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Transsexual Youth Haven Provides
Support
By AP from the NYTimes on the Web,
May 14, 2005
CHICAGO -- It's another
Wednesday night as a small group of regulars trickles into a youth center tucked
on Chicago's north side. From the city and suburbs, they are an eclectic
bunch -- dressed in everything from jeans and T-shirts to pumps and sparkly
dresses. Some are college students, full of hope for the future.
Others are street kids, estranged from their families and finding it difficult
to survive. What binds them together is the desire to be around people
like themselves -- those who are transsexual, androgynous or, as some describe
it, ''gender fluid.''
''Groups in general, I'm not big on. But I meet good folks here,'' says
David Fischer, a 20-year-old college student who recently began making the
transition from female to male. He sports a suit jacket and a fedora, and
has a blue mohawk.
For him and others, these Wednesday nights are a chance to share information,
sometimes a meal -- and, at least for a few hours, to escape the judgment of the
outside world.
''Gay kids have a veneer they can hide behind. They can blend if they want
to. A lot of these kids don't have that veneer, so 24-7, they are
bombarded with discrimination at home and on the street,'' says Dr. Rob Garofalo,
a physician who specializes in adolescent medicine at Chicago's Children's
Memorial Hospital. He helped create the youth center with assistance from
other agencies, including the Howard Brown Health Center, a clinic for gay men,
lesbians and transgendered people.
The Broadway Youth Center, which opened last fall to serve teens and young
adults with a wide array of needs, is one of only a few places across the
country with support services for those who are questioning their gender --
something doctors say is happening at younger and younger ages.
Often, these young clients have strained or broken relationships with their
families. And because it is much less common to be transsexual than
lesbian or gay, finding peers who are going through the same thing can be
difficult.
''They are clearly, clearly more at risk than any other population we deal
with,'' Garofalo says, noting that young transsexuals, more than others he
treats, are more likely to be homeless or involved in prostitution as a means to
make money to survive.
The pain of that life is apparent one evening as members of the youth group
discuss a movie they've just watched. The film is called ''Soldier's
Girl'' and is based on the true story of a U.S. serviceman who was brutally
murdered by a fellow enlistee after he fell in love with a transsexual woman.
The mood after the movie is somber.
''At least the 'trans' person didn't die,'' one youth offers, quietly.
Still, it's not all bad for these young people who -- beyond the chance to share
such moments with an empathetic group -- also are aware that they're living in a
time of growing acceptance. Illinois, for instance, recently became one of
a small but growing number of states to prohibit discrimination of transsexuals
in such areas as employment and housing.
Today, more transgendered people who are 18 or older also have greater access to
doctors who can prescribe hormones to help in the transition from one gender to
another. This is an important development, Garofalo says, because many who
can't get hormones legally buy them on the black market and take them without a
doctor's supervision.
Even with that development, making a decision to transition -- and to have
expensive gender reassignment surgery -- remains a daunting process. Many
young people look to the counseling and medical services at places such as the
youth center and Howard Brown to get them through it.
Jessi Uzel, a 23-year-old graduate student at DePaul University who attends the
transgender group, recently started taking hormones, which she gets at the
Howard Brown clinic at a reduced cost of about $60 a month.
''Yes, our lives are tragic in many ways. But the idea is, it doesn't have
to be tragic,'' says Uzel, who began her transition from male to female last
summer and says she wouldn't have been able to do so without the emotional
support and financial break she's received. ''You can do hormones the
right way, and just be able to live life.''
Already, she has begun to grow breasts and her skin has started to soften.
''It's very empowering,'' says Uzel, who's studying music composition. She
wears a bandanna to cover a receding hairline, which she hopes will disappear as
the hormones take effect. Eventually, she'd like to have gender
reassignment surgery, though the cost is prohibitive right now, as it is for
many members of the group. Insurance rarely covers such procedures.
When she was a teen growing up in small-town Iowa, people hardly uttered the
word transsexual. So Uzel used the Internet to look up more information
about transsexuality. And, at age 15, the boy then known as Josh made a
revelation to his mother.
''I want to be a girl,'' Josh said, later taking it back when he realized how
upset his mother was.
''She looked at me like I was something totally foreign,'' says Uzel, who was
the ''good son,'' the Eagle Scout who got good grades and college scholarships.
Uzel tried for four more years to fit in as male, only to come out again as
transsexual at age 19. Last Christmas, after attending the support group
for a few months, Uzel asked her family to start calling her Jessi.
Fischer, the 20-year-old college student who's transitioning from female to
male, went through an extensive counseling process at Howard Brown before
receiving hormones.
As a teen, Fischer -- then known as Dai -- tried to be like the other girls,
wearing makeup and girls' clothes even when it didn't feel right to do so.
''I didn't want to be a freak. I kind of thought I was -- but I didn't
want to be,'' says Fischer, who initially dropped out of high school but is now
studying photography and film at the College of DuPage, west of Chicago.
As a teen, Fischer started wearing men's deodorant and stole clothes from a
brother to wear: ''It made me feel a little more real, a little more who I
was,'' he now says, explaining that after years of torment, he decided to
transition from female to male last summer.
For him, it has made a huge difference.
''Now I walk around and I look at the world and I feel happy,'' Fischer says
over a meal at a cafe near the youth center. ''I mean, I have problems,
but I can deal with them. I don't feel like I have to separate myself.
''I feel like I have a future.''
At the group, he and others discuss issues related to their gender transition --
among them, the legal steps to changing one's name; how to tell family and
friends; and dealing with the confusion changing genders can cause with a
medical insurer and at work or school.
One group member ran into problems when applying for college because his high
school transcripts were still under the name he had when he was female.
Others, some of whom live on the street, talk about their struggles with drug
use or how difficult it is to make it, day to day.
''I vent and it feels good for people to listen. I wish more youth would
come here. You don't have to be all glamorous to be here. There's
not a lot of pressure to have the right clothes and the right look. You
can just have a positive attitude,'' says a 25-year-old group regular who works
as a prostitute and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
By day, he lives life as a man. But at night, ''he'' becomes ''she,''
donning makeup and wig while working the clubs and streets of Chicago.
''I don't have a plan for how it's going to work out,'' he says while sitting at
a coffee house a few blocks from the hotel for the homeless where he lives.
Remnants of clear polish remain on his nails from the night before.
One of the older members of the transgender group, he wishes the group had
existed when he was younger, and being shifted from foster home to foster home.
''If I'd had a group like this back then, then maybe things would have worked
out better,'' he says, admitting that he often uses cocaine. ''As it is, I
think I'll probably die a tragic death. I think I'll probably overdose or
something.''
If they ask for it, the youth center staff puts group members and other youth in
touch with counselors and agencies who can help with everything from family
issues to substance abuse. The center also provides daily meals. And
Garofalo, the doctor at Children's Memorial Hospital, runs a medical clinic on
Friday evenings.
Given the wide range of backgrounds and needs, helping group members of the
transgender support group feel comfortable is a big job for Casey Schwartz, a
health educator who facilitates the Wednesday night gatherings. Schwartz
himself began his transition from female to male at age 20, when he was a
college student, and is now 24.
Each night as the group starts, he spells out a few rules.
''What's said in the room stays in the room,'' he reminds group members.
He also asks that they make no assumptions about what gender a person in the
group might be.
Switching pronouns -- from ''she'' to ''he'' and vice versa -- is one of the
more obvious changes a transgendered person can make, but can also be the most
difficult to achieve.
Even after four years of living his life as a man, and easily passing for male
in public, Schwartz says his grandmother still has trouble remembering.
''Sometimes she calls me 'it,''' he says. ''But I know she loves me.''
Experiences like those, he says, make having a group of peers, like the one at
the Broadway Youth Center, that much more vital.
''It's really, really important to have trans friends,'' Schwartz says.
''It's so meaningful when you can meet somebody like you.''
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