Safia

With my family I still haven’t come out. I don’t speak to my Dad any more so it’s not really an issue on that front. With my Mum for a very long time I just felt no need to, I think in part just being south Asian like it’s, it, because of the different like cultural understanding of like sexuality and gender, I suppose it’s just, it’s never felt like something that she really needs to be aware of, unless like you know I’m in you know a serious relationship with you know somebody where I would need to sort of tell her, like oh I’m queer or I’m trans. But over the last like couple of years I think I’ve started to think about it a bit more, just because I think there’s a part, like I think that she we have a complicated relationship, but I do often think that she would really appreciate knowing who I am, as a whole.

And have been testing the waters a bit more recently I suppose, you know, I guess like something that we have in our culture, you know we have a third gender identities she grew up with a lot of trans people in [country], so she has that awareness, and almost in a way it makes, especially being non-binary easier, because there’s already a concept of like gender beyond a binary. The thing that I think makes me hesitate is mostly just that I think, I don’t think she’d be, you know super hostile about it, or anything like that, but I think that she would have a lot of questions and because our relationship is quite complicated I worry about the emotional impact I suppose of like how is she presenting these questions, and I, if she starts worrying about you know how, how I’m going to live in the world as a trans person, you know then she, you know things might get a bit more negative I suppose. I think, you know I think my brother knows that I’m queer, we’ve never explicitly spoken about it, but I mean, I’d be shocked if he hasn’t picked it up by now.

And then with everybody else like I’ve never felt the need ever to hide my sexuality. Gender stuff I’m a lot more cautious about, because I’ve had a lot more negative experiences, I think. You know I’ve never experienced you know anybody who’s ever had like a negative reaction to you know my queerness, has not been anyone important to me, it’s always just been you know someone being a dick in a pub or whatever, and you can just, you know, tell them to go away. But with the gender stuff, like yeah, I dunno, like even small things, like I was dating someone for a while who was cis, a cis guy and like he, I remember just casually saying like, you know I’ve had like some you know screen name or something that was a different name to my own, and like you know I mentioned in passing that like it’s, what I called like my genderqueer name right, like a name that I was sort of almost trying out, or like a name that to me felt you know genderless. And he just laughed about it, and that was at a moment where it was like, “Oh like I’m dating this guy,” and like, and he knew, like I’d told him like I identify as genderqueer, but him like laughing in that moment made me immediately feel like oh he doesn’t see, he doesn’t see me as anything other than a cis woman though. Like, and so I think experiences like that where it’s like people, you know I live in [city] so I think generally speaking people are a bit more open socially. I think people are happy to be around queer people, trans people. I think with the gender stuff though, and with being trans, I’ve experienced a lot of people are happy to hear you say you’re non-binary or genderqueer or whatever, but if they don’t have to change anything, if they don’t have to use different pronouns for you, if they don’t have to you know, if they’re looking at you and can read you as X, then in my experience they’re just going to brush off anything you’ve told them about your identity.

And that’s quite, that’s been quite hard. I recently was working a second job, where I came out at work, which was the first time that I’d done that, and still you know it’s some, you know sort of everyday misgendering I suppose, but in general like it, it helped a lot to see like my manager had briefed people, and like people apologised and corrected themselves, and yeah, I’m hoping that I’m hoping that it was just become more mainstream and easy for people to understand, but like, yeah.

I think that as with many things, I think it, I think our language around it needs to change basically. I think that I think that there’s a lot of, what’s the word? I think there’s a lot more like debate and conversation, even like not, and not just for once between like trans people and transphobes, but like even just amongst trans people, right, and I think there’s, I think the pitfall of like essentially saying you know, “Are you trans enough?” right, or like, “Can you rely on being trans?” That kind of thing. These aren’t really conversations that are worth having. I think, but I think we’re having them because the language hasn’t yet caught up to maybe the reality of many people’s experiences, which is that instead of seeing it as a de-transition, seeing as a re-transition, and just that you’re going to have many transitions throughout your life, or none at all, and that doesn’t have to be a measure of your transness in any way, right. And especially like you know from my own experience, you know I, as I’ve said like these days I don’t, my gender expression doesn’t change as much as it used it, right like I generally speaking I’m much more on the femme side of things than the masc side of things, and that didn’t used to be the case. That’s okay.

Right it’s okay to experiment, it’s okay to have different phases, right, and it’s okay as long as it’s happening safely, which can only happen when you have professionals helping to guide young people, you know, as well as adults through these processes, you know whether it’s hormones, whether it’s you know even just things like wearing binders or like, like experimenting with your expression. Like all of these things I think it’s important just to trust individuals like capacity, like their agency right, and their capacity to know themselves. You know I’ve never heard of anyone who you know if they are, for example like undergoing some gender affirmation surgery, I’ve never heard of anybody who’s like regretted that, you know. Because I think once, if you’re making a decision like that, which you know as, again being informed like, these are the changes to expect, you know, this is a commitment that is being made, like if you are ready to make that commitment and you really want to make that commitment, then it’s going to be the right choice for you, even if later your identity changes. You know I don’t know, like you know again because like I, you know, I’m not going through like a medical pathway with my gender identity, but for me like something I could use as an example is like I have lots of tattoos, and I’ve always, always been questioned like, “How are you sure though? Aren’t you going to regret it in x-years?” and blah, blah, blah, and it’s like, but I, I haven’t, and I don’t, and like that’s because like obviously it’s a different thing, of course.

But like my identity has changed since I got my first tattoo, you know, when I got my first tattoo I didn’t identify genderqueer, I didn’t identify as femme, I used different pronouns, I didn’t look this way, like all of this stuff, but I don’t regret that first tattoo because to me all, all of my tattoos are just a piece of like, a piece of my history, right, I’m carrying my history with me and it changes over time. You know, and I knew that from the beginning and I’ve always told people if you’re considering a tattoo but you’re not sure, then don’t get a tattoo, like maybe another time. You know but I’ve, I have always known, I don’t regret this. I have no second thoughts ever and it’s really important to just recognise that like, you know, people have agency, young people have agency, you know and like supporting them through this can really help them make decisions that they know are right for themselves, you know.

I haven’t come out I suppose, to my GP ever, I actually had kind of like a jarring conversation with my current partner about it, because I think well basically like when I signed up to my GP there was no, like it was tick male or female, that’s it. There wasn’t anything else there was no options for like Mx as a title for example, and it’s, it’s interesting because actually like I think I was trying to like you know order a self-test kit or something, through my, the sexual health service which has become a, that I use, has become way more inclusive. Like it’s not perfect, but it’s you know it has all these different options and stuff like that. But I couldn’t because the, ticking you know other on the gender didn’t then align with what was actually on my patient records. And so we had, I had this conversation with my partner and I was like, you know that’s just, it’s quite upsetting to me, and you know and he was like, “Oh, why don’t you just change it?” And I was like, “Well,” I had to explain to him that like I’m worried about like how will I be treated, right. And is this just going to be another instance of am I then going to be, identity being ignored. It is easier for me personally to accept misgendering if I haven’t told somebody my identity, if they don’t know then I’m more able to just deal with that misgendering.

I think there’s been a lot of like expectations in terms of how to behave, I think, ah, a really good example maybe was that I, I was on an epic quest to try and find some medication that worked and I had to go through multiple psychiatric assessments just because I think the process got a bit muddled up at some point. But I remember like I think for, the final one I did, before finally being prescribed something, was they were supposed to send me a letter, and they didn’t, but they did send notes to my GP who then got in contact with me and my GP printed off their notes for me to read. And obviously like you’re not really supposed to read their notes, you’re supposed to read like the polished letter, and so sitting down with that was quite emotional, actually. I think one of the main things that hit me really quickly actually was the use of she/her pronouns throughout like, and obviously like I know like I’m not out to any of my doctors, you know I hadn’t told the assessor, you know anything about my gender identity, but like I think just seeing it written there on, on a, in this medical context where it’s like almost feels like a really concrete representation of who you are, right, it’s about your body, or your mind and it’s about how you’re existing in the world, right. And like seeing that and it, but it like it’s not me, cos it’s, you know using the wrong pronouns and stuff, like did, like hit me quite hard.

And it’s like, you know for sure like my gender and perceived gender came into play there for sure like being south Asian, you know, person who was being perceived as a woman, came into play there, and it’s just like, and being disabled, and like chronically mentally ill, right, and it’s always this thing of like, “Yeah but like, are they really telling the truth?” Like, “Things being blown up out of proportion,” and stuff like that, and, and I think it’s just these, it’s those moments of like being dismissed, even for things that’s nothing to do with like the services you’re trying to access, you know like. Fair enough like to ask about like psychiatric history maybe want to know like you know, trigger points and stuff like that, you know but, but then put them in the notes as that, you know. Because otherwise like making, I guess like passing judgment on patients isn’t beneficial to anybody, it makes it you know I didn’t, in my process of like trying to get my chronic illness diagnosis, like the second time I went to see the doctor about it, I burst into tears because she just straight up said she wasn’t going to help me. She just straight up was like oh, “We want to optimise your mental health,” and in the context that just meant she wasn’t going to do anything at all. So, I burst into tears cos I just, I’d never felt so casually dismissed in my entire life, you know.

And… and I think it’s, it’s those moments where you just, you know after that like I didn’t, I didn’t go back to them until it started getting really bad because I was like they’re not going to help me, like what, you know. Ah. It prevents, you know it felt like there was no, there was no way I could access the services that I needed to access, you know. And I guess, yeah, there’s just been lots of little moments like that, you know with that incident in my notes I found out later was that I got a bit tearful, and it was like, you know, I was just full on sobbing like it wasn’t tearful, you know. But it’s just, I guess stuff like that where I guess your own narrative is being controlled. You know it goes back into this question of power, right, it’s being controlled by professionals, you know. And they’re reading each other’s notes, they aren’t getting to hear your own words every time, so when those notes and when those interactions are you know discriminatory, or exclusionary, or downplaying what your experiencing or just you know saying it otherwise, right, excluding certain things, or changing you know even just little ways like how something, you said something or whatever, like, yeah it, it, it makes it quite difficult I think to like trust healthcare services and you know, and I want to because like I’m a massive fan of like the NHS, right, as a concept and like as you know of course I feel very lucky to be able to have like this access, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues as well, that do need to be resolved, you know.

My therapist has actually been really good you know I’ve been quite lucky, I know it can be really difficult sometimes to find a therapy or a counsellor that you know you fit with, she’s a cis white woman, so you know I’ve, I’ve all, I have been nervous I think when talking about certain experiences, you know, that is this gonna meet with some defensiveness or whatever, and actually you know when I’ve spoken about like racist experiences and transphobic experiences, expecting frankly for her to be like, “Okay but maybe there’s another way of looking at this,” she’s just always been like that happened, that’s racist, that’s transphobic, you know, and I know that she doesn’t fully understand like the trans stuff and the gender stuff, you know but like the fact that she’s been really willing to like listen and take it on board, and understand that like this is a part of my lived experience, and who I am like has been really positive. And yeah, and I think that I think that it would be so helpful you know as somebody with chronic mental illness, you know I’m always having to go in for different check-ups and you know changed meds so many times, and all of this stuff, to the, if I’d been able to talk about my experiences of my mental health without fear that if I’m honest as well about my gender identity within a, within that medical context that I think it would just help in terms of like honestly like maybe just being diagnosed correctly, and being able to go through the process , more smoothly you know, without constantly feeling like you’re fighting with some invisible force that doesn’t want you to be well. You know. Yeah.

I don’t actually know if they have any options now, yes so I must have signed up like two and a half years ago, or something like that, but I don’t know what their options are now. I’m also worried about being a trans person of colour within like trying to access my GP services. Right like I only recently at the beginning of the year got a diagnosis but I had to oh, frankly fight for like over a year, like almost two years. From a chronic illness and it was just that it got so bad that they finally gave me this diagnosis, and like they just weren’t interested in in trying to find out what was going on, and they kept saying, “Oh it’s stress, it’s mental health, and blah blah blah.” And it’s like, and we know that that happens with like chronic illnesses in general, but it’s made worse if a) you’re AFAB, or read as a woman, and, and b) if you’re a person of colour, like, your experiences with it and healthcare are so often dismissed, pain is so often dismissed, you know and I am nervous about increasing opportunities for these things to happen, especially because I’ve been dealing with mental illness since I was a child, and my diagnosis there as well, would make me, it would arguably make it so that people might feel even more like of that bias towards, “Oh this person’s just making stuff up or is overreacting.” Or whatever. So yeah it’s something that, it’s something I would jump at the chance for, you know, changing my you know gender marker or whatever, if it was something that was more reliably like employed, right like actually like people are trained to take it seriously, people, the doctors want to take it seriously for the most part you know, I’m sure you’ll always get people who are just a bit discompassionate, right? But like at the moment it seems like it wouldn’t necessarily help me, and it might make things worse.

But I think that sort of really sitting down and considering like the illness of whatever kind of goes beyond just tests, right, and treatment goes beyond just tests, I think that healthcare professionals have a lot of power over their patients. I think, you know, and especially within like a trans context, the ability to you know approve or deny hormone therapy for example, or you know approve, like approval, deny your own identity as a person, your own experiences, and again like yeah that’s from a trans context, it’s also from just you know disability and illness context, right, of actually being able to just put in your notes like what the patient is experiencing isn’t real, or it isn’t what they think it is, you know. And of course, like medical professionals have so much you know knowledge and expertise, theoretically, that you know, and certainly like on a medical level like of course. Like you know, I don’t, I’m not a medical expert but I am an expert in how my body is reacting to things or you know how I’m feeling. Right. Of who I am, right, like of course we are all our own experts on that.

I identify as queer or pan sexual, I think… I think primarily in terms of interaction, other than just like… I’ll just say it in my own words like and I hope that it’s okay. But I guess like for me it’s just sort of like look I’m trans and non-binary, like for me like you know people’s gender doesn’t really come into like my attraction to them, if that makes sense. Right like I, you know obviously like there’s, you know everybody has their own preferences in terms of like who you might find physically attractive in the first place, that kind of thing. But like that to me has never been really a, gender hasn’t really come into it, you know. And… I find that I have found it maybe sometimes easier to navigate you know, romantic or sexual relationships with other trans people because it’s, I think there’s always, there’s always like gonna be like a bit of worry that like with cis people it’s like oh but are you actually seeing me as like who I am, if that makes sense, right, and you’re not just seeing me as a cis woman. Whereas with other trans people like I know like I can rely on like you know this person gets it and like you know sometimes that can be more you know complicated sort of, it, feelings about like you know dysphoria and stuff like that, right, and like it’s easier to navigate those things with somebody who understands. But yeah I think mostly it becomes a question of like yeah how does, how does another person see me, because and I think importantly like when we’re talking about like sexuality and like sexual relationships or interactions, like for me it’s very important, like an important consideration the reason why I think that matters most is because well how does this mean? Like how is this gonna impact how they treat me? You know I have… I’ve definitely had like you know you know I’ve been interested in cis people, who are then just sort of like lost interest in, or felt like I had to sort of move away because like they would misgender me consistently right, and even if they were apologising for it, or anything like that, it’s like but I, you know I know how you see me and like that’s not, that’s not attractive for me. But I think it’s also like to be completely honest, like it’s a safety thing for me as well, like it’s just like I know I’ve had a lot of really negative and traumatic experiences with cis men especially, and I think it just becomes a thing of like if somebody isn’t really showing, that like they understand who I am then how are they possibly going to understand like, like heavy history of sexual trauma that you know I, how complicated consent can be, and that consent is an ongoing process all the time, right like, how can I trust them to be thoughtful and you know, you know engage in like a, you know to a multiple person interaction right, that are not just centred on themselves. So yeah it can be quite complicated yeah.

With my sexual health clinic, I’ve actually been really impressed by their sort of attention to like trying to be more inclusive for trans people. I think it makes sense that like professionals themselves will still need to be like trained into like using the right kind of language and stuff like that, but you know I think that kind of, trans inclusive language sort of goes hand in hand with consent, right. And it’s about like asking for people’s pronouns, if they want to give them, and you know what name would you prefer, you know, what, what name do you go by? You know and within like a sexual health context you know, they’re not making assumptions about the type of sex that you’re having, or the identity of both you and any sexual partners, you know. And so like training around the language in that still I think, in my experience has a bit of a way to go, but like just being able to like fill out a form and be like honest about like you know, and feel comfortable in being honest about like this is my identity, and this is sort of this stuff that you need to know kind of thing, for an appointment.

And I use like the self-test kits, on a regular basis just for like check-ups and stuff, and I use Sexual Health UK I think it’s called or Sexual Health 24 or something like that, and their like forms essentially for like signing up and stuff I’ve found really, really good. I think there’s still some assumptions that they make, in terms of the types of sex that you might be having so it does need a bit of work, but in terms of being able to put down like assigned gender at birth, and what particular tests, like you know oral tests for example, I think I’ve found really like empowering, you know I think as I say still some work to go, I think it could be but I think it’s a really strong foundation for like moving forward, right. Like I think that the stuff that needs changing is stuff around like what images are you using with each test, right, to show like how do you do the test. Thinking about like how to make those images more trans inclusive and also like is there a way of presenting this information in a way that isn’t assuming what body parts you have based on you know what type of sex that essentially whoever put this stuff together is assuming that you must be having kind of thing. But yeah I think just opening up those options and understanding that like there is so many different ways for people to live and experience their health, you know I would love to see that brought across to like the rest of the healthcare of our services that I engage with, you know and thinking about like you know, having more inclusive forms to fill out, and asking as well, like, you know you want to update any of this stuff, and it doesn’t have to be like an assumption based thing, right, it’s more just like understanding that because people’s gender identity and gender journeys are likely to change at some point, right, there’s no harm done in just every year or whatever, just sending an update saying you know here are some options for you to pick, you know, do you need to update anything?

Young trans people are amazing and they give me so much hope and so much like, I get so emotional thinking of young trans people, and especially young trans people of colour. They just are so vocal and so supportive of each other, and really trying, you know it’s a difficult world to try and find your way through, at the best of times, you know. I think advice is just to always regardless of you know, who is supportive in your life, and who isn’t? That there are always, there are people who will support you unconditionally, and it’s just a matter of finding your way to those people. And if you haven’t found them yet, you know there’s so many resources, there’s youth groups, and support services that can help, because I think all, all trans people, but especially young people just deserve to be affirmed and supported, and reminded that you’re valid and your experiences are real, and yeah.

I think it would be really nice to see like changes from like pretty much like the beginning of the process of like you go to your GP, the form is inclusive, people are trained to use inclusive language, you know you don’t need to have a title if you don’t want to, but if you do that’s like a Mx option. And I think just… I think healthcare services as a whole really need to like de-pathologize , there needs to be like moving away from, again putting people into boxes, and thinking you know well there’s cis male, cis female, and here are the issues that they have, because it impacts everybody right, it impacts so much in terms of like what healthcare is provided, what services are offered, what problems are considered, you know. You hear all the time people with like uteruses, and wombs and stuff like that, like always their health, you know is often very problems are dismissed and problems aren’t identified where they might be, you know like with endometriosis and stuff like that, and that comes from this like really I think ingrained framework of like just ticking boxes, and just having these biases of like what, what problem might be caused by and like not being able to adapt to like the person in front of you. And I think having like trans specific healthcare services I think is really important, because I just think it’s, you know in the same way that we have like mental health services, like to have really like thoughtful, with like good training spaces for people to go where, you know, in an ideal world, you know is like people will understand what services I need to access here, and you know you could, like again in an ideal world you can trust the people in these spaces to know options for you, and for your specific needs. You know I would, yeah, I would love to see more of that in mainstream healthcare as well, and in your GP’s stuff like that. But yeah. I’m sorry, Utopian dreaming.