Rupert
Rupert is a Canadian trans man and activist of East Indian and Polish descent. In 1978, Raj started an organization for all gender divergent peoples called The Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals. Fact. Along with its accompanying newsletter, The Gender Review, a factual journal.
His work has been recognized by several awards, as well as his inclusion in the National Portrait Collection of the Archives, Canada's LGBTQ2 plus archives.
Rupert Transcript
Jackal: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, welcome back. We're excited to be entering our fourth season of Stealth, a trans masculine podcast. I'm Jackal.
Kai: And I'm Kai. We're your hosts for the Transmasculine Podcast. It's amazing to us that we are still going strong after two years and we'll be featuring our 50th episode this season.
Kai: Our show continues to focus on the stories of people who identify as transmasculine and who transitioned either socially or medically before or around the year 2000. We will continue to make efforts to include stories from trans men of color and acknowledge the importance of representation from these voices.
Jackal: The name of our show highlights two important facts that one for our generation, we were often told to hide our past and live an underground existence and that due to that, our stories are very often
Kai: overlooked. We want our audience to know that we [00:01:00] ourselves are a part of this generation of trans masculine identified people, and that we value the experiences inside our trans masculine community.
Kai: We want people to know that throughout our lives. Each of us has had to navigate issues of disclosure, which have impacted us in many ways. As
Jackal: humans, we are always changing and transitioning. As elder trans men, we assume many roles. We get married and divorced. We are caretakers. We are parents. We are professionals, academics, and advocates.
Jackal: We push for human rights. and systemic change. We are exploring the various transitions that we undergo post
Kai: transition. If you're new to our show, welcome. And if you're a listener from a previous season, thank you for your continued support. You can find us on most social media platforms, including YouTube.
Kai: These are trying times, and we want to acknowledge that here in the States, And throughout the world, there are groups trying to remove protections in place for our trans and non binary communities. Safety is a real concern for us, particularly our trans and non binary BIPOC siblings. We offer links to [00:02:00] health and safety resources on our website, transmasculinepodcast.
Kai: com. Please hold each other dear and stay in touch with us.
Jackal: We invite our listeners to remember that we are a living community. We are healthy. We are contributing. We have experienced loss and success. We are loved. And we welcome you to our stories.
Jackal: We want to wish Adam, our volunteer extraordinaire, a very happy birthday this month. We're not going to say the date and we're not going to say his age, but we wish you a very happy birthday. And we're so glad you are part of our crew.
Kai: Jackal and I want to remind our listeners that we have a new member section. We want to thank those like Emory, Harold, Taylor, Matt, and Alex who have become members. Our member section offers bonus questions, features trans masculine pioneers no longer with us, and hilarious personal stories by our volunteer extraordinaire, Adam.
Kai: Here's another teaser.
Adam: Anyway, the story I wanted to tell today is a pretty familiar one in the land of trans masc ridiculousness, in that it centers on a misplaced dick. So, [00:03:00] as I mentioned, part of my whole midlife trans epiphany involved blowing up my 13 year marriage, which in turn meant that I needed to sell my house, which I'm actually still in the process of doing.
Adam: And I have two kids, and my ex and I split custody of them, but point being, kids live here in this house 50 percent of the time, and as such my house frequently looks like a tornado of glitter and crayons just ripped right through it. So, anytime the broker wants to bring prospective buyers by, I have to do a frenzied power clean of the house to make it look halfway presentable.
Adam: So, the other day, the broker calls and says he has some folks who want to see it, and I do the frenzied power clean and clear everyone out of the house. I come home a couple hours later after the showing, feeling extremely proud of myself for the manic level of cleaning efforts, and then notice that I manage to leave a giant, hyper realistic, quite veiny dick in the sink.
Adam: Yeah, so after having the requisite shame spiral of crippling embarrassment, I text the broker, I believe it was just a string of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, with like a thousand apologies after, and then I chose that moment to out [00:04:00] myself as trans to him, since that seemed like the logical thing to do.
Adam: He being a grown up who is extremely focused on making his commission, replied with something to the effect of lol, all good, I've seen worse, and said that he'd actually noticed it in time to conceal it before the buyer saw it. Which, of course, made me wonder whether that meant he had picked it up and moved it somewhere and then moved it back?
Adam: Or maybe he just threw a towel over it or something? These are the questions that keep me up at night, wondering whether my broker has touched my dick. We also accept donations, and we want to thank Kida and Evan for their donations. The 4 a month. So go to transmasculine podcast.com and sign up now. We don't wanna be gatekeepers, so if you feel like you can't afford $4 a month, please reach out to us via email, transmasculine podcast@gmail.com.
Adam: Consider buying a T-shirt while you're on our website. Or if you want to be cool like Adam. We're always looking for volunteers and we especially need a volunteer to [00:05:00] handle our social media.
Jackal: And now it's time for Transponder. So we're changing up our transponder segment because honestly, Kai and I fell off the map as far as answering any questions and it was hard for our audience to find where the questions were going to be posted. So, our transponder segment is going to be around Positive news for the trans community, mostly taken from our Instagram that our new volunteer, Kira, is brilliantly putting together.
Jackal: So, here we go. First off, if you're going to buy Girl Scout cookies, you should know they support transgender girls and reject donations from anti trans organizations. So buy a box, and then buy a couple more. In government news, New Jersey Democrat House Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman Introduced a new bill, H.
Jackal: R. 929, [00:06:00] condemning all forms of hate, saying, whereas discriminatory rhetoric and the scouting of vulnerable communities are the main drivers of race related attacks. The bill goes on to say. Whereas African Americans make up the majority of victims in race related hate crimes, and where racial biases against the Sikh community, Asian American, and Pacific Islander community, anti Semitic, and xenophobia framework in immigration policy has caused suffering and the displacement of thousands.
Jackal: It also includes LGBTQI and transgender, saying whereas 88% Of victims of transgender and gender nonconforming attacks were victims of color 45 percent being black transgendered women. This bill condemns all representations of discrimination, including racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, [00:07:00] heterosexism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, xenophobia, ableism, and ethnic or religious bigotry.
Jackal: So call out your congress people and have them support this bill. Lastly, we want to give a shout out to the Miss Transglobal 2023 pageant. A non profit registered in the UK, Miss Transglobal was created by Miss Sahara, a Nigerian beauty queen and transgender rights advocate. Unlike more traditional pageants, which are primarily focused on physical appearance and talents, Miss Transglobal blended beauty with activism.
Jackal: Contestants were encouraged to share personal stories of discrimination, violence, societal exclusion, and their journeys of self acceptance. Miss Transglobal has no age restrictions, and to make sure there was enough time for the judges to really get to know each contestant, only 10 women competed in the final.
Jackal: Perhaps the most unorthodox was Miss Sahara's wish [00:08:00] that each finalist would win something, and to experience being crowned a queen. With her one quinceañera ballgown, one black cocktail dress, one colorful cocktail dress. One talent costume, one national costume, one indoor interview outfit, one black swimsuit, one metal boned waist corset, one long glamorous preliminary dress, and one long glamorous gown for the grand finale.
Jackal: Shadino Martin, a trans activist from Cape Town, South Africa. Was crowned activist queen of the year. Miss Thailand, piano, Sriracha, Akaros won the coveted prize. Miss trans global queen, miss France, one miss trans global diamond, second place, miss England, one miss trans global Sapphire third place, and miss Canada took home first princess global.
Jackal: Congratulations to Miss Sahara for such a wonderful event [00:09:00] and congratulations to all of the participants.
Adam: Today's interview is with Rupert Raj. Rupert is a Canadian trans man and activist of East Indian and Polish descent. In 1978, Raj started an organization for all gender divergent peoples called The Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals. Fact. Along with its accompanying newsletter, The Gender Review, a factual journal.
Adam: His work has been recognized by several awards, as well as his inclusion in the National Portrait Collection of the Archives, Canada's LGBTQ2 plus archives. Rupert's anniversary is 1971. Richard Nixon was president. Wow, remember when Nixon was the president we were all so embarrassed about? 1971 was the year South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos, backed by U.
Adam: S. military support, and the year of the famed March on Washington, the largest anti war demonstration in U. S. history. Amidst the social tumult of the war in Vietnam, Nixon declared the War on Drugs, igniting a 50 year wave of completely pointless mass incarceration from which [00:10:00] our country will likely never recover.
Adam: Other presidential highlights included Nixon lifting the 20 year trade embargo between the U. S. and China and installing a secret taping system in the White House, which, spoiler alert, definitely backfired. The New York Times published the first chapter of the Pentagon Papers. Charles Manson was convicted of first degree murder.
Adam: Apollo 14 and 15 became the third and fourth manned spacecrafts to land on the moon. And the Soviet Union's Mars 2 became the first spacecraft to crash land on the planet Mars. It was also the year the U. S. abandoned the gold standard, the year we established the Nasdaq, and the year that the 26th Amendment to the U.
Adam: S. Constitution was ratified, lowering the voting age to 18. Cigarette advertising was banned on U. S. television and radio. The very first Starbucks opened its doors in Seattle. Disney World opened its doors in Orlando, Mount Edna erupted in Sicily, and border tensions between India and Pakistan erupted into a full blown war.
Adam: In sports news, the Baltimore Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl, and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat out the Baltimore Orioles in the 68th World Series. [00:11:00] Satchel Paige became the first black league player to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Bill White became the first African American baseball announcer.
Adam: Former heavyweight boxing champion Charles Sonny Liston was found dead at his home in Las Vegas, and Evel Knievel set a new world record after jumping 19 cars. Muhammad Ali's 31 fight winning streak came to an end at Madison Square Garden, as he faced off against Joe Frazier in what became dubbed the Fight of the Century.
Adam: Tennis legend Stan Smith won his first ever Grand Slam, and Billie Jean King took home the Women's U. S. Open. In LGBTQ news, Frank Kameny became the first openly gay congressional candidate. Idaho and Connecticut decriminalized homosexual activities between consenting adults, though in Idaho, the repeal was repealed before taking effect.
Adam: The Body Politic debuted as Canada's first gay rights magazine, and the first gay power march of Europe took place in Sweden. Top grossing films of 1971 included Billy Jack, Fiddler on the Roof, Diamonds Are Forever, and The French Connection, and top box office stars included John Wayne, Clint [00:12:00] Eastwood, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen.
Adam: We're going to lead in this week's episode with 1971's number one Billboard hit, Joy to the World by Three Dog Night.
Jackal: So welcome back to season four of stealth, a transmasculine podcast. We're here with Rupert. How are you doing today, Rupert?
Rupert: pretty good, Jackal. Thanks.
Jackal: Thank you. Well, we are so happy to have you here. We don't know each [00:13:00] other. So do you want to tell us a little bit about your background?
Rupert: I'm a Eurasian Canadian trans man. I transitioned in Ottawa in 1971 and My medical transition took 41 years, from 1971 to 2012, over two countries and three provinces. My last surgery was in Montreal in 2012, the bottom surgery. I've been a trans activist since 1971, across Canada and the U. S. and a little bit in the U. K. And I've been a trans therapist and gender consultant from 2000 to 2015. And I'm retired now, as of 2017 but I'm still active to a limited degree with podcasts, interviews, and writings, and workshops online, and my materials are in three archives in Victoria, the Transgender Archives, and Toronto, the Archives, [00:14:00] Canada's LGBT S Plus Archives, and then the Digital Transgender Archive in Boston.
Jackal: You're the Jude Patton of Canada.
Rupert: Yes, we both transitioned the same year, and he's 12 years, 12 or 14 years older than me.
Jackal: Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Wow. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything that you've done. How did you learn about trans masculine identities?
Rupert: As I wrote in my memoir, Dancing the Dialectic, Tales of a Transgender Trailblazer, 2020, I came across a news, a newspaper clipping in 1966, about a Polish intersex Olympic athlete, Iwa Kabloski, and then the following year, 1967, of the Austrian downhill skier Eric Schonegger, also intersex was found to be an intersex athlete, so, who later identified as trans, and so on.[00:15:00]
Rupert: So, I wondered if I was intersex because I didn't know any of these terms at that time.
Rupert: And Harry Benjamin's book, 1966, had been outed. at the time, but I was unaware of it because, of course, we didn't have internet, and all the libraries didn't didn't, until the 70s, didn't really have that many trans books.
Rupert: So I got John John Hopkins and Richard Green's 1969 book, Transsexualism and Sexual Assignment, in 1970, and when I got the book, I found out about the Erickson Educational Foundation, Bata Rouge. So I wrote to Zelda Supley and she told me about a trans group in Toronto called the Association for Canadian Transsexuals, started by three Canadian trans women, so I linked up with them and started my activism.
Rupert: Then, even though I was living in Ottawa,
Jackal: Amazing.
Rupert: west in 1975.
Jackal: Wow. Amazing. [00:16:00] So tell me a little bit about how your particular transition went, the social transition, the medical transition years. How, how did that flow?
Because you had to be 21 at that time. I was only 19 when I wanted male hormones and my psychiatrist in Ottawa would not give me the hormones and my parents had died in 1968 in a car crash. I found out through Erickson Education Foundation about Dr. Benjamin and his associate Dr.
Rupert: Charles Eilenfeld in New York City. So I went down to get my first hormone shot with Dr. Charles Eilenfeld in October 1971 when I was 19. And my oldest brother lived in Syracuse and he signed off for me.
Rupert: Oh, wow. Amazing. Congratulations. I'm so happy.
Kai: How did you connect with them at the time? Cause it was before internet. How did that go?
Rupert: How did I connect with Dr. Eilenfeld?
Kai: Yeah.
Rupert: Yeah, [00:17:00] as I mentioned, I had connected with Tilda Supley at the Erickson Educational Foundation. This was all through letter because we didn't have email then, and we couldn't afford phone calls because they're very expensive. And a lot of my letters, of course, are in those archives I mentioned, as well as my letters to Lou Sullivan are in papers, in my papers.
Rupert: So, the EEF, Erickson Education Foundation, was a very important resource at the time.
Jackal: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, we have a member section and our volunteer did a segment on Reed Erickson and how phenomenal
Rupert: Oh, yeah.
Jackal: for the, for the trans, transgender,
Rupert: There's some correspondence between him and I, too,
Jackal: Wow. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. So what was life like for you back then? I can't imagine, like I Was at 7 71. I was like six years old.
Jackal: I can't imagine what even sending the letters and things like this and how you functioned in [00:18:00] your transsexual orientation with the world. What happened?
Rupert: Yes, and I did Jackal, I did send letters to surgeons all over the world about phalloplasty. Because it was not available in Canada and very limited in the U. S. at that time. And, of course, it was not covered by health care insurance. And all those letters are in the archives. Yeah, so I was stealth.
Rupert: I'm not really crazy about that term, actually.
Rupert: So I was not out until except when I did, I was out to the trans community, or when I would do TV shows, and then I would be afraid that they would see me at work or at school, until I finally came out in 1999 when I joined the AIDS Committee of Toronto. That was the first time I was fully out, I guess. I was living a double life. And I had a different name. My adopted legal name was Nicholas Gauche, Nicholas Christopher Gauche. And then from 1971 to 1988, and then in [00:19:00] 88, I used Rupert Grouch as a pseudonym. And actually, I, sorry, in 82, I used Rupert Grouch as a pseudonym with my newsletters and my, all my activism.
Rupert: And then in 88, it became legal, my legal name.
Kai: Rupert, talk to us a little bit about some of the things you were told back then about how to live your life as a trans man.
Rupert: Oh yes, the part I forgot to tell you was, I went to see three psychiatrists in Ottawa, and they were kind of neo Freudian, and very unknowledgeable, and or transphobic, and one of them said, oh you want to get Top surgery. You want to get butchered? I'll drive you to the airport. And, you know so they, they didn't support me at all.
Rupert: And this is why I had to leave my own country and go to New York City, as I mentioned, to get the hormones. And then I got my top surgery in Yonkers, New York,, when I was 20. And I stayed with Tony Tornaby. [00:20:00] Who used the pseudonym Mary Martino, who wrote Emergence, who had the Labyrinth Counseling Services that he started in 69 or 70.
Rupert: So I stayed with him for 10 days. My sister came down with me. She was a great support to me.
Jackal: That's amazing. So how do you think your social standings like race, class? impacted your ability to transition, your desire to transition, even your fears about transitioning.
Rupert: Well as I mentioned in my memoir, I had passing privilege as a white person and as a male, because with the, with the testosterone, as you know well, it works differently on different people, but with, for me, it masculinized fairly well. So I, I, I was not read, I was not readable as trans. Or as a mixed race person.
Rupert: And I was on a working class or middle class. [00:21:00] I went to uni, I actually started university the same time I started my transition era around September, October, 1971, when I was 19. And I told the people at the university about myself and said, please let me use the name Nicholas Gauche instead of my birth assigned name, which I was able to legally change finally in 1975.
Rupert: So they did accommodate me. In some ways, it was easier back then to get some some changes without all the bureaucratic stuff they have to go through now.
Jackal: Okay. Thank you.
Kai: We're thinking back in the time machine back then when you were entering university and, you were working closely with the medical community and psychiatrists, do you remember Rupert, what they advised you to do, how to talk about your history and how to live your life a little bit.
Rupert: Well, first of all, they As you know, Kai, a lot of [00:22:00] people, a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists back then, and some even now did not believe in the legitimacy of gender dysphoria or transsexualism. They thought someone like me was a butch of lesbian, or was a confused straight woman, or was psychotic, or You know, you know, so there was no support at those, at that early time, but as I mentioned in my book, the very first person really who supported me in, in the clinical mental health field was a clinical social worker, or she might have been a psychologist.
Rupert: There were a lot of a hospital who said, I will not judge you. You don't look male or female. And she's the one that told me about Richard. Green and John Money's book that started the ball rolling for me to find out To find some help so I work with her for a limited time because I was only allowed to see her for about a year or a year and A half and I saw her just [00:23:00] after my parents died when I was 16 and a half in 1968 So she was there at a critical time for me
Kai: Thank you. Thank you. Some of our guests, especially around that time, we're told to rewrite parts of their past and refer to themselves using he, him pronouns and edit things that might lead one to believe that one was assigned female at birth. Do you remember being told about how to live your life moving forward as a trans person?
Rupert: No, nobody told me. That's why I started, that's why I started the trans groups and the newsletters, because nobody told me anything about anything, except, except when I, when I connected with Tony Tornabin in 1970, I guess it was, he was a support.
Kai: Who's Tony? I'm completely ignorant. I don't know who Tony
Rupert: know
Kai: Yeah, tell us who he was.
Rupert: Okay, his pseudonym is Mario Martino. He wrote the book Emergence. What was it called? Coming Out of the Labyrinth. Anyway, [00:24:00] and it was published in 1976 by Crown Publishers, who also published Harry Benjamin's book. He was an Italian American that lived in Yonkers, New York.
Rupert: He used to be a nun, and then he was a nursing supervisor at Yonkers Professional Hospital. So he started the Labyrinth Counseling Service in 1970, I believe, and was supporting trans men by letting them come to his home. His wife, his former wife was a nurse at the time, to recover, and he got me hooked up with Dr.
Rupert: David Wesser at Yonkers Professional Hospital for the top surgery, and he also I was trying to get a penile prosthesis that you could pee through, urinate through and use for sexual penetration, but it wasn't successful. And then I tried the same thing many years later and it wasn't successful. He died in Florida when he was 54, I believe.
Rupert: And I forget what year it was a few years ago. He actually met Reed Erickson as well.
Kai: How did you get connected with Tony and other trans guys? Cause I hear that you first [00:25:00] met with groups of trans women . How did you get connected to trans masc folks?
Rupert: Yes, and I forgot to mention Tony's legal name at the time was Angelo, but he went by Tony. Yes, I, I did meet a couple of trans men in Ottawa, but, but I was, I was the mentor, if you will, except for Tony. Nobody was helping me. I, I started helping other people, even though I was just starting out myself.
Jackal: And and a spry 19 years old.
Rupert: Yeah. Yeah.
Jackal: Wow.
Rupert: So to be the elder at 19.
Rupert: Oh, and I hooked up with Jude Patton and Joanna Clark through letters and newsletters in 1976. And that's what inspired me to start my own newsletter, because they did the Renaissance. Gender Identity Services, Counseling Services, and Newsletter, so kudos to Jude, and we've been friends ever since.
Kai: That's amazing. And you're clearly well [00:26:00] connected. And thank you for sharing bits about our history that I don't know about. And I'm sure most of our audience don't know about. Yeah.
Jackal: Jackal doesn't know about.
Kai: Yeah.
Rupert: Well, I think, I think Tony Tornabin's on Wikipedia, but I'm not 100 percent sure, and I don't think Jude is, although Jude definitely should be.
Kai: We were lucky enough to interview Jude during our season one. So we're really happy to have had him on the podcast and have you on the podcast today. And you've mentioned the word stealth and not liking the word stealth and Jekyll chimed in to say, Hey, we hear that a lot. Not a lot of people are crazy about it.
Kai: So what does stealth mean to you? Like you've talked about your life now, what, what does it mean to you, Rupert?
Rupert: Yeah, back in the 60s probably 80s, not up until the mid 90s, many trans people were stealth, unless they were readable, and many trans men did pass if they were on hormones. Some trans people might be out partially, like maybe not at school or work, but maybe to their families and their closest friends and their [00:27:00] partners, but some of them were not even. out to even their partners, some trans women and so it, it really depends on the time frame, because around the mid or, mid or late 90s, and of course the internet was the pivotal piece in that, a lot more people were out, or outed, some people got outed throughout, without their permission, mostly trans women that were, you know, professionals And interestingly, a lot of the trans men, some of the trans men I should say, worked in as in social services, but they were not out or in psych or as psychologists or therapists and and a few trans women.
Rupert: So now some of those people are still not out, but some are out and some are only partially out. And some people will be virtually out under a pseudonym, let's say on Facebook or whatever, but they might not be out where they, where they live.
Jackal: So talk to us a bit about that tension, right? Because you've mentioned it yourself [00:28:00] of being out in certain places, publishing books, even being on TV, but then having this kind of fear of somebody from your school seeing you, somebody from your work seeing you. What is that double existence like, what was it like? What is it like for you? Do you still do it? Talk us through that a bit. And
Rupert: very exciting and challenging and aggravating dilemma navigating that tension. Because it depends on who else is in your life. If you have partners or children or parents or siblings who do not wish to, do not wish needs to be out because they're afraid it will reflect on them, then I have to Take that into account to some degree.
Rupert: That's why I never mentioned the real names of my For former partners or siblings, or in my memoir, because I was [00:29:00] protecting their identity. And some of the former trans partners I was involved with were cis, some were trans, and the trans partners were not out, or only to their trans friends.
Rupert: So I, I had to kind of navigate around that, that
Jackal: did that feel? How did that feel for you?
Rupert: Uh, well, back then I was. I was able to, I was able to compartmentalize my life, my life. But when social media came in, that's a whole other ballgame. And I remember Jude Patton said to me, not just to me, way back in the 70s or 80s, he said, be careful what you put, on the web because you cannot erase that, you know, that info, and then it can come back and bite you in the ass years later, if you are a kind of person that's worried about your significant others or your career or what have you.
Rupert: Your safety.
Rupert: So for [00:30:00] me, I can't, I'm, for me, I kind of am a weird hybrid because I'm on Wikipedia and I'm, you know, out on the social media and the web, but but physically and regionally, I'm not out,
Jackal: So when you say that, are you out under a pseudonym because that's more comfortable and then you live your life where you live now under your, your real name? No,
Rupert: I'm out under my real name.
Jackal: okay. Wow.
Rupert: Virtually, virtually, and of course to my former, the former people I know in, you know, Toronto hmm.
Rupert: Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa
Rupert: unfortunately, I can't be totally out like Jude or Jameson Green or some others.
Kai: What are some of the concerns you have, Rupert? Talk to us about that, back in the day and then up to current times. What are some of the concerns that you have about being as present as a [00:31:00] Jude or a Jameson Green? What are my concerns about being totally out? Well, as I mentioned my, my family members and my partner they don't want any attention drawn to themself by association.
Kai: You,
Jackal: and you know, partners and things don't want you to be so out that it reflects on them?
Rupert: Oh, I just feel a bit frustrated, but I, I understand because they're very private. And they, they want total anonymity. They're not on social media. They're. You know, [00:32:00] kind of I don't know what the word would be because you know, some
Jackal: They're stealth.
Rupert: there all the time on social media and other people are not the only social media I'm on is Facebook and it's incredibly limited.
Rupert: It's, it's only like to post petitions or workshops or, you know, that kind of thing,
Kai: you're raising really good points, Rupert, because this is such a complicated issue. We've started a podcast about it because disclosure is something that we're contend with prior to transition, during. After throughout our lives, and it's such a personal decision and considering loved ones, families, partners, professional boundaries those are all really, really good points that you're raising.
Kai: I really appreciate that.
Rupert: but I am out. I am out, or I have been out to my doctor. I don't have a doctor right now, and to my former dentist. I don't have a dentist right now, but I'm not out, and I have been out to pass. Massage therapist right now, I don't [00:33:00] have one. So I think it's important for them to know that, because I don't want them to freak out if they see scars on my body or if they don't understand about the medication even though I'm not on T right now, I was prior, like for my safety and for their safety.
Jackal: So, you mentioned doctors I understand, massage therapists I understand, but your dentist? Why, why come out to your dentist? Like that's really interesting to me.
Rupert: Actually, yes. Like, when I say come out, I didn't say I'm trans. I just said I'm on T, because they ask you what medications
Kai: They do.
Rupert: When they, when they ask you what surgeries you've, you've had on these intake forms, now I don't write all that on there. Unless I'm going in for a When I call a manogram, then they ask you those questions.
Rupert: So, then I would say I had a panhysterectomy or a head bottom surgery. So, only if it's appropriate.
Jackal: Thank you so much.
Thinking back on your [00:34:00] life, Rupert, what are some of the milestones or important moments in your life post transition?
Rupert: Now, when you say post transition, my last surgery was in 2012 when I was 60. But, I mean, you know, I had my first surgery in 1972 when I was 20. So, all those 40 years, there was a lot of milestones in there. even though my last Even though my, the bookend of my medical transition was over 40 years.
Rupert: I mean, my, my social transition was at the same time when I was 19. It's a bit of a weird thing because many of the trans women I've met, the ones who have surgery, they usually get it all done in one go, unless they have You know, facial surgery or what have, or breast augmentation.
Rupert: So, but I had to go back three, I had to have three, three stages. And that's why I didn't do the phalloplasty. As I wrote in my metamorphosis newsletter, some of those people who, trans men who had phalloplasty had [00:35:00] spent two and three years of their life as a professional patient with their relationships and their school career School and their career on hold because they had to keep going back and back and back for all these Stages and repair and I my heart goes out to those people.
Kai: Yeah. Yeah. It definitely is a concern. You're right. That our lives are centered around surgeries and follow ups and revisions. If there are complications, you're right. It can be extremely disruptive. , what stands out for you particularly, what's a milestone or a couple of milestones that stand out for you over , that breadth of time?
Rupert: Well, just to answer your last point there in 1990 Eight, I had to make a decision whether to go for my master's or have the phalloplasty because they were roughly around the same amount of money at that time, which is about 30, 000 Canadian dollars. So I chose the phalloplasty because as I said in a film that I was in, a video A platinum prick isn't going to get me a job, but hopefully a Master's in [00:36:00] Counseling Psychology will, which it did, so I had to be practical,
Kai: Hmm. Hmm.
Rupert: I used to know, some trans women who would get money for their schooling, for tuition, but instead of using it for that, they would use it for transitioning.
Kai: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Because it wasn't covered during my health insurance back in the day. Right?
Rupert: And it's, it's not fair. Well, depending, yes. Yeah, and it's not fair we have to make those decisions between vocation and being who we are through body modification.
Kai: Thank you. Does anything stand out? I'm going back to it. In 2012 you decided to get lower surgery? I mean, that's, that's a big decision. , what stands out whether it's a surgery or a point in your life that was really, really important to you?
Jackal: publishing your books.
Rupert: I wrote all that in my memoir. Lots of milestones. You know, medical, surgical partners, pets had cats, [00:37:00] moving, publishing, being in films, or becoming a therapist, so you know, getting my master's in 2001 at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago and Toronto was a huge thing for me because I had to wait 23 or 34 years to finally do that after my BA in psychology to publish my Trans poetry anthology, the one I mentioned earlier of souls and roles of sex and gender. I had to wait 33 or 34 years to finally get it published. So those were some milestones.
Kai: And those milestones sounds like they were enormous challenges for you and accomplishments at the same time, is there a particular challenge that you may have overcome that stands out that it's. particular importance to you. I'm sorry about the loss of your parents. You were just a young person when your parents were killed.
Rupert: 16. Yeah. Uh, well, I dance the dialectic between [00:38:00] cynical despair and compassion. Compassionate hope for all sentient beings, animals and humans, mother earth's creatures. So I, I have to keep fighting off the cynicism, which a lot of people now tend to do and try to be hopeful and positive. So that's my, I guess you say, could say in terms of existential angst, that's my biggest challenge.
Kai: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Thank you, Rupert. Thank you. I think in these times where everything is so divisive. I think in some ways, age and experience can serve us really well because we can see above the noise and think there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is cyclic. It's not pleasant right now. It's extremely divisive. But I think that with that perspective, it can ease things a bit. I'm not sure how you feel about that.
Rupert: Well, and having good personal supports or, and, or professional supports, having a community, a network is critical.
Kai: Agreed.
Rupert: And [00:39:00] the intergenerational piece. I mentioned I did a workshop on called Transgenerating with myself and My African Canadian transgender, queer colleague who was leading the supporting our youth program at Sherman Health Centre in Toronto, and we had three Black, queer youth at a workshop. So getting together the younger and the elders and the youth is critical. Yes, it depends who it is, and what time in my life that happened, because now it might be different than Back in 1971 when I first started my transition,
Jackal: Give us an example in 1971 and give us an example now.
Rupert: Well in 71, as I mentioned, I told the assistant student dean at the Carleton University in Ottawa about myself and that I wanted them to change my records, even though my name hadn't been legally changed, to Nicholas Christopher Gauche. And so they, they agreed. [00:40:00] Now, now, well I asked my friend Professor Elizabeth Brown at the University of Toronto to create a Wikipedia for me, which she did in 2014, and she cataloged all my materials on the, the archives in Toronto, which used to be called the Canadian Lesbian and Gay and Lesbian Archives, now called the Archives. I mostly disclose through email.
Jackal: I'm super curious about this, I'm sorry, but what was the reaction like back in the 70s or 80s when you disclosed compared to the early 2000s, 2014 when you disclosed to this woman that you wanted to create a Wikipedia page? I can imagine they were like so different, right?
Rupert: It depends too if they're cisqueer. Well, it depends if they're trans or cisgender, number one. It also depends if they are queer. So Elisabeth, she's I don't know exactly what term she uses, but she's quote unquote queer. So, obviously, [00:41:00] unaccepting, but it depends on where they're coming from and their understanding and appreciation. of trans people. But having said that, I've met a number of lesbians and gay men that were not so trans friendly. I'm sure you probably heard that. Cis, cis I'm talking about. So that's an unfortunate reality
Jackal: so much. Thank you so much. I just wanted to clarify that. So tell us a little bit about what your life is like now you're retired, what's good about it? What are you missing? Are you missing anything? Are you excited about anything? What's your life like now?
Rupert: Good question. Well, in some ways I'm glad I'm retired because the work I did with The trans intersex, two spirit people, individual, couple, family, and group therapy. It was very challenging, and a lot of these people were trauma survivors. So, I suffered burnout and vicarious traumatization, as I mentioned in my [00:42:00] research papers.
Rupert: So and, you know, you, you give a lot of yourself and your energy when you're a therapist. As well, I was also a trainer, professional trainer, and consultant working with. Mental health and primary care professionals, lawyers, policy makers, journalists, et cetera. And now I get to sleep in in the morning. And with getting sick, I, I tend to get a really bad respiratory infection every year for about six weeks or so. So thankfully, I don't have to worry about school or work when I'm sick. And I don't need to worry about getting up early in the morning or, or traveling. So I like the fact that I can kind of have my own time and not have those academic and vocational commitments. But I also love the fact that I can write. And I'm writing some haiku and tanka, Japanese Zen poetry [00:43:00] about gender gender stuff, which I'm hoping to publish. And I also do these, a lot of these. Zoom podcasts and workshops by Curiously and I get a lot of requests, which is really neat from researchers all over the world that trying to see my archival material. And I have people I email like, um, well, Well, Kai recently, but also like Jude Patton, Jameson Green Xander, Keeg, and a whole bunch of others in Canada, the U. S. and the U. K., and the Netherlands, trans men, trans women, and cis people, cis queer, cis straight people.
Kai: pardon me, if you're, if you're open to it, Rupert, we'd love to hear it. Thank you. Put a poem on your episode page if you want to share, we can't pay you, but we would love to have you include a poem on your episode page.
Rupert: Yes, I did a, I did a video with the LGBT [00:44:00] Collaboratory that I talked about at the Transgender Archives Conference, Moving Trans History Forward, last April 1st. Where I talked about my 400 page trans anthology, which spanned 25 years, and I did read a few poems.
Jackal: As a retired person, you're in your seventies, just turned 71. one. How supported do you feel, what kind of support do you feel you need now as an aging trans person?
Rupert: Well, I'd like to have a doctor and there's a real shortage of physicians, unfortunately, in British Columbia, particularly on the island. I have to get a dentist and a massage therapist because I just moved here. I don't have a counsellor and that's kind of sad because I used to have a very supportive counsellor for 20 years in Toronto and a very supportive doctor.
Rupert: Doctor. They were both queer men. Toronto for almost 20 years. So I kind of missed that. I can't afford to pay for therapy.
Jackal: [00:45:00] Wow.
Rupert: I mean, I could afford it a little bit, because, you know, you get discounts, but I can't afford, because when I was doing it before, it was covered under health care insurance.
You mentioned that you're connected to other trans guys. Do you have close family or friends or sweethearts or people in your circle?
Rupert: I have my sister, and she she's a couple years younger than me. She's the only family member I'm in touch with. And see her occasionally. And we email every day. And we FaceTime once a month. And I have my partner of, of 11 years. Unfortunately my closer friends, don't live where I live so I have to make some new friends. But I do you know, email them. Or occasionally I might Facebook somebody.
Kai: It's perfect. Do you have any fur, furry friends, Rupert? I think you mentioned cats.
Rupert: Not, not right [00:46:00] now, unfortunately, but we're thinking we might get a little doggy,
Kai: Huh.
Rupert: Because I, I used to have cats and I do miss pets.
Kai: Yeah, my big dog is laying in the background back there.
Rupert: Yes, and I'm, I wrote a chapter for Jude Patton's book Unconditional Love LGBT folks and their animal companions. That's hopefully be coming out soon.
Kai: I bet that's sweet.
Rupert: Yeah, it's called Feline Friends and Canine Companions.
Jackal: Nice.
Jackal: So, how would you like to be remembered?
Rupert: Well, as a trans advocate and trans therapist and, gender consultant and publisher and newsletter, amateur writer, poet, all that stuff. And as a mentor, I love mentoring and I did mentor Aspiring therapists, trans and queer, when I was working in the field. I also mentored, of course, when I was doing the activism [00:47:00] in Ottawa and Toronto. People who are transitioning or hoping to transition, and these are actually Canadians and Americans. Most of my people were Americans, since there's a lot more than Canadians, when I was doing my work in the 70s and 80s. And I had Americans. American trans people, or a couple, come up to, to see me in Toronto, and I was doing my gender work and gender consultants, counselling service,
Jackal: It sounds like you want to be remembered for all of the work and support and advocacy you've done for our community. And I personally just want to say thank you so much for all of the things that you have done because you made my pathway a lot easier. So thank you.
Kai: Agreed, agreed.
Rupert: you're very welcome
Kai: Quick question, just can you talk to us a little bit about some of the things you were advocating for that back then, and then maybe we can talk about current day. What we need now? What were you doing back then? What was the advocacy?
Rupert: the advocacy was to get the Ontario health insurance plan to cover [00:48:00] sex reassignment surgery in Ontario back in the 70s, which, which you may or may not know, but in Canada, it's very checkered, like each province and territory only covers certain populations. surgeries, and it's really a political football as it has been in the U.
Rupert: S. and the U. K.
Kai: Mm-Hmm.
Rupert: other countries, unfortunately. So it's very political, and the backlash against trans people is not quite as great in Canada as it is in the U. S. and the U. K., which is quite quite intense. Although it's a bit here as well with the religious right. So, I mean, I'm not actively campaigning against that because I don't want to be in the front line and the trenches
Kai: yeah
Jackal: You did your stint.
Rupert: Yeah so what else was I advocating for? I was advocating for like I was educating trans men around all the phalloplastic surgeons around the world. Well, maybe not all of them, [00:49:00] actually, there wasn't that many in the 70s and 80s. So once in Thailand, Europe, US, Canada, etc.
Rupert: And also advocating like Tony Tornaby for a functional penile prosthesis stentopy, I think is what Tony called it the penile prosthetic device,
Rupert: sorry, I was really, really you said before about regrets I had a huge regret that I wasn't able to get the funding and to make that happen. And then it did happen later in the 90s with this guy in Germany. I forgot his name. And a bunch of guys in the U. S., San Francisco, I think. And then a bunch of others.
Rupert: You know, it depends on the timing and getting the money and getting the the critical mass. So I'm glad it finally happened, but I was very sad, like Tony was, that our efforts didn't come to fruition. That's why I started the Metamorphosis Medical Research Foundation. That was one of the, one of [00:50:00] the purposes was to, was to create a device as an alternative to phalloplasty.
Kai: Thank you. Historically you're painting a picture that is similar, but also unlike present day, present day, most people who have healthcare are able to access some gender affirming surgeries. In the U S Canada, UK and France, different parts , of Europe, and other places. There are definitely backlashes happening and it's become such a political thing. What would you like to say to the newer transitioning? Or questioning trans and trans mask folks who are working it out right now.
Kai: What would you like to say to them
Rupert: Because you
Kai: them?
Rupert: in prison, and I did facilitate this person in Maryland who [00:51:00] was doing the TIP newsletter, Transsexuals in Prison newsletter, by exchanging my Metamorphosis newsletter with them and by promoting their newsletter.
Rupert: And there was a lot of trans people who were against, back then, were against, Anyone who was sexually, romantically involved with other trans people, or people in prison, or, you know, very conservative back in the 70s and 80s, and I guess even now. So, that was another piece I did. And I advocated for trans women.
Rupert: I was one of the very few trans men in North America, a handful, that really, you know tried to support them in different ways.
Jackal: It seems to me that that like back even in the nineties, you know, like when, when I was transitioning, like because of the messages and the privilege that we kind of got from being invisible from transitioning and then being invisible that. Our own internalized transphobia got perpetuated against trans women a lot of times because they [00:52:00] couldn't pass or they, you know, like in some cases, not, not in all cases, but in some cases they couldn't pass or they didn't have that privilege.
Jackal: And so we were like stay away from them and that issue and, you know, not, don't advocate for something. I don't know, like the fear thank you for, for all of that advocacy that, that you did.
Rupert: Did you know this Jekyll and Kai? I don't know if you know this. In, back in the old days, and I think even now, when psychiatrists do a report, And possibly psychologists, too.
Rupert: They write about physical characteristics, and if there's a good looking trans woman, they'll make a point to say, Oh, a pretty trans woman. And if they're not so pretty, they'll say, more masculine appearing, or not so good looking. And that is kind of a bias that would go against these people getting approved for surgery and hormones.
Jackal: Right. Thank you.
Kai: You opened up a can of worms about trans mask and trans femme folks and how there's not a lot of integration [00:53:00] in many communities. Why do you think that is?
Rupert: Well, yes, many reasons. One is the passability. Some, many trans women pass, but some don't. Some are out, some are not. Some trans women are models, or some are sex workers, or into pornography, which is a whole other kind of world. And as you And, and as you know prostitution is not illegal, but solicitation is.
Rupert: And in this country, they're not allowed to solicit or have websites and so on. So anyway, so there's that legal piece around that. So that might be one thing that people, some trans men might not want to be involved with sex workers or people into pornography.
Jackal: Or we don't have to be, sometimes like the trans women, like that's their only option or they're told that that's their only option. Whereas we as blenders, we can work at McDonald's or something like, you know, we don't have to work on the street.
Rupert: Yeah. And [00:54:00] as I mentioned in my memoir, in the 70s, cis queer, cis gay men and cis lesbians were kind of separate socially. But then they came together politically, and then they, separated again, but during the AIDS crisis, they came together politically, but but socially they, they sort of still had their separations.
Rupert: It's kind of a weird, wild and wooly thing with cisqueer folks, and the same with trans men and trans women, there's that sort of, and then the other thing with trans women is some of them were, were drag queens. Or female, what they call FIs, female imposters, or crossdressers, and so, uh, and, and so, and so some of them didn't want trans men in their groups, or vice versa.
Rupert: Because there's a social, sexual, political, legal, all these different dimensions, and possibility, and readability, and, and [00:55:00] also the partners. If the trans men, if trans men had straight female partners that were conservative or, or bi partners, or vice versa, or if the trans women weren't out to their partners they wouldn't want to associate with trans people.
Kai: You're raising a lot of really valid points in that the issues that are relevant to each of us each of our respective communities are varied. And in many ways, what's been a consistent. Issue in our interviews, we're at over 50 now, has been this less of a forward facing presence from trans mask folks. So we're almost invisible, like Jekyll said, and that can be in some cases to our advantage, but in other cases we have a lot less sway, I guess, and presence.
Jackal: You sway Kai. You sway.
Kai: I sashay, I think some of that is socialization. I think some of us are more deferential who are [00:56:00] assigned female at birth.
Kai: I think some of us are less, maybe where we've just, you know, lived our lives and moved on. I don't know. I think some of the ways that we take up space are different than some of the ways that trans women take up space.
Rupert: And it would be great if there could be more integration and inter intersection.
Kai: Agreed.
Jackal: I just want to highlight one of the things that you mentioned Rupert because I mentioned the passability part and how, you know, it shows kind of some of the transphobia that we have against trans So women who don't pass or other people who don't pass or didn't pass, you know, like I'm talking about in the past, past more than now, but one of the things that you highlighted and mentioned, which is important is that the trans women or like some of the components of that community who might've been part of it, drag queens or FIs or things like that didn't want us as part of their community, right? That I [00:57:00] think is another important piece to acknowledge. It's not just coming from our side. The divisions were happening and happen all over the place.
Rupert: Yeah. That's an important. Peace, Jackal. And some, some of the cisqueer lesbians, some of the cis lesbians were not so loving of trans women and drag queens. And so sometimes the trans men got lumped in with the masculine cis lesbians.
Jackal: no, of course, I mean, the TERFs as they're called today, like still go after us and a fat trans, trans, transgender women and trans mask folk . But let's get back to the, what would you like to say to the newer generation of trans and non binary folk? What's an important message for you?
Rupert: Well, given the the backlash, the anti trans backlash, the first thing is to be, try to be safe. individually and collectively, but also look for your supports, personal and professional and community supports. [00:58:00] Try to connect to a community, even if it's only virtual. It's critical so you don't feel isolated.
Rupert: Also transgenerate the young, the middle aged and the elders, because we can learn from each other. We can teach each other.
Jackal: Trans procreate.
Rupert: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.
Kai: That does happen. We have the technology.
Rupert: And get your stories out there. If you have to use a pseudonym, okay, get your stories out there in spoken word, like in live, how people read their poetry out before the days of COVID at venues, in the flesh, Or vicariously, a lot of young people are doing vlogs and blogs. It's important to get the stories out. Two spirit people, intersex people, trans, gender, genderqueer, gender non binary. And the allies. Oh, the other thing is the allies. I always try to make a point to [00:59:00] thank our allies, whether these are our family members, our partners, our children, our parents, our best friends, our professional health care workers, our lawyers, you know, our politicians. And a lot of these people are cisqueer, but not all of them. And the straight ones are fine, too. I don't care what orientation you are, or what gender identity, . And also to appreciate sexual and gender diversity in people and nature. I'm writing a haiku and tanka on sexual and gender diversity in humans, animals and plants, and to try to normalize that because the religious right, and the conservative politicians keep trying to pathologize Homosexuality, transgenderism in animals and in people, but if they knew that this was in the animal kingdom, they might realize, okay, there's a precedent for this, as Joan Roughgarden wrote in her Evolution's Rainbow, and as Bruce Bahimeli wrote in his Homosexuality in Nature and Others because we're only learning this stuff recently through scientific [01:00:00] research, and it's becoming available. On the web and through the internet, and if they could teach this in school, they have these projects now, you know, of course, you know, in elementary school and public school where
Jackal: politicians that are fighting against it, these religious, right? Politicians that are trying to get it removed from the curricula.
Kai: You're raising some really valid political points. Here in the U S they just elected a speaker of the house after many, many failed attempts, who is one of the most anti gay Persons in the U S like that's his shtick and it's like, we take two steps forward, one step back,?
Kai: You've talked about your own process and getting burnt out. And how would you suggest that people who are still currently vibrant and energized sustain that?
Rupert: Yes, I think it's parallel to eco activists because you know, and some of these eco activists are like my age, and some are young. So what do you do [01:01:00] in the world we live in, if we can take inspiration from our, our peers, our peer activists, whether they're animal rights activists, trans activists, eco activists, we I think it's critical for the synergy.
Rupert: And so we don't feel isolated either in, in the flesh or vicariously. That's the thing to give us hope and to also realize that every, every little, we have to think globally, but act locally. We can't change the whole world, but we can do our little bit in our sphere of influence. As Stephen Covey wrote so we, we can't stop.
Rupert: I mean, if we need to take a break, that's fine for our mental health, but we have to keep, we have to keep going,
Rupert: because if we don't do it, who's going to do it.
Jackal: Yeah, exactly. Nobody's going to do it for us.
Kai: Thank you, Rupert. There's several themes that have come up throughout your interview today. And this message of hopefulness and connectedness. And the importance of understanding and [01:02:00] acknowledging intersectionalities of people and while we may have differences, we can all work together for a better future for us.
Kai: And I really appreciate your time today and you're sharing your story and your history . Is there something that we didn't ask today that you think we should have asked? There something that you'd like to say to our audience before we sign off?
Rupert: just before what you were saying a minute ago, we can be hopeful if we look at other struggles, we look at the civil rights struggles. Black people brown people and indigenous people, Asians, they're still struggling, but they're not giving up. Uh, we can, we can look at the intersex people, the newest kids on the block, really try to become more visible and depathologize their peers.
Rupert: So there are other models and parallels. We don't need to feel that we're the only ones fighting.
Kai: Thank you.
Jackal: I just want to thank you for being here. Really. It's a blessing to get to know you. We did [01:03:00] interview Lucas who is on the West coast.
Rupert: Oh, Lucas yeah.
Jackal: So we interviewed him, but so he was our first Canadian, but you are definitely his, his transcestor and our transcestor as well.
Jackal: And it's such a, such a blessing to get to know
Jackal: Thank you so much. Well, that's all we have and we really appreciate your time and energy. I greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us.
Rupert: Thank you, Jackal. My honor. It's my privilege. My honor. Thank
Kai: Thank you for all the work you've done over the decades and thank you for your time today. Thank you for really bringing extra stories and insight into our podcast today, Rupert. Thank you so much. Can we stay in touch with you?
Rupert: Oh, sure. Thank you, Kai. Awesome. You're doing great work, both of you.
Kai: Thank you so much. You enjoy the rest of your day.
Kai: Okay.
Rupert: Okay, you take care, both of you. Bye for now.
Jackal: Bye bye.
Kai: So Jackal, how did it go today with Rupert? What did you think of our interview today?
Jackal: I mean, I'm sorry. I got to call him the Jude Patton of [01:04:00] Canada. Like, wow. Wow. I didn't know he existed. Amazing. What'd you think?
Kai: Yeah, I agreed. I think he has such a huge amount of information in his head dating back to before he transitioned and found out about trans masc folks. And it seems like he's a little bit of a revolutionary.
Jackal: Encyclopedia?
Kai: Yes. And also a shit stirrer, and is very subtle about it today is very understated, but he was really on the front lines doing a lot of important work back in the day before we had a presence, particularly, it sounds like he didn't have a whole lot of colleagues and peers at that time that were trans men.
Jackal: Also, like you said, revolutionary in the fact that he was bridging these gaps intergenerationally, cross, like cross transitions, trans femme, trans mask, cross, sexuality, , like all kinds of things like, and him, like I wrote a letter to, read Erickson. It's like, what?
Kai: Yeah, [01:05:00] I was corresponding with him and I,
Jackal: fucking hell, you know, like
Kai: And he just went to New York and got hormones. , and clearly there was a lot of buildup to that. Right.
Jackal: at 19. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's, yeah, like you said, very understated. Yeah. It just happened, like they didn't give it to me here, so I just went there. Right.
Kai: Ah, man, it's, my head is spinning. He's been a prolific advocate and also artist he's written, uh, anthologies and. Poems and a memoir, and he is been in films and on different types of media. He has been in low disclosing lifestyle versus not low disclosing. I think in some ways he did highlight like how in some ways it was easier to keep a low profile prior to the internet. And you didn't, it didn't have a paper trail or a digital paper trail and they certainly didn't forward the archives from the seventies, name and gender changes to the internet in 15 years forward, 20 years forward he was very creative about how to get around systems.
Jackal: Yeah. [01:06:00] Totally. Yeah. It's amazing. He kind of says that he's stealth on the download, low disclosure kind of thing, but.
Kai: I didn't know. That's why I was a little bit.
Jackal: I got a Wikipedia page. It's like, I don't got a Wikipedia page
Kai: right, right. Yeah. I don't have enough. There's not enough to really say about me to, you know,
Jackal: Yeah.
Kai: Wikipedia page, but he said definitely yeah, what he means by low disclosing and non disclosing and being stealth has different meaning than the rest of us, you know,
Jackal: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Kai: I thought it was really interesting the span of his medical process of 40 years and choosing to do lower surgery, having access to that after fighting so hard in the eighties and nineties to get it covered by insurance and then not having access to that till he was an older adult and making a decision about, do I pursue a career that's going to give me a financial security versus get surgery, lower surgery, and he had the option and he chose his career [01:07:00] and then proceeded to have lower surgery later.
Jackal: Yeah. Yeah. Like in the sixties. Right.
Kai: yeah, yeah, and I think he talked about this scarcity of surgeons, too. It's still a big issue in our community but back then it was even more particularly in Canada, lower surgeries, so and it's still an issue and there's a backlog and huge demand and,
Jackal: But Kai, you're similar to that. Like you have chosen lower surgeries, if I can talk about your personal life. Um,
Kai: my junk.
Jackal: You're later in life. You're junk. Yeah. But later in life, like, you know, like your process wasn't like, you know, tomorrow, you know, like first I'm going to taking hormones then tomorrow I'm having chest surgery and then next month I'm going to have lower surgery.
Jackal: It didn't work like that. It didn't work like that. It didn't exist for us like that back then, you know, so it's like, so you're similar, right? Like you just had lower surgery a few years ago. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know when your process started, actually.
Kai: I don't know what it was like for you when I first labeled gender [01:08:00] dysphoria when I was 30, 29, 27. I was very penis focused. The absence of a penis on my body. That was a huge. source of discomfort for me. It impacted me in so many ways. I made best of it, but it caused a lot of distress.
Kai: And that's what precipitated me searching out at other trans guys. So, and then that was a big focus of my transition was like this absence. And I wore a Packer for a really long time to make myself feel more in alignment, and back then we had brothers that were getting lower surgery they were paying out of pocket. I don't know, it was like 30 to 150, 000. Yeah. There's no way. I don't know about you, but I was worried about getting rent paid.
Jackal: Mm hmm. Right. Totally.
Kai: and, and Rupert talked today about being underemployed, as it were, just making these tough decisions about how to pursue things and how to finance things.
Kai: And that's a big issue for our community in general, trans [01:09:00] people in general is this employment and lack of access to employment
Jackal: right. And I just want to interrupt here for a second and say some people might consider us kind of untruthful, like if we're getting student loans and then we're paying for, you know, a gender affirming surgery. But like, look, man, when we're talking about 30, 000 to 150, 000, I'm going to pay that money back anyways. I need to feel comfortable in my body. Like I deserve, we deserve to feel comfortable in our bodies. And, you know, like some of it was that for me, I couldn't get a passport until I could get up surgery. You had to have some sort of surgery and having a passport was directly linked to my, um, getting a bachelor's degree because I had to do a study abroad program. I needed a passport to do a study abroad program, I couldn't get a passport without chest surgery, so I spent my fucking student [01:10:00] loan money on chest surgery so that I could get a passport so I could complete my degree, like goddamn, like you guys don't even understand how connected this shit is, you know?
Kai: And how creative we have to be to get around these barriers. If you have a lump sum of money and it's going to save your life to have chest surgery or open up opportunities because you're right, Jackal, back in the day, there used to be a requirement when you got a passport in the U.
Kai: S. anyway, you had to have gender reassignment surgery. They used to call it GRS and your surgeon had to write that. So that could be top surgery. That was another way we got around it because I think they probably meant lower surgeries or all the surgeries, whatever that means so we sort of skirted there on that too.
Kai: You know, you're right. For me my dysphoria has really shifted over the decades. I don't know about you, but I don't pack anymore. I'm good. I'm all right. And then when health insurance companies on the West coast and then nationally due to all the advocacy of our brothers, covered lower surgeries and most insurance [01:11:00] companies will cover something, or at least they say they do. They're supposed to do the federal legislation. It just sort of occurred to me as my Kaiser. I started covering it in Seattle and I was in Hawaii. I was like, huh, there, I wonder if that's going to happen in Hawaii. So it started in Hawaii in 2015, which is when I was there. And it was like, wow, I wonder if I could do this because it was never a possibility.
Kai: Rupert did a great job of talking about the massive disruption in people's lives that this can cause. It can be years, you know, like it's, it's still happening. People who have phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, any variation in there, they can have Many different types of procedures based on what their likes and wants are and preferences and what the surgeon's willing to do.
Kai: And then there could be immense complications that are, that I don't think they should be called complications. It's just a result of surgery. You're going to need some fixing, some repairs, you
Jackal: But I do, but I [01:12:00] do want to focus on this because I heard from somebody that, that Uh, he was given advice that he was too old for bottom surgery. Right. And I just want to say like, make your own decision, like definitely research because we'll probably be more than one surgery and you might not want that in your life.
Jackal: People do it at 50, people do it at 60, people do it at 65, people do it at 55. Like you can do this if you choose. So make your own decision and don't let anybody tell you that you're too old to do it. Okay.
Kai: And again, it's that gatekeeping thing, with the insurance companies, there's financial barriers, there's transportation. If you have to move, go out of state or out of province or out of the country. And I think, you know, if your surgeon is telling you. Sorry, no can do.
Kai: Go to a different surgeon if you can. And again, Gaines did such a great job of capturing so many of the complexities about this, and his work is so important moving forward. The surgeon I had was like, yeah, I did a [01:13:00] metoidioplasty year old
Jackal: hmm.
Kai: and he's thrilled. You know, they did phalloplasty year old.
Kai: So it just really Depends on who it is. So good points. And I'm so glad that Rupert talked about that and fought for the right to have gender affirming surgeries.
Jackal: Yeah, totally. So don't, at 40, let anybody tell you that you're too old to have surgery, for sure.
Kai: That's true. That's true. I don't know about you, Jackal, but like dysphoria for me has shifted over time. I don't know if that's a thing for you. It's way less penis focused for me. I Haven't packed for 15, 20 years.
Jackal: You know, I don't know if mine was ever body focused, like mine was definitely facially focused and mine was definitely socially focused. Like I could not live my life as a female, like that was excruciating for me, but
Kai: What's facially focused mean? Your fantastic mustache?
Jackal: my, yeah, like my beard, my mustache, even my receding [01:14:00] hairline. Like I, I love looking male.
Jackal: Like, I love.
Kai: hmm. Mm
Jackal: Being visually male, like that's so important to me,
Kai: Mm hmm.
Jackal: And you know, I was a cute girl, whatever. I don't care. But my, like Mike talked about his nipples being really charged and not wanting to lose sexual, Energy over that so are mine. It was super sexual for me to have my nipples touched.
Jackal: And, you know, I just, maybe because like way back in the day, like there were so many horror stories about bottom surgery that it just. It just ran out of my mind and I didn't, I didn't bother with it, you know, like I did wear a Packer for decades and that was fine, but it never felt like a necessity. And when I had to get chest surgery, that was a grief for me.
Jackal: Like, that was really sad for me when I had to do it to get my passport, but it was sorrow filled. Like I was very sorrow filled. I was [01:15:00] small breasted, so it wasn't like a big deal for me. To wear a binder was fine. But I really had to have that back in the day because I could not get my passport changed legally without this letter, right?
Kai: What is the grief part that you're referring to?
Jackal: mean, the loss of the feeling, like I don't have sexual feeling in my chest anymore at all. Right? That's, that's it.
Kai: Mm
Jackal: I have scarred, like if you touch scar tissue, sometimes you have feeling and it's a totally different sensation, but that's not sexy. It doesn't get, doesn't excite me or anything. so my body was like, Pretty much. Okay. And still now, like I have original plumbing and at 58 can masturbate to my heart's galore, get off really well. Like it's not a big deal for me. So my body dysphoria was not the same as a lot of guys that I've heard talk about it.
Jackal: Um, but socially, man, I could not handle being a girl anymore. I could not fucking handle being a woman anymore. It was like painful.
Kai: And I think that's [01:16:00] the beauty of our community is all the richness and variety. I am fortunate to have an unofficial sort of connection to it, not a mentee mentor thing, but a young person has been talking to me and talked about grief and talked about doubt about surgery and one of the narratives that we hear as trans folks is that one should be elated and celebrate and throw a party, and there's nothing but joy. There's another narrative where, there's a whole variety, actually, and then experiencing grief, and then the impact of anesthesia Can cause anxiety, depression and your body has to recover. It goes through all sorts of, it bruises it, it morphs. It changes over decades, and you're right. Sensation can change. There's no guarantee about the outcome and how one will fill, it is very complicated. And I think it's a blessing that we have access to healthcare. And I hope Rupert is able to access healthcare soon [01:17:00] again. Very much so it's too bad that he had to stop seeing the people that he was seeing for so long.
Jackal: I was curious and I was surprised about the province oriented piece of that because I thought that Canada had a federal system to cover gender affirming care and trans surgeries. Um, that was my, that was my,
Kai: me too. I, and yeah,
Jackal: talking to him, it sounds like, no, where he's at, it's not, it's not that way at all.
Jackal: So
Kai: I'm not sure if he's on a waitlist , or what, but hopefully he'll get access pretty soon in a way that's very affirming to him. It was wonderful to have him on the show. I hope we can stay in touch with him. I would love to bring him on again. And we want a big shout out to all of our elders and everyone newer, younger, older, everybody.
Kai: Shout out.
Jackal: Yeah. Thank you to everybody. Thank you for what you've brought. And thank you for what you're bringing.
Kai: Good job today, Jekyll. [01:18:00] Good job to you, Kai. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Stealth tries to capture stories of those who transitioned before the year 2000. We recognize that language has its limitations. The words we use to describe ourselves and our community evolve over time and will not represent everyone's experience.
Kai: We also want you to know that the health and well being of our community is our number one priority. In fact, we
Jackal: want to give a shout out to parents who are supporting their gender non conforming kids. Supporting your child in the development and expression of their identity is not child abuse. We support you and love you for supporting your kids.
Jackal: We fully anticipate that people and groups will express positivity and negativity in response to our stories. We're prepared to deal with this, and as you know, thrilled to be one small part of our community. We
Kai: offer links to health and safety resources on our website, we monitor our social media platforms, we respond to feedback from our audience, and we will be accountable when we screw
Jackal: up.
Jackal: We want [01:19:00] you to know that we are just two guys doing this in our spare time. As we enter season four, we are getting better, but we are still rookies and still two old farts to boot. So we ask that you still be patient with us as we learn the ropes and find our way. The opinions expressed on our podcast are our own and those of our guests.
Jackal: We do not represent any outside
Kai: entity. Remember, if you're interested in sharing your story, we would love to hear from you. If you're interested in volunteering, please let us know your feedback and support are essential to our show success. Help podcast. Tell your friends, share on social media and rate us on your favorite streaming platform.
Kai: You can find us on Instagram, trans masculine podcast on X formerly Twitter. At podcast stealth on YouTube stealth, the trans masculine podcast, and be sure to check out our website, trans masculine podcast. com.
Jackal: Thank you for joining us [01:20:00] until next time.