Burning Words

This morning’s headline story in the Canberra Times concerned the announcement by ACT Attorney-General Corbell of reforms aimed at encouraging the use of jury trials over a judge sitting alone in the Supreme Court and discouraging venue shopping. It’s not a bad idea, and would help to fix some of the ways in which the criminal justice system is badly flawed. What I found irritating, however, was the example in which the newspaper decided to illustrate the situation. “Tears for a father lost, but no answers”, the headline says.

For Patricia Gaete, the pain never stops. The pain of losing her fiance, Nato David Seuala, who was fatally stabbed in Civic almost two years ago, the pain of knowing that his killer walks free.

The actual story? Early one morning two years ago, a group of large, angry drunken men arrived outside Canberra’s only gay club with the explicit intention of beating them up some queers. I think just about every queer person in this city knew the story long ago, but it’s on the public record now, and the paper did cover the core details. They were denied entry by the bouncer; they then declared that they would stand outside and bash up anyone who came out of the club. The owner then came out. The details of what happened next are not exactly clear; according to the paper, the owner (who’s also brown) made a racist slur in telling them to piss off, and was then attacked by the entire group, and badly beaten himself. In the ensuing melee, he stabbed one of the men twice, who subsequently died. He may have the potential to be quite an ass at times, but I have little doubt that had it not been for his actions that night, god knows what would have happened.

There are many miscarriages of justice under this system, and the paper names a couple more inside. This case, however, was not one of them. The fiancee of the man who died may well be grieving, but in the circumstances of that night, he was always going to plead self-defence, and he was always going to get acquitted on those grounds. The allegation in this morning’s paper that he’d have been likely to be convicted in a jury trial is a joke; this is the most liberal, queer-friendly city in the country, and I doubt any jury here would have much sympathy for the would-be gay basher of a dead man in the circumstances.

This murder trial took up two years of that club owner’s life, and he’s had his day in court and been unsurprisingly acquitted. Yet that didn’t stop the Canberra Times practically defaming him in this morning’s paper because it makes for an easy tear-jerking grab of a story. As I mentioned above, this city is not short of cases where actual miscarriages of justices have occurred; perhaps the paper might have done well to be a little less slack in their reporting. There was no need to defame someone who was never going to be convicted under either system, and who has been through enough from the damned legal system already.

Tags: canberra

We have now lost two of the most brilliant fucking voices of women of colour in the blogosphere in the space of two weeks. First, it was Brownfemipower. Now, it’s Blackamazon.

I can’t say I blame her. She’s had to put up with far more shit than anyone should have to for getting up and expressing one’s opinions; from white feminists scapegoating her every time one of them fucks up and gets called on it, to being stared at like an object and literally run away from at the WAM conference a few weeks ago. She also happens to be one of the most brilliant bloggers I’ve ever read, someone I’ve been hugely influenced by and someone who I greatly admire.

So, to Amanda Marcotte, to Seal Press, to Hugo Schwyzer, and to every fucking ignorant white feminist who had their back, had so much empathy for them as they continually and unapologetically screwed up, but couldn’t see either BA or BFP as, y’know, humans who might warrant empathy too, are you fucking proud of yourselves?

I’m angry and upset beyond words. I want no part of this fucking movement if this is the direction that we’re headed in.

Tags: assholes, feminism, oh fuck, racism

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.

Tags: trans

I’m no fan of Amanda Marcotte’s, and after her behaviour in response to concerns about her appropriation of brown voices, I would have said very little could surprise me in respect to digging herself deeper.

But this is unbelievable.

Each chapter in Marcotte’s new book, “It’s a Jungle Out There”, begins with a blatantly and obviously racist cartoon of a white woman fighting off scary black men attacking her with weapons. Marcotte has a long history of privileged, rotten behaviour towards people of colour (to put it lightly) but this is so explicitly racist that it should leave no one in any doubt. There is simply no excuse for this, either on Marcotte’s part, or that of her publisher, Seal Press, who have had their own jawdropping issues with women of colour of late. This book needs to be pulled from shelves, recalled, and if it must, reprinted. No one who could put out a book with these images should dare have the gall to call themselves feminist.

It’s a relief to see some of those who’ve been defending Amanda in recent weeks over her appropriation of brown voices, such as Jill Filipovic and Hugo Schwyzer, finally calling her out, albeit far too little too late in the case of the latter. It’s really important that the big bloggers, in particular, make it clear that this sort of racist nonsense has no place in the feminist blogsophere; while I’m not holding my breath, I would hope that Jessica Valenti in particular has the spine to join this particular chorus.

It’s time for white people to quit standing in solidarity with Marcotte because being called out for being a blatant racist might hurt her feelings. A number of people, such as Tobes, a blogger who I generally like, have continually suggested on the Feministe threads about this that people shouldn’t get angry at Marcotte, lest she get her back up and feel too stubborn to respond.

I can only imagine how upsetting it would be if my first book was met by such criticism- and by the people who I wanted to love it the most - fellow feminists.

It is a strange expression of privilege to, upon seeing criticism of someone who has screwed up - and in this case, screwed up beyond belief, turn it around onto the feelings of the person for having to put up with all that scary criticism. If you screw up, and you’re called out on that, you apologise, you learn from the experience, and you move on. You don’t get the excuse that your feelings are hurt just because you come from a background of - in this case white - privilege. As has been said numerous times in these threads, there is no opportunity for “safe space” for women of colour with regard to racism, and to insist upon it before a prominent feminist should deign to actually answer criticism that is justified in the strongest degree is a gross expression of privilege. It is ironic that it should be, as Tobes does, followed by “I wish we could all just get along” sentiment, because this sort of thing is only serving to drive more and more feminists - and there’s been a ton of bloggers doing this lately - to shun the feminist label.

Even for the likes of Marcotte and Seal Press, who I think had pretty much established her credentials as two of the most glaring examples of ignorant white privilege in the feminist community around, to actually engage in behaviour this jawdroppingly racist is just…I don’t get how someone can put out a book containing these images and still have the gall to turn around and call themselves a feminist. To that end, if you weren’t boycotting Seal Press after the first fiasco, now would probably be a good time to start (why, oh why, did Whipping Girl have to be released with them?). This is all so beyond disgraceful that I’m almost lost for words.

A few good links on this:

“I Guess It’s a Jungle in Here Too, Huh?” from Holly at Feministe.

“Stop! No, just stop!” from Galling Galla.

Lauredhel at Hoyden About Town.

Maia at Alas, A Blog.

Bastard Logic has contact details for Seal Press if people want to write letters.

Later addition:

Amanda Marcotte has now at least apologised, but it’s pretty unconvincing. For gods sake, she was called out a few months ago for having a cover that featured a white woman being assaulted by a big dark ape, and yet she somehow forgot to notice that the book was littered with imagery as bad. Perhaps if Marcotte had spent a little bit less time convincing herself that the initial criticism was because people were trying to be mean to her, and a little more time doing some self-examination, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Again. Being “excited about your first book” does not give you carte blanche to be a racist asshole of the highest order.

Seal Press also has a far less convincing apology out. It’s not even a real apology - it’s an “I’m Sorry You Were Offended” apology. It seems as if they STILL HAVEN’T LEARNED from the whole fiasco with Blackamazon. Why in the hell should a supposedly feminist press have to put themselves through anti-racist training to avoid putting out a book with imagery so racist that practically every single other person in the entire feminist blogosphere could see it in an instant? They’re a disgrace, and as I said above, if you weren’t boycotting their books already, now would be a good time to start.

Even later addition:

Jill Filipovic has responded, and it’s one of the single best responses I’ve seen from another white feminist in this entire sorry mess. There’s a reason why Jill is a cut above most of the white feminist Big Bloggers out there. Considering that we’ve just lost another brilliant voice from the blogosphere in part as a result, though, I just wish people could stop fucking up to begin with. It’s all well and good to apologise, especially if, as Jill does, it shows that you actually get it, but sometimes the damage is already done.

Tags: amanda marcotte, oh no you didn't, privilege, racism

I just got a call with some interesting news.

Chief Minister Stanhope has just come out swinging in support of the Civil Partnerships Bill, launching a vocal attack on Kevin Rudd during a speech to a lawyers group. It’s been a bit drowned out by the publicity surrounding the torch relay (I imagine on purpose), but there’s some pretty pointed comments in there. In the speech, he evidently urged Rudd quite forcefully to back off from his threats to overturn the bill, attacked him for violating the separation of church and state, and argued that a government that’s willing to go into bat for the citizens of Tibet should at the very least not stand in the way of the civil rights of its own citizens. It sounds as if it was quite the impressive speech, and the first real step forward we’ve seen in months; finally, the ACT government has come out and said something more firm.

This said, I’m still uncertain about the future of the bill. Stanhope left room in that speech for doubt, complaining that Rudd was “thwarting” his attempts to actually introduce civil unions. The Attorney-General is still refusing to give a timetable for the introduction of the bill, despite having been pointedly asked to give one by Greens MLA Deb Foskey in parliament a few weeks ago. And the fact is, they’re running out of time. They’ve got two sittings left before the writs are dropped for the election and the bill currently before parliament goes ta-ta until someone maybe reintroduces it sometime down the line.

If this speech is a sign by the Stanhope government that they’re about to get serious, and start getting ready to send the Civil Partnerships Bill to the floor, I’ll be stoked. I’ve begun to wonder recently if they’re thinking of passing it through in the August session as a (really quite brilliant) electoral stunt, allowing Stanhope to play both the territory rights and progressive cards right on the eve of the election. It’s plausible, I think, and it’s what I’m hoping, anyway, because the alternative - the government effectively putting off the bill indefinitely - does not bode well for either the LGBT community here or our relationship with this government.

Tags: canberra, Civil Partnerships Bill, jon stanhope, queer issues

In light of a few cases I’ve had lately where I’ve been redirecting idiot commenters to the spam filter, I’ve finally gone ahead and written a proper comments policy for this site. I generally take a pretty open stance towards moderation, and I’d rather respond to idiocy rather than block it, but I feel the need to set out a few basic rules.

Tags: this blog

The Australian blogosphere is an odd beast. As a feminist blogger, I often wind up reading more American blogs, and it seems as if on those, even in the mainstream, there is some passion for political change. It may be severely beholden to privilege of various sorts (DailyKos is the obvious example, though there are many others), but it’s seems to be clear most of the time that the people writing actually care about something. It may not necessarily much as result in activism or real-world efforts, but there’s a passion there, a belief in something, a desire to actually change things, to use the online grassroots for something.

I look around at my Australian counterparts, and for the most part, I see something very different. I’ll use for an example today’s edition of Missing Link, the daily all-encompassing Australian political blog carnival, run by Big Blog Club Troppo, as an example. Today, we have analysis and commentary on the torch relay, on Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit, economic policy, and a few other random issues. There’s sometimes some informative and/or interesting stuff there, but it’s peculiarly detached; it comes across as people looking through the news headlines and trying to find something vaguely intelligent to say. It may well be partisan; there’s plenty of Howard/Rudd hatin’ going on, but it’s still at that same level. There is most of the time, it seems, no real sign that anyone has much of a personal stake in any of these issues, or perhaps deeply cares about them behind finding them of intellectual interest.

It follows on from this that the demographics, too, seem to be pretty different. After reading Australian blogs for a few years now, it’s pretty safe to say that the very vast majority of the whole sphere is made up of middle-aged, white, middle or upper class, straight men. We have only a handful of feminist bloggers, and we’re generally a pretty disparate group; I wouldn’t know half of the others existed if I hadn’t been looking pretty thoroughly. More than that, it’s an incredibly white group; I can think of three non-white Australian bloggers off the top of my head, two of whom are I believe are now inactive, and that’s not for lack of looking.

This means that we wind up with nearly an entire blogosphere that is peculiarly privileged. Most of these people can afford to write about mere curiosities; few, it seems, have (maybe have ever had) oppressions that need to be lived under and fought. Politics, thus, is framed as an interest or a sport, but not a way of survival. It’s pretty disappointing in terms of just producing content that is, well, crap (the couple of times I spent filling in for Ken Parish as a Missing Link editor last year were a lesson in just how much complete crap is out there), but it also means that we’re starkly devoid of local content that means much. As Firefly mentioned on the very first comment on this blog back in January, it means that we wind up spending much of our time writing and commenting on issues focused on the other side of the Pacific, rather than those closer to home. It struck me during the recent departure of Brownfemipower of the blogosphere that thanks to the likes of her I now know as much if not more about abuses under US immigration policy than I do about ongoing issues surrounding our own system, simply because those same voices and means of getting the information out there simply do not exist in the Australian sphere.

Having observed the broader (albeit highly North American-dominated) feminist blogosphere for a couple of years now, I’m really coming to wish that feminist/queer bloggers could get more organised here. We do have quite a few great bloggers here, but we rarely pick up on each other’s issues or posts (and I’m as guilty of this as anyone else), so it’s rare that we’re able generate much discussion, let alone effective action, on a local level. I find it a bit strange that, of all of us here, it’s the trans bloggers who seem to be networking most effectively, but I do wish the rest of us could get it together. I’ve wondered for a while if some sort of local feminist blog carnival/group blog/something else might get some sort of collaboration off the ground. Any takers, maybe?

Later edit: I did not want to make this post about them, per se, but I couldn’t help but noticing that Missing Link and Club Troppo decided to respond to this post by labelling the race, relative age and gender of most of the people listed in today’s edition (am I supposed to proud that you managed to find four women in what was quite a large collection?). How very…naff of them. Considering that they introduced the Carnival of Radical Feminism as “Stuck for the material you need to construct a straw feminist? You might find what you’re looking for at the latest…” in Friday’s edition, I’m starting to see a bit of a pattern here.

Tags: australia, blogs, feminism, privilege

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.

Tags: trans

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”.

Tags: racism, RWDBs, taking the piss, trans

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.

Tags: disability, fatphobia, monash clinic, trans