Waching daily Aug 31 2017

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Trans 101 series! All right today, I'm talking to you about Gatekeeping

This is the 31st video in a row that I posted for a Trans 101

I'm super excited to finish it and to talk to you about this and

This Topic was actually supposed to be how to be a good ally

honestly

and I decided to change it to gatekeeping because why didn't I think about this sooner gatekeeping is so important and so important for

Allies and people who are supporting acquaintances, family, friends, even trans people to understand?

What gatekeeping is and how it keeps up and prevents us from?

Transitioning and being ourselves so how to be a good ally I've made a video in the past

I'll put that link in the description below

It is the video that I will explore later on in a different trans on one one on one series

but for now let's focus on this video and let's talk a little about gatekeeping. So gatekeeping in the trans community is a

huge

Huge issue, all right, and if you don't know what I'm talking about

It is basically the people who have authority over our transitions and our bodies

So the doctors and therapists the surgeons and the social workers anyone really who?

even parents can be gatekeepers where

They have power over you and your transition

So an example that I will give you all right when I was eighteen I knew I was trans

I want the transition it's been a while. I went to a program at the hospital Montreal to transition

I had an interview with a panel of five or so doctors and who assessed me and

Assessed my life, and how I talked about being trans

They then came to the conclusion that because I said that I feel like I am 70% male and the rest

I don't know

I am not trans enough all right, and they told me that I will not be able to transition in this program

And I won't be able to get into this program because I'm not trans enough

These are gatekeepers

All right

These are the people who tell you that you're not trans even if you tell them that you're trans and you're ready to transition

I wanted this, I wanted therapy

I wanted to talk to someone about being trans

and I wanted to eventually go on a hormone these are the people who prevented me from doing that and

It is a big problem because none of them are trans none of them

Know the trans experience and know what it's like to have someone say hey, you're not trans enough

I'm not going to let you transition this happens a lot in this community and can happen if you're in theapy a good therapist

You're having a good time. You're like. You know what I'm ready to start hormones

Can you please give me a letter stating that I have Gender dysphoria?

And that testosterone is the next level in my transition and in order for me to get testosterone well

Some therapists will say no, I don't do that or no. I don't do that because of religious or

Emotional, or personal views or no I don't know enough about that to do it .Some of these surgeons

Actually say on their website and tell you that they are trans friendly

being trans friendly and then saying I'm not going to give you a letter or hormones or surgery is not being trans friendly your

Gatekeeper and that sucks.

I believe it is also a method of gatekeeping the fact that you absolutely need a therapist letter in order to get hormones

There are programs and different places and centers in the world now

especially in America and Canada where you go into the office you talk to a doctor and

You talk about the risks of testosterone and the benefits of testosterone the changes of the testosterone

And you kind of talk about why you want testosterone and then they give you a form you sign it

And then they give you your hormones, and if you sign it, they usually give it to you. This is not gatekeeping

It's fantastic

And it's really great. The issue is that for example in montreal the wait list is two years to get

This type of hormone without a therapist letter very problematic because what are you going to do?

What are you going to do? You have to wait on this list and this is gatekeeping and I know that

It's not anyone's fault that there's a two-year waiting list, but really why is there two-year waiting list? Why is there no?

additional funding from the government of Quebec to fund other

Doctors and other programs that would also offer this so Quebec has a lot of gatekeeping okay, and I know they come back

so that's why I'm using this as an example in the past you needed to have bottom surgery or a

Hysterectomy in order to change your gender marker that is gatekeeping and that is a huge problem

I actually was able to convince the government to change my gender marker to male after only having top surgery

I don't know how I did it

But I managed to do it thankfully the laws change you no longer need any type of surgery to change your gender marker

But that form of gatekeeping

Isolated a lot of trans people because they were not able to either

Go out of the country to their papers weren't changed or applied to jobs

Or do anything because their even go to the doctor because they'd rather

Deal with the illness that they have and some people do decide to just deal with it and some die

because they don't want to deal with the humiliation, and the

attitude, and the discrimination, that they will and my face it will

might and will face at the hospital or clinic because they're you know gender marker said female or male and they don't present that way and

Everything is just confusing. Now the other issue with gatekeeping in Quebec that is happening right now

is that trans migrants who come here and are either refugees or

immigrated here are not able to change their name or gender marker you have to be a citizen of or a

Resident of Quebec in order to do that every other province in Canada lets you do it except Quebec

And this is like a running joke if you're from Quebec or like even from Canada and you notice what's going on here

All the contests that I've ever seen in my entire life especially when I was younger is like

Oh my God that looks so cool

I'm going to enter it's like LA-LA-LA-LA

And then the last little line of the rule except Quebec which literally applies to these trans rights.

Except Quebec, Quebec has this rule that you are not able to do that, and that is just a huge form of gatekeeping. Now

gatekeeping can also take form in little things where your parents?

Refuse to let you transition

and they're like I'm going to pay for your education if you don't transition. That is abusive and manipulative and some people choose to

completely you know disassociate themselves and

And go away from their parents, and you know transition themselves and other people

Have such a tie with their parents

And they feel guilty that they will stay and they will get their education paid for and not transition.

And that is gatekeeping. Your parents your own blood is gatekeeping you and that is just so

problematic and so hard to deal with. Anyway these are just examples of

Gatekeeping not the best video to end this series with I know kind of sad.

But I think that I want to open up this discussion to talk about what can we do to,

To not be so gatekept? Because this is our life. This is not their life, right?

We know what we want for our own bodies. Yeah, we should go to therapy. We should like talk about our life

It shouldn't have to be mandatory

We should be able to choose

That we want therapy and the reason ,why we want therapy, and the reason why we want hormones is and the reason why we want

Surgery we know it inside if you know that you're ready you know that you're ready

you should be able to go and get it another form of gatekeeping by the way is money, because transition is really expensive and

Another issue of gatekeeping is race and ethnicity. We can't I cannot talk about it yet, and white I'm privileged

I'm able to afford transitioning because I was able to

You know put on my credit card and raise money, but that's me all right. There's also the issue of race and ethnicity

Within this community and the gatekeeping that could also happen there within their families and within the medical providers and stuff like that

where it can even be worse than the things that I have experienced, and that is horrible

and it's it's

It's something that is not talked about enough in this community and as somebody who has you know all this privilege

I want to make sure to talk about the voices that aren't heard enough in this community so talking about race and ethnicities and different

Minorities in this community is super super important, and I don't know the experience. I can't talk about this experience

I'm not every trans person. I am not black obviously I can talk about the experiences of like a black trans man

I can't do that

But I can say that I have seen some really horrible things happen in this community regarding gatekeeping to people who are

people of color in this community

and it's just

The trans people of colour and it's just absolutely horrible and something needs to be done

And we need to do something, and I mean I did give the example of trans immigrants in Quebec

And that is a huge issue of trans people of color being denied a service that everyone else

everyone else

Gets access to so that's a huge problem, and that needs to be talked about as well

Oh, and of course you can't not about people who are not able body. You can't you can't we have to talk about that because

It that's just that's just it's a huge issue as well and people aren't taken seriously

And it's just so sad especially with people with learning disabilities

There's a big big stigma with you know. We don't believe you because you're not your you know you're not trans

You don't really know what's going on listen to people and they know what they're talking about, and yeah, there are some

Medical conditions that can happen where somebody like oh, I think I'm trans the next day

They're not trans and that can happen yes, but someone is so sure and of telling you. I want to transition

Listen to them that's all that matters. That's all for this video. Thank you so much for joining me

I hope you enjoyed the videos in this series and

Playlist if you have any questions any suggestions on other types of Trans 101 videos that can make please let me know

I look forward to hearing from you and

Yeah, let's talk about all the things that I talked about in this video in the description super important to talk about especially this. Have

A great day have a great week, and thank you so much for joining me how great day again. I love you. Okay, whatever bye!