Speaker 1: Hey, girlfriends, I just wanted to give you a heads
Speaker 1: up that this episode includes conversations about transphobia and descriptions
Speaker 1: of state violence against trans people. There's also some pretty
Speaker 1: graphic explanations of some surgical procedures if you're feeling squeamish
Speaker 1: about that kind of thing, and as per usual, we'll
Speaker 1: be swearing. If you do listen, you'll hear the incredible
Speaker 1: story of how two trans women formed a clinic in
Speaker 1: a tractor shed to help others and pay their rent.
Speaker 1: If you don't, though, no worries. There's plenty more episodes
Speaker 1: for you to listen to. It's morning in Philadelphia, USA,
Speaker 1: sometime in the early noughties. Ailesh and Willow are getting
Speaker 1: ready for something big.
Speaker 2: Well, it was like, all right, where we doing this?
Speaker 2: I'm like my Bedroom's like, we are not doing this
Speaker 2: in your bedroom?
Speaker 3: And I'm like why not.
Speaker 2: She's like, because I need to position myself between your legs.
Speaker 2: There's no place for me to do that in your bedroom.
Speaker 2: We're doing in the requining chair.
Speaker 1: Ailesh and Willow are sister. They weren't born as sisters,
Speaker 1: but they've chosen each other. Alice lives with another member
Speaker 1: of her queer family. Jenny, who she calls her adoptive
Speaker 1: trans mum, and Jenny has a favorite chair.
Speaker 2: She loves this reclining chair. She sits in this reclining
Speaker 2: chair all the time.
Speaker 1: That's the reclining chair in question. It's situated in their
Speaker 1: mother's living room, which is notably not sterile. And this
Speaker 1: matters because what the sisters are about to do is
Speaker 1: an orchaeectomy, a surgery to remove Ailicia's testicles. Yes, girlfriends,
Speaker 1: we're going there, so strap in. It's about to get
Speaker 1: intense and graphic.
Speaker 2: So we create a sterile feel. We run the pressure
Speaker 2: cooker for the artocleave.
Speaker 1: An autoclave is basically a steam cleaner on steroids. And
Speaker 1: the pressure cooker, well, that's the thing you Nan uses
Speaker 1: to cook her beef stew. But what is that's actually
Speaker 1: important to know is that Willow is a recent medical
Speaker 1: graduate and she's got ileash juiced up on anesthetics. Thank god,
Speaker 1: legs akimbo in this treasured reclining chair.
Speaker 2: I'm like lying there in pain because it's a weird feeling.
Speaker 2: She's about halfway through and then they hear, oh shit,
Speaker 2: Manny did of like what she's like? Hold on a second,
Speaker 2: the Electrocaudrey pen's dead.
Speaker 1: That's a medical device that's used to stop bleeding, and
Speaker 1: so it's really the last thing that should stop working.
Speaker 3: Oh no, this gets so much worse, so much worse.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. Ailesh is right. This surgery does not go
Speaker 1: well at all, but it would be the first of many.
Speaker 1: Eilitia and Willow would go on to help other trans
Speaker 1: women get the medical care they desperately needed, and they'd
Speaker 1: do it not from their mother's living room in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: but from a remote tractor shed in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: This shed would become the headquarters of the Trans Health
Speaker 1: Initiative and the stuff of legend. I'm Annisonfield and from
Speaker 1: the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts. This is the
Speaker 1: Girlfriend's Spotlight, where we tell stories of women women today.
Speaker 1: Aileish runs the ball Barn. Before we get into what
Speaker 1: happened during Aleish's surgery about to go very wrong, let's
Speaker 1: wind back to the early nineties. Aleish Neel Lonigan was
Speaker 1: a punk running with a right girl, and when she
Speaker 1: came out as trans, the reaction was mixed.
Speaker 2: Early nineties transition was difficult. Some of them were assholes,
Speaker 2: some of them weren't. Some of the people in my
Speaker 2: family did not necessarily approve, and I was kicked out
Speaker 2: of the house, but nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: She needed to find a new crew and a new home.
Speaker 1: But this was before social media existed in instead were
Speaker 1: mailing lists on ancient text messaging systems, and when she
Speaker 1: was around twenty, I least got on one for trans
Speaker 1: kids run by a woman named Jenny.
Speaker 2: You know, we used to joke that Jenny knew all
Speaker 2: the trans kits on the internet. We were all on
Speaker 2: her mailing list. And the reason why she did it
Speaker 2: was because, you know, when she was coming up, there
Speaker 2: were just no one there for her. She had transitioned
Speaker 2: in like the early eighties, so she wanted to make
Speaker 2: sure that kids didn't have to go through the same
Speaker 2: pain that she went through.
Speaker 1: How does that end up evolving into a real in
Speaker 1: person relationship.
Speaker 2: Went and called Jenny up and like, Jenny kicked out
Speaker 2: of the house, and she's like, fine, you can sleep
Speaker 2: on my sofa, but only for like a.
Speaker 3: Couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jenny, I slept on her sofa and I actually
Speaker 2: started paying bills because I got a job on this
Speaker 2: immediately and she's like, fine, you can stay.
Speaker 1: Oh so it kind of became like a mutual aid.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was absolutely mutual aid. She was older,
Speaker 2: she had health problems, so you know, I would cook
Speaker 2: and clean and stuff for her, and she kind of
Speaker 2: became my adopted trans bom.
Speaker 1: When I started down what was a very long road
Speaker 1: to get official gender affirming healthcare, Jenny knew what shortcuts
Speaker 1: to take.
Speaker 2: I called up Jenny and she's like, there's a doctor
Speaker 2: in South Philadelphia just go to and every month I
Speaker 2: would go pay I think it was forty dollars to
Speaker 2: go get an injection. Like people would go on what's
Speaker 2: called Meximone trips where a friend of theirs would go
Speaker 2: to Mexico for a holiday, come back with it entire
Speaker 2: suitcase file estrogen because you could get it over the
Speaker 2: counter there. Yay, So how was the process? You know,
Speaker 2: schneaky enter Willow.
Speaker 1: We're not using her real name, by the way, for
Speaker 1: safety reasons, but she was that DIY living room surgeon.
Speaker 1: She was also one of Jenny's trans kids.
Speaker 2: So she had just graduated from medical school and was
Speaker 2: in her internship. She was going to come visit Jenny
Speaker 2: and I was walking home and there's this piece of
Speaker 2: shit camaro out front. God, she was notorious for buying
Speaker 2: shit cards. I'm like, how the hell's that thing even
Speaker 2: on the road? Walk into the house and there's Willow
Speaker 2: and then we just became friends.
Speaker 1: Alicia just got laid off as a software developer. This
Speaker 1: was way before big tech and the dot com bubble
Speaker 1: had just burst.
Speaker 2: I had a whole lot of time, and I had
Speaker 2: fuck all the day. I'd been on eight years of
Speaker 2: spirital aptom, which is it reduces the amount of testosterone
Speaker 2: that's up ticked into your body. I hated being on
Speaker 2: that drug.
Speaker 1: Was it uncomfortable to be on the drug?
Speaker 2: You have to peek constantly, and I just wanted off
Speaker 2: of it right And I'm like, hey, Willo, got a
Speaker 2: question for you. So orchaectomies how hard are orchaectomies? And
Speaker 2: orchaectomies are removal of the testicles. Now, there's two ways
Speaker 2: that they do this. One is through the belly and
Speaker 2: that is not something that's normally done, and the other,
Speaker 2: much more common, is through the scirtle sack. And Willow's like,
Speaker 2: it's not that hard. I'm just like, have you ever
Speaker 2: done one?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Would y'all like to look, I'll buy all the supplies.
Speaker 2: Everything will be grand. And she's like, let me think
Speaker 2: about it. She gets back to me like a week later.
Speaker 2: She shows up and comes out with like a two
Speaker 2: or three page photocopy, Like what's that? And she's like,
Speaker 2: how to do the damn thing. I'm like, okay, So
Speaker 2: we go in the next morning, we wake up early.
Speaker 2: Now I'm living in Jenny's house. Jenny knows that we're
Speaker 2: going to do this. She's like, you're gonna screw yourself up. God,
Speaker 2: we granted now hold my beer.
Speaker 1: You know what they say, Mum is always right because
Speaker 1: we know exactly how this goes down. Alice in Jenny's
Speaker 1: recliner chair and Willow with the Electrocautrey pen in hand
Speaker 1: that's just stopped working.
Speaker 2: She's like, okay, so we have a few choices here.
Speaker 2: I can stitch you up, bring you to the hospital,
Speaker 2: and you know they'll do whatever. I can stitch you up,
Speaker 2: and we'll come back at this another day, or I
Speaker 2: can just keep going.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, hey, I'm not going through this again.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no, no no no no.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, if we do, you have to be
Speaker 2: real careful, and I'm like, we'll do so she continues
Speaker 2: the surgery. Now, the best part of the story was
Speaker 2: after the surgery, we had all cleaned up and Jenny
Speaker 2: she comes downstairs and she's hungry. Now, one of the
Speaker 2: things about these surgeries is there's leftovers. Oh what do
Speaker 2: you do with the leftovers?
Speaker 1: Probably leaves them on her recliner chair.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I stuck them in a zip black bag because I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I'm gonna make a looseight block out of fit
Speaker 2: a paperweight that's gonna be hysterical. So I stuck them
Speaker 2: in the freezer. Jenny walks down, She's like, are you okay,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm ground. Jenny walks over to the
Speaker 2: freezer and she's like, there's any of the taketos left?
Speaker 2: And she pulls out the zip wok bag and she's
Speaker 2: looking at her. She's like, what is this some of
Speaker 2: your hippie food? And I'm like, Jenny, put those back
Speaker 2: and she looks at him and she screams and drops
Speaker 2: him on the floor, storms over to a reclining chair,
Speaker 2: flops herself in it, and she's like, you better have.
Speaker 3: Cleaned up your room.
Speaker 2: After this, Will is like out the door and she
Speaker 2: just kind of snorts and it just glare at her.
Speaker 2: Jennie's like, what, I just looked at her reclining chair,
Speaker 2: and She's like, for fuck's sake, I will never be
Speaker 2: able to eat anything out of the freezer. And I
Speaker 2: don't even want to be sitting in.
Speaker 3: This chair now. And I'm like, I.
Speaker 2: Love you, Please don't murder me.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you really were her child?
Speaker 3: Oh god? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, most orchiectomies are done for cis men who have
Speaker 2: testicular cancer. Right, So the way they teach you how
Speaker 2: to do the bandage is you wrap the scrotle sack
Speaker 2: around the penis. Problem, if you were a trans woman
Speaker 2: who's been on estrogen for a certain amount of time,
Speaker 2: that is not going to work. So did the wrapping
Speaker 2: the way that the book said, and like the next day,
Speaker 2: the wrapping just falls apart.
Speaker 1: Next thing, a leash knows she's got the mother of
Speaker 1: all infections, so she books it to the emergency room
Speaker 1: in desperate need of some official medical assistance.
Speaker 2: There's this thing that emergency departments will sometimes do, which
Speaker 2: is called gomer get out of my emergency room.
Speaker 1: The staff basically tell Eileish to get lost.
Speaker 2: The triage nurse was like, yeah, this is obviously drug
Speaker 2: seeking behavior. And I'm like penicillin. I don't even care
Speaker 2: if you give me painkillers all I want or antibiotics.
Speaker 2: I obviously have an infection. And like security guard pushed
Speaker 2: me out of there.
Speaker 1: They didn't even kind of look.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, my god. About four days later,
Speaker 2: I couldn't sit up. So Jenny was like, you were
Speaker 2: going to the hospital. Put on some clothes. I couldn't
Speaker 2: get jeans on. She had brought me this, like, you know,
Speaker 2: the nineties flowing hippie skirts, So I put one of
Speaker 2: those on. She gets me in her car, drives me
Speaker 2: in an emergency room. Like the nurse is asking me,
Speaker 2: when was the last time you had your period?
Speaker 3: And I'm like I've never had one.
Speaker 2: She's like why, and I just went lip the skirt
Speaker 2: up and she just looks and she's like, okay, percocet
Speaker 2: or morphine and I'm like morphine please. And they had
Speaker 2: to go and they had to debreed the wound and
Speaker 2: clean everything out and it was not pleasant.
Speaker 3: But I was in there for seventies. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the doctor was like, yeah, I had you
Speaker 2: come in later, you would have died.
Speaker 1: It's wild. And then on like a personal level, you
Speaker 1: weren't coming out of that emergency room in deep, deep pain,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And you weren't getting the care, like the
Speaker 1: basic love and humanity that should be awarded to anybody
Speaker 1: who goes into one of these institutions.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to love our humanity. I wanted fucking antibiotics.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to die. And the reality is is
Speaker 2: at that hospital, because of how they treated me in
Speaker 2: the emergency ram, I was very reluctant to go the
Speaker 2: second time. I almost died because of that. And this
Speaker 2: is not abnormal. It's this thing that trans folks have
Speaker 2: been dealing with for years. There has been, for as
Speaker 2: long as I've been alive, a reluctance for trans people
Speaker 2: to trust the medical profession, because the fact is a
Speaker 2: medical profession abuses us. They abuse us through their standards
Speaker 2: of care, by treating us like children, by assuming that
Speaker 2: we need their psychosexual history bullshit in order to get
Speaker 2: the medical stuff we need in order to delve our lives.
Speaker 1: It was common in the nineties and still today for
Speaker 1: trans people to face invasive questions around things like their
Speaker 1: sexual experiences to even get evaluated for healthcare.
Speaker 2: And then even after that, they're still treating you like crap.
Speaker 2: And this is not unusual for any person who's either
Speaker 2: a sexual minority a racial minority, because doctors are not
Speaker 2: immune from society.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Luckily, I least did manage to access the treatment she
Speaker 1: needed before it was too.
Speaker 2: Late, and that was that I had to have the
Speaker 2: wound packed for two months. It was not pleasant, and
Speaker 2: you know, we went well with and learn I survived osbrand.
Speaker 1: But that experience is yet another confirmation that as a
Speaker 1: trans woman, there are no guarantees that medical institutions will
Speaker 1: keep you safe.
Speaker 2: I have literally had Willow give me stitches before I
Speaker 2: would go to a doctor again.
Speaker 1: Willow herself is actually about to start a residency to
Speaker 1: become a abortion doctor, and she hears some stories about
Speaker 1: a group of women in late sixties early seventies Chicago
Speaker 1: they called the Jaine Collective.
Speaker 2: And what they did was they provided abortions for people
Speaker 2: who needed it. They did this knowing full well that
Speaker 2: abortion was illegal and they had to be real sneaky
Speaker 2: about it. And Willow's like, I got an idea, these
Speaker 2: people are cool as shit.
Speaker 3: We should do something like that for transfers.
Speaker 1: After the break, Willow and aile do do something like
Speaker 1: that for trans folks.
Speaker 4: Got got you?
Speaker 1: After that faithful archaectomy, Willow and Eileish both moved to
Speaker 1: the Civic Northwest. Willow's new abortion residency is based out there,
Speaker 1: and Aileash is following a then girlfriend who's craving the
Speaker 1: quiet life. It's a beautiful place. Imagine rugged coastlines, lush,
Speaker 1: tall forests, and towering mountains. If you've ever watched the
Speaker 1: Twilight movies, you kind of know the landscape more timber
Speaker 1: than tech.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's not a lot of programmer jobs out here.
Speaker 3: If I wanted to go be a logger, I could
Speaker 3: do that, But I really don't want to go be
Speaker 3: a locker. So what am I going to do here?
Speaker 2: I'm like outside talking to Willow one day and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, you know, we're running out of money, and
Speaker 2: Willa was like, well, do you think you can do electrolysis?
Speaker 2: Electrolysis is the all way that we used to remove hair.
Speaker 1: Electrolysis uses a small electric current to permanently destroy hair follicles.
Speaker 1: It can take anywhere between fifty to five hundred hours
Speaker 1: of treatment to get the job done. That's base a
Speaker 1: full time job for i Leash.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'm sure I could figure it out,
Speaker 2: and she's like, all right, here's what I'll do. I'm
Speaker 2: going to buy you in electrial'sis machine practice on yourself.
Speaker 2: What we can do is a constarative clinical will offer
Speaker 2: orchaectomies for a low cost, and when folks come for
Speaker 2: an archaeactomy, they can stay here and you can do
Speaker 2: legal electro on them.
Speaker 1: All power to them. They're diving headfirst into permanent hair
Speaker 1: removal and archaectomies, which are surgeries to remove testicles. That's
Speaker 1: two major healthcare options that they can offer their community.
Speaker 1: But trans people are one of the communities in the
Speaker 1: US who are most likely to experience discrimination in housing
Speaker 1: and employment. Many simply can't afford the health care that
Speaker 1: they need, and especially back then, when an archaectomy at
Speaker 1: a regular clinic was about two five hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: a forty five minute procedure. What Ileish and Willow want
Speaker 1: to do is provide these operations on the cheap, charging
Speaker 1: on a sliding scale from zero to five hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which is a big deal.
Speaker 2: I'm like, that actually doesn't sound like a bad idea,
Speaker 2: and she was like, well, you know, I figured out
Speaker 2: the problems with my or character. Mean kind of what
Speaker 2: we did wrong first is, you know, instead of doing
Speaker 2: that really screwed up wrapping situation, we do a compression
Speaker 2: bandage against the body, and second we put in dreams. Third,
Speaker 2: we give people prophylactic antibiotics, which.
Speaker 3: Is like the smart thing to do.
Speaker 2: And you know, they got checkups twice during their stay,
Speaker 2: so they had to stay for seven days just in
Speaker 2: the area and Willa will go and check up on
Speaker 2: them and change bandages and stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm like, that sounds fine.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through the process of setting up
Speaker 1: the clinic and building it?
Speaker 2: So we had no idea where we were going to
Speaker 2: build a damn thing. We had no idea. So we
Speaker 2: are living in a rented farmhouse in the middle of
Speaker 2: the Olympics in Washington State, on a two and fifty
Speaker 2: six acre farm that the owner still lives on the farm,
Speaker 2: His son still lives on the farm. So we're kind
Speaker 2: of doing things right underneath our landlord's nose. And we're like, okay,
Speaker 2: where are we going to build this? And will It
Speaker 2: was like, well, there's this tractor shed that you have now.
Speaker 2: Our tractor shed, for those who don't know, is a
Speaker 2: three sided building with a roof, and it's where you
Speaker 2: park tractors and farm implements. So the week before our
Speaker 2: first searchery, we're just banging this out. I learned how
Speaker 2: to tile.
Speaker 3: That week.
Speaker 2: Willow had been to go on eBay and find old
Speaker 2: medical equipment, so like this electric cautery from the eighties
Speaker 2: that's like insanely huge but still works. We had an
Speaker 2: auto cliff, an entire procedure table. It was swang, you know.
Speaker 2: It was not like you know, shady shady done in
Speaker 2: a hotel room. This was pretty swang.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when you say a tractor shed, I'm picturing
Speaker 1: something really kind of farmyard animals around you.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: I know the guy who moved in after me, and
Speaker 2: he used it as his office, and I guess now
Speaker 2: it's used as an FDA chicken slaughtering room. Oh god,
Speaker 2: a DA certified chicken slaughtering room, which I find his sterical.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere, but
Speaker 1: I just can't here.
Speaker 2: Is it absolutely a joke in there, and I'll not
Speaker 2: make it, but I will allow so many other people
Speaker 2: to make it.
Speaker 1: After only a week of tractor shared renovations, the trans
Speaker 1: Health Initiative is ready for its first surgery.
Speaker 2: Our first patient was a friend of mine. You know,
Speaker 2: everything went perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: The word spreads fast, and they opened their doors to
Speaker 1: more patients.
Speaker 2: But cautiously, I was probably a little bit more paranoid
Speaker 2: than I really needed to be. But you know, we
Speaker 2: were doing this without medical insurance because it wasn't a requirement,
Speaker 2: and honestly, we couldn't afford it without business license, which
Speaker 2: we didn't need because we made less than fourteen thousand
Speaker 2: a year. So we were doing this like real under
Speaker 2: the radar, real quiet, right under everyone's.
Speaker 1: Says, yes, the clinics under the radar, And it started
Speaker 1: off as a bit of a DIY mission. But the
Speaker 1: whole thing is actually totally above board.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely perfectly legal. You know, I am following
Speaker 2: all the guidelines set upon me by the Border Health
Speaker 2: and the laws of that.
Speaker 1: See. So if I were a patient and I've just arrived,
Speaker 1: can you kind of take me through what's happening to me?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: So we're actually going to start earlier. You would email
Speaker 2: me and I would kind of email you back, and
Speaker 2: I kind of do a sniff test because there were
Speaker 2: some people who were not trans women asking for this.
Speaker 2: I had one guy he was like, I have cheated
Speaker 2: with my brother's wife and he will not trust me
Speaker 2: again unless I am castrated.
Speaker 3: If you do not do this, I will do this
Speaker 3: to myself.
Speaker 2: And like, look, you know, I'm all for body autonomy,
Speaker 2: but that's not what I'm set up for. Man, I
Speaker 2: can't help you. And then I would ask you for
Speaker 2: a letter from a therapist. Then I would call up
Speaker 2: Willow and say, okay, I got a patient in when
Speaker 2: are you free, And she'd look at her calendar give
Speaker 2: me a free date, and I'm like, okay, you were
Speaker 2: to show up at this date here, wear comfortable shoes
Speaker 2: because it's the gravel driveway and it's in the middle
Speaker 2: of the Oregon Coast range.
Speaker 3: It rains a lot.
Speaker 2: I had someone show up in stilettos and I was like, oh, honey,
Speaker 2: wrong footwear.
Speaker 1: I kind of love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would happen is you show up will It
Speaker 2: would give you a quick medical examination. She would talk
Speaker 2: to you and go you know, with the surgery entails,
Speaker 2: you know, the risks of it, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: You know, it was kind of amazing because you see
Speaker 2: trans women at their most vulnerable and they're most scared
Speaker 2: and they're most empowered. At the same time. We would say, okay,
Speaker 2: here's script for vicoin.
Speaker 1: That's a drug used to treat moderate to severe pain.
Speaker 3: And then here's script for marx oficillin.
Speaker 1: That's a penicillin antibotic for the aftermath.
Speaker 2: You're going to go into town and you're going to
Speaker 2: bring that all back and you're going to take the
Speaker 2: viking in front of us. They'd get back, they'd take
Speaker 2: it in front of us, and we'd say okay, trying
Speaker 2: to get undressed, and we'd start the procedure. And my
Speaker 2: job during the procedure was to hold your hand and
Speaker 2: tell you very long stories in a very very radio
Speaker 2: announcer voice, and sometimes I would tell jokes. They would
Speaker 2: be very long, very boring jokes. My repertoire jokes is
Speaker 2: amazing because I had to talk like this and make
Speaker 2: sure that you were nice and calm and not paying
Speaker 2: attention to the fact that both your testicles were being
Speaker 2: removed through a small hole in your scrotum.
Speaker 1: Okay, give me an example. I'm a patient.
Speaker 2: Okay, already, So mushroom walks into a bar and says, hey, bartender,
Speaker 2: I'd like to drink. The bartender looks at the mushroom
Speaker 2: and says, no, get out of here. We don't serve
Speaker 2: your kind. The mushroom goes, hey, why not, I'm a
Speaker 2: fun guy. Like These were not good jokes. They were
Speaker 2: not designed to be good. They were designed to keep
Speaker 2: your attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it would, and your voice is very soothing.
Speaker 2: Oh I had to learn the soothing waste because again,
Speaker 2: things being pulled through parts of your body that aren't
Speaker 2: generally supposed to be pulled through.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you need to be soothed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're feeling it. And then when we hit the electrocuttery,
Speaker 2: you're smelling it too. Oh no, yeah no, and that
Speaker 2: is not necessarily good smell. Something's cooking bodily, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Alicia and Willow had certainly come a long way from
Speaker 1: their disastrous first archaectomy. They're doing good, clean medical work.
Speaker 3: Zero infections, zero infections.
Speaker 1: There you go. Were they the authorities interested in what
Speaker 1: you guys were doing with the clinic.
Speaker 2: They weren't at first. Now what had happened was said
Speaker 2: woman who showed up in the stilettos.
Speaker 3: Went back to.
Speaker 2: Her doctor, and her doctor was examining her and says, oh,
Speaker 2: you've gotten richiect to me. She's like yes, And he said,
Speaker 2: where'd you get that? It's very nice work, and she said,
Speaker 2: up a logging road in a barn with two trans
Speaker 2: women out wall.
Speaker 3: Technically correct.
Speaker 2: When a physician hears this, what he's going to do
Speaker 2: is he's going to call the board of health. And
Speaker 2: i'd geese and the gee start right cracking away. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what the hell's going on? Because that sounds like someone's
Speaker 2: coming up to drive. And I look out and there's
Speaker 2: a blue Ford Taurus. Now, for your listeners in the
Speaker 2: eight nineties early two thousands, if you see up blue
Speaker 2: or black or ground Ford taurusts, that's a cop car.
Speaker 3: That is a government car. So I went, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: And then I see this kind of gouty older woman
Speaker 2: get out of the car in this tall, skinny bean
Speaker 2: pole of a man and they're in they're kind of
Speaker 2: frumpled government clothes, and I'm like that is not FBI.
Speaker 2: Those are not cops. They are not dressed detectives, that
Speaker 2: is dressed like bureaucrat. And I come out to the
Speaker 2: porch and I go, can I help you? And they go,
Speaker 2: we're looking for Willow. I'm like, why are you looking
Speaker 2: for Willow? She's like, we're here to examine the clinic.
Speaker 1: After the break, the fate of the clinic hangs in
Speaker 1: the balance between the Board of Health and a potentially
Speaker 1: incriminating plastic cup filled with balls.
Speaker 2: Got you, you got you?
Speaker 1: The Board of Health has just arrived on Ailsha's doorstep.
Speaker 2: Go back into the house and a page Willow nine
Speaker 2: one one. She's like, what you just got me out
Speaker 2: of something at work that I need to be in.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, the Board of Health here and
Speaker 2: they would like to examine the clinic. She's like really,
Speaker 2: And I'm like yeah, really, and Willi says, all right,
Speaker 2: just show them the place.
Speaker 1: The night before it had rained something fierce. It was
Speaker 1: muddy and slippery, so Alicia and Willow had to carry
Speaker 1: their patient into the house to recover. She was a
Speaker 1: bit of a lightweight and was passed out on vicodin.
Speaker 1: Some of the cleanup could surely wait until the next
Speaker 1: morning when the Board of Health had come knocking.
Speaker 2: So I go out and I'm like, follow me, wipe
Speaker 2: your feet on the mat. Do not track mud into
Speaker 2: my clinic. So I wipe my feet. I go into
Speaker 2: the clinic. They walk in muddy feet. Okay, this is
Speaker 2: bureaucrass trying to show in my place.
Speaker 3: I get it. I get it. So I walk in.
Speaker 2: They're like, where do you keep the narcotics? And I'm like,
Speaker 2: what narcotics? You use narcotics for this and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we do. And what happens is they get a script
Speaker 2: and they go into town and then they take in furnaces. Well,
Speaker 2: where you keep the script? We don't. The doctor brings
Speaker 2: script bad with her takes it away. Autoclave logs are here.
Speaker 2: These are my autoclave batch test strip numbers. Here you
Speaker 2: go and they're like business license and I'm like, we
Speaker 2: don't make more than fourteen thousand a year, but I
Speaker 2: also do electrolysis. There's a business license.
Speaker 1: Everything they challenge her on a leash has the perfect
Speaker 1: answer to.
Speaker 2: They have me kind of backed up into the room
Speaker 2: and like all the way in the back was the
Speaker 2: cattery machine. And I looked to my right and I
Speaker 2: looked down and there's a specimen cup. Oh remember when
Speaker 2: I said this surgery has remains well whiteweight from the
Speaker 2: night before one to keep her remains And I'm like great, and.
Speaker 3: Then she's like, but I need help into that.
Speaker 2: So I helped her and I forgot the damn remains
Speaker 2: and they're behind the electro cottery and I'm like fuck.
Speaker 2: So government bureaucrats generally don't like dealing with us, and
Speaker 2: if you're trying to get them to go away, the
Speaker 2: easiest way to do is to raise your voice and
Speaker 2: say the word trans very loudly. I just started saying, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys, I wouldn't be doing this if the Board
Speaker 2: of Health actually treated trans folks fairly. And they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: they start shuttering, that's the wrong department, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't care if it's the wrong department. You guys
Speaker 2: are in my surgery for no apparent reason whatsoever. You've
Speaker 2: tracked mudd In on the floor. You're giving me a
Speaker 2: bunch of grief, and like, you know, what, are you
Speaker 2: guys going to start doing trans stuff fairly? In the
Speaker 2: trans trans trans transtrands, and they got really uncomfortable looking,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, go away, go away, go away. You
Speaker 2: were not going to look behind the autoclaves. You were
Speaker 2: not going to see the specimen cup with testicles in it.
Speaker 2: So they didn't say it, Thank Christ, and they went away.
Speaker 2: And I grabbed the testicles and then go and I
Speaker 2: hand it to lightweight and I'm like, here, you forgot something.
Speaker 2: So months later they ding us on one thing. They said, yes,
Speaker 2: the clinic was all perfectly legal, except there was mud
Speaker 2: on the floor of the surgery the cheek.
Speaker 1: Even when the authorities were actively looking for mistakes, they
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything apart from the mud they dragged in themselves.
Speaker 1: The clinic was that professional and safe, and so Alisha
Speaker 1: and Willow are able to carry on in that converted
Speaker 1: tract to Bonn, providing healthcare to trans women from all
Speaker 1: over the country. What did you enjoy most about this
Speaker 1: whole clinic adventure.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the look in the eyes of other trans
Speaker 2: women when they realized that there were no CIS folks involved,
Speaker 2: no trans masks involved, no one but other trans women involved,
Speaker 2: and that they could go and do this or something
Speaker 2: like this look I'm an Irish American kid from Jersey.
Speaker 2: Willows trashy and pickup driving, and if we can do
Speaker 2: this shit, Jesus kids, you know, go get yourself a
Speaker 2: little bit of education and trust me, you're going to
Speaker 2: be grand. Just don't be afraid, right, And that's the thing,
Speaker 2: like I think a lot of times trans women, especially
Speaker 2: we're afraid to kind of do things because if we
Speaker 2: get in trouble, we're fucked.
Speaker 1: How many of these surgeries did you guys?
Speaker 2: Do?
Speaker 3: I think it was around fourteen?
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing. The clinic closed its doors after eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Willow and I leash were burnt out, juggling multiple jobs
Speaker 1: and just needed a change.
Speaker 2: Doing trans health courage wonderful, but it's also kind of
Speaker 2: a drag. Especially as transperson. You can't emotionally distance yourself
Speaker 2: from that. After the clinic, we told no one for
Speaker 2: twenty years.
Speaker 3: Why you know.
Speaker 2: I'd love to say that we've started the clinic cup
Speaker 2: for noble reasons, but the reality is that I was
Speaker 2: poor and Willow wanted to help, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: here's a way to actually be able to pay my
Speaker 2: rent and afford my box of Vannies. Mac and cheese
Speaker 2: that eat once a day, and you know, be able
Speaker 2: to actually do something for folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean affording your box of Annie's mac and cheese.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's super important. But also I mean you were
Speaker 1: helping people, weren't you. It's what you did was make
Speaker 1: care accessible.
Speaker 2: I can never like focusing on that because I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have complex feels about that, because, like you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think that there was some freaking saintly goal
Speaker 2: to it. I come from this entire punk ethos of
Speaker 2: not having heroes, and hero worship.
Speaker 3: Makes me really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: I am a dumb shlub from Jersey with a high
Speaker 2: school diploma that just figured this out and just was
Speaker 2: not afraid to get in trouble. The important things that
Speaker 2: people do were done in silence, and they are done
Speaker 2: behind the scenes. And I never wanted kudos for this,
Speaker 2: like Willow still doesn't want kudos for this. Who doesn't
Speaker 2: want to be known period And the reason why is
Speaker 2: because you know, you help people because you're morally offended,
Speaker 2: because you cannot sit there and stand by and watch
Speaker 2: what is happening. I think what people are doing is
Speaker 2: way more important and should be celebrated more than the
Speaker 2: people themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, celebrate the work. Yes, and those of us who
Speaker 1: like to celebrate people on the side can whisper your
Speaker 1: name quietly.
Speaker 2: It's going to make me feel weird, but whatever, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Me and Willow have a phrase we like to say,
Speaker 2: be the cockroach. Cockroaches are very hard to kill. They
Speaker 2: don't need a lot. They need a nice kind of
Speaker 2: warm place to sleep that's a little dark. They do
Speaker 2: a lot of things under the noses of like you know,
Speaker 2: those humans that are living in that nice little apartment
Speaker 2: in Williamsburg. You know, if you can learn what you
Speaker 2: need to survive and learn what you need to do
Speaker 2: to do the work you need to do, and keep
Speaker 2: that as minimal as possible, there's a lot you can do.
Speaker 2: So instead of trying to do more and more and more,
Speaker 2: solve a problem that's in front of you. Right, there
Speaker 2: was a problem in front of me. We could solve
Speaker 2: it easily. We built in a fucking burn for Christ's sake.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that difficult to do. You know, read the
Speaker 2: instruction book and there you go.
Speaker 3: But if you.
Speaker 2: Look at things as like, oh my god, that problem
Speaker 2: is too big. No, no, no, it's not too big.
Speaker 2: You're just trying to bite off too big of a chunk.
Speaker 2: Bite off little chunks, right, And that's how you shouldify
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And you best believe the world still needs some serious deshittifying.
Speaker 1: It's around twenty years since Ileish and Willow launched the
Speaker 1: Trans Health Initiative, and trans people navigating medical institutions are
Speaker 1: still met with prejudice and hostility. The medical care that
Speaker 1: is available can still be invasive, hard to access, and
Speaker 1: involve traumatic psychological testing. Alisha actually says that in the
Speaker 1: US it's worse now than she's ever seen it. Trans
Speaker 1: people's basic human rights are consistently trampled on, and the
Speaker 1: mainstream media is just amplifying those hateful voices. People are dying,
Speaker 1: so trans people do it like they've always done. Figure
Speaker 1: out a way to do it themselves and help each
Speaker 1: other do it. But you can help too if you're
Speaker 1: a transperson in the States looking for resources or assist
Speaker 1: person interested in solidarity and mutual aid. We'll leave some
Speaker 1: links in the show notes. Girlfriends were stronger together. If
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed this conversation, you can find loads more incredible
Speaker 1: women on our feed. Do check them out, and please
Speaker 1: do spread the word and tell your friends about us.
Speaker 1: We want as many people as possible to be part
Speaker 1: of the Girlfriend's Gang. Next time on the Girlfriend's Spotlight,
Speaker 1: Nadia punks the President.
Speaker 4: We were told that we are paid by Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: to destroy Russian They said that we cursed the entire
Speaker 4: country and thus we need to be burnt at the stake.
Speaker 4: Some people said it we need to be whipped publicly
Speaker 4: on the Red Square.
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Speaker 1: mini story after the turn.
Speaker 5: Hi, Anna and the Girlfriend's Team. When our daughter was young,
Speaker 5: one of my acting students became her nanny and became
Speaker 5: part of our family. Really it was as if our
Speaker 5: daughter grew up with three parents, not two. Anyway, time
Speaker 5: passed and we had moved to a new city, and
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Speaker 1: This episode was written and produced by a Malia Sortland.
Speaker 1: Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Zaiana Yusuf.
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