60 GSCENE
SAM TRANS MAN Dr Samuel Hall talks about institutionalised transphobia in medicine and why there is still hope yet! ) There are some monthly themes that fill me with ideas for my column and others that I find a little harder. More taxing in intellectual terms, usually because it’s a subject or area that I’m not so familiar with. This month is one of those. Bears. A wonderful part of the LGBT community, with a set of values that I find admirable. In the words of a friend and colleague, who himself is very much a Bear, “the scene emphasises camaraderie and relationships other than sexual ones”, and this I find heartwarming.
to deliver and ridiculing those who are involved. It has always been the case; I remember as a young medical student the fascinated disdain with which senior colleagues would refer to such-and-such a surgeon who did ‘sex-change’ operations at Charing Cross Hospital. I honestly don’t think attitudes have changed much in the intervening 25 years; although there has been progress at an organisational level, there are still a lot of doctors out there who are openly transphobic. I know. I’ve met them.
Such is my ignorance that it was only in Barcelona on honeymoon last month, that I realised when visiting Sitges that Bear Week(end)s are an international phenomenon and not just confined to Brighton! I do know that the local bear community is heavily involved in fundraising and supporting the wider LGBT community and that I like the people I have met, and that perhaps as my transition fades into history I will find more and more in common with this hairy branch of gaydom.
I’m much more optimistic about younger medics who have grown-up in the era of gay emancipation, and are somehow infinitely less judgmental than their senior peers, but there’s still a long way to go. Some brave doctors have crossed over to the other side, and find themselves on the receiving end of questions that aren’t appropriate, demands that are unreasonable, and nosiness that is frankly rude. This is coming from ever wider circles of interested parties.
The Bear colleague is an exceptionally courageous one in my book, a psychiatrist who works at the world famous Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic in London. He’s one of a small number of clinicians who has found his way into the rapidly developing field of gender medicine - a speciality which doesn’t actually exist in its own right yet, but which almost certainly will in the near future. I don't know his back story, but I do know that it takes a special kind of physician (or surgeon) to get involved with this area of work. Such is the level of ignorance and prejudice in the profession that those who choose to work in this field are sadly subject to transphobia by association, and it’s often very subtle. I see transphobia in medicine as institutional, concerning funding and resources, commitment
Transgender ‘politics’ is hot stuff right now, TV shows, documentaries, news items and surveys abound, local and national government are jumping on the bandwagon, and anyone who works in the field, whether or not they are trans-identified themselves, is potential cannon fodder. We all need to be careful who we’re talking to and what their motives are for quizzing us in the first place. The dirt will lift to the surface. Thats what happens when you start ‘talking’. It’s all good though. I’ve watched psychiatryBear’s progress on social media for some time and I can safely say that here we have an impressive and forthright advocate for trans people who isn't afraid to put his neck on the line, calling out transphobia whenever he encounters it. Big shout out to Dr Stuart Lorimer. Keep up the fight laddie!
As usual I’ve managed to twist the conversation, or monologue, back to my very own soapbox. I’ll try to finish with Bears... Another lovely one came to our rescue recently. After a whirlwind wedding in April, my beautiful wife and I escaped on honeymoon, leaving our three boys in the tender loving care of a Bear who confessed his dislike of children but his yearning to be in charge of ours for a week! I think he saw it as a personal challenge, and he really lived up to it.
DORSET GARDENS METHODIST CHURCH
FOR NON-BINARY TRANS PEOPLE
at
is a safe and confidential space to explore issues around gender identity. Facilitated peer support is an important element, as well as providing access to low-cost psychotherapy and speech therapy.
Here in the UK, my surgical colleagues are becoming aware of the need to institute ‘succession management’, ensuring that they are recruiting and training colleagues to take up the slack as they approach retirement, and of course to help alleviate the waiting lists that are beginning to rise to an unmanageable level. The physicians, mainly psychiatrists for historical reasons, who are involved in gender medicine, know that their waiting lists are rising exponentially and that new ways of recruitment and working in this field are inevitable and utterly essential. Timely treatment in the right hands is often lifesaving.
TUESDAY 2.30–5.30PM
meets every
CLARE PROJECT WEEKLY DROP-IN
Since it’s not a speciality that is recognised in medical training, there’s no pathway for clinicians to train in transgender medicine, no formal teaching of students or GPs, and no recognition of the need to recruit and replace those who retire from practice. In New Zealand the only surgeon who was working in this field has recently retired without a successor, leaving hundreds of desperate transwomen on the waiting list for an operation that is unlikely to become available to them any time soon. Unless, of course, they can afford to leave New Zealand and pay for surgery elsewhere.
WEEKLY MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING SUPPORT GROUP
CLARE PROJECT Based in central Brighton, the
Because the NHS has only recently (2009) recognised the right for trans people to have their treatment, gender identity clinics are now all over the country and access to care is much better than it was in the past; but the numbers seeking treatment in the past three to four years has escalated rapidly, resulting in demand far outstripping supply. Gender clinics remain the poor cousin of the NHS, with money flowing via Mental Health Services, somehow perpetuating the myth that gender dysphoria is a psychiatric illness.
Dorset Gardens (off St James Street) Brighton BN2 1RL Except 1st Tues when there’s an optional meal out preceded by the drop-in from 5–7.30PM
Please see website for further details
www.clareproject.org.uk f Clare Project clareprojectinfo@gmail.com