Catchup

[rozk]

I deliberately didn't post on Tuesday, because Julie Bindel attended the screening of Regretters, the Swedish documentary in which two detransitioners interview each other,and the panel afterwards, which I was on. I think it likely that she will post a piece at some point which we are going to have to rebut, especially if she misrepresents anything Christina and I said, so all I will say is that 1. it was very moving 2. the way that they interviewed each other meant that no-one was putting words into their mouths and 3. it was terribly intelligent programming to couple it with the short Latecomers which made the point that some people regret not transitioning when young and leaving it to a time when their adult commitments are time-expired.

As Christina said, everyone has their journey...

On Wednesday, I did my reading at Middlesex University, and it went well, in spite of having to go on immediately after Moazzam Begg talking about being shipped off to Guantanamo. I did the Keats/Alien poem first simply because it is so intense and that worked - I did some Heine, some Sappho, Stonewall, a chunk of the novel and ended with Theroigne de Mericourt because that does seem to be a good showstopping finale...

The thirty or so people there seem to have loved me.

I'm tired now - so I will post tomorrow about the programmes of shorts and the film about trans in Iran...

Comments

Re: Regretters

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

I have problems with the diagnosis

This betrays a (possibly deliberate?) fundamental misunderstanding about how medical transition is typically entered into, at least in this society. You paint a picture that involves us being sent, unsuspecting, to a doctor who "diagnoses" us with GID and proceeds to "treat" us with hormones and surgery.

In reality, the vast majority of us end up meeting these doctors because we seek them out. Some of them may see themselves as gatekeepers, others as facilitators, but we generally see them as people who have stuff we need. While some of us may approach medical professionals because we're troubled by our gender identity and unsure about what to do, a great many of us approach them because we know exactly what we want to do, and they offer one particular route towards getting it.

Abolish "the diagnosis" and the medical model, and we'll find other ways to get what we want, involving Internet pharmacies and less than entirely scrupulous surgeons, and people will die as a result.

You absolutely cannot, and will never argue or legislate us out of existence. You may think that's what you're doing, saving us from ourselves and/or the evils of the medical community, but from our point of view if you are ultimately successful, all you will have achieved is to make our lives more desperate, miserable and dangerous. We'll still do this, because all too often the only alternative is death.