Torchlight

Gender Support Group

Comment By Dr. Ken Walker (a.k.a Dr. Gifford-Jones)

THE PUBLISHED COMMENT

England’s private hospitals are meeting patients’ needs

. . . (unrelated material removed) . . .

One further thought. When I read the newspaper I often wonder why there’s a lack of common sense in this country. But during my stay in London, I read about a convict who had killed a man by stabbing him 50 times.

Now in prison, he has swapped jeans and shirts for stylish women’s clothes and wears gaudy makeup.

He’s also created a storm of public protest by demanding 32 000 British pounds for a sex-change operation. He’s already started electrolysis treatment to remove excess hair, along with female hormone treatment in preparation for surgery.

The shocker is that under the prison service rules, inmates are permitted to change their sex and have the national health system pay for it. I find it reassuring that all the craziness is not confined to Canada.

Gifford-Jones is a pen name for Toronto physician-author Ken Walker, who writes each Friday.

EMAIL ADDRESSES

Dr. Gifford-Jones (Sympatico)

Letters to the Editor, The Kitchener Record 

divider

A REPLY FROM MICHELLE

Dr. Jones:

I am amazed that you are paid for the bigoted view that is published in the Record about people who suffer from Gender Identity Disorder. You must agree that your description of one single person is equally violent as your opinion of the Canadians you allude to with GID.

Actually, from your description of your story’s subject, even a layperson can see that you suffer from transphobia. Some of the symptoms for transphobia include, and I quote from a statement from Rupert Raj, Psychotherapist at the Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto,

"Transphobia is a form of discrimination based on fear, ignorance and/or hatred of trans people; it sometimes takes the form of "transbashing"; harassment and physical and/or sexual violence (sometimes resulting in murder) directed against transpeople because of their gender identity; it can also take the form of rejection and ostracism, other forms of physical abuse, mental abuse, harassment, and systemic discrimination; it can occur within families, and general communities, at work, in school, in housing, when they interact with governmental services of any kind, places of worship, in the media, and generally in any situation where transpeople interact with their community and society at large. It has an extremely negative effect on the mental and emotional, as well as physical health of transpeople and is a significant factor in their general health and well-being, or lack of same. It can also result in a profound sense of isolation for transpeople and can become "internalized" by them in the form of guilt, shame, lack of self-worth and/or a poor body image. It can have economic effects as well, which exacerbate the situation of transpeople in this society. When combined with other forms of discrimination (for example, based on sexual orientation, race, colour, ablism, or ageism) its negative impact is compounded."

The above is one paragraph within a Statement by Mr. Raj.

Ignorance has only one cure, knowledge. A group known as Torchlight Gender Support, for those with Gender issues meets in Cambridge the first Monday of each month from 7 to 9 PM. We are located at Wesley United Church, 6 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Office PH: 621-6060.

We offer you an opportunity to voice your thoughts face to face with those that have Gender Identity Disorder in a place of Peace.

Dr. Gifford, we with GID have greater challenges in our lives than you have imagined. Attend and be enlightened. I am concerned that others in the group will take your refusal to attend as a further insult to their right to make a life in this community. You are a learned man and I cannot see you refusing to at least listen to the views from the "other side of the coin."

Finally, as this could be considered to be an issue of conduct as well as a systemic discriminatory action, I will hold off lodging a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Medical Association until we are able to talk at the meeting December 6, 2004. I am certain that you will wish to offer a retraction in The Record immediately.

Many Blessings,

Michelle Hogan
Convenor
Torchlight Gender Support

divider

A REPLY FROM ETHEL AND ALLAN

Dr Gifford-Jones

I have been a reader of your article in the Kitchener Record for many years. I have found them educational until your thoughts in the Friday November 12th issue. Your last statement concerning people with a medical condition called gender identity disorder (GID) upset me. I am a mother of a 40-year-old who was born with a male body and at the age of 12 had mixed feelings about his gender. He hid these feelings and married at 23 and had a loving relationship with his wife for 16 years. After many years of treatment, medical and psychotherapy, he learned he is truly a female living in a male body. Immediately his marriage was dissolved and she started her journey to be a woman. When Robi told my husband and myself we were shocked to disbelief and saddened to learn that Robi lived with these feelings since 12 years old. People talk about a heartbreak and now we know what it is to live every day with heart break. We love Robi and will always support her but society is very cruel and she suffers emotionally and lives a very lonely life. Robi has the love of all our family and we try to educate friends about GID. Now in your article you have encouraged doubt about the truth of GID. You done a great deal of harm and I feel you should accept responsibility for this and write a retraction and apologize to all GID people, their families and friends. Every first Monday of the month our support group meets at Wesley United Church, 6 Cambridge Street, Cambridge. Office number 621-6060. Our next meeting is December 6th at 7 PM. My husband and I never miss a meeting. We are with a wonderful group and we can release any pressure we feel and still have a fun caring time together. I personally found when facing a brick wall you either crash or educate yourself about the disorder and I choose to find all I can about GID with the help of Robi. Our computer will be down from November 27th til December 4th since we are moving but the e-mail address will be the same. We look forward to your reply and will be more than happy to meet you at the side entrance of Wesley United Church on December 6th or any other time. We are always learning about GID and education is a great thing.

Ethel and Allan

divider

A REPLY FROM CASSIE

Dear Dr. Ken Walker:

Your comments of the prisoner in UK who had her sex change funded by the government are truly ignorant and atrocious.

Gender dysphoria (a.k.a. gender identity disorder or transsexuality) has long been recognized, by the medical and psychological professionals, as a bona fide condition. Over the decades, the condition has moved from being thought of as a strictly psychological disorder, to being thought of as a psycho-physiological disorder, and then onto a condition (not a disorder.)

An issue that has not been settled, from what I have read in the medical journals and texts, is whether gender dysphoria is a psychological condition or a physical condition. For example, the work of Doctors Swaab, Goorens, Chung and others at the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research has shown the presence of gender-related wiring differences within the brain. Further, their work has shown that in transsexual persons, this gender-related wiring is for the opposite sex.

A transsexual person has no more control over her sex or her gender than the cisgendered population. We do no choose to be transsexual. Just as you were born a boy (male sex with masculine gender), some of us are born with one of the transsexual conditions. I was cursed with being born a male transsexual person (male sex with feminine gender.)

Your profession cannot rewire the gender-related centres within our brains. So, our only avenue to relieve the condition is to undergo a sex change. At present, this is the only way we can heal our sexuality.

Over the years, I have worked with other transsexual persons, to help them cope with this crippling condition. Some of those persons are no longer with us. Why? Some of the transsexual persons are dependent upon anti-depressants. Why? Partly because the divided sexuality causes an insufferable rend in one’s personality.

However, a major contributory to the suicides and the reliance on drugs is the vast harm done by society’s ignorance of human sexuality. This ignorance leads to the ridicule of the transsexual persons and to the marginalization of this section of our society. We transsexual persons lose family, lose friends, have no self-acceptance, have no self-respect, et cetera. As long as society continues to promote its ignorance of human sexuality, the transsexual people will continue to suffer for being themselves.

How is that prisoner going to get relief from this condition? As a prisoner, she cannot make enough money to pay for the treatment. Would you deny water to a prisoner? Would you deny her medical treatment to alleviate a bona fide medical condition?

From my own experience (I have completed most of the treatments) and from the experience of other transsexual persons, I know the great benefits to society that comes from treating this condition. We become more productive and beneficial to society.

I plead with you to take the time to talk with the specialists who study and treat the transsexual people. Open your mind to understand better the true nature of human sexuality. Don’t feed society’s ignorance and hate.

As a doctor, which you claim to be, you have a duty of care. You have failed to exercise that duty. Your ignorant, hateful comments help promote the society’s ignorance and hate of this variation of human sexuality. Will you do the honourable thing by publishing an apology and by explaining that your comments were born of ignorance and of hate? Or will you continue to part of the problem - the bigotry borne of ignorance and of hate?

Yours truly,
Cassandra


Status as of April 5, 2005: No response (email or retraction) from Dr. Gifford-Jones to my email to him, dated November 15, 2004. No response (email, retraction or publishing of my email) to my email to The Kitchener Record. The bigotry contiues.