Visible Man: Trans-Australia
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Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion,
advice, and information from an internationally respected leader of the
FTM community.
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In late October and early November 2002, I had the pleasure of speaking at
the Fifth International Congress on Sex and Gender Issues: "Intersexions" in
Perth and at the Health In Difference 4 conference in Sydney. I also had an
opportunity to meet and speak with the members and friends of FTM Australia
in both cities. Was FTM consciousness and experience Down Under different
than that which I've encountered in North America, Western Europe,
Scandinavia and Japan? Were the FTMs themselves significantly different
from the guys I've met from all those places plus South America, the Middle
East and Africa?
Of course there are cultural differences between all these locales, but the
bottom line for me is that all the people I met in Australia were as fine,
generous, intelligent and fun to be with as the people I've met from all
around the world. We have much in common, in particular with respect to the
various ways in which we understand ourselves as trans. But every single
person that I met in Oz was distinctive and memorable, not just the
transmen, but the transwomen and nontranspeople, too.
FTM Australia is run by Jack Powell and Craig Andrews, and they are quite a
team. Craig, 33, is the founder and editor of the group's newsletter,
Torque. He also maintains the group's Web site: www.ftmaustralia.org. And
Jack, 30, is the group's president, who keeps everything flowing at
meetings. Both are intelligent, personable, fun and creative men who are
passionate about the need to provide connection for other FTM-identified
people. Working together, and with the rest of the leadership team of FTMA,
they help keep each other focused and on track so they are able to provide
the information and networking services their mission calls for, on behalf
of the widest possible audience. Like FTM International (FTMI, based in the
USA), they don't require that people have any particular identification or
transitional trajectory in order to be included. There is a separate group
dedicated to lobbying for "full legal recognition and acceptance for men
with TS (transsexualism), their significant others and all of their
supporters," and that group is called MAN (Men's Australian Network
(http://home.vicnet.net.au/~man/),
led by Guy Faulk.
I met transmen in Perth and in Sydney, and I have to say that they were
remarkably similar in temperament, range of styles, attitudes and concerns
to the transmen I've met in every other country I've visited. The
conclusion I draw from my experience is that it seems the issues of gender
and transition and in-betweenness are common, human issues, and not defined
by particular social structures in the cultures we find ourselves living in,
with which we must attempt to integrate.
I met so many wonderful people in Australia. norrie mAy-welbe is a unique
being. Always barefoot, androgynous, incisive, politically astute and
bursting forth with irreverent humor, norrie is the epitome of transness and
unpredictability. Check out her
album of identities.
Felicity Haynes, Senior Lecturer in Education at Western Australia
University and co-founder of the International Foundation for Androgynous
Studies, who is not a trans person, but a powerful
woman who is "fascinated by the way in which our webs of language can both
liberate and imprison us, and by the strong resistance most people have to
believing in gender fluidity." She was my gracious host in Perth, the
gracious host for the conference there, and the center of postconference
socializing as she graciously accommodated an impromptu barbeque in her
backyard when it seemed no one wanted the conference to end.
Her associate, Tarquam McKenna, co-director of IFAS, is a gay educator and
psychotherapist who works with theater and art as therapy, and has a passion
about the recognition of LGBTI people in the workplace and addressing
homophobia and transphobia in education. My old friends Stephen Whittle and
Milton Diamond were there, too. With the Maori people, the intersexed people
like artist and world traveler Chris Somers, XXY, artist David Paterson of
New Zealand and Tony Briffa of Melbourne, the passionate advocate for
intersexed people who rivals ISNA's Cheryl Chase in dedication to the cause,
there was no lack of intellectual stimulation, not to mention good people
like Shannon Lee who were always ready for sharing a beer, mate.
In Sydney, I spoke to around 30 members of FTMA one evening, telling the
story of FTM activism in the USA and my own story about coming to grips with
being transsexual. And at the Health In Difference conference, Jack, Craig
and I did a panel on options for FTM transpeople. Jack had made a wonderful
presentation in Perth on mental health and transgender people, arguing that
the medical model of transsexual treatment looks for the absence of mental
illness rather than the complete mental and social well-being of the
transgender person. He noted "there appears to be a conspicuous absence of
resources, dialogue and strategies to assist transgender people to achieve
positive mental health status." This is an excellent point, one that many
people who heard him speak will, I'm sure, carry forward into their own
work.
A highlight of the experience was getting to parade with the athletes in the
opening ceremonies of the Gay Games as a
participant in the Global Rights Conferences, which was treated as an aspect
of the cultural activities surrounding the games. About 38,000 people
attended the ceremonies, which were staged brilliantly, celebrating the
heritage of Australia, including the reverence for the land that is the gift
of the indigenous people, and also depicting the struggle for civil rights
for gay people. These are human themes, no matter what the country, and the
struggle for dignity and freedom goes on. I'm in for the long haul.
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