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Underground > Head Shop >

Born Again

02:56 / 22.08.03

This is quite a cover story for a Nashville weekly:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bin/printer.cgi?story=This_Week:News:Cover_Story

It will only be there for a week. If I can find it on the web site after that, I'll edit this post to change the link. Please, someone remind me if I forget!

The main subject of the story also has her own website:
IYQYQR

My initial response to the Nashville Scene article was to feel sorry for Elise's partner, Joni. She seems to have sacrificed a great deal in her loyalty to Elise. However, this is not to say that Elise has suffered any less (in fact, the article reveals that she has suffered a great deal), or had any more real choice in the direction of their shared life.

From the article:
But together, Elise and Joni decided they needed to make some changes in living arrangements. First, they're completely platonic -- although Joni notes that it's been that way for quite some time. And they now sleep in separate bedrooms. "It helps, I guess, to be able to tell people that we're housemates," Joni says. "And, you know, it helps to explain that there's nothing wrong with this, and that this didn't have any motive other than trying to stay mentally healthy and become a stable, functioning person again."

It hasn't been easy for Joni, though. She's lost friends and family members, and even some part of herself. It would be fair to say, too, that Elise has gotten much more out of the relationship in recent years than Joni has. While Elise still has her best friend to lean on, Joni at times feels angry and alone in the situation. "I've always thought of us as one person, but I guess that's part of the grief I feel," she says, choking back tears. "It's that I don't feel that anymore. Elise does, but I don't."

In June, Joni and Elise celebrated 33 years of a particularly vow-testing marriage. Joni gave Elise a necklace with a heart on it; Elise gave her a rather unromantic storm door. ("It's what she asked for," she insists.)

Says Joni, who's stood behind Elise in much more than just the family portrait, "We're trying to build a life here."

I honestly don't know if I could stay through such a huge change in a relationship. On the other hand, I'd feel very guilty if I left a person in such a difficult stage of their life. It would be a real test of my personality.

16:42 / 22.08.03

at the other extreme you have Molly Stanton who tries to have male-to-female GRS banned so upset has it made her that her spouse transitioned. she posts to Indymedia and reads like a spoof she also posts to an ex-trannies christian group called Reality Resources so she may mean it. go, Molly!

so how about some articles focussing on the huge per capita murder rate of (mainly) MTF transsexuals? haven't read that in the mainstream media.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:46 / 23.08.03

It's a tricky one - the partners of transgendered people (which seems to be one of the strands we can pull out of this one) might certainly feel that suddenly the rules have been changed enormously. On the other hand, partners *do* have the option to walk away, just as Elise's brothers have; the fact that Joni has not taken this way out is certainly enormously to her credit.

Another interesting thing is the sheer *expense* - the way that in most societies, gender realignment, if it is even an option, is costly, which especially when taken with the difficulty many employers might have with a visibly transitioning or transgendered person, creates something of a double bind. The status in the UK - that the desire for GRS has to be identified as a pathology in order that people can get it on the NHS - creates a tension between the desire not to be pathologised and the desire to get surgery on which one feels one's life or at least one's future happiness may depend but which one could not afford privately...

I think we should probably now decide if this is a broad thread on transgender issues, of the Transgender 101 sort, a discussion of murder among MTF transsexuals, a discussion of the issues surrounding GRS itself, a look at how being the partner of a transexual functions, or a discussion specifically of the issues surrounding the case of Elise, and then spin other threads off as required..

14:37 / 23.08.03

Another interesting thing is the sheer *expense*

Not only the enormous expense of all the different therapies (which I doubt many health insurers will cover in good ol' USA), but in this case occupation reassignment - from six-figure annual income engineer/manager to entry-level admin.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:51 / 27.08.03

Absolutely. I don't have statistics to hand, but the cases of GRS patients keeping their jobs I have encountered are mainly in academia rather than engineering or big business - maybe there's a cultural thing. And how does legislation handle this. Is it sex discrimination when somebody's passport still says "M" or "F"?

On cost - I was thinking about this the other day. In order to get subsidised GRS, people in the UK have to accept (or at least pay lip service to) the idea that they are sick, whereas, IIRC, whereas some insurers in the US will stump up for GRS, if you do not admit to wanting it, or feeling that you might want it, when you sing the forms you are defrauding the insurer, as if you took out a policy without telling them that you had some soon-to-be-expensive nasty.

So, you must be either pathologised or criminalised - it's an odd sort of rebirth, and hardly surprising that employers might not be wild about keeping somebody so represented on the books. How does it work in other societies?