Discrimination

I put this page into the Experience section of this site, because I believe that discrimination is something that one has to experience to understand just how nasty and evil it can be.

Discrimination comes in many forms. The most obvious ones are where you get abused verbally or physically. The not so obvious ones are where you get ignored and others get preferential treatment in lieu of you.

Work

I'm no stranger to discrimination. When I began my gender transition things seemed initially to be ok. I continued on at work for the most part as if nothing had happened. Most of the people there treated me as the woman I knew I was. But... ...that did not continue.

I could not use the woman's toilets. I was biologically male and pre-surgery at the time. It seemed "reasonable" that I should use the men's or disabled toilets. There was no way I could use the men's, so I used the disabled toilets, which was 4 floors away from where I worked. Everything seemed OK until I was sick with stomach pains. I couldn't possibly wait for a lift to go to the disabled toilets, so I stayed home. Then, on another occasion I slipped and fell in those toilets. Now if I'd injured myself I might have been in real trouble, because I knew that no one else in the building used those toilets (they were on a floor of the building that was only half occupied), and that they only got cleaned once a week.

I was being denied my dignity. All I wanted was to use the seat and put my make-up on! The resolution was for me to leave work, permanently, and to move to another State, one in which I had anti-discrimination legislation to protect me.

I wasn't the only one to be forced out there. A friend of mine came out to being pagan at work. I have no idea why, but apparently I had inspired him to do so. After a few months though, he found that the change in attitude towards him forced him to leave. I didn't quite understand this at the time. Now I do.

Home

I lasted in Perth until one night when I was walking home from a StarTrek club with a friend. On our way back to my flat someone in a 4-wheel drive cut us off at the corner, driving up on the pavement to do so. He shouted out "Transvestites, Transsexuals -- I'll kill you all!!" My friend was not disturbed and kept walking on. I was worried though, because I didn't want them to follow us home. The car drove off, and then came back for a second round. I realised then that my idea that I was safe where I lived was all an illusion. I moved within six months.

When I moved to Newcastle, I first lived in Carrington. For six months I was hounded by local Aboriginal youths, with comments like are you a "man or a woman?" and "you're a bloke!" These don't sound like much, but it was the overall effect of them that wore me down, and there was always the implied threat of violence behind them.

Don't get me wrong -- I had no problem with them because they were Aboriginal, but I did because they kept on trying to bait and abuse me. Panels on my front door were kicked in on several occassions. At least, it came to a head when I got a lift home after buying a car (I hadn't picked it up yet). It was after sundown and out of the dark came a loud "Yeah it's a man for sure!!!"

This upset me, because as well as anything else, I could have been attacked on my own front doorstep! That night I cried myself to sleep, and woke at two in the morning. I went next door, crying, and talked to my next door neighbour Mary. She listened and then said that she'd talk to Mrs ______ in the morning. Mrs ______ was the grandmother of two of them and a matriarch of the "local mob". This meant that she was a respected elder in an urban tribe, and what she said went. All the abuse stopped dead the next day. Still, I moved away from Carrington, and it was a good choice for me to make.

Ignorance

Here's the thing of course -- discrimination is when people don't like you, not because of what you've done, but because of who you are.

Some of this might be ignorance. I had no or extremely little contact with anyone who was either gay or lesbian (openly that is) until I moved to Newcastle. I had no idea what to think about them, other than what appeared in the media. Was this homophobia? Maybe, but it was based on ignorance. After I moved to Newcastle, a friend here convinced me to go to lunches at Karuma. This is a HIV/AIDS support centre, and most of the guys who go there are either bi or gay.

The first few times I had lunch there I was very nervous. Then I began to realise that these were just regular folks. The fact that they had HIV/AIDS or were gay was no more important on the whole, than the colour of their hair or their height. I began to realise that what I'd learned via the media was wrong.

Religion

And it's not just with the queer community that this sort of thing happens. The media gives a very biased view of neo-pagan religions. The truth is, we're folks, just like everybody else. But what gets reported? Satanic Ritual Abuse, and stuff like that. But it isn't just from the outside where discrimination occurs. Just because one is pagan, or wiccan, or a witch, doesn't mean that one checked one's prejudices at the door.

For the most part I have had good responses from people, because I deal with them individually and when they get to know me, they know I'm ok (just a bit different). But some people see me as a threat. If I am a woman (albeit male) then shouldn't I be able to join all-woman groups? But some folks take the view that woman only equals female. It's very hard to argue against this view, because in general it's what we are conditioned to expect from society.

And for me it's rubbish. I went through a major crisis in 1998 in reconciling who I was and how I identified. I had read a book by Janice raymond called "The Transsexual Empire" and in it she had a definition of what a woman was:

Born female.
Raised as a girl.

For some reason I had taken that definition to heart. But it's one in which I can't possibly be who I know I am. I got suicidal over the contradiction, until I realised that Raymond's definition was one designed to exclude people like me. Also, later I read passages of John Rowan's book "The Horned God". It was a break thru for me to understand that what made me transsexual was not the Goddess in me, but The God.

Here's why: the Goddess has to do with cycles, growth and death, and nurturing (in general). The God has to do with limits, authority and transitions (like life and death). The God in various aspects is also a trickster and a shape changer -- what better source for a transgendered person (either male=>female or female=>male)!

What makes me a woman is how I identify myself, and the efforts I make to express that. And it's the same with everyone, whether they are transgendered or not; it's just that everyone else has accepted the definitions that they were given when they grew up. We (transgendered people) didn't. Also of course, if we have both the Goddess and The God in us, then it seems silly to exclude someone on the idea that they only have one type of quality in them.

The issue then becomes one of not rejecting us for who we are, but taking things on a case by case basis, and giving us the benefit of the doubt, until proven otherwise. Trust me, we'll do the same.

Also see...: BiPagan; Circle Santuary; Gay and Lesbian Witchcraft Sites on the Net; Metro'on; Military Pagan Network Inc.; Purple Pages: Bi-Pagan Links; Religous Rights for Pagans; Religious Rights Webring

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