’s been troubling me all the same.
I was sitting around unemployed over the summer, and I took to spending some time in a trans chatroom. Having lost most of my ties to the trans community when I’d kinda run off the rails a couple years previously, when Monash was jerking me around, I really relished the chance to get to know a few other young trans girls - and run into some that I’d known years before (it really is a small world when you’re trans). I found similarly with some of the great trans voices out there; reading the work of people like little light, Lisa Harney, Queen Emily, and in print, Julia Serano, really helped me get over some of my lingering issues. It’s really reaffirming, particularly when you’re at a bit of a difficult point, to be reminded that there’s plenty of others like you out there, and that some of them at least are really pretty cool.
The role of transpeople in my life then changed rather dramatically when, at the first meeting for the civil unions campaign in January, I randomly ran into Ryan, then an old friend who I hadn’t seen in two and a bit years. Except, well, he hadn’t been going by Ryan then, and - at least to him - I hadn’t been going by Rebecca either. The mutual “That’s…I’m sure that’s…but…no…it can’t be…but…looks so familiar…gah I’m so confused!” was very amusing. We’ve been hanging out regularly ever since, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had transpeople around all the time in the flesh. There is really is so many experiences that just can’t quite be gotten be cisfolk, and a great deal of humor in the ways in which we experience gender. Since then, I’ve met a couple of other transfolk here with whom the experience is similar, and it’s really given me an appreciation for the value of having other transfolk around, and not just making a break with the community now that it’s possible.
Not long after, though, I had an experience which unnerved me. A couple of us had been talking about getting some sort of trans political group going here, and so I went along to our local trans support group to meet a few others in the local community. And, dear god. It was if those fifteen or so people (generally trans-identified) had walked out of the pages of The Transsexual Empire. They were profoundly creepy. They were all so ridiculously overblown (wigs/tons of makeup/minidresses/etc.) that I later discovered that, having come along in jeans and a political t-shirt, they’d assumed that I was a ciswoman and wondered why I was there. Worst of all, they were really quite misogynist. When I heard one of them say actually something to the extent of “well, I’m glad I haven’t fully transitioned, because I’m not weak like those ciswomen”, my jaw nearly hit the floor. It was just like - where the fuck did that come from? That’s not supposed to be something one hears outside of Heart’s or Janice Raymond’s propaganda.
It’s far from the first time I’ve had these experiences in the trans community. I had an experience at Monash one day that was straight out of this Venus Envy strip. We get these people coming into this chatroom I’ve been frequenting too; the middle-aged transwoman who brings everything back to sex jokes like a thirteen-year old boy and is never short of a seriously creepy personal anecdote, another middle-aged transwoman who when one starts talking about doing trans activism starts on this batshit rant about “special rights” and quoting the UN Declaration of Human Rights at me, to use a couple of examples.
It’s not as if I don’t understand why these people are the way they are. We are a community of people who, in general, have been through a hell of a lot in our lives, having to fight against so much bloody ignorance to get where we are. Trauma is something that basically comes with the territory, and that’s going to affect how people come out of it at the end. But at the same time, knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. I know there’s quite a few young transwomen here, but they’ve all run screaming from that local group, making them essentially impossible to find unless they’re also queer. These people, when it comes down to it, are toxic; they may be justified in being so, but it doesn’t make it any easier to try and build up a stable local community, whether for activist or social reasons.
I don’t really know what the solution is. I’d love to see a stronger trans community here. I’d really like to see the Australian trans community, and especially the local one, becoming involved in events like the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Yet at the same time, I’m really fed up with dealing with noxious people: how does one actually start to get these sort of things organised when the people that are visible in the community are so flagrantly creepy that they send anyone who’s remotely sane running screaming? I’m not talking about merely people being different, for the last thing I’m about is throwing people under the bus - I’m talking about those who are so batshit creepy that they scare rational people off.
On a personal level, I find that this is starting to make me ponder the involvement I want to have with the trans community in the future. In one sense, I really do want to do more in the way of activism; it’s something which I’ve actually got skills I can use, and I’m uncomfortable with disappearing into the woodwork like so many of my sisters - because I recognise that that’s an inherently privileged thing to be doing, and effectively leaves those who can’t avoid being misgendered, and thus can’t woodwork, to stand alone. At the same time, I’m reaching that point where I’m getting weary of being othered, and where having to hang around toxic people doesn’t necessarily do wonders for my own sanity. I don’t know what the answer is. I love having decent trans friends around, and I love the notion of a strong trans community, at least in theory. Sometimes that seems like an insurmountable prospect though, and thus I wind up here, stuck.
Apr 20th, 2008 by Rebecca
So I discovered last week that I’m clearly starting to make it in the Australian blogosphere: I’d earned my first hatchet job from a real, live Right Wing Death Beast. I was going to just let this one slide, but after he made a complete arse of himself at Ryan’s, I realised just who it was: none other than saint, from the Missing Link collective. I then recalled his racist droppings over at Helen’s place a couple weeks back, and figured that I really couldn’t resist biting.
Let us start with the title of his glorious post, “The Pussification of Oz.” Because what could possibly be worst than being…like women? Gah, the almighty horror of it all! God forbid he be associated with the horror of the feminine…methinks this man has issues.
Such excellent stuff indeed. I wondered if Bec had reached puberty. No, she is 22…
For someone who thinks rambling on about the “homosexualist cause” is what passes for intelligent discourse around these parts, he’s got quite the gall to whinge about my occasional pissy rant…
…and is about to undertake some coffee-snorting research:
Alas, we are not blessed with an elucidation of why writing about power dynamics in the feminist and queer movements is such a shocking topic that it would require him to snort his coffee. It would seem that he’s upset that all we women, queers and trannies just can’t accept our subservience and leave it at that. How very comical of us.
Screwed is an understatement for Bec, if you are talking screwed up. She’s got issues. Trans issues. Needless to say, a perusal of her blog tells you she is not the cheerful one of Kieran’s two friends.
Oh, the poor dear - I’m just a little trans girl, of course my opinions shouldn’t be taken seriously, god forbid he might find them threatening. …and he thinks I’m *gasp* mean! Oh, the horror of it all! I’ll certainly have to repent now.
I, however, am sure that I am not safe from being called a cissexist sometime soon.
My god, he’s a mindreader! The man’s a genius!
So Aspinall, one of the key proponents for the pussification of the Anglican church in Australia, has no objection. Quelle surprise.
Because, I mean, how could the church possibly survive if it wasn’t manly? God forbid the church be associated with femininity, oh no. Because how would dear saint here know how to behave? He even calls Aspinall “girlie man” for extra Manly points.
I am sure that he wouldn’t object to new sex education modules for our earnest teenagers with their snot-nosed boyfriends either. How about: “Preparing for anal sex: enema or no?”
Sheesh, anxiety much? If he’s not planning on trying anal sex, why is he getting so worked up about hearing about it? And teenage boys these days are “snot-nosed”? Oh, the poor dears - to be insufficiently Manly for dear old Saint over there…how can they possibly live with themselves?
Not only that, I am sure Tim, Kirby, Aspinall and friends, want to make cult membership mandatory for everyone.
For someone who’s so insistent about his masculinity and his heterosexuality, Saint here seems to be awfully afraid of being converted to The Gay. Really, if he wasn’t worried about trying it, what would compel him to be so very threatened?
And to boot, he calls the National Union of Students Queer Department the “lavender mafia”. Oh, they’ll be so proud!
In comments, Ryan asks him why it is any of their business who anyone else chooses to sleep with. His response? “Because jesus sez so!” It’s just that, y’know, seeing as I actually am not a great believer in your god and all, I would find this convincing…why? He then calls Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl “the latest bit of tyranny”. I’m sure she’d be so proud.
It’s evidently not just the women, the queers, or the trannies that he has a problem with either - I remembered a bunch of charming racist droppings he’d made on a thread over at Helen’s place a couple of weeks ago. So, Saint here can only stoop to associate himself with white, straight, Christian cissexual people - sounds like a bit of a boring existence to me. Frankly, I’ll pass.
But it’s this charming little tidbit which I’ll finish on:
It’s a prison which has sucked in Ryan and Bec - both barely adults, what a tragedy - and is leading them down a path of self-destruction egged on by their idiot friends like Kieran. You don’t know whether you should commit them all or take them in and protect them from themselves. Or both
I’ll have you know that this path really doesn’t appear to resemble self-destruction, a couple years down the line. How very nice of you to want to “take me in” (now there’s a creepy prospect) or, charmingly, have me committed. And apparently, far from Ryan and I being, y’know, autonomous people, it’s all really Kieran’s fault. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled that the RWDBs hold him in such high esteem.
I’m amused that this man, who appears to have - to steal Belledame’s metaphor - more issues than National Geographic - thinks he’s in a fit state to be lecturing me about how I should be living my life. Why, who could possibly know better than someone who knows admittedly nothing about trans issues, and practically runs screaming from the room at the bare mention of queer issues?
Or, y’know, I could just say “piss off, you pathetic little toad”.
Apr 19th, 2008 by Rebecca
via Nix Williams:
Erinkyan, of Fat Sexy Gender, has been told by the Monash Gender Dysphoria Clinic in Melbourne that they’re going to prevent him from transitioning until he loses weight. This is screwed to begin with - except that he can’t lose that weight because of a disability.
So I go to the doctor. I tell him what the problem is. I tell him that I need to lose weight in order to receive medical treatment. I tell him why I cannot lose weight the “normal” way - I already eat well and I cannot exercise due to that whole disability thing.
He spends 20 minutes telling me that I am disgustingly overweight and it’s all my fault. Oh, and by the way, I’m not really disabled - I’m just fat. And that whole thing where I can’t walk? The cure for that is to walk, apparently!
He is then offered a prescription for an amphetamine-based weight loss drug which he considers to be not safe and harmful to his health, and given a choice between taking it and being denied further treatment.
In short, these people are okay with their poor or lack of treatment leading to my death.
Because I am not human. I do not have human rights.
I am a fat, transgendered, disabled person. No, not a person. I am not a person. I do not have rights like people do. I do not have the right to quality of life, to good and caring medical treatment.
Because I am fat, transgendered, and disabled, all in one neat package. I am not human.
I’ve heard many an outrageous story relating to the conduct of the Monash staff over the years, but this tops them all. Those of us who are from Victoria have no option but to use the Monash clinic, in spite of their utter disrespect of patient autonomy (I don’t think they actually understand the concept), extreme gender-normative and heteronormative biases, long history of unprofessional conduct, and tendency to listen to the Standards of Care only when it suits them. It seems that what you end up with, if those attitudes are allowed to prosper, is conduct such as this - actually threatening someone’s life because you’re ignorant as blazes about disability issues.
Most of those I know who’ve been through the Monash clinic have their horror stories, as I have mine, which I’ll probably make the subject of its own post one day. But I’ve never heard anything like this, and this is an epic new low, even for them. The environment in which these sort of mavericks are allowed to hold transpeople in Victoria hostage to their personal biases needs to change. These people need to be stopped.