The Transgender Experience: Behind The Couch
June 2025
Hey there Caddyshackers,
We’ve had great reflective discussions following on from our On The Couch episodes and felt it was too good to keep to ourselves! So, here we are reflecting again with another blog from Behind The Couch, where we will be discussing and dissecting the key themes and topic of transgender healthcare.
Last blog we shared what community means to us, as we see On The Couch as a community within itself built over many years. This blog, we will be discussing topics around consent and sexual violence. While reading today, we encourage you to practice good self-care.
Transgender health matters and it’s an absolute must for us to cover. It’s a topic we’ve explored in all seasons of On The Couch.
Trans Day of Visibility
Each year, Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) is held on March 31st as day of pride and celebration for gender diverse identity, achievements, and community.
For a community that is too often underrepresented, TDOV is about reclaiming space and being visible.
For many gender diverse people, a lack of representation, role models, and community can be isolating and make it difficult to feel proud in their identities.
We aim to change that with a positive, engaging and educational experience. We do this by being strong community allies.
Transgender Victoria produced a fantastic resource: Trans Allyship Confidence Kit.
Gender Affirming Care
One of the key take home messages in the trans health space was a great piece of insight from Maggie at T150 clinic. They encouraged us to use the term Gender Affirming Care as opposed to the term Transitioning with the bottom line being that gender affirming care saves lives!
Research shows that access to gender affirming care is associated with lower rates of depression and suicidality among transgender and non-binary young people. Looking at the findings of a survey conducted with 516 trans people from across Australia by the Medical Journal of Australia showed that 56% reported at least one incident of trans-related discrimination when trying to access healthcare. Over 40% had been misgendered (incorrect pronouns used), 26% had been asked inappropriate questions related to being trans when seeking care for an unrelated medical problem and 24% had been deadnamed (using legal rather than chosen name) in a healthcare setting.
This is why we have created space On The Couch for discussions on trans healthcare.
Transgender On The Couch
Season 1 - Sophie
In the very first episode of Season 1 in 2022, we spoke with Sophie who worked as a health promotion officer at TransHub, ACON's digital information and resource platform for all trans and gender diverse people in NSW. Sophie started our first digital OTC episode, looking back there is something rather symbolic about that.
Trans health is already a space that is often difficult to navigate and the pandemic further muddied that. Sophie eloquently discussed Trans history with us and how TransHub has been established to help clients navigate the systems and processes but also established strong peer and community connection, so that no-one ever feels alone on their journey. Sophie’s episode shone light on the trans experience and that no two people’s journeys are ever the same. That’s why the support and allyship is so crucial to improving health outcomes both physical and mental for the Trans community.
Season 2 - Maggie Smith
Season 2 in 2023 we hosted Maggie Smith Clinical Nurse Consultant from the T150 Clinic, a specialist HIV and Sexual Health Service in Sydney providing holistic care for the transgender and gender diverse community. The discussion with Maggie highlighted the crucial role peer support plays in supporting a client’s journey and to have a service which solely focuses on Trans Health is so liberating for the community.
Thankfully we are seeing more specialised community health-based services opening for the trans community, and it really does show the need and demand across not only NSW, but also across Australia.
Maggie’s discussion around health care needs of the trans community was very insightful, no two people’s journeys are alike and so it’s often very individualised care. Maggie really helped to break down some of those community perceptions around affirming gender and the truth is it’s not an overnight change and affirming gender may mean something different for everyone.
Season 3 - Axel-Nathaniel Rose
In 2024 the opening episode of season 3 was with Axel-Nathaniel Rose, now Dr Axel-Nathaniel Rose thanks to his completed Ph.D. at University of NSW. Axel is a writer, editor, and teacher discussing trans medical consent. Axel was gracious in sharing his own personal story on navigating the negative impacts that health care systems have had on both his physical and mental wellbeing and he does this purely in the hope that no-one else must endure what he did. It’s evident that education and capacity building of health staff and community members is needed around trans health, which is why Caddyshack focus on hosting guests, who can share their stories in the spirit of ongoing change.
Revisiting these episodes has been so insightful, it’s a reminder that trans people have been here for all of time, but despite presence and growth, society still has a long way to go with breaking down health care barriers and overcoming stigma and discrimination.
We are honoured to work in this space and will keep advocating for change.
Trans Broken Arm Syndrome
One of the things that really stood out for us in our discussions around trans healthcare is Trans Broken Arm Syndrome. If you haven’t listened to our episode with Axel-Nathaniel Rose, we will break it down for you.
Trans Broken Arm Syndrome, is when a trans person has health or medical issues unrelated to their trans identity, but how this identity often has a negative impact on the care and treatment being provided. Sadly, discrimination continues to exist.
There are few instances where a person’s gender is critical knowledge to healthcare, but, if it doesn’t impact - don’t ask or don’t query.
The Evolution of Trans Healthcare
The sharing of information from our guests has varied from historical references to current day practices and offers a little insight as to what a perfect future in Trans Healthcare might look like. Like all things, it is ever evolving.
Maggie’s insight and sharing around the term Trans Healthcare as opposed to Gender Affirming Care was still a term they were getting used to using in 2023 and encouraging others to do the same. In similar ways we talk about pronouns, some people may think it’s a small thing, but actually using that correct language is so important and impactful. What we’re talking about here is basic respect.
Maggie helped us to understand this transition of language from gender affirming care to trans healthcare. With the term gender affirming care, people think of hormones and this language gives power to arguments of anti-trans groups. As Maggie says: health is a basic human right. If we say trans health, it implies that trans people want equal access to healthcare. We learnt that affirming is so much more than hormones and medical procedures, it’s also legal and social affirmations and indeed some individual’s journeys will not include medical affirmation at all.
If we didn’t have the opportunity to hear Maggie talk about trans health in this episode, we wouldn't have had the chance to expand our understanding and update our terminology and language. That is the great thing about On The Couch, and something we are all really proud of being able to create this space for continued learning.
Trans is an Identity
It's really powerful to revisit these conversations, it’s essentially a time capsule, seeing the work and growth of key social themes and topics evolve and for us here at Caddyshack to be a part of that change.
After hearing from such wonderful trans and trans healthcare workers over the last few years, this year we look through a slightly different lens and want to explore Drag is a performance, Trans is an identity with well-known local drag stars from the Illawarra: Cherry-Ripe, Roxee Horror and Lawrence of Australia.
This episode explores the impact of local drag culture and its intersectionality with trans allyship and sexual identities.
It’s not too late to register and join us for this impactful episode.
In continuing these conversations, empowering ourselves and others with accurate information we can make a difference to the lived experience of those in the trans community.
Next month we conclude our Behind The Couch mini-series by pulling together all the consent conversations from On The Couch, exploring consent in all its many forms.
Until next time
Peace, Love, & Protection