Healing Conversations for Men Who Have Sex with Men Celebrating Your True Self with Atticus Ranck
Dr. David Fawcett welcomes Atticus Ranck, Health Programs and Supportive Services Manager for Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and columnist for the South Florida Gay News. Atticus talks about his experiences with transitioning, gender dysphoria and euphoria, and what challenges he sees living as a trans man. Atticus also shares the privilege he experienced becoming a white man, and discusses the difference between gender identity and orientation.
TAKEAWAYS:
[1:49] Atticus is the Health Programs and Supportive Services Manager for Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, PA. He does a lot of work with health disparities around LGBT people, including grants for tobacco, diabetes, and HPV related cancers. They also have a number of support groups and services, all of which are free and open to the community.
[2:54] The trans narrative we so often hear in the media is that trans people have known since they were age 4, but the truth is that for many the story isn’t so clear cut. For Atticus, he was a tomboy growing up and discovered he was attracted to women at the age of 17, but didn’t start to transition until after college.
[6:10] It was a few months after Atticus bought a STP, or Stand to Pee, that he started going by male pronouns and started hormone replacement therapy.
[7:09] In order to medically transition, you need a letter from a therapist that diagnoses you with gender dysphoria. Atticus started seeing a therapist at SunServe and needed to first address his alcohol addiction before getting the letter.
[9:48] The hardest part of gender dysphoria for Atticus was waiting for the time to pass after he started the hormones but before he was recognized out in society as a male.
[11:01] Gender euphoria means that it’s not always hating the body you were born in, it’s that you feel so much better in the other body that you identify with.
[11:50] Atticus is as far as he would like to go in his transition, and found that running helped him process the emotions coming up during his difficult time.
[15:37] Health care providers need better training on dealing with trans people, and there is a lot of red tape and bureaucracy trans people need to go through that others may not have to.
[18:31] Gender identity and orientation are completely different, and Atticus describes why he identifies as Queer.
[20:49] You don’t have to medically transition to identify as male or female, or trans.
[23:53] Atticus has experienced the consciousness of both genders, and finds that there is a learning curve to getting acclimated to the white male privilege and the subtle differences happening both physically and mentally.
[26:12] Trans people fare much worse on almost every statistic from suicide to poverty. Atticus reminds us that just because something may not directly affect us, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stand up for the rights of others.
[28:05] 57% of transgender youth attempt suicide. With family support that number can go down to 4%.
RESOURCES:
World Professional Association for Transgender Health
QUOTES:
● “For some of us, our story isn’t so clear cut.”
● “I have to be seen for the guy that I am.”
● “I don’t think I could have gotten sober if I wasn’t seen as a man.”
● “It’s not so much that I hated being female, it’s that I love being male.”
● “I’m still learning that I can be assertive and people will listen. That is something that men sort of get.”
● “There’s good news when you just treat people how they ask to be treated.”