“Imagine putting on a horrible, scratchy Halloween costume then being told you will have to wear that for the rest of your life.”
It’s almost impossible to imagine what it feels like to be a woman trapped in a man’s body or a man trapped in a woman’s body. Yet it’s a situation that’s far more common than people realise and in Grampian alone, there are dozens of people desperately seeking help.
Transgender issues are often misunderstood and not looked upon as being an urgent issue when compared to other medical matters by some, but with high suicide rates among the transgender community, it’s vital these vulnerable men and women get the support they need and soon.
Susan Welsh talks to one brave woman who shares her story with YL readers
DANIKA’S STORY
This day at work was going to be unlike any other she
had ever experienced.
Danika’s heart wasn’t racing because it was a new job she was taking on but because this would be the first time her colleagues had seen her dressed, talking and looking like a woman.
Ronnie, the friendly Australian they’d worked with for years was gone – in his place was an elegant woman, Danika.
“HR had already informed my colleagues two weeks earlier what was going to happen to get them used to the idea but even so I was absolutely terrified, scared and excited at the same time.
“I walked in with a feeling of dread but at the end of the day left feeling like my feet hadn’t touched the ground,” said Danika, 38.
“It was really weird, nobody even seemed to notice. One of my male colleagues asked another who the new female start was but didn’t make the connection to me.”
It was one of many brave steps Danika has taken since realising she was a woman trapped in a man’s body.
“It’s difficult to express how terrible it feels to be like this but if you can imagine putting on a horrible, scratchy Halloween costume then being told you will have to wear that for the rest of your life then that sort of sums it up,” said the technician, who lives in Aberdeen.
“Overall I have been lucky because most people have been understanding and sympathetic but some of my transgender friends have been sexually and verbally assaulted because of who they are and that’s horrible.
“Some people seem to think that being transgender is an elective or a lifestyle choice or what’s even worse, that we are deviants, but none of this is true and I can’t stress enough that this is not a ‘lifestyle’ issue.
“Generally if you ask a man if he’d like to be woman he’ll say no, while the reaction if you ask a woman if they’d like to be a man tends to be, yuck, no thanks.
“Swapping gender is not something you’d choose to do if you didn’t have to but some don’t fully understand the issue, therefore tend to not be that sympathetic.
“My understanding is that when a baby is in the womb the foetus gets a wash of hormones which essentially wire the child to be male or female. In some cases the body and brain get different washes and so that occasionally, the two don’t line up. My body was wired male but my brain was wired female.”
Danika’s story might sound unusual but it’s far more common than you might think. In Aberdeen and the surrounding area alone, there are more than 80 people waiting for help from the Grampian Gender Identity Clinic run by NHS Grampian.
There treatments are currently being delayed because of staff shortages. The existing clinician retired and they don’t have a full-time replacement. Instead a locum from Edinburgh is visiting once a month, but this means the already long waiting lists for treatment have grown much longer. For those who are already feeling vulnerable and fragile, the delays can be deeply traumatic.
According to Equality Network (Scotland’s national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) equality and human rights charity) research has consistently shown that at least a third of transgender people in Scotland have attempted suicide, with many citing the prejudice they face and the long barriers to securing gender reassignment treatment as contributing factors.
The Equality Network Scottish Transgender Alliance says that, for transgender people, NHS Scotland has been failing to meet its national patient waiting time guarantee of 18 weeks from referral to beginning treatment. Instead transgender patients have to wait up to two years just for an initial appointment with a damaging impact on their mental wellbeing.
Scottish Transgender Alliance manager, James Morton, said: “The Grampian Gender Identity clinic is responsible for assessing somebody’s readiness to start hormones and assess their readiness to be referred for different types of surgeries. By the time people come to the clinic they will have gone through a pretty stressful time themselves.
“Without getting a letter of approval from the Gender Identity Clinic, a GP will not start someone on hormone treatment. At the moment there are people who were seen at the clinic but didn’t receive that crucial letter before the clinician retired. They have been left stuck in limbo with no idea whether they’ll get that letter in the next six months or a year. It’s the same with those who had already started taking hormones and were about to be referred for surgery who have been left waiting with no end in sight.”
UNDERSTANDING TRANSGENDER ISSUES
“I was about 11 when I became aware I was different to other boys as until then I thought everyone was having the same thoughts and feelings as myself. I put up a facade which allowed me to fit in but in many ways I was still regarded as one of the strange kids and a bit of a geek,” said Danika.
“The idea of talking to anyone about how I was feeling never arose because in those days there was a huge anti-gay sentiment while transgender issues weren’t on the horizon. In many ways one couldn’t even talk about being transgender because there simply was no such thing yet.
“It might sound creepy but what I would do when I was home alone was try on some of my mum’s clothes. It felt comforting, natural and exciting but not in a sexual way. It just felt right. I was always very careful not to be caught as I didn’t want to have to explain myself. I never told anyone because I knew they wouldn’t understand – I didn’t understand myself what was going on.”
Danika remembers trying dating as a boy but never got further than holding hands. Instead of falling in love with her dates she’d find herself feeling rather jealous of them because they were allowed to do things she couldn’t do such as experiment with make-up, grow long hair and wear pretty clothes.
“As I grew older I experienced a dull feeling of feeling cheated. I became the ‘gay best friend’ to some girls – except I wasn’t gay.” Instead she used the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons as a way of releasing her feminine feelings, always opting to play a female character.
“I felt pretty horrible about myself, felt unworthy and loathed my body because I had quite a soft-pitched voice and wide hips. I wanted to look more manly so I’d fit in but at the same time hated the thought of looking manly. It was a real tug of war,” said Danika. “It wasn’t until I moved to Scotland that I became aware there were options open to me. I wasn’t looking after myself and realised that if I didn’t do something I’d be dead in five years – I’d die from a broken heart.”
She contacted a transgender support group in Aberdeen who offered advice and suggested she visit her GP. “My doctor was shell-shocked when I announced I wanted to transition and didn’t know what to say so I suggested he make an appointment for me with the Gender Identity Clinic at Cornhill.
I was referred, saw a psychiatrist within a month but it took six months to see a psychologist to get the required second opinion before treatment could progress.
“That was probably the worst time as it takes a lot of courage to walk up to a stranger and say I think I’m something that’s the opposite to what I actually appear to be. Then to be told it’s OK, we’ll look after you then have to wait months and months before anything can be done is just horrible.
“In the old days doctors would try to change the mind and various pretty grim therapies were tried. Now they realise it’s the body that has to change but a lot of people still don’t get it and I admit it can be difficult to wrap your head around it.”
Once diagnosis had been confirmed, Danika had to start living 24 hours a day, seven days a week as a woman. The clinic also wrote to her GP saying she had to start a course of hormone treatment. At this stage discussions can also begin relating to medical procedures such as having jaws and foreheads reshaped, breast augmentation and surgery where male genitalia is removed.
“The thought of having genital treatment terrifies me but there really is no option, as I want to travel. There are a lot of places in the world which are unsafe for transgender people so it’s important to me that I physically match up to what my passport says. It’s important for me to feel complete at the end of the day and also to make physical and sexual relationships easier for me.
“Again I’d like to stress that this is just my opinion and that many trans people might feel differently.
“The transgender community is very compassionate, probably because they’ve spent their whole lives going through the wringer but for the largest part, they are invisible until they take the decision to change, in which case they become highly visible which can bring out the best and worst in others.
“Here in Scotland we are very enlightened but there’s an awful lot of vulnerable people out there who need support. If I had one wish it would be for NHS Grampian to quickly solve the problem of getting a full-time doctor for the clinic as soon as possible.”
GETTING SUPPORT
James Morton said: “It is really important that the NHS don’t leave the Grampian Gender Identity Clinic unstaffed just because it is a less popular area of medicine. This is a vulnerable group of people and lack of NHS treatment causes huge personal suffering and can even be life-threatening.
“Imagine if you were half way through a medical process when your future planned treatment was suddenly whipped out from under you.
“While the amount gender reassignment treatment costs the NHS is very small, the benefits of treatment to individual trans people’s lives are huge. There’s been a lot of good progress in the last few years but situations such as the retirement of the NHS Grampian clinician show how fragile and under-resourced NHS specialist provision is and how suddenly access to treatment can be placed in jeopardy.”
In a statement issued this week NHS Grampian said: “The Transgender service is a highly specialised service.
“In Grampian this was always provided at two sessions per month – for people to be seen by a psychiatrist at key stages in their treatment plan. We have engaged one of Scotland’s TGS consultants directly as a locum for this service.
“Some patients have experienced delays because of a four month gap in provision, but these monthly visiting clinics will not mean patients routinely waiting six months to be seen. Everyone awaiting follow up will be seen and in July there will not be a waiting list.”
Meanwhile, in Aberdeen, there’s to be a meeting next month looking at ways to help.
Mr Morton said: “In partnership with the National Gender Identity Clinical Network for Scotland, we holding a consultation event at 6pm on Monday, April 13 in central Aberdeen to find out transgender people’s priorities for improving access to gender reassignment services.”
For information on gender reassignment services and transgender equality issues or to register as attending the consultation event, contact the Equality Network’s Scottish Transgender Alliance on 0131 467 6039 or via www.scottishtrans.org
For local peer support, contact Grampian Tfolk on 01224 543695 or by e-mail: Grampian.tfolk@gmail.com