I Can’t Separate My Non-Binary Gender From My Body That Has Cancer

The gynaecologist cited the “Do no harm” concept in the BC Cancer Centre protocols for treatments. How can I quantify the harm of misgendering to someone who isn’t aware of it? I can’t separate my non-binary gender from my body that has cancer. I am both at once. I have no choice, but to carry all of myself through whatever comes next.

I walked up to the BC Cancer Centre building in Victoria for the first time. The temperature was finally above the ten degrees Celsius of winter. I saw lines of tape at the door where people were to stand on if they happened to cross paths. I slowed my gait to prevent contact with someone who may rush out of the front doors. As I approached, I saw that someone had scrawled with chalk on the sidewalk guarding the sliding doors of the Victoria BC Cancer Centre. It said: “If you come in here with symptoms, these people don’t stand a chance.”

These words can’t be overstated. The COVID-19 virus disproportionately effects people with underlying health conditions and lower immune systems. They demonstrated and communicated a deep understanding of harm. I stood on the first line. I felt the sun on my arms and predicted the déjà vu of going to the same place many times. I had to step on the sentinel chalk words to get in.

At reception, I held my provincial ID at eye height and asked them to make sure their intake matched the x gender marker on it. They responded cheerfully that their system only had two gender markers - they couldn’t enter the legal X sex designation assigned to me on all of my provincial ID’s, including my health care card, into the system and that it was would not be recognized anywhere within the the Centre. The Jubilee hospital is in the same parking lot and they had entered my X as unknown the day before, so I asked how that could be changed. They said that I could inquire at the records office, which was closed indefinitely. My partner then proceeded to cross off the F on all of my intake forms and wrote down X in its place along with a note saying that I expect my legal sex to be reflected in all of my paperwork. The F is just as incorrect as an M - both jarring to see.

The Prime Minister had just announced that the COVID lockdown would likely go on until a vaccine was found. He predicted it would be around twelve to eighteen months. I didn’t need a calculator to do the math. I would be in my initial treatment for around six-months. Every doctor, administrator, nurse, and technician would receive my file with an incorrect and coercive gender marker for the duration of my intake and treatment. The discrimination against my gender would follow me into every room I carried this difficult diagnosis into until after the COVID-19 crisis. I pictured a red rotary phone, on a table, in an empty office building. It would ring if I called the number, but no one would pick up.

The kind and caring gynaecologist misgendered me twice, despite all of our discussions about me being trans non-binary and the they/them pronouns selected on my intake form. The first time he corrected himself. The second time he didn’t. He called me “she” in the middle of a pelvic exam. As the exam progressed, he remarked that he was surprised that I wasn’t complaining of discomfort or pain. He was trying to move my injured cervix with a wooden tongue depressor onto the speculum. I said that I have been told I have a high pain tolerance; in truth I’ve learned to hide my pain like a cat over the years.

***

Systemic oppression is designed to get marginalized people to harm themselves and each other. People with privilege are unlikely to detect it. I couldn’t name how felt. I thought I was fine. Yet, when my partner asked me what I most wanted in the world, and at that moment I whispered: I want to jump off of a bridge. Then I saw my hurt and caught myself.

Good, kind people have harmed me as much as the out-right violence of aggressive bigots. It’s the daily systemic disregard for non-binary and trans people; the well-meaning comments that build up grain by grain into sand dunes. I respect people who work in health care immensely, especially now, and I don’t want to make their jobs harder than they are, but being invisible harms me and makes it difficult for me to continue treatment.

I filed a complaint with the BC Cancer Centre before attending this appointment. Canada’s human rights laws and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires the Centre to treat trans and non-binary people equal to cisgender people. This means that the language used in their materials and to patients must reflect the existence and reality of trans non-binary people. I’ve been in discussion with Trans Care BC and they’re working with the BC Cancer Agency to move the language forward. This news brought me a lot of joy and I’m looking forward to seeing those changes as soon as possible.

However, the BC Cancer Centre didn’t respond to a large part of my complaint (even when I sent a follow-up email). Because of the harmful language on their website, I asked if the staff I would be working with had the cultural competence to treat gender variant people with respect. In my experience their staff were not trained to treat me equally and with respect. Now I am moving on to the next doctor, technicians, and administrative staff, and while I am always open to happy surprises the events above are set up to repeat themselves. Systems that weren’t changed yesterday cause harm today and I’ve already lived through twenty years of “wait until tomorrows.”

The photo above is of me waiting at the government ID office to get the sex on my ID changed to an X (I have a N99 mask on that I used previously for forest fire air pollution).