Trans Youth in Translation

Posted by in 2018 Spring/Summer

A Youth Creative Arts Knowledge Translation Project

“It’s been really stressful for me, and I think it was really avoidable in a lot of ways.”

“We suffer a lot and it’s really, really difficult.”

“It absolutely sucks. I don’t know how to put it… it kind of eats away at you.”

This is how trans youth describe their experiences when facing barriers to accessing needed hormone therapy in BC. The Trans Youth Hormone Therapy Decision Making Study explores how trans youth and their parents make decisions about initiating hormone therapy and how health care providers navigate ethical challenges arising in practice with trans youth and their families. In addition to presenting findings at academic conferences and publishing in peer-reviewed journals, a goal of this project since its inception has been to disseminate results through a youth-driven, creative arts-based knowledge translation project. This spring, that project became a reality.

A youth who attempted to access hormone therapy without parent support for this intervention described the experience this way: “Once I got [to the health care provider], I was like ‘Ah, ah, I don’t know what to do,’ because my mom was still not on board, so I was just kind of like, this is just like swimming through poisonous water.”

Through the Trans Youth in Translation project, trans youth from across BC participated in creative arts workshops with adult trans artist mentors. Drawing inspiration from quotes of youth research participants, these young artists brought research findings to light in creative ways. Their own experiences making decisions about hormone therapy and accessing health care informed their interpretations of these findings.

  • Creative writing and poetry offer insight into lived experiences of trans youth.
  • Paintings depict challenges youth encountered when trying to access gender health care.
  • Songs tell stories of challenges, necessary catalysts for change and outcomes youth hope for.
  • Dramatic scenes depict positive health care interactions, to help health care providers understand how youth would like to see health care delivered.
  • A board game simulates barriers and facilitators to gender health care experienced by trans youth, designed to convey how much of their journeys were left to chance and how systems of care need to be improved to better meet the needs of trans communities.

 

When asked how they would like to be treated by health care providers, a youth participant responded: “I’d just want to be treated like a normal person. I don’t feel much different from anybody else.” The cover image and above are interpretations of this quote by two different artists.

One youth describes their experience of gender and understanding of sex: “I would describe my gender identity as being a non-binary trans woman, which basically means to me that I am a woman, but gender’s not real and I just exist… Sex isn’t just male and female. It’s beautiful and varied and determined by many different things.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This research was conducted by Beth Clark (Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program PhD Candidate), who is supervised by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc in the School of Nursing. Beth worked with Trans Care BC, the Trans Health Information Program, and the Catherine White Holman Wellness Centre for several years, and is no serving as a clinical ethicist at the Provincial Health Services Authority. Beth also brings a background in the creative arts, having practiced for several years as a music therapist and clinical counsellor with youth and families.

For updates on this project, visit SARAVYC.ubc.ca