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Polare 62 >> Article 6
Organisational and Institutional Violence Against the
Transgendered
by Katherine Cummings
In 2002-3 I researched and wrote a report on violence
against transgenders, commissioned by the Crime
Prevention Section of the New South Wales Attorney-General's
Department, a report which ran to more than a hundred pages and will,
if all goes well, be published this year.
For the purposes of this piece I have chosen not to deal with some
aspects of violence, such as domestic violence and random acts of
prejudiced violence since these are common to the community at large,
including gays and lesbians.
There are, however, some forms of violence which are not shared by our
gay, lesbian and bisexual sisters and brothers, or only marginally,
and some which are probably more common to the transgendered and
intersexed than to G, L, or B.
I will deal primarily with institutional violence which is
as frequently based in sins of omission as in sins of commission. I
will deal with institutions such as schools, prisons, and hospitals,
with organisations such as the police, community and health services,
and with our lawmakers.
Before I start giving examples I should repeat that there is a lot in
common between transgenders and intersex people which is not shared by
lesbians, gays and bisexuals. Transgenders and the intersexed are
usually subject to pharmacological and/or surgical treatment and often
their self-affirmation must be endorsed by various gatekeepers in the
medical and legal professions. I will deal with these gatekeepers at a
later stage and, for the sake of brevity, will confine my remarks to
transgenders, although many, even most, of the problems exist for the
intersexed, to a greater or lesser degree.
In the case of schools, prisons and hospitals violence occurs at three
levels. There is the violence inherent in policies which are outmoded
or inappropriate. This may be thought of as official violence. There
is the violence perpetrated by officials based in their own prejudice
and inherent cruelty even when these acts contravene official policy,
and there is peer group violence which can result from a number of
motives, including pecking order, peer group pressure, the desire to
expropriate property from the victim, and so on.
Prisons
To take prisons as a paradigm; until quite recently there was no
official policy in New South Wales prisons on appropriate treatment
for incarcerated transgenders. For a long time pre-operative
transgenders were placed in the prisons appropriate to their birth
gender. As a result transgenders, particularly male-to-female
transgenders, suffered physical and verbal violence from corrections
staff and from other inmates.
It took the rape and consequent suicide of a transgendered inmate in
1997 to create the necessary pressure to install a policy dealing with
appropriate treatment for incarcerated transgenders in New South Wales
prisons. The policy now exists yet we are still made aware at the
Gender Centre of repeated abuses of transgenders, and various forms of
victimisation from correctional staff and from other inmates. The
situation will not be remedied until correctional staff are trained
more thoroughly in the necessity to know and observe the rules,
training which will need to be enforced at all levels, with persistent
transgressors being disciplined and/or dismissed.
Schools
A similar pattern exists in many schools. The Education Department
does not have a policy on the treatment of transgendered children and
as a result teachers and peer groups have relative freedom to abuse
and mock "sissies" and "tomboys" and verbal abuse can easily lead to
physical abuse.
Most transgenders have stories to tell of either having to put up with
vilification and physical abuse at school, or having to develop
camouflage to conceal their needs and feelings. The educational
authorities should look specifically at the transgendered and not
suppose that their policies on the gay and lesbian in their community,
or their policies against bullying will provide a one-size-fits-all
solution to the problem.
Not only should there be a policy of equal rights and protection for
all in the educational system, there should be pro-active teaching at
the earliest levels and beyond, informing children that transgender
exists, that there is nothing wrong with it and that some children feel
from the earliest age that they are in the wrong gender group. Just as
elementary schools can now use teaching texts to show that there is
nothing wrong in a child having same-sex parents, or a single parent,
or being an AIDS sufferer, so there could be lessons in the fact that
some boys feel they are really girls and some girls feel they are
really boys. Not only would this result (eventually) in a more
accepting climate for transgender children, it might also
encourage such children to admit that they have transgender feelings
rather than bottling up their desires and hiding their true nature.
Given admissions of this kind at an early age children could be watched
over and, if they seem to be genuinely transgendered, guided
compassionately to an earlier realisation of their needs. Note that if
this policy were adopted another group would need to be educated - the
parents. Often prejudices exhibited by children are the prejudices
they see in their parents and older siblings, and a policy of meeting
with parents to inform them of the phenomenon of transgender might
eventually result in better attitudes being taught to the peer group
both at home and in the school milieu.
Hospitals and Retirement Homes
In hospitals and retirement homes it is necessary to have official
policies which cater to the gender needs of patients and clients, and
these policies should again result in education of those administering
directly to the patients and clients, so that nurses and carers are
prepared for transgendered patients and for clients whose bodies may
not be formed as expected, particularly in the case of female-to-male
transgenders. Such clients may also have special requirements in the
area of medication.
Nurses and carers should not violate the privacy of their patients and
clients by discussing them among themselves or with other patients,
clients or the friends outside the system. Violence against privacy
and self-respect is still violence.
Police
The New South Wales Police Service has not yet put in place a policy
specific to transgenders and as a result there is a constant stream of
complaints from the transgendered about their treatment at the hands
of the police. If a transgender is assaulted, even by a gang, it is as
likely as not to be the transgender who is accused of starting the
fracas and is therefore the one to be charged. Despite the existence
of GLLOs in the Police Service (Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers),
this is often an add-on duty handed to a junior member of the police
at a given station, and little training is provided to make the
classification meaningful. In the State of New South Wales there is
only one full-time GLLO (and he seems to be committed and good at his
work). To date there are no GLLTOs.
Nor is there adequate protection for the transgendered in public.
Consider the matter of street assault. This can occur in any locality
and to any sub-group within the community, but there are some
localities where it is predictable and therefore preventable.
Transgendered sex-workers are assaulted ten times more frequently than
non-transgendered sex-workers. Sometimes these assaults are the result
of a customer realising during the transaction that he is dealing with
a transgender, and assaulting his victim from a misguided sense of
macho outrage (vide "The Crying Game") but in many cases the customer
asks for a transgendered sex-worker, or goes to a house which
specialises in transgendered workers.
There are frequent impersonal long-distance assaults of transgendered
sex-workers on the streets. These assaults usually take the form of
abuse, or thrown objects (coins, eggs for example) from passing cars.
Sex-workers sometimes supply the registration numbers of these cars
and/or descriptions of their attackers, but the police seldom take any
action and frequently the only use made of the information is in the
compilation of a newsletter called "Ugly Mugs", distributed by the Sex
Workers Outreach Project to sex workers on the streets and in brothels
and safe houses used by sex-workers.
If the police wished to be more pro-active in this area it would
surely be simple enough to station a few police in the area where
transgendered sex-workers are known to work, in order to apprehend the
villains where possible, or take car numbers and follow up with
warnings to the owners.
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
Unlike gays, lesbians and bisexuals, transgendered and intersex people
are almost always involved in some kind of treatment by medical
professionals. This treatment may be cosmetic, surgical,
endocrinological or psychiatric. It is theoretically possible for a
transgendered or intersex person to go his or her own way without the
benefit of medical intervention but this would be very rare, and
sometimes this mode of behaviour would stray across the borders of
gender fuck, which is diametrically opposed to the needs of most
transgenders, who wish to be seamlessly translated into their affirmed
gender, and to live their lives, maybe not unnoticed, but at least
unnoticed for vagaries of gender.
The medical profession has adopted a strangely interventionist and
paternalistic attitude to the intersexed and to transgenders. Not only
do they insist on a person having reached the age of majority before
his/her needs are acted upon, but even after they are adults they have
to satisfy a series of gatekeepers that they really want what they say
they want and can handle the life they wish to lead. Those who are
intersexed at birth, or simply have non-standard genitalia, often
suffer intervention even more intrusive and violent than that suffered
by transgenders. Arbitrary decisions are made on their behalf about
which gender role they should adopt, and these decisions are made by
doctors and by parents who are usually trying to force a non-standard
person into a standard role, a role which may or may not work for the
individual and will, in any event, mean commitment to a series of
surgical procedures and lifelong medication.
There is a growing belief that intersexed babies and those with
indeterminate or non-standard genitalia should be left alone until
they are of an age to make an informed and mature decision. The
corollary to this is that those around them (relatives, peer group,
medical professionals) need to be educated in these areas so that they
understand that difference need not be inimical and that all people
are deserving of compassion and respect.
With regard to transgenders the medical profession takes a controlling
position over the administration of medical procedures necessary for
the transitioning transgender to achieve the physical changes
consonant with their gender role requirements. Violence can consist of
acts of omission or prevention just as much as it can consist of acts
of commission. Perhaps the greatest violence committed against
transgenders is the general refusal to allow medical intervention
before a person attains legal majority.
This means that transgenders are condemned to go through puberty
before their needs can be addressed and puberty is, for most
transgenders, a time of agony and deep depression. No wonder the
suicide rate of teenagers is seen to be high. Before puberty male and
female bodies are similar in somatic appearance and in characteristics
of voice, hair distribution etc. With puberty the male-to-female has
to contend with a breaking voice, new distribution of body hair, the
growth of facial hair and a redistribution of muscle and subcutaneous
fat which creates a male appearance. The female-to-male transgender
begins to menstruate, grows breast and subcutaneous fat is
redistributed to create the "hour-glass" shape seen as stereotypically
female.
Even if a transgender manages to struggle through puberty and can
convince the gatekeepers of her/his need to transition, many of these
physiological changes resultant from puberty must be undone,
surgically and through the administration of hormones, resulting in
tediously long, often embarrassing, always expensive, and sometimes
painful procedures. How much better if the growing trend to accept the
evidence of minors were followed in cases where children self-define
as transgendered, rather than forcing unnecessary and
counter-productive delays simply to satisfy an arbitrary age barrier
delimiting those legally responsible from those who are not. It should
be noted that this legal age is different in different countries and
tends to move downwards as society matures.
In some countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, Holland,
some Scandinavian countries) it is possible to have hormonal treatment
to delay the onset of puberty until the subject is of an age to make a
legal decision on his/her own behalf.
If a transgender has been treated in this way and makes the decision
to go ahead with full transition there are overwhelming advantages for
the subject compared with the problems involved in having to backtrack
through the negative effects of puberty, correcting hair growth,
removing body parts, changing voice patterns, treating the body soma
hormonally and so on. If, on the other hand, the subject decides not to
go forward with transition then hormonal treatment can be withdrawn
and the subject goes through a delayed puberty with no harm done.
The case of Alex who, at the age of thirteen, was given permission by
the Family Court in 2004 to commence treatment intended to delay his
puberty, was a first, and highly significant step towards a necessary
reform, but although it is a precedent it does not guarantee that
future cases will be treated with the same compassion.
Summation
It is clear that violence against the transgendered is to be found in
almost every milieu where transgenders interact with authority
organisations. From the moment they are born until their days end they
are forced to contend with gender classifications and unwelcome forms
of documentation which can only be amended after difficult, expensive
and often painful reassignments and modifications and must fight to be
allowed to adopt lifestyles which other humans take for granted for
themselves yet strive to disallow for others.
Whenever transgenders find themselves involved with gatekeepers,
carers or authority figures they are likely to find that their wishes
and wills are overborne, simply to make society's definitions simpler.
Schools, religions, hospitals, police services, the medical
profession, medical insurers, retirement homes and correctional
institutions find themselves in conflict with the needs and desires of
the transgendered clientele whom they should be guiding, helping,
treating and protecting.
Possible Strategies
The first element in solving a problem is recognition of the problem,
which involves education, commencing with education of the educators.
Those who teach at the most elementary level must be educated to
provide information on the existence and right to exist of
transgendered and intersex children, and these teachers should be
trained to deal with such children when they appear. Much could be
done to ease the way of transgendered and intersexed children if
teachers were prepared to make the way easier, by advice and by
compassionate nurture. Most transgendered children know their
situation very early and most learn to hide their innermost needs
almost as soon as they know them.
Education should continue throughout a person's school career, with
subjects on sexuality and gender difference the norm in schools, and
specialised courses provided at both undergraduate and post-graduate
levels. Nor should schools be allowed to evade this responsibility on
the grounds that such teaching and learning in some way conflicts with
their spiritual or religious convictions. Ideology is no excuse for
inhumanity and inhumanity should not be subsidised by public monies.
Vocational education for those proceeding to employment in prisons,
police services, retirement homes and hospitals should also include
instruction in respect for, and appropriate treatment of, the
transgendered. Those who assume the responsibility for transgendered
clients should also be tested from time to time to ensure that their
skills are maintained at an appropriate level, and sanctions against
those who abuse their position should be mandatory.
Legislators must be prepared to revise the legal code to bring legal
rights and the provision of appropriate documentation up to date, so
that the law remains in step with medical advances.
Society as a whole must also be educated, to eliminate the bigotry and
prejudice which still exists. This can be achieved not only through
formal education but through entertainment media and through a
pro-active attitude from the transgendered community itself. It is not
until transgender is seen as simply another human characteristic, like
eye-colour or intelligence level, and it therefore becomes virtually
invisible to the broader community, that we will have come close to
achieving the human and legal rights which are being grudgingly
yielded by a society which still feels the need to establish pecking
orders and to assert rights over those who are perceived as being in
any way different from the norm, whatever that is, or who contravene
primitive taboos which should have no place in a modern world.
Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under
the SAAP Program and supported by the NSW Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion
and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited
contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor
reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site.
Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc., the Department of Community Services
of the NSW Department of Health.
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