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.

[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.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Let this be a lesson to everyone:

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

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.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I've seen several people get savaged around LJ the last few months for using it (with no intent at all to cause offense nor even a hint that they might,) else I probably wouldn't have said anything.

[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.

Re: Thank you...

[kengr]

Yes. FtM is female-to-male. MtF is the better known male-to-female.

I know folks of both sorts as well as a MtFtM (spent years living as a woman, but stopped short of surgery and went back to living as a guy)

[kengr]

And if it involves anything at all "not mainstream" the hospital can ignore it, pretty much with impunity.

After all, *you* aren't going to sue them. Not unless you recover.

[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]

They'll *still* ignore it. Witness the infamous case of the lesbian couple on vacation in Florida. One got sick and eventually died.

*In spite* of having the sort of papers you are talking about and more, the hospital would not let the healthy partner see the hospitalized one. And the lawsuit is not going well.

[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..........

[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".

[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...

[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.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!