Trans Experiences - A Research Report for Trans Communities and Their Allies

Trans Experiences - A Research Report for Trans Communities and Their Allies

Eva C. Moser

Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Eva C. Moser

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V2-2.4[06]E@19071

ISBN-13: 978-1-304-16089-8

2 Yin/Yang Fractal cover-design copyright © 2013 by Eva C. Moser

This publication is also available in print as ISBN-13: 978-1-300-27860-3 (lulu-id: 13269293)

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Contents

Foreword

A Personal Retrospective

Acknowledgments

1 Prologue

1.1 A Question Yet To Be Answered

1.1.1 The Survey

1.1.2 Participants

1.2 Where Is The Author

1.2.1 Being Different

1.2.2 Researching My Own Communities

2 How We Got To Where We Are

2.1 Positions

2.1.1 In- And Exclusion, Terms And Definitions

2.1.2 A Fundamental Problem

2.2 From History To Status Quo

2.2.1 Once Upon A Time

2.2.2 Gender In The Service Of Heteronormativity

2.3 The Standards of Care

2.3.1 Putting The Standards Of Care Into Context

2.3.2 The Euro-Western Pathological Approach

2.4 The Privilege Of Being ‘Properly’ Gendered

2.5 Social Theories - Not Quite There Yet

3 Comparing Data

3.1 For The Purpose Of Comparing Research

3.2 Reporting On Gender Affiliations

3.3 General Demographic Data

3.3.1 Ethnicity And Racialized Identities

3.3.2 Age Distribution

3.3.3 Education & Employment

3.3.4 Family & Income

3.3.5 Transition & Self Expression

3.3.6 Passing

3.3.7 Sexual Orientation

3.3.8 Gender Self-Identification

4 The Big Picture

4.1 The 3 Main Themes

4.2 Coming To Terms With Terms

4.3 One Community Or Many Communities?

4.4 Disrupting Systemic Beliefs

5 Self-Finding And Spirituality

5.1 The Most Common Theme

5.2 Self-Discovery

5.2.1 A Gift From Hell

5.2.2 A Place For Organized Religion?

5.3 Self-Awareness

5.4 Synergy

6 Physical Embodiment

6.1 Trapped In The Wrong Body - Or Not?

6.2 Our Bodies, Our Sex - It's More Complex

6.2.1 Self Policing In Clinical Surveys

6.3 Beyond The 'Cross-Gender' Diagnosis

6.3.1 Despite A Question Never Asked

7 Social Life And Transition

7.1 From Self-Definition To Social Prejudices

7.1.1 Societal Role Satisfaction

7.2 Troubles With 'Transition'

7.2.1 'Transition' And 'Passing' In The Fluid Group

7.3 Living In The Wrong Society

7.3.1 Defined By The Outside - Or 'The System'

8 A Call For Change

8.1 More Than Science?

8.2 Implications For Professionals

8.3 A Hint To Medical Practitioners

8.3.1 Systemic Change

8.4 Honouring People's Self-Realization

9 Epilogue

9.1 Since The Survey Closed

9.2 We Should Know Better

9.3 Some Final Thoughts

A Appendix

A.1 Reading Charts

A.2 The Yin/Yang Fractal (Cover)

A.3 The DSM's Gender Identity Disorder, GID

A.4 The DSM's Transvestic Fetishism, TV

A.5 Glossary

A.5.1 Acronyms

A.5.2 Terms

A.6 References

Dedicated to all those who have suffered

because imposing compliance to structures, beliefs,

rules and orders was deemed more important

than acknowledging their humanity and their lives

Foreword

This report is based on the survey and research I carried out as a Practice Research Paper[59] from January to April 2013 for my M.S.W. at York University in Toronto, Canada.

It is a small first step, investigating something - trans self-experience and self-identification - that warrants a much larger investment. However, I hope to come back to the topic in the future, expand and build on this research, and provide trans communities with a more detailed and in-depth analysis of who we really are. Trans people and communities deserve nothing less!

As a practice research paper, the original paper and survey this report is based on had to follow academic formatting. As often required in academic writing, there was a restriction on the total length of the paper. The original paper also had to include theoretical sections such as an extensive discussion of the existing literature, the theoretical interpretation used, the design of the survey, and the methodology. Brief summaries of these parts are provided in this report to give background information. Expansions on these parts can be found in the original paper[59].

Writing this community report allows me to examine the complexities of some of the findings in more depth in a more open format, and to report findings that could not be included in the research paper due the aforementioned limitations on time and length. Many issues faced by trans and genderqueer people are complex in the face of living in restrictive and fearful gendered beliefs and cultures. Often, addressing this complexity requires new perspectives. Trans community perspectives force everyone to step back and question themselves, just as trans/genderqueer people have questioned themselves and their own lives for eons. Such perspectives can't be definitely addressed in a single paper, or even in a report that is not limited in length. But this study can be a start. It can be a step towards a better understanding of our lives, our communities and, ultimately, of ourselves.

A Personal Retrospective

As I write this, it has been 3 months since the survey this research is based upon has closed, yet I continue to receive requests to participate by e-mail. Some people ask if they really are too late, others provide me with responses to the main research question, how they themselves describe being trans, in their e-mails.

Unfortunately, I can't accept this data for research purposes as receiving it through e-mail instead of through the online survey would circumvent obtaining consent from participants in the form that had been designated in the process of ethics approval by York University for the original research. Having said this, I do of course read e-mails that are sent to me, and I will include what I learn in the design of subsequent research and writings.

The fact that I still receive submissions, months after the survey has closed and without asking for any, shows me - more than anything else ever could - that members of trans communities are not only eager to participate, but that there is a real need to express themselves within the context of community based scientific research. Community responses have been absolutely amazing.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my partner for accepting me as I am; I would like to thank her for her compassion, her love, her support and her sharing her life with me. I would like to thank our children, they have been and are my inspiration for life! I would like to thank all of them for giving me the many hours to conduct this study and write this book, I know they missed me just as I missed them. I love you all so very much!

I would like to thank York University for giving me the opportunity to participate in their Masters of Social Work program. The survey and research this report is based on was carried out as a part of this program in the form of a Practice Research Paper. I would like to thank the faculty, staff and students of the School of Social Work for their support and for an outstanding learning experience over the past 2 years. My thanks also go out to Prof. Dr. Andrea Daley who represented York University in the position of graduate supervisor for the PRP this report is based on.

My gratitude goes out to the staff and volunteers of The 519 Church Street Community Centre, and The Centre For Women And Trans People at York University, for their support in promoting the original research, for their encouragement and kindness.

For editing and critical feedback my thanks go out to Chris Veldhoven. His review of my language, grammar and the structure of the document will benefit every reader. The many hours of discussion we had on topics covered by my research were a great pleasure. They helped me to locate myself and to push forward with questioning the status quo, present new ideas more clearly, and put challenging discourses into a larger context.

A very special thank you goes out to all the members of our trans communities, the people who have shared some of their lives with me in this research, the people I personally know, and all the wonderful people I have yet to meet. Thank you. You are amazing!

1 Prologue

1.1 A Question Yet To Be Answered

Being trans is a form of self-interpretation, self-experience and self-expression. Therefore, to understand trans people’s lives, their experiences of being trans must be studied. Some authors of professional literature (e.g. clinicians, counsellors, psychologists,…) include passages on how transsexuals describe their own experience of being transsexual, but this is usually limited to incidental side-notes and, in older publications, to speculations and assumptions based on very limited data[1,4,28,53]. The deficit oriented interpretation of transsexuality as a pathology, established by the medical system, prevails in the more contemporary professional literature[2,6,54,55,77,79,80,82,83]. But the medical interpretation, embodied by the DSM’s Gender Identity Disorder [GID, see A.3, The DSM’s Gender Identity Disorder], allows for only one ‘pathology’ with a very limited range of self-interpretations[1,2,79,80]. This leads to a treatment model which implies a combination of sexual motivations (which are often assumed to be of an auto-erotic nature) and social (e.g. ‘lifestyle’) motivations and expressions.

Through this view of ‘disorder’, self-interpretation, self-experience and self-expression become prescriptive assumptions of the theoretical model (psychiatric or psychological), employed to explain the behaviours seen in patients. Or, in other words: if an individual fails to show the expected ‘symptoms’ of transsexuality, then that person is not a transsexual, and thus does not ‘require’ (or deserve) any related treatment(s).

While