Meet Max
“A lot of
people who are trans experience body dysmorphia,” says Max, from across a table
in one of Wellington’s finest bagel establishments. “I don’t personally feel that.
Perhaps that has a lot to do with both my politics and the fact that I have
been able to access transitional therapies easily.”
“For me, being
trans is an identity, not an illness. I definitely see myself as genderqueer as
opposed to a traditional transsexual. That said, I’m having surgery to remove
my breasts.”
Max
Prendergast, 23, is a genderqueer Maori Honours student, has a killer set of
glasses frames, and loves his body. He began his transition this year, with the
help of a doctor at Student Health.
“I just rocked
up there, super nervous,” he remembers. “It was probably the first time I’d
said ‘I’m trans’ to a person in authority. It’s not so bad saying it to friends
or family, but a medical practitioner has power over you. So to have the
courage to sit there and say it, that took me a while.”
Max is glad he
did. “My GP was amazing, really friendly and amazing. She admitted to me that
she’d never seen a trans student before and had no idea what to do, but in a
way that was kind of great because we got to do it together.”
As part of his
transition, Max has taken out a $16,000 loan to pay for his ‘top chop’, has
outed himself to his employer, friends and family, and now faces the physical
and emotional turmoil of what is essentially a second bout of puberty.
He says he has
it easy. “I haven’t got any problems accessing trans therapy. I started
hormones within two months of asking, and I’m having my chop surgery in another
two months.”
Max has no
illusions about the reasons for his easy transition. “I’m white. I come from a
good family. I’m on my second degree, and I’m articulate. I’ve got a good job
so I can manage my debt repayments.”
And the less
fortunate, those who lack the resources to transition to their chosen gender?
“If you’re
experiencing hardcore gender dysphoria,” explains Max, “if you’re really upset
and depressed and you can’t access hormone treatment or surgery, that’s like
every time you leave the house you do it without clothes, without shoes. That’s
what it feels like when we deny trans people the therapies that they need to
transition.”
An Invisible Minority
In 2006, the
Human Rights Commission launched the Transgender Inquiry, the world’s first
inquiry by a national human rights institution into the discrimination
experienced by transgender people.
This was an
ambitious assignment on several levels. Not only was there no template for the
commission to follow, but the trans community in New Zealand is incredibly
diverse. Around 200 people made submissions over the 18 months of the Inquiry:
farmers, business-people, tradespeople, academics, artists, sex workers, health
professionals, economists, managers, parents and grand-parents.
The people who
made submissions referred to themselves as transgender, Male-to-Female (MtF)
and Female-to-Male (FtM) transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersex, androgynous,
genderqueer, takatāpui, fa’afafine, fakaleiti, whakawahine and others.
A trans
student at Victoria, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out that the
sexuality of trans people is equally varied. “You can look at it like a graph
with two separate axes, gender and sexual orientation,” she said. “You can be
anywhere on that graph, anywhere you want. You can be as straight as they come,
or completely genderless and asexual.”
Culture could
be considered the third axis on the graph. Elizabeth Kerekere and Peri Te Wao
help run the Tiwhanawhana Trust, and are acutely aware of the additional
decisions faced by takatāpui, a reclaimed term used to describe gay,
lesbian, bisexual, trans and other genderqueer Māori.
“One of the
reasons we set up Tiwha-nawhana,” explains Kerekere, “is the issue of
takatāpui always having to choose between being Māori and following
some quite strict roles in terms of male and female roles, particularly in
performance and protocols. If you want to be queer and your gender is fluid,
how do you express your sexual and gender identity inside the Maori community?
“We try to get
out and about so queer youth know there are takatāpui out there living
their lives, and that we’re available to help out.”
Te Wao knows
that he and other takatāpui advocates are the minority. “It’s a small
community and hard to gauge, because we don’t have that box that we can tick
and identify as. Not all of the trans community would want to tick that box,
even if they could.”
Kerekere
agrees. “I find with younger people that, more and more, they’re not wanting to
identify as trans. They’re more likely to call themselves genderqueer. They’re
not wanting to transition from the physical body they’ve got now but want to be
able to present as the opposite sex without having to change it, to be a bit
more fluid about it. It’s quite difficult for older people to handle that.”
Identifying Abuse
After two
years of research, the findings of the Transgender Inquiry were published as a
100-page report entitled ‘To Be Who I Am/ Kia noho au ki toku ano ao’. The
report identified four areas for urgent attention: increased participation of
trans people in decisions that affect them; stronger legal protections against
discrimination; improved access to health services; and simplified processes
for change of sex on a birth certificate, passport and other documents.
Many of the
stories shared in the Inquiry report are harrowing. Trans youth reported being
harassed by teachers and students and being afraid to ask for health or social
support. Many trans people find it close to impossible to gain and keep
employment, even when they possess all the appropriate skills, qualifications
and experience.
“One
restaurant fired me because a customer complained I could give them AIDS by
touching their plate (my HIV status is negative),” wrote one trans woman. “They
didn’t fire the out gay maitre d’, however.”
“I have been
punched in broad daylight on a busy street with no one coming to my aid,” said
another. “I have been called names and put up with staring and people talking
about me behind my back, often within my hearing.”
Access to
health services and barriers to changing sex and gender information on legal
documents is often effectively one and the same. Until recently, the only way
to ensure a sex change on a birth certificate was to have had full gender
reassignment surgery. Not all trans people want to have surgery and, for those
that do, the financial and medical barriers can be huge.
Trans men felt
particularly hard done by. “We can’t get [‘lower’ surgery] done in New
Zealand,” wrote one, “most of us don’t have the $50-$100K needed to do it
overseas, it can involve as many as five risky operations with a variable
outcome, and many of us will never choose to have it.”
Thankfully,
the barriers to a sex change on a birth certificate have been relaxed. In a
major victory for the Transgender Inquiry team and trans advocates, a June 2008
Family Court decision set a new precedent for interpretation of section 28 of
the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995. Each application will
now be judged subjectively. The degree of permanent physical change required
now depends on the circumstances of each applicant.
Getting to the
point of any permanent physical change is difficult. In somewhat of a vicious
cycle, without documentation that matches their chosen gender, trans people are
forced to out themselves each time they apply for a job or enrol in a tertiary
course. Without an appropriate level of income, paying up to $300 per hour for
a psych assessment may be an insurmountable barrier. Without a psych
assessment, access to hormone therapy is difficult, and a positive Family Court
ruling to get new documentation is unlikely.
Trans On Campus
The Inquiry
report identified discrimination in tertiary education as an area of concern.
At least three trans people struggled to gain entry to tertiary courses due to
staff concerns that they “wouldn’t fit in” or would not cope with study while
transitioning. Others complained about their inability to change their gender
details on student records. After constant harassment, one trans student took
bed-wetting medication so he wouldn’t need to use the toilets at his
polytechnic.
Post-graduate
student Max has not personally experienced problems as a trans person at
Victoria. “As a whole, my experience has been quite positive. It depends on who
you are and how confident you feel.”
He doesn’t
feel the need for a separate representative group for trans students. “I really
don’t think you can lump trans people together and provide one service for all.
I think what we need to do is break down barriers across the board so that
trans people can access services that they want to.”
Max admits
that the curiosity of the general public can become a burden. “My body has
become public property now that I’m transitioning. People think it’s okay to
come and ask me really personal questions.
“I can see why
people have that morbid curiosity, I did before I transitioned, but people
expect you to answer their questions all the time. You’re an ambassador, like
it or not… I struggle with that quite a lot.”
Another trans
student at Victoria, who preferred not be identified, liked the relative
anonymity of campus life. “The university is a brilliant place to be because
most people just don’t care, so you can get on with being yourself.”
Lifting The Burden
The Assume
Nothing project is an ongoing body of work about gender diversity founded by
Auckland-based artist Rebecca Swan in 1995, published as a book in 2004,
developed into a feature documentary by Kirsty MacDonald in 2008, and currently
in the middle of a two-year exhibition tour of New Zealand galleries.
Assume Nothing
aims to reveal the “extraordinary and often very ordinary worlds” of the New
Zealand trans community. One of the most famous images from the project
features activist and educator Mani Bruce Mitchell, born with both male and
female genital tissue, the words ‘I am not a monster’ scrawled across her
chest.
“I’m drawn to
[gender diversity as a subject] because gender androgyny or fluidity is almost
a spiritual thing for me,” explains Swan, over the phone from Auckland. “I feel
our souls are androgynous, so when somebody embodies both male and female
elements, there is something quite magical about it for me. There are other
reasons, political and everything else, but that’s what sustains it for me.”
The Human
Rights Commission offers three workshops in tandem with the exhibition, run by
Transgender Inquiry project manager Jack Byrne as panel discussions with a
focus on trans diversity, trans youth and trans creativity.
Free copies of
the Inquiry are available for people to take and read at home or at the
workplace.
Swan has
embraced her partnership with the Commission. “One of the intents [of the
exhibition] was to create social change around gender diversity and this felt
like the most appropriate way to harness it.”
“I read the
comments books every time we go to a gallery,” she says. “The people who’ve
been photographed and filmed are very open with the intimate details of their
lives and, because of that, people really respond.”
Swan is awed
by the generosity and perseverance of the trans and genderqueer participants in
the exhibition. “They’ve got a strong motive to make a difference, and telling
their stories or being photographed is a great way to do that.
“I’ve been
blown away by how generous and giving they are of themselves. Mani [Bruce
Mitchell] comes to every show, every venue. She’ll do anything to get other
people talking about gender issues, and she’ll be there on the front line
because she has a strong motive for change.”
The stories
shared by the Assume Nothing exhibition help to break stereo-types and lift the
burden of ‘morbid curiosity’ often experienced by trans people who just want to
get on with their lives. Swan, aware that not everyone is happy to be ‘outed’
in every city, checks with participants every time a show goes up.
A Work In Progress
“We’ve seen
huge leaps and bounds in the last 20 years,” says Joanne Clarke, president of
national support group Agender and host of radio show TransSister Radio.
“People have started to stand up and be counted, and people can see that we’re
a diverse community with a lot of talent.
“There are so
many people out there who you wouldn’t even know are trans,” she points out.
“We’re everywhere but it’s still very hidden, a very hidden journey.
There’s a lot
of guilt and shame. People have got to realise that you’re born like this, you
can’t help it.”
She feels that
the Inquiry set an important benchmark for trans rights. “[The Inquiry] tried
to be as thorough as possible in the consultation process and a lot of our
community felt as though they had been heard for the first time.”
Clarke also
appreciates the ongoing nature of the Transgender Inquiry project.
“Three of us
[from Christchurch] went up for a national hui last March up in Wellington, and
people came from all over the country,” she says. “I’ve interviewed Joy
[Liddicoat, Commissioner], Rosslyn [Noonan, Chief Commissioner] and Jack
[Byrne, Project Manager] on TranSister Radio, and we talked about how things
were going and what’s happening, how to keep moving forward on the Inquiry
recommendations. It’s a document that hasn’t just been produced and left.”
The
discrimination and human rights abuses identified by the Transgender Inquiry
will take a long time to address. The Human Rights Commission does not have the
authority to simply step in and pass their recommendations into law, and the
long-term impact of the Inquiry remains to be seen. For now, at least the
discrimination faced by trans and genderqueer people in Aotearoa is finally,
and firmly, out of the closet.