Then and Now

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Jack's Summary:

This is a heartbreaking and lovely look into the lives of two older Australian trans men, named Dale and Andrew. Dale describes coming out in the late 60s and 70s, and then being confined to a corrective institute by his parents. He was there until he was eighteen, interspersed with periods of homelessness. At the institute, he was forced to wear dresses and would be inspected to ensure he wasn’t wearing shorts below the dresses. If he was found to be wearing shorts, they would be forcibly removed. He and other trans boys/men were given oestrogen to "fix" their trans identities, while trans girls/women were given testosterone.

Dale also discusses trans male invisibility. When he was trying to transition, the local medical opinion was that the so-called “gender-dysphoria gene" was on the Y chromosome and, according to him, “we spent a lot of time in the eighties waiting for that to change” so that trans men could even be believed to exist. In the modern day, he talks about being refused medical care and being abused in medical settings. Andrew describes being deprived of food by medical staff in 2014, on the basis of his gender identity.

These men’s experiences are an important, crucial reminder that trans men are vulnerable to FTM-specific abuse and discrimination. This is especially the case as we get older, which is another topic discussed by Dale and Andrew, relating to receiving aged care. Andrew, a younger man, insists to Dale that he won’t allow Dale to be put into an aged-care home for his own safety.