I was asked for my opinion regarding this article about whether or not trigger warnings should be added to school syllabi (you can read that here http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/29/essay-faculty-members-about-why-they-will-not-use-trigger-warnings#ixzz33dKK46xn). This is my opinion.
First, I would like to point out that just because some of the faculty members who wrote this might have experienced some of the traumatic events that have galvanized this dialogue does not mean that they own this issue or that they are entitled to speak on behalf of all trauma survivors, many of whom might react to the same event differently.
I'm getting mixed messages. The authors acknowledge time and time again that they are not equipped to deal with psychiatric episodes, while simultaneously defending their right to retain full control of jobs that might directly involve re-traumatizing students. I'm not at all saying that the material taught in the classroom is inherently problematic; I agree that, for many, there is a valuable learning experience at the heart of this. But if you think you can be off of the hook, and that your personal preferences are going to act as some kind of gatekeeper that denies entry to the full blown manifestation of traumatic aftermath, don't teach. You can't avoid this shit by skipping out on trigger warnings because trigger warnings aren't reeeeally the issue at hand here.
You emphasize the importance of enhancing and expanding institutional support for students with mental health issues. But the classroom is part of the institution.
"PTSD is a disability; as with all disabilities, students and faculty deserve to have effective resources provided by independent campus offices that handle documentation, certification, and accommodation plans rather than by faculty proceeding on an ad hoc basis."
No. Don't you dare say "as with all disabilities" because PTSD is not like all disabilities. It is a psychiatric disability. And what I'm hearing is typical: you don't want to deal with mental health issues. You don't want to see them. You might even have them yourself, but it's still not appropriate to bring them into the classroom. It's too intense. It's not your responsibility. And that is the real issue here.
Think of PTSD as an allergy. Something specific triggers a negative reaction in an individual. There is overlap in physical symptoms and cognitive components including fear, even terror, over the possibility of death. Throats close off, extremities tingle. Pins and needles rain all over the body.
Parents of children with allergies in public schools have the right to tell teachers not to bring a certain food or item into the classroom. My mom did that for my brother every single year of elementary school because he had severe food allergies that would induce anaphylaxis. Letters were sent home to every parent. All kinds of special arrangements were made. Most of the teachers were happy to go out of their way for my brother...because it was a part of their job. It was a part of teaching to make sure that they did not trigger a negative, dangerous, or even deadly reaction in his youthful, learning body.
Yes, triggers are numerous and unpredictable. So are food allergies, but the common ones are still listed on the label in bold print and someone is held accountable for providing them.
You acknowledge that you expose students to visceral and upsetting material on a consistent basis. But dealing with the aftermath is a responsibility better left for disability services and not you?
The Sanctuary Model, which is a trauma-informed, evidence based approach to treating people who have experienced trauma is predicated on the understanding that trauma is pervasive in the human condition. Its tenets have application in schools and provide a method for changing an organizational culture. Procedures to avoid retraumatization includes staff training, awareness, and competency.
Quite frankly, if faculty is as ill-equipped to deal with trauma as you say, maybe you shouldn't be teaching about it without a little extra training.
At the same time, the Sanctuary Model heavily emphasizes survivor involvement, rights, and empowerment, with clients being responsible for much of their own care, and fewer institutional barriers that isolate clients as well as staff.
If you're worried about silencing faculty members, think about the students with PTSD who now know that you don't want to SEE them or their reality, that you don't want to deal with it. Perhaps trigger warnings would not only empower students and encourage them to be in charge of their own psychiatric well being, but they would also lead to fewer institutional barriers that isolate students FROM staff. It sounds like what you all need is a catalyst to collaborate, to listen to each other. You're going to need it.
Because Disability Services often leaves it to the discretion of the professor to decide how to deal with students who are unable to confront the course material. You already have the power, and that includes the power to deny a student with PTSD the accommodations that they need to successfully complete the course. And yet, faculty can't do this, and faculty can't do that.
So my question for you is this: Are you going to ask your students to leave their body casts at the door, or just the ones you can't see?
P.S. What's up with point number nine? You know how many people I've heard say that rape culture is no longer a thing? That racism is no longer a thing? Please, if anything, a trigger warning might remind people that this shit is real.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
A Special Type of Coming Out
I cannot call the time that I have spent in this place a “closet.”
I should not need to adulterate my account with the language of queer struggles in order to humanize experiences that are unique to me and not necessarily analogous to those of others. The harbinger of change is not assimilation, but rather, sincerity.
For weeks, I have known, not a closet, but a womb. Yes. Trapped in a dark place, on someone else’s whim, a product of a containment policy. My body belongs not to me, but to the spirit of the times. It is enmeshed in a historical tradition of stigma and a de facto criminalization of my social reality that is founded upon and simultaneously reinforces that subjugation.
A little over a month ago, I attempted suicide. And while the path was complex and one could enumerate multiple causes, it was a single thing that pushed me over the edge.
Specifically, it was the cumulative trauma that I had sustained over the course of my experiences with the psychiatric system and university administrators at several schools that led me to believe I was forever a prisoner.
I cannot stress this enough...it was the system. It WAS the system. The punitive approach, the loss of all autonomy and instrumental value as a patient, the involvement of law enforcement, the devastating fear of incarceration, the blatant abuse at the hands of mental health professionals, the routine institutional violence, the victim blaming, the complete and utter helplessness, the deep and oppressive fear of unsolicited power. Every encounter damaged me, haunted me forever. Every incident plunged me further into isolation and despair and deterred me further from reaching out for help. Every episode added to my high record of iatrogenic trauma.
From my freshman year of high school until now, I feel as though I have endured psychiatric rape. I have carried these experiences inside of me with shame and unimaginable silence. No one has ever acknowledged the depth of the trauma that I have sustained at the hands of the system.
But I am.
A month ago, I desperately wanted to reach out for help. But my multiple suspensions and involuntary hospitalizations in high school (along with the literal policing of my body, such as when the school nurse routinely checked my arms), combined with being reported behind my back if teachers even suspected me of being upset in school, even if I only looked like I was crying because of a torn contact lens, combined with the disempowering hospital experience and prisoner-like/cruel/degrading treatment of mental health patients that I experienced,
the disrespect for one's body, combined with the possibility of a hotline sending police to my residence if I accidentally hung up on them, as they did to a couple of my friends, combined with therapists who ganged up on me with my mother when she tried to control my therapy sessions, combined with a therapist who wanted to hospitalize me to scare me out of being depressed, combined with my arrest by police on my own front lawn, combined with my involuntary removal from TCNJ for suicidal ideation,
combined with the TCNJ guard who actually told my mother where the police station was when she wanted to leave me there because she didn’t want a trans* child with mental health issues, combined with the involvement of RUPD and the threat of emergency transport and almost being kicked out of the dorms, combined with the indefinite possibility of being kicked out of my dorm, combined with the criminalizing language of university policies that use phrases such as “students who threaten suicide” and “disciplinary action,” combined with the stern reminders of every mental health professional I had ever seen that they would need to report me if I revealed too much,
combined with eight years of being made to feel like a criminal when I had hurt absolutely no one, coalesced in order to convince me that the clinician’s agency would always trump my own. And in the process, my very humanity would be resisted, rather than explored and faced.
I think this is why my peers, too, resist my experiences instead of listening to them. For I have found in this past month that re-connecting with others and gaining their acceptance once more means locking away the institutionalization of a human being and succumbing to-or even being bred by-the fear of being pathologized.
This involves creating an alternative space inside.
Let’s revisit that womb. I am expected to nourish others continuously-to nourish the self-centered origin of those in positions of clinical and administrative power by accepting my perennial status as a safety risk, to nourish the paradigm of those in my social circles of positive psychology by surrendering my right to think and feel as I desire, however dark and scary my human legitimacy may be to others.
This is what it means to be in a womb, to live as an umbilical cord, to be an ambassador to another body, to be a bridge between life and death, to be a ghost, with one foot in the world of the dead and the other in the world of the living without fully belonging to either.
It means that people would be sad to see you go, but you are still alone. Your lived experiences are unspeakable. They are too heavy, too serious, too upsetting.
The full recognition of your rights as a living, breathing person is conditional on whether or not you are willing to run away from and never speak about the single most important and meaningful thing that has ever happened to you, because no one wants to hear about something like that.
We are taught that love conquers all, but only when those we love are sterile. And we cannot love someone until they have faced an “effective” intervention, until they have been evaluated, diagnosed, locked up, and given a prescription pad.
Think about what this does to a person, this institutionalized and socially sanctioned demonization of people like you.
Think about the constant lack of consent, the intrusion into your personal affairs, the control of your body, the penetration by cops and people in white coats, and stigma gyrating all of the while with the hips of a rocking horse as you lay backed up against a wall. The constant force leaves you with bureaucratic-induced brain damage and scars that no one can see. You feel trapped, and you make the decision to not be trapped anymore.
When you emerge, you are reborn.
They say that a rose by any other name would be just as sweet. And yet, who you are before an attempt and who you are after are qualitatively different. They are not separate and equal. There is no such thing. One of them remains fundamentally damaged.
But with this observation comes hope. If substantive and qualitative change can strike once, it can strike again.
I came across this beautiful article, and the author says this: “Listen to someone who is suicidal and you often hear a need for change so important, so indispensable, that they would rather die than go on living without the change. And when the person feels powerless to make that change happen, they become suicidal.”
Rebuilding a life is about enacting change. In the past month, I have felt more passion than I have ever felt before. In addition to getting help for myself, I realized that I can use my final semester at Rutgers to produce some kind of lasting and meaningful influence that might in some way benefit people who are suffering in silence just like I was.
I promise to never stop fighting and to never give up...for people in wombs everywhere. <3
I should not need to adulterate my account with the language of queer struggles in order to humanize experiences that are unique to me and not necessarily analogous to those of others. The harbinger of change is not assimilation, but rather, sincerity.
For weeks, I have known, not a closet, but a womb. Yes. Trapped in a dark place, on someone else’s whim, a product of a containment policy. My body belongs not to me, but to the spirit of the times. It is enmeshed in a historical tradition of stigma and a de facto criminalization of my social reality that is founded upon and simultaneously reinforces that subjugation.
A little over a month ago, I attempted suicide. And while the path was complex and one could enumerate multiple causes, it was a single thing that pushed me over the edge.
Specifically, it was the cumulative trauma that I had sustained over the course of my experiences with the psychiatric system and university administrators at several schools that led me to believe I was forever a prisoner.
I cannot stress this enough...it was the system. It WAS the system. The punitive approach, the loss of all autonomy and instrumental value as a patient, the involvement of law enforcement, the devastating fear of incarceration, the blatant abuse at the hands of mental health professionals, the routine institutional violence, the victim blaming, the complete and utter helplessness, the deep and oppressive fear of unsolicited power. Every encounter damaged me, haunted me forever. Every incident plunged me further into isolation and despair and deterred me further from reaching out for help. Every episode added to my high record of iatrogenic trauma.
From my freshman year of high school until now, I feel as though I have endured psychiatric rape. I have carried these experiences inside of me with shame and unimaginable silence. No one has ever acknowledged the depth of the trauma that I have sustained at the hands of the system.
But I am.
A month ago, I desperately wanted to reach out for help. But my multiple suspensions and involuntary hospitalizations in high school (along with the literal policing of my body, such as when the school nurse routinely checked my arms), combined with being reported behind my back if teachers even suspected me of being upset in school, even if I only looked like I was crying because of a torn contact lens, combined with the disempowering hospital experience and prisoner-like/cruel/degrading treatment of mental health patients that I experienced,
the disrespect for one's body, combined with the possibility of a hotline sending police to my residence if I accidentally hung up on them, as they did to a couple of my friends, combined with therapists who ganged up on me with my mother when she tried to control my therapy sessions, combined with a therapist who wanted to hospitalize me to scare me out of being depressed, combined with my arrest by police on my own front lawn, combined with my involuntary removal from TCNJ for suicidal ideation,
combined with the TCNJ guard who actually told my mother where the police station was when she wanted to leave me there because she didn’t want a trans* child with mental health issues, combined with the involvement of RUPD and the threat of emergency transport and almost being kicked out of the dorms, combined with the indefinite possibility of being kicked out of my dorm, combined with the criminalizing language of university policies that use phrases such as “students who threaten suicide” and “disciplinary action,” combined with the stern reminders of every mental health professional I had ever seen that they would need to report me if I revealed too much,
combined with eight years of being made to feel like a criminal when I had hurt absolutely no one, coalesced in order to convince me that the clinician’s agency would always trump my own. And in the process, my very humanity would be resisted, rather than explored and faced.
I think this is why my peers, too, resist my experiences instead of listening to them. For I have found in this past month that re-connecting with others and gaining their acceptance once more means locking away the institutionalization of a human being and succumbing to-or even being bred by-the fear of being pathologized.
This involves creating an alternative space inside.
Let’s revisit that womb. I am expected to nourish others continuously-to nourish the self-centered origin of those in positions of clinical and administrative power by accepting my perennial status as a safety risk, to nourish the paradigm of those in my social circles of positive psychology by surrendering my right to think and feel as I desire, however dark and scary my human legitimacy may be to others.
This is what it means to be in a womb, to live as an umbilical cord, to be an ambassador to another body, to be a bridge between life and death, to be a ghost, with one foot in the world of the dead and the other in the world of the living without fully belonging to either.
It means that people would be sad to see you go, but you are still alone. Your lived experiences are unspeakable. They are too heavy, too serious, too upsetting.
The full recognition of your rights as a living, breathing person is conditional on whether or not you are willing to run away from and never speak about the single most important and meaningful thing that has ever happened to you, because no one wants to hear about something like that.
We are taught that love conquers all, but only when those we love are sterile. And we cannot love someone until they have faced an “effective” intervention, until they have been evaluated, diagnosed, locked up, and given a prescription pad.
Think about what this does to a person, this institutionalized and socially sanctioned demonization of people like you.
Think about the constant lack of consent, the intrusion into your personal affairs, the control of your body, the penetration by cops and people in white coats, and stigma gyrating all of the while with the hips of a rocking horse as you lay backed up against a wall. The constant force leaves you with bureaucratic-induced brain damage and scars that no one can see. You feel trapped, and you make the decision to not be trapped anymore.
When you emerge, you are reborn.
They say that a rose by any other name would be just as sweet. And yet, who you are before an attempt and who you are after are qualitatively different. They are not separate and equal. There is no such thing. One of them remains fundamentally damaged.
But with this observation comes hope. If substantive and qualitative change can strike once, it can strike again.
I came across this beautiful article, and the author says this: “Listen to someone who is suicidal and you often hear a need for change so important, so indispensable, that they would rather die than go on living without the change. And when the person feels powerless to make that change happen, they become suicidal.”
Rebuilding a life is about enacting change. In the past month, I have felt more passion than I have ever felt before. In addition to getting help for myself, I realized that I can use my final semester at Rutgers to produce some kind of lasting and meaningful influence that might in some way benefit people who are suffering in silence just like I was.
I promise to never stop fighting and to never give up...for people in wombs everywhere. <3
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
My Story: An Inconvenient Truth About Rutgers And Social Justice Communities
I associate New Year’s Eve with noise. Every year when I was growing up, my mother would bring us outside at midnight with pots, pans, and noisemakers. Our own private pandemonium would be echoed all around us by the singing and wild cheering of neighbors as they enthusiastically greeted the new year to booming speakers.
I’m not a child anymore, but I’m bringing a noisemaker with me to tonight’s celebration. It’s clamorous and it’s inconvenient, but enough parties have silenced me, and I have made it my new year’s resolution to trounce on every violation to my person.
This is the truth about how I have been treated so far as a student with a psychiatric history who is living in Rainbow Perspectives at Rutgers University.
I do not owe anyone protection and I refuse to be ashamed for anything that I am about to say.
All semester, I grew close with someone who lives with me in Rainbow Perspectives, which is queer housing. He confided in me his mental health issues, so I confided back. On various occasions, he confessed to me suicidal thoughts, so again, I confessed back. He ended up reporting me right after the Thanksgiving break out of nowhere.
There were cops and ambulances at my door. Let me just say that for a group that made such a big deal about preserving confidentiality when I asked them if I could have my best friend with me (who not only was two doors down but ALSO my emergency/medical contact), they sure do a shit job of maintaining it themselves. Six cops standing in front of someone’s door isn’t exactly inconspicuous. My friends later told me that they were able to hear everything that was being said. At an even later date, I was told by the Director of Res Life that I actually did have the right to request that we meet in a private room in a different building. I had never been informed of these rights at the scene when I actually needed them.
Oh yeah, I ended up being victim blamed by a cop about rape. That was fun.
I also had a mandatory CAPS evaluation, the results of which would decide whether or not I would be kicked out of the dorms. I had to literally beg the woman who was conducting the interview to take into account that without the dorms, I would be homeless and, by extension, bereft of other vital resources, such as mental health and medical services, including but not limited to testosterone and psychiatric medication. Completing my degree would have been out of the question. I simply couldn't go home.
I did wonder why their first instinct was to kick me out instead of supplying me with resources. All year, I've been requesting to see the trauma specialist at CAPS, after I found out that there wouldn't be a trauma psychotherapy group open to all genders until the spring semester. I guess Rutgers just can't admit that its resources are being stretched thin, so instead, they take it out on the students.
I was allowed to stay, but was told by the Director of Res Life that there was still an investigation being conducted about me and that my housing status might still hang in the balance (I later learned this was false. There was simply a time lag between parties as they relayed information to each other). But at the time, I was confused and wanted to know what exactly had been said about me and what I was up against.
I went to knock on the door of my ex-friend to inquire a) if he was the one who reported me and b) if so, what had he said that would warrant an extended investigation?
What happened next requires that I preface by saying that the impact of the experience and diagnosis of mental health issues on my identity has been profound. I will gladly make the bold statement that these experiences have been more central to my identity and vital to my voice and sense of self than being queer or trans*.
The person who screamed at me was someone who I had never seen before in my life. He was unrecognizable as he screamed at me, over and over again, that I was fucked up in the head, that there was something seriously wrong with me, that I was a nutcase, that I was fucking crazy, that I was selfish, and weak, that I was a burden on my friends and a drain to everyone around me, that no one should have to be friends with someone like me. He kept screaming these things. I told him if I was kicked out of the dorms, I would be homeless; he said he didn’t give a shit.
Finally, he told me that the director of the Rainbow Perspectives program related to him when he reported me that if a student kills themselves, whether it is on the premises or completely off campus, the program has to shut down.
And he told (screamed at) me that I was a hazard, I was a threat to the safe space, and he was going to personally make sure that I wasn’t going to be there or do anything to fuck everything up for everyone else.
I told him the policy was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, and I asked him where all of the trans* students were supposed to go in the event that Rainbow shut down. He said he didn’t give a shit about the trans* people in Rainbow and that it wasn’t his problem. And he continued to demonize me and claim that I was a hazard and he was going to prevent me from fucking the place up.
God, there are no words to describe the impact his words had on me. It was life changing in that it permanently stole a piece of my ability to love myself. To me, it was worse than being called a faggot or derogatory terms for trans* people.
Most people have legal and psychological tunnel vision in that they are unable to see a hate crime when the offense is motivated by someone's psychiatric history and/or status.
I know that when you think of crimes inspired by hate or bias, you conjure images of queer people, trans* people, people of color, or people wearing hijabs, or yarmulkes.
Few of you are aware of the vulnerability to abuse, assault, and intimidation that accompanies mental health issues.
We have no voice.
We might be in a position of dependence on a system that is capable of concealing sadism in the high credibility of institutional power.
Other times, we are simply viewed as undeserving of being taken seriously. And that fucking hurts!
The slurs, pejoratives, and violence that we endure are just as devastating as their anti-queer, racial, and religious counterparts, but they are not recognized to nearly the same extent, because our culture reinforces these practices on a quotidian basis.
But he shattered my sense of self-worth and made me feel violated. I FELT ASSAULTED. The term came to my mind as soon as I left his room for a reason! Furthermore, he basically threatened me. I felt disgusting, like a criminal, something that needed to be expunged. More than anything, I felt worthless. So worthless. Instinctively, I concluded that if he felt this way about me, so must everyone else. It’s a vicious cycle; his words enable attitudes and practices that marginalize me, and, in turn, those practices and attitudes endorse his words.
***note: from this point on, I am going to refer to members of staff and administration, both students and non-students, as POP (person of power) rather than their actual titles, in an effort to preserve their anonymity.
I left his room shaking uncontrollably. By now, I was legitimately afraid. Up until this point, I had never seen this side of my friend before. Clearly, he couldn't be counted on for predictability. I was terrified that if I told someone what he said, he was in a position of power where he could retaliate out of anger by using my psychiatric history against me-and I was already in a precarious situation with my housing status as it was. Furthermore, I found out that his good friend, a POP, had actually spread my private, confidential psychiatric information around Rainbow Perspectives. That is, the content related to the reason why I had been reported was disseminated around my dorm, by someone who works for Rutgers.
So at this point, I had no fucking idea what to do. If people were talking about me, and someone else decided to report it, not knowing that it had already been reported, CAPS would be called, it would be considered another incident, and I could get kicked out or hospitalized. I knew from experience that no one was going to take my word, the word of the accused, over his. I also had no idea anymore if my very presence or the sight of me could prompt this person to retaliate out of anger-again, I couldn't put it past him to be unpredictable and volatile.
Finally, he verbally attacked me and threatened me. If Rainbow Perspectives was as committed to upholding a safe space as it purported to, surely, that would be seen as unacceptable, right?
Apparently not. I know for a fact that if I had been attacked on the basis of a queer, trans*, or racial identity, there would be a zero tolerance policy. There is no question in my mind! I’m not going to list the titles of all of the people who I have approached because I still desire to preserve their anonymity, but they are in positions of power and are closely related in some way to either Rainbow Perspectives, Res Life, or student affairs. And so far, no one has done anything.
One person didn't respond. I never heard back from them. Big surprise.
I was shocked when no one outright expressed outrage that I had been threatened by their own policy. And no one assured me that they would at least try to protect me in the event that this person retaliated.
One of the POP I spoke to finally told me that while it was outside of her jurisdiction to get directly involved, she would file a request that the situation be examined further.
But this was only after I expressed my consternation at her suggestion that we set up a meeting between her and other administrators/people from res life so that they could figure out how to find me support when things like this happen. This was even after I had told her that, according to another POP who I confided in, this was not the first time the person who did this to me had hurt someone else, nor was it the first time someone had complained about the staff member who was spreading my psychiatric information.
It felt like an implicit form of victim blaming.
Instead of claiming that the actions of these parties were unacceptable, she decided to put the focus on me. And only me. She even implied that what happened upset me so much because my history made me “emotionally fragile.” And while she did supposedly issue a request so that Res Life would investigate the situation, her first reaction was not to do something about this individual.
And while we’re on the topic of victim blaming, let’s talk about that Rainbow Perspectives policy (for the record, when I related this part of the story to the same POP who my case was originally reported to, the one who told my friend about it, she did not deny that it exists).
If a Rainbow Perspectives student kills themselves, even if it's off-campus and not in any way affiliated with university property, the entire program has to shut down.
This means that every student-including the trans* students-must surrender their access to a safe space because of the actions of one individual.
This means that in spite of our community's ardent emphasis on recognizing intersectional identities, we are going to make the dangerous assumption that the queer identity alone was the impetus to suicide.
All over this university, people are assaulted and raped. Assailants have a ubiquitous presence. But of course, the burden ALWAYS rests on the victim, and the victim alone, to provide a safe haven for everyone else.
And yet, the person who envisioned, fought for, and ultimately established Rainbow Perspectives killed herself. You cannot evade this topic by demonizing it. Suicide is already entrenched in our program's history.
And it is STILL an invaluable program. I have no idea what I would do or where I would be without it.
What shakes the program to its core are not its roots but rather, where it can potentially go.
If you provide someone with a safe space, that is a right, not a privilege. They should not be forced to benefit from that space in a purely conditional way.
And by creating a policy that attributes survival solely to the adherence of these community standards that we have, the antithesis of survival can be viewed not only as a violation of these standards, but also as a character defect, a failure on the part of those who did not survive to fully exercise the program's instrumental value.
You cannot cultivate sensitivity toward a behavior that beleaguers our community by, essentially, criminalizing it. If anything, a punitive stance in relation to this person's actions becomes a defamatory statement. It becomes victim blaming.
It’s ironic, because no one’s dead, and I was victimized by the policy anyway.
Victim blaming takes so many forms...and so does victimization. To be completely honest, because this person attacked a part of me that is so fundamental to who I am, it hurts more than when I was raped in the beginning of my college career. Yes. Yes, it hurts that much, the things that he said and HOW he said them, in a way that was meant to demean me. He made me fear for my safety. He made me feel worthless.
At this point, I am exhausted. These past few weeks have been agony. I failed a final because of everything that was going on. I don't sleep and when I do, I have nightmares about the things he screamed at me, and how awful he made me feel about myself, and how the burden of an entire community rested on my shoulders, and how my mind could actually be unclean and awful enough to sentence a housing program to closure. I don't fall asleep until 7 am anymore because I am wracked with the guilt of being a criminal, or at least, someone who has been treated as such.
I consider myself a fugitive, but not in a legal sense. The de facto criminalization of my social reality has exposed me to abuse, intimidation, harassment, and exploitation at the hands of mental health professionals and leaders in social justice communities, my whole life. My grievances are systematically placed outside the realm of surveillance. And all too often, clinicians and administrators have demonstrated their lack of understanding of the causal direction and institutional practices of marginalization that deter individuals from seeking care. Indeed, it is the structure and procedures of the psychiatric system-and the school administrators that implement them-that deny people access to assistance and thereby perpetuates their invisibility. The abuse that is inflicted by the administrative aspect of psychiatric practice within the educational system is not a unilateral occurrence that can be caught by a security camera. It is an all-pervasive condition.
It is this silent endorsement of our predicament that has stolen a piece of my ability to love myself.
And that is exactly why I brought my noise maker tonight.
I’m not a child anymore, but I’m bringing a noisemaker with me to tonight’s celebration. It’s clamorous and it’s inconvenient, but enough parties have silenced me, and I have made it my new year’s resolution to trounce on every violation to my person.
This is the truth about how I have been treated so far as a student with a psychiatric history who is living in Rainbow Perspectives at Rutgers University.
I do not owe anyone protection and I refuse to be ashamed for anything that I am about to say.
All semester, I grew close with someone who lives with me in Rainbow Perspectives, which is queer housing. He confided in me his mental health issues, so I confided back. On various occasions, he confessed to me suicidal thoughts, so again, I confessed back. He ended up reporting me right after the Thanksgiving break out of nowhere.
There were cops and ambulances at my door. Let me just say that for a group that made such a big deal about preserving confidentiality when I asked them if I could have my best friend with me (who not only was two doors down but ALSO my emergency/medical contact), they sure do a shit job of maintaining it themselves. Six cops standing in front of someone’s door isn’t exactly inconspicuous. My friends later told me that they were able to hear everything that was being said. At an even later date, I was told by the Director of Res Life that I actually did have the right to request that we meet in a private room in a different building. I had never been informed of these rights at the scene when I actually needed them.
Oh yeah, I ended up being victim blamed by a cop about rape. That was fun.
I also had a mandatory CAPS evaluation, the results of which would decide whether or not I would be kicked out of the dorms. I had to literally beg the woman who was conducting the interview to take into account that without the dorms, I would be homeless and, by extension, bereft of other vital resources, such as mental health and medical services, including but not limited to testosterone and psychiatric medication. Completing my degree would have been out of the question. I simply couldn't go home.
I did wonder why their first instinct was to kick me out instead of supplying me with resources. All year, I've been requesting to see the trauma specialist at CAPS, after I found out that there wouldn't be a trauma psychotherapy group open to all genders until the spring semester. I guess Rutgers just can't admit that its resources are being stretched thin, so instead, they take it out on the students.
I was allowed to stay, but was told by the Director of Res Life that there was still an investigation being conducted about me and that my housing status might still hang in the balance (I later learned this was false. There was simply a time lag between parties as they relayed information to each other). But at the time, I was confused and wanted to know what exactly had been said about me and what I was up against.
I went to knock on the door of my ex-friend to inquire a) if he was the one who reported me and b) if so, what had he said that would warrant an extended investigation?
What happened next requires that I preface by saying that the impact of the experience and diagnosis of mental health issues on my identity has been profound. I will gladly make the bold statement that these experiences have been more central to my identity and vital to my voice and sense of self than being queer or trans*.
The person who screamed at me was someone who I had never seen before in my life. He was unrecognizable as he screamed at me, over and over again, that I was fucked up in the head, that there was something seriously wrong with me, that I was a nutcase, that I was fucking crazy, that I was selfish, and weak, that I was a burden on my friends and a drain to everyone around me, that no one should have to be friends with someone like me. He kept screaming these things. I told him if I was kicked out of the dorms, I would be homeless; he said he didn’t give a shit.
Finally, he told me that the director of the Rainbow Perspectives program related to him when he reported me that if a student kills themselves, whether it is on the premises or completely off campus, the program has to shut down.
And he told (screamed at) me that I was a hazard, I was a threat to the safe space, and he was going to personally make sure that I wasn’t going to be there or do anything to fuck everything up for everyone else.
I told him the policy was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, and I asked him where all of the trans* students were supposed to go in the event that Rainbow shut down. He said he didn’t give a shit about the trans* people in Rainbow and that it wasn’t his problem. And he continued to demonize me and claim that I was a hazard and he was going to prevent me from fucking the place up.
God, there are no words to describe the impact his words had on me. It was life changing in that it permanently stole a piece of my ability to love myself. To me, it was worse than being called a faggot or derogatory terms for trans* people.
Most people have legal and psychological tunnel vision in that they are unable to see a hate crime when the offense is motivated by someone's psychiatric history and/or status.
I know that when you think of crimes inspired by hate or bias, you conjure images of queer people, trans* people, people of color, or people wearing hijabs, or yarmulkes.
Few of you are aware of the vulnerability to abuse, assault, and intimidation that accompanies mental health issues.
We have no voice.
We might be in a position of dependence on a system that is capable of concealing sadism in the high credibility of institutional power.
Other times, we are simply viewed as undeserving of being taken seriously. And that fucking hurts!
The slurs, pejoratives, and violence that we endure are just as devastating as their anti-queer, racial, and religious counterparts, but they are not recognized to nearly the same extent, because our culture reinforces these practices on a quotidian basis.
But he shattered my sense of self-worth and made me feel violated. I FELT ASSAULTED. The term came to my mind as soon as I left his room for a reason! Furthermore, he basically threatened me. I felt disgusting, like a criminal, something that needed to be expunged. More than anything, I felt worthless. So worthless. Instinctively, I concluded that if he felt this way about me, so must everyone else. It’s a vicious cycle; his words enable attitudes and practices that marginalize me, and, in turn, those practices and attitudes endorse his words.
***note: from this point on, I am going to refer to members of staff and administration, both students and non-students, as POP (person of power) rather than their actual titles, in an effort to preserve their anonymity.
I left his room shaking uncontrollably. By now, I was legitimately afraid. Up until this point, I had never seen this side of my friend before. Clearly, he couldn't be counted on for predictability. I was terrified that if I told someone what he said, he was in a position of power where he could retaliate out of anger by using my psychiatric history against me-and I was already in a precarious situation with my housing status as it was. Furthermore, I found out that his good friend, a POP, had actually spread my private, confidential psychiatric information around Rainbow Perspectives. That is, the content related to the reason why I had been reported was disseminated around my dorm, by someone who works for Rutgers.
So at this point, I had no fucking idea what to do. If people were talking about me, and someone else decided to report it, not knowing that it had already been reported, CAPS would be called, it would be considered another incident, and I could get kicked out or hospitalized. I knew from experience that no one was going to take my word, the word of the accused, over his. I also had no idea anymore if my very presence or the sight of me could prompt this person to retaliate out of anger-again, I couldn't put it past him to be unpredictable and volatile.
Finally, he verbally attacked me and threatened me. If Rainbow Perspectives was as committed to upholding a safe space as it purported to, surely, that would be seen as unacceptable, right?
Apparently not. I know for a fact that if I had been attacked on the basis of a queer, trans*, or racial identity, there would be a zero tolerance policy. There is no question in my mind! I’m not going to list the titles of all of the people who I have approached because I still desire to preserve their anonymity, but they are in positions of power and are closely related in some way to either Rainbow Perspectives, Res Life, or student affairs. And so far, no one has done anything.
One person didn't respond. I never heard back from them. Big surprise.
I was shocked when no one outright expressed outrage that I had been threatened by their own policy. And no one assured me that they would at least try to protect me in the event that this person retaliated.
One of the POP I spoke to finally told me that while it was outside of her jurisdiction to get directly involved, she would file a request that the situation be examined further.
But this was only after I expressed my consternation at her suggestion that we set up a meeting between her and other administrators/people from res life so that they could figure out how to find me support when things like this happen. This was even after I had told her that, according to another POP who I confided in, this was not the first time the person who did this to me had hurt someone else, nor was it the first time someone had complained about the staff member who was spreading my psychiatric information.
It felt like an implicit form of victim blaming.
Instead of claiming that the actions of these parties were unacceptable, she decided to put the focus on me. And only me. She even implied that what happened upset me so much because my history made me “emotionally fragile.” And while she did supposedly issue a request so that Res Life would investigate the situation, her first reaction was not to do something about this individual.
And while we’re on the topic of victim blaming, let’s talk about that Rainbow Perspectives policy (for the record, when I related this part of the story to the same POP who my case was originally reported to, the one who told my friend about it, she did not deny that it exists).
If a Rainbow Perspectives student kills themselves, even if it's off-campus and not in any way affiliated with university property, the entire program has to shut down.
This means that every student-including the trans* students-must surrender their access to a safe space because of the actions of one individual.
This means that in spite of our community's ardent emphasis on recognizing intersectional identities, we are going to make the dangerous assumption that the queer identity alone was the impetus to suicide.
All over this university, people are assaulted and raped. Assailants have a ubiquitous presence. But of course, the burden ALWAYS rests on the victim, and the victim alone, to provide a safe haven for everyone else.
And yet, the person who envisioned, fought for, and ultimately established Rainbow Perspectives killed herself. You cannot evade this topic by demonizing it. Suicide is already entrenched in our program's history.
And it is STILL an invaluable program. I have no idea what I would do or where I would be without it.
What shakes the program to its core are not its roots but rather, where it can potentially go.
If you provide someone with a safe space, that is a right, not a privilege. They should not be forced to benefit from that space in a purely conditional way.
And by creating a policy that attributes survival solely to the adherence of these community standards that we have, the antithesis of survival can be viewed not only as a violation of these standards, but also as a character defect, a failure on the part of those who did not survive to fully exercise the program's instrumental value.
You cannot cultivate sensitivity toward a behavior that beleaguers our community by, essentially, criminalizing it. If anything, a punitive stance in relation to this person's actions becomes a defamatory statement. It becomes victim blaming.
It’s ironic, because no one’s dead, and I was victimized by the policy anyway.
Victim blaming takes so many forms...and so does victimization. To be completely honest, because this person attacked a part of me that is so fundamental to who I am, it hurts more than when I was raped in the beginning of my college career. Yes. Yes, it hurts that much, the things that he said and HOW he said them, in a way that was meant to demean me. He made me fear for my safety. He made me feel worthless.
At this point, I am exhausted. These past few weeks have been agony. I failed a final because of everything that was going on. I don't sleep and when I do, I have nightmares about the things he screamed at me, and how awful he made me feel about myself, and how the burden of an entire community rested on my shoulders, and how my mind could actually be unclean and awful enough to sentence a housing program to closure. I don't fall asleep until 7 am anymore because I am wracked with the guilt of being a criminal, or at least, someone who has been treated as such.
I consider myself a fugitive, but not in a legal sense. The de facto criminalization of my social reality has exposed me to abuse, intimidation, harassment, and exploitation at the hands of mental health professionals and leaders in social justice communities, my whole life. My grievances are systematically placed outside the realm of surveillance. And all too often, clinicians and administrators have demonstrated their lack of understanding of the causal direction and institutional practices of marginalization that deter individuals from seeking care. Indeed, it is the structure and procedures of the psychiatric system-and the school administrators that implement them-that deny people access to assistance and thereby perpetuates their invisibility. The abuse that is inflicted by the administrative aspect of psychiatric practice within the educational system is not a unilateral occurrence that can be caught by a security camera. It is an all-pervasive condition.
It is this silent endorsement of our predicament that has stolen a piece of my ability to love myself.
And that is exactly why I brought my noise maker tonight.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Dismantling the Gender Binary in the Domain of Rape
Four days ago, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I said nothing. After all, as an ardent feminist, I wholeheartedly support any initiative that is aimed at empowering women and eradicating gender inequality.
More than anything, my backbone had been derailed by the admonishing attitudes of fellow male survivors who saw speaking out and making claims such as, "Men can be victims of violence, too," as out of place and undermining the extent to which their female counterparts faced violence on a global and systematic scale.
But with the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence underway, I thought it was imperative to discuss the dangers in using a gender essentialist approach to orchestrating attempts at curtailing the incidence of rape and sexual violence.
For starters, these negative reactions to male survivors serve a silencing function that has several consequences. In addition to reinforcing self-blame in the survivor, it also leads male survivors to question whether future disclosures will be effective. Furthermore, it reinforces the uncertainty about whether their experiences qualify as rape-an issue that is compounded by the fact that it wasn't until 2012 when the federal definition of rape stopped excluding anatomically male bodies from the statistical reporting of rape nationwide.
Most importantly, this model of sexual violence portrays female survivors as constituents in a societal imbalance of power that subjugates female body autonomy-which is, indisputably, usually the case. However, this same model portrays male survivors as isolated victims of sick and twisted perpetrators, extricated of political context, as far beyond the scope of our comprehension as lightning striking twice in the same spot.
The implications are such that when male survivors encounter dissent to voicing their experiences in spaces that have been traditionally designed for women, and they are offered no alternative space, patriarchy is allowed to perpetuate and safe-guard the injustices that all bodies, regardless of gender, experience on a structural and systematic basis.
Because patriarchy hurts everyone.
Furthermore, by emphasizing gender socialization as the primary determinant of violence, we are allowed to ignore concomitant factors such as socioeconomic status and race. For example, native American women are more likely to be assaulted than their white counterparts, as rape has historically been used as an agent of colonial domination.
Surely, we need to have much more sharply nuanced conversations about rape. As one internet author (Jos) puts it,
"Rape is absolutely a gendered crime. This is true of how it plays out in the real world, and of our concept of rape – both the act and idea of rape are used to perpetuate a patriarchal gender hierarchy. Violence in general is function and gendered, as Eesha Pandit made clear in her powerful theory of violence. We know sexual violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. But we don’t actually know how strong the gender disparity is largely because of how gendered our concept of rape is...Because our idea of sexual violence is gendered in such an essentialist way, we don’t actually have a broad picture of the gendered ways these crimes play out in the real world (feministing.com)"
Absolutely. My intention as a trans* identified male survivor of gender based violence is not to steal the show, but rather, to remind others that the world and its stage-and all of the players in it-are both potential aggressors and victims, regardless of gender.
All too often, the very mention of rape reinforces the dreaded gender binary.
I feel that the binary pits my unique gender framework against me. I am disregarded and denied access to the representation that I so badly need on two fronts: my designation as male, and my designation as a trans* male. Both play pivotal roles in shaping my experiences with gender based violence.
Rarely is this intersection of identities considered in discussions of gender based violence. As someone who is readily perceived as a cisgender male, I receive little to no support for my extensive history of emotional, physical, and sexual trauma that has accumulated both as a product of my own lived experiences, as well as those of people who are close to me. It is extraordinarily difficult to find resources that are dedicated to men, or that serve men at all. To put things into perspective, the psychotherapy groups at Rutgers that serve survivors of sexual abuse are female exclusive. Consequently, male identified people with raging cases of PTSD are left to fend for themselves.
Additionally, the fact that I am, quite specifically, a trans* identified man means that I am going to disproportionately experience and be impacted by violence in my immediate community. This violence, intensely personal, visceral, and sexually charged, has been inflicted against me, as well as those close to me, in the form of rape, beatings, harassment, and verbal assault. As a male identified person, I lack access to the support groups and services that would allow me to cope effectively with such traumas. Keep in mind that the eating disorder awareness and advocacy movement, a force that shapes the additional care we might need in the aftermath of sexual trauma, is geared towards cisgender women as well.
However, I am still capable of being denied my male privilege, even during my most vulnerable moments. I'll never forget the outrage that I felt when I was kicked out of an online support group for male survivors of sexual violence after I had divulged my trans* identity.
As a trans* individual, I am subjected to a very specific form of rape culture, as prevalent attitudes and practices condone, excuse, and normalize the invasion and objectification of trans* bodies in everyday conversation. We are seen as something to be examined, critiqued, or deemed valid or invalid by a cis person's decision. Our bodies are appraised, regarded as public domain, and viewed in terms of secondary sex characteristics. The subjugation of our bodies is amplified by the fact that psycho-medical community is literally the gatekeeper of our care. They own our bodies. We are at their mercy.
This mercy is implicated in a unique situation that is often faced by transgender survivors of sexual trauma; we fear that disclosing this abuse to our therapists will lead them to rescind their services as they pertain to our transition related care, as a history of sexual abuse can be used by mental health professionals in order to rationalize our "non-normative" gender identities.
And finally, as a trans* man, I have been actively harmed by misogyny, some of which has certainly constituted abuse. Yet in feminist spaces, I feel as though my male privilege does not entitle me to speak about this deep history, even though it is indeed vital to my voice and life experiences. I always fear that I will be usurping more "authentic" female voices, even while that same female-assignedness and socialization is used to invalidate my gender identity and to strip me of my humanity, never mind my experiences of oppression.
This is the effect of a binaried representation of rape, one that broadly portrays (cisgendered) women as victims and (cisgendered) men as perpetrators. First, the binary strips anyone who doesn't fit this model of their personhood. Then, it strips us of our intimate and deeply personal relationship with violence, sometimes by using that same damning status against us. Being trans* taught me to feel powerless, and being male taught me that I am supposed to be inherently gratification-oriented. It's why I just sat there like a stone castle and said nothing while my female friend persistently stroked my inner thigh in jest even though it made my face break out in a heat of humiliation and triggered my flashbacks of rape.
The point is that while radical feminists and men's rights groups put forth these bellicose circus acts in which they reject the suffering of the other in an effort to promote their own visibility, everyone is hurt. Women are demonized, discredited, knocked off of their pedestals, and accused of false rape allegations. Men are still deprived of resources and support. The most marginalized members in both camps-and that includes individuals who do not fall into either-such as queer people, non-binary individuals, and people of color, fail to be addressed at all.
I will conclude by inserting a quote from the same internet author as before:
"Rape is absolutely a gendered crime, but the act of rape itself doesn’t necessarily follow those rules. We need to be able to hold an understanding of rape as a genderless act at the same time that we recognize it as embedded in a gendered culture of violence. No one said feminism was easy (Jos, feministing.com)"
More than anything, my backbone had been derailed by the admonishing attitudes of fellow male survivors who saw speaking out and making claims such as, "Men can be victims of violence, too," as out of place and undermining the extent to which their female counterparts faced violence on a global and systematic scale.
But with the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence underway, I thought it was imperative to discuss the dangers in using a gender essentialist approach to orchestrating attempts at curtailing the incidence of rape and sexual violence.
For starters, these negative reactions to male survivors serve a silencing function that has several consequences. In addition to reinforcing self-blame in the survivor, it also leads male survivors to question whether future disclosures will be effective. Furthermore, it reinforces the uncertainty about whether their experiences qualify as rape-an issue that is compounded by the fact that it wasn't until 2012 when the federal definition of rape stopped excluding anatomically male bodies from the statistical reporting of rape nationwide.
Most importantly, this model of sexual violence portrays female survivors as constituents in a societal imbalance of power that subjugates female body autonomy-which is, indisputably, usually the case. However, this same model portrays male survivors as isolated victims of sick and twisted perpetrators, extricated of political context, as far beyond the scope of our comprehension as lightning striking twice in the same spot.
The implications are such that when male survivors encounter dissent to voicing their experiences in spaces that have been traditionally designed for women, and they are offered no alternative space, patriarchy is allowed to perpetuate and safe-guard the injustices that all bodies, regardless of gender, experience on a structural and systematic basis.
Because patriarchy hurts everyone.
Furthermore, by emphasizing gender socialization as the primary determinant of violence, we are allowed to ignore concomitant factors such as socioeconomic status and race. For example, native American women are more likely to be assaulted than their white counterparts, as rape has historically been used as an agent of colonial domination.
Surely, we need to have much more sharply nuanced conversations about rape. As one internet author (Jos) puts it,
"Rape is absolutely a gendered crime. This is true of how it plays out in the real world, and of our concept of rape – both the act and idea of rape are used to perpetuate a patriarchal gender hierarchy. Violence in general is function and gendered, as Eesha Pandit made clear in her powerful theory of violence. We know sexual violence is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. But we don’t actually know how strong the gender disparity is largely because of how gendered our concept of rape is...Because our idea of sexual violence is gendered in such an essentialist way, we don’t actually have a broad picture of the gendered ways these crimes play out in the real world (feministing.com)"
Absolutely. My intention as a trans* identified male survivor of gender based violence is not to steal the show, but rather, to remind others that the world and its stage-and all of the players in it-are both potential aggressors and victims, regardless of gender.
All too often, the very mention of rape reinforces the dreaded gender binary.
I feel that the binary pits my unique gender framework against me. I am disregarded and denied access to the representation that I so badly need on two fronts: my designation as male, and my designation as a trans* male. Both play pivotal roles in shaping my experiences with gender based violence.
Rarely is this intersection of identities considered in discussions of gender based violence. As someone who is readily perceived as a cisgender male, I receive little to no support for my extensive history of emotional, physical, and sexual trauma that has accumulated both as a product of my own lived experiences, as well as those of people who are close to me. It is extraordinarily difficult to find resources that are dedicated to men, or that serve men at all. To put things into perspective, the psychotherapy groups at Rutgers that serve survivors of sexual abuse are female exclusive. Consequently, male identified people with raging cases of PTSD are left to fend for themselves.
Additionally, the fact that I am, quite specifically, a trans* identified man means that I am going to disproportionately experience and be impacted by violence in my immediate community. This violence, intensely personal, visceral, and sexually charged, has been inflicted against me, as well as those close to me, in the form of rape, beatings, harassment, and verbal assault. As a male identified person, I lack access to the support groups and services that would allow me to cope effectively with such traumas. Keep in mind that the eating disorder awareness and advocacy movement, a force that shapes the additional care we might need in the aftermath of sexual trauma, is geared towards cisgender women as well.
However, I am still capable of being denied my male privilege, even during my most vulnerable moments. I'll never forget the outrage that I felt when I was kicked out of an online support group for male survivors of sexual violence after I had divulged my trans* identity.
As a trans* individual, I am subjected to a very specific form of rape culture, as prevalent attitudes and practices condone, excuse, and normalize the invasion and objectification of trans* bodies in everyday conversation. We are seen as something to be examined, critiqued, or deemed valid or invalid by a cis person's decision. Our bodies are appraised, regarded as public domain, and viewed in terms of secondary sex characteristics. The subjugation of our bodies is amplified by the fact that psycho-medical community is literally the gatekeeper of our care. They own our bodies. We are at their mercy.
This mercy is implicated in a unique situation that is often faced by transgender survivors of sexual trauma; we fear that disclosing this abuse to our therapists will lead them to rescind their services as they pertain to our transition related care, as a history of sexual abuse can be used by mental health professionals in order to rationalize our "non-normative" gender identities.
And finally, as a trans* man, I have been actively harmed by misogyny, some of which has certainly constituted abuse. Yet in feminist spaces, I feel as though my male privilege does not entitle me to speak about this deep history, even though it is indeed vital to my voice and life experiences. I always fear that I will be usurping more "authentic" female voices, even while that same female-assignedness and socialization is used to invalidate my gender identity and to strip me of my humanity, never mind my experiences of oppression.
This is the effect of a binaried representation of rape, one that broadly portrays (cisgendered) women as victims and (cisgendered) men as perpetrators. First, the binary strips anyone who doesn't fit this model of their personhood. Then, it strips us of our intimate and deeply personal relationship with violence, sometimes by using that same damning status against us. Being trans* taught me to feel powerless, and being male taught me that I am supposed to be inherently gratification-oriented. It's why I just sat there like a stone castle and said nothing while my female friend persistently stroked my inner thigh in jest even though it made my face break out in a heat of humiliation and triggered my flashbacks of rape.
The point is that while radical feminists and men's rights groups put forth these bellicose circus acts in which they reject the suffering of the other in an effort to promote their own visibility, everyone is hurt. Women are demonized, discredited, knocked off of their pedestals, and accused of false rape allegations. Men are still deprived of resources and support. The most marginalized members in both camps-and that includes individuals who do not fall into either-such as queer people, non-binary individuals, and people of color, fail to be addressed at all.
I will conclude by inserting a quote from the same internet author as before:
"Rape is absolutely a gendered crime, but the act of rape itself doesn’t necessarily follow those rules. We need to be able to hold an understanding of rape as a genderless act at the same time that we recognize it as embedded in a gendered culture of violence. No one said feminism was easy (Jos, feministing.com)"
Monday, September 30, 2013
What the Murder of Eyricka Morgan Means To Me As a Trans* Person
Let’s not talk about Tyler Clementi.
Twenty-six-year-old Eyricka Morgan died earlier this week at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital after she was stabbed to death by a man living in her boarding house on Baldwin Street.
There are many among us who would like to know why the murder of a former Rutgers student in the town that we have come to call home is not enough to galvanize a national response to the violence that many transgender people, and especially transgender women of color, face on a daily basis.
But I don’t think that the trans* community needs to draw parallels to the struggles of a gay student in order to humanize our own experiences or make them more palpable to the masses. I want us to be defined by our own citizens.
This is why people who want to help should be asking what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us, and how this incident stymies our efforts to create a safe space.
Ask us how it feels to wait in line for food at the dining hall or ride the bus as our bodies are scrutinized by passerby, our secondary sex characteristics are subjected to appraisal, and our identities are invalidated by a lingering gaze.
Ask us how it feels when a file drawer full of death threats is not enough to mobilize university administrators to protect our trans* brothers and sisters in other states.
Ask us how it feels to know that our rapists were attacking a fundamental facet of who we are and why, consequently, opportunistic or random acts of violence mean nothing to us.
Ask us why random acts of kindness also mean nothing, and we will tell you that it is because the condition by which the kindness of a stranger is extended to us is our silence about our life experiences and who we actually are.
Do not further obfuscate the voice of Eyricka Morgan by publishing a name that she did not choose in local media outlets or by making claims that she faced constant “homophobia.”
Transgender people face “transphobia.” The speech and actions of the majority of people on this earth, including some who identify with the LGB community, serve to objectify and demean us. I frame my approaching graduation not in terms of my same-sex attraction, but in terms of my unique marginalized framework. When a recent Rutgers graduate is murdered a few streets away from where I had previously felt safer than anywhere else in the world, graduation can be seen as a catalyst for destruction at the hands of others and a safe space antagonist.
The perennial violence makes me feel dispensable, like a paper airplane, something that can be brought into this world only to be devalued and thrown away. I feel this way not because I am queer, but rather, because I am trans*. The number of faces that we can place to the malice aforethought and self-slaughter is unprecedented.
As I write this, I ask a close trans* friend of mine who is sitting next to me if it is a terrible thing to admit that there are times when I view myself, as well as other trans* people, as less than human. His chilling empathy is a reminder that the internalization of salient public stigma transfers the ownership of our bodies to the spirit of the times.
This pervasive attitude has profound repercussions, as fifty percent of us will have attempted suicide by our twentieth birthdays. I often ask myself if this means that the trans* community is half full, or half empty.
This is why when, in an attempt to bridge that gap between our lives and deaths, I don’t want to talk about Tyler Clementi, homophobia, or gay rights. Let us not launch these discussions under the LGB banner.
Instead, recognize what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us as trans* people.
Twenty-six-year-old Eyricka Morgan died earlier this week at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital after she was stabbed to death by a man living in her boarding house on Baldwin Street.
There are many among us who would like to know why the murder of a former Rutgers student in the town that we have come to call home is not enough to galvanize a national response to the violence that many transgender people, and especially transgender women of color, face on a daily basis.
But I don’t think that the trans* community needs to draw parallels to the struggles of a gay student in order to humanize our own experiences or make them more palpable to the masses. I want us to be defined by our own citizens.
This is why people who want to help should be asking what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us, and how this incident stymies our efforts to create a safe space.
Ask us how it feels to wait in line for food at the dining hall or ride the bus as our bodies are scrutinized by passerby, our secondary sex characteristics are subjected to appraisal, and our identities are invalidated by a lingering gaze.
Ask us how it feels when a file drawer full of death threats is not enough to mobilize university administrators to protect our trans* brothers and sisters in other states.
Ask us how it feels to know that our rapists were attacking a fundamental facet of who we are and why, consequently, opportunistic or random acts of violence mean nothing to us.
Ask us why random acts of kindness also mean nothing, and we will tell you that it is because the condition by which the kindness of a stranger is extended to us is our silence about our life experiences and who we actually are.
Do not further obfuscate the voice of Eyricka Morgan by publishing a name that she did not choose in local media outlets or by making claims that she faced constant “homophobia.”
Transgender people face “transphobia.” The speech and actions of the majority of people on this earth, including some who identify with the LGB community, serve to objectify and demean us. I frame my approaching graduation not in terms of my same-sex attraction, but in terms of my unique marginalized framework. When a recent Rutgers graduate is murdered a few streets away from where I had previously felt safer than anywhere else in the world, graduation can be seen as a catalyst for destruction at the hands of others and a safe space antagonist.
The perennial violence makes me feel dispensable, like a paper airplane, something that can be brought into this world only to be devalued and thrown away. I feel this way not because I am queer, but rather, because I am trans*. The number of faces that we can place to the malice aforethought and self-slaughter is unprecedented.
As I write this, I ask a close trans* friend of mine who is sitting next to me if it is a terrible thing to admit that there are times when I view myself, as well as other trans* people, as less than human. His chilling empathy is a reminder that the internalization of salient public stigma transfers the ownership of our bodies to the spirit of the times.
This pervasive attitude has profound repercussions, as fifty percent of us will have attempted suicide by our twentieth birthdays. I often ask myself if this means that the trans* community is half full, or half empty.
This is why when, in an attempt to bridge that gap between our lives and deaths, I don’t want to talk about Tyler Clementi, homophobia, or gay rights. Let us not launch these discussions under the LGB banner.
Instead, recognize what the murder of Eyricka Morgan means to us as trans* people.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Letter To My Doctor Regarding the Treatment of Trans* Patients
Dear Dr. **********,
It is my duty to preface by saying that the services you provide trans* patients are indispensable. I am deeply aware of this. I see you as an advocate on our behalf, and it is precisely because I value you in this capacity that I must discuss the manner in which these services are provided.
To be completely honest, I walked away from my most recent appointment with you deeply upset. When you said that you knew a good therapist who could completely eliminate my female speech patterns, tears automatically sprung to my eyes, not because I felt emasculated (since I transitioned to become closer to myself and not closer to the emulation of male stereotypes), but because I felt so pressured by the expectations of a cisgendered person.
You said that you felt you were only doing your job, but it is not your place to establish how someone should express their gender, nor to suggest that some element of their gender expression should be "corrected."
I identify as male but my gender expression is fluid. One day I want to dress like a British school boy; the next, I wear my old girl jeans and belly shirts. I adore makeup and love wearing eyeliner. I'm in a queer fraternity whose members venerate drag artists and collect heels.
Throughout my transition, I have had to censor from several doctors the elements of my gender identity that society does not categorize as male out of fear that they would rescind their necessary support. The medical community is not kind to people whose gender experiences do not fit into binary concepts. Unfortunately, we are forced to assimilate in order to access the care that we so desperately need. For example, I made sure I saw one of the best endocrinologists in Manhattan not because I needed an approval letter from him, but solely because I didn't want to start taking testosterone until I knew that I was completely healthy, and I wanted a second opinion. All I wanted was for him to do things like check my thyroid, and he proceeded to asking me really intrusive and unnecessary questions about things like my sex life/sexual preferences and what role I adopted or saw myself assuming in bed.
So please understand that the current paradigm of transgender health oppresses trans* people. When medical and mental health practitioners police our gender expression, our bodies cease to belong to us. When my (stereotypically) male business casual attire elicited your approval or when you told my friend that his haircut was "appropriate" and insinuated that his clothing choice satisfied the supposed requirements of his gender, I felt as though we were being appraised rather than complimented. Understand that on a daily basis, we are subjected not only to these institutionalized methods of observation, but also to the scrutiny of society. For example, I am used to hearing from a lot of people that I am "convincing" or being asked if I had "the surgery." The constant barrage of intrusive questions and unsolicited praise creates a cultural context in which a trans* person feels as though his or her body constitutes public domain.
At the end of the day, what makes a person who is assigned female at birth male or a person who is assigned male at birth female is our word. Our interests are secondary. Our behaviors are secondary. The way we dress or style our hair is secondary. I do not agree that these things are important or even worth addressing. I think that the medical community needs to accommodate our core sense of self, rather than the other way around. After all, cisgendered women don't have to justify to their doctors why they want a breast augmentation. We are the only group of people whose medical autonomy has little instrumental value on its own.
Also, I am empathetic to the fact that pronouns can be difficult to master, especially when you are juggling many trans* people in your head at once. Even I have slipped when addressing fellow trans* friends. All the same, I have to inform you that the way in which you handled the situation in my friend's case should not be repeated. In the future, if you use the wrong pronoun, an apology will suffice. When you turned to me and said that I am easier to work with because of where I am visually, your use of words implied that my friend looks less biologically male, which is the opposite of what he would want to hear. It is not acceptable to justify your instance of misgendering by using my friend's appearance as a scapegoat.
Finally, over the course of my transition, you have consistently reminded me of how bad my acne is and how greatly the testosterone had exacerbated it, even though I have been very clear about not wanting to focus on my face. On several occasions, I have firmly rejected the offer for acne medication and made my aversion to the topic clear. There is a reason why I insist on keeping the conversations medically relevant and less focused on my appearance. The eating disorder that flared up this summer was certainly not the first one I have struggled with. When you told me that my skin looked a lot better, in spite of there still being a little bit of acne on the right side of my face...which you pointed out...it made me feel uglier when I looked in the mirror. Eating disorder histories, as well as patient requests to abstain from topics surrounding body image, should be appreciated and taken into account when dispensing advice. Because honestly, every time you fixate on what is wrong with me, or even on my appearance in general, I don't want to eat. I never want to talk about my acne again.
There is something that is uniquely scathing about being subjected to the judgments and values of people in positions of authority; please recognize that because you are the one who decides upon the provision of hormonal treatment and who gives the diagnosis, someone else is at your mercy. I know that you are try so hard to be helpful, and that effort is greatly, truly, appreciated. We need advocates like you and we do not take that for granted. But please be aware at every moment that the practices and protocols under which you operate are the product of a system that was assembled for trans* people, and not by trans* people.
Sincerely,
Jordan Pollak
It is my duty to preface by saying that the services you provide trans* patients are indispensable. I am deeply aware of this. I see you as an advocate on our behalf, and it is precisely because I value you in this capacity that I must discuss the manner in which these services are provided.
To be completely honest, I walked away from my most recent appointment with you deeply upset. When you said that you knew a good therapist who could completely eliminate my female speech patterns, tears automatically sprung to my eyes, not because I felt emasculated (since I transitioned to become closer to myself and not closer to the emulation of male stereotypes), but because I felt so pressured by the expectations of a cisgendered person.
You said that you felt you were only doing your job, but it is not your place to establish how someone should express their gender, nor to suggest that some element of their gender expression should be "corrected."
I identify as male but my gender expression is fluid. One day I want to dress like a British school boy; the next, I wear my old girl jeans and belly shirts. I adore makeup and love wearing eyeliner. I'm in a queer fraternity whose members venerate drag artists and collect heels.
Throughout my transition, I have had to censor from several doctors the elements of my gender identity that society does not categorize as male out of fear that they would rescind their necessary support. The medical community is not kind to people whose gender experiences do not fit into binary concepts. Unfortunately, we are forced to assimilate in order to access the care that we so desperately need. For example, I made sure I saw one of the best endocrinologists in Manhattan not because I needed an approval letter from him, but solely because I didn't want to start taking testosterone until I knew that I was completely healthy, and I wanted a second opinion. All I wanted was for him to do things like check my thyroid, and he proceeded to asking me really intrusive and unnecessary questions about things like my sex life/sexual preferences and what role I adopted or saw myself assuming in bed.
So please understand that the current paradigm of transgender health oppresses trans* people. When medical and mental health practitioners police our gender expression, our bodies cease to belong to us. When my (stereotypically) male business casual attire elicited your approval or when you told my friend that his haircut was "appropriate" and insinuated that his clothing choice satisfied the supposed requirements of his gender, I felt as though we were being appraised rather than complimented. Understand that on a daily basis, we are subjected not only to these institutionalized methods of observation, but also to the scrutiny of society. For example, I am used to hearing from a lot of people that I am "convincing" or being asked if I had "the surgery." The constant barrage of intrusive questions and unsolicited praise creates a cultural context in which a trans* person feels as though his or her body constitutes public domain.
At the end of the day, what makes a person who is assigned female at birth male or a person who is assigned male at birth female is our word. Our interests are secondary. Our behaviors are secondary. The way we dress or style our hair is secondary. I do not agree that these things are important or even worth addressing. I think that the medical community needs to accommodate our core sense of self, rather than the other way around. After all, cisgendered women don't have to justify to their doctors why they want a breast augmentation. We are the only group of people whose medical autonomy has little instrumental value on its own.
Also, I am empathetic to the fact that pronouns can be difficult to master, especially when you are juggling many trans* people in your head at once. Even I have slipped when addressing fellow trans* friends. All the same, I have to inform you that the way in which you handled the situation in my friend's case should not be repeated. In the future, if you use the wrong pronoun, an apology will suffice. When you turned to me and said that I am easier to work with because of where I am visually, your use of words implied that my friend looks less biologically male, which is the opposite of what he would want to hear. It is not acceptable to justify your instance of misgendering by using my friend's appearance as a scapegoat.
Finally, over the course of my transition, you have consistently reminded me of how bad my acne is and how greatly the testosterone had exacerbated it, even though I have been very clear about not wanting to focus on my face. On several occasions, I have firmly rejected the offer for acne medication and made my aversion to the topic clear. There is a reason why I insist on keeping the conversations medically relevant and less focused on my appearance. The eating disorder that flared up this summer was certainly not the first one I have struggled with. When you told me that my skin looked a lot better, in spite of there still being a little bit of acne on the right side of my face...which you pointed out...it made me feel uglier when I looked in the mirror. Eating disorder histories, as well as patient requests to abstain from topics surrounding body image, should be appreciated and taken into account when dispensing advice. Because honestly, every time you fixate on what is wrong with me, or even on my appearance in general, I don't want to eat. I never want to talk about my acne again.
There is something that is uniquely scathing about being subjected to the judgments and values of people in positions of authority; please recognize that because you are the one who decides upon the provision of hormonal treatment and who gives the diagnosis, someone else is at your mercy. I know that you are try so hard to be helpful, and that effort is greatly, truly, appreciated. We need advocates like you and we do not take that for granted. But please be aware at every moment that the practices and protocols under which you operate are the product of a system that was assembled for trans* people, and not by trans* people.
Sincerely,
Jordan Pollak
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
My Fight Against (Psychiatric) Ableism
Every night, I slip my fingers into a prison jumpsuit. The undertone of duty is flimsy and revealing and dispenses hard slabs that will improve my character.
Orange, the color of the bottle, the color of being corrected, sends the signal that I am off-limits. It communicates that I am stable but no longer desirable. The only "package" that I have is a set of behaviors that are associated with prudes and prohibitionists, neither of which I identify even remotely as.
Prescriptions are not flattering, and neither are the lifestyle changes that accompany them. I believe that I now have the complexion of a cobblestone path, bumpy and full of imperfections. There isn't a lot of makeup available in this institutional setting, so I do not have the luxury of looking my absolute best each day.
I thought that the stigma inherent in being bipolar with psychotic features, in addition to having PTSD from verbal/physical/sexual abuse, was something that I could turn my back on. Instead, I feel nearly as devalued for my current state of well being because this status is conditional.
For seven years, I was chronically suicidal and couldn't even walk down the street or perform day-to-day activities without great difficulty because a much more terrifying reality was constantly being superimposed on me. Ironically, it is only by experiencing optimal mental health (thanks to medication) and engaging in the practices that are necessary in order to maintain it that I have come to realize how ablest our culture actually is.
As a sopping hippie, I have absolutely no objectives to participating in a society that fully celebrates sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Those are actually some of my favorite things in the world, at least, conceptually. But I cannot embrace them with open arms as my contemporary counterparts might, and as much as I would love to.
Everything serves as a potential trigger. When you possess brain chemistry that is being held up by stilts, or when you have an extensive history of abuse, eating disorders, drug abuse/dependency, and self-harm, the Roaring Twenties can come crashing down in the blink of an eye.
I feel alienated from the conversations that I cannot partake in, lest they be triggering. I cannot go to parties or even small gatherings because the overwhelming majority involve alcohol and put me at risk of either relapsing or re-experiencing trauma. The one and only drug that has actually been highly beneficial to me (marijuana) and offers a cornucopia of therapeutic application potential for enhancing my mental health is demonized by society and invites even more stigma. I fear the ubiquitous displays of sexuality because they symbolize what happened in my past, even though I desperately crave safe intimacy with another human being.
I can't enjoy the cornerstones of college life, such as caffeine and late night excursions, or other things that either make my medication less effective or make me more susceptible to relapse. I sometimes feel as though companionship will be rescinded as a result. It is lonely.
I cannot, under any circumstances, pull all-nighters unless I want to run the risk of being hospitalized or having a huge breakdown. Being excessively sleep deprived is enough to plunge me into despondency and crippling paranoia.
And in spite of how well my treatment is working, I cannot help but feel like compliance bars me from the rest of my community. It's like having a curfew on the most important New Year's Eve of the decade. Everything is on ice-champagne, vodka, dancing, and one night stands. It is a culture in which everything with a...spin is critically acclaimed.
I know in my heart that I am much better off taking care of myself.
But also in my heart, I want to be culturally attuned. I do not want to miss out on history. I want to be one of the writers.
So what can be done to overcome this sense of inferiority, this sense of being estranged from your own chronological age?
It is difficult when you are up against cultural staples. I will be working to neutralize the corrosive effects of the media and the messages that it promulgates until the day I die. Every school shooting rains acid on my parade. I wake up in the aftermath of a tragedy to find social media outlets facilitating the derogatory statements that are made about all people with mental health issues-namely, those who experience either psychosis or elements of it. It is a phenomenon that is highly misunderstood by the general public.
Laypeople frantically view you through the lens of LSD. You are seen as a caricature of the brain, a mockery of an organ.
Legislation approaches you as an archaeological find instead of a living, breathing member of an ecosystem. Your body can be understood and tolerated, but it is never meant to participate in contemporary, earthly matters.
I still don't have an answer. I am still fighting to assert an identity that defies the Hedonist/Puritanical dichotomy. I am lost in a world of synonyms and antonyms. All I know is that it will take more than a crossword puzzle clue to figure out what label I have an affinity for, and into which spaces I can fit.
Orange, the color of the bottle, the color of being corrected, sends the signal that I am off-limits. It communicates that I am stable but no longer desirable. The only "package" that I have is a set of behaviors that are associated with prudes and prohibitionists, neither of which I identify even remotely as.
Prescriptions are not flattering, and neither are the lifestyle changes that accompany them. I believe that I now have the complexion of a cobblestone path, bumpy and full of imperfections. There isn't a lot of makeup available in this institutional setting, so I do not have the luxury of looking my absolute best each day.
I thought that the stigma inherent in being bipolar with psychotic features, in addition to having PTSD from verbal/physical/sexual abuse, was something that I could turn my back on. Instead, I feel nearly as devalued for my current state of well being because this status is conditional.
For seven years, I was chronically suicidal and couldn't even walk down the street or perform day-to-day activities without great difficulty because a much more terrifying reality was constantly being superimposed on me. Ironically, it is only by experiencing optimal mental health (thanks to medication) and engaging in the practices that are necessary in order to maintain it that I have come to realize how ablest our culture actually is.
As a sopping hippie, I have absolutely no objectives to participating in a society that fully celebrates sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Those are actually some of my favorite things in the world, at least, conceptually. But I cannot embrace them with open arms as my contemporary counterparts might, and as much as I would love to.
Everything serves as a potential trigger. When you possess brain chemistry that is being held up by stilts, or when you have an extensive history of abuse, eating disorders, drug abuse/dependency, and self-harm, the Roaring Twenties can come crashing down in the blink of an eye.
I feel alienated from the conversations that I cannot partake in, lest they be triggering. I cannot go to parties or even small gatherings because the overwhelming majority involve alcohol and put me at risk of either relapsing or re-experiencing trauma. The one and only drug that has actually been highly beneficial to me (marijuana) and offers a cornucopia of therapeutic application potential for enhancing my mental health is demonized by society and invites even more stigma. I fear the ubiquitous displays of sexuality because they symbolize what happened in my past, even though I desperately crave safe intimacy with another human being.
I can't enjoy the cornerstones of college life, such as caffeine and late night excursions, or other things that either make my medication less effective or make me more susceptible to relapse. I sometimes feel as though companionship will be rescinded as a result. It is lonely.
I cannot, under any circumstances, pull all-nighters unless I want to run the risk of being hospitalized or having a huge breakdown. Being excessively sleep deprived is enough to plunge me into despondency and crippling paranoia.
And in spite of how well my treatment is working, I cannot help but feel like compliance bars me from the rest of my community. It's like having a curfew on the most important New Year's Eve of the decade. Everything is on ice-champagne, vodka, dancing, and one night stands. It is a culture in which everything with a...spin is critically acclaimed.
I know in my heart that I am much better off taking care of myself.
But also in my heart, I want to be culturally attuned. I do not want to miss out on history. I want to be one of the writers.
So what can be done to overcome this sense of inferiority, this sense of being estranged from your own chronological age?
It is difficult when you are up against cultural staples. I will be working to neutralize the corrosive effects of the media and the messages that it promulgates until the day I die. Every school shooting rains acid on my parade. I wake up in the aftermath of a tragedy to find social media outlets facilitating the derogatory statements that are made about all people with mental health issues-namely, those who experience either psychosis or elements of it. It is a phenomenon that is highly misunderstood by the general public.
Laypeople frantically view you through the lens of LSD. You are seen as a caricature of the brain, a mockery of an organ.
Legislation approaches you as an archaeological find instead of a living, breathing member of an ecosystem. Your body can be understood and tolerated, but it is never meant to participate in contemporary, earthly matters.
I still don't have an answer. I am still fighting to assert an identity that defies the Hedonist/Puritanical dichotomy. I am lost in a world of synonyms and antonyms. All I know is that it will take more than a crossword puzzle clue to figure out what label I have an affinity for, and into which spaces I can fit.
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