‘Sick of the negativity’: the obstacles of being a transwoman

Enjoying shared experiences with other like-minded people is an encouraged thing to do, but only if you’re considered heterosexual.

Regardless of what might be considered a common courtesy and just being a kind human being, these are the battles that many transgender people face daily.

Feeling like you were born in the wrong body is not a choice and that was the case for Shepparton local Paige Heibach.

“I’ve known I was trans since I was probably six or seven,” Paige said.

“I didn’t know what it was and I couldn’t really explain it.”

At 13, she told her mum that she wanted to be a girl.

“She didn’t really know what to do or how to take that, so she did a bit of research, and we went and saw this counsellor ... ,” Paige said.

“That was a really poor experience for me, and they asked a lot of questions that were inappropriate.

“It was just a really bad experience, and I pretty much went into the closet.

“I didn’t come back out until I was 28.”

Twenty-eight was three years ago for Paige.

Since then, she’s been navigating the world as a woman.

And in that time, she’s been through a lot.

Not only has Paige been undergoing the medical transition, but she’s also dealing with the hormonal change that she describes as “going through a second puberty”.

She’s been facing various obstacles in the healthcare system when it comes to accessing adequate treatment.

Doctor, psychology, endocrinology and surgical appointments, the process to transition is lengthy and not all of it is covered by Medicare.

To top it off, discrimination due to religious beliefs within the medical sphere is also common.

“I get my prescription (hormone replacement therapy medication) ... and I’ve been refused service a couple of times because of people’s personal and religious beliefs,” Paige said.

Then there’s the emotional side of coming out to friends and family.

Often, as someone in the queer community, it’s not just about coming out once; you are repeatedly coming out to people over and over again.

Relationships with specific family members and friends changed for Paige when she came out, and to this day, she still struggles.

“It changes everything from your relationships to your relationships with your family. I’ve lost friends because I’ve come out and good friends who I thought would be okay with it,” she said.

“I’m pretty lucky I’ve made some really awesome friends here, but yeah, it’s still complicated.”

Finding work became immediately harder.

Job offers lessened the moment she changed her name on her resume as a woman and if she got past that to the interview stage, she’d face further discrimination once they found out she was trans.

“I’ve had interviews, especially when I first came out and was pretty much told, in the first couple of minutes how they felt about it and they’ve said you aren’t a good candidate,” she said.

“And a number of times I’ve had someone flat out say that we don’t want you to use the female bathrooms.”

Paige is also learning how to navigate aspects of womanhood, an experience she had missed out on growing up.

“There’s a lot of social cues that are ingrained in women at a young age that you end up learning because you have to in order to fit in into society and a lot of those are around hyper femininity, and the beauty standards and everything else that kind of goes along with that,” she said.

This is a lot for a person to take on, so when your identity becomes the target of transphobic behaviour — it just makes things worse.

Paige said battling the systemic issues of community hate towards transgender people and more broadly the queer community sometimes gets too much.

“It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and fight when a lot of the days you don’t have that in you to do ... ,” she said.

In this moment, Paige paused.

“I hope this isn’t too much,” she said.

“But personally, I suffer from depression and anxiety and have battled suicide ideality very recently over the last three to six months, and it’s just because everything is too much with where the world is.

“Like you get sick of having to explain yourself every single day, explain your existence and big questions all the time when all you want to do is go down the street and get a coffee, and it’s not that simple sometimes.”

And she’s not alone.

According to Beyond Blue, around three in every four young transgender people have experienced anxiety or depression.

Four in five young transgender people have engaged in self-harm, and almost one in two have attempted suicide.

Looking at the issue on a broader scale of the whole queer community, LGBTIQA+ people are between 3.5 and 14 times more likely to lose their life due to suicide compared to their non-LGBTIQA+ peers.

Anti-LGBTIQA+ behaviour — prevalent largely overseas through protests, targeted violence, cancellation of drag shows and the introduction of anti-LGBTIQA+ bills in the United States — has started leaking into Australian culture in recent months and years.

Anti-trans comments from public figures only fuel this behaviour and ultimately participate in what Paige describes as ‘political football’ with the trans community.

“A couple of the politicians in Sydney have pretty much demonised the trans community and trans youth for political gain,” she said.

“They jump on something that people don’t really know about and spread misinformation, and then we end up copping it in the end with violence, assaults and abuse.”

One anti-LGBTIQA+ movement that has been heavily associated with the trans community is the hatred towards drag story times across the country.

What is bewildering to Paige, alongside the rest of both the queer and trans community, is the lack of understanding these groups have about the difference between performing as a drag queen and being transgender.

“Drag is an art form, and being transgender is based around your identity,” Paige said.

“Being a drag queen is a performance, it’s an overreaction and an over exaggeration of masculinity or femininity depending if you’re a drag king or drag queen and it’s done for entertainment.”

“Whereas being trans and your gender identity is your own innate sense of self.

“And it’s something that no-one can tell you and it’s something that you have to work out on your own.

“I like asking cis women or cis men why they are a man or woman, and they say because nobody questions them when they say that because they just know, that’s who they are internally and it’s the same for trans people.

“The outside of us doesn’t match what we are on the inside.”

Feeling like you were born in the wrong body is not a choice for people like Paige, but to abuse someone for wanting to be their true self is.