Hurt & feeling rejected - from the GSA I helped to start

So here is the email I am sending:

Hi Tammy, its Katelynn (formerly Kristen).

So I finally decided on a name, Katelynn Marie, I will be legally changing to this name in November, so I hope that when we talk you could please call me this.

And now for the reason for this email (and I apologize for its length, but I need to express how I’ve felt & been made to feel, whether unintentional or not). As of Monday, August 27th, I no longer want anything to do with the GSA, I do not feel it is going to be a safe or inclusive place for me at all.

At the end of April, Crystal and I completed the paperwork to start an LGBT group here on campus. I was very excited & was looking forward to creating a group that would be inclusive of everyone, and a place I could go on campus that I would feel comfortable in, a safe space. Both Crystal & I had talked briefly a couple of times before completing the paperwork about starting the group, and I was really excited to finally be getting things underway and to hopefully make a difference at the college for other students. At this point in April, I hadn’t even heard of Jaylene, nor known she even existed. I didn’t meet her until earlier this summer in your office and I was under the impression that she was certainly helping to organize the group with us.

After signing the paperwork (and, as I recall, being listed as the club president), I attempted to talk to Crystal a few times about the group, a couple times she responded, but said she wasn’t sure what was going on & to touch base at a meeting with you and her, and some times more, she didn’t respond at all to me. I tried asking about what I could do to help and received little direction. When we would meet in your office, or across the hall from your office, I would feel a bit of a disconnect, like maybe my ideas weren’t being taken seriously at all, but I told myself that I was imagining things and that as long as the group was successfully created and all inclusive to me as well, it didn’t matter.

The next time I felt as if I was not quite included or a part of anything was after the Facebook group page for the GSA was started and I was added, at the time, as also being an administrator to the page. I later found that I was removed as an administrator, although I had no idea for what reason I could have been removed. Again, I had a little voice in my head telling me something was wrong, but again, I ignored these feelings.

When the new GSA logo was rolled out on the Facebook page (and then later in the August 1st organizational meeting), I was dismayed to find that it did not include either bisexual or transgender symbols, thus showing simply male and female symbols with a rainbow flag behind them, I saw this logo and felt that it didn’t convey the openness of the group, but again, in an attempt to calm myself down and convince myself that nothing was wrong and that the group was still inclusive for everyone and that hopefully other students would be able to see past this when seeing the name and logo, I told myself I was a part of the group and tried not to feel like something was off or that I was being pushed away or that I was invisible.

At the last organizational meeting on August 1st, after I had taken the time to speak with a few musician friends about supporting the GSA with their bands and even talking to some local merchants (one of who said she was dealing with a Jaylene & didn’t know I was involved at all with the GSA, which again, was another warning bell in my head I chose to ignore), I sat in the meeting and tried to convey my efforts and ideas, but sitting at the end of the table with the others, I felt as if my ideas were not being taken as legitimate or valid, and it seemed as if they were easily dismissed. I wanted to speak up about how I felt, but I didn’t feel safe nor in the majority about how I felt. I also didn’t want to be the one lone voice with no one behind me to support my point of view and I was afraid to be seen as playing politics or trying to cause problems or start an argument. So I fell silent again & tried to pretend I was the one with the problem and that I needed to change how I thought and felt.

On last Monday, I saw the Observer article with a nice big picture of Jaylene and Crystal and an article about how the both of them were the cofounders of the GSA at Lambton. I was unbelievably hurt and felt crushed as well. Something I had so wanted to be a part of creating and I wasn’t even acknowledged at all. It finally hit home that everything I had felt over this summer and the progress that was made with the group and everything was true and that I was convincing myself that it wasn’t when it was. I had no acknowledgment whatsoever. I feel so incredibly invisible right now, dropping the T from LGBT to GSA, a logo that doesn’t acknowledge me unless people know what the rainbow flag means for each colour and everything else, and now this final thing. It’s like I don’t even f***ing exist or even matter. Apparently I’m not even worthy of being respected and being ASKED if I want my name included in the article.

I’ve considered talking with Crystal about how I feel but again, I have a hard time reaching her on Facebook and I’ve already spent the last four months having another lesbian ‘friend’ telling me that I am exactly the same as every other gay person and that I am going through everything she did when she came out as gay and she was even telling me to be myself in public long before I was ready or it was safe for me to. This ‘friend’ has also made me feel very invisible as a trans person for four months straight in an effort to be ‘supportive’ and its been very hard on me, so I’m not eager to try and approach Crystal only to go through that again. Since Crystal isn’t trans, she won’t understand anything from my point of view anyway, and I really need someone to see things from how I am seeing them. Having no understanding from her (though probably unintentional, at least I hope it is), would be too much to try and deal with.

I do not want anything to do with Crystal or this group now, I feel very hurt, marginalized and ostracized. Clearly nothing I have done or have wanted to do to help bring this group together has held ay worth at all. I will not and I do not now, feel that this group will be an emotionally safe place for me to go and talk about how I feel and I certainly don’t feel as if I can discuss any of the above in the group. I really feel as if it will turn into a HE said/she said situation, as I will not be seen as my true gender by anyone (I feel like I never have been now) and because most people will look at me as a crossdresser (the media being largely responsible for portraying trans people in a poor manner with no education given to people about us; people think we are all either porn stars or perverts as it is, or just generally untrustworthy) no one will stand up for me, or see my side of things, I will end up being one lone crossdresser with a grudge or something, demanding special treatment, so no one will believe me; I’ll be ignored or worse I feel , if I try to speak up, so I don’t want to put myself through that. I’ve already almost killed myself twice this summer and this group was supposed to be a positive thing for myself and for all other students and instead it ended up being another painful thing for me. I also have no plans to attend any GSA events as well, as I do not want to put myself in public social situations where I will be made to stand out in front of not only GSA members, but everyone else/ Why would I want to be a part of a group or event that makes me feel unsafe physically as well?

I know that removing myself from the group may be a copout to you, but I cannot deal with feeling like this again at the hands of other people, whether unintentional or not. I am already going to a PFLAG meeting where all of the members there give struggling gay members advice and support and answers that take 20 min to convey, while all I get stuck with is ‘awww, hang in there, it will get better one day,’ after I’ve poured my heart out. I can’t be in another of these groups. I’ve spent since last June looking for just one other person like myself in Sarnia to help, or to at least be supportive and all I managed to do is find two people who want me to walk them through and hold their hands and do everything for them to help them transition, one of them being younger than myself and having Asperger’s. I feel frequently like I am being suffocated some nights when I am bombarded with emails, texts and Facebook messages (of which on Facebook I’m also supporting three other people who want to transition and want me to give them all the answers I don’t even have). Everyone seems to lean on me to be supportive for them constantly, but no one is ever there when I need someone, as they are too busy or have their own lives and concerns to cope with. I feel like I’m drowning in the middle of the ocean while someone on the continent shoreline is trying to throw a life preserver to me, I just not getting any help and I can’t continue to be in situations where I give and give but receive nothing in the way of support or understanding.

I am very sorry for such a long email, but I felt I needed to get this all off of my chest, and finally speak up for how I feel and how I am not feeling like I was ever a part of anything. To be honest, in retrospect, it seems as if all I was good for was to sign my name so that Crystal could start her GSA. Again, I don’t presume to think anything was intentionally done to make me feel unwelcome, but either intentionally or unintentionally, the result is the same - I do not feel like I was ever included or wanted as a part of this endeavour and I certainly feel that any other bisexual or transgender students that are looking for a safe place to come out will see the logo or hear the club name and feel that it is truly inclusive and safe for EVERYONE.



Katelynn (c0378903)

I would also like to ask you to pass along my contact information to a potential guest to speak to the GSA, Crustal spoke of having a fully transitioned woman come to speak to the group. My cell is ###-###-#### and my email address is still -----------. I also encourage you to be honest with her about my reasons for not wanting to be a part of the GSA, although if you choose not to share my feelings or even this email with her, I would sort of understand.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated...

 

This letter fell on deaf ears & Im pissed about how Ive been, what feels to me as, dismissed & avoided & ingnored - again.

So, due to my exclusion as a trans person (the ONLY trans person) in this GSA I helped to start (but have been even denied acknowledgement as being one of the founders of), I emailed the club faculty advisor today the above letter to advise of my concerns about the inequality & ignorance & exclusion of not only trans people but bisexual people as well within this so-called open group. I was on campus today to deal with other issues related to starting school & stopped in at the advisor's office to discuss my concerns regarding the exclusivity & lack of outward openness towards ALL LGBT students. What happened 2 hours ago was a f***ing slap in the face. The advisor read my email & then literally walked me down to the counselling office to discuss my emotional issues I recounted in my email (which I went over as an illustration of WHY I needed an open & emotionally safe place on campus right now), as well as having told her I had dealt with the previous week WITH someone in the counselling office. She even refused to listen to my concerns or discuss my email AS we walked down one floor to the office, EVEN AFTER I flat out told her that what she was doing was making me feel as if my concerns were being ignored or passed to someone else to deal with. So enough with the nice Ms Transgirl. I AM PISSED OFF, If I need to, I will deal with the dean on this, I was f***ing excluded from an open group & not even made to feel as if I existed before the first meeting was even held. Even the counsellor I spoke with in the counselling office today feels that I have been ignored & made to feel as if I do not exist. I will attempt one more time to speak the faculty advisor in person & after that, Im going to the dean if Im feeling like Im not being heard...

 

I discussed this email and the way Ive been basically handled by the group with the counsellor today - and the counsellor was on my side of the issue, having actually known the person I started this group with & having told me she spent her time avoiding that person as much as possible. This email was already forwarded to the dean, but I got the sense that the faculty advisor just did not want to be involved in any way with dealing with this at all, it felt like she was trying to pass everything on to anyone else she could. As for how Im dealing with this moving forward, I plan to take my counsellor's advice and deal with this as a political issue and remove the emotion from the issue. I will attempt to calmly discuss this again with the faculty advisor however, if I am ignored or she refuses to handle the issues altogether, I am speaking with the dean in the same, for lack of a better way of saying it, clinical & emotionless, way. If necessary, I will get my local MPP (Member of Provinical Parliament) involved, as the law was amended in June in Ontario to protect trans people from discrimination. I am not going to let this go....

And this email was actually written a WEEK after the incident that caused me to no longer remain silent last week. So I gave myself as much time as I could to calm down but, understandably, it is hard to seperate emotion from all of this for me since, from my point of view anyway, I am being institutionally discriminated against, so Im doing the best that I can to keep it together...

 

Well, the reason I havent spoken up sooner is A I kept trying to convince myself I was seeing something that wasnt there when it actually was and B I really didnt feel as if I could speak up, I was one person & didnt feel that I would be listened to. I do not want to have anything to do with this group until, at the very least, my concerns have been acknowledged and addressed. My biggest fear about walking into a meeting right now, especially the FIRST meeting, is that I will be seen as a 'tranny demanding special treatment' when all I want is recognition of my existence within the group and a feeling like I have a voice that is actually being heard & respected. As for the speaker, I think having a transwoman speak to everyone comes off to me as less of an attempt to try & educate on trans issues and more of a 'this is the first, easiest and most convenient thing we can start doing with the group.' When I listened to plans being made (bc no one else really got a say on what was being planned in an extensive way), it was more like 'this is what I want to do to have someone speak to us'. I think she added this speaker as a way to come off as being inclusive on the surface to be honest...