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Gatekeeper experiences.
May. 16th, 2012 07:58 pmLast night, due to a conversation that was happening, I re-read Chapter 7 (specifically, beginning around page 115) of "Whipping Girl." This is a chapter that is heavily about gatekeepers and the problems they created or facilitated.
"One of the most active areas of sexological study has been transsexuality and that work was possible because trans people have often been required to subject themselves to research in order to gain access to hormones and surgery. [...] However, this body of research, tough presented as 'scientific' and 'objective' reveals more about the researchers' biases and assumptions than it does about the transgender population." This quite easily extends to the professional interactions with transitioning patients. The text goes on to describe how it worked in that way and specifically note that this behavior still occurs with those who position themselves as gatekeepers.
So much of this still remains with the professionals who offer to treat trans people. It's even more powerful for me to read this today since the previous time I read this part of the book was in June-July of 2008, two months before I first saw a therapist and two years before the doctor to whom I was referred would yield to my persistence and prescribe an anti-androgen to me, and I'm certain the only reason she agreed to do so was because my wife attended that appointment and also made the request. She routinely questioned me about my sexual orientation, my manner of dress with emphasis on how often I wore overtly feminine clothing, and was critical of some of my activities. That I rode (and still ride) motorcycles was clearly unacceptable to her as well. Later, with a subsequent doctor, an additional point was that I was comfortable with my loss of sex drive; I was, in fact, overjoyed that it was gone.
While every one of these can be positioned as insignificant, what emerges is a pattern of bias-based behavior. This is significant because no other explanation sufficiently describes the observable data. Certainly, she presented excuses, but they fail to stand up to examination, e.g. having a single male relative who had a heart attack over the age of 60 does not, in fact, mean one has what is considered to be a high hereditary risk (the age threshold for that is generally considerably lower.)
I will be very happy to never again experience an examination with an orchidometer, too; my first doctor required that on a recurring basis as a condition of obtaining and continuing HRT.
"One of the most active areas of sexological study has been transsexuality and that work was possible because trans people have often been required to subject themselves to research in order to gain access to hormones and surgery. [...] However, this body of research, tough presented as 'scientific' and 'objective' reveals more about the researchers' biases and assumptions than it does about the transgender population." This quite easily extends to the professional interactions with transitioning patients. The text goes on to describe how it worked in that way and specifically note that this behavior still occurs with those who position themselves as gatekeepers.
So much of this still remains with the professionals who offer to treat trans people. It's even more powerful for me to read this today since the previous time I read this part of the book was in June-July of 2008, two months before I first saw a therapist and two years before the doctor to whom I was referred would yield to my persistence and prescribe an anti-androgen to me, and I'm certain the only reason she agreed to do so was because my wife attended that appointment and also made the request. She routinely questioned me about my sexual orientation, my manner of dress with emphasis on how often I wore overtly feminine clothing, and was critical of some of my activities. That I rode (and still ride) motorcycles was clearly unacceptable to her as well. Later, with a subsequent doctor, an additional point was that I was comfortable with my loss of sex drive; I was, in fact, overjoyed that it was gone.
While every one of these can be positioned as insignificant, what emerges is a pattern of bias-based behavior. This is significant because no other explanation sufficiently describes the observable data. Certainly, she presented excuses, but they fail to stand up to examination, e.g. having a single male relative who had a heart attack over the age of 60 does not, in fact, mean one has what is considered to be a high hereditary risk (the age threshold for that is generally considerably lower.)
I will be very happy to never again experience an examination with an orchidometer, too; my first doctor required that on a recurring basis as a condition of obtaining and continuing HRT.
