Taking drugs + being trans: The getting of Wisdom

UN had the pleasure of taking afternoon tea with four amazing trans-people to explore the role that drugs have played in their lives, owning identity, “passing”, being “queer” and community

Article dictionary! “Tranny” - old slang, short for “transgender”. This stigmatising and offensive term has reclaimed by trans people – but only for them to use. Pathologise - To view as medically or psychologically abnormal, to treat like an illness Normative - Follows the rules of society, standard or expected, e.g. normative behaviour Cisgender - Opposite of transgender. Identifying with the gender you were assigned at birth. Cisnormative - The assumption that all people are cisgendered Transphobia - Dislike, hostility, avoidance, etc., toward transgender people on the basis of their gender identity Transition - The process of shifting toward a gender role different from that assigned at birth, which can include social transition, such as new names, pronouns and clothing, and medical transition, such as hormone therapy or surgery. Hormones – Prescribed oestrogen or testosterone to assist transition The “op” - operation, gender affirmation surgery, creating a vagina or penis surgically, to assist transition. Not all trans people choose this path. Passing - Being perceived as the gender you are wanting to portray Sistergirl - Aboriginal trans-woman

Charlotte:

I was 15 when I first started using drugs for myself and had recently been kicked out of home for coming out as trans - pretty piss weak on my parents’ behalf. For me, drugs were something that made it possible to continue to go to school, work at night to survive, and still keep some normality in my life. Using also made it possible for me to be able to do sex work at night, because it gave me that disconnect.

Although I am proud of the industry I work in, at the time I was doing it for survival and it’s hard to have pride when you’re trying to survive. Drug use made it a hell of a lot easier to work, a hell of a lot easier to deal with what I was going through after I got kicked out of home. Drugs were a safety net that I had, that wasn’t selfharming, that wasn’t outwards behaviour. Using was something I did in private that made it possible to cope with everything else going on in my life.

Without drug use, I’m sure I’d be dead by now, 100%. That doesn’t mean it’s always been good. I’ve almost ended up dead from the drugs – I’m not going to pretend that hasn’t happened, but at the time it helped me manage everything in my life. Now, I just keep drugs as something that I do for fun.

Brian:

I started using drugs very early as well, both alcohol and drugs. I was so lost in the addiction I was experiencing at the time. This was back in the 90s – I had no connection to the idea that trans men existed. I didn’t even know that being trans was a possibility for me, or that what I was experiencing was a trans experience.

I stopped drinking alcohol and doing drugs in 2007, after going to a 12- step program for a bit. Once the dust settled a bit and I detoxed, I was able to take the steps I needed to try and figure out who I really was. It was through that process of changing the way I used drugs that I was able to affirm my gender.

For me, using the way I did at the time was almost a coping mechanism for not having any connection to myself – not realising that the trans experience even existed for someone like me. I thought that trans women were the only variety of trans people that existed. I was trying to cope.

Daisy:

I came over from NZ in the early 80s, and when I left home I left as my parent’s son. When I landed on the shores of Sydney, I headed straight to Kings Cross – trust me, I hit the Cross and everything else. I hit the drugs, I hit the sex work, and discovered that, in Australia, I could be someone who I was always meant to be. I was away from my family, I didn’t have to worry about bumping into relatives, so I was free to explore and to go on my journey.

The drugs helped me cope with different parts of my life at the time. I don’t know if I’d recommend that someone go into the sex industry, start using drugs, and transition all at the same time. For me, using drugs at that time helped me cope with these changes in my life – changing from one gender to another, the hormones, coming into myself as an adult. Drugs, in a way, helped me find some sort of direction when it came to my gender. Drugs also helped me cope with sex work, especially with being a trans sex worker, working on the streets at a time when it was criminalised.

Bea:

I come at this whole conversation from a different angle. See, I was born this way – there was no transition that I know of. I was going through it my whole life. Because I come from a very large mob, and with me being the weak one, I was supported and protected.

When I ran away to see my older sister, I went to Fremantle. That’s where I first got into my first ship... my first “crack for cash”. My sister said to me: “This is what the world’s all about here baby. Get into it, or get home.” So I did. The ships full of sailors would roll in, and me and the girls would roll out. That was my first introduction to hooking, and I do not regret it. I’ve had a good time.

Charlotte:

When I started using, my gender identity all revolved around “passing”. Coming to Sydney was a big step for me, not only in getting off drugs, but also in becoming more comfortable with myself – whether I “passed” or not.

For so long, I had to hide this side of me. I was in QLD and they were massively homophobic. Some friends and I decided to set up this big queer-friendly house in Caboolture – we were run out of town! Literally, we had bikies on our doorstep telling us we needed to get out, telling us we were only there to touch kids. They have very backwards views up there – bless them.

Coming to Sydney, I had to learn not only how to live drug free, but also how to live authentically in myself. A big step for me was getting the trans symbol tattooed on my leg. There’s such an obsession in the feminine trans community of this idea of passing, about one day not having to tell people you’re trans, one day getting to the point where you’re trans enough that you’re not trans anymore. I had to learn how to overcome that, because it’s a really toxic view.

When I had no drugs in my system, I became obsessed with this idea of being the most feminine, and the most woman, and the most unsprung. And that’s some toxic shit! Now, I’m just a “tranny”. I’m probably not going to get “the op” which is not what I thought when I was a teen. At age 15, it was about getting a vagina, getting some tits, and living life. That was all I had to do – there was nothing else to it! Coming to Sydney, it was this place where I met some amazing people who helped me come to terms with being trans – people who were living authentically as trans people, not just as the gender they identify with. Before, I was such a hard person, because I needed to be to survive life in Queensland. Coming to Sydney was about learning how to soften that, but also about being a little bit rough around the edges and not beating myself up for it. If a community can accept itself and everyone in it whole-heartedly, no one can destroy that community.

Brian:

“Passing”, wanting to “pass”, feeling the need to “pass” – these are pervasive feelings across the trans community. That perspective is starting to shift a little bit though, for the better I think.

One narrative which has emerged is that transitioning doesn’t really have anything to do with being trans. Some people affirm their gender socially, some medically, some surgically. Ultimately though, that has nothing to do with who I am as a man. Hormones, surgery – it's maybe part of transitioning, but I’ve always been a trans man.

Passing comes down to this idea of blending-in – having others view you as cisgender, not trans. I started to blend in as a cis guy within 3 months of starting testosterone, and I wasn’t ready for that – at all.

The biggest challenge that I had in that sense was actually coming to terms with living in this world as a man. The world shifted around me in ways I wasn’t expecting – people listened to me more, or deferred to me more. I realised I needed to learn how to be a good man, how not to be a dickhead – because it’s easy to join the forces of the many! And finding a good role model for that is very hard!

These days, I’m feeling less and less obliged to centre my gender around being trans, and more around being a man with a trans history

Charlotte:

I had such a strong want to “pass” in society. I had such internalised shame about so many things – I’d gone from being an abused child, to on the streets at 15, dealing with their gender, dealing with drug use, dealing with sex work. I was just trying to survive, but I’d never actually had that moment where I had said to myself: “I am trans”. And that’s not right! But as I met more trans people, who were inspiring in their stories and I respected a lot, I realised I was able to have pride in being trans, in being queer.

Bea:

I only really started to “pass” once I stopped caring about it so much – after I accepted myself and came to terms with who I was as a queer person.

I know there are some people, generally older people, who associate really nasty things with the world “queer”. That word was part of a language of violence – verbal and physical. For me though, I was always called a queer, we called each other queers, and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing that. I still don’t think there’s an issue with it

Bea:

I used to dress androgynous, and I used to work androgynous. I kept them guessing. I was lucky I was a little smaller, so that was a blessing. I worked for this company for years, and they had a better position going in Parramatta, so I decided to spread my wings and apply for it.

The day before the interview, they said “We want to see you in a skirt and blouse, and a nice pair of heels”. So the very next day, I walked into my office in a skirt and blouse, and a nice pair of heels. I got the job, and all I copped for a week after that were comments about my legs. They weren’t calling me queer then, they were calling me stunning!

Brian:

The term queer is a reclaimed slur. For me, a queer identity means placing myself outside of a normative experience. That means placing myself outside of a mainstream gay identity, outside of a cisnormative identity as well. I’m a queer man, who has a trans experience, but in terms of my sexual orientation or sexual practices or attractions, I tend to be attracted to people based on who they are. I’m still attracted to people’s bodies, but I’m attracted to lots of different varieties of bodies - maybe all bodies I’ve found!

With the emerging nature of social media, and the role that social media plays in all of our lives, our communities now have much more access to the way that we are being treated across the world. When we were growing up, none of us here had the internet. I’d never even met another trans person, let alone be connected to hundreds of thousands of other trans people across the world.

So now, we see people be killed, people being bashed and called “trannies”. Now, we have a much clearer understanding of how other people in our community are being treated today. We’re much more mobilised around language, much more mobilised around experiences that sit outside of our own. That’s the benefit to social media.

Daisy:

Social media is really good for connecting and community building, but at the same time there’s that dark side to it – there’s a lot of stuff out there that you don’t want to see. I’ll be on Facebook, and all of a sudden there’ll be a video auto-playing, someone hasn’t tagged it with a trigger warning, and I'll have to flick away from it. There’s all this really horrible stuff. That’s probably the downside of social media.

There’s also this issue of lateral violence in our community – about who you are. It does happen, and as we’ve spoken about here today, it especially affects those who don’t pass. Once I came out, it took some time, but once I started “passing”, I ran with it. I went through a stage where I wouldn’t associate with another sistergirl unless they were as gorgeous as I thought I was. There was this fear – if they saw me and said ‘Hi girl!’, I would try dodge them, I’d look away.

From when I started sex work, I always tried to make sure I also held a “normal” job. I’d flick between the two – I was living a double life, where I could be trans and very open and proud on the street, where I could use my drugs and no one gave a shit about what I looked like. But then, when I was working in the straight scene, it was like, oh, 100% woman head to toe. I had to. I’d make my voice higher, making sure I sounded feminine as feminine as possible. It was about making sure I was safe too.

Brian:

Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? We are such a traumatised community – our entire lived experience is through the lens of being mentally ill. We’re seen as being wrong, or broken, or in need of being fixed. These are the same sorts of issues that a lot of people who use drugs face, but as trans people, we’re hit with the double whammy.

One of the things that I feel so strongly about is the trans experience, being trans, is really normal. There’s nothing wrong with us. And there’s nothing wrong with drug users either, or sex workers!

These are the groups that everyone wants to fix – but we don’t fucking need fixing! Even if we access hormones and surgery to affirm ourselves the way we want to, that doesn’t make us sick, or wrong. The way that the trans experience has been pathologised means that we have a population of people who have been treated really badly and told that they’re not okay. And populations like that often turn on each other.

In Thailand, there are lots of trans women, they actually have a term in Thai that means “ghost meets ghost”. It means, I see you because I am you – but I’m not going to say anything other than that. It’s like a secret handshake. I’ve always wished there was a bit of a secret hand signal or something to flash to acknowledge other trans people.

Charlotte: That handshake pretty much does exist for me – it comes in the form of this awkward, knowing half-smile. The wink wink, nod nod. It’s like creating a little safe pocket, even if just for a moment, in a world that quite often isn’t safe for us.

Bea: For so long, I had chosen the ‘normal’ side of life, the so-called ‘straight’ life, but that was a life I chose. But there were times where I would miss the company of my own – so I’d take off. I’d hit up the cross, get down and dirty with the girls. It was still so important that I had my trans sisters there for support.

Charlotte: I am so close with the sisterhood. Coming from a world where I wasn’t allowed to have community, to moving to Sydney where community has been my rock – you know it’s so important. Before, it wasn’t appropriate for me to have community or to be close with other sisters, because there was so much shame around it where I came from. But now, things are different. It shows a massive change in society. There’s so much more connection in the digital age