Personal

What I’m Sick Of

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

I’ve pretty much given up on pointing you folks at online petitions about trans people because most of them only attract a few hundred signatures and are easily ignored by those they are aimed at. This one, however, has serious traction, thanks to it being backed by the stars of the My Transsexual Summer series.

The purpose of the petition is to encourage the World Heath Organisation to remove transsexualism from its list of mental illnesses. The WHO moves very slowly. It wasn’t until 1990 that they removed homosexuality from the same list. Another revision is due, and it is time that the WHO caught up with current medical thinking. Medical professionals working in the field of trans health called for de-psychopathologisation (lovely word) more than two years ago. The EU has petitioned the WHO to make the change. Hopefully, with a few more kicks up the backside, the WHO will move on this. You can help.

Some of you may have seen rumblings of discontent in trans communities that this change will somehow cause trans people to be denied treatment. It won’t. Or at least compared to the usual tabloid scare stories about waste of public money it will be a very minor issue. No one is saying that trans people don’t sometimes need medical procedures. What they are saying is that trans people are not crazy.

For those people who do have surgery, not much post-op treatment is required. However, trans women like me do need a regular supply of estrogen to prevent them developing osteoporosis. It’s very cheap. In fact I believe that the NHS makes a profit on prescribing it. But because successive GPs have insisted that I’m mentally ill, even long after a successful transition, I still have to spend a lot of money each year on visiting a private specialist to be declared sane before I’m allowed my prescription. I am sick of this. The main thing that causes trans people mental health problems is other people’s attitudes towards us. I’d like that to stop. Starting with the WHO.

Update: Here’s the excellent Monica Roberts with more on the background to the depsychopathologisation campaign.

LinkedIn Thanks

~ Cheryl

I don’t pay much attention to LinkedIn. I’m sure it is very useful for people who have proper jobs, but for someone like me who does a whole lot of different things it doesn’t seem to work well. Anyway, they seem to have introduced some sort of new feature, because I’ve been getting a few emails telling me that people have endorsed me. I’m not sure what for, or what good it will do me, but it is very kind of you to think of me. If I’m supposed to be doing something in return, please let me know. I’m not ignoring you, I’m busy.

Fame At Last… Sort Of

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I don’t often remember my dreams, which is probably a good thing as it prevents me from boring you with the details. Every so often, however, something wakes me up in the middle of a dream and I find out just how odd my mind can be.

So last night it appears I was in Harvey Nichols. Goodness knows why. I can’t afford to go in through the door, let alone shop there. But there I was, and the staff had discovered that I knew Cat Valente, as a result of which they were treating me like a celebrity and allowing me to try on some fabulous, feather-festooned bridal gowns.

Then I woke up, and as it was the middle of the night I needed to get back to sleep. My usual tactic in such cases is to play a podcast, because I can lie there in darkness letting the lilt of voices wash over me. Normally this works, no matter who is on the podcast. But as I had been dreaming about Cat I put on the latest episode of the SF Squeecast, which was recorded live at Worldcon before the Hugo ceremony (where of course they all won rockets).

You should all listen anyway, just to hear Cat enthuse about John Crowley, but I stayed awake for quite a while. Towards the end Paul Cornell started talking about the Hugos, which got me concentrating on what was being said. Which is how I discovered that they mentioned me. And how I heard Elizabeth Bear say, “Stop fucking me, Cheryl”.

On closer examination this morning, what she actually said was, “Stop fucking with me, Cheryl”. But she said it quite quickly, and I was in bed half asleep. It was a somewhat surreal moment.

Still, I have now been mentioned on the Squeecast, and while I wasn’t exactly squeed about I am claiming that I’m now famous. If you want to hear why Bear was saying that about me, you’ll have to listen for yourselves.

Status Report

~ Cheryl

One of the things that happened over the weekend was that I got to see a bunch of people I haven’t seen in some time. Inevitably this lead to questions about how my life was going, and whether US Immigration had come to their senses. There’s not a lot of time at a party to go into detail, so I figured I should do a blog post.

The short version is that nothing has changed. I still can’t travel to the USA, or indeed anywhere in North America, without getting a special visa, and the likelihood of that being granted is not good. My best bets are a lottery win, or making a success of the publishing business.

So how is that latter going? Well, the bookstore still isn’t making a profit, but the monthly losses are not too terrible. I haven’t published any best sellers yet, but then I didn’t expect to. I’ve sent several payments to Juliet and Ben, and that makes me happy. I also have a busy schedule ahead with Colinthology due out in just over a week, four more novels to come from Juliet, and four from Lyda. The latter are crucial, because any argument regarding the business needs to rest on my ability to make money for US citizens.

Thanks to Jon Turney I have been able to do a little bit of SF-related work for someone who pays sensible fees. That means that Wizard’s Tower has a small amount of money in the bank for once, and I need to decide what to do with it.

I’m not planning to pay a fat advance for an undiscovered work of staggering genius. If I found such a book I’d do my best to place it with a bigger publisher.

I would like to get another issue or two of Salon Futura out. I still believe in the principle of paying people professional rates for top quality non-fiction, and maybe something like a quarterly schedule would be sustainable. The magazine was also a good advert for the store. But it can’t simply be a cost center. I need to be able to get some money in from it. And you can’t use something like Kickstarter easily for an ongoing project with no physical deliverables. So I need to think about this.

The other thing I want to do is put out some advertising for the bookstore. If more people knew about it, more people would buy books. The only reasons I haven’t done more already are a) lack of money, and b) I’m completely useless when it comes to graphics. I need ads created. If anyone is really good at that sort of thing, and would like to earn a bit of money, please get in touch.

Bristol: Trains and Brains

~ Cheryl

Yesterday, as advertised, I had a day out in Bristol with Feòrag. One of the highlights was getting to travel on the Bristol Harbour Railway, which was in steam over the weekend. Feòrag has some video, which hopefully she’ll post to YouTube later. The service has no enclosed coaches, just open wagons with seats in them, so there’s nothing to protect you from the locomotive’s smoke. I now know why steampunk characters wear goggles all the time. I suspect that we both smelled of coal for the rest of the day.

Two important things to know about Feòrag are that she’s an expert on beer, and a vegan. This poses challenges for a tour guide who knows little about beer and is a carnivore. Thankfully Feòrag had come well prepared, including with an impressive iPhone app for the beer connoisseur. Of course being so close to Somerset we ended up drinking in The Apple, a pub specializing in cider located on a canal barge. Over dinner I was pleased to hear Feòrag give the thumbs up to the Bristol Beer Factory. I have been happily drinking their wheat beer at the Arnolfini for some time, but it is good to have my preferences supported by expert opinion.

Talking of dinner, we took ourselves out to Clifton to visit one of Bristol’s best known Indian restaurants: the Thali Cafe. I’m pleased to report that their vegan options got the thumbs up, and from my point of view the meat-based food was fine too.

In the evening we joined my friend Marjorie at the Colston Hall for a concert by Jonathan Coulton and his regular support band, Paul and Storm. Fortunately for the musicians, the stars were not right and we were unable to wake Fluff Cthulhu in time to get him to the gig. However, here’s Jonathan performing a song that I think Fluff would approve of (well, apart from the bit about compromise — Elder Gods don’t do compromise).

By the way, I asked Jonathan if he’d consider playing Worldcon. He said there were scheduling issues as PAX is generally held over Labour Day weekend, but he’d love to do it. Were Kevin and I running Events for 2014 as we did for 2005, I’d be working out how to get him over, though I suspect he’d need to do it as part of a tour to make it possible.

Well That Was Fun

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As you may have seen on Twitter, I got beautified and interviewed. Things seemed to go well, and the director was pleased, but I have not seen any end product. My suspicion is that I said some fairly sensible things (and nothing hugely embarrassing), but that people watching the interview will be thinking “wow, that’s ugly” and not paying much attention to what I say. I am so much more comfortable with just words and no pictures. But it was an enjoyable day out, and hopefully some good will come of it. Films, of course, take a long time to put together, so you folks won’t see anything for a while.

I’ll be out much of today as well. My friend Feòrag NicBhrìde was in Bristol last night for the Ultravox gig and I’ll be showing her around town a bit. It is possible that we’ll be taking Fluff Cthulhu to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm tonight. Brains may be eaten. The action, if any, will be on Twitter.

In The Movies

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I am not here. This post and the previous one were written last night and scheduled to go up today because I’m busy. Today I am being interviewed, on film, for this. So I will have spent the morning in the beauty salon getting my hair and face done, and then it is off to Bath where we are doing the filming in the Bibliotherapy Room at Mr. B’s Emporium. In a way this is even more scary than being on Croatian TV. I have no idea how widely the film will be distributed, but I won’t have a famous Russian writer to deflect attention from me, and there’s a good chance that people I know will see this. The good bit is that I get to worship Fluff Cthulhu, so if today goes really badly I can ask Him to eat me.

Where Did The Day Go?

~ Cheryl

After a busy couple of days of blogging to start the week, today I have been silent. I have been doing accounting. I no longer have a brain. Normal service may be restored in due course.

Friends and Phobias

~ Cheryl ~ 26 Comments

As many of you will know, Neil Gaiman and I have been friends for a long time. We first met in 1984, when I was still living as male. Neil is also a long-time friend of Roz Kaveney. You may therefore be somewhat surprised to learn that he’s often accused of transphobia. So often, in fact, that he had felt the need to address the issue in public.

There are many reasons why this happens. Partly it is because Wanda in A Game of You encounters a lot of transphobia in her story. There will always be readers who can’t tell the difference between a writer portraying discrimination by his characters and a writer who shares those characters’ beliefs. Also, Roz is a high profile trans activist, and as such she and her friends are always prone to being accused of transphobia by people who have a “one true way” attitude to their activism. Heck, there are probably people out there who think I’m transphobic. I have certainly been told that I’m Doing Trans WRONG!

So I want to spend a little bit of time looking at what real transphobia is like. Last week, on the same day that Neil wrote that Tumblr post, the Scottish Transgender Alliance released this report (PDF) which looks at the mental health of trans people in the UK. I was one of the respondents to the survey, and I’ve corresponded with one of the authors, Louis Bailey, as I had hoped to book him as a speaker for LGBT History Month last year.

When they say “mental health”, they don’t mean “these people are crazy because they are trans”, they mean the same thing that anyone would mean if they did a survey of the mental health of soldiers on active duty, of students sitting exams, or pretty much any group whom one might think has a stressful life. Let’s take a look at some of the results.

70% of the participants felt that transitioning had improved their lives for the better, while only 2% felt that it had made things worse. Satisfaction rates with various types of medical treatment, including hormones and gender surgery, were even higher; all over 85%, with the numbers dissatisfied always below 4%. Nevertheless, 81% avoided certain social situations out of fear of the consequences; 37% had experienced threats of or actual violence; 25% had been forced to move away from home. 14% had been harassed by the police simply for being trans.

88% of respondents reported suffering from depression at some point in their lives. 53% reported that they had self-harmed. 84% had considered suicide at least once. 35% had attempted suicide; 11% in the past year.

A government paper on suicide prevention published today dismissed trans people as a significant problem area, noting only that there are “indications” that there “may” be higher rates of suicide amongst that group.

Professional help for trans people is patchy at best. 62% of those who had attended NHS gender clinics reported some negative experiences from doing so. 11% felt that attending the clinic had been a negative experience overall, while 33% said they were afraid to discuss mental health issues with the clinic. 30% had experienced a healthcare professional refuse them treatment for trans-related issues. Over 50% were told by a health professional that treatment could not be provided because the professional did not know enough about trans issues. Can you imagine any other condition where GPs would refuse treatment rather than educate themselves or refer to a specialist because the condition was unfamiliar to them?

20% of respondents reported wanting to self-harm as a direct result of their treatment at the hands of the health services.

I could go on, but I’ll end the numbers by looking at responses to the question, “How supportive have the following been?” The percentages in “Very supportive” for key groups are as follows: parents 28%; extended family 17%; religious community 5%; non-trans friends 43%; trans friends 71%. Most trans people, of course, don’t have that many trans friends, so you can see why non-trans friends are so important. That’s why I very much value people like Neil, Kim Newman, Marc Gascoigne, Dave Langford, Martin Hoare and everyone else who was a friend before my transition, and has stuck by me though it.

Of course supportive friends can turn into supportive parents. After Neil published his Tumblr post his elder daughter, Holly, posted this about her life partner. I don’t know Holly at all — I’m not sure if we have even met — but I wish her and her partner all the best for their relationship. Sadly, they will need lots of love and support.

While I was at the Miéville conference on Friday I was scanning Twitter for reactions from my fellow attendees and another Scottish Trans Alliance tweet caught my attention. It was a report of the death, by liver failure resulting from a paracetamol overdose, of Natasha Lauren Brown, a student at Staffordshire University. She was 20 years old. According to this report Brown “began a downward spiral after she was taunted and beaten.” Her parents are quoted as saying, “We’d just like to say we strongly believe the mental health services could have done more to help her than they did.”

Brown’s name won’t be included in the memorials at this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance because that is only for people whose lives are actively cut short by the violence of others. If we included all of the suicides, all of the people who died from issues related to poverty, homelessness and desperation, then the numbers memorialized would be significantly higher.

And that, dear readers, is what transphobia is all about. It is not a matter of authors failing to make trans characters sufficiently heroic, or about being trans in the “wrong” way. It is about being abandoned by friends and family; about institutional discrimination, even by those whose job it is to help you; it is about being bullied, beaten and killed. Until those things stop, we should be grateful for all of the support that we get.

Bad Hugo Blogger

~ Cheryl

Excuses. I was out most of yesterday at meetings. I went to bed soon after getting home because I had to be up at 1:30am to help Kevin with the live coverage of the Hugo Ceremony. I’ve not gone back to bed as I need to catch an 8:00am train into Bristol for a business meeting. I may fall over when I get home. Hugo-related bloggage will happen, but not just yet.

In the meantime, the results are here, and the stats breakdown is here (PDF).

Still Busy

~ Cheryl

I’m still doing crazy hours on the day job, which is good financially but frustrating with regard to everything else.

Of course this means that I’m missing out on all of the various online dramas that have been happening. That’s probably just as well, but I did want to pop my head above the parapet and say that I am desperately sorry for Ann VanderMeer, Stephen Segal and all of the other people who did a great job on Weird Tales, only to be kicked off the magazine and then see its reputation destroyed by the new editor. Thankfully good people can always find good things to do. Which reminds me that I saw an actual copy of The Weird in a bookstore yesterday. Goddess, it is a beautiful thing.

Colin: One Year On

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

It is a year ago today that we got the sad news that Colin Harvey had died, way too young, at the age of 50. As I said yesterday about Harry Harrison, you can tell a lot about someone by the way they are remembered. Lee Harris talks about Colin here, and announces a special sale at the Angry Robot bookstore, the proceeds of which will go to the charity that Colin worked for, Above and Beyond.

Elsewhere Jo Hall talks eloquently about how Colin will be missed by the local writing community. She’s dead right about expecting Colin and Harry to get on well together. In fact Dark Spires, the book that Colin edited for me to get Wizard’s Tower up and running, is dedicated to Harry Harrison. Colin, I am sure, would have had similar stories to those of Neil and John, had be been around to write about Harry yesterday.

It isn’t just the writers who will miss Colin either. BristolCon would never have happened had it not been for his energy and enthusiasm. Colin was never afraid to try new things, and could always persuade people to help out.

The world needs more people like Colin.

Busy

~ Cheryl

I have work to do. Paid work, I hasten to add, which is a very good thing. But I need to get on and do it, which means minimal blogage. Talk amongst yourselves for a while, please.

Travel Status Update

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As you have probably guessed from the fact that I sold my WFC membership, the trans-Atlantic travel situation is still not good. Kevin and I continue to investigate options, but so far we’ve had no luck, and of course we are hampered by not being able to throw money at the problem.

The DHS has recently launched an appeals scheme for people who think that they have been denied entry unfairly, so we tried that. No luck. The response we got from them was largely boilerplate legalese, and it didn’t look like they had investigated my case any further than establishing that it was not a case of mistaken identity. They did point out that I was eligible to apply for a tourist visa, which I know. However, they also stated that no one would be denied entry under visa waiver unless they were ineligible for the scheme or were one of “those whose travel would pose a law enforcement or security risk”. As the State Department insists that I am eligible for visa waiver, I can only conclude that the DHS has me in the second category. That in turn suggests that any visa application is likely to be denied. And even if it wasn’t, the DHS still reserves the right to refuse entry.

Also, of course, if I am listed as a security risk then there’s a reasonable probability that I’ll be on the No Fly list. They won’t tell you if they are, but I have no intention of spending around $1000 on a flight to Canada only to find out that the DHS won’t allow me to board.

So there we are. The next stage of the process will be to actually apply for a tourist visa. But I’m not going to do that until I have a really good excuse to go.

Pride In Our Past

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As I think I have mentioned before, I have got involved with a local LGBT History group, Out Stories Bristol. I’m pleased to report that we should be getting a grant of over £20,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to put on a exhibition in Bristol next year (we’ve had the notification of approval, we just need to go through the formal process of accepting that grant and officially starting the project). That of course means that there is work to be done, and part of that work is to see what other people have done and learn from it. Consequently today I headed off to Plymouth with a couple of colleagues to see Pride In Our Past. The Plymouth team have done a fine job, so it was a very worthwhile trip.

The only downside of the day out was that we traveled along one of the most beautiful railway routes in the world in weather that was more suited to midwinter than midsummer. I’ve stopped off in Darkest Somerset to visit my mum and it was chucking it down here when I arrived. Summers: we no can haz them.

Kiev, St. Petersburg and LGBT

~ Cheryl ~ 12 Comments

When Cat Valente and I tweeted enthusiastically about the prospect of a St.Petersburg Eurocon we immediately received replies condemning us for considering visiting a city that had passed an oppressive anti-LGBT statute. Now it seems that Ukraine is about to follow suit with a similar law to those being adopted in Russia. So, what is one to do?

As ever, these things are much more complicated than they appear on Twitter. To start with, Ukraine is about to play co-host to the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, and the UK papers are therefore full of stories about what a hideous place it is. This happens every time a major soccer tournament takes place overseas. There are few things the British tabloids like more than encouraging their readers to think poorly of foreigners. So my cynicism filters are turned up to the max right now.

Secondly I’m not convinced of the utility of sending petitions to foreign governments. I know how people here would react if there were a Twitter campaign aimed at discouraging the UK from passing a law that had popular support. It may make more sense to lobby our own governments to put pressure on their peers.

But my main concern is the effect boycotts can have on the people on the ground. Let’s not forget that many people credit developments in telecommunications for helping bring down various dictatorships. From fax machines in Soviet Russia to mobile phones in the Arab Spring, the ability of oppressed peoples to see how their lives might be different, and to organize themselves, has allegedly been crucial to effecting change. It is also believed that in the past science fiction was used by writers to avoid censorship when they wished to protest against dictatorial governments. Refusing to attend a convention in a country because its government has repressive policies may only succeed in depriving ordinary people in that country of support that they desperately need.

Then again, there’s the safety issue. As I understand it, these laws forbid public displays and mention of LGBT activities. So for a lot of people there’s no great danger unless you go with a partner and are very obvious about it. Those of us who are LGBT advocates, on the other hand, are more likely to be known by the authorities. And of course it is pretty much impossible for a post-op trans person to not be publicly trans. You might not be noticed by those not in the know, but you are very definitely doing it, all the time.

So I have a dilemma. I’d love to go to Kiev, and to St. Petersburg if it happens. I want to help fans in those cities become more of a part of the international community. But at the same time I have the real concerns of fellow LGBT people to think about, the possibility that my attendance will get the convention into trouble with the authorities, and my own safety to consider. It’s complicated.

Con Crud

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Well initially I thought I was just worn out from all of the travelling, and possibly suffering from a bit of hay fever. However, I have reluctantly been forced to admit that I am actually sick. Normal service will be resumed eventually, but for now I may be a little slow.

End of an Era

~ Cheryl ~ 9 Comments

Today Kevin moved out of the apartment that we shared in Fremont. With me no longer able to contribute to the rent, and him having his own financial problems, he has had to move to somewhere much smaller, and closer to work. We moved into that place together in 2001, and furnished it together. It was very much our home. And now it isn’t.

My thanks to everyone from BASFA who turned out to help Kevin shift furniture into the van today. I am so sorry that I could not be there.

In Which I Meet Awesome People

~ Cheryl

Today I was off to Bristol again, for a rather special meeting. Mary the Producer from Shout Out had asked me to help with an interview that she was recording for broadcast later in the year. The interview subject was Livvy James, an 11-year-old trans girl who has become a bit of a media celebrity in the UK, and who I have written about before. I wasn’t there to ask questions, or indeed speak much. Mary is a very capable interviewer. But I guess my presence would have helped reassure Livvy and her mum, Saffy, that the show was trans-friendly, and also if any issues came up about the wider trans community I could offer expertise that Mary doesn’t have.

Although Livvy and Saffy have been in great demand in the media since they hit the headlines last year, we were the first LGBT show they had ever been on. As such, we provided them an opportunity to set the record straight in a number of ways. For example, Livvy didn’t suddenly decide to become female last year. As with many trans people, she had known from a very early age that her body and identity didn’t match. She’d been living as a girl at home since the age of 7, and only pretending to be a boy when she had to leave the house. Livvy and her family never had any intention of becoming media celebrities. They were outed to the press by the parents of other children at Livvy’s school, and have been dealing with the fallout from that ever since. They have never asked for payment for a media appearance.

Listening to the interview, I was struck by how similar Livvy’s experience was to my own, and yet how different. When she talked about hating having to wear boy’s clothes, about wanting to play with toys that are deemed “for girls”, or about her fear of puberty, that could easily have been me. And yet here she was, living as a girl, with a wonderfully supportive family, and with a promise of medical intervention when she needs it to save her from the ravages of testosterone.

I can’t blame my parents for this. When I was Livvy’s age, hardly anyone in the UK had heard of trans people. It wasn’t until the April Ashley divorce case hit the headlines in 1970 that I even had a word to describe what was wrong with me. Had I acted on that knowledge, the medical profession would probably have told my parents that I needed to be sent to an asylum so that I could be “cured”. And because they would have wanted the best for me, they would have agreed. The world is very different now.

Meeting Livvy, I can’t imagine how anyone who encounters her can fail to see how happy and comfortable she is as a girl. She’s every inch the “little princess” that parents dream of. But she’s also incredibly brave, determined and selfless. She and Saffy talked about how they saw their unfortunate outing and subsequent notoriety as a gift that enabled them to talk to a wider audience and help other families in the same situation. Of course, like all other representatives of minorities who finds themselves in the public eye, Livvy and Saffy tire of the constant need to explain to the clueless. One day soon, I hope, they will be able to retire gracefully and let someone else carry the load. But in the meantime they are amazing ambassadors for the trans community, and we are very lucky to have them.

I don’t know, as yet, when the interview will be broadcast, and the end result will only be about 15 minutes of the hour plus we spent talking, but I will let you know when it is online. And Mary, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to meet such wonderful people.