Being transgender comes with a number of trials and tribulations, especially if you want to medically transition. Undergoing a process that’s not only long but also unique to each individual is hard enough in and of itself. But when you’ve got very limited resources, the hardest part can be finding somewhere that’s both accessible and affordable to receive the treatment you need.
Mason is non-binary trans, and is currently transitioning from female-bodied to male-bodied in order to fit their more androgynous gender. On a Wednesday, every twelve weeks, they take the day off work and drive the two hours from Wollongong to the Concord Hospital andrology department in Sydney, receive a very big and very painful needle, then drive all the way back home.
Concord Hospital. Image credit: NSW Health
“It’s a lot of regular missing work just because of the nature of the medication and the way it’s given and the travel time,” they say. Even so, they consider themselves lucky. “I work part time and I have my own car, so for me it’s not an insurmountable barrier, but I could imagine, for a lot of people, it would be impossible to do.”
Mason started where most people start when wanting to find information: with a Google search. But even that wasn’t easy. "There’s not really a whole lot of information that’s easy to find for Australia, because when you search, a lot of searches come up with American sources or sources from the UK.”
Eventually they came across a NSW based website The Gender Centre, which also has a physical location in Sydney. The website provided a list of trans doctors and specialists that seemed long initially, but by the time Mason filtered the list down to those in NSW, still alive and operating, and were well reviewed, what should have been a list of about 20 or so doctors, ended up only being about three or four people. Mason ended up emailing The Gender Centre, explaining what exact treatment they were looking for, which proved to be much more helpful. They replied, telling Mason who to call, which led them to the Concord Hospital.
However, Mason still had to get a referral from their GP and see a therapist before they were able to start treatment.
“She [my GP] just kind of glazed over, she looked like she didn’t really know what to say about any of it, so she just kind of wrote me a thing and was like, ‘okay, that’s done, bye’.”
Mason’s GP referred them to a therapist who specialises in mental health and sexuality issues, whom Mason describes as "pretty fine".
When it came to seeing doctors, Mason knew that, because they’re non-binary, they’d have to lie in order to receive the treatment they need.
“There’s a very specific narrative that doctors want to hear when you’re perusing treatment, and they ask very leading questions and you can kind of infer from their questions exactly what they want to hear from you,” Mason explains.
“You can go in knowing exactly what you need and exactly how you experience things and exactly what’s going to happen for you, except that you can’t say that, you have to say what they need to hear. Which is kind of shit but that’s the system we’re in...If I had gone in off the bat saying ‘I’m non-binary but I know I want xyz treatment' I think they would have, if not turned me down outright, would have delayed the treatment.”
This didn’t come as a shock to Mason, “I’ve done a lot of research, I know the process and what’s involved, so I knew going in that I’d have to lie.” But the fact that Mason did have to lie because they don’t fit the expected, binary narrative of “I’ve always been a boy and I’ve known this since I was a boy, I like trucks and playing with other boys, I wear men’s underwear and I want to date girls” shows a lack of education and understanding of gender identity that could be an issue for other non-binary trans people wanting to transition who haven’t done as much research as Mason has.
Another issue arises when you consider the fact that Concord Hospital is the only public clinic that offers any kind of trans health services in the whole of NSW, and it only provides trans-masculine services. So if you live 14hrs out west, or if you’re wanting to transition male to female, you have to travel, or find a private provider you can afford, or hope you can find a GP that actually knows what gender transitioning is. As Mason explains, this is highly concerning.
“The rate of suicide among untreated trans people is really high and the lack of public services would really affect that.”
Transitioning has significantly changed Mason’s life for the better.
“If I stopped treatment now I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. There were things where I didn’t realise quite how awful I felt until I started treatment and started feeling better. I was like wow, feeling miserable and horrible all the time isn’t normal? Not everyone feels that way?”
“I used to have horrible depressive episodes and a lot of lethargy and a lot of apathy and I think it was entirely related to hormone cycles. Being on a hormone that is steady all the time has made me feel completely better. I used to be anaemic and when I started getting that treated I was like ‘wow I feel so much better’, but then I started testosterone and it was like, when I thought I was feeling normal I actually felt like shit, it was actually that I didn’t have a frame of reference for what feels normal.”
Access to trans health services is extremely important for trans people Mason emphasises,“There’s probably people in the same situation I was where they think it’s probably normal that three days out of the week you want to kill yourself. But it’s not, and I think there are a lot of people who have just never been in a situation where they can live where that’s not normal,” Mason says.
The Equinox Gender Diverse Clinic is the first clinic is Australia to cater solely to trans and gender diverse individuals. Image credit: Equinox
As a country, we’re slowly starting to move in the right direction to help trans people gain access to trans health services. Recently Australia’s first trans health clinic opened up in Melbourne, which will be a huge benefit for the Victorian trans community. But that’s only a small step in tackling a big problem that greatly affects a community that is victim to so much prejudice.
As Mason says, “There’s a whole lot of obstacles in the way for people to seek what they know is best for them. It’s dangerous.”
