PASADO DE CABLES Y CONEXIÓN DE CONDUCTORES

Social exclusion from religious communities is a common experience for many LGBTIQ+ people, a further form of minority stress resulting from intersecting identities (Pallotta- Chiarolli, 2018). Many of the women interviewed described practising a religion prior to their transition and experiencing judgement, gossip or exclusion from religious institutions due to their gender and sexuality diversity. Sam, who previously practised Christianity, said, “because I identified as gay … I wasn’t allowed to be in outreach missions anymore. They completely isolated me from being a part of the church and taking part in church, which is really bad.” Similarly, Jennifer discussed how “a lot of people use religion to justify their hate on trans women” and that “I hear a lot of people saying that you’re going to be burning in hell because you’re a trans woman. Like, God doesn’t love you, and all that stuff.” For Sam, disclosing that they were same sex–attracted resulted in them being required to undergo conversion therapy within the church, which involved:

Looking at naked women and trying to make yourself sexually attracted to them … looking at people in your friendship circle and trying to be attracted to women … [and] mindfulness meditation based on your homosexual desires … just recognise them, accept them as they are and move on. Don’t contemplate on them, don’t try to promote them.

This experience for Sam was “really frustrating”, “did not work” and ultimately led to suicidal ideation. For Jennifer, being made “to present male … to be able to attend church” resulted in her “not want to go to church anymore” and for Talking in relation to her photograph Brown enough (Photo

3.9), Fiona also described how women of colour are often excluded from the queer community. She brought light to this issue by showing a white hand revealing extra layers to the gay pride flag, stating:

It’s all about a very big controversy, about LGBTQ flags that represent people of colour. A lot of those flags had black and brown added above the rainbow, so that’s why I made that background to that image, and a lot of white gay men were very offended by this and that’s why I’ve drawn a picture of a white hand tearing the black and brown stripes off it. In the background, I’ve put the transgender flag there and the five stripes represent the five different main skin tones … going from light brown to dark brown … more fully represent people of all cultures. It was like trans women of colour.

Photo 3.9 Fiona, Brown enough

Krithika also spoke about prejudice that happens against trans women of colour within the LGBTIQ+ space. She said, “They would only accept trans women of white colour first, and they [are] not really taking steps to accept trans people of colour.” Maya also described how “narratives of violence” are often used against people of colour as a means to gatekeep involvement in the queer community, asserting it is a way to

It’s a hand tearing the brown and black stripes off the flag and revealing two other flags behind it.

money after paying her expenses: “I just took my Centrelink money and like, did math … I don’t get rent assistance … we’re surviving.” After suffering sexual violence when staying with family members, Jenny became homeless, and revealed that “there’s a time where you could actually get under Town Hall … a lot of homeless people stayed under there. That was fine. It was secluded and there was a secret entrance.” A small number of the women discussed the high costs involved in relation to gender re-assignment surgery or costs involved in presenting femme. Steph said, “Clothes are pretty expensive … That’s why I wear boy’s clothes because that’s what my parents got me”, and Claudia described, “A huge chunk of my income goes to either medically transitioning, or therapy, or psychiatrists, other medical fees … this is why I’m living in a house that goes through a dingy alley between some shops.” For Asami, being able to get “bottom surgery”, a surgical procedure to remove male genitalia, was very important, but seemingly out of reach due to the high costs involved. She said, “I fucking want bottom surgery … all up it will cost me $35,000; it’s something I’ve resigned myself to … I have to save up this amount of money just to feel better about myself.” Poverty and lack of resources to live or fund gender-related health costs meant that some of the women remained employed in jobs they did not like or resorted to sex work. Claudia described working in a transphobic environment but felt she could not leave because “[it] was me trying to save up money for transitioning, so hence working even though I wasn’t comfortable there”. Sasha resorted to sex work, following experiences of chronic illness which meant she could no longer work in her usual profession:

I was very apprehensive but I figured in all that I need money and I had to pay my house insurance and then I have to also go to a specialist, so they all cost money and in order to survive, I need to do sex work … People are university-educated and very intelligent people that perhaps like myself, sex work is not always our first choice but it’s what keeps us alive … the options are limited. These examples highlight how the intersections of gender, sexuality and social class shape the financial options that are available to trans women, with many of them forced to engage in sex work to survive, and a number of them experiencing homelessness and poverty.

others, complicated their journey to expressing their true identity. As described by Dora:

It was just confusion and when I would try and work stuff out, it would be my dad … he always tried to give me advice … “If you go to church and stuff, maybe you’ll find the answers you’re looking for” … [I] never really found anything at church … it just delayed where I am now … It put more holds on my life, it slowed everything down. I don’t really know if I knew what it was like to really be happy and comfortable with myself until after I had dealt with all that stuff.

While many experiences of religious discrimination happened in participants’ home countries, particularly where religion shaped broader sociocultural beliefs and practices, some women felt religious discrimination continued following migration and was part of the mainstream Australian culture. This is in line with previous research which reports that individuals who are LGBTQ and from a non-Christian faith (e.g. Muslim) experience discrimination, exclusion and prejudice that mean it is more difficult to access health and social services for support (Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2018). As Fiona said,

The majority of the federal members of parliament in Australia are white Australian men who were born in England, and their religion is mostly Catholic. So therefore, the Australian parliament will never treat the trans women the same way as straight women because of their religious intolerance.

These accounts demonstrate how some religious doctrines espouse homophobia and transphobia, and how the intersections of sexuality, gender, culture and religion contribute to cumulative discrimination against trans women both prior to and following migration.

“The options are limited”: Socio-economic

hardship among trans women

Many participants described experiencing financial difficulty or hardship associated with being a trans woman. Asami described having to rely on peer support to avoid homelessness, saying “ a bunch of friends pulled together some money so I’d actually have a place”, and Sam described having little or no

RESEARCH REPORT | JUNE 2020

Lisa said that her parents tried to stop her from taking hormones, saying “these medications have side effects. You should stop taking them.” She said that her parents had “obviously no consideration why I was given them”, telling her: “No. You’re not sick or anything. You’re fine. You’re a boy. Stop taking them.”

For many participants, the lack of support and negative reactions from their families was due to cultural or religious beliefs, as illustrated in Dora’s account: “Even slight deviances from straight heterosexual behaviour to my parents was already wrong. It was perceived as what you shouldn’t do.” Gabriella described having a “complicated relationship” with her mother: “She doesn’t hate me, she loves me, but she doesn’t like who I am. She loves me as her child. She just doesn’t like what I am.” Gabriella said this was because her mother “is deeply rooted into her religion”. Emma described her religious family as calling her a “monster” and a “prostitute”, saying to her

[that] I might as well kill myself … they would rather I kill myself and spare myself a lifetime of pain than to go through and live as a monster for the rest of my life and be shunned by society … they also told me that if I was a woman, I’d be the ugliest woman in the world and other things along those lines, basically just invalidating me and insulting me.

The consequences of lack of family support were isolation and psychological distress, as reported in previous research (Koken et al., 2009; Le et al., 2016). For example, Revathi said that she felt “emotionally down” because of not being able to communicate with her parents about “particular things” and therefore feeling like she had no one to talk to. Similarly, Lisa described that her mother thought she was a “crazy person” when she tried to see a psychologist about her gender questioning as an adolescent, with her mother simply saying something was “wrong with her”. Emma explained that transphobia on the part of her parents and their unwillingness to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy led her to attempt suicide: “The entire reason I’m suicidal is because my parents are transphobic and I haven’t been able to receive treatment.” Sefina described being caught by her mother with a “knife”, a “razor” and a “bottle of pills” and reported that at the time she thought to herself: “I’m being selfish to my parents” and “What have I done?”

“They call me by my dead name, their son”:

Family rejection and lack of acknowledgement

One of the most significant factors that shaped the women’s journeys to embrace their trans identity was the way in which their families reacted to their desire to transition, or whether the women could be open about their gender and sexuality identity with their family. For some participants, openly being trans in their family context was not an option. Maria said, “No one outside the immediate family knows that I’m trans, and even my brothers don’t know yet”, and Lin stated, “I’m only male when I see my parents.” Other women described being on a journey of coming out with their family, such as Claudia: “I’m at the stage of testing the ground with closer relatives who seem a bit more open with this kind of stuff … slowly making my way towards the further reaches. Especially like my grandparents.”

Family rejection, or refusal to acknowledge preferred gender identities, is a common experience for trans people (Peters, 2018). Family members not acknowledging pronouns or accepting gender diversity was commonly reported by the interviewees. For example, Petra said her mother “won’t acknowledge my … pronouns or name … and she’s constantly asking me to like, justify myself … but not recognising me”. Lisa said her parents “still call me by my dead name, their son”. Identifying as queer as an adolescent was often the first step in transitioning, as well as the first step in family rejection. Family estrangement was often the consequence of rejection. As Asami stated, “I’ve cut all my family away … That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. She [Asami’s mother] just kicked me out of house 'cause I told her I was trans.”

Some interviewees described their parents as “having used their power” to stop them from transitioning. As Emma said:

When I first realised I was trans, and I told my parents, there was immediate backlash and that was six years ago, and they basically just abused their parental power over me to prevent me from transitioning, they threatened to kick me out of the house if I ever told my friends or anything.

Identification as a trans woman: Body