Performance Help
May. 26th, 2009 12:52 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
mindtheft.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transHey everyone,
A lil' background on me. I am a pre-op transdyke. I have been transitioning (MTF) for the last the last three years or so and about two years ago I started doing performance art as an artistic release for issues related to my transsexuality and my queerness/dykeness. Recently I performed a particularily intense piece entitled We Were There Too: Where's Our Goddamn Health Care? that I would love to hear feedback on. I performed it in the context of an HIV/AIDS awareness art show put on by my university's HIV/AIDS: Social, Cultural, and Medical aspects of the Pandemic course. It's rather long so I'll put it behind a cut but, again, I would love to hear what folks had to say about it, especially as I am interested in performing it again. Specifically, I 'm curious what you think about the accuracy of it, the political viability of it affecting change, if you think it's politcally suspect, and if things could be tweaked/drastically altered.
The performance was about 15 minutes long and had 3 parts to it:
1) I started it by going up to every single person in the audience and handing them a pamphlet about safer sex for women who sleep with women. I had written on the back of them pamphlet the phrase "Did you see mention of trans women anywhere in this pamphlet?" and inside I had attached a on-line resourse list for trans health care (ie: queertransmen.org, trans-health.com).
2) I then read a spoken word piece that kinda resembled an academic lecture:
I want to start this talk off tonight with a question: If trans people have always been on the front lines of "gay" issues than why have our unique health care needs been consistently ignored by both the gaystream and society in general?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
I want to discuss one important historical figure in trans history, Lou Sullivan. Now, even though he was American, the social change he affected had far reaching consequences for Canadians as well:
History Lesson
In the mid 80s, Lou Sullivan was one of the first gay-identified trans men to publicly come out. However, the gender clinics he tried to access for transition homophobically rejected him for not lying about his post-transition attraction to men. They would only treat heterosexual trans men. He finally obtained hormones and surgery from a private practice physician. He also started publishing a monthly newsletter about FTM-spectrum issues and went on to found the organization that became FTM International. This is an organization that has provided resources to thousands of FTM-spectrum folk around the globe. In 1991, just before Sullivan died of AIDS related complications, he said to the media "I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinics that even though their program told me I could not live as a gay man, it looks like I'm going to die like one"
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
And really, Sullivan's quote is at the crux of my argument today folks. The fact is that the safer sex pamphlets I just handed out to you are emblematic of an entire medical system that operates without trans people's bodies in mind. Why are we not mentioned in safer-sex material for gays and lesbians? Could it be that the medical establishment sees us as a category completely separate from gay and lesbian? Are we always already our gender identities and nothing else? That is, are we shut out because the medical establishment sees us only through the lenses of transsexual and transgender and it cannot see us as transsexual and lesbian or transgender and bissexual, for example? I say yes that definitely is part of the problem
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Another part of the problem is with the mystification of all things trans, to the effect of eclipsing all other medical issues. For instance, I think of the time I went to the doctor's office because I felt a case of strep throat coming on and got told it may be a result of the hormones I was taking. It was only when I calmly explained to the doctor that hormones have been used for over 50 years now and not one documented case of this exists, did he finally take my strep throat concern seriously. What if I hadn't had been strong enough that day to confront him?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Now just so we're all on the same page here, I want to outline the costs of some of the most common medical procedures that trans people undertake:
For MTF-spectrum folk--> orchiectomy $1000-$3000, vaginoplasty $17 000-$20 000
For FTM-spectrum folk --> double mascetomy/chest reconstruction $4 000-$7 500, metaoidioplasty $3500-$7500, and phalloplasty upwards of $30 000-$50 000
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
This is a lot of fucking money and yet it doesn't even begin to include money needed for recovery time, travel expenses, electrolysis/laser, breast binders, packers, psychiatrists visits to obtain surgery letters, and the million other little costs that come with socially and medically transitioning. As a result, we throw benefits to raise our funds, ask our friends and families to help us out, take out loans, and obtain money through any means possible, legal or otherwise.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
If this were the case for any other medical treatment, that is people funding their own medical necessities, the Canadian populace would be aghast that people were in this position. Where's our public outcry?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Instead of public outcry we get public slashing of funding:
Quebec--> only covered if the procedures are done in a public hospital, which they are not, so effectively not covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Alberta--> not covered as of April 8th, 2009
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
B.C.--> Only partially covered and the waiting list is 5+ years
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Atlantic Provinces--> No written policy but sometimes works on a case by case basis
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Manitoba--> partially covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Saskatchewan--> partially covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The Territories--> Not Covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Fuck I guess I'll have to do it myself!
3) And then I looped myself saying that last line "Fuck I guess I'll have to do it myself!" and got up on a medical-esque table and pretended to give myself an orchiectomy. II did this by pulling down my underwear, drawing incision lines on my genitals, dousing gin on my genitals and then take an exageratted swig of the gin, and, finally, taking a medical scalpel and pretending to cut. It ends with me popping a condom full of fake blood. I got someone to stop the the loop at that point and I said into the mic "We need to change the system. We need to take health care into our own hands."
So yeah, comments, questions, queeries?
Thanks for your input
xoxo
Kate
A lil' background on me. I am a pre-op transdyke. I have been transitioning (MTF) for the last the last three years or so and about two years ago I started doing performance art as an artistic release for issues related to my transsexuality and my queerness/dykeness. Recently I performed a particularily intense piece entitled We Were There Too: Where's Our Goddamn Health Care? that I would love to hear feedback on. I performed it in the context of an HIV/AIDS awareness art show put on by my university's HIV/AIDS: Social, Cultural, and Medical aspects of the Pandemic course. It's rather long so I'll put it behind a cut but, again, I would love to hear what folks had to say about it, especially as I am interested in performing it again. Specifically, I 'm curious what you think about the accuracy of it, the political viability of it affecting change, if you think it's politcally suspect, and if things could be tweaked/drastically altered.
The performance was about 15 minutes long and had 3 parts to it:
1) I started it by going up to every single person in the audience and handing them a pamphlet about safer sex for women who sleep with women. I had written on the back of them pamphlet the phrase "Did you see mention of trans women anywhere in this pamphlet?" and inside I had attached a on-line resourse list for trans health care (ie: queertransmen.org, trans-health.com).
2) I then read a spoken word piece that kinda resembled an academic lecture:
I want to start this talk off tonight with a question: If trans people have always been on the front lines of "gay" issues than why have our unique health care needs been consistently ignored by both the gaystream and society in general?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
I want to discuss one important historical figure in trans history, Lou Sullivan. Now, even though he was American, the social change he affected had far reaching consequences for Canadians as well:
History Lesson
In the mid 80s, Lou Sullivan was one of the first gay-identified trans men to publicly come out. However, the gender clinics he tried to access for transition homophobically rejected him for not lying about his post-transition attraction to men. They would only treat heterosexual trans men. He finally obtained hormones and surgery from a private practice physician. He also started publishing a monthly newsletter about FTM-spectrum issues and went on to found the organization that became FTM International. This is an organization that has provided resources to thousands of FTM-spectrum folk around the globe. In 1991, just before Sullivan died of AIDS related complications, he said to the media "I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinics that even though their program told me I could not live as a gay man, it looks like I'm going to die like one"
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
And really, Sullivan's quote is at the crux of my argument today folks. The fact is that the safer sex pamphlets I just handed out to you are emblematic of an entire medical system that operates without trans people's bodies in mind. Why are we not mentioned in safer-sex material for gays and lesbians? Could it be that the medical establishment sees us as a category completely separate from gay and lesbian? Are we always already our gender identities and nothing else? That is, are we shut out because the medical establishment sees us only through the lenses of transsexual and transgender and it cannot see us as transsexual and lesbian or transgender and bissexual, for example? I say yes that definitely is part of the problem
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Another part of the problem is with the mystification of all things trans, to the effect of eclipsing all other medical issues. For instance, I think of the time I went to the doctor's office because I felt a case of strep throat coming on and got told it may be a result of the hormones I was taking. It was only when I calmly explained to the doctor that hormones have been used for over 50 years now and not one documented case of this exists, did he finally take my strep throat concern seriously. What if I hadn't had been strong enough that day to confront him?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Now just so we're all on the same page here, I want to outline the costs of some of the most common medical procedures that trans people undertake:
For MTF-spectrum folk--> orchiectomy $1000-$3000, vaginoplasty $17 000-$20 000
For FTM-spectrum folk --> double mascetomy/chest reconstruction $4 000-$7 500, metaoidioplasty $3500-$7500, and phalloplasty upwards of $30 000-$50 000
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
This is a lot of fucking money and yet it doesn't even begin to include money needed for recovery time, travel expenses, electrolysis/laser, breast binders, packers, psychiatrists visits to obtain surgery letters, and the million other little costs that come with socially and medically transitioning. As a result, we throw benefits to raise our funds, ask our friends and families to help us out, take out loans, and obtain money through any means possible, legal or otherwise.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
If this were the case for any other medical treatment, that is people funding their own medical necessities, the Canadian populace would be aghast that people were in this position. Where's our public outcry?
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Instead of public outcry we get public slashing of funding:
Quebec--> only covered if the procedures are done in a public hospital, which they are not, so effectively not covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Alberta--> not covered as of April 8th, 2009
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
B.C.--> Only partially covered and the waiting list is 5+ years
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Atlantic Provinces--> No written policy but sometimes works on a case by case basis
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Manitoba--> partially covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Saskatchewan--> partially covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The Territories--> Not Covered
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself
The more shut out I feel, the I more I just want to do it myself.
Fuck I guess I'll have to do it myself!
3) And then I looped myself saying that last line "Fuck I guess I'll have to do it myself!" and got up on a medical-esque table and pretended to give myself an orchiectomy. II did this by pulling down my underwear, drawing incision lines on my genitals, dousing gin on my genitals and then take an exageratted swig of the gin, and, finally, taking a medical scalpel and pretending to cut. It ends with me popping a condom full of fake blood. I got someone to stop the the loop at that point and I said into the mic "We need to change the system. We need to take health care into our own hands."
So yeah, comments, questions, queeries?
Thanks for your input
xoxo
Kate
