Healed by your empathy

I stepped onto the plane hoping for nothing more than this ride to be over. I felt the familiar sense of unease as I located my seat, but found it was intensified by knowing I would not have a familiar face sitting next to me as I contemplated all the possible scenarios that could lead to my death. I saw the engine burst into flames, the wings snap off as unexpected turbulence took hold, and my body flung from my seat through the gaping hole in the side of my flying tomb. I have never flown solo before, and clearly I am not the calmest flyer at the best of times. I decided to go over my speech and try to take my mind off the situation I had put myself in.

As the longest one and a half hours of my life eventually passed, I began to realise the realness of my situation. I was entering a city I had never been before to speak to a room full of people I had mostly never met about my experiences as a recipient of a Pinnacle scholarship. I was excited, anxious, nervous, but above all, utterly thrilled. I was in Brisbane, a place I had never been and whose appeal had called to me for as long as I can remember. I was greeted with warmth as I entered its streets in search of my destination and once arrived, the warmth continued as I was met by the familiar faces of Pinnacle. Any sense of apprehension faded immediately and I began pumping myself up for the event that was about to unfold.

As I entered the room full of unfamiliar faces I took my place ready to deliver my speech. I stood next to my fellow scholar Harriet (who’s calm and collected exterior was both refreshing and intimidating) and waited for my name to be called. As Harriet finished her brilliantly moving presentation I was called to the floor and without hesitation began a verbal assault on my graciously receptive audience. My notes became irrelevant as I recounted the history of my affiliation with Pinnacle and the impact their generosity has had on my university experience. I explained the unparalleled impact my mentor has had on my introduction to University and by the end I felt as though I had had a therapeutic experience as I relived the state of bliss which had accompanied my first semester of learning. 

The reception was incredible. I was met with words of encouragement from complete strangers whose enquiring nature made me feel supported and respected. I left the event feeling even more confident in my abilities as a student and, as I explored the streets of Brisbane, knew that without the generosity of The Pinnacle Foundation I would not be the worry-free student I am right now. Pinnacles’ empathy has healed me of my self-deprecating nature and I am truly grateful.

By Steve Walker

Hospital Discriminates and Fighting Back

I go back to study next week. Unfortunately I haven’t had my hysterectomy yet, despite being on the public waiting list for over 90 days. My abnormal medical condition has gotten worse over the last year. It was irregular heavy bleeding and when I say irregular I mean it could be bleeding weekly to every few months ranging from a few hours of bleeding to even 3 months of constant bleeding.

That is still happening except the bleeding has become heavier over time. This year I am now getting severe abdominal pain which has required several emergency department admissions and strong prescription medication such as panadine forte and endone. I don’t like these medications as they make me confused, dizzy and sleepy which interferes with daily activities that I need to concentrate on as well as have balance for activities such as study, driving and going to the gym.

There is not only the physical pain that I have been through but also emotional torment by being a man with such a humiliating medical condition involving female reproductive organs. It has been very embarrassing having to out myself as trans* in such a way in emergency departments in front of confused triage nurses and members of the general public listening in.

The good news is that I am on the waiting list to have a hysterectomy done publically to fix my pain and bleeding. I am also perusing my options into suing a hospital who refused to help me because I have transitioned from female to male (which I have in writing).

My doctor who has exhausted all non-surgical options to treat my condition for over five years was furious that his medical recommendations were ignored by a senior management who haven’t even met me and refuse to name themselves. He was shocked that the senior management went against the medical professionals who recommended this procedure and that they are fine with letting me suffer in pain and lose large amounts of blood just because I am transsexual.

The fact that I have legal options means not only a lot to me but also to the trans* and trans ally community. In fighting back against this hospital we are saying that discrimination is no excuse to refuse medical treatment. I want them to know that there are costly consequences for discrimination in hope that policy will change so this does not happen to others. We are standing up for ourselves and refusing to be oppressed.

Are you an openly gay adult?

Are you an openly gay adult? Do you have a career, a family, good friends? I want to know, how did you get it?

So many gay LGBTI youth can’t imagine their lives as openly gay adults. They just can’t envision a time when they are in a career they enjoy. They don’t believe they will ever experience friends and family who accept them as they are. They can’t imagine a future for themselves.

How did you ensure you had a future? How did you do it?

Did you know that gay and lesbian youth are 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide then heterosexual youth? Are you aware that 50% of lesbian and gay youth report parental rejection due to their sexual orientation? Did you know that 80% of LGBTI youth report severe emotional and social isolation? That they experience a depression that is 4-5 times more severe then their heterosexual peers?

Tell me, you - who got the job you wanted, a job you love, how did you do it? How did you get to that place where I want to be? Were you that one in four LGBTI youths that became homeless once they came out? Did you experience isolation, depression or anxiety? Did you have family who was ashamed of you, friends who were embarrassed by you? How did you GET to that point, where you are right now? How did you do it?

Did you have someone to give you support, was there anyone who made you believe you could get to the point you are now at? Did anyone give you hope? Was there someone in your orbit that made you realise that a future was actually possible?

The Pinnacle Foundation gave me my hope. They gave me the first glimpse of my future I had seen in a very long time. They know that not having a visible LGBTI role model can severely increase feelings of isolation and emotional distress in young LGBTI people. They know that sometimes we need to see a real life example of how it gets better. Bob Paris once said:

Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges.” You might not think you’d make much of a mentor. But if you an openly gay adult, who has a family who loves them, good friends and a job - you can help some one just by doing what you do already. Just placing yourself in the orbit of a young LGBTI can go a long way. You are a living example of how it really does get better, so please - contact Pinnacle to become a mentor. I guarantee that you will brighten someone’s future.

By Ashleigh Scriven

Being published as an undergrad: The fast track to academia

As a gay teenager, growing up in regional Western Australia was not easy. It meant that my only resource, my only connection to the wider LGBTI community was though my local public library. Because of this, as a librarian, I am passionate about providing services for the LGBTI community though libraries. 

So I started writing short stories and essays, which I sent to magazines, and would occasionally get published. This turned into Tweeting, and blogging, and eventually, writing academic papers. Right now, I have two papers in the works. The first is being published in Gay and lesbian issues and psychology , the second is to be presented at the International Conference for the Future of LGBTI Histories in Archives, Libraries, Museums and Special Collections. 

This is almost unheard of for an undergraduate. As partner put it, “being published as an undergrad is the fast-track to academia”. But you know what? I am not interested. As much as I love promoting a form of inclusiveness that is often overlooked in libraries, it isn’t what I want to do full time. At least, not within academic circles.

I am currently the Library Assistant at Family Planning WA Sexual Health Library, and I love it. Today, I sent 100 condoms to a remote indigenous community, to be distributed to teenagers that probably couldn’t afford condoms, even if they could find somewhere to buy them. Last week, I referred a friend of a friend to our People 1st Program, which provides sexual health education to people with intellectual disabilities. Last month, I spent the afternoon unpacking newly arrived pink rubber dildos, which we repackage and sell to schools as “condom demonstrators”. 

I am changing lives, both within the LGBTI community, and other high-risk demographics of our community. And nothing can beat the feeling it gives me when a 50 year old woman comes in to tell me that a book I recommended helped her achieve her first ever orgasm.

By Suzie Day

Day One

As I begin to look forward to starting the second semester of my first year at Uni I am filled with feelings of excitement and anticipation. It makes me look back to the beginning of the year when I had my first ever class after not studying for something like 6 years. I was an emotional wreck. If only I knew then, what I know now…

University Day 1, February 2012:
I walk into possibly the most frightening area I have ever stepped foot, an area so richly drenched in the scent of academia that I can hardly breathe. I couldn’t feel more out of place. I move awkwardly amongst the crowd trying not to be noticed, desperately avoiding anyone who looks as though they might disrupt my strategically planned route to my first ever University tutorial. This environment is so foreign yet at the same time appears strangely familiar. It has aspects which remind me of high school and for a second I feel as though I have reverted to my high school self. I clutch my shoulder bag as if it were my life force, or my safety blanket. My only objective is survival, if I last the distance from the entrance gate to my classroom I will consider it my first achievement. The first of many I hope. 

As I dash in and out of the crowd with a panicked expression I suddenly realise how ridiculous I must look and try to steady myself. It doesn’t work and I somehow manage to make things worse by cutting off other students whose irritation is vividly stretched across their faces. I spot the nearest open space and move towards it, as I try to regain my composure I notice a sign outside a building that reads, “Electrical Engineering.” HOORAY! This is exactly the building which houses the classroom for my first tutorial. I can’t believe my luck! By my (obviously ill-informed) calculations I shouldn’t be anywhere near here. Most would call it coincidence, but I’m going with intuition! Maybe I’m not such a fish out of water after all. As I scour the halls searching for my assigned room I begin to feel my anxieties rise once again, “What if nobody likes me? What if it’s all too much for me?” I find my room and enter it with apprehension only to be met with smiling faces and a polite “Welcome” from my tutor. I realise immediately how silly I’ve been and find a chair to call my own. As my neighbour engages me in conversation I start to feel a new sense of pride rise from within me. It comes from the depths of my soul and engulfs me with such force I can hardly contain it. I’ve made it to the beginning of my future and I can’t wait to get started.

By Steven Walker

Turning things around

Hi Ashleigh,

Tony & I have just finished marking the exams. During this process, we also keep track of students whose answers are particularly good. You’re one of these students. Your overall result was strong, but we just wanted you to know that the quality that impressed us most was your sensible approach to the scenarios.

Tony & I are looking forward to being involved in your education next Semester. We want to hear your voice in the Tutorials as well – your knowledge base shows you certainly have some useful information for your peers. Speak up!

Great work. Keep it up.

Regards

Cam, and on behalf of Tony.

- - -

Above is an email from my lecturers at uni, sent last Friday. When I got it I cried.

I will never, ever forget that moment.

Last year Cam and Tony would not have known I existed. They wouldn't have seen me during lectures, because I was at work during most of them. They wouldn't have noticed my marks, because I was barely scraping by. They wouldn't have noticed me in tutorials, because I was always running late from work and leaving early to go back to work, and spent the time in class staying as small and as quiet as possible, while desperately trying to catch up on what I had missed that week.

This email was sent to several other students. They will file it away with all the other encouragement they have ever received from their lecturers, parents and families. For me, it is stuck on my bathroom mirror, because it is the first time since I have started my degree that I have felt hopeful. It is the first time I have real hope that I might actually finish my degree.

Every single day I have struggled to stay with my education. Life has felt like a catch 22 – If you want to study at uni you need the money to buy books and pay rent and food and go to the doctors and just live, so you work a lot but when you work a lot you don't have time to go to uni or study for uni, so your grades begin to fail and it looks like you might not pass your courses, so you cut back your hours and fit some more study in, but then its harder to make rent so you get stressed and the fear of living on the streets forces you back to work everyday and you tell yourself that the basic essentials are shelter food and water and that education can come later, except that education is the way out of poverty, and you learnt that at uni, so you should just try try try to get this degree and don't give up just yet, just get through one more semester and it won't last forever and one day you will graduate.

Thanks to Pinnacle, that 'one day' is looking a lot more possible today, then it was a year ago. Why don't you better your odds? Put yourself in a better position. Make a Choice, to apply for a scholarship. Take a Chance that it might get accepted. Take the steps to Change your situation. Apply for a Pinnacle Scholarship today.

By Ashleigh Scriven

Breaking Family Traditions and Excelling

The semester is almost over and I’ve almost finished my assignment on ‘The Modern Nation State’. Although it may seem like a dry topic, I’m surprised how much I have personally learned from this assignment and how far my education has come. We had to read many academic texts with some about tradition to do this assignment, and it taught me a lot about my family and upbringing. My grandfather is very old fashioned German man. He is very controlling and the family treats him like a god. In this assignment, I learned about the ‘web of belief’ where figures that view themselves as authority or are born into it, get away with having their authority rarely if ever questioned.

This helped me to understand why he had such a problem with me. He assumed that I would drop out of high school and become pregnant at 16 and be on the pension just like my mother. I completely rebelled against him and became the opposite which was naturally who I am. I completed my year 12 VCE even while living in a refuge and have never even had sex with a man because I have never been attracted to them! Also as I identify as a man, I have never had any desire to ever carry a baby and am also on the waiting list to have a hysterectomy in the next month or so for health concerns.

He told me I would never go to university and I would never have a laptop because those things were for rich and smart people. While I am no where near rich, I am the only person in my family to pass year 12 VCE and go on to do a diploma. I am also getting an average of distinctions and next year will start my Bachelor of Psychology. I also have my very first laptop thanks to the Pinnacle Foundation and have completely smashed all of my grandfather’s wrong assumptions of me.

In being who I am, it gives hope to others who come from low incomes and uneducated controlling families. I hope that one day; my younger siblings will break free of these destructive traditional patterns and become all they can. I am proof that others can rebel against families who assume low of them and reach their full potential in not only their education but also in life.

Four months after chest operation & closer to the man I identify as.

By Anonymous