Thought Trans-mission

The Gender Clinic

By Melody Griffiths


Being in Canada, I can get my surgery paid for by the government health plan, assuming I get approval from my provincial "Center for Sexuality, Gender Identity and Reproductive Health", i.e., the Gender Clinic.

There are, I'm told, such things in other parts of the world as well, like the European countries and to some extent the States, so I imagine a lot of you reading this know what I'm talking about. It's a big building with all sorts of people who decide what's best for us.

Now, first you have to go on their "waiting list". This can take an awfully long time to get through. For me, it was almost a year. Thank goodness that I was able to get my hormones through local doctors -- but the Gender Clinic would rather one didn't do that, and got hormones from them. But I think if I had had to wait a year I'd have gone slightly nutty. They should work on that waiting list problem.

Now, once you're in, the Gender Clinic can be an interesting experience. First of all, for me it's a 5 hour trip each way just to get there, on buses and ferries, but I'll leave that experience for another column. So, usually, I'm not too fresh looking, or feeling, by the time I get there, and that may have coloured my experiences. But here are my observations anyhow.

Gender Clinics are like transsexual-centrals, and being out of town for me, I get to meet someone new every time I go. Or fight with someone new.

I'm sure we all know how jealous/awestruck/nervous we are about meeting new transsexuals. It's kind of a competition thing, I guess, and it seems to have a great deal of effect on our egos. In retrospect, it's all rather silly to me, but I think it's just part of being a TS. In order to pass we have to build up our egos enough to go out in public and not worry about getting read -- but when we meet someone new who we think looks better than us, who's in our age group, etc., we tend to deflate our egos a bit and this can cause a problem.

Like the time I ran into another transsexual my age at the gender clinic. She looked pretty good, to my eyes, and I guess she thought I looked pretty good too. The net result being that we did the side-glance thing with each other the whole time we were there, and didn't say two words to each other. A pity, because I'm sure that we could have accomplished some good times together, but we were just too damn jealous of each other.

This happened the first time my SO, Vanessa, and I met at a support group meeting. I basically had to leave because she was so intimidating. It was amusing to find out later that she was intimidated by me. But that is the way of transsexuals who fit around the same age.

Not that no transsexuals talk to each other there -- we do, but the jealousy thing is quite a major factor. At your support group meeting you pretty much always see the same people, so you get used to them, see their flaws, and calm down. But at the Gender Clinic when you only go every three months or so, and it's in a different town, it's a different story. Oh well.

So, the waiting room accomplished, it's time to see one of the resident shrinks.

You know, after the first four times, this whole explaining why-I-think- I'm-a-girl-and-want-to-get-my-thingee-cut-off starts to become a bit of a drag. And it's all so very clinical too. Happily, one time I had a shrink with whom I talked casually with for 5 minutes and spent the rest of the time surfing the web on his office computer, but this is definitely not the norm.

If someone asks me "When did you first feel you were female", or "Have you ever had heterosexual sex as a male" one more time I think I'm going to scream. It's like a play. I've done it so many times it's more like a preformance then an evaluation. Same questions, same answers. Some variety in these people would be nice.

Anyhow, when you're finished running that gauntlet, you get to see not one, not two, but three doctors regarding your endocrinology. (Are they thourough or what?) I kind of think this is a bit of overkill, and they are most certainly not the most liberal of individuals. But anyhow, this is not really the time to be slamming them. Except for when they wanted me to go on Estradiol instead of Premarin. (I declined.)

The "support group" meetings they have at Gender Clinics can be a bit wierd. You get all kinds there, it seems, anyone who seems to feel that they have a cross-gender identity. This is even more varied then your average support group because it's a medical thing. I've seen people walk in there in full male mode wearing pantyhose and high-heels, just as an example. Now, I'm not meaning to put any other people down, but it's definitely not the most interesting place for a full-time transsexual who is more into the mainstream. Hence I don't go to those very often.

Besides that, the nouveau thing appears to be to teach "new" TS's that passing isn't really important and you should get the self confidence to go anywhere regardless what you look like -- like you don't even have to try. I could go on for hours about this subject, but basically that seems to be quite counterproductive to any kind of "happy life", and I don't understand why anyone would be teaching that. But it seems to be becoming quite common.

I thought the idea of this whole transition thing was to blend in and be a mostly _normal_ person. Hm.

Oh well. The Gender Clinic however does serve it's purpose in screening potential applicants for SRS, but it's assembly line attitude could use a little work. It does have it's good side in that it can be easy, maybe too easy to get approvals from a couple of 'normal' psychiatrists, and it's purpose as a gatekeeper may be needed. But, in my opinion, such places are too centralized, and could use to be spread around a little.

Pro's and con's aside, I think Gender Clinics are going to be a part of our community for some time to come.



Melody Griffiths is a 22 year-old pre-op transsexual living full-time in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is a musician, a keyboardist and composer who loves cats, kids, flowers, and art of all forms. She can be mailed here -- or check out her homepage.


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