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Female-to-Male (FtM) Transgender People’s Experiences in Australia: A National Study PDF

168 Pages·2015·4.613 MB·English
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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN SOCIOLOGY Tiffany Jones Andrea del Pozo de Bolger Tinashe Dune Amy Lykins Gail Hawkes Female-to-Male (FtM) Transgender People’s Experiences in Australia A National Study SpringerBriefs in Sociology Series editor Robert J. Johnson, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10410 Tiffany Jones Andrea del Pozo de Bolger (cid:129) Tinashe Dune Amy Lykins (cid:129) Gail Hawkes Female-to-Male (FtM) ’ Transgender People s Experiences in Australia A National Study 123 Tiffany Jones AmyLykins School ofEducation CBSS Universityof New England Universityof New England Armidale, NSW Armidale, NSW Australia Australia Andrea delPozodeBolger GailHawkes CBSS School ofArts Universityof New England Universityof New England Armidale, NSW Armidale, NSW Australia Australia Tinashe Dune Department of Health Universityof New England Armidale, NSW Australia ISSN 2212-6368 ISSN 2212-6376 (electronic) SpringerBriefs inSociology ISBN 978-3-319-13828-2 ISBN 978-3-319-13829-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-13829-9 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014958991 SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon ©TheAuthor(s)2015 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexempt fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthis book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) I would have been about four? I used to get really upset when in the mornings I’d check to see if I was a boy and wasn’t. I’d then start my day upset and not understand why I wasn’t a boy. (Lance, male/transsexual male, 40 years) … I feel male, but I feel like I can’t call myself a man yet. After living as a female, I find it hard to deny the existence of a part of me that lived that. I don’t really identify with the person I was, just the struggles I had. I believe my gender is evolving day by day and one day I will feel comfortable calling myself fully male… possibly after surgery.IhadmomentsthroughoutmychildhoodwhereIknew.Ihad moments as a teen where I knew. But I suppressed it all. It all came crashing down around me when I was about 20. It happened when I saw the results of one guy’s transition. I guess I didn’t know that transitioning was possible until then. I think that’s why I suppressed it, because I didn’t know there was an answer. (Harry, FtM transgender, 24 years) I identify as“Genderqueer”I like beingvisually ambiguous, butto friends who don’t understand that concept I let them know I prefer masculine pronouns. “She” definitely makes me feel dysphoric. (Hansel, genderqueer, age 22 years) I went to four GPs (doctors) until I found one that would listen to me to my discussion. One GP said to me, “Why would you want to changeyourgender,you’resuchaprettygirl”!Disclosingsomething so personal to a stranger is a HUGE deal, and to be brushed of like that is just fucking bullshit. (Fang, FtM transgender, 29 years) Acknowledgments The authors thank and acknowledge the University of New England’s Faculty of Professionswhichcontributedagranttowardsthisresearch,forthefundingofthis research. We also thank and acknowledge UNE Partnerships and the UNE School ofEducationwhohavecontributedgrantstowardssupportingDr.TiffanyJonesand her work on this project. Brian Landrigan has been an invaluable source of help with the development ofthelogographicfortheproject,thedesignofthewebsiteandothergraphicsand IT-related contributions. He also supported the team in an ongoing fashion throughout the project and was incredibly generous with his time and ideas. Dr. Anthony Marks kindly assisted with the development of the survey and ques- tions.Dr.MitraRashidianalsocontributedsomeassistanceintheearlydiscussions aboutthisprojectandforwardedonarticlesofinteresttotheE-malesteam. The E-males project reference group guided the development of the question- naireandtherecruitmentprocess.Wethankallthemembersofthisgroupfortheir commitment to this research, and also the members of UNE’s GSMA, FtM Australia, the National LGBTIQ Health Alliance and the Freedom Centre, and a range of individuals who offered feedback and contributed ideas. Theresearchwouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthesupportoforganisations, groupsandindividualactivistsalloverAustraliapromotingtheprojectbyputtingit into both professional and personal e-list mail-outs, placing advertisements on Facebookpagesandwebsites,puttinguppostersingendercentres,includingitems in newsletters, and letting people know by word-of-mouth. These networks were the basis of the high number of participants and we owe them a real debt of gratitude. Here we particularly thank FtM Australia, FtM Shed, Transmen Australia, DUDE magazine, the National LGBTIQ Health Alliance, Ygender, the Zoe Belle Gender Centre, the “I’m Transgender Facebook” Page, Trans Health Australia, Transgender Victoria (TGV), Transgender Perth, Sydney Transgender International Film Festival, Male Trans Experiences Online, Trannyshack, GSMA, AustralianTransgenderProud,TransPantherSA,FreedomCentreWA,Australian Transsexuals, Transgender Support, Genderqueer Australia, the Transgender StudiesNetwork,AGenderAgenda,ThePay-It-ForwardBinderProgram,PFLAG vii viii Acknowledgments Australia, Sally Goldner, Dani Wright, Sim Kennedy, GSAs and University-based support groups around Australia and many others. We thank the GLBTIQ press who supported our work through reduced adver- tising rates, and generous interviews and stories on the research. We thank DUDE Magazine, LOTL Magazine, Sydney Star Observer, JOY 94.9 Melbourne (who gave us extensive interview time to promote the project and was a particular sup- port) and all the other fantastic media serving our community. We also thank the mainstream press—including rural publications such as the Armidale Express— who not only promoted the recruitment drive for this project, but in doing so included interviews with Dr. Tiffany Jones that educated a broader Australian population about the many contributions transgender people make within the community. Most importantly, we owe an extra special thanks to the Australians who took thetimeoutoftheirday—sometimesbriefly,sometimesoveraperiodofweeks—to do the E-males survey and/or participate in the forum discussions. Your openness about yourselves, your experiences and your ideas for improving conditions were invaluable.Yourcontributionstoresearcharegreatlyappreciated,andwehopethis reportwillbeasteptowardssupportingthemanychangesyouwouldliketoseein the future. Contents 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Issues of (In)Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Increased Policy Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Lack of Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Research Frame and Aims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2 Design of the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Reference Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Overall Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Data Collection Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The E-Males Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The E-Males Blog Forum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Terminology Use in the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Ethical Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Sampling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 E-Males Concept and Logo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Recruitment and Promotion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Press Release/Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Internet, E-Lists, Networking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Social Networking Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Gender Centres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3 Our Diverse FtM Transgender Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Key Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Number of Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 How Participants Came to the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 State/Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Birth Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Gender Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 ix

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