Research Project

I recently took part in a research project undertaken by a student of the City University of London, this came about because my friend Stephanie had also taken part and I offered to assist as well. The project entitled "How do trans people arrive at the decision not to see medically assisted gender affirming care" is a bit of a mouth full, but basically asking why trans people like me choose not to go down the medical route. 

My part in this study was to take part in a 90 minute interview via Teems, prior to this, a screening phone call of about 15 minutes had taken place. The purpose of the screening was to ensure I was suitable for the study but also to check on my mental wellbeing as some of the questions could be distressing to some people. The phone call proved successful and a date and time was set for the video interview. 

As it was on video, I wanted to present the best image of myself that I could, although the video will not be made public I do believe we should try to present ourselves in the best possible way to others outside of the community as this will only help enhance the way others think of us. On the day I prepared myself, hair makeup, nice dress, quite plain, but elegant and a jacket to complete the ensemble.

The time came for the interview to commence, the student, Emma, appeared on the screen and welcomed me with a big smile. The format was open ended questions, by that I mean Emma would ask a question and just let me talk about it in my own way and say as much or as little as I wanted to. After some questions about my life, growing up, how I was treated at school etc we finally got down to the question, why did  choose not to seek medical intervention.

This is not a simple question to answer, there were many factors involved and a lot of emotion over the years, it was not something I suddenly thought to myself, 'no thats not for me' it was something that took years of consideration and research to come to my final conclusion. I had discovered that taking hormones can have a down side including reducing life expectancy and increasing the risk of heart problems. But when I met a lady in transition on my first ever evening out the real impact that hormones could have on your body became apparent. This particular lady had been living full time for a number of years, she had been on hormones for a long time as well, finally after a six year wait she had been given a date to see the consultant at Charring Cross for gender reassignment surgery. However in the very same week she was taken ill and rushed to hospital with kidney failure. One kidney was removed and the other was damaged, the cause? The hormones she was taking, if they were unable to stabilise the hormone intake she would be taken off them permanently and would never transition. As I have never seen the lady since, I don't know what happened in the end. Now I don't know if she was on prescribed hormones or was self-prescribing, either way like any medication, they carry a rick. I have seen adverts for hormones and people on the internet suggesting the use of hormones is a simple answer to your dreams, it isn't, always seek medical advice. 

It was obvious to me that choosing the medical intervention route for me was not something I was going to pursue as the evidence mounted up, a few years ago there were  major problems with silicon implants, many women (and presumably trans ladies) had to have implants removed as they were of poor standard and were rupturing, I have seen the result of some implants which were very poor resulting in an un-natural look and I am informed that the life expectancy of implants can be as short as ten years. Then there is the trauma of going through the gender reassignment surgery and the extended time frame, all added together confirmed it was not for me. 

As our conversation continued, I raised the issue of mental health, as I understand it to be accepted onto a reassignment program the person has to undergo an assessment by two independent psychiatrists. This seems fair and understandable, now I don't know what goes on at these assessments but I do think more work needs to be done with the patient to ensure there are no underlying health or mental issues, because if there are these need to be dealt with before any consideration of transition. It seems to me that some in transition believe the process will solve all their problems, only to discover their problems are only just beginning. Sadly a number suffer from depression, some want to reverse the process and tragically some have taken their lives. So this is something that needs to be looked at. We are better at dealing with metal health problems as a society now days so this should not be allowed to happen.  

All in all it was very interesting, the results of the study will not be known for sometime, but I have expressed an interest in seeing the final work. When it does eventually appear, I shall report further. There is very little research into our way of life so I think it is important to support studies like this when the opportunity arises.