I had come onto the admissions floor of my workplace (and purgatory) the Buffalo Psychiatric Center to, I think, return a patient chart my nurse had borrowed. That or I was borrowing blankets or medical supplies for my floor; the whole place ran on an unspoken barter system of goods and durable gear, all day and well into the night.
The admissions floor, Unit 75 (don't ask me to explain the numbering system, no one can), was often the most interesting place in the Strozzi Building, where I worked. It was certainly where the excitement often was, as the typical incoming patient was likely to be combative and delusional, and might require staff to do a two-person takedown that didn't always go perfectly.
The day I'm recalling, however, things were quite placid on 75. The two new arrivals a fellow therapy aide there pointed out to me seemed to be keeping a low profile, getting the hang of the place. One was a very gaunt quiet white male with stringy hair, who said “Hey,” and little else, but did shake my hand. The other, also white, also at first glance physically male, age perhaps 19 or 20, said “Pleased to meet you,” extending a hand for a quick but fairly firm shake. Now this person, who had been introduced to me as Gabrielle, came more sharply into focus. She was wearing a very feminine top that looked a little bedroomy, along with worn jeans or jeggings, and though she sported an auburn tuft of beard just under the chin, she was also wearing blusher, eyeliner, and lipstick.
Just to be clear, I was wearing a long-sleeved women's purple sweater and black women's jeans, and my good black work flats; I was also wearing simple makeup, for which I was getting compliments and tips from friends on staff. (And no face hair; no longer my style.) We were both in feminine attire for the same reason.
But just to be sure (she was being careful, which was good), she asked anyway: “So, can I ask you a personal question?”
I smiled, nodded.
“Are you trans?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh, cool. Do you think we could get together and talk sometime?”
I smiled. “Could be. I'll talk to my charge nurse, and whenever she thinks she can spare me, I could possibly come up.”
“That would really be good. I'll probably talk your ear off.”
I laughed. “You can try. I'll see ya.” And with that I headed back down to my floor, the geriatric unit. (Which for the most part was half as bad as it might sound.)
My charge nurse Gin was interested and supportive, once I found a calm in the daily storm in which we could chat. She suggested I talk to the treatment team leader for the admissions floor before sitting down with Gabrielle, “just to keep things on the up-and-up.” I had much respect for Gin's instincts when it came to navigating the various courses among fiefdoms in the Psych Center's power structure, so I agreed. Then Gin suggested she talk to that particular team leader, whom she felt required special handling.
And that was where the matter languished. For weeks.
I had sort of expected that; my request was hardly official Psych Center business, and I knew the treatment team leader in question, Laurel, was a bustling here-again gone-again type who had little time for any business except her own. Gin said she'd brought it up with the woman weeks earlier, the day after we'd talked about it. She would retry Laurel on that subject as soon as the opportunity arose.
Probably Gin did.
Predictably, nothing happened.
I finally found myself standing in front of elevator doors with Laurel, the TTL. I gently broached with her the question Gabrielle had put to me.
She chuckled as we entered the finally arrived elevator. “Honestly,” she said, “you're giving her way too much credit. I doubt she even knows what a transgender is.”
Well, that shut me up. If I had spoken, I'd have said, Then why would she have asked if I was one? Gabrielle had clearly, and quickly, recognized that I was one, and had asked just to be polite, and careful.
And she had been asking for a little help that I was quite willing to give.
What was really galling about Laurel's attitude was that it was in a mental health therapy aide's official job description to spend time with the patients, talk with them, engage them. (Instead of sitting in a corner, rapt in the content from one's phone, as some aides did frequently.) We were supposedly modeling mentally healthy people for the patients, or so went the theory. Clearly, for some of us it was a thin facade. (But that's for another newsletter … soon.)
Weeks went by. The Gabrielle affair had started when there was still snow on the ground; spring came, and with it our access to the patients' courtyard. We were given a day to do a picnic for our seniors, and it started out beautiful, even warmed up.
And someone on the admissions floor screwed up and brought down three patients, Gabrielle among them.
Gin was incensed: we were supposed to have the courtyard for two hours, just our old folks. But then she looked at me.
“Why don't you go walking on the track with Gabrielle? Take your time.”
And about that same time, Gabrielle came up and asked if we could do that very thing.
As we strolled on the asphalt path around the inner perimeter of the courtyard, I told her to ask whatever she wanted.
“Okay. Uh … how long was it before you started your transition?”
I thought for a second, then said, “About fifty-three years.”
Her jaw fell, and I think I saw the color drain out of her face.
“But that's just me,” I said. “Not everybody takes that long. Pretty young children are starting transition these days, and getting surgery in their teens.” "I shrugged. “Everybody's different, we're all on different paths.”
“But maybe I won't take that long,” Gabrielle said.
“There's no hard and fast rule about it,” I said. “I went through lots of stuff in my life, a few careers, got married, raised kids. Now it's time to do what I need to do. Your transition will go at your speed. You're in charge of it; it's all up to you.”
That seemed to relieve her anxiety a little. We talked about a couple of other things, and then the aides who brought her and the other two said it was time to go back up. Gin asked how it went, and I said I almost scared the pants off our friend, and explained.
Before she was discharged, I got a chance to briefly read Gabrielle's chart, something we aides could do, even adding progress notes when appropriate. There was really nothing to explain exactly why she'd wound up at the Psych Center. The “instant offense,” the action which had brought her to us: shoplifting some women's clothing and makeup at a store in the little upstate town she came from. Apparently, to the thinking of someone in the hinterlands, some sheriff's deputy or social worker, Gabrielle was a candidate for Buffalo Psych.
That's antiquated mental health practice of the worst kind, institutionalizing someone for their gender presentation. Gabrielle's family weren't well off, and Gabrielle had really needed those garments. Not to parade around in, but to be herself.
Younger trans people lacking resources often wind up in scrapes with the law, from which they can be shunted to jail, or the Psych Center, or Erie County Medical. Jail is always the worst outcome, as trans offenders are placed with whatever gender prison population is dictated by officials' opinions of the trans person's status. Placing a trans woman in a male prison population almost always results in rape. And isn't it lovely how so many people in this country joke about prison rape?
I'm putting out a prayer to my Boss: that Gabrielle get out of where she is, and that she find the life she deserves somewhere decent, somewhere beautiful, somewhere safe, where there are good people.
If I make it there myself, maybe Gabrielle can talk a little more. That'd be nice.
(By the way, all names but mine were changed in this piece, for the sake of the confidentiality of all concerned.)