Transforming community

While a visit to the dentist can be a source of anxiety for most people, Ian Ruddell finds it particularly vexing, to the degree that he’s endured terrible pain since losing a filling four months ago rather than face his fear and book an appointment.

“When doctors walk into a room and see I have a different legal name and gender identity than what’s on my paperwork, they often just don’t know what to do with me,” said Ruddell, outreach and education coordinator at Chico’s Stonewall Alliance Center and a transgender male. “At the very least I’m going to have to out myself as trans and explain a lot to the doctors, all the way down to how I would like to be addressed.”

Ruddell, one of the organizers of Chico’s first Trans Week, which began with a proclamation by Mayor Scott Gruendl at the March 25 City Council meeting and continues through Saturday, offered his tooth pain as a minor example of more serious health care issues faced by transgender people.

“Trans men have issues with ovarian and cervical cancer, because we don’t get pap smears or other exams, and that’s largely because if our gender marker has changed, health care coverage won’t provide for that,” he continued. “With myself, for example, testosterone levels in my blood are the same as a biological man but I still have all of the female body parts, so there are complications with blood pressure, heart disease, kidney failure and other issues that come along with hormones.”

Since even well-meaning and LGBTQ-friendly health care professionals might not be aware of health issues unique to the trans community, the Trans Week’s schedule includes a number of events geared toward health care and coverage. Events have included a forum on health care at Stonewall’s headquarters, and training sessions for health care professionals.

Other Trans Week events focus on visibility, acceptance of, and celebrating the community, explained Thomas Kelem, executive director at Stonewall Alliance and another Trans Week organizer.

“It’s really important because the trans community is so hidden, targeted, lacking in resources, misunderstood and attacked,” Kelem said.

“Most people know a trans person but don’t even realize it,” Ruddell added. “This is bringing visibility to the fact that we’re around and we need support.”

Kelem noted there are two major international observances focused on the transgender community every year—Transgender Day of Remembrance for victims of violence on Nov. 20 and Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31. Kelem, who said he intends Chico’s Trans Week to continue as an annual event, said his group chose to anchor the local events around the latter to “do something that brings out the positive and educates people, rather than just try to make people feel sorry for us.”

To make more than a week’s worth of activities happen, Stonewall Alliance collaborated with several other organizations, including Chico State’s Gender & Sexuality Equity Center (GSEC), which organized the TRANSforming Communities Conference on March 29.

Trans Week’s final event is a question-and-answer session for parents scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 5, at Catalyst Domestic Violence Services.

“Parents want to support their children, and children are coming out as trans earlier and earlier, but they also don’t know what to do,” Kelem said. “An opportunity like that, where parents can come ask the questions that nobody else has answers to, is very valuable and special.”

A UCLA study in 2011 suggests that about .3 percent of the American population identifies as transgender, with 3.5 percent identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Chico’s trans population is quite active, according to Kelem.

“Of the groups [Stonewall] provides service for, our Thursday night trans group is the largest and most consistently attended,” he said. “It’s a large population, and sadly so invisible that even we in the LGBTQ community don’t know just how large for sure.”