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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Article by Andrea James
Political progress in the mainstream trans community has occasional distracting flare-ups involving bizarre fringe groups. They often try to criticize the community or assert their authenticity as True Transsexuals™ while remaining anonymous. When their veil of anonymity is lifted, they are invariably shown to have been brainwashed in some manner. It’s always due to belief in some cult-like ideology about how they are different from or better than other trans people. I have also discussed wannabe movements previously: wannabe disabled, wannabe intersex, wannabe autistic, wannabe transsexual, etc. After a lull, the fringe groups have recently become active again.
I have just published a new piece on major participants from two especially bizarre fringe movements: the “Harry Benjamin syndrome” movement and the transkids.us hoax.
PurpleGirl, aka Courtney Michelle Holder, who self-identifies as black and having “Harry Benjamin Syndrome.”
Cloudy, aka Sillyolme, aka Candice Brown Elliott, who self-identifies as a “homosexual transsexual.”
Both have been causing a lot of problems online under assumed names. Now that the transkids.us hoax site has gone back online after being gone for about a year, I felt it was time to publish this information and analysis.
More than ever, we need to ignore the divisiveness caused by these pitiable anonymous critics. They lack the courage of their convictions and cause a lot of long-term damage and distraction. If anyone refuses to be open and honest about their identities, don’t waste your time listening to them and responding to them, whether you agree with them or not. They will invariably turn out to be exaggerating or lying when making fallacious arguments from authority based on their self-described transitions.
Don’t believe those who are too cowardly to identify themselves. They are probably giving you misinformation or just getting off on causing trouble, as we have seen time and time again.
Among future people I’ll profile: a bizarre scientist wannabe who is African-American (for real, not a race wannabe like PurpleGirl), as well as a “furry” (an interspecies wannabe) also involved in the “transkids” hoax. The first one did time for a serious crime. Stay tuned for more on delusional kooks and high weirdness from the fringes of the trans movement.
Full article:
Transgender fringe flare-ups: “PurpleGirl” and “Cloudy”/”Sillyolme”
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/transkids/cloudy-purplegirl.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Posted by Andrea James on 03/04 at 01:15 PM
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Paul McHugh is a busy guy.
- In 1979 he shut down the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins.
- In 2007 he was ordered by Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison to stop making public statements about physician George Tiller’s work. McHugh disapproved of Tiller’s work providing abortion services. Tiller was later murdered by a fanatic who was influenced by public statements made about Tiller.
- He promotes the concept of “autogynephilia,” a sex-fueled mental illness created by Ray Blanchard.
- He defends Catholic priests against sex abuse charges.
- Now he’s fighting to stop gay marriage.
Katrina Rose points us to Filing # 379 in Perry et al v. Schwarzenegger et al.:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv02292/215270/379/
McHugh’s reason for opposing gay marriage cites the work of J. Michael Bailey.
McHugh lays out his views on homosexuality in this pithy quotation:
It really is amazing ... I mean, 50 years ago [homosexual behavior] was a crime, and now we’re talking about [same-sex marriage]. Anyone who wants to stick with the tradition is accused of being a biblical literalist or a homophobic racist, because, in part, of the more fundamental change in our society towards permissiveness, that is, easy divorce, cohabitation and concubinage, abortion, pornography ... and euthanasia. The issue of the homosexual is not separate ... it’s all part and parcel of the pandemonium that the permissive movement has brought. We have just licensed all kinds of behavior.”
Source: Virtue Online
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11994
Further reading:
Paul McHugh on transsexualism
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/paul-mchugh.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Posted by Andrea James on 02/24 at 04:26 PM
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a landmark federal lawsuit on behalf of a gender non-conforming middle school student who faced a two-year ordeal of harassment and abuse because of his gender expression. NCTE notes:
In 2007 through 2009, Jacob L. of Mohawk, NY, endured an escalating pattern of verbal and physical abuse and threats throughout his seventh and eighth grade years. By the end of this time, Jacob was so fearful of his abusers that he stopped attending school. Shockingly, school officials had long been aware of the abuse but failed to intervene, not even following their own internal policies. Jacob was essentially denied an education by the school’s continual disregard for his safety, and ultimately transferred to another district. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Jacob filed suit last summer, alleging that the District violated his rights under the Constitution and the federal Title IX statute, which prohibits gender discrimination in education.
On January 14, the Justice Department filed suit against the District on the behalf of the United States, seeking an injunction to force the district to take concrete and ongoing steps to prevent any other student from experiencing an ordeal like Jacob’s. The government’s suit recognizes and advances the nation’s strong interest in prevention discrimination based on gender stereotyping. According to recent surveys by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), nearly 90% of transgender middle and high school students have expressed have experienced harassment because of their gender expression, and two-thirds reported that they felt unsafe at school. These and numerous other surveys have shown that this victimization has harmful impacts on educational outcomes.
Further reading:
Full NCTE press release
TransYouth Family Allies
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Monday, January 18, 2010
These two essays were submitted by a reader and offer a cautionary tale about Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), one of the last of the antiquated “gender clinics” and one of the most regressive facilities in the world. They are also home to the largest reparative therapy clinic for gender-variant children.
“C.Y.A.”
by Tristan, May 22, 2009.
I always knew that most people have a limited ability to stick themselves out for others. The good Samaritans out there are rare, which is why there’s a term for them in the first place. This rarity is a fact of life, one that generally barely registers on my radar of unfair.
But let’s say that you have a terribly injured shoulder. Your GP, who happens to know nothing about shoulder surgery, looks into surgeons for it, and tracks one down with a 1.5-year waiting list. He tells you that he thinks this one has good credentials, so you patiently start the waiting process, dealing with the excruciating pain.
A year later, you hear from several friends who have had this shoulder surgery that they all went to a surgeon you’ve never heard of. They’re extremely happy with the care they got - and not only that, but they warn you against the surgeon your doctor found you. You look into this unknown surgeon a bit, and really like the idea of going to him instead. Best yet, his waiting list is only about six months - and while it won’t actually reduce the amount of time you’ll be waiting, you’re pretty sure that the original surgeon will end up making you wait an extra month or two - at least.
So you go to your GP, hopeful, thinking that you’ve just found him some useful information. Instead, he declares that because he’s never heard of this surgeon, and because he’s working in a ‘family health team’, and because his waiting list is shorter, his credentials are probably terrible. You try telling him that this surgeon is highly respected by quite a number of people and is working in a well-known hospital in a different city, but your GP has closed his ears. He tells you that if /you/ get the surgeon to /convince/ him that he has good credentials, he /might/, maybe, if he’s feeling generous, change his mind. However, he goes on and on about how he has no idea who this new surgeon is, how well-known and well-respected the first surgeon is, how the first surgeon is /the/ person to go to, and that even though from your, the patient’s, perspective, a shorter waiting time is good, it probably means you’ll get worse care. He says that he firmly believes that he’s already recommended you to the best surgeon in his professional opinion, implies that you’ve just wasted ten minutes of his workday by bringing up the second surgeon, and nudges you out the door.
According to your GP, the different standards of care (leading to the shorter waiting list) that the surgeon you found uses are almost certainly worse, despite you desperately telling him that the first surgeon’s standards were developed in the early 70’s, long before masses of new medical knowledge about shoulder surgery was found. He indirectly likens you to a prescription-drug abuser he knows, and ignores your words.
You realize that your GP is doing one big C.Y.A. He’s covering his medical license’s ass with the credentials of the first surgeon, and he’s afraid to stick so much as the tip of his nose out for you. Even though the second surgeon is at least as qualified as the one he found, he seems to believe that it would be medically irresponsible of him to recommend you to your preference.
So replace ‘shoulder surgery’ with ‘hormone treatments’ and you have my situation with my GP, the Gender Identity Clinic at CAMH (surgeon #1), and the Sherbourne Health Centre (surgeon #2).
Gender dysphoria is a state of being that wears at you daily. To be honest, I haven’t heard of any elderly trans people except those who have successfully transitioned, and that’s mostly due to the suicide rate. The GIC, like a palliative care centre or a nursing home, seems to expect its waiting list to shrink largely due to deaths. Its protocols were developed back when the medical profession’s take on transgendered people was to make it so fuckin’ hard for us to qualify for medical treatment that 99% of us would give up. There’s another system that worked like that - putting people under such great stress that they’ll agree with anything you say, eventually, or die - it was called the INQUISITION.
I’m doing my best not to automatically assume that Sherbourne is better just because it’s different, but its standards of care make so much more SENSE. They don’t just stick you on a waiting list and only go by the state of your official paperwork - since the only reason I’ve been having to wait until November (with the GIC) is that that’s when the first qualifying paperwork I have that has ‘Tristan’ on it is from. The GIC sees you once to evaluate you, ignores you for six months, calls you in again, and gods know what they do after that. All they care about is paper proof, not your state of being, not your level of need, nothing. Most likely, the reason only 20% or so of GIC patients go through with medical transition is that 75% of people get sick and tired and utterly disgusted with the soulless treatment they’re given.
Sherbourne, instead, has you get at least five visits with one or more psychologists/counsellors/whoever /both you/ and they determine you should be seeing. These five visits are over the course of three months. After that, if you’ve all worked out that getting hormones would be the best way to improve your quality of life, they prescribe them. Mind you, this is just what I’ve heard from people and from their website, but I see no reason to disbelieve that.
Sherbourne has a three-month waiting list, after which I’d have three more months of visits before I could get my T. They also have respect for their clients as part of their policy. Going to Sherbourne would not reduce my waiting time, but at this point, the concept of going back to the GIC makes me feel ill. (See the other part of why, below.)
As a side comment, I got the results of my January evaluation during that same doctor’s appointment. So:
1) Both the psychiatrist and the psychologist referred to me as ‘she’ throughout their reports
2) I apparently presented in the female role during my visit, despite wearing 100% male clothes
3) My haircut was apparently a ‘longer male style that could just as easily be taken as androgynous’ - it was no longer than my dad’s when it’s gotten a little grown out
4) The psychologist got the false impression that I have a brief history of dating males - the closest I’ve ever gotten to dating any guy is giving them hugs
5) The psychiatrist not only was extremely condescending during the 20 minutes he spent with me, but spent 85% of that time asking explicit questions about my sexual habits, 10% telling me that post-secondary education is more important than transitioning, 2% figuring out whether I have an anxiety disorder, and 3% cracking stupid jokes. He first perceived me as a 14-year-old boy - which somehow, rather than making him think that I pass successfully, made him declare that I’m not masculinized. I can’t help that I’m shortand don’t have facial hair, sorry
6) The psychiatrist also ABSOLUTELY forgot/misinterpreted/ignored a significant part of what I explicitly /told/ him about my sexual habits, and what he said in his report has disgusted, distressed, and pissed off both my girlfriend and me. Not to bother anyone with this comment, but we have a valid and functional romantic life, yet he made it sound either one-sided and dysfunctional, or completely non-existent
7) Apparently my intelligence is ‘average’ - I got an 800/800 SAT critical reading score and was within the top percentile of the GED test
8) There has to be a better way to phrase that I like girls than ‘erotic attraction to females’ - as if it’s some type of fetish
It’s not the depersonalization aspect that bothers me, so much as the feeling that somehow, showing them who I really am was doing something wrong. Was I supposed to show up wearing a grubby FUCK YOU BITCHES t-shirt, holey pants hanging around my knees, a baseball cap on backwards, and a buzzcut? Am I supposed to be a one-dimensional stereotype? I’d thought, all these months, that I’d done really really well during the assessment. It’s not supposed to be an interview, it’s supposed to be a psychological determination of whether I’m really transgendered or not - and I know I am.
If the GIC is the best place to go in all of Canada, gods help us all.
“The Lockbox; Or, Personal Notes on Medical Privacy, Honour, and Statistical Proof.”
by Tristan, December 29, 2009
Thought has prompted me into a further note.
It has been almost a year since my intake visit to the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic. If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have even bothered - but hindsight is 20/20.
I have been on testosterone since the beginning of November, thanks to my partner, friends, Sherbourne, and a wonderful, open-minded doctor. My life has improved immensely because of it. T does not cure sickness, it definitely does not bring wealth, nor happiness on its own - but I feel so much less stress now. It’s been ages since I’ve hated what I see in the mirror, because I know it doesn’t control me any more. Sometimes I forget what all the bother about getting chest surgery ASAP is - then I remember that all my documents still say the wrong gender. Ah well. It doesn’t pain me the way it used to; now it’s more like a challenge I confidently know I can beat.
I have moved so far beyond the GIC’s beliefs that I sometimes lose sight of how dependent I once was on it for hope. Scores, hundreds, thousands of people still have to cling to its systems, though, and I should never forget that. I am lucky. If you are one of those people - I wish you luck. Never lose sight of who you truly are.
CAMH is as much a psychology research centre as it is a place of healing. The GIC conducts at least as much research as the rest of the facility. However, while the rest of CAMH is generally helpful to the people who come for aid, the GIC section of it - really quite small, actually - uses every scrap of info it collects to support its own theories.
Anyone who receives an application from the GIC to fill out should look at the questions being asked. I remember there were questions that made sense - such as how long I had been living in my chosen gender - but there were other questions that didn’t, like whether there was anything unusual about my genitalia. There were implications that intersex people would not be considered for medical transition, and that one needed to be transgendered ‘enough’. But never mind that.
They don’t tell you this, but every answer you give them is saved and stored for use. They will use it to make statistics for anything they like. If they want to compare the cutting rates in trans men ages 18-25 versus ages 25-40, they will. If they want to track transwomen’s masturbation frequencies, they’ll do that too. If they want to connect transgenderism with fetishes, promiscuity, childhood abuse, number of close friends, or activism, they’ll figure out a way to use their data to say what they want to hear.
What bothers me is that CAMH claims that at least 80% of the people who come to them “do not go through with transition”. This seems very strange to me, because I’ve heard that transitioned trans people have the highest satisfaction rate of any ‘mental disorder’ - about 85%. Why are these numbers practically the reverse of each other?
I have a hypothesis. It’s only a thought; I have no proof to back it up, but in my cynicism it makes sense.
Every time a transgendered person finds somewhere else to go - whether it be a private psychologist, a sympathetic family doctor, or street hormones - the GIC marks them down as not having gone through with transition. If I’m right, I too, as I’m starting to need to shave, am apparently not going through with my transition.
Does this make sense?
If I knew then what I know now, and if I had yet decided to visit CAMH anyway, I would refuse to volunteer any information until I could get a legal promise: not to use my information in any fashion, or at least without extremely specific notification in advance of any study they wished to use it in. I poured out quite a lot of my heart and soul to the GIC, and it disgusts me to think that they might be using details of my sex life to ‘prove’ things that may not be true, things that could be harmful to all trans people.
What still bothers me very much, as well, are the misinterpretations and outright lies after my intake appointment. I go into more detail about this in my other note: The psychiatrist I saw took my answers about my sex life - hesitantly given and awkwardly phrased as I tried in vain to fit myself into traditional concepts of ‘virginity’ and what counts as ‘real’ sex - and then made his report to include things I never said. He made my partner’s ‘problems’ (his word, not mine), which he should have some human sympathy about and which make her less than enamoured with oral sex (which plenty of people are anyway), sound like they were making our relationship one-sided and dysfunctional. Even if the questions we’re asked during these intakes had any true relevance to our gender identity, the way our answers can be warped to make us and our relationships sound invalid and dirty is terrible. Who knows what he would have done with it if I’d also told him my girlfriend has cerebral palsy; after all, a prominent psychologist of the GIC holds to the belief that sexual relations between people of different appearances (white/black/Asian/etc., disabled/non-disabled, and suchlike) are fetish-based… And every time we go for an intake and are honest about ourselves, they’ll be combing through our responses to find anything else to make us sound paraphilic.
Several months ago was when my partner and I first connected this all together. I tracked down the phone number for Susanne Hoyte, who seemed to handle the paperwork, and asked her if I could get my records deleted. I didn’t (and still don’t) want the GIC to even know I was there. I don’t want them to use my visit as a funding excuse. Unfortunately this is where my memory gets slightly hazy, since I got very confused and frustrated very quickly. She redirected me to the front desk, I believe, which then redirected me to the records (?) department. I was told about something called the “Lockbox”, which sounded a bit mythical. I never got a satisfactory description of what it did. The best I could gather was that they would take part - not all - of the information they had about me and file it somewhere that would require high-level authorization or police involvement to access. The process of getting my information lockboxed away involved going to the CAMH building itself to sign some forms; there might have been a fax option, but by then I was so confused that I just gave up. The experience, as with everything to do with the GIC, left a bad taste in my mouth, and I haven’t tried again. Their researchers have had nearly a year at my file already, and they’ve probably already picked it clean.
Does this lockbox system sound entirely useful to you? It doesn’t to me. If anyone knows how the Lockbox works and can explain it to me in non-legal English, I would appreciate the information deeply. Would going through the locking-away process actually do any good, in terms of what I want - no use of my info for studies, research, or statistics? If not, is there any other way? If there isn’t, shouldn’t there be? At a business, a disgruntled customer can demand a great deal, and I believe a disgruntled patient deserves just as many rights.
I ask two things. If you’ve already been to the GIC and despise it as I do, make the call that I did - call the front desk and ask if you can block off your files. You might get further than I did - I’m certainly no expert at making my needs known. Once you’ve tried, let me, or as many people as possible know about what you found out. Information and communication are absolute requirements for any group to assert its rights.
If you haven’t been to CAMH yet, but you have an appointment: First off, good luck. Beyond that: without sabotaging your own care, do what you can to protect your privacy. Respect yourself, and seriously think about this: does the GIC have you enough over a barrel to demand your utter compliance, even with procedures that go against your own good judgement? Psychologists and psychiatrists, while highly trained professionals, are not omniscient gods. Ultimately, you know more about the situation of being transgendered than even the best cisgendered doctor ever will. The GIC has the funding, power and information you need, but don’t sacrifice your self-respect to get them. I almost did, and I regret the time I wasted. This isn’t to say that you won’t get where you need to with the GIC - plenty of people do - but just please, be on your guard.
Peace out.
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Kim Tran notes:
The LGBTQ Youth Space is a safe-space drop-in center for LGBTQQIPAA youth ages 13-25 that also offer FREE counseling for those 16-25. We are located in San Jose, CA (938 the Alameda San Jose CA 95126) and serve all of Santa Clara County. Our services include:
* Free food, internet access and a safe place to go
* Free, confidential, no cost counseling in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and American Sign Language
* Letters of recommendation for SRS
* Support groups for trans youth and adults
* Free medication through a county pharmacy
Visit our website“>http://www.youth.defrank.org"> http://www.youth.defrank.org
See also:
http://www.tsroadmap.com/early/earlyindex.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
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