Vigils and Protests

Hate crimes against trans* people now outnumber hate crimes against LGB people. Because of the increasing globalisation of our struggle, it’s appropriate and important to hold vigils for those killed, whether they were local or half a world away. Let’s be clear, these vigils are protests

Some issues arise. If vigils were not protests, it would be right and appropriate that the family have complete control of the speakers and what happens. This is the case at all funerals and memorial services. However, hate crimes are not isolated incidents. A hate crime is an act meant to target and terrorise an entire community. A vigil is a more public event that must therefore address the larger context in which the person was killed. These events therefore, should have input from the family, but also belong to the community effected.

Anyone can plan a protest or a vigil in regards to hate crimes. Alas, there are many opportunities. Yesterday, I went to a protest/vigil outside the Jamaican High Commission in London in response to the murder of Dwayne Jones. The planners of this event see hate crimes as a global problem and plan many such protests. This is unquestionably a good thing to do. They are fantastic. I’m glad they exist and they take these things on.

However, groups working to call for justice do need to have a bit of training, as was illustrated recently in New York. This is some of what you need to know:

If the person killed was trans, it’s appropriate to have signs and chants that mention homophobia, but you must prominently mention transphobia. These two things are linked, but if somebody was murdered for being trans, it’s confusing and incorrect to make signs that they were murdered for being gay. ‘Trans’ is not a type of ‘gay’. Certainly homophobia is also a problem in places where trans people are murdered, but the issue at hand is transphobia. Again, its ok to link these things. A vigil for a victim of a hate crime is always about the larger climate, but it’s important not to accidentally erase what happened to the individual in question.

Use the correct pronouns. If the pronouns are unclear, go for ‘they’ or something gender neutral. Do not assume that somebody’s birth assignment is the correct way to refer to them.

If you have a trans group in your area, reach out to them or their leaders as soon as you decide to start planning and invite them to the meetings.

At least one of the speakers you have must be trans. If you are in the UK, the Camden LGBT forum may be able to help you find somebody, or the Peter Tatchell Foundation may also be able to help. Also, some of the trans people involved in the planning may be able to speak or know somebody who can.

If the person is a member of a racial or ethnic minority, this should be reflected in who speaks. If they were located overseas, a person from that country or their diaspora should speak.

Remember to invite trans people and trans groups to the protest. If you’re in the UK, send a message to Protest Transphobia.

Reach out to potential allies. If you were planning to protest against hate crimes in Greece, you could reach out to other groups recently targeted there, such as migrants and sex workers. Or a protest about Russia could also include drug addicts, as they also suffer brutal repression under Putin.

What if you can’t do all of these things? Don’t worry. As long as you use the right pronouns and mention transphobia, you’re ok. If you’ve made mistakes about this in the past, don’t worry about them. Now you know.

Edit to add: solidarity

The important key here is solidarity. LGBT-phobia is a problem not unique to any religion or culture. Speakers at the event must not place blame on a either. They can call for social change a change in government policy, but they should not compare any other country negatively to their own. For those based in the UK, remember that homophobia and transphobia in most commonwealth countries came from the colonial law imposed by Britain. If you are in the US, full equality is still lagging. If you’re in Australia, you’ve got major issues with asylum seekers. Etc. There is no country I know of that’s completely safe from hate crimes, so focus on what you want to see change, not on how anybody else should be more like privileged countries or classes. If you are feeling at all smug about your country, just don’t get up to speak. We’re there in solidarity, not judgement.

How to talk about Pvt Manning

Some news outlets seem to have absolutely no idea how to talk about Chelsea Manning, who was known until last week as Bradley Manning and has been sentenced to 35 years in prison after she sent classified documents to wikileaks. They’re confused on how to describe her actions before she announced her social transition and which pronouns they should use to talk about the period in her life when she identified as a gay man.
(hint: see previous paragraph)
Chelsea Manning is already famous under a different name, so it’s fine to mention her former name. But really, don’t get cute about pronouns. It is more confusing, not less, to have a jumble of ‘he’s and ‘she’s. You know from her press release that she wants to go by ‘she’, so use ‘she’ whenever you’re writing about her, no matter what period of her life.
If you want to talk about something inherently gendered, then you might want a wee bit of vocabulary. She identified as a gay man for a while, meaning that’s what she told people she was. Other people at the time read her as male, because that’s how she presented herself. If ‘read’ is too jargony, try ‘viewed’, or ‘perceived.’
You can talk about her childhood, but again, avoid being cute about it. For example, if you want to use the word ‘boyhood’, is there a good reason for it? Is it somehow very important to the sentence or is it a word she used herself? Don’t project gender unless you’re using the subject’s own words or unless its needed. ‘She was a quiet child’ is fine. ‘She was a quiet boy.’ is confusing and unnecessary. ‘She seemed like a normal boy.’ is ok for two reasons – one is that the gender is an important part of the sentence. She didn’t just seem like a normal child, she seemed like a normal boy. The other reason that it’s acceptable is the word ‘seemed.’ She was perceived as a normal boy, which is about how she was viewed, not what she actually was. ‘She was a normal boy’ is not ok because it is factually incorrect (she already knew she wasn’t really a boy) and because it’s confusing and because it’s contrary and coercively assigning a gendered identity that the subject has not assigned themselves.
In summary, use ‘she’ all the time. If you have to use gendered terms to refer to the past, put wiggle words around it: seemed, appeared. (I’m sure journalists are well familiar with such words.)
If Manning keeps making headlines, at some point, it will become appropriate to drop the “who was previously known as Bradley Manning,” much like it’s no longer necessary to mention Wendy Carlos’s former first name. The point of mentioning the old name is not to draw attention to it, but to ensure that the reader knows who is meant.
Normally it’s rude and somewhat irrelevant to talk about the medical aspects of a person’s transition. However, because Manning is going to a prison that has specifically said it plans to violate her rights with regard to appropriate treatment, it’s definitely on topic in this case. Manning has said she wants hormones. She has not said that she wants surgery. It is not necessary to mention that she doesn’t currently want surgery. At some point, the repetition of this fact may become problematic. While media likes to make a big deal of ‘the operation,’ the reality for trans people is that hormones are much more important and that there is not one single dramatic moment during which transition occurs. Not all trans people have operations and there are a variety of operations available, rather than a single, monolithic process. The discourse around ‘the operation’ is a media construction. Which is not to say that trans people don’t often need operations, just that the context has been distorted in popular culture. This distorted context can cause statements about anyone’s lack of plan for surgery to make them seem as if they lack legitimacy or authenticity or further other them. Most trans people start out by seeking hormones and don’t immediately make further plans. Therefore Manning’s statement is entirely unremarkable and should not be treated otherwise.
Finally, and this should be obvious, people have a right to their gender identity that is inherently their own human right, unconnected to whatever else they’ve done in their lives. Whether you think Manning is a hero or a traitor, the only correct way to refer to her is through her current name and pronouns, as she has publicly requested.

An Open Letter

Background information below.

Dear Madam or Sir,

I am writing to ask what trans-run or trans-lead organisations or campaigners you are collaborating with for your campaign to drive mobile billboards around the Daily Mail?

I am also writing to ask you to reconsider this campaign. While I broadly agree with your goals, this campaign is expensive and I think the money could be better spent elsewhere. Due to the effects of economic discrimination, most trans people in the UK are far from rich. Many struggle to meet normal expenses or those transition -related expenses that are not met by the NHS. Obviously, harassment from the Daily Mail makes the daily lives of many trans people that much harder and contributes to the economic discrimination they deal with, and it’s a good use of funds to fight this. However, because these funds are limited, it’s important to be judicious as to how they are spent. Existing community organisations like Trans Media Watch are already running campaigns around newspapers and other British media. They also have relationships with media organisations and MPs. Donating money to them would certainly go further than a short-lived publicity stunt involving mobile billboards.

Indeed, I wonder who the intended audience of the billboard campaign is. Surely the Daily Mail is already aware that they’re full of hate. After Leveson, Parliament is certainly also aware. I would think even the general public is broadly aware of this at the moment. Therefore, it seems this would most succeed in drawing attention to your own organisation rather than the problem at hand. And while I’m sure you’re a very worthy cause and have admirable values, again, I don’t think you should be asking trans people to pay for your advertising campaigns. Would you consider dropping the billboard idea and raising money for a pre-existing trans organisation instead, like TMW, GIRES, Press for Change or one of the many other advocacy or front-line groups that are dedicated to helping trans people or improving our lot politically?

I fear that most of your money will not come from tans people at all, but from those with a strong and commendable interest in being allies, who want to Do Something and feel good about themselves in the process. Again, this is not the most judicious way of directing those well-meant donations. Our allies can feel just as good about themselves if they give to an established, long-running, sustainable campaign that succeeds at meeting it’s goals as they would feel giving to this publicity stunt. Perhaps they might even feel better, as the organisation the decided to support keeps making progress, vs having only a fleeting feeling of do-gooding which dissipates quickly as the Daily Mail continues to be awful after your short billboard stunt ends.

Thank you for your time,
Dr. Charles Céleste Hutchins

I’m not linking to the fund raising campaign that I’m writing to because I would rather not send users to their site. Briefly, this group has decided to raise £5000 to ‘encircl[e] [the Daily Mail’s] headquarters with mobile billboards plastered with the stories of the people whose lives [they have] ruined.’ This is all related to the untimely and tragic death of Lucy Meadows. She was monstered by the press in general, and specifically her home town paper, but outrage has largely fallen on a Rush-Limbuagh-esque columnist named Richard Littlejohn who wrote some rather nasty things about Lucy a few months ago.
There was a candle-lit vigil in front of the Daily Mail headquarters on Monday in reaction to this. Accounts I’ve read say that a large number of cis people showed up to stand in solidarity. Indeed, at the last protest I went to that was in regards to how the media treats trans people, cis people also outnumbered trans people.
I see this absolutely as a positive thing. I’m very happy that we have allies standing with us and that outrages against us are drawing general outrage. However, as with any instance where one is acting as an ally, it’s important to remember that allies are necessarily present in a supporting capacity. This means listening to those with whom one is allied and letting them take the lead and decide the direction of things.
I strongly suspect the the US-based for-profit company running this fund-raising campaign has slightly overstepped the normal boundaries of being an ally and tried to move more into a leadership role. Indeed, as they are for-profit, what is their revenue model? It’s obvious that they, like every petition site, are harvesting our personal information to sell it. How much of the money their raising for this silly stunt are they keeping? How much is going to overhead? How much is allocated for graphic design? Who is doing the graphic design? Who is going to be included and excluded from this billboards? Who decides? Is this even a trans-specific campaign? What is their ultimate goal? To target DM advertisers? Subscribers? To get the paper to entirely re-think their content?
This is all a reminder to pause and think before donating on something, including rage-donations. These can be really powerful and positive, like in the case of Feminist Frequency. But in that case it was very easy to see where to donate. Because Meadows cannot tell us what she wants, we need to be wary of those purporting to speak for her or for the community in general. The most important thing in giving money is not that feeling you get upon having done so, but whether it actually goes to the goal you are trying to support. Are you helping the person targeted? Are you making lasting change? Alas, we can’t help Meadows and I don’t see how this could make lasting change.

Here’s an article you can just rerun every few months

Trans People Exist!

Reports in today’s Daily Mail show that there are transgender people in Britain. Their reporters were able to discover that this phenomenon, which effects one in one thousand Britons, appears to be even spread throughout society.
“Some trans people are very old, some are very young and the majority are in between those extremes” said researcher Dr Smith, “Fully half of trans people are less than the median age! Most trans people over the age of 6 have attended school – or are currently doing so.”
“We also found that trans people come from all different races and social classes.” said Smith.
Due to social pressures, many trans people do not feel comfortable talking about their past to national news papers. “Go away and leave my family alone!” said one 45 year old trans person to the Daily Mail yesterday, speaking under condition of anonymity outside his home at 134 Passing Lane, Oxford E1Q 3GL, just around the corner form the Tescos Express.
Still, trans people may be anywhere in the country. “This appears to be random, like left handedness” said Beatrix Jones of Trans United. “There are trans people in cities and in rural areas, from the northernmost bit of Scotland down to the Isle of Wight.”
Jones explained that trans people also may take a variety of jobs from showgirl, to university professor to dustman to “anything you can think of” she said.
There is also diversity in how they establish their personal lives. Many trans people have romantic partners, although a significant portion are single. Also, researchers found that many trans people have children. “As the UK does not mandate sterilisation for trans people, some have become parents post-transition. Also, many trans people forgo any form of medical transition and just transition ‘socially'” said Smith.
“Trans people do have some specific needs, like the ability to live their life without media intrusion” said Jones, shutting her door in the reporter’s face.

Explaining the Inexplicable: Gender Dysphoria

I was in my 20’s the first time I ever experienced snow. I’d seen it on TV and distant hilltops, but I’d never been in it, heard it fall, smelled it, gotten it stuck to my clothes. There’s no way anybody could have really explained snow to me.

And yet, I’d seen a lot of TV and movies that featured snow, read books, read descriptions. So If my attempt to explain dysphoria is confusing, imagine that you’ve never seen snow.

I asked on twitter several weeks ago, “If you were going to try to explain dysphoria to a cis person, what would you say?” Nobody replied, except one guy who said, “I’d use the pizza topping example ‘I like pineapple, it just don’t belong in my pizza.’ or something similar…” I’m not sure what he meant.
I was asking because of a particular cis person, but it did get me thinking more generally about the difficulty in communicating something that is outside of most people’s experience. But I thought I could try to explain:

I’m starting to see the convenience of the “in the the wrong body” narrative as a way to attempt to explain the inexplicable. However, I prefer to think of myself as having after-market upgrades. Because who gets the right body? One of the most good looking (cis) guys I know told me doesn’t like his body and meanwhile I wish I looked more like him. Also the “trapped” in the wrong body thing seems alarmingly close to some very problematic ideas about disabled people.
I’ve never had another body than the one I have now, he’s mine, he’s me. I’m male, so every part of my body is male. For example, I have a very manly spleen. This is why I almost always refer to having transitioned in the past tense, dating it back to when I started T. Losing my moobs was a happy day indeed, but it doesn’t make me more of a man.
St Augustine wrote about being freaked out by his private parts, cleverly disguised as a discussion of Original Sin. Adam was the first, last and only guy to get the right body, according to Augustine and then getting thrown out of the Garden of Eden screwed everything up for everyone. Which is to say that I wish I could pass naked, but everybody has issues.
On the other hand, it really does bug me that I have parts that are atypical and how I feel about them is a lot more complex than whether they’re “wrong,” because they are male and they are part of me. And that’s what I can’t explain. My experience of this is not the universal trans experience, because there is no such thing.
Which is why I don’t normally try to explain. All interested parties accept my assertions about myself and I accept their assertions about themselves and we move on.
How much could I even explain? I dunno how I figured out I was a man, just that I know I am. Not that this was an easy conclusion to come to. I spent a lot of time agonising about this, and yet the process is opaque to me now. When I read She’s Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan, I found her glibness on the issue profoundly frustrating. She said she “just knew.” I didn’t know at the time and wished she’d said more about how this came to be. Alas, now I “just know,” and am not sure what more I can say about it. I think that if I asked a cis person how they knew they’re cis, I doubt they’s have a better answer.
It bothers me when cis people get freaked out about this. And despite my happy life in a bubble, it’s clear that they do get freaked out, even the well-meaning ones. Sometimes, I think an easy explanation might help them, but, again, it’s like snow. Well-meaning people will quickly see that they need to just accept that other people have different experiences. They will accept that snow exists without having ever been in a blizzard. Becoming a spokesman for the weather service won’t help.
It seems weird to some people, but it’s my life. It’s my identity. It’s vital. And yet, as the one who is different, I’m socially expected to engage and manage other people’s reactions, in which they are alarmed by a core aspect of my being. It’s interactions like that in which I see the great attraction of going stealth. Instead, here are some words about it.

I wrote a letter to the Metro

I wrote to the Metro about this article which differs from the print version. The print headline was “Boy, 10, returns to school a girl.” The first sentence repeated the word “boy” and thereafter used only terms like “child,” and avoided any use at all of pronouns.
I’m not sure how much of an improvement it is to say that a 10 year old wants a “sex change.” I guess they thought the word “transgender” would be too difficult for London morning commuters.
This is the letter I wrote:

Dear [Editor],
I am writing in regards to yesterday’s Metro front page article,
“Boy, 10, who went back to school a girl” in regards to misgendering
the subject. The correct way to refer to a trans person’s gender is
to follow their choices. The girl in the article clearly wishes to be
known as a girl and your use of “boy” in the first sentence and
headline is therefore inappropriate. The rest of the article uses only
the term “child.” It is not appropriate or neutral to treat this
girl’s gender as if it is a subject of open debate. You also use
words like “youngster” to avoid using pronouns outside of direct
quotes. This, plus the use of boy does seem to undermine the gender
identity of the girl.
There is a very helpful website, trans media watch, which offers
advice to journalists writing articles about trans people:
http://www.transmediawatch.org/guidance_for_media.html This website
advises the media to avoid phrases like “sex-change,” which also
appears in the first sentence of your article. Your article is
otherwise sympathetic, so I hope you can keep these things in mind the
next time you write about a trans person.

Did I mention they picked it as their front page article? This is something that happens every single autumn in at least one school in the UK. It was in other news outlets, including on the BBC, as the girls’ mum talked to the national press. I’m all for raising awareness of anti-trans bullying, but large shocking headlines seem to be participating in, rather than decrying, adults calling this girl a “freak.”
The Metro has not acknowledged my letter, although they did correct the web version. I thought I’d post the letter here.
I’m trying to imagine how it would have felt to have a newspaper headline when I returned to uni with a new set of pronouns… I hope the girl’s mum is keeping her away from the news.

Why I Identify as Transgender

There’s been a spate of blog posts recently about how the word “transgender” is dead and we all need to decamp to a new term. And then there are posts arguing to opposite point. I’m not going to bother linking to any of them, but I am going to offer my 2p.
First of all, I’ve noticed that almost all of these posts about whether the word “transgender” is good or bad are coming from trans women, but none that I’ve noticed have come from trans men. The trans women who are against the term transgender seem to call themselves “transsexual” instead. I suspect that the reason for this is a desire to separate themselves from cross dressers and specifically from fetishists. Some straight men get a sexual kick from dressing like women. There is no parallel situation for trans men. While a surprising number of drag kings are straight, there is no visibile community and no stereotype of straight women dressing up like men for illicit fetish sexy fun time (alas).
It’s quite reasonable to want to de-link your gender identity from being seen as a fetish. However, I don’t think emphasising the term “transsexual” is the way to do this. First of all, it has the word “sex” in it. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. This makes me uncomfortable. I almost never identify as TS. I don’t want to describe myself in a way that invokes sex or genitals.
I also really don’t want to invoke medical intervention, when disclosing conversationally or whatever, and especially not in a human rights campaign. Now, of course trans people should have rights to transition-related healthcare. But our other rights should in no way be linked to that. I don’t want my job or housing rights to have anything to do with what surgeries I’ve had or am planning to have. Indeed, this can, itself, create a human rights issue, in which some governments require sterilisation as a prerequisite to proper gender recognition and/or civil rights protections. That’s deeply problematic.
Furthermore, there are problems related to privilege. This is much less an issue in the UK, as the NHS does offer appropriate healthcare to trans people. But in the US and developing countries, medical transition can be economically out of reach for a lot of trans people. Thus, any limitation to those who are medically transitioning is a hugely problematic assertion of class privilege.
The rights of people who don’t want to medically transition are also hugely important. I spent many years as an obviously gender non-conforming person and I didn’t want to face discrimination then any more than I do now. People who are full or part time cross dressers or whatever, still deserve to have full rights to access education, housing and employment and enjoy the same full civil rights as cis people. The same issues that effect people with no plan to medically transition also effect people who are planning on medically transitioning and haven’t started yet and people who may not be passing all the time. Again, linking rights to medical procedures seems deeply dubious and may pressure people into having interventions that they don’t want or need and leaves out people who cannot afford the costs associated with those procedures.
And did I mention that a word with “sex” right in the middle of it makes people feel uncomfortable? No centrist political candidate in the US is ever going to give a speech about how we need to protect the rights of transsexuals. They may be persuaded to give a speech protecting the rights of transgender people, but they’re not going to want to say the word “sex” in this context. And, if we don’t want to be lumped in with fetishists, we don’t want to say the word “sex” either.
Those who think that we can get more rights by sacrificing those who don’t medically transition need some serious help with the concept of solidarity. It’s sort of amusing that some of the same people complain whenever trans protections are stripped out of laws that were originally conceived to protect all LGBT people.
So I’m sticking with the word transgender. People who hear it know what it means (or can figure it out quickly enough. It’s a word I’m comfortable with. It implies solidarity. People can, of course, self-identify however they want and that’s fine, but I think it’s too soon to say the word “transgender” is done.

The Bottom Surgeon (aka The Dick Doctor)

The doctor’s surgery was about a block from Regent’s Park. He’s in private practice and the office was incredibly posh. The waiting room had what looked like 18th century prints, in four colours and several nice sofas. I felt under dressed compared to the furnishings.

The sign in form asked for my credit card details and insurance information. I told the receptionist I was on the NHS and she told me to fill out the other parts of it. I overheard the patients before and after me saying the same thing, so maybe Friday is NHS day.

I went up to the doctor’s office, which was smaller and had two oil paintings hanging behind the desk of what looked like impressionistic Parisian street scenes. Rather clichéd art, alas, but hardly the focus of why I was there.

The doctor was a big man and spoke in a relaxed manner. He asked me my height and weight, my allergy information and what musical instruments I play. Have I had any previous surgeries? I told him about the benign tumour I had many years ago and he examined the scars on my wrist. “This is important for this kind of surgery” he explained and then asked if I was right or left handed. “So you want to get a phalloplasty.” I said I wanted a meta and asked if I was in the right place. He explained that he calls them all phallos.

I didn’t take notes and I wish I had, so some of this is not in the same order as it actually happened. My impression that a meta is only one operation was in error. It’s actually three operations, depending on what happens. He said that 2/3rd of people who get it are unhappy later. Skinny people do have the best results, as it sticks out more. He told me about how they move everything they can away from it, to increase the sticking out. Natural dick growth happens over the first four years people are on T. I’ve only been on it for 3 years. The people who have the biggest dicks starting out will have the biggest dicks at the end.

In the first op, they do a hysto, if the patient is having one, add the waterpipe, move stuff around and build a scrotum. They start out giving the patient two catheters, one through his belly to his bladder and one in his new dick. They take out the one in the dick after a week, because it’s irritating, and leave the other one for three weeks, to give the waterpipe a chance to heal before sending wee down it.
There’s a 30% chance of developing a leak, either at the tip, which can split or at the base. If there’s a leak, they give it a while for the patient to otherwise heal and then try to fix the leak. I’ve heard elsewhere that this is difficult and doesn’t always work the first time.
Then finally, they add in silicon prosthetic bullocks. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bag of ovular, squishy balls. He showed me one about the same size as the end of my thumb, above the top knuckle. He said it would be that large and then pulled out another, clear ball and said it would be made of the material in the second ball. The first one seemed small, but it’s not like I have a lot of experience with how big they normally are. He said they had to use small ones or it would dwarf the meta-dick.

I gave the material a squeeze. Again, not much basis for comparison, but it seemed kind of firm. If I sat down hard on something, I might bounce a bit. He emphasised how durable the material was, “You can pierce it with a needle or stab it with a knife, and it will be fine,” listing several things I hope never happen to me. He took another, much squishier one from his drawer. “I used to use these. They’re nice and squishy, but I kept having to replace them when they sprang leaks.” I said I appreciated durability.

If I got a hysto at the same time, it would be two days in hospital, assuming that was done lacroscopically. However, the lacroscopic surgeon he works with isn’t in London, but a hospital out in the country. I wondered if it was similarly posh to his offices, but didn’t ask. That hospital is just off the main line from Paddington, which does not sound like it would be a fun commute while one has a catheter protruding from one’s abdomen.

Then, back to work shortly afterwards. All the wounds are in the same area, so that apparently makes things simpler. He talked some about complications, but I’ve got them all jumbled in my head now. Apparently, smokers have the worst ones. So he’s quit operating on smokers. Fortunately, I do not smoke.

He also said that skinny people have the best results, since it sticks out the most and many (but not all) skinny people can wee through their fly. The rest cannot. Which is probably related to the unhappiness factor. This truly makes a very small dick, which is not considered usable for ‘normal’ sex. However, it is my understanding that it’s a dick that has normal spontaneous erections and, provided, one sleeps with yoga practitioners, it’s possible to manage to stick it places.

He was generally fairly negative about the meta, so I asked about the normal phallo.

That used to be 4 operations, but they’ve got it don to 3, he said proudly, contracting his earlier statements about how given the complication rate, one shouldn’t get to caught up on the number of operations.

They take skin from the patient’s arm or belly and use it make a shape like a sausage roll, attach it to the existing blood supply and hook up nerves. He showed me some photos of post-surgical penises, that he had on his blackberry. They were on the large side, but they looked just like any other dick. (Again, not much experience, although one does see them a bit in pron.) The first was an arm one and the second was a belly one.
Of course, if you use the belly, you don’t get any erotic sensation, he explained. “So the belly is out,” I said. “Everyone says that!” he said.
He drew some pen marks on my arm, one of which intersected my tattoo. They would take one of two sets of veins and arteries leading to my hand and two sections of skin, leaving only a narrow strip. They would shape the donor skin “like a sausage roll” and sew it on, connecting up my existing blood supply and connecting nerves. They take some of the nerves from my existing dick and connect those up also, so most people get a mixture of erotic sensation and normal sensation. The existing dick can be stuck sort of under the new one, left out on it’s own or taken off completely, but that’s an extra thing and makes everything somewhat more complicated.
My tattoo would end up part of the waterpipe and not be visible. They replace the arm skin with skin from the patient’s bum. “So it comes with a free bum tuck” he said. “I’m 9 stone, I don’t need a bum tuck.” He said if there was not enough skin on my bum, they could peel the surface off of my thigh and do a thinner layer of skin. Other surgeons do it that way routinely and it can also have a good result. He showed me a photo of a skin-grafted arm.
“Oh, I forgot about the head!” and explained how they built that, but I was thinking of half-peeled thighs and feeling alarmingly like crying, so I don’t recall what he said.
He looked at my left arm and tested the blood flow to see if it would be good enough for me to sacrifice half of it. He said it would be fine. They had one patient, about ten years ago, who’s hand died, but that guy was a heavy smoker and that probably wouldn’t happen to me. Most blood flow problems happen to smokers. Some of them lose their entire penis. He’s stopped operating on smokers because of the complications.
He took out a BMI chart and looked up my BMI and said it was a bit low. The layer of fat under the patient’s arm skin was what provides girth for their penis. He told me I should try to put on a stone or two. “Not, muscle; fat.” Once they made the penis, it would be “diet-proof” but eating more fat wouldn’t make it get any bigger either.
He asked if I had a partner and when I said no, he asked if I was looking. They don’t do the final stage until the patient has a partner or is looking. He took two devices out of his desk drawer. They were like those fat, ergonomic ball point pens, but half again as long as those normally are. One device just had one of those things and the other had two. He pointed at the single one and said they would use that for me, as I’m thin. Also attached to the devices were small squishy pumps and a bulb, maybe 10% bigger than a kiwi fruit.
The phallic portion would go in the phallus, the pump in a bullock and and the bulb somewhere in my abdomen where I wouldn’t feel it. He squeezed the pump a few times. Water comes from the bulb and goes in to the phallic part to make it stiff. When one is tired of being stuff, they squeeze another part of their bullock to release the seal and squeeze the water back into the bulb.
A dick that reliably gets hard and stays hard as long as you want isn’t all bad, really. He said the infection rate for adding these devices was 10%. I said this sounded high. He explained this was an achievement compared to the previous rate. The infection can take up to a month to become apparent. After that, one’s body forms a protective shell around the devices and starves the bugs of food. they give antibiotics for a few days after the operation and then wait to see if an infection develops.
The devices are fairly complex and fail at 1-2% a year. This is why they don’t do that part until the patient has a partner or is looking, he said.
I asked how long I’d be unable to work and he said it would be a month before I could use my left arm again. I don’t know if that means actually a month or is like the “two weeks” my last surgeon told me.
He told me to go think about it. They don’t want to force people to have operations. Patients need to be sure of what they want. I asked if I called back tomorrow and said I was certain, how long it would be until I would have the operation. “3 to 6 months” he said.
I could have a willy in 3-6 months.
I thanked him for his time and said I would call him after I’d thought about stuff and then went looking for fatty foods, feeling completely freaked out.
. . .
It took me many weeks after the last operation to regain my mental focus, so if I got an operation in the next 3 -6 months, the chances of me actually graduating are quite low. I’ve already made some sacrifices for this stupid PhD. In for a penny, in for a pound. It would be really stupid to bullocks it up (so to speak) in the home stretch.
If I do not graduate, my plans to stay on in the country are not going to work out very well (unless I could get married, but I suspect a bandaged wiener may impact my ability to find somebody to marry). So I would have to have the operation and then bugger off right afterwards. Given that I’m entitled to NHS coverage on the basis of being a student, taking this and then leaving without even graduating seems more than a little morally suspect. Assuming that I could get all the operations finished before my visa ran out, which seems unlikely.
If I’m trying to get a job right after graduation, which seems wise, it might be problematic to take sick leave right away. My next likely break where I could lay about recuperating is the summer of 2012. Of course, by then, with the cuts, my NHS funding could evaporate. And the massive cuts in university-level arts education may mean that I can’t find a job and I have to leave anyway. So a planned delay may well mean starting over in another country or it could very easily mean never. I strongly suspect it means never.
I am literally sacrificing my right nut for my PhD.
And my left one.
The next time I’m in a pub’s bog, in a cubicle with no latch on the door, hoping nobody notices that I’m sitting down to wee, I’ll be sure to think how fucking awesome my PhD is.
. . .
I feel completely freaked out. Indeed, even if my PhD weren’t at stake, and I was certain exactly what I wanted to do, I’m not ready for another round of surgery. My chest still hurts and last week a blob of pus came from what I had thought were healed scars. I need 6-8 months for my chest to settle down before I can call it healed. I know some men do move this quickly, but arm, bum, chest and bits is a lot of things to be healing all at once and my uneducated guess is that this probably increases the chances of complications. An infected dick would be disconcerting, but a numb dick would be a personal tragedy.
Whatever I do, it’s a few months of pain and then I’ll have the results of it for the rest of my life. I think that provides a useful perspective. I should take time to think, but really, I know what I’m going to do and it’s terrifying. However, step one is to wait.

Since I last blogged

I read too much BBCut documentation and got a handle on basic functionality well enough to teach it. That ate a lot of time. Then I got a reasonable draft of a new piece, which is, of course, not finished because everything could be better.
The new term started, so I had to treck up to Brum for the first meeting, which, actually, I thought was going to be more formal, or I might have skipped it. Meanwhile, I was quickly trying to tear through a 200 page book of critical theory about noise music, so I could give a good lecture.
Then, right away, we had a BEAST weekend. I came to Brum on Thursday evening to help rig speakers, but I showed up late and they got chucked out early, so I just went to the pub. Then I slept on Eric’s laminate floor and was up bright and early the next morning to help finish off the rigging. then I went to do fun things like pay my fees and talk to somebody at student records about having “Ms” as my title in the computer system. That last one caused some giggles from the person behind the desk.
Then, a afternoon concert at the Barber Centre, on campus. Immediately afterwards, we de-rigged and packed up all the speakers and put them onto a truck, along with about a hundred other speakers and took them over to the CBSO Centre. Somebody got the idea that we could so large, multi-channel systems at two different venues.
My bike has a flat tyre (AGAIN), so I rode the train into town. Or tried to, I waited more than 45 minutes in the rain just to buy tickets. And then more rigging! James now works for the CBSO and has keys to the building, so they didn’t throw us out at closing time. So we put up 90 channels of speakers and ran cables and the like late into the night. And then went to the pub. I spent the next night in a spare room at Shelly’s house, which had a bed in it! Yay!
And then back the next morning to tape down all the wires. There were 3 concerts Saturday night. And then we went to the pub.
Sunday just had an afternoon concert, that was possibly long enough to have been two concerts. And then we packed up all the speakers and all the cable and put it back onto trucks. This went shockingly quickly. Then we went to the pub. And then to curry. And then back to the pub. I got drunk enough where I kept asking Eric if he wanted to see my scars. The scars that are just rings around my nipples. He refused. And then, I thought it would be a good idea to break out my hip flask while walking back to where I was staying. (I think I might stop carrying it around, as I’d had the same idea after Sam’s birthday party and probably drank as much alcohol on the way home that I’d drank at the party. Not that I needed more.)
So the next morning, Monday, I showed up rather late to unload the trucks and put everything back into storage. But it still got done really quickly and then we all went for coffee in the Senior Common Room. This is an area with sofas that sells caffeinated beverages and pre-made sandwiches. I think the drip coffee there could be used as diesel fuel, in a pinch.
There’s a sort of amazing moment I noticed last time, when we go from being a team with a shared experience to just back to normal life. Like, this moment of togetherness that dissipates as people go to sleep it off or have meetings or whatever. I wish I could make a piece of music that does that somehow. This time, though, I missed that moment, as I had to go meet Scott, my supervisor.
I played him the piece that I declared done, and he had some good suggestions for how to change it. Bah. And then I played him my newer piece and he had many more suggestions for that. Since it’s just at a stable draft (good enough to try out at a gig, sort of stable draft), I expected those. Then, huzzah, he told me I could put some improv in my portfolio, so I might throw in some stuff from my last Noise=Noise gig. I really miss improvising and if I could get into a duo or something, that would be ace.
On the train home, I read many more pages of the Noise book and then logged into facebook and saw Mitch had posted his UK phone number. And I saw it was the 18th and thus his birthday! So I texted him and made arrangements to meet, for after I got Xena back from Sam. Xena was very happy an has been more energetic and spry since I’ve had her back. Clearly exposure to playful puppies is good for her.
Mitch and I went for curry on brick lane and had plans to go on to an improv show, but the curry went too late. It’s funny, because I tend to ask inappropriate questions and for whatever reason, people tend to answer them. But Mitch, who I’ve known for 17 years now, can seamlessly dodge such questions and change the subject through subtle slight of hand. Which is wise of him, and also funny.
On Tuesday, I collected audio samples for my lecture and got through most of the rest of the book. Then, I went to go to a SuperCollider meeting, but failed to find the meeting and so went home and worked more. That makes it the only day in the last week, where I did not drink any pints.
Wednesday, I woke up at 7-something to get out the door by 8:20 to get the train to Cambridge. I read more on the train and then in the few minutes before class. Last minute cramming, ahoy.
I talked a lot about transgender musicians, specifically Genesis P-Orridge. I could have done a much better job, I think. I was way short of sleep and some of the materials I read had wrong-pronouned him/her and so I started off by calling him/her, “he” instead of “s/he.” Meh, what’s wrong with me? Then I talked about Terre Thaemlitz, who I’m pretty sure goes by “he” and kept the digression of the crappiness of his “anti-essentialist” identity to a minimum. And then I talked about Venison Whirled, the band of Lisa Cameron, who is a transsexual woman from Austin who does noise music. I don’t think she’s really known outside of the Austin scene, but I figure binary-IDed trans people have a place in noise too. And I did all of this without disclosing, which, I dunno, I probably should have, since it was definitely sub-theme for the day.
Then, I got on the train to Brum and wrote a slide presentation about TuningLib, my SuperCollider quark, got to uni and then presented it. Scott noticed an error in one of my synthdefs in my sound example and then suggested I fix it in the piece. Which I had counted as done. (It’s not just changing a line of code, it’s re-recording the output and then re-mixing, etc etc etc). *sob* It was doooone. So I guess I have even less finished than when I started the day. And then we went to the pub and I drank a couple of pints without having eaten properly. Wheeee.
Today I woke up at noon and was able to resist feeling guilty about not working for about 3 hours. Not that I started doing work ater that. I’ve been dedicatedly faffing (mostly), but feeling bad about it.
In other news, I think I’ve fixed the problem with my phone that was draining the battery away. I ran top and noticed that the RSS reader was eating a ton of CPU. It’s, apparently, part of the OS, so attempts to kill it didn’t help. I finally blew away the preferences folder and it seems to be sorted out. My calendar, however, is still screwed up. I’ve discovered that it just never deletes anything. So if I schedule something to be every tuesday for the next 3 years and then move it to a wednesday, it keeps both versions. I don’t know yet if this is a problem with the phone or the free service I’m using to link it to Google Calendars. I so don’t have time to debug my sodding phone.
Anyway, today Mitch is done with his work in town, so we’re going to hang out. And do something, but I don’t know what.
And that’s most of what’s happened in my life except the stuff that I can’t mention on the public internet. Alas, none of the unmentionable stuff includes nudity.

New Passport Due Soon

I have just returned home from the US Embassy in London. In three weeks, a new passport with correct information will arrive by post. Huzzah!

Always be Prepared

This is a culmination of a much longer process. In May, I changed my name via statutory declaration. Then I contacted my phone companies to get them to change their records. I brought a copy of the form to my GP’s surgery. Most Brits change their name via deed poll, as it’s cheaper and easier, so the receptionist had never seen a statutory declaration before and was reluctant to accept it, but eventually did so. Then I went to my bank, who I hate with the fire of 999 suns, and they refused to let me change my name on my account at all, unless I could also provide photo ID in the new name. And finally, I went to my university, who updated my student records and ID card and printed out a letter affirming that I am a student there.
Then, I had to wait for phone bills to arrive in my name and to call BT more than once. And finally, appointment letters from the hospital where I had top surgery provided the final documents. So I then had three types of paperwork with my new name on it.
Shortly after I began compiling paperwork to change my name, the US State Department changed their rules about gender markers on passports. The letter I was planning on asking my surgeon for would no longer count. However, a letter from my GP would suffice. I asked him to write one saying I had completed transition, as then I could get a full term passport instead of a two year one. And, indeed, under the terms of the new regulations, I have completed transition. I find this to be entirely reasonable, as nobody would mistake me for a woman if they saw me or talked to me and the state of the parts of me covered by clothes are nobody’s business but those in who’s company I choose to disrobe.
My GP wrote the letter and charged me £25 for it. When the surgery’s receptionist asked me to pay, I was initially surprised, but then went to a bank and got some cash. GP practices are privately owned and the money they get from the NHS doesn’t cover things like letters to foreign governments. If this had been a problem for me, I think I could have gotten the Charing X psychiatrists to write a letter for me. That would also be acceptable to the embassy, but it’s over a month until I even see them again.
Armed with all of this paperwork, I made an appointment to go to the embassy, as you can’t just turn up. I began to fill out the application forms. They wanted to know if I had ever been married and what was the date of that and what was the date of my divorce. The divorce date, I remember. The date of the marriage? Not so much. I went back reading through old blog posts, seeing if I could figure it out. The ceremony was on day, but a paperwork snafu meant we got the license on the following monday . . . finally, I made a guess. And then I remembered the Defence of Marriage Act.
Every country in the world considers me to be legally divorced, except for my home country, where they hold that I was never married at all. When I was in Holland, I had to get a certificate to say I wasn’t currently married, so I have US Government-issued documentation that says I’m divorced, but they don’t actually back that statement. The state of California, however, also considers me to be divorced, as do five other states. It’s a strange sort of feeling, the one of non-recognition. The marriage may not have felt real, but the divorce certainly did. All those documents and lawyers fees and bitter acrimony never actually happened according to the great country of my birth. Obama said something about overturning that law, the one that says that years of my life weren’t real, but he didn’t actually mean it.

Today

The embassy makes people queue outside, on the pavement. Fortunately, the weather was sunny. I waited for a while with non-US citizens and then got into the correct queue. I knew one of the security guards from when I played in the gay band. She came over to chat and then came back to let me skip ahead of the queue. I appreciated the gesture and it made me a lot less nervous, actually. ID checks and pat downs make me nervous, for obvious reasons. She was cool. I did feel a bit guilty about queue-jumping though. I hadn’t brought my phone, although I could have and they would have held it for me. They took my USB stick and my Boris Bike fob.
The architecture of the US embassy is somewhat reminiscent of the Lincoln Center in New York. It’s sort of brutalist concrete, but with a lot of decorative corrugation. Inside the waiting room, there are gold-coloured metal columns. I wish I’d got a picture of it, but, of course, cameras are not allowed. I also wish I’d gotten a picture of the sign that sad to beware of terrorist bombs. “If you suspect something, call 999.” it said in small print at the bottom. I sat in one of the several rows of chairs and waited to be called.
Over the course of the last week or so, I’ve had an email correspondence with an embassy worker who was not very informed about new State Department rules. She seemed to think a surgery letter was still required. She asked for a “background statement,” something left undefined. When I asked for more information, I was instructed to ask for a particular staff member when I got there. So when I was called to the window, I asked to speak with the staff member with whom I had been having emails. She was a posh woman, apparently the manager. She told me to go to a window in a private chamber – a room with a door, however the walls don’t go up all the way to the ceiling, creating an illusion of privacy where none exists.
She started to ask about my medical history. Had I fully transitioned surgically? It seemed as if she was trying to be delicate while enquiring about the state of my genitals. In fact, the State Department has no right to any information beyond the letter written by my GP. What operations I have or have not had are none of their business. I explained that under the new rules, the letter from my GP should suffice. She said that the letter was only good for a two year passport.
The hassle of a two year passport isn’t just that I would need to return to the embassy every 18 months. The UK will not issue me a visa that extends longer than my passport, so my plans to get a two year work visa after graduating would become much more of a bother. Also, I would have to produce a new GP letter every time and appear in person with it. Otherwise, I would revert back to my initial state.
I argued that this is not what the new rules said and I was certainly not going to disclose information to which she had no right. I had the distinct impression that she just wanted me to declare that I’d had surgery, not actually provide documentation of it. I refused to budge, but the strength of my principles was somewhat undermined by the fact that one of the documents I brought to demonstrate that I’d changed my name specifically mentioned “mastectomy for transgender.” She called me up later to say that document would do nicely, but they were going to have to write to the States for guidance on the new rules. I hope they are provided with ample clarification. Indeed, plastic surgeons are not even on the list of doctors allowed to provide documentation.
The first time I spoke with her, she noted that she had seen a lot of this sort of thing before, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps she was trying to appear professional, but it was more of a knowingness, like she was an anthropologist and I was an exotic subject of study, about which she might one day write a book. So despite, apparently, being entirely successful in my mission to change my name and gender on my passport, I was still fairly wound up when I left. I rode a Boris Bike home, pedalling away my annoyance. Mostly.