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IN TOUCH

TX:Ìý 16.11.2021Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý The idea that someone can feel so uncomfortable in the body into which they were born that they feel compelled to take steps to change it, is something which is receiving increasing understanding.Ìý It’s called gender dysphoria.Ìý Figures on this, from the Office of National Statistics, are imprecise.Ìý It’s estimated in the UK, there are between 200 and 500,000 transgender people.Ìý But transitioning gender is still far from being universally accepted and even amongst those who are sympathetic and supportive many admit to being left with a host of questions unanswered.Ìý

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Well, tonight, we’ve invited three visually impaired people to explain why they’ve chosen this path, what have been the effects on their relationships and whether their blindness or partial sight has been a factor.

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In a moment we’ll hear from Connor Scott-Gardner, who has only recently come out as a transgender male.Ìý And Sarah Stephenson-Hunter, who transitioned in 2013.Ìý But, first, Emily Brothers explained to me the steps that led her, in 2006, to tell her then wife that she could no longer live as a man.

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Brothers

I’ve always felt female.Ìý I have always had that inner sense.Ìý And I grew up at a time in a working class, socially conservative, family where in the ‘60s and ‘70s you didn’t have those kinds of conversations.Ìý So, I kept it very much to myself.Ìý And that was very challenging, in terms of my own mental health, my own sense of being and awareness.Ìý And I went on and had a successful career, married, had two children but that inner feeling of being female was always with me and it was only really in the 1990s, when I was able to get independent access to information through the internet etc., that I was able to actually realise that I wasn’t the only person in the world who felt like this and there was a pathway to being a woman.

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White

And you talk about those inner feelings, one journalist, in particular, thought it would be funny to question whether a blind person would have a sense of their gender.Ìý I think we can dismiss that as puerile but can you describe what it was that you knew that made you so determined to change it, given the amount of aggravation that you must have known was bound to go with it.

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Brothers

Well, I think it was very much about how I felt about my behavioural characteristics and other people not understanding really how I was supposed to live as a male.Ìý Feeling, on an everyday basis, that that was a real challenge in terms of just dealing with the norms and the stereotypes of being a particular gender within the binary of male and female.Ìý And it increasingly just wasn’t working for me.Ìý And all those expectations about norms and society which just didn’t gel with me.Ìý And once I did transition, it all fitted together.

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White

Obviously, one of the things being In Touch that we’re interested in is what’s special to this experience for a visually impaired person.Ìý I think you remember the first time you left your home as a woman, you remember that quite vividly don’t you?

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Brothers

Yes I do, it was terrifying because you want to go out and just be like any other woman but you fear other people’s reactions.Ìý You don’t want to be mocked and ridiculed.Ìý But I went in to Central London on the tube and that was quite liberating because, as a blind person, getting assistance from the staff and them radioing ahead and saying – Can you meet a visually impaired lady at Stockwell – was empowering because that person interacted with me like a woman I was seeking to become in that journey.Ìý And so, that first trip out, well, it was terrifying, I returned knowing that I could do it and it was the right thing to do.

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White

You mentioned your socially conservative family, I just wonder, can I ask you, how did your family react to your transition?

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Brothers

Not well and relations ever since have been distant and infrequent, very much about what would the neighbours think.Ìý My marriage broke up, although my former wife now is my best friend and we have two children.Ìý They have worked through what has been a difficult time over the last 15 years but they are accepting and in fact my son, not long ago, said to me – if you hadn’t transitioned, I wouldn’t have known this very different type of person, I wouldn’t have known Emily and that would have been quite sad.

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White

And your children actually played a part in defining who you were didn’t they, a rather special part?

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Brothers

Yes, so in the early days, when I talked to them about how I felt and the journey I was going through, we talked about different options for my name and they were keen that I should be called Emily.Ìý They said that the definition was ‘industrious’ which, they said, describes the type of person I am.Ìý

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White

And in a way, I’m just wondering, how much you expected when you made that decision to have that relationship with your children and indeed with your wife, as she was at the time?

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Brothers

It was something that I was very fearful of, of losing my relationship and indeed when you go through this kind of experience, you have periods of being very depressed and I did have times when I was suicidal and at one time, was very close to it.Ìý And I have talked about walking to the sea late one night and it was only that thought of my children that brought me back, that was really the thing that I clung on to.Ìý And all these years later, is what is my real purpose in life is supporting them and my grandchildren.

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White

Emily, for the time being, thank you and do stay with us.

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I’d like, though, to bring in now Connor Scott-Gardner, he’s a disability rights campaigner who, similarly to Emily, took the decision to publicly come out, in his case, as a transgender male. ÌýWell, we’ll get to that decision in a moment but, first, Connor explained why transitioning gender was a necessary step in his life.

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Gardner

It really started with a lot of discomfort around my body and various other things and it’s really easy to kind of pass that off as body insecurity.Ìý And I think there’s probably layers of that too.Ìý So, it started off with me really thinking about certain areas of my body I wanted to minimise or change and I kind of sat with that for quite a while actually and asked myself a lot of difficult questions.Ìý And it really took years really of thinking about this, to kind of put various pieces together and so, you know, I think this is actually what’s happening here and kind of culminated in me coming out I suppose.

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White

And so, was there one thing, then, that made you think okay, this is the moment I’m ready and I’ll deal with whatever comes up?

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Gardner

Yeah, it really, really happened very rapidly, the process of deciding that I had to kind of publicly come out.Ìý I just couldn’t hold it in any longer and it was quite impulsive is in my decision to come out at that moment, I hadn’t sat down and thought – what would be a good time to come out – it was actually a terrible time to come out.Ìý I was in the middle of writing an essay to a deadline and I was really stressed and I was like – this is not the time.Ìý You know, if I’d sat down and had a good think I wouldn’t have done it then.Ìý But I just couldn’t not and I think perhaps that’s something that happens to people is they get to a point where it just becomes this thing that they’re carrying around with them and actually it’s better out in the open and face whatever consequences come than holding it in.

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White

You’ve made the changes which mean that you’re asking people to think about you differently and address you differently.Ìý Are you, also, contemplating, if you like, more physical changes, I mean are you contemplating surgery for instance?

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Gardner

Yes I am and it takes time, so, unfortunately, in terms of every aspect the NHS is just completely overwhelmed and I really feel for everyone there.Ìý What this does mean is that there’s huge waiting times for NHS services, even to get an initial diagnosis to say, right, you are actually a trans person, you can start taking hormone replacement therapy.Ìý Which even to get that takes years and years.Ìý Your initial appointment could be three years away from when you first get referred.Ìý So, I have chosen to seek out a private referral, which still cuts it down to a year, which is still quite a long time.Ìý And that would only be to start hormones.Ìý They recommend to be on hormone replacements for a year or so before you undergo any surgery, just because that does make changes to your body.Ìý So, it is something I’m looking at in the future.

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White

Are there particular challenges for a blind person when going through a gender transition?

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Gardner

One thing that’s the same but perhaps feels more drastic for trans people is access to cultural things, so like clothing choices, a lot of sighted people will look on the internet and think what kind of look do I want but obviously I was taught to dress as a girl.Ìý But there are things, you know, if I ask someone in a restaurant – oh can you show me where the bathroom is – if there isn’t a disabled bathroom, which I’d probably use just because it’s not gendered so I don’t have to kind of deal with the stress of that, the person showing me where it is would probably presume which bathroom I wanted, so I think you have to kind of think oh I’m going to have to have this conversation with someone or potentially have this conversation when perhaps I wouldn’t have to if I could see.Ìý There’s so much paperwork as well and as we know lots and lots of government paperwork is not that accessible.

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White

Because your medical records all have to be changed presumably?

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Gardner

Yeah, so, I mean I had to create a deed poll to change my name.Ìý Sending letters to HMRC and some people you know you can do things online, some are like – oh we want a printed letter.Ìý Just the standard process of being a blind person and having to send printed letters, you know.Ìý I sometimes joke that it’s almost a good thing I have to wait a year for my first appointment because it gives me at least to put all my papers in order, so I can go with them organised by then, hopefully.

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White

Now you wrote a tweet announcing your trans-status, why did you want to disclose this publicly?

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Gardner

I chose to because I already had a public platform.Ìý What I didn’t want to do was close my Twitter account, close my blog and try and start from the beginning and hide who I was and that is the decision some people make for their personal safety, as much as anything else, but I had to come out publicly or stop doing the work I’m doing.Ìý And it’s definitely a fraught time politically around trans-rights at the moment, so that’s added a bit of a tense layer to things.Ìý But I mean in terms of the reality of it, no I didn’t really feel like I had a choice in the end.

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White

Connor Scott-Gardner, thank you very much for joining us.

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I want to bring in Sarah now, Sarah Stephenson-Hunter, because Sarah you lost your sight entirely, I think, but you began your transition after that.Ìý And I guess you knew, at that point, that you wouldn’t see yourself post-transition.Ìý What were your feelings about that?

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Hunter

For me I’ve had vision problems since I was a child, lots of health issues, that was probably something that kept me from transitioning earlier on because they would say I didn’t have the emotional and mental capacity to deal with my gender feelings.Ìý But when it came to beginning my transition, it was after – well I’d lost my dad a few months earlier and then I lost all my vision and for me, I describe that as my tidal wave moment.Ìý It was just this period when all these things in my life that I’d been trying to fight against and runaway from, in particular, feelings about my gender, I just thought, do you know what, I can’t run anymore.Ìý And I did know that, yes, I was going into gender transition not being able to see myself, how I looked, so that whole sense of how I look to others was important because obviously we live in a sighted world but, for me, it was more about my inner sense of self and who I am.

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White

You’ve said, I think, that the combined impact of being disabled and a transgender woman, has been like sort of navigating in a state of hyper-vigilance…

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Hunter

Yeah.

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White

…could you explain what you mean by this?

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Hunter

When I’m out and about, although I generally pass, as the phrase is…

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White

Pass meaning being accepted as what you want to be accepted…

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Hunter

Yes, pass – being accepted as a woman.Ìý Every interaction, every place you go, you’re never quite sure if someone’s reaction to you is going to be because you’re blind or because you’re trans and I guess there’s still that sense, when I meet somebody, that they’re going to suss me out and find me out and it’s just double-edged sword of people’s attitudes towards you as a blind person and then as a trans person.Ìý I guess they’ll understand this isn’t a lifestyle choice, you know, being trans, it’s something at the core of who you are.

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White

I’d like to bring back Emily Brothers for this question and put it to both of you.Ìý Because we are In Touch, I’m interested to know how other visually impaired people have reacted to you both after your transitions.Ìý I mean, for a start, voice is what we, as blind people, often – well usually – use to identify someone else.Ìý So, how do people react to you, Sarah, I mean you had some vocal training didn’t you?

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Hunter

The voice – the voice is a funny thing because as you say us blind people very much rely on the voice and obviously when you’re in a setting with a group of blind people, they ask what’s your name and you say your name’s Sarah and you can just hear the pause, they’re thinking – what have they said?Ìý But I mean I never had any nastiness or negativity.Ìý And, actually, I will tell you one funny story.Ìý So, my last guide dog, I was in class with another person but I met that person a few months later at a trans support group and it turned out we were both trans and beginning transition.Ìý So, at first you think there can’t be many blind trans people out there but since then I’ve met the likes of Emily and a few other people and, you know, we do exist, we’re a bit of a rare breed but we do exist.

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White

And Emily, because you’ve been quite involved in the politics of blindness and partial sight with your work with the National Federation of the Blind, and being subsequently selected as a Labour parliamentary candidate, how do visually impaired people that you know and work with react?

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Brothers

On the whole, people have been very positive.Ìý There have been some difficulties with a few individuals.Ìý So, like Sarah, there are things you go through with voice training and looking after your appearance.Ìý So, for me, for example, I tried things like makeup, for example, and it just didn’t work, the feedback I had was I just went orange.Ìý And doing it independently it was just like too much of a risk.

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White

Can I ask you both this?Ìý Transitioning must have to do – well certainly your relationship with yourself, your sense, but it must also have an effect on who you want to be attracted to you and I just – how difficult has that part of your life been since transitioning?Ìý If I can ask Emily first.

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Brothers

Gender identity and sexual orientation are both very different and in my case before I transitioned, I was attracted to women, so I would have been heterosexual, now that I’ve transitioned, I’m still attracted to women.Ìý So, forming relationships is very difficult because it’s a whole new set of rules and of course you are wanting to be cautious and respectful of other people.Ìý So, it can be a lonely path.

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White

Can I put the same thing to you Sarah, I mean how has that worked out for you?

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Hunter

Through transition I would say I was attracted to women.Ìý I still am attracted to women, that hasn’t changed for me.Ìý I’ve since remarried, I am in a same sex relationship with a woman.

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White

Can I stay with you Sarah?Ìý There’s a lot of politics now surrounding being transgender and I just wonder, is that something you want to be involved with or do you just want to get on with your life?

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Hunter

Being trans is hard, being blind is hard, so navigating the world as a blind transwoman is tricky and there’s a big part that you just want to get on with it.Ìý However, pre-transition I was always a bit of a campaigner, I’ve always worked in the field of sort of higher education, disability support, so since transitioning I’ve carried that on.Ìý It’s political but my biggest political act is just being me and just showing people that I simply want to live my life and just show people that blind people, trans people, are just people and we have our own unique challenges, whether it’s all about educating and raising awareness and just breaking down some of those barriers for people.

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White

Sarah, Emily and before that Connor, thank you all for being involved.

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As always, your thoughts on what you’ve just heard are welcome, you can email intouch@bbc.co.uk and if you go to our website at bbc.co.uk/intouch where you can download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio manager Jonathan Esp, goodbye.