The Ontario Government and Sexual Reassignment Surgery

This is a little different from what I normally write about on this blog, but Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) has been on my mind alot this week. What I am mostly bugged about is the complete ignorance Ontarians seem to have about this topic…

So, this week, George Smitherman, the Minister of Health for Ontario made a statement about relisting SRS in our Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). Ten years ago, the Conservative government made the cruel and stupid decision to de-list the important surgery. For the past 10 years, trans activists and their allies have been fighting to get this surgery relisted and countless transgender and transsexual people who want and need this surgery have been suffering needlessly from the government’s neglect and penny pinching (it’s estimated that this re-listing will cost the province about $200,000 per year, a mere fraction of the total health budget).

George Smitherman originally made this promise back in 2003, and then backed down on it, and many of us lost faith in him. Now, he has announced that the surgery is back. A little late, but I am relieved and thankful.

According to a Toronto Star poll done yesterday, 74% of Ontarians are against the move. I’m not that surprised. Transphobia and genderism is still very much a problem in Ontario (and elsewhere) and transpeople are still regarded as people with psychiatric problems.

And this brings me to my next concern. Smitherman has said that all surgeries must first be approved through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH) Gender Identity Clinic (GIC), a clinic that has come under a great deal of fire by the LGBT communities in recent years. Trans health care is a developing field, and the Standards of Care have changed and updated with the times in order to be more respectful of transpeople. CAMH’s GIC is criticized for not updating their assessment criteria and not using these internationally approved new standards.

And there is an alternative. Over the last 10 years, transpeople able to pay for the surgery themselves (and most people can’t afford it) have been accessing SRS on their own in Canada and in other countries. To be approved, they usually have to produce a couple of letters (from a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist) corroborating their readiness for the surgery. There are capable, transpositive health care providers in Ontario who have been providing these assessments and letters for years (and who follow the new Standards of Care). Transpeople should have the option to continue seeking assessments from these folks. Don’t we all deserve a choice in our health care providers (imagine if you needed a triple by-pass and you were told you could only go to one clinic in all of Ontario, a clinic that many people with coronary problems had criticized?)?

On Thursday, just before Smitherman’s big announcement, a dozen excited e-mails crackled through my inbox, predicting the relisting (the news had been leaked the night before). I saw a few clients that day who had heard the news, people who have been waiting for years for this decision, people for whom this really matters. SRS for these folks is not a superficial sort of plastic surgery. It is a life defining, life preserving, medical requirement.

So hurray for Ontario. And let’s hope that Ontarians catch up with this decision in time. And let’s hope that Smitherman expands the options for assessment so that they are more in line with international trans health standards. 

“The art of writing is in the rewriting…”

It wasn’t until I heard and finally understood these sage words that I could calm down about my writing and stop worrying that it wasn’t “good enough”. At first, I would feel discouraged when my first drafts were boring, inarticulate or not very artful. I had this idea that “true writers” could spew out beauty on their first try, and it was this “talent” that distinguished them from the rest of us.

Then I realized that writers are really wordsmiths. Often, works of art need many pass-overs, several re-tries and tons of edits.  It takes practice, time, focussed energy.

I’m now in the process of revising and editing my second novel. Of course, I’ve been rewriting all along, but now I’m looking at the entire piece and seeing what needs changing. It’s at this stage that I become most doubtful and self-conscious in my writing. My readers start to take shape (really my inner critics), and I wonder what “they” will think of the craft and the story. For me, this is the hardest part of writing, and I cut and paste, lean on the delete key, and move around huge passages as though they were puzzle pieces. And then I might undo everything I just did and decide it was better as it was. I’m less involved in my characters’ lives, and more involved in my own, suddenly!

And then, the challenge is to remember who drove the story in the first place. The characters, or me?

Del Rio and Radio CanadaInternational

I was in Texas this past week, visiting family and doing some writing. Del Rio is a sleepy border town, with pretty old buildings, friendly people, yummy Mexican food and a meandering creek great for dog-walking. It also has some things that make me curious: a taxidermist “studio” (which sounds artistic, almost); a gun shop with a ten foot replica gun on the lawn; and drive-thru “beverage barns” that sell booze and chocolate milk.

 

I got lots done there, not surprisingly… and think I found the ending to my second novel. Of course, I still have months of rewriting and edits, but the end is within (distant) sight.

 

Other news—I was interviewed by Wojtek Gwiazda of the Indo-Canadian Report on Radio CanadaInternational. Click on April 25th, 2008 to listen to the story: http://www.rcinet.ca/rci/en/dossiers/44920.shtml

Grace and Pride in Maine

I’ve spent a couple of days in Bangor and Orono, Maine, soaking up the lovely hospitality of the folks here.

The Bangor Public Library is one of the most beautiful, graceful libraries I’ve ever seen with fabulous architecture and rooms and rooms full of books and nooks for reading. A big thanks to them and Lippincott Books (who are carrying Stealing Nasreen in Bangor) for making our “little reading” special.

Next, I spent time at the University of Maine at Orono, where I was invited by The Women’s Studies Program,  GLBT Services and Wilde Stein to do a book reading. The sponsors made me feel very welcome, took great care of me and later invited me to their annual “Know Your Status” dinner. The night was about raising awareness for HIV testing and a highlight was a performance by Renaissance, UMaine’s all-women A Cappella group. One of the women did long saxophone-sounding riffs with nothing but her lips.

And it seems that UMaine, besides being a pretty campus, is also a safe one for queers (I was told it was rated in the top 15 in the US for its queer friendliness). My reading was just one of many events to celebrate their Pride Week, and they should be very proud of that.

Orono and Bangor are sweet little towns. People are friendly–they talk to you when while you wait for the light to change (sadly, ‘what? you talking to me?’ was my first response), you can flag down their local bus, a lumbering orange vehicle known as the Bat (you can try flagging down the TTC and even chase a bus for 2 blocks in the pouring rain and the driver won’t think about stopping for you) and bus fare is one dollar (haven’t experienced this since before puberty).

I’m heading off to Texas tomorrow, feeling refreshed. I’m going to see family and do a mini writing retreat in Del Rio for a few days. I’m searching for my second novel’s ending, and with over 300 pages written, I’m happy to say I will soon go into edits and revisions. Stay tuned!

Bangor and Orono

I’m heading to Bangor, Maine early next week. Here are the details:

Tuesday April 15^th, 6:30-7:30pm at the Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow Street, Bangor. Info: (207) 947-8336 

Wednesday April 16th, 12:15-1:30pm at the University of Maine, Orono, Bangor Room, Memorial Hall. Organized by the Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program as part of Pride Week. Info: (207) 581-1228

 Both events are free and open to the public. Copies of Stealing Nasreen will be available for sale. If you’re looking for copies now, go to the University Bookstore (Orono), or Lippincott Books in Bangor.

Hope you can make it!

Edmonton Lesbian Book Club chat via speaker phone

I had a lovely chat with members of the Edmonton Lesbian Book Club. They called me from Audrey’s Bookstore and I imagined them sitting in a circle as they introduced themselves. They had plenty of good questions to ask. A book club meeting is a bit different from a reading Q&A session in that the audience has usually just read the book (while few at a reading have…yet), and so they are more engaged with the material. People usually ask about specific characters and moments in the book, and this book club was no different in that regard. They were delightful. Here’s their blog entry about the evening:

http://lesbianbookclub.blogspot.com/2008/04/stealing-nasreen-chat.html

Sarnia and readings next week

I’m in Sarnia, sitting in a comfy chair in Coffee Lodge, killing time until I catch my train home. Last night I read at the Sarnia Public library to a small but enthusiastic group who braved a snowstorm for the sake of literature! I met a few members of the local gay group, Sarnia Pride  and received a warm welcome at the Sarnia Bookkeeper, a lovely local independent where I went to sign books afterwards.

Next week brings two more readings. The first is with Shyam Selvadurai at Ryerson on April 3rd at 4pm for RyePride. Later that night I will be a A Feast of Authors, 6-9pm and will be reading at the Early Years Centre Stage around 9pm. For more info about the event, go to: www.torontodollar.com

Coming up this week…

You are invited to an upcoming Stealing Nasreen

book reading in Sarnia

Thursday, March 27^th 7:00-8:30pm

Sarnia Public Library, 124 Christina Street South

Followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Copies of Stealing Nasreen will be available for sale.

Endorsed bySarnia Lambton Pride www.sarniapride.ca 

Copies of Stealing Nasreen can also be found at The Sarnia Book Keeper www.sarniabookkeeper.com 

See the report by the The Sarnia Observer

My Comfort Inn Writing Retreat

I accompanied my partner to Waterloo this week, and while she was busy doing work stuff on Thursday, I stayed back at our hotel room with my laptop. Now, I’m not sure whether it was the power of the Waterloo Comfort Inn or that I had nothing else to do in that characterless room, but I had an amazingly productive writing day. I imagined I would get some good, distraction-free writing time, but never expected the day to pass so quickly, and to pump out two weeks worth of pretty good pages.

I’ve only been to one other writing retreat before. That was a week in December 2006 when I went to Mexico. I committed half my day to completing Stealing Nasreen revisions (and the rest of the day to being a tourist in very lovely Zihuatenejo). The work was fine, but revisions and new writing are two very different processes. So, I never expected to work so fast in one day in Waterloo.

This says something to me about the truth to that old cliche of the writer going into seclusion to complete a project. I always thought it was a rather romantic proposition that would be hard to incorporate into my busy life. But one day in writer’s heaven (even it was in an overpriced, drab hotel with a view of a four lane road in Southern Ontario) has had me thinking otherwise.

Speaking of which, any hotel owners out there who’d like to offer me a free room now and again? B&B operators? Cottage owners? (seriously!)

Happy International Women’s Day!

There’s much to celebrate this IWD…

I attended and did a book reading at a great celebration for IWD yesterday at the Noor Cultural Centre called “Sisters’ Doing It For Themselves, Muslim Women Organizing”.  There were fabulous performers there including Rosina Kazi from LAL, and Farheen Beg.  Selma Al-Nadhir (the younger sister of Alwy, who was unjustly killed by the police this past Hallowe’en) spoke eloquently and courageously about the Justice for Alwy Campaign.

And there is much to struggle against too…

In contrast to this wonderful energy this week was Toronto Rob Ford’s racist remarks about “orientals” and his refusal to publicly apologize for these comments (he felt he was “complimenting” Asians). If you are as angry as I am about this, write him an e-mail at councillor_ford@toronto.ca telling him. I’m going to turn my anger into action tomorrow, as I join the Toronto IWD march and hand out “Rob Ford: Resign” stickers. You can also join the Facebook page decrying this boor’s racism.

This is how IWD has always been …a mixture of celebration and fighting back…