Mental health issues for Trans and Gender Diverse people - Yves Rees

Speaker 1 00:00

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Speaker 1 00:16

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Speaker 2 00:20

Brainwaves, hear the world differently, bringing community mental health to you, raising awareness and challenging stigma. Tune in to 3CR Community Radio, Wednesdays at 5pm.

Speaker 3 00:32

A radio program featuring community organisations, powerful stories and information. Find us at brainways.org.au. Proudly sponsored by Wellways Australia.

Speaker 4 00:46

I would like to begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the Rangiri people of the Kulin Nation. They are the traditional custodians of land, which I'm coming to you from today, land where at Brainwaves we tell our stories, and land where stories have been told by traditional owners for many, many years before us. I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners that may be listening in today. So thank you everyone. Now here's today's episode of Brainwaves.

Speaker 5 01:18

Hello and welcome to Brainwaves 855 AM, 3CR Digital Radio and streaming on 3CR .org .au. My name is Jasmine McLennan and today on the show we have Yves Rees. Hi Yves. 

Speaker 6

Hi Jasmine, thanks for having me. Pleasure.

Speaker 5 01:34

Yves is a writer, historian and podcaster living on stolen and unceded Wurundjeri land. They are a senior lecturer in history at La Trobe University, the co-host of Archive Fever History Podcast and author of the memoir All About Yves, Notes from a Transition.

Speaker 5 01:52

Yves is trans and uses they/their pronouns and has written extensively on trans issues, history and politics. Thank you so much for being on the show Yves. 

Speaker 6

It's a pleasure. 

Speakler 5

Wonderful. Well I wanted to get you in here to discuss the mental health challenges of trans people and gender diverse people as well as just to get an insight into your own trans journey and how that might have been affected, how that might have affected your mental health in both positive and negative ways. Firstly, can you tell me a little bit about your journey coming out as trans and what that was like and how that, how your mental health was affected at different points along that journey?

Speaker 6 02:26

Yeah, so I guess I didn't have the kind of stereotypical sort of caricature trans experience of knowing I was trans when I was a little kid. I didn't come out as trans till I was 30 years old, which was in 2018. So it kind of took me a while to get there to realise what was going on. But in retrospect, looking back at my childhood, you know, I can see that I had what I suppose I'd call kind of gender trouble and body trouble and distress from a very early age.
And then it did affect my mental health, you know, as is really common for trans people. Being a kind of little kid was sort of okay, because there's sort of an androgyny to being being a small child.

But things really got complicated when I hear puberty. And, you know, as a female assigned person, I, you know, developed breasts and hips and got my period and sort of suddenly had this kind of womanly body. And I found that really distressing and confronting. And so as is quite common, I developed a pretty bad eating disorder when I was a teenager, which, you know, I didn't sort of know this at the time, but I see now was an attempt, essentially, to return to the androgyny of a kind of prepubescent body, to go back to kind of having a flat chest and to feel kind of slender and boyish effectively.

So I mean, that's kind of really the first big way in which being trans affected my mental health. And later sort of through my teens and twenties, I had kind of periodic episodes of depression and anxiety, which, you know, I think was to do with lots of things, but kind of partly stemmed from a sense of feeling not at home in my body and my gender and not really knowing how to make sense of that. So when I came out as trans at the age of 30 and sort of first socially transitioned and then medically transitioned over the last few years, you know, that's been an incredibly positive thing for mental health in so many ways.

You know, I think in kind of cultural representations of transness, we often focus on the stigma and the challenges of being trans, and they're all very real, and I'm sure we'll get into them later. But I think what we don't talk about enough is that affirming your gender and acknowledging who you are and kind of living your truth can be an incredibly joyful, even euphoric experience. You know, many people are familiar with the term gender dysphoria, which describes the distress that trans people experience when, you know, their body is a kind of odds with their experience of gender.

But there's also the kind of the flip side of that, which is gender euphoria, which is when we feel really great in our body and our gender and feel really seen and accepted for who we are. So, you know, for instance, since I had top surgery, which is the colloquial name for surgery to remove my breasts and give me a flat chest, I've experienced so much gender euphoria, you know, just really simple things like being able to go to the beach in summer and take my top off and swim just in shorts just feels so good and free and liberating and just like my body should be.

Speaker 5 05:56

That's so fantastic and I think that's the kind of thing that we all deserve to feel, you know, everybody deserves to feel that. You mentioned that often there's issues in the in puberty and kind of that period of time. Is that something that you've found is quite common with other trans people?

Speaker 6 06:14

It's really, really common. Yeah, trans and gender diverse people have much higher rates of all forms of kind of mental illness and mental distress than the gender population and that often kicks in in childhood and puberty. So, I mean, just to give a few pretty sobering statistics, you know, recent Australian research found that three quarters of trans youth experience depression and 50% of trans youth have attempted suicide, which is, you know, an extraordinarily confronting thing to think about that this is not just people who've had suicidal ideation, but have actually attempted it.

You know, and these are kids. These are people who, you know, we would hope are just kind of, you know, free from adult stresses and responsibilities and just able to enjoy their life.

Speaker 5 07:10

So there's the genitismorphia that can really affect mental health, but there's also, you know, a lot of stigma in society still. You know, how does that sort of affect mental health and has that affected you, you know, in just wanting to be your authentic self and the challenges of that in society?

Speaker 6 07:29

Yeah, I think the stigma is, you know, it's huge and it's really one of the biggest forces that undermines trans and gender diverse mental health. You know, we often say, you know, we're more likely to be depressed in the general population, not because there's anything wrong with this, but because we're so stigmatised and excluded and discriminated against. So, you know, I think one of the big reasons that I couldn't identify myself as trans until I was 30 was because when I was growing up, the only representations of transness I saw were incredibly stigmatising and offensive.

You know, one film I often think about is the classic 90s Jim Carrey comedy, Ace Ventura Pet Detective, which, you know, I came out when I was a kid and was one of those films, you know, would always watch at school or, you know, it would be on TV on a Sunday night. I must have seen it, you know, 10 times over the years. And the kind of central to the narrative of that comedy is the fact that the villain is a trans woman who kind of, you know, conceals her transness and is seen as tricking Jim Carrey, the hero, into kind of romantic and sexual entanglement.

And so not only do we have the villain as being trans, this kind of association with transness and sort of being evil, which is very common in films and culture more generally, but transness is something kind of viscerally disgusting. So when Jim, the Jim Carrey character realises he's kissed a trans woman, he starts kind of convulsively vomiting and there's this whole sequence of him throwing up and trying to expunge the kind of the contamination of transness from from his body.

So growing up with those messages, I mean, of course, I didn't think transness was something that could apply for me because it was just, you know, who would want to be associated with such a kind of stigmatised identity that people literally found, you know, revolting and inspired throwing up. So, you know, things have obviously changed a lot since the 90s in many ways. And we have, you know, much more positive representations of transness. We have much more many more trans culture makers. But that stigma and discrimination still persists. 

And in many ways, we're kind of living through a time of of anti trans backlash that, you know, over the past decade, as trans rights have kind of been given more cultural prominence, there's a kind of conservative backlash in here in so -called Australia, but also in the United Kingdom and the US and other parts of the world where, you know, very prominent parts of the media are kind of undertaking quite concerted campaigns to question the reality of transness, to depict trans people as menacing, you know, for instance, there's lots of discussion about, you know, whether trans people, trans women should be able to use women's bathrooms.

Speaker 6 10:37

And that often, that those kind of discussions relies on this image of, you know, trans women as kind of menacing and a potential predator and threat, which of course is terrible for our mental health. And, you know, needless to say, is just a complete fabrication. I mean, there's absolutely zero evidence that trans women, you know, would undertake, like, predatory in any circumstances, let alone in bathrooms. And actually, there's a lot of good research to show that trans people are much more likely to experience all sorts of violence, including sexual violence than the general population.

Speaker 5 11:13

You mentioned in your book that we live in a world that hates trans people and that is that the kind of thing that you mean when you say that?

Speaker 6 11:22

Yeah, we do. I mean, like in some ways I feel personally very lucky because my own immediate environment is on the whole very supportive. You know, I live in the inner north of Melbourne and I work at university and I'm kind of in a sort of pretty progressive queer bubble. So I feel quite safe and insulated, but you know, that is, I'm the kind of rare exception. I'm not a representative trans person, you know, so many trans people face violence, discrimination, hatred as part of their daily life. You know, it's, and even for someone like me, who's kind of material reality is quite safe and insulated, you know, I've experienced lots of transphobia online. 

I'm no longer on Twitter or X. I left it when Elon Musk took over it, but I used to be quite active in that space. And, you know, I, when I would tweet about trans rights, I would often get these kind of waves of quite concerted attacks, you know, threatening violence against me and my family and calling me a child molester and, you know, all sorts of really nasty slurs. And, you know, just, it's hard to switch off from the kind of transphobia and the general cultural conversation, you know, most recently we saw in Australia that the federal election a few years ago, that the liberal candidate for Warringah, Catherine Deves, was very openly transphobic and kind of whipping up a lot of anxieties about trans women in sport.

And, you know, all that has a kind of cumulative effect. It does make the world feel like a pretty hostile place to be a trans person often. And so, you know, just to give another kind of distressing statistic, we know that trans and gender diverse people are 11 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. And, you know, recently here in Melbourne, there's been a coronial inquest into a cluster of trans and gender diverse suicides over the last few years because, you know, it is such a kind of striking and alarming issue.

Speaker 5 13:36

It's a devastating statistic. What do you think needs to be done at a societal level and a more individual level as well to combat these challenges that trans people are facing?

Speaker 6 13:51

Yeah, I mean, I suppose just to start at the kind of individual level, it's, you know, I think it's really key that we start seeing transness not as a disease or as, you know, some kind of form of deviance, but as just a part of natural human diversity. And there's hence something that's kind of wonderful and should be celebrated. Like how boring would it be if we were all the same? You know, it's great that we all have different kinds of bodies and different personalities and different talents and skills and interests. You know, that's what makes the world rich and colourful and it makes, you know, humanity able to do such wonderful things. And I personally see transness and gender diversity is just kind of part of that broader spectrum of human diversity and really something to celebrate.

I think it's really hard to undo the kind of idea that transness is a disease or a form of deviance because it has such a long history. Of course, you know, these transness kind of comes from a medical model of, you know, psychiatrist thinking of gender diversity as a perversion. I mean, you know, until recently it was kind of identified as such in the diagnostic and statistical manual, you know, similar to the way in which homosexuality or, you know, same sex desire was was in the DSM until very recently. So, you know, even though things are changing, that kind of disease, deviance model is very entrenched in our culture and it persists in ways still today that, you know, for someone like me who wants to get gender affirmation surgery to remove my breasts, I couldn't just go to a surgeon and pay my money and say, you know, this is what I want for my body and, you know, have bodily autonomy.

I had to go through this whole kind of psychiatric gatekeeping process where I had to prove to a number of medical professionals that I was exhibiting sufficient gender dysphoria and mental distress that I, you know, deserved to have this surgery, which is, you know, kind of strikingly odds with the many people who have, for instance, breast augmentation surgery, which, you know, great, if that's what you want, of course, you should be able to go ahead and do that. But people in those categories, you know, they're just treated like an ordinary consumer who can pay for whatever they want for their body or, you know, another example is tattoos or things like that.

16:26

So I suppose to loop back to your question, the point I'm making is I think one key thing that really needs to shift in making the world a less hostile place for trans people is to move away from that disease, deviance model, which is a kind of combination of, you know, individual attitudes changing and people, you know, reacting to news of a trans person in their life with celebration rather than concern. But it's also a matter, I think, of shifting these medical paradigms and making it the case that trans people can have gender affirmation surgery without the medical gatekeeping. I think another really big issue is more responsible media reporting.

There's been a really concerning trend here and overseas in recent years where pretty ill -informed cisgender journalists have kind of engaged in irresponsible reporting and which, you know, platforms a very small minority of transphobic voices who have no real expertise or authority to report on these subjects and, you know, don't actually give equal platforming to trans people themselves or, you know, experts who work in trans medicine. And that kind of trend in journalism over the last few years, I think, has meant that trans people have really lost trust in the media. So we're kind of at a concerning point now where I know that me and many other trans and gender diverse people I know, if we're contacted by journalists asking for comment on a story, which happens quite often, we're very likely just to say no because we don't trust that the story will be responsible and accurate and scientific and we don't trust that our words won't be taken out of context.

So I think the media has a lot of work to do in rebuilding trust with the trans community and, you know, possibly there's scope for some kind of code of ethics or, you know, a more kind of formalized framework around responsible and ethical reporting on trans issues.

Speaker 5 18:35

Really great ideas there. I think that there's a lot. I relate to the idea that the media doesn't accurately represent the trans community, but also I feel that way myself. I've got bipolar disorder, ADHD. I don't see any representations of people with mental illness in the media, movies, TV shows that are at all well rounded, accurate, positive. I think that this is so much work that needs to be done in that space as well. Same for neurodiversity. I just think that we need to catch up a little bit with the times. I suppose we're getting there, but it's interesting how much impact that can have on people. When we see ourselves represented in a certain way on TV or in the media, such an impact reflects so much on us.

Speaker 6 19:29

You know, I mean, I've been talking about the things that are going badly, but I think, you know, on a more positive slant, like one of the biggest forces for cultural change is storytelling and people being platformed to tell their own stories and their own community stories in complex ways that, you know, illuminate our humanity. That's what really motivated me above anything to write my memoir because I found it, you know, when I was first coming out as trans and feeling kind of very isolated and confused and frightened, I found it so powerful to read other people's stories.

And I suppose I wanted to kind of pass that gift on and hope other people, you know, could feel less alone by reading my story and for cisgender people to, you know, get a bit of a glimpse into what it's like to, you know, to experience, you know, to be a trans person, to realize that we're not, you know, deviants and criminals and predators, that we're just ordinary people and we're often actually quite boring. And you know, like on that, on that point about, I totally agree with you about many identities, marginalized identities needing better and more storytelling and cultural representation. 

I've been, you know, I have a lot of neurodiverse friends and loved ones and I've been thinking a lot about the kind of ripple effect of something like Em Rashiano speaking at the National Press Club at such a, you know, high profile platform late last year. And, you know, I think that was a wonderful thing to kind of get a sort of own voices take that was, you know, seen and respected so widely and we just need more and more of things like that across, you know, mental illness, neurodiversity, transness, queerness, first nations experience, other forms of disability.

Speaker 5 21:14

Absolutely. I want to thank you as well for writing your book. I found it really illuminating and as a cisgender person I found it just really educational and yeah it was quite emotional as well just seeing you know how how it affected you all the issues that you faced and just learning in general some of those stats and some of those facts about trans people's experiences as well so thank you for writing it. So what you know we talk about the challenges out there in society that still exist for trans people and the effect on their mental health and you've given us some really great stats devastating statistics about that. What sort of supports exist in the community at the moment? Does there need to be more? Is there anything that you've accessed over the years that has been helpful for you?

Speaker 6 22:07

Yeah, I mean, I think there are particularly in an urban setting like, you know, Melbourne or Sydney, like there are a growing number of specialised services. You know, Switchboard is the kind of LGBTQIA plus phone line and, you know, support service for mental distress is and they do really fantastic work. There's Transgender Victoria here in Melbourne and ACON is similar in New South Wales and ACON has a website called Trans Hub, which is an incredible resource of one stop shop for information about everything to do with transness and really, really great resources for all kinds of challenges. That said, I think, you know, we have a lot of work to do. I'm really conscious that for Trans and gender diverse people outside of urban metropolitan centres, there are many fewer resources available.

And I think, you know, one thing that I feel quite passionate about is building, I guess, transliteracy, I'd call it, in general healthcare. You know, we know that one of the other kind of associated issues with trans stigma and discrimination is that trans and gender diverse people are just often really reluctant to access all forms of healthcare, you know, mental healthcare, but also just going to the GP, like getting a pap smear, you know, basic routine things like that, because they're so anxious about discrimination and misgendering and feeling othered.

23:37

And, you know, and then that is not an unfounded fear, like there's stats to back that up that that's pretty common. So I'd love to see all healthcare providers like all GPs getting really good training in, in transliteracy. And I also think, in particular, it's a kind of, it's an issue for psychologists and psychiatrists, you know, I've really struggled personally the last two years to find a therapist who, you know, has appropriate knowledge and expertise. And I mean, I'm in a pretty good place with my gender stuff. I don't necessarily want to talk about my gender dysphoria, but, you know, I've got other ongoing issues just to do with being a human that I'd like psychological support for.

And I cycled through so many therapists who don't know basic terminology, basic concept. So I'm, you know, paying them hundreds of dollars an hour to educate them on, on basic terminology. And that's just unacceptable. You know, there are, as I've kind of mentioned, there's specialised services like switchboard, but, you know, they get inundated quickly. Like there's also, in Melbourne, a really great specialised service called Equinox, which is a trans and gender diverse kind of led GP health clinic. But, you know, that has enormously long wait lists, you know, I was on the wait list for over a year to get in there. I think the wait list might have since closed. So, you know, we need, we need more specialized services, but we also need more transliteracy and kind of anti -discrimination training across the whole healthcare sector.

Speaker 5 25:13

I know that I've actually experienced similar experiences with healthcare professionals in terms of my mental health as well and you know there's a pharmacy that I used to go to to get my medications and I just experienced so much stigma around that that would sort of say oh this is a lot of medication like you know what so you know is everything okay and I just thought you know I've already been through the gatekeepers of the doctors and psychiatrists and everything to get to this point I don't need to have this conversation at the at the pharmacy you know and that's just a small example of something a little bit different... 

Speaker 6 25:50

but no I get it - I mean, yeah, every time I go to the pharmacy to pick up my testosterone gel, I'm really anxious and on an edge every time because you never know what the pharmacist is gonna say, how they're gonna read you, what they're gonna, you know, even those really small microaggressions of like a strange glance or a double take. I think when you're in a marginalised identity, you're very hypersensitive to how people are reading you. And, you know, that kind of daily stress of just going to a pharmacy to pick up the medicine you need to live and to feel anxious and stressed about that. Like, that has an accumulative toll. Like, that's what minority stress is. And it affects our health, our mental and our physical health of the long term.

Speaker 5 26:30

Absolutely. I know that you are an avid runner and also, you know, I know this because we know each other outside of work, but you have also got into ocean swimming recently and you're like hiking. These would probably all have a really positive effect on your mental health, but I'm also wondering, you know, is there anything else that you do just, you know, on a daily basis to manage mental health just for our readers?

Speaker 6 26:59

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as you, as you kind of said, like movement and being in nature is really key to my mental health. You know, I think like a lot of people with histories of eating disorders, like I can have a complicated relationship to movement and exercise because there have been points in my life where I used it as a form of kind of punishing my bodily and trying to control my body. But I feel in a good place now where, you know, I move to get endorphins and feel alive and feel strong and healthy. And, you know, like, I don't think, you know, everyone, I think everyone should find the kind of practices that work for them.

I certainly wouldn't kind of prescribe a kind of one size fits all model. But for me, movement and being in nature on a daily basis is so wonderful. The other two things I'd say really helpful are one, you know, finding queer and trans community. I, you know, when I first came out as trans, I had a few kind of gay friends, but not a big queer community and I didn't know any trans people. But now a lot of my best friends are queer and trans people and just hanging out with them and feeling so relaxed and comfortable and sane and just normal that, you know, when we're together, like we don't really talk about being trans because it's just like not that interesting, you know, we talk about politics or our work or our relationships because they are the more kind of urgent things.

And the final thing I think is just, I suppose, practicing a bit of self care around social media and being on the internet. I think this is such a tricky one because, you know, I've found really great community and friendships through social media. It's been a really important way for me to connect with trans and gender diverse communities and meet people in my area. But at the same time, you know, that can be a place where a lot of transphobia plays out and a lot of distress and it's hard not to be affected by it. So, you know, I suppose I'm trying to kind of dance between, you know, a period of taking breaks from social media where I feel I need it and then engaging with it in a kind of more mindful way.

Speaker 5 29:08

Fantastic. Thank you Yves so much for coming in today and doing this show with me. It's been a pleasure. I know that our listeners will have got a lot out of your story and your insights and if you'd like to hear more of our shows you can find them on brainwaves.org.au or or wherever you listen to your podcasts as well. If you'd like to send us feedback or suggestions for future shows please reach out to us at brainwaves.worldways.org and we'd love to hear from you. So thank you for listening, stay safe and tune in next Wednesday at 5 p.m. for another episode of Brainwaves.

Speaker 7 29:45

You've been listening to a 3CR podcast produced in the studios of Independent Community Radio Station 3CR in Melbourne, Australia. For more information go to allthews.3cr.org.au