Fixing What Wasn't Broken

[filkertom]

This is really a horror story, and it may enrage and/or depress you terribly.

Short form: Trans-gender woman and her roommate/best friend get hit by a car. Roommate killed, woman very badly injured. Family takes over her care, and:

... So they were instructing caregivers to call her by her old name, call her “he,” because otherwise it would just be too confusing to explain. They took her off the transitioning medical regimen she’d been on and started talking about memory reconstruction. Her memory would be heavily damaged because of the injuries to her brain, they said. There would have to be a lot of recovery, and it would just be confusing to her to bring up her transitioned life. She’d been a boy with another name for eighteen years, right? Wasn’t that who she really was, at the core? Wouldn’t that be more normal to her? Wouldn’t she just be better served by rebuilding her from the ground up, from the beginning, with the memories that seemed more normal? Maybe if she recovered significantly, if she recovered enough memory and motor function and consciousness, they could start bringing up her transitioned life, but otherwise, they said, she didn’t need to be confused by all of that. The four years of life she’d found worthwhile could just be wiped away like a bad dream, treated as confusion when she woke up, if she woke up, and they could rebuild her on terms that made sense.

They had ultimate power over her–her body, her brain, everything. She was disabled, and couldn’t speak for herself, and couldn’t express her own preferences, and they were next of kin, and they knew best, and the authority for medical decisions was in their hands. They loved her more than anyone, and had her best interests in mind, and were just looking to her recovery, just listening to the doctors.

And if she woke up as from a deep sleep, she’d wake up into a world where her best friend was dead, where her body had been forcibly edited back to its pre-transition state and given a few more years of the influence of testosterone to boot, where her memory and self were hazy and confusing and nobody was calling her by the right name and pronouns, they were in fact pretending four years of her life, the four years she finally got to be honest and true to herself, those had never happened, and shh, she’s just confused, shhhh, calm down, let’s work on fixing your memory some more.

I cannot express how obscenely wrong this is to me. Just... everything.

(h/t siliconshaman)

Comments

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I am speechless.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

The story is enraging. And as fair warning, "tranny" isn't considered a very kosher word 'round the way these days, so you may catch some flack for that.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Didn't know that. I'll change it to "trans-gender".

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

Jesus fuck.

<akes me want to hit something. I'm sure these idiots serenely think this was "God's will" and "all for the best," too.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

I'm so angry I can't think.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine much worse than this. It is the essence of horror -- lack of control, of identity, of self.

The "confusion" is with the family, and tragically they don't seem to have an inkling of it.

Thank you...

[anjala.livejournal.com]

Tom,

Thank you for getting this out there. One of my friends posted this yesterday and I was horrified. As someone who is married to trans man (FtM), I can`t put into words on how this made me feel. I would do everything in my power to keep someone to doing this to my husband. I admire you even more for sharing this.

Re: Thank you...

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Pardon my ignorance but I'm trying to figure out FtM. I'm assuming it is Female to Male, that is: born female and identifies male. Could you clarify for me? Thanks.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Let this be a lesson to everyone:

You need to write a living will. You need to do so, immediately.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Good advice, but it bears noting that a living will may not be the ironclad protection many think it to be, particularly in an instance like this. Hospitals can and do ignore those in favour of the family, far too often. Best to also do a durable PoA, and make it someone you trust to carry out YOUR wishes and fight for what YOU want done.

[trav13369.livejournal.com]

Unconscionable.

All I can say.

I have close friends, who happen to be trans-gendered, so this REALLY gets under my skin. The accident victim went through the bad side of Hell to get to how SHE wanted to be, how she felt she SHOULD have been all along, and her clueless family is gonna undo every goddamn thing, because THEY think they are right.

I am disgusted by this family, and grateful you brought this to light. Thank you.

[hbruton.livejournal.com]

Horrifying!

[mjules.livejournal.com]

I can't even express my horror and rage. I'm agnostic, but this makes me pray that someone is looking out for her.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

This is so horrible. Everything she became, stripped away from her. What a nightmare.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

The medical staff should have some inkling of her wishes just from her medical records, such as the amount of transitions she's already made, the meds she was on, etc., but some medical centers are full of conservatives and asshats, and with the best will in the world, they probably can't override the family's wishes even if they wanted to argue about it.

[kengr]

*If* someone had the money and could get legal standing they *might* be able to challenge the use of the old name, on the grounds that the patient *had* changed it years back.

Medically, if she's been on hormones long enough for the sort of shape described, her testes are unlike to be producing T. Supplying her with T instead of E is medically dubious, I'd think.

Alas, the family can argue otherwise.

We don't just need "living wills". We need the ability to go to court and file papers that say *regardless*, certain people (especially family) are in violent disagreement with us, we wish to disown them and that they will *not* have an authority over our lives if we fall ill or die.

And it would have to be something that'd require going thru a judge, not just filing papers. Because that'd mean the family would have to be countering a "legal order" by a judge, not merely claiming our wishes don't count.

Essentially, I guess, an "unadoption".

[invader-tak-1.livejournal.com]

I can think of so many things to say to this but I think I'm going to just go take Xanax, a whole lot more Xanax..........

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

Dear God, that's horrific. Brain injuries are not suddenly going to make this woman think she's a man. She never thought like that in the first place, how can her family not get that?

[caraig.livejournal.com]

Oh dear heavens. This is a horror story in the making. :(

And there's nothing we can do, and the 'family' will get away with this. There is no justice.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

That is so wrong, on so many levels...

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

Angry Elphaba agrees.

(On a more serious note, this is a fate worse than death. I almost hope the woman in question doesn't wake up.)

[shobogan.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they're not just using this as an excuse to make her more acceptable. So they aren't uncomfortable. It's all about her best interests. Really.

God I want to break something.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

"What a comfort, to be sure,
That their motives are so pure,
As they go thinking
And worrying about him."
-- Man of La Mancha

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the desire to be something other than what you are, but I respect the wishes of those who do not feel right in their own skin.

This makes me... uneasy. Incredibly uneasy. Memory reconstruction just scares me to no end when you are at the mercy of those who "have your best interest" in mind but nothing of your personal ideas of what that is.

The scientific side of me says this will finally prove to the doubters that there is something within a person that makes them not feel right as X gender instead of Y gender. Perhaps they might come to understand it's not nature v. nurture, it's not "original sin"... it's people. It's people wanting to feel themselves, down to their very core.

[morgwensraven.livejournal.com]

as someone who is trans, and partner with another transman .. this is a constant worry.. My family hates my choices and probably would pull something like this.. my partners family is supportive, but it's still a worry..

[laura47.livejournal.com]

Oh god please take away their legal rights! Get a living will, power of attorney, all the other things. Don't leave hateful people with any legal power over you!

[zenturbo.livejournal.com]

This article really hit me hard, and I'm not one to wilt easily.

I think a post from the original article summed it up best: 'I've been reading a bunch of Stephen King books recently and what happened to Melissa-what IS happening to her- is more horrific than all his books combined.'

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I think the family does not understand. They probably really do think they are doing the right thing. It is confusing--there is brain damage, and they want to get back as much of the old person as they can. I'm not trying to say they're right; clearly they are making a mistake. Only saying they are not necessarily doing it out of malice, or even disapproval, but out of ignorance and that they do not know what to do.

[tdjewell.livejournal.com]

The moral of this story is MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A LIVING WILL! You can get a template online for free. It's the only way to protect yourself while unconscious. And make sure the people who might be your next-of-kin know you have a living will.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

Oh my god I want to vomit

[cathain.livejournal.com]

I have been a nurse for 35 years and lived through the advent of living wills. I hate to say this but they mean nothing. Families with a direct legal relationship as "next of kin" can and often do completely over ride living wills and designated powers of attorney. I have seen horrors perpetrated on people due to this that are beyond belief. When my father was on a ventilator for over two weeks my sister took his living will to the hospital and insisted they take him off as she was his designated power of attorney. The doctors still refused to do anything without my mother's consent as she was his next of kin. Bless her, my mother said, "What are you asking me for? She's his POA. Do whatever she says.", and sat by his bed and held his hand as he died. But a lot of people aren't like that. People who refused heroics in their living wills have been resuscitated; kept in persistent vegetative states with feeding tubes and forcibly medicated when they're living wills have specifically refused such measures all at the behest of the next of kin.
The sad truth is that living wills aren't worth the paper they're written on mainly because we live in a litigious society and everybody and his brother and sister are afraid of being sued. The one person who suffers is the person laying in the bed. They have no control and aren't likely to sue anybody unless they miraculously wake up and get up and walk and talk.
Take this as a word of warning. You can make a living will (I have one with copies on file with my medical record at my physician's office and in my patient file at the hospital) but there is no guarantee that ANYBODY will pay attention to it.

[janeg.livejournal.com]

My reaction is the same as yours, Tom. However, I add that the doctors involved should have proactively taken the issue to the hospital bioethics committee instead of just following an obscenely disrespectful family decision.