Born in the Wrong Body

Born in the Wrong Body is an American television documentary series about transgender experiences. It premiered on April 22, 2007 on MSNBC. The second installment, "On the Edge", aired on December 28, followed by "Girls Will Be Boys" on January 20, 2008.

See also

Case Study: Meagan Taylor

Many Transgender men and women encounter not only the harshest forms of discrimination, but are oppressed for the strength to take ownership of their true Identity. The story of Meagan Taylor, An African-American Transgender women whose life changed forever one summer in July. Traveling across country for her brother’s funeral, she stopped and booked a room at the Drury Inn in West Des Moines. Here is where the plot thickens. Taylor goes on to tell, “During check-in, my friend and I had a weird feeling. The woman at the front desk was giving us a hard time because my Illinois identification listed my old name and had an "M" identifying me as "male." I haven't had the money to obtain a legal name change and update my identification documents with my correct name and gender. In the middle of checking us in, the clerk went and talked to the manager for several minutes. Then the manager came out from the back and was immediately hostile. She made it obvious that she did not want us staying there. The manager's face actually showed a look of disgust. Neither the clerk nor the manager would make eye contact with us, and they kept whispering to each other in our presence like we weren't even there.” The situation is just one example of the ridicule that trans me and women face every day. Many people don’t understand the Transgender Community and in turn are scared to be faced with the reality of a transitioned individual. This episode only worsens for this young women, Taylor describes her experience after learning the hotel staff have called the police because they were uncomfortable with the two guest. She describes the police as, “very forceful and disrespectful”, “They went through my purse and found a bottle of my hormones, they handcuffed after, but never read me any rights or that type of thing, forcing released friend to attend the funeral alone.” The ignorance for the transgender community creates this perception of a false reality. Popular Vogue Magazine sees the need for education in an article by Karley Sciortino, Ignorance or Insensitivity? Dealing with Transgender Culture. The article describes how anything that strays from the society norm is automatically deemed as unfit. Sciortino says, “Why are we more preoccupied with the body than the brutality? What makes us so uncontrollably curious about the intimate physical details of those who are different from ourselves? It feels like we’re operating on a very primal level: Man has penis, woman has vagina, penis goes into vagina to make baby . . . . And anyone who challenges that order is so perplexing to us that we demand an explanation—we feel entitled to it, even—even if it means violating another person’s privacy”. The need for answers has a direct correlation when describing the booking process for young Meagan Taylor. The Lack of Transgender policy in the jail led to quit as interesting visit for Taylor stating, “So when they did the pat down, they had a woman pat down my top half, but a man pat down my bottom half, as if I'm not one person but two”. After 8 days the charges were dropped and Taylor was released from the jail. The Experience was an Eye opener for Taylor to say the least. Her story is like so many others, and without the knowledge for the cause it will continue. The more visible trans women are, the better.

Medical Care

In society many Transgender men and women face discrimination in the health care setting, it has been proven that about 42 percent of female-to-male transgender adults reported verbal harassment, physical assault or are not able to get equal treatment in a doctor's office or hospital. There was a study done by students who attended Wayne State University in Detroit and over a third of participants in the study were blatantly mistreated when they tried to get healthcare. Their data came from a 2008-2009 survey of 1,711 female-to-male transgender people from the U.S. and its territories. Most were ages 25 to 44. Researcher Shire asked about experiences in doctors' offices or hospitals, 28 percent said they'd been denied equal treatment, about 32 percent reported verbal harassment, and about 1 percent reported physical assaults. Many Transgender men and women find it difficult to identify themselves on medical forms as anything other than female or male. According to Shire “At every point in the healthcare system if you're transgender there is no place for you," she said. "There is no way to identify yourself and it's a vicious cycle. Erickson-Schroth pointed out that 65 survey participants said they never accessed care at a doctor's office or hospital. While the medical community is beginning to make changes to improve care for FTM and MTF trans people, Erickson-Schroth said progress is slow. "The most important step the medical community needs to take toward ending discrimination against people in clinical settings is educating providers," she said. Previous research found that medical schools only spend an average of five hours on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Some schools never discuss the topic at all. The education of healthcare providers should start in school, said Erickson-Schroth, but shouldn't end there. “It should happen in clinics and hospitals,” she said. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality has a database of providers who are interested and expertise in working with transgender people. People can also report discrimination to hospitals or clinics, or the can contact organizations that are willing to help such as the National Center for Transgender Equality of the Transgender Law Center.

Transition Stage

Transition is a long process, it does not happen over night. The minimum to change your physical sex is about two years. Most times the process can take about three to five years or many more. The process never really ends in some cases. With years of transition each year that passes one is still going through change, even after surgery. However, one can expect to live as the appropriate gender after about two to three years. Transgender men and women would have to find a doctor, potentially any doctor can help but they have to be willing to. They do not need an expensive specialist in order to transition. They just need someone to prescribe them the hormones and check on their health occasionally. Pretty much any doctor can do that much. During transitions they must understand that not all doctors are equal, they are humans also. They can have prejudice and bigotries of all kinds. They may have to find a doctor that understand their decisions and feel sympathy. Hormones are not expensive and almost anyone can afford them. The first things to transition are hormones. Most of the physical transitions are done by sex hormones. Many people just deal with hormones and may never have to deal with any surgeries. They may do this for a variety of reasons, such as a fear of surgery, a desire not to risk losing sexual function, or that they find that they are comfortable where they are after the hormones do their work. Hormones change all the soft tissues of the body. They change the look and feel of their skin and they change the shape and curves of the body. Hormones grow breasts where there were none, or in the Female-To-Male, grow beards and bulky muscles where before there were none. These changes are permanent. Breasts do not go away with hormones, and beards do not disappear with hormones. Hormones can give to the body, but they cannot take away. Only surgery can take away from the body.

Psychological well- being

The psychological well-being and mental stability in the Transgender community has important implications for the field of counseling. In the counseling field, the needs and diagnosis of a transgender client is seen as somewhat of an undiscovered area, and counselors have been advised to take that into consideration. Journalist from the Journal of Counseling and Development have noticed that, “Despite the recent focus on multiculturalism and diversity within the counseling field, the transgender population has been given insufficient attention in research and in counselor training”. The term transgender was not even coined until the late 1980s by men who did not find the label transvestite adequate enough to describe their desire to live as women. There is a variety of reasons a transgender man or women would seek counseling including depression, alcoholism and other substance abuse, fetishism, inability to perform at school or work, and physical abuse from parents or peers. These topics are conditions that you would see in a non-transgender person, but the fact one’s past makes up their present is the reason why the psychological state of an individual that has resulted in an identity change is so intriguing to the counseling community. Because of the intense discrimination that transgender men and women face, feelings of low self-esteem and depression may be highly elevated. The negative reaction the transgender communication is faced with is a reason why even sitting down with a counselor can be difficult for the individual. The Journalists for Counseling and Development recommend that counselors working with transgender clients strike a balance between facilitating client selfdiscourse and incorporating more directive interventions.^[1]

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• Isis King
• TransGeneration
• My Transsexual Summer

References