As many of you know I'm a health professional, but not necessarily in gender conditions.
Today Prof Gary Warne for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne came to Adelaide to give a seminar about hormonal treatment in children with GID.
I went, it was a medical seminar so attended only by health professionals. I and my gynaecologist, who is also a trans woman, were there, I think the only trans people present.
The big issue was treating children and adolescents with GID, and the talk was good. I liked the treatment protocols and the ethics discussion that went with it.
Gary is a good speaker and we were introduced and he was kind and interested enough to talk to me privately over a coffee.
The funny thing was the professional health carers who attended. mainly paediatric medical specialists, prior to the start while we were having sandwiches etc I was largely ignored, except by people I was being introduced to. I did get the feeling of eyes on me. But I'm fine with that.
I asked a few questions as did a few members of the audience, but it was clear that most of the medics knew FA about trans conditions.
One question I was asked (publicly) was how did I know so much about such a wide age range of GID people' problems.
I told them that I was a GM on the world's largest TG support site. I was asked how many people I was aware of, I said - round numbers 15,000 - their biggest cohort was 90. They were blown away.
After the talk it was different, I was hit on by a "heap of medics" - not sure if that is the collective- and they wanted to talk about experiences and concerns in (mainly children) who are GID, how to recognise it, what if parents don't refer. how to pick up cues. What do we feel, how to tell when a child may be going into self harm and what questions to ask.
And the big one. How do we help them.
It was a lot of fun.
But one thing is important. Under TOTAL anonymity, your thoughts your stories, your life experiences are being used to help us.
After the discussions Gary came up as I was trying to leave (I had a full afternoon of work) and said several things had always impressed him about trans people. Our understanding of us, or commitment to being us, our amazing love of life, and that we fight odds that others will give up on, and the pride we have when we move on.
It was a nice talk but also reflective on how much we need to keep hitting the professionals. Acceptance and understanding are two different fish.
Cindy
